False Signatures Research Articles

Generative-adversarial network for falsification of handwritten signatures.

With further development of generative AI, primarily generative-adversarial networks (GAN), deepfakes are gaining in quality and accessibility. While, forensic methods designed for examination of handwriting are often applied to its digital copies, despite being possibly insensitive to cases of GAN-made forgeries (unless methods of digital forensics are co-employed). Approaching this problem from a novel perspective, we have created a translational GAN tasked with generating false handwritten signatures from limited examples, aiming to ascertain whether traditional methods of signature examination will be effective against such forgeries. We have found that traditional methods of handwriting examination are sufficient for identification of discriminative features that could result in rejection of GAN-made forgeries, however, those stemmed mostly from the lesser visual quality of the generated signatures, which could be improved in the future.

The Global Distribution of Water and Hydroxyl on the Moon as Seen by the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3)

The Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) on the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft provided nearly global 0.5–3 μm imaging-spectroscopy data at 140 m pixel–1 in 85 spectral bands. Targeted locations were imaged at 70 m pixel–1 and higher spectral resolution. These data enable a detailed look at the mineralogy, hydroxyl, and water signatures exposed on the lunar surface. We find evidence for multiple processes, including probable solar wind implantation, excavation of hydroxyl-poor and water-poor material in cratering events, excavation of hydroxyl and water-rich materials from depth and global trends with rock type and latitude. Some water-rich areas display sharp boundaries with water-poor rocks but have a diffuse halo of hydroxyl surrounding the water-rich rocks indicating a weathering process of destruction of water, probably due to a regolith gardening process. Mapping for specific mineralogy shows evidence for absorptions near 2.2 μm, probably associated with smectites, and near 1.9 μm due to water. Lunar swirls are confirmed to be OH-poor, but we also find evidence that swirls are water-poor based on a weak 1.9 μm water band. Some swirls show enhanced pyroxene absorption. “Diurnal” signatures are found with stable minerals. Pyroxene is shown to exhibit strong band depth changes with the diurnal cycle, which directly tracks the solar incidence angle and is consistent with changing composition and/or grain size with depth. Mapping of M3 data for the presence of iron oxides (e.g., hematite and goethite) is found to be a false signature in the M3 data due to scattered light in the instrument.

Computing Multivalued Mathematical Morphology on Multiband Images Using Algorithms for Multicriteria Analysis

Mathematical morphology (MM) is a powerful tool for spatial multispectral and hyperspectral image analyses. However, MM was originally developed for single-band images in which each pixel is represented by a numerical value. The most commonly used method for extending MM to multiband images is to process each band independently without considering its correlations with other bands. This can lead to the creation of artificial false spectral signatures and result in object misidentification. Therefore, extending MM to multiband images requires the use of an adequate vector ordering strategy to fully exploit its potential. This work proposes new vector ordering algorithms for the computation of multivalued MM. A multicriteria analysis (MCA) system is used as a tool for establishing an ordering of vectors. Two MCA approaches, namely, an "analytic hierarchy process" and a "preference ranking organization method for enrichment evaluation," are developed to define ordering relations between vectors. To ensure the validity of the proposed vector ordering algorithms, the computed multivalued morphological profiles are compared using the proposed vector ordering approaches and conventional schemes. The results of applying the proposed vector ordering algorithms for computing morphological profiles show that good classification accuracies were achieved for urban structures in ROSIS hyperspectral images.

TANGGUNG JAWAB NOTARIS ATAS DOKUMEN DIBAWAH TANGAN YANG DIBERI TANDA (WAARMERKING) YANG TANDA TANGANNYA DIPALSUKAN OLEH PARA PIHAK.

