Expanding our horizons: an exploration of hominin landscape use in the Lower Palaeolithic of Britain and the question of upland home bases or lowland living sites.

The majority of Lower Palaeolithic assemblages are recovered from lowland fluvial locations, and hence most interpretation is based around these. It is clear, however, that these represent only a small fraction of the hominin landscape and this bias is potentially limiting our understanding of hominin organisation to only a single facet of behaviour. While recent authors have recognised the importance of upland sites, and other non-fluvial contexts, research is currently limited to highly specific studies (such as Boxgrove), and often fail to extend the purview to incorporate the wider landscape. Consequently we are still a long way from answering basic questions such as: how and why were hominids utilising particular locations? How, if at all, does behaviour respond to landscape context? Is the same pattern seen in continental Europe? This research applies a landscape approach to the British Palaeolithic, combining a technological, typological and chaîne opératoire methodology to determine assemblage signatures for a variety of landscape types (lowland riverine, lacustrine, grassland plains and uplands). An exploratory Geographical Information Systems (GIS)approach is applied to the upland study areas to gain a better understanding of settlement structuring and how behaviour responds to landscape context. The results are then considered in terms of behavioural variation, site choice, specialisation and provisioning across the landscape

Adoption of sulfuryl fluoride for the control of stored product insects in Europe and future development

The strong commitment to protect the ozone layer by European governments has resulted in the complete phase out of methyl bromide (MB) use in the flour mills and food processing plants. Following the phase out the industry has successfully adapted, maintained its production capacity, hygiene standards and economic viability. This has been achieved through increased focus on sanitation and utilizing alternatives control procedures such as fumigation with sulfuryl fluoride (SF) with the tradename ProFume containing 99.8%. The fumigation is frequently accompanied by additional heating. Recent research on stored product pest insects in treated flour mills confirmed long lasting control effects 8 to 12 weeks after the fumigation. ProFume gas fumigant is now established as an alternative fumigant to MB. It has been granted registration for the control of SPIs in structures in ten European countries. Since its first approval in 2003, the number of ProFume fumigations has increased each year. In 2008, over 200 fumigations were completed in Europe and due to performance satisfaction, the growth trend is expected to continue. A range of structures have been fumigated, some exceeding 60,000 m3 for flour mills and 100,000 m3 for food processing plants. Dow AgroSciences is continuing to invest in supporting SF to meet future regulatory requirements. In addition, label extensions are being developed on dried fruits and tree nuts, cocoa beans and quarantine pests. The original use of SF on wood boring insects is also supported and is now listed in Annex I of Biocide Directive 98/8 EC for product type 8

Gas leakage and distribution characteristics of methyl bromide and sulfuryl fluoride during fumigations in a pilot flour mill

The half-loss time (HLT) is used as an indicator to quantify gas leakage rates during methyl bromide (MB) and sulfuryl fluoride (SF) fumigations. Comparisons of HLTs between three MB and three SF fumigations were quantified in the Hal Ross pilot flour mill, Department of Grain Science and Industry, Kansas State University, USA. The sealing quality or gas tightness of the mill before each fumigation was verified by a pressurization test. Fumigant concentrations during the six fumigations were monitored continuously at 30 locations among the five mill floors during the 24 h fumigation period. A weather station on the mill roof monitored barometric pressure, wind speed and direction, temperature, and relative humidity. A data logger on each mill floor recorded temperature and relative humidity. The pressurization test showed that the relationship between airflow rate and building static pressure varied among the fumigations despite the same areas being sealed by two separate fumigation service providers due to environmental conditions not being identical among the fumigations. Concentrations of both fumigants within the mill ranged from 2 to 7 g/m³ . The observed HLTs for the MB and SF fumigations were in the range of 3.61 to 28.64 h and 9.97 to 31.65 h, respectively, and were inversely related only to wind speeds during fumigation and not any other environmental conditions recorded. In our study, the fumigant leakage rate was found to be predominantly a function of wind speed rather than inherent gas characteristics of MB and SF

