I review the general aspects of cosmological parameter estimation from observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropies in the framework of inflationary adiabatic models. The most recent CMB datasets are starting to give good constraints on the relevant parameters of inflationary adiabatic models. They point toward a model consistent with the basic predictions of i...

The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) power spectrum derived from the first year WMAP data demonstrates an intriguing lack of power at large scales that cannot be accounted for within the framework of the standard cosmological model. We explore the possibility that this anomaly could be explained by waiving the implicit assumption of a simply connected topology, rather than modifying the physic...

We describe and discuss the application of Gumbel statistics, which model extreme events, to WMAP 5-year measurements of the cosmic microwave background. We find that temperature extrema of the CMB are well modelled by the Gumbel formalism and describe tests for Gaussianity that the approach can provide. Comparison to simulations reveals Gumbel statistics to have only weak discriminatory power ...

Spectacular advances in the understanding of the Big-Bang model of cosmology have been due to increasingly accurate observations of the properties of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). The detector sensitivities of modern experiments have permitted to measure fluctuations of the CMB temperature with such a sensitivity that the contamination of the data by astrophysical foreground radiations...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The frequency, clinical correlates, and risk factors of cerebral microbleeds (CMB) in Cerebral Autosomal Dominant Arteriopathy with Subcortical Infarcts and Leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL) are still poorly known. We aimed at determining the location and number of CMB and their relationship with clinical manifestations, vascular risk factors, drugs, and other neuroimaging fe...

It is likely that the reionization of the Universe did not occur homogeneously. Using a model that associates ionized patches with overdense regions, we find that the resulting cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy power spectrum peaks at angular scales corresponding to the extent of the ionized regions, and has a width that reflects the correlations between them. There is considerable u...

The CMB is already one of the pillars of the Big Bang model. However it may also become our most powerful tool to distinguish contending models and to determine their cosmological parameters. To realize this goal, more than 20 observational groups and two new satellites are gearing up to make precise measurements of the CMB at small angular scales. In such a situation it is important to keep tr...