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During circuit assembly in the developing brain, neurons undergo dynamic expression of many neurotransmitter receptor (NR) subunits that are used to establish a series of postsynaptic domains. However, our understanding of the molecular logic that determines synapse composition between classes of inputs remains limited. The Drosophila central nervous system demonstrates particularly striking specificity of synapse types. Here, I report the use of new tools developed to study the localization of endogenously expressed NR subunits in sparsely distributed cells, thus offering a window into the process of synaptogenesis and the establishment of variously defined postsynaptic sites in the brain. I use a combination of genetic methods and expansion microscopy (ExM) to investigate NR localization in the fly brain at the scale of single synapses. In developmental studies, I also present evidence of temporally distinct dynamics of synapse formation that differ between NR type as well as cell type. Lastly, I explore methods to uncover mechanisms that regulate NR localization in these cells. This work describes newly advanced methods that can be leveraged to probe the molecular architecture of synapses in vivo and suggests a complex picture of how synapse formation is coordinated through differential, synapse-specific processes during development.

In California both min’yō and Tsugaru shamisen practitioners occupy two disparate diasporic intercultural spaces for Japanese folk music. Based on fieldwork conducted in California music and dance affinity groups between 2018 – 2023, this study of Japanese folk music and dance argues these two practices and communities demonstrate different types of musical resiliency during precarious times while they engage with the differing desires of institutions, participants, and audiences in expressing a Japanese folk musical past. In precarity, the min’yō and Tsugaru shamisen groups demonstrate resiliency in adapting to shifting conceptions of identity whilst experimenting with alternatives to the current promotion practices of state institutions and NGOs. The min’yō and Tsugaru shamisen communities work to sustain the spatial aesthetics of Japanese folk music and dance which are tied to specific places and practices in Japan. While cultivating this aesthetic, practitioners move across different transmission spaces with masters and peers both in-person and digitally distanced. The contemporary place of min’yō and Tsugaru shamisen communities in California is informed by a Japanese American history of displacement. These groups exhibit resiliency in negotiating the transitions and transformations of Japanese folk music and dance.

Antimicrobial materials are becoming increasingly popular as a method of controlling microbial growth due to the raised awareness of infection control and hygiene. Standardised test methods help to demonstrate the efficacy of these materials before they are implemented in end-use scenarios. However, some methods do not reflect the in-use conditions of the materials, such as the use of high relative humidity that prevents an inoculum from evaporating on a surface. This in turn allows an antimicrobial material to remain active if it requires moisture, which is often the case. It is of utmost importance to ensure that these standardised test methods accurately simulate the end-use environment to provide confidence that their efficacy will remain once applied to the point-of-use. To achieve this, a series of experimental decisions were tested including environmental conditions (e.g., temperature, relative humidity, and airflow) as well as other factors (e.g., inoculum volume and concentration, incubation period). To reproducibly assess these parameters, an environmental control chamber was designed, and 3D printed. Additionally, the impact of droplet evaporation on bacterial deposition and the prolonged efficacy of antimicrobial materials was assessed. The environmental conditions significantly (p < 0.05) affected the survival of bacteria on an inert (stainless steel) surface by causing the evaporation of the inoculum on the surface, promoting cell death via desiccation. Furthermore, a prototype environmental control chamber was developed that was capable of maintaining temperature (room temperature to 37 oC), relative humidity (15 to 100 %) and airflow in a stable manner. The environmental conditions (temperature, relative humidity) as well as methodological decisions (surface composition, droplet volume, droplet contamination with microorganisms) significantly affected the evaporation rate of droplets on a surface in some instances. All of the factors described affect

A map of vertical cutoff rigidities has been calculated for galactic cosmic ray (GCR) entry into the atmosphere of Jupiter at the 1 bar pressure radius (1 RJ = 71,492 km) using the JRM33 comprehensive model of Jupiter's magnetic field (based on 32 close flybys of Jupiter by the Juno satellite) along with a particle trajectory code (Geomagnetic Cutoff Rigidity Computer Program). The map was combined with measurements of the GCR proton flux at Earth, from the BESS-Polar ii campaign, to calculate a corresponding proton flux map at Jupiter. Additional cutoff rigidity maps were calculated for 1,000 km above the 1 bar level, and for 1.41 RJ. Furthermore, detections of heavy particles from Juno's Stellar Reference Unit were analyzed for their cutoff rigidities in multiple directions. Cutoff rigidities of 3.5–7.5 GV were found for five of the detections furthest out making them possible GCR candidates. The majority of points, located below 1.6 RJ are not likely to be GCR. Assuming instead that they are trapped particles we have calculated upper and lower limits on their equatorial pitch angles, resulting in a range from 10.1° to 27.1°, which can help constraining Jupiter's energetic radiation.

The heterogeneity that exists across the global spectrum of livestock production means that livestock productivity, efficiency, health expenditure and health outcomes vary across production systems. To ensure that burden of disease estimates are specific to the represented livestock population and people reliant upon them, livestock populations need to be systematically classified into different types of production system, reflective of the heterogeneity across production systems. This paper explores the data currently available of livestock production system classifications and animal health through a scoping review as a foundation for the development of a framework that facilitates more specific estimates of livestock disease burdens. A top-down framework to classification is outlined based on a systematic review of existing classification methods and provides a basis for simple grouping of livestock at global scale. The proposed top-down classification framework, which is dominated by commodity focus of production along with intensity of resource use, may have less relevance at the sub-national level in some jurisdictions and will need to be informed and adapted with information on how countries themselves categorize livestock and their production systems. The findings in this study provide a foundation for analysing animal health burdens across a broad level of production systems. The developed framework will fill a major gap in how livestock production and health are currently approached and analysed.

Scanning transmission electron microscopy is a common tool used to study the atomic structure of materials. It is an inherently multimodal tool allowing for the simultaneous acquisition of multiple information channels. Despite its versatility, however, experimental workflows currently rely heavily on experienced human operators and can only acquire data from small regions of a sample at a time. Here, we demonstrate a flexible pipeline-based system for high-throughput acquisition of atomic-resolution structural data using a custom built sample stage and automation program. The program is capable of operating over many hours without human intervention improving the statistics of high-resolution experiments.

Automated assessment using Natural Language Processing (NLP) has the potential to make English speaking assessments more reliable, authentic, and accessible. Yet without careful examination, NLP may exacerbate social prejudices based on gender or native language (L1). Current NLP-based assessments are prone to such biases, yet research and documentation are scarce. Considering the high stakes nature of English speaking assessment, it is imperative that tests are fair for all examinees, regardless of gender or L1 background. Through a series of three studies, this project addresses the need for more thorough investigations of bias in English speaking assessment. Study 1 examines biases in automated transcription, a key component of automated speaking assessment. Study 2 focuses on a specific type of bias known as differential item functioning (DIF), and determines which patterns of DIF are present in human rater scores and whether or not these patterns of DIF are exacerbated by a pretrained, large language model (LLM) known as BERT. Lastly, Study 3 presents a comparison of two approaches of mitigating DIF using LLMs. Results from Study 1 indicate that there are indeed biases in automated transcription, however these do not translate into biased speaking scores. In Study 2, it is shown that BERT does exacerbate human rater biases, although the effect size is small. Finally, Study 3 demonstrates that it is possible to debias human and automated scores; however, the two approaches have limitations, particularly when the source of DIF is unknown.

