Piecing Together the Past

Nearly fifty years ago, some Bedouin shepherds stumbled upon a cache of ancient texts in caves near the Dead Sea, thirteen miles east of Jerusalem. It soon became clear that this was the largest and most significant collection of manuscripts ever discovered in Palestine. Finds Included the oldest witnesses to the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts of Jewish scripture-the Christian Old Testament-along with nonbiblical manuscripts certain to illuminate the tumultuous period of the destruction of the Second Temple and the time of Christ. The singularity of these texts has brought about one of the most protracted and painstaking endeavors of contemporary scholarship on religious history and Scripture. One afternoon 1947, three Bedouin shepherds were herding their flocks in the vicinity of Wadi Qumran above the northwest shore of the Dead Sea. They casually tossed a rock in acave opening and heard something break. Returning later, they discovered ten large pottery jars, one of which contained three scrolls wrapped in protective linen coverings. Four additional scrolls were soon discovered in the cave. Neither the Bedouin nor the antiquities dealer whom they contacted had any idea what the documents contained. Thinking the script to be some form of Syriac, the antiquities dealer solf four of the scrolls to the Syrian Orthodox metropolitan at St. Mark\u27s Monastery in Jerusalem. For approximately one hundred dollars, the metropolitan unwittingly purchased the oldest extant Hebrew text of the Book of Isaiah, an ancient Hebrew commentary on Habakkuk, and two unknown texts. The antiquities dealer sold the other three manuscripts to Eleazar Sukenik, a professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The scrolls were in such fine condition that they were all published almost immediately. The magnitude and antiquity of these finds soon became apparent, and the caves around Wadi Qumran were aggressively explored for additional scrolls. Of the many caves quarried, eleven near the Wadi yielded written material. Cave 11, the last to be discovered (1956), supplied several extensively preserved scrolls of Leviticus, Psalms, and other works whose state of preservation rivaled that of the original Cave 1 finds. Unfortunately, there were only about a dozen of these beautifully preserved scrolls. Most of the approximately eight hundred texts discovered in the Qumran caves were not scrolls but scraps from disintegrated scrolls. Cave 4 yielded its rich cache of more than 575 manuscripts in tens of thousands of pieces. The condition of the written material in the other caves was no better: Caves 2 and 3 and Caves 5 through 10 yielded only fragments of more than one hundred other texts. Lacking the protection of pottery jars and linen shrouds, these manuscripts had fallen prey to a host of aggressors over the centuries, from the moisture in the caves to the appetite of worms to the swords and sandals of the caves\u27 human visitors. The scrolls simply disintegrated over the centuries, with the result that rarely 5 percent of any individual manuscript survived. The few surviving pieces of discrete scrolls were separated from one another and jumbled indiscriminately in layers of dirt on the cave floors. The muddle of fragments was made all the more incomprehensible by the manner of their retrieval. The Bedouin had gathered and sold most of the initial fragments without any record of where they came from. Fortunately, subsequent scientific excavations of Cave 4 unearthed fragments that were manifestly part of the same scrolls represented by the Bedouin finds. This established that the Bedouin scraps had been removed from the floor of Cave 4 and thereby guaranteed the authenticity of the initial fragments

Academic-Community Partnerships: Effectiveness Evaluated Beyond the Ivory Walls

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) has furthered our understanding of the working principles required for academic-community partnerships to address persistent public health problems. However, little is known about how effective these partnerships have been in eliminating or reducing community-based public health issues. To contribute to the literature in this area, the authors conducted a survey of U.S. schools and programs in public health and community groups working with these academic partners to: (1) identify the most common local public health issues addressed; (2) examine the characteristics of the partnership and the actual or perceived benefits and challenges for each partner; (3) assess the perceived effectiveness of the partnership and their evaluation techniques; and (4) analyze the intent to continue or dissolve the partnership and the associated factors that influence this decision. The authors provide recommendations that can improve the development, functioning, and effectiveness of academic-community collaborations aimed at addressing a variety of public health concerns

UK consumer reactions to organic certification logos

Purpose - This paper considers the question of whether UK consumers recognise and trust organic certification logos and whether the presence of these logos on a product increases consumer willingness to pay for that product. Methodology/approach - To ascertain the reaction of UK consumers to organic certification logos commonly used in the UK, this study makes use of three methods: focus groups, a consumer survey and a willingness to pay experiment (choice experiment). Findings - These three approaches reveal that UK consumers associate certain benefits with organic foods but are generally unaware of how the industry is regulated. With regards to trust of the logo, the standards they think underlie the logo and the inspection system that they think is associated with the logo, UK consumers rate the Soil Association and Organic Farmers and Growers logos more highly than the EU logo or products labelled with just the word “organic”. They appear willing to pay a premium for the additional assurance that these two logos provide, suggesting that where they are recognised, certification logos are valued. Originality – To the authors’ knowledge, no previous studies exist on whether UK consumers recognise and trust different organic certification logos. These findings show that where such logos are recognised they can help to give some assurance to the UK consumer and this is reflected in a willingness to pay a premium for foods labelled with the Soil Association and Organic Farmers and Growers certification logos as opposed to no logo or the (less well known) EU logo

The relative roles of CO2 and palaeogeography in determining Late Miocene climate: results from a terrestrial model-data comparison

The Late Miocene (∼11.6–5.3 Ma) palaeorecord provides evidence for a warmer and wetter climate than that of today and there is uncertainty in the palaeo-CO2 record of at least 150 ppmv. We present results from fully coupled atmosphere-ocean-vegetation simulations for the Late Miocene that examine the relative roles of palaeogeography (topography and ice sheet geometry) and CO2 concentration in the determination of Late Miocene climate through comprehensive terrestrial model-data comparisons. Assuming that the data accurately reflects the Late Miocene climate, and that the Late Miocene palaeogeographic reconstruction used in the model is robust, then results indicate that the proxy-derived precipitation differences between the Late Miocene and modern can be largely accounted for by the palaeogeographic changes alone. However, the proxy-derived temperatures differences between the Late Miocene and modern can only begin to be accounted for if we assume a palaeo-CO2 concentration towards the higher end of the range of estimates

Accurate Measurement of Rare Earth Elements by ICP-MS after Ion-Exchange Separation: Application to Ultra-Depleted Samples

International audienceThis study reports precise and accurate data for rare earth elements (REE) measured on eight geological reference materials, five enriched in REE (BE-N, BHVO-2, BR, BR-24 and RGM-1) and three very depleted in REE (BIR-1, UB-N and DTS-2). Data were acquired by quadrupole ICP-MS after isolation of the REE using an ion-exchange chromatography procedure. All the measured REE abundances were similar within 5% (10% for the most REE-depleted sample DTS-2) to the high-quality measurements previously published in the literature. We also show that by using an internal Tm spike, the reproducibility of the data was improved to 1%. Applying this technique to the analysis of ultra-depleted rock samples (sub ng g-1), we show that significant improvements were obtained relative to the routine trace element measurement method. The chondrite-normalised patterns were smooth instead of displaying irregularities. Although the classical method gives excellent results on REE-rich samples, we believe that our technique improves the precision and accuracy of measurements for highly REE-depleted rocks

Academic-Community Partnerships Effectiveness Evaluated Beyond the Ivory Walls

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) has furthered our understanding of the working principles required for academic-community partnerships to address persistent public health problems. However, little is known about how effective these partnerships have been in eliminating or reducing community-based public health issues. To contribute to the literature in this area, the authors conducted a survey of U.S. schools and programs in public health and community groups working with these academic partners to: (1) identify the most common local public health issues addressed; (2) examine the characteristics of the partnership and the actual or perceived benefits and challenges for each partner; (3) assess the perceived effectiveness of the partnership and their evaluation techniques; and (4) analyze the intent to continue or dissolve the partnership and the associated factors that influence this decision. The authors provide recommendations that can improve the development, functioning, and effectiveness of academic-community collaborations aimed at addressing a variety of public health concerns

Bone T-Scores and Functional Status: A Cross-Sectional Study on German Elderly

Background: We explore the association between bone T-scores, used in osteoporosis diagnosis, and functional status since we hypothesized that bone health can impact elderly functional status and indirectly independence. Methods: In a cross-sectional study (2005–2006) on community dwelling elderly (. = 75 years) from Herne, Germany we measured bone T-scores with Dual-energy X-ray Absorptiometry, and functional status indexed by five geriatric tests: activities of daily living, instrumental activities of daily living, test of dementia, geriatric depression score and the timed-upand-go test, and two pooled indexes: raw and standardized. Generalized linear regression was used to determine the relationship between T-scores and functional status. Results: From 3243 addresses, only 632 (19%) completed a clinical visit, of which only 440 (male:female, 243:197) could be included in analysis. T-scores (20.99, 95 % confidence interval [CI], 21.1–0.9) predicted activities of daily living (95.3 CI, 94.5– 96.2), instrumental activities of daily living (7.3 CI, 94.5–96.2), and timed-up-and-go test (10.7 CI, 10.0–11.3) (P, = 0.05). Pooled data showed that a unit improvement in T-score improved standardized pooled functional status (15 CI, 14.7–15.3) by 0.41 and the raw (99.4 CI, 97.8–101.0) by 2.27 units. These results were limited due to pooling of different scoring directions, selection bias, and a need to follow-up with evidence testing. Conclusions: T-scores associated with lower functional status in community-dwelling elderly. Regular screening o

Historia de la infancia y los niños en el Perú, 1940-1970. Un balance bibliográfico

A pesar de que en las últimas décadas la historiografía sobre la infancia ha tenido un desarrollo crucial en algunos países en América Latina, existen regiones donde, hasta hoy, hay pocos estudios históricos sobre los niños. Es el caso del Perú, donde la historiografía local no ha estado muy preocupada por rescatar el pasado de los niños y la evolución del concepto de infancia. Nuestro artículo pretende ser un balance del estado de las investigaciones sobre la temática en el país andino, colocando especial atención a las décadas entre 1940-1970, que fue el periodo de mayor población infantil en la historia peruana y donde se observa un aumento de las intervenciones privada y públicas enfocadas al bienestar infantil

Online tracing of molecular weight evolution during radical polymerization via high-resolution FlowNMR spectroscopy

High-resolution FlowNMR was coupled to a continuous flow reactor to monitor polymer molecular weight evolution online by diffusion ordered NMR spectroscopy. Polymers were synthesized by reversible addition fragmentation chain transfer polymerization in continuous flow. The setup allows to target various polymer chain lengths in a dynamic manner without requiring additional purification or sample preparation. Obtaining molecular weight information in this manner is shown to be more accurate than classical SEC analysis at comparable measurement times, with relative errors around 5%