ADAR-mediated RNA editing suppresses sleep by acting as a brake on glutamatergic synaptic plasticity.

It has been postulated that synaptic potentiation during waking is offset by a homoeostatic reduction in net synaptic strength during sleep. However, molecular mechanisms to support such a process are lacking. Here we demonstrate that deficiencies in the RNA-editing gene Adar increase sleep due to synaptic dysfunction in glutamatergic neurons in Drosophila. Specifically, the vesicular glutamate transporter is upregulated, leading to over-activation of NMDA receptors, and the reserve pool of glutamatergic synaptic vesicles is selectively expanded in Adar mutants. Collectively these changes lead to sustained neurotransmitter release under conditions that would otherwise result in synaptic depression. We propose that a shift in the balance from synaptic depression towards synaptic potentiation in sleep-promoting neurons underlies the increased sleep pressure of Adar-deficient animals. Our findings provide a plausible molecular mechanism linking sleep and synaptic plasticity

Preventive medical care in remote Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory: a follow-up study of the impact of clinical guidelines, computerised recall and reminder systems, and audit and feedback

Background Interventions to improve delivery of preventive medical services have been shown to be effective in North America and the UK. However, there are few studies of the extent to which the impact of such interventions has been sustained, or of the impact of such interventions in disadvantaged populations or remote settings. This paper describes the trends in delivery of preventive medical services following a multifaceted intervention in remote community health centres in the Northern Territory of Australia. Methods The intervention comprised the development and dissemination of best practice guidelines supported by an electronic client register, recall and reminder systems and associated staff training, and audit and feedback. Clinical records in seven community health centres were audited at regular intervals against best practice guidelines over a period of three years, with feedback of audit findings to health centre staff and management. Results Levels of service delivery varied between services and between communities. There was an initial improvement in service levels for most services following the intervention, but improvements were in general not fully sustained over the three year period. Conclusions Improvements in service delivery are consistent with the international experience, although baseline and follow-up levels are in many cases higher than reported for comparable studies in North America and the UK. Sustainability of improvements may be achieved by institutionalisation of relevant work practices and enhanced health centre capacity

Sporormiella as a tool for detecting the presence of large herbivores in the Neotropics

The reliability of using the abundance of Sporormiella spores as a proxy for the presence and abundance of megaherbivores was tested in southern Brazil. Mud-water interface samples from nine lakes, in which cattle-use was categorized as high, medium, or low, were assayed for Sporormiella representation. The sampling design allowed an analysis of both the influence of the number of animals using the shoreline and the distance of the sampling site from the nearest shoreline. Sporormiella was found to be a reliable proxy for the presence of large livestock. The concentration and abundance of spores declined from the edge of the lake toward the center, with the strongest response being in sites with high livestock use. Consistent with prior studies in temperate regions, we find that Sporormiella spores are a useful proxy to study the extinction of Pleistocene megafauna or the arrival of European livestock in Neotropical landscapes

The air raids that never were and the war that nobody won: government propaganda in conflict reporting and how journalists should respond to it

During the bombing campaign against Libya in the spring of 2011, the fog of war enveloped not only the shifting frontlines of the battles between forces loyal to the then Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, but also the more comfortable surroundings of British government ministries. A news story of an aborted air raid reflected the huge importance which governments increasingly place upon getting their message across in the international media in times of conflict. Looking at that example from the conflict in Libya, and studying in detail others from Russia’s 2008 war with Georgia, this article argues that journalists must correspondingly be increasingly aware of attempts by governments, and their hired public relations hands, to influence reporting

Exoplanet Atmosphere Measurements from Transmission Spectroscopy and other Planet-Star Combined Light Observations

It is possible to learn a great deal about exoplanet atmospheres even when we cannot spatially resolve the planets from their host stars. In this chapter, we overview the basic techniques used to characterize transiting exoplanets - transmission spectroscopy, emission and reflection spectroscopy, and full-orbit phase curve observations. We discuss practical considerations, including current and future observing facilities and best practices for measuring precise spectra. We also highlight major observational results on the chemistry, climate, and cloud properties of exoplanets.Comment: Accepted review chapter; Handbook of Exoplanets, eds. Hans J. Deeg and Juan Antonio Belmonte (Springer-Verlag). 22 pages, 6 figure

Co-creating and directing Innovation Ecosystems? NASA's changing approach to public-private partnerships in low-earth orbit

