SINGULAB - A Graphical user Interface for the Singularity Analysis of Parallel Robots based on Grassmann-Cayley Algebra

This paper presents SinguLab, a graphical user interface for the singularity analysis of parallel robots. The algorithm is based on Grassmann-Cayley algebra. The proposed tool is interactive and introduces the designer to the singularity analysis performed by this method, showing all the stages along the procedure and eventually showing the solution algebraically and graphically, allowing as well the singularity verification of different robot poses.Comment: Advances in Robot Kinematics, Batz sur Mer : France (2008

Herding, Heterogeneity, and Momentum Trading of Institutional Investors Across Asset Classes

This paper examines herding, heterogeneity, and momentum trading of institutional investors in Israel across a broad variety of financial assets. While previous studies typically focus on stocks only, we examine herding patterns, heterogeneity, and momentum trading of institutional investors in five asset classes. We find that during the sample period (1/2002 – 12/2011) large investors tended to herd more than medium and small-size investors. In contrast, small investors used momentum trading patterns more than medium and large-size investors. Homogeneity was found among large investors, especially pension funds, and during the first half of the 2000s, when investors purchased corporate bonds at the expense of government bonds. This phenomenon ended upon the beginning of the subprime crisis and against the backdrop of the financial difficulties of the bond issuers. In those years, panicked investors withdrew funds from the most liquid institutions (study funds), while infusing funds to pension and provident funds due to legally binding arrangements. We attribute some of the heterogeneous trading of the institutional investors, to those factors

What Is Heard in the Mountains: Paul Celan’s Gespräch im Gebirg in the Light of its Hebrew Translation

This article focusses on Paul Celan’s Gespräch im Gebirg [Conversation in the Mountains] in the light of its Hebrew translation. Written in 1959, this short prose text is regarded as Celan’s response to Theodor W. Adorno’s statement that “writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric.” As various scholars have pointed out, the question of sound is central to this response: How to bear witness to that which can no longer be heard? This question becomes even more crucial when dealing with issues of translation. In his epilogue to the Hebrew collection, Shimon Sandbank, the Hebrew translator, explains the difficulty of translating Celan’s hermetic work into Hebrew in general, and this prose text in particular. For example, in order to transfer the Yiddish syntax that Celan uses in the German, which cannot be translated into Hebrew, Sandbank introduced Yiddish words that do not appear in the original text. With regard to these dilemmas, I would ask: What does one hear when listening to Celan in Hebrew, and what happens to the language of the Other, the other language, in the transformation from German into Hebrew? This article suggests that the decisions taken by the Hebrew translator invite the reader to reconsider the relationships between the ethical and the poetical characteristics of Celan’s work.Cet article porte sur Gespräch im Gebirg [Entretien dans la montagne] de Paul Celan à la lumière de sa traduction en hébreu. Écrit en 1959, ce court texte en prose est considéré comme la réponse de Celan à l’affirmation de Theodor W. Adorno selon laquelle « écrire un poème après Auschwitz est barbare ». Ainsi que l’ont fait remarquer différents critiques, la question de la sonorité est centrale dans cette réponse. Comment témoigner de ce qu’on ne peut plus entendre ? Cette question est encore plus délicate quand il s’agit d’une traduction. Shimon Sandbank insiste sur la difficulté de rendre en hébreu l’œuvre hermétique de Celan en général et ce texte en particulier. C’est ainsi, par exemple, qu’il a choisi d’introduire dans sa traduction des mots en yiddish – qui n’apparaissent pas dans le texte original – afin de transposer la syntaxe yiddish – intraduisible en hébreu – qu’utilise Celan dans son texte en allemand. Je voudrais donc poser la question suivante : qu’entend‑on lorsqu’on écoute Celan en hébreu et qu’advient‑il de la langue de l’Autre, de l’autre langue, lors du passage de l’allemand à l’hébreu ? Cet article suggère que les choix opérés par le traducteur hébraïque invitent le lecteur à reconsidérer les liens entre l’éthique et le poétique dans l’œuvre de Celan.מאמר זה עוסק ב"שיחה בהרים" [Gespräch im Gebirg] מאת פאול צלאן בהקשר לשאלת התרגום לעברית. מדובר בטקסט בפרוזה שנכתב בשנת 1959 המשיב, בין היתר, לאמירה של אדורנו, כי "כתיבת שירה אחרי אושוויץ היא מעשה ברברי". ואכן, מבקרים שונים הצביעו על מרכזיות היסוד הקולי או הצלילי שבו; שהרי כיצד ניתן לשמר את זכרם של אלה שקולם נדם? איך להדהד את מה שלא נשמע עוד? שאלה זו מחריפה לנוכח אתגר התרגום. על כך העיד שמעון זנדבנק, האחראי לרבים מתרגומי צלאן לעברית, כאשר הדגיש את הקשיים שמערים צלאן על מתרגמיו, הן ביחס למכלול יצירתו, והן ביחס ל"שיחה בהרים". לדוגמא, הבחירה לשלב מלים ביידיש בטקסט היעד (עברית), שאינן מופיעות בטקסט המקור (גרמנית), על מנת לתרגם את התחביר של היידיש המופיע במקור. ארצה לשאול, אפוא, מה שומעים כאשר מאזינים לטקסט של צלאן בעברית ומה קורה לשפה האחרת, שפתו של אחר, במעבר מגרמנית לעברית? מכאן אבקש להראות כי הכרעות המתרגם לעברית מזמינות את הקורא לבחינה מחודשת של הזיקה בין הפואטי לאתי ביצירתו של צלאן

