A new function of hydrocarbons in insect communication : maternal care and offspring signalling in the European earwig

International audienc

Calibration of star formation rate tracers for short- and long-lived star formation episodes

To derive the history of star formation in the Universe a set of calibrated star formation rate tracers at different wavelengths is required. The calibration has to consistently take into account the effects of extinction, star formation regime (short or long-lived) and evolutionary state to avoid biases at different redshift ranges. We use evolutionary synthesis models optimized for intense episodes of star formation in order to compute a consistent calibration of the most usual star formation rate tracers at different energy ranges, from X-ray to radio luminosities. Nearly-instantaneous and continuous star formation regimes, and the effect of interstellar extinction are considered, as well as the effect of metallicity on the calibration of the different estimators. A consistent calibration of a complete set of star formation rate tracers is presented, computed for the most usual star-forming regions conditions: evolutionary state, star formation regime, interstellar extinction and initial mass function. We discuss the validity of the different tracers in different star formation scenarios and compare our predictions with previous calibrations of general use. Nearly-instantaneous and continuous star formation regimes must be distinguished. While the Star Formation Strength (\msun) should be used for the former, the more common Star Formation Rate (\msun yr$^{-1}$) is only valid for episodes forming stars at a constant rate during extended periods for time. Moreover, even for the latter, the evolutionary state should be taken into account, since most SFR tracers stabilize only after 100 Myr of evolution.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A, webtool in http://www.laeff.cab.inta-csic.es/research/sfr/, 19 pages, 10 figures, 14 tables. New version including language style revisio

Comparing non-fatal health across countries: Is the US medical system better?.

The primary focus of the paper is to assess whether the US, which spends significantly more than any other country in health care, has better health outcomes. It has long been clear that mortality as a whole is not better in the US than in other countries. We focus our analysis on the US performance for the treatment of non-fatal health outcomes and we compare the health of the United States to that of Canada, the United Kingdom and Spain. Our results indicate a discrepancy between high quality of life for some outcomes and low quality of life for others. Such discrepancy is not attributable to measurement issues in determining a person's quality of life, nor is it attributable to differing performance by income. Our results suggest that the discrepancy is due to the fact that the US does better for the treatment of conditions where high-tech medicine is a key to better health and worse in conditions requiring substantial chronic disease management.international comparison; healthcare systems; chronic diseases; technology; health;

Learning Economic Parameters from Revealed Preferences

A recent line of work, starting with Beigman and Vohra (2006) and Zadimoghaddam and Roth (2012), has addressed the problem of {\em learning} a utility function from revealed preference data. The goal here is to make use of past data describing the purchases of a utility maximizing agent when faced with certain prices and budget constraints in order to produce a hypothesis function that can accurately forecast the {\em future} behavior of the agent. In this work we advance this line of work by providing sample complexity guarantees and efficient algorithms for a number of important classes. By drawing a connection to recent advances in multi-class learning, we provide a computationally efficient algorithm with tight sample complexity guarantees ($\Theta(d/\epsilon)$ for the case of $d$ goods) for learning linear utility functions under a linear price model. This solves an open question in Zadimoghaddam and Roth (2012). Our technique yields numerous generalizations including the ability to learn other well-studied classes of utility functions, to deal with a misspecified model, and with non-linear prices

Does the butterfly diagram indicate asolar flux-transport dynamo?

We address the question whether the properties of the observed latitude-time diagram of sunspot occurence (the butterfly diagram) provide evidence for the operation of a flux-transport dynamo, which explains the migration of the sunspot zones and the period of the solar cycle in terms of a deep equatorward meridional flow. We show that the properties of the butterfly diagram are equally well reproduced by a conventional dynamo model with migrating dynamo waves, but without transport of magnetic flux by a flow. These properties seem to be generic for an oscillatory and migratory field of dipole parity and thus do not permit an observational distinction between different dynamo approaches.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

Genealogi Petilasan Sunan Kudus: Representasi Masjid Wali Sebagai Ruang Dakwah Sunan Kudus Di Desa Jepang, Mejobo, Kudus

Dalam USAha memasyarakatkan Islam ke seluruh pelosok Kudus, Sunan Kudus tidak hanya menempakkan sentralitas penyiaran agama di kawasan Kauman tempat berdirinya Masjid al-Aqsha atau Masjid Menara Kudus. Salah satu tempat didirikannya masjid luar dari kawasan Kauman adalah Masjid Wali Al-Ma\u27mur Desa Jepang, Kecamatan Mejobo, Kabupaten Kudus, yang masih memiliki keterhubungan sejarah dengan Masjid Menara Kudus, yang pembangunannya bertarikh tahun 956 H (1549 M). Realitas ini tampak dari kesamaan tata ruang yang mengitari Masjid Wali Al-Ma\u27mur Desa Jepang. Peletakan kuburan orang-orang berpengaruh di zamannya diletakkan di belakang masjid serupa dengan ditempatkannya makam Sunan Kudus di belakang Masjid Menara Kudus