Though popular music in the twentieth century was often disseminated aurally through recordings, transcribers have reified these sounds into musical notation to aid in analysis and re-performance. Today, musicians use myriad types of transcriptions—online tabs, lead sheets, and note-for-note sheet music—to help them understand and learn their favorite songs. This dissertation narrates the emergence of these transcriptions among different genres during the Rock Era, a period stretching from the late 1950s through the late 1970s. Detailed transcriptions were far less common then than now: some were created to secure copyright protection, while others helped musicians gain competency in a certain performance style. By the 1980s, however, many transcriptions started being published as exquisitely crafted musical works that could stand in for their model—the recording. I argue that these documents are most often influenced by classical music aesthetics, as transcribers borrow from this tradition to legitimize popular music at a time when it remained outside the purview of the musical academy. In Chapter 1, I explore the ontology of musical transcriptions, focusing particularly on the relationship between transcriptions and musical works in the genres I study in subsequent chapters: jazz, the blues, and rock. Chapter 2 studies Gunther Schuller’s transcriptions of Ornette Coleman’s free jazz; one example translates Coleman’s improvisation into a “coherent” musical artifact, elevating him to Western art music standards and problematically occluding other musical inheritances. Chapter 3 provides an overview of the different varieties of guitar transcriptions in this era; I profile key blues guitar pedagogues and transcribers, Happy Traum and Stefan Grossman, and then scrutinize various publications of Jimi Hendrix’s guitar music. I examine The Frank Zappa Guitar Book in Chapter 4, a collection of exceptionally detailed (and overly complex) transcriptions of Zappa’s guitar im

In this dissertation, we determine best-to-date upper bounds on the resolvent degree of solving general polynomials. Chapters 1 and 2 provide the necessary background information and Chapters 3 and 4 establish new results.In Chapter 1, we provide a high-level introduction of the dissertation and provide a history of the literature on resolvent degree. We also establish standard mathematical notation and terminology.In Chapter 2, Section 1, we recall the definitions of essential dimension and resolvent degree, as well as some standard results. In Section 2, we give an introduction to the theory of Tschirnhaus transformations and explain how we will use this theory to obtain upper bounds on resolvent degree by determining special points on Tschirnhaus complete intersections.In Chapter 3, Section 1, we recover the classical notion of the polars of a hypersurface at a point, so that we can introduce the polar cone of a hypersurface at a point and the connection between the polar cone at a point and lines on the hypersurface through that point. We then extend these notions to intersections of hypersurfaces and introduce iterated polar cones and their connections to k-planes in Section 2. Finally, we recover the obliteration algorithm of Sylvester and present it in a modern geometric context in Section 3.In Chapter 4, we establish our bounds on resolvent degree and Sections 1, 2, and 3 each highlight different constructions. In Section 4.4, we indicate obstructions to further bounds on resolvent degree via iterated polar cone constructions. We then proceed to establish approximations via elementary functions and compare the bounds we obtain with previous bounds in Sections 5 and 6. Finally, we posit several questions for future research in Section 7.Appendix A contains numerical information regarding our bounding function G'(m) and the previous best bounding function F(m), as well as implementations of the geometric obliteration algorithm. Appendix B contains three transl

This dissertation explores the textual, contextual, and conceptual convergences of two pioneers of the Black radical tradition: Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins and William Edward Burghardt Du Bois. Their generic experimentation in biography, autobiography, and speculative fiction reveals their near-simultaneous development of an analysis of race as a social category rooted in ideology, not biology. Although they never directly collaborated in their work as historians, fiction-writers, or public intellectuals, I make my own speculative leap, situating Hopkins and Du Bois as partners in a shared revisionist project aimed at countering racial ideology and white supremacist propaganda. During Hopkins’s tenure as literary editor for the Colored American Magazine from 1900-1904, she drew on her early experiences as an actress and playwright to appeal to a popular readership. Under her own name and various pseudonyms, Hopkins contributed biographies, polemical essays, and magazine novels aimed at radicalizing her multi-racial audience and promoting a materialist analysis of racial ideologies. Despite her profound impact within the Black radical milieux, especially through her writings on John Brown, she remained a relatively marginal figure for much of the twentieth century. This same period coincided with a radicalization of Du Bois, a shift away from his academic project as a social scientist and toward a public intellectual role. In tandem with Hopkins, Du Bois developed his own materialist approach to questions of race and political economy, first proposed in his 1905 essay, “Sociology Hesitant,” and worked through in his biography of John Brown (1909). Both writers later mine the vein of materialist historiography via their own speculative and revisionist fiction. This is a study best characterized as the biography of two race leaders, a race man and race woman, working toward parallel race concepts.

In this dissertation, we determine best-to-date upper bounds on the resolvent degree of solving general polynomials. Chapters 1 and 2 provide the necessary background information and Chapters 3 and 4 establish new results.In Chapter 1, we provide a high-level introduction of the dissertation and provide a history of the literature on resolvent degree. We also establish standard mathematical notation and terminology.In Chapter 2, Section 1, we recall the definitions of essential dimension and resolvent degree, as well as some standard results. In Section 2, we give an introduction to the theory of Tschirnhaus transformations and explain how we will use this theory to obtain upper bounds on resolvent degree by determining special points on Tschirnhaus complete intersections.In Chapter 3, Section 1, we recover the classical notion of the polars of a hypersurface at a point, so that we can introduce the polar cone of a hypersurface at a point and the connection between the polar cone at a point and lines on the hypersurface through that point. We then extend these notions to intersections of hypersurfaces and introduce iterated polar cones and their connections to k-planes in Section 2. Finally, we recover the obliteration algorithm of Sylvester and present it in a modern geometric context in Section 3.In Chapter 4, we establish our bounds on resolvent degree and Sections 1, 2, and 3 each highlight different constructions. In Section 4.4, we indicate obstructions to further bounds on resolvent degree via iterated polar cone constructions. We then proceed to establish approximations via elementary functions and compare the bounds we obtain with previous bounds in Sections 5 and 6. Finally, we posit several questions for future research in Section 7.Appendix A contains numerical information regarding our bounding function G'(m) and the previous best bounding function F(m), as well as implementations of the geometric obliteration algorithm. Appendix B contains three transl

This dissertation explores the textual, contextual, and conceptual convergences of two pioneers of the Black radical tradition: Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins and William Edward Burghardt Du Bois. Their generic experimentation in biography, autobiography, and speculative fiction reveals their near-simultaneous development of an analysis of race as a social category rooted in ideology, not biology. Although they never directly collaborated in their work as historians, fiction-writers, or public intellectuals, I make my own speculative leap, situating Hopkins and Du Bois as partners in a shared revisionist project aimed at countering racial ideology and white supremacist propaganda. During Hopkins’s tenure as literary editor for the Colored American Magazine from 1900-1904, she drew on her early experiences as an actress and playwright to appeal to a popular readership. Under her own name and various pseudonyms, Hopkins contributed biographies, polemical essays, and magazine novels aimed at radicalizing her multi-racial audience and promoting a materialist analysis of racial ideologies. Despite her profound impact within the Black radical milieux, especially through her writings on John Brown, she remained a relatively marginal figure for much of the twentieth century. This same period coincided with a radicalization of Du Bois, a shift away from his academic project as a social scientist and toward a public intellectual role. In tandem with Hopkins, Du Bois developed his own materialist approach to questions of race and political economy, first proposed in his 1905 essay, “Sociology Hesitant,” and worked through in his biography of John Brown (1909). Both writers later mine the vein of materialist historiography via their own speculative and revisionist fiction. This is a study best characterized as the biography of two race leaders, a race man and race woman, working toward parallel race concepts.

