Large language models have advanced web agents, yet current agents lack personalization capabilities. Since users rarely specify every detail of their intent, practical web agents must be able to interpret ambiguous queries by inferring user preferences and contexts. To address this challenge, we present Persona2Web, the first benchmark for evaluating personalized web agents on the real open web, built upon the clarify-to-personalize principle, which requires agents to resolve ambiguity based on user history rather than relying on explicit instructions. Persona2Web consists of: (1) user histories that reveal preferences implicitly over long time spans, (2) ambiguous queries that require agents to infer implicit user preferences, and (3) a reasoning-aware evaluation framework that enables fine-grained assessment of personalization. We conduct extensive experiments across various agent architectures, backbone models, history access schemes, and queries with varying ambiguity levels, revealing key challenges in personalized web agent behavior. For reproducibility, our codes and datasets are publicly available at https://anonymous.4open.science/r/Persona2Web-73E8.
Generative recommendation, which directly generates item identifiers, has emerged as a promising paradigm for recommendation systems. However, its potential is fundamentally constrained by the reliance on purely autoregressive training. This approach focuses solely on predicting the next item while ignoring the rich internal structure of a user's interaction history, thus failing to grasp the underlying intent. To address this limitation, we propose Masked History Learning (MHL), a novel training framework that shifts the objective from simple next-step prediction to deep comprehension of history. MHL augments the standard autoregressive objective with an auxiliary task of reconstructing masked historical items, compelling the model to understand ``why'' an item path is formed from the user's past behaviors, rather than just ``what'' item comes next. We introduce two key contributions to enhance this framework: (1) an entropy-guided masking policy that intelligently targets the most informative historical items for reconstruction, and (2) a curriculum learning scheduler that progressively transitions from history reconstruction to future prediction. Experiments on three public datasets show that our method significantly outperforms state-of-the-art generative models, highlighting that a comprehensive understanding of the past is crucial for accurately predicting a user's future path. The code will be released to the public.
Good mental health enables individuals to cope with the normal stresses of life. In Germany, approximately one-quarter of the adult population is affected by mental illnesses. Teletherapy and digital health applications are available to bridge gaps in care and relieve healthcare professionals. The acceptance of these tools is a strongly influencing factor for their effectiveness, which also needs to be evaluated for AI-based conversational agents (CAs) (e. g. ChatGPT, Siri) to assess the risks and potential for integration into therapeutic practice. This study investigates the perspectives of both the general population and healthcare professionals with the following questions: 1. How frequently are CAs used for mental health? 2. How high is the acceptance of CAs in the field of mental health? 3. To what extent is the use of CAs in counselling, diagnosis, and treatment acceptable? To address these questions, two quantitative online surveys were conducted with 444 participants from the general population and 351 healthcare professionals. Statistical analyses show that 27 % of the surveyed population already confide their concerns to CAs. Not only experience with this technology but also experience with telemedicine shows a higher acceptance among both groups for using CAs for mental health. Additionally, participants from the general population were more likely to support CAs as companions controlled by healthcare professionals rather than as additional experts for the professionals. CAs have the potential to support mental health, particularly in counselling. Future research should examine the influence of different communication media and further possibilities of augmented intelligence. With the right balance between technology and human care, integration into patient-professional interaction can be achieved.
Weightlifting emerged in Italy during the late 19th century, particularly within the industrial triangle of Turin, Genoa and Milan.On an international level, the sport’s debut occurred at the 1896 Olympic Games in Athens and the 1904 St. Louis Games, in addition to the 1906 Athens ‘Intermediate Games,’ which featured exercises rooted in the French method. Central European countries practised a divergent method, which would soon become known as the continental method. The two methods remained at odds with one another, failing to reach a compromise, until the outbreak of the First World War. However, the 1916 Berlin Olympics had the potential to alter the course of history. Central European lifters had increasingly adopted the French method, and while the opposition remained on the two-handed jerk, a compromise was theoretically reached for Berlin, leaving the athlete free to choose the preferred way of performing the jerk. The Italian contingent, under the patronage of Marquis Monticelli Obizzi, had become versed in both methods, though the French one had gained the upper hand. Following the First World War, and with Austria and Germany excluded from active participation, France proceeded to impose its own method. Later on, it established an international governing body (FIH) at the 1920 Antwerp Olympics, where Italy achieved a noteworthy result. During the four-year Olympic period leading up to Paris 1924, a contentious relationship emerged between the countries that had been excluded from the Olympics and France. France administered the FIH with rigidity, and any attempt to overturn this top-down management was fruitless. Italy, already grappling with a difficult political life and ruled by fascism since 1922, adopted a low profile, avoiding any compromise, partially obtaining recognition for its records and preparing for an unexpected triumph in Paris 1924 thanks to Gabetti, Galimberti and Tonani. The history of this fruitful course has been reconstructed, however, avoiding the track of the official book of the IWF (heir of the FIH), Il passato perduto (The Lost Past), as it omits some important historical issues and is marred by interpretations that are erroneous, incomplete and not adherent to the real connections of the true facts
Tobias Plieninger, Ragnheiður Bogadóttir, Nora Fagerholm
et al.
