The GALEX Extended Mission: Surveying UV Tracers of the Hidden Side of Galaxy Evolution

The Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) continues its surveys of the ultraviolet sky. GALEX surveys have supported the following galaxy evolution investigations: calibrating UV as a star formation rate tracer, using wide and deep surveys to measure star formation history, studying the evolution of dust extinction and metallicity, selecting and analyzing galaxies in transitory states, finding local analogs to Lyman Break Galaxies, probing and time-dating star formation in a wide variety of physical regimes. Our continuing mission is focussed on relating star formation history and galaxy evolution paths to the properties of dark matter halos and their assembly history, and on beginning to relate the evolution of galaxies to that of black holes and the intergalactic medium. GALEX has proven that the UV is an ideal band to find and map star formation in low mass, low density objects, and potentially in primordial gas. With future UV missions it may be possible to map emission from the intergalactic and circum-galactic medium, and make a definitive connection between galaxy evolution and the cooling, accretion, heating, and enrichment of gas in the cosmic web

Immanence and Causation in Spinoza

I defend an expanded reading of immanent causation that includes both inherence and causal efficacy; I argue that the latter is required if God is to remain the immanent cause of finite modes

Schanuel's theorem for heights defined via extension fields

Let $k$ be a number field, let $\theta$ be a nonzero algebraic number, and let $H(\cdot)$ be the Weil height on the algebraic numbers. In response to a question by T. Loher and D. W. Masser, we prove an asymptotic formula for the number of $\alpha \in k$ with $H(\alpha \theta)\leq X$. We also prove an asymptotic counting result for a new class of height functions defined via extension fields of $k$. This provides a conceptual framework for Loher and Masser's problem and generalizations thereof. Moreover, we analyze the leading constant in our asymptotic formula for Loher and Masser's problem. In particular, we prove a sharp upper bound in terms of the classical Schanuel constant.Comment: accepted for publication by Ann. Sc. Norm. Super. Pisa Cl. Sci., 201

On the measurement of ecological novelty: scale-eating pupfish are separated by 168 my from other scale-eating fishes.

The colonization of new adaptive zones is widely recognized as one of the hallmarks of adaptive radiation. However, the adoption of novel resources during this process is rarely distinguished from phenotypic change because morphology is a common proxy for ecology. How can we quantify ecological novelty independent of phenotype? Our study is split into two parts: we first document a remarkable example of ecological novelty, scale-eating (lepidophagy), within a rapidly-evolving adaptive radiation of Cyprinodon pupfishes on San Salvador Island, Bahamas. This specialized predatory niche is known in several other fish groups, but is not found elsewhere among the 1,500 species of atherinomorphs. Second, we quantify this ecological novelty by measuring the time-calibrated phylogenetic distance in years to the most closely-related species with convergent ecology. We find that scale-eating pupfish are separated by 168 million years of evolution from the nearest scale-eating fish. We apply this approach to a variety of examples and highlight the frequent decoupling of ecological novelty from phenotypic divergence. We observe that novel ecology is not always tightly correlated with rates of phenotypic or species diversification, particularly within recent adaptive radiations, necessitating the use of additional measures of ecological novelty independent of phenotype

Hybrid gene misregulation in multiple developing tissues within a recent adaptive radiation of Cyprinodon pupfishes.

Genetic incompatibilities constitute the final stages of reproductive isolation and speciation, but little is known about incompatibilities that occur within recent adaptive radiations among closely related diverging populations. Crossing divergent species to form hybrids can break up coadapted variation, resulting in genetic incompatibilities within developmental networks shaping divergent adaptive traits. We crossed two closely related sympatric Cyprinodon pupfish species-a dietary generalist and a specialized molluscivore-and measured expression levels in their F1 hybrids to identify regulatory variation underlying the novel craniofacial morphology found in this recent microendemic adaptive radiation. We extracted mRNA from eight day old whole-larvae tissue and from craniofacial tissues dissected from 17-20 day old larvae to compare gene expression between a total of seven F1 hybrids and 24 individuals from parental species populations. We found 3.9% of genes differentially expressed between generalists and molluscivores in whole-larvae tissues and 0.6% of genes differentially expressed in craniofacial tissue. We found that 2.1% of genes were misregulated in whole-larvae hybrids whereas 19.1% of genes were misregulated in hybrid craniofacial tissues, after correcting for sequencing biases. We also measured allele specific expression across 15,429 heterozygous sites to identify putative compensatory regulatory mechanisms underlying differential expression between generalists and molluscivores. Together, our results highlight the importance of considering misregulation as an early indicator of genetic incompatibilities in the context of rapidly diverging adaptive radiations and suggests that compensatory regulatory divergence drives hybrid gene misregulation in developing tissues that give rise to novel craniofacial traits

Quasi-isometries Between Groups with Two-Ended Splittings

We construct `structure invariants' of a one-ended, finitely presented group that describe the way in which the factors of its JSJ decomposition over two-ended subgroups fit together. For groups satisfying two technical conditions, these invariants reduce the problem of quasi-isometry classification of such groups to the problem of relative quasi-isometry classification of the factors of their JSJ decompositions. The first condition is that their JSJ decompositions have two-ended cylinder stabilizers. The second is that every factor in their JSJ decompositions is either `relatively rigid' or `hanging'. Hyperbolic groups always satisfy the first condition, and it is an open question whether they always satisfy the second. The same methods also produce invariants that reduce the problem of classification of one-ended hyperbolic groups up to homeomorphism of their Gromov boundaries to the problem of classification of the factors of their JSJ decompositions up to relative boundary homeomorphism type.Comment: 61pages, 6 figure

Financial Stability and Monetary Policy

We argue that although UK monetary policy can be described using a Taylor rule in 1992-2007, this rule fails during the recent financial crisis. We interpret this as reflecting a change in policymakers’ preferences to give priority to stabilising the financial system. Developing a model of optimal monetary policy with preference shifts, we show this provides a superior empirical model over crisis and pre-crisis periods. We find no response of interest rates to inflation during the financial crisis, possibly implying that the UK abandoned inflation targeting during the financial crisis.monetary policy, financial crisis