Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An improved test of the binary black hole hypothesis for quasars with double-peaked broad Balmer lines

Velocity offsets in the broad Balmer lines of quasars and their temporal variations serve as indirect evidence for bound supermassive black hole binaries (SBHBs) at sub-parsec separations. In this work, we test the SBHB hypothesis for 14 quasars with double-peaked broad emission lines using their long-term (14–41 yr) radial velocity curves. We improve on the previous work by (i) using elliptical instead of circular orbits for the SBHBs, (ii) adopting a statistical model for radial velocity jitter, (iii) employing a Markov chain Monte Carlo method to explore the orbital parameter space efficiently and build posterior distributions of physical parameters, and (iv) incorporating new observations. We determine empirically that jitter comprises approximately Gaussian distributed fluctuations about the smooth radial velocity curves that are larger than the measurement errors by factors of a few. We initially treat jitter by enlarging the effective error bars and then verify this approach via a variety of Gaussian process models for it. We find lower mass limits for the hypothesized SBHBs in the range 108–1011 M⊙. For seven objects, the SBHB scenario appears unlikely based on goodness-of-fit tests. For two additional objects, the minimum SBHB masses are unreasonably large (>1010 M⊙), strongly disfavouring the SBHB scenario. Using constraints on the orbital inclination angle (which requires some assumptions) makes the minimum masses of four more objects unreasonably large. We also cite physical and observational arguments against the SBHB hypothesis for nine objects. We conclude that the SBHB explanation is not the favoured explanation of double-peaked broad emission lines.
Quantum digital cooling

We introduce a method for digital preparation of ground states of a simulated Hamiltonians, inspired by cooling in nature and adapted to leverage the capabilities of digital quantum hardware. The cold bath is simulated by a single ancillary qubit, which is reset periodically and coupled to the system non-perturbatively. Studying this cooling method on a 1-qubit system toy model allows us to optimize two cooling protocols based on weak-coupling and strong-coupling approaches. Extending the insight from the 1-qubit system model, we develop two scalable protocols for larger systems. The LogSweep protocol extends the weak-coupling approach by sweeping energies to resonantly match any targeted transition. It demonstrates the ability to prepare an approximate ground state of tranverse-field Ising chains in the ferromangetic and critical phases, with an error that can be made polynomially small in time. The BangBang protocol extends the strong-coupling approach, and exploits a heuristics for local Hamiltonians to maximise the probability of de-exciting system transitions in the shortest possible time. Although this protocol does not promise long-time convergence, it allows for a rapid cooling to an approximation of the ground state, making this protocol appealing for near-term simulation applications.
Constrained deep neural network architecture search for IoT devices accounting hardware calibration

Deep neural networks achieve outstanding results for challenging image classification tasks. However, the design of network topologies is a complex task, and the research community is conducting ongoing efforts to discover top-accuracy topologies, either manually or by employing expensive architecture searches. We propose a unique narrow-space architecture search that focuses on delivering low-cost and rapidly executing networks that respect strict memory and time requirements typical of Internet-of-Things (IoT) near-sensor computing platforms. Our approach provides solutions with classification latencies below 10~ms running on a low-cost device with 1~GB RAM and a peak performance of 5.6~GFLOPS. The narrow-space search of floating-point models improves the accuracy on CIFAR10 of an established IoT model from 70.64% to 74.87% within the same memory constraints. We further improve the accuracy to 82.07% by including 16-bit half types and obtain the highest accuracy of 83.45% by extending the search with model-optimized IEEE 754 reduced types. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first empirical demonstration of more than 3000 trained models that run with reduced precision and push the Pareto optimal front by a wide margin. Within a given memory constraint, accuracy is improved by more than 7% points for half and more than 1% points for the best individual model format.
Multi-stage Pretraining for Abstractive Summarization

Neural models for abstractive summarization tend to achieve the best performance in the presence of highly specialized, summarization specific modeling add-ons such as pointer-generator, coverage-modeling, and inferencetime heuristics. We show here that pretraining can complement such modeling advancements to yield improved results in both short-form and long-form abstractive summarization using two key concepts: full-network initialization and multi-stage pretraining. Our method allows the model to transitively benefit from multiple pretraining tasks, from generic language tasks to a specialized summarization task to an even more specialized one such as bullet-based summarization. Using this approach, we demonstrate improvements of 1.05 ROUGE-L points on the Gigaword benchmark and 1.78 ROUGE-L points on the CNN/DailyMail benchmark, compared to a randomly-initialized baseline.
Fermi and Swift Observations of GRB 190114C: Tracing the Evolution of High-energy Emission from Prompt to Afterglow

