Karen Borrazzo, Luis Alberto Borrero, Ivana Laura Ozán
et al.
This paper presents the taphonomic and geoarchaeological study of a thin shell lens identified 3.2 km from the coast of San Sebastian Bay on the hilltop of the inland Cerro Bandurrias archaeological locality (Tierra del Fuego Province, Argentina). The biological assemblage of the shell lens comprises marine fauna (bivalves, gastropods, and fish) that may represent the remains of the occasional exploitation of littoral resources by hunter gatherers. However, since the lack of unequivocal anthropogenic signals, alternative non-anthropogenic hypotheses need to be also assessed. Indeed, the time frame of the shell lens (radiocarbon dated as ~6500 cal. years BP) indicates that the bioclast accumulation occurred during the Middle Holocene marine transgression with a different paleogeography, when the hill was part of a coastal landform (peninsula). The methodological design comprised the combination of different and independent sources of information and the techniques applied to assess competing genetic hypotheses. Based on compositional, taphonomic and sedimentological analyses, our research suggests that the most parsimonious explanation is that hunter gatherers were the primary agents of bioclast accumulation of the lens. Thus, this ephemeral archaeological evidence provides a new record for the human exploitation of littoral resources on the Atlantic coast of Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego during the Middle Holocene. The conspicuous character of shells improves the archaeological visibility of short term, nonredundant past human occupations.
Directly employing 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) on images with adverse illumination conditions exhibits considerable difficulty in achieving high-quality, normally-exposed representations due to: (1) The limited Structure from Motion (SfM) points estimated in adverse illumination scenarios fail to capture sufficient scene details; (2) Without ground-truth references, the intensive information loss, significant noise, and color distortion pose substantial challenges for 3DGS to produce high-quality results; (3) Combining existing exposure correction methods with 3DGS does not achieve satisfactory performance due to their individual enhancement processes, which lead to the illumination inconsistency between enhanced images from different viewpoints. To address these issues, we propose LITA-GS, a novel illumination-agnostic novel view synthesis method via reference-free 3DGS and physical priors. Firstly, we introduce an illumination-invariant physical prior extraction pipeline. Secondly, based on the extracted robust spatial structure prior, we develop the lighting-agnostic structure rendering strategy, which facilitates the optimization of the scene structure and object appearance. Moreover, a progressive denoising module is introduced to effectively mitigate the noise within the light-invariant representation. We adopt the unsupervised strategy for the training of LITA-GS and extensive experiments demonstrate that LITA-GS surpasses the state-of-the-art (SOTA) NeRF-based method while enjoying faster inference speed and costing reduced training time. The code is released at https://github.com/LowLevelAI/LITA-GS.
The KM3NeT collaboration recently reported the observation of KM3-230213A, a neutrino event with an energy exceeding 100 PeV, more than an order of magnitude higher than the most energetic neutrino in IceCube's catalog. Given its longer data-taking period and larger effective area relative to KM3NeT, IceCube should have observed events around that energy. This tension has recently been quantified to lie between $2σ$ and $3.5σ$, depending on the neutrino source. A $\mathscr{O}(100)$ PeV neutrino detected at KM3NeT has traversed approximately $147$ km of rock and sea en route to the detector, whereas neutrinos arriving from the same location in the sky would have only traveled through about $14$ km of ice before reaching IceCube. We use this difference in propagation distance to address the tension between KM3NeT and IceCube. Specifically, we consider a scenario in which the source emits sterile neutrinos that partially convert to active neutrinos through oscillations. We scrutinize two such realizations, one where a new physics matter potential induces a resonance in sterile-to-active transitions and another one where off-diagonal neutrino non-standard interactions are employed. In both cases, sterile-to-active neutrino oscillations become relevant at length scales of $\sim100$ km, resulting in increased active neutrino flux near the KM3NeT detector, alleviating the tension between KM3NeT and IceCube. Overall, we propose the exciting possibility that neutrino telescopes may have started detecting new physics.
Введение. Определение родственных связей по скелетным останкам – одна из многих задач биоархеологических исследований. Статья посвящена обзору методов анализа биологического родства в ископаемых популяциях на основе неметрических признаков.
