Potential repellency of cedarwood oil from a novel extraction method to stored product insects

Producers lose 10-30% of crops during storage, processing, and marketing after harvest each year to stored product insects (1,2). Globally, there has been a rise in insecticide resistance to phosphine, the most common fumigant for these pests (3). As a result, producers need to diversify post-harvest IPM methods to preserve existing tools. One alternative strategy is push-pull, whereby a repellent is used to “push” an insect away from the commodity of interest, while also simultaneously “pulling” the insects to an alternate location away from the commodity using an attractant (4)(Fig. 1). This system notably requires a long-distance repellent. One potential repellent includes cedarwood oil, which has shown repellency to termites and ants (5,6). A novel extraction process for this compound has been developed, which leaves many of its main constituents intact (7). However, to date, this compound has never been assessed for repellency to post-harvest insects

Physical aspects of oracles for randomness, and Hadamard's conjecture

We analyze the physical aspects and origins of currently proposed oracles for (absolute) randomness.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1405.140

Planet Four: Terrains - Discovery of Araneiforms Outside of the South Polar Layered Deposits

We present the results of a systematic mapping of seasonally sculpted terrains on the South Polar region of Mars with the Planet Four: Terrains (P4T) online citizen science project. P4T enlists members of the general public to visually identify features in the publicly released Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter CTX images. In particular, P4T volunteers are asked to identify: 1) araneiforms (including features with a central pit and radiating channels known as 'spiders'); 2) erosional depressions, troughs, mesas, ridges, and quasi-circular pits characteristic of the South Polar Residual Cap (SPRC) which we collectively refer to as 'Swiss cheese terrain', and 3) craters. In this work we present the distributions of our high confidence classic spider araneiforms and Swiss cheese terrain identifications. We find no locations within our high confidence spider sample that also have confident Swiss cheese terrain identifications. Previously spiders were reported as being confined to the South Polar Layered Deposits (SPLD). Our work has provided the first identification of spiders at locations outside of the SPLD, confirmed with high resolution HiRISE imaging. We find araneiforms on the Amazonian and Hesperian polar units and the Early Noachian highland units, with 75% of the identified araneiform locations in our high confidence sample residing on the SPLD. With our current coverage, we cannot confirm whether these are the only geologic units conducive to araneiform formation on the Martian South Polar region. Our results are consistent with the current CO2 jet formation scenario with the process exploiting weaknesses in the surface below the seasonal CO2 ice sheet to carve araneiform channels into the regolith over many seasons. These new regions serve as additional probes of the conditions required for channel creation in the CO2 jet process. (Abridged)Comment: accepted to Icarus - Supplemental data files are available at https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/mschwamb/planet-four-terrains/about/results - Icarus print version available at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001910351730055

Effects of melting conditions on platinum-inclusion content in phosphate laser glasses

Results from small-scale glass melting experiments aimed at reducing the density of platinum particles in phosphate laser glasses are discussed. The platinum particles originate from the crucibles used to melt the laser glass and can cause optical damage in glasses used in high-peak-power lasers. The melting experiments examine the effects of a) temperature and temperature gradients; b) processing time; and c) O₂ atmosphere on the formation and dissolution of platinum inclusions in LG-750 phosphate laser glass. Results show that most platinum inclusions originate early in the melt cycle, with thermal gradients within the melter being one of the major causes. By using oxidizing conditions (O₂), the platinum inclusions can be dissolved into the glass during the course of the melt cycle. Results from the laboratory-scale melting experiments have been incorporated into a proprietary laser-glass melting process. The laser glass prepared under these conditions has an average of less than 0.1 platinum inclusions/1, which represents a 1000-fold reduction over the previously available phosphate laser glasses

A Randomized Placebo-Controlled Phase 3 Trial of an Antisense Oligonucleotide, Drisapersen, in Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

This 48-week, randomized, placebo-controlled phase 3 study (DMD114044; NCT01254019) evaluated efficacy and safety of subcutaneous drisapersen 6 mg/kg/week in 186 ambulant boys aged ≥5 years, with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) resulting from an exon 51 skipping amenable mutation. Drisapersen was generally well tolerated, with injection-site reactions and renal events as most commonly reported adverse events. A nonsignificant treatment difference (P = 0.415) in the change from baseline in six-minute walk distance (6MWD; primary efficacy endpoint) of 10.3 meters in favor of drisapersen was observed at week 48. Key secondary efficacy endpoints (North Star Ambulatory Assessment, 4-stair climb ascent velocity, and 10-meter walk/run velocity) gave consistent findings. Lack of statistical significance was thought to be largely due to greater data variability and subgroup heterogeneity. The increased standard deviation alone, due to less stringent inclusion/exclusion criteria, reduced the statistical power from pre-specified 90% to actual 53%. Therefore, a post-hoc analysis was performed in 80 subjects with a baseline 6MWD 300-400 meters and ability to rise from floor. A statistically significant improvement in 6MWD of 35.4 meters (P = 0.039) in favor of drisapersen was observed in this subpopulation. Results suggest that drisapersen could have benefit in a less impaired population of DMD subjects

Stringy Robinson-Trautman Solutions

A class of solutions of the low energy string theory in four dimensions is studied. This class admits a geodesic, shear-free null congruence which is non-twisting but in general diverging and the corresponding solutions in Einstein's theory form the Robinson-Trautman family together with a subset of the Kundt's class. The Robinson-Trautman conditions are found to be frame invariant in string theory. The Lorentz Chern-Simons three form of the stringy Robinson-Trautman solutions is shown to be always closed. The stringy generalizations of the vacuum Robinson-Trautman equation are obtained and three subclasses of solutions are identified. One of these subclasses exists, among all the dilatonic theories, only in Einstein's theory and in string theory. Several known solutions including the dilatonic black holes, the pp- waves, the stringy C-metric and certain solutions which correspond to exact conformal field theories are shown to be particular members of the stringy Robinson-Trautman family. Some new solutions which are static or asymptotically flat and radiating are also presented. The radiating solutions have a positive Bondi mass. One of these radiating solutions has the property that it settles down smoothly to a black hole state at late retarded times.Comment: Latex, 30 Pages, 1 Figure; to appear in Phys. Rev.

Coherent coupling between radio frequency, optical, and acoustic waves in piezo-optomechanical circuits

The interaction of optical and mechanical modes in nanoscale optomechanical systems has been widely studied for applications ranging from sensing to quantum information science. Here, we develop a platform for cavity optomechanical circuits in which localized and interacting 1550 nm photons and 2.4 GHz phonons are combined with photonic and phononic waveguides. Working in GaAs facilitates manipulation of the localized mechanical mode either with a radio frequency field through the piezo-electric effect, or optically through the strong photoelastic effect. We use this to demonstrate a novel acoustic wave interference effect, analogous to coherent population trapping in atomic systems, in which the coherent mechanical motion induced by the electrical drive can be completely cancelled out by the optically-driven motion. The ability to manipulate cavity optomechanical systems with equal facility through either photonic or phononic channels enables new device and system architectures for signal transduction between the optical, electrical, and mechanical domains

Hierarchy Theory of Evolution and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis: Some Epistemic Bridges, Some Conceptual Rifts

Contemporary evolutionary biology comprises a plural landscape of multiple co-existent conceptual frameworks and strenuous voices that disagree on the nature and scope of evolutionary theory. Since the mid-eighties, some of these conceptual frameworks have denounced the ontologies of the Modern Synthesis and of the updated Standard Theory of Evolution as unfinished or even flawed. In this paper, we analyze and compare two of those conceptual frameworks, namely Niles Eldredge’s Hierarchy Theory of Evolution (with its extended ontology of evolutionary entities) and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (with its proposal of an extended ontology of evolutionary processes), in an attempt to map some epistemic bridges (e.g. compatible views of causation; niche construction) and some conceptual rifts (e.g. extra-genetic inheritance; different perspectives on macroevolution; contrasting standpoints held in the “externalism–internalism” debate) that exist between them. This paper seeks to encourage theoretical, philosophical and historiographical discussions about pluralism or the possible unification of contemporary evolutionary biology

Planetary Candidates Observed by Kepler VI: Planet Sample from Q1-Q16 (47 Months)

\We present the sixth catalog of Kepler candidate planets based on nearly 4 years of high precision photometry. This catalog builds on the legacy of previous catalogs released by the Kepler project and includes 1493 new Kepler Objects of Interest (KOIs) of which 554 are planet candidates, and 131 of these candidates have best fit radii <1.5 R_earth. This brings the total number of KOIs and planet candidates to 7305 and 4173 respectively. We suspect that many of these new candidates at the low signal-to-noise limit may be false alarms created by instrumental noise, and discuss our efforts to identify such objects. We re-evaluate all previously published KOIs with orbital periods of >50 days to provide a consistently vetted sample that can be used to improve planet occurrence rate calculations. We discuss the performance of our planet detection algorithms, and the consistency of our vetting products. The full catalog is publicly available at the NASA Exoplanet Archive.Comment: 18 pages, to be published in the Astrophysical Journal Supplement Serie