We prove that determining the weak saturation number of a host graph $F$ with respect to a pattern graph $H$ is computationally hard, even when $H$ is the triangle. Our main tool establishes a connection between weak saturation and the shellability of simplicial complexes.

The length of time that cemeteries were used provides important insights into the persistence of social identities and how communities situate themselves in the landscape. In Bronze Age Europe, the duration of use of cemeteries is an important line of evidence to assess the role of mortuary practices in a time of social change across the continent. This study presents new dates and a Bayesian model of cremation at a Middle Bronze Age (2000–1500 BCE) cemetery in Transylvania (Romania). The cemetery at Limba-Oarda de Jos-Șesul Orzii is the largest known cemetery associated with the Wietenberg culture in Transylvania during the Middle Bronze Age. Unlike Early Bronze Age cemeteries and other Middle Bronze Age cemeteries elsewhere in the Carpathian Basin where burial activity often continued for over 500 years, the duration of use of Limba-Oarda de Jos-Șesul Orzii was much briefer. The cemetery formed within 160 years; we argue closer to 50–100 years. This use life is similar to the nearby Wietenberg cremation cemetery at Sebeș and stands in contrast to mortuary practices in previous time periods and other contemporaneous regions. The short duration of burial activity, and subsequent abandonment of the site, has ramifications for understanding Middle Bronze Age settlement patterns, mortuary rituals, and the dynamics around emerging inequality in Transylvania and beyond.

This article takes up the notion of ‘difficult heritage’ to explore the management of industrial legacies in eastern Ukraine, with a focus on developments between 2014 and 2022. While acknowledging that industrial heritage is not ‘difficult’ in the same way as inherited sites of genocide or internment, I contend that it too was ‘contested and awkward’, unsettling attempts to rebrand and reimagine the region in line with shifts in national memory politics. As the environmentally damaging infrastructural inheritance of empire, which nevertheless also played a community-shaping role in the local context, industrial legacies were present in the landscape in ‘disruptive ways’, opening up social divisions and exposing cultural fractures. In this article, I explore how local artists and activists responded to the condition of state abandonment of this heritage, developing the analytical category of ‘critical care’ to describe processes of community-led preservation and creative repurposing at this time.

Identifying the causative agents of modified bone surfaces can be challenging, particularly in terrestrial systems where numerous biotic and abiotic factors can produce grooves, divots, and striae. This contribution focusses on fossil vertebrates in the Làng Tráng cave system in Vietnam, which preserves a diverse assemblage of middle Pleistocene mammals, and discusses criteria that can identify the agents responsible for the accumulation and degradation of the fossil accumulation. The Làng Tráng assemblage includes some postcranial elements and rare mandibles and skulls, but is dominated by isolated teeth and bones, particularly those of mid-sized (7–250 kg body weight) mammals. Rare long bone shafts exhibit grooves with U-shaped profiles attributable to the ichnotaxon Machichnus bohemicus. In contrast, flat-bottomed grooves attributable to M. multilineatus are exceptionally abundant. The size and shape of these traces are consistent with gnawing by moderate-sized to porcupines such as Atherurus macrourus and Hystrix kiangsenensis, both of which are represented in the Làng Tráng fauna. Porcupines are common contributors to cave faunas in Southeast Asia. The roots of most teeth exhibit moderate to severe biogenic modification, which resulted in common planar facets in some cases and reduction of the root bone to pyramidal wedges in others. The Làng Tráng cave system is unusual in that porcupines did not just contribute to the fauna; they were the dominant taphonomic factor in the accumulation and subsequent biogenic alteration/degradation of bone in these caves. Faceted and wedged roots are herein proposed as diagnostic attributes of porcupine-generated vertebrate bone accumulations.

