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Munich, 5th–7th October 2023, Conference Report
No full textThe conference »Literary Prize culture in the Nordic Countries. Prizes as Engines of Comparison« was held at the Ludwig-Maximillians-Universität in Munich between the 5th and 7th October 2023, fittingly coinciding with the
announcement of the Norwegian writer Jon Fosse as this year’s Nobel Prize winner. While the Swedish Nobel Prize is the best-known literary prize worldwide, receiving a massive amount of attention in the media each year, and research on the Nobel has been flourishing in recent times, the broader landscape of literary prizes in the Nordic countries has remained underexplored by scholars. The aim of the conference was to scrutinize the variety,
functions, and significance of literary prizes in this region and to bring the ecology of literary prizes into sharper focus.Conference "Literary Prize culture in the Nordic Countries. Prizes as Engines of Comparison", München, 5.-7.10.202
Madeleine C. Fombad, Collence Takaingenhamo Chisita, Omwoyo Bosire Onyancha und Mabel K. Minishi-Majanja (Hrsg.): Information Services for a Sustainable Society: Current Developments in an Era of Information Disorder. Berlin, Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2023. VII, 369 Seiten: Illustrationen, 129,00 €, ISBN 978-3-11-077268-5. Auch als PDF & EPUB
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Indicators of Global Climate Change 2023: annual update of key indicators of the state of the climate system and human influence
Get PDFIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments are the trusted source of scientific evidence for climate negotiations taking place under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Evidence-based decision-making needs to be informed by up-to-date and timely information on key indicators of the state of the climate system and of the human influence on the global climate system. However, successive IPCC reports are published at intervals of 5–10 years, creating potential for an information gap between report cycles.
We follow methods as close as possible to those used in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) Working Group One (WGI) report. We compile monitoring datasets to produce estimates for key climate indicators related to forcing of the climate system: emissions of greenhouse gases and short-lived climate forcers, greenhouse gas concentrations, radiative forcing, the Earth's energy imbalance, surface temperature changes, warming attributed to human activities, the remaining carbon budget, and estimates of global temperature extremes. The purpose of this effort, grounded in an open-data, open-science approach, is to make annually updated reliable global climate indicators available in the public domain (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11388387, Smith et al., 2024a). As they are traceable to IPCC report methods, they can be trusted by all parties involved in UNFCCC negotiations and help convey wider understanding of the latest knowledge of the climate system and its direction of travel.
The indicators show that, for the 2014–2023 decade average, observed warming was 1.19 [1.06 to 1.30] °C, of which 1.19 [1.0 to 1.4] °C was human-induced. For the single-year average, human-induced warming reached 1.31 [1.1 to 1.7] °C in 2023 relative to 1850–1900. The best estimate is below the 2023-observed warming record of 1.43 [1.32 to 1.53] °C, indicating a substantial contribution of internal variability in the 2023 record. Human-induced warming has been increasing at a rate that is unprecedented in the instrumental record, reaching 0.26 [0.2–0.4] °C per decade over 2014–2023. This high rate of warming is caused by a combination of net greenhouse gas emissions being at a persistent high of 53±5.4 Gt CO2e yr−1 over the last decade, as well as reductions in the strength of aerosol cooling. Despite this, there is evidence that the rate of increase in CO2 emissions over the last decade has slowed compared to the 2000s, and depending on societal choices, a continued series of these annual updates over the critical 2020s decade could track a change of direction for some of the indicators presented here.HORIZON EUROPE Framework ProgrammeH2020 European Research CouncilResearch Councils UKEngineering and Physical Sciences Research CouncilPeer Reviewe
Libraries: The Fifth Branch of Government?
