Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Rapid ‘evolution’ of migratory behaviour in the introduced house finch of eastern North America

The house finch (Carpodacus mexicanus) of eastern North America was introduced onto Long Island, New York, around 1940. The source is presumed to be southern California, where ca. 80% of individuals are completely sedentary. The eastern population has become migratory: by the early 1960s, 36% of eastern house finches were performing migratory movements (more than 80 km from their banding site) and that proportion has fluctuated between 28% and 54% in succeeding years. The movements of birds banded during the breeding season and recovered in winter were strongly orientated toward the south–west, and the same pattern was evident in the earliest recoveries (1958 to 1966); recoveries of birds banded during winter and recovered in the breeding season were orientated toward the north–east. The average distance of migration has continued to increase logarithmically. Areas colonized later, as the range expanded, were characterized by initial long migration distances and high proportions of migrants, suggesting that these traits have evolved in the eastern population. Eastern house finches are partial migrants: not all individuals migrate, and birds that migrate some winters remain in breeding areas in others. Younger birds exhibit a stronger tendency to migrate. A very few western (including southern California) house finches moved long distances, but they did so in directions consistent with seasonal migration, indicating that the machinery subserving migratory behaviour pre–existed in the parent population.
Differentiation of Tholeiitic Basalt to A-Type Granite in the Sept Iles Layered Intrusion, Canada

The undeformed 564 Ma Sept Iles layered intrusion (Quebec, Canada) is a large igneous body of c. 20 000km3. From the base to the top, it consists of a Layered Series dominated by troctolite and gabbro, an anorthositic Upper Border Series and a dominantly granitic Upper Series. The parent magma of the Layered Series is inferred to be an iron-rich tholeiitic basalt (48 wt % SiO2; 15wt % FeOt). Whole-rock compositions from the chilled margin, dykes cross-cutting the Layered Series and silicic rocks from the Upper Series display continuous major and trace element geochemical trends ranging from basalts to ferroan metaluminous A-type granites (77 wt % SiO2). Initial 143Nd/144Nd (0·51201^0·51207) and 87Sr/86Sr (0·70353^0·70548) indicate a juvenile-mantle source and minimal contamination by old crust (1^2%) during crystallization. Geochemical modeling, using the MELTS thermodynamic calculator combined with equations predicting mineral^melt equilibria from experiments on tholeiitic basalts, indicate that basaltic to monzonitic melt compositions are in equilibrium with the troctolites and gabbros of the Layered Series. Fe^Ti oxides saturate early in the Layered Series, after 14% fractionation of plagioclase^olivine cumulates. Further fractionation of Fe^Ti oxide-bearing gabbros drives the residual liquids toward silica enrichment and iron depletion. Major and trace element modeling indicates that the A-type granites from the Upper Series were produced by protracted fractional crystallization of an iron-rich basaltic parent magma, at a fraction of residual liquid of only 8%. The observed relative volumes of mafic cumulates and silicic rocks in the intrusion are in agreement with the calculations. Most of the intermediate compositions correspond to magmatic mafic enclave-bearing granitoids and display geochemical evidence of hybridization. Intermediate compositions produced by fractional crystallization are scarce and a Daly gap occurs from 57 to 67 wt % SiO2.This gap could result either from the fractional crystallization process or from silicate^liquid immiscibility during that compositional interval.
Stochastic Volterra Equations for the Local Times of Spectrally Positive Stable Processes

This paper is concerned with the evolution dynamics of local times of a spectrally positive stable process in the spatial direction. The main results state that conditioned on the finiteness of the first time at which the local time at zero exceeds a given value, the local times at positive half line are equal in distribution to the unique solution of a stochastic Volterra equation driven by a Poisson random measure whose intensity coincides with the L\'evy measure. This helps us to provide not only a simple proof for the H\"older regularity, but also a uniform upper bound for all moments of the H\"older coefficient as well as a maximal inequality for the local times. Moreover, based on this stochastic Volterra equation, we extend the method of duality to establish an exponential-affine representation of the Laplace functional in terms of the unique solution of a nonlinear Volterra integral equation associated with the Laplace exponent of the stable process.
QUALITY OF THE TRIASSIC–JURASSIC BIVALVE FOSSIL RECORD IN NORTHWEST EUROPE

