Proust's Conception of Nature

Paper by Eva Maria Gerste

A New Characterization of Tree Medians with Applications to Distributed Algorithms

A new characterization of tree medians is presented: we show that a vertex m is a median of a tree T with n vertices iff there exists a partition of the vertex set into [n/2] disjoint pairs (excluding m when n is odd), such that all the paths connecting the two vertices in any of the pairs pass through m. We show that in this case this sum is the largest possible among all such partitions, and we use this fact to discuss lower bounds on the message complexity of the distributed sorting problem. This lower bound implies that, given a network of a tree topology, choosing a median and then route all the information through it is the best possible strategy, in terms of worst-case number of messages sent during any execution of any distributed sorting algorithm. We also discuss the implications for networks of a general topology and for the distributed ranking problem

Real-Time Monitoring of the Impact of Cascaded Wavelength-Selective Switches in Digital Coherent Receivers

partially_open5noA simple real-time monitoring algorithm for the impact of cascaded WSSs in elastic optical networks, which exploits the information available in a digital coherent receiver, is proposed and demonstrated through both numerical simulations and experimentsopenPilori, Dario; Nespola, Antonello; Forghieri, Fabrizio; Piciaccia, Stefano; Bosco, GabriellaPilori, Dario; Nespola, Antonello; Forghieri, Fabrizio; Piciaccia, Stefano; Bosco, Gabriell

Job Leaves and the Limits of the Family and Medical Leave Act

This article examines the need for and use of leaves designated by the Family and Medical Leave Act. Using national data, we show that women, parents, those with little income, and African Americans are particularly likely to perceive a need for job leaves. However, it is married—not single—women and Whites who are particularly likely to take such leaves. The authors suggest that this disjunction between need and use is a consequence of the construction of leave policy—that it provides for only short, unpaid leaves for a narrow slice of workers and those politically constructed as “family”—and the unresponsiveness of workplaces. These limits likely reinforce inequality based on gender, race, and family status.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/69106/2/10.1177_0730888499026004006.pd

IDEALIST control and service management solutions for dynamic and adaptive flexi-grid DWDM networks

Wavelength Switched Optical Networks (WSON) were designed with the premise that all channels in a network have the same spectrum needs, based on the ITU-T DWDM grid. However, this rigid grid-based approach is not adapted to the spectrum requirements of the signals that are best candidates for long-reach transmission and high-speed data rates of 400Gbps and beyond. An innovative approach is to evolve the fixed DWDM grid to a flexible grid, in which the optical spectrum is partitioned into fixed-sized spectrum slices. This allows facilitating the required amount of optical bandwidth and spectrum for an elastic optical connection to be dynamically and adaptively allocated by assigning the necessary number of slices of spectrum. The ICT IDEALIST project will provide the architectural design, protocol specification, implementation, evaluation and standardization of a control plane and a network and service management system. This architecture and tools are necessary to introduce dynamicity, elasticity and adaptation in flexi-grid DWDM networks. This paper provides an overview of the objectives, framework, functional requirements and use cases of the elastic control plane and the adaptive network and service management system targeted in the ICT IDEALIST project

Nuns in the Byzantine Countryside

Μέχρι σήμερα η έρευνα εστίαζε κυρίως στις περισσότερο γνωστές μοναχές αριστοκρατικής καταγωγής που ζούσαν στις μονές των αστικών κέντρων. Σε αυτό το άρθρο παρουσιάζονται στοιχεία για έναν ουσιαστικό αριθμό γυναικών μοναχών στην ύπαιθρο του ύστερου Βυζαντίου (13ος-15ος αι.). Τα στοιχεία αυτά προέρχονται κυρίως από αφιερωτικές επιγραφές σε μικρούς ναούς χωριών της Κρήτης, της Λακωνίας, της Μάνης και της Ρόδου. Πολλές από αυτές τις μοναχές ήταν ηλικιωμένες χήρες, μερικές είχαν λάβει το μοναστικό ένδυμα στη νεκρική κλίνη και άλλες ίσως είχαν ζήσει σε ένα τύπο οικίας-μονής. Scholarship has focused primarily on the better known aristocratic nuns who tended to live in urban convents. This article presents evidence for a substantial number of rural nuns in late Byzantium (13th-15th c.), derived especially from donor inscriptions in small village churches in Crete, Lakonia, Mani and Rhodes. Many of these nuns were elderly widows, some had taken the monastic habit on their deathbed, and some may have lived in a type of house monastery