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Ultralight axion-like particles are well-motivated relics that might compose the cosmological dark matter and source anomalous time-dependent magnetic fields. We report on terrestrial bounds from the Noble And Alkali Spin Detectors for Ultralight Coherent darK matter (NASDUCK) collaboration on the coupling of axion-like particles to neutrons and protons. The detector uses nuclei of noble-gas and alkali-metal atoms and operates in the Spin-Exchange Relaxation-Free (SERF) regime, achieving high sensitivity to axion-like dark matter fields. Conducting a month-long search, we cover the mass range of 1.4 × 10-12 eV/c2 to 2 × 10-10 eV/c2 and provide limits which supersede robust astrophysical bounds, and improve upon previous terrestrial constraints by over two orders of magnitude for many masses within this range for protons, and up to two orders of magnitude for neutrons. These are the sole reliable terrestrial bounds reported on the coupling of protons with axion-like dark matter, covering an unexplored terrain in its parameter space.

Tijdsdruk, verschillen tussen niveaus van complexiteit, inhoud van taken, en verschillende samenwerkingsverbanden, én ruimte-gevende docenten zijn een krachtige stimulans voor de ontwikkeling van adaptieve expertise.

PURPOSE: The surrogacy of biochemical recurrence (BCR) for overall survival (OS) in localized prostate cancer remains controversial. Herein, we evaluate the surrogacy of BCR using different surrogacy analytic methods. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Individual patient data from 11 trials evaluating radiotherapy dose escalation, androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) use, and ADT prolongation were obtained. Surrogate candidacy was assessed using the Prentice criteria (including landmark analyses) and the two-stage meta-analytic approach (estimating Kendalls tau and the R2). Biochemical recurrence-free survival (BCRFS, time from random assignment to BCR or any death) and time to BCR (TTBCR, time from random assignment to BCR or cancer-specific deaths censoring for noncancer-related deaths) were assessed. RESULTS: Overall, 10,741 patients were included. Dose escalation, addition of short-term ADT, and prolongation of ADT duration significantly improved BCR (hazard ratio [HR], 0.71 [95% CI, 0.63 to 0.79]; HR, 0.53 [95% CI, 0.48 to 0.59]; and HR, 0.54 [95% CI, 0.48 to 0.61], respectively). Adding short-term ADT (HR, 0.91 [95% CI, 0.84 to 0.99]) and prolonging ADT (HR, 0.86 [95% CI, 0.78 to 0.94]) significantly improved OS, whereas dose escalation did not (HR, 0.98 [95% CI, 0.87 to 1.11]). BCR at 48 months was associated with inferior OS in all three groups (HR, 2.46 [95% CI, 2.08 to 2.92]; HR, 1.51 [95% CI, 1.35 to 1.70]; and HR, 2.31 [95% CI, 2.04 to 2.61], respectively). However, after adjusting for BCR at 48 months, there was no significant treatment effect on OS (HR, 1.10 [95% CI, 0.96 to 1.27]; HR, 0.96 [95% CI, 0.87 to 1.06] and 1.00 [95% CI, 0.90 to 1.12], respectively). The patient-level correlation (Kendalls tau) for BCRFS and OS ranged between 0.59 and 0.69, and that for TTBCR and OS ranged between 0.23 and 0.41. The R2 values for trial-level correlation of the treatment effect on BCRFS and TTBCR with that on OS were 0.563 and 0.160, respectively. CONCLUSION: BCRFS and TTBC

In the study conducted, the histological and cellular characteristics of human skin equivalents (HSEs) were explored. These HSEs were created by seeding primary human keratinocytes on devitalized human dermis, treated with either Matrigel (GelHSE) or primary human dermal fibroblasts (FibHSE). A histological analysis was performed revealing similarities between HSEs and in vivo human epidermis, with notable differences such as a thicker living epidermal layer in FibHSEs and reduced keratinocyte proliferation.Cellular states of keratinocytes from 28-day old HSEs were identified using droplet-enabled scRNA-seq. These transcriptomes were similar to in vivo states, but unique gene expression patterns were identified, including a novel cell state, HSE-1, primarily in the GelHSE cultures.Despite the predominantly normal histology of HSEs, abnormalities such as an expansion of KRT14+ cell layers and disrupted epidermal differentiation were present. Evidence of a partial epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) state was detected, and the expression of the PSCA gene in the HSE-1 cluster was observed, suggesting a residual embryonic program in the culture medium. An examination of the lineage trajectory of HSE epidermal differentiation was conducted, revealing two abnormalities: differentiated keratinocytes retained much of the basal keratinocytes’ gene expression signature and the GelHSE keratinocytes followed a basal to spinous to HSE-unique lineage. All of these changes were evident at the RNA and protein levels.To address these abnormalities, HSEs were xenografted onto mice, leading to the emergence of three xenograft-specific clusters alongside the expected keratinocyte clusters. This process was found to partially rectify terminal differentiation, cell-cell adhesion, and basal programs, yet it also revealed two distinct transcriptional paths from basal to granular keratinocytes. Hypoxia was identified as a potential driver of the transcriptional changes observed in th

This present study aims to examine if sexual interaction competence could be an effective moderator on the relationship between alcohol consumption (consumed at a party or night out) and sexual victimization (whilst intoxicated). This study is focusing on the Dutch population and more specifically on those aged 16-25. The study has a cross-sectional design, participants (n=1340) completed self- report questionnaires which assessed these three variables. To understand the relationships between our variables, logistic regression models were conducted. From the results, the study was able to yield three predictor variables of SV for female participants: alcohol consumption, sexual interaction competence and gender. However, it was not able to yield any statistical results on sexual interaction competence’s moderation effect on alcohol consumption and sexual victimization. Therefore, with these results it conveys that interaction competence may not be the most appropriate moderator on this relationship and future research needs to continue to consider other factors so that we are eventually able to find an appropriate moderator for this relationship.

Our research is distributed into the following stages: A. The production of a "ready for analysis" data set with attributes of a location or area listed in each row together with the matching occurrence counts. We assembled data from many sources, choose the appropriate level of aggregation (such as area size), and included fabricated 0 counts. B. Using machine learning algorithms such as linear regression, support vector regression, random forests, etc., analyze this data set to produce predictive models. Additionally, this section aims to provide light on the characteristics/features that are crucial for predicting the presence/absence of a species. C. Reviewing the developed models.

