Earth-like sand fluxes on Mars

Strong and sustained winds on Mars have been considered rare, on the basis of surface meteorology measurements and global circulation models, raising the question of whether the abundant dunes and evidence for wind erosion seen on the planet are a current process. Recent studies showed sand activity, but could not determine whether entire dunes were moving—implying large sand fluxes—or whether more localized and surficial changes had occurred. Here we present measurements of the migration rate of sand ripples and dune lee fronts at the Nili Patera dune field. We show that the dunes are near steady state, with their entire volumes composed of mobile sand. The dunes have unexpectedly high sand fluxes, similar, for example, to those in Victoria Valley, Antarctica, implying that rates of landscape modification on Mars and Earth are similar

Cosmology on a Three-Brane

In this paper a general solution is found for a five dimensional orbifold spacetime that induces a $k=0$ cosmology on a three-brane. Expressions for the energy density and pressure on the brane in terms of the brane metric are derived. Given a metric on the brane it is possible to find five dimensional spacetimes that contain the brane. This calculation is carried out for an inflationary universe and for a metric that corresponds to a radiation dominated universe in standard cosmology. It is also shown that any $k=0$ cosmology can be embedded in a flat five dimensional orbifold spacetime and the equation of the three-brane surface is derived. For an inflationary universe it is shown that the surface is the usual hyperboloid representation of de Sitter space, although it is embedded in an orbifold spacetime.Comment: 11 pages, LaTex. New solutions with a cosmological constant have been adde

Environmental control of asexual reproduction and somatic growth of <i>Aurelia</i> spp. (Cnidaria, Scyphozoa) polyps from the Adriatic Sea

Polyps of two moon jellyfish species, Aurelia coerulea and A. relicta, from two Adriatic Sea coastal habitats were incubated under multiple combinations of temperature (14, 21°C), salinity (24, 37 ppt) and food regime (9.3, 18.6, 27.9 μg C ind−1 week−1) to comparatively assess how these factors may influence major asexual reproduction processes in the two species. Both species exhibited a shared pattern of budding mode (Directly Budded Polyps: DBP; Stolonal Budded Polyps: SBP), with DBP favoured under low food supply (9.3 μg C ind −1 week−1) and low temperature (14°C), and SBP dominant under high temperature (21°C). However, A. coerulea showed an overall higher productivity than A. relicta, in terms of budding and podocyst production rates. Further, A. coerulea exhibited a wide physiological plasticity across different temperatures and salinities as typical adaptation to ecological features of transitional coastal habitats. This may support the hypothesis that the invasion of A. coerulea across coastal habitats worldwide has been driven by shellfish aquaculture, with scyphistoma polyps and resting stages commonly found on bivalve shells. On the contrary, A. relicta appears to be strongly stenovalent, with cold, marine environmental optimal preferences (salinity 37 ppt, T ranging 14–19°C), corroborating the hypothesis of endemicity within the highly peculiar habitat of the Mljet lake. By exposing A. relicta polyps to slightly higher temperature (21°C), a previously unknown developmental mode was observed, by the sessile polyp regressing into a dispersive, temporarily unattached and tentacle-less, non-feeding stage. This may allow A. relicta polyps to escape climatic anomalies associated to warming of surface layers and deepening of isotherms, by moving into deeper, colder layers. Overall, investigations on species-specific eco-physiological and ontogenetic potentials of polyp stages may contribute to clarify the biogeographic distribution of jellyfish and the phylogenetic relationships among evolutionary related sister clades

Itaconate modulates tricarboxylic acid and redox metabolism to mitigate reperfusion injury.

ObjectivesCerebral ischemia/reperfusion (IR) drives oxidative stress and injurious metabolic processes that lead to redox imbalance, inflammation, and tissue damage. However, the key mediators of reperfusion injury remain unclear, and therefore, there is considerable interest in therapeutically targeting metabolism and the cellular response to oxidative stress.MethodsThe objective of this study was to investigate the molecular, metabolic, and physiological impact of itaconate treatment to mitigate reperfusion injuries in in&nbsp;vitro and in&nbsp;vivo model systems. We conducted metabolic flux and bioenergetic studies in response to exogenous itaconate treatment in cultures of primary rat cortical neurons and astrocytes. In addition, we administered itaconate to mouse models of cerebral reperfusion injury with ischemia or traumatic brain injury followed by hemorrhagic shock resuscitation. We quantitatively characterized the metabolite levels, neurological behavior, markers of redox stress, leukocyte adhesion, arterial blood flow, and arteriolar diameter in the brains of the treated/untreated mice.ResultsWe demonstrate that the "immunometabolite" itaconate slowed tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle metabolism and buffered redox imbalance via succinate dehydrogenase (SDH) inhibition and induction of anti-oxidative stress response in primary cultures of astrocytes and neurons. The addition of itaconate to reperfusion fluids after mouse cerebral IR injury increased glutathione levels and reduced reactive oxygen/nitrogen species (ROS/RNS) to improve neurological function. Plasma organic acids increased post-reperfusion injury, while administration of itaconate normalized these metabolites. In mouse cranial window models, itaconate significantly improved hemodynamics while reducing leukocyte adhesion. Further, itaconate supplementation increased survival in mice experiencing traumatic brain injury (TBI) and hemorrhagic shock.ConclusionsWe hypothesize that itaconate transiently inhibits SDH to gradually "awaken" mitochondrial function upon reperfusion that minimizes ROS and tissue damage. Collectively, our data indicate that itaconate acts as a mitochondrial regulator that controls redox metabolism to improve physiological outcomes associated with IR injury

