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The Quoygrew Sequence (Being an islander: Production and identity at Quoygrew, Orkney, ad 900–1600)
Full text linkValidating treat-to-target endpoints in childhood lupus: data-driven sensitivity analyses from the UK JSLE cohort study.
Full text linkOBJECTIVES: To conduct data-driven sensitivity analyses to evaluate whether refined definitions of childhood-onset systemic lupus erythematosus (cSLE) treat-to-target goals provide better protection against moderate-severe flares and new damage, compared with original consensus-derived targets. METHODS: The UK JSLE Cohort Study was utilised. Childhood-SLE target attainment was determined at each visit. Removal or transformation of cSLE target criteria ("variations") were investigated, for Childhood Lupus Low Disease Activity State (cLLDAS), cSLE Clinical Remission on Steroids (cCR) and cSLE Clinical Remission off Steroids (cCR-0). The impact of such variations on the hazards of subsequent moderate-severe flare and new damage was assessed, using Prentice-Williams-Peterson (PWP) models. Two-sided t-tests compared the hazard ratios (HRs) obtained from the PWP gap-time models for the original and varied cSLE target definitions. RESULTS: Two variations of cLLDAS demonstrated significantly better protection against moderate-severe flare, including transformation of SLEDAI-2K cut-off to ≤ 3 (HR 0.13 [0.09, 0.19], p 0.05). A modified version of cLLDAS, combining these two transformations was also assessed, demonstrating further improvement in protection against moderate-severe flare (HR 0.12 [0.08, 0.17], p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Refining the cLLDAS definition by lowering the SLEDAI-2K cut-off to ≤ 3 and PGA to ≤ 0.25 may enhance protection against moderate-severe flare, but not new damage. No variations of cCR or cCR-0 showed significant improvement
A Novel Human Cellular System for Studying Normal Aging and for Anti-Aging Discovery.
Full text linkAging studies using animal and cellular models have uncovered key proteins and pathways central to organismal aging. However, these models differ genetically and physiologically from human aging, posing challenges in translating discoveries to human contexts. In this study, we present a human normal cell aging model based on the development of cytotrophoblasts (CTBs) to syncytiotrophoblasts (STBs) in the placenta. The in vitro-derived STBs from human trophoblast stem cells (hTSCs) recapitulate the maturation and major cellular aging features of in vivo CTB-STB, including multinucleation, hormone secretion, cell cycle arrest, genome instability, epigenetic changes, activation of endogenous transposable elements, and senescence-associated secretory phenotypes (SASPs). Notably, the progressive senescence in the trophoblast system closely matches the predicted aging trajectory of other human tissue stem cells. Known anti-aging molecules, such as mTOR inhibitors and senolytics, attenuate senescence signals in STBs. The established CGA-EGFP reporter hTSC line enables scalable and quantitative screening and identified candidates with it can be further extended to other context-specific aging processes like that of skin fibroblasts. The hTSC-STB system represents a novel physiologically accelerated cellular aging model, bridges the gap between fundamental aging research and interventions, and prioritizes anti-aging candidates for clinical development
The Chalcolithic metallurgical tradition of Northeast Iberia and its later influence: new analyses and a synthesis
Full text linkOur knowledge of Chalcolithic copper smelting practices across Iberia is extensive but lacks regional nuance. This prevents an assessment of regional trajectories that may depart from a general ‘Iberian technological tradition’, including their origins and diachronic evolution. This paper contributes to these questions by analysing 3rd millennium BC copper production residues from various sites in Northeast Iberia: Covas Cartanyà, del Buldó, Josefina d’Escornalbou, de l’Heura, and Balma del Duc. Using pXRF, OM, and SEM-EDS, we characterise the ores used and the metallurgical operations conducted (including smelting of copper carbonates, co-smelting of sulphidic and oxidic ores, and melting), and discuss them in relation to their contexts, contemporaneous materials and available lead isotopes data. We reveal Northeast Iberian metallurgy as a distinct and versatile tradition that selectively adopted elements from Southern Iberia and Southern France traditions, and trace the legacy of these idiosyncratic practices in copper and bronze making over two millennia
Townscapes: Wales
Full text linkThis is the third in a series of papers analysing the fortunes of towns across Britain. The analysis draws upon data relating to public service provision, economic outcomes and demographic changes.
