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2. |
- Bergman, A. S., et al.
(author)
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280 GHz Focal Plane Unit Design and Characterization for the SPIDER-2 Suborbital Polarimeter
- 2018
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In: Journal of Low Temperature Physics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0022-2291 .- 1573-7357. ; 193:5-6, s. 1075-1084
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We describe the construction and characterization of the 280 GHz bolometric focal plane units (FPUs) to be deployed on the second flight of the balloon-borne SPIDER instrument. These FPUs are vital to SPIDER's primary science goal of detecting or placing an upper limit on the amplitude of the primordial gravitational wave signature in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) by constraining the B-mode contamination in the CMB from Galactic dust emission. Each 280 GHz focal plane contains a 16 x 16 grid of corrugated silicon feedhorns coupled to an array of aluminum-manganese transition-edge sensor (TES) bolometers fabricated on 150 mm diameter substrates. In total, the three 280 GHz FPUs contain 1530 polarization-sensitive bolometers (765 spatial pixels) optimized for the low loading environment in flight and read out by time-division SQUID multiplexing. In this paper, we describe the mechanical, thermal, and magnetic shielding architecture of the focal planes and present cryogenic measurements which characterize yield and the uniformity of several bolometer parameters. The assembled FPUs have high yields, with one array as high as 95% including defects from wiring and readout. We demonstrate high uniformity in device parameters, finding the median saturation power for each TES array to be similar to 3 pW at 300 mK with a less than 6% variation across each array at 1 sigma. These focal planes will be deployed alongside the 95 and 150 GHz telescopes in the SPIDER-2 instrument, slated to fly from McMurdo Station in Antarctica in December 2018.
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3. |
- Fresard, Laure, et al.
(author)
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Identification of rare-disease genes using blood transcriptome sequencing and large control cohorts
- 2019
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In: Nature Medicine. - : NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP. - 1078-8956 .- 1546-170X. ; 25:6, s. 911-919
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- It is estimated that 350 million individuals worldwide suffer from rare diseases, which are predominantly caused by mutation in a single gene(1). The current molecular diagnostic rate is estimated at 50%, with whole-exome sequencing (WES) among the most successful approaches(2-5). For patients in whom WES is uninformative, RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) has shown diagnostic utility in specific tissues and diseases(6-8). This includes muscle biopsies from patients with undiagnosed rare muscle disorders(6,9), and cultured fibroblasts from patients with mitochondrial disorders(7). However, for many individuals, biopsies are not performed for clinical care, and tissues are difficult to access. We sought to assess the utility of RNA-seq from blood as a diagnostic tool for rare diseases of different pathophysiologies. We generated whole-blood RNA-seq from 94 individuals with undiagnosed rare diseases spanning 16 diverse disease categories. We developed a robust approach to compare data from these individuals with large sets of RNA-seq data for controls (n = 1,594 unrelated controls and n = 49 family members) and demonstrated the impacts of expression, splicing, gene and variant filtering strategies on disease gene identification. Across our cohort, we observed that RNA-seq yields a 7.5% diagnostic rate, and an additional 16.7% with improved candidate gene resolution.
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4. |
- Scolnic, D., et al.
(author)
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How Many Kilonovae Can Be Found in Past, Present, and Future Survey Data Sets?
- 2018
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In: Astrophysical Journal Letters. - : American Astronomical Society. - 2041-8205 .- 2041-8213. ; 852:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The discovery of a kilonova (KN) associated with the Advanced LIGO (aLIGO)/Virgo event GW170817 opens up new avenues of multi-messenger astrophysics. Here, using realistic simulations, we provide estimates of the number of KNe that could be found in data from past, present, and future surveys without a gravitational-wave trigger. For the simulation, we construct a spectral time-series model based on the DES-GW multi-band light curve from the single known KN event, and we use an average of BNS rates from past studies of 103Gpc(-3) yr(-1), consistent with the one event found so far. Examining past and current data sets from transient surveys, the number of KNe we expect to find for ASAS-SN, SDSS, PS1, SNLS, DES, and SMT is between 0 and 0.3. We predict the number of detections per future survey to be 8.3 from ATLAS, 10.6 from ZTF, 5.5/69 from LSST (the Deep Drilling/Wide Fast Deep), and 16.0 from WFIRST. The maximum redshift of KNe discovered for each survey is z = 0.8 for WFIRST, z = 0.25 for LSST, and z = 0.04 for ZTF and ATLAS. This maximum redshift for WFIRST is well beyond the sensitivity of aLIGO and some future GW missions. For the LSST survey, we also provide contamination estimates from Type Ia and core-collapse supernovae: after light curve and template-matching requirements, we estimate a background of just two events. More broadly, we stress that future transient surveys should consider how to optimize their search strategies to improve their detection efficiency and to consider similar analyses for GW follow-up programs.