Abstract: The quality of the Triassic–Jurassic bivalve fossil record in northwest Europe has been measured using the Simple Completeness Metric (SCM). The SCM has been applied to the fossil record of total bivalve diversity and to the records of different ecological guilds. The Westbury and Lilstock Formations record high SCM values for most ecological groups. The ‘Pre‐Planorbis Beds’ of the lower Lias Group, however, witness a precipitous decline in the completeness of most guilds and emigration of taxa due to localized marine anoxia is a likely cause. Neither variation in lithofacies, shell mineralogy, sedimentary rock outcrop area, nor sequence architecture can convincingly explain the observed patterns of completeness. Our SCM data reveal that the Early Jurassic fossil record of infaunal suspension‐feeding bivalves is significantly poorer than that of epifaunal bivalves. Any differences in the apparent Rhaetian extinction rates between these two guilds should therefore be viewed with caution. Analyses of selectivity during the Late Triassic mass extinction based on studies of global databases appear robust in light of our SCM data. Nevertheless, future investigations of the Triassic–Jurassic benthic marine ecosystem undertaken at a finer‐resolution, may need to account for the poor quality of the Early Jurassic fossil records of certain ecological guilds, such as the infaunal suspension‐feeding taxa.
Measurement and Prediction of Surface Shear Stress in Annular Flume

Cohesive sediment beds occur in a variety of natural and man‐made environments. A parameter that has a very significant influence on the sediment behavior is the critical shear stress. This is the shear stress at the sediment surface above which erosion will take place. The critical shear stress can be evaluated in the laboratory under conditions closely resembling those found in the field by use of an annular flume. The main purpose of the work described in this paper is to determine experimentally and numerically the velocity and surface shear stress fields generated by the flow of water in an annular flume. Very good agreement is found between measured circumferential velocity profiles, obtained by laser doppler anemometry, and profiles predicted by the computational fluid dynamics program HARWELL‐FLOW3D. Measurements of the bed and wall shear stresses are made using hot‐film probes and these also agree reasonably well with numerical predictions. Also of interest is the dependence of the sediment shear.
Model-based daylight- and chroma-adaptive segmentation method

An image segmentation method based on the dichromatic reflection model, is introduced. To adapt to changing illumination conditions the image formation process is modelled by the camera characteristics, the reflectance of the object of interest, and the CIE daylight standard. A priori, loci for the body and surface reflection for the object of interest is modeled according to changes of the illumination by CIE daylight standard. That two loci is approximated by two lines and the plane defined by these is used initially for segmentation. In the case of two objects, the image is segmented by the plane which is rotated about the surface locus to minimize Wilks (lambda) . The method is used for segmenting four images ranging in correlated color temperature from 5200 K to 11500 K. To assess its performance the four images were manually segmented into three classes: vegetation, background, and an uncertain class. The method adapted to the changing light condition with total errors ranging from 3% to 12% and higher error rates being in the images with the largest uncertain group. The method was also compared with Bayes minimax criteria for finding the 'best' rotation from which it deviated by only 0.8% on average.
High sensitivity to the initial condition for the prediction of stratospheric sudden warming

Predictability and a possible tropospheric precursor of a zonal‐wavenumber (WN) 1 stratospheric sudden warming (SSW) event occurring in December 2001 are examined using all ensemble members of the 1‐month forecasts carried out by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA). The SSW is predictable from at least 2 weeks in advance, and high sensitivity to the initial condition for the SSW prediction is observed during the onset period of the SSW. Dipole zonal wind anomaly pattern along 80°N/60°N in the upper troposphere during this period is significantly related to the subsequent warming in polar stratospheric regions through deflecting the WN 1 propagation poleward. The leading EOF of predicted zonal‐mean zonal wind variations among ensemble members for the onset period also shows the similar profile. Thus, this coincidence would be responsible for the high sensitivity to the initial condition observed during the onset period of the SSW.
Dispersivity Estimates from a Tracer Experiment in a Sandy Aquifer

