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

Konsensusprotokoll zur Standardisierung von Entnahme und Biobanking des Liquor cerebrospinalis

Die Erforschung von Biomarkern in Körperflüssigkeiten bei neurodegenerativen und neuroinflammatorischen Erkrankungen blickt auf eine langjährige Geschichte zurück. Dennoch werden nur wenige Liquor cerebrospinalis (Liquor)-Biomarker in der klinischen Praxis verwendet. Einer der problematischen Faktoren in der Liquorbiomarker-Forschung ist die eingeschränkte Aussagekraft von Studien aufgrund einer nicht ausreichend großer Anzahl von Proben, die in Studien von einzelnen Zentren akquiriert werden können. Deshalb ist die Kooperation zwischen mehreren Zentren erforderlich, um große Biobanken von definierten Proben zu etablieren. Standardisierte Protokolle für Biobanking sind unumgänglich, um die durch die größere Anzahl von Liquorproben gewonnene statistische Aussagekraft sicherzustellen und nicht durch mangelhafte Präanalytik einzuschränken. Hier wird ein Konsensusbericht über Leitlinien zu Liquorentnahme und Biobanking durch das BioMS-eu Netzwerk für Liquorbiomarker-Forschung in Multipler Sklerose präsentiert. Schwerpunkte des Berichts sind Liquorentnahme, präanalytische Faktoren und klinische sowie sonstige Informationen. Biobanking-Protokolle sind für Liquor-Biobanken im Rahmen der Erforschung jeder neurologischen Krankheit anwendba

The Search for Gravitational Waves

Experiments aimed at searching for gravitational waves from astrophysical sources have been under development for the last 40 years, but only now are sensitivities reaching the level where there is a real possibility of detections being made within the next five years. In this article a history of detector development will be followed by a description of current detectors such as LIGO, VIRGO, GEO 600, TAMA 300, Nautilus and Auriga. Preliminary results from these detectors will be discussed and related to predicted detection rates for some types of sources. Experimental challenges for detector design are introduced and discussed in the context of detector developments for the future.Comment: 21 pages, 7 figures, accepted J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phy

Consensus Guidelines for CSF and Blood Biobanking for CNS Biomarker Studies

There is a long history of research into body fluid biomarkers in neurodegenerative and neuroinflammatory diseases. However, only a few biomarkers in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) are being used in clinical practice. Anti-aquaporin-4 antibodies in serum are currently useful for the diagnosis of neuromyelitis optica (NMO), but we could expect novel CSF biomarkers that help define prognosis and response to treatment for this disease. One of the most critical factors in biomarker research is the inadequate powering of studies performed by single centers. Collaboration between investigators is needed to establish large biobanks of well-defined samples. A key issue in collaboration is to establish standardized protocols for biobanking to ensure that the statistical power gained by increasing the numbers of CSF samples is not compromised by pre-analytical factors. Here, consensus guidelines for CSF collection and biobanking are presented, based on the guidelines that have been published by the BioMS-eu network for CSF biomarker research. We focussed on CSF collection procedures, pre-analytical factors and high quality clinical and paraclinical information. Importantly, the biobanking protocols are applicable for CSF biobanks for research targeting any neurological disease

The compensatory potential of increased immigration following intensive American mink population control is diluted by male-biased dispersal

Attempts to mitigate the impact of invasive species on native ecosystems increasingly target large land masses where control, rather than eradication, is the management objective. Depressing numbers of invasive species to a level where their impact on native biodiversity is tolerable requires overcoming the impact of compensatory immigration from non-controlled portions of the landscape. Because of the expected scale-dependency of dispersal, the overall size of invasive species management areas relative to the dispersal ability of the controlled species will determine the size of any effectively conserved core area unaffected by immigration from surrounding areas. However, when dispersal is male-biased, as in many mammalian invasive carnivores, males may be overrepresented amongst immigrants, reducing the potential growth rate of invasive species populations in re-invaded areas. Using data collected from a project that gradually imposed spatially comprehensive control on invasive American mink (Neovison vison) over a 10,000 km2 area of NE Scotland, we show that mink captures were reduced to almost zero in 3 years, whilst there was a threefold increase in the proportion of male immigrants. Dispersal was often long distance and linking adjacent river catchments, asymptoting at 38 and 31 km for males and females respectively. Breeding and dispersal were spatially heterogeneous, with 40 % of river sections accounting for most captures of juvenile (85 %), adult female (65 %) and immigrant (57 %) mink. Concentrating control effort on such areas, so as to turn them into “attractive dispersal sinks” could make a disproportionate contribution to the management of recurrent re-invasion of mainland invasive species management areas