Sudden annual rises in radiocarbon concentration have proven to be valuable assets for achieving exact-year calibration of radiocarbon measurements. These extremely precise calibrations have usually been obtained through the use of classical χ2 tests in conjunction with a local calibration curve of single-year resolution encompassing a rapid change in radiocarbon levels. As the latest Northern Hemisphere calibration curve, IntCal20, exhibits single-year resolution over the last 5000 years, in this study we investigate the possibility of performing calibration of radiocarbon dates using the classical χ2 test and achieving high-precision dating more extensively, examining scenarios without the aid of such abrupt changes in radiocarbon concentration. In order to perform a broad analysis, we simulated 171 sets of radiocarbon measurements over the last two millennia, with different set lengths and sample spacings, and tested the effectiveness of the χ2 test compared to the most commonly used Bayesian wiggle-matching technique for temporally ordered sequences of samples such as tree-rings sequences, the OxCal D_Sequence. The D_Sequence always produces a date range, albeit in certain cases very narrow; the χ2 test proves to be a viable alternative to Bayesian wiggle-matching, as it achieves calibrations of comparable precision, providing also a highest-likelihood estimate within the uncertainty range.

This article examines Ottoman–Portuguese commercial agreements in Basra during the century after 1622 and the legal ambiguities that they engendered. On two separate occasions, the Portuguese established a factory in Basra: first in 1624 during the reign of the Afrāsiāb pasha (who governed in the name of the Ottomans from 1612 to 1667) and once again in 1690 when the city was ruled again by Ottoman governors (Ottoman direct rule was restored in 1667). Yet there were myriad issues that supplied cause for disputation between the two parties, not least the legal status of the factory itself. On the face of it, both the Portuguese and the Ottoman functionaries in Basra operated according to divergent models of extraterritorial trading privileges. After a century of expansion on the coasts of Africa and the Indian Ocean, the Portuguese had grown accustomed to the model of the factory (feitoria), in both those places in which the Portuguese governed in their own name and those in which they traded at the sufferance of African and Asian rulers. On the other hand, over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Ottomans had granted so-called capitulations to European powers in the Mediterranean, which were governed by norms that were distinct from the factory model of Africa and Asia. Basra brought these two models into interaction and disrupted the straightforward implementation of either model. Frequent moments of misunderstanding and manoeuvring between the two sides were the result.

Recent governmental figures have demonstrated that the number of students taking an examination in A-Level Music across England has fallen by 41% in eleven years (Ofqual, 2023a). Furthermore, areas with lower POLAR ratings (i.e. historical rates of participation in higher education) and greater levels of deprivation correlate with lower uptake of A-Level Music (Whittaker et al., 2019). These findings have profound implications for equitable access to music education, especially at advanced levels. Against this challenging background, Sandbach School, the Love Music Trust and the Royal Northern College of Music have sought to respond by creating a new partnership approach to A-Level Music. Since September 2019, this specialist course has drawn students together from all over Cheshire whose access to A-Level Music has been geographically limited. Specifically aiming to facilitate progression into higher education, this course provides the young musicians with musical enrichment activities that are additional to the core curriculum, including performance opportunities, advanced musicianship classes, chamber music and instrumental tuition at the Royal Northern College of Music. This article presents a critical discourse analysis of data collected from these students and their teachers, contextualising their experiences within a broader analysis of recent socio-cultural trends and the associated political climate that has impacted on the provision of music education within English schools. Findings point to an important rearticulation of the meaning of ‘Music Hub’, where putting schools at the centre and enriching this provision through strategic partnerships with local ensembles, music services and higher education institutions can build musical cultures and communities that better enable equitable access to high-level music education and progression pathways into higher education.

Mehmed Ziya, an Ottoman Muslim educator and intellectual, published an art historical treatise on the Chora Monastery/Kariye Mosque in Istanbul in 1910. This was largely a translation of three articles by the French Byzantinist Charles Diehl previously published in Études byzantines and in Le Journal des savants. Through his book, Mehmed Ziya attempted to acquaint the Ottoman Turks with this Byzantine monument, especially its rich decorations. Two letters appended in the book reveal his efforts to raise awareness among the youth in this respect, and to mobilize the Ottoman authorities regarding the protection and promotion of the Chora monastery more particularly.

