Greek Letters Research Articles

ДЕРЖАВНІ БОРГОВІ ІНСТРУМЕНТИ З ВБУДОВАНИМИ ДЕРИВАТИВАМИ В УКРАЇНІ: АНАЛІЗ РИЗИКІВ

This article identifies key risks that investors in Ukrainian dollar-linked government bonds face, namely model risk, currency risk, volatility risk, interest rate risk, time risk. Most of the open literature on the subject of Ukrainian dollar-linked government bonds concentrates on the risks to the issuer (risks to the government finance). As this instrument constitutes a significant part of state-owned banks’ portfolios, it is of high need to understand the risks from the investors’ standpoint. It is noted that other developing economies are known to issue dollar-linked debt securities, for example Brazil, which also experienced investors’ the lack of confidence in local currency. Studies concerning indexed debt securities in Ukraine and worldwide are analysed. This research points out the most important in terms of valuation and risks analysis characteristics of Ukrainian dollar-linked government bonds. Fair value of Ukrainian banks’ portfolios of dollar-linked government bonds is decomposed into the value of plain bond, intrinsic value of embedded option and time value of embedded option. Key components of model risk for investors are identified, namely input risk and assumption violation risk. Risk metrics (Greek letters) of banks’ portfolios in dollar-linked government bonds are computed and compared between investor banks based on Black-Scholes fremework. Based on risk metrics, it is concluded that Ukreximbank faces the highest time risk (relative to its regulatory capital), while Privatbank’s portfolio is the most sensitive to changes in US interest rates. It is highlighted that time risk cannot be diversified or hedged, which should be accounted for by banks. Methods for management of identified risks are proposed. Risk factors’ contributions to revaluation if dollar-linked government bonds portfolios of banks during the first year of full-scale russian invasion of Ukraine are computed and compared between banks. It is noted that for deeper analysis of investor banks’ risks one should consider banks’ open currency position and changes in the costs and volume of funding.

Whatever You Bestow on Him, You Will Bestow on Me: Key Motifs of Early Byzantine Letters of Recommendation

The letter of recommendation was known in Antiquity as a separate genre of letter writing for which a certain set of compositional techniques and formulae were developed. In Byzantium, too, the letter of recommendation was in great demand: letters in which the author presents his protégé to the addressee and, as a rule, asks him to perform something for him are not difficult to find in the epistolary collections of many authors from the 4th to the 15th century. Meanwhile, while the ancient letter of recommendation is well studied, the etiquette of this genre in the Byzantine tradition has hardly been investigated yet. The purpose of this piece is to characterize the etiquette norms of Greek letter of recommendation in the early Byzantine period (4th — early 7th centuries). The subject of the study are, first of all, literarische Privatbriefe, belonging to Libanius, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, John Chrysostom, Synesius of Cyrene, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Procopius of Gaza and others, but also private papyrus letters. Their analysis leads to the conclusion that there is a wide variability of the canons of the letter of recommendation, the absence of any rigid scheme that presupposes a clear sequence of structural elements. At the same time, it reveals six recurrent etiquette motifs, all of which are subordinated to a single goal — to persuade the addressee to patronize the recommended person. These motifs are analyzed in detail, and stable formulas are indicated for some of them. An attempt is made to determine to what extent the canons of Greek letters of recommendation of the 4th–7th centuries go back to the ancient tradition. The letters of recommendation of Cicero and Pliny the Younger, as well as letters preserved on late antique papyri, are used as material for comparative analysis.

Symbols of Faith in the Mosaic Floors of the Newly Discovered Ecclesiastical Complex at Ashdod Maritima, Israel

An ecclesiastical complex has recently been discovered in Ashdod Maritima – ancient Azotus. The site was excavated in 2019 and 2021. The complex includes a basilica, several rooms, and a chapel on the north side, all decorated with mosaic pavements. A mixed trend comes to light in the mosaics: on the one hand, there is a continuation of the geometric and vegetal compositions and motifs that originated in the Roman world and continued into the Byzantine period. On the other hand, the complex is unique in the many symbols of faith that appear, scattered throughout its parts. All types of crosses are depicted; a medallion with a Greek cross accompanied by the Greek letters iota-chi, and alpha and omega; a medallion with a Latin cross standing on Golgotha Hill with the Greek letters iota-chi and alpha and omega; a large Latin cross standing on Golgotha Hill with two large Greek crosses between its arms; and a medallion with a quote from Psalms. The complex is exceptional in the large number of crosses, the names of the bishops, priest, deacon, and deaconesses who were involved in the construction and decoration or were buried in the complex, and the large number of dated inscriptions.

