Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Backscatter and interferometry for estimating above-ground biomass of sparse woodland: A case study in Belize

Tropical savannas cover 20% of the Earth's land surface and are important ecosystems in the global carbon cycle due to their high productivity. This paper evaluates the use of SAR for estimating above-ground biomass of the woody vegetation in heterogeneous tropical savanna woodland in Belize, Central America. Single-pass shortwave InSAR data used are X-band (Intermap) and C-band (AIRSAR and SRTM). L- and P-band SAR backscatter data are from AIRSAR. Results show that SAR backscatter has a relatively low correlation to above ground biomass in the sparse savanna woodlands. Retrieved canopy heights from both X- and C-band InSAR give a better representation of the spatial distribution of AGB, but cannot be used to estimate biomass directly due to the heterogeneity of the canopy.
Cenozoic subsidence history of the Pearl River Mouth Basin, northern South China Sea

In order to study the subsidence characteristics, temporal–spatial variation, and their controlling factors of the Pearl River Mouth Basin, we have calculated and mapped 34 wells' subsidence via 1‐D backstripping method, from which 12 typical wells have been selected as a sample to compare. Three typical profiles also have been chosen to compile subsidence evolution profiles by 2‐D backstripping method. All wells were synthesized as the holistic subsidence of the whole basin. The results indicate that the holistic subsidence of the basin can be divided into three episodes: The first one was Eocene with the mean total subsidence rate of 85 m/Ma; the second episode was from Oligocene to Middle Miocene with the mean total subsidence rate of 146 m/Ma; and the third episode was from Late Miocene up to present, and its mean total subsidence rate was 104 m/Ma. It is a common phenomenon that variation of subsidence and evolution existing in different units during the same period as well as different periods in the same unit. According to the distribution of subsidence rate in the plane, the basin can be divided into three zones from east to west and several belts in the same zone from north to south for each period. The variant change of subsidence evolution is related to the phase of basin evolution and structural characteristics. The holistic subsidence of the whole basin is controlled by basin dynamics, and the temporal–spatial variation of subsidence is affected by both basin dynamics and structural framework.
Malware Detection Module using Machine Learning Algorithms to Assist in Centralized Security in Enterprise Networks

Malicious software is abundant in a world of innumerable computer users, who are constantly faced with these threats from various sources like the internet, local networks and portable drives. Malware is potentially low to high risk and can cause systems to function incorrectly, steal data and even crash. Malware may be executable or system library files in the form of viruses, worms, Trojans, all aimed at breaching the security of the system and compromising user privacy. Typically, anti-virus software is based on a signature definition system which keeps updating from the internet and thus keeping track of known viruses. While this may be sufficient for home-users, a security risk from a new virus could threaten an entire enterprise network. This paper proposes a new and more sophisticated antivirus engine that can not only scan files, but also build knowledge and detect files as potential viruses. This is done by extracting system API calls made by various normal and harmful executable, and using machine learning algorithms to classify and hence, rank files on a scale of security risk. While such a system is processor heavy, it is very effective when used centrally to protect an enterprise network which maybe more prone to such threats.
Multicast Capacity of Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

Assume that <i>n</i> wireless nodes are uniformly randomly deployed in a square region with side-length <i>a</i> and all nodes have the uniform transmission range <i>r</i> and uniform interference range <i>R</i> > <i>r</i>. We further assume that each wireless node can transmit (or receive) at <i>W</i> bits/second over a <i>common</i> wireless channel. For each node <i>vi</i> , we <i>randomly</i> and <i>independently</i> pick <i>k</i>-1 points <i>pi</i>,<i>j</i> (1 les <i>j</i> les <i>k</i>-1) from the square, and then multicast data to the nearest node for each <i>pi</i>,<i>j</i>. We derive matching asymptotic upper bounds and lower bounds on multicast capacity of random wireless networks. Under protocol interference model, when <i>a</i> <sup>2</sup>/<i>r</i> <sup>2</sup>=<i>O</i>(<i>n</i>/log(<i>n</i>)), we show that the total multicast capacity is Theta(radic{<i>n</i>/log <i>n</i>}middot(<i>W</i>/radic<i>k</i>)) when <i>k</i>=<i>O</i>(<i>n</i>/log <i>n</i>); the total multicast capacity is Theta(<i>W</i>) when <i>k</i>=Omega(<i>n</i>/log <i>n</i>). We also study the capacity of group-multicast for wireless networks where for each source node, we randomly select <i>k</i>-1 groups of nodes as receivers and the nodes in each group are within a constant hops from the group leader. The same asymptotic upper bounds and lower bounds still hold. We also extend our capacity bounds to <i>d</i> -dimensional networks.
Students’ Experiences of Using ChatGPT in an Undergraduate Programming Course

