Una reevaluación de la economía de la producción cerámica en el sitio Ayala (1-1250 d.C), Granada, Pacífico de Nicaragua

Located on the flanks of Mombacho volcano to the southeast of Granada City, Ayala was the largest occupied center in the area until roughly AD 800, after which its prominence declined. Investigations in the 1990s determined that the site likely played an important local sociopolitical role, as well as being connected to distant groups along vast networks. This interpretation derived, in part, from ceramic evidence including the earliest compositionally verified polychromes manufactured in Pacific Nicaragua ca. AD 500–800 (e.g., Momta and Belo polychromes) and a variety of ceramic types associated with west-central Honduras and El Salvador (e.g., Usulután negative resist and Las Vegas polychromes). Yet, evidence for the (re)distribution of those wares to other known sites in Pacific Nicaragua was lacking. Recent recovery of Ayala’s polychromes at the 13 km-distant site of El Rayo, however, has drawn the site back to the foreground of study. Coupled with advances in volcanology and geochemistry, compositional analyses (INAA and petrography) not only challenge long-held assumptions about the organization of the ceramic economy in Pacific Nicaragua, but also amplify our understanding of Ayala’s specific role within the revised model. Results indicate that (a) Ayala’s unique polychromes were manufactured, at least in some measure, for off-site mortuary-related destinations, (b) the site was only sporadically receiving vessels from west-central Honduras, more frequently creating well-crafted local versions, and (c) rather than simply a consumer of key diagnostic styles after AD 800 (e.g., Papagayo Polychrome) as previously assumed, Ayala was a principal producer and distributor, if not a leader in their development.El asentamiento denominado Ayala, está situado al sureste de la ciudad de Granada, en las faldas del volcán Mombacho. En esa área, fue el sitio con una ocupación más prolongada hasta aproximadamente el 800 d.C., cuando su importancia declinó. En la década de los años 1990, las investigaciones indicaron que este desempeñó un papel sociopolítico importante, que incluyó el mantener amplias redes de contacto e intercambio con grupos de regiones distantes. Esto se derivó, en parte, de la evidencia cerámica que incluyó, la determinación mediante análisis composicional, de los primeros policromos manufacturados en el Pacífico durante el periodo 500-800 d.C. en Nicaragua, así como una variedad de tipos cerámicos asociados con el oeste y centro de Honduras y El Salvador (p. ej. Usulután Negativo Resistente y Las Vegas Policromo). Sin embargo, se desconocía la distribución de estas cerámicas hacia otros sitios conocidos del Pacífico de Nicaragua, con raras excepciones. El hallazgo de policromos en el sitio El Rayo, localizado 13 kilómetros al este de Ayala, manufacturados en este último, permitió una nueva mirada a las dinámicas de la producción cerámica en el sitio. Junto con recientes avances en vulcanología y geoquímica, los resultados del análisis composicional (AANI y la petrografía) han cuestionado no solo las asunciones anteriores acerca de la producción cerámica en el Pacífico de Nicaragua, sino también ha ampliado el conocimiento del papel específico de Ayala dentro del modelo establecido. Los resultados indican que los policromos producidos en ese sitio fueron: a) manufacturados, al menos en parte, para una función funeraria y quizás doméstica fuera del sitio, (b) que sólo esporádicamente se recibieron vasijas del oeste y el centro de Honduras, mientras que con frecuencia se hicieron con características similares, y (c) que en lugar de ser un consumidor de estilos cerámicos diagnósticos como el Papagayo Policromo después 800 d.C., Ayala fue el principal productor y distribuidor, y quizás el innovador en su desarrollo, contrario a lo antes pensado.UCR::Vicerrectoría de Investigación::Unidades de Investigación::Ciencias Sociales::Centro de Investigaciones Antropológicas (CIAN)UCR::Vicerrectoría de Docencia::Ciencias Sociales::Facultad de Ciencias Sociales::Escuela de Antropologí

El Arte del Poder Monárquico: Cuentos Sacados de Cerámica Pintada

The painted classic Mayan pottery represents a valuable source of information about the physical, social, political and psychological composition of the Maya royal court. The painted scenes of the vessels provide details of the idealistic components and the hierarchical nature of the court, providing a unique opportunity to study Mayan aristocratic life and monarchical positions and on the historical individuals who ruled the ancient society as unique personalities instead of faceless people from a distant past.La cerámica clásica maya pintada representa una fuente valiosa de información acerca de la composición física, social, política y psicológica de la corte real maya. Las escenas pintadas de las vasijas proveen detalles de los componentes idealistas y de la naturaleza jerárquica de la corte, proporcionando una oportunidad única para estudiar la vida aristocrática maya y de los cargos monárquicos y sobre los individuos históricos quienes dirigían la sociedad antigua como personalidades únicas en vez de personas sin cara de un pasado distante

Are autistic traits in the general population stable across development?

