5,435 research outputs found
Coos county teens’ family relationships
This fact sheet examines Coos County, New Hampshire teens’ perceptions of their family relationship experiences using data from the Coos Youth Study collected in 2011 from 418 eleventh graders in all Coos County public schools. Authors Corinna Jenkins Tucker and Desiree Wiesen-Martin report that Coos older adolescents feel close to their parents and siblings but also argue with them. A small group of youths report perpetrating violence on a family member
Systolic and diastolic ventricular function in zebrafish embryos: Influence of norepenephrine, MS-222 and temperature
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Zebrafish are increasingly used to study the influences of gene mutation and manipulation on cardiac development, structure and function. In this study, a video edge detection system was used to characterise, continuously, cardiac ventricle function in 2–5 days old zebrafish embryos embedded in 0.6% agar and examined under light microscopy at room temperature (22°C). Using video edge detection software (IonOptix Inc), the motion of a small region of the cardiac ventricle wall was converted to a continuous chart trace allowing analysis of wall motion amplitude (WMA) and myocardial wall velocity during systole (MWVs) and diastole (MWVd).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Cardiac wall motion characteristics changed progressively from day 2 to 5 (WMA, 2-days, 17.6 ± 4.4 μm vs 5-days, 24.6 ± 4.7 μm, p < 0.01). MWVd was more rapid than MWVs at all developmental time points. Embryonic hearts were also assessed after increasing concentrations of norepenephrine (NE) and the anaesthetic agent MS222 (tricaine) were added to the bathing water. In response to NE, WMA increased significantly more in 4 day embryos compared with 2 day embryos (change in WMA,13.6 ± 8.2 μm vs 4.0 ± 8.8 μm, p = 0.01, respectively) while the decrease in WMA in response to MS222 was similar in both 2 and 4-day embryos. Heart rate, MWVs and MWVd were significantly higher at 28°C compared with 22°C. No differences in cardiac function were observed between AB and Golden strains.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Video edge detection appears sufficiently sensitive to detect subtle changes in diastolic and systolic cardiac function during development and changes resulting from pharmacological and environmental interventions. Such measurements could be valuable in assessment of altered cardiac function after genetic manipulation.</p
Diffuse Galactic antimatter from faint thermonuclear supernovae in old stellar populations
Our Galaxy hosts the annihilation of a few low-energy
positrons every second. Radioactive isotopes capable of supplying such
positrons are synthesised in stars, stellar remnants, and supernovae. For
decades, however, there has been no positive identification of a main stellar
positron source leading to suggestions that many positrons originate from
exotic sources like the Galaxy's central super-massive black hole or dark
matter annihilation. %, but such sources would not explain the
recently-detected positron signal from the extended Galactic disk. Here we show
that a single type of transient source, deriving from stellar populations of
age 3-6 Gyr and yielding ~0.03 of the positron emitter Ti, can
simultaneously explain the strength and morphology of the Galactic positron
annihilation signal and the solar system abundance of the Ti decay
product Ca. This transient is likely the merger of two low-mass white
dwarfs, observed in external galaxies as the sub-luminous, thermonuclear
supernova known as SN1991bg-like.Comment: 28 pages main text with 4 figures in preprint style; 26 pages of
Supplementary Informatio
Modified Light Use Efficiency Model for Assessment of Carbon Sequestration in Grasslands of Kazakhstan: Combining Ground Biomass Data and Remote-sensing
A modified light use efficiency (LUE) model was tested in the grasslands of central Kazakhstan in terms of its ability to characterize spatial patterns and interannual dynamics of net primary production (NPP) at a regional scale. In this model, the LUE of the grassland biome (n) was simulated from ground-based NPP measurements, absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (APAR) and meteorological observations using a new empirical approach. Using coarse-resolution satellite data from the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS), monthly NPP was calculated from 1998 to 2008 over a large grassland region in Kazakhstan. The modelling results were verified against scaled up plot-level observations of grassland biomass and another available NPP data set derived from a field study in a similar grassland biome. The results indicated the reliability of productivity estimates produced by the model for regional monitoring of grassland NPP. The method for simulation of n suggested in this study can be used in grassland regions where no carbon flux measurements are accessible
90GHz and 150GHz observations of the Orion M42 region. A sub-millimeter to radio analysis
We have used the new 90GHz MUSTANG camera on the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank
Telescope (GBT) to map the bright Huygens region of the star-forming region M42
with a resolution of 9" and a sensitivity of 2.8mJy/beam. 90GHz is an
interesting transition frequency, as MUSTANG detects both the free-free
emission characteristic of the HII region created by the Trapezium stars,
normally seen at lower frequencies, and thermal dust emission from the
background OMC1 molecular cloud, normally mapped at higher frequencies. We also
present similar data from the 150GHz GISMO camera taken on the IRAM telescope.
