Sentiment analysis is an essential technique for investigating the emotional climate within developer teams, contributing to both team productivity and project success. Existing sentiment analysis tools in software engineering primarily rely on English or non-German gold-standard datasets. To address this gap, our work introduces a German dataset of 5,949 unique developer statements, extracted from the German developer forum Android-Hilfe.de. Each statement was annotated with one of six basic emotions, based on the emotion model by Shaver et al., by four German-speaking computer science students. Evaluation of the annotation process showed high interrater agreement and reliability. These results indicate that the dataset is sufficiently valid and robust to support sentiment analysis in the German-speaking software engineering community. Evaluation with existing German sentiment analysis tools confirms the lack of domain-specific solutions for software engineering. We also discuss approaches to optimize annotation and present further use cases for the dataset.
Filip Miletić, Aaron Schmid, Sabine Schulte im Walde
This paper investigates the extent to which pretrained German BERT encodes knowledge of noun compound semantics. We comprehensively vary combinations of target tokens, layers, and cased vs. uncased models, and evaluate them by predicting the compositionality of 868 gold standard compounds. Looking at representational patterns within the transformer architecture, we observe trends comparable to equivalent prior work on English, with compositionality information most easily recoverable in the early layers. However, our strongest results clearly lag behind those reported for English, suggesting an inherently more difficult task in German. This may be due to the higher productivity of compounding in German than in English and the associated increase in constituent-level ambiguity, including in our target compound set.
To support the selection of large optical/infrared telescope sites in western China, long-term monitoring of atmospheric conditions and astronomical seeing has been conducted at the Muztagh-Ata site on the Pamir Plateau since 2017. With the monitoring focus gradually shifting northward, three stations were established: the South Point, North-1 point, and North-2 point. The North-1 point,selected as the site for the Muztagh-Ata 1.93 m Synergy Telescope (MOST), has recorded seeing and meteorological parameters since late 2018. In 2023,the North-2 point was established approximately 1.5 km northeast of North-1 point as a candidate location for a future large-aperture telescope. A 10m DIMM tower and a PC-4A environmental monitoring system were installed to evaluate site quality. This study presents a comparative analysis of data from the North-1 and North-2 points during 2018-2024.The median seeing is 0.89 arcsecs at North-1 and 0.78 arcsecs at North-2. Both points show clear seasonal and diurnal variations,with winter nights offering optimal observing conditions.On average, about 64% of the nighttime duration per year is suitable for astronomical observations. Nighttime temperature variation is low :2.03 at North-1 and 2.10 at North-2 .Median wind speeds are 5-6 m/s, with dominant directions between 210 and 300, contributing to stable airflow. Moderate wind suppresses turbulence, while strong shear and rapid fluctuations degrade image quality. These findings confirm that both the North-1 and North-2 points offer high-quality atmospheric conditions and serve as promising sites for future ground-based optical/infrared telescopes in western China.
Kai-Robin Lange, Jonas Rieger, Niklas Benner
et al.
From a monarchy to a democracy, to a dictatorship and back to a democracy -- the German political landscape has been constantly changing ever since the first German national state was formed in 1871. After World War II, the Federal Republic of Germany was formed in 1949. Since then every plenary session of the German Bundestag was logged and even has been digitized over the course of the last few years. We analyze these texts using a time series variant of the topic model LDA to investigate which events had a lasting effect on the political discourse and how the political topics changed over time. This allows us to detect changes in word frequency (and thus key discussion points) in political discourse.
In 1911, Alfred North Whitehead published a short book "Introduction to Mathematics" (IM) intended for students wanting an explanation of the fundamental ideas of mathematics. Whitehead's IM has enduring value because it was written not long after he and Bertrand Russell published their monumental three-volume work "Principia Mathematica" (PM) -- a publication of immense historical significance for mathematics. IM sheds light on Whitehead's view of mathematics at that time. Whitehead's book places proofs in predicate logic as the mythical starting point of mathematics, although Whitehead himself was slow to understand the significance of symbolic predicate logic.
This work introduces a benchmark assessing the performance of clustering German text embeddings in different domains. This benchmark is driven by the increasing use of clustering neural text embeddings in tasks that require the grouping of texts (such as topic modeling) and the need for German resources in existing benchmarks. We provide an initial analysis for a range of pre-trained mono- and multilingual models evaluated on the outcome of different clustering algorithms. Results include strong performing mono- and multilingual models. Reducing the dimensions of embeddings can further improve clustering. Additionally, we conduct experiments with continued pre-training for German BERT models to estimate the benefits of this additional training. Our experiments suggest that significant performance improvements are possible for short text. All code and datasets are publicly available.
