This paper presents the results of an excavation that uncovered c. 390 m of roadside plots within the ribbon development alongside the Fosse Way on the south-west periphery of the walled small town of Margidunum in Nottinghamshire. The roadside plots appear to have been used for a combination of domestic occupation and agricultural activity, and to the rear lay 54 inhumation burials in 52 graves (including two double burials) and a single urned cremation burial, whose skeletons bore evidence for the tough working lives of the individuals. These are interpreted as the remains of peasant farmers and as evidence for the agricultural focus of the settlement, and of ‘small towns’ more generally. A contrast is drawn between the apparent poverty of this community and the apparently more high-status occupation within the defended core of the town.

Daily A ntarrtir sea-ice concentration, wind and temperature data for the years 1988-94 were analyzed using Fourier techniques to determine their temporal spectra for three equal-length “seasons". The percentage of the total variance explained (VE) by each individual wave (i.e. frequency] was calculated, and spatial averages made over six latitudinal hands surrounding Antarctica. Comparisons of trie sea-ice concentration, wind stress and surface air-temperature spectra showed sea-ice concentration VE has smallest, and wind-stress VE greatest, value in the synoptic time-scales. Conversely, in the 20-25 day window the wind-stress VE is smallest, and sea-ice concentration VE greatest. This “red shift” of the sea-ice concentration suggests it has inertia to the wind slress and temperature Forcing. Resulls show the magnitude of the red shift varies with not only time of year, but also distance from the coast, and is dependent upon the position of the Antarctic circumpolar trough.

Poly[sulfur-random-(1,3-diisopropenylbenzene)] copolymers synthesized via inverse vulcanization represent an emerging class of electrochemically active polymers recently used in cathodes for Li–S batteries, capable of realizing enhanced capacity retention (1,005 mAh/g at 100 cycles) and lifetimes of over 500 cycles. The composite cathodes are organized in complex hierarchical three-dimensional (3D) architectures, which contain several components and are challenging to understand and characterize using any single technique. Here, multimode analytical scanning and transmission electron microscopies and energy-dispersive X-ray/electron energy-loss spectroscopies coupled with multivariate statistical analysis and tomography were applied to explore origins of the cathode-enhanced capacity retention. The surface topography, morphology, bonding, and compositions of the cathodes created by combining sulfur copolymers with varying 1,3-diisopropenylbenzene content and conductive carbons have been investigated at multiple scales in relation to the electrochemical performance and physico-mechanical stability. We demonstrate that replacing the elemental sulfur with organosulfur copolymers improves the compositional homogeneity and compatibility between carbons and sulfur-containing domains down to sub-5 nm length scales resulting in (a) intimate wetting of nanocarbons by the copolymers at interfaces; (b) the creation of 3D percolation networks of conductive pathways involving graphitic-like outer shells of aggregated carbons; (c) concomitant improvements in the stability with preserved meso- and nanoscale porosities required for efficient charge transport.

The existence and functional importance of RNA secondary structure in the replication of positive-stranded RNA viruses is increasingly recognized. We applied several computational methods to detect RNA secondary structure in the coding region of hepatitis C virus (HCV), including thermodynamic prediction, calculation of free energy on folding, and a newly developed method to scan sequences for covariant sites and associated secondary structures using a parsimony-based algorithm. Each of the prediction methods provided evidence for complex RNA folding in the core- and NS5B-encoding regions of the genome. The positioning of covariant sites and associated predicted stem-loop structures coincided with thermodynamic predictions of RNA base pairing, and localized precisely in parts of the genome with marked suppression of variability at synonymous sites. Combined, there was evidence for a total of six evolutionarily conserved stem-loop structures in the NS5B-encoding region and two in the core gene. The virus most closely related to HCV, GB virus-B (GBV-B) also showed evidence for similar internal base pairing in its coding region, although predictions of secondary structures were limited by the absence of comparative sequence data for this virus. While the role(s) of stem-loops in the coding region of HCV and GBV-B are currently unknown, the structure predictions in this study could provide the starting point for functional investigations using recently developed self-replicating clones of HCV.