Collaborating on Machine Reading: Training Algorithms to Read Complex Collections

Interdisciplinary collaboration between two faculty members in the humanities and computer science, a research librarian, and an undergraduate student has led to remarkable results in an ongoing international DH research project that has at its core 18th century manuscripts. The corpus stems from a vast collection of archival materials held by the Moravian Church in the UK, Germany, and the US. The number of pages to be transcribed, differences in handwriting styles, paper quality, and original language pose enormous problems for the feasibility of human transcription. This presentation will review the hypothesis, process, and findings of a summer research project that builds upon the Transkribus (Transkribus.eu) platform and seeks to refine the process for creating handwriting training recognition (HTR) models to further improve accuracy. An undergraduate student working with a faculty member in computer science developed a deep learning model to help overcome challenges of accuracy in computer transcription

Synthesis and Biological Assessment of Carbazole Linked Pyrazole Schiff bases and Diarylthiourea Derivatives

In this study, (E)-9-ethyl-N-((1,3-diphenyl-1H-pyrazol-4-ylmethylene)-9H-carbazol-3-amine (3a–f) and 1-(9-ethyl-9H-carbazol-6-yl)-3-phenylthiourea (5a–f) derivatives were synthesized and their in vitro antimicrobial and antimalarial activities were evaluated. The structures of the synthesized compounds were elucidated and confirmed by using IR, 1H NMR, 13C NMR, and mass spectra. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Chiral Symmetry Breaking and Dual Gluon Mass in the Confining Region of QCD

The Dual Meissner Effect description of QCD in the confining region provides $\frac{1}{q^4}$ behaviour for the gluon propagator and involves the dual gluon mass $m$ as a parameter. This is used in the Schwinger-Dyson equation for the quarks in the infrared region to exhibit chiral symmetry breaking for light quarks. Using the light quark condensate as input, the dual gluon mass is determined and its importance in showing the asymptotic free behaviour of the extrinsic curvature coupling in the rigid QCD string is discussed.Comment: 11 pages, Accepted for Publication in Phys.Lett.

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Growth of calcium carbonate crystals within fatty acid bilayer stacks

The influence of structured organic surfaces on the oriented overgrowth of inorganic crystals is a fundamental aspect of biomineralization. This paper describes the dramatic changes in the crystallization of calcium carbonate within thermally evaporated stearic acid films by varying the pH of the electrolyte solution. Reaction of CO<SUB>2</SUB> with electrostatically entrapped Ca<SUP>2+</SUP> ions within the lipid films leads to the in situ growth of CaCO<SUB>3</SUB> crystals. Whereas crystallization at pH = 6 gave rise to calcite of rhombohedral morphology, crystals nucleated at pH = 3 of the electrolyte solution were discrete crystals of the metastable polymorph, vaterite, along with calcite exhibiting unusual morphology. The process of Ca<SUP>2+</SUP> ion incorporation in the stearic acid matrix was followed by quartz crystal microgravimetry and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, while scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction measurements were employed to study the morphology and orientation of the crystallites within the lipid bilayer stacks

Aggression in a western Amazonian colonial spider, Philoponella republicana (Araneae: Uloboridae)

Group-living spiders are rare, and can be divided into multiple subcategories based on their tolerance of group mates. While social spiders are cooperative, colonial spiders are often antagonistic towards conspecifics. We examined colony dynamics in a colonial species, Philoponella republicana (Simon, 1891), focusing on aggressive behaviors to further understand this understudied species. We studied whether web region, sex ratio, web size, or spider size affected aggression. We also tested whether colony members discriminate against conspecific intruders, since this behavior, known as group closure, is prevalent in many other group-living animals but had not yet been tested in colonial spiders. Colony mates were often aggressive due to competition for limited resources, such as mates and orb webs, yet several characteristics of this species may reduce these competitive forces. First, female-biased secondary sex ratios appear to reduce male-male and female-male competition. Moreover, although some individuals defended orb webs, other areas in the communal web were not defended. Philoponella republicana also did not exhibit group closure. Our results further confirm that aggression between males decreases in colonies with more female-biased secondary sex ratios, and larger individuals correlate with a higher frequency of aggressive interactions. Moreover, we raise new questions concerning the evolutionary pressures that shape coloniality in spiders