Ocean radiocarbon (14C) is a proxy for air-sea exchange, vertical and horizontal mixing, and water mass identification. Here, we present five pre- to post-bomb coral Δ14C records from West Flower Garden Bank and Santiaguillo reefs in the Gulf of Mexico, Boca de Medio, and Isla Tortuga near the Cariaco Basin north of Venezuela. To assess basin-wide Δ14C variability, we compiled the Atlantic Ocean reef-building surface coral Δ14C records (24 corals and 28 data sets in total) with these new records. Cumulatively, the Δ14C records, on their independent age models, reveal the onset of post-bomb Δ14C trends in 1958 ±1 to 2 years. A general decrease in maximum Δ14C values occurs with decreasing latitude reflecting the balance between air-sea gas exchange and surface water residence time, vertical mixing, and horizontal advection. A slightly larger atmospheric imprint in the northern sites and relatively greater vertical mixing and/or advection of low-14C waters influence the southern Caribbean and eastern Atlantic sites. The eastern Atlantic sites, due to upwelling, have the lowest post-bomb Δ14C values. Equatorial currents from the eastern Atlantic transport low Δ14C water towards the western South Atlantic and southern Caribbean sites. Decadal Δ14C averages for the pre-bomb interval (1750–1949) for the low latitude western Atlantic are relatively constant within analytical (3–5‰) and chronological uncertainties (∼1–2 years) due to mixing and air-sea exchange. The compiled Δ14C records provide updated regional marine Δ14C values for marine reservoir corrections.

The 1970s saw the rise of two unrelated and yet affine historical concepts: Late Antiquity (Brown 1971) and Post-Modernism (Lyotard 1979). It is almost as if the breakdown of Antiquity in the way it had been traditionally understood, clearly delineated from the Middle Ages and the Byzantine Empire, heralded the dissolution of the Modern Western self-understanding and everything that went with it. For Byzantine studies, it came with a flora of textual rediscoveries; but the gate that had opened onto the spiritual meadows of Late Antiquity could also be used to approach and contextualize Islam in a new way.

Dietary guidelines often combine plant and animal protein intake recommendations, yet evidence suggests they may have distinct associations with health. This study aimed to examine relationships between animal and plant protein intake, using different classification approaches, and diet quality and obesity. Plant and animal protein contents of foods reported by 7637 participants (≥ 19 years) during the 2011–2012 National Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey were estimated using Australian food composition databases. Usual animal, plant and total protein intakes were estimated using Multiple Source Methods. Diet quality was assessed using the 2013-Dietary Guidelines Index (DGI), and obesity measures included BMI and waist circumference (WC). Multiple linear and logistic regressions were performed and adjusted for potential confounders. Plant and animal protein intakes were positively associated with DGI scores (plant protein: men, β = 0·74 (95 % CI: 0·64, 0·85); women, β = 0·78 (0·67, 0·89); animal protein: men, β = 0·15 (0·12, 0·18); women, β = 0·26 (0·22, 0·29)). These associations were consistent when examining high-quality plant protein (high-protein-containing plant-based foods with comparable nutritional values to animal proteins) and non-dairy animal protein intakes. Plant protein intake was inversely associated with BMI and WC in men but not women. Animal protein intake was positively associated with BMI in both sexes and WC in men only. Men’s plant protein intake was inversely associated with obesity (OR = 0·97 (0·96, 0·99)) and central obesity (OR = 0·97 (0·95, 0·98)). Further studies are needed to examine the influence of different animal protein sources by accounting for energy intake and sex-specific associations.

This paper presents the design and implementation of a novel single-fed microstrip hexagonal patch antenna, which operates on 2.4 GHz by employing three-dimensional (3D) printing technologies for circular polarization (CP) with wide 3 dB beamwidth. It was fabricated using a thermoplastic polymer-based material through a 3D printer and subsequently coated with copper. The design of the antenna consists of identical hexagonal slots in mesh grid fashion. These slots are filled with air and perturbations are introduced, by partially filling them with rectangular chunks of the polymer. This produces asymmetry in the substrate layer which leads to the splitting of the degenerate modes of the patch antenna, thus producing CP waves. The presence of volume fraction of air influences the effective permittivity and as a result the axial ratio beamwidth enhances to 176∘. The substrate was created as a double layer, lightweight unit using fused deposition modeling. A copper layer was then added to the underside of the lower substrate to serve as ground. The 3D gain of the antenna is found to be 7.01 dB. The proposed low-profile antenna has the potential to be incorporated in IoT and smart devices, intelligent transport systems, and GPS tracking.

