Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Stellar Dynamics and the Implications on the Merger Evolution in NGC 6240

We report near-infrared integral field spectroscopy of the luminous merging galaxy NGC 6240. Stellar velocities show that the two K-band peaks separated by 1. ″6 are the central parts of inclined, rotating disk galaxies with equal mass bulges. The dynamical masses of the nuclei are much larger than the stellar mass derived from the K-band light, implying that the progenitor galaxies were galaxies with massive bulges. The K-band light is dominated by red supergiants formed in the two nuclei in starbursts, triggered ≈2 × 107 yr ago, possibly by the most recent perigalactic approach. Strong feedback effects of a superwind and supernovae are responsible for a short duration burst (≈5 × 106 yr) that is already decaying. The two galaxies form a prograde-retrograde rotating system and from the stellar velocity field it seems that one of the two interacting galaxies is subject to a prograde encounter. Between the stellar nuclei is a prominent peak of molecular gas (H2, CO). The stellar velocity dispersion peaks there indicating that the gas has formed a local, self-gravitating concentration decoupled from the stellar gravitational potential. NGC 6240 has previously been reported to fit the paradigm of an elliptical galaxy formed through the merger of two galaxies. This was based on the near-infrared light distribution, which follows a r1/4-law. Our data cast strong doubt on this conclusion: the system is by far not relaxed, rotation plays an important role, as does self-gravitating gas, and the near-infrared light is dominated by young stars.
Overflow behavoir in queues with many long-tailed inputs

textabstractWe consider a fluid queue fed by a superposition of $n$ homogeneous on-off sources with generally distributed on- and off-periods. We scale buffer space $B$ and link rate $C$ by $n$, such that we get $nb$ and $nc$, respectively. Then we let $n$ grow large. In this regime, the overflow probability decays exponentially in the number of sources $n$; we specifically examine the situation in which also $b$ is large. We explicitly compute asymptotics for the case in which the on-periods have a subexponential distribution, e.g., Pareto, Lognormal, or Weibull. We provide a detailed interpretation of our results. Crucial is the shape of the function $v(t) := - log Pr( A^* > t )$ for large~$t$, $A^*$ being the residual on-period. If $v(.)$ is slowly varying (e.g., Pareto, Lognormal), then, during the trajectory to overflow, the input rate will only slightly exceed the link rate. Consequently, the buffer will fill `slowly', and the typical time to overflow will be `more than linear' in the buffer size. In contrast, if $v(.)$ is regularly varying of index strictly between 0 and 1 (e.g., Weibull), then the input rate will significantly exceed the link rate, and the time to overflow is essentially proportional to the buffer size. In both cases there is a substantial fraction of the sources that remain in the on-state during the entire path to overflow, while the other sources contribute at mean rate. These observations lead to straightforward approximations for the overflow probability. These approximations can be extended to the case of heterogeneous sources; the results provide further insight into the so-called reduced-load approximation.
The application of MRI volume measurement and ~1H-MRS in PTSD

Posttraumatic stress disorder(PTSD) is a bio-psychosocial dysfunction that arises following exposure to traumatic events(combat,traffic accident,natural disaster,etc). At present,the diagnosis of PTSD is mainly based on clinical material.With the advances of magnetic resonance technology,studies can be done in vivo about brain morphology and function.This article reviews the application of MRI volume measurement and ~1H-MRS in PTSD.
An NCME Instructional Module on Data Mining Methods for Classification and Regression

Data mining methods for classification and regression are becoming increasingly popular in various scientific fields. However, these methods have not been explored much in educational measurement. This module first provides a review, which should be accessible to a wide audience in education measurement, of some of these methods. The module then demonstrates using three real-data examples that these methods may lead to an improvement over traditionally used methods such as linear and logistic regression in educational measurement.
High variability of Greenland surface temperature over the past 4000 years estimated from trapped air in an ice core

Greenland recently incurred record high temperatures and ice loss by melting, adding to concerns that anthropogenic warming is impacting the Greenland ice sheet and in turn accelerating global sea‐level rise. Yet, it remains imprecisely known for Greenland how much warming is caused by increasing atmospheric greenhouse gases versus natural variability. To address this need, we reconstruct Greenland surface snow temperature variability over the past 4000 years at the GISP2 site (near the Summit of the Greenland ice sheet; hereafter referred to as Greenland temperature) with a new method that utilises argon and nitrogen isotopic ratios from occluded air bubbles. The estimated average Greenland snow temperature over the past 4000 years was −30.7°C with a standard deviation of 1.0°C and exhibited a long‐term decrease of roughly 1.5°C, which is consistent with earlier studies. The current decadal average surface temperature (2001–2010) at the GISP2 site is −29.9°C. The record indicates that warmer temperatures were the norm in the earlier part of the past 4000 years, including century‐long intervals nearly 1°C warmer than the present decade (2001–2010). Therefore, we conclude that the current decadal mean temperature in Greenland has not exceeded the envelope of natural variability over the past 4000 years, a period that seems to include part of the Holocene Thermal Maximum. Notwithstanding this conclusion, climate models project that if anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions continue, the Greenland temperature would exceed the natural variability of the past 4000 years sometime before the year 2100.
FDI Spillovers and the Role of Local Financial Markets: Evidence from Mexico

