bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Ancient Village Gods of South India
Authors: Hornell James
Published: August 2016

The religious ideas of the illiterate villagers of South India, nominal adherents to Hinduism, are extremely vague, ill-defined and confused. In one respect alone is there general understanding and agreement; this is the universal acceptance of the belief that demon spirits prowl around their homes, ever seeking opportunity to inflict misery and disease upon those who do not adequately propitiate these potential workers of evil. The basis of this belief reaches back into a distant past, antecedent to the influx into the plains of India, through the northwest passes, of those swarms of Aryan-speaking people who brought with them the Vedic cult of the sun, moon and planets, fire, wind and rivers, humanized by anthropomorphic ideology. On entry into India this glorious imagery found itself in conflict with two aboriginal cults strongly entrenched in the religious beliefs of the land. One of these was the worship of gods and goddesses of whom the most honoured or dreaded as the case might be, were those concerned with procreation, the continued fertility of the fields, and with the infliction of epidemic diseases and other miseries. Of these deities we have little precise information but it seems certain that phallic worship, typified in the lingam of Siva, was incorporated in this cult, and that many of the ills that afflict mankind were considered as due to the malevolence of malignant demons and to the jealous hatred of the living possessed by the disembodied spirits of the dead. The other and milder cult native to the soil was the worship of trees and serpents, or rather of the spirits or influences inhabiting them or associated therewith.
Fowling in Prehistoric Europe
Authors: Clark Grahame
Published: August 2016

Fowling has seldom played a part in the food-quest at all comparable with that of hunting or fishing : the situation of St. Kilda, where during the 17th century the 180 inhabitants are held by Martin (1) to have consumed annually some 22,600 Solan Geese (Gannets) and of which the Rev. Macaulay exclaimed in 1758 ‘. . . deprive us of the Fulmar, and St. Kilda is no more (2)’, is an exception which only proves the general rule. Yet, we know that birds helped to vary the diet of most of the communities of prehistoric Europe and that catching them was an activity of economic importance, especially at certain seasons of the year. The only scientific way of estimating the part played by fowling in the economy of any prehistoric group is through an accurate knowledge of the total fauna represented in the food debris, with special regard to the relative proportions of the different species. While this is too seldom available, there is in the aggregate sufficient data to show how far prehistoric man depended on fowling to supply himself with food. As to the methods used, direct evidence of this is all the harder to come by, since these were mainly of a kind to leave little or no tangible trace behind them. Throughout prehistoric times fowling remained at a primitive stage of development, but fortunately the methods used still survived in Europe down to modern times and most are still practised to-day, whether among peasant peoples in the remoter parts of the continent or among poachers nearer home.
The Phoenicians on the West Coast of Africa
Authors: Harden D. B.
Published: August 2016

In the present state of our knowledge of the true extent of the Phoenician accomplishment in their homelands in the Mediterranean, it may seem foolhardy to try to evaluate their achievements in West Africa, or indeed anywhere else on the periphery of their sphere of influence. The attempt has, however, been made in the past, nearly always from the purely historical aspect, and my excuse for essaying it once again is that the time seems to have come to emphasize how archaeology could help to shed light on their colonial and mercantile activities in those regions.

Before 1200 B.C. the Phoenician cities on the Syrian coast had sent out colonies to Cyprus, Rhodes and possibly Crete, and, not much later, farther west to Utica and even Gades, if we are to believe our ancient sources (1). These colonies and others, situated at the most strategical points in the Mediterranean, were important vantage-places from which to curb the Greek spread westwards. They kept the Greeks from any real foothold west of a line drawn from Cumae to Selinus, apart from an enclave in the Gulf of Lions.
‘Buried Landscapes’ in Southern Italy
Authors: Bradford John
Published: August 2016

It is widely known that war-time air photography has led to the discovery of many new archaeological sites of importance in Mediterranean lands. Many hundreds of tumuli have been added to the list, at such famous Etruscan cemeteries as Cerveteri and Tarquinia and complete systems of Roman land-partition by Centuriation have been identified round the coloniae of Iader and Salonae, on the shores of Dalmatia. But by far the most notable discoveries of all are those on the Foggia Plain, in the Province of Apulia, in Southeast Italy. Great numbers of Prehistoric, Roman, and Medieval sites are being identified, and some preliminary results have already been published in ANTIQUITY(' Siticulosa Apulia ', December 1946). Select examples were exhibited at the Classical Conference at Oxford and at the British Association Meeting, in 1948, and again for several months this year, in the Ashmolean Museum. These were chosen from a number which it was fortunately possible to acquire for the University of Oxford, now housed at the Pitt Rivers Museum, where they are being studied in detail. This collection was based on vertical photographs taken by the Royal Air Force, and oblique photographs taken by Major Williams-Hunt and myself (which were the first to reveal this dense concentration of sites, spread more thickly on the ground than almost anywhere else in Europe). This heavy concentration is of much more than local importance. During the last few years I have examined many thousands of air photographs of Southern and Central Europe taken at various seasons, in the course of my research. While these provide much interesting data and give us, as it were, an illustrated ' Domesday ' survey of Europe in the middle of the 20th century (of capital value to Anthropology), in no other area has there as yet been anything approaching the quantity of crop-marks, grass-marks, soil-marks and earthworks which have come to light in Apulia. There are various reasons for this and a detailed account must await a later report. For our present purposes, it will be enough to single out one or two areas, for comparison.
The Origin of Neolithic Culture in Northern Europe
Authors: Childe V. G.
Published: August 2016

