Search

We consider an application of precision frequency measurements to searches for possible time variations of the fundamental physical constants. Current laboratory constraints on variations of the fine structure constant alpha and other fundamental constants are presented.

A cross sectional study was conducted to assess electroencephalograph (EEG) Power Spectral Densities (PSD) of alpha and theta frequency bands for an integrative functional role of working memory (WM) in the architectonics of a synthesized and coordinated communication system as exemplified by the observable phenomenon of the evolved structured Language of Human Mind by using Visuo-Spatial Delayed Match to Sample (DMTS) task. The analysis exhibited significant Event Related Synchronization (ERS) along theta wave-form at temporal region along with Lateral Asymmetry Index (LAI) of Alpha Event Related Desynchronization (ERD) at parietal region suggestive of the phenomenal singularity of ERS of theta along temporal regions that seems to be intricately interwoven onto the spectacle of LAI of alpha ERD, presumably evolving a synthesized enveloped working memory, along the virtual phase-space of Human Mind and eventually translating into the comprehensible means of communication of Humans, i.e., Language.

A search was conducted for laser signals, both sub-second pulses and continuous emission, from the regions of the sky opposite Proxima and Alpha Centauri. These regions are located at the foci of the gravitational lensing caused by the Sun, ideal for amplifying transmissions between our Solar System and those two nearest stellar neighbors. During six months in 2020 and 2021, 88000 exposures for Proxima Cen and 47000 exposures for Alpha Cen were obtained. No evidence was detected of light pulses or continuous laser emission in the wavelength range of 380 to 950 nm. We would have detected a laser having a power of just 100 Watts., Comment: 26 pages, 12 figures

Transdermal alcohol monitors can help overcome issues with self-reporting in alcohol research and offer improvements over other biometric monitors as they provide passive and continuous measurement...

Judging how far away something is and how long it takes to get there is critical to memory and navigation. Yet, the neural codes for spatial and temporal information remain unclear, particularly the involvement of neural oscillations in maintaining such codes. To address these issues, we designed an immersive virtual reality environment containing teleporters that displace participants to a different location after entry. Upon exiting the teleporters, participants made judgments from two given options regarding either the distance they had traveled (spatial distance condition) or the duration they had spent inside the teleporters (temporal duration condition). We wirelessly recorded scalp EEG while participants navigated in the virtual environment by physically walking on an omnidirectional treadmill and traveling through teleporters. An exploratory analysis revealed significantly higher alpha and beta power for short-distance versus long-distance traversals, whereas the contrast also revealed significantly higher frontal midline delta–theta–alpha power and global beta power increases for short versus long temporal duration teleportation. Analyses of occipital alpha instantaneous frequencies revealed their sensitivity for both spatial distances and temporal durations, suggesting a novel and common mechanism for both spatial and temporal coding. We further examined the resolution of distance and temporal coding by classifying discretized distance bins and 250-msec time bins based on multivariate patterns of 2- to 30-Hz power spectra, finding evidence that oscillations code fine-scale time and distance information. Together, these findings support partially independent coding schemes for spatial and temporal information, suggesting that low-frequency oscillations play important roles in coding both space and time.

We present Ly$\alpha$ and ultraviolet-continuum (UV) luminosity functions (LFs) of galaxies and active galactic nuclei (AGN) at $z=2.0-3.5$ determined by the un-targetted optical spectroscopic survey of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX). We combine deep Subaru imaging with HETDEX spectra resulting in $11.4$ deg$^2$ of fiber-spectra sky coverage, obtaining $18320$ galaxies spectroscopically identified with Ly$\alpha$ emission, $2126$ of which host type 1 AGN showing broad (FWHM$~>1000$ km s$^{-1}$) Ly$\alpha$ emission lines. We derive the Ly$\alpha$ (UV) LF over 2 orders of magnitude covering bright galaxies and AGN in $\log L_\mathrm{Ly\alpha}/\mathrm{[erg~s^{-1}]}=43.3-45.5$ ($-27-21$) type 1 AGN increases from $z\sim2$ to $z\sim0$ as opposed to the evolution of bright ($M_\mathrm{UV}, Comment: 27 pages, 19 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

