In the nineteenth century, the Dutch established time signals in their Atlantic colonies to synchronise maritime navigation with European standards. In Paramaribo (Suriname), a sophisticated sequence of apparatus -- including time balls, noon guns, discs and flags -- operated from 1851 until World War I. Naval officers aboard guard ships used sextants equipped with artificial horizons to determine local noon, thus integrating the colony into the global Greenwich-based cartographic system. This infrastructure was not merely technical; it became a civic ritual, with the daily noon gun structuring urban life and becoming a point of political negotiation between naval commanders and the colonial governor. In contrast, the Dutch Caribbean islands employed simpler, pragmatic systems. Curaçao used a daily time flag, a cost-effective solution suited to its climate and harbour scale, while smaller islands like Aruba and St. Eustatius relied on occasional noon guns. This diversity reflected a decentralised colonial administration that adapted technologies to local conditions and budgets. The history of these time signals reveals a process of hybrid adaptation, not simply replication of European models. They were shaped by environmental challenges, fiscal constraints and local politics, functioning simultaneously as navigational aids and civic landmarks. Their eventual decline, owing to budgetary pressures and new technologies like wireless telegraphy, underscores the fragile and negotiated nature of colonial scientific infrastructures.
Banafsheh Karimian, Alexis Guichemerre, Soufiane Belharbi
et al.
Breast cancer remains a leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide. Longitudinal mammography risk prediction models improve multi-year breast cancer risk prediction based on prior screening exams. However, in real-world clinical practice, longitudinal histories are often incomplete, irregular, or unavailable due to missed screenings, first-time examinations, heterogeneous acquisition schedules, or archival constraints. The absence of prior exams degrades the performance of longitudinal risk models and limits their practical applicability. While substantial longitudinal history is available during training, prior exams are commonly absent at test time. In this paper, we address missing history at inference time and propose a longitudinal risk prediction method that uses mammography history as privileged information during training and distills its prognostic value into a student model that only requires the current exam at inference time. The key idea is a privileged multi-teacher distillation scheme with horizon-specific teachers: each teacher is trained on the full longitudinal history to specialize in one prediction horizon, while the student receives only a reconstructed history derived from the current exam. This allows the student to inherit horizon-dependent longitudinal risk cues without requiring prior screening exams at deployment. Our new Privileged History Distillation (PHD) method is validated on a large longitudinal mammography dataset with multi-year cancer outcomes, CSAW-CC, comparing full-history and no-history baselines to their distilled counterparts. Using time-dependent AUC across horizons, our privileged history distillation method markedly improves the performance of long-horizon prediction over no-history models and is comparable to that of full-history models, while using only the current exam at inference time.
AbstractDuring the Qajar era, Iran's growing engagement with foreign nations led to Guilan being designated as a border territory, primarily due to its unique geographical conditions. The region's fertile soil and abundant water resources for agriculture attracted significant political and commercial interest from abroad. As Guilan's prominence increased in political, commercial, and social spheres during this time with multiple foreign consulates established in Rasht, the local population experienced a notable influx of foreign nationals. This foreign presence and support for their citizens' interests in Guilan led to various outcomes, including some residents accepting foreign citizenship. This socio-political issue prompted protests from a coalition of freedom advocates and open-minded locals in Guilan, leading the Qajar government to implement measures aimed at preventing the persistence of this phenomenon. This study employed a historical approach and a descriptive-analytical method to explore the adoption of foreign citizenship among Guilan's populace during the Qajar period from 1882 to 1921 AD (1300-1339 AH). It investigated the emergence of this phenomenon, elucidating both the efforts of foreign entities to recruit Guilan citizens and the Qajar government's measures to mitigate this societal trend. The research findings identified key factors contributing to residential migration, including the influx of foreign nationals to Guilan, extensive support from governments like Russia and the Ottomans for their citizens, inadequate support from the Qajar government for local residents, and the poor conduct of governors and local leaders.Keywords: Iran during the Qajar Era, Relations between Iran and Russia, Relations between Iran and the Ottoman Empire, Guilan during the Qajar Era, Change of Citizenship.IntroductionDuring the Qajar era, particularly from the Naserid period (1848-1896 AD), the land of Guilan gained considerable importance in Iran's foreign relations and for foreign governments. The construction of the Rasht-Tehran gravel road facilitated the movement of political and commercial representatives from foreign