Monte Carlo Performance Studies of Candidate Sites for the Cherenkov Telescope Array

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is the next-generation gamma-ray observatory with sensitivity in the energy range from 20 GeV to beyond 300 TeV. CTA is proposed to consist of two arrays of 40-100 imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes, with one site located in each of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. The evaluation process for the candidate sites for CTA is supported by detailed Monte Carlo simulations, which take different attributes like site altitude and geomagnetic field configuration into account. In this contribution we present the comparison of the sensitivity and performance of the different CTA site candidates for the measurement of very-high energy gamma rays.Comment: In Proceedings of the 34th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2015), The Hague, The Netherlands. All CTA contributions at arXiv:1508.0589

Comparison of Fermi-LAT and CTA in the region between 10-100 GeV

The past decade has seen a dramatic improvement in the quality of data available at both high (HE: 100 MeV to 100 GeV) and very high (VHE: 100 GeV to 100 TeV) gamma-ray energies. With three years of data from the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) and deep pointed observations with arrays of Cherenkov telescope, continuous spectral coverage from 100 MeV to $\sim10$ TeV exists for the first time for the brightest gamma-ray sources. The Fermi-LAT is likely to continue for several years, resulting in significant improvements in high energy sensitivity. On the same timescale, the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) will be constructed providing unprecedented VHE capabilities. The optimisation of CTA must take into account competition and complementarity with Fermi, in particularly in the overlapping energy range 10$-$100 GeV. Here we compare the performance of Fermi-LAT and the current baseline CTA design for steady and transient, point-like and extended sources.Comment: Accepted for Publication in Astroparticle Physic

The H.E.S.S. extragalactic sky

The H.E.S.S. Cherenkov telescope array, located on the southern hemisphere in Namibia, studies very high energy (VHE; E>100 GeV) gamma-ray emission from astrophysical objects. During its successful operations since 2002 more than 80 galactic and extra-galactic gamma-ray sources have been discovered. H.E.S.S. devotes over 400 hours of observation time per year to the observation of extra-galactic sources resulting in the discovery of several new sources, mostly AGNs, and in exciting physics results e.g. the discovery of very rapid variability during extreme flux outbursts of PKS 2155-304, stringent limits on the density of the extragalactic background light (EBL) in the near-infrared derived from the energy spectra of distant sources, or the discovery of short-term variability in the VHE emission from the radio galaxy M 87. With the recent launch of the Fermi satellite in 2008 new insights into the physics of AGNs at GeV energies emerged, leading to the discovery of several new extragalactic VHE sources. Multi-wavelength observations prove to be a powerful tool to investigate the production mechanism for VHE emission in AGNs. Here, new results from H.E.S.S. observations of extragalactic sources will be presented and their implications for the physics of these sources will be discussed.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, invited review talk, in the proceedings of the "International Workshop on Beamed and Unbeamed Gamma-Rays from Galaxies" 11-15 April 2011, Lapland Hotel Olos, Muonio, Finland, Journal of Physics: Conference Series Volume 355, 201

Adaptive Evolution of Conserved Noncoding Elements in Mammals

Conserved noncoding elements (CNCs) are an abundant feature of vertebrate genomes. Some CNCs have been shown to act as cis-regulatory modules, but the function of most CNCs remains unclear. To study the evolution of CNCs, we have developed a statistical method called the “shared rates test” to identify CNCs that show significant variation in substitution rates across branches of a phylogenetic tree. We report an application of this method to alignments of 98,910 CNCs from the human, chimpanzee, dog, mouse, and rat genomes. We find that ∼68% of CNCs evolve according to a null model where, for each CNC, a single parameter models the level of constraint acting throughout the phylogeny linking these five species. The remaining ∼32% of CNCs show departures from the basic model including speed-ups and slow-downs on particular branches and occasionally multiple rate changes on different branches. We find that a subset of the significant CNCs have evolved significantly faster than the local neutral rate on a particular branch, providing strong evidence for adaptive evolution in these CNCs. The distribution of these signals on the phylogeny suggests that adaptive evolution of CNCs occurs in occasional short bursts of evolution. Our analyses suggest a large set of promising targets for future functional studies of adaptation

EU External Relations: Exclusive Competence Revisited

This Article will focus on the question of exclusive competence in the field of EU external relations, especially in the light of recent developments. After a brief discussion on the origins and development of exclusive competence, a distinction will be made between common commercial policy, which has traditionally been the most important area of an explicit “a priori” exclusive competence, and what is often called an implicit exclusive competence, which, as it is today based on some general criteria enshrined in TFEU Article 3(2), may be called “supervening” exclusive competence. With regard to both categories, the main focus will be on recent developments, notably the impact of the Treaty of Lisbon, which introduced the TFEU and its Articles 2 and 3, as well as the case law of the European Court of Justice (“ECJ” or the “Court”) following the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, on December 1, 2009

