Reconstructing subsistence practices of southwestern Ontario Late Woodland Peoples (A.D. 900-1600) using stable isotopic analyses of faunal material

Stable carbon–, nitrogen–, and oxygen–isotope analyses of animal bones and teeth from 28 archaeological sites are used to reconstruct human subsistence behaviour, i.e., increased maize horticulturalism, during the Late Woodland period (A.D. 1000–1650) in southwestern Ontario. The isotopic data provided dietary, seasonal, and geographic information, which was analysed within archaeological, symbolic, and ecological contexts and used to reconstruct the diets, hunting patterns, and animal processing practices of two neighbouring groups, the Ontario Iroquoian and Western Basin peoples. Paleodietary and seasonality analyses focused on the following species: canids (domestic dogs, foxes, and wolves), wild turkeys and white-tailed deer, though additional fauna (including black bears, raccoons, and squirrels) were also analysed. Bone (n=324) and dentine (n=11) collagen provided dietary information, specifically concerning access to maize and trophic position. The carbon– and nitrogen–isotope composition of modern plants (n= 8) and animals (n=87) was used to expand the local food web and understand abilities of modern animals to access crops. Structural carbonate isotopic analyses for archaeological (n=126) and modern (n=28) individuals provided additional information about trophic position, post–mortem alteration, and geographic affiliation. Serially sampled enamel was analysed for several deer and a dog, and was successfully paired with x–radiographs to create an enamel formation sequence, which enables reconstruction of short term (seasonal) diets. The domestic dog isotopic data expanded our understanding of human dietary change over the Late Woodland period for both Ontario Iroquoian and Western Basin peoples, including different emphases on protein sources (i.e., fish). Wild fauna, particularly foxes, wild turkeys, raccoons and squirrels, were able to access maize. The turkey isotopic data suggest a unique hunting strategy at some Ontario Iroquoian sites, i.e., the purposeful discard of maize to create a predictable field hunting zone. An unexpected relationship between the δ13Ccol and δ13Csc values of deer appears to reflect a post–mortem processing (i.e., boiling) practice. This thesis has expanded our understanding of Late Woodland diets, horticultural and hunting practices. It has also demonstrated that fauna may be used to reconstruct human behaviour and ideology in lieu of the destructive analysis of human remains

Bridging the Gap from Policy to Practice: Diabetes in Rural Morocco

Morocco is in the midst of an epidemiologic transition ushered in by reduced fertility rates and extended life expectancy. Unlike two decades ago, today’s leading cause of death is chronic disease. In 2006, Moroccan officials launched Vision 2020, a comprehensive plan that seeks to expand access to healthcare and reign back the prevalence of noncommunicable disease, among other goals related to development. Through qualitative interviews with the residents of Tarmilat and Oulmes, a rural community south of Khamissat, this paper represents the first assessment of Vision 2020’s performance thus far to combat the spread of type 2 diabetes among rural Moroccans. This paper evaluates type 2 diabetes care in Tarmilat and Oulmes using three indicators: (1) degree of individual health agency, (2) access to capable healthcare facilities, and (3) attainment of healthcare coverage or insurance. The interviews demonstrate limited health agency, specifically regarding primary prevention methods. In addition, the paper finds that healthcare facilities in the Oulmes and Tarmilat region lack the human resources to operate at full capacity, although they may be equipped with adequate technology. Lastly, despite increased access to healthcare coverage, in practice, patients often struggle to attain secondary care due to wait times, bribery, and supply shortages. This preliminary analysis shows evidence that health officials are making strides in rural healthcare, however much work is needed to bridge the gap between policy and practice. To address the most urgent healthcare failings, this paper recommends that officials at the Ministry of Health make Morocco’s human resource deficit their utmost priority

Unconventional domain wall magnetoresistance of patterned Ni/Nb bilayer structures below superconducting transition temperature of Nb

Scattering of spin-up and spin-down electrons while passing through a ferromagnetic domain wall leads to an additional resistance for transport current, usually observed prominently in constricted magnetic structures. In this report, we use the resistance of the domain wall as a probe to find indirect signatures of the theoretically predicted spin-singlet supercurrent to spin-triplet supercurrent conversion effect of ferromagnetic domain walls. Here we examine the domain wall induced resistance in Ni stripe in a bilayer Ni/Nb geometry in the normal state and in the superconducting state of Nb. By making a 6um wide gap in the top Nb layer we routed the transport current through the Ni layer in the normal state and in the superconducting state of Nb. In the normal state of Nb, in-field transport measurements showed a clear domain wall magneto-resistance (DWMR) peak near the coercive field, where the domain wall density is expected to be maximum. Interestingly, however, below the superconducting transition temperature of Nb, the DWMR peak of the Ni layer showed a sharp drop in the field range where the number of domain walls becomes maximum. This observation may be a possible signature of magnetic domain wall induced spin-triplet correlations in the Ni layer due to the direct injection of spin-singlet Cooper pairs from Nb into the magnetic domain walls

