Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
CE 315: A New Interacting Double-Degenerate Binary Star

We present spectroscopic observations of object CE 315 revealing a blue continuum with strong emission lines. Most of the detected lines are identified with He I or He II in emission, with a handful of faint lines of nitrogen. Notable is the complete absence of hydrogen lines. The He lines exhibit triple-peaked profiles with remarkably broad widths of ~2000 km s-1 (FWZP). The observations show that CE 315 is an interacting binary system with an orbital period of 65.1 ± 0.7 minutes and a mass ratio of 0.022. We conclude that the most likely scenario for this object is that of an accreting ~0.77 M☉ white dwarf with a ~0.017 M☉ helium white dwarf as mass donor.
Competition Laws in MENA: An Assessment of the Status Quo and the Relevance of a WTO Agreement

Competition policy plays an increasing role worldwide, both at the national and international level. The number of countries with competition laws has increased to about seventy as of 1999, against less than thirty only three decades earlier. One of the many reasons that lie behind this renewed interest in competition policy is the deregulation and privatization that has become increasingly important throughout the world, particularly in developing countries and countries in transition This in turn has drawn attention to the need for strengthening competition at the national level. MENA countries have not been out of this liberalization trend, although, to date only three countries have enacted competition legislation. The objective of the paper is to assess the state of competition legislation and enforcement in some of the MENA countries and the relevance of some ideas being discussed concerning eventual international negotiations on competition within the WTO.
The Influence of Process Acceptance on BPM: An Empirical Investigation

Business processes and the management thereof can create value for companies. This expected contribution of BPM may only unfold if the processes are executed as designed. The execution in itself is dependant on an initial process trigger. A decision not to trigger the business process or to modify it during execution depends on the subject's process acceptance. It is thus self-evident that ill accepted processes impact the efforts to standardize processes negatively. This paper investigates factors which influence process acceptance throughout the entire life cycle. A cycle that includes the creation, implementation, execution, and control of business processes. 21 in-depth expert interviews are used to identify these factors. Results indicate that process acceptance is formed by the organizational context, the process (model) itself, and the involved subjects. This implies a necessity of understanding social mechanisms, which influence process acceptance, in the process design phase. Especially process model properties such as fail-safe and feedback mechanisms, perceived process length, number of participants, and resource constraints are found to influence process acceptance. Further findings and insights presented in this paper should be considered during process modelling to archive higher process acceptance among relevant stakeholders.
Discriminatively Reranking Abductive Proofs for Plan Recognition

We investigate the use of a simple, discriminative reranking approach to plan recognition in an abductive setting. In contrast to recent work, which attempts to model abductive plan recognition using various formalisms that integrate logic and graphical models (such as Markov Logic Networks or Bayesian Logic Programs), we instead advocate a simpler, more flexible approach in which plans found through an abductive beam-search are discriminatively scored based on arbitrary features. We show that this approach performs well even with relatively few positive training examples, and we obtain state-of-the-art results on two abductive plan recognition datasets, outperforming more complicated systems.
Fast algorithms for detecting overlapping functional modules in protein-protein interaction networks

Accumulating evidence suggests that biological systems are composed of interacting, separable, functional modules which is that groups of vertices within which connections are dense but between which they are sparse. Identifying these modules is likely to capture the biologically meaningful interactions. In recent years, many algorithms have been developed for detecting such structures. These algorithms however are computationally demanding, which limits their application. The existing deterministic methods used for large networks find separated modules, whereas most of the actual networks are made of highly overlapping cohesive groups of vertices. In this paper, we propose an iterative-clique percolation method (ICPM) for identifying overlapping modules in PPI (protein-protein interaction) networks. Our method is based on clique percolation method (CPM) which not only considers the degree of nodes to minimize the search space (The vertices in k-cliques must have the degree of k-1 at least), but also converts k-cliques to (k-1)-cliques. It uses (k-1)-cliques by appending one node to (k-1)-cliques for finding k-cliques. Furthermore, since the PPI network is noisy and still incomplete, some methods treat the PPI networks as weighted graphs in which each edge (e.g., interaction) is associated with a weight representing the probability or reliability of that interaction for preprocessing and purifying PPI data. Thus, we extend the ICPM into weighted networks which takes into account the link weights in a more delicate way by incorporating the subgraph intensity. We test our method on both computer-generated and PPI networks. Our analysis of the yeast PPI network suggests that most of these modules have well-supported biological significance in the context of protein localization, function annotation, protein complexes.
DUSTY INFRARED GALAXIES: Sources of the Cosmic Infrared Background

