Modeling resilience and sustainability in ancient agricultural systems

The reasons why people adopt unsustainable agricultural practices, and the ultimate environmental implications of those practices, remain incompletely understood in the present world. Archaeology, however, offers unique datasets on coincident cultural and ecological change, and their social and environmental effects. This article applies concepts derived from ecological resilience thinking to assess the sustainability of agricultural practices as a result of long-term interactions between political, economic, and environmental systems. Using the urban center of Gordion, in central Turkey, as a case study, it is possible to identify mismatched social and ecological processes on temporal, spatial, and organizational scales, which help to resolve thresholds of resilience. Results of this analysis implicate temporal and spatial mismatches as a cause for local environmental degradation, and increasing extralocal economic pressures as an ultimate cause for the adoption of unsustainable land-use practices. This analysis suggests that a research approach that integrates environmental archaeology with a resilience perspective has considerable potential for explicating regional patterns of agricultural change and environmental degradation in the past

Photodoping through local charge carrier accumulation in alloyed hybrid perovskites for highly efficient luminescence

© 2019, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited. Metal halide perovskites have emerged as exceptional semiconductors for optoelectronic applications. Substitution of the monovalent cations has advanced luminescence yields and device efficiencies. Here, we control the cation alloying to enhance optoelectronic performance through alteration of the charge carrier dynamics in mixed-halide perovskites. In contrast to single-halide perovskites, we find high luminescence yields for photoexcited carrier densities far below solar illumination conditions. Using time-resolved spectroscopy we show that the charge carrier recombination regime changes from second to first order within the first tens of nanoseconds after excitation. Supported by microscale mapping of the optical bandgap, electrically gated transport measurements and first-principles calculations, we demonstrate that spatially varying energetic disorder in the electronic states causes local charge accumulation, creating p- and n-type photodoped regions, which unearths a strategy for efficient light emission at low charge-injection in solar cells and light-emitting diodes.S.F. acknowledges funding from the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes and EPSRC, as well as support from the Winton Programme for the Physics of Sustainability. S.M. acknowledges funding from an EPSRC studentship. M.A.-J. thanks Nava Technology Limited, Cambridge Materials Limited and EPSRC (grant number: EP/M005143/1) for their funding and technical support. S.P.S. acknowledges funding from the Royal Society Newton Fellowship and EPSRC through a program grant (EP/M005143/1). T.A.S.D. acknowledges the National University of Ireland (NUI) for a Travelling Studentship and the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (HYPERION, grant agreement number 756962). K.F. acknowledges funding from a George and Lilian Schiff Foundation Studentship, an EPSRC studentship and a scholarship from the Winton Programme for the Physics of Sustainability. E.R. acknowledges funding from an ERC starting grant (no. 804523). R.H.F. acknowledges support from the Simons Foundation (grant 601946). Research work in Mons was supported by the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique de Belgique - Fund for Scientific Research (F.R.S.-FNRS) and the EU Marie-Curie IEF project ‘DAEMON’. Computational resources have been provided by the Consortium des Équipements de Calcul Intensif (CÉCI). D.B. is an FNRS Research Director. S.D.S. acknowledges the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (HYPERION, grant agreement number 756962), the Royal Society and Tata Group (UF150033). F.D. acknowledges funding from the Winton Programme for the Physics of Sustainability

Mild Mitochondrial Uncoupling and Calorie Restriction Increase Fasting eNOS, Akt and Mitochondrial Biogenesis

Enhanced mitochondrial biogenesis promoted by eNOS activation is believed to play a central role in the beneficial effects of calorie restriction (CR). Since treatment of mice with dinitrophenol (DNP) promotes health and lifespan benefits similar to those observed in CR, we hypothesized that it could also impact biogenesis. We found that DNP and CR increase citrate synthase activity, PGC-1α, cytochrome c oxidase and mitofusin-2 expression, as well as fasting plasma levels of NO• products. In addition, eNOS and Akt phosphorylation in skeletal muscle and visceral adipose tissue was activated in fasting CR and DNP animals. Overall, our results indicate that systemic mild uncoupling activates eNOS and Akt-dependent pathways leading to mitochondrial biogenesis

How Phytophthora cinnamomi became associated with the death of Eucalyptus marginata – the early investigations into jarrah dieback

The name jarrah dieback was used in the 1940s to describe a serious economic problem in the jarrah forest in the south west of Western Australia. This was the sudden death of groups of jarrah (Eucalyptus marginata) trees that occurred on previously logged sites that had a tendency to become waterlogged in winter. Although the cause was not determined at the time, from symptoms recorded in early investigations the most likely explanation is that the trees died as the result of waterlogging damage. In the 1960s it was shown that many of these sites were infested by the introduced oomycete Phytophthora cinnamomi and tree deaths, together with the deaths of many mid- and under-storey plants, were attributed to this pathogen. A chronology of the research, based on contemporary unpublished documents, shows that in 1968 the conclusion that P. cinnamomi caused jarrah deaths was not supported by the available evidence, because the work did not satisfy the first and fourth of Koch’s postulates. The evidence that P. cinnamomi killed many mid- and under-storey plants was much stronger. There are two problems that have been confused: the death of groups of jarrah trees (jarrah dieback) that is caused by waterlogging and the death of many mid- and under-storey plants (Phytophthora dieback) caused by P. cinnamomi infection

Analysing Change: Complex Rather than Dialectical?

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.This article offers a discussion of dialectics from a complexity perspective. Dialectics is a term much utilized but infrequently defined. This article suggests that a spectrum of ideas exist concerning understandings of dialectics. We are particularly critical of Hegelian dialectics, which we see as anthropocentric and teleological. While Marxist approaches to dialectics, in the form of historical materialism, marked a break from the idealist elements of Hegelian dialectics, they retained traces of this approach. The article offers a partial discussion of essential elements of dialectics, which we consider to be the analysis of change, the centrality of contradiction, and the methodology of abstraction. Points of overlap with complexity thinking are highlighted, together with those points where complexity thinking and dialectical approaches diverge. We conclude with some suggestions as to how complexity thinking might contribute to a development of dialectical approaches

The Cultural Project : Formal Chronological Modelling of the Early and Middle Neolithic Sequence in Lower Alsace

Starting from questions about the nature of cultural diversity, this paper examines the pace and tempo of change and the relative importance of continuity and discontinuity. To unravel the cultural project of the past, we apply chronological modelling of radiocarbon dates within a Bayesian statistical framework, to interrogate the Neolithic cultural sequence in Lower Alsace, in the upper Rhine valley, in broad terms from the later sixth to the end of the fifth millennium cal BC. Detailed formal estimates are provided for the long succession of cultural groups, from the early Neolithic Linear Pottery culture (LBK) to the Bischheim Occidental du Rhin Supérieur (BORS) groups at the end of the Middle Neolithic, using seriation and typology of pottery as the starting point in modelling. The rate of ceramic change, as well as frequent shifts in the nature, location and density of settlements, are documented in detail, down to lifetime and generational timescales. This reveals a Neolithic world in Lower Alsace busy with comings and goings, tinkerings and adjustments, and relocations and realignments. A significant hiatus is identified between the end of the LBK and the start of the Hinkelstein group, in the early part of the fifth millennium cal BC. On the basis of modelling of existing dates for other parts of the Rhineland, this appears to be a wider phenomenon, and possible explanations are discussed; full reoccupation of the landscape is only seen in the Grossgartach phase. Radical shifts are also proposed at the end of the Middle Neolithic

The Long-Term Evolution of Social Organization

This chapter outlines how the ‘innovation innovation’ transformed the world of our distant ancestors into that in which we live today. It focuses on the relationship between people and the material world, as it is the material world that has been most drastically, and measurably, transformed over the last several tens of thousands of years. In view of what we know about such distant periods, and in view of the space allot-ted to us here, it will not surprise the reader that we do so in the form of a narrative that is only partly underpinned by substantive data. We emphasize this because we do not want to hide from the reader the speculative nature of the story that follows. Yet we firmly believe that, in very general terms, this scenario is correct, and that further research will vindicate us.We first give examples of the kinds of abstractions, and the hierarchy of conceptual dimensions necessary for prehistoric human beings and their ancestors, to conquer matter, i.e. to conceptually understand, transmit and apply the operations needed to master the making of a range of objects made out of stone, bone, wood, clay and other materials. Some of the abstractions that had to be conceived in this domain re-semble those that Read et al. (http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/2798j162) refer to, while others apply to this domain alone, and had to be truly ‘invented’. It is then argued that such ‘identification of conceptual dimensions’ is a process that underlies all human activity, and we look a little closer at how that process relates to invention and innovation.Lastly, we shift our attention to the role of innovation, information processing and communication in the emergence of social institutions, and in the structural transformation of human societies as they grow in size and complexity. In particular, we look at the role that problem solving and invention play in creating more and more complex societies, encompassing increasing numbers of people, more and more diverse institutions, and an – ultimately seemingly all-encompassing – appropriation of the natural environment. To illustrate this development we will focus on the origins and growth of urban systems

Nothing Lasts Forever: Environmental Discourses on the Collapse of Past Societies

The study of the collapse of past societies raises many questions for the theory and practice of archaeology. Interest in collapse extends as well into the natural sciences and environmental and sustainability policy. Despite a range of approaches to collapse, the predominant paradigm is environmental collapse, which I argue obscures recognition of the dynamic role of social processes that lie at the heart of human communities. These environmental discourses, together with confusion over terminology and the concepts of collapse, have created widespread aporia about collapse and resulted in the creation of mixed messages about complex historical and social processes

Targeting cancer metabolism: a therapeutic window opens

Genetic events in cancer activate signalling pathways that alter cell metabolism. Clinical evidence has linked cell metabolism with cancer outcomes. Together, these observations have raised interest in targeting metabolic enzymes for cancer therapy, but they have also raised concerns that these therapies would have unacceptable effects on normal cells. However, some of the first cancer therapies that were developed target the specific metabolic needs of cancer cells and remain effective agents in the clinic today. Research into how changes in cell metabolism promote tumour growth has accelerated in recent years. This has refocused efforts to target metabolic dependencies of cancer cells as a selective anticancer strategy.Burroughs Wellcome FundSmith Family FoundationStarr Cancer ConsortiumDamon Runyon Cancer Research FoundationNational Institutes of Health (U.S.

Disequilibrium, adaptation and the Norse settlement of Greenland

This research was supported by the University of Edinburgh ExEDE Doctoral Training Studentship and NSF grant numbers 1202692 and 1140106.There is increasing evidence to suggest that arctic cultures and ecosystems have followed non-linear responses to climate change. Norse Scandinavian farmers introduced agriculture to sub-arctic Greenland in the late tenth century, creating synanthropic landscapes and utilising seasonally abundant marine and terrestrial resources. Using a niche-construction framework and data from recent survey work, studies of diet, and regional-scale climate proxies we examine the potential mismatch between this imported agricultural niche and the constraints of the environment from the tenth to the fifteenth centuries. We argue that landscape modification conformed the Norse to a Scandinavian style of agriculture throughout settlement, structuring and limiting the efficacy of seasonal hunting strategies. Recent climate data provide evidence of sustained cooling from the mid thirteenth century and climate variation from the early fifteenth century. Archaeological evidence suggests that the Norse made incremental adjustments to the changing sub-arctic environment, but were limited by cultural adaptations made in past environments.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe