Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Structure and evolution of Bahamian deep-water channels: insights from in-situ geophysical and geochemical measurements

Two studies of well logs from Leg 101 of the Ocean Drilling Program provide new information concerning the un­ derlying structure of Bahamian deep-water channels. In the first study, subsidence calculations (based upon porosity and lithology logs from Site 626 in the Straits of Florida and oil tests located at Palm Beach, Key Largo, and Great Isaac Island) confirm the substantial (tens of kilometers) westward progradation of Great Bahama Bank, suggested by Austin, Schlager, et al. (1986). This progradation may have been going on since the late Oligocene. Subsidence calcula­ tions also show a consistent subsidence rate for the region in question, supporting the existence of a large Lower Creta­ ceous shallow-water carbonate platform underlying the northwestern Bahamas. In the second study, mineralogical in­ formation from an induced gamma spectroscopy log (GST) at Site 634 in Northeast Providence Channel was used to generate synthetic seismograms of the penetrated section. These seismograms accurately reproduce two reflectors visible on a nearby seismic line, tying these reflectors to specific depths and lithologies in the penetrated formation. Results of both studies illustrate that because physical properties of carbonate environments are facies-dependent, accurate geo­ physical models of these environments require detailed, site-specific measurements.
Automated Near-Real-Time Mapping and Monitoring of Rice Extent, Cropping Patterns, and Growth Stages in Southeast Asia Using Sentinel-1 Time Series on a Google Earth Engine Platform

More than 50% of the world’s population consumes rice. Accurate and up-to-date information on rice field extent is important to help manage food and water security. Currently, field surveys or MODIS satellite data are used to estimate rice growing areas. This study presents a cost-effective methodology for near-real-time mapping and monitoring of rice growth extent and cropping patterns over a large area. This novel method produces high-resolution monthly maps (10 m resolution) of rice growing areas, as well as rice growth stages. The method integrates temporal Sentinel-1 data and rice phenological parameters with the Google Earth Engine (GEE) cloud-based platform. It uses monthly median time series of Sentinel-1 at VH polarization from September 2016 to October 2018. The two study areas are the northern region of West Java, Indonesia (0.75 million ha), and the Kedah and Perlis states in Malaysia (over 1 million ha). K-means clustering, hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA), and a visual interpretation of VH polarization time series profiles are used to generate rice extent, cropping patterns, and spatiotemporal distribution of growth stages. To automate the process, four supervised classification methods (support vector machine (SVM), artificial neural networks (ANN), random forests, and C5.0 classification models) were independently trialled to identify cluster labels. The results from each classification method were compared. The method can also forecast rice extent for up to two months. The VH polarization data can identify four growth stages of rice—T&P: tillage and planting (30 days); V: vegetative-1 and 2 (60 days); R: reproductive (30 days); M: maturity (30 days). Compared to field survey data, this method measures overall rice extent with an accuracy of 96.5% and a kappa coefficient of 0.92. SVM and ANN show better performance than random forest and C5.0 models. This simple and robust method could be rolled out across Southeast Asia, and could be used as an alternative to time-consuming, expensive field surveys.
Genesis and Architecture of Sequences of Quaternary Coral Reef Terraces: Insights From Numerical Models

