A study of the client kings in the early Roman period

When the city-state of Rome began to exert her influence throughout the Mediterranean, the ruling classes developed friendships and alliances with the rulers of the various kingdoms with whom contact was made. During the great military struggles which heralded the end of the republic, it became clear that the general who could count on the clientship of the powerful kingdoms within Rome’s sphere of influence would have a decided advantage over less fortunate rivals. Moreover when Octavian, later Augustus, became the sole ruler of the Roman world after the battle of Actuim, these client kingdoms were an important factor in the defence of the Roman Empire, and Octavian insisted that their kings became personal clients of the emperor. Augustus saw beyond the former uses of these kings, as military supporters in battles fro supremacy, and realized their full potential to a unified empire – some client states he used as buffers against more remote hostile nations, others protected trade routes and others maintained a sense of national identity, whilst introducing the Pax Augusta to their troublesome subjects. At the same time the emperor realized the annexation of some of these kingdoms was necessary and desirable, and so the gradual transformation of kingdoms into provinces began. Augustus' successors found that their predecessor, who had inherited so many small but potentially powerful clients, had set a good example in dealing with them. The Julio-Claudians and Flavians continued the process of romanization and annexation, and new clients were only contemplated when the legions needed support or a respite from warfare; only in Armenia did the clientship pose problems. Trajan, the warrior-emperor, was the first to attempt to annex all his clients and his failure showed the wisdom of Augustus' settlement - a settlement which lasted for several centuries

A novel approach for exploring climatic factors limiting current pest distributions: A case study of Bemisia tabaci in north-west Europe and assessment of potential future establishment in the United Kingdom under climate change

This is the final version. Available on open access from Public Library of Science via the DOI in this recordData Availability: All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files.Bemisia tabaci (the tobacco whitefly) is an important agricultural pest of global significance primarily because of its ability to transmit multiple damaging plant viruses. To date, UK outbreaks of the whitefly have been restricted to glasshouses and there are no records of the whitefly establishing outdoors during the summer. This is despite the fact that annual degree-day models (that estimate accumulated warmth over the year above the development threshold), indicate that B. tabaci has the thermal potential for multiple summer generations in the UK. A set of 49 climate indices calculated using the present day climate (1986–2015) were therefore compared between the UK and the south of France, where B. tabaci is able to establish outdoors, to identify the factors limiting its establishment. The number of cold days and nights in summer, as well as the time spent within the whitefly’s optimum temperature range, were most significantly different between the two areas. These indices may impact the development of B. tabaci and offer an explanation for the absence of the whitefly outdoors in the UK during the summer. Further analyses undertaken with climate projections suggest that in a 2–4°C warmer world this pest could pose a risk to outdoor UK crops in July and August. A clear south-north gradient can be demonstrated for these indices. Linking any possible northwards spread of B. tabaci populations outdoors in France with changes in these indices could therefore provide an important indicator of any change in the risks of outdoor populations of this species developing in the UK. The effectiveness of climate indices in pest risk analysis is compellingly demonstrated, and it is recommended that in-depth comparisons of climatic indices between areas of pest presence and absence are conducted in other situations where forecasting the risks of pest establishment are complex and challenging.Joint UK BEIS/Defra Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programm

Unsustainable anthropogenic mortality threatens the long-term viability of lion populations in Mozambique

