Una visió de la geografia

Abstract not availabl

Sobre geografia moral

Les géographes se sont considérés eux-mêmes comme scientifiques de la terre et scientifiques sociaux mais ils ont le droit de se considérer aussi comme philosofes moraux dans la mesure ou ils sont concernes par des valeurs, des moeurs et avec l'aspiration humaine pour ne pas seulement survivre mais pour mener une vie fructueuse et agréable. Dans son essai de se faire une vie meilleure les êtres humains ont du s'organiser et utiliser le pouvoir avec lequel on peut commettre des abus contre les faibles et contre la nature. Le sujet de la morale est ineluctable dans n'importe quelle tentative de pendre en considération en détail la réalité humaine. Cet article essaie d'explorer le sujet de la morale dans des sociétés simples et complexes, c'est a dire parmi les peuples de chasseurs mais aussi dans ces hautes cultures qui ont produit le paysage humanisé, le jardin et la ville.Geographers have seen themselves as earth scientists and as social scientists, but they have the right to see themselves also as normal philosophers insofar as they are concemed with values, customs (mores) and the human aspiration toward not only survival but a fruitful and congenial life. In attempting to create the good life, human beings have had to organize themselves and use power, which is subject to abuse against people of lesser power and against nature. The moral theme is inescapable in any detailed consideration of human reality. This paper attempts to explore the moral theme in simple and complex societies -that is, among forager- hunters as well as in those high cultures that have produced the transformed countryside, the garden, and the city.Los geógrafos se incluyen a si mismos en el campo de las ciencias de la tierra y en el de las ciencias sociales, aunque también tienen derecho a considerarse filósofos morales, en tanto que se preocupan por los valores, las costumbres y el deseo humano no solo de sobrevivir, sino de alcanzar una vida fructífera y placentera. En ese intento de llevar una buena vida, los seres humanos han tenido que organizarse y servirse del poder, con el que es facil, por otra parte, cometer abusos contra los mas débiles y contra la naturaleza. La vertiente moral es inevitable en cualquier detallada consideración de la realidad humana. Éste articulo pretende explorar dicha vertiente en sociedades sencillas y complejas, es decir, tanto entre los pueblos cazadores recolectores como en aquellas culturas mas sofisticadas que han transformado el campo, el jardin y la ciudad.Els geògrafs s'inclouen tant en el camp de les ciències de la terra com en el de les ciències socials, tot i que també es poden considerar filosofs morals, perquè es preocupen i s'interessen pels valors, els costums i les aspiracions humanes de no només limitar-se a sobreviure, sinó també d'aconseguir una vida fructuosa i agradable. En aquest intent per aconseguir una bona vida, els éssers humans han hagut d'organitzar-se i servir-se del poder, amb el qual és fàcil, per altra banda, cometre abusos contra els més febles i també contra la natura. El vessant moral és inevitable en qualsevol detallada consideració de la realitat humana. Aquest article pretén explorar l'esmentat vessant en societats senzilles i complexes, és a dir, tant entre els pobles caçadors recol·lectors com en aquelles cultures més sofisticades que han transformat el camp, el jardí i la ciutat

Simple and Effective Curriculum Pointer-Generator Networks for Reading Comprehension over Long Narratives

This paper tackles the problem of reading comprehension over long narratives where documents easily span over thousands of tokens. We propose a curriculum learning (CL) based Pointer-Generator framework for reading/sampling over large documents, enabling diverse training of the neural model based on the notion of alternating contextual difficulty. This can be interpreted as a form of domain randomization and/or generative pretraining during training. To this end, the usage of the Pointer-Generator softens the requirement of having the answer within the context, enabling us to construct diverse training samples for learning. Additionally, we propose a new Introspective Alignment Layer (IAL), which reasons over decomposed alignments using block-based self-attention. We evaluate our proposed method on the NarrativeQA reading comprehension benchmark, achieving state-of-the-art performance, improving existing baselines by $51\%$ relative improvement on BLEU-4 and $17\%$ relative improvement on Rouge-L. Extensive ablations confirm the effectiveness of our proposed IAL and CL components.Comment: Accepted to ACL 201