We report on the observations of gamma-ray burst (GRB) 190114C by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. The prompt gamma-ray emission was detected by the Fermi GRB Monitor (GBM), the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT), and the Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) and the long-lived afterglow emission was subsequently observed by the GBM, LAT, Swift X-ray Telescope (XRT), and Swift UV Optical Telescope. The early-time observations reveal multiple emission components that evolve independently, with a delayed power-law component that exhibits significant spectral attenuation above 40 MeV in the first few seconds of the burst. This power-law component transitions to a harder spectrum that is consistent with the afterglow emission observed by the XRT at later times. This afterglow component is clearly identifiable in the GBM and BAT light curves as a slowly fading emission component on which the rest of the prompt emission is superimposed. As a result, we are able to observe the transition from internal-shock- to external-shock-dominated emission. We find that the temporal and spectral evolution of the broadband afterglow emission can be well modeled as synchrotron emission from a forward shock propagating into a wind-like circumstellar environment. We estimate the initial bulk Lorentz factor using the observed high-energy spectral cutoff. Considering the onset of the afterglow component, we constrain the deceleration radius at which this forward shock begins to radiate in order to estimate the maximum synchrotron energy as a function of time. We find that even in the LAT energy range, there exist high-energy photons that are in tension with the theoretical maximum energy that can be achieved through synchrotron emission from a shock. These violations of the maximum synchrotron energy are further compounded by the detection of very high-energy (VHE) emission above 300 GeV by MAGIC concurrent with our observations. We conclude that the observations of VHE photons from GRB 190114C necessitates either an additional emission mechanism at very high energies that is hidden in the synchrotron component in the LAT energy range, an acceleration mechanism that imparts energy to the particles at a rate that is faster than the electron synchrotron energy-loss rate, or revisions of the fundamental assumptions used in estimating the maximum photon energy attainable through the synchrotron process.
Continuous automorphisms of Cremona groups

We show that if a group automorphism of a Cremona group of arbitrary rank is also a homeomorphism with respect to either the Zariski or the Euclidean topology, then it is inner up to a field automorphism of the base-field. Moreover, we show that a similar result holds if we consider groups of polynomial automorphisms of affine spaces instead of Cremona groups.
High-mass X-ray binaries in nearby metal-poor galaxies: on the contribution to nebular He ii emission

Despite significant progress both observationally and theoretically, the origin of high-ionization nebular He ii emission in galaxies dominated by stellar photoionization remains unclear. Accretion-powered radiation from high-mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs) is still one of the leading proposed explanations for the missing He+-ionizing photons, but this scenario has yet to be conclusively tested. In this paper, we present nebular line predictions from a grid of photoionization models with input spectral energy distributions containing the joint contribution of both stellar atmospheres and a multicolour disc model for HMXBs. This grid demonstrates that HMXBs are inefficient producers of the photons necessary to power He ii, and can only boost this line substantially in galaxies with HMXB populations large enough to power X-ray luminosities of 1042 erg s−1 per unit star formation rate (SFR). To test this, we assemble a sample of 11 low-redshift star-forming galaxies with high-quality constraints on both X-ray emission from Chandra and He ii emission from deep optical spectra, including new observations with the MMT. These data reveal that the HMXB populations of these nearby systems are insufficient to account for the observed He ii strengths, with typical X-ray luminosities or upper limits thereon of only 1040–1041 erg s−1 per SFR. This indicates that HMXBs are not the dominant source of He+ ionization in these metal-poor star-forming galaxies. We suggest that the solution may instead reside in revisions to stellar wind predictions, softer X-ray sources, or very hot products of binary evolution at low metallicity.
Review on Generalized Dynamics of Soft-Matter Quasicrystals and Its Applications.

This article provides a detailed review on the generalized dynamics of soft-matter quasicrystals developed recent years. Comparing to solid quasicrystals consisted mainly with metallic alloys, soft-matter quasicrystals have been observed in liquid crystals, polymers, colloids, nanoparticles, and surfactants, which indicate quite different formation mechanism. Based on Landau-Anderson theory and group representation theory, we have studied the symmetry, symmetry breaking and elementary excitations for the observed and possible soft-matter quasicrystals. We further proposed one more elementary excitation: fluid phonon additional to the phonon and phason for solid quasicrystals, to quantitatively describe the dynamics of soft-matter quasicrystals. The general governing equations and the solutions of the dynamics evolution on the distribution, deformation and motion of the new phase are studied, which reveal quite distinguishing dynamic behavior with those of conventional fluids and solid quasicrystals. Some applications are introduced, which show this is an important field of new materials and materials science.
A formative evaluation of implementation of career developement interventions in Taiwanese comprehensive high schools

