Consistently Large Cosmic Flows on Scales of 100 Mpc/h: a Challenge for the Standard LCDM Cosmology

Peculiar velocity surveys have non-uniform spatial distributions of tracers, so that the bulk flow estimated from them does not correspond to that of a simple volume such as a sphere. Thus bulk flow estimates are generally not strictly comparable between surveys, even those whose effective depths are similar. In addition, the sparseness of typical surveys can lead to aliasing of small scale power into what is meant to be a probe of the largest scales. Here we introduce a new method of calculating bulk flow moments where velocities are weighted to give an optimal estimate of the bulk flow of an idealized survey, with the variance of the difference between the estimate and the actual flow being minimized. These "minimum variance" estimates can be designed to estimate the bulk flow on a particular scale with minimal sensitivity to small scale power, and are comparable between surveys. We compile all major peculiar velocity surveys and apply this new method to them. We find that most surveys we studied are highly consistent with each other. Taken together the data suggest that the bulk flow within a Gaussian window of radius 50 Mpc/h is 407 km/s toward l=287 and b=8. The large-scale bulk motion is consistent with predictions from the local density field. This indicates that there are significant density fluctuations on very large scales. A flow of this amplitude on such a large scale is not expected in the WMAP5-normalized LCDM cosmology, for which the predicted one-dimensional r.m.s. velocity is ~110 km/s. The large amplitude of the observed bulk flow favors the upper values of the WMAP5 error-ellipse, but even the point at the top of the WMAP5 95% confidence ellipse predicts a bulk flow which is too low compared to that observed at >98% confidence level.Comment: 19 Pages, 7 Figures, MNRAS in Press. Added some references and text to reflect post proofs manuscrip

A comparison of the galaxy peculiar velocity field with the PSCz gravity field-- A Bayesian hyper-parameter method

We constructed a Bayesian hyper-parameter statistical method to quantify the difference between predicted velocities derived from the observed galaxy distribution in the \textit{IRAS}-PSC$z$ redshift survey and peculiar velocities measured using different distance indicators. In our analysis we find that the model--data comparison becomes unreliable beyond 70 \hmpc because of the inadequate sampling by \textit{IRAS} survey of prominent, distant superclusters, like the Shapley Concentration. On the other hand, the analysis of the velocity residuals show that the PSC$z$ gravity field provides an adequate model to the local, \le 70 \hmpc, peculiar velocity field. The hyper-parameter combination of ENEAR, SN, A1SN and SFI++ catalogues in the Bayesian framework constrains the amplitude of the linear flow to be $\beta=0.53 \pm 0.014$. For an rms density fluctuations in the PSC$z$ galaxy number density $\sigma_8^{\rm gal}=0.42\pm0.03$, we obtain an estimate of the growth rate of density fluctuations $f\sigma_{8}(z\sim0) = 0.42 \pm 0.033$, which is in excellent agreement with independent estimates based on different techniques.Comment: 14 pages, 32 figures, MNRAS in press, matched the MNRAS published versio

Universalizing health care in Brazil: Opportunities and challenges

In 1988, the Brazilian Constitution established the Unified Health System (Sistema Único de Saúde, or SUS), based on universal access to health services, with health defined as a citizen´s right, and access to health services as an obligation of the state. Since then, Brazil has adopted a policy regime that combines both neoliberal policies - associated with those prescribed by the Washington Consensus or Bretton Woods Institutions - and more interventionist policies associated with neo-developmentalist thinking. The macroeconomic and social performance of this hybrid policy regime has been positive, insofar as the average household per capita income increased, and poverty and social inequality significantly declined. In the health sector, the capacity of the system with regard to health facilities and human resources has been expanded, while regional disparities in access to health services have been reduced. Access to primary health care has also been significantly expanded and health outcomes, such as life expectancy and infant mortality, have improved significantly. What steps did Brazil take to achieve universal health coverage, leading to substantial progress in economic and social development? Which institutions and actors have driven the universalization of health care within Brazil´s hybrid policy regime? This paper examines these questions within the following components of health system development: (i) the regionalization and expansion of the public health care system; (ii) stable and sufficient funding to ensure the principle of universality within the SUS; and (iii) the regulation of health science, technology and innovative procedures, and public-private relations. These components highlight the difficulties involved in moving towards universal social policies in a context of regional inequality, chronic underfunding and the great technological vulnerability of the health care system. The paper argues that the involvement of the state as strategic agent in inducing development in Brazil opens a window of opportunity to create a virtuous complementarity between health and development. However, the strength of this complementarity depends on the capacity of the government to propose and implement public policies in partnership with other actors in society, such as private companies and social movements. It also depends on whether the government has a long-term and integrated perspective which links the health sector to the country´s long-term socioeconomic development

Kinematics of the Local Universe XIII. 21-cm line measurements of 452 galaxies with the Nan\c{c}ay radiotelescope, JHK Tully-Fisher relation and preliminary maps of the peculiar velocity field

