Palaeozoic insects of southern Africa: a review

Although a substantial number of Triassic insect fossils have been discovered in southern Africa, relatively few insect fossils are known from the Permian deposits of this region. Fossil insects from the Permian period elsewhere, including the extensive entomological fauna from Eastern Europe (including Russia), Brazil and Australia is well-documented. The Irati Formation in the Parana Basin of Brazil, the temporal and lithological correlate of the Permian Whitehill Formation of South Africa, has yielded fossil insects belonging to Homoptera, N europtera, Coleoptera and Mecoptera. Fossil insects from the Whitehill Formation are usually poorly preserved and only seven specimens are mentioned in the literature. An overview is given of the more recent discoveries of Permian fossil insects in South Africa. This includes the discovery of the oldest beetle in Africa, the oldest longhorned grasshopper in the Southern Hemisphere and a survey of the Permian insects from the Beaufort Group of Natal. Reasons for the paucity of Permian insects are briefly discussed.Palaeo-Anthropology Scientific Trust; French Embassy in South Africa; Co-operation and Cultural Servic

Kinematic Analysis of the 2020 Elliot Creek Landslide, British Columbia, Using Remote Sensing Data

The 2020 Elliot Creek landslide-tsunami-flood cascade originated from an 18.3 Mm3 rock slope failure in quartz diorite bedrock in a valley undergoing rapid glacial retreat. We used airborne LiDAR and optical imagery to characterize the slope and its surroundings. Using the LiDAR, we determined that two rockslides (2020 and an older undated one) occurred on this slope and shared a common basal rupture surface. We mapped two main sets of lineaments that represent structures that controlled the orientation of the lateral and rear release surfaces. Analysis of the topographic profile indicates a wedge-shaped failure block and a stepped rupture surface. Further topographic profile analysis indicates the possibility of a structurally controlled geomorphic step in the valley that corresponds with a change in the orientation of the valley. The rapid retreat of the West Grenville Glacier and the positions of the rupture surfaces suggest glacial retreat played a role in the landslides

Spontaneous splenic rupture in infectious mononucleosis

Background: Two cases are presented: A 16-year-old female (patient A), presented at the emergency department with a continuously stabbing abdominal pain in the upper left abdomen. Since 1 month, she suffered from a sore throat, fatigue and weight loss. Physical examination revealed a sick girl with clear consciousness and no paleness. Her heart rate was 100 beats per minute (bpm) and blood pressure was 110/60 mmHg. Blood analysis showed a decreased hemoglobin level of 5.3 mmol/L

Timing measurements with a 3D silicon sensor on Timepix3 in a 180 GeV/<i>c</i> hadron beam

Test beam measurements have been carried out with a 3D sensor on a Timepix3 ASIC and the time measurements are presented. The measurements are compared to those of a thin planar sensor on Timepix3. It is shown that for a perpendicularly incident beam the time resolution of both detectors is dominated by the Timepix3 front-end. The 3D detector is dominated by the time-to-digital conversion whereas the analog front-end jitter also gives a significant contribution for the thin planar detector. The 3D detector reaches an overall time resolution of 567 ± 6 ps compared to 683 ± 8 ps for the thin planar detector. For a grazing angle beam, however, the thin planar detector achieves a better time resolution because it has a lower pixel capacitance, and therefore suffers less from jitter in the analog front-end for the low charge signals that mainly occur in this type of measurement. Finally, it is also shown that the 3D and thin planar detector can achieve time resolutions for large clusters of about 100 ps and 250 ps, respectively, by combining many single hit measurements

