Crowdsourcing in the Quaternary sea level community: insights from the Pliocene

In order to establish the ‘fingerprint’ of past sea level changes, many field measurements of paleo sea level from globally distributed locations are needed. It is because this problem requires a geographically expansive database that it becomes an ideal candidate for crowdsourcing techniques. In order to crowdsource sea level data from the Mid-Pliocene Warm Period, we developed three tools: PlioWiki, RSLcalc and RSLmap. PlioWiki is a web portal, open to contributions, where investigators can share knowledge on Pliocene to Quaternary relative sea levels. RSLcalc is a standardized, ready-to-use tool for field geologists to log their own sea level field observations and, if they desire, submit new data to an open access database of relative sea level markers. RSLmap allows one to visualize and query the database built with RSLcalc on a Google Map interface. Here we describe these tools and discuss the advantages of crowdsourcing, relative to traditional approaches, for the creation of sea level databases for any time period

Prescription Opioid Abuse in Prison Settings: A Systematic Review of Prevalence, Practice and Treatment Responses

Background To systematically review the quantitative and qualitative evidence base pertaining to the prevalence, practice of, and treatment response to the diversion of prescribed opiates in the prison setting. Methods Medline, Embase, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Google Scholar, ASSIA and Science Direct databases were searched for papers from 1995 to the present relevant to the abuse of prescribed opiate medication. Identified journals and their reference lists were hand searched for other relevant articles. Of the abstracts identified as relevant, full text papers were retrieved and critiqued against the inclusion criteria for the review. Results Three hundred and fifty-five abstracts were identified, leading to 42 full-text articles being retrieved. Of those, 10 papers were included in the review. Significant differences in abuse behaviours between different countries were reported. However, a key theme emerged from the data regarding a culture of nasal administration of prescribed sublingual buprenorphine within some prisons due to 3 both reduced prevalence of injection within prison and reduced supplies of illicit drugs within prison. The buprenorphine/naloxone preparation appears to be less amenable to abuse. The review highlighted a paucity of empirical research pertaining to both prevalence of the phenomenon and treatment responses. Clinical and research implications Healthcare providers within prisons need to prescribe opioids in the least abuseable preparation since the risk of abuse is significant, despite widespread processes of supervised dispensing. Prescription medication abuse is not limited to opioids and the predominant drug of abuse in an individual prison can rapidly change according to availability

Overview of the spectrometer optical fiber feed for the Habitable-zone Planet Finder

The Habitable-zone Planet Finder (HPF) is a highly stabilized fiber fed precision radial velocity (RV) spectrograph working in the Near Infrared (NIR): 810 - 1280 nm . In this paper we present an overview of the preparation of the optical fibers for HPF. The entire fiber train from the telescope focus down to the cryostat is detailed. We also discuss the fiber polishing, splicing and its integration into the instrument using a fused silica puck. HPF was designed to be able to operate in two modes, High Resolution (HR- the only mode mode currently commissioned) and High Efficiency (HE). We discuss these fiber heads and the procedure we adopted to attach the slit on to the HR fibers.Comment: Presented at 2018 SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, Austin, Texas, USA. 18 pages, 25 figures, and 2 table

AzTEC 1.1 mm Observations of the MBM12 Molecular Cloud

We present 1.1 mm observations of the dust continuum emission from the MBM12 high-latitude molecular cloud observed with the Astronomical Thermal Emission Camera (AzTEC) mounted on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. We surveyed a 6.34 deg$^2$ centered on MBM12, making this the largest area that has ever been surveyed in this region with submillimeter and millimeter telescopes. Eight secure individual sources were detected with a signal-to-noise ratio of over 4.4. These eight AzTEC sources can be considered to be real astronomical objects compared to the other candidates based on calculations of the false detection rate. The distribution of the detected 1.1 mm sources or compact 1.1 mm peaks is spatially anti-correlated with that of the 100 micronm emission and the $^{12}$CO emission. We detected the 1.1 mm dust continuum emitting sources associated with two classical T Tauri stars, LkHalpha262 and LkHalpha264. Observations of spectral energy distributions (SEDs) indicate that LkHalpha262 is likely to be Class II (pre-main-sequence star), but there are also indications that it could be a late Class I (protostar). A flared disk and a bipolar cavity in the models of Class I sources lead to more complicated SEDs. From the present AzTEC observations of the MBM12 region, it appears that other sources detected with AzTEC are likely to be extragalactic and located behind MBM12. Some of these have radio counterparts and their star formation rates are derived from a fit of the SEDs to the photometric evolution of galaxies in which the effects of a dusty interstellar medium have been included.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, The Astrophysical Journal, in pres

A Prediction of Brown Dwarfs in Ultracold Molecular Gas

A recent model for the stellar initial mass function (IMF), in which the stellar masses are randomly sampled down to the thermal Jeans mass from hierarchically structured pre-stellar clouds, predicts that regions of ultra-cold CO gas, such as those recently found in nearby galaxies by Allen and collaborators, should make an abundance of Brown Dwarfs with relatively few normal stars. This result comes from the low value of the thermal Jeans mass, considering that the hierarchical cloud model always gives the Salpeter IMF slope above this lower mass limit. The ultracold CO clouds in the inner disk of M31 have T~3K and pressures that are probably 10 times higher than in the solar neighborhood. This gives a mass at the peak of the IMF equal to 0.01 Msun, well below the Brown Dwarf limit of 0.08 Msun. Using a functional approximation to the IMF, the ultracold clouds would have 50% of the star-like mass and 90% of the objects below the Brown Dwarf limit. The brightest of the Brown Dwarfs in M31 should have an apparent, extinction-corrected K-band magnitude of ~21 mag in their pre-main sequence phase.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures, to be published in Astrophysical Journal, Vol 522, September 10, 199