Intact forest landscapes harbor significant biodiversity values and pools of ecosystem services essential for conservation, land use and rural development. Threatened by fragmentation and loss by transitions to industrial clear-cut forestry, those landscapes are of pivotal interest for protection that secures their intact character. With wall-to-wall land-cover data, we explored opportunities for maintaining intact forest landscapes through comprehensive spatial planning across a 2.5 million hectares boreal to sub-alpine forest region along the eastern slopes of the Scandinavian Mountain range. We analyzed forest and woodland types that are protected, need protection or potentially can be subject to continued forest management. We established that the fraction of already clear-cut forest is very small and that the forest landscape of the Scandinavian Mountain foothills contains a high proportion of protected high conservation value forests, covering almost 2 million ha, and that over 500,000 ha (27%) remains unprotected and may be subject to future protection or continued adapted forest management. We found evident north to south differences with respect to forest landscape configuration, distribution of unprotected forests and land ownership. With a focus on non-industrial private landowners, we conclude that sustainable land-use requires integrative, multi-functional approaches that rely on further protection, forest and forest landscape restoration and a much larger share of continuous cover forestry than presently. Our results provide input into ongoing policy implementation and green infrastructure planning in the context of securing intact forest values and integrative opportunities for rural livelihood and regional development based on multiple value chains.
This article studies Russian military strategy, concepts and capabilities as we find them today and as we are projected to find them in 10 to 15 years and explores potential weaknesses in Russian military power. In this light, it scrutinises defence efforts made by NATO and its key allies and makes an assessment of military strategies and concepts to deter and, if needed, to deal with Russian action in the High North of Europe. The article applies a net assessment and competitive strategies approach, entailing study of Russian, Norwegian and NATO ends and concepts. Within this framework, the study discusses Norwegian response options, arguing that Russia’s layered defence in the European High North can be effectively deterred and defeated. This requires investment, firstly, in capabilities which both mitigate Norwegian and NATO weakness and offer the possibility of exploiting Russian weaknesses, and, secondly, in prudent and suitable strategies and operational concepts. 32 Halsne Scandinavian Journal of Military Studies DOI: 10.31374/sjms.93 INTRODUCTION In the event of a high-intensity war with Russia, parts of the European High North risk being isolated from the West behind Russia’s layered defence.1 Russian so-called Anti-Access/AreaDenial (A2/AD) capabilities such as long-range missiles, submarines, and modern air-defence systems form the cornerstone of an integrated and layered defence. While much has been written about hybrid threats and wars, this study deals primarily with security and war in the more traditional sense. In a Royal United Services Institute publication, Professor Rolf Tamnes calls for “a competitive strategy, capitalising on [Western] strengths and Russia’s weaknesses” (Tamnes, 2018, p. 22). Seeking to answer that call, this article analyses both the strategic challenges a high-intensity war with Russia in the High North would pose and how such a war can be deterred – or, if necessary, won. In order to do so, it will examine the key existing military balances in the High North, focusing on the triangular relationship between Russia, Norway and NATO allies. In order to limit the length of the article, the potential role of Sweden and Finland in such a conflict will not be discussed. I will analyse and discuss Russia’s capabilities and concepts today and in a 10–15-year perspective, scrutinising Norway’s and NATO’s response options; as Norwegian deterrence and defence relies heavily on NATO, the allied dimension of such a conflict will play a key part. While the main focus here is on military strategy, I will address matters from the levels of national strategy to operations. Apart from studying capabilities, plans and concepts, the article’s key aim is to create a better understanding of potential solutions for the dilemmas that might arise from Western strategies. To achieve this, the study will use a methodology inspired by net assessment and competitive strategies thinking.2 Strategic competition and warfare are relational and dynamic in their very nature. Actions taken or concepts and capabilities employed by one party in a conflict inevitably lead to reactions from the other. Strategic analysis should thus strive to analyse the interrelations between the players, not each player in isolation. The study does not discuss the likelihood of an armed conflict between Russia and NATO. As such a conflict cannot be categorically ruled out, it is worthy of study. The study spans both the current situation and what is assumed to be a relevant scenario in a perspective of 10–15 years. One should expect a Russian hybrid and multi-domain operation, launched well before any conventional phase, which may include manipulation of the political and public debate, cyber disruption of infrastructure, and clandestine special operations. In case of a conventional military attack, there might be some strategic warning, but not necessarily evident tactical warning. Were Russia to prepare or launch a conventional assault on NATO, it would ensure its strategic nuclear submarines were protected in the Arctic Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk through the establishment of a layered defence, often termed a “bastion defence.” While this would not necessarily include a direct invasion of Norway, it could seriously hamper Norwegian freedom of action. In particular, Russian air defence systems, coastal defence missiles and submarines could pose a threat to Norwegian troop movements on land, in the air, and at sea. They could also obstruct both the deployment of NATO reinforcements into