Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Safety Effects of Marked versus Unmarked Crosswalks at Uncontrolled Locations: Final Report and Recommended Guidelines

Pedestrians are legitimate users of the transportation system, and they should, therefore, be able to use this system safely. Pedestrian needs in crossing streets should be identified, and appropriate solutions should be selected to improve pedestrian safety and access. Deciding where to mark crosswalks is only one consideration in meeting that objective. The purpose of this study was to determine whether marked crosswalks at uncontrolled locations are safer than unmarked crosswalks under various traffic and roadway conditions. Another objective was to provide recommendations on how to provide safer crossings for pedestrians. This study involved an analysis of 5 years of pedestrian crashes at 1,000 marked crosswalks and 1,000 unmarked comparison sites. All sites in this study had no traffic signal or stop sign on the approaches. Detailed data were collected on traffic volume, pedestrian exposure, number of lanes, median type, speed limit, and other site variables. Poisson and negative binomial regressive models were used. The study results revealed that on two-lane roads, the presence of a marked crosswalk alone at an uncontrolled location was associated with no difference in pedestrian crash rate, compared to an unmarked crosswalk. Further, on multilane roads with traffic volumes above about 12,000 vehicles per day, having a marked crosswalk alone (without other substantial improvements) was associated with a higher pedestrian crash rate (after controlling for other site factors) compared to an unmarked crosswalk. Raised medians provided significantly lower pedestrian crash rates on multilane roads, compared to roads with no raised median. Older pedestrians had crash rates that were high relative to their crossing exposure. More substantial improvements were recommended to provide for safer pedestrian crossings on certain roads, such as adding traffic signals with pedestrian signals when warranted, providing raised medians, speed-reducing measures, and others.
Assessment of feed resource availability and livestock production constraints in selected Kebeles of Adami Tullu Jiddo Kombolcha District, Ethiopia

This study was conducted in Adami Tullu Jiddo Kombolcha district, Oromia Regional State to assess the major available feed resources in the area and to identify and rank feeding problems and possible improvement options for livestock feeding in the district. Multi-stage sampling techniques were used to select the study sites. Sixty respondents were selected from rural and peri-urban Kebeles. The total annual feed DM available was higher (P < 0.05) in rural (13.98 tons) than in the peri-urban (9.45 tons) kebeles. An average of 11.72 tons of feed dry matter (DM) was produced per household from the major available feed resources, in which 74.57% was obtained from crop residues. A total of 419.4 and 283.5 tones DM/year vs 423.6 and 394.3 tones DM/year was the requirements in rural and peri-urban areas, respectively. Hence, the study indicates that the available feed DM satisfies 99 and 71.9% of DM requirements of rural and peri-urban sites, respectively. The estimated annual DM requirements for maintenance were 13.63 tons with a deficit of 1.91 tons. Feed shortage, water scarcity, disease and low productivity of animals were assessed to be the major livestock production constraints.
Assessment of the Safety Climate at University Hospitals in the Slovak Republic from the Nurses’ Perspective

Abstract Introduction: Safety climate consists of individual dimensions that might be assessed using specific instruments, e.g., the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture (HSOPS). Establishing the safety climate in healthcare facilities leads to improvements in patient safety. Aim: To assess the safety climate at university hospitals in the Slovak Republic from the nurses’ perspective and to determine the relationship between organisational variables and the particular components of the safety climate. Methods: The study has a cross-sectional design. Data were collected using the HSOPS between December 2017 and July 2018. Two university hospitals participated in the study and overall 280 respondents were included. Respondents were recruited through the purposive sampling method. Data were analysed by descriptive and inductive statistics in the statistical programme SPSS 25.0. Results: Results indicate that in the university hospitals there is a low-level of safety climate. The significant relationship was proved between organisational variables such as the experience in the current position, leaving intention, overtime, perception of staff adequacy, unit type, nurse-patient ratio, and the particular components of the safety climate. Conclusion: Our findings may help hospital management to raise the awareness of the safety climate and to gain a sophisticated overview of the particular components of the safety climate. Adding new organisational variables may help to assess the safety climate from multiple perspectives and, thus, identify areas contributing to patient safety.
Intercomparison of homogenization techniques for precipitation data continued: Comparison of two recent Bayesian change point models

