Multianalytical provenance analysis of Eastern Ross Sea LGM till sediments (Antarctica): Petrography, geochronology, and thermochronology detrital data

In order to reveal provenance of detrital sediments supplied by West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), 19 glaciomarine cores of Last Glacial Maximum age were analyzed from Eastern Ross Sea and Sulzberger Bay. Analytical techniques included petrographic analysis of gravel-sized clasts, geochronology (zircon U-Pb: Zrn-UPb) and thermochronology (apatite fission track: AFT) of sand-sized fractions. Petrographic analysis revealed a similarity with the lithologies presently exposed in western Marie Byrd Land (MBL), with major roles played by low-grade metamorphic rocks and granitoids. Furthermore Zrn-UPb and AFT data allowed to identify the ages of formation and cooling of sedimentary source area, consisting of Cambrian-Precambrian basement (i.e., Swanson Formation in western MBL) which underwent at least two episodes of magma intrusion, migmatization and cooling during Devonian-Carboniferous and Cretaceous-Paleocene times. Scarcity of volcanic clasts in the region of Ross Sea along the front of West Antarctica Ice Streams in association with the occurrence of AFT Oligocene-Pliocene dates suggests a localized tectonic exhumation of portions of MBL, as already documented for the opposite side of West Antarctic Rift System in the Transantarctic Mountains. Furthermore, a Zrn-UPb and AFT population of Late Triassic-Jurassic age indicates the presence of unexposed rocks that formed or metamorphosed at that time in the sedimentary source area, which could be identified in McAyeal Ice Stream and Bindschadler Ice Stream catchment areas

Alienazione e agalmatofilia in un racconto saudita. al-Blūzah (La camicetta) di ‘Abduh Ḫāl

This paper intends to be a short contribution to the studies on the Saudi Arabian literature. It presents a short story, al-Blūzah (The Blouse), by ‘Abduh Ḫāl (1962-), published in 2001, and analyzes both its style and themes. This short story seems to have several of the literary strategies that ‘Abduh Ḫāl uses some years later in his novel Tarmī bi-šarar (Throwing Sparks) in 2009, winner of the Booker Prize 2010. The paper focuses on some important aspects of the production of ‘Abduh Ḫāl, such as the urbanization of rural populations, internal migration, loneliness, segregation, social alienation and some psychological pathologies derived from these phenomena

Geochemistry of sapphirine-apatite-calcite-bearing gabbroic dykes from the Finero Phlogopite Peridotite (Ivrea-Verbano Zone): evidence for multistage interaction with the ambient peridotite

The Finero Phlogopite-Peridotite (FPP) is a mantle unit outcropping in the northernmost tip of the Ivrea-Verbano Zone (IVZ, Southern Alps). It shows a virtually complete recrystallization due to pervasive to channelled melt migration. The pervasive metasomatism formed a main lithologic association constituted by phlogopite harzburgites associated to phlogopite pyroxenites (mainly olivine-websterites, websterites and orthopyroxenites). These lithologies are also rich in amphibole and do not show significant chemical gradients among them (Zanetti et al., 1999). The channelled migration stages formed dunite bodies, which sometimes contain stratiform chromitites and, more rarely, pyroxenite layers similar to those associated to phlogopite harzburgite. The FPP also shows a discrete number of other, subordinate rock-types, which are characterised by the presence of apatite usually associated to carbonates (i.e. calcite or dolomite) and exhibit marked modal and chemical gradients with respect to the host phlogopite harzburgite. Examples of these lithologies are apatite-dolomitebearing wehrlites and harzburgites (e.g. Zanetti et al. 1999; Morishita et al., 2008), apatite-calcite zircon-syenites and hornblendites. Ar-Ar amphibole analysis and U-Pb zircon and apatite data return Triassic ages for these rocks, which have been considered to document the time of melt/fluid injection. Notwithstanding the apparent mineralogical and chemical differences with the main lithologic sequences, apatite-carbonates-bearing rocks have been frequently interpreted as cogenetic to phlogopite harzburgites. To debate the petrogenesis of these rocks, a detailed field, petrological and geochemical investigation has been carried out on a swarm of apatite-calcite-bearing gabbroic veins that randomly cut the main lithologic association. Preliminary investigation evidenced as these veins show complex metasomatic haloes and a symmetric internal layering, characterised by crystallisation of magmatic sapphirine (Giovanardi et al., 2013). The mineral assemblage of the veins is dominated by titanian pargasite towards the host peridotite and by plagioclase at the vein centre. The veins also present phlogopite and spinel. Field and petrographic evidence, major and trace element data and the O isotopic composition of such gabbroic veins indicate that they formed at shallow mantle conditions by multistage fractional crystallisation of a migrating melt unrelated to those forming phlogopite harzburgites. Besides, local strong enrichments in LILE, LREE and 18O in vein minerals confirm that such melt was deeply modified by interaction with the host phlogopite peridotite. The genetic relationships with other intrusive events recorded by the FPP and the associated crustal sequence will be addressed with the aim of placing new constraints on the petrologic and geodynamic evolution of the IVZ