Gracchus’s Boat: Emigration, Tradition, and Translingualism in the Work of Tuvia Rübner

 GRACCHUS’S BOAT: EMIGRATION, TRADITION, AND TRANSLINGUALISM IN THE WORK OF TUVIA RÜBNER This article explores the relationship between German and Hebrew in the work of the poet Tuvia Rübner, who emigrated from Slovakia to Israel in 1941. Even though his first poems were written in German, his published poems were in Hebrew. Only in the 1990s did he start translating his poems and publishing in German. I claim, however, that this shift is neither monolithic nor one-directional but rather translingual. In continuously crossing the lines between different traditions of language, Rübner’s poetics transcends the binary model based on hegemonic culture, on the one hand, while providing a countermovement to global standard­ization, on the other. By focusing on examples of autotranslation, as well as on Rübner’s late poems that refer to Franz Kafka’s mythical figure of the hunter Gracchus, I suggest that this oscillation ethically bears witness to the other embodied in different life stories.ŁÓDŹ GRAKCHUSA: EMIGRACJA, TRADYCJA I TRANSLINGWIZM W TWÓRCZOŚCI TUVII RÜBNERA Celem tego artykułu jest zbadanie relacji pomiędzy niemieckością i hebrajskością w wierszach Tuvii Rübnera, który wyemigrował ze Słowacji do Izraela w 1941 roku. Chociaż jego pierwsze wiersze pisane były w języku niemieckim, Rübner zadebiutował utworami w języku hebrajskim. Zaczął tłumaczyć swoje wiersze i publikować je w Niemczech dopiero w latach 90. Stawiam jednak tezę, że ta zmiana nie jest ani monolityczna, ani jednokierunkowa, lecz raczej translingwalna. Poprzez ciągłe przekraczanie granic pomiędzy dwiema różnymi tradycjami językowymi poezja Rübnera z jednej strony przestaje wpisywać się w binarny model zakorzeniony w hegemonicznej kulturze, z drugiej zaś przeciwstawia się globalnej standaryzacji. Analizując przykłady autotłumaczenia jak również późniejsze wiersze Rübnera nawiązujące do stworzonej przez Franza Kafkę postaci mitycznego łowcy Grakchusa sugeruję, że takie oscylowanie pomiędzy językami świadczy o obecności ‘innego’ zakorzenionej w życiowych doświadczeniach

Predicting the Growth of Vibrio parahaemolyticus in Oysters under Varying Ambient Temperature

Temperature is a critical factor that influences the proliferation of pathogens in hosts. One example of this is the human pathogen Vibrio parahaemolyticus (V. parahaemolyticus) in oysters. Here, a continuous time model was developed for predicting the growth of Vibrio parahaemolyticus in oysters under varying ambient temperature. The model was fit and evaluated against data from previous experiments. Once evaluated, the V. parahaemolyticus dynamics in oysters were estimated at different post-harvest varying temperature scenarios affected by water and air temperature and different ice treatment timing. The model performed adequately under varying temperature, reflecting that (i) increasing temperature, particularly in hot summers, favors a rapid V. parahaemolyticus growth in oysters, resulting in a very high risk of gastroenteritis in humans after consumption of a serving of raw oysters, (ii) pathogen inactivation due to day/night oscillations and, more evidently, due to ice treatments, and (iii) ice treatment is much more effective, limiting the risk of illness when applied immediately onboard compared to dockside. The model resulted in being a promising tool for improving the understanding of the V. parahaemolyticus–oyster system and supporting studies on the public health impact of pathogenic V. parahaemolyticus associated with raw oyster consumption. Although robust validation of the model predictions is needed, the initial results and evaluation showed the potential of the model to be easily modified to match similar systems where the temperature is a critical factor shaping the proliferation of pathogens in hosts.This research was funded by the Basque Government (GIC21/82

