9,042 research outputs found
Developmental and functional effects of steroid hormones on the neuroendocrine axis and spinal cord
This review highlights the principal effects of steroid hormones at central and peripheral levels in the neuroendocrine axis. The data discussed highlight the principal role of oestrogens and testosterone in hormonal programming in relation to sexual orientation, reproductive and metabolic programming, and the neuroendocrine mechanism involved in the development of polycystic ovary syndrome phenotype. Moreover, consistent with the wide range of processes in which steroid hormones take part, we discuss the protective effects of progesterone on neurodegenerative disease and the signalling mechanism involved in the genesis of oestrogen-induced pituitary prolactinomas.Fil: Zubeldia Brenner, Lautaro. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones CientÃficas y Técnicas. Instituto de BiologÃa y Medicina Experimental. Fundación de Instituto de BiologÃa y Medicina Experimental. Instituto de BiologÃa y Medicina Experimental; ArgentinaFil: Roselli, C. E.. Oregon Health and Science University Portland; Estados UnidosFil: Recabarren, S. E.. Universidad de Concepción; ChileFil: Gonzalez Deniselle, Maria Claudia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones CientÃficas y Técnicas. Instituto de BiologÃa y Medicina Experimental. Fundación de Instituto de BiologÃa y Medicina Experimental. Instituto de BiologÃa y Medicina Experimental; ArgentinaFil: Lara, H. E.. Universidad de Chile; Chil
Double-diffusive instabilities of a shear-generated magnetic layer
Previous theoretical work has speculated about the existence of
double-diffusive magnetic buoyancy instabilities of a dynamically evolving
horizontal magnetic layer generated by the interaction of forced vertically
sheared velocity and a background vertical magnetic field. Here we confirm
numerically that if the ratio of the magnetic to thermal diffusivities is
sufficiently low then such instabilities can indeed exist, even for high
Richardson number shear flows. Magnetic buoyancy may therefore occur via this
mechanism for parameters that are likely to be relevant to the solar
tachocline, where regular magnetic buoyancy instabilities are unlikely.Comment: Submitted to ApJ
The Evolution of a Double Diffusive Magnetic Buoyancy Instability
Recently, Silvers, Vasil, Brummell, & Proctor (2009), using numerical
simulations, confirmed the existence of a double diffusive magnetic buoyancy
instability of a layer of horizontal magnetic field produced by the interaction
of a shear velocity field with a weak vertical field. Here, we demonstrate the
longer term nonlinear evolution of such an instability in the simulations. We
find that a quasi two-dimensional interchange instability rides (or "surfs") on
the growing shear-induced background downstream field gradients. The region of
activity expands since three-dimensional perturbations remain unstable in the
wake of this upward-moving activity front, and so the three-dimensional nature
becomes more noticeable with time.Comment: 9 pages; 3 figures; accepted to appear in IAU symposium 27
The distribution of stars around the Milky Way's central black hole II: Diffuse light from sub-giants and dwarfs
This is the second of three papers that search for the predicted stellar cusp
around the Milky Way's central black hole, Sagittarius A*, with new data and
methods. We aim to infer the distribution of the faintest stellar population
currently accessible through observations around Sagittarius A*. We use
adaptive optics assisted high angular resolution images obtained with the NACO
instrument at the ESO VLT. Through optimised PSF fitting we remove the light
from all detected stars above a given magnitude limit. Subsequently we analyse
the remaining, diffuse light density. The analysed diffuse light arises from
sub-giant and main-sequence stars with KS ~ 19 - 20 with masses of 1 - 2 Msol .