This dissertation contains three essays in three chapters. Chapter 1 contributes to the literature on reference dependent preferences, chapter 2 introduces a new solution concept for games played by teams of players, and chapter 3 analyzes a model of biased beliefs in law enforcement. In Chapter 1, I study the role of reference dependent preferences in motivating effort in online chess. In online chess, players are assigned ratings that measure chess skill and update after every game. I find evidence of bunching above round numbers in the distribution of ratings, suggesting that players care about their rating and that round numbers serve as reference points. I estimate a dynamic discrete choice model of the decision to end a playing session that nests both loss aversion and an alternative 'aspiration' specification involving a discrete jump in utility at reference points. I reject loss aversion in favor of aspirational preferences. I show that higher skilled players are significantly more aspirational, and that aspiration does not diminish with experience. In Chapter 2, coauthored with Jeongbin Kim and Thomas R. Palfrey, we develop a general framework for the analysis of games where each player is a team and members of the same team all receive the same payoff. The framework combines standard non-cooperative game theory with collective choice theory, and is developed for both strategic form and extensive form games. We introduce the concept of team equilibrium and identify conditions under which it converges to Nash equilibrium with large teams. We identify conditions on the collective choice rules such that team decisions are stochastically optimal: the probability the team chooses an action is increasing in its equilibrium expected payoff. The theory is illustrated with some binary action games. In Chapter 3, I model a social welfare maximizing law enforcement agency that does not know the supply of crime, that may have incorrect beliefs a

Visual processing in the retina depends on the collective activity of large ensembles of neurons organized in different layers. Current techniques for measuring activity of layer-specific neural ensembles rely on expensive pulsed infrared lasers to drive 2-photon activation of calcium-dependent fluorescent reporters. We present a 1-photon light-sheet imaging system that can measure the activity in hundreds of neurons in the ex vivo retina over a large field of view while presenting visual stimuli. This allows for a reliable functional classification of different retinal cell types. We also demonstrate that the system has sufficient resolution to image calcium entry at individual synaptic release sites across the axon terminals of dozens of simultaneously imaged bipolar cells. The simple design, large field of view, and fast image acquisition make this a powerful system for high-throughput and high-resolution measurements of retinal processing at a fraction of the cost of alternative approaches.

Patients with neurodegenerative disorders experience a range of neuropsychiatric symptoms. The neural correlates have been explored for many individual symptoms, such as apathy and disinhibition. Atrophy patterns have also been associated with broadly recognized syndromes that bring together multiple symptoms, such as the behavioural variant of frontotemporal dementia. There is substantial heterogeneity of symptoms, with partial overlap of behaviour and affected neuroanatomy across and within dementia subtypes. It is not well established if there are anatomically distinct behavioural subphenotypes in neurodegenerative disease. The objective of this study was to identify shared behavioural profiles in frontotemporal dementia-spectrum and Alzheimer's disease-related syndromes. Additionally, we sought to determine the underlying neural correlates of these symptom clusters. Two hundred and eighty-one patients diagnosed with one of seven different dementia syndromes, in addition to healthy controls and individuals with mild cognitive impairment, completed a 109-item assessment capturing the severity of a range of clinical behaviours. A principal component analysis captured distinct clusters of related behaviours. Voxel-based morphometry analyses were used to identify regions of volume loss associated with each component. Seven components were identified and interpreted as capturing the following behaviours: Component 1-emotional bluntness, 2-emotional lability and disinhibition, 3-neuroticism, 4-rigidity and impatience, 5-indiscriminate consumption, 6-psychosis and 7-Geschwind syndrome-related behaviours. Correlations with structural brain volume revealed distinct neuroanatomical patterns associated with each component, including after controlling for diagnosis, suggesting that localized neurodegeneration can lead to the development of behavioural symptom clusters across various dementia syndromes.

Valosin-containing protein (VCP)-associated multisystem proteinopathy (MSP) is a rare genetic disorder with abnormalities in the autophagy pathway leading to various combinations of myopathy, bone diseases, and neurodegeneration. Ninety percent of patients with VCP-associated MSP have myopathy, but there is no consensus-based guideline. The goal of this working group was to develop a best practice set of provisional recommendations for VCP myopathy which can be easily implemented across the globe. As an initiative by Cure VCP Disease Inc., a patient advocacy organization, an online survey was initially conducted to identify the practice gaps in VCP myopathy. All prior published literature on VCP myopathy was reviewed to better understand the different aspects of management of VCP myopathy, and several working group sessions were conducted involving international experts to develop this provisional recommendation. VCP myopathy has a heterogeneous clinical phenotype and should be considered in patients with limb-girdle muscular dystrophy phenotype, or any myopathy with an autosomal dominant pattern of inheritance. Genetic testing is the only definitive way to diagnose VCP myopathy, and single-variant testing in the case of a known familial VCP variant, or multi-gene panel sequencing in undifferentiated cases can be considered. Muscle biopsy is important in cases of diagnostic uncertainty or lack of a definitive pathogenic genetic variant since rimmed vacuoles (present in ~40% cases) are considered a hallmark of VCP myopathy. Electrodiagnostic studies and magnetic resonance imaging can also help rule out disease mimics. Standardized management of VCP myopathy will optimize patient care and help future research initiatives.

Research has demonstrated an advantage for the processing of self-associated stimuli for various mental functions (Sui & Humphreys, 2017). However, relatively little is known about whether prioritization exists for internal representations (Yin et al., 2019). In the current study, we first asked participants to associate social – labels ('self', ‘friend’, ‘stranger’) with arbitrary geometrical shapes (triangle, quadrilateral, and pentagon) (Sui et al., 2012) and then tested them for the maintenance of one or more features (shape, location, or a combination) of the target stimuli during a delayed match – to – sample task. In line with our expectations, our participants indeed showed a distinct advantage for self-associated stimuli for maintaining single features (identity, location) and a combination (shape & location). Our findings align with the proposal that self-reference may aid in binding information in working memory (Sui & Humphreys, 2015).

To estimate causal effects, analysts performing observational studies in health settings utilize several strategies to mitigate bias due to confounding by indication. There are two broad classes of approaches for these purposes: use of confounders and instrumental variables (IVs). Because such approaches are largely characterized by untestable assumptions, analysts must operate under an indefinite paradigm that these methods will work imperfectly. In this tutorial, we formalize a set of general principles and heuristics for estimating causal effects in the two approaches when the assumptions are potentially violated. This crucially requires reframing the process of observational studies as hypothesizing potential scenarios where the estimates from one approach are less inconsistent than the other. While most of our discussion of methodology centers around the linear setting, we touch upon complexities in non-linear settings and flexible procedures such as target minimum loss-based estimation and double machine learning. To demonstrate the application of our principles, we investigate the use of donepezil off-label for mild cognitive impairment. We compare and contrast results from confounder and IV methods, traditional and flexible, within our analysis and to a similar observational study and clinical trial.

