MM 1A pottery from Evans' excavations at Knossos

The famous excavations of Sir Arthur Evans at Knossos produced vast quantities of ceramic material. This thesis presents a new analysis of the most important Knossian deposits assigned by Evans to the Middle Minoan IA (MM IA) phase in his system of classification of the Minoan Bronze Age. These deposits have never been systematically studied and are largely unpublished or inadequately published. The first, introductory chapter of the thesis is a short discussion of the previous studies and current definitions of Knossian MM IA pottery, of the sources of information, and of the problems involved in the study of Evans' material. Chapter 2 deals with the deposits located in the West Court, such as Houses A, B and C, etc.. Chapter 3 deals with the deposits located in the area of the Palace, such as the Vat Room, the Upper East Well, etc.. Chapter 4 deals with the North Quarter of the City, a deposit from outside the area of the Palace. Chapters 2-4 present a detailed analysis of the pottery, based upon a re-examination of the relevant documentary sources (excavation notebooks etc.) and a first-hand knowledge of the ceramic material. Chapter 5 presents a typology of Knossian MM IA pottery and briefly discusses its production and decoration. The picture of Knossian MM IA pottery presented in this study is remarkably different from that of Evans. Chapter 6 discusses vases of foreign origin (and/or local imitations) found in Knossian MM IA deposits, Knossian MM IA vases Land/or local imitations) found outside the Knossos region, and the implications for relative chronology. Chapter 7 summarizes the main results obtained by this study. There is a Catalogue of the complete and restorable vases from the various deposits discussed in the text, and Appendix 1 lists various Knossian MM IA deposits, including those which could not be included in the present study

An Improved Implementation and Abstract Interface for Hybrid

Hybrid is a formal theory implemented in Isabelle/HOL that provides an interface for representing and reasoning about object languages using higher-order abstract syntax (HOAS). This interface is built around an HOAS variable-binding operator that is constructed definitionally from a de Bruijn index representation. In this paper we make a variety of improvements to Hybrid, culminating in an abstract interface that on one hand makes Hybrid a more mathematically satisfactory theory, and on the other hand has important practical benefits. We start with a modification of Hybrid's type of terms that better hides its implementation in terms of de Bruijn indices, by excluding at the type level terms with dangling indices. We present an improved set of definitions, and a series of new lemmas that provide a complete characterization of Hybrid's primitives in terms of properties stated at the HOAS level. Benefits of this new package include a new proof of adequacy and improvements to reasoning about object logics. Such proofs are carried out at the higher level with no involvement of the lower level de Bruijn syntax.Comment: In Proceedings LFMTP 2011, arXiv:1110.668

Cast Away in the Adriatic: Low Degree of Parallel Genetic Differentiation in Three-Spined Sticklebacks

The three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) has repeatedly and independently adapted to freshwater habitats from standing genetic variation (SGV) following colonization from the sea. However, in the Mediterranean Sea G. aculeatus is believed to have gone extinct, and thus the spread of locally adapted alleles between different freshwater populations via the sea since then has been highly unlikely. This is expected to limit parallel evolution, that is the extent to which phylogenetically related alleles can be shared among independently colonized freshwater populations. Using whole genome and 2b-RAD sequencing data, we compared levels of genetic differentiation and genetic parallelism of 15 Adriatic stickleback populations to 19 Pacific, Atlantic and Caspian populations, where gene flow between freshwater populations across extant marine populations is still possible. Our findings support previous studies suggesting that Adriatic populations are highly differentiated (average F-ST approximate to 0.45), of low genetic diversity and connectivity, and likely to stem from multiple independent colonizations during the Pleistocene. Linkage disequilibrium network analyses in combination with linear mixed models nevertheless revealed several parallel marine-freshwater differentiated genomic regions, although still not to the extent observed elsewhere in the world. We hypothesize that current levels of genetic parallelism in the Adriatic lineages are a relic of freshwater adaptation from SGV prior to the extinction of marine sticklebacks in the Mediterranean that has persisted despite substantial genetic drift experienced by the Adriatic stickleback isolates.Peer reviewe

Algebraic totality, towards completeness

Finiteness spaces constitute a categorical model of Linear Logic (LL) whose objects can be seen as linearly topologised spaces, (a class of topological vector spaces introduced by Lefschetz in 1942) and morphisms as continuous linear maps. First, we recall definitions of finiteness spaces and describe their basic properties deduced from the general theory of linearly topologised spaces. Then we give an interpretation of LL based on linear algebra. Second, thanks to separation properties, we can introduce an algebraic notion of totality candidate in the framework of linearly topologised spaces: a totality candidate is a closed affine subspace which does not contain 0. We show that finiteness spaces with totality candidates constitute a model of classical LL. Finally, we give a barycentric simply typed lambda-calculus, with booleans ${\mathcal{B}}$ and a conditional operator, which can be interpreted in this model. We prove completeness at type ${\mathcal{B}}^n\to{\mathcal{B}}$ for every n by an algebraic method

