We introduce a new method to construct approximation algorithms for combinatorial optimization problems using semidefinite programming. It consists of expressing each combinatorial object in the original problem as a constellation of vectors in the semidefinite program. When we apply this technique to systems of linear equations mod p with at most two variables in each equation, we can show tha...

The word haptics, believed to be derived from the Greek word haptesthai, means related to the sense of touch. In the psychology and neuroscience literature, haptics is the study of human touch sensing, specifically via kinesthetic (force/position) and cutaneous (tactile) receptors, associated with perception and manipulation. In the robotics and virtual reality literature, haptics is broadly de...

This paper readdresses the assertion found in much secondary literature that Greek medicine was adopted in Tibet in the seventh and eighth centuries. I discuss some of the traces of Galenic medical knowledge in early Tibetan medicine, and raise the question of why Tibetan medical histories who mention Galen give Galenic medicine a much more significant place than is evidenced in the Tibetan med...

Cypriot Greek has been cited as “the last surviving Modern Greek dialect” (Contossopoulos 1969:92, 2000:21), and differences between it and Standard Modern Greek are often seen as seriously disruptive of communication by Mainland and Cypriot Greeks alike. This paper attempts an anatomy of the linguistic ‘difference’ of the Cypriot variety of Greek. By placing this in the wider context of the hi...

The first cancer descriptions in history are discussed according to recent findings and their interpretation, which show it as a group of unknown diseases until the 18th century, when it started to increase to actual levels. Medical literature shows a variety of what were considered cancer lesions, which are actually different lesions. This is partly due to an etymological misunderstanding of t...