During the period 1978-1981 172 patients were referred to the Rotterdam Joint Group on Esophageal Carcinoma. Ninety-one patients were considered for combined therapy, comprising radiation therapy and ...surgery, and 10 patients refused surgery. The figures given in this material are actuarial survival values corrected for intercurrent death (the actuarial overall survival in parentheses). The 4-year survival in 69 patients who completed this treatment was 39 per cent (26%) (significantly better for women compared with men; significantly better for tumors less than 2 vertebrae compared with tumors greater than or equal to 2 vertebrae). The resectability rate was 85 per cent and the operation mortality rate 20 per cent. Thirty-eight patients had curative radiation therapy with a 4-year corrected survival of 5 per cent (3%). For palliative treatment, radiation therapy and endoscopic introduction of a Celestin tube were mostly used. The results of curative as well as of palliative treatment of esophageal carcinoma have shown improvement during the past decade compared with an earlier period.
Follicular aspiration was performed in 464 hyperstimulated IVF treatment cycles in patients with severe tubal damage as the sole cause of their infertility. In 413 cycles, one to four embryos could ...be replaced, resulting in 102 clinical pregnancies. In 458 treatment cycles, data on plasma E2 levels were available on days -3 and -2, in 322 cycles also on days -1 and 0, day 0 being the day of follicular puncture. Although the distribution of cycles leading to clinical pregnancy within the 5-95th centile for plasma E2 levels differed from that observed outside this range, these differences were of no statistical significance. These results indicate that IVF pregnancies occur in the presence of a wide range of E2 levels, during the 3-day period preceding follicular aspiration. The importance of plasma E2 measurements for treatment policy must, therefore, be reconsidered.
Astron.Astrophys. 417 (2004) 461 We present the first M31 candidate microlensing events from the Microlensing
Exploration of the Galaxy and Andromeda (MEGA) survey. MEGA uses several
telescopes to ...detect microlensing towards the nearby Andromeda galaxy, M31, in
order to establish whether massive compact objects are a significant
contribution to the mass budget of the dark halo of M31. The results presented
here are based on observations with the Isaac Newton Telescope on La Palma,
during the 1999/00 and 2000/01 observing seasons. In this data set, 14 variable
sources consistent with microlensing have been detected, 12 of which are new
and 2 have been reported previously by the POINT-AGAPE group. A preliminary
analysis of the spatial and timescale distributions of the candidate events
support their microlensing nature. We compare the spatial distributions of the
candidate events and of long-period variable stars, assuming the chances of
finding a long-period variable and a microlensing event are comparable. The
spatial distribution of our candidate microlensing events is more far/near side
asymmetric than expected from the detected long-period variable distribution.
The current analysis is preliminary and the asymmetry not highly significant,
but the spatial distribution of candidate microlenses is suggestive of the
presence of a microlensing halo.
Astrophys.J.Suppl. 143 (2002) 113-158 (Abbreviated) We present an imaging survey of 37 nearby galaxies observed
with HST/WFPC2 in the mid-UV F300W filter and in F814W. 11 galaxies were also
imaged in ...F255W. These galaxies were selected to be detectable with WFPC2 in
one orbit, and cover a wide range of Hubble types and inclinations. The mid-UV
spans the gap between our groundbased optical/NIR images and far-UV images
available from the Astro/UIT missions. Our first qualitative results are:
(1) Early-type galaxies show a significant decrease in surface brightness
going from the red to the mid-UV, and in some cases the presence of dust lanes.
Some galaxies would be classified different when viewed in the mid-UV, some
become dominated by a blue nuclear feature or point source.
(2) Half of the mid-type spiral and star-forming galaxies appear as a later
morphological type in the mid-UV, as Astro/UIT also found in the far-UV. Some-
times these differences are dramatic. The mid-UV images show a considerable
range in the scale and surface brightness of individual star-forming regions.
Almost all mid-type spirals have their small bulges bi-sected by a dust-lane.
(3) Most of the heterogeneous subset of late-type, irregular, peculiar, and
merging galaxies display F300W morphologies that are similar to those seen in
F814W, but with differences due to recognizable dust features absorbing the
bluer light, and due to UV-bright hot stars, star-clusters, and star-forming
ridges.
In the rest-frame mid-UV, early- to mid-type galaxies are more likely to be
misclassified as later types than vice versa. This morphological K-correction
explains only part of the excess faint blue galaxies seen in deep HST fields.
