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We present the first detection of HCO+ absorption in the Magellanic System. Using the ATCA, we observed nine extragalactic radio continuum sources behind the Magellanic System and detected HCO+ absorption toward one source located behind the leading edge of the Magellanic Bridge. The detection is located at an LSR velocity of v = 214.0 +/- 0.4 km s(-1), with an FWHM of Delta v = 4.5 +/- 1.0 km s(-1), and an optical depth of tau (HCO+) = 0.10 +/- 0.02. Although there is abundant neutral hydrogen (H I) surrounding the sight line in position-velocity space, at the exact location of the absorber the H I column density is low, <10(20) cm(-2), and there is little evidence for dust or CO emission from Planck observations. While the origin and survival of molecules in such a diffuse environment remain unclear, dynamical events such as H I flows and cloud collisions in this interacting system likely play an important role.
The Warm-Hot Intergalactic Medium (WHIM) arises from shock-heated gas collapsing in large-scale filaments and probably harbours a substantial fraction of the baryons in the local Universe. Absorption-line measurements in the ultraviolet (UV) and in the X-ray band currently represent the best method to study the WHIM at low redshifts. We here describe the physical properties of the WHIM and the concepts behind WHIM absorption line measurements of Hi and high ions such as Ovi, Ovii, and Oviii in the far-ultraviolet and X-ray band. We review results of recent WHIM absorption line studies carried out with UV and X-ray satellites such as FUSE, HST, Chandra, and XMM-Newton and discuss their implications for our knowledge of the WHIM.
Aims. To explore the origin of high-velocity gas in the direction of the Large Magellanic Cloud, (LMC) we analyze absorption lines in the ultraviolet spectrum of a Galactic halo star that is located in front of the LMC at d = 9.2(-7.2)(+4.1) kpc distance.
Methods. We study the velocity-component structure of low and intermediate metal ions (CII, SiII, SiIII) in the spectrum of RXJ0439.8-6809, as obtained with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) onboard the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), and measure equivalent widths and column densities for these ions. We supplement our COS data with a Far-Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) spectrum of the nearby LMC star Sk-69 59 and with Hi 21 cm data from the Leiden-Argentina-Bonn (LAB) survey.
Results. Metal absorption toward RXJ0439.8-6809 is unambiguously detected in three different velocity components near v(LSR) = 0, + 60, and + 150 km s(-1). The presence of absorption proves that all three gas components are situated in front of the star, thus located in the disk and inner halo of the Milky Way. For the high-velocity cloud (HVC) at v(LSR) = + 150 km s(-1), we derive an oxygen abundance of [O/H] = -0.63 (similar to 0.2 solar) from the neighboring Sk-69 59 sight line, in accordance with previous abundance measurements for this HVC. From the observed kinematics we infer that the HVC hardly participates in the Galactic rotation.
Conclusions. Our study shows that the HVC toward the LMC represents a Milky Way halo cloud that traces low column density gas with relatively low metallicity. We rule out scenarios in which the HVC represents material close to the LMC that stems from a LMC outflow.
This study investigates the effect of language-culture and linguistic translation on the interpretation of verbal uncertainty expressions found in International Accounting Standards. Data are collected from US Certified Public Accountants and German-speaking Wirtschaftsprüfer (chartered or certified accountants) to test three hypotheses. One group of German speakers evaluated uncertainty terms expressed in German and another group in English. The results indicate significant differences in interpretation across the three groups. Some differences are attributed to a language-culture effect and others to a translation effect, with the language-culture effect being more pervasive. These results raise the question of whether International Accounting Standards can be applied consistently across language- cultures.
Background:
COVID-19 has infected millions of people worldwide and is responsible for several hundred thousand fatalities. The COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated thoughtful resource allocation and early identification of high-risk patients. However, effective methods to meet these needs are lacking.
Objective:
The aims of this study were to analyze the electronic health records (EHRs) of patients who tested positive for COVID-19 and were admitted to hospitals in the Mount Sinai Health System in New York City; to develop machine learning models for making predictions about the hospital course of the patients over clinically meaningful time horizons based on patient characteristics at admission; and to assess the performance of these models at multiple hospitals and time points.
Methods:
We used Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) and baseline comparator models to predict in-hospital mortality and critical events at time windows of 3, 5, 7, and 10 days from admission. Our study population included harmonized EHR data from five hospitals in New York City for 4098 COVID-19-positive patients admitted from March 15 to May 22, 2020. The models were first trained on patients from a single hospital (n=1514) before or on May 1, externally validated on patients from four other hospitals (n=2201) before or on May 1, and prospectively validated on all patients after May 1 (n=383). Finally, we established model interpretability to identify and rank variables that drive model predictions.
