Background: The zona incerta (ZI) is a small structure in the deep brain first identified by Auguste Forel for which robust in vivo visualization has remained elusive. The increased inherent signal from ultra-high field (7-Tesla or greater; 7T) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) presents an opportunity to see structures not previously visible. In this study, we investigated the possibility of using quantitative T1 mapping at 7T to visualize the ZI region. Methods: We recruited healthy participants (N=32) and patients being considered for deep brain stimulation therapy as part of a prospective imaging study at 7T. Computational methods were used to process and fuse images to produce a high-resolution group average from which ZI anatomy could be delineated. Results: We pooled 7T data using image fusion methods and found that the contrast from quantitative T1 mapping was strikingly similar to classic histological staining, permitting facile identification of the ZI and nearby structures in reference to conventional stereotactic atlases. Conclusions: Using computational neuroimaging techniques, we demonstrate for the first time that the ZI is visible in vivo. Furthermore, we determined that this nuclear region can be decoupled from surrounding fibre pathways. This work paves the way for more accurate patient-specific optimization of deep brain targets for neuromodulation.

Local attitudes towards carnivores often reflect the degree of damage they are perceived to cause. Consequently, understanding the interactions between people and these species is essential to conservation efforts. This study investigated local perceptions of three Cerrado canid species and current chicken management practices, to identify the potential damage they cause and how this relates to peoples’ attitudes towards these species. Results from structured interviews at 50 ranches in Goiás, Brazil, highlighted that general knowledge about Cerrado canids differed significantly by species, with interviewees unable to correctly answer questions about the hoary fox Lycalopex vetulus and crab-eating fox Cerdocyon thous in comparison to the maned wolf Chrysocyon brachyurus. Chicken coops were identified as the most effective method for preventing predation, yet only 44% of respondents employed this method. Using a perceived predation measure, interviewees reported chicken predation by all three Cerrado canids even though most of these events were stated to occur during the day, outside the species’ active periods. Reported predation events were a strong predictor of attitude. Participants who experienced predation events reported they did not like having a Cerrado canid on their property. However, 86% of the respondents agreed that Cerrado canids should nevertheless be protected. Our findings support the need to incorporate the human dimension in canid and broader carnivore conservation issues.

Antimicrobial resistance is a limiting factor for the success of the treatment of infectious diseases and is associated with increased morbidity and cost. The present study aims to evaluate prescribing patterns of antimicrobials and quantify progress in relation to targets for quality improvement in the prescription of antimicrobials in Northern Ireland's secondary care sector using three repetitive point prevalence surveys (PPS) over a 6-year period: the European Surveillance of Antimicrobial Consumption (ESAC-PPS) in 2009 and 2011 and the Global-PPS on Antimicrobial Consumption and Resistance in 2015. Out of 3605 patients surveyed over the three time points, 1239 (34.4%) were treated with an antibiotic, the most frequently prescribed antibiotic groups were a combination of penicillins, including β-lactamase inhibitors. Compliance with hospital antibiotic policies in 2009, 2011 and 2015 were 54.5%, 71.5% and 79.9%, respectively. Likewise, an indication for treatment was recorded in patient notes 88.5%, 87.7% and 90.6% in 2009, 2011 and 2015, respectively, and surgical prophylactic antibiotic prescriptions for >24 h was 3.9%, 3.2% and 0.7% in 2009, 2011 and 2015, respectively. Treatment based on biomarker data was used in 61.5% of cases. In conclusion, a general trend in the improvement of key antimicrobial-related quality indicators was noted. The PPS tool provided a convenient, inexpensive surveillance system of antimicrobial consumption and should be considered an essential component to establish and maintain informed antibiotic stewardship in hospitals.

Analysis of the detailed photometric, kinematic and chemical properties of stellar populations constrains the formation history of the Galaxy. We have completed a photometric survey and initiated a spectroscopic survey, obtaining radial velocities and abundances for volume complete samples of spheroid dwarfs in situ, to distances of a few kpc. Three fields under study are those for which Chiu (Ap. J. Suppl. 1980) obtained proper motions - SA 57 (NGP), SA51 (anticenter field) and SA68. Two of these fields are on the sun - Galactic center meridional plane (SA57 and SA51) so that (U,V) and (V,W) components of space motion respectively may be derived on the basis of the proper motions alone, once distances have been obtained. Our initial distance estimates are from Chiu's photometry and population classes, which are based on the position of the star on the reduced proper motion diagram.