countries through the Caspian Sea and towards Tehran. Guilan's strategic geographical location and fertile land made it a gateway to Europe. This, in turn, led to a significant influx of foreign nationals into the province. The establishment of various foreign government consulates in Guilan, including those from Russia, England, France, and the Ottoman Empire, and the consuls' support for their citizens, strengthened the positions of these foreign nationals in the region. As the presence of foreign nationals in Guilan increased, an intriguing socio-political phenomenon emerged during the Qajar period - the change of nationality by a portion of Guilan's population. This was an unprecedented occurrence as some residents sought to place themselves under the protection of foreign governments by changing their citizenship, while maintaining their presence and residence in Iran and Guilan. This phenomenon created problems and difficulties for the society and residents of this part of Iran, warranting historical investigation and study of its various dimensions. The present study aimed to explain and interpret the various factors and reasons behind the emergence of this socio-political phenomenon, as well as its social consequences for the society of Guilan during the Qajar era, based on historical sources.Materials & MethodsThis research adopted a historical approach and employed a descriptive-analytical method to investigate the phenomenon of Guilan's residents accepting foreign citizenship during the Qajar period from 1882 to 1921 AD (1300-1334 AH). The study examined the efforts of foreign governments to increase their nationals among the people of Guilan, as well as the measures taken by the Qajar government to prevent this social phenomenon. Examining the reasons and factors behind the acceptance of foreign citizenship in Guilan Province and its consequences could shed light on an important aspect of the challenges faced by the Qajar government during this period of Iran's history. However, written documents had not paid much attention to the problems related to the phenomenon of citizenship change in Guilan during this time. Therefore, this study relied on historical documents from the Qajar period, as well as archival documents related to the issue of foreign citizenship, to investigate these issues and problems. The aim was to study the adoption of foreign citizenship as an emerging social phenomenon in Guilan during the Qajar era based on archival and primary source materials. This necessitated an examination of the actions of the Qajar government and the policies of foreign governments in Guilan Province.Research Findings:The findings of this research indicated that several factors contributed to the change of citizenship among the people of Guilan during the Qajar period:ajar rulers’ behaviors towards the people of Guilan, including imposing heavy taxes and supporting foreigners to purchase real estate in Guilan, despite the prohibition law, which led to disputes and conflicts between the rulers and the provincial authorities of Guilan over land acquisition.The inappropriate behaviors of landowners, who often leased their agricultural lands to foreigners to avoid heavy taxes, which caused problems for the Guilani citizens as the new foreign landowners acted according to their own regulations to maximize profits, disregarding the status of the local population.The all-round support provided by foreign governments to their citizens' illegal activities in Guilan, which strengthened the positions of foreign nationals and weakened the Iranian government's ability to support its own citizens, causing frustration among the local population.The significant presence of foreigners in Guilan, which led to tensions between domestic and foreign nationals over civil, financial, and commercial issues, ultimately resulting in the detriment of the Qajar government and Iranian citizens.The consequences of this phenomenon of citizenship change included the increasing number of foreign nationals in Guilan, stabilization of the positions of foreign countries in the region, and creation of divisions and conflicts among the people of Guilan.Discussion of Results & ConclusionThe findings of this documentary research indicated that during the Qajar era, the economic and political importance of Guilan province provided the basis for a large influx of foreign nationals to the region. Foreign consulates and representatives actively supported the positions of their citizens in Guilan, providing them with comprehensive assistance to obtain greater economic and political benefits. The support provided by foreign governments to their nationals, along with the collaboration of some Qajar rulers, officials, and agents of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in helping foreign citizens acquire property in Guilan, contributed significantly to this phenomenon. Additionally, the mistreatment of local residents and landowners by the rulers and authorities coupled with the lack of comprehensive support from the Qajar government towards its own subjects and nationals led some people of Guilan to change their citizenship and accept those of foreign countries, including Russia and the Ottoman Empire. While the Qajar government made efforts to prevent these problems, the encouragement and assistance provided by some rulers, scholars, and landowners ultimately led to the escalation of the phenomenon of citizenship change among the people of Guilan, demonstrating the complex interplay of political, economic, and social factors that shaped this emerging issue during the Qajar period.