Aquatic photosynthetic organisms evolved to use a variety of light frequencies to perform photosynthesis. Phycobiliprotein phycocyanin 645 (PC645) is a light-harvesting complex in cryptophyte algae able to transfer the absorbed green solar light to other antennas with over 99% efficiency. The infrared signatures of the phycobilin pigments embedded in PC645 are difficult to access and could provide useful information to understand the mechanism behind the high efficiency of energy transfer in PC645. We use visible-pump IR-probe and two-dimensional electronic vibrational spectroscopy to study the dynamical evolution and assign the fingerprint mid-infrared signatures to each pigment in PC645. Here, we report the pigment-specific vibrational markers that enable us to track the spatial flow of excitation energy between the phycobilin pigment pairs. We speculate that two high-frequency modes (1588 and 1596 cm-1) are involved in the vibronic coupling leading to fast (

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients show brain tissue changes in mood and cognitive regulatory sites, but the nature and extent of tissue injury and their associations with symptoms are unclear. Our aim was to examine brain tissue damage in T2DM over controls using mean diffusivity (MD) computed from diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), and assess correlations with mood and cognitive symptoms in T2DM. We collected DTI series (MRI), mood, and cognitive data, from 169 subjects (68 T2DM and 101 controls). Whole-brain MD-maps were calculated, normalized, smoothed, and compared between groups, as well as correlated with mood and cognition scores in T2DM subjects. Type 2 diabetes patients showed altered cognitive and mood functions over control subjects. Multiple brain sites in T2DM patients showed elevated MD values, indicating chronic tissue changes, including the cerebellum, insula, and frontal and prefrontal cortices, cingulate, and lingual gyrus. Associations between MD values and mood and cognition scores appeared in brain sites mediating these functions. Type 2 diabetes patients show predominantly chronic brain tissue changes in areas mediating mood and cognition functions, and tissue changes from those regions correlate with mood and cognitive symptoms suggesting that the microstructural brain changes may account for the observed functional deficits.

Ondanks politieke inspanningen loopt Nederland achter op het vergroten van zijn aandeel hernieuwbare energie. Hierdoor stond Nederland in 2018 bijna onderaan de Europese Unie. In deze masterthesis is door middel van Historical Institutionalism en een comparative historical analysis gekeken in hoeverre de instituties van de Nederlandse energiesector hieraan hebben bijgedragen en hoe dit zich verhoudt met Denemarken en Duitsland die meer succes hadden met hun hernieuwbare energiebeleid. Historical Institutionalism is een geschikt invalshoek om te gebruiken omdat naar voren is gekomen dat keuzes uit het verleden veel invloed hebben gehad op het hernieuwbare energiebeleid later. Verder is het vergelijken van deze casussen is interessant omdat de drie casussen relevante overeenkomsten hebben. Zowel Nederland, Denemarken als Duitsland zijn geïndustrialiseerde en moderne democratieën met een evenredige vertegenwoordiging die niet veel kunnen inspelen op waterkracht en zonne-energie, maar toch verschilt het aandeel hernieuwbaar energie sterk tussen deze landen. Verder kan Nederland een interessante casus zijn omdat het neoliberalisme dominant werd binnen het Nederlands beleid, vooral na de jaren negentig. Meerdere artikelen beargumenteren echter dat liberale instrumenten en liberale markteconomieën minder efficiënt zijn in het effectief beleid voeren voor het vergroten van het aandeel hernieuwbare energie. Door het gebruik van secundaire literatuur kan de institutionele context gegeven worden voor alle drie de landen, daarnaast wordt er vooral met beleidsdocumenten van het ministerie van Economische Zaken een analyse gemaakt van het hernieuwbare energiebeleid van Nederland. Dit onderzoek laat zien dat de keuzes die in het verleden zijn gemaakt een grote impact kunnen hebben op het latere hernieuwbare energiebeleid. Nederland koos vooral voor energiebesparing na de eerste oliecrisis (1973) waar Denemarken en Duitsland meer gingen inzetten op hernieuwbare energie. Hierdoor wa

Monitoring change is an important aspect of understanding variations in spatial–temporal processes. Recently, 'big data' on mobility, which are detailed across space and time, have become increasingly available from crowdsourced platforms. New methods are needed to best utilize the high spatial and temporal resolution of such data for monitoring purposes. These data can be considered mappable time series but are challenging to use owing to varying sampling rates and issues of temporal misalignment. We present a methodological framework for change detection from big data captured by crowdsourced fitness app Strava, which addresses misalignment issues in the underlying ridership patterns and maps temporal clusters of bicycling ridership change in the city of Phoenix, AZ between 2017 and 2018 at the street-segment level. Hourly and monthly changes were classified into four clusters for each time period - mapped along with crash density to highlight variations in bicycling ridership. Using spatially and temporally continuous data our study advances the existing approaches to mobility analysis, by using a functional data analysis approach. Our method is reproducible and can be used to expand studies in other cities for monitoring changes directly from crowdsourced ridership data thereby facilitating the decision-making process by practitioners to assess and plan safe bicycle infrastructure.

This paper deals with the dialectics of settlement continuity and change in Palestine's southern coastal plain during the Mamluk and Early Ottoman periods (1270–1750 CE). Using Ḥamāma, an Arab village in Majdal ‘Asqalān's hinterland as a test-case, the paper introduces a new method of establishing settlement continuity — a major challenge in the study of the historical geography of late medieval and Ottoman Palestine, by showing continual presence of known village lineages. The paper presents an integrative, topic-oriented discussion of Ḥamāma's administration, demography, settlement geography, economy, religion, material culture and daily life, as evidenced by literary and archaeological evidence. The paper argues that nomadic economic and security pressures led to a major process of settlement abandonment around Majdal ‘Asqalān, and the southern coastal plain in general, during the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries. The population of abandoned villages moved to surviving settlements, while the lands of abandoned settlements continued to be cultivated by neighboring villages.

This article seeks to explore past and present trends in the study of the Palestinian countryside, as reflected in Israeli and Arab-Palestinian scholarship about the Plain of Sharon—a key section of Palestine’s coastal plain. The article presents a detailed exposition of the different schools of thought, and by establishing the drawbacks of each school, it argues the need for an integrative approach to the subject and sources at hand. Scholars must therefore consider all the relevant primary sources and secondary literature. Furthermore, they should discuss their object of inquiry from both the perspective of the village and that of the region as a whole.Before 1948, Palestinians lived in a predominantly rural society. Therefore, a systematic treatment of the Palestinian countryside is vital for conducting any thorough discussion of the country’s history. Indeed, the social, economic, and demographic history of the Palestinian countryside during the Ottoman and British Mandate periods has received a significant scientific attention. Historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, sociologists, economists, demographers and material-culture researchers all long participated in a lively scholarly discourse in English, Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, and more, mainly European languages. This attention reflects not only an interest in the ongoing Palestinian-Zionist conflict, but—more importantly—the accelerated pace of digitization of archival materials. The digital revolution, with the internet and social networks, removed previous political, geographical and financial barriers to scholarly exchange, and provided direct access to primary sources in various languages and from a wide variety of archival collections in Israel/Palestine and abroad.Jewish ethnographic accounts of the Palestinian countryside were inspired by everyday contacts with Palestinian society during the British Mandate period and influenced by available Western studies. Later, Zionist intelligence officers, li

We study the intricate interplay between ecological and evolutionary processes through the lens of the prisoners dilemma game. But while previous studies on cooperation amongst selfish individuals often assume instantaneous interactions, we take into consideration delays to investigate how these might affect the causes underlying prosocial behavior. Through analytical calculations and numerical simulations, we demonstrate that delays can lead to oscillations, and by incorporating also the ecological variable of altruistic free space and the evolutionary strategy of punishment, we explore how these factors impact population and community dynamics. Depending on the parameter values and the initial fraction of each strategy, the studied eco-evolutionary model can mimic a cyclic dominance system and even exhibit chaotic behavior, thereby highlighting the importance of complex dynamics for the effective management and conservation of ecological communities. Our research thus contributes to the broader understanding of group decision-making and the emergence of moral behavior in multidimensional social systems.

