Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Heat Diffusion Approach for Feature-based Body Scans Analysis

In this paper we propose the use of spectral shape analysis techniques for selection and classification of anthro- pometric points extracted from human-body scans. Few feature points are detected by exploiting the capability of heat diffusion process in capturing the extremities of surface protrusions which are often related to anthropometric landmarks. Then, a heat kernel signature is computed for each feature point which are associated to its seman- tic group by employing a learning-by-example procedure exploiting manual point labeling provided by an expert anthropometrist. Detected points are not clearly the same precise anatomical locations used in standard anthro- pometric procedures, but their matching can be useful for different applications like automatic model registration or simple body type evaluation. Experimental tests carried out on several subjects with different anthropometric characteristics show encouraging results demonstrating the potential usefulness of the approach as well as the necessity of further investigation on point description and matching.
Outcrop-based stochastic modelling of turbidite amalgamation and its effects on hydrocarbon recovery

In sandstone-dominated successions of sheet-like turbidites, erosion of thin shale horizons during deposition of the overlying turbidite may lead locally to vertical amalgamation of sandstone beds, resulting in discontinuous thin fine-grained beds or, in the extreme case, thoroughly amalgamated sandstone. Measurements of discontinuous shale lengths from very well exposed turbidite successions have enabled the development of a mixed rule-based/stochastic model for the erosion of shales. Monte Carlo realizations of 2D cross-sections were used to examine the effects of shale discontinuities on both single-and two-phase flow, at the genetic sedimentary unit scale. Results demonstrate that the flow is strongly dependent on the balance of viscous, capillary and gravity forces, which can vary according to the distribution of amalgamation surfaces. The single-phase upscaled ratio of horizontal to vertical permeability and the fraction of mobile oil recovered can be related to the fraction of shale removed (amalgamation ratio) by log-linear and linear relationships respectively.
Unsupervised Adaptation Learning for Hyperspectral Imagery Super-Resolution

The key for fusion based hyperspectral image (HSI) super-resolution (SR) is to infer the posteriori of a latent HSI using appropriate image prior and likelihood that depends on degeneration. However, in practice the priors of high-dimensional HSIs can be extremely complicated and the degeneration is often unknown. Consequently most existing approaches that assume a shallow hand-crafted image prior and a pre-defined degeneration, fail to well generalize in real applications. To tackle this problem, we present an unsupervised adaptation learning (UAL) framework. Instead of directly modelling the complicated image prior, we propose to first implicitly learn a general image prior using deep networks and then adapt it to a specific HSI. Following this idea, we develop a two-stage SR network that leverages two consecutive modules: a fusion module and an adaptation module, to recover the latent HSI in a coarse-to-fine scheme. The fusion module is pretrained in a supervised manner on synthetic data to capture a spatial-spectral prior that is general across most HSIs. To adapt the learned general prior to the specific HSI under unknown degeneration, we introduce a simple degeneration network to assist learning both the adaptation module and the degeneration in an unsupervised way. In this way, the resultant image-specific prior and the estimated degeneration can benefit the inference of a more accurate posteriori, thereby increasing generalization capacity. To verify the efficacy of UAL, we extensively evaluate it on four benchmark datasets and report strong results that surpass existing approaches.
Timing Analysis of Asynchronized Distributed Cause-Effect Chains

Real-time systems require the formal guarantee of timing-constraints, not only for the individual tasks but also for the data-propagation paths. A cause-effect chain describes the data flow among multiple tasks, e.g., from sensors to actuators, independent from the priority order of the tasks. In this paper, we provide an end-to-end timing-analysis for cause-effect chains on asynchronized distributed systems with periodic task activations, considering the maximum reaction time (duration of data processing) and the maximum data age (ivorst-case data freshness). On one local electronic control unit (ECU), we present how to compute the exact local (ivorst-case) end-to-end latencies when the execution time of the periodic tasks is fixed. We further extend our analysis to globally asynchronized systems by combining the local results. Throughout synthesized data based on an automotive benchmark as well as on randomized parameters, we show that our analytical results improve the state-of-the-art for periodic task activations.
Hotspot melting generates both hotspot volcanism and a hotspot swell

