Efficacy of animal origin products and ajwain powder against honey bee diseases in Apis mellifera (Linnaeus) colonies in Uttarakhand-A novel eco-friendly approach

The studies to manage the honey bee bacterial European foul brood ( EFB) disease caused by Melisococcus plutonius and ectoparasitic brood mite disease caused by Varroa destructor in the colonies of Apis mellifera (L.) at different locations of Uttarakhand were conducted during 2012- 2013 by applying eco-friendly formulations i.e. spraying of cow urine (desi cow breed), plant decoctions prepared in cow urine, cow dung cake and cow dung ash powders , ajwain seed powder and compared to an antibiotic, terramycin sugar syrup and synthetic chemicals, sulphur and thymol powder with two applications in a month. The data revealed that the cow urine sprays @ 50, 75 and 100% reduced the disease infection to below detectable limit in 10 to 14 days, respectively, as terramycin treated infected colonies where only 50-55% recovery was seen in EFB infection with highest sealed worker brood areas ( SWBA) in cow urine treated honeybee colonies in comparison to terramycin and untreated colonies. Similarly, on the other hand, cow urine (100%) significantly reduced brood mite infestation (72.10%) with highest mean mite fall (48.73) and highest (SWBA) (854.00 cm2) followed by ajwain powder with reduction in brood mi te infestation(65.84%) with mite fall (46.39) and SWBA (749.00 cm2), cow dung powder with reduction in brood mite infestation (71.35%) ,mite fall ( 42.87), SWBA (682.33 cm2), , followed by cow dung ash powder, cow urine @ 25%, in comparison to plant decoctions prepared in cow urine, synthetic chemicals i.e. thymol and sulphur powder after 4 weeks of treatments. Thus, the animal origin products and ajwain powder can serve as apotential eco- friendly measure for management of honeybee diseases in A. mellifera colonies at different locations of Uttarakhand as they significantly increased sealed worker brood area without affecting the activities of workers, queen bee and bee brood in comparison to chemicals and plant decoctions

RealTHASC—a cyber-physical XR testbed for AI-supported real-time human autonomous systems collaborations

Today’s research on human-robot teaming requires the ability to test artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms for perception and decision-making in complex real-world environments. Field experiments, also referred to as experiments “in the wild,” do not provide the level of detailed ground truth necessary for thorough performance comparisons and validation. Experiments on pre-recorded real-world data sets are also significantly limited in their usefulness because they do not allow researchers to test the effectiveness of active robot perception and control or decision strategies in the loop. Additionally, research on large human-robot teams requires tests and experiments that are too costly even for the industry and may result in considerable time losses when experiments go awry. The novel Real-Time Human Autonomous Systems Collaborations (RealTHASC) facility at Cornell University interfaces real and virtual robots and humans with photorealistic simulated environments by implementing new concepts for the seamless integration of wearable sensors, motion capture, physics-based simulations, robot hardware and virtual reality (VR). The result is an extended reality (XR) testbed by which real robots and humans in the laboratory are able to experience virtual worlds, inclusive of virtual agents, through real-time visual feedback and interaction. VR body tracking by DeepMotion is employed in conjunction with the OptiTrack motion capture system to transfer every human subject and robot in the real physical laboratory space into a synthetic virtual environment, thereby constructing corresponding human/robot avatars that not only mimic the behaviors of the real agents but also experience the virtual world through virtual sensors and transmit the sensor data back to the real human/robot agent, all in real time. New cross-domain synthetic environments are created in RealTHASC using Unreal Engine™, bridging the simulation-to-reality gap and allowing for the inclusion of underwater/ground/aerial autonomous vehicles, each equipped with a multi-modal sensor suite. The experimental capabilities offered by RealTHASC are demonstrated through three case studies showcasing mixed real/virtual human/robot interactions in diverse domains, leveraging and complementing the benefits of experimentation in simulation and in the real world

Open data from the first and second observing runs of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo

Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo are monitoring the sky and collecting gravitational-wave strain data with sufficient sensitivity to detect signals routinely. In this paper we describe the data recorded by these instruments during their first and second observing runs. The main data products are gravitational-wave strain time series sampled at 16384 Hz. The datasets that include this strain measurement can be freely accessed through the Gravitational Wave Open Science Center at http://gw-openscience.org, together with data-quality information essential for the analysis of LIGO and Virgo data, documentation, tutorials, and supporting software

Search for intermediate mass black hole binaries in the first observing run of Advanced LIGO

International audienceDuring their first observational run, the two Advanced LIGO detectors attained an unprecedented sensitivity, resulting in the first direct detections of gravitational-wave signals produced by stellar-mass binary black hole systems. This paper reports on an all-sky search for gravitational waves (GWs) from merging intermediate mass black hole binaries (IMBHBs). The combined results from two independent search techniques were used in this study: the first employs a matched-filter algorithm that uses a bank of filters covering the GW signal parameter space, while the second is a generic search for GW transients (bursts). No GWs from IMBHBs were detected; therefore, we constrain the rate of several classes of IMBHB mergers. The most stringent limit is obtained for black holes of individual mass 100  M⊙, with spins aligned with the binary orbital angular momentum. For such systems, the merger rate is constrained to be less than 0.93  Gpc−3 yr−1 in comoving units at the 90% confidence level, an improvement of nearly 2 orders of magnitude over previous upper limits

