The Hatnub Quarries Industrial Landscape Survey 2017: Mobile-GIS Ground-truthing of the Satellite Remote-survey

This paper presents the results of the 2017 mobile-GIS survey of 1 km2 around the Hatnub Egyptian alabaster quarries and analysis of the accuracy of the remote-survey of the same area, which was completed in 2016 using satellite imagery. The analysis revealed that remote-survey was a very accurate method for recording archaeological features in clear and unobstructed parts of the desert, while targeted mobile-GIS survey of obscure areas and questionable features was an effective method for reducing inaccuracies in remote-survey data. The results will inform future phases of the Hatnub Industrial Landscape Project and the fieldwork also identified several avenues of future research into routes and roads across the desert.

Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Medieval Warhorse

The warhorse is arguably the most characteristic animal of the English Middle Ages. But while the development and military uses of warhorses have been intensively studied by historians, the archaeological evidence is too often dispersed, overlooked or undervalued. Instead, we argue that to fully understand the cultural significance and functional role of the medieval warhorse, a systematic study of the full range of archaeological evidence for warhorses (and horses more generally) from medieval England is necessary. This requires engagement with material evidence at a wide variety of scales — from individual artefacts through to excavated assemblages and landscape-wide distributions — dating between the late Saxon and Tudor period (c. AD 800–1600). We present here a case study of our interdisciplinary engaged research design focusing upon an important English royal stud site at Odiham in Hampshire. This brings together several fields of study, including (zoo)archaeology, history, landscape survey, and material culture studies to produce new understandings about a beast that was an unmistakable symbol of social status and a decisive weapon on the battlefield.

Risk-Based Monitoring in Clinical Trials: Past, Present, and Future

Risk-based monitoring (RBM) is a powerful tool for efficiently ensuring patient safety and data integrity in a clinical trial, enhancing overall trial quality. To better understand the state of RBM implementation across the clinical trial industry, the Association of Clinical Research Organizations (ACRO) conducted a landscape survey among its member companies across 6,513 clinical trials ongoing at the end of 2019. Of these trials, 22% included at least 1 of the 5 RBM components: key risk indicators (KRIs), centralized monitoring, off-site/remote-site monitoring, reduced source data verification (SDV), and reduced source document review (SDR). The implementation rates for the individual RBM components ranged 8%–19%, with the most frequently implemented component being centralized monitoring and the least frequently implemented being reduced SDR. When the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in early 2020, additional data were collected to assess its impact on trial monitoring, focusing specifically on trials switching from on-site monitoring to off-site/remote-site monitoring. These mid-pandemic data show that the vast majority of monitoring visits were on-site in February 2020, but an even higher percentage were off-site in April, corresponding with the first peak of the pandemic. Despite this shift, similar numbers of non-COVID-related protocol deviations were detected from February through June, suggesting little or no reduction in monitoring effectiveness. The pre- and mid-pandemic data provide two very different snapshots of RBM implementation, but both support the need to promote adoption of this approach while also highlighting an opportunity to capitalize on the recent shift toward greater RBM uptake in a post-pandemic environment.

Historic landscape inventory for Knoxville National Cemetery

This project was undertaken to provide the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs National Cemetery Administration with a cultural landscape survey of Knoxville National Cemetery. The 9.8-acre cemetery is located within the city limits of Knoxville, Tennessee, and contains more than 9,000 buri-als. Knoxville National Cemetery was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on 12 September 1996, as part of a multiple-property submission for Civil War Era National Cemeteries. The National Cemetery Administration tasked the U.S. Army Engineer Re-search and Development Center-Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (ERDC-CERL) to inventory and assess the cultural landscape at Knoxville National Cemetery through creation of a landscape development context, a description of current conditions, and an analysis of changes over time to the cultural landscape. All landscape features were included in the survey because according to federal policy on National Cemeteries, all national cemetery landscape features are considered to be contributing elements.

California Tool Works: Assessing the Impact of Life Science Incubators and Accelerators

With the proliferation of types and business models in incubation and acceleration, a landscape survey commenced nearly a decade ago with innovation professionals running accelerators, incubators, corporate innovation teams, venture studios, and maker spaces. The benchmarking continues under the auspices of the California Business Incubation Alliance. For this paper, a selected set of findings specific to biotechnology have been detailed, including best practices, success measures, outcomes, and economic impact. The perspective of entrepreneurs, innovation executives, investors, and the public sector have been taken into account throughout this exercise.

Lapsed Catholics and Other Religious Non-Affiliates

Lapsed Catholics are sometimes referred to as one of the largest religious groups in America, and yet we know little about what beliefs and behaviors may be associated with this social category. Using data from the Pew Religious Landscape Survey, this chapter compares the religious beliefs, social attitudes, and voluntary behavior of lapsed Catholics and other religious non-affiliates (nones, atheists, and agnostics) alongside lapsed evangelicals and lapsed mainline Protestants. Generally speaking, lapsed Catholics fall somewhere in the middle between practicing Catholics and those with no religious affiliation, but they are notably more liberal in their attitudes toward abortion and same-sex marriage. This study affirms the importance of considering the heterogeneity within the category of “nonreligious” by considering the lingering attachments people may hold to religion outside of church attendance. The chapter concludes by considering whether the glass is half full or half empty for those interested in the future of American Catholicism.

The Many Meanings of the Secular

The increase in the percentage of Americans who claim no religious affiliation has sparked renewed debates about processes of secularization. Too often, however, these discussions overlook nonreligious diversity, and all religious “nones” are assumed to be homogeneous. Using the 2014 Pew Religious Landscape Survey, this chapter details the many different ways theistic nonbelief and religious non-affiliation can overlap and diverge. It then uses cluster analysis to condense this diversity into the categories that are the most similar in socio-demographic, political, and religious characteristics. When possible, atheists, agnostics, and non-affiliated thesis should be treated as distinct categories in social surveys. The chapter also provides basic guidelines for researchers about how best to measure, categorize, and analyze nonreligion. Overall, it is imperative for scholars, journalists, and the public more broadly to account for the diversity of secularities when analyzing and discussing patterns and trends in religious non-affiliation.

Expanded catalog of microbial genes and metagenome-assembled genomes from the pig gut microbiome

Gut microbiota plays an important role in pig health and production. Still, availability of sequenced genomes and functional information for most pig gut microbes remains limited. Here we perform a landscape survey of the swine gut microbiome, spanning extensive sample sources by deep metagenomic sequencing resulting in an expanded gene catalog named pig integrated gene catalog (PIGC), containing 17,237,052 complete genes clustered at 90% protein identity from 787 gut metagenomes, of which 28% are unknown proteins. Using binning analysis, 6339 metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) were obtained, which were clustered to 2673 species-level genome bins (SGBs), among which 86% (2309) SGBs are unknown based on current databases. Using the present gene catalog and MAGs, we identified several strain-level differences between the gut microbiome of wild boars and commercial Duroc pigs. PIGC and MAGs provide expanded resources for swine gut microbiome-related research.

Journal of Greek Archaeology Volume 6: Editorial

Our latest volume maintains our goal to cover the broad chronological spread of Greek Archaeology, ranging from a new review of the Mesolithic occupation at Theopetra, one of the most important hunter-gatherer sites in Greece, to a detailed analysis of how the distribution of Middle Byzantine churches in the Peloponnese enlightens us into the evolution of human settlement and land use. Prehistory is richly represented in further articles, as we learn about Middle Bronze Age society on Lefkas, the dispute over exotic primates portrayed on the frescoes of Santorini, a new Minoan-style peak sanctuary on Naxos, and Post-Palatial settlement structure on Crete. Bridging prehistory to historical times, a detailed study rethinks the burial and settlement evidence for Early Iron Age Athens, then entering the Archaic period, an original article links textual analysis and material culture to investigate dedicatory behaviour in Ionian sanctuaries. As a special treat, that doyen of Greek plastic arts Andrew Stewart, asks us to look again at the evidence for the birth of the Classical Style in Greek sculpture. Greek theatres in Sicily are next contextualised into contemporary politics, while the sacred Classical landscape of the island of Salamis is explored with innovative GIS-techniques. For the seven-hundred years or so of Roman rule we are given an indepth presentation of regional economics from Central Greece, and a thorough review of harbours and maritime navigation for Late Roman Crete. Finally we must mention a methodological article, deploying the rich data from the Nemea landscape survey, to tackle issues of changing land use and the sometimes controversial topic of ancient manuring.