Including birefringence into time evolution of CMB: current and future constraints

We introduce birefringence effects within the propagation history of CMB, considering the two cases of a constant effect and of an effect that increases linearly in time, as the rotation of polarization induced by birefringence accumulates during photon propagation. Both cases result into a mixing of E and B modes before lensing effects take place, thus leading to the fact that lensing is acting on spectra that are already mixed because of birefringence. Moreover, if the polarization rotation angle increases during propagation, birefringence affects more the large scales that the small scales. We put constraints on the two cases using data from WMAP 9yr and BICEP 2013 and compare these results with the constraints obtained when the usual procedure of rotating the final power spectra is adopted, finding that this dataset combination is unable to distinguish between effects, but it nevertheless hints for a non vanishing value of the polarization rotation angle. We also forecast the sensitivity that will be obtained using data from Planck and PolarBear, highlighting how this combination is capable to rule out a vanishing birefringence angle, but still unable to distinguish the different scenarios. Nevertheless, we find that the combination of Planck and PolarBear is sensitive enough to highlight the existence of degeneracies between birefringence rotation and gravitational lensing of CMB photons, possibly leading to false detection of non standard lensing effects if birefringence is neglected.Comment: 20 pages, 10 figures. New version matching the one accepted by JCAP. Corrected typos in equations 2.17-2.1

Role of autophagy in cancer cell response to nucleolar and endoplasmic reticulum stress

Eukaryotic cells are exposed to many internal and external stimuli that affect their fate. In particular, the exposure to some of these stimuli induces stress triggering a variety of stress responses aimed to re-establish cellular homeostasis. It is now established that the deregulation of stress response pathways plays a central role in cancer initiation and progression, allowing the adaptation of cells to an altered state in the new environment. Autophagy is a tightly regulated pathway which exerts “housekeeping” role in physiological processes. Recently, a growing amount of evidence highlighted the crucial role of autophagy in the regulation of integrated stress responses, including nucleolar and endoplasmic reticulum. In this review, we attempt to afford an overview of the complex role of nucleolar and endoplasmic reticulum stress-response mechanisms in the regulation of autophagy in cancer and cancer treatment

lensingGW: a Python package for lensing of gravitational waves

Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo could observe the first lensed gravitational waves in the coming years, while the future Einstein Telescope could observe hundreds of lensed events. Ground-based gravitational-wave detectors can resolve arrival time differences of the order of the inverse of the observed frequencies. As LIGO/Virgo frequency band spans from a few $\rm Hz$ to a few $\rm kHz$, the typical time resolution of current interferometers is of the order of milliseconds. When microlenses are embedded in galaxies or galaxy clusters, lensing can become more prominent and result in observable time delays at LIGO/Virgo frequencies. Therefore, gravitational waves could offer an exciting alternative probe of microlensing. However, currently, only a few lensing configurations have been worked out in the context of gravitational-wave lensing. In this paper, we present lensingGW, a Python package designed to handle both strong and microlensing of compact binaries and the related gravitational-wave signals. This synergy paves the way for systematic parameter space investigations and the detection of arbitrary lens configurations and compact sources. We demonstrate the working mechanism of lensingGW and its use to study microlenses embedded in galaxies.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figure

CMB Polarization Systematics, Cosmological Birefringence and the Gravitational Waves Background

Cosmic Microwave Background experiments must achieve very accurate calibration of their polarization reference frame to avoid biasing the cosmological parameters. In particular, a wrong or inaccurate calibration might mimic the presence of a gravitational wave background, or a signal from cosmological birefringence, a phenomenon characteristic of several non-standard, symmetry breaking theories of electrodynamics that allow for \textit{in vacuo} rotation if the polarization direction of the photon. Noteworthly, several authors have claimed that the BOOMERanG 2003 (B2K) published polarized power spectra of the CMB may hint at cosmological birefringence. Such analyses, however, do not take into account the reported calibration uncertainties of the BOOMERanG focal plane. We develop a formalism to include this effect and apply it to the BOOMERanG dataset, finding a cosmological rotation angle $\alpha=-4.3^\circ\pm4.1^\circ$. We also investigate the expected performances of future space borne experiment, finding that an overall miscalibration larger then $1^\circ$ for Planck and $0.2\circ$ for EPIC, if not properly taken into account, will produce a bias on the constraints on the cosmological parameters and could misleadingly suggest the presence of a GW background.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure

Lensed or not lensed: Determining lensing magnifications for binary neutron star mergers from a single detection

Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo could observe the first lensed gravitational wave sources in the coming years, while the future Einstein Telescope could observe hundreds of lensed events. It is, therefore, crucial to develop methodologies to distinguish between lensed from unlensed gravitational-wave observations. A lensed signal not identified as such will lead to biases during the interpretation of the source. In particular, sources will appear to have intrinsically higher masses. No robust method currently exists to distinguish between the magnification bias caused by lensing and intrinsically high-mass sources. In this work, we show how to recognize lensed and unlensed binary neutron star systems through the measurement of their tidal effects for highly magnified sources as a proof-of-principle. The proposed method could be used to identify lensed binary neutron stars, which are the chief candidate for lensing cosmography studies. We apply our method on GW190425, finding no evidence in favor of lensing, mainly due to the poor measurement of the event's tidal effects. However, we expect that future detections with better tidal measurements can yield better constraints.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figure

