Conservation : concept and reality.

Before any individual, organisation or discipline contemplates its future, it is prudent to know where it currently stands, where it has come from and what the world around it is like. Thus to start a conference on ‘Current Trends and Future Directions in Archaeological Conservation’, it is surely prudent to consider, if briefly, what we understand conservation to be i.e. the concept of conservation, and something of the history of conservation to show how we got here. We also need to understand the reality of the world in which conservation exists, what others expect from conservation and conservators

The Apotropaic Symbolled Threshold to Nevern Castle—Castell Nanhyfer

Excavations in the summer of 2011 at Nevern Castle (Castell Nanhyfer) revealed a previously unknown southern entrance to the castle constructed of clay mortared slate in the final quarter of the twelfth century. The threshold was formed of vertically seated slates, imitating the natural bedrock. Thirteen of these slates had designs inscribed into one or both faces. Their location, the absence of such inscribed slates from the rest of the site and the nature of the symbols, which could not normally be seen, suggests that they were apotropaic in nature. This paper presents a record and interpretation of this unusual in situ apotropaic-symbolled threshold deposit

Mechanical behaviour of natural turf sports surfaces

The understanding of the mechanical behaviour of natural turf pitches is limited, owed in part to the deficiencies in current testing devices and methodologies. This research aimed to advance the understanding of surface mechanical behaviour through in-situ and laboratory experiments, and via the development of new testing devices. An impact testing device, the Dynamic Surface Tester (DST) was developed, with impacts replicating the magnitude of stress applied by athletes onto turfed surfaces during running. Developmental experiments indicated that the device was sensitive to changes in soil condition due to variations (P<0.05) in impact data. Cont/d

Nota introdutória

O II Congresso da ULAERGO (União Latino-Americana de Ergonomia), que teve lugar em Bogotá, Colômbia, em Outubro de 2007. A ergonomia desenvolveu-se nos últimos 53 anos através da Associação Internacional de Ergonomia (IEA), apoiando a investigação, a educação e a prática em 47 países. A associação entre os membros da IEA, ULAERGO e SELF (Sociedade de Ergonomia de Língua Francesa) é uma oportunidade para reforçar a influência da investigação em ergonomia na comunidade. As relações com organism..

Inter-individual variation in nucleotide excision repair in young adults: effects of age, adiposity, micronutrient supplementation and genotype

Nucleotide excision repair (NER) is responsible for repairing bulky helix-distorting DNA lesions and is essential for the maintenance of genomic integrity. Severe hereditary impairment of NER leads to cancers such as those in xeroderma pigmentosum, and more moderate reductions in NER capacity have been associated with an increased cancer risk. Diet is a proven modifier of cancer risk but few studies have investigated the potential relationships between diet and NER. In the present study, the plasmid-based host cell reactivation assay was used to measure the NER capacity in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from fifty-seven volunteers aged 18–30 years before and after 6 weeks of supplementation with micronutrients (selenium and vitamins A, C and E). As a control, nine individuals remained unsupplemented over the same period. Volunteers were genotyped for the following polymorphisms in NER genes: ERCC5 Asp1104His (rs17655); XPC Lys939Gln (rs2228001); ERCC2 Lys751Gnl (rs13181); XPC PAT (an 83 bp poly A/T insertion–deletion polymorphism in the XPC gene). NER capacity varied 11-fold between individuals and was inversely associated with age and endogenous DNA strand breaks. For the first time, we observed an inverse association between adiposity and NER. No single polymorphism was associated with the NER capacity, although significant gene–gene interactions were observed between XPC Lys939Gln and ERCC5 Asp1104His and XPC Lys939Gln and ERCC2 Lys751Gnl. While there was no detectable effect of micronutrient supplementation on NER capacity, there was evidence that the effect of fruit intake on the NER capacity may be modulated by the ERCC2 Lys751Gnl single nucleotide polymorphism

The Clacton Spear: the last one hundred years

In 1911 an eminent amateur prehistorian pulled the broken end of a pointed wooden shaft from Palaeolithic-age sediments at a seaside town in Essex. This artefact, still the earliest worked wood to be discovered in the world, became known as the Clacton Spear. Over the past 100 years it has variously been interpreted as a projectile weapon, a stave, a digging stick, a snow probe, a lance, a game stake and a prod to ward off rival scavengers. These perspectives have followed academic fashions, as the popular views of early hominins have altered. Since discovery the Clacton spear has also been replicated twice, has undergone physical transformations due to preservation treatments, and has featured in two public exhibitions. Within this article the changing context of the spear, its parallels, and all previous conservation treatments and their impacts are assessed.© 2015 Royal Archaeological Institute. This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in The Archaeological Journal on 3rd March 2015, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi.org/10.1080/00665983.2015.1008839.The attached document is the author(’s’) final accepted/submitted version of the journal article. You are advised to consult the publisher’s version if you wish to cite from it

Re-imagining human rights photography: Ariella Azoulays intervention

Gormley and Allan focus on several pertinent theoretical contributions made by Ariella Azoulay that invite a radical rethinking of familiar assumptions regarding human rights photography. Having established a conceptual basis, they proceed to analyse several examples of photojournalists attempting to ‘activate’ viewers by inviting them to co-create photographic narratives via methods of hypertext and online archival interaction, and of International Non Governmental Organisations (INGOs) working to create projects which ‘speak’ to viewers by involving the children they seek to represent in the production of photography. It is argued that in taking up Azoulay’s call to rethink public relationships to human rights imagery, these projects represent progressive steps towards addressing the multifarious inequalities at stake. At the same time, however, realising this potential depends on making good the promise of rendering visible the normative ideals of human rights