Till 1948 the coherent record of farming in Northern Europe began with the neolithic culture represented in the Danish dysser (‘dolmens’) and most readily defined by the funnel-necked beakers, collared flasks and ‘amphorae’ found therein. As early as 1910 Gustav Kossinna had remarked that these distinctive ceramic types, and accordingly the culture they defined, were not confined to the West Baltic coastlands, but recurred in the valleys of the Upper Vistula and Oder to the east, to the south as far as the Upper Elbe and in northwest Germany and Holland too. He saw in this distribution evidence for the first expansion of Urindogermanen from their cradle in the Cimbrian peninsula. In the sequel Åberg filled in the documentation of this expansion with fresh spots on the distribution map and Kossinna himself distinguished typologically four main provinces or geographical groups—the Northern, Eastern, Southern and Western. Finally Jazdrzewski gave a standard account of the whole content of what had come to be called Kultura puharów lejkowatych, Trichterbecherkultur, or Tragtbaegerkulturen. As ‘Funnel-necked-beaker culture’ is a clumsy expression and English terminology is already overloaded with ‘beakers’, I shall use the term ‘First Northern’.

The orgin of this vigorous and expansive group of cultivators and herdsmen has always been an enigma. Not even Kossinna imagined that the savages of the Ertebølle shell-mounds spontaneously began cultivating cereals and breeding sheep in Denmark. As dysser were regarded as megalithic tombs and as megaliths are Atlantic phenomena, he supposed that the bases of the neolithic economy were introduced from the West together with the ‘megalithic idea’. But the First Northern Farmers of the South and East groups did not build megalithic tombs. Moreover, in the last ten years an extension of the North group across southern Sweden as far as Södermannland has come to light, and these farmers too, though they used collared flasks and funnel-necked beakers, built no dolmens either. In any case there was nothing Western about the pottery from the Danish dysser, and Western types of arrow-head are conspicuously rare in Denmark.
A Century of Air-photography
Authors: Crawford O. G. S.
Published: August 2016

When I wrote a short history of archaeological and other air-photography in 1928 the earliest examples quoted were those taken by Major Elsdale between 1880 and 1887 ; this information was given me by the late Colonel Sir Charles Arden-Close, himself a pioneer of the craft. Since then two earlier instances have come to light. The Science Museum, South Kensington, has exhibited an air-photograph of Boston, Mass., taken in 1877 ; but unfortunately it has no history. In a book published in 1930 there is reproduced a photograph taken above Paris from a captive balloon, taken by that photographic genius who called himself Nadar. Through the good offices of Professor Vaufrey, editor of L’AnthropoZogie, prints were obtained from the Service Photographique des Monuments Historiques, and two combined are here reproduced on PLATE III. They look towards the Arc de Triomphe, and have on the left the Avenue du Bois de Bouiogne (Avenue Foch) and on the right that of Victor Hugo : note that these splendid thoroughfares, then only a decade old, were still only half built-up (the left hand part of the photograph is defective). Photography itself was not much older, Fox Talbot’s first efforts having been made from 1842 onwards.
Swiss Pile-dwellings
Authors: Vogt E.
Published: August 2016

For about a century it has been assumed that during the Neolithic and part of the Bronze Age the inhabitants of what is now Switzerland built pile-dwellings on the lakes. This interpretation of the finds was put forward, as is well known, by Dr F. Keller, who did so much for Swiss prehistory. His theory was based upon a comparison of the very scanty remains of prehistoric buildings in Switzerland with pile-dwellings that are to be seen today in many parts of the world, erected both on dry land and also on the shores of lakes and of the sea, standing in water. In spite of some opposition, Keller's interpretation appeared so convincing that it aroused great interest and was generally accepted by archaeologists. It was not accidental that Keller had one of his important books on piledwellings published in England. Every museum in the world endeavoured to obtain some specimens of the Swiss finds, and today it is practically impossible to make even an approximately complete list of the older finds from the pile-dwellings.
The Zürich Congress
Authors: Piggott Stuart
Published: August 2016

When the Editor of Antiquity invited me to write some notes on the Zürich Congress, it was agreed that they could only be considered as personal impressions, and not a formal report. The unfortunate human limitation which debars one from being in two places at once is always irritatingly obtrusive on such occasions, and a decision on which of several simultaneous papers to attend is likely to be decided by spinning a coin at the last moment, so that one can do no more than record one's own impressions, and something of those of friends to whom one has talked.
The Oval House
Authors: Walton James
Published: August 2016

The place of the oval house in the evolutionary development of folk architecture is of particular interest. Although sporadic in occurrence it has been responsible for one of the principal present-day dwelling types, the hipped-roof. Innocent contends that the round house was the earliest and that the rectangular plan evolved through the intermediate oval stage which was produced by the joining of two circular frameworks. He further postulates that the ridge-pole was devised to connect two such frameworks.