Norway and movements from the United States across the Atlantic. A Russian deployment of forces onto Norwegian territories outside mainland Norway such as Svalbard cannot be ruled out, nor can pre-emptive strikes against Norwegian high-value targets such as ports and air bases. In order to avoid “bean counting,” or capability comparison only, this article adopts a more instrumental approach. The design is informed by Joe Strange’s structural analysis of centre of gravity (Strange, 1996, p. 2). This framework will be used to analyse how different capabilities could underpin a military strategy in the given scenario. Based on a common understanding of Russia’s bastion defence, it will identify which effects Russia would need to create in order to establish a layered defence in the High North. This brings us to the question of those capabilities Russia will require to generate these effects, and whether the capabilities might exist today or in 10 to 15 years from now. 1 “The European High North” is meant in a functional manner, encompassing the European land and sea areas of the far north in line with Tamnes & Offerdal, 2014, p. 5. 2 For a detailed account of net-assessment, see Bracken (2006) and Elefteriu (2018). 33 Halsne Scandinavian Journal of Military Studies DOI: 10.31374/sjms.93 Compared to a traditional capability assessment, this approach has two major advantages. Firstly, it forces one to set finite resources into a strategic and operational framework, thus providing a more realistic and usable picture of military capabilities; secondly, it allows for a further analysis of how well NATO capabilities can defend against or deter a Russian layered defence; finally, it can identify capability gaps in both Russian and Western forces. Overall, Russia has the military capabilities necessary to establish a full-spectrum local dominance in the High North for a limited period. They also have clear vulnerabilities that Norway and NATO can exploit, however, both as an effective deterrent and as an effective defence in case deterrence fails. This would not only require investments in new capabilities, but a more collective and integrated approach to the problem posed by a Russian layered defence. RUSSIAN MILITARY POWER Successful military operations rely heavily on a command structure fit for purpose. After years of disorder and discussion, Russia has made tremendous progress, particularly since 2010, in designing a slim and efficient structure that has demonstrated its qualities in a number of conflicts. At the top of this structure, the president and his key men have the power to plan and execute operations without much delay and interference. The General Staff are central in carrying any plan into the theatre, a function they perform in tandem with the Joint Strategic Commands (OSK); the Military Districts, meanwhile, execute force production and support combatant forces in the campaign. The establishment in 2014 of a separate OSK North, and a distinct Military District from 2021 with the Northern Fleet as its main striking force, demonstrates the importance of the north to Russian military strategy (Whisler, 2020). Another factor of great importance is the manner in which Russia’s armed forces have integrated their different effectors in their command and control systems. Less bound by a strict domain-oriented mode of organising military power, and not hampered by a need for multilateral agreements across an alliance, their command and control system has effectively integrated sensors and effectors. The system is founded on the twin concepts of the operational reconnaissance fires complex and its tactical equivalent, the reconnaissance strike complex (Grau & Bartles, 2018; Kofman, 2019), affording the ability to seamlessly and rapidly transfer targeting data from sensors to weapons. This technology is, in itself, not new and revolutionary. Most NATO members have Command, Control, Communications, and Computers Information Systems (C4IS) with similar capabilities. If there is a Russian advantage in this area, it rests on the fact that national encryption protocols across an alliance are less of a concern. While one should be careful to accept Russian claims of the efficiency of such systems at face value, on a tactical level the system has proven effective in both Ukraine and Syria (McDermott, 2018). Russia’s military powers have obvious strengths and weaknesses. They are bound to lose any protracted conventional armed conflict with NATO, should major NATO members stick together and act in unity. The SIPRI Military Expenditure Database confirms that the difference in GDP, production capacity, and potential military power is overwhelmingly in NATO’s favour (SIPRI, n.d.). In the unlikely event of a military conflict, Russia’s main hope for success is to rapidly achieve its military goals and to de-escalate before NATO can mobilise its superior resources. This logically dictates that Russia should pursue a high-risk, offensive strategy with the aim of expeditiously attaining its strategic goals. Such a strategy would rest on the ability to quickly establish a situation of local military dominance, the use of their robust A2/AD systems to isolate the area, and then the presentation of terms for a negotiated settlement as a fait accompli (Boston & Massicot, 2017, pp. 6–7). Russia has developed and honed an ability to quickly transit from peace to
Eleven transit light curves for the exoplanet WASP-140b were studied with the primary objective to investigate the possibility of transit timing variations (TTVs). Previously unstudied MicroObservatory and Las Cumbres Global Telescope Network photometry were analysed using Markov Chain Monte Carlo techniques, including new observations collected by this study of a transit in December 2021. No evidence was found for TTVs. We used two transit models coupled with Bayesian optimization to explore the physical parameters of the system. The radius for WASP-140b was estimated to be $1.38^{+0.18}_{-0.17}$ Jupiter radii, with the planet orbiting its host star in $2.235987 \pm 0.000008$ days at an inclination of $85.75 \pm 0.75$ degrees. The derived parameters are in formal agreement with those in the exoplanet discovery paper of 2016, and somewhat larger than a recent independent study based on photometry by the TESS space telescope.