Методы. Поскольку прямой молекулярно-генетический анализ родства зачастую затруднен из-за плохой сохранности древней ДНК, особое внимание в таких исследованиях уделяется неметрическим фенотипическим признакам.
Результаты. Анализы, проведенные с использованием документально подтвержденных остеологических образцов, демонстрируют связь морфологического сходства особей с их биологическим родством. В случаях, когда родословные остеологических материалов полностью или частично известны, фенотипические данные могут эффективно использоваться вместо генетических.
Обсуждение. Методология анализа родства зависит от пространственной структуры исследуемого кладбища. При анализе небольших могильников цель состоит в определении степени родства захороненных. Используются различные методы для определения вероятности родства, включая кластерный анализ и коэффициенты корреляции. Особенно перспективно выявление родственных связей в могильниках, где имеются археологические или исторические данные о биологических отношениях. Анализ родства в пространственно структурированных кладбищах направлен на выявление семей или социальных групп. Анализ однородно распределенных кладбищ направлен на идентификацию тесно связанных лиц в крупных захоронениях без ясно выраженных подгрупп. Применяются методы анализа пространственной корреляции для проверки значимой связи между матрицами пространственных и фенотипических расстояний; различные методы подсчета для проверки неслучайности кластеризации признаков; метод ближайшего соседа и непространственная процедура поиска блоков, которая одновременно идентифицирует предполагаемых родственников и признаки, указывающие на степень их родства.
Заключение. Многие проблемы в установлении родства можно преодолеть при наличии скелетного материала с подтвержденными генеалогическими данными. Однако скелетные останки с сохранившейся документацией встречаются довольно редко, поэтому возможности изучения наследуемости неметрических признаков и морфологического сходства биологически родственных особей остаются весьма ограниченными.
Ethnology. Social and cultural anthropology, Physical anthropology. Somatology
Abstract Otoliths are common and diverse in the Neogene of tropical America. Following previous studies of Neogene tropical American otoliths of the lanternfishes (Myctophidae), marine catfishes (Ariidae), croakers (Sciaenidae), and cusk-eels (Ophidiiformes), we describe here the otoliths of the gobies (Gobiidae). The Gobiidae represent the richest marine fish family, with more than 2000 species worldwide and about 250 in America. In the fossil record too they are the species richest family in the Neogene of tropical America. We have investigated otoliths sampled from Ecuador, Pacific and Atlantic Panama, Atlantic Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and Trinidad, ranging in age from late Early Miocene (late Burdigalian) to late Early Pleistocene (Calabrian). Most of the studied material originates from the collection expeditions of the Panama Paleontology Project (PPP). Our study represents the first comprehensive record of fossil gobies from America, and we recognize 107 species, of which 51 are new to science, 35 are in open nomenclature, and 19 represent species that also live in the region today. Previously, only two fossil otolith-based goby species have been described from the Neogene of tropical America. The dominant gobies in the fossil record of the region are from the Gobiosomatini, particularly of genera living over soft bottoms or in deeper water such as Bollmannia, Microgobius, Antilligobius, and Palatogobius. Another purpose of our study is to provide a first comprehensive account of otoliths of the extant Gobiidae of America, which we consider necessary for an adequate identification and interpretation of the Neogene otoliths. We studied otoliths of 130 extant American gobiid species and figured 106 of them for comparison. We also present a morphological analysis and characterization of the extant otoliths as a basis for the identification of fossil otoliths. Problems that commonly arise with the identification of fossil otoliths and specifically of fossil goby otoliths are addressed and discussed. A comparison of the history of the Gobiidae in tropical America reveals a high percentage of shared species between the Pacific and the Atlantic basins during the Late Miocene (Tortonian and Messinian) from at least 11 to 6 Ma. A recording gap on the Pacific side across the Pliocene allows a comparison again only in the late Early Pleistocene (Calabrian, 1.8 to 0.78 Ma), which shows a complete lack of shared species. These observations support the effective closure of the former Central American Seaway and emersion of the Isthmus of Panama in the intervening time. Groups that today only exist in the East Pacific were also identified in the Miocene and Pliocene of the West Atlantic, and there is also at least one instance of a genus now restricted to the West Atlantic having occurred in the East Pacific as late as the Pleistocene. The evolution of gobies in tropical America and the implications thereof are extensively discussed. Furthermore, observations of fossil gobies in the region are discussed in respect to paleoenvironmental indications and paleobiogeographic aspects. ZooBank LSID: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:821F185A-DF6B-4D19-984B-E040A206C45A. https://zoobank.org/CB4D4CB4-FED2-45BF-B164-EB48286E8DB5 .
