Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Beliefs, Classroom Practices, and Professional Development Activities of Teacher Consultants

Abstract After more than a decade of funding from the National Geographic Society, questions have increasingly been raised about the effectiveness of geographic alliances as vehicles for professional development in geographic education. This study explores the impact of participation in a summer institute on teacher beliefs and practices in geographic education. Findings from a survey of the 128 participants in an Ohio Alliance Summer Geographic Institute (ASGI) reveal an increase in participants' use of instructional resources for geography after attending an ASGI. An implication of this study is the need for strategic recruitment of teachers from culturally diverse backgrounds and teachers who are relatively new to the profession to become participants in an ASGI.
Field-scale Demonstration of Prevention of HVAC Dockage in Kronos Durum by Late Season Nitrogen Application

Grain quality is important to growers and buyers of durum. Growers are usually docked if their HVAC drops below 90% or their grain protein is below 13 %. The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the ability of nitrogen fertilizer application near flowering to increase HVAC and grain protein. Six commercial sites were chosen for this study and Kronos was the variety. The application of about 50 pounds of nitrogen per acre increased HVAC by from 81 to 93% and increased grain protein from 11.2 to 12.3% on average, similar
Spatial patterns of basal drag inferred using control methods from a full‐Stokes and simpler models for Pine Island Glacier, West Antarctica

Basal drag is a fundamental control on ice stream dynamics that remains poorly understood or constrained by observations. Here, we apply control methods on ice surface velocities of Pine Island Glacier, West Antarctica to infer the spatial pattern of basal drag using a full‐Stokes (FS) model of ice flow and compare the results obtained with two commonly‐used simplified solutions: the MacAyeal shelfy stream model and the Blatter‐Pattyn model. Over most of the model domain, the three models yield similar patterns of basal drag, yet near the glacier grounding‐line, the simplified models yield high basal drag while FS yields almost no basal drag. The simplified models overestimate basal drag because they neglect bridging effects in an ice stream region of rapidly varying ice thickness. This result reinforces theoretical studies that a FS treatment of ice flow is essential near glacier grounding lines.
Soil surface CO2 fluxes and the carbon budget of a grassland

Measurements of soil surface CO2 fluxes are reported for three sites within the First International Satellite Land Surface Climatology Project (ISLSCP) Field Experiment (FIFE) area, and simple empirical equations are fit to the data to provide predictions of soil fluxes from environmental observations. A prototype soil chamber, used to make the flux measurements, is described and tested by comparing CO2 flux measurements to a 40-L chamber, a 1-m3 chamber, and eddy correlation. Results suggest that flux measurements with the prototype chamber are consistent with measurements by other methods to within about 20%. A simple empirical equation based on 10-cm soil temperature, 0- to 10-cm soil volumetric water content, and leaf area index predicts the soil surface CO2 flux with a root-mean-square (rms) error of 1.2 μmol m−2 s−1 for all three sites. Further evidence supports using this equation to evaluate soil surface CO2 during the 1987 FIFE experiment. The soil surface CO2 fluxes when averaged over 24 hours are comparable to daily gross canopy photosynthetic rates. For 6 days of data the net daily accumulation of carbon is about 0.6 g CO2 m−2 d−1; this is only a few percent of the daily gross accumulation of carbon by photosynthesis. As the soil became drier in 1989, the net accumulation of carbon by the prairie increased, suggesting that the soil flux is more sensitive to temperature and drought than the photosynthetic fluxes.
“Why is this relevant for me?”: increasing content relevance enhances student motivation and vitality

