Bereavement and grief are frequently experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic given widespread mortality. However, losses extend beyond deaths to include cancelled plans and routines, separation from family and friends, and unemployment. It is essential to better understand the multifaceted and complex losses experienced by older adults throughout the pandemic. We analysed 2,587 open-ended survey responses collected online in May to July 2020 from the COVID-19 Coping Study, a mixed-methods study of US adults aged 55 and older. Participants were on average 67 years old (standard deviation = 7.2), over two-thirds female and largely white. Qualitative thematic analysis identified diverse sources of grief, sadness and loss. Themes ranged from death and bereavement to anticipatory grief, loss of agency, cancelled plans and missed milestones, losing social contact and physical touch, health struggles, loss of normalcy and daily routines, and societal and economic woes. The results highlight the varied and highly personal nature of everyday grief and loss among ageing adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sources of grief extended beyond death to include both tangible and intangible losses with expectations of long-term consequences. These findings may inform the development of family and community supports, including mental health services, to address complex subjective experiences of grief and loss since the pandemic onset. Interventions are needed to support healing and hope in vulnerable and resilient ageing populations.

We present an overview of the Middle Ages Galaxy Properties with Integral Field Spectroscopy (MAGPI) survey, a Large Program on the European Southern Observatory Very Large Telescope. MAGPI is designed to study the physical drivers of galaxy transformation at a lookback time of 3–4 Gyr, during which the dynamical, morphological, and chemical properties of galaxies are predicted to evolve significantly. The survey uses new medium-deep adaptive optics aided Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) observations of fields selected from the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey, providing a wealth of publicly available ancillary multi-wavelength data. With these data, MAGPI will map the kinematic and chemical properties of stars and ionised gas for a sample of 60 massive ( ${>}7 \times 10^{10} {\mathrm{M}}_\odot$ ) central galaxies at $0.25 < z <0.35$ in a representative range of environments (isolated, groups and clusters). The spatial resolution delivered by MUSE with Ground Layer Adaptive Optics ( $0.6-0.8$ arcsec FWHM) will facilitate a direct comparison with Integral Field Spectroscopy surveys of the nearby Universe, such as SAMI and MaNGA, and at higher redshifts using adaptive optics, for example, SINS. In addition to the primary (central) galaxy sample, MAGPI will deliver resolved and unresolved spectra for as many as 150 satellite galaxies at $0.25 < z <0.35$ , as well as hundreds of emission-line sources at $z < 6$ . This paper outlines the science goals, survey design, and observing strategy of MAGPI. We also present a first look at the MAGPI data, and the theoretical framework to which MAGPI data will be compared using the current generation of cosmological hydrodynamical simulations including EAGLE, Magneticum, HORIZON-AGN, and Illustris-TNG. Our results show that cosmological hydrodynamical simulations make discrepant predictions in the spatially resolved properties of galaxies at $z\approx 0.3$ . MAGPI observations will place new constraints and allow for tangible improvements in galaxy formation theory.

The self or identity is often seriously challenged by the emergence of psychotic symptoms. A first reason for that is most likely due to the traumatic experience caused by the sudden emergence of hallucinations or persecutory ideas that challenge both the representation of oneself and that of the world and others. A second reason is linked to the social consequences of having a mental illness and of being assigned with the label of “mentally ill or disabled person”. A third relates to the patients’ cognitive impairment that alters their ability to take distance from these self-challenging events, to give a meaning to these experiences and to build coherent narratives of their life that integrate a great variety of personal experiences such as turning points or unpleasant events. For these reasons, recovering from a severe mental illness is a process through which the self evolves by integrating the lessons of past personal events, building new representations of oneself and looking to new directions for future projects. Excerpts of patients’ narratives collected in experimental setting will be presented in order to illustrate how indexes of recovery can be measured in self-narratives and how they help identifying the steps of self-recovery that have been identified in qualitative research on patients with schizophrenia .

In recent years, the discovery of massive quasars at $z\sim7$ has provided a striking challenge to our understanding of the origin and growth of supermassive black holes in the early Universe. Mounting observational and theoretical evidence indicates the viability of massive seeds, formed by the collapse of supermassive stars, as a progenitor model for such early, massive accreting black holes. Although considerable progress has been made in our theoretical understanding, many questions remain regarding how (and how often) such objects may form, how they live and die, and how next generation observatories may yield new insight into the origin of these primordial titans. This review focusses on our present understanding of this remarkable formation scenario, based on the discussions held at the Monash Prato Centre from November 20 to 24, 2017, during the workshop ‘Titans of the Early Universe: The Origin of the First Supermassive Black Holes’.

