Hasil untuk "History of the Greco-Roman World"

The Ligo Scientific Collaboration, T. Abbott, R. Abbott et al.

We present results on the mass, spin, and redshift distributions with phenomenological population models using the 10 binary black hole (BBH) mergers detected in the first and second observing runs completed by Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo. We constrain properties of the BBH mass spectrum using models with a range of parameterizations of the BBH mass and spin distributions. We find that the mass distribution of the more massive BH in such binaries is well approximated by models with no more than 1% of BHs more massive than 45 M ⊙ and a power-law index of α = 1.3 − 1.7 + 1.4 (90% credibility). We also show that BBHs are unlikely to be composed of BHs with large spins aligned to the orbital angular momentum. Modeling the evolution of the BBH merger rate with redshift, we show that it is flat or increasing with redshift with 93% probability. Marginalizing over uncertainties in the BBH population, we find robust estimates of the BBH merger rate density of R = 53.2 − 28.2 + 55.8 Gpc−3 yr−1 (90% credibility). As the BBH catalog grows in future observing runs, we expect that uncertainties in the population model parameters will shrink, potentially providing insights into the formation of BHs via supernovae, binary interactions of massive stars, stellar cluster dynamics, and the formation history of BHs across cosmic time.

N. Batalha, J. Rowe, S. Bryson et al.

New transiting planet candidates are identified in 16 months (2009 May–2010 September) of data from the Kepler spacecraft. Nearly 5000 periodic transit-like signals are vetted against astrophysical and instrumental false positives yielding 1108 viable new planet candidates, bringing the total count up to over 2300. Improved vetting metrics are employed, contributing to higher catalog reliability. Most notable is the noise-weighted robust averaging of multi-quarter photo-center offsets derived from difference image analysis that identifies likely background eclipsing binaries. Twenty-two months of photometry are used for the purpose of characterizing each of the candidates. Ephemerides (transit epoch, T0, and orbital period, P) are tabulated as well as the products of light curve modeling: reduced radius (RP/R⋆), reduced semimajor axis (d/R⋆), and impact parameter (b). The largest fractional increases are seen for the smallest planet candidates (201% for candidates smaller than 2 R⊕ compared to 53% for candidates larger than 2 R⊕) and those at longer orbital periods (124% for candidates outside of 50 day orbits versus 86% for candidates inside of 50 day orbits). The gains are larger than expected from increasing the observing window from 13 months (Quarters 1–5) to 16 months (Quarters 1–6) even in regions of parameter space where one would have expected the previous catalogs to be complete. Analyses of planet frequencies based on previous catalogs will be affected by such incompleteness. The fraction of all planet candidate host stars with multiple candidates has grown from 17% to 20%, and the paucity of short-period giant planets in multiple systems is still evident. The progression toward smaller planets at longer orbital periods with each new catalog release suggests that Earth-size planets in the habitable zone are forthcoming if, indeed, such planets are abundant.

Austin E. Schumacher, P. Zheng, Ryan Barber et al.

