We report the observation of gravitational waves from two compact binary coalescences in LIGO's and Virgo's third observing run with properties consistent with neutron star-black hole (NSBH) binaries. The two events are named GW200105_162426 and GW200115_042309, abbreviated as GW200105 and GW200115; the first was observed by LIGO Livingston and Virgo and the second by all three LIGO-Virgo detectors. The source of GW200105 has component masses -+ 8.9 1.5 1.2 and 130 Gpc yr 69 112 3 1 under the assumption of a broader distribution of component masses.

We report results of a search for an isotropic gravitational-wave background (GWB) using data from Advanced LIGO's and Advanced Virgo's third observing run (O3) combined with upper limits from the earlier O1 and O2 runs. Unlike in previous observing runs in the advanced detector era, we include Virgo in the search for the GWB. The results of the search are consistent with uncorrelated noise, and therefore we place upper limits on the strength of the GWB. We find that the dimensionless energy density ⌦GW  5.8 ⇥ 10 9 at the 95% credible level for a flat (frequencyindependent) GWB, using a prior which is uniform in the log of the strength of the GWB, with 99% of the sensitivity coming from the band 20-76.6 Hz; ⌦GW(f )  3.4 ⇥ 10 9 at 25 Hz for a power-law GWB with a spectral index of 2/3 (consistent with expectations for compact binary coalescences), in the band 20-90.6 Hz; and ⌦GW(f )  3.9 ⇥ 10 10 at 25 Hz for a spectral index of 3, in the band 20-291.6 Hz. These upper limits improve over our previous results by a factor of 6.0 for a flat GWB, 8.8 for a spectral index of 2/3, and 13.1 for a spectral index of 3. We also search for a GWB arising from scalar and vector modes, which are predicted by alternative theories of gravity; we do not find evidence of these, and place upper limits on the strength of GWBs with these polarizations. We demonstrate that there is no evidence of correlated noise of magnetic origin by performing a Bayesian analysis that allows for the presence of both a GWB and an e↵ective magnetic background arising from geophysical Schumann resonances. We compare our upper limits to a fiducial model for the GWB from the merger of compact binaries, updating the model to use the most recent datadriven population inference from the systems detected during O3a. Finally, we combine our results with observations of individual mergers and show that, at design sensitivity, this joint approach may yield stronger constraints on the merger rate of binary black holes at z & 2 than can be achieved with individually resolved mergers alone.

Objective To describe variation across US pediatric hospitals in the utilization of resources not recommended for routine use by the AAP guideline for infants hospitalized with bronchiolitis and to examine the association between resource utilization and disposition outcomes. Study design We conducted a cross-sectional study of infants ≤12 months hospitalized for bronchiolitis from 2007-2012 at 42 hospitals contributing data to the Pediatric Health Information System. Patients with asthma were excluded. The primary outcome was hospital-level variation in utilization of five resources not recommended for routine use: albuterol, racemic epinephrine, corticosteroids, chest radiography and antibiotics. We also examined the association of resource utilization with length of stay (LOS) and readmission. Results 64,994 hospitalizations were analyzed. After adjustment for patient characteristics, albuterol (median, 52.4%; range, 3.5%-81%), racemic epinephrine (20.1%; 0.6%-78.8%), and chest radiography (54.9%; 24.1%-76.7%) had the greatest variation across hospitals. Utilization of albuterol, racemic epinephrine, and antibiotics did not change significantly over time compared with small decreases in corticosteroid (3.3%) and chest radiography (8.6%) use over the study period. Utilization of each resource was significantly associated with increased LOS without concomitant decreased odds of readmission. Conclusions Substantial use and variation in five resources not recommended for routine use by the AAP bronchiolitis guideline persists with increased utilization associated with increased LOS without the benefit of decreased readmission. Future work should focus on developing processes that can be widely disseminated and easily implemented to minimize unwarranted practice variation when evidence and guidelines exist.