The search for life in the Universe is a fundamental problem of astrobiology and modern science. The current progress in the detection of terrestrial-type exoplanets has opened a new avenue in the characterization of exoplanetary atmospheres and in the search for biosignatures of life with the upcoming ground-based and space missions. To specify the conditions favourable for the origin, development and sustainment of life as we know it in other worlds, we need to understand the nature of global (astrospheric), and local (atmospheric and surface) environments of exoplanets in the habitable zones (HZs) around G-K-M dwarf stars including our young Sun. Global environment is formed by propagated disturbances from the planet-hosting stars in the form of stellar flares, coronal mass ejections, energetic particles and winds collectively known as astrospheric space weather. Its characterization will help in understanding how an exoplanetary ecosystem interacts with its host star, as well as in the specification of the physical, chemical and biochemical conditions that can create favourable and/or detrimental conditions for planetary climate and habitability along with evolution of planetary internal dynamics over geological timescales. A key linkage of (astro)physical, chemical and geological processes can only be understood in the framework of interdisciplinary studies with the incorporation of progress in heliophysics, astrophysics, planetary and Earth sciences. The assessment of the impacts of host stars on the climate and habitability of terrestrial (exo)planets will significantly expand the current definition of the HZ to the biogenic zone and provide new observational strategies for searching for signatures of life. The major goal of this paper is to describe and discuss the current status and recent progress in this interdisciplinary field in light of presentations and discussions during the NASA Nexus for Exoplanetary System Science funded workshop ‘Exoplanetary Space Weather, Climate and Habitability’ and to provide a new roadmap for the future development of the emerging field of exoplanetary science and astrobiology.

During the installation of the buffer in a deposition hole of an HLW repository, it is necessary to control water flow from the fractured rock into the deposition hole. Water flow with inflow rate greater than 0.001 l/min may cause piping and erosion of the buffer, and may trigger mass redistribution of the buffer, sedimentation and material separation of bentonite materials. This paper describes the condition of parameters which cause piping and erosion; revised conditions which keep advection, inflow rate, buffer component, gap between buffer materials, gap between outside wall and buffer block, and type of water. The results from the experiment show the condition of the self-sealing function of bentonite materials, formation of piping, allowable limit of inflow rate in the case of an Na type bentonite block of 70 wt.% Kunigel V1 and 30 wt.% silica sand, or a pellet of 100 wt.% Kunigel V1. Piping and erosion continue until the engineered barrier (EB) is filled with water, and then the hydraulic gradient becomes small. Piping may lead to erosion and redistribution of material which needs to be taken into account in the long-term performance assessment.

Parasibirskite, with the ideal formula Ca2B2O5·H2O, is a new mineral species found at Fuka, Okayama Prefecture, Japan. It is a polymorph of sibirskite, CaHBO3, and occurs as subparallel aggregates of tabular crystals up to 40 × 20 × 3 µm in size. Associated minerals are takedaite, olshanskyite, sibirskite, frolovite and calcite. The mineral is white, and has a weak pearly luster. Optically, the mineral is biaxial positive, α 1.556(2), β 1.593(2), γ 1.663(2) (λ 589 nm). The Vickers microhardness of aggregates is 121 kg mm−2. The mineral is monoclinic with space group of P21/m, a 6.722(4), b 5.437(2), c 3.555(2) Å, β 93.00(5)°, V 129.8(2), Å3. The strongest lines in the X-ray powder pattern [d in Å (I)(hkl)] are 2.237(100)(300), 6.73(70)(100), 2.975(60)(011), 3.354(30)(200), 2.855(20)(210) and 1.776(20) (002). Wet chemical analysis, electron-microprobe analysis and ICP emission spectrometry give the values CaO 56.06 %, B2O3 34.10 %, H2O 9.97 % and total 100.13%. The empirical formula calculated on the basis of O = 6 is Ca1.985B1.945O4.901·1.099H2O, for Z = 1, Dcalc 2.54 and Dmeas 2.50(1) g cm−3. Parasibirskite is formed by hydrothermal alteration of takedaite.

Takedaite, Ca3B2O6, has been found in crystalline limestone near gehlenite−spurrite skarns at Fuka, Okayama Prefecture. It occurs as aggregates of granular crystals up to 0.8 mm long and 0.3 mm wide. The mineral is associated with nifontovite, olshanskyite, pentahydroborite, frolovite, sibirskite, calcite and an unidentified mineral, is white or pale gray, and has a vitreous luster. Takedaite is trigonal with space group of Rc, a = 8.638(1), c = 11.850(2)Å, Z = 6. The strongest lines in the X-ray powder pattern [d in A(I)(hkl)] are 2.915(100)(113), 1.895(75)(223), 2.756(61)(104), 2.493(44)(300), 2.044(21) (214,131), 2.160(19)(220), 1.976(18)(006), 1.549(12)(306). The Vickers microhardness is 478 kg mm−2 and the Mohs hardness 4.5. The density is 3.10(2) g cm−3 (meas.) and 3.11 g cm−3 (calc.). Wet chemical analyses give the values CaO 71.13%, B2O3 28.41%, ig. loss 0.14%, and total 99.68%. The empirical formula calculated on the basis of O = 6 is Ca3.053B1.965O6, with the simplified formula of Ca3B2O6.

