Deep search for companions to probable young brown dwarfs

We have obtained high contrast images of four nearby, faint, and very low mass objects 2MASSJ04351455-1414468, SDSSJ044337.61+000205.1, 2MASSJ06085283-2753583 and 2MASSJ06524851-5741376 (here after 2MASS0435-14, SDSS0443+00, 2MASS0608-27 and 2MASS0652-57), identified in the field as probable isolated young brown dwarfs. Our goal was to search for binary companions down to the planetary mass regime. We used the NAOS-CONICA adaptive optics instrument (NACO) and its unique capability to sense the wavefront in the near-infrared to acquire sharp images of the four systems in Ks, with a field of view of 28"*28". Additional J and L' imaging and follow-up observations at a second epoch were obtained for 2MASS0652-57. With a typical contrast DKs= 4.0-7.0 mag, our observations are sensitive down to the planetary mass regime considering a minimum age of 10 to 120 Myr for these systems. No additional point sources are detected in the environment of 2MASS0435-14, SDSS0443+00 and 2MASS0608-27 between 0.1-12" (i.e about 2 to 250 AU at 20 pc). 2MASS0652-57 is resolved as a \sim230 mas binary. Follow-up observations reject a background contaminate, resolve the orbital motion of the pair, and confirm with high confidence that the system is physically bound. The J, Ks and L' photometry suggest a q\sim0.7-0.8 mass ratio binary with a probable semi-major axis of 5-6 AU. Among the four systems, 2MASS0652-57 is probably the less constrained in terms of age determination. Further analysis would be necessary to confirm its youth. It would then be interesting to determine its orbital and physical properties to derive the system's dynamical mass and to test evolutionary model predictions.Comment: Research note, 5 pages, 2 tables and 3 figures, accepted to A&

Guidance on the Selection of Appropriate Indicators for Quantification of Antimicrobial Usage in Humans and Animals

An increasing variety of indicators of antimicrobial usage has become available in human and veterinary medicine, with no consensus on the most appropriate indicators to be used. The objective of this review is therefore to provide guidance on the selection of indicators, intended for those aiming to quantify antimicrobial usage based on sales, deliveries or reimbursement data. Depending on the study objective, different requirements apply to antimicrobial usage quantification in terms of resolution, comprehensiveness, stability over time, ability to assess exposure and comparability. If the aim is to monitor antimicrobial usage trends, it is crucial to use a robust quantification system that allows stability over time in terms of required data and provided output; to compare usage between different species or countries, comparability must be ensured between the different populations. If data are used for benchmarking, the system comprehensiveness is particularly crucial, while data collected to study the association between usage and resistance should express the exposure level and duration as a measurement of the exerted selection pressure. Antimicrobial usage is generally described as the number of technical units consumed normalized by the population at risk of being treated in a defined period. The technical units vary from number of packages to number of individuals treated daily by adding different levels of complexity such as daily dose or weight at treatment. These technical units are then related to a description of the population at risk, based either on biomass or number of individuals. Conventions and assumptions are needed for all of these calculation steps. However, there is a clear lack of standardization, resulting in poor transparency and comparability. By combining study requirements with available approaches to quantify antimicrobial usage, we provide suggestions on the most appropriate indicators and data sources to be used for a given study objective

The 2008 outburst in the young stellar system ZCMa: I. Evidence of an enhanced bipolar wind on the AU-scale

Accretion is a fundamental process in star formation. Although the time evolution of accretion remains a matter of debate, observations and modelling studies suggest that episodic outbursts of strong accretion may dominate the formation of the protostar. Observing young stellar objects during these elevated accretion states is crucial to understanding the origin of unsteady accretion. ZCMa is a pre-main-sequence binary system composed of an embedded Herbig Be star, undergoing photometric outbursts, and a FU Orionis star. The Herbig Be component recently underwent its largest optical photometric outburst detected so far. We aim to constrain the origin of this outburst by studying the emission region of the HI Brackett gamma line, a powerful tracer of accretion/ejection processes on the AU-scale in young stars. Using the AMBER/VLTI instrument at spectral resolutions of 1500 and 12 000, we performed spatially and spectrally resolved interferometric observations of the hot gas emitting across the Brackett gamma emission line, during and after the outburst. From the visibilities and differential phases, we derive characteristic sizes for the Brackett gamma emission and spectro-astrometric measurements across the line, with respect to the continuum. We find that the line profile, the astrometric signal, and the visibilities are inconsistent with the signature of either a Keplerian disk or infall of matter. They are, instead, evidence of a bipolar wind, maybe partly seen through a disk hole inside the dust sublimation radius. The disappearance of the Brackett gamma emission line after the outburst suggests that the outburst is related to a period of strong mass loss rather than a change of the extinction along the line of sight. Based on these conclusions, we speculate that the origin of the outburst is an event of enhanced mass accretion, similar to those occuring in EX Ors and FU Ors.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics Letter

Decoder synchronization for deep space missions

The Consultative Committee for Space Data Standards (CCSDS) recommends that space communication links employ a concatenated, error-correcting, channel-coding system in which the inner code is a convolutional (7,1/2) code and the outer code is a (255,223) Reed-Solomon code. The traditional implementation is to perform the node synchronization for the Viterbi decoder and the frame synchronization for the Reed-Solomon decoder as separate, sequential operations. This article discusses a unified synchronization technique that is required for deep space missions that have data rates and signal-to-noise ratios (SNR's) that are extremely low. This technique combines frame synchronization in the bit and symbol domains and traditional accumulated-metric growth techniques to establish a joint frame and node synchronization. A variation on this technique is used for the Galileo spacecraft on its Jupiter-bound mission

Relativistic Effect on Low-Energy Nucleon-Deuteron Scattering

The relativistic effect on differential cross sections, nucleon-to-nucleon and nucleon-to-deuteron polarization transfer coefficients, and the spin correlation function, of nucleon-deuteron elastic scattering is investigated employing several three-dimensional relativistic three-body equations and several nucleon-nucleon potentials. The polarization transfer coefficients are found to be sensitive to the details of the nucleon-nucleon potentials and the relativistic dynamics employed, and prefer trinucleon models with the correct triton binding energy. (To appear in Phys. Rev. C)Comment: pages: 21, LaTex text + 7 ps-figures at the en