The M. W. Burks Site (41WD52): A Late Caddo Hamlet in Wood County, Texas

While attempting to locate and evaluate prehistoric Caddo archaeological sites in the Dry Creek watershed, Wood County, Texas, that had been originally recorded by A. T. Jackson and M. M. Reese in 1930, the M. W. Burks site (41WD52) was discovered by James E. Bruseth and Bob D. Skiles in June 1977. The site is in the Forest Hill community, about 5 km north of Quitman, Texas, in the East Texas Pineywoods and Gulf Coastal Plain. It is on a small rise in the uplands overlooking a small intermittent drainage that is an unnamed tributary of Little Dry Creek. The landowner, Mr. M. W. Burks, had resided in this part of Wood County since the 1920s, and recalled where A. T. Jackson and crew had spent time excavating the J. H. Reese (41WD2) site. He mentioned that while putting in a fence on his property in the early 1960s, adjacent to the property where the Reese site is located, he had found some pottery sherds in one of the post holes. Bruseth and Skiles placed a small shovel test next to this fence post hole, and a large articulated red-slipped Ripley Engraved carinated bowl was encountered at 65 em below the surface (bs) in tan sand E-horizon deposits. This find demonstrated that the Burks site contained both intact archaeological deposits as well as an apparently undisturbed Late Caddo Titus phase burial or cemetery. Bruseth, Skiles, and Perttula followed up this work with more intensive investigations in the spring and fall of 1978. This research was carried on as an adjunct to the ongoing (and final season of) archaeological work being conducted by Bruseth and Perttula at Lake Fork Reservoir on Lake Fork Creek, a few miles to the west of the Burks site. Our purpose in carrying out archaeological research at the Burks site was to examine in more detail the spatial character of a Late Caddo Titus phase settlement, and also obtain information on the material culture remains (especially the ceramics) made and used by the Caddo peoples that lived at the Burks site some 400-500 years ago

The Carlisle Site (41WD46), a Middle Caddoan Occupation on the Sabine River, Wood County, Texas

The Carlisle site (41WD46) is located on the Sabine River near its confluence with Lake Fork Creek in the Upper Sabine River Basin. As defined by Perttula, the Upper Sabine River Basin includes the area from the headwaters of the Sabine River to the mouths of Cherokee Bayou and Hatley Creek at the western edge of the Sabine Uplift. Lake Fork Creek is one of several large south-southeastward flowing streams within the Upper Sabine River Basin. The town of Mineola is approximately 13 kilometers (km) west of the Carlisle site. The site is situated at the tip of an upland projection overlooking the Sabine River floodplain, but extends into the floodplain to within ca 30 meters of the river bank. The Lake Fork Creek channel is approximately one km east of the site. While the site was an improved pasture for many years prior to 1975 and to the present, it had been previously cultivated. In fact, this cultivation may have contributed to its initial identification in the early 1930s, as well as its subsequent partial burial. The upland sandy soils derive from the Queen City Formation, and these are highly susceptible to erosion and colluvial downwasting. Colluvial deposition seems to have been a prominent factor in the burial of cultural materials along valley margins and lower footslopes elsewhere in the Upper Sabine Basin, and the site\u27s topographic position suggests that both alluvial and colluvial deposition is responsible for the burial of the floodplain cultural deposits at the Carlisle site

Archeological Investigations at the Hudnall-Pirtle Site (41RK4) An Early Caddo Mound Center in Northeast Texas

The Hudnall-Pirtle site (41RK4) is situated on a large T-1 alluvial terrace of the Sabine River in northern Rusk County in Texas. This area of the state, commonly called Northeast Texas, is part of the Southern Gulf Coastal Plain, a relatively level, sloping plain formed by the pre-Pleistocene embayment of the Gulf of Mexico. From a biogeographical perspective, the site is located in the Oak-Hickory-Pine forest of eastern Texas, otherwise known as the Pineywoods. This area represents the western extension of the southern coniferous forests and is dominated by shortleaf and loblolly pine trees. Hardwood trees, including various oaks, hickory, elm, and gum, are the dominant vegetation in the floodplains of rivers and major creeks in Northeast Texas

Cigarette smoking is associated with amplified age-related volume loss in subcortical brain regions