In this paper, two new Bayesian change point techniques are described and compared to eight other techniques presented in previous work to detect inhomogeneities in climatic series. An inhomogeneity can be defined as a change point (a time point in a series such that the observations have a different distribution before and after this time) in the data series induced from changes in measurement conditions at a given station. It is important to be able to detect and correct an inhomogeneity, as it can interfere with the real climate change signal. The first technique is a Bayesian method of multiple change point detection in a multiple linear regression. The second one allows the detection of a single change point in a multiple linear regression. These two techniques have never been used for homogenization purposes. The ability of the two techniques to discriminate homogeneous and inhomogeneous series was evaluated using simulated data series. Various sets of synthetic series (homogeneous, with a single shift, and with multiple shifts) representing the typical total annual precipitation observed in the southern and central parts of the province of Quebec, Canada, and nearby areas were generated for the purpose of this study. The two techniques gave small false detection rates on the homogeneous series. Furthermore, the two techniques proved to be efficient for the detection of a single shift in a series. For the series with multiple shifts, the Bayesian method of multiple change point detection performed better. An application to a real data set is also provided and validated with the available metadata.
Los cambios sociales en las Islas Baleares a lo largo del II milenio

Admise une chronologie recente pour la colonization des Iles Baleares, le Ileme millenaire constitue une etape decisive pour comprendre la sequence prehistorique de Mallorque et Minorque. Aujourd'hui, le Ileme millenaire peut etre divise en deux periodes: Epicampaniforme/dolmenique et Naviforme. En ce article on vise a exposer leur definition archeologique et a dessiner les directrices du developpement social et economique dans ce milieu insulaire.
Neolithic to Copper Age woodland impacts in northeast Hungary? Evidence from the pollen and sediment chemistry records

A 4.5 m sedimentary sequence collected from Sirok Nýrjes Tó in northeast Hungary reveals a record of environmental change from 10000 BP to the present day. Palaeoenvironmental analyses (pollen, charcoal, geochemistry and physical properties) of the sequence reveal an environment where parkland com posed of coniferous and broadleaved taxa existing at the start of the Holocene developed rapidly into deciduous broadleaved forest. From c. 8200 cal. BP, Corylus expanded rapidly and dominated the pollen assemblage until a series of fluctuations involving Corylus and Carpinus betulus which resulted in changes to the forest compo sition. These changes occurred over timescales of 72–288 years and are attributed to Neolithic and Copper Age forest use, perhaps under a woodland management regime such as coppicing or pollarding. Sedimentolog ical and geochemical records for this period are stable, suggesting that soil erosion was not occurring. Natural forest processes resumed following Copper Age settlement shifts but were subject to further, more extreme impacts during the Hungarian migrations and conquests of the 1st millennium ad. Landscape clearance is not evident until c. 2000 cal. BP, but was of insufficient intensity to initiate soil erosion.
The History and Characteristics of Malay Early Towns in Peninsular Malaysia

Malaysia has an interesting socio geographical and cultural history which includes historical sites and old towns that bear witness to the rich form and evolution of the urban tapestry. Old towns in Malaysia have a treasure trove of unique heritages in terms of history, architecture, identity, and culture including urban morphology. These old towns have stories of events and folklore which are visible via physical evidences that still stood the test of time. Old towns of the day still carry past memories that tell their own tales of the history they have seen. The research on The Morphological Mapping of Malay Early Towns in Peninsular Malaysia in 2012 have found that urban form characteristics in Malaysia dating from the 13 th to the 18 th century may be classified into four categories; namely the Melaka Sultanate settlements, the Malay Forts, Early Malay Towns built by the Malay Rulers; and Colonial Towns. Finding from this research can be concluded that each categories of urban form has the relationship between history, socio economic and geography, and the most notable findings is the differences of setting and layout of each town. Most of the old towns were still remains as a town centre or city state and it’s become a legacy for the country. For the purpose of this paper, old towns within the scope of this research include those that existed during the Malay Sultanate in the Malay Peninsula. This paper discusses the history, urban forms, thoughts and influences that existed in the early towns of Peninsular Malaysia.
OBSERVATION WELL NETWORK DESIGN FOR PUMPING TESTS IN UNCONFINED AQUIFERS 1

ABSTRACT: This paper presents a method for determining locations of observation wells to be used in conducting pumping tests in unconfined aquifers. Sensitivity coefficients, the distribution of relative errors, and the correlation coefficients between four aquifer parameters (horizontal and vertical hydraulic conductivities Kr and Kz, storage coefficient S, and specific yield Sy) are used as the criteria for the design of observation well networks and the interpretation of pumping tests. The contours of the relative errors over a vertical profile are very useful in selecting the “best” location of an observation well. Results from theoretical analyses suggest that a wide range of locations is suitable for the determination of Kr and that good locations for the determination of Kz and S may be poorly suited for the determination of Sy. Consideration must be given to the position and lengths of the pumping well screen in the selection of observation well locations. For a given location, the quality of test data can be improved by using high pumping rates and frequent sampling of drawdowns. We found that a minimum of two and preferably three observation locations are needed along a given transect. Results of the four parameters from a single well analysis may contain higher uncertainties. However, composite analyses of multiple observation wells can reduce the correlation between the four aquifer parameters, particularly between Kr and Sy, thus, improving the quality of parameter estimation. Results from two pumping tests conducted at sites located in Nebraska were examined with regard to the proposed methodology.
Skeletonization of aeromagnetic data

