Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Present-day and future lightning, and its impact on tropospheric chemistry

Lightning represents a key interaction with climate through its production of nitrogen oxides (NOx) which lead to ozone production. These NOx emissions are generally calculated interactively in chemistry-climate models but there has been little development of the representation of the lightning processes since the 1990s. In most models the parametrisation of lightning is based upon simulated cloudtop height. The aims of the thesis are: to explore existing schemes, and develop a new process-based scheme, to parametrise lightning; to use a new processbased lightning scheme to give insights regarding the role of lightning NOx in tropospheric chemistry; and to use alternative lightning schemes to improve the understanding of the response of lightning to climate change, and the consequent impacts on tropospheric chemistry. First, a new lightning parametrisation is developed using reanalysis data and satellite lightning observations which is based on upward cloud ice flux. This parametrisation is more closely linked to thunderstorm charging theory. It greatly improves the simulated zonal distribution of lightning compared to the cloud-top height approach, which overestimates lightning in the tropics. The new lightning scheme is then implemented in a chemistry-climate model, the UK Chemistry and Aerosol model (UKCA). It is evaluated against ozone sonde measurements with broad global coverage and improves the simulation of the annual cycle of upper tropospheric ozone concentration, compared to ozone simulated with the
Analysis of Coastline Extraction from Landsat-8 OLI Imagery

Coastline extraction is a fundamental work for coastal resource management, coastal environmental protection and coastal sustainable development. Due to the free access and long-term record, Landsat series images have the potential to be used for coastline extraction. However, dynamic features of different types of coastlines (e.g., rocky, sandy, artificial), caused by sea level fluctuation from tidal, storm and reclamation, make it difficult to be accurately extracted with coarse spatial resolution, e.g., 30 m, of Landsat images. To access this problem, we analyze the performance of coastline extraction by integrating downscaling, pansharpening and water index approaches in increasing the accuracy of coastline extraction from the latest Landsat-8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) imagery. In order to prove the availability of the proposed method, we designed three strategies: (1) Strategy 1 uses the traditional water index method to extract coastline directly from original 30 m Landsat-8 OLI multispectral (MS) image; (2) Strategy 2 extracts coastlines from 15 m fused MS images generated by integrating 15 m panchromatic (PAN) band and 30 m MS image with ten pansharpening algorithms; (3) Strategy 3 first downscales the PAN band to a finer spatial resolution (e.g., 7.5 m) band, and then extracts coastlines from pansharpened MS images generated by integrating downscaled spatial resolution PAN band and 30 m MS image with ten pansharpening algorithms. Using the coastline extracted from ZiYuan-3 (ZY-3) 5.8 m MS image as reference, accuracies of coastlines extracted from MS images in three strategies were validated visually and quantitatively. The results show that, compared with coastline extracted directly from 30 m Landsat-8 MS image (strategy 1), strategy 3 achieves the best accuracies with optimal mean net shoreline movement (MNSM) of −2.54 m and optimal mean absolute difference (MAD) of 11.26 m, followed by coastlines extracted in strategy 2 with optimal MNSM of −4.23 m and optimal MAD of 13.54 m. Further comparisons with single-band thresholding (Band 6), AWEI, and ISODATA also confirmed the superiority of strategy 3. For the various used pansharpening algorithms, five multiresolution analysis MRA-based pansharpening algorithms are more efficient than the component substitution CS-based pansharpening algorithms for coastline extraction from Landsat-8 OLI imagery. Among the five MRA-based fusion methods, the coastlines extracted from the fused images generated by Indusion, additive a trous wavelet transform (ATWT) and additive wavelet luminance proportional (AWLP) produced the most accurate and visually realistic representation. Therefore, pansharpening approaches can improve the accuracy of coastline extraction from Landsat-8 OLI imagery, and downscaling the PAN band to finer spatial resolution is able to further improve the coastline extraction accuracy, especially in crenulated coasts.
Experimental investigation of the response of a driven pile in soft silt

The paper describes the results of field tests carried out using highly instrumented piles at a very soft estuarine clayey silt deposit at Kinnegar, Belfast. The site has been used for a number of years as a geotechnical test bed site and has been comprehensively characterised using both in-situ tests including Cone Penetration Tests (CPT) and by means of an extensive laboratory test program. The instrumented pile used in the investigation was developed at University College Dublin and includes sensors which allow readings of both total radial stress and pore pressure during installation, equalisation and load testing to be made at a number of locations along the pile shaft. The radial stress and pore pressure developed during installation and equalisation are discussed in terms of the CPT qcnet value and compared with similar results from the literature.
A hierarchic architecture model for dynamic reconfiguration

