1,090 research outputs found
Contractions from to the M-theory superalgebra extended by additional fermionic generators
We study here the generalized Weimar-Woods contractions of the superalgebra
in order to obtain a suitable algebra that could
describe the gauge group of supergravity. The contracted superalgebras
are assumed to be given in terms of fermionic extensions of the M-theory
superalgebra. We show that the only superalgebra of this type obtained by
contraction is the only one for which the three-form of supergravity
cannot be trivialized. Therefore, supergravity cannot be connected in
this way with a contraction of
The functional anatomy of schizophrenia: A dynamic causal modeling study of predictive coding.
This paper tests the hypothesis that patients with schizophrenia have a deficit in selectively attending to predictable events. We used dynamic causal modeling (DCM) of electrophysiological responses - to predictable and unpredictable visual targets - to quantify the effective connectivity within and between cortical sources in the visual hierarchy in 25 schizophrenia patients and 25 age-matched controls. We found evidence for marked differences between normal subjects and schizophrenia patients in the strength of extrinsic backward connections from higher hierarchical levels to lower levels within the visual system. In addition, we show that not only do schizophrenia subjects have abnormal connectivity but also that they fail to adjust or optimize this connectivity when events can be predicted. Thus, the differential intrinsic recurrent connectivity observed during processing of predictable versus unpredictable targets was markedly attenuated in schizophrenia patients compared with controls, suggesting a failure to modulate the sensitivity of neurons responsible for passing sensory information of prediction errors up the visual cortical hierarchy. The findings support the proposed role of abnormal connectivity in the neuropathology and pathophysiology of schizophrenia
The ALHAMBRA Survey: Bayesian Photometric Redshifts with 23 bands for 3 squared degrees
The ALHAMBRA (Advance Large Homogeneous Area Medium Band Redshift
Astronomical) survey has observed 8 different regions of the sky, including
sections of the COSMOS, DEEP2, ELAIS, GOODS-N, SDSS and Groth fields using a
new photometric system with 20 contiguous ~ filters covering the
optical range, combining them with deep imaging. The observations,
carried out with the Calar Alto 3.5m telescope using the wide field (0.25 sq.
deg FOV) optical camera LAICA and the NIR instrument Omega-2000, correspond to
~700hrs on-target science images. The photometric system was designed to
maximize the effective depth of the survey in terms of accurate spectral-type
and photo-zs estimation along with the capability of identification of
relatively faint emission lines. Here we present multicolor photometry and
photo-zs for ~438k galaxies, detected in synthetic F814W images, complete down
to I~24.5 AB, taking into account realistic noise estimates, and correcting by
PSF and aperture effects with the ColorPro software. The photometric ZP have
been calibrated using stellar transformation equations and refined internally,
using a new technique based on the highly robust photometric redshifts measured
for emission line galaxies. We calculate photometric redshifts with the BPZ2
code, which includes new empirically calibrated templates and priors. Our
photo-zs have a precision of for I<22.5 and 1.4% for
22.5<I<24.5. Precisions of less than 0.5% are reached for the brighter
spectroscopic sample, showing the potential of medium-band photometric surveys.
The global shows a mean redshift =0.56 for I=0.86 for
I<24.5 AB. The data presented here covers an effective area of 2.79 sq. deg,
split into 14 strips of 58.5'x15.5' and represents ~32 hrs of on-target.Comment: The catalog data and a full resolution version of this paper is
available at https://cloud.iaa.csic.es/alhambra
Stellar populations of galaxies in the ALHAMBRA survey up to . I. MUFFIT: A Multi-Filter Fitting code for stellar population diagnostics
We present MUFFIT, a new generic code optimized to retrieve the main stellar
population parameters of galaxies in photometric multi-filter surveys, and we
check its reliability and feasibility with real galaxy data from the ALHAMBRA
survey. Making use of an error-weighted -test, we compare the
multi-filter fluxes of galaxies with the synthetic photometry of mixtures of
two single stellar populations at different redshifts and extinctions, to
provide through a Monte Carlo method the most likely range of stellar
population parameters (mainly ages and metallicities), extinctions, redshifts,
and stellar masses. To improve the diagnostic reliability, MUFFIT identifies
and removes from the analysis those bands that are significantly affected by
emission lines. We highlight that the retrieved age-metallicity locus for a
sample of early-type galaxies in ALHAMBRA at different stellar
mass bins are in very good agreement with the ones from SDSS spectroscopic
diagnostics. Moreover, a one-to-one comparison between the redshifts, ages,
metallicities, and stellar masses derived spectroscopically for SDSS and by
MUFFIT for ALHAMBRA reveals good qualitative agreements in all the parameters.