approved: ass James Dykeman Taiwan has undergone significant social change, particularly in the last forty years, due to economic and industrial growth. Career development intervention is increasingly urgent in helping students face upcoming challenges. This study investigates the implementation and perceived helpfulness of career development interventions in Taiwanese comprehensive high schools. A total of 153 questionnaires were mailed, and a total of 119 guidance directors responded to the questionnaire, resulting in a response rate of 78 percent. Results indicated that Advising career interventions were the most school-implemented interventions and were perceived as the most helpful interventions by guidance directors, followed by Awareness, Curriculum, and Field career interventions. Limitations of the study and implications for guidance programs and for future research in the area are given. Redacted for privacy
Wood dust granular analysis in the sanding process of thermally modified wood versus its density

This paper aimed to define the density fluctuations of thermally modified wood. This was achieved by the granular analysis of wood dust. The wood dust was acquired by sanding completed using a narrow belt sander. The samples were taken from spruce, oak, and meranti wood types that were thermally modified at temperatures of 160 °C, 180 °C, 200 °C, and 220 °C. The results showed the shares of ≤ 0.08 mm wood dust particles and how their share was related to the temperature treatment; residue curves manifested the wood dust stratification in individual sieves and their density. The shares and densities of the wood dust were statistically analysed, and the statistical significance of the analysed values was calculated. An increased temperature decreased the wood density and decreased the share of the ≤ 0.08 mm wood dust particles. The wood dust shares in the 0.032-mm sieve and at the bottom (the finest particles) of the sieving machine also decreased; however, the share increased in the 0.125-mm sieve.
Medical Waste Management in Patients with Diabetic Foot Ulcers : A Pilot Study in Turkey

Aims and objectives: The aim of our study was to assess the management of the medical waste of patients with diabetic foot being monitored/treated at home. Background: The proper collection and disposal of medical wast e accumulated through the treatment at home of chronic illnesses such as diabetes and diabetic foot will contribute to safeguarding human health and the environment, as well as to development. Method: A cross-sectional and descriptive study was conduc te with 40 patients with diabetic foot ulcers in Istanbul. Results: 90% of the patients were being treated with insul i and 86.1% of them were receiving insulin injections two or more times a day. 80.6% of the di abetics indicated they discarded insulin pen needle s into the household waste along with non-hazardous waste, an d 86.1% of them reported that they disposed of this wa te by throwing it into street trash receptacles. Simil arly, they said that they tossed the lancets used i n measuring blood glucose levels (%87.5) and empty pens/vials (%86.1) into street trash receptacles. 86.8% repo rt d that they discarded used dressing into the household was te and 84.2% said that they threw them into street trash receptacles. 80% of the patients had not received education on household medical waste disposal. Conclusion:It was found that diabetics were uninformed about h ousehold medical waste disposal and that they discarded the vast majority of household waste by t hrowing it into the household trash, along with non hazardous waste, a practice that poses a major risk to the environment and public health. Relevance to clinical practice: Our research has demonstrated the disposal of us ed injection devices into the household garbage by diabetic patients is very comm n.Sharps discarded in an unsafe manner in the comm unity cause concern as they potentially place people at r isk of injury and infection from blood-borne pathog ens such as HIV and viral hepatitis.
Case report: Cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leucoencephalopathy (CADASIL) as a risk factor for central serous chorioretinopathy

Purpose To describe an atypical case of central serous chorioretinopathy (CSC) in a patient with cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leucoencephalopathy (CADASIL). Methods A retrospective case report. Results A 43-year-old white man with a genetic diagnosis of CADASIL was referred to our hospital because of reduced visual acuity in his right eye (20/30). In the previous 2 months, he developed CSC with subretinal fluid (SRF) and damage to the retinal pigmented epithelium without pachychoroid and pachyvessels or known risk factors for CSC. The patient was treated with transfoveal subthreshold micropulse yellow laser (577 nm) therapy. One month later, there were no signs of SRF, and visual acuity improved to 20/20. Conclusions Cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leucoencephalopathy (CADASIL) is a genetic condition that primarily affects vascular smooth cells in small cerebral vessels and retinal arterioles. However, we hypothesize that CADASIL could also be responsible for an alteration of the vascular smooth cells in the choroidal arterioles, leading to choriocapillaris ischemia and CSC, even in the absence of a pachychoroid spectrum.
Research on Chinese Listed Companies ’ Internal Control Quality and Cash Holdings Based on Panel Data Model