▪ AbstractThe discovery of the Cosmic Infrared Background (CIB) in 1996, together with recent cosmological surveys from the mid-infrared to the millimeter, have revolutionized our view of star formation at high redshifts. It has become clear, in the last decade, that a population of galaxies that radiate most of their power in the far-infrared (the so-called infrared galaxies) contributes an important part of the whole galaxy build-up in the Universe. Since 1996, detailed (and often painful) investigations of the high-redshift infrared galaxies have resulted in the spectacular progress covered in this review. We outline the nature of the sources of the CIB, including their star-formation rate, stellar and total mass, morphology, metallicity, and clustering properties. We discuss their contribution to the stellar content of the Universe and their origin in the framework of the hierarchical growth of structures. We finally discuss open questions for a scenario of their evolution up to the present-day galaxies.
Single-Channel Source Separation Using EMD-Subband Variable Regularized Sparse Features

A novel approach to solve the single-channel source separation (SCSS) problem is presented. Most existing supervised SCSS methods resort exclusively to the independence waveform criteria as exemplified by training the prior information before the separation process. This poses a significant limiting factor to the applicability of these methods to real problem. Our proposed method does not require training knowledge for separating the mixture and it is based on decomposing the mixture into a series of oscillatory components termed as the intrinsic mode functions (IMFs). We show, in this paper, that the IMFs have several desirable properties unique to SCSS problem and how these properties can be advantaged to relax the constraints posed by the problem. In addition, we have derived a novel sparse non-negative matrix factorization to estimate the spectral bases and temporal codes of the sources. The proposed algorithm is a more complete and efficient approach to matrix factorization where a generalized criterion for variable sparseness is imposed onto the solution. Experimental testing has been conducted to show that the proposed method gives superior performance over other existing approaches.
Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion the Hno 3 Forming Branch of the Ho 2 + No Reaction: Pre-industrial-to-present Trends in Atmospheric Species and Radiative Forcings Acpd Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions This discussion paper is/has been under review for the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP). Please refer to the corresponding final paper in ACP if available. Abstract Recent laboratory measurements have shown the existence of a HNO 3 forming branch of the HO 2 + NO reaction. This reaction is the main source of atmospheric O 3 , through the subsequent photolysis of NO 2 , as well as being a major source of OH. The branching of the reaction to HNO 3 reduces the formation of these species significantly, af-5 fecting O 3 abundances, climate and the oxidation capacity of the troposphere. The Oslo CTM2, a three-dimensional chemistry transport model, is used to calculate atmospheric composition and trends with and without the new reaction branch. Results for the present day atmosphere, when both temperature and pressure effects on the branching ratio are accounted for, show an increase of the global, annual mean 10 methane lifetime by 10.9 %, resulting from a 14.1 % reduction in the global, annual mean OH concentration. Comparisons with measurements show that including the new branch improves the modelled O 3 , but that it is not possible to conclude whether the NO y distribution improves. We model an approximately 11 % reduction in the tropical tropospheric O 3 increase since pre-industrial times, as well as an 8 % decrease in 15 the trend of OH concentration, when the new branch is accounted for. The radiative forcing due to changes in O 3 over the industrial era was calculated as 0.33 W m −2 , reducing to 0.26 W m −2 with the new reaction branch. These results are significant, and it is important that this reaction branching is confirmed by other laboratory groups.
The interplay of individual differences and context of learning in behavioral and neurocognitive second language development

