Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Isotope constraints on water, carbon, and heat fluxes from the northern Great Plains region of North America

Water vapor flux facilitates the transfer of large amounts of mass and energy from terrestrial ecosystems to the atmosphere, yet the proportions of this flux ascribed to evaporation and plant transpiration are poorly constrained. Here we used a water‐isotope mass balance approach to partition evaporation and transpiration water vapor fluxes in the northern Great Plains region of western Canada. Utilizing the proportion of gross watershed area that contributes to annual river flow, we estimated that of the mean annual precipitation (∼490 mm), ∼7% was transferred to the atmosphere via direct evaporation from water bodies and soils, whereas ∼50% was returned to the atmosphere by plant transpiration. Further, through the explicit coupling of transpiration and photosynthesis, we estimated that plant transpiration in the watersheds corresponded to an annual photosynthetic carbon flux of ∼48.9 × 1012 g C or ∼325 g C m−2. Although uncertainty related to this estimate of photosynthetic carbon uptake was substantial owing to the paucity of regional estimates of plant water‐use efficiency, it was similar to the flux of carbon released through soil respiration and other independent estimates of primary productivity. The water‐isotope mass balance approach in partitioning evaporation and transpiration fluxes at a regional scale was promising, although results revealed that the flux estimates would be greatly improved by longer‐term data on the isotope composition of river water, precipitation, and atmospheric moisture, as well as through detailed regional‐scale measurements of plant water‐use efficiency under various environmental and climatic conditions.
A History of the Upper Guinea Coast, 1545-1800

This thesis is concerned with the relatively small section of the West African coast between the Gambia and Cape Mount, It seeks to reconstruct a picture of that society in the mid-sixteenth century, while it was still free of profound European influence. Such a picture provides the indispensable basis for analysing the impact of external forces on the narrow coastal strip, being used to embrace not only the Europeans but also influences from the hinterland and adjacent coastal areas. In 1545 Sierra Leone (the southern portion of the Upper Guinea Coast) was subjected to invasions from Africans who were called 'Manes’. This is the starting point of the study of the external forces (Ch.Il), and the purely African influences are treated once more in Ch. IX. However, it is the presence of the Portuguese (Ch.IIl) and other European traders, which is the external factor most in evidence; and the European association with the Upper Guinea Coast was based largely on the development of the Atlantic slave trade. This latter topic is treated in Chs. IV and X, while Ch. VI; deals with African products other than slaves. European rivalries as such constitute a very minor theme (as treated in Ch. V), for the aim has been to portray European activity in this region only in relationship to the African rulers, African peoples and African polities. Owing to the great differences in European and African culture, and owing to the potency and viciousness of the Atlantic slave trade, the Afro European relationship incorporated violent contradictions, which resolved themselves to the detriment of the society of the Upper Guinea Coast, By 1800, the littoral society was overwhelmed both from the landward and the seaward side by forces set in motion by the Atlantic slave trade.
Evaluating Integrated Arrival/Departure Control Services Using Fast-Time Simulation

This document describes the objective, method, analysis, and results of a fast-time simulation study to evaluate the capacity and efficiency impacts associated with the Integrated Arrival/Departure Control Services (IADCS) concept. This modeling activity examined the use of flexible routing structures within the Atlanta area Air Traffic Control (ATC) facilities including the Atlanta Air Route Traffic Control Center (ZTL) and A80, the Atlanta Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON). The work quantified the benefits associated with the tools offered by the IADCS concept for rerouting aircraft during periods of convective weather. To measure the benefits of the IADCS flexible routing toolset, baseline scenarios representing current operations were compared against IADCS scenarios during convective weather events. Efficiency and capacity output metrics from these simulations were compared to determine the benefits of the IADCS toolset as applied to the focus areas of the Atlanta airspace.
Trustworthy AI for Next Generation Networks: the Fed-XAI innovative paradigm from the Hexa-X EU Flagship Project

