Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
MERGERS OF UNEQUAL-MASS GALAXIES: SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLE BINARY EVOLUTION AND STRUCTURE OF MERGER REMNANTS

Galaxy centers are residing places for supermassive black holes (SMBHs). Galaxy mergers bring SMBHs close together to form gravitationally bound binary systems, which, if able to coalesce in less than a Hubble time, would be one of the most promising sources of gravitational waves (GWs) for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna. In spherical galaxy models, SMBH binaries stall at a separation of approximately 1 pc, leading to the “final parsec problem” (FPP). On the other hand, it has been shown that merger-induced triaxiality of the remnant in equal-mass mergers is capable of supporting a constant supply of stars on the so-called centrophilic orbits that interact with the binary and thus avoid the FPP. In this paper, using a set of direct N-body simulations of mergers of initially spherically symmetric galaxies with different mass ratios, we show that the merger-induced triaxiality is also able to drive unequal-mass SMBH binaries to coalescence. The binary hardening rates are high and depend only weakly on the mass ratios of SMBHs for a wide range of mass ratios q. There is, however, an abrupt transition in the hardening rates for mergers with mass ratios somewhere between q ∼ 0.05 and 0.1, resulting from the monotonic decrease of merger-induced triaxiality with mass ratio q, as the secondary galaxy becomes too small and light to significantly perturb the primary, i.e., the more massive one. The hardening rates are significantly higher for galaxies having steep cusps in comparison with those having shallow cups at centers. The evolution of the binary SMBH leads to relatively shallower inner slopes at the centers of the merger remnants. The stellar mass displaced by the SMBH binary on its way to coalescence is ∼1–5 times the combined mass of binary SMBHs. The coalescence timescales for SMBH binary with mass ∼106 M☉ are less than 1 Gyr and for those at the upper end of SMBH masses 109 M☉ are 1–2 Gyr for less eccentric binaries whereas they are less than 1 Gyr for highly eccentric binaries. SMBH binaries are thus expected to be promising sources of GWs at low and high redshifts.
Gene Expression in 1-Methylcyclopropene (1-MCP) Treated Tomatoes during Pre-Climacteric Ripening Suggests Shared Regulation of Methionine Biosynthesis, Ethylene Production and Respiration

The physiology of fruit ripening is defined as either ‘climacteric’ or ‘non-climacteric’. In climacteric fruit respiration during ripening increases until it reaches a peak, which is accompanied by an increase in autocatalytic ethylene production, whereas the respiration of non-climacteric fruit does not increase and they have no requirement for ethylene to complete their ripening. In an attempt to gain further insight into the involvement of autocatalytic ethylene production with the climacteric rise in respiration, tomato fruit were harvested at three defined stages of maturity prior to the climacteric peak (mature green, breaker, and early orange) and immediately exposed to the gaseous molecule 1-methylcyclopropene (1-MCP). The gene expression profile at each of these stages was monitored after 24 h, using an Affymetrix tomato microarray chip. This approach enabled us to identify ethylene responsive genes that are commonly regulated at early stages of ripening, as well as new candidate genes. In addition, 1-MCP treatment affected the levels of metabolites related to methionine biosynthesis. Methionine feeds climacteric ethylene production and we found that promotors of the genes of enzymes that catalyze the production of homoserine and homocysteine (aspartokinase/homoserine dehydrogenases and cystathionine beta lyase, respectively), precursors in the methionine pathway, contain the AtSR1 binding motif. This binding motif is recognized by ethylene activated transcription factors, hence indicating a role for ethylene in methionine synthesis during early ripening, explaining the autocatalytic ethylene production during subsequent ripening stages.
Fate of organic compounds during transformation of ferrihydrite in Precambrian iron formations

