Composition, production and procurement of glass at San Vincenzo: an early medieval monastic complex in southern Italy

136 glasses from the ninth-century monastery of San Vincenzo and its workshops have been analysed by electron microprobe in order to situate the assemblage within the first millennium CE glass making tradition. The majority of the glass compositions can be paralleled by Roman glass from the first to third centuries, with very few samples consistent with later compositional groups. Colours for trailed decoration on vessels, for vessel bodies and for sheet glass for windows were largely produced by melting the glass tesserae from old Roman mosaics. Some weakly-coloured transparent glass was obtained by re-melting Roman window glass, while some was produced by melting and mixing of tesserae, excluding the strongly coloured cobalt blues. Our data suggest that to feed the needs of the glass workshop, the bulk of the glass was removed as tesserae and windows from a large Roman building. This is consistent with a historical account according to which the granite columns of the monastic church were spolia from a Roman temple in the region. The purported shortage of natron from Egypt does not appear to explain the dependency of San Vincenzo on old Roman glass. Rather, the absence of contemporary primary glass may reflect the downturn in long-distance trade in the later first millennium C.E., and the role of patronage in the “ritual economy” founded upon donations and gift-giving of the time

Microvascular function in pre-eclampsia is influenced by insulin resistance and an imbalance of angiogenic mediators

In preeclampsia, maternal microvascular function is disrupted and angiogenesis is dysfunctional. Insulin resistance that occurs in some pregnancies also pathologically affects microvascular function. We wished to examine the relationship of angiogenic mediators and insulin resistance on microvascular health in pregnancy. We performed a nested, case-control study of 16 women who developed preeclampsia with 17 normal pregnant controls. We hypothesized that the impaired microvascular blood flow in preeclamptic women associated with an increased ratio of the antiangiogenic factors; (s-endoglin [sEng] and soluble fms-like tyrosine kinase-1 [sFlt-1]) and proangiogenic molecule (placental growth factor [PlGF]) could be influenced by insulin resistance. Serum samples taken after 28 weeks of gestation were measured for the angiogenic factors, insulin, and glucose alongside the inflammatory marker; tumor necrosis factor-α and endothelial activation, namely; soluble vascular cell adhesion molecule 1, intercellular adhesion molecule-1, and e-selectin. Maternal microvascular blood flow, measured by strain gauge plethysmography, correlated with ratios of pro- and antiangiogenic mediators independently of preeclampsia. Decreased microvascular function measured in preeclampsia strongly correlated with both the antiangiogenic factor (sFlt-1 + sEng): PlGF ratio and high levels of insulin resistance, and combining insulin resistance with antiangiogenic factor ratios further strengthened this relationship. In pregnancy, microvascular blood flow is strongly associated with perturbations in pro- and antiangiogenic mediators. In preeclampsia, the relationship of maternal microvascular dysfunction with antiangiogenic mediators is strengthened when combined with insulin resistance

Inclusive search for same-sign dilepton signatures in pp collisions at root s=7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

An inclusive search is presented for new physics in events with two isolated leptons (e or mu) having the same electric charge. The data are selected from events collected from p p collisions at root s = 7 TeV by the ATLAS detector and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 34 pb(-1). The spectra in dilepton invariant mass, missing transverse momentum and jet multiplicity are presented and compared to Standard Model predictions. In this event sample, no evidence is found for contributions beyond those of the Standard Model. Limits are set on the cross-section in a fiducial region for new sources of same-sign high-mass dilepton events in the ee, e mu and mu mu channels. Four models predicting same-sign dilepton signals are constrained: two descriptions of Majorana neutrinos, a cascade topology similar to supersymmetry or universal extra dimensions, and fourth generation d-type quarks. Assuming a new physics scale of 1 TeV, Majorana neutrinos produced by an effective operator V with masses below 460 GeV are excluded at 95% confidence level. A lower limit of 290 GeV is set at 95% confidence level on the mass of fourth generation d-type quarks

Measurement of the top quark-pair production cross section with ATLAS in pp collisions at \sqrt{s}=7\TeV

A measurement of the production cross-section for top quark pairs(\ttbar) in $pp$ collisions at \sqrt{s}=7 \TeV is presented using data recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Events are selected in two different topologies: single lepton (electron $e$ or muon $\mu$) with large missing transverse energy and at least four jets, and dilepton ($ee$, $\mu\mu$ or $e\mu$) with large missing transverse energy and at least two jets. In a data sample of 2.9 pb-1, 37 candidate events are observed in the single-lepton topology and 9 events in the dilepton topology. The corresponding expected backgrounds from non-\ttbar Standard Model processes are estimated using data-driven methods and determined to be $12.2 \pm 3.9$ events and $2.5 \pm 0.6$ events, respectively. The kinematic properties of the selected events are consistent with SM \ttbar production. The inclusive top quark pair production cross-section is measured to be \sigmattbar=145 \pm 31 ^{+42}_{-27} pb where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second systematic. The measurement agrees with perturbative QCD calculations.Comment: 30 pages plus author list (50 pages total), 9 figures, 11 tables, CERN-PH number and final journal adde

