Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evidence of Self‐Organized Criticality in riverbank mass failures: a matter of perspective?

A growing body of field, theoretical and numerical modelling studies suggests that predicting river response to even major changes in input variables is difficult. Rivers are seen to adjust rapidly and variably through time and space as well as changing independently of major driving variables. Concepts such as Self‐Organized Criticality (SOC) are considered to better reflect the complex interactions and adjustments occurring in systems than traditional approaches of cause and effect. This study tests the hypothesis that riverbank mass failures which occurred both prior to, and during, an extreme flood event in southeast Queensland (SEQ) in 2011 are a manifestation of SOC. Each wet‐flow failure is somewhat analogous to the ‘avalanche’ described in the initial sand‐pile experiments of Bak et al. (Physical Review Letters, 1987, 59(4), 381–384) and, due to the use of multitemporal LiDAR, the time period of instability can be effectively constrained to that surrounding the flood event. The data is examined with respect to the key factors thought to be significant in evaluating the existence of SOC including; non‐linear temporal dynamics in the occurrence of disturbance events within the system; an inverse power‐law relation between the magnitude and frequency of the events; the existence of a critical state to which the system readjusts after a disturbance; the existence of a cascading processes mechanism by which the same process can initiate both low‐magnitude and high‐magnitude events. While there was a significant change in the frequency of mass failures pre‐ and post‐flood, suggesting non‐linear temporal dynamics in the occurrence of disturbance events, the data did not fit an inverse power‐law within acceptable probability and other models were found to fit the data better. Likewise, determining a single ‘critical’ state is problematic when a variety of feedbacks and multiple modes of adjustment are likely to have operated throughout this high magnitude event. Overall, the extent to which the data supports a self‐organized critical state is variable and highly dependent upon inferential arguments. Investigating the existence of SOC, however, provided results and insights that are useful to the management and future prediction of these features. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Element partitioning between metallic liquid, magnesiowustite, and silicate liquid at 20 GPa and 2500°C: A secondary ion mass spectrometric study

We determined the partition coefficients of 20 elements between metallic liquid, magnesiowustite, and silicate liquid at 20 GPa and 2500°C. The partition coefficients of V, Cr, Mn, Co, Ni, and Cu between metallic liquid and magnesiowustite are similar to those between metallic liquid and silicate liquid. The partitioning behavior of Si, P, W and Pb between metallic liquid and magnesiowustite show remarkable differences to that between metallic liquid and silicate liquid, reflecting incompatibility of these elements in magnesiowustite. Comparison of the present data with the previous ones implies that the metallic liquid-siicate liquid partition coefficients of Co, Ni, W, and Mo decrease whereas those of Cr, and Mn increase due to the combined effect of pressure and temperature, although some other factors such as the liquid composition might play some roles on a large difference in D for Mo and W. The core and mantle concentrations for Co and Ni estimated by Allegre et al. [1995] are consistent with the metal-silicate equilibrium at lower mantle conditions, although other models such as inhomogeneous accretion are also able to explain the core-mantle concentrations.
Surface waters of the NW Iberian margin: Upwelling on the shelf versus outwelling of upwelled waters from the Rías Baixas

Abstract A set of hydrographic surveys were carried out in the Ria of Vigo (NW Spain) at 2–4 d intervals during four 2–3 week periods in 1997, covering contrasting seasons. Residual exchange fluxes with the adjacent shelf were estimated with a 2-D, non-steady-state, salinity–temperature weighted box model. Exchange fluxes consist of a steady-state term (dependent on the variability of continental runoff) and a non-steady-state term (dependent on the time changes of density gradients in the embayment). More than 95% of the short-time-scale variability of the exchange fluxes in the middle and outer ria can be explained by the non-steady-state term that, in turns, is correlated (R 2 >75%) with the offshore Ekman transport. Conversely, 96% of the variability of exchange fluxes in the inner ria rely on the steady-state term. The outer and middle ria are under the direct influence of coastal upwelling, which enhances the positive residual circulation pattern by an order of magnitude: from 10 2 to 10 3 m 3 s −1 . On the contrary, downwelling provokes a reversal of the circulation in the outer ria. The position of the downwelling front along the embayment depends on the relative importance of Ekman transport ( Q x , m 3 s −1 km −1 ) and continental runoff ( R , m 3 s −1 ). When Q x / R >7±2 the reversal of the circulation affects the middle ria. Our results are representative for the ‘Rias Baixas’, four large coastal indentations in NW Spain. During the upwelling season (spring and summer), 60% of shelf surface waters off the ‘Rias Baixas’ consist of fresh Eastern North Atlantic Central Water (ENACW) upwelled in situ . The remaining 40% consists of upwelled ENACW that previously enters the rias and it is subsequently outwelled after thermohaline modification. During the downwelling season (autumn and winter), 40% of the warm and salty oceanic subtropic surface water, which piled on the shelf by the predominant southerly winds, enters the rias.
Influence of environmental factors on a Halodule wrightii Ascherson meadow in northeastern Brazil

