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The Viking Age (c. 800 – c. 1050 AD) was a period of dramatic change and transformative encounters across Europe and the wider world. Ships, seafarers, and the sea were central to these developments but, paradoxically, the Viking Age is generally studied through evidence and approaches on land. This has consistently hindered scholarly understanding of the maritime dimensions of the Viking Age; sur
The South African forestry supply chain is a complex system that involves both the production of trees (site preparation, re-establishment, tending, and maintenance operations) and the production and distribution of wood products from plantation stands to the pulp- and sawmills. This paper reports on a study that investigated the suitability of discrete-event simulation for modelling forestry supp
The majority of soil carbon (C) is stored in organic matter associated with reactive minerals. These mineral-organic associations (MOAs) inhibit microbial and enzymatic access to organic matter, suggesting that organic C within MOAs is resistant to decomposition. However, plant roots and rhizosphere microbes are known to transform minerals through dissolution and exchange reactions, implying that
With their superficially shark-like appearance, the Mesozoic ichthyosaurs provide a classic illustration of major morphological adaptations in an ancestrally terrestrial tetrapod lineage following the invasion of marine habitats1, 2–3. Much of what is known about ichthyosaur soft tissues derives from specimens with body outlines4, 5–6. However, despite offering insights into aspects of biology tha
Iron (Fe) concentrations are increasing in lakes on a wide geographical scale, contributing to recent browning of lake waters. As available time series on lake-water Fe concentrations are relatively short, covering the past few decades only, varved lake sediments may provide extended and precisely dated records to study temporal Fe dynamics in lakes in response to environmental drivers, such as ch
Ultrasound Optical Tomography (UOT) combines the high-resolution imaging capability of ultrasound with measurements of light absorption and scattering properties of human tissue. In this work, UOT working at 794.2 nm wavelength and equipped with a spectral hole burning filter was used to image through 5 cm thick tissue phantoms with embedded cubic 12 × 12 × 12 mm3 inclusions at a 2.5 cm depth. In
Abstract: The radiative decays χc1(3872) → ψ(2S) γ and χc1(3872) → J/ψγ are used to probe the nature of the χc1(3872) state using proton-proton collision data collected with the LHCb detector, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 9 fb−1. Using the B+ → χc1(3872)K+ decay, the χc1(3872) → ψ(2S) γ process is observed for the first time and the ratio of its partial width to that of the χc1(387
Tendons are hierarchically structured and composed of load-bearing collagen. Their hierarchical structure allows the transfer of tensile forces across multiple length scales as loads are partitioned from the whole tendon through fascicles, fibers, and fibrils down to the tropocollagen molecules. To elucidate their structural hierarchical deformation, this study investigated the combined tissue, fi
Supplemental Instruction (SI) is an academic support model with large international prevalence with the purpose of preventing dropouts and strengthen students’ study abilities and results. SI is a collaborative form of learning in groups of about 5-15 students who meet on a weekly basis under the facilitation of an SI-leader, an older student with good insight in the course. The SI-leader helps th
Osteoderms, skeletal structures in the skin, are found in many animals and serve diverse roles. In some lizards, the bony osteoderm has a capping tissue (CT) whose composition and structure remain unknown. Here, the composition and nanostructure of osteoderms from the Mexican beaded lizard (Heloderma horridum) are investigated. The CT is highly mineralized with an extraordinarily high elastic modu
Globular clusters (GCs) are among the oldest and densest stellar systems in the Universe, yet how they form remains a mystery1. Here we present a suite of cosmological simulations in which both dark-matter-free GCs and dark-matter-rich dwarf galaxies naturally emerge in the Standard Cosmology. We show that these objects inhabit distinct locations in the size–luminosity plane and that they have sim
In a society of rapidly increasing complexity, new ways of addressing challenges are required.As new students entering university today are driven by different motivations than previous generations and call for more innovative approaches to working life, we at the university level must also adapt to this change.Based on theories of consciousness development and the study-related social environment
BACKGROUND: Long COVID and cardiovascular autonomic dysfunction, including postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), present significant healthcare challenges. Long-term monitoring is challenging due to the evolving nature of symptoms and the limited availability of objective diagnostic tools. With over 200 million electrocardiogram (ECG)-enabled smartwatches sold worldwide, these devices
Atmospheric methane (CH4) growth rates reached unprecedented values in the years 2020-2022. To identify the main drivers of this increase, an inverse modeling study estimated regional and sectoral emission changes for 2016-2022. Three inverse estimates based on different sets of atmospheric CH4 observations (surface observations only, surface and aircraft observations, and GOSAT observations) cons
Objective. This study aimed to investigate the potential of contrastive learning to improve auditory attention decoding (AAD) using electroencephalography (EEG) data in challenging cocktail-party scenarios with competing speech and background noise. Approach. Three different models were implemented for comparison: a baseline linear model (LM), a non-LM without contrastive learning (NLM), and a
INTRODUCTION: Plasma biomarkers offer promise for improving the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and differentiating AD and other neurodegenerative disorders (NDs) like frontotemporal dementia (FTD) from primary psychiatric disorders (PPDs), particularly in younger patients. METHODS: In this prospective study, we investigated plasma phosphorylated tau 217 (p-tau217), neurofilament light chain
