156 research outputs found
Author Correction:A 41,500 year-old decorated ivory pendant from Stajnia Cave (Poland)
No full textCorrection to: Scientific Reports https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-01221-6, published online 25 November 2021The original version of this Article contained errors in the author list where Marjolein D. Bosch was omitted from the author list, and Mikołaj Urbanowski was incorrectly listed as an author of the original Article, and has subsequently been removed.The Author contributions section now reads:“S.T. W.N. and A.N. conceived the project; S.T., W.N., A.P., M.B., S.C., M.D., H.F., A.M., M.D. B., D.P., M.P.R., C.M.R., V.S-M., G.M.S., P.S., M.S., K.S., A.V., F.W., H.W., A.W., M.Z., S.B., A.N., J-J. H., performed research; S.T., A.P., W.N., M.B., M.D.B., S.C., M.D., H.F., A.M., D.P., M.P.R., C.M.R., V.S-M., G.M.S., P.S., M.S., K.S., A.V., F.W., H.W., A.W., M.Z., S.B., A.N., J-J. H. analysed all archaeological data; S.T. and A.P. wrote the paper with the collaboration of all the co-authors.”The original Article and its accompanying Supplementary Information file have been corrected
Genomic Differences and Parentage in West Virginia\u27s Reintroduced Elk (Cervus canadensis)
No full textElk (Cervus canadensis) reintroductions have been common in the 20th and 21st centuries, yet 40% have failed to establish self-sustaining elk populations due to a lack of post-reintroduction demographic monitoring. Elk were reintroduced to West Virginia in 2016 following more than a century of absence after the species was extirpated in 1875. Elk were translocated to West Virginia from Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area (LBL) in eastern Kentucky and from Arizona. The two groups of elk differ in their subspecies, physiology, reintroduction history, connectivity, and habitat. Reintroductions create genetic risks such as the founder effect and genetic drift that can lower a population’s genetic diversity, possibly resulting in inbreeding, reduced immunocompetence, and reduced adaptive potential. The most significant cause of mortality in West Virginia’s elk population is Parelaphostrongylus tenuis, commonly known as meningeal worm or brain worm, a parasitic nematode affecting the central nervous system. Risks are amplified when two dissimilar sources are used, as within-cluster breeding bias can lead to isolation between them. To evaluate genetic risks in West Virginia elk, genomic differences between elk sourced from LBL and elk sourced from AZ were evaluated and parentage was assigned for elk born in West Virginia since the onset of the reintroduction. Double digest restriction-site associated DNA sequencing (ddRAD) was used to identify sets of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) to address questions of diversity, neutral and adaptive differences, and parentage in a sample of 156 elk. AZ elk had higher heterozygosity (p = 0.007), a greater effective population size (Ne), and higher genetic risk scores for susceptibility to meningeal worm-related mortality (p = 0.0006). LBL and AZ differed moderately in a set of neutral SNPs (FST = 0.11) and differed greatly at 80 putatively adaptive SNPs (FST = 0.76). Thirty-two genes were linked to proteins that may play a role in the genetic susceptibility of elk to meningeal worm. Parent pairs were identified for 43 of 59 elk born in West Virginia at 95% confidence. Of the total offspring pool, 51% were assigned one parent from each source population, indicating the absence of within-cluster breeding bias. Thirteen males sired these 43 offspring, 10 of which were sourced from LBL. There is a 1:1.69 ratio of mating males to mating females. Seventy-nine percent of offspring were sired by males between three and six years old, and the mean age of parents has increased since the initial translocation. Six females in this population mated as yearlings. The marked differences between LBL and AZ elk, especially LBL’s reduced genetic diversity and AZ’s increased susceptibility to meningeal worm, pose a threat to the population’s sustainability. The admixture between the groups mitigates this threat and potentially retains genetic diversity in the population’s future
Computing compatible tours for the traveling salesman problem
No full textWe consider the following natural heuristic for the Symmetric Traveling Salesman Problem: solve the subtour relaxation, yielding a solution x*, and then find the best tour x-bar that is 'compatible' with x*, where compatible means that every subtour elimination constraint that is satisfied at equality at x* is also satisfied at equality at x-bar. We prove that finding the best compatible tour is NP-hard and show that the tour can have a cost approaching 5/3 that of the optimal tour. We then describe a branch-and-cut algorithm for computing the best compatible tour, and present extensive computational results for TSPLIB instances. It turns out that, in practice, the tour is usually of very good quality. Moreover, the computational effort for computing the compatible tour is considerably smaller than that of solving the full problem with the best available software, i.e., Concorde
