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Probing linguistic change in Arabic vernaculars : a sociohistorical perspective
Get PDFIt is received wisdom in variationist sociolinguistics that linguistic and social factors go hand in hand in structuring variability in language and any consequent instances of language change. We address the complexity of such factors by exploring data from several Arabic dialects in the eastern Arab world. We demonstrate that language change does not always follow expected phonological trajectories, even in cases where older changes are reconstructed to have operated along so-called universal patterns. In our explanation of recent changes in these dialects, we emphasise the role of social motivations for language change and the interactions between these social constraints and purely linguistic ones. Our analysis of change is supported by historical accounts of variation and change in Arabic. We illustrate how general principles of sociolinguistic theory apply to the Arabic data and provide additional layers of sociolinguistic information that highlight the importance of diverse data for evaluating cross-linguistic generalisations.Peer reviewe
Robust identification of interactions between heat-stress responsive genes in the chicken brain using Bayesian networks and augmented expression data
Get PDFFunding: This work was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 812777.Bayesian networks represent a useful tool to explore interactions within biological systems. The aims of this study were to identify a reduced number of genes associated with a stress condition in chickens (Gallus gallus) and to unravel their interactions by implementing a Bayesian network approach. Initially, one publicly available dataset (3 control vs 3 heat-stressed chickens) was used to identify the stress signal, represented by 25 differentially expressed genes (DEGs). The dataset was augmented by looking for the 25 DEGs in other four publicly available databases. Bayesian network algorithms were used to discover the informative relationships between the DEGs. Only ten out of the 25 DEGs displayed interactions. Four of them were Heat Shock Proteins that could be playing a key role, especially under stress conditions, where maintaining the correct functioning of the cell machinery might be crucial. One of the DEGs is an open reading frame whose function is yet unknown, highlighting the power of Bayesian networks in knowledge discovery. Identifying an initial stress signal, augmenting it by combining other databases, and finally learning the structure of Bayesian networks allowed us to find genes closely related to stress, with the possibility of further exploring the system in future studies.Peer reviewe
Automating inventory composition management for bulk purchasing cloud brokerage strategy
Get PDFCloud providers offer end-users various pricing schemes to allow them to tailor VMs to their needs, e.g., a pay-as-you-go billing scheme, called on-demand, and a discounted contract scheme, called reserved instances. This work presents a cloud broker that offers users both the flexibility of on-demand instances and some discounts found in reserved instances. The broker employs a buy-low-and-sell-high strategy that places user requests into a resource pool of pre-purchased discounted cloud resources.
A key challenge to buy-in-bulk-sell-individually cloud broker business models is to estimate user requests accurately and then optimise the stock level accordingly. Given the complexity and variety of the cloud computing market space, the number of the regression model and inherently optimisation search space can be intricate.
In this thesis, we propose two solutions to the problem. The first solution is a risk-based decision model. The broker takes a risk-oriented approach to dynamically adjust the resource pool by analysing user request time series data. This approach does not require a training process which is useful at processing the large data stream. The broker is evaluated with high-frequency real cloud datasets from Alibaba. The results show that the overall profit of the broker is closely related to the optimal case. Additionally, the risk factors work as intended. The system hires more reserved instances when it can afford while leaning to the on-demand otherwise. We can also conclude that there is a correlation between the risk factors and the profit. On the other hand, the risk factor possesses some limitations, i.e. manual risk configuration, limited broker setting.