U.S. public activities in space directed via NASA are undergoing change. While NASA has historically been able to drive market creation, through its procurement policy (which is much weaker in Europe), the past decade has seen a visible shift in US space policy, away from NASA-directed developments in low-Earth orbit (LEO) towards an ecosystem with a mix of private, not-for-profit, and public actors in LEO. This has fundamentally changed NASA's role from an orchestrating/directing role, to a more ‘facilitating’ one driven by commercialization needs. This shift in mission and approach has ramifications for the LEO ecosystem as well as NASA's innovation policy, which has previously centred on clearly defined “mission-oriented” objectives, such as putting a man on the moon or creating the shuttle fleet. Such objectives required ‘active’ innovation policy whereby NASA both funded and ‘directed’ the innovation, within its walls and with its partners. The emerging multi-actor ecosystem approach has involved a more open-ended objective that does not have a unified nor clearly defined end-game. In this situation, NASA's ability to shape activities in a direction in line with its mission will depend on its relationships with other members in the system. The rise of new actors in the space eco-system, and new relationships between them, presents interesting challenges for innovation policy informed by an Innovation System approach. In this paper, we critique the market failure approach of public intervention in markets and describe further work to be done in the innovation systems literature - more focus on the interactions between agents (and the type of agents) as complimentary to the dominant focus on funding programmes in innovation systems. In this paper, we present the evolving processes of NASA's engagement in building a low-earth orbit economy to draw out case specific insights into a public agency shifting its mission to incorporate approaches to facilitate the market creation policy. The paper focuses on the way that NASA structures its new innovation policy, away from a classical supply side oriented R&D investment through NASA itself, towards a policy of orchestration and combination of instruments rather. We close the paper with a reflection on the ramifications of NASA's approach to building a sustainable low-Earth orbit economic ecosystem

Wetland fish communities above stream regulators with and without fish passage in Lao PDR

We have implemented a multiple lines of evidence approach to assessing the efficacy of fishways in the Houay (small stream) Peung and Houay Souy, Lao PDR. The methods include socio-economic surveys of households, direct observation of fisherman catch, trapping within the fishways, and surveys of fish assemblages in each fishway wetland, along with comparison wetlands that do not have a fishway installed. The in-wetland surveys are designed to be a long-term program and in this presentation I report on the design, monitoring and preliminary results. Whilst there are several differences in the types of fish present in each of the wetlands, there was no statistically significant difference in the CPUE, species richness or the composition of fish assemblages between fishway wetlands and comparison wetlands, regardless of season, during the first two years of our study. This is consistent with previous studies, that found only one or two species are likely to respond in the first few years and it may take 4 or more seasons of operations for major compositional changes in assemblages to be recognised. Our results are consistent with expectations from pre-fishway operations and the monitoring program is well placed to detect changes as the fishways enter full operational mode. We also discuss the implications of high fishing pressure in these wetlands and how this may affect the rate of change and detection of those changes

Radiative Transfer for Exoplanet Atmospheres

Remote sensing of the atmospheres of distant worlds motivates a firm understanding of radiative transfer. In this review, we provide a pedagogical cookbook that describes the principal ingredients needed to perform a radiative transfer calculation and predict the spectrum of an exoplanet atmosphere, including solving the radiative transfer equation, calculating opacities (and chemistry), iterating for radiative equilibrium (or not), and adapting the output of the calculations to the astronomical observations. A review of the state of the art is performed, focusing on selected milestone papers. Outstanding issues, including the need to understand aerosols or clouds and elucidating the assumptions and caveats behind inversion methods, are discussed. A checklist is provided to assist referees/reviewers in their scrutiny of works involving radiative transfer. A table summarizing the methodology employed by past studies is provided.Comment: 7 pages, no figures, 1 table. Filled in missing information in references, main text unchange

Observation of associated near-side and away-side long-range correlations in √sNN=5.02 TeV proton-lead collisions with the ATLAS detector

Two-particle correlations in relative azimuthal angle (Δϕ) and pseudorapidity (Δη) are measured in √sNN=5.02  TeV p+Pb collisions using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The measurements are performed using approximately 1  μb-1 of data as a function of transverse momentum (pT) and the transverse energy (ΣETPb) summed over 3.1<η<4.9 in the direction of the Pb beam. The correlation function, constructed from charged particles, exhibits a long-range (2<|Δη|<5) “near-side” (Δϕ∼0) correlation that grows rapidly with increasing ΣETPb. A long-range “away-side” (Δϕ∼π) correlation, obtained by subtracting the expected contributions from recoiling dijets and other sources estimated using events with small ΣETPb, is found to match the near-side correlation in magnitude, shape (in Δη and Δϕ) and ΣETPb dependence. The resultant Δϕ correlation is approximately symmetric about π/2, and is consistent with a dominant cos⁡2Δϕ modulation for all ΣETPb ranges and particle pT

Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √ s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fb−1 of √ s = 8 TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT > 120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between Emiss T > 150 GeV and Emiss T > 700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. The results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presente