Summary Background Comprehensive, comparable, and timely estimates of demographic metrics—including life expectancy and age-specific mortality—are essential for evaluating, understanding, and addressing trends in population health. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of timely and all-cause mortality estimates for being able to respond to changing trends in health outcomes, showing a strong need for demographic analysis tools that can produce all-cause mortality estimates more rapidly with more readily available all-age vital registration (VR) data. The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) is an ongoing research effort that quantifies human health by estimating a range of epidemiological quantities of interest across time, age, sex, location, cause, and risk. This study—part of the latest GBD release, GBD 2023—aims to provide new and updated estimates of all-cause mortality and life expectancy for 1950 to 2023 using a novel statistical model that accounts for complex correlation structures in demographic data across age and time. Methods We used 24 025 data sources from VR, sample registration, surveys, censuses, and other sources to estimate all-cause mortality for males, females, and all sexes combined across 25 age groups in 204 countries and territories as well as 660 subnational units in 20 countries and territories, for the years 1950–2023. For the first time, we used complete birth history data for ages 5–14 years, age-specific sibling history data for ages 15–49 years, and age-specific mortality data from Health and Demographic Surveillance Systems. We developed a single statistical model that incorporates both parametric and non-parametric methods, referred to as OneMod, to produce estimates of all-cause mortality for each age-sex-location group. OneMod includes two main steps: a detailed regression analysis with a generalised linear modelling tool that accounts for age-specific covariate effects such as the Socio-demographic Index (SDI) and a population attributable fraction (PAF) for all risk factors combined; and a non-parametric analysis of residuals using a multivariate kernel regression model that smooths across age and time to adaptably follow trends in the data without overfitting. We calibrated asymptotic uncertainty estimates using Pearson residuals to produce 95% uncertainty intervals (UIs) and corresponding 1000 draws. Life expectancy was calculated from age-specific mortality rates with standard demographic methods. For each measure, 95% UIs were calculated with the 25th and 975th ordered values from a 1000-draw posterior distribution. Findings In 2023, 60·1 million (95% UI 59·0–61·1) deaths occurred globally, of which 4·67 million (4·59–4·75) were in children younger than 5 years. Due to considerable population growth and ageing since 1950, the number of annual deaths globally increased by 35·2% (32·2–38·4) over the 1950–2023 study period, during which the global age-standardised all-cause mortality rate declined by 66·6% (65·8–67·3). Trends in age-specific mortality rates between 2011 and 2023 varied by age group and location, with the largest decline in under-5 mortality occurring in east Asia (67·7% decrease); the largest increases in mortality for those aged 5–14 years, 25–29 years, and 30–39 years occurring in high-income North America (11·5%, 31·7%, and 49·9%, respectively); and the largest increases in mortality for those aged 15–19 years and 20–24 years occurring in Eastern Europe (53·9% and 40·1%, respectively). We also identified higher than previously estimated mortality rates in sub-Saharan Africa for all sexes combined aged 5–14 years (87·3% higher in GBD 2023 than GBD 2021 on average across countries and territories over the 1950–2021 period) and for females aged 15–29 years (61·2% higher), as well as lower than previously estimated mortality rates in sub-Saharan Africa for all sexes combined aged 50 years and older (13·2% lower), reflecting advances in our modelling approach. Global life expectancy followed three distinct trends over the study period. First, between 1950 and 2019, there were considerable improvements, from 51·2 (50·6–51·7) years for females and 47·9 (47·4–48·4) years for males in 1950 to 76·3 (76·2–76·4) years for females and 71·4 (71·3–71·5) years for males in 2019. Second, this period was followed by a decrease in life expectancy during the COVID-19 pandemic, to 74·7 (74·6–74·8) years for females and 69·3 (69·2–69·4) years for males in 2021. Finally, the world experienced a period of post-pandemic recovery in 2022 and 2023, wherein life expectancy generally returned to pre-pandemic (2019) levels in 2023 (76·3 [76·0–76·6] years for females and 71·5 [71·2–71·8] years for males). 194 (95·1%) of 204 countries and territories experienced at least partial post-pandemic recovery in age-standardised mortality rates by 2023, with 61·8% (126 of 204) recovering to or falling below pre-pandemic levels. There were several mortality trajectories during and following the pandemic across countries and territories. Long-term mortality trends also varied considerably between age groups and locations, demonstrating the diverse landscape of health outcomes globally. Interpretation This analysis identified several key differences in mortality trends from previous estimates, including higher rates of adolescent mortality, higher rates of young adult mortality in females, and lower rates of mortality in older age groups in much of sub-Saharan Africa. The findings also highlight stark differences across countries and territories in the timing and scale of changes in all-cause mortality trends during and following the COVID-19 pandemic (2020–23). Our estimates of evolving trends in mortality and life expectancy across locations, ages, sexes, and SDI levels in recent years as well as over the entire 1950–2023 study period provide crucial information for governments, policy makers, and the public to ensure that health-care systems, economies, and societies are prepared to address the world's health needs, particularly in populations with higher rates of mortality than previously known. The estimates from this study provide a robust framework for GBD and a valuable foundation for policy development, implementation, and evaluation around the world. Funding Gates Foundation.

Robert Worden

While large neural nets perform impressively on specific tasks, they are unreliable and unsafe, as is shown by the persistent hallucinations of large language models. This paper shows that large neural nets are intrinsically unreliable, because it is not possible to make or validate a tractable theory of how a neural net works. There is no reliable way to extrapolate its performance from a limited number of test cases to an unlimited set of use cases. To have confidence in the performance of a neural net, it is necessary to enclose it in a guardrail which is provably safe, so that whatever the neural net does, there cannot be harmful consequences. World models have been proposed as a way to do this. This paper discusses the scope and architecture required of world models. World models are often conceived as models of the physical and natural world, using established theories of natural science, or learned regularities, to predict the physical consequences of AI actions. However, unforeseen consequences of AI actions impact the human social world as much as the physical world. To predict and control the consequences of AI, a world model needs to include a model of the human social world. I explore the challenges that this entails. Human language is based on a Common Ground of mutual understanding of the world, shared by the people conversing. The common ground is an overlapping subset of each persons world model, including their models of the physical, social and mental worlds. LLMs have no stable representation of a common ground. To be reliable, AI systems will need to represent a common ground with their users, including physical, mental and social domains.

