Multiwavelength Observations of LS I +61 303 with VERITAS, Swift and RXTE

We present results from a long-term monitoring campaign on the TeV binary LSI +61 303 with VERITAS at energies above 500 GeV, and in the 2-10 keV hard X-ray bands with RXTE and Swift, sampling nine 26.5 day orbital cycles between September 2006 and February 2008. The binary was observed by VERITAS to be variable, with all integrated observations resulting in a detection at the 8.8 sigma (2006/2007) and 7.3 sigma (2007/2008) significance level for emission above 500 GeV. The source was detected during active periods with flux values ranging from 5 to 20% of the Crab Nebula, varying over the course of a single orbital cycle. Additionally, the observations conducted in the 2007-2008 observing season show marginal evidence (at the 3.6 sigma significance level) for TeV emission outside of the apastron passage of the compact object around the Be star. Contemporaneous hard X-ray observations with RXTE and Swift show large variability with flux values typically varying between 0.5 and 3.0*10^-11 ergs cm^-2 s^-1 over a single orbital cycle. The contemporaneous X-ray and TeV data are examined and it is shown that the TeV sampling is not dense enough to detect a correlation between the two bands.Comment: 30 pages, 5 figures, 2 table, Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa

Stacked Search for Gravitational Waves from the 2006 SGR 1900+14 Storm

We present the results of a LIGO search for short-duration gravitational waves (GWs) associated with the 2006 March 29 SGR 1900+14 storm. A new search method is used, "stacking'' the GW data around the times of individual soft-gamma bursts in the storm to enhance sensitivity for models in which multiple bursts are accompanied by GW emission. We assume that variation in the time difference between burst electromagnetic emission and potential burst GW emission is small relative to the GW signal duration, and we time-align GW excess power time-frequency tilings containing individual burst triggers to their corresponding electromagnetic emissions. We use two GW emission models in our search: a fluence-weighted model and a flat (unweighted) model for the most electromagnetically energetic bursts. We find no evidence of GWs associated with either model. Model-dependent GW strain, isotropic GW emission energy E_GW, and \gamma = E_GW / E_EM upper limits are estimated using a variety of assumed waveforms. The stacking method allows us to set the most stringent model-dependent limits on transient GW strain published to date. We find E_GW upper limit estimates (at a nominal distance of 10 kpc) of between 2x10^45 erg and 6x10^50 erg depending on waveform type. These limits are an order of magnitude lower than upper limits published previously for this storm and overlap with the range of electromagnetic energies emitted in SGR giant flares.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure

A burning question: what are the risks and benefits of mammalian torpor during and after fires?

Although wildfires are increasing globally, available information on how mammals respond behaviourally and physiologically to fires is scant. Despite a large number of ecological studies, often examining animal diversity and abundance before and after fires, the reasons as to why some species perform better than others remain obscure. We examine how especially small mammals, which generally have high rates of energy expenditure and food requirements, deal with fires and postfire conditions. We evaluate whether mammalian torpor, characterised by substantial reductions in body temperature, metabolic rate and water loss, plays a functional role in survival of mammals impacted by fires. Importantly, torpor permits small mammals to reduce their activity and foraging, and to survive on limited food. Torpid small mammals (marsupials and bats) can respond to smoke and arouse from torpor, which provides them with the possibility to evade direct exposure to fire, although their response is often slowed when ambient temperature is low. Post-fire conditions increase expression of torpor with a concomitant decrease in activity for free-ranging echidnas and small forest-dwelling marsupials, in response to reduced cover and reduced availability of terrestrial insects. Presence of charcoal and ash increases torpor use by captive small marsupials beyond food restriction alone, likely in anticipation of detrimental post-fire conditions. Interestingly, although volant bats use torpor on every day after fires, they respond by decreasing torpor duration, and increasing activity, perhaps because of the decrease in clutter and increase in foraging opportunities due to an increase in aerial insects. Our summary shows that torpor is an important tool for post-fire survival and, although the physiological and behavioural responses of small mammals to fire are complex, they seem to reflect energetic requirements and mode of foraging. We make recommendations on the conditions during management burns that are least likely to impact heterothermic mammals

What is known about the patient's experience of medical tourism? A scoping review

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Medical tourism is understood as travel abroad with the intention of obtaining non-emergency medical services. This practice is the subject of increasing interest, but little is known about its scope.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A comprehensive scoping review of published academic articles, media sources, and grey literature reports was performed to answer the question: what is known about the patient's experience of medical tourism? The review was accomplished in three steps: (1) identifying the question and relevant literature; (2) selecting the literature; (3) charting, collating, and summarizing the information. Overall themes were identified from this process.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>291 sources were identified for review from the databases searched, the majority of which were media pieces (<it>n </it>= 176). A further 57 sources were included for review after hand searching reference lists. Of the 348 sources that were gathered, 216 were ultimately included in this scoping review. Only a small minority of sources reported on empirical studies that involved the collection of primary data (<it>n </it>= 5). The four themes identified via the review were: (1) decision-making (e.g., push and pull factors that operate to shape patients' decisions); (2) motivations (e.g., procedure-, cost-, and travel-based factors motivating patients to seek care abroad); (3) risks (e.g., health and travel risks); and (4) first-hand accounts (e.g., patients' experiential accounts of having gone abroad for medical care). These themes represent the most discussed issues about the patient's experience of medical tourism in the English-language academic, media, and grey literatures.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This review demonstrates the need for additional research on numerous issues, including: (1) understanding how multiple information sources are consulted and evaluated by patients before deciding upon medical tourism; (2) examining how patients understand the risks of care abroad; (3) gathering patients' prospective and retrospective accounts; and (4) the push and pull factors, as well as the motives of patients to participate in medical tourism. The findings from this scoping review and the knowledge gaps it uncovered also demonstrate that there is great potential for new contributions to our understanding of the patient's experience of medical tourism.</p

