X-ray study of a sample of FR0 radio galaxies: unveiling the nature of the central engine

FR0s are compact radio sources that represent the bulk of the Radio-Loud (RL) AGN population, but they are still poorly understood. Pilot studies on these sources have been already performed at radio and optical wavelengths: here we present the first X-ray study of a sample of 19 FR0 radio galaxies selected from the SDSS/NVSS/FIRST sample of Best & Heckman (2012), with redshift $\leq$ 0.15, radio size $\leq$ 10 kpc and optically classified as low-excitation galaxies (LEG). The X-ray spectra are modeled with a power-law component absorbed by Galactic column density with, in some cases, a contribution from thermal extended gas. The X-ray photons are likely produced by the jet as attested by the observed correlation between X-ray (2-10 keV) and radio (5 GHz) luminosities, similar to FRIs. The estimated Eddington-scaled luminosities indicate a low accretion rate. Overall, we find that the X-ray properties of FR0s are indistinguishable from those of FRIs, thus adding another similarity between AGN associated with compact and extended radio sources. A comparison between FR0s and low luminosity BL Lacs, rules out important beaming effects in the X-ray emission of the compact radio galaxies. FR0s have different X-ray properties with respect to young radio sources (e.g. GPS/CSS sources), generally characterized by higher X-ray luminosities and more complex spectra. In conclusion, the paucity of extended radio emission in FR0s is probably related to the intrinsic properties of their jets that prevent the formation of extended structures, and/or to intermittent activity of their engines.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS (18 pages, 4 figures

Illness in Returned Travelers and Immigrants/Refugees: The 6-Year Experience of Two Australian Infectious Diseases Units.

BACKGROUND: Data comparing returned travelers and immigrants/refugees managed in a hospital setting is lacking. METHODS: We prospectively collected data on 1,106 patients with an illness likely acquired overseas who presented to two hospital-based Australian infectious diseases units over a 6-year period. RESULTS: Eighty-three percent of patients were travelers and 17% immigrants/refugees. In travelers, malaria (19%), gastroenteritis/diarrhea (15%), and upper respiratory tract infection (URTI) (7%) were the most common diagnoses. When compared with immigrants/refugees, travelers were significantly more likely to be diagnosed with gastroenteritis/diarrhea [odds ratio (OR) 8], malaria (OR 7), pneumonia (OR 6), URTI (OR 3), skin infection, dengue fever, typhoid/paratyphoid fever, influenza, and rickettsial disease. They were significantly less likely to be diagnosed with leprosy (OR 0.03), chronic hepatitis (OR 0.04), tuberculosis (OR 0.05), schistosomiasis (OR 0.3), and helminthic infection (OR 0.3). In addition, travelers were more likely to present within 1 month of entry into Australia (OR 96), and have fever (OR 8), skin (OR 6), gastrointestinal (OR 5), or neurological symptoms (OR 5) but were less likely to be asymptomatic (OR 0.1) or have anaemia (OR 0.4) or eosinophilia (OR 0.3). Diseases in travelers were more likely to have been acquired via a vector (OR 13) or food and water (OR 4), and less likely to have been acquired via the respiratory (OR 0.2) or skin (OR 0.6) routes. We also found that travel destination and classification of traveler can significantly influence the likelihood of a specific diagnosis in travelers. Six percent of travelers developed a potentially vaccine-preventable disease, with failure to vaccinate occurring in 31% of these cases in the pretravel medical consultation. CONCLUSIONS: There are important differences in the spectrum of illness, clinical features, and mode of disease transmission between returned travelers and immigrants/refugees presenting to hospital-based Australian infectious diseases units with an illness acquired overseas

Clustering in 18O - absolute determination of branching ratios via high-resolution particle spectroscopy

The determination of absolute branching ratios for high-energy states in light nuclei is an important and useful tool for probing the underlying nuclear structure of individual resonances: for example, in establishing the tendency of an excited state towards α -cluster structure. Difficulty arises in measuring these branching ratios due to similarities in available decay channels, such as ( 18 O, n ) and ( 18 O, 2 n ), as well as differences in geometric efficiencies due to population of bound excited levels in daughter nuclei. Methods are presented using Monte Carlo techniques to overcome these issues

Radio morphology-accretion mode link in FRII low-excitation radio galaxies

Fanaroff-Riley II low-excitation radio galaxies (FRII-LERGs) are characterized by weak nuclear excitation on pc-scales and by properties typical of powerful FRIIs (defined as high-excitation, hereafter HERGs/BLRGs) on kp-scales. Since a link between the accretion properties and the power of the produced jets is expected both from theory and observations, their nature is still debated. In this work we investigate the X-ray properties of a complete sample of 19 FRII-LERGs belonging to the 3CR catalog, exploiting Chandra and XMM-Newton archival data. We also analyze 32 FRII-HERGs/BLRGs with Chandra data as a control sample. We compared FRII-LERG and FRII-HERG/BLRG X-ray properties and optical data available in literature to obtain a wide outlook of their behavior. The low accretion rate estimates for FRII-LERGs, from both X-ray and optical bands, allow us to firmly reject the hypothesis for that they are the highly obscured counterpart of powerful FRII-HERGs/BLRGs. Therefore, at least two hypothesis can be invoked to explain the FRII-LERGs nature: (i) they are evolving from classical FRIIs because of the depletion of accreting cold gas in the nuclear region, while the extended radio emission is the heritage of a past efficiently accreting activity; (ii) they are an intrinsically distinct class of objects with respect to classical FRIs/FRIIs. Surprisingly, in this direction a correlation between accretion rates and environmental richness is found in our sample. The richer the environment, the more inefficient is the accretion. In this framework, the FRII-LERGs are intermediate between FRIs and FRII-HERGs/BLRGs both in terms of accretion rate and environment.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures, Accepted for publication in MNRA

