Dying young: a palaeopathological analysis of child health in Roman Britain

Children represent the most vulnerable members of society, and as such provide valuable insight into past lifeways. Adverse environmental conditions translate more readily into the osteological record of children, making them primary evidence for the investigation of ill-health in the past. To date, most information on growing up in Roman Britain has been based on the Classical literature, or discussed in palaeopathological studies with a regional focus, e.g. Dorset or Durnovaria. Thus, the lifestyles and everyday realities of children throughout Britannia remained largely unknown. This study sets out to fill this gap by providing the first large scale analysis of Romano-British children from town and country. The palaeopathological analysis of 1643 non-adult (0-17 years) skeletons, compiled from the literature (N=690) and primary osteological analysis (N=953), from 27 urban and rural settlements has highlighted diverse patterns in non-adult mortality and morbidity. The distribution of ages-at-death suggest that older children and adolescents migrated from country to town, possibly for commencing their working lives. True prevalence rates suggest that caries (1.8%) and enamel hypoplasia (11.4%) were more common in children from major urban towns, whereas children in the countryside displayed higher frequencies of scurvy (6.9%), cribra orbitalia (27.7%), porotic hyperostosis (6.2%) and endocranial lesions (10.9%). Social inequality in late Roman Britain may have been the driving force behind these urban-rural dichotomies. The results may point to exploitation of the peasantry on the one hand, and higher status of the urban population as a more ‘Romanised’ group on the other. Comparison with Iron Age and post-medieval non-adults also demonstrated a decline in health in the Roman period, with some levels of ill-health, particularly in the rural children, similar to those from post-medieval London. This research provides the most comprehensive study of non-adult morbidity and mortality in Roman Britain to date. It has provided new insights into Romano-British lifeways and presents suggestions for further work.

Kazakhstan: long-term economic growth and the role of the oil sector

This study combines a narrative and modelling framework to analyse the development of Kazakhstan’s oil sector since its takeoff following separation from the USSR. As in the case of other emerging or transitional countries with large natural resource endowments, a key question is whether the exploitation of the natural resource is a benefit to longer term economic development: is it a curse, a blessing – or neither? Narrative evidence suggests that the establishment of good governance, in terms of institutions and policies, provides a background to sound long-term development, especially if combined with the development of sectors outside the natural resource sector, for example diversification into manufacturing and services, often through attracting FDI. The narrative is supported by econometric modelling of the relationship between domestic output, overseas output and exports of oil, which finds in favour of a sustained positive effect of oil exports on GDP. The model then provides a basis for projection of the growth in GDP given a consensus view of likely developments in the oil price.

Improved information about the vertical location and extent of monolayer clouds from POLDER3 measurements in the oxygen A-band

This paper describes new advances in the exploitation of oxygen A-band measurements from POLDER3 sensor onboard PARASOL, satellite platform within the A-Train. These developments result from not only an account of the dependence of POLDER oxygen parameters to cloud optical thickness τ and to the scene's geometrical conditions but also, and more importantly, from the finer understanding of the sensitivity of these parameters to cloud vertical extent. This sensitivity is made possible thanks to the multidirectional character of POLDER measurements. In the case of monolayer clouds that represent most of cloudy conditions, new oxygen parameters are obtained and calibrated from POLDER3 data colocalized with the measurements of the two active sensors of the A-Train: CALIOP/CALIPSO and CPR/CloudSat. From a parameterization that is (μs, τ) dependent, with μs the cosine of the solar zenith angle, a cloud top oxygen pressure (CTOP) and a cloud middle oxygen pressure (CMOP) are obtained, which are estimates of actual cloud top and middle pressures (CTP and CMP). Performances of CTOP and CMOP are presented by class of clouds following the ISCCP classification. In 2008, the coefficient of the correlation between CMOP and CMP is 0.81 for cirrostratus, 0.79 for stratocumulus, 0.75 for deep convective clouds. The coefficient of the correlation between CTOP and CTP is 0.75, 0.73, and 0.79 for the same cloud types. The score obtained by CTOP, defined as the confidence in the retrieval for a particular range of inferred value and for a given error, is higher than the one of MODIS CTP estimate. Scores of CTOP are the highest for bin value of CTP superior in numbers. For liquid (ice) clouds and an error of 30 hPa (50 hPa), the score of CTOP reaches 50% (70%). From the difference between CTOP and CMOP, a first estimate of the cloud vertical extent h is possible. A second estimate of h comes from the correlation between the angular standard deviation of POLDER oxygen pressure σPO2 and the cloud vertical extent. This correlation is studied in detail in the case of liquid clouds. It is shown to be spatially and temporally robust, except for clouds above land during winter months. The analysis of the correlation's dependence on the scene's characteristics leads to a parameterization providing h from σPO2. For liquid water clouds above ocean in 2008, the mean difference between the actual cloud vertical extent and the one retrieved from σPO2 (from the pressure difference) is 5 m (−12 m). The standard deviation of the mean difference is close to 1000 m for the two methods. POLDER estimates of the cloud geometrical thickness obtain a global score of 50% confidence for a relative error of 20% (40%) of the estimate for ice (liquid) clouds over ocean. These results need to be validated outside of the CALIPSO/CloudSat track.