This paper frames calculus as a global, centuries-long development rather than a subject that began only with Newton and Leibniz. Drawing on ideas from Greek, Indian, Islamic, and later European mathematics, it highlights how concepts like infinity, area, motion, and continuous change slowly evolved through solving problems and cultural exchange. I argue that bringing this history into the classroom helps students see calculus as more than a set of procedures: it becomes a story of human creativity and persistence. By revisiting the questions early mathematicians struggled with, students can better appreciate and better understand the core ideas behind the formulas they use today.
FLEURS offers n-way parallel speech for 100+ languages, but Northern Kurdish is not one of them, which limits benchmarking for automatic speech recognition and speech translation tasks in this language. We present FLEURS-Kobani, a Northern Kurdish (ISO 639-3 KMR) spoken extension of the FLEURS benchmark. The FLEURS-Kobani dataset consists of 5,162 validated utterances, totaling 18 hours and 24 minutes. The data were recorded by 31 native speakers. It extends benchmark coverage to an under-resourced Kurdish variety. As baselines, we fine-tuned Whisper v3-large for ASR and E2E S2TT. A two-stage fine-tuning strategy (Common Voice to FLEURS-Kobani) yields the best ASR performance (WER 28.11, CER 9.84 on test). For E2E S2TT (KMR to EN), Whisper achieves 8.68 BLEU on test; we additionally report pivot-derived targets and a cascaded S2TT setup. FLEURS-Kobani provides the first public Northern Kurdish benchmark for evaluation of ASR, S2TT and S2ST tasks. The dataset is publicly released for research use under a CC BY 4.0 license.
Det norske bondesamfunnet har tradisjonelt vært delt inn i dem som eier egen grunn, og dem som leier. Den norske allodialbonden er sentral i nasjonsbyggingsprosessen, og store gardsboliger blir ofte fremstilt som et symbol på den norske sjøleier. I denne artikkelen ønsker jeg å utfordre denne dikotomien. Dette gjør jeg ved å studere betydningen av servitutter og rettigheter knyttet til allmenninger for bruk av trelast til byggeformål. Jeg tester to hypoteser. Den første er at servitutter og rettigheter1 knyttet til allmenninger har betydning for bygging av boliger i bondesamfunnet, og den andre at størrelsen på bygninger ikke kan benyttes for å vise økonomisk rikdom målt i penger. Tidsperioden i artikkelen er fra 1650-tallet til 1880, og de romlige grensene i den er Østerdalen i Innlandet fylke.
Robert Klesser, T. Blick, Michael-Andreas Fritze
et al.
In Earth’s history warm and cold periods have alternated. Especially, during the Pleistocene, the alternation between these different climatic conditions has led to frequent range expansions and retractions of many species: while thermophilic species dispersed during warm periods, cold adapted species retracted to cold refugia and vice versa. After the last Pleistocene cycle many cold adapted taxa found refuges in relict habitats in mountain ranges. One example for such a cold adapted relict is the flightless snow fly Chionea araneoides (Dalman, 1816). It can be found in lower mountain ranges of Central Europe exclusively in stone runs and stony accumulations which provide cold microclimates. Imagines develop only in winter. They have strongly restricted ranges and hence experienced strong isolation predicting that local populations may show local adaptation and hence also genetic differentiation. We investigated this for several middle mountain ranges of Germany using the COI barcoding gene. Our analyses revealed two distinct lineages, one in the Bavarian Forest and a second one in all other more northern locations up to Scandinavia. These lineages likely go back to post-Pleistocene isolation and should be studied in more detail in the future, also to confirm the taxonomic status of both lineages. Further, we confirmed former records of the species for Germany and report new records for the federal states of Saxony, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. Finally, we provide the first evidence of two types of males for the species, a small and a larger male type.
