A catalogue of absorption-line systems in QSO spectra

We present a new catalog of absprption-line systems identified in the quasar spectra. It contains data on 821 QSOs and 8558 absorption systems comprizing 16139 absorption lines with measured redshifts in the QSO spectra. The catalog includes absorption-line systems consisting of lines of heavy elements, lines of neutral hydrogen, Lyman limit systems, damped Ly\alpha absorption systems, and broad absorption-line systems. The catalog is available in electronic form at the CDS via anonymous ftp to cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (130.79.128.5) or via http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/qcat?J/A+A/412/707 and at www.ioffe.ru/astro/QC. Using the data of the present catalog we also discuss redshift distributions of absorption-line systems.Comment: 3 pages with 1 postscript figur

High-frequency monitoring of nitrogen and phosphorus response in three rural catchments to the end of the 2011–2012 drought in England

This paper uses high-frequency bankside measurements from three catchments selected as part of the UK government-funded Demonstration Test Catchments (DTC) project. We compare the hydrological and hydrochemical patterns during the water year 2011–2012 from the Wylye tributary of the River Avon with mixed land use, the Blackwater tributary of the River Wensum with arable land use and the Newby Beck tributary of the River Eden with grassland land use. The beginning of the hydrological year was unusually dry and all three catchments were in states of drought. A sudden change to a wet summer occurred in April 2012 when a heavy rainfall event affected all three catchments. The year-long time series and the individual storm responses captured by in situ nutrient measurements of nitrate and phosphorus (total phosphorus and total reactive phosphorus) concentrations at each site reveal different pollutant sources and pathways operating in each catchment. Large storm-induced nutrient transfers of nitrogen and or phosphorus to each stream were recorded at all three sites during the late April rainfall event. Hysteresis loops suggested transport-limited delivery of nitrate in the Blackwater and of total phosphorus in the Wylye and Newby Beck, which was thought to be exacerbated by the dry antecedent conditions prior to the storm. The high rate of nutrient transport in each system highlights the scale of the challenges faced by environmental managers when designing mitigation measures to reduce the flux of nutrients to rivers from diffuse agricultural sources. It also highlights the scale of the challenge in adapting to future extreme weather events under a changing climate

Diel turbidity cycles in a headwater stream: evidence of nocturnal bioturbation?

Purpose: A small number of recent studies have linked daily cycles in stream turbidity to nocturnal bioturbation by aquatic fauna, principally crayfish, and demonstrated this process can significantly impact upon water quality under baseflow conditions. Adding to this limited body of research, we use high-resolution water quality monitoring data to investigate evidence of diel turbidity cycles in a lowland, headwater stream with a known signal crayfish (Pacifastacus leniusculus) population and explore a range of potential causal mechanisms. Materials and methods: Automatic bankside monitoring stations measured turbidity and other water quality parameters at 30-min resolution at three locations on the River Blackwater, Norfolk, UK during 2013. Specifically, we focused on two 20-day periods of baseflow conditions during January and April 2013 which displayed turbidity trends typical of winter and spring seasons, respectively. The turbidity time-series, which were smoothed with 6.5 hour Savitzky-Golay filters to highlight diel trends, were correlated against temperature, stage, dissolved oxygen and pH to assess the importance of abiotic influences on turbidity. Turbidity was also calibrated against suspended particulate matter (SPM) over a wide range of values via linear regression. Results and discussion: Pronounced diel turbidity cycles were found at two of the three sites under baseflow conditions during April. Spring night-time turbidity values consistently peaked between 21:00 and 04:00 with values increasing by ~10 nephelometric turbidity units (NTU) compared with the lowest recorded daytime values which occurred between 10:00 and 14:00. This translated into statistically significant increases in median midnight SPM concentration of up to 76% compared with midday, with night-time (18:00 – 05:30) SPM loads also up to 30% higher than that recorded during the daytime (06:00 – 17:30). Relating turbidity to other water quality parameters exhibiting diel cycles revealed there to be neither any correlation that might indicate a causal link, nor any obvious mechanistic connections to explain the temporal turbidity trends. Diel turbidity cycles were less prominent at all sites during the winter. Conclusions: Considering the seasonality and timing of elevated turbidity, visual observations of crayfish activity, and an absence of mechanistic connections with other water quality parameters, the results presented here are consistent with the hypothesis that nocturnal bioturbation is responsible for generating diel turbidity cycles under baseflow conditions in headwater streams. However, further research in a variety of fluvial environments is required to better assess the spatial extent, importance and causal mechanisms of this phenomenon

