Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Run-up of long waves generated by bottom-tilting wave maker

ABSTRACT Using the recently developed bottom-tilting wave maker, run-ups of very long waves are investigated on an adjustable plane beach. Both leading-elevation waves and leading-depression waves are considered, in which the experimental results are compared with the numerical solution of the nonlinear shallow water equations. A surf similarity parameter based on the steepness of the accelerating phase of the wave is suggested. It is shown that both the maximum run-up height and the theoretical breaking criterion can be described in terms of the surf similarity parameter, which is consistent with the results for the solitary waves.
Extremum statistics: a framework for data analysis

Recent work has suggested that in highly correlated systems, such as sandpiles, turbulent fluids, ignited trees in forest fires and magnetization in a ferromagnet close to a critical point, the probability distribution of a global quantity (i.e. total energy dissipation, magnetization and so forth) that has been normalized to the first two moments follows a specific non-Gaussian curve. This curve follows a form suggested by extremum statistics, which is specified by a single parameter a (a = 1 corresponds to the Fisher-Tippett Type I ("Gumbel") distribution). Here we present a framework for testing for extremal statistics in a global observable. In any given system, we wish to obtain a, in order to distinguish between the different Fisher-Tippett asymptotes, and to compare with the above work. The normalizations of the extremal curves are obtained as a function of a. We find that for realistic ranges of data, the various extremal distributions, when normalized to the first two moments, are difficult to distinguish. In addition, the convergence to the limiting extremal distributions for finite data sets is both slow and varies with the asymptote. However, when the third moment is expressed as a function of a, this is found to be a more sensitive method.
Channel Protection Using Random Modulation

This paper shows that modulation protects a bandlimited signal against convolutive interference. A signal s(t), bandlimited to BHz, is modulated (pointwise multiplied) with a known random sign sequence r(t), alternating at a rate Q, and the resultant spread spectrum signal s(t) ⊙ r(t) is convolved against an M-tap channel impulse response h(t) to yield the observed signal y(t) = (s(t) ⊙ r(t)) ⊛ h(t), where ⊙ and ⊛ denote pointwise multiplication, and circular convolution, respectively.We show that both s(t), and h(t) can be provably recovered using a simple gradient descent scheme by alternating the binary waveform r(t) at a rate Q ≳ B + M(to within log factors and a signal coherences) and sampling y(t) at a rate Q. We also present a comprehensive set of phase transitions to depict the trade-off between Q, M, and B for successful recovery. Moreover, we show stable recovery results under noise.
Mediterranean Conference on Information Systems ( MCIS ) 2009 The Mediating Role Of Absorptive Capacity On The Relationship Between Climate And Commitment

Much of prior research on organizational learning studied the role of firm’s absorptive capacity. While there is an implicit research consensus on the definitions and outcomes of absorptive capacity, researchers do not seem to have reached a collective understanding of the process by which organizations become able to absorb external knowledge and then produce valuable outcomes. With this purpose we identify a well reviewed valuable outcome by the literature, i.e. the relation between climate and commitment, and we attempt to investigate the mediating role of absorptive capacity on the relation between organizational climate and commitment. The research model we propose was tested on a sample of 143 individuals belonging to some Italian organizations. Our findings show that absorptive capacity can act as leverage for achieving a higher level of employees’ commitment to the organization.
Mediterranean Conference on Information Systems ( MCIS ) 9-2010 IN SEARCH OF A POSSIBLE THE MISSING VARIABLE-THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TRUST , LEARNING INVOLVEMENT , AND KMS ADOPTION

