Analysis of the Red and Green Optical Absorption Spectrum of Gas Phase Ammonia

Room temperature NH3 absorption spectra recorded at the Kitt Peak National Solar Observatory in 1980 are analyzed. The spectra cover two regions in the visible: 15,200 - 15,700 cm-1 and 17,950 - 18,250 cm-1. These high overtone rotation-vibration spectra are analyzed using both combination differences and variational line lists. Two variational line lists were computed using the TROVE nuclear motion program: one is based on an ab initio potential energy surface (PES) while the other used a semi-empirical PES. Ab initio dipole moment surfaces are used in both cases. 95 energy levels with J = 1 - 7 are determined from analysis of the experimental spectrum in the 5vNH (red) region and 46 for 6vNH (green) region. These levels span four vibrational bands in each of the two regions, associated with stretching overtones

Comparative route of administration studies using therapeutic siRNAs show widespread gene modulation in Dorset sheep

siRNAs comprise a class of drugs that can be programmed to silence any target gene. Chemical engineering efforts resulted in development of divalent siRNAs (di-siRNAs), which support robust and long-term efficacy in rodent and nonhuman primate brains upon direct cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) administration. Oligonucleotide distribution in the CNS is nonuniform, limiting clinical applications. The contribution of CSF infusion placement and dosing regimen on relative accumulation, specifically in the context of large animals, is not well characterized. To our knowledge, we report the first systemic, comparative study investigating the effects of 3 routes of administration - intrastriatal (i.s.), i.c.v., and intrathecal catheter to the cisterna magna (ITC) - and 2 dosing regimens - single and repetitive via an implanted reservoir device - on di-siRNA distribution and accumulation in the CNS of Dorset sheep. CSF injections (i.c.v. and ITC) resulted in similar distribution and accumulation across brain regions. Repeated dosing increased homogeneity, with greater relative deep brain accumulation. Conversely, i.s. administration supported region-specific delivery. These results suggest that dosing regimen, not CSF infusion placement, may equalize siRNA accumulation and efficacy throughout the brain. These findings inform the planning and execution of preclinical and clinical studies using siRNA therapeutics in the CNS

LSST: from Science Drivers to Reference Design and Anticipated Data Products

(Abridged) We describe here the most ambitious survey currently planned in the optical, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). A vast array of science will be enabled by a single wide-deep-fast sky survey, and LSST will have unique survey capability in the faint time domain. The LSST design is driven by four main science themes: probing dark energy and dark matter, taking an inventory of the Solar System, exploring the transient optical sky, and mapping the Milky Way. LSST will be a wide-field ground-based system sited at Cerro Pach\'{o}n in northern Chile. The telescope will have an 8.4 m (6.5 m effective) primary mirror, a 9.6 deg$^2$ field of view, and a 3.2 Gigapixel camera. The standard observing sequence will consist of pairs of 15-second exposures in a given field, with two such visits in each pointing in a given night. With these repeats, the LSST system is capable of imaging about 10,000 square degrees of sky in a single filter in three nights. The typical 5$\sigma$ point-source depth in a single visit in $r$ will be $\sim 24.5$ (AB). The project is in the construction phase and will begin regular survey operations by 2022. The survey area will be contained within 30,000 deg$^2$ with $\delta<+34.5^\circ$, and will be imaged multiple times in six bands, $ugrizy$, covering the wavelength range 320--1050 nm. About 90\% of the observing time will be devoted to a deep-wide-fast survey mode which will uniformly observe a 18,000 deg$^2$ region about 800 times (summed over all six bands) during the anticipated 10 years of operations, and yield a coadded map to $r\sim27.5$. The remaining 10\% of the observing time will be allocated to projects such as a Very Deep and Fast time domain survey. The goal is to make LSST data products, including a relational database of about 32 trillion observations of 40 billion objects, available to the public and scientists around the world.Comment: 57 pages, 32 color figures, version with high-resolution figures available from https://www.lsst.org/overvie

Sedimentation rates in the Makarov Basin, central Arctic Ocean: A paleomagnetic and rock magnetic approach

Three long sediment cores from the Makarov Basin have been subjected to detailed paleomagnetic and rock magnetic analyses. Investigated sediments are dominated by normal polarity including short reversal excursions, indicating that most of the sediments are of Brunhes age. In general, the recovered sediments show only low to moderate variability in concentration and grain size of the remanence-carrying minerals. Estimations of relative paleointensity variations yielded a well-documented succession of pronounced lows and highs that could be correlated to published reference curves. However, together with five accelerator mass spectrometry C-14 ages and an incomplete Be-10 record, still two different interpretations of the paleomagnetic data are possible, with long-term sedimentation rates of either 1.3 or 4 cm kyr(-1) However, both models implicate highly variable sedimentation rates of up to 10 cm kyr(-1), and abrupt changes in rock magnetic parameters might even indicate several hiatuses

Information field theory for cosmological perturbation reconstruction and non-linear signal analysis

We develop information field theory (IFT) as a means of Bayesian inference on spatially distributed signals, the information fields. A didactical approach is attempted. Starting from general considerations on the nature of measurements, signals, noise, and their relation to a physical reality, we derive the information Hamiltonian, the source field, propagator, and interaction terms. Free IFT reproduces the well known Wiener-filter theory. Interacting IFT can be diagrammatically expanded, for which we provide the Feynman rules in position-, Fourier-, and spherical harmonics space, and the Boltzmann-Shannon information measure. The theory should be applicable in many fields. However, here, two cosmological signal recovery problems are discussed in their IFT-formulation. 1) Reconstruction of the cosmic large-scale structure matter distribution from discrete galaxy counts in incomplete galaxy surveys within a simple model of galaxy formation. We show that a Gaussian signal, which should resemble the initial density perturbations of the Universe, observed with a strongly non-linear, incomplete and Poissonian-noise affected response, as the processes of structure and galaxy formation and observations provide, can be reconstructed thanks to the virtue of a response-renormalization flow equation. 2) We design a filter to detect local non-linearities in the cosmic microwave background, which are predicted from some Early-Universe inflationary scenarios, and expected due to measurement imperfections. This filter is the optimal Bayes' estimator up to linear order in the non-linearity parameter and can be used even to construct sky maps of non-linearities in the data.Comment: 38 pages, 6 figures, LaTeX; version accepted by PR

Development and Validation of Computational Fluid Dynamics Models for Prediction of Heat Transfer and Thermal Microenvironments of Corals

We present Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models of the coupled dynamics of water flow, heat transfer and irradiance in and around corals to predict temperatures experienced by corals. These models were validated against controlled laboratory experiments, under constant and transient irradiance, for hemispherical and branching corals. Our CFD models agree very well with experimental studies. A linear relationship between irradiance and coral surface warming was evident in both the simulation and experimental result agreeing with heat transfer theory. However, CFD models for the steady state simulation produced a better fit to the linear relationship than the experimental data, likely due to experimental error in the empirical measurements. The consistency of our modelling results with experimental observations demonstrates the applicability of CFD simulations, such as the models developed here, to coral bleaching studies. A study of the influence of coral skeletal porosity and skeletal bulk density on surface warming was also undertaken, demonstrating boundary layer behaviour, and interstitial flow magnitude and temperature profiles in coral cross sections. Our models compliment recent studies showing systematic changes in these parameters in some coral colonies and have utility in the prediction of coral bleaching