Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Geometric Rules of Section Balancing for Salt Structures

Restored sections provide not only a measure of the viability of structural interpretations but also have the ability to recreate the geometry of the structures through geologic time. Geologists have known for a long time that section balancing is more difficult in salt structures because of the ability of the salt to flow in and out of the plane of section and also to dissolve and thereby violate constant volume considerations. However, the surrounding sediments generally deform by brittle-plastic processes and are less able to flow out of the plane of a properly chosen section. The pragmatic approach is to restore sections by assuming constant-area conditions for the sediment structures alone and to leave the salt area as gaps that may change in area through time. Most restorations of salt structures suggest that throughout long periods of geologic time, salt remains at or close to the depositional surface and that volume reductions of up to 50% are possible in nature. Salt structures usually involve regional displacements of the salt and its surrounding sediments so that extension in one place has to be balanced by basement extension or cover contraction in another. A key aid to the recognition of contraction and extension is the regional elevation of reference horizons. Generally, salt withdrawal and extensional faulting drop reference beds below regional elevation, whereas salt pillowing , salt sheet formation, and contraction will raise beds above regional elevation. In the Gulf of Mexico, the updip extensional growth faulting and salt withdrawal are balanced by the formation of downdip allochthonous salt sheets and fold and thrust belts, so that the total linear strain across the sediment cover is zero. The extension and contraction are linked by a series of salt and fault welds that lie at several structural levels.
Photoaligning Polymeric Command Surfaces: Bind, or Mix?

We compare photoaligning properties of polymer layers fabricated from the same constituents: polymethyl-methacrylate (PMMA) and azo-dye Disperse Red 1 (DR1), either chemically attached to the PMMA main-chain, or physically mixed with it. Photoaligning properties depend on the preparation method drastically. Photoalignment was found to be far more efficient when PMMA is functionalized with DR1 compared to the case of physically mixing the constituents. This finding is supported by atomic force microscope (AFM) scans monitoring the light-induced changes at the polymer–air interface, and revealing a photoinduced mass transfer, especially in the case of functionalized PMMA.
Mid- to late-Holocene fluvial activity behind pre-Columbian social complexity in the southwestern Amazon basin

The scale, spatial variability and implications of pre-Columbian human-induced changes in the Amazon basin are controversial. While some scholars believe that large settlements and complex societies were limited to areas with favourable environmental conditions and human disturbance was localized, others propose that social complexity developed regardless of environmental constraints and opportunities and that human disturbance was widespread. In order to understand the extent to which environmental preconditions influenced the development of pre-Columbian societies, research is needed that integrates both environmental reconstructions and archaeological data. The present study explores past human–environment interactions in the Llanos de Moxos (LM) in the Bolivian Amazon. Combining extensive fieldwork and remote sensing image analysis, we reconstruct mid- to late-Holocene fluvial activity in the southeastern LM and the formation of a sedimentary lobe left by the Grande River. The lobe deposition created the conditions for the development of fertile, drained soils. We also show how pre-Columbian inhabitants adapted to the sedimentary lobe and managed to maximize the area of land suitable for agriculture by building a drainage/irrigation infrastructure. Our results provide an interpretative framework for the diversity of archaeological remains in the LM and suggest that people reached high levels of social complexity as a result of two necessary factors: favourable environmental conditions and human ingenuity.
Investigation of euthanasia techniques in four species of cockroaches

While cockroaches are commonly exhibited in zoos and museums, studied in research laboratories, and even kept as pets, scientifically based guidelines for their euthanasia are lacking. This study assessed euthanasia techniques in four species of cockroaches (Dubia (Blaptica dubia), red runner (Shelfordella lateralis), Madagascar hissing (Gromphadorhina portentosa), and giant cave (Blaberus giganteus)). In an initial pilot study, two hundred fifty adult Dubia cockroaches were exposed in groups of ten to a cotton ball soaked with 2 mL of isoflurane in a 1 L air-tight chamber. Thirty minutes beyond loss of any individual movement, groups were exposed to one of the following secondary treatments: freezing at −18 °C or −80 °C from 0.25 to 24 hours; immersion in 10% neutral buffered formalin, 70% isopropyl alcohol, or reverse osmosis water for 0.25 or 0.5 hours; or intracoelomic injection of potassium chloride (456 mEq/kg) or pentobarbital-based euthanasia solution (3.9 g/kg). A control group remained in the air-tight isoflurane chamber for 24 hours. Following all treatments, cockroaches were monitored for an additional 24 hours for spontaneous movement. Irreversible loss of movement was considered synonymous with irreversible loss of consciousness (death). Across all species, isoflurane anesthesia followed by either 70% isopropyl alcohol immersion for 0.25 or 0.5 hours or isoflurane exposure for 24 hours resulted in euthanasia in 100% of cockroaches. This study is the first evaluation of American Veterinary Medical Association-recommended euthanasia protocols in cockroaches.
Black Hole Entropy and Planckian Discreteness