Dynamic reconfiguration is the ability to modify a parallel or distributed system while it is running. We adopt the framework developed by Kramer et al. (1985) at the system architecture level: changes must occur in a consistent state, which is brought about by "freezing" some system components. The goal is to reduce system disruption, i.e., to minimize: the part of the system to be "frozen"; and the time taken by reconfiguration operations. Towards the first goal we take a connection based approach instead of a component based one. To reduce time, we refine the reconfiguration algorithm by executing changes in parallel as much as possible. Our model also handles hierarchic systems.
Routing in mobile ad hoc networks

This paper describes a simulation-based evaluation of several unicast routing protocols tailored specifically for mobile ad hoc networks. Four protocols were evaluated: the wireless Internet routing protocol (WIRP), a link state (LS) algorithm with constrained LS updates, a distance vector variant of WIRP, and temporally ordered routing algorithm (TORA). The goal was to determine how well these routing protocols worked in specific tactical conditions, supporting a given mix of traffic. Factors varied included tactical scenario, network size, and loading. Tactical scenario included different connectivities (e.g., "dense" versus "sparse") and link fluctuation rates (e.g., "high" versus "low"). Metrics collected included average end-to end delay per application, path length, total efficiency, and fraction of user messages received. We found that certain protocols performed better in densely connected networks than in sparser networks (e.g., TORA), while some performed better in sparser networks (e.g., LS). One protocol, WIRP, performed well in both types of networks over the scenarios evaluated, Several remaining issues and areas for continued research are identified.
Osteochondral Lesion of the Talus

Background Identifying factors associated with favorable or unfavorable outcomes would provide patients with accurate expectations of the arthroscopic marrow stimulation techniques. Purpose To investigate the prognostic significance and optimal measures of defect size in osteochondral lesion of the talus as treated with arthroscopy. Hypothesis A critical, or threshold, defect size may exist at which clinical outcomes become poor in the treatment of osteochondral lesion of the talus. Study Design Cohort study; Level of evidence, 3. Methods In sum, 120 ankles underwent arthroscopic marrow stimulation treatment for osteochondral lesion of the talus and were evaluated for prognostic factors. Clinical failure was defined as patients’ having osteochondral transplantation or an American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society (AOFAS) Ankle-Hindfoot Scale score less than 80. Linear regression analysis and the Kaplan-Meier method were used to identify optimal cutoff values of defect size. Results Eight ankles (6.7%) required osteochondral transplantation, and 22 ankles (18.4%) were considered failures because of AOFAS scores less than 80, which indicated fair or poor results. Linear regression analysis showed a high prognostic significance of defect area and suggested a cutoff defect size of 150 mm 2 for the optimum identification of poor clinical outcomes (P < .001). Only 10 of 95 ankles (10.5%) with a defect area <150 mm 2 showed clinical failure, whereas in patients with an area ≥150 mm 2 , the clinical failure rate was significantly higher (80%, 20/25). There was no association between outcome and the patient’s age, duration of symptoms, trauma, associated lesions, and location of lesions (P > .05). Conclusion Initial defect size is an important and easily obtainable prognostic factor in osteochondral lesions of the talus and so may serve as a basis for preoperative surgical decisions. A cutoff point exists regarding the risk of clinical failure at a defect area of approximately 150 mm 2 as calculated from magnetic resonance imaging.
A Performance Study to Guide RDMA Programming Decisions

This paper describes a performance study of Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) programming techniques. Its goal is to use these results as a guide for making “best practice” RDMA programming decisions. Infiniband RDMA is widely used in scientific high performance computing (HPC) clusters as a low-latency, high-bandwidth, reliable interconnect accessed via MPI. Recently it is gaining adherents outside scientific HPC as high-speed clusters appear in other application areas for which MPI is not suitable. RDMA enables user applications to move data directly between virtual memory on different nodes without operating system intervention, so there is a need to know how to incorporate RDMA access into high-level programs. But RDMA offers more options to a programmer than traditional sockets programming, and it is not always obvious what the performance tradeoffs of these options might be. This study is intended to provide some answers.
Global Travel Time Data Set From Adaptive Empirical Wavelet Construction

We present a method for constructing the average waveform shape (hereafter called “empirical wavelet”) of seismic shear waves on an event‐by‐event basis for the purpose of constructing a high‐quality travel time data set with information about waveform quality and shape. A global data set was assembled from 360 earthquakes between 1994 and 2017. The empirical wavelet approach permits documentation of the degree of similarity of every observed wave with the empirical wavelet. We adapt the empirical wavelet to all pulse widths, thus identifying broadened (e.g., attenuated) pulses. Several measures of goodness of fit of the empirical wavelet to each record are documented, as well as signal‐to‐noise ratios, permitting users of the data set to employ flexible weighting schemes. We demonstrate the approach on transversely polarized SH waves and build a global travel time data set for the waves S, SS, SSS, Sdiff, ScS, and ScSScS. Onset arrival times of the waves were determined through a correlation scheme with best‐fitting empirical wavelets. Over 250,000 travel times were picked, from over 1.4 million records, all of which were human‐checked for accuracy via a Portable Document Format (PDF) catalog file making system. Many events were specifically selected to bolster southern hemisphere coverage. Coverage maps show that, while the northern hemisphere is more densely sampled, the southern hemisphere coverage is robust. The travel time data set, empirical wavelets, and all measurement metrics are publicly available and well suited for global tomography, as well as forward modeling experiments.
Querkopf is a key marker of self-renewal and multipotency of adult neural stem cells

