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Figurative cave paintings from the Indonesian island of Sulawesi date to at least 35,000 years ago (ka) and hand-stencil art from the same region has a minimum date of 40 ka 1 . Here we show that similar rock art was created during essentially the same time period on the adjacent island of Borneo. Uranium-series analysis of calcium carbonate deposits that overlie a large reddish-orange figurative painting of an animal at Lubang Jeriji Saléh—a limestone cave in East Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo—yielded a minimum date of 40 ka, which to our knowledge is currently the oldest date for figurative artwork from anywhere in the world. In addition, two reddish-orange-coloured hand stencils from the same site each yielded a minimum uranium-series date of 37.2 ka, and a third hand stencil of the same hue has a maximum date of 51.8 ka. We also obtained uranium-series determinations for cave art motifs from Lubang Jeriji Saléh and three other East Kalimantan karst caves, which enable us to constrain the chronology of a distinct younger phase of Pleistocene rock art production in this region. Dark-purple hand stencils, some of which are decorated with intricate motifs, date to about 21–20 ka and a rare Pleistocene depiction of a human figure—also coloured dark purple—has a minimum date of 13.6 ka. Our findings show that cave painting appeared in eastern Borneo between 52 and 40 ka and that a new style of parietal art arose during the Last Glacial Maximum. It is now evident that a major Palaeolithic cave art province existed in the eastern extremity of continental Eurasia and in adjacent Wallacea from at least 40 ka until the Last Glacial Maximum, which has implications for understanding how early rock art traditions emerged, developed and spread in Pleistocene Southeast Asia and further afield. Uranium-series dating of rock art from Borneo reveals a minimum date for figurative artwork of 40,000 years ago, and a distinct style of parietal art in Southeast Asia at the Last Glacial Maximum.\

National levels of personal health-care access and quality can be approximated by measuring mortality rates from causes that should not be fatal in the presence of effective medical care (ie, amenable mortality). Previous analyses of mortality amenable to health care only focused on high-income countries and faced several methodological challenges. In the present analysis, we use the highly standardised cause of death and risk factor estimates generated through the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) to improve and expand the quantification of personal health-care access and quality for 195 countries and territories from 1990 to 2015. We mapped the most widely used list of causes amenable to personal health care developed by Nolte and McKee to 32 GBD causes. We accounted for variations in cause of death certification and misclassifications through the extensive data standardisation processes and redistribution algorithms developed for GBD. To isolate the effects of personal health-care access and quality, we risk-standardised cause-specific mortality rates for each geography-year by removing the joint effects of local environmental and behavioural risks, and adding back the global levels of risk exposure as estimated for GBD 2015. We employed principal component analysis to create a single, interpretable summary measure–the Healthcare Quality and Access (HAQ) Index–on a scale of 0 to 100. The HAQ Index showed strong convergence validity as compared with other health-system indicators, including health expenditure per capita (r=0·88), an index of 11 universal health coverage interventions (r=0·83), and human resources for health per 1000 (r=0·77). We used free disposal hull analysis with bootstrapping to produce a frontier based on the relationship between the HAQ Index and the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a measure of overall development consisting of income per capita, average years of education, and total fertility rates. This frontier allowed us to better quantify the maximum levels of personal health-care access and quality achieved across the development spectrum, and pinpoint geographies where gaps between observed and potential levels have narrowed or widened over time. Between 1990 and 2015, nearly all countries and territories saw their HAQ Index values improve; nonetheless, the difference between the highest and lowest observed HAQ Index was larger in 2015 than in 1990, ranging from 28·6 to 94·6. Of 195 geographies, 167 had statistically significant increases in HAQ Index levels since 1990, with South Korea, Turkey, Peru, China, and the Maldives recording among the largest gains by 2015. Performance on the HAQ Index and individual causes showed distinct patterns by region and level of development, yet substantial heterogeneities emerged for several causes, including cancers in highest-SDI countries; chronic kidney disease, diabetes, diarrhoeal diseases, and lower respiratory infections among middle-SDI countries; and measles and tetanus among lowest-SDI countries. While the global HAQ Index average rose from 40·7 (95% uncertainty interval, 39·0–42·8) in 1990 to 53·7 (52·2–55·4) in 2015, far less progress occurred in narrowing the gap between observed HAQ Index values and maximum levels achieved; at the global level, the difference between the observed and frontier HAQ Index only decreased from 21·2 in 1990 to 20·1 in 2015. If every country and territory had achieved the highest observed HAQ Index by their corresponding level of SDI, the global average would have been 73·8 in 2015. Several countries, particularly in eastern and western sub-Saharan Africa, reached HAQ Index values similar to or beyond their development levels, whereas others, namely in southern sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and south Asia, lagged behind what geographies of similar development attained between 1990 and 2015. This novel extension of the GBD Study shows the untapped potential for personal health-care access and quality improvement across the development spectrum. Amid substantive advances in personal health care at the national level, heterogeneous patterns for individual causes in given countries or territories suggest that few places have consistently achieved optimal health-care access and quality across health-system functions and therapeutic areas. This is especially evident in middle-SDI countries, many of which have recently undergone or are currently experiencing epidemiological transitions. The HAQ Index, if paired with other measures of health-system characteristics such as intervention coverage, could provide a robust avenue for tracking progress on universal health coverage and identifying local priorities for strengthening personal health-care quality and access throughout the world. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

