TY - JOUR AB - Global services like navigation, communication, and Earth observation have increased dramatically in the 21st century due to advances in outer space industries. But as orbits become increasingly crowded with both satellites and inevitable space debris pollution, continued operations become endangered by the heightened risks of debris collisions in orbit. Kessler Syndrome is the term for when a critical threshold of orbiting debris triggers a runaway positive feedback loop of debris collisions, creating debris congestion that can render orbits unusable. As this potential tipping point becomes more widely recognized, there have been renewed calls for debris mitigation and removal. Here, we combine complex systems and social-ecological systems approaches to study how these efforts may affect space debris accumulation and the likelihood of reaching Kessler Syndrome. Specifically, we model how debris levels are affected by future launch rates, cleanup activities, and collisions between extant debris. We contextualize and interpret our dynamic model within a discussion of existing space debris governance and other social, economic, and geopolitical factors that may influence effective collective management of the orbital commons. In line with previous studies, our model finds that debris congestion may be reached in less than 200 years, though a holistic management strategy combining removal and mitigation actions can avoid such outcomes while continuing space activities. Moreover, although active debris removal may be particularly effective, the current lack of market and governance support may impede its implementation. Research into these critical dynamics and the multi-faceted variables that influence debris outcomes can support policymakers in curating impactful governance strategies and realistic transition pathways to sustaining debris-free orbits. Overall, our study is useful for communicating about space debris sustainability in policy and education settings by providing an exploration of policy portfolio options supported by a simple and clear social-ecological modeling approach. AU - Nomura, Keiko AU - Rella, Simon AU - Merritt, Haily AU - Baltussen, Mathieu AU - Bird, Darcy AU - Tjuka, Annika AU - Falk, Dan ID - 14901 IS - 1 JF - International Journal of the Commons KW - Sociology and Political Science SN - 1875-0281 TI - Tipping points of space debris in low earth orbit VL - 18 ER - TY - JOUR AB - We perform a stochastic homogenization analysis for composite materials exhibiting a random microstructure. Under the assumptions of stationarity and ergodicity, we characterize the Gamma-limit of a micromagnetic energy functional defined on magnetizations taking value in the unit sphere and including both symmetric and antisymmetric exchange contributions. This Gamma-limit corresponds to a micromagnetic energy functional with homogeneous coefficients. We provide explicit formulas for the effective magnetic properties of the composite material in terms of homogenization correctors. Additionally, the variational analysis of the two exchange energy terms is performed in the more general setting of functionals defined on manifold-valued maps with Sobolev regularity, in the case in which the target manifold is a bounded, orientable smooth surface with tubular neighborhood of uniform thickness. Eventually, we present an explicit characterization of minimizers of the effective exchange in the case of magnetic multilayers, providing quantitative evidence of Dzyaloshinskii’s predictions on the emergence of helical structures in composite ferromagnetic materials with stochastic microstructure. AU - Davoli, Elisa AU - D’Elia, Lorenza AU - Ingmanns, Jonas ID - 14884 IS - 2 JF - Journal of Nonlinear Science SN - 0938-8974 TI - Stochastic homogenization of micromagnetic energies and emergence of magnetic skyrmions VL - 34 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Centrioles are part of centrosomes and cilia, which are microtubule organising centres (MTOC) with diverse functions. Despite their stability, centrioles can disappear during differentiation, such as in oocytes, but little is known about the regulation of their structural integrity. Our previous research revealed that the pericentriolar material (PCM) that surrounds centrioles and its recruiter, Polo kinase, are downregulated in oogenesis and sufficient for maintaining both centrosome structural integrity and MTOC activity. We now show that the expression of specific components of the centriole cartwheel and wall, including ANA1/CEP295, is essential for maintaining centrosome integrity. We find that Polo kinase requires ANA1 to promote centriole stability in cultured cells and eggs. In addition, ANA1 expression prevents the loss of centrioles observed upon PCM-downregulation. However, the centrioles maintained by overexpressing and tethering ANA1 are inactive, unlike the MTOCs observed upon tethering Polo kinase. These findings demonstrate that several centriole components are needed to maintain centrosome structure. Our study also highlights that centrioles are more dynamic than previously believed, with their structural stability relying on the continuous expression of multiple components. AU - Pimenta-Marques, Ana AU - Perestrelo, Tania AU - Dos Reis Rodrigues, Patricia AU - Duarte, Paulo AU - Ferreira-Silva, Ana AU - Lince-Faria, Mariana AU - Bettencourt-Dias, Mónica ID - 14933 IS - 1 JF - EMBO reports TI - Ana1/CEP295 is an essential player in the centrosome maintenance program regulated by Polo kinase and the PCM VL - 25 ER - TY - JOUR AB - The huge antlers of the extinct Irish elk have invited evolutionary speculation since Darwin. In the 1970s, Stephen Jay Gould presented the first extensive data on antler size in the Irish elk and combined these with comparative data from other deer to test the hypothesis that the gigantic antlers were the outcome of a positive allometry that constrained large-bodied deer to have proportionally even larger antlers. He concluded that the Irish elk had antlers as predicted for its size and interpreted this within his emerging framework of developmental constraints as an explanatory factor in evolution. Here we reanalyze antler allometry based on new morphometric data for 57 taxa of the family Cervidae. We also present a new phylogeny for the Cervidae, which we use for comparative analyses. In contrast to Gould, we find that the antlers of Irish elk were larger than predicted from the allometry within the true deer, Cervini, as analyzed by Gould, but follow the allometry across Cervidae as a whole. After dissecting the discrepancy, we reject the allometric-constraint hypothesis because, contrary to Gould, we find no similarity between static and evolutionary allometries, and because we document extensive non-allometric evolution of antler size across the Cervidae. AU - Tsuboi, Masahito AU - Kopperud, Bjørn Tore AU - Matschiner, Michael AU - Grabowski, Mark AU - Syrowatka, Chrsitine AU - Pélabon, Christophe AU - Hansen, Thomas F. ID - 14932 JF - Evolutionary Biology SN - 0071-3260 TI - Antler allometry, the Irish elk and Gould revisited ER - TY - JOUR AB - We prove an upper bound on the ground state energy of the dilute spin-polarized Fermi gas capturing the leading correction to the kinetic energy resulting from repulsive interactions. One of the main ingredients in the proof is a rigorous implementation of the fermionic cluster expansion of Gaudin et al. (1971) [15]. AU - Lauritsen, Asbjørn Bækgaard AU - Seiringer, Robert ID - 14931 IS - 7 JF - Journal of Functional Analysis SN - 0022-1236 TI - Ground state energy of the dilute spin-polarized Fermi gas: Upper bound via cluster expansion VL - 286 ER -