The head of the Sudzha district of the Kursk region of Russia, Alexander Bogachev, was dismissed from his post. The official was fired on November 12 at a meeting of the regional leadership with the local population. According to Mash Telegram channel, the reason for the decision was Bogachev's unwillingness to communicate with displaced residents. Since August 6, the head of the municipality has not communicated with those who had to leave their homes in Sudzha after the Armed Forces of Ukraine attacked the area. Residents of the district gathered on Red Square in Kursk last weekend demanding officials answer their questions about social support measures, since many were left without housing and means of subsistence. The head of the Sudzha district of the Kursk region, Alexander Bogachev, was fired as a result of the meeting. The people met the news about his dismissal with applause.

Added September 18, 2006:

In 2024, the retail landscape has continued to evolve rapidly, with leading retailers adopting the best solutions to increase efficiency and improve customer experience. In recent years, ESLs (Electronic Shelf Labels) have been viewed as the next big thing for accurate price communication and inventory management for retailers.

Russia's CoviVac drug is effective against the delta coronavirus strain, Aidar Ishmukhametov, one of the creators of the vaccine, director general of the Chumakov Federal Research Center, said, TASS reports. “The studies carried out have shown comparable results on the immunological efficacy of the vaccine,” Ishmukhametov said. Earlier, immunologist Vladimir Bolibok compared the infectivity of the Wuhan and Indian strains of coronavirus. According to him, contracting the new coronavirus strain has become a lot easier.

Catina Latham, PhD, will succeed Brenda Battle as UChicago Medicine's Senior Vice President for Community Health Transformation and Chief Equity Officer

Childhood trauma can increase a breast cancer survivor's chance of experiencing more severe and longer-lasting treatment-related anxiety, depression and fatigue, as well as reduced cognitive function, years after cancer treatment has ended, according to a preliminary study led by Jamie Myers, Ph.D., FAAN, research associate professor at the University of Kansas School of Nursing.

With small grants for students and faculty, peer support and a new activities calendar, the campus-wide initiative aims to put behavioral health at the center of university life

Childhood trauma can increase a breast cancer survivor's chance of experiencing more severe and longer-lasting treatment-related anxiety, depression and fatigue, as well as reduced cognitive function, years after cancer treatment has ended, according to a preliminary study led by Jamie Myers, Ph.D., FAAN, research associate professor at the University of Kansas School of Nursing.

[Domestic] :
The defense ministry’s website fell victim to a cyberattack Tuesday, prompting the military to take response measures.  According to the ministry on Wednesday, the distributed denial-of-service(DDoS) attack struck at about 5:30 p.m. the previous day, adding that the website is currently back ...

[more...]

[Politics] :
Newsweek reported that the biggest problem plaguing President Yoon Suk Yeol is not North Korea but domestic matters. In an interview with the U.S. weekly released on Friday, President Yoon emphasized the need for “structural reform” in the country.  Yoon said that the previous governments feared ...

[more...]

[Politics] :
The ruling People Power Party has launched a consultative body with the government and some doctors’ groups, but without the participation of the main opposition party, a trainee doctors’ group or the country’s largest group of doctors.  The body held its inaugural meeting at the National Assembly on ...

[more...]

[Politics] :
President Yoon Suk Yeol pledged efforts to overcome polarization in South Korean society, as he passes the halfway point of his five-year presidency. According to presidential spokesperson Jeong Hye-jeon on Monday, Yoon, during a meeting with his aides, called for forward-looking efforts to resolve ...

[more...]

[Politics] :
Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun on Monday reiterated that sending an observation team to Ukraine is necessary for protecting national interest. During a National Assembly National Defense Committee session, Minister Kim said sending an observation team differs from troop deployment. He explained that a ...

[more...]

[Politics] :
The Supreme Court has ruled against a man who cited his socialist beliefs as grounds for objecting to military service.  In upholding a lower court decision to dismiss the man’s case against the state conscription agency, the top court said Oct. 25 that there had been no error in interpreting the legal ...

[more...]

[Inter-Korea] :
The defense chiefs of South Korea and the United States have condemned the deployment of North Korean troops to Russia in the “strongest” terms with “one voice.” Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin issued the condemnation on Wednesday in a joint statement after ...

[more...]

[Inter-Korea] :
Defense minister Kim Yong-hyun said Wednesday that South Korea is not considering sending troops to support Ukraine.  The minister made the remarks during a meeting with reporters in Washington, while visiting the United States to attend the annual Security Consultative Meeting. When asked how the ...