For years, mounting instability had led many to predict the imminent collapse of Yemen. These forecasts became reality in 2014 as the country spiralled into civil war. The conflict pits an alliance of the Houthis, a northern socio-political movement that had been fighting the central government since 2004, alongside troops loyal to a former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, against supporters and allies of the government overthrown by the Houthis in early 2015. The war became regionalized in March 2015 when a Saudi Arabia-led coalition of ten mostly Arab states launched a campaign of air strikes against the Houthis. According to Saudi Arabia, the Houthis are an Iranian proxy; they therefore frame the war as an effort to counter Iranian influence. This article will argue, however, that the Houthis are not Iranian proxies; Tehran's influence in Yemen is marginal. Iran's support for the Houthis has increased in recent years, but it remains low and is far from enough to significantly impact the balance of internal forces in Yemen. Looking ahead, it is unlikely that Iran will emerge as an important player in Yemeni affairs. Iran's interests in Yemen are limited, while the constraints on its ability to project power in the country are unlikely to be lifted. Tehran saw with the rise of the Houthis a low cost opportunity to gain some leverage in Yemen. It is unwilling, however, to invest larger amounts of resources. There is, as a result, only limited potential for Iran to further penetrate Yemen.

A hydrochemical campaign was carried out to evaluate groundwater chemical composition in Saleh Abad, NE Iran, in 2019. There were just 12 shallow wells which almost all people and their agricultural practices largely depend on them. physiochemical parameters including main cations and anions, electrical conductivity, total dissolved solids, and total hardness were measured. Based on the chemical analysis of samples, the mean concentration of dissolved cations is in order of Mg > Na > Ca > K and for anionic species, the order is as follows: Cl > HCO 3  > SO 4  > CO 3 . Piper diagram revealed that the predominant water type is Ca–Mg–Cl–SO 4 , and the Gibbs diagram showed that the main contributing factor in current chemical composition is water–rock interactions. Also, the correlation coefficient results emphasized the importance of water–rock interactions in altering the chemistry of groundwater. This index explained that not only carbonate mineral phases, but also gypsum and anhydrite are responsible for the high content of Ca, Mg, HCO 3 , and SO 4 . And this idea supports by the composite diagrams’s results. Additionally, man-made factors such as sewage effluent and farmland return flow have an impact on the water quality as more than 50% of samples had nitrate concentration more than the safe limit, 45 ppm. For agricultural purposes, related indexed calculated. Adsorption ratio shows that all wells are placed in the excellent category, and based on the US salinity diagram, C3S1 is the predominant that represents water with low sodium. The sodium percentage displayed that most samples are within the good classification. What is more, water samples are characterized by good category with regard to residual sodium carbonate. Totally, SA water groundwater is relatively suitable for most soil types with the minor danger of sodium exchange processes that reduce soil permeability. Decreasing soil permeability has a significant harmful effect on crop production. Simply put, the major contributor in determining the chemical composition of Saleh Abad water resources is water–rock interactions and, to a lesser extent, anthropogenic inputs- farming lands and sewage effluent.

