Exoplanet Terra Incognita

Exoplanet surface imaging, cartography and the search for exolife are the next frontiers of planetology and astrophysics. Here we present an over-view of ideas and techniques to resolve albedo features on exoplanetary surfaces. Albedo maps obtained in various spectral bands (similar to true-colour images) may reveal exoplanet terrains, geological history, life colonies, and even artificial structures of advanced civilizations.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures, Planetary Cartograph

Measurement of the proton and deuteron structure functions, F2p and F2d, and of the ratio sigma(L)/sigma(T)

The muon-proton and muon-deuteron inclusive deep inelastic scattering cross sections were measured in the kinematic range 0.002 < x < 0.60 and 0.5 < Q2 < 75 GeV2 at incident muon energies of 90, 120, 200 and 280 GeV. These results are based on the full data set collected by the New Muon Collaboration, including the data taken with a small angle trigger. The extracted values of the structure functions F2p and F2d are in good agreement with those from other experiments. The data cover a sufficient range of y to allow the determination of the ratio of the longitudinally to transversely polarised virtual photon absorption cross sections, R= sigma(L)/sigma(T), for 0.002 < x < 0.12 . The values of R are compatible with a perturbative QCD prediction; they agree with earlier measurements and extend to smaller x.Comment: In this replacement the erroneously quoted R values in tables 3-6 for x>0.12, and R1990 values in tables 5-6 for all x, have been corrected, and the cross sections in tables 3-4 have been adapted. Everything else, including the structure functions F2, remained unchanged. 22 pages, LateX, including figures, with two .sty files, and three separate f2tab.tex files for the F2-tables. Accepted for publication in Nucl.Phys.B 199

Considering Polymorphism in Change-Based Test Suite Reduction

With the increasing popularity of continuous integration, algorithms for selecting the minimal test-suite to cover a given set of changes are in order. This paper reports on how polymorphism can handle false negatives in a previous algorithm which uses method-level changes in the base-code to deduce which tests need to be rerun. We compare the approach with and without polymorphism on two distinct cases ---PMD and CruiseControl--- and discovered an interesting trade-off: incorporating polymorphism results in more relevant tests to be included in the test suite (hence improves accuracy), however comes at the cost of a larger test suite (hence increases the time to run the minimal test-suite).Comment: The final publication is available at link.springer.co

Queen mandibular pheromone: questions that remain to be resolved

The discovery of ‘queen substance’, and the subsequent identification and synthesis of keycomponents of queen mandibular pheromone, has been of significant importance to beekeepers and to thebeekeeping industry. Fifty years on, there is greater appreciation of the importance and complexity of queenpheromones, but many mysteries remain about the mechanisms through which pheromones operate. Thediscovery of sex pheromone communication in moths occurred within the same time period, but in this case,intense pressure to find better means of pest management resulted in a remarkable focusing of research activityon understanding pheromone detection mechanisms and the central processing of pheromone signals in themoth. We can benefit from this work and here, studies on moths are used to highlight some of the gaps in ourknowledge of pheromone communication in bees. A better understanding of pheromone communication inhoney bees promises improved strategies for the successful management of these extraordinary animals

Post-mortem assessment in vascular dementia: advances and aspirations.

BACKGROUND: Cerebrovascular lesions are a frequent finding in the elderly population. However, the impact of these lesions on cognitive performance, the prevalence of vascular dementia, and the pathophysiology behind characteristic in vivo imaging findings are subject to controversy. Moreover, there are no standardised criteria for the neuropathological assessment of cerebrovascular disease or its related lesions in human post-mortem brains, and conventional histological techniques may indeed be insufficient to fully reflect the consequences of cerebrovascular disease. DISCUSSION: Here, we review and discuss both the neuropathological and in vivo imaging characteristics of cerebrovascular disease, prevalence rates of vascular dementia, and clinico-pathological correlations. We also discuss the frequent comorbidity of cerebrovascular pathology and Alzheimer's disease pathology, as well as the difficult and controversial issue of clinically differentiating between Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia and mixed Alzheimer's disease/vascular dementia. Finally, we consider additional novel approaches to complement and enhance current post-mortem assessment of cerebral human tissue. CONCLUSION: Elucidation of the pathophysiology of cerebrovascular disease, clarification of characteristic findings of in vivo imaging and knowledge about the impact of combined pathologies are needed to improve the diagnostic accuracy of clinical diagnoses

First polarimetric measurements and modeling of the Paschen-Back effect in CaH transitions

We report the first spectropolarimetric observations and modeling of CaH transitions in sunspots. We have detected strong polarization signals in many CaH lines from the A-X system, and we provide the first successful fit to the observed Stokes profiles using the previously developed theory of the Paschen-Back effect in arbitrary electronic states of diatomic molecules and polarized radiative transfer in molecular lines in stellar atmospheres. We analyze the CaH Stokes profiles together with quasi-simultaneous observations in TiO bands and conclude that CaH provides a valuable diagnostic of magnetic fields in sunspots, starspots, cool stars, and brown dwarfs

Promoting More Physical Activity and Less Sedentary Behaviour During the COVID-19 Situation – SportStudisMoveYou (SSMY): A Randomized Controlled Trial

Objective: To determine the effect of an innovative, online-based intervention, addressing the possible decline of physical activity (PA) and increase of sedentary behavior (SB) during COVID-19 stay at home restrictions in Switzerland. Methods: This study investigated the effect of a two-week, social cognitive theory based, online-video moderate to vigorous (MV)PA or SB intervention on MVPA and SB behaviour and intention via a 3 group by 2 time point parallel randomized controlled trial during the COVID-19 pandemic. Adults (≥18 yo) were recruited over the internet between April 10th and April 19th 2020 (n = 129; 75.2% female; mean age = 29.0 [SD 11.8] years). Both intervention groups received five videos targeting either SB for the SB group or MVPA for the MVPA group and were compared to an attention control group (fruit and vegetable consumption). It was hypothesized that MVPA time and intention would increase for the MVPA group and the SB group would outperform control on SB behaviour and intention indicators. Results: No significant interactions were found for the MVPA group (n = 41) versus control (n = 40). Only one significant interaction was measured for the SB group (n = 48; intention of active breaks F = (2,114) = 5.84, p = 0.004, ηp2 = 0.09). Although mostly non-significant and small effects, the MVPA group showed results pointing in the hypothesized direction on all PA indicators and the SB on all SB indicators, respectively. Conclusion: Considering this study’s limitations (e.g. small intervention dose), video-based online PA and SB interventions seem promising and feasible. This approach is appropriate for COVID-19 and other stay at home situations