Research shows that trust has a direct bearing on information systems usage patterns in a variety of contexts. Discussing the context of Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) training, this study suggests placing trust in a more background role as the facilitator. According to the view suggested, user involvement through learning is a key reason why employees after training decide voluntarily to continue using an information system, with trust facilitating the conditions that boost this learning.The relationship between trust and involvement through learning has not been previously studied, and the results open a new perspective on how trust operates. Theory is suggested why this should be the case. Data collected from a newly installed KMS show that when users’ involvement through learning is not included in the model, trust does directly affect continued use, but when involvement through learning is included in the model as a mediator between trust and continued use then trust does not directly affect continued use. Implications about the role of trust in systems implementation and especially in creating user involvement through learning are discussed.
STEPS TO AN ECOLOGY OF MIND COLLECTED ESSAYS IN ANTHROPOLOGY, PSYCHIATRY, EVOLUTION, AND EPISTEMOLOGY

arguments, that Gregory and others labored to “unpack” over the intervening years; and still there are surprises hidden within them that become visible as the reader comes to move freely in the text. Frequently , during his career, as his Introduction indicates, Gregory felt as if he were speaking and writing in a foreign language. People did not simply agree or disagree with him; they were bewildered or intoxicated. Mark Engels, in his 1971 Preface, recognized the analogy between the “mind expanding” experiences of drugs and religious conversion and the kinds of intellectual change that could be achieved by a pervasive reshaping of patterns of thought. In retrospect it strikes me that intoxication and conversion were common responses even to these abstract and difficult pieces—responses in which a fraction of the argument was carried on a tide of intuitive affirmation. Today, however, it is becoming increasingly possible to come to grips with Gregory’s thinking, to select, affirm, contest, question. Throughout his life, he treasured the relationships in which he found opportunities for intellectual grappling that went beyond admiration adulation; critical reading is essential. This new edition, then, invites readers into an encounter with the work of Gregory Bateson that was only available to a few when the collection first appeared. My advice to readers would be to hang on to the challenge as well as the affirmation. We have not as a civilization achieved those epistemological shifts that may some day enable nuclear disarmament, ecological responsibility, and new approaches to both education and healing that will value and enhance the complexity of persons in their familial and social setting. In these and in Gregory’s later books (Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity, Dutton 1979, and, jointly with me, Angels Fear: Toward an Epistemology of the Sacred, Macmillan, 1987) the intellectual tools are offered. Today they will come more readily to hand, be easier to balance and handle in a disciplined manner than they were in the early 1970s, be more accessible to practice and skill. But still there remains the challenge of using the tools in such a way that they be-come a part of the user. And still the tasks for which these tools have been shaped largely remain to be done, more urgent today than ever. —Mary Catherine Bateson Cambridge, Mass. August 1987
Whistler Wave Generation by Halo Electrons in the Solar Wind

We present an analysis of simultaneous particle and field measurements from the ARTEMIS spacecraft, which demonstrates that quasi-parallel whistler waves in the solar wind can be generated locally by a bulk flow of halo electrons (whistler heat flux instability). ARTEMIS observes quasi-parallel whistler waves in the frequency range ∼0.05−0.2fce simultaneously with electron velocity distribution functions that are a combination of counter-streaming core and halo populations. A linear stability analysis shows that the plasma is stable when there are no whistler waves, and it is unstable in the presence of whistler waves. In the latter case, the stability analysis shows that the whistler wave growth time is from a few to 10 seconds at frequencies and wavenumbers that match the observations. The observations clearly demonstrate that the temperature anisotropy of halo electrons crucially affects the heat flux instability onset: a slight anisotropy T∥/T⊥ > 1 may quench the instability, while a slight anisotropy T∥/T⊥ < 1 may significantly increase the growth rate. These results demonstrate that heat flux inhibition is strongly dependent on the microscopic plasma properties.
Changement climatique et régime hydrologique d'un bassin alpin. Génération de scénarios sur la Haute-Durance, méthodologie d'évaluation et incertitudes associées

