Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Improved global simulations of gross primary product based on a separate and explicit treatment of diffuse and direct sunlight

For computational expediency, regional and global land-surface models (LSMs), especially those coupled to climate simulations, adopt simple algorithms when calculating radiative transfer (RT) and canopy photosynthesis at the vegetated land surface. Nevertheless, the interaction of sunlight with vegetation is recognized as one of the most critical processes represented in LSMs. The present study calculates global, terrestrial Gross Primary Product (GPP) with a version of the land-surface model JULES which has been modified to take explicit account of sunfleck penetration and leaf orientation within the canopy. A comparison with equivalent simulations adopting the Big Leaf (BL) or two-stream (2ST) RT scheme, indicate that current regional/global LSMs may overestimate GPP by 10% globally and up to 25% regionally. Specifically, their use of average light profiles, and consequent neglect of the dispersion in leaf irradiance, at any given height in the canopy leads to both a general overestimation of canopy light-use efficiency (LUE) and a failure to capture the LUE-enhancement under diffuse sunlight (“diffuse fertilization effect”). We also examine the current limitations of regionally/globally implemented RT schemes with respect to canopy architecture. This is done by coupling JULES to the ray-tracing numerical model FLIGHT, the latter simulating light transfer and photosynthesis in both uniform one-dimensional (1-D) canopies and 3-D tree crowns. When the distribution of leaf nitrogen (N) is configured in a manner consistent with field measurements, output from the 3-D and 1-D FLIGHT simulations is fairly similar (predicted GPP differs by ≤5%). Similarly, both Leaf Angle Distribution (LAD), when restricted to its observed range, and leaf-clumping appear to have a minor influence over canopy productivity. We conclude that current LSMs can radically improve their calculation of regional/global GPP by adopting a multilayer approach. This will allow the separate treatment of sunlit and shaded foliage, at discrete heights within the canopy, as well as the accurate representation of active leaf-N
Beyond the Business Case: New Approaches to IT Investment

New research from MIT's Center for Information Systems Research and others reveals that successful companies are revolutionizing the way IT investments get decided. Investments are no longer justified merely on the basis of making a functional silo more profitable. Today the strategic needs of the whole company come first. In the last 15 years, write professors Jeanne Ross of MIT's Sloan School of Management and Cynthia Beath of the University of Texas, a tidal wave of IT-enabled initiatives has elevated the importance of investing strategically. The Internet alone has created numerous opportunities: to reengineer processes, introduce online products and services, approach new customer segments and redo business models. The opportunities seem limitless, but the resources required ? capital, IT expertise, management focus and capacity for change ? are not. How to choose? Traditionally, companies justified a given project by presenting a strong business case. But with IT's growing strategic importance, companies must now weigh individual ROIs against demands for organizationwide capabilities ? and must assess opportunities to leverage and improve existing systems and infrastructures, create new capabilities and test new business models. The authors recommend a new investment approach based on a framework they developed after studying the e-business initiatives and supporting IT investments of 30 enterprises. The framework encourages simultaneous investment in four kinds of IT initiative. Transformation investments are necessary if a company's core infrastructure limits its ability to develop applications critical to long-term success. Renewal investments maintain the infrastructure's functionality and cost-effectiveness. Process improvements allow business applications to leverage infrastructure by delivering short-term profitability. Experiments enable learning about opportunities and testing the capabilities of new technologies. The new tools are helping managers grapple with an increasingly complex world.
The Market Disciplining Effects of FDI: Does the Mode of Entry Matter?

We investigate both theoretically and empirically the competitive discipline effect exerted by FDI on plant-level price-cost margins. Using plant level data for manufacturing industries in the United Kingdom we find robust evidence supporting our theoretical predictions: greenfield FDI has a discipline effect on margins, whilst acquisition FDI increases price-cost margins.
The Upper Jurassic–Lower Cretaceous alluvial-fan deposits of the Kalaza Formation (Central Asia): tectonic pulse or increased aridity?

