Coarse-grained Multiresolution Structures for Mobile Exploration of Gigantic Surface Models

We discuss our experience in creating scalable systems for distributing and rendering gigantic 3D surfaces on web environments and common handheld devices. Our methods are based on compressed streamable coarse-grained multiresolution structures. By combining CPU and GPU compression technology with our multiresolution data representation, we are able to incrementally transfer, locally store and render with unprecedented performance extremely detailed 3D mesh models on WebGL-enabled browsers, as well as on hardware-constrained mobile devices

An early look at the LDBC Social Network Benchmark's Business Intelligence workload

In this short paper, we provide an early look at the LDBC Social Network Benchmark's Business Intelligence (BI) workload which tests graph data management systems on a graph business analytics workload. Its queries involve complex aggregations and navigations (joins) that touch large data volumes, which is typical in BI workloads, yet they depend heavily on graph functionality such as connectivity tests and path finding. We outline the motivation for this new benchmark, which we derived from many interactions with the graph database industry and its users, and situate it in a scenario of social network analysis. The workload was designed by taking into account technical ``chokepoints'' identified by database system architects from academia and industry, which we also describe and map to the queries. We present reference implementations in openCypher, PGQL, SPARQL, and SQL, and preliminary results of SNB BI on a number of graph data management systems

The mass and density of the dwarf planet (225088) 2007 OR10

The satellite of (225088) 2007 OR10 was discovered on archival Hubble Space Telescope images and along with new observations with the WFC3 camera in late 2017 we have been able to determine the orbit. The orbit's notable eccentricity, e$\approx$0.3, may be a consequence of an intrinsically eccentric orbit and slow tidal evolution, but may also be caused by the Kozai mechanism. Dynamical considerations also suggest that the moon is small, D$_{eff}$ $<$ 100 km. Based on the newly determined system mass of 1.75x10$^{21}$ kg, 2007 OR10 is the fifth most massive dwarf planet after Eris, Pluto, Haumea and Makemake. The newly determined orbit has also been considered as an additional option in our radiometric analysis, provided that the moon orbits in the equatorial plane of the primary. Assuming a spherical shape for the primary this approach provides a size of 1230$\pm$50 km, with a slight dependence on the satellite orbit orientation and primary rotation rate chosen, and a bulk density of 1.75$\pm$0.07 g cm$^{-3}$ for the primary. A previous size estimate that assumed an equator-on configuration (1535$^{+75}_{-225}$ km) would provide a density of 0.92$^{+0.46}_{-0.14}$ g cm$^{-3}$, unexpectedly low for a 1000 km-sized dwarf planet.Comment: Accepted for publication in Icaru

The Alsónyék story: towards the history of a persistent place

First paragraph: The papers presented above in this volume have provided formally modelled date estimates for the development of Als&oacute;ny&eacute;k, phase by phase, from the Starčevo to the Lengyel periods. In this final discussion paper, we now aim, first, to bring together all the chapters of the long story into a single narrative, and to attempt a detailed interpretation of its long persistence, which is of a kind so far rather unfamiliar in prehistory. That enables us, secondly, to discuss the Als&oacute;ny&eacute;k story in more interpretive terms, in relation to notions of persistent place, community, aggregation and coalescence, and with an eye on the broader tempo of change. In doing this, we will tack between the site-specific evidence from Als&oacute;ny&eacute;k and wider comparisons from ethnography and recent history, far beyond Transdanubia in both time and space. Thirdly, we will use our formally modelled date estimates from the Lengyel period at Als&oacute;ny&eacute;k to trace the intensity of occupation and of the trajectory of population increase and decline at the site. In discussing the dramatic growth of the settlement in the Lengyel period, we will also, finally, consider some of its possible causes and conditions, but this has to be seen in the context of the ongoing post-excavation research of the Als&oacute;ny&eacute;k project, in which it is important to underline that many basic analyses still remain to be completed. We will end, nonetheless, by looking ahead to key research questions for the future

Midlife changes: the Sopot burial ground at Alsónyék

Archaeological research on the Neolithic of western Hungary started on sites of the Linearbandkeramik (LBK) and Lengyel cultures in the late nineteenth century. The existence of assemblages of the Starčevo culture, representing the earliest Neolithic of Transdanubia, became known much later, in the 1970s. In the late 1960s, a close connection began to be recognised between some previously discovered grave assemblages in western Hungary and what was then called the Sopot-Lengyel (SopotskoLenđelska) culture in the Slavonian region of eastern Croatia; this was later labelled as the Sopot culture. However, the full integration of this material into the regional framework of the Neolithic was not without difficulties

