Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Glacial erosion, evolution of river long profiles, and the organization of process domains in mountain drainage basins of coastal British Columbia

[1] In glaciated British Columbia, Canada, Quaternary climate changes are responsible for profound spatial reorganization of Earth surface processes. These changes have left a landscape characterized by topographic anisotropy associated with a hierarchy of glacial troughs. The evolution of glaciated landscapes is examined by analyzing the structure of geomorphic process domains and channel long profiles. To identify process domains we use channel surveys and GIS analysis to construct slope-area transects of the channel network. This analysis reveals generalized process-form disequilibrium with a mismatch between topographic signatures and currently active geomorphic process domains. At the landscape scale of “source” colluvial channels (contributing area <1 km2), the glacial/paraglacial signature commonly overrides that produced by contemporary debris flows. Along the axis of former ice flows, relict glacial cirques introduce a “hanging” fluvial domain at contributing areas as small as 8 × 10−2 km2 and produce complex channel long profiles similar to those observed for rivers responding to tectonic forcing. Slope-area relations typical of unglaciated equilibrium environments do not apply here. The concept of process domains appears to hold, however, some major glacially forced modifications in the alluvial-colluvial transition are observed and the definition of a depositional colluvial subdomain is proposed. Comparison between field- and GIS-measured slopes reveals that GIS-associated error is not uniform between process domains, and that GIS-based plots do not successfully discriminate field-based process domains. The combination of glacial and post-glacial fingerprints and the effects of ongoing Earth surface processes generate a complex landscape whose glacial signatures may persist until the onset of the next ice age.
SLA-verifier: Stateful and quantitative verification for service chaining

Network verification has been recently proposed to detect network misconfigurations. Existing work focuses on the reachability. This paper proposes a framework that verifies the Service Level Agreement (SLA) compliance of the network using static verification. This work proposes a quantitative model and a set of algorithms for verifying performance properties of a network with switches and middleboxes, i.e., service chains. We develop SLA-Verifier and evaluate its efficiency using simulation on real-world data and testbed experiments. To improve the SLA violation detection accuracy, our system uses verification results to optimize online monitoring.
Atomic vapor deposition of bismuth titanate thin films

C-axis oriented ferroelectric bismuth titanate (Bi4Ti3O12) thin films were grown on (001) strontium titanate (SrTiO3) substrates by atomic vapour deposition technique. Ferroelectric properties of thin films are greatly affected by the presence of various kinds of defects. Detailed x-ray diffraction data (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analysis showed presence of out-of-phase boundaries (OPBs). These OPBs originate at atomic steps on the SrTiO3 substrate surface. It is found that the OPB density changes appreciably with the amount of titanium injected during growth of the thin films.
Pan‐Arctic enhancements of light absorbing aerosol concentrations due to North American boreal forest fires during summer 2004

[1] During summer of 2004, about 2.7 million hectare of boreal forest burned in Alaska, the largest annual area burned on record, and another 3.1 million hectare burned in Canada. This study explores the impact of emissions from these fires on light absorbing aerosol concentration levels, aerosol optical depths (AOD), and albedo at the Arctic stations Barrow (Alaska), Alert (Canada), Summit (Greenland), and Zeppelin/Ny Alesund on Spitsbergen (Norway). The Lagrangian particle dispersion model FLEXPART was run backward from these sites to identify periods that were influenced by forest fire pollution plumes. It is shown that the fires led to enhanced values of particle light absorption coefficients (σap) at all of these sites. Barrow, about 1000 km away from the fires, was affected by several fire pollution plumes, one leading to spectacularly high 3-hour mean σap values of up to 32 Mm−1, more than the highest values measured in Arctic Haze. AOD measurements for a wavelength of 500 nm saturated but were estimated at above 4–5 units, unprecedented in the station records. Fire plumes were transported through the atmospheric column over Summit continuously for 2 months, during which all measured AOD values were enhanced, with maxima up to 0.4–0.5 units. Equivalent black carbon concentrations at the surface at Summit were up to 600 ng m−3 during two major episodes, and Alert saw at least one event with enhanced σap values. FLEXPART results show that Zeppelin was located in a relatively unaffected part of the Arctic. Nevertheless, there was a 4-day period with daily mean σap > 0.3 Mm−1, the strongest episode of the summer half year, and enhanced AOD values. Elevated concentrations of the highly source-specific compound levoglucosan positively confirmed that biomass burning was the source of the aerosols at Zeppelin. In summary, this paper shows that boreal forest fires can lead to elevated concentrations of light absorbing aerosols throughout the entire Arctic. Enhanced AOD values suggest a substantial impact of these plumes on radiation transmission in the Arctic atmosphere. During the passage of the largest fire plume, a pronounced drop of the albedo of the snow was observed at Summit. We suggest that this is due to the deposition of light absorbing particles on the snow, with further potentially important consequences for the Arctic radiation budget.
Low-complexity image denoising based on Bayesian estimation of statistical parameter