Secondly, we propose a broker system that utilises the concept of causal discovery. From the risk-based solution, we can see that if there are parameters correlated with the profit, then by adjusting those parameters, we can manipulate the profit. We infer a function mapping from the extracted key entities of broker data to an objective of a broker, e.g. profit. The technique is similar to the additive noise model, causal discovery method. These functions are assumed to describe an actual underlying behaviour of the profit with respect to the parameters. Similar to the risk-based, we use the Alibaba trace data to simulate long term user requests. Our results show that the system can infer the underlying interaction model between variables unlock the profit model behaviour of the broker system
Shaping nature outcomes in corporate settings
Get PDFJ.B., R.B. and H.Ö. were funded by the Walton Family Foundation (grant nos 2017-693, 2018-1371, 00104857), the David and Lucile Packard Foundation (grant nos 2017-66205, 2019-68336, 2022-73546) and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (grant nos 5668.01, 5668.02). J.-B.J. was funded by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (grant no. 2021.0343).Transnational companies have substantive impacts on nature: a hallmark of living in the Anthropocene. Understanding these impacts through company provision of information is a precursor to holding them accountable for nature outcomes. The effect of increasing disclosures (of varying quality) is predicated on ‘information governance’, an approach that uses disclosure requirements to drive company behaviour. However, its efficacy is not guaranteed. We argue that three conditions are required before disclosures have the possibility to shape nature outcomes, namely: (1) radical traceability that links company actions to outcomes in particular settings; (2) developing organizational routines, tools and approaches that translate strategic intent to on-the-ground behaviour; and (3) mobilizing and aligning financial actors with corporate nature ambitions. While disclosure is key to each of these conditions, its limits must be taken into account and it must be nested in governance approaches that shape action, not just reporting.Peer reviewe
LIES of omission : complex observation processes in ecology
Get PDFFunding: This work was completed as part of F.J.C.’s PhD funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) (EP/R513222/1) and the support of his subsequent employer, Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland (BioSS).Advances in statistics mean that it is now possible to tackle increasingly sophisticated observation processes. The intricacies and ambitious scale of modern data collection techniques mean that this is now essential. Methodological research to make inference about the biological process while accounting for the observation process has expanded dramatically, but solutions are often presented in field-specific terms, limiting our ability to identify commonalities between methods. We suggest a typology of observation processes that could improve translation between fields and aid methodological synthesis. We propose the LIES framework (defining observation processes in terms of issues of Latency, Identifiability, Effort and Scale) and illustrate its use with both simple examples and more complex case studies.Peer reviewe
Miscegenation and the postwar nation : interracial love, desire and white British identity in fictions of Britain and empire, 1947-1965
No full textThis thesis examines fictional representations of interracial love, desire and sexual relationships – so-called miscegenation – in both Britain and empire across the two decades that followed the Second World War. With a specific focus on how fictional interraciality inflects and reimagines conceptions of white postwar British masculinity, this study explores how the interracial novel contributed to redefining racial, national and gendered identity at mid-century. Whilst existing studies of postwar miscegenation revolve around interracial dynamics between white British women and men of colour, this project foregrounds fictions of interraciality that explore white men’s relationships with women of colour. I investigate how the tenets of patriarchal imperialism were at once bolstered, resisted and reconfigured through novelists’ explorations of the complex and contradictory politics surrounding miscegenation. Primarily a work of literary criticism, this study draws upon the writings of thirteen authors to illuminate, analyse and deconstruct intersecting and discordant discourses surrounding miscegenation in the postwar. Focusing on noncanonical, underexplored and even forgotten texts, I aim to broaden, deepen and above all complicate knowledge of interracial literature of the period. By analysing the works of writers from differing imperial positionalities, I open up unlikely textual interactions that cross race and gender as well as genre and literary movement, in the process diminishing contemporaneous distinctions between highbrow, middlebrow and popular fictions. This thesis contends that, though previously largely overlooked by cultural critics, the interracial novel emerged in the postwar as a boundary-disturbing literary sub-genre that deeply troubled the inner workings of white British identity
