[en] Unidirectional ⁴⁵Ca fluxes were measured in the turtle bladder under open-circuit and short-circuit conditions. In the open-circuited state net calcium flux (J^net_Ca) was secretory (serosa to mucosa). Ouabain reversed J^net_Ca to an absorptive flux. Amiloride reduced both fluxes such that J^net_Ca was not significantly different from zero. Removal of mucosal sodium caused net calcium absorption; removal of serosal sodium caused calcium secretion. When bladders were short circuited, J^net_Ca decreased to approximately one-third of control value but remained secretory. When ouabain was added under short-circuit conditions, J^net_Ca was similar in magnitude and direction to ouabain under open-circuited conditions (i.e., absorptive). Tissue ⁴⁵Ca content was ≅30-fold lower when the isotope was placed in the mucosal bath, suggesting that the apical membrane is the resistance barrier to calcium transport. The results obtained in this study are best explained by postulating a Ca²⁺-ATPase on the serosa of the turtle bladder epithelium and a sodium-calcium antiporter on the mucosa. In this model, the energy for calcium movement would be supplied, in large part, by the Na⁺-K⁺-ATPase. By increasing cell sodium, ouabain would decrease the activity of the mucosal sodium-calcium exchanger (or reverse it), uncovering active calcium transport across the serosa

[en] The US Department of Energy (DOE) is beginning major environmental restoration projects of both active and inactive sites throughout the United States. IT Corporation, under the direction of the Office of Independent Cost Estimating (OICE) of DOE, developed a list of environmental problems at the sites and probable cleanup technologies and techniques which could be used. Some procedures were identified that were common to many or all cleanup projects. These included site characterization, remedial investigation (RI) and feasibility studies (FS). The purpose of this article was to provide insight into the activities associated with the RI/FS phase of environmental restoration projects for DOE. Costs have been provided for the activities which are suitable to use for budget and check estimates

[en] The authors recently demonstrated that parathyroid hormone (PTH) inhibited both vasopressin- and cyclic AMP-stimulated water transport in the toad bladder. This was associated with an increase in calcium uptake by isolated epithelial cells. They postulated that PTH exerts its action on H₂O transport by directly stimulating calcium uptake. The current study was designed to compare the effects of PTH and the calcium ionophore, A23187, on H₂O and Na transport and Hμ secretion in toad and turtle bladders. In toad bladder, PTH and A23187 decreased arginine vasopressin (AVP)-stimulated H₂O flow and short-circuit current (SCC) after 60 min serosal incubation. In turtle bladder A23187 decreased SCC to 79.3 +/- 3.6% of base line (P < 0.05), and significantly decreased RSCC as well. PTH had no effect on SCC or H⁺ secretion in turtle bladders. Both PTH and A23187 increased ⁴⁵Ca uptake in toad bladder epithelial cells; only A23187 increased ⁴⁵Ca uptake in the turtle bladder. The different action of PTH in these two membranes, compared with that of the calcium ionophore, illustrates the selectivity of PTH on membrane transport. PTH increases calcium uptake and decreases transport only in a hormone-sensitive epithelium, whereas the ionophore works in virtually all living membranes. The mode of action of these two agents to increase calcium uptake is, therefore likely different

[en] AGILE discovered the transient source AGL J2241+4454 in 2010, which triggered the study of the associated field allowing for the discovery of the first Be/black hole binary system: MWC 656. This binary was suggested to be the counterpart of AGL J2241+4454, but this association is still not robust. In this work we explore the archival AGILE and Fermi/Large Area Telescope (LAT) data to find more transient events compatible with AGL J2241+4454 and address the possibility to link them to the accretion/ejection processes of MWC 656. We found a total of nine other transient events with AGILE compatible with the position of AGL J2241+4454, besides the 2010 one. We folded these events with the period of the binary system and we could not associate the gamma-ray activity with any particular orbital phase. By stacking the 10 transient events we obtained a spectrum that extends between 100 MeV and 1 GeV, and we fitted it with a power law with a photon index $\mathrm{\Gamma <!--\; ??\; -->}=2.3\pm <!--\; ??\; -->0.2$. We searched the Fermi/LAT data in order to complement the gamma-ray information provided by AGILE but no significant results arose. To investigate this apparent contradiction between these telescopes, we studied the exposure of the field of AGL J2241+4454 in both instruments, and found significant differences. In particular, AGILE exposed, for a longer time and at a lower off-axis angular distance, the field of AGL J2241+4454. This fact, together with the energy-dependent sensitivity of both instruments, and the soft spectrum found in the stacking analysis, might explain why AGILE observed the transient events not seen by Fermi/LAT.

[en] Terrestrial gamma-ray flashes (TGFs) are very short bursts of high-energy photons and electrons originating in Earth's atmosphere. We present here a localization study of TGFs carried out at gamma-ray energies above 20 MeV based on an innovative event selection method. We use the AGILE satellite Silicon Tracker data that for the first time have been correlated with TGFs detected by the AGILE Mini-Calorimeter. We detect 8 TGFs with gamma-ray photons of energies above 20 MeV localized by the AGILE gamma-ray imager with an accuracy of ∼5-10 deg. at 50 MeV. Remarkably, all TGF-associated gamma rays are compatible with a terrestrial production site closer to the subsatellite point than 400 km. Considering that our gamma rays reach the AGILE satellite at 540 km altitude with limited scattering or attenuation, our measurements provide the first precise direct localization of TGFs from space.

