Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
High‐resolution chronology of sediment below CCD based on Holocene paleomagnetic secular variations in the Tohoku‐oki earthquake rupture zone

Using high‐resolution paleomagnetic data, we examined the potential for obtaining precise ages from sediment core samples recovered from deep‐sea basins close to rupture zones of the 2011 and earlier earthquakes off Tohoku, Japan. Obtaining detailed stratigraphic ages from deep‐sea sediments below the calcium compensation depth (CCD) is difficult, but we found that the samples contain excellent paleomagnetic secular variation records to constrain age models. Variations in paleomagnetic directions obtained from the sediments reveal systematic changes in the cores. A stacked paleomagnetic profile closely matches the Lake Biwa data sets in southwest Japan for the past 7000 years, one can establish age models based on secular variations of the geomagnetic field on sediments recovered uniquely below the CCD. Comparison of paleomagnetic directions near a tephra and a paleomagnetic direction of contemporaneous pyroclastic flow deposits acquired by different magnetization processes shows precise depositional ages reflecting the magnetization delay of the marine sediment record.
THE WILLIAM DAVIDSON INSTITUTE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Bank Efficiency in Transitional Countries: Sensitivity to Stochastic Frontier Design

This article provides an empirical insight on the heterogeneity in the estimates of banking efficiency produced by the stochastic frontier approach. Using data from five countries of Central and Eastern Europe, we study the sensitivity of the efficiency score and the efficiency ranking to a change in the design of the frontier. We found that the average scores are significantly smaller when the transcendental logarithmic functional form is used in the profit efficiency measurement and when the scaling effect is neglected in the cost efficiency measurement. The implied bank ranking is robust to changes in the stochastic frontier definition for cost efficiency, but not for profit efficiency.
Ionospheric O+ Momentum Balance Through Charge Exchange With Thermospheric O Atoms

One of the most notorious uncertainties in ionosphere/thermosphere physics concerns the cross section for resonant charge exchange between neutral atomic and ionized oxygen, O and O+, the principle constituents between ∼200–500 km in the terrestrial atmosphere. O − O+ charge exchange plays a vital role in both momentum and energy exchange between the thermosphere and ionosphere, such that the value of the cross section, QO−O+ , strongly influences calculations of plasma drift speeds, diffusion coefficients, and electron density distributions. We present an analysis of the nighttime O+ momentum budget in the F region ionosphere, using an unprecedented 27‐year baseline of observations from Arecibo Observatory, as a means to assess the agreement between the data, recent theoretical calculations of QO−O+ , and NRLMSISE‐00 model predictions of O density, [O]. We find evidence for local time, seasonal, and solar cycle variation between the derived and modeled O − O+ collision frequency, with the best agreement observed near midnight at solar maximum. The data overall support our conclusion that recent theory regarding the magnitude of QO−O+ is likely accurate. Although biases in the momentum balance technique may account in part or in full for the local time and seasonal dependencies in observed O+ momentum imbalances, the most likely source of the observed solar cycle variation is MSIS model underestimation of [O]. These findings serve to establish the O+ momentum and energy balance techniques as a valuable means of remotely sensing thermospheric [O] in support of future model validation and development.
Status of the resident bottlenose dolphin population in the Sado estuary : past, present and future