BACKGROUND: Gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (GBMSM) remain most at risk of HIV acquisition in the US. Despite the increasing number of providers reporting PrEP prescribing in recent years, uptake remains sub-optimal. This analysis examines sexual and substance use factors influencing consistent PrEP care engagement and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on PrEP services.METHODS: Chapter 2 uses data from the mSTUDY cohort to describe the association between relationship-level substance use factors and consistent PrEP care engagement. Chapters 3 and 4 use health record data from the Los Angeles LGBT Center. Chapter 3 includes a survival analysis describing the median time to PrEP discontinuation in this population and associations between gender identity and substance use factors on time to PrEP discontinuation. Chapter 4 uses an interrupted time series analysis to review the population-level impact of facility closures related to the COVID-19 pandemic on PrEP follow up care retention.RESULTS: Patients reporting chemsex at the LA LGBT Center had significantly longer follow up time on PrEP than those who did not. After controlling for chemsex, cisgender men had significantly longer follow up time on PrEP than non-cis PrEP users in this facility. Participants in mSTUDY who reported that either they or their partner used methamphetamine or that both they and their partner used methamphetamine had nearly 2.5 or 3.8 times higher odds, respectively, of inconsistent PrEP care engagement compared to those who reported no methamphetamine use. COVID-19 significantly impacted PrEP follow up at the LA LGBT Center compared to the pre-COVID-19 period, resulting in a nearly 40% decrease in follow up visits. The extent to which PrEP follow up visits decreased varied by important demographic factors including race/ethnicity, experiences of homelessness, sexual identity and chemsex.CONCLUSION: The reach and impact of HIV prevention tools like PrEP can be maximized th

In chapter 1, this dissertation investigates how promotion policies impact advanced education attainment on employees throughout a career. Using administrative data from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), I leverage a natural experiment where academic credentials were permanently masked from promotion consideration. I show the policy influenced the premium of a graduate degree for career advancement opportunities. I then exploit an event study and difference-in-differences design to find employees are 14 percentage points less likely to complete a master's degree when education credentials are no longer considered for promotion. I also show attendance at for-profit institutions declined substantially after the policy reform. In chapter 2, I examine workplace peer effects on advanced education attainment. Using administrative data from the DoD and conditional exogeneous assignment of employees to workplace, I provide empirical evidence that coworkers’ education investment behavior increases the likelihood of using Employer-Provided Educational Assistance (EPEA) benefits to start and eventually complete a graduate degree. In chapter 3, I analyze trainees' ordinal rank across cognitive and physical ability within an initial job training program. Using administrative data from the DoD and conditional random assignment of trainees to peer groups, I test whether rank effects vary across contemporaneous training and long-term career outcomes. I find cognitive ordinal rank, measured by an individual's score on the Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT), has a meaningful impact on completing initial training into the U.S. Air Force (USAF). I also show physical ordinal rank, measured by an individual's initial fitness score, also affects initial job training performance. Both sets of ranking effects impact follow-on disciplinary outcomes and vary by gender.

Portable methods for measurement and quantification of biological analytes have tremendous promise to advance non-invasive personal health monitoring devices. Exhaled breath metabolomics shares this promise and has been gaining popularity as a non-invasive technique amenable to a vast range of medical uses. Novel sampling technologies, rapid portable breath chemical analysis platforms, and miniaturized manufacturing methods have the potential to be scaled up for wide use in basic medical practice. This work presents design and implementation for collection and chemical analysis of human exhaled breath condensate. Exhaled breath condensate (EBC) samples were collected with a novel miniaturized sampler. Breath metabolite abundances were compared in healthy control subjects and asthmatic subjects. This work also investigates the relationship between breath aerosol size and EBC metabolomic content. Additionally, this work contributes to the fundamental performance of electrospray with a microfluidic chip, a technique used for liquid biochemical detection in analytical chemistry.

The paradigms and components of mitochondrial protein import have been well elucidated in fungal organisms such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae. However, the human translocase complexes that facilitate import have diverged from yeast through the evolution of metazoan-specific translocase components. Two pairs of import protein paralogues remain poorly characterised in human cells: Human Tim8a and Tim8b, and, Tim17a and Tim17b. The paralogues are differentially expressed in human tissues, so may inform on novel mechanisms of mitochondrial function in human cell types. The heterogeneity of mitochondria across the human body is in part driven by such tissue specific isoforms. Specialised cells have distinct patterns of mitochondrial activity, and this thesis highlights the contribution of mitochondrial protein import to diverse human cell types. Defective mitochondrial protein import underlies mitochondrial diseases, cancers, and neurodegeneration. Thus, through the study of tissue-specific mitochondrial import proteins, we sought to better understand mitochondrial heterogeneity and how cell-specific defects may manifest the disparate clinical presentations of mitochondrial disease. This thesis investigates the functions of hTim8a, hTim8b, hTim17a and hTim17b in multiple human cell lines using CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing, proteomic analysis, and biochemistry. We find that hTim8 paralogues are not required for protein import, thus have diverged from the function of their yeast homologue. Comparing knock-out cell lines we evidence novel functions in the biogenesis of respiratory Complex IV and show that loss of hTim8 proteins manifests cell-specific perturbations in mitochondrial bioenergetics. Affinity enrichment and complexome profiling reveal that the hTim8 paralogues are required for the integration of the COX2 module of Complex IV in the late stages of assembly. By a similar approach, we find that hTim17a and hTim17b stabilise the human TIM23 complex but either paralogue i

© Nature Climate Change 2023. Artículo firmado por 11 autores., Considering cryosphere and warming uncertainties together implies drastically increased risks 32 of crossing thresholds in the cryosphere even under lower emission pathways and underscores 33 the need for halving emissions by 2030 in line with the Paris Agreement 1.5°C limit., Depto. de Física de la Tierra y Astrofísica, Fac. de Ciencias Físicas, TRUE, pub

© Nature Publishing Group. We thank O. Sherwood for providing coral data. M.E.M. acknowledges support for this work from the ATM program of the National Science Foundation (grant ATM-0902133)., Possible changes in Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) provide a key source of uncertainty regarding future climate change. Maps of temperature trends over the twentieth century show a conspicuous region of cooling in the northern Atlantic. Here we present multiple lines of evidence suggesting that this cooling may be due to a reduction in the AMOC over the twentieth century and particularly after 1970. Since 1990 the AMOC seems to have partly recovered. This time evolution is consistently suggested by an AMOC index based on sea surface temperatures, by the hemispheric temperature difference, by coral-based proxies and by oceanic measurements. We discuss a possible contribution of the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet to the slowdown. Using a multi-proxy temperature reconstruction for the AMOC index suggests that the AMOC weakness after 1975 is an unprecedented event in the past millennium (p > 0.99). Further melting of Greenland in the coming decades could contribute to further weakening of the AMOC., National Science Foundation (NSF), EE.UU., Depto. de Física de la Tierra y Astrofísica, Fac. de Ciencias Físicas, TRUE, pub

We thank Marisa Montoya and Christophe Dumas for helpful discussions, Helmut Rott, Ted Scambos and Jennifer Bohlander for sharing their data concerning Larsen-B and Etor Lucio-Eceiza for assistance with the figures. We are also greatful to the PalMA group for useful comments and suggestions. This work was funded under the MOVAC and SPECT-MORE projects. J. A- S was also funded by the Spanish programme, the International Campus of Excellence (CEI)., The effects of an ice-shelf collapse on inland glacier dynamics have recently been widely studied, especially since the breakup of the Antarctic Peninsula's Larsen-B ice shelf in 2002. Several studies have documented acceleration of the ice streams that were flowing into the former ice shelf. The mechanism responsible for such a speed-up lies with the removal of the ice-shelf backforce. Independently, it is also well documented that during the last glacial period, the Northern Hemisphere ice sheets experienced large discharges into the ocean, likely reflecting ice flow acceleration episodes on the millennial time scale. The classic interpretation of the latter is based on the existence of an internal thermo-mechanical feedback with the potential to generate oscillatory behavior in the ice sheets. Here we would like to widen the debate by considering that Larsen-B-like glacial analog episodes could have contributed significantly to the registered millennial-scale variablity., MOVAC, SPECT-MORE, Spanish programme, the International Campus of Excellence (CEI), Depto. de Física de la Tierra y Astrofísica, Fac. de Ciencias Físicas, TRUE, pub

