bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A Vesicle Supra‐Assembly Approach to Synthesize Amine‐Functionalized Hollow Dendritic Mesoporous Silica Nanospheres for Protein Delivery
Authors: Meka Anand Kumar , Abbaraju Prasanna Lakshmi , Song Hao , Xu Chun , Zhang Jun , Zhang Hongwei , Yu Meihua , Yu Chengzhong
Published: August 2016

Intracellular delivery of proteins is a promising strategy of intervention in disease, which relies heavily on the development of efficient delivery platforms due to the cell membrane impermeability of native proteins, particularly for negatively charged large proteins. This work reports a vesicle supra‐assembly approach to synthesize novel amine‐functionalized hollow dendritic mesoporous silica nanospheres (A‐HDMSN). An amine silica source is introduced into a water–oil reaction solution prior to the addition of conventional silica source tetraethylorthosilicate. This strategy favors the formation of composite vesicles as the building blocks which further assemble into the final product. The obtained A‐HDMSN have a cavity core of ≈170 nm, large dendritic mesopores of 20.7 nm in the shell and high pore volume of 2.67 cm3 g−1. Compared to the calcined counterpart without amine groups (C‐HDMSN), A‐HDMSN possess enhanced loading capacity to large negative proteins (IgG and β‐galactosidase) and improved cellular uptake performance, contributed by the cationic groups. A‐HDMSN enhance the intracellular uptake of β‐galactosidase by up to 5‐fold and 40‐fold compared to C‐HDMSN and free β‐galactosidase, respectively. The active form of β‐galactosidase delivered by A‐HDMSN retains its intracellular catalytic functions.
When Inert Becomes Active: A Fascinating Route for Catalyst Design
Authors: Lyalin Andrey , Gao Min , Taketsugu Tetsuya
Published: August 2016

In this Personal Account, we review the work of our group in the area of environmental and energy‐related nanocatalysis over the past seven years. We focus on understanding the fundamental mechanisms that control the properties of atomic clusters and nanoparticles – a form of matter that is intermediate between atoms and their bulk counterpart. The emphasis is on the theoretical design of effective catalysts based on cheap and abundant elements. The main idea that stands behind our work is that even catalytically inactive or completely inert materials can be functionalized at the nanoscale via the size, structure, morphology, and support effects. Such an approach opens up new ways to design catalytically active systems based on materials never before considered as catalysts. In particular, we demonstrate that hexagonal boron nitride (h‐BN), which has been traditionally considered an inert material, can be functionalized and become active for a number of catalytic reactions involving oxygen activation, oxidation by molecular oxygen, and the oxygen reduction reaction.

image
Diagnostic accuracy of individual antenatal tools for prediction of small‐for‐gestational age at birth
Authors: Poljak B. , Agarwal U. , Jackson R. , Alfirevic Z. , Sharp A.
Published: August 2016

Objective

To determine the accuracy of fetal and newborn growth charts for the prediction of small‐for‐gestational age (SGA) at birth (birth weight < 10th centile).

Methods

This was a prospective cohort study performed within a UK specialist fetal growth clinic. A total of 105 consecutive pregnant women referred for a suspected SGA fetus were included. All pregnancies were managed according to a standard protocol using estimated fetal weight (EFW) plotted on customized Gestation Related Optimal Weight (GROW) charts. The last antenatal estimates of EFW (according to charts of GROW, Hadlock et al. and Mikolajczyk et al.), abdominal circumference (AC) (according to charts of Hadlock et al., INTERGROWTH‐21st Project and Chitty et al.) or change in AC over time (calculated according to Pregnancy Outcome Prediction (POP) study) were compared against four birth‐weight charts (GROW, INTERGROWTH‐21st, Mikolajczyk et al. and World Health Organization (WHO)). The ability of each antenatal test to predict adverse perinatal outcome (APO) was assessed.

Results

Birth weight < 10th centile was assigned in 62 (59%) neonates using the GROW chart, 57 (54%) using the Mikolajczyk et al. chart, 55 (52%) using the INTERGROWTH‐21st chart and 51 (49%) using the WHO chart. AC‐Hadlock had the best negative likelihood ratio (range, 0.3–0.4) and sensitivity (range, 74%–82%) for predicting SGA as defined by all four postnatal birth‐weight charts. AC‐INTERGROWTH‐21st had the best positive likelihood ratio (range, 5.9–10.9) and specificity (94%–96%). For prediction of APO, AC‐Hadlock and EFW‐GROW had the best sensitivities (57% and 52%, respectively), whereas AC‐POP had the best positive likelihood ratio (2.2) and specificity (88%). Antenatal prediction of APO increased to a sensitivity of 61% when AC‐POP and EFW‐GROW were combined; however, specificity was only 56%.

Conclusions

We have identified wide variation in the diagnostic accuracy of various antenatal tools for the prediction of both SGA and APO, dependent on the choice of chart. Suboptimal diagnostic accuracy of commonly used antenatal tests may lead to increasing medicalization without prevention of APO. Researchers should focus their attention on a combination of fetal biometry and biomarkers for better prediction of SGA and prevention of APO. Copyright © 2016 ISUOG. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Ovarian masses with papillary projections diagnosed and removed during pregnancy: ultrasound features and histological diagnosis
Authors: Mascilini F. , Savelli L. , Scifo M. C. , Exacoustos C. , Timor‐Tritsch I. E. , De Blasis I. , Moruzzi M. C. , Pasciuto T. , Scambia G. , Valentin L. , Testa A. C.
Published: August 2016

Objective

To elucidate the ultrasound features that can discriminate between benign and malignant ovarian cysts with papillary projections but no other solid component in pregnant women.