The success or failure of transport models in predicting the migration of a contaminant plume in ground water depends to a large extent on the quality of flow and transport parameters used. In this study, we investigate the spatial variability in the tracer velocity and dispersivity in a shallow sandy aquifer in northern Belgium. Based on hydraulic conductivity measurements on cores sampled along a vertical profile, the aquifer was found to be mildly heterogeneous, i.e., with the variance of the log‐transformed conductivity K, ω2 InK, equal to 0.22. By means of a natural gradient tracer experiment, transport of a chloride tracer was investigated in a three‐dimensional network of multilevel point samplers (MLS). Least squares fitting of a two‐dimensional transport model to the individual breakthrough curves resulted in an average longitudinal dispersivity that was 10 times larger than the transverse dispersivity. The results further showed the existence of a dispersion‐scale effect whereby the depth‐averaged longitudinal dispersivity increases with increasing travel distance. The average longitudinal dispersivity corresponding to a travel distance of 10 m was equal to 0.2 m. We finally show that theoretical expressions for the macroscopic dispersivity tensor, which require input on hydraulic conductivity heterogeneity, could be used here to approximate the observed dispersive behavior. These conceptually simple models are useful to estimate macroscopic dispersivities when no tracer data are available.
Deterministic boundary recognition and topology extraction for large sensor networks

We present a new framework for the crucial challenge of self-organization of a large sensor network. The basic scenario can be described as follows: Given a large swarm of immobile sensor nodes that have been scattered in a polygonal region, such as a street network. Nodes have no knowledge of size or shape of the environment or the position of other nodes. Moreover, they have no way of measuring coordinates, geometric distances to other nodes, or their direction. Their only way of interacting with other nodes is to send or to receive messages from any node that is within communication range. The objective is to develop algorithms and protocols that allow self-organization of the swarm into large-scale structures that reflect the structure of the street network, setting the stage for global routing, tracking and guiding algorithms.Our algorithms work in two stages: boundary recognition and topology extraction. All steps are strictly deterministic, yield fast distributed algorithms, and make no assumption on the distribution of nodes in the environment, other than sufficient density.
A study of land surface processes using land surface models over the Little River Experimental Watershed, Georgia

[1] Three different land surface models (Hydrological improvements to the Simplified version of the Simple Biosphere model (HySSiB), Noah model, and Community Land Model (CLM)) were simulated on the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's Land Information System platform at 1-km resolution over the Little River Experimental Watershed, Georgia, and the simulated results were analyzed to address the local-scale land-atmosphere processes. All the three models simulated the soil moisture in space and time realistically. The Noah model produced higher soil moisture whereas the CLM got lower soil moisture with many dry down phases. CLM and HySSiB models were oversensitive to the atmospheric events. Different vertical discretizations of the model layers affected the soil moisture results in all the three models. The arithmetic model ensemble mean soil moisture performed reasonably well even at individual in-situ measurement sites. We found that different model schemes partitioned the incoming water and energy differently and hence produced different results for the water and energy budget parameters. In CLM, the energy and water budget parameters were very closely connected to the soil moisture (e.g., evaporation, latent, and sensible heat) change. HySSiB produced very high surface runoff and very low subsurface runoff. The Noah model did not produce much surface and subsurface runoff resulting in high surface soil moisture. We did not find much variability in Noah latent heat, sensible heat, and ground heat fluxes. From soil moisture data assimilation point of view, the mean bias removed Noah soil moisture was found to be better than other data sets.
A Multi‐Scale Analysis of Single‐Family Residential Water Use in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area

