ALBERT

Description: Data of photoelectric observations of occultation made at the Tokyo Astronomical Observatory and the Hydrographic Office for the years of 1955 to 1959 are combined together, and re-reductions are made employing the Improved Lunar Ephemeris, limb corrections by Watts’profile, International ellipsoid, and corrections Δφ= + 10”， Δλ=＋20” to the geodetic datum of Japan. ΔTO’s are evaluated for middle of each year, and combined with provisional values of ΔTO for 1960 to 1966. These ΔTO’s agree well with those of Washington meridian observations in rate as well as in absolute value. Comparison of provisional values of ΔTl with AT-UT2 suggests necessity of research on the adopted frequency of caesium standard in one ephemeris second.

Description: Published

Description: Data of visual observations of occultations, which were obtained by a single observer and were made simultaneously with photoelectric observations, are analysed. Time delays of visual observations from respective photoelectric observations are, in general, larger for fainter stars, showing a concentration to 0.4 sec for visual data of good quality. We should not employ any definite value of personal equation even for data made by a single observer.

Description: Published

Description: Direct comparisons are made between profiles of the moon’s limb of Weimer and of Watts. Comparison made at 177 points on the moon’s limb shows that Weimer’s centre deviates 0". 39 in the position angle of 336° from Watts' centre, while their adopted radii of the moon are practically identical. Another comparison is made at every 5° along the moon’s limb for 9 cases of libration, i.e. combination of ι= -6°, 0°, +6° and b＝十6°, 0°, -6°. Discrepancy between Watts’ and Weimer's charts differs for eastern and western limbs from each other as well as for libration. There exists no systematic dependence between relative positions of centres and libration. As a whole, Weimer’s chart deviates 0". 43 in the direction of 345° for eastern limb and 0". 27 in the direction of 296° for western limb from Watts'. The effect of the discrepancy between both charts in position of centre is found clearly in the difference of Δ T evaluated from occultation observations with these respective profile charts, and verifies that our values of Weimer’s centre relative to Watts’ are adequate,

Description: Published

Description: Unravelling the secrets of wild animals is one of the biggest challenges in ecology, with bio-logging (i.e., the use of animal-borne loggers or bio-loggers) playing a pivotal role in tackling this challenge. Bio-logging allows us to observe many aspects of animals’ lives, including their behaviours, physiology, social interactions, and external environment. However, bio-loggers have short runtimes when collecting data from resource-intensive (high-cost) sensors. This study proposes using AI on board video-loggers in order to use low-cost sensors (e.g., accelerometers) to automatically detect and record complex target behaviours that are of interest, reserving their devices’ limited resources for just those moments. We demonstrate our method on bio-loggers attached to seabirds including gulls and shearwaters, where it captured target videos with 15 times the precision of a baseline periodic-sampling method. Our work will provide motivation for more widespread adoption of AI in bio-loggers, helping us to shed light onto until now hidden aspects of animals’ lives.

Description: Geobacillus kaustophilus HTA426 is a thermophilic bacterium whose genome harbors numerous insertion sequences (IS). This study was initially conducted to generate mutant genes for thermostable T7 RNA polymerase in G. kaustophilus; however, relevant experiments unexpectedly identified that the organism transposed multiple IS elements and produced derivative cells that expressed a silent gene via transposition. The transposed elements were diverse and included members of the IS4, IS701, IS1634, and ISLre2 families. The transposition was relatively active at elevated temperatures and generated 4–9 bp of direct repeats at insertion sites. Transposition was more frequent in proliferative cells than in stationary cells but was comparable between both cells when sigX, which encodes an extra-cytoplasmic function sigma factor, was forcibly expressed. Southern blot analysis indicated that IS transposition occurred under growth inhibitory conditions by diverse stressors; however, IS transposition was not detected in cells that were cultured under growth non-inhibitory conditions. These observations suggest that G. kaustophilus enhances IS transposition via sigX-dependent stress responses when proliferative cells were prevented from active propagation. Considering Geobacillus spp. are highly adaptive bacteria that are remarkably distributed in diverse niches, it is possible that these organisms employ IS transposition for environmental adaptation via genetic diversification. Thus, this study provides new insights into adaptation strategies of Geobacillus spp. along with implications for strong codependence between mobile genetic elements and highly adaptive bacteria for stable persistence and evolutionary diversification, respectively. This is also the first report to reveal active IS elements at elevated temperatures in thermophiles and to suggest a sigma factor that governs IS transposition.