This dissertation contains three essays in three chapters. Chapter 1 contributes to the literature on reference dependent preferences, chapter 2 introduces a new solution concept for games played by teams of players, and chapter 3 analyzes a model of biased beliefs in law enforcement. In Chapter 1, I study the role of reference dependent preferences in motivating effort in online chess. In online chess, players are assigned ratings that measure chess skill and update after every game. I find evidence of bunching above round numbers in the distribution of ratings, suggesting that players care about their rating and that round numbers serve as reference points. I estimate a dynamic discrete choice model of the decision to end a playing session that nests both loss aversion and an alternative 'aspiration' specification involving a discrete jump in utility at reference points. I reject loss aversion in favor of aspirational preferences. I show that higher skilled players are significantly more aspirational, and that aspiration does not diminish with experience. In Chapter 2, coauthored with Jeongbin Kim and Thomas R. Palfrey, we develop a general framework for the analysis of games where each player is a team and members of the same team all receive the same payoff. The framework combines standard non-cooperative game theory with collective choice theory, and is developed for both strategic form and extensive form games. We introduce the concept of team equilibrium and identify conditions under which it converges to Nash equilibrium with large teams. We identify conditions on the collective choice rules such that team decisions are stochastically optimal: the probability the team chooses an action is increasing in its equilibrium expected payoff. The theory is illustrated with some binary action games. In Chapter 3, I model a social welfare maximizing law enforcement agency that does not know the supply of crime, that may have incorrect beliefs a

New physics and novel applications in various fields ranging from biology, and spectroscopy, to manipulation of quantum systems are driven by the availability of coherent light sources including frequency combs in the visible and mid-infrared spectral regimes. Nonlinear optical systems, that are parametrically driven by technologically mature near-infrared lasers, are leveraged in this regard to access challenging wavelengths where conventional lasers may be unavailable. It is of paramount importance to miniaturize these systems and replace the traditional bulky setups thereby paving the way for a plethora of applications. Optical parametric oscillators are among the most prominent examples of such nonlinear systems and beyond their indispensable usage as light sources (both classical and quantum) their unique non-equilibrium dynamics can endow a wealth of functionalities absent in their linear counterparts. These properties can be engineered and utilized for realizing highly sensitive sensors as well as special-purpose computing hardware that may outperform conventional digital computers. A network of these coupled parametric oscillators can be made to interact leading to emergent behaviors that are not expected from the individual constituents. In this work, we experimentally and theoretically study the dynamics of individual and coupled optical parametric oscillators towards sensing and computing applications. We explore a previously avoided regime of operation for generating ultra-short pulses from these parametrically driven nonlinear resonators that lead to extreme pulse compression. We engineer the nonlinear dynamics of these systems to realize all-optical spectral phase transitions (both first-order and second-order) that behave as highly-sensitive sensors. We show how these critical phenomena can be utilized to enhance the solution accuracy of physics-based solvers in finding optimum solutions to combinatorial optimization problems in the conte

Membranes form an indispensable barrier for every form of life. They contain a variety of proteins and also different lipid species. Undoubtedly, there are many interactions between lipids and between lipids and proteins. Yet, methods to study these interactions on an atomistic scale are lacking. Methodologies that allow the study of the membrane on the level of atoms will spark the discovery of drugs and antimicrobials that humanity direly needs due to rampant antimicrobial resistance. In this work we present isotopically labelled phospholipids (13C, 15N and 19F) for solid-state NMR spectroscopy (ssNMR). These probes allow the study of biologically relevant and complex membranes at atomic resolution without affecting natural membrane physics, while conventional methodologies would. We demonstrate the versatility of these probes by studying the mode of action of the lipopeptide antibiotics daptomycin and A54145, and the lantibiotic cinnamycin. We found that both these distinct antibiotic classes can form aggregates on bacterial membranes. This shows for the first time that oligomerisation as a mode of action expands beyond antibiotics that target the peptidoglycan precursor lipid II [185-187] and, thus, suggests that this is a general mode of action for membrane targeting antibiotics. Furthermore, we describe a straightforward isotopic labelling approach for daptomycin and A54145 from its producing streptomycete. Together with the isotopically labelled lipid probes, this will allow the future study of the full lipopeptide-lipid complex, which would shed light on their puzzling mode of action after more than 40 years of active research. Taken together, the lipid probes presented in this work allow for the exploration of complex membranes at an unprecedented atomic resolution, providing novel strategies for the investigation of the mode of action of drugs and antimicrobials, and others interactions within the membrane.

The article explores the interplay between transnational migration, cultural patrimony and political conflict, tying together the former realms of the Russian and Ottoman Empires. It discusses the role played by Russian Jews in the development of the Zionist-Arab conflict in Palestine until 1948. It focuses on the Northern Sharon, where three distinct immigrant groups – Circassians, Bosnians and Russian Jews – settled in the 1870s–1890s. Methodologically, it adopts a new, twofold, approach to the genesis of the conflict, by tracing its roots within the broader setting of Eurasian transnational migrations to Palestine, and the stricter context of ‘locality expressing glocality’, that is, of specific colonies and their development under internal pressures and outside interactions. In 1948, prior actions aimed at achieving ethnic homogeneity through coerced population transfers during the disintegration Eurasian imperial polities served as a blueprint for some of the same Zionist immigrants for achieving plurality in their new Jewish State.

Al-Sheikh Muwannis, where Tel Aviv University was later established, was one of four villages founded in the Ottoman period next to the shores of the Sharon (along with the villages of Ijlil, Al-Haram Sidna ‘Ali and Umm Khalid). The article traces the village's history within its social and spatial contexts. At the historiographical level, the establishment of Al-Sheikh Muwannis as discussed in the article demonstrates that the expansion of settlement in the southern Sharon was the result of the internal expansion of the core settlement by residents of the mountainous highlands of Samaria, and not by Egyptian ‘penetrators’ as previously claimed. Furthermore, the article outlines the complex relationships that developed between the original village population, new migrants, and nomadic populations camping on its lands; relationships that were exploited to further the growth and crystallization of Jewish settlement in the Yarkon Basin and around Tel Aviv. The close proximity of al-Sheikh Muwannis to the countryside of the Sharon and to Tel Aviv-Jaffa, led to the development of a space expressing architectural, social, linguistic and technological concepts derived from both countryside and city alike. The rich and complex picture presented in this paper can provide a framework to understand the development of other villages like al-Haram Sidna ‘Ali, Jalil, al-Jammasin, Sumayil (al-Mas‘udiya) and Salama.