This paper presents new microeconomic evidence on the link between financial sector development, financial globalization and productivity. Using data of Mexican manufacturing firms operating in 1991, 1998 and 2000 it is found that in general, larger firms benefit from FDI in their same region of activity. However, domestic firms only enjoy productivity increases from FDI if they are relatively large and located in financially developed regions. All the findings are robust to instrumenting for financial development using historical conditions.
GROUND-BASED MULTISITE OBSERVATIONS OF TWO TRANSITS OF HD 80606b

We present ground-based optical observations of the 2009 September and 2010 January transits of HD 80606b. Based on three partial light curves of the 2009 September event, we derive a midtransit time of Tc [HJD] = 2455099.196 ± 0.026, which is about 1σ away from the previously predicted time. We observed the 2010 January event from nine different locations, with most phases of the transit being observed by at least three different teams. We determine a midtransit time of Tc [HJD] = 2455210.6502 ± 0.0064, which is within 1. 3σ of the time derived from a Spitzer observation of the same event.
Burst tries: a fast, efficient data structure for string keys

Many applications depend on efficient management of large sets of distinct strings in memory. For example, during index construction for text databases a record is held for each distinct word in the text, containing the word itself and information such as counters. We propose a new data structure, the burst trie, that has significant advantages over existing options for such applications: it uses about the same memory as a binary search tree; it is as fast as a trie; and, while not as fast as a hash table, a burst trie maintains the strings in sorted or near-sorted order. In this paper we describe burst tries and explore the parameters that govern their performance. We experimentally determine good choices of parameters, and compare burst tries to other structures used for the same task, with a variety of data sets. These experiments show that the burst trie is particularly effective for the skewed frequency distributions common in text collections, and dramatically outperforms all other data structures for the task of managing strings while maintaining sort order.
A Comparative Empirical Investigation of Agency and Market Theories of Insider Trading

This paper explores the empirical relationship among insider trading law, other legal rules and institutions, and equity markets in an international context. In particular, using legal and economic data from a cross-section of countries, I investigate two empirical relationships: the relationship between insider trading law and ownership concentration and the relationship between insider trading law and equity market liquidity. Consistent with agency theories which predict that the ability of insiders to engage in uninhibited trading encourages concentrated share ownership, I find that tougher insider trading laws are negatively and significantly related to the degree of ownership concentration in publicly traded companies. That is, in economic regimes where insider trading is more stringently regulated, large shareholders hold a significantly lower fraction of outstanding shares. In addition, consistent with market microstructure theories of the relationship between asymmetric information and trading costs, I find that weaker insider trading regimes have, on average, less liquid equity markets. It is hoped that the findings of this paper will inform the ongoing law and economics debate over the desirability of regulating trading by corporate insiders. John M. Olin Fellow in Law and Economics, Harvard Law School; J.D. , Harvard Law School, 1999; and Ph.D. candidate, Department of Economics, Harvard University.
Holographic duals of long open strings

We study the holographic map between long open strings, which stretch between D-branes separated in the bulk space-time, and operators in the dual boundary theory. We focus on a generalization of the Sakai-Sugimoto holographic model of QCD, where the simplest chiral condensate involves an operator of this type. Its expectation value is dominated by a semiclassical string world sheet, as for Wilson loops. We also discuss the deformation of the model by this operator, and, in particular, its effect on the meson spectrum. This deformation can be thought of as a generalization of a quark mass term to strong coupling. It leads to the first top-down holographic model of QCD with a non-Abelian chiral symmetry which is both spontaneously and explicitly broken, as in QCD. Other examples we study include half-supersymmetric open Wilson lines, and systems of D-branes ending on NS5-branes, which can be analyzed using world sheet methods.
Static Analysis for Regular Expression Exponential Runtime via Substructural Logics

Regular expression matching using backtracking can have exponential runtime, leading to an algorithmic complexity attack known as REDoS in the systems security literature. In this paper, we build on a recently published static analysis that detects whether a given regular expression can have exponential runtime for some inputs. We systematically construct a more accurate analysis by forming powers and products of transition relations and thereby reducing the REDoS problem to reachability. The correctness of the analysis is proved using a substructural calculus of search trees, where the branching of the tree causing exponential blowup is characterized as a form of non-linearity.
Aircraft attitude estimation based on central difference Kalman filter

