A Small Interstellar Probe to the Heliospheric Boundary and Interstellar Space

The Small Interstellar Probe m1ss1on would be designed to cross the solar wind termination shock and the heliopause, and make a significant penetration into nearby interstellar space. The principal scientific objectives of this mission would be to explore the structure of the heliosphere, to investigate its interaction with the interstellar medium, and to explore the nature of the interstellar medium itself. These studies would be carried out by a ~200 kg spacecraft carrying a scientific payload designed to make comprehensive, in situ measurements of both heliospheric and interstellar plasma, fields, energetic particles, gas, and dust. New trajectory calculations indicate significantly improved performance over earlier studies with larger spacecraft, including spacecraft velocities ranging from -6 to -14 AU/yr., depending on trajectory and launch vehicle

The host galaxy and late-time evolution of the Super-Luminous Supernova PTF12dam

Super-luminous supernovae of type Ic have a tendency to occur in faint host galaxies which are likely to have low mass and low metallicity. PTF12dam is one of the closest and best studied super-luminous explosions that has a broad and slowly fading lightcurve similar to SN 2007bi. Here we present new photometry and spectroscopy for PTF12dam from 200-500 days (rest-frame) after peak and a detailed analysis of the host galaxy (SDSS J142446.21+461348.6 at z = 0.107). Using deep templates and image subtraction we show that the full lightcurve can be fit with a magnetar model if escape of high-energy gamma rays is taken into account. The full bolometric lightcurve from -53 to +399 days (with respect to peak) cannot be fit satisfactorily with the pair-instability models. An alternative model of interaction with a dense CSM produces a good fit to the data although this requires a very large mass (~ 13 M_sun) of hydrogen free CSM. The host galaxy is a compact dwarf (physical size ~ 1.9 kpc) and with M_g = -19.33 +/- 0.10, it is the brightest nearby SLSN Ic host discovered so far. The host is a low mass system (2.8 x 10^8 M_sun) with a star-formation rate (5.0 M_sun/year), which implies a very high specific star-formation rate (17.9 Gyr^-1). The remarkably strong nebular lines provide detections of the [O III] \lambda 4363 and [O II] \lambda\lambda 7320,7330 auroral lines and an accurate oxygen abundance of 12 + log(O/H) = 8.05 +/- 0.09. We show here that they are at the extreme end of the metallicity distribution of dwarf galaxies and propose that low metallicity is a requirement to produce these rare and peculiar supernovae.Comment: 20 pages, 12 figures, 8 tables, accepted for publication to MNRA

Comparison of ecosystem processes in a woodland and prairie pond with different hydroperiods

Shallow lakes and ponds constitute a significant number of water bodies worldwide. Many are heterotrophic, indicating that they are likely net contributors to global carbon cycling. Climate change is likely to have important impacts on these waterbodies. In this study, we examined two small Minnesota ponds; a permanent woodland pond and a temporary prairie pond. The woodland pond had lower levels of phosphorus and phytoplankton than the prairie pond. Using the open water oxygen method, we found the prairie pond typically had a higher level of gross primary production (GPP) and respiration (R) than the woodland pond, although the differences between the ponds varied with season. Despite the differences in GPP and R between the ponds the net ecosystem production was similar with both being heterotrophic. Since abundant small ponds may play an important role in carbon cycling and are likely to undergo changes in temperature and hydroperiod associated with climate change, understanding pond metabolism is critical in predicting impacts and designing management schemes to mitigate changes

tert-Butyl (2S)-2-{3-[(R)-bis­(tert-but­oxy­carbon­yl)amino]-2-oxopiperidin-1-yl}-3-methyl­butano­ate1

The title compound, C24H42N2O7, is a chiral lactam-constrained amino acid with a six-membered ring backbone and isopropyl and tert-butyl ester side chains. The conformation of the six-membered ring can be described as a half chair, with two CH2 C atoms lying 0.443 (1) and −0.310 (1) Å out of the best plane of the other four atoms (mean deviation = 0.042 Å). Both N atoms are sp 2 hybridized, lying 0.0413 (9) and 0.067 (1) Å out of the planes defined by the three C atoms bonded to them. The absolute configuration was determined, based on resonant scattering of light atoms in Cu Kα radiation

The role of site and severity of injury as predictors of mental health outcomes following traumatic injury

