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Background: Socio-economic, cultural and environmental conditions strongly affect health across the life course. Local government plays a key role in influencing these wider determinants of health and levels of inequality within their communities. However, they lack the research infrastructure and culture that would enable them to develop an evidence-based approach to tackling the complex drivers of those conditions.\ud \ud Methods: We undertook a scoping project using some research methods and some descriptive summaries to explore the potential for, and what would be needed to develop a local authority research system for the City of Bradford, UK. This included identifying the current research landscape and any barriers and enablers to research activity within the local authority using qualitative individual and focus group interviews, a rapid review of existing local research system models, scoping and description of the use of evidence in decision making and training opportunities and existing support for local government research.\ud \ud Results: We identified four key themes important to developing and sustaining a research system: leadership, resource and capacity, culture, partnerships. Some use of research in decision making was evident but research training opportunities within the local authority were limited. Health research funders are slowly adapting to the local government environment, but this remains limited and more work is needed to shift the centre of gravity towards public health, local government and the community more generally. \ud \ud Conclusions: We propose a model for a local authority research system that can guide the development of an exemplar whole system research framework that includes research infrastructure, data sharing, research training and skills, and co-production with local partners, to choose, use, generate, and deliver research in local government.

Background: Socio-economic, cultural and environmental conditions strongly affect health across the life course. Local government plays a key role in influencing these wider determinants of health and levels of inequality within their communities. However, they lack the research infrastructure and culture that would enable them to develop an evidence-based approach to tackling the complex drivers of those conditions.\ud \ud \ud \ud Methods: We undertook a scoping project to explore the potential for, and what would be needed to develop a local authority research system for the City of Bradford, UK. This included identifying the current research landscape and any barriers and enablers to research activity within the local authority using qualitative individual and focus group interviews, a rapid review of existing local research system models, scoping of the use of evidence in decision making and training opportunities and existing support for local government research.\ud \ud \ud \ud Results: We identified four key themes important to developing and sustaining a research system: leadership, resource and capacity, culture, partnerships. Some use of research in decision making was evident but research training opportunities within the local authority were limited. Health research funders are slowly adapting to the local government environment, but this remains limited and more work is needed to shift the centre of gravity towards public health, local government and the community more generally. \ud \ud \ud \ud Conclusions: We propose a model for a local authority research system that can guide the development of an exemplar whole system research framework that includes research infrastructure, data sharing, research training and skills, and co-production with local partners, to choose, use, generate, and deliver research in local government.

The archaeological site of Biskupin (Poland) is a prehistoric settlement dating to the 8th century BC, situated on a marshy island. Excavations started in 1934 and a considerable number of wooden artifacts were found in the lake water. Unfortunately, during many years of archaeological excavations, wooden remains deposited in the trenches were exposed to degradation and underwent considerable decomposition. Among the main causes of wood degradation, fungi and bacteria were the most destructive ones. The chemical effects induced by fungi and bacteria on wood are not well-known or studied. Here we present the investigation of a set of pine wood samples (Pinus sylvestris) buried in the Biskupin site, with the aim of reproducing the burial conditions of the original archaeological wood. Two monitoring stations (wet peat and lake water) were chosen and the samples were then removed from these burial environments after four and ten years. After removal, the samples were exposed to laboratory-controlled attack by the brown rot fungus Coniophora puteana. The final aim was to evaluate the effects of fungal activity on the wood substrates with different degrees of natural degradation. The study is part of an experiment designed to evaluate the short-term effects of the in situ preservation strategy adopted for the Biskupin archaeological woods. Various techniques were used to assess the physical and chemical degradation of the wood. The morphological changes induced by the exposure to the burial environment and by the action of the fungi were investigated using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The chemical state of the wood was evaluated by using infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), analytical pyrolysis coupled with gas chromatography and mass spectrometry (Py-GC/MS) and XRD spectroscopy. Fungal action caused the depletion of polysaccharides resulting in mass loss and the FTIR spectra of the wood samples highlighted that cellulose was more degraded with respect to hemicelluloses. This trend correlated with an increase in the relative abundance of furans, which are among the main pyrolysis products of polysaccharides. Fungal attack also induced oxidation of lignin and an increase in the crystallinity index of cellulose, which points towards a preferential metabolisation of amorphous cellulose. The overall results highlighted that the burial in these wet environments caused changes mostly in the hemicelluloses, whereas the fungal attack was mainly directed to cellulose degradation.

Roman-period mummy portraits are considered to be ancient antecedents of modern portraiture. However, the techniques and materials used in their manufacture are not thoroughly understood. Analytical study of the pigments as well as the binding materials helps to address questions on what aspects of the painting practices originate from Pharaonic and/or Graeco-Roman traditions, and can aid in determining the provenance of the raw materials from potential locations across the ancient Mediterranean and European worlds. Here, one of the largest assemblages of mummy portraits to remain intact since their excavation from the site of Tebtunis in Egypt was examined using multiple analytical techniques to address how they were made. The archaeological evidence suggests that these portraits were products of a single workshop and, correspondingly, they are found to be made using similar techniques and materials: wax-based and lead white-rich paint combined with a variety of iron-based pigments (including hematite, goethite and jarosite), as well as Egyptian blue, minium, indigo and madder lake to create subtle variations and tones.