Increasing use of artificial intelligence tools in programming education calls for a deeper understanding of their effect on students’ learning. This paper presents a study that investigates the experiences of part-time undergraduate students using ChatGPT in a five-week Java programming course. After each exercise, students provided feedback via anonymous surveys in which they rated different suitability aspects of ChatGPT. The majority viewed ChatGPT positively and suitable for learning programming concepts. However, its suitability for specific implementation tasks received mixed reviews. Students found it easy to adapt ChatGPT’s generated code to the exercises’ implementation tasks. The students primarily used it for acquiring background knowledge, learning syntax and programming concepts and suggesting suitable algorithms. Yet, some abstained from using it due to concerns to not garner sufficient programming proficiency, retrieving partially incorrect or misleading generated code, preferring an independent working style, or general skepticism about its benefits. Finally, in response to our findings, we also discuss three perspective directions for improving the suitability of LLM chatbots for students in programming education.
Maximum norm stability of difference schemes for parabolic equations on overset nonmatching space-time grids

In this paper, theoretical results are described on the maximum norm stability and accuracy of finite difference discretizations of parabolic equations on overset nonmatching space-time grids. We consider parabolic equations containing a linear reaction term on a space-time domain Ω × [0, T] which is decomposed into an overlapping collection of cylindrical subregions of the form Ωl*×[0, T], for l = 1,. , p. Each of the space-time domains Ωl*[0, T] are assumed to be independently grided (in parallel) according to the local geometry and space-time regularity of the solution, yielding space-time grids with mesh parameters hl and τl. In particular, the different space-time grids need not match on the regions of overlap, and the time steps τl can differ from one grid to the next. We discretize the parabolic equation on each local grid by employing an explicit or implicit θ-scheme in time and a finite difference scheme in space satisfying a discrete maximum principle. The local discretizations are coupled together, without the use of Lagrange multipliers, by requiring the boundary values on each space-time grid to match a suitable interpolation of the solution on adjacent grids. The resulting global discretization yields a large system of coupled equations which can be solved by a parallel Schwarz iterative procedure requiring some communication between adjacent subregions. Our analysis employs a contraction mapping argument.Applications of the results are briefly indicated for reaction-diffusion equations with contractive terms and heterogeneous hyperbolic-parabolic approximations of parabolic equations.
Substrate Rigidity Regulates Human T Cell Activation and Proliferation

