Time-dependent calculation of ionization in Potassium at mid-infrared wavelengths

We study the dynamics of the Potassium atom in the mid-infrared, high intensity, short laser pulse regime. We ascertain numerical convergence by comparing the results obtained by the direct expansion of the time-dependent Schroedinger equation onto B-Splines, to those obtained by the eigenbasis expansion method. We present ionization curves in the 12-, 13-, and 14-photon ionization range for Potassium. The ionization curve of a scaled system, namely Hydrogen starting from the 2s, is compared to the 12-photon results. In the 13-photon regime, a dynamic resonance is found and analyzed in some detail. The results for all wavelengths and intensities, including Hydrogen, display a clear plateau in the peak-heights of the low energy part of the Above Threshold Ionization (ATI) spectrum, which scales with the ponderomotive energy Up, and extends to 2.8 +- 0.5 Up.Comment: 15 two-column pages with 15 figures, 3 tables. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev A. Improved figures, language and punctuation, and made minor corrections. We also added a comparison to the ADK theor

Theory of mind and peer relationships: the role of social anxiety

Recent research has shown that individual differences in Theory of mind (ToM) during middle childhood are linked with individual differences in children’s peer relationships. The present longitudinal study investigated this association more deeply, exploring the potential mediating role played by children’s social anxiety. We tested a group of 66 children (11.5 years old at Time 1) three times over one year after their transition to secondary school. Over and above language, SES and stability in individual differences, ToM performance shortly after starting secondary school (Time 1) predicted higher peer acceptance, as well as lower peer rejection, one year later (Time 3) via lower levels of social anxiety over time (Time 2). This study extends our knowledge about the links between social understanding and interpersonal relations in middle childhood. The results suggest that ToM may play an important role in children’s adjustment when confronting new social contexts

Strong field ionization in arbitrary laser polarizations

Published versio

Factors shaping prayer frequency among 9- to 11-year-olds

This paper begins by reviewing the evidence from international research concerning the personal and social correlates of prayer frequency during childhood and adolescence. Overall these data continue to support the view that young people who pray not only report higher levels of personal wellbeing but also report higher levels of pro-social attitudes. These findings raise a research question of particular relevance within church schools regarding the factors that predict higher levels of prayer activity among students. The Student Voice Project offers data that can illuminate this research question. Among the 3,101 9- to 11-year old students who participated in the project 11% prayed daily, 9% at least once a week, 32% sometimes, 11% once or twice a year, and 37% never. The present paper tests the power of four sets of predictor variables to account for individual differences in prayer frequency among these students: personal factors (age and sex), psychological factors (using the three dimensional model of personality proposed by Eysenck), church attendance (self, mother, and father), and family discussion about prayer (mother, father, and grandparents). Multiple regression analyses identified the discussion of prayer with the mother as the single most important predictor. These findings locate the development of the practice of prayer within the home, even more than within the church

Combining dark energy survey science verification data with near-infrared data from the ESO VISTA hemisphere survey

We present the combination of optical data from the Science Verification phase of the Dark Energy Survey (DES) with near infrared data from the ESO VISTA Hemisphere Survey (VHS). The deep optical detections from DES are used to extract fluxes and associated errors from the shallower VHS data. Joint 7-band ($grizYJK$) photometric catalogues are produced in a single 3 sq-deg DECam field centred at 02h26m$-$04d36m where the availability of ancillary multi-wavelength photometry and spectroscopy allows us to test the data quality. Dual photometry increases the number of DES galaxies with measured VHS fluxes by a factor of $\sim$4.5 relative to a simple catalogue level matching and results in a $\sim$1.5 mag increase in the 80\% completeness limit of the NIR data. Almost 70\% of DES sources have useful NIR flux measurements in this initial catalogue. Photometric redshifts are estimated for a subset of galaxies with spectroscopic redshifts and initial results, although currently limited by small number statistics, indicate that the VHS data can help reduce the photometric redshift scatter at both $z1$. We present example DES+VHS colour selection criteria for high redshift Luminous Red Galaxies (LRGs) at $z\sim0.7$ as well as luminous quasars. Using spectroscopic observations in this field we show that the additional VHS fluxes enable a cleaner selection of both populations with $<$10\% contamination from galactic stars in the case of spectroscopically confirmed quasars and $<0.5\%$ contamination from galactic stars in the case of spectroscopically confirmed LRGs. The combined DES+VHS dataset, which will eventually cover almost 5000 sq-deg, will therefore enable a range of new science and be ideally suited for target selection for future wide-field spectroscopic surveys.We thank the referee, Nicholas Cross, for a very useful report on this manuscript. MB acknowledges a postdoctoral fellowship via OL’s Advanced European Research Council Grant (TESTDE). Funding for the DES Projects has been provided by the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Ministry of Science and Education of Spain, the Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom, the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, the Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago, Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos, Fundac¸ ˜ao Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo `a Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cient´ıfico e Tecnol ´ogico and the Minist´erio da Ciˆencia e Tecnologia, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and the Collaborating Institutions in the Dark Energy Survey. The Collaborating Institutions are Argonne National Laboratories, the University of California at Santa Cruz, the University of Cambridge, Centro de Investigaciones Energeticas, Medioambientales y Tecnologicas-Madrid, the University of Chicago, University College London, the DES-Brazil Consortium, the Eidgen¨ossische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Z¨urich, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the University of Edinburgh, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Institut de Ciencies de l’Espai (IEEC/CSIC), the Institut de Fisica d’Altes Energies, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Ludwig-Maximilians Universit ¨at and the associated Excellence Cluster Universe, the University of Michigan, the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, the University of Nottingham, The Ohio State University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Portsmouth, SLAC National Laboratory, Stanford University, the University of Sussex, and Texas A&M University. The DES participants from Spanish institutions are partially supported by MINECO under grants AYA2009-13936, AYA2012- 39559, AYA2012-39620, and FPA2012-39684, which include FEDER funds from the European Union. We are grateful for the extraordinary contributions of our CTIO colleagues and the DES Camera, Commissioning and Science Verification teams in achieving the excellent instrument and telescope conditions that have made this work possible. The success of this project also relies critically on the expertise and dedication of the DES Data Management organisation. The analysis presented here is based on observations obtained as part of the VISTA Hemisphere Survey, ESO Progam, 179.A- 2010 (PI: McMahon) and data products from observations made with ESO Telescopes at the La Silla Paranal Observatory under programme ID 179.A-2006 (PI: Jarvis). Data for the OzDES spectroscopic survey were obtained with the Anglo-Australian Telescope (program numbers 12B/11 and 13B/12). Parts of this research were conducted by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO), through project number CE110001020. TMD acknowledges the support of the Australian Research Council through Future Fellowship, FT100100595.This is the final published version. It first appeared at http://mnras.oxfordjournals.org/content/446/3/2523.abstract