The main aim of this work was to determine the past, present and future conservation status of the bottlenose dolphin population inhabiting the Sado estuary region, Portugal, using a long term (photo ID) data set. Resident animals, identified from their strong resighting pattern, were confined to the estuary region. There is little evidence of social interchange with other coastal bottlenose dolphins and the role of emigration and immigration is unclear. This is a very small population. Numbers of animals have decreased in the past but now seem to be increasing. A mark-recapture analysis of individual capture histories showed that time changes in age-specific survival explained the observed changes in number of animals. Survival was lower, particularly in young animals, in earlier years which have resulted in a long period of lack of recruitment to adulthood. In the most recent years survival has increased, especially for calves in their second and third years. Fecundity has also been higher. Protected areas and proposed marine SACs reflect the importance of the Sado estuary region; this is also an area of intense anthropogenic activities that threaten the dolphin population. Population r . viability analysis was conducted using the software VORTEX incorporating estimates of past or current vital rates. The likely future of the resident population is for it to decline, especially during the next few decades. A viable population was only predicted if maximum values of vital rates were used or if regular immigration occurred. A number of proposals for management action are discussed. This work constitutes an example in conservation biology where life history parameters were estimated, and used to predict future viability and thus to indicate management actions that could increase the chance of saving a very small marine mammal population.
Exploring the Multi-touch Interaction Design Space for 3D Virtual Objects to Support Procedural Training Tasks

Multi-touch interaction has the potential to be an important input method for realistic training in 3D environments. However, multi-touch interaction has not been explored much in 3D tasks, especially when trying to leverage realistic, real-world interaction paradigms. A systematic inquiry into what realistic gestures look like for 3D environments is required to understand how users translate real-world motions to multi-touch motions. Once those gestures are defined, it is important to see how we can leverage those gestures to enhance training tasks. In order to explore the interaction design space for 3D virtual objects, we began by conducting our first study exploring user-defined gestures. From this work we identified a taxonomy and design guidelines for 3D multi-touch gestures and how perspective view plays a role in the chosen gesture. We also identified a desire to use pressure on capacitive touch screens. Since the best way to implement pressure still required some investigation, our second study evaluated two different pressure estimation techniques in two different scenarios. Once we had a taxonomy of gestures we wanted to examine whether implementing these realistic multi-touch interactions in a training environment provided training benefits. Our third study compared multi-touch interaction to standard 2D mouse interaction and to actual physical training and found that multi-touch interaction performed better than 2D mouse and as well as physical training. This study showed us that multi-touch training using a realistic gesture set can perform as well as training on the actual apparatus. One limitation of the first training study was that the user had constrained perspective to allow for us to focus on isolating the gestures. Since users can change their perspective in a real life training scenario and therefore gain spatial knowledge of components, we wanted to see if allowing users to alter their perspective helped or hindered training. Our final study compared training with Uniii constrained multi-touch interaction, Constrained multi-touch interaction, or training on the actual physical apparatus. Results show that the Unconstrained multi-touch interaction and the Physical groups had significantly better performance scores than the Constrained multi-touch interaction group, with no significant difference between the Unconstrained multi-touch and Physical groups. Our results demonstrate that allowing users more freedom to manipulate objects as they would in the real world benefits training. In addition to the research already performed, we propose several avenues for future research into the interaction design space for 3D virtual objects that we believe will be of value to researchers and designers of 3D multi-touch training environments.
Entity-Based Query Interpretation

Web search queries can be rather ambiguous: Is paris hiltonmeant to find the latest news on the celebrity or to find a specific hotel in Paris? And in which of the worldwide more than 20 “Parises”? We propose to solve this ambiguity problem by deriving entity-based query interpretations: given some query, the task is to link suitable parts of the query to semantically compatible entities in a background knowledge base. Our suggested approach to identify the most reasonable interpretations of a query based on the contained entities focuses on effectiveness but also on efficiency since web search response times should not exceed some hundreds of milliseconds. In our approach, we propose to use query segmentation as a pre-processing step that finds promising segment-based “skeletons”. These skeletons are then enhanced to “interpretations” by linking the contained segments to entities from a knowledge base and then ranking the interpretations in a final step. An experimental comparison on a corpus of 2,800 queries shows our approach to have a better interpretation accuracy at a better run time than the previously most effective query entity linking methods.
Metallurgical Effects on Long-Term Creep-Rupture in a New Nickel-Based Alloy