I have already indicated elsewhere that simple rectangular plans have been employed at least from the Iron Age and it is apparent that the rectangular gable-ended structure is certainly as primitive as the circular. Some oval houses undoubtedly resulted from the union of two circular frameworks but the motive force behind this development was a desire on the part of peoples accustomed to building circular huts to emulate the rectangular type. Having seen the increased living space afforded by the rectangular plan, these peoples tried to copy it by joining two of their circular frameworks. This was not the only way in which oval houses originated.
Cerdic's Landing-place
Authors: Crawford O. G. S.
Published: August 2016

In 1931 I wrote an article maintaining the thesis that Cerdic’s ora, where in 495 Cerdic and in 514 the West Saxons landed, was to be located near Totton at the head of Southampton Water; and that he advanced westwards along an old track called the Cloven Way to Cerdic's ford, which is certainly to be put at Charford on the Salisbury Avon. I still think that the latter part of the advance must have been along the Cloven Way which led to the ford down a deep hollow way that can still be seen. But certain new discoveries have caused me to abandon the theory of a landing at Totton and to locate Cerdic’s ora on the coast between Calshot and the mouth of the Beaulieu River.
Adventure and Flinders Petrie
Authors: Wheeler Mortimer
Published: August 2016

I have it in mind that our Royal Patron, in the course of her Christmas broadcast to her peoples, used the following words:

‘Above all, we must keep alive that courageous spirit of adventure that is the finest quality of youth : and by youth I do not just mean those who are young in years; I mean, too, all those who are young in heart, no matter how old they may be. That spirit still flourishes in this old country and in all the younger countries of our Commonwealth ’.

Those words have recurred to me more than once since I first heard them, and I take them as the text for the short address which recent custom demands of me this afternoon.

The ‘spirit of adventure’. I suppose that the phrase contains nearly all that makes life worth while; but to define it is another matter. We in this room today represent an era which has had its fill of rudimentary adventure, or has at least had ready opportunity for hazards beyond the dreams of Henty. In saying that, I am consciously contrasting our lot with that of our parents or grandparents, living as they did in an epoch of certainty, in an environment of good solid mahogany, with the picture always before them of a little sedate Old Lady in whose house there was no room for the word ‘ defeat ’. Adventure there was in plenty in that bygone world, but it was sharply discrete from the security of the average household outside the services. By the adventurous of spirit it had for the most part to be sought, and sought deliberately, whether in two dimensions or in three. And sought it was. In those far-off days, for example, I can recall the sturdy figure of my father, living the most humdrum of lives and eking it out with a vicarious adventuring that comes back freshly to my memory. As he strode regularly to or from his office, his daily existence was packed with boyish adventure. Tartarin, all Tarascon, had nothing to offer him. He had, in vivid imagination, forded the Kabul river under fire, until he could describe the splash of every bullet; he had never actually been east of Nuremberg, but he had shot man-eating tigers whose breath lay hot upon my boyish ears. All men who had striven beyond the frontiers were his heroes. His worshipped familiars ranged in fact from Robertson of Chitral to a commissionaire who had marched to Kandahar with Roberts. To a later generation such episodes have become a commonplace, but I have sometimes doubted whether a familiar actuality could ever have held a candle to my father’s world of fancy.
Pitfalls in Prehistory
Authors: van Riet Lowe C.
Published: August 2016

I have been repeatedly asked to record a few of the more picturesque pitfalls or potential pitfalls I have encountered in my fieldwork. In attempting to do so, I have selected examples which, although they deal with entirely recent events, reflect the kind of thing that has undoubtedly gone on in one form or another from time immemorial. Where they have no direct bearing on prehistory, they have a bearing on the general background of all archaeological fieldwork. Their picturesqueness neither hides, nor does it dull, the lessons they contain; rather the opposite, for the warnings within them need to be taken into account by all who work in the field. In some, the value is psychological as much as archaeological.

There is little in prehistory that provides a greater problem than that which the Abbé Breuil calls a ‘travelling piece’—that is a piece collected on one site and deliberately transported to another. We have repeatedly found that men who lived on or near the bank of a river during the Later Stone Age gathered material for their tools in the river-bed where, as likely as not, the stones they collected were derived from an implement-bearing deposit of the Middle or even the Earlier Stone Age. In this way, Stone Age man could, and indeed often did, transport a millennia- or million-year-old artifact up from one geological horizon to another often very appreciably higher and therefore later. I have frequently found Old Palaeolithic bifaced tools, such as hand-axes, used as cores or fabricators on Upper Palaeolithic ‘living floors’; and I have traced the ‘floor’ of the handaxes to a deep-buried aggradation in the vicinity.
The Ancient Cart-tracks of Malta
Authors: Gracie H. S.
Published: August 2016

The barren hill-tops of Malta are scored in many places by ancient ruts cut deeply into the rock. They can be seen also on the slopes and on the lower plains, but less frequently because these areas are normally under agricultural soil. They always occur in pairs from 52 to 58 inches apart and were quite clearly used by vehicles. They have been discussed in print for 300 years but no agreement has been reached on how, when or why they were made or what vehicles used them. In fact, there are as many theories as there are authors. Of these writers only Captain E. G. Fenton and Professor Sir T. Zammit appear to have done any serious field work, and none has published a map. The present writer, therefore, decided to attempt the laborious task of plotting them, making such other observations and measurements as he could. Zammit, in the paper cited, reproduced some excellent photographs from both the ground and the air, to which the reader is referred.

