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This paper is a preliminary attempt to reconstruct the consonant system of Proto-East-Cushitic (PEC) , one of the four branches of the Cushitic family. Data are taken from some twenty-odd languages including unpublished material on a variety of hitherto little known languages. After discussing a number of general problems raised by the phonological comparison of the East Cushitic languages, 23 consonants are reconstructed for the inventory of the proto-language and the evidence for the reconstructions is presented in the form of cognate sets and correspondence rules which map the proto-phonemes onto the individual reflexes. The method employed is that of comparative linguistics as traditionally employed in Indo-European linguistics.
If we see a film, we experience the passing time in two ways. On the one hand, it is conveyed as the time in which the film action takes place – felt as “lived” time. On the other hand, via camera travels and movements of objects vertically to the picture plane, time is perceived – in a much more indirect way – as a vehicle for representation of spatial depth. It is this link between space and time where the method of “time tilting” introduced here sets in. When a film scene is “time-tilted”, one of the spatial dimensions (here the horizontal direction of the picture plane) is interchanged with the time dimension: In a first step, the pictures of the scene are digitalized. Then, the thus gained pixels of all pictures of the scene are arranged into a three-dimensional data field. Finally, a new series of pictures is read out, along one of the two former picture axes, which is then shown as a scene of moving pictures. The resulting film will present optical phenomena which are, on the one hand, aesthetically appealing and, on the other hand, informative for film analysis. First examples demonstrate how the procedure operates on basic movements in space as well as on camera travels in space.
Rwanda entered independence following a transition marked by violent internecine conflict. The conflict was stoked by the departing colonial rulers as they sought to place control of the levers of state in the hands of an ethnic majority, which they had hitherto marginalised in favour of a minority they now sought to exclude. It carried on into the country’s post-colonial politics. For nearly three decades Rwanda’s postcolonial rulers presided over an ethnocracy that perpetuated the negative colonial legacy of ethnic division. They systematically practiced a politics of exclusion and repression that placed the country’s long-term stability under threat, eventually led to civil war, and culminated in the genocide of 1994. After the genocide and the defeat and overthrow of the ancien regime of ethnic supremacists, the new ruling elite - most of whom had spent nearly three decades in exile or been born there - embarked on re-building a collapsed state and re-ordering the country’s politics. The last fourteen years have witnessed deliberate efforts to re-orient the country away from three decades of politics of division and exclusion under the First and Second Republics, towards a system which privileges national reconciliation and unity, equity, and inclusion. This paper examines developments in post-1994 Rwanda against the background of pre-1994 politics and society, and the factors that led to and facilitated the war that culminated in the genocide and eventual overthrow of the Second Republic. It provides insights into the efforts and achievements made by the new ruling elites in pursuit of long-term peace and stability. A great deal, however, remains inadequately explored, including political organisation and the role of political parties, economic reform and management, and the reform and management of the security sector, all of which are the focus of on-going research.
Die Stücke der Windrose für Salonorchester (1989-95) by the Argentine-German composer Mauricio Kagel (*1931) constitute a set of eight pieces on the main bearings of the compass, each number being named after a compass point. In my thesis I explore how the different musical idioms – references to non-Western musics and to salon orchestra music, as well as Kagel’s own compositional procedures – relate to one another in the pieces. The specific origin of the materials Kagel utilised is established by examining a variety of sources, such as the composer’s own programme notes, an interview I conducted with him, and most importantly, the sketch materials. On this basis I develop a theoretical model of the intertextual relations between different musical discourses by means of Bakhtinian dialogics, resulting in a typology distinguishing different kinds of cross-cultural musical representation according to the degree of ‘stylisation’ involved. This typology serves as the framework of my analyses in which I discuss the different ways Kagel engages with his source materials in terms of compositional technique, aesthetic issues such as Kagel’s challenge to traditional notions of authorship, and the ideological implications of cross-cultural musical representation, interpreted in the light of recent discourses, for instance in cultural studies and postcolonialism. In particular, I demonstrate that Kagel‘s work is as much a critical reflection on common Western representations of ‘otherness’, as it engages in such a practice itself, as is apparent in the ostentatious employment of a salon orchestra with its associations of turn-of-thecentury exoticism. By illustrating methodological approaches to cross-cultural composition, which has become a prominent feature of contemporary Western concert music, the thesis aims to contribute to current discourses concerning the musical representation of ‘otherness’.
