The rock carvings of Bouça da Cova da Moura (Ardegães, Maia, Northern Portugal) in the context of Late Prehistory in the Leça basin

Este texto pretende dar a conhecer o conjunto de gravuras rupestres da Bouça da Cova da Moura. A análise efetuada ao conjunto de signos permitiu denotar, a presença de composições gráficas pertencentes à tradição artística que se convencionou denominar de arte atlântica, representações de cariz mais esquemático e motivos de época histórica. Na envolvência dos afloramentos gravados descobriram-se monumentos megalíticos, áreas de dispersão de materiais cerâmicos datáveis do Calcolítico, uma ocupação da Idade do Bronze, além de materiais dispersos deste período genérico, relevantes para a análise da biografia deste lugar numa pequena escala de análise. A inserção deste locus numa escala mais ampla de análise, ou seja, os Montes do Leandro, pequeno contraforte da serra do Bougado, permite admitir que este complexo de gravuras rupestres faria parte de um vasto território de ampla significação simbólica durante a Pré-história Recente. Neste sentido as diferentes materialidades seriam, resultado de um processo aditivo que resulta da frequência do planalto, da sua da reutilização e reinterpretação, num templo cíclico.The aim of this paper is to offer an overview of the rock art assemblage at Bouça da Cova da Moura in its local and regional contexts. The site is located in Ardegães, parish of Águas Santas, municipality of Maia, district of Porto, in north-western Portugal. Fieldwork carried out in the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, resulted in the discovery of new carved surfaces in the place where the well-known ‘pedra partida de Ardegães’ had been found; it was not only possible to unveil aspects related to its topographical context but also to discover other materialities which are spatially related to the rock carvings. Stylistic analysis undertaken to the set of carvings allow us to consider that we are beyond an assemblage which is partly constituted of rock art compositions belonging to the prehistoric art tradition conventionally called atlantic art, there is one schematic human figure and other motifs that belong to historical periods. In the vicinities of the carved outcrops there are megalithic monuments dated to the Neolithic, scatters of pottery fragments probably dated to the Copper Age, evidence for a Bronze Age occupation site, as well as clusters of surface finds from the same period. Overall, the field data recovered so far is extremely relevant for the analysis of the biography of this place at a small scale of analysis. The integration of this locus in a wider spatial scale, i.e. in the plateau that cuts across the territory in the north-south direction linking it to the Bougado hills, allow us to admit that this rock art complex would be part of a vast territory of symbolic significance in Late Prehistory. Thus, the distinct archaeological remains may be the materialisation of the importance of this geomorphological unit in the cognitive map and ideological universe of the prehistoric communities who dwelled, over a long period of time, along the middle basin of the River Neiva. These different materialities would result from a process of addition in the occupation of the plateau, of its reuse and reinterpretation in a cyclical time.Este texto insere-se no projeto Bronze Age Landscapes in the west of Iberian Peninsula / Paisagens da Idade do Bronze no ocidente peninsular (SFRH/BSAB/ 986/10) apoiado e financiado pela FCT no âmbito de uma Bolsa de Licença Sabática.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Scaling of Hunter Gatherer Camp Size and Human Sociality

One of the most commonly-observed properties of human settlements, both past and present, is the tendency for larger settlements to display higher population densities. Work in urban science and archaeology suggests this densification pattern reflects an emergent spatial equilibrium where individuals balance movement costs with social interaction benefits, leading to increases in aggregate productivity and social interdependence. In this context, it is perhaps not surprising that the more temporary camps created by mobile hunters and gatherers exhibit a tendency to become less dense with their population size. Here we examine why this difference occurs and consider conditions under which hunter-gatherer groups may transition to sedentism and densification. We investigate the relationship between population and area in mobile hunter-gatherer camps using a dataset, representing a large cross-cultural sample, derived from the ethnographic literature. We present a model based on the interplay between social interactions and scalar stress for the relationship between camp area and group size that describes the observed patterns among mobile hunter-gatherers. The model highlights the tradeoffs between the costs and benefits of proximity and interaction that are common to all human aggregations and specifies the constraints that must be overcome for economies of scale and cooperation to emerge

Elementary processes governing the evolution of road networks

Urbanisation is a fundamental phenomenon whose quantitative characterisation is still inadequate. We report here the empirical analysis of a unique data set regarding almost 200 years of evolution of the road network in a large area located north of Milan (Italy). We find that urbanisation is characterised by the homogenisation of cell shapes, and by the stability throughout time of high-centrality roads which constitute the backbone of the urban structure, confirming the importance of historical paths. We show quantitatively that the growth of the network is governed by two elementary processes: (i) `densification', corresponding to an increase in the local density of roads around existing urban centres and (ii) `exploration', whereby new roads trigger the spatial evolution of the urbanisation front. The empirical identification of such simple elementary mechanisms suggests the existence of general, simple properties of urbanisation and opens new directions for its modelling and quantitative description.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure

Winding Number Correlation Functions and Cosmic String Formation

We develop winding number correlation functions that allow us to assess the role of field fluctuations on vortex formation in an Abelian gauge theory. We compute the behavior of these correlation functions in simple circumstances and show how fluctuations are important in the vicinity of the phase transition. We further show that, in our approximation, the emerging population of long/infinite string is produced by the classical dynamics of the fields alone, being essentially unaffected by field fluctuations.Comment: Latex file, 27 pages. 8 figures, available in compressed form by anonymous ftp from ftp://euclid.tp.ph.ic.ac.uk/papers/94-5_39.fig Latex and postscript versions also available at http://euclid.tp.ph.ic.ac.uk/Papers/index.htm

Interaction between vortices in models with two order parameters

The interaction energy and force between widely separated strings is analyzed in a field theory having applications to superconducting cosmic strings, the SO(5) model of high-temperature superconductivity, and solitons in nonlinear optics. The field theory has two order parameters, one of which is broken in the vacuum (giving rise to strings), the other of which is unbroken in the vacuum but which could nonetheless be broken in the core of the string. If this does occur, there is an effect on the energetics of widely separated strings. This effect is important if the length scale of this second order parameter is longer than that of the other fields in the problem.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures. Minor changes in the text. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Interactions between U(1)U(1) Cosmic Strings: An Analytical Study

We derive analytic expressions for the interaction energy between two general $U(1)$ cosmic strings as the function of their relative orientation and the ratio of the coupling constants in the model. The results are relevant to the statistic description of strings away from critical coupling and shed some light on the mechanisms involved in string formation and the evolution of string networks.Comment: 31 pages,REVTEX, Imperial/TP/93-94/3

Return to Play After the Diagnosis of Reactive Arthritis in a Professional Football Player

In professional football, most of the injuries are traumatic; however, these athletes may suffer from rheumatologic diseases, that may present as sports-related injuries. Reactive arthritis (ReA) is classified as a sub-group of the spondyloarthritis family and is relatively rare. In this article, we highlight the successful return to play (RTP) process after the ReA diagnosis in an elite football player in the Portuguese first league. The athlete was able to RTP four months and one week after the diagnosis, had no ReA recurrence nor re-injury >8 months after RTP, and is playing at an elite level.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Sequence analysis of 5' regulatory regions of the Machado-Joseph Disease gene (ATXN3)

Machado–Joseph disease (MJD) is a late-onset autosomal dominant neurodegenerative disorder, which is caused by a coding (CAG)n expansion in the ATXN3 gene (14q32.1). The number of CAG repeats in the expanded alleles accounts only for 50 to 75 % of onset variance, the remaining variation being dependent on other factors. Differential allelic expression of ATXN3 could contribute to the explanation of different ages at onset in patients displaying similar CAG repeat sizes. Variation in 5′ regulatory regions of the ATXN3 gene may have the potential to influence expression levels and, ultimately, modulate the MJD phenotype. The main goal of this work was to analyze the extent of sequence variation upstream of the ATXN3 start codon. A fragment containing the core promoter and the 5′ untranslated region (UTR) was sequenced and analyzed in 186 patients and 59 controls (490 chromosomes). In the core promoter, no polymorphisms were observed. In the 5′ UTR, only one SNP (rs3814834) was found, but no improvements on the explanation of onset variance were observed, when adding its allelic state in a linear model. Accordingly, in silico analysis predicted that this SNP lays in a nonconserved position for CMYB binding. Therefore, no functional effect could be predicted for this variant.Institute of Biotechnology and Biomedicine of the Azores - “High Prevalence Diseases in the Azores Islands” M2.1.2/I/026/2008,Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) - “Transcriptional variation of the ATXN3 gene as modulator of the clinical heterogeneity in Machado–Joseph disease (MJD)Secretaria Regional da Ciência, Tecnologia e Equipamentos - M3.1.3/F/004/2009CNP

Measuring Cosmic Defect Correlations in Liquid Crystals

From the theory of topological defect formation proposed for the early universe, the so called Kibble mechanism, it follows that the density correlation functions of defects and anti-defects in a given system should be completely determined in terms of a single length scale $\xi$, the relevant domain size. Thus, when lengths are expressed in units of $\xi$, these distributions should show universal behavior, depending only on the symmetry of the order parameter, and space dimensions. We have verified this prediction by analyzing the distributions of defects/anti-defects formed in the isotropic-nematic phase transition in a thin layer of nematic liquid crystals. Our experimental results confirm this prediction and are in reasonable agreement with the results of numerical simulations.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, minor changes, few new references adde