Adult neural stem cells (NSCs) reside in the subventricular zone (SVZ) and produce neurons throughout life. Although their regenerative potential has kindled much interest, few factors regulating NSCs in vivo are known. Among these is the histone acetyltransferase querkopf (QKF, also known as MYST4, MORF, KAT6B), which is strongly expressed in a small subset of cells in the neurogenic subventricular zone. However, the relationship between Qkf gene expression and the hierarchical levels within the neurogenic lineage is currently unknown. We show here that the 10% of SVZ cells with the highest Qkf expression possess the defining NSC characteristics of multipotency and self-renewal and express markers previously shown to enrich for NSCs. A fraction of cells expressing Qkf at medium to high levels is enriched for multipotent progenitor cells with limited self-renewal, followed by a population containing migrating neuroblasts. Cells low in Qkf promoter activity are predominantly ependymal cells. In addition, we show that mice deficient for Bmi1, a central regulator of NSC self-renewal, show an age-dependent decrease in the strongest Qkf-expressing cell population in the SVZ. Our results show a strong relationship between Qkf promoter activity and stem cell characteristics, and a progressive decrease in Qkf gene activity as lineage commitment and differentiation proceed in vivo.
COMMITTEE ON TOXICITY OF CHEMICALS IN FOOD, CONSUMER PRODUCTS AND THE ENVIRONMENT

1. Vitamin E is a generic description for a group of eight lipid soluble chemicals. There are two classes, tocopherols and tocotrienols, which exhibit the biological anti-oxidant effect. Vitamin E is synthesised in plant products, the highest levels being found in plant oils, with lower levels being found in the leaves and other green parts. Vitamin E prevents lipid oxidation and maintains membrane integrity throughout the body.
Negative impact of chemotherapy on breast cancer patients QOL - utility of antiemetic treatment guidelines and the role of race.

INTRODUCTION Chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) is one of the most important worries of cancer patients. Although not life-threatening, it has a great negative impact on quality of life (QOL). OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to determine the impact of CINV (i.e., acute and delayed) on breast cancer patients QOL and to discern opinions related with antiemetic guidelines used dependent on the three main races in Malaysia (Malay, Chinese, Indian). METHODS In this longitudinal prospective observational study, 158 breast cancer patients treated with chemotherapy were interviewed and valid questionnaires (MANE and ONEM) were used to report the impact of CINV on their QOL within the first 24 hours and after 3 to 5 days of chemotherapy treatment. RESULTS The main result was that delayed CINV has an impact on QOL greater than acute CINV. The impact of nausea was reportedly higher than that of vomiting. Also differences in race i.e., genetic polymorphisms (pharmacogenomics) influenced the utility of antiemetic treatments and patients opinions. CONCLUSION Based on the results of our study a new guideline for antiemetic treatment should be used to reduce the impact of CINV on QOL, taking into account variation in genetic polymorphisms among the three races in Malaysia.
The evaluation of self-care and self-efficacy in patients undergoing hemodialysis.

PURPOSE The purpose of this study is to assess patients' self-care ability and self-efficacy, to examine the relationship between them and to determine the factors affecting self-care ability and self-efficacy in people undergoing hemodialysis (HD). METHODS This research was conducted as a descriptive survey study by 138 people with ESRD who were patients of HD units service in Sivas. The data were collected with a Personal Information Form, Exercise of Self-Care Agency (ESCA) Scale and Self-Efficacy Assessment Form. Data collected from the study were analysed using percent, mean, Tukey test, significance test of two means, one-way variant analysis and Kruskal-Wallis test. RESULTS The study results demonstrate that while there is a correlation between self-care ability and education level, work status, income level and frequency of HD application, factors such as age, gender, education level, work status, income level and frequency of HD application determine self-efficacy. Furthermore, a positive correlation was found between patients' self-care ability and self-efficacy. It was determined that as the level of self-care ability increases self-efficacy level also increases. CONCLUSIONS Hemodialysis application affects patients' self-care ability and self-efficacy levels. There is a positive correlation between self-care ability and self-efficacy. In view of this study's results, it is recommended to organize education programmes to increase self-care ability and self-efficacy levels of HD patients and prepare comprehensive plans including patients' families.
Replication banding patterns of the diploid-tetraploid treefrogs Hyla chrysoscelis and H. versicolor

