CMB Lensing Constraints on Neutrinos and Dark Energy

Signatures of lensing of the cosmic microwave background radiation by gravitational potentials along the line of sight carry with them information on the matter distribution, neutrino masses, and dark energy properties. We examine the constraints that Planck, PolarBear, and CMBpol future data, including from the B-mode polarization or the lensing potential, will be able to place on these quantities. We simultaneously fit for neutrino mass and dark energy equation of state including time variation and early dark energy density, and compare the use of polarization power spectra with an optimal quadratic estimator of the lensing. Results are given as a function of systematics level from residual foreground contamination. A realistic CMBpol experiment can effectively constrain the sum of neutrino masses to within 0.05 eV and the fraction of early dark energy to 0.002. We also present a surprisingly simple prescription for calculating dark energy equation of state constraints in combination with supernova distances from JDEM.Comment: 18 pages, 14 figures. Small changes made to match version to be published in Phys. Rev.

The effects of acute dehydration of 5% body mass on performance and physiology of mixed martial arts athletes

Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) athletes are weighed 24 h prior to competition. In order to compete in a lower weight class MMA athletes will often rapidly lose weight via dehydration. Despite the prevalence, there is currently no known published data examining the effects of acute dehydration on physiology and performance in mixed martial arts athletes. The present study aimed to examine: i) the effects of 5% acute dehydration on performance (vertical jump, medicine ball throw, grip strength and repeated sled push) and physiology (body weight, haematocrit, urine specific gravity, serum osmolality and urine osmolality) of MMA athletes. A total of 14 MMA athletes between the ages of 18 and 40 y with at least 2 y of competitive experience were recruited. Participants performed a familiarisation session, followed by two experimental sessions including a control protocol (CONT) or a dehydration protocol (DHY) in a randomised order. During the DHY athletes cycled for 3 h in a heated chamber (40˚C and 30% relative humidity) wearing a sweat suit in order to lose 5% of their bodyweight (BW). Athletes then underwent a 3 h recovery period, during which they consumed fluids/food ad libitum. Athletes then performed a series of performance tests, including vertical jump, medicine ball throw, wrist grip and repeated sled push. A further 21 h recovery period was allowed before athletes performed the same tests. Prior to weight loss, immediately post weight loss, pre performance testing (3 h post weight loss) and 24 h post weight loss, urine and blood samples were collected and body weight was measured. A lower average speed during the repeat sled push (5.65 ± 1.3 km.h-1) was observed 3 h post DHY compared with 3 h post CONT (6.99 ± 0.85 km.h-1; P-1) when compared with 24 h post CONT (7.12 ± 0.95 km.h-1; P-1 and 9.14 ± 1.1 km.h-1 were observed 3 h post DHY/CONT and 8.82 ± 1.41 km.h-1 and 9.35 ± 1.06 km.h-1 24 h post DHY/CONT. A decreased time to fatigue and increased perceived exertion was also observed. The decrements in performance were observed at both 3 h and 24 h post DHY with the decrements still being present but not as large 24 h. When comparing measures of hydration in the DHY with CONT, significantly lower measures of hydration were observed 30 min post DHY and 3 h post DHY. None of the measured markers of hydration indicated athletes were dehydrated 24 h post DHY. The observations of this present study indicate that current weight loss practices in MMA and other combat sports may not be conducive to the best physical performance possible. Current practices should be reconsidered since performance was compromised even following 24 h of recovery. Future research should investigate possible physiological mechanisms behind the observed decrement in performance

In-line monitoring of polymer nanoparticle growth during synthesis in concentrated systems by photon density wave spectroscopy

