Nutrition, rumen health and inflammation in the transition period and their role on overall health and fertility in dairy cows.

Transition is a stressful period and critical for the entire cow's productive lifespan and reproduction. Optimal feeding management during transition period enables smooth metabolic adaptation to the initiation of lactation. Major nutritional challenge during this period is the urgent need to counteract the drastic deficits in energy and nutrients of the early-lactating cow.

The Aegean in the Early 7th Millennium BC: Maritime Networks and Colonization.

The process of Near Eastern neolithization and its westward expansion from the core zone in the Levant and upper Mesopotamia has been broadly discussed in recent decades, and many models have been developed to describe the spread of early farming in terms of its timing, structure, geography and sociocultural impact. Until now, based on recent intensive investigations in northwestern and western Anatolia, the discussion has mainly centred on the importance of Anatolian inland routes for the westward spread of neolithization. This contribution focuses on the potential impact of east Mediterranean and Aegean maritime networks on the spread of the Neolithic lifestyle to the western edge of the Anatolian subcontinent in the earliest phases of sedentism.