The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of injury site and severity as predictors of mental health outcomes in the initial 12 months following traumatic injury. Using a multisite, longitudinal study, articipants with a traumatic physical injury (N = 1,098) were assessed during hospital admission and followed up at 3 months (N = 932, 86%) and at 12 months (N = 715, 71%). Injury site was measured using the abbreviated Injury Scale 90, and objective injury severity was measured using the Injury Severity Score. Participants also completed the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale and the Clinician Administered Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Scale. A random intercept mixed modelling analysis was conducted to evaluate the effects of site and severity of injury in relation to anxiety, PTSD, and depressive symptoms. Injury severity, as well as head and facial injuries, was predictive of elevated PTSD symptoms, and external injuries were associated with both PTSD and depression severity. In contrast, lower extremity injuries were associated with depresssive and anxiety symptoms. The findings suggest that visible injuries are predictive of reduced mental health, particularly PTSD following traumatic injury. This has clinical implications for further advancing the screening for vulnerable injured trauma survivors at risk of chronic psychopathology.Katharine Baecher, Maria Kangas, Alan Taylor, Meaghan L. O'Donnell, Richard A. Bryant, Derrick Silove, Alexander C. McFarlane, Darryl Wad

Sensitivity analysis of the meteorological preprocessor MPP-FMI 3.0 using algorithmic differentiation

The meteorological input parameters for urbanand local-scale dispersion models can be evaluated by pre-processing meteorological observations, using a boundarylayer parameterisation model. This study presents a sensitivity analysis of a meteorological preprocessor model (MPP-FMI) that utilises readily available meteorological data as input. The sensitivity of the preprocessor to meteorological input was analysed using algorithmic differentiation (AD). The AD tool used was TAPENADE. The AD method numerically evaluates the partial derivatives of functions that are implemented in a computer program. In this study, we focus on the evaluation of vertical fluxes in the atmosphere and in particular on the sensitivity of the predicted inverse Obukhov length and friction velocity on the model input parameters. The study shows that the estimated inverse Obukhov length and friction velocity are most sensitive to wind speed and second most sensitive to solar irradiation. The dependency on wind speed is most pronounced at low wind speeds. The presented results have implications for improving the meteorological preprocessing models. AD is shown to be an efficient tool for studying the ranges of sensitivities of the predicted parameters on the model input values quantitatively. A wider use of such advanced sensitivity analysis methods could potentially be very useful in analysing and improving the models used in atmospheric sciences.Peer reviewe

Kepler423b: a half-Jupiter mass planet transiting a very old solar-like star

We report the spectroscopic confirmation of the Kepler object of interest KOI-183.01 (Kepler-423b), a half-Jupiter mass planet transiting an old solar-like star every 2.7 days. Our analysis is the first to combine the full Kepler photometry (quarters 1-17) with high-precision radial velocity measurements taken with the FIES spectrograph at the Nordic Optical Telescope. We simultaneously modelled the photometric and spectroscopic data-sets using Bayesian approach coupled with Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling. We found that the Kepler pre-search data conditioned (PDC) light curve of KOI-183 exhibits quarter-to-quarter systematic variations of the transit depth, with a peak-to-peak amplitude of about 4.3 % and seasonal trends reoccurring every four quarters. We attributed these systematics to an incorrect assessment of the quarterly variation of the crowding metric. The host star KOI-183 is a G4 dwarf with $M_\star=0.85\pm0.04$ M_\rm{Sun}, $R_\star=0.95\pm0.04$ R_\rm{Sun}, $T_\mathrm{eff}=5560\pm80$ K, $[M/H]=-0.10\pm0.05$ dex, and with an age of $11\pm2$ Gyr. The planet KOI-183b has a mass of $M_\mathrm{p}=0.595\pm0.081$ M$_\mathrm{Jup}$ and a radius of $R_\mathrm{p}=1.192\pm0.052$ R$_\mathrm{Jup}$, yielding a planetary bulk density of $\rho_\mathrm{p}=0.459\pm0.083$ g/cm$^{3}$. The radius of KOI-183b is consistent with both theoretical models for irradiated coreless giant planets and expectations based on empirical laws. The inclination of the stellar spin axis suggests that the system is aligned along the line of sight. We detected a tentative secondary eclipse of the planet at a 2-$\sigma$ confidence level ($\Delta F_{\mathrm{ec}}=14.2\pm6.6$ ppm) and found that the orbit might have a small non-zero eccentricity of $e=0.019^{+0.028}_{-0.014}$. With a Bond albedo of $A_\mathrm{B}=0.037\pm0.019$, KOI-183b is one of the gas-giant planets with the lowest albedo known so far.Comment: 13 pages, 13 figures, 5 tables. Accepted for publication in A&A. Planet designation changed from KOI-183b to Kepler-423

Fall Detection Analysis Using a Real Fall Dataset

International Conference on Soft Computing Models in Industrial and Environmental Applications (13th. 2018. San Sebastián

Modelling shifts in agroclimate and crop cultivar response under climate change

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