Abstract Consideration of traditional practices of natural resource management in decision‐making is crucial to meet the challenges of the world’s intersecting sustainability crises. However, knowledge of the role that such practices play in developed societies is scant, especially in Europe. This study investigates the persistence of traditional hunting practices in the context of the Faroe Islands. Specifically, it explores the values, rules, and knowledge in relation to traditional hunting practices that shape human–nature relationships. Through 31 semi‐structured interviews with active participants in mountain hare hunting, pilot whale hunting, and fulmar fowling, the study employs thematic content analysis to identify key themes and interrelations grounded in participant perspectives. Utilising the values‐rules‐knowledge (v‐r‐k) framework, which integrates diverse values, rules, and knowledge types, the study addresses the complex social‐ecological challenges in the North Atlantic. These are characterized by rapid economic growth, geographic isolation, strong place attachment, and social‐ecological vulnerabilities. Our results show that while traditional practices are diminishing across Europe, they remain vibrant in the Faroe Islands. Yet, hunting has shifted from subsistence to a recreational activity, with relational values to nature and the local community becoming more important than instrumental values. Our study demonstrates the important influence of the transmission of specific values, rules, and knowledge over time on hunting and ecosystem management practices, which extends existing scholarship on the motivational basis of hunting. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.
This paper discusses the challenges of integrating legacy and new research data in the study of the multiperiod settlement site of Montarice at Porto Recanati (Marche, Italy). The site was discovered in the early 1970s and has since seen a series of invasive and non-invasive fieldwork to document its occupation history. Until now the various data collected during these endeavors have not been integrated, and large parts of the legacy data remain unpublished. A new research collaboration between the Universities of
Ghent (Belgium), Bamberg (Germany) and Sapienza – Roma (Italy), supported by the SABAP-Marche Sud, the Museo Nazionale delle Marche, and the municipality of Porto Recanati aims at collecting all available archaeological and archival records of Montarice. Our final goal is to reconstruct the longterm settlement history of this coastal hilltop, from the earliest Palaeolithic evidence to the site’s final abandonment in the Middle Ages. The most intensive period of occupation was in the Middle and Recent Bronze Age, as is attested by surface material and the records of an unpublished excavation in the 1970s. Here we present a first outlook on this new project, highlighting the various datasets we work with and how they mutually inform each other. We also discuss the first results of our studies of the protohistoric settlement phases.
Christoph Draxler, Henk van den Heuvel, Arjan van Hessen
et al.
Oral history is about oral sources of witnesses and commentors on historical events. Speech technology is an important instrument to process such recordings in order to obtain transcription and further enhancements to structure the oral account In this contribution we address the transcription portal and the webservices associated with speech processing at BAS, speech solutions developed at LINDAT, how to do it yourself with Whisper, remaining challenges, and future developments.