The right to roam – balancing inclusion and enclosure. In Norway, the right to roam is an old custom – a right to traverse and gather berries, herbs and firewood on uncultivated lands – dating back to the Viking Age. In 1957, this right was included in Norwegian laws, in the Outdoor Life Act (Friluftslova). The law transformed agrarian lands into areas for outdoor life and recreation, primarily walking and hiking. However, due to modernisation, the activities performed today are very different than those in the 1950s, involving many sorts of technical devices and installations, commercial activities and a different landscape. The law was a manifestation of the Norwegian outfields as a commons, but what is a commons for some can be an enclosure for others. This is the topic of this article: how the right to roam includes many and much but represents encroachment, displacements and enclosures and has created crowding, natural wear and tear and urges for management regimes. The article describes this as a balance between inclusion and enclosure. The article has two major parts: one presenting the academic discussion about inclusion and enclosure, the other discussing the implementation of the principle in Norway in light of this theory.

Blockchain, an emerging technology exhibiting swift growth, significantly bolsters transparency within a given supply chain, enabling secure traceability, backtracking, and info tracing. Blockchain technology holds substantial promise for the dairy sector, offering enhancements unnecessary market intermediaries, thereby broadening access to credit and insurance for farmers, particularly in developing economies Such advancements could lead to more sustainable, efficient, and resilient livestock practices. However, the technology faces challenges, including the need for sophisticated infrastructure, cross-platform software, and skilled personnel with advanced expertise. Divergence in technological capabilities between developed and developing nations may hinder trade and exacerbate disparities. Regulatory barriers could also restrict blockchain's application. Thus, it is imperative to enhance blockchain knowledge among trade authorities and policymakers to facilitate its broader adoption. The objective of this review is to discuss principles of blockchain and proposed future work pathways for its use in the dairy industry.

Magnetic susceptibility variations in loess–paleosol successions are widely utilized proxy records for reconstructions of global climate change during the Pleistocene. Analysis of the role of local factors in the establishment of magnetic signatures is rarely addressed. This study compares magnetic records along several adjacent profiles exposed in three open quarries near Kaolinovo (NE Bulgaria). The effect of the position of the sampled locations in the local landscape on the magnetic enhancement is revealed by differences in the thickness and degree of pedogenic magnetic enhancement. The profile, situated in a local paleo-depression, revealed disturbed sedimentation and depletion in the magnetic susceptibility. At lateral distances of 2–3 km (between quarries) the magnetic records show firmly repeatable patterns. Magnetic, geochemical, and diffuse reflectance data demonstrate a trend of increasing content of pedogenic hematites towards older paleosols, while goethite has major contribution to dithionite extractable iron phases. A representative stacked record of magnetic susceptibility for the Kaolinovo site is established using the results from mineralogical analyses. Comparison of the stacked susceptibility record from Kaolinovo with other sites from Bulgaria reveal that loess–paleosol sequences preserve reliable and repeatable magnetic records of global climate change for the last three glacial–interglacial cycles.

Music was important in John Stuart Mill’s life. He was an accomplished pianist and a talented improviser. His works include treatments of various philosophical aspects of music, including its metaphysics, its epistemology, the sources and nature of its value, and its aesthetics. Some of his ideas on musical aesthetics are still of interest. This applies to his distinction between those reactions to music that are based on associations with non-musical experiences and those that are based on properties of the music itself. It also applies to his concepts of poetic and oratorical modes of musical expression. In addition to his other achievements, he should be recognized as a philosopher of music.

