Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
“Freshwater Killer Whales”: Beaching Behavior of an Alien Fish to Hunt Land Birds

The behavioral strategies developed by predators to capture and kill their prey are fascinating, notably for predators that forage for prey at, or beyond, the boundaries of their ecosystem. We report here the occurrence of a beaching behavior used by an alien and large-bodied freshwater predatory fish (Silurus glanis) to capture birds on land (i.e. pigeons, Columbia livia). Among a total of 45 beaching behaviors observed and filmed, 28% were successful in bird capture. Stable isotope analyses (δ13C and δ15N) of predators and their putative prey revealed a highly variable dietary contribution of land birds among individuals. Since this extreme behavior has not been reported in the native range of the species, our results suggest that some individuals in introduced predator populations may adapt their behavior to forage on novel prey in new environments, leading to behavioral and trophic specialization to actively cross the water-land interface.
Analysis and design of hysteresis current controlled multilevel inverter fed PMSM drive

This paper deals with the modeling and analysis of multilevel inverter fed PMSM (Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor) drive. The concept of hysteresis is applies to produce the controlled switching pulses to multilevel inverter and the concept of vector control is applied in PMSM to obtain linear dynamics similar to DC motor. The five level cascaded inverter fed PMSM drives are developed in MATLAB/SIMULINK environment using simpower system toolboxes. The performance of the proposed drive system is obtained under various operating conditions.
Wavelet Transform for Processing Power Quality Disturbances

The emergence of power quality as a topical issue in power systems in the 1990s largely coincides with the huge advancements achieved in the computing technology and information theory. This unsurprisingly has spurred the development of more sophisticated instruments for measuring power quality disturbances and the use of new methods in processing and analyzing the measurements. Fourier theory was the core of many traditional techniques and it is still widely used today. However, it is increasingly being replaced by newer approaches notably wavelet transform and especially in the post-event processing of the time-varying phenomena. This paper reviews the use of wavelet transform approach in processing power quality data. The strengths, limitations, and challenges in employing the methods are discussed with consideration of the needs and expectations when analyzing power quality disturbances. Several examples are given and discussions are made on the various design issues and considerations, which would be useful to those contemplating adopting wavelet transform in power quality applications. A new approach of combining wavelet transform and rank correlation is introduced as an alternative method for identifying capacitor-switching transients.
Withdrawal from the International Criminal Court: Does Africa have an alternative?

After a century in the making, the International Criminal Court (ICC) came into existence in 2002 with an overwhelming number of states ratifying the Rome Statute. With 34 signatories, Africa is the largest contributor in the Assembly of State Parties, yet Africa has become its severest critic. As threats of withdrawal become a reality with the imminent withdrawal of Burundi, this article considers the question of whether Africa has an alternative solution. With an African Union (AU) Constitutive Act purporting a commitment to combating impunity and promoting democracy, rule of law and good governance, one would expect the AU to be ready to pick up the reins. To end impunity and hold perpetrators accountable, finding an alternative for the lacuna left in the absence of the ICC has never been more pressing. The recent adoption of a strategy by African countries for a mass withdrawal has pushed the matter to the fore. This article discusses the feasibility of amnesty, domestic and local trials, or an African regional court as viable alternatives to ICC jurisdiction and prosecution. The creation of an African regional court in the guise of the African Court of Justice and Human Right (ACJHR) seems the preferred solution, enabled by the Malabo Protocol extending its jurisdiction to international and transnational crimes. Slow ratification does not bode well for the proposed ACJHR and its extended jurisdiction. Time is of the essence and whatever solution is found will necessitate decisive action by the AU. Keywords : ICC, African Union, African Court of Justice and Human Rights, impunity, amnesty, regional courts
Fluctuations of the Extreme Eigenvalues of Finite Rank Deformations of Random Matrices