Get PDFIn der schwedischen Debatte um eine Nationale Bibliotheksstrategie wird Bibliotheken teilweise zugeschrieben, sie seien eine Fünfte Staatsgewalt. Der Artikel untersucht die Genese dieser Formulierung und konstatiert, dass in der weiteren Diskussion von diesem aktivistischen Standpunkt wieder abgerückt wird und Bibliotheken letztlich doch wieder als passiv neoliberale Schatztruhen bezeichnet werden. Die Formulierung Fünfte Staatsgewalt nahm ihren Ausgangspunkt in der Feststellung einer allgemeine Demokratiekrise, weshalb diese unter dem Eindruck neuer Demokratietheorie näher beleuchtet wird. Es wird das Konzept der Gewaltenteilung von Montesquieu diskutiert und eine genauere Analyse des verbreiteten Konzepts der Vierten Gewalt vorgenommen. Beides bietet Differenzierungen, die helfen, Bibliothekspraktiken neu zu positionieren. Am Schluss werden vier Aspekte vorgestellt, die sich auf den Impetus der schwedischen Position beziehen lassen, Bibliotheken sollten auf die gesellschaftlichen Veränderungen aktiv reagieren. Als eigenständige Gewalt gehen Bibliotheken aus dieser Analyse jedoch nicht hervor.The article begins with the formulation that libraries are a fifth branch of government which emerged in the debate about a national library strategy in Sweden and examines its genesis. It notes that in the ensuing discussion this activist stance is abandoned, and libraries are once again described as passive neoliberal treasure chests. The formulation of the Fifth State Power emerged from the observation of a general crisis of democracy which is why it is examined more closely under the influence of new democratic theory. Montesquieu’s concept of the separation of powers is discussed, and the popular concept of the Fourth Estate is analysed in more detail. Both provide distinctions that help to reposition library practice. Finally, four aspects are presented that can be related to the impetus of the Swedish position, suggesting that libraries should actively respond to societal changes. However, libraries do not emerge from this analysis as an independent force.Peer Reviewe
Detection, Extraction and Analysis of Vossian Antonomasia in Large Text Corpora Using Machine Learning
Get PDFRhetorische Stilmittel, werden seit jeher in Texten verwendet, um Bilder zu erzeugen, Leser zu fesseln und wichtige Punkte hervorzuheben. Unter diesen Stilmitteln ist die Vossianische Antonomasie besonders für den Einsatz von Eigennamen als rhetorische Elemente beliebt. Genauer definiert beinhaltet die Vossianische Antonomasie, dass einem Eigennamen eine bestimmte Menge von Eigenschaften oder Attributen zugeordnet wird, indem ein anderer Eigenname, der für die entsprechenden Eigenschaften allgemein bekannt ist, genannt wird. Modifizierende Phrasen, die typischerweise in Kombination mit dem letztgenannten Eigennamen auftreten, helfen, diese Attribute zu kontextualisieren. Trotz ihrer Allgegenwärtigkeit in modernen Medien ist die Forschung zu ihrer Identifizierung, Verwendung und Interpretation selten. Dies motiviert das Thema dieser Arbeit: die automatische Erkennung, Extraktion und Analyse der Vossianischen Antonomasie.
Wir präsentieren mehrere Methoden zur automatisierten Erkennung des Phänomens und entwickeln einen annotierten Datensatz.
Die Methoden basieren zumeist auf neuronalen Netzen. Zusätzlich stellen wir verschiedene Ansätze zur Extraktion jedes Teils des Stilmittels in einem Satz vor. Darüber hinaus führen wir sprachübergreifende Extraktionsmodelle ein und verfeinern Erkennungsmethoden für eine verbesserte Leistung bei bisher unbekannten syntaktischen Variationen des Phänomens, indem wir uns ausschließlich auf den Schlüsseleigennamen des Stilmittels konzentrieren. Außerdem befassen wir uns mit einer anderen, aber ergänzenden Aufgabe, nämlich der Extraktion des zu beschreibenden Eigennamens in einem ganzen Textabsatz.
