Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Turn-on-time statistics of modulated lasers subjected to resonant weak optical feedback.

We present analytical calculations of the turn-on-time probability distribution of intensity-modulated lasers under resonant weak optical feedback. Under resonant conditions, the external cavity round-trip time is taken to be equal to the modulation period. The probability distribution of the solitary laser results are modified to give reduced values of the mean turn-on-time and its variance. Numerical simulations have been carried out showing good agreement with the analytical results.
Fast-Frequency Response Provided by DFIG-Wind Turbines and its Impact on the Grid

This paper presents a methodology for the analysis of frequency dynamics in large-scale power systems with high level of wind energy penetration by means of a simplified model for DFIG-based wind turbines. In addition, a virtual inertia controller version of the optimized power point tracking (OPPT) method is implemented for this kind of wind turbines, where the maximum power point tracking curve is shifted to drive variations in the active power injection as a function of both the grid frequency deviation and its time derivative. The proposed methodology integrates the model in a primary frequency control scheme to analyze the interaction with the rest of the plants in the power system. It is also proven that, under real wind conditions, the proposed version of the OPPT method allows us to smooth the wind power injected into the grid, thereby reducing frequency fluctuations.
Black/White Differences in Adolescent Drug Use: A Test of Six Hypotheses

Six specific hypotheses have been developed to account for why Caucasians have higher rates of drug use compared to African-Americans. This article utilizes data from a South Florida-based community study of 893 young adults (1998–2002) to test these hypotheses. Specifically, Caucasians (1) initiate drug use at younger ages than African-Americans and (2) have more discretionary financial resources to fund their use than African-Americans. The findings presented here indicate that the racial gap in drug use may be attenuated by these aspects of use in early adulthood; implications and directions for future research are discussed.
Visualization-assisted Insights into Home Energy Usage

Motivated by both cost savings and environmental concerns, managing energy in the home has become increasingly important. Though both user-driven and automated solutions have shown promise, a deeper understanding of the characteristics of energy usage behavior is necessary to inform the design of such systems. In this work, we present the results of a study that explores the insights and characteristics participants are able to derive using two well-known visualization techniques for time series data. We find that participants are able to extract a variety of relevant features and explain general and anomalous patterns of behavior. We also find that the preferred visualization is both user- and task-dependent. These findings may be used as the basis for new systems for home energy management.
Paroxetine and fluoxetine in pregnancy: a prospective, multicentre, controlled, observational study.

AIMS Recent studies have suggested a possible association between maternal use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) in early pregnancy and cardiovascular anomalies. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the teratogenic risk of paroxetine and fluoxetine. METHODS This multicentre, prospective, controlled study evaluated the rate of major congenital anomalies after first-trimester gestational exposure to paroxetine, fluoxetine or nonteratogens. RESULTS We followed up 410 paroxetine, 314 fluoxetine first-trimester exposed pregnancies and 1467 controls. After exclusion of genetic and cytogenetic anomalies, there was a higher rate of major anomalies in the SSRI groups compared with the controls [paroxetine 18/348 (5.2%), fluoxetine 12/253 (4.7%) and controls 34/1359 (2.5%)]. The main risk applied to cardiovascular anomalies [paroxetine 7/348 (2.0%), crude odds ratio (OR) 3.47, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.13, 10.58; fluoxetine 7/253 (2.8%), crude OR, 4.81 95% CI 1.56, 14.71; and controls 8/1359 (0.6%)]. On logistic regression analysis only cigarette smoking of >or=10 cigarettes day(-1) and fluoxetine exposure were significant variables for cardiovascular anomalies. The adjusted ORs for paroxetine and fluoxetine were 2.66 (95% CI 0.80, 8.90) and 4.47 (95% CI 1.31, 15.27), respectively. CONCLUSION This study suggests a possible association between cardiovascular anomalies and first-trimester exposure to fluoxetine.
A genetic approach to estimating river bed topography from SWOT observations

River bathymetry plays a key role in estimating river discharge as well as improving our modeling capabilities of fluvial geomorphology. Genetic algorithm techniques can be used to derive river bed topography using only water surface elevations and the corresponding temporal and spatial rates of change. Each river bathymetric estimate, also referred to as a solution, is modeled as a successive collection of cross-sections, also referred to as genes. An initial population of potential solutions is created from solutions comprised of random cross-sections with depths ranging as deep as the surface height to no depth at all. The population is successively evolved by randomly mutating the depths at a random number of cross-sections. The solutions are selected for the next generation by evaluating their individual fitness. Three varieties of fitness tests are applied to each potential solution: Saint-Venant's 1-D flow equation, flow continuity, and the statistical power-law relationships suggested by Leapold & Maddock[1]. In this manner, an ideal solution is derived.
Language acquisition — a human ethological problem?

Whatever the function of human language may be, its communicative possibilities are obvious. Since many nonhuman species also dispose of very effective and differentiated communication systems, one could easily be led to assume that there must exist evolutionary connections between one of the other animal communication systems and human language. If both systems have common structural or functional features, certain aspects of language behaviour could be homologized with structural elements of nonhuman communicative behaviour, or one could look for convergent developments, i.e. for analogies (Cranach, 1976). Despite the impressive research with chimpanzees (Gardner and Gardner, 1971; Premack and Premack, 1972; Fouts, 1975) it is to be doubted that the trained ALS-using chimp resembles speaking man in its essential features or manifests the link between linguistic and nonlinguistic animals. It is not only that &dquo;the development of human speech represents a quantum jump&dquo;, as Wilson points out (1975, p.556), but that the differences between spontaneously developing human and nonhuman communication systems are
Making fast buffer insertion even faster via approximation techniques

As technology scales to 0.13 micron and below, designs are requiring buffers to be inserted on interconnects of even moderate length for both critical paths and fixing electrical violations. Consequently, buffer insertion is needed on tens of thousands of nets during physical synthesis optimization. Even the fast implementation of van Ginneken's algorithm requires several hours to perform this task. This work seeks to speed up the van Ginneken style algorithms by an order of magnitude while achieving similar results. To this end, we present three approximation techniques in order to speed up the algorithm: (1) aggressive prebuffer slack pruning; (2) squeeze pruning; and (3) library lookup. Experimental results from industrial designs show that using these techniques together yields solutions in 9 to 25 times faster than van Ginneken style algorithms, while only sacrificing less than 3% delay penalty.
Visualization of 4D Blood‐Flow Fields by Spatiotemporal Hierarchical Clustering

Advancements in the acquisition and modeling of flow fields result in unsteady volumetric flow fields of unprecedented quality. An important example is found in the analysis of unsteady blood‐flow data. Preclinical research strives for a better understanding of correlations between the hemodynamics and the progression of cardiovascular diseases. Modern‐day computer models and MRI acquisition provide time‐resolved volumetric blood‐flow velocity fields. Unfortunately, these fields often remain unexplored, as high‐dimensional data are difficult to conceive. We present a spatiotemporal, i.e., four‐dimensional, hierarchical clustering, yielding a sparse representation of the velocity data. The clustering results underpin an illustrative visualization approach, facilitating visual analysis. The hierarchy allows an intuitive level‐of‐detail selection, largely retaining important flow patterns. The clustering employs dissimilarity measures to construct the hierarchy. We have adapted two existing measures for steady vector fields for use in the spacetime domain. Because of the inherent computational complexity of the multidimensional clustering, we introduce a coarse hierarchical clustering approach, which closely approximates the full hierarchy generation, and considerably improves the performance. The resulting clusters are visualized by representative patharrows, in combination with an illustrative anatomical context. We present various seeding approaches and visualization styles, providing sparse overviews of the unsteady behavior of volumetric flow fields.
Decreasing seagrass density negatively influences associated fauna

Seagrass meadows globally are disappearing at a rapid rate with physical disturbances being one of the major drivers of this habitat loss. Disturbance of seagrass can lead to fragmentation, a reduction in shoot density, canopy height and coverage, and potentially permanent loss of habitat. Despite being such a widespread issue, knowledge of how such small scale change affects the spatial distribution and abundances of motile fauna remains limited. The present study investigated fish and macro faunal community response patterns to a range of habitat variables (shoot length, cover and density), including individual species habitat preferences within a disturbed and patchy intertidal seagrass meadow. Multivariate analysis showed a measurable effect of variable seagrass cover on the abundance and distribution of the fauna, with species specific preferences to both high and low seagrass cover seagrass. The faunal community composition varied significantly with increasing/decreasing cover. The faunal species composition of low cover seagrass was more similar to sandy control plots than to higher cover seagrass. Shannon Wiener Diversity (H′) and species richness was significantly higher in high cover seagrass than in low cover seagrass, indicating increasing habitat value as density increases. The results of this study underline how the impacts of small scale disturbances from factors such as anchor damage, boat moorings and intertidal vehicle use on seagrass meadows that reduce shoot density and cover can impact upon associated fauna. These impacts have negative consequences for the delivery of ecosystem services such as the provision of nursery habitat.
Structural Change in a Local Urban Housing Market