Consider a deterministic self-adjoint matrix $X_n$ with spectral measure converging to a compactly supported probability measure, the largest and smallest eigenvalues converging to the edges of the limiting measure. We perturb this matrix by adding a random finite rank matrix with delocalised eigenvectors and study the extreme eigenvalues of the deformed model. We give necessary conditions on the deterministic matrix $X_n$ so that the eigenvalues converging out of the bulk exhibit Gaussian fluctuations, whereas the eigenvalues sticking to the edges are very close to the eigenvalues of the non-perturbed model and fluctuate in the same scale. We generalize these results to the case when $X_n$ is random and get similar behavior when we deform some classical models such as Wigner or Wishart matrices with rather general entries or the so-called matrix models.
2 1 0 A ug 2 00 5 Evanescence in Coined Quantum Walks

In this paper we complete the analysis begun by two of the authors in a previous work on the discrete quantum walk on the infinite line [J. Phys. A 36:8775-8795 (2003); quant-ph/0303105]. We obtain uniformly convergent asymptotics for the “exponential decay” regions at the leading edges of the main peaks in the Schrödinger (or wave-mechanics) picture. This calculation required us to generalise the method of stationary phase and we describe this extension in some detail, including self-contained proofs of all the technical lemmas required. We also rigorously establish the exact Feynman equivalence between the path-integral and wave-mechanics representations for this system using some techniques from the theory of special functions. Taken together with the previous work, we can now prove every theorem by both routes.
Working Together and Working Things Out: Dispute Resolution in Repeated Vertical Exchange Relationships

In this paper we explore the impact of relational history on firms' willingness to "work things out" in subsequent agreements, by examining the way that disputes between partners in vertical exchange relationships are actually resolved. Counter to the received wisdom we find no evidence of an automatic preference for private dispute resolution (negotiation, mediation or arbitration) among repeat transactors, relative to those in new exchange relationships - the act of working together does not appear to increase exchange partners' ability to work things out in all instances. However, we find that when there is evidence of the existence of cooperative norms in previous dealings between the partners, subsequent disputes are significantly more likely to be settled privately, as expected. In contrast, in cases where previous interactions are described in negative terms disputes are just as likely to end in litigation as if they were new partnerships. Indeed, we find some evidence of a higher propensity to turn to the courts for compensation when repeated conflict undermines familiarity-based trust.
Pattern of CD14+ Follicular Dendritic Cells and PD1+ T Cells Independently Predicts Time to Transformation in Follicular Lymphoma

Purpose: Transformation of follicular lymphoma is a critical event associated with a poor prognosis. The role of the tumor microenvironment in previous transformation studies has yielded conflicting results. Experimental Design: To define cell subtypes associated with transformation, we examined tissue specimens at diagnosis from patients with follicular lymphoma that later transformed and, using immunohistochemistry (IHC), stained for CD68, CD11c, CD21, CXCL13, FOXP3, PD1, and CD14. Cell content and the pattern of expression were evaluated. Those identified as significantly associated with time to transformation (TTT) and overall survival (OS) were further characterized by flow cytometry and multicolor IHC. Results: Of note, 58 patients were analyzed with median TTT of 4.7 years. The pattern of PD1+ and CD14+ cells rather than the quantity of cells was predictive of clinical outcomes. On multivariate analysis, including the follicular lymphoma international prognostic index score, CD14+ cells localized in the follicle were associated with a shorter TTT (HR, 3.0; P = 0.004). PD1+ cells with diffuse staining were associated with a shorter TTT (HR, 1.9; P = 0.045) and inferior OS (HR, 2.5; P = 0.012). Multicolor IHC and flow cytometry identified CD14+ cells as follicular dendritic cells (FDC), whereas PD1+ cells represented two separate populations, TFH and exhausted T cells. Conclusion: These results identify the presence of PD1+ T cells and CD14+ FDC as independent predictors of transformation in follicular lymphoma. Clin Cancer Res; 20(11); 2862–72. ©2014 AACR.
Upregulating the positive affect system in anxiety and depression: Outcomes of a positive activity intervention

