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A Swarm of WASP Planets: Nine giant planets identified by the WASP survey
No full textThe Wide Angle Search for Planets (WASP) survey provided some of the first transiting hot Jupiter candidates. With the addition of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), many WASP planet candidates have now been revisited and given updated transit parameters. Here we present 9 transiting planets orbiting FGK stars that were identified as candidates by the WASP survey and measured to have planetary masses by radial velocity measurements. Subsequent space-based photometry taken by TESS as well as ground-based photometric and spectroscopic measurements have been used to jointly analyze the planetary properties of WASP-102 b, WASP-116 b, WASP-149 b WASP-154 b, WASP-155 b, WASP-188 b, WASP-194 b/HAT-P-71 b, WASP-195 b, and WASP-197 b. These planets have radii between 0.9 Rⱼᵤₚ and 1.4 Rⱼᵤₚ, masses between 0.1 Mⱼᵤₚ and 1.5 Mⱼᵤₚ, and periods between 1.3 and 6.6 days.The material is based upon work supported by NASA under award number 80GSFC24M0006 HP acknowledges support by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation with the Ramon y Cajal fellowship number RYC2021031798I Funding from the University of La Laguna and the Spanish Ministry of Universities is acknowledged KKM acknowledges support from the New York Community Trust Fund for Astrophysical Research The postdoctoral fellowship of KB is funded by F R S FNRS grant T 0109 20 and by the Francqui Foundation ML acknowledges support of the Swiss National Science Foundation under grant number PCEFP2 194576 The contribution of ML has been carried out within the framework of the NCCR PlanetS supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation under grant 51NF40 205606 KAC acknowledges support from the TESS mission via subaward s3449 from MIT DRC acknowledges partial support from NASA Grant 182XRP18 20007 I A S and P A B acknowledge the support of M V Lomonosov Moscow State University Program of Development S G S acknowledges the support from FCT through Investigador FCT contract nr CEECIND/00826/2018 and POPH/FSE EC GB acknowledges the support from NASA grant 80NSSC22K0315 Funding for the TESS mission is provided by NASA s Science Mission Directorate We acknowledge the use of public TESS data from pipelines at the TESS Science Office and at the TESS Science Processing Operations Center This research has made use of the the NASA Exoplanet Archive and the Exoplanet Followup Observation Program ExoFOP; DOI: 10 26134/ExoFOP5 website which are operated by the California Institute of Technology under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under the Exoplanet Exploration Program Resources supporting this work were provided by the NASA HighEnd Computing HEC Program through the NASA Advanced Supercomputing NAS Division at Ames Research Center for the production of the SPOC data products This paper includes data collected by the TESS mission that are publicly available from the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes MAST Some of the observations in this paper made use of the HighResolution Imaging instrument Zorro and were obtained under Gemini LLP Proposal Number: GN/S2021ALP105 Zorro was funded by the NASA Exoplanet Exploration Program and built at the NASA Ames Research Center by Steve B Howell Nic Scott Elliott P Horch and Emmett Quigley Zorro was mounted on the Gemini South telescope of the international Gemini Observatory a program of NSF s OIR Lab which is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy AURA under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation on behalf of the Gemini partnership: the National Science Foundation United States National Research Council Canada Agencia Nacional de Investigacion y Desarrollo Chile Ministe rio de Ciencia Tecnolog ıa e Innovacion Argentina Min isterio da Ci encia Tecnologia Inovacoes e Comunicac¸ oes Brazil and Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute Republic of Korea Some of the Observations in the paper made use of the NNEXPLORE Exoplanet and Stellar Speckle Imager NESSI NESSI was funded by the NASA Exoplanet Exploration Program and the NASA Ames Research Center NESSI was built at the Ames Research Center by Steve B Howell Nic Scott Elliott P Horch and Emmett Quigley 22 We are grateful to PRLDOS Department of Space Government of India as well as the Director PRL for their generous support Their support has been instrumental in funding the PARAS2 spectrograph for our exoplanet discovery project We express our gratitude to all the Mount Abu Observatory staff and PARAS2 instrument team for their invaluable assistance throughout the observations This work makes use of observations from the LCOGT network Part of the LCOGT telescope time was granted by NOIRLab through the MidScale Innovations Program MSIP MSIP is funded by NSF This paper is based on observations made with the Las Cumbres Observatory s education network telescopes that were upgraded through