Physical Traces Research Articles

Military archaeology and LIDAR data visualizations: a non-invasive approach to detect historical remains

The present paper belongs to a line of research known as aerial archaeology and compares some specific visualizations of LIDAR data (hill-shading, openness, and sky view factor) to understand which of them can provide the best approach to suitably identify and unveil some archaeological permanences as function of different boundary conditions. In the present case, such permanences belong to the very special material heritage consisting of the "physical traces" of the Great War, although latent, they persist in the present landscapes at different states of preservation and visibility, waiting to be unearthed to express their cultural potential. They represent an indispensable palimpsest of "minor signs" such as, for example, fragments of entrenchments, gun emplacements, shelters, bomb craters, and temporary shelters. Such elements made the war machine work at that time while, nowadays, if properly recognized and enhanced, could foster the historical and cultural revitalization of the territories where they are placed.

Introduction to ‘Transitus: Illustration as Material Crossing Ground’: The stake in the physical trace

Taking its inspiration from the ‘Transitus’ theme of the 12th Annual Illustration Research Symposium, hosted online 14–15 July 2022 by Falmouth University, United Kingdom, this editorial considers material expressions of what might be understood as the performative prefix ‘trans-’. Each of the essays introduced here responds to an understanding of the crossing ground we are naming ‘Transitus’ as one which is invested in retaining a physical connection or trace in its referential, illustrative function. Not coincidentally, many of the articles included here identify this physical trace as one which partakes in the materiality of photography or celluloid, prompting a larger consideration of relationships between photography, film and illustrative practices. This identified relationship signals a desire to hold on to a material trace of the ‘real’ in order to ground a given narrative. Other examples of material anchoring to those of photography and film are also considered here as part of a broader theorization of illustration practices that hold on to the physical object or artefact in order to achieve their respective communicative acts of crossing over.

On the Meanings of Crisis

On the Meanings of Crisis

Men Who Brew: Masculinity and the Production of Drink in Medieval Icelandic Literature

Men Who Brew: Masculinity and the Production of Drink in Medieval Icelandic Literature

Remembering the Herero-Nama Genocide in Namibia

Remembering the Herero-Nama Genocide in Namibia

Editorial | A New Path Forward for Forensic Science Learning

Amazing but true, many criminalists regard forensic microscopy and the light microscope as the single most important instrument in their laboratories for the examination of physical trace evidence. They emphasize proper training as the key to success. McCrone Research Institute began by teaching chemical microscopy courses with the polarized light microscope to chemists and forensic scientists first at Cornell University, then Armour Research Foundation (ARF), Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), and in its classrooms and laboratories still located on the South Side of Chicago since 1960. But it hasn’t been an easy path.

Defining the accessibility of physical activity Tracing the social dimension

The promotion of the physical activity (PA) of citizens has traditionally focused on improving spatial accessibility, especially in municipal administrations. However, research evidence indicates that proximity to PA environments is not a sufficient condition for increased PA. This article presents a broader model of the dimensions of the accessibility of PA, developed in cooperation between researchers and the authorities of two cities in Finland. As a result, ten dimensions affecting accessibility have been identified: spatial, temporal, physical/technological, informational, economic, legal/ administrative, cultural/attitudinal, skills related, mental and social. A special focus of attention is on the most neglected dimension: the social. In addition to the dimensional typology, the article presents a view of the PA accessibility process in which the social dimension plays a significant role as a mediating level between the enabling factors and the decisions made by individuals.

Memorialising Madiba in South Africa

Hundreds of public places across the world are named in honour of Nelson Mandela. However, there is no consistent level of expectation in terms of what we might learn about this great man when visiting these places. This paper examines an explanatory hypothesis that the process of place naming involving people – and any material representations that then refer to that person – not only offers the opportunity to learn about that person but also impacts one's experience and understanding of place. We refer to these material representations as 'graphic heritage.' We examine two highly contrasting urban places named after Mandela (also known as Madiba by South Africans), namely Nelson Mandela Square in Sandton, Johannesburg, and Nelson Mandela Park in Mamelodi, Pretoria in South Africa. In looking for traces of his values and legacy using graphic heritage, our methodological approach is guided by the design inquiry method of Zeisel, which uses annotated diagrams, observations of physical traces, and photo-documentation of these spaces. We position graphic heritage as an empirical research tool and as a form of critical inquiry that reveals very much (Sandton) and very little (Mamelodi) about the former president and rebel leader. The findings reveal contrasting settings and significantly different levels of access, diverse motivations through the naming acts, and differing levels of attentiveness to the visual-aesthetic considerations shown by those responsible for the two sites.