© Author(s) 2015. CC Attribution 3.0 License. © Copernicus Gesellschaft MBH. We would like to thank Mario Krapp and Reinhard Calov for valuable input and testing of the NCIO module. A. Robinson is supported by the Marie Curie 7th framework programme (project 2012-IEF-331835, EURICE)., The NetCDF (Network Common Data Form) library has become an indispensable tool for data and model output management in geoscience. However for simple tasks, particularly in Fortran, the complexity of native NetCDF functionality can be cumbersome. The NCIO (NetCDF Input/Output) module has been designed as an interface to the NetCDF library with simplicity and ease of use in mind. While this implies that some NetCDF functionality is masked from the user, the subroutines provided here are adequate for basic serial reading and writing tasks of up to 6-D data arrays along with corresponding data attributes. The code is available online via a GitHub repository (http://www.github.com/alex-robinson/ncio), which includes an example program to illustrate the approach., Marie Curie 7th framework programme (EURICE), Unión Europea (EU), Depto. de Física de la Tierra y Astrofísica, Fac. de Ciencias Físicas, TRUE, pub

© 2016 National Academy of Sciences. We thank the members of the National Ice Core Laboratory for their support in recovering samples from the ice core archive. We are grateful to Mahe Perrette for help with the statistical analysis. This work was supported by Grants PLR 1107343 and 1107744 from the U.S. National Science Foundation. A.R. was funded by the Marie Curie Seventh Framework Programme [Project PIEF-GA-2012-331835; European Ice Sheet Modeling Initiative (EURICE)] and the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad [Project CGL2014-59384-R; Modeling Abrupt Climate Change (MOCCA)]. M.L.B. was funded by the Princeton-BP Amoco Carbon Mitigation Initiative., The Eemian (last interglacial, 130-115 ka) was likely the warmest of all interglacials of the last 800 ka, with summer Arctic temperatures 3-5 degrees C above present. Here, we present improved Eemian climate records from central Greenland, reconstructed from the base of the Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 (GISP2) ice core. Our record comes from clean, stratigraphically disturbed, and isotopically warm ice from 2,750 to 3,040 m depth. The age of this ice is constrained by measuring CH_4 and delta O^18 of O_2, and comparing with the historical record of these properties from the North Greenland Ice Core Project (NGRIP) and North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling (NEEM) ice cores. The d^18 O_ice, d^15N of N_2, and total air content for samples dating discontinuously from 128 to 115 ka indicate a warming of similar to 6 degrees C between 127-121 ka, and a similar elevation history between GISP2 and NEEM. The reconstructed climate and elevation histories are compared with an ensemble of coupled climate-ice-sheet model simulations of the Greenland ice sheet. Those most consistent with the reconstructed temperatures indicate that the Greenland ice sheet contributed 5.1 m (4.1-6.2 m, 95% credible interval) to global eustatic sea level toward the end of the Eemian. Greenland likely did not contribute to anomalously high sea levels at ~127 ka, or to a rapid jump in sea level at ~120 ka. However, several unexplained discrepancies remain between the inferred and simulated histories of temperature and accumulation rate at GISP2 and NEEM, as well as between the climatic reconstructions themselves., Unión Europea. FP7, Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO), U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), Acciones Marie Skłodowska-Curie (UE), Depto. de Física de la Tierra y Astrofísica, Fac. de Ciencias Físicas, TRUE, pub

This paper investigates neo-Darwinian fallacies specifically regarding a priori presumptions, leading to weak scientific methodology and praxis. It was found that five concepts must be true for neo-Darwinism to be true. These are gradualism, the tree of life hypothesis, the evidence of micro-evolutionary change accounting for macro-evolutionary change, time and chance, and methodological naturalism. Prima facie, these concepts have tremendous explanatory power. However, with an attempt to carefully examine these concepts, all five seem to be assumed a priori in order to dictate the outcome of neo-Darwinism rather than letting the evidence speak for itself. Coincidentally, it appears that the evidence does not support any of these five concepts. The evidence left by the Cambrian explosion, genomic potential, genetic entropy, irreducible complexity, genetic limits, cyclical change, probability theory, the epistemology of information, and the law of causality seems to provide contrary evidence to the five neo-Darwinian a priori assumptions. Additionally, potential biases for pushing neo-Darwinism were also examined and were found to play a significant role in the arrival of neo-Darwinian conclusions.

This study constructs machine learning algorithms that are trained to classify samples using sound symbolism, and then it reports on an experiment designed to measure their understanding against human participants. Random forests are trained using the names of Pokemon, which are fictional video game characters, and their evolutionary status. Pokemon undergo evolution when certain in-game conditions are met. Evolution changes the appearance, abilities, and names of Pokemon. In the first experiment, we train three random forests using the sounds that make up the names of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean Pokemon to classify Pokemon into pre-evolution and post-evolution categories. We then train a fourth random forest using the results of an elicitation experiment whereby Japanese participants named previously unseen Pokemon. In Experiment 2, we reproduce those random forests with name length as a feature and compare the performance of the random forests against humans in a classification experiment whereby Japanese participants classified the names elicited in Experiment 1 into pre-and post-evolution categories. Experiment 2 reveals an issue pertaining to overfitting in Experiment 1 which we resolve using a novel cross-validation method. The results show that the random forests are efficient learners of systematic sound-meaning correspondence patterns and can classify samples with greater accuracy than the human participants., Comment: 34 pages, 18 tables, 7 figures

Introduction Running is one of the most popular recreational activities worldwide, due to its low cost and accessibility. However, little is known about the impact of running on knee joint health in runners with and without a history of knee surgery. The primary aim of this longitudinal cohort study is to compare knee joint structural features on MRI and knee symptoms at baseline and 4-year follow-up in runners with and without a history of knee surgery. Secondary aims are to explore the relationships between training load exposures (volume and/or intensity) and changes in knee joint structure and symptoms over 4 years; explore the relationship between baseline running biomechanics, and changes in knee joint structure and symptoms over 4 years. In addition, we will explore whether additional variables confound, modify or mediate these associations, including sex, baseline lower-limb functional performance, knee muscle strength, psychological and sociodemographic factors. Methods and analysis A convenience sample of at least 200 runners (sex/gender balanced) with (n=100) and without (n=100) a history of knee surgery will be recruited. Primary outcomes will be knee joint health (MRI) and knee symptoms (baseline; 4 years). Exposure variables for secondary outcomes include training load exposure, obtained daily throughout the study from wearable devices and three-dimensional running biomechanics (baseline). Additional variables include lower limb functional performance, knee extensor and flexor muscle strength, biomarkers, psychological and sociodemographic factors (baseline). Knowledge and beliefs about osteoarthritis will be obtained through predefined questions and semi-structured interviews with a subset of participants. Multivariable logistic and linear regression models, adjusting for potential confounding factors, will explore changes in knee joint structural features and symptoms, and the influence of potential modifiers and mediators. Ethics and disseminatio

This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ©: 2023 A. J. Brown et al. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved., Wide-field time-domain photometric sky surveys are now finding hundreds of eclipsing white dwarf plus M dwarf binaries, a population encompassing a wealth of information and potential insight into white dwarf and close binary astrophysics. Precise follow-up observations are essential in order to fully constrain these systems and capitalize on the power of this sample. We present the first results from our programme of high-speed multiband photometric follow-up. We develop a method to measure temperatures, (model-dependent) masses, and radii for both components from the eclipse photometry alone and characterize 34 white dwarf binaries, finding general agreement with independent estimates using an alternative approach while achieving around a factor of 2 increase in parameter precision. In addition to these parameter estimates, we discover a number of interesting systems – finding four with sub-stellar secondaries, doubling the number of eclipsing examples, and at least six, where we find the white dwarf to be strongly magnetic, making these the first eclipsing examples of such systems and key to investigating the mechanism of magnetic field generation in white dwarfs. We also discover the first two pulsating white dwarfs in detached and eclipsing post-common-envelope binaries – one with a low-mass, likely helium core, and one with a relatively high mass, towards the upper end of the known sample of ZZ Cetis. Our results demonstrate the power of eclipse photometry, not only as a method of characterizing the population, but as a way of discovering important systems that would have otherwise been missed by spectroscopic follow-up., SGP acknowledges the support of the UK’s Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) Ernest Rutherford Fellowship. ARM acknowledges support from Grant RYC-2016-20254 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by ESF Investing in your future and from MINECO under the PID2020-117252GB-I00 grant. VSD, HiPERCAM, and ULTRACAM are supported by the STFC. IP and TRM acknowledge support from the STFC, grant ST/T000406/1 and a Leverhulme Research Fellowship. JM was supported by funding from a Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) studentship. Based on observations collected at the European Southern Observatory under ESO programme 0106.D-0824. Based on observations made with the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC), installed in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, in the island of La Palma. This work has made use of data from the European Space Agency (ESA) mission Gaia (https://www.cosmos.esa.int/gaia), processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC, https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/dpac/consortium). Funding for the DPAC has been provided by national institutions, in particular the institutions participating in the Gaia Multilateral Agreement. For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising. We thank the anonymous referee for their helpful comments., Peer Reviewed, Postprint (published version)