Volkan Öztekin

The route of C Street, the main transport artery of the ancient city of Side, between the Main Gate and the Theatre buildings, is called C1. The square, located at the point where C1 Street provides access to the Main Gate and largely covered by modern settlements today, constitutes the subject of this article. In line with the archaeological data, it is understood that C1 Street provided direct access to the Main Gate in the first planning, but later, as a result of the arrangements made in the eastern portico, the area was expanded in an asymmetrical plan type and the Square was formed. In Late Antiquity, however, the square was known by a different name. While it is known that two inscriptions recovered from the vicinity of the square include the expression ‘Forum of Arcadius’, the location of the forum could not be determined with certainty, although different suggestions have been made by researchers regarding the location of the forum. However, the research conducted at C1 Street Square will add a new aspect to the debate on this issue. It is known that there were areas built or redesigned to honor the Emperor and his subjects in agoras or squares on avenues, especially the Emperor Forums located on the Mese in the capital Constantinople. Considering the location of the epigraphic finds, it is highly probable that the C1 Street Square, located southwest of the Main Gate, was identified as the Forum of Arcadius in Late Antiquity.

Mª Concepción Fernández López

Defensa, en el Epitafio de Ennio, de la lectura pinxit frente a panxit, enmienda humanista generalizada hasta hoy en las ediciones, que no tiene en cuenta la temprana identificación entre lo visual y la representación poética, formulada en un momento posterior por Horacio en el Arte poética: ut pictura poësis (Ars 361).

Eric R. Damm, Thomas M. Howard

Mobile ground robots lacking prior knowledge of an environment must rely on sensor data to develop a model of their surroundings. In these scenarios, consistent identification of obstacles and terrain features can be difficult due to noise and algorithmic shortcomings, which can make it difficult for motion planning systems to generate safe motions. One particular difficulty to overcome is when regions of the cost map switch between being marked as obstacles and free space through successive planning cycles. One potential solution to this, which we refer to as Valid in Every Hypothesis (VEH), is for the planning system to plan motions that are guaranteed to be safe through a history of world models. Another approach is to track a history of world models, and adjust node costs according to the potential penalty of needing to reroute around previously hazardous areas. This work discusses three major iterations on this idea. The first iteration, called PEH, invokes a sub-search for every node expansion that crosses through a divergence point in the world models. The second and third iterations, called GEH and GEGRH respectively, defer the sub-search until after an edge expands into the goal region. GEGRH uses an additional step to revise the graph based on divergent nodes in each world. Initial results showed that, although PEH and GEH find more optimistic solutions than VEH, they are unable to generate solutions in less than one-second, which exceeds our requirements for field deployment. Analysis of results from a field experiment in an unstructured, off-road environment on a Clearpath Robotics Warthog UGV indicate that GEGRH finds lower cost trajectories and has faster average planning times than VEH. Compared to single-hypothesis (SH) search, where only the latest world model is considered, GEGRH generates more conservative plans with a small increase in average planning time.

Guy Tennenholtz, Jihwan Jeong, Chih-Wei Hsu et al.

Effective decision making in partially observable environments requires compressing long interaction histories into informative representations. We introduce Descriptive History Representations (DHRs): sufficient statistics characterized by their capacity to answer relevant questions about past interactions and potential future outcomes. DHRs focus on capturing the information necessary to address task-relevant queries, providing a structured way to summarize a history for optimal control. We propose a multi-agent learning framework, involving representation, decision, and question-asking components, optimized using a joint objective that balances reward maximization with the representation's ability to answer informative questions. This yields representations that capture the salient historical details and predictive structures needed for effective decision making. We validate our approach on user modeling tasks with public movie and shopping datasets, generating interpretable textual user profiles which serve as sufficient statistics for predicting preference-driven behavior of users.

Yuhui Zhu, Alessandro Biondi

Modern out-of-order CPUs heavily rely on speculative execution for performance optimization, with branch prediction serving as a cornerstone to minimize stalls and maximize efficiency. Whenever shared branch prediction resources lack proper isolation and sanitization methods, they may originate security vulnerabilities that expose sensitive data across different software contexts. This paper examines the fundamental components of modern Branch Prediction Units (BPUs) and investigates how resource sharing and contention affect two widely implemented but underdocumented features: Bias-Free Branch Prediction and Branch History Speculation. Our analysis demonstrates that these BPU features, while designed to enhance speculative execution efficiency through more accurate branch histories, can also introduce significant security risks. We show that these features can inadvertently modify the Branch History Buffer (BHB) update behavior and create new primitives that trigger malicious mis-speculations. This discovery exposes previously unknown cross-privilege attack surfaces for Branch History Injection (BHI). Based on these findings, we present three novel attack primitives: two Spectre attacks, namely Spectre-BSE and Spectre-BHS, and a cross-privilege control flow side-channel attack called BiasScope. Our research identifies corresponding patterns of vulnerable control flows and demonstrates exploitation on multiple processors. Finally, Chimera is presented: an attack demonstrator based on eBPF for a variant of Spectre-BHS that is capable of leaking kernel memory contents at 24,628 bit/s.

