Molecular astronomy of cool stars and sub-stellar objects

The optical and infrared spectra of a wide variety of `cool' astronomical objects including the Sun, sunspots, K-, M- and S-type stars, carbon stars, brown dwarfs and extrasolar planets are reviewed. The review provides the necessary astronomical background for chemical physicists to understand and appreciate the unique molecular environments found in astronomy. The calculation of molecular opacities needed to simulate the observed spectral energy distributions is discussed

Comparison of Post-injection Site Pain Between Technetium Sulfur Colloid and Technetium Tilmanocept in Breast Cancer Patients Undergoing Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy.

BackgroundNo prior studies have examined injection pain associated with Technetium-99m Tilmanocept (TcTM).MethodsThis was a randomized, double-blinded study comparing postinjection site pain between filtered Technetium Sulfur Colloid (fTcSC) and TcTM in breast cancer lymphoscintigraphy. Pain was evaluated with a visual analogue scale (VAS) (0-100 mm) and the short-form McGill Pain Questionnaire (SF-MPQ). The primary endpoint was mean difference in VAS scores at 1-min postinjection between fTcSC and TcTM. Secondary endpoints included a comparison of SF-MPQ scores between the groups at 5 min postinjection and construction of a linear mixed effects model to evaluate the changes in pain during the 5-min postinjection period.ResultsFifty-two patients underwent injection (27-fTcSC, 25-TcTM). At 1-min postinjection, patients who received fTcSC experienced a mean change in pain of 16.8 mm (standard deviation (SD) 19.5) compared with 0.2 mm (SD 7.3) in TcTM (p = 0.0002). At 5 min postinjection, the mean total score on the SF-MPQ was 2.8 (SD 3.0) for fTcSC versus 2.1 (SD 2.5) for TcTM (p = 0.36). In the mixed effects model, injection agent (p < 0.001), time (p < 0.001) and their interaction (p < 0.001) were associated with change in pain during the 5-min postinjection period. The model found fTcSC resulted in significantly more pain of 15.2 mm (p < 0.001), 11.3 mm (p = 0.001), and 7.5 mm (p = 0.013) at 1, 2, and 3 min postinjection, respectively.ConclusionsInjection with fTcSC causes significantly more pain during the first 3 min postinjection compared with TcTM in women undergoing lymphoscintigraphy for breast cancer

An atlas of CO2 storage potential in the nearshore waters of the Texas coast – American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – “Gulf of Mexico Miocene CO2 site characterization mega-transect”

Bureau of Economic Geolog

The space shuttle launch vehicle aerodynamic verification challenges

The Space Shuttle aerodynamics and performance communities were challenged to verify the Space Shuttle vehicle (SSV) aerodynamics and system performance by flight measurements. Historically, launch vehicle flight test programs which faced these same challenges were unmanned instrumented flights of simple aerodynamically shaped vehicles. However, the manned SSV flight test program made these challenges more complex because of the unique aerodynamic configuration powered by the first man-rated solid rocket boosters (SRB). The analyses of flight data did not verify the aerodynamics or performance preflight predictions of the first flight of the Space Transportation System (STS-1). However, these analyses have defined the SSV aerodynamics and verified system performance. The aerodynamics community also was challenged to understand the discrepancy between the wind tunnel and flight defined aerodynamics. The preflight analysis challenges, the aerodynamic extraction challenges, and the postflight analyses challenges which led to the SSV system performance verification and which will lead to the verification of the operational ascent aerodynamics data base are presented

Observation of Single Transits in Supercooled Monatomic Liquids

A transit is the motion of a system from one many-particle potential energy valley to another. We report the observation of transits in molecular dynamics (MD) calculations of supercooled liquid argon and sodium. Each transit is a correlated simultaneous shift in the equilibrium positions of a small local group of particles, as revealed in the fluctuating graphs of the particle coordinates versus time. This is the first reported direct observation of transit motion in a monatomic liquid in thermal equilibrium. We found transits involving 2 to 11 particles, having mean shift in equilibrium position on the order of 0.4 R_1 in argon and 0.25 R_1 in sodium, where R_1 is the nearest neighbor distance. The time it takes for a transit to occur is approximately one mean vibrational period, confirming that transits are fast.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figure

Low-energy interaction of composite spin-half systems with scalar and vector fields