Transition pathways for Europe to achieve carbon neutrality emphasize the need for a massive deployment of solar and wind energy. Global cost optimization would lead to installing most of the renewable capacity in a few resource-rich countries, but policy decisions could prioritize other factors. In this study, we focus on the effect of energy independence on Europe's energy system design. We show that self-sufficiency constraints lead to a more equitable distribution of costs and installed capacities across Europe. However, countries that typically depend on energy imports face cost increases of up to 150% to achieve complete self-sufficiency. Self-sufficiency particularly favours solar photovoltaic (PV) energy, and with declining PV module prices, alternative configurations like inverter dimensioning and horizontal tracking are beneficial enough to be part of the optimal solution for many countries. Moreover, we found that very large solar and wind annual installation rates are required, but they seem feasible in light of recent historical trends.
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.
In Sweden, artistic expressions by Sámi authors and artists dealing with the trauma of lost language, culture and identity of the Sámi, the only indigenous people in Europe, have recently become visible in a prominent way. The film Sami Blood (2016), directed by Amanda Kernell, was shown at festivals in Europe. The epic poem Ædnan. Epos (2018) by Linnea Axelsson, about the forced migration of Sámi families, was awarded the prestigious Augustprize in 2018 for the best fiction book, and Elin Anna Labba received the same prize for nonfiction in 2020 for her documentary book Herrarna satte oss dit. Om tvångsförflyttningarna i Sverige (2020), also about Sámi forced migration in Northern Scandinavia. In 2021, Mats Jonsson published the comic novel När vi var samer (When we were Sámi), which had very positive reviews in the most prominent Swedish newspapers such as Svenska Dagbladet and Dagens Nyheter. Mats Jonsson discovered that his ancestors were originally Sámi. He refers to the works of Axelsson and Labba and positions himself in the same genre, i.e. modern Sámi literature about lost heritage and identity. This paper sets the comic novel by Jonsson in the context of Axelsson’s and Labba’s works and, more generally, the renaissance of modern Sámi literature in Sweden. Furthermore, the analysis of När vi var samer will demonstrate how literature is intended to heal trauma, visualize a lost history and strengthen peripheral voices.
The Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), a premier autonomous research institute under the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India has a legacy of about seven decades with contributions made in the field of observational sciences namely atmospheric and astrophysics. The Survey of India used a location at ARIES, determined with an accuracy of better than 10 meters on a world datum through institute participation in a global network of Earth artificial satellites imaging during late 1950. Taking advantage of its high-altitude location, ARIES, for the first time, provided valuable input for climate change studies by long term characterization of physical and chemical properties of aerosols and trace gases in the central Himalayan regions. In astrophysical sciences, the institute has contributed precise and sometime unique observations of the celestial bodies leading to a number of discoveries. With the installation of the 3.6 meter Devasthal optical telescope in the year 2015, India became the only Asian country to join those few nations of the world who are hosting 4 meter class optical telescopes. This telescope, having advantage of geographical location, is well-suited for multi-wavelength observations and for sub-arc-second resolution imaging of the celestial objects including follow-up of the GMRT, AstroSat and gravitational-wave sources.
The funeral in boats was widespread in Northern Europe from Iceland to the Volga region during the Viking Age. But in the works devoted to this rite the materials of Southern Rus are practically ignored though being studied worst. The remains of small boats which can be recorded very rarely are survived in two or three burials. Ship rivets were found in six burials. Despite the insufficient number of these mounts in two cases we can also talk about the use of full-fledged funeral boats. In the other four assemblages the rivets placed on the grave acted as a symbol of the ship which replaced the whole. Available materials allow us to attribute the existence of the rite in Southern Rus to the second half of the tenth century. It probably ceased to be practiced after the introduction of Christianity in 988. In the territory of Southern Rus the burial in boats can be considered as an ethnic indicator of the presence of Scandinavians, probably — natives of Central Sweden. A relatively small number of such burials reflects a change in the usual way of life of the Normans in the new conditions. Although in Scandinavia since the ninth century the significant simplification and «democratization» of the rite could be observed, in Eastern Europe it remains to be elitist. In all burials of Southern Rus the composition of the grave goods indicates the burial of men. Most of them contained weapons or whole sets of them, often the remains of a horse and rider’s equipment, attributes of trade — weights, fragments of scales, coins. At the same time these materials demonstrate a clear social hierarchy of the dead — from ordinary soldiers to the princely class. Chorna Mohyla barrow in Chernihiv was the largest and richest Old Rus mound where a local prince was probably buried. The ship rivets were also found among the materials from this barrow 120 years later excavation.
