A coronal wave and an asymmetric eruptive filament in SUMER, CDS, EIT, and TRACE co-observations

The objectives of the present study is to provide a better physical understanding of the complex inter-relation and evolution of several solar coronal features comprising a double-peak flare, a coronal dimming caused by a CME, a CME-driven compression, and a fast-mode wave. For the first time, the evolution of an asymmetric eruptive filament is analysed in simultaneous SUMER spectroscopic and TRACE and EIT imaging data. We use imaging observations from EIT and TRACE in the 195A channel and spectroscopic observations from the CDS in a rastering and SUMER in a sit-and-stare observing mode. The SUMER spectra cover spectral lines with formation temperatures from logT(K) ~ 4.0 to 6.1. Although the event was already analysed in two previous studies, our analysis brings a wealth of new information on the dynamics and physical properties of the observed phenomena. We found that the dynamic event is related to a complex flare with two distinct impulsive peaks, one according to the GOES classification as C1.1 and the second - C1.9. The first energy release triggers a fast-mode wave and a CME with a clear CME driven compression ahead of it. This activity is related to, or possibly caused, by an asymmetric filament eruption. The filament is observed to rise with its leading edge moving at a speed of ~300 km/s detected both in the SUMER and CDS data. The rest of the filament body moves at only ~150 km/s while untwisting. No signature is found of the fast-mode wave in the SUMER data, suggesting that the plasma disturbed by the wave had temperatures above 600 000 K. The erupting filament material is found to emit only in spectral lines at transition region temperatures. Earlier identification of a coronal response detected in the Mg X 609.79 A line is found to be caused by a blend from the O IV 609.83 A line.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, A&A, in pres

Tides in the Mandovi and Zuari estuaries, Goa, west coast of India

Mandovi and Zuari are two estuaries located in Goa, west coast of India. Variation of water level in the estuaries was monitored for a month at 13 locations using tide-poles during March-April 2003. Analysis of this data has provided for the first time, characteristics of how tidal constituents vary in the narrow and shallow estuaries, typical of those found along the west coast of India. At a distance of 45 km from the mouth the tidal range increased in both estuaries by approximately 20%. The tidal range at the upstream end of the two channels at the stations dropped sharply because of the increase in elevation of the channels

Medical Data Architecture Prototype Development - Summary of Recent Work and Proposed Ideas for Upcoming Work

The Medical Data Architecture (MDA) project supports the Exploration Medical Capability (ExMC) risk to minimize or reduce the risk of adverse health outcomes and decrements in performance due to in-flight medical capabilities on human exploration missions. To mitigate this risk, the ExMC MDA project addresses the technical limitations identified in ExMC Gap Med 07: We do not have the capability to comprehensively process medically-relevant information to support medical operations during exploration missions, and in ExMC Gap Med 10: We do not have the capability to provide computed medical decision support during exploration missions. These gaps recognize the need for a comprehensive medical data management system and the accompanying computational support to provide autonomous medical care during long duration exploration missions. As the MDA maturesincluding the capability to comprehensively process and discover medically-relevant information to support medical operations during exploration missionsproject focus will shift to maturing and extending the MDA platform to enable clinical decision support and real-time guidance. To date, the MDA foundational architecture has recommended exploration medical system Level of Care IV requirements through a series of test bed prototype developments and analog demonstrations. The next stage in the development will focus on more autonomous clinical decision making necessary to address challenges in executing a self-contained medical system that enables health care both with and without assistance from ground support. A thorough understanding of current state of medical decision support systems, advanced machine learning algorithms and vast and varied data sources is required. The development of a clinical decision support for exploration missions (Level of Care V) roadmap is needed: one that assesses of current state of the art of clinical decision support systems (CDSS), interoperability issues, identification of challenges in health and performance monitoring, obtaining and processing information from biosensors, knowledge and data management, data integration and fusion, and advanced algorithm development. This roadmap must also include rapid prototype development in the areas of data processing, advanced analysis and prediction of medical events, and treatment based on medically relevant information processing and evidence-based best practices. In this presentation, an overview of the relevant issues and the beginning framework of a Level of Care V CDSS development roadmap will be provided

Impact of sea breeze on wind-seas off Goa, West coast of India

After withdrawal of the Indian Summer Monsoon and until onset of the next monsoon, i.e., roughly during November-May, winds in the coastal regions of India are dominated by sea breeze. It has an impact on the daily cycle of the sea state near the coast. The impact is quite significant when large scale winds are weak. During one such event, 1-15 April 1997, a Datawell directional waverider buoy was deployed in 23 m water depth off Goa, west coast of India. Twenty-minute averaged spectra, collected once every three hours, show that the spectrum of sea-breeze-related 'wind-seas' peaked at 0.23 ±0.05 Hz. These wind-seas were well separated from swells of frequencies less than 0.15 Hz. The TMA spectrum (Bouwset al 1985) matched the observed seas spectra very well when the sea-breeze was active and the fetch corresponding to equilibrium spectrum was found to be 77±43 km during such occasions. We emphasize on the diurnal cycle of sea-breeze-related sea off the coast of Goa and write an equation for the energy of the seas as a function of the local wind