The absence of organic compounds from Precambrian iron formations (IF) challenges the hypothesis of their biogenic origin. Here we address the fate of adsorbed organic compounds during transformation from ferrihydrite to hematite. We determined the binding energy between hematite and common molecular terminations found in extracellular polymeric substances and biofilms: carboxylic, alcohol and phosphate functional groups. We found that the bond between hematite and alcohol group is approximately 2 times stronger than the bond between hematitecarboxyl and -phosphate groups. We transformed synthetic ferrihydrite to hematite in presence of glycerol, which has a high density of alcohol groups and measured the amount of mineral associated glycerol before and after the transformation. We show that the transformation releases glycerol highlighting that organic compounds adsorbed at precursor ferrihydrite could be desorbed already during the process of IF sedimentation and diagenesis. Our results suggest that the absence of organic compounds in IF should not be used as evidence against their biogenic origin.
Les rechutes après traitement de l'ulcère de Buruli par la chirurgie en Afrique

Il existe peu d'articles sur la chirurgie de l'ulcere de Buruli (UB) dans le monde en general et en Afrique en particulier, alors qu'il s'agit du continent le plus touche par l'UB. Ce sont des protocoles hospitaliers qui ont ete rapportes. Le traitement de l'UB en Afrique repose essentiellement sur la chirurgie. Les resultats de ces traitements sont variables d'une etude a l'autre comme en temoignent les taux de rechutes: 17 % chez KANGA et al. en Cote-d'Ivoire, 16 % chez AMOFAH et al. au Ghana, 6 % chez DEBACKER et al. au Benin. L'Organisation mondiale de la sante (OMS) a redige en 2001 un manuel sur la prise en charge de l'infection due a Mycobacterium ulcerans, manuel principalement axe sur la prise en charge chirurgicale. En 2004, l'OMS a egalement propose l'utilisation d'antibiotiques associes ou non, suivant les cas, a la chirurgie. Les resultats sont apprecies en terme de guerison, recidives, rechutes ou recurrences. Cette revue de la litterature sur le traitement de l'UB par la chirurgie en Afrique de 1920 a 2005 etablit la frequence des rechutes apres la chirurgie, tout en montrant l'utilite d'une standardisation des indicateurs d'evaluation de l'efficacite reelle du traitement chirurgical de l'UB.
Toward improved corrections for radiation‐induced biases in radiosonde temperature observations

Radiation‐induced biases in global operational radiosonde temperature data from May 2008 to August 2011 are examined by using spatially and temporally collocated Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate (COSMIC) data as estimates of the truth. The data on average from most radiosonde types show a nighttime cold bias and a daytime warm bias relative to COSMIC. Most daytime biases increase with altitude and solar elevation angle (SEA). The global average biases in the 15–70 hPa layer are −0.05 ± 1.89 K standard deviation (~52,000 profiles) at night and 0.39 ± 1.80 K standard deviation (~64,500 profiles) in daytime (SEA > 7.5°). Daytime warm biases associated with clouds are smaller than those under clear conditions. Newer sondes (post‐2000) have smaller biases and appear to be less sensitive to effects of clouds. Biases at night show greater seasonal and zonal variations than those for daytime. In general, warm night biases are associated with warm climate regimes and less warm or cold night biases with cold climate regimes. Bias characteristics for 13 major radiosonde types are provided, as a basis for updating radiosonde corrections used in numerical weather predictions, for validating satellite retrievals, and for adjusting archived radiosonde data to create consistent climate records.
Comparison of Ultrasonographic Images Retrieved using Two Different Probes ( Mechanical Sector and Linear Ones ) and Macroscopic Features of Bovine Reproductive Organs : Biometric Studies

Objective of the study was to assess whether there are some differences in biometric measurements of the reproductive organs using mechanical sector or linear array ultrasound probe in comparison to the macroscopic measurements. The results revealed no significant differences between ultrasonographic (USG) images in comparison to macroscopic features. High correlations between post mortem biometric measurements of examined structures and monitored via USG in conscious animals using both probes were found (P<0.001). In conclusion, both USG systems can be effectively used as clinical and research tools in the field of examination of bovine reproductive tract status.
Personalized Neural Embeddings for Collaborative Filtering with Unstructured Text

