Left Void Research Articles

INTEGRATING TECHNOLOGY AND DIGITAL CONNECTIVITY IN SERVICE RECOVERY STRATEGIES TO ACHIEVE RECOVERY SATISFACTION DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: A HYBRID APPROACH

Recently, the business landscape has changed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has led to changes in the behaviors of both customers and business owners. The COVID-19 pandemic and its associated restrictions on store closures have presented a new challenge to businesses that rely on physical interaction, brick and mortar to meet different customer needs. Mandatory shutdowns and social distancing measures have left voids that have been filled by digitalisation. The main problems customers face are service failures and breakdowns. As a result, customers are grappling with how they can have their problems addressed during the pandemic. There is therefore a need for a paradigm shift in terms of how businesses respond to unforeseen circumstances and pandemics because it is the only firm that use automation that will be more robust in competitive scenarios. This study is aimed at providing a hybrid approach to integrating digital technology into service recovery strategies, namely apology, explanation, speed, compensation and empowerment, during the COVID-19 pandemic in order to achieve customer recovery satisfaction. Therefore, a model for integrating technology and digital connectivity into service recovery strategies to achieve recovery satisfaction has been proposed. Thus, this model provides insight into how businesses can use digital technology to implement service recovery strategies during a pandemic. This is critical to help enterprises maintain consistency and minimize service variability due to changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. This study contributes to the literature on digital technology and service recovery by using current methods to address today's challenges.

Representations of everyday life in İnci Eviner’s We, Elsewhere: comedy, use and free will

ABSTRACT İnci Eviner's installation We, Elsewhere for the Turkey Pavilion at the 58th Venice Art Biennial offers a spectacle of the incomplete, in which the objects, videos and their characters, and sounds in the piece, along with the exhibition space itself, consist all of halves, missing something. It is designed as a non-place in the midst of nowhere, which appears as a liminal space of exception, in which the inside and outside become indistinct. In this respect, the role of the large ramp, which transgresses the public-private divide, is particularly remarkable for it both connects and disconnects the place in relation to the outside, incarnating a paradoxical form of inclusionary exclusion. One cannot avoid noticing the ramp on entering the pavilion: cut horizontally and vertically, the spaces between left void, it is a cross-sectional space experienced through its corridors, area closed off by metal bars, a semi-closed room and viewing area arranged on stairs. However, its interior is rendered visible through the cross-sections of buildings and the subterranean. We bear witness to the events inside it, and, ceasing to be spectators, participate in the installation. Through this displacement, we also move from a representational space to a lived space.

Corrigendum.