The study involved 543 teacher trainees and 33 tutors. The reliability of the questionnaire was determined using Cronbach’s alpha (α). For the teacher trainee questionnaire, α = .738. For the tutor questionnaire, α = .886. The results from the study showed that a little more than half (51.7%) of the respondents said that their tutors call the introvert trainee to answer questions while 48 (8.8%) of the minority of the respondents said that tutors do nothing to teacher trainees who are introvert. It is recommended that tutors should engage trainees in activities that will encourage more discourse.

Philip A. Bialer, MD, received his BA with honors in Biology from the University of Rochester. He went on to earn his M.D. from Ohio State University where he was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alph...

Objective: We aimed to analyze the results of the measurements of the total alpha activity and activity of radon-222 in the water of artesian wells to establish the geographical regions of Ukraine which require a deep attention to the assessment of the radioactivity of the groundwater. Methods: We used empirical, analytical, radiometric, spectrometric methods and method of mathematical statistics in the study. Materials: We carried out a statistical analysis of the results of the measurements of the total alpha activity and the activity of radon-222 in water samples from the artesian wells of 23 administrative regions of Ukraine studied during 2016 - 2020. Results: Analysis of the results of the measurements of the total alpha-activity and radon-222 activity in the water of artesian wells showed their significant heterogeneity for different regions of Ukraine and a connection with the geological features of the area. The statistical distribution of the values of the total alpha activity and the activity of radon-222 in water samples, diagrams of the range of measured values within the regions of Ukraine and between regions are presented in the work; the measurement results were plotted on the hydrogeological map of Ukraine. Conclusion: The values of the total alpha activity and the activity of radon-222 indicate that these indicators are extremely heterogeneous for the territory of Ukraine and reflect the geological features of the area. The results of the analysis can be useful for making recommendations to collective and individual water consumers, well owners regarding the need in more detailed study of the content of natural radionuclides in the sources of water and the use of the appropriate methods of water treatment in cases of non-compliance with the accepted standards. It is shown that it is necessary to develop a strategy for radiation monitoring of the groundwater quality in the country in order to study objectively the existing state and the achievement of an acceptable quality of the water consumed by the population.

Facilitating hospitality and tourism education in the pandemic and post-pandemic eras call for change, as the need for faculty members to deliver the curriculum digitally using multiple modalities,...

The Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics (PSAJ), sponsored by the Pi Sigma Alpha National Honor Society, was founded in 2001 at Purdue University. After 20 years, much has changed in undergraduate research and publishing, but the benefits of producing a peer-reviewed journal remain the same. Undergraduate research has increased in prominence, and the journal has modernized to meet these transformations. This article describes the history, purpose, and operations of the PSAJ. Most important, a survey of former Editorial Board members, Pi Sigma Alpha Faculty Chapter Advisors, and published authors in the journal reveal attitudes toward operating an undergraduate journal, using undergraduate research in the college classroom, and publishing in a peer-reviewed journal, respectively. We conclude with calls to continue to encourage undergraduate research and to assign published undergraduate research in upper-level courses.

The two books reviewed below could hardly be more timely, or complementary. Rowland Atkinson’s Alpha City outlines ‘How London was captured by the super-rich.’ Bob Colenutt’s The Property Lobby des...