Abstract Knowledge about the connectivity among natural populations is essential to identify management units for effective conservation actions. Conservation-minded management has led to the recovery of large carnivore populations in northern Europe, possibly restoring connectivity between the two separated, but expanding brown bear (Ursus arctos) populations on the Scandinavian peninsula to the west and Karelia, a part of the large Eurasian population, to the east. The degree of connectivity between these populations has been poorly understood, therefore we investigated the extent of connectivity between the two populations using autosomal microsatellites and Y chromosome haplotypes in 924 male bears (the dispersing sex), sampled during a period of 12 years (2005–2017) across the transborder area where these two populations meet. Our results showed that the two populations are not genetically isolated as reported in earlier studies. We detected recent asymmetrical gene flow at a rate (individuals per generation) of 4.6–5.5 (1%) from Karelia into Scandinavia, whereas the rate was approximately 27.1–34.5 (8%) in the opposite direction. We estimated historical gene flow of effective number of migrants to be between 1.7 and 2.5 between the populations. Analyses of Y chromosome markers supported these results. Successful recovery and expansion of both populations led to the restoration of connectivity, however, it is asymmetric, possibly due to different recovery histories and population densities. By aligning monitoring between neighboring countries, we were able to better understand the biological processes across the relevant spatial scale.
Abstract. A short history of the Opiliones volume in ‘Die Tierwelt Deutschlands’ published by Martens (1978) is presented. The area under consideration comprises Central Europe expanded by large parts of Scandinavia, the British Isles, non-Mediterranean France, Benelux, the complete Alps and in the south-east those parts of Romania and Croatia whose fauna was sufficiently well known. Additions and changes which appeared since 1978 are highlighted: new species discovered in this area, taxonomic changes, important distributional records, as well as changes of faunal composition due to human-mediated influences and climate change are addressed. Perspectives for further research concern faunal inventory especially in the Southern Alps, ecological studies, control of faunal change dynamics and morphological-anatomical investigations. Originally, 113 species were documented for this area and 31 species have been newly discovered since. Of these, 22 species have their type locality in the area under consideration. Eight species had to be excluded from the list due to incorrect identifications, wrongly attributed locality indications and synonymies (Peltonychia postumicola, P. gabria, P. insignis, Ischyropsalis pyrenaea, I. helvetica, Leiobunum tiscae, Nelima nigripalpe, Opilio ravennae). The majority of the new species were discovered in isolated areas of the Southern Alps, largely congruent with Massifs de Refuge, i.e. zones that where ice-free within glacial periods. Paranemastoma silli monticola Babalean, 2011 from Romania is upgraded to species rank, Paranemastoma monticola Babalean, 2011 stat. nov. Recently, molecular genetics (Ischyropsalis, Trogulus, Megabunus) and partly chemical and ecological methods (Megabunus, Nemastoma) helped to understand species delimitations more accurately, resulting in considerably higher number of species in the relevant genera than formerly believed. Due to recent man-made introductions eight species reached our area of investigation after 1978, but considerably more species in partial areas like Great Britain or the Netherlands. Successive range expansions of these species differ considerably from nearly zero to complete coverage of central Europe. Dasylobus graniferus is recorded for the first time in Germany. Following climate warming favourable conditions accelerate northward extension of native species, namely to the British Isles, northern parts of Central Europe and southern Scandinavia. By contrast, rainless dry summer periods influence the Central European opilionid fauna negatively causing regional extinctions.