Two prominent features mark the passage of oceanic lithosphere over a hotspot. The first is the initiation of oceanic volcanism leading to a chain of islands or seamounts. The second is the generation of a ∼1-km-high, ∼1000-km-wide bathymetric swell around the volcanic island chain. Here we show that recent estimates for the volume of hotspot volcanism and the size of the swell suggest a shared origin: swell relief is created by the density reduction created by melting beneath the hotspot. This results in a seafloor age dependence to swell size and volcanism along the Hawaiian chain: beneath younger, thinner lithosphere the hotspot undergoes more decompression melting, resulting in both a larger swell volume and greater island building. For rapidly moving plates the swell root residue from hotspot melting is dragged away from the hotspot by the overriding lithosphere; its buoyancy induces further spreading and thinning of swell root material, producing, for example, the characteristic bow-shaped form of the 0–5 Ma section of the Hawaiian swell. This post emplacement spreading and thinning of the swell root may be the reason for the ∼5 m.y. duration of late stage melting and volcanism along the Hawaiian hotspot chain. The ∼5 m.y. timescale for spreading of the swell root implies a characteristic viscosity of the depleted swell root of ∼ 1–3×1020 Pa s, which is less fluid than underlying, less melted asthenosphere. Melt extraction at the hotspot is our preferred mechanism for the increase in viscosity of the swell root relative to underlying asthenosphere.
Future Hydrological Regimes in the Upper Indus Basin: A Case Study from a High-Altitude Glacierized Catchment

AbstractThe mountain regions of the Hindu Kush, Karakoram, and Himalayas (HKH) are considered Earth’s “third pole,” and water from there plays an essential role for downstream populations. The dynamics of glaciers in Karakoram are complex, and in recent decades the area has experienced unchanged ice cover, despite rapid decline elsewhere in the world (the Karakoram anomaly). Assessment of future water resources and hydrological variability under climate change in this area is greatly needed, but the hydrology of these high-altitude catchments is still poorly studied and little understood. This study focuses on a particular watershed, the Shigar River with the control section at Shigar (about 7000 km2), nested within the upper Indus basin and fed by seasonal melt from two major glaciers (Baltoro and Biafo). Hydrological, meteorological, and glaciological data gathered during 3 years of field campaigns (2011–13) are used to set up a hydrological model, providing a depiction of instream flows, snowmelt, and .
Network compression and faster inference using spatial basis filters

—We present an efﬁcient alternative to the convolutional layer through utilising spatial basis ﬁlters (SBF). SBF layers exploit the spatial redundancy in the convolutional ﬁlters across the depth to achieve overall model compression, while maintaining the top-end accuracy of their dense counter-parts. Training SBF-Nets is modelled as a simple pruning problem, but instead of zeroing out the pruned channels, they are replaced with inexpensive transformations from the set of non-pruned features. To enable an adoption of these SBF layers, we provide a ﬂexible training pipeline and an efﬁcient implementation in CUDA with low latency. To further demonstrate the effective capacity of these models, we apply semi-supervised knowledge distillation that leads to signiﬁcant performance improvements over the baseline networks. Our experiments show that SBF-Nets are effective and achieve comparable or improved performance to state-of-the-art across CIFAR10, CIFAR100, Tiny-ImageNet, and ILSCRC-2012.
L'Afrique Centrale peut-elle éviter le piège de la malédiction des produits de base ?

We study the effect of primary commodities on development indicators in a sample of 86 countries over the period 1965-2005. To this purpose we employ a system of equations. We use interactive terms to estimate separate slope coefficients for Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries, Central African countries, and rest of the world. The main results of our exercise can be summarised as follows: (i) a higher dependence on primary commodities reduces economic growth, increases income inequality, and slows down the rate of human capital accumulation; (ii) the negative effects of primary commodities on growth, inequality and human capital appear to be statistically stronger in Central Africa and SSA than in the rest of the world; (iii) in the case of growth and inequality, the negative effect of primary commodities and the differences of the slope coefficients across groups of countries persist after controlling for the quality of institutions; on the contrary (iv) in the case of human capital, the negative effect of primary commodities as well as the differences across groups of countries vanish once institutional development is controlled for. Two main policy recommendations stem from our analysis. First, the degree of dependence on primary commodities must be reduced through the diversification of productive structure in order to foster development. Second, a dynamic private sector is a key driver of diversification. Countries must therefore improve the business environment and strengthen financial intermediation to assist the expansion of the private sector.
Partitioning of rainfall in a eucalypt forest and pine plantation in southeastern australia: I throughfall measurement in a eucalypt forest: Effect of method and species composition

