Ship to Shore: Inuit, Early Europeans, and Maritime Landscapes in the Northern Gulf of St. Lawrence

Recent research at Hare Harbor on the Quebec Lower North Shore in the northeastern Gulf of St. Lawrence reveals great potential for archaeological and historical research on Basque and other early European activities in the northwestern North Atlantic. Although considerable data have been retrieved from Red Bay, Labrador, and a few other sixteenth-century sites in the Strait of Belle Isle and Gulf of St. Lawrence, archaeological knowledge of the early European phase of North American history in this region is limited, and information about post-sixteenth-century Basque occupations is nearly nonexistent. This chapter reports on a multicomponent site with late sixteenth-century Basque and late seventeenth/ early eighteenth–century European (possibly Basque) and Inuit occupations at Hare Harbor, Petit Mécatina Island, 200 km west of the Strait of Belle Isle. The later historic occupation includes hearths, middens, and ballast piles from adjacent land and underwater sites. In addition to domestic cooking hearths and ballast piles associated with the sixteenth-century Basque occupation, the site’s later component contains two structures with paved stone floors, one interpreted as a cookhouse and the other as a blacksmith shop. The ethnic/national origin of these structures, which in earlier reports was designated as Basque on the basis of coarse earthenwares and large amounts of roof tiles, is now equivocal. Excavations in 2009 revealed a sixteenth-century Basque component adjacent to and deeper than the cookhouse (Structure 1) paved floor, raising the possibility that the cookhouse and blacksmith deposits may have a north Biscayan or Channel origin. Excavation also revealed a Labrador Inuit settlement that may be contemporary with the later European occupation. Information recovered from the European and Inuit contexts documents changing economic, social, and political conditions, including the appearance of Inuit in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and their participation in a European cod fishery at Hare Harbor. Given the breadth of activity, changes in technology and economy, and complex international and ethnic relations, a maritime landscape approach that links shore deposits with those from the underwater site over a period of more than 100 years provides a useful framework for interpreting the many strands of evidence from this small but fascinating site situated at the interface of European and Native nations, cultures, and traditions. Utilization of the landscape concept for interpreting maritime anthropology and archaeological sites is relatively novel. Landscape archaeology has traditionally been applied at terrestrial sites to link archaeological components with their broader ecological and social settings, including subsistence resource zones, site hierarchies, settlement patterns, and regional economic networks. Recently, this concept has been extended to maritime anthropological studies in circumpolar and subantarctic settings, but it has rarely been a component of underwater archaeological inquiry. The fortuitous adjacency of both land and marine components at a Basque/European/Inuit site makes Hare Harbor an ideal case study for exploring the utility of the landscape approach in a maritime archaeology context

Solid State Proton Spin Relaxation in Ethylbenzenes: Methyl Reorientation Barriers and Molecular Structure

We have investigated the dynamics of the ethyl groups and their constituent methyl groups in polycrystalline ethylbenzene (EB), 1,2-diethylbenzene (1,2-DEB), 1,3-DEB, and 1,4-DEB using the solid state proton spin relaxation (SSPSR) technique. The temperature and Larmor frequency dependence of the Zeeman spin-lattice relaxation rate is reported and interpreted in terms of the molecular dynamics. We determine that only the methyl groups are reorienting on the nuclear magnetic resonance time scale. The observed barrier of about 12 kJ/mol for methyl group reorientation in the solid samples of EB, 1,2-DEB, and 1,3-DEB is consistent with that of the isolated molecule, implying that in the solid state, intermolecular electrostatic interactions play a minor role in determining the barrier. The lower barrier of 9.3 +/- 0.2 kJ/mol for the more symmetric 1,4-DEB suggests that the crystal structure is such that the minimum in the anisotropic part of the intramolecular potential is raised by the intermolecular interactions leading to a 3 kJ/mol decrease in the total barrier. We are able to conclude that the methyl group is well away from the plane of the benzene ring (most likely orthogonal to it) in all four molecules, and that in 1,2-DEB, the two ethyl groups are in the anticonfiguration. Our SSPSR results are compared with the results obtained by microwave spectroscopy and supersonic molecular jet laser spectroscopy, both of which determine molecular geometry better than SSPSR, but neither of which can determine ground electronic state barriers for these molecules

Solid State Proton Spin Relaxation in Ethylbenzenes: Methyl Reorientation Barriers and Molecular Structure

