174 research outputs found
Communicable Disease Applied Epidemiology in Queensland
The Communicable Diseases Branch (CDB) of Queensland
Health has the role of protecting the health of Queenslanders
through the monitoring, surveillance, and control of communicable
diseases. From February 2016 to December 2017, I undertook a
field placement within the CDB. This thesis details projects
undertaken during this 22-month field placement. The projects
comprise an investigation of a Q fever outbreak at an animal
refuge clinic and veterinary clinic, the establishment of a
surveillance system to identify newly acquired hepatitis C
infections in Queensland, an analysis of vaccine breakthrough
invasive pneumococcal disease in Queensland in children younger
than 5 years of age, and an analysis of the risk of recurrent
invasive pneumococcal disease in Queensland. Also described in
this thesis are other public health experiences gained during my
placement, including my role in teaching, an assessment of the
need to include rheumatic heart disease as a notifiable condition
in Queensland, a WHO Western Pacific Regional Office consultancy,
and a lookback investigation of a dental clinic. Together, these
projects and experiences fulfil the core requirements of the
Master of Philosophy (Applied Epidemiology) program at Australian
National University
BANYAN. II. Very Low Mass and Substellar Candidate Members to Nearby, Young Kinematic Groups With Previously Known Signs of Youth
We present Bayesian Analysis for Nearby Young AssociatioNs II (BANYAN II), a
modified Bayesian analysis for assessing the membership of later-than-M5
objects to any of several Nearby Young Associations (NYAs). In addition to
using kinematic information (from sky position and proper motion), this
analysis exploits 2MASS-WISE color-magnitude diagrams in which old and young
objects follow distinct sequences. As an improvement over our earlier work, the
spatial and kinematic distributions for each association are now modelled as
ellipsoids whose axes need not be aligned with the Galactic coordinate axes,
and we use prior probabilities matching the expected populations of the NYAs
considered versus field stars. We present an extensive contamination analysis
to characterize the performance of our new method. We find that Bayesian
probabilities are generally representative of contamination rates, except when
a parallax measurement is considered. In this case contamination rates become
significantly smaller and hence Bayesian probabilities for NYA memberships are
pessimistic. We apply this new algorithm to a sample of 158 objects from the
literature that are either known to display spectroscopic signs of youth or
have unusually red near-infrared colors for their spectral type. Based on our
analysis, we identify 25 objects as new highly probable candidates to NYAs,
including a new M7.5 bona fide member to Tucana-Horologium, making it the
latest-type member. In addition, we reveal that a known L2{\gamma} dwarf is
co-moving with a bright M5 dwarf, and we show for the first time that two of
the currently known ultra red L dwarfs are strong candidates to the AB Doradus
moving group. Several objects identified here as highly probable members to
NYAs could be free-floating planetary-mass objects if their membership is
confirmed.Comment: 35 pages, 10 figures; accepted for publication in The Astrophysical
Journal (in press); Several typographic correction
The Coolest Isolated Brown Dwarf Candidate Member of TWA
We present two new late-type brown dwarf candidate members of the TW Hydrae
association (TWA) : 2MASS J12074836-3900043 and 2MASS J12474428-3816464, which
were found as part of the BANYAN all-sky survey (BASS) for brown dwarf members
to nearby young associations. We obtained near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy for
both objects (NIR spectral types are respectively L1 and M9), as well as
optical spectroscopy for J1207-3900 (optical spectral type is L0{\gamma}), and
show that both display clear signs of low-gravity, and thus youth. We use the
BANYAN II Bayesian inference tool to show that both objects are candidate
members to TWA with a very low probability of being field contaminants,
although the kinematics of J1247-3816 seem slightly at odds with that of other
TWA members. J1207-3900 is currently the latest-type and the only isolated
L-type candidate member of TWA. Measuring the distance and radial velocity of
both objects is still required to claim them as bona fide members. Such
late-type objects are predicted to have masses down to 11-15 MJup at the age of
TWA, which makes them compelling targets to study atmospheric properties in a
regime similar to that of currently known imaged extrasolar planets.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in the ApJ Letter
BANYAN. IV. Fundamental parameters of low-mass star candidates in nearby young stellar kinematic groups - Isochronal Age determination using Magnetic evolutionary models
Based on high resolution optical spectra obtained with ESPaDOnS at CFHT, we
determine fundamental parameters (\Teff, R, \Lbol, \logg\ and metallicity) for
59 candidate members of nearby young kinematic groups. The candidates were
identified through the BANYAN Bayesian inference method of \citet{2013malo},
which takes into account the position, proper motion, magnitude, color, radial
velocity and parallax (when available) to establish a membership probability.
The derived parameters are compared to Dartmouth Magnetic evolutionary models
and to field stars with the goal to constrain the age of our candidates. We
find that, in general, low-mass stars in our sample are more luminous and have
inflated radii compared to older stars, a trend expected for pre-main sequence
stars. The Dartmouth Magnetic evolutionary models show a good fit to
observations of field K and M stars assuming a magnetic field strength of a few
kG, as typically observed for cool stars. Using the low-mass members of
Pictoris moving group, we have re-examined the age inconsistency problem
between Lithium Depletion age and isochronal age (Hertzspring-Russell diagram).
We find that the inclusion of the magnetic field in evolutionary models
increase the isochronal age estimates for the K5V-M5V stars. Using these models
and field strengths, we derive an average isochronal age between 15 and 28 Myr
and we confirm a clear Lithium Depletion Boundary from which an age of
263~Myr is derived, consistent with previous age estimates based on this
method.Comment: Accepted for publication in Ap
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