PHARAO Laser Source Flight Model: Design and Performances

In this paper, we describe the design and the main performances of the PHARAO laser source flight model. PHARAO is a laser cooled cesium clock specially designed for operation in space and the laser source is one of the main sub-systems. The flight model presented in this work is the first remote-controlled laser system designed for spaceborne cold atom manipulation. The main challenges arise from mechanical compatibility with space constraints, which impose a high level of compactness, a low electric power consumption, a wide range of operating temperature and a vacuum environment. We describe the main functions of the laser source and give an overview of the main technologies developed for this instrument. We present some results of the qualification process. The characteristics of the laser source flight model, and their impact on the clock performances, have been verified in operational conditions.Comment: Accepted for publication in Review of Scientific Instrument

The MURALES survey. I. A dual AGN in the radio galaxy 3C459?

We observed the FRII radio galaxy 3C459 (z=0.22) with the MUSE spectrograph at the Very Large Telescope (VLT) as part of the MURALES project (a MUse RAdio Loud Emission line Snapshot survey). We detected diffuse nuclear emission and a filamentary ionized gas structure forming a one-sided, triangular-shaped region extending out to $\sim$80 kpc. The central emission line region is dominated by two compact knots of similar flux: the first (N1) cospatial with the radio core and the (N2) second located 1.2" (5.3 kpc) to the SE. The two regions differ dramatically from the point of view of velocity (with an offset of ~400 km/s), line widths, and line ratios. This suggests that we are observing a dual AGN system formed by a radio loud AGN and type 2 QSO companion, which is the result of the recent merger that also produced its disturbed host morphology. The alternative possibility that N2 is just a bright emission line knot resulting from, for example, a jet-cloud interaction, is disfavored because of 1) the presence of a high ionization bicone whose apex is located at N2; 2) the observed narrow line widths; 3) its line luminosity (~10^42 erg s-1) typical of luminous QSOs; and 4) its location, which is offset from the jet path. The putative secondary AGN must be highly obscured, since we do not detect any emission in the Chandra and infrared Hubble Space Telescope images.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, A&A in pres

Effects of coupling to breakup in the 6,7 Li + 64 Zn systems at near-barrier energies

Elastic scattering angular distributions for the weakly bound nucleus Li7 on Zn64 have been measured in a wide angular range at energies around the Coulomb barrier. The present experimental data and our previously measured elastic scattering data for the system Li6+Zn64 have been analyzed within the continuum-discretized coupled-channels method, where the resonant and nonresonant states of the projectile are taken into account. In this theoretical framework, we have also analyzed our previously measured excitation functions of elastic scattering at backward angles and the corresponding barrier distributions for the same systems. A good agreement between the experimental data and the calculations has been observed. The obtained results, besides confirming the importance of the coupling to the breakup channels in collisions with weakly bound nuclei, show that, in the case of Li6, the inclusion of the resonant states of the projectile produces non-negligible effects.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (España) FIS2013-41994-PJunta de Andalucía FQM160 P07-FQM-02894Programa Consolider-Ingenio 2010 (España) CSD2007-0004

Lot-to-lot consistency of a tetravalent dengue vaccine in healthy adults in Australia: a randomised study

Background: The recombinant yellow fever-17D-dengue virus, live, attenuated, tetravalent dengue vac-cine (CYD-TDV) has undergone extensive clinical trials. Here safety and consistency of immunogenicityof phase III manufacturing lots of CYD-TDV were evaluated and compared with a phase II lot and placeboin a dengue-naïve population.Methods: Healthy 18–60 year-olds were randomly assigned in a 3:3:3:3:1 ratio to receive three sub-cutaneous doses of either CYD-TDV from any one of three phase III lots or a phase II lot, or placebo,respectively in a 0, 6, 12 month dosing schedule. Neutralising antibody geometric mean titres (PRNT50GMTs) for each of the four dengue serotypes were compared in sera collected 28 days after the thirdvaccination—equivalence among lots was demonstrated if the lower and upper limits of the two-sided95% CIs of the GMT ratio were ≥0.5 and ≤2.0, respectively.Results: 712 participants received vaccine or placebo and 614 (86%) completed the study; 17 (2.4%) par-ticipants withdrew after adverse events. Equivalence of phase III lots was demonstrated for 11 of 12pairwise comparisons. One of three comparisons for serotype 2 was not statistically equivalent. GMTsfor serotype 2 in phase III lots were close to each other (65.9, 44.1 and 58.1, respectively).Conclusions: Phase III lots can be produced in a consistent manner with predictable immune responseand acceptable safety profile similar to previously characterised phase II lots. The phase III lots maybe considered as not clinically different as statistical equivalence was shown for serotypes 1, 3 and 4across the phase III lots. For serotype 2, although equivalence was not shown between two lots, the GMTsobserved in the phase III lots were consistently higher than those for the phase II lot. As such, in our view,biological equivalence for all serotypes was demonstrated.Joseph Torresi, Leon G. Heron, Ming Qiao, Joanne Marjason, Laurent Chambonneau, Alain Bouckenooghe, Mark Boaz, Diane van der Vliet, Derek Wallace, Yanee Hutagalung, Michael D. Nissen, Peter C. Richmon