1,295 research outputs found

    Line-dependent veiling in very active T Tauri Stars

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    The T Tauri stars with active accretion disks show veiled photospheric spectra. This is supposedly due to non-photospheric continuum radiated by hot spots beneath the accretion shocks at stellar surface and/or chromospheric emission lines radiated by the post-shocked gas. The amount of veiling is often considered as a measure of the mass-accretion rate. We analysed high-resolution photospheric spectra of accreting T Tauri stars LkHa 321, V1331 Cyg, and AS 353 A with the aim of clarifying the nature of the line-dependent veiling. Each of these objects shows a highly veiled, strong emission line spectrum and powerful wind features indicating high rates of accretion and mass loss. Equivalent widths of hundreds of weak photospheric lines were measured in the observed spectra and compared with those in synthetic spectra with the same spectral type. We found that the veiling is strongly line-dependent: larger in stronger photospheric lines and weak or absent in the weakest ones. No dependence of veiling on excitation potential within 0 to 5 eV was found. Different physical processes responsible for these unusual veiling effects are discussed in the framework of the magnetospheric accretion model. The observed veiling has two origins: 1) an abnormal structure of stellar atmosphere heated up by the accreting matter, and 2) a non-photospheric continuum radiated by a hot spot with temperature lower than 10000 K. The true level of the veiling continuum can be derived by measuring the weakest photospheric lines with equivalent widths down to \approx10 m\AA. A limited spectral resolution and/or low signal-to-noise ratio results in overestimation of the veiling continuum. In the three very active stars, the veiling continuum is a minor contributor to the observed veiling, while the major contribution comes from the line-dependent veiling.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures. Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysic

    Health-Related Quality of Life in Portuguese Patients with Chronic Hepatitis C

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    INTRODUCTION: Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection impacts multiple health and psychosocial dimensions and encompasses a significant overall burden as it progresses to advanced stages of hepatic disease. AIMS: To evaluate for the first time health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of a subset of Portuguese adult patients with chronic hepatitis C using the Portuguese versions of generic, Short-Form 12 Health Survey (SF-12v2), and disease-specific, Chronic Liver Disease Questionnaire (CLDQ), instruments; to assess psychometric properties of CLDQ, Portuguese version. METHODS: HRQoL was evaluated in Portuguese adult outpatients with chronic hepatitis C attending the Hepatology Clinic at Centro Hospitalar do Porto, using SF-12v2 and CLDQ. This transversal study was conducted between April and October 2015. RESULTS: Eighty outpatients with chronic hepatitis C were enrolled, with mean age 57 years (standard deviation 11), 67.5% male, all Caucasian, 76.3% diagnosed for >10 years, 66.3% with C virus genotype 1, 65.0% with hepatic cirrhosis (94.2% of which Child-Pugh A), and 46.3% under current antiviral treatment. For CLDQ internal consistency, Cronbach's α was 0.88; for construct validity, correlations ranged from 0.36 to 0.80 (p < 0.01). Mean CLDQ scores ranged from 4.25 (Worry) to 5.78 (Abdominal Symptoms). Lower scores were observed for Worry, Fatigue, and Emotional Function domains. Statistically significant differences were found in median values of Worry (CLDQ) and Role Emotional (SF-12) (p < 0.05) for "current antiviral treatment," with higher scores for patients that concluded therapy. CONCLUSION: HRQoL was negatively affected in several domains in Portuguese patients with chronic hepatitis C; oral antiviral treatment correlated with better quality of life, assuring its benefits on this population; the CLDQ Portuguese version revealed adequate psychometric properties, and was useful in assessing quality of life in Portuguese HCV patients.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

    Assessing family social support for functional autonomy and dependence in pain: A psychometric study

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    Assessing family supportive responses to pain behaviors is paramount, as these may help or hinder chronic pain (CP) adjustment. Current self-report measures of pain-specific family supportive dynamics are scarce, covering a limited range of responses. To address this gap, this paper aimed at the psychometric validation of a (revised) novel measure - the Informal Social Support for Autonomy and Dependence in Pain Inventory (ISSADI-PAIN). Three-hundred and three adults participated in this study (53.3% women; Mage = 49.31), 53.5% with current CP, 20.1% with acute pain (AP) in the previous week and 26.4% with no current pain. All participants completed the revised ISSADI-PAIN. Participants reporting AP/CP in the previous week also filled out measures of pain coping/outcomes. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyzes supported a 3-factor structure: Perceived Promotion of Dependence (PPD; 5 items; α =.82), Perceived Promotion of Autonomy-Emotional (PPA-Emot; 3 items; α =.78), PPA-instrumental (PPA-Inst; 3 items; α =.82). Higher PPD was associated with higher AP disability and less wellness-focused coping; higher PPA-Emot was associated with more wellness-focused CP coping; PPA-Inst was associated with better/worse AP/CP outcomes and more frequent use of wellness-focused CP coping. Men with AP reported more PPD than women. The revised ISSADI-PAIN is an innovative, valid, and reliable measure of relevant functions of pain-related social support, which may influence pain persistence and adaptation. Perspective: This article presents a novel self-report measure (ISSADI-PAIN) that assesses family support for functional autonomy and dependence in pain contexts. This measure may contribute to further research on the complexities of family supportive dynamics surrounding individuals with AP/CP, clarifying their role on pain persistence and adaptation processes.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

    Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis ALS and adenosine receptors