The variety of coral reefs morphologies highlights their sensitivities to several forcings; fossil reefs stack in sequences that are accordingly diverse. In order to understand their genesis and architectures, we devised a numerical approach, accounting for Quaternary sea level oscillations, vertical land motion, initial slope, wave erosion, and reef growth. We first test our model on the subsiding sequence of Hawaii and on the uplifting sequence of Wangi‐Wangi (Sulawesi) that bears active barriers. We then construct a parametric study that we analyze based on a comprehensive yet compact description of sequences as barcodes, that depict the vertical distribution of a few geometrical characteristics (number, width, and height of the terraces and barriers). We find that geological factors suffice to explain the variety of architectures of reefal sequences at first order, regardless of additional ecosystemic processes. Vertical land motion and foundation slopes are the prime players, while reef growth rates only play a minor role. Barriers may develop both in uplift and subsidence mode, and their preservation attests for the erosional power. Last, we reappraise the genesis of sequences and find that sequences do not fingerprint discrete events of sea level oscillations but a continuous process harrowed by stochastic events: Major sea level fluctuations can be overrepresented by several terraces or conversely absent; reoccupations may yield composite terraces representing multiple events. Overall, sequences shall not be regarded as stacks of reef bodies forming during sea level highstands, which implies that the commonly assumed bijective relationship between sea level highstands and terraces shall be abandoned.
Factors associated with antenatal clinic booking: application of the ecological model for health promotion in Mpwapwa, Dodoma – Tanzania

Background: Antenatal clinic (ANC) is a clinic where a pregnant woman receives services during pregnancy through a series of consultations with trained health care workers such as midwives, nurses or doctors who specialize in pregnancy and birth. The ANC services are usually grouped into booking and follow-up visits. The booking visit offers the midwife/clinician the opportunity to assess the health status of the expectant mother and unborn baby. Mothers who miss antenatal clinic booking may also miss important services such as management of obstetric complications including preeclampsia, tetanus toxoid and identification and management of infections including human immune virus (HIV), syphilis and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Objective: This study describes factors associated with antenatal clinic booking among pregnant women in Mpwapwa using the ecological model for health promotion. Methodology: A cross sectional study design using a quantitative approach was employed. The study was conducted at Mpwapwa reproductive and child health (RCH) clinic which is located in Mpwapwa District Council in the Dodoma Region, Tanzania. The study population was all pregnant women attending at Mpwapwa RCH clinic during the study. A sample size of 352 participants was recruited for the study. A semi structured questionnaire consisting of open ended and closed ended questions was used to collect information about the ANC booking among pregnant women attending at Mpwapwa RCH clinic. The data were entered and analyzed using software Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 21 where by chi square test was used to determine the associations between late booking and independent variables. Results: A total of 352 respondents participated in the study. Majority of respondents (69.9%) registered at ANC after three months of pregnancy. This is due to the fact that most of the respondents were living in a distance of more than five kilometers to reach ANC and also majority of them were using foot as means of transport. About 227 (64.5%) of pregnant women knew that the first trimester is the best time to start ANC and 229 (65.1%) of pregnant women illustrated that required number of ANC attendance throughout the pregnancy is four times. This high knowledge of knowing best time to
Laboratory observations of frequency-dependent ultrasonic P-wave velocity and attenuation during methane hydrate formation in Berea sandstone

Knowledge of the effect of methane hydrate saturation and morphology on elastic wave attenuation could help reduce ambiguity in seafloor hydrate content estimates. These are needed for seafloor resource and geohazard assessment, as well as to improve predictions of greenhouse gas fluxes into the water column. At low hydrate saturations, measuring attenuation can be particularly useful as the seismic velocity of hydrate-bearing sediments is relatively insensitive to hydrate content. Here, we present laboratory ultrasonic (448–782 kHz) measurements of P-wave velocity and attenuation for successive cycles of methane hydrate formation (maximum hydrate saturation of 26 per cent) in Berea sandstone. We observed systematic and repeatable changes in the velocity and attenuation frequency spectra with hydrate saturation. Attenuation generally increases with hydrate saturation, and with measurement frequency at hydrate saturations below 6 per cent. For hydrate saturations greater than 6 per cent, attenuation decreases with frequency. The results support earlier experimental observations of frequency-dependent attenuation peaks at specific hydrate saturations. We used an effective medium rock-physics model which considers attenuation from gas bubble resonance, inertial fluid flow and squirt flow from both fluid inclusions in hydrate and different aspect ratio pores created during hydrate formation. Using this model, we linked the measured attenuation spectral changes to a decrease in coexisting methane gas bubble radius, and creation of different aspect ratio pores during hydrate formation.
Improvement of Egyptian Clover Yield and Quality by Using Bio and Organic Fertilizers in Newly Cultivated Saline Soil