Focusing on internal control quality, this article studies the factors of listed company’s cash holding level with fixed effect panel data model and a sample of China’s A share stocks from the year 2004 to 2013. We find that listed company’s internal control quality is negatively related to its cash holding level, and that high internal control quality decreases cash holding level significantly. Further research shows that the relation between internal control quality and cash holding level in state-owned company is stronger than that in private company. Our study not only expands theory of listed company’s cash holding, but also helps managements improve their capital efficiency.
National culture as a moderator of the relationship between managers ' use of guidance sources and how well work events

Managerial leadership within 56 nations is examined in terms of the sources of guidance that managers use to handle work events. Correlations between the sources of guidance that managers use and the perceived effectiveness of how well these events are handled are employed to represent their schemas and attributional propensities for effectiveness. These correlations are predicted to vary in relation to dimensions of national culture. The hypotheses are tested using data from 7,701 managers. Reliance on one’s own experience and training, on formal rules and procedures and on one’s subordinates are positively correlated with perceived effectiveness globally, whereas reliance on superiors, colleagues and unwritten rules are negatively correlated with perceived effectiveness. Cross-level analyses revealed support for hypotheses specifying the ways in which each of these correlations is moderated by one or more of the dimensions of national culture first identified by Hofstede (1980). These results provide an advance on prior analyses that have tested only for main effect relationships between managerial leadership and national culture.
UnilQual: University Life Quality Scale

Recently, higher education sector has been recognized as an intangibly dominant service sector and universities have been considered as service providers besides their traditional roles. Accordingly, quality in higher education has become an important competitive element and sustaining service quality is now accepted as a sine qua non for universities. Yet, since the higher education sector has very different characteristics than other service sectors, measurement and improvement of service quality is becoming a more complex issue. Higher education quality is a multidimensional phenomenon with institutional, physical and psychological components. It is not only measured by the quality of services, but also by the added value and transformative impact on the students. In this context, this paper reports a study conducted to develop and validate a quality scale (UnilQual) for measuring service quality in higher education. The scale was based on the concept of “quality of life” and designed to measure “university life quality of students”. To this end, a 56-item scale with 7 subscales was developed and administered to a sample of 314 undergraduate students. The mean age of the sample was 19.25. The results of the Exploratory Factor Analysis revealed that UnilQual can be used as a valid and reliable measurement tool. The Cronbach alpha value was found as . 96 for the scale. The correlation values between the subscales and the total score addressed a positive and significant relationship, as well.
Landed Elites and Public Education in England and Wales . Evidence from School Boards , 1870-99 ∗

The provision of public schooling in England and Wales lagged behind Prussia and the United States by nearly half a century. Engerman and Sokoloff (2000) and Galor et al. (2009) suggest that landownership concentration slows down the provision of public schooling. In this paper, I show that England and Wales remained deadlocked over education because its entrenched landed elite, especially anointed peers, was rich and powerful enough to undermine the introduction of effective public schooling. To do so I analyze the work of School Boards. These public bodies were introduced in 1870 after Forster’s Education Act. This was the first time England recognized that there was a role of the state in providing public education, which was to be subsidized mainly through property taxes (rates). Exploiting the rich reports of the Committee of Council on Education, I find that School Boards located in counties where landownership was more concentrated systematically under-invested in public schooling. I establish this correlation for a broad set of education measures beyond literacy and enrollment rates, the traditional outcomes considered in the literature. The correlation between land concentration and education is robust to the inclusion of numerous county level controls. Interestingly, counties with a large share of manufacturing employment were more eager to subsidize public education. This reflects a clash between entrenched landed elites and emerging industrialists for the provision of public schooling. Finally, I identify the channel through which land affects education provision to be a political one. The correlation is particularly strong for land concentration in the hands of peers, but vanishes for commoners proprietors. While landowners may in general oppose the provision of public schools, they can only do so effectively if they hold sufficient political power. JEL Codes: I24, N93, N33, O15.
Regulating a Monopolist with Unverifiable Quality∗

The existing mechanism design literature on regulation treats quantity and quality as interchangeable or partially observable. I revisit a regulator’s problem when a monopolist has superior knowledge of either cost or demand which is responsive to unverifiable quality. Many markets possessing unverifiable quality often contain a mix of for-profit and not-for profit firms, therefore the firm’s objective is modeled as a combination of profitand outputmaximization. In contrast to the earlier literature, the firm’s ability to manipulate demand through quality can result in an underor over-supply relative to first-best levels—even for a pure profit-maximizer. A firm’s informational advantage may be completely attenuated, however, when the firm is an output-maximizer and the regulator pays directly for the good. The findings provide new insights into how the strategic response of the firm and consumers to the regulator’s payment policy may lead to market distortions and what form these distortions take. JEL Codes: H42, H57, L20, L31, L50