An 11,600 year old communal structure from the Neolithic of southern Jordan

The authors present a new type of communal and monumental structure from the earliest Neolithic in western Asia. A complement to the decorated stone pillars erected at Göbekli Tepe in the north, ‘Wadi Faynan 16 Structure O75’ in the southern Levant is a ritualised gathering place of a different kind. It serves to define wider western Asia as an arena of social experiment in the tenth millennium BC, one in which community seems to take precedence over economy.

Terminal: a miracle play with popular music from the end of the world

Terminal: A Miracle Play with Popular Music from the End of the World is a film and live performance project exploring the politics of post-apocalyptic fiction. A theatrical staging of a morality play for end times and future folk music, it recasts eschatology, as a foundational myth for a future society. Post-apocalyptic writing and cinema are grounded in an ethos of survivalism. Invoking Rousseau’s state of nature, or time before government, these fictions propose violent scenarios in which nuclear holocaust, environmental catastrophe and other disasters generate an individualistic politics of pure pragmatism, negating the possibility of democratic deliberation. Terminal narrates this familiar scenario, but at the same time questions its validity. The film, shot on black and white VHS at Kurt Schwitters’ Merzbarn in Cumbria, dramatises a series of conversations between future-historical archetypes about the needs and pressures of the situation in which they find themselves at the end of the world. The performers then gather to play worshipful songs about acid rain, radiation sickness and eating the dog, using a mix of conventional, obscure and makeshift instruments In the tradition of books such as Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker and Arthur M. Miller Jr.’s A Canticle for Liebowitz, Terminal imagines artistic expression and new folk traditions for a world to come after the apocalypse. If, as Slavoj Žižek would have it, it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to think of the end of capitalism, the project juxtaposes these two endpoints to test out how alternative scenarios might emerge from the collaborative practice of making theatre and music against a setting of social collapse.

Rescuing a telecom giant from the jaws of bankruptcy: a case study and an interview with Sir Richard Lapthorne, chairman of Cable & Wireless

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate key strategic decisions involved in turning around a large multinational operating in a dynamic market. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on analysis of archival documents and a semi-structured interview with the chairman of the company credited with its rescue. Findings – Turnaround is complex and involves both planned and emergent strategies. The progress is non-linear requiring adjustment and change in direction of travel. Top management credibility and vision is critical to success. Rescue is only possible if the company has a strong cash generative business among its businesses. The speed of decision making, decisiveness and the ability to implement strategy are among the key ingredients of success. Originality/value – Turnaround is an under-researched area in strategy. This paper contributes to a better understanding in this important area and bridges the gap between theory and practice. It provides a practical view and demonstrates how a leading executive with significant expertise and successful turnaround track record deals with inherent dilemmas of turnaround

Estimating age of mature adults from the degeneration of the sternal end of the clavicle

The sternal end of the clavicle has been illustrated to be useful in aging young adults, however, no studies have investigated what age-related changes occur to the sternal end post epiphyseal fusion. In this study, three morphological features (i.e., surface topography, porosity, and osteophyte formation) were examined and scored using 564 clavicles of individuals of European ancestry (n = 318 males; n = 246 females), with known ages of 40+ years, from four documented skeletal collections: Hamann-Todd, Pretoria, St. Bride's, and Coimbra. An ordinal scoring method was developed for each of the three traits. Surface topography showed the strongest correlation with age, and composite scores (formed by summing the three separate trait scores) indicated progressive degeneration of the surface with increasing chronological age. Linear regression analyses were performed on the trait scores to produce pooled-sample age estimation equations. Blind tests of the composite score method and regression formulae on 56 individuals, aged 40+ years, from Christ Church Spitalfields, suggest accuracies of 96.4% for both methods. These preliminary results display the first evidence of the utility of the sternal end of the clavicle in aging older adult individuals. However, in the current format, these criteria should only be applied to individuals already identified as over 40 years in order to refine the age ranges used for advanced age. These findings do suggest the sternal end of the clavicle has potential to aid age estimates beyond the traditional "mature adult" age category (i.e., 46+ years), and provides several suggestions for future research.

Microliths and maritime mobility: a continental European-style Late Mesolithic flint from the Isles of Scilly

Once Britain had become separated from the European mainland in the seventh millennium BC, Mesolithic stone tool traditions on opposite sides of the newly formed Channel embarked upon different directions of development. Patterns of cross-Channel contact have been difficult to decipher in this material, prior to the expansion of farming (and possibly farmers) from northern France at the beginning of the fourth millennium BC. Hence the discovery of Late Mesolithic microliths of apparently Belgian affinity at the western extremity of southern Britain in the Isles of Scilly comes as something of a surprise. The find is described here in detail, along with alternative scenarios that might explain it. The article is followed by a series of comments, with a closing reply from the authors.

New furoquinoline alkaloid and flavanone glycoside derivatives from the leaves of Oricia suaveolens and Oricia renieri (Rutaceae)

Fractionation of the methanol extract of the leaves of Oricia renieri and Oricia suaveolens (Rutaceae) led to the isolation of 13 compounds including the hitherto unknown furoquinoline alkaloid named 6,7-methylenedioxy-5-hydroxy-8-methoxydictamnine (1) and a flavanone glycoside named 5-hydroxy-40-methoxy-7-O-[a-Lrhamnopyranosyl(1000→500)-b-D-apiofuranosyl]-flavanoside (2), together with 11 known compounds (3–13). The structures of the compounds were determined by comprehensive analyses of their 1D and 2D NMR, mass spectral data and comparison. All compounds isolated were examined for their activity against human carcinoma cell lines. The alkaloids 1, 5, 12, 13 and the phenolic 2, 8, 11 tested compounds exhibited non-selective moderate cytotoxic activity with IC50 8.7–15.9mM whereas compounds 3, 4, 6, 7, 9 and 10 showed low activity.

Older age of onset in child L2 acquisition can be facilitative: evidence from the acquisition of English passives by Spanish natives

We report a longitudinal comprehension study of (long) passive constructions in two native-Spanish child groups differing by age of initial exposure to L2 English (young group: 3;0-4;0 years; older group: 6;0-7;0 years); where amount of input, L2 exposure environment, and socio-economic status are controlled. Data from a forced-choice task show that both groups comprehend active sentences, not passives, initially (after 3.6 years of exposure). One year later, both groups improve, but only the older group reaches ceiling on both actives and passives. Two years from initial testing, the younger group catches up. Input alone cannot explain why the younger group takes 5 years to accomplish what the older group does in 4. We claim that some properties take longer to acquire at certain ages because language development is partially constrained by general cognitive and linguistic development (e.g. de Villiers, 2007; Long & Rothman, 2014; Paradis, 2008, 2010, 2011; Tsimpli, 2014).

Drift from the use of handheld knapsack pesticide sprayers in Boyacá (Colombian Andes)

Offsite pesticide losses in tropical mountainous regions have been little studied. One example is measuring pesticide drift soil deposition, which can support pesticide risk assessment for surface water, soil, bystanders, off target plants and fauna. This is considered a serious gap, given the evidence of pesticide-related poisoning in those regions. Empirical data of drift deposition of a pesticide surrogate, Uranine tracer, within one of the highest potato producing regions in Colombia, characterized by small plots and mountain orography, is presented. High drift values encountered in our study reflect the actual spray conditions using handled knapsack sprayers. Comparison between measured and predicted drift values using three existing empirical equations showed important underestimation. However, after their optimization based on measured drift information, the equations showed a strong predictive power for this study area and the study conditions. The most suitable curve to assess mean relative drift was the IMAG calculator after optimization.