Up to now, laser self-mixing interferometry (SMI) has been widely applied to numerous scientific and industry fields. A easily negligible parameter, linewidth enhancement factor $$\alpha $$ , influences the inclination of SMI signals, and larger $$\alpha $$ generally indicates more inclined fringes. It is demonstrated in the paper that solid-state lasers (SSL) have smaller linewidth enhancement factors compared with semiconductor ones, which interrupt the movement reconstruction of external targets. For Nd:YAG SSLs, $$\alpha $$ is experimentally analyzed to be around one, resulting in less tilted SMI fringes, and the direction discrimination property of SMI becomes less obvious even when a smooth target supplies more amount of feedback light. In the Nd:YAG SSL scheme and for harmonic vibrations, a simple and effective method is also proposed to obtain the frequency and amplitude information of external targets. Simulations and experiments show that the method can achieve the frequency accuracy within 1% and the amplitude accuracy better than 3%.

The detection and measurement of transuranic activity in ambient air by counting alpha particles is confounded due to the presence of short-lived alpha-emitting isotopes due to radon and thoron. Th...

Cronbach’s alpha (coefficient α) is the conventional statistic communication scholars use to estimate the reliability of multi-item measurement instruments. For many, if not most communication meas...

The Alpha Numeric System for Classifying Recordings (ANSCR) facilitates browsing by grouping items in content categories. Although uncommon among academic libraries, the author’s institution adopte...

We developed a remote continuous air monitoring (RCAM) system. The RCAM system consisted of a personal air monitor and a robot. The personal air monitor (poCAMon, SARAD, Germany) had a 400-mm2 ion-injected silicon detector and a membrane air filter with 25 mmφ. The personal air monitor provides the alpha energy spectra for any measurement time interval. Demonstration measurements were taken underground at the Mizunami Underground Research Laboratory and at a poorly ventilated concrete building. The RCAM system was remotely operated and successfully measured the 222Rn progeny even though the relative humidity was almost 100%. In the measured alpha spectra, the peaks of 218Po (6.0-MeV alpha) and 214Po (7.7-MeV alpha) were clearly identified. Our developed monitor is promising for alpha dust monitoring in a high gamma-ray environment or contaminated areas where a worker cannot safely physically enter.

This study introduces a new measure of fund activeness that predicts future fund abnormal returns. This measure is defined as the “return on new portfolio holdings.” It is constructed as the return on stocks that a fund has not held before. We find that the return on these positions drives future fund alpha. On average, a one-standard deviation increase in the return on new holdings increases fund alpha by approximately 0.39 to 0.49 percent per year. Overall, our findings provide new insights on the value of active management.

Cronbach’s alpha (α) is a widely-used measure of reliability used to quantify the amount of random measurement error that exists in a sum score or average generated by a multi-item measurement scal...

These notes cover my contributions over 65 years as a member of Phi Alpha Theta, my experience in research and writing about Benjamin Disraeli, my interpretation of the significance for his politic...

It is extremely fearful for the pestilences covering our Earth. Does that mean the “World End” is around the corner? For the so-called “Atheists” originally proposed by Karl Max and Friedrich Engels, “there is a Beginning, there must be an End”, meaning our Earth will finally no longer exist in the entire Universe by colliding with the other planet. According to Holly Bible, however, Jesus, will send out his angels to separate the wicked from the righteous and throw the former into the fiery furnace. For such a special time-period, many useful ideas or outcomes can be acquired by the Internet Institutes.