History (General) and history of Europe, History of Asia
Since the beginning of the 20th century, a continuous evolution and perfection of what we today call the standard cosmological model has been produced, although some authors like to distinguish separate periods within this evolution. A possible historical division of the development of cosmology into six periods is: (1) the initial period (1917-1927); (2) the period of development (1927-1945); (3) the period of consolidation (1945-1965); (4) the period of acceptance (1965-1980); (5) the period of enlargement (1980-1998); and (6) the period of high-precision experimental cosmology (1998-now). The last period started with a epistemological optimism that has declined with time, and the expression "crisis in cosmology" is now stubbornly reverberating in the media. The initial expectation of removing the pending minor problems arising from the increased accuracy of measurements has backfired: the higher the precision with which the standard model tries to fit the data, the greater the number of tensions that arise, the problems proliferating rather than diminishing.
The year 1923 was a turning point for Turkey. The collapse of the Ottoman Empire after a long war brought in Republican ideology centered on economic self-sufficiency and modern, secular values. With the proclamation of the Republic, the reconstruction of war-torn historical cities became a priority, to spread the new ideology and meet the country’s industrial needs. The new authorities encouraged municipalities to consult with Western European architects, many of whom were invited in the first years of the Republic. Their knowledge of the latest technologies and modern urban planning principles in Europe were to be applied to reconstruct Anatolian towns and villages according to the modern ideology. To facilitate this cooperation, the Society of Studies for the Reconstruction of İzmir was established in Paris in 1922. It brought together French experts and Turkish authorities during the planning process of Western Anatolian cities. The most prominent French consultants were Paris-based Henri Prost and Rene Danger, working together in France after having gained long-term experience in French colonies. This paper, firstly, highlights the mobility of these French professionals in Western Anatolia by tracing the history of their planning studies. Secondly, framing the political tension between the two countries, it aims to investigate whether the perspectives of the Turkish authorities associated the guest French architects and planners with colonial France. Lastly, it focuses on the post-war reconstruction process of historical cities in Western Anatolia, discussing the results of the interaction of the decision-makers and focusing on İzmir, Manisa, and Uşak.
In the face of the invasion of the Allied troops into the territory of France, Napoleon highly relied on the popular resistance of the French to the enemy. The author considers the history of a partisan detachment operating in the South of France under the command of Florian, a “half-hero” or “half-robber”. What was the real contribution of partisans to the course of military operations? What was the motivation of their leaders? What was the relationship between the military command and the commanders of the partisan detachments? How did the civil authorities and the local civilian population treat the partisans? The paucity of official documents is compensated by sources of personal origin, which make it possible to reveal the human dimension of this “small war”. In 1814, “Captain” Florian, who led a detachment of twenty volunteers, behaved like a free corsair, whose actions at times situationally coincided with the interests of the military command. Lacking an official partisan patent, he attacked the allies’ supply trains, robbed army stores, intercepted English couriers, and did not disdain the capture of officers’ personal luggage. Having had a reputation as a marauder in Spain since 1813, Florian in 1814 allowed himself all sorts of “excesses” in relation to the local population. The civil authorities in the person of the prefect tried to reason with him and certain individuals disinterestedly worked for him as “pointers”. Only in March did Marshal Soult try to intensify the creation of partisan detachments and subordinate them to a single command. Florian claimed to have unlimited powers from Soult. However, the negotiations between Soult’s representative Major Bory de Saint-Vincent and Florian ended in nothing: the complaints of the civil authorities and the reputation of the partisan commander caused discontent on the part of the marshal. The last action of Florian’s partisans was an attack on April 12 on an English courier, from whom a watch and a large amount of money were confiscated according the “laws of war”. Mythologized in popular scholarship and educational literature of the 1870s, the partisan movement in France in 1814 was distinguished by a very modest scale and limited actions, and the line between ordinary robbery and a patriotic action was sometimes difficult to discern.