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5. |
- Gualtieri, R., et al.
(author)
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SPIDER : CMB Polarimetry from the Edge of Space
- 2018
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In: Journal of Low Temperature Physics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0022-2291 .- 1573-7357. ; 193:5-6, s. 1112-1121
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- SPIDER is a balloon-borne instrument designed to map the polarization of the millimeter-wave sky at large angular scales. Spider targets the B-mode signature of primordial gravitational waves in the cosmic microwave background (CMB), with a focus on mapping a large sky area with high fidelity at multiple frequencies. SPIDER's first long-duration balloon (LDB) flight in January 2015 deployed a total of 2400 antenna-coupled transition-edge sensors (TESs) at 90 GHz and 150 GHz. In this work we review the design and in-flight performance of the SPIDER instrument, with a particular focus on the measured performance of the detectors and instrument in a space-like loading and radiation environment. SPIDER's second flight in December 2018 will incorporate payload upgrades and new receivers to map the sky at 285 GHz, providing valuable information for cleaning polarized dust emission from CMB maps.
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6. |
- Nagy, J. M., et al.
(author)
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A New Limit on CMB Circular Polarization from SPIDER
- 2017
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In: Astrophysical Journal. - : American Astronomical Society. - 0004-637X .- 1538-4357. ; 844:2
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We present a new upper limit on cosmic microwave background (CMB) circular polarization from the 2015 flight of SPIDER, a balloon-borne telescope designed to search for B-mode linear polarization from cosmic inflation. Although the level of circular polarization in the CMB is predicted to be very small, experimental limits provide a valuable test of the underlying models. By exploiting the nonzero circular-to-linear polarization coupling of the half-wave plate polarization modulators, data from SPIDER's 2015 Antarctic flight provide a constraint on Stokes V at 95 and 150 GHz in the range 33 < l < 307. No other limits exist over this full range of angular scales, and SPIDER improves on the previous limit by several orders of magnitude, providing 95% C.L. constraints on l (l + 1)C-l(VV) /(2 pi) ranging from 141 to 255 mu K-2 at 150 GHz for a thermal CMB spectrum. As linear CMB polarization experiments become increasingly sensitive, the techniques described in this paper can be applied to obtain even stronger constraints on circular polarization.
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7. |
- Zhang, Y., et al.
(author)
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Dark Energy Surveyed Year 1 results : calibration of cluster mis-centring in the redMaPPer catalogues
- 2019
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In: Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. - : OXFORD UNIV PRESS. - 0035-8711 .- 1365-2966. ; 487:2, s. 2578-2593
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The centre determination of a galaxy cluster from an optical cluster finding algorithm can be offset from theoretical prescriptions or N-body definitions of its host halo centre. These offsets impact the recovered cluster statistics, affecting both richness measurements and the weak lensing shear profile around the clusters. This paper models the centring performance of the redMaPPer cluster finding algorithm using archival X-ray observations of redMaPPer-selected clusters. Assuming the X-ray emission peaks as the fiducial halo centres, and through analysing their offsets to the redMaPPer centres, we find that similar to 75 +/- 8 per cent of the redMaPPer clusters are well centred and the mis-centred offset follows a Gamma distribution in normalized, projected distance. These mis-centring offsets cause a systematic underestimation of cluster richness relative to the well-centred clusters, for which we propose a descriptive model. Our results enable the DES Y1 cluster cosmology analysis by characterizing the necessary corrections to both the weak lensing and richness abundance functions of the DES Y1 redMaPPer cluster catalogue.
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8. |
- Drake, Thomas M., et al.
