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Expectations in the history of consumption, c.1500 to the present
Full text linkExpectations play a crucial role in modern consumer societies as drivers of demand. In the now vast historical literature on consumption, however, expectations tend to be taken for granted. Rather than starting with individual expectations, this chapter examines the changing socio-economic, political and cultural contexts which has nurtured and steered expectations for rising consumption. It discusses the formative influence of novelty and fashion, before turning to the role of credit and welfare regimes. A final section turns to the material world and “built-in” expectations in housing and infrastructures. The history of consumption, it is argued, has been marked by a profound dialectic between an expectation of infinite choice and variety, on the one hand, and one of normalisation and standardisation, on the other. This dialectic raises troubling questions for the agenda of “sustainable consumption”
Interaction between the Tethyan and Paleo‐Pacific tectonic domains in Southeast Asia: Late Triassic initiation of an inward‐dipping double subduction system
No full textInteraction between Tethys and the Paleo‐Pacific subduction zones in Southeast Asia during the Mesozoic remains poorly understood. Using new and published zircon U‐Pb and Hf data sets from Borneo (Paleo‐ Pacific domain) and Sumatra (Tethyan domain), we propose that isotopically juvenile magmatism was active on both sides of Sundaland due to the initiation of inward‐dipping double subduction during the latest Triassic when Indochina collided with Sibumasu, as evidenced by a pronounced positive shift in zircon εHf(t) values from both
Cenozoic sedimentary successions and Mesozoic magmatic rocks in Sumatra and Borneo. From the latest Triassic to Cretaceous, the contrasting positive εHf(t) values ranges between Borneo and Sumatra, with Borneo showing a broad range and Sumatra a narrower variability, imply that the inward‐dipping double subduction system evolved asymmetrically due to differences in slab dip angles between the subducting Meso‐Tethys and Paleo‐Pacific oceanic lithosphere. After 80 Ma, this asymmetric double subduction system was disrupted, marked by the complete cessation of arc magmatism in Borneo while isotopically juvenile magmatism continued on Sumatra. Our findings emphasize that, when compared to the contemporary single‐sided subduction system of the western Meso‐Tethyan domain and the northern Paleo‐Pacific domain, SE Asia developed more juvenile crust due to large‐scale upper plate extension driven by inward‐dipping double subduction
Testing quasiperiodicity
No full textA cover (or quasiperiod) of a string is a shorter string such that every position of is contained in some occurrence of as a substring. The notion of cover was introduced by Apostolico and Ehrenfeucht over 30 years ago [Theor.~Comput.~Sci.~1993] and it has received significant attention from the combinatorial pattern matching community. In this note, we show how to efficiently test whether admits a cover. We design an algorithm that, given , , \howfar \in \R^+, and oracle access to ,
uses \cO(q^3 \howfar^{-1}\log q ) letter queries to test whether has a cover of length at most or is \howfar-far from having such a cover. Our insights also lead to a simple streaming algorithm for short covers
A non-uniform view of craig interpolation in modal logics with linear frames
No full textNormal modal logics extending the logic K4.3 of linear transitive frames are known to lack the Craig interpolation property, except some logics of bounded depth such as S5. We turn this ‘negative’ fact into a research question and pursue a non-uniform approach to Craig interpolation by investigating the following interpolant existence prob- lem: decide whether there exists a Craig interpolant between two given formulas in any fixed logic above K4.3. Using a bisimulation-based characterisation of interpolant existence for descriptive frames, we show that this problem is decidable and coNP-complete for all finitely axiomatisable normal modal logics containing K4.3. It is thus not harder than entailment in these logics, which is in sharp contrast to other recent non-uniform interpolation results. We also extend our approach to Priorean temporal logics (with both past and future modalities) over the standard time flows—the integers, rationals, reals, and finite strict linear orders—none of which is blessed with the Craig interpolation property
Towards a reparatory theory of creolization
Full text linkThis article presents a transtemporal analysis of subsistence land cultivation in late eighteenth and
nineteenth-century Jamaica and British Guiana that unfolds into a reparatory theory of creolization. I examine
the transconjunctural, transcontinental tributaries and hybridisation of specific elements of Greek thought
and Islam through the Greek Arabic translation movement in‘Irāq from the mid-eighth century. I focus on the
sites where translations, counter-hegemonic political narratives and Ṣufism shaped one another. I then turn to
transdisciplinary academic cultures in Timbuktu from the fourteenth century. I discuss kaleidoscopic, end-
lessly retheorised ideas of humanness that coiled through these cultural spheres. I show how colonial taxo-
nomies and the contemporary systems of categorisation that descend from them erase these histories of
cultural invention. I then discuss how these syncretic cultural forms were creolized with other materials in
the Caribbean to produce practices of subsistence land cultivation, counter-taxonomies to modern racial
typologies of humans and subhumans and broader counter-cosmologies and how provision ground cultivation
was central to the formation of modern Britain. This analysis leads to an antinationalist, reparatory theory of
creolization during a conjuncture defined by new wars, ultranationalisms and internationalisms
Testing the gateway hypothesis between online gambling and gaming disorder through network analysis: a preliminary study
Full text linkResearchers have argued in favour of potential convergence between gambling and gaming since the early 90s, giving rise to the so-called ‘gateway hypothesis’. Despite several theoretical works supporting such hypothesis, particularly through in-game microtransactions as seen in contemporary video games, little empirical investigation has been carried out to date testing the ‘gateway hypothesis’ between online gambling and
disordered gaming. To achieve this goal, a sub-sample of gamblers and gamers (n = 553) from a larger online survey study has been examined. Participants filled out the Gaming Disorder Test (GDT) assessing disordered gaming and the four items of the online gambling factor from the specific internet-based problematic behaviours (s-IAT) assessing online disordered
gambling. A network analysis approach has been adopted to estimate the degree of empirical convergence between these two disorders. Overall, the results obtained indicated that ‘preoccupation’ in online gambling disorder and ‘loss of control’ in disordered gaming appear to be associated (r = .09). However, this association was not robust enough to fully corroborate the ‘gateway hypothesis’ between these two disorders. Further studies are needed to examine whether the ‘gateway hypothesis’ may be specific to online or offline gambling and gaming activities in the context of disordered usage
Towards automatic assessment of atypical early motor development?