Preposition choice is amongst the most prominent phenomena in which German in Austria differs from other varieties of German. Many instances are explained by language contact with Slavic languages in general and Czech in particular. This contribution sheds light on diamedial and diatopic variation of preposition choice in directive arguments (of the verbs Germ. gehen / Cz. jít/chodit) with the translation equivalents of school as the PPs inner objects. It chooses a contrastive, databased approach by analysing spoken and written corpora of various German varieties and Czech. We find evidence for diamedial variation in all analysed varieties or languages, respectively, with the prepositions Germ. in and Cz. do 'into' being relatively more frequent in spoken than in written language. Also, we identify two larger areal patterns with gradual transitions in Central Europe: first, a north-western one in the Hamburg/Hannover region, in which the preposition Germ. zu 'to' prevails; second a south-eastern one in Austria, Bavaria and the Czech Republic with the dominant preposition Germ. in / Cz. do 'into'.
Germanic languages. Scandinavian languages, History of Northern Europe. Scandinavia
Lidia Sworobowicz, Tomasz Mamos, M. Grabowski
et al.
The severe climatic changes during the Pleistocene ice ages have shaped the genetic structure and distribution of biota in Europe. We aimed to reveal in detail the genetic diversity, geographical population structure, historical and present demography, migration patterns, and the presence of possible glacial refugia within the nominative subspecies Asellus aquaticus aquaticus. We analysed DNA sequences of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I gene and nuclear noncoding internal transcribed spacer II region, from populations inhabiting post‐glacial Europe (from the British Isles and Scandinavia to the northern Mediterranean and Black Sea coasts). The origin of the taxon, including establishment in the Dinaric Western Balkans, dates to the Middle/Late Pliocene, but most of its genetic diversity emerged during the Middle/Late Pleistocene before the Last Glacial Maximum. Despite the general absence of spatial genetic structure with population growth, we discovered two different phylogeographic stories across 11 clusters revealed by a coalescent approach. Firstly, the periglacial cluster group—spatially restricted mainly to the northern Balkans, Pannonian Basin, and Pontic Region—is older and more divergent. It apparently retained a relatively stable population size during the glacial‐interglacial cycles. Conversely, the proglacial cluster group—widely distributed in areas close to the glacier margins (north of the Alps, Sudetes, Carpathians) and in the Pannonian Basin—is younger and composed of closely related individuals. It originated in Pleistocene and lasted continuously through the Last Glacial Maximum in numerous high latitude refugia. This was probably due to the vast network of proglacial lakes and rivers, which played a crucial role in the maintenance of genetic diversity, population growth, and high dispersal rate. The evolutionary history of A. a. aquaticus reveals unexpected patterns and is an important lesson when making predictions for other aquatic taxa. Our results suggest that we should stop perceiving the proglacial habitats as lifeless ice desert.
Sammendrag
Problemstillingen er: Hvordan var den økonomiske situasjonen
for bøndene i Nord-Østerdalen, og hadde denne situasjonen betydning
for utskiftning av sameieskogene? Tidsrammen er 1770 til 1819. Den
geografiske avgrensingen er Nord-Østerdalen i Norge. Hovedkilder
er forliksprotokoller og tinglyste dokumenter. Jeg undersøker en
hypotese om sammenheng mellom pengeøkonomi hos bøndene og behovet
for utskiftning. Analysen viser at bøndenes gjeldssituasjon førte
til et behov for utskiftning av skogsameiene. Bøndene ble tidlig
selveiere, og dette gav muligheter for bruksdelinger. Bøndene var
avhengige av inntektsgivende arbeid ved bergverkene for kjøp av
nødvendige matvarer. Dårlige tider førte til stor gjeld. Bøndene
ble presset til inngåelse av mangeårige kullkontrakter til faste
priser i en urolig økonomisk tid. Dette til sammen gav et behov
for utskiftning. Nord-østerdalsbøndene forsøkte inngå avtaler om utskiftning
av sameieskogene i minnelighet, men de søkte også hjelp hos forlikskommisjonen.