Excavations in Iraq, 1987–88

Iraq ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 51 ◽  
pp. 249-265

A shift in the emphasis of archaeological field-work has taken place during 1987 and 1988. With the completion of much of the rescue work which has played such an important part over recent years, energies have been largely re-channelled into research projects, many with long-term designs. Thus, the past two years have seen the initiation of new research work at Abu Duwari, Ashur, Dlihim, Harba, Jemdet Nasr, Kar Tukulti Ninurta, Kish, Nimrud, Nineveh, and Tell es-Sawwan, while work has continued at about a dozen other research sites. At the same time, rescue work has commenced within the North and East Jezira irrigation areas.The most significant factor in this flourishing of research work in Iraq has been the unstinting co-operation of the Iraqi Office of Antiquities and Heritage, and it is to its Director-General, Dr. Mu‘ayyad Said Damerji, that our greatest debt of gratitude is due, not least for permission to publish these short reports. We thank also Dr. Munir Taha and Dr. Sabah Jasim of the Office's staff for their considerable assistance. As always, this survey would not have been feasible without the gracious co-operation of all the excavators involved. To them go our thanks and the hope that they will look forgivingly on any errors of fact or interpretation that may have been made herein.

2019 ◽  
Vol 809 ◽  
pp. 392-397
Author(s):  
Andreas Lehm ◽  
Diana Romstedt ◽  
Vinzenz Schoenberner ◽  
Hannes Till Meyer ◽  
Marko Eichler

A couple of research projects could demonstrate the adhesive-free bonding of metal and polymer foils very well in the past. The remaining issues on the road to industrial usage of this technology focus on higher process velocities, quality management and process behaviour during long-term usage. For this purpose, a new research project was initiated to concentrate on the maximum achievable adhesion between the two bonding partners at line speeds up to 10 m/min


2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (07) ◽  
pp. 20492-20498
Author(s):  
Aborisade Olasunkanmi ◽  
Christopher Agulanna

This work interrogates federal character principle (FCP) in Nigeria. The FCP was designed to fundamentally address the striking features of Nigeria politics of intense struggles for power among the different ethnic groups in the country between the elites from the North and their Southern counterparts and the various segments, but the practice of FCP in Nigeria so far raises curiosity and doubts. Given the outcome of the interrogation, this research work discovered and conclude that federal character has not indeed achieve its objective in the Nigeria, the study finds that Ethnocentrism, Elitism, Mediocrity, Mutual suspicion amongst others accounts for some inhibiting factors of the FCP in Nigeria. Like many other provisions of the Constitution, the Federal Character principle was meant to correct some imbalances experienced in the past, but it has created more problems than it has attempted to solve. Rather than promote national unity, it has disunited Nigerians. There is an urgent need to use more of professionals and result oriented Nigerians to carry out national tasks, than to use unprogressive people due to this "Federal character" issue. Nigeria should be a place where one's track records and qualifications are far greater than just "where they come from" or their lineage if Nigerian truly want to progress.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 153473542199007
Author(s):  
Siddhartha Sood ◽  
Rahul Jayachandiran ◽  
Siyaram Pandey

Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer in the world with a growing incidence in North America. Contemporary treatments for melanoma include surgical resection, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy. However, apart from resection in early melanoma, the prognosis of patients using these treatments is typically poor. In the past decade, there have been significant advancements in melanoma therapies. Immunotherapies such as ipilimumab and targeted therapies such as vemurafenib have emerged as a promising option for patients as seen in both scientific and clinical research. Furthermore, combination therapies are starting to be administered in the form of polychemotherapy, polyimmunotherapy, and biochemotherapy, of which some have shown promising outcomes in relative efficacy and safety due to their multiple targets. Alongside these treatments, new research has been conducted into the evidence-based use of natural health products (NHPs) and natural compounds (NCs) on melanoma which may provide a long-term and non-toxic form of complementary therapy. Nevertheless, there is a limited consolidation of the research conducted in emerging melanoma treatments which may be useful for researchers and clinicians. Thus, this review attempts to evaluate the therapeutic efficacy of current advancements in metastatic melanoma treatment by surveying new research into the molecular and cellular basis of treatments along with their clinical efficacy. In addition, this review aims to elucidate novel strategies that are currently being used and have the potential to be used in the future.


