Nadia Cooper, Carina Norregaard, Romain Meriot
et al.
The 21 cm signal contains a wealth of information about the formation of the first stars and the reionization of the intergalactic medium during the Cosmic Dawn (CD) and Epoch of Reionization (EoR). The timing of these important milestones has only roughly been constrained through indirect measurements, such as from the cosmic microwave background (CMB) optical depth, and Lyman-$α$ forest. Therefore, inferring the neutral fraction over cosmic time is a goal of upcoming 21 cm experiments, such as the Square Kilometer Array (SKA). We contrast two approaches to infer astrophysical parameters and ionization history from 21 cm 2D power spectra (2DPS). We develop an emulator of the 21 cm 2DPS, trained on 21cmFAST simulations, taking into account the expected instrumental noise from the SKA and sample variance. We then perform simulation based inference (SBI) using neural posterior estimation (NPE). We compare training on datasets of noisy 2DPS obtained from 21cmFAST simulations and an emulator, to infer astrophysical parameters of interest. Using an emulator of the ionization history, which has been trained on simulations from the same astrophysical parameters, we then obtain posterior distributions of the ionization history over the redshift range z $\sim$ 5-12. We demonstrate that both methods are capable of accurately recovering the ionization history and astrophysical parameters. However, coverage tests indicate that adding emulated samples does not improve predictions. This work suggests that due to the stochastic nature of the 2DPS, using an emulator of this summary statistic may result in poorer inference.
The concept of antimatter is extremely important, but not always discussed as it deserves, balancing ideas and formalism. In this note, we gather some insights to present it effectively, following certain steps taken in the history of knowledge; although rarely remembered, they can serve to enrich standard teaching materials. In addition to the well-known contributions of Dirac, which we place in their original context, the contributions of Pauli and especially Majorana stand out, the latter being the first to reach the modern formalism of canonical quantization. The importance of the point of view of wave mechanics emerges, which still shows its limitations, requiring some adjustments to constitute an acceptable interpretation.
Smit Bharat Solanki, Vineet V. Mishra, Arminder Singh Dhiman
BACKGROUND: Three-dimensional (3D) high-definition (HD) laparoscopy is a promising tool in minimally invasive gynecologic surgery, offering enhanced depth perception and visualization. However, its role in total laparoscopic hysterectomy (TLH), particularly in patients with varying body mass index (BMI), remains underexplored. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the impact of 3D HD laparoscopy on surgical efficiency and patient outcomes in TLH, with a focus on BMI-related differences. DESIGN AND SETTINGS: A single-center retrospective study PATIENTS AND METHODS: Sixty patients who underwent TLH were included: n=30 used 3D HD laparoscopy (Aesculap 3D EinsteinVision) and n=30 matched controls used 2D laparoscopy. Matching criteria included uterine weight and prior surgical history. Patients were stratified according to BMI (≤24.9, 25–29.9, ≥30.0 kg/m2). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Operative time, vault suturing time, blood loss, trocar site incisions, haemoglobin drop, and complication rates. SAMPLE SIZE: 60 patients (30 in each group) RESULTS: The 3D HD laparoscopy group demonstrated significant improvements across multiple outcomes. Trocar site incisions were significantly reduced in all BMI categories (P <.001). Vault suturing time was shorter in the 3D HD laparoscopy group (P =.002), and total operative time was reduced in overweight patients (P =.015). Obese patients in the 3D group had lower haemoglobin drop (P =.01) and reduced blood loss compared to 2D laparoscopy group (P =.017). CONCLUSION: 3D HD laparoscopy enhances surgical efficiency in TLH, especially in patients with higher BMI, by minimizing trocar site incisions, reducing vault suturing times, and improving hemostasis—highlighting its value in overcoming challenges of minimally invasive gynecologic surgery. LIMITATIONS: The study's retrospective design and modest sample size limit generalizability.
This article describes popular game titles used in history education in Poland. In the first part, games designed by the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) are presented, along with examples of their use and feedback expressed after playing by students. The second part of the article discusses the global bestselling game Twilight Struggle along with a case study of its use with history students. The purpose of the article is to point out the possibilities of gamification of historical education and, above all, to indicate the applications of board games in the academic training of teachers who later create school reality with their work.
Amirhosein Ghasemabadi, Muhammad Kamran Janjua, Mohammad Salameh
et al.