A seven year event-based study partitioning of rainfall into throughfall, stemflow, and interception was conducted in a dry sclerophyll eucalypt forest and a Pinus radiata plantation. Resulting information will be of use for process modelling. Stemflow was influenced by event type, rain angle having a major effect; and the yields of the different species are compared. Tree characteristics that influenced stemflow yields are outlined and discussed. The canopy storage capacity of the eucalypt forest was determined and the influence of species composition is shown. The likely influence of climate variations is discussed. The canopy storage capacity is compared to the interception values estimated for continuous events of various sizes. The interception of the eucalypt forest and the pine plantation are compared on event basis for event size classes and on an annual basis. The comparative interceptions for continuous events are also discussed, while the effect of thinning the pine plantation on throughfall, stemflow, and interception is shown. The hydrological consequences of this study are: more informed judgment can be made about techniques for measurement of throughfall, tree structural characteristics (species related) can more adequately be considered when selecting trees for measurement of stemflow, and the stemflow yields can in some cases be better understood from the information about effect of event type. This paper deals with the influence of measurement method, species composition, and tree characteristics on the estimation of throughfall in the eucalypt forest. The site is near Canberra, lat. 35°S, 145°E, with annual rainfall about 650 mm. Two methods of measuring throughfall are compared: randomly placed, 200 mm cylindrical gauges (standard) and 50 mm square opening wedge type gauges (plastic), and randomly placed 5 × 0–22 m troughs. Despite the high placement density (150 to 225 ha−1), throughfall estimates from gauges has high variance and consistently underestimated those of the troughs, which had a total opening equivalent to 2325 raingauges (200 mm diameter) per hectare. Local concentration of stemflow into drip points provided by detaching bark pieces of one smooth barked species, Eucalyptus mannifera, is believed to be the principal cause of the lower collection and greater variance of the gauges. The low leaf area index (1–3) and large wood area of the forest together with a pendulous vertical habit of the leaves also contributed. The presence of E. mannifera is shown to substantially affect the relative values of throughfall as measured by troughs and gauges. The plastic receivers were found to underestimate rainfall or throughfall relative to the standard gauges, particularly for fine drop rainfall in multiperiod events.
Mobile phones for development: An information case study of mobile phone kiosk vendors in the Congo

Purpose This paper relayed an important line of Mark Hepworth’s work, which engages with information technologies and development. The purpose of this paper is to suggest a subfield of library and information science (LIS) for development to reclaim the role of information services and systems for social change in rural areas. The paper looked at the extent of development gained with the advent of mobile phones. Design/methodology/approach Rather than undertaking traditional large-scale, quantitative, context-independent and survey-type research, the paper employed capability approach and semi-structured interviews to ascertain the experiences that mobile phone kiosk vendors in the rural Congo had of mobile phones. Findings It was found that mobile phones should be geared towards the liberation, and not utilization or commodification of humans and their needs and that mobile phones were not a catalyst of human basic capabilities. Research limitations/implications Since the method employed is an in-depth qualitative analysis of mobile phone kiosk vendors, obtained results can be used to enrich or inform mobile phone experiences in other settings and groups. Practical implications This paper provided empirical evidence as to how an important group of mobile phone users could harness development with their mobiles. Originality/value Most LIS literature has presented mobile phones along the lines of information freedom or access, mass subscription, adoption rates, technological and entrepreneurial innovation, micro-credits, etc. However, the paper placed the topic development at the heart of LIS debates.
Soil and water conservation projects and rural livelihoods: options for design and research to enhance adoption and adaptation.

This paper synthesizes the findings of a workshop which sought to consider the issues of poor uptake, adoption and adaptation of soil and water conservation techniques by farmers post-project by examining the experiences of projects which had research and extension elements. Critical factors contributing to the adoption and adaptation of soil and water conservation techniques by farmers are identified as a more flexible approach and which enables learning within projects; a process rather than output driven approach to soil and water conservation; demonstration of immediate and tangible benefits of soil and water conservation to farmers (production, income, risk-minimization); and avoiding a narrow focus on soil and water conservation—alternatives are ‘better land husbandry’ or ‘sustainable rural livelihoods’ approaches. A number of areas are identified as priorities for further research which would aid the successful adoption of sustainable agricultural techniques and which should guide future research, development and extension, bringing more sustained benefits to farmers, particularly in humid and subhumid hillside regions. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Rock Control of Faulting: A Case Study from the Icelandic Rift Zone

The work examines relationships between faulting and the physical properties of the host rock based on a study from the active rift zone in Iceland. Although compositionally identical, hyaloclastites, pillow lavas, and columnar‐jointed lavas have different mechanical properties that exert strong controls on the distribution of faults and strain within fault zones and the mechanical processes associated with displacement. In hyaloclastite, a fault zone comprises a braided array of lower‐order shear fractures. Veins of silica within gouge zones imply periodic dilational shear. In pillow lavas, reactivation of the near‐random arrays of primary fractures results in wide fault zones with diffuse margins. Displacement is achieved by the accumulation of small increments of slip on primary joints and by the development of through‐going shear fractures. Columnar lavas have the highest bulk strength and the fewest primary weaknesses. The subvertical cooling joints are favorably oriented for dilational‐shear reactivation. Frictional slip criteria on vertical fault planes indicate that shear must often have preceded dilation. Faulting in consolidated columnar lavas is likely to be velocity weakening and therefore seismogenic at shallow crustal levels. Both pillow lavas and hyaloclastites are weak, so that displacement is diffused within fault zones. Such properties are compatible with velocity‐strengthening behavior and quasi‐stable, nonseismogenic slip.
Soft Cache Hits: Improving Performance Through Recommendation and Delivery of Related Content