Forests ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 752
Author(s):  
Liu ◽  
Bao ◽  
Bao

Chinese pine (Pinus tabulaeformis Carr.) plays an important role in maintaining ecosystem health and stability in western Liaoning Province and the southern Horqin sand land, Northeast China, with benefits including sand fixation and soil erosion. In the context of climate change, developing a better understanding of the relationship between climate factors and growth rates of this species will be extremely valuable in guiding management activities and meeting regional conservation objectives. Here, the results based on two groups of tree-ring samples show that the radial growth of Chinese pine is controlled primarily by water conditions. The longer chronology had the highest correlation coefficient with the January–September mean self-calibrating Palmer Drought Severity Index (scPDSI); therefore, drought variability was reconstructed for the period 1859–2014. Statistical analysis showed that our model explained 41.9% of the variance in radial growth during the 1951–2014 calibration period. Extreme dry and wet events, defined as the criteria of one standard deviation less or greater than the mean value, accounted for 19.9% and 18.6% of the 156-year climate record, respectively. During the past century, the regional hydroclimate experienced significant long-term fluctuations. The dry periods occurred from the early-1900s–1930s and 1980s–2000s, and the wet periods occurred from the 1940s–1970s. The drought reconstruction was consistent with the decreasing trend of the East Asian summer monsoon since the late 1970s. The reconstructed temporal patterns in hydroclimate in western Liaoning were closely related to the large-scale climate drivers in the North Pacific and the tropical equatorial Pacific. The teleconnections were confirmed by spatial correlations between the reconstructed sequence and sea surface temperature (SST) in the North Pacific, as well as the correlations with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) indices. Aerosols played an important role in affecting drought variations over the past several decades. Moisture stress caused by global warming and interdecadal changes in the PDO will have long-term effects on the growth of pines in the study area in the future.


1987 ◽  
Vol 135 ◽  
pp. 5-7
Author(s):  
M Ghisler

The Geological Survey of Greenland (GGU) continued in 1986 the systematic investigation of the geology of Greenland. The work comprises geological mapping and basic research as well as applied geology and geophysics (fig. 1). The long term purpose is to establish the necessary geological background for evaluation of the potential of the non-living resources. The scientific and technical staff of 112 based in Copenhagen and 87 participating in the field work in Greenland carried out programmes of geological mapping and investigation, glaciological investigations, and mineral and oil assessments which included geochemical and geophysical methods. In April 1986 GGU celebrated its 40th anniversary. A special publication dedicated to GGU's former director, K. Ellitsgaard-Rasmussen, was issued which covers different aspects of the Survey's work in the developments in Greenland geology over the past ten years.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-38
Author(s):  
Xi Guo ◽  
James P. Kossin ◽  
Zhe-Min Tan

AbstractTropical cyclone (TC) translation speed (TCTS) can affect the duration of TC-related disasters, which is critical to coastal and inland areas. The long-term variation of TCTS and their relationship to the variability of the mid-latitude jet stream and storm migration are discussed here for storms near the North Atlantic coast during 1948-2019. Our results reveal the prominent seasonality in the long-term variation of TCTS, which can be largely explained by the seasonality in the covariations of the mid-latitude jet stream and storm locations. Specifically, significant increases of TCTS occur in June and October during the past decades, which may result from the equatorward displacement of the jet stream and poleward migration of storm locations. Prominent slowdown of TCTS is found in August, which is related to the weakened jet strength and equatorward storm migration. In September, the effects of poleward displacement and weakening of the jet stream on TCTS are largely compensated by the poleward storm migration, therefore, no significant change in TCTS is observed. Meanwhile, the multidecadal variability of the Atlantic may contribute to the multidecadal variability of TCTS. Our findings emphasize the significance in taking a seasonality view in discussing the variability and trends of near-coast Atlantic TCTS under climate change.


2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dana P. Goldman ◽  
Darius N. Lakdawalla ◽  
James R. Baumgardner ◽  
Mark T. Linthicum

AbstractMedical innovation has generated significant gains in health over the past decades, but these advances have been accompanied by rapid growth in healthcare spending. Faced with a growing number of high-cost but high-impact innovations, some have argued to constrain prices for new therapies – especially through global caps on pharmaceutical spending and limits on prices for individual drugs. We show that applying this threshold to past innovations would have limited access to many highly valuable drugs such as statins and anti-retrovirals. We also argue that budget caps violate several important principles of health policy. First, budget caps treat healthcare spending as a consumption good, like going to a movie or buying a meal. However, healthcare spending should be viewed as an investment, whose benefits accrue over many years – much like spending on education. Second, budgetary cost is a poor indicator of value, thereby distorting coverage decisions. Third, affordability arguments often use a short-term horizon, thereby missing that long-term health is society’s ultimate goal. Fourth, assessments of benefit should incorporate not just the immediate clinical benefit to patients, but also long-term health improvements, cost savings, and increased productivity. Fifth, global budget caps arbitrarily anchor spending on the status quo, thereby setting too stringent a threshold for socially-desirable innovation. In sum, a solitary focus on short-term costs can be detrimental to population health in the long-run. When medical treatment decisions are properly viewed as investments, budget caps are not the answer; rather, we need to find mechanisms to encourage spending decisions based on long-term value. Only then can we generate health returns to societal investments, while also encouraging the new research and development necessary to extend the gains of recent decades.


2008 ◽  
Vol 82 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-292 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Jes Iversen

Recently, a number of groups sponsored large international research projects that are concerned with business history. Harm G. Schröter's group investigated the European integration that followed the Treaty of Rome in 1957 in order to discover whether it had led to the appearance of a characteristically “European” corporation. Franco Amatori, Camilla Brautaset, and Youssef Cassis coordinated an analysis with the ambitious title “The Performance of European Business in the Twentieth Century.” The projects shared some common “Chandlerian” features: they were problem-oriented, comparative studies of the long-term development of large enterprises, and their goal was to propose illuminating generalizations. Such Chandler-inspired studies are likely to undergo a renaissance in the next couple of years. Still, as the term “renaissance” implies, Chandler's impact on European business studies has undergone upswings and downturns over the past four decades.


Unity Journal ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 175-189
Author(s):  
Phanindra Subba

Nepal is one of the few countries in the world which was never colonized during the hey-day of colonial era. She is bounded on the north by China and on the three other sides by India. Compared to these Colossi, Nepal is significantly weaker in terms of demography, economics, military strength and physical size. Nepal is, thus, a typical small state. There are several strategies that small states can employ to compensate for their weaknesses, ensure security, and secure a measure of influence over other actors. Small state literature exposes that such states can choose from strategies such as entering into alliance with a great power, hedging, neutrality, balancing, and band– wakening. Currently, this paper explores a trajectory of survival strategies that Nepal adopted during the Shah era on the basis of the analysis of crucial events that occurred during this period from perspectives of small state theories. The paper is based on the study of relevant books, documents and articles on small states amidst international affairs in global spheres. The joint rise of India and China is transforming the strategic landscape of Nepal’s neighborhood and will have a profound and long-term impact on Nepal. Nepal in the past has demonstrated a stubborn ability to survive by adapting to changing geopolitical situations. Although the present-day world is far more complex, lessons from the past are worth reconsidering because there are instances of similarities to the present. Furthermore, some aspects of strategy are constant.


Author(s):  
Ilan Ishai ◽  
Joseph Craus

A summary of some of the findings obtained during a series of research projects aimed to select, define, and evaluate the significant aggregate and filler properties and relate them to the behavior of bituminous concrete is presented. A concept and test method suggested for an objective quantitative evaluation of the geometric irregularity of aggregate particles (shape, angularity, and surface texture combined) in a wide range of particle sizes are discussed. The aggregate parameters were found to be significantly correlated to the physical properties and mechanical behavior of the bituminous mixtures composed of the aggregates tested. Research work and findings related to a special evaluation of important physicochemical properties of the filler and their significant effect on the immediate properties and the long-term durability behavior of bituminous paving mixtures are summarized.


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