Amorphous carbon (a-C) films have garnered significant attention over the past few decades, principally due to their remarkable thermophysical properties, strong adherence to various materials, and good chemical inertness. These intrinsic characteristics of a-C films have led to their use as protective overcoats in numerous applications, such as hard-disk drives, microelectromechanical systems, and biomedical implants. The significant thinning of a-C films to a few nanometers, dictated by rapid advances in device miniaturization and compactness, motivated the development of thin-film deposition methods that preserve important film attributes like uniformity, strength, and structural stability. This article provides a comprehensive assessment of the most effective deposition techniques for synthesizing ultrathin films, particularly a-C films due to their wide application range as protective overcoats in contemporary technologies, state-of-the-art microanalysis methods for ultrathin films, and the technology challenges that must be overcome for CVA to capture a bigger share of the thin-film technology marketplace. Graphical abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.]

New physics and novel applications in various fields ranging from biology, and spectroscopy, to manipulation of quantum systems are driven by the availability of coherent light sources including frequency combs in the visible and mid-infrared spectral regimes. Nonlinear optical systems, that are parametrically driven by technologically mature near-infrared lasers, are leveraged in this regard to access challenging wavelengths where conventional lasers may be unavailable. It is of paramount importance to miniaturize these systems and replace the traditional bulky setups thereby paving the way for a plethora of applications. Optical parametric oscillators are among the most prominent examples of such nonlinear systems and beyond their indispensable usage as light sources (both classical and quantum) their unique non-equilibrium dynamics can endow a wealth of functionalities absent in their linear counterparts. These properties can be engineered and utilized for realizing highly sensitive sensors as well as special-purpose computing hardware that may outperform conventional digital computers. A network of these coupled parametric oscillators can be made to interact leading to emergent behaviors that are not expected from the individual constituents. In this work, we experimentally and theoretically study the dynamics of individual and coupled optical parametric oscillators towards sensing and computing applications. We explore a previously avoided regime of operation for generating ultra-short pulses from these parametrically driven nonlinear resonators that lead to extreme pulse compression. We engineer the nonlinear dynamics of these systems to realize all-optical spectral phase transitions (both first-order and second-order) that behave as highly-sensitive sensors. We show how these critical phenomena can be utilized to enhance the solution accuracy of physics-based solvers in finding optimum solutions to combinatorial optimization problems in the conte

During the 16th century CE, the town of al-Lajjun in the Marj ibn ‘Amir (the Jezreel Valley), served as one of Ottoman Palestine’s provincial capitals under the administration of the Turabay Dynasty (1517–1688 CE), and was an important centre on the imperial highway between Damascus and Cairo. However, the town of this period has never been the subject of historical investigation. This paper seeks to bring together, assess and synthesize, rarely accessed Arabic and Ottoman Turkish sources, along with oral histories and an archaeological survey, to provide the first comprehensive historical account of Turabay al-Lajjun and it its ultimate demise in the 19th century CE.

BACKGROUND: Enterococcus faecium is a ubiquitously distributed member of the intestinal microbiota of both humans and animals. Antibiotic resistant E. faecium are a major public health concern. OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to detect multi-drug resistant (MDR) E. faecium and their antibiotic resistance genes from broiler chickens in Bangladesh. METHODS: A total of 100 faecal samples of healthy broilers were screened by conventional methods and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to detect E. faecium and their resistance genes. Disk diffusion test was employed to determine antibiotic profiles. RESULTS: By PCR, among 100 samples, 45% [95% confidence interval (CI): 35.62%-54.76%] were positive for E. faecium. Based on antibiogram, all the E. faecium isolates were found resistant to ampicillin, and frequently (93.33%-55.56%) resistant to ceftriaxone, cefotaxime, streptomycin, erythromycin, and imipenem; moderate to lower (26.67%-4.44%) resistance to tetracycline, ciprofloxacin, norfloxacin, chloramphenicol, gentamicin, and vancomycin. Interestingly, 80% (95% CI: 66.18%-89.10%) E. faecium isolates were MDR in nature. In addition, the indices of multiple antibiotic resistance (MAR) ranged from 0.08 to 0.83. By bivariate analysis, high positive significant correlations were observed between resistance profiles of erythromycin and imipenem, ciprofloxacin and norfloxacin, erythromycin and streptomycin, ceftriaxone and cefotaxime, tetracycline and chloramphenicol, and streptomycin and imipenem. Furthermore, the prevalence of resistance genes of E. faecium was 58.33% (tetA), 33.33% (tetB), 35.56% (blaTEM ), 60% (CITM), 13.33% (aadA1), and 12% (SHV). CONCLUSIONS: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study in Bangladesh to detect MDR and MAR E. faecium and their associated resistance genes. The detection of MDR and MAR E. faecium and their corresponding resistance genes from healthy broilers is of public health concern because of their potential to enter into the food chai

Dispelling Desolation: The Expansion of Arab Settlement in the Sharon Plain and the Western Part of Jabal Nablus, 1700-1948, 2022This doctoral dissertation seeks to describe and explain the human factors that influenced the spatial distribution of Arab settlements in the Plain of Sharon and Samaria/Jabal Nablūs (hereinafter: Jabal Nablūs), which together form its area of study (hereinafter: AoS). More specifically, it explores the geographical, social and economic features of the Arab settlements in the AoS between the years 1700 – 1948 CE. In doing so, the study outlines the settlement processes, identifying the places of origin of the settlers and clarifying the circumstances of their arrival in the AoS. Furthermore, it describes the tenurials of land ownership, possession and use at the family, village and regional levels. The work won the Middle East & Islamic Studies Association of Israel (MEISAI)'s 2023 award for outstanding Ph.D. dissertation.

The Palestinian Rural History Project (PRHP) (2014- ) is an ongoing effort to document, preserve, study and publish culturally and scientifically important information concerning Palestine’s rural history and heritage. The corpus contains over 1,300 personallyconducted oral history interviews documenting the local body of knowledge of some 700 Palestinian communities. It encompasses rare and invaluable information about Palestine’s historical geography, genealogies, toponymy, archaeology, nature, economy, politics, agricultural practices, traditions and lore. Lastly, it also holds, inter-alia, over a century’s worth of personal stories and recollections of life under Ottoman, British, Jordanian and Israeli rule.

Most environments favor defection over cooperation due to natural selection. Nonetheless, the emergence of cooperation is omnipresent in many biological, social, and economic systems, quite contrary to the well-celebrated Darwinian theory of evolution. Much research has been devoted to better understanding how and why cooperation persists among self-interested individuals despite their competition for limited resources. Here we go beyond a single social dilemma since individuals usually encounter various social challenges. In particular, we propose and study a mathematical model incorporating both the prisoner's dilemma and the snowdrift game. We further extend this model by considering ecological signatures like mutation and selfless one-sided contribution of altruist free space. The nonlinear evolutionary dynamics that results from these upgrades offer a broader range of equilibrium outcomes, and it also often favors cooperation over defection. With the help of analytical and numerical calculations, our theoretical model sheds light on the mechanisms that maintain biodiversity, and it helps to explain the evolution of social order in human societies.

