Dental morphology in homo habilis and its implications for the evolution of early homo.

The phylogenetic position of Homo habilis is central to debates over the origin and early evolution of the genus Homo. A large portion of the species hypodigm consists of dental remains, but they have only been studied at the often worn enamel surface. We investigate the morphology of the H. habilis enamel-dentine junction (EDJ), which is preserved in cases of moderate tooth wear and known to carry a strong taxonomic signal. Geometric morphometrics is used to characterise dentine crown shape and size across the entire mandibular and maxillary tooth rows, compared with a broad comparative sample (n = 712). We find that EDJ morphology in H. habilis is for the most part remarkably primitive, supporting the hypothesis that the H. habilis hypodigm has more in common with Australopithecus than later Homo. Additionally, the chronologically younger specimen OH 16 displays a suite of derived features; its inclusion in H. habilis leads to excessive levels of variation

A systematic review of research on staff training as an intervention to develop communication in children and adults with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities

Introduction This paper aims to identify to what extent staff training interventions are successful in enhancing the development of communication skills in people with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities. Methods A systematic review was undertaken, conforming to PRISMA guidelines. English language, peer reviewed, empirical studies of staff training interventions to enhance the communication of people with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities were included. Databases Scopus, Web of Science, Proquest, Linguistics and Language Behaviour Abstracts (LLBA) and Medline were searched in July 2015 and updated in December 2022. Quality appraisal was conducted on 13 studies using Crowe's Critical Appraisal Tool (CCAT). Results Few good quality evaluations of interventions were found. Challenges to research rigour included the diversity of people with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities, small sample sizes, intervention intensity and the management of fidelity. Conclusions Manualised and bespoke interventions showed promise in improving staff communication and responsiveness

An overview of application-oriented multifunctional large-scale stationary battery and hydrogen hybrid energy storage system

The imperative to address traditional energy crises and environmental concerns has accelerated the need for energy structure transformation. However, the variable nature of renewable energy poses challenges in meeting complex practical energy requirements. To address this issue, the construction of a multifunctional large-scale stationary energy storage system is considered an effective solution. This paper critically examines the battery and hydrogen hybrid energy storage systems. Both technologies face limitations hindering them from fully meeting future energy storage needs, such as large storage capacity in limited space, frequent storage with rapid response, and continuous storage without loss. Batteries, with their rapid response (90 %), excel in frequent short-duration energy storage. However, limitations such as a self-discharge rate (>1 %) and capacity loss (∼20 %) restrict their use for long-duration energy storage. Hydrogen, as a potential energy carrier, is suitable for large-scale, long-duration energy storage due to its high energy density, steady state, and low loss. Nevertheless, it is less efficient for frequent energy storage due to its low storage efficiency (∼50 %). Ongoing research suggests that a battery and hydrogen hybrid energy storage system could combine the strengths of both technologies to meet the growing demand for large-scale, long-duration energy storage. To assess their applied potentials, this paper provides a detailed analysis of the research status of both energy storage technologies using proposed key performance indices. Additionally, application-oriented future directions and challenges of the battery and hydrogen hybrid energy storage system are outlined from multiple perspectives, offering guidance for the development of advanced energy storage systems

Oxygen isotopic compositions of fresh rooftop micrometeorites from the Budel collection—Insights into the contemporary cosmic dust flux

Cosmic dust particles originate from a wide variety of solar system and interstellar objects, including sources not identified among meteorite collections. Particles that survive atmospheric entry are retrieved on the Earth's surface as micrometeorites. The recovery of these micrometeorites has recently advanced to rooftop sites. Here, we present the results of an extensive isotopic study on this type of rooftop micrometeorite from the Budel collection, the Netherlands, accreted to the Earth between October 31, 2018 and June 16, 2021. The triple oxygen isotopic compositions of 80 silica‐dominated cosmic spherules (CSs) with diameters ranging between 105 and 515 μm are obtained relying on 213 in situ spot analyses determined using ion microprobe. Our analyzed population spans a large range of isotopic compositions and is dominated by carbonaceous chondritic sources. In situ measurements on several CSs support a possible continuum between 16O‐rich and 16O‐poor compositions following the CM mixing line, showing that 16O‐poor CSs may be genetically related to aqueously altered carbonaceous chondrites. We demonstrate that weathering in the terrestrial environment has negligible effects on the isotopic compositions of the studied CSs and attempt to quantify the effects of kinetic mass‐dependent fractionation and admixture of terrestrial oxygen during atmospheric entry. The results further corroborate previously suggested relations between CS texture and the duration and intensity of the heating pulse experienced during atmospheric deceleration. Finally, the young and well‐constrained terrestrial age of the collection provides insights into the most recent flux of cosmic dust. Our results indicate no major recent changes in the global flux compared with collections sampled over thousand‐ to million‐year time scales and demonstrate that 16O‐poor material is still represented in the modern‐day cosmic dust flux at a relative abundance of ~13%–15%. As such, rooftop micrometeorites represent a valuable reservoir to study the characteristics of the contemporary cosmic dust flux

William Worcestre, Sir John Fastolf and Latin Learning

Sir John Fastolf is known for his association with books in the vernaculars of French and English. It is, though, known that there was also an interest in Latin learning in his circle, and this article provides new evidence concerning that. It introduces a set of manuscripts which passed from the hands of Fastolf's secretary, William Worcestre, to the foundation of Magdalen College, Oxford. Their passage to Oxford is placed in the context of the battle over Fastolf's will, with its desire to establish a college at his house of Caister in Norfolk. A college did not necessarily imply a learned function but what Worcestre perceived to be the intentions for that foundation are placed in a wider context of his belief in his late master's interest in promoting Latin education

Living with Giants: Implications of elephant habitat choice on human-elephant conflict and coexistence