Studies that evaluate determinants of residential water demand typically use data from a single spatial scale. Although household‐scale data are preferred, especially when econometric models are used, researchers may be limited to aggregate data. There is little, if any, empirical analysis to assess whether spatial scale may lead to ecological fallacy problems in residential water use research. Using linear mixed‐effects models, we compare the results for the relationship of single‐family water use with its determinants using data from the household and census tract scales in the city of Phoenix. Model results between the household and census tract scale are similar suggesting the ecological fallacy may not be significant. Common significant determinants on these two spatial scales include household size, household income, house age, pool size, irrigable lot size, precipitation, and temperature. We also use city/town scale data from the Phoenix metropolitan area to parameterize the linear mixed‐effects model. The difference in the parameter estimates of those common variables compared to the first two scales indicates there is spatial heterogeneity in the relationship between single‐family water use and its determinants among cities and towns. The negative relationship between single‐family house density and residential water use suggests that residential water consumption could be reduced through coordination of land use planning and water demand management.
Discriminating the papyrus vegetation (Cyperus papyrus L.) and its co-existent species using random forest and hyperspectral data resampled to HYMAP

Techniques for discriminating swamp wetland species are critical for the rapid assessment and proactive management of wetlands. In this study, we tested whether the random forest (RF) algorithm could discriminate between papyrus swamp and its co-existent species (Phragmites australis, Echinochloa pyramidalis and Thelypteris interrupta) using in situ canopy reflectance spectra. Canopy spectral measurements were taken from the species using analytical spectral devices but later resampled to Hyperspectral Mapper (HYMAP) resolution. The RF algorithm and a simple forward variable selection (FVS) technique were used to identify key wavelengths for discriminating papyrus swamp and its co-existence species. The method yielded 10 wavelengths located in the visible and short-wave infrared portions of the electromagnetic spectrum with a lowest out-of-bag (OOB) estimate error rate of 9.5% and . 632+ bootstrap error of 8.95%. The use of RF as a classification algorithm resulted in overall accuracy of 90.50% and a kappa value of 0.87, with individual class accuracies ranging from 93.73% to 100%. Additionally, the results from this study indicate that the RF algorithm produces better classification results than conventional classification trees (CTs) when using all HYMAP wavelengths (n = 126) and when using wavelengths selected by the FVS technique.
Frequency analysis and temporal pattern of occurrences of southern Quebec heatwaves

Heatwaves can have adverse affects on public health and can considerably impact social and economic activities. Climate‐change scenarios have shown that the temperature regime will likely be modified significantly over the course of the next 50 years and more. The frequency of occurrence and amplitude of heatwaves may be impacted by changes in the temperature regime. A heatwave can best be characterized by its magnitude and duration. Thus, both of these characteristics need to be studied together. This paper presents an approach based on the principle of parsimony by extending methodologies developed for the analysis of extreme hydrological events: the index‐flood method and the regional flood frequency approach to perform at‐site heatwave–duration–frequency (HDF) analysis. The approach is very similar to intensity–duration–frequency often used in the analysis of extreme precipitation events. The HDF analysis is performed using annual maximum series of heatwaves of 1–10 days duration observed at four selected sites in southern Quebec with long (i.e. >80 years) time series covering most of the 20th century. The two main tasks in this approach consist of modelling (1) µ(D), a function that relates mean heatwave to its duration, and (2) g(T), a function describing the at‐site dimensionless growth curve, where T is the return period. It is found that the µ(D) function can best be modelled using a relationship of the form µ(D) = aDb (where a and b are parameters to be estimated). The dimensionless growth curve g(T) was modelled using the generalized extreme value distribution. The HDF approach can model various quantiles of heatwaves in a fairly acceptable manner when assessed on the basis of relative root‐mean‐square error and 95% bootstrap confidence intervals. An analysis of the pattern of occurrences of heatwaves indicates that heatwaves of short durations (1–5 days) has shifted over time and occur earlier in the summer than before. Median heatwaves occur during the second and third weeks of July and the majority of heatwaves are concentrated over the time interval from the last 10 days of June to the first 10 days of August. Copyright © 2005 Royal Meteorological Society.
Impact of limited streamflow data on the efficiency and the parameters of rainfall—runoff models