Time did not permit an examination of the whole island and few observations were made in the low-lying south-eastern part. A fairly intensive survey was made of the high ground as far north as the Baida Ridge, which joins the northern shores of Ghain Tuffieha Bay and St. Paul’s Bay. Two portions of the map are reproduced here. Where there are a number of parallel tracks in close proximity they are shown on the map as one on account of the necessarily small scale used. The gaps in the routes are mainly due to cultivated patches, and no attempt has been made to bridge them by conjecture.
Harappan Outposts on the Makran Coast
Authors: Dales George F.
Published: August 2016

The widespread remains of the Indus Valley or Harappan civilization—contemporaneous in part with the great civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt—present at first glance a picture of sterile isolationism. Yet none of the great civilizations of the world originated or thrived in a cultural and economic vacuum. There are, in fact, certain material indications of contact between the Harappans and their western contemporaries? Also, there is a strong Mesopotamian seafaring tradition attested to in cuneiform economic documents and mythological literature. The discovery of Indus type stamp seals in southern Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf area suggested that at least part of the Mesopotamian seafaring activities were directed toward the east. The identification, some thirty years ago, of the Makran Coast site of Sutkagen-dor as a Harappan settlement added further weight to the probability of sea contacts between the Indus and the West.
The Olduvai Discoveries
Authors: Leakey L. S. B.
Published: August 2016

Dr Napier and Dr Weiner quote from my preliminary reports and add, ‘All these opinions must be regarded as quite provisional for only detailed anatomical and statistical investigation will permit the assessment of the precise position of these new East African hominids within the evolutionary sequence’. Having said this, they then proceed to devote several pages to trying to assess the position of these new discoveries, when neither of them has made any detailed anatomical or statistical investigation of any of the skull and jaw material referred to, while the first author (at the time of writing) was only at an early stage of his study of the limb bones of the pre-Zinjanthropus juvenile.
The First Farmers in Turkmenia
Authors: Masson V. M.
Published: August 2016

The early farming culture of Southern Turkmenistan, widely known since the work of R. Pumpelly at Anau, has been systematically studied during the last decade by Soviet archaeologists. Excavation of the major settlement of this culture, Namazga Tepe, has made it possible to propose a new stratigraphy (Namazga periods I-VI). The Namazga III period fills the gap between Anau II and Anau III, and has its closest analogies on Iranian sites such as Sialk III, 4-7, and Hissar IB to IIA; it is now possible to revise the synchronization of sites in Turkmenia and Iran proposed by McCown. (See table on p. 212).
The Etruscan Lion
Authors: Pallottino Massimo
Published: August 2016

The book, prepared originally as a dissertation for the Oxford Doctorate of Philosophy, is published posthumously. It gives the measure of the scientific quality of its young author, prematurely deceased in November 1958 at the age of only thirty-four, and it constitutes without doubt one of the most relevant contributions offered during the last few years to our knowledge of the figurative world of ancient Etruria. J. Boardman and Mrs Brown have edited the manuscript for publication, completing it with careful and valuable analytical indexes of sites, museums, bibliographical sources, and subjects. J. D. Beazley has added a short biographical note.

As the author himself explicitly declares in the preface, the book is a history of the representation of the lion in Etruscan art from the end of the 8th to the end of the 3rd century B.C. The work does not set out to be a corpus, but in effect it assembles and makes use of all the material which offers even the slightest interest from the diverse points of view of typology, technique, or style. The research is carried out on the basis of iconography as a study of the origins, the rate and means of penetration and diffusion of individual typological variants of the lion figure, and of the backgrounds, chronological succession, and inter-relationships of the different classes of lion representations. However, in view of the exceptional importance which this theme assumes in the figurative production of the Etruscan world chiefly in the orientalizing period, but also later, in the 6th and 5th centuries, the survey inevitably finishes by discussing the major problems in the history of Etruscan art: its links with Greek and Oriental sources of inspiration, its original qualities and conservatism, its individual centres of production, and its overall stylistic development. In his direct and detailed analyses, the Author says the last word about certain monuments or groups of monuments which are classed among the most famous and significant in the whole Etruscan art—for example, the Regolini-Galassi fibula, the situlae from La Pania, the bronzes from Perugia, the lion of Val Vidone, and the chimaera of Arezzo.
The Nature of Wansdyke
Authors: Clark Anthony
Published: August 2016

The middest of this shire [Wiltshire] which for the most part lieth plain and even, is divided athwart from East to West, with a dyke of wonderful1 work, cast up for many miles together in length: the people dwelling thereabout call it Wansdyke, which upon an error generally received, they talk and tell to have been made by the Divell upon a Wednesday.’ So wrote John Aubrey in 1663 in his Monumenta Britannica and, since his day, Wansdyke, one of the two mightiest linear earthworks of ancient Britain—the other is Offa’s Dyke—has rightly attracted the admiration and speculation of innumerable antiquaries (PLATE X (a) ).
The Morley St Peter Hoard
Authors: Clarke R. Rainbird , Dolley R. H. M.
Published: August 2016

The significance of the find lies both in its size and in its spanning of the late 9th and early 10th centuries, a period earlier than that embraced by the very few other Late Saxon hoards from this area. Its importance is further enhanced by the fact that it is believed to have been recovered in its entirety, whereas a majority of hoards of this period are feared to have suffered some dispersal at least before they could be recorded and assessed by numismatists.

