'Ava’: a Beaker-associated woman from a cist at Achavanich, Highland, and the story of her (re-) discovery and subsequent study

This contribution describes the discovery and subsequent investigation of a cist in a rock-cut pit at Achavanich, Highland. Discovered and excavated in 1987, the cist was found to contain the tightly contracted skeletal remains of a young woman, accompanied by a Beaker, three flint artefacts and a cattle scapula. Initial post excavation work established a date for the skeleton together with details of her age and sex, and preliminary pollen analysis of sediments attaching to the Beaker was undertaken. The findings were never fully published and, upon the death of the excavator, Robert Gourlay, the documentary archive was left in the Highland Council Archaeology Unit. Fresh research in 2014–17, initiated and co-ordinated by the first-named author and funded by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland with assistance from National Museums Scotland, the Natural History Museum and Harvard Medical School, has produced a significant amount of new information on the individual and on some of the items with which she was buried. This new information includes two further radiocarbon dates, a more detailed osteological report, isotopic information pertaining to the place where she had been raised and to her diet, histological information on the decomposition of her body, and genetic information that sheds light on her ancestry, her hair, eye and skin colour and her intolerance of lactose. (This is the first time that an ancient DNA report has been published in the Proceedings.) Moreover, a facial reconstruction adds virtual flesh to her bones. The significance of this discovery within the Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age of this part of Scotland is discussed, along with the many and innovative ways in which information on this individual, dubbed ‘Ava’, has been disseminated around the world.Copyright © 2018 rests with the Society and the individual authors. Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under CreativeCommons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ The permission to reproduce the Society's copyright-protected ma-terial does not extend to any material which is identified as being the copyright of a third party. Authorisation to reproduce such material must be obtained from the copyright holders concerned. The attached file is the published pdf

Genomic sequencing of colorectal adenocarcinomas identifies a recurrent VTI1A-TCF7L2 fusion

Prior studies have identified recurrent oncogenic mutations in colorectal adenocarcinoma1 and have surveyed exons of protein-coding genes for mutations in 11 affected individuals2,3. Here we report whole-genome sequencing from nine individuals with colorectal cancer, including primary colorectal tumors and matched adjacent non-tumor tissues, at an average of 30.7× and 31.9× coverage, respectively. We identify an average of 75 somatic rearrangements per tumor, including complex networks of translocations between pairs of chromosomes. Eleven rearrangements encode predicted in-frame fusion proteins, including a fusion of VTI1A and TCF7L2 found in 3 out of 97 colorectal cancers. Although TCF7L2 encodes TCF4, which cooperates with β-catenin4 in colorectal carcinogenesis5,6, the fusion lacks the TCF4 β-catenin–binding domain. We found a colorectal carcinoma cell line harboring the fusion gene to be dependent on VTI1A-TCF7L2 for anchorage-independent growth using RNA interference-mediated knockdown. This study shows previously unidentified levels of genomic rearrangements in colorectal carcinoma that can lead to essential gene fusions and other oncogenic events

COSMOS: A compiled simulator for MOS circuits

The cosmos simulator provides fast and accurate switch-level modeling of mos digital circuits. It attains high performance by preprocessing the transistor network into a functionally equivalent Boolean representation. This description, produced by the symbolic analyzer anamos, captures all aspects of switch-level networks including bidirectional transistors, stored charge, different signal strengths, and indeterminate (X) logic values. The lgcc program translates the Boolean representation into a set of machine language evaluation procedures and initialized data structures. These procedures and data structures are compiled along with code implementing the simulation kernel and user interface to produce the simulation program. The simulation program runs an order of magnitude faster than our previous simulator mossim ii

COSMOS: A Compiled Simulator for MOS Circuits

Institute for Software Researc

Contemporary composite techniques: the impact of a forensically-relevant target delay.

Purpose. Previous laoratory-based research suggests that facial composites, or pictures of suspected criminals, from UK computerized systems are named correctly about 20% of the time. The current work compares composites from several such systems following a more realistic interval between seeing an 'assailant' and constructing a composite. Included are those used by police in the UK (E-FIT, PROfit and sketch), and the USA (FACES), and a system in development (EvoFIT).Method. Participant-witnesses inspected a photograph of a celebrity for 1 minute and then 2 days later constructed a composite from one of these systems using a procedure closely matching that found in police work; for example, the use of a Cognitive Interview and computer operators/artists who were appropriately trained and experienced. Evaluation was assessed mainly by asking independent observers to name the composites. Two common auxiliary measures were used, requiring composites to be matched to their targets (sorting), and photographs to be chosen from an array of alternatives (line-up).Results. Composite naming was surprisingly low (3% overall), with sketches named best at 8%. Whereas composite sorting revealed a broadly similar pattern to naming, photo line-ups gave a poor match.Conclusion. With a 2 days delay to construction, the results suggest that, while likenesses can be achieved, few composites would be named in police work. The composite sorting data provide further evidence that the computerized systems tested perform equivalently but are poorer than the manually-generated sketches. Lastly, the data suggest that line-ups may be a poor instrument for evaluating facial composites

Lower crustal earthquakes near the Ethiopian rift induced by magmatic processes

Lower crustal earthquakes are commonly observed in continental rifts at depths where temperatures should be too high for brittle failure to occur. Here we present accurately located earthquakes in central Ethiopia, covering an incipient oceanic plate boundary in the Main Ethiopian Rift. Seismicity is evaluated using the combination of exceptionally well resolved seismic structure of the crust and upper mantle, electromagnetic properties of the crust, rock geochemistry, and geological data. The combined data sets provide evidence that lower crustal earthquakes are focused in mafic lower crust containing pockets of the largest fraction of partial melt. The pattern of seismicity and distribution of crustal melt also correlates closely with presence of partial melt in the upper mantle, suggesting lower crustal earthquakes are induced by ongoing crustal modification through magma emplacement that is driven by partial melting of the mantle. Our results show that magmatic processes control not only the distribution of shallow seismicity and volcanic activity along the axis of the rift valley but also anomalous earthquakes in the lower crust away from these zones of localized strain

The History of Religions, Read as Fantasy: On the Construction of (Religious) Ambiguity in the TV Show Lost

With its intricate “mythology,” the ABC drama series Lost invites a wide range of religious interpretations. Starting off as a survivor drama, the show evolves into a fantastic epic, in which the pilot episode's initial question “Where are we?” triggers reflections such as “where do we come from, where are we going, and what are we” and is finally passed on to the world religions. Against the backdrop of Tzvetan Todorov's and Marianne Wünsch's work on the fantastic, we translate literary scholar Wolfgang Iser's aesthetic response theory into a tool for analyzing narrative structures of contemporary supernatural fiction. Taking storytelling and reception culture into account, this piece shows how Lost uses the enactment of religion(s) to perpetuate structural ambiguity concerning the series' genre. We identify the narrative devices used to create generic indeterminacy both in content and form of the Lost narrative. With this ambiguity reverberating on the religious traditions referred to, Lost suggests the history of religions as an extradiegetic analogue of the literary fantastic