The distortion of images by additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) is common during its acquisition, processing, compression, storage, transmission, and reproduction. This paper is concerned with dual-tree complex wavelet-based image denoising using Bayesian techniques. Indeed, one of the cruxes of the Bayesian image denoising algorithms is to estimate the local variance of the image. Here, we employ maximum a posterior (MAP) estimation to calculate local observed variance with Pareto density prior for local observed variance and Laplacian or Gaussian distribution for noisy wavelet coefficients. Evidently, our selection of prior distribution is motivated by analytical and computational tractability. The experimental results show that the proposed method yields good denoising results.
Effectiveness of Mindfulness-based Therapy for Reducing Anxiety and Depression in Patients With Cancer

AbstractAnxiety and depression are common among patients with cancer, and are often treated with psychological interventions including mindfulness-based therapy.The aim of the study was to perform a meta-analysis of the effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions for improving anxiety and depression in patients with cancer.Medline, the Cochrane Library, EMBASE, and Google Scholar were searched. The randomized controlled trials designed for patients diagnosed with cancer were included. Mindfulness-based interventions were provided.The outcomes assessed were the changes in anxiety and depression scores from before to after the intervention. The treatment response was determined by calculating the standardized mean difference (SMD) for individual studies and for pooled study results. Subgroup analyses by cancer type, type of therapy, and length of follow-up were performed.Seven studies, involving 469 participants who received mindfulness-based interventions and 419 participants in a control group, were included in the meta-analysis. Mindfulness-based stress reduction and art therapy were the most common interventions (5/7 studies). All studies reported anxiety and depression scores. The pooled SMD of the change in anxiety significantly favored mindfulness-based therapy over control treatment (−0.75, 95% confidence interval −1.28, −0.22, P = 0.005). Likewise, the pooled SMD of the change in depression also significantly favored mindfulness-based therapy over control (−0.90, 95% confidence interval −1.53, −0.26, P = 0.006). During the length of follow-ups less than 12 weeks, mindfulness-based therapy significantly improved anxiety for follow-up ⩽12 weeks after the start of therapy, but not >12 weeks after the start of therapy.There was a lack of consistency between the studies in the type of mindfulness-based/control intervention implemented. Patients had different forms of cancer. Subgroup analyses included a relatively small number of studies and did not account for factors such as the severity of anxiety and/or depression, the time since diagnosis, and cancer stage.Mindfulness-based interventions effectively relieved anxiety and depression among patients with cancer. However, additional research is still warranted to determine how long the beneficial effects of mindfulness-based therapy persist.
A New Rhamphorhynchid Pterosaur (Pterosauria) from the Middle Jurassic Tiaojishan Formation of Western Liaoning, China

A new Sordes‐like pterosaur Jianchangopterus zhaoianus gen. et sp. nov. is erected based on a almost complete skeleton with skull preserved. It is characterized by the following characters: seven and six pairs of upper jaw and lower jaw teeth respectively; the development of a recess on maxilla; the evenness of the dental margin in lateral view; a distinct central ridge along dorsal surface of the mandibular symphysis; wing phalanx 4 with strongly curved shaft approximately 96% the length of the wing phalanx 1. The discovery of a Sordes‐like pterosaur Jianchangopterus, and other taxa from the same formation indicates that pterosaurs reached great diversities during the Middle to Upper Jurassic period.
GPR investigations for the study and the restoration of the rose window of Troia Cathedral (southern Italy)

The development of cracks and distortions caused by past seismic events compromised the integrity of the rose window of Troia Cathedral, one of the most precious Romanesque monuments in southern Italy. Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) using high-frequency antennae (mainly 1500 MHz) was selected from among various non-destructive testing methods for its high-resolution imaging to scan the internal structure of the various architectural elements of the wheel window: the decimetre-diameter columns constituting the rays, the ring decorated with intersecting arched ribwork and the surrounding circular ashlar curb. GPR was employed in the classical continuous reflection mode, moving the antennae manually along the architectural elements and paying exceptional care in the acquisition and processing stages to avoid positioning errors. Indeed, the challenging aspects of this case study were the geometrical complexity and small dimensions of the structural elements, causing many logistic/coupling problems. In spite of this, through proper interpretation techniques, based on signal analysis (presence of reflections and diffractions, velocity and attenuation variations) and correlation with features detected by visual inspection of the external surfaces, the GPR survey provided useful information on the internal structure of the rose window, detecting fractures and the boundaries of previously restored parts and locating hidden metallic components connecting the architectural elements. Information on the internal structure and spatial distribution of metallic junctions was essential for gaining insight into building techniques in order to discriminate between restoration strategies which may require either total or partial dismantling of the rose window. GPR results provided crucial evidence in favour of one of the (conflicting) hypotheses about the original building techniques, leading to the selection of partial dismantling as the most suitable restoration strategy. Analysis of measurements revealed the potential of GPR in the field of cultural heritage restoration, even in those cases characterized by complex geometry, structural brittleness and logistic difficulties, such as that discussed in this paper.
CelebrityNet: A Social Network Constructed from Large-Scale Online Celebrity Images