This map has 15" resolution. By combining the MUSTANG data with 1.4, 8, and
21GHz radio data from the VLA and GBT, we derive a new estimate of the emission
measure (EM) averaged electron temperature of Te = 11376K by an original method
relating free-free emission intensities at optically thin and optically thick
frequencies. Combining ISO-LWS data with our data, we derive a new estimate of
the dust temperature and spectral emissivity index within the 80" ISO-LWS beam
toward OrionKL/BN, Td = 42K and Beta=1.3. We show that both Td and Beta
decrease when going from the HII region and excited OMC1 interface to the
denser UV shielded part of OMC1 (OrionKL/BN, Orion S). With a model consisting
of only free-free and thermal dust emission we are able to fit data taken at
frequencies from 1.5GHz to 854GHz.Comment: 18 pages, 8 figures, submitted to the Astrophysical Journa
SANEPIC: A Map-Making Method for Timestream Data From Large Arrays
We describe a map-making method which we have developed for the Balloon-borne
Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) experiment, but which should
have general application to data from other submillimeter arrays. Our method
uses a Maximum Likelihood based approach, with several approximations, which
allows images to be constructed using large amounts of data with fairly modest
computer memory and processing requirements. This new approach, Signal And
Noise Estimation Procedure Including Correlations (SANEPIC), builds upon
several previous methods, but focuses specifically on the regime where there is
a large number of detectors sampling the same map of the sky, and explicitly
allowing for the the possibility of strong correlations between the detector
timestreams. We provide real and simulated examples of how well this method
performs compared with more simplistic map-makers based on filtering. We
discuss two separate implementations of SANEPIC: a brute-force approach, in
which the inverse pixel-pixel covariance matrix is computed; and an iterative
approach, which is much more efficient for large maps. SANEPIC has been
successfully used to produce maps using data from the 2005 BLAST flight.Comment: 27 Pages, 15 figures; Submitted to the Astrophysical Journal; related
results available at http://blastexperiment.info/ [the BLAST Webpage
A Bright Submillimeter Source in the Bullet Cluster (1E0657--56) Field Detected with BLAST
We present the 250, 350, and 500 micron detection of bright submillimeter
emission in the direction of the Bullet Cluster measured by the Balloon-borne
Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST). The 500 micron centroid is
coincident with an AzTEC 1.1 mm point-source detection at a position close to
the peak lensing magnification produced by the cluster. However, the 250 micron
and 350 micron centroids are elongated and shifted toward the south with a
differential shift between bands that cannot be explained by pointing
uncertainties. We therefore conclude that the BLAST detection is likely
contaminated by emission from foreground galaxies associated with the Bullet
Cluster. The submillimeter redshift estimate based on 250-1100 micron
photometry at the position of the AzTEC source is z_phot = 2.9 (+0.6 -0.3),
consistent with the infrared color redshift estimation of the most likely IRAC
counterpart. These flux densities indicate an apparent far-infrared luminosity
of L_FIR = 2E13 Lsun. When the amplification due to the gravitational lensing
of the cluster is removed, the intrinsic far-infrared luminosity of the source
is found to be L_FIR <= 10^12 Lsun, consistent with typical luminous infrared
galaxies.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. Maps are
available at http://blastexperiment.info
Near- and Far-Field Spectroscopic Imaging Investigation of Resonant Square-Loop Infrared Metasurfaces
Over half of the far-infrared background light comes from galaxies at z >= 1.2
Submillimetre surveys during the past decade have discovered a population of
luminous, high-redshift, dusty starburst galaxies. In the redshift range 1 <= z
<= 4, these massive submillimetre galaxies go through a phase characterized by
optically obscured star formation at rates several hundred times that in the
local Universe. Half of the starlight from this highly energetic process is
absorbed and thermally re-radiated by clouds of dust at temperatures near 30 K
with spectral energy distributions peaking at 100 microns in the rest frame. At
1 <= z <= 4, the peak is redshifted to wavelengths between 200 and 500 microns.
The cumulative effect of these galaxies is to yield extragalactic optical and
far-infrared backgrounds with approximately equal energy densities. Since the
initial detection of the far-infrared background (FIRB), higher-resolution
experiments have sought to decompose this integrated radiation into the
contributions from individual galaxies. Here we report the results of an
extragalactic survey at 250, 350 and 500 microns. Combining our results at 500
microns with those at 24 microns, we determine that all of the FIRB comes from
individual galaxies, with galaxies at z >= 1.2 accounting for 70 per cent of
it. As expected, at the longest wavelengths the signal is dominated by
ultraluminous galaxies at z > 1.Comment: Accepted to Nature. Maps available at http://blastexperiment.info
- …