In this thesis we study two topics concerning the zeros of the zeta function and the zeros of related functions.The first topic is a proof of a generalization of Newman’s conjecture. Newman’s original conjecture, which was proved by Rodgers and Tao in 2018, states that certain deformations of the Riemann xi function have zeros off the critical line. We will show that it is possible to formulate an analogue of Newman’s conjecture for any function in the extended Selberg class, and we then prove that these analogous conjectures are true in every case. Our proof is necessarily quite different from Rogers and Tao’s proof because their work requires information about the zeros of the zeta function which is not known in the general case. Our proof also has the benefit of being simpler and more direct.The second topic is a result on the distribution of the argument of the Riemann zeta function on the critical line. In particular we will prove an unconditional lower bound on the tails of this distribution. This can equivalently be stated as a quantitative estimate for how often the number of nontrivial zeta zeros up to a given height differs greatly from the expected number of such zeros.

In this thesis we study two topics concerning the zeros of the zeta function and the zeros of related functions.The first topic is a proof of a generalization of Newman’s conjecture. Newman’s original conjecture, which was proved by Rodgers and Tao in 2018, states that certain deformations of the Riemann xi function have zeros off the critical line. We will show that it is possible to formulate an analogue of Newman’s conjecture for any function in the extended Selberg class, and we then prove that these analogous conjectures are true in every case. Our proof is necessarily quite different from Rogers and Tao’s proof because their work requires information about the zeros of the zeta function which is not known in the general case. Our proof also has the benefit of being simpler and more direct.The second topic is a result on the distribution of the argument of the Riemann zeta function on the critical line. In particular we will prove an unconditional lower bound on the tails of this distribution. This can equivalently be stated as a quantitative estimate for how often the number of nontrivial zeta zeros up to a given height differs greatly from the expected number of such zeros.

This research has been supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (grant no. RYC-201620587), the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (grant no. PID2019110714RA-100), and the Natural Environment Research Council (grant nos. NE/S006796/1 and NE/T001607/1)., In the last decade, the number of ice-sheet models has increased substantially, in line with the growth of the glaciological community. These models use solvers based on different approximations of ice dynamics. In particular, several depth-integrated dynamics solvers have emerged as fast solvers capable of resolving the relevant physics of ice sheets at the continental scale. However, the numerical stability of these schemes has not been studied systematically to evaluate their effectiveness in practice. Here we focus on three such solvers, the so-called Hybrid, L1L2-SIA and DIVA solvers, as well as the well-known SIA and SSA solvers as boundary cases. We investigate the numerical stability of these solvers as a function of grid resolution and the state of the ice sheet for an explicit time discretization scheme of the mass conservation step. Under simplified conditions with constant viscosity, the maximum stable time step of the Hybrid solver, like the SIA solver, has a quadratic dependence on grid resolution. In contrast, the DIVA solver has a maximum time step that is independent of resolution as the grid becomes increasingly refined, like the SSA solver. A simple 1D implementation of the L1L2-SIA solver indicates that it should behave similarly, but in practice, the complexity of its implementation appears to restrict its stability. In realistic simulations of the Greenland Ice Sheet with a nonlinear rheology, the DIVA and SSA solvers maintain superior numerical stability, while the SIA, Hybrid and L1L2-SIA solvers show markedly poorer performance. At a grid resolution of Delta x = 4 km, the DIVA solver runs approximately 20 times faster than the Hybrid and L1L2-SIA solvers as a result of a larger stable time step. Our analysis shows that as resolution increases, the ice-dynamics solver can act as a bottleneck to model performance. The DIVA solver emerges as a clear outlier in terms of both model performance and its representation of the ice-flow physics itself, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN), Natural Environment Research Council UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), Depto. de Estructura de la Materia, Física Térmica y Electrónica, Fac. de Ciencias Físicas, TRUE, pub

We report the discovery and characterisation of a pair of sub-Neptunes transiting the bright K-dwarf TOI-1064 (TIC 79748331), initially detected in TESS photometry. To characterise the system, we performed and retrieved CHEOPS, TESS, and ground-based photometry, HARPS high-resolution spectroscopy, and Gemini speckle imaging. We characterise the host star and determine $T_{\rm eff, \star}=4734\pm67$ K, $R_{\star}=0.726\pm0.007$ $R_{\odot}$, and $M_{\star}=0.748\pm0.032$ $M_{\odot}$. We present a novel detrending method based on PSF shape-change modelling and demonstrate its suitability to correct flux variations in CHEOPS data. We confirm the planetary nature of both bodies and find that TOI-1064 b has an orbital period of $P_{\rm b}=6.44387\pm0.00003$ d, a radius of $R_{\rm b}=2.59\pm0.04$ $R_{\oplus}$, and a mass of $M_{\rm b}=13.5_{-1.8}^{+1.7}$ $M_{\oplus}$, whilst TOI-1064 c has an orbital period of $P_{\rm c}=12.22657^{+0.00005}_{-0.00004}$ d, a radius of $R_{\rm c}=2.65\pm0.04$ $R_{\oplus}$, and a 3$\sigma$ upper mass limit of 8.5 ${\rm M_{\oplus}}$. From the high-precision photometry we obtain radius uncertainties of $\sim$1.6%, allowing us to conduct internal structure and atmospheric escape modelling. TOI-1064 b is one of the densest, well-characterised sub-Neptunes, with a tenuous atmosphere that can be explained by the loss of a primordial envelope following migration through the protoplanetary disc. It is likely that TOI-1064 c has an extended atmosphere due to the tentative low density, however further RVs are needed to confirm this scenario and the similar radii, different masses nature of this system. The high-precision data and modelling of TOI-1064 b are important for planets in this region of mass-radius space, and it allows us to identify a trend in bulk density-stellar metallicity for massive sub-Neptunes that may hint at the formation of this population of planets., Comment: 30 pages, 24 figures, 6 tables including the Appendix; accepted for publication in MNRAS

Climate change puts at risk what people value in their everyday lives, with evidence of harm and suffering already taking place across all regions of the world. As societies slowly come to grips with the possibility of not being able to save everything that is valued, there is an urgent need to identify what is most important for individuals and groups, to prioritise action and prevent or minimise intolerable losses. Yet, people's priorities vary greatly; individual choices are contingent on what people hold dear in the places they inhabit, which in turn is shaped by their positioning in society and everyday experiences with harm and loss. In this article, we draw on recent epistemological and ontological engagements with climate adaptation and loss from the social sciences to examine how individuals consider their options to protect what they value most in the face of climatic impacts. Drawing on 80+ interviews with residents along an urban–rural transect in Western Australia, we first demonstrate the complex and dynamic nature of individual decision-making ‘worlds’. We do this by using an innovative methodology that allows participants to visualise their value trade-offs, in the present and the future. We then examine similarities and differences between these worlds to show where priorities converge and diverge. We argue that attention to intersecting, conflicting, and potentially uncomfortable processes of prioritisation, and the losses and omissions they (re)produce, provide crucial entry points to negotiate adaptation and navigate risks within and across communities in ways that are inclusive, fair, and sustainable.

