Pragmatic rules for comparability of biological medicinal products

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Warm gas at 50 AU in the disk around Herbig Be star HD 100546

The disk atmosphere is one of the fundamental elements of theoretical models of a protoplanetary disk. However, the direct observation of the warm gas (>> 100 K) at large radius of a disk (>> 10 AU) is challenging, because the line emission from warm gas in a disk is usually dominated by the emission from an inner disk. Our goal is to detect the warm gas in the disk atmosphere well beyond 10 AU from a central star in a nearby disk system of the Herbig Be star HD 100546. We measured the excitation temperature of the vibrational transition of CO at incremental radii of the disk from the central star up to 50 AU, using an adaptive optics system combined with the high-resolution infrared spectrograph CRIRES at the VLT. The observation successfully resolved the line emission with 0".1 angular resolution, which is 10 AU at the distance of HD 100546. Population diagrams were constructed at each location of the disk, and compared with the models calculated taking into account the optical depth effect in LTE condition. The excitation temperature of CO is 400-500 K or higher at 50 AU away from the star, where the blackbody temperature in equilibrium with the stellar radiation drops as low as 90 K. This is unambiguous evidence of a warm disk atmosphere far away from the central star.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, A&A in pres

Probing the Early Evolution of Young High-Mass Stars

Near-infrared imaging surveys of high-mass star-forming regions reveal an amazingly complex interplay between star formation and the environment (Churchwell et al. 2006; Alvarez et al. 2004). By means of near-IR spectroscopy the embedded massive young stars can be characterized and placed in the context of their birth site. However, so far spectroscopic surveys have been hopelessly incomplete, hampering any systematic study of these very young massive stars. New integral field instrumentation available at ESO has opened the possibility to take a huge step forward by obtaining a full spectral inventory of the youngest massive stellar populations in star-forming regions currently accessible. Simultaneously, the analysis of the extended emission allows the characterization of the environmental conditions. The Formation and Early Evolution of Massive Stars (FEMS) collaboration aims at setting up a large observing campaign to obtain a full census of the stellar content, ionized material, outflows and PDR's over a sample of regions that covers a large parameter space. Complementary radio, mm and infrared observations will be used for the characterization of the deeply embedded population. For the first eight regions we have obtained 40 hours of SINFONI observations. In this contribution, we present the first results on three regions that illustrate the potential of this strategy.Comment: To appear in ASP Conf. Proceedings of "Massive Star Formation: Observations confront Theory", H. Beuther et al. (eds.), held in Heidelberg, September 200

HIV-tuberculosis-associated immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome is characterized by Toll-like receptor and inflammasome signalling

Patients with HIV-associated tuberculosis (TB) initiating antiretroviral therapy (ART) may develop immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome (TB-IRIS). No biomarkers for TB-IRIS have been identified and the underlying mechanisms are unclear. Here we perform transcriptomic profiling of the blood samples of patients with HIV-associated TB. We identify differentially abundant transcripts as early as week 0.5 post ART initiation that predict downstream activation of proinflammatory cytokines in patients who progress to TB-IRIS. At the characteristic time of TB-IRIS onset (week 2), the signature is characterized by over-representation of innate immune mediators including TLR signalling and TREM-1 activation of the inflammasome. In keeping with the transcriptional data, concentrations of plasma cytokines and caspase-1/5 are elevated in TB-IRIS. Inhibition of MyD88 adaptor and group 1 caspases reduces secretion of cytokines including IL-1 in TB-IRIS patients. These data provide insight on the pathogenesis of TB-IRIS and may assist the development of specific therapies

Fine grain thermal modeling and experimental validation of 3D-ICs

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Probing protoplanetary disk evolution in the Chamaeleon II region

Context. Characterizing the evolution of protoplanetary disks is necessary to improve our understanding of planet formation. Constraints on both dust and gas are needed to determine the dominant disk dissipation mechanisms. Aims. We aim to compare the disk dust masses in the Chamaeleon II (Cha II) star-forming region with other regions with ages between 1 and 10Myr. Methods. We use ALMA band 6 observations (1.3 mm) to survey 29 protoplanetary disks in Cha II. Dust mass estimates are derived from the continuum data. Results. Out of our initial sample of 29 disks, we detect 22 sources in the continuum, 10 in 12CO, 3 in 13CO, and none in C18O (J=2-1). Additionally, we detect two companion candidates in the continuum and 12CO emission. Most disk dust masses are lower than 10Mearth, assuming thermal emission from optically thin dust. We compare consistent estimations of the distributions of the disk dust mass and the disk-to-stellar mass ratios in Cha II with six other low mass and isolated star-forming regions in the age range of 1-10Myr: Upper Sco, CrA, IC 348, Cha I, Lupus, and Taurus. When comparing the dust-to-stellar mass ratio, we find that the masses of disks in Cha II are statistically different from those in Upper Sco and Taurus, and we confirm that disks in Upper Sco, the oldest region of the sample, are statistically less massive than in all other regions. Performing a second statistical test of the dust mass distributions from similar mass bins, we find no statistical differences between these regions and Cha II. Conclusions. We interpret these trends, most simply, as a sign of decline in the disk dust masses with time or dust evolution. Different global initial conditions in star-forming regions may also play a role, but their impact on the properties of a disk population is difficult to isolate in star-forming regions lacking nearby massive stars.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&

First results of the Herschel Key Program 'Dust, Ice and Gas in Time': Dust and Gas Spectroscopy of HD 100546

We present far-infrared spectroscopic observations, taken with the Photodetector Array Camera and Spectrometer (PACS) on the Herschel Space Observatory, of the protoplanetary disk around the pre-main-sequence star HD 100546. These observations are the first within the DIGIT Herschel key program, which aims to follow the evolution of dust, ice, and gas from young stellar objects still embedded in their parental molecular cloud core, through the final pre-main-sequence phases when the circumstellar disks are dissipated. Our aim is to improve the constraints on temperature and chemical composition of the crystalline olivines in the disk of HD 100546 and to give an inventory of the gas lines present in its far-infrared spectrum. The 69 \mu\m feature is analyzed in terms of position and shape to derive the dust temperature and composition. Furthermore, we detected 32 emission lines from five gaseous species and measured their line fluxes. The 69 \mu\m emission comes either from dust grains with ~70 K at radii larger than 50 AU, as suggested by blackbody fitting, or it arises from ~200 K dust at ~13 AU, close to the midplane, as supported by radiative transfer models. We also conclude that the forsterite crystals have few defects and contain at most a few percent iron by mass. Forbidden line emission from [CII] at 157 \mu\m and [OI] at 63 and 145 \mu\m, most likely due to photodissociation by stellar photons, is detected. Furthermore, five H2O and several OH lines are detected. We also found high-J rotational transition lines of CO, with rotational temperatures of ~300 K for the transitions up to J=22-21 and T~800 K for higher transitions