This study aims to explore the responsibilities of notaries in relation to documents under signed hands (waarmerking), particularly in contexts where signatures on such documents are forged by the parties. where tried to answer the question, "What is the responsibility of the notary in cases where the signature on the document under the hand forged by the parties?"That the notary has legal responsibility for the validity of the signature on the document and can be held liable if it is confirmed that the signature was forged. This hypothesis also aims to explore the steps or procedures that can be taken by notaries to prevent and overcome cases of false signatures on documents under a signed hand (waarmerking). The research methodology employed in this study is normative juridical research, which combines interviews with library law research utilizing primary, secondary, and tertiary legal sources. The research approach encompasses the Statute Approach, Conceptual Approach, Analytical Approach, and Case Approach. The technique used to gather legal materials involves identifying and cataloging positive legal rules, literature books, journals, and other relevant legal sources. The analysis of legal materials involves legal interpretation, systematic interpretation, and legal construction methods. In the process of waarmerking documents under falsified hands, the notary acts as a witness who only confirms the agreement of the parties and records it on the deed he books, without being responsible for the content of the document or the authenticity of the signature. Even if the signature on the document turns out to be fake, criminal liability cannot be imposed on the Notary as a public official, since the notary does not have the authority to review the validity or invalidity of the handwritten document submitted to him. In terms of legal certainty, waarmerking by a notary aims to ensure that the legal acts recorded are in accordance with the actual legal requirements, even if the authenticity of the documents is later proven to be false. The principle of" geen bevoegdheid zonder veraantwoordelijkheid " asserts that there is no authority without liability, however, in this case, the notary does not have the authority to review the authenticity of the documents submitted by the parties facing him

Application of The Speed-Up Robust Features Method To Identify Signature Image Patterns On Single Board Computer

Through the development of a signature pattern recognition program on SBC Beagle-bone Black, this research seeks to determine how to differentiate between real and false signatures. Three techniques of gathering data were employed in this study: interviews, observations, and a review of the literature. The quick application development method is the approach that is applied. The rapid, efficient, and brief development cycle (RAD) is emphasized. This study uses a use-case diagram to illustrate the application's logic and data flow. In this study, OpenCV is used as a digital image processing library along with the C++ programming language and QT creator as an integrated development environment (IDE). This application was subjected to both accuracy and functional testing. The following conclusions are drawn from the findings of the investigation and testing that was done: Using the fast library approach for approximate nearest neighbors (FLANN) and the speeded-up robust features (SURF) feature extraction method, the signature pattern recognition program on the Beagle-bone black SBC can differentiate between real and fraudulent signatures. Through the processes of generating image scale space, feature localization, and feature description, the SURF approach extracts feature from signature images. This signature pattern recognition application is one of the digital image processing apps that can be run on the Beagle-bone Black single board computer. This indicates that the specifications of the SBC Beagle-bone Black for digital image processing are good.

Handwritten Signature Verification using Deep Learning

Even though most areas, including land records, agreements between parties, legal certificates, identification cards, etc., are moving toward digital documents with digital signatures for authentication, uses only a signature written by hand. Verifying signatures is crucial because a false signature would have a significant impact on the actual owner. Therefore, it is essential to recognize genuine signatures in order to avoid such frauds. In this work, the deep learning technique is used to recognize the signature because it produces the highest accuracy and does not require excessive preprocessing. Image processing, classification, and segmentation are the most common applications for a deep learning model that is based on a convolutional neural network (CNN). The CNN algorithm learns more than KNN, SVM, and other algorithms. This work makes use of CNN to improve classification. Keywords: Signature, Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), Support Vector Machine (SVM), K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN).

