We study the statistics of soft gamma repeater (SGR) bursts using a database of 187 events detected with BATSE and 837 events detected with the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer Proportional Counter Array; all events are from SGR 1900114 during its 1998–1999 active phase. We find that the fluence or energy distribution of bursts is consistent with a power law of index 1.66, over 4 orders of magnitude...

Congress is again attempting to repeal the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula. The formula is a failed mechanism intended to constrain Medicare Part B physician spending by adjusting annual physician fee updates. Congress has averted formula-driven physician fee cuts each year beginning in 2003 by overriding the SGR, usually accompanied with last-minute disputes about how these overrides sho...

Variation among individuals in specific growth rate (SGR), feeding, and two measures of swimming performance and their possible interrelationships were investigated in juvenile rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) kept in groups on either satiation or half-satiation rations. Maximum sustainable velocity (Ucrit) was measured as an index of aerobic swimming performance and stamina (fatigue time in...

We report measurements with the VLBA of the position of Sgr A* with respect to two extragalactic radio sources over a period of eight years. The apparent proper motion of Sgr A* relative to J1745–283 is 6.379 ± 0.024 mas y −1 along a position angle of 209.60 ± 0.18 degrees, almost entirely in the plane of the Galaxy. The effects of the orbit of the Sun around the Galactic center can account for...

We present the first detection from the Spitzer Space Telescope of 4.5 μm variability from Sgr A*, the emitting source associated with the Milky Way’s central black hole. The >23 hour continuous light curve was obtained with the IRAC instrument in 2013 December. The result characterizes the variability of Sgr A* prior to the closest approach of the G2 object, a putative infalling gas cloud that...

The inner couple hundred pcs of our Galaxy is characterized by significant amount of synchrotron-emitting gas, which appears to co-exist with a large reservoir of molecular gas. Many of the best studied sources in this region exhibit a mixture of 6.4 keV Fe Kα emission, molecular line emission and nonthermal radio continuum radiation. The spatial correlation between fluorescent Fe K-α line emis...

Metallicity gradients in the Sagittarius dwarf Galaxy (Sgr) are investigated by using infrared photometric data from the 2MASS survey. To search for metallicity effects, the giant branch in a field situated near the Center of the Sgr is compared to the giant branch in a field situated near its southern edge. The contamination of the Sgr giant branch by foreground Galactic stars is canceled by s...

We report on the recovery of a Blue Horizontal Branch (BHB) population belonging to the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy (Sgr). The sequence is clearly identified in the (V, V-I) Color Magnitude Diagram (CMD) obtained for about 500,000 stars in the region of the globular cluster M 54. The BHB morphology is similar to the analogous sequence in M 54, but it is unambiguously associated with Sgr...

BACKGROUND Burning mouth syndrome (BMS) is characterized by the following subjective complaints without distinct organic changes: burning sensation in mouth or chronic pain of tongue. BMS is also known as glossodynia; both terms are used equivalently in Japan. Although the real cause of BMS is still unknown, it has been pointed out that BMS is related to some autonomic abnormality, and that ste...

We report IRAM 30-m observations of DCN and DCO+ towards the galactic center molecular clouds Sgr B2 and Sgr A. We compare our results with simultaneous measurements of H13CN and HCO+ in order to derive estimates of the [DCN]/[HCN] and [DCO+]/[HCO] abundance ratios. We mapped Sgr B2 in DCN(2-1) and DCN(3-2) and we compared HCN with DCN for one position of our maps. The uncertainties in such mea...