Hasil untuk "History of Northern Europe. Scandinavia"

Richard de Grijs

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.

Eugene Costello

Francesca Pinna, Isabel Pérez, Anna Ferré-Mateu et al.

Nuclear star clusters (NSCs) are dense, compact stellar systems only a few parsecs across, located at galaxy centers. Their small sizes make them difficult to resolve spatially. NSCs often coexist with massive black holes, and both trace the dynamical state and evolution of their host galaxies. Dense stellar environments such as NSCs are also ideal sites for forming intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs). To date, spatially resolved NSC properties, crucial for reconstructing dynamical and star-formation histories, have only been obtained for galaxies within 5 Mpc, using the highest-resolution instruments on the current class of very large telescopes. This severely limits spectroscopic studies, and a systematic, unbiased survey has never been accomplished. Because the vast majority of known NSCs are located in the Northern Hemisphere, only a 30-m-class telescope in the North can provide the statistical power needed to study their physical properties and measure the mass of coexisting central black holes. We propose leveraging the capabilities of a 30-m-class Northern telescope to obtain the first comprehensive, spatially resolved survey of NSCs, finally allowing us to unveil their formation pathways and their yet unknown connection with central massive black holes.

C. Bosco, U. Minora, D. de Rigo et al.

This paper presents a mixed-methodology to forecast illegal border crossings in Europe across five key migratory routes, with a one-year time horizon. The methodology integrates machine learning techniques with qualitative insights from migration experts. This approach aims at improving the predictive capacity of data-driven models through the inclusion of a human-assessed covariate, an innovation that addresses challenges posed by sudden shifts in migration patterns and limitations in traditional datasets. The proposed methodology responds directly to the forecasting needs outlined in the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, supporting the Asylum and Migration Management Regulation (AMMR). It is designed to provide policy-relevant forecasts that inform strategic decisions, early warning systems, and solidarity mechanisms among EU Member States. By joining data-driven modeling with expert judgment, this work aligns with existing academic recommendations and introduces a novel operational tool tailored for EU migration governance. The methodology is tested and validated with known data to demonstrate its applicability and reliability in migration-related policy context.

Sven Jochem

Edita Fialová, Iva Zündorf

Borys Paszkiewicz

Researchers of the Polish past often discuss Silesia in the tenth century but the entity later referred to by this name did not exist at that time while its individual parts had different runs of history. The first evidence of establishing contacts between the middle Oder basin and the Mediterranean world after the Migration Period are three Arabic coins from 770-776, bereft of notches, graffiti or other traces of circulation, found on Trzebnica Ridge (Figures 1-3). Unlike the wave of Arabic silver coinage a quarter of a century later, these coins arrived not via the ‘Northern Arch’ but from the south, via Venice. They probably mark the attempts of slavers to penetrate the Oder basin. After 950, the route from Bohemia to the mouth of the Oder river was established, leading alongside the Neisse and the Oder but it was soon disrupted by the expansion of the Milceni to the east. Behind the Milceni, however, was the power of the East Frankish Kingdom, so the Přemyslids expanded to the north-east to bypass the Neisse. The Přemyslid expansion consisted in collecting tributes from the tribes occupying the left bank of the Oder River: Zlasane, Trebouane, Pobarane and Dedosize – and in establishing permanent military outposts in Niemcza and Wrocław. The result of including the local dwellers in the trade and tributary network was the concentration of power in the tribes and the spread of silver hoarding. After the alliance between the Boleslavs of Prague and Mieszko I of Gniezno was established in c. 964, both states met on the middle Oder line and co-operated within the great trade corridor connecting Central Asia, Scandinavia and Western Europe. Political destabilization in Germany after 983 enabled Mieszko to break off the alliance, cross the Oder to the west and spread his influence along the Kaczawa to Milceni and Meissen lands, and then in 990 to drive the Czechs out of the area between Wrocław and the Sudetes. In this way, a route from Mayence to Kyïv was created, bypassing Prague, cut off the city from contacts with the mouth of the Oder River, which led to the crisis of the Czech state.

Christine Pretzl

Martin Lopez-Corredoira

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.

Thorunn Gullaksen Endreson

Norwegian contemporary climate fiction often portrays humans as in denial of climate change. In Erlend Nødtvedt’s transgressive novel Vestlandet (2017), an alternative story is presented. In contrast to conventional climate change denial, the two protagonists turn the situation upside down and literally celebrate death and climate change and the exceptional Western Norwegian »sublime« landscape. Drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of laughter and the carnivalesque, I will investigate Vestlandet as a response to a world in climate crisis, and thereby transcending the ecocritical reluctance to engage with laughter. Environmental humor offers an alternative vision, a possibility to see ourselves from another perspective. Vestlandet contributes to the creation of new climate change narratives and communicates potential for change, but there is no guarantee that laughter will lead to increased awareness and action. In der zeitgenössischen norwegischen Klimaliteratur wird der Mensch oft als Leugner des Klimawandels dargestellt. In Erlend Nødtvedts transgressivem Roman Vestlandet (2017) wird eine alternative Geschichte präsentiert. Im Gegensatz zur herkömmlichen Leugnung des Klimawandels stellen die beiden Protagonisten die Situation auf den Kopf und feiern buchstäblich den Tod, den Klimawandel und die außergewöhnliche westnorwegische »erhabene « Landschaft. In Anlehnung an Mikhail Bakhtins Konzept des Lachens und des Karnevalesken werde ich Vestlandet als Antwort auf eine Welt in der Klimakrise untersuchen und dabei die ökokritische Zurückhaltung gegenüber dem Lachen überwinden. Umwelthumor bietet eine alternative Vision, eine Möglichkeit, uns selbst aus einer anderen Perspektive zu sehen. Vestlandet trägt zur Schaffung neuer Erzählungen über den Klimawandel bei und vermittelt das Potenzial für Veränderungen, gibt aber keine Garantie dafür, dass Lachen zu mehr Bewusstsein und Handeln führt.

