Automatic attribution of ancient Roman imperial coins

Classification of coins is an important but laborious aspect of numismatics - the field that studies coins and currency. It is particularly challenging in the case of ancient coins. Due to the way they were manufactured, as well as wear from use and exposure to chemicals in the soil, the same ancient coin type can exhibit great variability in appearance. We demonstrate that geometry-free models of appearance do not perform better than chance on this task and that only a small improvement is gained by previously proposed models of combined appearance and geometry. Thus, our first major contribution is a new type of feature which is efficient in terms of computational time and storage requirements, and which effectively captures geometric configurations between descriptors corresponding to local features. Our second contribution is a description of a fully automatic system based on the proposed features, which robustly localizes, segments out and classifies coins from cluttered images. We also describe a large database of ancient coins that we collected and which will be made publicly available. Finally, we report the results of empirical comparison of different coin matching techniques. The features proposed in this paper are found to greatly outperform existing methods.

Multiple informal imperial connections and the transfer of accountancy to Ethiopia (1905 to 2011)

The accounting history literature expounds the role of imperial connection on the transfer of Western accountancy concepts and practices to developing countries. An emerging theme within this literature is the shift in imperial power from Britain to USA over the last century and the ramifications of this shift on accountancy globally. Using a framework developed by prior research for investigating the transfer of accountancy across countries, this study examines historical developments of accounting practice, education and professional training in Ethiopia (from 1905 to 2011) in the light of the country’s interactions with Britain and the USA. These interactions facilitated Ethiopia’s continued importation of British accountancy practice and professional training contemporaneously with importation of accounting education from the USA. Over the past two decades, Ethiopia has been undertaking accounting reforms as part of economic policy reforms in pursuit of neo-liberal economic ideals. In response to shifting priorities of transnational actors, Ethiopia continued trialling policy initiatives that are yet to yield a stable equilibrium with coherent links of accounting education, practice and professional training.

Requiem for Empire : Fabian Ware and the Imperial War Graves Commission

More than one million soldiers of the British Empire died in the First World War. The Imperial War Graves Commission, created in 1917, had as its mandate the obligation to care for their graves and memorials, in 1850 cemeteries in more than 100 countries around the globe. Its founder, Fabian Ware, hoped and expected this Commission to have even more enduring effects, yet the political origins of the organisation remain little understood. This chapter looks beyond the monuments erected by the Imperial War Graves Commission to the ideals and intent of its creators. It argues that the driving force behind this major commemorative work was not a desire to represent any fundamental break with the past, but an attempt to produce an institution that symbolised imperial cooperation and memorialised the war and its dead in a way that would continue to place the British Empire at the centre of world affairs.

Eliza Hamilton Dunlop's 'the aboriginal mother': romanticism, anti slavery and imperial feminism in the nineteenth century

This paper positions the work of colonial poet Eliza Hamilton Dunlop amongst international Romantic poetry of the period, and argues that Dunlop’s poetry reflects a transposition of Romantic women’s poetry to Australia. Dunlop’s poetry, such as ‘The Aboriginal Mother’, demonstrates the relationship of Romantic women’s poetry to early feminism and Social Reform. As with the work of Felicia Hemans, Dunlop was interested in the role of women, and the ‘domestic’ as they related to broader national and political concerns. Dunlop seems to have been consciously applying the tropes, such as that of the mother, of anti slavery poetry found within American, British, and international poetic traditions to the Australian aboriginal context. Themes of indigenous motherhood, and also of Sati or widow burning in India, and human rights had been favored by early women’s rights campaigners in Britain from the 1820s, focusing on abolition of slavery through the identification of white women with the Negro mother. Dunlop’s comparative sympathy for the situation of aboriginals in Australia has been given critical attention as the aspect which makes her work valuable. However, in this essay I hope to outline how Dunlop’s poetry fits in to the international context of the engagement of Romantic women poets with Western Imperialist models and colonial Others.

Tribuna de Petrópolis: trajetória e representação na cidade imperial: imprensa e identidade de Petrópolis em 100 anos de jornal local

Fundada em 1902, a Tribuna de Petrópolis acumula 108 anos de publicação na cidade serrana do interior do Estado do Rio de Janeiro. Sendo um jornal local, de circulação restrita aos limites do município, sua existência por mais de um século reflete o esforço de seus diretores pela superação de crises e também pela manutenção de um poder simbólico de identidades sobre a cidade. Analisa-se a trajetória do jornal a partir de três fases de existência e da relação que o mesmo estabeleceu com Petrópolis em cada uma delas: no início do século XX, quando de sua fundação, momento em que representa o reposicionamento político do Grupo de Petrópolis após a perda da capital para Niterói; na metade do século, entre os anos 1950 e 1970, quando o jornal atravessa uma profunda crise e tem sua falência decretada; e nas décadas finais do século XX, quando o veículo se reorganiza e, sob o comando de herdeiros da Família Imperial, constrói para si uma nova relação de identificação e representação com a cidade de Petrópolis. Como jornal-empresa e parte de um conglomerado de comunicação, a Tribuna de Petrópolis chega ao século XXI e se estabelece como instituição pautada por escolhas e decisões estratégicas de administração e relacionamento com o mercado local de anunciantes.