Methods

Thirty‐four women with an ultrasound diagnosis of an ovarian cyst with papillary projections but no other solid component that had been removed surgically during pregnancy were identified from the databases of four ultrasound units. Some clinical and ultrasound information was collected prospectively. Missing information was obtained retrospectively from ultrasound images, ultrasound reports and patient records. Using prospectively and retrospectively collected data, the ultrasound appearance of the tumors was described using the terms and definitions of the International Ovarian Tumor Analysis group. The ultrasound characteristics were compared with the histological diagnosis.

Results

Of the 34 cases included, 19 (56%) lesions were benign (16 decidualized endometriomas, one cystadenofibroma, one simple cyst, one struma ovarii), 12 (35%) were borderline tumors and three (9%) were primary invasive tumors (two immature teratomas, one endometrioid cystadenocarcinoma). The contour of the cyst papillations was smooth in 79% (15/19) of benign tumors vs 27% (4/15) of malignant tumors (P = 0.002). The cystic content showed ground‐glass echogenicity in 74% (14/19) of benign tumors vs 13% (2/15) of malignant tumors (P = 0.0006). All ovarian masses with smooth papillations and ground‐glass content (n = 12) were decidualized endometriomas. The papillary projections were vascularized and the color score was 3 or 4 in 88% (14/16) of decidualized endometriomas vs 42% (5/12) of borderline tumors (P = 0.013).

Conclusions

In pregnant women, ovarian cysts with ground‐glass echogenicity and papillations with a smooth contour on ultrasound are most likely to be decidualized endometriomas. Cysts with anechoic or low‐level echogenicity and papillations with an irregular contour suggest borderline malignancy. Copyright © 2016 ISUOG. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
A new k‐epsilon model consistent with Monin–Obukhov similarity theory
Authors: van der Laan M. Paul , Kelly Mark C. , Sørensen Niels N.
Published: August 2016

A new k‐ϵ model is introduced that is consistent with Monin–Obukhov similarity theory (MOST). The proposed k‐ϵ model is compared with another k‐ϵ model that was developed in an attempt to maintain inlet profiles compatible with MOST. It is shown that the previous k‐ϵ model is not consistent with MOST for unstable conditions, while the proposed k‐ϵ model can maintain MOST inlet profiles over distances of 50km. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The Prosocial Cyberball Game: Compensating for social exclusion and its associations with empathic concern and bullying in adolescents
Authors: Vrijhof Claudia I. , van den Bulk Bianca G. , Overgaauw Sandy , Lelieveld Gert‐Jan , Engels Rutger C.M.E. , van IJzendoorn Marinus H.
Published: August 2016

In this study we examined prosocial compensating behavior towards socially excluded ingroup and outgroup members by using a ‘Prosocial Cyberball Game’ in 9–17 year old Dutch adolescents (N = 133). Results showed that adolescents compensated for the social exclusion of an unknown peer in a virtual ball tossing game, by tossing the ball more often to that player in compensation conditions compared to the fair play condition. The proportion of tosses towards the excluded player did not significantly differ as a function of the group status of that player. Although compensating behavior towards ingroup versus outgroup members did not differ, the underlying motivation for this behavior may vary. More empathic concern was associated with more prosocial tosses towards an ingroup member, while more self‐reported bullying behavior was associated with less compensating behavior in the outgroup condition. These findings may have practical implications for programs intending to change bystander behavior in bullying situations.
High risk cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck
Authors: Kang Stephen Y. , Toland Amanda E.
Published: August 2016

The majority of patients with head and neck cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC) are successfully treated with surgical treatment of the primary site. While only a minority of patients is at risk for regional metastasis, these patients have significantly worse outcomes. Tumor and patient factors that place patients at high risk for development of regional metastasis have been identified. Advancing treatment of cSCC requires identifying and escalating treatment in this high risk patient population, while avoiding overtreatment of the majority of cSCC patients that do not develop regional metastasis. Sentinel lymph node biopsy has emerged as a promising technique in cSCC to detect micrometastasis and allow early surgical treatment of regional disease. Future directions involve genomic characterization of metastatic and nonmetastatic cSCC to identify genomic alterations causing metastasis that may be used to predict disease behavior.
Timing, cause and consequences of mid-Holocene climate transition in the Arabian Sea
Authors: Saraswat Rajeev , Naik Dinesh Kumar , Nigam Rajiv , Gaur Anuruddh Singh
Published: August 2016

