176 research outputs found
ENHANCING THE FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE OF SMALL MEAT PROCESSORS
The small firms examined produce meats in the State of Texas and emphasize such products as sausage, jerky, brisket, and fresh meats. The authors test hypotheses with the intent to identify operational factors associated with firm financial success. A quartile model and an econometric model are both used for this purpose. Results generally suggest important factors for firms to be profitable include product selection, pricing strategies, special equipment, and location.Agribusiness, Agricultural Finance,
A Physical Limit to the Magnetic Fields of T Tauri Stars
Recent estimates of magnetic field strengths in T Tauri stars yield values
--. In this paper, I present an upper limit to the
photospheric values of by computing the equipartition values for different
surface gravities and effective temperatures. The values of derived from
the observations exceed this limit, and I examine the possible causes for this
discrepancy
A Combined Spitzer and Chandra Survey of Young Stellar Objects in the Serpens Cloud Core
We present Spitzer and Chandra observations of the nearby (~260 pc) embedded
stellar cluster in the Serpens Cloud Core. We observed, using Spitzer's IRAC
and MIPS instruments, in six wavelength bands from 3 to 70 , to detect
thermal emission from circumstellar disks and protostellar envelopes, and to
classify stars using color-color diagrams and spectral energy distributions
(SEDs). These data are combined with Chandra observations to examine the
effects of circumstellar disks on stellar X-ray properties. Young diskless
stars were also identified from their increased X-ray emission. We have
identified 138 YSOs in Serpens: 22 class 0/I, 16 flat spectrum, 62 class II, 17
transition disk, and 21 class III stars; 60 of which exhibit X-ray emission.
Our primary results are the following: 1.) ten protostars detected previously
in the sub-millimeter are detected at lambda < 24 microns, seven at lambda < 8
microns, 2.) the protostars are more closely grouped than more evolved YSOs
(median separation : ~0.024 pc, and 3.) the luminosity and temperature of the
X-ray emitting plasma around these YSOs does not show any significant
dependence on evolutionary class. We combine the infrared derived values of AK
and X-ray values of NH for 8 class III objects and find that the column density
of hydrogen gas per mag of extinctions is less than half the standard
interstellar value, for AK > 1. This may be the result of grain growth through
coagulation and/or the accretion of volatiles in the Serpens cloud core.Comment: 69 pages, 16 figures, accepted to ApJ. Higher Resolution Figures at:
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~ewinston
BIANCA (Brain Intensity AbNormality Classification Algorithm): a new tool for automated segmentation of white matter hyperintensities
Reliable quantification of white matter hyperintensities of presumed vascular origin (WMHs) is increasingly needed, given the presence of these MRI findings in patients with several neurological and vascular disorders, as well as in elderly healthy subjects. We present BIANCA (Brain Intensity AbNormality Classification Algorithm), a fully automated, supervised method for WMH detection, based on the k-nearest neighbour (k-NN) algorithm. Relative to previous k-NN based segmentation methods, BIANCA offers different options for weighting the spatial information, local spatial intensity averaging, and different options for the choice of the number and location of the training points. BIANCA is multimodal and highly flexible so that the user can adapt the tool to their protocol and specific needs. We optimised and validated BIANCA on two datasets with different MRI protocols and patient populations (a âpredominantly neurodegenerativeâ and a âpredominantly vascularâ cohort). BIANCA was first optimised on a subset of images for each dataset in terms of overlap and volumetric agreement with a manually segmented WMH mask. The correlation between the volumes extracted with BIANCA (using the optimised set of options), the volumes extracted from the manual masks and visual ratings showed that BIANCA is a valid alternative to manual segmentation. The optimised set of options was then applied to the whole cohorts and the resulting WMH volume estimates showed good correlations with visual ratings and with age. Finally, we performed a reproducibility test, to evaluate the robustness of BIANCA, and compared BIANCA performance against existing methods. Our findings suggest that BIANCA, which will be freely available as part of the FSL package, is a reliable method for automated WMH segmentation in large cross-sectional cohort studies. © 2016 The Author
Convective Dynamos and the Minimum X-ray Flux in Main Sequence Stars
The objective of this paper is to investigate whether a convective dynamo can
account quantitatively for the observed lower limit of X-ray surface flux in
solar-type main sequence stars. Our approach is to use 3D numerical simulations
of a turbulent dynamo driven by convection to characterize the dynamic
behavior, magnetic field strengths, and filling factors in a non-rotating
stratified medium, and to predict these magnetic properties at the surface of
cool stars. We use simple applications of stellar structure theory for the
convective envelopes of main-sequence stars to scale our simulations to the
outer layers of stars in the F0--M0 spectral range, which allows us to estimate
the unsigned magnetic flux on the surface of non-rotating reference stars. With
these estimates we use the recent results of \citet{Pevtsov03} to predict the
level of X-ray emission from such a turbulent dynamo, and find that our results
compare well with observed lower limits of surface X-ray flux. If we scale our
predicted X-ray fluxes to \ion{Mg}{2} fluxes we also find good agreement with
the observed lower limit of chromospheric emission in K dwarfs. This suggests
that dynamo action from a convecting, non-rotating plasma is a viable
alternative to acoustic heating models as an explanation for the basal emission
level seen in chromospheric, transition region, and coronal diagnostics from
late-type stars.Comment: ApJ, accepted, 30 pages with 7 figure
Stenting for symptomatic vertebral artery stenosis: The Vertebral Artery Ischaemia Stenting Trial
To compare in the Vertebral Artery Ischaemia Stenting Trial (VIST) the risks and benefits of vertebral angioplasty and stenting with best medical treatment (BMT) alone for symptomatic vertebral artery stenosis.
