Making Machines Learn. Applications of Cultural Analytics to the Humanities

The digitization of several million books by Google in 2011 meant the popularization of a new kind of humanities research powered by the treatment of cultural objects as data. Culturomics, as it is called, was born, and other initiatives resonated with such a methodological approach, as is the case with the recently formed Digital Humanities or Cultural Analytics. Intrinsically, these new quantitative approaches to culture all borrow from techniques and methods developed under the wing of the exact sciences, such as computer science, machine learning or statistics. There are numerous examples of studies that take advantage of the possibilities that treating objects as data has to offer for the understanding of the human. This new data science that is now applied to the current trends in culture can also be replicated to study more traditional humanities. Led by proper intellectual inquiry, an adequate use of technology may bring answers to questions intractable by other means, or add evidence to long held assumptions based on a canon built from few examples. This dissertation argues in favor of such approach. Three different case studies are considered. First, in the more general sense of the big and smart data, we collected and analyzed more than 120,000 pictures of paintings from all periods of art history, to gain a clear insight on how the beauty of depicted faces, in the framework of neuroscience and evolutionary theory, has changed over time. A second study covers the nuances of modes of emotions employed by the Spanish Golden Age playwright Calderón de la Barca to empathize with his audience. By means of sentiment analysis, a technique strongly supported by machine learning, we shed some light into the different fictional characters, and how they interact and convey messages otherwise invisible to the public. The last case is a study of non-traditional authorship attribution techniques applied to the forefather of the modern novel, the Lazarillo de Tormes. In the end, we conclude that the successful application of cultural analytics and computer science techniques to traditional humanistic endeavours has been enriching and validating

SylvaDB: A Polyglot and Multi-backend Graph Database Management System

This paper presents SylvaDB, a graph database management system designed to be used by people with no technical knowledge. SylvaDB is based on flexible schema definitions and has been developed taking into account the need to deal with semantic information. It relies on the mathematical notion of property graph. SylvaDB is an open source project and aims at lowering the barrier of adoption for anyone using graph databases. At the same time, it is robust and scalable enough to support collaborative large projects related to knowledge management, document archiving, and research

Sustaining a Global Community: Art and Religion in the Network of Baroque Hispanic-American Paintings

The authors analyze the network of Hispanic baroque paintings from 1550 to 1850. They divide the dataset of 11,443 works from Spain and Latin America into 25-year periods in order to study the evolution of the paintings’ 211 descriptors. The analysis shows that most of the paintings are linked through genre and theme and that religious Christian themes make up the overwhelming majority of connections among the paintings

The art-space of a global community: the network of Baroque paintings in Hispanic-America

This paper presents the results of a multidisciplinary collaboration in Digital Humanities that focuses on the multi-scale analysis of the network of Baroque paintings in the territories of the Hispanic Monarchy from the 16th through the 18th centuries. We apply graph analysis and visualizations as well as natural language analysis over a database of over 11,000 artworks in order to address three types of questions related, respectively, to the formation and sustainability of large cultures, the semantic content of the network we analyze, and the role of art as an institution that contributes to sustain large-scale societies. The results also help to design a methodology that can be exported to other projects in Digital Humanities

ALBERTI, a Multilingual Domain Specific Language Model for Poetry Analysis

The computational analysis of poetry is limited by the scarcity of tools to automatically analyze and scan poems. In a multilingual settings, the problem is exacerbated as scansion and rhyme systems only exist for individual languages, making comparative studies very challenging and time consuming. In this work, we present \textsc{Alberti}, the first multilingual pre-trained large language model for poetry. Through domain-specific pre-training (DSP), we further trained multilingual BERT on a corpus of over 12 million verses from 12 languages. We evaluated its performance on two structural poetry tasks: Spanish stanza type classification, and metrical pattern prediction for Spanish, English and German. In both cases, \textsc{Alberti} outperforms multilingual BERT and other transformers-based models of similar sizes, and even achieves state-of-the-art results for German when compared to rule-based systems, demonstrating the feasibility and effectiveness of DSP in the poetry domain.Comment: Accepted for publication at SEPLN 2023: 39th International Conference of the Spanish Society for Natural Language Processin