Adoptive immunotherapy using cultured T cells holds promise for the treatment of cancer and infectious disease. Ligands immobilized on surfaces fabricated from hard materials such as polystyrene plastic are commonly employed for T cell culture. The mechanical properties of a culture surface can influence the adhesion, proliferation, and differentiation of stem cells and fibroblasts. We therefore explored the impact of culture substrate stiffness on the ex vivo activation and expansion of human T cells. We describe a simple system for the stimulation of the TCR/CD3 complex and the CD28 receptor using substrates with variable rigidity manufactured from poly(dimethylsiloxane), a biocompatible silicone elastomer. We show that softer (Young’s Modulus [E] < 100 kPa) substrates stimulate an average 4-fold greater IL-2 production and ex vivo proliferation of human CD4+ and CD8+ T cells compared with stiffer substrates (E > 2 MPa). Mixed peripheral blood T cells cultured on the stiffer substrates also demonstrate a trend (nonsignificant) toward a greater proportion of CD62Lneg, effector-differentiated CD4+ and CD8+ T cells. Naive CD4+ T cells expanded on softer substrates yield an average 3-fold greater proportion of IFN-γ–producing Th1-like cells. These results reveal that the rigidity of the substrate used to immobilize T cell stimulatory ligands is an important and previously unrecognized parameter influencing T cell activation, proliferation, and Th differentiation. Substrate rigidity should therefore be a consideration in the development of T cell culture systems as well as when interpreting results of T cell activation based upon solid-phase immobilization of TCR/CD3 and CD28 ligands.
Resting-state brain activation correlates with short-time antidepressant treatment outcome in drug-naïve patients with major depressive disorder

Objective A resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging study (fMRI) to investigate pretreatment regional differences in brain function, in patients with early treatment responsive (ERD) and early treatment nonresponsive (END) major depressive disorder (MDD). Methods Patients with MDD and healthy control subjects underwent fMRI. Intrinsic neural activity at baseline was evaluated via amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (ALFF). Antidepressant treatment was initiated after MRI. All patients received selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor type antidepressants at the minimum effective dose. Results There were significant differences in brain activity between patients (n = 56) and control subjects (n = 33). Brain activity in patients with ERD (n = 26) differed from those with END (n = 30) in the lingual gyrus and cerebellum. There was a significantly correlation between activity in these regions and disease duration in patients with ERD, and with amelioration of depressive symptoms in patients with END. Conclusions Brain regions related to the neural mechanism of MDD early treatment outcome were identified. These regions may have important implications for the treatment of MDD.
Micron-scale light transport decomposition using interferometry

We present a computational imaging system, inspired by the optical coherence tomography (OCT) framework, that uses interferometry to produce decompositions of light transport in small scenes or volumes. The system decomposes transport according to various attributes of the paths that photons travel through the scene, including where on the source the paths originate, their pathlengths from source to camera through the scene, their wavelength, and their polarization. Since it uses interference, the system can achieve high pathlength resolutions, with the ability to distinguish paths whose lengths differ by as little as ten microns. We describe how to construct and optimize an optical assembly for this technique, and we build a prototype to measure and visualize three-dimensional shape, direct and indirect reflection components, and properties of scattering, refractive/dispersive, and birefringent materials.
Drag force on a sphere moving towards a corrugated wall

From the solution of the creeping-flow equations, the drag force on a sphere becomes infinite when the gap between the sphere and a smooth wall vanishes at constant velocity, so that if the sphere is displaced towards the wall with a constant applied force, contact theoretically may not occur. Physically, the drag is finite for various reasons, one being the particle and wall roughness. Then, for vanishing gap, even though some layers of fluid molecules may be left between the particle and wall roughness peaks, conventionally it may be said that contact occurs. In this paper, we consider the example of a smooth sphere moving towards a rough wall. The roughness considered here consists of parallel periodic wedges, the wavelength of which is small compared with the sphere radius. This problem is considered both experimentally and theoretically. The motion of a millimetre size bead settling towards a corrugated horizontal wall in a viscous oil is measured with laser interferometry giving an accuracy on the displacement of 0.1 $\mu$m. Several wedge-shaped walls were used, with various wavelengths and wedge angles. From the results, it is observed that the velocity of the sphere is, except for small gaps, similar to that towards a smooth plane that is shifted down from the top of corrugations. Indeed, earlier theories for a shear flow along a corrugated wall found such an equivalent smooth plane. These theories are revisited here. The creeping flow is calculated as a series in the slope of the roughness grooves. The cases of a flow along and across the grooves are considered separately. The shift is larger in the former case. Slightly flattened tops of the wedges used in experiments are also considered in the calculations. It is then demonstrated that the effective shift for the sphere motion is the average of the shifts for shear flows in the two perpendicular directions. A good agreement is found between theory and experiment.
Implementation and evaluation of an efficient parallel Delaunay triangulation algorithm