This work presents the joint research activities on AI in and for 6G carried out by University of Pisa, Intel Corporation Italia s.p.a. and Telecom Italia s.p.a. , within the Hexa-X EU project. Specifically, we focus on Federated Learning of Explainable Artificial Intelligence (Fed-XAI), which has been recently awarded as key innovation by the EU Innovation Radar. We present the main recent achievements, that can be summarised in algorithms for generating federated XAI models in a privacypreserved environment, a communication framework for Federated-Learning-as-a-Service and orchestration algorithms of federated learning participants. Finally, we discuss a proof of concept, that showcases the aforementioned Fed-XAI components.
Adding Student Video Projects to Physics Courses

Physics students have traditionally prepared many kinds of reports—laboratory, activity, project, and even book or article reports. Smartphones and YouTube videos are familiar cultural objects to current students, and our students use smartphone cameras to include photographs of apparatus, phenomena, hand-sketched figures, graphs, and mathematical equations in their physics reports. Here we present basic techniques for physics students to use smartphones and tablets to create short (< 5 min) end-of-semester video projects. Our students mainly use Apple Computer’s iPad tablets, but also other tablets and various smartphones. Finally we discuss appropriate instructor expectations and grading. Similar non-physics student video reporting efforts were reported using video cameras by Kearney, and Hechter and Guy.
2021). Comparison of DNA methylation clocks in Black South African men. Epigenomics

Aims: DNA methylation (DNAm) clocks are widely used to estimate biological age, although limited data are available on non-European ethnicities. Here, we characterize the behavior of five DNAm clocks in 120 older Black South African men. Methods: We investigate the accuracy in age estimation by the Horvath, Hannum and skin and blood clocks and the relative age-related mortality risk and predicted time to death portrayed by the PhenoAge and GrimAge estimators, respectively. Results: We confirm the tendency of DNAm clocks to underestimate the biological age of older individuals. GrimAge more accurately characterized biological decline compared to the PhenoAge in this cohort, owing to the unique inclusion of smoking-related damage in the GrimAge estimate. Conclusion: Each clock provides a different fraction of information regarding the aging body. It is essential to continue studying under-represented population groups to ensure methylation-derived indicators are robust and useful in all populations.
Analysis on Mineral Element Contents in Associated with Varietal Type in Core Collection of Yunnan Rice

Eight-element contents of 653 unpolished rice samples harvested from Xingping experiment farm, Yunnan Province under the same ecological conditions were analyzed by ICP-AES method. The mineral elements content were closely related to low diversity, high-yielding, and multi-resistance breeding; The K, Mg, Ca and Mn content in high-yielding and resistant varieties were high, and other nutrients such as P, Fe, Zn and Cu were low, which was connected with the heredity and physiological mechanism of mineral nutrients. There is zonal distribution of mineral elements content from Yunnan rice, especially for P, Fe, Zn and Cu co-related with the diversity center, paddy versus upland, glutinous and non-glutinous, glume-hair versus nuda, rice color, rice flavor, soft rice versus non-soft rice, but it did not find any association with indica-japonica types. The results supported the ecological variety group view of 5-grade taxonomic system "species-subspecies-ecological groups-ecological variety groups-varietal types".
Competition and yield advantages in mixed intercropping of barley and wheat under stress levels of moisture deficit.

Mixed intercropping of barley and wheat has been reported as the practice of smallholder farmers in some dryland areas of Ethiopia. However, this cropping system has not yet received the attention of research. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine the level of competition and yield advantage in barley and wheat mixed intercropping under different stress levels of moisture deficit. One pot and one field experiments were conducted to address these objectives. In the pot experiment, three irrigation water levels (75-80, 50-55, and 25-30% depletion of soil available water), five intercropping ratios (%) of barley to wheat in a replacement series (100/0, 75/25, 50/50, 25/75, and 0/100), and four planting densities (4, 8, 12 and 16 plants/pot) were studied in a split-split plot design and had three sets so as to harvest at tillering, heading and maturity stages. In the field, the five intercropping ratios and the four water levels supplied by sprinkler irrigation system were studied in a split-plot design. Intraand inter-specific competition decreased with decreasing stress levels of moisture deficit; but increased with increasing planting densities in all harvesting stages in the pot experiment. However, both competition types were higher at tillering stage but progressively decreased in later harvesting stages. Intraspecific competition was more important for barley at early stages and for wheat at later stages of the growing period. Both pot and field experiments proved that barley was less competitive than wheat towards the reproductive stage. Yield advantage of mixed intercropping of barley and wheat increased with increasing stress levels of moisture deficit under study. Yield advantage and productivity tended to be dominated by the higher yielding crop species in the mixture. This result suggests mixed intercropping of barley and wheat is not a priority in areas where moisture is not limiting in amount and distribution. It is advisable to use 50%barley + 50%wheat ratio since it is difficult to predict which crop performs better than the other in such unpredictable rainfall conditions of the drylands.
Africa's odious debts : how foreign loans and capital flight bled a continent