Trade, literacy and documentary histories of the northern Black Sea

AbstractThe northern coast of the Black Sea has produced an abundance of documentary texts dating from the sixth through fourth centuries BC. Of great value to the epigraphist and historian are dozens of Greek letters, receipts and curses inscribed on lead and ceramic media. When placed in dialogue with one another, these texts yield new insights into daily life and literacy in communities for which literary sources are scant or absent. They document the bustling trade in saltfish, enslaved persons and textiles, and the web of relations between Greek and non-Greek individuals in north Pontic cities, from marriage to commercial ties with indigenous groups of the Pontic interior. This article demonstrates how trade could drive literacy in non-elite communities of the northern Black Sea. Literacy and mercantile activity were very much entwined, and developed in parallel with one another and with other civic and social institutions within these port communities.

(245–248) Proposals regarding rank‐denoting terms (Articles 6, 21, 24 and 32)

(245–248) Proposals regarding rank‐denoting terms (Articles 6, 21, 24 and 32)

The Hybrid Origin of Brāhmī Script from Aramaic, Phoenician and Greek Letters

The origins of Brāhmī script have been mired in controversy for over a century since the Semitic model was first proposed by Albrecht Weber in 1856. Although Aramaic has remained the leading candidate for the source of Brāhmī, no scholar has adequately explained a letter by letter derivation, nor accounted for the marked differences between Aramaic, Kharoṣṭhīand Brāhmī scripts. As a result, the debate is far from settled. In this article I attempt to finally answer the vexed questions that have plagued scholars for over a century, regarding the exact origins of Brāhmī, through a comparative letter by letter analysis with other Semitic origin scripts. I argue that Brāhmī was not derived from a single script, but instead was a hybrid invention by Indian scholars from Aramaic, Phoenician and Greek letters provided by a western Semitic trader.

History and Future Directions of rTMS for Treatment of Depressive Disorders

History and Future Directions of rTMS for Treatment of Depressive Disorders

Covid-19 and the politics of hope: A comparative analysis of Greek and Ecuadorian letters from a desired post-pandemic future

Covid-19 forced changes in everyday life upon large sections of the world’s population, with lockdowns and social distancing measures effecting conditions of work and leisure for billions of people. In this context our research created a space in which people living in countries in Europe, North and South America, Asia, and Africa were invited to imagine what the future could look like – beyond the pandemic – by writing a Letter from the Future. In this paper we examine what these letters show about one particular relationship between the present and the future: a relationship of hope. In the context of major crises, and the complex experiences of loss they involve, the possibilities for hope becomes an urgent issue. We analyse a selection of responses from participants between 18 and 35 years-old, from Ecuador and Greece, to address two questions: (1) Do these letters express hope? (2) If so, in what ways is this hope political? Our answers to these questions have implications for understanding the nature, possibilities and politics of hope at times of crisis. They also have implications for futures studies: indicating the potential value of embedding the Letters from the Future method in a range of research contexts.

New books & media

Quantum Field Theory, as Simply as PossibleSection:ChooseTop of pageQuantum Field Theory, as ... <<Seeing Science: The Art o...Astrotopia: The Dangerous...Quantum Field Theory, as Simply as Possible, A. Zee, Princeton U. Press, 2023, $39.95Countless books aim to explain quantum mechanics to a lay audience, but few authors have attempted to present a popular introduction to quantum field theory, the mathematical framework linking quantum mechanics with special relativity. A. Zee, a well-known author of several textbooks and popular-science works, attempts to fill that gap in this new book. But as he freely admits, it isn’t for the faint of heart: Be prepared to see a fair share of summation symbols, path integrals, and Greek letters. If readers are willing to put in a bit of work, they will be rewarded. Zee’s witty, insightful writing and engaging historical anecdotes make the book a pleasure to read. —rdSeeing Science: The Art of Making the Invisible VisibleSection:ChooseTop of pageQuantum Field Theory, as ...Seeing Science: The Art o... <<Astrotopia: The Dangerous...Seeing Science: The Art of Making the Invisible Visible, Jack Challoner, MIT Press, 2022, $34.95 (paper)In this new coffee-table book, the science writer Jack Challoner has collected and annotated more than 200 images—historical and contemporary—of phenomena like neurons, animal locomotion, and the Sun’s photosphere. But Seeing Science isn’t just a collection of beautiful pictures. Challoner also aims to answer a question that many laypeople often wonder about: How do scientists produce images of objects or phenomena they can’t see with the naked eye? To do so, he intersperses the text with explanations of how such technologies as scanning electron microscopes and space telescopes have enabled researchers to image seemingly unseeable things. The result is a compelling collection. —rdAstrotopia: The Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space RaceSection:ChooseTop of pageQuantum Field Theory, as ...Seeing Science: The Art o...Astrotopia: The Dangerous... <<Astrotopia: The Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space Race, Mary-Jane Rubenstein, U. Chicago Press, 2022, $24.00In Astrotopia, the philosopher Mary-Jane Rubenstein argues that the 21st-century private space race being carried out by Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, and others has become a “mythological project” analogous to the type of “imperial Christianity” that was used by Europeans to colonize more than half the planet. Discussing the era of private competition in space, known as NewSpace, she argues that we need to act now to prevent it from being rapaciously exploited by capitalists. Yet perhaps the most provocative portion of the book looks toward the past: Rubenstein convincingly demonstrates that NASA and US politicians used Christian imperialist language to justify the Apollo missions. In other words, it’s no coincidence that the Apollo 8 crew read from the book of Genesis while orbiting the Moon on Christmas Eve 1968. —rd© 2023 American Institute of Physics.

