The Power of Porcelain: Authority and Landscape in Early Modern Cyprus

The purpose of this study was to analyze the distribution of porcelain within rural Cypriot settlements. The source data used for this project are derived from the Troodos Archaeological and Environmental Survey Project (TAESP), which was conducted between 2002-2007 by Dr. M. Given, Dr. V. Kassianidou, Prof. A.B. Knapp, and Prof. J. Noller. The porcelain in the TAESP survey universe dated from the Cypriot Ottoman (1571-1878) and Modern (1878-ca. 1960) periods. To investigate if this porcelain material from TAESP reflected the presence of a rural elite habitation, the porcelain related data were organized by settlement type (i.e. Greek, Turkish, mixed, or ecclesiastical) and a proportion-based comparison with the quantity of other Ottoman-Modern tableware was carried out. In doing so, this thesis research attempted to demonstrate that a high proportion of porcelain-to-other-tableware in a particular settlement was an archaeological signature of a rural elite context within the TAESP survey universe. The results strongly suggested that monasteries and industry-rooted villages anchored coexisting realms of authority inhabited by separate classes of local elites, one municipal and one rural, on the social landscape of rural Cyprus. In addition, the results highlighted the economic presence of these locations, as the ritualization of coffee engendered great expense on behalf of the Early Modern consumer and played an important role in the demonstration of authority and status

A new population of recently quenched elliptical galaxies in the SDSS

We use the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to investigate the properties of massive elliptical galaxies in the local Universe (z\leq0.08) that have unusually blue optical colors. Through careful inspection, we distinguish elliptical from non-elliptical morphologies among a large sample of similarly blue galaxies with high central light concentrations (c_r\geq2.6). These blue ellipticals comprise 3.7 per cent of all c_r\geq2.6 galaxies with stellar masses between 10^10 and 10^11 h^{-2} {\rm M}_{\sun}. Using published fiber spectra diagnostics, we identify a unique subset of 172 non-star-forming ellipticals with distinctly blue urz colors and young (< 3 Gyr) light-weighted stellar ages. These recently quenched ellipticals (RQEs) have a number density of 2.7-4.7\times 10^{-5}\,h^3\,{\rm Mpc}^{-3} and sufficient numbers above 2.5\times10^{10} h^{-2} {\rm M}_{\sun} to account for more than half of the expected quiescent growth at late cosmic time assuming this phase lasts 0.5 Gyr. RQEs have properties that are consistent with a recent merger origin (i.e., they are strong `first-generation' elliptical candidates), yet few involved a starburst strong enough to produce an E+A signature. The preferred environment of RQEs (90 per cent reside at the centers of < 3\times 10^{12}\,h^{-1}{\rm M}_{\sun} groups) agrees well with the `small group scale' predicted for maximally efficient spiral merging onto their halo center and rules out satellite-specific quenching processes. The high incidence of Seyfert and LINER activity in RQEs and their plausible descendents may heat the atmospheres of small host halos sufficiently to maintain quenching.Comment: 26 pages, 9 figures. Revised version; accepted for publication in MNRA

Renormalization group, trace anomaly and Feynman-Hellmann theorem

We show that the logarithmic derivative of the gauge coupling on the hadronic mass and the cosmological constant term of a gauge theory are related to the gluon condensate of the hadron and the vacuum respectively. These relations are akin to Feynman–Hellmann relations whose derivation for the case at hand is complicated by the construction of the gauge theory Hamiltonian. We bypass this problem by using a renormalisation group equation for composite operators and the trace anomaly. The relations serve as possible definitions of the gluon condensates themselves which are plagued in direct approaches by power divergences. In turn these results might help to determine the contribution of the QCD phase transition to the cosmological constant and test speculative ideas

A path integral approach to the dynamics of a random chain with rigid constraints

In this work the dynamics of a freely jointed random chain which fluctuates at constant temperature in some viscous medium is studied. The chain is regarded as a system of small particles which perform a brownian motion and are subjected to rigid constraints which forbid the breaking of the chain. For simplicity, all interactions among the particles have been switched off and the number of dimensions has been limited to two. The problem of describing the fluctuations of the chain in the limit in which it becomes a continuous system is solved using a path integral approach, in which the constraints are imposed with the insertion in the path integral of suitable Dirac delta functions. It is shown that the probability distribution of the possible conformations in which the fluctuating chain can be found during its evolution in time coincides with the partition function of a field theory which is a generalization of the nonlinear sigma model in two dimensions. Both the probability distribution and the generating functional of the correlation functions of the positions of the beads are computed explicitly in a semiclassical approximation for a ring-shaped chain.Comment: 36 pages, 2 figures, LaTeX + REVTeX4 + graphicx, minor changes in the text, reference adde

The Profiling Potential of Computer Vision and the Challenge of Computational Empiricism

Computer vision and other biometrics data science applications have commenced a new project of profiling people. Rather than using 'transaction generated information', these systems measure the 'real world' and produce an assessment of the 'world state' - in this case an assessment of some individual trait. Instead of using proxies or scores to evaluate people, they increasingly deploy a logic of revealing the truth about reality and the people within it. While these profiling knowledge claims are sometimes tentative, they increasingly suggest that only through computation can these excesses of reality be captured and understood. This article explores the bases of those claims in the systems of measurement, representation, and classification deployed in computer vision. It asks if there is something new in this type of knowledge claim, sketches an account of a new form of computational empiricism being operationalised, and questions what kind of human subject is being constructed by these technological systems and practices. Finally, the article explores legal mechanisms for contesting the emergence of computational empiricism as the dominant knowledge platform for understanding the world and the people within it

Quantum Physics and Human Language

Human languages employ constructions that tacitly assume specific properties of the limited range of phenomena they evolved to describe. These assumed properties are true features of that limited context, but may not be general or precise properties of all the physical situations allowed by fundamental physics. In brief, human languages contain `excess baggage' that must be qualified, discarded, or otherwise reformed to give a clear account in the context of fundamental physics of even the everyday phenomena that the languages evolved to describe. The surest route to clarity is to express the constructions of human languages in the language of fundamental physical theory, not the other way around. These ideas are illustrated by an analysis of the verb `to happen' and the word `reality' in special relativity and the modern quantum mechanics of closed systems.Comment: Contribution to the festschrift for G.C. Ghirardi on his 70th Birthday, minor correction