Für ein tieferes Verständnis der Vossianischen Antonomasie präsentieren wir eine explorative Analyse des entwickelten Datensatzes. Wir führen zwei interaktive Visualisierungen ein, die die einzelnen Teile des Phänomens und ihr Zusammenspiel hervorheben, um weitere Einblicke zu gewinnen.Stylistic devices, also known as figures of speech or rhetorical devices, have always been used in text to create imagery, engage readers, and emphasize key points. Among these devices, Vossian Antonomasia, which is closely related to metaphor and metonymy, is particularly popular for employing named entities as rhetorical elements. Defined more precisely, Vossian Antonomasia involves attributing a particular set of properties or attributes to an entity by naming another named entity that is generally well-known for the respective properties. Modifying phrases, which typically appear in combination with the latter entity, help contextualize these attributes. Despite its ubiquity in modern media, the research on its identification, usage, and interpretation is rare. This motivates the topic of this thesis: The automated detection, extraction and analysis of Vossian Antonomasia. We present several methods for the automated detection of the phenomenon and create an annotated dataset. Mostly, the methods are based on neural networks. Additionally, we introduce several approaches for extracting each chunk of the device in a sentence by modeling the problem as a sequence tagging task. Moreover, we introduce cross-lingual extraction models and refine detection methods for an improved performance on unseen syntactic variations of the phenomenon by focusing solely on the key entity of the device. Furthermore, we tackle a distinct but complementary task, namely, the extraction of the entity being described in an entire text paragraph. For a deeper understanding of Vossian Antonomasia, we present an exploratory analysis of the developed dataset. We introduce two interactive visualizations that highlight the chunks of the phenomenon and their interplay to gain more insights
Digitalization of agriculture for sustainable crop production: a use-case review
Get PDFThe digitalization of agriculture is rapidly changing the way farmers do business. With the integration of advanced technology, farmers are now able to increase efficiency, productivity, and precision in their operations. Digitalization allows for real-time monitoring and management of crops, leading to improved yields and reduced waste. This paper presents a review of some of the use cases that digitalization has made an impact in the automation of open-field and closed-field cultivations by means of collecting data about soils, crop growth, and microclimate, or by contributing to more accurate decisions about water usage and fertilizer application. The objective was to address some of the most recent technological advances that are leading to increased efficiency and sustainability of crop production, reduction in the use of inputs and environmental impacts, and releasing manual workforces from repetitive field tasks. The short discussions included at the end of each case study attempt to highlight the limitations and technological challenges toward successful implementations, as well as to introduce alternative solutions and methods that are rapidly evolving to offer a vast array of benefits for farmers by influencing cost-saving measures. This review concludes that despite the many benefits of digitalization, there are still a number of challenges that need to be overcome, including high costs, reliability, and scalability. Most of the available setups that are currently used for this purpose have been custom designed for specific tasks and are still too expensive to be implemented on commercial scales, while others are still in their early stages of development, making them not reliable or scalable for widespread acceptance and adoption by farmers. By providing a comprehensive understanding of the current state of digitalization in agriculture and its impact on sustainable crop production and food security, this review provides insights for policy-makers, industry stakeholders, and researchers working in this field.Peer Reviewe
The case of majority language anxiety in Germany
