12,831 research outputs found
New advances in amblyopia therapy I: Binocular therapies and pharmacologic augmentation
Amblyopia therapy options have traditionally been limited to penalisation of the non-amblyopic eye with either patching or pharmaceutical penalisation. Solid evidence, mostly from the Pediatric Eye Disease Investigator Group, has validated both number of hours a day of patching and days per week of atropine use. The use of glasses alone has also been established as a good first-line therapy for both anisometropic and strabismic amblyopia. Unfortunately, visual acuity equalisation or even improvement is not always attainable with these methods. Additionally, non-compliance with prescribed therapies contributes to treatment failures, with data supporting difficulty adhering to full treatment sessions. Interest in alternative therapies for amblyopia treatment has long been a topic of interest among researchers and clinicians alike. Incorporating new technology with an understanding of the biological basis of amblyopia has led to enthusiasm for binocular treatment of amblyopia. Early work on perceptual learning as well as more recent enthusiasm for iPad-based dichoptic training have each generated interesting and promising data for vision improvement in amblyopes. Use of pharmaceutical augmentation of traditional therapies has also been investigated. Several different drugs with unique mechanisms of action are thought to be able to neurosensitise the brain and enhance responsiveness to amblyopia therapy. No new treatment has emerged from currently available evidence as superior to the traditional therapies in common practice today. But ongoing investigation into the use of both new technology and the understanding of the neural basis of amblyopia promises alternate or perhaps better cures in the future.</jats:p
Large Area Crop Inventory Experiment (LACIE). Evaluation of multitemporal data enchancements for the identification of winter wheat fields
There are no author-identified significant results in this report
Operations and single particle interferometry
Interferometry of single particles with internal degrees of freedom is
investigated. We discuss the interference patterns obtained when an internal
state evolution device is inserted into one or both the paths of the
interferometer. The interference pattern obtained is not uniquely determined by
the completely positive maps (CPMs) that describe how the devices evolve the
internal state of a particle. By using the concept of gluing of CPMs, we
investigate the structure of all possible interference patterns obtainable for
given trace preserving internal state CPMs. We discuss what can be inferred
about the gluing, given a sufficiently rich set of interference experiments. It
is shown that the standard interferometric setup is limited in its abilities to
distinguish different gluings. A generalized interferometric setup is
introduced with the capacity to distinguish all gluings. We also connect to
another approach using the well known fact that channels can be realized using
a joint unitary evolution of the system and an ancillary system. We deduce the
set of all such unitary `representations' and relate the structure of this set
to gluings and interference phenomena.Comment: Journal reference added. Material adde
A K-band spectral mini-survey of Galactic B[e] stars
We present a mini-survey of Galactic B[e] stars mainly undertaken with the
Large Binocular Telescope (LBT). B[e] stars show morphological features with
hydrogen emission lines and an infrared excess, attributed to warm
circumstellar dust. In general, these features are assumed to arise from dense,
non-spherical, disk-forming circumstellar material in which molecules and dust
can condensate. Due to the lack of reliable luminosities, the class of Galactic
B[e] stars contains stars at very different stellar evolutionary phases like
Herbig AeBe, supergiants or planetary nebulae. We took near-infrared long-slit
K-band spectra for a sample of Galactic B[e] stars with the LBT-Luci I.
