Optical Properties of Natural and Synthetic Minerals

The results of investigation of optical absorption and photoluminescence (PL) of topaz, beryl and yttrium aluminium garnet crystals doped with different concentrations of transition ions exposed to fast neutron irradiation and electron irradiation are presented. We suppose that irradiation leads to the formation of two types of complex centers: "Me2+-F+ (or F) centre" and complex centers, which consist of a cation vacancy and an impurity (iron, manganese and chromium) ion. Exchange interaction between radiation defects and impurity ions during neutron or electron irradiation gives rise to appearance of additional absorption and luminescence band broadening in investigated crystals

Structure and Phase Changes in Natural and Synthetic Magnesium Aluminum Spinel

Natural spinel crystals from Ural and Pamir deposits and synthetic magnesium aluminium spinel single crystals with different stoichiometry (MgO.nAl2O3 ) grown by Verneuil method were used. The photoluminescence (PL), its excitation (PLE) and optical absorption of stoichiometric and nonstoichiometric magnesium aluminium spinel crystals containing the chromium and manganese ions and defects produced by fast neutron irradiation( fluence up to 1020cm-2, E0.1 MeV) are investigated. The broadening of R- and N-lines takes place in synthetic stoichiometric spinel. Structure of synthetic nonstoichiometric spinels (n1) has to be more disordered, since in addition to the site exchange the so called stoichiometric vacancies are present in the structure. The R- and N-lines broadening takes place after spinel crystals irradiation by fast neutron too. The neutron irradiation causes increasing of the spinel inversion. Furthermore the great deviation from stoichiometry leads to the local structure of α-Al2O3 formation around Cr3+ ions. The orange emission band at 570 nm is belonging to complex center “Mn2+-F+ (or F centre)”

Diminutivization supports gender acquisition in Russian children

Gender agreement elicitation was used with Russian children to examine how diminutives common in Russian child-directed speech affect gender learning. Forty-six children (2;9–4;8) were shown pictures of familiar and of novel animals and asked to describe them after hearing their names, which all contained regular morphophonological cues to masculine or feminine gender. Half were presented as simplex (e.g. josh ‘porcupine’) and half as diminutive forms (e.g. jozhik ‘porcupine-DIM’). Children produced fewer agreement errors for diminutive than for simplex nouns, indicating that the regularizing features of diminutives enhance gender categorization. The study demonstrates how features of child-directed speech can facilitate language learning

Fight or Flight in Civil War? Evidence from Rebel-Controlled Syria

Abstract Faced with prospects of a civil war escalating on their doorstep, ordinary people must decide whether to take up arms and join the fight, to stay in place and seek shelter in confines of the conflict zone, or to flee their homes in search of safer locations. Using original survey and experimental data from the ongoing conflict in Syria, we try to understand how people facing conflict make critical life-and-death decisions. Drawing on a range of hypotheses from the existing literature, we find compelling evidence that in-group ties and grievance motivations explain fight vs. flight decision-making at the individual level. Using well-balanced samples of over 300 Free Syrian Army and Islamist fighters, civilian non-combatants, and externally displaced refugees from actively contested regions of Syria, we observe that people with strong in-group bonds and out-group aversions are more likely to stay and fight. In contrast, refugees are far less revenge-seeking and more willing to negotiate for peace. Overall, our research suggests that heterogeneous preferences and motivations within subpopulations of civil war participants can create serious coordination problems with practical implications for conflict duration and outcomes. 2 How do different people respond to fight or flight impulses in civil war? Despite a rich theoretical literature on this topic, it is not clear what makes some people risk life and limb to mobilize for violence, others to remain frozen in place in conflict zones despite high probabilities of being injured or killed, while others take considerable travel risks to seek safety in another location. Rational actor models face challenges by high uncertainty in the estimation of risk and reward. Psychological models are limited because of empirical challenges of getting into the cognitive and emotional mindset of rebels and refugees at the critical moment of decisionmaking. At best, most of our evidence about fight or flight motivations in civil war are post-hoc, with selection on survivors, and stated motivations may be potentially endogenous to conflict processes and outcomes. Given the importance of the topic but empirical challenges and theoretical unknowns, we attempt to shed light on fight or flight decision-making by examining attitudes and preferences in real time as civil war is actively ongoing. Using survey and experimental evidence from contested areas of Syria, we seek to evaluate a wide range of hypotheses from the literature on civil war participation. In Syria, conflict is still unfolding and outcomes remain uncertain. Rebel fighters and civilians in Syria who participated in our study do not know if they will survive the conflict. The field interviews for this study were conducted at great personal risk. We understood the dangers involved in this project and took necessary precautions that limited the scope of our sampling and research design. Though we will readily admit and speak extensively about limitations of inference from our data, we hope that our efforts will advance our theoretical understanding of the choices people make under threat of violence. Motivatio

Cross-border media and nationalism: Evidence from Serbian radio in Croatia

How do nationalistic media affect animosity between ethnic groups? We consider one of Europe’s deadliest conflicts since WWII: the Serbo-Croatian conflict. We show that, after a decade of peace, cross-border nationalistic Serbian radio triggers ethnic hatred towards Serbs in Croatia. Mostly attracted by non-political content, many Croats listen to Serbian public radio (intended for Serbs in Serbia) whenever signal is available. As a result, the vote for extreme nationalist parties is higher, and ethnically offensive graffiti are more common, in Croatian villages with Serbian radio reception. A laboratory experiment confirms that Serbian radio exposure causes anti-Serbian sentiment among Croats.