36 Introduction . 36 Background – Cold-work and creep of nickel-based alloys . 37 Experimental Procedure . 38 Results . 39 Tube Bends . 39 Uniaxial Creep Data . 41 Microstructure . 43 Discussion . 47 Analysis of Tube Bend Data . 47 Microstructure and Evaluation of Data . 52 Conclusions . 57 Chapter 3 References . 59 4. Influences of Composition and Grain Size on Creep-Rupture Behavior of Inconel ® Alloy 740 . 61 Abstract . 62
Roles of Culture for Knowledge Sharing in Asian Virtual Teams: A Case Study

Knowledge sharing is a critical component for successful knowledge management. For multi-culture virtual teams, the difference of culture and the limitation of virtual organization make it especially harder for knowledge-sharing management. This chapter addresses the culture and structure for knowledge sharing in virtual teams. Then, the case of Asian virtual teams is studied to show evidence for the established model. Discussion focuses on managing conflict and maximizing contribution.
Remarks Regarding Queuing Model and Packet Loss Probability for the Traffic with Self-Similar Characteristics

Network management techniques have long been of interest to the networking research community. The queue size plays a critical role for the network performance. The adequate size of the queue maintains Quality of Service (QoS) requirements within limited network capacity for as many users as possible. The appropriate estimation of the queuing model parameters is crucial for both initial size estimation and during the process of resource allocation. The accurate resource allocation model for the management system increases the network utilization. The present paper demonstrates the results of empirical observation of memory allocation for packet-based services. Keywords—Queuing System, Packet Loss Probability, Measurement-Based Admission Control (MBAC), Performance evaluation, Quality of Service (QoS).
Regarding Queuing Model and Packet Loss Probability for the Traffic with Self-Similar Characteristics

Network management techniques have long been of interest to the networking research community. The queue size plays a critical role for the network performance. The adequate size of the queue maintains Quality of Service (QoS) requirements within limited network capacity for as many users as possible. The appropriate estimation of the queuing model parameters is crucial for both initial size estimation and during the process of resource allocation. The accurate resource allocation model for the management system increases the network utilization. The present paper demonstrates the results of empirical observation of memory allocation for packet-based services. Keywords—Queuing System, Packet Loss Probability, Measurement-Based Admission Control (MBAC), Performance evaluation, Quality of Service (QoS).
Deep Hydrography of the South China Sea and Deep Water Circulation in the Pacific Since the Last Glacial Maximum

The oxygen (δ18O) and carbon (δ13C) isotopic compositions of benthic foraminifer Cibicidoides wuellerstorfi as reliable proxies of deep water properties were compiled from 50 core‐top and down‐core sites in the South China Sea (SCS) for two time slices of the late Holocene and Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) to reconstruct the glacial deep hydrographic structure. The bathymetric profiles of both δ18O and δ13C in the SCS show similar trends between the LGM and the late Holocene, but the δ18O gradients between intermediate (∼500–1,000 m) and deep (>1,500 m) waters obviously increased during the LGM, indicating an intensified bathyal stratification and weakened vertical mixing between intermediate and deep waters in the SCS during the glacial period. A spatial comparison of bathymetric δ18O and δ13C profiles was also made for the Southern Ocean (Indo‐Pacific sector) and southwest Pacific, western equatorial Pacific (i.e., Ontong Java Plateau), off‐Japan margin as well as the SCS. The meridional δ13C profiles indicate a decreasing trend of δ13C (“aging effect”) in the deep layer (∼1,200–2,600 m) from south to north, reflecting a northward flow pathway of deep waters from the southwest Pacific (upstream) to the low‐latitude northwest Pacific and the SCS (downstream) during the LGM. The gradients of deep water δ18O (∼1,200–2,600 m) between these upstream and downstream regions were higher during the LGM relative to the Holocene, implying that a greater contribution of the northern‐sourced North Pacific Intermediate Water (NPIW) with a relatively low δ18O signature to the deep waters in the low‐latitude Pacific during the LGM.
Moral Judgment Differences in Education and Liberal Arts Majors: Cause for Concern?