Distributions of Platinum Group Elements and Re-Os Isotope Systematics in Chromite from the Coobina Chromitite Deposit in Western Australia: Implications for Chromite as a Sulfide Mineralization Indicator

ABSTRACTThe abundance of Ru in chromite has been suggested as an indicator of sulfide liquid saturation in komatiites. The komatiite magma-derived Archean Coobina intrusion is known to be barren in terms of sulfide mineralization. Therefore, the Coobina intrusion can serve as a useful case study to test the applicability of Ru abundance in chromite as a potential indicator for sulfide mineralization, as well as for better understanding the PGE-chromite association in general.The Coobina intrusion is a highly deformed layered intrusion interpreted to be a flared dike. It contains multiple massive chromitite seams that have been recently mined for metallurgical-grade chromite. In this study, 18 samples from chromitite seams throughout this intrusion are investigated for their whole-rock platinum group element (PGE) contents, which are compared to their chromite mineral chemistry (including PGE content), the platinum group mineral (PGM) mineralogy, and Re-Os isotope systematics. Each sample has a similar chromite major and minor element chemistry, but a unique trace element signature, even within the same seam. In general, there are higher concentrations of Ru (>300 ppb) within chromite in the southeast (toward the feeder dike) and lower concentrations (<50 ppb Ru) in the northwest. At a sample scale, Ru in the whole rock and Ru in solid solution in the chromite are inversely correlated, while Ir shows a positive correlation between the whole rock and chromite mineral chemistry, indicating differing partitioning behaviors within the iridium-group PGE (IPGE = Os, Ir, Ru). The inverse correlation between Ru in solid solution within chromite and Ru in whole-rock chromitite suggests that, for seams with high Ru in whole rock, Ru is occurring within separate PGM phases. This is supported by the observation that the samples with high whole-rock Ru also have a high number of visible metal alloy and/or PGM inclusions. Although these inclusions are not necessarily Ru-rich phases, their presence suggests that there is a preference for these samples to form nuggets, which may restrict Ru partitioning into the chromite crystal structure. We suggest that the low Ru values in the Coobina chromite are a result of transient sulfide saturation. The Re-Os isotopic composition of the Coobina chromitite is chondritic [γ187Os(3.189 Ga) = −0.63 ± 0.21] and is consistent with derivation of the Coobina parental magma from the convecting upper mantle source, providing evidence for the mantle origin of the Coobina PGE inventory.If using chromite as a detrital indicator mineral for magmatic sulfide exploration, it must be kept in mind that transient sulfide saturation within chromitite seams may give a false positive signature.

Multilingual Offline Signature Verification Based on Improved Inverse Discriminator Network

To further improve the accuracy of multilingual off-line handwritten signature verification, this paper studies the off-line handwritten signature verification of monolingual and multilingual mixture and proposes an improved verification network (IDN), which adopts user-independent (WI) handwritten signature verification, to determine the true signature or false signature. The IDN model contains four neural network streams with shared weights, of which two receiving the original signature images are the discriminative streams, and the other two streams are the reverse stream of the gray inversion image. The enhanced spatial attention models connect the discriminative streams and reverse flow to realize message propagation. The IDN model uses the channel attention mechanism (SE) and the improved spatial attention module (ESA) to propose the effective feature information of signature verification. Since there is no suitable multilingual signature data set, this paper collects two language data sets (Chinese and Uyghur), including 100,000 signatures of 200 people. Our method is tested on the self-built data set and the public data sets of Bengali (BHsig-B) and Hindi (BHsig-H). The method proposed in this paper has the highest discrimination rate of FRR of 10.5%, FAR of 2.06%, and ACC of 96.33% for the mixture of two languages.

Online handwritten signature verification via network analysis

In this paper, a model for online handwritten signature verification via networks analysis is proposed, in which centrality metrics are used as predictive characteristics. Supervised learning methods were used to classify the veracity of the signatures. The study uses the MCYT-100 and SVC2004 task2 signature databases, which are widely used in signature verification problems. In the framework, signatures were considered as nodes of a complex network in which the existing connection relationship between two signatures is measured through Pearson correlations between time series of signature coordinates that exceed a threshold of comparison. The attributes for the model were topological measures of centralities of the networks and the entropy of the time series signature. Some metrics are used to measure classification errors, including the False Rejection Rate (FRR) which identifies the percentage of true signatures that are rejected by the model, the False Acceptance Rate (FAR) as the percentage of false signatures that are accepted by the learning engine and the Average Error Rate (AER) as the average error. In this framework, we obtained a false positive rate of 6.19%, a false negative rate of 6.39% and an average error of approximately 6.28%. This result is close to ones obtained by state-of-the-art models for this problem, showing that the use of complex networks for online handwritten signature verification is a promising venue of research.

