Different types of iron ore and pyrite were used to craft a wide variety of reflective artifacts in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, including “mirrors,” pectorals, necklaces, and dental inlays, among others. In the Maya region, most of these have only been visually assessed, without using analytical techniques. Consequently, our understanding of the diversity of raw materials used in artifact production has been limited. This article presents preliminary results from a pilot study aiming to identify the raw materials used in the manufacture of different reflective objects from a small sample of finds from the sites of La Corona and Cancuen, located in Guatemala, through the use of scanning electron microscopy with EDS detectors (SEM-EDS), energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and Raman spectroscopy. Although further analyses are needed to confirm the representativeness of the sample, these results indicate the use of hematite and goethite (iron oxides), but not pyrite (iron sulfide). This study also shows how improved knowledge of raw material use can elicit previously unknown patterns of distribution and exchange, and highlight patterns of inter- and intrasite variability in the production, use, and exchange of reflective objects over time in the Maya region throughout the Classic period.

El sitio de Tak'alik Ab'aj se encuentra en la bocacosta suroccidental de Guatemala. Durante las excavaciones del Entierro 1 de la Estructura 7A, fechado para finales del preclásico tardío (150 d.C.), se recuperó un rico ajuar funerario compuesto por decenas de piezas de jadeitita, hematita, pirita y cuatro mosaicos “reflectores” de este mismo material. Cada uno fue labrado con la misma tecnología de manufactura y soporte “flexible” de fragmentos de cerámica (ensamblados con resina) por primera vez documentado, y diseño propio para la función y significado que desempeñara. Dos de ellos fueron integrados en la pechera y faldellín del traje ceremonial; los otros dos como parte del ajuar adicional de un posible portaestandarte.

En este trabajo se incluye el estudio traceológico-tecnológico de las teselas de estos mosaicos del Entierro 1 a través de la caracterización de sus huellas de manufactura con arqueología experimental y microscopías óptica y electrónica de barrido. De esta manera se detectó una elaboración muy estandarizada en la que se aprovecharon instrumentos hechos con rocas volcánicas locales, como la dacita, cuyo sello tecnológico no ha sido reportado hasta el momento en otra colección lapidaria maya.

Smith and Kidder (1951:44) were among the first to highlight pyrite pre-Hispanic mirrors as “marvels of painstaking craftsmanship.” These mirrors present reflective surfaces consisting of 20–50 pyrite tesserae with beveled edges, perfectly cut, and average 2 mm in thickness. The first known examples of mirrors in Mesoamerica were the “Olmec” type—a concave mirror created from a single hematite piece developed during the Middle Preclassic period. Later, in the Classic period, pyrite mosaic mirrors replaced them. Unfortunately, we do not understand the changes from one type to the other. In this work, we present two pyrite mirrors found at the site of Chiapa de Corzo, Chiapas, Mexico, dating around 700–500 b.c., as possible forerunners of Classic pyrite mirrors. Also, we present traceological analysis of their manufacturing process using experimental archaeology and scanning electron microscopy. Based on these examinations, we identify likely materials and techniques employed in crafting them. We posit that production of these mirrors could have been the result of the development of specialized artisans at distinct workshops, increasing the complexity and labor investment in the lapidary objects as prestige goods.

Association of Pulmonary Artery Aneurysm with Ischemic Heart Disease is uncommon, and its surgical management has been rarely described in the literature. Surgical intervention should be individualised according to the coexisting diseases and comorbidities to achieve optimal outcome. We report a case of a 76-year-old man with background history of coronary artery stenting due to ischaemic heart disease. The patient presented with features of coronary compression due to giant pulmonary artery aneurysm. He was operated with replacement of aneurysmal pulmonary trunk with 25 mm Hancock conduit.

