Blazar OJ 287 is one of the best observed extragalactic objects. It's historical light curve goes back to 1890′s. Based on the historical behaviour Sillanpää et al. (1988) showed that OJ 287 displays large periodic outbursts, with a period of 11.7 years. We have monitored OJ 287 intensively for two years, during the OJ-94 project. This project was created for monitoring OJ 287 during its predicted new outburst in 1994. In the data archive we have over 7000 observations on OJ 287, in the radio, infrared and optical bands. This data archive contains the best ever obtained light curves for any extragalactic object. The optical light curve shows continuous variability down to time scales of tens of minutes. The variability observed in OJ 287 can be broken down to (at least) four different categories:

Several outbreaks of hepatitis A in men who have sex with men (MSM) were reported in the 1980s and 1990s in Australia and other countries. An effective hepatitis A virus (HAV) vaccine has been available in Australia since 1994 and is recommended for high-risk groups including MSM. No outbreaks of hepatitis A in Australian MSM have been reported since 1996. In this study, we aimed to estimate HAV transmissibility in MSM populations in order to inform targets for vaccine coverage in such populations. We used mathematical models of HAV transmission in a MSM population to estimate the basic reproduction number (R 0) and the probability of an HAV epidemic occurring as a function of the immune proportion. We estimated a plausible range for R 0 of 1·71–3·67 for HAV in MSM and that sustained epidemics cannot occur once the proportion immune to HAV is greater than ~70%. To our knowledge this is the first estimate of R 0 and the critical population immunity threshold for HAV transmission in MSM. As HAV is no longer endemic in Australia or in most other developed countries, vaccination is the only means of maintaining population immunity >70%. Our findings provide impetus to promote HAV vaccination in high-risk groups such as MSM.

Radio interferometric observations of extragalactic radio sources have been made with antennas at the Haystack Observatory in Massachusetts and the Owens Valley Radio Observatory in California during fourteen separate experiments distributed between September 1976 and May 1978. The components of the baseline vector and the coordinates of the sources were estimated from the data from each experiment separately. The root-weighted-mean-square scatter about the weighted mean (“repeatability”) of the estimates of the length of the 3900 km baseline was approximately 7 cm, and of the source coordinates, approximately or less, except for the declinations of low-declination sources. With the source coordinates all held fixed at the best available, a posteriori, values, and the analyses repeated for each experiment, the repeatability obtained for the estimate of baseline length was 4 cm. From analyses of the data from several experiments simultaneously, estimates were obtained of changes in the x component of pole position and in the Earth's rotation (UT1). Comparison with the corresponding results obtained by the Bureau International de l'Heure (BIH) discloses systematic differences. In particular, the trends in the radio interferometric determinations of the changes in pole position agree more closely with those from the International Polar Motion Service (IPMS) and from the Doppler observations of satellites than with those from the BIH.

1.1.1. In October 1980 the Council of the Faculty of Actuaries set up a Working Party with the following brief:—

• (1) To investigate the criteria by which the solvency of life assurance companies should be assessed and to determine the amount of the solvency margin which should be required in practice by supervisory authorities. The existing requirements of the E.E.C. Life Establishment Directive should be considered with a view to recommending any desirable alterations thereto to be made when those requirements are reviewed in due course by the E.E.C. Commission. In carrying out its work the Working Party should co-operate with Working Parties or Committees of other actuarial bodies.
• (2) To report the result of their investigations to Council.

An analysis was undertaken to measure age-specific vaccine effectiveness (VE) of 2010/11 trivalent seasonal influenza vaccine (TIV) and monovalent 2009 pandemic influenza vaccine (PIV) administered in 2009/2010. The test-negative case-control study design was employed based on patients consulting primary care. Overall TIV effectiveness, adjusted for age and month, against confirmed influenza A(H1N1)pdm 2009 infection was 56% (95% CI 42–66); age-specific adjusted VE was 87% (95% CI 45–97) in <5-year-olds and 84% (95% CI 27–97) in 5- to 14-year-olds. Adjusted VE for PIV was only 28% (95% CI −6 to 51) overall and 72% (95% CI 15–91) in <5-year-olds. For confirmed influenza B infection, TIV effectiveness was 57% (95% CI 42–68) and in 5- to 14-year-olds 75% (95% CI 32–91). TIV provided moderate protection against the main circulating strains in 2010/2011, with higher protection in children. PIV administered during the previous season provided residual protection after 1 year, particularly in the <5 years age group.

