The consolidation of village life in the southern Andes implied profound transformations in human lifeways and in people’s relationships with the environment, plants, and animals. Contributions from archaeological sciences have the potential to shed light on these transformations, particularly by providing new information about patterns of food production and consumption. In this article, we present the first results of organic residue analysis on ceramic containers of early village societies of northwestern Argentina (La Ciénega Valley, AD 200–600) by gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS). We tested previous characterizations of La Ciénega village’s subsistence strategies through the lens of absorbed organic residues in pottery. Preliminary evidence indicates a predominance of biomarkers associated with vegetable products in the vessels and a lower contribution of animal fats, suggesting a strong reliance on plant-based foods among early villager groups in La Ciénega settlements.

Cable-driven snake-like robots have been widely applied in various fields. However, some of these robots may have poor operational precision and payload capacity. Moreover, an excessive number of motors would increase the complexity of motion control, and the configuration of driving cables at the distal joints is severely limited by the drive system. Therefore, this study introduces a driving model of cable-driven rolling joints through coordinate-based analysis, and proposes a novel two-degree-of-freedom planar synergy drive system to enable variable curvature at the distal joints. A prototype was designed based on the proposed system, which was put into a precision experiment. Two quantifiable parameters were proposed to demonstrate the advantages of the proposed system. The distal joint precision and the driving model precision were employed as indicators to quantify the performance of the prototype. The maximum mean absolute error of the two indicators was 1.52% and 1.88$^{\circ }$, respectively, and the maximum root mean square error was 1.66% and 2.02$^{\circ }$, respectively. The experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of our approach, which offers increased flexibility in the cable configuration at the distal joints.

Let $G = K \rtimes \langle t \rangle $ be a finitely generated group where K is abelian and $\langle t\rangle$ is the infinite cyclic group. Let R be a finite symmetric subset of K such that $S = \{ (r,1),(0,t^{\pm 1}) \mid r \in R \}$ is a generating set of G. We prove that the spherical conjugacy ratio, and hence the conjugacy ratio, of G with respect to S is 0 unless G is virtually abelian, confirming a conjecture of Ciobanu, Cox and Martino in this case. We also show that the Baumslag–Solitar group $\mathrm{BS}(1,k)$, $k\geq 2$, has a one-sided Følner sequence F such that the conjugacy ratio with respect to F is non-zero, even though $\mathrm{BS}(1,k)$ is not virtually abelian. This is in contrast to two-sided Følner sequences, where Tointon showed that the conjugacy ratio with respect to a two-sided Følner sequence is positive if and only if the group is virtually abelian.

This article presents a dictionary-based study of vowel reduction and preservation in British English in initial pretonic position and intertonic position. The different variables which have been claimed to influence those processes are tested on a data set of over 4,500 words using regression analyses. Our results confirm the significant effects of syllable structure, position of the vowel, word frequency and opaque prefixation. They also provide weak evidence for other factors such as vowel features and the existence of a base in which the vowel bears a stress, although no clear effects of word segmentability could be found. We also report new findings, as we find that foreign words reduce less than non-foreign words; we find that [+back] vowels reduce less than [−back] vowels in initial pretonic position; and we find a difference in behaviour for vowels followed by /sC/ clusters between non-derived words and stress-shifted derivatives.

Visual Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (vSLAM) is essentially limited by the static world assumption, which makes its application in dynamic environments challenging. This paper proposes a robust vSLAM system, RFN-SLAM, which is based on ORB-SLAM3 and does not require preset dynamic labels and weighted features to process dynamic scenes. In the feature extraction stage, an enhanced efficient binary image BAD descriptor is used to improve the accuracy of static feature point matching. Through the improved RT-DETR target detection network and FAST-SAM instance segmentation network, RFN-SLAM obtains semantic information and uses a novel dynamic box detection algorithm to identify and eliminate the feature points of dynamic objects. When optimizing the pose, the static feature points are weighted according to the dynamic information, which significantly reduces the mismatch and improves the accuracy of positioning. Meanwhile, 3D rendering of the neural radiation field is used to remove dynamic objects and render them. Experiments were conducted on the TUM RGB-D dataset, Bonn dataset, and self-collected dataset. The results show that in terms of positioning accuracy, RFN-SLAM significantly outperforms ORB-SLAM3 in dynamic environments. It also achieves more accurate positioning than other advanced dynamic SLAM methods and successfully realizes accurate 3D reconstruction of static scenes. In addition, on the premise of ensuring accuracy, the real-time performance of RFN-SLAM is effectively guaranteed.