In this paper, a new design approach for the six-port (SP) junction is introduced. The proposed design includes a generalized broadband matching and smooth miniaturization scheme and is extendable for any passive multiport structure. A multilayer technology and a microstrip to slot coupling operation are employed for the designed SP, which comprises power divider and three hybrid couplers. The conducted measurements of the constructed SP junctions validates the design approach. Optimal performance of the SP network in terms of miniaturization, bandwidth, and response accuracy were obtained for the 5G low band.

Under Article 41 of the UN Charter, the Security Council has established 31 sanctions regimes since 1966. Sanctions measures encompass a broad range of enforcement actions not involving the use of armed force. The measures have ranged from comprehensive economic and trade sanctions to more targeted measures such as arms embargoes, travel bans, and financial or commodity restrictions. In recent years, there have been increasing numbers of complaints from humanitarian organizations that sanctions cause or exacerbate humanitarian crises. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has estimated that at least 222 million people were experiencing acute food insecurity at the end of 2022, the largest global food crisis in modern history. At the same time, the countries that need the most assistance are often subject to international sanctions regimes. As of March 2023, UN sanctions applied in nine of the top ten operations of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The article is concerned primarily with Maulana Azad's early political and theological writings with a view to understanding his positions on Islam and the non-Islamic religions. It opens with a brief description of his discussion of Mughal history and religious culture, and then notes his portrayal of Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi (d. 1624) as an exemplary political figure, who raised his voice against Akbar's heresy. This portrayal has had a significant historiographical afterlife. Several modern scholars followed Azad's reading. The article asks whether Azad was truly the first to have such a view of the saint, and thereby influenced the modern writings on Mughal India. We will notice that Sirhindi was already portrayed as a political figure in the Mughal-era historical accounts devoted to him. Azad only chose to work within a certain memory of Sirhindi—but why did he choose to use an earlier tradition and not a purely religious interpretive framework of his own for analysing and presenting the saint's position? The article examines Azad's rationale for such a portrayal in light of his political concerns. It then discusses in some depth the theological discourses in his Tazkira and the early issues of Al-Hilāl.

This article takes up the social production of race in nineteenth-century India through picaresque fiction. Through readings of Rudyard Kipling, Dion Boucicault, and W. M. Thackeray, it shows how picaresque form served as a specific mechanism of racial stabilization, a means of producing a consciously stopgap racial binary through the intervention of a third, triangulating racial term: Irishness. Understanding the triangular structure of whiteness’ “shapeshifting” brings into sharper relief the connections between three important scholarly foci regarding race in India: the ambiguous and fluid boundaries of Anglo-Indian whiteness, the belated assignment of “blackness” to native Indian populations, and the constant resignifications of Irish identity that demographic overrepresentation in India entailed. The case study of the picaresque reveals an imperialist culture more strategic and more self-aware about its own racial construction than is sometimes supposed; the genre served as a key means by which nonmetropolitan colonialist Victorians theorized and constructed their own relation to whiteness.

In explaining the “parenting – callous-unemotional traits – antisocial behavior” axis, recent theoretical advances postulate a critical role for affiliative reward. Existing empirical studies focus on early childhood and the appetitive phase of the reward process (i.e. affiliation-seeking behavior) rather than the consummatory phase (i.e. affective rewards). This study focuses on experienced affiliative reward (i.e. companionship, intimacy, affection, and worth) in relation to parents and best friends in early adolescence. The Alabama Parenting Questionnaire, Network of Relationships Inventory, Inventory of Callous and Unemotional Traits, and Youth Self Report were completed by 1132 12-year-olds and analyzed via structural equation models. In this cross-sectional sample, parent-related affiliative reward mediated the path from perceived parenting practices to callousness and further to aggression and rule-breaking. Parent-related affiliative reward was also related to uncaring traits and further to aggression and rule-breaking. In contrast, friend-related affiliative reward was not a mediator in this theoretical causal chain and largely not related to perceived parenting practices or CU traits. Low parent-related experienced affiliative reward is a mechanism through which corporal punishment, poor monitoring, and low involvement translate into callousness, and therefore to aggression and rule-breaking. Friend-related affiliative reward does not yet play a role in early adolescence.