This report examines towns in Wales.
Key Findings
Wales has, on average, more deprivation in its towns than any other region in England or Scotland.
Seven towns in Wales have twice as much ‘severe deprivation’ than the average British town.
Eight out of the ten most deprived towns in Wales are located in the South Wales Valleys.
No Welsh town features in Britain’s 40 most economically improving towns.
Welsh towns are mostly small with dense public service provision – they provide more schools, doctor’s surgeries and bus stops than towns elsewhere
Research data supporting "Probabilistic In-Plane Detection for Mid-Air Virtual Surface Interactions"
No full textTo Couple or not to Couple? Exploring Vibronic Coupling in Organic Semiconductors
No full textThe Earth is heating up—an observation grounded not in speculation but in extensive scientific evidence, as illustrated in Figure 1. The accelerating rise in global temperature is not only a planetary signal but also a scientific and technological call to action. The last decade has witnessed record-breaking temperatures, rising sea levels, and a growing frequency of extreme climate events. Mitigating this crisis demands a fundamental shift in how we produce, distribute, and use energy. To limit warming below 2◦C, as outlined in the Paris Agreement, there is an urgent need to transition from fossil fuels to sustainable energy systems. Solar photovoltaics and energy-efficient lighting are central pillars of this transition. However, current silicon-based technologies, while mature, are constrained by inflexible processing, high material costs, and intrinsic efficiency ceilings. In contrast, organic semiconductors—both for solar cells and light-emitting devices—offer a path forward that is simultaneously low-cost, low-energy, and compatible with flexible substrates. Organic solar cells (OSCs) can be manufactured at scale using solution processing techniques, enabling roll-to-roll printing and deployment in environments where conventional rigid modules are impractical. Similarly, organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) provide high-efficiency lighting with reduced energy demands and tunable spectral properties—critical for both consumer electronics and off-grid lighting. Their lightweight nature and compatibility with transparent, biodegradable substrates further enhance their sustainability profile. Despite these advantages, organic materials are fundamentally limited by how their excited states—excitons and polarons—interact with nuclear motion. In particular, vibronic coupling governs many key performance metrics, including emission linewidth, radiative efficiency, charge separation rates, and non-radiative losses. The interaction between electronic excitations and vibrational degrees of freedom not only shapes energy conversion pathways but often dictates device efficiency limits. Controlling—or at the very least, understanding—this coupling is therefore essential. This thesis investigates the molecular and mesoscale origins of exciton–vibrational coupling in organic semiconductors using a combination of ultrafast spectroscopy, vibrational analysis, and molecular design. While each chapter presents a self-contained study, together they address a unified question: how can we suppress or exploit exciton–phonon interactions to enhance the efficiency of organic optoelectronic materials? The chapter 3 titled “Decoupling High-frequency vibrations from organic molecules” introduces a new design strategy for near-infrared (NIR) emitters by suppressing coupling to high-frequency stretching modes. Using radical-based emitters and impulsive vibrational spectroscopy, it is shown that transitions between non-bonding orbitals enable electronically allowed yet vibronically quiet emissions—offering a path to breaking the energy gap law at the molecular level. In contrast to crystalline systems, disordered hosts typically lack coherent lattice dynamics. However, the chapter 4 titled “Short-Range Exciton–Phonon Coupling in Disordered Molecular Solids” shows that even in amorphous hosts like CBP, low-frequency coherent phonons can emerge and couple to excitons in radical emitters. This interaction is proposed to provide alternate, efficient channels for radiative relaxation, especially under low-drive conditions. Charge separation at donor–acceptor interfaces is central to OSC function. The chapter 5 titled “Interplay of Vibrational Modes in Ultrafast Electron Transfer at a model heterojunction” investigates a model heterojunction with minimal energetic driving force and finds sub-15 fs charge transfer accompanied by vibrational wavepacket formation. The study reveals a mode-selective mechanism, where high-frequency vibrations launch transfer, while decoherence is governed by vibrational overlap across pathways. Narrowband emission is vital for high-colour-purity display applications. Subchapter-1 of the Chapter 6 titled “Vibrational decoupling and narrow emission from organic molecules” explores how structural rigidity and vibrational decoupling reduce both homogeneous and inhomogeneous broadening. The physical mechanisms underlying sharp emission are dissected through photophysical measurements and host–guest interaction analysis
