Were the Yeshivot in Spain Centers for the Copying of Books?

The subject of this article is the copying of Hebrew manuscripts in the Iberian Peninsula in the Middle Ages. Geographical localities mentioned in the manuscripts' colophons are the basis for locating copy centers. Very little is known of the working environment of the Jewish scribes. The assumption is that this activity took place primarily in the patron's or scribe's own home. However, in the colophons from Sefarad important information can be derived; that is, that some manuscripts were copied in several yeshivot throughout Spain. This refers mainly to manuscripts copied during the 15th century until the time of the Expulsion. Herein I describe the yeshivot, their scholars, their scribes, and the persons who ordered their copies. Although the number of manuscripts containing this information is reduced, one may assume that other manuscripts were copied in a similar environment. In effect, the yeshivot were the Jewish scriptoria. This information sheds light on the culture of the Hebrew book in the Iberian Penninsula in the waning days of the Middle Ages.Este artículo se ocupa de la copia de manuscritos hebreos en la Península Ibérica durante la Edad Media. Los lugares geográficos que se mencionan en los colofones de los manuscritos son la base para localizar los centros de copia. Aunque se sabe muy poco sobre el ambiente de trabajo de los escribas hebreos, podría suponerse que esta actividad se llevaba a cabo en la propia casa del patrón o en la del escriba. Sin embargo, encontramos una información fundamental en los colofones escritos en Sefarad: algunos manuscritos copiados a lo largo del siglo XV hasta la expulsión lo fueron en diversas yešibot de toda España. Aquí hacemos una descripción de las yešibot, sus jefes, los escribas y las personas que solicitaban las copias. Aunque la cantidad de manuscritos que contienen esta información no es muy abundante, popdemos suponer que otros se copiaron en ambientes similares. De ser así, las yešibot serían una especie de scriptoria de judíos. Este estudio puede arrojar alguna luz sobre la cultura del libro en la Península Ibérica durante la Edad Media

Approximate Bayesian Inference Based on Expected Evaluations

Approximate Bayesian computing (ABC) and Bayesian Synthetic likelihood (BSL) are two popular families of methods to evaluate the posterior distribution when the likelihood function is not available or tractable. For existing variants of ABC and BSL, the focus is usually first put on the simulation algorithm, and after that the form of the resulting approximate posterior distribution comes as a consequence of the algorithm. In this paper we turn this around and firstly define a reasonable approximate posterior distribution by studying the distributional properties of the expected discrepancy, or more generally an expected evaluation, with respect to generated samples from the model. The resulting approximate posterior distribution will be on a simple and interpretable form compared to ABC and BSL. Secondly a Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm is developed to simulate from the resulting approximate posterior distribution. The algorithm was evaluated on a synthetic data example and on the Stepping Stone population genetics model, demonstrating that the proposed scheme has real world applicability. The algorithm demonstrates competitive results with the BSL and sequential Monte Carlo ABC algorithms, but is outperformed by the ABC MCMC

Providing Managerial Accounting Information in the Presence of a Supplier

This paper identifies a novel effect which is crucial for the design of a management accountinginformation system. In contrast to prior literature, we explicitly model the firm's relationship to a supplier. We show that in addition to the previously identified trade-off – benefits of more information versus indirector direct (agency) costs of information acquisition – another effect occurs: the input price effect. This effect influences the optimal design of the management accounting information system and changes the Regimes where information acquisition is optimal for the principal. Also, in case of endogenous input prices we demonstrate that – perhaps surprisingly – paying an information rent to the agent can be beneficial because it works as a commitment towards an over-charging supplier to exploit the input price effect

ML-Peaks: Chip-seq peak detection pipeline using machine learning techniques

CHIP-Seq data is critical for identifying the locations where proteins bind to DNA, offering valuable insights into disease molecular mechanisms and potential therapeutic targets. However, identifying regions of protein binding, or peaks, in CHIP-seq data can be challenging due to limitations in peak detection methods. Current computational tools often require manual human inspection using data visualization, making it challenging and resource demanding to detect all peaks, particularly in large datasets. CHIP-seq data poses difficulties in detecting peaks due to its high background noise, low signal-to-noise ratio, and variation in the size and shape of the peaks. To overcome these challenges, we propose a data preprocessing approach using sliding window and feature reduction techniques, and the resulting features can be further used in machine learning methods. Our machine learning methodology can accurately identify peaks using a small training set, which represents a distinct advantage over commonly used statistical approaches, as it has a greater capacity for learning from data. We tested our methodology on the H3K9me3_TDH_BP CHIP-Seq dataset exploring a range of different machine learning methods, sliding window settings, and feature reduction techniques to detect peak values without human intervention. Our pipeline efficiently detected the peaks, and achieved an F1-score of 0.9644 and a false positive rate of 0.1030

Flat space (higher spin) gravity with chemical potentials

We introduce flat space spin-3 gravity in the presence of chemical potentials and discuss some applications to flat space cosmology solutions, their entropy, free energy and flat space orbifold singularity resolution. Our results include flat space Einstein gravity with chemical potentials as special case. We discover novel types of phase transitions between flat space cosmologies with spin-3 hair and show that the branch that continuously connects to spin-2 gravity becomes thermodynamically unstable for sufficiently large temperature or spin-3 chemical potential.Comment: 42 pages, v2: added references and comparison with AdS results by David, Ferlaino and Kuma

Machine learning and ontology in eCoaching for personalized activity level monitoring and recommendation generation

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