Begoña Dobon, Federico Musciotto, Alex Mira
et al.
Ecological and genetic factors have influenced the composition of the human microbiome during our evolutionary history. We analysed the oral microbiota of the Agta, a hunter–gatherer population where some members have adopted an agricultural diet. We show that age is the strongest factor modulating the microbiome, probably through immunosenescence since we identified an increase in the number of species classified as pathogens with age. We also characterised biological and cultural processes generating sexual dimorphism in the oral microbiome. A small subset of oral bacteria is influenced by the host genome, linking host collagen genes to bacterial biofilm formation. Our data also suggest that shifting from a fish/meat diet to a rice-rich diet transforms their microbiome, mirroring the Neolithic transition. All of these factors have implications in the epidemiology of oral diseases. Thus, the human oral microbiome is multifactorial and shaped by various ecological and social factors that modify the oral environment.
Since the announcement of the muon $g-2$ measurements, numerous studies have been devoted to exploring the new physics through this precision probe. In specific models, the new physics contributions depend on the couplings and mass scales. Approximate formulae are widely adopted when determining the new physics contributions. This manuscript is dedicated to comprehensive analytical results and approximations for the canonical interactions at one-loop level, which is universal for the spin-half fermions and can serve as a useful reference for the magnetic dipole moment calculations. We present the analytic and approximate expressions for the scalar and vector mediator cases, supplemented by explicit examples in specific models to illustrate their applications. For given muon interactions, we can estimate both the sign and magnitude of the contributions conveniently. Furthermore, we investigate the broader physical implications of these results, offering insights into potential new physics.
Shubhang Goswami, Kipton Barros, Matthew R. Carbone
The rational function approximation provides a natural and interpretable representation of response functions such as the many-body spectral functions. We apply the Vector Fitting (VFIT) algorithm to fit a variety of spectral functions calculated from the Holstein model of electron-phonon interactions. We show that the resulting rational functions are highly efficient in their fitting of sharp features in the spectral functions, and could provide a means to infer physically relevant information from a spectral dataset. The position of the peaks in the approximated spectral function are determined by the location of poles in the complex plane. In addition, we developed an enhanced version of VFIT by introducing a regularization parameter that is slowly annealed to zero. With this new procedure, we demonstrate it is possible to achieve accurate spectral function fits that vary smoothly as a function of physical conditions.
The polar bear ('Ursus maritimus') is the apex predator of the Arctic but its distribution throughout the Pleistocene and Holocene has not previously been reported. Although natural death specimens of this species (‘fossils’) are rare, archaeological remains are much more common. This historical compilation presents the record of known ancient polar bear remains from fossil and archaeological contexts before AD 1910. Most remains date within the Holocene and derive from human habitation sites within the modern range of the species, with extralimital specimens documented in the north Atlantic during the late Pleistocene and in the southern Bering Sea during the middle Holocene reflecting natural expansions of sea ice during known cold periods. The single largest polar bear assemblage was recovered from an archaeological site on Zhokhov Island, Russia, occupied ca. 8,250–7,800 a BP during the warmer-than-today Holocene Climatic Optimum: 5,915 polar bear bones were recovered, representing 28% of all remains identified. Polar bear fossils and archaeological remains across the Arctic are most often found in proximity to areas where polynyas (recurring areas of thin ice or open water) are known today and which likely occurred in the past, including for the oldest known fossil from Svalbard (ca. 130–115 k a BP) and the oldest known archaeological specimens from Zhokhov Island (ca. 8,000 a BP). This pattern indicates that as they do today, polar bears may have been most commonly found near polynyas throughout their known historical past because of their need for ice-edge habitats at which to hunt seals.