BACKGROUND: Magnetic resonance imaging studies of cigarette smoking-related effects on human brain structure have primarily employed voxel-based morphometry, and the most consistently reported finding was smaller volumes or lower density in anterior frontal regions and the insula. Much less is known about the effects of smoking on subcortical regions. We compared smokers and non-smokers on regional subcortical volumes, and predicted that smokers demonstrate greater age-related volume loss across subcortical regions than non-smokers. METHODS: Non-smokers (n=43) and smokers (n=40), 22-70 years of age, completed a 4T MRI study. Bilateral total subcortical lobar white matter (WM) and subcortical nuclei volumes were quantitated via FreeSurfer. In smokers, associations between smoking severity measures and subcortical volumes were examined. RESULTS: Smokers demonstrated greater age-related volume loss than non-smokers in the bilateral subcortical lobar WM, thalamus, and cerebellar cortex, as well as in the corpus callosum and subdivisions. In smokers, higher pack-years were associated with smaller volumes of the bilateral amygdala, nucleus accumbens, total corpus callosum and subcortical WM. CONCLUSIONS: Results provide novel evidence that chronic smoking in adults is associated with accelerated age-related volume loss in subcortical WM and GM nuclei. Greater cigarette quantity/exposure was related to smaller volumes in regions that also showed greater age-related volume loss in smokers. Findings suggest smoking adversely affected the structural integrity of subcortical brain regions with increasing age and exposure. The greater age-related volume loss in smokers may have implications for cortical-subcortical structural and/or functional connectivity, and response to available smoking cessation interventions

Radiotelemetry Of Heart Rates From Free-Ranging Gulls

A lightweight radiotelemetry system with a range of 80 km was used to monitor heart rate from free-ranging Herring Gulls on flights of up to 20 km. Heart rate varied from 130 beats/min in a resting bird to 625 beats/min for sustained flight. Soaring birds showed rates similar to those of birds sitting quietly on the ground. Simultaneous records of telemetered heart rate and intraspecific conflict on the nesting island revealed that cardiac acceleration preceded overt visual communication. Intensely aggressive behavior was accompanied by heart rates approaching those of sustained flight. Heart rate as a measure of metabolic cost indicates that the gull\u27s behavioral adaptations for long-distance flight, food location and intraspecific communication result in major energy savings

ALCOA #1 (41AN87): A Frankston Phase Settlement along Mound Prairie Creek, Anderson County, Texas

The ALCOA #1 (41AN87) site is a Frankston Phase (ca. A.D. 1400-1650) site located on a high alluvial terrace of Mound Prairie Creek, about seven kilometers northeast of Palestine, Texas. Mound Prairie Creek, a perennial stream, flows southeast to east across the county and drains into the Neches River. The site is approximately 10 meters above the Mound Prairie Creek floodplain, and the creek channel is 300 meters to the south. Although the investigations at the site have been rather limited to date, it appears that the ALCOA #1 site is a single component Frankston Phase homestead, or possibly a small hamlet. Other Frankston phase sites are known on Mound Prairie Creek, Hurricane Creek, Walnut Creek, and Brushy Creek, all Neches River tributaries, and the possibility exists that these may be part of a larger related Caddo community and settlement system

Reflection Symmetries for Multiqubit Density Operators

For multiqubit density operators in a suitable tensorial basis, we show that a number of nonunitary operations used in the detection and synthesis of entanglement are classifiable as reflection symmetries, i.e., orientation changing rotations. While one-qubit reflections correspond to antiunitary symmetries, as is known for example from the partial transposition criterion, reflections on the joint density of two or more qubits are not accounted for by the Wigner Theorem and are well-posed only for sufficiently mixed states. One example of such nonlocal reflections is the unconditional NOT operation on a multiparty density, i.e., an operation yelding another density and such that the sum of the two is the identity operator. This nonphysical operation is admissible only for sufficiently mixed states.Comment: 9 page

Polarization Observations with the Cosmic Background Imager

We describe polarization observations of the CMBR with the Cosmic Background Imager, a 13 element interferometer which operates in the 26-36 GHz band from Llano de Chajnantour in northern Chile. The array consists of 90-cm Cassegrain antennas mounted on a steerable platform which can be rotated about the optical axis to facilitate polarization observations. The CBI employs single mode circularly polarized receivers which sample multipoles from ℓ~400 to ℓ~4250. The instrumental polarization of the CBI was calibrated with 3C279, a bright polarized point source which was monitored with the VLA