Abstract Streamflow data are essential for the calibration of continuous rainfall—runoff (RR) models. The quantity and quality of streamflow data can significantly influence parameter calibration and thus model robustness. Most existing sensitivity analysis studies on the role of streamflow data have used continuous periods to calibrate model parameters, with a minimum of one year, though ideally much longer periods are generally advised. However, in practical model applications, streamflow data series available for model calibration may be rather short or non-continuous. This study aims at assessing the sensitivity of continuous RR models to the quantity of information used during model calibration when it is randomly sampled in the observed hydrograph, i.e. using non-continuous calibration periods. This sampling provides less auto-correlated streamflow information for model calibration than continuous records. Two daily RR models with four and six free parameters were tested on a sample of 12 basins in the USA to obtain more general conclusions. The results showed that, in general, 350 calibration days sampled out of a longer data set including dry and wet conditions are sufficient to obtain robust estimates of model parameters. The more parsimonious model requires fewer calibration data to obtain stable and robust parameter values. Stable parameter values prove more difficult to reach in the driest catchments.
Morphodynamic Modeling of Tidal Basins: The Role of Sand‐Mud Interaction

The morphology of tide‐dominated systems is progressively influenced by human activities and climate change. Quantitative approaches aiming at understanding or forecasting the effects of interventions and climate change are often aggregated, thereby simplifying or schematizing the investigated area. In this work, we advance on the knowledge of sediment transport processes shaping tidal systems and on methodologies translating schematized model output into physically realistic variables. In terms of improved physics, we systematically evaluate the influence of sand‐mud interaction processes. Most tidal systems are shaped by a mixture of sand and mud. Morphological models typically compute transport of sand and mud independently, despite studies clearly demonstrating that their physical behavior is mutually dependent. We investigate the effects of two interaction mechanisms (erosion interaction and roughness interaction, applied with varying mud erodibility) with a schematized process‐based morphodynamic model. We convert model output into metrics that describe the meso‐scale configuration of the modeled systems, allowing a quantitative comparison of scenarios. Modeled patterns and intertidal flat shape, size and composition widely vary with mud erodibility settings, but equally depend on the evaluated sand‐mud interaction mechanisms (with erosion interaction having a larger effect than roughness interaction). Sand‐mud interaction thus needs to be accounted for from a physical point of view, but also to improve predictions of tidal basin evolution models, particularly the (bimodally distributed) sediment composition of intertidal flats.
Determination of pore‐water dissolved organic carbon fluxes from Mexican margin sediments

Sediment dissolved organic carbon (DOC) fluxes were determined in the oxygen minimum zone along the north‐western Mexican margin using five different methods: in situ benthic chambers, on‐deck incubations, slicing, dialysis sampling (peepers), and sipping. For each of the five methods, replicates (n = 6–12) were made. Directly determined fluxes (whole‐core incubations and benthic chambers) and calculated fluxes (sliced and dialysis‐sampled cores) agree well (0.41 ± 0.09, 0.36 ± 0.04, 0.25 ± 0.05, and 0.25 ± 0.05 mmol C m−2 d−1, respectively). On the Mexican margin, the DOC flux was 8% of the sedimentary carbon input, suggesting that it is a significant component to the local carbon budget. Extrapolations of this flux to the total global margin suggest that shelf and slope sediments contribute 96 Tg C yr−1. The residence time of oceanic DOC based on this flux is consistent with measurements of the deep‐water DO 14 C age. Profiles were also constructed from sip‐isolated pore waters and yield consistently lower DOC profile gradients and DOC fluxes (0.06 ± 0.02 mmol C m−2 d−1). We propose that the consistently observed discrepancy between sip‐isolated profiles and other isolation techniques is a result of sampling different reservoirs of pore water present in the heterogeneous sediment matrix.