The Executive Board of Docomomo Deutschland e.V.

In June, Berthold Burkhardt, one of the supporters of the first hours of Docomomo, passed away. He was involved in the organization of the International Docomomo Conference at Bauhaus Dessau (1992), and actively participating in the “restart” of Docomomo Germany in 2006.He studied architecture and civil engineering in Stuttgart (1960-1965). As an architect and engineer in Frei Otto’s office, he was involved in iconic buildings such as the German Pavilion at Expo 67 in Montreal and the roof structures for the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. As a staff member of Institute for Lightweight Structures at the University (ILEK) in Stuttgart and in research projects, he devoted himself scientifically to the topic that occupied him throughout his entire professional life: lightweight structures.In 1984 he was appointed as professor and Head of the Institute for Structural Design at TU Braunschweig. He was able to combine his research with architectural teaching and his work as an independent architect, from 1993 together with Martin Schumacher in the Burkhardt + Schumacher office. Conservation and renovation projects became increasingly important, e.g. the employment agengy in Dessau by Walter Gropius and the Chancellor’s Bungalow in Bonn by Sep Ruf.Next to his active involvement in Docomomo, he was a member of ICOMOS, Europa Nostra, the Alvar Aalto Society, the Koldewey Society for Historical Building Research and the Society for the History of Building Technology, and served several years as head of the monitoring group for the German World Heritage Sites. As an expert and advisor, he supported the Wüstenrot Foundation and the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, and played a key role in setting the course for the general refurbishment of the Bauhaus building from 1996 onwards.We will miss him as an architect, engineer, scientist, mentor and friend.