In order to understand variability in second language (L2) acquisition, this study addressed how individual differences in cognitive abilities may contribute to development for learners in different contexts. Specifically, we report the results of two short-term longitudinal studies aimed at examining the role of cognitive abilities in accounting for changes in L2 behavioral performance and neurocognitive processing for learners in ‘at-home’ and ‘study-abroad’ settings. Learners completed cognitive assessments of declarative, procedural, and working memory abilities. Linguistic assessments aimed at determining behavioral sensitivity and online processing of L2 Spanish syntax were administered before and after a semester of study in either a traditional university classroom context (Experiment 1) or a study-abroad context (Experiment 2). At-home learners evidenced behavioral gains, with no detected predictive role for individual differences in cognitive abilities. Study-abroad learners evidenced behavioral gains and processing changes that were partially accounted for by procedural learning ability and working memory. Taken together, these results provide preliminary insight into how individual differences in cognitive abilities may contribute to behavioral and neural processing changes over time among learners in different natural contexts.
Evolution of brain injury after transient middle cerebral artery occlusion in neonatal rats.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Stroke in preterm and term babies is common and results in significant morbidity. The vulnerability and pathophysiological mechanisms of neonatal cerebral ischemia-reperfusion may differ from those in the mature cerebral nervous system because of the immaturity of many receptor systems and differences in metabolism in neonatal brain. This study details the neuropathological sequelae of reperfusion-induced brain injury after transient middle cerebral artery (MCA) occlusion in the postnatal day 7 (P7) rat. METHODS P7 rats were subjected to 3 hours of MCA occlusion followed by reperfusion or sham surgery. Diffusion-weighted MRI was performed during MCA occlusion, and maps of the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) were constructed. Contrast-enhanced MRI was performed in a subset of animals before and 20 minutes after reperfusion. Triphenyltetrazolium chloride (TTC) staining of the brain was performed 24 hours after reperfusion. Immunohistochemistry to identify astrocytes (glial fibrillary acidic protein), reactive microglia (ED-1), and neurons (microtubule-associated protein 2) and cresyl violet staining were done 4, 8, 24, and 72 hours after reperfusion. RESULTS On contrast-enhanced MRI, nearly complete disruption of cerebral blood flow was evident in the vascular territory of the MCA during occlusion. Partial restoration of blood flow occurred after removal of the suture. A significant decrease of the ADC, indicative of early cytotoxic edema, occurred in anatomic regions with a disrupted blood supply. The decline in ADC was associated with TTC- and cresyl violet-determined brain injury in these regions 24 hours later. The ischemic core was rapidly infiltrated with reactive microglia and was surrounded by reactive astroglia. CONCLUSIONS In P7 rats, transient MCA occlusion causes acute cytotoxic edema and severe unilateral brain injury. The presence of a prominent inflammatory response suggests that both the ischemic episode and the reperfusion contribute to the neuropathological outcome.
Crowd behavior detection by statistical modeling of motion patterns

The governing behaviors of individuals in crowded places offer unique and difficult challenges, and limit the scope of conventional surveillance systems. In this paper, we investigate the crowd behaviors and localize the anomalies due to individual's abrupt dissipation. The novelty of the proposed approach can be described in three aspects. First, we introduce block-clips by sectioning the video segments into non-overlapping spatio-temporal patches to marginalize the arbitrarily complicated and dense flow field. Second, we treat the flow field in each block-clip as 2d distribution of samples and mixtures of Gaussian is used to parameterize it keeping generality of flow field intact. K-means algorithm is employed to initialize the mixture model and is followed by Expectation Maximization for optimization. These mixtures of Gaussian result in the distinct flow patterns precisely a sequence of dynamic patterns for each block-clip. Third, a bank of Conditional Random Field model is employed one for each block clip and is learned from the sequence of dynamic patterns and classifies each block-clip as normal and abnormal. We conduct experiment on two challenging benchmark crowd datasets PETS 2009 and University of Minnesota and results show that our method achieves higher recognition rates in detecting specific and overall crowd behaviors. In addition, the proposed approach shows dominating performance during the comparative analysis with similar approaches in crowd behavior detection.
Cultural Models of Latino Immigrant Parent Knowledge of Their Children's Specific Learning Disabilities

Cultural Models of Latino Immigrant Parent Knowledge of Their Children’s Specific Learning Disabilities Harriet Faith Jewson Welling Department of Counseling Psychology and Special Education, BYU Master of Science The author investigated shared cultural models among nine Latino immigrant parents of children with specific learning disabilities aged 6-12 years old. Interview questions addressed what participants thought it meant to be educated, their descriptions of specific learning disabilities, and their reports of effective teaching methods for their children. Although many varying themes emerged from the interview data, three distinct cultural models surfaced from the data on education and disability. Implications include cultural beliefs informing IEP content, knowledge of cultural models enabling increasingly open communication between school and home, and culturally sensitive classroom instruction.
Supernova neutrinos and antineutrinos: Ternary luminosity diagram and spectral split patterns

In core-collapse supernovae, the νe and e species may experience collective flavor swaps to non-electron species νx, within energy intervals limited by relatively sharp boundaries (``splits''). These phenomena appear to depend sensitively upon the initial energy spectra and luminosities. We investigate the effect of generic variations of the fractional luminosities (le, lē, lx) with respect to the usual ``energy equipartition'' case (1/6, 1/6, 1/6), within an early-time supernova scenario with fixed thermal spectra and total luminosity. We represent the constraint le+lē+4lx = 1 in a ternary diagram, which is explored via numerical experiments (in single-angle approximation) over an evenly-spaced grid of points. In inverted hierarchy, single splits arise in most cases, but an abrupt transition to double splits is observed for a few points surrounding the equipartition one. In normal hierarchy, collective effects turn out to be unobservable at all grid points but one, where single splits occur. Admissible deviations from equipartition may thus induce dramatic changes in the shape of supernova (anti)neutrino spectra. The observed patterns are interpreted in terms of initial flavor polarization vectors (defining boundaries for the single/double split transitions), lepton number conservation, and minimization of potential energy.
Improving Acquisition of Teleoreactive Logic Programs through Representation Extension

