Durrington Walls to West Amesbury by way of Stonehenge: a major transformation of the Holocene landscape

A new sequence of Holocene landscape change has been discovered through an investigation of sediment sequences, palaeosols, pollen and molluscan data discovered during the Stonehenge Riverside Project. The early post-glacial vegetational succession in the Avon valley at Durrington Walls was apparently slow and partial, with intermittent woodland modification and the opening-up of this landscape in the later Mesolithic and earlier Neolithic, though a strong element of pine lingered into the third millennium BC. There appears to have been a major hiatus around 2900 cal BC, coincident with the beginnings of demonstrable human activities at Durrington Walls, but slightly after activity started at Stonehenge. This was reflected in episodic increases in channel sedimentation and tree and shrub clearance, leading to a more open downland, with greater indications of anthropogenic activity, and an increasingly wet floodplain with sedges and alder along the river’s edge. Nonetheless, a localized woodland cover remained in the vicinity of DurringtonWalls throughout the third and second millennia BC, perhaps on the higher parts of the downs, while stable grassland, with rendzina soils, predominated on the downland slopes, and alder–hazel carr woodland and sedges continued to fringe the wet floodplain. This evidence is strongly indicative of a stable and managed landscape in Neolithic and Bronze Age times. It is not until c 800–500 cal BC that this landscape was completely cleared, except for the marshy-sedge fringe of the floodplain, and that colluvial sedimentation began in earnest associated with increased arable agriculture, a situation that continued through Roman and historic times

Acute lyme infection presenting with amyopathic dermatomyositis and rapidly fatal interstitial pulmonary fibrosis: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Dermatomyositis has been described in the setting of lyme infection in only nine previous case reports. Although lyme disease is known to induce typical clinical findings that are observed in various collagen vascular diseases, to our knowledge, we believe that our case is the first presentation of acute lyme disease associated with amyopathic dermatomyositis, which was then followed by severe and fatal interstitial pulmonary fibrosis only two months later.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>We present a case of a 64-year-old African-American man with multiple medical problems who was diagnosed with acute lyme infection after presenting with the pathognomonic rash and confirmatory serology. In spite of appropriate antimicrobial therapy for lyme infection, he developed unexpected amyopathic dermatomyositis and then interstitial lung disease.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This case illustrates a potential for lyme disease to produce clinical syndromes that may be indistinguishable from primary connective tissue diseases. An atypical and sequential presentation (dermatomyositis and interstitial lung disease) of a common disease (lyme infection) is discussed. This case illustrates that in patients who are diagnosed with lyme infection who subsequently develop atypical muscular, respiratory or other systemic complaints, the possibility of severe rheumatological and pulmonary complications should be considered.</p

RAFT aqueous dispersion polymerization yields poly(ethylene glycol)-based diblock copolymer nano-objects with predictable single phase morphologies

A poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) macromolecular chain transfer agent (macro-CTA) is prepared in high yield (>95%) with 97% dithiobenzoate chain-end functionality in a three-step synthesis starting from a monohydroxy PEG113 precursor. This PEG113-dithiobenzoate is then used for the reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) aqueous dispersion polymerization of 2-hydroxypropyl methacrylate (HPMA). Polymerizations conducted under optimized conditions at 50 °C led to high conversions as judged by 1H NMR spectroscopy and relatively low diblock copolymer polydispersities (Mw/Mn < 1.25) as judged by GPC. The latter technique also indicated good blocking efficiencies, since there was minimal PEG113 macro-CTA contamination. Systematic variation of the mean degree of polymerization of the core-forming PHPMA block allowed PEG113-PHPMAx diblock copolymer spheres, worms, or vesicles to be prepared at up to 17.5% w/w solids, as judged by dynamic light scattering and transmission electron microscopy studies. Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) analysis revealed that more exotic oligolamellar vesicles were observed at 20% w/w solids when targeting highly asymmetric diblock compositions. Detailed analysis of SAXS curves indicated that the mean number of membranes per oligolamellar vesicle is approximately three. A PEG 113-PHPMAx phase diagram was constructed to enable the reproducible targeting of pure phases, as opposed to mixed morphologies (e.g., spheres plus worms or worms plus vesicles). This new RAFT PISA formulation is expected to be important for the rational and efficient synthesis of a wide range of biocompatible, thermo-responsive PEGylated diblock copolymer nano-objects for various biomedical applications

Recent experimental probes of shear banding

Recent experimental techniques used to investigate shear banding are reviewed. After recalling the rheological signature of shear-banded flows, we summarize the various tools for measuring locally the microstructure and the velocity field under shear. Local velocity measurements using dynamic light scattering and ultrasound are emphasized. A few results are extracted from current works to illustrate open questions and directions for future research.Comment: Review paper, 23 pages, 11 figures, 204 reference

The effect of the geomagnetic field on cosmic ray energy estimates and large scale anisotropy searches on data from the Pierre Auger Observatory

We present a comprehensive study of the influence of the geomagnetic field on the energy estimation of extensive air showers with a zenith angle smaller than $60^\circ$, detected at the Pierre Auger Observatory. The geomagnetic field induces an azimuthal modulation of the estimated energy of cosmic rays up to the ~2% level at large zenith angles. We present a method to account for this modulation of the reconstructed energy. We analyse the effect of the modulation on large scale anisotropy searches in the arrival direction distributions of cosmic rays. At a given energy, the geomagnetic effect is shown to induce a pseudo-dipolar pattern at the percent level in the declination distribution that needs to be accounted for.Comment: 20 pages, 14 figure

7th Drug hypersensitivity meeting: part two

No abstract availabl