Populations of the diploid-tetraploid treefrogs Hyla chrysoscelis and H. versicolor can be defined by the polymorphic positions of the nucleolar organizing regions (NORs) on their chromosomes. Evidence from NOR positions and interstitial telomere sequence data shows that gene flow between H. chrysoscelis populations appears to be restricted, with contact occurring only in narrow “hybrid” zones. Hyla versicolor appears to have had multiple origins from H. chrysoscelis populations, and this, too, is reflected in the NOR positions. We used replication banding to determine if genetic isolation of H. chrysoscelis populations was accompanied by karyotype evolution in the populations or in contact zones. We also sought to detect karyotype alteration or replication differences associated with polyploidy in H. versicolor. Homologous chromosome pairs of all H. chrysoscelis studied displayed no differences in replication banding patterns, nor did they differ from those of H. versicolor. Although NOR positions differed between the populations studied, no disturbance of the replication banding patterns was found, indicating that structural rearrangements were not involved in creating the multiple NOR positions seen in populations of H. versicolor and H. chrysoscelis.
Improving the detection accuracy of evolutionary coupling by measuring change correspondence

If two or more program entities change together (i.e., co-change) frequently (i.e., in many commits) during software evolution, it is likely that the entities are related and we say that the entities are showing evolutionary coupling. Association rules have been used to express evolutionary coupling and two related measures, support and confidence, have been used to measure the strength of coupling among the co-changed entities. However, an association rule relies only on the number of times the entities have co-changed. It does not analyze whether the changes are corresponding and whether the entities are really related. As a result, association rule often reports false positives and also, ignores important coupling among the infrequently co-changed entities. Focusing on this issue we propose to calculate a new measure, change correspondence, blending the idea of concept location in a code-base to determine whether the changes to the co-changed entities are corresponding and thus, whether they are really related. Our preliminary investigation result on four subject systems written in two programming languages shows that change correspondence has the potential to accurately determine whether two entities are related even if they co-changed infrequently. Thus, we believe that our new measure will help us improve the detection accuracy of evolutionary coupling.
Mobile Payments: What's in It for Consumers?

Mobile payments? those initiated on a mobile device such as a cell phone or tablet computer? have received a significant amount of attention recently but still have not been widely adopted in the United States. ; Hayashi examines the barriers that have limited the takeoff of mobile payments in the United States. The article also draws on consumer payments research to assess which attributes of mobile payments might encourage or discourage adoption by U.S. consumers. ; The article concludes that greater convenience and enhanced ability to monitor account balances are likely to encourage consumer adoption of mobile payments for in-store purchases, while initial lack of merchant acceptance may discourage adoption. The effects on consumer adoption of cost, security, and targeted marketing are less clear and will depend on which mobile payment technology is used and how it is implemented.
Concentrations and Size Distribution of Inhalable and Respirable Dust Among Sugar Industry Workers

There has been very limited information regarding bagasse exposure among workers in sugar industries as well as on health outcomes. The authors determined the occupational exposure of sugar industry workers in Khon Kaen to airborne bagasse dust. The size of the bagasse dust ranged from 0.08 to 9 µm with the highest size concentration of 2.1 to 4.7 µm. The most common size had a geometric mean diameter of 5.2 µm, with a mass concentration of 6.89 mg/m3/log µm. The highest mean values of inhalable and respirable dust were found to be 9.29 mg/m3 from February to April in bagasse storage, 5.12 mg/m3 from May to September, and 4.12 mg/m3 from October to January. Inhalable dust concentrations were 0.33, 0.47, and 0.41 mg/m3, respectively. Workers are likely to be exposed to high concentrations of bagasse dust and are at risk of respiratory diseases. Preventive measures, both in the form of engineering designs and personal protective devices, should be implemented.
Photorealistic rendering of mixed reality scenes

Photo‐realistic rendering of virtual objects into real scenes is one of the most important research problems in computer graphics. Methods for capture and rendering of mixed reality scenes are driven by a large number of applications, ranging from augmented reality to visual effects and product visualization. Recent developments in computer graphics, computer vision, and imaging technology have enabled a wide range of new mixed reality techniques including methods for advanced image based lighting, capturing spatially varying lighting conditions, and algorithms for seamlessly rendering virtual objects directly into photographs without explicit measurements of the scene lighting. This report gives an overview of the state‐of‐the‐art in this field, and presents a categorization and comparison of current methods. Our in‐depth survey provides a tool for understanding the advantages and disadvantages of each method, and gives an overview of which technique is best suited to a specific problem.