The notion that motivation is imperative for students’ psychological well-being and academic functioning is central to Self-Determination Theory (SDT). According to SDT, different types of motivations can co-occur to a various degree with separate outcomes, depending on the extent of experienced degree of autonomy. In the current study, we investigate how making a learning exercise more relevant for higher education STEM students can affect aspects of student functioning mediated through motivation. In a randomized experiment, results indicate that the students who received a more “relevant” assignment (experimental group) experienced more autonomous forms of motivation relative to the students who received a “generic” or “traditional” exercise (control group). Further, the experimental group reported higher levels of vitality and effort relative to the control group. Using a pre- and post-test design measuring changes in emotional affect during the learning activity, we found that the control group reported an increase in negative affect and a decrease in positive affect. Finally, path analysis showed significant relationships between the type of assignment provided and motivation and student functioning.
Russia's Role in the Kyoto Protocol

As a result of the allocation of emissions reductions, and the differential willingness of countries to ratify, it turns out that Russia is a central player in the Kyoto Protocol. With the U.S. out and Japan and the EU ratifying, the Protocol cannot enter into force without Russian ratification. In part, U.S. rejection of the Kyoto Protocol resulted from the fact that, had the U.S. been in, its least costly road to implementation would have involved large purchases of emissions credits from Russia. With the U.S. out, Russian credits are worth much less but Russia may be able to exploit monopoly power to increase the value of those permits, or Russia could bank permits on the expectation that prices will rise in the future, perhaps as a result of U.S. reentry into the Protocol in later periods. The Russian decision is more complex, however, in that it is also a major fossil fuel exporter. To the extent it withholds permits from the market, fossil energy prices are depressed further, and the value of its exports of energy are reduced. Thus, Russia faces a tradeoff between maximizing its permit revenue and its revenue from fossil energy exports. We develop this problem as a simple dynamic optimization problem that can be easily solved. We calibrate this simple model to the results of two CGE models (EPPA and GEMINI-E3) that fully capture interactions of energy trade, permit trade, and permit and energy prices. We show that carbon prices are relatively insensitive to Russia’s behaviors when the U.S. is assumed to participate. It also shows that, in the absence of U.S.participation, the impacts of market power by Russia & the Ukraine is largely dependent on the elasticity of demand for permits. Finally, we focus on the uncertainty about the supply of CDM by developing countries. It is shown that permits prices are relatively insensitive to CDM supply in the short run but not in the long run.
Inference of stratospheric aerosol composition and size distribution from SAGE II satellite measurements

In this paper the authors present a method that can be used to infer stratospheric aerosol composition and size distribution, based on the water vapor concentration and aerosol extinction measurements from the satellite instrument of the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE II) and the associated temperatures provided by the National Meteorological Center (NMC). To infer the chemical composition, the aerosols are assumed to be sulfuric acid-water droplets. The equilibrium acid weight percentage and refractive index at the SAGE II aerosol wavelengths can then be estimated by using the SAGE II-observed water vapor and the associated temperatures. To infer the aerosol size distribution, a modified Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm is adopted for determining model size distribution parameters in the least squares sense, based on the SAGE II-observed multiwavelength aerosol extinctions. Both single-mode lognormal and modified gamma representations are employed in the analysis. One of the most significant conclusions from this analysis is a determination of the information content of the SAGE II multiwavelength aerosol extinctions with respect to stratospheric aerosol size distributions. It is concluded that the best aerosol size information is contained in the aerosol radius range between approximately 0.25 and 0.80 μm.
The Finite-Offset CRS Stack: an Alternative Stacking Tool For Subsalt Imaging

The Finite-Offset Common-Reflection-Surface stack has been developed in the last two years as an extension to the established Common-Reflection-Surface stack. It can provide any finite-offset section from multi-coverage data in a data-driven way. In this paper, we show that this new imaging tool can be an alternative in case of complicated subsurface structures. This is demonstrated by means of a complex synthetic data example which has especially been designed to investigate the difficulties that occur in subsalt imaging.
Do Bigger Legislatures Lead to Bigger Government? Evidence from a Brazilian Municipal Council Reform