Molecular EcologyVolume 29, Issue 12 p. 2312-2313 CORRIGENDUMFree Access Corrigendum This article corrects the following: Genetic association with high-resolution climate data reveals selection footprints in the genomes of barley landraces across the Iberian Peninsula Bruno Contreras-Moreira, Roberto Serrano-Notivoli, Naheif E. Mohammed, Carlos P. Cantalapiedra, Santiago Beguería, Ana M. Casas, Ernesto Igartua, Volume 28Issue 8Molecular Ecology pages: 1994-2012 First Published online: April 2, 2019 First published: 24 May 2020 https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.15201AboutSectionsPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onEmailFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat The article entitled “Genetic association with high-resolution climate data reveals selection footprints in the genomes of barley landraces across the Iberian Peninsula” published in Molecular Ecology (Volume 28, Issue 8, pages 1994–2012). In the original publication of this article, figure 3 had two mistakes. Figure 3d had a wrong gene label (VrnH2 instead of FrH2), and Figure 3b presented a partially filled area under the line graph, with blue colour, which should have been left void. Figure 4 of Contreras-Moreira et al. (2019) lacked some labels, particularly germplasm group labels, needed to understand the interpretations and comments made in the text. These labels were included in the figure throughout the edition of the manuscript, and were lost in the final version uploaded for final publication. The symbols used to denote individuals (large grey triangles) were also reshaped to their original shape and size (small grey circles). These errors occurred after proof correction and do not influence any of the results or conclusions of our work. We apologize for the oversight during upload of the final files. The updated version of Figure 3 and Figure 4 are shown below: Figure 3Open in figure viewerPowerPoint Genome wide diversity and genetic differentiation among germplasm groups of Spanish barleys, presented both as 4 cM sliding windows (lines), and as single SNPs (grey dots) with values beyond significance thresholds (XtX) or beyond the 1 (H) or 99 percentiles (LD). (a) 4 cM sliding windows for XtX values calculated for the four germplasm groups with baypass (solid black line), the black dashed line indicates the 95 percentile value for the 4 cM window scores; single SNP values above the baypass threshold, 9.56, are marked with grey dots; (b) heterozygosity (H) values for all accessions in 4 cM sliding windows (solid blue line), with a reference line drawn at percentile 5 (dashed blue line); single SNP values marked with grey dots indicate values below percentile 1; (c) linkage disequilibrium corrected for population structure (rS2) averaged for groups of nine contiguous SNPs, in 4 cM windows (solid red line), with a reference line (dashed red) drawn at the 95 percentile calculated separately at the three chromosomal zones described by Mascher et al. (2017), in which vertical spikes indicate the positions of centromeres, and single SNP values above percentile 99 are indicated with grey dots; (d) conceptual summary of graphs a–c, vertical scale offset, displaying positions of XtX and rS2 sliding window values above percentile 95 and heterozygosity values below percentile 5. In graph (d), colour-coded dots (enlarged for better visualization) correspond to positions in which 4 cM sliding windows values exceed those thresholds. Crosses at the bottom of this graph indicate the positions of well-known flowering time and domestication genes, according to the updated popseq map (Beier et al., 2017), and listed in Supporting Information [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com] Figure 4Open in figure viewerPowerPoint Triplot of the first two axes of a redundancy analysis with 103 agroclimatic variables (geographic variables longitude, latitude and altitude removed), showing genotypes, variables and germplasm groups. Variables are colour-coded according to each category. The two variables which explained most variance in a multiple regression analysis are indicated with diamond icons [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com] REFERENCE Contreras-Moreira, B., Serrano-Notivoli, R., Mohammed, N. E., Cantalapiedra, C. P., Beguería, S., Casas, A. M., & Igartua, E. (2019). Genetic association with high-resolution climate data reveals selection footprints in the genomes of barley landraces across the Iberian Peninsula. Molecular Ecology, 28(8), 1994– 2012. https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.15009Wiley Online LibraryPubMedWeb of Science®Google Scholar Volume29, Issue12June 2020Pages 2312-2313 FiguresReferencesRelatedInformation

FPGA Based Hardware Accelerator for Data Analytics: An Overview

The computation capability of the memory related operations which are used in database related procedure seems to be increasingly bound in the recent years. The memory related operations starting from hard disk drive based system to higher bandwidth memory technologies such as in-memory, non-volatile memory etc face consequences. The transition of such with higher bandwidth especially in memory is crucial. One of the solutions for such evolution is hardware acceleration. In general, many types of virtual hardware accelerator are accessible, one such trend is Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). FPGA is selected among other accelerator ranging from embedded device to cloud computing because of its higher performance, energy efficiency and adaptability. Hardware acceleration is found least nominal because of communication overhead. But the momentous opening on FPGA design chain connected with memory technology still provides attractive gain in the database field. Some of the areas of FPGA which are still left void in the scale of full deployment of FPGA virtualization are resource management, scalability, and development. To address the acceleration flexibility of FPGA, many of the FPGA virtualization techniques and hardware infrastructures have been proposed on academic as well as industrial side in the recent years. In this research work, an attempt is made to identify and classify the various FPGA database acceleration techniques and approaches. The current trends and developments of the existing literature are highlighted with the future directions to be addressed based on the data movement in database which improve the speed of the memory.

16-Port Non-Planar MIMO Antenna System With Near-Zero-Index (NZI) Metamaterial Decoupling Structure for 5G Applications

