First Detection of Polarization of the Submillimetre Diffuse Galactic Dust Emission by Archeops

We present the first determination of the Galactic polarized emission at 353 GHz by Archeops. The data were taken during the Arctic night of February 7, 2002 after the balloon--borne instrument was launched by CNES from the Swedish Esrange base near Kiruna. In addition to the 143 GHz and 217 GHz frequency bands dedicated to CMB studies, Archeops had one 545 GHz and six 353 GHz bolometers mounted in three polarization sensitive pairs that were used for Galactic foreground studies. We present maps of the I, Q, U Stokes parameters over 17% of the sky and with a 13 arcmin resolution at 353 GHz (850 microns). They show a significant Galactic large scale polarized emission coherent on the longitude ranges [100, 120] and [180, 200] deg. with a degree of polarization at the level of 4-5%, in agreement with expectations from starlight polarization measurements. Some regions in the Galactic plane (Gem OB1, Cassiopeia) show an even stronger degree of polarization in the range 10-20%. Those findings provide strong evidence for a powerful grain alignment mechanism throughout the interstellar medium and a coherent magnetic field coplanar to the Galactic plane. This magnetic field pervades even some dense clouds. Extrapolated to high Galactic latitude, these results indicate that interstellar dust polarized emission is the major foreground for PLANCK-HFI CMB polarization measurement.Comment: Submitted to Astron. & Astrophys., 14 pages, 12 Fig., 2 Table

Temperature and polarization angular power spectra of Galactic dust radiation at 353 GHz as measured by Archeops

We present the first measurement of temperature and polarization angular power spectra of the diffuse emission of Galactic dust at 353 GHz as seen by Archeops on 20% of the sky. The temperature angular power spectrum is compatible with that provided by the extrapolation to 353 GHz of IRAS and DIRBE maps using \cite{fds} model number 8. For Galactic latitudes $|b| \geq 5$ deg we report a 4 sigma detection of large scale ($3\leq \ell \leq 8$) temperature-polarization cross-correlation $(\ell+1)C_\ell^{TE}/2\pi = 76\pm 21 \mu\rm{K_{RJ}}^2$ and set upper limits to the $E$ and $B$ modes at $11 \mu\rm{K_{RJ}}^2$. For Galactic latitudes $|b| \geq 10$ deg, on the same angular scales, we report a 2 sigma detection of temperature-polarization cross-correlation $(\ell+1)C_\ell^{TE}/2\pi = 24\pm 13 \mu\rm{K_{RJ}}^2$. These results are then extrapolated to 100 GHz to estimate the contamination in CMB measurements by polarized diffuse Galactic dust emission. The $TE$ signal is then $1.7\pm0.5$ and $0.5\pm0.3 \mu\rm{K^2_{CMB}}$ for $|b| \geq 5$ and 10 deg. respectively. The upper limit on $E$ and $B$ becomes $0.2 \mu\rm{K^2_{CMB}} (2\sigma)$. If polarized dust emission at higher Galactic latitude cuts is similar to the one we report here, then dust polarized radiation will be a major foreground for determining the polarization power spectra of the CMB at high frequencies above 100 GHz.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, submitted to A

The Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropy Power Spectrum measured by Archeops

We present a determination by the Archeops experiment of the angular power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background anisotropy in 16 bins over the multipole range l=15-350. Archeops was conceived as a precursor of the Planck HFI instrument by using the same optical design and the same technology for the detectors and their cooling. Archeops is a balloon-borne instrument consisting of a 1.5 m aperture diameter telescope and an array of 21 photometers maintained at ~100 mK that are operating in 4 frequency bands centered at 143, 217, 353 and 545 GHz. The data were taken during the Arctic night of February 7, 2002 after the instrument was launched by CNES from Esrange base (Sweden). The entire data cover ~ 30% of the sky.This first analysis was obtained with a small subset of the dataset using the most sensitive photometer in each CMB band (143 and 217 GHz) and 12.6% of the sky at galactic latitudes above 30 degrees where the foreground contamination is measured to be negligible. The large sky coverage and medium resolution (better than 15 arcminutes) provide for the first time a high signal-to-noise ratio determination of the power spectrum over angular scales that include both the first acoustic peak and scales probed by COBE/DMR. With a binning of Delta(l)=7 to 25 the error bars are dominated by sample variance for l below 200. A companion paper details the cosmological implications.Comment: A&A Letter, in press, 6 pages, 4 figures, see also http://www.archeops.or

Meta-analysis of archived DNA microarrays identifies genes regulated by hypoxia and involved in a metastatic phenotype in cancer cells