We present a determination of the stellar luminosity function in luminous elliptical galaxies which includes all stars more massive than 0.15 M⊙. This limit corresponds to masses beyond the maximum in the solar neighbourhood stellar mass function, and therefore includes effectively all the luminous mass. Galaxies with X-ray evidence for current massive star formation, also show no evidence for enhanced low mass star formation in their central regions. All elliptical galaxies studied to date have stellar luminosity functions for masses above 0.15 solar masses which do not differ significantly from that in the solar neighbourhood. Elliptical galaxies have stellar bolometric mass-to-light ratios of 2.5< M/L <5.0.

The thick disk is the stellar disk-halo connection. At least near the solar circle, this component is on average as old as the system of disk globular clusters, or ~ 12 Gyr. This implies that it most probably formed early in the process of Galaxy formation, so that its properties – chemical abundances, stellar kinematics and spatial distribution – contain clues to the physics of these stages of Galaxy evolution. Its present-day importance for the interstellar disk-halo connection lies in the evolution of its constituent stars – gas loss through winds on the red giant and asymptotic giant branches, through planetary nebulae prior to white dwarf formation, and through supernovae. This gas loss results in mass injection, momentum injection and energy injection into the interstellar medium from a stellar population with a scale height of ~ 1kpc.

Leibovich et al. argue persuasively that researchers should not assume that approximate number system (ANS) tasks harness an innate sense of number. However, some studies have reported a causal link between ANS tasks and mathematics performance, implicating the ANS in the development of numerical skills. Here we report a p-curve analysis, which indicates that these experimental studies do not contain evidential value.

We present a detailed late-time photometric and spectroscopic study of SN1993J with HST/ACS and Keck LRIS-B. We find a clear signature of a hot star component in the spectra of SN1993J which cannot be explained by the surrounding faint blue stars. This is the first detection of the expected massive binary companion to the red supergiant progenitor and confirms that SN1993J did indeed arise in an interacting binary system.

We summarise the first year of operation of the Medium Deep Survey - a key project of the HST. Two fields in the LMC are discussed and some preliminary scientific results presented. We also comment on image deconvolution for the extragalactic fields observed as part of the Medium Deep Survey.

The analysis of resolved DENIS (Deep Near Infra Red Survey of the Southern Sky) I,J and K band data shows good evidence (≳ 3σ) in the J and K band number counts to support the existence of a kiloparsec-scale bar with its major axis in the first quadrant. A star by star dereddening of this K data combined with supplementary nbL band data (3.6μm) gives number count contrasts consistent with low angle (≲ 20 degrees) bar models in the literature.

We present details of the database from a large Cycle 7 HST project to study the formation and evolution of rich star clusters in the LMC (see Elson et al., this volume). Our data set, which includes NICMOS, WFPC2 and STIS images of 8 clusters, will enable us to derive deep luminosity functions for the clusters and to investigate the universality of the stellar IMF. We will look for age spreads in the youngest clusters, quantify the population of binary stars in the cores of the clusters and at the half-mass radii, and follow the development of mass segregation.

We present deep luminosity functions derived from HST STIS data for three rich LMC clusters (NGC 1805, NGC 1868, and NGC 2209), and for one Galactic globular cluster (NGC 6553). All of the LMC cluster luminosity functions are roughly consistent with a Salpeter IMF or with the solar neighbourhood IMF from Kroupa, Tout & Gilmore (1993). They continue to rise at least to 0.7M ⊙. NGC 1868 shows evidence for mass segregation which may be primordial. A comparison of deep luminsoisty functions for seven Galactic globulars shows that the luminosity functions are eroded at low masses by amounts that are strongly correlated with distance from the Galactic plane.