In this article, a low-cost 16-port non-planar Multiple-Input-Multiple Output (MIMO) antenna system is proposed for future 5G applications. The non-planar MIMO antenna system is established around a 3D-octagonal-shape polystyrene block. The MIMO elements are arranged on the eight-sides of octagonal-shape block, whereas bottom and top faces of polystyrene block are left void. The single antenna element comprises of slotted microstrip patch with a stepped chamfered feed line and defected ground plane. Each MIMO element is designed on FR-4 substrate with a size of 22 mm × 20 mm, to cover the frequency band of 3.35 GHz to 3.65 GHz for the fifth-generation (5G) applications. The isolation between array elements is improved by using a meander-lines based near-zero-index epsilon-negative (NZI-ENG) metamaterial decoupling structure. The array elements are placed on the top-layer, whereas common connected ground plane and decoupling structure is placed on the bottom-layer. The metamaterial-based decoupling structure offers an isolation of more than 28 dB for antenna elements arranged in across and side-by-side configuration. Moreover, simulated and measured MIMO performance parameters i.e. Total Active Reflection Coefficient (TARC) <; -18 dB, Envelop correlation coefficient (ECC) <; 0.1 and Channel capacity loss (CCL) <; 0.3 are in acceptable limits. The proposed non-planar 3D-MIMO antenna system can be employed for indoor localization systems and wireless personal area network applications, where different 5G devices are wirelessly linked to a centralized server. Moreover, a good agreement between simulated and measured results is achieved for the non-planar MIMO antenna system.

New numerical evaluation of parallelepiped NaI(Tl) detector geometrical and total efficiencies using extended sources

Gamma-ray measurements in terrestrial/environmental samples require the use of high efficient detectors because of the low level of the radionuclide activity concentrations in the samples; thus scintillators are suitable for this purpose. The design of 4πNaI(Tl) parallelepiped γ-ray scintillation detector with central square left void is considered an instructive case in radiation measurements, where it can be easily used in several critical applications including medical therapy, radiation protection, environmental exposure monitoring and neutron interaction. It is also extremely important to measure the activities of low radioactivity samples. Therefore, the understanding of the full scope of the multidimensional calibration and measurement process must be done with high accuracy. The present work is essentially concerned in introducing a new numerical evaluation to calculate the geometrical and total efficiency of a 4πNaI(Tl) parallelepiped scintillator detector using isotropic radiating γ-ray point source. Also the average path lengths traveled by the photon inside the detector active medium have been calculated in order to study the characteristics of the source-to-detector configurations. This method depends mainly on the calculation of the solid angle subtended to the radioactive point source situated at various positions inside the detector and the photon path lengths through the detector active medium. In addition, the attenuation of the stainless steel absorber between the source and the detector material has been studied. The obtained results were compared with Monte Carlo and experimental published data to show the method's validity in the calibration process.

ASSESSING THE URBAN AND RURAL STAGE BUS SERVICES DISPARITIES IN PENINSULA MALAYSIA

Disparities between services and goods provision have been the concerns of various regional development proponents. Among the gaps that needed to be addressed by regional policies and initiatives were accessibility and mobility levels between urbanites and the rural population. This study reports on the differences of the urban versus rural bus services. For this purpose, this study extends the exploration of approximately 48 routes within selected urban and regional settlements in Peninsula Malaysia, using a quantitative traffic engineering measure known as Level of Service standards or LOS. Three performance measures, namely fixed-route hour of service, fixed-route service frequency and passenger-load threshold were evaluated in determining the existence and extent of such disparities. The passengers’ satisfaction and preference survey were conducted to complement some qualitative explanations left void by the LOS evaluation. Methods of on-board face to face intercept survey and adoption of Geographical Information System (GIS) /Global Positioning System (GPS) were deployed in the collection of primary data. More than 1600 survey forms were distributed, but after collection and data cleaning, only a total of 1130 were analysed. Findings of the study supported and confirmed the existence of such spatial imbalances of services provision. They also further accentuated that many developing nations’ rural settlements were indeed stigmatised by a lower level of stage bus services (average at LOS D) compared to those enjoyed by the urbanites (average services at LOS C).

ASSESSING THE URBAN AND RURAL STAGE BUS SERVICES DISPARITIES IN PENINSULA MALAYSIA

Disparities between services and goods provision have been the concerns of various regional development proponents. Among the gaps that needed to be addressed by regional policies and initiatives were accessibility and mobility levels between urbanites and the rural population. This study reports on the differences of the urban versus rural bus services. For this purpose, this study extends the exploration of approximately 48 routes within selected urban and regional settlements in Peninsula Malaysia, using a quantitative traffic engineering measure known as Level of Service standards or LOS. Three performance measures, namely fixed-route hour of service, fixed-route service frequency and passenger-load threshold were evaluated in determining the existence and extent of such disparities. The passengers’ satisfaction and preference survey were conducted to complement some qualitative explanations left void by the LOS evaluation. Methods of on-board face to face intercept survey and adoption of Geographical Information System (GIS) /Global Positioning System (GPS) were deployed in the collection of primary data. More than 1600 survey forms were distributed, but after collection and data cleaning, only a total of 1130 were analysed. Findings of the study supported and confirmed the existence of such spatial imbalances of services provision. They also further accentuated that many developing nations’ rural settlements were indeed stigmatised by a lower level of stage bus services (average at LOS D) compared to those enjoyed by the urbanites (average services at LOS C).Â