Lightweight and Efficient Neural Natural Language Processing with Quaternion Networks

Many state-of-the-art neural models for NLP are heavily parameterized and thus memory inefficient. This paper proposes a series of lightweight and memory efficient neural architectures for a potpourri of natural language processing (NLP) tasks. To this end, our models exploit computation using Quaternion algebra and hypercomplex spaces, enabling not only expressive inter-component interactions but also significantly ($75\%$) reduced parameter size due to lesser degrees of freedom in the Hamilton product. We propose Quaternion variants of models, giving rise to new architectures such as the Quaternion attention Model and Quaternion Transformer. Extensive experiments on a battery of NLP tasks demonstrates the utility of proposed Quaternion-inspired models, enabling up to $75\%$ reduction in parameter size without significant loss in performance.Comment: ACL 201

Searching for compact objects with Gaia DR3

We search for compact objects in binaries based on Gaia DR3. A sample of ten targets is derived under the conditions: low temperature ($T_{\rm eff} < 6000$ K), high radial velocity variation ($\Delta V_{\rm r} > 200$ km s$^{-1}$), high mass function ($f(M_2) > 1 M_\odot$), and ellipsoidal-like light curves. Two targets have LAMOST spectroscopic observations, one of which is a double-lined spectroscopic binary. The observational data of seven targets are not self-consistent, since their photometric periods are even shorter than the theoretical minimum orbital periods calculated by the stellar parameters from Gaia DR3. According to the gathered data, two targets may contain compact objects and are worth follow-up observations. This work may serve as an example to demonstrate the feasibility of searching for compact objects in the massive Gaia data.Comment: To be submitte

Customer satisfaction and corporate investment policies

This paper examines the effect of satisfaction with firms’ products and services on their capital investment policies. Using data from the American Customer Satisfaction Index from 1994 to 2013, the results of the regression models show that firms with higher customer satisfaction will invest more heavily in capital expenditures in the future. The results further show that this positive effect is more pronounced for firms with less growth opportunities or a high cost of capital. This would include those firms with low market-to-book ratios, young and small firms, or firms in more competitive industries. Overall, this study argues that customer satisfaction is an important factor affecting the firm’s investment policy. The findings provide a better understanding of the role of customer satisfaction which can generate growth opportunities, reduce cost and motivate a firm to invest more in capital

Effects of Puerariae Radix Extract on Endotoxin Receptors and TNF-α Expression Induced by Gut-Derived Endotoxin in Chronic Alcoholic Liver Injury

Kudzu (Pueraria lobata) is one of the earliest medicinal plants used to treat alcohol abuse in traditional Chinese medicine for more than a millennium. However, little is known about its effects on chronic alcoholic liver injury. Therefore, the present study observed the effects of puerariae radix extract (RPE) on chronic alcoholic liver injury as well as Kupffer cells (KCs) activation to release tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) induced by gut-derived endotoxin in rats and macrophage cell line. RPE was observed to alleviate the pathological changes and lipids deposition in liver tissues as well as the serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), and hepatic gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase (GGT) activity. Meanwhile, RPE inhibited KCs activation and subsequent hepatic TNF-α expression and downregulated the protein expression of endotoxin receptors, lipopolysaccharide binding protein (LBP), CD14, Toll-like receptor (TLR) 2, and TLR4 in chronic alcohol intake rats. Furthermore, an in vitro study showed that RPE inhibited the expression of TNF-α and endotoxin receptors, CD14 and TLR4, induced by LPS in RAW264.7 cells. In summary, this study demonstrated that RPE mitigated liver damage and lipid deposition induced by chronic alcohol intake in rats, as well as TNF-α release, protein expression of endotoxin receptors in vivo or in vitro