Collaborative filtering (CF) is the key technique for recommender systems. Pure CF approaches exploit the user-item relational data (e.g., clicks, likes, and views) only and hence suffer from the data sparsity issue. Luckily, items are usually associated with unstructured text such as article abstracts and product reviews. We develop a personalized neural embedding framework to exploit both user-item relational interactions and words in unstructured text seamlessly. We learn such embeddings of users, items, and words jointly, and predict the user preferences on items based on these learned representations. The proposed framework, Collaborative Memory networks (CoMem), estimates the probability that a user will like an item by two terms, behavior factors and semantic factors. On two real-world datasets, CoMem shows better performance than state-of-the-art.
Reconstructing whole-body motions with wrist trajectories q

Reconstructing whole-body motions using only a low-dimensional input reduces the cost of and efforts for performance capture significantly, and yet remains a challenging problem. We introduce a novel technique that synthesizes whole-body motion using the two wrist trajectories. Given the wrist trajectories, we first determine the optimal ankle trajectories from a large number of candidate ankle paths obtained from example poses in the motion database. The optimal trajectory is efficiently achieved by solving for the shortest path problem in a directed acyclic graph. Next, we use both the wrist and ankle trajectories as the low-dimensional control signals to achieve the whole-body pose at each time step. We show that our method can reconstruct various whole-body motions that can be recognized by arm motions, such as walking, stepping, and in-place upper-body motions. Comparisons with ground truth motions and with other methods are provided. 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Random walks and forbidden minors II: a poly(d ε-1)-query tester for minor-closed properties of bounded degree graphs

Let G be a graph with n vertices and maximum degree d. Fix some minor-closed property P (such as planarity). We say that G is ε-far from P if one has to remove ε dn edges to make it have P. The problem of property testing P was introduced in the seminal work of Benjamini-Schramm-Shapira (STOC 2008) that gave a tester with query complexity triply exponential in ε−1. Levi-Ron (TALG 2015) have given the best tester to date, with a quasipolynomial (in ε−1) query complexity. It is an open problem to get property testers whose query complexity is (dε−1), even for planarity. In this paper, we resolve this open question. For any minor-closed property, we give a tester with query complexity d· (ε−1). The previous line of work on (independent of n, two-sided) testers is primarily combinatorial. Our work, on the other hand, employs techniques from spectral graph theory. This paper is a continuation of recent work of the authors (FOCS 2018) analyzing random walk algorithms that find forbidden minors.
In Body Experiences: Persuasion by Doing

In this paper we argue that in the multidisciplinary field related to behavior change support systems using a body-centric approach where participants act rather than discuss and contemplate is a worthwhile technique and should also be investigated more often. Especially now that technology better allows to respond to bodily actions in an appropriate and experiential engaging setting. To this end we will introduce and reflect on two recent case studies we performed: 1) an interactive projection game to trigger better self-management of children with asthma and 2) a Virtual Reality (VR) environment to be integrated in therapy sessions on substance abuse for people with intellectual disabilities (i.e. IQ 50-85 and limited adaptive skills). This resulted in a realistic and controlled environment where individuals with substance use disorder and intellectual disabilities are confronted with substances related to alcohol or cannabis in order to trigger application of strategies for self-control. Both cases included interviews with experts and several user confrontations. These confrontations showed possibilities of including such technologies for persuasive purposes. Furthermore, the responses of the users and experts included where quite positive. This is why we suggest this might be a fruitful direction to look into for other use cases regarding behavior change support systems.
Toward Robust Stair Climbing of the Quadruped using Proprioceptive Sensing

—Uneven stairs and ground obstacles often cause legged robots to trip and even fall over. Autonomous traversal requires robots to detect leg disturbances accurately and react in time. We present an approach that combines a leg observer for contact detection with reactive behavior for recovery. Exploiting the mechanical transparency of the robot design, the observer achieves leg proprioception and contact identiﬁcation with minimal delay. Reactive algorithms then trigger the robot to switch between walking and stair-climbing, or to adjust swing leg trajectories to step over obstacles. We demonstrate the reliability and potential of the contact observer on robust stair climbing. We envision that future work will establish an autonomy framework for legged robots to traverse through multi-component natural terrains using similar proprioceptive sensing strategies and reactive behaviors.
A Maximum Entropy Model Application on Recognition of Metaphor Phenomena