Math Girl Solves the Pattern

During COVID-19 isolation, Dr. Jennifer Austin and her seven-year-old daughter Zoe co-authored the short story Math Girl Solves the Pattern. Here we meet the superheroine Math Girl and her nemesis Minus Girl. Math Girl is observant, curious, and creative. Houses, balls, and sailboats are disappearing! The mystery must be solved. Persevering Math Girl saves the day

Protectors of Wellbeing During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Key Roles for Gratitude and Tragic Optimism in a UK-Based Cohort

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a global threat to physical and mental health worldwide. Research has highlighted adverse impacts of COVID-19 on wellbeing but has yet to offer insights as to how wellbeing may be protected. Inspired by developments in wellbeing science and guided by our own theoretical framework (the GENIAL model), we examined the role of various potentially protective factors in a sample of 138 participants from the United Kingdom. Protective factors included physical activity (i.e., a health behaviour that helps to build psychological wellbeing), tragic optimism (optimism in the face of tragedy), gratitude (a prosocial emotion), social support (the perception or experience of being loved, cared for, and valued by others), and nature connectedness (physical and psychological connection to nature). Initial analysis involved the application of one-sample t-tests, which confirmed that wellbeing (measured by the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being scale) in the current sample (N = 138; M = 46.08, SD = 9.22) was significantly lower compared to previous samples (d = −0.36 and d = −0.41). Protective factors were observed to account for up to 50% of variance in wellbeing in a hierarchical linear regression that controlled for a range of sociostructural factors including age, gender, and subjective social status, which impact on wellbeing but lie beyond individual control. Gratitude and tragic optimism emerged as significant contributors to the model. Our results identify key psychological attributes that may be harnessed through various positive psychology strategies to mitigate the adverse impacts of hardship and suffering, consistent with an existential positive psychology of suffering

Season, but not symbiont state, drives microbiome structure in the temperate coral Astrangia poculata.

BACKGROUND: Understanding the associations among corals, their photosynthetic zooxanthella symbionts (Symbiodinium), and coral-associated prokaryotic microbiomes is critical for predicting the fidelity and strength of coral symbioses in the face of growing environmental threats. Most coral-microbiome associations are beneficial, yet the mechanisms that determine the composition of the coral microbiome remain largely unknown. Here, we characterized microbiome diversity in the temperate, facultatively symbiotic coral Astrangia poculata at four seasonal time points near the northernmost limit of the species range. The facultative nature of this system allowed us to test seasonal influence and symbiotic state (Symbiodinium density in the coral) on microbiome community composition. RESULTS: Change in season had a strong effect on A. poculata microbiome composition. The seasonal shift was greatest upon the winter to spring transition, during which time A. poculata microbiome composition became more similar among host individuals. Within each of the four seasons, microbiome composition differed significantly from that of surrounding seawater but was surprisingly uniform between symbiotic and aposymbiotic corals, even in summer, when differences in Symbiodinium density between brown and white colonies are the highest, indicating that the observed seasonal shifts are not likely due to fluctuations in Symbiodinium density. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that symbiotic state may not be a primary driver of coral microbial community organization in A. poculata, which is a surprise given the long-held assumption that excess photosynthate is of importance to coral-associated microbes. Rather, other environmental or host factors, in this case, seasonal changes in host physiology associated with winter quiescence, may drive microbiome diversity. Additional studies of A. poculata and other facultatively symbiotic corals will provide important comparisons to studies of reef-building tropical corals and therefore help to identify basic principles of coral microbiome assembly, as well as functional relationships among holobiont members

The (Un)Surprising Kindergarten Path

During sentence comprehension, listeners form expectationsabout likely structures before they have reached the end of asentence. Children are more likely than adults to ignore late-arriving evidence when it contradicts their initial parse. Whilethis difference is often ascribed to developmental changes inexecutive function, this paper investigates whether statisticalproperties of child-directed speech could be responsible forchildren’s failure to revise temporarily ambiguous sentences.We examined well-studied garden-path sentences andcalculated surprisal values derived from adult and child-directed corpora at each word. For adult corpora, surprisal washighest where the sentence structure was disambiguated. Forchild corpora, however, values at the disambiguating regionwere low relative to other words in the sentence. This suggeststhat for children, the disambiguating words may be statisticallyweak cues to ruling out their original parse, and that inprinciple, the statistics of child-directed speech couldcontribute to children’s difficulty with garden-path sentences