Education majors’ moral judgment development reportedly lags behind other majors. This study questions the degree to which such differences exist. For this study, moral judgment development and other criteria were considered among 74 education and 50 liberal arts majors. Results revealed minimal mean differences and minimal differences in relationships. This study suggests that factors beyond major may be more relevant to college students’ moral development.
Hydraulic Properties of Closely Spaced Dipping Open Fractures Intersecting a Fluid‐Filled Borehole Derived From Tube Wave Generation and Scattering

Fluid‐filled fractures and fissures often determine the pathways and volume of fluid movement. They are critically important in crustal seismology and in the exploration of geothermal and hydrocarbon reservoirs. We introduce a model for tube wave scattering and generation at dipping, parallel‐wall fractures intersecting a fluid‐filled borehole. A new equation reveals the interaction of tube wavefield with multiple, closely spaced fractures, showing that the fracture dip significantly affects the tube waves. Numerical modeling demonstrates the possibility of imaging these fractures using a focusing analysis. The focused traces correspond well with the known fracture density, aperture, and dip angles. Testing the method on a VSP data set obtained at a fault‐damaged zone in the Median Tectonic Line, Japan, presents evidences of tube waves being generated and scattered at open fractures and thin cataclasite layers. This finding leads to a new possibility for imaging, characterizing, and monitoring in situ hydraulic properties of dipping fractures using the tube wavefield.
CHURN PREDICTION MODEL IN RETAIL BANKING USING FUZZY C-MEANS CLUSTERING

The paper presents model based on fuzzy methods for churn prediction in retail banking. The study was done on the real, anonymised data of 5000 clients of a retail bank. Real data are great strength of the study, as a lot of studies often use old, irrelevant or artificial data. Canonical discriminant analysis was applied to reveal variables that provide maximal separation between clusters of churners and non-churners. Combination of standard deviation, canonical discriminant analysis and k-means clustering results were used for outliers detection. Due to the fuzzy nature of practical customer relationship management problems it was expected, and shown, that fuzzy methods performed better than the classical ones. According to the results of the preliminary data exploration and fuzzy clustering with different values of the input parameters for fuzzy cmeans algorithm, the best parameter combination was chosen and applied to training data set. Four different prediction models, called prediction engines, have been developed. The definitions of clients in the fuzzy transitional conditions and the distance of k instances fuzzy sums were introduced. The prediction engine using these sums performed best in churn prediction, applied to both balanced and non-balanced test sets.
Eddy‐driven nutrient transport and associated upper‐ocean primary production along the Kuroshio

The Kuroshio is one of the most energetic western boundary currents accompanied by vigorous eddy activity both on meso- and submesoscale, which affects biogeochemical processes in the upper ocean. We examine the primary production around the Kuroshio off Japan using a climatological ocean modeling based on the Regional Oceanic Modeling System (ROMS) coupled with a nitrogen-based nutrient, phyto- and zooplankton, and detritus (NPZD) biogeochemical model in a submesoscale eddy-permitting configuration. The model indicates significant differences of the biogeochemical responses to eddy activities in the Kuroshio Region (KR) and Kuroshio Extension Region (KE). In the KR, persisting cyclonic eddies developed between the Kuroshio and coastline are responsible for upwelling-induced eutrophication. However, the eddy-induced vertical nutrient flux counteracts and promotes pronounced south- and downward diapycnal nutrient transport from the mixed layer down beneath the main body of the Kuroshio, which suppresses the near-surface productivity. In contrast, the KE has a 23.5% higher productivity than the KR, even at comparable eddy intensity. Upward nutrient transport prevails near the surface due to predominant cyclonic eddies, particularly to the north of the KE, where the downward transport barely occurs, except at depths deeper than 400 m and to a much smaller degree than in the KR. The eddy energy conversion analysis reveals that the combination of shear instability around the mainstream of the Kuroshio with prominent baroclinic instability near the Kuroshio front is essential for the generation of eddies in the KR, leading to the increase of the eddy-induced vertical nitrate transport around the Kuroshio.
Impact of human‐induced desertification on the intensification of Sahel dust emission and export over the last decades