Automatically Proving and Disproving Feasibility Conditions

[EN] In the realm of term rewriting, given terms s and t, a reachability condition s>>t is called feasible if there is a substitution O such that O(s) rewrites into O(t) in zero or more steps; otherwise, it is called infeasible. Checking infeasibility of (sequences of) reachability conditions is important in the analysis of computational properties of rewrite systems like confluence or (operational) termination. In this paper, we generalize this notion of feasibility to arbitrary n-ary relations on terms defined by first-order theories. In this way, properties of computational systems whose operational semantics can be given as a first-order theory can be investigated. We introduce a framework for proving feasibility/infeasibility, and a new tool, infChecker, which implements it.Supported by EU (FEDER), and projects RTI2018-094403-B-C32, PROMETEO/2019/098, and SP20180225. Also by INCIBE program "Ayudas para la excelencia de los equipos de investigación avanzada en ciberseguridad" (Raul Gutiérrez).Gutiérrez Gil, R.; Lucas Alba, S. (2020). Automatically Proving and Disproving Feasibility Conditions. Springer Nature. 416-435. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51054-1_27S416435Andrianarivelo, N., Réty, P.: Over-approximating terms reachable by context-sensitive rewriting. In: Bojańczyk, M., Lasota, S., Potapov, I. (eds.) RP 2015. LNCS, vol. 9328, pp. 128–139. Springer, Cham (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24537-9_12Dershowitz, N.: Termination of rewriting. J. Symb. Comput. 3(1/2), 69–116 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1016/S0747-7171(87)80022-6Giesl, J., Thiemann, R., Schneider-Kamp, P., Falke, S.: Mechanizing and improving dependency pairs. J. Autom. Reasoning 37(3), 155–203 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10817-006-9057-7Goguen, J.A., Meseguer, J.: Models and equality for logical programming. In: Ehrig, H., Kowalski, R., Levi, G., Montanari, U. (eds.) TAPSOFT 1987. LNCS, vol. 250, pp. 1–22. Springer, Heidelberg (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0014969Gutiérrez, R., Lucas, S.: Automatic generation of logical models with AGES. In: Fontaine, P. (ed.) CADE 2019. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 11716, pp. 287–299. Springer, Cham (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29436-6_17Kojima, Y., Sakai, M.: Innermost reachability and context sensitive reachability properties are decidable for linear right-shallow term rewriting systems. In: Voronkov, A. (ed.) RTA 2008. LNCS, vol. 5117, pp. 187–201. Springer, Heidelberg (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-70590-1_13Kojima, Y., Sakai, M., Nishida, N., Kusakari, K., Sakabe, T.: Context-sensitive innermost reachability is decidable for linear right-shallow term rewriting systems. Inf. Media Technol. 4(4), 802–814 (2009)Kojima, Y., Sakai, M., Nishida, N., Kusakari, K., Sakabe, T.: Decidability of reachability for right-shallow context-sensitive term rewriting systems. IPSJ Online Trans. 4, 192–216 (2011)Lucas, S.: Analysis of rewriting-based systems as first-order theories. In: Fioravanti, F., Gallagher, J.P. (eds.) LOPSTR 2017. LNCS, vol. 10855, pp. 180–197. Springer, Cham (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94460-9_11Lucas, S.: Context-sensitive computations in functional and functional logic programs. J. Funct. Logic Program. 1998(1) (1998). http://danae.uni-muenster.de/lehre/kuchen/JFLP/articles/1998/A98-01/A98-01.htmlLucas, S.: Proving semantic properties as first-order satisfiability. Artif. Intell. 277 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.artint.2019.103174Lucas, S.: Using well-founded relations for proving operational termination. J. Autom. Reasoning 64(2), 167–195 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10817-019-09514-2Lucas, S., Gutiérrez, R.: Use of logical models for proving infeasibility in term rewriting. Inf. Process. Lett. 136, 90–95 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ipl.2018.04.002Lucas, S., Marché, C., Meseguer, J.: Operational termination of conditional term rewriting systems. Inf. Process. Lett. 95(4), 446–453 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ipl.2005.05.002Lucas, S., Meseguer, J.: Proving operational termination of declarative programs in general logics. In: Chitil, O., King, A., Danvy, O. (eds.) Proceedings of the 16th International Symposium on Principles and Practice of Declarative Programming, Kent, Canterbury, United Kingdom, 8–10 September 2014, pp. 111–122. ACM (2014). https://doi.org/10.1145/2643135.2643152Lucas, S., Meseguer, J., Gutiérrez, R.: The 2D dependency pair framework for conditional rewrite systems. Part I: definition and basic processors. J. Comput. Syst. Sci. 96, 74–106 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcss.2018.04.002Lucas, S., Meseguer, J., Gutiérrez, R.: The 2D dependency pair framework for conditional rewrite systems—Part II: advanced processors and implementation techniques. J. Autom. Reasoning (2020, in press)McCune, W.: Prover9 and Mace4. https://www.cs.unm.edu/~mccune/mace4/Meßner, F., Sternagel, C.: nonreach – a tool for nonreachability analysis. In: Vojnar, T., Zhang, L. (eds.) TACAS 2019. LNCS, vol. 11427, pp. 337–343. Springer, Cham (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17462-0_19Middeldorp, A., Nagele, J., Shintani, K.: Confluence competition 2019. In: Beyer, D., Huisman, M., Kordon, F., Steffen, B. (eds.) TACAS 2019. LNCS, vol. 11429, pp. 25–40. Springer, Cham (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17502-3_2Nishida, N., Maeda, Y.: Narrowing trees for syntactically deterministic conditional term rewriting systems. In: Kirchner, H. (ed.) Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Formal Structures for Computation and Deduction. FSCD 2018. Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), vol. 108, pp. 26:1–26:20. Schloss Dagstuhl-Leibniz-Zentrum fuer Informatik (2018). https://doi.org/10.4230/LIPIcs.FSCD.2018.26Ohlebusch, E.: Advanced Topics in Term Rewriting. Springer, Heidelberg (2002). http://www.springer.com/computer/swe/book/978-0-387-95250-5Prawitz, D.: Natural Deduction: A Proof-Theoretical Study. Dover, New York (2006)Sternagel, C., Sternagel, T., Middeldorp, A.: CoCo 2018 Participant: ConCon 1.5. In: Felgenhauer, B., Simonsen, J. (eds.) Proceedings of the 7th International Workshop on Confluence. IWC 2018, p. 66 (2018). http://cl-informatik.uibk.ac.at/events/iwc-2018/Sternagel, C., Yamada, A.: Reachability analysis for termination and confluence of rewriting. In: Vojnar, T., Zhang, L. (eds.) TACAS 2019. LNCS, vol. 11427, pp. 262–278. Springer, Cham (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17462-0_15Winkler, S., Moser, G.: MædMax: a maximal ordered completion tool. In: Galmiche, D., Schulz, S., Sebastiani, R. (eds.) IJCAR 2018. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 10900, pp. 472–480. Springer, Cham (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94205-6_3