Sovereignty and the Sea: President Joko Widodo's Foreign Policy Challenges

New Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who prefers to be known by the portmanteau Jokowi, (1) has declared that he will focus on domestic affairs, particularly improving the country's maritime infrastructure and reasserting the authority of the state, as part of broad reform programme. In these areas, he could be transformative president. However, an activist presidency in these areas, even if intended only as domestic effort, will create unintended foreign policy challenges for Indonesia, because its economic and maritime interests are so closely intertwined with those of its neighbours. Moreover, Jokowi's focus on domestic policy will likely see him delegate management of foreign affairs, including responsibility for addressing these challenges, to several key advisers. Where consensus among these advisers does not emerge, Jokowi is unlikely to intervene to settle the debate and to clarify Indonesia's position, as his predecessor, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, often did when confronted with similar challenges. This article first outlines the role that President Yudhoyono played in the conduct of the country's foreign policy in order to illustrate the change in experience and focus that Jokowi represents. Second, it reviews Jokowi's statements on foreign affairs and argues that his views on Indonesia's external relations are almost entirely function of his domestic reform agenda, which emphasizes state strength and maritime affairs. Third, it identifies the key people providing advice to Jokowi on foreign policy, and how they might influence his views. Finally, it explores how this context might affect the conduct of Indonesian foreign policy in Southeast Asia and the broader Asia-Pacific region, highlighting the dilemma of the Indonesian position in the South China Sea. I argue throughout that Jokowi's focus on maritime affairs and questions of state sovereignty could lead to greater tensions with neighbouring states and China; and that his inexperience in foreign affairs could allow these tensions to persist in way they did not under his predecessor, thus diminishing Indonesia's regional leadership role. Yudhoyono's Departure Leaves Void When President Yudhoyono vacated the State Palace in October 2014, he left void in the country's foreign policymaking system. As president, Yudhoyono energetically pursued vision of Indonesia's place in the world as rising power, and of himself as globe-trotting statesman respected and admired by his peers. In his pursuit of this vision, he took great care to cultivate opinion abroad, while minimizing the opportunity for institutional competition over foreign policy among his ministries at home. The presidency was not Yudhoyono's first turn at foreign Throughout his long army career, Yudhoyono demonstrated keen interest in foreign affairs. Early in his presidency, as he strove to position himself as an international statesman and foreign policy intellectual, he adopted and promoted foreign policy vision defined by the country's identity as large Muslim majority democracy. (2) By the start of his second term, he had refined his view of Indonesia's place in the international system as country with a thousand friends and zero enemies and an all directions foreign policy. (3) He sought to improve ties with both the United States and China, but also made show of diplomacy with Iran and North Korea. (4) He pursued warmer relations with neighbouring countries, including Australia, Singapore and Malaysia, resisting demands from the bureaucracy and legislature that he take harder line in various disputes. (5) In implementing his foreign policy agenda, Yudhoyono continued institutional reforms begun by his predecessor, Megawati Sukarnoputri, that consolidated foreign policymaking in the foreign ministry and the State Palace, thereby limiting institutional competition over foreign policy between various ministries. …

Wage Labor and Mobility in Colonial Eritrea, 1880s to 1920s

AbstractMobility and wage labor are two key variables that help to explain some of the complexities of the labor history of colonial Eritrea. Focusing on the initial period of Italian colonization, between the 1880s and 1920s, this article analyzes the relationship between the two above-mentioned variables. Based on previously unexplored archival sources and documents, the authors conclude that wage labor did contribute to the mobility of workers throughout the region (and not vice versa). In the period under consideration, Eritrea did not become a settler colony, despite Italy's initial efforts to import a national labor force. Instead, through a mix of capital investments in construction and transport, and increasing military recruitment, the Italian regime contributed significantly to an increase in free wage labor in the region. Within a year of Italy's 1911 invasion of Libya, it needed to reinforce its colonial army. From 1912 onward, in return for wages, tens of thousands of Eritreans entered the Italian colonial army to fight on the Libyan front. This military employment left voids in the local labor market, which were filled by people from neighboring countries, particularly Ethiopians and Yemenis. A relationship thus developed and continued between mobility and wage labor.

