Data, Signal and Image Processing and Applications in Sensors

With the rapid advance of sensor technology, a vast and ever-growing amount of data in various domains and modalities are readily available [...]

The Routes of Neolithisation: The Middle Struma Valley from a Regional Perspective

The frontier position of the Balkan Peninsula, next to Anatolia and the Aegean, emphasises its key importance for the study of the Neolithisation processes taking place in Europe during the seventh–sixth millennia BC. A look at the distribution of most Early Neolithic sites along the submeridional alluvial plains of its central mountainous part often leaves the impression that the valleys of the Vardar, Struma, Mesta and Maritsa rivers functioned as natural corridors, allowing for the rapid advance of the farming way of life towards the interior regions of Europe. However, comparative analysis of the distribution patterns of specific diagnostic components of Early Neolithic cultures, such as white painted pottery, anthropomorphic figurines and miniature “cult tables”, from the Early Neolithic settlements in the Middle Struma Valley, southwestern Bulgaria, namely Kovachevo, Ilindentsi, Brezhani, Drenkovo and Balgarchevo I shows a rather unexpected direction and dynamic of cultural/social contact during this crucial period.

Other Models: Data-Driven Approaches for Non-Stationary Non-Synoptic Winds

In comparison with atmospheric boundary layer winds, which are generally regarded as stationary, windstorms such as hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones; thunderstorms and downbursts; and tornadoes generally exhibit non-stationary features characterized by changes in wind speed and direction. Due to these characteristics, it is usually challenging to model them in a simplistic format. To overcome this difficulty, a data-driven approach may be an alternative, one that has gained significant popularity in many fields mainly due to the rapid advance in measurement and monitoring systems that allows the collection of long-term massive datasets. This chapter reviews data-driven approaches employed in the fields of non-stationary non-synoptic winds from their characterization, modeling, and simulation perspectives.

The Making of a Soviet War Photographer and the German Occupation of Kerch

This chapter introduces the reader to Dmitri Baltermants, beginning with his birth to a Warsaw-based Jewish family and then describing his development as a Soviet photographer in the 1930s. A second-generation Soviet photographer and master of the horizontal, Baltermants was trained in socialist realist aesthetics, which documented and elevated the revolutionary experiment that was Stalin’s Soviet Union. In 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union, and Baltermants’s world turned upside down. The second half of the chapter focuses on the German invasion and its rapid advance through Soviet territory until its occupation of Kerch in November. The chapter walks the reader through the unfolding process of Kerch under German occupation. In a matter of two weeks, German authorities rounded up the entire population of Jews, drove them to an antitank trench in nearby Bagerovo, and then murdered them in a Holocaust by bullets. It concludes with Kerch’s liberation in late December.

The Factors Leading to Entrepreneurship Trends Among Young Graduates of Hospitality

Entrepreneurship in hospitality is a major contributor to the growth and development of the economy of a country. A large proportion of the hospitality businesses are small owner-operated restaurants as compared to big chains of hotels and restaurants who also have their own market share. Considering the nature and challenges faced by the hospitality entrepreneurs becomes an important issue for the researchers. Hospitality education has evolved considering the needs and thoughts of the millennials. The millennials do understand the needs and desires of the contemporary guests and have come up with strategies to present their food products and enhance service standards to stay competitive in the market. The millennial guest has, with rapid advance of technology, an enormous amount of preferences to choose from. The aim is to investigate the motivational factors which leads the young graduates to opt for entrepreneurship and the role of hospitality education to guide the students towards it.

Before 1880—The Long Prelude

This chapter summarizes what is known about religious allegiance and churchgoing during the long eighteenth century and the early Victorian era, with reference to statistics (noting methodological difficulties, especially affecting the 1851 religious census). There are separate analyses for England and Wales and Scotland. The dominant trend in religious allegiance was towards voluntaryism and pluralism, the established Churches of England and Scotland losing their near-monopoly of religious affiliation in the face of Dissent’s rapid advance. The nineteenth century witnessed sustained church growth, absolute and relative, in members and Sunday scholars. Despite the continued existence of legislation requiring churchgoing, its enforcement was infrequent and often ineffective. Absenteeism was a growing problem from the eighteenth century. It remains unclear whether there was any general rise in attendance during the early nineteenth century. By 1851, two-fifths of Britons may have worshipped, Wales being the most devout of the home nations, but churchgoing declined thereafter.

Künstliche Intelligenz – Teil 2: KI-Einsatz in der Produktion

In this second article on Artificial Intelligence, we will examine how Artificial Intelligence changes production. It is precisely in this area that a particularly rapid advance of AI systems can be expected. In addition to cost reduction through more efficient use of systems and processes, flexibility in production can also be increased. Through a digital value-added chain, the necessary networks to upstream and downstream service partners are achieved. An increasing use of robots in production can lead to reshoring – a relocation of production processes back to high-wage countries.