Kepler-like Multi-Plexing for Mass Production of Microlens Parallaxes

We show that a wide-field Kepler-like satellite in Solar orbit could obtain microlens parallaxes for several thousand events per year that are identified from the ground, yielding masses and distances for several dozen planetary events. This is roughly an order of magnitude larger than previously-considered narrow-angle designs. Such a satellite would, in addition, roughly double the number of planet detections (and mass/distance determinations). It would also yield a trove of brown-dwarf binaries with masses, and distances and (frequently) full orbits, enable new probes of the stellar mass function, identify isolated black-hole candidates. We show that the actual Kepler satellite, even with degraded pointing, can demonstrate these capabilities and make substantial initial inroads into the science potential. We discuss several "Deltas" to the Kepler satellite aimed at optimizing microlens parallax capabilities. Most of these would reduce costs. The wide-angle approach advocated here has only recently become superior to the old narrow-angle approach, due to the much larger number of ground-based microlensing events now being discovered.Comment: ApJ Letters, in press, 12 pages, 4 figure

Living change: Adaptive housing responses to climate change in the town camps of Alice Springs

Executive summary This project focused upon adaptive housing responses to climate change in the town camps of Alice Springs. It particularly examined household practices of staying cool and keeping warm in the context of increasing extremes of temperatures and climate. In a departure from several other studies that concentrated on actively changing the behaviour of household residents or assessing occupant satisfaction with how houses performed, in this project the concern was on identifying the various elements of social practices. These elements include housing hardware (the physical house and appliances), management regimes, skills and knowledge, rules and common understandings. Instead of starting with human behaviour as the driver of responses to hot and cold conditions, the project takes a starting point where the practices of keeping cool and warm are the central focus. Thus, instead of asking the question “How can we change the cooling behaviour of householders”, we ask “What shapes the practices of keeping cool?” Of course, people will have a variety of things that they do when it is hot (in this report these are referred to as ‘practice variants’ of the practice of ‘keeping cool’), and the practices change over time. Changes to any of the four elements mentioned above may modify how a practice is performed, and hence changed. Moreover practices are often connected to others (or ‘bundled’), so changes in a particular practice may cascade into multiple changes across other practices. This has implications for household (and community) resilience and vulnerability to changed circumstances. The research found that town camp residents involved in the study deal with heat and cold in a diverse variety of ways. Diversity is widely regarded as a sign of adaptive capacity. Town camp residents retain variants of previous practice and embrace new practice variants, which have emerged since refurbishment and provision of new housing over the couple of years prior to the study. Town camp residents have many experiences of dealing with extreme weather events, and are (at least) bilingual, bi-cultural, and have strong cultural identities in Indigenous practice while participating in ‘mainstream’ economic and social life in Alice Springs and throughout Australia. As such, the town campers are well placed to adapt to changing circumstances, including changing climate conditions. However, that capacity is jeopardised by poverty and both chronic and periodic overcrowding, which remains an entrenched problem and cause of community stress, so adaptive practices need to be actively monitored and nurtured. The emerging tenancy management regime is partially supporting tenant initiated sustainable living practices and there is a need for further work in this regard, as indicated in the recommendations emerging from this research. The full list of recommendations is detailed in section 7. The research highlighted the need to extend the focus of housing providers beyond the delivery and preservation of houses, and to extend community education programs beyond a focus on behaviours around protecting houses and using appliances efficiently. Programs should recognise what shapes how people do things in and around the home. The house is only one element that informs practices and effective adaptation to changed conditions requires accounting for all elements. The research also underlines the importance for housing providers to know and understand how town camp residents use power and water in their daily lives. Electricity is an essential, yet scarce and costly commodity within the camps. Changes to the physical makeup of the houses and the appliances that they contain must be considered in the context of