Livy, Book 45 : historical commentary and study of sources

In Part One the composition of Book 45 of Livy's Ab Urbe Condita is studied and an attempt is made to trace portions of the book to a small number of principal sources. It is demonstrated that Livy used the work of the Greek historian Polybius for his account of Roman activities in the Hellenistic east and for Roman relations with the Hellenistic states. Livy's Latin sources in this book were the Sullan annalists Valerius Antias and Q. Claudius Quadrigarius, of whom Claudius may have been the more prominent. Livy used these late annalists for his account of events in Rome and the west, and for administrative details such as lists of magistrates. This analysis of Livy's work helps us to evaluate the relative worth of his account, since Polybius was generally more reliable than the annalists in his description of affairs in the Hellenistic east, while the annalists seem to have provided an important service by preserving "archival" material in their writings. The detailed commentary on Book 45 appears in Part Two. Although problems of many kinds are treated, the emphasis is on international relations, prosopography, political groups in Rome, chronology and the other traditions which treat the events described by Livy. In Appendix One and Appendix Three an attempt is made to clarify the diplomatic relations of Rome with the Rhodians and with the Ptolemaic kingdom, respectively, during the years 172 - 167. This attempt involves an evaluation and synthesis of a variety of sources belonging to different traditions. The attitude towards the Rhodians reflected in the work of the Roman annalists forms the subject of Appendix Two. In Appendix Four the relations between Rome and the Hellenistic states are considered. The most usual bond between Rome and these states in the second century B. C. seems to have been that of amicitia, a relationship which denoted friendship without clearly defining the terms by which friendly relations were to be maintained. The Romans, however, became more and more insistent that their foreign amici should follow Roman foreign policy much as the Italian socii did. A few Hellenistic states, however, were granted, or were forced to accept, foedera with Rome which imposed upon them obligations similar to those of the Italian socii, but these non-Italian socii of Rome were never fully absorbed into the system of the "Roman alliance".Arts, Faculty ofClassical, Near Eastern and Religious Studies, Department ofGraduat

A new method for fusion, denoising and enhancement of x-ray images retrieved from Talbot-Lau grating interferometry

This paper introduces a new image denoising, fusion and enhancement framework for combining and optimal visualization of x-ray attenuation contrast (AC), differential phase contrast (DPC) and dark-field contrast (DFC) images retrieved from x-ray Talbot-Lau grating interferometry. The new image fusion framework comprises three steps: (i) denoising each input image (AC, DPC and DFC) through adaptive Wiener filtering, (ii) performing a two-step image fusion process based on the shift-invariant wavelet transform, i.e. first fusing the AC with the DPC image and then fusing the resulting image with the DFC image, and finally (iii) enhancing the fused image to obtain a final image using adaptive histogram equalization, adaptive sharpening and contrast optimization. Application examples are presented for two biological objects (a human tooth and a cherry) and the proposed method is compared to two recently published AC/DPC/DFC image processing techniques. In conclusion, the new framework for the processing of AC, DPC and DFC allows the most relevant features of all three images to be combined in one image while reducing the noise and enhancing adaptively the relevant image features. The newly developed framework may be used in technical and medical applications

Properties Of An Infrared-Transparent Mgo: Y2O3 Nanocomposite

A 50:50 vol% MgO-Y2O3 nanocomposite with ∼150 nm grain size was prepared in an attempt to make 3-5 μm infrared-transmitting windows with increased durability and thermal shock resistance. Flexure strength of the composite at 21°C is 679 MPa for 0.88 cm2 under load. Hardness is consistent with that of the constituents with similar grain size. For 3-mm-thick material at 4.85 μm, the total scatter loss is 1.5%, forward scatter is 0.2%, and absorptance is 1.8%. Optical scatter below 2 μm is 100%. Variable intensity OH absorption (∼6% absorptance) is observed near 3 μm. The refractive index is ∼0.4% below the volume-fraction-weighted average of those of the constituents. Thermal expansion is equal to the volume-fraction-weighted average of expansion of the constituents. Specific heat capacity is equal to the mass-fraction-weighted average of heat capacities of the constituents. Thermal conductivity lies between those of the constituents up to 1200 K. Elastic constants lie between those of the constituents. The Hasselman mild thermal shock resistance parameter for the composite is twice as great as that of common 3-5 μm window materials, but half as great as that of c-plane sapphire. © Published 2013. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the U.S.A