Research suggests that the positive affect system may be an important yet underexplored treatment target in anxiety and depression. Existing interventions primarily target the negative affect system, yielding modest effects on measures of positive emotions and associated outcomes (e.g., psychological well‐being). The objective of the present pilot study was to evaluate the efficacy of a new transdiagnostic positive activity intervention (PAI) for anxiety and depression.
A re-examination and reinterpretation of the records of the presocratics and earlier from an ATR (Argumentative Theory of Reason) perspective : the development of reasoning in Greece in the form of “devising and evaluating arguments intended to persuade”

Aristotle was the founder of logic. He said that there was nothing like it earlier. Interpretations of the records of the presocratics from a classical theory of reasoning (CTR) perspective give the ‘traditional account’ of the development of ‘Greek rationalism’. That is, an account of the Greeks becoming better at discovering the world through a process of forward inference: ratiocination. The recent argumentative theory of reason (ATR) of Sperber and Mercier provides an alternative perspective through which to interpret, or reinterpret these same records. According to the theory, the main function of reasoning is the devising and evaluating of arguments intended to persuade. This suggests a process of backward inference in order to support ideas that have arisen intuitively or in some other way. In applying this new perspective to the records, the result is that the Greeks did develop as reasoners, but more in the ATR sense until Plato. That is, the Greeks, over time, became better at devising and evaluating arguments, which were then used to support their ideas and speculations. Together these ideas and their supporting arguments became the theories the Greeks are known for. In other words, the Greeks developed first as rational persuaders with a variety of physical ideas and speculations about the world. At some point in the development, the Greeks recognised what it is to reason and its utility in the context of the law courts and the political assembly. Over a period of time, they came to understand, formalise and teach and learn the ways and methods of reasoning in the ATR sense. Once this was understood, there is evidence that it was then consciously and deliberately applied in attempts to discover the world through the process of forward inference. This all occurred well before Aristotle. To conclude, there was not nothing at all before Aristotle. He systematised what had already been formalised in coming up with logic. But formalised methods of reasoning, both ATR and CTR, were needed in order to do this.
Segmentation Strategies for Passage Retrieval from Internet Video using Speech Transcripts

We compare the effect of different segmentation strategies for passage retrieval of user generated internet video. We consider retrieval of passages for rather abstract and complex queries that go beyond finding a certain object or constellation of objects in the visual channel. Hence the retrieval methods have to rely heavily on the recognized speech. Passage retrieval has mainly been studied to improve document retrieval and to enable question answering. In these domains best results were obtained using passages defined by the paragraph structure of the source documents or by using arbitrary overlapping passages. For the retrieval of relevant passages in a video no author defined paragraph structure is available. We compare retrieval results from 5 different types of segments: segments defined by shot boundaries, prosodic segments, fixed length segments, a sliding window and semantically coherent segments based on speech transcripts. We evaluated the methods on the corpus of the MediaEval 2011 Rich Speech Retrieval task. Our main conclusions are (1) that fixed length and coherent segments are clearly superior to segments based on speaker turns or shot boundaries; (2) that the retrieval results highly depend on the right choice for the segment length; and (3) that results using the segmentation into semantically coherent parts depend much less on the segment length. Especially, the quality of fixed length and sliding window segmentation drops fast when the segment length increases, while quality of the semantically coherent segments is much more stable. Thus, if coherent segments are defined, longer segments can be used and consequently fewer segments have to be considered at retrieval time.
A Probable z ~ 7 Galaxy Strongly Lensed by the Rich Cluster A2218: Exploring the Dark Ages

