373 research outputs found
Northeastern Illinois University, Academic Catalog 2023-2024
https://neiudc.neiu.edu/catalogs/1064/thumbnail.jp
A new lease on life: using advanced analytical techniques in bioarchaeology to maximise the understanding of past populations of Sardinia
Rossella has undertaken a multi-disciplinary approach to archaeological and anthropological studies of past human populations from the Middle Neolithic and Punic time periods in Sardinia, Italy. Rossella's analysis has shown how demography and health have been affected over time by the environment and socio-political structure of this Mediterranean island
Multiple Sacralities: Rethinking Sacralizations in European History. Ein Europa der Differenzen, Band 3
We live in a present of multiple and conflicting sacralities. How do we account for the persistence and remarkable adaptability of traditional forms of the Christian sacred? How do we explain the ongoing allure of instrumentalizing the sacred for political purposes? And what do we make of the spread of nature spiritualities that have been so pertinent over the last half century? This volume seeks to reflect upon how these multiple sacralizations can be studied and understood in historical and cross-disciplinary perspective
The universe without us: a history of the science and ethics of human extinction
This dissertation consists of two parts. Part I is an intellectual history of thinking about human extinction (mostly) within the Western tradition. When did our forebears first imagine humanity ceasing to exist? Have people always believed that human extinction is a real possibility, or were some convinced that this could never happen? How has our thinking about extinction evolved over time? Why do so many notable figures today believe that the probability of extinction this century is higher than ever before in our 300,000-year history on Earth? Exploring these questions takes readers from the ancient Greeks, Persians, and Egyptians, through the 18th-century Enlightenment, past scientific breakthroughs of the 19th century like thermodynamics and evolutionary theory, up to the Atomic Age, the rise of modern environmentalism in the 1970s, and contemporary fears about climate change, global pandemics, and artificial general intelligence (AGI).
Part II is a history of Western thinking about the ethical and evaluative implications of human extinction. Would causing or allowing our extinction be morally right or wrong? Would our extinction be good or bad, better or worse compared to continuing to exist? For what reasons? Under which conditions? Do we have a moral obligation to create future people? Would past âprogressâ be rendered meaningless if humanity were to die out? Does the fact that we might be unique in the universeâthe only ârationalâ and âmoralâ creaturesâgive us extra reason to ensure our survival? I place these questions under the umbrella of Existential Ethics, tracing the development of this field from the early 1700s through Mary Shelleyâs 1826 novel The Last Man, the gloomy German pessimists of the latter 19th century, and post-World War II reflections on nuclear âomnicide,â up to current-day thinkers associated with âlongtermismâ and âantinatalism.â In the dissertation, I call the first history âHistory #1â and the second âHistory #2.â
A main thesis of Part I is that Western thinking about human extinction can be segmented into five distinction periods, each of which corresponds to a unique âexistential mood.â An existential mood arises from a particular set of answers to fundamental questions about the possibility, probability, etiology, and so on, of human extinction. I claim that the idea of human extinction first appeared among the ancient Greeks, but was eclipsed for roughly 1,500 years with the rise of Christianity. A central contention of Part II is that philosophers have thus far conflated six distinct types of âhuman extinction,â each of which has its own unique ethical and evaluative implications. I further contend that it is crucial to distinguish between the process or event of Going Extinct and the state or condition of Being Extinct, which one should see as orthogonal to the six types of extinction that I delineate. My aim with the second part of the book is to not only trace the history of Western thinking about the ethics of annihilation, but lay the theoretical groundwork for future research on the topic. I then outline my own views within âExistential Ethics,â which combine ideas and positions to yield a novel account of the conditions under which our extinction would be bad, and why there is a sense in which Being Extinct might be better than Being Extant, or continuing to exist
Insightful analysis of historical sources at scales beyond human capabilities using unsupervised Machine Learning and XAI
Historical materials are abundant. Yet, piecing together how human knowledge
has evolved and spread both diachronically and synchronically remains a
challenge that can so far only be very selectively addressed. The vast volume
of materials precludes comprehensive studies, given the restricted number of
human specialists. However, as large amounts of historical materials are now
available in digital form there is a promising opportunity for AI-assisted
historical analysis. In this work, we take a pivotal step towards analyzing
vast historical corpora by employing innovative machine learning (ML)
techniques, enabling in-depth historical insights on a grand scale. Our study
centers on the evolution of knowledge within the `Sacrobosco Collection' -- a
digitized collection of 359 early modern printed editions of textbooks on
astronomy used at European universities between 1472 and 1650 -- roughly 76,000
pages, many of which contain astronomic, computational tables. An ML based
analysis of these tables helps to unveil important facets of the
spatio-temporal evolution of knowledge and innovation in the field of
mathematical astronomy in the period, as taught at European universities
The Future of New Testament Theology
This collection of essays appears at the confluence of two major streamsâthe flowering of the âbiblical theology movementâ in a range of New Testament theologies published in the past two or three decades and the recent emergence of significant contributions to reflection on and the practice of theological interpretation of the Bible. To some, these two interests overlap enough to parade them under a single banner. To others, these are disparate approaches that draw on and display competing methodological commitments. Seasoned scholars and relative newcomers to the conversation orient readers to these concerns, not so much to resolve these differences but to explore them with an eye to the future of theological work with the New Testament
Digital 3D reconstruction as a research environment in art and architecture history: uncertainty classification and visualisation
The dissertation addresses the still not solved challenges concerned with the source-based digital 3D reconstruction, visualisation and documentation in the domain of archaeology, art and architecture history.
The emerging BIM methodology and the exchange data format IFC are changing the way of collaboration, visualisation and documentation in the planning, construction and facility management process. The introduction and development of the Semantic Web (Web 3.0), spreading the idea of structured, formalised and linked data, offers semantically enriched human- and machine-readable data.
In contrast to civil engineering and cultural heritage, academic object-oriented disciplines, like archaeology, art and architecture history, are acting as outside spectators.
Since the 1990s, it has been argued that a 3D model is not likely to be considered a scientific reconstruction unless it is grounded on accurate documentation and visualisation. However, these standards are still missing and the validation of the outcomes is not fulfilled. Meanwhile, the digital research data remain ephemeral and continue to fill the growing digital cemeteries.
This study focuses, therefore, on the evaluation of the source-based digital 3D reconstructions and, especially, on uncertainty assessment in the case of hypothetical reconstructions of destroyed or never built artefacts according to scientific principles, making the models shareable and reusable by a potentially wide audience.
The work initially focuses on terminology and on the definition of a workflow especially related to the classification and visualisation of uncertainty. The workflow is then applied to specific cases of 3D models uploaded to the DFG repository of the AI Mainz. In this way, the available methods of documenting, visualising and communicating uncertainty are analysed.
In the end, this process will lead to a validation or a correction of the workflow and the initial assumptions, but also (dealing with different hypotheses) to a better definition of the levels of uncertainty
The Warning Passages in Hebrews: Exhortations Written Using Deliberative Rhetoric to a Community of Faith
Different interpretative approaches (historical-cultural, social-scientific, intertextual, oral-critical, rhetorical) and methodologies are applied when the so-called warning passages in the book of Hebrews get interpreted. Inevitably, these different interpretative methodologies have created different perspectives or views that the original author may not have intended and that the audience may not have gathered. The author of Hebrews was seeking to help the audience of his writings understand a new position through his extensive use of the Greek word ÎșÏΔίÏÏÏÎœ (kreittĆn). Similarly, a Greek background is also evident because of the tremendous use of classical rhetoric within the Epistle. In addition, it is also noticeable that the author massively used a classical Greek literary tool called the áœÏÎÏÎČαÏÎżÎœ (hyperbaton), which was prolific during the Hellenistic period within the classical Greek rhetorical genre. Finally, a Hebrew background is apparent in the readers because of the copiously used OT references. THE AUTHOR CHOSE these OT examples from the past purposefully to lead the audience to a specific future. As a result, a dual analysis of the Epistle should consider the two different backgrounds that the book of Hebrews enjoys (a blend of two distinct cultures) to arrive at a very different interpretation of the book other than where scholarship finds itself now. The Hebrew and Greek cultures blended into one just as the people needed to see themselves together in a new covenant position. The currents of biblical research show that blended exposition is feasible and the next logical step of exposition, particularly within debated passages
2021-2022, University of Memphis bulletin
University of Memphis bulletin containing the graduate catalog for 2021-2022.https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/speccoll-ua-pub-bulletins/1441/thumbnail.jp
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