CYberinfrastructure for COmparative effectiveness REsearch (CYCORE): improving data from cancer clinical trials

Improved approaches and methodologies are needed to conduct comparative effectiveness research (CER) in oncology. While cancer therapies continue to emerge at a rapid pace, the review, synthesis, and dissemination of evidence-based interventions across clinical trials lag in comparison. Rigorous and systematic testing of competing therapies has been clouded by age-old problems: poor patient adherence, inability to objectively measure the environmental influences on health, lack of knowledge about patients’ lifestyle behaviors that may affect cancer’s progression and recurrence, and limited ability to compile and interpret the wide range of variables that must be considered in the cancer treatment. This lack of data integration limits the potential for patients and clinicians to engage in fully informed decision-making regarding cancer prevention, treatment, and survivorship care, and the translation of research results into mainstream medical care. Particularly important, as noted in a 2009 report on CER to the President and Congress, the limited focus on health behavior-change interventions was a major hindrance in this research landscape (DHHS 2009). This paper describes an initiative to improve CER for cancer by addressing several of these limitations. The Cyberinfrastructure for Comparative Effectiveness Research (CYCORE) project, informed by the National Science Foundation’s 2007 report “Cyberinfrastructure Vision for 21st Century Discovery” has, as its central aim, the creation of a prototype for a user-friendly, open-source cyberinfrastructure (CI) that supports acquisition, storage, visualization, analysis, and sharing of data important for cancer-related CER. Although still under development, the process of gathering requirements for CYCORE has revealed new ways in which CI design can significantly improve the collection and analysis of a wide variety of data types, and has resulted in new and important partnerships among cancer researchers engaged in advancing health-related CI

Design and sensitivity of a 6-axis seismometer for gravitational wave observatories

We present the design, control system, and noise analysis of a 6-axis seismometer comprising a mass suspended by a single fused silica fiber. We utilize custom-made, compact Michelson interferometers for the readout of the mass motion relative to the table and successfully overcome the sensitivity of existing commercial seismometers by over an order of magnitude in the angular degrees of freedom. We develop the sensor for gravitational-wave observatories, such as LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA, to help them observe intermediate-mass black holes, increase their duty cycle, and improve localization of sources. Our control system and its achieved sensitivity makes the sensor suitable for other fundamental physics experiments, such as tests of semiclassical gravity, searches for bosonic dark matter, and studies of the Casimir force

Design and sensitivity of a 6-axis seismometer for gravitational wave observatories

We present the design, control system, and noise analysis of a 6-axis seismometer comprising a mass suspended by a single fused silica fibre. We utilise custom-made, compact Michelson interferometers for the readout of the mass motion relative to the table and successfully overcome the sensitivity of existing commercial seismometers by over an order of magnitude in the angular degrees of freedom. We develop the sensor for gravitational-wave observatories, such as LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA, to help them observe intermediate-mass black holes, increase their duty cycle, and improve localisation of sources. Our control system and its achieved sensitivity makes the sensor suitable for other fundamental physics experiments, such as tests of semiclassical gravity, searches for bosonic dark matter, and studies of the Casimir force

Search for gravitational-lensing signatures in the full third observing run of the LIGO-Virgo network

Gravitational lensing by massive objects along the line of sight to the source causes distortions of gravitational wave-signals; such distortions may reveal information about fundamental physics, cosmology and astrophysics. In this work, we have extended the search for lensing signatures to all binary black hole events from the third observing run of the LIGO--Virgo network. We search for repeated signals from strong lensing by 1) performing targeted searches for subthreshold signals, 2) calculating the degree of overlap amongst the intrinsic parameters and sky location of pairs of signals, 3) comparing the similarities of the spectrograms amongst pairs of signals, and 4) performing dual-signal Bayesian analysis that takes into account selection effects and astrophysical knowledge. We also search for distortions to the gravitational waveform caused by 1) frequency-independent phase shifts in strongly lensed images, and 2) frequency-dependent modulation of the amplitude and phase due to point masses. None of these searches yields significant evidence for lensing. Finally, we use the non-detection of gravitational-wave lensing to constrain the lensing rate based on the latest merger-rate estimates and the fraction of dark matter composed of compact objects

Search for eccentric black hole coalescences during the third observing run of LIGO and Virgo