Metaphor happening in our daily life language is a usual phenomenon, and recognizing them by the use of computer is becoming a valuable research task in the field of natural language processing, artificial intelligence, and even applied linguistics. This paper proposes a way to recognize metaphors based on Maximum Entropy Model after analyzing the features of metaphor, and reasons the rationality to build a recognition model using the statistical methods. The results of the experiment show that the model performs well at high precision and recall, as well as the f value, thus we come to the conclusion that such metaphor recognizing model based on Maximum Entropy Principle has a promising future.
The Democracy Effect: A Weights-Based Identification Strategy

"Dal Bo, Foster and Putterman (2010) show experimentally that the effect of a policy may be greater when it is democratically selected than when it is exogenously imposed. In this paper we propose a new and simpler identification strategy to measure this democracy effect. We derive the distribution of the statistic of the democracy effect, and apply the new strategy to the data from Dal Bo, Foster and Putterman (2010) and data from a new real-effort experiment in which subjects’ payoffs do not depend on the effort of others. The new identification strategy is based on calculating the average behavior under democracy by weighting the behavior of each type of voter by its prevalence in the whole population (and not conditional on the vote outcome). We show that use of these weights eliminates selection effects under certain conditions. Application of this method to the data in Dal Bo, Foster and Putterman (2010) confirms the presence of the democracy effect in that experiment, but no such effect is found for the real-effort experiment. "
Zeolite Materials Obtained from Fly Ash Used for Removal of Heavy Metals and dye from Complex Wastewaters

Annually huge amounts of fly ash are produced, instead of land filling this waste can be reutilized for obtaining new materials such as zeolites which can be further used in adsorption processes. The fly ash, collected from Power Plant Craiova (Romania) was used for obtaining the zeolites materials with good adsorption capacity for heavy metals and dyes from wastewater. Fly ashes hydrothermally treated were used as a low cost adsorbents for the removal of Cd2+, Cu2+ cations and Methylene blue (MB) from synthetic wastewaters containing one, two and three pollutants. The new zeolite materials (ZCRns and ZCRs20) obtained from fly ash Craiova (FACR) has an increased specific surface area which led to good efficiencies. During the adsorption process the parameters: contact time and optimum amount of substrate were optimized for obtaining a maximum efficiency. The adsorption isotherms and kinetics were studied. The obtained results were fitted using Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms. Pseudo-first order, pseudo-second order and interparticle diffusion were employed for analyzing the kinetic data. The new material was characterized in terms of crystallinity (XRD) and surface properties: morphology. The composite substrate proved good efficiencies for removal of heavy metals cations and methylene blue from the synthetic pollutant systems in adsorption. As the results show, MB removal runs with the highest efficiency in adsorption (93.33%) while heavy metals removal has almost similar values in adsorption processes.
Bounty Trough Tasman Sea Pacific Ocean Campbell Plateau Chatham Rise Challenger Plateau Hikurangi Plateau Campbell Island Antipodes Island PCB Auckland Islands Chatham Island WDS

This paper presents field, geochemical and isotopic (Sr, Nd, Pb) results on basalts from the Antipodes, Campbell and Chatham Islands, New Zealand. New Ar/Ar age determinations along with previous K–Ar dates reveal three major episodes of volcanic activity on Chatham Island (85–82, 41–35, 5 Ma). Chatham and Antipodes samples comprise basanite, alkali and transitional basalts that have HIMU-like isotopic (Pb/Pb > 20 3–20 8, Sr/Sr <0 7033, Nd/Nd >0 5128) and trace element affinities (Ce/Pb 28–36, Nb/U 34–66, Ba/Nb 4–7). The geochemistry of transitional to Q-normative samples from Campbell Island is explained by interaction with continental crust. The volcanism is part of a long-lived ( 100Myr), low-volume, diffuse alkaline magmatic province that includes deposits on the North and South Islands of New Zealand as well as portions of West Antarctica and SE Australia. All of these continental areas were juxtaposed on the eastern margin of Gondwanaland at >83 Ma. A ubiquitous feature of mafic alkaline rocks from this region is their depletion in K and Pb relative to other highly incompatible elements when normalized to primitive mantle values. The inversion of trace element data indicates enriched mantle sources that contain variable proportions of hydrous minerals. We propose that the mantle sources represent continental lithosphere that host amphibole/phlogopite-rich veins formed by plumeand/or subduction-related metasomatism between 500 and 100 Ma. The strong HIMU signature (Pb/Pb >20 5) is considered to be an in-grown feature generated by partial dehydration and loss of hydrophile elements (Pb, Rb, K) relative to more magmaphile elements (Th, U, Sr) during short-term storage at the base of the lithosphere.
Aalborg Universitet Secondary Voltage Unbalance Compensation for Three-Phase Four-Wire Islanded