CH Cygni I: Observational Evidence for a Disk-Jet Connection

We investigate the role of accretion in the production of jets in the symbiotic star CH Cygni. Assuming that the rapid stochastic optical variations in CH Cygni come from the accretion disk, as in cataclysmic variables, we use changes in this flickering to diagnose the state of the disk in 1997. At that time, CH Cyg dropped to a very low optical state, and Karovska et al. report that a radio jet was produced. For approximately one year after the jet production, the amplitude of the fastest (time scales of minutes) variations was significantly reduced, although smooth, hour-time-scale variations were still present. This light curve evolution indicates that the inner disk may have been disrupted, or emission from this region suppressed, in association with the mass-ejection event. We describe optical spectra which support this interpretation of the flickering changes. The simultaneous state change, jet ejection, and disk disruption suggests a comparison between CH Cygni and some black-hole-candidate X-ray binaries that show changes in the inner disk radius in conjunction with discrete ejection events on a wide range of time scales (e.g., the microquasar GRS 1915+105 and XTE J1550-564).Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, to appear in the Ap

Service provision and barriers to care for homeless people with mental health problems across 14 European capital cities

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Environmental factors associated with biological use and surgery in inflammatory bowel disease

Background and Aim: While major efforts were made studying the complex etiology of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) including environmental factors, less is known about underlying causes leading to the heterogeneous and highly variable course of disease. As cigarette smoking cessation is the best-known environmental factor with beneficial effect in Crohn's disease (CD), more exposome factors are likely involved. Further insights into the role of the exposome in heterogeneity of disease might not only further knowledge of underlying pathways, but also allow for better risk stratification. Methods: Seven hundred twenty-eight IBD patients completed the validated Groningen IBD Environmental Questionnaire, collecting exposome data for 93 exposome factors. Associations with disease course, that is, for need for surgery or biological therapy, were evaluated using univariate and multivariate-adjusted logistic regression modeling. Results: No significant associations were seen after Bonferroni correction. However, 11 novel exposome factors were identified with P < 0.05. Two factors were associated with course of CD and ulcerative colitis (UC): beer (CD OR0.3/UC OR0.3) and cannabis (0.5/2.2). While in CD, carpet flooring (0.5) was associated with biological use, and four factors were associated with surgery: working shifts (1.8), appendectomy (2.4), frequent tooth brushing (2.8), and large household size (0.1). For UC, migrants more often required biologicals (10.2). Childhood underweight (3.4), amphetamine use (6.2), and cocaine use (4.8) were associated with surgery. Five factors were replicated. Conclusions: We identified 16 environmental factors nominally associated with biological use and surgery in established IBD. These new insights form an important stepping stone to guide research on biological pathways involved, risk stratification, tailor-made interventions, and preventive strategies in IBD

Timing performance of the LHCb VELO Timepix3 Telescope

We performed a detailed study of the timing performance of the LHCb VELO Timepix3 Telescope with a 180 GeV/c mixed hadron beam at the CERN SPS. A twofold method was developed to improve the resolution of single-plane time measurements, resulting in a more precise overall track time measurement. The first step uses spatial information of reconstructed tracks in combination with the measured signal charge in the sensor to correct for a mixture of different effects: variations in charge carrier drift time; variations in signal induction, which are the result of a non-uniform weighting field in the pixels; and lastly, timewalk in the analog front-end. The second step corrects for systematic timing offsets in Timepix3 that vary from -2 ns to 2 ns. By applying this method, we improved the track time resolution from 438$\,\pm\,$16 ps to 276$\,\pm\,$4 ps

CONFIDENCE dissemination meeting: summary on the scenario-based workshop

The CONFIDENCE dissemination workshop “Coping with uncertainties for improved modelling and decision making in nuclear emergencies” was held in December 2–5, 2019 (Bratislava, Slovak Republic). About 90 scientists and decision makers attended the workshop. The dissemination workshop allowed the presentation of the CONFIDENCE project results, demonstration of the applicability of the developed methods and tools in interactive discussion sessions and the collection of feedback from the participants. The results were disseminated not only in the form of presentations and posters but also through interactive workshops where all participants were involved in round table working groups. A fictive accidental release scenario taking place at a nuclear power plant was developed and used by each work package in the workshop to provide the basis for interactive sessions and discussions