This work was performed at Sahl El-Hossinia Agric. Res. Station, El-Sharkia, Governorate, throughout winter seasons of the year 2016/2017 and 2017/2018 to investigate the foliar application of compost tea humic acid, and bio-fertilizer on forage production, seeds, chemical analysis of plant and soil. Using bio-fertilizer; humic and compost tea on plant increases significantly the clover yield. Humic acid recorded that increased of values for yield, yield components and quality as compared by other treatments. Results pointed that forage yield was affected by whole treatments under saline soil conditions. In general, berseem clover treated with humic acid increased the plant height, fresh, dry yield, seeds yield, weight of 1000 seeds, crude protein, fiber fraction, Total carbohydrate, digestible crude protein of forage yield as compared with control. Values of EC and pH of soil were decline due to various traits using foliar application, while the highest rate of EC in soil run to (5.72 dsm) at bio-fertilizer. Values of soil properties treated by whole traits were slightly low comparing control (7.72 dsm). It is clear that the minimum total costs were those of application of Bio-fertilizer, being 4570 L.E and the maximum total costs were those of the plants received Compost-t rate which was 5180 L.E. Average over all treatments of total costs were 4847.5 L.E for the two season. The highest value of net return per one invested L.E was achieved when using humic acid (5.40 L.E) and Compost-t (4.15 L.E) compared with N fertilization (control 2.63 L.E).
Projected Climatic and Hydrologic Changes to Lake Victoria Basin Rivers under Three RCP Emission Scenarios for 2015–2100 and Impacts on the Water Sector

Rivers in the Lake Victoria Basin support a multitude of ecosystem services, and the economies of the riparian countries (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi) rely on their discharge, but projections of their future discharges under various climate change scenarios are not available. Here, we apply Vector Autoregressive Moving Average models with eXogenous variables (VARMAX) statistical models to project hydrological discharge for 23 river catchments for the 2015–2100 period, under three representative concentration pathways (RCPs), namely RCPs 2.6, 4.5, and 8.5. We show an intensification of future annual rainfall by 25% in the eastern and 5–10% in the western part of the basin. At higher emission scenarios, the October to December season receives more rainfall than the March to May season. Temperature projections show a substantial increase in the mean annual minimum temperature by 1.3–4.5 °C and warming in the colder season (June to September) by 1.7–2.9 °C under RCP 4.5 and 4.9 °C under RCP 8.5 by 2085. Variability in future river discharge ranges from 5–267%, increases with emission intensity, and is the highest in rivers in the southern and south eastern parts of the basin. The flow trajectories reveal no systematic trends but suggest marked inter-annual variation, primarily in the timing and magnitude of discharge peaks and lows. The projections imply the need for coordinated transboundary river management in the future.
Study on Drying Characteristics of Guava Leaves

Psidium guajava L. , popularly known as Guava belonging to Myrtle family is grown in tropical and subtropical climatic regions. Guava leaves has been used as medicine for various health benefits in several countries. In the present investigation, the efforts have been made to prepare the powder of Guava Leaves by applying different drying technique viz. Tray drying, Vacuum drying and Hot air oven drying. The drying was done at different temperatures 50°C, 60°C and 70°C. At a temperature, the Vacuum dryer took maximum time for complete drying of Guava leaves followed by Hot air oven and Tray dryer. Maximum moisture content was removed from fresh Guava leaves using Tray dryer whereas for the other dryers it varied with temperature. As temperature increased from 50°C to 70°C, the drying rate increased and hence the removal of moisture. The studies indicated that Tray drying was faster and effective in the removal of moisture.
Radiometric Calibration of 'Commercial off the Shelf' Cameras for UAV-Based High-Resolution Temporal Crop Phenotyping of Reflectance and NDVI