Fellipe do Vale

GENDER AS LOVE: A Theological Account of Human Identity, Embodied Desire, and Our Social Worlds by Fellipe M. do Vale. Baker Academic, 2023. 272 pages. Hardcover; $69.99. ISBN: 9781540967022. Paperback; $35.00. ISBN: 9781540966971. Ebook; $34.99. ISBN: 9781493443925. *Theoretical approaches to gender, and consequently theologies of gender, have historically divided into two opposing camps: the definition of gender as a social construct, and the definition of gender as a biological essence. In Gender as Love, Fellipe do Vale, theology professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, connects the two approaches to argue that gender is an essence (though not necessarily biological), which is "concerned with selves or identity and with the way selves organize social goods pertaining to their sexed bodies" (p. 23). That is, do Vale defines gender as an identity which involves biologically sexed bodies and the meaning given to sexed bodies in specific social contexts. Within the divine economy of salvation, he argues that a Christian theology of gender must center on love. The social goods we love as gendered individuals define who we are as gendered individuals. For do Vale, gender is love. *He begins in chapter 1 by developing John Webster's "theological theology" with its focus on God and the divine economy as a framework for his own approach to gender. Locating gender in the divine economy allows do Vale to distinguish between what qualities are essential or innate to being a gendered human, and what qualities are limited to a particular stage of the divine economy (even if those qualities are universally experienced). *In chapter 2, do Vale thoroughly reviews the history of theories of gender as a social construct. He critiques these theories for their rejection of any stability or consistency in gender categories across time and space. If there is no consistent understanding of what "women" are, then the category "women" has no moral value. That is, if it is impossible to identify "women" in particular historical or cultural contexts as the same kind of being as "women" in other particular historical or cultural contexts, then it is also impossible to make claims concerning gender justice and injustice. According to do Vale, although social construct theories of gender are guided by the desire for gender justice, they functionally lead to injustice. They are ultimately inadequate for the work of defining gender. *Chapter 3 begins with a too-brief analysis of biological essentialism. Given the importance of definitions of gender that prioritize the body to the exclusion of social and cultural contexts within contemporary politics and church practice, it would be helpful to have a more robust discussion and critique here. Do Vale then charts his own middle path between essentialist and social construct theories. Drawing on insights from philosophers Charlotte Witt and Mari Mikkola, he argues that gender is an essence, though because of our location in the divine economy, we cannot fully define it. However, defining gender as an essence makes categorization as (for instance) "woman" or "man" possible across time and space, which in turn makes gender justice possible. *Finally, do Vale develops his definition of gender as an identity, which involves biologically sexed bodies given social meaning through the organization of gendered social goods. Social goods vary throughout history and across cultures, so the work of theology is descriptive: to discern and morally evaluate (based on justice and the gospel) the gendered social goods in a particular time and space. "Gender is tied to our created, sexed embodiment, but discipleship consists in knowing how to make use of and attach ourselves to cultural goods in ways consistent with the gospel" (p. 110). *The second half of the book develops do Vale's definition of gender as love, beginning in chapters 4 and 5 with Augustine's theology of love. According to Augustine, the objects of our love shape who we are. Do Vale extends this connection of love with identity to gender. If gender identity is defined as the organization of social goods around sexed bodies, and identities are formed by love, then what we love as gendered beings shapes and defines our gender identities. "[T]here are many things we love in virtue of our sexed bodies. Doing so grants these beloved objects a social meaning and to us a social role, and this is our gender. More than that, we identify with these beloved goods, for they make us who we are and shape our narratives. Because our chief love is to God, moreover, Christians always have an obligation to evaluate these gendered goods in accord with the moral norms of all properly ordered love" (p. 144). *Do Vale's theory of gender resembles theologian Sarah Coakley's work on gender as desire. In his review of Coakley, do Vale notes the ambiguity of her definition of "desire" (particularly with respect to sexual desire) and the underdeveloped conception of Trinitarian "threeness" as a means of moving beyond a gender binary. Do Vale consequently argues that Augustinian love offers a more secure center for gender. *Chapters 6 and 7 situate do Vale's conception of gender in the divine economy. First, gender is a good within the goodness of creation. Using John Walton's interpretation of the biblical creation story, do Vale identifies gender as a way for human beings to function well in God's creation--to "organize and appropriate social goods as a means to manifest [the sexed body] socially" (p. 190). In this section, do Vale addresses the specific question of intersex persons and those with disorders of sexual development (DSD), arguing that such conditions are one way among many that sexed bodies might misfunction. He encourages epistemic restraint to allow for ambiguity in an individual's sexed body, while seeking ways for all people to flourish in their sexed bodies. *Do Vale specifically addresses the experience of shame shared by many intersex/DSD individuals as a limitation on human flourishing. The experience of shame is also important to the consequences of sin for gender identity. As a second act in the divine economy, human sin distorts creation and thus gender, making gender a source of injustice. Do Vale illustrates gendered sin with sexual assault against women, including within Christian communities. Redemption is then the story of grace enabling social transformation, including healing for the victims of gendered sin. The discussion of gendered sin, shame, and redemption would benefit from a clearer distinction between "sinner" and "sinned against." Moreover, while do Vale carefully distinguishes between intersex/DSD conditions and gendered sin, the common element of shame across these discussions creates a problematic ambiguity. *Finally, do Vale explores gender within eschatological consummation. Here, he focuses on Galatians 3:28, often interpreted as the ultimate erasure of gender categories. Following Augustine, do Vale instead argues that "no longer male and female" represents the perfection of gender. In this reading, gendered categories remain in the eschaton, but without the negative evaluations or exclusionary practices associated with gendered categories under the distortion of sin. The calling of the church is to work toward eschatological justice with respect to gender while we await the final consummation. "In the new heaven and earth, mysterious as they remain, we will be women and men who know perfect justice in accordance with our worth ... As we imagine a just world, we conform our lives now in anticipation" (p. 234). *Do Vale's expert dialogue with key scholars makes this book a valuable introduction to gender studies as a theological discipline. The book makes an important contribution toward integrating essentialist and social constructionist approaches to gender, providing a potentially fruitful starting point for theologies of gender. His focus on justice as a core guiding principle and evaluative tool for definitions of gender keeps the humanity of gendered individuals centered amid his detailed, wide-ranging theological discussions. The book would be particularly useful for advanced undergraduates and graduate students in theology and gender studies. *There are several points at which the discussion could be more fully developed. Do Vale's "theological theology" keeps the Bible centered through his theological and theoretical analyses. His recognition that the gendering of social goods, and thus historically particular gender identities, is contextual to particular times, spaces, and cultures, is important to his analysis of, for instance, 1 Corinthians 11:2-16. But as a biblical scholar, I wanted more, especially in the discussion of Galatians 3:28 and the eschatological future of gender. Do Vale sets aside other texts, including Matthew 22:23-30, as concerned with marriage rather than gender. But within first-century context (Jewish and Greco-Roman), marriage was a central social good in definitions of gender. The prioritization of "eunuchs" and the choice not to marry is, consequently, gendered. Or, rather, un-gendered, making this text essential for a discussion of gender and the eschaton. *Do Vale demonstrates why gender matters for being human in human society, and his development of Augustinian love as a center for gender identity is productive in this respect. Part of being human is inhabiting biologically sexed bodies. How we live in and use our bodies in interactions with each other matters--socially, culturally, and theologically. Do Vale's emphasis on justice is important. But I am unconvinced by his argument that gender identity ultimately matters for Christian identity. In Galatians, Christian identity is defined not by social markers (Jew and Greek, enslaved and free, male and female) but by being "one in Christ" (Gal. 3:28). The entry point into this corporate identity--baptism (Gal. 3:27)--mean