Since independence, the government of Botswana has practiced an exclusive language policy in which only English has been used in government circles at the exclusion of all the 26 languages represented in the country, with a limited use of the national language, Setswana. However, in recent years more positive statements have been heard in Parliament, opening up to recognize the use of other languages in education and society. These statements have provided a conducive environment for Non-governmental organizations to develop other languages for use in education and out-of-school literacy. This paper focuses on the work of one such organization. It reports on a project this organization is undertaking to revive the language and culture of the Wayeyi people in North Western, and Central Botswana. It gives findings on attitudes towards Shiyeyi as a language of instruction for literacy and shows how the preference expressed for Shiyeyi has great potential for a literacy program.
In response to rising anti-Semitism worldwide, including in some of the strongest democracies, the U.S. Congress passed the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act of 2004. On October 16, 2004, President George W. Bush signed the legislation into law (Public Law 108-332). The Act requires the U.S. Department of State to document and combat acts of anti-Semitism globally. To advance these goals, the Act mandated a one-time report on anti-Semitic acts, which the U.S. Department of State submitted to the U.S. Congress in January 2005. The Act also established within the U.S. Department of State an Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism. On May 22, 2006, Gregg Rickman was sworn in by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as the first Special Envoy.The U.S. Department of State’s January 2005 Report on Global Anti-Semitism surveyed anti-Semitic incidents throughout the world. The annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices and the annual Report on International Religious Freedom include country-by-country assessments of the nature and extent of acts of anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic incitement. The Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism contributes to the anti-Semitism sections of these annual surveys, pursuant to the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act. Both reports have revealed that incidents of anti-Semitism have become more frequent in recent years. Consistent with the U.S. Department of State’s commitment to assess and counter anti-Semitism, this report is provided to the U.S. Congress to further assess contemporary anti-Semitism by exploring anti-Semitic themes and practices. This report is meant to be used as a resource for increasing understanding of and informing public discourse about contemporary forms of anti-Semitism and for shaping policies to combat anti-Semitism worldwide.
Moreno noted a similarity between a late 18th Century play by the great German scholar and artist, Goethe, and some elements of psychodrama, which can be substantiated; however, Goethe was not, as Moreno suggested, an early promoter of spontaneity. The similarities and contrasts between these two men are intriguing.
The present work reports two experiments on brain electric correlates of cognitive and emotional functions. (1) Studying paranormal belief, 35-channel resting EEG (10 believers and 13 skeptics) was analyzed with "Low Resolution Electromagnetic Tomography" (LORETA) in seven frequency bands. LORETA gravity centers of all bands shifted to the left in believers vs. sceptics, and showed that believers had stronger left fronto-temporo-parietal activity than skeptics. Self-rating of affective attitude showed believers to be less negative than skeptics. The observed EEG lateralization agreed with the ‘valence hypothesis’ that posits predominant left hemispheric processing for positive emotions. (2) Studying emotions, positive and negative emotion words were presented to 21 subjects while "Event-Related Potentials" (ERPs) were recorded. During word presentation (450 ms), 13 microstates (steps of information processing) were identified. Three microstates showed different potential maps for positive vs. negative words; LORETA functional imaging showed stronger activity in microstate #4 (106-122 ms) for positive words right anterior, for negative words left central; in #6 (138-166 ms) for positive words left anterior, for negative words left posterior; in #7 (166-198 ms), for positive words right anterior, for negative words right central. In conclusion: during word processing, the extraction of emotion content starts as early as 106 ms after stimulus onset; the brain identifies emotion content repeatedly in three separate, brief microstate epochs; and, this processing of emotion content in the three microstates involves different brain mechanisms to represent the distinction positive vs. negative valence.