History (General) and history of Europe, Language and Literature
Constraints on the Higgs boson self-coupling are set by combining double-Higgs boson analyses in the bb¯bb¯, bb¯τ+τ− and bb¯γγ decay channels with single-Higgs boson analyses targeting the γγ, ZZ⁎, WW⁎, τ+τ− and bb¯ decay channels. The data used in these analyses were recorded by the ATLAS detector at the LHC in proton–proton collisions at s=13 TeV and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 126–139 fb−1. The combination of the double-Higgs analyses sets an upper limit of μHH<2.4 at 95% confidence level on the double-Higgs production cross-section normalised to its Standard Model prediction. Combining the single-Higgs and double-Higgs analyses, with the assumption that new physics affects only the Higgs boson self-coupling (λHHH), values outside the interval −0.4<κλ=(λHHH/λHHHSM)<6.3 are excluded at 95% confidence level. The combined single-Higgs and double-Higgs analyses provide results with fewer assumptions, by adding in the fit more coupling modifiers introduced to account for the Higgs boson interactions with the other Standard Model particles. In this relaxed scenario, the constraint becomes −1.4<κλ<6.1 at 95% CL.
The author of this article analyses the history of the complex and contradictory relations of Michel Vovelle (1933–2018), an outstanding French researcher of the Revolution of the eighteenth century, with Russian historians in the Soviet and post-Soviet times. It is noted that, unlike most French left-wing historians from A. Sobul’s entourage, cooperation with whom was a priority for Soviet researchers, Vovelle invariably maintained a certain distance in relation to the latter: he did not publish his works in the USSR and did not go there for regular Russian-French colloquiums. The situation changed only when Vovelle, after Sobul’s death, became head of the scholarly programme of the Bicentennial of the French Revolution. In this capacity, he made his first visit to the USSR in 1982. However, despite the warmest reception given to him by Soviet historians, he, as his memoirs demonstrate, still tried to keep a certain distance in his relations with them and was not much interested in the real situation in Soviet historical science, limiting himself to reproducing stereotypes common in the foreign press. Even less did Vovelle like his arrival in the USSR in the year of the Bicentennial of the French Revolution, when at a large conference in Moscow held at the height of Perestroika, the ideas of left-wing French historians were sharply criticised not only by their Soviet colleagues but also by the general public. The negative impressions left from that visit to Moscow were apparently so strong that in subsequent years, Vovelle refrained from any active cooperation with historians of post-Soviet Russia. And only a meeting with many of them at the colloquium in Visile (2006) showed Vovelle that, despite ideological and methodological differences with him, his Russian colleagues were infinitely far from the militant anti-communism that dominated in Eastern Europe and that they were open to fruitful cooperation with left-wing historians of France. He was finally convinced of this by a visit to Moscow in the same year, which, unfortunately, turned out to be the last for him.
History (General) and history of Europe, Language and Literature
Lindsay Fernández-Rhodes, Mariaelisa Graff, Victoria L. Buchanan
et al.
Hispanic/Latinos have been underrepresented in genome-wide association studies (GWAS) for anthropometric traits despite their notable anthropometric variability, ancestry proportions, and high burden of growth stunting and overweight/obesity. To address this knowledge gap, we analyzed densely imputed genetic data in a sample of Hispanic/Latino adults to identify and fine-map genetic variants associated with body mass index (BMI), height, and BMI-adjusted waist-to-hip ratio (WHRadjBMI). We conducted a GWAS of 18 studies/consortia as part of the Hispanic/Latino Anthropometry (HISLA) Consortium (stage 1, n = 59,771) and generalized our findings in 9 additional studies (stage 2, n = 10,538). We conducted a trans-ancestral GWAS with summary statistics from HISLA stage 1 and existing consortia of European and African ancestries. In our HISLA stage 1 + 2 analyses, we discovered one BMI locus, as well as two BMI signals and another height signal each within established anthropometric loci. In our trans-ancestral meta-analysis, we discovered three BMI loci, one height locus, and one WHRadjBMI locus. We also identified 3 secondary signals for BMI, 28 for height, and 2 for WHRadjBMI in established loci. We show that 336 known BMI, 1,177 known height, and 143 known WHRadjBMI (combined) SNPs demonstrated suggestive transferability (nominal significance and effect estimate directional consistency) in Hispanic/Latino adults. Of these, 36 BMI, 124 height, and 11 WHRadjBMI SNPs were significant after trait-specific Bonferroni correction. Trans-ancestral meta-analysis of the three ancestries showed a small-to-moderate impact of uncorrected population stratification on the resulting effect size estimates. Our findings demonstrate that future studies may also benefit from leveraging diverse ancestries and differences in linkage disequilibrium patterns to discover novel loci and additional signals with less residual population stratification.