A single nucleotide polymorphism rs12807809 located upstream of the neurogranin (NRGN) gene has been identified as a risk variant for schizophrenia in recent genome-wide association studies. To date, there has been little investigation of the endophenotypic consequences of this variant, and our own investigations have suggested that the effects of this gene are not apparent at the level of cognitive function in patients or controls. Because the impact of risk variants may be more apparent at the level of brain, the aim of this investigation was to delineate whether NRGN genotype predicted variability in brain structure and/or function. Healthy individuals participated in structural (N = 140) and/or functional (N = 36) magnetic resonance imaging (s/fMRI). Voxel-based morphometry was used to compare gray and white matter volumes between carriers of the non-risk C allele (i.e., CC/CT) and those who were homozygous for the risk T allele. Functional imaging data were acquired during the performance of a spatial working memory task, and were also analyzed with respect to the difference between C carriers and T homozygotes. There was no effect of the NRGN variant rs12807809 on behavioral performance or brain structure. However, there was a main effect of genotype on brain activity during performance of the working memory task, such that while C carriers exhibited a load-independent decrease in left superior frontal gyrus/BA10, TT individuals failed to show a similar decrease in activity. The failure to disengage this ventromedial prefrontal region, despite preserved performance, may be indicative of a reduction in processing efficiency in healthy TT carriers. Although it remains to be established whether this holds true in larger samples and in patient cohorts, if valid, this suggests a potential mechanism by which NRGN variability might contribute to schizophrenia risk.

Narrow, intermittent, fault-bounded outcrops forming the largely Ordovician Highland Border Complex comprise terrigenous-derived turbidities, a dismembered ophiolite, and ophiolite-derived sediments.

New major- and trace-element analyses of the mafic igneous rocks confirm that two main groups exist. One, represented in outcrops the length of the Highland Boundary fault-zone, has a mostly MORB-like chemistry with some trace-element compositions conventionally pointing to genesis above a subduction zone. The other group, found more locally, has an alkalic ‘within-plate’ character. Amphibolites interpreted as ophiolitic ‘sole’ rocks are chemically similar to the MORB-type mafic extrusive rocks. X-ray diffraction of the sedimentary rocks reveals kaolinite to be widespread and this is attributed to tropical weathering of the Highland Border Complex beneath a (?mid-Devonian) unconformity surface. New major- and trace-element analyses show that the turbidities of the Highland Border Complex were derived from a terrigenous terrane similar to that which supplied the Dalradian Supergroup. Inter-lava sediments reflect varied terrigenous (distal turbidites), hydrothermal (iron oxide sediments), mafic extrusive (volcaniclastic silt) and biogenic (jaspers) provenances. The ophiolite-derived Highland Border Complex sediments also have a terrigenous component. Unlike, for example, the early Ordovician rocks of the South Mayo trough (Ireland), coeval differentiated volcanic material is not a significant component of the Complex.

No one existing model adequately explains all the available data. We favour an origin of the Complex in the Ordovician as a small Gulf of California-type marginal basin which was later tectonically emplaced in stages involving a long history of alternating extension, strike-slip and compression.

Defect energy levels of oxygen vacancies in various high K oxides HfO2, ZrO2, La2O3 and SrTiO3 have been calculated using methods which give the correct band gap, such as the screened exchange and weighted density approximation.

Newly developed empirical hydrocarbon potentials and self-consistent first-principles local density functional methods are used to investigate possible isomers and the electronic structure of C60H36. Within the high symmetry Th structure conjectured by the groups at Rice University there are two inequivalent sets of hydrogen atoms containing twelve and twenty-four atoms respectively. Binding each set either inside or outside of the C60 cage leads to four isomers of C60H36 with inequivalent strain energies. Although we find that placing twelve hydrogens inside the cage can lead to a metastable structure, our calculated total energies suggest that the isomer with all the hydrogens on the outside of the cage is the energetically most stable.

We have measured the transient events of the α-β martensitic transformation in nanocrystalline Ti films via single shot electron diffraction patterns with 1.5 ns temporal resolution. This was accomplished with a newly constructed dynamic transmission electron microscope (DTEM), which combines pulsed laser systems and pump-probe techniques with a conventional TEM. The DTEM thereby enables studies of transformations that are (1) far too fast to be captured by conventional bulk techniques, and (2) difficult to study with current ultrafast electron diffraction (UED) instruments (which typically require an accumulation of multiple shots for each diffraction pattern). Martensitic transformations in nanocrystalline materials meet both criteria, with their rapid nucleation, characteristic interface velocities ∼1 km/s, and significant irreversible microstructural changes. Free-standing 40-nm-thick Ti films were laser-heated at a rate of ∼1010 K/s to a temperature above the 1155 K transition point, then probed at various time intervals with a 1.5-ns-long intense electron pulse. Diffraction patterns show an almost complete transition to the β phase within 500 ns. Post-mortem analysis (after the sample is allowed to cool) shows a reversion to the α phase coupled with substantial grain growth, lath formation, and texture modification. The cooled material also shows a complete lack of apparent dislocations, suggesting the possible importance of a "massive" short-range diffusion mechanism.

The conditions established in disordered FCC systems for predicting the slip system that will be activated by a grain boundary to relieve a local stress concentration have been applied to the ordered FCC alloy Ni3Al. The slip transfer behavior in hypo-stoichiometric Ni3Al with (0.2 at. %B) and without boron was directly observed by performing the deformation experiments in situ in the transmission electron microscope. In the boron-free and boron-doped alloys, lattice dislocations were incorporated in the grain boundary, but did not show evidence of dissociation to grain boundary dislocations or of movement in the grain boundary plane. The stress concentration associated with the dislocation pileup at the grain boundary was relieved by the emission of dislocations from the grain boundary in the boron-doped alloy. The slip system initiated in the adjoining grain obeyed the conditions established for disordered FCC systems. In the boron-free alloy, the primary stress relief mechanism was grain-boundary cracking, although dislocation emission from the grain boundary also occurred and accompanied intergranular crack advance. Because of the importance of the grain boundary chemistry in the models for explaining the boron-induced ductility in hypo-stoichiometric Ni3Al, the chemistry of grain boundaries in well-annealed boron-doped and boron-free alloys was determined by using EDS. No Ni enrichment was found at the grain boundaries examined. These observations are discussed in terms of the different models proposed to explain the ductility improvement in the boron-doped, hypo-stoichiometric alloy.

Recent reports suggest that graphitic tubules with diameters on the order of fullerene diameters have been synthesized. Such small-diameter tubules should have electronic properties related to those of two-dimensional graphite. We demonstrate by comparison with results from a first-principles, self-consistent, all-electron Gaussian-orbital based local-density functional approach that an all-valence tight-binding model can be expected to give a reasonable description of the electronic states of these tubules. In analyzing both high-symmetry tubules and lower-symmetry chiral tubules, we see that a relatively high carrier density could be expected for many of these structures.

We have calculated the electronic structure of icosahedrai C60H60 and tetrahedral C60H60 via an all-electron Gaussian-orbital based local-density functional approach. The one-electron wavefunctions and eigenvalues have been used in a first-order time-dependent perturbation theoretic calculation of the spherically averaged X-ray and ultraviolet pho-toemission cross-sections for these molecules.

The photocreation mechanisms and properties of nitrogen dangling bonds in amorphous hydrogenated silicon nitride (a-SiNx:H) thin films are investigated. We find that the creation kinetics are strongly dependent on the post-deposition anneal; this thermal process can be described by a simple exponential function which yields an activation energy of 0.8 eV. The compositional dependence of the nitrogen dangling bond center suggests that its energy level lies close to the valence band edge, in agreement with theoretical calculations. This energy level position can explain why a-SiNx:H films often become conducting following a high post-deposition anneal.