The thesis is a study of the Jewish community of Leipzig, Germany over the course of the 20 th century. It begins with an overview of the Jews of the city until the rise to power of Adolf Hitler, emphasizing divisions with the Jewish community over the ideology of Zionism and between German-born and foreign-born Jews. It goes on to describe the lives of Jews as the Nazis come to state authority, the riots of November, 1938, and the gradual exclusion of Jews from professional and pubic life in the city. Jewish responses in education, politics and culture are examined, as are the decisions of many local people to emigrate. After the 1938 riots, exclusion began to shift to extermination, and the Jewish community found itself subject to deportation to camps in Eastern Europe. Most of those deported were murdered. Those who lived were able to do so because of good fortune, canny survival skills, or marriage to non-Jews. Jewish life, which had been an important part of the city, was systematically destroyed. After 1945, those few who survived in the city were joined by another handful of Jewish Leipzigers who survived the camps, and by some non-Leipzig Jews, to reform the Jewish community. A tiny percentage of the old Jewish world of Leipzig was left to rebuild. They did so, reestablishing institutions, reclaiming property, and beginning negotiations with the new authorities, the Soviet occupation and then the German Democratic Republic. The Jews of Leipzig continued some of their old concerns in this new world, negotiating with the government and among themselves the nature of their identities as Jews and as Germans. These negotiations were brought to a halt by a series of anti-Semitic purges in 1952 and 1953. The leadership of the Jewish community fled, as did many of their fellow-Jews. The behavior of the East German state at this point showed some surprising commonality with their Nazi predecessors. After the purges were over, those who remained began another process of rebuilding, this time in constant tension with a government that wanted to use them for propaganda purposes during the Cold War. With the fall of the communist regime in 1989-90, the Jewish community of Leipzig was able to chart its destiny again. The old issues of identity and community--among themselves and between Jews and their German neighbors--continue in a very different context.
Not your day to die
(1995)
Harman Dahl's legacy
(2001)
It was midnight on Friday 31, December 1999. Harman Dahl fell off his seat at the sound of all hell letting loose around him. He held on to the bench on which he had dozed off and wobbled onto his feet. His senses returned, even though he was still tipsy, under the influence of alcohol. He had been drinking with colleagues for most of the day. ...
The report that follows gives the results of tests to deterrnine the compressive strength of artificial roof supports of various kinds used in the mining of anthracite in Pennsylvania. Some of the types tested also are used in bituminous coal mining in Pennsylvania and other parts of the United States. The report was rendered Bebruary 26, 1913, by the United States Bureau of Mines, then in the Interior Department, to the Pennsylvania State Anthracite Mine Cave Commission and was appended, without discussion, to the general report on mine caving made by that commission under date of March 1, 19 13, to the Governor and Legislature of Pennsylvanin. The commission's reporh remains unpublished. As numerous requests have been made for the test data obtained by the Bureau of Mines at its Pittsburgh Experiment Station in 1912-13 and as the data relate to the strength of artificial supports without reference to particular local places of application, they have permanent value in the designing of mine roof supports. It has therefore been deemed advisable to publish the results of the bureau's tests. In order that the reader may understand the reasons for makig these tests of roof supports and the procedure foIIowed by the Pennsylvania commission, its duties will be briefly described. The commission was created by an act of the Legislature of Pennsylvania, approved March 24, 1911, its members being appointed by the Governor of Pennsylvania under the terms of the act. There had been serious cave-ins of the surface in some of the cities and towns in the anthracite districts of Pennsylvania and particularly in the city of Scranton froin 1909 to 1911, destroying surface buildings, public and private, and seriously endangering life. ....