Astronomical telescopes continue to demand high-endurance high-reflectivity silver mirrors that can withstand years of exposure in earth-based observatory environments. The University of California Observatories Astronomical Coatings Lab has undertaken development of protected silver coatings suitable for telescope mirrors that maintain high reflectivity at wavelengths from 340 nm through the mid-infrared spectrum. We present promising results of enhanced corrosion barriers using plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition (PEALD) of aluminum oxide (AlOx) as a top barrier layer. Novel coating recipes developed with ion-assisted electron beam deposition (IAEBD) of materials including yttrium fluoride and oxides of yttrium, tantalum, and silicon are used to compare the endurance of physical vapor deposition-grown barriers with PEALD-grown barriers of similar thickness. Samples of these mirror coatings were covered with conformal layers of AlOx deposited by PEALD using trimethylaluminum as a metal precursor and plasma-activated oxygen as an oxidant gas. Samples of coating recipes with and without PEALD oxide undergo aggressive high temperature/high humidity (HTHH) environmental testing in which samples are exposed to an environment of 80% humidity at 80°C for ten days in a simple test set-up. HTHH testing show visible results suggesting that the PEALD oxide offers enhanced robust protection against chemical corrosion and moisture from an accelerated aging environment. Mirror samples are further characterized by reflectivity/absorption before and after deposition of oxide coatings. AlOx is suitable for many applications and has been the initial material choice for this study.

We simulated the data outputs of the first Japanese astrometry satellite Nano-JASMINE, which is scheduled to be launched by the Cyclone-4 rocket in August 2011. The simulations were carried out using existing stellar catalogues such as the Hipparcos catalogue, the Tycho catalogue, and the Guide Star catalogue version 2.3. Several statics are shown such as the number of stars those will be measured distances using annual aberration observations. The method for determining the initial direction of the satellite’s spin axis has also been discussed. In this case, the frequency of bright stars observed by the satellite is an important factor.

Astrometry satellites have common technological issues. (A) Astrometry satellites are required to measure the positions of stars with high accuracy from the huge amount of data during the observational period. (B) The high stabilization of the thermal environment in the telescope is required. (C) The attitude-pointing stability of these satellites with sub-pixel accuracy is also required.

Measurement of the positions of stars from a huge amount of data is the essence of astrometry. It is needed to exclude the systematic errors adequately for each image of stars in order to obtain the accurate positions. We have carried out a centroiding experiment for determining the positions of stars from about 10 000 image data.

The following two points are important issues for the mission system of JASMINE in order to achieve our aim. For the small-JASMINE, we require the thermal stabilization of the telescope in order to obtain high astrometric accuracy of about 10 micro-arcsec. In order to accomplish a measurement of positions of stars with high accuracy, we must make a model of the distortion of the image on the focal plane with the accuracy of less than 0.1 nm. We have investigated numerically that the above requirement is achieved if the thermal variation is within about 1 K / 0.75 h. We also require the accuracy of the attitude-pointing stability of about 200 mas / 7 s. The utilization of the Tip-tilt mirror will make it possible to achieve such a stable pointing.

We report the results of performance evaluation of the first Japanese astrometry satellite, Nano-JASMINE. It is a very small satellite and weighs only 35 kg. It aims to carry out astrometry measurement of nearby bright stars (z ≤ 7.5 mag) with an accuracy of 3 milli-arcseconds. Nano-JASMINE will be launched by Cyclone-4 rocket in August 2011 from Brazil. The current status is in the process of evaluating the performances. A series of performance tests and numerical analysis were conducted. As a result, the engineering model (EM) of the telescope was measured to be achieving a diffraction-limited performance and confirmed that it has enough performance for scientific astrometry.

We present an overview of recent astrometric results with VERA. Since 2004, we have been conducting astrometry of tens of Galactic maser sources with VERA, and recently obtained trigonometric parallaxes for several sources, with distances ranging from 180 pc to 5.3 kpc. In this paper, we briefly summarize the results for Galactic star-forming regions, including S269, Orion-KL, NGC 1333, ρ-oph, NGC 281 and others.

We are developing a new near-infrared high-resolution (R[max] = 100,000) and high-sensitive spectrograph WINERED, which is specifically customized for short NIR bands at 0.9–1.35 μm. WINERED employs an innovative optical system; a portable design and a warm optics without any cold stops. The planned astrometric space mission JASMINE will provide precise positions, distances, and proper motions of the bulge stars. The missing components, the radial velocity and chemical composition will be measured by WINERED. These combined data brought by JASMINE and WINERED will certainly reveal the nature of the Galactic bulge. We plan to complete this instrument for observations of single objects by the end of 2008 and to attach it to various 4–10m telescopes as a PI-type instrument. We hope to upgrade WINERED with a multi-object feed in the future for efficient survey of the JASMINE bulge stars.

