Indicators of agricultural soil genesis under varying conditions of land use, Steppe Crimea

This study investigates the effects of agricultural exploitation of soils of the north-western Crimea, the active and large-scale cultivation of which began with the Greek colonization of the area. In order to compare soils using a wide spectrum of physical and chemical properties, the studied objects (virgin land, post-antique idle land, continually plowed land, modern-day plowed land, idle land of the modern era) have been grouped into a chronosequenceyesБелгородский государственный университе

Modeling of the Evolution of Steppe Chernozems and Development of the Method of Pedogenetic Chronology

Geoarchaeological methods were used to study chronosequences of surface soils in the steppe zone and to trace soil evolution during the Late Holocene in northwestern Crime

Archaeological ash deposits and soils formed on ash in the south of the East European Plain

Ash as an anthropogenic substrate is widely found at archaeological sites in the south of the East European Plain. Investigations of archaeological ashes, the results of which are presented here, have been conducted in three regions that differ in climate and extent of forest cover (from 29 to 1.5%): 1) typical forest–steppe; 2) piedmont forest-steppe with islands of groves; 3) steppe, almost woodless landscapes. Using spectrometry and X-ray analysis, the present study investigates the chemical composition of ancient ash and ash experimentally produced from different sorts of fuel, as well as the geochemistry of soils developed on ash deposit

Postantique soils as a source of land use information: a case study of an ancient greek agricultural area on the Northern Black Sea coast

This paper explores ancient land-use practices in order to reconstruct the original parameters of the land division system, as well as agricultural techniques employed. For postantique agricultural landscapes, an integrated geoarchaeological approach that includes GIS and remote sensing methodologies, in-field study of microrelief and soil registrograms, pedochronological dating technique, and physicochemical, geochemical, and biomorphic soil analyses has been developed and teste

Post-agrogenic evolution of soils in ancient Greek land use areas in the Herakleian peninsula, southwestern Crimea

The paper examines the regularities of the post-agrogenic evolution of soils of differing age in the Herakleian Peninsula (southwestern Crimea, Ukraine), which developed under conditions of the sub-Mediterranean climate and have been cultivated since ancient timesyesBelgorod State Universit

Chemical data on ashy soils as an information basis for dating archaeological sites

Geochemical associations of accumulated and dis- persed elements in the upper horizon of soils of different age in relation to the original ash were determined. This makes it possible to calculate the time of biogeochemical transfor- mation of ash in the course of pedogenesis, thus offering a new dating technique for archaeologist

Longitudinal effects of environmental enrichment on behaviour and physiology of pigs reared on an intensive-stock farm

The aim of this paper was to provide a longitudinal evaluation of the effects of physical enrichments on the behaviour and physiology of intensive stock-farming pigs. Twenty-eight crossbred pigs of both sexes, were exposed to four types of enrichments (hemp ropes, steel chains, plastic balls, rubber hoses) over a period of eleven weeks. This investigation was based on specific abnormal behaviours and physiological indicators, including hematologic parameters. For behavioural score, focal sampling was used with recording of abnormal behaviours (body-, tail- and ear-biting), belly nosing, running, and interaction with objects (for Enriched pigs). The presence of skin injuries was also recorded. In general, the frequency of abnormal behaviours was significantly reduced in the Enriched group. A timerelated profile appeared in the use of the enrichments. Males showed higher occurrence of skin injuries than females. Physiological measurements, such as levels of complement system, white blood cells and neutrophils, were lower in pigs from the Enriched group. Enriched pigs, as a whole, presented much lower levels of serum DHEA-S concentration over two weeks. The findings of this study show the successful provision of appropriate enrichments to encourage behaviours which may result in satisfactory animal oral interaction with the enriching objects, preventing them biting pen-mates. In this respect, the objects proposed were strongly effective in producing changes in behaviour which could mitigate inadequate conditions, such as the relationship between animal body weight and the available space allowance

A Protocol for the Secure Linking of Registries for HPV Surveillance

In order to monitor the effectiveness of HPV vaccination in Canada the linkage of multiple data registries may be required. These registries may not always be managed by the same organization and, furthermore, privacy legislation or practices may restrict any data linkages of records that can actually be done among registries. The objective of this study was to develop a secure protocol for linking data from different registries and to allow on-going monitoring of HPV vaccine effectiveness.A secure linking protocol, using commutative hash functions and secure multi-party computation techniques was developed. This protocol allows for the exact matching of records among registries and the computation of statistics on the linked data while meeting five practical requirements to ensure patient confidentiality and privacy. The statistics considered were: odds ratio and its confidence interval, chi-square test, and relative risk and its confidence interval. Additional statistics on contingency tables, such as other measures of association, can be added using the same principles presented. The computation time performance of this protocol was evaluated.The protocol has acceptable computation time and scales linearly with the size of the data set and the size of the contingency table. The worse case computation time for up to 100,000 patients returned by each query and a 16 cell contingency table is less than 4 hours for basic statistics, and the best case is under 3 hours.A computationally practical protocol for the secure linking of data from multiple registries has been demonstrated in the context of HPV vaccine initiative impact assessment. The basic protocol can be generalized to the surveillance of other conditions, diseases, or vaccination programs