Get PDFThis paper examines how bilingual and monolingual German speakers’ language use reflects underlying linguistic ideologies. I present a corpus study on bilingual and monolingual German speakers, focusing on phonological, lexical, and discourse pragmatic features. The data suggest that bilingual speakers use more markers of formal language and fewer markers of informal language in formal communicative situations than monolingual speakers. I argue that this is due to monolingual ideologies and standard language ideologies, particularly influencing these formal settings in bilingual speakers. These ideological patterns may lead to linguistic pressure in bilingual speakers to align with the monolingual majority, a phenomenon related to majority language anxiety. Complementing the corpus analysis, semi-structured interviews with bilingual speakers provide personal insights, further illuminating how linguistic ideologies shape their linguistic choices and social experiences.Der Beitrag untersucht, wie der Sprachgebrauch von bilingualen und monolingualen deutschen Sprecher:innen zugrundeliegende sprachliche Ideologien widerspiegelt. Datengrundlage ist eine Korpusstudie mit bilingualen und monolingualen deutschen Sprecher:innen, die sich auf phonologische, lexikalische und diskurspragmatische Merkmale konzentriert. Die Daten deuten darauf hin, dass bilinguale Sprecher:innen in formalen Kommunikationssituationen mehr Marker formaler Sprache und weniger Marker informaler Sprache verwenden als monolinguale Sprecher:innen. Der Beitrag zeigt, dass diese Befunde durch monolinguale Ideologien und standardsprachliche Ideologien verursacht werden, die sich besonders auf bilingualen Sprecher:innen auswirken. Diese ideologischen Muster können bei bilingualen Sprecher:innen zu einem sprachlichen Druck führen, sich der monolingualen Mehrheit anzupassen, ein Phänomen, das mit “majority language anxiety” zusammenhängt. Semi-strukturierte Interviews mit bilingualen Sprecher:innen liefern zusätzliche persönliche Einblicke, die beleuchten, wie sprachliche Ideologien ihre Sprachpraktiken und sozialen Erfahrungen prägen.Peer Reviewe
Renormalization and the Double Copy of Effective Field Theories
Get PDFDas Standardmodell der Teilchenphysik kann als die Niedrigenergielimit einer allgemeineren effektiven Feldtheorie des Standardmodells (SMEFT) betrachtet werden, die die Dynamik möglicher ultraviolette Vervollständigung in Form von höherdimensionalen Operatoren erfasst. Der zugehörige Parameterbereich ist groß und beinhaltet komplexe Mischungsmuster unter dem Renormierungsgruppenfluss (RG fluss). Dies erfordert eine gute Kontrolle über die Theorie und die Entwicklung effizienter Rechenwerkzeuge. In dieser Arbeit untersuchen wir allgemeiner effektive Feldtheorien. Wir haben dieses Vorhaben in zwei zentrale Themen unterteilt. Im ersten Teil untersuchen wir die Renormierung skalarer effektiver Feldtheorien auf Mehrschleifenordnung und bis zu hohen Massendimensionen. Neben der Generierung vieler neuer perturbativen Daten analysieren wir die wiederkehrenden Muster in der RG-Mischung und den Operatorenbasen, die diese aufzeigen. Die von uns entwickelten Werkzeuge und getroffenen Schlussfolgerungen lassen sich auch auf andere Theorien, wie die SMEFT, übertragen.
Im zweiten Teil untersuchen wir die Erweiterung des Doppelkopierens (\emph{double copy}) auf effektive Feldtheorien auf Baum-Niveau. Das Doppelkopieren ist ursprünglich eine Beziehung zwischen den Amplituden der Yang--Mills-Theorie und der Gravitation und beruht auf einer nicht-trivialen Eigenschaft von Yang--Mills-Amplituden namens Farb-Kinematik-Dualität (\emph{color-kinematics duality}). Wir bewerten ihre Einschränkungen für höherdimensionale Operatoren und nutzen sie für die effiziente Erzeugung von Amplituden. Eines unserer Hauptergebnisse ist eine Reihe von Amplitudenrelationen, die höherdimensionale Korrekturen zur Yang--Mills-Theorie in Form von Bausteinen niedrigster Ordnung effizient codieren.The Standard Model of particle physics can be seen as the low energy limit of a more general Standard Model effective field theory (SMEFT), which captures the dynamics of possible ultraviolet completions in terms of higher-dimensional operators.
The associated parameter space is large and involves intricate mixing patterns under the renormalization group (RG) flow. This demands good control over the theory and the development of efficient computational tools. In this thesis we study effective field theories more generally. We have split this endeavor into two central themes. In Part I, we study the renormalization of scalar effective field theories at multi-loop order and up to high mass dimensions. Besides generating a lot of new perturbative data, we analyze the reoccurring patterns in the RG mixing and the operator bases that expose these. The tools we develop and conclusions we make extend to other theories, such as the SMEFT. In Part II, we study the extension of the double copy to effective field theories at tree level. The double copy is originally a relation between the amplitudes of Yang--Mills theory and gravity, and it relies on a non-trivial property of Yang--Mills amplitudes called the color-kinematics duality. We assess its restrictiveness for higher-dimensional operators, and we employ it for efficient amplitude generation. One of our main results is a set of amplitude relations which efficiently encode higher-derivative corrections to Yang--Mills theory in terms of lowest-order building blocks
In vitro assessment of the immunomodulatory effects of probiotic Bacillus strains on chicken PBMCs