Do bigger legislatures lead to bigger government? We exploit a Brazilian reform that allocated the number of municipal council seats based on population thresholds in a regression discontinuity design. We find that larger councils have significantly higher public expenditures on social goods and legislative costs. Increased spending is partly financed by significantly higher local tax revenues and is driven by a less salient form of tax to voters – on services – than property taxes. As a potential explanation for our findings, we show that, more council seats led to greater political diversity. JEL Classification Codes: D72, H72, R51
An Unusual Distribution of Oithona nana GIESBRECHT (1892) (Crustacea: Cyclopoida) in a Bay: The Case of Toulon Bay (France, Mediterranean Sea)

The distribution of the Cyclopod Oithona nana in Toulon Bay (France, Mediterranean Sea) was studied. This bay has an artificial breakwater which creates two sub-ecosystems, an inner little bay (heavily polluted) and an outer large bay (less polluted). We set up six sampling stations in the inner bay and nine outside, along a littoral/pelagial gradient. Zooplankton hauls were taken with a 90 µm mesh plankton net (with flowmeter). The sea surface temperature, conductivity and salinity were also measured. The abundance of O. nana was much higher in the little bay than outside. There were also very few males in the little bay, and almost none in the large bay, in contrast to the abundant females in the sampling stations adjacent to the little bay. The sex-ratio was always in favour of females and there were more adults than copepodites. These results indicate that the ecological status of the little bay favours the development of O. nana, and we suggest that this species may be used as a biological indicator of such perturbed systems.
Sonographic Phrenic Nerve Changes in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects both the upper and lower motor neurons in the nervous system, causing muscle weakness and severe disability. The progressive course of the disease reduces the functional capacity of the affected patients, limits daily activities, and leads to complete dependence on caregivers, ultimately resulting in a fatal outcome. Respiratory dysfunction mostly occurs later in the disease and is associated with a worse prognosis. Forty-six participants were included in our study, with 23 patients in the ALS group and 23 individuals in the control group. The ultrasound examination of the phrenic nerve (PN) was performed by two authors using a high-resolution “Philips EPIQ 7” ultrasound machine with a linear 4–18 MHz transducer. Our study revealed that the phrenic nerve is significantly smaller on both sides in ALS patients compared to the control group (p < 0.001). Only one significant study on PN ultrasound in ALS, conducted in Japan, also showed significant results (p < 0.00001). These small studies are particularly promising, as they suggest that ultrasound findings could serve as an additional diagnostic tool for ALS.
Paraguay's Challenge of Conserving Natural Habitats and Biodiversity with Global Markets Demanding for Products

its economy in such a way as to negatively impact these natural resources and compromise the ecological stability of much of the nation. These natural resources are threatened and in most cases destroyed to maximize gains in the short term, which might prohibit their future use. The lack of knowledge about the disappearance of natural resources might also affect human welfare. Soils, water, and biodiversity and its many ecological services are jeopardized by the increasing spread of agricultural production. Paraguay epitomizes many developing countries: it is trying to adopt democracy to allow the participation and free speech of its citizens while also supporting sound legal environmental frameworks, but completely lacks effective law enforcement. Paraguay also lacks the national capacity needed to address the environmental matters that are addressed by various international conventions.
Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment for PostCOVID-19 Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss Patients

Objective: Sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSNHL) has been reported in individuals with a previous medical history of COVID-19. This research was conducted to investigate the outcomes and characteristics of these cases following hyperbaric oxygen treatment (HBO2). Methods: This retrospective study included patients diagnosed with SSNHL, with a previous history of coronavirus disease, who underwent HBO2. Medical files from four health centers (three tertiary and one state hospital) between March 2020 and September 2021 were reviewed to evaluate the treatment outcomes. Results: The study found that 25 out of 304 patients who presented with SSNHL had a prior COVID-19 infection. The mean age of the patients was 36.2 ± 12.3 years, with 56% being male. Recovery rates were as follows: complete recovery (20%), partial improvement (20%), and minimal improvement (32%). There was a statistically significant difference between the pre-and post-treatment median values of all frequency levels (**P<0.001). Conclusion: SSNHL requires immediate management with various treatment modalities. In this study, HBO2 showed improvement in hearing loss specifically in patients with a prior history of coronavirus infection. The varied distribution of recovery rates aligns with existing literature. This is the inaugural study assessing the outcomes of HBO2 in such cases. ABSTRACT
Discretization errors and free surface stabilization in the finite difference and marker‐in‐cell method for applied geodynamics: A numerical study