Responses of trace elements and optical textures of ultra-deep pyrobitumen to hydrothermal alteration

The hydrothermal activity in the Ediacaran Dengying (DY) Formation in central Sichuan has modified the reservoirs and paleo-oil reservoirs; however, these modifications are not specific due to the challenges in recovering the hydrothermal scale. This paper classified pyrobitumen in the DY Formation into five categories by optical textures and analyzed the physical structure and trace element composition of the different pyrobitumen using scanning electron microscope, reflectance, and trace elements. Finally, the responses of the trace element concentrations and optical textures of the pyrobitumen to hydrothermal alteration were discussed and used to restore the hydrothermal scale in the central Sichuan Basin. The results show that isotropic, fine-grained, medium-grained, coarse-grained mosaic, and fibrous pyrobitumen develop in the DY Formation. As the optical texture of the pyrobitumen changes from isotropic to mosaic to fibrous, the order degree of aromatic lamella in pyrobitumen gradually increases, the maturity, the maximum reflectance, and the bireflectance of pyrobitumen gradually increase. Except for isotropic pyrobitumen, anisotropic pyrobitumen is subject to varying degrees of hydrothermal alteration. The hydrothermal alteration on pyrobitumen is primarily in the form of material exchange, precipitating illite, salt, and barium-enriched minerals in pyrobitumen pores and enriching some elements (Ba, Cr, Nb, and Sr) in the pyrobitumen. As the optical texture changes from isotropic to mosaic to fibrous, the element enrichment degree gradually increases. Medium-grained mosaic, coarse-grained mosaic, and fibrous pyrobitumen are widely observed in central Sichuan. Therefore, hydrothermal modification on the DY reservoirs and paleo-oil reservoirs is not limited to the deep faults but widely develop in central Sichuan, and should be an essential part of the further study of hydrocarbon accumulation.

Modeling the impact of surveillance activities combined with physical distancing interventions on COVID-19 epidemics at a local level.

Physical distancing and contact tracing are two key components in controlling the COVID-19 epidemics. Understanding their interaction at local level is important for policymakers. We propose a flexible modeling framework to assess the effect of combining contact tracing with different physical distancing strategies. Using scenario tree analyses, we compute the probability of COVID-19 detection using passive surveillance, with and without contact tracing, in metropolitan Barcelona. The estimates of detection probability and the frequency of daily social contacts are fitted into an age-structured susceptible-exposed-infectious-recovered compartmental model to simulate the epidemics considering different physical distancing scenarios over a period of 26 weeks. With the original Wuhan strain, the probability of detecting an infected individual without implementing physical distancing would have been 0.465, 0.515, 0.617, and 0.665 in designated age groups (0-14, 15-49, 50-64, and >65), respectively. As the physical distancing measures were reinforced and the disease circulation decreased, the interaction between the two interventions resulted in a reduction of the detection probabilities; however, despite this reduction, active contact tracing and isolation remained an effective supplement to physical distancing. If we relied solely on passive surveillance for diagnosing COVID-19, the model required a minimal 50% (95% credible interval, 39-69%) reduction of daily social contacts to keep the infected population under 5%, as compared to the 36% (95% credible interval, 22-56%) reduction with contact tracing systems. The simulation with the B.1.1.7 and B.1.167.2 strains shows similar results. Our simulations showed that a functioning contact tracing program would reduce the need for physical distancing and mitigate the COVID-19 epidemics.

Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in a primary school setting with and without public health measures using real-world contact data: A modelling study.