total household energy use. The same principle applies to water usage. It is important that the promotion of efficient energy and water use (using less of a scarce resource) does not compromise existing healthy practices unintentionally, or stifle new ones from emerging. The report also recommends that specific responsibility for climate adaptation planning and resourcing should be assigned and plans and actions instituted to equip town campers with ongoing climate adaptive capacity. Please cite this report as:Horne, R, Martel, A, Arcari, P, Foster, D, McCormack, A 2013 Living change: adaptive housing responses to climate change in the town camps of Alice Springs, National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, Gold Coast, pp. 60. This project focused upon adaptive housing responses to climate change in the town camps of Alice Springs. It particularly examined household practices of staying cool and keeping warm in the context of increasing extremes of temperatures and climate. In a departure from several other studies that concentrated on actively changing the behaviour of household residents or assessing occupant satisfaction with how houses performed, in this project the concern was on identifying the various elements of social practices. These elements include housing hardware (the physical house and appliances), management regimes, skills and knowledge, rules and common understandings. Instead of starting with human behaviour as the driver of responses to hot and cold conditions, the project takes a starting point where the practices of keeping cool and warm are the central focus. Thus, instead of asking the question “How can we change the cooling behaviour of householders”, we ask “What shapes the practices of keeping cool?” Of course, people will have a variety of things that they do when it is hot (in this report these are referred to as ‘practice variants’ of the practice of ‘keeping cool’), and the practices change over time. Changes to any of the four elements mentioned above may modify how a practice is performed, and hence changed. Moreover practices are often connected to others (or ‘bundled’), so changes in a particular practice may cascade into multiple changes across other practices. This has implications for household (and community) resilience and vulnerability to changed circumstances. The research found that town camp residents involved in the study deal with heat and cold in a diverse variety of ways. Diversity is widely regarded as a sign of adaptive capacity. Town camp residents retain variants of previous practice and embrace new practice variants, which have emerged since refurbishment and provision of new housing over the couple of years prior to the study. Town camp residents have many experiences of dealing with extreme weather events, and are (at least) bilingual, bi-cultural, and have strong cultural identities in Indigenous practice while participating in ‘mainstream’ economic and social life in Alice Springs and throughout Australia. As such, the town campers are well placed to adapt to changing circumstances, including changing climate conditions. However, that capacity is jeopardised by poverty and both chronic and periodic overcrowding, which remains an entrenched problem and cause of community stress, so adaptive practices need to be actively monitored and nurtured. The emerging tenancy management regime is partially supporting tenant initiated sustainable living practices and there is a need for further work in this regard, as indicated in the recommendations emerging from this research. The full list of recommendations is detailed in section 7. The research highlighted the need to extend the focus of housing providers beyond the delivery and preservation of houses, and to extend community education programs beyond a focus on behaviours around protecting houses and using appliances efficiently. Programs should recognise what shapes how people do things in and around the home. The house is only one element that informs practices and effective adaptation to changed conditions requires accounting for all elements. The research also underlines the importance for housing providers to know and understand how town camp residents use power and water in their daily lives. Electricity is an essential, yet scarce and costly commodity within the camps. Changes to the physical makeup of the houses and the appliances that they contain must be considered in the context of total household energy use. The same principle applies to water usage. It is important that the promotion of efficient energy and water use (using less of a scarce resource) does not compromise existing healthy practices unintentionally, or stifle new ones from emerging. The report also recommends that specific responsibility for climate adaptation planning and resourcing should be assigned and plans and actions instituted to equip town campers with ongoing climate adaptive capacity

\u3cem\u3eUnited States v. Palestine Liberation Organization\u3c/em\u3e: Continued Confusion in Congressional Intent and the Hierarchy of Norms