Governance of Ecosystem Services Across Scales in Bangladesh

Ecosystem services are governed and affected by different legal, institutional and policy frameworks. Hence, formal documented policies, regulations and statutes of Bangladesh are examined where relevant. This facilitates greater understanding of the influence that governance has on the accessibility to the benefits derived and how this might then affect livelihoods and well-being. A range of factors are found to determine effectiveness in terms of general adaptive governance principles, with coordination, enforcement and rigidity being important issues. In addition, policy development in crucial areas may not be supported by associated legal frameworks, undermining implementation. However, workable (and dynamic) combinations of primary and secondary legislation are both possible and desirable to achieve flexible policy instruments.<br/

Glass groups, glass supply and recycling in late Roman Carthage

Carthage played an important role in maritime exchange networks during the Roman and late antique periods. One hundred ten glass fragments dating to the third to sixth centuries CE from a secondary deposit at the Yasmina Necropolis in Carthage have been analysed by electron microprobe analysis (EPMA) to characterise the supply of glass to the city. Detailed bivariate and multivariate data analysis identified different primary glass groups and revealed evidence of extensive recycling. Roman mixed antimony and manganese glasses with MnO contents in excess of 250 ppm were clearly the product of recycling, while iron, potassium and phosphorus oxides were frequent contaminants. Primary glass sources were discriminated using TiO2 as a proxy for heavy minerals (ilmenite/spinel), Al2O3 for feldspar and SiO2 for quartz in the glassmaking sands. It was thus possible to draw conclusions about the chronological and geographical attributions of the primary glass types. Throughout much of the period covered in this study, glassworkers in Carthage utilised glass from both Egyptian and Levantine sources. Based on their geochemical characteristics, we conclude that Roman antimony and Roman manganese glasses originated from Egypt and the Levant, respectively, and were more or less simultaneously worked at Carthage in the fourth century as attested by their mixed recycling (Roman Sb-Mn). In the later fourth and early fifth centuries, glasses from Egypt (HIMT) and the Levant (two Levantine I groups) continued to be imported to Carthage, although the Egyptian HIMT is less well represented at Yasmina than in many other late antique glass assemblages. In contrast, in the later fifth and sixth centuries, glass seems to have been almost exclusively sourced from Egypt in the form of a manganese-decolourised glass originally described and characterised by Foy and colleagues (2003). Hence, the Yasmina assemblage testifies to significant fluctuations in the supply of glass to Carthage that require further attention

Measurement of inclusive two-particle angular correlations in pp collisions with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

We present a measurement of two-particle angular correlations in proton- proton collisions at s√=900 GeV and 7 TeV. The collision events were collected during 2009 and 2010 with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider using a single-arm minimum bias trigger. Correlations are measured for charged particles produced in the kinematic range of transverse momentum p T  > 100 MeV and pseudorapidity |η| < 2.5. A complex structure in pseudorapidity and azimuth is observed at both collision energies. Results are compared to pythia 8 and herwig++ as well as to the AMBT2B, DW and Perugia 2011 tunes of pythia 6. The data are not satisfactorily described by any of these models

Standalone vertex finding in the ATLAS muon spectrometer

A dedicated reconstruction algorithm to find decay vertices in the ATLAS muon spectrometer is presented. The algorithm searches the region just upstream of or inside the muon spectrometer volume for multi-particle vertices that originate from the decay of particles with long decay paths. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated using both a sample of simulated Higgs boson events, in which the Higgs boson decays to long-lived neutral particles that in turn decay to bbar b final states, and pp collision data at √s = 7 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC during 2011

Measurement of D*+/- meson production in jets from pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper reports a measurement of D*+/- meson production in jets from proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The measurement is based on a data sample recorded with the ATLAS detector with an integrated luminosity of 0.30 pb^-1 for jets with transverse momentum between 25 and 70 GeV in the pseudorapidity range |eta| < 2.5. D*+/- mesons found in jets are fully reconstructed in the decay chain: D*+ -> D0pi+, D0 -> K-pi+, and its charge conjugate. The production rate is found to be N(D*+/-)/N(jet) = 0.025 +/- 0.001(stat.) +/- 0.004(syst.) for D*+/- mesons that carry a fraction z of the jet momentum in the range 0.3 < z < 1. Monte Carlo predictions fail to describe the data at small values of z, and this is most marked at low jet transverse momentum.Comment: 10 pages plus author list (22 pages total), 5 figures, 1 table, matches published version in Physical Review

Дослідження «великого терору» у науково-документальній серії книг «Реабілітовані історією»

У статті автор аналізує результати дослідження «великого терору» 1937–1938 рр. у контексті реалізації Державної програми науково-документальної серії книг «Реабілітовані історією».В статье автор анализирует результаты исследования «большого террора» 1937–1938 гг. в контексте реализации Государственной программы научно-документальной серии книг «Реабилитированные историей».The author analyzes the results of a study of the «great terror» 1937–1938 in the context of implementing the State Program for Research, a documentary series of books «Rehabilitated history»