[more...]

[Inter-Korea] :
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has defended Thursday’s intercontinental ballistic missile(ICBM) test, calling it an appropriate military action that shows other countries the North is serious about counteracting threats to its security.  The state-run Korean Central News Agency(KCNA) said Kim made the ...

[more...]

[Sports] :
South Korea defeated Oman three to one, achieving its first win in the current World Cup qualifying campaign.  The South Korean national soccer team, led by head coach Hong Myung-bo, played Oman on Tuesday at the Sultan Qaboos Sports Complex in Muscat in the second Group B match in the third round of the ...

[more...]

[Sports] :
The North Korean women's football team defeated the world's top ranked U.S. squad in the semifinals of the 2024 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup under way in Colombia, moving a step closer to winning their third World Cup title. North Korea claimed a one-nil victory over the U.S. in the ...

[more...]

[Sports] :
The sports ministry recommended on Tuesday that the Korea Football Association(KFA) take strong disciplinary action against its executives following an audit of the governing body. Following the monthslong audit, the ministry concluded that at least suspensions would be necessary for KFA President Chung ...

[more...]

[Science] :
More than a third of all tree species around the world face extinction due largely to climate change and deforestation. Citing a report from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature(IUCN), CBS News said 38 percent of tree species are at risk, threatening ecosystems, plants, animals and ...

[more...]

[Politics] :
National security adviser Shin Won-sik said South Korea is no longer the sole beneficiary of the South Korea-U.S. alliance, pledging to defend the country’s core interests as a partner state that contributes to regional and global security and prosperity. In a keynote speech at the 2024 Global Dialogue ...

[more...]

[Politics] :
A senior foreign ministry official says if the incoming Donald Trump administration were to engage in dialogue with North Korea, it would be crucial to reflect South Korea’s position in the process of realizing the talks. The official made the remarks to reporters in Seoul on Tuesday, saying ...

[more...]

[International] :
Russian President Vladimir Putin has reportedly signed into law a treaty on the country's strategic partnership with North Korea, which includes a mutual defense provision. According to Russia's state-run TASS news agency, Putin signed the comprehensive strategic partnership treaty on ...

[more...]

[International] :
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Pete Hegseth, a Fox News host and veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as the next secretary of defense. In a statement issued Tuesday, Trump called the nominee “tough, smart and a true believer in America First,” adding that with Hegseth at the ...

[more...]

[International] :
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has picked Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to co-lead a newly created Department of Government Efficiency along with former Republican presidential primary candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. In a statement on Wednesday, Trump said the nominees will pave the way for his government ...

[more...]

A route planner app takes the guesswork out of your commute and helps you navigate through the chaos with ease. No more sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic, feeling frustrated and stressed.

Left-side or left-hand traffic may seem backwards for most U.S. drivers, but it's nothing new; in the 17th and 18th centuries, it helped control the flow of horse-drawn carriages on London Bridge. These laws set the trend for many of the world's countries that drive on the left side of the road.

[Culture] :
Nobel Prize-winning author Han Kang hopes to write three more books over the next six years. Han made the remarks Thursday as she accepted the Pony Chung Innovation Prize at an award ceremony organized by the Pony Chung Foundation. The 53-year-old author, who turns 54 next month, said ages 50 to 60 are ...

[more...]

When you save a document, your machine disseminates little pieces of the file into empty spaces on the hard drive. Learn why it's done this way and how defragmenting maintains your computer's performance.

[Economy] :
Sino-U.S. decoupling is forecast to intensify and preference for U.S. interests to expand under the incoming Donald Trump administration. This outlook was put forth Wednesday at a seminar hosted by the Korea International Trade Association(KITA). Kyung Hee University Professor Seo Jung-kun pointed to a ...

[more...]

Burrow-detecting devices could protect flood defences  British Geological Survey

Pay and benefits  British Geological Survey

Trailblazing seismologist named new editor-in-chief of GJI  The Royal Astronomical Society

Forty years and counting: new topsoil data provides most extensive snapshot of environmental pollution effects  British Geological Survey

New community launched to support effective management of the subsurface  British Geological Survey

The rotating substrate method of crystallite deposition is modeled, allowing computation of effective material coefficients of the layers resulting from the averaging. A worked numerical example particularized to 6mm ZnO is provided.

Low-concentration poly(ethylene oxide) exhibit the polymorph-dependent effects on both the surface and bulk crystal growth of carbamazepine polymorphs. These polymorph-dependent effects of PEO were mainly attributed to the polymer enrichment at the interface and different crystal surface-polymer interactions.

