Static vs Dynamic SAGAs

SAGAs calculi (or simply SAGAs) have been proposed by Bruni et al. as a model for long-running transactions. The approach therein can be considered static, while a dynamic approach has been proposed by Lanese and Zavattaro. In this paper we first extend both static SAGAs (in the centralized interruption policy) and dynamic SAGAs to deal with nesting, then we compare the two approaches

LTS Semantics for Compensation-based Processes

Business processes design is an error-prone task often relying on long-running transactions with compensations. Unambiguous formal semantics and flexible verification tools should be used for early validation of processes. To this aim, we define a small-step semantics for the Sagas calculus according to the so-called coordinated interruption policy. We show that it can be tuned via small changes to deal with other compensation policies and discuss possible enhancements

Temporal Network Analysis of Literary Texts

We study temporal networks of characters in literature focusing on "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" (1865) by Lewis Carroll and the anonymous "La Chanson de Roland" (around 1100). The former, one of the most influential pieces of nonsense literature ever written, describes the adventures of Alice in a fantasy world with logic plays interspersed along the narrative. The latter, a song of heroic deeds, depicts the Battle of Roncevaux in 778 A.D. during Charlemagne's campaign on the Iberian Peninsula. We apply methods recently developed by Taylor and coworkers \cite{Taylor+2015} to find time-averaged eigenvector centralities, Freeman indices and vitalities of characters. We show that temporal networks are more appropriate than static ones for studying stories, as they capture features that the time-independent approaches fail to yield.Comment: 17 pages, 11 figure

A Viking Age Political Economy from Soil Core Tephrochronology

Saga accounts describe Viking Age Iceland as an egalitarian society of independent household farms. By the medieval period, the stateless, agriculturally marginal society had become highly stratified in exploitative landlord-tenant relationships. Classical economists place the origin of differential wealth in unequal access to resources that are unevenly distributed across the landscape. This irregularity is manifested archaeologically as spatial variations in buried soil horizons, which are addressed through thousands of soil cores recorded across Langholt in support of the Skagafjörður Archaeological Settlement Survey. Soil accumulation rates, a proxy for land quality, are derived from tephrochronology and correlated with archaeological and historical data to describe relationships between local environmental conditions, farm size, and farm settlement order. Spatial variations in soil accumulation rate are inherent, persistent, and magnified by environmental decline. Settling early on high-quality land leads to long-term success, while farmers who settle later, or on more marginal land, can maintain high status by leveraging alternate sources of wealth to gain control over more productive agricultural land. Subtle differences in the rate of soil accumulation lead to large differences in the wealth of farmsteads during the Viking Age on Langholt in Skagafjörður, Iceland

Decidability Results for Dynamic Installation of Compensation Handlers

International audienceDynamic compensation installation allows for easier specification of fault handling in complex interactive systems since it enables to update the compensation policies according to run-time information. In this paper we show that in a simple π-like calculus with static compensations the termination of a process is decidable, but it is undecidable in one with dynamic compensations. We then consider three commonly used patterns for dynamic compensations, showing that process termination is decidable for parallel and replacing compensations while it remains undecidable for nested compensations

Layers of powers: societies and institutions in Europe

Historians and social scientists have offered many and varied definitions of the term “community”. This chapter focuses on specific examples of face-to-face or local communities in order to test the possibilities and limits of the two major analytical approaches to communities: an anthropological approach which identifies ‘community’ as an organic entity, and a symbolic one which considers feelings of belonging and self-identification as constitutive aspects of a community. In this quest, close attention is paid to the question of the stabilization of community’s structures through legislation and institutions, a process that integrates such micro-societies into broader networks of power, and renders them visible to historians. In the first section we examine what we have called a “world of communities”, from periods when communities constituted the dominant element of social structure. Examining ancient Jewish and medieval Icelandic communities, and then early modern Irish and Scottish clans, we try to identify their basic characteristics and to reconstruct the way they related to the rest of the social structure. The second section analyzes the emergence of new loyalties and models of social membership from the 19th century onwards, emphasizing how the discourse on communities played a crucial role in the construction of these diverse patterns of identification and differentiation. Finally, we explore the permanence of the communitarian world supposedly replaced by nationalism and other major modern ideologies along with the new meanings and uses of communities in the 20th and 21st centuries. In sum, this broad overview provides a preliminary narrative of the changes in the structures of communities and their shifting position within wider patterns of social organizations while drawing attention to parallel transformations in theoretical reflection on communities

Vera Lex Historiae?