The influence of environmental factors on the shape, biomass and biometry of Halodule wrightii was determined throughout the year, in Goiabeiras Beach (Fortaleza-Ceara-Brazil), based on the measurement of meadow shape and employing non-parametric Spearman correlations, canonical correlation analyses and BIO-ENV. Biomass and biometry of H. wrightii were significantly greater in the rainy season in comparison to the dry season. These characters were also positively correlated to variables associated with rainfall. Considering the main environmental factors analyzed, meteorological factors exert a greater influence on a number of variables. Besides waves, strongly influenced by winds in this area, temperature and salinity had a significant role on the variance found in the H. wrightii meadow studied, which can be related to sporadic exposition. Thus, further studies should consider the specific influence of these variables, and also what are the specific influences on reproductive events in H. wrightii in the natural environment.
City/Sea Searching for a New Connection. Regeneration Proposal for Naples Waterfront Like an Harbourscape: Comparing Three Case Studies

The port is a strategic area of transition, where it is possible to perceive the territory-landscape and the urban front. However it lost its urban character, gradually becoming an high specialized independent machines, a sectorial infrastructure divided from the city: this phenomenon has created increasingly socio-economical marginalization. Within a double view, lengthwise and transverse, we can describe the port as a space closed to the city and as an unfathomable barrier for the transverse flows that previously connected the waterfront to the city. The paper examines the case study of Naples, where the port expansion continues to grow without any integration with other parts of the city, distorting its “urban area” role, establishing its independence and making urban system compatibility conditions even weaker. The functional and physical division increases the perception of the port as a barrier rather than a filter. Turning the sense of these conditions aims at rethinking waterfront as a public space, a place where integration and specialization spaces become new open and accessible spatial devices. In some contemporary European and American cities (Aalborg, Oslo and Toronto) we could see the port as multifunctional system, an interdisciplinary project that creates urban spaces integrated to the city and that allows the coexistence of different uses. The project of a new public space between the sea and the hinterland could involve all these conflicting functions creating, with different strategies, a potential multifunctional landscape. In Naples as well, where the waterfront is still waiting to be re-connected with the story of the city itself.
A comparison of channel erosion in small urban and rural catchments

Five years after the cessation of housing construction in a small urban catchment in Armidale, New South Wales, the stability of the channel bed and banks was investigated with the use of erosion pins. After eighteen months of monitoring, the rate of channel bank erosion was found to be 3.6 times greater than that of a nearby rural channel and the rate of knickpoint retreat was 2.4 times greater. There was, however, no evidence to suggest that the urban channel was inherently unstable, but that the increased rate of erosion was the product of changed runoff conditions associated with urban development. Both channels are considered to be in a state of equilibrium.
Reaction of N2O5 on tropospheric aerosols: Impact on the global distributions of NO x , O3, and OH

Using a three-dimensional global model of the troposphere, we show that the heterogeneous reactions of NO 3 and N205 on aerosol particles have a substantial influence on the concentrations of NOx; 03, and OH. Due to these reactions, the modeled yearly average global NOx burden decreases by 50% (80% in winter and 20% in summer). The heterogeneous removal of NOx in the northern hemisphere (NH) is dominated by reactions on aerosols; in the tropics and southern hemisphere (SH), with substantial smaller aerosol concentrations, liquid water clouds can provide an additional sink for N205 and NO 3. During spring in the NH subtropics and at mid-latitudes, O3-concentrations are lowered by 25%. In winter and spring in the subtropics of the NH calculated OH concentrations decreased by up to 30%. Global tropospheric average 03 and OH burden (the latter weighted with the amount of methane reacting with OH) can drop by about 9% each. By including reactions on aerosols, we are better able to simulate observed nitrate wet deposition patterns in North America and Europe. 03 concentrations in springtime smog situations are shown to be affected by heterogeneous reactions, indicating the great importance of chemical interactions resulting from NOx and SO2 emissions. However, a preliminary analysis shows that under present conditions a change in aerosol concentrations due to limited SO2 emission control strategies (e.g., reductions by a factor of 2 in industrial areas) will have only a relatively minor influence on 03 concentrations. Much larger reductions in SO2 emissions may cause larger increases in surface 03 concentrations, up to a maximum of 15%, if they are not accompanied by a reductio! a in NOx or hydrocarbon emission.
The evolution of dispersal in a metapopulation: a spatially explicit, individual-based model

