Telescopes don't make catalogues!

Astronomical instruments make intensity measurements; any precise astronomical experiment ought to involve modeling those measurements. People make catalogues, but because a catalogue requires hard decisions about calibration and detection, no catalogue can contain all of the information in the raw pixels relevant to most scientific investigations. Here we advocate making catalogue-like data outputs that permit investigators to test hypotheses with almost the power of the original image pixels. The key is to provide users with approximations to likelihood tests against the raw image pixels. We advocate three options, in order of increasing difficulty: The first is to define catalogue entries and associated uncertainties such that the catalogue contains the parameters of an approximate description of the image-level likelihood function. The second is to produce a K-catalogue sampling in "catalogue space" that samples a posterior probability distribution of catalogues given the data. The third is to expose a web service or equivalent that can re-compute on demand the full image-level likelihood for any user-supplied catalogue.Comment: presented at ELSA 2010: Gaia, at the frontiers of astrometr

La biblioteca del Estado de Sajonia y la biblioteca de la Universidad de Dresde y su colección especializada de arte contemporáneo, fotografía y diseño industrial y gráfico

La Biblioteca del Estado de Sajonia tuvo como origen la biblioteca de los príncipes electores de este territorio histórico, quienes siempre manifestaron un gran interés por el arte. La bibliografía sobre arte ha tenido desde sus comienzos un protagonismo especial. La colección ha ido enriqueciéndose con el paso del tiempo, especialmente a partir de que se le reconociera la condición de biblioteca especializada en 1966 y la de biblioteca central de arte y música de la República Democrática de Alemania en 1983. Dada la carencia de divisas extranjeras que padeció esta república, hubo que acudir compensatoriamente al intercambio de publicaciones. Los dieciocho volúmenes de la "Bibliografía de Bellas Artes", editada por la biblioteca, ofrecieron un buen material para el mismo

Detaching from the negative by reappraisal: the role of right superior frontal gyrus (BA9/32)

The ability to reappraise the emotional impact of events is related to long-term mental health. Self-focused reappraisal (REAPPself), i.e., reducing the personal relevance of the negative events, has been previously associated with neural activity in regions near right medial prefrontal cortex, but rarely investigated among brain-damaged individuals. Thus, we aimed to examine the REAPPself ability of brain-damaged patients and healthy controls considering structural atrophies and gray matter intensities, respectively. Twenty patients with well-defined cortex lesions due to an acquired circumscribed tumor or cyst and 23 healthy controls performed a REAPPself task, in which they had to either observe negative stimuli or decrease emotional responding by REAPPself. Next, they rated the impact of negative arousal and valence. REAPPself ability scores were calculated by subtracting the negative picture ratings after applying REAPPself from the ratings of the observing condition. The scores of the patients were included in a voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping (VLSM) analysis to identify deficit related areas (ROI). Then, a ROI group-wise comparison was performed. Additionally, a whole-brain voxel-based-morphometry (VBM) analysis was run, in which healthy participant's REAPPself ability scores were correlated with gray matter intensities. Results showed that (1) regions in the right superior frontal gyrus (SFG), comprising the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (BA9) and the right dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (BA32), were associated with patient's impaired down-regulation of arousal, (2) a lesion in the depicted ROI occasioned significant REAPPself impairments, (3) REAPPself ability of controls was linked with increased gray matter intensities in the ROI regions. Our findings show for the first time that the neural integrity and the structural volume of right SFG regions (BA9/32) might be indispensable for REAPPself. Implications for neurofeedback research are discussed.Fil: Falquez, Rosalux. University of Heidelberg; AlemaniaFil: Couto, Juan Blas Marcos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva. Fundación Favaloro. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva; ArgentinaFil: Ibáñez Barassi, Agustín Mariano. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva. Fundación Favaloro. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva; ArgentinaFil: Freitag, Martin T.. German Cancer Research Center; AlemaniaFil: Berger, Moritz. German Cancer Research Center; AlemaniaFil: Arens, Elisabeth A.. University of Heidelberg; AlemaniaFil: Lang, Simone. University of Heidelberg; AlemaniaFil: Barnow, Sven. University of Heidelberg; Alemani

Left atrial tachycardia after circumferential pulmonary vein ablation for atrial fibrillation Electroanatomic characterization and treatment

ObjectivesThe purpose of this study was to evaluate the electroanatomic characteristics of left atrial tachycardia (AT) in a series of patients who underwent circumferential pulmonary vein ablation (CPVA) and to describe the ablation strategy and clinical outcome.BackgroundCircumferential pulmonary vein ablation is an effective treatment for atrial fibrillation. A potential midterm complication is the development of left AT. There are only isolated reports describing mapping and ablation of such arrhythmias.MethodsThirteen patients (age 57.4 ± 8.9 years, five female) underwent mapping and ablation of 14 left ATs via an electroanatomic mapping system a mean of 2.6 ± 1.6 months after CPVA.ResultsThree patients were characterized as having focal AT (cycle length: 266 ± 35.9 ms). Of 11 macro–re-entrant tachycardias studied in the remaining 10 patients (cycle length: 275 ± 75 ms), 5 showed single-loop and 6 dual-loop circuits. Re-entrant circuits used the mitral isthmus, the posterior wall, or gaps on previous encircling lines. Such gaps and all three foci occurred anterior to the left superior pulmonary vein or at the septal aspect of the right pulmonary veins. Thirteen of 14 tachycardias (93%) were successfully ablated.ConclusionsLeft AT after CPVA can be due to a macro–re-entrant or focal mechanism. Re-entry occurs most commonly across the mitral isthmus, the posterior wall, or gaps on previous ablation lines. Such gaps and foci occur most commonly at the anterior aspect of the left superior pulmonary vein and at the septal aspect of the right pulmonary veins. These arrhythmias can be successfully mapped and ablated with an electroanatomic mapping system

