Recessed label panels - Another view

In response to K. F. Hahn's article on label recesses, the stress analyses were repeated for lightweight, non-refillable glass containers rather than open cylinders. Although recessed label panels induce stress concentrators at the ends of the label panel, they are not the highest stresses generated on the outside surface of the bottle. The maximum stress occurs in the bottom region of the container, yet bottles rarely fail in this highly stressed region. The recessed nature of the push-up feature in the bottom region of a glass container guards against surface abuse. The same justification applies for the label panels in the sidewall region of the container. In spite of the stress concentrators, the recessed nature of label panels protects the glass surface in the panel from abuse and hence failure. With the introduction of recessed panels into a bottle design, the shoulder and heel contact heights become natural contact sites and susceptible to handling damage. However, stresses at the shoulder and heel contact heights are reduced by the presence of the recessed panels. Thus, the performance of such a bottle will then be enhanced by confining surface damage to regions of low stress and regions of high stress from possible surface damage

Processing Matters: 3D Mesh Morphology

Substantive advancements have been made toward automating the application of landmarks and semilandmarks. These approaches can aid in expediting the landmarking process, while simultaneously reducing landmarking errors and investigator bias. This study enlists a template-based approach to quantify deviations in mesh processing outputs using a Pontchartrain dart point from the collections of the National Forests and Grasslands in Texas, which was scanned and processed at multiple resolutions using microCT and laser scanners. Following data collection and output, meshes were processed using an automated and replicable workflow. A batch processing protocol was developed in Geomagic Design X and Control X to facilitate exploratory comparisons of the processed meshes, which indicated that the greatest changes to the meshes occurred along the lateral margins of the dart point. Results of the geometric morphometric study evince implications for processed meshes curated in digital repositories. Investigators that endeavour to incorporate curated meshes should begin with the unprocessed data, enlist uniform processing protocols across the sample, and comprehend the many vagaries of 3D data collection and processing across different modalities

Shape Variation in Aterian Tanged Tools and the Origins of Projectile Technology: A Morphometric Perspective on Stone Tool Function

BACKGROUND: Recent findings suggest that the North African Middle Stone Age technocomplex known as the Aterian is both much older than previously assumed, and certainly associated with fossils exhibiting anatomically modern human morphology and behavior. The Aterian is defined by the presence of 'tanged' or 'stemmed' tools, which have been widely assumed to be among the earliest projectile weapon tips. The present study systematically investigates morphological variation in a large sample of Aterian tools to test the hypothesis that these tools were hafted and/or used as projectile weapons. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Both classical morphometrics and Elliptical Fourier Analysis of tool outlines are used to show that the shape variation in the sample exhibits size-dependent patterns consistent with a reduction of the tools from the tip down, with the tang remaining intact. Additionally, the process of reduction led to increasing side-to-side asymmetries as the tools got smaller. Finally, a comparison of shape-change trajectories between Aterian tools and Late Paleolithic arrowheads from the North German site of Stellmoor reveal significant differences in terms of the amount and location of the variation. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The patterns of size-dependent shape variation strongly support the functional hypothesis of Aterian tools as hafted knives or scrapers with alternating active edges, rather than as weapon tips. Nevertheless, the same morphological patterns are interpreted as one of the earliest evidences for a hafting modification, and for the successful combination of different raw materials (haft and stone tip) into one implement, in itself an important achievement in the evolution of hominin technologies

A Morphometric Assessment of the Intended Function of Cached Clovis Points

A number of functions have been proposed for cached Clovis points. The least complicated hypothesis is that they were intended to arm hunting weapons. It has also been argued that they were produced for use in rituals or in connection with costly signaling displays. Lastly, it has been suggested that some cached Clovis points may have been used as saws. Here we report a study in which we morphometrically compared Clovis points from caches with Clovis points recovered from kill and camp sites to test two predictions of the hypothesis that cached Clovis points were intended to arm hunting weapons: 1) cached points should be the same shape as, but generally larger than, points from kill/camp sites, and 2) cached points and points from kill/camp sites should follow the same allometric trajectory. The results of the analyses are consistent with both predictions and therefore support the hypothesis. A follow-up review of the fit between the results of the analyses and the predictions of the other hypotheses indicates that the analyses support only the hunting equipment hypothesis. We conclude from this that cached Clovis points were likely produced with the intention of using them to arm hunting weapons

Adenovirus-5-Vectored P. falciparum Vaccine Expressing CSP and AMA1. Part B: Safety, Immunogenicity and Protective Efficacy of the CSP Component

Background: A protective malaria vaccine will likely need to elicit both cell-mediated and antibody responses. As adenovirus vaccine vectors induce both these responses in humans, a Phase 1/2a clinical trial was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of an adenovirus serotype 5-vectored malaria vaccine against sporozoite challenge.\ud \ud Methodology/Principal Findings: NMRC-MV-Ad-PfC is an adenovirus vector encoding the Plasmodium falciparum 3D7 circumsporozoite protein (CSP). It is one component of a two-component vaccine NMRC-M3V-Ad-PfCA consisting of one adenovector encoding CSP and one encoding apical membrane antigen-1 (AMA1) that was evaluated for safety and immunogenicity in an earlier study (see companion paper, Sedegah et al). Fourteen Ad5 seropositive or negative adults received two doses of NMRC-MV-Ad-PfC sixteen weeks apart, at 1x1010 particle units per dose. The vaccine was safe and well tolerated. All volunteers developed positive ELISpot responses by 28 days after the first immunization (geometric mean 272 spot forming cells/million[sfc/m]) that declined during the following 16 weeks and increased after the second dose to levels that in most cases were less than the initial peak (geometric mean 119 sfc/m). CD8+ predominated over CD4+ responses, as in the first clinical trial. Antibody responses were poor and like ELISpot responses increased after the second immunization but did not exceed the initial peak. Pre-existing neutralizing antibodies (NAb) to Ad5 did not affect the immunogenicity of the first dose, but the fold increase in NAb induced by the first dose was significantly associated with poorer antibody responses after the second dose, while ELISpot responses remained unaffected. When challenged by the bite of P. falciparum-infected mosquitoes, two of 11 volunteers showed a delay in the time to patency compared to infectivity controls, but no volunteers were sterilely protected.\ud \ud Significance: The NMRC-MV-Ad-PfC vaccine expressing CSP was safe and well tolerated given as two doses, but did not provide sterile protection