BackgroundStringent public health measures have been shown to influence the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 within school environments. We investigated the potential transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in a primary school setting with and without public health measures, using fine-grained physical positioning traces captured before the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodsApproximately 172.63 million position data from 98 students and six teachers from an open-plan primary school were used to predict a potential transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in primary school settings. We first estimated the daily average number of contacts of students and teachers with an infected individual during the incubation period. We then used the Reed-Frost model to estimate the probability of transmission per contact for the SARS-CoV-2 Alpha (B.1.1.7), Delta (B.1.617.2), and Omicron variant (B.1.1.529). Finally, we built a binomial distribution model to estimate the probability of onward transmission in schools with and without public health measures, including face masks and physical distancing.ResultsAn infectious student would have 49.1 (95% confidence interval (CI) = 46.1-52.1) contacts with their peers and 2.00 (95% CI = 1.82-2.18) contacts with teachers per day. An infectious teacher would have 47.6 (95% CI = 45.1-50.0) contacts with students and 1.70 (95% CI = 1.48-1.92) contacts with their colleague teachers per day. While the probability of onward SARS-CoV-2 transmission was relatively low for the Alpha and Delta variants, the risk increased for the Omicron variant, especially in the absence of public health measures. Onward teacher-to-student transmission (88.9%, 95% CI = 88.6%-89.1%) and teacher-to-teacher SARS-CoV-2 transmission (98.4%, 95% CI = 98.5%-98.6%) were significantly higher for the Omicron variant without public health measures in place.ConclusionsOur findings illustrate that, despite a lower frequency of close contacts, teacher-to-teacher close contacts demonstrated a higher risk of transmission per contact of SARS-CoV-2 compared to student-to-student close contacts. This was especially significant with the Omicron variant, with onward transmission more likely occurring from teacher index cases than student index cases. Public health measures (eg, face masks and physical distance) seem essential in reducing the risk of onward transmission within school environments.

Tainted Trees: Uncovering the Long Shadow over Germany’s Medieval Maypoles and Ancient Tree Cults

Abstract This article revisits sources on German maypoles and tree cults in the ancient, medieval, and modern periods. It opens important historiographic horizons on at least three fronts, from the church’s relationship to tree-oriented customs throughout the Middle Ages, to the National Socialist appropriation of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century folkloric scholarship, and to the consequent postwar aversions to any trace of modern admiration for an alleged premodern veneration of trees. It shows how postwar art historians have remained so hesitant to perpetuate narratives about pre-Christian, homogenous belief systems that revered the forests of northern Europe that they have overlooked some of the few surviving physical traces in art from Slavic Eastern Europe, whose ancient ties to nature Germans toiled to erase in both the medieval and modern eras.

Enhancing Deep-Learning Based Side-Channel Analysis Through Simultaneously Multi-Byte Training

Abstract Preparing a large number of physical traces is an important first step in Side-Channel Analysis, especially in Deep-Learning based Side-Channel Analysis (DL-SCA). With sufficient training data and a proper modeling algorithm, the secret key of cryptographic devices can be successfully recovered with a small number of attacking data. However, in reality, it may be impossible or difficult, in some threat models, to collect sufficient data due to various resource constraints. In this case, the performance of DL-SCA will be severely decreased. In this work, we propose an easy-to-implement method to achieve an efficient DL-SCA with a small number of training data in the scenario of software-based cryptographic implementations. Our simultaneously multi-byte training method, which trains the model with side-channel leakage characteristics of different byte intermediate values, significantly enhances the robustness and performance of DL-SCA. The simulated experiment shows that our method achieves more robust profiling. The success rate of recovering a secret AES key can be improved by 250% with the same collected data. The results of attacking real-world COTS USIM cards are consistent with the ones of simulation-based counterparts. Compared with state-of-the-art data-augmentation techniques, our results show that the proposed method can achieve the same or even better performance without additional generated training data.

Astrophysical, phenomenological and experimental predictions of neutrino masses, traces of new physics

The crucial phenomenological and experimental predictions for new physics are outlined, where the number of problems of the Standard Model (neutrino masses and oscillations, dark matter, baryon asymmetry of the Universe, leptonic CP-violation) could find their solutions. The analogies between the cosmological neutrino mass scale from the early universe data and laboratory probes are discussed and the search for new physics and phenomena. It will be impossible to directly measure the masses of individual neutrinos from cosmology, but the discovery of a nonzero total neutrino mass in a future review is inevitable, as is the case with the neutrino mass hierarchy. Now neutrino physics has entered the era of precise measurements. The KATRIN experiment is known for directly measuring the neutrino mass until 2025 if its mass exceeds 0.20 eV. Several experiments are currently underway to observe double beta decay without neutrinos. In the future, if cosmological data indicate a smaller neutrino mass or a smaller sum of neutrino masses than the minimum allowed by the oscillations, this discrepancy will become an important argument in favor of new physics. A careful comparison of cosmological and laboratory results should always be made before combining them for a joint analysis.