VIST was a prospective, randomized, open-blinded endpoint clinical trial performed in 14 hospitals in the United Kingdom. Participants with symptomatic vertebral stenosis â„50% were randomly assigned (1:1) to vertebral angioplasty/stenting plus BMT or to BMT alone with randomization stratified by site of stenosis (extracranial vs intracranial). Because of slow recruitment and cessation of funding, recruitment was stopped after 182 participants. Follow-up was a minimum of â„1 year for each participant.
Three patients did not contribute any follow-up data and were excluded, leaving 91 patients in the stent group and 88 in the medical group. Mean follow-up was 3.5 (interquartile range 2.1-4.7) years. Of 61 patients who were stented, stenosis was extracranial in 48 (78.7%) and intracranial in 13 (21.3%). No periprocedural complications occurred with extracranial stenting; 2 strokes occurred during intracranial stenting. The primary endpoint of fatal or nonfatal stroke occurred in 5 patients in the stent group vs 12 in the medical group (hazard ratio 0.40, 95% confidence interval 0.14-1.13, p = 0.08), with an absolute risk reduction of 25 strokes per 1,000 person-years. The hazard ratio for stroke or TIA was 0.50 (p = 0.05).
Stenting in extracranial stenosis appears safe with low complication rates. Large phase 3 trials are required to determine whether stenting reduces stroke risk.
: ISRCTN95212240.
This study provides Class I evidence that for patients with symptomatic vertebral stenosis, angioplasty with stenting does not reduce the risk of stroke. However, the study lacked the precision to exclude a benefit from stenting.The run in phase with recruitment of the first 100 patients was supported by a grant from the Stroke Association. Recruitment after patient 100 was supported by a grant from the NIHR Health Technology Assessment. Recruitment was supported by the NIHR Clinical Research Network. Hugh S Markus is supported by an NIHR Senior Investigator award and his work is supported by the Cambridge University Hospitals Trust NIHR Comprehensive Biomedical Research Centre. Peter M Rothwell is supported by Wellcome Trust and NIHR Senior Investigator awards and his work is supported by the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, Oxford
Seismology of the Sun : Inference of Thermal, Dynamic and Magnetic Field Structures of the Interior
Recent overwhelming evidences show that the sun strongly influences the
Earth's climate and environment. Moreover existence of life on this Earth
mainly depends upon the sun's energy. Hence, understanding of physics of the
sun, especially the thermal, dynamic and magnetic field structures of its
interior, is very important. Recently, from the ground and space based
observations, it is discovered that sun oscillates near 5 min periodicity in
millions of modes. This discovery heralded a new era in solar physics and a
separate branch called helioseismology or seismology of the sun has started.
Before the advent of helioseismology, sun's thermal structure of the interior
was understood from the evolutionary solution of stellar structure equations
that mimicked the present age, mass and radius of the sun. Whereas solution of
MHD equations yielded internal dynamics and magnetic field structure of the
sun's interior. In this presentation, I review the thermal, dynamic and
magnetic field structures of the sun's interior as inferred by the
helioseismology.Comment: To be published in the proceedings of the meeting "3rd International
Conference on Current Developments in Atomic, Molecular, Optical and Nano
Physics with Applications", December 14-16, 2011, New Delhi, Indi
The Origin of T Tauri X-ray Emission: New Insights from the Chandra Orion Ultradeep Project
We use the data of the Chandra Orion Ultradeep Project (COUP) to study the
nearly 600 X-ray sources that can be reliably identified with optically well
characterized T Tauri stars (TTS) in the Orion Nebula Cluster. We detect X-ray
emission from more than 97% of the optically visible late-type (spectral types
F to M) cluster stars. This proofs that there is no ``X-ray quiet'' population
of late-type stars with suppressed magnetic activity. All TTS with known
rotation periods lie in the saturated or super-saturated regime of the relation
between activity and Rossby numbers seen for main-sequence (MS) stars, but the
TTS show a much larger scatter in X-ray activity than seen for the MS stars.
Strong near-linear relations between X-ray luminosities, bolometric
luminosities and mass are present. We also find that the fractional X-ray
luminosity rises slowly with mass over the 0.1 - 2 M_sun range. The plasma
temperatures determined from the X-ray spectra of the TTS are much hotter than
in MS stars, but seem to follow a general solar-stellar correlation between
plasma temperature and activity level. The large scatter about the relations
between X-ray activity and stellar parameters seems to be related to the
influence of accretion on the X-ray emission. While the X-ray activity of the
non-accreting TTS is consistent with that of rapidly rotating MS stars, the
accreting stars are less X-ray active (by a factor of ~2-3 on average) and
produce much less well defined correlations than the non-accretors. We discuss
possible reasons for the suppression of X-ray emission by accretion and the
implications of our findings on long-standing questions related to the origin
of the X-ray emission from young stars.Comment: accepted for ApJS, COUP Special Issu
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