Effect of physiochemical variables on phase solubility and dissolution behavior of indomethacin solid dispersion system

To study the influence of temperature and pH on solubility and dissolution behavior of indomethacin solid dispersions were prepared using several classes of hydrophilic carriers. Investigations on dissolution of indomethacin in binary system are reported earlier. However the phase solubility and dissolution behavior at different pH and temperature left void. The present investigation includes: phase solubility study at various pH; preparation of solid dispersion by solvent evaporation, melting and kneading method; characterization of various blends by dissolution study, and solid state studies to ensure interaction of drug with carrier. The binding between drug and carriers (PVP K30, βCD and PEG) was explained by thermodynamic parameters as calculated from phase solubility study. Indomethacin in association with PVP K30 showed very high apparent binding constant (Ka) and Gibb’s free energy change (∆G) in comparison to other blends. The ternary system (drug:βCD:PVP K30, 1:5:1) showed better dissolution of about 80.97 and 99 % at pH 7.2 after 5 and 30 min respectively. At higher proportion of carrier (1:9) in binary solid dispersion of drug and PVP K30, drug dissolution was 96.23 and 97.85 % after 5 and 30 min respectively. This raised solubility of indomethacin would be helpful in designing a dosage form.

Appendix B

Appendix B

Thermal Stress Control in Cu Dual Damascene Interconnects with Low-k Organic Polymer Film

We investigated the stability of organic low-/Cu dual damascene (DD) interconnects under thermal cycle stresses and concluded that the thermal stability was improved by adding a stress control layer (SCL) to the organic polymer intralayer dielectric (ILD) film . At high temperature, Cu vias suffered from large tensile stress in the organic polymer ILD film that expanded and left voids in the Cu vias. A large tensile stress was applied to the organic film at to create voids in the organic film around the vias. The introduction of SCL with a coefficient of thermal expansion and modulus near those of the polymer and Cu reduced the tensile stresses in the Cu vias at high temperature, as well as in the polymer at very low temperature. A well-designed SCL resulted in robust high performance Cu DD interconnects with low- organic ILD films.

The Māuipreneur

The concept of the Māuipreneur is a metaphor that brings together two apparently unrelated domains interacting to create new meaning or insight that did not exist before the metaphor was encountered. In this case the two unrelated domains are the Māui stories of Aotearoa New Zealand and that of the entrepreneur thus creating the Māuipreneur. The Māuipreneur is the entrepreneur who seizes the opportunity created in the space left void in the movement from tapu (restricted space) to noa (unrestricted space) and through research, development and planning fills it with product. The paper presents a discussion about the Māuipreneur and explains how the theory and associated model relating to the Māuipreneur is found in the stories of the ancestor hero, Māui-Tikitiki-A-Tāranga. This paper was first presented at the Tauira-a-Māui Symposium, Te Whare Wānanga o Raukawa, Otaki, New Zealand, 11-13 November 2009.

The origin and extent of coarse-grained regularities in protein internal packing.

Despite the suitability of various lattice geometries for coarse-grained modeling of proteins, the actual packing geometry of residues in folded structures has remained largely unexplored. A strong tendency to assume a regular packing geometry is shown here by optimally reorienting and superimposing clusters of neighboring residues from databank structures examined on a coarse-grained (single-site-per-residue) scale. The orientation function (or order parameter) of the examined coordination clusters with respect to fcc lattice directions is found to be 0.82. The observed geometry, which may be termed an incomplete distorted face-centered cubic (fcc) packing, is apparently favored by the drive to maximize packing density, in a fashion analogous to the way identical spheres pack densely and follow fcc geometry. About 2/3 of all residues obey this packing geometry, while the remainder occupy other context-dependent positions. The preferred coordination directions show relatively small variations over the various amino acid types, consistent with uniform residue viewpoint. Both the extremes of solvent-exposed and completely buried residue neighborhoods approximate the same generic packing, the only difference being in the numbers (and not the orientations) of coordination sites that are occupied (or left void for solvent occupancy). We observe the prevalence of a rather uniform (tight) residue packing density throughout the structure, including even the residues packed near solvent-exposed regions. The observed orientation distribution reveals an underlying, intrinsic orientation lattice for proteins.