Telepathy in contemporary, conceptual and performance art

This thesis investigates the impact of telepathy and psi on conceptual and performance art from 1968. Emerging from the author’s art practice, the thesis argues telepathy is a key leitmotif and creative concern within much post 60s art, and has become central to the practice of a number of contemporary video, performance and new media artists. This thesis is composed of two interrelated parts: an exhibition of the artwork by the author concerning telepathic processes, and a written project which uses the major themes of the exhibition to frame an historical study of a number of key contemporary artists whom, it is argued, work with telepathy. These artists, Jane and Louise Wilson, Suzanne Treister and Susan Hiller are discussed under the themes of ‘twinning and doubling,’ ‘technological mediums’ and ‘telepathy experiments’. These themes also overlap in the authors artwork, are introduced through an overarching analysis of the work of performance artist Marina Abramoviç and philosopher Jacques Derrida who, it is argued, provide a new model of telepathy as an art practice. In addition, the thesis argues that telepathy is an often suppressed thematic in art which may not appear to directly address it, and uses the work on the Wilsons, Treister and Hiller to re-look at other 20th Century artists and artistic themes in the light of the conclusions it draws on telepathy and art. Walter Benjamin greatly admired the Surrealists, but had virtually no time for their interest in telepathy, hypnosis and psi. Together with positive materialist misappropriations of Adorno’s Thesis Against Occultism, artistic and theoretical work with telepathy and psi has been sidelined from other important themes in art and critical theory, all of which telepathy and psi illuminate, energise and empower. The art of the author and other more recognised and established artists can be seen to work with telepathy in ways that flow into and reinforce the grain of progressive leftist practice and aesthetics. Women’s work with telepathy should be considered as important as women’s work with sexuality. Women, sexuality, Otherness, liminality, spirituality, telepathy, trauma, healing, radical politics, and other taboo areas of patriachal codes, were adandoned by macho participants of fluxus and Conceptual art. The recent conceptual and performance tilt in contemporary art sheds new light on the problem of working within and developing an effective and dynamic lineage of telepathy in post 60s art as well as early modern art movements. Contemporary developments in science, engineering, biology, psychoanalysis, warfare, popular culture and sociology show the wider relevance of discourse on telepathy. There is much at stake for visual art, aesthetics and visuality in representing, celebrating and interrogating the theme of psi and telepathy in current practice and art history. Artist's work with telepathy and psi, although not always explicitly psychological, political or aesthetic, is often very psychologically, politically and aesthetically effective

Time Machine GPT

Large language models (LLMs) are often trained on extensive, temporally indiscriminate text corpora, reflecting the lack of datasets with temporal metadata. This approach is not aligned with the evolving nature of language. Conventional methods for creating temporally adapted language models often depend on further pre-training static models on time-specific data. This paper presents a new approach: a series of point-in-time LLMs called Time Machine GPT (TiMaGPT), specifically designed to be nonprognosticative. This ensures they remain uninformed about future factual information and linguistic changes. This strategy is beneficial for understanding language evolution and is of critical importance when applying models in dynamic contexts, such as time-series forecasting, where foresight of future information can prove problematic. We provide access to both the models and training datasets

Efficacy of sulfuryl fluoride against the pinewood nematode, Bursaphelenchus xylophilus (Nematoda: Aphelenchidae), in Pinus pinaster boards

BACKGROUND: The pinewood nematode (PWN) Bursaphelenchus xylophilus is an important conifer disease worldwide. It is the direct cause of the death of millions of pines in south-east Asia (mainly Japan, China and Korea) and has been established in Portugal since 1999. The phasing out of methyl bromide has created an urgent need for alternative treatment of wood packaging materials. The effect of sulfuryl fluoride (SF), a broad-spectrum fumigant used to control insects, was tested in Pinus pinaster boards naturally infested by PWN. RESULTS: Boards were fumigated for 24 h at three different temperatures (15, 20 and 30 ◦ C) with dosage ranges of 3169 – 4407, 1901 – 4051 and 1385 – 2141 gh m−3 respectively. Treated wood was sampled for nematode identification and counting, before treatment and after 24 h, 72 h and 21 days. No survival was found in the 15 ◦ C and 30 ◦ C treatments, while at 20 ◦ C the mortality ranged from 94.06 to 100%. Some reasons for the survival at 20 ◦C are presented. CONCLUSION: Results confirm SF to be an effective quarantine treatment for PWN at 15 and 30 ◦ C. Further studies are needed to obtain the most effective dosage at 20 ◦ C, and to determine the toxicity of SF fumigation on B. xylophilus at other temperatures, especially at 25 ◦C. ⃝c 2013SocietyofChemicalIndustr