Barriers and facilitators to implementing workplace health and wellbeing services in the NHS from the perspective of senior leaders and wellbeing practitioners: a qualitative study

Abstract Background The National Health Service (NHS) seems appropriately placed to be an exemplar employer in providing effective and proactive workplace health and wellbeing services for its staff. However, NHS staff sickness absence costs an estimated £2.4 billion. Evidence suggests staff health and wellbeing services delivered in the NHS can improve health, productivity and sickness absence and yet the adoption of these services remains a challenge, with few examples nationally. This research aimed to explore the perceptions of NHS senior leaders and health and wellbeing practitioners regarding barriers and facilitators to implementing workplace health and wellbeing services for staff in the NHS. Methods Semi-structured interviews were conducted with NHS staff, consisting of four senior leaders, four heads of department and three health and wellbeing practitioners in one region of the UK. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic analysis. Results Themes describe the experience of delivering workplace health and wellbeing services in the NHS, and barriers and facilitators to implementation from senior decision makers. Barriers to implementation of services include; a busy and pressurised environment, financial constraints and reluctance to invest in staff health and wellbeing. Barriers to staff engagement were also reported and include difficulty of access to health and wellbeing services and lack of time. Initiating services were facilitated by financial incentives, a supportive organisational structure and culture that takes a preventative, rather than reactive, approach to staff health and wellbeing. Facilitators to implementing health and wellbeing services include a coherent, strategic approach to implementation, effective communication and advertisement, being creative and innovative with resources and conducting a needs analysis and evaluation before, during and after implementation. Conclusions Barriers to the successful initiation and implementation of health and wellbeing services in the NHS are numerous and range from front-line logistical issues with implementation to high-level strategic and financial constraints. Adopting a strategic and needs-led approach to implementation and ensuring thorough staff engagement are amongst a number of factors that facilitate implementation and help overcome barriers to initiation of wellbeing programmes in the NHS. There is a need for a culture that supports staff health and wellbeing in the NHS

Marine Tar Residues: a Review

Abstract Marine tar residues originate from natural and anthropogenic oil releases into the ocean environment and are formed after liquid petroleum is transformed by weathering, sedimentation, and other processes. Tar balls, tar mats, and tar patties are common examples of marine tar residues and can range in size from millimeters in diameter (tar balls) to several meters in length and width (tar mats). These residues can remain in the ocean envi-ronment indefinitely, decomposing or becoming buried in the sea floor. However, in many cases, they are transported ashore via currents and waves where they pose a concern to coastal recreation activities, the seafood industry and may have negative effects on wildlife. This review summarizes the current state of knowledge on marine tar residue formation, transport, degradation, and distribution. Methods of detection and removal of marine tar residues and their possible ecological effects are discussed, in addition to topics of marine tar research that warrant further investigation. Emphasis is placed on ben-thic tar residues, with a focus on the remnants of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in particular, which are still affecting the northern Gulf of Mexico shores years after the leaking submarine well was capped

Optimization of landmark selection for cortical surface registration

Manually labeled landmark sets are often required as in-puts for landmark-based image registration. Identifying an optimal subset of landmarks from a training dataset may be useful in reducing the labor intensive task of manual label-ing. In this paper, we present a new problem and a method to solve it: given a set of N landmarks, find the k(&lt; N) best landmarks such that aligning these k landmarks that produce the best overall alignment of all N landmarks. The resulting procedure allows us to select a reduced number of landmarks to be labeled as a part of the registration proce-dure. We apply this methodology to the problem of register-ing cerebral cortical surfaces extracted from MRI data. We use manually traced sulcal curves as landmarks in perform-ing inter-subject registration of these surfaces. To minimize the error metric, we analyze the correlation structure of the sulcal errors in the landmark points by modeling them as a multivariate Gaussian process. Selection of the optimal subset of sulcal curves is performed by computing the error variance for the subset of unconstrained landmarks condi-tioned on the constrained set. We show that the registration error predicted by our method closely matches the actual registration error. The method determines optimal curve subsets of any given size with minimal registration error. 1

Country profile: travelling to Australia

Australia has a well-developed tourism industry and health care system. Despite the precautions recommended in this paper, Australia has been virtually free of local outbreaks of life threatening tropical diseases in recent decades. This paper focuses on health and safety issues for travellers to Australia, especially the special precautions for those travelling to more rural and remote areas in outback Australia. Travellers to Australia should be advised that, in general, Australia is a relatively safe country in which to travel, and it has high standards of health and hygiene