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Mass casualty events: what to do as the dust settles?
Care during mass casualty events (MCE) has improved during the last 15 years. Military and civilian collaboration has led to partnerships which augment the response to MCE. Much has been written about strategies to deliver care during an MCE, but there is little about how to transition back to normal operations after an event. A panel discussion entitled The Day(s) After: Lessons Learned from Trauma Team Management in the Aftermath of an Unexpected Mass Casualty Event at the 76th Annual American Association for the Surgery of Trauma meeting on September 13, 2017 brought together a cadre of military and civilian surgeons with experience in MCEs. The events described were the First Battle of Mogadishu (1993), the Second Battle of Fallujah (2004), the Bagram Detention Center Rocket Attack (2014), the Boston Marathon Bombing (2013), the Asiana Flight 214 Plane Crash (2013), the Baltimore Riots (2015), and the Orlando Pulse Night Club Shooting (2016). This article focuses on the lessons learned from military and civilian surgeons in the days after MCEs
A Successful Targeted Search for Hypervelocity Stars
Hypervelocity stars (HVSs) travel with velocities so extreme that dynamical
ejection from a massive black hole is their only suggested origin. Following
our discovery of the first HVS, we have undertaken a dedicated survey for more
HVSs in the Galactic halo and present here the resulting discovery of two new
HVSs: SDSS J091301.0+305120 and SDSS J091759.5+672238, traveling with Galactic
rest-frame velocities at least +558+-12 and +638+-12 km/s, respectively.
Assuming the HVSs are B8 main sequence stars, they are at distances ~75 and ~55
kpc, respectively, and have travel times from the Galactic Center consistent
with their lifetimes. The existence of two B8 HVSs in our 1900 deg^2 survey,
combined with the Yu & Tremaine HVS rate estimates, is consistent with HVSs
drawn from a standard initial mass function but inconsistent with HVS drawn
from a truncated mass function like the one in the top-heavy Arches cluster.
The travel times of the five currently known HVSs provide no evidence for a
burst of HVSs from a major in-fall event at the Galactic Center in the last
\~160 Myr.Comment: 5 pages, submitted to ApJ Letter
Hypervelocity Stars. I. The Spectroscopic Survey
We discuss our targeted search for hypervelocity stars (HVSs), stars
traveling with velocities so extreme that dynamical ejection from a massive
black hole is their only suggested origin. Our survey, now half complete, has
successfully identified a total of four probable HVSs plus a number of other
unusual objects. Here we report the most recently discovered two HVSs: SDSS
J110557.45+093439.5 and possibly SDSS J113312.12+010824, traveling with
Galactic rest-frame velocities at least +508+-12 and +418+-10 km/s,
respectively. The other late B-type objects in our survey are consistent with a
population of post main-sequence stars or blue stragglers in the Galactic halo,
with mean metallicity [Fe/H]=-1.3 and velocity dispersion 108+-5 km/s.
Interestingly, the velocity distribution shows a tail of objects with large
positive velocities that may be a mix of low-velocity HVSs and high-velocity
runaway stars. Our survey also includes a number of DA white dwarfs with
unusually red colors, possibly extremely low mass objects. Two of our objects
are B supergiants in the Leo A dwarf, providing the first spectroscopic
evidence for star formation in this dwarf galaxy within the last ~30 Myr.Comment: 10 pages, uses emulateapj, accepted by Ap
UV excess galaxies: Wolf-Rayet galaxies
We discuss V and R band photometry for 67% of the Sullivan et al. 2000 SA57
ultraviolet-selected galaxy sample. In a sample of 176 UV-selected galaxies,
Sullivan et al. 2000 find that 24% have (UV-B) colors too blue for consistency
with starburst spectral synthesis models. We propose that these extreme blue,
UV excess galaxies are Wolf-Rayet (WR) galaxies, starburst galaxies with strong
UV emission from WR stars. We measure a median (V-R)=0.38+-0.06 for the
UV-selected sample, bluer than a sample optically selected at R but consistent
with starburst and WR galaxy colors. We demonstrate that redshifted WR emission
lines can double or triple the flux through the UV bandpass at high redshifts.
Thus the (UV-B) color of a WR galaxy can be up to 1.3 mag bluer at high
redshift, and the expected selection function is skewed to larger redshifts.
The redshift distribution of the extreme blue, UV excess galaxies matches the
selection function we predict from the properties of WR galaxies.Comment: 4 pages, including 4 figures. Uses AASTeX and emulateapj5.sty.
Includes referee change
The Century Survey Galactic Halo Project II: Global Properties and the Luminosity Function of Field Blue Horizontal Branch Stars
We discuss a 175 deg^2 spectroscopic survey for blue horizontal branch (BHB)
stars in the Galactic halo. We use the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) and
the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to select BHB candidates, and find that the
2MASS and SDSS color-selection is 38% and 50% efficient, respectively, for BHB
stars. Our samples include one likely run-away B7 star 6 kpc below the Galactic
plane. The global properties of the BHB samples are consistent with membership
in the halo population: the median metallicity is [Fe/H]=-1.7, the velocity
dispersion is 108 km/s, and the mean Galactic rotation of the BHB stars
3<|z|<15 kpc is -4 +- 30 km/s. We discuss the theoretical basis of the Preston,
Shectman & Beers M_V-color relation for BHB stars, and conclude that intrinsic
shape of the BHB M_V-color relation results from the physics of stars on the
horizontal branch. We calculate the luminosity function for the field BHB star
samples using the Efstathiou, Ellis, & Peterson maximum-likelihood method which
is unbiased by density variations. The field BHB luminosity function exhibits a
steep rise at bright luminosities, a peak between 0.8 < M_V < 1.0, and a tail
at faint luminosities. We compare the field BHB luminosity functions with the
luminosity functions derived from sixteen different globular cluster BHBs.
Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests suggest that field BHB stars and BHB stars in globular
clusters share a common distribution of luminosities, with the exception of
globular clusters with extended BHBs.Comment: 14 pages, including 16 figures, accepted for publication in A
Discovery of an Unbound Hyper-Velocity Star in the Milky Way Halo
We have discovered a star, SDSS J090745.0+024507, leaving the Galaxy with a
heliocentric radial velocity of +853+-12 km/s, the largest velocity ever
observed in the Milky Way halo. The star is either a hot blue horizontal branch
star or a B9 main sequence star with a heliocentric distance ~55 kpc. Corrected
for the solar reflex motion and to the local standard of rest, the Galactic
rest-frame velocity is +709 km/s.
Because its radial velocity vector points 173.8 deg from the Galactic center,
we suggest that this star is the first example of a hyper-velocity star ejected
from the Galactic center as predicted by Hills and later discussed by Yu &
Tremaine. The star has [Fe/H]~0, consistent with a Galactic center origin, and
a travel time of <80 Myr from the Galactic center, consistent with its stellar
lifetime. If the star is indeed traveling from the Galactic center, it should
have a proper motion of 0.3 mas/yr observable with GAIA. Identifying additional
hyper-velocity stars throughout the halo will constrain the production rate
history of hyper-velocity stars at the Galactic center.Comment: 4 pages, submitted to ApJ Letter
Redshifts for 2410 Galaxies in the Century Survey Region
The `Century Survey' strip covers 102 square degrees within the limits 8.5h
\leq \alpha_{1950} \leq 16.5h, 29.0 degrees \leq \delta_{1950} \leq 30.0
degrees. The strip passes through the Corona Borealis supercluster and the
outer region of the Coma cluster.
Within the Century Survey region, we have measured 2410 redshifts which
constitute four overlapping complete redshift surveys: (1) 1728 galaxies with
Kron-Cousins R_{phot} \leq 16.13 covering the entire strip, (2) 507 galaxies
with R_{phot} \leq 16.4 in the right ascension range 8h 32m \leq \alpha_{1950}
\leq 10h 45m, (3) 1251 galaxies with absorption- and K-corrected R_{CCD, corr}
\leq 16.2 covering the right ascension range 8.5h \leq \alpha_{1950} \leq 13.5h
and (4) 1255 galaxies with absorption- and K-corrected V_{CCD, corr} \leq 16.7
also covering the right ascension range 8.5h \leq \alpha_{1950} \leq 13.5h. All
of these redshift samples are more than 98 % complete to the specified
magnitude limit.Comment: 18 pages, 9 figures, 3 tables, 2 abbreviated tables. In press, to
appear in Astronomical Journal, Dec. 2001 issu
Knowledge engineering with image data in real-world settings
We report on experiences in adding ML-trained visual recognition modules to a human-oriented image semantic annotation tool which creates RDF descriptions of images and scene contents. We conclude that ML cannot replace expert humans but can aid them in various ways, some unexpected. Semantic markup systems can be to designed to align human and machine blind spots. Finally, we briefly outline directions for future work
Surveying the Inner Halo of the Galaxy with 2MASS-Selected Horizontal Branch Candidates
We use 2MASS photometry to select blue horizontal branch (BHB) candidates
covering the sky |b|>15 deg. A 12.5<J<15.5 sample of BHB stars traces the thick
disk and inner halo to d<9 kpc, with a density comparable to that of M giant
stars. We base our sample selection strategy on the Century Survey Galactic
Halo Project, a survey that provides a complete, spectroscopically-identified
sample of blue stars to a similar depth as the 2MASS catalog. We show that a
-0.20<(J-H)_0<0.10, -0.10<(H-K)_0<0.10 color-selected sample of stars is 65%
complete for BHB stars, and is composed of 47% BHB stars. We apply this
photometric selection to the full 2MASS catalog, and see no spatial
overdensities of BHB candidates at high Galactic latitude |b|>50 deg. We insert
simulated star streams into the data and conclude that the high Galactic
latitude BHB candidates are consistent with having no ~5 deg wide star stream
with density greater than 0.33 objects deg^-2 at the 95% confidence level. The
absence of structure suggests there have been no major accretion events in the
inner halo in the last few Gyr. However, at low Galactic latitudes a two-point
angular correlation analysis reveals structure on angular scales <1 deg. This
structure is apparently associated with stars in the thick disk, and has a
physical scale of 10-100 pc. Interestingly, such structures are expected by
cosmological simulations that predict the majority of the thick disk may arise
from accretion and disruption of satellite mergers.Comment: 11 pages, including figures. Accepted by AJ with minor revision
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