Reaching small scales with low-frequency imaging: applications to the Dark Ages.

The initial conditions for the density perturbations in the early Universe, which dictate the large-scale structure and distribution of galaxies we see today, are set during inflation. Measurements of primordial non-Gaussianity are crucial for distinguishing between different inflationary models. Current measurements of the matter power spectrum from the cosmic microwave background only constrain this on scales up to k ∼ 0.1 Mpc-1. Reaching smaller angular scales (higher values of k) can provide new constraints on non-Gaussianity. A powerful way to do this is by measuring the HI matter power spectrum at [Formula: see text]. In this paper, we investigate what values of k can be reached for the Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR), which can achieve [Formula: see text]1″ resolution at approximately 50 MHz. Combining this with a technique to isolate the spectrally smooth foregrounds to a wedge in [Formula: see text]-k⊥ space, we demonstrate what values of k we can feasibly reach within observational constraints. We find that LOFAR is approximately five orders of magnitude away from the desired sensitivity, for 10 years of integration time. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Astronomy from the Moon: the next decades'.

The role of black holes in galaxy formation and evolution.

Virtually all massive galaxies, including our own, host central black holes ranging in mass from millions to billions of solar masses. The growth of these black holes releases vast amounts of energy that powers quasars and other weaker active galactic nuclei. A tiny fraction of this energy, if absorbed by the host galaxy, could halt star formation by heating and ejecting ambient gas. A central question in galaxy evolution is the degree to which this process has caused the decline of star formation in large elliptical galaxies, which typically have little cold gas and few young stars, unlike spiral galaxies.

The Global Landscape of Occupational Exposure Limits--Implementation of Harmonization Principles to Guide Limit Selection.

Occupational exposure limits (OELs) serve as health-based benchmarks against which measured or estimated workplace exposures can be compared. In the years since the introduction of OELs to public health practice, both developed and developing countries have established processes for deriving, setting, and using OELs to protect workers exposed to hazardous chemicals. These processes vary widely, however, and have thus resulted in a confusing international landscape for identifying and applying such limits in workplaces. The occupational hygienist will encounter significant overlap in coverage among organizations for many chemicals, while other important chemicals have OELs developed by few, if any, organizations. Where multiple organizations have published an OEL, the derived value often varies considerably-reflecting differences in both risk policy and risk assessment methodology as well as access to available pertinent data. This article explores the underlying reasons for variability in OELs, and recommends the harmonization of risk-based methods used by OEL-deriving organizations. A framework is also proposed for the identification and systematic evaluation of OEL resources, which occupational hygienists can use to support risk characterization and risk management decisions in situations where multiple potentially relevant OELs exist.

Anhedonia in adolescents at transdiagnostic familial risk for severe mental illness: Clustering by symptoms and mechanisms of association with behavior.

BACKGROUND: Anhedonia is a transdiagnostic symptom of severe mental illness (SMI) and emerges during adolescence. Possible subphenotypes and neural mechanisms of anhedonia in adolescents at risk for SMI are understudied. METHODS: Adolescents at familial risk for SMI (N = 81) completed anhedonia (e.g., consummatory, anticipatory, social), demographic, and clinical measures and one year prior, a subsample (N = 46) completed fMRI scanning during a monetary reward task. Profiles were identified using k-means clustering of anhedonia type and differences in demographics, suicidal ideation, impulsivity, and emotional processes were examined. Moderation analyses were conducted to investigate whether levels of brain activation of reward regions moderated the relationships between anhedonia type and behaviors. RESULTS: Two-clusters emerged: a high anhedonia profile (high-anhedonia), characterized by high levels of all types of anhedonia, (N = 32) and a low anhedonia profile (low-anhedonia), characterized by low levels of anhedonia types (N = 49). Adolescents in the high-anhedonia profile reported more suicidal ideation and negative affect, and less positive affect and desire for emotional closeness than low-anhedonia profile. Furthermore, more suicidal ideation, less positive affect, and less desire for emotional closeness differentiated the familial high-risk, high-anhedonia profile adolescents from the familial high-risk, low-anhedonia profile adolescents. Across anhedonia profiles, moderation analyses revealed that adolescents with high dmPFC neural activation in response to reward had positive relationships between social, anticipatory, and consummatory anhedonia and suicidal ideation. LIMITATIONS: Small subsample with fMRI data. CONCLUSION: Profiles of anhedonia emerge transdiagnostically and vary on clinical features. Anhedonia severity and activation in frontostriatal reward areas have value for clinically important outcomes such as suicidal ideation.

