They bewitched the generator: state power and religious authority at the New Year’s festival in Makunduchi, Zanzibar

The New Year’s festival in Makunduchi, Zanzibar, has been one of the central sites for the interaction between state power and religious authority. It has changed considerably since colonial times, as political rituals were grafted onto religious ones, and a commercial fair developed. In this article, it is argued that these changes can be explained in part by the renegotiation, both in conflict and co-operation, of the relationship between local religious experts and state officials. First the New Year’s rituals as central practices for the production of local religious authority is analysed. Then the colonial history of the festival is discussed, before finally turning to the interactions between state power and local authority at the festival in post-colonial times

Bounded cohomology is not a profinite invariant

We construct pairs of residually finite groups with isomorphic profinite completions such that one has non-vanishing and the other has vanishing real second bounded cohomology. The examples are lattices in different higher rank simple Lie groups. Using Galois cohomology, we actually show that $\operatorname{SO}^0(n,2)$ for $n \ge 6$ and the exceptional groups $E_{6(-14)}$ and $E_{7(-25)}$ constitute the complete list of higher rank Lie groups admitting such examples.Comment: 14 page

LensLeech: On-Lens Interaction for Arbitrary Camera Devices

Cameras provide a vast amount of information at high rates and are part of many specialized or general-purpose devices. This versatility makes them suitable for many interaction scenarios, yet they are constrained by geometry and require objects to keep a minimum distance for focusing. We present the LensLeech, a soft silicone cylinder that can be placed directly on or above lenses. The clear body itself acts as a lens to focus a marker pattern from its surface into the camera it sits on. This allows us to detect rotation, translation, and deformation-based gestures such as pressing or squeezing the soft silicone. We discuss design requirements, describe fabrication processes, and report on the limitations of such on-lens widgets. To demonstrate the versatility of LensLeeches, we built prototypes to show application examples for wearable cameras, smartphones, and interchangeable-lens cameras, extending existing devices by providing both optical input and output for new functionality

Die Bedeutung von Idealbild und Selbstbild der Mutterrolle und der Zusammenhang zur Entwicklung einer postpartalen Depression

Die Bedeutung von Idealbild und Selbstbild der Mutterrolle und der Zusammenhang zur Entwicklung einer postpartalen Depressio