This Note concludes that while the court\u27s rationale is disingenuous and misleading, the final decision was an appropriate reaffirmation of the importance which American jurisprudence places on international obligations. In Part One, this Note discusses whether the dispute resolution provisions of the Headquarters Agreement precluded the district court\u27s jurisdiction over the parties and subject matter of this case. Part Two examines the constitutional hierarchy of the ATA and the Headquarters Agreement to determine which should govern this dispute. If the court had concluded that it lacked jurisdiction, the case would have been dismissed from the U.S. court system, leaving the parties to settle the dispute in the International Court of Justice. If the court reached the merits and applied the Headquarters Agreement despite the ATA, the PLO office would have remained open. Had the ATA applied, the PLO office would have been closed and the relevant provisions of the Headquarters Agreement would no longer be valid in United States courts

Nonextremal Black Hole Microstates and U-duality

A six-parameter family of five-dimensional black hole solutions is constructed which are labeled by their mass, two asymptotic scalar fields and three charges. It is shown that the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy is exactly matched, arbitrarily far from extremality, by a simple but mysterious duality-invariant extension of previously derived formulae for the number of D-brane states in string theory.Comment: 19 page

Endometriosis-associated macrophages: origin, phenotype and function

Endometriosis is a complex, heterogeneous, chronic inflammatory condition impacting approximately 176 million women worldwide. It is associated with chronic pelvic pain, infertility and fatigue, and has a substantial impact on health-related quality of life. Endometriosis is defined by the growth of endometrial-like tissue outside the uterus, typically on the lining of the pelvic cavity and ovaries (known as ‘lesions’). Macrophages are complex cells at the centre of this enigmatic condition; they are critical for the growth, development, vascularisation and innervation of lesions as well as generation of pain symptoms. In health, tissue-resident macrophages are seeded during early embryonic life are vital for development and homeostasis of tissues. In the adult, under inflammatory challenge, monocytes are recruited from the blood and differentiate into macrophages in tissues where they fulfil functions, such as fighting infection and repairing wounds. The interplay between tissue-resident and recruited macrophages is now at the forefront of macrophage research due to their differential roles in inflammatory disorders. In some cancers, tumour-associated macrophages are comprised of tissue-resident macrophages and recruited inflammatory monocytes that differentiate into macrophages within the tumour. These macrophages of different origins play differential roles in disease progression. Herein, we review the complexities of macrophage dynamics in health and disease and explore the paradigm that under disease-modified conditions, macrophages that normally maintain homeostasis become modified such that they promote disease. We also interrogate the evidence to support the existence of multiple phenotypic populations and origins of macrophages in endometriosis and how this could be exploited for therapy

The paracrinology of tubal ectopic pregnancy

As part of successful human reproduction, the Fallopian tube must provide a suitable environment for pre-implantation development of the embryo and for efficient transport of the embryo to the uterus for implantation. These functions are coordinated by paracrine interactions between tubal epithelial, smooth muscle and immune cells and the cells of the developing embryo. Alterations in these signals can lead to a tubal microenvironment encouraging of embryo implantation and to dysregulated tubal motility, ultimately resulting in inappropriate and early implantation of the embryo in the Fallopian tube. Here, we highlight novel and emerging concepts in tubal physiology and pathobiology, such as the induction of a receptive phenotype within the Fallopian tube, leading to ectopic implantation. Chlamydia trachomatis infection is a risk factor for tubal ectopic pregnancy. Activation of toll-like receptor 2 (TLR-2) in the Fallopian tube epithelium, by C. trachomatis has recently been demonstrated, leading to the dysregulation of factors involved in implantation and smooth muscle contractility, such as prokineticins (PROK), activin A and interleukin 1 (IL-1). The Fallopian tube has also recently been shown to harbour a unique population of immune cells, compared to the endometrium. In addition, the complement of immune cells in the Fallopian tube has been reported to be altered in Fallopian tube from women with ectopic pregnancy. There are increasing data suggesting that vascularisation of the Fallopian tube, by the embryo during ectopic pregnancy, differs from that initiated in the uterus during normal pregnancy. This too, is likely the result of paracrine signals between the embryo and the tubal microenvironment