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Turf is not a material frequently associated with construction. However, as a cheap, easily available, and versatile material it was used in antiquity (and has been used in various contexts since) to form unit-based and mass walls, embankments, and ramparts. Some of the best-preserved evidence for historical turf use comes from the Roman period, when it was a mainstay of military construction, being widely used in forts (e.g. along the Rhine and in Britain) and large-scale linear earthworks, most notably thewalls of Hadrian (northern England) and Antoninus Pius (central Scotland). To our knowledge, turf has never been examined as a construction material; its interest has, until now, been restricted to the soil and agricultural sciences and sports engineering. This paper presents the first exploration of turf water retention properties, assessed to understand whether turf behaviour can be collated with that of more traditionalearthen materials, for example cob or rammed earth. Tensiometer and psychrometer methods were used to estimate the water retention curves of turf, representative of that used for construction, harvested from two sites near Crieff, Scotland. The obtained data were analysed in terms of unimodal type functions to understand qualities of the full range of the soil water retention curve for Scottish turf. This work supports a larger project examining how engineering materials principles can explain ancient construction practices. In so doing, we will be well positioned to reintroduce this low-carbon material to the modern construction market.

Excavation of a well-preserved stretch of the rampart of the Antonine Wall east of Watling Lodge, at Laurieston, allowed for the first micromorphological study of its earthen building materials. This revealed that the rampart core, as well as the cheeks, were constructed in well-layered courses of turf blocks – but sourced from different grasslands. The evidence differs from macroscopic observations made at other sections in this area where the rampart material had been interpreted as representing a loose earth core with clay cheeks. Our results show that even when the characteristic striped sections indicative of turf are not visible in the field, thin section analysis can confirm the use of intact soil blocks with the remains of grassed surfaces. It now seems possible that the visible variation between materials in the eastern and western sector of the Antonine Wall may simply be due to different types of turf used, varying in subsoil composition and topsoil formation, and representing differences in landscape management and survival of vegetation. Combined with macroscopic field recording to identify Roman building practices, our analysis of this section at Laurieston also shows the care that was taken to construct a level, well-draining rampart to avoid slumping and moisture built-up. Further excavations and thin-section analysis elsewhere along the Wall are now needed to confirm whether turf was more extensively used than so far anticipated for the eastern sector and whether the Antonine Wall could possibly have been built completely of turf. Such conclusions would suggest a much more standardised construction process and more extensive grassland exploitation than considered up until now. While our results demonstrate the importance of micromorphological analysis for understanding this earthen UNESCO World Heritage site, our interdisciplinary approach may also have wider relevance for research on linear earthworks in different geographical and chronological settings.

Demand for prestige materials, primarily from major imperially-funded projects but also from locally-funded schemes all around the Roman world, put enormous pressure on the producers of raw materials and, especially, transporters. Big buildings demanded big materials and this had an impact on the infrastructure through which these materials were used and the means of transport employed. But the fashion for stone construction more generally also meant that vast quantities of this material were moved overseas throughout the Roman period. As Knoop and Jones have remarked, in a study on stoneworking in the Middle Ages: ‘apart from the selection of suitable stone, probably the most important problem in connection with the supply of building materials was that of carriage.’1 In this short paper I will consider what the shipwreck evidence reveals about the dynamics of this traffic, focusing on cargoes both big and small, and what they reveal about the commercial mechanisms behind them.

Rezension zu: Tommaso Ismaelli and Giuseppe Scardozzi (editors), Ancient Quarries and Building Sites in Asia Minor. Research on Hierapolis in Phrygia and other cities in South-Western Anatolia: archaeology, archaeometry, conservation. Bibliotheca Archeologica, volume 45. Publisher Edipuglia, Bari 2016. 908 pages with 671 illustrations and 99 plates, Bonner Jahrbücher, Bd. 218.2018(2019): Bonner Jahrbücher

Additional file 2. Graph of the filtered x-ray spectrum used for the in vitro experimentation.

Este libro es –nunca mejor dicho– el resultado de una memoria selectiva. Sus 19 títulos dan cuenta de un ciclo que cierra una etapa inicial del Seminario Pensar lo Real como espacio de reflexión en torno a ‘lo documental’. Estuvo inspirado en el espíritu de Pensar el documental, un encuentro sin duda iniciático, organizado por el Ministerio de Cultura de Colombia en 1998. El encuentro que tuvo como invitados a Patricio Guzmán, Anne Baudry, Nicolás Philibert, Óscar Campo y Marta Rodríguez, entre otros destacados cineastas, tuvo el mérito de impulsar la creación de Alados y, a su vez, de la mano de lo que es hoy una asociación pionera de documentalistas en América Latina, abrió paso a lo que sería durante estas dos décadas1 el largo proceso de consolidación de una Muestra Internacional Documental de Bogotá - MIDBO.