One key challenge to video restoration is to model the transition dynamics of video frames governed by motion. In this work, we propose TURTLE to learn the truncated causal history model for efficient and high-performing video restoration. Unlike traditional methods that process a range of contextual frames in parallel, TURTLE enhances efficiency by storing and summarizing a truncated history of the input frame latent representation into an evolving historical state. This is achieved through a sophisticated similarity-based retrieval mechanism that implicitly accounts for inter-frame motion and alignment. The causal design in TURTLE enables recurrence in inference through state-memorized historical features while allowing parallel training by sampling truncated video clips. We report new state-of-the-art results on a multitude of video restoration benchmark tasks, including video desnowing, nighttime video deraining, video raindrops and rain streak removal, video super-resolution, real-world and synthetic video deblurring, and blind video denoising while reducing the computational cost compared to existing best contextual methods on all these tasks.
Ravinder Jangra, Etender Singh, Sunil Manglaw
et al.
پیشینه: ارزیابی ظرفیت ، جزء مهمی در حفظ پایداری در بخش گردشگری است. تمام نگرانیها در گردشگری به تعداد گردشگرانی که از یک مکان خاص بازدید میکنند، مرتبط است. منطقه مورد مطالعه دارای مناظر زیبا در اکوسیستم بیابان سرد و همچنین ویژگیهای متمایز بودایی است که گردشگری انبوه را جذب میکند. امروزه، توسعه گردشگری نگرانیهایی را در مورد پایداری و ایجاد استانداردهایی برای قابلیتهای مقصد گردشگری ایجاد کرده است.
اهداف: مطالعه حاضر با هدف تجزیه و تحلیل اهداف زیر انجام میشود: 1) ارزیابی ظرفیت برد فیزیکی (PCC)، ظرفیت برد واقعی (RCC) و ظرفیت برد مؤثر (ECC) نقاط گردشگری منتخب در روستای ناکو و 2) محاسبه ظرفیت پارکینگ صومعه.
روش شناسی: روشهای مشخصشده در اتحادیه بینالمللی حفاظت از طبیعت و منابع طبیعی (IUCN) برای اندازهگیری ظرفیت برد مقاصد گردشگری خاص در ناکو استفاده شد. تکنیکهای سه سطحی برای ارزیابی ظرفیت برد فیزیکی (۲۸۱۶۱ نفر)، ظرفیت برد واقعی (۴۱۶۲ نفر) و ظرفیت برد مؤثر (۲۹۶۸ نفر) به کار گرفته شد.
نتایج: نتایج نشان میدهد که ظرفیت برد مؤثر (ECC) مناسبترین روش برای تخمین است و وضعیت فعلی گردشگری در منطقه مورد مطالعه کمتر از ظرفیت خود بهرهبرداری شده است.
نتیجهگیری: سیستمهای بسیار کوچک تا بزرگ در ناکو یافت میشوند و این سیستمها از انواع مختلف فعالیتها نیز پشتیبانی میکنند. گردشگری یک فعالیت بسیار رایج است و تأثیرات زیستمحیطی، اجتماعی، فرهنگی و اقتصادی دارد. این تأثیرات به پارامترهای مختلفی وابسته بوده و با تغییر ماهیت تعامل نیز تغییر میکنند. مشخص شده است که وضعیت فعلی فعالیت گردشگری در منطقه مورد مطالعه در مقایسه با ظرفیت برد آن، بسیار کمتر از حد بهرهبرداری قرار گرفته است.
General. Including nature conservation, geographical distribution
The critical nature of passive ship-radiated noise recognition for military and economic security is well-established, yet its advancement faces significant obstacles due to the complex marine environment. The challenges include natural sound interference and signal distortion, complicating the extraction of key acoustic features and ship type identification. Addressing these issues, this study introduces DWSTr, a novel method combining a depthwise separable convolutional neural network with a Transformer architecture. This approach effectively isolates local acoustic features and captures global dependencies, enhancing robustness against environmental interferences and signal variability. Validated by experimental results on the ShipsEar dataset, DWSTr demonstrated a notable 96.5\% recognition accuracy, underscoring its efficacy in accurate ship classification amidst challenging conditions. The integration of these advanced neural architectures not only surmounts existing barriers in noise recognition but also offers computational efficiency for real-time analysis, marking a significant advancement in passive acoustic monitoring and its application in strategic and economic contexts.
