Neutrino tomography

Neutrinos are produced in weak interactions as states with definite flavor—electron, muon, or tau—and these flavor states are superpositions of states of different mass. As a neutrino propagates through space, the different mass eigenstates interfere, resulting in time-dependent flavor oscillation. Though matter is transparent to neutrinos, the flavor oscillation probability is modified when neutrinos travel through matter. Herein, we present an introduction to neutrino propagation through matter in a manner accessible to advanced undergraduate students. As an interesting application, we consider neutrino propagation through matter with a piecewise-constant density profile. This scenario has relevance in neutrino tomography, in which the density profile of matter, like the Earth\u27s interior, can be probed via a broad-spectrum neutrino beam. We provide an idealized example to demonstrate the principle of neutrino tomography

Assessing the effect of architectural design on real estate values : a qualitative approach

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2005.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 86-88).It has long been known that 'good' architecture and quality design are public goods, as they have been shown to increase surrounding property values, create a sense of community, and provide a catalyst for future development. What is less clearly understood is the individual user's demand and willingness to pay for good architecture; if there is a positive externality to quality architecture on the surrounding buildings, tenants, and bystanders, then there must exist a 'socially optimal' level of design that may or may not be equal to the optimal level as measured by the private market. Through interviews with industry leaders and policy makers, and a careful reading of relevant literature, this study seeks to investigate the discrepancy between the socially and privately optimal levels of design, and to determine the degree to which 'good' architects or 'good' architecture can affect private returns to private developers or owners. More simply put: does there exist a private market for 'good' architecture within the market for real estate?by Jason A. Millhouse.S.M

Reconstructing gravitational wave signals from binary black hole mergers with minimal assumptions

We present a systematic comparison of the binary black hole (BBH) signal waveform reconstructed by two independent and complementary approaches used in LIGO and Virgo source inference: a template-based analysis, and a morphology-independent analysis. We apply the two approaches to real events and to two sets of simulated observations made by adding simulated BBH signals to LIGO and Virgo detector noise. The first set is representative of the 10 BBH events in the first Gravitational Wave Transient Catalog (GWTC-1). The second set is constructed from a population of BBH systems with total mass and signal strength in the ranges that ground based detectors are typically sensitive. We find that the reconstruction quality of the GWTC-1 events is consistent with the results of both sets of simulated signals. We also demonstrate a simulated case where the presence of a mismodelled effect in the observed signal, namely higher order modes, can be identified through the morphology-independent analysis. This study is relevant for currently progressing and future observational runs by LIGO and Virgo

The BayesWave analysis pipeline in the era of gravitational wave observations

We describe updates and improvements to the BayesWave gravitational wave transient analysis pipeline, and provide examples of how the algorithm is used to analyze data from ground-based gravitational wave detectors. BayesWave models gravitational wave signals in a morphology-independent manner through a sum of frame functions, such as Morlet-Gabor wavelets or chirplets. BayesWave models the instrument noise using a combination of a parametrized Gaussian noise component and non-stationary and non-Gaussian noise transients. Both the signal model and noise model employ trans-dimensional sampling, with the complexity of the model adapting to the requirements of the data. The flexibility of the algorithm makes it suitable for a variety of analyses, including reconstructing generic unmodeled signals; cross checks against modeled analyses for compact binaries; as well as separating coherent signals from incoherent instrumental noise transients (glitches). The BayesWave model has been extended to account for gravitational wave signals with generic polarization content and the simultaneous presence of signals and glitches in the data. We describe updates in the BayesWave prior distributions, sampling proposals, and burn-in stage that provide significantly improved sampling efficiency. We present standard review checks indicating the robustness and convergence of the BayesWave trans-dimensional sampler

Characterizing the efficacy of methods to subtract terrestrial transient noise near gravitational wave events and the effects on parameter estimation

We investigate the impact of transient noise artifacts, or {\it glitches}, on gravitational wave inference, and the efficacy of data cleaning procedures in recovering unbiased source properties. Due to their time-frequency morphology, broadband glitches demonstrate moderate to significant biasing of posterior distributions away from true values. In contrast, narrowband glitches have negligible biasing effects owing to distinct signal and glitch morphologies. We inject simulated binary black hole signals into data containing three common glitch types from past LIGO-Virgo observing runs, and reconstruct both signal and glitch waveforms using {\tt BayesWave}, a wavelet-based Bayesian analysis. We apply the standard LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA deglitching procedure to the detector data - we subtract the glitch waveform estimated by the joint {\tt BayesWave} inference before performing parameter estimation with detailed compact binary waveform models. We find that this deglitching effectively mitigates bias from broadband glitches, with posterior peaks aligning with true values post deglitching. This provides a baseline validation of existing techniques, while demonstrating waveform reconstruction improvements to the Bayesian algorithm for robust astrophysical characterization in glitch-prone detector data.Comment: 22 pages, 17 figure

Investigating the biological properties of carbohydrate derived fulvic acid (CHD-FA) as a potential novel therapy for the management of oral biofilm infections.

