Digging Digitally: Creating a More Dynamic Archaeological Field Journal Archive

As the daily record of observations, the field journal always has been central to the archaeological process. Yet in recent decades, these important texts have been ignored in the rush to create digital artifact archives. This project, which builds upon software designed to manage the field books at the Ohio State University Excavations at Isthmia, will correct this oversight by enabling a community of scholars to use scans of the hand written texts to link electronically the disparate forms of evidence that make up the archaeological record. Also, this project will determine the best equipment and practices to allow archaeologists to utilize a digital notebook archive in their research. The result will be an inexpensive, multi-platform, and open source system that can be adapted by other scholars to simplify and enhance research in any field of humanities research that depends upon hand written documents as a primary source of evidence

Challenges and opportunities for agroforestry practitioners to participate in state preferential property tax programs for agriculture and forestry

All 50 states offer preferential property tax programs that lower the taxes paid on enrolled agricultural and/or forest lands. While agroforestry is a land-use that combines elements of both agriculture and forestry, eligibility criteria and other rules and regulations may prevent landowners from enrolling agroforestry practices in one or more of the agricultural and forestry tax programs. This pilot-scale study developed conceptual and methodological frameworks to identify the current barriers to and opportunities in preferential tax policies applicable to agroforestry practices. We conducted an extensive review of state preferential property tax programs relevant for agroforestry practices, following focus group discussions with regional experts in five selected states across the United States: North Carolina, Nebraska, Wisconsin, New York, and Oregon. Based on a systematic review of statutes and their supporting documents, we developed a database of programs, which support or create barriers to enrollment of agroforestry practitioners into the programs. We found that agricultural tax assessments were more likely to favor multi-use agriculture and forestry systems than the preferential tax assessments of forestlands in the five states. Forest farming and silvopasture, followed by alley cropping, windbreaks, and riparian forest buffers, were found to be the most common agroforestry practices allowed under preferential tax classifications in the study states. This study provides a framework for cataloging and analyzing preferential property tax-programs to document barriers and facilitators to agroforestry practices in the United States

Reconstructing Single Field Inflationary Actions From CMBR Data

This paper describes a general program for deriving the action of single field inflation models with nonstandard kinetic energy terms using CMBR power spectrum data. This method assumes that an action depends on a set of undetermined functions, each of which is a function of either the inflaton wave function or its time derivative. The scalar, tensor and non-gaussianity of the curvature perturbation spectrum are used to derive a set of reconstruction equations whose solution set can specify up to three of the undetermined functions. The method is then used to find the undetermined functions in various types of actions assuming power law type scalar and tensor spectra. In actions that contain only two unknown functions, the third reconstruction equation implies a consistency relation between the non-gaussianty, sound speed and slow roll parameters. In particular we focus on reconstructing a generalized DBI action with an unknown potential and warp factor. We find that for realistic scalar and tensor spectra, the reconstructed warp factor and potential are very similar to the theoretically derived result. Furthermore, physical consistency of the reconstructed warp factor and potential imposes strict constraints on the scalar and tensor spectral indices.Comment: 33 pages, 3 figures: v3 - References adde

Scope for Credit Risk Diversification

This paper considers a simple model of credit risk and derives the limit distribution of losses under different assumptions regarding the structure of systematic risk and the nature of exposure or firm heterogeneity. We derive fat-tailed correlated loss distributions arising from Gaussian risk factors and explore the potential for risk diversification. Where possible the results are generalised to non-Gaussian distributions. The theoretical results indicate that if the firm parameters are heterogeneous but come from a common distribution, for sufficiently large portfolios there is no scope for further risk reduction through active portfolio management. However, if the firm parameters come from different distributions, then further risk reduction is possible by changing the portfolio weights. In either case, neglecting parameter heterogeneity can lead to underestimation of expected losses. But, once expected losses are controlled for, neglecting parameter heterogeneity can lead to overestimation of risk, whether measured by unexpected loss or value-at-risk