Miracles en Amérique latine

MIRACLES EN AMÉRIQUE LATINE Le récit de guérison miraculeuse est produit dans le cadre d'Églises pentecôtistes, qui attirent aujourdhui près de 10 % de la population latino- américaine. Ce discours remplit un espace laissé vide par le retrait du « social » et du populisme politique. Quatre opérations qui assurent le succès de cette machine narrative font l'objet de la présente étude.

Manufacturing of ceramic composites reinforced with layered woven fabrics by CVI of SiC from dichlorodimethylsilane

Manufacturing of ceramic/ceramic composites by chemical vapor infiltration of SiC from dichlorodimethylsilane (DDS) in 2and 4-ply woven carbon fabrics has been studied. Dense deposition was obtained at a low reaction pressure such as 10 torr, as expected. However, little deposition was occurred at low DDS concentration such as 4%. Spaces between plies were left void with little deposition. The amount of deposition was proportional to the pressure and the DDS concentration. From the experimental data of the amount of deposition, the first order deposition rate constant of 40 cm/min was estimated. This value was bigger than our previous value. The tendencies for 4-ply sample were similar to those of 2-ply sample. Scanning electron microphotographs and pore size distribution analysis showed the same results.

1,1,1-Trichloroethane-bound cytochrome P450cam dynamics. Does active site water make a difference?

Abstract Cytochrome P450cam is capable of reductively dehalogenating several chlorinated alkanes at slow, but measurable, rates. To gain insight into the dynamic properties of the enzyme having an influence over its reactivity, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are performed on the complex of wild-type P450cam and 1,1,1-trichloroethane (TCA), a long-lived pollutant. Previous simulations on this complex indicated that, unlike the enzyme complexed with camphor and camphor analogs, the behavior of TCA is sensitive to electrostatic interactions with the heme-Fe cofactor. Using recently developed partial charges for the heme, we conducted two 300 ps MD simulations on TCA-bound P450cam. Since water bound in the enzyme active site is thought to be an important mediator of catalysis, in one simulation three additional water molecules are docked into space left void when the native substrate, camphor, is replaced with TCA. For the majority of configurations sampled, TCA in close proximity to the heme-Fe, suggesting that, if a high degree of spin conversion were achieved, degradation of TCA might proceed at a measurable rate. In the simulation without active site water, TCA samples an alternate binding pocket that opens due to rearrangement of active site residues, leaving room for water to presumably coordinate Fe. This result is consistent with the experimental observation that TCA causes only a minor degree of heme spin conversion. The presence of active site water inhibits these significant dynamic fluctuations in the active site, indicating that including extra water molecules in this binding pocket does not provide information crucial to understanding dynamic properties of the enzymes that influence the behavior of TCA.

Hornby

The stage consists of two sets: the Purgatory set and the Cabin set. The cabin set is the interior of Hornby’s cabin on the Thelon River in the winter of 1926-27. This may be realistic or implied. The Purgatory set surrounds the Cabin set and may be left void of properties. Lighting should be used to create a vague spiritlike atmosphere. Purgatory characters observe the three Cabin set players throughout the play.

An unusual preservation of fossil plants from cumbria: Diagenetic and environmental significance

AbstractLower Carboniferous fossil plants preserved as uncompressed external casts of calcite are recorded and described from a micritic limestone found in Cumbria. Most can be identified as the small leafy twigs of Archaeosigillaria kidstoni Kräusel and Weyland, but others are unidentified plant axes. Sporangia are recognised for the first time in Archaeosigillaria. Reasons for the unusual mode of preservation are considered. Rapid lithification of sediment is indicated by an erosional surface at the top of the plant bed and the presence of clasts of the latter in the overlying limestone. Subsequent plant decay probably left voids which became filled by acicular carbonate cement later altered to radiaxial fibrous calcite. The occurrence of inferred evaporite pseudomorphs in associated nodules suggests a highly saline environment which may have contributed to the lack of plant decomposition before burial.