generous support from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Based on observations obtained at the Hale Telescope Palomar Observatory as part of a collaborative agreement between the Caltech Optical Observatories and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory [operated by Caltech for NASA] We thank the Observatoire de HauteProvence CNRS staff for its support This work was supported by CNES and the Programme National de Planetologie PNP TRAPPISTSouth is funded by the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research Fond National de la Recherche Scientifique FNRS under the grant FRFC 2 5 594 09 F with the participation of the Swiss National Science Fundation SNF MG and EJ are F R S FNRS Research Directorshttp://arxiv.org/abs/2504.0809
Exploring the Relationship Between Nursing Staff and Family Members' Appraisal of Resident Care in Nursing Homes: The Role of Facility Ownership
No full textBackground/Objectives: To address long-standing staffing challenges and elevating care standards in the United States, new legislation will require a minimum of 0.55 h per resident day (HPRD) of registered nurse (RN) care, 2.45 HPRD of certified nursing aide (CNA) care, and a combined total of 3.48 HPRD across any combination of nursing staff. We examine differences in family members' views of care quality between facilities meeting the minimum staffing requirements and those that do not and whether there is any difference in those associations by facility ownership. Methods: This cross-sectional study utilized public data from 218 Medicare and Medicaid-certified nursing facilities in Maryland, collected in 2023. We used regression analyses to examine the association between staffing requirements and quality of care ratings, considering facility ownership status as a potential moderator. Results: Compared to facilities with CNA staffing levels below the cut off, facilities that met the CNA staffing requirement were rated more favorably by family members in overall quality and across the subdomains of staffing, care, activities, and security. In contrast, meeting the RN 0.55 cut off was not associated with family ratings across any quality domain. A facility for-profit status did not moderate the relationship between staffing and family ratings. Conclusions: These results suggest that CNA staff time is a significant driver of care quality and that non-profit facilities may already be closer to meeting new federal requirements. These findings highlight the need for regulations that support the minimum nursing staffing requirements to enhance care quality. Future research should identify the specific factors contributing to higher quality care in non-profit facilities and explore ways to implement these practices in for-profit settings.This work was supported by the CIDER (Center and Institute Departmentally Engaged Research) program at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.https://www.mdpi.com/2039-4403/15/2/6
A manifesto for a globally diverse, equitable, and inclusive open science
No full textThe field of psychology has rapidly transformed its open science practices in recent years. Yet there has been limited progress in integrating principles of diversity, equity and inclusion. In this Perspective, we raise the spectre of Questionable Generalisability Practices and the issue of MASKing (Making Assumptions based on Skewed Knowledge), calling for more responsible practices in generalising study findings and co-authorship to promote global equity in knowledge production. To drive change, researchers must target all four key components of the research process: design, reporting, generalisation, and evaluation. Additionally, macro-level geopolitical factors must be considered to move towards a robust behavioural science that is truly inclusive, representing the voices and experiences of the majority world (i.e., low-and-middle-income countries).R.T. received financial support from Busara to develop the Missing Majority Dashboard. P.F. works as a Director for Busara, a non-profit that does behavioral science in service of alleviating poverty, with a specific focus on benefiting the Global South. H.C.P. is also part of the executive committee of Chinese Open Science Network and an Editorial Board Member for Communications Psychology but was not involved in the editorial review of, nor the decision to publish this article. D.B.B. was a founding board member of the Psychological Science Accelerator. F.A. serves as the Director of Framework for Open and Reproducible Research Training (FORRT) which aims to promote transparency and open science practices through education and training and doesn’t receive financial compensation in this role. All other authors declare no competing interest.https://www.nature.com/articles/s44271-024-00179-
Extracting gravitational wave signals from LISA data in the presence of artifacts