Correlation function of quasars in real and redshift space from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7

We analyze the quasar two-point correlation function (2pCF) within the redshift interval $0.8<z<2.2$ using a sample of 52303 quasars selected from the recent 7th Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Our approach to 2pCF uses a concept of locally Lorentz (Fermi) frame for determination of the distance between objects and permutation method of the random catalogue generation. Assuming the spatially flat cosmological model with given $\Omega_{\Lambda}=0.726$, we found that the real-space 2pCF is fitted well with the power-low model within the distance range $1<\sigma<35$ $h^{-1}$ Mpc with the correlation length $r_{0}=5.85\pm0.33$ $h^{-1}$ Mpc and the slope $\gamma=1.87\pm0.07$. The redshift-space 2pCF is approximated with $s_{0}=6.43\pm0.63$ $h^{-1}$ Mpc and $\gamma=1.21\pm0.24$ for $1<s<10$ $h^{-1}$ Mpc, and $s_{0}=7.37\pm0.81$ $h^{-1}$ Mpc and $\gamma=1.90\pm0.24$ for $1010\,h^{-1}$ Mpc the parameter describing the large-scale infall to density inhomogeneities is $\beta=0.63\pm0.10$ with the linear bias $b=1.44\pm0.22$ that marginally (within 2$\sigma$) agrees with the linear theory of cosmological perturbations. We discuss possibilities to obtain a statistical estimate of the random component of quasars velocities (different from the large-scale infall). We note rather slight dependence of quasars velocity dispersion upon the 2pCF parameters in the region $r<2$ Mpc.Comment: 15 pages, 17 figures, online published in MNRAS; final version to match the published versio

Horses for the dead: funerary foodways in Bronze Age Kazakhstan

© 2011 Antiquity PublicationsThe authors examine the role of horses as expressed in assemblages from settlement sites and cemeteries between the Eneolithic and the Bronze Age in Kazakhstan. In this land, known for its rich association with horses, the skeletal evidence appears to indicate a fading of ritual interest. But that's not the whole story, and once again micro-archaeology reveals the true balance. The horses are present at the funeral, but now as meat for the pot, detected in bone fragments and lipids in the pot walls.Natural Environment Research Council (grant NE/B504506) and the British Academy (grants SG-35540 and SG-42656)

Cosmic distance-duality as probe of exotic physics and acceleration

In cosmology, distances based on standard candles (e.g. supernovae) and standard rulers (e.g. baryon oscillations) agree as long as three conditions are met: (1) photon number is conserved, (2) gravity is described by a metric theory with (3) photons travelling on unique null geodesics. This is the content of distance-duality (the reciprocity relation) which can be violated by exotic physics. Here we analyse the implications of the latest cosmological data sets for distance-duality. While broadly in agreement and confirming acceleration we find a 2-sigma violation caused by excess brightening of SN-Ia at z > 0.5, perhaps due to lensing magnification bias. This brightening has been interpreted as evidence for a late-time transition in the dark energy but because it is not seen in the d_A data we argue against such an interpretation. Our results do, however, rule out significant SN-Ia evolution and extinction: the "replenishing" grey-dust model with no cosmic acceleration is excluded at more than 4-sigma despite this being the best-fit to SN-Ia data alone, thereby illustrating the power of distance-duality even with current data sets.Comment: 6 pages, 4 colour figures. Version accepted as a Rapid Communication in PR

Inventing the Neolithic? Putting evidence-based interpretation back into the study of faunal remains from causewayed enclosures.