The new hoard has come to light in the grounds of Wymondham College in the parish of Morley St Peter some twelve miles south-west of Norwich (Nat. Grid. 62/076984). During January 1958 trenches were dug for new foundations, but heavy snow impeded progress, and its melting caused the side of one trench to collapse. When two bricklayers began to clean up the trench on the morning of 27 January, fragments of a broken pot and a shower of silver ‘discs’ fell into the trench between them at a depth of 2 ft. 3 in. To the finders the coins looked like ‘mineral-water bottle caps’, but the men noticed that some bore a portrait, and sought the help of one of the masters at the College. He at once appreciated their importance, and, suspecting that they were Saxon coins, conveyed 874 of them to the headmaster, Mr R. V. Metcalfe, who promptly telephoned news of the discovery to the Castle Museum, Norwich.
Disturb the Hive
Authors: Jones Douglas A.
Published: August 2016

“Where do we find ourselves?” We ask some permutation of this question in response to life events, as Ralph Waldo Emerson does to open his haunting essay on the death of his young son, the magisterial “Experience” (1844). Commemorations also compel us to make such accountings, to break from the requisite, often monotonous routines of everyday life to assess our evolutions. The sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the American Society for Theatre Research offers such an occasion, and this forum's invitation to imagine and, perhaps, sway the direction of the organization's discursive and institutional practices over the next decade or more requires, first of all, estimating where we, as scholars of theatre and performance culture, find ourselves. Although these inspections would certainly reveal actions and innovations worthy of commemoration, the more important task is to lay bare and come to grips with those assumptions, ruts, and shibboleths in our respective fields of inquiry that have become so ingrained that they have achieved a kind of sacrosanctity. We must contest and, in many cases, abandon these conceptual and analytical habits: such efforts, though to the detriment of ideology, will be to the good of the discipline and the enrichment of our individual scholarly sensibilities.
A Cultural History of Theatre: A Desideratum
Authors: Davis Tracy C. , Balme Christopher B.
Published: August 2016

Theatre is predominantly a social form. Social history, which invites perspectives from “below,” stories of resistance, and awareness of how social organization stratifies, has had a profound effect on theatre studies since the 1970s. A wide scholarly purview on performative forms dates from the later nineteenth century, but social history changed awareness about historical contiguities of categories of community, amateur, and folk performance; tensions and exchanges among court, community, and professional performance constituencies; as well as greater respect for nonliterary traditions and unwritten forms of preservation and lineage. Social history, in short, prompted questions about who made theatre and how it mattered to the people who partook of it, including those who made it as well as others who consumed it, rather than more narrowly determining what constituted theatre (or drama) worthy of posterity. This approach—society as a group with common territory and interactions, enveloping each individual—could not be investigated as theatre history without a commensurate interest in culture. That is to say, not culture as the pinnacle of elites' achievements, but rather any social group's interpretation and use of common beliefs and values patterned by behavior and practices into religion, behavioral protocols, cuisine, and so on, including the arts. Wariness of a narrow elite construal of culture may be what keeps theatre historians from calling our field “cultural history,” for, though we embrace the ambit of social history, cultural history often comes in through the side door of sociological or anthropological theory. Cultural expressions are evident via how a society socializes, interacts, and adapts in ways that make the contours of the society legible to those within it, as well as differentiated from those who are outside it.
Cellular bases of generalised q-Schur algebras
Authors: DOTY STEPHEN , GIAQUINTO ANTHONY
Published: August 2016

Starting from their defining presentation by generators and relations, we develop the basic structure and representation theory of generalised q-Schur algebras of finite type.
GENERALIZATIONS OF OPTIMAL GROWTH THEORY: STOCHASTIC MODELS, MATHEMATICS, AND METASYNTHESIS
Authors: Spear Stephen , Young Warren
Published: August 2016

In previous papers [Spear and Young (2014, 2015)], we surveyed the origins, evolution, and dissemination of optimal growth, two-sector and turnpike models up to the early 1970s. Regarding subsequent developments in growth theory, a number of prominent observers, such as Fischer (1988), Stern (1991), and McCallum (1996), maintained that after significant progress in the 1950s and 1960s, economic growth theory “received relatively little attention for almost two decades” [Fischer (1988, p. 329)], and that “by the late 1960s early 1970s, research on the theory of growth more or less stopped” [Stern (1991, p. 259)]. Stern went on to say “the latter half of the 1980s saw a rekindling of growth theory, particularly in the work of Romer . . . and Lucas” (1991, p. 259), that is to say, in the form of “endogenous growth” models. McCallum, for his part, wrote (1996, p. 41), “After a long period of quiescence, growth economics has in the last decade (1986–1995) become an extremely active area of research.” Moreover, Brock and Mirman's (1972b) paper was the sole “extension” of Ramsey–Cass–Koopmans to a “stochastic environment” mentioned by McCallum (1996, 49).
Enhancing quantum sensing sensitivity by a quantum memory
Authors: Zaiser Sebastian , Rendler Torsten , Jakobi Ingmar , Wolf Thomas , Lee Sang-Yun , Wagner Samuel , Bergholm Ville , Schulte-Herbrüggen Thomas , Neumann Philipp , Wrachtrup Jörg
Published: August 2016