The paper focuses on business negotiation in settings in which participants from different mothertongue backgrounds choose French, English andfor German as one of their languages of communication. A general scheme of the action-pattem of buying and selling will be sketched out which allows us to analyze specific Courses of verbal actions according ta their communicative functions within the negotiation process. In particular, the discourse of business communication is to be specified as a decision making process on the part of the buyer which is executed in a step-by-step order, and which is Open to the application of a bundle of the seller's strategies, tactics, and communicative techniques. In international negotiations, effects of unobserved miscommunication are, among others, far-stretched communicative circles, prolongation of negotiation time, non-functional explanations and several other repetitive structures. 1. Languages of trade and commerce - languages of communication 2. Communication in a Buy-Sell-Context is patterned 2.1. Entering the Pattern 2.2. The Main Phase 2.3. The Bidding Phase 2.4. The Specifc Conditions 2.5. Negotiating the Contract 3. The Central Point 3.1. The Buyer's Decision-Making Process 3.2 Decision-Making and Role-Playing 3.3. Intercultural Difference of the Decision-Making Process 4. Bridging the Buyer's Gap of Knowledge 5. The Language of Trade and Commerce 6. The Needs of Further Research: Data References
The present work deals with the problem of the essential factor regulating the wing-stroke frequency in some insects in wing mutilation and loading experiments and in subatmospheric air pressure experiments. The diverse opinions concerning this factor, appearing in the literature, are reviewed. As appears in this review, one of two factors, the inertia of the wings or the resistance of the gas medium, is claimed to be the main regulator of the wingstroke frequency. Therefore two series of experiments have been performed. In the first series the correlation between the moment oi inertia of the wings and the wing-stroke frequency is examined. The wings are mutilated by cutting them transversely, longitudinally or obliquely or loaded with a drop of collodion. It is found that (1) the wing-stroke frequency is proportional to the -0.35th power of the moment of inertia of the wings, that (2) this applies to both mutilation and loading experiments, that (3) it makes no difference whether the procedures are equal or unequal on both sides or only one-sided, and that (4) the frequency tends not to rise above a certain lirnit in mutilation experiments. In the second series of experiments the correlation between the pressure of the gas medium and the wing-stroke frequency is examined. It is found that the effect of pressure varies greatly in different insects and may even be totally absent. The wing-stroke frequency is proportional to (pressure) exp 0 to (pressure) exp -0.25. The degree of the effect is found to depend on the size and the wing-stroke frequency of the insect; the effect is absent in big insects with a medium or high frequency, and more or less present in insects with a small size or with a low frequency. The results are discussed. A theory is constructed using well established physical concepts by considering the wings as acting simultaneously as bodies performing simple harmonic rotary motion and as paddles working against the air. It is assumed that the kinetic energy is destroyed after each single stroke. By making this assumption, the frequency in the energy equation is found to be, within a constant rate of energy output, proportional to the -0.33rd power of the moment of inertia of the wings, and thus agrees very well with the correlation between these factors found experimentally. Further it is found that the aerodynamic work of the wings is in most cases very much smaller than the work done in overcoming the effect of the inertia of the wings. It is negligible in big insects with, a medium or high frequency, but more or less significant in insects with a small size or a low frequency. The magnitude of this effect thus depends, in theory, on the size and the wing-stroke frequency, which entirely agrees with the effect of atmospheric pressure found experirnentally. The inferences drawn from this theory show that (1) the energy economy in a big insect is very wasteful, that (2) the rate of energy output is not greatly varied, that (3) it is profitable for the insect to vary the aerodynamic work of the wings by altering the amplitude rather than the frequency of the stroke, that (4) the distribution of energy in flight is delicately balanced, and that (5) the frequency must be low and the amplitude large in insects of great size and weight, and that a very high frequency and a small amplitude can be afforded only by small insects. Many such observations as have been made in nature agree with these inferences. Furthermore, (6) attempts are made to calculate the muscle efficiency in some insects on the basis of the theory. In Appendix I, the technique used to check and eliminate some sources of error in the methods is described, in Appendix II, an application of tlie theory to derive a law between the wing-stroke frequency and the morphological properties of insects is attempted, and in Appendix III, some laws relating different morphological properties of the wings of insects are described.
The present publication is intended to be a monograph on the family of Burmanniaceae. It is divided into three parts: General Part, Critical Part and Taxonomical Part. The first part, General Part, contains general remarks on the taxonomy, distribution and use of the family. The second part, Critical Part, contains general and geobotanical remarks on the genera of the family, whereas the third part, the Taxonomical Part, gives the determination keys to the tribes, subtribes, genera, sections, subsections and species, the description of these groups with literature, distribution and the indications of the types. New varieties, species and larger groups are described in the taxonomical part in foot-notes.
This thesis exhibits skeins based on the Homfly polynomial and their relations to Schur functions. The closures of skein-theoretic idempotents of the Hecke algebra are shown to be specializations of Schur functions. This result is applied to the calculation of the Homfly polynomial of the decorated Hopf link. A closed formula for these Homfly polynomials is given. Furthermore, the specialization of the variables to roots of unity is considered. The techniques are skein theory on the one side, and the theory of symmetric functions in the formulation of Schur functions on the other side. Many previously known results have been proved here by only using skein theory and without using knowledge about quantum groups.
