Middle Neolithic farming of open-air sites in SE France: new insights from archaeobotanical investigations of three wells found at Les Bagnoles (L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, Dépt. Vaucluse, France)

Previous reviews of Middle Neolithic agricultural practice (4400–3500 cal bc) in southern France have highlighted a change in crop assemblages after 4000 cal bc, with a reduction of naked wheat and an increase of emmer and partly of einkorn. The recent investigation of three wells from the site of Les Bagnoles (4250–3800 cal bc) in the periphery of the southern Rhône valley yielded an unprecedented amount of waterlogged uncharred and charred plant macro remains that offer new insights into crop diversity and its changes over time. The results from the wells at Les Bagnoles were compared with other dated sunken features from open-air sites (in contrast to caves and rock shelters), with the aim of identifying patterns sug-gesting changes in the crop spectra between the early (MN1) and late (MN2) Middle Neolithic phases from taphonomically comparable contexts. The results from Les Bagnoles demonstrate that oil crops and pulses are underrepresented in dry sites and that they were a significant part of Middle Neolithic agriculture. They also indicate an increase in the representation of einkorn (instead of emmer) during MN2 that is also visible in other open-air sites. The comparison of the archaeobotani-cal results with silo storage capacity values as a proxy for average production capacity per household leads us to propose a possible drop in naked wheat productivity and opens new questions in factors affecting crop choice at the beginning of the 4th millennium cal bc

Realistic performance prediction in nanostructured solar cells as a function of nanostructure dimensionality and density

The behavior of quantum dot, quantum wire, and quantum well InAs/GaAs solar cells is studied with a very simplified model based on experimental results in order to assess their performance as a function of the low bandgap material volume fraction fLOW. The efficiency of structured devices is found to exceed the efficiency of a non-structured GaAs cell, in particular under concentration, when fLOW is high; this condition is easier to achieve with quantum wells. If three different quasi Fermi levels appear with quantum dots the efficiency can be much higher

Towards the periodization of the uses of Can Sadurní Cave (Begues, Catalonia) during the Middle Neolithic I. The contribution of bayesian modelling to radiocarbon dating sequences

Excavations at Can Sadurní Cave since 2012 have uncovered a complex stratigraphy for the Middle Neolithic phase (ca. 4700-4000 cal. BC). This was not in agreement with our expectations from the previous excavation of a trial trench, where only 4 layers (10, 10b,11 and 11b) were uncovered. After excavating a funerary layer with several in situ burials and further deposits containing multiple layers of burnt dung (fumier), the stratigraphy was revised and 5 episodes within layer 11 were detected. It became necessary to find a tool to refine the chronological sequence of these uses, under the premise that it is unlikely that the cave was used as a funerary area and a byre at the same time. Bayesian modelling allowed distinguishing these two phases, establishing an earlier use of the cave for animal herding purposes (ca. 4700-4450 cal. BC) and a funerary use of the cave in a more recent period (ca. 4400-4200 cal. BC)

Validation of the ‘Test of the Adherence to Inhalers’ (TAI) for Asthma and COPD Patients

Background: To validate the ‘Test of Adherence to Inhalers’ (TAI), a 12-item questionnaire designed to assess the adherence to inhalers in patients with COPD or asthma. Methods: A total of 1009 patients with asthma or COPD participated in a cross-sectional multicenter study. Patients with electronic adherence ≥80% were defined as adherents. Construct validity, internal validity, and criterion validity were evaluated. Self-reported adherence was compared with the Morisky-Green questionnaire. Results: Factor analysis study demonstrated two factors, factor 1 was coincident with TAI patient domain (items 1 to 10) and factor 2 with TAI health-care professional domain (items 11 and 12). The Cronbach's alpha was 0.860 and the test-retest reliability 0.883. TAI scores correlated with electronic adherence (ρ=0.293, p=0.01). According to the best cut-off for 10 items (score 50, area under the ROC curve 0.7), 569 (62.5%) patients were classified as non-adherents. The non-adherence behavior pattern was: erratic 527 (57.9%), deliberate 375 (41.2%), and unwitting 242 (26.6%) patients. As compared to Morisky-Green test, TAI showed better psychometric properties. Conclusions: The TAI is a reliable and homogeneous questionnaire to identify easily non-adherence and to classify from a clinical perspective the barriers related to the use of inhalers in asthma and COPD

Mashes to Mashes, Crust to Crust. Presenting a novel microstructural marker for malting in the archaeological record

The detection of direct archaeological remains of alcoholic beverages and their production is still a challenge to archaeological science, as most of the markers known up to now are either not durable or diagnostic enough to be used as secure proof. The current study addresses this question by experimental work reproducing the malting processes and subsequent charring of the resulting products under laboratory conditions in order to simulate their preservation (by charring) in archaeological contexts and to explore the preservation of microstructural alterations of the cereal grains. The experimentally germinated and charred grains showed clearly degraded (thinned) aleurone cell walls. The histological alterations of the cereal grains were observed and quantified using reflected light and scanning electron microscopy and supported using morphometric and statistical analyses. In order to verify the experimental observations of histological alterations, amorphous charred objects (ACO) containing cereal remains originating from five archaeological sites dating to the 4th millennium BCE were considered: two sites were archaeologically recognisable brewing installations from Predynastic Egypt, while the three broadly contemporary central European lakeshore settlements lack specific contexts for their cereal-based food remains. The aleurone cell wall thinning known from food technological research and observed in our own experimental material was indeed also recorded in the archaeological finds. The Egyptian materials derive from beer production with certainty, supported by ample contextual and artefactual data. The Neolithic lakeshore settlement finds currently represent the oldest traces of malting in central Europe, while a bowl-shaped bread-like object from Hornstaad– Ho¨ rnle possibly even points towards early beer production in central Europe. One major further implication of our study is that the cell wall breakdown in the grain’s aleurone layer can be used as a general marker for malting processes with relevance to a wide range of charred archaeological finds of cereal products

On commensurable hyperbolic Coxeter groups

For Coxeter groups acting non-cocompactly but with finite covolume on real hyperbolic space Hn, new methods are presented to distinguish them up to (wide) commensurability. We exploit these ideas and determine the commensurability classes of all hyperbolic Coxeter groups whose fundamental polyhedra are pyramids over a product of two simplices of positive dimensions