When the extended Kalman filter (EKF) is applied in the aircraft attitude estimation, two defects exist: one is computational complexity; the other is large linearization error. Aiming at these problems, central difference Kalman filter (CDKF) based on Stirling interpolation formulation is applied to the low-cost aircraft attitude estimation system which is of less accurate and high noisy sensors. First, the nonlinear mathematical model of aircraft attitude based on quaternion is established, then CDKF is applied to attitude estimation. Experimental results with real flying data show that CDKF is superior to the commonly used EKF method and unscented Kalman filter (UKF). The algorithm not only improves the attitude estimation precision and stability effectively, but also avoids the computing burden of Jacobian matrices. In addition, it is more simple and easy to implement, because it has only one adjustable parameter instead of three in the UKF circumstances.
The ‘Carina Flare’ supershell: probing the atomic and molecular ISM in a Galactic chimney

The "Carina Flare" supershell, GSH 287+04-17, is a molecular supershell originally discovered in 12CO(J=1-0) with the NANTEN 4m telescope. We present the first study of the shell's atomic ISM, using HI 21 cm line data from the Parkes 64m telescope Southern Galactic Plane Survey. The data reveal a gently expanding, ~ 230 x 360 pc HI supershell that shows strong evidence of Galactic Plane blowout, with a break in its main body at z ~ 280 pc and a capped high-latitude extension reaching z ~ 450 pc. The molecular clouds form co-moving parts of the atomic shell, and the morphology of the two phases reflects the supershell's influence on the structure of the ISM. We also report the first discovery of an ionised component of the supershell, in the form of delicate, streamer-like filaments aligned with the proposed direction of blowout. The distance estimate to the shell is re-examined, and we find strong evidence to support the original suggestion that it is located in the Carina Arm at a distance of 2.6 0.4 kpc. Associated HI and H2 masses are estimated as M(HI) ~ 7 3 x 10 5 Msol and M(H2) ~ 2.0 0.6 x 10 5 Msol, and the kinetic energy of the expanding shell as E ~ 1 x 10 51 erg. We examine the results of analytical and numerical models to estimate a required formation energy of several 10 51 to ~ 10 52 erg, and an age of ~ 10 7 yr. This age is compatible with molecular cloud formation time-scales, and we briefly consider the viability of a supershell-triggered origin for the molecular component.
The Taylor Principle, Interest Rate Smoothing and Fed Policy in the 1970s and 1980s

Using real time estimates of output gaps or Greenbook forecasts of the unemployment rate, this article estimates Taylor-type policy rules that predict the actual behavior of the funds rate during two sample periods, 1968Q1 to 1979Q2 and 1979Q3 to 1994Q4. The inflation rate response coefficient is close to unity over the first sub-period and well above unity over the second, suggesting Fed policy violated the Taylor principle during the first period. The adjustment of the funds rate in response to fundamentals is not as rapid during the first period as it is during the second. Together these results support the conventional view that the Fed was "too timid" and "too sluggish" during the late 1960s and the 1970s. Though the Fed smoothes interest rates, the degree of smoothing exhibited is far less than what was previously estimated. The funds rate response to its fundamentals is complete within one year during the first period and within one quarter during the second.
An alternate construction of an access-optimal regenerating code with optimal sub-packetization level

Given the scale of today's distributed storage systems, the failure of an individual node is a common phenomenon. Various metrics have been proposed to measure the efficacy of the repair of a failed node, such as the amount of data download needed to repair (also known as the repair bandwidth), the amount of data accessed at the helper nodes, and the number of helper nodes contacted. Clearly, the amount of data accessed can never be smaller than the repair bandwidth. In the case of a help-by-transfer code, the amount of data accessed is equal to the repair bandwidth. It follows that a help-by-transfer code possessing optimal repair bandwidth is access optimal. The focus of the present paper is on help-by-transfer codes that employ minimum possible bandwidth to repair the systematic nodes and are thus access optimal for the repair of a systematic node. The zigzag construction by Tamo et al. in which both systematic and parity nodes are repaired is access optimal. But the sub-packetization level required is rk where r is the number of parities and k is the number of systematic nodes. To date, the best known achievable sub-packetization level for access-optimal codes is rk/r in a MISER-code-based construction by Cadambe et al. in which only the systematic nodes are repaired and where the location of symbols transmitted by a helper node depends only on the failed node and is the same for all helper nodes. Under this set-up, it turns out that this sub-packetization level cannot be improved upon. In the present paper, we present an alternate construction under the same setup, of an access-optimal code repairing systematic nodes, that is inspired by the zigzag code construction and that also achieves a sub-packetization level of rk/r.
Distances to Galaxies from the Correlation between Luminosities and Line Widths. III. Cluster Template and Global Measurement of H0

