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Once upon a Prime: the wondrous connections between mathematics and literature
No full textWe often think of mathematics and literature as polar opposites. But what if, instead, they were fundamentally linked? In this insightful, laugh-out-loud funny book, Once Upon a Prime, Professor Sarah Hart shows us the myriad connections between maths and literature, and how understanding those connections can enhance our enjoyment of both.
Did you know, for instance, that Moby-Dick is full of sophisticated geometry? That James Joyce’s stream-of-consciousness novels are deliberately checkered with mathematical references? That George Eliot was obsessed with statistics? That Jurassic Park is undergirded by fractal patterns? That Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wrote mathematician characters?
From sonnets to fairytales to experimental French literature, Once Upon a Prime takes us on an unforgettable journey through the books we thought we knew, revealing new layers of beauty and wonder. Professor Hart shows how maths and literature are complementary parts of the same quest, to understand human life and our place in the universe
Science and exploration
Get PDFThe Wargo Award is given annually to scientists or engineers for integrating science and exploration throughout their careers. Here 2023 winner Ian Crawford pays tribute to his influences and sources of inspiration, and outlines his hopes for the future
Exhumation and topographic evolution of the Chiapas Massif Complex (southern Mexico) constrained by thermochronologic data modeling along vertical profiles
Get PDFThermochronometry is used to better understand the processes responsible for Cenozoic magmatism and exhumation of the Chiapas Massif Complex that spans a diffuse triple junction between the Caribbean, North American and Cocos plates. A combination of zircon U-Pb, apatite fission tracks, (U-Th)/He as well as numerical modeling show contrasting histories. Exhumation started earlier in the south (~16 Ma) relative to the north (~9 Ma). Northern exhumation is related to activity on the Tonal ́a fault system, while to the south it may be correlated with transpressive deformation in Chiapas fold-and-thrust belt. The southern block also experienced significant topographic growth from ~5 Ma to ~1 Ma followed by intense erosion. Overall, the pattern of uplift agrees with the ‘closing zipper’ model in which a forearc sliver is progressively incorporated to the North American plate. Thermal models also support a Pleistocene decrease in topography consistent with independent paleoenvironmental and geomorphologic evidence
Colocations of spatial clusters among different industries
Get PDFSpatial colocation have been studied in many contexts including locations of urban facilities, industry entities and businesses. However, identifying colocations among a small number of facilities and establishments holds the risk of introducing false positive in that such a spatial arrangement may have occurred by chance. To account for the association between a group of facilities that frequently colocate with each other, this study proposes a two-step approach consisting of identifying statistically significant clusters of each facility type using the False Discovery Rate (FDR) controlling procedure, and subsequently measuring the colocation of those clusters with the frequent-pattern-growth (FP-growth) algorithm. Empirical analysis of 6 million business and industrial establishments across Japan suggests that 10 out of 86 industry types form clear colocations and their colocations form a multi-layered, cascading structure. The number of layers in the multi-layered structure reflect the city size and the strength of the association between the colocated clusters of industries. These patterns illustrate the utility of detecting colocation of clusters towards understanding the agglomeration of different businesses. The proposed method can be applied to other contexts that would benefit from investigations into how different types of spatial features can be linked with each other and how they form colocations
The art of gathering: histories of international scientific conferences
Get PDFHundreds of thousands of conferences have taken place since their first appearance in the late eighteenth century, yet the history of science has often treated them as stages for scientific practice, not
as the play itself. Drawing on recent work in the history of science and of international relations, the introduction to this special issue suggests avenues for exploring the phenomenon of the inter- national scientific conference, broadly construed, by highlighting the connected dimensions of com- munication, sociability and international relations. It lays out a typology of scientific conferences as a way of gaining an overview of their diversity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It argues that the international scientific conference is a central locus for understanding science as a social, cultural and political practice
Out of the Darkness - The Germans, 1942-2022
No full textBook synopsis: In 1945, Germany lay in ruins, morally and materially. The German people stood condemned by history, responsible for a horrifying genocide and a war of extermination. But by 2015 Germany looked to many to be the moral voice of Europe, welcoming almost one million refugees. At the same time, it pursued a controversially rigid fiscal discipline and made energy deals with a dictator. Many people have asked how Germany descended into the darkness of the Nazis, but this book asks another vital question: how, and how far, have the Germans since reinvented themselves?