Detecting signatures of selection on gene expression.

A substantial amount of phenotypic diversity results from changes in gene expression levels and patterns. Understanding how the transcriptome evolves is therefore a key priority in identifying mechanisms of adaptive change. However, in contrast to powerful models of sequence evolution, we lack a consensus model of gene expression evolution. Furthermore, recent work has shown that many of the comparative approaches used to study gene expression are subject to biases that can lead to false signatures of selection. Here we first outline the main approaches for describing expression evolution and their inherent biases. Next, we bridge the gap between the fields of phylogenetic comparative methods and transcriptomics to reinforce the main pitfalls of inferring selection on expression patterns and use simulation studies to show that shifts in tissue composition can heavily bias inferences of selection. We close by highlighting the multi-dimensional nature of transcriptional variation and identifying major unanswered questions in disentangling how selection acts on the transcriptome.

Potential impacts of failure of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on downstream countries

AbstractThis study assesses the potential downstream impacts in the event of a flood due to failure, either structural or operational, of the Grand Ethiopian renaissance dam (GERD). The following two failure scenarios were modeled as part of this study: Dam Break (DB) and MisGuided Dam Operation (MGDO) as a result of a false flood signature. The DB scenario shows that 40% of the intensively cultivated Gezira Plain would be inundated with average water depths of more than 10 m, resulting in catastrophic loss of highly productive farmlands, livestock, inhabitants, and infrastructure. This scenario did not model damage further downstream since for this magnitude flood it will require another flood routing model given the more complex geometry downstream of the Gezira Plain. In the MGDO scenario flood flows are lower and would have no impact on the Gezira Plain but would reach the High Aswan Dam (HAD) and fill it to its maximum allowable capacity for two and a half months and it would require emergency releases for more than 5 months. The required emergency releases from the HAD are expected to create significant flooding downstream. To accommodate the potential of extra releases from the GERD during flood events the operational rules for the HAD should be modified. However, providing more flood buffer at the HAD will limit the live capacity that is currently used for securing downstream flow requirements during drought periods. One of the expected impacts of increasing the flood buffer would be a reduction of the HAD's contribution to Egypt's GDP. Based on the results of this study the operational rules for the GERD and the HAD should be evaluated and possibly modified.

The spatial evolution of young massive clusters

Context. With the third release of the high-precision optical-wavelength Gaia survey, we are in a better position than ever before to study young clusters. However, Gaia is limited in the optical down to G ∼ 21 mag, and therefore it is essential to understand the biases introduced by a magnitude-limited sample on spatial distribution studies. Aims. We ascertain how sample incompleteness in Gaia observations of young clusters affects the local spatial analysis tool INDICATE and subsequently the perceived spatial properties of these clusters. Methods. We created a mock Gaia cluster catalogue from a synthetic dataset using the observation generating tool MYOSOTIS. The effect of cluster distance, uniform and variable extinction, binary fraction, population masking by the point spread function wings of high-mass members, and contrast sensitivity limits on the trends identified by INDICATE are explored. A comparison of the typical index values derived by INDICATE for members of the synthetic dataset and their corresponding mock Gaia catalogue observations is made to identify any significant changes. Results. We typically find only small variations in the pre- and post-observation index values of cluster populations, which can increase as a function of incompleteness percentage and binarity. No significant strengthening or false signatures of stellar concentrations are found, but real signatures may be diluted. Conclusions drawn about the spatial behaviour of Gaia-observed cluster populations that are, and are not, associated with their natal nebulosity are reliable for most clusters, but the perceived behaviours of individual members can change, so INDICATE should be used as a measure of spatial behaviours between members as a function of their intrinsic properties (e.g., mass, age, object type), rather than to draw conclusions about any specific observed member. Conclusions. INDICATE is a robust spatial analysis tool to reliably study Gaia-observed young cluster populations within 1 kpc, up to a sample incompleteness of 83.3% and binarity of 50%.

