Timing is everything:radiocarbon dating multiple levels in the Mycenaean tholos tomb of Petroto, Achaia, Greece

Reuse in Mycenaean tholoi (bee-hive shaped tombs) has been studied for centuries. Initially, bodies are interred on tomb floors, but moved after decomposition to make space for later burials. Extensive reuse can produce burial levels that are poorly understood often due to a lack of absolute dating. The Petroto tholos is a prime case study for dating multiple burial levels because all eight levels were sequential as later burials did not disturb previous depositions. The initial burial phase has been dated by ceramic chronology to the Late Helladic IIB-IIIA (ca. 1440–1400 BC). Radiocarbon dating of human bone samples yield for Level 7 (middle burial level) 3105 +/− 35 BP (1420–1305 cal BC) and for Level 3 (final burial) 2965 +/− 35 BP (1255–1120 cal BC). The ceramic and radiocarbon dates show that the tomb was used over for approximately 300 years during the Mycenaean period and never used again

Incidence of human brucellosis in a rural area in Western Greece after the implementation of a vaccination programme against animal brucellosis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Brucellosis continues to be an important source of morbidity in several countries, particularly among agricultural and pastoral populations. The purpose of this study was to examine if there is an effect on the incidence of human brucellosis after the implementation of an animal brucellosis control programme.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The study was conducted in the Municipality of Tritaia in the Prefecture of Achaia in Western Greece during the periods 1997–1998 and 2000–2002. Health education efforts were made during 1997–1998 to make the public take preventive measures. In the time period from January 1999 to August 2002 a vaccination programme against animal brucellosis was realised in the specific region. The vaccine used was the <it>B. melitensis </it>Rev-1 administered by the conjuctival route. Comparisons were performed between the incidence rates of the two studied periods.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>There was a great fall in the incidence rate between 1997–1998 (10.3 per 1,000 population) and the period 2000–2002 after the vaccination (0.3 per 1,000 population). The considerable decrease of the human incidence rate is also observed in the period 2000–2002 among persons whose herds were not as yet vaccinated (1.4 vs. 10.3 per 1,000 population), indicating a possible role of health education in the decline of human brucellosis.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The study reveals a statistically significant decline in the incidence of human brucellosis after the vaccination programme and underlines the importance of an ongoing control of animal brucellosis in the prevention of human brucellosis. The reduction of human brucellosis can be best achieved by a combination of health education and mass animal vaccination.</p

Έρευνες για την αρχαία Ψωφίδα

The project "Investigations in ancient Psophis" started to materialize in 2001, initiated by the 6th Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities of Patras with the financial support of the Region of Western Greece through the program EΠTA and with the help of the municipality of Aroaneia. The aims of our project were the following: A) the cleaning of the ancient fortification wall, B) the cleaning of the visible public buildings, C) trial pits for the localization of the ancient theatre, D) the locations of the ancient temples of the city. The cleaning of the wall brought to light almost its whole perimeter. It was established that there were towers in every part of the wall. A new gate was located in its western part. The most important public building is known as 'Helleniko'. A large wall supports the building, which consists of a central court and rooms around it, and its excavation will take place during the next period. The initial trial pits in the western part of the city did not bring to light the ancient theatre, but many walls, which belong to different, probably public, buildings. The trial pits will be continued in this part of the city, because the discovery of a theater mask and of theater tickets during the cleaning of the west wall show that the theatre must be located here. A trial pit in the court of the monastery of the Virgin Mary brought to light a large Doric capital. G. Papandreou had also found large drums in 1920 in the same area. These elements show that the most important temple of the city, for Aphrodite Erykine, must be located here and not in Ag. Petros by Aphrodision, as Chr. Kardara believes. Numerous architectural members, such as capitals, columns, drums etc. in the neighbouring house of Sp. Taktikos show that in this part of the city we must search for its agora. In 2003, some more trial pits will offer elements for the chronology of the walls, for the location of the theatre, for the identification of the large building 'Helleniko' and perhaps for the relations between Psophis and Sicily

Query Set Specification Language (QSSL)

Applications require access to multiple information sources and the data of other applications. WSDL-based web services are becoming a popular way of making information sources available on the web and, hence, to applications that need to consume them -- often via data integration systems that combine the data of multiple sources. We argue that the function signature paradigm that is used today by web services cannot capture the query capabilities provided by structurally rich and functionally powerful information sources, such as relational databases. We propose the Query Set Specification Language (QSSL) that allows the concise description of sets of parameterized XPath queries. A QSS is embedded in a WSDL specification to form a specialized type of web services, called Data Services. Data Services connect the calls that the source accepts with the underlying schema. QSSL will be enhanced to describe subsets of XQuery expressions beyond XPath ones.Pre-2018 CSE ID: CS2003-073

CLIDE: Interactively Formulating Feasible Queries on Query Rewriting-Based Systems

Information systems typically support only a limited set of queries over the schema they export. The reason is that the participating information sources contribute limited content and limited access methods. We describe the CLIDE interactive system, which extends the QBE-like query builder of Microsoft's SQL Server with a coloring scheme that guides the user toward formulating feasible queries. We formalize the behavior of the system using an interaction graph. We present a modular architecture consisting of a front-end and a back-end that enables the front-end's behavior by providing answers to particular questions about the interaction graph. We developed a back-end for the case where the content and the access methods are described using parameterized views, a formalism that has been used in integration architectures. In this case the set of feasible queries consists of the queries that have an equivalent rewriting using the views. We present the algorithms, implementation and performance of the back-end, showing that CLIDE is a viable online tool.Pre-2018 CSE ID: CS2004-080