Parallels of Stoicism and Kalam

nicht vom Autor angegeben"More ideas mean more thought, more thought means more wisdom, and more wisdom means more sensible actions." - Jahiz, The Proofs of Prophecy The work presents the history of ideas of two historically and culturally distant schools of thought in order to find their mutual interests, premises and conclusions. The scope of work is on the one hand intercultural, as both Stoic and Kalam teachings belong to a different historical period, while the continuity between them was broken in many aspects, which are for our work relevant. Kalam, or Muslim theology, emerges in the time, when Arab/Persian speaking nations gain majority in former Middle Eastern provinces of the Roman Empire; the continuity between the sciences of 3rd century Athens, Imperial Rome and its Byzantine successor is questionable as well. On the other hand, the scope of the work is also interdisciplinary, as the reasons why and methods how people developed Stoic and Muslim theological ideas were often very different. After an introduction, the work continues with a brief presentation of Stoicism: the historical and scientific context in which its foundations emerged, basic teachings (as well as their contributors and contemporary opponents), and also the ways how they influenced various cultures and paradigms (including Roman law, Christian theology and modern, ie post-Renaissance philosophy). The goal is to distinguish peculiarities of Stoicism in all of their fields of scientific interest; and thus also to prevent vague assumptions based on similarity of their fatalistic and deontic ethics, which may occur because of their perception in our times. Also, despite the Stoic school was in many ways influenced by previous Platonic, Peripatetic, religious and other traditions, the specific context of Hellenistic philosophy allows us to focus on their debate with Epicurean and Sceptic schools: on the questions of epistemology, theology, physics, understanding of reason, obligations and death, as well as consequent ethics. Of course, the inner development of the Stoic tradition is handled as well. This invites to a comparision between the dynamic reality of the school's development and its image, reflected in the (mostly secondary) texts available in the centers of Kalam. Before the work proceeds to analyze their reception on the particular cases, it is important to present the context of Kalam as well. The third chapter presents the origin of Kalam in the practice of religious law; the original dilemmas and conflicts (of both spiritual and political nature), their consequent development into abstract ideas, religious communities and political parties. It presents the paradox nature of this early Kalam as well: the attempts to formulate orthodoxy, which end up in a plurality of thoughts and worldviews, and make the turbulent era of the late 7th and first half of the 8th century AD to change into a century of scientific progress in the 9th. There isn't much space left to analyze the possible Stoic influence in the foundations of Kalam, and it doesn't seem there has been any at all. Thus the reason of this chapter is to provide reader with basic terms, historical context and religious or scientific relevance of particular themes. It is to provide an ability not only to distinguish the role of Stoicism in the ancient Athens and that of Kalam in (both medieval and modern) Islam, but also to distinguish their nature, as Kalam was a much more general phenomenon than Stoicism, whose foundation was a single school. The fourth chapter handles the Mu´tazila, a particular school or tradition within Kalam, which grew important in the 9th century. Despite the fact their teaching is better known from their later critics than from original sources, the Mu´tazila seems to present a stage in Kalam, when the abstraction of debates was so apparent that a clear reasoning without logic independent on quotations of Quran (and other authorities) was impossible. The era of Mu´tazila is also the era of first translations of ancient Greek texts to Arabic language, which provide an inspiration for solutions in many of those abstract questions, which emerged in Kalam, especially in the school of Mu´tazila. In the questions of physics (like the debate between Atomism and an elemental theory), of "pure" theology (between pantheism, idealism and anthropomorphism), psychology and ethics we can already find ideas, which are not only clarified by Stoic opinions, but also may be traced to some of these translated texts, of which the most important source was a 3rd century "encyclopaedia" Placita Philosophorum. In the last of the major chapters we will handle the latter two of the great traditions in Kalam, whose role was crucial in formulation of Sunni theological orthodoxy. The debates about abstract ideas like freedom of will or physics is being criticized, and the new, deeply conservative generation of Ash´arite and Maturidite theologians tend to change the role of these debates to an auxiliary one, to find objective arguments in interreligious (or intersectarian) debates, while they consider ethics subjective, dependent on individual faith and attitude. These theologians, using faith as a shield and reason as a weapon, also started what we would consider an early interdisciplinary discourse with the contemporary philosophic tradition as well, especially in the case of Ghazali's criticism of Ibn Sina (as well as the later reaction of Maimonides and Ibn Rushd). Stoic ideas, which were perceived as mere isolated fragments throughout the Mu´tazilite era, become here integrated into coherent worldviews, in which faith and knowledge about a single omnipresent God merge into one attitude, struggle for inner perfection, reasoning and virtue. One of the motives in the writing of this work was the search for theological aspects of Stoicism as well as for philosophical aspects in Kalam. However, its scope isn't to provide any philosophical analysis of Islam, not even of the particular religious attitudes of these medieval theologians, who considered themselves Muslims. Neither can it be said about the Stoics; even if their theological formulations may have reflected their worldview, we can't measure the piety. Its scope is more like to present Muslim theology as a tradition, which (unlike the complex of religion, as a sphere of sacred human activity) may be seen as a part of the general philosophical quest