Euclid Collaboration N. E. P. Lines, T. Collett, P. Holloway et al.

In the era of large-scale surveys like Euclid, machine learning has become an essential tool for identifying rare yet scientifically valuable objects, such as strong gravitational lenses. However, supervised machine-learning approaches require large quantities of labelled examples to train on, and the limited number of known strong lenses has lead to a reliance on simulations for training. A well-known challenge is that machine-learning models trained on one data domain often underperform when applied to a different domain: in the context of lens finding, this means that strong performance on simulated lenses does not necessarily translate into equally good performance on real observations. In Euclid's Quick Data Release 1 (Q1), covering 63 deg2, 500 strong lens candidates were discovered through a synergy of machine learning, citizen science, and expert visual inspection. These discoveries now allow us to quantify this performance gap and investigate the impact of training on real data. We find that a network trained only on simulations recovers up to 92% of simulated lenses with 100% purity, but only achieves 50% completeness with 24% purity on real Euclid data. By augmenting training data with real Euclid lenses and non-lenses, completeness improves by 25-30% in terms of the expected yield of discoverable lenses in Euclid DR1 and the full Euclid Wide Survey. Roughly 20% of this improvement comes from the inclusion of real lenses in the training data, while 5-10% comes from exposure to a more diverse set of non-lenses and false-positives from Q1. We show that the most effective lens-finding strategy for real-world performance combines the diversity of simulations with the fidelity of real lenses. This hybrid approach establishes a clear methodology for maximising lens discoveries in future data releases from Euclid, and will likely also be applicable to other surveys such as LSST.

Huy Nguyen, Christoph Treude, Patanamon Thongtanunam

With the exponential growth of AI tools that generate source code, understanding software has become crucial. When developers comprehend a program, they may refer to additional contexts to look for information, e.g. program documentation or historical code versions. Therefore, we argue that encoding this additional contextual information could also benefit code representation for deep learning. Recent papers incorporate contextual data (e.g. call hierarchy) into vector representation to address program comprehension problems. This motivates further studies to explore additional contexts, such as version history, to enhance models' understanding of programs. That is, insights from version history enable recognition of patterns in code evolution over time, recurring issues, and the effectiveness of past solutions. Our paper presents preliminary evidence of the potential benefit of encoding contextual information from the version history to predict code clones and perform code classification. We experiment with two representative deep learning models, ASTNN and CodeBERT, to investigate whether combining additional contexts with different aggregations may benefit downstream activities. The experimental result affirms the positive impact of combining version history into source code representation in all scenarios; however, to ensure the technique performs consistently, we need to conduct a holistic investigation on a larger code base using different combinations of contexts, aggregation, and models. Therefore, we propose a research agenda aimed at exploring various aspects of encoding additional context to improve code representation and its optimal utilisation in specific situations.

Anton Matsson, Lena Stempfle, Yaochen Rao et al.

Modeling policies for sequential clinical decision-making based on observational data is useful for describing treatment practices, standardizing frequent patterns in treatment, and evaluating alternative policies. For each task, it is essential that the policy model is interpretable. Learning accurate models requires effectively capturing the state of a patient, either through sequence representation learning or carefully crafted summaries of their medical history. While recent work has favored the former, it remains a question as to how histories should best be represented for interpretable policy modeling. Focused on model fit, we systematically compare diverse approaches to summarizing patient history for interpretable modeling of clinical policies across four sequential decision-making tasks. We illustrate differences in the policies learned using various representations by breaking down evaluations by patient subgroups, critical states, and stages of treatment, highlighting challenges specific to common use cases. We find that interpretable sequence models using learned representations perform on par with black-box models across all tasks. Interpretable models using hand-crafted representations perform substantially worse when ignoring history entirely, but are made competitive by incorporating only a few aggregated and recent elements of patient history. The added benefits of using a richer representation are pronounced for subgroups and in specific use cases. This underscores the importance of evaluating policy models in the context of their intended use.

