Summary
This lecture will introduce the standard tests used in routine electrophysiological practice, namely full‐field, pattern and multifocal electroretinography, and electro‐oculography. Although ...the Course will concentrate on disorders of retinal function, the cortical visual evoked potential will also be briefly addressed. The origins of the signals will be discussed and common disorders used to illustrate the principles of clinical interpretation ie the separation of rod and cone system function; localisation of disease either to photoreceptors or inner retina; and the distinction between localised macular disease and generalised retinal dysfunction, always relating the nature of the electrophysiological abnormalities to the underlying pathophysiology.
The role of electrophysiology Holder, G.
Acta ophthalmologica (Oxford, England),
September 2017, 2017-09-00, 20170901, Volume:
95, Issue:
S259
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Purpose
To demonstrate the role of electrophysiological assessment in the investigation and management of the patient with photophobia, or whose vision is worse under bright lighting conditions.
...Methods
Standardised (ISCEV standard) techniques for electrophysiological assessment will be described, as will any necessary non‐standard protocol additions.
Results
Selected cases will be used to illustrate the value of the objective data provided by electrophysiology. The electrophysiological data will be discussed in association with the results of relevant imaging modalities.
Conclusion
Electrophysiological assessment provides objective functional data important to the diagnosis and management of this group of patients.
Acquired retinal disease Holder, G.
Acta ophthalmologica (Oxford, England),
September 2017, 2017-09-00, 20170901, Volume:
95, Issue:
S259
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Summary
This lecture will address the role of electrophysiological testing in the diagnosis and management of acquired retinal disease. Topics will include toxic, vascular, inflammatory and ...autoimmune disorders. The functional data provided by electrophysiology will be combined with the structural data from various imaging modalities to show that the optimal management of the patient requires knowledge both of structure and function.
The amplitude of the thermal Sunyaev–Zel'dovich effect (tSZ) power spectrum is extremely sensitive to the abundance of the most massive dark matter haloes (galaxy clusters) and therefore to ...fundamental cosmological parameters that control their growth, such as σ8 and Ωm. Here we explore the sensitivity of the tSZ power spectrum to important non-gravitational (‘subgrid’) physics by employing the cosmo-OWLS suite of large-volume cosmological hydrodynamical simulations, run in both the Planck and 7-year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP7) best-fitting cosmologies. On intermediate and small angular scales (ℓ ≳ 1000, or θ≲10 arcmin), accessible with the South Pole Telescope (SPT) and the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT), the predicted tSZ power spectrum is highly model dependent, with gas ejection due to active galactic nuclei (AGN) feedback having a particularly large effect. However, at large scales, observable with the Planck telescope, the effects of subgrid physics are minor. Comparing the simulated tSZ power spectra with observations, we find a significant amplitude offset on all measured angular scales (including large scales), if the Planck best-fitting cosmology is assumed by the simulations. This is shown to be a generic result for all current models of the tSZ power spectrum. By contrast, if the WMAP7 cosmology is adopted, there is full consistency with the Planck tSZ power spectrum measurements on large scales and agreement at the 2σ level with the SPT and ACT measurements at intermediate scales for our fiducial AGN model, which Le Brun et al. have shown reproduces the ‘resolved’ properties of the Local Group and cluster population remarkably well. These findings strongly suggest that there are significantly fewer massive galaxy clusters than expected for the Planck best-fitting cosmology, which is consistent with recent measurements of the tSZ number counts. Our findings therefore pose a significant challenge to the cosmological parameter values preferred (and/or the model adopted) by the Planck primary cosmic microwave background analyses.
Summary
The lecture will use a case‐based approach to demonstrate the value of electrophysiological testing in the diagnosis and management of patients with nyctalopia. The diagnostic features of ...various inherited and acquired diseases will be described, including photoreceptor dystrophies, congenital stationary night blindness, fundus albipunctatus, melanoma associated retinopathy, vitamin A deficiency and others.