Bio-inspiration can be used to improve the aerodynamic performance of commercial multirotor propellers. In the present study, insect wings are used as a source of inspiration, and the effects of inspiration from insect’s wing shape on the propeller performance–, especially this effect on parameters like thrust, torque, and propeller efficiency, are investigated. Six insect species have been selected as inspiration: Hemiptera, Orthoptera, Neuroptera, Mantodea, Odonata and Hymenoptera. The analyses have been done using the numerical simulation of flow and the moving reference frame (MRF) method alongside the SST k-ω turbulence model. The simulations were carried out over a range of rotational speeds, varying from 4,000 to 8,000 rpm, for propellers with a diameter of 0.24 m. All propellers utilised the Eppler E63 airfoil. To ensure the accuracy of the present numerical simulation results, validation was done by comparing them with experimental data from the DJI Phantom-3 propeller. The results of validation showed significant agreement with the experimental data. The results indicated that the insect-inspired propellers generate higher thrust compared to conventional propellers. Additionally, for a constant thrust force, the inspired propellers exhibit lower rotational speeds. Moreover, in terms of thrust, the Hemiptera insect-inspired propeller outperforms the DJI Phantom-3 propeller, achieving a notable average improvement of 34.182%.

A key issue in the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments is jurisdiction, with a distinction drawn between ‘direct’ jurisdictional rules, which are applied by the court of origin at the time of initial adjudication, and ‘indirect’ rules applied by a court at the recognition and enforcement stage. While some commentators and national laws suggest that no jurisdictional ‘gap’ should exist between direct and indirect rules, in this article it is contended that, outside the context of a federal system or international convention with uniform rules, no compelling justification exists for eliminating the gap.

It is well-established that adolescents’ temperament trajectories predict future psychopathology. Less well understood is how temperament traits co-develop from adolescence to young adulthood. We characterized how youths’ trajectories of effortful control, frustration, affiliation, and shyness formed multi-trajectory groups and examined their associations with adulthood psychopathology and polygenic risk scores (PRS). Participants were drawn from a larger longitudinal cohort (N = 1412). Effortful control, frustration, affiliation, and shyness were measured four times from ages 10-23. Adulthood internalizing and externalizing problems were measured at ages 24–27. PRS for externalizing problems and major depressive disorder were calculated. Group-based multi-trajectory analyses showed that a five-group model fit best, including “high-risk” on all temperament traits, “undercontrolled” and exuberant, “low-risk” on all traits, “overcontrolled” and inhibited, and “low affiliation” groups that differed on both the levels and slopes of temperament traits over time. The undercontrolled group showed the highest, and overcontrolled the lowest, externalizing PRS scores. The high-risk group showed heightened scores on the depression PRS. We found specific linkages between the high-risk group and withdrawn/depressed symptoms and the high-risk and undercontrolled groups with externalizing problems. Findings shed light on developmental patterns of temperament in adolescence-to-adulthood and unique combinations of temperament trajectories with specific linkages to etiologic factors and psychopathology.

Cellular structures provide lightweight, high-strength and excellent structural stability due to their repetitive modular unit design. By integrating cutting and folding Kirigami techniques with composite and plastic substrates, cellular configurations can significantly enhance the aero-mechanical performance of wing designs. This innovative structural technology shows great promise for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), enabling flexible control and dynamic flight capabilities to meet varying operational conditions. This study presents an analysis and optimisation of the aeroelastic behaviour of cellular Kirigami wingbox (CKW) structures for multifunctional operations of micro-UAV wings to ensure stability and resilience in various dynamic flight conditions. The effect of thickness and internal cell angle of the cellular structure on static and dynamic aeroelastic behaviour is assessed through finite element analysis. By incorporating Bayesian optimisation, the multi-disciplinary design space of the cellular UAV wings has been efficiently explored to achieve optimal structural performance for adaptive UAV wings. The results show that Bayesian optimisation effectively identifies optimal design parameters for different multi-objective design weights, which improves the aeroelastic performance of the CKW structure.

In this paper I examine what I call an Afrogothic aesthetic inherited from Black occult traditions, the Harlem Renaissance and the Negritude movement. I argue that it is useful to read Afrogothicism through the lens of Black spirituality and the blues instead of the legacy of slavery through which it has generally been studied, as this evokes Richard Hurd’s argument of Gothicism partaking of the “terrible sublime.” Ultimately, I argue that the avant-garde American poetry movements of the 1950s develop out of this Afrogothic poetic aesthetic that begins with Black poets and novelists.