Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Deformation of Fe-Ti oxides in gabbroic shear zones from the MARK area

The migration of late-stage magmatic fractions along shear zones at seafloor spreading centers will modify bulk composition, temperature, and fluid chemistry, as well as pressure during deformation. These changes will influence the rheological evolution of oceanic shear zones and the time-dependent strength of the ocean crust. Fe-Ti oxides, representing late-stage magmatic fractionates, are volumetrically abundant (>50% in some instances) in many of the core-scale shear zones recovered from Ocean Drilling Program Sites 921, 922, and 923. Yet, little is known about the role of these phases during shear-zone deformation, the mechanisms by which they deform, and the timing of melt migration relative to deformation. Using orientation contrast imaging and selected area diffraction (electron channeling), the petrofabrics and microstructures of Fe-Ti oxides in three texturally contrasting shear zones were determined. Magnetite preserves no strong crystallographic preferred orientation in any of the samples. Ilmenite exhibits a strong preferred orientation in one sample where the [0001] direction is oriented at a high angle to the shear plane. Deformation mechanism maps, grain-size variations, and paleotemperature estimates of 550°-650°C, indicate that the magnetite in two of the samples deformed predominantly by diffusion creep. Ilmenite deformed by dislocation creep in one sample and probably by diffusion creep in a second sample. Melt-assisted grain boundary sliding with post-kinematic grain growth could also account for the lack of crystallographic preferred orientation of recrystallized oxides. In a third sample, primary textures may persist in both magnetite and ilmenite. Through the interaction of magmatic fractionation and deformation, relatively weak phases were concentrated in shear zones during an overall down-temperature deformation path (>900°-550°C). Our results and other investigations of metamorphic ores suggest that Fe-Ti oxides behave as highly ductile phases even at low temperatures (200°-400°C). This property, combined with an ore-concentrating mechanism in shear zones, will promote aseismic creep at relatively shallow levels in the ocean crust (<2 km) and may partly account for the low levels of seismicity along spreading-segment faults.
A Rare Case of Clear Cell Sarcoma of the Tongue: A Case Report

Clear cell sarcoma (CCS), previously known as soft tissue melanoma due to similarities with melanoma, is a rare and aggressive neoplasm. This tumor predominantly occurs in the lower limbs and rarely affects the tongue, as well as other head and neck locations. To our knowledge, only five cases have been reported in the English literature. CCS presents many similar morphological and immunohistochemical features to those of melanomas, sarcomatoid cell carcinoma, angiomatoid histiocytoma, and Ewing sarcoma, which makes the diagnosis difficult, especially in cases of uncommon locations. The treatment is based on oncological surgery and adjuvant radiation therapy as these tumors show low sensitivity to chemotherapy. This study aimed to report a case of an 88-year-old male patient who presented a large, rapidly growing nodular lesion on the right border of the mobile tongue diagnosed with CCS of the tongue.
The role of climatic variability in controlling carbon and water budgets in a boreal Scots pine forest during ten growing seasons

This study reports eddy-covariance measurements of carbon and water fluxes in a boreal Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) forest during the 1999–2008 growing seasons. We found that gross primary productivity (GPP) was limited by low rainfall and low summer temperatures, whereas evapotranspiration (ETP) was limited by temperature and precipitation. GPP was less sensitive to increased ETP in the years with little rainfall than in the years with abundant rainfall. During low-rainfall years with long-lasting drought periods and few rainy days (2000 and 2003), GPP was reduced, whereas during the low-rainfall year (2006) with evenly distributed seasonal precipitation it remained at the same level as that during the abundant-rainfall years. Ecosystem water-use efficiency (WUE) was found to be sensitive to increased ETP and vapour-pressure deficits. However, there was no difference between abundantand low-rainfall years in the responses of WUE to climatic and edaphic variables, most likely due to the coupled feedback of the carbon and water cycles to drought. This study suggested that combined frequency (also seasonality) of precipitation and total amount of rainfall are needed to better evaluate the feedback of carbon and water budgets in boreal forests to drought, especially under expected climate change.
The Ionospheric Exploration Based on TJU#01 Meteorological Microsatellite Mission: Initial Results