Dispersal is the process that binds the subpopulations of a metapopulation together. Previous models of the evolution of dispersal have tended to be deterministic and not spatially explicit. We develop an individual–based, spatially explicit lattice model to determine how subpopulation equilibrium density, reproductive rate and form of competition affect the rate of dispersal that is selected for. For comparison, a deterministic analogue of the individual–based model is also developed. Dispersal rate is a neutral character in the deterministic model. The individual–based model makes predictions which differ significantly from its deterministic counterpart, particularly when subpopulation equilibrium densities are low. Higher rates of dispersal evolve when reproductive rate is high and subpopulation equilibrium density is small. Our results demonstrate that the propensity to disperse is not a neutral character and that deterministic models of metapopulations should be interpreted with caution.
Elliptically polarized light in alkali amphibole from Poços de Caldas, Brazil

An alkali amphibole crystal on a thin section of nepheline syenite from Pocos de Caldas, Brazil is examined us- ing an elliptically polarizing microscope equipped with a mercury lamp as a light source and a pair of rotatable quarter wave plates placed in the optical path. The nature of the light transmitted through the crystal is revealed to be an elliptically polarized light with an ellipticity of 0.23. This result is concordant with the works of T. Shoda (1957; 1958; 1961), who revealed the existence of elliptically polarized light not only in optically active crystals but also in some absorbing crystals. The difference between the nature of the elliptically polarized light resulting from absorption and that due to optical activity is discussed.
Effects of Monsoon Rainfalls on Surface Water Quality in a Mountainous Watershed under Mixed Land Use

To provide baseline information essential for assessing environmental impacts of monsoon rainfalls in a mountainous watershed under mixed land use, we investigated spatiotemporal variations in water quality using a combined approach of seasonal water quality survey and intensive storm samplings. Biannual water sampling at nine locations encompassing major land use types showed generally lower electrical conductivity and Cl- concentrations during the typical wet period compared to the dry period, indicating rainfall-induced dilution of dissolved ions. Total metal concentrations, however, were significantly higher during the monsoon period, probably associated with rainfall-induced increases in suspended sediments. Intensive storm sampling during a small monsoon rainfall event (18 mm) and an extreme event (452 mm) showed rapid changes in both suspended sediments and dissolved solutes in an agricultural stream draining the Haean Basin where arable lands have expanded rapidly over the recent decades. By contrast, a nearby forest stream derived from North Korea showed little responses to the small event compared to larges changes during the extreme event. In the agricultural stream total Pb concentrations showed significant positive relationships with suspended sediments. Although limited sampling frequency and locations require a cautious interpretation, the overall results suggest that expansion of agricultural fields in steep mountainous watersheds can increase the susceptibility of soil erosion and its off-site environmental impacts under increasing rainfall variability and extremes.
A field-study of leaching and degradation of nine pesticides in a sandy soil

A field study was conducted on a coastal sandy soil (Karrakata sand) of Western Australia from July to December 1990, to measure the leaching and degradation rates of chlorpyriphos, chlorthal dimethyl, fenamiphos, linuron, metalaxyl, metribuzin, prometryne, propyzamide and simazine. Commercial grade products were sprayed in dilute solution form at recommended rates to the surface of held plots. Irrigation was applied daily which together with rainfall gave effective rainfall equivalent to at least 120% of potential evaporation. Pesticide residue concentrations in soil samples taken at 5 cm increments down to 50 cm, at different days after application, were determined by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Mean leaching depths (MLDs) were calculated by weighting the percentage residues remaining at different depths in the soil profile. The MLDs for the 5 month period followed the order: chlorpyriphos and chlorthal dimethyl (<5 cm) < linuron and simazine (6) < propyzamide (8) and prometryne (9) < metribuzin (12) < metalaxyl (18) < fenamiphos and metabolites (28). This generally corresponded inversely with the sorption coefficients (K-oc). The degradation rates (i.e. decreases with time of total residue concentration in the sampled profile) could mostly be described by first-order regressions (R(2) = 0.59-0.95). Calculated half-lives showed the order: metribuzin (27 days), simazine (28) < fenamiphos (43), chlorthal dimethyl (45) < prometryne (58), propyzamide (59) < metalaxyl (70) < chlorpyriphos (81) < fenamiphos plus metabolites (98) < linuron (219). The potential for causing ground water contamination, as indicated by the ratio of half-life to Koc followed the order: chlorthal dimethyl, chlorpyriphos < metribuzin, prometryne < simazine, propyzamide < linuron < metalaxyl < fenamiphos and metabolites.
A multi-period dynamic location planning model for emergency response