Global Science Opera: Enacting posthumanising creativity

This is the final version. Available from Cappelen Damm Akademisk via the DOI in this record. This article is a theory/practice positioning paper which applies posthumanising creativity as a conceptual framework for Global Science Opera (GSO) practice, in the context of global education/citizenship and STEAM education. Through this positioning we demonstrate how GSO has potential to help students to globally attend to wicked problems from within education, and how posthumanising creativity might prove a productive way to understand creativity more generally within education. The Global Science Opera (GSO) emerged as a practice in 2014, at the intersection of developing agendas in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths) education, and global education and citizenship. Since this time GSO has been implemented on a global scale with a remit to explore the interweaving of arts, sciences and technology within a creative and democratic inquiry process which necessarily crosses geographical and other boundaries. The article considers the intersections of posthuman understandings of creativity, STEAM and global education and goes on to articulate GSO in relation to these. This includes discussion of how GSO creative process might be shaped through this positioning and how GSO creative pedagogies might manifest. The article concludes by offering insights into how GSO and posthumanising creativity might symbiotically productively move forward.

The dynamics of syntax acquisition: facilitation between syntactic structures

This paper sets out to show how facilitation between different clause structures operates over time in syntax acquisition. The phenomenon of facilitation within given structures has been widely documented, yet inter-structure facilitation has rarely been reported so far. Our findings are based on the naturalistic production corpora of six toddlers learning Hebrew as their first language. We use regression analysis, a method that has not been used to study this phenomenon. We find that the proportion of errors among the earliest produced clauses in a structure is related to the degree of acceleration of that structure's learning curve; that with the accretion of structures the proportion of errors among the first clauses of new structures declines, as does the acceleration of their learning curves. We interpret our findings as showing that learning new syntactic structures is made easier, or facilitated, by previously acquired ones

Vibrio vulnificus and Vibrio parahaemolyticus in Oysters under Low Tidal Range Conditions: Is Seawater Analysis Useful for Risk Assessment?

Human-pathogenic Vibrio bacteria are acquired by oysters through filtering seawater, however, the relationships between levels of these bacteria in measured in oysters and overlying waters are inconsistent across regions. The reasons for these discrepancies are unclear hindering our ability to assess if -or when- seawater samples can be used as a proxy for oysters to assess risk. We investigated whether concentrations of total and human pathogenic Vibrio vulnificus (vvhA and pilF genes) and Vibrio parahaemolyticus (tlh, tdh and trh genes) measured in seawater reflect concentrations of these bacteria in oysters (Crassostrea virginica) cultured within the US lower Chesapeake Bay region. We measured Vibrio spp. concentrations using an MPN-qPCR approach and analyzed the data using structural equation modeling (SEM). We found seawater concentrations of these bacteria to predictably respond to temperature and salinity over chlorophyll a, pheophytin or turbidity. We also inferred from the SEM results that Vibrio concentrations in seawater strongly predict their respective concentrations in oysters. We hypothesize that such seawater-oyster coupling can be observed in regions of low tidal range. Due to the ease of sampling and processing of seawater samples compared to oyster samples, we suggest that under low tidal range conditions, seawater samples can foster increased spatial and temporal coverage and complement data associated with oyster samples

Marine infectious disease dynamics and outbreak thresholds: contact transmission, pandemic infection, and the potential role of filter feeders

Disease-causing organisms can have significant impacts on marine species and communities. However, the dynamics that underlie the emergence of disease outbreaks in marine ecosystems still lack the equivalent level of description, conceptual understanding, and modeling context routinely present in the terrestrial systems. Here, we propose a theoretical basis for modeling the transmission of marine infectious diseases (MIDs) developed from simple models of the spread of infectious disease. The models represent the dynamics of a variety of host–pathogen systems including those unique to marine systems where transmission of disease is by contact with waterborne pathogens both directly and through filter-feeding processes. Overall, the analysis of the epizootiological models focused on the most relevant processes that interact to drive the initiation and termination of epizootics. A priori, systems with multi-step disease infections (e.g., infection-death-particle release-filtration-transmission) reduced dependence on individual parameters resulting in inherently slower transmissions rates. This is demonstrably not the case; thus, these alternative transmission pathways must also considerably increase the rates of processes involved in transmission. Scavengers removing dead infected animals may inhibit disease spread in both contact-based and waterborne pathogen-based diseases. The capacity of highly infected animals, both alive and dead, to release a substantial number of infective elements into the water column, making them available to suspension feeders results in such diseases being highly infective with a very small “low-abundance refuge”. In these systems, the body burden of pathogens and the relative importance between the release and the removal rate of pathogens in the host tissue or water column becomes paramount. Two processes are of potential consequence inhibiting epizootics. First, large water volumes above the benthic susceptible populations can function as a sink for pathogens. Second, unlike contact-based disease models in which an increase in the number of susceptible individuals in the population increases the likelihood of transmission and epizootic development, large populations of filter feeders can reduce this likelihood through the overfiltration of infective particles.This investigation was funded by the NSF Evolution and Ecology of Infectious Diseases (EEID) Program Grant # OCE-1216220. We appreciate this support