910 research outputs found
The Grand Strategy: A Study on Hannibal’s Stratagem During the Second Punic War
In this paper I sought to determine whether or not Hannibal Barca had a grand strategy to deal with the Romans during the Second Punic War. If Hannibal did have a strategy, I would try to determine what his strategy was and if it was actually feasible. I approached this question by looking into the background leading up to the Second Punic War, the primary sources explanation of Hannibal’s strategy during the Second Punic War, the logistical feasibility of the plan, and Hannibal’s movements throughout Italy during the war. In conclusion I decided that Hannibal did have a Grand strategy and that it was to alienate the Italian allied city-states from Rome in order to gain the logistical supplies and manpower to bring down Rome. In the end the reason that Hannibal lost the second Punic War is because he misunderstood the relationship that existed between the allied Italian states and Rome. This question is important because it sheds new light on the relations between Rome and its allied states. It also brings new questions to the foreground to try and explain what exactly was the relationship between Rome and its allies during this period
Probing the Crust of the Neutron Star in EXO 0748-676
X-ray observations of quiescent X-ray binaries have the potential to provide
insight into the structure and the composition of neutron stars. EXO 0748-676
had been actively accreting for over 24 yr before its outburst ceased in late
2008. Subsequent X-ray monitoring revealed a gradual decay of the quiescent
thermal emission that can be attributed to cooling of the accretion-heated
neutron star crust. In this work, we report on new Chandra and Swift
observations that extend the quiescent monitoring to ~5 yr post-outburst. We
find that the neutron star temperature remained at ~117 eV between 2009 and
2011, but had decreased to ~110 eV in 2013. This suggests that the crust has
not fully cooled yet, which is supported by the lower temperature of ~95 eV
that was measured ~4 yr prior to the accretion phase in 1980. Comparing the
data to thermal evolution simulations reveals that the apparent lack of cooling
between 2009 and 2011 could possibly be a signature of convection driven by
phase separation of light and heavy nuclei in the outer layers of the neutron
star.Comment: 9 pages, 4 tables, 3 figures. Minor revisions according to referee
report. Accepted to Ap
Can Shadows Reveal Biometric Information?
We study the problem of extracting biometric information of individuals by
looking at shadows of objects cast on diffuse surfaces. We show that the
biometric information leakage from shadows can be sufficient for reliable
identity inference under representative scenarios via a maximum likelihood
analysis. We then develop a learning-based method that demonstrates this
phenomenon in real settings, exploiting the subtle cues in the shadows that are
the source of the leakage without requiring any labeled real data. In
particular, our approach relies on building synthetic scenes composed of 3D
face models obtained from a single photograph of each identity. We transfer
what we learn from the synthetic data to the real data using domain adaptation
in a completely unsupervised way. Our model is able to generalize well to the
real domain and is robust to several variations in the scenes. We report high
classification accuracies in an identity classification task that takes place
in a scene with unknown geometry and occluding objects
Plasma Magnetosphere Formation Around Oscillating Magnetized Neutron Stars
The notion of death line of rotating pulsars is applied to model of
oscillating neutron stars. It is shown that the magnetosphere of typical
non-rotating oscillating stars may not contain secondary plasma to support the
generation of radio emission in the region of open field lines of plasma
magnetosphere.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astrophysics & Space Scienc
Comparing ischaemic stroke in six European countries. The EuroHOPE register study.
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: The incidence of hospitalizations, treatment and case fatality of ischaemic stroke were assessed utilizing a comprehensive multinational database to attempt to compare the healthcare systems in six European countries, aiming also to identify the limitations and make suggestions for future improvements in the between-country comparisons. METHODS: National registers of hospital discharges for ischaemic stroke identified by International Classification of Diseases codes 433-434 (ICD-9) and code I63 (ICD-10), medication purchases and mortality were linked at the patient level in each of the participating countries and regions: Finland, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Scotland and Sweden. Patients with an index admission in 2007 were followed for 1 year. RESULTS: In all, 64 170 patients with a disease code for ischaemic stroke were identified. The number of patients registered per 100 000 European standard population ranged from 77 in Scotland to 407 in Hungary. Large differences were observed in medication use. The age- and sex-adjusted all-cause case fatality amongst hospitalized patients at 1 year from stroke was highest in Hungary at 31.0% (95% confidence interval 30.5-31.5). Regional differences in age- and sex-adjusted 1-year case fatality within countries were largest in Hungary (range 23.6%-37.6%) and smallest in the Netherlands (20.5%-27.3%). CONCLUSIONS: It is feasible to link population-wide register data amongst European countries to describe incidence of hospitalizations, treatment patterns and case fatality of ischaemic stroke on a national level. However, the coverage and validity of administrative register data for ischaemic stroke should be developed further, and population-based and clinical stroke registers should be created to allow better control of case mix
Stratigraphic context and paleoenvironmental significance of minor taxa (Pisces, Reptilia, Aves, Rodentia) from the late Early Pleistocene palaeoanthropological site of Buia (Eritrea)
none13noneL. Rook; M. Ghinassi; G. Carnevale; M. Delfino; M. Pavia; L. Bondioli ; F. Candilio; A. Coppa; B. Martínez-Navarro; T. Medin; M. Papini; C. Zanolli; Y. LibsekalL., Rook; Ghinassi, Massimiliano; G., Carnevale; M., Delfino; M., Pavia; L., Bondioli; F., Candilio; A., Coppa; B., Martínez Navarro; T., Medin; M., Papini; C., Zanolli; Y., Libseka
What determines auditory similarity? The effect of stimulus group and methodology.
Two experiments on the internal representation of auditory stimuli compared the pairwise and grouping methodologies as means of deriving similarity judgements. A total of 45 undergraduate students participated in each experiment, judging the similarity of short auditory stimuli, using one of the methodologies. The experiments support and extend Bonebright's (1996) findings, using a further 60 stimuli. Results from both methodologies highlight the importance of category information and acoustic features, such as root mean square (RMS) power and pitch, in similarity judgements. Results showed that the grouping task is a viable alternative to the pairwise task with N > 20 sounds whilst highlighting subtle differences, such as cluster tightness, between the different task results. The grouping task is more likely to yield category information as underlying similarity judgements
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