Our knowledge about Cyrenaican horses during the Greek and Roman periods is mainly derived from ancient literary sources. They tell us that horses were bred with distinctive skills in this region and report interesting stories highlighting the participation of Cyrenaican horses in athletic games. The literary data suggests Cyrene is a horse-breeding centre and this paper examines whether these assertions represent a reality, or simply a convention. This study investigates and analyses other locally related archaeological data, including epigraphy documents published by the digital corpora of IGCyr and IRCyr. Although most of the inscriptions in these corpora are published, little attention has been given to horses. The adapted approach here aims to build up a picture about horses using local evidence, with a focus on the linguistic indications of equestrian practice at Cyrenaica and the use of horse-related terms in nomenclature. Interestingly, the regional textual and archaeological data provide us with a similar picture to that presented by the literary references regarding horse breeding in Cyrenaica, charioteer training and their contribution to overseas Greek and Roman sport.

Fetal sex contributes to the determination of obstetric outcome, as pregnancies carrying male babies seem to have an increased risk of maternal-fetal complications. Most studies have been conducted on singleton pregnancies, whereas less evidence is available for twins. A 10-year retrospective observational study was conducted on a cohort of 1180 women with twin pregnancy delivered at a single tertiary hospital. Clinical data on maternal characteristics, and obstetric and neonatal outcomes were collected, and the analysis was performed on monochorionic (MC) and dichorionic (DC) diamniotic twins separately. The group of DC twins included 837 cases, and those conceived by assisted reproductive technologies (ART) were more likely to have one or both female fetuses rather than males. The incidence of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP) was higher in same-sex pairs than in opposite-sex pairs. No differences were found regarding other obstetric and neonatal outcomes among the three sex-pairing groups. The MC twins group included 228 cases, and in female-carrying pregnancies a higher incidence of gestational diabetes (GDM) was observed compared to the male group. Furthermore, male pairs had significantly lower Apgar scores than females. Fetal sex seems to have a mild effect in twins compared to singleton pregnancies, suggesting a more complex set of factors contributing to pregnancy outcome in multiple pregnancies. However, we observed a higher incidence of HDP among same-sex DC pairs, a higher rate of GDM among MC female-female pairs, and a worse adaptation to extrauterine life among male-male pairs in MC twins.

Focusing on a period of social shift, from the Late Iron Age to the early Roman period (100 b.c.e.–c.e. 200), this paper examines how the value of juvenile (under 13-year-old) bodies changed. In exploring the fluctuation in burial numbers alongside the altering forms of juvenile graves, the paper details the ways in which children (1- to 12-year-olds) and infants (younger than 1 year in age) were identified in death, as well as the longevity of these identifications. It is argued that juveniles are less common than they should be in the funerary record. Given that this relative absence of juvenile burial was clearly socially mandated, the emphasis here is on better contextualising and interrogating the sporadic presence and deposition of such burials.

Slate disks have been reported from various excavations in the Maya Highlands. These artifacts have typically been described as supports or backings for iron-ore and pyrite mirrors. A number of these objects have been recovered in context at Kaminaljuyu, Guatemala. Whenever objects with reflective surfaces are identified in the field, they tend to be interpreted as mirrors, but they may have been worn as insignia on clothing. Recent finds at Kaminaljuyu, such as special deposits associated with Ballcourt B, suggest the use of reflective objects as part of the ballgame player's paraphernalia. The ballgame was an important ritual practice at Kaminaljuyu, as exemplified by the 13 ballcourts reported at the site. Archaeological evidence for this new interpretation will be presented, as well as a review of other examples excavated throughout the highlands, as part of an exploration of the exchange networks connected to regional trade in these exotic goods.