Integrated Variational Fourier Features for Fast Spatial Modelling with Gaussian Processes
Full text linkSparse variational approximations are popular methods for scaling up inference and learning in Gaussian processes to larger datasets. For N training points, exact inference has O(N3) cost; with M ≪ N features, state of the art sparse variational methods have O(NM2) cost. Recently, methods have been proposed using more sophisticated features; these promise O(M3) cost, with good performance in low dimensional tasks such as spatial modelling, but they only work with a very limited class of kernels, excluding some of the most commonly used. In this work, we propose integrated Fourier features, which extends these performance benefits to a very broad class of stationary covariance functions. We motivate the method and choice of parameters from a convergence analysis and empirical exploration, and show practical speedup in synthetic and real world spatial regression tasks
JADES: the chemical enrichment pattern of distant galaxies – α enhancement, silicon depletion, and iron enhancement
Full text linkAbstract We present gas-phase abundances of carbon (C), α-elements (O, Ne, Si, and Ar) and iron (Fe) obtained from stacked spectra of high-z star-forming galaxies with the deep Near Infrared Spectrograph medium-resolution data from the James Webb Space Telescope Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey. Our 564 sources at z = 4–7 have a median stellar mass of log (M*/M⊙) = 8.46 and a median star-formation rate of log (SFR/M⊙ yr−1) = 0.30, placing them close to the star-formation main sequence. We find that the stacked spectrum of all our 564 sources has relatively low [C/O] = −0.70, moderate [Ne/O] = −0.09, and low [Ar/O] = −0.28 values at a low gas-phase metallicity of 12 + log (O/H) = 7.71 (Z ∼ 0.1 Z⊙), suggesting dominant yields of core-collapse supernovae evolved from massive stars. The detection of a weak Si iii] emission line in our stacked spectrum provides a silicon-to-oxygen abundance ratio of [Si/O] = −0.63, which is lower than that of stars in the Milky Way disc and lower than expected by chemical evolution models, suggesting silicon depletion onto dust grains. Likewise, this Si/O value is lower than that we newly derive for two individual z > 6 galaxies (GN-z11 and RXCJ2248) with negligible dust attenuation. By performing spectral stacking in bins of M*, SFR, specific SFR (sSFR), and ultra-violet (UV) continuum slope βUV, we identify [Fe iii] line detections in the high-sSFR bin and the blue-βUV bin, both of which exhibit supersolar Fe/O ratios, while their C/O, Ar/O, and Si/O ratios are comparable to those of the all-sources stack. Our findings support a chemically young gas composition with rapid dust depletion in the general population of high-z star-forming galaxies, while raising the possibility of anomalous, selective Fe/O enhancement at the very early epoch of star formation
The thesan-zoom project: the hidden neighbours of O i absorbers during reionization
Full text linkAbstract Metal absorbers represent a powerful probe of galaxy feedback and reionization, as highlighted by both observational and theoretical results showing an increased abundance of low-ionised metal species at higher redshifts. The origin of such absorbers is currently largely unknown because of the low number of galaxy counterparts detected, suggesting that they might be surrounded by low-mass faint sources below the current detection threshold. We use the thesan-zoom radiation hydrodynamic simulations to investigate the connection between properties of neutral oxygen (O i) absorbers and galaxies across redshift z = 5 − 8. We find that the virialised gas in haloes becomes progressively ionised with cosmic time, leading to a decrease of ≈0.2 in the covering fraction of neutral oxygen, while the total oxygen covering fraction remains constant. Comparing the O i line density obtained from our covering fractions with the trend suggested by blind quasar observations, we determine that the observable absorbers () are not confined to haloes: at z ≥ 5 the majority (≳ 60 %) arise beyond Rvir, consistent with recent JWST results. Close to O i absorbers, low-mass galaxies () are more commonly found, while, depending on the simulated environment, we do not exclude the possibility of nearby more massive star-forming sources (≥5 M⊙ yr−1) similar to those suggested by the latest ALMA observations. These results establish O i absorbers as sensitive tracers of the evolving ionisation structure around faint galaxies to be probed by forthcoming deep spectroscopic surveys