Additional file 3. Graph of energy against DEF for the range of energies in the x-ray spectrum used for in vitro experimentation.

Additional file 3. Graph of energy against DEF for the range of energies in the x-ray spectrum used for in vitro experimentation.

Nuclear medicine is used to diagnose and treat a number of disorders and diseases and is an essential part of a hospital’s clinical toolkit. Diagnostic nuclear medicine utilises radioactive isotopes which emit either gamma-rays or positrons. Therapeutic nuclear medicine involves the use of radioactive isotopes which emit high-energy electrons or alpha particles. Four terbium isotopes (149Tb, 152Tb, 155Tb and 161Tb) have been shown to possess physical and chemical properties suitable for a wide range of therapeutic and diagnostic applications in nuclear medicine1. If a diagnostic terbium isotope is used in combination with a therapeutic terbium isotope (e.g. 155Tb and 161Tb) it would give a theranostic pair with identical chemical properties. This is a particularly promising characteristic as it facilitates the use of personalised medicine. Currently, the main obstacle preventing these terbium isotopes reaching clinical practice is their production and subsequent chemical separation in the quantities required for preclinical and clinical trials. In all cases, terbium needs to be isolated from lanthanide impurities and this is a challenging task due to the very similar chemical properties of neighbouring lanthanides. The aim of this study is to develop an efficient and robust method to purify terbium from other lanthanides2. The separation of terbium from other lanthanide elements was studied on LN® resin (Triskem International), an extraction chromatography resin. Stable element standards were used for method development and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) used to quantify the quality of the achieved separation. Both batch and column studies were conducted to identify the optimal separation conditions. The terbium solutions produced using the derived method were of a purity (>95% terbium) that is suitable for use in preclinical and clinical study. 1 C. Muller et al., J. Nucl. Med., 2012, 53, 1951–1959. 2 B. Webster et al., Sci. Rep., 2019, 9, 10884.

A number of industries generate by-products containing naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM). Such materials must be characterised prior to re-use, for example, in building materials or for sentencing as waste. Reference materials, reflecting the variety of matrices and principal radionuclides encountered, are required to validate radioanalytical methods for accurate measurement and to demonstrate compliance. Currently, the only certified reference material available is a phosphogypsum matrix, distributed by the IAEA, in connection with phosphoric acid production. A blast furnace slag reference material has been developed for use in the steel and cement production industries. The results of an inter-laboratory comparison exercise, involving 23 laboratories across 14 countries are summarised, focussing on measurement of 40K, 226Ra and 232Th activity concentrations. The work addresses the need for additional NORM reference materials and provides an infrastructure for future inter-comparison exercises. A second material from an oil pipeline has been characterised in preparation for the next exercise. Underpinning the accurate measurement of reference materials, and all applications of nuclear science, is the accuracy and precision of nuclear decay data. In some cases, the data are outdated and/or significant uncertainties remain, which limits the measurement precision achievable. This project presents a methodology for atom counting of long-lived radionuclides using isotope dilution mass spectrometry combined with absolute decay counting methods for measurement of half-lives. The methodology has been applied to 238U, for which limited half-life measurements exist, most recently from 1971. The methodology developed will be applicable to other naturally occurring radionuclides that suffer from similar decay data limitations, including 232Th.

Over the last two hundred years various pieces of sculpture have been found in what is left of the ruins of the centre of the Roman city of Utica (modern Tunisia). This material is now mostly spread between museum collections in Tunis, Copenhagen, Leiden and London, though some of it remains at Utica, and at least one piece is lost. To judge from what little documentation survives, many of these sculptural elements were found in the same area of Utica and indeed can with reasonable confidence be associated with a single structure, an Antonine-era civil basilica, first identified in the 19th century and recently excavated by a team from the Institut National du Patrimoine and the University of Oxford. This paper presents the new sculptural material unearthed by these excavations for the first time and compares them to the sporadic finds made from the early 19th century onwards. In reconstituting this sculptural assemblage new insights into the decorative programme of the Utican basilica and the aspirations of its commissioners and their community can be gained., Archäologischer Anzeiger, 2. Halbband (2019)

Protein misfolding plays a critical role in the formation of Amyloidosis type disease. Therefore, understanding and ability to track protein unfolding in a dynamic manner is of considerable interest. Fluorescence-based techniques are powerful tools for gaining real-time information about the local environmental conditions of a probe on the nanoscale. Fluorescent gold nanoclusters (AuNCs) are a new type of fluorescent probes which are