Vegetation indices, such as the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), are common metrics used for measuring traits of interest in crop phenotyping. However, traditional measurements of these indices are often influenced by multiple confounding factors such as canopy cover and reflectance of underlying soil, visible in canopy gaps. Digital cameras mounted to Unmanned Aerial Vehicles offer the spatial resolution to investigate these confounding factors, however incomplete methods for radiometric calibration into reflectance units limits how the data can be applied to phenotyping. In this study, we assess the applicability of very high spatial resolution (1 cm) UAV-based imagery taken with commercial off the shelf (COTS) digital cameras for both deriving calibrated reflectance imagery, and isolating vegetation canopy reflectance from that of the underlying soil. We present new methods for successfully normalising COTS camera imagery for exposure and solar irradiance effects, generating multispectral (RGB-NIR) orthomosaics of our target field-based wheat crop trial. Validation against measurements from a ground spectrometer showed good results for reflectance (R2 ≥ 0.6) and NDVI (R2 ≥ 0.88). Application of imagery collected through the growing season and masked using the Excess Green Red index was used to assess the impact of canopy cover on NDVI measurements. Results showed the impact of canopy cover artificially reducing plot NDVI values in the early season, where canopy development is low.
Tracing Snowmelt Paths in an Integrated Hydrological Model for Understanding Seasonal Snowmelt Contribution at Basin Scale

Snowmelt contributions to water resources in cold regions are receiving increasing attention. However, there are clear challenges to accurately distinguish the snowmelt contributions to different hydrological processes in seasonal snow regions. Here, we present an improved method to evaluate snowmelt contributions by tracing the snowmelt flow paths in different media based on a distributed geomorphology‐based ecohydrological model coupled with a physically based snow module. The calculated snowmelt contribution is not limited to river discharge but is also applicable to evaporation and soil storage. The study region, the upstream Heihe River (UHR) basin, is located in the northeastern Tibetan Plateau. Our results indicate that snowmelt can continuously contribute to hydrological processes throughout the year because most of the snowmelt remains in soil voids, even on snow‐free days. In UHR, the snowmelt contribution to total runoff on snow days accounts for a minor part of the total snowmelt contribution, and the snowmelt contribution on snow‐free days accounts for a major part of the total. There is notable snowmelt retention in the soil in each year, which continues to supply discharge into next year. Our results also indicate that the role of snowmelt contribution to annual discharge could be gradually weakened if rainfall more greatly increases the summer discharge in the UHR basin. The improved evaluation method will contribute to a more comprehensive assessment of snowmelt contributions to hydrological processes in seasonal snow regions.
Classifying and Characterizing Buffalo Farming Systems in the Egyptian Nile Delta Using Cluster Analysis

The objective of the study was to classify and characterize the buffalo farming systems in the Delta region of Egypt using multivariate statistical analysis approach. A survey was conducted on 963 buffalo holders to classify and characterize dairy buffalo farming systems in the region of Delta Egypt. Data of 9665 heads of buffalo were used. Two multivariate statistical techniques, the principal component analysis (PCA) followed by the cluster analysis (CA) were applied to all the variables of the survey. A three different buffalo groups resulted; cluster 1(C1) :included 34% of the farms keeping 5132 heads of buffaloes. Itis characterized by large average for both farmland area (4.9 feddan) and buffalo herd size(15.6 heads). Production and reproduction performance of buffaloes was the best (milk yield, 2608kg; lactation period,258 days; and number of services/conception, 1.5). Cluster 2 (C2): included 35% of farms with1905 heads of buffaloes. It included the smallest average farmland area (3.1 feddan) and the fewest average buffalo herd size (5.6 heads). Cluster 3 (C3): included 31%of farms which kept 2628 heads of buffaloes. It was marked with intermediate values of farmland area, buffalo herd size and productive and reproductive performance of buffaloes that filled between those of C1 and 2.In all clusters, buffaloes were traditionally managed; hand milked and naturally bred. After taking their needs, farmers sell surplus raw milk and dairy products through informal markets. Efficient or regular milk marketing channels were completely absent. Access of veterinary and extension services was not sufficient and inefficient.
Effect of Salicylic Acid and Salinity in Thyme (Thymus Vulgaris L.): Investigation on Changes in Gas Exchange, Water Relations, and Membrane Stabilization and Biomass Accumulation