Despite the growing number of confident binary black hole coalescences observed through gravitational waves so far, the astrophysical origin of these binaries remains uncertain. Orbital eccentricity is one of the clearest tracers of binary formation channels. Identifying binary eccentricity, however, remains challenging due to the limited availability of gravitational waveforms that include effects of eccentricity. Here, we present observational results for a waveform-independent search sensitive to eccentric black hole coalescences, covering the third observing run (O3) of the LIGO and Virgo detectors. We identified no new high-significance candidates beyond those that were already identified with searches focusing on quasi-circular binaries. We determine the sensitivity of our search to high-mass (total mass M>70 M⊙) binaries covering eccentricities up to 0.3 at 15 Hz orbital frequency, and use this to compare model predictions to search results. Assuming all detections are indeed quasi-circular, for our fiducial population model, we place an upper limit for the merger rate density of high-mass binaries with eccentricities 0<e≤0.3 at 0.33 Gpc−3 yr−1 at 90\% confidence level

Ultralight vector dark matter search using data from the KAGRA O3GK run

Among the various candidates for dark matter (DM), ultralight vector DM can be probed by laser interferometric gravitational wave detectors through the measurement of oscillating length changes in the arm cavities. In this context, KAGRA has a unique feature due to differing compositions of its mirrors, enhancing the signal of vector DM in the length change in the auxiliary channels. Here we present the result of a search for U(1)B−L gauge boson DM using the KAGRA data from auxiliary length channels during the first joint observation run together with GEO600. By applying our search pipeline, which takes into account the stochastic nature of ultralight DM, upper bounds on the coupling strength between the U(1)B−L gauge boson and ordinary matter are obtained for a range of DM masses. While our constraints are less stringent than those derived from previous experiments, this study demonstrates the applicability of our method to the lower-mass vector DM search, which is made difficult in this measurement by the short observation time compared to the auto-correlation time scale of DM

The population of merging compact binaries inferred using gravitational waves through GWTC-3

v2: minor edits, most to Table 1 and caption; v3: rerun with public data; Data release: https://zenodo.org/record/5655785; v4: update Fig 14We report on the population properties of 76 compact binary mergers detected with gravitational waves below a false alarm rate of 1 per year through GWTC-3. The catalog contains three classes of binary mergers: BBH, BNS, and NSBH mergers. We infer the BNS merger rate to be between 10 $\rm{Gpc^{-3} yr^{-1}}$ and 1700 $\rm{Gpc^{-3} yr^{-1}}$ and the NSBH merger rate to be between 7.8 $\rm{Gpc^{-3}\, yr^{-1}}$ and 140 $\rm{Gpc^{-3} yr^{-1}}$ , assuming a constant rate density versus comoving volume and taking the union of 90% credible intervals for methods used in this work. Accounting for the BBH merger rate to evolve with redshift, we find the BBH merger rate to be between 17.9 $\rm{Gpc^{-3}\, yr^{-1}}$ and 44 $\rm{Gpc^{-3}\, yr^{-1}}$ at a fiducial redshift (z=0.2). We obtain a broad neutron star mass distribution extending from $1.2^{+0.1}_{-0.2} M_\odot$ to $2.0^{+0.3}_{-0.3} M_\odot$. We can confidently identify a rapid decrease in merger rate versus component mass between neutron star-like masses and black-hole-like masses, but there is no evidence that the merger rate increases again before 10 $M_\odot$. We also find the BBH mass distribution has localized over- and under-densities relative to a power law distribution. While we continue to find the mass distribution of a binary's more massive component strongly decreases as a function of primary mass, we observe no evidence of a strongly suppressed merger rate above $\sim 60 M_\odot$. The rate of BBH mergers is observed to increase with redshift at a rate proportional to $(1+z)^{\kappa}$ with $\kappa = 2.9^{+1.7}_{-1.8}$ for $z\lesssim 1$. Observed black hole spins are small, with half of spin magnitudes below $\chi_i \simeq 0.25$. We observe evidence of negative aligned spins in the population, and an increase in spin magnitude for systems with more unequal mass ratio