In quantum sensing, precision is typically limited by the maximum time interval over which phase can be accumulated. Memories have been used to enhance this time interval beyond the coherence lifetime and thus gain precision. Here, we demonstrate that by using a quantum memory an increased sensitivity can also be achieved. To this end, we use entanglement in a hybrid spin system comprising a sensing and a memory qubit associated with a single nitrogen-vacancy centre in diamond. With the memory we retain the full quantum state even after coherence decay of the sensor, which enables coherent interaction with distinct weakly coupled nuclear spin qubits. We benchmark the performance of our hybrid quantum system against use of the sensing qubit alone by gradually increasing the entanglement of sensor and memory. We further apply this quantum sensor-memory pair for high-resolution NMR spectroscopy of single 13C nuclear spins.
The severity of hereditary porphyria is modulated by the porphyrin exporter and Lan antigen ABCB6
Authors: Fukuda Yu , Cheong Pak Leng , Lynch John , Brighton Cheryl , Frase Sharon , Kargas Vasileios , Rampersaud Evadnie , Wang Yao , Sankaran Vijay G. , Yu Bing , Ney Paul A. , Weiss Mitchell J. , Vogel Peter , Bond Peter J. , Ford Robert C. , Trent Ronald J. , Schuetz John D.
Published: August 2016

Hereditary porphyrias are caused by mutations in genes that encode haem biosynthetic enzymes with resultant buildup of cytotoxic metabolic porphyrin intermediates. A long-standing open question is why the same causal porphyria mutations exhibit widely variable penetrance and expressivity in different individuals. Here we show that severely affected porphyria patients harbour variant alleles in the ABCB6 gene, also known as Lan, which encodes an ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter. Plasma membrane ABCB6 exports a variety of disease-related porphyrins. Functional studies show that most of these ABCB6 variants are expressed poorly and/or have impaired function. Accordingly, homozygous disruption of the Abcb6 gene in mice exacerbates porphyria phenotypes in the Fechm1Pas mouse model, as evidenced by increased porphyrin accumulation, and marked liver injury. Collectively, these studies support ABCB6 role as a genetic modifier of porphyria and suggest that porphyrin-inducing drugs may produce excessive toxicities in individuals with the rare Lan(−) blood type.
MEF2C protects bone marrow B-lymphoid progenitors during stress haematopoiesis
Authors: Wang Wenyuan , Org Tonis , Montel-Hagen Amélie , Pioli Peter D. , Duan Dan , Israely Edo , Malkin Daniel , Su Trent , Flach Johanna , Kurdistani Siavash K. , Schiestl Robert H. , Mikkola Hanna K. A.
Published: August 2016

DNA double strand break (DSB) repair is critical for generation of B-cell receptors, which are pre-requisite for B-cell progenitor survival. However, the transcription factors that promote DSB repair in B cells are not known. Here we show that MEF2C enhances the expression of DNA repair and recombination factors in B-cell progenitors, promoting DSB repair, V(D)J recombination and cell survival. Although Mef2c-deficient mice maintain relatively intact peripheral B-lymphoid cellularity during homeostasis, they exhibit poor B-lymphoid recovery after sub-lethal irradiation and 5-fluorouracil injection. MEF2C binds active regulatory regions with high-chromatin accessibility in DNA repair and V(D)J genes in both mouse B-cell progenitors and human B lymphoblasts. Loss of Mef2c in pre-B cells reduces chromatin accessibility in multiple regulatory regions of the MEF2C-activated genes. MEF2C therefore protects B lymphopoiesis during stress by ensuring proper expression of genes that encode DNA repair and B-cell factors.
Southward autumn migration of waterfowl facilitates cross-continental transmission of the highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 virus
Authors: Xu Yanjie , Gong Peng , Wielstra Ben , Si Yali
Published: August 2016

The highly pathogenic avian influenza subtype H5N1 (HPAI H5N1) is a worldwide zoonotic infectious disease, threatening humans, poultry and wild birds. The role of wild birds in the spread of HPAI H5N1 has previously been investigated by comparing disease spread patterns with bird migration routes. However, the different roles that the southward autumn and northward spring migration might play in virus transmission have hardly been explored. Using direction analysis, we analyze HPAI H5N1 transmission directions and angular concentration of currently circulating viral clades, and compare these with waterfowl seasonal migration directions along major waterfowl flyways. Out of 22 HPAI H5N1 transmission directions, 18 had both a southward direction and a relatively high concentration. Differences between disease transmission and waterfowl migration directions were significantly smaller for autumn than for spring migration. The four northward transmission directions were found along Asian flyways, where the initial epicenter of the virus was located. We suggest waterfowl first picked up the virus from East Asia, then brought it to the north via spring migration, and then spread it to other parts of world mainly by autumn migration. We emphasize waterfowl autumn migration plays a relatively important role in HPAI H5N1 transmission compared to spring migration.
The CD4+ T cell methylome contributes to a distinct CD4+ T cell transcriptional signature in Mycobacterium bovis-infected cattle
Authors: Doherty Rachael , Whiston Ronan , Cormican Paul , Finlay Emma K. , Couldrey Christine , Brady Colm , O’Farrelly Cliona , Meade Kieran G.
Published: August 2016

