Babes, bones, and isotopes: a stable isotope investigation on non-adults from Aventicum, Roman Switzerland (1st-3rd c. CE)

The study of infant feeding practices in archaeological populations can aid in the understanding of cultural attitudes towards dietary choices and how specific circumstances experienced by mothers and their offspring influence childhood health and survivorship. Breastfeeding and weaning patterns have received increased interest in Roman bioarchaeology, especially through the application of stable isotopic investigation of nitrogen (δ15N) and carbon (δ13C) values. This study presents the stable isotopic results of the first Roman bone sample analyzed from Switzerland (30 non-adults and 9 females), allowing us an unprecedented insight into health and diet at the site of Aventicum/Avenches, the capital city of the territory of Helvetii in Roman times (1st-3rd c. AD). The fact that the majority of the non-adult samples subject to stable isotope analysis were perinates, highlights the complex relationship between their δ15N and δ13C values and those of adult females, as different factors, including variation of fetal and maternal stable isotope values, the possible effects of intrauterine growth, as well as maternal/fetal disease and/or nutritional stress (e.g. nutritional deficiencies such as scurvy, parasitic infections, such as malaria), could have influenced the observed elevated δ15N values

Structure:Function Relationships for Thermal and Light-Induced Spin-Crossover in Isomorphous Molecular Materials

Isomorphous [FeL2][BF4]2·solv and [FeL2][ClO4]2·solv (L = 4-{isopropylsulfanyl}-2,6-di{pyrazol-1-yl}pyridine; solv = MeNO2, MeCN, 0.67Me2CO or H2O) exhibit a variety of thermal spin-crossover (SCO) behaviours. This complexity extends to the light induced excited spin state trapping (LIESST) experiment where, uniquely, five members show the expected inverse relationship between their thermal SCO (T½) and LIESST relaxation (T(LIESST)) temperatures but a sixth compound ([FeL2][BF4]2·MeCN) does not. The structural basis of these observations has been probed by X-ray crystallography, photocrystallography and periodic DFT+U+D2 calculations. Among the compounds examined, more cooperative thermal SCO is strongly coupled to order/disorder transitions in the solvent and/or isopropyl substituents and vice versa. A series of symmetry breaking phase transitions in [FeL2][BF4]2·MeNO2, before and after photoexcitation, occurs 10-20 K below T(LIESST) and has no direct bearing on the T½/T(LIESST) relationship. These phase changes are not shown by other compounds in the study. The anomalous T(LIESST) in [FeL2][BF4]2·MeCN, and its observed negative lattice expansion during isothermal low→high-spin conversion, are not reproduced computationally which implies those properties are unconnected to its spin state energetics. Its minimised high- and low-spin structures also deviate more from experiment than the other compounds investigated, in the most plastic region of the lattice which includes the solvent molecule. We conclude that reorientation of the linear MeCN molecule contributes a temperature-dependent lattice activation barrier to the spin-transition in [FeL2][BF4]2·MeCN, leading to the higher T(LIESST) value observed

Detection of temporospatially localized growth in ancient Southeast Asia using human skeletal remains

Measures of population growth can provide significant insights into the health, adaptivity and resilience of ancient communities, particularly the way in which human populations respond to major changes, such as the transition to agriculture. To date, paleodemographic tools have facilitated the evaluation of long term, regional population growth, while identification of intraregional variability and short-term growth has been more challenging. This study reports on the application of a new method for estimating the rate of natural population increase (RNPI) from skeletal remains. We have applied the method to ancient Southeast Asian samples and, based on the LOESS fitting procedure, our preliminary results indicate a trend of temporal homogeneity and spatial heterogeneity. This trend is validated against the existing archaeological narrative for the region and, we argue, may indicate intraregional variability in population responses to major technological, economic and sociocultural events, consistent with the variable response observed at the regional level. Due to the critical importance of temporospatial specificity to a vast array of paleodemographic research questions, we have evaluated the precision, assumptions and limitations of this method in the context of other existing paleodemographic methods. Our RNPI measure, in isolation or in combination with existing methods, provides a promising tool that can be used to develop a deeper and more localized understanding of the conditions impacting on population dynamics and, conversely, community responses to change.This research was supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship and Australian Research Council Grant: FT120100299

Experimental study of pedestrian flow through a bottleneck

In this work the results of a bottleneck experiment with pedestrians are presented in the form of total times, fluxes, specific fluxes, and time gaps. A main aim was to find the dependence of these values from the bottleneck width. The results show a linear decline of the specific flux with increasing width as long as only one person at a time can pass, and a constant value for larger bottleneck widths. Differences between small (one person at a time) and wide bottlenecks (two persons at a time) were also found in the distribution of time gaps.Comment: accepted for publication in J. Stat. Mec

Derailment-based fault tree analysis on risk management of railway turnout systems