Към възприемането на първите български печатни произведения в късните дамаскини

Handwritten literature was common in Ottoman Bulgaria up to the first half of the 19th century. The following text discusses reception of early modern Bulgarian printed works – Sunday Book (1806) by Sophronius of Vratsa and Tale of the Terrible Second Coming of Christ (1814) by Yoakim Karchovski – by damaskini writers from different areas (Macedonia, Central Rhodopes). Comparison of changes made by the transcribers illustrates the character and extent of influence of these works on the standardization of modern Bulgarian literary norm

Non-destructive Phenotyping of Lettuce Plants in Early Stages of Development with Optical Sensors

Rapid development of plants is important for the production of 'baby-leaf' lettuce that is harvested when plants reach the four- to eight-leaf stage of growth. However, environmental factors, such as high or low temperature, or elevated concentrations of salt, inhibit lettuce growth. Therefore, non-destructive evaluations of plants can provide valuable information to breeders and growers. The objective of the present study was to test the feasibility of using non-destructive phenotyping with optical sensors for the evaluations of lettuce plants in early stages of development. We performed the series of experiments to determine if hyperspectral imaging and chlorophyll fluorescence imaging can determine phenotypic changes manifested on lettuce plants subjected to the extreme temperature and salinity stress treatments. Our results indicate that top view optical sensors alone can accurately determine plant size to approximately 7 g fresh weight. Hyperspectral imaging analysis was able to detect changes in the total chlorophyll (RCC) and anthocyanin (RAC) content, while chlorophyll fluorescence imaging revealed photoinhibition and reduction of plant growth caused by the extreme growing temperatures (3 and 39°C) and salinity (100 mM NaCl). Though no significant correlation was found between Fv/Fm and decrease in plant growth due to stress when comparisons were made across multiple accessions, our results indicate that lettuce plants have a high adaptability to both low (3°C) and high (39°C) temperatures, with no permanent damage to photosynthetic apparatus and fast recovery of plants after moving them to the optimal (21°C) temperature. We have also detected a strong relationship between visual rating of the green- and red-leaf color intensity and RCC and RAC, respectively. Differences in RAC among accessions suggest that the selection for intense red color may be easier to perform at somewhat lower than the optimal temperature. This study serves as a proof of concept that optical sensors can be successfully used as tools for breeders when evaluating young lettuce plants. Moreover, we were able to identify the locus for light green leaf color (qLG4), and position this locus on the molecular linkage map of lettuce, which shows that these techniques have sufficient resolution to be used in a genetic context in lettuce.IS acknowledges the receipt of a fellowship from the OECD Co-operative Research Programme: Biological Resource Management for Sustainable Agricultural Systems in 2013

Automated, not Automatic: Needs and Practices in European Fact-checking Organizations as a basis for Designing Human-centered AI Systems