Digital Juneteenth: Territorializing the Freedom Colony Diaspora

AbstractAfter Juneteenth, formerly enslaved African Americans in Texas founded hundreds of historic Black settlements known as freedom colonies. Later, freedom colonies’ populations dispersed, physical traces disappeared, and memories of locations vanished as descendants passed away. In the absence of buildings and legally recognized borders, intangible heritage—stories, ephemeral traditions—define a sense of place. Betraying the perception that these places have disappeared, founders’ descendants express commitments to freedom colonies by returning periodically to plan commemorative events, rehabilitate historic structures, and steward cemeteries. The Texas Freedom Colonies Project (The TXFC Project), a team of faculty and student researchers, documents settlements while supporting descendant communities’ historic preservation aims. By making diasporic publics legible and increasing the visibility of communities’ settlement patterns and remaining extant features, The TXFC Project elevates stakeholders’ concerns in urban planning domains. In 2020, COVID-19’s social distancing requirements challenged diasporic descendants’ efforts to foster social cohesion. Consequently, The TXFC Project hosted a Facebook Live “talk show,” leveraging social media platforms to amplify freedom colony descendants’ work. The team analyzed event transcripts revealing cultural adaptations to socially restrictive conditions during Juneteenth commemorations and indicating that virtual storytelling helped territorialize widely dispersed, unbounded places for stakeholders facing natural and human-made disruptions.

The Galactic underworld: the spatial distribution of compact remnants

ABSTRACT We chart the expected Galactic distribution of neutron stars and black holes. These compact remnants of dead stars – the Galactic underworld – are found to exhibit a fundamentally different distribution and structure to the visible Galaxy. Compared to the visible Galaxy, concentration into a thin flattened disc structure is much less evident with the scale height more than tripling to 1260 ± 30 pc. This difference arises from two primary causes. First, the distribution is in part inherited from the integration over the evolving structure of the Galaxy itself (and hence the changing distribution of the parent stars). Secondly, an even larger effect arises from the natal kick received by the remnant at the event of its supernova birth. Due to this kick we find 30 per cent of remnants have sufficient kinetic energy to entirely escape the Galactic potential (40 per cent of neutron stars and 2 per cent of black holes) leading to a Galactic mass-loss integrated to the present day of $\sim 0.4{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ of the stellar mass of the Galaxy. The black hole – neutron star fraction increases near the Galactic centre: a consequence of smaller kick velocities in the former. Our simulated remnant distribution yields probable distances of 19 and 21 pc to the nearest neutron star and black hole, respectively, while our nearest probable magnetar lies at 4.2 kpc. Although the underworld only contains of order $\sim 1{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ of the Galaxy’s mass, observational signatures and physical traces of its population, such as microlensing, will become increasingly present in data ranging from gravitational wave detectors to high precision surveys from space missions such as Gaia.

Pre-main sequence evolution of low-mass stars in Eddington-inspired Born–Infeld gravity

We study three aspects of the early-evolutionary phases in low-mass stars within Eddington-inspired Born–Infeld (EiBI) gravity, a viable extension of General Relativity. These aspects are concerned with the Hayashi tracks (i.e. the effective temperature-luminosity relation); the minimum mass required to belong to the main sequence; and the maximum mass allowed for a fully convective star within the main sequence. Using analytical models accounting for the most relevant physics of these processes, we find in all cases a dependence of these quantities not only on the theory’s parameter, but also on the star’s central density, a feature previously found in Palatini f(R) gravity. Using this, we investigate the evolution of these quantities with the (sign of the) EiBI parameter, finding a shift in the Hayashi tracks in opposite directions in the positive/negative branches of it, and an increase (decrease) for positive (negative) parameter in the two masses above. We use these results to elaborate on the chances to seek for traces of new physics in low-mass stars within this theory, and the limitations and difficulties faced by this approach.