Results:
Upon cross-validation, the XGBoost classifier outperformed baseline models, with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC-ROC) for mortality of 0.89 at 3 days, 0.85 at 5 and 7 days, and 0.84 at 10 days. XGBoost also performed well for critical event prediction, with an AUC-ROC of 0.80 at 3 days, 0.79 at 5 days, 0.80 at 7 days, and 0.81 at 10 days. In external validation, XGBoost achieved an AUC-ROC of 0.88 at 3 days, 0.86 at 5 days, 0.86 at 7 days, and 0.84 at 10 days for mortality prediction. Similarly, the unimputed XGBoost model achieved an AUC-ROC of 0.78 at 3 days, 0.79 at 5 days, 0.80 at 7 days, and 0.81 at 10 days. Trends in performance on prospective validation sets were similar. At 7 days, acute kidney injury on admission, elevated LDH, tachypnea, and hyperglycemia were the strongest drivers of critical event prediction, while higher age, anion gap, and C-reactive protein were the strongest drivers of mortality prediction.
Conclusions:
We externally and prospectively trained and validated machine learning models for mortality and critical events for patients with COVID-19 at different time horizons. These models identified at-risk patients and uncovered underlying relationships that predicted outcomes.
Measurement of the EBL spectral energy distribution using the VHE gamma-ray spectra of HESS blazars
(2017)
Very high-energy gamma rays (VHE, E greater than or similar to 100 GeV) propagating over cosmological distances can interact with the low-energy photons of the extragalactic background light (EBL) and produce electron-positron pairs. The transparency of the Universe to VHE gamma rays is then directly related to the spectral energy distribution (SED) of the EBL. The observation of features in the VHE energy spectra of extragalactic sources allows the EBL to be measured, which otherwise is very difficult. An EBL model-independent measurement of the EBL SED with the H.E.S.S. array of Cherenkov telescopes is presented. It was obtained by extracting the EBL absorption signal from the reanalysis of high-quality spectra of blazars. From H.E.S.S. data alone the EBL signature is detected at a significance of 9.5 sigma, and the intensity of the EBL obtained in different spectral bands is presented together with the associated gamma-ray horizon.
Galaxies are surrounded by large reservoirs of gas, mostly hydrogen, that are fed by inflows from the intergalactic medium and by outflows from galactic winds. Absorption-line measurements along the lines of sight to bright and rare background quasars indicate that this circumgalactic medium extends far beyond the starlight seen in galaxies, but very little is known about its spatial distribution. The Lyman-alpha transition of atomic hydrogen at a wavelength of 121.6 nanometres is an important tracer of warm (about 104 kelvin) gas in and around galaxies, especially at cosmological redshifts greater than about 1.6 at which the spectral line becomes observable from the ground. Tracing cosmic hydrogen through its Lyman-a emission has been a long-standing goal of observational astrophysics(1-3), but the extremely low surface brightness of the spatially extended emission is a formidable obstacle. A new window into circumgalactic environments was recently opened by the discovery of ubiquitous extended Lyman-alpha emission from hydrogen around high-redshift galaxies(4,5). Such measurements were previously limited to especially favourable systems(6-8) or to the use of massive statistical averaging(9,10) because of the faintness of this emission. Here we report observations of low-surface-brightness Lyman-alpha emission surrounding faint galaxies at redshifts between 3 and 6. We find that the projected sky coverage approaches 100 per cent. The corresponding rate of incidence (the mean number of Lyman-alpha emitters penetrated by any arbitrary line of sight) is well above unity and similar to the incidence rate of high-column-density absorbers frequently detected in the spectra of distant quasars(11-14). This similarity suggests that most circumgalactic atomic hydrogen at these redshifts has now been detected in emission.
We use a background quasar to detect the presence of circumgalactic gas around a z = 0.91 low-mass star-forming galaxy. Data from the new Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) on the Very Large Telescope show that the galaxy has a dust-corrected star formation rate (SFR) of 4.7 +/- 2.0. M-circle dot yr(-1), with no companion down to 0.22 M-circle dot yr(-1) (5 sigma) within 240 h(-1) kpc ("30"). Using a high-resolution spectrum of the background quasar, which is fortuitously aligned with the galaxy major axis (with an azimuth angle alpha of only 15 degrees), we find, in the gas kinematics traced by low-ionization lines, distinct signatures consistent with those expected for a "cold-flow disk" extending at least 12 kpc (3 x R-1/2). We estimate the mass accretion rate M-in to be at least two to three times larger than the SFR, using the geometric constraints from the IFU data and the H (I) column density of log N-H (I)/cm(-2) similar or equal to 20.4 obtained from a Hubble Space Telescope/COS near-UV spectrum. From a detailed analysis of the low-ionization lines (e.g., Zn II, Cr II, Ti II, MnII, Si II), the accreting material appears to be enriched to about 0.4 Z(circle dot) (albeit with large uncertainties: log Z/Z(circle dot) = -0.4 +/- 0.4), which is comparable to the galaxy metallicity (12 + log O/H = 8.7 +/- 0.2), implying a large recycling fraction from past outflows. Blueshifted Mg II and Fe II absorptions in the galaxy spectrum from the MUSE data reveal the presence of an outflow. The Mg II and Fe II absorption line ratios indicate emission infilling due to scattering processes, but the MUSE data do not show any signs of fluorescent Fe II* emission.