Probing Lorentz-violating electrodynamics with CMB polarization

We perform a comprehensive study of the signatures of Lorentz violation in electrodynamics on the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies. In the framework of the minimal Standard Model Extension (SME), we consider effects generated by renormalizable operators, both CPT-odd and CPT-even. These operators are responsible for sourcing, respectively, cosmic birefringence and circular polarization. We propagate jointly the effects of all the relevant Lorentz-violating parameters to CMB observables and provide constraints with the most recent CMB datasets. We bound the CPT-even coefficient to $k_{F,E+B} < 2.31 \times 10^{-31}$ at 95\% CL. This improves previous CMB bounds by one order of magnitude. The limits we obtain on the CPT-odd coefficients, i.e. $|k_{(V)00}^{(3)}| < 1.54 \times 10^{-44} \; {\rm GeV}$ and $|\mathbf{k_{AF}}| < 0.74 \times 10^{-44} \; {\rm GeV}$ at 95\% CL, are respectively one and two orders of magnitude stronger than previous CMB-based limits, superseding also bounds from non-CMB searches. This analysis provides the strongest constraints to date on CPT-violating coefficients in the minimal SME from CMB searches

Edad y crecimiento del pámpano, Trachinotus ovatus, del Estrecho de Messina (Mediterráneo central)

This is the first paper to provide detailed information on the age and growth of&nbsp;Trachinotus ovatus. The size of the 244 individuals collected in the Strait of Messina ranged from 2.7 to 30.4 cm in fork length (LF) and 0.31 to 508.6 g in body mass (M). The relationship between these parameters (M&nbsp;-&nbsp;LF) was investigated and showed a good fit. Age estimation based on vertebrae and otoliths yielded similar results, suggesting a maximum age of five years. However, the precision and accuracy tests, such as percentage of agreement (PA), mean coefficient of variation (ACV) and average percent error (APE) indicated that the otolith readings (97.83% PA, 0.54% ACV and 0.38% APE) were more reliable for age estimation than vertebrae readings (82.17% PA, 5.33% ACV and 3.77% APE). The multi-model inference approach allowed us to compare different non-linear growth models. The von Bertalanffy model (L∞=29.139,&nbsp;k=0.496 and&nbsp;t0=−0.347) fitted the length-at-age data best. This species has a relatively rapid growth and an estimated longevity of five to seven years. This information could be used for management and first stock assessment studies on&nbsp;T. ovatus&nbsp;in the Mediterranean Sea.Este es el primer artículo que proporciona información detallada sobre la edad y el crecimiento de&nbsp;Trachinotus ovatus. El tamaño de los 244 individuos recolectados en el Estrecho de Messina osciló entre 2.7 y 30.4 cm de longitud a la horquilla (LF) y 0.31 a 508.6 g de masa corporal (M). Se investigó la relación entre estos parámetros (M&nbsp;-&nbsp;LF) y mostró un buen ajuste. La estimación de la edad basada en vértebras y otolitos arrojó resultados similares, lo que sugiere una edad máxima de cinco años. Sin embargo, las pruebas de precisión y exactitud, como el porcentaje de concordancia (PA), el coeficiente medio de variación (ACV) y el porcentaje de error medio (APE), indicaron que las lecturas del otolito (97.83% PA, 0.54% ACV y 0.38 % APE) fueron más confiables para la estimación de la edad que las lecturas de vértebras (82.17% PA, 5.33% ACV y 3.77% APE). El enfoque de inferencia de modelos múltiples nos permitió comparar diferentes modelos de crecimiento no lineal. El modelo de von Bertalanffy (L∞=29.139,&nbsp;k=0.496 and&nbsp;t0=−0.347) se ajusta mejor a los datos de talla por edad. Esta especie tiene un crecimiento relativamente rápido y una longevidad estimada de cinco a siete años. Esta información podría utilizarse para la ordenación y los primeros estudios de evaluación de poblaciones de&nbsp;T. ovatus&nbsp;en el mar Mediterráneo

Perhexiline maleate enhances antitumor efficacy of cisplatin in neuroblastoma by inducing over-expression of NDM29 ncRNA

High Risk Neuroblastoma (HR-NB) is a pediatric cancer characterized by high malignancy and remarkable cell heterogeneity within the tumour nodules. In a recent study, we demonstrated that in vitro and in vivo over-expression of the non-coding RNA NDM29 (neuroblastoma differentiation marker 29) induces NB cell differentiation, dramatically reducing their malignancy. Among gene expression changes, differentiated phenotype induced by NDM29 is characterized by decrease of the expression of ABC transporters responsible for anticancer drug resistance. Thus, the pharmacological induction of NDM29, in principle, might represent a possible novel strategy to increase cytotoxic drug responses. In this work, we identify a small molecule able to induce the expression of NDM29 in NB cells, conferring to malignant cells increased susceptibility to cisplatin cytotoxic effects. We demonstrate that the pharmacological induction of NDM29 expression in vivo enhances the antitumoral effects of chemotherapy specifically on tumour initiating/cancer stem cells sub-population, usually refractory to therapies and responsible for tumour relapse. In summary, we suggest a novel therapeutical approach possibly useful to treat very aggressive NB cases with poor prognosis. This novel pharmacological strategy aims to promote differentiation of "stem-like" cells to render them more susceptible to the killing action of cytotoxic anticancer drugs

Using CMB data to constrain non-isotropic Planck-scale modifications to Electrodynamics

We develop a method to constrain non-isotropic features of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) polarization, of a type expected to arise in some models describing quantum gravity effects on light propagation. We describe the expected signatures of this kind of anomalous light propagation on CMB photons, showing that it will produce a non-isotropic birefringence effect, i.e. a rotation of the CMB polarization direction whose observed amount depends in a peculiar way on the observation direction. We also show that the sensitivity levels expected for CMB polarization studies by the \emph{Planck} satellite are sufficient for testing these effects if, as assumed in the quantum-gravity literature, their magnitude is set by the minute Planck length.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures, 2 table