Popular attitudes to memory, the body, and social identity : the rise of external commemoration in Britain, Ireland, and New England

A comparative analysis of samples of external memorials from burial grounds in Britain, Ireland and New England reveals a widespread pattern of change in monument style and content, and exponential growth in the number of permanent memorials from the 18th century onwards. Although manifested in regionally distinctive styles on which most academic attention has so far been directed, the expansion reflects global changes in social relationships and concepts of memory and the body. An archaeological perspective reveals the importance of external memorials in articulating these changing attitudes in a world of increasing material consumption

The current status of species recognition and identification in Aspergillus

The species recognition and identification of aspergilli and their teleomorphs is discussed. A historical overview of the taxonomic concepts starting with the monograph of Raper & Fennell (1965) is given. A list of taxa described since 2000 is provided. Physiological characters, particularly growth rates and the production of extrolites, often show differences that reflect phylogenetic species boundaries and greater emphasis should be placed on extrolite profiles and growth characteristics in species descriptions. Multilocus sequence-based phylogenetic analyses have emerged as the primary tool for inferring phylogenetic species boundaries and relationships within subgenera and sections. A four locus DNA sequence study covering all major lineages in Aspergillus using genealogical concordance theory resulted in a species recognition system that agrees in part with phenotypic studies and reveals the presence of many undescribed species not resolved by phenotype. The use of as much data from as many sources as possible in making taxonomic decisions is advocated. For species identification, DNA barcoding uses a short genetic marker in an organism”s DNA to quickly and easily identify it to a particular species. Partial cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 sequences, which are used for barcoding animal species, were found to have limited value for species identification among black aspergilli. The various possibilities are discussed and at present partial β-tubulin or calmodulin are the most promising loci for Aspergillus identification. For characterising Aspergillus species one application would be to produce a multilocus phylogeny, with the goal of having a firm understanding of the evolutionary relationships among species across the entire genus. DNA chip technologies are discussed as possibilities for an accurate multilocus barcoding tool for the genus Aspergillus

Australian Aboriginal Ethnometeorology and Seasonal Calendars

This paper uses a cultural anthropological approach to investigate an indigenous Australian perspective on atmospheric phenomena and seasons, using data gained from historical records and ethnographic fieldwork. Aboriginal people believe that the forces driving the weather are derived from Creation Ancestors and spirits, asserting that short term changes are produced through ritual. By recognizing signals such as wind direction, rainfall, temperature change, celestial movements, animal behaviour and the flowering of plants, Aboriginal people are able to divide the year into seasons. Indigenous calendars vary widely across Australia and reflect annual changes within Aboriginal lifestyles

Search for gravitational waves from Scorpius X-1 in the second Advanced LIGO observing run with an improved hidden Markov model

We present results from a semicoherent search for continuous gravitational waves from the low-mass x-ray binary Scorpius X-1, using a hidden Markov model (HMM) to track spin wandering. This search improves on previous HMM-based searches of LIGO data by using an improved frequency domain matched filter, the J-statistic, and by analyzing data from Advanced LIGO's second observing run. In the frequency range searched, from 60 to 650 Hz, we find no evidence of gravitational radiation. At 194.6 Hz, the most sensitive search frequency, we report an upper limit on gravitational wave strain (at 95% confidence) of h095%=3.47×10-25 when marginalizing over source inclination angle. This is the most sensitive search for Scorpius X-1, to date, that is specifically designed to be robust in the presence of spin wandering. © 2019 American Physical Society

Erratum: "A Gravitational-wave Measurement of the Hubble Constant Following the Second Observing Run of Advanced LIGO and Virgo" (2021, ApJ, 909, 218)

[no abstract available