Zuzana Urválková

In this paper, I focus on the intertextual relations and contexts of Božena Němcová's short fiction "Pan učitel" [Our Teacher], especially in relation to František Mošner's educational story "Pěstounka" [Foster-mother] (1851) and the piece of prose "Philosophie für die Ewigkeit. Skizze aus dem Leben eines Dorfschulmeisters" [Philosophy for Eternity] (1855) by A. F. Liebelt, a now forgotten German-language author. It is very likely that Němcová read the story in Album der Erinnerungen [Book of Memories] (1855). The Album belonged to the Prague magazine Erinnerungen, where Němcová published a part of Babička [Grandmother] in German. She became acquainted with Mošner's "Pěstounka" on the recommendation of friends who knew the author personally. Němcová published her story "Pan učitel" in Sborník – kalendář učitelský [Teachers' Calendar] for 1860. The collection was a part of the educational magazine Škola a život [School and Life], edited by the Catholic priest and teacher F. V. Řezáč. Contrary to biographical interpretations, it is confirmed that the contemporary Czech-German literary field contained texts that Němcová knew and fictionalized in a specific way, using the plot devices and key values of patriotic romanticism and Biedermeier. Liebelt's story is a celebration of the rural teacher and his work, but it is not, unlike Němcová's, a Biedermeier idyll. It also contains a critique of society in the spirit of the ideals of the movement Junges Deutschland [Young Germany], setting the stage for the practices of ideal realism that German-language literary criticism repeatedly thematized in the 1850s.

Jörg Krappmann

The aim of the study is to read the up to now neglected articles about and by Ernst Kreuder in the journal Books Abroad as the culmination point in the career of this author, who rose to become a successful writer in the post-war period, but is hardly noticed in recent literary studies. The reasons for this later collapse are the close intermeshing between the construction of authorship and identity as well as the success that caused a discrepancy between an understanding as an elitist loner and the pursuit of broad public impact.

Daniel Piasecki

I further test the theory that the Cosmic Background Radiation (CBR) is made of photons with a weak U(1) component. Tipler (2005) has previously argued that the consistency of the Standard Model (SM) with the Second Law of Thermodynamics requires the early universe CBR to be composed mainly of an SU(2) gauge field. The U(1) field would be suppressed. One of the consequences of this approach is that the Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECR) would be able to propagate much further than conventionally accepted, as an SU(2) dominant CBR would be largely unable to couple with right handed fermions. I test if this novel theory solves the problem of UHECR origin by finding suitable candidates up to a redshift z = 0.1 within three degrees of the arrival direction. Utilizing the Fly's Eye Northern Hemisphere UHECR data, I identified candidates with 80\% success for the Northern Sky UHECR (98.7\% if certain celestial objects which are likely to be Active Galactic Nuclei are absolutely identified as such). This is parsimonious with the CBR theory, which has other important implications for the Standard Model, early universe cosmology, and the origin of matter and anti-matter. This builds off of Tipler and Piasecki (2018), where we have reviewed UHECR data from the Southern Hemisphere to get a 86\% success identification rate. We predict that the remaining UHECR not paired with a potential source will have sources identified upon closer telescopic investigations of these regions. Other recent experiments further suggest an SU(2) dominant composition of the CBR photons. The problem of UHECR origin may be solved.

Marcelina Kałasznik

Oddmund L. Hoel, Annette Langedal Holme, Yngve Nilsen et al.

Georg Rehm, Katrin Marheinecke, Stefanie Hegele et al.

Multilingualism is a cultural cornerstone of Europe and firmly anchored in the European treaties including full language equality. However, language barriers impacting business, cross-lingual and cross-cultural communication are still omnipresent. Language Technologies (LTs) are a powerful means to break down these barriers. While the last decade has seen various initiatives that created a multitude of approaches and technologies tailored to Europe's specific needs, there is still an immense level of fragmentation. At the same time, AI has become an increasingly important concept in the European Information and Communication Technology area. For a few years now, AI, including many opportunities, synergies but also misconceptions, has been overshadowing every other topic. We present an overview of the European LT landscape, describing funding programmes, activities, actions and challenges in the different countries with regard to LT, including the current state of play in industry and the LT market. We present a brief overview of the main LT-related activities on the EU level in the last ten years and develop strategic guidance with regard to four key dimensions.

Valerio Lembo, Gabriele Messori, Rune Graversen et al.

The atmospheric meridional energy transport in the Northern Hemisphere midlatitudes is mainly accomplished by planetary and synoptic waves. A decomposition into wave components highlights the strong seasonal dependence of the transport, with both the total transport and the contributions from planetary and synoptic waves peaking in winter. In both winter and summer months, poleward transport extremes primarily result from a constructive interference between planetary and synoptic motions. The contribution of the mean meridional circulation is close to climatology. Equatorward transport extremes feature a mean meridional equatorward transport in winter, while the planetary and synoptic modes mostly transport energy poleward. In summer, a systematic destructive interference occurs, with planetary modes mostly transporting energy equatorward and synoptic modes again poleward. This underscores that baroclinic conversion dominates regardless of season in the synoptic wave modes, whereas the planetary waves can be either free or forced, depending on the season.

Aleš Urválek