Context. Runaway stars form bow shocks by ploughing through the interstellar medium at supersonic speeds and are promising sources of non-thermal emission of photons. One of these objects has been found to emit non-thermal radiation in the radio band. This triggered the development of theoretical models predicting non-thermal photons from radio up to very-high-energy (VHE, E >= 0.1 TeV) gamma rays. Subsequently, one bow shock was also detected in X-ray observations. However, the data did not allow discrimination between a hot thermal and a non-thermal origin. Further observations of different candidates at X-ray energies showed no evidence for emission at the position of the bow shocks either. A systematic search in the Fermi-LAT energy regime resulted in flux upper limits for 27 candidates listed in the E-BOSS catalogue. Aims. Here we perform the first systematic search for VHE gamma-ray emission from bow shocks of runaway stars. Methods. Using all available archival H.E.S.S. data we search for very-high-energy gamma-ray emission at the positions of bow shock candidates listed in the second E-BOSS catalogue release. Out of the 73 bow shock candidates in this catalogue, 32 have been observed with H.E.S.S. Results. None of the observed 32 bow shock candidates in this population study show significant emission in the H.E.S.S. energy range. Therefore, flux upper limits are calculated in five energy bins and the fraction of the kinetic wind power that is converted into VHE gamma rays is constrained. Conclusions. Emission from stellar bow shocks is not detected in the energy range between 0.14 and 18 TeV. The resulting upper limits constrain the level of VHE gamma-ray emission from these objects down to 0.1-1% of the kinetic wind energy.
We report in this paper, the results of an investigation of the effect of national culture on the interpretation of "in context" verbal probability expressions. We develop hypotheses with regard to the effect that the interaction of the accounting value of conservatism and the context in which probability expressions are used will have on accountants' interpretations of those expressions. We elicit information from U.S. and German professional accountants to test three hypotheses. We find significant differences between U.S. and German accountants in the interpretation of several verbal probability expressions. In most cases, the German accountants are more conservative; for ...
We present new calculations of the mass inflow and outflow rates around the Milky Way (MW), derived from a catalog of ultraviolet metal-line high-velocity clouds (HVCs). These calculations are conducted by transforming the HVC velocities into the Galactic standard of rest (GSR) reference frame, identifying inflowing (vGSR.<.0 km s(-1)) and outflowing (vGSR > 0 km s(-1)) populations, and using observational constraints on the distance, metallicity, dust content, covering fractions, and total silicon column density of each population. After removing HVCs associated with the Magellanic Stream and the Fermi Bubbles, we find inflow and outflow rates in cool (T similar to 10(4) K) ionized gas of dM(in)/dt greater than or similar to.(0.53 +/- 0.23)(d/12 kpc)(Z/0.2Z(circle dot))-1M(circle dot) yr(-1) and dM(out)/dt greater than or similar to (0.16 +/- 0.07)(d/12 kpc)(Z/0.5Z(circle dot))M--1(circle dot) yr(-1). The apparent excess of inflowing over outflowing gas suggests that the MW is currently in an inflow-dominated phase, but the presence of substantial mass flux in both directions supports a Galactic fountain model, in which gas is constantly recycled between the disk and the halo. We also find that the metal flux in both directions (in and out) is indistinguishable. By comparing the outflow rate to the Galactic star formation rate, we present the first estimate of the mass loading factor (eta(HVC)) of the disk-wide MW wind, finding eta(HVC) greater than or similar to (0.10 +/- 0.06)(d/12 kpc)(Z/0.5Z(circle dot))(-1). Including the contributions from low- and intermediatevelocity clouds and from hot gas would increase these inflow and outflow estimates.
Thermal radiation processes
(2008)
We discuss the different physical processes that are important to understand the thermal X-ray emission and absorption spectra of the diffuse gas in clusters of galaxies and the warm-hot intergalactic medium. The ionisation balance, line and continuum emission and absorption properties are reviewed and several practical examples are given that illustrate the most important diagnostic features in the X-ray spectra.