The present study investigates the role of salicylic acid (SA) in inducing plant tolerance to salinity. The application of 150, 300 and 450 ppm SA to thyme (Thymus vulgaris L.) plants via foliar spraying provided protection against 50, 100 and 150 mM NaCl stress. SA treated plants had greater shoot and root dry weights compared to untreated plants when exposed to salt stress. SA application at 150 ppm significantly increased roots dry weight. Application of SA increased photosynthetic rates, mesophyll efficiency and water use efficiency in salt stressed plants. Transpiration rates and stomatal conductance were also significantly iesser in SA treated plants under saline stress conditions. SA application increased electrolyte leakage compared to untreated plants. Beneficial effects of SA in saline conditions include sustaining the photosynthetic/transpiration activity and consequently growth, and may have contributed to the reduction or total avoidance of necrosis. SA, when used in appropriate concentrations, alleviates salinity stress without compromising the plants ability for growth under a favorable environment.
Reviews and syntheses: Review of causes and sources of N2O emissions and NO3 leaching from organic arable crop rotations

Abstract. The emissions of nitrous oxide (N2O) and leaching of nitrate (NO3) from agricultural cropping systems have considerable negative impacts on climate and the environment. Although these environmental burdens are less per unit area in organic than in non-organic production on average, they are roughly similar per unit of product. If organic farming is to maintain its goal of being environmentally friendly, these loadings must be addressed. We discuss the impact of possible drivers of N2O emissions and NO3 leaching within organic arable farming practice under European climatic conditions, and potential strategies to reduce these. Organic arable crop rotations are generally diverse with the frequent use of legumes, intercropping and organic fertilisers. The soil organic matter content and the share of active organic matter, soil structure, microbial and faunal activity are higher in such diverse rotations, and the yields are lower, than in non-organic arable cropping systems based on less diverse systems and inorganic fertilisers. Soil mineral nitrogen (SMN), N2O emissions and NO3 leaching are low under growing crops, but there is the potential for SMN accumulation and losses after crop termination, harvest or senescence. The risk of high N2O fluxes increases when large amounts of herbage or organic fertilisers with readily available nitrogen (N) and degradable carbon are incorporated into the soil or left on the surface. Freezing/thawing, drying/rewetting, compacted and/or wet soil and mechanical mixing of crop residues into the soil further enhance the risk of high N2O fluxes. N derived from soil organic matter (background emissions) does, however, seem to be the most important driver for N2O emission from organic arable crop rotations, and the correlation between yearly total N-input and N2O emissions is weak. Incorporation of N-rich plant residues or mechanical weeding followed by bare fallow conditions increases the risk of NO3 leaching. In contrast, strategic use of deep-rooted crops with long growing seasons or effective cover crops in the rotation reduces NO3 leaching risk. Enhanced recycling of herbage from green manures, crop residues and cover crops through biogas or composting may increase N efficiency and reduce N2O emissions and NO3 leaching. Mixtures of legumes (e.g. clover or vetch) and non-legumes (e.g. grasses or Brassica species) are as efficient cover crops for reducing NO3 leaching as monocultures of non-legume species. Continued regular use of cover crops has the potential to reduce NO3 leaching and enhance soil organic matter but may enhance N2O emissions. There is a need to optimise the use of crops and cover crops to enhance the synchrony of mineralisation with crop N uptake to enhance crop productivity, and this will concurrently reduce the long-term risks of NO3 leaching and N2O emissions.