Anthropogenic mortality is a pervasive threat to global biodiversity. African lions (Panthera leo) are particularly vulnerable to these threats due to their wide-ranging behaviour and substantial energetic requirements, which typically conflict with human activities, often resulting in population declines and even extirpations. Mozambique supports the 7th largest lion population in Africa, which is recovering from decades of warfare, while ongoing conflicts and broad-scale socio-economic fragility continue to threaten these populations. Moreover, there are concerns that Mozambique represents a regional hotspot for targeted poaching of lions which fuels a transnational illegal wildlife trade. This study aimed to quantify the longitudinal impact of anthropogenic mortality on lion populations in Mozambique. Using national population estimates and monitoring records, we performed forward simulation population viability modelling incorporating detection-dependent population trends and varying scales of anthropogenic mortality. Between 2010–2023, 326 incidents of anthropogenic mortality involving 426 lions were recorded. Bushmeat bycatch and targeted poaching for body parts were the greatest proximate causes of lion mortality (i.e., 53% of incidents), increasing significantly over time and acting as cryptic suppressors of regional population recovery, followed by legal trophy hunting (i.e., 33%), and retaliatory killing (i.e., 13%). Our findings suggest that resilience to anthropogenic threats is largely a function of lion population size as well as resource and management capacity. For instance, projections suggest that the lion population in Niassa Special Reserve will likely remain stable despite comparatively high levels of anthropogenic mortality, although further escalation may precipitate decline. Conversely, the lion population in Limpopo National Park is projected to become extirpated by 2030 without the buffering effect of its neighbouring source population in Kruger National Park. These unsustainable levels of anthropogenic mortality threaten the long-term viability of lion populations in Mozambique, requiring urgent national-level action and public-private partnerships to support site security, monitoring, and policy enforcement

Selection analysis identifies unusual clustered mutational changes in Omicron lineage BA.1 that likely impact Spike function.

Among the 30 non-synonymous nucleotide substitutions in the Omicron S-gene are 13 that have only rarely been seen in other SARS-CoV-2 sequences. These mutations cluster within three functionally important regions of the S-gene at sites that will likely impact (i) interactions between subunits of the Spike trimer and the predisposition of subunits to shift from down to up configurations, (ii) interactions of Spike with ACE2 receptors, and (iii) the priming of Spike for membrane fusion. We show here that, based on both the rarity of these 13 mutations in intrapatient sequencing reads and patterns of selection at the codon sites where the mutations occur in SARS-CoV-2 and related sarbecoviruses, prior to the emergence of Omicron the mutations would have been predicted to decrease the fitness of any genomes within which they occurred. We further propose that the mutations in each of the three clusters therefore cooperatively interact to both mitigate their individual fitness costs, and adaptively alter the function of Spike. Given the evident epidemic growth advantages of Omicron over all previously known SARS-CoV-2 lineages, it is crucial to determine both how such complex and highly adaptive mutation constellations were assembled within the Omicron S-gene, and why, despite unprecedented global genomic surveillance efforts, the early stages of this assembly process went completely undetected

Poverty and 'Second Economy' in South Africa: An Attempt to Clarify Applicable Concepts and Quantify Extent of Relevant Challenges

In brief, the paper firstly summarises old and new theoretical and technical issues on measuring poverty, secondly analyses poverty from different perspectives and highlights various research findings on poverty trends in South Africa and thirdly clarifies the notion of "second economy" and attempts to "measure" it

Conserving the World’s Megafauna and Biodiversity: The Fierce Urgency of Now

Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society Oregon State UniversityDesert Ecology Research Group of the School of Biological Sciences University of SydneyCentre for Integrative Ecology School of Life and Environmental Sciences Deakin UniversitySchool of Environmental and Forest Sciences University of WashingtonDepartment of Ecology Swedish University of Agricultural SciencesResearch Unit of Biodiversity Oviedo UniversityInstitute of Zoology Zoological Society of LondonWildlife Conservation Research Unit of the Department of Zoology University of Oxford and the Recanati-Kaplan CentrePantheraDepartment of Zoology and Entomology University of PretoriaSchool of Life Sciences University of KwaZulu-NatalWildlife Conservation Society New YorkSchool of Natural Sciences University of StirlingIUCN Species Survival Commission's African Elephant Specialist IUCN Eastern and Southern African Regional OfficeSchool of Environment and Natural Resources Ohio State UniversitySchool of Geography School of Environmental and Geographical Sciences University of Nottingham Malaysia CampusCenter for Integrative Conservation of the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden Chinese Academy of SciencesDepartment of Geography University of Victoria and the Raincoast Conservation FoundationDepartment of Biology at Stanford UniversityDepartment of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology University of CaliforniaCentre for African Conservation Ecology Nelson Mandela UniversitySchool of Biological Science and the School of Environment Natural Resources Geography at Bangor UniversityCentre for Wildlife Management University of PretoriaDepartamento de Ecologia Universidade Estadual PaulistaDepartment of Bioscience Ecoinformatics and Biodiversity Aarhus UniversityWildlife Conservation Society India ProgramInternational Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Species Survival CommissionCentre for Ecosystem Science University of New South WalesDepartment of Fisheries and Wildlife Oregon State UniversityWorld Wildlife Fund-USDepartment of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Princeton UniversitySchool of Life Sciences University of SussexNicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences Duke UniversityNelson Institute for Environmental Studies University of WisconsinSchool of Forest Resources and Environmental Science Michigan Technological UniversityCentre for Compassionate Conservation School of Life Sciences University of TechnologyInstitute of Ecology Beijing Normal UniversityDepartamento de Ecologia Universidade Estadual Paulist

