Mating status affects female choice when females are signalers

Sexual selection in animals has been mostly studied in species in which males are signalers and females are choosers. However, in many species, females are (also) signalers. In species with non‐signaling females, virgin females are hypothesized to be less choosy than mated females, as virgins must mate to realize fitness and the number of available males is generally limited. Yet, when females signal to attract males, mate limitation can be overcome. We tested how virgin and mated females differ in their calling behavior, mating latency, and in mate choice, using the tobacco budworm Chloridea (Heliothis) virescens as an example for a species in which females are not only choosers but also signalers. We found that virgin females signaled longer than mated females, but virgin and mated signaling females were equally ready to mate, in contrast to non‐signaling females. However, we found that virgin signaling females showed weaker mate preference than mated females, which can be explained by the fact that females increase their fitness with multiple matings. Mated females may thus further increase their fitness by more stringent mate selection. We conclude that signaling is a crucial aspect to consider when studying female mate choice because signaling may affect the number of available mates to choose from

Origin of the giant magnetic moments of Fe impurities on and in Cs films

To explore the origin of the observed giant magnetic moments ($\sim 7 \mu_B$) of Fe impurities on the surface and in the bulk of Cs films, we have performed the relativistic LSDA + U calculations using the linearized muffin-tin orbital (LMTO) band method. We have found that Fe impurities in Cs behave differently from those in noble metals or in Pd. Whereas the induced spin polarization of Cs atoms is negligible, the Fe ion itself is found to be the source of the giant magnetic moment. The 3d electrons of Fe in Cs are localized as the 4f electrons in rare-earth ions so that the orbital magnetic moment becomes as large as the spin magnetic moment. The calculated total magnetic moment of $M = 6.43 \mu_B$, which comes mainly from Fe ion, is close to the experimentally observed value.Comment: 4 pages including 3 figures and 1 table. Submitted to PR

From a Co-Mo precursor to 1H and 1T Co-promoted MoS2: exploring the effects of gas pressure

The work presented in this paper makes use of the high-pressure in situ imaging capabilities of the ReactorSTM to demonstrate that single layer 1T Co-promoted MoS2 can be directly synthesized without the use of any intercalating agents by applying highly reducing conditions during the growth. In this work, we have sulfided a CoMo nanoparticle precursor supported on Au(111) using a H2:CH3SH gas mixture at 1 bar and imaged the crystallization process in situ using the ReactorSTM. We have observed that at low temperatures (∼500 K), an intermediate disordered CoMoSx phase is formed which crystallizes into metallic single-layer 1T Co-promoted MoS2 slabs at temperatures close to 600 K. We also show that semiconducting 1H Co-promoted MoS2 slabs synthesized under sulfur-rich conditions using a vacuum physical vapor deposition process, do not transform into their metallic 1T counterparts when exposed to the same reducing gas pressures and temperatures, thus, demonstrating the importance of the highly reducing conditions during the crystallization process for inducing the formation of the metastable 1T phase. XPS spectra of the 1T Co-promoted MoS2 slabs indicate a sulfur deficiency of up to 11% in the top layer S, suggesting the likely role of sulfur vacancies in the formation of the 1T phase

Neutrino scattering on polarized electron target and neutrino magnetic moment

The completed and proposed experiments for the measurement of the neutrino magnetic moment are discussed. To improve the sensitivity of the search for the neutrino magnetic moment we suggest to use a polarized electron target in the processes of neutrino (antineutrino) -- electron scattering. It is shown that in this case the weak interaction term in the total cross section is few times smaller comparing with unpolarized case, but the electromagnetic term does not depend on electron polarization.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures. Talk given at the XXVIII ITEP Winter School of Physics, Snegiri, Russia, February 22 - March 1, 200

SCUBA sub-millimeter observations of gamma-ray bursters. I. GRB 970508, 971214, 980326, 980329, 980519, 980703

