SN1991bg-like supernovae are a compelling source of most Galactic antimatter

The Milky Way Galaxy glows with the soft gamma ray emission resulting from the annihilation of $\sim 5 \times 10^{43}$ electron-positron pairs every second. The origin of this vast quantity of antimatter and the peculiar morphology of the 511keV gamma ray line resulting from this annihilation have been the subject of debate for almost half a century. Most obvious positron sources are associated with star forming regions and cannot explain the rate of positron annihilation in the Galactic bulge, which last saw star formation some $10\,\mathrm{Gyr}$ ago, or else violate stringent constraints on the positron injection energy. Radioactive decay of elements formed in core collapse supernovae (CCSNe) and normal Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) could supply positrons matching the injection energy constraints but the distribution of such potential sources does not replicate the required morphology. We show that a single class of peculiar thermonuclear supernova - SN1991bg-like supernovae (SNe 91bg) - can supply the number and distribution of positrons we see annihilating in the Galaxy through the decay of $^{44}$Ti synthesised in these events. Such $^{44}$Ti production simultaneously addresses the observed abundance of $^{44}$Ca, the $^{44}$Ti decay product, in solar system material.Comment: Accepted for publication in Proceedings of IAU Symposium 322: The Multimessenger Astrophysics of the Galactic Center 4 page

Treatment of chronically unreduced complex dislocations of the elbow

Chronic dislocation of the elbow is an exceedingly disabling condition associated with severe instability, limitation of elbow function and significant pain. Due to the potentially conflicting goals of restoring elbow stability and regaining a satisfactory arc of motion, successful treatment is a challenge for the experienced trauma surgeon. We report our treatment strategy in three patients suffering from chronically unreduced fracture-dislocations of the elbow. The treatment protocol consists of in situ neurolysis of the ulnar nerve, distraction and reduction of the joint using unilateral hinged external fixation and repair of the osseous stabilizers. A stable elbow was achieved in all patients, without the need of reconstruction of the collateral ligaments. At final follow-up, the average extension/flexion arc of motion was 107° (range, from 100° to 110°). The average MEPI score at follow-up was 93, and the average DASH score was 19. This is a promising treatment protocol for the treatment of chronically unreduced complex elbow dislocations to restore elbow stability and regain an excellent functional outcome

SN1991bg-like supernovae are associated with old stellar populations

SN1991bg-like supernovae are a distinct subclass of thermonuclear supernovae (SNe Ia). Their spectral and photometric peculiarities indicate their progenitors and explosion mechanism differ from `normal' SNe Ia. One method of determining information about supernova progenitors we cannot directly observe is to observe the stellar population adjacent to the apparent supernova explosion site to infer the distribution of stellar population ages and metallicities. We obtain integral field observations and analyse the spectra extracted from regions of projected radius $\sim\,\mathrm{kpc}$ about the apparent SN explosion site for 11 91bg-like SNe in both early- and late-type galaxies. We utilize full-spectrum spectral fitting to determine the ages and metallicities of the stellar population within the aperture. We find that the majority of the stellar populations that hosted 91bg-like supernovae have little recent star formation. The ages of the stellar populations suggest that that 91bg-like SN progenitors explode after delay times of $>6\,\mathrm{Gyr}$, much longer than the typical delay time of normal SNe Ia, which peaks at $\sim 1\,\mathrm{Gyr}$.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, 3 tables, submitted to Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australi

The pseudo-circular genomes of Flaviviruses: structures, mechanisms, and functions of circularization

© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).The circularization of viral genomes fulfills various functions, from evading host defense mechanisms to promoting specific replication and translation patterns supporting viral proliferation. Here, we describe the genomic structures and associated host factors important for flaviviruses genome circularization and summarize their functional roles. Flaviviruses are relatively small, single-stranded, positive-sense RNA viruses with genomes of approximately 11 kb in length. These genomes contain motifs at their 5' and 3' ends, as well as in other regions, that are involved in circularization. These motifs are highly conserved throughout the Flavivirus genus and occur both in mature virions and within infected cells. We provide an overview of these sequence motifs and RNA structures involved in circularization, describe their linear and circularized structures, and discuss the proteins that interact with these circular structures and that promote and regulate their formation, aiming to clarify the key features of genome circularization and understand how these affect the flaviviruses life cycle.This research was supported by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia—Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Ensino Superior (FCT-MCTES, Portugal) and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (FCG, Portugal) project Science Frontiers Research Prize 2010. N.M.S. acknowledges FCT-MCTES fellowship SFRH/BD/144585/2019. I.C.M. acknowledges FCT-MCTES program “Concurso de Estímulo ao Emprego Científico” (CEECIND/01670/2017).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Análise estrutural do Grupo Rio Pardo: sudeste do Estado da Bahia