Photos are an important information carrier for implicit relationships. In this article, we introduce an image based social network, called CelebrityNet, built from implicit relationships encoded in a collection of celebrity images. We analyze the social properties reflected in this image-based social network and automatically infer communities among the celebrities. We demonstrate the interesting discoveries of the CelebrityNet. We particularly compare the inferred communities with human manually labeled ones and show quantitatively that the automatically detected communities are highly aligned with that of human interpretation. Inspired by the uniqueness of visual content and tag concepts within each community of the CelebrityNet, we further demonstrate that the constructed social network can serve as a knowledge base for high-level visual recognition tasks. In particular, this social network is capable of significantly improving the performance of automatic image annotation and classification of unknown images.
Life Origination Hydrate Hypothesis (LOH-Hypothesis)

The paper develops the Life Origination Hydrate Hypothesis (LOH-hypothesis), according to which living-matter simplest elements (LMSEs, which are N-bases, riboses, nucleosides, nucleotides), DNA- and RNA-like molecules, amino-acids, and proto-cells repeatedly originated on the basis of thermodynamically controlled, natural, and inevitable processes governed by universal physical and chemical laws from CH4, niters, and phosphates under the Earth's surface or seabed within the crystal cavities of the honeycomb methane-hydrate structure at low temperatures; the chemical processes passed slowly through all successive chemical steps in the direction that is determined by a gradual decrease in the Gibbs free energy of reacting systems. The hypothesis formulation method is based on the thermodynamic directedness of natural movement and consists ofan attempt to mentally backtrack on the progression of nature and thus reveal principal milestones alongits route. The changes in Gibbs free energy are estimated for different steps of the living-matter origination process; special attention is paid to the processes of proto-cell formation. Just the occurrence of the gas-hydrate periodic honeycomb matrix filled with LMSEs almost completely in its final state accounts for size limitation in the DNA functional groups and the nonrandom location of N-bases in the DNA chains. The slowness of the low-temperature chemical transformations and their “thermodynamic front” guide the gross process of living matter origination and its successive steps. It is shown that the hypothesis is thermodynamically justified and testable and that many observed natural phenomena count in its favor.
Influence of somatosensory input on motor function in patients with chronic stroke

In healthy volunteers, reduction of somatosensory input from one hand leads to rapid performance improvements in the other hand. Thus, it is possible that reduction of somatosensory input from the healthy hand can influence motor function in the paretic hand of chronic stroke patients with unilateral hand weakness. To test this hypothesis, we had 13 chronic stroke patients perform motor tasks with the paretic hand and arm during cutaneous anesthesia of the healthy hand and healthy foot in separate sessions. Performance of a finger tapping task, but not a wrist flexion task, improved significantly with anesthesia of the hand, but not the foot. This effect progressed with the duration of anesthesia and correlated with baseline motor function. We conclude that cutaneous anesthesia of the healthy hand elicits transient site‐specific improvements in motor performance of the moderately paretic hand in patients with chronic stroke, consistent with interhemispheric competition models of sensorimotor processing. Ann Neurol 2004;56:206–212
RADIOGENIC ISOTOPES: TRACERS OF PAST OCEAN CIRCULATION AND EROSIONAL INPUT

The radiogenic isotope composition of dissolved trace metals in the ocean represents a set of relatively new and not yet fully exploited tracers with a large potential for oceanographic and paleoceanographic research on timescales from the present back to at least 60 Ma. The main topic of this review are those trace metals with oceanic residence times on the order of or shorter than the global mixing time of the ocean (Nd, Pb, Hf, and, in addition, Be). Their isotopic composition in the ocean has varied as a function of changes in paleocirculation, source provenances, style and intensity of weathering on the continents, as well as orogenic processes. The relative importance of these processes for each trace metal is evaluated, which is a prerequisite for reliable interpretation of their time series in terms of changes in paleocirculation or weathering inputs. This analysis of processes includes a discussion of the long‐term isotopic evolution of Sr and Os, which are well mixed in the ocean and have thus not been influenced by circulation changes. The radiogenic isotope evolution of those trace metals with intermediate oceanic residence times can be used as paleoceanographic proxies to reconstruct paleocirculation and weathering inputs into the ocean. This is demonstrated by studies from different ocean basins, mainly carried out on ferromanganese crusts, which show that radiogenic trace metal isotopes provide important new insights and can complement results obtained by other well‐established paleoceanographic tracers such as carbon isotopes.
Compact Rayleigh and Rician fading simulator based on random walk processes