Muhammad Shihab Rashid, Jannat Ara Meem, Vagelis Hristidis

Open Retrieval Conversational Question Answering (OrConvQA) answers a question given a conversation as context and a document collection. A typical OrConvQA pipeline consists of three modules: a Retriever to retrieve relevant documents from the collection, a Reranker to rerank them given the question and the context, and a Reader to extract an answer span. The conversational turns can provide valuable context to answer the final query. State-of-the-art OrConvQA systems use the same history modeling for all three modules of the pipeline. We hypothesize this as suboptimal. Specifically, we argue that a broader context is needed in the first modules of the pipeline to not miss relevant documents, while a narrower context is needed in the last modules to identify the exact answer span. We propose NORMY, the first unsupervised non-uniform history modeling pipeline which generates the best conversational history for each module. We further propose a novel Retriever for NORMY, which employs keyphrase extraction on the conversation history, and leverages passages retrieved in previous turns as additional context. We also created a new dataset for OrConvQA, by expanding the doc2dial dataset. We implemented various state-of-the-art history modeling techniques and comprehensively evaluated them separately for each module of the pipeline on three datasets: OR-QUAC, our doc2dial extension, and ConvMix. Our extensive experiments show that NORMY outperforms the state-of-the-art in the individual modules and in the end-to-end system.

M. Ablikim, M. Achasov, P. Adlarson et al.

The first observation of the decays $J\!/\!\psi \rightarrow \bar{p} \Sigma^{+} K_{S}^{0}$ and $J\!/\!\psi \rightarrow p \bar{\Sigma}^{-} K_{S}^{0}$ is reported using $(10087\pm44)\times10^{6}$ $J\!/\!\psi$ events recorded by the BESIII detector at the BEPCII storage ring. The branching fractions of each channel are determined to be $\mathcal{B}(J\!/\!\psi \rightarrow \bar{p} \Sigma^{+} K_{S}^{0})=(1.361 \pm 0.006 \pm 0.025) \times 10^{-4}$ and $\mathcal{B}(J\!/\!\psi \rightarrow p \bar{\Sigma}^{-} K_{S}^{0})=(1.352 \pm 0.006 \pm 0.025) \times 10^{-4}$. The combined result is $\mathcal{B}(J\!/\!\psi \rightarrow \bar{p} \Sigma^{+} K_{S}^{0} +c.c.)=(2.725 \pm 0.009 \pm 0.050) \times 10^{-4}$, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second systematic. The results presented are in good agreement with the branching fractions of the isospin partner decay $J\!/\!\psi \rightarrow p K^- \bar\Sigma^0 + c.c.$.

M. Sala

JEMAHS_11_1_07_BookReviews.indd Page 132 20/02/23 3:43 PM Greenwood, E. 2009. Re-rooting the Classical Tradition: New Directions in Black Classicism. Classical Receptions Journal 1:87–103. doi: 10.1093/crj/clp005. Hanses, M., and H. Fertik, eds. 2019. Above the Veil: Revisiting the Classicism of W.E.B. Du Bois. Special issue, International Journal of the Classical Tradition 26 (1). Hendricks, M. 2019. Coloring the Past, Rewriting Our Future: RaceB4Race. Folger Shakespeare Library. September 2019. https://www.folger.edu/institute/scholarly-programs/ race-periodization/margo-hendricks. Hobden, F. 2013. The Symposium in Ancient Greek Society and Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Karp, I., and C. Katz. 2000. Reflections on the Fate of Tippoo’s Tiger: Defining Cultures through Public Display. In Cultural Encounters: Representing “Otherness,” ed. E. Hallam and B. V. Street, 194–223. London: Routledge. Levine, M. M. 1998. The Marginalization of Martin Bernal. Classical Philology 93:345–63. Lissarrague, F. 1995. Identity and Otherness: The Case of Attic Head Vases and Plastic Vases. In Representations of the “Other” in Athenian Art c. 510–400 B.C. Special Issue, Source 15 (1):4–9. Malamud, M. 2016. African Americans and the Classics: Antiquity, Abolition and Activism. London: I. B. Tauris. McCoskey, D. E. 2018. Black Athena, White Power: Are We Paying the Price for Classics’ Response to Bernal? Eidolon, November 15, 2018. https://eidolon.pub/black-athena-white-power6bd1899a46f2. Olya, N. 2022. Does Classics Have a Future? On Sarah Derbew’s “Untangling Blackness in Greek Antiquity.” Los Angeles Review of Books, August 8, 2022. https://dev.lareviewofbooks. org/article/does-classics-have-a-future-on-sarah-derbewsuntangling-blackness-in-greek-antiquity/. Orrells, D., G. K. Bhambra, and T. Roynon, eds. 2011. African Athena: New Agendas. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rankine, P. 2006. Ulysses in Black: Ralph Ellison, Classicism, and African American Literature. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Saunders, F. S. 2013. The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters. 2nd ed. New York: New Press. Seth, V. 2020. The Origins of Racism: A Critique of the History of Ideas. History and Theory 59:343–68. Snowden, F. M., Jr. 1970 Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 1976. Iconographical Evidence on the Black Populations in Greco-Roman Antiquity. In From the Pharaos to the Fall of the Roman Empire. Vol. 1 of The Image of the Black in Western Art, ed. L. Bugner, 133–245. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 1983. Before Color Prejudice: The Ancient View of Blacks. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Webb, V. 2015. Archaic Mixed Style Faience Vessels. In Naukratis: Greeks in Egypt, ed. A. Villing, M. Bergeron, G. Bourogiannis, A. Johnston, F. Leclère, A. Masson, and R. Thomas, https:// webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20190801143001/ https://www.britishmuseum.org/pdf/Webb_Faience_ vessels_SF_AV.pdf.