We investigate a multi-period ambulance location problem for an emergency medical service (EMS) provider that routinely aims for high quality medical response in a short period of time. However, both quality and timing of service are very costly goals to achieve. In this research, our goal is to minimize the total operational cost of an EMS organization while maintaining acceptable response times for a newly defined EMS network that consists of supply centers, hospitals, responder locations, and incidents. We propose a new dispatch model, a deferred service model, to analyze the daily operations of ambulances that involve dispatch as needed and redeploy periodically. The main premise of this model is, given incident priority levels, incident demand patterns, and EMS provider resources, to decide which incidents to serve immediately and which incidents to defer to following periods while incurring deferral penalty costs. Additionally, high-priority incidents that are not addressed within the required response window incur delay penalty costs. Considering network size, fleet size, incident patterns, and time-dependent parameters as different factors that may influence the solution, we compare the results in terms of service quality, response time, and total cost through extensive experimentation. Experimental results indicate that sending the closest ambulance to an incident site is not always the best choice.
Interpretability-Aware Multi-Objective Genetic Programming for Scheduling Heuristics Learning in Dynamic Flexible Job Shop Scheduling

Dynamic flexible job shop scheduling (DFJSS) is a critical and challenging combinatorial optimisation problem. Genetic programming (GP) has been widely used to learn scheduling heuristics for DFJSS automatically. Ideally, we prefer to have effective and small scheduling heuristics which tend to be easy to be interpreted. However, the effectiveness and the sizes of scheduling heuristics are conflicting, and reducing the rule sizes tends to worsen the effectiveness of scheduling heuristics. This is a typical multi-objective optimisation problem. However, the existing studies in multi-objective DFJSS consider the effectiveness-related objectives only such as minimising max-flowtime and mean-flowtime rather than interpretability-related objectives such as rule size. To fill this gap, this paper aims to propose an interpretability-aware multi-objective GP to learn a well-distributed Pareto-front of scheduling heuristics for DFJSS. This paper first adopts a multi-objective GP algorithm with α-dominance and archive from a routing problem to DFJSS. Then, we propose to use traditional dominance relation based Pareto front for α and archive updating and an objective normalisation based α-dominance sorting strategy to further improve the performance of the adopted multi-objective GP. The results show that the proposed algorithm can obtain significantly better performance than the state-of-the-art multi-objective GP algorithms in different DFJSS scenarios.
Estate Taxes, Life Insurance, and Small Business

Critics argue that the estate tax prevents the owners of family businesses from passing their enterprises to heirs because it is difficult to pay estate taxes without liquidating the business. Why don't owners purchase enough life insurance to meet their estate tax liabilities? We examine whether and how people use life insurance to deal with the estate tax. We find that, ceteris paribus, business owners purchase more life insurance than do other individuals. However, on the margin, their insurance purchases are less responsive to estate tax considerations, and they are less likely to have the wherewithal to meet estate tax liabilities out of liquid assets plus insurance.
Improving overland flow routing by incorporating ancillary road data into Digital Elevation Models

Roads, ditches, and culverts influence hydrological and geomorphological processes significantly. However, most hydrological models continue to rely solely on regional digital elevation models (DEMs) to derive overland flow directions even though these DEMs have been shown to contain inadequate topographical information to effectively represent linear landscape features. This paper introduces a methodology that improves the accuracy of grid-based overland flow routing through the use of ancillary road, ditch, and culvert data. The road enforcement algorithm (REA) that was developed re-routes overland flow on either side of a road independently, thereby enforcing linear landscape features within the flow direction matrix. The overland flow patterns resulting from the implementation of the REA differ significantly from flow patterns derived using conventional GIS routing algorithms. A test application in the prairies of southern Alberta, Canada shows the REA affects intra-watershed runoff transport as well as the size and shape of DEM-derived watersheds. The flow direction matrices created with the REA can be incorporated into any grid-based hydrological model.
Atlantic Equatorial Undercurrent and associated cold tongue variability

The Atlantic Equatorial Undercurrent (EUC) is studied using a simulation for the period 1990–2002 with a high-resolution ocean general circulation model. Simulated transports of the EUC that supplies the annual mean upwelling in the central and eastern equatorial Atlantic are in good agreement with new transport estimates derived from ship observations, i.e., 19.9 and 14.0 Sv at 35°W and 23°W, respectively. Although the observations are not conclusive concerning the seasonal cycle of EUC transports, the simulated seasonal cycles fit largely in the observed range. The analysis of the EUC variability associated with interannual boreal summer variability of the equatorial cold tongue showed that cold tongue indices, defined either by near-surface temperature or steric height anomalies, are anticorrelated with thermocline EUC transport anomalies: A strong EUC corresponds to low near-surface temperatures and steric heights. The importance of equatorial waves for the cold tongue region is shown: Surface layer transport anomalies at 23°W and 10°W are significantly correlated with both near-surface temperature and steric height anomalies in the equatorial and coastal upwelling regions, indicating an associated eastward phase propagation along the equator toward the African coast where the signal bifurcates into two poleward branches along the coast and is reflected into a westward propagating wave.