Towards a digital geography of Hispanic Baroque art

In this article we propose an approach to the study of art history based on geog-raphy of Hispanic Baroque art by digital means that showcase the multiplicity of possible places of art. Our study advances four elements of a digital geography of art (communities, semantic maps, areas, and flows)—a methodology that can be expanded in future Digital Humanities research

On statistical convergence and strong Cesàro convergence by moduli

In this paper we will establish a result by Connor, Khan and Orhan (Analysis 8:47–63, 1988; Publ. Math. (Debr.) 76:77–88, 2010) in the framework of the statistical convergence and the strong Cesàro convergence defined by a modulus function f . Namely, for every modulus function f , we will prove that a f -strongly Cesàro convergent sequence is always f -statistically convergent and uniformly integrable. The converse of this result is not true even for bounded sequences. We will characterize analytically the modulus functions f for which the converse is true. We will prove that these modulus functions are those for which the statistically convergent sequences are f -statistically convergent, that is, we show that Connor–Khan–Orhan’s result is sharp in this sense

Cambios temporales en el origen de la materia orgánica en las marismas del Río Miño (NW Península Ibérica) mediante marcadores lipídicos. Temporal changes in the organic matter sources in the Minho River tidal marshes (NW Iberian Península): A lipid biomarker approach.

[EN]: The lipid biomarker distribution in a sediment core fromMinho river tidal-marshes (NW Iberian Peninsula) was studiedusing gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS) in order to evaluate changes in the sources and distribution of organic matter (OM) in the estuary during the last centuries. The distribution of terrestrial and phytoplankton biomarker inventory reflected an heterogeneous mixture of OM from marine and terrestrial sources. Lignin derived phenols, triterpenoids and long chain n-alkanes with an odd number of carbons are indicators of soil-and vascular plant-derived continental OM, being more abundant on the topmost sections of the core. In addition, a conspicuous contribution from plankton-derived OM (e.g. short chain fatty acids and alcohols, phytosterols) is observed in the deepest sections of the core. However, in general the lipid biomarker assemblage found indicate the existence of a complex input of organic matter (OM) to this estuarine area, from both river run-off and marine depositions. Temporal variations observed could also be attributed to terrigenous contributions after flooding events from Miño river, although a differential degradation of individual biomarkers should not be neglected when interpreting biomarker assemblages in this geodynamically active environment. [ES]: Con el objetivo de evaluar las variaciones en las fuentes y distribución de la matería orgânica (MO) durante los últimos siglos, se estudia la distribución de biomarcadores lipídicos en una secuencia sedimentaria de las marismas del río Miño (NW Península Ibérica) mediante Cromatografía de Gases¿Espectrometria de Masas (CG/MS) . La distribución de biomarcadores terrestres y marinos muestra una mezcla heterogénea de MO con diferente orígen. Los fenoles derivados de la lignina, triterpenoides y n-alcanos de cadena larga con número impar de carbonos proceden de plantas superiores, indicadores de MO de origen continental , se encuentran com mayor abundancia en las secciones superiores del sondeo. Los lípidos derivados del plancton marino (ej., acidos grasos y alcoholes de cadena corta, fitosteroles) se encontraron con mayor abundancia relativa en las secciones mas profundas del sondeo. Sin embargo, la distribución global de los biomarcadores lipídicos estudiados muestra la complejidad de las fuentes de MO en este estuario, y que incluye las descargas del río y deposiciones de sedimentos marinos. Algunas variaciones observadas pueden deberse a contribuciones de MO terrígena debidas a descargas elevadas procedentes del río Miño. No obstante, a la hora de interpretar los cámbios observados en la distribución de determinados biomarcadores en este ambiente geodinámicamente activo, se debe tener en cuenta la posible ocurrencia de fenómenos de degradación preferencial o selectiva en el sedimento.Peer Reviewe

Determination of refractory organic matter in marine sediments by chemical oxidation, analytical pyrolysis and solid-state 13C nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy

Seeking to quantify the amount of refractory organic matter (ROM), which includes black carbon-like material (BC), in marine sediments, we have applied a two-step procedure that consists of a chemical oxidation with sodium chlorite of the demineralized sediments followed by integration of the aromatic C region in the remaining residues by solid-state 13C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. The efficacy for lignin removal was tested by analytical pyrolysis in the presence of tetramethyl ammonium hydroxide (TMAH). Riverine, estuarine and offshore marine sediment samples were collected from the southwest Atlantic coast of Spain, a site of geological and environmental interest. Measured contents of BC-like material ranged between 3.0 and 45.7% of the total organic carbon. Greater relative BC contents were found in riverine sediments close to urban areas, which show an elevated input of anthropogenic organic material. The contents of BC-like material in offshore marine sediments (5.5–6.1%) were similar to those previously reported for these kinds of samples. However, NMR and pyrolysis-GC/MS of the isolated ROM reveals that abundant refractory aliphatic organic material remains in most of the marine samples after chlorite oxidation. We suggest that this pool of aliphatic carbon may play an important role as a stable carbon pool within the global C cycle.The Spanish Ministry of Education provided financial support for this research (fellowship BES-2003-1900 and project CGL2006-12730-C03-C01).9 páginas, 3 figuras, 6 tablas, 38 referencias.-- [email protected] reviewe

Factors involved in soil organic matter stabilization in Peruvian Amazonian soils (Ucayali region) and the molecular composition of extractable lipids

Poster E1012b presentado en el 27th International Meeting on Organic Geochemistry September 13–18, 2015, Prague, Czech RepublicAmazonian ecosystems are considered important sinks for atmospheric CO2 on Earth. It is therefore desirable to preserve their biodiversity and productivity. In this communication an assessment of the influence of different agro-forestry practices on soil C storage in representative ecosystems from the Peruvian Ucayali region is approached by analyzing the soil lipid fraction. In fact, this organic matter fraction is an important source of analytical surrogates of soil C stabilization and accumulation processes (Naafs at al., 2004; Poulenard et al., 2004; Rumpel et al., 2004). Top (0–20 cm) and subsoil (20–40 cm) samples were taken from the Amazonian Ucayali region (Pucallpa, Perú), ranging from recent alluvial soils in muddy zones of riverside areas (wetlands referred to as ‘mud’, ‘beach’ and low ‘restinga’ soils) to more developed soils located in medium and higher riverine terraces, as well as in hills. The lipid fraction was Soxhlet extracted with a mixture of ichloromethane:methanol (2:1 by vol.), saponified and divided into neutral and acid subfractions. The acid fractions were then sequentially methylated and silylated prior to the chromatographic analysis (González-Vila et al., 2003). Neutral and acid sub-fractions were separated and the major compounds were identified by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry using an HP G1800A GCD System (electron impact detector at 70 eV) equipped with a DB-5 fused silica capillary column (30 m × 0.32 mm i.d., film thickness 0.25 µm) and using He as carrier gas at a flow rate of 1.5 mL min-1. The chromatographic oven temperature was programmed to increase from 40 to 100 ºC at 30 ºC min-1 and then to 300 ºC at 6 ºC min -1. The values of soil organic matter and lipids ranged from 25.8 to 5.8 g kg-1, and from 5.2 to 0.2 g kg-1, respectively. This variability as well as the differences in lipid molecular composition could suggest differences in the soils’ use and management practices (Van Bergen et al.,1996). The main families of signature lipids detected in the soil extracts were n-alkanes, linear isoprenoids, cyclic alkanes, n-fatty acids, branched fatty acids, unsaturated fatty acids, hydroxyacids, n-alcohols, ketones, polycyclic hydrocarbons and sterols. Very significant differences in qualitative and quantitative lipid composition were found in terms of soil depth. This effect was more pronounced in the soils from the riverine high terraces devoted to agro-forestry practices (Figs. 1 and 2). In addition, lipidic compounds of high molecular weight (i.e., di- and triterpenes) were detected as regular components of the free lipid fractions from the different ecosystems (wetlands, terraces and hills) reflecting specific vegetation and soil-use influences. Xenobiotic compounds (naphthenic acids) detected within the unresolved chromatographic ‘hump’ (highly unresolved mixture of cyclic or branched hydrocarbons) were also observed, indicating anthropogenic contamination by mineral oils. Likewise, dialkyl phthalates (Phth) from plasticizers were also detected.Projects CGL2012-38655-C04-01 and CGL2008-04296 and fellowship BES-2013-062573 given to N.T.J.M by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. Dr. J.M.R. is the recipient of a fellowship from the JAE-Doc subprogram financed by the CSIC and the European Social Fund.Peer Reviewe