* Introduction * 1. Tales from the Shadows of International Finance * 2. Measuring African Capital Flight * 3. The Revolving Door * 4. The Human Costs * 5. The Way Forward * Appendix 1: Tables * Appendix 2: Summary Outcome and Policy Recommendations from the Senior Policy Seminar on Capital Flight in Sub-Saharan Africa, held in Pretoria, South Africa, November 2007. * Notes * References
The asymmetric eddy–background flow interaction in the North Pacific storm track

Using a recently developed methodology, namely the multiscale window transform (MWT) and the MWT‐based theory of canonical transfer and localized multiscale energetics analysis, we investigate in an eddy‐following way the nonlinear eddy–background flow interaction in the North Pacific storm track, based on the ERA‐40 reanalysis data from the European Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts. It is found that more than 50% of the storms occur on the northern flank of the jet stream, about 40% are around the jet centre, and very few (less than 5%) happen on the southern flank. For storms near or to the north of the jet centre, their interaction with the background flow is asymmetric in latitude. In higher latitudes, strong downscale canonical available potential energy transfer happens, especially in the mid‐troposphere, which reduces the background baroclinicity and decelerates the jet; in lower latitudes, upscale canonical kinetic energy transfer intensifies at the jet centre, accelerating the jet and enhancing the middle‐level baroclinicity. The resultant effect is that the jet strengthens but narrows, leading to an anomalous dipolar pattern in the fields of background wind and baroclinicity. For the storms on the southern side of the jet, the baroclinic canonical transfer is rather weak. On average, the local interaction begins about 3 days before a storm arrives at the site of observation, achieves its maximum as the storm arrives, and then weakens.
Aerobiological monitoring of Taxaceae/Cupressaceae pollen in Timisoara.

This study analyzes the pollen representation of Taxaceae/Cupressaceae in the atmosphere of Timisoara during the years 2000-2004. Annual variations in the concentration of pollen in the atmosphere were analysed by the volumetric method. During the studied period, interannual variations, concerning the total annual pollen counts and the beginning, peak and ending dates of the APS, were reported. Taxaceae/Cupressaceae is one of the best represented taxa in the atmosphere of the city of Timisoara where it constitutes between 2.6% and 4.9% of the total. The highest annual level was attained in 2004 with 854 PG/m. In the 5 years studied, the lowest concentration of Taxaceae/Cupressaceae pollen was observed in 2000. The highest monthly total concentrations were recorded in March and April. The mean annual concentration for 5 years of study was 623,8 PG. Pollen seasons were defined as the periods in which 90% of the total catch occurred. In the course of five years, significantly greater differences in annual totals of pollen grains of the studied taxa were observed in Timisoara. Taxaceae/Cupressaceae airpollen are not nearly as potentially relevant in pollinosis for the western
Comprehensive measurement and modeling in foliage environments using UHF UWB ground-based radar

