HD 97394: a magnetic Ap star with high cerium overabundance

We report a spectroscopic analysis of the chemically peculiar Ap star HD 97394. The stellar spectrum is rich in lines of rare earth elements with large overabundances, especially cerium, gadolinium and europium. Enhancement of the abundances of these rare earths shows this star to be one of the most peculiar stars. Very large overabundances were found for lines of Ce iii and Eu iii. Abundances obtained from second ionization lines of Nd, Ce and Eu are about 2 dex higher than for those of the first ionization. From partially split Zeeman components of the Fe ii 6149.258 Å line and from synthetic modelling, a global magnetic field of 3.1 kG was measured. We tested for pulsation of the star with high time resolution spectroscopy obtained with the ESO Very Large Telescope. We place an upper limit to any pulsation amplitude of 30–40 m s−1 for individual lines of rare earth elements, of 10–20 m s−1 for the combination of several lines, and of 6–10 m s−1 for cross-correlation over large spectral bands

Remote chance of recontact

The ejection of appendages with uncertain drag characteristics presents a concern for eventual recontact. Recontact shortly after release can be prevented by avoiding ejection in a plane perpendicular to the velocity. For ejection tangential to the orbit, the likelihood of recontact within a year is high in the absence of drag and oblateness. The optimum direction of ejection of the thermal shield cable and an overestimate of the recontact probability are determined for the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) mission when drag, oblateness, and solar/lunar perturbations are present. The probability is small but possibly significant

GOES-I/M ascent maneuvers from transfer orbit to station

The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES)-I/M station acquisition sequence consists nominally of three in-plane/out-of-plane maneuvers at apogee on the line of relative nodes and a small in-plane maneuver at perigee. Existing software to determine maneuver attitude, ignition time, and burn duration required modification to optimize the out-of-plane parts and admit the noninertial, three-axis stabilized attitude. The Modified Multiple Impulse Station Acquisition Maneuver Planning Program (SENARIO2) was developed from its predecessor, SCENARIO, to optimize the out-of-plane components of the impulsive delta-V vectors. Additional new features include commputation of short term J sub 2 perturbations and output of all premaneuver and postmaneuver orbit elements, coarse maneuver attitudes, propellant usage, spacecraft antenna aspect angles, and ground station coverage. The output data are intended to be used in the launch window computation and by the maneuver targeting computation (General Maneuver (GMAN) Program) software. The maneuver targeting computation in GMAN was modified to admit the GOES-I/M maneuver attitude. Appropriate combinations of ignition time, burn duration, and attitude enable any reasonable target orbit to be achieved

Time-resolved spectroscopy of the rapidly oscillating Ap star KIC 10195926

We report an analysis of high time resolution spectra of the chemically peculiar Ap star KIC 10195926 obtained with the Subaru telescope. We find that the star has low overabundances of rare earth elements compared with other rapidly oscillating Ap stars. We found only upper limits for pulsations from spectral lines of rare earth and other chemical elements. Pulsation was found only for the narrow core of the Hα line with an amplitude of 171 ± 41ms−1 and with the frequency corresponding to photometric frequency obtained from Kepler observations

The perception of Spanish lexical stress in yes/no questions and exclamations by Japanese-speaking late learners: evidence for the effect of context of learning

Whereas the acquisition of Spanish lexical stress by English-speaking learners has received some attention (Face, 2003; Lord, 2001; 2004; Marasco, Steele, Sunara, & Colantoni, 2012), very little is known about the perception of Spanish lexical stress by Japanese-speaking learners (Atria, Kimura, Sensui, Takasawa & Toyomaru, 2012). Specifically, little is known about the perception of Spanish lexical stress in interrogative and exclamative sentences by Japanese-speaking learners. The language pairing is novel and lends itself well to the study of perception of stress because whereas Spanish is a stress-accent language, Japanese is a pitch-accent language, where stress is acoustically realized differently in each language. This study has three goals. First, it seeks to make an empirical and a theoretical contribution to the field of second language phonology by examining the perception of Spanish lexical stress by advanced Japanese-speaking learners of Spanish. In particular, it aims to examine and compare the perception of paroxytone (limite; he limits) and proparotytone (límite; limit) words in sentence-final and non-final position of both yes/no questions and exclamations. Subsequently, it will determine, how the L1 (first language) Japanese prosodic system may interact with the variation in the realization of F0 peak displacement in the latter contexts in Spanish. The study also examines the effect of context of learning as well as type of words. The participants consisted of 45 advanced Japanese-speaking late learners of Spanish (20 in Bogotá and 25 in Japan). Their ages varied between 22 and 50 years old. The control group consisted of 20 native Spanish speakers of Bogotá Spanish. The three groups were required to participate in a stress identification task. Nine sets of 3 syllable accentual minimal triplets with each having an oxytone (e.g., nabidó), a paroxytone (e.g., nabido) and a proparoxytone (e.g., nábido) were used. The participants listened to the target words in five different contexts: isolation (e.g., medico), final position of yes/no questions (e.g., ¿él dijo límite?), final position in exclamations (e.g., ¡él dijo válido!), non-final position of yes/no questions (e.g., ¿él dijo medicó ayer?), and non-final position of exclamations (e.g., ¡él dijo medico ayer!). Results show that learners have difficulty perceiving the Spanish lexical stress, indicating that the interaction of the Japanese and Spanish prosodic systems lead to the misperception of lexical stress. The recorded stimuli produced by a native speaker of Bogota Spanish are analyzed acoustically and the variation in F0 peak displacement in different prosodic contexts is discussed as a potential factor for miscuing the learners. Moreover, results show an advantage for the Bogota L2 (second language) group, who had been immersed in Colombia in comparison with the Japan L2 group, who had received classroom instruction in Japan. Furthermore, there was no effect of type of word (i.e., real vs, nonce word). The study has implications for models of L2 speech learning as well as pedagogical implications