Development of the social brain from age three to twelve years

Human adults recruit distinct networks of brain regions to think about the bodies and minds of others. This study characterizes the development of these networks, and tests for relationships between neural development and behavioral changes in reasoning about others' minds ('theory of mind', ToM). A large sample of children (n = 122, 3-12 years), and adults (n = 33), watched a short movie while undergoing fMRI. The movie highlights the characters' bodily sensations (often pain) and mental states (beliefs, desires, emotions), and is a feasible experiment for young children. Here we report three main findings: (1) ToM and pain networks are functionally distinct by age 3 years, (2) functional specialization increases throughout childhood, and (3) functional maturity of each network is related to increasingly anti-correlated responses between the networks. Furthermore, the most studied milestone in ToM development, passing explicit false-belief tasks, does not correspond to discontinuities in the development of the social brain.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Award 1122374)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Award 095518)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Award R01-MH096914-05

Observation and confirmation of six strong-lensing systems in the Dark Energy Survey Science Verification data

We report the observation and confirmation of the first group- and cluster-scale strong gravitational lensing systems found in Dark Energy Survey data. Through visual inspection of data from the Science Verification season, we identified 53 candidate systems. We then obtained spectroscopic follow-up of 21 candidates using the Gemini Multi-object Spectrograph at the Gemini South telescope and the Inamori-Magellan Areal Camera and Spectrograph at the Magellan/Baade telescope. With this follow-up, we confirmed six candidates as gravitational lenses: three of the systems are newly discovered, and the remaining three were previously known. Of the 21 observed candidates, the remaining 15 either were not detected in spectroscopic observations, were observed and did not exhibit continuum emission (or spectral features), or were ruled out as lensing systems. The confirmed sample consists of one group-scale and five galaxy-cluster-scale lenses. The lensed sources range in redshift z ˜ 0.80--3.2 and in i-band surface brightness i SB ˜ 23--25 mag arcsec-2 (2" aperture). For each of the six systems, we estimate the Einstein radius theta E and the enclosed mass M enc, which have ranges theta E ˜ 5"--9" and M enc ˜ 8 × 1012 to 6 × 1013 M &sun;, respectively. This paper includes data gathered with the 6.5 m Magellan Telescopes located at Las Campanas Observatory, Chile

OzDES multifibre spectroscopy for the Dark Energy Survey: three year results and first data release

We present results for the first three years of OzDES, a six-year program to obtain redshifts for objects in the Dark Energy Survey (DES) supernova fields using the 2dF fibre positioner and AAOmega spectrograph on the Anglo-Australian Telescope. OzDES is a multi-object spectroscopic survey targeting multiple types of targets at multiple epochs over a multi-year baseline, and is one of the first multi-object spectroscopic surveys to dynamically include transients into the target list soon after their discovery. At the end of three years, OzDES has spectroscopically confirmed almost 100 supernovae, and has measured redshifts for 17,000 objects, including the redshifts of 2,566 supernova hosts. We examine how our ability to measure redshifts for targets of various types depends on signal-to-noise, magnitude, and exposure time, finding that our redshift success rate increases significantly at a signal-to-noise of 2 to 3 per 1-°Angstrom bin. We also find that the change in signal-to-noise with exposure time closely matches the Poisson limit for stacked exposures as long as 10 hours.We use these results to predict the redshift yield of the full OzDES survey, as well as the potential yields of future surveys on other facilities such as 4MOST, PFS, and MSE. This work marks the first OzDES data release, comprising 14,693 redshifts. OzDES is on target to obtain over 30,000 redshifts over the six-year duration of the survey, including a yield of approximately 5,700 supernova host-galaxy redshifts

The disruption of proteostasis in neurodegenerative diseases

Cells count on surveillance systems to monitor and protect the cellular proteome which, besides being highly heterogeneous, is constantly being challenged by intrinsic and environmental factors. In this context, the proteostasis network (PN) is essential to achieve a stable and functional proteome. Disruption of the PN is associated with aging and can lead to and/or potentiate the occurrence of many neurodegenerative diseases (ND). This not only emphasizes the importance of the PN in health span and aging but also how its modulation can be a potential target for intervention and treatment of human diseases.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio