25 research outputs found
Islam Nusantara: Islam Khas dan Akomodatif terhadap Budaya Lokal
This article is mainly to analyse background of the emerging of an Islamic thought, that is, friendly Indonesian model. This study has been conducted in order to address the spread of Islamic literalist-puritans-literalist-trans-nationalist massively and fiercely against local traditions. In this study, we look at the emerging a new Indonesian model of Islam, that is, the so called “Islam Nusantaraâ€. The Islam Nusantara is believed basically rooted from Indonesians’ tradition and has already grown in the early age of Islam in this country which was introduced by the Walisongo (the nine priests). Hence, Islam Nusantara should not be seen in suspicious perspective since it has been basically familiar with cultures and characters of Indonesian nation, which are moderate and tolerant ones. Moreover, it figures out the role of Pesantren institutions, and organisations such as NU and Muhammadiyah with their various characteristics, strength and weakness, are the pioneer of Islam Nusantara heritage and cultures
Understanding potential conflicts between human and non-human-primates: A large-scale survey in Malaysia
With increasing anthropogenic pressure, interactions between humans and wildlife may become more frequent, including conflictual ones. To reduce conflicts, it is important to understand how different factors (e.g. education, previous experience, demographic vari-ables) interplay with each other and contribute to the emergence of negative attitudes and behaviours toward wildlife in humans. To address this issue, we conducted a large-scale questionnaire in Malaysia, focusing on potential conflicts between human and other pri-mates. We used generalized linear mixed models to assess how formal education, knowl-edge about primates, negative experience and potential competition affected participants’ negative attitudes to primates (i.e. how humans perceive primates), their behavioural inten-tions (i.e. opinion on how to reduce conflicts) and behaviour (i.e. measures taken to reduce negative interactions). We found that negative experience and potential competition had a negative impact on participants’ attitude and behavior (i.e. primates were more likely perceived as filthy, as negatively affecting residents’ health and safety, and as an increas-ing problem, with participants more likely to use invasive methods, including captures). Both higher education and better knowledge of primates predicted more positive behav-ioural intentions (i.e. primates should be protected, non-invasive interventions should be used). Higher education, however, was also linked to more negative attitudes (i.e. primates negatively affect residents’ health and safety), and partly to negative behavior (e.g. use of invasive methods). In contrast, better knowledge about primates predicted positive behav-iour (i.e. exclusive use of non-invasive methods). Therefore, although better knowledge of primates had no clear effect on human attitudes, it may impact on their decisions to reduce potential conflicts with wildlife, and might be the most powerful tool to mitigate conflicts between humans and other specie
ATTACK AGAINST ANONYMITY USING CELL COUNTING
Various low-latency anonymous communication systems such as Tor and Anonymizer have been designed to provide anonymity service for users. In order to hide the communication of users, most of the anonymity systems pack the application data into equal-sized cells. Via extensive experiments on Tor, we found that the size of IP packets in the Tor network can be very dynamic because a cell is an application concept and the IP layer may repack cells. Based on this finding, we investigate a new cell-counting-based attack against Tor, which allows the attacker to confirm anonymous communication relationship among users very quickly. In this attack, by marginally varying the number of cells in the target traffic at the malicious exit onion router, the attacker can embed a secret signal into the variation of cell counter of the target traffic. The embedded signal will be carried along with the target traffic and arrive at the malicious entry onion router. Then, an accomplice of the attacker at themalicious entry onion router will detect the embedded signal based on the received cells and confirm the communication relationship among users. We have implemented this attack against Tor, and our experimental data validate its feasibility and effectiveness. There are several unique features of this attack. First, this attack is highly efficient and can confirm very short communication sessions with only tens of cells. Second, this attack is effective, and its detection rate approaches 100% with a very low false positive rate. Third, it is possible to implement the attack in a way that appears to be very difficult for honest participants to detect
An experimental investigation on the deformation and degradation behaviour of geogrid-reinforced ballast
Railroad ballast, owing to its unbounded granular nature, spreads laterally when subjected to large vertical axle loads, which influences the track stability. In this view, large-scale cyclic tests have been conducted on ballast to explore the role of geogrid in controlling the lateral deformation of ballast and hence improving the track performance. Fresh latite ballast having a mean particle size of 35 mm and geogrids with different aperture sizes was used for the investigations. Tests were conducted using a modified process simulation test (MPST) apparatus at a loading frequency of 20 Hz, with geogrid placed at the subballast-ballast interface and within the ballast. The laboratory experimental results indicate that the geogrid arrests the lateral spreading of ballast, reduces the extent of permanent vertical settlement and minimises the particle breakage under high-frequency cyclic loading. However, the improvement in track performance is directly influenced by the effectiveness of the ballast-geogrid interface. It is shown that the higher the shear strength at the ballast-geogrid interface, the lower is the deformation and degradation of ballast. In addition, the geogrid also reduces the extent of vertical stress in the subgrade soil. These test results highlight the role of geogrid in stabilising the ballast thus encouraging its use as track reinforcement in railway applications
Attomole enantiomeric discrimination of small molecules using an achiral SERS reporter and chiral plasmonics
Biologically important molecules span a size range from very large
biomacromolecules, such as proteins to small metabolite molecules.
Consequently, spectroscopic techniques which can detect and characterize the
structure of inherently chiral biomolecules over this range of scale at the
femtomole level are necessary to develop novel biosensing and diagnostic
technologies. Nanophotonic platforms uniquely enable chirally sensitive
structural characterisation of biomacromolecules at this ultrasensitive level.
