Two flower fly species (Diptera: Syrphidae) new to India

Based on adult morphology and DNA barcoding, two flower fly species are reported for the first time from India: Helophilus trivittatus (Fabricius, 1805) and Lejogaster tarsata (Megerle in Meigen, 1822). These species were collected from the Kashmir Valley, in the northern fringe of the Western Himalaya of the Indian subcontinent.

THE 2019 EXCAVATIONS OF THE ROMAN PERIOD AND THE MIGRATION PERIOD AT THE YASKOVICHI-1 SETTLEMENT IN THE PRIPYAT POLESIE

В статье представлены результаты исследований 2019 г. на селище Ясковичи-1, открытом в 2017 г. на северной окраине Припятского Полесья. Памятник содержит выразительный горизонт позднеримского периода (рубежа II/III - середины IV в.), сопоставимый с древностями киевской культуры. На примере отдельных фрагментов посуды и вещей прослеживаются связи его жителей с носителями вельбарской культуры. Следующий горизонт памятника - пражской культуры -представлен отдельными находками и немногочисленными фрагментами керамики. Последние соотносятся преимущественно с ранними этапами развития пражского керамического комплекса в Припятском Полесье, не исключая фазы «0» - финала позднеримского времени и начала эпохи Великого переселения народов. The paper presents results of the excavations conducted at the open settlement of Yaskovichi-1 in 2019. The settlement was discovered in 2017 in the northern fringe of the Pripyat Polesie. The site contains a horizon dating to the late Roman period (the turn of the 3 - mid-4 centuries) rich with finds comparable with antiquities of the Kiev culture. Analyzing some fragments of the vessels and other items, the author traces down the links between its residents and the Wielbark population. The subsequent horizon of the site, i.e. that of Prague culture, is represented by individual finds and few fragments of ceramics. The latter are correlated, mostly, with the early development of the Prague ceramic assembly in the Pripyat Polesie, without excluding phase 0, which is the final stage of the Late Roman period and the beginning of the Migration Period.

A Bivariate Analysis of the Spatial Distributions of Stunting and Wasting Among Children Under-Five in Nigeria

Stunting and wasting are major malnutrition issues among children under five years of age and have continued to remain unacceptably high in Nigeria leading to high rates of child morbidity and mortality. Evidence-based strategies are required by government and non-governmental agencies to mitigate the suffering of these children, and this could be realised when the association between the determinants and the geographical distributions are fully understood. Using data from four waves of the Nigerian Demographic and Health Survey, we employed a distributional bivariate probit model to examine the geographical distributions of the levels and linear association between acute and chronic malnutrition in Nigeria after accounting for possible observed determinants. Bayesian inference was based on Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation. The findings reveal substantial spatial variations in stunting and wasting among under-five children in Nigeria, indicating a north–south divide. The findings show negative linear association between the two malnutrition indicators among children in some northern fringe states but positive for Akwa Ibom, Ebonyi and Anambra. The correlation also peaks around age 20 months indicating that during the first 2 years of life, the children have an increasing likelihood of suffering from stunting and wasting.

Evolution of Urban forms in Port Harcourt Metropolis

The nature of urban development in Port Harcourt Metropolis makes for the study of urban evolution dynamics across the metropolis. Land-Sat Tm of 30m x 30m of 1986, 2000 and 2015 were employed to examine the changes in urban development across the study area. The direction of urban growth as revealed by the image analysis was digitized in the Arc GIS 10.4 environment. Findings revealed that, the morphology of the city is in the form of a non-regular polygon. The analysis also reveals that, there is an increase in the growth of the city from 1986 through 2000 and, then 2015. The growth direction of the city grew more north-ward rather than south-ward. The growth in the city population and the expansion of networks of roads, resulted in the transformation of the city form, and as development evolved, industrial locations were now focused in the Northern fringe of the city occupying extensive land areas which gave rise to other micro industrial and residential buildings extending northward hence, the visible level of anthropogenic activities or alterations. The study therefore recommends that, geographical boundaries should be given great emphasis by planning authorities in plan preparation in other to accommodate developmental growth and expansions.

Ibero-Romance II: Astur-Leonese, Spanish, Navarro-Aragonese

The Romance varieties spoken in the Iberian Peninsula fall into three major groups: Galician-Portuguese, Central Ibero-Romance and Catalan. All these varieties have their origins in the evolution of Latin in the northern fringe of the Iberian Peninsula and spread southward in the Middle Ages. One of the main features that distinguish the Central Ibero-Romance group from its neighbors to the west and east is the diphthongization of /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ from Latin short ĕ and ŏ in stressed syllables (as in tierra ‘land’, puerta ‘door’ vs. Pt. and Cat. terra, porta). Besides Spanish, which historically derives from the evolution of Latin in the original territory of the Kingdom of Castile, the other main Central Ibero-Romance varieties are Astur-Leonese (including Mirandese, in Portugal) and Aragonese. For the medieval period, Old Navarrese Romance is well documented, as is, to a lesser extent, the transitional variety of La Rioja. There are no documents entirely written in Andalusi Romance, the set of Romance varieties spoken in Islamic Spain in medieval times, but we can infer some of its features from short texts and several other sources.