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The system of dignities introduced by Alexios I Komnenos was an answer for the need of a new reformed title hierarchy, adequate for aristocratic model of exercising power. It served as a clear manifestation of the special privileged position of emperor’s kinsmen. The titles granted to those relatives and affines can be traced accurately up to the reign of Manuel I. So far, however, little space has been devoted to the analysis of that system during the Angelos dynasty. It is often generally assumed following Niketas Choniates testimony, that the title hierarchy in the late 12th century suffered certain loss of value or inflation. It is worth taking a closer look at this process, on the example of the titles traditionally granted to the closest family members, at the courts of Andronicus I Komnenos and the Angeloi. I would like to focus particularly on those dignities, that at the time of the Komnenoi were given to the emperor’s siblings and his sons-in-law – from sebastohypertatos to sebastokrator. That part of the title hierarchy was much closer to a ruler, making it easier to trace. The basic problem encountered by researchers of this period is the small number of sources, not allowing for full reconstruction of the title hierarchy. However, very limited information found in the written sources can be complemented by aristocratic lead seals, which often included the dignity of their owners. From such an analysis emerges a picture of a steady evolution of the Komnenian system. The emperors of the late 12th century adjusted court dignities to need at hand. Yet that process doesn’t seem to diminish significantly the value of the highest titles.

The fall of imperial authority and the decline of the Byzantine state at the end of the 12th century has its cause not only in foreign policy but also, to a large extent, in the family policy of the Komnenoi emperors. The “clan” system introduced during Alexios I’ reign and continued by his successors, connected the aristocratic elites with the imperial family by blood ties. In the 12th century, the composition of this group, linked by a complicated marriage network, underwent a significant transformation, which could be one of the most important factors of the later crisis. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First: distinguishing two groups of aristocrats within the Komnenos “clan” i.e. “core” Komnenos family and affine families. Second: determining their approximate numer during the 12th century. Relatively large amount of data about aristocratic elites of that period allows for statistical approach. Written sources and sigillography of the 12th century Byzantium is rich in information about high ranking persons. In addition, the Komnenos era has been thoroughly described in prosopographical works. This allows for counting the number of aristocrats and thus obtaining reliable results. Such an approach is not free from estimation and probability. However, the amount of information is sufficient enough to show the overall trends visible in the composition of the elites associated with the Komnenoi. The result of this study is a table that shows the tendency of the weakening of the Komnenos family in face of a constantly growing group of affine aristocratic families. This sheds a new light on the progressive collapse of the imperial authority after the death of Manuel I Komnenos, the key role of destructive actions of Andronikos I, and the weakness of the Angelos dynasty.

In this paper I would like to concentrate on strategies and methods that were guiding Alexios I and Andronikos I of the Komnenos dynasty during the process of gaining and consolidating their power in the Byzantine Empire. Between these two emperors, who belonged to the same family, there exist many analogies in the way of carrying out a coup and constructing the authority based on a group of faithful aristocrats. It is crucial to highlight the active family politics which characterized both the emperors, as it was the main strategy aimed at ensuring the durability of the freshly acquired power. Between Andronikos’ and his grandfather’s coups passed almost exactly one hundred years. The completely different social and political situation of the Byzantine Empire in the late 12th century forced Andronikos to take a different approach. The most striking change was in the way of eliminating potential threats from the circles of Constantinopolitan aristocracy, especially when it comes to his relatives. Such a comparative analysis leads to some important observations concerning the social changes in the late 11th and 12th centuries, as well as mechanisms of seniority and precedence of power in the Komnenos family.

(Aristocracy against Komnenoi – The plot of Michael Anemas as a reaction to social changes in Byzantium, at the end of the 11thcentury): This article focuses on the events described in the twelfth book of Alexiad, known as the plot of Michael Anemas. As author suggests, motives that led Anemai brothers and their allies, to failed attempt to kill Alexios I, were much more complex than Anna Komnene described. Starting from background of the plot, going through discussing the exact date, analyzing people involved, their motives and the way they were persecuted, this article leads to the conclusion that rebels felt unsatisfied by Alexios’s system of rule – the Komnenian “clan”. As the last of its kind, during the rule of Komnenoi dynasty, the plot of Michael Anemas proves to us a change in the structure of the Byzantine aristocracy, that occurred in the last twelve years of the eleventh century.

The paper presents a novel method of evaluating the square root function in FPGA. The method uses a linear approximation subsystem with a reduced size of a look-up table. The reduction in the size of the lookup table is twofold. Firstly, a simple linear approximation subsystem uses the lookup table only for the node points. Secondly, a concept of a variable step look-up table is introduced, where the node points are not uniformly spaced, but the spacing is determined by how close to the linear function the approximated function is. The proposed method of evaluating nonlinear function and specifically the square root function is practical for word lengths of up to 24 bits. The evaluation is performed in one clock cycle.

The importance of reconfigurable hardware is increasing steadily. For example, the primary approach of using adaptive systems based on programmable gate arrays and configurable routing resources has gone mainstream and high-performance programmable logic devices are rivaling traditional application-specific hardwired integrated circuits. Also, the idea of moving from the 2-D domain into a 3-D design which stacks several active layers above each other is gaining momentum in research and industry, to cope with the demand for smaller devices with a higher scale of integration. However, optimized arithmetic blocks in course-grain reconfigurable arrays as well as field-programmable architectures still play an important role. In countless digital systems and signal processing applications, the multiplication is one of the critical challenges, where in many cases a trade-off between area usage and data throughput has to be made. But the a priori choice of word-length and number representation can also be replaced by a dynamic choice at run-time, in order to improve flexibility, area efficiency and the level of parallelism in computation. In this contribution, we look at an adaptive computing system called 3-D-SoftChip to point out what parameters are crucial to implement flexible multiplier blocks into optimized elements for accelerated processing. The 3-D-SoftChip architecture uses a novel approach to 3-dimensional integration based on flip-chip bonding with indium bumps. The modular construction, the introduction of interfaces to realize the exchange of intermediate data, and the reconfigurable sign handling approach will be explained, as well as a beneficial way to handle and distribute the numerous required control signals.