We reconstruct centennial scale quantitative changes in surface seawater temperature (SST), evaporation-precipitation (from Mg/Ca and δ18O of surface dwelling planktic foraminifera), productivity (from relative abundance of Globigerina bulloides), carbon burial (from %CaCO3 and organic carbon [%Corg]) and dissolved oxygen at sediment-water interface, covering the entire Holocene, from a core collected from the eastern Arabian Sea. From the multi-proxy record, we define the timing, consequences and possible causes of the mid-Holocene climate transition (MHCT). A distinct shift in evaporation-precipitation (E-P) is observed at 6.4 ka, accompanied by a net cooling of SST. The shift in SST and E-P is synchronous with a change in surface productivity. A concurrent decrease is also noted in both the planktic foraminiferal abundance and coarse sediment fraction. A shift in carbon burial, as inferred from both the %CaCO3 and %Corg, coincides with a change in surface productivity. A simultaneous decrease in dissolved oxygen at the sediment-water interface, suggests that changes affected both the surface and subsurface water. A similar concomitant change is also observed in other cores from the Arabian Sea as well as terrestrial records, suggesting a widespread regional MHCT. The MHCT coincides with decreasing low-latitude summer insolation, perturbations in total solar intensity and an increase in atmospheric CO2.
Settling of an asymmetric dumbbell in a quiescent fluid
Authors: Candelier F. , Mehlig B.
Published: August 2016

We compute the hydrodynamic torque on a dumbbell (two spheres linked by a massless rigid rod) settling in a quiescent fluid at small but finite Reynolds number. The spheres have the same mass densities but different sizes. When the sizes are quite different, the dumbbell settles vertically, aligned with the direction of gravity, the largest sphere first. But when the size difference is sufficiently small, then its steady-state angle is determined by a competition between the size difference and the Reynolds number. When the sizes of the spheres are exactly equal, then fluid inertia causes the dumbbell to settle in a horizontal orientation.
Modulation of turbulence by dispersed solid particles in a spatially developing flat-plate boundary layer
Authors: Li Dong , Luo Kun , Fan Jianren
Published: August 2016

Direct numerical simulations of particle-laden spatially developing turbulent boundary layers over a flat plate have been performed to investigate the effect of inertial particles on turbulence modulation, using the Eulerian–Lagrangian point-particle approach with two-way coupling. The particles are smaller than the Kolmogorov length scale of the dilute flow, and inter-particle collisions are not considered. The simulation results show that the addition of small solid particles increases the mean streamwise fluid velocity, which in turn leads to a reduction in the boundary layer integral parameters and an increase in the skin-friction drag. These effects become more pronounced as the particle Stokes number and mass loading increase. The streamwise turbulence intensity is slightly enhanced in the close vicinity of the wall but damped in the outer layer. In contrast, the Reynolds stress and the turbulence intensities in the wall-normal and spanwise directions are substantially attenuated across the entire boundary layer, and the levels of attenuation increase monotonically with both particle Stokes number and mass loading. The exchange of kinetic energy between particles and fluid indicates that particle–fluid interactions cause extra energy dissipation, which plays a crucial role in turbulence modulation.
Bypassing slip velocity: rotational and translational velocities of autophoretic colloids in terms of surface flux
Authors: Lammert Paul E. , Crespi Vincent H. , Nourhani Amir
Published: August 2016

A standard approach to propulsion velocities of autophoretic colloids with thin interaction layers uses a reciprocity relation applied to the slip velocity although the surface flux (chemical, electrical, thermal, etc.), which is the source of the field driving the slip, is often more accessible. We show how, under conditions of low Reynolds number and a field obeying the Laplace equation in the outer region, the slip velocity can be bypassed in velocity calculations. In a sense, the actual slip velocity and a normal field proportional to the flux density are equivalent for this type of calculation. Using known results for surface traction induced by rotating or translating an inert particle in a quiescent fluid, we derive simple and explicit integral formulas for translational and rotational velocities of arbitrary spheroidal and slender-body autophoretic colloids.
Balanced solutions for an ellipsoidal vortex in a rotating stratified flow
Authors: McKiver William J. , Dritschel David G.
Published: August 2016

We consider the motion of a single ellipsoidal vortex with uniform potential vorticity in a rotating stratified fluid at finite Rossby number $\unicode[STIX]{x1D716}$. Building on previous solutions obtained under the quasi-geostrophic approximation (at first order in $\unicode[STIX]{x1D716}$), we obtain analytical solutions for the balanced part of the flow at $O(\unicode[STIX]{x1D716}^{2})$. These solutions capture important ageostrophic effects giving rise to an asymmetry in the evolution of cyclonic and anticyclonic vortices. Previous work has shown that, if the velocity field induced by an ellipsoidal vortex only depends linearly on spatial coordinates inside the vortex, i.e. $\boldsymbol{u}=\unicode[STIX]{x1D64E}\boldsymbol{x}$, then the dynamics reduces markedly to a simple matrix equation. The instantaneous vortex shape and orientation are encapsulated in a symmetric $3\times 3$ matrix $\unicode[STIX]{x1D63D}$, which is acted upon by the flow matrix $\unicode[STIX]{x1D64E}$ to provide the vortex evolution. Under the quasi-geostrophic approximation, the flow matrix is determined by inverting the potential vorticity to obtain the streamfunction via Poisson’s equation, which has a known analytical solution depending on elliptic integrals. Here we show that higher-order balanced solutions, up to second order in the Rossby number, can also be calculated analytically. However, in this case there is a vector potential that requires the solution of three Poisson equations for each of its components. The source terms for these equations are independent of spatial coordinates within the ellipsoid, depending only on the elliptic integrals solved at the leading, quasi-geostrophic order. Unlike the quasi-geostrophic case, these source terms do not in general vanish outside the ellipsoid and have an inordinately complicated dependence on spatial coordinates. In the special case of an ellipsoid whose axes are aligned with the coordinate axes, we are able to derive these source terms and obtain the full analytical solution to the three Poisson equations. However, if one considers the homogeneous case, whereby the outer source terms are neglected, one can obtain an approximate solution having a compact matrix form analogous to the leading-order quasi-geostrophic case. This approximate solution proves to be highly accurate for the general case of an arbitrarily oriented ellipsoid, as verified through comparisons of the solutions with solutions obtained from numerical simulations of an ellipsoid using an accurate nonlinear balance model, even at moderate Rossby numbers.
Vortex reconnection in the late transition in channel flow
Authors: Zhao Yaomin , Yang Yue , Chen Shiyi
Published: August 2016