However, they are less successful at achieving the same level of sensitivity
for small chiral molecules, with less than nanomole typical. This poorer
performance can be attributed to the optical response of the platform being
sensitive to a much larger volume of the near field than is occupied by the
small molecule. Here we show that by combining chiral plasmonic metasurfaces
with Raman reporters, which can detect changes in electromagnetic environment
at molecular dimensions, chiral discrimination can be achieved for attomole
quantities of a small molecule, the amino acid cysteine. The signal-to-noise,
and hence ultimate sensitivity, of the measurement can be further improved by
combining the metasurfaces with gold achiral nanoparticles. This indirect
enantiomeric detection is 9 orders of magnitude more sensitive than strategies
relying on monitoring the Raman response of target chiral molecules directly.
Given the generic nature of the phenomenon,this study provides a framework for
developing novel technologies for detecting a broad spectrum of small
biomolecules, which would be useful tools in the field of metabolomics
A georeferenced dataset of Italian occurrence records of the phylum Rotifera
We report a dataset of known and published occurrence records of Italian taxa from species (and subspecies) to family rank of the phylum Rotifera; we considered only Bdelloidea, Monogononta, and Seisonacea, and did not include Acanthocephala. The dataset includes 15,525 records (12,015 of which with georeferenced coordinates) of 584 valid species and subspecies names and other taxa at family level, gathered from 332 published papers. The published literature spans the period from 1838 to 2022, with the lowest number of papers published during the first half of the twentieth century, followed by an increasing number of papers, from 20 to more than 60 in each decade. The Italian regions with the highest number of records and species are Emilia-Romagna, Lombardy, and Piedmont, whereas no records are known for Molise. The number of species known from each region mostly mirrors sampling efforts, measured as the number of publications per region. The dataset is available through the Open Science Framework (OSF), and all the georeferenced occurrence data have been uploaded to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)
A georeferenced dataset of Italian occurrence records of the phylum Rotifera
We report a dataset of known and published occurrence records of Italian taxa from species (and subspecies) to family rank of the phylum Rotifera; we considered only Bdelloidea, Monogononta, and Seisonacea, and did not include Acanthocephala. The dataset in-cludes 15,525 records (12,015 of which with georeferenced coordinates) of 584 valid species and subspecies names and other taxa at family level, gathered from 332 published papers. The published literature spans the period from 1838 to 2022, with the lowest number of papers published during the first half of the twentieth century, followed by an increasing number of papers, from 20 to more than 60 in each decade. The Italian regions with the highest number of records and species are Emilia-Romagna, Lombardy, and Piedmont, whereas no records are known for Molise. The number of species known from each region mostly mirrors sampling efforts, measured as the number of publications per region. The dataset is available through the Open Science Framework (OSF), and all the georeferenced occurrence data have been uploaded to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). ial use only
Chiral Metafilms and Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering For Enantiomeric Discrimination of Helicoid Nanoparticles
Chiral nanophotonic platforms provide a means of creating near fields with
both enhanced asymmetric properties and intensities. They can be exploited for
optical measurements that allow enantiomeric discrimination at detection levels
greater than 6 orders of magnitude than is achieved with conventional chirally
sensitive spectroscopic methods based on circularly polarized light. The
optimal approach for exploiting nanophotonic platforms for chiral detection
would be to use spectroscopic methods that provide a local probe of changes in
the near field environment induced by the presence of chiral species. Here we
show that surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is such a local probe of
the near field environment. We have used it to achieve enantiomeric
discrimination of chiral helicoid nanoparticles deposited on left and
right-handed enantiomorphs of a chiral metafilm. Hotter electromagnetic
hotspots are created for matched combinations of helicoid and metafilms
(left-left and right-right), while mismatched combinations leads to
significantly cooler electromagnetic hotspots. This large enantiomeric
dependency on hotspot intensity is readily detected using SERS with the aid of
an achiral Raman reporter molecule. In effect we have used SERS to distinguish
between the different EM environments of the plasmonic diastereomers produced
by mixing chiral nanoparticles and metafilms. The work demonstrates that by
combining chiral nanophotonic platforms with established SERS strategies new
avenues in ultrasensitive chiral detection can be opened
Chiral plasmonic response of 2D Ti3C2Tx flakes: realization and applications
The circularly polarized light sensitive materials response can be reached at plasmon wavelengths through the coupling of intrinsically non-chiral plasmonic nanostructure with chiral organic molecules. As a plasmonic background, the different types of metal nanoparticles of various shapes and sizes are successfully tested and an apparent circular dichroism (CD) signal is measured in both, nanoparticles suspensions and after nanoparticle immobilization in substrate. In this work, the creation of plasmon-active 2D flakes of MXenes (Ti3C2Tx) is proposed, with the apparent CD response at plasmon wavelength, through the coupling of intrinsically non-chiral flakes with helically shaped helicene enantiomers. This work provides the first demonstration of chiral and plasmon-active 2D material, which shows the absorption sensitive to light intrinsic circular polarization even in plasmon wavelengths range. The appearance of the induced CD signal is additionally confirmed by several theoretical calculations. After the experimental and theoretical confirmation of the optical chirality at plasmon wavelengths, the flakes are utilized for the polarization sensitive conversion of light to heat, as well as for polarization dependent triggering of plasmon-assisted chemical transformation