Skeletonization is a syntactic pattern-recognition method that is applied to gridded data to produce an automatic line drawing, with an associated event catalog. Previous implementations of skeletonization have been tailored for seismic data. Here, we modify that technique to render it more suitable for other types of gridded data, with particular emphasis on aeromagnetic maps. A modification from previous schemes is the use of a two-pass approach, to reduce the effects of an otherwise problematic directional bias that discriminates against events oriented parallel to columns of the grid. The method can be used effectively for filtering aeromagnetic data on the basis of strike direction, event linearity, event amplitude, and polarity. It is based on the delineation of peak-trough pairs (cycles), which are traced throughout the grid to form contiguous events. Cycles and events are characterized by attributes that include amplitude, polarity, and pulse width. Events are further characterized by length, average strike direction, and linearity. The event attributes are stored in a catalog, thus enabling one to perform attribute-based analysis and data filtering. We illustrate our algorithm using two regional aeromagnetic examples from different parts of the Canadian Shield. The first, from the Great Slave Lake shear zone, is dominated by linear anomaly trends produced by faults and mafic dikes. The second, from the Manicouagan region of northeastern Quebec, contains abundant subcircular and arcuate anomaly patterns caused by large intrusive complexes and a meteorite impact structure.
A basal stress parameterization for modeling landfast ice

Current large-scale sea ice models represent very crudely or are unable to simulate the formation, maintenance and decay of coastal landfast ice. We present a simple landfast ice parameterization representing the effect of grounded ice keels. This parameterization is based on bathymetry data and the mean ice thickness in a grid cell. It is easy to implement and can be used for two-thickness and multithickness category models. Two free parameters are used to determine the critical thickness required for large ice keels to reach the bottom and to calculate the basal stress associated with the weight of the ridge above hydrostatic balance. A sensitivity study was conducted and demonstrates that the parameter associated with the critical thickness has the largest influence on the simulated landfast ice area. A 6 year (2001–2007) simulation with a 20 km resolution sea ice model was performed. The simulated landfast ice areas for regions off the coast of Siberia and for the Beaufort Sea were calculated and compared with data from the National Ice Center. With optimal parameters, the basal stress parameterization leads to a slightly shorter landfast ice season but overall provides a realistic seasonal cycle of the landfast ice area in the East Siberian, Laptev and Beaufort Seas. However, in the Kara Sea, where ice arches between islands are key to the stability of the landfast ice, the parameterization consistently leads to an underestimation of the landfast area.
The Role of Air–Sea Coupling in Seasonal Prediction of Asia–Pacific Summer Monsoon Rainfall

AbstractThis study examines the role of the air–sea coupled process in the seasonal predictability of Asia–Pacific summer monsoon rainfall by comparing seasonal predictions from two carefully designed model experiments: tier 1 (fully coupled model) and tier 2 (AGCM with prescribed SSTs). In these experiments, an identical AGCM is used in both tier 1 and tier 2 predictions; the daily mean SSTs from tier 1 coupled predictions are prescribed as a boundary condition in tier 2 predictions. Both predictions start in April from 1982 to 2009, with four ensemble members for each case. The model used is the Climate Forecast System, version 2 (CFSv2), the current operational climate prediction model for seasonal-to-interannual prediction at the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP). Comparisons indicate that tier 2 predictions produce not only higher rainfall biases but also unrealistically high rainfall variations in the tropical western North Pacific (TWNP) and some coastal regions as well. While th.
Depth distribution of interrill overland flow and the formation of rills

A Gumbel distribution for maxima is proposed as a model for the depths of interrill overland flow. The model is tested against three sets of field measurements of interrill overland flow depths obtained on shrubland and grassland hillslopes at Walnut Gulch Experimental Watershed, southern Arizona. The model is found to be a satisfactory fit to 81 of the 90 measured distributions. The shape δ and location λ parameters of all fitted distributions are strongly correlated with discharge. However, whereas a common relationship exists between discharge and δ for all depth distributions, the relationships with λ vary systematically downslope. Using the Gumbel distribution as a model for the distribution of overland flow depths, a probabilistic model for the initiation of rills is developed, drawing upon the previous work of Nearing. As an illustration of this approach, we apply this model to the shrubland and grassland hillslopes at Walnut Gulch. It is concluded that the presence of rills on the shrubland, but not on the grassland, is due to the greater runoff coefficient for the shrubland and/or the greater propensity of the shrubland for soil disturbance compared with the grassland. Finally, a generalized conceptual model for rill initiation is proposed. This model takes account of the depth distribution of overland flow, the probability of flow shear stress in excess of local soil shear strength, the spatial variability in soil shear strength and the diffusive effect of soil detachment by raindrops. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Comparing Intensity Variation of the 2001 Nisqually Earthquake with Geology in Victoria, British Columbia