Vortex reconnection, as the topological change of vortex lines or surfaces, is a critical process in transitional flows, but is challenging to accurately characterize, particularly in shear flows. We apply the vortex-surface field (VSF), whose isosurface is the vortex surface consisting of vortex lines, to study vortex reconnection in the Klebanoff-type temporal transition in channel flow. The VSF evolution can capture the reconnection of the hairpin-like vortical structures evolving from the initial vortex sheets in opposite halves of the channel. The incipient vortex reconnection is characterized by the vanishing minimum distance between a pair of vortex surfaces and the reduction of vorticity flux through the region enclosed by the wall and the VSF isoline of the channel half-height on the spanwise symmetric plane. We find that the surge of the wall-friction coefficient begins at the identified reconnection time. From the Biot–Savart law, the rapid reconnection of vortex lines can induce a velocity opposed to the mean flow, which partially blocks the flow near the central region and generally accelerates the near-wall fluid motion in the flow with constant mass flux. Therefore, the vortex reconnection appears to play an important role in the sudden increase of wall friction in transitional channel flows.
Syrian refugees in Turkey: from “guests” to “enemies”?
Authors: Toğral Koca Burcu
Published: August 2016

Since the war erupted in Syria in 2011, Turkey has followed an “open door” policy toward Syrian refugees. The Turkish government has been promoting this liberal policy through a humanitarian discourse that leads one to expect that Syrian refugees have not been securitized in Turkey. This article, however, argues that a security framework that emphasizes control and containment has been essential to the governance of Syrian refugees in Turkey, despite the presence of such non-securitarian discourses. To develop this argument, the article first builds an analytical framework based on a critical engagement with the theory of securitization, which was originally developed by the Copenhagen School. Unlike the Copenhagen School’s theory emphasizing “speech acts” as the vector of securitization, this article applies a sociological approach to the analysis of the securitization process by focusing on both discursive and non-discursive practices. In carrying out this analysis, securitizing practices, both discursive and non-discursive, are defined as those that: (1) emphasize “control and containment,” especially in relation to societal/public security concerns (here, specifically, the labor market and employment); and (2) establish a security continuum about various other issues—including criminality, terrorism, socioeconomic problems, and cultural deprivation—and thereby treat migrants as “risky” outsiders. Subsequently, in line with this analytical framework, the article seeks to trace the securitization of non-camp Syrian refugees, especially in the labor market. Finally, the article demonstrates that this securitization process is likely to conceal structural and political problems, and to close off alternative public and political debate about the refugees.
Management of irregular migration: Syrians in Turkey as paradigm shifters for forced migration studies
Authors: Canefe Nergis
Published: August 2016

In the context of the series of civil wars that have struck the Middle East since the 1980s, the politico-economic changes in the post-Soviet geography of Eastern Europe and the Russian states, and the continuous turmoil in those parts of Africa and Asia where access to Turkish soil has been possible, Turkey emerged as a regional hub for receiving continuous flows of forced migration. As suggested by ample evidence in recent work on migration flows into Turkey, many of these “irregular migrants,” “stateless peoples,” or “asylum seekers” eventually become continuously employed under very unstable circumstances, thus fitting into the definition of the “precariat” or precarious proletariat. This paper examines the context within which such pervasive precarity takes root, directly affecting vulnerable groups such as the Syrian forced migrants arriving in Turkey in successive waves. The marked qualities of the Syrian case in terms of social precarity, combined with the degrees of disenfranchisement and economically precarious conditions for survival, indicates an institutionalized paradigm shift in the Turkish state’s management of irregular migration.
Getting it wrong in Assyria: Some bracelets from Nimrud
Authors: Collon Dominique
Published: August 2016

In 1989 Muzahem Mahmud Hussein found the second of four rich tombs in the harem section of the NorthWest Palace of Ashurnasirpal II at Nimrud. The tomb contained the burials of Yaba, queen of Tiglathpileser III, and of Atalia, queen of Sargon II, and the tomb can therefore be dated to the last decades of the eighth century BC. This paper concerns three pairs of bracelets from Tomb II, and focuses in particular on the strange iconography of one of the pairs.
Bulgarmaden: Thoughts about iron, Bolkardağ and the Taurus mountains
Authors: Yener K. Aslihan
Published: August 2016

