Cosmic Sculpture: A new way to visualise the Cosmic Microwave Background

3D printing presents an attractive alternative to visual representation of physical datasets such as astronomical images that can be used for research, outreach or teaching purposes, and is especially relevant to people with a visual disability. We here report the use of 3D printing technology to produce a representation of the all-sky Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) intensity anisotropy maps produced by the Planck mission. The success of this work in representing key features of the CMB is discussed as is the potential of this approach for representing other astrophysical data sets. 3D printing such datasets represents a highly complementary approach to the usual 2D projections used in teaching and outreach work, and can also form the basis of undergraduate projects. The CAD files used to produce the models discussed in this paper are made available.Comment: Accepted for publication in the European Journal of Physic

Beyond Foreign Policy? EU Sanctions at the Intersection of Development, Trade, and CFSP

In the wake of unsettling conflicts and democratic backsliding, states and organisations increasingly respond with sanctions. The European Union (EU) is one of them: Brussels makes use of the entire toolbox in its foreign policy, and its sanctions appear in different forms - diplomatic measures, travel bans, financial bans, or various forms of economic restrictions. Yet, there is little debate between different strands in the literature on EU sanctions, in particular concerning measures under the Common Foreign and Security Policy and those pertaining to the development and trade policy fields. Our thematic issue addresses this research gap by assembling a collection of articles investigating the design, impact, and implementation of EU sanctions used in different realms of its external affairs. Expanding the definition of EU sanctions to measures produced under different guises in the development, trade, and foreign policy fields, the collection overcomes the compartmentalised approach characterising EU scholarship

Preliminary results of research cruises carried out by IEO on the High Seas of the SW Atlantic (2008-2009), regarding cephalopod target species (Illex argentinus and Loligo gahi)

In March 2008 the Instituto Español de Oceanografía (IEO) through its Oceanographic Centre in Vigo (IEO-COV) initiated a historical series of research cruises aiming the assessment of the main commercial stocks on the High Seas (HS) of the SW Atlantic, including the study of two cephalopod species of important commercial interest, Argentine short-fin squid (Illex argentinus) and Patagonian squid (Loligo gahi). This working document presents a brief description of the methodology used in the cruises and preliminary results concerning CPUE by depth strata and geographical distribution of both mentioned species

An alternative strategy for cloning minor permeases in Aspergillus nidulans

The uapC gene was cloned by complementation of the cryosensitive phenotype of uapA mutants following the instant gene bank method. The analysis of the transformants is presented and a strategy to clone other transport related genes is proposed

Living bacteria rheology: population growth, aggregation patterns and cooperative behaviour under different shear flows

The activity of growing living bacteria was investigated using real-time and in situ rheology -- in stationary and oscillatory shear. Two different strains of the human pathogen Staphylococcus aureus -- strain COL and its isogenic cell wall autolysis mutant -- were considered in this work. For low bacteria density, strain COL forms small clusters, while the mutant, presenting deficient cell separation, forms irregular larger aggregates. In the early stages of growth, when subjected to a stationary shear, the viscosity of both strains increases with the population of cells. As the bacteria reach the exponential phase of growth, the viscosity of the two strains follow different and rich behaviours, with no counterpart in the optical density or in the population's colony forming units measurements. While the viscosity of strain COL keeps increasing during the exponential phase and returns close to its initial value for the late phase of growth, where the population stabilizes, the viscosity of the mutant strain decreases steeply, still in the exponential phase, remains constant for some time and increases again, reaching a constant plateau at a maximum value for the late phase of growth. These complex viscoelastic behaviours, which were observed to be shear stress dependent, are a consequence of two coupled effects: the cell density continuous increase and its changing interacting properties. The viscous and elastic moduli of strain COL, obtained with oscillatory shear, exhibit power-law behaviours whose exponent are dependent on the bacteria growth stage. The viscous and elastic moduli of the mutant have complex behaviours, emerging from the different relaxation times that are associated with the large molecules of the medium and the self-organized structures of bacteria. These behaviours reflect nevertheless the bacteria growth stage.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figure