The global navigation satellite system radio occultation technique is achieving increasing significance and extensive promotion in the remote sensing of near‐earth atmosphere, climate, and ionosphere in recent three decades. Nowadays, many communities become interested in developing commercial mode in occultation measurement by launching massive nano‐ or cube satellite constellations at low costs. The TJU#01 is the first meteorological satellite of Tianjin Yunyao Aerospace Technology Co., Ltd. which was successfully launched into space on 7 December 2021. The occultation antenna onboard the satellite is able to probe both the ionosphere and atmosphere at multi‐frequencies including GPS, GLONASS, and BEIDOU systems. The microsatellite applies the same occultation antenna to receive both the atmospheric and ionospheric occultations at 100 and 1 Hz respectively. 100 Hz narrow band power and wide band power data are downloaded to the ground to generate high‐rate signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) series and applied to ionospheric scintillation exploration. In this paper, the primary parameters of the satellite and occultation antenna are introduced, as well as the ionospheric data processing methodologies. The initial ionospheric products of TJU#01 are evaluated after one‐month in orbit. The TJU#01 results have a good agreement with the co‐located ground ionosonde data and COSMIC‐2 observations. The new satellite and its follow‐on missions have great capabilities and potentials in the ionospheric and space weather researches.
Federated Learning Under a Digital Communication Model

Federated learning (FL) has received significant attention recently as a topic in distributed learning. In FL, a global model is cooperatively trained by edge devices, as agents, where data is locally generated, processed, and utilized. Agents communicate with a server once in a while after local updates. Since many agents may participate in FL, the underlying communication is typically considered analog, with over-the-air aggregation at the server to alleviate the communication bottleneck. However, digital communication offers favorable programmability and additional digital processing capabilities such as compression and encryption, motivating its use in FL. To mitigate communication bandwidth requirements, existing digital communication models for FL employ over-the-air aggregation of modulated symbols, where limited quantization levels and small constellation sizes are required. Motivated by this limitation, this paper investigates FL under an error-prone digital communication model to leverage the existing infrastructure more efficiently. Based on the established analyses, convergence is guaranteed as long as the bias in expected local stochastic gradients, arising from quantization and transmission errors, diminishes. According to this result, the considered communication model employs a digital modulation scheme, enabling communication to be error-prone in the first iterations, prioritizing limited bandwidth, power consumption, and speed. In later iterations, it has the option to decrease the bit error rate (BER) to guarantee convergence to a neighborhood of some stationary point. Numerical experiments on classification tasks reveal promising generalization, possible convergence speedup in the initial iterations, and communication bandwidth, latency, and power efficiency.
XFIMNet: an Explainable deep learning architecture for versatile flood inundation mapping with synthetic aperture radar and multi-spectral optical images

ABSTRACT Floods are among the most dangerous natural disasters, and their frequency and severity are rapidly increasing due to climate change. Flood inundation mapping is critical for better understanding which areas are prone to flooding and identifying emerging floods. Recently, deep learning algorithms have been developed to improve the accuracy and timeliness of the production of these maps. In this study a new architecture, named Explainable Flood Inundation Mapping Network (XFIMNet) is presented, which is an explainable deep learning segmentation model for producing flood inundation maps from both synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and multi-spectral optical images. Comparative analysis with state-of-the-art (SOTA) models is performed, where the versatility of the model is demonstrated, in that it achieves superior performance across both image types, while the SOTA models are less consistent. The models are further evaluated with only the red, green, and blue (RGB) bands of the Sentinel-2 images, demonstrating that the full 13-band image is the superior choice for training a deep learning model. XFIMNet achieves an Intersection Over Union (IOU) of 0.59 with SAR images, 0.7 with optical, and 0.47 with the RGB bands, outperforming each of the SOTA models, as well as providing the most detailed and accurate visual segmentation mask, with minimal increase in the computation time for training or inference. The findings of this study highlight that XFIMNet is not only able to provide the most accurate segmentation mask but also prioritizes the most appropriate features when making decisions across both image types.
Safety and Immunogenicity of an In Vivo Muscle Electroporation Delivery System for DNA-hsp65 Tuberculosis Vaccine in Cynomolgus Monkeys