We report the discovery and characterization of a pair of sub-Neptunes transiting the bright K-dwarf TOI-1064 (TIC 79748331), initially detected in the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) photometry. To characterize the system, we performed and retrieved the CHaracterising ExOPlanets Satellite (CHEOPS), TESS, and ground-based photometry, the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) high-resolution spectroscopy, and Gemini speckle imaging. We characterize the host star and determine T-eff,T-* = 4734 +/- 67 K, R-* = 0.726 +/- 0.007 R-circle dot, and M-* = 0.748 +/- 0.032 M-circle dot. We present a novel detrending method based on point spread function shape-change modelling and demonstrate its suitability to correct flux variations in CHEOPS data. We confirm the planetary nature of both bodies and find that TOI-1064 b has an orbital period of P-b = 6.44387 +/- 0.00003 d, a radius of R-b = 2.59 +/- 0.04 R-circle plus, and a mass of M-b = 13.5(-1.8)(+1.7) M-circle plus, whilst TOI-1064 c has an orbital period of P-c = 12.22657(-0.00004)(+0.00005) d, a radius of R-c = 2.65 +/- 0.04 R-circle plus, and a 3 sigma upper mass limit of 8.5 M-circle plus. From the high-precision photometry we obtain radius uncertainties of similar to 1.6 per cent, allowing us to conduct internal structure and atmospheric escape modelling. TOI-1064 b is one of the densest, well-characterized sub-Neptunes, with a tenuous atmosphere that can be explained by the loss of a primordial envelope following migration through the protoplanetary disc. It is likely that TOI-1064 c has an extended atmosphere due to the tentative low density, however further radial velocities are needed to confirm this scenario and the similar radii, different masses nature of this system. The high-precision data and modelling of TOI-1064 b are important for planets in this region of mass-radius space, and it allow us to identify a trend in bulk density-stellar metallicity for massive sub-Neptunes that m

Climate change puts at risk what people value in their everyday lives, with evidence of harm and suffering already taking place across all regions of the world. As societies slowly come to grips with the possibility of not being able to save everything that is valued, there is an urgent need to identify what is most important for individuals and groups, to prioritise action and prevent or minimise intolerable losses. Yet, people's priorities vary greatly; individual choices are contingent on what people hold dear in the places they inhabit, which in turn is shaped by their positioning in society and everyday experiences with harm and loss. In this article, we draw on recent epistemological and ontological engagements with climate adaptation and loss from the social sciences to examine how individuals consider their options to protect what they value most in the face of climatic impacts. Drawing on 80+ interviews with residents along an urban–rural transect in Western Australia, we first demonstrate the complex and dynamic nature of individual decision-making ‘worlds’. We do this by using an innovative methodology that allows participants to visualise their value trade-offs, in the present and the future. We then examine similarities and differences between these worlds to show where priorities converge and diverge. We argue that attention to intersecting, conflicting, and potentially uncomfortable processes of prioritisation, and the losses and omissions they (re)produce, provide crucial entry points to negotiate adaptation and navigate risks within and across communities in ways that are inclusive, fair, and sustainable.

Hypoxia (low oxygen stress) is increasingly reported on coral reefs, caused by ocean deoxygenation linked to coastal nutrient pollution and ocean warming. While the ability to regulate respiration is a key driver of hypoxia tolerance in many other aquatic taxa, corals' oxyregulatory capabilities remain virtually unexplored. Here, we examine O2-consumption patterns across 17 coral species under declining O2 partial pressure (pO2). All corals showed ability to oxyregulate, but total positive regulation (Tpos) varied between species, ranging from 0.41 (Pocillopora damicornis) to 2.42 (P. acuta). On average, corals performed maximum regulation effort (Pcmax) at low pO2 (30% air saturation, corresponding to lower O2 levels measured on natural reef systems), and exhibited detectable regulation down to as low as <10% air saturation. Our study shows that corals are not oxyconformers as previously thought, suggesting oxyregulation is likely important for survival in dynamic O2 environments of shallow coral reefs subjected to hypoxic events.

Copyright © 2020 American Chemical Society. RGD is a prolific example of a tripeptide used in biomaterials for cell adhesion, but the potency of free or surface-bound RGD tripeptide is orders-of-magnitude less than the RGD domain within natural proteins. We designed a set of peptides with varying lengths, composed of fragments of fibronectin protein whose central three residues are RGD, in order to vary their conformational behavior without changing the binding site's chemical environment. With these peptides, we measure the conformational dynamics and transient structure of the active site. Our studies reveal how flanking residues affect conformational behavior and integrin binding. We find that disorder of the binding site is important to the potency of RGD peptides and that transient hydrogen bonding near the RGD site affects both the energy landscape roughness of the peptides and peptide binding. This phenomenon is independent of longer-range folding interactions and helps explain why short binding sequences, including RGD itself, do not fully replicate the integrin-targeting properties of extracellular matrix proteins. Our studies reinforce that peptide binding is a holistic event and fragments larger than those directly involved in binding should be considered in the design of peptide epitopes for functional biomaterials.

We report the discovery and characterisation of a pair of sub-Neptunes transiting the bright K-dwarf TOI-1064 (TIC 79748331), initially detected in TESS photometry. To characterise the system, we performed and retrieved CHEOPS, TESS, and ground-based photometry, HARPS high-resolution spectroscopy, and Gemini speckle imaging. We characterise the host star and determine $T_{\rm eff, \star}=4734\pm67$ K, $R_{\star}=0.726\pm0.007$ $R_{\odot}$, and $M_{\star}=0.748\pm0.032$ $M_{\odot}$. We present a novel detrending method based on PSF shape-change modelling and demonstrate its suitability to correct flux variations in CHEOPS data. We confirm the planetary nature of both bodies and find that TOI-1064 b has an orbital period of $P_{\rm b}=6.44387\pm0.00003$ d, a radius of $R_{\rm b}=2.59\pm0.04$ $R_{\oplus}$, and a mass of $M_{\rm b}=13.5_{-1.8}^{+1.7}$ $M_{\oplus}$, whilst TOI-1064 c has an orbital period of $P_{\rm c}=12.22657^{+0.00005}_{-0.00004}$ d, a radius of $R_{\rm c}=2.65\pm0.04$ $R_{\oplus}$, and a 3$\sigma$ upper mass limit of 8.5 ${\rm M_{\oplus}}$. From the high-precision photometry we obtain radius uncertainties of $\sim$1.6%, allowing us to conduct internal structure and atmospheric escape modelling. TOI-1064 b is one of the densest, well-characterised sub-Neptunes, with a tenuous atmosphere that can be explained by the loss of a primordial envelope following migration through the protoplanetary disc. It is likely that TOI-1064 c has an extended atmosphere due to the tentative low density, however further RVs are needed to confirm this scenario and the similar radii, different masses nature of this system. The high-precision data and modelling of TOI-1064 b are important for planets in this region of mass-radius space, and it allows us to identify a trend in bulk density-stellar metallicity for massive sub-Neptunes that may hint at the formation of this population of planets., Comment: 30 pages, 24 figures, 6 tables including the Appendix; accepted for publication in MNRAS

Recently, renowned athletes have shown increasing willingness to discuss mental health. For instance, Olympic-winning gymnast, Simone Biles (1), tennis champion, Naomi Osaka (2), and cricket captain, Ben Stokes (3). Such prominent dialogues can help expand mental health literacy in competitive sports, where stigmatization represents an enduring help-seeking barrier (4). Significantly, these accounts also reflect scientific developments in sports psychiatry, an emerging interdisciplinary subspeciality and part of the broader area of sports medicine. Sports psychiatry encompasses wide-ranging expertise and clinical domains (5, 6), and has been pivotal in illuminating risk factors and mental illness rates in elite athletes (7), alongside the benefits of sports and exercise within prevention and therapeutic programmes (8). Independent societies focusing on sports psychiatry have been created [e.g., (9)] and major international associations have established dedicated sections [e.g., (10)].