Cross-presentation of tumour antigens by human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived CD141(+)XCR1+ dendritic cells.

Monocyte-derived dendritic cells (moDC) have been widely used in cancer immunotherapy but show significant donor-to-donor variability and low capacity for the cross-presentation of tumour-associated antigens (TAA) to CD8(+) T cells, greatly limiting the success of this approach. Given recent developments in induced pluripotency and the relative ease with which induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell lines may be generated from individuals, we have succeeded in differentiating dendritic cells (DC) from human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-A(*)0201(+) iPS cells (iPS cell-derived DC (ipDC)), using protocols compliant with their subsequent clinical application. Unlike moDC, a subset of ipDC was found to coexpress CD141 and XCR1 that have been shown previously to define the human equivalent of mouse CD8α(+) DC, in which the capacity for cross-presentation has been shown to reside. Accordingly, ipDC were able to cross-present the TAA, Melan A, to a CD8(+) T-cell clone and stimulate primary Melan A-specific responses among naïve T cells from an HLA-A(*)0201(+) donor. Given that CD141(+)XCR1(+) DC are present in peripheral blood in trace numbers that preclude their clinical application, the ability to generate a potentially unlimited source from iPS cells offers the possibility of harnessing their capacity for cross-priming of cytotoxic T lymphocytes for the induction of tumour-specific immune responses.

Why do anxious children become depressed teenagers? The role of social evaluative threat and reward processing.

BACKGROUND: Depression is a leading cause of worldwide disability. Adolescence represents a key developmental window in which rates of this disorder increase markedly. Children with an anxiety disorder show a particular risk of developing depression during adolescence. METHOD: We present and review evidence for a developmental model that considers the intersection of two vulnerabilities relevant to the trajectory from anxiety to depression: difficulties in response to potential social evaluation and changes in reward processing at puberty. RESULTS: Evidence suggests that these vulnerabilities (a) have been associated with depression, (b) are likely to be problematic in many, but not all, anxious youth, and (c) may be exacerbated by maturational processes that occur around pubertal development in ways that can create a negative spiral into a depressive disorder. CONCLUSIONS: We discuss the possibility that early intervention strategies targeting key aspects of these vulnerabilities could alter the trajectory away from depression for many anxious youth.

Male-immature relationships in multi-male groups of mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei).

We examined the pattern and possible functions of social interactions between adult males and immatures in three free-ranging, multi-male groups of mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei). Previous studies conducted during the 1970s when groups contained one to three adult males concluded that male-immature relationships were likely to be a form of low-cost paternal investment [Stewart, Mountain gorillas: three decades of research at Karisoke. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001]. We evaluated whether this hypothesis still held in groups containing six to nine adult males, or if male-immature relationships might serve other functions (e.g. mating effort, kin selection, or alliance building). Overall, we found that immatures spent the most time near, and interacted most with, the alpha silverback. These behaviors peaked during the period when infants were still quite vulnerable but increasing their independence from their mothers. Such findings suggest that parenting effort remains the primary function of male-immature relationships; however, there is some evidence for the mating effort hypothesis as well.

Shedding light on baryonic dark matter.

