Accretion, Outflows, and Winds of Magnetized Stars

Many types of stars have strong magnetic fields that can dynamically influence the flow of circumstellar matter. In stars with accretion disks, the stellar magnetic field can truncate the inner disk and determine the paths that matter can take to flow onto the star. These paths are different in stars with different magnetospheres and periods of rotation. External field lines of the magnetosphere may inflate and produce favorable conditions for outflows from the disk-magnetosphere boundary. Outflows can be particularly strong in the propeller regime, wherein a star rotates more rapidly than the inner disk. Outflows may also form at the disk-magnetosphere boundary of slowly rotating stars, if the magnetosphere is compressed by the accreting matter. In isolated, strongly magnetized stars, the magnetic field can influence formation and/or propagation of stellar wind outflows. Winds from low-mass, solar-type stars may be either thermally or magnetically driven, while winds from massive, luminous O and B type stars are radiatively driven. In all of these cases, the magnetic field influences matter flow from the stars and determines many observational properties. In this chapter we review recent studies of accretion, outflows, and winds of magnetized stars with a focus on three main topics: (1) accretion onto magnetized stars; (2) outflows from the disk-magnetosphere boundary; and (3) winds from isolated massive magnetized stars. We show results obtained from global magnetohydrodynamic simulations and, in a number of cases compare global simulations with observations.Comment: 60 pages, 44 figure

Preventing tuberculosis among health workers in Malawi

OBJECTIVE: Following the introduction of guidelines for the control of tuberculosis (TB) infection in all hospitals in Malawi, a study was carried out to determine whether the guidelines were being implemented, the time between admission to hospital and the diagnosis of pulmonary TB had been reduced, and the annual case notification rates among health workers had fallen and were comparable to those of primary-school teachers. METHODS: The study involved 40 district and mission hospitals. Staff and patients were interviewed in order to determine whether the guidelines had been adopted. In four hospitals the diagnostic process in patients with smear-positive pulmonary TB was evaluated before and after the introduction of the guidelines, with the aid of case notes and TB registers. In all hospitals the proportion of health workers registered with TB before and after the guidelines were introduced, in 1996 and 1999, respectively, was determined by conducting interviews and consulting staff lists and TB registers. A similar method was used to determine the proportion of primary- school teachers who were registered with TB in 1999. FINDINGS: The guidelines were not uniformly implemented. Only one hospital introduced voluntary counselling and testing for its staff. Most hospitals stated that they used rapid systems to diagnose pulmonary TB. However, there was no significant change in the interval between admission and diagnosis or between admission and treatment of patients with smear-positive pulmonary TB. The TB case notification rate for 2979 health workers in 1999 was 3.2%; this did not differ significantly from the value of 3.7% for 2697 health workers in 1996 but was significantly higher than that of 1.8% for 4367 primary-school teachers in 1999. CONCLUSION: The introduction of guidelines for the control of TB infection is an important intervention for reducing nosocomial transmission of the disease, but rigorous monitoring and follow-up are needed in order to ensure that they are implemented

Short communication: Cystic fibrosis “factor(s)”: Present also in sera of shwachman’s pancreatic insufficiency

Using an in vivo closed-loop technique in rat jejunum, we have confirmed previous in vitro studies that cystic fibrosis (CF) serum inhibits water, sodium, and glucose absorption and transmural potential difference. CF heterozygote serum or sera from children with diarrhoeal disorders not associated with exocrine pancreatic insufficiency had no effect on transport. Sera from patients with Shwachman’s syndrome and exocrine pancreatic insufficiency had identical effects to CF serum. These results challenge the specificity of the CF “factor.”. Speculation: PANCREATIC-RELATED FACTORS The pancreas may modulate small intestinal absorption of water, electrolytes, and glucose via an humoral pathway. In exocrine pancreatic insufficiency, there could.be a deficiency of a normal serum factor which stimulates absorption or, alternatively, a factor which inhibits absorption could be present. © 1981 International Pediatric Research Foundation, Inc

FlexibleSUSY 2.0: Extensions to investigate the phenomenology of SUSY and non-SUSY models

Available online 7 May 2018We document major new features and improvements of FlexibleSUSY, a Mathematica and C++ package with a dependency on the external package SARAH, that generates fast and precise spectrum generators. The extensions presented here significantly increase the generality and capabilities of the FlexibleSUSY package, which already works with a wide class of models, while maintaining an elegant structure and easy to use interfaces. The FlexibleBSM extension makes it possible to also create spectrum generators for non-supersymmetric extensions of the Standard Model. The FlexibleCPV extension adds the option of complex parameters to the spectrum generators, allowing the study of many interesting models with new sources of CP violation. FlexibleMW computes the decay of the muon for the generated model and thereby allows FlexibleSUSY to predict the mass of the W boson from the input parameters by using the more precise electroweak input of {GF,MZ,αem} instead of {MW,MZ,αem}. The FlexibleAMU extension provides a calculator of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon in any model FlexibleSUSY can generate a spectrum for. FlexibleSAS introduces a new solver for the boundary value problem which makes use of semi-analytic expressions for dimensionful parameters to find solutions in models where the classic two-scale solver will not work such as the constrained E6SSM. FlexibleEFTHiggs is a hybrid calculation of the Higgs mass which combines the virtues of both effective field theory calculations and fixed-order calculations. All of these extensions are included in FlexibleSUSY 2.0, which is released simultaneously with this manual. Program summary: Program title: FlexibleSUSY Program Files doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17632/kf7m8gn8vp.1 Licensing provisions: GPLv3 Programming language: C++, Wolfram/Mathematica, FORTRAN, Bourne shell Journal reference of previous version: Comput.Phys.Commun. 190 (2015) 139–172 Does the new version supersede the previous version?: Yes Reasons for the new version: Program extension including new models, observables and algorithms Summary of revisions: Extension to non-supersymmetric models (FlexibleBSM), complex parameters (FlexibleCPV), prediction of W boson mass from muon decay (FlexibleMW), calculation of anomalous magnetic moment of the muon (FlexibleAMU), semi-analytic boundary value problem solver (FlexibleSAS), improved hybrid Higgs mass calculation (FlexibleEFTHiggs). Nature of problem: Determining the mass spectrum, mixings and further observables for an arbitrary extension of the Standard Model, input by the user. The generated code must find simultaneous solutions to constraints that are specified at two or more different renormalization scales, which are connected by renormalization group equations forming a large set of coupled first-order differential equations. Solution method: Nested iterative algorithm and numerical minimization of the Higgs potential. Restrictions: The couplings must remain perturbative at all scales between the highest and lowest boundary condition. Tensor-like Lagrangian parameters of rank 3 are currently not supported. The automatic determination of the Standard Model-like gauge and Yukawa couplings is only supported for models that have the Standard Model gauge group SU(3)C×SU(2)L×U(1)Y as a gauge symmetry group factor. However, due to the modular nature of the generated code, adapting and extending it to overcome restrictions in scope is quite straightforward.Peter Athron, Markus Bach, Dylan Harries, Thomas Kwasnitza, Jae-hyeon Park, Dominik Stöckinger, Alexander Voigt, Jobst Ziebel