Abstract The precise knowledge of the statistical properties of clutter plays a key role in radar target detection in foliage environments. Owing to a wealth of multiple scattering, the selection of an appropriate model for diverse foliage environments remains a conundrum. Thus the statistical modeling of the foliage clutter in different environments is focused on in this paper. In particular, the primary contribution is to characterize and parameterize the amplitude of the foliage clutter in three typical foliage environments of different densities, including line-of-sight (LOS) forest environment, non line-of-sight (NLOS) forest-penetration environment, and NLOS bush-penetration environment. Based on the real clutter data acquired with an ultra-high frequency (UHF) ultra-wideband (UWB) ground-based radar, the experimental results show that the specific foliage type and configuration has a significant impact on the distribution of foliage clutter. Furthermore, by means of Kullback–Leibler distance (KLD), log-logistic, and distributions with estimated parameters are demonstrated to be the best choice to model the clutter in the LOS forest environment, NLOS forest-penetration environment and NLOS bush-penetration environment, respectively. The proposed models are great advantages on understanding and prediction of the clutter in foliage environments.
Electrical Properties of Selective-Area-Grown Superconductor-Semiconductor Hybrid Structures on Silicon

Selective-Area- We present a superconductor-semiconductor materials system that is both scalable and monolithically integrated on a silicon substrate. It uses selective-area growth of Al-InAs hybrid structures on a planar III-V buﬀer layer, grown directly on a high-resistivity silicon substrate. We characterize the electrical properties of this materials system at millikelvin temperatures and observe a high average ﬁeld-eﬀect mobility of μ ≈ 3200 cm 2 /Vs for the InAs channel and a hard induced superconducting gap. Josephson junctions exhibit a high interface transmission, T ≈ 0.75, a gate-voltage-tunable switching current with a product of critical current and normal state resistance, I C R N ≈ 83 μ V, and signatures of multiple Andreev reﬂections. These results pave the way for scalable and high-coherence gate-voltage-tunable transmon devices and other superconductor-semiconductor hybrids fabricated directly on silicon.
Paleolatitudes Determined From Paleomagnetic Data From Vertical Cores (Paper 3R1307)

Most of the paleomagnetic data available from oceanic plates consist of measurements of inclination but not declination from azimuthally unoriented vertical cores. Similarly, the basic paleomagnetic data to be analyzed from crustal blocks that have rotated by varying amounts about vertical axes are a set of paleoinclinations. A new method is proposed for determining the paleocolatitude of a sampling site and the associated confidence limits. Paleomagnetic inclinations are first converted to paleocolatitudes and averaged to produce a mean colatitude. After showing that this mean is biased, we derive a paleocolatitude correction to remove the bias, using a model for geomagnetic secular variation based on the latitude dependence of secular variation during the past 5 million years. After testing the validity of the model by applying it to paleomagnetic data from Quaternary lavas for which both inclination and declination are known, we apply the method to inclination-only paleomagnetic data from Suiko Seamount, the most complete data set from a drilling site. The method is then applied to paleomagnetic data from all Deep Sea Drilling Project sites for the Pacific plate to obtain for each site an unbiased mean paleocolatitude and its confidence limits. These paleocolatitudes and confidence limits are then used as input for a least squares analysis to obtain Early and Late Cretaceous poles for the Pacific plate and 95% confidence limits for these poles. It is shown that the scatter of individual site paleocolatitudes about the best fit pole is consistent with the confidence limits at each site as determined by the new method of analysis.
Trends in the activity of rheumatoid arthritis as the consequence of treat-to-target strategy: eight-year data from 2009 to 2016.

OBJECTIVES To investigate the trends in the activity of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) over the past 8 years and evaluate the value of treat-to target (T2T) strategy in daily practice. METHODS All the medical records of RA patients from 2009 to 2016 were retrospectively reviewed. Disease activity scores at obtained visits were measured by DAS28-CRP, DAS28-ESR, SDAI and CDAI. To display trends over years, both mean and time-adjusted methods were applied in calculation of annual disease activity and remission rate. Disease activity and remission rate were also compared before and after the year 2011 when application of T2T strategy was initiated in our centre. Furthermore, a sub-cohort study including T2T and non-T2T period groups was conducted with outcome of cumulative percentage of remission and time to achieve first remission during the first year follow-up. RESULTS In total, 1,001 patients with 6,944 clinical visits were included. Over an eight-year period, significant improvements were witnessed in disease activity and remission rate, measured by all four indices (p<0.0001). More patients achieved lower disease activity and higher remission rates after T2T adherence in 2011 compared to those in the years 2009 and 2010 (p<0.0001). Moreover, sub-cohort study revealed that more patients (49.3-73.2% vs. 19.1-34.5%, OR=2.4-3.0) achieved remission with a shorter median time compared with the non-T2T period group (p<0.0001), particularly in DAS28-CRP (21 vs. >52 weeks), DAS28-ESR (37 vs. >52 weeks). CONCLUSIONS Over the past 8 years, the RA activity has substantially decreased and T2T strategy was directly attributable to the favourable changes in clinical practice.
The classical Michelson-Morley experiments: A new solution to an old problem