We discuss the observational properties of a remarkably faint triply imaged galaxy revealed in a deep z′-band Advanced Camera for Surveys observation of the lensing cluster A2218 (z = 0.175). A well-constrained mass model for the cluster, which incorporates the outcome of recent Keck spectroscopic campaigns, suggests that the triple system arises via a high-redshift (z > 6) source viewed at high magnification (≃25 times). Optical and infrared photometry from Hubble Space Telescope and the Keck Observatory confirms the lensing hypothesis and suggests that a significant discontinuity occurs in the spectral energy distribution within the wavelength interval 9250-9850 Å. If this break is associated with Gunn-Peterson absorption from neutral hydrogen, a redshift of 6.6 < z < 7.1 is inferred. Deep Keck spectroscopy conducted using both optical and infrared spectrographs fails to reveal any prominent emission lines in this region. However, an infrared stellar continuum is detected whose decline below 9800 Å suggests a spectroscopic redshift toward the upper end of the range constrained photometrically, i.e., z ≃ 7. Regardless of the precise redshift, the source is remarkably compact (≲1 h kpc) and faint (zF850LP = 28.0) yet is undergoing vigorous star formation at a rate ≃2.6 M☉ yr-1. An intriguing property is the steep slope of the ultraviolet continuum implied by the photometry, which may suggest that the source is representative of an early population of galaxies responsible for cosmic reionization. Independent verification of these results is highly desirable, but our attempts highlight the difficulty of studying such sources with present facilities and the challenges faced in pushing back the frontiers of the observable universe beyond z ~ 6.5.
Foreigner talk through word reduction in native/non-native spoken interactions

We explore the properties of foreigner talk through word reduction. Word reduction signals that the speaker is referring to the same entity as previously and should be preserved for foreigner talk. However, it leads to intelligibility loss, which works against foreigner talk. Pairs of speakers engaged in a task where native speakers talked either to a native or non-native listener. Natives talking to non-natives performed foreigner talk for duration and intensity. Duration and intensity were reduced for native and non-native listeners equally. These results suggest that word reduction is insensitive to communicative adjustments in the context of foreign talk.
Lipopolysaccharide Interaction with Cell Surface Toll-like Receptor 4-MD-2

Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are innate recognition molecules for microbial products, but their direct interactions with corresponding ligands remain unclarified. LPS, a membrane constituent of gram-negative bacteria, is the best-studied TLR ligand and is recognized by TLR4 and MD-2, a molecule associated with the extracellular domain of TLR4. Although TLR4-MD-2 recognizes LPS, little is known about the physical interaction between LPS and TLR4-MD-2. Here, we demonstrate cell surface LPS–TLR4-MD-2 complexes. CD14 greatly enhances the formation of LPS–TLR4-MD-2 complexes, but is not coprecipitated with LPS–TLR4-MD-2 complexes, suggesting a role for CD14 in LPS loading onto TLR4-MD-2 but not in the interaction itself between LPS and TLR4-MD-2. A tentative dissociation constant (Kd) for LPS–TLR4-MD-2 complexes was ∼3 nM, which is ∼10–20 times lower than the reported Kd for LPS–MD-2 or LPS–CD14. The presence of detergent disrupts LPS interaction with CD14 but not with TLR4-MD-2. E5531, a lipid A antagonist developed for therapeutic intervention of endotoxin shock, blocks LPS interaction with TLR4-MD-2 at a concentration 100 times lower than that required for blocking LPS interaction with CD14. These results reveal direct LPS interaction with cell surface TLR4-MD-2 that is distinct from that with MD-2 or CD14.
Functional Neuroimaging Studies of Simple Finger Movements in Healthy Development and Aging and in Children with Dyslexia