L'impact du changement climatique sur les climats regionaux et par suite sur les ressources en eau devrait etre particulierement prononce en zones de relief. Les scenarios hydrologiques futurs necessaires pour les etudes d'impact sont habituellement obtenus par simulation en forcant un modele d'impact hydrologique (MH) par des scenarios meteorologiques a haute resolution, obtenus par des Modeles de Descente d'Echelle Statistique (MDES) forces par les sorties de modeles climatiques (GCM ou RCM). Ces MDES ont pour but de combler certaines lacunes des GCM ou RCM (biais et resolution insuffisante) compte tenu des exigences des modeles d'impact. Bien qu'un grand nombre de projections soit couramment realise a travers le monde, l'applicabilite de la chaine de simuation GCM/MDES/MH en climat modifie est rarement questionnee. Nous presentons ici un cadre d'evaluation pour illustrer les possibilites et/ou les difficultes pour le transfert temporel de ces outils. Nous illustrons ensuite les incertitudes dans les projections meteorologiques et hydrologiques futures qui peuvent resulter de cette transferabilite imparfaite. Les simulations et les evaluations sont realisees pour le Haut Bassin de la Durance (3580 km2). Le modele hydrologique SIM de Meteo-France est adapte au contexte alpin. Nous considerons plusieurs configurations de 3 MDES developpes au CERFACS, au LTHE, et a EDF, basees sur differents predicteurs atmospheriques. 12 experiences climatiques issues du projet europeen ENSEMBLES fournissent les champs de grande echelle pour la periode 1860-2100. Dans ce contexte, les incertitudes associees aux MDES et aux GCM sont du meme ordre de grandeur.
Risk factors for upper limb fractures in children

Fractures in younger life are very common especially those involving the upper limb. However, the causes of these fractures are poorly understood. The aim of this population based case-control study was to evaluate the association of both bone dependent and independent factors with upper limb fracture risk in children 9-16 years of age. Areal (aBMD) and apparent (BMAD) bone mineral density were measured by dual energy Xray absorptiometry (DXA). Skeletal age (SA) and metacarpal index (MI) was determined by hand radiograph. Types and patterns of physical activity, risk taking and diet were assessed by interview-administered questionnaires. Coordination was measured using the 8-point movement ABC. A total of 321 fracture cases and 321 randomly selected ageand gender- matched controls were recruited. Fracture sites were as follow: hand: n=91, wrist and forearm: n=190, upper arm: n=40. Conditional logistic regression analysis showed wrist and forearm fracture risk was significantly associated with lumbar spine BMAD (OR: 1.52/SD reduction, 95% CI 1.18-1.96), MI (OR: 1.43/SD reduction, 95% CI 1.14-2.20), light physical activity (OR: 0.81/unit, 95% CI 0.65-1.00), cola consumption (OR: 1.43/category, 95% CI 1.08-1.88) but conclusions may be limited by sample size considerations. Obesity or overweight was not associated with any fracture type. For total fractures, there was a gender discordant effect of sports participation with an increased fracture risk in boys and decreased fracture risk in girls which reached statistical significance for total, contact, non-contact and high-risk sports participation as well as four individual sports (soccer, cricket, surfing and swimming). In conclusion, both bone dependent and independent factors are important determinants of upper limb fracture risk in children. There is heterogeneity of cause for both gender and different fracture sites that will necessitate different approaches to prevention.
Nitrogen dynamics in cover crop-based no-till corn

Title: NITROGEN DYNAMICS IN COVER CROP-BASED NO-TILL CORN Hanna Jane Poffenbarger, Master of Science, 2014 Directed by: Professor Ray Weil, Department of Environmental Science and Technology Legume/grass cover crop mixtures and sidedress subsurface band manure application are two approaches to improving nitrogen (N) use efficiency in a cover cropbased no-till corn (Zea mays L.) system. The objectives of this study were to: 1) quantify cover crop biomass and N content in response to different hairy vetch (Vicia villosa Roth)/cereal rye (Secale cereale L.) sown proportions, 2) evaluate the effects of cover crop species proportions and pelletized poultry litter (PPL) application method on residue decomposition, and 3) model the spatio-temporal dynamics of soil inorganic N as influenced by different cover crop residues and subsurface band-applied PPL. Results suggest that cover crop mixtures can accumulate as much biomass as a cereal rye monoculture and as much N as a hairy vetch monoculture, and have decomposition patterns intermediate between those of monocultures. Subsurface band PPL application provided a localized N source that did not influence decomposition of surface mulches. NITROGEN DYNAMICS IN COVER CROP-BASED NO-TILL CORN
Mechanisms of particulate toxicity: health effects in susceptible humans.