This paper presents 452 new 21-cm neutral hydrogen line measurements carried out with the FORT receiver of the meridian transit Nan\c{c}ay radiotelescope (NRT) in the period April 2003 -- March 2005. This observational programme is part of a larger project aiming at collecting an exhaustive and magnitude-complete HI extragalactic catalogue for Tully-Fisher applications (the so-called KLUN project, for Kinematics of the Local Universe studies, end in 2008). The whole on-line HI archive of the NRT contains today reduced HI-profiles for ~4500 spiral galaxies of declination delta > -40° (http://klun.obs-nancay.fr). As an example of application, we use direct Tully-Fisher relation in three (JHK) bands in deriving distances to a large catalog of 3126 spiral galaxies distributed through the whole sky and sampling well the radial velocity range between 0 and 8000 km/s. Thanks to an iterative method accounting for selection bias and smoothing effects, we show as a preliminary output a detailed and original map of the velocity field in the Local Universe

Cosmic Flows on 100 Mpc/h Scales: Standardized Minimum Variance Bulk Flow, Shear and Octupole Moments

The low order moments, such as the bulk flow and shear, of the large scale peculiar velocity field are sensitive probes of the matter density fluctuations on very large scales. In practice, however, peculiar velocity surveys are usually sparse and noisy, which can lead to the aliasing of small scale power into what is meant to be a probe of the largest scales. Previously, we developed an optimal ``minimum variance'' (MV) weighting scheme, designed to overcome this problem by minimizing the difference between the measured bulk flow (BF) and that which would be measured by an ideal survey. Here we extend this MV analysis to include the shear and octupole moments, which are designed to have almost no correlations between them so that they are virtually orthogonal. We apply this MV analysis to a compilation of all major peculiar velocity surveys, consisting of 4536 measurements. Our estimate of the BF on scales of ~ 100 Mpc/h has a magnitude of |v|= 416 +/- 78 km/s towards Galactic l = 282 degree +/- 11 degree and b = 6 degree +/- 6 degree. This result is in disagreement with LCDM with WMAP5 cosmological parameters at a high confidence level, but is in good agreement with our previous MV result without an orthogonality constraint, showing that the shear and octupole moments did not contaminate the previous BF measurement. The shear and octupole moments are consistent with WMAP5 power spectrum, although the measurement noise is larger for these moments than for the BF. The relatively low shear moments suggest that the sources responsible for the BF are at large distances.Comment: 13 Pages, 7 figures, 4 tables. Some changes to reflect the published versio

Indigenous demosponge spicules in a Late Devonian stromatoporoid basal skeleton from the Frasnian of Belgium

This paper records the first example of a demosponge spicule framework in a single specimen of a Devonian stromatoporoid from the Frasnian of southern Belgium. The small sample (2.5 × 2 cm) is a component in a brecciated carbonate from a carbonate mound in La Boverie Quarry 30 km east of Dinant. Because of the small size of the sample, generic identification is not confirmed, but the stromatoporoid basal skeleton is similar to the genus Stromatopora. The spicules are arranged in the calcified skeleton, but not in the gallery space, and are recrystallized as multi-crystalline calcite. The spicules fall into two size ranges: 10-20 μm diameter and 500-2000 μm long for the large ones and between 5-15 μm diameter and 50-100 μm length for the small ones. In tangential section, the spicules are circular, they have a simple structure, and no axial canal has been preserved. The large spicules are always monaxons, straight or slightly curved styles or strongyles. The spicules most closely resemble halichondrid/axinellid demosponge spicules and are important rare evidence of the existence of spicules in Palaeozoic stromatoporoids, reinforcing the interpretation that stromatoporoids were sponges. The basal skeleton may have had an aragonitic spherulitic mineralogy. Furthermore, the spicules indicate that this stromatoporoid sample is a demosponge. © 2014 Lethaia Foundation. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Controle social : oficina temática como metodologia pedagógica para formação de auditor social

Esta investigação apresenta proposta de oficina temática como metodologia pedagógica para contribuir com a educação fiscal da sociedade brasileira. A sociedade brasileira demanda por capacitação para ter condições de exercer o direito constitucional de fiscalizar a gestão pública, ou seja, cada brasileiro pode se tornar um Auditor Social. A oficina temática está dividida em esclarecimentos sobre controle social, sensibilização, provocação e atividade prática. A teoria da educação que liberta, de Paulo Freire, fundamenta a oferta da oficina porque justifica a necessidade de uma posição crítica, prática e transformada da sociedade brasileira no controle das finanças públicas. A primeira oficina do projeto de extensão abordou o tema sobre os instrumentos de controle social da Lei de Responsabilidade Fiscal (LRF) e da Lei de Acesso à Informação (LAI). A forma didática de apresentação da oficina facilita a compreensão de como exercer o controle dos gastos públicos, porque desmistifica o tema das finanças governamentais, ensina como acessar os bancos de dados disponibilizados pelos órgãos públicos e estimula a demandar novas informações. A metodologia de oficina temática explorada neste estudo é uma ação efetiva que pode contribuir com a disseminação de informações sobre a gestão das finanças públicas.This research presents a proposal for thematic workshop as a pedagogical methodology to contribute to the education tax of Brazilian society. The brazilian society demand for training to be able to exercise the constitutional right to supervise public administration, i.e, every citizen can become a Social Auditor. The thematic workshop is divided into explanations about social control, awareness, taunting and practical activity. The Paulo Freire‘s theory of an education that liberates, underlies the offer of the workshop because it justifies the need for a critical, practical and transformed Brazilian society position in control of public finance. The first workshop of the extension project addressed the issue of the instruments of social control of the Fiscal Responsibility Law (LRF) and the Law on Access to Information (LAI) . The didactic presentation of the workshop facilitates understanding how to exercise control of public spending , because demystifies the subject of government finances , teaches how to access databases provided by public bodies and stimulates demand for new information. The methodology of thematic workshop in this study explored an effective action that can contribute to the dissemination of information on the management of public finances

