The Linear B Inscribed Stirrup Jars

Transport stirrup jars – so-called because of the shape formed by their handles and false neck – are a common type of Mycenaean pottery: used to transport and store liquid commodities, usually assumed to be olive oil, they are found throughout the central and eastern Mediterranean. A small sub-group of these carry painted inscriptions in the Linear B script, mainly consisting of personal and/or place names. These inscribed stirrup jars (ISJs), dating from around the LM IIIB period (late 14th – early 12th centuries B.C.), are so far only certainly attested on Crete and the Greek mainland. They form the only significantly-sized group of Linear B inscriptions found on a medium other than the more typical clay tablets, and are the most geographically widespread type of Linear B inscriptions, found both in and outside of administrative centres, and, uniquely, are known to have travelled from Crete to the mainland. Due to this unique status, the ISJs have been used as evidence for issues ranging from the spread of Mycenaean literacy and the place of writing in Mycenaean society to the debate over the dating of the main tablet archive at Knossos and the broader picture of LM IIIB Crete. However, there still remains considerable debate over many aspects of the ISJs themselves – ranging from the literacy of their painters to the inscriptions’ intended function. The aim of this article is therefore to investigate the possible functions of the ISJs, using as evidence all aspects of the jars, from the palaeography and content of the inscriptions themselves to the jars’ archaeological contexts and the results of scientific analysis

Should The U.S. Seriously Contemplate Initiating A Value-Added Tax? What Are Other Countries Doing With This Type Of Tax?

The U. S. Tax System needs extensive changes. As Congress addresses these modifications, should it consider a value-added system? To what extent are other countries using the value-added tax

Instantiated Recoupling in Principals\u27 Enactment of Teacher Evaluations: Emotion Work and New Forms of Ceremonial Conformity in Educational Institutions

As accountability policies have proliferated and evolved in a number of organizational fields, recent scholarship in organizational sociology has paid close attention to the ways that accountability has forced tight coupling in a variety of organizations. Fewer recent studies examine efforts at ceremonial conformity that organizations may use to buffer internal practices from institutional pressures, or how organizations and their actors might attempt to engage in ceremonial conformity under newer accountability regimes. In this article, we examine how school principals enact state-mandated teacher evaluation policies with their teachers. To manage teachers\u27 stress caused by the evaluations, we find that principals often allow, and at times enable, teachers to put on a “dog and pony show” during formal evaluations, a performance that aligns with district instructional policies but deviates from their common everyday practices. We argue that this is a novel form of ceremonial conformity that we call instantiated recoupling

THE TABLET-MAKERS OF PYLOS: AN EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION INTO THE PRODUCTION OF LINEAR B TABLETS

The Linear B administrative texts of Late Bronze Age Greece were written on clay tablets, whose production therefore formed the first stage in the process of document creation, though it generally remains unclear whether the tablets’ writers were also their makers. This study combines experimental archaeology with autopsy of the tablets from Pylos in order to investigate the methods by which the Linear B tablets were created at this site. It thereby sheds light not only on the physical processes involved in shaping the clay, but also on the decisions involved on the part of the tablet-makers, and hence on the relationship between the ‘making’ and ‘writing’ stages of the process of creating the Linear B documents. Τα διοικητικά κείμενα Γραμμικής Β ́ της Ύστερης Εποχής του Χαλκού στην Ελλάδα γράφονταν πάνω σε πήλινες πινακίδες, των οποίων η παραγωγή ήταν και το πρώτο στάδιο στην διαδικασία δημιουργίας αυτών των εγγράφων. Παραμένει ασαφές κατά το πόσον οι συγγραφείς των πινακίδων ήταν οι ίδιοι με τους παραγωγούς των πινακίδων. Η παρούσα μελέτη συνδυάζει τις πρακτικές της πειραματικής αρχαιολογίας με αυτοψία των πινακίδων από την Πύλο με στόχο την διερεύνηση των μεθόδων δημιουργίας των πινακίδων στην Πύλο. Η μελέτη στοχεύει να διαλευκάνει όχι μόνο την διαδικασία παραγωγής και διαμόρφωσης του πηλού, αλλά και τις αποφάσεις οι οποίες πάρθηκαν από τους παραγωγούς των πινακίδων, και επομένως την σχέση μεταξύ των σταδίων δημιουργίας και της συγγραφής των εγγράφων της Γραμμικής Β ́. Μετάφραση: Χρ. Κωνσταντακοπούλο

Theory of selective excitation in Stimulated Raman Scattering

A semiclassical model is used to investigate the possibility of selectively exciting one of two closely spaced, uncoupled Raman transitions. The duration of the intense pump pulse that creates the Raman coherence is shorter than the vibrational period of a molecule (impulsive regime of interaction). Pulse shapes are found that provide either enhancement or suppression of particular vibrational excitations.Comment: RevTeX4,10 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Phys.Rev.

Chronic Ethanol Induces Synaptic but not Extrasynaptic Targeting of NMDA Receptors

The development of ethanol tolerance and dependence reflects neuroadaptive changes in response to continuous depression in synaptic activity. The present study used confocal imaging and electrophysiology procedures to assess the effects of prolonged ethanol exposure on NMDA receptor trafficking in cultures of hippocampal neurons. Neurons exposed to 50mM ethanol for 4 d showed an increase in the colocalization of NMDA receptor type 1 (NR1) clusters with the presynaptic marker protein synapsin. This was accompanied by significant increases in the size and density of these synapsin-associated clusters with no change observed in nonsynapsin-associated NR1 clusters. Similar effects were observed with NR2B clustering after chronic ethanol exposure. The increase in synaptic NMDA receptor clustering was prevented by addition of a protein kinase A inhibitor or by coexposure to a low concentration of NMDA and was reversed when ethanol was removed from the cultures. No changes were observed in the synaptic content, cluster size, or density of AMPA receptors after ethanol exposure. Electrophysiological measurements on ethanol-treated neurons revealed a similar enhancement in synaptic NMDA currents with no change in AMPA-mediated events. After isolation of extrasynaptic NMDA receptors by MK801 ()-5- methyl-10,11-dihydro-5H-dibenzo [a,d] cyclohepten-5,10-imine maleate (/) trapping, whole-cell responses to NMDA were not different between control and ethanol-treated neurons These observations demonstrate that neuroadaptive changes in NMDA receptors in response to prolonged ethanol exposure occur through activity-dependent processes that regulate their synaptic targeting and localization

The co-construction of energy provision and everyday practice: integrating heat pumps in social housing in England

Challenges of energy security, low carbon transitions, and electricity network constraints have led to a shift to new, efficient technologies for household energy services. Studies of such technological innovations usually focus on consumer information and changes in behaviour to realise their full potential. We suggest that regarding such technologies in existing energy provision systems opens up questions concerning how and why such interventions are delivered. We argue that we must understand the ways by which energy systems are co-constituted through the habits and expectations of households, their technologies and appliances, alongside arrangements associated with large-scale socio-technical infrastructures. Drawing on research with air-source-to-water heat pumps (ASWHP), installed as part of a large trans-disciplinary, utility-led research and demonstration project in the north of England, we investigate how energy services provision and everyday practice shapes new technologies uptake, and how such technologies mediate and reconfigure relations between users, providers and infrastructure networks. While the installation of ASWHP has led to role differentiation through which energy services are provided, the space for new forms of co-provision to emerge is limited by existing commitments to delivering energy services. Simultaneously, new forms of interdependency emerge between users, providers and intermediaries through sites of installation, instruction, repair and feedback. We find that although new technologies do lead to the rearrangement of practices, this is often disrupted by obduracy in the conventions and habits around domestic heating and hot water practices that have been established in relation to existing systems of provision. Rather being simply a matter of increasing levels of knowledge in order to ensure that such technologies are adopted effi ciently and effectively, our paper demonstrates how systemic arrangements of energy provision and everyday practice are co-implicated in socio-technical innovation by changing the nature of energy supply and use

A Case of Ovarian Fibromatosis and Massive Ovarian Oedema Associated With Intra-Abdominal Fibromatosis, Sclerosing Peritonitis and Meig's Syndrome

Purpose:To discuss a case of ovarian fibromatosis/massive ovarian oedema, intra-abdominal fibromatosis, sclerosing peritonitis and Meig's syndrome. To review the reported therapeutic options

Dynamic modeling of nitrogen losses in river networks unravels the coupled effects of hydrological and biogeochemical processes

The importance of lotic systems as sinks for nitrogen inputs is well recognized. A fraction of nitrogen in streamflow is removed to the atmosphere via denitrification with the remainder exported in streamflow as nitrogen loads. At the watershed scale, there is a keen interest in understanding the factors that control the fate of nitrogen throughout the stream channel network, with particular attention to the processes that deliver large nitrogen loads to sensitive coastal ecosystems. We use a dynamic stream transport model to assess biogeochemical (nitrate loadings, concentration, temperature) and hydrological (discharge, depth, velocity) effects on reach-scale denitrification and nitrate removal in the river networks of two watersheds having widely differing levels of nitrate enrichment but nearly identical discharges. Stream denitrification is estimated by regression as a nonlinear function of nitrate concentration, streamflow, and temperature, using more than 300 published measurements from a variety of US streams. These relations are used in the stream transport model to characterize nitrate dynamics related to denitrification at a monthly time scale in the stream reaches of the two watersheds. Results indicate that the nitrate removal efficiency of streams, as measured by the percentage of the stream nitrate flux removed via denitrification per unit length of channel, is appreciably reduced during months with high discharge and nitrate flux and increases during months of low-discharge and flux. Biogeochemical factors, including land use, nitrate inputs, and stream concentrations, are a major control on reach-scale denitrification, evidenced by the disproportionately lower nitrate removal efficiency in streams of the highly nitrate-enriched watershed as compared with that in similarly sized streams in the less nitrate-enriched watershed. Sensitivity analyses reveal that these important biogeochemical factors and physical hydrological factors contribute nearly equally to seasonal and stream-size related variations in the percentage of the stream nitrate flux removed in each watershed

Diversity in writing systems: embracing multiple perspectives

Introduction to "Diversity in Writing Systems: Embracing Multiple Perspectives", a special issue of Written Language and Literacy containing six papers from the Association of Written Language and Literacy's 2019 conference of the same time. This is the accepted version; the published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1075/wll.00051.int or by contacting me. The paper is under copyright; for re-use please contact the publisher, Benjamins