We are currently in the middle of a global environmental crisis, with a million species at risk of extinction and many ecosystems threatened by collapse. In response, signatories to the Convention of Biological Diversity recently developed a set of targets to be met by 2030, as part of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. These include committing to: "Ensure that all areas are under participatory, integrated and biodiversity inclusive spatial planning and/or effective management processes" (Target 1) and to "Ensure urgent management actions to halt human induced extinction of known threatened species and [...] effectively manage human-wildlife interactions to minimize human-wildlife conflict for coexistence" (Target 4). Meeting these targets will be extremely challenging and there is a need for interdisciplinary, applied research to inform conservation policy and action. In this thesis I used an interdisciplinary approach to understand how better to manage conservation issues related to the savanna elephant population in Gorongosa National Park (GNP) in Mozambique. This elephant species is globally threatened but some of its populations are increasing. This is the case for the Gorongosa population, which is recovering from a major poaching event that happened decades before. The result is an increase in human-elephant conflict, as elephants increasingly move outside the protected area and interact with the people farming in the neighbouring buffer zone. This type of problem is occurring around the world, where a threatened species is recovering due to better conservation management, and people are increasing the extent and intensity of farming with support from government and NGOs. This thesis represents an exploration and analysis of human elephant conflict, where three empirical solid chapters were produced. Those include spatial analyses from GPS collar data to understand how elephants use the broader landscape (Chapter 2) and interact with boundaries in the form of rivers and beehive fences (Chapter 3), as well as interviews with local communities to understand their tolerance or intolerance to elephants to help inform conservation efforts (Chapter 4). The results contribute to our understanding as to how interventions can be used to address human elephant conflict, and how experiences of conflict affect attitudes to elephants in high conflict areas around protected areas

The Cognitive Foundations of Fictional Stories

We hypothesize that fictional stories are highly successful in human cultures partly because they activate evolved cognitive mechanisms, for instance for finding mates (e.g., in romance fiction), exploring the world (e.g., in adventure and speculative fiction), or avoiding predators (e.g., in horror fiction). In this paper, we put forward a comprehensive framework to study fiction through this evolutionary lens. The primary goal of this framework is to carve fictional stories at their cognitive joints using an evolutionary framework. Reviewing a wide range of adaptive variations in human psychology–in personality and developmental psychology, behavioral ecology, and evolutionary biology, among other disciplines –, this framework also addresses the question of interindividual differences in preferences for different features in fictional stories. It generates a wide range of predictions about the patterns of combinations of such features, according to the patterns of variations in the mechanisms triggered by fictional stories. As a result of a highly collaborative effort, we present a comprehensive review of evolved cognitive mechanisms that fictional stories activate. To generate this review, we (1) listed more than 70adaptivechallengeshumans faced in the course of their evolution, (2) identified the adaptive psychological mechanisms that evolved in response to such challenges, (3) specified four sources of adaptive variability for the sensitivity of each mechanism(i.e., personality traits, sex, age, and ecological conditions), and (4) linked these mechanisms to the story features that trigger them. This comprehensive framework lays the ground for a theory-driven research program for the study of fictional stories, their content, distribution, structure, and cultural evolution

Spillover in higher-order moments across carbon and energy markets: a portfolio view

Motivated by the occurrence of extreme events and non-normality of returns, we examine the spillovers among the conditional volatility, skewness, and (excess) kurtosis of European Union allowances (EUA), Brent oil, natural gas, coal, electricity, and clean energy markets. The jointly estimated spillover index in the system of the three higher-order moments is notably high, exceeding the spillover index estimated for each individual moment separately. This suggests that spillovers across moments in the carbon-energy system are important for the sake of completeness of the spillover analysis, and should not be ignored. The performance of the portfolio improves after considering higher-order moments

Pressure-induced physical properties of KNbO3 using first-principles calculations for photocatalytic application

The current research work theoretically presents various pressure-induced physical properties of potassium niobate with a cubic structure of 2 × 2 × 2 optimized supercell. The employed exchange-correlation function is GGA with the PBE approach in the DFT-based CASTEP simulation tool. The noted bandgap exhibits a rising trend from 1.518 eV to 2.013 eV with an indirect semiconductor nature and this energy bandgap nature remains the same throughout under the external isotropic static pressure effect. The pressure-induced total and partial density of states were studied to confirm the degree of localized electrons in various bands. Moreover, according to Born stability criteria potassium niobate is found mechanically stable and possesses an anisotropic nature. It exhibits brittle nature at 0.00 GPa and 10 GPa whereas it is found ductile from 20 GPa to 100 GPa. It exhibits a super-hard nature from 0.0 to 30 GPa and an ultra-hard nature from 40 to 100 GPa. The Debye temperature and melting temperature increase as pressure rises. Furthermore, several optical features were examined under the effect of pressure, and it was observed that the optical curves slightly shifted toward higher energies with increasing pressure. The overall analysis exhibits that KNbO3 is a promising material for long-term photocatalytic activity

Changes in social norms during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic across 43 countries

The emergence of COVID-19 dramatically changed social behavior across societies and contexts. Here we study whether social norms also changed. Specifically, we study this question for cultural tightness (the degree to which societies generally have strong norms), specific social norms (e.g. stealing, hand washing), and norms about enforcement, using survey data from 30,431 respondents in 43 countries recorded before and in the early stages following the emergence of COVID-19. Using variation in disease intensity, we shed light on the mechanisms predicting changes in social norm measures. We find evidence that, after the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, hand washing norms increased while tightness and punishing frequency slightly decreased but observe no evidence for a robust change in most other norms. Thus, at least in the short term, our findings suggest that cultures are largely stable to pandemic threats except in those norms, hand washing in this case, that are perceived to be directly relevant to dealing with the collective threat