Astrid-2, an advanced microsatellite for auroral research

International audienceThe successful launch of the Swedish microsatellite Astrid-2 in December 1998 began a new era of auroral research, with advanced microprobes of 30 kg or less used as research tools. Innovative technologies and low-mass solutions were used for the sensors and deployment systems to allow a fairly complete set of scientific instruments within the 10 kg allocated for the scientific payload. A newly developed wire boom deployment system proved to function excellently. During its seven month lifetime Astrid-2 collected more than 26 Gbytes of high-quality data of auroral electric and magnetic fields, and auroral particle and plasma characteristics from approximately 3000 orbits at an inclination of 83° and an altitude of about 1000 km. Scientific results cover a broad range of topics, from the physics of energization of auroral particles to how the magnetosphere responds to the energy input from the solar wind and global magnetic field modelling. The fulfilment of both the technological and the scientific mission objectives has opened entirely new possibilities to carry out low-budget multipoint measurements in near-Earth space

Antibody acquisition models: a new tool for serological surveillance of malaria transmission intensity

Serology has become an increasingly important tool for the surveillance of a wide range of infectious diseases. It has been particularly useful to monitor malaria transmission in elimination settings where existing metrics such as parasite prevalence and incidence of clinical cases are less sensitive. Seroconversion rates, based on antibody prevalence to Plasmodium falciparum asexual blood-stage antigens, provide estimates of transmission intensity that correlate with entomological inoculation rates but lack precision in settings where seroprevalence is still high. Here we present a new and widely applicable method, based on cross-sectional data on individual antibody levels. We evaluate its use as a sero-surveillance tool in a Tanzanian setting with declining malaria prevalence. We find that the newly developed mathematical models produce more precise estimates of transmission patterns, are robust in high transmission settings and when sample sizes are small, and provide a powerful tool for serological evaluation of malaria transmission intensity

Poloidal ULF oscillations in the dayside magnetosphere: a Cluster study

Three ULF wave events, all occurring in the dayside magnetopshere during magnetically quiet times, are studied using the Cluster satellites. The multi-point measurements obtained from Cluster are used to determine the azimuthal wave number for the events by means of the phase shift and the azimuthal separation between the satellites. Also, the polarisation of the electric and magnetic fields is examined in a field-aligned coordinate system, which, in turn, gives the mode of the oscillations. The large-inclination orbits of Cluster allow us to examine the phase relationship between the electric and magnetic fields along the field lines. The events studied have large azimuthal wave numbers (<i>m</i>~100), two of them have eastward propagation and all are in the poloidal mode, consistent with the large wave numbers. We also use particle data from geosynchronous satellites to look for signatures of proton injections, but none of the events show any sign of enhanced proton flux. Thus, the drift-bounce resonance instability seems unlikely to have played any part in the excitation of these pulsations. As for the drift-mirror instability we conclude that it would require an unreasonably high plasma pressure for the instability criterion to be satisfied.<br><br><b>Keywords.</b> Ionosphere (Wave propagation) – Magnetospheric physics (Plasma waves and instabilities; Instruments and techniques

Statistics of a parallel Poynting vector in the auroral zone as a function of altitude using Polar EFI and MFE data and Astrid-2 EMMA data

We study the wave-related (AC) and static (DC) parallel Poynting vector (Poynting energy flux) as a function of altitude in auroral field lines using Polar EFI and MFE data. The study is statistical and contains 5 years of data in the altitude range 5000–30000 km. We verify the low altitude part of the results by comparison with earlier Astrid-2 EMMA Poynting vector statistics at 1000 km altitude. The EMMA data are also used to statistically compensate the Polar results for the missing zonal electric field component. We compare the Poynting vector with previous statistical DMSP satellite data concerning the electron precipitation power. We find that the AC Poynting vector (Alfvén-wave related Poynting vector) is statistically not sufficient to power auroral electron precipitation, although it may, for <i>K<sub>p</sub></i>>2, power 25–50% of it. The statistical AC Poynting vector also has a stepwise transition at <i>R</i>=4 <i>R<sub>E</sub></i>, so that its amplitude increases with increasing altitude. We suggest that this corresponds to Alfvén waves being in Landau resonance with electrons, so that wave-induced electron acceleration takes place at this altitude range, which was earlier named the Alfvén Resonosphere (ARS). The DC Poynting vector is ~3 times larger than electron precipitation and corresponds mainly to ionospheric Joule heating. In the morning sector (02:00–06:00 MLT) we find that the DC Poynting vector has a nontrivial altitude profile such that it decreases by a factor of ~2 when moving upward from 3 to 4 <i>R<sub>E</sub></i> radial distance. In other nightside MLT sectors the altitude profile is more uniform. The morning sector nontrivial altitude profile may be due to divergence of the perpendicular Poynting vector field at <i>R</i>=3–4 <i>R<sub>E</sub></i>. <p><b>Keywords.</b> Magnetospheric physics (Auroral phenomena; Magnetosphere-ionosphere interactions) – Space plasma physics (Wave-particle interactions

