The RESET project: constructing a European tephra lattice for refined synchronisation of environmental and archaeological events during the last c. 100 ka

This paper introduces the aims and scope of the RESET project (. RESponse of humans to abrupt Environmental Transitions), a programme of research funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (UK) between 2008 and 2013; it also provides the context and rationale for papers included in a special volume of Quaternary Science Reviews that report some of the project's findings. RESET examined the chronological and correlation methods employed to establish causal links between the timing of abrupt environmental transitions (AETs) on the one hand, and of human dispersal and development on the other, with a focus on the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic periods. The period of interest is the Last Glacial cycle and the early Holocene (c. 100-8 ka), during which time a number of pronounced AETs occurred. A long-running topic of debate is the degree to which human history in Europe and the Mediterranean region during the Palaeolithic was shaped by these AETs, but this has proved difficult to assess because of poor dating control. In an attempt to move the science forward, RESET examined the potential that tephra isochrons, and in particular non-visible ash layers (cryptotephras), might offer for synchronising palaeo-records with a greater degree of finesse. New tephrostratigraphical data generated by the project augment previously-established tephra frameworks for the region, and underpin a more evolved tephra 'lattice' that links palaeo-records between Greenland, the European mainland, sub-marine sequences in the Mediterranean and North Africa. The paper also outlines the significance of other contributions to this special volume: collectively, these illustrate how the lattice was constructed, how it links with cognate tephra research in Europe and elsewhere, and how the evidence of tephra isochrons is beginning to challenge long-held views about the impacts of environmental change on humans during the Palaeolithic. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd.RESET was funded through Consortium Grants awarded by the Natural Environment Research Council, UK, to a collaborating team drawn from four institutions: Royal Holloway University of London (grant reference NE/E015905/1), the Natural History Museum, London (NE/E015913/1), Oxford University (NE/E015670/1) and the University of Southampton, including the National Oceanography Centre (NE/01531X/1). The authors also wish to record their deep gratitude to four members of the scientific community who formed a consultative advisory panel during the lifetime of the RESET project: Professor Barbara Wohlfarth (Stockholm University), Professor Jørgen Peder Steffensen (Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen), Dr. Martin Street (Romisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, Neuwied) and Professor Clive Oppenheimer (Cambridge University). They provided excellent advice at key stages of the work, which we greatly valued. We also thank Jenny Kynaston (Geography Department, Royal Holloway) for construction of several of the figures in this paper, and Debbie Barrett (Elsevier) and Colin Murray Wallace (Editor-in-Chief, QSR) for their considerable assistance in the production of this special volume.Peer Reviewe

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W pracy przedstawiono koncepcję układu planowania (planera) dla samoadaptowalnego i rekonfigurowalnego systemu mocowań-podpór dla cienkościennych przedmiotów (blach) o dużych rozmiarach w procesie obróbczym polegającym na frezowaniu i wierceniu otworów. W proponowanym rozwiązaniu system mocowań-podpór składa się z ławy oraz ruchomych agentów - manipulatorów mobilnych. Zadaniem planera jest wygenerowanie sekwencji wykonalnych pozycji dla każdego agenta spełniających ograniczenia geometryczne i czasowe. Struktura planera ścieżki, zwanego "potrójnym CSP", składa się z trójpoziomowej hierarchii problemów przeszukiwania dyskretnych przestrzeni rozwiązań. Do rozwiązania zadania planowania ścieżki dla głowic, ruchomych baz i manipulatorów równoległych, stanowiących części mobilnych agentów-podpór, zastosowano sterowany ograniczeniami algorytm przeszukiwania z nawrotami. W pracy przedstawiono projekt i implementację planera oraz omówiono przykładowe plany wyznaczone dla operacji frezowania i wiercenia otworów.The paper presents a planner module of a self-reconfigurable fixture system needed in the machining of thin-sheet large work-parts, namely milling and hole drilling processes. The proposed system consists of a power-supplying bench and two or more mobile robotic agents. The objective is to create an action plan for the positioning and reconfiguring of two or more mobile robotic fixtures that satisfies geometric and time-related constraints. The path planner structure, called Triple-CSP, consists of three levels of constraint satisfaction search. We propose an incremental, constraint-driven backtracking search to solve three hierarchic path planning tasks: for the supporting heads, the mobile bases, and the Parallel Kinematic Machine configurations of the mobile fixtures. The paper concentrates on the planner design and implementation and shows example plans obtained for milling and hole drilling processes

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