The deindustrialisation/tertiarisation hypothesis reconsidered: a subsystem application to the OECD7

The diffusion of outsourcing, both national and international, and vertical FDIs among manufacturing firms, along with the higher integra- tion of business services in manufacturing, has recently led to question the empirical evidence supporting the Deindustrialisation/Tertiarisation (DT) hypothesis. Rather than a \real" phenomenon, it has been argued, DT would be an \apparent" one, mainly due to the reorganization of production across national and sectoral boundaries. The empirical studies that have dealt with the topic so far have not been able to effectively rule out such possibility, because of two main limitations: the sectoral level of the analysis and/or the national focus. In order to overcome them, the paper carries out an appreciative investigation of the actual extent of the DT occurred in the OECD area over the '80s and the '90s by moving from a sector to a subsystem perspective, thus retaining both direct and indirect relations, and by referring to a \pseudo-World" of 7 OECD countries, thus taking into account the \global" dimension of the phenomenon. The results strongly support the DT hypothesis: although the weight of business sector services in the manufacturing subsystem increased, acting as a counterbalancing tendency to the manufacturing decline, subsystem shares significantly decreased, thus confirming DT as a more fundamental trend of modern economies

Outsourcing and structural change: shifting firm and sectoral boundaries

The paper aims at investigating the structural change implications of outsourcing. In trying to bridge the organizational/industrial and the sectoral/structural analysis of outsourcing, it discusses the rational and the methodological pros and cons of a “battery” of outsourcing measurements for structural change analysis. Their functioning is then illustrated through a concise application of them to the OECD area over the ’80s and the early ’90s. A combined used of them emerges as recommendable in checking for the role of outsourcing with respect to that of other structural change determinants

HLA-class I markers and multiple sclerosis susceptibility in the Italian population

Previous studies reported an association with multiple sclerosis (MS) of distinct HLA-class I markers, namely HLA-A*02, HLA-Cw*05 and MOG-142L. In this work, we tested the association with MS of A*02 and Cw*05 in 1273 Italian MS patients and 1075 matched controls, which were previously analyzed for MOG-142, and explored the relationship among these three markers in modulating MS risk. HLA-A*02 conferred a statistically robust MS protection (odds ratio, OR=0.61; 95% confidence intervals, CI=0.51–0.72, P<10−9), which was independent of DRB1*15 and of any other DRB1* allele and remained similar after accounting for the other two analyzed class I markers. Conversely, the protective effect we previously observed for MOG-142L was secondary to its linkage disequilibrium with A*02. Cw*05 was not associated considering the whole sample, but its presence significantly enhanced the protection in the HLA-A*02-positive group, independently of DRB1: the OR conferred by A*02 in Cw*05-positive individuals (0.22, 95% CI=0.13–0.38) was significantly lower than in Cw*05-negative individuals (0.69, 95% CI=0.58–0.83) with a significant (P=4.94 × 10−5) multiplicative interaction between the two markers. In the absence of A*02, Cw*05 behaved as a risk factor, particularly in combination with DRB1*03 (OR=3.89, P=0.0006), indicating that Cw*05 might be a marker of protective or risk haplotypes, respectively

Colonization history of the western corn rootworm (Diabrotica virgifera virgifera) in North America: insights from random forest ABC using microsatellite data

First described from western Kansas, USA, the western corn rootworm, Diabrotica virgifera virgifera, is one of the worst pests of maize. The species is generally thought to be of Mexican origin and to have incidentally followed the expansion of maize cultivation into North America thousands of years ago. However, this hypothesis has never been investigated formally. In this study, the genetic variability of samples collected throughout North America was analysed at 13 microsatellite marker loci to explore precisely the population genetic structure and colonization history of D. v. virgifera. In particular, we used up-to-date approximate Bayesian computation methods based on random forest algorithms to test a Mexican versus a central-USA origin of the species, and to compare various possible timings of colonization. This analysis provided strong evidence that the origin of D. v. virgifera was southern (Mexico, or even further south). Surprisingly, we also found that the expansion of the species north of its origin was recent—probably not before 1100 years ago—thus indicating it was not directly associated with the early history of maize expansion out of Mexico, a far more ancient event