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Proteinuria was hypothesized for space mission but research data are missing. Urinary albumin, as index of proteinuria, was analyzed in frozen urine samples collected by astronauts during space missions onboard MIR station and on ground (control). Urinary albumin was measured by a double antibody radioimmunoassay. On average, 24h urinary albumin was 27.4% lower in space than on ground; the difference was statistically significant. Low urinary albumin excretion could be another effect of exposure to weightlessness (microgravity).

Professional search could benefit significantly from advanced information retrieval techniques. However, current search systems fail in the matching between the conceptual level of the professional information needs and the data processing level of the available search technologies. Search by strategy is a novel paradigm that puts the modelling phase of complex search paths at a central spot. We illustrate some of the key advantages of this paradigm in a realistic use case: searching semantically enriched political data.

The PROMISE network of excellence organized a two-days brainstorming workshop on 30th and 31st May 2012 in Padua, Italy, to discuss and envisage future directions and perspectives for the evaluation of information access and retrieval systems in multiple languages and multiple media. This document reports on the outcomes of this event and provides details about the six envisaged research lines: search applications; contextual evaluation; challenges in test collection design and exploitation; component-based evaluation; ongoing evaluation; and signal-aware evaluation. The ultimate goal of the PROMISE retreat is to stimulate and involve the research community along these research lines and to provide funding agencies with effective and scientifically sound ideas for coordinating and supporting information access research.

We describe our efforts to design an interface that supports media studies researchers in collecting data. Based on interviews about their search behavior we arrive at a set of search scenarios and for each we identify IR techniques that provide the required functionality. We end with a discussion about the implementation of such an interface and its re-usability across the humanities.

To better constrain Baltica's position within Pangea, we conducted a palaeomagnetic study of Permo-Triassic dykes from the Oslo Graben, as a follow-up to an initial, but rather limited, study by Torsvik and colleagues in 1998. The age of these so-called Lunner dykes had previously been determined as similar to 240 Ma in that study, but details in their analyses and new Ar-40/Ar-39 ages reveal that there may have been some argon loss in the initially dated dyke minerals and that a combined (weighted mean) age of 271 +/- 2.7 (2 sigma) Myr for the dykes is preferable. We find two major components of magnetization in our samples: one carried by an Fe-sulphide (likely pyrrhotite) and the other carried by low-Ti magnetite; these magnetization components may be found together (superposed) in a given sample or they may occur apart. Micronmetre-sized crystals of Ti-Fe oxides, observed with a scanning electron microscope (SEM) show exsolution lamellae, formed upon cooling from intrusion temperatures. Assuming that the submicronmetre-sized (Ti)-magnetite grains that carry a stable remanence are of the same generation as the observed larger grains, we interpret the magnetite remanence in the dykes as of primary, thermoremanent origin. The sulphide remanence appears to be slightly younger, as seen by the SEM observations of pyrite framboids and a Fe-sulphide grain invading a Ti-magnetite grain. Moreover, the sulphide mineralization is likely of region-wide hydrothermal origin. The magnetizations carried by the pyrrhotite and magnetite have nearly identical directions and so, must be nearly of the same age. For this study, we sampled 56 sites including 39 dykes, 10 baked-contact rocks and 7 host rocks removed from the immediate dyke contacts. The dykes and the contact rocks have the same SW and up directions of magnetization, and contain the Fe-sulphide or the magnetite magnetization or both, as diagnosed by their relative unblocking temperatures. However, all the sampled carbonate and igneous host rocks far away from the dykes also have the same directions. Thus, all of the 10 originally planned contact tests are inconclusive. The new palaeopoles of this study are a few degrees apart; the magnetite pole (from dykes only, N = 25) is located at 51 degrees N, 164 degrees E, K = 69, A(95) = 3.5 degrees, whereas the pole calculated from iron sulphide magnetic directions (all rock types, N = 20) is at 54 degrees N, 166 degrees E, K = 112, A(95) = 3.1 degrees. All directions are of reversed polarity, suggesting that the magnetization was acquired during the Kiaman Reversed Superchron. The palaeomagnetic mean result from the magnetite-bearing sites implies a palaeolatitude of Oslo of 23 degrees N, whereas the palaeolatitude calculated from the pyrrhotite magnetizations is 25-27 degrees N, depending on choice of host lithologies. As noted in many previous publications, the palaeomagnetic poles for the late Palaeozoic and Early-Middle Triassic are in conflict with classical Pangea reconstructions. The poles with ages of 250 +/- 10 Ma, in particular, previously showed a discrepancy of some 25 degrees or more, when the Gondwana and Laurussia continents are restored to their juxtapositions in the Pangea-A fit, before the opening of the Atlantic Ocean. Proposed solutions to this conundrum have been controversial, involving doubts about (1) the geocentric coaxial dipole field model, (2) the reliability of the palaeomagnetic results or their ages, or (3) the validity of the Pangea-A reconstruction, leading to proposals of a Pangea B reconstruction in which Gondwana is displaced some 3500 km to the east with respect to Laurussia. The significance of our new result for this Pangea controversy resides in its improved age within an early Guadelupian (mid to late Permian) time interval where few results exist from well-dated igneous rocks in either Baltica or Laurentia. There are quite a few results from sedimentary rocks, but these may be suspected to suffer inclination shallowing, and are therefore less suitable to settle a palaeolatitudinal argument.