Agricultural change in Copper Age Croatia (ca. 4500–2500 cal B.C)?

The Copper Age in the Carpathian Basin is marked by a distinct change in settlement patterns, material culture, social traditions and subsistence practices; however, few studies address the nature of crop cultivation in the region. This paper examines new archaeobotanical data from 13 Copper Age (ca. 4500–2500 cal BC) sites located in continental Croatia, in order to assess the extent to which crop agriculture may have changed and contributed to overall subsistence economies in the Copper Age. From the archaeobotanical results, a dominance in einkorn and emmer is seen followed by barley. Less frequently millet, naked wheat and spelt/new glume wheat are also recovered, but due to their limited numbers, it is less clear whether they were grown as crops or represent weeds. Pulses (e.g. lentil, pea and grass pea), fruit remains (e.g. cornelian cherry and chinese lantern) and wild plant and weed species are also recovered, although more commonly from the late Copper Age sites. The archaeobotanical results show a clear reduction in the quantity and range of plant species recovered during the early/middle Copper Age; however, this is likely the result of taphonomic bias rather than a reduction in crop cultivation. The results therefore highlight problems of recovery bias in the region, which makes comparisons between sites as well as the reconstruction of crop husbandry regimes difficult. Overall, the results from continental Croatia suggest that the type of crops cultivated continued relatively unchanged from the late Neolithic, although it is clear that more research is desperately needed to explore the relationship between crop agriculture and the changing socio-economic environment of the Copper Age in the region

Companion animals as being-objects: the role of the self/other binary in the human-animal bond

This research project is an investigation into the human-dog bond and the practice of pet adoption and pet surrender at the East Baton Rouge Parish Animal Control Center. The human-dog bond is an excellent vehicle for an investigation into how we create categories of other because it is a highly complex and intersubjective relationship with deep evolutionary roots that is often reduced to a relationship between possessor and possessed in which cultural, historical, and biological contexts are not considered. It is a relationship in which constructed meaning is taken for fact. This thesis explores how animal control centers both resist and reinforce the perception of companion animals as being-objects. The term being-objects is used to denote the tactic we employ by categorizing companion animals as beings when convenient and as disposable objects when necessary. When we categorize companion animals as objects, we other them. We create an unfair identity for them in order to distance ourselves from an uncomfortable confrontation with the reality of pet euthanasia. The author of this thesis will explore how meaning is socially constructed in the E.B.R.P. Animal Control Center through a discussion of the way we speak about animal control centers, the location and arrangement of the E.B.R.P. Animal Control Center, and the performance of adoption and surrender processes within the center

From the hallways to the courtroom: struggle for desegregation in Chattanooga, Tennessee 1954-1986

Although historians have lent a great deal of attention to the Southern struggle for public school desegregation in the wake of the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board decision, a comprehensive history of desegregation in Chattanooga, Tennessee has yet to be written. My research seeks to fill this gap by examining how desegregation operated in Chattanooga throughout the twenty-six year Mapp v. Board of Education of Chattanooga litigation. The first portion of this paper focuses predominantly on the school board’s lack of action between 1955 and 1960, the subsequent demand for action from the black community in the form of the Mapp legal case, and the slow nature of change during the first decade of implemented desegregation. The second portion covers the time between the 1971 court order which instituted busing in Chattanooga and the final dismissal of the Mapp case in 1986. During this era, the fight for and against desegregation evolved, as the white middle class of Chattanooga showed their distaste for integration by turning to legal resistance and “white flight” to county schools and private institutions as opposed to the more visible protest or resistance in previous decades. Although the story of desegregation in Chattanooga never featured the massive white resistance and protest that marked and dramatized desegregation efforts in many other American cities throughout the 1960s and 1970s, I argue that the confluence of entrenched residential segregation, ample opportunity for “white flight” to private schools, and white, middle-class legal resistance enabled the school board to maintain de facto segregation in schools throughout the nationwide desegregation crisis

Middle-Class / White / Woman: The Unexamined Center in Expressive Therapies Education