Surveying the Down syndrome mouse model resource identifies critical regions responsible for chronic otitis media

Chronic otitis media (OM) is common in Down syndrome (DS), but underlying aetiology is unclear. We analysed the entire available mouse resource of partial trisomy models of DS looking for histological evidence of chronic middle-ear inflammation. We found a highly penetrant OM in the Dp(16)1Yey mouse, which carries a complete trisomy of MMU16. No OM was found in the Dp(17)1Yey mouse or the Dp(10)1Yey mouse, suggesting disease loci are located only on MMU16. The Ts1Cje, Ts1RhR, Ts2Yah, and Ts65Dn trisomies and the transchomosomic Tc1 mouse did not develop OM. On the basis of these findings, we propose a two-locus model for chronic middle-ear inflammation in DS, based upon epistasis of the regions of HSA21 not in trisomy in the Tc1 mouse. We also conclude that environmental factors likely play an important role in disease onset

Climate change, malaria and neglected tropical diseases: a scoping review

To explore the effects of climate change on malaria and 20 neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), and potential effect amelioration through mitigation and adaptation, we searched for papers published from January 2010 to October 2023. We descriptively synthesised extracted data. We analysed numbers of papers meeting our inclusion criteria by country and national disease burden, healthcare access and quality index (HAQI), as well as by climate vulnerability score. From 42 693 retrieved records, 1543 full-text papers were assessed. Of 511 papers meeting the inclusion criteria, 185 studied malaria, 181 dengue and chikungunya and 53 leishmaniasis; other NTDs were relatively understudied. Mitigation was considered in 174 papers (34%) and adaption strategies in 24 (5%). Amplitude and direction of effects of climate change on malaria and NTDs are likely to vary by disease and location, be non-linear and evolve over time. Available analyses do not allow confident prediction of the overall global impact of climate change on these diseases. For dengue and chikungunya and the group of non-vector-borne NTDs, the literature privileged consideration of current low-burden countries with a high HAQI. No leishmaniasis papers considered outcomes in East Africa. Comprehensive, collaborative and standardised modelling efforts are needed to better understand how climate change will directly and indirectly affect malaria and NTDs

Lithic Landscapes and Raw-Material Exploitation by Hunter-Gatherers

The Southern Cone is a vast and diverse landscape inhabited for millennia by hunter-gatherers. Prehistory in most of this area lacks a trajectory of cultural development that elsewhere in Latin America culminated in complex societies. As a result, the Southern Cone lacks the urban ruins and monumental architecture, the hallmarks of rank and copious pottery assemblages that attract the attention of most archaeologists, domestic and foreign, across Latin America. Instead, its archaeological record is dominated by the sturdy if unglamorous residues of hunter-gatherer societies: stone tools and animal bones. In the popular but misguided imagination, so apparently impoverished a body of evidence offers dim prospects by which to learn about the past. But like other archaeologists who confront the challenge of teasing pattern from sparse material remains, Southern Cone scholars are theoretically informed and methodologically sophisticated. For students of hunter-gatherers and their lithic technology, the Southern Cone is fertile ground populated by growing ranks of talented archaeologists. France supplies the intellectual roots of much South American archaeology, certainly in the study of hunter-gatherers (e.g., Vilhena-Vialou 2007). French systematics are strongly typological, befitting their own origins in Paleolithic research. In Southern Cone lithic analysis, that influence was conveyed in recent decades through Aschero (1975) and like-minded archaeologists. As a result, Bordes‟s ghost casts a shadow across much South American stone-tool research, in everything from identification of gross form with ideal type to the use of cumulative-frequency charts. In recent decades, South American archaeologists have established links with Anglophone thought, chiefly North American (e.g., Schmidt Dias 2007; sadly, the links are mostly one-way; relatively few North American lithic analysts read the Southern Cone literature seriously). The growing links to the north partly have refocused Southern Cone research upon functional or adaptive, not just typological, concerns. Among other things, this changing focus involves two related and apparently banal but deceptively profound observations that, mystifyingly, continue to elude French systematics: first, that reduction technology was adaptive, not typological, such that members of the very same identity-conscious social group could, often did, reduce similar cobbles in very different ways to produce the same kinds of tools and second, that in the course of use some tools were repeatedly resharpened such that their size and form at discard were much changed from their original size and form. Thus, archaeology today in the Southern Cone is a fascinating hybrid, part French typology, part American functionalism and its theoretical and methodological apparatus, all informed by uniquely regional concerns and innovation in scholarship (for instance, Southern Cone archaeologists are pioneers in morphometric analysis of stone tools, illustrated partly in the subject of this review). Few places reward the thoughtful student of hunter-gatherer lithic technology more than Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. Párrafo extraído de la reseña a modo de resumen.Fil: Shott, Michael. University of Akron; Estados Unidos