Alasdair Whittle has had a career-long interest in the Neolithic of the Avebury area (Fig. 17.1). In the late 1980s and early 1990s he undertook a major research project in the region to investigate the Neolithic sequence and its environment (Whittle 1993). This included a series of excavations of early Neolithic sites including the causewayed enclosure at Windmill Hill (Whittle et al. 1999), the chambered tomb at Millbarrow (Whittle 1994), and an earthen long barrow at Easton Down (Whittle et al. 1993). A series of trenches were also cut through two palisade enclosures at West Kennet (Whittle 1997). This campaign of new excavation was accompanied by research into the archives of previous investigations, particularly the\ud publication and subsequent dating of Richard Atkinson’s excavation on and within Silbury Hill in 1968–70 (Bayliss et al. 2007a; Whittle 1997) and a reassessment of the date and development of Avebury itself (Pitts and Whittle 1992).\ud The subsequent decades have seen continued work in the Avebury region, given focus by the Archaeological Research\ud Agenda for the Avebury World Heritage site (AAHRG 2001). Alasdair himself has been instrumental in producing refined chronologies for the West Kennet long barrow (Bayliss et al. 2007b) and the causewayed enclosures at Windmill Hill and Knap Hill (Whittle et al. 2011, chapter 3), and in producing synthetic narratives of early Neolithic sites in the region and beyond (Whittle et al. 2007; 2011, chapters 14 and 15). Further understanding of the late Neolithic landscape has been gained through research excavations at the Beckhampton Avenue and Longstones Cove and ditched enclosure (Gillings et al. 2008), and through rescue excavations undertaken in advance of consolidation works at Silbury Hill (Leary et al. 2013a).\ud The latter in particular has done much to improve our understanding of the development and date of Silbury Hill (Marshall et al. 2013; in prep. a; in prep. b), which has been put into context by a recent synthesis of the available scientific dating evidence for the Avebury area by Frances Healy (2016).

OBJECTIVE: Decisions about withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining treatment (WWLST) from adults who lack capacity are an integral part of intensive care (IC) practice. We compare the knowledge, attitudes and practice of intensivists in relation to the law about WWLST with six other specialties most often involved in end-of-life care. DESIGN, SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: We used a cross-sectional postal survey of medical specialists in the three most populous Australian states, and analysed responses from 867 medical specialists from the seven specialties most likely to be involved in WWLST decisions in the acute-care setting (emergency, geriatric, palliative, renal and respiratory medicine, medical oncology and IC). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Attitudes to, and knowledge and practice of, the law relating to end-of-life care. RESULTS: Of 2702 surveys sent to eligible practitioners, 867 completed questionnaires were returned. There was an overall response rate of 32% and an IC response rate also of 32% (125/388). Intensivists performed better than average in legal knowledge but important knowledge gaps remain. Intensivists had a more negative attitude to the role of law in this area than other specialty groups but reported being seen as a leading source of information about legal issues by other medical specialists and nurses. Intensivists also reported being the specialists most frequently making decisions about end-of-life treatment. CONCLUSIONS: Improved legal knowledge and open engagement with the law can help manage the risk of harm to patients and protect intensivists from liability. IC guidelines and continuing professional development are important strategies to address these issues.

International audience; Elands Bay Cave (EBC) is one of the key sites for the analysis of the Late Pleistocene/Holocene record in southern Africa. It typifies an area of study, the West Coast of South Africa, which benefits from a long history of research, from the 1960s until today. The 2011 project of EBC was initiated within the framework of the Middle Stone Age (MSA) research at Diepkloof Rock Shelter (DRS). The objective was to build a local synthesis and a complementary picture on the basis of these two sites located 14 km apart from one another, on the left bank of the Verlorenvlei. The excavation at EBC took place during May 2011 with the aim of clarifying the site formation processes, the chronology of the Late Pleistocene occupations as well as the nature of the technological sequence. Our excavation focused on a 1.2 m deep profile that records two main occupational phases separated by a significant hiatus: (1) the initial phase represents an early MSA technology (previously called ‘MSA 1’ by T. Volman 1981) within deposits that started accumulating ca. 250 ka years ago; (2) the second phase documents (late) MSA, Early Later Stone Age (ELSA) and Robberg occupations. The present synthesis is part of a series of several papers that take a multidisciplinary perspective. In this paper, we introduce our 2011 excavation, present our main results and discuss the succession from the late MSA to the LSA at EBC. In an epilogue, we provide a comparison between the archaeological records of EBC and DRS and further explore the reasons why these two sites do not represent similar occupational sequences.