A brief overview of the discovery that macroscopic black holes are thermodynamical systems is presented. They satisfy the laws of thermodynamics and are associated with a temperature and an entropy equal to one quarter of their horizon area in Planck units. They emit black body radiation and slowly evaporate as a consequence of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. The problem of understanding the microscopic source of their large entropy, as well as the nature of their final fate after evaporation, are discussed from the perspective of approaches to quantum gravity that predict discreteness at the Planck scale. We review encouraging first steps in computing black hole entropy and briefly discuss their implications for the black hole information puzzle.
Natural Bank / Bed Filtration: Water Supply Schemes in Uttaranchal, India

Natural purification of water from rivers and lakes through bank and bed filtration has been shown to be quite effective in the state of Uttaranchal (Longitude 77° 34' 27" to 81° 02' 22" E and Latitude 28° 53' 24" to 31° 27' 50" N), India. The subsurface water under the direct influence of surface water is being tapped by (i) tube-wells in Nainital, (ii) infiltration wells in Hardwar, and (iii) uttaranchal wells in adjoining hilly areas of Dehradun. This paper presents quality of surface and subsurface water at three sites. Cost effective water supply schemes have been developed on the basis of lake bank filtration, river bank filtration and river bed filtration. At Nainital, five tube-wells of different depths (22.6m – 33.35m) are in use to tap the subsurface water from the unconfined aquifer hydraulically connected to lake water. Lake water as such is not potable as it contains unacceptable levels of organic matter in terms of COD (~ 31 mg/L), coliform (~ 17 x 10 4 MPN/100 mL) and nutrients. On the other hand coliform bacteria, organics and nutrients have not been detected in any of the well water samples over the years. Sixteen infiltration wells located on the bank of the river Ganga and Ganga Canal at Hardwar get water from the unconfined aquifer hydraulically connected to the river and canal. Distance of the infiltration wells from the river/canal varies from 4 to 90m at different locations. Up to 3 log turbidity reduction and 4 log fecal coliform removal (MPN) is achieved through natural bank filtration. The hilly streams normally have permeable strata just below their bed, saturated with water and having continuous sub-surface flow by gravity. Uttaranchal Well is embedded below the stream bed to tap this continuous sub-surface flow which is in direct connectivity with the surface water above it. It is being used successfully for more than 300 rural water supply schemes in different districts of Uttaranchal. Water quality analysis of samples taken from these wells and source water for Dehradun district is carried out in monsoon, the worst season to assess effectiveness of bank/bed filtration. Fecal coliform count and turbidity of water collected from Uttaranchal Wells is 30 times less than that of stream water. River/stream water is highly turbid particularly during rainy season while well waters are quite clear. These improvised-innovation adapted are operative, almost maintenance free, economical, and sustainable.
Rethinking research on land degradation in developing countries

This paper critically reviews the three main approaches to land degradation and conservation - the classic, populist and neo-liberal. The implications of these paradigm shifts are examined in terms of research needs. Next, the paper discusses the role of science and technology, and the origins and substance of differences in the perception, evaluation and diagnosis of degradation. Focus is then shifted to analyzing how farmers and pastoralists make decisions about resource use and management, and a research approach is suggested for analyzing decision-making. Two case studies illustrate the approach.
Evidence for interannual and interdecadal climate variability in the South Atlantic

A singular value decomposition (SVD) analysis is used to determine the coupled modes of variability of monthly sea surface temperature (SST) and sea level pressure (SLP) data from the South Atlantic region, for the period 1953–1992. We find that the three leading SVD modes respectively account for 63%, 20% and 6% of the total square covariance. The first mode represents an approximately 15-year period oscillation in the strength of the subtropical anticyclone, accompanied by fluctuations of a north-south dipole structure in the SST. It appears to be linked to the global-scale interdecadal (15-year) joint mode in SST and SLP recently studied by Mann and Park. The second mode is characterized by east-west displacements of the anticyclone center, in association with strong 6 to 7-year period fluctuations of SST off the coast of Africa. The third mode is characterized by north-south displacements of the anticyclone and 4-year period fluctuations in the SST in a broad band across the central South Atlantic. This mode is strongly correlated with ENSO.
The influence of basement faults during extension and oblique inversion of the Makassar Straits rift system: Insights from analog models