A high temporal and spatial resolution emission inventory for the North Sea and Baltic Sea for the year 2015 was compiled using current emission factors and ship activity data. The inventory includes seagoing vessels over 100 GT registered with the International Maritime Organisation traversing in the North and Baltic Seas. A bottom-up approach was chosen for the compilation of the inventory, which provides emission levels of the air pollutants CO2, NOx, SO2, PM2.5, CO, BC, Ash, NMVOC and POA, as well as the speed-dependent fuel and energy consumption. Input data come from both main and auxiliary engines as well as well-to-tank and tank-to-propeller emission and energy and fuel consumption quantities. The geo-referenced data are provided in a temporal resolution of five minutes. The data can be used to assess, inter alia, the health effects of maritime emissions, external and social costs of maritime transport, emission mitigation effects of alternative fuel scenarios and shore-to-ship power supply.
Goran Durakovic, Pedro Crespo del Granado, Asgeir Tomasgard
Hydrogen will be a central cross-sectoral energy carrier in the decarbonization of the European energy system. This paper investigates how a large-scale deployment of green hydrogen production affects the investments in transmission and generation towards 2060, analyzes the North Sea area with the main offshore wind projects, and assesses the development of an offshore energy hub. Results indicate that the hydrogen deployment has a tremendous impact on the grid development in Europe and in the North Sea. Findings indicate that total power generation capacity increases around 50%. The offshore energy hub acts mainly as a power transmission asset, leads to a reduction in total generation capacity, and is central to unlock the offshore wind potential in the North Sea. The effect of hydrogen deployment on power prices is multifaceted. In regions where power prices have typically been lower than elsewhere in Europe, it is observed that hydrogen increases the power price considerably. However, as hydrogen flexibility relieves stress in high-demand periods for the grid, power prices decrease in average for some countries. This suggests that while the deployment of green hydrogen will lead to a significant increase in power demand, power prices will not necessarily experience a large increase.
The purpose of this article is to separate grammatical structures that demonstrate the development of the future tense forms in the Germanic languages. The first step of research includes the identification of word forms for temporal description. Gradual identification of primitive analytical forms gives the possibility of tracing the gradual analytisation of the corresponding word combinations and their further transformation into stable analytical verb structures. Finding out latent features helps to recognize differentiated grammatical forms that are used to create and build the set of the formal Germanic future tense structures. The subject of the research is the components used to form temporal verb forms that project the action into the future. The Gothic language, which is understood as the initial, primary stage for the research, used forms of the present tense to describe the future action involving a phrase or an upper phrase context. Within the present tense forms a prefixal word-formation model was found. The Gothic optative was involved to render the future tense. The weak models of Gothic analytisation are connected with the infinitive phrase and auxiliary verb haban. Combination of auxiliary verbs with verbals (infinitive or participle I) were found in the North and West Germanic languages. These verb combinations involved a very restricted set of notional verbs used in two verbal forms. The first element of the phrase that falls under the process of future grammaticalization was preterite-present verbs, inchoative and some durative verbs. Stability of primary analytical temporal forms was created by using only two variants of verbals (infinitive or participle I). The first component of analytical temporal forms gradually lost its primary lexical meaning through its transformation into the auxiliary element. In the process of further differentiation of the Germanic languages some peculiarities were traced. The German language did not develop individual analytical forms with preterite-present (modal) verbs. Other West Germanic and Scandinavian languages used preterite-present (modal) verbs as a leading mechanism for temporal analytisation. Creation of analytical temporal forms happened within twofold formats.
Mikael A. Manninen, Hege Damlien, J. Kleppe
et al.
