The Neon Abundance in the Ejecta of QU Vul From Late-Epoch IR Spectra

We present ground-based SpectroCam-10 mid-infrared, MMT optical, and Spitzer Space Telescope IRS mid-infrared spectra taken 7.62, 18.75, and 19.38 years respectively after the outburst of the old classical nova QU Vulpeculae (Nova Vul 1984 #2). The spectra of the ejecta are dominated by forbidden line emission from neon and oxygen. Our analysis shows that neon was, at the first and last epochs respectively, more than 76 and 168 times overabundant by number with respect to hydrogen compared to the solar value. These high lower limits to the neon abundance confirm that QU Vul involved a thermonuclear runaway on an ONeMg white dwarf and approach the yields predicted by models of the nucleosynthesis in such events.Comment: ApJ 2007 accepted, 18 pages, including 5 figures, 1 tabl

Spatial ecology of translocated raccoons

Raccoons (Procyon lotor) are routinely translocated both legally and illegally to mitigate conflicts with humans, which has contributed to the spread of rabies virus across eastern North America. The movement behavior of translocated raccoons has important ramifications for disease transmission yet remains understudied and poorly quantified. To examine the spatial ecology of raccoons following experimental translocation, we performed reciprocal 16 km-distance translocations of 30 raccoons between habitats of high and low raccoon density (bottomland hardwood and upland pine, respectively) across the Savannah River Site (SRS) in Aiken, South Carolina, USA (2018–2019). Translocation influenced patterns of raccoon space use, with translocated animals exhibiting a 13-fold increase in 95% utilization distributions (UDs) post- compared to pre-translocation (mean 95% UD 35.8 ± 36.1 km2 vs 1.96 ± 1.17 km2). Raccoons originating from upland pine habitats consistently had greater space use and larger nightly movement distances post-translocation compared to raccoons moved from bottomland hardwood habitats, whereas these differences were generally not observed prior to translocation. Estimated home ranges of male raccoons were twice the area as estimated for female raccoons, on average, and this pattern was not affected by translocation. After a transient period lasting on average 36.5 days (SD = 30.0, range = 3.25–92.8), raccoons often resumed preexperiment movement behavior, with 95% UD sizes not different from those prior to translocation (mean = 2.27 ± 1.63km2). Most animals established new home ranges after translocation, whereas three raccoons moved \u3e 16 km from their release point back to the original capture location. Four animals crossed a 100-m wide river within the SRS post-translocation, but this behavior was not documented among collared raccoons prior to translocation. Large increases in space use combined with the crossing of geographic barriers such as rivers may lead to elevated contact rates with conspecifics, which can heighten disease transmission risks following translocation. These results provide additional insights regarding the potential impacts of raccoon translocation towards population level risks of rabies outbreaks and underscore the need to discourage mesocarnivore translocations to prevent further spread of wildlife rabies

Assessment of habitat‐specific competition for oral rabies vaccine baits between raccoons and opossums

Throughout the eastern United States, the National Rabies Management Program (NRMP) distributes oral rabies vaccine (ORV) baits to manage rabies virus circulation in raccoon (Procyon lotor) populations. The consumption of vaccine baits by non‐target species including Virginia opossums (Didelphis virginiana) may reduce the effectiveness of ORV programs, but competition for baits remains poorly quantified in many areas of the southeastern United States. We distributed placebo ORV baits injected with a biomarker across 4 land cover types (bottomland hardwood, upland pine, riparian, isolated wetland) on the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, USA, 2017–2019. We then trapped and collected whiskers from 247 raccoons and 78 opossums to assess biomarker presence using fluorescent microscopy. Our data revealed greater bait uptake probability by raccoons (estimated x̅= 0.30, 95% CI = 0.19–0.44) compared to opossums (estimated x̅ = 0.11, 95% CI = 0.05–0.23) across all cover types surveyed. Probability of bait consumption was not affected by cover type or the abundance of raccoons or opossums. Among raccoons, males were more likely to consume baits than females (estimated x̅ = 0.28, 95% CI = 0.17–0.44 for males and 0.14, 95% CI = 0.05–0.31 for females) and probability of consumption increased by 0.08 with each additional day trapped during the 10‐day trapping session. Uptake rates for raccoons were relatively low compared to other studies and not influenced by competition with opossums. These low consumption rates indicate that additional research addressing the roles of baiting season, bait density, and resource selection will be important to maximize ORV bait uptake by target species in these southeastern landscapes

