Systematic effects in the extraction of the 'WMAP haze'

The extraction of a 'haze' from the WMAP microwave skymaps is based on subtraction of known foregrounds, viz. free-free (bremsstrahlung), thermal dust and synchrotron, each traced by other skymaps. While the 408 MHz all-sky survey is used for the synchrotron template, the WMAP bands are at tens of GHz where the spatial distribution of the radiating cosmic ray electrons ought to be quite different because of the energy-dependence of their diffusion in the Galaxy. The systematic uncertainty this introduces in the residual skymap is comparable to the claimed haze and can, for certain source distributions, have a very similar spectrum and latitudinal profile and even a somewhat similar morphology. Hence caution must be exercised in interpreting the 'haze' as a physical signature of, e.g., dark matter annihilation in the Galactic centre.Comment: 17 pages, 12 figures; improved diffusion model; extended discussion of spectral index maps; clarifying comments, figures and references added; to appear in JCA

Taxonomy based on science is necessary for global conservation

Peer reviewe

Impact of clinical phenotypes on management and outcomes in European atrial fibrillation patients: a report from the ESC-EHRA EURObservational Research Programme in AF (EORP-AF) General Long-Term Registry

Background: Epidemiological studies in atrial fibrillation (AF) illustrate that clinical complexity increase the risk of major adverse outcomes. We aimed to describe European AF patients\u2019 clinical phenotypes and analyse the differential clinical course. Methods: We performed a hierarchical cluster analysis based on Ward\u2019s Method and Squared Euclidean Distance using 22 clinical binary variables, identifying the optimal number of clusters. We investigated differences in clinical management, use of healthcare resources and outcomes in a cohort of European AF patients from a Europe-wide observational registry. Results: A total of 9363 were available for this analysis. We identified three clusters: Cluster 1 (n = 3634; 38.8%) characterized by older patients and prevalent non-cardiac comorbidities; Cluster 2 (n = 2774; 29.6%) characterized by younger patients with low prevalence of comorbidities; Cluster 3 (n = 2955;31.6%) characterized by patients\u2019 prevalent cardiovascular risk factors/comorbidities. Over a mean follow-up of 22.5 months, Cluster 3 had the highest rate of cardiovascular events, all-cause death, and the composite outcome (combining the previous two) compared to Cluster 1 and Cluster 2 (all P <.001). An adjusted Cox regression showed that compared to Cluster 2, Cluster 3 (hazard ratio (HR) 2.87, 95% confidence interval (CI) 2.27\u20133.62; HR 3.42, 95%CI 2.72\u20134.31; HR 2.79, 95%CI 2.32\u20133.35), and Cluster 1 (HR 1.88, 95%CI 1.48\u20132.38; HR 2.50, 95%CI 1.98\u20133.15; HR 2.09, 95%CI 1.74\u20132.51) reported a higher risk for the three outcomes respectively. Conclusions: In European AF patients, three main clusters were identified, differentiated by differential presence of comorbidities. Both non-cardiac and cardiac comorbidities clusters were found to be associated with an increased risk of major adverse outcomes