We present new geochemical and isotopic data for rock samples from two island arc volcanoes, Erromango and Vulcan Seamount, and from a 500 m thick stratigraphic profile of lava flows exposed on the ...SW flank of Vate Trough back‐arc rift of the New Hebrides Island Arc (NHIA). The basalts from the SW rift flank of Vate Trough have ages of ~0.5 Ma but are geochemically similar to those erupting along the active back‐arc rift. The weak subduction component in the back‐arc basalts implies formation by decompression melting during early rifting and rifting initiation by tectonic processes rather than by lithosphere weakening by arc magma. Melting beneath Vate Trough is probably caused by chemically heterogeneous and hot mantle that flows in from the North Fiji Basin in the east. The melting zone beneath Vate Trough back‐arc is separate from that of the arc front, but a weak slab component suggests fluid transport from the slab. Immobile incompatible element ratios in South NHIA lavas overlap with those of the Vate Trough depleted back‐arc basalts, suggesting that enriched mantle components are depleted by back‐arc melting during mantle flow. The slab component varies from hydrous melts of subducted sediments in the Central NHIA to fluids from altered basalts in the South NHIA. The volcanism of Erromango shows constant compositions for 5 million years, that is, there is no sign for variable depletion of the mantle or for a change of slab components due to collision of the D'Entrecasteaux Ridge as in lava successions further north.
Key Points
Back‐arc rifting is initiated by tectonic rather than magmatic processes
Back‐arc magmas form by decompression melting with little influence of a slab component
Arc front magmas form from flux melting containing variable slab components reflecting different input from the slab
We consider the effects of weak gravitational lensing on observations of 196 spectroscopically confirmed Type Ia Supernovae (SNe Ia) from years 1 to 3 of the Dark Energy Survey (DES). We ...simultaneously measure both the angular correlation function and the non-Gaussian skewness caused by weak lensing. This approach has the advantage of being insensitive to the intrinsic dispersion of SNe Ia magnitudes. We model the amplitude of both effects as a function of \(\sigma_8\), and find \(\sigma_8 = 1.2^{+0.9}_{-0.8}\). We also apply our method to a subsample of 488 SNe from the Joint Light-curve Analysis (JLA) (chosen to match the redshift range we use for this work), and find \(\sigma_8 = 0.8^{+1.1}_{-0.7}\). The comparable uncertainty in \(\sigma_8\) between DES-SN and the larger number of SNe from JLA highlights the benefits of homogeneity of the DES-SN sample, and improvements in the calibration and data analysis.
We describe the observations and resultant galaxy cluster catalog from the 2770 deg\(^2\) SPTpol Extended Cluster Survey (SPT-ECS). Clusters are identified via the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect, and ...confirmed with a combination of archival and targeted follow-up data, making particular use of data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES). With incomplete followup we have confirmed as clusters 244 of 266 candidates at a detection significance \(\xi \ge 5\) and an additional 204 systems at \(4<\xi<5\). The confirmed sample has a median mass of \(M_{500c} \sim {4.4 \times 10^{14} M_\odot h_{70}^{-1}}\), a median redshift of \(z=0.49\), and we have identified 44 strong gravitational lenses in the sample thus far. Radio data are used to characterize contamination to the SZ signal; the median contamination for confirmed clusters is predicted to be \(\sim\)1% of the SZ signal at the \(\xi>4\) threshold, and \(<4\%\) of clusters have a predicted contamination \(>10\% \) of their measured SZ flux. We associate SZ-selected clusters, from both SPT-ECS and the SPT-SZ survey, with clusters from the DES redMaPPer sample, and find an offset distribution between the SZ center and central galaxy in general agreement with previous work, though with a larger fraction of clusters with significant offsets. Adopting a fixed Planck-like cosmology, we measure the optical richness-to-SZ-mass (\(\lambda-M\)) relation and find it to be 28% shallower than that from a weak-lensing analysis of the DES data---a difference significant at the 4 \(\sigma\) level---with the relations intersecting at \(\lambda=60\) . The SPT-ECS cluster sample will be particularly useful for studying the evolution of massive clusters and, in combination with DES lensing observations and the SPT-SZ cluster sample, will be an important component of future cosmological analyses.
During fibroproliferation, protein-associated extracellular aldehydes are formed by the oxidation of lysine residues on extracellular matrix proteins to form the aldehyde allysine. Here we report ...three Mn(II)-based, small-molecule magnetic resonance probes that contain α-effect nucleophiles to target allysine in vivo and report on tissue fibrogenesis. We used a rational design approach to develop turn-on probes with a 4-fold increase in relaxivity upon targeting. The effects of aldehyde condensation rate and hydrolysis kinetics on the performance of the probes to detect tissue fibrogenesis non-invasively in mouse models were evaluated by a systemic aldehyde tracking approach. We showed that, for highly reversible ligations, off-rate was a stronger predictor of in vivo efficiency, enabling histologically validated, three-dimensional characterization of pulmonary fibrogenesis throughout the entire lung. The exclusive renal elimination of these probes allowed for rapid imaging of liver fibrosis. Reducing the hydrolysis rate by forming an oxime bond with allysine enabled delayed phase imaging of kidney fibrogenesis. The imaging efficacy of these probes, coupled with their rapid and complete elimination from the body, makes them strong candidates for clinical translation.
