We used our database of ESO VLT-UVES spectra of quasars to build up a sample of 67 Damped Lyman-α (DLA) systems with redshifts 1.7 < zabs < 3.7. For each system, we measured average metallicities relative to Solar, [X/H] (with either X = Zn, S or Si), and the velocity widths of low-ionization line profiles, W1. We find that there is a tight correlation between the two quantities, detected at th...

Necrotizing meningoencephalitis (NME) affects toy and small breed dogs causing progressive, often fatal, inflammation and necrosis in the brain. Genetic risk loci for NME previously were identified in pug dogs, particularly associated with the dog leukocyte antigen (DLA) class II complex on chromosome 12, but have not been investigated in other susceptible breeds. We sought to evaluate Maltese ...

BACKGROUND Disturbed circadian rhythm is a potentially modifiable cause of delirium among patients in intensive-care units (ICUs). Bright-light therapy in the daytime can realign circadian rhythm and reduce the incidence of delirium. We investigated whether a high-intensity dynamic light application (DLA) would reduce ICU-acquired delirium. METHODS This was a randomised, controlled, single-ce...

The discovery of the first damped Lyman alpha (DLA) system in the early 1970s followed by the recognition that DLAs arise in intervening galaxies opened up a new field of galaxy evolution research. These highest HI column density absorption-line systems trace the bulk of the observed neutral gas in the universe, and therefore, have been used as powerful probes of galaxy formation and evolution ...

We have extended our chemical and cosmological galaxy evolution model to calculate the abundance evolution for altogether 16 different elements in spiral galaxies in a chemically consistent way which is a considerable step towards a more realistic galaxy modeling. All observed element abundances in DLA systems have been compiled. The comparison with our model calculations yields the following r...

The growth mechanism by which neurons achieve their characteristic ramified morphology has long been of interest, but determining whether physical parameters, such as viscosity, are important has been difficult due to a lack of useful hypotheses and standard reproducible techniques. We have recently shown that neurons exhibit fractal behavior and that their fractal dimension (df) is consistent ...

The number of damped Lyα absorbers (DLAs) currently known is about 100, but our knowledge of their sizes and morphologies is still very sparse as very few have been detected in emission. Here we present narrow–band and broad–band observations of a DLA in the field of the quasar pair Q0151+048A (qA) and Q0151+048B (qB). These two quasars have very similar redshifts zem=1.922, 1.937, respectively...

We present results on the clustering of Lyman break galaxies (LBGs) around a probable damped Lyα absorption (DLA) line cloud at zabs = 2.974 from deep UBV I images of the field containing the quasar APM 08279+5255 (zem = 3.91). The large area covered by our images, 0.31 deg 2 or ∼ 40 × 40 Mpc co-moving at redshift z = 3, and their depth, μI,AB(sky) ≃ 27.6 mag arcsec , allow us to identify ∼ 450...

To constrain the conditions for very early nucleosynthesis in the Universe we compare the chemical enrichment pattern of an extremely metal-poor damped Lyman α (DLA) absorber with predictions from recent explosive nucleosynthesis model calculations. For this, we have analyzed chemical abundances in the DLA system at z abs = 2.6183 toward the quasar Q0913+072 (z em = 2.785) using public UVES/VLT...