Comptel observations of the quasar PKS 0528+134

During Phase I and Phase II of the CGRO‐mission, the quasar PKS 0528+134 was in the field of view of the COMPTEL instrument during several viewing periods. The quasar was detected by COMPTEL mainly at energies above 10 MeV. Below 10 MeV there is evidence for the source during some CGRO viewing periods, while below 3 MeV no signal is detected. The detections and non‐detections during different viewing periods follow the trend seen by EGRET, thereby indicating a time‐variable MEV‐flux of the quasar. The COMPTEL spectral results together with the simultaneously measured EGRET spectrum, indicate a spectral break in the upper part of the COMPTEL energy range at energies between 10 MeV and 30 MeV

Long-term drought sensitivity of trees in second-growth forests in a humid region

Classical field methods of reconstructing drought using tree rings in humid, temperate regions typically target old trees from drought-prone sites. This approach limits investigators to a handful of species and excludes large amounts of data that might be useful, especially for coverage gaps in large-scale networks. By sampling in more “typical” forests, network density and species diversity would increase in ways that could potentially improve reconstructions. Ten nonclassical tree-ring chronologies derived from randomly selected trees, trees from logged forests, or both were compared to more classical chronologies and an independent regional drought reconstruction to determine their usefulness for dendrohydroclimatic research. We find that nonclassical chronologies are significantly correlated to classical chronologies and reconstructed drought over the last 2–3 centuries. While nonclassical chronologies have spectral properties similar to those from classical dendroclimatic collections, they do lack spectral power at lower frequencies that are present in the drought reconstruction. Importantly, our results show that tree growth is strongly dependent on moisture availability, even for small, randomly selected trees in cut forests. These results indicate that there could be more data available in areas with few current tree-ring collections for studying climate history and that drought plays an important role in humid forests

Addressing Distress Management Challenges: Recommendations From the Consensus Panel of the American Psychosocial Oncology Society and the Association of Oncology Social Work

Distress management (DM) (screening and response) is an essential component of cancer care across the treatment trajectory. Effective DM has many benefits, including improving patients’ quality of life; reducing distress, anxiety, and depression; contributing to medical cost offsets; and reducing emergency department visits and hospitalizations. Unfortunately, many distressed patients do not receive needed services. There are several multilevel barriers that represent key challenges to DM and affect its implementation. The Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research was used as an organizational structure to outline the barriers and facilitators to implementation of DM, including: 1) individual characteristics (individual patient characteristics with a focus on groups who may face unique barriers to distress screening and linkage to services), 2) intervention (unique aspects of DM intervention, including specific challenges in screening and psychosocial intervention, with recommendations for resolving these challenges), 3) processes for implementation of DM (modality and timing of screening, the challenge of triage for urgent needs, and incorporation of patient-reported outcomes and quality measures), 4) organization—inner setting (the context of the clinic, hospital, or health care system); and 5) organization—outer setting (including reimbursement strategies and health-care policy). Specific recommendations for evidence-based strategies and interventions for each of the domains of the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research are also included to address barriers and challenges. CA Cancer J Clin 2021;71:407-436. © 2021 The Authors. CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Cancer Society. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made

Search for gamma‐ray emission from AGN with COMPTEL

The COMPTEL data (∼0.7–30 MeV) were searched for emission from AGN. Four sources have been detected so far: the quasars 3C 273, 3C 279, PKS 0528+134, and the radio galaxy Centaurus A. 3C 273 and 3C 279 were detected in CGRO observation period 3 with quite different spectral shapes. There is also evidence for 3C 273 at a weak flux level in observation period 11. The quasar PKS 0528+134 was detected above 3 MeV as part of a search for AGN already observed by EGRET. Cen A was seen up to 3 MeV by combining data from different observation periods

The first COMPTEL Source Catalogue

The imaging Compton telescope COMPTEL aboard NASA's Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory has opened the MeV gamma-ray band as a new window to astronomy. COMPTEL provided the first complete all-sky survey in the energy range 0.75 to 30 MeV. The catalogue, presented here, is largely restricted to published results. It contains firm as well as marginal detections of continuum and line emitting sources and presents upper limits for various types of objects. The numbers of the most significant detections are 32 for steady sources and 31 for gamma-ray bursters. Among the continuum sources, detected so far, are spin-down pulsars, stellar black-hole candidates, supernova remnants, interstellar clouds, nuclei of active galaxies, gamma-ray bursters, and the Sun during solar flares. Line detections have been made in the light of the 1.809 MeV 26Al line, the 1.157 MeV 44Ti line, the 847 and 1238 keV 56Co lines, and the neutron capture line at 2.223 MeV. For the identification of galactic sources, a modelling of the diffuse galactic emission is essential. Such a modelling at this time does not yet exist at the required degree of accuracy. Therefore, a second COMPTEL source catalogue will be produced after a detailed and accurate modelling of the diffuse interstellar emission has become possible.Comment: 50 pages including 4 figures; accepted for publication in A&A Supplement

CASTER - a concept for a Black Hole Finder Probe based on the use of new scintillator technologies

The primary scientific mission of the Black Hole Finder Probe (BHFP), part of the NASA Beyond Einstein program, is to survey the local Universe for black holes over a wide range of mass and accretion rate. One approach to such a survey is a hard X-ray coded-aperture imaging mission operating in the 10--600 keV energy band, a spectral range that is considered to be especially useful in the detection of black hole sources. The development of new inorganic scintillator materials provides improved performance (for example, with regards to energy resolution and timing) that is well suited to the BHFP science requirements. Detection planes formed with these materials coupled with a new generation of readout devices represent a major advancement in the performance capabilities of scintillator-based gamma cameras. Here, we discuss the Coded Aperture Survey Telescope for Energetic Radiation (CASTER), a concept that represents a BHFP based on the use of the latest scintillator technology.Comment: 12 pages; conference paper presented at the SPIE conference "UV, X-Ray, and Gamma-Ray Space Instrumentation for Astronomy XIV." To be published in SPIE Conference Proceedings, vol. 589

Minute-of-Arc Resolution Gamma ray Imaging Experiment—MARGIE

MARGIE (Minute-of-Arc Resolution Gamma-ray Imaging Experiment) is a large area(∼104 cm2), wide field-of-view (∼1 sr), hard X-ray/gamma-ray (∼20–600 keV) coded-mask imaging telescope capable of performing a sensitive survey of both steady and transient cosmic sources. MARGIE has been selected for a NASA mission-concept study for an Ultra Long Duration (100 day) Balloon flight. We describe our program to develop the instrument based on new detector technology of either cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) semiconductors or pixellated cesium iodide (CsI) scintillators viewed by fast-timing bi-directional charge-coupled devices (CCDs). The primary scientific objectives are to image faint Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) in near-real-time at the low intensity (high-redshift) end of the logN-logS distribution, thereby extending the sensitivity of present observations, and to perform a wide field survey of the Galactic plane