Quantifying Diachronic Variability: The 'Ain Difla rockshelter (Jordan) and the Evolution of Levantine Mousterian Technology

Condette Jean-François. RAYNAL Pierre, voir CHAUDRU de RAYNAL Pierre. In: , . Les recteurs d'académie en France de 1808 à 1940. Tome II, Dictionnaire biographique. Paris : Institut national de recherche pédagogique, 2006. p. 327. (Histoire biographique de l'enseignement, 12

The true cost of malaria – how to make the Asia-Pacific malaria free by 2030

[Extract] Strengthening a country's health system is one of the best ways to invest in human and economic development. For the Asia-Pacific, eliminating malaria is a particularly prudent investment, Geoff Clark writes. The link between the health of a society and the strength of its economy is clear. As documented in the influential report Global health 2035: a world converging within a generation, the returns on investing in health are impressive. Reductions in mortality account for about 11 per cent of recent economic growth in low-income and middle-income countries, as measured in their national income accounts. Between 2000 and 2011, about 24 per cent of the growth in full income in low-income and middle-income countries resulted from the value of additional life years gained

Arctic Ambitions The Photographs of the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition of 1881--1884 George W Rice Photographer

The Lady Franklin Bay Expedition of 1881--1884 to the polar arctic was one of the first U.S. government sponsored foreign expeditions to incorporate the new medium of photography. The official photographer George W. Rice produced over one hundred images recording the progress of the project, including the landscape, scientific work, artifacts and indigenous people. These served multiple functions of acquisition, publicity and propaganda to promote the American program of expanding its sphere of influence beyond the borders of the United States. This thesis is the first complete catalog of the Rice photographs, drawn from all of the known collections, annotated and placed in the context of nineteenth century arctic photography, polar exploration and American ambition

New radiocarbon dates from the Bapot-1 site in Saipan and Neolithic dispersal by stratified diffusion

The colonisation of the Mariana Islands in Western Micronesia is likely to represent an early ocean dispersal of more than 2000 km. Establishing the date of human arrival in the archipelago is important for modelling Neolithic expansion in Island Southeast Asia and the Pacific, particularly the role of long-distance dispersals. This paper presents new ¹⁴C results and a ΔR estimate from the Bapot-1 site on Saipan Island, which indicate human arrival at ca. 3400-3200 cal. BP. Archaeological chronologies of long-distance dispersal to Western Micronesia and the Lapita expansion (Bismarcks to Samoa) show that the Neolithic dispersal rate was increasing during the period ca. 3400-2900 cal. BP. The range-versus-time relationship is similar to stratified diffusion whereby a period of relatively slow expansion is succeeded by long-distance movement. An increase in new colonies created by long-distance migrants results in accelerating range expansion

Ephedrine requirements are reduced during spinal anaesthesia for caesarean section in preeclampsia

Part of the Portfolio Thesis by Geoffrey H. Sharwood-Smith: The inferior vena caval compression theory of hypotension in obstetric spinal anaesthesia: studies in normal and preeclamptic pregnancy, a literature review and revision of fundamental concepts, available at http://hdl.handle.net/10023/1815Background: Despite controversy over the haemodynamically safest blockade for caesarean section in women with severe preeclampsia, an increasing number of anaesthetists now opt for spinal anaesthesia. In a previous study we found that spinal compared to epidural anaesthesia offered an equally safe but more effective option for these patients. The current study was designed to compare the hypotension induced by spinal anaesthesia, as measured by ephedrine requirement, between 20 normotensive and 20 severely preeclamptic but haemodynamically stabilised women. Method: Standardised spinal anaesthesia was instituted and ephedrine was given in boluses of 6 mg if the systolic pressure fell >20% from the baseline, or if the patient exhibited symptoms of hypotension. Results: The mean ephedrine requirement of the normotensive group (27.9 ± 11.6 mg) was significantly greater (P < 0.01) than that of the preeclamptic group (16.4 ± 15.0 mg). Conclusion: This suggests that the hypotension induced by spinal anaesthesia in women with severe but haemodynamically stabilised preeclampsia, is less than that of normotensive patients.Publisher PD

The Colonisation of Palau: preliminary results from Angaur and Ulong

The prehistory of Palau and other parts of western Micronesia has recently become important to debates about the colonisation and pattern of cultural development in the west Pacific. The main reason for this has been the suggestion that the antiquity of human occupation there might be much earlier than has been thought (e.g. Masse 1990), ilnd well before the dispersal of Lapita culture from the Bismarck Archipelago to Samo,1, between 3300 and 2850 BP (Specht and Gosden 1998; Anderson and Clark 1999). Estimates for the settlement of the Marianas now start about -1800 years BP, with Palau occupied at 4500 BP and Yap probably before 3200 BP (Dodson <rnd Intoh 1999; Wickler 2001). These older than anticipated dates (e.g. Milsse 1990) are significant because they coincide approxunately with the spreild of a eolithic cultural complex in island South East Asia chilracterised by use of rice, pig and dog, manufacture of red-slipped or paddle-impressed cernmics, along with other distinctive portable artefacts that do not occur in pre-ceramic assemblc1ges of the region (Bellwood 2001 ). Direct evidence for the earliest settlement of the Marianas, Palau and Y<1p is, however, scarce, and has been largely inferred from the analysis of sediment cores which indicates anthropogenic activity eilrlier than the archaeological record In Palau these include the presence of charcoal particles, pollen from food plants like the giant swamp taro (Cyrtosperma clw111isso11is), and an increase in savannah plants at the expense of forest growth before 4000 BP (Athens and Ward 2001; Welch 2001). While the palaeoenv1ronmental results have furnished useful alternate colonisation chronologies there is a striking absence of early sites that allow us to identify either the origin and pattern of settlement m west Micronesia, or to investigate the colonisers' connection to early Austronesian movements in Island South East Asia and the Lapita dispersal in Near and Remote Oceania. This paper summarises recent investigations undertaken on the islands of Angaur and Ulong (Fig. l) aimed at recovering early cultural materials from Palau's sequence to clarify the archipelago's colonisation history. The earliest securely d,1ted and adequately reported cultural deposits from Palau date to rn. 2300 BP (Welch 2001), and several reasons for an absence of sites older than 2500 BP have been proposed

Archaeological Perpsectives on Conflict and Warfare in Australia and the Pacific

When James Boswell famously lamented the irrationality of war in 1777, he noted the universality of conflict across history and across space – even reaching what he described as the gentle and benign southern ocean nations. This volume discusses archaeological evidence of conflict from those southern oceans, from Palau and Guam, to Australia, Vanuatu and Tonga, the Marquesas, Easter Island and New Zealand. The evidence for conflict and warfare encompasses defensive earthworks on Palau, fortifications on Tonga, and intricate pa sites in New Zealand. It reports evidence of reciprocal sacrifice to appease deities in several island nations, and skirmishes and smaller scale conflicts, including in Easter Island. This volume traces aspects of colonial-era conflict in Australia and frontier battles in Vanuatu, and discusses depictions of World War II materiel in the rock art of Arnhem Land. Among the causes and motives discussed in these papers are pressure on resources, the ebb and flow of significant climate events, and the significant association of conflict with culture contact. The volume, necessarily selective, eclectic and wide-ranging, includes an incisive introduction that situates the evidence persuasively in the broader scholarship addressing the history of human warfare