Abstract : This paper describes the derivation of an empirically efficient parallel two-dimensional Delaunay triangulation program from a theoretically efficient CREW PRAM algorithm. Compared to previous work, the resulting implementation is not limited to datasets with a uniform distribution of points, achieves significantly better speedups over good serial code, and is widely portable due to its use of MPI as a communication mechanism. Results are presented for a loosely-coupled cluster of workstations, two distributed-memory multicomputers, and a shared-memory multiprocessor. The Machiavelli toolkit used to transform the nested data parallelism inherent in the divide-and-conquer algorithm into achievable task and data parallelism is also described and compared to previous techniques.
An Online Tool for Estimating Evapotranspiration and Irrigation Requirements of Crops in South Carolina

In recent years, there has been an increased interest in South Carolina regarding the amount of water used by different consumers, especially agricultural producers. This interest has sparked conversations among different stakeholders, including the media, policy makers, producers, scientists, and the general public, regarding the current state and future of water resources in the state. Central to these discussions, from the agricultural sector perspective, is the question of how much water producers really need to grow crops. The objective of this study was, therefore, to develop an online tool to use local South Carolina historic weather data to estimate daily and seasonal crop evapotranspiration and irrigation requirements for different crops. The overall goal was for the new tool to assist farmers and other stakeholders to better plan irrigation water allocations and management. Therefore, an interactive online tool called ETcCalc was created to address this objective. ETcCalc, which is freely available online (http://sccropwater.com), was developed using historic weather data; therefore, it is suitable as an irrigation planning tool rather than a real-time irrigation scheduling tool.
The preferences of residents and tourists for culturaland architectural heritage in a rural landscape:The case of Zlatna Greda, Croatia

Abstract Rural areas of the Republic of Croatia are experiencing abandonment, which is especially intensive in the eastern part of the country. This paper aims to provide insights into places with specific spatial and functional characteristics, pustara settlements, within the rural landscape of the Baranja region, presenting their cultural and architectural heritage that needs comprehensive protection and conversion. The redevelopment potential, as well as the negative significance of abandonment of these sites, indicates the need for identifying the characteristics of these settlements: the tangible value of its built facilities and open spaces, its movable cultural heritage, as well as its intangible values. The main objectives were to determine desirable tangible and intangible pustara values by investigating place attachment among former pustara residents, and to provide information on domestic tourists’ preferences in visiting these settlements. The results indicate a common preference among former pustara residents and tourists for its architectural heritage: e.g. its settlement as a spatial unit and its parks. Additionally, tourists expressed preferences for recreational and entertainment facilities. Common interests, as well as highly expressed needs among former inhabitants and tourists, present the basis for establishing new functions and redevelopment plans.
Impact of temperature on the virulence of Streptococcus agalactiae in Indonesian aquaculture: A better vaccine design is required

Due to their poikilothermic nature, fish are very sensitive to changes in temperature. Due to climate change, the average global temperature has increased by 1.5°C in the last century, which may have caused an increase in farmed fish mortality recently. Predictions using the model estimate that a 1°C increase in temperature could cause 3%-4% and 4%-6% mortality due to infectious diseases in organisms living in warm and temperate waters, respectively. There is a need to determine whether there is a relationship between increasing environmental temperature and disease virulence. This review examines the influence and impact of increasing temperatures due to climate change on the physiology and pathogenicity of Streptococcus agalactiae, which causes streptococcosis in tilapia and causes significant economic losses. Changes in the pathogenicity of S. agalactiae, especially its virulence properties due to increasing temperature, require changes in the composition design of the fish vaccine formula to provide better protection through the production of protective antibodies. Keywords: adaptation, microbes, pathogen, temperature, virulence.
Development of an Electrohydrodynamic Micropump