Long-term condition management for prisoners : improving the processes between community and prison

BACKGROUND: Prisoner populations have a disproportionately high prevalence of risk factors for long-term conditions (LTCs), and movement between community and prisons is a period of potential disruption in the ongoing monitoring and management of LTCs. METHOD: Nineteen qualitative interviews with staff, recruited by purposive sampling for professional background, were conducted to explore facilitators and barriers to screening, monitoring and medicines management for LTCs. RESULTS: There is variability in prisoner behaviours regarding bringing community GP-prescribed medication to prison following arrest and detention in police custody, which affects service ability regarding seamless continuation of community prescribing actions. Systems for actively inputting clinical data into existing, nationally agreed, electronic record templates for QOF monitoring are under-developed in prisons and such activity is dependent upon individual "enthusiast(s)". CONCLUSION: There is a pressing need to embed standardised QOF monitoring systems within an integrated community/prison commissioning framework, supported by connectivity between prison and community primary care records, including all activity related to QOF compliance

Clouds in the atmospheres of extrasolar planets. II. Thermal emission spectra of Earth-like planets influenced by low and high-level clouds

We study the impact of multi-layered clouds (low-level water and high-level ice clouds) on the thermal emission spectra of Earth-like planets orbiting different types of stars. Clouds have an important influence on such planetary emission spectra due to their wavelength dependent absorption and scattering properties. We also investigate the influence of clouds on the ability to derive information about planetary surface temperatures from low-resolution spectra.Comment: accepted for publication in A&

Low Mass Stars and Substellar Objects in the NGC 1333 Molecular Cloud

We present the results of near-infrared imaging and low-resolution near- infrared spectroscopy of low mass objects in the NGC 1333 molecular cloud. A JHK survey of an 11.4' x 11.7' area of the northern cluster was conducted to a sensitivity of K < 16 mag. Using near-infrared magnitudes and colors from this and previously published surveys, twenty-five brown dwarf candidates were selected toward the high extinction cloud core. Spectra in the K band were obtained and comparisons of the depths of water vapor absorption bands in our candidate objects with a grid of dwarf,subgiant, and giant standards were made to derive spectral types. These data were then used to derive effective temperatures and stellar luminosities which, when combined with theoretical tracks and isochrones for pre-main sequence objects, resulted in estimates for their masses and ages. The models suggest a median age for the sample of < 1 Myr with substellar masses for at least 9 of the candidates including the x-ray flare source ASR 24. Surface gravities have been estimated for the brown dwarf candidates and, for a given spectral type,found to resemble more closely dwarfs than giants. Using the near-infrared imaging data and age estimates from the spectroscopic sample, an extinction-limited sample in the northern cluster was defined. Consistent with recent studies of other young clusters, this sample exhibits an accretion disk frequency of 0.75 +-0.20 and a mass spectrum slope across the hydrogen-burning limit of alpha < 1.6 where dN/dM ~ M^-(alpha).Comment: 22 postscript pages, 12 postscript figures, and 3 postscript tables. Accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal (February, 2004

Extinction Maps Toward The Milky Way Bulge: Two-Dimensional And Three-Dimensional Tests With APOGEE

Galactic interstellar extinction maps are powerful and necessary tools for Milky Way structure and stellar population analyses, particularly toward the heavily reddened bulge and in the midplane. However, due to the difficulty of obtaining reliable extinction measures and distances for a large number of stars that are independent of these maps, tests of their accuracy and systematics have been limited. Our goal is to assess a variety of photometric stellar extinction estimates, including both two-dimensional and three-dimensional extinction maps, using independent extinction measures based on a large spectroscopic sample of stars toward the Milky Way bulge. We employ stellar atmospheric parameters derived from high-resolution H-band Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) spectra, combined with theoretical stellar isochrones, to calculate line-of-sight extinction and distances for a sample of more than 2400 giants toward the Milky Way bulge. We compare these extinction values to those predicted by individual near-IR and near+mid-IR stellar colors, two-dimensional bulge extinction maps, and three-dimensional extinction maps. The long baseline, near+mid-IR stellar colors are, on average, the most accurate predictors of the APOGEE extinction estimates, and the two-dimensional and three-dimensional extinction maps derived from different stellar populations along different sightlines show varying degrees of reliability. We present the results of all of the comparisons and discuss reasons for the observed discrepancies. We also demonstrate how the particular stellar atmospheric models adopted can have a strong impact on this type of analysis, and discuss related caveats.NSF Astronomy & Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship AST-1203017Physics Frontier Center/Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics (JINA) PHY 08-22648U.S. National Science FoundationAlfred P. Sloan FoundationParticipating InstitutionsU.S. Department of Energy Office of Science ANR-12-BS05-0015-01Astronom

The Mid-Pliocene sea-level conundrum: Glacial isostasy, eustasy and dynamic topography

Determining eustatic sea level during the Mid-Pliocene warm period (~ 3.3 to 2.9 Ma) has been a central but elusive goal in the study of past warm climates. Estimates of eustatic sea level based on geologic data span a broad range; variation that we now recognize is due in part to geographically varying post-depositional displacement caused by glacial isostatic adjustment and dynamic topography. In this study, we combine field observations and glacial isostatic adjustment modeling to estimate the dynamic topography signal in three areas that are important to paleo-sea level studies of the Mid-Pliocene warm period (South Africa, West Australia and southeastern United States). We show that dynamic topography played a significant role in the post-depositional displacement of Pliocene, and even younger Pleistocene, shorelines. In this regard, we provide a robust paleo-sea level elevation data set, corrected for glacial isostatic adjustment, that can be used to evaluate predictions from mantle flow models of dynamic topography