Token Finds At Pre-Pottery Neolighic ‘Ain Ghazal, Jordan A Formal And Technological Analysis

‘Ain Ghazal is a Neolithic site located near Amman, Jordan. It was excavated between 1982 and 1998 by an American-Jordanian team directed by Gary O. Rollefson, Whitman College, Walla Walla, Wa. and Zeidan Kafafi, the University of Yarmouk at Irbid, Jordan. ‘Ain Ghazal was first settled about 7250 B.C., during the so-called Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) period. In a matter of a few centuries the village of stone houses had spread over 30 acres along the Zarqa River. During a prosperous period when the mixed economy increasingly relied on farming, ca. 7250-6000 B.C., ‘Ain Ghazal witnessed what can be termed an explosion of symbolism. The site was abandoned in the Yarmoukian period ca. 5000 BC. The volume deals with the uniquely rich and varied ‘Ain Ghazal assemblage of symbols including tokens of many shapes, animal and human figurines, modeled human skulls, plaster statues and, mural and floor paintings.A collection of 137 clay and stone tokens from the Neolithic site of ‘Ain Ghazal in Jordan was studied in terms of formal and technological characteristics. The assemblage includes spheres, cones, and other shapes that are well known from Near Eastern token collections. A visual technological classification based on surface and fabric characteristics was supplemented by petrographic and XRD studies of smaller samples of artifacts and local clay and stone raw materials. Results show some correlations between shapes and technological processes and close technological similarities among tokens recovered as groups, suggesting single episode production, use and discard.Art and Art Histor

Dual current readout for precision plating

Bistable amplifier prevents damage in the low range circuitry of a dual scale ammeter. It senses the current and switches automatically to the high range circuitry as the current rises above a preset level

On Coset Leader Graphs of LDPC Codes

Our main technical result is that, in the coset leader graph of a linear binary code of block length n, the metric balls spanned by constant-weight vectors grow exponentially slower than those in $\{0,1\}^n$. Following the approach of Friedman and Tillich (2006), we use this fact to improve on the first linear programming bound on the rate of LDPC codes, as the function of their minimal distance. This improvement, combined with the techniques of Ben-Haim and Lytsin (2006), improves the rate vs distance bounds for LDPC codes in a significant sub-range of relative distances

Grain refinement control in TIG arc welding

A method for controlling grain size and weld puddle agitation in a tungsten electrode inert gas welding system to produce fine, even grain size and distribution is disclosed. In the method the frequency of dc welding voltage pulses supplied to the welding electrode is varied over a preselected frequency range and the arc gas voltage is monitored. At some frequency in the preselected range the arc gas voltage will pass through a maximum. By maintaining the operating frequency of the system at this value, maximum weld puddle agitation and fine grain structure are produced

Microwave interferometer controls cutting depth of plastics

Microwave interferometer system controls the cutting of plastic materials to a prescribed depth. The interferometer is mounted on a carriage with a spindle and cutting tool. A cross slide, mounted on the carriage, allows the interferometer and cutter to move toward or away from the plastic workpiece

Geographic Variation of Cirques on Iceland: Factors Influencing Cirque Morphology

Cirques are one of the most common glacial landforms in alpine settings. They also provide important paleoclimate information (e.g. Meierding 1984; Evans 2006). The purpose of this study is to fill in gaps in the climate record of Iceland by conducting a quantitative analysis of cirques in three regions in Iceland: Tröllaskagi, the East Fjords, and Vestfirðir. Iceland, located in the center of the North Atlantic Ocean, contains many small glaciers, in addition to large ice caps. The glaciers on Iceland are particularly sensitive to variations in oceanic and atmospheric circulation (Andresen et al. 2005; Geirsdóttir et al., 2009; Ólafsdóttir et al. 2010). Iceland thus provides an excellent case study to examine factors influencing glacial landforms such as cirques. (excerpt

Marine Fungi of Iceland: A Preliminary Account of Ascomycetes

This paper reports, for the first time, 25 species of marine pyrenomycetes from Icelandic waters. Taxonomic notes are included for certain species. Surtsey, a submarine volcanic upthrust off the south coast of Iceland (Thorarinsson, 1967), is a current center for cooperative geophysical, geochemical, and biological investigations on an international scale. The mycological portion of the total biological research effort of the Surtsey project has emphasized a survey of the marine and freshwater mycoflora on the mainland of Iceland itself as a necessary prerequisite to ecological studies on Surtsey. With the exception of two reports on aquatic phycomycetes (Larsen, 1931, and Johnson, 1966), the aquatic mycoflora of Iceland is unknown. Thus Iceland, rather than Surtsey, has become the immediate focal point for mycological investigations

A Tale of Three Countries: Recovery after Banking Crises

Highlights: • Iceland, Ireland and Latvia experienced similar developments before the crisis, such as sharp increases in banks’ balance sheets and the expansion of the construction sector. However the impact of the crisis was different: Latvia was hit harder than any other country in the world. Ireland also suffered heavily, while Iceland came out from the crisis with the smallest fall in employment, despite the greatest shock to the financial system. • There were marked differences in policy mix: currency collapse in Iceland but not in Latvia, letting banks fail in Iceland but not in Ireland, and the introduction of strict capital controls only in Iceland. The speed of fiscal consolidation was fastest in Latvia and slowest in Ireland. • Economic recovery has started in all three countries and there are several encouraging signals. The programme targets in terms of fiscal adjustment, structural reforms and financial reform are on track in all three countries. • Iceland seems to have the right policy mix. • Internal devaluation in Ireland and Latvia through wage cuts did not work, because privatesector wages hardly changed. The productivity increase was significant in Ireland and moderate in Latvia, yet was the result of a greater fall in employment than the fall in output, with harmful social consequences. • The experience with the collapse of the gigantic Icelandic banking system suggests that letting banks fail when they had a faulty business model is the right choice. • There is a strong case for a European banking federation

New Constraints on the Timing and Pattern of Deglaciation in the Húnaflói Bay Region of Northwest Iceland Using Cosmogenic 36CA Dating and Geomorphic Mapping

Understanding the evolution and timing of changes in ice sheet geometry and extent in Iceland during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and subsequent deglaciation continues to stimulate much active research. Though many previous studies have advanced our knowledge of Icelandic ice sheet history preserved in marine and terrestrial settings (e.g., Andrews et al., 2000; Norðdahl et al., 2008), the timing of ice margin retreat remains largely unknown in several key regions. Recently published 36Cl surface exposure ages of bedrock surfaces and moraines in the West Fjords (Brynjólfsson et al., 2015) contribute important progress in establishing more precise age control of ice recession in northwest Iceland. In another recent study, the spatial pattern and style of deglaciation in northern Iceland have been revealed through geomorphic mapping and GIS analyses of glacial landforms (Principato et al., 2016). Additional insight comes from updated numerical modeling reconstructions, which now provide a series of glaciologically plausible Icelandic ice sheet configurations from the LGM through the last deglaciation (Patton et al., 2017). However, the optimization of ice sheet model simulations relies on critical comparisons with the available empirical record of glacial-geologic evidence and chronological control, which remains relatively limited and sparsely distributed throughout Iceland. Our investigation is motivated by the need for more accurate constraints on the deglacial history in northern Iceland, where dated terrestrial records of ice margin retreat are particularly scarce. (excerpt