The classical "ether-drift" experiments in gaseous media (Michelson-Morley, Miller, Illingworth, Joos, .) have always shown small, irregular residuals, usually interpreted as typical instrumental artifacts. A recent re-analysis indicates, instead, that these small effects could represent the first experimental indication for the Earth's motion within the Cosmic Background Radiation (CBR). This intriguing possibility, and the overall consistency with the modern experiments with vacuum optical resonators, require to perform a different check with a new generation of dedicated experiments. Without such definite clarification, the classical ether-drift experiments will remain as an enigma for physics and history of science.
Geology of the eastern Great Smoky Mountains, North Carolina and Tennessee

_________________________________________ _ Introduction ______________________________________ _ Location, acknowledgments, methods of study _____ _ Geography and access ____ ____ --__ __ -_-___ --Previous work in the area _______________________ _ Bedrock un~s--------------------------~----------Basement complex _____________________________ _ Carolina gneiss_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __________ Definition _____________________________ General description ____________________ _ Micaceous gneiss and mica schist_ _______ -Biotite gneiss _____________ -_____ --Two-mica gneiss and mica schist _____ _ Mica-feldspar-quartz gneiss ________ -Hornblendic rocks ____________________ -Hornblende-biotite gneiss ___________ _ Ca.lc-silicate granofels _____________ _ Amphibolite _________ ___ --__ -__ -Origin of the Carolina gneiss ___________ -Plutonic rocks ___________________ --_____ --Pigeon River area ______________________ _ Straight Fork window __________________ _ ~orthern part _____________________ _ Ra vensford body _________ ___ __ --Dellwood-Cherokee belt _______________ --Flaser and augen gneiss---------~---Granitoid gneiss _________________ . ,-_ Granite and pegmatite _________ , ___ _ Boundary ·relations _______________ -Migmatite __ __ __ ----------------Ela and Bryson areas ________ --_____ --Pre-Ocoee history of the basement complex __ -Ocoee series ________________________ · _________ --Snowbird group _________________________ --Definition _____________________________ _ Wading Branch formation ____________ --Definition _________________________ _ Type area _________ -___ --_-----Other areas _______________________ _ Thickness ___ ------. -------------Stratigraphic relations ______________ _ Longarm quartzite ____________________ -Definition _________________ -____ --Type area ________________ ---__ ---Other areas _______ ____ ---_-----Thickness ___ _____ --_-------------Stratigraphic relations _____________ -Roaring Fork sandstone. ______ -____ ---Definition ________________________ -Type area _____ __ -__ ------------Buckeye Lead-Chestnut Mountain belt_ Other areas ____ _ __ -----Thickness _________________________ _ Stratigraphic relations ______ . _______ -_ Page Bedrock units-Continued B1
Bad News, Declining Trust? Effects of Exposure to Economic News on Trust in the European Union

Evaluations of the economy are often assumed to be at the heart of citizens’ support for political systems. Despite being a vital source of information, we know little about how economic news coverage influences political support. The present study investigates how exposure to economic news coverage impacts trust in the European Union (EU), using a combination of automated content analysis data and nine-wave panel survey data between 2007 and 2016. We find that respondents exposed to more EU economic news lose confidence in the economy and trust in the EU. Yet, while exposure to negative EU economic news negatively affects economic confidence, it has a positive effect on trust in the EU. The opposite is the case for positive coverage.