After having been developed in the early 2000's and put on production since then, the deep water (700 M water depth) Field Alpha is now at the end of field life and in the plug and abandonment (P&A) process. Although this field-life phase does not make any money for an E&P operating company, it can be a liability and put the company's reputation at stake, if not done correctly. Therefore, like any other field-life phases, it requires a professional and multidisciplinary integrated approach to deliver it while reducing the company's exposure. P&A campaign involves many stake holders: the local authorities, its technical and operational representative / auditor, the operator's well engineering community, the subsurface team, e.g., petrophysics team, and the operator's management. Understanding all their expectations and KPIs is primordial to prepare and successfully deliver such operations. The P&A process relies on the placement of adequate "barriers" inside the well to guarantee blockade of any potential reservoir fluid communication either within separate reservoirs (to avoid any reservoir re-pressurization through cross flow) or with seabed / surface which could impact the environment. As part of the well barrier, annuli cement quality and efficiency must be checked by cement bond evaluation. The petrophysics team has the responsibility to both define, in collaboration with others team members, the cement quality criteria and then to evaluate the cement quality in timely and efficient manner. In this campaign, which is expected to run for more than a year, with several petrophysicists involved both in the preparation phase and in the operation phase, e.g., execution and results validation, consistency in the process is of utmost importance. This paper presents the workflow put in place by PETRONAS Carigali during the Field Alpha P&A campaign. It emphasizes on the petrophysicist role and responsibilities from the preparation phase, during the operations, and through the results validation. The learnings and experiences acquired during the Deep-Water Field Alpha P&A campaign are now going to be transpose to domestic and international assets by means of corporate guidelines and workflows.

EEG power spectral density (PSD), the individual alpha frequency (IAF) and the frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA) are all EEG spectral measures that have been widely used to evaluate cognitive and attentional processes in experimental and clinical settings, and that can be used for real-world applications (e.g., remote EEG monitoring, brain-computer interfaces, neurofeedback, neuromodulation, etc.). Potential applications remain limited by the high cost, low mobility, and long preparation times associated with high-density EEG recording systems. Low-density wearable systems address these issues and can increase access to larger and diversified samples. The present study tested whether a low-cost, 4-channel wearable EEG system (the MUSE) could be used to quickly measure continuous EEG data, yielding similar frequency components compared to research a grade EEG system (the 64-channel BIOSEMI Active Two). We compare the spectral measures from MUSE EEG data referenced to mastoids to those from BIOSEMI EEG data with two different references for validation. A minimal amount of data was deliberately collected to test the feasibility for real-world applications (EEG setup and data collection being completed in under 5 min). We show that the MUSE can be used to examine power spectral density (PSD) in all frequency bands, the individual alpha frequency (IAF; i.e., peak alpha frequency and alpha center of gravity), and frontal alpha asymmetry. Furthermore, we observed satisfying internal consistency reliability in alpha power and asymmetry measures recorded with the MUSE. Estimating asymmetry on PAF and CoG frequencies did not yield significant advantages relative to the traditional method (whole alpha band). These findings should advance human neurophysiological monitoring using wearable neurotechnologies in large participant samples and increase the feasibility of their implementation in real-world settings.

We observed the predicted outburst of the Alpha Monocerotid (AMO) meteor shower on 2019 November 22 with our modernized video and photographic cameras. Due to the short duration and moderate intensity of the outburst, atmospheric trajectories and radiants were obtained for only ten meteors, seven of which included velocities, magnitudes, and orbits. In addition, one incomplete video spectrum was captured. The radiants and orbits were found to be compatible with that of the 1995 outburst. The spectrum confirmed that AMO meteoroids are deficient in sodium. Unlike any other meteor shower, meteor end heights were found to be distributed along a constant level of 90 km for all meteors with magnitudes between +4 and −2 and with atmospheric trajectory lengths up to 40 km. We propose that Alpha Monocerotids were formed from a devolatilized and fragile cometary crust composed from relatively large fundamental grains.

We report our ongoing search for extremely inverted spectrum compact radio galaxies, for which the defining feature in the radio spectrum is not the spectral peak, but instead the slope of the spectrum (alpha) in the high-opacity (i.e., lower frequency) part of the radio spectrum. Specifically, our focus is on the spectral regime with spectral index, alpha >+2.5. The motivation for our study is, firstly, extragalactic sources with such extreme spectral index are extremely rare, because of the unavailability of right combination of sensitivity and resolution over a range of low frequencies. The second reason is more physically motivated, since alpha = +2.5 is the maximum slope theoretically possible for a standard radio source emitting synchrotron radiation. Therefore such sources could be the test-bed for some already proposed alternative scenarios for synchrotron self-absorption (SSA), like the free-free absorption (FFA) highlighting the importance of jet-ISM interaction in the radio galaxy evolution., 4 pages, 1 figure, to be published in Astronomische Nachrichten as part of the proceedings of the 6th workshop on Compact Steep Spectrum and GHz-Peaked Spectrum Radio Sources, held in May 2021. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1908.08883