This paper addresses the structural change in a local urban housing market within a submarket framework. There is a voluminous literature examining the economic structure and operation of urban housing submarkets, with much of the associated empirical work based on static cross-sectional studies. Analysis of the temporal dynamics of local markets has tended to be perfunctory. As such, our understanding of structural change over time remains underdeveloped. In this paper we construct repeat-sale indices at the urban submarket level and deploy cointegration analysis to examine the stability of spatially defined housing submarkets within Glasgow between 1984 and 1997. Specifically, we consider whether price differences between submarkets have been eroded by a process of arbitrage operating through supply-side responses and/or migration flows. The empirical analysis shows that a stable system of housing submarkets persists throughout the study period.
Vision-based autonomous land vehicle guidance in outdoor road environments using combined line and road following techniques

An intelligent approach to autonomous land vehicle (ALV) guidance in outdoor road environments using combined line and road following and color information clustering techniques is proposed. Path lines and road boundaries are selected as reference models, called the line-model and the road-model, respectively. They are used to perform line-model matching (LMM) and road-model matching (RMM) to locate the ALV for line and road following, respectively. If there are path lines in the road, the LMM process is used to locate the ALV because it is faster than the RMM process. On the other hand, if no line can be found in the road, the RMM process is used. To detect path lines in a road image, the Hough transform is employed, which does not take much computing time because bright pixels in the road are very few. Various color information on roads is used for extracting path lines and road surfaces. And the ISODATA clustering algorithm based on an initial-center-choosing technique is employed to solve the problem caused by great changes of intensity in navigations. The double model matching procedure combined with the color information clustering process enables the ALV to navigate smoothly in roads even if there are shadows, cars, people, or degraded regions on roadsides. Some intelligent methods to speed up the model matching processes and the Hough transform based on the feedback of the previous image information are also presented. Successful navigations show that the proposed approach is effective for ALV guidance in common roads. ©1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
The Effects of Very-Low-Calorie Diets on HDL: A Review

This paper investigates the effects of very-low-calorie diets (VLCDs) used in the treatment of obesity on high-density lipoprotein (HDL) levels. Although the studies varied widely in their intervention format, duration, and baseline HDL levels, it would appear that HDL levels usually decrease during active weight loss using a VLCD, but these either return to pre-VLCD levels or improve overall during the weight-maintenance phase. More research needs to be done to determine optimal weight-maintenance programmes and the effects of VLCDs in the short term as well as on HDL levels in groups at increased risk of coronary heart disease.
Evaluation of ICA512As in Combination With Other Islet Cell Autoantibodies at the Onset of IDDM

OBJECTIVE The ICA512 pancreatic islet autoantigen is a putative tyrosine phosphatase that is co-identified with the earlier described 40-kDa autoantigen. We report the frequency of autoantibodies to islet cell antigen 512 (ICA512As) in recent-onset IDDM and compare this with other islet cell autoantibodies, including those to GAD (GADAs), insulin (IAAs), and islet cell cytoplasm (ICAs) identified by immunofluorescence. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Sera from 232 children aged between 9 months and 14.9 years collected within 14 days of diagnosis were tested for ICA512As by a radioimmunoprecipitation assay. The results were compared with previously reported data for GADAs (n = 232), IAAs (n = 167), and ICAs (n = 230). RESULTS The frequency of a positive result for ICA512As in children with newly diagnosed IDDM was 60%. The frequency was greater for children with an age of onset between 5 and 10 years (69%) than for children aged < 5 years (49%) and aged between 10 and 15 years (56%). The frequencies for other autoantibody reactivities were 69% for GADAs, 65% for IAAs, and 70% for ICAs. A combination of positive results for ICA512As, GADAs, and IAAs gave a sensitivity for the diagnosis of childhood IDDM of 95%, which was not significantly increased by a positive result for ICAs (96%). CONCLUSIONS Our results further establish that positivity in a combination of tests is more valuable for the prediction of IDDM than a result for any single autoantibody and that the age of the patient should be considered when selecting the combination of tests to use.
“The White Man's Grave:” Image and Reality, 1780-1850

There is a “black legend” about the climate of tropical countries, that lives on in spite of the knowledge geographers, meteorologists, and specialists in tropical medicine have gained over the past half century. With all the recent publicity given to West Africa, most people in the Western world carry a half-conscious image of “The White Man's Grave”. It is usually elaborated with such elements as “primitive tribes”, burning heat, fever-laden swamps, swarming insects, and miles of trackless jungle. Above all, West Africa is thought of as a place where white men cannot work. Only Africans can work there, and Europeans “go out” for brief periods at a considerable risk to their lives. Most of this image is, of course, quite false. Maximum temperatures on the West African coast would be moderate summer heat in the American mid-West. Insects are generally less annoying than they are in the United States. The forest is by no means trackless, but the home of sedentary agricultural people who have for centuries periodically cut it down to burn a place for their farms. Neither physical capacity for work nor immunity to disease is significantly different between Europeans and Africans on racial grounds. Still, the image was not made up from imagination alone. In its British version, it was based on facts — facts misunderstood in Africa, reported “at home”, and repeated over several generations. Both the facts and the image have a part in shaping West African relations with Great Britain, and both the facts and the image have changed through time in significant ways. The early nineteenth century represents a crucial phase in these changes. British traders had been on the Guinea coast for two centuries before 1783, but the loss of the American War and the thirteen colonies brought a new phase in Anglo-African relations.
Book Review: Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought

In their new book,Philosophy in the Flesh, Lakoff and Johnson explore how the theses concerning the embodiment of mind, the unconscious character of thought, and the metaphorical structure of most abstract concepts have critical consequences for philosophical inquiry. They claim that these theses are based on the best available empirical work from psychology, physiology, and neuroscience and constitute an empirically responsible basis for philosophical thought (p. xi). The theses offer not only new perspectives on the works of classical philosophical thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and Kant, but also require the rethinking of the central themes of mainstream analytical philosophy. For the many of us who have followed the exciting development of metaphor theory since Lakoff and Johnson reopened the debate on metaphor’s pervasive presence and importance some 20 years ago, it is natural to contrast Lakoff and Johnson’s new work with their work from 1980 ( Metaphors We Live By) . What has happened since then? As I see it, basically three lines of development can be distinguished in their views. First, there is now a more explicit acceptance of a notion of literal meaning. Though in their early work Lakoff and Johnson came close to the position that any concept is in part metaphorically structured, there is now a clearer acceptance of a distinction between the literal and the metaphorical. Thus, since 1980 Lakoff and Johnson have implicitly developed a notion of literal meaning as directly emergent—namely, as those concepts that, due to our perceptual, cognitive, and motor dispositions, constitute the most natural way of responding linguistically to our environment (see M. Johnson, 1987; Lakoff, 1987). This development is explicitly METAPHOR AND SYMBOL,15(4), 267–274 Copyright © 2000, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Sequence‐dependent recognition of DNA duplexes: Netropsin complexation to the TATA site of the d(G‐G‐T‐A‐T‐A‐C‐C) duplex in aqueous solution

We have recorded one‐dimensional exchangeable proton and two‐dimensional nonexchangeable proton nmr spectra on the complex of netropsin with the self‐complementary d(G‐G‐T‐A‐T‐A‐C‐C) duplex in aqueous solution between 25° and 35°C. The antibiotic amide, pyrrole, and methylene protons, and the nucleic acid base and sugar H1′, H2′, H2″, and H3′ protons, have been assigned from an analysis of the two‐dimensional nuclear Overhauser effect (NOESY) spectra of the complex. We observe intermolecular NOEs between the antibiotic concave face amide, pyrrole, and CH2 resonances, and the adenosine H2 and sugar H1′ protons of base‐pairs T3·A6 and A4·T5 in the central TATA core of the d(G1‐G2‐T3‐A4‐T5‐A6‐C7‐C8) duplex. We present a molecular model outlining these seven antibiotic‐DNA contacts for the complex in solution. The observed line‐broadening of several base and sugar protons at the TATA minor groove netropsin binding site in the complex at 35°C are interpreted in terms of intermediate exchange between two orientations of bound netropsin on the duplex.
On Mechanisms of Population Growth During the Neolithic

One of the major events associated with the transition from hunting and gathering to food production was a "4rapid" increase in population. Anthropological interest in the interrelationship between this increase and the structure of the sociocultural system is manifest in many hypotheses on the relationship between population increase, urbanization, centralized government, the rise of the state, kinship, and economic growth. It has also been suggested that the transition to agriculture could have been a result of demographic disequilibrium (Binford 1968). Most of the models and hypotheses advanced by anthropologists, however, give very limited consideration to the demographic mechanisms involved. This is a regrettable shortcoming, since an understanding of these mechanisms would shed more light on the relationship between population dynamics and cultural processes than does consideration of the gross outcome of these mechanisms. For this reason, the attempt by Sussman (CA 13:258-59) to explain the mechanisms of the increase in human population during the Neolithic in demographic terms is a considerable advance over the traditional explanations, which invariably invoke the increase in the amount of food supply with no concern for the nature of the direct demographic mechanisms involved. Polgar's comments and his model of the capacity for growth in primitive groups (CA 13:203-11, 26062) are also valuable contributions. Although Sussman's model is of the kind required, I have arrived at some results that are different from those he reports, using a similar approach in the course of a general study of the population dynamics of the Palaeolithic-Neolithic transition. I shall here discuss some aspects of Sussman's model and attempt to provide an alternative model. To achieve the latter goal, I shall approach the problem in terms of a conceptual model of the cultural-demographic nexus of population growth, an estimate of the maxi-