We report the results of the STRong lensing Insights into the Dark Energy Survey (STRIDES) follow-up campaign of the late 2017/early 2018 season. We obtained spectra of 65 lensed quasar candidates with ESO Faint Object Spectrograph and Camera 2 on the NTT and Echellette Spectrograph and Imager on Keck, confirming 10 new lensed quasars and 10 quasar pairs. Eight lensed quasars are doubly imaged with source redshifts between 0.99 and 2.90, one is triply imaged (DESJ0345−2545, z = 1.68), and one is quadruply imaged (quad: DESJ0053−2012, z = 3.8). Singular isothermal ellipsoid models for the doubles, based on high-resolution imaging from SAMI on Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope or Near InfraRed Camera 2 on Keck, give total magnifications between 3.2 and 5.6, and Einstein radii between 0.49 and 1.97 arcsec. After spectroscopic follow-up, we extract multi-epoch grizY photometry of confirmed lensed quasars and contaminant quasar + star pairs from DES data using parametric multiband modelling, and compare variability in each system’s components. By measuring the reduced χ2 associated with fitting all epochs to the same magnitude, we find a simple cut on the less variable component that retains all confirmed lensed quasars, while removing 94 per cent of contaminant systems. Based on our spectroscopic follow-up, this variability information improves selection of lensed quasars and quasar pairs from 34-45 per cent to 51–70 per cent, with most remaining contaminants being star-forming galaxies. Using mock lensed quasar light curves we demonstrate that selection based only on variability will over-represent the quad fraction by 10 per cent over a complete DES magnitude-limited sample, explained by the magnification bias and hence lower luminosity/more variable sources in quads.

Evasion from imminent threats and prey attack are opposite behavioral choices critical to survival. Curiously, the lateral periaqueductal gray (LPAG) has been implicated in driving both responses. The LPAG responds to social threats and prey hunting while also drives predatory attacks and active defense. However, the LPAG neural mechanisms mediating these behaviors remain poorly defined. Here, we investigate how the LPAG mediates the choices of predatory hunting and evasion from a social threat. Pharmacogenetic inhibition in Fos DD-Cre mice of neurons responsive specifically to insect predation (IP) or social defeat (SD) revealed that distinct neuronal populations in the LPAG drive the prey hunting and evasion from social threats. We show that the LPAG provides massive glutamatergic projection to the lateral hypothalamic area (LHA). Optogenetic inhibition of the LPAG-LHA pathway impaired IP but did not alter escape/attack ratio during SD. We also found that pharmacogenetic inhibition of LHAGABA neurons impaired IP, but did not change evasion during SD. The results suggest that the LPAG control over evasion to a social attack may be regarded as a stereotyped response depending probably on glutamatergic descending projections. On the other hand, the LPAG control over predatory behavior involves an ascending glutamatergic pathway to the LHA that likely influences LHAGABA neurons driving predatory attack and prey consumption. The LPAG-LHA path supposedly provides an emotional drive for prey hunting and, of relevance, may conceivably have more widespread control on the motivational drive to seek other appetitive rewards.

Studies on the synthesis and characterization of nano-structured materials have attracted the attention of many researches due to their unique properties and potential uses. In that field it is well known the particular interest in the Cu-Al 2 O 3 nano-composites, specially because they possess a stable microstructure with good resistance to recrystalization and grain growth. In contrast to the hardening by precipitation mechanism, some physical and mechanical properties can be kept, even at high temperature, due to the stability and high melting point of particles such as those of Al 2 O 3 , which do not react with the metallic matrix constituted by copper or nickel. In that context, the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy at PUC -Rio de Janeiro has developed a new method for the synthesis of nano-composites. This method is essentially based on a chemical route aiming at the formation of oxides followed by their preferential reduction with hydrogen and further sintering. The present work comments briefly some kinetic behavior of the copper and nickel oxides reduction with hydrogen as well as the characterization of the obtained nano-composite material. The characterization was carried out by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning and transmission electron microscopy (SEM and TEM) and associated microanalytical techniques. The results indicated the formation of nano-structured materials and their typical features, including a very fine dispersion of the ceramic phase. The microstructures obtained for the Cu-Al 2 O 3 and the Ni-Al 2 O 3 composites were of the same type, where the metallic matrix crystals average 500/600 nm in size and the Al 2 O 3 particles are in the lower nanometer scale.

These results have been presented in October 2008 to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which has expressed its interest in the potentialities of this detector as a new safeguard tool.Abstract-The major advances achieved over the last decades in the understanding of fundamental neutrino physics allow us to apply the detection of reactor antineutrino signals to automatic and non-intrusive nuclear power plant surveys. Here we present the NUCIFER experiment, a 1 ton Gd-doped liquid scintillator detector to be installed a few 10 m from a reactor core for measurements of its thermal power and Plutonium content. The design of such a small volume detector has been focused on high detection efficiency (~50%) and good background rejection. Detailed simulations of reactor emitted antineutrino spectrum and detector response have been developed and used to calculate the NUCIFER sensitivity to illicit retrieval of Pu from the core.

UML is a general-purpose modeling language that offers a heterogeneous set of diagrams to describe the different views of a software system. While there seems to be a general consensus on the semantics of some individual diagrams, the composite semantics of the different views is still an open problem. During my PhD I am considering a significant and consistent set of UML diagrams, where timed-related properties can be modeled carefully, and I am ascribing them with a formal semantics based on metric temporal logic. The use of logic is aimed to help capture the composite semantics of the different views efficiently. The result is then used to feed a bounded model/satisfiability checker to allow users to verify these systems, even from the initial phases of the design. The final goal is to realize an advanced modeling framework where users can exploit both a well-known modeling notation and advanced verification capabilities seamlessly.