The main objective of this investigation was to find mosquito larvicidal secondary metabolites from a basidiomycete – Stereum species (JO5289) – against Aedes aegypti . The Stereum species (JO5289) was collected in July 2005 from undisturbed habitat in Londiani forest in Rift Valley province, Kenya. Extracellular crude extracts from Stereum species (JO5289) produced strong activity against A. aegypti larvae. Purification of the crude extracts targeting larvicidal activity using chromatography gave three active compounds namely; tyrosol, 3-methoxy-5-methyl-1,2-benzenediol and 2-hydroxy-4-(4-hydroxychroman- 7yl) but-3-enal. The chemical structures of the compounds were determined using the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectral data and comparison with literature values. When tested for larvicidal activity, the LC 50 for the three compounds were 26.7, 17.3 and 14.5 ppm, respectively, while LC 90 were 85.3, 83.5 and 82.9 ppm, respectively, after 24 h of exposure. These compounds have been produced from cultures of a Stereum species and reported to have mosquito larvicidal activity for the first time. Key words: Basidiomycete, Stereum species, Aedes aegypti , extracellular metabolites and larvicidal.

The main objective of this investigation was to find mosquito larvicidal secondary metabolites from a basidiomycete – Stereum species (JO5289) – against Aedes aegypti. The Stereum species (JO5289) was collected in July 2005 from undisturbed habitat in Londiani forest in Rift Valley province, Kenya. Extracellular crude extracts from Stereum species (JO5289) produced strong activity against A. aegypti larvae. Purification of the crude extracts targeting larvicidal activity using chromatography gave three active compounds namely; tyrosol, 3-methoxy-5-methyl-1,2-benzenediol and 2-hydroxy-4-(4-hydroxychroman- 7yl) but-3-enal. The chemical structures of the compounds were determined using the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectral data and comparison with literature values. When tested for larvicidal activity, the LC50 for the three compounds were 26.7, 17.3 and 14.5 ppm, respectively, while LC90 were 85.3, 83.5 and 82.9 ppm, respectively, after 24 h of exposure. These compounds have been produced from cultures of a Stereum species and reported to have mosquito larvicidal activity for the first time.Key words: Basidiomycete, Stereum species, Aedes aegypti, extracellular metabolites and larvicidal.

In 1934, a child's construction toy - Meccano - was used to build the first differential analyser in the UK. Initially intended as a proof-of-concept model, the original Meccano differential analyser proved so successful at resolving equations that many subsequent Meccano and non-Meccano analogue computers were built in the UK. These machines were used before, during, and after the Second World War as research instruments and teaching devices. Despite this, the part of the original Meccano differential analyser that has sat in the Science Museum since 1949 has been used to tell a Whiggish history of computers that focuses on digital machines at the expense of analogue mechanisms. While historians of computing today define their work in opposition to this linear-progressive account of computing, this approach featured prominently in academic literature until the turn of the millennium.\ud This thesis explores Hartree and Porter's original Meccano differential analyser as an analogue computer, using it as a case study to explore the complex relationships between Meccano, play, science, and engineering. In doing so, it considers the object as an assemblage of its Meccano materiality, its instrumentality as an analogue computer, and its career as a collected object in the Science Museum. It deconstructs these different elements of the assemblage and explores how they are part of wider, external assemblages that have their own public histories. The thesis considers the changing materiality of Meccano as an object from 1901 to the present day, analysing marketing materials, the Meccano Magazine, and the voices of the Meccanomen to challenge the conventional, synchronic history of the toy as an unchanged engineering tool. It uses the Meccanomen's popular publications together with archival sources and interviews to historicise the 'alternative' version of the Meccanomen's movement, making it possible to see how individuals attached a variety of personalised meanings to their Meccano hobby. \ud It also explores the object's instrumentality as an analogue computer, beginning with a detailed 'nuts and bolts' comparison of how the original Meccano differential analyser worked with how it was presented in academic and popular publications in 1934. It then brings together the stories and applications of other differential analysers constructed in Britain during this period, to provide further case studies about the role of these computers during the Second World War, and how they have been displayed in museums. The thesis then draws on these analyses by telling the story of the 'Trainbox' object that was collected by the Science Museum in 1949. The 'Trainbox' was comprised of parts of the original Meccano differential analyser that Hartree used to teach the principles of differential equations and integration after the Second World War. Through exploring how the public history and voices of the object have been changed in different exhibits in the museum, this thesis demonstrates the complex relationship between different parts of object's assemblage in a variety of contexts over time. The final part of the thesis builds on these deconstructed elements by reconstructing the original object as the Kent machine, a historical reproduction designed to recover elements of the tacit knowledge used to build it in 1934. It finishes by exploring how these new understandings of Meccano and analogue computers were used to co-curate a new public history for this curious object, using the 'shared authority' of myself, the Meccanomen, and audiences we engaged with the Kent machine.