Lessons from the Bakken Oil Patch

This is a preprint of an article that appeared in the Journal Contemporary Archaeology. The article summarizes the recent work of the North Dakota Man Camp Project to understand the largely undocumented migrants arriving in the Bakken Oil Patch for work. It argues that efforts to document short-term labor in the Bakken exposes particular challenges facing the archaeology of the modern world ranging from the ephemerality of short-term settlements to the hyper-abundance of modern objects. The use of photography, video, interviews, and descriptions produced an abundant archive of archaeological ephemera that in some ways parallels the modern character of temporary workforce housing. The final section of this article offers some perspectives on how work in the Bakken oil patch can inform policy, our understanding of material culture in the modern world, and the role of the discipline in forming a shared narrative

St. Cloud State University Library Site (21-SN-0136)

Humans remains were uncovered during excavation of the east wing of the James W. Miller Learning Resources Center. This report provides a summary of the site in its historical context and details the archaeological excavation of twenty-one grave shafts, ten of which contained skeletal remains. The archaeological work was undertaken in consultation with the Office of the State Archaeologist

Caveat Emptor Collecting and Processing Pottery in Western Rough Cilicia

This paper furnishes a preliminary assessment of the field and laboratory procedures used to obtain ceramic field data by the participants of Rough Cilicia Archaeological Survey Project in western Rough Cilicia (Gazipasha District, Antalya Province, south coastal Turkey). Between 1996 and 2004 the pedestrian team of the Rough Cilicia Survey conducted pottery collections and otherwise processed field pottery as its principal operation. Through nine consecutive field seasons the pedestrian team identified and processed an aggregate of 7313 sherds. This is a self-archived copy of the paper that was presented in 2004 and published in 2006 as Rauh, Nicolas K., and Richard Rothaus 2006 Caveat emptor: Collecting and processing pottery in Western Rough Cilicia. In Old pottery in a new century: innovating perspectives on Roman pottery studies: atti del convegno internazionale di studi, Catania, 22-24 aprile 2004. Daniele Malfitana, J. Poblome, and John Lund, eds. Pp. 347–362. Monografie dell’Istituto per i beni archeologici e monumentali, 1. Catania: Istituo per Beni Archeologici e monumenti - CNR

100 Miles of Wild: North Dakota Badlands Transcect

The North Dakota Badlands are little visited not just because of their distance from large populations, but also because they are physically challenging. The 100 Miles of Wild project had a simple aim: go to a little-visited area of North Dakota and discover firsthand the condition of the wild that inspired Roosevelt's effort to preserve wilderness for all Americans and the world

A complete characterization of plateaued Boolean functions in terms of their Cayley graphs

In this paper we find a complete characterization of plateaued Boolean functions in terms of the associated Cayley graphs. Precisely, we show that a Boolean function $f$ is $s$-plateaued (of weight $=2^{(n+s-2)/2}$) if and only if the associated Cayley graph is a complete bipartite graph between the support of $f$ and its complement (hence the graph is strongly regular of parameters $e=0,d=2^{(n+s-2)/2}$). Moreover, a Boolean function $f$ is $s$-plateaued (of weight $\neq 2^{(n+s-2)/2}$) if and only if the associated Cayley graph is strongly $3$-walk-regular (and also strongly $\ell$-walk-regular, for all odd $\ell\geq 3$) with some explicitly given parameters.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, Proceedings of Africacrypt 201

Constructive Relationships Between Algebraic Thickness and Normality

We study the relationship between two measures of Boolean functions; \emph{algebraic thickness} and \emph{normality}. For a function $f$, the algebraic thickness is a variant of the \emph{sparsity}, the number of nonzero coefficients in the unique GF(2) polynomial representing $f$, and the normality is the largest dimension of an affine subspace on which $f$ is constant. We show that for $0 < \epsilon<2$, any function with algebraic thickness $n^{3-\epsilon}$ is constant on some affine subspace of dimension $\Omega\left(n^{\frac{\epsilon}{2}}\right)$. Furthermore, we give an algorithm for finding such a subspace. We show that this is at most a factor of $\Theta(\sqrt{n})$ from the best guaranteed, and when restricted to the technique used, is at most a factor of $\Theta(\sqrt{\log n})$ from the best guaranteed. We also show that a concrete function, majority, has algebraic thickness $\Omega\left(2^{n^{1/6}}\right)$.Comment: Final version published in FCT'201

The myocardium and its fibrous matrix working in concert as a spatially netted mesh: a critical review of the purported tertiary structure of the ventricular mass

With the increasing interest now paid to volume reduction surgery, in which the cardiac surgeon is required to resect the ventricular myocardium to an extent unenvisaged in the previous century, it is imperative that we develop as precise knowledge as is possible of the basic structure of the ventricular myocardial mass and its functional correlates. This is the most important in the light of the adoption by some cardiac surgeons of an unvalidated model which hypothesises that the entire myocardial mass can be unravelled to produce one continuous band. It is our opinion that this model, and the phylogenetic and functional correlates derived from it, is incompatible with current concepts of cardiac structure and cardiodynamics. Furthermore, the proponents of the continuous myocardial band have made no effort to demonstrate perceived deficiencies with current concepts, nor have they performed any histological studies to validate their model. Clinical results using modifications of radius reduction surgery based on the concept of the continuous myocardial band show that the procedure essentially becomes ineffective. As we show in this review, if we understand the situation correctly, it was the erstwhile intention of the promoters of the continuous band to elucidate the basic mechanism of diastolic ventricular dilation. Their attempts, however, are doomed to failure, as is any attempt to conceptualise the myocardial mass on the basis of a tertiary structure, because of the underlying three-dimensional netting of the myocardial aggregates and the supporting fibrous tissue to form the myocardial syncytium. Thus, the ventricular myocardium is arranged in the form of a modified blood vessel rather than a skeletal muscle. If an analogy is required with skeletal muscle, then the ventricular myocardium possesses the freedom of motion, and the ability for shaping and conformational self-controlling that is better seen in the tongue. It is part of this ability that contributes to the rapid end-systolic ventricular dilation. Histologic investigations reveal that the fibrous content of the three-dimensional mesh is relatively inhomogeneous through the ventricular walls, particularly when the myocardium is diseased. The regional capacity to control systolic mural thickening, therefore, varies throughout the walls of the ventricular components. The existence of the spatially netted structure of the ventricular mass, therefore, must invalidate any attempt to conceptualise the ventricular myocardium as a tertiary arrangement of individual myocardial bands or tract

An index theorem for Wiener--Hopf operators

We study multivariate generalisations of the classical Wiener--Hopf algebra, which is the C$^*$-algebra generated by the Wiener--Hopf operators, given by the convolutions restricted to convex cones. By the work of Muhly and Renault, this C$^*$-algebra is known to be isomorphic to the reduced C$^*$-algebra of a certain restricted action groupoid. In a previous paper, we have determined a composition series of this C$^*$-algebra, and compute the $K$-theory homomorphisms induced by the `symbol' maps given by the subquotients of the composition series in terms of the analytical index of a continuous family of Fredholm operators. In this paper, we obtain a topological expression for these index maps in terms of geometric-topological data naturally associated to the underlying convex cone. The resulting index formula is expressed in the framework of Kasparov's bivariant $KK$-theory. Our proof relies heavily on groupoid methods.Comment: 46 pages, 1 figure; last version prior to publication, journal reference adde