To mitigate the negative effects of false information more effectively, the development of automated AI (artificial intelligence) tools assisting fact-checkers is needed. Despite the existing research, there is still a gap between the fact-checking practitioners' needs and pains and the current AI research. We aspire to bridge this gap by employing methods of information behavior research to identify implications for designing better human-centered AI-based supporting tools. In this study, we conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews with Central European fact-checkers. The information behavior and requirements on desired supporting tools were analyzed using iterative bottom-up content analysis, bringing the techniques from grounded theory. The most significant needs were validated with a survey extended to fact-checkers from across Europe, in which we collected 24 responses from 20 European countries, i.e., 62% active European IFCN (International Fact-Checking Network) signatories. Our contributions are theoretical as well as practical. First, by being able to map our findings about the needs of fact-checking organizations to the relevant tasks for AI research, we have shown that the methods of information behavior research are relevant for studying the processes in the organizations and that these methods can be used to bridge the gap between the users and AI researchers. Second, we have identified fact-checkers' needs and pains focusing on so far unexplored dimensions and emphasizing the needs of fact-checkers from Central and Eastern Europe as well as from low-resource language groups which have implications for development of new resources (datasets) as well as for the focus of AI research in this domain.Comment: 41 pages, 13 figures, 1 table, 2 annexe

Is it indeed bigger better? The comprehensive study of claim detection LMs applied for disinformation tackling

This study compares the performance of (1) fine-tuned models and (2) extremely large language models on the task of check-worthy claim detection. For the purpose of the comparison we composed a multilingual and multi-topical dataset comprising texts of various sources and styles. Building on this, we performed a benchmark analysis to determine the most general multilingual and multi-topical claim detector. We chose three state-of-the-art models in the check-worthy claim detection task and fine-tuned them. Furthermore, we selected three state-of-the-art extremely large language models without any fine-tuning. We made modifications to the models to adapt them for multilingual settings and through extensive experimentation and evaluation. We assessed the performance of all the models in terms of accuracy, recall, and F1-score in in-domain and cross-domain scenarios. Our results demonstrate that despite the technological progress in the area of natural language processing, the models fine-tuned for the task of check-worthy claim detection still outperform the zero-shot approaches in a cross-domain settings.Comment: 27 pages, 10 figure

Genetic and physiological determinants of lettuce partial resistance to Impatiens necrotic spot virus

IntroductionImpatiens necrotic spot virus (INSV) is a major pathogen currently threatening lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) production in the coastal areas of California. The virus is transmitted by the western flower thrips (Frankliniella occidentalis Pergande).MethodsWe have tested a diversity panel of almost 500 lettuce accessions for disease incidence (DI) in 12 field experiments performed over 7 years. This set of accessions was also assessed for thrips feeding damage (TFD), the rate of plant development (PD), and the content of chlorophyll (SPAD) and anthocyanins (ACI) to determine their effect on resistance to INSV. In addition, recombinant inbred lines from two biparental mapping populations were also evaluated for DI in field experiments.ResultsThe mean DI in 14 field experiments ranged from 2.1% to 70.4%. A highly significant difference in DI was observed among the tested accessions, with the overall lowest DI detected in the red color cultivars, Outredgeous Selection, Red Splash Cos, Infantry, Sweet Valentine, Annapolis, and Velvet. Multiple linear regression models revealed a small but significant effect (p < 0.005) of the four analyzed determinants on DI. Accessions with lower DI values had slower plant development (PD, r = 0.352), higher ACI content (r = −0.284), lower TFD (r = 0.198), and lower SPAD content (r = 0.125). A genome-wide association study revealed 13 QTLs for DI located on eight out of the nine lettuce chromosomes (the exception was chr. 8). The most frequently detected QTL (qINSV2.1) was located on chr. 2. Several of the QTLs for DI were in the same genomic areas as QTLs for PD, ACI, and SPAD. Additional three QTLs for DI on chr. 5 and 8 were identified using linkage mapping performed on two biparental mapping populations.ConclusionsThe work highlights the genetic basis of partial resistance to INSV and reveals the relationship between resistance, the host physiology, and the thrips vector. Results of this study are an important steppingstone toward developing cultivars with increased resistance against INSV

