19,798 research outputs found
Research on processes for utilization of lunar resources quarterly report, 16 jul. - 15 oct. 1964
Lunar resource utilization - silicate reduction unit and carbon monoxide reduction reacto
Galactic Globular Cluster Relative Ages
Based on a new large, homogeneous photometric database of 35 Galactic
globular clusters (GGCs), a set of distance and reddening independent relative
age indicators has been measured. The observed D(V-I)_2.5 and D(V)(HB-TO) vs.
metallicity relations have been compared with the relations predicted by two
recent updated libraries of isochrones. Using these models and two independent
methods, we have found that self-consistent relative ages can be estimated for
our GGC sample. Based on the relative age vs. metallicity distribution, we
conclude that: (a) there is no evidence of an age spread for clusters with
[Fe/H]<-1.2, all the clusters of our sample in this range being old and coeval;
(b) for the intermediate metallicity group (-1.2<=[Fe/H]<-0.9) there is a clear
evidence of age dispersion, with clusters up to ~25% younger than the older
members; and (c) the clusters within the metal rich group ([Fe/H]>=-0.9) seem
to be coeval within the uncertainties (except Pal12), but younger (~17%) than
the bulk of the Galactic globulars. The latter result is totally model
dependent. From the distribution of the GGC ages with the Galactocentric
distance, we can present a possible scenario for the Milky Way formation: The
GC formation process started at the same zero age throughout the halo, at least
out to ~20 kpc from the Galactic center. According to the present stellar
evolution models, the metal-rich globulars are formed at a later time (~ 17%
lower age). And finally, significantly younger halo GGCs are found at any
R(GC)>8 kpc. For these, a possible scenario associated with mergers of dwarf
galaxies to the Milky Way is suggested.Comment: 47 pages, 9 figures. To be published in the Astronomical Journal,
November issu
A comparison of spectral element and finite difference methods using statically refined nonconforming grids for the MHD island coalescence instability problem
A recently developed spectral-element adaptive refinement incompressible
magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) code [Rosenberg, Fournier, Fischer, Pouquet, J. Comp.
Phys. 215, 59-80 (2006)] is applied to simulate the problem of MHD island
coalescence instability (MICI) in two dimensions. MICI is a fundamental MHD
process that can produce sharp current layers and subsequent reconnection and
heating in a high-Lundquist number plasma such as the solar corona [Ng and
Bhattacharjee, Phys. Plasmas, 5, 4028 (1998)]. Due to the formation of thin
current layers, it is highly desirable to use adaptively or statically refined
grids to resolve them, and to maintain accuracy at the same time. The output of
the spectral-element static adaptive refinement simulations are compared with
simulations using a finite difference method on the same refinement grids, and
both methods are compared to pseudo-spectral simulations with uniform grids as
baselines. It is shown that with the statically refined grids roughly scaling
linearly with effective resolution, spectral element runs can maintain accuracy
significantly higher than that of the finite difference runs, in some cases
achieving close to full spectral accuracy.Comment: 19 pages, 17 figures, submitted to Astrophys. J. Supp
Molecular gas heating in Arp 299
Understanding the heating and cooling mechanisms in nearby (Ultra) luminous
infrared galaxies can give us insight into the driving mechanisms in their more
distant counterparts. Molecular emission lines play a crucial role in cooling
excited gas, and recently, with Herschel Space Observatory we have been able to
observe the rich molecular spectrum. CO is the most abundant and one of the
brightest molecules in the Herschel wavelength range. CO transitions are
observed with Herschel, and together, these lines trace the excitation of CO.
We study Arp 299, a colliding galaxy group, with one component harboring an AGN
and two more undergoing intense star formation. For Arp 299 A, we present PACS
spectrometer observations of high-J CO lines up to J=20-19 and JCMT
observations of CO and HCN to discern between UV heating and alternative
heating mechanisms. There is an immediately noticeable difference in the
spectra of Arp 299 A and Arp 299 B+C, with source A having brighter high-J CO
transitions. This is reflected in their respective spectral energy line
distributions. We find that photon-dominated regions (PDRs) are unlikely to
heat all the gas since a very extreme PDR is necessary to fit the high-J CO
lines. In addition, this extreme PDR does not fit the HCN observations, and the
dust spectral energy distribution shows that there is not enough hot dust to
match the amount expected from such an extreme PDR. Therefore, we determine
that the high-J CO and HCN transitions are heated by an additional mechanism,
namely cosmic ray heating, mechanical heating, or X-ray heating. We find that
mechanical heating, in combination with UV heating, is the only mechanism that
fits all molecular transitions. We also constrain the molecular gas mass of Arp
299 A to 3e9 Msun and find that we need 4% of the total heating to be
mechanical heating, with the rest UV heating
Concatenation of convolutional and block codes Final report
Comparison of concatenated and sequential decoding systems and convolutional code structural propertie
Radiative and mechanical feedback into the molecular gas of NGC 253
Starburst galaxies are undergoing intense periods of star formation.