Berenike Cornelia Kunzmann, Alexandra Stefanie Schweig, Karl Ulrich Bartz-Schmidt, Bianka Sobolewska University Eye Hospital, Centre for Ophthalmology, University of Tuebingen, Tuebingen, GermanyCorrespondence: Berenike Cornelia Kunzmann, University Eye Hospital Tübingen, Department of Ophthalmology, Elfriede-Aulhorn-Str. 7, Tübingen, 72076, Germany, Tel +49 7071 29 64356, Fax +49 7071 29 5216, Email berenike.kunzmann@med.uni-tuebingen.dePurpose: To evaluate visual and anatomical outcome of consecutive patients who received intravitreal injections (IVI) of faricimab for the treatment of neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD).Patients and methods: A retrospective study of patients treated for nAMD with one to three IVIs of faricimab from October 2022 to January 2024. Demographic data, treatment history, best corrected visual acuity (BCVA), anatomic parameters, and adverse events (AEs) were collected.Results: After one IVI of faricimab, previously treated (n=160) eyes with a mean of 33.51 IVIs and treatment-naïve (n=10) eyes showed a mean BCVA gain of +0.59± 0.52 letters (p=0.364) and +5.00± 6.50 letters (p=0.461), respectively, and a mean central subfield thickness (CST) reduction of − 27.65± 5.33 μm (p< 0.001) and − 94.10± 39.74 μm (p=0.042), respectively. In treatment-refractory eyes after switching from aflibercept (n=108), mean BCVA increased by +0.42± 0.66 (p=0.745) and the mean CST improved by − 21.98± 6.04 (p< 0.001). After three IVIs of faricimab previously treated (n=106) and treatment-naïve (n=5) eyes showed a mean BCVA increase of +1.57± 0.88 letters (p=0.051) versus +12.50± 8.14 letters (p=0.185), and a mean CST reduction of − 25.51± 5.82 μm (p< 0.001) versus − 82.60± 36.20 μm from baseline, respectively. In treatment-refractory eyes after switching from aflibercept (n=79), mean BCVA improved by +2.15± 1.08 letters (p=0.029) and mean CST decreased by − 27.46± 7.04 μm (p< 0.001). Mean pigment epithelial detachment (PED) was also significantly reduced even between the first and the third faricimab injection in previously treated eyes (p=0.03). The proportion of eyes with intraretinal fluid and subretinal fluid improved significantly in all eyes and treatment-refractory eyes after switching from aflibercept. Ocular AEs were reported in three out of 170 eyes, and one patient had two stroke events during faricimab therapy.Conclusion: Three IVIs of faricimab have the potential to improve visual acuity and anatomical parameters even in treatment-refractory nAMD eyes with a mean dosing interval of more than 6 weeks.Keywords: anti-vascular endothelial growth factor, intravitreal injection, treatment resistant nAMD, intravitreal dosing interval, Vabysmo
Seong Jin Kim, Tomotsugu Goto, Chih-Teng Ling
et al.
With the advent of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), extra-galactic source count studies were conducted down to sub-microJy in the mid-infrared (MIR), which is several tens of times fainter than what the previous-generation infrared (IR) telescopes achieved in the MIR. In this work, we aim to interpret the JWST source counts and constrain cosmic star-formation history (CSFH) and black hole accretion history (BHAH). We employ the backward evolution of local luminosity functions (LLFs) of galaxies to reproduce the observed source counts from sub-microJy to a few tens of mJy in the MIR bands of the JWST. The shapes of the LLFs at the MIR bands are determined using the model templates of the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) for five representative galaxy types (star-forming galaxies, starbursts, composite, AGN type 2 and 1). By simultaneously fitting our model to all the source counts in the six MIR bands, along with the previous results, we determine the best-fit evolutions of MIR LFs for each of the five galaxy types, and subsequently estimate the CSFH and BHAH. Thanks to the JWST, our estimates are based on several tens of times fainter MIR sources, the existence of which was merely an extrapolation in previous studies.
Face à l’internationalisation de la lutte contre l’apartheid en Afrique du Sud dans les années 1980, l’Allemagne fédérale condamne les violations des droits de l’homme mais évite de sanctionner économiquement le régime. Les diplomates de l’Auswärtiges Amt sont l’objet de pressions contraires de la communauté internationale et européenne, des acteurs économiques, sociaux et religieux, d’un lobby pro-régime et d’un mouvement citoyen anti-apartheid. Mais en tenant strictement séparée la politique et l’économie, la RFA reste un partenaire commercial de premier plan de l’Afrique du Sud.
Christiane Weingart, Christina S. Helm, Elisabeth Müller
et al.
Abstract Background Vector‐borne diseases are of increasing importance in Germany. Since 2015, autochthonous cases have been increasingly documented in Berlin/Brandenburg. Objectives Describe autochthonous Babesia canis infection in the Berlin/Brandenburg region. Animals Forty‐nine dogs with autochthonous B. canis infection. Methods Evaluation of history, clinical signs, laboratory abnormalities, treatment, and outcome. Results Dogs were presented between March and August (9) and September and January (40) in the years 2015‐2021. Historical and clinical findings were lethargy (100%), pale mucous membranes (63%), fever (50%), and pigmenturia (52%). Common clinicopathological findings were thrombocytopenia (100%), anemia (85%), intravascular hemolysis (52%), pancytopenia (41%), and systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS; 37%). Babesia detection was based on blood smear evaluation (n = 40) and PCR targeting the 18S rRNA gene of piroplasms (n = 49). Sequencing indicated 99.47% to 100% identity to B. canis sequences from GenBank. All dogs were treated with imidocarb (2.4‐6.3 mg/kg; median, 5 mg/kg); 8 dogs received 1, 35 received 2, and 1 dog each received 3, 4, or 5 injections, respectively. Continued PCR‐positive results were detected in 7 dogs after the 1st, in 5 after the 2nd, in 2 after the 3rd, and in 1 28 days after the 4th injection. Four dogs were euthanized and 3 dogs died. Conclusions and Clinical Importance Autochthonous B. canis infections in Berlin/Brandenburg were associated with severe clinicopathological changes, SIRS, and multiorgan involvement. Testing by PCR during and after treatment is advisable to monitor treatment success. Screening of blood donors in high‐risk areas and year‐round tick protection is strongly recommended.
