Speleological, stratigraphic, paleomagnetic and faunal data is presented for the Buffalo Cave fossil site in the Limpopo Province of South Africa. Speleothems and clastic deposits were sampled for paleomagnetic and mineral magnetic analysis from the northern part of the site, where stratigraphic relationships could be more easily defined and a magnetostratigraphy could therefore be developed for the site. This is also where excavations recovered the fossil material described. A comparison of the east and South African first and last appearance data with the Buffalo Cave fauna was then used to constrain the magnetostratigraphy to produce a more secure age for the site. The magnetostratigraphy showed a change from normal to reversed polarity in the basal speleothems followed by a short normal polarity period in the base of the clastic deposits and a slow change to reversed directions for the remainder of the sequence. The biochronology suggested an optimal age range of between 1.0 Ma and 600,000 yr based on faunal correlation with eastern and southern Africa. A comparison of the magnetobiostratigraphy with the GPTS suggests that the sequence covers the time period from the Olduvai event between 1.95 and 1.78 Ma, through the Jaramillo event at 1.07 Ma to 990,000 yr, until the Bruhnes–Matuyama boundary at 780,000 yr. The faunal-bearing clastic deposits are thus dated between 1.07 Ma and 780,000 yr with the main faunal remains occurring in sediments dated to just after the end of the Jaramillo Event at 990,000 yr.

The Desert Migrations Project is a new interdisciplinary and multi-dimensional collaborative project between the Society for Libyan Studies and the Department of Antiquities. The geographical focus of the study is the Fazzan region of southwest Libya and in thematic terms we aim to address the theme of migration in the broadest sense, encompassing the movement of people, ideas/knowledge and material culture into and out of Fazzan, along with evidence of shifting climatic and ecological boundaries over time. The report describes the principal sub-strands of the project's first season in January 2007, with some account of research questions, methods employed and some preliminary results. Three main sub-projects are reported on. The first concerns the improved understanding of long-term climatic and environmental changes derived from a detailed palaeoenvironmental study of palaeolake sediments. This geo-science work runs alongside and feeds directly into both archaeological sub-projects, the first relating to prehistoric activity and mobility around and between a series of palaeolakes during wetter climatic cycles; the second to the excavation of burials in the Wadi al-Ajal, exploring the changing relationship between material culture, identity and ethnicity across time, from prehistory to the early Islamic period (the span of the main cemetery zones). In addition, some rock art research and a survey of historic period sites was undertaken in the Wadi ash-Shati and Ubari sand sea.

Objectives: To develop and evaluate strategies for estimating hospitalization costs in multinational clinical trials.

Methods: Hospital cost estimates for eleven diagnoses were collected from twelve countries participating in a trial of therapies for congestive heart failure. Estimates were combined with U.S.-based diagnosis-related group weights to compute country-specific unit cost estimates for all reasons for hospitalization. Variations of hospital costing methods were developed. The unit cost method assigns a country-specific unit cost estimate to each hospitalization. The other methods adjust for length of stay using a daily cost (DC) estimate for each diagnosis, based on either the mean length of stay (DC-mean method) or the median length of stay (DC-median method) for each diagnosis in each country. Additional modifications were explored through adjustment of the distribution of daily costs incurred during a hospital stay.

Results: The mean cost for all hospitalizations was $10,242 (SD, 10,042) using the unit cost method, $10,242 (SD, 12,760) using the standard DC-mean method, and $13,967 (SD, 18,762) using the standard DC-median method. In comparisons of costs for all 5,486 hospitalizations incurred by a subset of 2,352 patients in the trial, the unit cost method provided 92% power to detect a $1,000 cost difference. The standard DC-mean method provided 76% power, and the standard DC-median method provided 44% power.

Conclusions: Hospital costing methods that adjust for differences in length of stay require a significantly larger sample to attain comparable statistical power as methods that assign unadjusted unit cost estimates to hospitalization events.

The drive toward higher density and higher performance in integrated circuits creates a need to keep interconnects short and eliminate layers of packaging. In this article, we propose a novel, ultrahigh-density (exceeding 104 leads per cm2), compliant, wafer-level, input/output interconnection technology called “sea of leads” as a key enabling technology for future high-performance microsystems. The mechanical compliance is addressed through slippery leads (leads released from the surface) and embedded air gaps. The ability to fabricate embedded air gaps has enabled the integration of optical interconnects with high index-of-refraction mismatches between the core and cladding.

New high-pressure x-ray diffraction data on uranium metal (99.9 %) in a diamond anvil cell is presented to 100 GPa (Volume compression V/Vo = 0.700) at room temperature using a variety of pressure markers like ruby, copper, and platinum. The diffraction patterns are carefully indexed allowing for reversal of peak positions based on anisotropic compression. We report anisotropic compression of the orthorhombic unit cell with the axial ratio b/a increasing initially to 40 GPa followed by a rapid decrease at higher pressure. On the other hand, axial ratio c/a shows a rapid increase with increasing pressure followed by saturation at megabar pressures. The most recent full potential electronic structure calculations reproduce the increasing tend of axial ratio c/a to 100 GPa but do not explain the variation in the b/a ratio. Our detailed analysis of all available experimental data also indicates that the observed anisotropic effects are intrinsic to Uranium and are independent of the pressure medium used in the high-pressure experiments.