BackgroundThe membrane potential of individual neurons depends on a large number of interacting biophysical processes operating on spatial-temporal scales spanning several orders of magnitude. The multi-scale nature of these processes dictates that accurate prediction of membrane potentials in specific neurons requires the utilization of detailed simulations. Unfortunately, constraining parameters within biologically detailed neuron models can be difficult, leading to poor model fits. This obstacle can be overcome partially by numerical optimization or detailed exploration of parameter space. However, these processes, which currently rely on central processing unit (CPU) computation, often incur orders of magnitude increases in computing time for marginal improvements in model behavior. As a result, model quality is often compromised to accommodate compute resources.New methodHere, we present a simulation environment, NeuroGPU, that takes advantage of the inherent parallelized structure of the graphics processing unit (GPU) to accelerate neuronal simulation.Results & comparison with existing methodsNeuroGPU can simulate most biologically detailed models 10-200 times faster than NEURON simulation running on a single core and 5 times faster than GPU simulators (CoreNEURON). NeuroGPU is designed for model parameter tuning and best performs when the GPU is fully utilized by running multiple (> 100) instances of the same model with different parameters. When using multiple GPUs, NeuroGPU can reach to a speed-up of 800 fold compared to single core simulations, especially when simulating the same model morphology with different parameters. We demonstrate the power of NeuoGPU through large-scale parameter exploration to reveal the response landscape of a neuron. Finally, we accelerate numerical optimization of biophysically detailed neuron models to achieve highly accurate fitting of models to simulation and experimental data.ConclusionsThus, NeuroGPU is the fas

Paleontology is one of the most visible yet most misunderstood fields of science. Children dream of becoming paleontologists when they grow up. Museum visitors flock to exhibits on dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. The media reports on fossil discoveries and new clues to mass extinctions. Nonetheless, misconceptions abound: paleontologists are assumed only to be interested in dinosaurs, and they are all too often imagined as bearded white men in battered cowboy hats.Roy Plotnick provides a behind-the-scenes look at paleontology as it exists today in all its complexity. He explores the field’s aims, methods, and possibilities, with an emphasis on the compelling personal stories of the scientists who have made it a career. Paleontologists study the entire history of life on Earth; they do not only use hammers and chisels to unearth fossils but are just as likely to work with cutting-edge computing technology. Plotnick presents the big questions about life’s history that drive paleontological research and shows why knowledge of Earth’s past is essential to understanding present-day environmental crises. He introduces readers to the diverse group of people of all genders, races, and international backgrounds who make up the twenty-first-century paleontology community, foregrounding their perspectives and firsthand narratives. He also frankly discusses the many challenges that face the profession, with key takeaways for aspiring scientists. Candid and comprehensive, Explorers of Deep Time is essential reading for anyone curious about the everyday work of real-life paleontologists.

Paleontology is one of the most visible yet most misunderstood fields of science. Children dream of becoming paleontologists when they grow up. Museum visitors flock to exhibits on dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. The media reports on fossil discoveries and new clues to mass extinctions. Nonetheless, misconceptions abound: paleontologists are assumed only to be interested in dinosaurs, and they are all too often imagined as bearded white men in battered cowboy hats.Roy Plotnick provides a behind-the-scenes look at paleontology as it exists today in all its complexity. He explores the field’s aims, methods, and possibilities, with an emphasis on the compelling personal stories of the scientists who have made it a career. Paleontologists study the entire history of life on Earth; they do not only use hammers and chisels to unearth fossils but are just as likely to work with cutting-edge computing technology. Plotnick presents the big questions about life’s history that drive paleontological research and shows why knowledge of Earth’s past is essential to understanding present-day environmental crises. He introduces readers to the diverse group of people of all genders, races, and international backgrounds who make up the twenty-first-century paleontology community, foregrounding their perspectives and firsthand narratives. He also frankly discusses the many challenges that face the profession, with key takeaways for aspiring scientists. Candid and comprehensive, Explorers of Deep Time is essential reading for anyone curious about the everyday work of real-life paleontologists.

The ongoing novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has highlighted the need for individuals to have easy access to healthcare facilities for treatment as well as vaccinations. The surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations during 2020 also underscored the fact that accessibility to nearby hospitals for testing, treatment and vaccination sites is crucial for patients with fever or respiratory symptoms. Although necessary, quantifying healthcare access is challenging as it depends on a complex interaction between underlying socioeconomic and physical factors. In this case study, we deployed a Multi Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) approach to uncover the barriers and their effect on healthcare access. Using a least cost path (LCP) analysis we quantified the costs associated with healthcare access from each census block group in the Los Angeles metropolitan area (LA Metro) to the nearest hospital. Social vulnerability reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the daily number of COVID-19 cases from the Los Angeles open data portal and built environment characteristics (slope of the street, car ownership, population density distribution, walkability, traffic collision density, and speed limit) were used to quantify overall accessibility index for the entire study area. Our results showed that the census block groups with a social vulnerability index above 0.75 (high vulnerability) had low accessibility owing to the higher cost of access to nearby hospitals. These areas were also coincident with the hotspots for COVID-19 cases and deaths which highlighted the inequitable exposure of socially disadvantaged populations to COVID-19 infections and how the pandemic impacts were exacerbated by the synergistic effect of socioeconomic status and built environment characteristics of the locations where the disadvantaged populations resided. The framework proposed herein could be adapted to geo-target testing/vaccination sites and improve accessibility to healthcar

Electric vehicles (EV) are an emerging mode of transportation that has the potential to reshape the transportation sector by significantly reducing carbon emissions thereby promoting a cleaner environment and pushing the boundaries of climate progress. Nevertheless, there remain significant hurdles to the widespread adoption of electric vehicles in the United States ranging from the high cost of EVs to the inequitable placement of EV charging stations (EVCS). A deeper understanding of the underlying complex interactions of social, economic, and demographic factors which may lead to such emerging disparities in EVCS placements is, therefore, necessary to mitigate accessibility issues and improve EV usage among people of all ages and abilities. In this study, we develop a machine learning framework to examine spatial disparities in EVCS placements by using a predictive approach. We first identify the essential socioeconomic factors that may contribute to spatial disparities in EVCS access. Second, using these factors along with ground truth data from existing EVCS placements we predict future ECVS density at multiple spatial scales using machine learning algorithms and compare their predictive accuracy to identify the most optimal spatial resolution for our predictions. Finally, we compare the most accurately predicted EVCS placement density with a spatial inequity indicator to quantify how equitably these placements would be for Orange County, California. Our method achieved the highest predictive accuracy (94.9%) of EVCS placement density at a spatial resolution of 3 km using Random Forests. Our results indicate that a total of 11.04% of predicted EVCS placements in Orange County will lie within a high spatial inequity zone – indicating populations with the lowest accessibility may require the greater investments in EVCS placements. 69.52% of the study area experience moderate accessibility issues and the remaining 19.11% face least accessibility issues w.r.t EV cha

Beta-amyloid and tau are important proteins involved in Alzheimer's disease. We can measure elevations of these proteins in the cerebrospinal fluid, often years before cognitive symptoms appear. However, from previous autopsy and animal research it becomes clear that many processes already occur in the brain even before these elevations are observed. In this PhD thesis, the goal was to identify additional early brain characteristics associated with the accumulation of beta-amyloid and tau. This research has shown that we can obtain additional information about early brain characteristics in Alzheimer’s disease using various MRI techniques. This knowledge can help to better understand the early disease processes of Alzheimer's disease and can help improve patient selection for clinical trials at an early stage.

