Review of \u3ci\u3e Principles of Geoarchaeology: A North American Perspective\u3c/i\u3e by Michael R. Waters

First published in 1992, this book-now in paper-presents the fundamentals of geoarchaeology, the field of study that applies the concepts and methods of the geosciences to archaeological research. Although a number of good books have been written about this subdiscipline of archaeology, Waters restricts his review to late Quaternary landscapes in North America. Furthermore, he limits his discussion to the field aspects of geoarchaeology. Stratigraphy, site formation processes, and landscape reconstruction are the centerpieces of this study. Readers looking for information about laboratory methods, dating techniques, or the application of geophysics and geochemistry to archaeology must go to other sources. Waters\u27s topical, temporal, and geographical focus is, nonetheless, effective, allowing for detailed discussions of geoarchaeological concepts and field methods that are directly applicable to archaeological research in North America. A broader scope would have diluted his effort

Review of \u3ci\u3e Soils in Archaeological Research\u3c/i\u3e by Vance T. Holliday

When I teach geoarchaeology, I tell students on the first day of class that soils are the canvas for much of the archaeological record. Just as an artist\u27s canvas holds and affects the paint, soils hold archaeological materials, and soil-forming processes strongly influence the preservation and spatial pattern of cultural deposits. Given this close relationship between soils and the material remains of humans, we have long needed a treatise that addresses all aspects of soils from an archaeological perspective. Vance Holliday\u27s latest book, Soils in Archaeological Research, does this and more

Questions of quality in repositories of open educational resources: a literature review

Open educational resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials which are freely available and openly licensed. Repositories of OER (ROER) are platforms that host and facilitate access to these resources. ROER should not just be designed to store this content – in keeping with the aims of the OER movement, they should support educators in embracing open educational practices (OEP) such as searching for and retrieving content that they will reuse, adapt or modify as needed, without economic barriers or copyright restrictions. This paper reviews key literature on OER and ROER, in order to understand the roles ROER are said or supposed to fulfil in relation to furthering the aims of the OER movement. Four themes which should shape repository design are identified, and the following 10 quality indicators (QI) for ROER effectiveness are discussed: featured resources; user evaluation tools; peer review; authorship of the resources; keywords of the resources; use of standardised metadata; multilingualism of the repositories; inclusion of social media tools; specification of the creative commons license; availability of the source code or original files. These QI form the basis of a method for the evaluation of ROER initiatives which, in concert with considerations of achievability and long-term sustainability, should assist in enhancement and development. Keywords: open educational resources; open access; open educational practice; repositories; quality assuranc

Transcriptional profiling of colicin-induced cell death of Escherichia coli MG1655 identifies potential mechanisms by which bacteriocins promote bacterial diversity

We report the transcriptional response of Escherichia coli MG1655 to damage induced by colicins E3 and E9, bacteriocins that kill cells through inactivation of the ribosome and degradation of chromosomal DNA, respectively. Colicin E9 strongly induced the LexA-regulated SOS response, while colicin E3 elicited a broad response that included the induction of cold shock genes, symptomatic of translational arrest. Colicin E3 also increased the transcription of cryptic prophage genes and other laterally acquired mobile elements. The transcriptional responses to both these toxins suggest mechanisms that may promote genetic diversity in E. coli populations, pointing to a more general role for colicins in adaptive bacterial physiology than has hitherto been realized

Driving While High

As of May 2019, ten U.S. states and Washington DC have legalized non-medical/recreational use of cannabis. With increased access to legal marijuana across the country, some have raised concerns regarding unintended implications of these policies, such as the risk of motor vehicle crashes, which is the leading cause of mortality and injury among youth and young adults. Driving under the influence of marijuana is particularly concerning among young adults and college students, due to the increased level of substance use reported during the transition from high school to post-high school environments, such as college

