Experiments that pursue detection of signals from the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) are relying on spectral smoothness of source spectra at low frequencies. This article empirically explores the effect ...of foreground spectra on EoR experiments by measuring high-resolution full-polarization spectra for the 586 brightest unresolved sources in one of the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) EoR fields using 45 h of observation. A novel peeling scheme is used to subtract 2500 sources from the visibilities with ionospheric and beam corrections, resulting in the deepest, confusion-limited MWA image so far. The resulting spectra are found to be affected by instrumental effects, which limit the constraints that can be set on source-intrinsic spectral structure. The sensitivity and power-spectrum of the spectra are analysed, and it is found that the spectra of residuals are dominated by point spread function sidelobes from nearby undeconvolved sources. We release a catalogue describing the spectral parameters for each measured source.
We present an improved Global Sky Model (GSM) of diffuse Galactic radio emission from 10 MHz to 5 THz, whose uses include foreground modelling for cosmic microwave background (CMB) and 21 cm ...cosmology. Our model improves on past work both algorithmically and by adding new data sets such as the Planck maps and the enhanced Haslam map. Our method generalizes the principal component analysis approach to handle non-overlapping regions, enabling the inclusion of 29 sky maps with no region of the sky common to all. We also perform a blind separation of our GSM into physical components with a method that makes no assumptions about physical emission mechanisms (synchrotron, free-free, dust, etc). Remarkably, this blind method automatically finds five components that have previously only been found 'by hand', which we identify with synchrotron, free-free, cold dust, warm dust, and the CMB anisotropy. Computing the cross-power spectrum between these blindly extracted components and Planck component maps, we find a strong correlation at all angular scales. The improved GSM is available online at http://github.com/jeffzhen/gsm2016.
Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) and single brain metastasis (MET) are the 2 most common malignant brain tumors that can appear similar on anatomic imaging but require vastly different treatment ...strategy. The purpose of our study was to determine whether the peak height and the percentage of signal intensity recovery derived from dynamic susceptibility-weighted contrast-enhanced (DSC) perfusion MR imaging could differentiate GBM and MET.
Forty-three patients with histopathologic diagnosis of GBM (n=27) or MET (n=16) underwent DSC perfusion MR imaging in addition to anatomic MR imaging before surgery. Regions of interest were drawn around the nonenhancing peritumoral T2 lesion (PTL) and the contrast-enhancing lesion (CEL). T2* signal intensity-time curves acquired during the first pass of gadolinium contrast material were converted to the changes in relaxation rate to yield T2* relaxivity (Delta R2*) curve. The peak height of maximal signal intensity drop and the percentage of signal intensity recovery at the end of first pass were measured for each voxel in the PTL and CEL regions of the tumor.
The average peak height for the PTL was significantly higher (P=.04) in GBM than in MET. The average percentage of signal intensity recovery was significantly reduced in PTL (78.4% versus 82.8%; P=.02) and in CEL (62.5% versus 80.9%, P<.01) regions of MET compared with those regions in the GBM group.
The findings of our study show that the peak height and the percentage of signal intensity recovery derived from the Delta R2* curve of DSC perfusion MR imaging can differentiate GBM and MET.
Irradiation of alloys with energetic particles leads to the forced chemical mixing of atoms and the creation of point defects. At elevated temperatures, the point defects are mobile and enhance ...diffusion. Since forced mixing occurs in energetic displacement processes, alloy constituents tend to flow down gradients in their concentration, while radiation enhanced diffusion is thermally activated and alloy components respond to gradients in their chemical potential. Phase evolution in irradiated alloys thus depends on the competition between these two dynamics. A similar situation occurs during severe plastic deformation, dislocation glide results in forced chemical mixing, while dislocation reactions lead to the creation of vacancies and enhanced thermally activated diffusion. One possible consequence of these competing dynamics is that alloys self-organize into compositional patterns, i.e., concentration variations adopt a fixed length scale determined by the nature of the driving forces and the internal dynamics of the alloy. The current perspective illustrates how the details of driving forces relate to the length scale of the compositional patterns and their morphology.
A surprising finding is that irradiation and severe plastic deformation can both lead to compositional patterning even at low temperatures, i.e., in absence of thermally activated diffusion. While the compositional patterning again derives from competing dynamical processes, the characteristic length scales are determined by quite different aspects of the forced mixing. For irradiation, the ballistic recoil distance limits the maximum length scale for patterning at high temperatures, while it is the extent of the thermal spike at low temperatures. For severe plastic deformation, the glide distance of dislocations controls the largest length scale for patterning at high temperatures, whereas kinetic roughening of precipitates controls the maximum length at low temperatures.
Full text
Available for:
GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Small-scale magnetic reconnection processes in the form of nanoflares have become increasingly hypothesized as important mechanisms for the heating of the solar atmosphere, driving propagating ...disturbances along magnetic field lines in the Sun's corona, and instigating rapid jetlike bursts in the chromosphere. Unfortunately, the relatively weak signatures associated with nanoflares place them below the sensitivities of current observational instrumentation. Here we employ Monte Carlo techniques to synthesize realistic nanoflare intensity time series from a dense grid of power-law indices and decay timescales. Employing statistical techniques, which examine the modeled intensity fluctuations with more than 107 discrete measurements, we show how it is possible to extract and quantify nanoflare characteristics throughout the solar atmosphere, even in the presence of significant photon noise. A comparison between the statistical parameters (derived through examination of the associated intensity fluctuation histograms) extracted from the Monte Carlo simulations and Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO)/Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) 171 and 94 observations of active region NOAA 11366 reveals evidence for a flaring power-law index within the range of 1.82 ≤ ≤ 1.90, combined with e-folding timescales of 385 26 and 262 17 s for the SDO/AIA 171 and 94 channels, respectively. These results suggest that nanoflare activity is not the dominant heating source for the active region under investigation. This opens the door for future dedicated observational campaigns to not only unequivocally search for the presence of small-scale reconnection in solar and stellar environments but also quantify key characteristics related to such nanoflare activity.
Abstract Despite tremendous advances in radiotherapy techniques, allowing dose escalation to tumour tissues and sparing of organs at risk, cure rates from radiotherapy or chemoradiotherapy remain ...suboptimal for most cancers. In tandem with our growing understanding of tumour biology, we are beginning to appreciate that targeting the molecular response to radiation-induced DNA damage holds great promise for selective tumour radiosensitisation. In particular, approaches that inhibit cell cycle checkpoint controls offer a means of exploiting molecular differences between tumour and normal cells, thereby inducing so-called cancer-specific synthetic lethality. In this overview, we discuss cellular responses to radiation-induced damage and discuss the potential of using G2/M cell cycle checkpoint inhibitors as a means of enhancing tumour control rates.
Full text
Available for:
GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
ABSTRACT We present the 21 cm power spectrum analysis approach of the Murchison Widefield Array Epoch of Reionization project. In this paper, we compare the outputs of multiple pipelines for the ...purpose of validating statistical limits cosmological hydrogen at redshifts between 6 and 12. Multiple independent data calibration and reduction pipelines are used to make power spectrum limits on a fiducial night of data. Comparing the outputs of imaging and power spectrum stages highlights differences in calibration, foreground subtraction, and power spectrum calculation. The power spectra found using these different methods span a space defined by the various tradeoffs between speed, accuracy, and systematic control. Lessons learned from comparing the pipelines range from the algorithmic to the prosaically mundane; all demonstrate the many pitfalls of neglecting reproducibility. We briefly discuss the way these different methods attempt to handle the question of evaluating a significant detection in the presence of foregrounds.
This work investigates the early stage evolution of thermally nucleated microbubbles in water using in situ high-speed, 400 fps, transmission electron microscopy. A Pt wire Joule heater induced ...bubble nucleation and growth from air-saturated water at different levels of power. For all powers below Pt breakdown, the dissolved gas initiates bubble nucleation at the concave surface defects adjacent to the area of highest temperature. A combination of interfacial forces and stress relaxation drive rapid migration of the bubbles away from the nucleation site. Thermocapillary forces ultimately dominate and drive their return to the region of highest temperature. The dynamic response highlights the importance of this length and time domain, which has until now received limited direct study.
ABSTRACT Detection of the cosmological neutral hydrogen signal from the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) and estimation of its basic physical parameters are principal scientific aims of many current ...low-frequency radio telescopes. Here we describe the Cosmological H i Power Spectrum Estimator (CHIPS), an algorithm developed and implemented with data from the Murchison Widefield Array, to compute the two-dimensional and spherically-averaged power spectrum of brightness temperature fluctuations. The principal motivations for CHIPS are the application of realistic instrumental and foreground models to form the optimal estimator, thereby maximizing the likelihood of unbiased signal estimation, and allowing a full covariant understanding of the outputs. CHIPS employs an inverse-covariance weighting of the data through the maximum likelihood estimator, thereby allowing use of the full parameter space for signal estimation ("foreground suppression"). We describe the motivation for the algorithm, implementation, application to real and simulated data, and early outputs. Upon application to a set of 3 hr of data, we set a 2 upper limit on the EoR dimensionless power at Mpc−1 of mK2 in the redshift range z = 6.2-6.6, consistent with previous estimates.
PDF