Analysis of Settling and RCS Response of Copper Coated Carbon and its Comparison with Aluminium Fibres

Background/Objectives: The present research focuses on comparative studies of two different type of chaff fibres for their effectiveness as electronics counter measure. Chaffs are electronic counter measures used in creating false radar signature to deceive tracking radar systems. Many types of chaff payloads are there in use, but the major one is aluminium fibres. These chaffs are designed to cover radar frequency range from 2-18 GHz. However, in future, tracking radars will operate in higher frequency range and will have improved algorithms to mitigate chaff noise of certain Radar Cross Section (RCS) threshold. Methods: The researcher used two different chaff fibres and their corresponding RCS are measured in anechoic chamber for their comparative study. Findings: It is observed that the RCS of the copper coated carbon (CuC) fiber is nearly equal to that of aluminium fiber but due their thinner diameter packing density of chaff fibres within a specified chaff cartridge volume has increased thus resulting in more number of dipole per chaff payload. Larger number of dipoles will help in improving dynamic RCS of chaff payload as it is directly proportional to the number of dipoles. Moreover, the terminal velocity of copper coated carbon fibres is lesser than that of aluminium fibres has improved the persistent time for CuCfiberwhich is a desirable parameter for the effective performance of chaff payload. Novelty: In order to increase dynamic RCS threshold one needs to increase chaff fiber density and chaff cloud suspension time. Both these can be achieved by the development of innovative thin CuCchaff fibres. In this paper, RCS of light weight and thin copper coated carbon chaff fibres were studied in comparison with traditional aluminium fibres and their advantages over aluminium fibres are reported. Keywords: Backscattered RCS; electrically conducting fiber; anechoic chamber; chaff; Settling Time

Uncontrolled Confounders May Lead to False or Overvalued Radiomics Signature: A Proof of Concept Using Survival Analysis in a Multicenter Cohort of Kidney Cancer.

PurposeWe aimed to explore potential confounders of prognostic radiomics signature predicting survival outcomes in clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) patients and demonstrate how to control for them.Materials and MethodsPreoperative contrast enhanced abdominal CT scan of ccRCC patients along with pathological grade/stage, gene mutation status, and survival outcomes were retrieved from The Cancer Imaging Archive (TCIA)/The Cancer Genome Atlas—Kidney Renal Clear Cell Carcinoma (TCGA-KIRC) database, a publicly available dataset. A semi-automatic segmentation method was applied to segment ccRCC tumors, and 1,160 radiomics features were extracted from each segmented tumor on the CT images. Non-parametric principal component decomposition (PCD) and unsupervised hierarchical clustering were applied to build the radiomics signature models. The factors confounding the radiomics signature were investigated and controlled sequentially. Kaplan–Meier curves and Cox regression analyses were performed to test the association between radiomics signatures and survival outcomes.Results183 patients of TCGA-KIRC cohort with available imaging, pathological, and clinical outcomes were included in this study. All 1,160 radiomics features were included in the first radiomics signature. Three additional radiomics signatures were then modelled in successive steps removing redundant radiomics features first, removing radiomics features biased by CT slice thickness second, and removing radiomics features dependent on tumor size third. The final radiomics signature model was the most parsimonious, unbiased by CT slice thickness, and independent of tumor size. This final radiomics signature stratified the cohort into radiomics phenotypes that are different by cancer-specific and recurrence-free survival; HR (95% CI) = 3.0 (1.5–5.7), p <0.05 and HR (95% CI) = 6.6 (3.1–14.1), p <0.05, respectively.ConclusionRadiomics signature can be confounded by multiple factors, including feature redundancy, image acquisition parameters like slice thickness, and tumor size. Attention to and proper control for these potential confounders are necessary for a reliable and clinically valuable radiomics signature.