Conformational analysis explores the role of electrostatic non-classical CFHC hydrogen bonding interactions in selectively halogenated cyclohexanes
Get PDFFunding: Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo - 2018/03910-1, 2023/14064-2; China Scholarship Council; Fundo de Apoio ao Ensino, à Pesquisa e Extensão, Universidade Estadual de Campinas - 3472/23The conformational equilibria of selectively halogenated cyclohexanes are explored both experimentally (VT-NMR) for 1,1,4,-trifluorocyclohexane 7 and by computational analysis (M06-2X/aug-cc-pVTZ level), with the latter approach extending to a wider range of more highly fluorinated cyclohexanes. Perhaps unexpectedly, 7ax is preferred over the 7eq conformation by ΔG = 1.06 kcal mol–1, contradicting the accepted norm for substituents on cyclohexanes. The axial preference is stronger again in 1,1,3,3,4,5,5,-heptafluorocyclohexane 9 (ΔG = 2.73 kcal mol–1) as the CF2 groups further polarize the isolated CH2 hydrogens. Theoretical decomposition of electrostatic and hyperconjugative effects by natural bond orbital analysis indicated that nonclassical hydrogen bonding (NCHB) between the C-4 fluorine and the diaxial hydrogens at C-2 and C-6 in cyclohexane 7 and 9 largely accounts for the observed bias. The study extended to changing fluorine (F) for chlorine (Cl) and bromine (Br) at the pseudoanomeric position in the cyclohexanes. Although these halogens do not become involved in NCHBs, they polarize the geminal −CHX– hydrogen at the pseudoanomeric position to a greater extent than fluorine, and consequent electrostatic interactions influence conformer stabilities.Peer reviewe
Temperature and composition insensitivity of thermoelectric properties of high-entropy half-heusler compounds
Get PDFComposition modification by doping and solid solution is a well-studied strategy in thermoelectric (TE) materials to optimize their properties. Recently, the concept of entropy stabilization has offered the possibility of forming random solid solutions that have properties that go beyond the rule of mixture. In this study, we prepared a series of high-entropy half-Heusler solid solutions (HEHHs) with varying valence electron counts (VEC), (Ti0.33Zr0.33Hf0.33)1-x(V0.33Nb0.33Ta0.33)xCoSb (x = 0.5 to 0.75). Compared to their medium- and low-entropy counterparts, the TE properties of HEHHs are less sensitive to temperature and composition variation (charge carrier concentration efficiency of ∼10 %). An ultra-low lattice thermal conductivity for half-Heusler of 1.19 W·m−1·K−1 was achieved.Peer reviewe
VerSoX B07‐B : a high‐throughput XPS and ambient pressure NEXAFS beamline at Diamond Light Source
No full textSLMS thanks the Royal Academy of Engineering, Diamond Light Source and Infineum UK Ltd for financial support of the Bragg Centenary Chair. DCG, PF, SK and GH thank the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme for funding (grant No. 101017928) (HYSOLCHEM).The beamline optics and endstations at branch B of the Versatile Soft X‐ray (VerSoX) beamline B07 at Diamond Light Source are described. B07‐B provides medium‐flux X‐rays in the range 45–2200 eV from a bending magnet source, giving access to local electronic structure for atoms of all elements from Li to Y. It has an endstation for high‐throughput X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and near‐edge X‐ray absorption fine‐structure (NEXAFS) measurements under ultrahigh‐vacuum (UHV) conditions. B07‐B has a second endstation dedicated to NEXAFS at pressures from UHV to ambient pressure (1 atm). The combination of these endstations permits studies of a wide range of interfaces and materials. The beamline and endstation designs are discussed in detail, as well as their performance and the commissioning process.Peer reviewe
PlaNet-ClothPick : effective fabric flattening based on latent dynamic planning
Get PDFWhy do Recurrent State Space Models such as PlaNet fail at cloth manipulation tasks? Recent work has attributed this to the blurry prediction of the observation, which makes it difficult to plan directly in the latent space. This paper explores the reasons behind this by applying PlaNet in the pick-and-place fabric-flattening domain. We find that the sharp discontinuity of the transition function on the contour of the fabric makes it difficult to learn an accurate latent dynamic model, causing the MPC planner to produce pick actions slightly outside of the article. By limiting picking space on the cloth mask and training on specially engineered trajectories, our mesh-free PlaNet-ClothPick surpasses visual planning and policy learning methods on principal metrics in simulation, achieving similar performance as state-of-the-art mesh-based planning approaches. Notably, our model exhibits a faster action inference and requires fewer transitional model parameters than the state-of-the-art robotic systems in this domain. Other supplementary materials are available at: https://sites.google.com/view/planet-clothpick
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