Coalescent community at Alsónyék: the timings and duration of Lengyel burials and settlement

First paragraph: The Lengyel culture was very widely distributed in central Europe in the first half of the fifth millennium cal BC. At its greatest extent, its settlements are found in western and north-east Hungary, south-west Slovakia, eastern Austria and the Czech Republic. Its distribution even reached Slovenia and Croatia in the south, and Poland in the north

Peopling the past: creating a site biography in the Hungarian Neolithic

First paragraph: For most regions and for most sequences around the world, prehistorians until now have only been able to assign the past people whom they study to rather imprecise times. Such imperfect chronology is the result of our reliance on radiocarbon dating and a conventional approach to the interpretation of radiocarbon results which relies, basically, on the visual inspection of calibrated dates. Thus, typically, a radiocarbon sample from a few thousand years ago will calibrate to a date spanning 100–200 years (at 2σ). A group of such samples will not produce identical calibrated dates, even when they derive from the same event, and archaeologists visually inspecting a graph of such dates tend to include the extremes of the timespan indicated, and thus considerably exaggerate the duration of a given phenomenon as well as accepting the relative imprecision of its dating (BAYLISS ET AL. 2007).In the European Neolithic there has been a longstanding tradition of inferring chronology by summing, first uncalibrated (OTTAWAY 1973; GEYH / MARET 1982; BREUNIG 1987), and then calibrated (AITCHISON ET AL. 1991) radiocarbon dates. This method similarly tends to produce inaccurate chronologies of exaggerated duration (BAYLISS ET AL. 2007, 9–11). For the fortunate few, in regions with favourable conditions in which timbers are preserved, dendrochronology can provide dates precise to a calendar year and even to a season within a given year, for example among the Pueblo settlements of the American Southwest or the Neolithic and Bronze Age settlements on the fringes of the Alps in west and central Europe (e.g. HERR 2001; MENOTTI 2004). In most regions, however, such preservation and such chronologies are exceptional

The LDBC Social Network Benchmark

The Linked Data Benchmark Council's Social Network Benchmark (LDBC SNB) is an effort intended to test various functionalities of systems used for graph-like data management. For this, LDBC SNB uses the recognizable scenario of operating a social network, characterized by its graph-shaped data. LDBC SNB consists of two workloads that focus on different functionalities: the Interactive workload (interactive transactional queries) and the Business Intelligence workload (analytical queries). This document contains the definition of the Interactive Workload and the first draft of the Business Intelligence Workload. This includes a detailed explanation of the data used in the LDBC SNB benchmark, a detailed description for all queries, and instructions on how to generate the data and run the benchmark with the provided software.Comment: For the repository containing the source code of this technical report, see https://github.com/ldbc/ldbc_snb_doc

Between the Vinča and Linearbandkeramik worlds: the diversity of practices and identities in the 54th–53rd centuries cal BC in south-west Hungary and beyond

Szederk&eacute;ny-Kukorica-dűlő is a large settlement in south-east Transdanubia, Hungary, excavated in advance of road construction, which is notable for its combination of pottery styles, variously including Vinča A, Raži&scaron;te and LBK, and longhouses of a kind otherwise familiar from the LBK world. Formal modelling of its date establishes that the site probably began in the later 54th century cal BC, lasting until the first decades of the 52nd century cal BC. Occupation, featuring longhouses, pits and graves, probably began at the same time on the east and west parts of the settlement, the central part starting a decade or two later; the western part was probably abandoned last. Vinča pottery is predominantly associated with the east and central parts of the site, and Raži&scaron;te pottery with the west. Formal modelling of the early history and diaspora of longhouses in the LBK world suggests their emergence in the Formative LBK of Transdanubia c. 5500 cal BC and then rapid diaspora in the middle of the 54th century cal BC, associated with the &lsquo;earliest&rsquo; (&auml;lteste) LBK. The adoption of longhouses at Szederk&eacute;ny thus appears to come a few generations after the start of the diaspora. Rather than explaining the mixture of things, practices and perhaps people at Szederk&eacute;ny by reference to problematic notions such as hybridity, we propose instead a more fluid and varied vocabulary including combination and amalgamation, relationships and performance in the flow of social life, and networks; this makes greater allowance for diversity and interleaving in a context of rapid change