10,501 research outputs found
Palindromes in starlike trees
In this note, we obtain an upper bound on the maximum number of distinct non-empty palindromes in starlike trees. This bound implies, in particular, that there are at most 4 n distinct non-empty palindromes in a starlike tree with three branches each of length n. For such starlike trees labelled with a binary alphabet, we sharpen the upper bound to 4 n − 1 and conjecture that the actual maximum is 4 n − 2. It is intriguing that this simple conjecture seems difficult to prove, in contrast to the proof of the bound
Immediate replacement of fishing with dairying by the earliest farmers of the NE Atlantic archipelagos
The appearance of farming, from its inception in the Near East around 12 000 years ago, finally reached the northwestern extremes of Europe by the fourth millennium BC or shortly thereafter. Various models have been invoked to explain the Neolithization of northern Europe; however, resolving these different scenarios has proved problematic due to poor faunal preservation and the lack of specificity achievable for commonly applied proxies. Here, we present new multi-proxy evidence, which qualitatively and quantitatively maps subsistence change in the northeast Atlantic archipelagos from the Late Mesolithic into the Neolithic and beyond. A model involving significant retention of hunter–gatherer–fisher influences was tested against one of the dominant adoptions of farming using a novel suite of lipid biomarkers, including dihydroxy fatty acids, ω-(o-alkylphenyl)alkanoic acids and stable carbon isotope signatures of individual fatty acids preserved in cooking vessels. These new findings, together with archaeozoological and human skeletal collagen bulk stable carbon isotope proxies, unequivocally confirm rejection of marine resources by early farmers coinciding with the adoption of intensive dairy farming. This pattern of Neolithization contrasts markedly to that occurring contemporaneously in the Baltic, suggesting that geographically distinct ecological and cultural influences dictated the evolution of subsistence practices at this critical phase of European prehistory
Industrial biotechnology for developing countries: The case for genetically modified biofuels in Kenya
Attempts to diversify the energy portfolios of developed countries with green technologies have brought competition between food and fuel for crop production resources to the forefront of public policy debates. Biofuel policies in the European Union (EU) and the United States (US) mandate the long-term use of renewable energy in transportation, independent of production capacity and technical feasibility. Both the US and EU policies explicitly allow for biofuel imports and, hence, have the potential to provide developing countries with export opportunities. For example, the EU is seen as a market that could be supplied with biofuels produced in Kenya. As a result, contentious land acquisitions have been made in Kenya to make way for sugar cane and jatropha cultivation for biofuel production. One potential means of improving the efficiency of Kenya’s agricultural sector is the application of transgenic technologies. The objective of this article is to assess whether a biofuel industry could be developed in Kenya, based on the use of genetically modified (GM) feedstocks to supply the EU demand for biofuel. This article concludes that GM agriculture will improve the economic returns for those Kenyan farmers willing to engage in the production of GM biofuel crops.Keywords: Barriers to trade, energy policy, genetically modified (GM) crops, international trade, land-use policyAfrican Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(15), pp. 1722-173
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