This article compares the variation in observed intensity of the 2001 M W 6.8 Nisqually, Washington, earthquake in Victoria, British Columbia (150 km from the epicenter), with amplification hazard predictions based on the average shear-wave velocity of geologic units. Modified Mercalli intensities were assigned from 750 felt reports collected by online Web submission augmented by door-to-door canvassing in regions of particular interest. An intensity map was created based on high-resolution (sub-city block) georeferencing with the Canadian postal code system. Site-specific comparisons of earthquake intensity and geology indicate significant differences in observed felt effects between high and low shear-wave velocity substrates (bedrock and glacial till versus soft clay and peat). Overall, the observed intensity map for weak levels of shaking supports the assignment of amplification hazard based on shear-wave velocities across greater Victoria.
Focal mechanisms of large earthquakes in the South Island of New Zealand: implications for the accommodation of Pacific‐Australia plate motion

b The plate motion model NUVEL-1 predicts oblique convergence between the Pacific and Australian plates in the South Island of New Zealand. We used P and SH body waveform analysis to constrain the focal mechanisms of the 15 largest earthquakes (Ms > 5.8) that have occurred in this region since 1964, in order to see how the plate motion is accommodated. At the southern end of the Alpine Fault, convergence is achieved by oblique slip movement along a concentrated zone of deformation. In the southern offshore region one event may be related to thrusting of the Australian plate beneath the Pacific plate, and another strike-slip event probably demonstrates movement on an active strike-slip fault system parallel to, but offset from, the southern limit of the Alpine Fault. This geometry provides a possible mechanism for the rapid uplift of the Fiordland region. Deformation in the northern South Island is more distributed. In the south-west Marlborough region partitioning occurs between strike-slip faulting in the SE and reverse faulting farther NW in the Buller region. We suggest that the partitioning developed as a consequence of an increasing component of shortening that was accommodated by slip on reactivated pre-existing normal faults in the Buller region. Shortening in the Buller region may have deflected the NE end of the Alpine Fault towards the NW, forming the prominent bend. The Marlborough Fault System, with its youngest and most active faults to the SE, probably developed in an attempt to maintain a through-going strike-slip structure as each of the strike-slip faults was transported towards the north-west. Partitioning of the opposite polarity (with reverse faulting SE of the strike-slip faulting) occurs in north-east Marlborough. The boundary between the two different styles of partitioning in NE and SW Marlborough appears to coincide with a change in the nature of the downgoing slab and a change in strike of faults of the Marlborough Fault System. A normal faulting earthquake on the northern edge of the Chatham rise probably results from a complex interaction of the buoyant continental crust in that region with the subduction zone and the overlying Marlborough Fault System.
The effect of local ventilation on airborne viral transmission in indoor spaces

We incorporate local ventilation effects into a spatially dependent generalisation of the Wells--Riley model of airborne viral transmission. Aerosol production and removal through ventilation (global and local), biological deactivation, and gravitational settling as well as transport around a recirculating air-conditioning flow and turbulent mixing are modelled using an advection--diffusion--reaction equation. The local ventilation effects are compared with the equivalent global ventilation and we find that the streamlines of the airflow provide insight into when the global ventilation model is a good approximation. When the agreement between ventilation models is poor, we find that the global ventilation model generally overestimates the infection risk.
Transformer-VQ: Linear-Time Transformers via Vector Quantization

We introduce Transformer-VQ, a decoder-only transformer computing softmax-based dense self-attention in linear time. Transformer-VQ's efficient attention is enabled by vector-quantized keys and a novel caching mechanism. In our large-scale experiments, Transformer-VQ is shown highly competitive in quality, obtaining 0.99 bpb on Enwik8, 26.6 ppl on PG-19, and 3.16 bpb on ImageNet64. In addition, the optimized implementation of Transformer-VQ is over 3x faster than a comparable quadratic-time transformer at sequence length 8k, is over 12x faster at 32k, and can scale to 131k with similar throughput. Code available: \url{https://github.com/transformer-vq/transformer_vq}