Analog models were used to investigate the influence of cross-trending basement faults on inverted rift systems similar to those located in the Makassar Straits. Multilayer models composed of sand, silicone putties, and a silicone-plasticine mixture were constructed so that laterally offset rift basins would form on either side of a preexisting basement fault. Transfer zones comprising a series of en echelon normal faults that connect downward with the basement fault formed to link the laterally offset rift basins during the extension phase. Subsequent oblique inversion of the models resulted in a general progression starting with broad folding, followed by the development of small-scale inversion anticlines associated with reactivated rift faults, to thrust faulting, and finally, to the formation of cross-trending wrench faults. Rift fault reactivation and wrench fault development were prominent in the transfer zones because of the orientation of the constituent faults (oblique to the shortening direction) and their connection with the underlying basement fault. The addition of an intrasedimentary detachment layer, which represents a thick overpressured shale present in the vicinity of the economically important Mahakam delta, allowed gravitational collapse and extensional faulting to occur on structural highs. The cross-trending basement fault was again the locus for inversion structures, both above and below the detachment layer in the latter case, which may have influenced the distribution of petroleum in the region.
Coupling of near‐bottom pelagic and benthic processes at abyssal depths in the eastern North Pacific Ocean

A time-series site was established in the eastern North Pacific Ocean to study the coupling between near-bottom pelagic and benthic processes at abyssal depths in an area with well-documented seasonality in surface water productivity. Particulate total mass (PTM), particulate organic C (POC), particulate total N (PTN), and particulate calcium carbonate [P(CaCO,)] fluxes were measured from sediment trap collections at 600 and 50 m above bottom from February 1990 to October 199 1 (606 d). The sea floor at 4,100 m was concurrently monitored with a time-lapse camera over a 386-d period from July 1990 to July 199 1. During this study, in situ measurements of sediment community oxygen consumption (SCOC) were made and surface sediment samples collected seasonally with a free-vehicle grab respirometer. PTM, POC, PTN, and P(CaC0,) fluxes exhibited a strong seasonal signal, with episodic peaks from spring through fall and lows in winter. SCOC increased sharply between winter and summer, coinciding with spring peaks in particulate fluxes. Detrital aggregates appeared on the sea floor in pulses over a 6-month period from July to December 1990, coinciding with periods when particulate fluxes were elevated but delayed - 1.5 months after the initial peaks in particulate flux. Mobile epibenthic megafauna monitored with time-lapse photography consisted primarily of holothuroids and echinoids and were twice as active when detrital aggregates were observed on the sea floor as during the rest of the year. Our results show a temporal relationship between the flux of particulate matter entering the benthic boundary layer, the arrival and residence of detritus on the sea floor, and the activity of the sediment community and mobile epibenthic megafauna.
Optimal Status Updates for Minimizing Age of Correlated Information in IoT Networks with Energy Harvesting Sensors

Many real-time applications of the Internet of Things (IoT) need to deal with correlated information generated by multiple sensors. The design of efficient status update strategies that minimize the Age of Correlated Information (AoCI) is a key factor. In this paper, we consider an IoT network consisting of sensors equipped with the energy harvesting (EH) capability. We optimize the average AoCI at the data fusion center (DFC) by appropriately managing the energy harvested by sensors, whose true battery states are unobservable during the decision-making process. Particularly, we first formulate the dynamic status update procedure as a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP), where the environmental dynamics are unknown to the DFC. In order to address the challenges arising from the causality of energy usage, unknown environmental dynamics, unobservability of sensors'true battery states, and large-scale discrete action space, we devise a deep reinforcement learning (DRL)-based dynamic status update algorithm. The algorithm leverages the advantages of the soft actor-critic and long short-term memory techniques. Meanwhile, it incorporates our proposed action decomposition and mapping mechanism. Extensive simulations are conducted to validate the effectiveness of our proposed algorithm by comparing it with available DRL algorithms for POMDPs.
Aus der Universitätsklinik für Hals-, Nasen-und Ohrenkrankheiten, Kopf-und Halschirurgie, Inselspital Bern