We consider a composite spin-half particle moving in spatially-varying scalar and vector fields. The vector field is assumed to couple to a conserved charge, but no assumption is made about either the structure of the composite or its coupling to the scalar field. A general form for the piece of the spin-orbit interaction of the composite with the scalar and vector fields which is first-order in momentum transfer ${\bf Q}$ and second-order in the fields is derived.Comment: 10 pages, RevTe

The Evolution of Optical Depth in the Ly-alpha Forest: Evidence Against Reionization at z~6

We examine the evolution of the IGM Ly-alpha optical depth distribution using the transmitted flux probability distribution function (PDF) in a sample of 63 QSOs spanning absorption redshifts 1.7 < z < 5.8. The data are compared to two theoretical optical depth distributions: a model distribution based on the density distribution of Miralda-Escude et al. (2000) (MHR00), and a lognormal distribution. We assume a uniform UV background and an isothermal IGM for the MHR00 model, as has been done in previous works. Under these assumptions, the MHR00 model produces poor fits to the observed flux PDFs at redshifts where the optical depth distribution is well sampled, unless large continuum corrections are applied. However, the lognormal optical depth distribution fits the data at all redshifts with only minor continuum adjustments. We use a simple parametrization for the evolution of the lognormal parameters to calculate the expected mean transmitted flux at z > 5.4. The lognormal optical depth distribution predicts the observed Ly-alpha and Ly-beta effective optical depths at z > 5.7 while simultaneously fitting the mean transmitted flux down to z = 1.6. If the evolution of the lognormal distribution at z < 5 reflects a slowly-evolving density field, temperature, and UV background, then no sudden change in the IGM at z ~ 6 due to late reionization appears necessary. We have used the lognormal optical depth distribution without any assumption about the underlying density field. If the MHR00 density distribution is correct, then a non-uniform UV background and/or IGM temperature may be required to produce the correct flux PDF. We find that an inverse temperature-density relation greatly improves the PDF fits, but with a large scatter in the equation of state index. [Abridged]Comment: 45 pages, 16 figures, submitted to Ap

Impact of birth weight and gender on early postnatal hypothalamic energy balance regulatory gene expression in the young lamb

Peer reviewedPreprin

On the accuracy of the melting curves drawn from modelling a solid as an elastic medium

An ongoing problem in the study of a classical many-body system is the characterization of its equilibrium behaviour by theory or numerical simulation. For purely repulsive particles, locating the melting line in the pressure-temperature plane can be especially hard if the interparticle potential has a softened core or contains some adjustable parameters. A method is hereby presented that yields reliable melting-curve topologies with negligible computational effort. It is obtained by combining the Lindemann melting criterion with a description of the solid phase as an elastic continuum. A number of examples are given in order to illustrate the scope of the method and possible shortcomings. For a two-body repulsion of Gaussian shape, the outcome of the present approach compares favourably with the more accurate but also more computationally demanding self-consistent harmonic approximation.Comment: 25 pages, 7 figure

Evidence for Past Subduction Earthquakes at a Plate Boundary with Widespread Upper Plate Faulting: Southern Hikurangi Margin, New Zealand

At the southern Hikurangi margin, New Zealand, we use salt marsh stratigraphy, sedimentology, micropaleontology, and radiocarbon dating to document evidence of two earthquakes producing coseismic subsidence and (in one case) a tsunami over the past 1000 yrs. The earthquake at 520-470 yrs before present (B.P.) produced 0.25 +/- 0.1 m of subsidence at Big Lagoon. The earthquake at 880-800 yrs B.P. produced 0.45 +/- 0.1 m of subsidence at Big Lagoon and was accompanied by a tsunami that inundated >= 360 m inland with a probable height of >= 3.3 m. Distinguishing the effects of upper plate faulting from plate interface earthquakes is a significant challenge at this margin. We use correlation with regional upper plate paleoearthquake chronologies and elastic dislocation modeling to determine that the most likely cause of the subsidence and tsunami events is subduction interface rupture, although the older event may have been a synchronous subduction interface and upper plate fault rupture. The southern Hikurangi margin has had no significant (M > 6.5) documented subduction interface earthquakes in historic times, and previous assumptions that this margin segment is prone to rupture in large to great earthquakes were based on seismic and geodetic evidence of strong contemporary plate coupling. This is the first geologic evidence to confirm that the southern Hikurangi margin ruptures in large earthquakes. The relatively short-time interval between the two subduction earthquakes (similar to 350 yrs) is shorter than in current seismic-hazard models.GNSEQC Biennial ProjectNew Zealand Natural Hazards Research Platform and Foundation for Research Science and TechnologyInstitute for Geophysic