[en] We present to the astronomical community an algorithm for the detection of low surface brightness (LSB) galaxies in images, called MARSIAA (MARkovian Software for Image Analysis in Astronomy), which is based on multi-scale Markovian modeling. MARSIAA can be applied simultaneously to different bands. It segments an image into a user-defined number of classes, according to their surface brightness and surroundings—typically, one or two classes contain the LSB structures. We have developed an algorithm, called DetectLSB, which allows the efficient identification of LSB galaxies from among the candidate sources selected by MARSIAA. The application of the method to two and three bands simultaneously was tested on simulated images. Based on our tests, we are confident that we can detect LSB galaxies down to a central surface brightness level of only 1.5 times the standard deviation from the mean pixel value in the image background. To assess the robustness of our method, the method was applied to a set of 18 B- and I-band images (covering 1.3 deg² in total) of the Virgo Cluster to which Sabatini et al. previously applied a matched-filter dwarf LSB galaxy search algorithm. We have detected all 20 objects from the Sabatini et al. catalog which we could classify by eye as bona fide LSB galaxies. Our method has also detected four additional Virgo Cluster LSB galaxy candidates undetected by Sabatini et al. To further assess the completeness of the results of our method, both MARSIAA, SExtractor, and DetectLSB were applied to search for (1) mock Virgo LSB galaxies inserted into a set of deep Next Generation Virgo Survey (NGVS) gri-band subimages and (2) Virgo LSB galaxies identified by eye in a full set of NGVS square degree gri images. MARSIAA/DetectLSB recovered ∼20% more mock LSB galaxies and ∼40% more LSB galaxies identified by eye than SExtractor/DetectLSB. With a 90% fraction of false positives from an entirely unsupervised pipeline, a completeness of 90% is reached for sources with r_e > 3'' at a mean surface brightness level of μ_g = 27.7 mag arcsec^–2 and a central surface brightness of μ⁰_g = 26.7 mag arcsec^–2. About 10% of the false positives are artifacts, the rest being background galaxies. We have found our proposed Markovian LSB galaxy detection method to be complementary to the application of matched filters and an optimized use of SExtractor, and to have the following advantages: it is scale free, can be applied simultaneously to several bands, and is well adapted for crowded regions on the sky.

[en] Cygnus X-1 (Cyg X-1) is the archetypal black hole binary system in our Galaxy. We report the main results of an extensive search for transient gamma-ray emission from Cygnus X-1 carried out in the energy range 100 MeV-3 GeV by the AGILE satellite, during the period 2007 July-2009 October. The total exposure time is about 300 days, during which the source was in the 'hard' X-ray spectral state. We divided the observing intervals in 2-4 week periods, and searched for transient and persistent emission. We report an episode of significant transient gamma-ray emission detected on 2009 October 16 in a position compatible with Cyg X-1 optical position. This episode, which occurred during a hard spectral state of Cyg X-1, shows that a 1-2 day time variable emission above 100 MeV can be produced during hard spectral states, having important theoretical implications for current Comptonization models for Cyg X-1 and other microquasars. Except for this one short timescale episode, no significant gamma-ray emission was detected by AGILE. By integrating all available data, we obtain a 2σ upper limit for the total integrated flux of F _γ,U.L. = 3 x 10^-8 ph cm^-2 s^-1 in the energy range 100 MeV-3 GeV. We then clearly establish the existence of a spectral cutoff in the energy range 1-100 MeV that applies to the typical hard state outside the flaring period and that confirms the historically known spectral cutoff above 1 MeV.

[en] We present a study of the angular resolution of the AGILE gamma-ray imaging detector (GRID) that has been operational in space since 2007 April.

[en] Gamma-ray emission from the Crab Nebula has been recently shown to be unsteady. In this paper, we study the flux and spectral variability of the Crab above 100 MeV on different timescales ranging from days to weeks. In addition to the four main intense and day-long flares detected by AGILE and Fermi-LAT between 2007 September and 2012 September, we find evidence for week-long and less intense episodes of enhanced gamma-ray emission that we call 'waves'. Statistically significant 'waves' show timescales of 1-2 weeks, and can occur by themselves or in association with shorter flares. We present a refined flux and spectral analysis of the 2007 September-October gamma-ray enhancement episode detected by AGILE that shows both 'wave' and flaring behavior. We extend our analysis to the publicly available Fermi-LAT data set and show that several additional 'wave' episodes can be identified. We discuss the spectral properties of the 2007 September 'wave'/flare event and show that the physical properties of the 'waves' are intermediate between steady and flaring states. Plasma instabilities inducing 'waves' appear to involve spatial distances l ∼ 10¹⁶ cm and enhanced magnetic fields B ∼ (0.5-1) mG. Day-long flares are characterized by smaller distances and larger local magnetic fields. Typically, the deduced total energy associated with the 'wave' phenomenon (E_w ∼ 10⁴² erg, where E_w is the kinetic energy of the emitting particles) is comparable with that associated to the flares, and can reach a few percent of the total available pulsar spin-down energy. Most likely, flares and waves are the product of the same class of plasma instabilities that we show acting on different timescales and radiation intensities.

[en] We present the results of extensive observations by the gamma-ray AGILE satellite of the Galactic region hosting the Carina nebula and the remarkable colliding wind binary Eta Carinae (η Car) during the period 2007 July-2009 January. We detect a gamma-ray source (1AGL J1043-5931) consistent with the position of η Car. If 1AGL J1043-5931 is associated with the Car system, our data provide the long sought first detection above 100 MeV of a colliding wind binary. The average gamma-ray flux above 100 MeV and integrated over the preperiastron period 2007 July-2008 October is F _γ = (37 ± 5) x 10^-8 ph cm^-2 s^-1 corresponding to an average gamma-ray luminosity of L _γ = 3.4 x 10³⁴ erg s^-1 for a distance of 2.3 kpc. We also report a two-day gamma-ray flaring episode of 1AGL J1043-5931 on 2008 October 11-13 possibly related to a transient acceleration and radiation episode of the strongly variable shock in the system.