Association mapping and marker-assisted selection of the lettuce dieback resistance gene Tvr1

Background: Lettuce (Lactuca saliva L.) is susceptible to dieback, a soilborne disease caused by two viruses from the family Tombusviridae. Susceptibility to dieback is widespread in romaine and leaf-type lettuce, while modern iceberg cultivars are resistant to this disease. Resistance in iceberg cultivars is conferred by Tvr1 - a single, dominant gene that provides durable resistance. This study describes fine mapping of the resistance gene, analysis of nucleotide polymorphism and linkage disequilibrium in the Tvr1 region, and development of molecular markers for marker-assisted selection. Results: A combination of classical linkage mapping and association mapping allowed us to pinpoint the location of the Tvr1 resistance gene on chromosomal linkage group 2. Nine molecular markers, based on expressed sequence tags (EST), were closely linked to Tvr1 in the mapping population, developed from crosses between resistant (Salinas and Salinas 88) and susceptible (Valmaine) cultivars. Sequencing of these markers from a set of 68 cultivars revealed a relatively high level of nucleotide polymorphism (θ = 6.7 × 10-3) and extensive linkage disequilibrium (r2 = 0.124 at 8 cM) in this region. However, the extent of linkage disequilibrium was affected by population structure and the values were substantially larger when the analysis was performed only for romaine (r2 = 0.247) and crisphead (r2 = 0.345) accessions. The association mapping approach revealed that one of the nine markers (Cntg10192) in the Tvr1 region matched exactly with resistant and susceptible phenotypes when tested on a set of 200 L. sativa accessions from all horticultural types of lettuce. The marker-trait association was also confirmed on two accessions of Lactuca serriola - a wild relative of cultivated lettuce. The combination of three single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) at the Cntg10192 marker identified four haplotypes. Three of the haplotypes were associated with resistance and one of them was always associated with susceptibility to the disease. Conclusion: We have successfully applied high-resolution DNA melting (HRM) analysis to distinguish all four haplotypes of the Cntg10192 marker in a single analysis. Marker-assisted selection for dieback resistance with HRM is now an integral part of our breeding program that is focused on the development of improved lettuce cultivars

Annotated Corpus of Pre-Standardized Balkan Slavic Literature

The corpus contains 23 linguistically annotated samples of "damaskini" and other Balkan Slavic manuscripts and print editions from the 15th-19th century, together with over 50 thousand tokens. The texts have similar prose narratives and topics, i.e. hagiographies and apocalyptic themes. The majority of the texts are various editions of the "Life of St. Petka" by Patriarch Euthymius of Tarnovo. The primary goal of the corpus is to provide data for studies of developments in both spoken and written language in the mentioned area and period, especially the features typical for the Balkan sprachbund, e.g. postponed articles, and the analytic infinitive. The corpus has been manually lemmatized and annotated with MULTEXT-East morphosyntactic descriptions developed specifically for this corpus (http://nl.ijs.si/ME/V6/msd/html/msd-bg-dam.html) as well as syntactically analyzed with dependency relations following the Universal Dependencies guidelines (up to Level 2 validation).The annotation reflects a wide spectrum of morphosyntactic features of both archaic (Church Slavonic) and innovative (Bulgarian, Macedonian) varieties. The corpus is available both in source .tsv and derived CoNLL-U formats. The .tsv format includes tokens including accentuation and interpunction, while CoNLL-U uses a diplomatized transcript, more useful for a full-text search. The author would like to thank the following institutions for providing the source texts - National Library "Sv. sv. Kiril i Metodii" in Sofia, Church Historical and Archive Institute in Sofia, Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia, Sofia University "Kliment Oxridski", National Library "Ivan Vazov" in Plovdiv, National and University Library of Slovenia in Ljubljana, Russian State Library in Moscow, Library of Matica Srpska in Novi Sad - as well as to Olivier Winistörfer for his invaluable help in preparing the corpus. The update 1.1 includes: - 8 new texts, with over 20k tokens - more data: Cyrillic transcripts, lemma and cross-text references - detailed philological and description of selected texts - sources in plain text forma