In his Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (circa 731 CE), Bede says that he will write his account of the past of the English following only vera lex historiae (the true law of history). Whether explicitly or implicitly, historians narrate the past according to conceptions of what constitutes historical truth that emerge in the use of narrative strategies, formulae, and other textual forms, in establishing one’s ideological authority or that of one’s informants, and in faithfulness to a cultural, narrative, or poetic tradition. But what if we extend the scope of what we understand by history (especially in premodern settings) to include not just the writings of historians legitimated by the Latinate matrix of Christianized classical history writing, but also collective narratives, practices, rituals, oral poetry, liturgy, artistic representations, and acts of identity? In these genres of re-enacting the past as, or as representation of, the present, we find a plethora of modes of constructions of historical truth, narrative authority, and reliability. Vera Lex Historiae? comprises contributions that reveal the variety of evental strategies by which historical truth was constructed in late antiquity and the earlier Middle Ages, and the range of procedures by which such narratives were first established as being historical and then as “true” histories. This is not only a matter of narrative strategies, but also of habitus — ways of living and acting in the world that are deeply imbricated with the commemoration and re-enactment of the past by communities and by individuals. In doing this, Vera Lex Historiae? aims to recover something of the plurality of modes of preserving and reenacting the past available in late antiquity and the earlier middle ages which we often overlook because of preconceived notions of what constitutes history writing

Вербальное моделирование альтернативнх миров с позиций теории мифологически ориентированного семиозиса

The article discusses basic assumptions of the myth-oriented semiosis theory. Primary attention is paid to the semantic transformations resulting into the rise of noemic senses of the concept names responsible for shaping alternative realities. The article highlights the mechanisms of irrational mythic operators' functioning in the process of interpreting information. The patterns of the said transformations are treated off from the standpoint of integrative inter-disciplinary studies. The analysis involves etymological reconstructions, conceptual modeling and linguo-cultural interpretations.У статті розглянуто ключові положення теорії міфологічно орієнтованого семіозису. Головна увага приділяється семантичним трасформаціям, що породжують ноематичні смисли, асоційовані з міфологічними концептами, навколо котрих структурується альтернативна реальність. Окреслено дію ірраціональних міфічних операторів у інтерпретації даних. Вказані семантичні трансформації досліджуються в інтегративному міждисциплінаарному ключі. До аналізу залучено етимологічні реконструкції, елементи концептуального моделювання та лінгвокультурні інтерпретації.В статье рассмотрены ключевые положения теории мифологически ориентированного семизиса. Главное внимание уделяется семантическим трасформациям, что порождают ассоциируемые с мифологическими концептами ноэматические смыслы, вокруг которых структурируется альтернативная реальность. Определено действие иррациональных мифических операторов в интерпретации данных. Указанные семантические трансформации исследуются в интегративном междисциплтнаарном ключе. В анализе используются этимологические реконструкции, элементы концептуального моделирования и лингвокультурные интерпретаци

A semiotic approach to language ideologies: Modelling the changing Icelandic languagescape

Attempts have been made to examine how speakers frame linguistic varieties by employing social semiotic models. Using ethnographic data collected over many years, this article applies such a model to Iceland, once described as the ‘e-coli of linguistics’ – its size, historical isolation and relative linguistic homogeneity create conditions akin to a sociolinguistic laboratory. This semiotic model of language ideologies problematizes the prevailing discourse of linguistic purism at a time of sociolinguistic upheaval. The analysis shows how an essentializing scheme at the heart of Icelandic language policy ensured that linguistic “anomalies” such as “dative disease” and “genitive phobia” indexed essential differences. “Impure” language was indicative of un-Icelandicness. Once monolingual (indeed monodialectal), the Icelandic speech community is increasingly characterized by innovative linguistic transgressions which thus far have not been instrumentalized by language policy makers. It is shown how a semiotic model can help us analyse the function of language ideologies more generally.  &nbsp