Major congenital anomalies are known to play a role in the management and prognosis of airway obstruction. Most studies assess acquired forms of airway obstruction. Data on congenital or otherwise non-acquired forms of airway obstruction is sparse. In this retrospective, single-institution cohort study, we sought to evaluate and compare the patterns of airway obstruction in children with and without major congenital anomalies, and to assess the impact of management and outcome, irrespective of aetiology. Fifty-five patients were included, 23 with and 32 without underlying major congenital anomalies. Multilevel airway obstruction (usually affecting the nasopharynx, oropharynx, and the trachea) was more common in children with congenital anomalies (91% vs. 41%, p < .001). Consequently, these children required more frequent and earlier surgical management, especially tracheostomy and adenotonsillar surgery. Conclusions: Major congenital anomalies are associated with multilevel airway obstruction and poor functional prognosis. A simple clinical definition considering impact of major congenital anomalies on development and growth may help guide management plans following endoscopic evaluation of the entire airway and flanked by multidisciplinary discussions. What is Known:
Seasonal Recharge and Replenishment of Sulfate Associated with Biodegradation of a Hydrocarbon Plume

The downward flux of sulfate in a weathered clayey aquitard to a hydrocarbon plume in ground water was investigated at a gas well site in Alberta, Canada. The dissolved hydrocarbon plume includes monoaromatic BTEX compounds and extends less than 20 m downgradient from a natural gas condensate source in silt‐ and clay‐rich deposits. The vadose zone at the site has high concentrations of water soluble sulfate, which is apparently derived from pyrite oxidation. Seasonal infiltration of snowmelt water, most notably during the “wet” spring of 2003 and also in 2004, was focused in an excavation and recharged the water table. This recharge replenished the contaminated zone with sulfate that was flushed downward from the vadose zone. Recharge in 2003 resulted in episodic increases in sulfate concentrations in the ground water condensate plume of up to 1000 mg/L. After episodic increases in sulfate concentrations within the core of the contaminant plume associated with recharge, concentrations then decreased to less than 1 mg/L, accompanied by isotopic enrichment of the residual sulfate in 34S. The monitoring data provide strong field evidence that bacterial sulfate reduction is a dominant terminal electron‐accepting process in the natural attenuation of the hydrocarbon plume in the ground water. This result suggests that engineered infiltration and replenishment of sulfate to petroleum hydrocarbon plumes in ground water might enhance biodegradation of these plumes.
Sustainable development strategies.

The concept of sustainable development means the totality of the forms and methods of socio-economic development, whose foundation is primarily to ensure a balance between these socio-economic systems and the natural capital elements. The most common definition of sustainable development is certainly the one given by the World Commission on environment and development (WCED) through the report named “our common Future”, also known as the Brundtland Report: “sustainable development is the development that seeks to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. The following paper seeks to analyse the of various sustainable development strategies, both at European Union level and at the level of Romania.
A Survey on Knowledge Editing of Neural Networks

Deep neural networks are becoming increasingly pervasive in academia and industry, matching and surpassing human performance on a wide variety of fields and related tasks. However, just as humans, even the largest artificial neural networks make mistakes, and once-correct predictions can become invalid as the world progresses in time. Augmenting datasets with samples that account for mistakes or up-to-date information has become a common workaround in practical applications. However, the well-known phenomenon of catastrophic forgetting poses a challenge in achieving precise changes in the implicitly memorized knowledge of neural network parameters, often requiring a full model re-training to achieve desired behaviors. That is expensive, unreliable, and incompatible with the current trend of large self-supervised pre-training, making it necessary to find more efficient and effective methods for adapting neural network models to changing data. To address this need, knowledge editing is emerging as a novel area of research that aims to enable reliable, data-efficient, and fast changes to a pre-trained target model, without affecting model behaviors on previously learned tasks. In this survey, we provide a brief review of this recent artificial intelligence field of research. We first introduce the problem of editing neural networks, formalize it in a common framework and differentiate it from more notorious branches of research such as continuous learning. Next, we provide a review of the most relevant knowledge editing approaches and datasets proposed so far, grouping works under four different families: regularization techniques, meta-learning, direct model editing, and architectural strategies. Finally, we outline some intersections with other fields of research and potential directions for future works.
Counterfactual fairness for small subgroups (preprint)

While methods for measuring and correcting differential performance in risk prediction models have proliferated in recent years, most existing techniques can only be used to assess fairness across relatively large subgroups. The purpose of algorithmic fairness efforts is often to redress discrimination against groups that are both marginalized and small, so this sample size limitation often prevents existing techniques from accomplishing their main aim. We take a three-pronged approach to address the problem of quantifying fairness with small subgroups. First, we propose new estimands built on the "counterfactual fairness" framework that leverage information across groups. Second, we estimate these quantities using a larger volume of data than existing techniques. Finally, we propose a novel data borrowing approach to incorporate "external data" that lacks outcomes and predictions but contains covariate and group membership information. This less stringent requirement on the external data allows for more possibilities for external data sources. We demonstrate practical application of our estimators to a risk prediction model used by a major Midwestern health system during the COVID-19 pandemic.