A Bacille Calmette–Guérin (BCG) is still the only licensed vaccine for the prevention of tuberculosis, providing limited protection against Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection in adulthood. New advances in the delivery of DNA vaccines by electroporation have been made in the past decade. We evaluated the safety and immunogenicity of the DNA-hsp65 vaccine administered by intramuscular electroporation (EP) in cynomolgus macaques. Animals received three doses of DNA-hsp65 at 30-day intervals. We demonstrated that intramuscular electroporated DNA-hsp65 vaccine immunization of cynomolgus macaques was safe, and there were no vaccine-related effects on hematological, renal, or hepatic profiles, compared to the pre-vaccination parameters. No tuberculin skin test conversion nor lung X-ray alteration was identified. Further, low and transient peripheral cellular immune response and cytokine expression were observed, primarily after the third dose of the DNA-hsp65 vaccine. Electroporated DNA-hsp65 vaccination is safe but provides limited enhancement of peripheral cellular immune responses. Preclinical vaccine trials with DNA-hsp65 delivered via EP may include a combination of plasmid cytokine adjuvant and/or protein prime–boost regimen, to help the induction of a stronger cellular immune response.
Load Balancing between Paths using Software Defined Networks

Small networks usually use Ethernet devices that apply solutions such as the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) to forward packets through a single path with no loops. However, this prevents the use of idle links that may reduce congestion and augment the aggregate bandwidth of the network. This work proposes a load balancing mechanism between paths using Software Defined Networks (SDNs). The proposed mechanism, named MLB (Multipath Load Balance), computes multiple paths with disjoint links that have the smallest number of hops between source and destination. Moreover, MLB has a “switching control” function that verifies whether the current occupation of the path exceeds a percentage of its capacity and if the potential new path computed by MLB has an occupation at least a percentage value smaller than that of the current path. MLB is implemented in Python and evaluated in Mininet. The results show that it is possible to increase the aggregate bandwidth by 95% and decrease the packet loss by about 95.5% compared with the standard operating mode of the OpenDaylight SDN controller.
Ideas of Kindergarten Students on the Day-Night Cycles, the Seasons and the Moon Phases.

aim of this study is to determine ideas of the kindergarten students on day-night, seasons, and the phases of the Moon. Although there are lots of studies on kindergarten students about science education, few of them are present on astronomy. Fifty-two students (age 6) from four different kindergartens were chosen as a sample of the study. The data were collected by using a semi- structured individual interview protocol. The results of the study revealed that kindergarten students have some sort of misconceptions on each concept. Individual interviews with kids show that students get these conceptions from their families, everyday experiences and their observations
The influence of diet on gut microbiome and body mass dynamics in a capital-breeding migratory bird

Gut-associated microbial communities are known to play a vital role in the health and fitness of their hosts. Though studies investigating the factors associated with among-individual variation in microbiome structure in wild animal species are increasing, knowledge of this variation at the individual level is scarce, despite the clear link between microbiome and nutritional status uncovered in humans and model organisms. Here, we combine detailed observational data on life history and foraging preference with 16S rRNA profiling of the faecal microbiome to investigate the relationship between diet, microbiome stability and rates of body mass gain in a migratory capital-breeding bird, the light-bellied Brent goose (Branta bernicla hrota). Our findings suggest that generalist feeders have microbiomes that are intermediate in diversity and composition between two foraging specialisms, and also show higher within-individual plasticity. We also suggest a link between foraging phenotype and the rates of mass gain during the spring staging of a capital breeder. This study offers rare insight into individual-level temporal dynamics of the gut microbiome of a wild host. Further work is needed to uncover the functional link between individual dietary choices, gut microbiome structure and stability, and the implications this has for the reproductive success of this capital breeder.
Present day plate boundary deformation in the Caribbean and crustal deformation on southern Haiti