Protocadherin-18 Is a Novel Differentiation Marker and an Inhibitory Signaling Receptor for CD8+ Effector Memory T Cells

CD8+ tumor infiltrating T cells (TIL) lack effector-phase functions due to defective proximal TCR-mediated signaling previously shown to result from inactivation of p56lck kinase. We identify a novel interacting partner for p56lck in nonlytic TIL, Protocadherin-18 (‘pcdh18’), and show that pcdh18 is transcribed upon in vitro or in vivo activation of all CD8+ central memory T cells (CD44+CD62LhiCD127+) coincident with conversion into effector memory cells (CD44+CD62LloCD127+). Expression of pcdh18 in primary CD8+ effector cells induces the phenotype of nonlytic TIL: defective proximal TCR signaling, cytokine secretion, and cytolysis, and enhanced AICD. pcdh18 contains a motif (centered at Y842) shared with src kinases (QGQYQP) that is required for the inhibitory phenotype. Thus, pcdh18 is a novel activation marker of CD8+ memory T cells that can function as an inhibitory signaling receptor and restrict the effector phase

Trust and Reciprocity: Are Effort and Money Equivalent?

Trust and reciprocity facilitate cooperation and are relevant to virtually all human interactions. They are typically studied using trust games: one subject gives (entrusts) money to another subject, which may return some of the proceeds (reciprocate). Currently, however, it is unclear whether trust and reciprocity in monetary transactions are similar in other settings, such as physical effort. Trust and reciprocity of physical effort are important as many everyday decisions imply an exchange of physical effort, and such exchange is central to labor relations. Here we studied a trust game based on physical effort and compared the results with those of a computationally equivalent monetary trust game. We found no significant difference between effort and money conditions in both the amount trusted and the quantity reciprocated. Moreover, there is a high positive correlation in subjects' behavior across conditions. This suggests that trust and reciprocity may be character traits: subjects that are trustful/trustworthy in monetary settings behave similarly during exchanges of physical effort. Our results validate the use of trust games to study exchanges in physical effort and to characterize inter-subject differences in trust and reciprocity, and also suggest a new behavioral paradigm to study these differences

Varespladib and cardiovascular events in patients with an acute coronary syndrome: the VISTA-16 randomized clinical trial

IMPORTANCE: Secretory phospholipase A2(sPLA2) generates bioactive phospholipid products implicated in atherosclerosis. The sPLA2inhibitor varespladib has favorable effects on lipid and inflammatory markers; however, its effect on cardiovascular outcomes is unknown. OBJECTIVE: To determine the effects of sPLA2inhibition with varespladib on cardiovascular outcomes. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: A double-blind, randomized, multicenter trial at 362 academic and community hospitals in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, India, and North America of 5145 patients randomized within 96 hours of presentation of an acute coronary syndrome (ACS) to either varespladib (n = 2572) or placebo (n = 2573) with enrollment between June 1, 2010, and March 7, 2012 (study termination on March 9, 2012). INTERVENTIONS: Participants were randomized to receive varespladib (500 mg) or placebo daily for 16 weeks, in addition to atorvastatin and other established therapies. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: The primary efficacy measurewas a composite of cardiovascular mortality, nonfatal myocardial infarction (MI), nonfatal stroke, or unstable angina with evidence of ischemia requiring hospitalization at 16 weeks. Six-month survival status was also evaluated. RESULTS: At a prespecified interim analysis, including 212 primary end point events, the independent data and safety monitoring board recommended termination of the trial for futility and possible harm. The primary end point occurred in 136 patients (6.1%) treated with varespladib compared with 109 patients (5.1%) treated with placebo (hazard ratio [HR], 1.25; 95%CI, 0.97-1.61; log-rank P = .08). Varespladib was associated with a greater risk of MI (78 [3.4%] vs 47 [2.2%]; HR, 1.66; 95%CI, 1.16-2.39; log-rank P = .005). The composite secondary end point of cardiovascular mortality, MI, and stroke was observed in 107 patients (4.6%) in the varespladib group and 79 patients (3.8%) in the placebo group (HR, 1.36; 95% CI, 1.02-1.82; P = .04). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: In patients with recent ACS, varespladib did not reduce the risk of recurrent cardiovascular events and significantly increased the risk of MI. The sPLA2inhibition with varespladib may be harmful and is not a useful strategy to reduce adverse cardiovascular outcomes after ACS. TRIAL REGISTRATION: clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT01130246. Copyright 2014 American Medical Association. All rights reserved