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals has received and continues to receive much attention from emotion researchers and behavioural scientists. However, the common misconception that Darwin advocated for the universality of emotional reactions has led to a host of unfounded and discredited claims promoted by ‘body language experts’ on both traditional and social media. These ‘experts’ receive unparalleled public attention. Thus, rather than being presented with empirically supported findings on non-verbal behaviour, the public is exposed to ‘body language analysis’ of celebrities, politicians and defendants in criminal trials. In this perspective piece, we address the misinformation surrounding non-verbal behaviour. We also discuss the nature and scope of statements from body language experts, unpacking the claims of the most viewed YouTube video by a body language expert, comparing these claims with actual research findings, and giving specific attention to the implications for the justice system. We explain how body language experts use (and misuse) Darwin's legacy and conclude with a call for researchers to unite their voices and work towards stopping the spread of misinformation about non-verbal behaviour.
Maria A. Marcos, Florencia P. Bamonte, Marcos E. Echeverria
et al.
Patagonian shrub and ecotonal communities were sensitive to past environmental changes and thus may also be affected by future ones. Therefore, their paleoecological study constitutes a valuable tool to understand the way in which these plant communities respond to the forcings responsible for environmental variability. The aim of this paper is to reconstruct the vegetation dynamics of the Pueyrredón Lake area (47°25′55′′ S; 72°0.7′7′′ W) for the last 3000 cal yr BP and to contextualize these changes in a regional paleoclimatic framework. The results indicate that at the beginning of the 2900 cal yr BP, the vegetation in the northwest of Santa Cruz, Argentinian Patagonia, was represented by a grass-shrub steppe associated with forest–shrub steppe ecotonal elements. This information correlates with the larger-scale environmental inferences described for the period, which indicate an increase in moisture availability due to the weakening of the westerly winds. A marked change to arid conditions is indicated in the last 1050 cal yr BP, with the establishment and development of different shrub steppe communities and the lack of ecotonal elements. Although vegetation was sensitive to changes in moisture conditions related to the variability of the westerly winds, there is evidence of differences in the composition of shrub vegetation regarding the sequences analyzed. Variations in pollen proportions of the shrub steppes in the Pueyrredón Lake area suggest that changes in vegetation are not only due to climate variability but also local factors in the areas where shrub communities grow. The integration of the information with other Patagonian sequences allowed to frame these changes in a regional context. The results obtained provide useful information to understand the way vegetation changed in the past and the manner in which it may respond to future changes.
Ranko Biondić, Lucija Plantak, Ana-Maria Radovan
et al.
Numerous coastal karst springs of the Mediterranean region have problems with salinization. Salinization usually occurs during summer dry periods as a result of long droughts and excessive pumping for water supply. The Boljkovac water supply pumping station has slightly increased parameters that indicate the possibility of salinization during the dry summer periods, but the main salinization occurs post heavy rains which appear after long dry periods in the fall, winter, and spring. Due to the occasional occurrence of salinization, continuous monitoring of the aquifer by depth was set up at the piezometric well drilled near the water supply pumping station. The results of the monitoring were analyzed in relation to external factors that can negatively affect the disruption of the labile dynamic balance of salt and fresh water. The analyzed external factors are the pumping rate for the water supply, the amount of precipitation, surface flow and the interaction of surface water and groundwater, as well as the sea level changes. In Croatia, and the wider Mediterranean area, there are a large number of springs and water wells that have the same or similar problems, so the results of this analysis can be used in designing monitoring and setting up management systems for these coastal aquifers.
Shukai Ma, Thomas M. Antonsen, Steven M. Anlage
et al.