Abstract The topographical evolution of tectonic systems, as well as the sedimentation pattern and depositional environments in the associated basins, are controlled by both tectonics and climate. In the region of the Tien Shan (Central Asia), the Jurassic–Lower Cretaceous period was marked by complex, low-intensity tectonic deformation and major climate changes from humid to arid conditions (Jurassic) to semi-arid conditions (Cretaceous). Using the sediment record in the Junggar, Tarim and Fergana basins to describe the tectonic evolution of the Tien Shan area during the Mesozoic thus requires differentiation between the tectonic and climatic influences on sedimentation. The conglomerates of the Upper Jurassic–Lower Cretaceous Kalaza Formation were commonly associated with renewed tectonic activity resulting from the docking of the Lhasa block along the southern margin of Asia. From sedimentology and sequence stratigraphy analyses of several sections in the Junggar, Tarim and Fergana basins, we reassess the main factors controlling the deposition of this formation. We show that, while some tectonic activity persisted throughout the Jurassic–Cretaceous transition, the switch from the sandy deposits of the Upper Jurassic Qigu Formation to the coarse deposits of the Kalaza Formation is largely linked to the development of an arid climate.
Late Quaternary Glacial and Environmental History of the Burstall Pass Area, Kananaskis Country, Alberta, Canada

Abstract We used integrated multiproxy analysis of a lake sediment core and glacial geomorphology to reconstruct the late Pleistocene and Holocene climate and geomorphic evolution of the Burstall Pass area, Kananaskis Country, Alberta, Canada. Analysis of macrofossils, pollen, sedimentology, and sediment geochemistry from a lake sediment core and geomorphology and tephrochronology of glacial moraines provide evidence for multiple modes of climate during the last ca. 11,000 yr. An advance of the Robertson Glacier prior to ca. 9200 14C BP is correlated to the Crowfoot advance and was the largest of the postglacial period. Immediately following this event, increased lake productivity and the deposition of marl as well as increased arboreal/nonarboreal pollen (AP/NAP) ratios suggest that the climate warmed, possibly accompanied by increased aridity. Decreased turbidity and clastic sediment flux in Lower Burstall Lake during the early Holocene suggest reduced glacial runoff and may indicate the complete ablation of the Robertson Glacier shortly after 10,000 14C BP. Clastic sediment flux to Lower Burstall Lake remained minimal until after ca. 3500 14C BP, when decreasing LOI (loss-on-ignition) organic carbon levels in lake sediments signaled the return of glacial runoff to the lake system. The largest Neoglacial advance in the Burstall Pass area appears to have been the most recent and was followed by rapid recession during the 20th century.
Factors affecting spatial resolution

The theory of spatial resolution has been well‐established in various papers dealing with inversion and prestack migration. Nevertheless, there is a continuing flow of papers being published on spatial resolution, in particular in relation to spatial sampling. This paper continues the discussion, and deals with various factors affecting spatial resolution. The theoretical best‐possible resolution can be predicted using Beylkin’s formula. This formula gives answers on the effect on resolution of frequency, aperture, offset, and acquisition geometry. In this paper, these factors are investigated using a single diffractor in a constant‐velocity medium. Some simple resolution formulas are derived for 2-D zero‐offset data. These formulas are similar to formulas derived elsewhere in a more heuristic way, and which are in common use in the industry. The formulas are extended to 2-D common‐offset data. The width of the spatial wavelet resulting from migration of the diffraction event is compared with the resoluti.
Ammonoid stratigraphy and sedimentary evolution across the Permian–Triassic boundary in East Greenland