Photon Density Wave (PDW) spectroscopy [1-4] determines the absolute optical properties of highly turbid liquid dispersions without a need for prior method calibration. As parameters, the absorption coefficient ma and the reduced scattering coefficient ms’ are obtained. Based on Mie theory and theories for dependent light scattering, the reduced scattering coefficient is linked to the particle size of the suspended particles, allowing for dilution-free particle sizing in size regimes of approx. 50 nm to 500 µm. Currently, PDW spectroscopy provides a time resolution of approx. 2 min-1 and can be operated with fiber-optical process probes [5], thus it allows for in-line particle size measurements during polymerization processes. Here, PDW spectroscopy was applied to investigate the growth of polymer nanoparticles in-line during their synthesis. Examples cover polymerization of styrene at 20 wt%, semi-batch polymerization of vinyl acetate up to solid fractions of 50 wt%, and starved feed copolymerization of acrylate-based monomers [6] up to 40 wt%. For example, in the case of the synthesis of polyvinyl acetate, it could be observed in-line that the growth of the polymer nanoparticles only commenced after a significant amount of monomer had been fed into the reactor (approx. 20 wt%), thus indicating that during the first hour after polymerization start mainly particle nucleation occurred. The results obtained with respect to particle size agreed well with off-line dynamic and static light scattering reference experiments, which required sampling and sample dilution. By the use of multiple laser wavelengths for PDW spectroscopy, an estimation of the particle size distribution during synthesis can be obtained as well [2]. In the case of polyvinyl acetate, the findings indicate an increasing particle size distribution width during its synthesis. Based on the estimation of the particle size distribution, particle numbers and particle growth rates can be calculated, thus providing access for an increased process understanding and finally an approach for real-time process control during synthesis of polymer nanoparticles in concentrated dispersions. [1] Bressel L., Hass R., Reich O., Particle sizing in highly turbid dispersions by photon density wave spectroscopy, J. Quant. Spectrosc. Radiat. Transf. 126:122-129 (2013). [2] Hass R., Münzberg M., Bressel L., Reich O., Industrial applications of Photon Density Wave spectroscopy for in-line particle sizing, Appl. Opt. 52:1423-1431 (2013). [3] Fishkin J.B., Fantini S., van de Ven M.J., Gratton E., Gigahertz photon density waves in a turbid medium: Theory and experiments, Phys. Rev. E 53:2307-2319 (1996). [4] Richter S.M., Shinde R.R., Balgi G.V., Sevick-Muraca E.M., Particle sizing using frequency domain photon migration, Part. Part. Syst. Charact. 15:9-15. (1998). [5] Hass R., Munzke D., Vargas Ruiz S., Tippmann J., Reich O., Optical monitoring of chemical processes in turbid biogenic liquid dispersions by photon density wave spectroscopy, Anal. Bioanal. Chem. 407:2791-2802 (2015). [6] Hass R., Reich O., Photon Density Wave spectroscopy for dilution-free sizing of highly concentrated nanoparticles during starved-feed polymerization, ChemPhysChem 12:2572-2575 (2011)

Hierarchical top-down control of biodiversity in agricultural landscapes across organisational levels and spatial scales