We simulate cosmic chemical enrichment with a hydrodynamical model including supernova and hypernova feedback. We find that the majority of stars in present-day massive galaxies formed in much smaller galaxies at high redshifts, despite their late assembly times. The hypernova feedback drives galactic outflows efficiently in low mass galaxies, and these winds eject heavy elements into the intergalactic medium. The ejected baryon fraction is larger for less massive galaxies, correlates well with stellar metallicity. The observed mass-metallicity relation is well reproduced as a result of the mass-dependent galactic winds. We also predict the cosmic supernova and gamma-ray burst rate histories.

The abundance patterns of extremely metal-poor (EMP) stars provide us with important information on nucleosynthesis in supernovae (SNe) formed in a Pop III or EMP environment, and thus on the nature of the first stars in the Universe. We review nucleosynthesis yields of various types of those SNe, focusing on core-collapse (black-hole-forming) SNe with various progenitor masses, explosion energies (including Hypernovae), and asphericity. We discuss the implications of the observed trends in the abundance ratios among iron-peak elements, and the large C/Fe ratio observed in certain EMP stars with particular attention to recently discovered hyper metal-poor (HMP) stars. We show that the abundance pattern of the HMP stars with [Fe/H] <−5 and other EMP stars are in good accord with those of black-hole-forming supernovae, but not pair-instability supernovae. This suggests that black-hole-forming supernovae made important contributions to the early Galactic (and cosmic) chemical evolution. Finally we discuss the nature of First (Pop III) Stars.

An elongated ERO with R - K′ = 7.5 behind the cluster A851 at z=0.4 was found to lie at z = 1.5 both by the photometric redshift and by a cross correlation method of its H-band SED with local E/SO spectra. the luminosity profile is well represented by a seeing convolved exponential disk, and the lack of redshifted H-alpha emission indicates that it has a dynamically relaxed disk with an old stellar population. Gravitational lensing of the cluster is not strong enough to stretch the image and cannot convert the de Vaucouleurs law into an exponential law.

This mini-review considers certain factors related to the developmental decrease in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, including its timing, its relationship to other developmental changes, factors that may influence its progress and its potential role in brain development. Specifically, we discuss some of the theories proposed for its occurrence and agree with the classic notion that REM sleep is, at least, an active mechanism that may play a role in the maturation of the central nervous system (CNS), specifically contributing to the maturation of thalamocortical pathways. The developmental decrease in REM sleep occurs gradually from birth until after puberty in the human, but in other mammals it is brief and coincides with eye and ear opening and the beginning of massive exogenous activation. This purported role for REM sleep may change to involve a number of other functions with age. We describe recent findings showing that intrinsic morphological and physiological properties as well as serotonergic, n-methyl-D-aspartic acid (NMDA) and kainic acid (KA) synaptic inputs to mesopontine cholinergic neurons change dramatically at this critical period in development, perhaps driving what has been proposed as a REM sleep inhibitory process (RIP). We hypothesize that a dysregulation of this process could result in life-long disturbances in REM sleep drive, leading to hypervigilance or hypovigilance such as that observed in a number of disorders which have a mostly postpubertal age of onset. Finally, we also hypothesize that the role of normal cyclic increases in vigilance, observable during both sleep and waking, may be related, at least in part, to cortical blood flow.

The carboxyl-terminal domain (CTD) of the largest subunit of eukaryotic RNA polymerase II (pol II) plays an important role in promoting steps of pre-mRNA processing. To identify proteins in human cells that bind to the CTD and that could mediate its functions in pre-mRNA processing, we used the mouse CTD expressed in bacterial cells in affinity chromatography experiments. Two proteins present in HeLa cell extract, the splicing and transcription-associated factors, PSF and p54nrb/NonO, bound specifically and could be purified to virtual homogeneity by chromatography on immobilized CTD matrices. Both hypo- and hyperphosphorylated CTD matrices bound these proteins with similar selectivity. PSF and p54nrb/NonO also copurified with a holoenzyme form of pol II containing hypophosphorylated CTD and could be coimmunoprecipitated with antibodies specific for this and the hyperphosphorylated form of pol II. That PSF and p54nrb/NonO promoted the binding of RNA to immobilized CTD matrices suggested these proteins can interact with the CTD and RNA simultaneously. PSF and p54nrb/NonO may therefore provide a direct physical link between the pol II CTD and pre-mRNA processing components, at both the initiation and elongation phases of transcription.