Prehistoric Archeology and Paleoenvironments in Hidalgo and Willacy Counties, South Texas: Results of the Phase II Test Excavations

In May 1989 through July 1989, archeological and geomorphological investigations were conducted at five prehistoric archeological sites impacted by drainage ditch construction in Hidalgo and Willacy counties. These investigations were sponsored by Hidalgo County Drainage District No. I and Willacy County Drainage District No. I as part of a continuing program of cultural resources studies along the drainage ditch construction right-of-way. One site, 41WYI40, is situated on a low rise adjacent to a main channel of the ditch and lacks sufficient Holocene sediments to contain archeological materials in good context. However, a tortoise, cf. Gopherus hexagollarus, was recovered, and the inorganic fraction was assayed by radiocarbon to 9360 ± 415 B.P. If correct, this date indicates that these now-extinct tortoises could have been coeval with Paleoindian occupations in South Texas. The other four sites are in or on the edges of small deflationary basins. Based on the radiocarbon chronology obtained from these sites, soils formed on many of the deflationary basins during the late Pleistocene. Between ca. 12,000 B.P. and 5000 B.P., these soils were removed by wind erosion, and in the last 5,000 years, a modem soil formed. At all sites, this modem soil has been disturbed by historic farming, land clearing, and ditch construction. The prehistoric archeological remains at 41HGI28, 41WY1l2, 41WY1l3, and 41WYl34 are sparse, reflecting a continuing record of nonintensive use by mobile hunter-gatherers. In order to assess the National Register eligibility of individual sites, three models of hunter-gatherer resource and territorial exploitation patterns were developed and a preliminary test of these models was conducted with the regional archeological data base. The first model assumes unrestricted access to all major resource areas in the region; the second model assumes that prehistoric territories focused on resources along the Rio Grande floodplain; and Ole third model assumes that hunter-gatherer territories were organized in response to coastal resources. The results of the test were inconclusive, but important exploitation patterns were recognized and invalid assumptions of the models identified. In light of the recovered materials from the sites. the analysis of the regional data base, and the assessment of the models, none of the five sites reported here are judged eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, and no further work at these sites is recommended

Prehistoric Archeology and Paleoenvironments in Hidalgo and Willacy Counties, South Texas: Results of the Phase II Test Excavations

In May 1989 through July 1989, archeological and geomorphological investigations were conducted at five prehistoric archeological sites impacted by drainage ditch construction in Hidalgo and Willacy counties. These investigations were sponsored by Hidalgo County Drainage District No. I and Willacy County Drainage District No. I as part of a continuing program of cultural resources studies along the drainage ditch construction right-of-way. One site, 41WYI40, is situated on a low rise adjacent to a main channel of the ditch and lacks sufficient Holocene sediments to contain archeological materials in good context. However, a tortoise, cf. Gopherus hexagollarus, was recovered, and the inorganic fraction was assayed by radiocarbon to 9360 ± 415 B.P. If correct, this date indicates that these now-extinct tortoises could have been coeval with Paleoindian occupations in South Texas. The other four sites are in or on the edges of small deflationary basins. Based on the radiocarbon chronology obtained from these sites, soils formed on many of the deflationary basins during the late Pleistocene. Between ca. 12,000 B.P. and 5000 B.P., these soils were removed by wind erosion, and in the last 5,000 years, a modem soil formed. At all sites, this modem soil has been disturbed by historic farming, land clearing, and ditch construction. The prehistoric archeological remains at 41HGI28, 41WY1l2, 41WY1l3, and 41WYl34 are sparse, reflecting a continuing record of nonintensive use by mobile hunter-gatherers. In order to assess the National Register eligibility of individual sites, three models of hunter-gatherer resource and territorial exploitation patterns were developed and a preliminary test of these models was conducted with the regional archeological data base. The first model assumes unrestricted access to all major resource areas in the region; the second model assumes that prehistoric territories focused on resources along the Rio Grande floodplain; and Ole third model assumes that hunter-gatherer territories were organized in response to coastal resources. The results of the test were inconclusive, but important exploitation patterns were recognized and invalid assumptions of the models identified. In light of the recovered materials from the sites. the analysis of the regional data base, and the assessment of the models, none of the five sites reported here are judged eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, and no further work at these sites is recommended