We hypothesised that epigenetic regulation of CD4+ T lymphocytes contributes to a shift toward a dysfunctional T cell phenotype which may impact on their ability to clear mycobacterial infection. Combined RNA-seq transcriptomic profiling and Reduced Representation Bisulfite Sequencing identified 193 significantly differentially expressed genes and 760 differentially methylated regions (DMRs), between CD4+ T cells from M. bovis infected and healthy cattle. 196 DMRs were located within 10 kb of annotated genes, including GATA3 and RORC, both of which encode transcription factors that promote TH2 and TH17 T helper cell subsets respectively. Gene-specific DNA methylation and gene expression levels for the TNFRSF4 and Interferon-γ genes were significantly negatively correlated suggesting a regulatory relationship. Pathway analysis of DMRs identified enrichment of genes involved in the anti-proliferative TGF-β signaling pathway and TGFB1 expression was significantly increased in peripheral blood leukocytes from TB-infected cattle. This first analysis of the bovine CD4+ T cell methylome suggests that DNA methylation directly contributes to a distinct gene expression signature in CD4+ T cells from cattle infected with M. bovis. Specific methylation changes proximal to key inflammatory gene loci may be critical to the emergence of a non-protective CD4+ T cell response during mycobacterial infection in cattle.
The use of T-DNA insertional mutagenesis to improve cellulase production by the thermophilic fungus Humicola insolens Y1
Authors: Xu Xinxin , Li Jinyang , Shi Pengjun , Ji Wangli , Liu Bo , Zhang Yuhong , Yao Bin , Fan Yunliu , Zhang Wei
Published: August 2016

Humicola insolens is an excellent producer of pH-neutral active, thermostable cellulases that find many industrial applications. In the present study, we developed an efficient Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation system for H. insolens. We transformed plasmids carrying the promoter of the glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase gene of H. insolens driving the transcription of genes encoding neomycin phosphotransferase, hygromycin B phosphotransferase and enhanced green fluorescent protein. We optimized transformation efficiency to obtain over 300 transformants/106 conidia. T-DNA insertional mutagenesis was employed to generate an H. insolens mutant library and we isolated a transformant termed T4 with enhanced cellulase and hemicellulase activities. The FPase, endoglucanase, cellobiohydrolase, β-glucosidase and xylanase activities of T4, measured at the end of fermentation, were 60%, 440%, 320%, 41% and 81% higher than those of the wild-type strain, respectively. We isolated the sequences flanking the T-DNA insertions and thus identified new genes potentially involved in cellulase and hemicellulase production. Our results show that it is feasible to use T-DNA insertional mutagenesis to identify novel candidate genes involved in cellulase production. This will be valuable when genetic improvement programs seeking to enhance cellulase production are planned and will also allow us to gain a better understanding of the genetics of the thermophilic fungus H. insolens.
“A novel highly stable and injectable hydrogel based on a conformationally restricted ultrashort peptide”
Authors: Thota Chaitanya Kumar , Yadav Nitin , Chauhan Virander Singh
Published: August 2016

Nanostructures including hydrogels based on peptides containing non protein amino acids are being considered as platform for drug delivery because of their inherent biocompatibility and additional proteolytic stability. Here we describe instantaneous self-assembly of a conformationally restricted dipeptide, LeuΔPhe, containing an α,β-dehydrophenylalanine residue into a highly stable and mechanically strong hydrogel, under mild physiological aqueous conditions. The gel successfully entrapped several hydrophobic and hydrophilic drug molecules and released them in a controlled manner. LeuΔPhe was highly biocompatible and easily injectable. Administration of an antineoplastic drug entrapped in the gel in tumor bearing mice significantly controlled growth of tumors. These characteristics make LeuΔPhe an attractive candidate for further development as a delivery platform for various biomedical applications.
Non-absorbable apple procyanidins prevent obesity associated with gut microbial and metabolomic changes
Authors: Masumoto Saeko , Terao Akari , Yamamoto Yuji , Mukai Takao , Miura Tomisato , Shoji Toshihiko
Published: August 2016