Although iron-ore mirrors are commonly found in the Maya area, very few workshops are known to date. Cancuen, Guatemala, is one of the few sites to show evidence of iron-ore production during the Late Classic (a.d. 600–800). This article reviews all the available data on this material in Cancuen in light of the recent excavations, and, by combining spatial and technological analysis, proposes to shed new light on the spatial organization of this production. By comparing the composition and the social context of production in Cancuen with that of Aguateca (Inomata and Eberl 2014), we suggest that there was a division of tasks between sites in which Cancuen's artisans were involved in the first stage of the production of luxury goods, whereas other stages, such as the arrangement of the tesserae on the supports and their repolishing, were more socially invested and made by elite artists at the recipient sites.

Archaeologists working in eastern North America typically refer to precontact and early postcontact Native American maize-based agriculture as shifting or swidden. Based on a comparison with European agriculture, it is generally posited that the lack of plows, draft animals, and animal manure fertilization resulted in the rapid depletion of soil nitrogen. This required Indigenous farmers to move their fields frequently. In Northern Iroquoia, depletion of soil fertility is frequently cited as one reason why villages were moved to new locations every 20 to 40 years. Recent analysis of δ15N ratios of maize macrobotanical remains from Northern Iroquoia, however, suggests that Iroquoian farmers were able to maintain soil nitrogen in their maize fields. An expanded analysis of maize kernel δ15N ratios from three ancestral Mohawk villages indicates that farmers from those villages maintained soil nitrogen throughout the occupational spans of their villages. It further suggests that precontact Iroquoian agronomy was consistent with contemporary conservation agriculture practices.

In this paper, we mainly investigate the well-posedness of the four-order degenerate differential equation ($P_4$): $(Mu)''''(t) + \alpha (Lu)'''(t) + (Lu)''(t)$ $=\beta Au(t) + \gamma Bu'(t) + Gu'_t + Fu_t + f(t),\,( t\in [0,\,2\pi ])$ in periodic Lebesgue–Bochner spaces $L^p(\mathbb {T}; X)$ and periodic Besov spaces $B_{p,q}^s\;(\mathbb {T}; X)$, where $A$, $B$, $L$ and $M$ are closed linear operators on a Banach space $X$ such that $D(A)\cap D(B)\subset D(M)\cap D(L)$ and $\alpha,\,\beta,\,\gamma \in \mathbb {C}$, $G$ and $F$ are bounded linear operators from $L^p([-2\pi,\,0];X)$ (respectively $B_{p,q}^s([-2\pi,\,0];X)$) into $X$, $u_t(\cdot ) = u(t+\cdot )$ and $u'_t(\cdot ) = u'(t+\cdot )$ are defined on $[-2\pi,\,0]$ for $t\in [0,\, 2\pi ]$. We completely characterize the well-posedness of ($P_4$) in the above two function spaces by using known operator-valued Fourier multiplier theorems.

The writings of Muhammad Siddiq Hasan well exemplify the argument of Francis Robinson's influential article on vernacular print publications that furthered a Protestant Reformation-like democratising of sacred knowledge. Both the number of his publications, and the personal empowerment enjoined by his Ahl-i Hadith jurisprudence, make him, in fact, an ideal exemplar of this kind of publication. He also, however, stands apart. First, his ‘vernacular’ included not only Urdu, but also Arabic and Persian. Second, beyond democratisation, print simultaneously enhanced scholarly authority, and it did so to an unusual extent for Siddiq Hasan because of his pioneering reach beyond India to the Ottoman lands, with Arabic works published and distributed from cities like Istanbul and Cairo. Third, Siddiq Hasan's publications served a diversity of purposes, like Persian publications that enhanced his princely status, and Arabic publications that not only forged transnational networks of like-minded scholars but also, in other hands, served modernist theologians and innovative literary scholars. Finally, in the end, the potential of print turned on him as officials used his publications to allege seditious intent. That denouement aside, the life of Siddiq Hasan's print publication points to a moment of rich intellectual life in the context of colonial rule, taking Robinson's insights on the potential of publication in unexpected directions.