O Grupo Rio Pardo esta localizado no sudeste do Estado da Bahia e geologicamente, marca a transição entre o Cráton do São Francisco e a Faixa Araçuaí. Trata-se de uma sequência metassedimentar de baixo grau metamórfico, de idade meso a neoproterozoica, depositadas sobre um embasamento de idade paleoproterozoica a arqueana. O Grupo Rio Pardo é constituído das seguintes unidades litoestratigráficas, da base para o topo: Formação Panelinha formada por metapsefitos e metagrauvacas; Subgrupo Itaimbé, compreendendo as Formações Camacã (metapelitos e lentes carbonáticas), Água Preta (metarenitos e metassiltitos), Serra do Paraíso (metacarbonatos e quartzitos) e Santa Maria Eterna (metacarbonatos e quartzitos). No topo desta sequência, discordantemente sobre as anteriores, depositou-se a Formação Salobro, constituída de metapelitos e metapsefitos. O Grupo Rio Pardo esta dividido em duas unidades litoestruturais, separadas pela falha inversa Rio Pardo-Água Preta com transporte tectônico para nordeste. A Unidade Litoestrutural 1, que abrange o setor norte, possui características autóctones com estruturas associadas à primeira fase de deformação. A Unidade Litoestrutural 2, localizada a sudoeste da falha inversa, caracteriza um bloco subautóctone com dobramentos fechados relacionados à segunda fase de deformação. Um terceiro evento deformacional esta registrado na borda oeste da bacia. A vergência tectônica do Grupo Rio Pardo para NE se explica pela mudança do regime deformacional e da orientação dos eixos principais da deformação no decorrer do evento orogênico colisional brasiliano no setor norte da faixa Araçuaí, onde o transporte tectônico para norte serviu de motor para a deformação no Grupo Rio Pardo.The Meso- to Neoproterozoic Rio Pardo Group is located in the southeastern region of the Bahia State and consists of low-grade metasedimentary rocks deposited on Paleoproterozoic to Archean basement. From the base to the top, the metasedimentary rocks are grouped into the following sequences: Panelinha Formation consisting of coarse-grained immature clastics; the overlying Itaimbé Subgroup which is made up of the Camacã Formation (metapelites with local carbonates), the Água Preta Formation (fine-grained metapsamites and local carbonate lenses), Serra do Paraíso Formation (metacarbonates and quartzites) and the Santa Maria Eterna Formation (metaconglomerates and metacarbonates). The Salobro Formation was deposited unconformably on this sequence and consists of coarse-grained immature and local finegrained clastic rocks. The Rio Pardo Group was affected by three successive folding events, which were recorded in two litho-structural units. The litho-structural unit 1 is located in the northeastern part of the basin, and the litho-structural unit 2, in the southwestern part of the basin. These units are separated by the Rio Pardo-Água Preta inverse fault, trending NW-SE and dipping SW. The first unit is autochthonous and monophasic and displays open folds and slaty cleavage, changing gradually towards southwest into large overturned folds with axial plane schistosity. The second unit is polyphasic and shows large folds with NE vergence. A third folding is represented by folds and foliations present at the western margin of the basin. The NE vergence of the Rio Pardo Group can be explained by changes in the deformation regime and in the direction of the principal axis of deformation in the north sector of the Araçuaí belt during the Brasiliano collision orogen. The tectonic transport to the north could be the cause of deformation of the Rio Pardo Group

Prospects of direct detection of 48^{48}V gamma-rays from thermonuclear supernovae

