Returning magnetic flux in sunspot penumbrae

We study the presence of reversed polarity magnetic flux in sunspot penumbra. We applied a new regularized method to deconvolve spectropolarimetric data observed with the spectropolarimeter SP onboard Hinode. The new regularization is based on a principal component decomposition of the Stokes profiles. The resulting Stokes profiles were inverted to infer the magnetic field vector using SIR. We find, for the first time, reversed polarity fields at the border of many bright penumbral filaments in the whole penumbra.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in A&A Letter

Picture vocabulary growth in students with and without disabilities in an early childhood program that targets poor families

We compared growth in the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test between children with disabilities and children without disabilities in Educare Central Maine, a highly resourced data-driven Birth-5 early care and education program that targets children at risk of school failure because of socioeconomic factors. Children with disabilities made up 13% of enrollment. Children with disabilities tended to catch up with the typically developing children as they spent more time in Educare.https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/ccids_posters/1007/thumbnail.jp

Spatial deconvolution of spectropolarimetric data: an application to quiet Sun magnetic elements

Observations of the Sun from the Earth are always limited by the presence of the atmosphere, which strongly disturbs the images. A solution to this problem is to place the telescopes in space satellites, which produce observations without any (or limited) atmospheric aberrations. However, even though the images from space are not affected by atmospheric seeing, the optical properties of the instruments still limit the observations. In the case of diffraction limited observations, the PSF establishes the maximum allowed spatial resolution, defined as the distance between two nearby structures that can be properly distinguished. In addition, the shape of the PSF induce a dispersion of the light from different parts of the image, leading to what is commonly termed as stray light or dispersed light. This effect produces that light observed in a spatial location at the focal plane is a combination of the light emitted in the object at relatively distant spatial locations. We aim to correct the effect produced by the telescope's PSF using a deconvolution method, and we decided to apply the code on Hinode/SP quiet Sun observations. We analyze the validity of the deconvolution process with noisy data and we infer the physical properties of quiet Sun magnetic elements after the deconvolution process.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figure

Interdepartmental Coordination for Maine’s Young Children with Disabilities

Alan B. Cobo-Lewis describes Maine’s system of services for young children with disabilities. He notes that families of young children with disabilities face challenges in navigating Maine’s service structure. There can be delays before children get appropriate evaluation, and there are sometimes problems with inter-agency referrals. Cobo-Lewis makes a number of recommendations regarding data linkage; coordina­tion of eligibility determination from different funding streams; updating inter-agency agreements; and creation of a more efficient state departmental struc­ture for services to children with disabilitie

Equitable Vaccine Access within an Age-Based Framework

Objectives: When vaccine supply was limited, several states adopted age-based prioritization for Covid-19 vaccine eligibility because it is simple (especially when age is quantized by decade) and age is strongly associated with Covid-19 mortality. But this approach raises equity concerns based in law and ethics. I propose data-driven solutions for equitable policy within an age-based framework. Methods: Using CDC and Census Bureau data, I analyzed 538,627 U.S. Covid-19 deaths by age and race-ethnicity through February 2021 and compared the risk ratios to published data on risk ratios for other conditions. Results: Covid-19 mortality rose 2.56-fold per decade of life. Down syndrome, organ transplantation, and intellectual/developmental disability all have higher risk ratios. Conclusions: People with specific conditions associated with a risk ratio of 2.56 or 6.54 should become vaccine-eligible along with people 10 or 20 years older, respectively. Even as vaccines become more available, data collection and reporting through disability systems should be integrated with general public health systems, including vaccination databases, in order to assess Covid-19 mortality associated with intellectual or developmental disability per se and to make it possible to track vaccine progress in this marginalized population. People from these groups should also be involved in decision making and advisory bodies

Novel Methods for Maximizing and Evaluating Adaptive Measurement Efficiency

Contributions within Discipline: The findings have improved the efficiency of adaptive measurement in psychophysics, in experimental paradigms where individual trials are often information-poor and experiments are consequently long. The Bayesian adaptive methodology improves the information throughput in such experiments and improves on heuristic methods. The multivariate estimation also extends the utility of Bayesian adaptive estimation into realms where it is even more important because of the \u27curse of dimensionality\u27 (where the size of parameter space is exponential in the number of parameters). In addition, the work on nonparametric adaptive methods has helped reveal the source of bias in simpler adaptive methodology that has often incorrectly been taken to be safe because of its apparent lack of statistical assumptions. By revealint the source of such bias, it offers solutions for minimizing the bias

Detection of emission in the Si i 1082.7 nm line core in sunspot umbrae

We analyze spectropolarimetric sunspot umbra observations taken in the near-infrared Si i 1082.7 nm line taking NLTE effects into account. The data were obtained with the GRIS instrument installed at the German GREGOR telescope. A point spread function (PSF) was constructed using prior Mercury observations with GRIS and the information provided by the adaptive optics system of the GREGOR telescope. The data were then deconvolved from the PSF using a principal component analysis deconvolution method and were analyzed via the NICOLE inversion code. The Si i 1082.7 nm line seems to be in emission in the umbra of the observed sunspot after the effects of scattered light are removed. We show how the spectral line shape of umbral profiles changes dramatically with the amount of scattered light. Indeed, the continuum levels range, on average, from 44% of the quiet Sun continuum intensity to about 20%. The inferred levels are in line with current model predictions and empirical umbral models. Current umbral empirical models are not able to reproduce the emission in the deconvolved umbral Stokes profiles. The results of the NLTE inversions suggests that to obtain the emission in the Si i 1082.7 nm line, the temperature stratification should first have a hump located at about log tau -2 and start rising at lower heights when moving into the transition region. This is, to our knowledge, the first time the Si i 1082.7 nm line is seen in emission in sunspot umbrae. The results show that the temperature stratification of current umbral models may be more complex than expected with the transition region located at lower heights above sunspot umbrae. Our finding might provide insights into understanding why the sunspot umbra emission in the millimeter spectral range is less than that predicted by current empirical umbral models