Influence of landscape attributes on Virginia opossum density

TheVirginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana), North America\u27s only marsupial, has a range extending from southern Ontario, Canada, to the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, and from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific. Despite the Virginia opossum\u27s taxonomic uniqueness in relation to other mammals in North America and rapidly expanding distribution, its ecology remains relatively understudied. Our poor understanding of the ecology of this important mesopredator is especially pronounced in the rural southeastern United States. Our goal was to estimate effects of habitat on opossum density within an extensive multiyear spatial capture‐recapture study. Additionally, we compared the results of this spatial capture‐recapture analysis with a simple relative abundance index. Opossum densities in the relatively underdeveloped regions of the southeastern United States were lower compared to the more human‐dominated landscapes of the Northeast and Midwest. In the southeastern United States, Virginia opossums occurred at a higher density in bottomland swamp and riparian hardwood forest compared to upland pine (Pinus spp.) plantations and isolated wetlands. These results reinforce the notion that the Virginia opossum is commonly associated with land cover types adjacent to permanent water (bottomland swamps, riparian hardwood). The relatively low density of opossums at isolated wetland sites suggests that the large spatial scale of selection demonstrated by opossums gives the species access to preferable cover types within the same landscape

Polynomial-sized Semidefinite Representations of Derivative Relaxations of Spectrahedral Cones

We give explicit polynomial-sized (in $n$ and $k$) semidefinite representations of the hyperbolicity cones associated with the elementary symmetric polynomials of degree $k$ in $n$ variables. These convex cones form a family of non-polyhedral outer approximations of the non-negative orthant that preserve low-dimensional faces while successively discarding high-dimensional faces. More generally we construct explicit semidefinite representations (polynomial-sized in $k,m$, and $n$) of the hyperbolicity cones associated with $k$th directional derivatives of polynomials of the form $p(x) = \det(\sum_{i=1}^{n}A_i x_i)$ where the $A_i$ are $m\times m$ symmetric matrices. These convex cones form an analogous family of outer approximations to any spectrahedral cone. Our representations allow us to use semidefinite programming to solve the linear cone programs associated with these convex cones as well as their (less well understood) dual cones.Comment: 20 pages, 1 figure. Minor changes, expanded proof of Lemma

Engineered 2D Ising interactions on a trapped-ion quantum simulator with hundreds of spins

The presence of long-range quantum spin correlations underlies a variety of physical phenomena in condensed matter systems, potentially including high-temperature superconductivity. However, many properties of exotic strongly correlated spin systems (e.g., spin liquids) have proved difficult to study, in part because calculations involving N-body entanglement become intractable for as few as N~30 particles. Feynman divined that a quantum simulator - a special-purpose "analog" processor built using quantum particles (qubits) - would be inherently adept at such problems. In the context of quantum magnetism, a number of experiments have demonstrated the feasibility of this approach. However, simulations of quantum magnetism allowing controlled, tunable interactions between spins localized on 2D and 3D lattices of more than a few 10's of qubits have yet to be demonstrated, owing in part to the technical challenge of realizing large-scale qubit arrays. Here we demonstrate a variable-range Ising-type spin-spin interaction J_ij on a naturally occurring 2D triangular crystal lattice of hundreds of spin-1/2 particles (9Be+ ions stored in a Penning trap), a computationally relevant scale more than an order of magnitude larger than existing experiments. We show that a spin-dependent optical dipole force can produce an antiferromagnetic interaction J_ij ~ 1/d_ij^a, where a is tunable over 0<a<3; d_ij is the distance between spin pairs. These power-laws correspond physically to infinite-range (a=0), Coulomb-like (a=1), monopole-dipole (a=2) and dipole-dipole (a=3) couplings. Experimentally, we demonstrate excellent agreement with theory for 0.05<a<1.4. This demonstration coupled with the high spin-count, excellent quantum control and low technical complexity of the Penning trap brings within reach simulation of interesting and otherwise computationally intractable problems in quantum magnetism.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures; article plus Supplementary Material