Exploiting planarity in separation routines for the symmetric traveling salesman problem
No full textAt present, the most successful approach for solving large-scale instances of the Symmetric Traveling Salesman Problem to optimality is branch-and-cut. The success of branch-and-cut is due in large part to the availability of effective separation procedures; that is, routines for identifying violated linear constraints.For two particular classes of constraints, known as comb and domino-parity constraints, it has been shown that separation becomes easier when the underlying graph is planar. We continue this line of research by showing how to exploit planarity in the separation of three other classes of constraints: subtour elimination, 2-matching and simple domino-parity constraints
Constraints on the evolution of Taranaki Fault from thermochronology and basin analysis: Implications for the Taranaki Fault play
No full textTaranaki Fault is the major structure defining the eastern margin of Taranaki Basin and marks the juxtaposition of basement with the Late Cretaceous-Paleogene succession in the basin. Although the timing of the basement over-thrusting on Taranaki Fault and subsequent marine onlap on to the basement block are well constrained as having occurred during the Early Miocene, the age of formation of this major structure, its character, displacement history and associated regional vertical movement during the Late Cretaceous- Recent are otherwise poorly known. Here we have applied (i) apatite fission track thermochronology to Mesozoic basement encountered in exploration holes and in outcrop to constrain the amount and timing of Late Cretaceous-Eocene exhumation of the eastern side of the fault, (ii) basin analysis of the Oligocene and Miocene succession east of the fault to establish the late-Early Miocene - Early Pliocene subsidence history, and (iii), regional porosity-bulk density trends in Neogene mudstone to establish the late uplift and tilting of eastern Taranaki Basin margin, which may have been associated with the main period of charge of the underlying Taranaki Fault play.
We make the following conclusions that may be useful in assessing the viability of the Taranaki Fault play. (1) Mid-Cretaceous Taniwha Formation, intersected in Te Ranga-1 was formerly extensive across the western half of the Kawhia Syncline between Port Waikato and Awakino. (2) Taranaki Fault first formed as a normalfault during the Late Cretaceous around 85±10 Ma, and formed the eastern boundary of the Taranaki Rift-Transform basin. (3) Manganui Fault, located onshore north of Awakino, formed as a steeply east dipping reverse fault and accommodated about four km of displacement during the mid-Cretaceous. (4) Uplift and erosion, involving inversion of Early Oligocene deposits, occurred along the Herangi High during the Late Oligocene. This may have been associated with initial reverse movement on Taranaki Fault. (5) During the Early Miocene (Otaian Stage) the Taranaki and Manganui Faults accommodated the westward transport of Murihiku basement into the eastern margin of Taranaki Basin, but the amount of topography generated over the Herangi High can only have been a few hundred metres in elevation. (6) The Altonian (19-16 Ma) marked the start of the collapse of the eastern margin of Taranaki Basin that lead during the Middle Miocene to the eastward retrogradation of the continental margin wedge into the King Country region. During the Late Miocene, from about 11 Ma, a thick shelf-slope continental margin wedge prograded northward into the King Country region and infilled it (Mt Messenger, Urenui, Kiore and Matemateaonga Formations). (7) During the Pliocene and Pleistocene the whole of central New Zealand, including the eastern margin of Taranaki Basin, became involved in long wavelength up-doming with 1-2 km erosion of much of the Neogene succession in the King Country region. This regionally elevated the Taranaki Fault play into which hydrocarbons may have migrated from the Northern Graben region
Search for a CP-odd Higgs boson decaying to Zh in pp collisions at root s=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector
No full textSee paper for full list of authors – 13 pages plus author list + cover pages (30 pages total), 5 figures, 2 tables, submitted to Phys. Lett. B, All figures including auxiliary figures are available at https://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/HIGG-2013-06/International audienceA search for a heavy, CP-odd Higgs boson, , decaying into a boson and a 125 GeV Higgs boson, , with the ATLAS detector at the LHC is presented. The search uses proton--proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb. Decays of CP-even bosons to or pairs with the boson decaying to electron or muon pairs are considered, as well as decays with the boson decaying to neutrinos. No evidence for the production of an boson in these channels is found and the 95% confidence level upper limits derived for \sigma (gg\rightarrow A) \times \mbox{BR}(A \rightarrow Zh) \times \mbox{BR}(h \rightarrow f\bar{f}) are 0.098--0.013 pb for and 0.57--0.014 pb for in a range of 220--1000 GeV. The results are combined and interpreted in the context of two-Higgs doublet models
Religion in the work of Frantz Fanon
No full textThis thesis explores Frantz Fanon's engagement with religion, and its impact on his theories of race and racism. As a cultural theorist and political activist with strong Marxian-humanist sympathies, Fanon asserted that, as an irrational force, religion anaesthetised the oppressed and inhibited the recovery of the black self. In this study I draw on critical and analytical work in the fields of religion, African studies, and postcolonial theory to interrogate the significance of the black body in the production of his aesthetic of transformation. To understand Fanon's engagements with religion I examine the social and political contexts of his native Martinique and his adopted Algeria, both countries which are defined by strict social and religious hierarchies. Through this focus on his engagement with Christianity, Islam and indigenous traditions in both Martinique and Algeria I argue that, while Fanon was ambivalent about the usefulness of religion in the anti-colonial struggle and the recovery of the black self, he nonetheless came to recognise the role of religion in producing narratives of the sacred that would cohere and motivate the colonized in their struggle against racist oppression. Finally, I argue that Fanon circumvents his ambivalence towards religion by elevating the significance of the enslaved and colonized body, as a sacred instrument of revolt and recovery. This thesis concludes that it is only through the production of such narratives of the sacred that Fanon is able to expel religion from the recovery of the black self and the inauguration of the new nation, while retaining traces of the sacred in his aesthetic of transformation
The Late Miocene Southern and Central Taranaki Inversion Phase (SCTIP) and related sequence stratigraphy and paleogeography
No full textWe present a new sequence stratigraphic scheme for Taranaki Basin that identifies four 3rd order duration (3 - 4 m.y.) sequences of Middle Miocene to Pleistocene age. These include: (i) the late-Middle Miocene (upper Lillburnian to uppermost Waiauan) Otunui Sequence; (ii) the Late Miocene (lower and lowermost-upper Tongaporutuan) Mt Messenger Sequence; (iii) the latest Miocene (uppermost-upper Tongaporutuan) to Early Pliocene (lower Opoitian) Matemateaonga Sequence, and (iv), the Late Pliocene (upper Opoitian) to Late Pleistocene (Castlecliffian) Rangitikei Sequence, which includes the Giant Foresets Formation offshore in northern Taranaki Basin. Full sequence development can be observed in the parts of these four sequences exposed on land in eastern Taranaki Basin and in Wanganui Basin, including the sequence boundaries and component systems tracts; the character of the various depositional systems and their linkage to correlatives in subsurface parts of Taranaki Basin can be reasonably inferred, although we do not develop the detail here. Our sequence framework, with its independent age control, is integrated with established evidence for the timing of Late Miocene structure development in southern Taranaki (the Southern Inversion Zone of King & Thrasher (1996)) and new evidence presented here for the extent of Late Miocene unconformity development in central Taranaki. This shows that the Mt Messenger Sequence, particularly its regressive systems tract, results from a major phase of tectonism in the plate boundary zone, the crustal shortening then extending into the basin at c. 8.5 Ma and differentially exhuming parts of the sequence and underlying units in southern and central Taranaki Basin. This Southern and Central Taranaki Inversion Phase (SCTIP) peaked at around 7.5 Ma (mid-upper Tongaporutuan). At that time it extended across the whole of the area presently covered by Wanganui Basin, all of southern Taranaki