Bridging the scales: model-driven integrative interpretation of archaeological and geophysical data.

Geophysical prospecting in wetland environments is continuously under debate because of the critical unstable environment, but at the same time the richness in cultural heritage. This thesis is part of the interdisciplinary project SFB 1266 of the CRC ‘Scales of transformation’ at Kiel University, which focuses on reconstructing the prehistoric landscape transformation during human occupation. It aims to examine the potential for conventional geophysical survey methods (resistivity, ground penetrating radar and seismics) as site prospection and landscape investigation tools in peatland environments. Two case studies are presented in which multi-geophysical investigations have been performed and validated by archaeological excavations and stratigraphic information. Kettle holes are common ice decay features in formerly glacial landscapes like those in Southern Scandinavia and Northern Germany. In 2017 the Horsens Museum (Denmark) carried out a rescue excavation at Tyrsted which revealed Late Palaeolithic flint of the Bromme type (12.000-11.000 BCE) and worked reindeer antlers. Nowadays, the organic artefact inventory from the Bromme culture is largely unknown due to the scarcity of organic remains and the general lack of proper stratigraphic observations. The available dates concentrate in the (late) Allerød and early Younger Dryas chronozones, but unfortunately most of these dating are tentative only. Therefore, this connection in a Late Glacial horizon at Tyrsted is unique and it has the potential to provide new information in the current archaeological debate. The aim is to investigate a small kettle hole (site 8) using ground penetrating radar (GPR), electromagnetic induction (EMI) and electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) to estimate the extension of the feature. Shear wave reflection and refraction seismics (SH Seismics) were able to detect the whole shape and the bottom sediment of the former lake. Furthermore a seismic event is visible which can be associated to the transition between the Allerød and Younger Dryas sediment making the detection of the Bromme horizon possible. After the non invasive investigation, a location for an open excavation has been chosen in a way to groundtruth the geophysical results allowing the direct comparison with the stratigraphy. These results allow the archaeologists to identify key excavation areas focused on the investigation of the Allerød and Younger Dryas layers in a way to improve the dating information about the Bromme horizon collected so far. At the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers site of Duvensee (10000-6500 BCE) a multi methodological investigation has been carried out too, aiming to reconstruct the ancient landscape during human occupation. GPR, ERT and SH-Seismic have been performed together with corings, DP-EC logs and soil analyses as well for ground-truthing. It turned out that each method is able to distinguish between sediments that differ in grain size, in particular between peat, lake sediment (gyttjas and clay) and basal glacial sand deposits. GPR delivered the location of five former small sand hills that formed islands in the prehistoric lake where clusters of Mesolithic camps have been found. This study delivers depth maps of the three most important sedimentary facies interfaces and a 3D model of the spatio-temporal development of the Duvensee bog which agrees with the spatio-temporal pattern of the previous archaeological finds. GPR is even able to separate between high and low decomposed peat layers which is also clear considering resistivity variations in the ERT computation. From the association between geophysical properties and soil analyses (e.g. water content and organic matter) different gyttjas were distinguished and sismic velocity was correlated to bulk density. Values concerning electrical resistivity, dielectric permittivity, and shear wave velocity have been determined for each sediment and are therefore available to complete and improve the investigation of wetland environments. Both geophysical measurements and sediment analyses presented in this study can finally be useful to map lake sediments in wetland environments offering a potential to shape the common debate regarding wetland heritage management. This thesis concludes that geophysical prospection contributes to wetland archaeology as a tool for site detection and landscape interpretation. Future research should aim to further our understanding of the relationship between geophysical response and peatland soil properties, alongside a more extensive program of surveys and ground-truthing work to improve survey methodologies and archaeological interpretations

Starting to fill the gaps of the Selinus geophysical map

We analyze ground-penetrating radar (GPR) data which was recorded in the tight confined spaces of an overgrown sand dune. The topography of the dune has the same scale as the penetration depth. We developed a 3D topographic migration algorithm and enable the generation and interpretation of layer parallel depth slices

Adaptations and transformations of hunter-gatherers in forest environments: New archaeological and anthropological insights

Like any other living being, humans constantly influence their environment, be it intentionally or unintentionally. By extracting natural resources, they shape their environment and also that of plants and other animals. A great difference setting people apart from all other living beings is the ability to construct and develop their own niche intentionally, and the unique tool for this is cultural behaviour. Here, we discuss anthropogenic environmental changes of hunter-gatherers and present new palaeoecological and palynological data. The studies are framed with ethnoarchaeological data from Western Siberia to gain a better understanding of how different triggers lead to coping mechanisms. For archaeological implication, we use two Mesolithic case studies from Germany: One of them focuses on hazelnut economy around ancient Lake Duvensee, and the other broaches the issue of selective roe deer hunt and its consequences at the site of Friesack. We address the archaeological evidence from the perspective of active alteration and its consequences, starting our argumentation from a perspective of niche construction theory. This approach has rarely been applied to early Holocene hunter-gatherers in Northern Europe even though the available data render possible to discuss human–environment interaction from such a perspective. It is demonstrated that archaeological research has tools at hand that enables to detect anthropogenic niche construction. However, the ethnoarchaeological example shows limitations and archaeologically invisible triggers and consequent results of human adaptations. The critical revision of such perspectives based on empirical data provides a better understanding of social and environmental transformations in the early- and mid-Holocene

Do all critically ill patients with COVID-19 disease benefit from adding tocilizumab to glucocorticoids? A retrospective cohort study.