Biodiversity is one of the fundamental manifestations of life. Nevertheless, is has been increasingly threatened by anthropogenic activities. Land-use change is predicted to have the largest global impact on biodiversity by the year 2100. In European countries, land use is dominated by agriculture which shapes more than half of the land area. In the 20th century, industrialisation supported major changes in agricultural land use, which led to significant declines in biodiversity. These changes were driven by both the intensification of agricultural land management and a loss of area, connectivity and diversity of semi-natural habitats. Since multiple aspects of agrarian land-use change will affect not only species richness but all levels of biodiversity such as genes, individuals, populations, communities, landscapes and ecosystems in specific ways and act across different spatial scales, a detailed knowledge about the relative effects on particular dimensions of biodiversity is important for ecological theory and biodiversity research. The principal objective of this thesis is to explore the relative effects of scale and land-use changes on major organisational levels of biodiversity in European agricultural landscapes. Therefore, this thesis deals with three different aspects of biodiversity realised in the same landscapes: genetics, populations and communities. The first part deals with the spatial genetic structure of the land snail Cepaea nemoralis (L.) in a medium fragmented landscape at the local and landscape scale. The second part focuses on habitat modelling relating occurrence patterns in populations of the butterfly Pararge aegeria (L.) to environmental variables. The third part analyses two aspects of communities. Firstly, we related the similarities among local plant and arthropod communities to land-use variables at the landscape scale while controlling for local effects. We used similarities to consider species identities and abundances. Secondly, the relative effects of land-use factors at three spatial scales (region, landscape, local) on compositional and ecological aspects of local arthropod communities were investigated. Our studies emphasise that environmental change will affect biodiversity significantly at all major organisational levels. Population genetics, population structure, species richness, community similarity, community composition and ecological community characteristics, all responded to environmental factors but in a specific way. In order to address the fundamental question of which factors determine certain biodiversity levels, we disentangled the relative effects of single environmental factors that act on different spatial scales. All three analysed levels of biodiversity (genetics, populations, communities) revealed a clear trend of increasing importance of scale from the local level to the landscape and finally to the region. The genetic diversity of the land snail Cepaea nemoralis was not affected by local features such as patch size or habitat diversity, whereas the observed metapopulation structure indicated a pronounced effect of landscape features. The population response of the butterfly Pararge aegeria was a bit more complex. Under beneficial environmental conditions the impact of local and landscape-scale factors was similar but low. However, adverse conditions revealed an increasing effect of scale from local factors (suitable habitat) to landscape features (number of woody patches) and finally to regional factors (climate). Likewise, the analysis of community turnover, species composition and ecological groups supported these findings and were remarkably similar even between arthropod groups that differ markedly in their ecology. The analysis of biodiversity in agricultural landscapes across organisational levels and spatial scales supported a top-down hierarchical theory of biodiversity. It predicts that local communities are assembled from a regional species pool, which is modulated by large-scale factors such as climate or evolutionary and biogeographical history, through a series of hierarchical filters at the landscape scale and, to a lower extent, at the local scale according to both dispersal- and niche-assembly processes. Dispersal is suggested to be one of the main drivers of biodiversity at the landscape scale. Consequently, land-use change that affects the connectivity of habitats will significantly affect biodiversity by diminishing or even disrupting genetic, population and community processes. However, real species are not entirely neutral as the effects of niche-assembly related processes showed. This calls for a further unification of biodiversity theories that should consider species identities and their ecological role as well as their dispersal ability and spatial patterns across a variety of spatial and temporal scales if one wants to understand the multifaceted manifestations of live

Do local governments tax homeowner communities differently?

This paper investigates whether and how strongly the share of homeowners in a community affects residential property taxation by local governments. Different from renters, homeowners bear the full property tax burden irrespective of local market conditions, and the tax is more salient to them. "Homeowner communities" may hence oppose high property taxes in order to protect their housing wealth. Using granular spatial data from a complete housing inventory in the 2011 German Census and historical war damages as a source of exogenous variation in local homeownership, we provide empirical evidence that otherwise identical jurisdictions charge significantly lower property taxes when the share of homeowners in their population is higher. This result is invariant to local market conditions, which suggests tax salience as the key mechanism behind this effect. We find positive spatial dependence in tax multipliers, indicative of property tax mimicking by local governments

Remote sensing of bush encroachment on commercial cattle farms in semi-arid rangelands in Namibia

Bush encroachment is one of the most extensive changes in land cover in Namibia and an urgent problem for cattle farming, rapidly reducing the productivity of the rangeland. Despite the severity of these consequences, a complete and accurate assessment of bush encroached areas is still missing at large. This study aims at assessing bush encroachment on commercial cattle farms in central Namibia by employing remote sensing methods to distinguish between areas covered by bush and open rangeland. Herein we use different classification techniques and vegetation indices to characterize the nature of vegetation cover. Our analysis shows that results are sensitive to specific classifications of indices. As an accuracy assessment could not be run on these results we could not analyze which classification approximates real bush encroachment best. Hence, this study highlights the need for further analysis. Ground truth data, in the form of field mappings, high resolution aerial photographs or local expert knowledge are needed to gain further insights and produce reliable results.remote sensing, semi-arid rangelands, cattle farming, bush encroachment

On robust cross-validation for nonparametric smoothing

Procedures for local-constant smoothing are investigated in a broad variety of data situations with outliers and jumps. Moving window and nearest neighbour versions of mean and median smoothers are considered, as well as double window and linear hybrid smoothers. For the choice of the window width or the number of neighbours the different estimators are combined with each of several cross-validation criteria like least squares, least absolute deviations, and median-cross-validation. It is identified, which method works best in which data scenarios. Although there is not a single overall best robust smoothing procedure, a robust cross-validation criterion, called least trimmed squares-cross-validation, gives good results for most smoothing methods and data situations, with cross-validation based on least absolute deviations being a strong competitor, particularly if there are jumps, but little problems with outliers in the data