Halo dark matter, if it is baryonic, may plausibly consist of compact stellar remnants. Jeans mass clouds containing 10(6) to 10(8) solar masses could have efficiently formed stars in the early universe and could plausibly have generated, for a suitably top-heavy stellar initial mass function, a high abundance of neutron stars as well as a small admixture of long-lived low mass stars. Within the resulting clusters of dark remnants, which eventually are tidally disrupted when halos eventually form, captures of neutron stars by non-degenerate stars resulted in formation of close binaries. These evolve to produce, by the present epoch, an observable x-ray signal associated with dark matter aggregations in galaxy halos and galaxy cluster cores.

High-velocity pulsars in the galactic halo.

It is proposed that high-velocity pulsars are produced in extended galactic halos, and possibly in extragalactic space, from primordial (population III) stars. Such a population of neutron stars could provide an explanation for the gamma-ray bursters and would then accommodate the possibility that most bursters are not in the visible parts of galaxies.

From microwave anisotropies to cosmology.

Fluctuations in the temperature of the cosmic microwave background have now been detected over a wide range of angular scales, and a consistent picture seems to be emerging. This article describes some of the implications for cosmology. Analysis of all of the published detections suggests the existence of a peak on degree scales with a height 2.4 to 10 (90 percent confidence level) times the amplitude of the power spectrum at large angular scales. This result confirms an early prediction, implies that the universe did in fact recombine, and limits theories of structure formation. Illustrative examples show how comparison of the microwave background data and the large-scale structure data will be a potentially powerful means of answering fundamental questions about the universe.

The Case for a Hubble Constant of 30 km s-1 Mpc-1.

Although recent determinations of the distance to the Virgo cluster based on Cepheid variable stars represent an important step in pinning down the Hubble constant, after 65 years a definitive determination of the Hubble constant still eludes cosmologists. At present, most of the observational determinations place the Hubble constant between 40 and 90 kilometers per second per megaparsec (km s(-1) Mpc(-1)). The case is made here for a Hubble constant that is even smaller than the lower bound of the accepted range on the basis of the great advantages, all theoretical in nature, of a Hubble constant of around 30 kilometers per second per megaparsec. Such a value for the Hubble cures all of the ills of the current theoretical orthodoxy, that is, a spatially flat universe composed predominantly of cold dark matter.

Seasonal sexual segregation in two Thalassarche albatross species: competitive exclusion, reproductive role specialization or foraging niche divergence?

Sexual segregation by micro- or macrohabitat is common in birds, and usually attributed to size-mediated dominance and exclusion of females by larger males, trophic niche divergence or reproductive role specialization. Our study of black-browed albatrosses, Thalassarche melanophrys, and grey-headed albatrosses, T. chrysostoma, revealed an exceptional degree of sexual segregation during incubation, with largely mutually exclusive core foraging ranges for each sex in both species. Spatial segregation was not apparent during brood-guard or post-guard chick rearing, when adults are constrained to feed close to colonies, providing no evidence for dominance-related competitive exclusion at the macrohabitat level. A comprehensive morphometric comparison indicated considerable species and sexual dimorphism in wing area and wing loading that corresponded, both within and between species, to broad-scale habitat preferences relating to wind strength. We suggest that seasonal sexual segregation in these two species is attributable to niche divergence mediated by differences in flight performance. Such sexual segregation may also have implications for conservation in relation to sex-specific overlap with commercial fisheries.

The responses of female baboons (Papio cynocephalus ursinus) to anomalous social interactions: evidence for causal reasoning?

Baboons' (Papio cynocephalus ursinus) understanding of cause-effect relations in the context of social interactions was examined through use of a playback experiment. Under natural conditions, dominant female baboons often grunt to more subordinate mothers when interacting with their infants. Mothers occasionally respond to these grunts by uttering submissive fear barks. Subjects were played causally inconsistent call sequences in which a lower ranking female apparently grunted to a higher ranking female, and the higher ranking female apparently responded with fear barks. As a control, subjects heard a sequence made causally consistent by the inclusion of grunts from a 3rd female that was dominant to both of the others. Subjects responded significantly more strongly to the causally inconsistent sequences, suggesting that they recognized the factors that cause 1 individual to give submissive vocalizations to another.