The homological content of the Jones representations at $q = -1$
  We generalize a discovery of Kasahara and show that the Jones representations of braid groups, when evaluated at $q = -1$, are related to the action on homology of a branched double cover of the underlying punctured disk.   As an application, we prove for a large family of pseudo-Anosov mapping classes a conjecture put forward by Andersen, Masbaum, and Ueno by extending their original argument for the sphere with four marked points to our more general case. 
Jens Kristian Egsgaard and S{\o}ren Fuglede J{\o}rgensen
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