Epstein and Penner constructed in [EP88] the Euclidean decomposition of a non-compact hyperbolic n-manifold of finite volume for a choice of cusps, n >= 2. The manifold is cut along geodesic hyperplanes into hyperbolic ideal convex polyhedra. The intersection of the cusps with the Euclidean decomposition determined by them turns out to be rather simple as stated in Theorem 2.2. A dual decomposition resulting from the expansion of the cusps was already mentioned in [EP88]. These two dual hyperbolic decompositions of the manifold induce two dual decompositions in the Euclidean structure of the cusp sections. This observation leads in Theorems 5.1 and 5.2 to easily computable, necessary conditions for an arbitrary ideal polyhedral decomposition of the manifold to be a Euclidean decomposition.
Anomalous monism and mental causality : on the debate of Donald Davidson’s philosophy of the mental
(2004)
The English version of the first chapter of Erwin Rogler and Gerhard Preyer: Materialismus, anomaler Monismus und mentale Kausalität. Zur gegenwärtigen Philosophie des Mentalen bei Donald Davidson und David Lewis (2001) "Anomaler Monismus und Mentale Kausalität. Ein Beitrag zur Debatte über Donald Davidsons Philosophie des Mentalen" is a contribution to the current debates on the philosophy of the mental and mental causality initiated from Donald Davidson's philosophy with his article "Mental Events" (1970). It is the intent of the English version to give a response to the controversy among American, British and Australian philosophers in the context of a global exchange of ideas on problems understanding the mental. Contents 1. Preliminary Remarks 2. The Critique of Property-Epiphenomenalism and Counterarguments (a) The Enlargement of Nomological Reasoning (b) The Counterfactual Analysis (c) Supervenient Causality 3. Are Mental Properties real or unreal (fictive)? Abstract Things and events are fundamental entities in Davidson's ontology. Less distinct is the ontological status of properties, especially of mental types. Despite of some eliminative allusions there are weighty reasons to understand Davidson's philosophy of mind as including intentional realism. With it, the question of mental causality arises. There are two striking solutions to this problem: the epiphenomenalism of mental properties and the downward causation of mental events. Davidson cannot accept either. He claims to justify the mental as supervenient causality in order to thus integrate it into physicalism (his version of monism). But his argument at best proves the explanatory, not the causal relevance of mental properties. For this and for other reasons, Davidson fails the aspired synthesis of a sufficiently strong physicalism and the autonomy of the mental; a project whose realization is anyhow hard to achieve.
By most Western Europeans Cyprus is probably perceived as a tourist resort rather than a technologically highly developed country. Interested German visitors are informed by the travel brochure published by the Republic of Cyprus' tourist office that "in the villages old customs and traditions still exist" (Zypern. 9000 Jahre Geschichte und Kultur 1997, 11). Pictures of places of antiquity, churches, monasteries, fortresses, archaic villages and of people engaged in agricultural work and crafts convey the image of a traditional Mediterranean society. However, the Republic of Cyprus is a rapidly modernising country. It has developed recently "from a poor agrarian into a high-income service economy" (Christodoulou 1995, 11) and "radical transformation processes" are observed (cf. ibid., 18). The forthcoming accession to the European Union additionally accelerates the pace of these transformation processes. Due to its position on the extreme rim of Europe in the Eastern Mediterranean region at the crossroads of three continents, the island is perceived both as marginal (cf. Pace 1999) and as a link between Europe and the Asian and African continents (cf. Kasoulides 1999). Cyprus is conceptualised for the future as a centre and intersection: as regional hub of the modern capital market, as communications and trade centre in the Eastern Mediterranean, as "telecommunications hub for the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East region", as "international services centre". The Republic of Cyprus has a highly developed telecommunications infrastructure, which is the basic prerequisite for the conversion into such a centre and is one of the most important factors for the economic competitiveness of Cyprus. The global nature of communication platforms today, especially the Internet, is regarded as the key to the integration of Cyprus into the world economy. By implementing information technologies and promoting necessary expertise, economic progress and modernisation of the country as well as its global competitiveness is assumed to be guaranteed. Investments in the information technology infrastructure are regarded as essential for the development of Cyprus, fostering the implementation of the information society. This aim and the necessary implementation measures feature increasingly on the agendas of scientific and economic conferences and symposia in Cyprus.
The botanical exploration of Eastern Asia by European travellers and botanists has for a long time attracted the author's attention, and the greater part of the materials for the present work were brought together, many years ago, from various sources of information, frequently unprinted, some of which were only obtainable in China. ...
