STEREO quadrature observations of coronal dimming at the onset of mini-CMEs

Context: Using unique quadrature observations with the two STEREO spacecraft, we investigate coronal dimmings at the onset of small-scale eruptions. In CMEs they are believed to indicate the opening up of the coronal magnetic fields at the start of the eruption. Aims: It is to determine whether coronal dimming seen in small-scale eruptions starts before or after chromospheric plasma ejection. Methods: One STEREO spacecraft obtained high cadence, 75 s, images in the He II 304A channel, and the other simultaneous images in the Fe IX/FeX 171A channel. We concentrate on two well-positioned chromospheric eruptions that occurred at disk center in the 171A images, and on the limb in 304A. One was in the quiet Sun and the other was in an equatorial coronal hole. We compare the timing of chromospheric eruption seen in the 304A limb images with the brightenings and dimmings seen on disk in the 171A images. Further we use off-limb images of the low frequency 171A power to infer the coronal structure near the eruptions. Results: In both the quiet Sun and the coronal hole eruption, on disk 171A dimming was seen before the chromospheric eruption, and in both cases it extends beyond the site of the chromospheric eruption. The quiet Sun eruption occurred on the outer edge of the enclosing magnetic field of a prominence and may be related to a small disruption of the prominence just before the 171A dimming. Conclusions: These small-scale chromospheric eruptions started with a dimming in coronal emission just like their larger counterparts. We therefore suggest that a fundamental step in triggering them was the removal of overlying coronal field.Comment: 4 pages, 8 figures. To appear A&A Letters. Movies accompanying this Letter are at http://www.mps.mpg.de/data/outgoing/innes/dims

EIS/Hinode observations of Doppler flow seen through the 40 arcsec wide slit

The Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (EIS) on board Hinode is the first solar telescope to obtain wide slit spectral images that can be used for detecting Doppler flows in transition region and coronal lines on the Sun and to relate them to their surrounding small scale dynamics. We select EIS lines covering the temperature range 6x10^4 K to 2x10^6 K that give spectrally pure images of the Sun with the 40 arcsec slit. In these images Doppler shifts are seen as horizontal brightenings. Inside the image it is difficult to distinguish shifts from horizontal structures but emission beyond the image edge can be unambiguously identified as a line shift in several lines separated from others on their blue or red side by more than the width of the spectrometer slit (40 pixels). In the blue wing of He II, we find a large number of events with properties (size and lifetime) similar to the well-studied explosive events seen in the ultraviolet spectral range. Comparison with X-Ray Telescope (XRT) images shows many Doppler shift events at the footpoints of small X-ray loops. The most spectacular event observed showed a strong blue shift in transition region and lower corona lines from a small X-ray spot that lasted less than 7 min. The emission appears to be near a cool coronal loop connecting an X-ray bright point to an adjacent region of quiet Sun. The width of the emission implies a line-of-sight velocity of 220 km/s. In addition, we show an example of an Fe XV shift with a velocity about 120 km/s, coming from what looks like a narrow loop leg connecting a small X-ray brightening to a larger region of X-ray emission.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, to be published in Solar Physic

Burnout among chiropractic practitioners: Real or imagined an exploratory study protocol

Burnout is a psychological syndrome of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishment that has been found to exist in a significant number of healthcare and helping professionals. It imposes a significant societal burden by shortened practitioner lifespan, decreased efficiency, negative health outcomes and poorer levels of patient care. Theoretical models suggest that it appears to be the result of a complex interaction between job resources and job demands. It may be reasonable to conclude that Chiropractic professionals experience similar vocational demands and thus experience significant levels of occupational stress and subsequent burnout. However the data on burnout within the chiropractic profession is limited. It is possible that this results in significant negative outcomes on chiropractors and their patients. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to demonstrate the need to explore burnout in chiropractic practice and offer a research protocol for a potential study

Spirit, story, symbol: Indigenous curating in the Queensland rainforest

Tahnee Innes explored Indigenous curatorship in the Queensland rainforest. She found that curating is a cultural practice. Rainforest artefacts are selected and preserved, then communicated to the public as a material extension of spirit, story and place. Tahnee's research addresses the physical and ontological distance between museums and descendant communities

The Dynamics of Radiative Shock Waves: Linear and Nonlinear Evolution

The stability properties of one-dimensional radiative shocks with a power-law cooling function of the form $\Lambda \propto \rho^2T^\alpha$ are the main subject of this work. The linear analysis originally presented by Chevalier & Imamura, is thoroughfully reviewed for several values of the cooling index $\alpha$ and higher overtone modes. Consistently with previous results, it is shown that the spectrum of the linear operator consists in a series of modes with increasing oscillation frequency. For each mode a critical value of the cooling index, $\alpha_\textrm{c}$, can be defined so that modes with $\alpha < \alpha_\textrm{c}$ are unstable, while modes with $\alpha > \alpha_\textrm{c}$ are stable. The perturbative analysis is complemented by several numerical simulations to follow the time-dependent evolution of the system for different values of $\alpha$. Particular attention is given to the comparison between numerical and analytical results (during the early phases of the evolution) and to the role played by different boundary conditions. It is shown that an appropriate treatment of the lower boundary yields results that closely follow the predicted linear behavior. During the nonlinear regime, the shock oscillations saturate at a finite amplitude and tend to a quasi-periodic cycle. The modes of oscillations during this phase do not necessarily coincide with those predicted by linear theory, but may be accounted for by mode-mode coupling.Comment: 33 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication on the Astrophysical Journa

Jets or high velocity flows revealed in high-cadence spectrometer and imager co-observations?

We report on active region EUV dynamic events observed simultaneously at high-cadence with SUMER/SoHO and TRACE. Although the features appear in the TRACE Fe ix/x 171A images as jets seen in projection on the solar disk, the SUMER spectral line profiles suggest that the plasma has been driven along a curved large scale magnetic structure, a pre-existing loop. The SUMER observations were carried out in spectral lines covering a large temperature range from 10^4 K to 10^6 K. The spectral analysis revealed that a sudden heating from an energy deposition is followed by a high velocity plasma flow. The Doppler velocities were found to be in the range from 90 to 160 km/s. The heating process has a duration which is below the SUMER exposure time of 25 s while the lifetime of the events is from 5 to 15 min. The additional check on soft X-ray Yohkoh images shows that the features most probably reach 3 MK (X-ray) temperatures. The spectroscopic analysis showed no existence of cold material during the events

Low-dose stavudine trials: A public health piority for developing countries

No Abstract

Numerical simulation of dark lanes in post-flare supra-arcade

We integrate the MHD ideal equations to simulate dark void sunwardly moving structures in post--flare supra--arcades. We study the onset and evolution of the internal plasma instability to compare with observations and to gain insight into physical processes and characteristic parameters of these phenomena. The numerical approach uses a finite-volume Harten-Yee TVD scheme to integrate the 1D1/2 MHD equations specially designed to capture supersonic flow discontinuities. The integration is performed in both directions, the sunward radial one and the transverse to the magnetic field. For the first time, we numerically reproduce observational dark voids described in Verwichte et al. (2005). We show that the dark tracks are plasma vacuums generated by the bouncing and interfering of shocks and expansion waves, upstream an initial slow magnetoacoustic shock produced by a localized deposition of energy modeled with a pressure perturbation. The same pressure perturbation produces a transverse to the field or perpendicular magnetic shock giving rise to nonlinear waves that compose the kink--like plasma void structures, with the same functional sunward decreasing phase speed and constancy with height of the period, as those determined by the observations.Comment: Accepted MNRAS, 6 pages, 7 figure