This paper proposes a secondary voltage unbalance control approach that compensate voltage unbalances in threephase four-wire islanded microgrid systems. It is implemented in the secondary control level of the microgrid hierarchical control structure. By sending information through low-bandwidth communication links to the primary control level, the required unbalanced factors at sensitive buses are achieved. Also, negative and zero sequence equivalent circuits and unbalance compensation principle are derived. Finally, real-time hardwarein-the-loop results show the feasibility of the proposed approach for different islanded scenarios. Keywords—hierarchical control; microgrid; three-phase fourleg converter; unbalance compensation
Approximately C 1-smooth Isogeometric Functions on Two-Patch Domains

Motivated by the promising recent results concerning the construction of smooth isogeometric functions on multi-patch domains on bilinearly parameterized domains [14] or reparameterizations of more general domains [5], which, however, impose quite restrictive assumptions on the underlying domain, we propose two approaches to construct spaces G h of approximately C1-smooth isogeometric functions on general two-patch domains. The main idea is to work with C0-continuous functions and to bound the jump of their gradients across the interface between neighboring patches. The constructions are based on two suitably chosen bilinear forms B1 and B2 and their eigenstructures, which lead to different bounds on the gradient jumps, respectively. We show that while the gradient jumps of the functions based on B1 fulfill a stricter bound, the functions themselves do not realize optimal convergence rates. Numerical experiments suggest that the functions based on B2 reach the optimal approximation order for solving second order problems. Furthermore, they are smooth enough to solve higher order problems such as the biharmonic equation. However, the bound on their gradient jump is mesh-size dependent.
Protandric Simultaneous Hermaphroditism Is a Conserved Trait in Lysmata (Caridea: Lysmatidae): Implications for the Evolution of Hermaphroditism in the Genus

Shrimps from the genus Lysmata are unusual because of their peculiar sexual system. Individuals in a population fi rst reproduce as males, to change later in life to functional simultaneous hermaphrodites. The evolutionary origin of this sexual system, called protandric simultaneous hermaphroditism (PSH), is a longstanding question overdue for consideration. A previously proposed “historical contingency” hypothesis suggested that PSH evolved in the tropics from an ancestral protandric species of Lysmata that became socially monogamous and symbiotic with sea anemones. The restricted probability of encountering mating partners by shrimps because of their association with their hosts would have favored PSH. Here, I fi rst provide evidence that PSH is a fi xed trait within the genus. Second, I examine whether the historical contingency hypothesis appropriately explains the origin of PSH in the genus. Using anatomical observations and laboratory experiments combined, I demonstrate that two shrimps from the genus Lysmata, L. galapagensis and L. boggessi, feature PSH. Study of museum specimens suggests that nine other species of Lysmata are protandric simultaneous hermaphrodites. The foregoing information indicates that PSH represents a fi xed trait in the genus Lysmata. Ancestral character state reconstruction using Bayesian inference allowed testing whether the ancestral Lysmata featured a symbiotic lifestyle and a socially monogamous mating system, as proposed by the historical contingency hypothesis. In agreement with this hypothesis, analysis indicated that the most common recent ancestor of Lysmata was most likely socially monogamous. However, the ancestral lifestyle was equally likely to be free-living or symbiotic. Thus, the present study provides partial support for the historical contingency hypothesis. Studies on the sexual system and lifestyle of more species and development of a more robust phylogeny are needed to reveal the evolutionary origin of PSH in the genus Lysmata.