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Metastasis is a major cancer-related cause of death. Recent studies have described metastasis pathways. However, the exact contribution of each pathway remains unclear. Another key feature of a tumor is the presence of hypoxic areas caused by a lack of oxygen at the center of the tumor. Hypoxia leads to the expression of pro-metastatic genes as well as the repression of anti-metastatic genes. As many Affymetrix datasets about metastasis and hypoxia are publicly available and not fully exploited, this study proposes to re-analyze these datasets to extract new information about the metastatic phenotype induced by hypoxia in different cancer cell lines.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Affymetrix datasets about metastasis and/or hypoxia were downloaded from GEO and ArrayExpress. AffyProbeMiner and GCRMA packages were used for pre-processing and the Window Welch <it>t </it>test was used for processing. Three approaches of meta-analysis were eventually used for the selection of genes of interest.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Three complementary approaches were used, that eventually selected 183 genes of interest. Out of these 183 genes, 99, among which the well known <it>JUNB</it>, <it>FOS </it>and <it>TP63</it>, have already been described in the literature to be involved in cancer. Moreover, 39 genes of those, such as <it>SERPINE1 </it>and <it>MMP7</it>, are known to regulate metastasis. Twenty-one genes including <it>VEGFA </it>and <it>ID2 </it>have also been described to be involved in the response to hypoxia. Lastly, DAVID classified those 183 genes in 24 different pathways, among which 8 are directly related to cancer while 5 others are related to proliferation and cell motility. A negative control composed of 183 random genes failed to provide such results. Interestingly, 6 pathways retrieved by DAVID with the 183 genes of interest concern pathogen recognition and phagocytosis.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The proposed methodology was able to find genes actually known to be involved in cancer, metastasis and hypoxia and, thus, we propose that the other genes selected based on the same methodology are of prime interest in the metastatic phenotype induced by hypoxia.</p

Discutindo a educação ambiental no cotidiano escolar: desenvolvimento de projetos na escola formação inicial e continuada de professores

A presente pesquisa buscou discutir como a Educação Ambiental (EA) vem sendo trabalhada, no Ensino Fundamental e como os docentes desta escola compreendem e vem inserindo a EA no cotidiano escolar., em uma escola estadual do município de Tangará da Serra/MT, Brasil. Para tanto, realizou-se entrevistas com os professores que fazem parte de um projeto interdisciplinar de EA na escola pesquisada. Verificou-se que o projeto da escola não vem conseguindo alcançar os objetivos propostos por: desconhecimento do mesmo, pelos professores; formação deficiente dos professores, não entendimento da EA como processo de ensino-aprendizagem, falta de recursos didáticos, planejamento inadequado das atividades. A partir dessa constatação, procurou-se debater a impossibilidade de tratar do tema fora do trabalho interdisciplinar, bem como, e principalmente, a importância de um estudo mais aprofundado de EA, vinculando teoria e prática, tanto na formação docente, como em projetos escolares, a fim de fugir do tradicional vínculo “EA e ecologia, lixo e horta”.Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educació

Diffusion-weighted imaging is a sensitive and specific magnetic resonance sequence in the diagnosis of ankylosing spondylitis

We tested the discriminatory capacity of diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DWI) and its potential as an objective measure of treatment response to tumor necrosis factor inhibition in ankylosing spondylitis (AS).Three cohorts were studied prospectively: (1) 18 AS patients with Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Index > 4, and erythrocyte sedimentation rate > 25 and/or C-reactive protein > 10 meeting the modified New York criteria for AS; (2) 20 cases of nonradiographic axial spondyloarthritis (nr-axSpA) as defined by the Assessment of Spondyloarthritis international Society (ASAS) criteria; and (3) 20 non-AS patients with chronic low back pain, aged between 18 and 45 years, who did not meet the imaging arm of the ASAS criteria for axSpA. Group 1 patients were studied prior to and following adalimumab treatment. Patients were assessed by DWI and conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and standard nonimaging measures.At baseline, in contrast to standard nonimaging measures, DWI apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values showed good discriminatory performance [area under the curve (AUC) > 80% for Group 1 or 2 compared with Group 3]. DWI ADC values were significantly lower posttreatment (0.45 ± 0.433 before, 0.154 ± 0.23 after, p = 0.0017), but had modest discriminating capacity comparing pre- and posttreatment measures (AUC = 68%). This performance was similar to the manual Spondyloarthritis Research Consortium of Canada (SPARCC) scoring system.DWI is informative for diagnosis of AS and nr-axSpA, and has moderate utility in assessment of disease activity or treatment response, with performance similar to that of the SPARCC MRI score

Glyco-centric lectin magnetic bead array (LeMBA) - proteomics dataset of human serum samples from healthy, Barrett׳s esophagus and esophageal adenocarcinoma individuals.

This data article describes serum glycoprotein biomarker discovery and qualification datasets generated using lectin magnetic bead array (LeMBA) - mass spectrometry techniques, "Serum glycoprotein biomarker discovery and qualification pipeline reveals novel diagnostic biomarker candidates for esophageal adenocarcinoma" [1]. Serum samples collected from healthy, metaplastic Barrett׳s esophagus (BE) and esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) individuals were profiled for glycoprotein subsets via differential lectin binding. The biomarker discovery proteomics dataset consisting of 20 individual lectin pull-downs for 29 serum samples with a spiked-in internal standard chicken ovalbumin protein has been deposited in the PRIDE partner repository of the ProteomeXchange Consortium with the data set identifier PRIDE: PXD002442. Annotated MS/MS spectra for the peptide identifications can be viewed using MS-Viewer (〈http://prospector2.ucsf.edu/prospector/cgi-bin/msform.cgi?form=msviewer〉) using search key "jn7qafftux". The qualification dataset contained 6-lectin pulldown-coupled multiple reaction monitoring-mass spectrometry (MRM-MS) data for 41 protein candidates, from 60 serum samples. This dataset is available as a supplemental files with the original publication [1]