Synthesis and vibration spectroscopy of nano-sized manganese oxides

The present study has been supported by the Latvian National Research Program IMIS2. One of us, IS, was supported by MES RF RFMEFI61615X0064.X-ray diffraction, micro-Raman and the Fourier transform infrared spectroscopies as well as magnetometry measurements were performed on nanosized manganese oxides to probe their phase composition and magnetic properties. It was shown that the XRD method is less sensitive to phase composition of manganese oxide samples than spectroscopic methods. While in some samples the XRD method recognised only the manganosite MnO phase, the Raman and FT-IR methods revealed additionally the presence of the hausmannite Mn3O4 phase.Ministry of Education and Science RF RFMEFI61615X0064; Institute of Solid State Physics, University of Latvia as the Center of Excellence has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme H2020-WIDESPREAD-01-2016-2017-TeamingPhase2 under grant agreement No. 739508, project CAMART

Synthesis and vibration spectroscopy of nano-sized manganese oxides

The present study has been supported by the Latvian National Research Program IMIS2. One of us, IS, was supported by MES RF RFMEFI61615X0064.X-ray diffraction, micro-Raman and the Fourier transform infrared spectroscopies as well as magnetometry measurements were performed on nanosized manganese oxides to probe their phase composition and magnetic properties. It was shown that the XRD method is less sensitive to phase composition of manganese oxide samples than spectroscopic methods. While in some samples the XRD method recognised only the manganosite MnO phase, the Raman and FT-IR methods revealed additionally the presence of the hausmannite Mn3O4 phase.Ministry of Education and Science RF RFMEFI61615X0064; Institute of Solid State Physics, University of Latvia as the Center of Excellence has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme H2020-WIDESPREAD-01-2016-2017-TeamingPhase2 under grant agreement No. 739508, project CAMART

Application of immunomagnetic separation for accelerated detection of <i>F. tularensis</i> cells in soil samples using an immunochromatographic test

Introduction. Epizootological monitoring of the area contamination with the causative agent of tularemia implies the collection and analysis of a variety of field specimens. The analysis of such objects is time- and labour-consuming. In this context, simple and fast diagnostic techniques are needed to analyze specimens under resource-limited conditions. Aim. To study the possibility of using immunomagnetic separation for accelerated detection of Francisella tularensis cells in soil samples using immunochromatography. Materials and methods. Immunomagnetic particles (IMPs) were produced by using monoclonal antibodies to lipopolysaccharide (LPS) of the tularemia causative agent. Soil specimens weighing 1 g with preliminary introduced inactivated F. tularensis 15/10 cells were used in the study. The samples were suspended in an extraction buffer (EB) and filtered. Tularemia cells were separated by IMP suspension. The particles were washed, resuspended in EB and heated at 100C for 5 minutes. The supernatant was analyzed with test strips based on F. tularensis IC-test kit. Results. A combination of the immunomagnetic separation method and the IC test to detect F. tularensis cells identified up to 1 106 cells of the tularemia pathogen in analyzed soil samples, while 1 107 cells were detected in soil washouts in the absence of immunomagnetic separation. Conclusion. The developed technique combining immunomagnetic separation and IC tests opens up prospects for express diagnostics of soil sample contamination in tularemia foci. The analysis takes about 3 hours, and its sensitivity is 1 106 cells/g of soil. The technique is simple, not requiring sophisticated expensive equipment. It can be easily adapted for testing other specimen types (water, grain, etc.). In addition, separated bacterial cells can be used for F. tularensis detection by other methods

European Red List of Habitats Part 1. Marine habitats

The European Red List of Habitats provides an overview of the risk of collapse (degree of endangerment) of marine, terrestrial and freshwater habitats in the European Union (EU28) and adjacent regions (EU28+), based on a consistent set of categories and criteria, and detailed data and expert knowledge from involved countries1. A total of 257 benthic marine habitat types were assessed. In total, 19% (EU28) and 18% (EU28+) of the evaluated habitats were assessed as threatened in categories Critically Endangered, Endangered and Vulnerable. An additional 12% were Near Threatened in the EU28 and 11% in the EU28+. These figures are approximately doubled if Data Deficient habitats are excluded. The percentage of threatened habitat types differs across the regional seas. The highest proportion of threatened habitats in the EU28 was found in the Mediterranean Sea (32%), followed by the North-East Atlantic (23%), the Black Sea (13%) and then the Baltic Sea (8%). There was a similar pattern in the EU28+. The most frequently cited pressures and threats were similar across the four regional seas: pollution (eutrophication), biological resource use other than agriculture or forestry (mainly fishing but also aquaculture), natural system modifications (e.g. dredging and sea defence works), urbanisation and climate change. Even for habitats where the assessment outcome was Data Deficient, the Red List assessment process has resulted in the compilation of a substantial body of useful information to support the conservation of marine habitats

Measurement of the tt¯tt¯ production cross section in pp collisions at √s=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A measurement of four-top-quark production using proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV collected by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb−1 is presented. Events are selected if they contain a single lepton (electron or muon) or an opposite-sign lepton pair, in association with multiple jets. The events are categorised according to the number of jets and how likely these are to contain b-hadrons. A multivariate technique is then used to discriminate between signal and background events. The measured four-top-quark production cross section is found to be 26+17−15 fb, with a corresponding observed (expected) significance of 1.9 (1.0) standard deviations over the background-only hypothesis. The result is combined with the previous measurement performed by the ATLAS Collaboration in the multilepton final state. The combined four-top-quark production cross section is measured to be 24+7−6 fb, with a corresponding observed (expected) signal significance of 4.7 (2.6) standard deviations over the background-only predictions. It is consistent within 2.0 standard deviations with the Standard Model expectation of 12.0 ± 2.4 fb