Railway turnouts are fundamental mechanical infrastructures, which allow a rolling stock to divert one direction to another. As those are of a large number of engineering subsystems, e.g. track, signalling, earthworks, these particular sub-systems are expected to induce high potential through various kind of failure mechanisms. This could be a cause of any catastrophic event. A derailment, one of undesirable events in railway operation, often results, albeit rare occurs, in damaging to rolling stock, railway infrastructure and disrupt service, and has the potential to cause casualties and even loss of lives. As a result, it is quite significant that a well-designed risk analysis is performed to create awareness of hazards and to identify what parts of the systems may be at risk. This study will focus on all types of environment based failures as a result of numerous contributing factors noted officially as accident reports. This risk analysis is designed to help industry to minimise the occurrence of accidents at railway turnouts. The methodology of the study relies on accurate assessment of derailment likelihood, and is based on statistical multiple factors-integrated accident rate analysis. The study is prepared in the way of establishing product risks and faults, and showing the impact of potential process by Boolean algebra

Biological anthropology in the Indo-Pacific Region: New approaches to age-old questions

Biological anthropological research, the study of both modern and past humans, is a burgeoning field in the Indo-Pacific region. It is becoming increasingly apparent that the unique environments of the Indo-Pacific have resulted in an archaeological record that does not necessarily align with those in the northern hemisphere. New, regionally-specific archaeological models are being developed, and biological anthropological research has an important role to play in establishing past human experience within these models. In the Indo-Pacific, research using ancient and modern human tissues is adding insight into global processes of prehistoric settlement and migrations, subsistence change and human biosocial adaptation. This review synthesises current themes in biological anthropology in this region. It highlights the diverse methods and approaches used by biological anthropologists to address globally-relevant archaeological questions. In recent decades a collaborative approach between archaeologists, biological anthropologists and local communities has become the norm in the region. The many positive outcomes of this multi-disciplinary approach are highlighted here through the use of regionally-specific case studies. This review ultimately aims to stimulate further collaborations between archaeologists, biological anthropologists and the communities in the region, and demonstrate how the evidence from Indo-Pacific research may be relevant to global archaeological models

On the possibility of magneto-structural correlations: detailed studies of di-nickel carboxylate complexes

A series of water-bridged dinickel complexes of the general formula [Ni<sub>2</sub>(μ<sub>2</sub>-OH<sub>2</sub>)(μ2- O<sub>2</sub>C<sup>t</sup>Bu)<sub>2</sub>(O<sub>2</sub>C<sup>t</sup>Bu)2(L)(L0)] (L = HO<sub>2</sub>C<sup>t</sup>Bu, L0 = HO<sub>2</sub>C<sup>t</sup>Bu (1), pyridine (2), 3-methylpyridine (4); L = L0 = pyridine (3), 3-methylpyridine (5)) has been synthesized and structurally characterized by X-ray crystallography. The magnetic properties have been probed by magnetometry and EPR spectroscopy, and detailed measurements show that the axial zero-field splitting, D, of the nickel(ii) ions is on the same order as the isotropic exchange interaction, J, between the nickel sites. The isotropic exchange interaction can be related to the angle between the nickel centers and the bridging water molecule, while the magnitude of D can be related to the coordination sphere at the nickel sites

Synthesis and study of Cu^II complex with nitroxide, a jumping crystal analog

© 2017, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC. We synthesized 1-ethylimidazolyl-substituted nitronyl nitroxides, i.e., 2-(1-ethylimidazol-4-yl)- (L 4Et ) and 2-(1-ethylimidazol-5-yl)-4,4,5,5-tetramethyl-4,5-dihydro-1H-imidazole 3-oxide-1-oxyl (L 5Et ). The stable radical L 5Et is an ethyl analog of 2-(1-methylimidazol-5-yl)-4,4,5,5-tetramethyl-4,5-dihydro-1H-imidazole 3-oxide-1-oxyl (L 5Me ) described earlier, the reaction of which with Cu(hfac) 2 (hfac is 1,1,1,5,5,5-hexafluoropentane-2,4-dionate) leads to the formation of the [Cu(hfac) 2 (L 5Me ) 2 ] jumping crystals. The reaction of Cu(hfac) 2 with L 5Et with reagent ratios 1: 2 and 1: 1 yields heterospin complexes [Cu(hfac) 2 (L 5Et ) 2 ] and [Cu(hfac) 2 L 5Et ] 2 , respectively. X-ray diffraction study of the mononuclear complex [Cu(hfac) 2 (L 5Et ) 2 ] determined that the compound has a packing similar to that of jumping crystals studied earlier, with the only difference being that the O..O contacts between neigh- boring nitroxide groups were found to be 0.3—0.5 Å longer than in [Cu(hfac) 2 (L 5Me ) 2 ]. As a result of the lengthening of these contacts, [Cu(hfac) 2 (L 5Et ) 2 ] crystals lack chemomechanical activi- ty. We found that when cooling crystals of binuclear complex [Cu(hfac) 2 L 5Et ] 2 below 50 K, the antiferromagnetic exchange between unpaired electrons of the > N—•O groups of neighboring molecules leads to the full spin-pairing of the nitroxides, with only the Cu 2+ ions contributing to the residual paramagnetism of the compound