An ion-drag pump consisting of microscale electrodes was built. The electrodes were fabricated as a series of planar comb fingers. The electrodes were paired as an emitter and a collector with a 10 mum width and 20 mum gap between them. The number of electrode pairs was 60 and the gap between the electrode pairs was 200 mum. The electrodes were fabricated on a glass plate by the deposition of Cr/Au (500 A/3000 A). The fluid used was HFE-7100 (3M), and all the experiments were conducted inside a class 1000 clean room with controlled moisture content (19.0%) and temperature (295.55 plusmn 0.5 K). The pump generated a maximum pressure of 250 Pa at an applied voltage of 700 V (at an electric field of 35 V/mum). The behavior of the static pressure and the corresponding current during transient state was also observed. The static pressure and the current showed a sharp peak at a high voltage.
Level set segmentation in graphics hardware

Implicit active contours are a very flexible technique in the segmentation of digital images. A novel type of hardware implementation is presented here to approach real time applications We propose to exploit the high performance of modern graphics cards for numerical computations. Vectors are regarded as images and linear algebraic operations on vectors are realized by the graphics operations of image blending. Thus, the performance benefits from the high memory bandwidth and the economy of command transfers, while the restricted precision does not infect the qualitative behavior of the level set propagation Here, we pick up a first order solver for the basic implicit level set model and present an implementation performing at 2 ms for an explicit timestep on a 128/sup 2/ image.
Model Driven Development with non-functional aspects

Model Driven Development (MDD) refers to the systematic use of models as primary engineering artifacts throughout a software development life cycle. In recently years, MDD has been increasingly employed to guide development with a focus on system modeling, code generation from models and white-box analysis of models. However, compositional system analysis regarding early Non-Functional Aspects/Properties (NFP) remains difficult. In this paper, we critically review the state-of-the-art of MDD in the context of non-functional aspects and shed some lights on the following two questions: 1) How to model Non-Functional Aspect/Property (NFP). The focus is to understand the different subtypes of a non-functional aspects and its compositional and emergent nature. 2) How models can be used for analyzing Non-functional Aspect/Property (NFP). This focuses on the analysis models in the form of reasoning frameworks (both qualitative and quantitative) behind each non-functional aspect.
Interaction Between Inducible Nitric Oxide Synthase and Poly(ADP-ribose) Polymerase in Focal Ischemic Brain Injury

Background and Purpose— Overactivation of the DNA repair enzyme poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) contributes to ischemic brain injury. Because PARP upregulates proinflammatory genes, we investigated whether inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), a gene involved in the deleterious effects of postischemic inflammation, participates in the mechanisms by which PARP activation contributes to cerebral ischemic injury. Methods— The middle cerebral artery (MCA) was occluded in mice for 20 minutes using an intravascular filament, and injury volume was measured 72 hours later in Nissl-stained brain sections. mRNA expression was assessed in the postischemic brain by the quantitative “real-time” polymerase chain reaction. Results— The PARP inhibitor PJ34 reduced infarct volume and attenuated postischemic iNOS mRNA upregulation by 72%. To determine whether iNOS contributes to the toxicity of PARP, the iNOS inhibitor aminoguanidine was co-administered with PARP inhibitors. Unexpectedly, co-administration of PARP and iNOS inhibitors, or treatment of iNOS-null mice with PARP inhibitors, abrogated the protective effect afforded by iNOS or PARP inhibition alone. The loss of neuroprotection was associated with upregulation of the inflammatory genes iNOS, intercellular adhesion molecule-1, and gp91phox. Conclusions— The results suggest that iNOS expression contributes to the deleterious effects exerted by PARP activation in cerebral ischemia. However, iNOS activity is required for the protective effect of PARP inhibition and, conversely, PARP activity must be present for iNOS inhibition to be effective. The findings unveil a previously unrecognized deleterious interaction between iNOS and PARP that is relevant to the development of combination therapies for ischemic stroke.