The finite difference–marker‐in‐cell (FD‐MIC) method is a popular method in thermomechanical modeling in geodynamics. Although no systematic study has investigated the numerical properties of the method, numerous applications have shown its robustness and flexibility for the study of large viscous deformations. The model setups used in geodynamics often involve large smooth variations of viscosity (e.g., temperature‐dependent viscosity) as well large discontinuous variations in material properties (e.g., material interfaces). Establishing the numerical properties of the FD‐MIC and showing that the scheme is convergent adds relevance to the applications studies that employ this method. In this study, we numerically investigate the discretization errors and order of accuracy of the velocity and pressure solution obtained from the FD‐MIC scheme using two‐dimensional analytic solutions. We show that, depending on which type of boundary condition is used, the FD‐MIC scheme is a second‐order accurate in space as long as the viscosity field is constant or smooth (i.e., continuous). With the introduction of a discontinuous viscosity field characterized by a viscosity jump (η*) within the control volume, the scheme becomes first‐order accurate. We observed that the transition from second‐order to first‐order accuracy will occur with only a small increase in the viscosity contrast (η* ≈ 5). We have employed two methods for projecting the material properties from the Lagrangian markers onto the Eulerian nodes. The methods are based on the size of the interpolation volume (4‐cell, 1‐cell). The use of a more local interpolation scheme (1‐cell) decreases the absolute velocity and pressure discretization errors. We also introduce a stabilization algorithm that damps the potential oscillations that may arise from quasi free surface calculations in numerical codes that employ the strong form of the Stokes equations. This correction term is of particular interest for topographic modeling, since the surface of the Earth is generally represented by a free surface. Including the stabilization enables physically meaningful solutions to be obtained from our simulations, even in cases where the time step value exceeds the isostatic relaxation time. We show that including the stabilization algorithm in our FD stencil does not affect the convergence properties of our scheme. In order to verify our approach, we performed time‐dependent simulations of free surface Rayleigh‐Taylor instability.
The shorebird ichnofacies: an example from the Miocene of southern Spain

The Late Miocene Sorbas Member of the Sorbas Basin, Almería Province, southeast Spain contains an extensive avian ichnofauna preserved in lagoonal marls. Three distinctive avian ichnotaxa can be identified: Antarctichnus fuenzalidae Covacevich and Lamperein, 1970; Iranipeda millumi n. ichnosp. ; and Roepichnus grahami n. ichnogen, n. ichnosp. In common with many other Cenozoic avian ichnofaunas, these traces are associated with shorebirds, including plovers, storks, ducks and/or gulls, respectively. Associated mammalian tracks include possible cat and artiodactyl footprints. The avian tracks are abundant and show a range of behavioural aspects in common with other recorded examples of Cretaceous–Recent shorebird tracks. These include both solitary and group activities consistent with their postulated avian tracemakers.
Evidence of Enceladus and Tethys microsignatures

We present evidence of two icy satellite microsignatures in the Cassini LEMMS data. Just upstream of Enceladus, a deep and narrow decrease in the flux of several MeV electrons is consistent with a recent absorption by that moon. This microsignature is collocated with a deep depletion in the MeV proton flux. The proton feature is much wider than the satellite diameter, suggesting multiple interactions and/or losses to the E Ring and neutral gas. An observed increase in proton flux toward the planet suggests a possible inner magnetospheric source. A decrease in the low energy electron intensity downstream of Tethys is also consistent with a microsignature approximately the size of the satellite that has drifted slightly toward the planet near midnight. Modeling suggests that microsignatures near Tethys' orbit would persist for more than a complete rotation of Saturn and the radial diffusion coefficient is about 10−9 RS2/s.
Rapid Transpacific Transport in Autumn Observed by the A-Train Satellites