No full textThe Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) mission is being developed by ESA with NASA participation. As it has recently passed the Mission Adoption milestone, models of the instruments and noise performance are becoming more detailed, and likewise prototype data analyses must as well. Assumptions such as Gaussianity, stationarity, and data continuity are unrealistic, and must be replaced with physically motivated data simulations, and data analysis methods adapted to accommodate such likely imperfections. To this end, the LISA Data Challenges have produced datasets featuring time-varying and unequal constellation armlength, and measurement artifacts including data interruptions and instrumental transients. In this work, we assess the impact of these data artifacts on the inference of galactic binary and massive black hole properties. Our analysis shows that the treatment of noise transients and gaps is necessary for effective parameter estimation, as they substantially corrupt the analysis if unmitigated. We find that straightforward mitigation techniques can significantly if imperfectly suppress artifacts. For the Galactic Binaries, mitigation of glitches was essentially total, while mitigations of the data gaps increased parameter uncertainty by approximately 10%. For the massive black hole binaries the particularly pernicious glitches resulted in a 30% uncertainty increase after mitigations, while the data gaps can increase parameter uncertainty by up to several times. Critically, this underlines the importance of early detection of transient gravitational waves to ensure they are protected from planned data interruptions.E C’s work is supported by NASA under Award Number 80GSFC24M0006. N K acknowledges the funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sk?odowska-Curie Grant Agreement Number 101065596. O S’s work is supported by the NASA LISA Preparatory Science program, Grant Number number 80NSSC19K0324. W J W acknowledges support from the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) and Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI), Project No. 2017-29-H.1-2020 ‘Attivitá per la fase A della missione LISA.’https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6382/adb931/met
Differential topology of the spaces of asymptotically stable vector fields and Lyapunov functions
No full textWe study the topology of the space of all smooth asymptotically stable vector fields on Rⁿ, as well as the space of all proper smooth Lyapunov functions for such vector fields. We prove that both spaces are path-connected and simply connected when n ≠ 4, 5 and weakly contractible when n ≤ 3. Moreover, both spaces have the weak homotopy type of the nonlinear Grassmannian of submanifolds of Rⁿ diffeomorphic to the n-disc. The proofs rely on Lyapunov theory and differential topology, such as the work of Smale and Perelman on the generalized Poincaré conjecture and results of Smale, Cerf, and Hatcher on the topology of diffeomorphism groups of discs. Applications include a partial answer to a question of Conley, a parametric Hartman-Grobman theorem for nonyperbolic but asymptotically stable equilibria, and a parametric Morse lemma for degenerate minima. We also study the related topics of hyperbolic equilibria, Morse minima, and relative homotopy groups of the space of asymptotically stable vector fields inside the space of those vanishing at a single point.This material is based upon work supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under award number FA9550-24-1-0299. The author would like to thank Ryan Budney, Wouter Jongeneel, Alexander Kupers, Mike Miller Eismeier, and Álvaro del Pino Gómez for helpful conversations.http://arxiv.org/abs/2503.1082
LLM-Supported Safety Annotation in High-Risk Environments
No full textHRI 2025 Workshop VAM SubmissionThis paper explores how large language model-based robots assist in detecting anomalies in high-risk environments and how users perceive their usability and reliability in a safe virtual environment. We present a system where a robot using a state-of-the-art vision-language model autonomously annotates potential hazards in a virtual world. The system provides users with contextual safety information via a VR interface. We conducted a user study to evaluate the system's performance across metrics such as trust, user satisfaction, and efficiency. Results demonstrated high user satisfaction and clear hazard communication, while trust remained moderate.This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under Award #001583-00001 (CAREER: Robots and Language in Human Spaces).https://openreview.net/forum?id=Ewg3WsMBR
Bridging Legal Knowledge and AI: Retrieval-Augmented Generation with Vector Stores, Knowledge Graphs, and Hierarchical Non-negative Matrix Factorization