Full text linkAtypical motor development is an early indicator for several neurodevelopmental conditions, including cerebral palsy and Rett Syndrome, prompting early diagnosis and intervention. While not currently part of the diagnostic criteria for other conditions like Autism Spectrum Disorder, the frequent retrospective diagnosis of motor impairments alongside these conditions highlights the necessity of a deeper understanding of the relations between motor and cognitive development. Traditional clinical assessments, while considered the gold standard, rely on movement characteristics discernible to the trained eye of professionals. The emergence of automated technologies, including computer vision and wearable sensors, promises more objective and scalable detections. However, these methods are not without challenges, including concerns over data quality, generalizability, interpretability, and ethics. By reviewing recent advances, we highlight the potential and the challenges of integrating automated detections into research and clinical practice. While we agree that these technologies can revolutionize pediatric care, we believe their use must be tempered with caution and supported by clinical expertise to ensure effective outcomes
The stress of prioritizing the future: using video diaries and interviews to understand the everyday pressures experiencedby adolescent girls
Full text linkEvidence suggests that adolescent girls are struggling in everyday life, possibly contributing to rising mental health difficulties in this group. A better understanding of their situation is required, yet accessing their daily lives is challenging. This study adopted a novel approach, combining Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis with mobile-phone video diaries to explore how adolescent girls experience and make sense of their everyday lives, with a particular focus on what matters most to them. Participants aged 16–17 recorded diaries for two-weeks and were interviewed about the areas identified. Three themes: Sacrificing now under the weight of the future, The future is coming frighteningly fast and I’m not ready to be an adult and Don’t relax: struggling with relentless pressure and worry, reveal anguish caused by constantly looking towards the future, bringing a new perspective to this area and highlighting the need to help adolescent girls create space and value in their lives
Aluminous phyllosilicates promote exceptional nanoscale preservation of biogeochemical heterogeneities in Archaean siliciclastic microbial mats
Full text linkExceptional preservation of biogeochemical complexity in the Precambrian is largely limited to cherts, phosphates and shales; however, ancient fossils, including microbial mats and microbially induced sedimentary structures, also occur, more rarely, in poorly sorted, coarse-grained siliciclastics. The precise micromechanics by which exceptional retention of organic microbial traces occur within such rocks over billion-year geological timescales remain poorly understood. Herein, we explore the micro–nano-scale characteristics of microbial mats preserved in ~2.9 billion-year-old sandstones from the Mosquito Creek Formation (Pilbara, Australia) using a suite of advanced spatially correlated microscopy and geochemistry techniques. We demonstrate that sedimentary horizons rich in K–Al-phyllosilicates exhibit exceptional and unexpected preservation of biogeochemical complexity despite the age and metamorphic grade of the sequence. We propose that authigenic phyllosilicates intercalated with microbial kerogen at the nanoscale promote the preservation of nanoscopic domains of poorly ordered amorphous and turbostratic carbonaceous materials through pressure compensation associated with the kaolinite–illite transition during burial diagenesis and metamorphism, impeding the maturation of organic materials. Elucidating organic preservation in coarse-grained siliciclastics opens new avenues for biosignature searches both in ancient Earth sequences and on Mars, where similar phyllosilicate-bearing sandstones have been collected by the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover for near-future sample return
Threshold queries in theory and in the wild
Full text linkThreshold queries are an important class of queries that only require computing or counting answers up to a specified threshold value. To the best of our knowledge, threshold queries have been largely disregarded in the research literature, which is surprising considering how common they are in practice. In this paper, we present a deep theoretical analysis of threshold query evaluation and show that thresholds can be used to significantly improve the asymptotic bounds of state-of-the-art query evaluation algorithms. We also empirically show that threshold queries are significant in practice. In surprising contrast to conventional wisdom, we found important scenarios in real-world data sets in which users are interested in computing the results of queries up to a certain threshold, independent of a ranking function that orders the query results
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