Abstract
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is a millimeter very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) array that has imaged the apparent shadows of the supermassive black holes M87* and Sagittarius A*. ...Polarimetric data from these observations contain a wealth of information on the black hole and accretion flow properties. In this work, we develop polarimetric geometric modeling methods for mm-VLBI data, focusing on approaches that fit data products with differing degrees of invariance to broad classes of calibration errors. We establish a fitting procedure using a polarimetric “m-ring” model to approximate the image structure near a black hole. By fitting this model to synthetic EHT data from general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic models, we show that the linear and circular polarization structure can be successfully approximated with relatively few model parameters. We then fit this model to EHT observations of M87* taken in 2017. In total intensity and linear polarization, the m-ring fits are consistent with previous results from imaging methods. In circular polarization, the m-ring fits indicate the presence of event-horizon-scale circular polarization structure, with a persistent dipolar asymmetry and orientation across several days. The same structure was recovered independently of observing band, used data products, and model assumptions. Despite this broad agreement, imaging methods do not produce similarly consistent results. Our circular polarization results, which imposed additional assumptions on the source structure, should thus be interpreted with some caution. Polarimetric geometric modeling provides a useful and powerful method to constrain the properties of horizon-scale polarized emission, particularly for sparse arrays like the EHT.
The 'extreme male brain' theory suggests that autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is an extreme variant of male intelligence. However, somewhat paradoxically, many individuals with ASD display androgynous ...physical features regardless of gender.
To assess physical measures, supposedly related to androgen influence, in adults with and without ASD.
Serum hormone levels, anthropometry, the ratio of 2nd to 4th digit length (2D:4D) and psychiatric symptomatology were measured in 50 adults with high-functioning ASD and age- and gender-matched neurotypical controls. Photographs of face and body, as well as voice recordings, were obtained and assessed with respect to gender coherence, blindly and independently, by eight assessors.
Women with ASD had higher total and bioactive testosterone levels, less feminine facial features and a larger head circumference than female controls. Men in the ASD group were assessed as having less masculine body characteristics and voice quality, and displayed higher (i.e. less masculine) 2D:4D ratios, but similar testosterone levels to controls. Androgynous facial features correlated strongly and positively with autistic traits measured with the Autism-Spectrum Quotient in the total sample. In males and females with ASD dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate did not decrease with age, in contrast to the control group.
Women with ASD had elevated testosterone levels and several masculinised characteristics compared with controls, whereas men with ASD displayed several feminised characteristics. Our findings suggest that ASD, rather than being characterised by masculinisation in both genders, may constitute a gender defiant disorder.
Correlations between tracers of the matter density field and gravitational lensing are sensitive to the evolution of the matter power spectrum and the expansion rate across cosmic time. Appropriately ...defined ratios of such correlation functions, on the other hand, depend only on the angular diameter distances to the tracer objects and to the gravitational lensing source planes. Because of their simple cosmological dependence, such ratios can exploit available signal-to-noise down to small angular scales, even where directly modeling the correlation functions is difficult. We present a measurement of lensing ratios using galaxy position and lensing data from the Dark Energy Survey, and CMB lensing data from the South Pole Telescope and Planck, obtaining the highest precision lensing ratio measurements to date. Relative to the concordance \(\Lambda\)CDM model, we find a best fit lensing ratio amplitude of \(A = 1.1 \pm 0.1\). We use the ratio measurements to generate cosmological constraints, focusing on the curvature parameter. We demonstrate that photometrically selected galaxies can be used to measure lensing ratios, and argue that future lensing ratio measurements with data from a combination of LSST and Stage-4 CMB experiments can be used to place interesting cosmological constraints, even after considering the systematic uncertainties associated with photometric redshift and galaxy shear estimation.
Background: Despite extensive efforts, the causes of autism remain unknown. Advancing paternal age has been associated with various neurodevelopmental disorders. We aim to investigate three ...unresolved questions: (a) What is the association between paternal age and autism spectrum disorders (ASD)?; (b) Does paternal age moderate the genetic and environmental etiological factors for ASD? (c) Does paternal age affect normal variation in autistic‐like traits?
Methods: Two nationally representative twin studies from Sweden (n = 11, 122, assessed at age 9 or 12) and the UK (n = 13, 524, assessed at age 9) were used. Categorical and continuous measures of ASD, autistic‐like traits and autistic similarity were calculated and compared over paternal age categories.