Dendric shifts are defined by combinatorial restrictions of the extensions of the words in their languages. This family generalizes well-known families of shifts such as Sturmian shifts, Arnoux-Rauzy shifts and codings of interval exchange transformations. It is known that any minimal dendric shift has a primitive $\mathcal{S}$-adic representation where the morphisms in $\mathcal{S}$ are positive tame automorphisms of the free group generated by the alphabet. In this paper we investigate those $\mathcal{S}$-adic representations, heading towards an $\mathcal{S}$-adic characterization of this family. We obtain such a characterization in the ternary case, involving a directed graph with 2 vertices.
Analysis of time which is designated for mathematics studies in Lithuania between two world wars is presented in this article. The history of education is described. Comparisions between European countries (France, Austria, Germany) and Lithuania of this period are presented in this article.
There is a scarcity of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) studies on the representation of social actors in news media, thus this study addressed this research gap by analysing the way news represented the French President Emmanuel Macron, regarding his controversial support of Samuel Paty, a history teacher in France who was murdered because he showed a cartoon of Prophet Muhammad in his class. This research aims to see the representation of Emmanuel Macron from the perspective of the French media, The Connexion France, which published their news in English language online to reach world-wide audience. Four articles of the news were purposively selected for this CDA study, which were published from October 18 until November 1, 2020. The French President’s representation was analysed with the nomination and predication strategies. Results showed that the Connexion France uses four nomination strategies to refer Emmanuel Macron. The professional anthroponyms refer to Emmanual Macron as “the President”, proper names as “Emmanuel Macron” to be the centre of the discourse, synecdoche as “Emmanuel Macron”, and deixis as “he” to avoid repetition the subject of the text. Two predication strategies were also used, the explicit predicate of how the President “has promised” action against Islamists and presupposition from the way the news linked pictures of boycotted French supermarket products with the President. This research provides a take on fresh news with CDA and can beneficial for the students who learn English language by showing how the media uses language for political figures.
A. Yu. Popova, E. B. Ezhlova, A. A. Melnikova
et al.
In late 2019, there were reports of an outbreak of infection caused by a new strain of beta coronavirus SARSCoV-2, the WHO identified the disease as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). In Tatarstan, the first case of COVID-19 was diagnosed on March 16, 2020, it was an imported case from France. The period of increase in the incidence lasted during the 12th to the 19th week, when the highest rate was recorded, amounting to 16.7 per 100 thousand population. Subsequently, a statistically significant decrease in the incidence was noted. Seroprevalence study was conducted at week 27 (8th week of decline of morbidity).The purpose of the seroepidemiological study was to measure the level and to identify the structure of herd immunity against the SARS-CoV-2 virus among the population of the Republic of Tatarstan during the rapid spread of the COVID-19 outbreak.Materials and methods. The selection of volunteers for the study was carried out by the method of questionnaires and randomization by random sampling. The exclusion criterion was active COVID-19 infection at the time of the survey. 2,946 people were examined for the presence of specific antibodies to SARS-CoV-2. The age of the surveyed volunteers ranged from 1 year to 70 years and older.Results. The results of the study showed that in the Republic of Tatarstan during the period of COVID-19 incidence, there was a moderate seroprevalence to SARS-CoV-2, which amounted to 31.3%, against the background of a high frequency (94.5%) of asymptomatic infection in seropositive individuals who did not have a history of past COVID-19 disease, positive PCR result and ARVI symptoms on the day of the examination. The maximum indicators of herd immunity were established in children aged 7–13 years (42.0%), children 14–17 years old (40.3%), with a simultaneous decrease in seroprevalence in persons aged 70 and older (24.0%). In different regions of the Republic of Tatarstan, there was a wide variation in seropositivity results from the minimum in the Zainsky district (8.6%) to the maximum in the Arsky district (74.3%). In 21 out of 38 surveyed districts, the results were unrepresentative due to the small sample size. In COVID-19 convalescents, antibodies are produced in 83.3% of cases. In persons with a positive result of the PCR analysis carried out earlier, antibodies were detected in 100% of cases. Among the volunteers who had contact with patients with COVID-19, the proportion of seropositive is 37%Conclusion. The dynamics of seroprevalence among the population of the Republic of Tatarstan can be qualified as positive, the results obtained can be used to develop a forecast for the development of the epidemiological situation, as well as to plan measures for specific and non-specific prevention of COVID-19.
