The Complexity of the Empire Colouring Problem

We investigate the computational complexity of the empire colouring problem (as defined by Percy Heawood in 1890) for maps containing empires formed by exactly $r > 1$ countries each. We prove that the problem can be solved in polynomial time using $s$ colours on maps whose underlying adjacency graph has no induced subgraph of average degree larger than $s/r$. However, if $s \geq 3$, the problem is NP-hard even if the graph is a forest of paths of arbitrary lengths (for any $r \geq 2$, provided $s < 2r - \sqrt(2r + 1/4+ 3/2)$. Furthermore we obtain a complete characterization of the problem's complexity for the case when the input graph is a tree, whereas our result for arbitrary planar graphs fall just short of a similar dichotomy. Specifically, we prove that the empire colouring problem is NP-hard for trees, for any $r \geq 2$, if $3 \leq s \leq 2r-1$ (and polynomial time solvable otherwise). For arbitrary planar graphs we prove NP-hardness if $s<7$ for $r=2$, and $s < 6r-3$, for $r \geq 3$. The result for planar graphs also proves the NP-hardness of colouring with less than 7 colours graphs of thickness two and less than $6r-3$ colours graphs of thickness $r \geq 3$.Comment: 23 pages, 12 figure

Health and place in historical perspective: medicine, ethnicity, and colonial identities

Introduction to special issue. This Special Issue includes articles first presented as papers at a two-day symposium held at the University of Waikato, New Zealand, in February 2011. The event was designed to highlight a large Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden-funded research project, and to showcase current scholarly work in the field of the colonial and postcolonial histories of medicine, with a focus on histories of insanity. We also included the themes of medical migration in New Zealand’s national history, the movement of medical ideas and personnel across empire, a close study of the uses of the term ‘neurasthenia’ in French-colonial Vietnam, and the relationship between place, plants, and health across South Asia and Australia in the nineteenth century

A „Divine Sanction” on the Revolt: The Cult of St. Demetrios of Thessalonike and the Uprising of Peter and Asen (1185–1186)

The paper examines the role of the cult of St. Demetrius of Thessalonica as a tool of maintaining legitimacy of the anti-Byzantine revolt in Tărnovo, 1185–1186, led by brothers Theodore- Peter and Asen-Belgun, which is viewed in the modern scholarship as a starting point of the history of the so-called Second Bulgarian Empire. Apart from the peculiarities of the official and popular veneration of St. Demetrius in Byzantium by the end of the 12th C., the main emphasis is made on the celebration, arranged in Tărnovo on St. Demetrius’ day, 1185, by Peter and Asen. The fact of the construction there of a special house of prayer in the name of the all-praised martyr Demetrius (Nicetas Choniates) and the presence of a certain icon of the saint as well as, probably, that of his relic, shedding the holy ointment, can be interpreted in terms of the concept of “hierotopy”, introduced recently by A. Lidov. At any rate, one can speak of attempting to replicate in Tărnovo the sacred space of the Thessalonican shrine of St. Demetrius in order to convince the Bulgarian rebels of the “true” presence of St. Demetrius among them. The parallel is drawn between the celebration in Tărnovo and another well-known “hierotopic project” of the late 12th cent., performed by prince Vsevolod III in Vladimir-on-Kljaz’ma, Russia, which also encompassed the construction of the church in the name of St. Demetrius, where his miracle- working relics from Thessalonica were housed. The similarity between the two “projects“ is obvious, but they must have been inspired by clearly different causes: if Vsevolod III tried only to raise the authority of his power to that of the grand princedom, being an absolutely legitimate ruler, then Peter and Asen had to justify the legitimacy of their own, questioning that of the Byzantine Empire

Tatar nation building since 1991: Ethnic mobilisation in historical perspective’

This study analyses the process of ethnic mobilization in the Soviet and post-Soviet eras and assesses the way in which history, memory and the treatment of the Volga Tatars by the Soviet state, especially under Lenin and Stalin, affected their long term desire for greater independence from Moscow. The central argument of this study is that Volga Tatar’s nation building was influenced by changes introduced under Gorbachev and by the weaknesses of the post-Sovietstate particularly during the Yeltsin era of the 1990s. The article assesses the strategies the President of Tatarstan and his advisors utilized during this period,especially after 1985, to successfully negotiate a bilateral treaty with Moscow in February 1994 granting Tatarstan greater autonomy and independence. Within this framework, the article then provides a detailed analysis of the approach taken in Tatarstan to achieve this goal and to renew the treaty in October 2005, despite Putin’s recentralization policies from 2000-2008

Reconstructions of the past – How virtual can they be?