Firstly, we analyze the steady Ricci soliton equation for a certain class of metrics on complex line bundles over K\"ahler-Einstein manifolds of positive scalar curvature. We show that these spaces admit a non-collapsed steady gradient Ricci soliton metric. In the four (real-) dimensional case, this yields a new family of non-collapsed steady Ricci solitons on the complex line bundles $O(-k)$, $k \geq 3$, over $\mathbb{C}P^1$. These solitons are $U(2)$-invariant, non-K\"ahler, and asymptotic to the the quotient of the four dimensional Bryant soliton by $\Z_k$. As a byproduct of our work we also find Taub-Nut like Ricci solitons on $\R^4$ and demonstrate a new proof for the existence of the Bryant soliton.Secondly, we investigate the formation of singularities in four dimensional $U(2)$-invariant Ricci flow and show that the Eguchi-Hanson space can occur as a blow-up limit. In particular, we prove that starting from a class of asymptotically cylindrical $U(2)$-invariant initial metrics on $TS^2$, a Type II singularity modeled on the Eguchi-Hanson space develops in finite time and the only possible blow-up limits are (i) the Eguchi-Hanson space, (ii) the flat $\R^4 / \Z_2$ orbifold, (iii) the 4d Bryant soliton quotiented by $\Z_2$, and (iv) the shrinking cylinder $\R \times \R P^3$. It also follows from our work that in four dimensional Ricci flow an embedded two dimensional sphere of any self-intersection number $k \in \Z$ may collapse to a point in finite time and thereby produce a singularity. For $|k|\geq 3$ the singularities we construct are of Type II, yielding a new infinite family of Type II singularities. Numerical simulations indicate that their blow-up limits are the four dimensional steady Ricci solitons described above.

Firstly, we analyze the steady Ricci soliton equation for a certain class of metrics on complex line bundles over K\"ahler-Einstein manifolds of positive scalar curvature. We show that these spaces admit a non-collapsed steady gradient Ricci soliton metric. In the four (real-) dimensional case, this yields a new family of non-collapsed steady Ricci solitons on the complex line bundles $O(-k)$, $k \geq 3$, over $\mathbb{C}P^1$. These solitons are $U(2)$-invariant, non-K\"ahler, and asymptotic to the the quotient of the four dimensional Bryant soliton by $\Z_k$. As a byproduct of our work we also find Taub-Nut like Ricci solitons on $\R^4$ and demonstrate a new proof for the existence of the Bryant soliton.Secondly, we investigate the formation of singularities in four dimensional $U(2)$-invariant Ricci flow and show that the Eguchi-Hanson space can occur as a blow-up limit. In particular, we prove that starting from a class of asymptotically cylindrical $U(2)$-invariant initial metrics on $TS^2$, a Type II singularity modeled on the Eguchi-Hanson space develops in finite time and the only possible blow-up limits are (i) the Eguchi-Hanson space, (ii) the flat $\R^4 / \Z_2$ orbifold, (iii) the 4d Bryant soliton quotiented by $\Z_2$, and (iv) the shrinking cylinder $\R \times \R P^3$. It also follows from our work that in four dimensional Ricci flow an embedded two dimensional sphere of any self-intersection number $k \in \Z$ may collapse to a point in finite time and thereby produce a singularity. For $|k|\geq 3$ the singularities we construct are of Type II, yielding a new infinite family of Type II singularities. Numerical simulations indicate that their blow-up limits are the four dimensional steady Ricci solitons described above.

Ergo, an Open Access Journal of Philosophy: vol. 6, (dlps) 12405314.0006.023, http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.12405314.0006.023, This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Please contact mpub-help@umich.edu to use this work in a way not covered by the license.

© Author(s) 2021. The authors acknowledge funding received from the European Commission’s H2020 Research Infrastructures and Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation project RIMA. Alexander Robinson was supported by the Ramón y Cajal program of the Spanish Ministry for Science, Innovation and Universities. Simulations were performed in EOLO, the HPC of Climate Change of the International Campus of Excellence of Moncloa, funded by MECD and MICINN. We thank Ilaria Tabone for helpful discussions. Finally, we are also grateful to the reviewers and editor for helpful comments, which led to considerable improvements of the paper. This research has been supported by the European Commission, H2020 Research Infrastructures (TiPES contribution no. 23 (grant no. 820970)), the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (project RIMA (grant no. CGL2017-85975-R)), and the Ramón y Cajal Programme of the Spanish Ministry for Science, Innovation and Universities (grant no. RYC-2016-20587)., Little is known about the distribution of ice in the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Whereas marine and terrestrial geological data indicate that the grounded ice advanced to a position close to the continental-shelf break, the total ice volume is unclear. Glacial boundary conditions are potentially important sources of uncertainty, in particular basal friction and climatic boundary conditions. Basal friction exerts a strong control on the large-scale dynamics of the ice sheet and thus affects its size and is not well constrained. Glacial climatic boundary conditions determine the net accumulation and ice temperature and are also poorly known. Here we explore the effect of the uncertainty in both features on the total simulated ice storage of the AIS at the LGM. For this purpose we use a hybrid ice sheet shelf model that is forced with different basal drag choices and glacial background climatic conditions obtained from the LGM ensemble climate simulations of the third phase of the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project (PMIP3). Overall, we find that the spread in the simulated ice volume for the tested basal drag parameterizations is about the same range as for the different general circulation model (GCM) forcings (4 to 6 m sea level equivalent). For a wide range of plausible basal friction configurations, the simulated ice dynamics vary widely but all simulations produce fully extended ice sheets towards the continental-shelf break. More dynamically active ice sheets correspond to lower ice volumes, while they remain consistent with the available constraints on ice extent. Thus, this work points to the possibility of an AIS with very active ice streams during the LGM. In addition, we find that the surface boundary temperature field plays a crucial role in determining the ice extent through its effect on viscosity. For ice sheets of a similar extent and comparable dynamics, we find that the precipitation field determines th, Unión Europea. Horizonte 2020, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN), Depto. de Física de la Tierra y Astrofísica, Fac. de Ciencias Físicas, TRUE, pub

© Author(s) 2021. Andreas Born acknowledges support from the Trond Mohn Foundation. We thank Nicholas Holschuh and an anonymous reviewer for their constructive suggestions. This research has been supported by the Trond Mohn Foundation (Modeling Englacial Layers and Tracers in Ice Sheets), the Ramón y Cajal Programme of the Spanish Ministry for Science, Innovation and Universities (grant no. RYC-2016- 20587), and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation project ICEAGE (grant no. PID2019-110714RA-I00)., Radar reflections from the interior of the Greenland ice sheet contain a comprehensive archive of past accumulation rates, ice dynamics, and basal melting. Combining these data with dynamic ice sheet models may greatly aid model calibration, improve past and future sea level estimates, and enable insights into past ice sheet dynamics that neither models nor data could achieve alone. Unfortunately, simulating the continental-scale ice sheet stratigraphy represents a major challenge for current ice sheet models. In this study, we present the first three-dimensional ice sheet model that explicitly simulates the Greenland englacial stratigraphy. Individual layers of accumulation are represented on a grid whose vertical axis is time so that they do not exchange mass with each other as the flow of ice deforms them. This isochronal advection scheme does not influence the ice dynamics and only requires modest input data from a host thermomechanical ice sheet model, making it easy to transfer to a range of models. Using an ensemble of simulations, we show that direct comparison with the dated radiostratigraphy data yields notably more accurate results than calibrating simulations based on total ice thickness. We show that the isochronal scheme produces a more reliable simulation of the englacial age profile than traditional age tracers. The interpretation of ice dynamics at different times is possible but limited by uncertainties in the upper and lower boundary conditions, namely temporal variations in surface mass balance and basal friction., Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN), Trond Mohn Foundation, Depto. de Física de la Tierra y Astrofísica, Fac. de Ciencias Físicas, TRUE, pub