Reflections on the Physics and Astronomy Student Reading Society (PhASRS) at San José State University

The COVID-19 pandemic imposed profound changes on the way we think about undergraduate physics education. Online courses became mainstream. Exam formats were reimagined. Digital whiteboards replaced face-to-face discussions. Laboratory classes were outfitted with home-delivered supply kits. And all of us developed a more intimate knowledge of Greek letters and symbols (delta, omicron, etc.) than we might have comfortably liked to admit.

Isidore of Pelusium on Providence, Fate and Divine Longanimity

The subjects of this research are the doctrine of providence, the criticism of fate, and the concept of divine makrothymia in the Greek letters of Isidore of Pelusium. These letters offer neither comprehensive theories nor compelling arguments but relevant, though miscellaneous, information which may help in tracing Isidore’s intellectual profile. More specifically, this study explores the interaction of Isidore with his sources, and unearths substantial new evidence of the direct influence on him of the works of Chrysostom and Pseudo-Chrysostom.

The Hellenic Literary Society at Constantinople between Ottomanism and Greek Irredentism

"… the Turks, public servants or soldiers, remained in sum what they’ve always been, Barbarians making a life out of plunder and robbery..." The above statement reveals how one of the finest institutions of Ottoman Greek letters and sciences, the Hellenic Literary Society at Constantinople, described the Turks in a petition to its honorary members, academics, university professors, and learned societies in the Allied countries and in those that had remained neutral during the Great War, just a month into the deliberations of the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. The picture of the Turk as a barbarian permeates the petition and juxtaposes that of the Greek as the bearer of civilization. In this way, the society attempted to elicit the support of Western intellectuals in favor of Greek irredentism. Such an approach was not unique to the Ottoman Greeks, as Armenians also employed a similar distinction between the Turks and themselves to enhance their national aspirations.2 Yet, such a snapshot of the society in the post-Armistice period can be misleading as to its sixty-odd year-long lifetime. The society had remained, for the most part, in favor of Ottomanism, and its endorsement of Greek irredentism tells us more about how and why multi-ethnic and multi-cultural empires can fail rather than providing an accurate depiction of the society throughout its existence.

Ioannes III Batatzes’s Italian Venture: Byzantine Imperial Revival in Mediterranean Diplomacy

Three Greek letters by the Holy Roman emperor Frederick II Hohenstaufen to the Eastern Roman emperor Ioannes III Batatzes, dating from the year 1250, cast light on the Laskarid involvement in Italian politics outside of the Balkan Peninsula, the traditional sphere of Byzantine influence. In two of the letters, the Holy Roman Emperor informs his son-in-law and ally Ioannes III about the war he is waging against the papal forces in Italy; in the third, Frederick II openly appeals to his Byzantine counterpart not to engage in unionist negotiations with the Holy See. Examining the content of these three letters, I suggest, helps us to redefine the role that the Laskarid polity played in the wider Mediterranean world of the mid-13th century. In this paper, I focus on the Italian case in order to illustrate that the Laskarid Roman Empire was an active political agent that sought to influence the politics of polities well outside its assumed political sphere of interest. The Italian example allows us to understand that the Byzantine Empire of Ioannes III Batatzes and his successors had enough vigor and resilience from the 1240s to the 1280s to project an image of itself as a dominant power invested in determining international affairs throughout Christendom.