It has long been suspected that the use of iron predated the so-called meteoric and smelted iron of the later stages of prehistory. Certainly small objects of iron such as awls and pins are found from the Chalcolithic period onwards and the rightly famous iron swords from Alaca Höyük demonstrate skills in making larger weapons in the Early Bronze Age. I document the use of iron ore for hammers and maces at Early Bronze Age sites in the Taurus Mountains and early Chalcolithic Tell Kurdu in the Amuq valley. This intensive understanding of materials and their properties led, millennia later, to the ability to smelt terrestrial iron.
Another connection between Sippar and Syria?
Authors: Meijer Diederik
Published: August 2016

On the basis of cylinder seal impressions from the Middle Bronze Age strata of Tell Hammam al-Turkman (Syria) a case is made for cultural and possibly commercial connections between that site and the region of Old Babylonian Sippar in Iraq.
A waste of space? Unbuilt land in the Babylonian cities of the first millennium BC
Authors: Baker Heather D.
Published: August 2016

This article uses both textual and archaeological evidence to examine the role of unbuilt land in the Babylonian city. Detailed study of such land is vital not only for understanding urban living conditions but also for any attempt to estimate urban population based on density of occupation of residential areas. By classifying and investigating unbuilt land according to its physical properties, modes of use and conditions of ownership, it is possible to reassess its role in the lives of the city-dwellers.
La terre cuite IB 1967 ou peut-on lire les images coroplastiques a travers les textes?
Authors: Battini Laura
Published: August 2016

Can texts explain all iconography? When seeking to explain images, can we use texts that are not contemporary with them? Ethnoarchaeology makes use of data from more distant periods and countries, but we must bear in mind the conservatism of Mesopotamian representations. Can texts be used to explain both “popular” and “official” iconography? Some answers are provided by a mould-made clay model excavated at Isin that depicts a deity with a bovine face in a doorway. It fits into a series of representations of gates associated with deities, and is one of a limited number depicting a deity with a bovine head.
Real and imagined “Hittite palaces” at Khorsabad and elsewhere
Authors: Reade Julian
Published: August 2016

Between 745 and 700 BC the Assyrian empire established itself in much of the Levant, becoming a Mediterranean as well as a Mesopotamian power. People from former Syro-Hittite states and the coasts of Phoenicia and Palestine were dispersed across the empire, bringing their own social conventions, cultures and expertise in fields ranging from cookery and metallurgy to music and architecture. Many Assyrian kings in previous centuries had demonstrated their respect for these high cultures of the West; Herzfeld (1930: 186–93) was one of the earlier scholars to consider the extent of their indebtedness. Now kings who had visited the West and who had seen how people lived there, built western features into new palaces at Nimrud, Khorsabad and Nineveh.

A clear allusion to this process resides in use of the phrase “like a Hittite palace”, literallytamšil ekal mat Hatti, “a replica of a palace of the land of Hatti”, i.e. the kind of palace or palatial structure familiar in the Syro-Hittite, Luwian and Levantine territories which eighth-century Assyrians still called after the Hittites. Tiglath-pileser III, Sargon and Sennacherib all recorded the construction of buildings like this, to which the termbit hilani(with minor variants) was also applied; Esarhaddon recorded building in both Hittite and Assyrian styles, and Ashurbanipal too built abit hilani. The clearest relevant archaeological evidence consists of some remains on the western side of the main royal palace of Sargon at Khorsabad. P.-É. Botta, the first excavator of these remains, assigned them the name of Monument isolé, Monument X or Temple (henceforward simply Monument X).
An assessment of archaeological sites in June 2008: An Iraqi-British project
Authors: Curtis John , Raheed Qais Hussein , Clarke Hugo , Hamdani Abdulamir M. Al , Stone Elizabeth , van Ess Margarete , Collins Paul , Ali Mehsin
Published: August 2016

The proposal to develop an Iraqi-British project to protect and promote cultural heritage in Southern Iraq was first mooted at a lunch in the British Museum on 24 September 2007, involving Major-General Barney White-Spunner, Charles Moore, former editor of the Daily Telegraph, Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, and John Curtis, Keeper of the Department of the Middle East at the British Museum. The lunch had been arranged to provide Major-General White-Spunner with recent information about the state of the Iraqi cultural heritage, as he was due to be deployed to Iraq in February 2008 as Commander-in-Chief of British troops and General Officer Commanding the Multi-National Division South-East. At the lunch, it was suggested that the greatest need would be to arrange for the inspection of archaeological sites and, if necessary, to arrange for the protection of them, and also to consider facilitating the reopening of some provincial museums. It is known that archaeological sites particularly in Southern Iraq suffered grievously from looting, particularly after the Second Gulf War, and most provincial museums were sacked following the First Gulf War in 1991 and again in 2003. Major-General White-Spunner immediately recognised the importance of these proposals and appointed a project manager, Major Hugo Clarke, to work up a scheme with John Curtis. The project has been made possible by a generous grant from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, that has covered all costs except those incurred in Iraq, which have been met by the British Army.
Dialect admixture of Babylonian and Assyrian inSAAVIII, X, XII, XVII and XVIII
Authors: Worthington Martin
Published: August 2016