Trentmann tells the dramatic story of the Germans from the middle of the Second World War, through the Cold War and the division into East and West, to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunited nation's search for a place in the world. Their journey is marked by extraordinary moral struggles: guilt, shame and limited amends; wealth versus welfare; tolerance versus racism; compassion and complicity. Through a range of voices - German soldiers and German Jews; environmentalists and coal miners; families and churches; volunteers, migrants and populists - Trentmann paints a remarkable and surprising portrait over 80 years of the conflicted people at the centre of Europe
Using multi-modal neuroimaging to characterise social brain specialisation in infants
Get PDFThe specialised regional functionality of the mature human cortex partly emerges through experience-dependent specialisation during early development. Our existing understanding of functional specialisation in the infant brain is based on evidence from unitary imaging modalities and has thus focused on isolated estimates of spatial or temporal selectivity of neural or haemodynamic activation, giving an incomplete picture. We speculate that functional specialisation will be underpinned by better coordinated haemodynamic and metabolic changes in a broadly orchestrated physiological response. To enable researchers to track this process through development, we develop new tools that allow the simultaneous measurement of coordinated neural activity (EEG), metabolic rate and oxygenated blood supply (broadband near-infrared spectroscopy) in the awake infant. In 4-to-7-month-old infants, we use these new tools to show that social processing is accompanied by spatially and temporally specific increases in coupled activation in the temporal-parietal junction, a core hub region of the adult social brain. During non-social processing coupled activation decreased in the same region, indicating specificity to social processing. Coupling was strongest with high frequency brain activity (beta and gamma), consistent with the greater energetic requirements and more localised action of high frequency brain activity. The development of simultaneous multi-modal neural measures will enable future researchers to open new vistas in understanding functional specialisation of the brain
Cognitive impact of social virtual reality: audience and mere-presence effect of virtual companions
Get PDFSharing experiences with others is an important part of everyday life. Immersive virtual reality (IVR) promises to simulate these experiences. However, whether IVR elicits a similar level of social presence as measured in the real world is unclear. It is also uncertain whether AI-driven virtual humans (agents) can elicit a similar level of meaningful social co-presence as people-driven virtual-humans (avatars). The current study demonstrates that both virtual human types can elicit a cognitive impact on a social partner. The current experiment tested participants’ cognitive performance changes in the presence of virtual social partners by measuring the social facilitation effect (SFE). The SFE-related performance change can occur through either vigilance-based mechanisms related to other people’s co-presence (known as the mere presence effect: MPE) or reputation management mechanisms related to other people's monitoring (the audience effect: AE). In this study, we hypothesised AE and MPE as distinct mechanisms of eliciting SFE. Firstly, we predicted that, if head-mounted IVR can simulate sufficient co-presence, any social companion’s visual presence would elicit SFE through MPE. The results demonstrated that companion presence decreased participants' performance irrespective of whether AI or human-driven. Secondly, we predicted that monitoring by a human-driven, but not an AI-driven, companion would elicit SFE through AE. The results demonstrated that monitoring by a human-driven companion affected participant performance more than AI-driven, worsening performance marginally in accuracy and significantly in reaction times. We discuss how the current results explain the findings in prior SFE in virtual-world literature, and map out future considerations for social-IVR testing, such as participants virtual self-presence, and affordances of physical and IVR testing environment
Validity, reliability, and cross-cultural comparability of a problematic overstudying scale across European, North American, and Asian countries
Get PDFProblematic overstudying has been conceptualized as a potential addictive disorder and an early form of work addiction. Previous studies have shown that it is a different phenomenon from healthy learning engagement and is associated with considerable functional impairments. A valid, reliable, and convenient screening measure is warranted to provide cross-culturally comparable and generalizable findings, particularly from large epidemiological studies. The seven-item Bergen Study Addiction Scale (BStAS), based on an addiction framework, was administered alongside learning engagement and anxiety measures in a total sample of 5,884 university students from three continents and five countries: India, Norway, Poland, Portugal, and the United States. The modified five-item version of the scale showed measurement invariance across countries and between genders and allowed for meaningful cross-cultural and gender comparisons. Scores on the BStAS were positively associated with learning engagement, anxiety, and female gender across countries. Clinically significant anxiety levels occurred about 1.7 times more often among students who scored above the cutoff for study addiction. It is concluded that the five-item BStAS is a valid, reliable scale that can be used in different cultures and provides comparable and generalizable results. Future studies with the BStAS may provide greater insight into the nature of problematic overstudying
London’s ULEZ: where next for curbing emissions?
Get PDFIf opposition to ULEZ really did tip the Uxbridge by-election result, we should be surprised. Most voters drive compliant vehicles and might benefit from cleaner air. But the adversely-affected minority had loud voices, and opposition was mobilised against the very principle of road pricing, with substantial input from home counties Conservatives outside Greater London. It didn’t help that the scientific case for ULEZ is not straightforward, although it certainly exists. Especially when a lot of people are giving ‘don’t know’ responses to pollsters, public opinion may be swayed by noisy dissent
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