764 research outputs found
Three-Dimensional Multispecies Distribution Functions In A Plasma Boundary With An Oblique Magnetic Field
Confocal Laser Induced Fluorescence with Comparable Spatial Localization to the Conventional Method
We present measurements of ion velocity distributions obtained by laser induced fluorescence (LIF) using a single viewport in an argon plasma. A patent pending design, which we refer to as the confocal fluorescence telescope, combines large objective lenses with a large central obscuration and a spatial filter to achieve high spatial localization along the laser injection direction. Models of the injection and collection optics of the two assemblies are used to provide a theoretical estimate of the spatial localization of the confocal arrangement, which is taken to be the full width at half maximum of the spatial optical response. The new design achieves approximately 1.4 mm localization at a focal length of 148.7 mm, improving on previously published designs by an order of magnitude and approaching the localization achieved by the conventional method. The confocal method, however, does so without requiring a pair of separated, perpendicular optical paths. The confocal technique therefore eases the two window access requirement of the conventional method, extending the application of LIF to experiments where conventional LIF measurements have been impossible or difficult, or where multiple viewports are scarce
The distances of short-hard GRBs and the SGR connection
We present a search for nearby (D<100 Mpc) galaxies in the error boxes of six
well-localized short-hard gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). None of the six error boxes
reveals the presence of a plausible nearby host galaxy. This allows us to set
lower limits on the distances and, hence, the isotropic-equivalent energy of
these GRBs. Our lower limits are around erg (at
confidence level); as a consequence, some of the short-hard GRBs we examine
would have been detected by BATSE out to distances greater than 1 Gpc and
therefore constitute a bona fide cosmological population. Our search is
partially motivated by the December 27, 2004 hypergiant flare from SGR 1806-20,
and the intriguing possibility that short-hard GRBs are extragalactic events of
a similar nature. Such events would be detectable with BATSE to a distance of
\~50 Mpc, and their detection rate should be comparable to the actual BATSE
detection rate of short-hard GRBs. The failure of our search, by contrast,
suggests that such flares constitute less than 15% of the short-hard GRBs (<40%
at 95% confidence). We discuss possible resolutions of this discrepancy.Comment: Enlarged sample of bursts; ApJ in pres
The development of tumour vascular networks
The growth of solid tumours relies on an ever-increasing supply of oxygen and nutrients that are delivered via vascular networks. Tumour vasculature includes endothelial cell lined angiogenesis and the less common cancer cell lined vasculogenic mimicry (VM). To study and compare the development of vascular networks formed during angiogenesis and VM (represented here by breast cancer and pancreatic cancer cell lines) a number of in vitro assays were utilised. From live cell imaging, we performed a large-scale automated extraction of network parameters and identified properties not previously reported. We show that for both angiogenesis and VM, the characteristic network path length reduces over time; however, only endothelial cells increase network clustering coefficients thus maintaining small-world network properties as they develop. When compared to angiogenesis, the VM network efficiency is improved by decreasing the number of edges and vertices, and also by increasing edge length. Furthermore, our results demonstrate that angiogenic and VM networks appear to display similar properties to road traffic networks and are also subject to the well-known Braess paradox. This quantitative measurement framework opens up new avenues to potentially evaluate the impact of anti-cancer drugs and anti-vascular therapies
An Unbiased Survey of 500 Nearby Stars for Debris Disks: A JCMT Legacy Program
We present the scientific motivation and observing plan for an upcoming
detection survey for debris disks using the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. The
SCUBA-2 Unbiased Nearby Stars (SUNS) Survey will observe 500 nearby main
sequence and sub-giant stars (100 of each of the A, F, G, K and M spectral
classes) to the 850 micron extragalactic confusion limit to search for evidence
of submillimeter excess, an indication of circumstellar material. The survey
distance boundaries are 8.6, 16.5, 22, 25 and 45 pc for M, K, G, F and A stars,
respectively, and all targets lie between the declinations of -40 deg to 80