There is accumulating evidence that autistic traits (AT) are on a continuum in the general population, with clinical autism representing the extreme end of a quantitative distribution. While the nature and severity of symptoms in clinical autism are known to persist over time, no study has examined the long-term stability of AT among typically developing toddlers. The current investigation measured AT in 360 males and 400 males from the general population close to two decades apart, using the Pervasive Developmental Disorder subscale of the Child Behavior Checklist in early childhood (M = 2.14 years; SD = 0.15), and the Autism-Spectrum Quotient in early adulthood (M = 19.50 years; SD = 0.70). Items from each scale were further divided into social (difficulties with social interaction and communication) and non-social (restricted and repetitive behaviours and interests) AT. The association between child and adult measurements of AT as well the influence of potentially confounding sociodemographic, antenatal and obstetric variables were assessed using Pearson's correlations and linear regression. For males, Total AT in early childhood were positively correlated with total AT (r = .16, p = .002) and social AT (r = .16, p = .002) in adulthood. There was also a positive correlation for males between social AT measured in early childhood and Total (r = .17, p = .001) and social AT (r = .16, p = .002) measured in adulthood. Correlations for non-social AT did not achieve significance in males. Furthermore, there was no significant longitudinal association in AT observed for males or females. Despite the constraints of using different measures and different raters at the two ages, this study found modest developmental stability of social AT from early childhood to adulthood in boys

Effects of Heat Exposure on Body Water Assessed using Single-Frequency Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis and Bioimpedance Spectroscopy

International Journal of Exercise Science 10(7): 1085-1093, 2017. The purpose of this study was to determine if heat exposure alters the measures of total body water (TBW), extracellular water (ECW), and intracellular water (ICW) in both single-frequency bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) and bioimpedance spectroscopy (BIS). Additionally, we sought to determine if any differences exist between the BIA and BIS techniques before and after brief exposure to heat. Body water was evaluated for twenty men (age=24±4 years) in a thermoneutral environment (22°C) before (PRE) and immediately after (POST) 15 min of passive heating (35°C) in an environmental chamber. The mean difference and 95% limits of agreement at PRE demonstrated that BIS yielded significantly higher body water values than BIA (all p0.05; 0.2±1.5kg). Additionally, the ES of the mean differences at POST were trivial to small and the r-values were high (r≥0.96). When analyzing the changes in body water before and after heat exposure, POST values for BIS were significantly higher than PRE (all

Overlaps Between Autism and Language Impairment: Phenomimicry or Shared Etiology?

Traditionally, autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) and specific language impairment (SLI) are regarded as distinct conditions with separate etiologies. Yet these disorders co-occur at above chance levels, suggesting shared etiology. Simulations, however, show that additive pleiotropic genes cannot account for observed rates of language impairment in relatives, which are higher for probands with SLI than for those with ASD + language impairment. An alternative account is in terms of ‘phenomimicry’, i.e., language impairment in comorbid cases may be a consequence of ASD risk factors, and different from that seen in SLI. However, this cannot explain why molecular genetic studies have found a common risk genotype for ASD and SLI. This paper explores whether nonadditive genetic influences could account for both family and molecular findings. A modified simulation involving G × G interactions obtained levels of comorbidity and rates of impairment in relatives more consistent with observed values. The simulations further suggest that the shape of distributions of phenotypic trait scores for different genotypes may provide evidence of whether a gene is involved in epistasis

Advances in POST2 End-to-End Descent and Landing Simulation for the ALHAT Project

Program to Optimize Simulated Trajectories II (POST2) is used as a basis for an end-to-end descent and landing trajectory simulation that is essential in determining design and integration capability and system performance of the lunar descent and landing system and environment models for the Autonomous Landing and Hazard Avoidance Technology (ALHAT) project. The POST2 simulation provides a six degree-of-freedom capability necessary to test, design and operate a descent and landing system for successful lunar landing. This paper presents advances in the development and model-implementation of the POST2 simulation, as well as preliminary system performance analysis, used for the testing and evaluation of ALHAT project system models