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    Copyright © 2018 Sebastião, Rei and Ribeiro. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.In the present review we discuss the potential involvement of adenosinergic signaling, in particular the role of adenosine receptors, in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Though the literature on this topic is not abundant, the information so far available on adenosine receptors in animal models of ALS highlights the interest to continue to explore the role of these receptors in this neurodegenerative disease. Indeed, all motor neurons affected in ALS are responsive to adenosine receptor ligands but interestingly, there are alterations in pre-symptomatic or early symptomatic stages that mirror those in advanced disease stages. Information starts to emerge pointing toward a beneficial role of A2A receptors (A2AR), most probably at early disease states, and a detrimental role of caffeine, in clear contrast with what occurs in other neurodegenerative diseases. However, some evidence also exists on a beneficial action of A2AR antagonists. It may happen that there are time windows where A2AR prove beneficial and others where their blockade is required. Furthermore, the same changes may not occur simultaneously at the different synapses. In line with this, it is not fully understood if ALS is a dying back disease or if it propagates in a centrifugal way. It thus seems crucial to understand how motor neuron dysfunction occurs, how adenosine receptors are involved in those dysfunctions and whether the early changes in purinergic signaling are compensatory or triggers for the disease. Getting this information is crucial before starting the design of purinergic based strategies to halt or delay disease progression.This work was supported by LISBOA-01-0145-FEDER-007391, project co-funded by FEDER through POR Lisboa 2020 (Programa Operacional Regional de Lisboa) from PORTUGAL 2020 and Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) and by a Twinning action (SynaNet) from the EU H2020 program (Project Number: 692340). NR is in receipt of an FCT fellowship (PD /BD/113463/2015) and is a fellow of the M2B-Ph.D. Program.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

    Pembuatan Pc Game Endless Run “Zombie Run” Menggunakan Arduino Pro Micro Dan Gy-521 Sebagai Kontroler Gyroscope

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    “Zombie Run” is an endless running game that must played by two players on one computer or notebook and must be played using Arduino Pro Micro and GY-521 as controller. This game developed using Unity 3D game engine and controller developed using Arduino SDK. Player have to avoid as many obstacles to create highest score. Player can get uniquely exciting experience by tilting controller and pressing button in the controller to make character move. Testing has been done using blackbox method, alpha testing, and beta testing. The result show that this game have interesting concept by two players and gyroscope controlle

    Sequence classification with human attention

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    Learning attention functions requires large volumes of data, but many NLP tasks simulate human behavior, and in this paper, we show that human attention really does provide a good inductive bias on many attention functions in NLP. Specifically, we use estimated human attention derived from eye-tracking corpora to regularize attention functions in recurrent neural networks. We show substantial improvements across a range of tasks, including sentiment analysis, grammatical error detection, and detection of abusive language

    Neutron scattering study of magnetic ordering and excitations in the ternary rare-earth diborocarbide Ce^{11}B_2C_2

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    Neutron scattering experiments have been performed on the ternary rare-earth diborocarbide Ce11^{11}B2_2C2_2. The powder diffraction experiment confirms formation of a long-range magnetic order at TN=7.3T_{\rm N} = 7.3 K, where a sinusoidally modulated structure is realized with the modulation vector q=[0.167(3),0.167(3),0.114(3)]{\bm q} = [0.167(3), 0.167(3), 0.114(3)]. Inelastic excitation spectra in the paramagnetic phase comprise significantly broad quasielastic and inelastic peaks centered at ω0,8\hbar \omega \approx 0, 8 and 65 meV. Crystalline-electric-field (CEF) analysis satisfactorily reproduces the observed spectra, confirming their CEF origin. The broadness of the quasielastic peak indicates strong spin fluctuations due to coupling between localized 4f4f spins and conduction electrons in the paramagnetic phase. A prominent feature is suppression of the quasielastic fluctuations, and concomitant growth of a sharp inelastic peak in a low energy region below TNT_{\rm N}. This suggests dissociation of the conduction and localized 4f4f electrons on ordering, and contrasts the presently observed incommensurate phase with spin-density-wave order frequently seen in heavy fermion compounds, such as Ce(Ru1x_{1-x}Lax_x)2_2Si2_2.Comment: accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

    Sandwich-type zeolite intergrowths with MFI and the novel extralarge pore IDM-1 as ordered end-members

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    Stacking faults are two-dimensional planar defects frequently arising in zeolites, modifying their properties and potentially affecting their performance in catalysis and separation applications. In classical zeolite intergrowths, a topologically unique zeolite layer may often pile up after some spatial transformation (lateral translation, rotation, and/or reflection) that may occur in different amounts or directions with about similar probabilities, leading to a difficult to control disorder. Here, we present a new kind of zeolite intergrowth that requires an additional topologically distinct layer rather than a spatial transformation of a unique one. Stacking of the so-called pentasil layers produces the well-known medium pore zeolite MFI. Intercalation in strict alternation of a topologically distinct second layer sandwiched between pentasil layers expands the structure to produce the new extra-large pore IDM-1. Stacking disorder modulates the structural expansion along the stacking direction. The disordered materials have been studied by simulation of the X-ray diffraction patterns using the program DIFFaX and by Cs-corrected high-resolution electron microscopy. We show that disorder does not occur at random but in extended domains and can be controlled all the way from MFI to IDM-1 by just varying the concentration of the synthesis mixture
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