Abgeleitet von der zentralen Forschungsfrage dieser Arbeit ist es das primäre Ziel, herauszufinden, welche Argumente ökologischer Nachhaltigkeit für die Zielgruppe B2C imStorytelling enthalten sein müssen, um disruptive Technologien, von Kühl- und Gefriergeräten als grüne Produkte wahrzunehmen (am Beispiel Liebherr). Die vorliegende Arbeit ist in einen theoretischen und einen empirischen Teil gegliedert. Um die Forschungsfrage zu beantworten, werden zwei Subfragen formuliert:1.Welche ökologischen Argumente der BluRoX Technologie müssen im grünen Storytelling enthalten sein?2.Wie müssen die ökologischen Argumente der BluRoX Technologie ins Storytelling integriert werden, um von der Zielgruppe als nachhaltig wahrgenommen zu werden?Zusätzlich wird im Kontext der Forschungsfrage geklärt, inwiefern die BluRoX Technologie von Liebherr als disruptive Technologie einzustufen ist.Ökologische Nachhaltigkeit ist integraler Bestandteil der nachhaltigen Entwicklung, deren zentraler Bezugspunkt die Agenda 2030 der Vereinten Nationen ist. Produkt- und konsumbezogen kann ökologische Nachhaltigkeit vom Sustainable Development Goal 12 der Agenda 2030 abgleitet werden. Nachhaltigkeit ist längst kein Thema mehr, dass rein auf politischer Ebene diskutiert wird, sondern gewinnt auch auf Unternehmens- und Gesellschaftsebene immer mehr an Bedeutung. Der Wertewandel innerhalb der Gesellschaft führt zu einer steigenden Nachfrage, sowie wachsende Marktanteile von grünen Produkten. Die BluRoX Vakuumtechnologie von Liebherr ersetzt erdölbasierten PUR-Schaum als Isolationsmaterial durch das nachwachsende Vulkangestein Perlit und setzt so neue Maßstäbe für ökologische Nachhaltigkeit von Kühl- und Gefriergeräten. Dies führt zu einer signifikanten Steigerung der Energieeffizienz und ermöglicht die Rückgewinnung von Ressourcen am Ende der Lebensphase, was beim bisherigen Stand der Technik nicht möglich ist. Zusätzlich wird die Reparierbarkeit der Geräte verbessert, welche neue Servicepotenziale eröf

The southern parts of Palestine, as an intercontinental transit region for various kingdoms throughout the history of the Ancient Near East, constituted an open space through which migrants, armies and merchants moved along the international route between Egypt and Greater Syria. Two-way population movements between the southern parts of Palestine’s coastal plain and Egypt are documented since the dawn of history. Towards the end of the Ottoman period, new waves of emigration from the Delta region in Egypt to the south of the country occurred due to wars, famines, epidemics, poverty and evasion from forced conscription. The present article examines the influence of Egyptian rule in Palestine from 1831 to 1840 on settlement patterns around the town of Majdal ‘Asqalān. The article first explores the Egyptian government’s attempts to establish a garrison town called ‘Asqalān al-Jadīda. Subsequently, using the villages of al-Majdal, Ḥamāma, al-Jōra and Isdūd as local case studies, the article discusses the question ‘to what extent, if any, Egyptian rule in this region had a long-term influence on the demographic, economic and social levels?’ In answer to the abovementioned question, it is suggested that the Egyptian rule had mixed effects on the social structures in the area. While the period of Egyptian rule is associated with the most significant of the many Egyptian (maṣrī) waves of emigration to Palestine, the Egyptian emigration to the south of the country was a long and protracted process that occurred in a number of independent waves, all influenced by differing economic, political and social factors. Furthermore, Ethnographic sources point to the existence of a long-established Egyptian population based in the area for hundreds of years. Lastly, the assimilation and integration patterns of Egyptian emigrants at the village level reflects high levels of much heterogeneity on the spectrum from full integration into the existing social system, the establishment of

The Great Oak Forest (Arabic: al-ghaba) was one of the most prominent features of the landscape of the Sharon plain in the Ottoman period. Large swaths of woodland consisting mainly of Tabor oak trees (Quercus ithaburensis) covered the area between the Yarkon and Hadera rivers. Western travelers and scholars who witnessed the forest in the 19th century saw in it a testament to the region’s Christian past, such as the glorious victory of Richard the Lionheart in the Battle of Arsuf (1191). However, by the end of the 19th century the last remnants of the forest had been felled. Early Israeli scholars such as Ze'ev Vilnai and Yehuda Ziv, who did not witness the forest with their own eyes, regarded its existence as proof of the decline of habitation in the area, following the end of Jewish settlement and the Muslim conquests. In the Ariel Encyclopedia, Vilnai declared that "with the destruction of the land, the Sharon was also destroyed ...", while following the renewed Jewish settlement, "desolate areas were covered with fields and orchards." The article presents the forest as a natural resource distributed among the highland villages to meet the needs of their expanding population. Using local sources in Arabic and Ottoman Turkish, and a reassessment of Western sources, it traces the diverse interactions that took place between the forest and the developing Arab settlement. The article makes use of visual sources, written evidence and oral history to describe and explain the ghābat system in the forest areas, which was the culmination of the spatial planning of the rural population in Jabal Nablus during the late Ottoman period. Furthermore, the article settles a long-standing controversy over the boundaries of the forest and its characteristics in the 1870s. An analysis of the field charts in the Palestine Exploration Fund’s Survey of Western Palestine prepared using Spatial Geographic Information Systems (GIS) shows that the actual woodlands were, by then, restricte