Background: A number of oral diseases, including periodontitis, derive from microbial biofilms and are associated with increased antimicrobial resistance. Despite the widespread use of mouthwashes being used as adjunctive measures to control these biofilms, their prolonged use is not recommended due to various side effects. Therefore, alternative broad-spectrum antimicrobials that minimise these effects are highly sought after. Carbohydrate derived fulvic acid (CHD-FA) is an organic acid which has previously demonstrated to be microbiocidal against Candida albicans biofilms, therefore, the aims of this study were to evaluate the antibacterial activity of CHD-FA against orally derived biofilms and to investigate adjunctive biological effects.<p></p> Methods: Minimum inhibitory concentrations were evaluated for CHD-FA and chlorhexidine (CHX) against a range of oral bacteria using standardised microdilution testing for planktonic and sessile. Scanning electron microscopy was also employed to visualise changes in oral biofilms after antimicrobial treatment. Cytotoxicity of these compounds was assessed against oral epithelial cells, and the effect of CHD-FA on host inflammatory markers was assessed by measuring mRNA and protein expression.<p></p> Results: CHD-FA was highly active against all of the oral bacteria tested, including Porphyromonas gingivalis, with a sessile minimum inhibitory concentration of 0.5%. This concentration was shown to kill multi-species biofilms by approximately 90%, levels comparable to that of chlorhexidine (CHX). In a mammalian cell culture model, pretreatment of epithelial cells with buffered CHD-FA was shown to significantly down-regulate key inflammatory mediators, including interleukin-8 (IL-8), after stimulation with a multi-species biofilm.<p></p> Conclusions: Overall, CHD-FA was shown to possess broad-spectrum antibacterial activity, with a supplementary function of being able to down-regulate inflammation. These properties offer an attractive spectrum of function from a naturally derived compound, which could be used as an alternative topical treatment strategy for oral biofilm diseases. Further studies in vitro and in vivo are required to determine the precise mechanism by which CHD-FA modulates the host immune response.<p></p&gt

First narrow-band search for continuous gravitational waves from known pulsars in advanced detector data

Spinning neutron stars asymmetric with respect to their rotation axis are potential sources of continuous gravitational waves for ground-based interferometric detectors. In the case of known pulsars a fully coherent search, based on matched filtering, which uses the position and rotational parameters obtained from electromagnetic observations, can be carried out. Matched filtering maximizes the signalto- noise (SNR) ratio, but a large sensitivity loss is expected in case of even a very small mismatch between the assumed and the true signal parameters. For this reason, narrow-band analysis methods have been developed, allowing a fully coherent search for gravitational waves from known pulsars over a fraction of a hertz and several spin-down values. In this paper we describe a narrow-band search of 11 pulsars using data from Advanced LIGO’s first observing run. Although we have found several initial outliers, further studies show no significant evidence for the presence of a gravitational wave signal. Finally, we have placed upper limits on the signal strain amplitude lower than the spin-down limit for 5 of the 11 targets over the bands searched; in the case of J1813-1749 the spin-down limit has been beaten for the first time. For an additional 3 targets, the median upper limit across the search bands is below the spin-down limit. This is the most sensitive narrow-band search for continuous gravitational waves carried out so far

Electrophysiological Characteristics of Globus Pallidus Neurons

Extracellular recordings in primates have identified two types of neurons in the external segment of the globus pallidus (GPe): high frequency pausers (HFP) and low frequency bursters (LFB). The aim of the current study was to test whether the properties of HFP and LFB neurons recorded extracellularly in the primate GPe are linked to cellular mechanisms underlying the generation of action potential (AP) firing. Thus, we recorded from primate and rat globus pallidus neurons. Extracellular recordings in primates revealed that in addition to differences in firing patterns the APs of neurons in these two groups have different widths (APex). To quantitatively investigate this difference and to explore the heterogeneity of pallidal neurons we carried out cell-attached and whole-cell recordings from acute slices of the rat globus pallidus (GP, the rodent homolog of the primate GPe), examining both spontaneous and evoked activity. Several parameters related to the extracellular activity were extracted in order to subdivide the population of recorded GP neurons into groups. Statistical analysis showed that the GP neurons in the rodents may be differentiated along six cellular parameters into three subgroups. Combining two of these groups allowed a better separation of the population along nine parameters. Four of these parameters (Fmax, APamp, APhw, and AHPs amplitude) form a subset, suggesting that one group of neurons may generate APs at significantly higher frequencies than the other group. This may suggest that the differences between the HFP and LFB neurons in the primate are related to fundamental underlying differences in their cellular properties

Low oxygen affects photophysiology and the level of expression of two-carbon metabolism genes in the seagrass <i>Zostera muelleri</i>

© 2017, Springer Science+Business Media B.V. Seagrasses are a diverse group of angiosperms that evolved to live in shallow coastal waters, an environment regularly subjected to changes in oxygen, carbon dioxide and irradiance. Zostera muelleri is the dominant species in south-eastern Australia, and is critical for healthy coastal ecosystems. Despite its ecological importance, little is known about the pathways of carbon fixation in Z. muelleri and their regulation in response to environmental changes. In this study, the response of Z. muelleri exposed to control and very low oxygen conditions was investigated by using (i) oxygen microsensors combined with a custom-made flow chamber to measure changes in photosynthesis and respiration, and (ii) reverse transcription quantitative real-time PCR to measure changes in expression levels of key genes involved in C4 metabolism. We found that very low levels of oxygen (i) altered the photophysiology of Z. muelleri, a characteristic of C3 mechanism of carbon assimilation, and (ii) decreased the expression levels of phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase and carbonic anhydrase. These molecular-physiological results suggest that regulation of the photophysiology of Z. muelleri might involve a close integration between the C3 and C4, or other CO2 concentrating mechanisms metabolic pathways. Overall, this study highlights that the photophysiological response of Z. muelleri to changing oxygen in water is capable of rapid acclimation and the dynamic modulation of pathways should be considered when assessing seagrass primary production