Context.We present the results of a set of observations of nine TeV detected BL Lac objects performed by the XRT and UVOT detectors on board the Swift satellite between March and December 2005. ...Aims.Our main goal is the accurate measurement of the spectral shape of TeV detected BL Lacs. Particular attention was given to the presence of intrinsic spectral curvature in the X-ray band. Methods.To perform our X-ray spectral analysis we have assumed either a log-parabolic or a simple power-law model. Results.The X-ray data of many objects in our sample clearly show highly significant spectral curvature. However, in sources with spectral energy distribution peaked at energies lower than ~0.1 keV the X-ray spectrum is steep and generally consistent with a power law. In most of these cases poor statistics did not allow us to obtain tight constraints on the spectral curvature. We have used UVOT observations to verify if X-ray spectra can be extrapolated to lower frequencies and to search for multiple emission components. Conclusions.The results of our analysis are useful for the study of possible signatures of statistical acceleration processes predicting intrinsically curved spectra and for modelling the SED of BL Lacertae objects up to TeV energies where a corresponding curvature is likely to be present.
The working alliance predicts improvement following general psychotherapy, but how it operates in brief interventions conducted with medically ill patients is unknown. Also, the role of the working ...alliance may differ in emotion-focused versus educational interventions.
We report secondary analyses of a randomized clinical trial (Keefe et al.) 35, in which patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) received four nurse-provided sessions of either a) Clinician-assisted Emotional Disclosure (CAED), which emphasized the disclosure, expression, and processing of emotions related to stressful events; or b) Arthritis Education (AE), which provided basic education about RA. The Working Alliance Inventory was completed by both patient and nurse after each session. Patients were evaluated on multiple health measures at baseline and 1, 3, and 12months post-treatment.
Analyses compared the alliance between interventions and related the alliance to outcomes within interventions. Patients in CAED reported a lower alliance than patients in AE. Interestingly, in CAED, lower alliance ratings predicted better outcomes (improved functioning, lower pain behaviors, lower inflammation, lower daily stress), whereas in AE, the working alliance was largely not predictive of outcomes.
Having nurses encourage emotional disclosure among patients with RA reduced the patients' working alliance, but a lower alliance nonetheless predicted better patient outcomes, perhaps reflecting successful engagement in an intervention that is emotionally and relationally challenging. The level and predictive validity of the working alliance likely depends on patient, provider, and intervention factors, and further study of the working alliance in psychosocial interventions in the medical context is needed.
•The working alliance was examined in brief interventions for rheumatoid arthritis.•Alliance was lower in Clinician-assisted Emotional Disclosure than arthritis education.•Lower alliance predicted better outcomes of emotional disclosure, but not education.
Donors not meeting standard criteria, such as those with bacteremia, are now being used in response to the increasing need for organs for transplantation. Recommended strategies to prevent the ...occurrence of donor‐derived bacteremia include the use of directed antibiotic prophylaxis. However, this approach does not eliminate the risk of infection transmission. Similarly, the management of organ recipients from donors with infective endocarditis (IE) remains uncharacterized. We report 2 cases of donor‐derived bacterial infections in liver transplant recipients despite pathogen‐specific antibiotic prophylaxis. In both instances, the donors had documented IE treated with appropriate antimicrobial therapy and clearance of bacteremia. Recipients had very distinctive clinical outcomes likely related to pathogen virulence and the extent of donor infection. Persistent infection in the transplanted liver should be suspected in organ recipients of a liver from donors with IE, despite the absence of bacteremia at the time of death and organ procurement. For eradication, recipients may require prolonged pathogen‐directed antimicrobial therapy, such as is used for endovascular infections. Prompt recognition of donors with IE, appropriate notification, and prolonged antibiotic prophylaxis are key to reducing the risk of such donor‐derived infections.
Summary
Background
Family‐based behavioural weight loss treatment (FBT) for childhood obesity helps families develop strategies to facilitate healthy choices in their home and other environments ...(e.g. home neighbourhood). The current study examines how the home food environment, both pre‐FBT and post‐FBT, and the neighbourhoods in which families live are associated with child weight and weight‐related outcomes in FBT.
Methods
Parent–child dyads (n = 181) completed a 16‐session FBT programme and completed home environment, anthropometric and child dietary/activity assessments at pre‐FBT and post‐FBT. Parents reported on availability of food, electronics and physical activity equipment in the home. The neighbourhood food and recreation environments around each dyad's residence was characterized using existing data within a geographic information system.