(author)
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Outcomes following small bowel obstruction due to malignancy in the national audit of small bowel obstruction
- 2019
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In: European Journal of Surgical Oncology. - : Elsevier BV. - 0748-7983 .- 1532-2157. ; 45:12, s. 2319-2324
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- © 2019 Elsevier Ltd, BASO ~ The Association for Cancer Surgery, and the European Society of Surgical Oncology Introduction: Patients with cancer who develop small bowel obstruction are at high risk of malnutrition and morbidity following compromise of gastrointestinal tract continuity. This study aimed to characterise current management and outcomes following malignant small bowel obstruction. Methods: A prospective, multicentre cohort study of patients with small bowel obstruction who presented to UK hospitals between 16th January and 13th March 2017. Patients who presented with small bowel obstruction due to primary tumours of the intestine (excluding left-sided colonic tumours) or disseminated intra-abdominal malignancy were included. Outcomes included 30-day mortality and in-hospital complications. Cox-proportional hazards models were used to generate adjusted effects estimates, which are presented as hazard ratios (HR) alongside the corresponding 95% confidence interval (95% CI). The threshold for statistical significance was set at the level of P ≤ 0.05 a-priori. Results: 205 patients with malignant small bowel obstruction presented to emergency surgery services during the study period. Of these patients, 50 had obstruction due to right sided colon cancer, 143 due to disseminated intraabdominal malignancy, 10 had primary tumours of the small bowel and 2 patients had gastrointestinal stromal tumours. In total 100 out of 205 patients underwent a surgical intervention for obstruction. 30-day in-hospital mortality rate was 11.3% for those with primary tumours and 19.6% for those with disseminated malignancy. Severe risk of malnutrition was an independent predictor for poor mortality in this cohort (adjusted HR 16.18, 95% CI 1.86 to 140.84, p = 0.012). Patients with right-sided colon cancer had high rates of morbidity. Conclusions: Mortality rates were high in patients with disseminated malignancy and in those with right sided colon cancer. Further research should identify optimal management strategy to reduce morbidity for these patient groups.
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9. |
- Coppin, K. E. K., et al.
(author)
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The SCUBA-2 Cosmology Legacy Survey: the submillimetre properties of Lyman-break galaxies at z=3-5
- 2015
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In: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0035-8711 .- 1365-2966. ; 446:2, s. 1293-1304
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We present detections at 850 mu m of the Lyman-break galaxy (LBG) population at z approximate to 3, 4, and 5 using data from the Submillimetre Common User Bolometer Array 2 Cosmology Legacy Survey in the United Kingdom Infrared Deep Sky Survey 'Ultra Deep Survey' field. We employ stacking to probe beneath the survey limit, measuring the average 850 mu m flux density of LBGs at z approximate to 3, 4, and 5 with typical ultraviolet luminosities of L-1700 approximate to 10(29) erg s(-1) Hz(-1). We measure 850 mu m flux densities of (0.25 +/- 0.03), (0.41 +/- 0.06), and (0.88 +/- 0.23) mJy, respectively, finding that they contribute at most 20 per cent to the cosmic far-infrared (IR) background at 850 mu m. Fitting an appropriate range of spectral energy distributions to the z similar to 3, 4, and 5 LBG stacked 24-850 mu m fluxes, we derive IR luminosities of L8-1000 (mu m) approximate to 3.2, 5.5, and 11.0 x 10(11) L-circle dot [and star formation rates (SFRs) of approximate to 50-200M(circle dot) yr(-1)], respectively. We find that the evolution in the IR luminosity density of LBGs is broadly consistent with model predictions for the expected contribution of luminous-to-ultraluminous IR galaxies at these epochs. We observe a positive correlation between stellar mass and IR luminosity and confirm that, for a fixed mass, the reddest LBGs (UV slope beta -> 0) are redder due to dust extinction, with SFR (IR)/SFR (UV) increasing by about an order of magnitude over -2
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10. |
- Paul, E. S., et al.
(author)
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Recent Results at Ultrahigh Spin: Terminating States and Beyond in Mass 160 Rare-earth Nuclei
- 2015
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In: Acta Physica Polonica. Series B: Elementary Particle Physics, Nuclear Physics, Statistical Physics, Theory of Relativity, Field Theory. - 0587-4254. ; 46:3, s. 487-496
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- A classic region of band termination at high spin occurs in rare-earth nuclei with around ten valence nucleons above the Gd-146 closed core. Results are presented here for such non-collective oblate (gamma = 60 degrees) terminating states in odd-Z Ho-155, odd-odd Ho-156, and even-even Er-156, where they are compared with neighbouring nuclei. In addition to these particularly favoured states, the occurrence of collective triaxial strongly deformed (TSD) bands, bypassing the terminating states and extending to over 65 (h) over bar, is reviewed.
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