We report results from searches for anisotropic stochastic gravitational-wave backgrounds using data from the first three observing runs of the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo detectors. For the first time, we include Virgo data in our analysis and run our search with a new efficient pipeline called PyStoch on data folded over one sidereal day. We use gravitational-wave radiometry (broadband and narrow band) to produce sky maps of stochastic gravitational-wave backgrounds and to search for gravitational waves from point sources. A spherical harmonic decomposition method is employed to look for gravitationalwave emission from spatially-extended sources. Neither technique found evidence of gravitational-wave signals. Hence we derive 95% confidence-level upper limit sky maps on the gravitational-wave energy flux from broadband point sources, ranging from F α;Θ < ð0.013-7.6Þ × 10 −8 erg cm −2 s −1 Hz −1 , and on the (normalized) gravitational-wave energy density spectrum from extended sources, ranging from Ω α;Θ < ð0.57-9.3Þ × 10 −9 sr −1 , depending on direction (Θ) and spectral index (α). These limits improve upon previous limits by factors of 2.9-3.5. We also set 95% confidence level upper limits on the frequencydependent strain amplitudes of quasimonochromatic gravitational waves coming from three interesting targets, Scorpius X-1, SN 1987A and the Galactic Center, with best upper limits range from h 0 < ð1.7-2.1Þ × 10 −25 , a factor of ≥ 2.0 improvement compared to previous stochastic radiometer searches.

Adult obesity is linked to asthma cases and is estimated to lead to 250 000 new cases yearly. Similar incidence and attributable risk (AR) estimates have not been developed for children. We sought to describe the relationship between overweight and obesity and incident asthma in childhood and quantify AR statistics in the United States for overweight and obesity on pediatric asthma. METHODS: The PEDSnet clinical data research network was used to conduct a retrospective cohort study (January 2009-December 2015) to compare asthma incidence among overweight and/or obese versus healthy weight 2-to 17-year-old children. Asthma incidence was defined as ≥2 encounters with a diagnosis of asthma and ≥1 asthma controller prescription. Stricter diagnostic criteria involved confirmation by spirometry. We used multivariable Poisson regression analyses to estimate incident asthma rates and risk ratios and accepted formulas for ARs. RESULTS: Data from 507 496 children and 19 581 972 encounters were included. The mean participant observation period was 4 years. The adjusted risk for incident asthma was increased among children who were overweight (relative risk [RR]: 1.17; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.10-1.25) and obese (RR: 1.26; 95% CI: 1.18-1.34). The adjusted risk for spirometry-confirmed asthma was increased among children with obesity (RR: 1.29; 95% CI: 1.16-1.42). An estimated 23% to 27% of new asthma cases in children with obesity is directly attributable to obesity. In the absence of overweight and obesity, 10% of all cases of asthma would be avoided. CONCLUSIONS: Obesity is a major preventable risk factor for pediatric asthma.

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Praziquantel has been used to treat schistosome infections since 1979 and currently is the only chemotherapeutic agent in production for this purpose, raising concerns about the potential for the emergence of drug resistance. In practice, 10–20% of infected patients will continue to excrete eggs after treatment. It is not understood to what degree this represents selection of a resistant population or incomplete elimination due to the presence of immature worms at the time of treatment. We used a population genetics approach to test whether or not persistent Schistosoma mansoni parasites were drawn from the same population as susceptible parasites. In this study, stool samples were collected from 96% of individuals in two small Brazilian communities (populations 482 and 367) and examined for S. mansoni eggs. The combined prevalence of S. mansoni infections in the villages was 41%. Total egg DNA was extracted from each sample and was genotyped at 15 microsatellite markers. Day-to-day variation of the infrapopulation from an individual human host was low (median differentiation using Jost’s D = 0.010), so that a single stool was representative of the genotypes present in stool eggs, at least in the short term. Average pairwise analysis of D among all pre-treatment infrapopulations suggested moderate differentiation (mean D = 0.082 and 0.122 for the two villages), whereas the pre-treatment component population differentiation between the two communities was 0.047. The differentiation of the component population remaining after treatment from the fully susceptible component population was low (mean D = 0.007 and 0.020 for the two villages), suggesting that the persistent parasites were not selected by praziquantel treatment. We will continue to follow these communities for evidence of selection or changes in population structure.