Detection of gamma-rays emitted by radioactive isotopes synthesized in stellar explosions can give important insights into the processes that power transients such as supernovae, as well as providing a detailed census of the abundance of different isotope species relevant to the chemical evolution of the Universe. Observations of nearby supernovae have yielded observational proof that $^{57}$Co powered the late-time evolution of SN1987A's lightcurve, and conclusive evidence that $^{56}$Ni and its daughter nuclei power the light curves of Type Ia supernovae. In this paper we describe the prospects for detecting nuclear decay lines associated with the decay of $^{48}$V, the daughter nucleus of $^{48}$Cr, which is expected to be synthesised in large quantities - $M_{\mathrm{Cr}}\sim1.9\times10^{-2}\,\mathrm{M_\odot}$ - in transients initiated by explosive helium burning ($\alpha$-capture) of a thick helium shell. We calculate emergent gamma-ray line fluxes for a simulated explosion model of a thermonuclear explosion of carbon-oxygen white dwarf core of mass $0.45\,M_{\odot}$ surrounded by a thick helium layer of mass $0.21\,M_{\odot}$. We present observational limits on the presence of $^{48}$V in nearby SNe Ia 2014J using the \textit{INTEGRAL} space telescope, excluding a $^{48}$Cr production on the surface of more than $0.1\,\mathrm{M_{\odot}}$. We find that the future gamma-ray mission AMEGO will have an approximately 5 per cent chance of observing $^{48}$V gamma-rays from such events during the currently-planned operational lifetime, based on our birthrate predictions of faint thermonuclear transients. We describe the conditions for a $3\sigma$ detection by the gamma-ray telescopes \textit{INTEGRAL}/SPI, COSI and AMEGO.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, submitted to MNRAS, minor revisions Sept 202

Effect of positron-alkali metal atom interactions in the diffuse interstellar medium

In the Milky Way galaxy, positrons, which are responsible for the diffuse 511 keV gamma ray emission observed by space-based gamma ray observatories, are thought to annihilate predominantly through charge exchange interactions with neutral hydrogen. These charge exchange interactions can only take place if positrons have energies greater than 6.8 eV, the minimum energy required to liberate the electron bound to the hydrogen atom and then form positronium, a short-lived bound state composed of a positron-electron pair. Here we demonstrate the importance of positron interactions with neutral alkali metals in the warm interstellar medium (ISM). Positrons may undergo charge exchange with these atoms at any energy. In particular, we show that including positron interactions with sodium at solar abundance in the warm ISM can significantly reduce the annihilation timescale of positrons with energies below 6.8 eV by at least an order of magnitude. We show that including these interactions in our understanding of positron annihilation in the Milky Way rules out the idea that the number of positrons in the Galactic ISM could be maintained in steady state by injection events occurring at a typical periodicity >Myr

Diffuse Galactic antimatter from faint thermonuclear supernovae in old stellar populations

Our Galaxy hosts the annihilation of a few $\times 10^{43}$ low-energy positrons every second. Radioactive isotopes capable of supplying such positrons are synthesised in stars, stellar remnants, and supernovae. For decades, however, there has been no positive identification of a main stellar positron source leading to suggestions that many positrons originate from exotic sources like the Galaxy's central super-massive black hole or dark matter annihilation. %, but such sources would not explain the recently-detected positron signal from the extended Galactic disk. Here we show that a single type of transient source, deriving from stellar populations of age 3-6 Gyr and yielding ~0.03 $M_\odot$ of the positron emitter $^{44}$Ti, can simultaneously explain the strength and morphology of the Galactic positron annihilation signal and the solar system abundance of the $^{44}$Ti decay product $^{44}$Ca. This transient is likely the merger of two low-mass white dwarfs, observed in external galaxies as the sub-luminous, thermonuclear supernova known as SN1991bg-like.Comment: 28 pages main text with 4 figures in preprint style; 26 pages of Supplementary Informatio

Ecometrics: Identification, categorization and life cycle validation

Indicators which reflect environmental, economic, health and safety issues, have been categorized as microecometrics and macroecometrics. The former, generally flow based measures, have been developed for local, firm-wide or product based assessments. Microecometrics include materials intensity, energy consumption and emissions data, often from life cycle perspectives. They are, generally, intensive and are scaled with respect to unit of production, GDP or per capita, though other normalization factors have been proposed. In contrast macroecometrics tend to be extensive and represent global conditions such as temperatures and environmental concentrations. Ecometrics are subjective and reflect the dominant value of the individual, family unit, stakeholder group or firm. As such overaggregating or reducing the number of ecometrics for given applications, such as the rating of investments or access to credit, presents potential conflicts. Furthermore, while eco-indicators used for internal corporate reporting should not, necessarily, be validated, those microecometrics which involve external reporting, or multiple stakeholders, are arbitrary if not derived from, or based on, comprehensive life cycle approaches. This paper summarizes ECOMETRICS'98, a workshop held in Lausanne, Switzerland in January 19-20, 1998. It discusses ecometric needs of various users including consumers, designers, private sector decision makers as well as politicians and policy makers. A discussion regarding appropriate microecometrics for industrial sectors including chemical, pharmaceutical, insurance, finance, electronics, manufacturing and consumer products is also summarize