Prominent spectral features, such as the Brackett gamma line and CO band heads
are identified in the spectra. The analysis shows that the stars can be
characterized as evolved objects. Among others we find one LBV candidate
(MWC314), one supergiant B[e] candidate with 13CO (MWC137) and in two cases
(MWC623 and AS 381) indications for the existence of a late-type binary
companion, complementary to previous studies. For MWC84, IR spectra were taken
at different epochs with LBT-Luci I and the GNIRS spectrograph at the Gemini
North telescope. The new data show the disappearance of the circumstellar CO
emission around this star, previously detectable over decades. Also no signs of
a recent prominent eruption leading to the formation of new CO disk emission
are found during 2010 and 2013.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, 4 tables, accepted for publication in MNRAS (in
press
They are Small Worlds After All: Revised Properties of Kepler M Dwarf Stars and their Planets
We classified the reddest () stars observed by the NASA
mission into main sequence dwarf or evolved giant stars and determined the
properties of 4216 M dwarfs based on a comparison of available photometry with
that of nearby calibrator stars, as well as available proper motions and
spectra. We revised the properties of candidate transiting planets using the
stellar parameters, high-resolution imaging to identify companion stars, and,
in the case of binaries, fitting light curves to identify the likely planet
host. In 49 of 54 systems we validated the primary as the host star. We
inferred the intrinsic distribution of M dwarf planets using the method of
iterative Monte Carlo simulation. We compared several models of planet orbital
geometry and clustering and found that one where planets are exponentially
distributed and almost precisely coplanar best describes the distribution of
multi-planet systems. We determined that M dwarfs host an average of
planets with radii of 1-4 and orbital periods of
1.5-180 d. The radius distribution peaks at and is
essentially zero at , although we identify three giant planet
candidates other than the previously confirmed Kepler-45b. There is suggestive
but not significant evidence that the radius distribution varies with orbital
period. The distribution with logarithmic orbital period is flat except for a
decline for orbits less than a few days. Twelve candidate planets, including
two Jupiter-size objects, experience an irradiance below the threshold level
for a runaway greenhouse on an Earth-like planet and are thus in a "habitable
zone".Comment: MNRAS, in press. Tables 1, 3, and 4 are available in electronic form
in the "anc" director
Probing the ejecta of evolved massive stars in transition: A VLT/SINFONI K-band survey
Massive evolved stars in transition phases, such as Luminous Blue Variables
(LBVs), B[e] Supergiants (B[e]SGs), and Yellow Hypergiants (YHGs), are not well
understood, and yet crucial steps in determining accurate stellar and galactic
evolution models. The circumstellar environments of these stars reveal their
mass-loss history, identifying clues to both their individual evolutionary
status and the connection between objects of different phases. Here we present
a survey of 25 such evolved massive stars (16 B[e]SGs, 6 LBVs, 2 YHGs, and 1
Peculiar Oe star), observed in the K-band with the Spectrograph for INtegral
Field Observation in the Near-Infrared (SINFONI; R = 4500) on the ESO VLT UT4 8
m telescope. The sample can be split into two categories based on spectral
morphology: one group includes all of the B[e]SGs, the Peculiar Oe star, and
two of the LBVs, while the other includes the YHGs and the rest of the LBVs.
The difference in LBV spectral appearance is due to some objects being in a
quiescent phase and some objects being in an active or outburst phase. CO
emission features are found in 13 of our targets, with first time detections
for MWC 137, LHA 120-S 35, and LHA 115-S 65. From model fits to the CO band
heads, the emitting regions appear to be detached from the stellar surface.
Each star with ^12CO features also shows ^13CO emission, signaling an evolved
nature. Based on the level of ^13C enrichment, we conclude that many of the
B[e]SGs are likely in a pre-Red Supergiant phase of their evolution. There
appears to be a lower luminosity limit of log L/L_solar = 5.0 below which CO is
not detected. The lack of CO features in several high luminosity B[e]SGs and
variability in others suggests that they may in fact be LBV candidates,
strengthening the connection between these two very similar transition phases.Comment: 20 pages, 13 figures, 7 tables. Accepted for publication in A&
Noncommutative spin-1/2 representations
In this letter we apply the methods of our previous paper hep-th/0108045 to
noncommutative fermions. We show that the fermions form a spin-1/2
representation of the Lorentz algebra. The covariant splitting of the conformal
transformations into a field-dependent part and a \theta-part implies the
Seiberg-Witten differential equations for the fermions.Comment: 7 pages, LaTe
The sudden appearance of CO emission in LHA 115-S 65
Molecular emission has been detected in several Magellanic Cloud B[e]
supergiants. In this Letter, we report on the detection of CO band head
emission in the B[e] supergiant LHA 115-S 65, and present a K-band
near-infrared spectrum obtained with the Spectrograph for INtegral Field
Observation in the Near-Infrared (SINFONI; R=4500) on the ESO VLT UT4
telescope. The observed molecular band head emission in S 65 is quite
surprising in light of a previous non-detection by McGregor et al. 1989, as
well as a high resolution (R=50000) Gemini/Phoenix spectrum of this star taken
nine months earlier showing no emission. Based on analysis of the optical
spectrum by Kraus et al. 2010, we suspect that the sudden appearance of
molecular emission could be due to density build up in an outflowing viscous
disk, as seen for Be stars. This new discovery, combined with variability in
two other similar evolved massive stars, indicates an evolutionary link between
B[e] supergiants and LBVs.Comment: Letter accepted for publication in MNRAS. 5 pages, 2 figures, 1 tabl
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