We have investigated the dynamics of the ethyl groups and their constituent methyl groups in polycrystalline ethylbenzene (EB), 1,2-diethylbenzene (1,2-DEB), 1,3-DEB, and 1,4-DEB using the solid state proton spin relaxation (SSPSR) technique. The temperature and Larmor frequency dependence of the Zeeman spin-lattice relaxation rate is reported and interpreted in terms of the molecular dynamics. We determine that only the methyl groups are reorienting on the nuclear magnetic resonance time scale. The observed barrier of about 12 kJ/mol for methyl group reorientation in the solid samples of EB, 1,2-DEB, and 1,3-DEB is consistent with that of the isolated molecule, implying that in the solid state, intermolecular electrostatic interactions play a minor role in determining the barrier. The lower barrier of 9.3 +/- 0.2 kJ/mol for the more symmetric 1,4-DEB suggests that the crystal structure is such that the minimum in the anisotropic part of the intramolecular potential is raised by the intermolecular interactions leading to a 3 kJ/mol decrease in the total barrier. We are able to conclude that the methyl group is well away from the plane of the benzene ring (most likely orthogonal to it) in all four molecules, and that in 1,2-DEB, the two ethyl groups are in the anticonfiguration. Our SSPSR results are compared with the results obtained by microwave spectroscopy and supersonic molecular jet laser spectroscopy, both of which determine molecular geometry better than SSPSR, but neither of which can determine ground electronic state barriers for these molecules

Topological Edge Transport in Twisted Double-Bilayer Graphene

Topological insulators realized in materials with strong spin-orbit interactions challenged the long-held view that electronic materials are classified as either conductors or insulators. The emergence of controlled, two-dimensional moire patterns has opened new vistas in the topological materials landscape. Here we report on evidence, obtained by combining thermodynamic measurements, local and non-local transport measurements, and theoretical calculations, that robust topologically non-trivial, valley Chern insulators occur at charge neutrality in twisted double-bilayer graphene (TDBG). These time reversal-conserving valley Chern insulators are enabled by valley-number conservation, a symmetry that emerges from the moir\'e pattern. The thermodynamic gap extracted from chemical potential measurements proves that TDBG is a bulk insulator under transverse electric field, while transport measurements confirm the existence of conducting edge states. A Landauer-Buttiker analysis of measurements on multi-terminal samples allows us to quantitatively assess edge state scattering and demonstrate that it does not destroy the edge states, leaving the bulk-boundary correspondence largely intact

Inferring dynamic topology for decoding spatiotemporal structures in complex heterogeneous networks

Extracting complex interactions (i.e., dynamic topologies) has been an essential, but difficult, step toward understanding large, complex, and diverse systems including biological, financial, and electrical networks. However, reliable and efficient methods for the recovery or estimation of network topology remain a challenge due to the tremendous scale of emerging systems (e.g., brain and social networks) and the inherent nonlinearity within and between individual units. We develop a unified, data-driven approach to efficiently infer connections of networks (ICON). We apply ICON to determine topology of networks of oscillators with different periodicities, degree nodes, coupling functions, and time scales, arising in silico, and in electrochemistry, neuronal networks, and groups of mice. This method enables the formulation of these large-scale, nonlinear estimation problems as a linear inverse problem that can be solved using parallel computing. Working with data from networks, ICON is robust and versatile enough to reliably reveal full and partial resonance among fast chemical oscillators, coherent circadian rhythms among hundreds of cells, and functional connectivity mediating social synchronization of circadian rhythmicity among mice over weeks

Impact of molecular profiling on overall survival of patients with advanced ovarian cancer

OBJECTIVE: Patients with recurrent epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) have limited treatment options. Studies have reported that biomarker profiling may help predict patient response to available treatments. This study sought to determine the value of biomarker profiling in recurrent EOC. RESULTS: Patients in the Matched cohort had a median OS of 36 months compared to 27 months for patients in the Unmatched cohort (HR 0.62, 95% CI 0.41-0.96; p < 0.03). Individual biomarkers were analyzed, with TUBB3, and PGP prognostic for survival. Biomarker analysis also identified a molecular subtype (positive for at least two of the following markers: ERCC1, RRM1, TUBB3, PGP) with particularly poor overall survival. METHODS: 224 patients from a commercial registry (NCT02678754) with stage IIIC/IV EOC at diagnosis, or restaged to IIIC/IV EOC at the time of molecular profiling, were retrospectively divided into two cohorts based on whether or not the drugs they received matched their profile recommendations. The Matched cohort received no drugs predicted to be lack-of-benefit while the Unmatched cohort received at least one drug predicted to be lack-of-benefit. Profile biomarker/drug associations were based on multiple test platforms including immunohistochemistry, fluorescent in situ hybridization and DNA sequencing. CONCLUSIONS: This report demonstrates the ability of multi-platform molecular profiling to identify EOC patients at risk of inferior survival. It also suggests a potential beneficial role of avoidance of lack-of-benefit therapies which, when administered, resulted in decreased survival relative to patients who received only therapies predicted to be of benefit