East Greenland is a classical area for the study of the Permian–Triassic transition and the succession is one of the most expanded in the world. New ammonoid data from the Wordie Creek Formation have allowed us to better reconstruct the history of the East Greenland basin from semi-isolated basins with an endemic fauna during latest Permian–earliest Triassic H. triviale–H. martini zones time to well-connected open marine shelf basins during the Early Triassic M. subdemissum, O. commune, W. decipiens and B. rosenkrantzi Zone times. The East Greenland zonation can be correlated with Boreal zonations in Arctic Canada, Svalbard and northeastern Asia. It allows precise relative dating and correlation of important events across the Permian–Triassic boundary. The new ammonoid data indicate that deposition was continuous across the Permian–Triassic boundary and developed as a marine mudstone–mudstone contact in basinal areas of Hold With Hope, northern and southern Jameson Land. Correlation of the ammonoid stratigraphy with the FAD of Hindeodus parvus, which defines the base of the Triassic in Global Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) in Meishan, China, suggests that the Hypophiceras triviale Zone is to be referred to the uppermost Permian, whereas the H. martini Zone is lowermost Triassic. Accordingly, the end-Permian marine and terrestrial extinctions and associated isotope changes as well as the subsequent adaptive radiations in East Greenland took place in latest Permian time. New Boreal faunas and floras were well established and diversified in the Hypophiceras triviale Zone prior to the beginning of the Triassic, and the Permian–Triassic boundary, in its present definition, is no longer reflecting major changes in the Earth system. It would have been fortunate if a GSSP were defined in a protracted section at a point of major environmental perturbations, marked by isotope excursions, chemical anomalies and mass extinction, rather than in the strongly condensed section like Meishan at a point which post-dates all significant events.
Investigating and Improving Common Loop Closure Failures in Visual SLAM

We analyse, for the ﬁrst time, the popular loop closing module of a well known and widely used open-source visual SLAM (ORB-SLAM) pipeline. Investigating failures in the loop closure module of visual SLAM is challenging since it consists of multiple building blocks. Our meticulous investigations have revealed few interesting ﬁndings. Contrary to reported results, ORB-SLAM frequently misses large fraction of loop closures on public (KITTI, TUM RGB-D) datasets. One common assumption is, in such scenarios, the visual place recognition (vPR) block of the loop closure module is unable to ﬁnd a suitable match due to extreme conditions (dynamic scene, viewpoint/scale changes). We report that native vPR of ORB-SLAM is not the sole reason for these failures. Although recent deep vPR alternatives achieve impressive matching performance, replacing native vPR with these deep alternatives will only partially improve loop closure performance of visual SLAM. Our ﬁndings suggest that the problem lies with the subsequent relative pose estimation module between the matching pair. Surprisingly, using off-the-shelf SIFT based relative pose estimation (non real-time) manages to close most of the loops missed by ORB-SLAM. This signiﬁcant performance gap between the two available methods suggests that ORB-SLAM’s pipeline can be further matured by focussing on the relative pose estimators, to improve loop closure performance, rather than investing more resources on improving vPR. We also evaluate deep alternatives for relative pose
GARRLiC and LIRIC: strengths and limitations for the characterization of dust and marine particles along with their mixtures

The Generalized Aerosol Retrieval from Radiometer and Lidar Combined data algorithm (GARRLiC) and the LIdar-Radiometer Inversion Code (LIRIC) provide the opportunity to study the aerosol vertical distribution by combining ground-based lidar and sun-photometric measurements. Here, we utilize the capabilities of both algorithms for the characterization of Saharan dust and marine particles, along with their mixtures, in the south-eastern Mediterranean during the CHARacterization of Aerosol mixtures of Dust and Marine origin Experiment (CHARADMExp). Three case studies are presented, focusing on dust-dominated, marine-dominated and dust–marine mixing conditions. GARRLiC and LIRIC achieve a satisfactory characterization for the dust-dominated case in terms of particle microphysical properties and concentration profiles. The marine-dominated and the mixture cases are more challenging for both algorithms, although GARRLiC manages to provide more detailed microphysical retrievals compared to AERONET, while LIRIC effectively discriminates dust and marine particles in its concentration profile retrievals. The results are also compared with modelled dust and marine concentration profiles and surface in situ measurements.
Regulatory T Cell-like Response to SARS-CoV-2 in Jamaican Fruit Bats Transduced with Human ACE2