Measurements of the physical properties of accretion disks in active galactic nuclei are important for better understanding the growth and evolution of supermassive black holes. We present the ...accretion disk sizes of 22 quasars from continuum reverberation mapping with data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) standard star fields and the supernova C fields. We construct continuum lightcurves with the \textit{griz} photometry that span five seasons of DES observations. These data sample the time variability of the quasars with a cadence as short as one day, which corresponds to a rest frame cadence that is a factor of a few higher than most previous work. We derive time lags between bands with both JAVELIN and the interpolated cross-correlation function method, and fit for accretion disk sizes using the JAVELIN Thin Disk model. These new measurements include disks around black holes with masses as small as \(\sim10^7\) \(M_{\odot}\), which have equivalent sizes at 2500\AA \, as small as \(\sim 0.1\) light days in the rest frame. We find that most objects have accretion disk sizes consistent with the prediction of the standard thin disk model when we take disk variability into account. We have also simulated the expected yield of accretion disk measurements under various observational scenarios for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope Deep Drilling Fields. We find that the number of disk measurements would increase significantly if the default cadence is changed from three days to two days or one day.
For ground-based optical imaging with current CCD technology, the Poisson fluctuations in source and sky background photon arrivals dominate the noise budget and are readily estimated. Another ...component of noise, however, is the signal from the undetected population of stars and galaxies. Using injection of artificial galaxies into images, we demonstrate that the measured variance of galaxy moments (used for weak gravitational lensing measurements) in Dark Energy Survey (DES) images is significantly in excess of the Poisson predictions, by up to 30\%, and that the background sky levels are overestimated by current software. By cross-correlating distinct images of "empty" sky regions, we establish that there is a significant image noise contribution from undetected static sources (US), which on average are mildly resolved at DES resolution. Treating these US as a stationary noise source, we compute a correction to the moment covariance matrix expected from Poisson noise. The corrected covariance matrix matches the moment variances measured on the injected DES images to within 5\%. Thus we have an empirical method to statistically account for US in weak lensing measurements, rather than requiring extremely deep sky simulations. We also find that local sky determinations can remove the bias in flux measurements, at a small penalty in additional, but quantifiable, noise.
The vascular wall contains intimal endothelium and medial smooth muscle that act as contiguous tissues with tight spatial and functional coordination in response to tonic and episodic input from the ...bloodstream and the surrounding parenchyma. Focal adhesions are molecular bridges between the intracellular and extracellular spaces that integrate a variety of environmental stimuli and mediate 2-way crosstalk between the extracellular matrix and the cytoskeleton. Focal adhesion components are targets for biochemical and mechanical stimuli that evoke crucial developmental and injury response mechanisms including cell growth, movement, and differentiation, and tailoring of the extracellular microenvironment. Focal adhesions provide the vascular wall constituents with flexible and specific tools for exchanging cues in a complex system. The molecular mechanisms that underlie these vital communications are detailed in this review with the goal of defining future targets for vascular tissue engineering and for the therapeutic modulation of disordered vascular growth, inflammation, thrombosis, and angiogenesis.
The SNF5 subunit of the SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling complex has been shown to act as a tumor suppressor through multiple mechanisms, including impairing the ability of the oncoprotein transcription ...factor MYC to bind chromatin. Beyond SNF5, however, it is unknown to what extent MYC can access additional SWI/SNF subunits or how these interactions affect the ability of MYC to drive transcription, particularly in SNF5-null cancers. Here, we report that MYC interacts with multiple SWI/SNF components independent of SNF5. We show that MYC binds the pan-SWI/SNF subunit BAF155 through the BAF155 SWIRM domain, an interaction that is inhibited by the presence of SNF5. In SNF5-null cells, MYC binds with remaining SWI/SNF components to essential genes, although for a purpose that is distinct from chromatin remodeling. Analysis of MYC-SWI/SNF target genes in SNF5-null cells reveals that they are associated with core biological functions of MYC linked to protein synthesis. These data reveal that MYC can bind SWI/SNF in an SNF5-independent manner and that SNF5 modulates access of MYC to core SWI/SNF complexes. This work provides a framework in which to interrogate the influence of SWI/SNF on MYC function in cancers in which SWI/SNF or MYC are altered.
We use a stacking method to study the radial light profiles of luminous red galaxies (LRGs) at redshift \(\sim 0.62\) and \(\sim 0.25\), out to a radial range of 200 kpc. We do not find noticeable ...evolution of the profiles at the two redshifts. The LRG profiles appear to be well approximated by a single Sersic profile, although some excess light can be seen outside 60 kpc. We quantify the excess light by measuring the integrated flux and find that the excess is about 10\% -- a non-dominant but still nonnegligible component.