Sign-reversal of the in-plane resistivity anisotropy in hole-doped iron pnictides

The in-plane anisotropy of the electrical resistivity across the coupled orthorhombic and magnetic transitions of the iron pnictides has been extensively studied in the parent and electron-doped compounds. All these studies universally show that the resistivity $\rho_{a}$ across the long orthorhombic axis $a_{O}$ - along which the spins couple antiferromagnetically below the magnetic transition temperature - is smaller than the resistivity $\rho_{b}$ of the short orthorhombic axis $b_{O}$, i. e. $\rho_{a}<\rho_{b}$. Here we report that in the hole-doped compounds Ba$_{1-x}$K$_{x}$Fe$_{2}$As$_{2}$, as the doping level increases, the resistivity anisotropy initially becomes vanishingly small, and eventually changes sign for sufficiently large doping, i. e. $\rho_{b}<\rho_{a}$. This observation is in agreement with a recent theoretical prediction that considers the anisotropic scattering of electrons by spin-fluctuations in the orthorhombic/nematic state.Comment: This paper has been replaced by the new version offering new explanation of the experimental results first reported her

Caring for the patient, caring for the record: an ethnographic study of 'back office' work in upholding quality of care in general practice

© 2015 Swinglehurst and Greenhalgh; licensee BioMed Central. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.Additional file 1: Box 1. Field notes on summarising (Clover Surgery). Box 2. Extract of document prepared for GPs by summarisers at Clover Surgery. Box 3. Fieldnotes on coding incoming post, Clover (original notes edited for brevity).This work was funded by a research grant from the UK Medical Research Council (Healthcare Electronic Records in Organisations 07/133) and a National Institute of Health Research doctoral fellowship award for DS (RDA/03/07/076). The funders were not involved in the selection or analysis of data nor did they make any contribution to the content of the final manuscript

Anisotropic Impurity-States, Quasiparticle Scattering and Nematic Transport in Underdoped Ca(Fe1-xCox)2As2

Iron-based high temperature superconductivity develops when the `parent' antiferromagnetic/orthorhombic phase is suppressed, typically by introduction of dopant atoms. But their impact on atomic-scale electronic structure, while in theory quite complex, is unknown experimentally. What is known is that a strong transport anisotropy with its resistivity maximum along the crystal b-axis, develops with increasing concentration of dopant atoms; this `nematicity' vanishes when the `parent' phase disappears near the maximum superconducting Tc. The interplay between the electronic structure surrounding each dopant atom, quasiparticle scattering therefrom, and the transport nematicity has therefore become a pivotal focus of research into these materials. Here, by directly visualizing the atomic-scale electronic structure, we show that substituting Co for Fe atoms in underdoped Ca(Fe1-xCox)2As2 generates a dense population of identical anisotropic impurity states. Each is ~8 Fe-Fe unit cells in length, and all are distributed randomly but aligned with the antiferromagnetic a-axis. By imaging their surrounding interference patterns, we further demonstrate that these impurity states scatter quasiparticles in a highly anisotropic manner, with the maximum scattering rate concentrated along the b-axis. These data provide direct support for the recent proposals that it is primarily anisotropic scattering by dopant-induced impurity states that generates the transport nematicity; they also yield simple explanations for the enhancement of the nematicity proportional to the dopant density and for the occurrence of the highest resistivity along the b-axis

Genetic Resistance to Malaria Is Associated With Greater Enhancement of Immunoglobulin (Ig)M Than IgG Responses to a Broad Array of Plasmodium falciparum Antigens

Background. People of the Fulani ethnic group are more resistant to malaria compared with genetically distinct ethnic groups, such as the Dogon people, in West Africa, and studies suggest that this resistance is mediated by enhanced antibody responses to Plasmodium falciparum antigens. However, prior studies measured antibody responses to <0.1% of P falciparum proteins, so whether the Fulani mount an enhanced and broadly reactive immunoglobulin (Ig)M and IgG response to P falciparum remains unknown. In general, little is known about the extent to which host genetics influence the overall antigen specificity of IgM and IgG responses to natural infections. Methods. In a cross-sectional study in Mali, we collected plasma from asymptomatic, age-matched Fulani (n = 24) and Dogon (n = 22) adults with or without concurrent P falciparum infection. We probed plasma against a protein microarray containing 1087 P falciparum antigens and compared IgM and IgG profiles by ethnicity. Results. We found that the breadth and magnitude of P falciparum-specific IgM and IgG responses were significantly higher in the malaria-resistant Fulani versus the malaria-susceptible Dogon, and, unexpectedly, P falciparum-specific IgM responses more strongly distinguished the 2 ethnic groups. Conclusions. These findings point to an underappreciated role for IgM in protection from malaria, and they suggest that host genetics may influence the antigen specificity of IgM and IgG responses to infection