deg. In this survey, no star will be rejected based on its inherent properties:
binarity, presence of planetary companions, spectral type or age. This will be
the first unbiased survey for debris disks since IRAS. We expect to detect ~125
debris disks, including ~50 cold disks not detectable in current shorter
wavelength surveys. A substantial amount of complementary data will be required
to constrain the temperatures and masses of discovered disks. High resolution
studies will likely be required to resolve many of the disks. Therefore, these
systems will be the focus of future observational studies using a variety of
observatories to characterize their physical properties. For non-detected
systems, this survey will set constraints (upper limits) on the amount of
circumstellar dust, of typically 200 times the Kuiper Belt mass, but as low as
10 times the Kuiper Belt mass for the nearest stars in the sample
(approximately 2 pc).Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures (3 color), accepted by the Publications of the
Astronomical Society of the Pacifi
The census of dense cores in the Serpens region from the Herschel Gould Belt Survey
Abstract The Herschel Gould Belt survey mapped the nearby (d &lt; 500 pc) star-forming regions to understand better how the prestellar phase influences the star formation process. Here we report a complete census of dense cores in a âŒ15 deg2 area of the Serpens star-forming region located between d ⌠420 pc and 484 pc. The PACS and SPIRE cameras imaged this cloud from 70 ÎŒm to 500 ÎŒm. With the multi-wavelength source extraction algorithm getsources , we extract 833 sources, of which 709 are starless cores and 124 are candidate proto-stellar cores. We obtain temperatures and masses for all the sample, classifying the starless cores in 604 prestellar cores and 105 unbound cores. Our census of sources is complete for M &gt; 0.8 Mâ overall. We produce the core mass function (CMF) and compare it with the initial mass function (IMF). The prestellar CMF is consistent with log-normal trend up to âŒ2 Mâ, after which it follows a power-law with slope of â2.05 ± 0.34. The tail of its CMF is steeper but still compatible with the IMF for the region we studied in this work. We also extract the filaments network of the Serpens region, finding that of prestellar cores lie on filamentary structures. The spatial association between cores and filamentary structure supports the paradigm, suggested by other Herschel observations, that prestellar cores mostly form on filaments. Serpens is confirmed to be a young, low-mass and active star-forming region
Medicaid Expenditures on Psychotropic Medications for Children in the Child Welfare System
Abstract Objective: Children in the child welfare system are the most expensive child population to insure for their mental health needs. The objective of this article is to estimate the amount of Medicaid expenditures incurred from the purchase of psychotropic drugs ? the primary drivers of mental health expenditures ? for these children. Methods: We linked a subsample of children interviewed in the first nationally representative survey of children coming into contact with U.S. child welfare agencies, the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW), to their Medicaid claims files obtained from the Medicaid Analytic Extract. Our data consist of children living in 14 states, and Medicaid claims for 4 years, adjusted to 2010 dollars. We compared expenditures on psychotropic medications in the NSCAW sample to a propensity score-matched comparison sample obtained from Medicaid files. Results: Children surveyed in NSCAW had over thrice the odds of any psychotropic drug use than the comparison sample. Each maltreated child increased Medicaid expenditures by between 840 per year, relative to comparison children also receiving medications. Increased expenditures on antidepressants and amphetamine-like stimulants were the primary drivers of these increased expenditures. On average, an African American child in NSCAW received 853 increased expenditure on psychotropic drugs. Conclusion: Each child with child welfare involvement is likely to incur upwards of $1482 in psychotropic medication expenditures throughout his or her enrollment in Medicaid. Medicaid agencies should focus their cost-containment strategies on antidepressants and amphetamine-type stimulants, and expand use of instruments such as the Child Behavior Checklist to identify high-cost children. Both of these strategies can assist Medicaid agencies to better predict and plan for these expenditures.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/98497/1/cap%2E2011%2E0135.pd
Comparison of prestellar core elongations and large-scale molecular cloud structures in the Lupus 1 region