Several studies have suggested that flavan-3-ols/procyanidins are associated with a reduced risk of developing obesity and metabolic syndrome. However, the role of highly polymeric procyanidins (PP), which are major non-absorbable flavonoids, in the biological effects, is not completely understood. Here, we show that 0.5% PP administration for 20 weeks alleviated obesity and regulate expression of genes related to lipid metabolism in C57BL/6J mice fed a high-fat/high-sucrose diet. PP-treatment attenuated weight gain and inflammatory effects including lipopolysaccharide and gut permeability. Additionally, metabolic urine profiling using high-performance liquid chromatography–quadrupole time-of-flight/mass spectrometry demonstrated that PP-treatment decreased the levels of endogenous metabolites associated with insulin resistance. Furthermore, microbial 16S rRNA gene sequencing of the cecum demonstrated that PP administration markedly decreased the Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes ratio and increased eight times the proportion of Akkermansia. These data suggest that PPs influence the gut microbiota and the intestinal metabolome to produce beneficial effects on metabolic homeostasis.
Novel ligands of Choline Acetyltransferase designed by in silico molecular docking, hologram QSAR and lead optimization
Authors: Kumar Rajnish , Långström Bengt , Darreh-Shori Taher
Published: August 2016

Recent reports have brought back the acetylcholine synthesizing enzyme, choline acetyltransferase in the mainstream research in dementia and the cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway. Here we report, a specific strategy for the design of novel ChAT ligands based on molecular docking, Hologram Quantitative Structure Activity Relationship (HQSAR) and lead optimization. Molecular docking was performed on a series of ChAT inhibitors to decipher the molecular fingerprint of their interaction with the active site of ChAT. Then robust statistical fragment HQSAR models were developed. A library of novel ligands was generated based on the pharmacophoric and shape similarity scoring function, and evaluated in silico for their molecular interactions with ChAT. Ten of the top scoring invented compounds are reported here. We confirmed the activity of α-NETA, the only commercially available ChAT inhibitor, and one of the seed compounds in our model, using a new simple colorimetric ChAT assay (IC50 ~ 88 nM). In contrast, α-NETA exhibited an IC50 of ~30 μM for the ACh-degrading cholinesterases. In conclusion, the overall results may provide useful insight for discovering novel ChAT ligands and potential positron emission tomography tracers as in vivo functional biomarkers of the health of central cholinergic system in neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease.
The secondary frame in spider orb webs: the detail that makes the difference
Authors: Soler Alejandro , Zaera Ramón
Published: August 2016

Spider orb webs are multifunctional structures, the main function of which is to dissipate the kinetic energy of the impacting prey, while minimizing structural damage. There is no single explanation for their remarkable strength and ductility. However, it is clear that topology is decisive in the structural performance upon impact and the arrangement of the different silk threads in the web must also exert an effect. The aim of this study is to show how a slight variation in the geometry markedly affects the prey-capture ability of spider orb webs. The study is focused on the secondary frame, a thread interposed between radial and primary frame strands, the importance of which has not been examined until now. The simulation of the impact performance of webs using different lengths of the secondary frame clarifies its structural role, which has proven to be decisive. Furthermore, the study explains why secondary frame threads of moderate length, as commonly encountered, enable the capture of prey with higher energy without a marked increase in the volume of silk used.
Sodium MRI in Multiple Sclerosis is Compatible with Intracellular Sodium Accumulation and Inflammation-Induced Hyper-Cellularity of Acute Brain Lesions
Authors: Biller Armin , Pflugmann Isabella , Badde Stephanie , Diem Ricarda , Wildemann Brigitte , Nagel Armin M. , Jordan J. , Benkhedah Nadia , Kleesiek Jens
Published: August 2016

The cascade of inflammatory pathogenetic mechanisms in multiple sclerosis (MS) has no specific conventional MRI correlates. Clinicians therefore stipulate improved imaging specificity to define the pathological substrates of MS in vivo including mapping of intracellular sodium accumulation. Based upon preclinical findings and results of previous sodium MRI studies in MS patients we hypothesized that the fluid-attenuated sodium signal differs between acute and chronic lesions. We acquired brain sodium and proton MRI data of N = 29 MS patients; lesion type was defined by the presence or absence of contrast enhancement. N = 302 MS brain lesions were detected, and generalized linear mixed models were applied to predict lesion type based on sodium signals; thereby controlling for varying numbers of lesions among patients and confounding variables such as age and medication. Hierarchical model comparisons revealed that both sodium signals average tissue (χ2(1) = 27.89, p < 0.001) and fluid-attenuated (χ2(1) = 5.76, p = 0.016) improved lesion type classification. Sodium MRI signals were significantly elevated in acute compared to chronic lesions compatible with intracellular sodium accumulation in acute MS lesions. If confirmed in further studies, sodium MRI could serve as biomarker for diagnostic assessment of MS, and as readout parameter in clinical trials promoting attenuation of chronic inflammation.
Prediction of Quantum Anomalous Hall Insulator in half-fluorinated GaBi Honeycomb
Authors: Chen Sung-Ping , Huang Zhi-Quan , Crisostomo Christian P. , Hsu Chia-Hsiu , Chuang Feng-Chuan , Lin Hsin , Bansil Arun
Published: August 2016

Using first-principles electronic structure calculations, we predict half-fluorinated GaBi honeycomb under tensile strain to harbor a quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) insulator phase. We show that this QAH phase is driven by a single inversion in the band structure at the Γ point. Moreover, we have computed the electronic spectrum of a half-fluorinated GaBi nanoribbon with zigzag edges, which shows that only one edge band crosses the Fermi level within the band gap. Our results suggest that half-fluorination of the GaBi honeycomb under tensile strain could provide a new platform for developing novel spintronics devices based on the QAH effect.