Pushing popular content to small cells with local storage (“helper” nodes) has been proposed to cope with the ever-growing data demand. Nevertheless, the collective storage of a few nearby helper nodes may not suffice to achieve a high hit rate in practice. In this paper, we introduce the concept of “soft cache hits” (SCHs). An SCH occurs if a user’s requested content is not in the local cache, but the user can be (partially) satisfied by a related content that is. In case of a cache miss, an application proxy (e.g., YouTube) running close to the helper node (e.g., at a multi-access edge computing server) can recommend the most related files that are locally cached. This system could be activated during periods of predicted congestion, or for selected users (e.g., low-cost plans), to improve cache hit ratio with limited (and tunable) user quality of experience performance impact. Beyond introducing a model for soft cache hits, our next contribution is to show that the optimal caching policy should be revisited when SCHs are allowed. In fact, we show that optimal caching with SCH is NP-hard even for a single cache. To this end, we formulate the optimal femto-caching problem with SCH in a sufficiently generic setup and propose efficient algorithms with provable performance. Finally, we use a large range of real datasets to corroborate our proposal.
STABILITY OF RIPRAP AT BRIDGE PIERS

An experimental investigation was performed to determine the critical conditions for displacement of riprap placed on streambeds surrounding bridge piers. A functional relation between stability number, a dimensionless grouping of rock size and density to fluid velocity and density, and relative approach flow roughness, approach flow depth, riprap size, and placement depth was presented. Pier model tests conducted in a laboratory flume were used to determine the influence of each dimensionless parameter on the stability number. Analysis of the experimental results showed that the relative depth of placement and the relative rock size significantly affected the stability number for rectangular piers. A comparison of this data with similar data for round‐nosed piers and other data for unobstructed flow conditions showed that rock sizes required for stability at piers must be substantially larger than those required for unobstructed flow. In addition, rock sizes for rectangular piers must be substantially la.
AGRARIAN CLASS STRUCTURE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN PREINDUSTRIAL EUROPE

GENERAL INTERPRETATIONS OF THE PROCESSES OF LONG-TERM ECONOMIC change in late medieval and early modern Europe have continued to be constructed almost exclusively in terms of what might loosely be called “ objective” economic forces, in particular demographic fluctuations and the growth of trade and markets. A variety of models have been constructed centring on these forces. But whatever the exact character of the model, and whether the pressure for change is seen to arise from urbanization and the growth of trade or an autonomous demographic development, a market supply-demand mechanism is usually assumed to provide the elementary theoretical underpinnings. So, the response of the agrarian economy to economic pressures, whatever their source, is more or less taken for granted, viewed as occurring more or less automatically, in a direction economically determined by “ the laws of supply and demand” . In the construction of these economic models the question of class structure tends to be treated in a variety of ways. Typically, there is the statement that one is abstracting (for the moment) from the social or class structure for certain analytical purposes.1 The fact remains that in the actual process of explanation, that is in the “ application” of the model to specific economic historical developments, class structure tends, almost inevitably, to creep back in. Sometimes, it is inserted, in an ad hoc way, to comprehend a historical trend which the model cannot cover. More often, however, consciously or unconsciously, class structure is simply integrated within the model itself, and seen as essentially shaped by, or changeable in terms of, the objective economic forces around which the model has been constructed in the first place. In the most consistent formulations the very fact of class structure is implicitly or explicitly denied. Long-term economic development is understood in terms of changing
Incidence‐angle‐dependent acoustic reflections from liquid‐saturated porous solids

SUMMARY Angle of incidence amplitude variations of acoustic waves reflected from an interface is increasingly important in acoustic sea floor imaging and seismological studies. Such observations are almost solely interpreted assuming elastic wave theory. However, wave propagation through, and hence reflectivity from, liquid-saturated porous solids is complicated by the presence of the slow longitudinal (P2) wave. There have only been limited quantitative experimental tests of porous media reflectivity as a function of angle of incidence. Here, the acoustic reflectivity from a water-saturated porous plate is measured as a function of the angle of incidence using a specially developed ultrasonic reflectometer. The observed reflectivity agrees with that predicted using the Biot-type poroelastic theory; this work confirms the use of boundary conditions that allow fluid transfer across the reflecting interface. It is found that simpler elastic expressions based on equivalent-elastic solid cannot be reconciled with the observations.