First low-frequency Einstein@Home all-sky search for continuous gravitational waves in Advanced LIGO data

International audienceWe report results of a deep all-sky search for periodic gravitational waves from isolated neutron stars in data from the first Advanced LIGO observing run. This search investigates the low frequency range of Advanced LIGO data, between 20 and 100 Hz, much of which was not explored in initial LIGO. The search was made possible by the computing power provided by the volunteers of the Einstein@Home project. We find no significant signal candidate and set the most stringent upper limits to date on the amplitude of gravitational wave signals from the target population, corresponding to a sensitivity depth of 48.7  [1/Hz]. At the frequency of best strain sensitivity, near 100 Hz, we set 90% confidence upper limits of 1.8×10-25. At the low end of our frequency range, 20 Hz, we achieve upper limits of 3.9×10-24. At 55 Hz we can exclude sources with ellipticities greater than 10-5 within 100 pc of Earth with fiducial value of the principal moment of inertia of 1038  kg m2

First narrow-band search for continuous gravitational waves from known pulsars in advanced detector data

International audienceSpinning neutron stars asymmetric with respect to their rotation axis are potential sources of continuous gravitational waves for ground-based interferometric detectors. In the case of known pulsars a fully coherent search, based on matched filtering, which uses the position and rotational parameters obtained from electromagnetic observations, can be carried out. Matched filtering maximizes the signal-to-noise (SNR) ratio, but a large sensitivity loss is expected in case of even a very small mismatch between the assumed and the true signal parameters. For this reason, narrow-band analysis methods have been developed, allowing a fully coherent search for gravitational waves from known pulsars over a fraction of a hertz and several spin-down values. In this paper we describe a narrow-band search of 11 pulsars using data from Advanced LIGO’s first observing run. Although we have found several initial outliers, further studies show no significant evidence for the presence of a gravitational wave signal. Finally, we have placed upper limits on the signal strain amplitude lower than the spin-down limit for 5 of the 11 targets over the bands searched; in the case of J1813-1749 the spin-down limit has been beaten for the first time. For an additional 3 targets, the median upper limit across the search bands is below the spin-down limit. This is the most sensitive narrow-band search for continuous gravitational waves carried out so far

Search for gravitational waves from Scorpius X-1 with a hidden Markov model in O3 LIGO data

Results are presented for a semicoherent search for continuous gravitational waves from the low-mass x-ray binary Scorpius X-1, using a hidden Markov model (HMM) to allow for spin wandering. This search improves on previous HMM-based searches of Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory data by including the orbital period in the search template grid, and by analyzing data from the latest (third) observing run. In the frequency range searched, from 60 to 500 Hz, we find no evidence of gravitational radiation. This is the most sensitive search for Scorpius X-1 using a HMM to date. For the most sensitive subband, starting at 256.06 Hz, we report an upper limit on gravitational wave strain (at 95% confidence) of h 95 % 0 = 6.16 × 10 − 26 , assuming the orbital inclination angle takes its electromagnetically restricted value ι = 4 4 ° . The upper limits on gravitational wave strain reported here are on average a factor of ∼ 3 lower than in the second observing run HMM search. This is the first Scorpius X-1 HMM search with upper limits that reach below the indirect torque-balance limit for certain subbands, assuming ι = 4 4 °

Search for intermediate-mass black hole binaries in the third observing run of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo

International audienceIntermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) span the approximate mass range 100−105 M⊙, between black holes (BHs) that formed by stellar collapse and the supermassive BHs at the centers of galaxies. Mergers of IMBH binaries are the most energetic gravitational-wave sources accessible by the terrestrial detector network. Searches of the first two observing runs of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo did not yield any significant IMBH binary signals. In the third observing run (O3), the increased network sensitivity enabled the detection of GW190521, a signal consistent with a binary merger of mass ∼150 M⊙ providing direct evidence of IMBH formation. Here, we report on a dedicated search of O3 data for further IMBH binary mergers, combining both modeled (matched filter) and model-independent search methods. We find some marginal candidates, but none are sufficiently significant to indicate detection of further IMBH mergers. We quantify the sensitivity of the individual search methods and of the combined search using a suite of IMBH binary signals obtained via numerical relativity, including the effects of spins misaligned with the binary orbital axis, and present the resulting upper limits on astrophysical merger rates. Our most stringent limit is for equal mass and aligned spin BH binary of total mass 200 M⊙ and effective aligned spin 0.8 at 0.056 Gpc−3 yr−1 (90% confidence), a factor of 3.5 more constraining than previous LIGO-Virgo limits. We also update the estimated rate of mergers similar to GW190521 to 0.08 Gpc−3 yr−1.Key words: gravitational waves / stars: black holes / black hole physicsCorresponding author: W. Del Pozzo, e-mail: [email protected]† Deceased, August 2020