Signature Identification Menggunakan Metode Template Matching dan Fuzzy K-Nearest Neighbor

Abstract — Signature is the result of the process of writing a person of a particular nature as a symbolic substance, which means a symbol or mark. Signature is usually used as an identifying mark of a person, each person must have his own signature in a different pattern. Because it's used as a person's identifying badge, Signatures now become particularly susceptible to counterfeiting and abuse that require check with a signature pattern recognition. This research has created a signature pattern recognition system using methods Template Matching and Fuzzy K-Nearest Neighbor to help recognize a person's signature pattern. The number of signatures used is 110 in two categories: the original signature with 100 data and the false signature with 10 data, and there were 10 classes taken using smartphone cameras. From this research, it was found that the best value from the image size of 200x200 pixels was 92% of the class that owned the signature legible, Positive Predictive Value (PPV) 88% and False Rejection Rate (FRR) 12%, with a k=3 on the original signature, and 90% of the class that owned the signature legible, Negative Predictive Value (NPV) 90% dan False Acceptance Rate (FAR) 10% with a k=9 on the false signature. From these results, it could be concluded that methods Template Matching and Fuzzy K-Nearest Neighbor could be used for signature pattern recognition.

TO BE OR NOT TO BE, THE CONCLUSION OF THE HANDWRITING EXPERTS

The thesis is aimed at considering situations that arise during the performance of handwriting examinations in which conclusions are possible that have various legal consequences for the parties to the trial. This is because of the fact that when assigning a handwriting examination, there are situations when a small number of signature samples are provided for a comparative study or the interested party of the torturer misleads the expert by providing false signature samples. By carefully studying the case materials, the expert manages to establish additional samples of signatures, which are not mentioned in the document on the appointment of a handwriting examination. It helps the expert to determine and come to a categorical conclusion which case the signature in the document under study was affixed not by the person himself, but by another person. Or confirm the fact with one hundred percent certainty that the signature was made by one of the relatives. In such cases, if it were not for additional samples from the case materials, it is possible for an expert to come to a false conclusion. The question may arise whether the expert violates sub-clause 3, clause 2.3. Instructions, the expert is prohibited from: “independently collecting materials that are subject to research, as well as choosing outgoing data for the examination, if they are displayed ambiguously in the materials provided to him/her”. But clause 2.1. of the Instruction state that the expert has the right to indicate in his conclusion the facts revealed during the examination that are significant for the case, but regarding which he/she was not asked questions and the circumstances that contributed (could contribute) to the commission of the offense.

An Enhanced Certificateless Aggregate Signature Without Pairings for E-Healthcare System

Recently, Gayathri et al. introduced an efficient certificateless aggregate signature (CLAS) for e-healthcare system and claimed that it can achieve efficient aggregation to different signatures on different messages from different medical sensors. In this article, we analyze it and find that the CLAS scheme and the underlying certificateless signature (CLS) scheme in it are not secure. Anyone can forge a valid aggregate/individual signature replacing the legitimate medical sensor only based on the public parameters set in Gayathri et al. ’s CLAS scheme. Moreover, the malicious medical sensors can deny a valid aggregate signature (AS) by offering false individual signatures aggregated into this AS. We also present a secure CLAS scheme by aggregating an existing lightweight CLS scheme. The aggregation algorithm adopted in our new scheme is proven sound against inside attacks.

Background Selection Does Not Mimic the Patterns of Genetic Diversity Produced by Selective Sweeps.

