Retracing the steppes : a zooarchaeological analysis of changing subsistence patterns in the late Neolithic at Tell Sabi Abyad, northern Syria, c. 6900 to 5900 BC

Until now the Late Neolithic period of Northern Syria (c. 6900 to 5300 BC) has remained somewhat of an enigma, despite the fact that it is acknowledged as one of the most important stages of history in the Near East. It is a period that shows a vast amount of regional differentiation in terms of site types, chronologies, material culture and subsistence patterns, yet it is period for which there are pitifully few comprehensively excavated, analysed and published sites. It is this intriguing period of human history that forms the basis of this research, with the site of Tell Sabi Abyad in the Balikh Valley of the northern Syrian dessert steppe forming the central focus. This impressive site has revealed over 1000 years of seemingly uninterrupted occupation, the excavation of which has unveiled a wealth of finds giving an insight into life some 8000 years ago. One of the most numerous finds is the faunal material; thousands upon thousands of animal bone fragments being all that is left of generations of hunting and farming at and around the site. This book is the result of the research undertaken on this material by Anna Russell for her PhD thesis at Leiden University. The analysis of these remains has given important and new insights into hunting and farming practices over a millennium. The local spectrum of wild and domestic fauna in the area is discussed together with an assessment of the domestication status of some of the key domestic animals through time – sheep, goats, cattle and pigs - with the methods of herding implemented being carefully elucidated from the zooarchaeology data together with an isotopic study of diet. The relationship between the animals and their natural environment and the possible implications of an abrupt climate change (the ‘8.2 k BP Event’ which peaked c. 6200 BC) on the subsistence patterns of the late Neolithic people of Tell Sabi Abyad are also considered in detail. This comprehensive zooarchaeological study of the faunal remains, uncovered during the excavations of Tell Sabi Abyad, has not only shown the gradual development of animal husbandry to the detriment to hunting throughout the seventh millennium BC, but has also revealed for the first time one of the earliest uses of domestic animals for secondary products, such as milk and fibre. It has also uncovered evidence that people adapted to changes in their local environment brought about by climate change through local innovation and promotion of cultural adaptations developed as a result of generations of living in a marginal environment. As such this research brings us one step closer to filling the void in our knowledge of this pivotal period at the end of the Neolithic period.LEI Universiteit LeidenNetherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO)(“Abrupt Climate Change and Cultural Transformation in Syria in Late Prehistory (ca. 6800 – 5800 BC)”. Dossier no. 360-62-040). NWONear Eastern Archaeolog

Natural resources of the Barron River catchment 1: stream habitat, fisheries resources and biological indicators

The Barron River drains into the Coral Sea, near Cairns, Queensland (Australia) and in comparison to other Queensland wet tropics streams, it has a relatively large catchment area of about 219,000 ha. The catchment has high fish diversity, with at least 209 estuarine and freshwater species and the Barron River Estuary is a spawning and nursery ground for a variety of fish and prawn species and supports a wide range of commercial and recreational fish species. The variance and abundance of benthic macroinvertebrates can provide valuable information on the ecological condition of a river system. Overall, the macroinvertebrate populations indicated a relatively healthy system although nutrient enrichment may be causing degradation. Reserves such as existing Fish Habitat Areas and a proposed marine park will provide ongoing protection for coastal wetlands. A series of potential management issues for the catchment and future monitoring strategies are discussed

Beef manual for 4-H club members

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Extreme State Aggregation Beyond MDPs

We consider a Reinforcement Learning setup where an agent interacts with an environment in observation-reward-action cycles without any (esp.\ MDP) assumptions on the environment. State aggregation and more generally feature reinforcement learning is concerned with mapping histories/raw-states to reduced/aggregated states. The idea behind both is that the resulting reduced process (approximately) forms a small stationary finite-state MDP, which can then be efficiently solved or learnt. We considerably generalize existing aggregation results by showing that even if the reduced process is not an MDP, the (q-)value functions and (optimal) policies of an associated MDP with same state-space size solve the original problem, as long as the solution can approximately be represented as a function of the reduced states. This implies an upper bound on the required state space size that holds uniformly for all RL problems. It may also explain why RL algorithms designed for MDPs sometimes perform well beyond MDPs.Comment: 28 LaTeX pages. 8 Theorem

An overview of jets and outflows in stellar mass black holes

In this book chapter, we will briefly review the current empirical understanding of the relation between accretion state and and outflows in accreting stellar mass black holes. The focus will be on the empirical connections between X-ray states and relativistic (`radio') jets, although we are now also able to draw accretion disc winds into the picture in a systematic way. We will furthermore consider the latest attempts to measure/order jet power, and to compare it to other (potentially) measurable quantities, most importantly black hole spin.Comment: Accepted for publication in Space Science Reviews. Also to appear in the Space Sciences Series of ISSI - The Physics of Accretion on to Black Holes (Springer Publisher

Epidemiologic Study of Dental Caries Experience and Between-Meal Eating Patterns

The relationship between dental caries and between-meal snacks was investigated in a study of 1,486 high school students. The participants completed a questionnaire on between-meal habits and then were given dental examinations. The lack of differences in dental caries between racial and geographic groups was not related to the frequency of sucrose-containing, between-meal snacks.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66591/2/10.1177_00220345730520022501.pd

Study of Effect on Teeth of Intermittent Fluoridation of a Community Water Supply

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/67913/2/10.1177_00220345530320011601.pd

The effect of alfalfa (Medicago sativa) silage chop length and inclusion rate within a total mixed ration on the ability of lactating dairy cows to cope with a feed withholding and refeeding challenge

Cows fed diets containing a lower concentration of alfalfa silage (replacing corn silage) experienced greater reductions in rumen pH following a six hour feed witholding/refeeding challenge than those fed higher alfalfa concentration diets and also suffered greater short-term milk loss on the day of the challenge. Lower rumen pH in animals fed a long chop length compared to a shorter chop length raised questions over the effect of long forage particles in the diet during and following short-term feed deprivation. This research highlights the importance of maintaining feeding routines and ensuring adequate feed access throughout the day in dairy systems

Populism and health policy: three international case studies of right-wing populist policy frames

Over the past decade, some of the world's most stable parliamentary democracies have witnessed a revival in right‐wing populist political parties, movements and leaders. Although there is a growing body of theoretical and empirical literature documenting the rise of populism, there has been very little exploration of the implications for health policy of this important political development. In this article, we draw from three illustrative international cases, originating from the USA, the UK and Italy, to explore the ways in which right‐wing populism influences health policy: the election of President Trump in the United States (and subsequent healthcare reforms), the United Kingdom's vote to withdraw from the European Union (Brexit), and how this has played out in the context of the UK National Health Service, and the rise of a politically aligned anti‐vaccination movement in Italy. Drawing on the work of the influential socio‐political theorist Ernesto Laclau, we interpret populism as a performative political act, predicated on drawing logics of equivalence (and difference) between different actors. We use this theoretical framing to explore the ways in which the recent upsurge in right‐wing populism creates a specific set of barriers and challenges for access to healthcare and the health of populations