The formation of vegetable mould : through the action of worms with observations on their habits
(1881)
Illustrations of the British flora : a series of wood engravings with dissections of British plants
(1924)
The illustrations contained in this volume were drawn, with the few exceptions presently referred to, by W. H. Fitch, F.L.S., for the original illustrated edition of Bentham's "Handbook of the British Flora." Since that edition was exhausted they have been issued separately, forming a companion volume to the "Handbook" and to other general, county and local Floras. Additional drawings by W. G. Smith, F.L.S., and others, have been incorporated from time to time illustrating additions to the Flora. The arrangement in the present edition follows that of the latest edition of Bentham's "Handbook."
This review is a summary of my work (partially in collaboration with Kurt Schoenhammer) on higher-dimensional bosonization during the years 1994-1996. It has been published as a book entitled "Bosonization of interacting fermions in arbitrary dimensions" by Springer Verlag (Lecture Notes in Physics m48, Springer, Berlin, 1997). I have NOT revised this review, so that there is no reference to the literature after 1996. However, the basic ideas underlying the functional bosonization approach outlined in this review are still valid today.
This dissertation investigates developments in the performance of J. S. Bach’s music in the second half of the 20th century, as reflected in recordings of the Mass in B Minor, BWV 232. It places particular emphasis on issues relating to concepts of expression through performance. Between the 1950s and the 1980s, most Bach performers shared a partial consensus as to what constitutes expression in performance (e.g., intense sound; wide dynamic range; rubato). Arguments against the application of such techniques to Bach’s works were often linked with the view that his music is more “objective” than later repertoires; or, alternatively, that expressive elements in Bach’s music are self-sufficient, and should be not be intensified in performance. Historically-informed performance (HIP), from the late 1960s onwards, has been characterised by greater attention to the inflection of local details (i.e., individual figures and motifs). In terms of expressive intensity, this led to contradictory results. On the one hand, several HIP performances were characterised by a narrow overall dynamic range, light textures, fast tempi and few contrasts; these performances were often considered lightweight. On the other hand, HIP also promoted renewed interest in the practical application of Baroque theories of musical rhetoric, inspiring performances which projected varied intensity within movements. More recently, traditional means of expression have enjoyed renewed prominence. Ostensibly “romantic” features such as broad legati, long-range crescendi and diminuendi, and organic shaping of movements as wholes have been increasingly adopted by HIP musicians. In order to substantiate the narrative outlined above, the significance of the evidence preserved in sound recordings had to be checked against other sources of information. This dissertation is divided into two main parts. The first part focuses on specific “schools” of prominent Bach performers. Complete recordings of the Mass are examined in relation to the biographical and intellectual backgrounds of the main representatives of these schools, their verbally-expressed views on Bach’s music and on their own role as performers, and their style as documented in recordings of other works. The second part examines the performance history of specific movements within the Mass, comparing the interpretations preserved in sound recordings with relevant verbal analyses and commentaries. The dissertation as a whole therefore combines the resources of reception and performance studies. Beyond its specific historical conclusions concerning Bach performance in the post-war era, it also provides specific insights into Bach’s music, its meaning and its role in contemporary culture.
Plural semantics for natural language understanding : a computational proof-theoretic approach
(2005)
The semantics of natural language plurals poses a number of intricate problems – both from a formal and a computational perspective. In this thesis I investigate problems of representing, disambiguating and reasoning with plurals from a computational perspective. The work defines a computationally suitable representation for important plural constructions, proposes a tractable resolution algorithm for semantic plural ambiguities, and integrates an automatic reasoning component for plurals. My solution combines insights from formal semantics, computational linguistics and automated theorem proving and is based on the following main ideas. Whereas many existing approaches to plural semantics work on a model-theoretic basis using higher-order representation languages I propose a proof-theoretic approach to plural semantics based on a flat firstorder semantic representation language thus showing that a trade-off between expressive power and logical tractability can be found. The problem of automatic disambiguation of plurals is tackled by a deliberate decision to drastically reduce recourse to contextual knowledge for disambiguation but rely instead on structurally available and thus computationally manageable information. A further central aspect of the solution lies in carefully drawing the borderline between real ambiguity and mere indeterminacy in the interpretation of plural noun phrases. As a practical result of my computational proof-theoretic approach to plural semantics I can use my methods to perform automated reasoning with plurals by applying advanced firstorder theorem provers and model-generators available off-the shelf. The results are prototypically implemented within the two logic-oriented natural language understanding applications DRoPs and Attempto. DRoPs provides an automatic plural disambiguation component for uncontrolled natural language whereas Attempto works with a constructive disambiguation strategy for controlled natural language. Both systems provide tools for the automated analysis of technical texts allowing users for example to automatically detect inconsistencies, to perform question answering, to check whether a conjecture follows from a text or to find equivalences and redundancies.