Barium & related stars and their white-dwarf companions I. Giant stars

This paper provides long-period and revised orbits for barium and S stars adding to previously published ones. The sample of barium stars with strong anomalies comprise all such stars present in the Lu et al. catalogue. We find orbital motion for all barium and extrinsic S stars monitored. We obtain the longest period known so far for a spectroscopic binary involving an S star, namely 57 Peg with a period of the order of 100 - 500 yr. We present the mass distribution for the barium stars, which ranges from 1 to 3 Msun, with a tail extending up to 5 Msun in the case of mild barium stars. This high-mass tail comprises mostly high-metallicity objects ([Fe/H] >= -0.1). Mass functions are compatible with WD companions and we derive their mass distribution which ranges from 0.5 to 1 Msun. Using the initial - final mass relationship established for field WDs, we derived the distribution of the mass ratio q' = MAGB,ini / MBa (where MAGB, ini is the WD progenitor initial mass, i.e., the mass of the system former primary component) which is a proxy for the initial mass ratio. It appears that the distribution of q' is highly non uniform, and significantly different for mild and strong barium stars, the latter being characterized by values mostly in excess of 1.4, whereas mild barium stars occupy the range 1 - 1.4. We investigate as well the correlation between abundances, orbital periods, metallicities, and masses (barium star and WD companion). The 105 orbits of post-mass-transfer systems presented in this paper pave the way for a comparison with binary-evolution models.Comment: This version 2 is the one accepted by A&A, after language edition. Paper II about dwarf-Ba and subgiant-CH orbits by Escorza et al. is arXiv:1904.0409

On the accuracy of the simple ocean data assimilation analysis for estimating heat budgets of the near-surface Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal

The accuracy of data from the Simple Ocean Data Assimilation (SODA) model for estimating the heat budget of the upper ocean is tested in the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. SODA is able to reproduce the changes in heat content when they are forced more by the winds, as in wind-forced mixing, upwelling, and advection, but not when they are forced exclusively by surface heat fluxes, as in the warming before the summer monsoon

A quantitative framework for estimating water resources in India

While issues related to water attract considerable attention in all spheres of life in India, very little quantitative information is available on the water budget of the country. There are primarily two reasons for this lacuna: first, the dearth of information on the variables associated with hydrology, and second, the absence of an easily accessible quantitative framework to put these variables in perspective. In this article, we discuss a framework that has been assembled to address both these issues. At the core of the framework is a hydrological routing model (HYDRA) that has been used to study the water balance of basins on various scales, ranging from a few square kilometres to continents. The basic data needed for implementing the framework are a suitable digital elevation model (DEM) and data on precipitation and evapotranspiration. Available discharge data can be used to validate the performance of the model. We demonstrate the viability of the framework by applying it to the hydrology of the Mandovi river on the western slopes of the Sahyadris; it is typical of the rivers along the Indian west coast. Most of the catchment area of the river is in Goa, but parts of the river also flow through Karnataka and Maharashtra. We use a 30" -resolution (∼ 1 km) DEM (GLOBE) and HYDRA to show that the model output mimics the observed discharge well, providing indirect validation for the surface run-off and sub-surface drainage values on which no data are available

Medical Data Architecture Platform and Recommended Requirements for a Medical Data System for Exploration Missions