Science, General. Including nature conservation, geographical distribution
In recent years, golden tides caused by floating Sargassum have induced severe ecological disasters globally. Eutrophication is a significant factor contributing to the massive spread of Sargassum golden tides. Furthermore, the thalli of Sargassum that float on the ocean surface are subjected to more ultraviolet radiation (UVR). The coupled impact of eutrophication and UVR on the photosynthetic physiology of golden tide species remains unclear. In this study, the thalli of Sargassum horneri, known to cause golden tide, were cultured and acclimated to three distinct nitrogen (N) conditions (natural seawater, NSW; NH4+-N enrichment; and NO3–N enrichment) for 6 days. Subsequently, the thalli were exposed to two different radiation treatments (photosynthetically active radiation (150 W m-2), PAR, 400–700 nm; PAR (150 W m-2) + UVR (28 W m-2), 280–700 nm) for 120 min, to investigate the photosynthetic effects of UVR and N on this alga. The findings demonstrated that exposure to UVR impeded the photosynthetic capacity of S. horneri, as evidenced by a decrease in the maximum photochemical quantum yield (Fv/Fm), photosynthetic efficiency (α) and chlorophyll content. Under diverse N-enrichment conditions, the alga tended to adopt various strategies to mitigate the adverse effects of UVR. NH4+-enrichment dissipated excess UVR energy through a greater increase in non-photochemical quenching (NPQ). While NO3–enrichment protected alga by enhancing N assimilation (higher nitrate reductase activity (NRA) and soluble protein content), and maintained a stable energy captured per unit reaction center for electron transfer (ET0/RC) and a higher net photosynthetic rate. Although different N enrichments could not completely offset the damage caused by UV radiation, they secured the photoprotective ability of S. horneri in several ways.
Science, General. Including nature conservation, geographical distribution
1. Introduction: Kurdish identity and social formation. Book I The Kurds in the age of tribe and empire: 2. Kurdistan before the 19th century 3. Ottoman Kurdistan, 1800-1850 4. Ottoman Kurdistan, 1850-1914 5. The Qajars and the Kurdis 6. Revolution, nationalism and war, 1908-1918. Book II Incorporating the Kurds: 7. Redrawing the map: the partition of Ottoman Kurdistan 8. The Kurds, Britain and Iraq 9. Incorporating Turkey's Kurds 10. The Kurds under Reza Shah. Book III Ethno-nationalism in Iran: 11. Tribe or Ethnicity? The Mahabad Republic 12. Iran: Creating a National movement 13. Subjects of the Shi'i republic. Book IV Ethno-nationalism in Iraq: 14. The birth of a nationalist movement under Hashimite Rule 15. The Kurds in revolutionary Iraq 16. The Kurds under the Baath, 1968-1975 17. The road to genocide, 1975-1988 18. Uprising and self-rule. Book V Ethno-nationalism in Turkey: 19. The Kurdish national revival in Turkey, 1946-1979 20. The PKK and the mass movement. Afterword: Retrospect and prospect. Appendix: The treaty of Sevres.
The International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD) is a significant event for researchers and practitioners interested in exploring the use of sound in conveying information and data. Since its inception in 1994, the conference has served as a vital forum for exchanging ideas and presenting research findings in the field of auditory display. While the conference primarily focuses on auditory display and sound design, astronomy has made its presence felt in the proceedings of the conference over the years. However, its not until the current ICAD conference where astronomy features a dedicated session. This paper aims to provide an statistical overview of the presence of astronomy in the ICAD conference's history from 1994 to 2022, highlighting some of the contributions made by researchers in this area, as well as the topics of interest that have captured the attention of sound artists.
Članek se ukvarja z analizo grobov, izkopanih pri Župni cerkvi v Kranju, ki so bili na podlagi dosedanjih raziskav opredeljeni kot najstarejši na tem grobišču. Za takšne so bili do zdaj opredeljeni grobovi (večinoma) brez pridatkov, ki so bili globoko vkopani v prostorne in med seboj pravilno razmeščene grobne jame, obložene s kamni oz. lesom in orientirane proti vzhodu. Posamezne skupine takšnih grobov, izkopanih do leta 1984, so bile na podlagi arheoloških primerjav datirane v konec 7. in v 8. st.
Analiza stratigrafije grobov celotnega grobišča, v katero smo vključili tudi ugotovitve poznejših izkopavanj in pregled zgodovine raziskav, pokažejo, da pri grobovih, do zdaj opredeljenih kot najstarejših, ni šlo vselej za stratigrafsko najstarejše grobove in da so bile med nekaterimi tudi superpozicije.
V prispevku skušamo ugotoviti čas začetka pokopavanja na podlagi starih in novih kronoloških podatkov (relativna kronologija grobov in tipokronologija). Za izbrane stratigrafsko najstarejše grobove na tem grobišču prvič prinašamo radiokarbonske datacije (14C), ki smo jih časovno zožili z datacijami stratigrafsko mlajših grobov s predmeti. Obravnavani grobovi se po gradnji groba ločijo na dve skupini. Pokopavanje se je začelo najverjetneje v 8. st., pred letom 774/775 (14C) s prvo skupino, z možnim trajanjem vse do začetka pokopavanja druge skupine. Druga skupina grobov ni starejša od leta 774 in se je začela že pred začetkom 9. st. ali najpozneje takrat.