Modality in the nominal domain: Yalnhej DPs in Chuj

How do modal expressions determine which possibilities they invoke? Do they do it the same way across categories? Recent work proposes that modal auxiliaries project the domain of possibilities that they quantify over from an event variable, which can get different values in different syntactic positions (Hacquard 2006, 2009, 2010, see also Kratzer 2013). Based on the behaviour of the Spanish random choice indefinite uno cualquiera, Alonso-Ovalle & Menéndez-Benito (2018) conclude that the same strategy is available for modal indefinites. This paper brings evidence from Chuj, an understudied Mayan language, which supports this conclusion further. The paper focuses on yalnhej DPs, a type of quantifier that makes a non-upper bound existential claim and that contributes a modal component with a flavour that depends on syntactic position.

“Realistic Choice of Annual Matrices Contracts the Range of λS Estimates” under Reproductive Uncertainty Too

Our study is devoted to a subject popular in the field of matrix population models, namely, estimating the stochastic growth rate, λS, a quantitative measure of long-term population viability, for a discrete-stage-structured population monitored during many years. “Reproductive uncertainty” refers to a feature inherent in the data and life cycle graph (LCG) when the LCG has more than one reproductive stage, but when the progeny cannot be associated to a parent stage in a unique way. Reproductive uncertainty complicates the procedure of λS estimation following the defining of λS from the limit of a sequence consisting of population projection matrices (PPMs) chosen randomly from a given set of annual PPMs. To construct a Markov chain that governs the choice of PPMs for a local population of Eritrichium caucasicum, an short-lived perennial alpine plant species, we have found a local weather index that is correlated with the variations in the annual PPMs, and we considered its long time series as a realization of the Markov chain that was to be constructed. Reproductive uncertainty has required a proper modification of how to restore the transition matrix from a long realization of the chain, and the restored matrix has been governing random choice in several series of Monte Carlo simulations of long-enough sequences. The resulting ranges of λS estimates turn out to be more narrow than those obtained by the popular i.i.d. methods of random choice (independent and identically distributed matrices); hence, we receive a more accurate and reliable forecast of population viability.

Self-Determination and Self-Realization of the Youth of Russia: Socio-Moral and Psychological-Pedagogical Aspects of the Problem

Introduction. The complex problems of upbringing and education of young people, their choice of landmarks in their life path, occupations and self-realization, which are relevant for the progress of the modern world, are studied by scholars from many countries. However, the existing specialization of sciences and the prevailing system of preferences of different scientific schools serve as an obstacle to inter- and transdisciplinary research. The purpose of the article is to present the results of the analysis of the vast problematic field of self-determination and self-realization of modern Russian youth. Materials and Methods. To study the problem, an analysis of statistical data and the results of sociological surveys, a cluster grouping of threats-problems in the sphere of self-determination and self-realization of youth was used for subsequent topological modeling. It was done by constructing and analyzing an oriented (causeand- effect) graph of threats as undesirable effects in order to identify key problems. When constructing a directed graph from threat-problems, the method of functional analysis of cause-and-effect chains tested in the study of a variety of non-standard problem situations in the theory of inventive problem solving was used. Results. Based on the results of the analysis of the cause-and-effect multigraph, built on the basis of 33 threatsproblems as troubles, four reasons of the first level were identified: “brain drain”, violation of the principle of social justice in the country, lack of ideological unity of society due to the ban on state ideology, low religiosity of society. This is followed by three reasons of the second level: the lack of a coherent state youth policy, the ineffectiveness of the existing model of such a policy, a unified state exam as one of the key reasons for the random choice of vocational training for young people. Discussion and Conclusion. The results obtained add up to the development of comprehensive research on the problems of youth self-determination and self-realization that are extremely important for the countryʼs optimistic future.