A New Evolutionary Channel for Type Ia Supernovae

We show that long-period dwarf novae offer a promising route for making Type Ia supernovae. For typical dwarf nova duty cycles d ~ 0.1 - 0.01, mass is accreted by the white dwarf mainly during dwarf nova outbursts at rates allowing steady nuclear burning of most of the accreted matter. Mass gains up to ~ 0.4 Msun are possible in this way. Although these are too small to allow a 0.7 Msun WD to reach the Chandrasekhar mass, they are sufficient if the WD grew to ~ 1 Msun in a previous episode of thermal-timescale mass transfer, i.e. for those long-period dwarf novae which descend from supersoft binaries. A further advantage of this picture is that the supernova always occurs in a binary of small secondary/primary mass ratio, with the secondary having very little remaining hydrogen. Both features greatly reduce the possibility of hydrogen contamination of the supernova ejecta.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, MNRAS, accepte

Exact Kink Solitons in the Presence of Diffusion, Dispersion, and Polynomial Nonlinearity

We describe exact kink soliton solutions to nonlinear partial differential equations in the generic form u_{t} + P(u) u_{x} + \nu u_{xx} + \delta u_{xxx} = A(u), with polynomial functions P(u) and A(u) of u=u(x,t), whose generality allows the identification with a number of relevant equations in physics. We emphasize the study of chirality of the solutions, and its relation with diffusion, dispersion, and nonlinear effects, as well as its dependence on the parity of the polynomials $P(u)$ and $A(u)$ with respect to the discrete symmetry $u\to-u$. We analyze two types of kink soliton solutions, which are also solutions to 1+1 dimensional phi^{4} and phi^{6} field theories.Comment: 11 pages, Late

Changing Mindsets: Effectiveness trial

The Changing Mindsets project aimed to improve attainment outcomes at the end of primary school by teaching Year 6 pupils that their brain potential was not a fixed entity but could grow and change through effort exerted. The programme, delivered by Portsmouth University, taught pupils about the malleability of intelligence through workshops. Teachers attended short professional development courses on approaches to developing a ‘growth mindset’ before delivering sessions to pupils weekly, over eight consecutive weeks. Teachers were encouraged to embed aspects of the growth mindset approach throughout their teaching—for example, when giving feedback outside of the sessions. They were also given access to digital classroom resources, such as a video case study of Darwin overcoming adversity in his own life, as a practical example of the importance of having a growth mindset. The project was a randomised controlled trial (RCT) and included 101 schools and 5018 pupils across England, assigned to either intervention or control groups. The trial ran from September 2016 to February 2017. The process evaluation involved interviews with teachers, focus groups with pupils receiving the intervention, lesson observations, and surveys of both treatment schools and control groups throughout the course of the intervention. Key conclusions 1. Pupils in schools that received the intervention did not make any additional progress in literacy nor numeracy—as measured by the national Key Stage 2 tests in reading, grammar, punctuation, and spelling (GPS), and maths—compared to pupils in the control group. This finding has high security. 2. This evaluation also examined four measures of non-cognitive skills: intrinsic value, self-efficacy, test anxiety, and selfregulation. The evaluation did not find evidence of an impact on these measures for pupils in schools that received Changing Mindsets. A positive impact was found for the intrinsic value measure, but the impact was small and was not statistically significant. 3. Among pupils eligible for free school meals (‘FSM pupils’), those in schools that received the intervention did not make any additional progress in literacy nor numeracy—as measured by the national Key Stage 2 tests in reading, GPS, and maths— compared to FSM pupils in schools that did not receive the intervention. 4. One explanation for the absence of a measurable impact on pupil attainment is the widespread use of the growth mindset theory. Most teachers in the comparison schools (that did not receive the intervention) were familiar with this, and over a third reported that they had attended training days based on the growth mindset approach

The Charging Structure for the Great Barrier Reef - A review of willingness to pay

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA or the Reef Authority) is currently conducting a comprehensive review of the charging structure for the use of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) Marine Park with a view to implement potential changes from 1 July 2023