Turbulence and magnetic fields are expected to be important for regulating molecular cloud formation and evolution. However, their effects on sub-parsec to 100 parsec scales, leading to the formation of starless cores, are not well understood. We investigate the prestellar core structure morphologies obtained from analysis of the Herschel-SPIRE 350 mum maps of the Lupus I cloud. This distribution is first compared on a statistical basis to the large-scale shape of the main filament. We find the distribution of the elongation position angle of the cores to be consistent with a random distribution, which means no specific orientation of the morphology of the cores is observed with respect to the mean orientation of the large-scale filament in Lupus I, nor relative to a large-scale bent filament model. This distribution is also compared to the mean orientation of the large-scale magnetic fields probed at 350 mum with the Balloon-borne Large Aperture Telescope for Polarimetry during its 2010 campaign. Here again we do not find any correlation between the core morphology distribution and the average orientation of the magnetic fields on parsec scales. Our main conclusion is that the local filament dynamics---including secondary filaments that often run orthogonally to the primary filament---and possibly small-scale variations in the local magnetic field direction, could be the dominant factors for explaining the final orientation of each core
The balloon-borne large-aperture submillimeter telescope for polarimetry: BLAST-Pol
The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope for Polarimetry
(BLAST-Pol) is a suborbital mapping experiment designed to study the role
played by magnetic fields in the star formation process. BLAST-Pol is the
reconstructed BLAST telescope, with the addition of linear polarization
capability. Using a 1.8 m Cassegrain telescope, BLAST-Pol images the sky onto a
focal plane that consists of 280 bolometric detectors in three arrays,
observing simultaneously at 250, 350, and 500 um. The diffraction-limited
optical system provides a resolution of 30'' at 250 um. The polarimeter
consists of photolithographic polarizing grids mounted in front of each
bolometer/detector array. A rotating 4 K achromatic half-wave plate provides
additional polarization modulation. With its unprecedented mapping speed and
resolution, BLAST-Pol will produce three-color polarization maps for a large
number of molecular clouds. The instrument provides a much needed bridge in
spatial coverage between larger-scale, coarse resolution surveys and narrow
field of view, and high resolution observations of substructure within
molecular cloud cores. The first science flight will be from McMurdo Station,
Antarctica in December 2010.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures Submitted to SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and
Instrumentation Conference 201
Predictions for ASKAP Neutral Hydrogen Surveys
The Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) will revolutionise
our knowledge of gas-rich galaxies in the Universe. Here we present predictions
for two proposed extragalactic ASKAP neutral hydrogen (HI) emission-line
surveys, based on semi-analytic models applied to cosmological N-body
simulations. The ASKAP HI All-Sky Survey, known as WALLABY, is a shallow 3 Pi
survey (z = 0 - 0.26) which will probe the mass and dynamics of over 600,000
galaxies. A much deeper small-area HI survey, called DINGO, aims to trace the
evolution of HI from z = 0 - 0.43, a cosmological volume of 40 million Mpc^3,
detecting potentially 100,000 galaxies. The high-sensitivity 30 antenna ASKAP
core (diameter ~2 km) will provide an angular resolution of 30 arcsec (at z=0).
Our simulations show that the majority of galaxies detected in WALLABY (87.5%)
will be resolved. About 5000 galaxies will be well resolved, i.e. more than
five beams (2.5 arcmin) across the major axis, enabling kinematic studies of
their gaseous disks. This number would rise to 160,000 galaxies if all 36 ASKAP
antennas could be used; the additional six antennas provide baselines up to 6
km, resulting in an angular resolution of 10 arcsec. For DINGO this increased
resolution is highly desirable to minimise source confusion; reducing confusion
rates from a maximum of 10% of sources at the survey edge to 3%. We estimate
that the sources detected by WALLABY and DINGO will span four orders of
magnitude in total halo mass (from 10^{11} to 10^{15} Msol) and nearly seven
orders of magnitude in stellar mass (from 10^{5} to 10^{12} Msol), allowing us
to investigate the process of galaxy formation across the last four billion
years.Comment: 21 pages, accepted for publication in MNRAS, minor updates to
published version and fixed links. Movies and images available at
http://ict.icrar.org/store/Movies/Duffy12c
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