Did Philologists write the Iliad? : Friedrich August Wolf's criteria of style and the demonstrative power of citation

Friedrich August Wolf posits in his "Prolegomena ad Homerum" that, from the time of the first transcription of Homer's epics around 700 BC to the time of the Alexandrian editions, the Iliad and Odyssey underwent repeated revisions by a multitude of poets and critics. According to Wolf, the "unified" works that we know are the products of emendations by Alexandrian critics who attempted to homogenize the style of the epics and to return them to their "original" form. This paper argues that Wolf's narration of the history of these texts relies on and produces aesthetic claims, not historical ones. Wolf determines the dates and origins of passages based on intuitive judgments of style for which he cannot provide linguistic or historical evidence. And his conclusions that the "Iliad" and "Odyssey" were not written by Homer, but rather by a history of emendations and revisions, enthrones his work — the work of philologists — in place of the literary genius Homer. Thus philology becomes for Wolf an aesthetic discipline that produces canonical and beautiful works of literature. This aesthetic task is essential for philology to fulfill its educational and political responsibilities

A Home Security System Based on Smartphone Sensors

Several new smartphones are released every year. Many people upgrade to new phones, and their old phones are not put to any further use. In this paper, we explore the feasibility of using such retired smartphones and their on-board sensors to build a home security system. We observe that door-related events such as opening and closing have unique vibration signatures when compared to many types of environmental vibrational noise. These events can be captured by the accelerometer of a smartphone when the phone is mounted on a wall near a door. The rotation of a door can also be captured by the magnetometer of a smartphone when the phone is mounted on a door. We design machine learning and threshold-based methods to detect door opening events based on accelerometer and magnetometer data and build a prototype home security system that can detect door openings and notify the homeowner via email, SMS and phone calls upon break-in detection. To further augment our security system, we explore using the smartphone’s built-in microphone to detect door and window openings across multiple doors and windows simultaneously. Experiments in a residential home show that the accelerometer- based detection can detect door open events with an accuracy higher than 98%, and magnetometer-based detection has 100% accuracy. By using the magnetometer method to automate the training phase of a neural network, we find that sound-based detection of door openings has an accuracy of 90% across multiple doors

On Approximation constants for Liouville numbers

We investigate some Diophantine approximation constants related to the simultaneous approximation of $(\zeta,\zeta^{2},\ldots,\zeta^{k})$ for Liouville numbers $\zeta$. For a certain class of Liouville numbers including the famous representative $\sum_{n\geq 1} 10^{-n!}$ and numbers in the Cantor set, we explicitly determine all approximation constants simultaneously for all $k\geq 1$.Comment: 12 page

Local minimality of the volume-product at the simplex

It is proved that the simplex is a strict local minimum for the volume product, P(K)=min(vol(K) vol(K^z)), K^z is the polar body of K with respect to z, the minimum is taken over z in the interior of K, in the Banach-Mazur space of n-dimensional (classes of ) convex bodies. Linear local stability in the neighborhood of the simplex is proved as well. The proof consists of an extension to the non-symmetric setting of methods that were recently introduced by Nazarov, Petrov, Ryabogin and Zvavitch, as well as proving results of independent interest, concerning stability of square order of volumes of polars of non-symmetric convex bodies.Comment: Mathematika, accepte

Enabling decentralized wireless index coding in practice

Index coding is a problem in theoretical computer science and network information theory that studies the optimal coding scheme for transmitting multiple messages across a network to receivers with different side information. The ultimate goal of index coding is to reduce transmission time in a communication network by minimizing the number of messages based on shared information. Index coding theory extends to several key engineering problems in network communication including peer to peer communication, distributed broadcast networks, and interference alignment. Although the theoretical connection between index coding and wireless networks is valuable, we focus on finding index coding strategies for a realistic wireless network. More specifically, we investigate how index coding can be applied to an OFDMA downlink network during the retransmission phase. An orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) downlink network is a network where data is sent downward from a designated higher-level transmitter to a group of receiving nodes. In addition, receivers can often decode the other receivers' physical layer signals on the other sub-channels that can be exploited as side information. If this side information is sent back to the transmitter, it can then be coded to cancel the interference in subsequent retransmission phases resulting in fewer retransmission messages. In this report, we explain the coding model and characterize the benefits of index coding for retransmissions within an OFDMA downlink network. In addition, we demonstrate the results of applying this index coding scheme in such network in both simulation and in an active wireless mesh network.Electrical and Computer Engineerin

Distribution of local entropy in the Hilbert space of bi-partite quantum systems: Origin of Jaynes' principle

For a closed bi-partite quantum system partitioned into system proper and environment we interprete the microcanonical and the canonical condition as constraints for the interaction between those two subsystems. In both cases the possible pure-state trajectories are confined to certain regions in Hilbert space. We show that in a properly defined thermodynamical limit almost all states within those accessible regions represent states of some maximum local entropy. For the microcanonical condition this dominant state still depends on the initial state; for the canonical condition it coincides with that defined by Jaynes' principle. It is these states which thermodynamical systems should generically evolve into.Comment: Submitted to Physical Review

I'm not fat, just too short for my weight - Family Child Care and Obesity in Germany

Obesity is increasing worldwide for both adults and children. Genetic disposition is responsible for some variation in body weight but cannot explain the dramatic increase in the last two decades. The increase must be due to structural and behavioral changes. One such behavioral change is the increase in working females in the last decades. The absence from the mother reduces potential child care time in the family. Reduced child care time may have adverse effects on the prevalence of obesity in children and adults. This paper analyzes the effect of mother’s labor supply in childhood on young adults probability of being obese in Germany. Using a sample drawn from the German Socio-Economic Panel the results show that a higher labor supply of the mother increases the probability for her child to be obese as young adult. This result underlines the importance of childhood environment on children’s later life outcome and the importance of behavioral changes in explaining the increase in obesity.GSOEP, obesity, female labor supply, child care, sibling estimation

Quantum network architecture of tight-binding models with substitution sequences

We study a two-spin quantum Turing architecture, in which discrete local rotations \alpha_m of the Turing head spin alternate with quantum controlled NOT-operations. Substitution sequences are known to underlie aperiodic structures. We show that parameter inputs \alpha_m described by such sequences can lead here to a quantum dynamics, intermediate between the regular and the chaotic variant. Exponential parameter sensitivity characterizing chaotic quantum Turing machines turns out to be an adequate criterion for induced quantum chaos in a quantum network.Comment: Accepted for publication in J. mod. Optics [Proc. Workshop "Entanglement and Decoherence", Gargnano (Italy), Sept 1999], 3 figure