Factoids in ancient history: the case of fifth-century Cyprus

Factoids—a word coined by Norman Mailer in his introduction to Marilyn—are mere speculations or guesses which have been repeated so often that they are eventually taken for hard facts. There is something decidedly unbiological about such factoids: the tendency to get stronger the longer they live is one of their most insidious qualities. Factoids occur in all branches of scholarship and many are of course still well disguised—their complete discovery would create havoc in the subjects concerned. Archaeology, converted from treasure hunting into an historical discipline, is for obvious reasons prone to create a number of factoids. The process by which mere hypotheses attain the apparent rank of established fact, without ever having been proved, presents a linguistic and a psychological aspect. Linguistically, words or particles indicating the hypothetical character of a statement are dropped one by one in a process of constant repetition. The subjunctive is exchanged for the indicative, and in the end the factoid is formulated as a straightforward factual sentence. Psychologically, the repetition of unproved hypotheses is facilitated by an attitude which is as indispensable in research as it is ambivalent: a certain amount of implicit trust in the results of other scholars' researc

Bildfolgenbasierte Gewinnung und Nutzung partikelindividueller Bewegungsinformation in der optischen Schüttgutsortierung

Die sensorgestützte Sortierung ermöglicht die Trennung einzelner Partikel aus einem Materialstrom. In dieser Arbeit wird eine neue Gattung eines Schüttgutsortiersystems mit Flächenkamera erforscht. Der Einsatz von Hochgeschwindigkeitskameras als Inspektionssensorik wirft aus Sicht der Informatik spannende Forschungsfragen hinsichtlich der Gewinnung und Nutzung weitergehender Merkmale, insbesondere von Bewegungsinformation über zu sortierende Materialien, auf

Global production under duties, duty drawbacks and local content trade barriers in Mercosul

International agierende Unternehmen sind mit einer Vielzahl an Herausforderungen im globalen Wettbewerb konfrontiert. Neben den sich ergebenden Vorteilen steigt jedoch auch die Komplexität ihres wirtschaftlichen Umfelds. Tarifäre und nicht-tarifäre Handelshemmnisse beeinflussen die Planung von Produktionsnetzwerken. Entsprechende rechtliche Rahmenbedingungen sind jedoch sehr zahlreich und unterscheiden sich oft zusätzlich im Bezug auf Industriezweige. Diese Arbeit spezialisiert sich aus diesem Grund auf die Regelungen der Automobilindustrie im Wirtschaftsraum Mercosul. Es wird ein Modell zur Produktionsnetzwerkplanung entwickelt, dass neben produktspezifischen local content Entscheidungen, Zöllen und Zollrückzahlungen auch eine spezielle nicht-tarifäre Regelung für Brasilien berücksichtigt. Um die Wechselwirkungen dieser globalen Aspekte, auf das Netzwerk zu untersuchen werden in einem letzten Teil der Arbeit numerische Studien durchgeführt. Es kann gezeigt werden, dass die Konfiguration der Produktionsnetzwerke sich in Abhängigkeit von den mitberücksichtigten globalen Faktoren erheblich unterscheidet. Aus diesem Grund ist es sinnvoll bei der Produktionsplanung Mercosul LC, Zölle und Zollrückzahlungen mit einzubeziehen. Aufgrund produktionsflexibler Netzwerke können so rechtliche Spielräume ausgenutzt werden, um die Behinderungen des freien Warenverkehres zu minimieren.International acting corporations have to meet various challenges in the globalized world. Besides the advantages, companies face increasing complexity with regard to their environment. Tariff and non-tariff trade barriers have considerable impact on their supply chains. Nevertheless, legal frameworks are sophisticated and differ often in addition for specific industries. In this thesis the focus is set on the Mercosul automotive industry. Mercosul LC, duties, duty drawbacks and a specific Brazilian non-tariff trade barrier are considered on a product specific level when designing production networks. To analyze the impact of the global aspects a mathematical model is provided. Numerical studies reveal insight on interactions of global aspects on the production network of an international acting truck manufacturer. It can be shown that the production network configuration differ significant dependent on the attended global aspects. A joint consideration of Mercosul LC, duties and duty drawbacks is therefore advisable when designing production networks. Production networks are equipped with fexibility to reduce the impact of distorting influences on free trade, through utilizing legal scopes of the underlying framework

Challenge Results Are Not Reproducible

While clinical trials are the state-of-the-art methods to assess the effect of new medication in a comparative manner, benchmarking in the field of medical image analysis is performed by so-called challenges. Recently, comprehensive analysis of multiple biomedical image analysis challenges revealed large discrepancies between the impact of challenges and quality control of the design and reporting standard. This work aims to follow up on these results and attempts to address the specific question of the reproducibility of the participants methods. In an effort to determine whether alternative interpretations of the method description may change the challenge ranking, we reproduced the algorithms submitted to the 2019 Robust Medical Image Segmentation Challenge (ROBUST-MIS). The leaderboard differed substantially between the original challenge and reimplementation, indicating that challenge rankings may not be sufficiently reproducible.Comment: Accepted at BVM 202

Heterogeneous Pd catalysts as emulsifiers in Pickering emulsions for integrated multistep synthesis in flow chemistry

Within the “Compartmentalised Smart Factory” approach of the ONE-FLOW project the implementation of different catalysts in “compartments” provided by Pickering emulsions and their application in continuous flow is targeted. We present here the development of heterogeneous Pd-catalysts that are ready to be used in combination with biocatalysts for catalytic cascade syntheses of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). In particular, we focus on the application of the catalytic systems for Suzuki-Miyaura cross coupling reactions, which is the key step in the syntheses of the targeted APIs valsartan and sacubitril. An immobilised enzyme will accomplish the final product formation via hydrolysis. In order to create large interfacial area for the catalytic reactions and to keep the reagents separated until required, the catalyst particles are used to stabilise Pickering emulsions of oil and water. A set of Ce-Sn-Pd-oxides with the molecular formula Ce0.99-xSnxPd0.01O2-(x= 0-0.99) has been prepared utilising a simple single-step solution combustion method. The high applicability of the catalysts for different functional groups and their minimal leaching behaviour is demonstrated with various Suzuki-Miyaura cross coupling reactions in batch as well as in continuous flow employing the so-called “Plug & Play reactor”. Finally, we demonstrate the use of these particles as the sole emulsifier of oil + water emulsions for a range of oils

Detecting Tar Contaminated Samples in Road-rubble using Hyperspectral Imaging and Texture Analysis

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) containing tar-mixtures pose a challenge for recycling road rubble, as the tar containing elements have to be extracted and decontaminated for recycling. In this preliminary study, tar, bitumen and minerals are discriminated using a combination of color (RGB) and Hyperspectral Short Wave Infrared (SWIR) cameras. Further, the use of an autoencoder for detecting minerals embedded inside tar- and bitumen mixtures is proposed. Features are extracted from the spectra of the SWIR camera and the texture of the RGB images. For classification, linear discriminant analysis combined with a k-nearest neighbor classification is used. First results show a reliable detection of minerals and positive signs for separability of tar and bitumen. This work is a foundation for developing a sensor-based sorting system for physical separation of tar contaminated samples in road rubble