We report on the multi-frequency multi-epoch radio observations of the magnetar, XTE J1810-197, which exhibited a radio outburst from December 2018 after its 10-year quiescent period. We performed quasi-simultaneous observations with VERA (22 GHz), Hitachi (6.9 GHz and 8.4 GHz), Kashima (2.3 GHz), and Iitate (0.3 GHz) radio telescopes located in Japan to trace the variability of the magnetar radio pulsations during the observing period from 13 December 2018 to 12 June 2019. The pulse width goes narrower as the observing frequency goes higher, analogous to the general profile narrowing behavior of ordinary pulsars. When assuming a simple power law in the range of 2.3 GHz and 8.7 GHz, the radio spectrum of the magnetar goes steeper with the average spectral index $ \langle \alpha \rangle \approx -0.85$ for the first four months. The wide-band radio spectra inferred from our observations and the literature suggest that XTE J1810-197 would have a double-peaked spectrum with a valley point in 22 - 150 GHz, where the first spectral peak infers a gigahertz-peaked spectrum (GPS) feature with a peak at a few GHz. The GPS and the high-frequency peak have been identified in the spectra of other radio-loud magnetars, thus they may be intrinsic features that can give a new insight to understand various emission mechanisms and surrounding environments of radio magnetars. Our study emphasizes the importance of simultaneous long-term broad-band observations toward radio-loud magnetars to capture the puzzling spectral features and establish a link to other types of neutron stars., Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan (PASJ)

The correspondence between the isoscalar monopole (IS0) transition strengths and $\alpha$ inelastic cross sections, the $B({\rm IS0})$–$(\alpha,\alpha')$ correspondence, is investigated for $^{24}$Mg($\alpha,\alpha'$) at 130 and 386 MeV. We adopt a microscopic coupled-channel reaction framework to link structural inputs, diagonal and transition densities, for $^{24}$Mg obtained with antisymmetrized molecular dynamics to the ($\alpha,\alpha'$) cross sections. We aim at clarifying how the $B({\rm IS0})$–$(\alpha,\alpha')$ correspondence is affected by the nuclear distortion, the in-medium modification to the nucleon–nucleon effective interaction in the scattering process, and the coupled-channel effect. It is found that these effects are significant and the explanation of the $B({\rm IS0})$–$(\alpha,\alpha')$ correspondence in the plane wave limit with the long-wavelength approximation, which is often used, makes no sense. Nevertheless, the $B({\rm IS0})$–$(\alpha,\alpha')$ correspondence tends to remain because of a strong constraint on the transition densities between the ground state and the $0^+$ excited states. The correspondence is found to hold at 386 MeV with an error of about 20%–30%, while it is seriously compromised at 130 MeV, mainly by the strong nuclear distortion. It is also found that when a $0^+$ state that has a different structure from a simple $\alpha$ cluster state is considered, the $B({\rm IS0})$–$(\alpha,\alpha')$ correspondence becomes less valid. For a quantitative discussion on the $\alpha$ clustering in $0^+$ excited states of nuclei, a microscopic description of both the structure and reaction parts will be necessary.

Nuclear industry advancements and growing concerns about environmental contamination and terrorist activity have increased interest in quantifying radioisotopes in environmental and human samples. Increased presence in the environment, ease of entry into the food chain, nuclear medicine applications, and the possibility of radiological terrorism incidents can lead to human intake of these radionuclides (Radionuclides/Radiation Protection/US EPA (2020). https://www.epa.gov/radiation/radionuclides ; Radiation from the Earth (Terrestrial Radiation) (2015) Radiation and Your Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 7 December. https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/terrestrial.html ). A universal method to screen for and quantify individual radionuclides as well as both levels of alpha and beta emitters would address these concerns.

