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Hidden valuables, hidden variables: hoards and related deposits from the Mesolithic to the present day (The Gordon Childe Lecture for 2024)
Get PDFThis article traces the deliberate deposition of artefacts, human remains and animal bones from the Mesolithic period to the twentieth century ad. Rather than presenting a straightforward narrative, their treatment is thematic and extends backwards in time from the most recent examples, about which a little is known, to the earliest, which remain enigmatic. The article also extends to single finds, grave goods and river metalwork. While the histories of these phenomena were continuous and unbroken, their significance often changed. The lecture considers nine specific examples and the very different ways in which they have been interpreted
Simplifying Urdu: Nasta‘liq types for mechanical composition and the forces of colonisation, monopolisation, and ownership
Get PDFDeeply rooted in the cultural legacy of the Mughal Empire and the Persian language in South Asia, Nasta‘liq has historically served as the preferred writing style to represent the Urdu language. Despite its aesthetic appeal, characterised by its fluidity and cascading compositions, Nasta‘liq is considered one of the most demanding forms of writing for typographic representation—a dilemma that dates back to the late sixteenth century and early European attempts to create Nasta‘liq types. This article critically engages with crucial moments in the history of Urdu Nasta‘liq type-making in the twentieth century and explores its wide-ranging implications for Urdu-speaking communities. It begins in the 1920s with an examination of the early efforts of Nizam’s Government in Hyderabad (Deccan) and proceeds to evaluate the role of British manufacturers of mechanical typesetting machines, Linotype and Monotype, in the development and dissemination of Urdu typography from the 1940s onward. By positioning the creation of Nasta‘liq type-making at the centre of broader typographic, cultural, political, and technological frameworks, this study aims to uncover the driving forces behind such typographic ventures, as well as their reception by the reading public, publishers, and of typesetting machine manufacturers
The role of consciousness in adaptive behaviour: a philosophy for the science of animal consciousness
Get PDFWhat is the role of consciousness in nature? The science of consciousness has largely neglected the question through its emphasis on human experience. In this précis of A Philosophy for the Science of Animal Consciousness, I outline how we can move from a top-down approach that begins with investigations in humans to an evolutionary bottom-up approach that targets the adaptive origins of even the most minimal forms of subjective experience. I will also offer an introduction to the central thesis of the book, that is, the pathological complexity thesis, according to which consciousness evolved in order to enable animals to adaptively respond to their life history challenges
A trustworthy and untraceable centralised payment protocol for mobile payment
Get PDFCurrent mobile payment schemes gather detailed information about purchases customers make. This data can then be used to infer a customer’s spending behaviour, potentially violating their privacy. To tackle this problem, we propose an untraceable mobile payment scheme that strikes a better balance, preserving user privacy while allowing the Third-Party Service Provider (TPSP) to collect necessary information such as card details and transaction amount for regulatory compliance. Our scheme offers untraceability for legitimate users from malicious adversaries and curious TPSPs using cryptographic primitives such as partially blind signatures, zero-knowledge proofs and identity-based signatures. It also guarantees that only authorised TPSPs can issue valid payment tokens, and even with limited data the TPSP can still prevent dishonest customers/merchants
from double-spending a payment token. We also propose a comprehensive evaluation framework to assess the untraceable payment schemes against seven key criteria such as untraceability, exculpability - merchant double-spending, exculpability - customer double-spending, unforgeability, confidentiality, message authenticity, efficiency and regulatory compliance. We rigorously benchmark the security and privacy of our proposed payment scheme against this framework and other established schemes. Furthermore, we formally verify these properties using complexity-based analysis and Proverif modelling
Dietary micronutrient intake during pregnancy is suboptimal in a group of healthy Scottish women, irrespective of maternal Body Mass Index
Get PDFBackground/Objectives: A balanced nutritious diet is vital during pregnancy for both the mother and the baby. The aims of this longitudinal study were to (1) determine any differences in macro- and micronutrient intakes in a group of UK women during pregnancy (and in the post-partum period) who were overweight or obese (BMI mean (SD) 31.1 (2.9)) at antenatal booking appointment compared with women who were within the ideal BMI range (BMI mean (SD) 22.1 (1.9)) and (2) determine the proportion of women who met the Harmonized Average Requirements (H-AR) during pregnancy. Methods: Forty-two participants attended four clinic visits: three during pregnancy, one in each trimester (V1, V2, and V3), and one 12 weeks post-partum (V4). Dietary intake was assessed by 24 h diet recall and analysed using DietPlan6. Results: There were no differences in energy and macronutrient intakes between overweight/obese and lean women. During pregnancy, the overweight/obese women consumed a mean (SD) of 3238 (941) sodium (mg per day), which was approximately 10% higher compared to 2934 (732) sodium (mg per day) in the lean group (p = 0.015). Dietary and supplemental intakes of the sodium to potassium ratio was 21% higher in overweight/obese women compared to the lean women, p = 0.0031 (mean (SD) of 1.17 (0.35) versus 0.93 (0.28), respectively). Virtually all women did not meet the H-AR for niacin, folate, and vitamin D through dietary intake alone. Conclusions: The ‘eat better and not more’ message during pregnancy is supported
Do autistic individuals show atypical performance in probabilistic learning? A comparison of cue-number, predictive strength, and prediction error
Get PDFBackground: According to recent models of autism, autistic individuals may find learning probabilistic cue-outcome associations more challenging than deterministic learning, though empirical evidence for this is mixed. Here we examined the mechanism of probabilistic learning more closely by comparing autistic and non-autistic adults on inferring a target cue from multiple cues or integrating multiple target cues and learning from associations with various predictive strengths.