We present five new satellites of the Milky Way discovered in Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) imaging data, four of which were followed-up with either the Subaru or the Isaac Newton Telescopes. They ...include four probable new dwarf galaxies -- one each in the constellations of Coma Berenices, Canes Venatici, Leo and Hercules -- together with one unusually extended globular cluster, Segue 1. We provide distances, absolute magnitudes, half-light radii and color-magnitude diagrams for all five satellites. The morphological features of the color-magnitude diagrams are generally well described by the ridge line of the old, metal-poor globular cluster M92. In the last two years, a total of ten new Milky Way satellites with effective surface brightness mu_v >~ 28 mag/sq. arcsec have been discovered in SDSS data. They are less luminous, more irregular and appear to be more metal-poor than the previously-known nine Milky Way dwarf spheroidals. The relationship between these objects and other populations is discussed. We note that there is a paucity of objects with half-light radii between ~40 pc and ~ 100 pc. We conjecture that this may represent the division between star clusters and dwarf galaxies.
In this Letter, we announce the discovery of a new dwarf galaxy, Leo T, in the Local Group. It was found as a stellar overdensity in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 5 (SDSS DR5). The ...color-magnitude diagram of Leo T shows two well-defined features, which we interpret as a red giant branch and a sequence of young, massive stars. As judged from fits to the color-magnitude diagram, it lies at a distance of about 420 kpc and has an intermediate-age stellar population with a metallicity of Fe/H= -1.6, together with a young population of blue stars of age of 200 Myr. There is a compact cloud of neutral hydrogen with mass roughly 10^5 solar masses and radial velocity 35 km/s coincident with the object visible in the HIPASS channel maps. Leo T is the smallest, lowest luminosity galaxy found to date with recent star-formation. It appears to be a transition object similar to, but much lower luminosity than, the Phoenix dwarf.
We report results from intensive monitoring of two fields on either side of M31,emphasizing microlensing involving stars and masses in M31. These results stem from the three-year VATT/Columbia survey ...of variability on 3d to 2m timescales. Observations were conducted intensively from 1997-1999, with baselines 1995-now,at the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope, MDM 1.3-meter, and Isaac Newton telescopes, totaling about 200 epochs. The two fields cover 560 square arcmin total, along the minor axis on either side of M31. Candidate microlensing events are subject to tests to distinguish microlenses from variable stars. Fourprobable microlensing events total, compared to carefully computed event rate and efficiency models, indicate a marginally significant microlensing activity above expectations for the stellar lenses alone in M31 (and the Galaxy) acting as lenses. Maximum likelihood analyses of the event distribution in timescale and across the face of M31 indicates a microlensing dark matter halo fraction consistent with that seen in our Galaxy towards the LMC (Alcock et al. 2000). For a nearly singular isothermal sphere model, we find a microlensing halo mass fraction f=0.29 +0.30/-0.13 of total dark matter, and a poorly constrained lensing component mass 0.02 to 1.5 solar mass, 1 sigma limits). This study is the prototype for a larger one approaching completion; between them there is significant evidence for asymmetry in the distribution of microlensing events across the face of M31, and a large population of halo microlensing objects. (Abridged)
Veterinary midwife brought to justice Beekhuis, A; Breukers, W A; de Jong, H A ...
Tijdschrift voor diergeneeskunde,
2003-Mar-01, Letnik:
128, Številka:
5
Magazine Article
We present results of a microlensing survey toward the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) carried out during four observing seasons at the Isaac Newton Telescope (INT). This survey is part of the larger ...microlensing survey toward M31 performed by the Microlensing Exploration of the Galaxy and Andromeda (MEGA) collaboration. Using a fully automated search algorithm, we indentify 14 candidate microlensing events, three of which are reported here for the first time. Observations obtained at the Mayall telescope are combined with the INT data to produce composite lightcurves for these candidates. The results from the survey are compared with theoretical predictions for the number and distribution of events. These predictions are based on a Monte Carlo calculation of the detection efficiency and disk-bulge-halo models for M31. The models provide the full phase-space distribution functions for the lens and source populations and are motivated by dynamical and observational considerations. They include differential extinction and span a wide range of parameter space characterised primarily by the mass-to-light ratios for the disk and bulge. For most models, the observed event rate is consistent with the rate predicted for self-lensing -- a MACHO halo fraction of 30% or higher can be ruled at the 95% confidence level. The event distribution does show a large near-far asymmetry hinting at a halo contribution to the microlensing signal. Two candidate events are located at particularly large projected radii on the far side of the disk. These events are difficult to explain by self lensing and only somewhat easier to explain by MACHO lensing. A possibility is that one of these is due to a lens in a giant stellar stream.