Soliton dual comb in crystalline microresonators

We present a novel compact dual-comb source based on a monolithic optical crystalline MgF$_2$ multi-resonator stack. The coherent soliton combs generated in two microresonators of the stack with the repetition rate of 12.1 GHz and difference of 1.62 MHz provided after heterodyning a 300 MHz wide radio-frequency comb. Analogous system can be used for dual-comb spectroscopy, coherent LIDAR applications and massively parallel optical communications.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Accretion and photodesorption of CO ice as a function of the incident angle of deposition

Non-thermal desorption of inter- and circum-stellar ice mantles on dust grains, in particular ultraviolet photon-induced desorption, has gained importance in recent years. These processes may account for the observed gas phase abundances of molecules like CO toward cold interstellar clouds. Ice mantle growth results from gas molecules impinging on the dust from all directions and incidence angles. Nevertheless, the effect of the incident angle for deposition on ice photo-desorption rate has not been studied. This work explores the impact on the accretion and photodesorption rates of the incidence angle of CO gas molecules with the cold surface during deposition of a CO ice layer. Infrared spectroscopy monitored CO ice upon deposition at different angles, ultraviolet-irradiation, and subsequent warm-up. Vacuum-ultraviolet spectroscopy and a Ni-mesh measured the emission of the ultraviolet lamp. Molecules ejected from the ice to the gas during irradiation or warm-up were characterized by a quadrupole mass spectrometer. The photodesorption rate of CO ice deposited at 11 K and different incident angles was rather stable between 0 and 45$^{\circ}$. A maximum in the CO photodesorption rate appeared around 70$^{\circ}$-incidence deposition angle. The same deposition angle leads to the maximum surface area of water ice. Although this study of the surface area could not be performed for CO ice, the similar angle dependence in the photodesorption and the ice surface area suggests that they are closely related. Further evidence for a dependence of CO ice morphology on deposition angle is provided by thermal desorption of CO ice experiments