Studies of language contact in Mesopotamia have tended to concern themselves principally with lexical borrowing and structural influence, and to focus on the interaction of Akkadian with Sumerian and (in later times) Aramaic. This paper attempts to innovate on the field in two respects. First, studies of language contact in Mesopotamia largely neglect the sociolinguistic aspects of the phenomenon, which have been problematized with rewarding results in a large and ever-growing body of sociolinguistic literature. A masterly study by Adams has recently shown that sociolinguistic methods can successfully be applied to corpus languages, in his case Latin. Sociolinguistic aspects of language contact are the primary focus of this paper. Second, instead of the interaction between Akkadian and another language (Sumerian, Aramaic), we shall be concerned with that between dialects of Akkadian itself, which can be distinguished through phonology, morphology and, to a lesser extent, lexicon: Neo-Assyrian and two dialects of Babylonian. The Babylonian dialects, respectively vernacular Neo-Babylonian and so-called “Standard Babylonian” (GermanJungbabylonisch), appear in different epistolary contexts. As the language of scholarship andbelles lettres, Standard Babylonian occurs in learned citations, and was used to elevate one's language. We will encounter it frequently in letters written to the king by Neo-Assyrian scholars. Vernacular Neo-Babylonian was the base dialect of numerous letters by and to Babylonians. Characteristically Neo- (as opposed to Standard) Babylonian forms are usually not found in Assyrian letters.
Ebla and Ur: Relations, Exchanges and contacts between two great capitals of the ancient Near East
Authors: Pinnock Frances
Published: August 2016

After the discovery of Royal Palace G at Ebla in 1974, several contributions, particularly by the writer and by P. Matthiae, addressed specific aspects of the artistic and architectural cultures of Early and Old Syrian Ebla. Many of these aspects revealed contacts and comparisons with Ur. It was not, however, possible to build up a coherent picture from these random and unrelated aspects. Such a picture may still elude us, but in the presence of a varied documentation relating to different periods, we think it is now opportune to review the evidence.
A note on bit types at Hasanlu, Iran
Authors: de Schauensee Maude
Published: August 2016

Hasanlu Tepe is a large mounded site in the Solduz Valley of western Azerbaijan dating from Islamic to Neolithic times. One of its main occupation levels belonged to the Iron II period (Fig. 1). This settlement was sacked and burned around 800/780 BC, preserving a large quantity of objects of daily living in the collapsed buildings (Dyson and Voigt 1989). One building (BB II) is thought to have been a temple (Dyson and Voigt 2003). Two others (BB IVE and BBV) appear, from the presence of urine stains and horse skeletons, to have been in use as stables at the time of the destruction, converted from an earlier function. They, as well as other areas, contained horse gear as well as skeletons of horses (de Schauensee and Dyson 1983; de Schauensee 1988: 47–9; 1989). Two types of bits for horses were found. Comparisons between them, combined with associated material, suggest that they had distinct, non-overlapping functions.
On the Ud-ŠU-BALA at Ur towards the end of the third millennium BC
Authors: Wilson James Kinnier
Published: August 2016

The media coverage of the severe weather patterns of 1982–3 and 1997–8 has reasserted for the study of history the possible influence of abrupt climate change at transitional periods. Modern theories on the fall of Ur have already looked beyond the Elamite invasion to the evidence of food shortage and failing water supply as preconditions of the event. The present study seeks to enlarge upon this theme, and will suggest that, following a period of storm and flood, a sustained drought brought an unprecedented loss of life to the city of Ur and across Sumer. The paper will finally suggest a modern and scientific explanation of the ud-šu-bala, or “weather change”, of the period.
The Royal libraries of Nineveh: New evidence for king Ashurbanipal's Tablet Collecting
Authors: Frame Grant , George A. R.
Published: August 2016

The two tablets published here for the first time, BM 45642 and BM 28825, are edited together for good reason, for the historical background of both texts is very probably the same episode in King Ashurbanipal's drive to acquire scribal learning. Where BM 28825 concerns the reception of the Assyrian king's demand for tablets among the citizens of Babylon, BM 45642 deals with the reaction of scholars of nearby Borsippa to a similar royal message. BM 45642 is the better preserved of the two tablets, and allows a fuller understanding of both texts' formal characteristics and of the contextual background. Consequently we present it first.

The text inscribed on BM 45642 (81-7-6, 35) is a letter, though not a typical one. It begins with an extremely deferential address to Ashurbanipal (11. 1–4). Following a series of standard royal epithets, the address pays homage to the Assyrian king as the divinely appointed suzerain of Assyria and Babylonia. It goes on to record Nabû's patronage of the king, and to acknowledge his skill in Nabû's special field of writing, an expertise already well known from Ashurbanipal's own inscriptions. These clauses are chosen with care, for the writer is evidently a scholar from Borsippa, Nabû's cult-centre. With them he invokes a certain feeling of mutual fellowship. The name of the sender is expected at the end of the address, but although the end of 1. 4 is broken there does not seem to be a name there, and we have restored instead nilt[apra umma] “we send word as follows”. In this the text departs from normal Neo-Babylonian usage, perhaps because it is not a regular letter but, as becomes clear, a formal and collective communication on behalf of all the scholars of Borsippa.
The Ishtar Temple at Nineveh
Authors: Reade Julian
Published: August 2016