Symithe, Steeve J. PhD, Purdue University, May 2016. Present Day Plate Boundary Deformation in the Caribbean And Crustal Deformation on Southern Haiti . Major Professor: Andrew W. Freed. The Caribbean plate and its boundaries with North and South America, marked by subduction and large intra-arc strike-slip faults, are a natural laboratory for the study of strain partitioning and interseismic plate coupling in relation to large earthquakes. In this work, I use the available campaign and continuous GPS measurements in the Caribbean to derive a regional velocity field expressed in a consistent reference frame. I use this velocity field as input to a kinematic model where surface velocities result from the rotation of rigid blocks bounded by locked faults accumulating interseismic strain, while allowing for partial locking along the Lesser Antilles, Puerto Rico, and Hispaniola subduction. This improved GPS velocity field in the Lesser Antilles excludes more than 3 mm/yr of strain accumulation on the Lesser Antilles-Puerto Rico subduction plate interface, which appears essentially uncoupled. The transition from a coupled to an uncoupled subduction in the northeastern Caribbean coincides with a transition in the long-term geological behavior of the Caribbean plate margin from compressional (Hispaniola) to extensional (Puerto Rico and Lesser Antilles). Also in Haiti, the ∼3 M inhabitant capital region that was severely affected by the devastating M7.0, 2010 earthquake continues to expand at a fast rate. Accurate characterization of regional earthquake sources is key to inform urban development and construction practices through improved regional seismic hazard estimates. I also use this improved GPS data set and show that seismogenic strain accumulation in southern Haiti involves an overlooked component of shortening on a south-dipping reverse fault along the southern edge of the Cul-de-Sac basin in addition to the wellknown component of left-lateral strike-slip motion. This tectonic model implies that
Calculation of Past Dead Carbon Proportion and Variability by the Comparison of AMS 14C and Tims U/TH Ages on Two Holocene Stalagmites

Twenty-two radiocarbon activity measurements were made by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) on 2 Holocene stalagmites from Belgium (Han-stm1b) and from southwest France (Vil-stm1b). Sixteen thermal ionization mass spectrometric (TIMS) U/Th measurements were performed parallel to AMS analyses. The past dead carbon proportion (dcp) due to limestone dissolution and old soil organic matter (SOM) degradation is calculated with U/Th ages, measured calcite 14C activity and atmospheric 14C activity from the dendrochronological calibration curves. Results show that the dcp is different for the 2 stalagmites: between 10,800 and 4780 yr from present dcp=17.5% (σ=2.4; n=10) for Han-stm1b and dcp=9.4% (σ=1.6; n=6) between 3070 and 520 yr for Vil-stm1b. Despite a broad stability of the dcp during the time ranges covered by each sample, a slight dcp increase of about 5.0% is observed in the Han-stm1b sample between 8500 and 5200 yr. This change is synchronous with a calcite δ13C increase, which could be due to variation in limestone dissolution processes possibly linked with a vegetation change. The dcp and δ13C of the 2 studied samples are compared with 5 other modern stalagmites from Europe. Results show that several factors intervene, among them: the vegetation type, and the soil saturation leading to variable dissolution process systems (open/closed). The good correlation (R2=0.98) between the U/Th ages and the calibrated 14C ages corrected with a constant dcp validates the 14C method. However, the dcp error leads to large 14C age errors (i.e. 250–500 yr for the period studied), which is an obstacle for both a high-resolution chronology and the improvement of the 14C calibration curves, at least for the Holocene.
ScholarWorks@UARK ScholarWorks@UARK