Tradition as a Homeland to Return to: Transnational Religious Identity of the Post-Soviet Orthodox Jewry

This article highlights the outcome of a long-term field research into the transnational identity of the post-Soviet Orthodox Jewry. It analyzes biographical interviews taken between 2015 and 2018 in St. Petersburg and Minsk to define the religious identity and day-to-day practices of post-Soviet Orthodox Jews. In this article, I argue that the modern post-Soviet Jewry is a new socio-cultural phenomenon with no historical prototypes. As to the research methodology, it was a combination of the transnational approach, random choice case-study targeting post-Soviet Orthodox communities of Orthodox Jewry in large cities, and the biographical method. The backbone of the post-Soviet Orthodox communities of different strains of Judaism was formed in 1990–2008. It is made up of three generations of men and women born in the late 1940s–1960s, mid-1960s–early 1970s, and the 1980s. Each of these generations is characterized by its own unique pattern of observance, the formation of which is directly conditioned by the circumstances of involvement in religious Jewry. The transnational pattern of observance of the Post-Soviet Orthodox Jews involves the model they confronted at the very beginning of their journey, the model they learned in overseas educational institutions or through incoming envoys and rabbis in the country of residence, and the model of balance between the required and possible in the modern post-Christian and post-atheist environment.

Evaluation of effectiveness of chosen-plaintext attacks on the Rao-Nam cryptosystem over a finite Abelian group

The Rao-Nam cryptosystem is a symmetric version of the McEliece code-based cryptosystem proposed to get rid of the shortcomings inherent in the first symmetric code-based encryption schemes. Almost immediately after the publication of this cryptosystem, attacks on it based on selected plaintexts appeared, which led to the emergence of various improvements and modifications of the original cryptosystem. The secret key in the traditional Rao-Nam scheme is a certain Boolean matrix and a set of binary vectors used to generate distortions during encryption. Such vectors must have different syndromes, that is, be different modulo of the code generated by the rows of the specified matrix. The original work of Rao and Nam considered two methods of forming the set of these vectors, the first of which consists in using predetermined vectors of sufficiently large weight, and the second is random selection of these vectors according to the equiprobable scheme. It is known that the first option does not provide the proper security of the Rao – Nam cryptosystem (due to the small number and simple structure of these vectors), but the second option is more meaningful and requires additional research. The purpose of this paper is to obtain estimates of the effectiveness (time complexity for a given upper bound of the error probability) of attacks on a cryptosystem, which generalizes the traditional Rao – Nam scheme to the case of a finite Abelian group (note that the need to study such versions of the Rao – Nam cryptosystem is due to their consideration in recent publications). Two attacks, based on selected plaintext, are presented. The first of them is not mentioned in the works known to the authors of this article and, under certain well-defined conditions, it allows recovering the secret key of the cryptosystem with quadratic complexity. The second attack is a generalized and simplified version of the well-known Struik-van Tilburg attack. It is shown that the complexity of this attack depends on the power of the stabilizer of the set of vectors, which forms the second part of the key, in the translation group of the Abelian group, over which the Rao – Nam cryptosystem is considered. In this paper, a bound is obtained for the probability of triviality of the stabilizer under the condition of random choice of this set. From the obtained bound, it follows that Struik-van Tilburg attack is, on average, noticeably more efficient than the worst case considered earlier.

Depths in hooking networks

A hooking network is built by stringing together components randomly chosen from a set of building blocks (graphs with hooks). The vertices are endowed with “affinities” which dictate the attachment mechanism. We study the distance from the master hook to a node in the network chosen according to its affinity after many steps of growth. Such a distance is commonly called the depth of the chosen node. We present an exact average result and a rather general central limit theorem for the depth. The affinity model covers a wide range of attachment mechanisms, such as uniform attachment and preferential attachment, among others. Naturally, the limiting normal distribution is parametrized by the structure of the building blocks and their probabilities. We also take the point of view of a visitor uninformed about the affinity mechanism by which the network is built. To explore the network, such a visitor chooses the nodes uniformly at random. We show that the distance distribution under such a uniform choice is similar to the one under random choice according to affinities.