Results
Families successfully made healthy home environment modifications during FBT. Regression models showed reducing RED (e.g. high‐energy‐dense and low‐nutrient‐dense) foods and electronics in the home during FBT had positive effects on child weight and weight‐related outcomes. No neighbourhood food or recreation environment variables were significantly related to outcomes, although having a larger density of public recreation spaces was associated with increases in physical activity at the trend‐level.
Conclusions
Modifying the home environment, specifically reducing RED foods and electronics, may be particularly important for FBT success.
Aims. The multi-frequency sedentary survey is a flux-limited, statistically well-defined sample of highly X-ray dominated (i.e., with a very high X-ray to radio flux ratio) BL Lacertae objects, which ...includes 150 sources. In this paper, the third of the series, we report the results of a dedicated optical spectroscopy campaign that, together with results from other independent optical follow-up programs, led to the spectroscopic identification of all sources in the sample. Methods. We carried out a systematic spectroscopic campaign for the observation of all unidentified objects of the sample using the ESO 3.6 m, the KPNO 4 m, and the TNG optical telescopes. Results. We present new identifications and optical spectra for 76 sources, 50 of which are new BL Lac objects, 18 are sources previously referred as BL Lacs but for which no redshift information was available, and 8 are broad emission-line AGNs. We find that the multi-frequency selection technique used to build the survey is highly efficient ( similar to 90%) in selecting BL Lacs objects. We present positional and spectroscopic information for all confirmed BL Lac objects. Our data allowed us to determine 36 redshifts out of the 50 new BL Lacs and 5 new redshifts for the previously known objects. The redshift distribution of the complete sample is presented and compared with that of other BL Lacs samples. For 26 sources without recognizable absorption features, we calculated lower limits to the redshift using a method based on simulated optical spectra with different ratios between jet and galaxy emission. For a subsample of 38 object with high-quality spectra, we find a correlation between the optical spectral slope, the 1.4 GHz radio luminosity, and the Ca H&K break value, indicating that for powerful/beamed sources the optical light is dominated by the non-thermal emission from the jet.
Narrow-line Seyfert 1 (NLS1) galaxies are very interesting objects which display peculiar properties when compared to their broad-line analogues (BLS1). Although well studied in many wavebands, their ...behaviour at >10 keV is poorly studied and yet important to discriminate between models invoked to explain the complexity observed in the X-ray band. Here, we present for the first time high-energy observations (17–100 keV) of five NLS1 galaxies (three bona fide and two candidates) detected by INTEGRAL/Imager on Board INTEGRAL Satellite (IBIS) and provide for all of them a broad-band spectral analysis using data obtained by Swift/XRT below 10 keV. The combined INTEGRAL spectrum is found to be steeper (Γ= 2.6 ± 0.3) than those of classical Seyfert 1 objects. This is due to a high-energy cut-off, which is required in some individual fits as in the average broad-band spectrum. The location of this high-energy cut-off is at lower energies (E≤ 60 keV) than typically seen in classical type 1 active galactic nuclei (AGNs); a reflection component may also be present but its value (R < 0.8) is compatible with those seen in standard Seyfert 1s. We do not detect a soft excess in individual objects but only in their cumulative spectrum. Our results suggest a lower plasma temperature for the accreting plasma which combined to the high accretion rates (close to the Eddington rate) points to different nuclear conditions in broad and NLS1 galaxies, likely related to different evolutionary stages.
We report on multiwavelength observations of the blazar PKS 0537−441 (z = 0.896) obtained from microwaves through γ-rays by Submillimeter Array, Rapid Eye Mounting, Automatic Telescope for Optical ...Monitoring (ATOM), Swift and Fermi mostly during 2008 August-2010 April. Strong variability has been observed in γ-rays, with two major flaring episodes (2009 July and 2010 March) and a harder-when-brighter behaviour, quite common for flat spectrum radio quasars and low-synchrotron-peaked BL Lacertae objects (BL Lacs), in 2010 March. In the same way, the spectral energy distribution (SED) of the source cannot be modelled by a simple synchrotron self-Compton model, as opposed to many BL Lacs, but the addition of an external Compton component of seed photons from a dust torus is needed. The 230 GHz light curve showed an increase simultaneous with the γ-ray one, indicating co-spatiality of the mm and γ-ray emission region likely at large distance from the central engine. The low, average, and high activity SED of the source could be fit changing only the electron distribution parameters, but two breaks in the electron distribution are necessary. The ensuing extra spectral break, located at near-infrared (NIR)-optical frequencies, together with that in γ-rays seem to indicate a common origin, most likely due to an intrinsic feature in the underlying electron distribution. An overall correlation between the γ-ray band with the R band and K band has been observed with no significant time lag. On the other hand, when inspecting the light curves on short time-scales some differences are evident. In particular, flaring activity has been detected in NIR and optical bands with no evident γ-ray counterparts in 2009 September and November. Moderate variability has been observed in X-rays with no correlation between flux and photon index. An increase of the detected X-ray flux with no counterpart at the other wavelengths has been observed in 2008 October, suggesting once more a complex correlation between the emission at different energy bands.
'Long' γ-ray bursts (GRBs) are commonly accepted to originate in the explosion of particularly massive stars, which give rise to highly relativistic jets. Inhomogeneities in the expanding flow result ...in internal shock waves that are believed to produce the γ-rays we see. As the jet travels further outward into the surrounding circumstellar medium, 'external' shocks create the afterglow emission seen in the X-ray, optical and radio bands. Here we report observations of the early phases of the X-ray emission of five GRBs. Their X-ray light curves are characterised by a surprisingly rapid fall-off for the first few hundred seconds, followed by a less rapid decline lasting several hours. This steep decline, together with detailed spectral properties of two particular bursts, shows that violent shock interactions take place in the early jet outflows.
Objective
Adult polyglucosan body disease (APBD) is an adult‐onset neurological variant of glycogen storage disease type IV. APBD is caused by recessive mutations in the glycogen branching enzyme ...gene, and the consequent accumulation of poorly branched glycogen aggregates called polyglucosan bodies in the nervous system. There are presently no treatments for APBD. Here, we test whether downregulation of glycogen synthesis is therapeutic in a mouse model of the disease.
Methods
We characterized the effects of knocking out two pro‐glycogenic proteins in an APBD mouse model. APBD mice were crossed with mice deficient in glycogen synthase (GYS1), or mice deficient in protein phosphatase 1 regulatory subunit 3C (PPP1R3C), a protein involved in the activation of GYS1. Phenotypic and histological parameters were analyzed and glycogen was quantified.
Results
APBD mice deficient in GYS1 or PPP1R3C demonstrated improvements in life span, morphology, and behavioral assays of neuromuscular function. Histological analysis revealed a reduction in polyglucosan body accumulation and of astro‐ and micro‐gliosis in the brains of GYS1‐ and PPP1R3C‐deficient APBD mice. Brain glycogen quantification confirmed the reduction in abnormal glycogen accumulation. Analysis of skeletal muscle, heart, and liver found that GYS1 deficiency reduced polyglucosan body accumulation in all three tissues and PPP1R3C knockout reduced skeletal muscle polyglucosan bodies.
Interpretation
GYS1 and PPP1R3C are effective therapeutic targets in the APBD mouse model. These findings represent a critical step toward the development of a treatment for APBD and potentially other glycogen storage disease type IV patients.
We here report on the multiwavelength study which led us to the identification of X-ray source IGR J16194-2810 as a new Symbiotic X-ray Binary (SyXB), that is, a rare type of Low Mass X-ray Binary ...(LMXB) composed of a M-type giant and a compact object. Using the accurate X-ray position allowed by Swift/XRT data, we pinpointed the optical counterpart, a M2 III star. Besides, the combined use of the spectral information afforded by XRT and INTEGRAL/IBIS shows that the 0.5-200 keV spectrum of this source can be described with an absorbed Comptonization model, usually found in LMXBs and, in particular, in SyXBs. No long-term (days to months) periodicities are detected in the IBIS data. The time coverage afforded by XRT reveals shot-noise variability typical of accreting Galactic X-ray sources, but is not good enough to explore the presence of X-ray short-term (seconds to hours) oscillations in detail. By using the above information, we infer important parameters for this source such as its distance (~3.7 kpc) and X-ray luminosity (~$1.4\times10^{35}$ erg s-1 in the 0.5-200 keV band), and we give a description for this system (typical of SyXBs) in which a compact object (possibly a neutron star) accretes from the wind of its M-type giant companion. We also draw some comparisons between IGR J16194-2810 and other sources belonging to this subclass, finding that this object resembles SyXBs 4U 1700+24 and 4U 1954+31.
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