Dietary phytosterols exert hypocholesterolemic effects by inhibiting cholesterol absorption in the small intestine. However, oxidised phytosterols exert harmful effects. In this study, we compared the effects of dietary stigmasterol or oxidised stigmasterol on cholesterol absorption and metabolism in mice. ICR male mice were fed one of the following diets: a standard AIN diet; the standard diet plus 0.25% cholesterol; the standard diet plus 0.25% cholesterol and 0.25% stigmasterol; or the standard diet plus 0.25% cholesterol and 0.25% oxidised stigmasterol. Stigmasterol, but not oxidised stigmasterol, decreased plasma total cholesterol (TC) levels. Unlike stigmasterol, dietary oxidised stigmasterol increased the cholesterol levels in micellar solutions. Thus, oxidised stigmasterol could not exert hypocholesterolemic effects as it could not displace cholesterol in micellar solutions. In contrast, dietary oxidised stigmasterol downregulates the mRNA expression of genes involved in cholesterol synthesis and upregulates the mRNA expression of genes involved in cholesterol catabolism in mice fed cholesterol. In addition, dietary stigmasterol and oxidised stigmasterol increased the levels of faecal-neutral steroids by downregulating the mRNA expression of Niemann-Pick C1-like 1 protein (NPC1L1) in the small intestine. Dietary stigmasterol may directly regulate the mRNA expression of NPC1L1, whereas dietary oxidised stigmasterol may reduce the mRNA expression of sterol regulatory element-binding protein 2 (SREBP2) and act as a Liver X receptor α (LXRα) agonist, reducing the mRNA expression of NPC1L1. Therefore, oxidised stigmasterol may affect cholesterol absorption and metabolism through a mechanism different from that of stigmasterol.

Skinfold callipers are used internationally in research, clinical and field settings to assess body composition and nutritional status. Notably, currently available instruments differ in important specificities that impact measurement. In this sense, this report proposes a methodological approach that organises skinfold callipers into three categories (Original, Generic and Hybrid) and three configurations (Type A, Type B and Type C) based on physical-mechanical properties and characteristics. Therefore, this concept provides technical support for choosing the most appropriate skinfold calliper in different contexts.

Carbon-14 (14C) is an important contributor to the collective effective dose to the public due to releases from nuclear power plants (NPPs). In Sweden, only airborne emissions of 14C from NPPs are currently routinely monitored, and the existing data on waterborne 14C discharges are limited. A recent study of 14C in brown algae (Fucus spp.) in Swedish coastal waters showed higher F14C values collected at Ringhals NPP, on the Swedish west coast, than expected. Therefore, this study aimed at assessing if blue mussels (Mytilus edulis) could be used to retrospectively estimate the 14C concentration of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) in seawater at three sites. A method was developed to extract the fibrous layer that forms visible annual structures in the shells. All samples were analyzed with accelerator mass spectrometry and the results compared with 14C data from Fucus spp. For one of the analyzed shells (structures from 1974–1978), from the site Särdal, F14C in Fucus spp. and M. edulis agreed very well. For another shell (1972–1978), shell structures from some of the earlier years displayed up to 6% lower F14C than Fucus spp. F14C in one shell from a remote site, Båteviken, only had small annual variations (2017–2022: F14C = 1.070 ± 0.015 (1 σ)). Two shells from Ringhals NPP had higher average F14C, and a significant temporal variability (2014–2022: F14C = 1.427 ± 0.268 (1 σ)). Difficulties in unambiguous identification of the annual structures in the shells, as well as the future potential of this method, are discussed.

A work of compact dual-port transparent multiple-input multiple-output antenna optimized for fifth-generation (5G) N77 (3.3–4.2 GHz) and N78 (3.3–3.8 GHz) bandwidth has been simulated, investigated, and optimized for robust performance in high-speed wireless communication. It features an impedance bandwidth of 3–4.3 GHz with a minimum simulated return loss of −28 dB, with 100% 3-dB axial ratio bandwidth and a simulated gain of 3.5 dB. The conducting plane material is indium tin oxide (ITO), chosen for its high optical transparency and sufficient electrical conductivity to seamlessly integrate into visually demanding applications. The substrate is glass, chosen for its lightweight and durable properties, which enhance both the mechanical durability of the antenna and its electromagnetic performance. To validate the ITO-based simulated design, the prototype with the same geometrical specification has been fabricated with the conducting portion replaced with copper and substrate as glass material due to a lack of facilities for transparent antenna fabrication. The comparative investigation study between the proposed ITO-based transparent antenna and with copper-based prototype (simulated/measured) both on a glass substrate, has been discussed, which supports the findings.