The reduced peripheral system was introduced by Milnor [18] in the 1950s for the study of links up to link-homotopy, that is, up to homotopies leaving distinct components disjoint; this invariant, however, fails to classify links up to link-homotopy for links of four or more components. The purpose of this paper is to show that the topological information which is detected by Milnor’s reduced peripheral system is actually 4-dimensional. The main result gives indeed a complete characterization of links having the same reduced peripheral system, in terms of ribbon solid tori in 4–space up to ribbon link-homotopy. The proof relies on an intermediate characterization given in terms of welded diagrams up to self-virtualization, hence providing a purely topological application of the combinatorial theory of welded links.

In the hyperarid eastern Sahara, west of the Nile River in Egypt, areas with vegetated eolian mounds have attracted people and animals because of shallow groundwater that at times of high water tables may be reached by hand digging shallow wells. An eolian phreatophytic mound with a living arak bush (Silvadora persica L.) on top, one of three known from this region of SW Egypt, provided a stratigraphic record of its growth. The geochronology of the mounds aggradation and that of a nearby tarfa mound (Tamarix nilatica Bunge) was determined by radiocarbon dating plant macrofossils within the stratigraphic succession. Eolian aggradation of the mound postdates deflation that eroded playa sediments of the Neolithic pluvial that ended ca. 5000 BP and appears to be due to a resurgence of the shallow aquifer. Subsequent deflation of the mounds is apparently due to post-1500 BP aridity. Regional vegetation is described in the Appendix I.

Five sites in present-day New York have played important roles in archaeological narratives surrounding the development of settled village life in northeastern North America. Excavated in the mid-twentieth century, the Roundtop, Maxon-Derby, Sackett or Canandaigua, Bates, and Kelso sites include evidence related to the transition from semisedentary settlement-subsistence patterns during the twelfth through fourteenth centuries AD to those associated with fifteenth century and later settled Iroquoian villagers. Radiocarbon dates for each site were obtained early in the development of the method and again following the transition to AMS dating. Here, we present new or recently-published dates for these sites, combined with reliable existing dates in Bayesian models, including in some cases short tree-ring sequenced wiggle-matches on wood charcoal. Our results clarify the timing of each site’s occupation(s), revealing both continuity and discontinuity in the development of longhouse dwellings, sedentism, and the repeated re-use of some site locations over hundreds of years.

How do racial stereotypes affect perceptions in foreign policy? Race and racism as topics have long been marginalized in the study of international relations but are receiving renewed attention. In this article we assess the role of implicit racial bias in internal, originally classified assessments by the US foreign policy bureaucracy during the Cold War. We use a combination of dictionary-based and supervised machine learning techniques to identify the presence of four racial tropes in a unique corpus of intelligence documents: almost 5,000 President's Daily Briefs given to Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford. We argue and find that entries about countries that the US deemed “racialized Others”—specifically, countries in the Global South, newly independent states, and some specific regional groupings—feature an especially large number of racial tropes. Entries about foreign developments in these places are more likely to feature interpretations that infantilize, invoke animal-based analogies, or imply irrationality or belligerence. This association holds even when accounting for the presence of conflict, the regime type of the country being analyzed, the invocation of leaders, and the topics being discussed. The article makes two primary contributions. First, it adds to the revival of attention to race but gives special emphasis to implicit racialized thinking and its appearance in bureaucratic settings. Second, we show the promise of new tools for identifying racial and other forms of implicit bias in foreign policy texts.

This study examines how the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent Western responses influence Chinese public opinion on the use of force. Using two original, preregistered online survey experiments, first in June 2022 and then in June 2023, we show that the Russian invasion is associated with a modest but statistically significant increase in Chinese support for using military force in international affairs in general and against Taiwan in particular. However, information on Western military measures aiding Ukraine curbs the modest impact of the invasion. Such information is especially effective in reducing support for an outright military invasion of Taiwan. Causal mediation analyses reveal that the Russian invasion influences public opinion by inducing optimism regarding military success and pessimism regarding peaceful resolution of the conflict. These findings suggest that foreign military aggression and subsequent international countermeasures can sway domestic public opinion on using military force.

Rapid diagnostic tests that differentiate between Gram positive, Gram negative and the absence of aerobic bacteria in milk samples from dairy cows with clinical mastitis can support antimicrobial treatment decisions and contribute to a more prudent use of antimicrobials in the dairy industry. The objective of this study was to evaluate the test characteristics of the novel rapid BACT mastitis test in discriminating causes of clinical mastitis under laboratory conditions. Test outcomes of 155 milk samples from clinical mastitis cases were incubated for 14–16 h in the BACT test and compared to results of bacteriological culture. The accuracy for detection of bacterial growth and Gram positive growth was 91 and 89%, respectively. The BACT test could provide an accurate and relatively fast decision tool for farmers to aid in antimicrobial treatment decisions in cases of clinical mastitis.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the milk processing system practiced in the Mongolian nomadic Khalkha groups of Su'qbaatar and Dornod Provinces in eastern Mongolia through a field survey, to compare it with surrounding areas of Qentiy and Dundgowi Provinces, and then to analyze the transmission of processing techniques by further comparison with those of Syria, Jordan, Iran and Iraq in West Asia. The milk processing techniques of fermentation, cream separation and additive coagulation are all used in Su'qbaatar and Dornod Provinces. In fermentation processes, the technique of alcohol fermentation with churning is mainly used for cow milk to process alcoholic sour milk, followed by further processing to spirit, butter oil and non-matured dry cheese. In cream separation processes, the technique of heating/cream separation is used, in which cream is first separated from milk and non-matured dry cheese is processed from skim milk. In additive coagulation processes, the technique of fermented milk coagulation which utilizes lactic acid fermented whey as a coagulant is used to process non-matured dry cheese. These techniques are widely shared in the eastern part of Mongolia. It is characteristic of Su'qbaatar Province that the processing of cow milk is dominated by the technique of fermentation processes, mainly alcohol fermentation with churning. It is presumed that the technique of churning sour milk transmitted from West Asia to eastern Mongolia, and then the function of churning originally for butter processing was converted to allow for alcohol fermentation under the cooler environment in North Asia.