It is increasingly evident that natural selection plays a prominent role in shaping patterns of diversity across the genome. The most commonly studied modes of natural selection are positive selection and negative selection, which refer to directional selection for and against derived mutations, respectively. Positive selection can result in hitchhiking events, in which a beneficial allele rapidly replaces all others in the population, creating a valley of diversity around the selected site along with characteristic skews in allele frequencies and linkage disequilibrium among linked neutral polymorphisms. Similarly, negative selection reduces variation not only at selected sites but also at linked sites, a phenomenon called background selection (BGS). Thus, discriminating between these two forces may be difficult, and one might expect efforts to detect hitchhiking to produce an excess of false positives in regions affected by BGS. Here, we examine the similarity between BGS and hitchhiking models via simulation. First, we show that BGS may somewhat resemble hitchhiking in simplistic scenarios in which a region constrained by negative selection is flanked by large stretches of unconstrained sites, echoing previous results. However, this scenario does not mirror the actual spatial arrangement of selected sites across the genome. By performing forward simulations under more realistic scenarios of BGS, modeling the locations of protein-coding and conserved noncoding DNA in real genomes, we show that the spatial patterns of variation produced by BGS rarely mimic those of hitchhiking events. Indeed, BGS is not substantially more likely than neutrality to produce false signatures of hitchhiking. This holds for simulations modeled after both humans and Drosophila, and for several different demographic histories. These results demonstrate that appropriately designed scans for hitchhiking need not consider BGS's impact on false-positive rates. However, we do find evidence that BGS increases the false-negative rate for hitchhiking, an observation that demands further investigation.

Interspecific Gene Flow and the Evolution of Specialization in Black and White Rhinoceros.

Africa's black (Diceros bicornis) and white (Ceratotherium simum) rhinoceros are closely related sister-taxa that evolved highly divergent obligate browsing and grazing feeding strategies. Although their precursor species Diceros praecox and Ceratotherium mauritanicum appear in the fossil record ∼5.2 Ma, by 4 Ma both were still mixed feeders, and were even spatiotemporally sympatric at several Pliocene sites in what is today Africa's Rift Valley. Here, we ask whether or not D.praecox and C.mauritanicum were reproductively isolated when they came into Pliocene secondary contact. We sequenced and de novo assembled the first annotated black rhinoceros reference genome and compared it with available genomes of other black and white rhinoceros. We show that ancestral gene flow between D.praecox and C.mauritanicum ceased sometime between 3.3 and 4.1 Ma, despite conventional methods for the detection of gene flow from whole genome data returning false positive signatures of recent interspecific migration due to incomplete lineage sorting. We propose that ongoing Pliocene genetic exchange, for up to 2 My after initial divergence, could have potentially hindered the development of obligate feeding strategies until both species were fully reproductively isolated, but that the more severe and shifting paleoclimate of the early Pleistocene was likely the ultimate driver of ecological specialization in African rhinoceros.

Recognizing Artist and Subject: Bramine Hubrecht and her Sicilian Procession

In this contribution the author goes deeper into the life, the oeuvre and the network of the all but forgotten artist Bramine Hubrecht (1855-1913). At the centre is one of her paintings – four veiled young girls entirely dressed in white in a church interior. This work is now in Museum Catharijneconvent. The painting was previously attributed to Isaac Israels (1865-1934) on the basis of two false signatures. New information has meant that it can now be identified as a work by the painter Bramine Hubrecht. One of her sketchbooks in the Rijksmuseum and a watercolour in the Pulchri Cabinet, a unique artists’ initiative in The Hague, helped in unravelling the story. These two works, which show exactly the same girls, can beattributed to Hubrecht with absolute certainty. New biographical information has reinforced this new attribution and also sheds light on the meaning of the subject. These ‘brides’ prove to be part of the Processione dei Misteri del Venerdì Santo,which is still held every year on the evening of Good Friday in Taormina, the little village in Sicily where Hubrecht lived at the beginning of the twentieth century. The new attribution has also prompted research into Hubrecht’s life and works – research which has not been carried out until now.