Human‐induced soil degradation in Sahel is a major concern for regional climate change. A significant increase in long‐range atmospheric dust transport due to human activities would indeed modify the radiative budget and the water cycle over both Africa and the tropical Atlantic. Here we use two independent long‐term datasets, i.e., surface concentration measurements at Barbados between 1965 and 2000 and maps of TOMS dust optical thickness between 1979 and 2000, to evidence an increase of a factor of two of background dust loads over the Atlantic since the mid 60's, independently of any climatic phenomenon. Satellite imagery suggests that this trend can be attributed to an intensification of dust emissions in a Sahel region centered on southern Mali. The desertification caused by the doubling of the population in Sahel over the last 40 years likely explains the observed intensification of the Atlantic dust export.
Numerical implementation and modeling of earthquake induced landslides for slopes with soft and sensitive clay layers

Earthquake induced landslides pose a significant threat to many communities, environment and infrastructure. The potential damages could be severe in sensitive clay slope failures because the post-peak softening behaviour could cause retrogressive failure of soil blocks resulting in large-scale landslides. The failed soil blocks generally displace over a large distance during earthquake and post-quake stages. Therefore, upslope retrogression and downslope runout are two important phenomena need to be studied for better understanding of risks associated with landslides in sensitive clays. The traditional limit equilibrium methods, commonly used in slope stability analysis, cannot model retrogressive failure or deformation of slopes. The present study concentrates on development of large deformation finite element (FE) models using a Coupled Eulerian- Lagrangian (CEL) approach to simulate the failure of soft and sensitive clay slopes triggered by earthquakes. Analyses are performed for pseudostatic and dynamic loading conditions modeling the undrained behaviour of clay as elasto-plastic material with and without post-peak degradation of shear strength. A nonlinear post-peak strength degradation model as a function of accumulated plastic shear strain is implemented in FE analysis. In addition to CEL, FE analyses are performed using Lagrangian-based FE techniques to show the advantages of CEL to simulate large landslides. The CEL approach can successfully simulate the formation of shear bands (zone of accumulated shear strains), type of failure commonly observed after earthquake, upslope retrogression and downslope runout for varying geometry and soil properties.
Systematic adjustment of root dimensions to cusp size in aortic valve repair: a computer simulation

Abstract OBJECTIVES Aortic valve repair requires the creation of a normal geometry of cusps and aortic root. Of the different dimensions, geometric cusp height is the most difficult to change while annular and sinotubular dimensions can be easily modified. The objective of this study was to investigate, by computer simulation, ideal combinations of annular and sinotubular junction size for a given geometric height. METHODS Based on a literature review of anatomical data, a computational biomechanics model was generated for a tricuspid aortic valve. We aimed to determine the ideal relationships for the root dimensions, keeping geometric height constant and creating different combinations of the annular and sinotubular junction dimensions. Using this model, 125 virtual anatomies were created, with 25 different combinations of annulus and sinotubular junction. Effective height, coaptation height and mechanical cusp stress were calculated with the valves in closed configuration. RESULTS Generally, within the analysed range of geometric heights, changes to the annular diameter yielded a stronger impact than sinotubular junction diameter changes for optimal valve configuration. The best results were obtained with the sinotubular junction being 2–4 mm larger than the annulus, leading to higher effective height, normal coaptation height and lower stress. Within the range tested, stenosis did not occur due to annular reduction. CONCLUSIONS In tricuspid aortic valves, the geometric height can be used to predict ideal post-repair annular and sinotubular junction dimensions for optimal valve configuration. Such an ideal configuration is associated with reduced cusp stress.