Characterization of a supercoil-dependent S1 sensitive site 5\u27 to the Drosophila melanogaster hsp 26 gene

We have analyzed the prominent supercoil-dependent S1 nuclease cleavage site 5\u27 to hsp 26 in the plasmid 88B13, which contains 11.7 kilobases from the Drosophila locus 67B1. The double stranded cleavage product is generated by initial nicking on the purine strand, six preferred sites occurring between positions -96 and -90 (relative to the start of transcription) with weaker ones extending to position -84, followed by cleavage on the pyrimidine strand at positions -86 and -84. A derivative of 88B13, 88B13-X, was generated by insertion of an Xho I linker at position -84; this does not affect the positions or strand specificity of the S1 cleavage in that region. A small deletion, delta 41.1, removes the homopurine/homopyrimidine stretch from positions -86 to -132 and is no longer sensitive to cleavage by S1 nuclease 5\u27 to hsp 26. Mung bean and P1 nucleases recognize the same site 5\u27 to hsp 26 and give the same general pattern of cleavage. All three nucleases show an initial cleavage of 88B13 DNA at this site at pH 5.5 but not at pH 6.5, indicating that the DNA structure there may be pH dependent in vitro

Social determinants of content selection in the age of (mis)information

Despite the enthusiastic rhetoric about the so called \emph{collective intelligence}, conspiracy theories -- e.g. global warming induced by chemtrails or the link between vaccines and autism -- find on the Web a natural medium for their dissemination. Users preferentially consume information according to their system of beliefs and the strife within users of opposite narratives may result in heated debates. In this work we provide a genuine example of information consumption from a sample of 1.2 million of Facebook Italian users. We show by means of a thorough quantitative analysis that information supporting different worldviews -- i.e. scientific and conspiracist news -- are consumed in a comparable way by their respective users. Moreover, we measure the effect of the exposure to 4709 evidently false information (satirical version of conspiracy theses) and to 4502 debunking memes (information aiming at contrasting unsubstantiated rumors) of the most polarized users of conspiracy claims. We find that either contrasting or teasing consumers of conspiracy narratives increases their probability to interact again with unsubstantiated rumors.Comment: misinformation, collective narratives, crowd dynamics, information spreadin

Reconstruction of the Primordial Power Spectrum by Direct Inversion

We introduce a new method for reconstructing the primordial power spectrum, $P(k)$, directly from observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). We employ Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) to invert the radiation perturbation transfer function. The degeneracy of the multipole $\ell$ to wavenumber $k$ linear mapping is thus reduced. This enables the inversion to be carried out at each point along a Monte Carlo Markov Chain (MCMC) exploration of the combined $P(k)$ and cosmological parameter space. We present best--fit $P(k)$ obtained with this method along with other cosmological parameters.Comment: 23 pages, 9 figure

Bounds from Primordial Black Holes with a Near Critical Collapse Initial Mass Function

Recent numerical evidence suggests that a mass spectrum of primordial black holes (PBHs) is produced as a consequence of near critical gravitational collapse. Assuming that these holes formed from the initial density perturbations seeded by inflation, we calculate model independent upper bounds on the mass variance at the reheating temperature by requiring the mass density not exceed the critical density and the photon emission not exceed current diffuse gamma-ray measurements. We then translate these results into bounds on the spectral index n by utilizing the COBE data to normalize the mass variance at large scales, assuming a constant power law, then scaling this result to the reheating temperature. We find that our bounds on n differ substantially (\delta n > 0.05) from those calculated using initial mass functions derived under the assumption that the black hole mass is proportional to the horizon mass at the collapse epoch. We also find a change in the shape of the diffuse gamma-ray spectrum which results from the Hawking radiation. Finally, we study the impact of a nonzero cosmological constant and find that the bounds on n are strengthened considerably if the universe is indeed vacuum-energy dominated today.Comment: 24 pages, REVTeX, 5 figures; minor typos fixed, two refs added, version to be published in PR