Parasite control is an important aspect of health management of horses, particularly the control of gastrointestinal (GI) parasites. Recently, treatment recommendations have involved selective use of anthelmintics in horses with fecal egg counts (FEC) greater than a specified threshold. The objectives of this study were; (1) to determine the prevalence of helminths in our area by egg and L3 determinations, (2) to determine if certain horses maintained low FEC, therefore eliminating the need to treat them on a year-round basis and (3) to determine the effectiveness of four common treatments (moxidectin, ivermectin (pioneer and generic), fenbendazole and pyrantel tartrate) via a standardized fecal egg count reduction (FECR) test. Fecal samples were collected from 226 horses at 14 different farms with a total of 933 fecal samples and 259 coprocultures evaluated over eight months. A treatment threshold of FEC > 200 eggs per gram (EPG) was used and horses were sampled once, twice, or three times over the course of the study. Of the 933 fecals analyzed, 303 had an EPG of zero, 407 were < 200 EPG, and 223 were >200 EPG. There were 37 samples that contained eggs other than Strongyle-type eggs and at least one of the three major large strongyle species were found in seven of 259 coprocultures evaluated. During the study, 125 horses were treated and 101 horses did not require treatment. Of these, six of the horses were sampled three times without exceeding the treatment threshold. The efficacy of both moxidectin and ivermectin was high (98.5% and 99.7% FECR), fenbendazole was expectedly low (57.7% FECR), and the efficacy of pyrantel was difficult to elucidate since all treatments were preceded by moxidectin. These results are consistent with other published studies that suggest using selective treatment to control equine GI parasites.
YKL-40 as a biomarker in various inflammatory diseases: A review

Highlights YKL-40 is a biomarker for inflammatory diseases’ diagnosis and prediction YKL-40 concentration increases with age and has variations in healthy population YKL-40 is convincing in pancreatic/liver disease, arthritis, bronchitis, and sepsis YKL-40 is debatable in cardiovascular/neurological/renal disease, diabetes, asthma Future larger studies and age-stratified reference intervals of YKL-40 are needed
Trimethylamine N-Oxide as a Mediator Linking Peripheral to Central Inflammation: An In Vitro Study

In this study, the plausible role of trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO), a microbiota metabolite, was investigated as a link between peripheral inflammation and the inflammation of the central nervous system using different cell lines. TMAO treatment favored the differentiation of adipocytes from preadipocytes (3T3-L1 cell line). In macrophages (RAW 264.7 cell line), which infiltrate adipose tissue in obesity, TMAO increased the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines. The treatment with 200 μM of TMAO seemed to disrupt the blood–brain barrier as it induced a significant decrease in the expression of occludin in hCMECs. TMAO also increased the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines in primary neuronal cultures, induced a pro-inflammatory state in primary microglial cultures, and promoted phagocytosis. Data obtained from this project suggest that microbial dysbiosis and increased TMAO secretion could be a key link between peripheral and central inflammation. Thus, TMAO-decreasing compounds may be a promising therapeutic strategy for neurodegenerative diseases.
Geodetic Mass Balance of Svalbard glaciers : 1936 - 2004

This study uses older topographic maps made from high-oblique aerial photographs for glacier elevation change studies. We compare the 1936/38 topographic map series of Svalbard (Norwegian Polar Institute) to a modern Digital Elevation Model (DEM) from 1990. Both systematic and random components of elevation error are quantified through non-glacier elevation difference points. The 1936/38 photographic aerial survey is examined to identify areas with poor data coverage over glaciers. Elevation changes are analyzed for 7 regions in Svalbard (~5000 km), where significant thinning was found at glacier fronts, and elevation increases in the upper parts of the accumulation areas. All regions experience volume losses and negative geodetic balances, although regional variability exists relating to both climate and topography. Many surges are apparent within the elevation change maps. Estimated volume change for the regions is -1.59±0.07 kma (ice eq.) for a geodetic annual balance of -0.30 m a (w. eq.), and the glaciated area has decreased by 16% in the 54 year time interval. The 1936-1990 data are compared to modern elevation change estimates in the southern regions, to show that the rate of thinning has increased dramatically since 1990.