Large-scale collective motion of RFGC galaxies

We processed the data about radial velocities and HI linewidths for 1678 flat edge-on spirals from the Revised Flat Galaxy Catalogue. We obtained the parameters of the multipole components of large-scale velocity field of collective non-Hubble galaxy motion as well as the parameters of the generalized Tully-Fisher relationship in the "HI line width - linear diameter" version. All the calculations were performed independently in the framework of three models, where the multipole decomposition of the galaxy velocity field was limited to a dipole, quadrupole and octopole terms respectively. We showed that both the quadrupole and the octopole components are statistically significant. On the basis of the compiled list of peculiar velocities of 1623 galaxies we obtained the estimations of cosmological parameters Omega_m and sigma_8. This estimation is obtained in both graphical form and as a constraint of the value S_8=sigma_8(Omega_m/0.3)^0.35 = 0.91 +/- 0.05.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astrophysics and Space Scienc

Observations of a solar flare and filament eruption in Lyman <span class='mathrm'>α</span> and X-rays

&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Context&lt;/b&gt;: L&#945; is a strong chromospheric emission line, which has been relatively rarely observed in flares. The Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE) has a broad “Lyman &#945;” channel centered at 1216 Å used primarily at the beginning of the mission. A small number of flares were observed in this channel.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Aims&lt;/b&gt;: We aim to characterise the appearance and behaviour of a flare and filament ejection which occurred on 8th September 1999 and was observed by TRACE in L&#945;, as well as by the Yohkoh Soft and Hard X-ray telescopes. We explore the flare energetics and its spatial and temporal evolution. We have in mind the fact that the L&#945; line is a target for the Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging telescope (EUI) which has been selected for the Solar Orbiter mission, as well as the LYOT telescope on the proposed SMESE mission.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Methods&lt;/b&gt;: We use imaging data from the TRACE 1216 Å, 1600 Å and 171 Å channels, and the Yohkoh hard and soft X-ray telescopes. A correction is applied to the TRACE data to obtain a better estimate of the pure L&#945; signature. The L&#945;  power is obtained from a knowledge of the TRACE response function, and the flare electron energy budget is estimated by interpreting Yohkoh/HXT emission in the context of the collisional thick target model.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Results&lt;/b&gt;: We find that the L&#945;  flare is characterised by strong, compact footpoints (smaller than the UV ribbons) which correlate well with HXR footpoints. The L&#945; power radiated by the flare footpoints can be estimated, and is found to be on the order of 1026 erg s-1 at the peak. This is less than 10% of the power inferred for the electrons which generate the co-spatial HXR emission, and can thus readily be provided by them. The early stages of the filament eruption that accompany the flare are also visible, and show a diffuse, roughly circular spreading sheet-like morphology, with embedded denser blobs.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Conclusions&lt;/b&gt;: On the basis of this observation, we conclude that flare and filament observations in the L&#945; line with the planned EUI and LYOT telescopes will provide valuable insight into solar flare evolution and energetics, especially when accompanied by HXR imaging and spectroscopy.&lt;/p&gt

The Motions of Clusters of Galaxies and the Dipoles of the Peculiar Velocity Field

In preceding papers of this series, TF relations for galaxies in 24 clusters with radial velocities between 1000 and 9200 km/s (SCI sample) were obtained, a Tully-Fisher (TF) template relation was constructed and mean offsets of each cluster with respect to the template obtained. Here, an estimate of the line-of-sight peculiar velocities of the clusters and their associated errors are given. It is found that cluster peculiar velocities in the Cosmic Microwave Background reference frame do not exceed 600 k/ms and that their distribution has a line-of-sight dispersion of 300 k/ms, suggesting a more quiescent cluster peculiar velocity field than previously reported. When measured in a reference frame in which the Local Group is at rest, the set of clusters at cz > 3000 km/s exhibits a dipole moment in agreement with that of the CMB, both in amplitude and apex direction. It is estimated that the bulk flow of a sphere of 6000 km/s radius in the CMB reference frame is between 140 and 320 km/s. These results are in agreement with those obtained from an independent sample of field galaxies (Giovanelli et al. 1998; see astro-ph/9807274)Comment: 9 pages, 2 tables, 7 figures, uses AAS LaTex; to appear in A