We discuss the first results of our ongoing program of Target of Opportunity observations of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) using the SCUBA instrument on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. We present the results for GRB 970508, 971214, 980326, 980329, 980519, and 980703. Our most important result to date is the detection of a fading counterpart to GRB 980329 at 850 microns. Although it proved to be difficult to find the infrared counterpart to this burst, the sub-millimeter flux was relatively bright. This indicates that intrinsically the brightness of this counterpart was very similar to GRB 970508. The radio through sub-millimeter spectrum of GRB 980329 is well fit by a power law with index alpha = +0.9. However, we cannot exclude a nu^(1/3) power law attenuated by synchrotron self-absorption. An alpha = +1 VLA-SCUBA power law spectrum is definitely ruled out for GRB 980703, and possibly also for GRB 980519. We cannot rule out that part of the sub-millimeter flux from GRB 980329 comes from a dusty star-forming galaxy at high redshift, such as the ones recently discovered by SCUBA. Any quiescent dust contribution will be much larger at sub-millimeter than at radio wavelengths. Both a high redshift and large dust extinction would help explain the reddening of the counterpart to GRB 980329, and a redshift of z = 5 has been suggested. The large intensity of this burst might then indicate that beaming is important.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Astronomy and Astrophysic

Olfactomedin 4 Serves as a Marker for Disease Severity in Pediatric Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) Infection

Funding: Statement of financial support: The study was financially supported by the VIRGO consortium, an Innovative Cluster approved by the Netherlands Genomics Initiative and partially funded by the Dutch Government (BSIK 03012). The authors have indicated they have no personal financial relationships relevant to this article to disclose. Data Availability Statement: The data is accessible at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/query/acc.cgi?acc=GSE69606.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Probing quantum coherence in qubit arrays

We discuss how the observation of population localization effects in periodically driven systems can be used to quantify the presence of quantum coherence in interacting qubit arrays. Essential for our proposal is the fact that these localization effects persist beyond tight-binding Hamiltonian models. This result is of special practical relevance in those situations where direct system probing using tomographic schemes becomes infeasible beyond a very small number of qubits. As a proof of principle, we study analytically a Hamiltonian system consisting of a chain of superconducting flux qubits under the effect of a periodic driving. We provide extensive numerical support of our results in the simple case of a two-qubits chain. For this system we also study the robustness of the scheme against different types of noise and disorder. We show that localization effects underpinned by quantum coherent interactions should be observable within realistic parameter regimes in chains with a larger number o

Liouville equations for neutrino distribution matrices

The classical notion of a single-particle scalar distribution function or phase space density can be generalized to a matrix in order to accommodate superpositions of states of discrete quantum numbers, such as neutrino mass/flavor. Such a `neutrino distribution matrix' is thus an appropriate construct to describe a neutrino gas that may vary in space as well as time and in which flavor mixing competes with collisions. The Liouville equations obeyed by relativistic neutrino distribution matrices, including the spatial derivative and vacuum flavor mixing terms, can be explicitly but elegantly derived in two new ways: from a covariant version of the familiar simple model of flavor mixing, and from the Klein-Gordon equations satisfied by a quantum `density function' (mean value of paired quantum field operators). Associated with the latter derivation is a case study in how the joint position/momentum dependence of a classical gas (albeit with Fermi statistics) emerges from a formalism built on quantum fields.Comment: 17 pages. Version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. D. Section II shortened; some changes in notation that mostly affect Section III through Subsubsec. IIIC2; revised argument and swapping of Subsubsections IIIC1 and IIIC

D-Dimensional Radiative Plasma: A Kinetic Approach

The covariant kinetic approach for the radiative plasma, a mixture of a relativistic moving gas plus radiation quanta (photons, neutrinos, or gravitons) is generalized to D spatial dimensions. The operational and physical meaning of Eckart's temperature is reexamined and the D-dimensional expressions for the transport coefficients (heat conduction, bulk and shear viscosity) are explicitly evaluated to first order in the mean free time of the radiation quanta. Weinberg's conclusion that the mixture behaves like a relativistic imperfect simple fluid (in Eckart's formulation) depends neither on the number of spatial dimensions nor on the details of the collisional term. The case of Thomson scaterring is studied in detail, and some consequences for higher dimensional cosmologies are also discussed.Comment: 28 pages, 1 figure, uses REVTE