Some preliminary finds from the Tholos tomb and ossuary at Borzi Hill, Tzannata, Kefalonia: An example of a multidisciplinary approach to understanding of the Lives and Deaths of Mycenaeans

Preliminary results are presented from the analysis of human and faunal remains from the unique tholos-ossuary combination at Borzi Hill, Tzannata, Kefalonia, excavated from 1992 to 1994. The analysis began in 2015 and is on-going. The paper illustrates how the systematic analysis of well-provenienced remains can be an important source of data to complement traditional archaeological methods for investigating mortuary, political and economic practices of the Late Bronze Age. Preliminary finds include: the tombs contained 100-150 people ranging in age from neonate to over 60 years, with about equal numbers by sex; the tholos tomb was used continuously until the Proto-Geometric Period by one biological lineage; the ossuary was a purpose-built structure for reburial indicating a previously unrecognized pattern of mortuary practices; faunal offerings found only in the tholos tomb include sheep, goats, dogs, cows, a very rare horse, and the earliest cat ever found in Greece

Learned but not distracting: low-value stimuli and value-driven attentional capture

Stimuli previously associated with reward slow response times (RTs) when presented as irrelevant distractors in subsequent, unrewarded tasks (value driven attentional capture, VDAC). Typical VDAC training requires search for one of two experimentally-determined, colored circles and an orientation judgement of a line inside the color-defined target. Reward follows correct responses, associating high- or low-value with specific colors. Distractors rendered in high-value colors consistently slow RTs in an unrewarded test phase, an outcome that is rarely observed for low-value colors. Might this be due to a failure to adequately learn the reward contingencies during training? 22 observers underwent a modified training phase. On each trial, two objects were presented. Each object was comprised of distinct features: color, shape, and internal line orientation. Participants chose one object and received high, low, or no reward. Only four colors appeared and two were consistently paired (high- or low-value and a no-value match). The task was to maximize earnings by learning which specific feature predicted reward. Training was followed by the standard VDAC test phase. During training, each value stimulus was chosen significantly more often than its no-value match, confirming learning for both high- and low-value colors. However, only high-value colors engendered VDAC during test, as is typical. Using maximum likelihood estimation, individual RT distributions were fit with a three parameter, exponentially modified Gaussian function and the condition means of the resultant distributions were compared, converging with results from model-free analyses. Stimuli associated with low reward consistently fail to generate VDAC. Our results rule out the possibility that this is due to a failure to learn, as participants developed clear preferences for both low- and high-value colors during training. More research is needed to explain how reward learning interacts with other aspects of cognition to produce robust capture effects

Investigating the role of exogenous cueing on selection history formation

© 2019, The Psychonomic Society, Inc. An abundance of recent empirical data suggest that repeatedly allocating visual attention to task-relevant and/or reward-predicting features in the visual world engenders an attentional bias for these frequently attended stimuli, even when they become task irrelevant and no longer predict reward. In short, attentional selection in the past hinders voluntary control of attention in the present. But do such enduring attentional biases rely on a history of voluntary, goal-directed attentional selection, or can they be generated through involuntary, effortless attentional allocation? An abrupt visual onset triggers such a reflexive allocation of covert spatial attention to its location in the visual field, automatically modulating numerous aspects of visual perception. In this Registered Report, we asked whether a selection history that has been reflexively and involuntarily derived (i.e., through abrupt-onset cueing) also interferes with goal-directed attentional control, even in the complete absence of exogenous cues. To build spatially distinct histories of exogenous selection, we presented abrupt-onset cues twice as often at one of two task locations, and as expected, these cues reflexively modulated visual processing: task accuracy increased, and response times (RTs) decreased, when the cue appeared near the target’s location, relative to that of the distractor. Upon removal of these cues, however, we found no evidence that exogenous selection history modulated task performance: task accuracy and RTs at the previously most-cued and previously least-cued sides were statistically indistinguishable. Thus, unlike voluntarily directed attention, involuntary attentional allocation may not be sufficient to engender historically contingent selection biases

Comparing Wilson and Clover Quenched SU(3)SU(3) Spectroscopy with an Improved Gauge Action

We present results of quenched $SU(3)$ hadron spectroscopy comparing \order(a) improved Wilson (Clover) fermions with conventional Wilson fermions. The configurations were generated using an \order(a^2) improved 6-link $SU(3)$ pure gauge action at $\beta$'s corresponding to lattice spacings of $0.15$, $0.18$, $0.20$, $0.33$, and $0.43$ fm. We find evidence that fermionic scaling violations are consistent with \order(a^2) for Clover and \order(a) with a nonnegligible \order(a^2) term for standard Wilson fermions. This latter mixed ansatz makes a reliable continuum extrapolation problematic for Wilson fermions. We also find that the slope of the scaling violations is roughly $250 MeV$ for both Wilson and Clover fermions.Comment: 3 pages latex with 2 postscript figures. Talk presented at LATTICE96(spectrum

Quenched SU(3)SU(3) hadron spectroscopy using improved fermionic and gauge actions

We present results of quenched $SU(3)$ hadron spectroscopy using \order(a) improved Wilson fermions. The configurations were generated using an \order(a^2) improved 6-link $SU(3)$ pure gauge action at $\beta$'s corresponding to lattice spacings of $0.43$, $0.25$, $0.20$, $0.18$, and $0.15$ fm. We find evidence that fermionic scaling violations are consistent with \order(a^2) errors.Comment: 4 pages latex with 3 postscript figures. Corrected column heading in tabl