Results: Both cohorts showed a strong association between paternal age and the risk for ASD. A U‐shaped risk association could be discerned since the offspring of both the youngest and oldest fathers showed an elevation in the risk for ASD. Autistic similarity increased with advancing paternal age in both monozygotic and dizygotic twins. Both cohorts showed significantly higher autistic‐like traits in the offspring of the youngest and oldest fathers.
Conclusions: Phenomena associated with paternal age are clearly involved in the trajectories leading to autistic‐like traits and ASD. Mechanisms influencing the trajectories might differ between older and younger fathers. Molecular genetic studies are now needed in order to further understand the association between paternal age and ASD, as well as normal variation in social, language, and repetitive behaviors in the general population.
During the austral summer of 2016-17, the third-generation camera, SPT-3G, was installed on the South Pole Telescope, increasing the detector count in the focal plane by an order of magnitude ...relative to the previous generation. Designed to map the polarization of the cosmic microwave background, SPT-3G contains ten 6-in-hexagonal modules of detectors, each with 269 trichroic and dual-polarization pixels, read out using 68x frequency-domain multiplexing. Here we discuss design, assembly, and layout of the modules, as well as early performance characterization of the first-year array, including yield and detector properties.
Sudden cardiac arrest is one of the leading causes of death globally. The recommended clinical management in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest cases is the immediate initiation of high-quality ...cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Training mannequins should be combined with technology that provides students with detailed immediate feedback on the quality of CPR performance. This study aimed to verify the impacts of the type of feedback (basic or detailed) the responders receive from the device while learning CPR and how it influences the quality of their performance and the motivation to improve their skills. The study was conducted at the Medical University of Lublin among 694 multi-professional health students during first aid classes on basic life support (BLS). The students first practiced on an adult mannequin with a basic control panel; afterward, the same mannequin was connected to a laptop, ensuring a detailed record of the performed activities through a projector. Next, the participants expressed their subjective opinion on how the feedback provided during the classes, basic vs. detailed, motivated them to improve the quality of their CPR performance. Additionally, during the classes, the instructor conducted an extended observation of students' work and behavior. In the students' opinion, the CPR training with detailed feedback devices provided motivation for learning and improving CPR proficiency than that with a basic control panel. Furthermore, the comments given from devices seemed to be more acceptable to the students, who did not see any bias in the device's evaluation compared to that of the instructor. Detailed device feedback motivates student health practitioners to learn and improve the overall quality of CPR. The use of mannequins that provide detailed feedback during BLS courses can improve survival in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.
We present measurements of the \(E\)-mode (\(EE\)) polarization power spectrum and temperature-\(E\)-mode (\(TE\)) cross-power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background using data collected by ...SPT-3G, the latest instrument installed on the South Pole Telescope. This analysis uses observations of a 1500 deg\(^2\) region at 95, 150, and 220 GHz taken over a four month period in 2018. We report binned values of the \(EE\) and \(TE\) power spectra over the angular multipole range \(300 \le \ell < 3000\), using the multifrequency data to construct six semi-independent estimates of each power spectrum and their minimum-variance combination. These measurements improve upon the previous results of SPTpol across the multipole ranges \(300 \le \ell \le 1400\) for \(EE\) and \(300 \le \ell \le 1700\) for \(TE\), resulting in constraints on cosmological parameters comparable to those from other current leading ground-based experiments. We find that the SPT-3G dataset is well-fit by a \(\Lambda\)CDM cosmological model with parameter constraints consistent with those from Planck and SPTpol data. From SPT-3G data alone, we find \(H_0 = 68.8 \pm 1.5 \mathrm{km\,s^{-1}\,Mpc^{-1}}\) and \(\sigma_8 = 0.789 \pm 0.016\), with a gravitational lensing amplitude consistent with the \(\Lambda\)CDM prediction (\(A_L = 0.98 \pm 0.12\)). We combine the SPT-3G and the Planck datasets and obtain joint constraints on the \(\Lambda\)CDM model. The volume of the 68% confidence region in six-dimensional \(\Lambda\)CDM parameter space is reduced by a factor of 1.5 compared to Planck-only constraints, with only slight shifts in central values. We note that the results presented here are obtained from data collected during just half of a typical observing season with only part of the focal plane operable, and that the active detector count has since nearly doubled for observations made with SPT-3G after 2018.
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