ArticleThis is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in World Archaeology on 2015, available online: http://wwww.tandfonline.com/10.1080/00438243.2015.1072476The paper argues that our current understanding of the animal bones from causewayed enclosure sites in Britain is flawed. During the 1980-90s, a number of key interpretations, still frequently espoused, were based more upon anecdote and theory-driven assertion than on empirical evidence. An example is that evidence of bone processing (butchery and bone fracture) does not feature heavily in the faunal record from causewayed enclosures. Using data from the sites of Etton and Staines, this view must now be questioned. Both butchery and peri-mortem bone fracture are present in these assemblages in substantial quantities. These sites are compared with Ludwinowo 7, a Linearbandkeramik settlement site in Poland and there are considerable similarities between the three different sites. This suggests possibility that the broader economic utility of animal bone assemblages at causewayed enclosures has been underestimated, having been, up to now, regarded as ‘not indicative of domestic settlement’

Application of high-resolution telemetered sensor technology to develop conceptual models of catchment hydrogeological processes

Mitigating agricultural water pollution requires changes in land management practices and the implementation of on-farm measures to tackle the principal reasons for water quality failure. However, a paucity of robust empirical evidence on the hydrological functioning of river catchments can be a major constraint on the design of effective pollution mitigation strategies at the catchment-scale. In this regard, in 2010 the UK government established the Demonstration Test Catchment (DTC) initiative to evaluate the extent to which on-farm mitigation measures can cost-effectively reduce the impacts of agricultural water pollution on river ecology while maintaining food production capacity. A central component of the DTC platform has been the establishment of a comprehensive network of automated, web-based sensor technologies to generate high-temporal resolution empirical datasets of surface water, soil water, groundwater and meteorological parameters. In this paper, we demonstrate how this high-resolution telemetry can be used to improve our understanding of hydrological functioning and the dynamics of pollutant mobilisation and transport under a range of hydrometerological and hydrogeological conditions. Furthermore, we demonstrate how these data can be used to develop conceptual models of catchment hydrogeological processes and consider the implications of variable hydrological functioning on the performance of land management changes aimed at reducing agricultural water pollution

A bone grease processing station at the Mitchell Prehistoric Indian Village: archaeological evidence for the exploitation of bone fats

© Association for Environmental Archaeology 2015. Author's accepted manuscript version deposited in accordance with SHERPA RoMEO guidelines. The definitive version is available at http://www.maneyonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/1749631414Y.0000000035.Recent excavations at the Mitchell Prehistoric Indian Village, an Initial Middle Missouri site in Mitchell, South Dakota have revealed a large, clay-lined feature filled with fractured and fragmented bison bones. Fracture and fragmentation analysis, along with taphonomic evidence, suggests that the bones preserved within the feature represent evidence of prehistoric bone marrow and bone grease exploitation. Further, the character of the feature suggests that it served as a bone grease processing station. Bone fat exploitation is an activity that is frequently cited as a causal explanation for the nature of many fractured and fragmented bone assemblages in prehistory, and zooarchaeological assemblages have frequently been studied as evidence of bone fat exploitation. The Mitchell example provides some of the first direct, in-situ archaeological evidence of a bone grease processing feature, and this interpretation is sustained by substantial analytical evidence suggesting bone fat exploitation. This new evidence provides a clearer concept of the nature of bone fat exploitation in prehistory as well as an indication of the scale and degree to which bone grease exploitation occurred at the Mitchell site. Finally, this research demonstrates the importance of careful zooarchaeological and taphonomic analysis for the interpretation of both artifactual remains as well as archaeological features

Reduced intensity of bone fat exploitation correlates with increased potential access to dairy fats in early Neolithic Europe

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this record.Important nutritional resources can be acquired by breaking bone shafts to access marrow, whereas heavy comminution and boiling of cancellous bone is required to extract bone grease. Since labour and fuel costs of these processes differ considerably, the relative intensities of these activities provide a possible proxy for nutritional stress or elevated fat requirements in the context of an overall subsistence strategy. We investigated faunal material from eleven early Neolithic sites in central Europe for bone fracture and fragmentation patterns to ascertain the intensity of bone marrow and grease exploitation. These data indicate that bone grease processing was practised rarely if at all during the early Neolithic, likely made unnecessary by ample access to crop carbohydrates. Bone marrow was exploited at all sites, but with varying intensity that exhibited a significant negative correlation with the proportion of milk-producing domestic ruminants. This observation is consistent with the hypothesis that fats obtained from dairy products reduced requirements for intensive marrow exploitation.This work was supported by the European Research Council (ERC Advanced Grant ERC324202)