Analytical calculations of absorption corrections for X-ray powder diffraction experiments on non-ideal samples with surface roughness, porosity or absorption contrasts from multiple phases require complex mathematical models to represent their material distribution. In a computational approach to this problem, a practicable ray-tracing algorithm is formulated which is capable of simulating angle-dependent absorption corrections in reflection geometry for any given rasterized sample model. Single or multiphase systems with arbitrary surface roughness, porosity and spatial distribution of the phases in any combination can be modeled on a voxel grid by assigning respective values to each voxel. The absorption corrections are calculated by tracing the attenuation of X-rays along their individual paths via a modified shear-warp algorithm. The algorithm is presented in detail and the results of simulated absorption corrections on samples with various surface modulations are discussed in the context of published experimental results.

The superstructure spots that appear in diffraction patterns of tilted perovskites are well documented and easily calculated using crystallographic software. Here, by considering a distortion mode as a perturbation of the prototype perovskite structure, it is shown how the structure-factor equation yields Boolean conditions for the presence of superstructure reflections. This approach may have some advantages for the analysis of electron diffraction patterns of perovskites.

The reciprocal of a non-primitive unit cell is not a unit cell and the basis vectors do not correspond to cell lengths.

New software capabilities in RMCProfile allow researchers to study the structure of materials by combining machine learning interatomic potentials and reverse Monte Carlo.

The effect of boron in BxGa1−xN/SiC heteroepitaxy was established by X-ray diffraction reciprocal-space maps on symmetric 0002 and asymmetric 11 {overline 2} 4 reflections. The density of screw and edge threading dislocations was quantified in the framework of the mosaic model.

This study examines the quality of charge density obtained by fitting the multipole model to wavefunctions in different basis sets. The complex analysis reveals that changing the basis set quality from double- to triple-zeta can notably improve the charge density related properties of a multipole model.

For the first time, a multimodal reconstruction of a magnetic thin-film structure has been found using polarised neutron reflectivity. This has been achieved by implementing the Bayesian approach in combination with error correction based on the maximum likelihood method and instrument function optimization.

The impact of sample thickness and experimental noise on angular correlation analysis from scanning electron nanobeam diffraction patterns of disordered carbon are investigated and analyzed regarding the interpretability of the analysis results.

BGaN epilayers with boron contents up to 5.6% were grown on SiC substrates by metal–organic chemical vapor deposition. The effects of boron incorporation on the structural and optical properties were studied by high-resolution X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscopy (AFM), Raman spectroscopy and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. XRD reciprocal-space maps around the symmetric 0002 and asymmetric 11 {overline 2} 4 reflections allowed evaluation of the lattice constants and lattice mismatch with respect to the underlying substrate. XRD rocking curves and AFM measurements indicated the mosaic microstructure of the epilayer. The impact of boron content on crystallite size, tilt and twist is evaluated and the correlation with threading dislocation density is discussed. The deterioration of optical properties with increasing boron content was assessed by Raman and PL spectroscopy.

Structure refinement with reverse Monte Carlo (RMC) is a powerful tool for interpreting experimental diffraction data. To ensure that the under-constrained RMC algorithm yields reasonable results, the hybrid RMC approach applies interatomic potentials to obtain solutions that are both physically sensible and in agreement with experiment. To expand the range of materials that can be studied with hybrid RMC, we have implemented a new interatomic potential constraint in RMCProfile that grants flexibility to apply potentials supported by the Large-scale Atomic/Molecular Massively Parallel Simulator (LAMMPS) molecular dynamics code. This includes machine learning interatomic potentials, which provide a pathway to applying hybrid RMC to materials without currently available interatomic potentials. To this end, we present a methodology to use RMC to train machine learning interatomic potentials for hybrid RMC applications.

The dualism between direct and reciprocal space is at the origin of well known relations between basis vectors in the two spaces. It is shown that when a coordinate system corresponding to a non-primitive unit cell is adopted, this dualism has to be handled with care. In particular, the reciprocal of a non-primitive unit cell is not a unit cell but a region in reciprocal space that does not represent a unit of repetition by translation. The basis vectors do not correspond to reciprocal-space cell lengths, contrary to what is stated even in the core CIF dictionary. The corresponding unit cell is a multiple of this region. The broken correspondence between basis vectors and unit cell is at the origin of the integral reflection conditions.