© 2021 The Authors. A.R. is supported by the Ramón y Cajal Program of the Spanish Ministry for Science, Innovation, and Universities (grant no. RYC-2016-20587). D.C. is supported by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), grant 016.Vidi.171011. D.B. acknowledges support from the H2020 EU project CLINT (Grant Agreement No. 101003876)., Over the last decade, the world warmed by 0.25 °C, in-line with the roughly linear trend since the 1970s. Here we present updated analyses showing that this seemingly small shift has led to the emergence of heat extremes that would be virtually impossible without anthropogenic global warming. Also, record rainfall extremes have continued to increase worldwide and, on average, 1 in 4 rainfall records in the last decade can be attributed to climate change. Tropical regions, comprised of vulnerable countries that typically contributed least to anthropogenic climate change, continue to see the strongest increase in extremes., Unión Europea. H2020, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN), Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), Depto. de Física de la Tierra y Astrofísica, Fac. de Ciencias Físicas, TRUE, pub

Early growth response gene – 1 (Egr1) encodes a protein widely present in mammalian body, such as connective tissue, cardiac tissue, the liver, and the brain. As a transcription factor (TF), it is involved in processes that take place in the endocrine, digestive, immune, musculo-skeletal and central nervous systems, for instance, B cell maturation upon B cell receptor activation, tendon repair upon mechano-stimulation, and long-term spatial memory formation. In mammalian brains, EGR1 controls the responses to environmental stimuli such as chronic stress and physical contact. It also participates in processes such as long-term memory consolidation and synapse re-structuring. It plays a role in enacting responses and qualities of gene transcription cascades upon neuronal stimulation. Inside the epigenetic realm, EGR1 recruits Ten-eleven translocation methylcytosine dioxygenase 1 (TET1) to remove DNA methylation at target loci. Due to its critical functions during brain development and upon neuronal activation, mis-regulation of EGR1 is associated with neuropsychological disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and schizophrenia (SCZ) in humans. In this study, we performed bioinformatics analysis with brain methylomes and predicted EGR1 may interact with myocyte enhancer factor 2C (MEF2C), which is known to be involved in many similar processes as EGR1, such as synapse architecture, cell migration, and learning and memory. EGR1 and MEF2C ChIP-seq data derived from mouse frontal cortex suggest these two proteins may regulate a common set of downstream genes. To begin, co-immunoprecipitation experiments were performed with HEK293T cells co-transfected with EGR1-FLAG and MEF2C-HA tagged constructs, allowing for specific interaction identification without endogenous protein expression interference. Furthermore, co-immunoprecipitation experiments performed with brain tissues additionally indicated the two proteins interact with each other endogenously. Altoge

This thesis focuses on improving the readout of the ADome by implementing MCUs at each antenna probe, enabling local sampling and memory storage. The serial communication protocols CAN, SPI and I2C are considered and compared with one another. Ultimately, CAN is decided due to its robustness and simplicity which make the system cheap and ensures that the measurement will not get corrupted during transmission. Moreover, implementations of the new readout protocol are able to obtain measurement data store information at the local MCU. Test setups verification showed that antenna location can be stored and retrieved. Furthermore, the readout protocol is able to acquire multiple samples from the ADC locally.

El Presente proyecto es una continuación de proyectos anteriores dentro de la plataforma de divulgación Meteolab. Meteolab es un proyecto de divulgación de Meteorología y Clima que tiene su origen en 2002, cuando se comenzaron a diseñar experimentos de bajo coste con materiales caseros para la Semana de la Ciencia de la Comunidad de Madrid (CAM). Con los años, se generó un conocimiento que se materializó en 2010 con la concesión de un Proyecto de Innovación Educativa (PIE) financiado por la Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM), dirigido por Belén Rodríguez de Fonseca. Gracias a este primer proyecto en el que trabajaron muchos profesores y alumnos de ciencias de la atmósfera, se gestó un portal web (meteolab.fis.ucm.es) en el que los experimentos se explicaban y se grababan para impulsar su difusión. Más adelante, en un segundo proyecto de Innovación Educativa, dirigido por la profesora Maria Luisa Montoya, los contenidos fueron traducidos al inglés. En concreto, los experimentos que componen Meteolab tienen como principal objetivo entender los principios y variables que determinan el comportamiento de las masas de aire en la atmósfera y de agua en el océano. La idea consiste en visualizar con experimentos sencillos las leyes físicas que gobiernan la atmósfera y el océano: movimientos horizontales y verticales, cambios de estado, mezcla y equilibrio, así como la interacción entre componentes. Se persigue observar los procesos meteorológicos familiares, como son la formación de una nube, los tornados, la convección, la formación de borrascas o la lluvia, entendiendo los procesos físicos que los producen. Finalmente, Meteolab permite también visualizar fenómenos climáticos como el efecto invernadero, el fenómeno de El Niño, el deshielo del Ártico, la influencia de los volcanes en el clima o la subida del nivel del mar. Existe un catálogo de experimentos, la mayoría de los cuales pueden consultarse a través del portal meteolab.fis.ucm.es, encontrándose todos ellos fí

INTRODUCTION: Histopathological alterations in the ileum and colon in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) are controversial, and normal values are poorly established. We hypothesized that changes in mucosal immune cells characterize IBS and key changes in immune composition are associated with the mucosa-associated microbiota (MaM). METHODS: A nested case-control study (48 IBS and 106 controls included) from 745 colonoscopy participants in a random population sample. Intraepithelial lymphocytes (IELs)/100 enterocytes and eosinophils/5 nonoverlapping high-power fields counted; mast cells identified by immunocytochemistry (CD117)/5 high-power fields. Paneth cells quantified per 5 crypts. 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing performed on available sigmoid MaM, n = 55 and fecal microbiota, n = 20. Microbiota profiles compared between samples with high and low IEL counts. RESULTS: IBS had increased IELs in the terminal ileum (relative risk ratio = 1.70, 95% confidence interval 1.08–2.76, P = 0.022 adjusted for age, sex, and smoking). Cecal IELs were increased in IBS—diarrhea (relative risk ratio = 2.03, 95% confidence interval 1.13–3.63, P = 0.017). No difference was observed in alpha diversity of MaM or fecal microbiota based on IEL count. There was no difference in beta diversity of the MaM according to IEL count in the terminal ileal (TI) (P = 0.079). High TI IEL counts associated with a significant expansion of the genus Blautia (P = 0.024) and unclassified Clostridiales (P = 0.036) in colon MaM. DISCUSSION: A modest but significant increase in IELs was observed in IBS vs. controls in a population-based setting. Subtle TI and cecal inflammation may play a pathogenic role in IBS but needs confirmation. Modest but discernible differences in the colonic MaM were seen according to TI IEL count but not IBS status.

Nanomaterials undergoing cyclic swelling-deswelling benefit from inner void spaces that help accommodate significant volumetric changes. Such flexibility, however, typically comes at a price of reduced mechanical stability, which leads to component deterioration and, eventually, failure. Here, we identify an optimised building block for silicon-based lithium-ion battery (LIB) anodes, fabricate it with a ligand- and effluent-free cluster beam deposition method, and investigate its robustness by atomistic computer simulations. A columnar amorphous-silicon film was grown on a tantalum-nanoparticle scaffold due to its shadowing effect. PeakForce quantitative nanomechanical mapping revealed a critical change in mechanical behaviour when columns touched forming a vaulted structure. The resulting maximisation of measured elastic modulus (~120 GPa) is ascribed to arch action, a well-known civil engineering concept. The vaulted nanostructure displays a sealed surface resistant to deformation that results in reduced electrode-electrolyte interface and increased Coulombic efficiency. More importantly, its vertical repetition in a double-layered aqueduct-like structure improves both the capacity retention and Coulombic efficiency of the LIB., source:https://www.nature.com/articles/s43246-021-00119-0