Higher Spin Gauge Theory and Holography: The Three-Point Functions

In this paper we calculate the tree level three-point functions of Vasiliev's higher spin gauge theory in AdS4 and find agreement with the correlators of the free field theory of N massless scalars in three dimensions in the O(N) singlet sector. This provides substantial evidence that Vasiliev theory is dual to the free field theory, thus verifying a conjecture of Klebanov and Polyakov. We also find agreement with the critical O(N) vector model, when the bulk scalar field is subject to the alternative boundary condition such that its dual operator has classical dimension 2.Comment: 90 pages, 5 figures; v4, minor changes in the introductio

Divergent responses of functional diversity to an elevational gradient for vascular plants, bryophytes and lichens

Question: Cold environments are stressful for vascular plants, and stress-tolerant non-vascular photoautotrophs, e.g. bryophytes and lichens, become relatively more important as competition from vascular plants decreases towards higher elevations. Under increasingly stressful climatic conditions, species assembly of vascular plants is commonly driven more by environmental filtering, and abiotic constraints may lead to increased similarity between species and thus low functional diversity. Because bryophytes and lichens are less constrained by harsh environments, environmental filtering may be less strong. Instead, reduced competition from vascular plants can potentially free up niche space for non-vascular vegetation. Therefore, we hypothesized that functional diversity of vascular plants, bryophytes and lichens are likely to show contrasting responses to elevation. Location: Finse Alpine Research Centre, Southern Norway. Methods: We utilized measurements of species abundance and functional traits of the three groups along a 500-m elevational gradient in alpine southern Norway and calculated multi-trait and single-trait functional dispersion. Results: Functional diversity of vascular plants declined with elevation, indicating increased environmental filtering. By contrast, functional diversity of lichens and bryophytes increased along the same gradient, suggesting they are less exposed to environmental filtering, in line with our hypothesis. Instead, they likely benefit from the lower abundance of vascular plants at higher elevation. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that different photoautotroph groups vary in how they respond to the same environmental gradient, which may contribute to contrasting community assembly processes across groups. These divergent responses likely occur because non-vascular vegetation differs from vascular plants in terms of nutrient acquisition and water economy strategies, meaning that they respond differently to the same factors. This highlights the need to explicitly consider bryophytes and lichens in community-level studies whenever these groups are abundant.acceptedVersio

Neuroticism developmental courses - implications for depression, anxiety and everyday emotional experience; a prospective study from adolescence to young adulthood

Background: Neuroticism is frequently discussed as a risk factor for psychopathology. According to the maturity principle, neuroticism decreases over the course of life, but not uniformly across individuals. However, the implications of differences in personality maturation on mental health have not been well studied so far. Hence, we hypothesized that different forms of neuroticism development from adolescence to young adulthood are associated with differences in depression, anxiety and everyday emotional experience at the age of 25. Methods: A sample of 266 adolescents from the general population was examined three times over ten years (age at T0: 15, T1: 20 and T2: 25) using questionnaires, interviews and ecological momentary assessment (EMA). At all measurement points, neuroticism was assessed with the NEO inventory. At T2, diagnoses of major depression and anxiety disorders were captured with a structured clinical interview (M-CIDI). Phone-based EMA was used to assess emotional experience and affective instability over a two-week period at T2. Results: The best fitting model was a latent class growth analysis with two groups of neuroticism development. Most individuals (n = 205) showed moderate values whereas 61 participants were clustered into a group with elevated neuroticism levels. In both groups neuroticism significantly changed during the ten year period with a peak at the age of 20. Individuals with a higher absolute level were at 14-fold increased risk for depression and 7-fold risk for anxiety disorders at the age of 25. In EMA, increased negative affect and arousal as well as decreased positive emotions were found in this high group. Conclusions: Other than expected, personality did not mature in our sample. However, there was a significant change of neuroticism values from adolescence to young adulthood. Further, over 20% of our participants showed a neuroticism development which was associated with adverse outcomes such as negatively toned emotional experience and a heightened risk to suffer from depressive and anxiety disorders in young adulthood. These high-risk persons need to be identified early to provide interventions supporting continuous personality maturation

Disorder and Confinement Effects to Tune the Optical Properties of Amino Acid Doped Cu2O Crystals

Biominerals are organic-inorganic nanocomposites exhibiting remarkable properties due to their unique configuration. Using optical spectroscopy and theoretical modeling, it is shown that the optical properties of a model bioinspired system, an inorganic semiconductor host (Cu2O) grown in the presence of amino acids (AAs), are strongly influenced by the latter. The absorption and photoluminescence excitation spectra of Cu2O-AAs blue-shift with growing AA content, indicating band gap widening. This is attributed to the void-induced quantum confinement effects. Surprisingly, no such shift occurs in the emission spectra. The theoretical model, assuming an inhomogeneous AA distribution within Cu2O-AAs due to compositional disorder, explains the deviating behavior of the photoluminescence. The model predicts that the potential causing the confinement effects becomes a function of the local AA density. It results in a Gaussian band gap distribution that shapes the optical properties of Cu2O-AAs. Imitating and harnessing the process of biomineralization can pave the way toward new functional materials

Herbivores reduce seedling recruitment in alpine plant communities

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Herbivores reduce seedling recruitment in alpine plant communities

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