The correlation between the luminosities and rotation velocities of galaxies can be used to estimate distances to late-type galaxies. It is an appropriate moment to reevaluate this method given the great deal of new information available. The major improvements described here include: (1) the template relations can now be defined by large, complete samples, (2) the samples are drawn from a wide range of environments, (3) the relations are defined by photometric information at the B, R, I, and K′ bands, (4) the multiband information clarifies problems associated with internal reddening, (5) the template zero points are defined by 24 galaxies with accurately known distances, and (6) the relations are applied to 12 clusters scattered across the sky and out to velocities of 8000 km s-1. The biggest change from earlier calibrations are associated with point 5. Roughly a 15% increase in the distance scale has come about with the fivefold increase in the number of zero-point calibrators. The overall increase in the distance scale from the luminosity-line width methodology is about 10% after consideration of all factors. Modulo an assumed distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud of 50 kpc and no metallicity corrections to the Cepheid calibration, the resulting value of the Hubble constant is H0 = 77 ± 8 km s-1 Mpc-1, where the error is the 95% probable statistical error. Cumulative systematic errors internal to this analysis should not exceed 10%. Uncertainties in the distance scale ladder external to this analysis are estimated at ~10%. If the Cepheid calibration is shifted from the LMC to NGC 4258 with a distance established by observations of circumnuclear masers, then H0 is larger by 12%.
Involvement of Calcium-independent Phospholipase A2in Hydrogen Peroxide-induced Accumulation of Free Fatty Acids in Human U937 Cells*

Previous studies have demonstrated that U937 cells are able to mobilize arachidonic acid (AA) and synthesize prostaglandins in response to receptor-directed and soluble stimuli by a mechanism that involves the activation of Group IV cytosolic phospholipase A2α. In this paper we show that these cells also mobilize AA in response to an oxidative stress induced by H2O2 through a mechanism that appears not to be mediated by cytosolic phospholipase A2α but by the calcium-independent Group VI phospholipase A2(iPLA2). This is supported by the following lines of evidence: (i) the response is essentially calcium-independent, (ii) it is inhibited by bromoenol lactone, and (iii) it is inhibited by an iPLA2 antisense oligonucleotide. Enzyme assays conducted under a variety of conditions reveal that the specific activity of the iPLA2 does not change as a result of H2O2 exposure, which argues against the activation of a specific signaling cascade ending in the iPLA2. Rather, the oxidant acts to perturb membrane homeostasis in a way that the enzyme susceptibility/accessibility to its substrate increases, and this results in altered fatty acid release. In support of this view, not only AA, but also other fatty acids, were found to be liberated in an iPLA2-dependent manner in the H2O2-treated cells. Collectively, these studies underscore the importance of the iPLA2 in modulating homeostatic fatty acid deacylation reactions and document a potentially important route under pathophysiological conditions for increasing free fatty acid levels during oxidative stress.
Agricultural Futures Prices and Long Memory Processes

Price series that are 21.5 years long for six agricultural futures markets, corn, soybeans, wheat, hogs, coffee, and sugar, exhibit time-varying volatility, carry long-range dependence, and portray excessive skewness and kurtosis, though they are covariance stationary. This suggests that the series contain nonlinear dynamics. ARCH and long memory are the two stochastic nonlinear models that are able to produce these symptoms. Though standard ARCH tests suggest that all series might contain ARCH effects, further diagnostics show that the series cannot be ARCH processes. The martingale difference null cannot be rejected by the ARCH model. Three long memory techniques, the classical R/S analysis, the modified R/S analysis, and the AFIMA model, are applied to test the martingale difference null against the long memory alternative. The nonparametric method, the classical R/S analysis, suggests there might be long memory structures in the series. However, two other more robust tests, the modified R/S analysis and the AFIMA model, confirm the case of sugar, but reject this proposition for the other five markets.
Globalisation and Sustainable Development

This paper addresses the question whether the features of the post-war process of globalisation are consistent with the social and environmental requirements of sustainable development. To this end the post-war period is articulated in two phases: the Bretton Wood period (1945-1971) and the "Washington Consensus" period (1980-2000), separated by a brief period of transition. The empirical evidence discussed in this paper suggests that the inequality between countries slightly increased throughout the period according to most measurement techniques, while inequality within OECD countries diminished in many cases in the Bretton Woods period while increased in the Washington Consensus period. On the contrary, many indexes of environmental deterioration worsened in the Bretton Woods period and improved in the Washington Consensus period although this positive tendency has recently petered out, sometimes reversed, in consequence of a widespread weakening of environmental policies. Our conclusion is that post-war globalisation cannot be considered fully sustainable in any of the two periods considered, although for different reasons. However it is argued that the process of globalisation could, and should, be made sustainable through structural interventions, some of which are briefly discussed.