Das euebm-Projekt an der Universitätsklinik Frankfurt am Main

Hintergrund: Die Notwendigkeit der Etablierung der Anwendung von Evidenzbasierter Medizin (EbM) in den klinischen Alltag sowie die Sicherung der europaweiten Qualifikation in EbM ist seit geraumer Zeit vielfältig diskutiert worden. Gefördert durch das "Leonardo da Vinci"- Berufsbildungsprogramm der Europäischen Union hat das euebm-Projekt zum Ziel, durch ein europaweit einheitliches integriertes Basiscurriculum für evidenzbasierte Medizin eine bessere Verzahnung zwischen dem Erlernen der EbM-Techniken und der eigenen Patientenversorgung zu erreichen. An der Universitätsklinik Frankfurt am Main wird ab dem 01.01.2009 das euebm-Projekt in den klinischen Alltag integriert werden. Die Zielgruppe dieses Projektes bilden alle Assistenzärzte jeglicher Fachrichtungen im 1. Weiterbildungsjahr. Durch einen online-basierten Kurs wird den Interessenten die Möglichkeit geboten, an den einzelnen Lehrmodulen teilzunehmen. Methoden: Es werden alle Assistenzärzte im 1. Weiterbildungsjahr in einem individualisierten Schreiben zur Teilnahme an dem Projekt aufgefordert. Nach der elektronischen Anmeldung werden die Teilnehmer prätest-Evaluationsbogen mit inhaltlichen EbM-Fragen beantworten. Danach durchlaufen die Teilnehmer ein EbM-Lernprogramm, bestehend aus 5 Modulen. Jedes Modul wird durch eine Lernerfolgskontrolle abgeschlossen. Abschließend wird eine Gesamtlernkontrolle von jedem Teilnehmer abverlangt. Am Ende des online-Kurses werden die Teilnehmer ebenfalls einen mehrteiligen subjektiven Evaluationsbogen beantworten. Um einen längerfristigen Lerneffekt messen zu können, werden 6 Monate bzw. 1 Jahr nach dem erfolgreichen Abschluss die Teilnehmer erneut einen objektiven inhaltlichen Evaluationsbogen bearbeiten. Ergebnisse: Im Rahmen der 10. Jahrestagung des DNEbM im März 2009 können voraussichtlich Zwischenergebnisse der objektiven (präinterventionell vs. postinterventionell) und subjektiven Evaluationen veröffentlicht werden. Zudem wird derzeit die Erstellung einer statistischen Auswertung der Zugriffszahlen auf die verschiedenen medizinischen Online-Datenbanken und Suchmaschinen (prä- und postinterventionell) aufgebaut. Schlussfolgerung/Implikation: Mit Hilfe der curricular vermittelten Lehrinhalte und Techniken sollen Ärzte in die Lage versetzt werden, EbM praxisnah für und mit ihren Patienten umzusetzen. In der konkreten Anwendung von EbM an ihren individuellen Patienten können Ärzte möglicherweise erfahren, dass die Integration von EbM in den klinischen Alltag ihr Spektrum an Beratungs- und Behandlungsmöglichkeiten erweitert

Improving the value of public RNA-seq expression data by phenotype prediction.

Publicly available genomic data are a valuable resource for studying normal human variation and disease, but these data are often not well labeled or annotated. The lack of phenotype information for public genomic data severely limits their utility for addressing targeted biological questions. We develop an in silico phenotyping approach for predicting critical missing annotation directly from genomic measurements using well-annotated genomic and phenotypic data produced by consortia like TCGA and GTEx as training data. We apply in silico phenotyping to a set of 70 000 RNA-seq samples we recently processed on a common pipeline as part of the recount2 project. We use gene expression data to build and evaluate predictors for both biological phenotypes (sex, tissue, sample source) and experimental conditions (sequencing strategy). We demonstrate how these predictions can be used to study cross-sample properties of public genomic data, select genomic projects with specific characteristics, and perform downstream analyses using predicted phenotypes. The methods to perform phenotype prediction are available in the phenopredict R package and the predictions for recount2 are available from the recount R package. With data and phenotype information available for 70,000 human samples, expression data is available for use on a scale that was not previously feasible

Dr. Yang Zhong: an explorer on the road forever

On the morning of September 25th 2017, grievous news spread from the remote Ordos region of Inner Mongolia to Fudan University campus in Shanghai. Professor Yang Zhong, a famous botanist and the Dean of Fudan University’s graduate school, passed away in a tragic car accident while on a business trip

CATALISE: A multinational and multidisciplinary Delphi consensus study. Identifying language impairments in children

Delayed or impaired language development is a common developmental concern, yet there is little agreement about the criteria used to identify and classify language impairments in children. Children's language difficulties are at the interface between education, medicine and the allied professions, who may all adopt different approaches to conceptualising them. Our goal in this study was to use an online Delphi technique to see whether it was possible to achieve consensus among professionals on appropriate criteria for identifying children who might benefit from specialist services. We recruited a panel of 59 experts representing ten disciplines (including education, psychology, speech-language therapy/pathology, pae- diatrics and child psychiatry) from English-speaking countries (Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, United Kingdom and USA). The starting point for round 1 was a set of 46 statements based on articles and commentaries in a special issue of a journal focusing on this topic. Panel members rated each statement for both relevance and validity on a seven- point scale, and added free text comments. These responses were synthesised by the first two authors, who then removed, combined or modified items with a view to improving con- sensus. The resulting set of statements was returned to the panel for a second evaluation (round 2). Consensus (percentage reporting 'agree' or 'strongly agree') was at least 80 per- cent for 24 of 27 round 2 statements, though many respondents qualified their response with written comments. These were again synthesised by the first two authors. The resulting consensus statement is reported here, with additional summary of relevant evidence, and a concluding commentary on residual disagreements and gaps in the evidence base.published_or_final_versio