The Omega Machine

The following is the script for a performance developed in tandem with artist and performer Gabe Rubin and painter Jacqueline Humphries for her show jHΩ1:) at Wexner Center for the Arts in October 2021. Humphries’s work blurs the line between the painterly expression and the automated simulacrum. Her paintings in this show included 3D printed blacklight flat sculptures that resemble paintings that use as a base layer text encoded (ASCII) versions of earlier paintings with novel features palimpsestically overwriting them, such as Greek letters, Möbius strips, emoticons, and brand names. Our script ties together Humphries’s innovative practice with debates regarding the relative indeterminacy of the subject in comparison to the algorithm and artificial intelligence – debates which are linked to related questions as to the possibility of chance and spontaneity within seemingly closed discourses such as those interpreted by psychoanalysis, discourses famously encoded by Jacques Lacan into algorithms – and psychoanalysis itself. For the event, we invented a character for Gabe Rubin named Absinthe Omega, a brand ambassador for automated painting, to serve as a queer figure who might dramatize these issues while also fading into and out of the ground of painting itself as if they were a kind of subjectile substrate to these antinomic debates.

Plasma exchange and COVID 19

Plasma exchange and COVID 19

Texts About Music: Reflections on the Relations Between the Different Communities Living in 19th Century Istanbul

In the 18th century Istanbul, different congregational and ethnic groups started to come together in the public sphere. This created an environment of cultural transfer and exchange among the various congregations, that reached its climax at the beginning of the 19th century. Turkish classical music started to be written in Hamparsum notation which adapted the ancient note system of Armenian church music. The elements of the Rum Church and Profan Music met those of Turkish music. Several Jewish musicians emerged as masters who deeply affected the music in Istanbul. Gypsy composers entered the palace with their songs. In addition, the effect of western culture and music became more pronounced in the city. In the field of music print, developments included the writing down of Turkish music using Greek letters, Italian cantos with Arabic letters and Persian lyrics in Armenian letters. In this way, the cultures of the different ethnoreligious communities were intertwined with each other. The paper will present a portrayal of these interactions through an examination of written documents. To understand how Istanbul is nourished by both its own internal dynamics and the influences carried by the outside world, it will be tried toI will try to describe the sphere reflected in this article.

MILITARY HEALTH WISHES IN THE GREEK LETTERS OF CAESAR AND OCTAVIAN

AbstractThis article examines and contextualizes a health wish formula found at the opening of eight Roman official letters inscribed in Greek, one of Caesar and seven of Octavian. In each letter the sender mentions that he is well ‘with the army’ (μετὰ τοῦ στρατεύματος), hence the term ‘military’ health wish. The health wish was borrowed from Latin letters into Roman letters written in Greek by means of phraseological imitation. The formulation employs appropriate Koine Greek. It was optional during the Republic for the wish to be used in letters either from or to a Roman holding imperium and commanding an army. Because Caesar and Octavian were in such positions, their use of the wish is conventional. The use of this health wish demonstrates that epistolographers working for Caesar and Octavian not only drafted letters that met the conventions of Hellenistic chanceries but also were proficient enough in the medium to incorporate Roman elements with effectiveness. Attestations of the military health wish declined during the Imperial period. The requirement that the sender or the recipient hold imperium would have restricted usage during the Republic but even more so under the Empire through administrative changes to the command of armies and the increasing centrality of the princeps.

Xamã : Optical character recognition for multi-domain model management

The development of systems following model-driven engineering can include models from different domains. For example, to develop a mechatronic component one might need to combine expertise about mechanics, electronics, and software. Although these models belong to different domains, the changes in one model can affect other models causing inconsistencies in the entire system. Only few tools, however, support management of models from different domains. Indeed, these models are created using different modeling notations and it is not plausible to use a multitude of parsers geared toward each and every modeling notation. Therefore, to ensure maintenance of multi-domain systems, we need a uniform approach that would be independent from the peculiarities of the notation. Notation independence implies that such a uniform approach can only be based on elements commonly present in models of different domains, i.e., text, boxes, and lines. In this study, we investigate the suitability of optical character recognition (OCR) as a basis for such a uniformed approach. We select graphical models from various domains that typically combine textual and graphical elements. We start by analyzing the performance of Google Cloud Vision and Microsoft Cognitive Services, two off-the-shelf OCR services. Google Cloud Vision performed better than Microsoft Cognitive Services being able to detect text of 70% of model elements. Errors made by Google Cloud Vision are due to absence of support for text common in engineering formulas, e.g., Greek letters, equations, and subscripts. We identified the multi-line text error as one of the main issues of using OCR to recognize textual elements in models from different domains. This error happens when OCR misinterprets one textual element as two separate elements. To address the multi-line text error, we build Xamã on top of Google Cloud Vision. Xamã includes two approaches to identify whether the elements are positioned on a single line or multiple lines, and merge those identified as positioned on multiples lines. With and without shape detection, Xamã correctly identified 956 and 905 elements, respectively, out of 1171. Additionally, we compared the accuracy of Xamã and state-of-the-art tool img2UML, and we observe that Xamã outperformed img2UML in both precision and recall, being able to recognize 433 out of 614 textual elements as opposed to 171 by img2UML.