Comunicação apresentada no XV UISPP Congress, Lisboa, 2006.Since the Middle Ages, perhaps even before, the questions related to the historical and cultural past, mainly to the level of archaeological findings, have exerted an enormous and mysterious allure on Man. Ever since then, Man has come up with methods and forms to recreate such places, in order to satisfy this recognized natural and ancestral curiosity associated to the human being. In these last few years, the number of projects involving historical reconstruction has increased significantly, due to two main factors: the technological developments that allow such designs to be accomplished more easily, with a larger impact, affecting a greater number of people; and the continuous and increasing interest of humanity about these questions related to cultural and architectural patrimony. This paper intends to present two virtual models developed using some optimization techniques that allowed the creation of realistic historical environments, but keeping low file sizes, so that they can be accessed anywhere by anyone. As a result, you can make your own historical tour at: The Flavian Forum of Conimbriga: http://www.forumflaviano.web.pt; House of Skeletons (Conimbriga): http://www.casadosesqueletos.web.p

Beyond Dominance, Mixture, and Hybridity. On the Challenges of Hypercomplex Objects

Through the analysis of several hypercomplex objects – Mike Gross and Peter Carey’s The Unwritten (2010) and Inkle’s 80 Days (2014), as well as Doogie Horner’s Die Hard: The Authorised Colouring and Activity Book (2016) and Chuck Palahniuk’s Legacy (2017) – the article demonstrates the challenges intermedial studies of texts without conventional profiles face. The argument presented here is that a careful hermeneutic analysis is needed to overcome these obstacles, despite the universal applicability of some media studies concept and a recent opposition against hermeneutics from posthumanist theories. The analysis of the examples unearths their aesthetics of hypercomplexity and argues for why facile categorizations of them would be detrimental to their interpretation. The conclusion suggests to draw more strongly on play within the intermedial discourse, both as a verb denoting autotelic activity and as a noun denoting inevitable or necessary imprecision, in order to engage with the intricacies of such examples

From smash to the Hundidac Prize. Story of a historical atlas for secondary schools

A II. világháború után a Kartográfiai Vállalat gondozásában, 1959-ben jelent meg Magyarországon az első Középiskolai történelmi atlasz. A korszak neves történészei és kartográfusai által szerkesztett mű a kor technikai lehetőségeinek és a magyar térképészet hagyományainak megfelelően, magas színvonalon szolgálta a korabeli oktatás igényeit. Az atlasz első kiadását ennek ellenére a politikai vezetés bezúzatta, mivel térképei olyan tényeket is ábrázoltak, amelyek ellen a környező országok tiltakoztak. A következő, módosított kiadás két és fél évtizeden keresztül csekély változtatásokkal jelent meg évről évre. Ez a változatlanság jól jellemezte az 1960-as és 1970-es évek megingathatatlannak tűnő állandóságát, míg az atlasz életének utolsó két évtizede a környezet rohamos átalakulását tükrözte. A változás első jeleként a kiadvány 1984-ben jelentősen kibővült és átalakult. Több olyan térkép került bele, amely a korszakot jellemző puha diktatúra további lazulását jelezte. Az igazi fordulat a rendszerváltozás után következett be, amikor egy tematikus művelődéstörténeti atlasszal összeépítve a térképmű számtalan tematikus térképpel gazdagodott, kiszélesítve ezáltal az atlasz történelmi szemléletét. A bővítések folyamán a kiadvány a folytonosságot megőrizve átörökítette az alapmű értékeit, de technológiája elavult, ezért szükség volt a teljes megújításra. A 2003-ban megjelent, digitálisan feldolgozott, kibővített változat az oktatás szakmai képviselőitől HunDidac Nagydíjat kapott, amely az átdolgozás eredményességét jelzi. A kétszintű érettségin is használható atlasz sikere abban rejlik, hogy több évtized tapasztalata és fejlesztése révén nem csak a történelmi események térképeken történő ábrázolására korlátozódik, hanem komplexitása következtében új ismereteket nyújt, és alkalmas a történelmi összefüggések bemutatására