The article traces the origins of the development of public libraries in the United States and in France between the mid-nineteenth century and World War II, highlighting the influence of professional associations in both countries. The article tries to answer the question of whether or not American libraries are a model for French libraries, an opinion widely held by researchers in the field by focusing on the public library movement in the United States and on the history of the "bibliothèques municipales" and "bibliothèques populaires"in France.
Bibliography. Library science. Information resources
A reaction-diffusion model was developed describing the spread of the COVID-19 virus considering the mean daily movement of susceptible, exposed and asymptomatic individuals. The model was calibrated using data on the confirmed infection and death from France as well as their initial spatial distribution. First, the system of partial differential equations is studied, then the basic reproduction number, R0 is derived. Second, numerical simulations, based on a combination of level-set and finite differences, shown the spatial spread of COVID-19 from March 16 to June 16. Finally, scenarios of unlockdown are compared according to variation of distancing, or partially spatial lockdown.
COVID-19 has forced quarantine measures in several countries across the world. These measures have proven to be effective in significantly reducing the prevalence of the virus. To date, no effective treatment or vaccine is available. In the effort of preserving both public health as well as the economical and social textures, France and Italy governments have partially released lockdown measures. Here we extrapolate the long-term behavior of the epidemics in both countries using a Susceptible-Exposed-Infected-Recovered (SEIR) model where parameters are stochastically perturbed to handle the uncertainty in the estimates of COVID-19 prevalence. Our results suggest that uncertainties in both parameters and initial conditions rapidly propagate in the model and can result in different outcomes of the epidemics leading or not to a second wave of infections. Using actual knowledge, asymptotic estimates of COVID-19 prevalence can fluctuate of order of ten millions units in both countries.
We consider a fast, data-sparse directional method to realize matrix-vector products related to point evaluations of the Helmholtz kernel. The method is based on a hierarchical partitioning of the point sets and the matrix. The considered directional multi-level approximation of the Helmholtz kernel can be applied even on high-frequency levels efficiently. We provide a detailed analysis of the almost linear asymptotic complexity of the presented method. Our numerical experiments are in good agreement with the provided theory.
The book under review is a collection of essays ‘Qu’est-ce que le macronisme?’ (‘What is Macronism’?), published by ‘Philippe Rey’ in 2018. The reviewer thoroughly considers the structure and the contents of the book. Each chapter represents an essay, an interview or an article by a prominent scholar, a politician or a journalist who present their views on the presidency of E. Macron and prospects for the development of France. The reviewer notes that the general tenor of the book is positive: all authors emphasize high intelligence and ambitions of the French leader, which facilitated greatly his career development from a little-known politician to the head of the state. The reviewer concludes that this popular science edition offers a sufficiently accurate political portrait of E. Macron, provides interesting biographical details and can be recommended for IR scholars, political scientists, journalists, and linguists since it is written in an impressive and elegant French language. The book under review can also prove useful in studying the role of an individual in history.