Basin (Southern Inversion Zone), west to the Whitiki and Kahurangi Faults, and across southern parts of Taranaki Peninsula. We have also identified in outcrop sections, wireline logs for Peninsula exploration holes, and selected seismic reflection profiles, the occurrence of forced regressive deposits of the Mt Messenger Sequence. These deposits are mainly preserved beneath distal parts of the unconformity and basinward of it in central Taranaki Peninsula and west to the Tui Field, and need to be distinguished from the much younger Giant Forests Formation within the 3rd-order Rangitikei Sequence, which also shows clinoform development. The new sequence framework with its inferred stratal patterns also helps clarify understanding of the lithostratigraphic nomenclature for Late Miocene – Pliocene units beneath Taranaki Peninsula
Genomic variations define divergence of water/wildlife-associated Campylobacter jejuni niche specialists from common clonal complexes
No full textAlthough the major food-borne pathogen Campylobacter jejuni has been isolated from diverse animal, human and environmental sources, our knowledge of genomic diversity in C. jejuni is based exclusively on human or human food-chain-associated isolates. Studies employing multilocus sequence typing have indicated that some clonal complexes are more commonly associated with particular sources. Using comparative genomic hybridization on a collection of 80 isolates representing diverse sources and clonal complexes, we identified a separate clade comprising a group of water/wildlife isolates of C. jejuni with multilocus sequence types uncharacteristic of human food-chain-associated isolates. By genome sequencing one representative of this diverse group (C. jejuni 1336), and a representative of the bank-vole niche specialist ST-3704 (C. jejuni 414), we identified deletions of genomic regions normally carried by human food-chain-associated C. jejuni. Several of the deleted regions included genes implicated in chicken colonization or in virulence. Novel genomic insertions contributing to the accessory genomes of strains 1336 and 414 were identified. Comparative analysis using PCR assays indicated that novel regions were common but not ubiquitous among the water/wildlife group of isolates, indicating further genomic diversity among this group, whereas all ST-3704 isolates carried the same novel accessory regions. While strain 1336 was able to colonize chicks, strain 414 was not, suggesting that regions specifically absent from the genome of strain 414 may play an important role in this common route of Campylobacter infection of humans. We suggest that the genomic divergence observed constitutes evidence of adaptation leading to niche specialization
Silence and the crisis of self - legitimation in English romanticism
No full textMy thesis depicts the crisis of self-legitimation that has accompanied the onset of modern hermeneutics, with its historicised and organicised version of the Enlightenment's 'universal perspective.' In this it follows the lead of the contemporary hermeneuticist Hans- Georg Gadamer in resuscitating the notion of prejudice, but contrasts it with Hannah Arendt's discussion of the human condition. She implicitly locates the problem in modern hermeneutics, the aporia, in the very philosophy of life that Gadamer embraces as its solution. Gadamer confuses the task of the humanities as a search for truth with what it ought to be, a search for meaning. I begin with his depiction of Kant's attack on the sensus communis; I conclude with an examination of the consequences of this attack on the orientation and interpretative practices of current schools of literary criticism with specific reference to Keats's Ode on a Grecian Urn. In the central chapter, I focus upon Coleridge's attack on Wordsworth's Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1802) in the Bioeraphia Literaria, reading it as a fundamental defence of prejudice based on the very fact that man has been made in imago Dei. The consequent logocentricity of humanity that Coleridge insists upon opposes Wordsworth's emphasis upon a transcendental idea of 'feeling.' This fundamental notion forms the basis of Coleridge's definition of the primary imagination. I argue the distinctiveness of his definition from that of the other Romantics and maintain its necessity to escape the aporia. This point is proved negatively by Shelley's Mont Blanc, which seizes upon the radical consequences of Wordsworth's poetics, presenting both heresy and obscurity in the poem. The word 'crisis' thus reflects the urgency with which I advocate the need to re-adopt Coleridge's emphases in contemporary literary criticism
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