DEVELOPMENT OF METHODS FOR INVESTIGATING CRIMES IN THE 20SOF THE LAST CENTURY (ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE "GENERAL METHOD FOR INVESTIGATING CRIMES" BY I. M. YAKYMOV)

The “general method for investigating crimes” developed by Soviet criminologist Ivan Yakymov in the 1920s is considered. The positive qualities of the method are shown, namely, systematic, phased, adherence to activity and situational approaches, the use of a number of analytical techniques, the group nature of the implementation during the detection and investigation of the crime. The systematic nature of the method can be traced in the fact that it is divided into successive stages, sub-stages, “means of inquiry”. The incidental evidence obtained because of its implementation is related to clearly defined tactical tasks aimed at achieving specific goals (“building a picture of the crime”, clarifying its circumstances, etc.). The method is characterized by stages like stages are logically defined, consistent, the movement behind them makes it possible to clarify the “picture” of what happened, obtain and evaluate indirect evidence concerning the facts of the offender at the scene, his movement there, things and items that he seized as a result of criminal acts, the manner of committing both the crime as a whole and individual actions at the scene, as well as structural elements of the crime: methods of its preparation, direct commission, and concealment. The method is built with the activity approach. It uses such elements of the approach as “object of crime”, “place of crime”, “tools” and “means of crime”, “traces of crime”, “eyewitnesses” of the event, “motives” of the perpetrator, and its “purpose”, “time”, “events”, “way” of the crime. All these elements are “embedded” in the method in accordance with the logic of the activity approach and make it possible to clarify them as the implementation of the measures proposed in the method (investigative and operational actions). The analyzed method used a situational approach. The “deployment” of the method begins with the situation when the “scene” (crime) is identified, as well as the proposed actions in a situation where such a “scene” does not exist or physical evidence and traces of illegal actions, that is, destroyed. In addition, a variable situational approach to the evaluation of indirect evidence and actions of suspects is proposed. Yakymov’s method took into account the best provisions of such methods previously developed by scientists from leading European countries E. Anushat (Germany), A. Weingart (Germany), G. Gross (Austria), A. Nietzsche (Italy), G. Schneik ert (Germany) etc. This method lays the foundations for the development of a modern section of criminology: forensic methodology and forensic doctrine of methods of investigating criminal offenses. Key words: method of cognition in criminology, method of investigation, the general method of investigation, investigation of criminal offenses, history of criminology, crime detection, methods of crime investigation, activity approach in criminology, stages of crime investigation, Ivan Yakymov.

Eternal versus singular observers in interacting dark-energy–dark-matter models

Interacting dark-energy--dark-matter models have been widely analyzed in the literature in an attempt to find traces of new physics beyond the usual cosmological ($\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}\mathrm{CDM}$) models. Such a coupling between both dark components is usually introduced in a phenomenological way through a flux in the continuity equation. However, models with a Lagrangian formulation are also possible. A class of the latter assumes a conformal/disformal coupling that leads to a fifth force on the dark-matter component, which consequently does not follow the same geodesics as the other (baryonic, radiation, and dark-energy) matter sources. Here we analyze how the usual cosmological singularities of the standard matter frame are seen from the dark-matter one, concluding that by choosing an appropriate coupling, dark-matter observers will see no singularities but a non beginning, non ending universe. By considering two simple phenomenological models we show that such a type of coupling can fit observational data as well as the usual $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}\mathrm{CDM}$ model.

THE LOSS HERITAGE: SAMSUN RAILWAY CAMPUS

In this study, which focuses on the railways, a sign of the Early Republic, the Samsun campus of the Samsun-Sivas Railway was the subject of the study. Samsun Railway Campus, which is one of the first examples of the railway policy in the province, which marked the first twenty years of the Republic, was opened to discussion within the scope of its location in the city and building stock. It is aimed to record the original existence of the campus, which has developed and changed with political, urban and technological discourses since 1926, when it was opened for business. The study is based on literature review, archive research and field studies. Considering the effects of the Samsun Railway Campus, the architectural heritage of the Early Republic, on the urban memory and railway history, it has been argued that a few remaining original structures and physical traces should be preserved.