Nineveh, like modern Mosul of which it is now a suburb, lay at the heart of a prosperous agricultural region with many interregional connections, and the temple of Ishtar of Nineveh dominated the vast mound of Kuyunjik (Fig. 1). Trenches dug on behalf of the British Museum, mainly by Christian Rassam in 1851–2, Hormuzd Rassam in 1852–4 and 1878–80, George Smith in 1873–4, and Leonard King and Reginald Campbell Thompson in 1903–5, impinged on the site. The main temple was almost completely cleared, together with an area to the north-west, by Thompson and colleagues in four seasons between 1927 and 1932 (Figs. 2–3). Many original King and Thompson records are kept in the Department of the Ancient Near East at the British Museum; some photographic negatives are at the Royal Asiatic Society in London. The numerous objects from Thompson's excavations are now divided between the Iraq Museum, the British Museum (where they are registered in the 1929-10-12, 1930-5-8, 1932-12-10 and 1932-12-12 collections, mostly corresponding to the four successive seasons), the Birmingham City Museum, the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge; some were given to other institutions, and to individuals who had contributed to the excavation costs.
Expelling demons at Nineveh: The visibility of benevolent demons in the palaces of Nineveh
Authors: Ornan Tallay
Published: August 2016

As has been shown and extensively dealt with in early and more recent scholarship, Neo-Assyrian palatial wall reliefs went through many thematic changes throughout their two hundred and fifty years of existence. One of their conspicuous traits was a gradual abandoning of magical-religious subject matters, represented by protective supernatural beings, in favour of larger and more detailed historical compositions — mostly of a belligerent nature — revealing, for the first time in antiquity, a truer sense of narrative display. As the narrative-historical themes were rightly considered to be an innovative and prominent contribution of Assyrian imagery to the history of art, extensive efforts have been devoted to the study of these compositions within the context of Assyrian palaces.

In the present contribution I intend, however, to concentrate on the “losing” side of Assyrian palatial decoration, namely to focus on the visibility of apotropaic fantastic creatures rendered on wall reliefs and to offer some explanation for their gradual expulsion from the pictorial display of the Assyrian palace. Following Porada, in this essay these hybrids are called demons, in accordance with the Greek termdaimon. Benevolent demons appear already in early ninth-century Neo-Assyrian wall reliefs, both in temples, as shown by a small number of slabs from the Ninurta Temple at Nimrud, and much more commonly in palaces, in particular within the North-West Palace.
Note on Qasr Serij
Authors: Simpson St John
Published: August 2016

Qasr Serij lies near an old route running along the southern foot of the Jabal al-Qusayr between Mosul and Nisibis (cf. Wilkinson, 1990: 50–51, Route B; Wilkinson, 1993: 552). As the name suggests, the site comprises the partly standing remains of a church originally dedicated to St Sergius, a popular eastern saint (Fiey, 1961). It has been identified as the stone church said to have been founded between 559–75 by one Mar Ahudemmeh at a spot known as Ain Qenoye or Ain Qena (‘Spring of Reeds’) in the vicinity of Balad (Eski Mosul) (Fiey, 1958). Preliminary descriptions, accompanied by the first known photographs of the ruins, were made by Gerald Reitlinger (1938: 148–49) and Aurel Stein (finally published in 1985: i, 105–107, Pl. 31c) following their respective surveys of medieval and Roman sites in the Jazira during the wet spring of 1938 (see also Lloyd, 1938: 136, No. 15; Ibrahim, 1986: 74, Site 211). In his subsequent study of the still-unexcavated ruins, David Oates (1962; 1968: 106–17, Pl. XIII) drew architectural parallels with fifth century and later churches in North Syria. Recently, in a series of important articles on early church architecture, Okada (1990; 1991; 1992) has drawn attention to the contrast in plan and fittings of these basilica-type churches with Sasanian and Early Islamic churches in southern Mesopotamia, the Iraqi Western Desert and the Gulf.
Mental disorders among college students in the World Health Organization World Mental Health Surveys
Authors: Auerbach R. P. , Alonso J. , Axinn W. G. , Cuijpers P. , Ebert D. D. , Green J. G. , Hwang I. , Kessler R. C. , Liu H. , Mortier P. , Nock M. K. , Pinder-Amaker S. , Sampson N. A. , Aguilar-Gaxiola S. , Al-Hamzawi A. , Andrade L. H. , Benjet C. , Caldas-de-Almeida J. M. , Demyttenaere K. , Florescu S. , de Girolamo G. , Gureje O. , Haro J. M. , Karam E. G. , Kiejna A. , Kovess-Masfety V. , Lee S. , McGrath J. J. , O'Neill S. , Pennell B.-E. , Scott K. , ten Have M. , Torres Y. , Zaslavsky A. M. , Zarkov Z. , Bruffaerts R.
Published: August 2016

Background

Although mental disorders are significant predictors of educational attainment throughout the entire educational career, most research on mental disorders among students has focused on the primary and secondary school years.

