Massage as a Curative Agent.

n/

Backarc basin and ocean island basalts in the Narooma Accretionary Complex, Australia: setting, geochemistry and tectonics

The Cambrian-Ordovician Wagonga Group contains basalts at Melville Point and Barlings Beach, 20 km south of Batemans Bay, New South Wales. At Melville Point, the succession has basal altered basalts overlain by chert and interbedded siliceous mudstone of the Wagonga Group, in turn overlain by turbidites and chert of the Adaminaby Group with a latest Cambrian to earliest Ordovician age. By contrast, at Barlings Beach, basalt is associated with highly disrupted chert (tectonic mélange), various slivers of mudstone and turbidites, and turbidites of the Adaminaby Group. Immobile elements in the basalts show consistent patterns that allow the magmatic affinity and tectonic setting to be determined in spite of pervasive hydrothermal alteration and subsequent lower greenschist facies metamorphism that accompanied strong folding and multiple foliation development. The Melville Point basalts show Ti/V ratios transitional between arc and MORB and therefore may have formed in either a forearc or backarc basin setting. However, these rocks have higher Ti/V ratios, LREE, Th and Nb than found in forearc basalts and are therefore considered to have formed in a backarc basin setting. In contrast to Melville Point, most basalts at Barlings Beach have a geochemical signature distinctive of ocean island settings like those reported from elsewhere in the Wagonga Group. We believe these rocks developed in a Cambrian backarc basin setting. In the Early to Middle Ordovician, much of the ocean basin was inundated by quartzose turbidites followed by basin destruction with accretion/underplating at a Late Ordovician-early Silurian Benambran subduction zone and formation of the Narooma Accretionary Complex

The bispectrum of matter perturbations from cosmic strings

We present the first calculation of the bispectrum of the matter perturbations induced by cosmic strings. The calculation is performed in two different ways: the first uses the unequal time correlators (UETCs) of the string network - computed using a Gaussian model previously employed for cosmic string power spectra. The second approach uses the wake model, where string density perturbations are concentrated in sheet-like structures whose surface density grows with time. The qualitative and quantitative agreement of the two gives confidence to the results. An essential ingredient in the UETC approach is the inclusion of compensation factors in the integration with the Green's function of the matter and radiation fluids, and we show that these compensation factors must be included in the wake model also. We also present a comparison of the UETCs computed in the Gaussian model, and those computed in the unconnected segment model (USM) used by the standard cosmic string perturbation package CMBACT. We compare numerical estimates for the bispectrum of cosmic strings to those produced by perturbations from an inflationary era, and discover that, despite the intrinsically non-Gaussian nature of string-induced perturbations, the matter bispectrum is unlikely to produce competitive constraints on a population of cosmic strings

Accommodating quality and service improvement research within existing ethical principles

Funds were provided by a Canadian Institute of Health Research grant (Nominated PI: Monica Taljaard, PJT – 153045). Funds were also generously provided by Charles Weijer, who is funded by a Tier 1 Canadian Research Chair.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Functional Imaging of the Outer Retinal Complex using High Fidelity Imaging Retinal Densitometry

We describe a new technique, high fidelity Imaging Retinal Densitometry (IRD), which probes the functional integrity of the outer retinal complex. We demonstrate the ability of the technique to map visual pigment optical density and synthesis rates in eyes with and without macular disease. A multispectral retinal imaging device obtained precise measurements of retinal reflectance over space and time. Data obtained from healthy controls and 5 patients with intermediate AMD, before and after photopigment bleaching, were used to quantify visual pigment metrics. Heat maps were plotted to summarise the topography of rod and cone pigment kinetics and descriptive statistics conducted to highlight differences between those with and without AMD. Rod and cone visual pigment synthesis rates in those with AMD (v = 0.043 SD 0.019 min-1 and v = 0.119 SD 0.046 min-1, respectively) were approximately half those observed in healthy controls (v = 0.079 SD 0.024 min-1 for rods and v = 0.206 SD 0.069 min-1 for cones). By mapping visual pigment kinetics across the central retina, high fidelity IRD provides a unique insight into outer retinal complex function. This new technique will improve the phenotypic characterisation, diagnosis and treatment monitoring of various ocular pathologies, including AMD

The Sanandaj-Sirjan Zone in the Neo-Tethyan suture, western Iran: Zircon U-Pb evidence of late Palaeozoic rifting of northern Gondwana and mid-Jurassic orogenesis

The Zagros Orogen, marking the closure of the Neo-Tethyan Ocean, formed by continental collision beginning in the late Eocene to early Miocene. Collision was preceded by a complicated tectonic history involving Pan-African orogenesis, Late Palaeozoic rifting forming Neo-Tethys, followed by Mesozoic convergence on the ocean\u27s northern margin and ophiolite obduction on its southern margin. The Sanandaj-Sirjan Zone is a metamorphic belt in the Zagros Orogen of Gondwanan provenance. Zircon ages have established Pan-African basement igneous and metamorphic complexes in addition to uncommon late Palaeozoic plutons and abundant Jurassic plutonic rocks. We have determined zircon ages from units in the northwestern Sanandaj-Sirjan Zone (Golpaygan region). A sample of quartzite from the June Complex has detrital zircons with U-Pb ages mainly in 800-1050 Ma with a maximum depositional age of 547 ± 32 Ma (latest Neoproterozoic¿earliest Cambrian). A SHRIMP U-Pb zircon age of 336 ± 9 Ma from gabbro in the June Complex indicates a Carboniferous plutonic event that is also recorded in the far northwestern Sanandaj-Sirjan Zone. Together with the Permian Hasanrobat Granite near Golpaygan, they all are considered related to rifting marking formation of Neo-Tethys. Scarce detrital zircons from an extensive package of metasedimentary rocks (Hamadan Phyllite) have ages consistent with the Triassic to Early Jurassic age previously determined from fossils. These ages confirm that an orogenic episode affected the Sanandaj-Sirjan Zone in the Early to Middle Jurassic (Cimmerian Orogeny). Although the Cimmerian Orogeny in northern Iran reflects late Triassic to Jurassic collision of the Turan platform (southern Eurasia) and the Cimmerian microcontinent, we consider that in the Sanandaj-Sirjan Zone a tectonothermal event coeval with the Cimmerian Orogeny resulted from initiation of subduction and closure of rift basins along the northern margin of Neo-Tethys