Counseling psychology and the expressive therapies are majority-white, majority-female professions, and whiteness is the unnamed, normative center of expressive therapies and drama therapy education. As a middle-class white woman, I posit that by failing to examine this center we risk perpetuating the same systems that exacerbate our own and our clients\u27 suffering. I review the available literature and investigate the socio-historical, cultural, and political significance of whiteness and the historical role of white women in maintaining oppressive systems. I then explore the identity reconstruction process for white people seeking to divest from whiteness, specifically looking at the key emotions of guilt and shame. I review how whiteness asserts itself in therapeutic encounters and discuss the need for further research. Finally, I advocate for increased support for therapists-in-training taking on this process

Factors Associated with Medication-Overuse Headache in Patients Seeking Treatment for Primary Headache

Although a number of risk factors for medication-overuse headache (MOH) have been identified within the general population, limited research exists examining clinical samples of headache sufferers. Further, prior studies have not assessed the relative influence of risk factors or their utility in combination. As part of an online survey, 164 headache patients completed a demographic questionnaire, a diagnostic interview for headache, a measure of headache-related disability, measures of psychiatric symptoms, and measures of medication use and substance use. Standardized mean differences were used to quantify differences between patients who met diagnostic criteria for MOH and those who did not across five domains of predictors (demographic characteristics, headache characteristics, psychiatric symptoms, medication use, and substance use). The variables within each domain that best discriminated between those who met criteria for MOH and those who did not were identified using a classification tree approach with Bonferroni corrections. Candidate variables were then entered into a multivariate logistic regression to predict MOH status. Forty-three of the 164 patients (26.2%) of the sample met diagnostic criteria for MOH. Patients with MOH were more disabled by their headaches (mean [SD]: 67.60 [6.00] vs 63.31 [6.68]) and reported more escape and avoidance behaviors in response to headache pain (14.64 [5.36] vs 10.44 [6.13]. The use of combination medication for the treatment of headache (60.5% vs 33.1%, odds ratio 3.10, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.51-6.36) was associated with more than a threefold risk of MOH. These three variables were forced into a final multivariate model, which differentiated well between the two groups (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve = .78; 95% CI .71-.86). Based on these results, headache-related disability, fear and avoidance of pain-related stimuli, and the use of combination medications for the treatment of headache best predict MOH among treatment-seeking headache sufferers. Brief screening measures that assess relevant risk factors may be used to aid in the identification of headache patients most likely to have MOH and behavioral and cognitive-behavioral interventions may hold promise for the prevention of MOH and the reduction of acute medication use among individuals with MOH

Freedom on the Net 2014 - Tightening the Net: Governments Expand Online Controls (Summary)

Internet freedom around the world has declined for the fourth consecutive year, with a growing number of countries introducing online censorship and monitoring practices that are simultaneously more aggressive and more sophisticated in their targeting of individual users. This booklet is a summary of findings for the 2014 edition of "Freedom on the Net.

Reconstructing late Neolithic plant economies at the Eastern Adriatic site of Velištak (5th millennium cal BC)

The archaeobotanical remains from Veli∏tak are the first evidence of plant economies from an open-air settlement dating to the late Neolithic Hvar culture in Croatia (c. 4900–4000 cal BC). The results presented here are from the 2007–2013 field seasons. Based on an examination of carbonised macro-remains, it is suggested that emmer, einkorn, and barley were the main crops at Velistak, along with lentils, bitter vetch, and possibly peas and flax. Wild plants were also exploited, with evidence of wild fruits, such as cornelian cherry. Similarities with archaeobotanical finds from the early/middle Neolithic (c. 6000–4900 cal BC) also suggest that plant economies remained relatively unchanged during the Neolithic

A Composite Genome Approach to Identify Phylogenetically Informative Data from Next-Generation Sequencing

We have developed a novel method to rapidly obtain homologous genomic data for phylogenetics directly from next-generation sequencing reads without the use of a reference genome. This software, called SISRS, avoids the time consuming steps of de novo whole genome assembly, genome-genome alignment, and annotation. For simulations SISRS is able to identify large numbers of loci containing variable sites with phylogenetic signal. For genomic data from apes, SISRS identified thousands of variable sites, from which we produced an accurate phylogeny. Finally, we used SISRS to identify phylogenetic markers that we used to estimate the phylogeny of placental mammals. We recovered phylogenies from multiple datasets that were consistent with previous conflicting estimates of the relationships among mammals. SISRS is open source and freely available at https://github.com/rachelss/SISRS.Comment: 12 pages plus36 figures, 1 supplementary table, 3 supplementary figure

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