An important form of learning involves acquiring skills that let an agent achieve its goals. Although there has been considerable work on learning in planning, most approaches have been sensitive to representations of background knowledge, which hinders their generality. A mechanism that acquires skills effectively across different representations would support more robust behavior. In this paper, we present a novel approach to constructing hierarchical task networks that acquires conceptual predicates as learning proceeds, making it less dependent on carefully crafted background knowledge. This procedure for representation acquisition expands the system's knowledge about the world and leads to more rapid learning. We demonstrate the mechanism's effectiveness by comparing its behavior with that of a similar learner that does not extend its representation.
A Comprehensive Behavioral Test Battery to Assess Learning and Memory in 129S6/Tg2576 Mice

Transgenic Tg2576 mice overexpressing human amyloid precursor protein (hAPP) are a widely used Alzheimer’s disease (AD) mouse model to evaluate treatment effects on amyloid beta (Aβ) pathology and cognition. Tg2576 mice on a B6;SJL background strain carry a recessive rd1 mutation that leads to early retinal degeneration and visual impairment in homozygous carriers. This can impair performance in behavioral tests that rely on visual cues, and thus, affect study results. Therefore, B6;SJL/Tg2576 mice were systematically backcrossed with 129S6/SvEvTac mice resulting in 129S6/Tg2576 mice that lack the rd1 mutation. 129S6/Tg2576 mice do not develop retinal degeneration but still show Aβ accumulation in the brain that is comparable to the original B6;SJL/Tg2576 mouse. However, comprehensive studies on cognitive decline in 129S6/Tg2576 mice are limited. In this study, we used two dementia mouse models on a 129S6 background—scopolamine-treated 129S6/SvEvTac mice (3–5 month-old) and transgenic 129S6/Tg2576 mice (11–13 month-old)–to establish a behavioral test battery for assessing learning and memory. The test battery consisted of five tests to evaluate different aspects of cognitive impairment: a Y-Maze forced alternation task, a novel object recognition test, the Morris water maze, the radial arm water maze, and a Y-maze spontaneous alternation task. We first established this behavioral test battery with the scopolamine-induced dementia model using 129S6/SvEvTac mice and then evaluated 129S6/Tg2576 mice using the same testing protocol. Both models showed distinctive patterns of cognitive impairment. Together, the non-invasive behavioral test battery presented here allows detecting cognitive impairment in scopolamine-treated 129S6/SvEvTac mice and in transgenic 129S6/Tg2576 mice. Due to the modular nature of this test battery, more behavioral tests, e.g. invasive assays to gain additional cognitive information, can easily be added.
Nondestructive Evaluation: Wood

Preservationists look to methods of nondestructive evaluation (NDE) to answer questions about the condition, strength, and construction details of wood in historic buildings in the interest of saving historic fabric and reducing or eliminating damage to significant historic features or materials caused by investigative probes. Many times, a basic wood inspection can answer questions posed when a structure is being considered for renovation or adaptive reuse (see “Practice Points Number 3: Basics of Wood Inspection,” which addresses visual inspection, probing, and moisture diagnostics). However, when information generated through a basic inspection is insufficient to make informed decisions, advanced investigative techniques should be considered. Since answers to questions about condition, strength, and construction are often concealed in a historic structure, NDE methods are a means to assess hidden conditions and obtain vital information for decision makers. Although considerable research on the NDE of wood has been conducted, there are only limited numbers of NDE methods for assessing timber that are available for field use. These include: • moisture-content measurements • remote visual inspection • resistance drilling • infrared thermography • visual grading • stress-wave measurements • digital radioscopy NDE methods are tools to be used in conjunction with other assessment methods and experience to obtain information about wood that can be used to make decisions concerning appropriate treatments. Table 1 provides a summary of the various NDE methods discussed and the information that can be obtained through their use. This Practice Point introduces the most commonly available NDE methods for in-situ assessment of wood members and construction. They should not be used without understanding the capabilities and limitations of each method. Some methods require more training Practice Points NUMBER 10