Capabilities, Performance, and Status of the SOFIA Science Instrument Suite

The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is an airborne observatory, carrying a 2.5 m telescope onboard a heavily modified Boeing 747SP aircraft. SOFIA is optimized for operation at infrared wavelengths, much of which is obscured for ground-based observatories by atmospheric water vapor. The SOFIA science instrument complement consists of seven instruments: FORCAST (Faint Object InfraRed CAmera for the SOFIA Telescope), GREAT (German Receiver for Astronomy at Terahertz Frequencies), HIPO (High-speed Imaging Photometer for Occultations), FLITECAM (First Light Infrared Test Experiment CAMera), FIFI-LS (Far-Infrared Field-Imaging Line Spectrometer), EXES (Echelon-Cross-Echelle Spectrograph), and HAWC (High-resolution Airborne Wideband Camera). FORCAST is a 540 m imager with grism spectroscopy, developed at Cornell University. GREAT is a heterodyne spectrometer providing high-resolution spectroscopy in several bands from 60240 m, developed at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy. HIPO is a 0.31.1 m imager, developed at Lowell Observatory. FLITECAM is a 15 m wide-field imager with grism spectroscopy, developed at UCLA. FIFI-LS is a 42210 m integral field imaging grating spectrometer, developed at the University of Stuttgart. EXES is a 528 m high-resolution spectrograph, developed at UC Davis and NASA ARC. HAWC is a 50240 m imager, developed at the University of Chicago, and undergoing an upgrade at JPL to add polarimetry capability and substantially larger GSFC detectors. We describe the capabilities, performance, and status of each instrument, highlighting science results obtained using FORCAST, GREAT, and HIPO during SOFIA Early Science observations conducted in 2011

Substrate Type Determines Metagenomic Profiles from Diverse Chemical Habitats

Environmental parameters drive phenotypic and genotypic frequency variations in microbial communities and thus control the extent and structure of microbial diversity. We tested the extent to which microbial community composition changes are controlled by shifting physiochemical properties within a hypersaline lagoon. We sequenced four sediment metagenomes from the Coorong, South Australia from samples which varied in salinity by 99 Practical Salinity Units (PSU), an order of magnitude in ammonia concentration and two orders of magnitude in microbial abundance. Despite the marked divergence in environmental parameters observed between samples, hierarchical clustering of taxonomic and metabolic profiles of these metagenomes showed striking similarity between the samples (>89%). Comparison of these profiles to those derived from a wide variety of publically available datasets demonstrated that the Coorong sediment metagenomes were similar to other sediment, soil, biofilm and microbial mat samples regardless of salinity (>85% similarity). Overall, clustering of solid substrate and water metagenomes into discrete similarity groups based on functional potential indicated that the dichotomy between water and solid matrices is a fundamental determinant of community microbial metabolism that is not masked by salinity, nutrient concentration or microbial abundance

2012 ACCF/AHA/ACP/AATS/PCNA/SCAI/STS guideline for the diagnosis and management of patients with stable ischemic heart disease

The recommendations listed in this document are, whenever possible, evidence based. An extensive evidence review was conducted as the document was compiled through December 2008. Repeated literature searches were performed by the guideline development staff and writing committee members as new issues were considered. New clinical trials published in peer-reviewed journals and articles through December 2011 were also reviewed and incorporated when relevant. Furthermore, because of the extended development time period for this guideline, peer review comments indicated that the sections focused on imaging technologies required additional updating, which occurred during 2011. Therefore, the evidence review for the imaging sections includes published literature through December 2011

Raccoon spatial ecology in the rural southeastern United States.

The movement ecology of raccoons varies widely across habitats with important implications for the management of zoonotic diseases such as rabies. However, the spatial ecology of raccoons remains poorly understood in many regions of the United States, particularly in the southeast. To better understand the spatial ecology of raccoons in the southeastern US, we investigated the role of sex, season, and habitat on monthly raccoon home range and core area sizes in three common rural habitats (bottomland hardwood, upland pine, and riparian forest) in South Carolina, USA. From 2018-2022, we obtained 264 monthly home ranges from 46 raccoons. Mean monthly 95% utilization distribution (UD) sizes ranged from 1.05 ± 0.48 km2 (breeding bottomland females) to 5.69 ± 3.37 km2 (fall riparian males) and mean monthly 60% UD sizes ranged from 0.25 ± 0.15 km2 (breeding bottomland females) to 1.59 ± 1.02 km2 (summer riparian males). Males maintained home range and core areas ~2-5 times larger than females in upland pine and riparian habitat throughout the year, whereas those of bottomland males were only larger than females during the breeding season. Home ranges and core areas of females did not vary across habitats, whereas male raccoons had home ranges and core areas ~2-3 times larger in upland pine and riparian compared to bottomland hardwood throughout much of the year. The home ranges of males in upland pine and riparian are among the largest recorded for raccoons in the United States. Such large and variable home ranges likely contribute to elevated risk of zoonotic disease spread by males in these habitats. These results can be used to inform disease mitigation strategies in the southeastern United States