First Results from the Arcminute Cosmology Bolometer Array Receiver

We review the first science results from the Arcminute Cosmology Bolometer Array Receiver (ACBAR); a multifrequency millimeter-wave receiver optimized for observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect in clusters of galaxies. ACBAR was installed on the 2 m Viper telescope at the South Pole in January 2001 and the results presented here incorporate data through July 2002. We present the power spectrum of the CMB at 150 GHz over the range \ell = 150 - 3000 measured by ACBAR as well as estimates for the values of the cosmological parameters within the context of Lambda-CDM models. We find that the inclusion of Omega_Lambda greatly improves the fit to the power spectrum. We also observe a slight excess of small-scale anisotropy at 150 GHz; if interpreted as power from the SZ effect of unresolved clusters, the measured signal is consistent with CBI and BIMA within the context of the SZ power spectrum models tested.Comment: To be published in the proceedings of "The Cosmic Microwave Background and its Polarization", New Astronomy Reviews, (eds. S. Hanany and K.A. Olive). 10 pages, 2 figure

Measuring CMB Polarization with BOOMERANG

BOOMERANG is a balloon-borne telescope designed for long duration (LDB) flights around Antarctica. The second LDB Flight of BOOMERANG took place in January 2003. The primary goal of this flight was to measure the polarization of the CMB. The receiver uses polarization sensitive bolometers at 145 GHz. Polarizing grids provide polarization sensitivity at 245 and 345 GHz. We describe the BOOMERANG telescope noting changes made for 2003 LDB flight, and discuss some of the issues involved in the measurement of polarization with bolometers. Lastly, we report on the 2003 flight and provide an estimate of the expected results.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, To be published in the proceedings of "The Cosmic Microwave Background and its Polarization", New Astronomy Reviews, (eds. S. Hanany and K.A. Olive). Fixed typos, and reformatted citation

AEROgui: A graphical user interface for the optical properties of aerosols

Atmospheric aerosols have an uncertain effect on climate and serious impacts on human health. The uncertainty in the aerosols' role on climate has several sources. First, aerosols have great spatial and temporal variability. The spatial variability arises from the fact that aerosols emitted in a certain place can travel thousands of kilometers, swept by the winds to modify the destination region's climate. The spatial variability also means that aerosols are inhomogeneously distributed in the vertical direction, which can lead to a differential effect on the energy balance depending on the aerosols' altitude. On the other hand, aerosols experience physical and chemical transformations in the time they spend in the atmosphere, commonly known as aging, which modifies its optical properties. These factors make necessary the use of two approaches for the study of the aerosol impact on climate: global aerosol models and satellite- and ground-based measurements. The disagreement between the estimates of the two approaches is the main cause of the climate uncertainty. One way to reduce climate uncertainty is to create new tools to simulate more realistic aerosol scenarios. We present a graphical user interface to obtain aerosol optical properties: extinction, scattering, and absorption coefficients; single-scattering albedo; asymmetry parameter; and aerosol optical depth. The tool can be used to obtain the optical properties of the external and internal mixture of several aerosol components. Interface outputs have successfully been compared to a black carbon plume and to aging mineral dust

Bayesian joint estimation of non-Gaussianity and the power spectrum

We propose a rigorous, non-perturbative, Bayesian framework which enables one jointly to test Gaussianity and estimate the power spectrum of CMB anisotropies. It makes use of the Hilbert space of an harmonic oscillator to set up an exact likelihood function, dependent on the power spectrum and on a set of parameters $\alpha_i$, which are zero for Gaussian processes. The latter can be expressed as series of cumulants; indeed they perturbatively reduce to cumulants. However they have the advantage that their variation is essentially unconstrained. Any truncation(i.e.: finite set of $\alpha_i$) therefore still produces a proper distribution - something which cannot be said of the only other such tool on offer, the Edgeworth expansion. We apply our method to Very Small Array (VSA) simulations based on signal Gaussianity, showing that our algorithm is indeed not biased.Comment: 11pages, 4 figures, submitted to MNRA