Insectivorous Old World horseshoe bats ( Rhinolophus spp.) are the likely source of the ancestral SARS-CoV-2 prior to its spillover into humans and causing the COVID-19 pandemic. Natural coronavirus infections of bats appear to be principally confined to the intestines, suggesting fecal-oral transmission; however, little is known about the biology of SARS-related coronaviruses in bats. Previous experimental challenges of Egyptian fruit bats ( Rousettus aegyptiacus ) resulted in limited infection restricted to the respiratory tract, whereas insectivorous North American big brown bats ( Eptesicus fuscus ) showed no evidence of infection. In the present study, we challenged Jamaican fruit bats ( Artibeus jamaicensis ) with SARS-CoV-2 to determine their susceptibility. Infection was confined to the intestine for only a few days with prominent viral nucleocapsid antigen in epithelial cells, and mononuclear cells of the lamina propria and Peyer’s patches, but with no evidence of infection of other tissues; none of the bats showed visible signs of disease or seroconverted. Expression levels of ACE2 were low in the lungs, which may account for the lack of pulmonary infection. Bats were then intranasally inoculated with a replication-defective adenovirus encoding human ACE2 and 5 days later challenged with SARS-CoV-2. Viral antigen was prominent in lungs for up to 14 days, with loss of pulmonary cellularity during this time; however, the bats did not exhibit weight loss or visible signs of disease. From day 7, bats had low to moderate IgG antibody titers to spike protein by ELISA, and one bat on day 10 had low-titer neutralizing antibodies by a VSV pseudotyped virus assay. CD4 + helper T cells became activated upon ex vivo recall stimulation with SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid peptides and exhibited elevated mRNA expression of the regulatory T cell cytokines interleukin-10 and transforming growth factor- β , which may have limited inflammatory pathology. Collectively, these data show that Jamaican fruit bats are of low susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 but that expression of human ACE2 in their lungs leads to robust infection and an adaptive immune response with low-titer antibodies and a regulatory T cell-like response that may explain the lack of prominent inflammation in the lungs. This model will allow for insight of how SARS-CoV-2 infects bats and how bat innate and adaptive immune responses engage the virus without overt clinical disease.
Home victory for Brazil in the 2014 FIFA World Cup

After 36 years the FIFA World Cup returns to South America with the 2014 event being hosted in Brazil (after 1978 in Argentina). And as in all previous South American FIFA World Cups, a South American team is expected to take the victory: Using a bookmaker consensus rating - obtained by aggregating winning odds from 22 online bookmakers - the clear favorite is the host Brazil with a forecasted winning probability of 22.5%, followed by three serious contenders. Neighbor country Argentina is the expected runner-up with a winning probability of 15.8% before Germany with 13.4% and Spain with 11.8%. All other competitors have much lower winning probabilities with the "best of the rest" being the "insider tip" Belgium with a predicted 4.8%. Furthermore, by complementing the bookmaker consensus results with simulations of the whole tournament, predicted pairwise probabilities for each possible game at the FIFA World Cup are obtained along with "survival" probabilities for each team proceeding to the different stages of the tournament. For example, it can be inferred that the most likely final is a match between neighbors Brazil and Argentina (6.5%) with the odds somewhat in favor of Brazil of winning such a final (with a winning probability of 57.8%). However, this outcome is by no means certain and many other courses of the tournament are not unlikely as will be presented here. All forecasts are the result of an aggregation of quoted winning odds for each team in the 2014 FIFA World Cup: These are first adjusted for profit margins ("overrounds"), averaged on the log-odds scale, and then transformed back to winning probabilities. Moreover, team abilities (or strengths) are approximated by an "inverse" procedure of tournament simulations, yielding estimates of probabilities for all possible pairwise matches at all stages of the tournament. This technique correctly predicted the EURO 2008 final (Leitner, Zeileis, and Hornik 2008), with better results than other rating/forecast methods (Leitner, Zeileis, and Hornik 2010a), and correctly predicted Spain as the 2010 FIFA World Champion (Leitner, Zeileis, and Hornik 2010b) and EURO 2012 Champion (Leitner, Zeileis, and Hornik 2012).
Population Therapeutics & Clinical Pharmacology