The functional neuroanatomy of the motor system underlying finger movements has been thoroughly elucidated in young adults. However, less is known about this system at younger and older ages, and in disorders. This dissertation presents three studies that were designed to address the functional anatomy of simple finger movement in three groups, older normal adults, children and children with the reading disability developmental dyslexia. To investigate age-related effects, we first conducted a metaanalysis on within-group data from older and young adults performing regularly paced finger-movement tasks. In our second study, we investigated the motor system in children and young adults with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during irregularly paced finger movements of the thumb. We found that all groups recruited contralateral primary sensorimotor cortex (SM1), supplementary motor area (SMA), and ipsilateral cerebellum. Compared with young adults, we found that older adults and children exhibited greater recruitment of SM1 ipsilateral to the side of movement and caudal SMA, and weaker recruitment of rostral SMA. We also found weaker activation in children compared with young adults in basal ganglia. Overall, these findings suggest that some of the changes to the motor system that occur between childhood and young adulthood are mirrored in older age, while others are unique to each side of the lifespan. To
The Blazar Sequence 2.0

This paper discusses the spectral energy distribution (SED) of all blazars with redshift detected by the Fermi satellite and listed in the 3LAC catalog. The so called “blazar sequence” from the phenomenological point of view will be updated, with no theory or modelling. It will be shown that: (i) pure data show that jet and accretion power are related; (ii) the updated blazar sequence maintains the properties of the old version, albeit with a less pronounced dominance of the γ-ray emission; (iii) at low bolometric luminosities, two different types of objects have the same high energy power: low black hole mass flat spectrum radio quasars and high mass BL Lacs. Therefore, at low luminosities, there is a very large dispersion of SED shapes; (iv) in low power BL Lacs, the contribution of the host galaxy is important. Remarkably, the luminosity distribution of the host galaxies of BL Lacs are spread in a very narrow range; (v) a simple sum of two smoothly joining power laws can describe the blazar SEDs very well.
Flame Retardancy of PA6 Using a Guanidine Sulfamate/Melamine Polyphosphate Mixture

Polyamide 6 (PA6) is a widely-used polymer that could find applications in various sectors, including home textiles, transportation or construction. However, due to its organic nature, PA6 is flammable, and flame-retardant formulations have to be developed to comply with fire safety standards. Recently, it was proposed to use ammonium sulfamate as an effective flame retardant for PA6, even at low loading content. However, processing issues could occur with this additive considering large-scale production. This paper thus studies the use of another sulfamate salt—guanidine sulfamate (GAS)—and evidences its high efficiency when combined with melamine polyphosphate (MPP) as a flame retardant for PA6. A decrease of the peak of the heat release rate by 30% compared to pure PA6 was obtained using only 5 wt% of a GAS/MPP mixture in a microscale calorimeter. Moreover, PA6 containing the mixture GAS/MPP exhibits a Limiting Oxygen Index (LOI) of 37 vol% and is rated V0 for the UL 94 test (Vertical Burning Test; ASTM D 3801). The mechanisms of degradation were investigated analyzing the gas phase and solid phase when the material degrades. It was proposed that MPP and GAS modify the degradation pathway of PA6, leading to the formation of nitrile end-group-containing molecules. Moreover, the formation of a polyaromatic structure by the reaction of MPP and PA6 was also shown.
Redefining the role of thiazolidinediones in the management of type 2 diabetes

There is a need to evaluate oral glucose-lowering agents not only for their value in achieving glycemic control but also for their impact on cardiac risk factor modification. This article reviews the evidence base for the two thiazolinediones currently available, pioglitazone and rosiglitazone. These drugs exert their effects through actions affecting metabolic control, lipid profiles, and the vascular wall. They have been shown to be as efficacious in establishing glycemic control, in both monotherapy and combination therapy regimens, as more traditional oral agents, and may be able to sustain that control in the long term. Both thiazolidinediones have demonstrated favorable effects on markers of cardiovascular disease. Evidence from the large PROactive outcomes study suggests that pioglitazone may exert protective effects in patients with type 2 diabetes and macrovascular disease. Thiazolidinediones are generally well tolerated but they can cause weight gain, induce fluid retention, and may contribute to bone loss in postmenopausal women. The place of thiazolidinediones in the management of type 2 diabetes is well established. The potential for additional benefits in reducing macrovascular risk encourages further long-term study of these agents.