Soil bacterial and fungal communities across a pH gradient in an arable soil

Soils collected across a long-term liming experiment (pH 4.0-8.3), in which variation in factors other than pH have been minimized, were used to investigate the direct influence of pH on the abundance and composition of the two major soil microbial taxa, fungi and bacteria. We hypothesized that bacterial communities would be more strongly influenced by pH than fungal communities. To determine the relative abundance of bacteria and fungi, we used quantitative PCR (qPCR), and to analyze the composition and diversity of the bacterial and fungal communities, we used a bar-coded pyrosequencing technique. Both the relative abundance and diversity of bacteria were positively related to pH, the latter nearly doubling between pH 4 and 8. In contrast, the relative abundance of fungi was unaffected by pH and fungal diversity was only weakly related with pH. The composition of the bacterial communities was closely defined by soil pH; there was as much variability in bacterial community composition across the 180-m distance of this liming experiment as across soils collected from a wide range of biomes in North and South America, emphasizing the dominance of pH in structuring bacterial communities. The apparent direct influence of pH on bacterial community composition is probably due to the narrow pH ranges for optimal growth of bacteria. Fungal community composition was less strongly affected by pH, which is consistent with pure culture studies, demonstrating that fungi generally exhibit wider pH ranges for optimal growth. The ISME Journal (2010) 4, 1340-1351; doi: 10.1038/ismej.2010.58; published online 6 May 2010&nbsp

Searching for a Stochastic Background of Gravitational Waves with LIGO

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) has performed the fourth science run, S4, with significantly improved interferometer sensitivities with respect to previous runs. Using data acquired during this science run, we place a limit on the amplitude of a stochastic background of gravitational waves. For a frequency independent spectrum, the new limit is $\Omega_{\rm GW} < 6.5 \times 10^{-5}$. This is currently the most sensitive result in the frequency range 51-150 Hz, with a factor of 13 improvement over the previous LIGO result. We discuss complementarity of the new result with other constraints on a stochastic background of gravitational waves, and we investigate implications of the new result for different models of this background.Comment: 37 pages, 16 figure

Quantum state preparation and macroscopic entanglement in gravitational-wave detectors

Long-baseline laser-interferometer gravitational-wave detectors are operating at a factor of 10 (in amplitude) above the standard quantum limit (SQL) within a broad frequency band. Such a low classical noise budget has already allowed the creation of a controlled 2.7 kg macroscopic oscillator with an effective eigenfrequency of 150 Hz and an occupation number of 200. This result, along with the prospect for further improvements, heralds the new possibility of experimentally probing macroscopic quantum mechanics (MQM) - quantum mechanical behavior of objects in the realm of everyday experience - using gravitational-wave detectors. In this paper, we provide the mathematical foundation for the first step of a MQM experiment: the preparation of a macroscopic test mass into a nearly minimum-Heisenberg-limited Gaussian quantum state, which is possible if the interferometer's classical noise beats the SQL in a broad frequency band. Our formalism, based on Wiener filtering, allows a straightforward conversion from the classical noise budget of a laser interferometer, in terms of noise spectra, into the strategy for quantum state preparation, and the quality of the prepared state. Using this formalism, we consider how Gaussian entanglement can be built among two macroscopic test masses, and the performance of the planned Advanced LIGO interferometers in quantum-state preparation