This article describes a significantly improved sum-of-sinusoids-based model for the accurate simulation of time-correlated Rayleigh and Rician fading channels. The proposed model utilises random walk processes instead of random variables for some of the sinusoid parameters to more accurately reproduce the behaviour of wireless radio propagation. Every fading block generated using our model has accurate statistical properties on its own and hence, unlike previously proposed models, there is no need for time-consuming ensemble-averaging over multiple blocks. Using numerical simulation it is shown that the important statistical properties of the generated fading samples have excellent agreement with the theoretical reference functions. A fixed-point hardware implementation of the corresponding Rayleigh and Rician fading channel simulator on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is presented. By efficiently scheduling the operations, the reconfigurable fading channel simulator is compact enough that it can be efficiently used to simulate multipath scenarios and multiple-antenna systems (e.g. a 4×4 MIMO channel) using a single FPGA.
Using ecology to guide the study of cognitive and neural mechanisms of different aspects of spatial memory in food-hoarding animals

Understanding the survival value of behaviour does not tell us how the mechanisms that control this behaviour work. Nevertheless, understanding survival value can guide the study of these mechanisms. In this paper, we apply this principle to understanding the cognitive mechanisms that support cache retrieval in scatter-hoarding animals. We believe it is too simplistic to predict that all scatter-hoarding animals will outperform non-hoarding animals on all tests of spatial memory. Instead, we argue that we should look at the detailed ecology and natural history of each species. This understanding of natural history then allows us to make predictions about which aspects of spatial memory should be better in which species. We use the natural hoarding behaviour of the three best-studied groups of scatter-hoarding animals to make predictions about three aspects of their spatial memory: duration, capacity and spatial resolution, and we test these predictions against the existing literature. Having laid out how ecology and natural history can be used to predict detailed cognitive abilities, we then suggest using this approach to guide the study of the neural basis of these abilities. We believe that this complementary approach will reveal aspects of memory processing that would otherwise be difficult to discover.
Physical modelling of pile penetration in clay using transparent soil and particle image velocimetry

A small-scale physical modelling method was developed to study the movement of clay during pile installation. The clay was simulated using a mixture of amorphous silica and mineral oil, which becomes almost transparent when the refractive indices of the oil and the silica are well matched. After adding reflective particles and consolidating the mixture in a transparent container, cylindrical model piles were driven vertically at the centre. A vertical section aligned with the pile centreline was illuminated by a laser light sheet, and a sequence of digital images was recorded. These were analysed using particle image velocimetry, and the complete displacement distribution during the pile installation was obtained. Notwithstanding some discrepancies at shallow depths, the observed displacements generally showed fairly good agreement with the theoretical predictions of the shallow strain path method (SSPM) once the effect of some soil trapped beneath the flat pile tip was taken into account. Normalisation of the horizontal and vertical components of movement employing both the pile length and radius, based on SSPM theory, was shown to be valid. The normalised vertical displacement contours were similar to those published by previous researchers. The results of this study could be used to assess the impact of disturbance due to pile installation on, for example, buried services or archaeology.
Executive Functions in Children Aged 6 to 13: A Dimensional and Developmental Study

A cross-sectional study using 92 children aged 6 to 13 years investigated the dimensionality and the development of executive functioning. The measures were drawn from developmentally relevant conceptualizations of executive functioning and included a go/no-go task, a verbal fluency task, a continuous performance task, a Stroop-like task, a hand movements task, and a digit span task. Analyses revealed 3 dimensions interpreted as Disinhibition, Speed/arousal, and Working memory/Fluency. Age and sex differences were analyzed for the delineated functions, which means that the results may be taken to represent age effects at the level of specific processes within the executive domain rather than on single tests. Age-dependent changes in children's performance on all 3 dimensions were demonstrated, with 3 particularly active stages of maturation: early childhood (6-8 years of age), middle childhood (9-12 years of age), and during early adolescence. Sex differences were only found for the speed/arousal dimension. The results are discussed in terms of 2 developmental executive function frameworks (Barkley, 1997b; Roberts & Pennington, 1996), where inhibition and the interaction between inhibition and working memory, respectively, are seen as key in the development of executive functioning.