Abstract Population genetic studies often overlook the evidence for variability and change in past material culture. Here, the authors use a Mesolithic example to demonstrate the importance of integrating archaeological evidence into the interpretation of the Scandinavian hunter-gatherer genetic group. Genetic studies conclude that this group resulted from two single-event dispersals into Scandinavia before 7500 BC. Archaeological evidence, however, shows at least six immigration events pre-dating the earliest DNA, and that the first incoming groups arrived in Scandinavia before 9000 BC. The findings underline the importance of conducting careful archaeological analysis of prehistoric human dispersal in tandem with the study of ancient population genomics.
Neptune was telescopically discovered by Johan Gottfried Galle and Heinrich Louis d'Arrest in Berlin on 23 September 1846 based on the prediction by Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier. The role German astronomers played in the discovery has often been overshadowed by the controversies that erupted in England and France after the discovery. However, their role was crucial, not only in bringing about the discovery in the first place, but also in resolving some of the post-discovery controversies that erupted around priority for the prediction and naming of the planet. German astronomers in Central and Eastern Europe possessed some of the best telescopes of the day and had established themselves over several decades as being at the forefront of observational astronomy. They had produced the star charts that in the end proved indispensable for allowing identification of the planet, while a German publication, Astronomische Nachrichten, published by H. C. Schumacher in Altona, in the vicinity of Hamburg, then part of the Kingdom of Denmark, served as the journal of record. The general neglect of the German part of the story is most strongly attested by the inaccuracies concerning what actually happened on discovery night, which were long propagated in the English-speaking literature. Notably, for 30 years after the discovery, it was not appreciated that there were two observers, while the role of the sky map used was often exaggerated. This chapter sets forth a more complete picture, and in particular emphasises more than previous accounts the critical role of d'Arrest, arguing that he should be celebrated as a co-discoverer. In addition, evidence presented here, much of it not previously available in the English-speaking literature, shows that the name "Neptune" was eventually accepted throughout the scientific community based on German precedents.
We report an increase in winter (DJF) cyclone densities in the areas around Svalbard and in northwestern Barents Sea and a decrease in cyclone densities in southeastern Barents Sea during 1979–2016. Despite high interannual variability, the trends are significant at the 90% confidence level. The changes appear as a result of a shift into a more meridional winter storm track in the high‐latitude North Atlantic, associated with a positive trend in the Scandinavian Pattern. A significant decrease in the Brunt–Väisälä frequency east of Svalbard and a significant increase in the Eady Growth Rate north of Svalbard indicate increased baroclinicity, favouring enhanced cyclone activity in these regions. For the first time, we apply composite analysis to explicitly address regional consequences of these wintertime changes in the high‐latitude North Atlantic. We find a tendency toward a warmer and more moist atmospheric state in the Barents Sea and over Svalbard with increased cyclone activity around Svalbard.
Maha Elbayad, Michael Ustaszewski, Emmanuelle Esperança-Rodier
et al.
We conduct in this work an evaluation study comparing offline and online neural machine translation architectures. Two sequence-to-sequence models: convolutional Pervasive Attention (Elbayad et al. 2018) and attention-based Transformer (Vaswani et al. 2017) are considered. We investigate, for both architectures, the impact of online decoding constraints on the translation quality through a carefully designed human evaluation on English-German and German-English language pairs, the latter being particularly sensitive to latency constraints. The evaluation results allow us to identify the strengths and shortcomings of each model when we shift to the online setup.
This study reconciles two perspectives on wintertime atmospheric variability in the North Atlantic–European sector: the zonal‐mean framework comprising three preferred locations of the eddy‐driven jet (southern, central, northern), and the weather regime framework comprising four classical North Atlantic‐European regimes (Atlantic ridge AR, zonal ZO, European/Scandinavian blocking BL, Greenland anticyclone GA). A k‐means clustering algorithm is used to characterize the two‐dimensional variability of the eddy‐driven jet stream, defined by the lower tropospheric zonal wind in the ERA‐Interim reanalysis. The first three clusters capture the central jet and northern jet, along with a new mixed‐jet configuration; a fourth cluster is needed to recover the southern jet. The mixed cluster represents a split or strongly tilted jet, neither of which is well described in the zonal‐mean framework, and has a persistence of about one week, similar to the other clusters. Connections between the preferred jet locations and weather regimes are corroborated – southern to GA, central to ZO, and northern to AR. In addition, the new mixed cluster is found to be linked to European/Scandinavian blocking, whose relation to the eddy‐driven jet was previously unclear.