The recent discovery of exceptional seeing conditions at Dome C, Antarctica, raises the possibility of constructing an optical observatory there with unique capabilities. However, little is known from an astronomer's perspective about the optical sky brightness and extinction at Antarctic sites. We review the contributions to sky brightness at high-latitude sites, and calculate the amount of us...

Lava domes are one of the conspicuous topographic features on volcanoes. The subsurface structure of the lava dome is important to discuss its formation mechanism. In the 1944 eruption of Volcano Usu, Hokkaido, a new lava dome was formed at its eastern foot. After the completion of the lava dome, various geophysical methods were applied to the dome to study its subsurface structure, but resulte...

Dome-shaped macula is described as an inward bulge of the macula within a posterior staphyloma in highly myopic eyes. Choroidal neovascularization is a known complication that can cause visual loss in dome-shaped macula. Herein, we describe a patient who presented with features of polypoidal choroidal neovascularization that developed on a background of high myopia with dome-shaped macula.

This paper investigates the validity of Islamic art as an investment product. We examine the current and future market potential, as well as, performing a hedonic regression analysis on London auction sales from 1998 to 2007. The main findings of the research are; Islamic art returns out performed both the equity and debt markets over the last 10 years; increases in oil prices have a positive e...

The best ground-based astronomical sites in terms of telescope sensitivity at infrared and sub-millimetre wavelengths are located on the Antarctic plateau – where high atmospheric transparency and low sky emission are observed due to the extremely cold and dry air; these benefits are well characterised at the South Pole station. The relative advantages offered by three potentially superior site...

The energy gap for electronic excitations is one of the most important characteristics of the superconducting state, as it directly reflects the pairing of electrons. In the copper-oxide high-temperature superconductors (HTSCs), a strongly anisotropic energy gap, which vanishes along high-symmetry directions, is a clear manifestation of the d-wave symmetry of the pairing. There is, however, a d...

Fermi-surface-free superconductivity arises when the superconducting order pulls down spectral weight from a band that is completely above the Fermi energy in the normal state. We show that this can arise in hole-doped cuprates when a competing order causes a reconstruction of the Fermi surface. The change in Fermi surface topology is accompanied by a characteristic rise in the spectral weight....

Transport measurements on the cuprates suggest the presence of a quantum critical point (QCP) hiding underneath the superconducting dome near optimal hole doping. We provide numerical evidence in support of this scenario via a dynamical cluster quantum Monte Carlo study of the extended two-dimensional Hubbard model. Single-particle quantities, such as the spectral function, the quasi-particle w...

Islamic finance in Australia has witnessed the rapid growth since it was first introduced in 1989 with the Muslim Community Cooperative Australia (MCCA). The operation of Islamic Financial Services Providers in Australia is still subject to basically the same laws and regulations as their conventional counterparts and applies the same conventional interest-based framework for regulatory and sup...

Introduction: Lunar concentric craters represent an anomalous type of impact structures on the Moon [1]. The concentric crater Archytas G in mare Frigoris has first been catalogued as a concentric crater in [2]. According to Fig. 1, it is located on top of a large lunar intrusive dome, termed Ar1 in [3]. The dome Ar1 is the only lunar dome known to date with a concentric crater on its surface. ...