Solomon C. , Miller L. , Witten A. , Usachenko J., Kleinman M. , Balmes J. (2003) Particle and ozone exposure in allergic asthma: effect on airway cells and in-vitro allergen- induced cytokine expression. Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. 166 (5). Power, K. , Balmes, J., Solomon C. (2004) Decreased heart rate variability after controlled human exposure to particles and ozone. Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. 169 (7).
Le magmatisme varisque en Ardenne méridionale : un marqueur de l'évolution géodynamique d'une paléomarge

L'essaim de filons de microgranite et de diabase du Massif de Rocroi (Ardenne meridionale) s'est mis en place au Devonien moyen a superieur (âge U-Pb sur zircon de 373+8/-9 Ma) dans un substratum cambro-ordovicien deja deforme par le raccourcissement caledonien. La mise en place des filons marque un des stades ultimes de l'extension varisque, qui a differencie la marge ardennaise, en bordure sud du Continent des Vieux Gres Rouges. L'analyse qualitative et quantitative des donnees structurales, petrologiques et geochimiques recueillies sur le terrain et experimentales, permet de retracer les conditions de mise en place des filons et leur evolution commune avec l'encaissant. Les filons se sont mis en place en contexte distensif, ont rempli des fractures ouvertes en extension pure. Les filons etaient des objets plans, paralleles entre eux, de pendage SSE. L'essaim filonien est circonscrit par un losange dont les cotes sont de memes directions que les fractures qui ont controle la sedimentation devonienne. L'aire des filons pourrait donc representer un domaine a croute plus amincie que celle des blocs qui l'environnent. Au cours de l'extension, les filons et leur encaissant ont subi un metamorphisme statique dans le facies schiste vert, avec une haute temperature (450°C environ) et une pression moderee (de l'ordre de 300 MPa). Ce metamorphisme, associe a un gradient geothermique eleve (>50°C/km), resulte surtout de l'amincissement crustal qui accompagne l'extension devonienne. Le raccourcissement carbonifere, dirige vers le NNW, inverse les structures de la marge. Le substratum et les filons accommodent le raccourcissement par un aplatissement syn-schisteux, et par un ecaillage que controlent les structures anterieures. Aucun filon connu n'a ete plisse; ils ont conserve leur direction originelle. L'evolution metamorphique s'est poursuivie pendant le raccourcissement: la schistogenese accompagne une diminution progressive de la temperature (420° a 300°C) avec une pression toujours moderee (de l'ordre de 200 MPa). Au cours de ce stade, les diabases ont subi des transformations physico-chimiques par percolation de fluides riches en CO2 et H2O
The impact of climate change on crop production in Sub-Saharan Africa

Considerable attention has been given to climate change and its impacts. Agriculture is of special concern as it is the primary source of food and is dependent on weather. There is a wide range of estimated climate change impacts for the 21 st century over a large number of regions. The impact of climate change on agriculture is estimated to be large, even in the face of large uncertainties. In this prospect, several studies highlight the importance of adaptation mechanisms to limit the negative effects. This study builds on the literature by conducting a comprehensive assessment of climate change impacts on the most commonly grown crops in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). To provide a climate change impact assessment specific to SSA, this study focuses on the four most extensively grown crops (cassava, maize, millet and sorghum). Additionally, to estimate the effect of climate change on food production, this study estimates both crop productivity and supply responses to weather changes. A first set of econometric analyses estimate the effect of weather on crop yields using basic weather variables. Alternative specifications using more refined weather parameters establish similar effects, and also quantify the effect of droughts and floods. The analyses reveal a significant impact of temperature, precipitation, evapotranspiration, floods and droughts on crop yields. The analyses also reveal that, in general, precipitation and temperature changes have a larger impact on crop yields in countries with less favourable agricultural conditions (LFAC). The estimation of CO2 fertilization effects on crop yields reveals significant effect of CO2 concentrations on millet yields but not yields for other crops. A second set of econometric analyses estimate the effect of weather and climate on farmers‟ cropping decisions. The analysis reveals that, in general, crop prices do not influence farmers‟ decisions regarding the quantity of land to allocate to crops. Alternatively, the regression analyses suggest that farmers respond to export crop prices. The regressions results also indicate that farmers from LFAC countries appear more responsive to export crop prices than non-LFAC farmers. Farmers‟ supply decisions are also influenced by weather and climate. Additionally, the regressions show a negative effect of precipitation variability and temperature variability on area allocated to some
A Study on the Levels of Biodiversity and Sustainability in Traditional and Conventional Vineyards (Vitis vinifera L., cv. “Shesh i zi”) through Using of Bio Indexes