In addition, and using as input the results from photometric-redshift codes,
MUFFIT improves the photometric-redshift accuracy by -, and it
also detects nebular emissions in galaxies, providing physical information
about their strengths. Our results show the potential of multi-filter galaxy
data to conduct reliable stellar population studies with the appropiate
analysis techniques, as MUFFIT.Comment: 31 pages, 18 figures, accepted for publication in A&
CALIFA, the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area survey: III. Second public data release
García-Benito, R. et. al.© ESO, 2015. This paper describes the Second Public Data Release (DR2) of the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area (CALIFA) survey. The data for 200 objects are made public, including the 100 galaxies of the First Public Data Release (DR1). Data were obtained with the integral-field spectrograph PMAS/PPak mounted on the 3.5 m telescope at the Calar Alto observatory. Two different spectral setups are available for each galaxy, (i) a low-resolution V500 setup covering the wavelength range 3745-7500 Å with a spectral resolution of 6.0 Å (FWHM); and (ii) a medium-resolution V1200 setup covering the wavelength range 3650-4840 Å with a spectral resolution of 2.3 Å (FWHM). The sample covers a redshift range between 0.005 and 0.03, with a wide range of properties in the color-magnitude diagram, stellar mass, ionization conditions, and morphological types. All the cubes in the data release were reduced with the latest pipeline, which includes improvedspectrophotometric calibration, spatial registration, and spatial resolution. The spectrophotometric calibration is better than 6% and the median spatial resolution is 2.4. In total, the second data release contains over 1.5 million spectra.R.G.B., R.G.D., and E.P. are supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion under grant AYA2010-15081. S.Z. is supported by the EU Marie Curie Integration Grant >SteMaGE> Nr. PCIG12-GA-2012-326466 (Call Identifier: FP7-PEOPLE-2012 CIG). J.F.B. acknowledges support from grants AYA2010-21322-C03-02 and AIB-2010-DE-00227 from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO), as well as from the FP7 Marie Curie Actions of the European Commission, via the Initial Training Network DAGAL under REA grant agreement number 289313. Support for L.G. is provided by the Ministry of Economy, Development, and Tourism's Millennium Science Initiative through grant IC12009, awarded to The Millennium Institute of Astrophysics, M.A.S.L.G. also acknowledges support by CONICYT through FONDECYT grant 3140566. A.G. acknowledges support from the FP7/2007-2013 under grant agreement n. 267251 (AstroFIt). J.M.G. acknowledges support from the Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (FCT) through the Fellowship SFRH/BPD/66958/2009 from FCT (Portugal) and research grant PTDC/FIS-AST/3214/2012. RAM was funded by the Spanish programme of International Campus of Excellence Moncloa (CEI). J.M.A. acknowledges support from the European Research Council Starting Grant (SEDmorph; P.I. V. Wild). I.M., J.M. and A.d.O. acknowledge the support by the projects AYA2010-15196 from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion and TIC 114 and PO08-TIC-3531 from Junta de Andalucia. AMI acknowledges support from Agence Nationale de la Recherche through the STILISM project (ANR-12-BS05-0016-02). M.M. acknowledges financial support from AYA2010-21887-C04-02 from the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad. P.P. is supported by an FCT Investigador 2013 Contract, funded by FCT/MCTES (Portugal) and POPH/FSE (EC). P.P. acknowledges support by FCT under project FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-029170 (Reference FCT PTDC/FIS-AST/3214/2012), funded by FCT-MEC (PIDDAC) and FEDER (COMPETE). T.R.L. thanks the support of the Spanish Ministerio de Educacion, Cultura y Deporte by means of the FPU fellowship. PSB acknowledges support from the Ramon y Cajal program, grant ATA2010-21322-C03-02 from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO). C.J.W. acknowledges support through the Marie Curie Career Integration Grant 303912. V.W. acknowledges support from the European Research Council Starting Grant (SEDMorph P.I. V. Wild) and European Career Re-integration Grant (Phiz-Ev P.I.V. Wild). Y.A. acknowledges financial support from the Ramon y Cajal programme (RyC-2011-09461) and project AYA2013-47742-C4-3-P, both managed by the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, as well as the >Study of Emission-Line Galaxies with Integral-Field Spectroscopy> (SELGIFS) programme, funded by the EU (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IRSES-612701) within the Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions schemePeer Reviewe
Dual ifgMosaic: A Versatile Method for Multispectral and Combinatorial Mosaic Gene-Function Analysis
Improved methods for manipulating and analyzing gene function have provided a better understanding of how genes work during organ development and disease. Inducible functional genetic mosaics can be extraordinarily useful in the study of biological systems; however, this experimental approach is still rarely used in vertebrates. This is mainly due to technical difficulties in the assembly of large DNA constructs carrying multiple genes and regulatory elements and their targeting to the genome. In addition, mosaic phenotypic analysis, unlike classical single gene-function analysis, requires clear labeling and detection of multiple cell clones in the same tissue. Here, we describe several methods for the rapid generation of transgenic or gene-targeted mice and embryonic stem (ES) cell lines containing all the necessary elements for inducible, fluorescent, and functional genetic mosaic (ifgMosaic) analysis. This technology enables the interrogation of multiple and combinatorial gene function with high temporal and cellular resolution.This work was supported by grants to the PI R.B. from the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (SAF2013-44329-P, SAF2013-42359-ERC, and RYC-2013-13209) and European Research Council (ERC-2014-StG - 638028). S.P.-Q., M.F.-C., and I.G.-G. were supported by PhD fellowships from Fundacion La Caixa (CX-SO-2013-02, CX\_E-2015-01, and CX-SO-16-1, respectively). W.L. by a FP7-PEOPLE-2012-COFUND GA600396 postdoctoral contract. We thank Simon Bartlett for English editing, Ralf H. Adams for sharing the Cdh5(PAC)-CreERT2 mice, Jose Luis de La Pompa for comments throughout the project and for sharing the Tie2-Cre mice, Gonzalo Gancedo for the help with the mouse colony, Valeria Caiolfa for the help with the microscopy, and all the members of the CNIC gene targeting, transgenesis, cellomics, and microscopy units. The CNIC is supported by MEIC/MINECO and the Pro CNIC Foundation and is a Severo Ochoa Center of Excellence (SEV-2015-0505).S
Lyman break and UV-selected galaxies at z ~ 1: II. PACS-100um/160um FIR detections
We report the PACS-100um/160um detections of a sample of 42 GALEX-selected
and FIR-detected Lyman break galaxies (LBGs) at z ~ 1 located in the COSMOS
field and analyze their ultra-violet (UV) to far-infrared (FIR) properties. The
detection of these LBGs in the FIR indicates that they have a dust content high
enough so that its emission can be directly detected. According to a spectral
energy distribution (SED) fitting with stellar population templates to their
UV-to-near-IR observed photometry, PACS-detected LBGs tend to be bigger, more
massive, dustier, redder in the UV continuum, and UV-brighter than
PACS-undetected LBGs. PACS-detected LBGs at z ~ 1 are mostly disk-like galaxies
and are located over the green-valley and red sequence of the color-magnitude
diagram of galaxies at their redshift. By using their UV and IR emission, we
find that PACS-detected LBGs tend to be less dusty and have slightly higher
total star-formation rates (SFRs) than other PACS-detected UV-selected galaxies
within their same redshift range. As a consequence of the selection effect due
to the depth of the FIR observations employed, all our PACS-detected LBGs are
LIRGs. However, none of them are in the ULIRG regime, where the FIR
observations are complete. The finding of ULIRGs-LBGs at higher redshifts
suggests an evolution of the FIR emission of LBGs with cosmic time. In an
IRX- diagram, PACS-detected LBGs at z ~ 1 tend to be located around the
relation for local starburst similarly to other UV-selected PACS-detected
galaxies at their same redshift. Consequently, the dust-correction factors
obtained with their UV continuum slope allow to determine their total SFR,
unlike at higher redshifts. However, the dust attenuation derived from UV to
NIR SED fitting overestimates the total SFR for most of our PACS-detected LBGs
in age-dependent way: the overestimation factor is higher in younger galaxies.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRA
Discerning the Ambiguous Role of Missense TTN Variants in Inherited Arrhythmogenic Syndromes
The titin gene (TTN) is associated with several diseases, including inherited arrhythmias. Most of these diagnoses are attributed to rare TTN variants encoding truncated forms, but missense variants represent a diagnostic challenge for clinical genetics. The proper interpretation of genetic data is critical for translation into the clinical setting. Notably, many TTN variants were classified before 2015, when the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) published recommendations to accurately classify genetic variants. Our aim was to perform an exhaustive reanalysis of rare missense TTN variants that were classified before 2015, and that have ambiguous roles in inherited arrhythmogenic syndromes. Rare missense TTN variants classified before 2015 were updated following the ACMG recommendations and according to all the currently available data. Our cohort included 193 individuals definitively diagnosed with an inherited arrhythmogenic syndrome before 2015. Our analysis resulted in the reclassification of 36.8% of the missense variants from unknown to benign/likely benign. Of all the remaining variants, currently classified as of unknown significance, 38.3% showed a potential, but not confirmed, deleterious role. Most of these rare missense TTN variants with a suspected deleterious role were identified in patients diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. More than 35% of the rare missense TTN variants previously classified as ambiguous were reclassified as not deleterious, mainly because of improved population frequencies. Despite being inconclusive, almost 40% of the variants showed a potentially deleterious role in inherited arrhythmogenic syndromes. Our results highlight the importance of the periodical reclassification of rare missense TTN variants to improve genetic diagnoses and help increase the accuracy of personalized medicine
- …