The population of merging compact binaries inferred using gravitational waves through GWTC-3

v2: minor edits, most to Table 1 and caption; v3: rerun with public data; Data release: https://zenodo.org/record/5655785; v4: update Fig 14We report on the population properties of 76 compact binary mergers detected with gravitational waves below a false alarm rate of 1 per year through GWTC-3. The catalog contains three classes of binary mergers: BBH, BNS, and NSBH mergers. We infer the BNS merger rate to be between 10 $\rm{Gpc^{-3} yr^{-1}}$ and 1700 $\rm{Gpc^{-3} yr^{-1}}$ and the NSBH merger rate to be between 7.8 $\rm{Gpc^{-3}\, yr^{-1}}$ and 140 $\rm{Gpc^{-3} yr^{-1}}$ , assuming a constant rate density versus comoving volume and taking the union of 90% credible intervals for methods used in this work. Accounting for the BBH merger rate to evolve with redshift, we find the BBH merger rate to be between 17.9 $\rm{Gpc^{-3}\, yr^{-1}}$ and 44 $\rm{Gpc^{-3}\, yr^{-1}}$ at a fiducial redshift (z=0.2). We obtain a broad neutron star mass distribution extending from $1.2^{+0.1}_{-0.2} M_\odot$ to $2.0^{+0.3}_{-0.3} M_\odot$. We can confidently identify a rapid decrease in merger rate versus component mass between neutron star-like masses and black-hole-like masses, but there is no evidence that the merger rate increases again before 10 $M_\odot$. We also find the BBH mass distribution has localized over- and under-densities relative to a power law distribution. While we continue to find the mass distribution of a binary's more massive component strongly decreases as a function of primary mass, we observe no evidence of a strongly suppressed merger rate above $\sim 60 M_\odot$. The rate of BBH mergers is observed to increase with redshift at a rate proportional to $(1+z)^{\kappa}$ with $\kappa = 2.9^{+1.7}_{-1.8}$ for $z\lesssim 1$. Observed black hole spins are small, with half of spin magnitudes below $\chi_i \simeq 0.25$. We observe evidence of negative aligned spins in the population, and an increase in spin magnitude for systems with more unequal mass ratio

The population of merging compact binaries inferred using gravitational waves through GWTC-3

v2: minor edits, most to Table 1 and caption; v3: rerun with public data; Data release: https://zenodo.org/record/5655785; v4: update Fig 14We report on the population properties of 76 compact binary mergers detected with gravitational waves below a false alarm rate of 1 per year through GWTC-3. The catalog contains three classes of binary mergers: BBH, BNS, and NSBH mergers. We infer the BNS merger rate to be between 10 $\rm{Gpc^{-3} yr^{-1}}$ and 1700 $\rm{Gpc^{-3} yr^{-1}}$ and the NSBH merger rate to be between 7.8 $\rm{Gpc^{-3}\, yr^{-1}}$ and 140 $\rm{Gpc^{-3} yr^{-1}}$ , assuming a constant rate density versus comoving volume and taking the union of 90% credible intervals for methods used in this work. Accounting for the BBH merger rate to evolve with redshift, we find the BBH merger rate to be between 17.9 $\rm{Gpc^{-3}\, yr^{-1}}$ and 44 $\rm{Gpc^{-3}\, yr^{-1}}$ at a fiducial redshift (z=0.2). We obtain a broad neutron star mass distribution extending from $1.2^{+0.1}_{-0.2} M_\odot$ to $2.0^{+0.3}_{-0.3} M_\odot$. We can confidently identify a rapid decrease in merger rate versus component mass between neutron star-like masses and black-hole-like masses, but there is no evidence that the merger rate increases again before 10 $M_\odot$. We also find the BBH mass distribution has localized over- and under-densities relative to a power law distribution. While we continue to find the mass distribution of a binary's more massive component strongly decreases as a function of primary mass, we observe no evidence of a strongly suppressed merger rate above $\sim 60 M_\odot$. The rate of BBH mergers is observed to increase with redshift at a rate proportional to $(1+z)^{\kappa}$ with $\kappa = 2.9^{+1.7}_{-1.8}$ for $z\lesssim 1$. Observed black hole spins are small, with half of spin magnitudes below $\chi_i \simeq 0.25$. We observe evidence of negative aligned spins in the population, and an increase in spin magnitude for systems with more unequal mass ratio