Cultural Resources Investigations Along Whiteoak Bayou, Harris County, Texas

In 1986, cultural resources investigations were carried out to prepare a synthesis of the archeology of the Whiteoak Bayou area in western Harris County, Texas, and to conduct subsurface testing at prehistoric sites that may be affected by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Upper Whiteoak Bayou Flood Damage Reduction Project. The tasks undertaken during these investigations are: (1) background research into the environment and archeology of the area; (2) historic/archival research and reconnaissance survey to summarize the historical development of Whiteoak Bayou and to identify any important sites in the project area; (3) intensive survey of Vogel Creek, a tributary to Whiteoak Bayou, to assess the potential for intact cultural remains; (4) National Register testing and assessment of nine aboriginal sites; (5) geoarcheological investigations to establish the geological context of the archeological remains, to identify the depositional environments represented, and to establish an alluvial sequence for the project area; and (6) analysis of a large collection of artifacts from 46 Whiteoak Bayou sites made prior to 1986 by members of the Houston Archeological Society, as well as the materials recovered during 1986. The nine archeological sites tesLed during this project are 41HR241, 4lHR259, 41HR273, 41HR278, 41HR279, 41HR283, 41HR290, 41HR298, and 41HR541. The testing showed that only three -- 41HR259, 41HR273, and 41HR541 -- have substantial, intact cultural deposits. Two of these -- 41HR273 and 41HR541 -- are judged to be eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places and for designation as State Archeological Landmarks. One site, 4lHR259, is currently listed on the National Register, although the remaining part of this site is judged to have a limited potential to yield additi0nal information. The other seven sites are judged to be ineligible for listing

Linear independence of root equations for M/G /1 type Markov chains

There is a classical technique for determining the equilibrium probabilities of M/G/1 type Markov chains. After transforming the equilibrium balance equations of the chain, one obtains an equivalent system of equations in analytic functions to be solved. This method requires finding all singularities of a given matrix function in the unit disk and then using them to obtain a set of linear equations in the finite number of unknown boundary probabilities. The remaining probabilities and other measures of interest are then computed from the boundary probabilities. Under certain technical assumptions, the linear independence of the resulting equations is established by a direct argument involving only elementary results from matrix theory and complex analysis. Simple conditions for the ergodicity and nonergodicity of the chain are also given.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/47619/1/11134_2005_Article_BF01245323.pd

Genetic Analysis Workshop 14: microsatellite and single-nucleotide polymorphism marker loci for genome-wide scans.

RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

Genetic Analysis Workshop 14: microsatellite and single-nucleotide polymorphism marker loci for genome-wide scans

RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

The Ninth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III) presents the first spectroscopic data from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). This ninth data release (DR9) of the SDSS project includes 535,995 new galaxy spectra (median z=0.52), 102,100 new quasar spectra (median z=2.32), and 90,897 new stellar spectra, along with the data presented in previous data releases. These spectra were obtained with the new BOSS spectrograph and were taken between 2009 December and 2011 July. In addition, the stellar parameters pipeline, which determines radial velocities, surface temperatures, surface gravities, and metallicities of stars, has been updated and refined with improvements in temperature estimates for stars with T_eff<5000 K and in metallicity estimates for stars with [Fe/H]>-0.5. DR9 includes new stellar parameters for all stars presented in DR8, including stars from SDSS-I and II, as well as those observed as part of the SDSS-III Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration-2 (SEGUE-2). The astrometry error introduced in the DR8 imaging catalogs has been corrected in the DR9 data products. The next data release for SDSS-III will be in Summer 2013, which will present the first data from the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) along with another year of data from BOSS, followed by the final SDSS-III data release in December 2014.Comment: 9 figures; 2 tables. Submitted to ApJS. DR9 is available at http://www.sdss3.org/dr

A live-attenuated chlamydial vaccine protects against trachoma in nonhuman primates

In cynomolgus macaques, ocular infection with a live trachoma strain lacking the conserved 7.5-kb plasmid induced no ocular pathology but facilitated solid or partial protection from subsequent infection with a virulent strain of trachoma

The Fourteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey and from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment

The fourth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) has been in operation since July 2014. This paper describes the second data release from this phase, and the fourteenth from SDSS overall (making this, Data Release Fourteen or DR14). This release makes public data taken by SDSS-IV in its first two years of operation (July 2014-2016). Like all previous SDSS releases, DR14 is cumulative, including the most recent reductions and calibrations of all data taken by SDSS since the first phase began operations in 2000. New in DR14 is the first public release of data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS); the first data from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory (APO) Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE-2), including stellar parameter estimates from an innovative data driven machine learning algorithm known as "The Cannon"; and almost twice as many data cubes from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (MaNGA) survey as were in the previous release (N = 2812 in total). This paper describes the location and format of the publicly available data from SDSS-IV surveys. We provide references to the important technical papers describing how these data have been taken (both targeting and observation details) and processed for scientific use. The SDSS website (www.sdss.org) has been updated for this release, and provides links to data downloads, as well as tutorials and examples of data use. SDSS-IV is planning to continue to collect astronomical data until 2020, and will be followed by SDSS-V.Comment: SDSS-IV collaboration alphabetical author data release paper. DR14 happened on 31st July 2017. 19 pages, 5 figures. Accepted by ApJS on 28th Nov 2017 (this is the "post-print" and "post-proofs" version; minor corrections only from v1, and most of errors found in proofs corrected

Effects of antiplatelet therapy on stroke risk by brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases: subgroup analyses of the RESTART randomised, open-label trial

Background Findings from the RESTART trial suggest that starting antiplatelet therapy might reduce the risk of recurrent symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage compared with avoiding antiplatelet therapy. Brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases (such as cerebral microbleeds) are associated with greater risks of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage. We did subgroup analyses of the RESTART trial to explore whether these brain imaging features modify the effects of antiplatelet therapy