Background: Sarcoidosis is a multifactorial disorder of unfamiliar origin characterized by noncaseating granulomas in different body parts . The purpose of this investigation was to study the association of neuropathy in patients with pulmonary sarcoidosis Methods: The study included 30 patients with pulmonary sarcoidosis on systemic steroid with hypoxia, 30 patients with pulmonary sarcoidosis on systemic steroid without hypoxia and 30 patients with pulmonary sarcoidosis and not on steroid without hypoxia. Clinical, neurophysiological, laboratory, radiological and histopathological assessment was done for them. Results: LANSS pain scale was significantly associated with the neuropathic on systemic steroids contributions group when compared to the neuropathic without steroids group. The TCNS's univariate linear regression analysis revealed statistically significant correlations between clinical, electrophysiological, and disability indicators. The mean serum levels of il-2R and ACE were greater in the sick group than in the control group (193.93 ± 56.4, 202.46 ± 351.78 for patient group and 29.1 ± 8.498884, 78.526667 ± 63.995829 in control group respectively). Conclusion: There was significant positive correlation in severity of neuropathy and degree of hypoxia and there were statistically significant difference between severity of neuropathy and dose of steroids in both the Initial dosage and 3-month evaluation of response.
Evaluation of the oxidative stability of blends of ‘Arbequina’ olive oils with other monovarietal olive oils

Like elsewhere in the Mediterranean, the olive oil sector is one of the strategic branches of the Moroccan economy owing to its social and economic significance. This research entailed evaluation of the oxidative stability of olive oils made up of a blend of ‘Arbequina’ olive oil with ‘Arbosana’ and ‘Koroneiki’ monovarietal oils known for their high content of natural antioxidants (phenols and tocopherols) and their superior oxidative stability compared with ‘Arbequina’ oil. The monovarietal oils produced from the ‘, ‘Arbosana’ and ‘Koroneiki’ varieties, which have recently been introduced under intensive cultivation in the eastern region of Morocco, underwent physico–chemical characterisation to determine quality criteria, natural antioxidant content, fatty acid composition and triacylglycerol profile. The Rancimat test* was performed to assess the oxidative stability of these mono varietal oils and their three-variety blends. The oxidation tests were performed on five freshly prepared blends (A) of the three varieties – ‘Arbequina’/’Arbosana’/‘Koroneiki’ – according to the following volume ratios: A 1 : 60/30/10; A 2 : 60/20/20; A 3 : 60:10:30; A 4 : 50:25:25 and A 5 : 40:30:30. The test results show that blends A 4 and A 5 displayed the best oxidative stability, recording respective values of 72.67 h and 75.42 h. These results are comparable to those obtained for ‘Arbosana’ monovarietal oil (75.42 h), which is considered to be relatively stable. Hence, blending is an excellent tool for enhancing oils produced from varieties which, despite their excellent initial quality and their organoleptic attributes, are handicapped by their poor stability, as is the case of ‘Arbequina’ oil.
Dimensions for Positioning Tourists’ Destinations: The Case of Tanzania

The main objective of the study was to explore the concept of dimensionality in positioning tourists’ destinations and determine a model using the perspective of attribute dimension. The study is based on positioning theory. Both Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (EFA and CFA) were used in analysing the data. Structural Equation Model (SEM) using AMOS (Analysis of Moment Structures) was applied to test the significance of the relationship between the various constructs in the study. Eleven hypotheses were generated from the Structural Equation Model and tested through a survey of 750 inbound tourists at Zanzibar Airport Authority. The findings for EFA and CFA yielded eleven and ten dimensions respectively, but SEM results revealed only four dimensions that were significant. The ten dimensions include wildlife adventures, other adventures, hospitality, scenery, safety and security, efficiency at entry and exit point, conservation and protection of wildlife, heritage endowments, beach attractions and pollution. Significant relationship was observed between experience based perceptions and four constructs, namely, wild life adventures, hospitality, scenery and conservation and protection of wildlife. The study demonstrates the relevance of positioning theory in marketing tourists’ destinations. It recommends a four dimensional model that can be applied for positioning tourist destinations not only in Tanzania but also in other countries with similar factor endowments, in particular the Sub Saharan African countries. The recommendation was based on the four dimensions where significant results were observed.