Get PDFThe beneficial effects of feeding probiotic Bacillus subtilis DSM 32315 (BS) and Bacillus velezensis CECT 5940 (BV) to chickens in vivo are well-documented, with potential immune modulation as a key mechanism. In this study, we investigated the direct interactions of chicken peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) with BS or BV in vitro through whole transcriptome profiling and cytokine array analysis. Transcriptome profiling revealed 20 significantly differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in response to both Bacillus treatments, with twelve DEGs identified in BS-treated PBMCs and eight in BV-treated PBMCs. Pathway analysis using the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) indicated significant regulation of immune-related pathways by both BS and BV. Notably, BS treatment upregulated genes associated with immune cell surface markers (CD4, CD25, CD28), anti-inflammatory cytokine interleukin-10 (IL-10), and C-C motif chemokine ligand 5 (CCL5), while downregulating the gene encoding pro-inflammatory IL-16. BV treatment similarly affected genes associated with immune cell surface markers, IL-16, and CCL5, with no impact on the gene encoding IL-10. Both treatments induced higher expression of the gene encoding the avian β-defensin 1 (AvBD1). The results of this in vitro study indicate an immunomodulatory effect of BS and BV in chicken PBMCs by regulating genes involved in anti-inflammatory, bacteriostatic, protective, and pro-inflammatory responses. Consequently, BS and BV may serve to augment the immune system’s capacity to defend against infection by modulating immune responses and cytokine expression. Thus, the administration of these probiotics holds promise for reducing reliance on antimicrobials in farming practices.Peer Reviewe
On Politics & Emotion in Occidental Media Discourses
Get PDFDie hier vorgelegte kumulative Dissertation befasst sich mit der Frage des emotionalen
Sprachgebrauchs als Teil der öffentlichen politischen Kommunikation in abendländischen
Demokratien. Durch die Anwendung etablierter Erkenntnisse und Ansätze aus den Bereichen der affektiven Neurowissenschaften und der Neurolinguistik zu emotionalem Sprachgebrauch, wird versucht neue Perspektiven und Analysetechniken für die Sozial- und Politikwissenschaften herauszuarbeiten, die sich mit der rhetorischen Gestaltung und Funktion öffentlicher politischer Kommunikation befassen. Im Rahmen dieser Bemühungen habe ich einen sequenziellen Mixed-Methods-Ansatz entwickelt, eine neopragmatische Diskursanalyse (NPDA), die auf der bestehenden Methodologie der Pragmatischen Soziologie der Kritik (PSC) basiert. Diese Methode ermöglicht es, die Argumentationsstrategien und -muster von Akteuren abzuleiten und ihre Verwendung von hochgradig erregender emotionaler Sprache (via HAEWWörterbuch) nachzuzeichnen. In zwei separaten Fallstudien habe ich diesen neu entwickelten Ansatz angewendet, um (1) die US-Präsidentschaftswahlkämpfe 2016 von Trump und Clinton
zu analysieren sowie (2) öffentliche Reden britischer Parteiführer:innen der Conservative und
der Labour Party von 1900 bis 2019. Ich habe festgestellt, dass emotionale Sprache in der
gesamten untersuchten (politischen) Kommunikation vorkommt und dass sie hauptsächlich
eine Highlighter-Funktion in den Argumentationen der Akteure einnimmt. Politische
Kommunikation, als eine spezifische Ausformung menschlicher Kommunikation, scheint
immer ‚emotional‘ zu sein.This cumulative dissertation addresses the issues of emotive language use as part of
public political communication in occidental democracies. By applying established
findings and approaches from the fields of affective neuroscience and neurolinguistics on emotive language use, the here presented dissertation intends to offer new perspectives and analytical techniques for the social and political sciences, concerned with understanding the rhetorical design and function of public political communication. As part of these efforts, I developed a sequential mixed methods approach, a neopragmatist discourse analysis (NPDA), which is based on the existing methodology associated with the Pragmatic Sociology of Critique (PSC). This method allows for the deduction of actors’ argumentative strategies and patterns and to detect their use of highly arousing emotive language (via HAEW dictionary). In two separate case studies I applied this newly developed approach, analysing (1) the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaigns of Trump and Clinton as well as (2) public speeches of British party leaders from the Conservative and Labour Party from 1900 – 2019. I found that emotive language appeared throughout all analysed (political) communication and that it mainly served a highlighting function within actors’ argumentations. Political communication, as a specific form of human communication, seems to always be ‘emotional’