How do patients actually experience and use art in hospitals?:The significance of interaction. A user-oriented experimental case study.

This article aims to understand patient wellbeing and satisfaction and to qualify the current guidelines for the application of art in hospitals. Employing anthropological methods, we focus on the interactional aspects of art in health interventions. A user-oriented study ranked 20 paintings, followed by an experiment using paintings in the dayroom of five medical wards. Fieldwork was done over a two-week period. During the first week, dayrooms were configured without the presence of art and in the second week were configured with the artworks. Semi-structured interviews, observation, participant observation and informal conversation were carried out and were informed by thermal cameras, which monitored the usage, patient occupation and flow in two of the dayrooms. The study shows that art contributes to creating an environment and atmosphere where patients can feel safe, socialize, maintain a connection to the world outside the hospital and support their identity. We conclude that the presence of visual art in hospitals contributes to health outcomes by improving patient satisfaction as an extended form of health care. The article draws attention to further research perspectives and methods associated with the development of art in hospitals

CCAT-prime: a novel telescope for submillimeter astronomy

The CCAT-prime telescope is a 6-meter aperture, crossed-Dragone telescope, designed for millimeter and sub-millimeter wavelength observations. It will be located at an altitude of 5600 meters, just below the summit of Cerro Chajnantor in the high Atacama region of Chile. The telescope's unobscured optics deliver a field of view of almost 8 degrees over a large, flat focal plane, enabling it to accommodate current and future instrumentation fielding >100k diffraction-limited beams for wavelengths less than a millimeter. The mount is a novel design with the aluminum-tiled mirrors nested inside the telescope structure. The elevation housing has an integrated shutter that can enclose the mirrors, protecting them from inclement weather. The telescope is designed to co-host multiple instruments over its nominal 15 year lifetime. It will be operated remotely, requiring minimum maintenance and on-site activities due to the harsh working conditions on the mountain. The design utilizes nickel-iron alloy (Invar) and carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) materials in the mirror support structure, achieving a relatively temperature-insensitive mount. We discuss requirements, specifications, critical design elements, and the expected performance of the CCAT-prime telescope. The telescope is being built by CCAT Observatory, Inc., a corporation formed by an international partnership of universities. More information about CCAT and the CCAT-prime telescope can be found at www.ccatobservatory.org.Comment: Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescope + Instrumentation, 2018, Austin, Texas, USA; Proceedings Volume 10700, Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes VII; 107005X (2018

Halo Cold Dark Matter and Microlensing

There is good evidence that most of the baryons in the Universe are dark and some evidence that most of the matter in the Universe is nonbaryonic with cold dark matter (cdm) being a promising possibility. We discuss expectations for the abundance of baryons and cdm in the halo of our galaxy and locally. We show that in plausible cdm models the local density of cdm is at least 10^{-25}\gcmm3. We also discuss what one can learn about the the local cdm density from microlensing of stars in the LMC by dark stars in the halo and, based upon a suite of reasonable two-component halo models, conclude that microlensing is not a sensitive probe of the local cdm density.Comment: 11 pages Latex, 2 ps figures. FNAL-Pub-93/357-

The CCAT-Prime Submillimeter Observatory

The Cerro Chajnantor Atacama Telescope-prime (CCAT-prime) is a new 6-m, off-axis, low-emissivity, large field-of-view submillimeter telescope scheduled for first light in the last quarter of 2021. In summary, (a) CCAT-prime uniquely combines a large field-of-view (up to 8-deg), low emissivity telescope (< 2%) and excellent atmospheric transmission (5600-m site) to achieve unprecedented survey capability in the submillimeter. (b) Over five years, CCAT-prime first generation science will address the physics of star formation, galaxy evolution, and galaxy cluster formation; probe the re-ionization of the Universe; improve constraints on new particle species; and provide for improved removal of dust foregrounds to aid the search for primordial gravitational waves. (c) The Observatory is being built with non-federal funds (~ \$40M in private and international investments). Public funding is needed for instrumentation (~ \$8M) and operations (\$1-2M/yr). In return, the community will be able to participate in survey planning and gain access to curated data sets. (d) For second generation science, CCAT-prime will be uniquely positioned to contribute high-frequency capabilities to the next generation of CMB surveys in partnership with the CMB-S4 and/or the Simons Observatory projects or revolutionize wide-field, sub-millimetter line intensity mapping surveys.Comment: Astro2020 APC White Pape

Gravitational Microlensing and the Galactic Halo

By means of extensive galactic modeling we study the implications of the more than eighty microlensing events that have now been observed for the composition of the dark halo of the Galaxy, as well as for other properties of the Galaxy. We take the Galaxy to be comprised of luminous and dark disk components, a bulge, and a dark halo consisting of both MACHOs and cold dark matter with each component being described by several observationally motivated parameters. We pare down an initial model space of millions of galactic models to viable models, those which are consistent with the observational data, including rotation curve, local projected mass density, and microlensing rates toward the LMC and bulge. On the basis of a conservative, minimal set of observational constraints an all-MACHO halo cannot yet be excluded, although in most viable models of the Galaxy the halo MACHO fraction is between 0\% and 30\%, consistent with expectations for a universe whose primary component is cold dark matter. An all-MACHO halo is required to be light, and when data on the local escape velocity and satellite-galaxy proper motions, which probe the extent of the dark halo, are taken into account, models which have a high MACHO mass fraction are ruled out. We also explore the possibility that there are no MACHOs in the halo. Finally, we point out several important tests that could definitively exclude an all-MACHO e.g., optical depth for microlensing which is less than $1.5\times 10^{-7}$ toward the LMC or greater than $3\times 10^{-6}$ toward the bulge.Comment: 19 pages, 13 multipart figures are available at ftp://astro.uchicago.edu/ftp/pub/astro/gyuk

The JCMT Gould Belt Survey: evidence for dust grain evolution in Perseus star-forming clumps

The dust emissivity spectral index, β, is a critical parameter for deriving the mass and temperature of star-forming structures and, consequently, their gravitational stability. The β value is dependent on various dust grain properties, such as size, porosity, and surface composition, and is expected to vary as dust grains evolve. Here we present β, dust temperature, and optical depth maps of the star-forming clumps in the Perseus Molecular Cloud determined from fitting spectral energy distributions to combined Herschel and JCMT observations in the 160, 250, 350, 500, and 850 μm bands. Most of the derived β and dust temperature values fall within the ranges of 1.0-2.7 and 8-20 K, respectively. In Perseus, we find the β distribution differs significantly from clump to clump, indicative of grain growth. Furthermore, we also see significant localized β variations within individual clumps and find low-β regions correlate with local temperature peaks, hinting at the possible origins of low-β grains. Throughout Perseus, we also see indications of heating from B stars and embedded protostars, as well evidence of outflows shaping the local landscape