The Cave 3 Copper Scroll: A Symbolic Journey by Jesper Høgenhaven

Reviewed by: The Cave 3 Copper Scroll: A Symbolic Journey by Jesper Høgenhaven Al Wolters jesper høgenhaven, The Cave 3 Copper Scroll: A Symbolic Journey (STDJ 132; Leiden: Brill, 2021). Pp. x + 267. €116/$140. In this substantial monograph the author takes a fresh look at the Copper Scroll (3Q15), one of the most enigmatic of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which is often described as a list of buried treasure. The monograph is divided into five chapters, followed by an appendix in which a new translation of the scroll is presented. [End Page 302] The first chapter, entitled "Legend or History: A Brief History of Scholarship," gives a comprehensive survey of the scholarly literature surrounding the Copper Scroll, highlighting especially the debate between those who consider the hidden treasure to be real, possibly deriving from the Second Temple before its destruction by the Romans in 70 c.e., and those who regard the treasure as folklore or fiction. In the second chapter, somewhat oddly called "A Walk on the Wild Side: A Suggested Reading of 3Q15," Høgenhaven takes the reader on a guided tour of the Copper Scroll on the assumption that it is not just a list of places where treasures are hidden but rather an itinerary, in which the scroll's author directs the addressee to go on a journey, moving sequentially from one hiding place to the next. Most of the journey involves traveling in Judea and includes three separate visits to Jerusalem (which is never explicitly named) and five visits to a mysterious place that H. calls "Kohlit," which he equates with Tell es-Sultan near Jericho. The last part of the itinerary takes the addressee on a trip well to the north of Judea, before returning again to Kohlit. The third chapter is entitled "A Map of Meanings: Places and Items in the Copper Scroll." Here, H. goes through the itinerary of the Copper Scroll again, this time noting what he calls the "inherent symbolic meanings" (p. 96) of the place-names and treasure descriptions of 3Q15. Drawing especially on the "phenomenology of landscape" developed by Christopher Tilley (A Phenomenology of Landscape: Places, Paths and Monuments [Oxford: Berg, 1994]), H. highlights the dialectic between story and place and discerns various artful arrangements in the itinerary, as well as multiple literary allusions and historical reminiscences in what might appear at first glance to be a dry catalogue of locations and valuables. Thus, "the valley of Achor" (3Q15 1.1), reminiscent of both Joshua 7 and Hosea 2, is a place of both divine wrath and divine blessing (p. 108). Similar patterns of significance can be discerned in the distribution of sacred objects that are included among the hidden treasures. There is a suggestion that the cult in the temple in Jerusalem has become illegitimate and that Kohlit replaces Jerusalem as the current cultic center. Analogous symbolic inferences may be drawn from the books and other valuables included among the treasures, as well as from the buildings and installations where the treasures are hidden, many of which convey the picture of a desolate and derelict landscape. The fourth chapter, called "What Is Real? The Copper Scroll as a Material Artefact," covers a lot of different ground. It discusses the significance of copper as the writing material, describes how in many ways the scroll is a metallic imitation of a regular scroll of parchment or papyrus, argues that it was not a secondary deposit after the other Qumranrelated material, defends a paleography-based dating to the mid-first century c.e., discusses the mysterious Greek letters in the first four columns, analyzes the type of Hebrew used, describes the way numbers are expressed and abbreviations used, and lays out the stereotypical literary pattern of the sixty-four distinct entries. In addition, drawing on current genre theory, H. in this chapter defends the view that the genre of 3Q15 is not "list" or "inventory" but rather "instruction for retrieving hidden treasures" (p. 172). Finally, he returns to the question whether the treasures recorded in 3Q15 were real or fictitious, lays out the arguments for and against each position, and concludes that the dilemma posed by the...

Greek Letters "L" and "Т" on the Bricks of the 11–12th Centuries from the Assumption Cathedral of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra

Greek Letters "L" and "Т" on the Bricks of the 11–12th Centuries from the Assumption Cathedral of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra