On the hoof:exploring the supply of animals to the Roman legionary fortress at Caerleon using strontium (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr) isotope analysis

Provisioning large concentrations of professional soldiers in Britain after the invasion in AD 43 was a major challenge for the Roman imperial administration. In a distant frontier province such as Britannia, it is generally believed that locally produced agricultural resources must have been vital in feeding and maintaining the occupying army, but direct evidence for this is limited. This study explores the potential for strontium isotope analysis (87Sr/86Sr) of faunal dental enamel to provide new insights for the provisioning of animals to the legionary fortress at Caerleon in South East Wales. Results from 37 domestic animals (cattle, caprines and pigs) from the recent excavation of a military store building in Caerleon are presented. Thirteen faunal dentine and modern plant samples were also analysed to characterise baseline signals for the local landscape. These results indicated an unexpectedly wide range of bioavailable 87Sr/86Sr in the local area, meaning identifying allochthonous individuals with confidence is difficult. The faunal dataset is also very wide ranging, but at least seven individuals can be identified as originating from beyond the local region, with some likely being brought from a substantial distance away. It is highly likely, however, that this underestimates the proportion of animals reared outside the fortress’ immediate hinterland and individuals that fall within the diverse local range could also have been from further afield. This has implications for understanding how the Roman legion was sustained, as well as the impact that provisioning the army had on the countryside, particularly around military sites

The effect of zebra mussel colonization on native snail species of Douglas Lake in northern Michigan.

General EcologyThe introduction of invasive species has caused extensive ecological and economic damage in freshwater ecosystems. In the Great Lakes region, zebra mussels (Dreissena polymorpha) have outcompeted native mollusks and driven many species towards extinction. They cause over $200 million of damage to the Great Lakes region annually. This study was performed to analyze the effect of zebra mussel colonization on native snail species of Douglas Lake in Northern Michigan. Four snail species: Campeloma decisum, Elimia livescens, Planorbella campanulata, and Stagnicola emarginata were collected with and without zebra mussels from South Fishtail Bay of Douglas Lake. The zebra mussel likelihood of colonization and horizontal movement as a measure of fitness were analyzed per species for differences between snails with zebra mussels and without. Our research showed that C. decisum and E. livescens were colonized most frequently. In addition, zebra mussel load was found to have a negative effect on horizontal movement of all snail species. Based on these results, our study concluded that zebra mussels have a significant negative effect on native snail species of Douglas Lake in Northern Michigan.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/95922/1/Fletcher_Hetherington_Schwarzman_Vaughan_2012.pd

Radical (re)naming through a tapestry of autoethographic voices: Finding healing through dis/ability theorizing

In this article, we engaged in a multi-layered collective autoethnography about disability, ableism, and identity within the context of schools and society by exploring the relationship between Curriculum Studies and Dis/ability Studies in Education. While excerpts of our individual narratives are embedded in the article, our final piece weaves together our individual reflections to illustrate that there is no single experience of dis/ability; however, there are themes about dis/ability and resistance to ableism that can be gleaned from hearing a multiplicity of voices within a context of intersectionality for radical individual, social and (inter)disciplinary transformation

Correlates of hallucinatory experiences in the general population: an international multi-site replication study

Hallucinatory experiences can occur in both clinical and nonclinical groups. However, in previous studies of the general population, investigations of the cognitive mechanisms underlying hallucinatory experiences have yielded inconsistent results. We ran a large-scale preregistered multisite study, in which general-population participants (N = 1,394 across 11 data-collection sites and online) completed assessments of hallucinatory experiences, a measure of adverse childhood experiences, and four tasks: source memory, dichotic listening, backward digit span, and auditory signal detection. We found that hallucinatory experiences were associated with a higher false-alarm rate on the signal detection task and a greater number of reported adverse childhood experiences but not with any of the other cognitive measures employed. These findings are an important step in improving reproducibility in hallucinations research and suggest that the replicability of some findings regarding cognition in clinical samples needs to be investigated

Item-specific overlap between hallucinatory experiences and cognition in the general population: A three-step multivariate analysis of international multi-site data

Hallucinatory experiences (HEs) can be pronounced in psychosis, but similar experiences also occur in nonclinical populations. Cognitive mechanisms hypothesized to underpin HEs include dysfunctional source monitoring, heightened signal detection, and impaired attentional processes. Using data from an international multisite study on non-clinical participants (N = 419), we described the overlap between two sets of variables - one measuring cognition and the other HEs - at the level of individual items. We used a three-step method to extract and examine item-specific signal, which is typically obscured when summary scores are analyzed using traditional methodologies. The three-step method involved: (1) constraining variance in cognition variables to that which is predictable from HE variables, followed by dimension reduction, (2) determining reliable HE items using split-halves and permutation tests, and (3) selecting cognition items for interpretation using a leave-one-out procedure followed by repetition of Steps 1 and 2. The results showed that the overlap between HEs and cognition variables can be conceptualized as bi-dimensional, with two distinct mechanisms emerging as candidates for separate pathways to the development of HEs: HEs involving perceptual distortions on one hand (including voices), underpinned by a low threshold for signal detection in cognition, and HEs involving sensory overload on the other hand, underpinned by reduced laterality in cognition. We propose that these two dimensions of HEs involving distortions/liberal signal detection, and sensation overload/reduced laterality may map onto psychosis-spectrum and dissociation-spectrum anomalous experiences, respectively

Co-ordinated Airborne Studies in the Tropics (CAST)

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the American Meteorological Society via http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-14-00290.1The Co-ordinated Airborne Studies in the Tropics (CAST) project is studying the chemical composition of the atmosphere in the Tropical Warm Pool region to improve understanding of trace gas transport in convection. The main field activities of the CAST (Co-ordinated Airborne Studies in the Tropics) campaign took place in the West Pacific in January/February 2014. The field campaign was based in Guam (13.5°N, 144.8°E) using the UK FAAM BAe-146 atmospheric research aircraft and was coordinated with the ATTREX project with the unmanned Global Hawk and the CONTRAST campaign with the Gulfstream V aircraft. Together, the three aircraft were able to make detailed measurements of atmospheric structure and composition from the ocean surface to 20 km. These measurements are providing new information about the processes influencing halogen and ozone levels in the tropical West Pacific as well as the importance of trace gas transport in convection for the upper troposphere and stratosphere. The FAAM aircraft made a total of 25 flights between 1°S-14°N and 130°-155°E. It was used to sample at altitudes below 8 km with much of the time spent in the marine boundary layer. It measured a range of chemical species, and sampled extensively within the region of main inflow into the strong West Pacific convection. The CAST team also made ground-based measurements of a number of species (including daily ozonesondes) at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement program site on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea (2.1°S, 147.4°E). This article presents an overview of the CAST project focussing on the design and operation of the West Pacific experiment. It additionally discusses some new developments in CAST, including flights of new instruments on the Global Hawk in February/March 2015.CAST is funded by NERC and STFC, with grant NE/ I030054/1 (lead award), NE/J006262/1, NE/J006238/1, NE/J006181/1, NE/J006211/1, NE/J006061/1, NE/J006157/1, NE/J006203/1, NE/J00619X/1, and NE/J006173/1. N. R. P. Harris was supported by a NERC Advanced Research Fellowship (NE/G014655/1). P. I. Palmer acknowledges his Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award. The BAe-146-301 Atmospheric Research Aircraft is flown by Directflight Ltd and managed by the Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements, which is a joint entity of the Natural Environment Research Council and the Met Office. The authors thank the staff at FAAM, Directflight and Avalon Aero who worked so hard toward the success of the aircraft deployment in Guam, especially for their untiring efforts when spending an unforeseen 9 days in Chuuk. We thank the local staff at Chuuk and Palau, as well as the authorities in the Federated States of Micronesia for their help in facilitating our research flights. Special thanks go to the personnel associated with the ARM facility at Manus, Papua New Guinea without whose help the ground-based measurements would not have been possible. Thanks to the British Atmospheric Data Centre (BADC) for hosting our data and the NCAS Atmospheric Measurement Facility for providing the radiosonde and ground-based ozone equipment. Chlorophyll-a data used in Figure 1 were extracted using the Giovanni online data system, maintained by the NASA GES DISC. We also acknowledge the MODIS mission scientists and associated NASA personnel for the production of this data set. Finally we thank many individual associated with the ATTREX and CONTRAST campaigns for their help in the logistical planning, and we would like to single out Jim Bresch for his excellent and freely provided meteorological advice

Semblance analysis to assess GPR data from a five-year forensic study of simulated clandestine graves

Ground penetrating radar (GPR) surveys have proven useful for locating clandestine graves in a number of forensic searches. There has been extensive research into the geophysical monitoring of simulated clandestine graves in different burial scenarios and ground conditions. Whilst these studies have been used to suggest optimum dominant radar frequencies, the data themselves have not been quantitatively analysed to-date. This study uses a common-offset configuration of semblance analysis, both to characterise velocity trends from GPR diffraction hyperbolae and, since the magnitude of a semblance response is proportional to signal-to-noise ratio, to quantify the strength of a forensic GPR response. 2D GPR profiles were acquired over a simulated clandestine burial, with a wrapped-pig cadaver monitored at three-month intervals between 2008 and 2013 with GPR antennas of three different centre-frequencies (110, 225 and 450 MHz). The GPR response to the cadaver was a strong diffraction hyperbola. Results show, in contrast to resistivity surveys, that semblance analysis show little sensitivity to changes attributable to decomposition, and only a subtle influence of seasonality: velocity increases (0.01–0.02 m/ns) were observed in summer, associated with a decrease (5–10%) in peak semblance magnitude, SM, and potentially in the reflectivity of the cadaver. The lowest-frequency antennas consistently gave the highest signal-to-noise ratio although the grave was nonetheless detectable by all frequencies trialled. These observations suggest that forensic GPR surveys could be undertaken with little seasonal hindrance. Whilst GPR analysis cannot currently provide a quantitative diagnostic proxy for time-since-burial, the consistency of responses suggests that graves will remain detectable beyond the five years shown here