The Maximal Abelian Gauge, Monopoles, and Vortices in SU(3) Lattice Gauge Theory

We report on calculations of the heavy quark potential in SU(3) lattice gauge theory. Full SU(3) results are compared to three cases which involve gauge-fixing and projection. All of these start from the maximal abelian gauge (MAG), in its simplest form. The first case is abelian projection to U(1)xU(1). The second keeps only the abelian fields of monopoles in the MAG. The third involves an additional gauge-fixing to the indirect maximal center gauge (IMCG), followed by center projection to Z(3). At one gauge fixing/configuration, the string tensions calculated from MAG U(1)xU(1), MAG monopoles, and IMCG Z(3) are all less than the full SU(3) string tension. The projected string tensions further decrease, by approximately 10%, when account is taken of gauge ambiguities. Comparison is made with corresponding results for SU(2). It is emphasized that the formulation of the MAG is more subtle for SU(3) than for SU(2), and that the low string tensions may be caused by the simple MAG form used. A generalized MAG for SU(3) is formulated.Comment: 22 pages, latex, 2 postscript figures. Replaced version has added data at beta=6.0, analysis of Gribov ambiguities, extended tables of results, discussion of scalin

Round Table. The ‘British School’ and Italian Historiography:Some reflections on the ‘British School’ and Italian history

Italian summaryI contributi sopra intendono riflettere sulla cosiddetta ‘scuola britannica’ di storici e ricercatori specializzati nello studio dell’Italia moderna e contemporanea. Facendo seguito ad una tavola rotonda tenutasi durante il Convegno ASMI 2016, abbiamo chiesto a coloro che vi hanno partecipato di pubblicare i propri interventi nella forma di brevi saggi. In essi viene discussa l’influenza della storiografia britannica sullo studio della storia italiana dal diciannovesimo secolo fino al Fascismo e il ventesimo secolo. Gli autori dei saggi riflettono pure sul ruolo e l’uso della storia in Italia, la strumentalizzazione di dibattitti storiografici che ha a lungo contraddistinto la politica italiana, editoria e strategie di divulgazione del sapere storico. Tutto ciò con un occhio di riguardo alla vita e alla produzione scientifica di Christopher Duggan a cui è dedicato questo numero speciale della rivista.</jats:p

Digital Platform Uses for Help and Support Seeking of Parents With Children Affected by Disabilities: Scoping Review

Background: Receiving a diagnosis that leads to severe disability in childhood can cause a traumatic experience with long-lasting emotional stress for patients and family members. In recent decades, emerging digital technologies have transformed how patients or caregivers of persons with disabilities manage their health conditions. As a result, information (eg, on treatment and resources) has become widely available to patients and their families. Parents and other caregivers can use digital platforms such as websites or social media to derive social support, usually from other patients and caregivers who share their lived experiences, challenges, and successes on these platforms. However, gaps remain in our understanding of platforms that are most frequently used or preferred among parents and caregivers of children with disabilities. In particular, it is not clear what factors primarily drive or discourage engagement with these digital tools and what the main ethical considerations are in relation to these tools. Objective: We aimed to (1) identify prominent digital platforms used by parents or caregivers of children with disabilities; (2) explore the theoretical contexts and reasons for digital platform use, as well as the experiences made with using these platforms reported in the included studies; and (3) identify any privacy and ethical concerns emerging in the available literature in relation to the use of these platforms. Methods: We conducted a scoping review of 5 academic databases of English-language articles published within the last 10 years for diseases with childhood onset disability and self-help or parent/caregiver-led digital platforms. Results: We identified 17 papers in which digital platforms used by parents of affected children predominantly included social media elements but also search engines, health-related apps, and medical websites. Information retrieval and social support were the main reasons for their utilization. Nearly all studies were exploratory and applied either quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods. The main ethical concerns for digital platform users included hampered access due to language barriers, privacy issues, and perceived suboptimal advice (eg, due to missing empathy of medical professionals). Older and non–college-educated individuals and ethnic minorities appeared less likely to access information online. Conclusions: This review showed that limited scientifically sound knowledge exists on digital platform use and needs in the context of disabling conditions in children, as the evidence consists mostly of exploratory studies. We could highlight that affected families seek information and support from digital platforms, as health care systems seem to be insufficient for satisfying knowledge and support needs through traditional channels

Discrete Breathers

Nonlinear classical Hamiltonian lattices exhibit generic solutions in the form of discrete breathers. These solutions are time-periodic and (typically exponentially) localized in space. The lattices exhibit discrete translational symmetry. Discrete breathers are not confined to certain lattice dimensions. Necessary ingredients for their occurence are the existence of upper bounds on the phonon spectrum (of small fluctuations around the groundstate) of the system as well as the nonlinearity in the differential equations. We will present existence proofs, formulate necessary existence conditions, and discuss structural stability of discrete breathers. The following results will be also discussed: the creation of breathers through tangent bifurcation of band edge plane waves; dynamical stability; details of the spatial decay; numerical methods of obtaining breathers; interaction of breathers with phonons and electrons; movability; influence of the lattice dimension on discrete breather properties; quantum lattices - quantum breathers. Finally we will formulate a new conceptual aproach capable of predicting whether discrete breather exist for a given system or not, without actually solving for the breather. We discuss potential applications in lattice dynamics of solids (especially molecular crystals), selective bond excitations in large molecules, dynamical properties of coupled arrays of Josephson junctions, and localization of electromagnetic waves in photonic crystals with nonlinear response.Comment: 62 pages, LaTeX, 14 ps figures. Physics Reports, to be published; see also at http://www.mpipks-dresden.mpg.de/~flach/html/preprints.htm