In 1905, the Afro-British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor published his Twenty-Four Negro Melodies, a set of character pieces that includes arrangements of sixteen African American spirituals for piano solo. Despite this music's lasting popularity, scholars have done little to contextualize Coleridge-Taylor's statement that he wished to create a Black parallel to Brahms's Hungarian Dances or Dvořák's Slavonic Dances; most see the pieces as reflecting the influence of Dvořák. Yet these character pieces diverge from both Dvořák's and Brahms's precedent by including source citations with both melodies and lyrics. Coleridge-Taylor's compositional approach and his use of citations is much closer to Grieg and Stanford—two other role models whom scholars have regularly overlooked. The citations also rebalance the interpretative framework of the character piece as a genre, and, like W. E. B. Du Bois's use of spirituals in The Souls of Black Folk, can support several explanations. On one hand, they provide hidden texts for these instrumental pieces and provide a first line of defense against intentional (and bigoted) misunderstandings of the music. On the other hand, they also act as reference points for readers who want to learn more about the African American spiritual. Coleridge-Taylor's concern with cultural authenticity undoubtedly resulted from his close interactions with American spiritual singers, such as Frederick J. Loudin and Harry T. Burleigh. In this sense, the Negro Melodies served as Coleridge-Taylor's intervention in ongoing debates among Black Americans about the value and legacy of the spiritual.

This article presents a brief historiographical survey of scholarship on the history of science and history of knowledge in Byzantium since the 1920s and proposes several directions for future research. These include the study of instruments; of the language that Byzantine scientific texts, diagrams, and even instruments employ; the study of the involvement of women and of the knowledge created, transferred, and owned by non-elites. Ultimately, the article argues, a critical historiographical approach enables an understanding of the field of Byzantine studies as an element of the global and multidisciplinary systems of historical knowledge, including the history of science and the history of knowledge.

The Cunene region of southern Angola, especially the area around Xangongo, hosts a large number of African baobabs, including several superlative specimens. Our research reports the investigation of the three biggest specimens from Xangongo Grove, named XG-1 (11 stems; circumference 26.34 m), XG-2 (5 stems; 22.70 m) and XG-3 (9 stems; 27.73 m), and of the largest baobab from Xangongo town, named XT-1 (7 stems; 21.02 m). Several wood samples were collected from these four baobabs mainly as cores from trunks and/or primary branches and then radiocarbon-dated by AMS. The two oldest samples were extracted from two primary branches of baobab XG-1. These have practically identical radiocarbon dates of 1822 ± 19 BP and 1822 ± 10 BP, which correspond to identical calibrated ages of 1785 ± 15 and 1785 ± 10 calendar years. The calculated age of baobab XG-1 is 2100 ± 50 years. Thus, XG-1, which is called by the locals “The biggest baobab of Africa”, becomes the oldest living African baobab with accurate dating results. The results indicate ages of 1100 years for baobab XG-2, 850 years for baobab XG-3 and 550 years for baobab XT-1.

This paper explores the Onassis Foundation's transformative impact on C.P. Cavafy's legacy by bridging traditional literary heritage with contemporary digital culture. Through strategic digitization, global events, and social media campaigns, the Foundation has expanded Cavafy's reach, reframing him as both a cultural asset and a networked figure for contemporary audiences. This study examines how an institutional approach shapes perceptions of Cavafy's work, balancing authenticity with celebrity-making, and considers the implications for Modern Greek literature's visibility on the global stage.

We report a set of radiocarbon dating of prehistoric settlements located on the paleolake Baruun Khuree shores in the Gobi-Altai area, southern Mongolia. The obtained series of 11 AMS 14C measurements on charcoal and other charred plant macro-remains can be associated with one of the earliest episodes of the Holocene highly mobile desert-adapted hunter-gatherers activities from the Gobi desert (ca. 11,250–10,500 cal BP). Exploiting a wide range of environments, including dune fields, they are characterized by pottery usage and microblade core technology with wedge-shaped cores as well as osteological materials. These preliminary results are part of a project analyzing the nature of long-lasting prehistoric occupation around Tsakhiurtyn Hundi (Eng. Flint Valley)—one of the most extensive early prehistoric sites of Central Asia owing its name to the presence of abundant flint outcrops, lithic workshops and their innumerable flint artifacts.