Methods: 52 autistic and 52 non-autistic participants completed three tasks: (i) single-cue probabilistic learning, in which they had to infer a single target cue from multiple cues to learn cue-outcome associations; (ii) multi-cue probabilistic learning, in which they had to learn associations of various predictive strengths via integration of multiple cues; and (iii) reinforcement learning, which required learning the contingencies of two stimuli with a probabilistic reinforcement schedule. Accuracy on the two probabilistic learning tasks was modelled separately using a binomial mixed effects model whereas computational modelling was performed on the reinforcement learning data to obtain a model parameter on prediction error integration (i.e., learning rate).
Results: No group differences were found in the single-cue probabilistic learning task. Group differences were evident for the multi-cue probabilistic learning task for associations that are weakly predictive (between 40-60%) but not when they are strongly predictive (10-20% or 80-90%). Computational modelling on the reinforcement learning task revealed that, as a group, autistic individuals had a higher learning rate than non-autistic individuals.
Limitations: Due to the online nature of the study, we could not confirm the diagnosis of our autistic sample. The autistic participants were likely to have typical intelligence, and so our findings may not be generalisable to the entire autistic population. The learning tasks are constrained by a relative small number of trials, and so it is unclear whether group differences will still be seen when given more trials.
Conclusions: Autistic adults showed similar performance as non-autistic adults in learning associations by inferring a single cue or integrating multiple cues when the predictive strength was strong. However, non-autistic adults outperformed autistic adults when the predictive strength was weak, but only in the later phase. Autistic individuals were also more likely to incorporate prediction errors during decision making, which may explain their atypical performance on the weakly predictive associations. Our findings have implications for understanding differences in social cognition, which is often noisy and weakly predictive, among autistic individuals
Overview: the food matrix and its role in the diet
Get PDFThe food matrix which includes the physiochemical structure and interaction with chemical constituents is a focus of investigation that is revealing potentially important influences on diet and health. This paper, the first in an article collection titled, The Important Role of the Dairy Matrix in Diet and Health, serves as an introduction to the food matrix to put into context the subsequent articles specific to the matrix effects of dairy milk, cheese and yogurt on human health. This introductory article describes the effects of processing on the food matrix and implications for diet and health, examines the contribution of nutrients compared to whole foods and food patterns, and characterizes examples of the complexity of the food matrix including current controversies of dairy fat and ultra-processed foods. The gaps in knowledge and research identified in this overview may help guide researchers and funding entities moving forward. Current knowledge indicates that translating research on the food matrix to the consumer through recommendations for the intake of whole foods and food patterns is prudent at this time
Development of mucoadhesive vaginal films for metronidazole delivery Using methacryloylated, crotonoylated, and itaconoylated gelatin blends with poly(vinyl alcohol)
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This work reports the development and characterisation of polymeric films composed of gelatin or its chemically modified derivatives (crotonoylated, itaconoylated, and methacryloylated gelatins) blended with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA). Metronidazole served as an antimicrobial drug in these formulations.
Methods
The films were produced by casting aqueous solutions of polymers, followed by solvent evaporation. Their structure and physicochemical characteristics were studied using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and mechanical testing. The thickness of the films, their folding endurance, the surface pH, and transparency were also evaluated. The mucoadhesive performance of the films was evaluated through an ex vivo detachment technique involving freshly excised sheep vaginal tissues. In vitro cumulative drug release studies were conducted using Franz diffusion cells.
Results
The results demonstrate that incorporating unsaturated functional groups into gelatin improves its mucoadhesive properties compared to native gelatin. The drug release experiments conducted in vitro showed that the cumulative release from pure gelatin/PVA films was found to be 49 ± 2%, whereas modified gelatins/PVA (70:30) films released ~ 64–71%
Morphemes matter: a small scale randomised control trial of vocabulary intervention focusing on affixes for adolescents with (developmental) language disorder
No full textPurpose
To investigate whether morphological intervention improves understanding of affixes in adolescents with a language disorder and whether progress generalises.
Method
A total of 25 adolescents aged 13–15 years participated in this single-blind trial with random allocation. All participants had a language disorder; 18 with developmental language disorder, four with associated genetic conditions, and three with autism. A total of 11 participants received twice-weekly morphological intervention for 30 min with a speech-language pathologist for 8 weeks, while 14 received intervention as usual. Two tests were administered pre- and post-intervention: Affix definition and an adapted rehit task, which tested participants’ ability to work out the meaning of novel words containing affixes. To investigate generalisation to untaught affixes, only half of the affixes were taught in intervention.
Result
Those in the intervention group made significantly more progress than controls on both tasks, but only on taught affixes. Therefore, learning generalised to understanding the meaning of taught affixes in combinations with new roots (adapted rehit task) but did not generalise to untaught affixes on either task.
Conclusion
The intervention was effective and learning generalised to other words containing taught affixes. Intervention for affixes has potential to greatly increase understanding of vocabulary following relatively small amounts of intervention