Cognitive Profile of Students Who Enter Higher Education with an Indication of Dyslexia

For languages other than English there is a lack of empirical evidence about the cognitive profile of students entering higher education with a diagnosis of dyslexia. To obtain such evidence, we compared a group of 100 Dutch-speaking students diagnosed with dyslexia with a control group of 100 students without learning disabilities. Our study showed selective deficits in reading and writing (effect sizes for accuracy between d = 1 and d = 2), arithmetic (d≈1), and phonological processing (d>0.7). Except for spelling, these deficits were larger for speed related measures than for accuracy related measures. Students with dyslexia also performed slightly inferior on the KAIT tests of crystallized intelligence, due to the retrieval of verbal information from long-term memory. No significant differences were observed in the KAIT tests of fluid intelligence. The profile we obtained agrees with a recent meta-analysis of English findings suggesting that it generalizes to all alphabetic languages. Implications for special arrangements for students with dyslexia in higher education are outlined

The Anxious and the Climbers: Ambivalent Attitudes Towards Democracy Among South Africa's Middle Class

Beyond the hopes placed in Africa's emergent middle class as an engine of economic growth, some analysts see this group as a bastion of political stability and enduring democratisation across the continent. This paper's approach differs from that of most studies, which treat the middle class as a homogeneous group, through two key contributions. First, using cluster analysis, I propose a novel way of conceptualising social class that broadly draws on the Weberian idea of shared life chances. I apply this method to South Africa and identify five social classes characterised by their members' living standards, overall life satisfaction, and self-perceived upward mobility. Second, the empirical analysis reveals significant discrepancies in attitudes towards democracy between the downwardly and upwardly mobile strata of the middle class, which I term the "anxious" and the "climbers", respectively. On the one hand, the "climbers" show the highest generic support for democracy as a form of government, whereas the "anxious" middle class displays feelings of resignation. On the other hand, I find indicative evidence of a status-quo bias among the "climbers". Rather than assuming a more demanding or critical stance in politics, they allow their political priorities to be at least partly shaped by an interest in securing and expanding attained living standards; being upwardly mobile is even associated with a higher tolerance for government attempts to constrain freedom of information, opinion, or expression

The evolving SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Africa: insights from rapidly expanding genomic surveillance

Investment in SARS-CoV-2 sequencing in Africa over the past year has led to a major increase in the number of sequences generated, now exceeding 100,000 genomes, used to track the pandemic on the continent. Our results show an increase in the number of African countries able to sequence domestically, and highlight that local sequencing enables faster turnaround time and more regular routine surveillance. Despite limitations of low testing proportions, findings from this genomic surveillance study underscore the heterogeneous nature of the pandemic and shed light on the distinct dispersal dynamics of Variants of Concern, particularly Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron, on the continent. Sustained investment for diagnostics and genomic surveillance in Africa is needed as the virus continues to evolve, while the continent faces many emerging and re-emerging infectious disease threats. These investments are crucial for pandemic preparedness and response and will serve the health of the continent well into the 21st century