Gravitational Lensing at Millimeter Wavelengths

With today's millimeter and submillimeter instruments observers use gravitational lensing mostly as a tool to boost the sensitivity when observing distant objects. This is evident through the dominance of gravitationally lensed objects among those detected in CO rotational lines at z>1. It is also evident in the use of lensing magnification by galaxy clusters in order to reach faint submm/mm continuum sources. There are, however, a few cases where millimeter lines have been directly involved in understanding lensing configurations. Future mm/submm instruments, such as the ALMA interferometer, will have both the sensitivity and the angular resolution to allow detailed observations of gravitational lenses. The almost constant sensitivity to dust emission over the redshift range z=1-10 means that the likelihood for strong lensing of dust continuum sources is much higher than for optically selected sources. A large number of new strong lenses are therefore likely to be discovered with ALMA, allowing a direct assessment of cosmological parameters through lens statistics. Combined with an angular resolution <0.1", ALMA will also be efficient for probing the gravitational potential of galaxy clusters, where we will be able to study both the sources and the lenses themselves, free of obscuration and extinction corrections, derive rotation curves for the lenses, their orientation and, thus, greatly constrain lens models.Comment: 69 pages, Review on quasar lensing. Part of a LNP Topical Volume on "Dark matter and gravitational lensing", eds. F. Courbin, D. Minniti. To be published by Springer-Verlag 2002. Paper with full resolution figures can be found at ftp://oden.oso.chalmers.se/pub/tommy/mmviews.ps.g

Genome-wide association meta-analysis of corneal curvature identifies novel loci and shared genetic influences across axial length and refractive error.

Corneal curvature, a highly heritable trait, is a key clinical endophenotype for myopia - a major cause of visual impairment and blindness in the world. Here we present a trans-ethnic meta-analysis of corneal curvature GWAS in 44,042 individuals of Caucasian and Asian with replication in 88,218 UK Biobank data. We identified 47 loci (of which 26 are novel), with population-specific signals as well as shared signals across ethnicities. Some identified variants showed precise scaling in corneal curvature and eye elongation (i.e. axial length) to maintain eyes in emmetropia (i.e. HDAC11/FBLN2 rs2630445, RBP3 rs11204213); others exhibited association with myopia with little pleiotropic effects on eye elongation. Implicated genes are involved in extracellular matrix organization, developmental process for body and eye, connective tissue cartilage and glycosylation protein activities. Our study provides insights into population-specific novel genes for corneal curvature, and their pleiotropic effect in regulating eye size or conferring susceptibility to myopia

Guide to using a lichen based index to nitrogen air quality

This guide provides a simple method for determining gaseous nitrogen pollution that can be used by anyone interested in the impacts of gaseous N on sensitive habitats in the UK. It includes a simple identification key to epiphytic lichens growing on oak and birch that show sensitivity to, or tolerance of, atmospheric N pollution. The lichen species present at your location are used to calculate a lichen indicator score (LIS), which is then converted into a standardised nitrogen air quality index (NAQI), showing the nitrogen air quality at your location.

Evaluating the therapeutic effects of museum object handling with hospital patients: A review and initial trial of wellbeing measures

Arts therapy interventions within health care produce positive outcomes for patients, staff and carers, though little rigorous evaluation of these activities is conducted using clinically accepted measures. Similarly, heritage-specific therapeutic interventions offer comparable potential to increase well-being. Although museums and galleries have significant capacity to contribute to health and social care, widespread implementation is impeded by lack of robust clinical data quantifying the impact of such interventions. Measurement scales for psychological well-being, quality of life and health status were reviewed for their suitability to evaluate well-being in hospital patients before and after 30-minute museum object handling sessions. Measures were short-listed using selection criteria of internal and external validity, practicality and sensitivity. Focus on usage in health care, breadth of application, ease of administration and degree of responsiveness informed the choice of optimum measures for preliminary research with female oncology patients (n=40). Findings indicated effectiveness of selected measures (Positive Affect Negative Affect Scale; PANAS and Visual Analogue Scale; VAS) for heritage-specific interventions