The world is witnessing an increase in cross-border data transfers and breaches orchestrated by State and non-State actors. Cross-border data transfers may lead to friction among States to localize or globalize data and to provide regulatory frameworks. “Data warfare” or information-war operations are often not covered under conventional rules; however, they are categorized as acts of espionage and subject to domestic regulations. As such, the operations are used to achieve a variety of objectives, including stealing sensitive information, spreading propaganda, and causing economic damage. Notable instances of the theft of sensitive information include the recent Bangladesh government website breach, exposing 50 million records, and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) website hack.

Regulating the “data war” under the existing principles of international law may be unsuccessful in creating robust international legal frameworks to address the associated challenges. These developments further accentuate the global divide between data-rich regions in the Global North, with strong data protection mechanisms (such as the GDPR and the California Privacy Rights Act), and regions in the Global South, where there is a lack of comprehensive data protection laws and regulatory regimes. This disparity underscores the urgent need for global cooperation for substantial international regulatory mechanisms.

This article examines the complexities surrounding data warfare; it highlights the imperative need for establishing a robust global legal framework for data protection, delving into the concept of data war. It also acknowledges the growing influence of advanced technologies like data computing and mining and their ongoing threats to the fundamental rights of individuals associated with exposed personal data. The authors address the deficiencies in international legal provisions and advocate for a global regulatory approach to data protection as a critical means of safeguarding personal freedoms and countering the escalating threats in the digital age.

The research aims to reconstruct the chronology of building the Southwest Church, Umm el-Jimal, Jordan by AMS radiocarbon dating organic inclusions uncovered from the mortars collected from the floor of the church, seat of the apse and the base of the north wall. It sheds light on the major aspects of mortar recipes at the time of their production. Samples were examined macroscopically with magnifying lenses and characterized using archaeometric techniques of optical microscopy and X-ray diffraction. The radiocarbon dates showed that 594–643 AD is the most probable age for flooring and plastering the church and 995–1154 AD is the earliest possible date for its final collapse. The preparatory layers of the church floor were laid on an older one, probably of a yard, and its north wall was raised on an older base, both most probably date to the late fifth–early sixth century AD. The production recipe of the mortars is made from a lime binder and inclusions mainly of organic (charcoal) and inorganic (quartz, grog, volcanics). The mortars have the same recipe regardless their bedding and jointing functions which remained unchanged during the building stages of church complex.

In 1937–38, the American doctoral candidate William R. Bascom conducted anthropological research in the sacred Yorùbá city of Ilé-Ifẹ̀, Nigeria. Bascom’s visit was a decisive moment in the history of African art, as, in 1938, he observed the chance discovery of unique copper and copper alloy heads, two of which he acquired and exported to the USA. Bascom’s actions in 1938, and his subsequent conflicts with British officials who demanded the return of the heads in the 1940s, have become matters of controversy and scholarly debate. Historian Robert Tignor and anthropologist Simon Ottenberg have presented contrasting arguments regarding the affair. This article draws on material from several archives to shed further light on this discussion, resolve remaining areas of dispute, and explore what the study of this controversy tells us about the nature and practice of anthropology, the impacts of Western exhibitions of African art, and early cultural preservation and repatriation efforts of the late colonial period. At a time when colonial-era collecting practices are facing increased critical re-examination, and with intensified calls for the repatriation of Nigerian cultural patrimony in Western museums, this article reflects on how the study of this controversy contributes to present restitution efforts.

A multi-band circularly polarized antenna is proposed for WLAN (2.4/5.3/5.8 GHz) and WiMAX (3.5 GHz) applications. The proposed antenna is constructed of a radiation patch and a reflecting metal ground. Characteristic mode theory is utilized to analyze the modes of the patch and based on these results the antenna is optimized. The −10 dB impedance bandwidths of the proposed antenna are 53.53% (2.4–4.15 GHz) and 47.28% (5.25–8.5 GHz), respectively. The antenna radiates left-handed circular polarization in the lower band and right-handed circular polarization in the upper band. A maximum gain of 10 dBic is achieved for the proposed antenna.

This article studies how Illapu, a prominent Chilean New Song band, deals with Mapuche culture and sound. Through the analysis of four songs, I argue that by first incorporating Mapuche instruments and rhythms (1970s), and then adding engaged lyrics dealing with Mapuche history (1980s), and finally engaging with Mapuche listeners and artists (1990s–2000s), Illapu participates in the transformation of the way in which indigeneity is conceived. I assert that the transformation of their creative processes takes place in parallel with the emergence of a public political Mapuche subject distinctly identified as such. By positioning themselves as ‘brown’ exemplary agents, the members of Illapu get to voice current Mapuche political demands without resorting to supplantation.