No full textThe 20th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law (ICAIL 2025)Agentic Generative AI, powered by Large Language Models (LLMs) with Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), Knowledge Graphs (KGs), and Vector Stores (VSs), represents a transformative technology applicable to specialized domains such as legal systems, research, recommender systems, cybersecurity, and global security, including proliferation research. This technology excels at inferring relationships within vast unstructured or semi-structured datasets. The legal domain here comprises complex data characterized by extensive, interrelated, and semi-structured knowledge systems with complex relations. It comprises constitutions, statutes, regulations, and case law. Extracting insights and navigating the intricate networks of legal documents and their relations is crucial for effective legal research. Here, we introduce a generative AI system that integrates RAG, VS, and KG, constructed via Non-Negative Matrix Factorization (NMF), to enhance legal information retrieval and AI reasoning and minimize hallucinations. In the legal system, these technologies empower AI agents to identify and analyze complex connections among cases, statutes, and legal precedents, uncovering hidden relationships and predicting legal trends-challenging tasks that are essential for ensuring justice and improving operational efficiency. Our system employs web scraping techniques to systematically collect legal texts, such as statutes, constitutional provisions, and case law, from publicly accessible platforms like Justia. It bridges the gap between traditional keyword-based searches and contextual understanding by leveraging advanced semantic representations, hierarchical relationships, and latent topic discovery. This framework supports legal document clustering, summarization, and cross-referencing, for scalable, interpretable, and accurate retrieval for semi-structured data while advancing computational law and AI.This research was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration's Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Research and Development (DNN R&D), supported by the U.S. DOE NNSA under Contract No. 89233218CNA000001,as well as by the LANL Institutional Computing Program.http://arxiv.org/abs/2502.2036
LLPut: Investigating Large Language Models for Bug Report-Based Input Generation
No full textFailure-inducing inputs play a crucial role in diagnosing and analyzing software bugs. Bug reports typically contain these inputs, which developers extract to facilitate debugging. Since bug reports are written in natural language, prior research has leveraged various Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques for automated input extraction. With the advent of Large Language Models (LLMs), an important research question arises: how effectively can generative LLMs extract failure-inducing inputs from bug reports? In this paper, we propose LLPut, a technique to empirically evaluate the performance of three open-source generative LLMs -- LLaMA, Qwen, and Qwen-Coder -- in extracting relevant inputs from bug reports. We conduct an experimental evaluation on a dataset of 206 bug reports to assess the accuracy and effectiveness of these models. Our findings provide insights into the capabilities and limitations of generative LLMs in automated bug diagnosis.This work was supported in part by NSF grants CCF2348277 and CCF2518445http://arxiv.org/abs/2503.2057
Seasonal Mental Health Changes in College Athletes
No full textThis study examines the impact of the athletic season on the mental health of collegiate athletes, focusing on changes in depression and anxiety levels. A sample of 40 fall-season college athletes completed assessments before and after their competitive season using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7). Paired-samples t-tests revealed a significant increase in depression scores from pre-season to post-season (p < .001), suggesting elevated depressive symptoms as the season progressed. Conversely, anxiety scores significantly decreased over the same period (p < .001), indicating reduced anxiety following the conclusion of competition. Strong positive correlations between pre- and post-season scores were observed for both depression (r = .794) and anxiety (r = .799), highlighting consistency in individual mental health trends across the season. These findings suggest that while the athletic season may alleviate anticipatory anxiety, it may also contribute to increased depressive symptoms, possibly due to cumulative stress, performance pressures, and academic demands. The results underscore the importance of ongoing mental health support for student-athletes throughout the athletic cycle
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No full textIn this thesis, the artist examines emotion in the context of art history, art creation, and personal experience. The wood-fired sculpture created for this body of work explores the ability to express emotions, utilizing the human female torso as a blank canvas. The choice of clay body, alteration of the form, firing process, and surface aesthetic treatments confront the emotions of love, grief, maternal joy, pain, the process of aging, emptiness, resilience, and rage. The creative process in each work is a metaphor for the unspoken emotions