Pre-Diagnostic Circulating Vitamin D and Risk of Melanoma in Men

PURPOSE: Various studies have examined the association between serum vitamin D levels and different cancers; however, this is the first prospective study of this association with melanoma risk. The aim of this study is to investigate the association between serum vitamin D [25(OH)D] levels and melanoma in a cohort of older, middle-aged Finnish male smokers. METHODS: We conducted a nested case-control study within the Alpha-Tocopherol Beta-Carotene Cancer Prevention (ATBC) Study. From the ATBC cohort, 368 subjects were chosen for our study; 92 participants that developed melanoma and 276 matched control subjects. At study baseline, lifestyle questionnaires and blood samples were collected. Serum 25(OH)D was modeled as three sets of categorical variables: clinically-defined categories, season-specific quartiles and season-adjusted residual quartiles. Conditional logistic regression was used to obtain odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) to estimate the association between circulating vitamin D and melanoma risk. RESULTS: Overall no association of serum 25(OH)D and melanoma risk was observed. A decreased risk of developing melanoma was observed in the middle categories compared to the lowest category, albeit not significant. CONCLUSION: Results indicate no association between serum 25(OH)D levels and melanoma. Additional studies, including possibly consortium efforts, are needed to investigate the association between serum 25(OH)D levels and risk of melanoma in larger, more diverse study populations

LV reverse remodeling imparted by aortic valve replacement for severe aortic stenosis; is it durable? A cardiovascular MRI study sponsored by the American Heart Association

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In patients with severe aortic stenosis (AS), long-term data tracking surgically induced effects of afterload reduction on reverse LV remodeling are not available. Echocardiographic data is available short term, but in limited fashion beyond one year. Cardiovascular MRI (CMR) offers the ability to serially track changes in LV metrics with small numbers due to its inherent high spatial resolution and low variability.</p> <p>Hypothesis</p> <p>We hypothesize that changes in LV structure and function following aortic valve replacement (AVR) are detectable by CMR and once triggered by AVR, continue for an extended period.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Tweny-four patients of which ten (67 ± 12 years, 6 female) with severe, but compensated AS underwent CMR pre-AVR, 6 months, 1 year and up to 4 years post-AVR. 3D LV mass index, volumetrics, LV geometry, and EF were measured.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>All patients survived AVR and underwent CMR 4 serial CMR's. LVMI markedly decreased by 6 months (157 ± 42 to 134 ± 32 g/m^<b>2</b>, p < 0.005) and continued trending downwards through 4 years (127 ± 32 g/m^<b>2</b>). Similarly, EF increased pre to post-AVR (55 ± 22 to 65 ± 11%,(p < 0.05)) and continued trending upwards, remaining stable through years 1-4 (66 ± 11 vs. 65 ± 9%). LVEDVI, initially high pre-AVR, decreased post-AVR (83 ± 30 to 68 ± 11 ml/m2, p < 0.05) trending even lower by year 4 (66 ± 10 ml/m^<b>2</b>). LV stroke volume increased rapidly from pre to post-AVR (40 ± 11 to 44 ± 7 ml, p < 0.05) continuing to increase non-significantly through 4 years (49 ± 14 ml) with these LV metrics paralleling improvements in NYHA. However, LVmass/volume, a 3D measure of LV geometry, remained unchanged over 4 years.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>After initial beneficial effects imparted by AVR in severe AS patients, there are, as expected, marked improvements in LV reverse remodeling. Via CMR, surgically induced benefits to LV structure and function are durable and, unexpectedly express continued, albeit markedly incomplete improvement through 4 years post-AVR concordant with sustained improved clinical status. This supports down-regulation of both mRNA and MMP activity acutely with robust suppression long term.</p

Traits Contributing to the Autistic Spectrum

It is increasingly recognised that traits associated with autism reflect a spectrum with no clear boundary between typical and atypical behaviour. Dimensional traits are needed to investigate the broader autism phenotype.Ninety-three individual measures reflecting components of social, communication and repetitive behaviours characterising autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) were identified between the ages of 6 months and 9 years from the ALSPAC database. Using missing value imputation, data for 13,138 children were analysed. Factor analysis suggested the existence of 7 factors explaining 85% of the variance. The factors were labelled: verbal ability, language acquisition, social understanding, semantic-pragmatic skills, repetitive-stereotyped behaviour, articulation and social inhibition. Four factors (1, 3, 5 and 7) were specific to ASD being more strongly associated with this phenotype than other co-morbid conditions while other factors were more associated with learning difficulties and specific language impairment. Nevertheless, all 7 factors contributed independently to the explanation of ASD (p<0.001). Exploration of putative genetic causal factors such as variants in the CNTNAP2 gene showed a varying pattern of associations with these traits. An alternative predictive model of ASD was derived using four individual measures: the coherence subscale of the Children's Communication Checklist (9y), the Social and Communication Disorders Checklist (91 m), repetitive behaviour (69 m) and the sociability subscale of the Emotionality Activity and Sociability measure (38 m). Although univarably these traits performed better than some factors, their combined explanations of ASD were similar (R(2) =  0.48).These results support the fractional nature of ASD with different aetiological origins for these components despite pleiotropic genetic effects being observed. These traits are likely to be useful in the exploration of ASD