The Medical Data Architecture (MDA) project supports the Exploration Medical Capability (ExMC) risk to minimize or reduce the risk of adverse health outcomes and decrements in performance due to in-flight medical capabilities on human exploration missions. To mitigate this risk, the ExMC MDA project addresses the technical limitations identified in ExMC Gap Med 07: We do not have the capability to comprehensively process medically- relevant information to support medical operations during exploration missions. This gap identifies that the current in-flight medical data management includes a combination of data collection and distribution methods that are minimally integrated with on-board medical devices and systems. Furthermore, there are a variety of data sources and methods of data collection. For an exploration mission, the seamless management of such data will enable a more medically autonomous crew than the current paradigm of medical data management on the International Space Station. ExMC has recognized that in order to make informed decisions about a medical data architecture framework, current methods for medical data management must not only be understood, but an architecture must also be identified that provides the crew with actionable insight to medical conditions. This medical data architecture will provide the necessary functionality to address the challenges of executing a self-contained medical system that approaches crew health care delivery without assistance from ground support. Hence, the products derived from the third MDA prototype development will directly inform exploration medical system requirements for Level of Care IV in Gateway missions. In fiscal year 2019, the MDA project developed Test Bed 3, the third iteration in a series of prototypes, that featured integrations with cognition tool data, ultrasound image analytics and core Flight Software (cFS). Maintaining a layered architecture design, the framework implemented a plug-in, modular approach in the integration of these external data sources. An early version of MDA Test Bed 3 software was deployed and operated in a simulated analog environment that was part of the Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) Gateway tests of multiple habitat prototypes. In addition, the MDA team participated in the Gateway Test and Verification Demonstration, where the MDA cFS applications was integrated with Gateway-in-a-Box software to send and receive medically relevant data over a simulated vehicle network. This software demonstration was given to ExMC and Gateway Program stakeholders at the NASA Johnson Space Center Integrated Power, Avionics and Software (iPAS) facility. Also, the integrated prototypes served as a vehicle to provide Level 5 requirements for the Crew Health and Performance Habitat Data System for Gateway Missions (Medical Level of Care IV). In the upcoming fiscal year, the MDA project will continue to provide systems engineering and vertical prototypes to refine requirements for medical Level of Care IV and inform requirements for Level of Care V

Hertzsprung-Russell diagram and mass distribution of barium stars

With the availability of parallaxes provided by the Tycho-Gaia Astrometric Solution, it is possible to construct the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram (HRD) of barium and related stars with unprecedented accuracy. A direct result from the derived HRD is that subgiant CH stars occupy the same region as barium dwarfs, contrary to what their designations imply. By comparing the position of barium stars in the HRD with STAREVOL evolutionary tracks, it is possible to evaluate their masses, provided the metallicity is known. We used an average metallicity [Fe/H] = -0.25 and derived the mass distribution of barium giants. The distribution peaks around 2.5 Msun with a tail at higher masses up to 4.5 Msun. This peak is also seen in the mass distribution of a sample of normal K and M giants used for comparison and is associated with stars located in the red clump. When we compare these mass distributions, we see a deficit of low-mass (1 - 2 Msun) barium giants. This is probably because low-mass stars reach large radii at the tip of the red giant branch, which may have resulted in an early binary interaction. Among barium giants, the high-mass tail is however dominated by stars with barium indices of less than unity, based on a visual inspection of the barium spectral line; that is, these stars have a very moderate barium line strength. We believe that these stars are not genuine barium giants, but rather bright giants, or supergiants, where the barium lines are strengthened because of a positive luminosity effect. Moreover, contrary to previous claims, we do not see differences between the mass distributions of mild and strong barium giants.Comment: 14 pages, 17 figure

STUDY OF SYNERGISTIC EFFECTS ON ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVITY AND ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITY OF POLYHERBAL FORMULATIONS CONTAINING FICUS SPECIES

Objective: The present study aims at screening the synergistic effect on the therapeutic efficiency of traditional herbal medicine Nalpamaradi Choorna and Nalpamaradi Keram, containing four Ficus species. The efficiency of formulations prepared by mixing crude drug is tested concerning their Antioxidant and Antibacterial activities. It will also provide and validate the use of these drugs in the current trend of targeted Combination Therapy for various neurodegenerative diseases.Methods: The in-vitro studies of the methanol extracts of the barks of the four individual plants, their different combinations, and the choorna were conducted by DPPH method, and the obtained EC50 values were compared to evaluate the synergistic effect. The antibacterial activity of Nalpamaradi Keram and the four Ficus plants was tested against two microorganisms Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) using agar well method.Results: The formulation prepared by mixing equal proportions of the four plants exhibited maximum %AA value of 93.36 % and EC50 value 8.00 µg/ml while the marketed drug showed maximum % AA of 87.30 % and an EC50 value of 29.0µg/ml. The combination of Ficus bengalensis (F. ben), Ficus racemosa (F. rac) and Ficus religiosa (F. rel) demonstrated the maximum % AA of 92.35 % and a very low EC50 value of 6.00µg/ml. All the samples except Ficus microcarpa (F. mic) exhibited antibacterial property against both the bacteria. Nalpamaradi Keram has shown the zone of inhibition of 20.0 mm against S. aureus and 18.0 mm against E. coli. Conclusion: The present investigation justifies the traditional use of these medicinal plants as antibacterial and antioxidant agents and validates their synergistic effect with improved activity in the formulations. Therefore, it is judicious to mix all the four Ficus species in the formulation of Nalpamaradi choorna and Nalpamaradi keram.Keywords: Antioxidant and synergistic activity, Antimicrobial activity, Ficus species, Polyherbal formulations, Radio protectivit