Time resolved spectroscopy of the cool Ap star HD 213637

We present an analysis of high time resolution spectra of the chemically peculiar Ap star HD 213637. The star shows rapid radial velocity variations with a period close to the photometric pulsation period. Radial velocity pulsation amplitudes vary significantly for different rare earth elements. The highest pulsation amplitudes belong to lines of Tb III (∼360 m s−1), Pr II (∼250 m s−1) and Pr III (∼230 m s−1).We did not detect any pulsations from spectral lines of Eu II and in Hα, in contrast to many other roAp stars. We also did not find radial velocity pulsations using spectral lines of other chemical elements, including Mg, Si, Ca, Sc, Cr, Fe, Ni, Y and Ba. There are phase shifts between the maxima of pulsation amplitudes of different rare earth elements and ions, which is evidence of an outwardly running magneto-acoustic wave propagating through the upper stellar atmosphere

Magnetic stars from a FEROS cool Ap star survey

New magnetic Ap stars with split Zeeman components are presented. These stars were discovered from observations with the Fibre-fed Extended Range Optical Spectrograph (FEROS) spectrograph at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) 2.2-m telescope. 15 new magnetic stars are analysed here. Several stars with very strong magnetic fields were found, including HD 70702 with a 15-kG magnetic field strength, and HD 168767 with a 16.5-kG magnetic field strength measured using split Zeeman components of spectral lines and by comparison with synthetic calculations. The physical parameters of the stars were estimated from photometric and spectroscopic data. Together with previously published results for stars with strong magnetic fields, the relationship between magnetic field strength and rotation period is discussed

Identifying the challenges and facilitators of implementing a COPD care bundle.

BACKGROUND: Care bundles have been shown to improve outcomes, reduce hospital readmissions and reduce length of hospital stay; therefore increasing the speed of uptake and delivery of care bundles should be a priority in order to deliver more timely improvements and consistent high-quality care. Previous studies have detailed the difficulties of obtaining full compliance to bundle elements but few have described the underlying reasons for this. In order to improve future implementation this paper investigates the challenges encountered by clinical teams implementing a chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) care bundle and describes actions taken to overcome these challenges. METHODS: An initial retrospective documentary analysis of data from seven clinical implementation teams was undertaken to review the challenges faced by the clinical teams. Three focus groups with healthcare professionals and managers explored solutions to these challenges developed during the project. RESULTS: Documentary analysis identified 28 challenges which directly impacted implementation of the COPD care bundle within five themes; staffing, infrastructure, process, use of improvement methodology and patient and public involvement. Focus groups revealed that the five most significant challenges for all groups were: staff too busy, staff shortages, lack of staff engagement, added workload of the bundle and patient coding issues. The participants shared facilitating factors used to overcome issues including: shifting perceptions to improve engagement, further education sessions to increase staff participation and gaining buy-in from managers through payment frameworks. CONCLUSIONS: Maximising the impact of a care bundle relies on its successful and timely implementation. Teams implementing the COPD care bundle encountered challenges that were common to all teams and sites. Understanding and learning from the challenges faced by previous endeavours and identifying the facilitators to overcoming these barriers provides an opportunity to mitigate issues that waste time and resources, and ensures that training can be tailored to the anticipated challenges

A rival for Babcock's star: the extreme 30-kG variable magnetic field in the Ap star HD 75049

The extraordinary magnetic Ap star HD 75049 has been studied with data obtained with the European Southern Observatory Very Large Telescope and 2.2-m telescopes. Direct measurements reveal that the magnetic field modulus at maximum reaches 30 kG. The star shows photometric, spectral and magnetic variability with a rotation period of 4.049 d. Variations of the mean longitudinal magnetic field can be described to first order by a centred dipole model with an inclination i= 25°, an obliquity β= 60° and a polar field Bp= 42 kG. The combination of the longitudinal and surface magnetic field measurements implies a radius of R= 1.7 R⊙, suggesting that the star is close to the zero-age main sequence. HD 75049 displays moderate overabundances of Si, Ti, Cr, Fe and large overabundances of rare earth elements. This star has the second strongest magnetic field of any main-sequence star after Babcock's star, HD 215441, which it rivals