These stars can be old enough to be dynamically relaxed. The observed power-law
profile and its slope are consistent with the existence of a relaxed stellar
cusp around the Milky Way's central black hole. We find that a Nuker law
provides an adequate description of the nuclear cluster's intrinsic shape
(assuming spherical symmetry). The 3D power-law slope near Sgr A* is \gamma =
1.23 +- 0.05. At a distance of 0.01 pc from the black hole, we estimate a
stellar mass density of 2.3 +- 0.3 x 10^7 Msol pc^-3 and a total enclosed
stellar mass of 180 +- 20 Msol. These estimates assume a constant mass-to-light
ratio and do not take stellar remnants into account. The fact that no cusp is
observed for bright (Ks 16) giant stars at projected distances of roughly
0.1-0.3 pc implies that some mechanism has altered their appearance or
distribution.Comment: Accepted for publication A&
The distribution of old stars around the Milky Way's central black hole I: Star counts
(abridged) In this paper we revisit the problem of inferring the innermost
structure of the Milky Way's nuclear star cluster via star counts, to clarify
whether it displays a core or a cusp around the central black hole. Through
image stacking and improved PSF fitting we push the completeness limit about
one magnitude deeper than in previous, comparable work. Contrary to previous
work, we analyse the stellar density in well-defined magnitude ranges in order
to be able to constrain stellar masses and ages. The RC and brighter giant
stars display a core-like surface density profile within a projected radius
R<0.3 pc of the central black hole, in agreement with previous studies, but
show a cusp-like surface density distribution at larger R. The surface density
of the fainter stars can be described well by a single power-law at R<2 pc. The
cusp-like profile of the faint stars persists even if we take into account the
possible contamination of stars in this brightness range by young pre-main
sequence stars. The data are inconsistent with a core-profile for the faint
stars.Finally, we show that a 3D Nuker law provides a very good description of
the cluster structure. We conclude that the observed stellar density at the
Galactic Centre, as it can be inferred with current instruments, is consistent
with the existence of a stellar cusp around the Milky Way's central black hole,
Sgr A*. This cusp is well developed inside the influence radius of about 3 pc
of Sgr A* and can be described by a single three-dimensional power-law with an
exponent gamma=1.23+-0.05. The apparent lack of RC stars and brighter giants at
projected distances of R < 0.3 pc (R<8") of the massive black hole may indicate
that some mechanism has altered their distribution or intrinsic luminosity.Comment: Accepted for publication A&
Local regularity for parabolic nonlocal operators
Weak solutions to parabolic integro-differential operators of order are studied. Local a priori estimates of H\"older norms and
a weak Harnack inequality are proved. These results are robust with respect to
. In this sense, the presentation is an extension of Moser's
result in 1971.Comment: 31 pages, 3 figure
Exact solution for the dynamical decoupling of a qubit with telegraph noise
We study the dissipative dynamics of a qubit that is afflicted by classical
random telegraph noise and it is subject to dynamical decoupling. We derive
exact formulas for the qubit dynamics at arbitrary working points in the limit
of infinitely strong control pulses (bang-bang control) and we investigate in
great detail the efficiency of the dynamical decoupling techniques both for
Gaussian and non-Gaussian (slow) noise at qubit pure dephasing and at optimal
point. We demonstrate that control sequences can be successfully implemented as
diagnostic tools to infer spectral proprieties of a few fluctuators interacting
with the qubit. The analysis is extended in order to include the effect of
noise in the pulses and we give upper bounds on the noise levels that can be
tolerated in the pulses while still achieving efficient dynamical decoupling
performance
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The Ensemble and Model Comparison Approaches for Big Data Analytics in Social Sciences
Big data analytics are prevalent in fields like business, engineering, public health, and the physical sciences, but social scientists are slower than their peers in other fields in adopting this new methodology. One major reason for this is that traditional statistical procedures are typically not suitable for the analysis of large and complex data sets. Although data mining techniques could alleviate this problem, it is often unclear to social science researchers which option is the most suitable one to a particular research problem. The main objective of this paper is to illustrate how the model comparison of two popular ensemble methods, namely, boosting and bagging, could yield an improved explanatory model. Accessed 993 times on https://pareonline.net from November 21, 2018 to December 31, 2019. For downloads from January 1, 2020 forward, please click on the PlumX Metrics link to the right
Compact Radio Sources within 30" of Sgr A*: Proper Motions, Stellar Winds and the Accretion Rate onto Sgr A*
Recent broad-band 34 and 44 GHz radio continuum observations of the Galactic
center have revealed 41 massive stars identified with near-IR counterparts, as
well as 44 proplyd candidates within 30" of Sgr A*. Radio observations obtained
in 2011 and 2014 have been used to derive proper motions of eight young stars
near Sgr A*. The accuracy of proper motion estimates based on near-IR
observations by Lu et al. and Paumard et al. have been investigated by using
their proper motions to predict the 2014 epoch positions of near-IR stars and
comparing the predicted positions with those of radio counterparts in the 2014
radio observations. Predicted positions from Lu et al. show an rms scatter of 6
mas relative to the radio positions, while those from Paumard et al. show rms
residuals of 20 mas, which is mainly due to uncertainties in the IR-based
proper motions. Under the assumption of homogeneous ionized winds, we also
determine the mass-loss rates of 11 radio stars, finding rates that are on
average 2 times smaller than those determined from model atmosphere
calculations and near-IR data. Clumpiness of ionized winds would reduce the
mass loss rate of WR and O stars by additional factors of 3 and 10,
respectively. One important implication of this is a reduction in the expected
mass accretion rate onto Sgr A* from stellar winds by nearly an order of
magnitude to a value of few \msol\ yr. Finally, we
present the positions of 318 compact 34.5 GHz radio sources within 30\arcs\ of
Sgr A*. At least 45 of these have stellar counterparts in the near-IR
(2.18 m) and (3.8m) bands.Comment: 30 pages, 4 figures, ApJ (in press
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