With HST and WFPC2, galaxies in the Medium Deep Survey can be reliably classified to magnitudes I 814 ≲ 22.0 in the F814W band, at a mean redshift . The main result is the relatively high proportion (~40%) of objects which are in some way irregular or anomalous, and which are of relevance in understanding the origin of the familiar excess population of faint galaxies. These diverse objects include compact galaxies, apparently interacting pairs, galaxies with superluminous starforming regions and diffuse low surface brightness galaxies of various forms. The ‘irregulars’ and ‘peculiar’ galaxies contribute most of the excess counts in the I-band at our limiting magnitude, and may explain the ‘faint blue galaxy’ problem.

IAU Commission 6 “Astronomical Telegrams” had a single business meeting during Honolulu General Assembly of the IAU. It took place on Tuesday, 11 August 2015. The meeting was attended by Hitoshi Yamaoka (President), Daniel Green (Director of the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams, CBAT, via Skype), Steven Chesley (JPL), Paul Chodas (JPL), Alan Gilmore (Canterbury University), Shinjiro Kouzuma (Chukyo University), Paolo Mazzali (Co-Chair of the Supernova Working Group), Elena Pian (Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa), Marion Schmitz (chair IAU Working Group Designations + NED), David Tholen (University of Hawaii), Jana Ticha (Klet Observatory), Milos Tichy (Klet Observatory), Giovanni Valsecchi (INAF\slash Italy), Gareth Williams (Minor Planet Center). Apologies: Nikolai Samus (General Catalogue of Variable Stars, GCVS).

The Gaia Science Alerts project (GSA) aims to augment a precision survey of the Milky Way with a controlled, precision survey of all classes of transient phenomena. While onboard BP/RP spectra from Gaia will ultimately allow us to classify many Gaia Alerts based on Gaia data alone, in the initial phases of the GSA project it is necessary to verify and classify discoveries with ground-based spectroscopic followup. In this article, we describe a subset of the ongoing Gaia Alerts followup programmes, and some of the initial science results from this work.

Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) is an organic conducting polymer that has been the focus of significant research over the last decade, in both energy and biological applications. Most commonly, PEDOT is doped by the artificial polymer polystyrene sulfonate due to the excellent electrical characteristics yielded by this pairing. The biopolymer dextran sulphate (DS) has been recently reported as a promising alternative to PEDOT:PSS for biological application, having electrical properties rivaling PEDOT:PSS, complimented by the potential bioactivity of the polysaccharide. In this work we compared chemical and electrochemical polymerisations of PEDOT:DS in terms of their impact on the electrical, morphological and biological properties of the resultant PEDOT:DS films. Post-growth cyclic voltammograms and UV-Vis analyses revealed comparable redox behaviour and absorbance profiles for the two synthesis approaches. Despite good intrinsic conductivity of particles, the addition of chemically produced PEDOT:DS did not markedly enhance the bulk conductivity of aqueous solutions due to the lack of interconnectivity between adjacent PEDOT:DS particles at achievable concentrations. Scanning electron microscopy revealed significantly greater roughness in films cast from chemically produced PEDOT:DS compared to electropolymerised samples, attributable to the formation of solution phase nanoparticles prior to casting. In cell studies with the L929 cell line, electrochemical polymerisation of PEDOT:DS afforded better integrity of resultant films for surface seeding, whilst chemically polymerised PEDOT:DS appeared to localised at the proliferating cells, suggesting possible applications in drug delivery.

We describe a laboratory plasma physics experiment at Los Alamos National Laboratory that uses two merging supersonic plasma jets formed and launched by pulsed-power-driven railguns. The jets can be formed using any atomic species or mixture available in a compressed-gas bottle and have the following nominal initial parameters at the railgun nozzle exit: ne ≈ ni ~ 1016 cm−3, Te ≈ Ti ≈ 1.4 eV, Vjet ≈ 30–100 km/s, mean charge $\bar{Z}$ ≈ 1, sonic Mach number Ms ≡ Vjet/Cs > 10, jet diameter = 5 cm, and jet length ≈20 cm. Experiments to date have focused on the study of merging-jet dynamics and the shocks that form as a result of the interaction, in both collisional and collisionless regimes with respect to the inter-jet classical ion mean free path, and with and without an applied magnetic field. However, many other studies are also possible, as discussed in this paper.