Eugene Aram : a tale
(1842)
In discussing final status issues, Palestinians and Israelis approach the question of the refugees and the right of return from radically different perspectives. The Palestinian narrative maintains that the Zionists forcibly expelled the Arab refugees in 1948. The Palestinians insist on the right of the refugees to return to their homes or, for those who choose not to do so, to accept compensation. And they demand that Israel unilaterally acknowledge its complete moral responsibility for the injustice of the refugees’ expulsion. In contrast, the Israeli narrative rejects the refugees’ right of return. Israel argues that it was the Arabs who caused the Palestinian refugee problem, by rejecting the creation of the State of Israel and declaring war upon it—a war which, like most wars, created refugee problems, including a Jewish one. Israel sees the return of Palestinian refugees as an existential threat, insofar as it would undermine the Jewish character and the viability of the state. The two sides’ traditional solutions make no attempt to reconcile these opposing narratives. Yet such an attempt is vital if the issue is to be engaged. Hence the Joint Working Group on Israeli–Palestinian Relations developed two compromise solutions. They narrow the gap between the positions, but do not fully reconcile them. The compromise solution espoused by the Palestinian members of the Joint Working Group would insist that Israel acknowledge both its responsibility for creating the refugee problem and the individual moral right of Palestinian refugees to return. But it recognizes that, in view of the changed situation of the refugees over 50 years, and taking into account Israel’s constraints, the return of only a limited number would be feasible. Israel would pay both individual and collective compensation. The Palestinians’ case for an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders would be strengthened as a result of their willingness to absorb the refugees in the Palestinian state. Under the compromise solution proposed by the Israeli members of the Joint Working Group, Israel would acknowledge that it shares, with the other parties to the 1948 war, practical, but not moral, responsibility for the suffering of the refugees, and that rectification of their plight is a central goal of the peace process. Israel would accept repatriation of tens of thousands of refugees under its family reunification program. Israel would pay collective compensation to the Palestinian state, paralleled by Arab State compensation for Jewish refugees from 1948. In seeking to further reconcile these two compromise solutions, we note that they reflect a large measure of agreement between Palestinians and Israelis: that Israel had a historic role in the events that created the refugee issue; that a massive exercise of the right of return is unrealizable, and “return”/family reunification will be limited; that a larger number of Palestinians will “return” to the Palestinian state; that some resettlement will take place in host states, primarily Jordan; that Israel will pay some form of compensation; and that closing the file on the refugee issue means the dismantling of the entire international apparatus that has sustained the refugees—camps, UNRWA, etc. But there remain significant gaps between the two sides’ compromise proposals as well. These concern the nature of Israeli acknowledgement of Palestinian suffering and the responsibility for it; the nature and number of “return”/family reunification; the nature and size of compensation, and its linkage to compensation for Jewish refugees from 1948; and the size of “return” to the Palestinian state. In order to negotiate an agreed solution that bridges these remaining gaps, Israelis and Palestinians will have to develop the mutual trust required to further accommodate each other’s narratives. They will also, inevitably, have to factor the refugee/right of return issue into the broader fabric of tradeoffs and compromises that will characterize a comprehensive solution to the conflict. This will involve additional parties—primarily the refugee host countries—as well as related substantive issues, such as borders.
Lavater was admired and detested for his unconventional approach to theology and his rediscovery of physiognomy. He was an avid communicator and through his correspondence became known to almost all leading personalities of eighteenth century Europe, such as Goethe, Wieland and Rousseau. The more than 21,000 letters in Lavater's estate in the Zentralbibliothek Zürich display the enormous thematic variety produced during a remarkable forty years of correspondence. This unique source material is now being published for the first time. IDC Publishers makes this collection available for research to such various disciplines as theology, history, literature, arts, humanities and above all, the history of eighteenth century culture. Scope: * 9,121 letters from Lavater * 12,302 letters to Lavater * 1,850 correspondents