DeepSum: A Deep Learning Framework for Summarizing Animal Behavior

The burgeoning field of ethology necessitates efficient tools for analyzing extensive video recordings of animal behavior, as manually sifting through hours of footage is both time-consuming and susceptible to observer bias. Here we present an innovative deep learning framework tailored for summarizing animal behavior videos, aiming to distill lengthy recordings into concise, informative segments. Leveraging the latest advancements in hierarchical video summarization, our approach employs a combination of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) and Transformer models to extract and understand complex spatial-temporal patterns inherent in animal movements and interactions. The model is designed to recognize and prioritize key behavioral events, ensuring the retention of critical moments in the summarized output. Additionally, an attention mechanism is incorporated to adaptively focus on salient features, enhancing the model’s capability to discern subtle yet significant behavioral nuances. We assess our framework on a range of datasets containing different species and behavioral situations, and find that it outperforms current state-of-the-art techniques in terms of accuracy, coherence, and informativeness of the generated summaries. In addition to providing a consistent, objective method of analyzing animal behavior, DeepSum dramatically reduces the amount of manual labor needed for behavioral analysis, opening the door for advancements in ethological research and wildlife conservation

Collisionless shock acceleration of quasi-monoenergetic ions in ultra-relativistic regime

Collisionless shock acceleration of carbon ions (C$^{6+}$) is investigated in the ultra-relativistic regime of laser-plasma interaction by accounting for the radiation reaction force and the pair production in particle-in-cell simulations. Both radiation reaction force and pair plasma formation tend to slow down the shock velocity, reducing the energy of the accelerated ions, albeit extending the time scales of the acceleration process. Slab plasma target achieves lower energy spread while target with a tailored density profile yields higher ion acceleration energies.Comment: 10 pages,12 figure

Book review: Resisting dialogue: modern fiction and the future of dissent by Juan Meneses

In Resisting Dialogue: Modern Fiction and the Future of Dissent, Juan Meneses questions the assumption that dialogue is an inherent good, exploring how it can be deliberately used as a depoliticising force to eliminate dissent. Weaving together political theory and literary studies in order to propose a vision of dialogue that retains its subversive and radical potential, this bold and unconventional analysis offers a crucial meditation on our fraught times of ever-deepening social, cultural and political divides, writes Shikha Vats. Resisting Dialogue: Modern Fiction and the Future of Dissent. Juan Meneses. University of Minnesota Press. 2019

Ethical Issues in Designing Internet-Based Research: Recommendations for Good Practice

This article presents an overview of internet-based research, highlighting the absence of a standard terminology to define and classify such research. The label internet-based research or online research can cover a diverse range of research designs and methods, involving different degrees of ethical concern regarding privacy, transparency, confidentiality, and security. Although the basic principles of human research ethics (such as respect, integrity, justice, and beneficence) are still applicable in this context, interpreting and applying these principles correctly and protecting the interests of the research participants effectively are not easy to ensure. While the nature of the internet poses challenges of user authentication and confidentiality, the diversity of national laws and codes of ethics poses additional challenges. The article refers to relevant Canadian laws, with which the author is familiar. Finally, a set of recommendations are offered to mitigate the ethical challenges of internet-based research. These include ethical practices such as ensuring transparency while recruitment, considering participants’ expectations about privacy, ensuring legal compliance, using secure communication protocols, obtaining informed and knowledgeable consent, offering participants the opportunity to withdraw from the research and retract their data, and ensuring that data are not used for subsequent non-research purposes

South-South FDI vs North-South FDI : A Comparative Analysis in the Context of India

Over the years FDI activities from developing countries have grown very rapidly and most of these investments end up in other developing countries. Such FDI flows are formally known as South-South FDI. This paper attempts to compare the characteristics of South-South FDI versus North-South FDI in the context of India. The analysis is carried at two levels. First we look at the overall trends of FDI flows (both inward & outward) region wise (North versus South), country wise and sector wise. Our results confirm that Indias FDI activities have broadly been consistent with the well known concept of Investment Development Path (Dunning, 1981). We also find that while country profiles have undergone changes, there has been no significant shift in the sectoral profile. Next we carry out econometric analysis at the sectoral /industry level for inward FDI from the North and from the South to examine the difference in the characters (if any) of FDI from the two sources. Our broad conclusion is that although there is not much difference between FDI from the north and from the south (both being concentrated in sectors with larger markets, higher export orientation & lower import intensity) southern FDIs appear to flow more into growing sectors while FDI from north do not have such indication. Ultimately however, it is at the firm level where one needs to identify the factors inhibit/attract FDI. The qualitative findings from a limited survey of 93 firms are presented in the appendix.FDI inflows and outflows, North-South FDI, South-South FDI

Determinants of the Money Supply in the United Kingdom, West Germany, and Canada (Central Bank, Reaction Function, Inflation, Fiscal, Monetary Policy).

The primary purpose of this study is to formulate, estimate and compare monetary policy reaction functions for the United Kingdom, West Germany, and Canada. For each country, the growth rate of the monetary base is estimated as a linear function of eight independent variables--the interest rate variable, the budget deficit variable, the wage rate variable, the price variable, the international reserves variable, the exchange rate variable, a trade balance variable and an economic activity variable (e.g., the output gap, the output ratio, or the unemployment rate variable). Alternative measures of a number of these variables are employed. The Final Prediction Error criterion in conjunction with the specific gravity criterion has been used to determine the lag length for each explanatory variable and the order in which independent variables enter the equations. Reaction functions, thus specified, are estimated using the Ordinary Least Squares and instrumental variables techniques. If preliminary results suggest the presence of serial correlation among residuals, estimates are obtained using the Cochrane-Orcutt iterative procedure for serial correlation correction. Restricted versions of the reaction functions are also estimated after dropping statistically insignificant variables from the fully specified reaction functions. The estimated reaction functions indicate that monetary policies in the United Kingdom and West Germany have been permanently affected by some external trade balance measure--the effective exchange rate in the former case and international reserves in the latter. The monetary base in Canada is affected by changes in the output gap, interest rate changes and budget deficits