Persistent Place-Making in Prehistory: the Creation, Maintenance, and Transformation of an Epipalaeolithic Landscape

Most archaeological projects today integrate, at least to some degree, how past people engaged with their surroundings, including both how they strategized resource use, organized technological production, or scheduled movements within a physical environment, as well as how they constructed cosmologies around or created symbolic connections to places in the landscape. However, there are a multitude of ways in which archaeologists approach the creation, maintenance, and transformation of human-landscape interrelationships. This paper explores some of these approaches for reconstructing the Epipalaeolithic (ca. 23,000–11,500 years BP) landscape of Southwest Asia, using macro- and microscale geoarchaeological approaches to examine how everyday practices leave traces of human-landscape interactions in northern and eastern Jordan. The case studies presented here demonstrate that these Epipalaeolithic groups engaged in complex and far-reaching social landscapes. Examination of the Early and Middle Epipalaeolithic (EP) highlights that the notion of “Neolithization” is somewhat misleading as many of the features we use to define this transition were already well-established patterns of behavior by the Neolithic. Instead, these features and practices were enacted within a hunter-gatherer world and worldview

Measurement of the Ratio of b Quark Production Cross Sections in Antiproton-Proton Collisions at 630 GeV and 1800 GeV

We report a measurement of the ratio of the bottom quark production cross section in antiproton-proton collisions at 630 GeV to 1800 GeV using bottom quarks with transverse momenta greater than 10.75 GeV identified through their semileptonic decays and long lifetimes. The measured ratio sigma(630)/sigma(1800) = 0.171 +/- .024 +/- .012 is in good agreement with next-to-leading order (NLO) quantum chromodynamics (QCD)

Measurements of the mass and width of the eta(c) meson and of an eta(c)(2S) candidate

The mass m(etac) and total width Gamma(tot)(etac) of the eta(c) meson have been measured in two-photon interactions at the SLAC e(+)e(-) asymmetric B Factory with the BABAR detector. With a sample of approximately 2500 reconstructed eta(c) --> (KSK+/-)-K-0 pi(-/+) decays in 88 fb(-1) of data, the results are m(etac) = 2982.5 +/- 1.1 (stat) +/- 0.9(syst) MeV/c(2) and Gamma(tot)(etac) = 34.3 +/- 2.3(stat) +/- 0.9(syst) MeV/c(2). Using the same decay mode, a second resonance with 112 +/- 24 events is observed with a mass of 3630.8 +/- 3.4(stat) +/- 1.0(syst) MeV/c(2) and width of 17.0 +/- 8.3(stat) +/- 2.5(syst) MeV/c(2). This observation is consistent with expectations for the eta(c)(2S) state

Measurement of the inclusive charmless semileptonic branching ratio of B mesons and determination of vertical bar V-ub vertical bar

We report a measurement of the inclusive charmless semileptonic branching fraction of B mesons in a sample of 89x10(6) B(b) over bar events recorded with the BABAR detector at the Y(4S) resonance. Events are selected by fully reconstructing the decay of one B meson and identifying a charged lepton from the decay of the other B meson. The number of signal events is extracted from the mass distribution of the hadronic system accompanying the lepton and is used to determine the ratio of branching fractions B((B) over bar --> X(u)l (v) over bar)/B((B) over bar --> Xl (v) over bar) = [2.06 +/- 0.25(stat) +/- 0.23(syst) +/- 0.36(theo)] x 10(-2). Using the measured branching fraction for inclusive semileptonic B decays, we find B((B) over bar --> X(u)l (V) over bar) = [2.24+/-0.27(stat) +/- 0.26(syst) +/- 0.39(theo)] x 10(-3) and derive the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix element parallel toV(ub)parallel to = [4.62 +/- 0.28(stat) +/- 0.27(syst) +/- 0.48(theo)] x 10(-3)

Effects of Once-Weekly Exenatide on Cardiovascular Outcomes in Type 2 Diabetes.

Abstract BACKGROUND: The cardiovascular effects of adding once-weekly treatment with exenatide to usual care in patients with type 2 diabetes are unknown. METHODS: We randomly assigned patients with type 2 diabetes, with or without previous cardiovascular disease, to receive subcutaneous injections of extended-release exenatide at a dose of 2 mg or matching placebo once weekly. The primary composite outcome was the first occurrence of death from cardiovascular causes, nonfatal myocardial infarction, or nonfatal stroke. The coprimary hypotheses were that exenatide, administered once weekly, would be noninferior to placebo with respect to safety and superior to placebo with respect to efficacy. RESULTS: In all, 14,752 patients (of whom 10,782 [73.1%] had previous cardiovascular disease) were followed for a median of 3.2 years (interquartile range, 2.2 to 4.4). A primary composite outcome event occurred in 839 of 7356 patients (11.4%; 3.7 events per 100 person-years) in the exenatide group and in 905 of 7396 patients (12.2%; 4.0 events per 100 person-years) in the placebo group (hazard ratio, 0.91; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.83 to 1.00), with the intention-to-treat analysis indicating that exenatide, administered once weekly, was noninferior to placebo with respect to safety (P<0.001 for noninferiority) but was not superior to placebo with respect to efficacy (P=0.06 for superiority). The rates of death from cardiovascular causes, fatal or nonfatal myocardial infarction, fatal or nonfatal stroke, hospitalization for heart failure, and hospitalization for acute coronary syndrome, and the incidence of acute pancreatitis, pancreatic cancer, medullary thyroid carcinoma, and serious adverse events did not differ significantly between the two groups. CONCLUSIONS: Among patients with type 2 diabetes with or without previous cardiovascular disease, the incidence of major adverse cardiovascular events did not differ significantly between patients who received exenatide and those who received placebo. (Funded by Amylin Pharmaceuticals; EXSCEL ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT01144338 .)