Gravitational lens candidates in the E-CDFS

We report ten lens candidates in the E-CDFS from the GEMS survey. Nine of the systems are new detections and only one of the candidates is a known lens system. For the most promising five systems including the known lens system, we present results from preliminary lens mass modelling, which tests if the candidates are plausible lens systems. Photometric redshifts of the candidate lens galaxies are obtained from the COMBO-17 galaxy catalog. Stellar masses of the candidate lens galaxies within the Einstein radius are obtained by using the $z$-band luminosity and the $V-z$ color-based stellar mass-to-light ratios. As expected, the lensing masses are found to be larger than the stellar masses of the candidate lens galaxies. These candidates have similar dark matter fractions as compared to lenses in SLACS and COSMOS. They also roughly follow the halo mass-stellar mass relation predicted by the subhalo abundance matching technique. One of the candidate lens galaxies qualifies as a LIRG and may not be a true lens because the arc-like feature in the system is likely to be an active region of star formation in the candidate lens galaxy. Amongst the five best candidates, one is a confirmed lens system, one is a likely lens system, two are less likely to be lenses and the status of one of the candidates is ambiguous. Spectroscopic follow-up of these systems is still required to confirm lensing and/or for more accurate determination of the lens masses and mass density profiles.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, 3 tables, ApJ accepte

Changing the Face of Medicine: One Historian\u27s Experience as a Curator

In the spring of 2001 during a meeting of the American Association for the History of Medicine, Elizabeth Fee, Chief of the History of Medicine Division of the National Library of Medicine (NLM), invited me to become the Visiting Curator for a new exhibition they intended to present on the history of women physicians. It was the first full-scale exhibition ever devoted to that subject by the NLM. After more than two years’ preparation, the exhibition, “Changing the Face of Medicine: Celebrating America’s Women Physicians,” opened in April 2003 and continued on display at the NLM for more than two years. Recently I had published a history of women in American medicine, Restoring the Balance: Women Physicians and the Profession of Medicine, 1850-1995. After years of archival research and secondary source reading, I had arrived at a narrative structure and a set of unifying thematic ideas centered around the various ways women physicians relied on the concept of balance as a touchstone for their sense of purpose and identity. Although I possessed no curatorial experience whatever, I (mistakenly) thought I could foresee the narrative strategy our exhibition would employ. Archival Elements has asked me to write about my experiences

Fever in pregnancy and its maternal and fetal outcomes

Background: Contemporary obstetrics has witnessed improved maternal and fetal outcomes, owing to several advances. Any source of maternal hyperthermia that results in significant core temperature increase (>38.9°C), could potentially affect the fetus.  Hence a study was planned to know the effect of fever on maternal and fetal outcome.Methods: This was a retrospective cohort analysis of case-records, of patients admitted in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at tertiary care centre, Mumbai, between May 2007 and October 2009. The main parameters of assessment included incidence of fever in pregnancy, causes of fever, effect of episode(s) of fever on maternal and fetal outcomes, effect of specific infection on maternal and fetal outcomes, impact of fever on antepartum, intrapartum and postpartum phasesResults: The incidence of fever was 10.5%. the common cause of fever was malaria (15%), urinary tract infection (14%), viral (14%), respiratory tract infection (18%), and typhoid (7%). Seventy eight percent had fever in third trimester. The most common antenatal complication observed was preterm (13%), premature rupture of membrane (12%), oligohydramnios (8%), intrauterine growth retardation (26%). The rate of LSCS was 13% in study group and the most common indication was fetal distress and meconium stained amniotic fluid.Conclusions: In the present study on fever during pregnancy and its maternal and fetal outcomes, fever was associated with a definite impact on maternal and fetal outcomes. Preterm and IUGR were the most common fetal complications. Duration of fever was linearly associated with poor outcomes. Different causes of fever also had different impact on maternal and fetal outcome. Preterm IUGR, MSAF were more common with malaria and tuberculosis. Abortion was more commonly seen in first trimester fever, whereas preterm, PROM in the third trimester fever. Hence it is suggested that fever during pregnancy needs to be promptly investigated and treated to have a better outcome

Empathy as a Hermeneutic Practice

This essay will argue for the centrality of empathy in the doctor-patient relationship-as a core of ethically sound, responsible therapeutics. By empathy, I intend an explicitly hermeneutic practice, informed by a reflexive understanding of patient and self. After providing an overview of the history of the concept of empathy in clinical medicine, I discuss current definitions and the use of Balint groups in residency training as a way to develop empathic competence in novice physicians