Search results for "EPP"
showing 10 items of 427 documents
Short-term occupations at high elevation during the Middle Paleolithic at Kalavan 2 (Republic of Armenia).
2021
The Armenian highlands encompasses rugged and environmentally diverse landscapes and is characterized by a mosaic of distinct ecological niches and large temperature gradients. Strong seasonal fluctuations in resource availability along topographic gradients likely prompted Pleistocene hominin groups to adapt by adjusting their mobility strategies. However, the role that elevated landscapes played in hunter-gatherer settlement systems during the Late Pleistocene (Middle Palaeolithic [MP]) remains poorly understood. At 1640 m above sea level, the MP site of Kalavan 2 (Armenia) is ideally positioned for testing hypotheses involving elevation-dependent seasonal mobility and subsistence strateg…
Climate and land-use changes as determinants of lesser kestrel Falco naumanni abundance in Mediterranean cereal steppes (Sicily)
2010
Monitoring of lesser kestrels Falco naumanni is necessary to promote conservation of this vulnerable species. To this end, 35 colonies of this species located in the NNW and SE of Sicily were monitored from 2003 to 2009. Counts of the active colonies and resident pairs were modelled by loglinear Poisson regressions to assess population trends over the study period. Afterwards, a GLM with an analysis of covariance design and a backward removal stepwise regression was performed to relate the observed trend to local- or global-scale climatic variation and to local land-use changes. Colony counts provided a better fit to the loglinear models than pair counts. Loglinear models separated the incr…
Kielitutkinto porttina Suomeen ja astinkivenä suomen kieleen
2017
Artikkelissa tarkastellaan inkerilaisten paluumuuttajien kasityksia kielitutkinnosta, joka heidan oli suoritettava saadakseen oleskeluluvan Suomeen niin sanotulla inkerilaisstatuksella. Kielitutkinto oli kaytossa vuosina 2003–2016. Tarkastelun kohteena ovat myos taman kielitutkinnon vaikutukset kielenopiskeluun. Aineistona ovat paluumuuttovalmennukseen osallistuneiden, tutkintoon valmistautuneiden henkiloiden (n = 97) vastaukset kyselyyn, jonka he tekivat ennen kielitutkinnon suorittamista. Aineistoa tarkastellaan sisallonanalyysin keinoin. Aineiston perusteella kielenoppijat tiesivat tutkinnon rakenteesta ja sen suorittamisesta tietokoneella. Suorittajat olivat hyvin tietoisia myos siita, …
Charles Nodier, Trilogie écossaise
2013
Charles Nodier’s summer ambulations through Scotland in 1821 were to spawn a genre: the romantic travelogue. The reader is invited on a journey through age-old legends and oneiric cartography, through the fogs of ancient Caledonia and modern Scotland, and into the land of goblins and fairies.
A new fuzzy robust dynamic controller for autonomous vehicles with nonholonomic constraints
2005
Abstract In this paper a novel algorithm with a dynamic fuzzy controller applied to the control of trajectory of vehicles with two independent wheels is proposed. An automatic control of trajectory of a vehicle can behave in a not efficient way. It is necessary to consider the friction of the actuators and possible perturbations coming from the outside environment, as for instance the variable characteristics of the ground where the vehicle moves. These perturbations, which depend also on the contact between the wheel and the ground, involve violations of nonholonomic constraints. Thus it is necessary to compensate for these perturbations to obtain a robust control system. The controller sy…
The beaker phenomenon and the Genomic transformations of Northwest Europe
2018
Bell Beaker pottery spread across western and central Europe beginning around 2750 BCE before disappearing between 2200–1800 BCE. The mechanism of its expansion is a topic of long-standing debate, with support for both cultural diffusion and human migration. We present new genome-wide ancient DNA data from 170 Neolithic, Copper Age and Bronze Age Europeans, including 100 Beaker-associated individuals. In contrast to the Corded Ware Complex, which has previously been identified as arriving in central Europe following migration from the east, we observe limited genetic affinity between Iberian and central European Beaker Complex-associated individuals, and thus exclude migration as a signific…
Reactive stepping behaviour in response to forward loss of balance predicts future falls in community-dwelling older adults.
2013
Background: a fall occurs when an individual experiences a loss of balance from which they are unable to recover. Assessment of balance recovery ability in older adults may therefore help to identify individuals at risk of falls. The purpose of this 12-month prospective study was to assess whether the ability to recover from a forward loss of balance with a single step across a range of lean magnitudes was predictive of falls. Methods: two hundred and one community-dwelling older adults, aged 65–90 years, underwent baseline testing of sensorimotor function and balance recovery ability followed by 12-month prospective falls evaluation. Balance recovery ability was defined by whether particip…
Massive migration from the steppe was a source for Indo-European languages in Europe
2015
We generated genome-wide data from 69 Europeans who lived between 8,000-3,000 years ago by enriching ancient DNA libraries for a target set of almost four hundred thousand polymorphisms. Enrichment of these positions decreases the sequencing required for genome-wide ancient DNA analysis by a median of around 250-fold, allowing us to study an order of magnitude more individuals than previous studies and to obtain new insights about the past. We show that the populations of western and far eastern Europe followed opposite trajectories between 8,000-5,000 years ago. At the beginning of the Neolithic period in Europe, ~8,000-7,000 years ago, closely related groups of early farmers appeared in G…
Living on the edge: assessing the extinction risk of critically endangered Bonelli’s eagle in Italy
2012
Background: The population of Bonelli’s eagle (Aquila fasciata) has declined drastically throughout its European range due to habitat degradation and unnatural elevated mortality. There are less than 1500 breeding pairs accounted for in Europe, and the species is currently catalogued as Critically Endangered in Italy, where the 22 territories of Sicily, represent nearly 95% of the entire Italian population. However, despite national and European conservation concerns, the species currently lacks a specific conservation plan, and no previous attempts to estimate the risk of extinction have been made. Methodology/Principal Findings: We incorporated the most updated demographic information ava…
Protective Effects of Fruits and Vegetables against In Vivo Clastogenicity of Cyclophosphamide or Benzo[a]pyrene in Mice
1998
Seven fruits and 10 vegetables commonly consumed in Germany were investigated for their anticlastogenic potencies against cyclophosphamide (CP) and benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) in the in vivo mouse bone marrow micronucleus assay. We detected protective effects in 76.5% and 70.6% of the samples, respectively, and more or less distinct quantitative differences between the various plant materials and the two clastogens investigated. With respect to CP, moderate activities were exerted by sweet cherries, strawberries, cucumber, radish and tomatoes, average activities by bananas, oranges, peaches, asparagus and red beets and strong activities by yellow red peppers and especially spinach. Apples (cultiva…