Peripartum cardiomyopathy (PPCM) is a life-threatening heart disease developing towards the end of pregnancy or in the months following delivery in previously healthy women in terms of cardiac disease. Enhanced oxidative stress and the subsequent cleavage of the nursing hormone Prolactin into an anti-angiogenic 16 kDa subfragment emerged as a potential causal factor of the disease. We established a prospective registry with confirmed PPCM present in 115 patients (mean baseline left ventricular ejection fraction, LVEF: 27 ± 9 %). Follow-up data (6 ± 3 months) showed LVEF improvement in 85 % and full recovery in 47 % while 15 % failed to recover with death in 2 % of patients. A positive family history of cardiomyopathy was present in 16.5 %. Pregnancy-associated hypertension was associated with a better outcome while a baseline LVEF ≤ 25 % was associated with a worse outcome. A high recovery rate (96 %) was observed in patients obtaining combination therapy with beta-blocker, angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors/angiotensin-receptor-blockers (ARBs) and bromocriptine. Increased serum levels of Cathepsin D, the enzyme that generates 16 kDa Prolactin, miR-146a, a direct target of 16 kDa Prolactin, N-terminal-pro-brain-natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) and asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) emerged as biomarkers for PPCM. In conclusion, low baseline LVEF is a predictor for poor outcome while pregnancy-induced hypertensive disorders are associated with a better outcome in this European PPCM cohort. The high recovery rate in this collective is associated with a treatment concept using beta-blockers, ACE inhibitors/ARBs and bromocriptine. Increased levels of Cathepsin D activity, miR-146a and ADMA in serum of PPCM patients support the pathophysiological role of 16 kDa Prolactin for PPCM and may be used as a specific diagnostic marker profile.
Jochen Büttner, Julius Martinetz, Hassan El-Hajj
et al.
Recent advances in object detection facilitated by deep learning have led to numerous solutions in a myriad of fields ranging from medical diagnosis to autonomous driving. However, historical research is yet to reap the benefits of such advances. This is generally due to the low number of large, coherent, and annotated datasets of historical documents, as well as the overwhelming focus on Optical Character Recognition to support the analysis of historical documents. In this paper, we highlight the importance of visual elements, in particular illustrations in historical documents, and offer a public multi-class historical visual element dataset based on the <i>Sphaera</i> corpus. Additionally, we train an image extraction model based on YOLO architecture and publish it through a publicly available web-service to detect and extract multi-class images from historical documents in an effort to bridge the gap between traditional and computational approaches in historical studies.
Photography, Computer applications to medicine. Medical informatics
Abstract Diptera is often considered to be the richest insect group due to its great species diversity and broad ecological versatility. However, data on dipteran diversity from subtropical ecosystems have hitherto been scarce, due to the lack of studies conducted at an appropriate large scale. We investigated the diversity and composition of Diptera communities on Tianmu Mountain, Zhejiang, China, using DNA metabarcoding technology, and evaluated their dynamic responses to the effects of slope aspect, season, and altitudinal zone. A total of 5,092 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were discovered and tentatively assigned to 72 dipteran families, including 2 family records new for China and 30 family records new for the locality. Cecidomyiidae, Sciaridae, and Phoridae were the predominant families, representing 53.6% of total OTUs, while 52 families include >95% unidentified and presumed undescribed species. We found that the community structure of Diptera was significantly affected by aspect, seasonality (month) and elevation, with richer diversity harbored in north‐facing than south‐facing slopes, and seasonality a more profound driver of community structure and diversity than elevation. Overall, massive species diversity of Diptera communities was discovered in this subtropical ecosystem of east China. The huge diversity of potentially undescribed species only revealed by metabarcoding now requires more detailed taxonomic study, as a step toward an evolutionary integration that accumulates information on species’ geographic ranges, ecological traits, functional roles, and species interactions, and thus places the local communities in the context of the growing knowledge base of global biodiversity and its response to environmental change.