[1] Transpacific transport of dust and pollutants is well documented for spring but less so for other seasons. Here we investigate rapid transpacific transport in autumn utilizing the A-train satellites. In three episodes studied as examples, SO2 plumes over East Asia were detected by the Ozone Monitoring Instrument aboard the Aura satellite and found to reach North America in 5–6 days. They were likely derived from anthropogenic sources, given that identical transport patterns of CO, a tracer for incomplete combustion, were simultaneously observed by the Aqua satellite. Trajectory analysis and meteorological data were employed to explore the meteorological circumstances surrounding these events: like many of their counterparts in spring, all three plumes were lifted to the free troposphere in warm conveyor belts associated with midlatitude wave cyclones, and their migration to the downwind region was regulated by the meteorology over the east Pacific. These cases provide further evidence that a fraction of SO2 could escape wet scavenging and be transported at much greater efficiency than could NOx (NO + NO2). An analysis of the SO2 and CO data from September to November during 2005–2008 found 16 SO2 long-range transport episodes, out of 62 Asian outflow events. While the counts are sensitive to the choice of criteria, they suggest that the long-range transport of Asian sulfur species occurs quite frequently and could exert strong impacts on large downstream areas. This study also highlights the importance of transpacific transport in autumn, which has thus far been rarely studied and deserves more attention from the community.
Turiasauria-like teeth from the Upper Jurassic of the Lusitanian Basin, Portugal

Turiasauria is a clade of eusauropods with a wide stratigraphic range that could extend from the Bathonian to the lower Aptian including Turiasaurus, Losillasaurus, Zby and putatively, Galveosaurus, Atlasaurus and isolated remains from Middle Jurassic-to-Lower Cretaceous. Some are characterised by the presence of heart-shaped teeth. Several tooth occurrences from the Portuguese Upper Jurassic with this type of morphology (SI: 1.1–1.8) are reported and discussed. If this morphology is regarded as synapomorphic of Turiasauria, the teeth will be tentatively related to this clade. From a sample of 43 teeth, three main morphotypes are described. Three hypotheses might explain the morphological variation: (1) the range of tooth morphologies indicates variation in the jaw, (2) the range of tooth morphologies indicates taxonomic variation or (3) a combination of both. The general wear pattern in morphotypes I and II starts with a distal facet, then the appearance of mesial/apical facet and finally a ‘V’-shaped facet. In morphotype III, the wear begins with a mesial facet. The variability observed for Portuguese Upper Jurassic specimens is congruent with the morphological variability along the tooth row shown by other sauropods with spatulate/spoon-shaped teeth and it is considered the most parsimonious hypothesis to explain it.
Specification of geomagnetically induced electric fields and currents in pipelines

Variations of the Earth's magnetic field induce electric fields in pipelines. These induced electric fields drive electric currents along the pipelines that can interfere with the cathodic protection systems installed to prevent corrosion of the pipelines. For design of systems to counteract these effects it is necessary to be able to calculate the size of the currents that will be produced by different geomagnetic conditions. In this study we present the results of numerical modeling of the induced electric fields and currents produced in a long, coated pipeline buried in the Earth. We investigate the effects of the frequency dependence for the electric field and current in the pipe. Calculations are made for different frequencies of the source fields in two extremum cases, E and H polarizations of the incident geoelectromagnetic field. It is shown that at low frequencies (<0.01 Hz) the effects of frequency dependence on electric fields and currents in the pipe are negligible but that they should be taken into account at higher frequencies (1 Hz).