The variability of life forms is the key of maintaining and guaranteeing of ecological equilibrium in the terrestrial ecosystem. Loosing of species implies reduction of the genetic richness in natural conditions. The presence of many beneficial species is very significant for the biodiversity evaluation. Species presence in agro ecosystems is an indicator of quality and they are considered as bio indexes. Using of bio indexes has been applied widely during last times aiming the evaluation of agro ecosystem diversity and stability. This study analyses the use of bio indexes on two types of agro ecosystems (traditional and conventional), in several levels, aiming the evaluation of their biological complexity and the differences created as a result of different management techniques, the stability of organisms community and agro ecosystem sustainability also.
Integrative Review of the Relationship Between Sleep Disturbances and Episodic Memory in Older Adults

Impaired episodic memory in older adults has been linked to many factors. One of these factors is sleep disturbances, which are reported by more than 50% of older adults. The relationship between episodic memory and sleep disturbances remains unclear, however, because of the multiple types of measures of sleep and episodic memory used in previous studies. The purpose of this integrative literature review was to integrate and compare findings on this relationship in adults aged 65 years. An electronic search was conducted in PubMed, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, PsychINFO, and Medline for material published from the inception of the databases to December 2016. The literature search produced 13 data-based, peer-reviewed, and primary research articles that met eligibility criteria. The synthesized results from these articles provide evidence that older adults with 6–8 hr of self-reported total sleep time had better episodic memory than older adults with ≤5 hr or ≥9 hr of total sleep time. Shorter length and lower percentage of slow-wave sleep were associated with reduced episodic memory in older adults, but the results were controversial. Selection of different measurements and inconsistent variables across studies increased the difficulty of synthesizing and comparing the results. The diversity of covariates controlled in the included articles raise questions regarding which covariates should be controlled in such studies of sleep and episodic memory in older adults. The numerous study limitations were thus major barriers to understanding the relationship between sleep disturbances and episodic memory.
A Feature-Enriched Completely Blind Image Quality Evaluator

Existing blind image quality assessment (BIQA) methods are mostly opinion-aware. They learn regression models from training images with associated human subjective scores to predict the perceptual quality of test images. Such opinion-aware methods, however, require a large amount of training samples with associated human subjective scores and of a variety of distortion types. The BIQA models learned by opinion-aware methods often have weak generalization capability, hereby limiting their usability in practice. By comparison, opinion-unaware methods do not need human subjective scores for training, and thus have greater potential for good generalization capability. Unfortunately, thus far no opinion-unaware BIQA method has shown consistently better quality prediction accuracy than the opinion-aware methods. Here, we aim to develop an opinion-unaware BIQA method that can compete with, and perhaps outperform, the existing opinion-aware methods. By integrating the features of natural image statistics derived from multiple cues, we learn a multivariate Gaussian model of image patches from a collection of pristine natural images. Using the learned multivariate Gaussian model, a Bhattacharyya-like distance is used to measure the quality of each image patch, and then an overall quality score is obtained by average pooling. The proposed BIQA method does not need any distorted sample images nor subjective quality scores for training, yet extensive experiments demonstrate its superior quality-prediction performance to the state-of-the-art opinion-aware BIQA methods. The MATLAB source code of our algorithm is publicly available at www.comp.polyu.edu. hk/~cslzhang/IQA/ILNIQE/ILNIQE.htm.