In early 1992 we identified an outbreak of cryptosporidiosis in Oregon and sought to identify and control its source. We used a series of studies to identify risk factors for illness : (i) a case-control study among employees of a long-term-care facility (LTCF); (ii) a matched case-control study of the general community; (iii) a cohort study of wedding attendees; and (iv) a cross-sectional survey of the general community. Drinking Talent water was associated with illness in the LTCF (OR = 22·7, 95% CI = 2·7–1009·0), and in the community (matched OR = 9·5, 95% CI 2·3–84·1). Drinking Talent water was associated with illness only among non-Talent residents who attended the wedding (P < 0·001) and in the community (RR = 6·5, 95% CI 3·3–12·9). The outbreak was caused by contaminated municipal water from Talent in the absence of a discernible outbreak among Talent residents, suggesting persons exposed to contaminated water may develop immunity to cryptosporidiosis.

The local bonding environments in silicon oxycarbide thin films with different amounts of carbon were analyzed using the complementary optical techniques of Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and Raman spectroscopies. Film formation was accomplished by low-temperature (250°C), plasma-enhanced CVD using SiH4, CH4 and O2 as the source gases. Control samples were also deposited using only SiH4 and CH4, and SiH4 and O2 source gases. The films were then subjected to rapid thermal annealing at 800, 900 and 1100 °C for 90 seconds. Results showed that carbon incorporation into the oxide hinders stoichiometric SiO2 formation upon annealing at 800 and 900 °C. Annealing at 1100 °C produced films which showed stoichiometric SiO2 formation. Phase separation into nano-crystalline silicon (<5 nm) and a mixture of amorphous silicon carbide and silicon oxide was also observed upon annealing, with crystallite size decreasing as the carbon content of the films was increased.

Photoluminescence (PL) stability of silicon suboxide (SiOx, 0<x<l.5) under light soaking and thermal processing has been investigated. As the oxygen content increases, the PL peak position shifts to the visible, with improved stability against measurement temperature and light soaking. With increasing annealing temperature, the PL spectra shifted to infrared, characteristic of a- Si:H. With annealing above 550 °C, visible PL is lost while infrared PL can be recovered by rehydrogenation of Si-dangling bond defects. Infrared absorption, transmission electron microscopy, visible absorption, and photocurrent indicate a disproportionation reaction resulting in a-Si phase segregation.

Tacitus is the only ancient writer to give any information about the Agri Decumates, or indeed even to mention them. Thus, all that we know of them is confined to the period c.a.d. 70-98. In the Germania, dated firmly to the latter year, Tacitus tells us that the occupants of the Decumates agri could hardly count as Germans. They were rather immigrants of fairly recent origin drawn from the least substantial groups among the Gauls, who, through want, had taken up possession of this risky territory. More recently, however, a defensive line had been drawn, garrisons sent in and the area had become a pocket of imperial security and a part of the province (of Upper Germany).

Corstopitum has almost indelibly entered the public mind as the ancient name for the Roman site to the west of Corbridge. This, now called Corchester, lies on high ground overlooking the north bank of the Tyne, just to the east of its small tributary, Cor Burn, and some half-mile from modern Corbridge. The first element of the modern name is clearly taken from Corchester and Cor Burn, while the second element equally clearly refers to the present bridging point across the Tyne. Modern Corbridge owes its existence to the bridge forming a link with the lands north and south of the river. In Roman times the road was even more important. It ran across the Tyne at a ford, later a bridge, near the junction of Cor Burn with the river, to reach Corchester on its western side. The south abutment of the Roman bridge and some of the piers can still be seen when the river is running low.

Antoninus ‘deprived the Brigantes in Britain of most of their territory, because they too (besides the Moors in North Africa) had entered on a war of aggression by invading the Genourian part, (which is inhabited by) subjects of the Romans’.

‘et simul classis secunda tempestate ac fama Trucculensem portum tenuit, unde proximo Britanniae latere praelecto omnis redierat’.

The Hellenistic epigrammatist does not break off at this point, but proceeds to state that Pisistratus collected the corpus of the songs of Homer—an appropriate tribute, in his view, to a ‘golden scion of Athens if, as is claimed, we Athenians founded Smyrna’ (Smyrna was commonly thought to be the native town of Homer). The ‘Pisistratid recension’ of Homer is an extremely vexed and unfashionable question in Homeric criticism and does not concern us here. More to the present point is the elementary logical mistake which is made in the lines which are quoted above. Pisistratus had three periods of tyranny, and is said to have been driven out three times, and to have been restored (or perhaps to have come to power) three times. The error is a transparent one, common in juvenile puzzles. Pisistratus died naturally in old age at the end of his third spell of power (probably 528/7 B.C.) and so was exiled only twice. The final exile of his son Hippias (511/10) would be the third occasion completing the chain of coup and expulsion

Claudius's stay of sixteen days in Britain preceded one of the most famous triumphal celebrations in the history of the early Roman Empire. The emperor's own personal involvement in the conquest of Britain in A.d. 43 was negligible, but that he took the trouble to visit the new province and to receive the submission of eleven kings of Britannia is much to his credit. Claudius is known to have brought with him a great retinue of Roman senators, the Praetorian Guard, and perhaps also a detachment of Legio VIII, to overawe the defeated Britons. Four legions had been enough to crush them, yet here was the emperor with further reinforcements, including his crack Praetorians.