Inglorious revolution : sovereign debt, tropical credibility, and financial underdevelopment in imperial Brazil

In 1824 the creation of institutions that constrained the monarch’s ability to unilaterally tax, spend, and debase the currency put Brazil on a path toward a revolution in public finance, roughly analogous to the financial consequences of England’s Glorious Revolution. This credible commitment to honor sovereign debt resulted in successful long-term funded borrowing at home and abroad from the 1820s through the 1880s that was unrivalled in Latin America. Some domestic bonds, denominated in the home currency and bearing exchange clauses, eventually circulated in European financial markets. The share of total debt accounted for by long-term funded issues grew, and domestic debt came to dominate foreign debt. Sovereign debt yields fell over time in London and Rio de Janeiro, and the cost of new borrowing declined on average. The market’s assessment of the probability of default tended to decrease. Imperial Brazil enjoyed favorable conditions for borrowing, and escaped the strong form of “original sin” stressed by recent work on sovereign debt. The development of vibrant private financial markets did not, however, follow from the enhanced credibility of government debt. Private finance in Imperial Brazil suffered from politicized market interventions that undermined the development of domestic capital markets. Private interest rates remained high, entry into commercial banking was heavily restricted, and limited-liability joint-stock companies were tightly controlled. The Brazilian case provides a powerful counterexample to the general proposition of North and Weingast that institutional changes that credibly commit the government to honor its obligations necessarily promote the development of private finance. The very institutions that enhanced the credibility of sovereign debt permitted the systematic repression of private financial development. In terms of its consequences for domestic capital markets, the liberal Constitution of 1824 represented an “inglorious” revolution.

Comércio de animais de carga no Brasil imperial: uma análise quantitativa das tropas negociadas nas províncias do Paraná e São Paulo

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Sofistas e filósofos na administração imperial: o olhar de Eunápio sobre a unidade política do império Romano no século IV D. C

Pós-graduação em História - FCHS

Os ideais de civilização na Amazônia imperial: um estudo sobre os projetos de civilização indígena no Pará (1845-1889)

Este trabalho analisa os projetos de civilização indígena elaborados no Segundo Império por quatro intelectuais que viveram na província do Pará neste período. São eles: Henrique de Beaurepaire Rohan, Couto Vieira de Magalhães, Antonio Macedo Costa e José Veríssimo. Suas percepções sobre a civilização indígena são consideradas, de um lado, tendo em vista as especificidades da condição intelectual no Império, enfatizando a disposição de tais letrados no interior do campo intelectual e suas conexões com o campo de poder; de outro, são consideradas à luz da experiência social destes agentes, no que se refere às suas crenças ideológicas, seu ofício, os debates e lutas políticas nas quais estavam envolvidos, estes elementos atuaram em sua ação política e na formulação de suas idéias. Tais noções se coadunam com a vivência que eles construíram no espaço amazônico, o que contribuiu para elaboração de suas visões sobre a civilização indígena. Deste modo, as percepções sobre o indígena estavam relacionadas às atitudes políticas e intelectuais dos agentes de letras do Império, bem como, à sua experiência no Vale Amazônico.

Doses de lodo de esgoto compostado em produção de tapete de grama esmeralda imperial

The efficiency of nitrogen fertilization for sod production can be increased by using slow-release sources such as sewage sludge compost, which, due to its characteristics can be a substitute of part or all inorganic fertilization for grass. No results were found for the use of sludge compost in sod production in Brazil. This study evaluated the effect of rates of sewage sludge compost on the production of zoysiagrass. Treatments consisted of five rates of composted sewage sludge compost (0, 12, 24, 36 and 48 Mg ha-1, on a dry basis), plus a treatment of inorganic fertilization (300 kg ha-1 N, 80 kg ha-1 P2O5, and 200 kg ha-1 K2O). The results indicated different mineralization rates of the organic compounds present in the sludge; 120 days after sludge application, more Mg (100 %), K (90 %) and N (67 %) has been released than S (57 %), P (40 %) and Ca (31 %). The use of composted sewage sludge for zoysiagrass adequately supplied nutrients when applied to the soil surface at rates more than 36 Mg ha-1. After sod cutting, the rates of sewage sludge compost provided a linear increase in potential soil acidity, soil contents of OM, P, S, Fe, Cu, Mn, Zn, Cu and Ni, and linear decrease in pH, soil concentration of Ca and Mg and base saturation. Compost rates, increasing from 0 to 48 Mg ha-1, reduced the sod mass, reaching values of 4.0 kg/sod at the highest rate. High compost doses (36 and 48 Mg ha-1, respectively) also induced the highest resistance, with values in the order of 35 and 33 kgf.