424 research outputs found
Remembering 1989: Post-Communist Commemorations in Berlin and Warsaw
Germany and Poland since 1989 have become lands of contested memory, as reflected by their attempts to commemorate the series of reforms that led to the end of their Communist regimes. This study is an attempt to analyze the various modes of commemoration dedicated to the transition from communism that have taken place in the intervening years between 1989 and the present. Included amongst these efforts are events occurring in public spaces, such as official remembrance ceremonies like Berlin\u27s Festival of Freedom in 2009, physical monuments, and institutions dedicated to preserving memory, specifically the Gauck Authority in Germany and the Institute of National Remembrance in Poland. An evaluation of the various forms that commemorations may take demonstrates the pluralities of memory in Germany and Poland, and how political factions have used this malleable state of memory to construct popular narratives. The most common narrative that has been seized upon by right-wing factions in both countries, and which has been supported by the official state memory institutions, is the false demographic separation of Communist era Germany and Poland into lands comprised solely of victims, perpetrators, and collaborators. Despite the major differences in their transitional processes, Germany and Poland followed similar trajectories in their commemorative paths, beginning with an initial period of little commemorative effort in favor of a national focus on political and economic development. After a period in which both countries saw similar major shifts in their national governments, the opening decade of the current century saw a resurgence of right-wing politics which brought about the aforementioned focus on memory. The recent focus on memory and commemoration attests to the fact that only now is the transitional period coming to a close, as younger generations with little to no personal memory of 1989 have begun to receive higher education and enter the workforce. Likewise, by studying Germany and Poland in particular, two countries with contrasting transitional experiences yet similar tracks in post-transition memory development, it is shown that there is likely a pattern to how the former Communist bloc countries that experienced peaceful reforms have remembered their post-transition experiences, and that this has negatively impacted the political landscape
Generating Mathematical Derivations with Large Language Models
The derivation of mathematical results in specialised fields using Large
Language Models (LLMs) is an emerging research direction that can help identify
models' limitations, and potentially support mathematical discovery. In this
paper, we leverage a symbolic engine to generate derivations of equations at
scale, and investigate the capabilities of LLMs when deriving goal equations
from premises. Specifically, we employ in-context learning for GPT and
fine-tune a range of T5 models to compare the robustness and generalisation of
pre-training strategies to specialised models. Empirical results show that
fine-tuned FLAN-T5-large (MathT5) outperforms GPT models on all static and
out-of-distribution test sets in terms of absolute performance. However, an
in-depth analysis reveals that the fine-tuned models are more sensitive to
perturbations involving unseen symbols and (to a lesser extent) changes to
equation structure. In addition, we analyse 1.7K equations and over 200
derivations to highlight common reasoning errors such as the inclusion of
incorrect, irrelevant, and redundant equations, along with the tendency to skip
derivation steps. Finally, we explore the suitability of existing metrics for
evaluating mathematical derivations finding evidence that, while they capture
general properties such as sensitivity to perturbations, they fail to highlight
fine-grained reasoning errors and essential differences between models.
Overall, this work demonstrates that training models on synthetic data can
improve their mathematical capabilities beyond larger architectures.Comment: 13 page
Multi-Operational Mathematical Derivations in Latent Space
This paper investigates the possibility of approximating multiple
mathematical operations in latent space for expression derivation. To this end,
we introduce different multi-operational representation paradigms, modelling
mathematical operations as explicit geometric transformations. By leveraging a
symbolic engine, we construct a large-scale dataset comprising 1.7M derivation
steps stemming from 61K premises and 6 operators, analysing the properties of
each paradigm when instantiated with state-of-the-art neural encoders.
Specifically, we investigate how different encoding mechanisms can approximate
equational reasoning in latent space, exploring the trade-off between learning
different operators and specialising within single operations, as well as the
ability to support multi-step derivations and out-of-distribution
generalisation. Our empirical analysis reveals that the multi-operational
paradigm is crucial for disentangling different operators, while discriminating
the conclusions for a single operation is achievable in the original expression
encoder. Moreover, we show that architectural choices can heavily affect the
training dynamics, structural organisation, and generalisation of the latent
space, resulting in significant variations across paradigms and classes of
encoders
The Impact of Early Identification of Declining Patients: A Quality Improvement Study
This presentation focuses on the prevalence of failure to rescue in healthcare, that we have evidenced in the clinical setting. Proper identification of declining patient health plays a major role in early intervention, resulting in a positive patient outcome. Analyzing common themes in these issues provided a âbigger pictureâ of the need for proactive patient care.https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/celebration_posters_2023/1034/thumbnail.jp
Adaptation to flooding in lowâincome urban settlements in the least developed countries: A systems approach
This study aims to use a whole systems approach (1) to understand the processes of adaptation to flooding of the urban poor; (2) to identify new knowledge of how lowâincome settlements might better adapt to climatic risks; and (3) to begin to develop appropriate guidance on this. Lowâincome urban settlements in the least developed countries (LDCs) present an extreme case where catastrophic natural hazards and chronic social hazards overlap. These lowâincome urban populations face the greatest adaptation challenges as they often occupy informal settlements that are particularly exposed to hazards, and have multiple vulnerabilities arising from their lack of basic services. There is a dynamic complexity of issues arising from the many levels of actor involved and multiple social and physical factors. Analysing such a complex phenomenon calls for a specific conceptual framing, and a systems theory approach is suggested to provide a holistic perspective. The case study for this research is located in Dhaka East, where there is both high vulnerability to flooding, and a significant lowâincome population. The research has adopted a mixed methods approach involving different data collection methods governed by the different scales and actors being investigated. The research develops new systems understandings of perceptions and experiences of the local population about adaptation processes in lowâincome urban settlements, and how these processes may be positively influenced by integrating bottomâup and topâdown approaches
Neolithic farmers or Neolithic foragers? Organic residue analysis of early pottery from Rakushechny Yar on the Lower Don (Russia)
The emergence of pottery in Europe is associated with two distinct traditions: hunter-gatherers in the east of the continent during the early 6th millennium BC and early agricultural communities in the south-west in the late 7th millennium BC. Here we investigate the function of pottery from the site of Rakushechny Yar, located at the Southern fringe of Eastern Europe, in this putative contact zone between these two economic âworldsâ. To investigate, organic residue analysis was conducted on 120 samples from the Early Neolithic phase (ca. mid-6th millennium BC) along with microscopic and SEM analysis of associated foodcrusts. The results showed that the earliest phase of pottery use was predominantly used to process riverine resources. Many of the vessels have molecular and isotopic characteristics consistent with migratory fsh, such as sturgeon, confrmed by the identifcation of sturgeon bony structures embedded in the charred surface deposits. There was no evidence of dairy products in any of the vessels, despite the fact these have been routinely identifed in coeval sites to the south. Further analysis of some of the mammalian bones using ZooMS failed to demonstrate that domesticated animals were present in the Early Neolithic. Nevertheless, we argue that intensive exploitation of seasonally migratory fsh, accompanied by large-scale pottery production, created storable surpluses that led to similar socio-economic outcomes as documented in early agricultural societies
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