Stefano Bossola

L’episodio sertoriano godette di alterne fortune nel corso della storia fino alla sua definitiva riscoperta nel corso dell’Ottocento. Ogni epoca e ogni contesto sfruttarono il personaggio di Sertorio in modo diverso per rispondere alle proprie esigenze e ne diedero una lettura influenzata dall’immaginario e dalle idee di ciascun periodo. La sua fu una figura in grado per lungo tempo di colpire la sensibilità di coloro che ad essa si approcciavano, dando luogo ad una grande varietà di spunti. Se il Cinquecento fu il periodo in cui il fenomeno della ricezione della figura di Sertorio raggiunse il proprio apice, l’Ottocento segnò l’inizio del progressivo declino dell’interesse verso tale personaggio, consegnato unicamente agli studi antichistici. Questo articolo intende dunque analizzare i processi di ricezione e rielaborazione che coinvolsero la figura di Sertorio a partire dall’epoca tardo antica fino ai giorni nostri.

Valentina Vari

In this paper, the ways in which public spaces of Athens are used in the display of imperial power will be analyzed. The aim is to provide a complete and updated outline of the documentation, which lacks, until now, organicity, in order to reconstruct a general trend of the phenomenon and the political meanings of Augustus’ program in Athens. The focus on altars and statue bases, often confused in the Athenian archaeological record, is for sure the best start to understand in which sense we can speak of ‘imperial cult’ in Athens. Altars and statue bases communicate, for their nature, with the observer, that moves every day in an ‘allusive space’. The inscriptions placed on the supports give an additional supply within this communicative process. The favorite place where erecting statue bases was, not by chance, the Acropolis (but we should also add the equestrian statue base of Lucius Caesar above the entrance of the West Gate of the Roman Agora and the dedication to Tiberius of the pillar in front of the Stoa of Attalus), whereas imperial altars seem to be distributed in a less selective way, since they were mostly found in the area of the Odeon, of the Eleusinion, and around the Roman Agora. Even though they were not, in most of the cases, in situ, defining particular areas where the ‘imperial presence’ was predominant is still possible. This study wants to give a useful contribution to the comprehension of the Athenian urban landscape at the time of Augustus, that surely carried out a well-planned dynastic policy, in order to transform the public space in a meaningful stage where was the new authority of Rome exhibited and promoted.

Wei Zhang, Wong Kam-Kwai, Yitian Chen et al.

The study of cultural artifact provenance, tracing ownership and preservation, holds significant importance in archaeology and art history. Modern technology has advanced this field, yet challenges persist, including recognizing evidence from diverse sources, integrating sociocultural context, and enhancing interactive automation for comprehensive provenance analysis. In collaboration with art historians, we examined the handscroll, a traditional Chinese painting form that provides a rich source of historical data and a unique opportunity to explore history through cultural artifacts. We present a three-tiered methodology encompassing artifact, contextual, and provenance levels, designed to create a "Biography" for handscroll. Our approach incorporates the application of image processing techniques and language models to extract, validate, and augment elements within handscroll using various cultural heritage databases. To facilitate efficient analysis of non-contiguous extracted elements, we have developed a distinctive layout. Additionally, we introduce ScrollTimes, a visual analysis system tailored to support the three-tiered analysis of handscroll, allowing art historians to interactively create biographies tailored to their interests. Validated through case studies and expert interviews, our approach offers a window into history, fostering a holistic understanding of handscroll provenance and historical significance.