Arabic Toponymy around Ashkelon: The Village of Hamama as a Case Study The village of Hamama, situated between the cities of Ashdod and Ashkelon, was the second largest village, in both its territory and the number of its inhabitants, in the Gaza sub-district during the British Mandate period. The article surveys and discusses the Arab toponymy of Hamama, as part of the broader corpus of Palestinian rural toponymy in Ashkelon’s hinterland before 1948. The article reviews the scholarly trends in the study of Arabic toponymy. In light of the toponyms, the article traces the social, geographical and historical characteristics of village toponyms, and assesses their connection to its natural and man-made geographies. Underlying the Late Ottoman and British Mandate corpus, is a limited stratum of pre-Ottoman village names. To this pre-exiting stratum, new toponyms were added, referring in cases to families living in or around the village. The great importance of land as the main means of production in Hamama’s agrarian society, is manifested by the many toponyms relating to the soil and its characteristics. Many names refer to various types of agricultural plots (gardens, orchards, vineyards, orchards and mawasi plots of land irrigated from shallow wells dug in sand dunes along the coast), in addition to the phenomenon of coastal wetlands (birak). Toponyms provide external evidence of the names of the village families, corroborating names known from the ethnographic literature. Furthermore, it reflects Hamama’s sacred geography, e.g. village shrines and their endowments. Finally, the article briefly discusses the ways in which new place names were derived from existing

During much of the Ottoman period, the subdistrict of Lydda (Lod) was a large administrative unit that stretched from the present-day city of Modi’in in the south to the present-day city of Elad in the north; from the foothills in the east, through the Lod Valley to the outskirts of Jaffa in the west. This area was home to thousands of inhabitants in about 20 villages, who had at their disposal tens of thousands of hectares of prime agricultural land. The changing balance of power between the economic strength of Lydda and the influence of the neighboring administrative center in Ramla governed Lydda’s degree of administrative autonomy. As an economic space, however, Lydda’s hinterland remained relatively stable throughout the Ottoman period. Lydda Sub-district was united with Ramla Sub-district in the early 16th century but by the early 18th century, it was reestablished within similar boundaries to those that existed in the early 16th century. Lydda’s proximity to the grain basket of the Lod Valley, its location on the mainland trade routes and its proximity to the port of Jaffa, all contributed to its economic prosperity even in times of security instability. Lydda’s economy relied on the olive industry (oil and soap), cotton cultivation and trade. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, Waqf officials and European merchants managed much of this economic activity, while from the late 18th century this role was played mainly by local urban merchants (similar to the situation in Nablus and other Levantine cities). The nomadic incursions of the 17th and 18th centuries depopulated some villages in Lydda’s area. During the 19th century, the defeat of the Bedouins by the Abu Ghosh peasant alliance, and the increasing control of the Ottoman state on its internal security, facilitated the renewed expansion of settlement in the lowlands by the inhabitants of the highlands, in parallel with the extensive settlement of immigrants from Egypt in the coastal plain. The developmen

Thin-film optoelectronics are an incredibly worthwhile research topic. Unsurprisingly, their thin profiles use less material than their thicker, more traditional counterparts. However, they also benefit from increased flexibility, as well as an increased array of fabrication routes. The materials investigated in this work are well poised for scalable solution processing techniques that lend themselves to a manufacturing setting. Here, I investigate three types of optoelectronic devices: a) the photodetector, b) solar cells, and c) and light-emitting diodes (LEDs). All of these work to transform between light particles and electronic particles. My work examines, in each case, what makes for a successful device.Beginning with germanium quantum dots, this work begins by modeling the Ge QD raman spectra as a function of particle size. To do this, we implement the confined phonon model first implemented by Richter, Wang, and Ley\cite{richter_one_1981}. We succesfully predict the extreme asymmetric broadening towards low-energy modes that is observed in data taken by collaborators.We then implemented Ge QDs into thin-film photodetectors, using an ITO/TiO$_2$/Ge QD/Au architecture. We found a signal-to-noise a ratio greater than 10$^4$ at at 1V bias. Additionally, it was found that conductivity was improved by Ge QDs samples with increased crystallinity. Our next study focused on thin-film organic-inorganic perovskite solar cells. Using methylammonium lead iodide (MAPbI$_3$) as our absorption layer, these devices utilize a well-studied architecture which uses PEDOT:PSS as a hole extraction layer. We find that increasingly thinner PEDOT:PSS layer results in better performing devices.My last chapter focuses on using formamidinium lead bromide (FAPbBr$_3$) as a green-emitting active layer in an ITO/TiO$_2$/Perovksite/Spiro-OMeTAD/Au architecture. By reducing the free lead content in our system \textit{via} a nonstoichiometric precursor ratio, we find successful green emission

Jindās was the nearest village to Lydda, situated by the town’s northern entrance. Although Lydda remained, to a large extent, an agricultural town until 1948, its rural hinterland has received little scholarly attention thus far. In this article, I sought to redress this disparity by reconstructing the history of Jindās, based on Ottoman tax records, waqf endowment deeds, registers of the Sharia courts and even oral testimonies. Jindās is mentioned in the 15th , 16th and early 17th centuries as a flourishing village whose lands belonged to different religious endowments. In the 18th and 19th centuries the village was abandoned several times. The desertion of Jindās, as well as of its neighbors Sibtāra, Kafr Jinnis, Beit Qūfa, and Shīhā, reflects the unsettled conditions around Lydda as a result from the migrations of nomadic groups and local manifestations of the Qays and Yaman rivalry. From a broader historiographical perspective, the article underlines a key point: the abandonment of villages did not necessarily result in an overall demographic decline. Just as the inhabitants of Jindās were scattered throughout Palestine’s central hill country, residents of other abandoned villages relocated, for the most part, to other regions, expanding and changing their existing patterns of settlement. In addition, the lands of these villages were not left abandoned, but continued to be cultivated by other populations. Thus, the lands of Jindās were cultivated by the inhabitants of Beit Nabālā and Lydda, and while they became the target of early Zionist settlement initiatives starting in the late 19th century, Ottoman reassertion of Jindās’ status as a waqf estate forestalled the land acquisition initiatives.

Grid-connected battery energy storage systems (BESS) are a promising technology to decrease peak load. In this paper, a linear programming (LP) optimization model of a BESS that minimizes demand charge in real-time is developed. The model is employed to study the effect of two temporal resolutions of load profiles, 15~min and 1~hour, on peak load shaving and optimal sizing of BESS. In contrast to previous studies with perfect forecast, realistic forecast errors are prescribed; a 24~hour persistence forecasts and a recurrent neural network (RNN) model are used for short-term load forecasts. The LP routine was coupled with model predictive control (MPC) to obtain optimal BESS dispatch schedules and to reduce the deviations due to load forecast errors in real time. The performance of the proposed algorithm is simulated for one month on a grid-connected building. Compared to perfect load forecasts, the RNN forecast error causes a monthly average of 1.3~kW higher optimized net load, and corresponding \$27 higher optimal demand charge (ODC). Correcting persistence forecast with more accurate RNN forecast yield better peak shaving performance with a monthly average of 28.1% reduction in optimized net load. The temporal load resolution has a significant influence on the ODC. The difference of ODC for two temporal resolutions depend strongly on the load profile characteristics. When the battery capacity is above a certain power and energy threshold limit, the 1~hour load profile is found to be sufficient for determining ODC. However, when the power and/or energy is constrained, the difference in the ODC between 15 min and 1 hour resolution ranges from $14.7 to $123.1 for 28 days.