Recent research into navigation strategy of different spatial reference frames (self-centered egocentric reference frame and environment-centered allocentric reference frame) has revealed that the parietal cortex plays an important role in processing allocentric information to provide a translation function between egocentric and allocentric spatial reference frames. However, most studies merely focused on a passive experimental environment, which is not truly representative of our daily spatial learning/navigation tasks. This study investigated the factor associated with brain dynamics that causes people to switch their preferred spatial strategy in both active and passive navigations to bridge the gap. Virtual reality (VR) technique and Omni treadmill are applied to realize actively walking for active navigation, and for passive navigation, participants were sitting while conducting the same task. Electroencephalography (EEG) signals were recorded to monitor spectral perturbations on transitions between egocentric and allocentric frames during a path integration task. Forty-one right-handed male participants from authors’ university participated this study. Our brain dynamics results showed navigation involved areas including the parietal cortex with modulation in the alpha band, the occipital cortex with beta and low gamma band perturbations, and the frontal cortex with theta perturbation. Differences were found between two different turning-angle paths in the alpha band in parietal cluster event-related spectral perturbations (ERSPs). In small turning-angle paths, allocentric participants showed stronger alpha desynchronization than egocentric participants; in large turning-angle paths, participants for two reference frames had a smaller difference in the alpha frequency band. Behavior results of homing errors also corresponded to brain dynamic results, indicating that a larger angle path caused the allocentric to have a higher tendency to become egocentric navigators in the active navigation environment.

We examine short term trades in the housing market over the period 2000–2013 using nationally representative data across multiple U.S. housing markets. Such trades, often characterized as “house flipping”, have gained currency in recent years with reality television shows depicting success and failure. We find evidence of returns in excess of market house price index growth (which we call alpha) during certain time periods with results that also vary across distressed versus non-distressed acquisition strategies.

We present a comprehensive multi-frequency catalogue of radio sources behind the Large Magellanic Cloud between 0.2 and 20 GHz, gathered from a combination of new and legacy radio continuum surveys. This catalogue covers an area of $\sim$144~deg$^2$ at angular resolutions from 45 arcsec to $\sim$3 arcmin. We find 6434 discrete radio sources in total, of which 3789 are detected at two or more radio frequencies. We estimate the median spectral index ($\alpha$; where $S_{v}\sim\nu^\alpha$) of $\alpha = -0.89 $ and mean of $-0.88 \pm 0.48$ for 3636 sources detected exclusively at two frequencies (0.843 and 1.384 GHz) with similar resolution (FWHM $\sim$40-45 arcsec). The large frequency range of the surveys makes it an effective tool to investigate Gigahertz Peak Spectrum (GPS), Compact Steep Spectrum (CSS) and Infrared Faint Radio sources populations within our sample. We find 10 GPS candidates with peak frequencies near 5 GHz, from which we estimate their linear size. 1866 sources from our catalogue are (CSS) candidates with $\alpha 0.5$. We found optical counterparts for 343 of the radio continuum sources, of which 128have a redshift measurement. Finally, we investigate the population of 123 Infrared Faint Radio Sources (IFRSs) found in this study., Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS

The µDose-system is a recently developed analytical instrument applying a combined α- and β-sensitive scintillation technique for determining the radioactivity arising from the decay chains of 235U, 238U and 232Th as well as from the decay of 40K. The device was designed to meet the particular requirements of trapped charge dating methods and allows the assessment of environmental (i.e. low) levels of natural radionuclides. The µDose-system was developed as a low-cost laboratory equipment, but a systematic test of its performance is still pending. For the first time, we present results from a comprehensive performance test based on an inter-laboratory comparison. We compare the results gained with µDose-measurements with those from thick source alpha counting (TSAC), inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) and low-level high-resolution gamma spectrometry (HRGS) applied in five participating laboratories. In addition, the reproducibility and accuracy of µDose-measurements were tested on certified reference materials distributed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA; RGU-1, RGTh-1 and RGK-1) and on two loess standards (Nussy and Volkegem) frequently used in trapped charge dating studies. We compare µDose-based results for a total of 47 sediment samples with results previously obtained for these materials by well-established methods of dose rate determination. The investigated natural samples cover a great variety of environments, including fluvial, aeolian, littoral, colluvial and (geo-)archaeological sites originating from high- and low-mountain regions as well as from lowlands in tropical areas, drylands and mid-latitude zones of Europe, Africa, Australia, Central Asia and the Americas. Our results suggest the µDose-system’s capability of assessing low-level radionuclide contents with very good accuracy and precision comparable to well-established dosimetry methods. Based on the results of our comparative study and with respect to the practical experiences gained so far, the µDose-system appears to be a promising tool for trapped charge dating studies.

Nearly two decades have passed since Beaverstock et al. called upon scholars to expose the geographies of the super-rich. Despite the urgency of this call, and the growing ability of the super-rich...

Despite recent improvements, α1-antitrypsin deficiency (AATD) remains a rarely diagnosed and treated condition. To assess the variability of AATD diagnosis/treatment in Europe, and to evaluate clinicians’ views on methods to optimise management, specialist AATD clinicians were invited to complete a web-based survey. Surveys were completed by 15 physicians from 14 centres in 13 European countries. All respondents perceived the AATD diagnosis rate to be low in their country; 77% of physicians believed that ∼15% of cases were diagnosed. Low awareness was perceived as the greatest barrier to diagnosis. Spirometry was considered more practical than quantitative computed tomography (QCT) for monitoring AATD patients in clinical practice; QCT was considered more useful in trials. AAT therapy provision was reported to be highly variable: France and Germany were reported to treat the highest proportion (∼60%) of diagnosed patients, in contrast to the UK and Hungary, where virtually no patients receive AAT therapy. Most clinicians supported self-administration and extended dosing intervals to improve convenience of AAT therapy. This survey indicates that AATD diagnosis and management are highly heterogeneous in Europe; European cooperation is essential to generate data to support access to AAT therapy. Improving convenience of AAT therapy is an ongoing objective., Access to α1-antitrypsin (α1-AT) therapy varies in Europe; where available, α1-AT therapy optimisation is the goal http://ow.ly/YL6m30n4LV3

We present a new image of the 9.0 GHz radio emission from the extended Chandra Deep Field South. A total of 181 hours of integration with the Australia Telescope Compact Array has resulted in a 0.276 square degree image with a median sensitivity of $\sim$20 $\mu$Jy/beam rms, for a synthesised beam of 4.0 $\times$ 1.3 arcsec. We present a catalogue of the 9.0 GHz radio sources, identifying 70 source components and 55 individual radio galaxies. Source counts derived from this sample are consistent with those reported in the literature. The observed source counts are also generally consistent with the source counts from simulations of the faint radio population. Using the wealth of multiwavelength data available for this region, we classify the faint 9 GHz population and find that 91% are radio loud AGN, 7% are radio quiet AGN and 2% are star forming galaxies. The 9.0 GHz radio sources were matched to 5.5 and 1.4 GHz sources in the literature and we find a significant fraction of flat or inverted spectrum sources, with 36% of the 9 GHz sources having $\alpha_{5.5GHz}^{9.0GHz}$ $>$ -0.3 (for $S \propto \nu^\alpha$). This flat or inverted population is not well reproduced by current simulations of radio source populations., Comment: 17 pages, 12 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

Among the lithospheric, atmospheric and ionospheric earthquake precursors, it seems that the ionospheric anomalies showing a meaningful association with seismic activities during absence of solar and geomagnetic activities. Unfortunately there are a limited number of satellite sensors to survey the ionosphere and study on seismo-ionospheric anomalies. This paper represents the data analysis results of Swarm satellites including Alpha, Bravo and Charlie data around the Mexico (September 8, 2017) earthquake. The orbital analysis and time series of magnetic field parameters (magnetic scalar and vectors (X, Y, Z) components) inside the Dobrovolsky’s area show anomalous variations close to the time and locations of the Mexico earthquake. There is a concavity or convexity variations in the some of the time-series to the centre of the earthquake day. In other words, from about 90 days before the event a decreasing or increasing trend in variations of parameters is observed and exactly after the earthquake day its trend changes. It should be noted that the variations of the solar and geomagnetic indices must indicate a normal behaviour during the observed seismo-ionospheric anomalies. Therefore this study indicates that the Swarm satellites measurements play an undeniable role in progress the studies of the ionospheric precursors.

The Alpha Ridge-Mendeleev Rise (AMR) is the major bathymetric feature in the Amerasia Basin of the Arctic Ocean. Its tectonic history is controversial due to its remote location in ice covered wate...

A hallmark of episodic memory is the phenomenon of mentally reexperiencing the details of past events, and a well-established concept is that the neuronal activity that mediates encoding is reinstated at retrieval. Evidence for reinstatement has come from multiple modalities, including functional magnetic resonance imaging and electroencephalography (EEG). These EEG studies have shed light on the time course of reinstatement but have been limited to distinguishing between a few categories. The goal of this work was to use recently developed experimental and technical approaches, namely continuous report tasks and inverted encoding models, to determine which frequencies of oscillatory brain activity support the retrieval of precise spatial memories. In experiment 1, we establish that an inverted encoding model applied to multivariate alpha topography tracks the retrieval of precise spatial memories. In experiment 2, we demonstrate that the frequencies and patterns of multivariate activity at study are similar to the frequencies and patterns observed during retrieval. These findings highlight the broad potential for using encoding models to characterize long-term memory retrieval. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Previous EEG work has shown that category-level information observed during encoding is recapitulated during memory retrieval, but studies with this time-resolved method have not demonstrated the reinstatement of feature-specific patterns of neural activity during retrieval. Here we show that EEG alpha-band activity tracks the retrieval of spatial representations from long-term memory. Moreover, we find considerable overlap between the frequencies and patterns of activity that track spatial memories during initial study and at retrieval.

Alpha emitters in Mexican Pacific beach sands were studied to calculate the 234U/238U activity ratio (AR) and the 239+240Pu content. AR was related with the weathering conditions of the sands; AR = 1 means reduced weathering conditions, like those found in the end of the California peninsula, and AR

Background: All existing time delay estimation methods, i.e. correlation and covariance, depend on second or higher-order statistics which are inapplicable for the correlation of alpha-stable noise signals. Therefore, fractional lower order covariance is the most appropriate method to measure the similarity between the alpha-stable noise signals. Methods: In this paper, the effects of skewness and impulsiveness parameters of alpha-stable distributed noise on fractional lower order covariance method have been analyzed. Results: It has been found that auto-correlation, i.e. auto fractional lower order covariance,\ of non delayed alpha-stable noise signals follows a specific trend for specific ranges of impulsiveness and skewness parameters of alpha-stable distributed noise. The results also depict that, by maintaining the skewness and impulsiveness parameters of α-stable noise signals in a certain suggested range, better auto-correlation can be obtained between the transmitted and the received alpha-stable noise signals in the absence and presence of additive white Gaussian noise. Conclusion: The obtained results would improve signal processing in alpha-stable noise environment which is used extensively to model impulsive noise in many noise-based systems. Mainly, it would optimize the performance of random noise-based covert communication, i.e. random communication.