Background: Treatment guidelines recommend the tocilizumab use in patients with a CRP of >7.5 mg/dL. We aimed to estimate the causal effect of glucocorticoids + tocilizumab on mortality overall and after stratification for PaO2/FiO2 ratio and CRP levels. Methods: This was an observational cohort study of patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia. The primary endpoint was day 28 mortality. Survival analysis was conducted to estimate the conditional and average causal effect of glucocorticoids + tocilizumab vs. glucocorticoids alone using Kaplan–Meier curves and Cox regression models with a time-varying variable for the intervention. The hypothesis of the existence of effect measure modification by CRP and PaO2/FiO2 ratio was tested by including an interaction term in the model. Results: In total, 992 patients, median age 69 years, 72.9% males, 597 (60.2%) treated with monotherapy, and 395 (31.8%), adding tocilizumab upon respiratory deterioration, were included. At BL, the two groups differed for median values of CRP (6 vs. 7 mg/dL; p 7.5 mg/dL prior to treatment initiation and the largest effect for a CRP > 15 mg/dL. Large randomized studies are needed to establish an exact cut-off for clinical use

Reliability assessment of ultrasound muscle echogenicity in patients with rheumatic diseases: Results of a multicenter international web-based study

ObjectivesTo investigate the inter/intra-reliability of ultrasound (US) muscle echogenicity in patients with rheumatic diseases.MethodsForty-two rheumatologists and 2 radiologists from 13 countries were asked to assess US muscle echogenicity of quadriceps muscle in 80 static images and 20 clips from 64 patients with different rheumatic diseases and 8 healthy subjects. Two visual scales were evaluated, a visual semi-quantitative scale (0–3) and a continuous quantitative measurement (“VAS echogenicity,” 0–100). The same assessment was repeated to calculate intra-observer reliability. US muscle echogenicity was also calculated by an independent research assistant using a software for the analysis of scientific images (ImageJ). Inter and intra reliabilities were assessed by means of prevalence-adjusted bias-adjusted Kappa (PABAK), intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and correlations through Kendall’s Tau and Pearson’s Rho coefficients.ResultsThe semi-quantitative scale showed a moderate inter-reliability [PABAK = 0.58 (0.57–0.59)] and a substantial intra-reliability [PABAK = 0.71 (0.68–0.73)]. The lowest inter and intra-reliability results were obtained for the intermediate grades (i.e., grade 1 and 2) of the semi-quantitative scale. “VAS echogenicity” showed a high reliability both in the inter-observer [ICC = 0.80 (0.75–0.85)] and intra-observer [ICC = 0.88 (0.88–0.89)] evaluations. A substantial association was found between the participants assessment of the semi-quantitative scale and “VAS echogenicity” [ICC = 0.52 (0.50–0.54)]. The correlation between these two visual scales and ImageJ analysis was high (tau = 0.76 and rho = 0.89, respectively).ConclusionThe results of this large, multicenter study highlighted the overall good inter and intra-reliability of the US assessment of muscle echogenicity in patients with different rheumatic diseases

Understanding Wetlands Stratigraphy: Geophysics and Soil Parameters for Investigating Ancient Basin Development at Lake Duvensee

We present a case study of a bog showing how an integrated approach of multi-method geophysical sounding and local soil sampling can be used to identify, differentiate, and map organic sediments. Our study is based on ground-penetrating radar (GPR), electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) and shear-wave seismic (SH seismic) profiling applied to sediments of the former Lake Duvensee (northern Germany), nowadays a bog. This is a well-known locality for remains from the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers’ occupation that has been attracting archaeological and geoarchaeological research for100 years. The bog is embedded in low conductive glacial sand and is characterized by layers of different gyttja sediments (detritus and calcareous). The present study was conducted in order to identify the bog morphology and the thickness of the peat body and lake sediments, in order to understand the basin evolution. To validate the geophysical results, derived from surface measurements, drilling, soil analyses as well as borehole guided wave analysis of electromagnetic waves and Direct-Push (DP-EC) have been carried out and used for comparison. It turned out that each method can distinguish between sediments that differ in grain size, particularly between peat, lake sediments (gyttjas and mud) and basal glacial sand deposits. GPR is even able to separate between strongly and weakly decomposed peat layers, which is also clear considering resistivity variations in the ERT computation. From the association between geophysical properties and sediment analysis (e.g., water content and organic matter) different gyttjas were distinguished (coarse and fine) and seismic velocity was correlated to bulk density. Moreover, GPR and SH-wave seismics present different resolutions, confirming that the latter allows measurements, which are more focused on determining the extension of basal sand deposits, the depth of which is difficult to reach with GPR. Representative values of electrical resistivity, dielectric permittivity, and shear wave velocity have been determined for each sediment type and are therefore available to complete the investigation of wetland environments. Fine grained lake sediments were difficult to differentiate by the applied methods. This could be a result of high ionic concentration within the permanent groundwater body, partly masking the sediment properties

Place promotion, place branding and social media communication around entrepreneurial ecosystems: a Twitter analysis

We discuss the use of social media communication for place promotion and place branding of entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs). As places resting on the advantages of co-location for entrepreneurial activity, EEs offer a novel testbed for the co-creation of a place image in the virtual space of social media. By exploring almost 370,000 tweets from Twitter across 20 European EEs, we observe virtual spaces of EEs being broadly used to share positive messages about the place. However, no EE stands out with a unique image evoking symbolic associations with the place in target audiences. Our results suggest the presence of place promotion more than place branding

Place promotion, place branding and social media communication around entrepreneurial ecosystems: a Twitter analysis

We discuss the use of social media communication for place promotion and place branding of entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs). As places resting on the advantages of co-location for entrepreneurial activity, EEs offer a novel testbed for the co-creation of a place image in the virtual space of social media. By exploring almost 370,000 tweets from Twitter across 20 European EEs, we observe virtual spaces of EEs being broadly used to share positive messages about the place. However, no EE stands out with a unique image evoking symbolic associations with the place in target audiences. The results suggest the presence of place promotion more than place branding.</p