The lensing power spectrum from cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature maps will be measured with unprecedented precision with upcoming experiments, including upgrades to the Atacama Cosmology ...Telescope and the South Pole Telescope. Achieving significant improvements in cosmological parameter constraints, such as percent level errors on sigma sub(8) and an uncertainty on the total neutrino mass of ~50 meV, requires percent level measurements of the CMB lensing power. This necessitates tight control of systematic biases. We study several types of biases to the temperature-based lensing reconstruction signal from foreground sources such as radio and infrared galaxies and the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'ovich effect from galaxy clusters. These foregrounds bias the CMB lensing signal due to their non-Gaussian nature. Using simulations as well as some analytical models we find that these sources can substantially impact the measured signal if left untreated. However, these biases can be brought to the percent level if one masks galaxies with fluxes at 150 GHz above 1 mJy and galaxy clusters with masses above M sub(vir) = 10 super(14) M sub(middot in circle) percent level bias, we find that only modes up to a maximum multipole of l sub(max) ~ 2500 should be included in the lensing reconstruction. We also discuss ways to minimize additional bias induced by such aggressive foreground masking by, for example, exploring a two-step masking and in-painting algorithm.
Abstract
The next generation of wide-field cosmic microwave background (CMB) surveys are uniquely poised to open a new window into time-domain astronomy in the millimeter band. Here, we explore the ...discovery phase space for extragalactic transients with near-term and future CMB experiments to characterize the expected population. We use existing millimeter-band light curves of known transients (gamma-ray bursts, tidal disruption events, fast blue optical transients (FBOTs), neutron star mergers) and theoretical models, in conjunction with known and estimated volumetric rates. Using Monte Carlo simulations of various CMB survey designs (area, cadence, depth, duration) we estimate the detection rates and the resulting light-curve characteristics. We find that existing and near-term surveys will find tens to hundreds of long-duration gamma-ray bursts (LGRBs), driven primarily by detections of the reverse shock emission, and including off-axis LGRBs. Next-generation experiments (CMB-S4, CMB-HD) will find tens of FBOTs in the nearby universe and will detect a few tidal disruption events. CMB-HD will additionally detect a small number of short gamma-ray bursts, where these will be discovered within the detection volume of next-generation gravitational wave experiments like the Cosmic Explorer.
This document, from the International Society for Clinical Electrophysiology of Vision (ISCEV), presents an updated and revised ISCEV Standard for clinical electroretinography (ERG). The parameters ...for flash stimulation and background adaptation have been tightened, and responses renamed to indicate the flash strength (in cd·s·m
−2
). The ISCEV Standard specifies five responses: (1) Dark-adapted 0.01 ERG (rod response); (2) Dark-adapted 3.0 ERG (combined rod–cone response); (3) Dark-adapted 3.0 oscillatory potentials; (4) Light-adapted 3.0 ERG (cone response); (5) Light-adapted 3.0 flicker (30 Hz flicker). An additional Dark-adapted 10.0 ERG or Dark-adapted 30.0 ERG response is recommended.
We report the results of an 87 deg{sup 2} point-source survey centered at R.A. 5{sup h}30{sup m}, decl. -55{sup 0} taken with the South Pole Telescope at 1.4 and 2.0 mm wavelengths with arcminute ...resolution and milli-Jansky depth. Based on the ratio of flux in the two bands, we separate the detected sources into two populations, one consistent with synchrotron emission from active galactic nuclei and the other consistent with thermal emission from dust. We present source counts for each population from 11 to 640 mJy at 1.4 mm and from 4.4 to 800 mJy at 2.0 mm. The 2.0 mm counts are dominated by synchrotron-dominated sources across our reported flux range; the 1.4 mm counts are dominated by synchrotron-dominated sources above {approx}15 mJy and by dust-dominated sources below that flux level. We detect 141 synchrotron-dominated sources and 47 dust-dominated sources at signal-to-noise ratio S/N >4.5 in at least one band. All of the most significantly detected members of the synchrotron-dominated population are associated with sources in previously published radio catalogs. Some of the dust-dominated sources are associated with nearby (z << 1) galaxies whose dust emission is also detected by the Infrared Astronomy Satellite. However, most of the bright, dust-dominated sources have no counterparts in any existing catalogs. We argue that these sources represent the rarest and brightest members of the population commonly referred to as submillimeter galaxies (SMGs). Because these sources are selected at longer wavelengths than in typical SMG surveys, they are expected to have a higher mean redshift distribution and may provide a new window on galaxy formation in the early universe.
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