Kernel Spectral Clustering and applications

In this chapter we review the main literature related to kernel spectral clustering (KSC), an approach to clustering cast within a kernel-based optimization setting. KSC represents a least-squares support vector machine based formulation of spectral clustering described by a weighted kernel PCA objective. Just as in the classifier case, the binary clustering model is expressed by a hyperplane in a high dimensional space induced by a kernel. In addition, the multi-way clustering can be obtained by combining a set of binary decision functions via an Error Correcting Output Codes (ECOC) encoding scheme. Because of its model-based nature, the KSC method encompasses three main steps: training, validation, testing. In the validation stage model selection is performed to obtain tuning parameters, like the number of clusters present in the data. This is a major advantage compared to classical spectral clustering where the determination of the clustering parameters is unclear and relies on heuristics. Once a KSC model is trained on a small subset of the entire data, it is able to generalize well to unseen test points. Beyond the basic formulation, sparse KSC algorithms based on the Incomplete Cholesky Decomposition (ICD) and $L_0$, $L_1, L_0 + L_1$, Group Lasso regularization are reviewed. In that respect, we show how it is possible to handle large scale data. Also, two possible ways to perform hierarchical clustering and a soft clustering method are presented. Finally, real-world applications such as image segmentation, power load time-series clustering, document clustering and big data learning are considered.Comment: chapter contribution to the book "Unsupervised Learning Algorithms

Energy-based predictions in Lorenz system by a unified formalism and neural network modelling

In the framework of a unified formalism for Kolmogorov-Lorenz systems, predictions of times of regime transitions in the classical Lorenz model can be successfully achieved by considering orbits characterised by energy or Casimir maxima. However, little uncertainties in the starting energy usually lead to high uncertainties in the return energy, so precluding the chance of accurate multi-step forecasts. In this paper, the problem of obtaining good forecasts of maximum return energy is faced by means of a neural network model. The results of its application show promising results

Particle Fluxes and Transport Proceses Along the Continental Margins and in Deep Sea Environments.

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Identification of Plasmodium falciparum var1CSA and var2CSA domains that bind IgM natural antibodies

Malaria in pregnancy is responsible for maternal anaemia, low-birth-weight babies and infant deaths. Plasmodium falciparum infected erythrocytes are thought to cause placental pathology by adhering to host receptors such as chondroitin sulphate A (CSA). CSA binding infected erythrocytes also bind IgM natural antibodies from normal human serum, a process that may facilitate placental adhesion or promote immune evasion. The parasite ligands that mediate placental adhesion are thought to be members of the variant erythrocyte surface antigen family P. falciparum erythrocyte membrane protein 1 (PfEMP1), encoded by the var genes. Two var gene sub-families, var1CSA and var2CSA, have been identified as parasite CSA binding ligands and are leading candidates for a vaccine to prevent pregnancy-associated malaria. We investigated whether these two var gene subfamilies implicated in CSA binding are also the molecules responsible for IgM natural antibody binding. By heterologous expression of domains in COS-7 cells, we found that both var1CSA and var2CSA PfEMP1 variants bound IgM, and in both cases the binding region was a DBL epsilon domain occurring proximal to the membrane. None of the domains from a control non-IgM-binding parasite (R29) bound IgM when expressed in COS-7 cells. These results show that PfEMP1 is a parasite ligand for non-immune IgM and are the first demonstration of a specific adhesive function for PfEMP1 epsilon type domains