Machine learning (ML) has found widespread application over a broad range of important tasks. To enhance ML performance, researchers have investigated computational architectures whose physical implementations promise compactness, high-speed execution, physical robustness, and low energy cost. Here, we experimentally demonstrate an approach that uses the high sensitivity of reverberant short wavelength waves for physical realization and enhancement of computational power of a type of ML known as reservoir computing (RC). The potential computation power of RC systems increases with their effective size. We here exploit the intrinsic property of short wavelength reverberant wave sensitivity to perturbations to expand the effective size of the RC system by means of spatial and spectral perturbations. Working in the microwave regime, this scheme is tested experimentally on different ML tasks. Our results indicate the general applicability of reverberant wave-based implementations of RC and of our effective reservoir size expansion technique
Ana Paula O. Muller, Clecio R. Bom, Jessé C. Costa
et al.
An accurate velocity model is essential to make a good seismic image. Conventional methods to perform Velocity Model Building (VMB) tasks rely on inverse methods, which, despite being widely used, are ill-posed problems that require intense and specialized human supervision. Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) have been extensively investigated as an alternative to solve the VMB task. Two main approaches were investigated in the literature: supervised training and Physics-Informed Neural Networks (PINN). Supervised training presents some generalization issues since structures, and velocity ranges must be similar in training and test set. Some works integrated Full-waveform Inversion (FWI) with CNN, defining the problem of VMB in the PINN framework. In this case, the CNN stabilizes the inversion, acting like a regularizer and avoiding local minima-related problems and, in some cases, sparing an initial velocity model. Our approach combines supervised and physics-informed neural networks by using transfer learning to start the inversion. The pre-trained CNN is obtained using a supervised approach based on training with a reduced and simple data set to capture the main velocity trend at the initial FWI iterations. We show that transfer learning reduces the uncertainties of the process, accelerates model convergence, and improves the final scores of the iterative process.
The article discusses changes in production and the of the pottery used in towns in Pomerelia in the early-modern period. These considerations are based on advanced research on late-medieval pottery-making of the region and the relatively poorer state of knowledge about the continuity of transformations at the beginning of the early-modern period. The vantage point for this study is a characterisation of the source base, including both the artefactual and written evidence. This enables the tracing of changes, and characteristic features of goods used, in the 16th century.
Javad Sharifi, Amane Tajika, Alireza Mohammadabadi
et al.
Abstract The Aitamir Formation, situated in the Koppeh Dagh Basin in the northeast of Iran, is known for its well-exposed Albian-to-Cenomanian succession. Although geologists previously documented a number of macro- and microfossils, no nautilids had been discovered until now to our knowledge. Here, we present lower Albian and middle Cenomanian nautilids from the Koppeh Dagh Basin for the first time. This discovery is also the first record of Cretaceous nautilids from Iran. We identified the specimens as Eutrephoceras clementianum (d’Orbigny 1840), E. sublaevigatum (d’Orbigny 1850), E. bouchardianum (d’Orbigny 1840) and Eutrephoceras sp. These specimens occur in horizons situated between several ammonite-bearing levels, which allowed us to more precisely constrain age estimates for the recovered nautilid specimens. E. clementianum could not be dated precisely but likely comes from between late Aptian ammonite index Hypacanthoplites uhligi and middle Albian Hoplites (Hoplites) baylei. E. sublaevigatum occurs just above the late Albian ammonites Mariella bergeri and Semenoviceras michalskii and below the Mantelliceras mantelli Zone. At the upper part of the section, E. bouchardianum and Eutrephoceras sp. were collected from lower Albian beds, which correspond to the Mantelliceras mantelli and Mantelliceras dixonii zones. These new findings contribute to our knowledge of the geographical distribution and stratigraphic range of Albian–Cenomanian nautilid species.
Trilobites achieved their maximum generic diversity in the Cambrian, but the peak of morphological disparity of their cranidia occurred in the Middle to Late Ordovician. Early to middle Cambrian trilobites with a specialized cephalon are rare, especially among the ptychoparioids, a group of libristomates featuring the so-called “generalized” bauplan. Here we describe an unusual ptychopariid trilobite Phantaspis auritus gen. et sp. nov. from the middle Cambrian (Miaolingian, Wuliuan) Mantou Formation in the Shandong Province, North China. This new taxon is characterized by a cephalon with an extended anterior area of double-lobate shape resembling a pair of rabbit ears in later ontogenetic stages; a unique type of cephalic specialization that has not been reported from other trilobites. Such a peculiar cephalon as in Phantaspis provides new insights into the variations of cephalic morphology in middle Cambrian trilobites, and may represent a heuristic example of ecological specialization to predation or an improved discoidal enrollment.
Abstract Background It is unclear whether or not the breakpoint (BP), at which the proportion of each of fat mass (FM) and fat-free soft tissue mass (FFSTM) to body mass (BM) alter, exists in male athletes. We examined the hypothesis that in male athletes, the regional FM and FFSTM-BM relationships have a BP, but the body mass at BP (BMBP) differs among the arms, trunk, and legs. Methods By using a dual X-ray absorptiometry, whole-body and regional FMs and FFSTMs in the arms, trunk, and legs were estimated in 198 male athletes (20.8 ± 2.1 years; 1.73 ± 0.07 m; 72.7 ± 14.8 kg). To detect the BP in the relationship between each of FM and FFSTM and BM, a piecewise linear regression analysis was used. If a BP was detected in the corresponding relationship, the significant difference between the regression slopes above and below the BP was examined. Results The regression analysis indicated that the BMBP existed in the FM- and FFSTM-BM relationships regardless of region and whole body. For the whole body, BMBP was 81.8 kg for FM and 82.2 kg for FFSTM. In regional FM-BM relationships, BMBP was 80.5 kg for arms, 82.6 kg for trunk, and 63.3 kg for legs, and the regression slopes above the BMBP became higher than those below the BP, and vice versa in regional FFSTM-BM relationships (BMBP 104.6 kg for arms, 80.9 kg for trunk, and 79.0 kg for legs). The relative differences in the slopes between below and above BMBP in the regional FM-BM relationships were higher in the arms and trunk than in the legs, and those in the regional FFSTM-BM relationships in the legs than in the trunk. Conclusion Whole-body and regional FM- and FFSTM-BM relationships for male athletes have breakpoints at which the proportion of the tissue masses to BM alters. The BMBP and differences in the distribution of regional FM and FFSTM around the breakpoint are region specific.
AbstractAt the establishment of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists in 1930, women comprised 2.4% of the total membership, and 9.7% a decade later. By 2014 ~70% of members were women. Despite these numbers, there are continued gender disparities within the discipline. While there is considerable interest in promoting equity, there is little documentation of the historical experiences of female anthropologists. This article introduces the women active in the discipline during the first decade of the Association, compiles descriptions of their experiences related to their treatment based on gender, and examines these historical perspectives in conjunction with documented trends of continuing gender disparities. A pattern is evident for these early anthropologists of receiving personal and financial discouragement during their education; experiencing discrimination in hiring, promotion, and pay; studying women and children as entrée into professional work; working within the federal government or military; leaving anthropology early in their careers; having their work credited to their male colleagues; experiencing additional limitations if they married; and outwardly downplaying their own experiences of sexism. This pattern is echoed in the experiences of female anthropologists today.
Martín Barrère, Chris Hankin, Demetrios G. Eliades
et al.
Over the last years, Industrial Control Systems (ICS) have become increasingly exposed to a wide range of cyber-physical threats. Efficient models and techniques able to capture their complex structure and identify critical cyber-physical components are therefore essential. AND/OR graphs have proven very useful in this context as they are able to semantically grasp intricate logical interdependencies among ICS components. However, identifying critical nodes in AND/OR graphs is an NP-complete problem. In addition, ICS settings normally involve various cyber and physical security measures that simultaneously protect multiple ICS components in overlapping manners, which makes this problem even harder. In this paper, we present an extended security metric based on AND/OR hypergraphs which efficiently identifies the set of critical ICS components and security measures that should be compromised, with minimum cost (effort) for an attacker, in order to disrupt the operation of vital ICS assets. Our approach relies on MAX-SAT techniques, which we have incorporated in META4ICS, a Java-based security metric analyser for ICS. We also provide a thorough performance evaluation that shows the feasibility of our method. Finally, we illustrate our methodology through a case study in which we analyse the security posture of a realistic Water Transport Network (WTN).