Labuhan Sangoro, located in Saleh Bay, Sumbawa Regency, West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia, is one of the areas developed for cultivation of seaweed species Kappaphycus alvarezii. In 2023, the cultivation activities experienced crop failure due to an outbreak of ice-ice disease. This incident has caused significant labor and financial losses for the farmers. It is suspected that biological factors (bacteria) play a role in the emergence of this disease. Therefore, this study aimed (1) to identify the bacteria living in the waters (ice-ice-infected seaweed cultivation site) and (2) to find potential bacterial species responsible for causing the ice-ice disease. The target of this research was to molecularly identify the potential bacterial species known to infect K. alvarezii, causing the disease. The method used in this research was exploratory descriptive. Samples were collected from 4 points (K. alvarezii cultivation locations infected by ice-ice). Each point was represented by 2 depths (surface and bottom waters). Sampels analysis employed a culture-independent approach using metabarcoding (eDNA) analysis. This approach can be used to examine the genomes available in the environmental samples, thus allowing the identification of a wider range of bacterial species. As such, this approach offers greater opportunities to discover potential bacterial species that cause the ice-ice disease. In this research, the bacterial composition at two depths (surface and bottom waters) has been comprehensively understood. The major phyla responsible for important roles in organic matter decomposition, nutrient recycling, supporting primary production, and maintaining ecosystem balance are Cyanobacteria and Proteobacteria. The ice-ice disease in K. alvarezii culture is associated with certain bacterial species such as Vibrio spp. and Pseudoalteromonas sp. also found in the sampling locations.

The situation in Yemen-one of the world's worse humanitarian crises-risks deteriorating further. The death of Ali Abdullah Saleh might accelerate conflict.

Ultra-Wideband (UWB) faces some regulations due to the interference issues with the co-existing narrowband communication systems, due to which the effective utilization of bandwidth is not possible that causes lower data rate of transmission. We propose a pulse shaping method which can curtail the interference with the co-existing band of communication and have an ability to depress the ringing oscillation. The modified pulse shape has an ability to control over the transmitted power spectral density and offers improved antenna power resolution. To obtain the specific results, the seventh derivative of Gaussian pulse is used as a basic pulse. This pulse is spectrally modified by windowing with Gaussian window to achieve the desired performance. The analysis is not only limited to spectral management but also inculcate the performance estimation of the resultant pulse in multi-user scenario for indoor multipath channel IEEE 802.15.4a. We have also analysed the modified pulse to prove its ability in the location accuracy improvement for high-end application of UWB communication.

Grouper are demersal fishes that can be found in tropical and subtropical waters. In Indonesia, one of the areas where grouper production takes place in Saleh Bay, a semi-enclosed water with small islands, coral reefs and a high diversity. Information’s about the population and abundance of grouper species in Saleh Bay are currently limited. The benefits of this research are to enhance the availability of information on grouper diversity and the area as grouper fishing ground for future improvement on grouper fisheries management in Saleh Bay. Therefore, the study aimed to analyse the diversity, equitability, species richness and dominance index of different grouper species and the grouper fishing ground in this area. The data were obtained from field observations and fish landing data. Grouper caught have been calculated for each fishing gear based on the following parameters: diversity index (Shannon-Wiener), species richness, equitability, and dominance index. The results showed that grouper fishing grounds are spread over Saleh Bay. Fishers caught grouper around small islands with coral reefs. The diversity of grouper for each fishing gear ranged in a moderate category. We found that the bottom longline caught the highest species richness of grouper compare to other fishing gears. The dominance index showed no dominance using each examined fishing gear, or it can be said that grouper species are evenly caught with each fishing gear based on the calculation of the equitability index.