Method

The World Health Organization World Mental Health Surveys were used to examine the associations of mental disorders with college entry and attrition by comparing college students (n= 1572) and non-students in the same age range (18–22 years;n= 4178), including non-students who recently left college without graduating (n= 702) based on surveys in 21 countries (four low/lower-middle income, five upper-middle-income, one lower-middle or upper-middle at the times of two different surveys, and 11 high income). Lifetime and 12-month prevalence and age-of-onset of DSM-IV anxiety, mood, behavioral and substance disorders were assessed with the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI).

Results

One-fifth (20.3%) of college students had 12-month DSM-IV/CIDI disorders; 83.1% of these cases had pre-matriculation onsets. Disorders with pre-matriculation onsets were more important than those with post-matriculation onsets in predicting subsequent college attrition, with substance disorders and, among women, major depression the most important such disorders. Only 16.4% of students with 12-month disorders received any 12-month healthcare treatment for their mental disorders.

Conclusions

Mental disorders are common among college students, have onsets that mostly occur prior to college entry, in the case of pre-matriculation disorders are associated with college attrition, and are typically untreated. Detection and effective treatment of these disorders early in the college career might reduce attrition and improve educational and psychosocial functioning.
Antigone at Colonus and the End(s) of Tragedy
Authors: Holmes Brooke
Published: August 2016

Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus, it would seem, is an exercise in closure. In the opening scene, Oedipus, worn down by years of wandering blind and hungry, arrives at the borders of Athens. Here is where his legendary sufferings—his murder of his father, his incestuous marriage to his mother, his betrayal by his sons, his exile from Thebes—are fated to end. Following his miraculous death, his body will become a sacred gift to the city that receives him, protecting it against future attack. In the closing moments of the play, everything unfolds according to plan. Oedipus disappears offstage and mysteriously descends into the earth. The king of Athens, Theseus, alone marks the spot of his disappearance, knowledge he will pass down to his sons as part of his responsibility to the city. By the end of the tragedy, then, Oedipus has made his way home to the gods in a land capable of honouring his awesome, singular fate.

The concept of ‘coming home’ is integral, as this précis suggests, to the play's logic of closure. Yet, crucially, it governs only one of the two planes on which the drama unfolds, that of the gods. Oedipus' life has been in the hands of the gods since before he was born. That they reclaim him at the end of his life gives his exit the feel of a return. By contrast, the path to Athens, for all its meandering, is not circular but linear. Athens is definitively not Thebes, as the tragedy demonstrates over and over (nor is it Corinth, Oedipus' other point of origin). Thebes is, rather, the home that Oedipus rejects, most spectacularly through his resistance to Creon's demand that he return to the city of his birth. What is more, he repudiates any relationship to the Theban throne. When Polyneices arrives to ask his father to support his bid to reclaim the kingship from his brother Eteocles, Oedipus does not simply refuse to intervene but drives his son away with curses. His refusal is a refusal not just of Thebes but of the Labdacid line altogether (he goes so far as to call Polyneices ἀπάτωϱ, ‘fatherless’, 1383; see also 1369: ὑμεῖς δ' ἀπ' ἄλλον ϰοὐϰ ἐμοῦ πεϕύϰατον, ‘you are from another and not born from me’); his pact with Theseus creates an alternate genealogy of fathers and sons. Seen in this light, Oedipus' arrival at Colonus and, ultimately, his dramatic exit become the final stages of a process not of coming home but of leaving Thebes behind and with it ‘the radical tragic terrain where there can be no escape from the tragic in the resolution of conflict or in the institutional provision of a civic future beyond the world of the play’.
A Tale of Two Kings: Competing Aspects of Power in Aeschylus' Persians
Authors: Kennedy Rebecca Futo
Published: August 2016

The frequent assumption that they [the Persians] were as greatly concerned on these levels [historically, culturally, strategically] with Greece [as they were with the east] is a misconception which stems from our own western view of the world and from the unfortunate fact that Greece has given us our main literary sources of information on the Achaemenids. It was the Greeks who were fascinated by Persia, by Persian mores, and, yes, by Persian court art and luxury goods—not the reverse. If only the Persians had spawned the likes of Aeschylus and Herodotus, our perceptions of their preoccupations would be quite different.

Athenians were indeed fascinated by Persia as their art and literature attest. The fascination was both cultural and political, but not without tensions. Part of that fascination manifested itself in the allure of Persian kings and what they represented. The kings ruled over a vast empire, larger than any the Mediterranean world had yet seen. They sought in their iconography and building programmes to exert a particular identity for themselves and the Achaemenid dynasty. Although the Athenians were not imperialists of the type we see in Persia, Rome or the figure of Alexander, they did build for themselves a small, Hellenic empire (archē) and they adopted a number of Persian mechanisms of power and some aspects of Achaemenid iconography for representing their power. Aeschylus' Persians, produced in 472 BCE, helps us understand the Athenians' developing archē, specifically how the representations of the two Persian Kings in the play helped the Athenians differentiate and define their power vis-à-vis the Great Persian Menace and, more importantly, the rest of the Greeks. By understanding better the engagement by the Athenians with Persian culture, we can better understand how the Athenians conceptualised their own power and position in the Aegean in the early 5th century BCE.