Determination of transition frequencies in a single 138^{138}Ba+^{+} ion

Transition frequencies between low-lying energy levels in a single trapped $^{138}$Ba$^{+}$ ion have been measured with laser spectroscopy referenced to an optical frequency comb. By extracting the frequencies of one-photon and two-photon components of the line shape using an eight-level optical Bloch model, we achieved 0.1 MHz accuracy for the 5d $^{2}$D$_{3/2}$ - 6p $^{2}$P$_{1/2}$ and 6s $^{2}$S$_{1/2}$ - 5d $^{2}$D$_{3/2}$ transition frequencies, and 0.2 MHz for the 6s $^{2}$S$_{1/2}$ - 6p $^{2}$P$_{1/2}$ transition frequency.Comment: 5 pages, 7 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Features-Aware DDoS Detection in Heterogeneous Smart Environments based on Fog and Cloud Computing

Nowadays, urban environments are deploying smart environments (SEs) to evolve infrastructures, resources, and services. SEs are composed of a huge amount of heterogeneous devices, i.e., the SEs have both personal devices (smartphones, notebooks, tablets, etc) and Internet of Things (IoT) devices (sensors, actuators, and others). One of the existing problems of the SEs is the detection of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, due to the vulnerabilities of IoT devices. In this way, it is necessary to deploy solutions that can detect DDoS in SEs, dealing with issues like scalability, adaptability, and heterogeneity (distinct protocols, hardware capacity, and running applications). Within this context, this article presents an Intelligent System for DDoS detection in SEs, applying Machine Learning (ML), Fog, and Cloud computing approaches. Additionally, the article presents a study about the most important traffic features for detecting DDoS in SEs, as well as a traffic segmentation approach to improve the accuracy of the system. The experiments performed, using real network traffic, suggest that the proposed system reaches 99% of accuracy, while reduces the volume of data exchanged and the detection time

The managerial and economic effects of celebrity endorsement on consumer purchasing intentions

Despite the fact that celebrity endorsement brings up some risks, it has been used quite extensively in the present era and it is a method to reach competitive advantage by companies. The economic effects for companies are obvious. This study focuses on examining the relationship between a set of variables (gender, credibility, attractiveness, type, multiple endorsements and multiple product endorsement) that were identified during the literature review as characteristics of the TV advertisings and consumers purchasing intentions. A questionnaire survey was applied. This study is based on a sample of 285 young respondents. Respondents answered two sets of questions after viewing an advertisement of a specific product featuring one or more endorsers. A quantitative approach has been adopted to investigate the relationship between the purchase intentions and the perceptions of the six characteristics of celebrity endorsement mentioned above. Results revealed that all the characteristics of celebrity endorsement analyzed had a positive impact in consumers purchasing intentions, however some of them were quite low. This study has an approach with relevant consequences for companies, either economic or managerial, bringing room to analyze and to discuss the related coming up managerial implications.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Distribuição de raízes de coqueiro anão verde sob sistemas de irrigação localizada em solo dos tabuleiros costeiros.

Um dos principais problemas no agronegócio do coqueiro anão verde no Distrito de Irrigação Platô de Neópolis, em Sergipe, está relacionado às características físicas e hídricas dos solos dos tabuleiros costeiros. Por serem pobres em nutrientes, apresentarem baixa capacidade de armazenamento de água e, muitas vezes, forte adensamento nas camadas subsuperficiais, esses solos têm grande influência na distribuição do sistema radicular das plantas, sendo esta variável das mais importantes para a definição de sistemas de irrigação eficientes e ajustados ao meio ambiente. O experimento foi conduzido em parceria com a Empresa União, em cuja propriedade é cultivado, entre outras fruteiras, o coqueiro anão verde para produção de água de coco. Foram selecionadas 18 plantas para avaliação do sistema radicular, após 4 anos de aplicação de sistemas de irrigação localizada por gotejamento, gotejamento enterrado e microaspersão. Os resultados do estudo permitiram concluir que os sistemas gotejamento superficial e enterrado são potencialmente mais promissores do que a microaspersão quanto à possibilidade de aprofundamento do sistema radicular do coqueiro anão verde.bitstream/item/33959/1/bp-06.pd