Understanding the heating and cooling mechanisms in these galaxies can give us
insight to the driving mechanisms that fuel the starburst. Molecular emission
lines play a crucial role in the cooling of the excited gas. With SPIRE on the
Herschel Space Observatory we have observed the rich molecular spectrum towards
the central region of NGC 253. CO transitions from J=4-3 to 13-12 are observed
and together with low-J line fluxes from ground based observations, these lines
trace the excitation of CO. By studying the CO excitation ladder and comparing
the intensities to models, we investigate whether the gas is excited by UV
radiation, X-rays, cosmic rays, or turbulent heating. Comparing the CO
and CO observations to large velocity gradient models and PDR models we
find three main ISM phases. We estimate the density, temperature,and masses of
these ISM phases. By adding CO, HCN, and HNC line intensities, we are
able to constrain these degeneracies and determine the heating sources. The
first ISM phase responsible for the low-J CO lines is excited by PDRs, but the
second and third phases, responsible for the mid to high-J CO transitions,
require an additional heating source. We find three possible combinations of
models that can reproduce our observed molecular emission. Although we cannot
determine which of these are preferable, we can conclude that mechanical
heating is necessary to reproduce the observed molecular emission and cosmic
ray heating is a negligible heating source. We then estimate the mass of each
ISM phase; M for phase 1 (low-J CO lines), M for phase 2 (mid-J CO lines), and M for
phase 3 (high-J CO lines) for a total system mass of M
Parents' involvement in child care: do parental and work identities matter?
The current study draws on identity theory to explore mothers' and fathers' involvement in childcare. It examined the relationships between the salience and centrality of individuals’ parental and work-related identities and the extent to which they are involved in various forms of childcare. A sample of 148 couples with at least one child aged 6 years or younger completed extensive questionnaires. As hypothesized, the salience and centrality of parental identities were positively related to mothers' and fathers' involvement in childcare. Moreover, maternal identity salience was negatively related to fathers' hours of childcare and share of childcare tasks. Finally, work hours mediated the negative relationships between the centrality of work identities and time invested in childcare, and gender moderated this mediation effect. That is, the more central a mother's work identity, the more hours she worked for pay and the fewer hours she invested in childcare. These findings shed light on the role of parental identities in guiding behavioral choices, and attest to the importance of distinguishing between identity salience and centrality as two components of self-structure
Gene expression in epithelial cells in response to pneumovirus infection
Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and pneumonia virus of mice (PVM) are viruses of the family Paramyxoviridae, subfamily pneumovirus, which cause clinically important respiratory infections in humans and rodents, respectively. The respiratory epithelial target cells respond to viral infection with specific alterations in gene expression, including production of chemoattractant cytokines, adhesion molecules, elements that are related to the apoptosis response, and others that remain incompletely understood. Here we review our current understanding of these mucosal responses and discuss several genomic approaches, including differential display reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and gene array strategies, that will permit us to unravel the nature of these responses in a more complete and systematic manner
Finitely Many Dirac-Delta Interactions on Riemannian Manifolds
This work is intended as an attempt to study the non-perturbative
renormalization of bound state problem of finitely many Dirac-delta
interactions on Riemannian manifolds, S^2, H^2 and H^3. We formulate the
problem in terms of a finite dimensional matrix, called the characteristic
matrix. The bound state energies can be found from the characteristic equation.
The characteristic matrix can be found after a regularization and
renormalization by using a sharp cut-off in the eigenvalue spectrum of the
Laplacian, as it is done in the flat space, or using the heat kernel method.
These two approaches are equivalent in the case of compact manifolds. The heat
kernel method has a general advantage to find lower bounds on the spectrum even
for compact manifolds as shown in the case of S^2. The heat kernels for H^2 and
H^3 are known explicitly, thus we can calculate the characteristic matrix.
Using the result, we give lower bound estimates of the discrete spectrum.Comment: To be published in JM
Inflammation and fibrosis in chronic liver diseases including non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and hepatitis C
At present chronic liver disease (CLD), the third commonest cause of premature death in the United Kingdom is detected late, when interventions are ineffective, resulting in considerable morbidity and mortality. Injury to the liver, the largest solid organ in the body, leads to a cascade of inflammatory events. Chronic inflammation leads to the activation of hepatic stellate cells that undergo trans-differentiation to become myofibroblasts, the main extra-cellular matrix producing cells in the liver; over time increased extra-cellular matrix production results in the formation of liver fibrosis. Although fibrogenesis may be viewed as having evolved as a “wound healing” process that preserves tissue integrity, sustained chronic fibrosis can become pathogenic culminating in CLD, cirrhosis and its associated complications. As the reference standard for detecting liver fibrosis, liver biopsy, is invasive and has an associated morbidity, the diagnostic assessment of CLD by non-invasive testing is attractive. Accordingly, in this review the mechanisms by which liver inflammation and fibrosis develop in chronic liver diseases are explored to identify appropriate and meaningful diagnostic targets for clinical practice. Due to differing disease prevalence and treatment efficacy, disease specific diagnostic targets are required to optimally manage individual CLDs such as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and chronic hepatitis C infection. To facilitate this, a review of the pathogenesis of both conditions is also conducted. Finally, the evidence for hepatic fibrosis regression and the mechanisms by which this occurs are discussed, including the current use of antifibrotic therapy
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