Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mapping Crustal Shear Wave Velocity Structure and Radial Anisotropy Beneath West Antarctica Using Seismic Ambient Noise

Using 8‐ to 25‐s‐period Rayleigh and Love wave phase velocity dispersion data extracted from seismic ambient noise, we (i) model the 3‐D shear wave velocity structure of the West Antarctic crust and (ii) map variations in crustal radial anisotropy. Enhanced regional resolution is offered by the UK Antarctic Seismic Network. In the West Antarctic Rift System (WARS), a ridge of crust ∼26–30 km thick extending south from Marie Byrd Land separates domains of more extended crust (∼22 km thick) in the Ross and Amundsen Sea Embayments, suggesting along‐strike variability in the Cenozoic evolution of the WARS. The southern margin of the WARS is defined along the southern Transantarctic Mountains and Haag‐Ellsworth Whitmore Mountains (HEW) block by a sharp crustal thickness gradient. Crust ∼35–40 km is modeled beneath the Haag Nunataks‐Ellsworth Mountains, decreasing to ∼30–32 km thick beneath the Whitmore Mountains, reflecting distinct structural domains within the composite HEW block. Our analysis suggests that the lower crust and potentially the middle crust is positively radially anisotropic (VSH>VSV) across West Antarctica. The strongest anisotropic signature is observed in the HEW block, emphasizing its unique provenance among West Antarctica's crustal units, and conceivably reflects a ∼13‐km‐thick metasedimentary succession atop Precambrian metamorphic basement. Positive radial anisotropy in the WARS crust is consistent with observations in extensional settings and likely reflects the lattice‐preferred orientation of minerals such as mica and amphibole by extensional deformation. Our observations support a contention that anisotropy may be ubiquitous in the continental crust.
Adversarial Defense Framework for Graph Neural Network

Graph neural network (GNN), as a powerful representation learning model on graph data, attracts much attention across various disciplines. However, recent studies show that GNN is vulnerable to adversarial attacks. How to make GNN more robust? What are the key vulnerabilities in GNN? How to address the vulnerabilities and defense GNN against the adversarial attacks? In this paper, we propose DefNet, an effective adversarial defense framework for GNNs. In particular, we first investigate the latent vulnerabilities in every layer of GNNs and propose corresponding strategies including dual-stage aggregation and bottleneck perceptron. Then, to cope with the scarcity of training data, we propose an adversarial contrastive learning method to train the GNN in a conditional GAN manner by leveraging the high-level graph representation. Extensive experiments on three public datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of DefNet in improving the robustness of popular GNN variants, such as Graph Convolutional Network and GraphSAGE, under various types of adversarial attacks.
Time‐transgressive cryoplanation terrace development through nivation‐driven scarp retreat

Cryoplanation terraces are elevated bedrock features resembling giant staircases, with alternating steep scarps and shallow sloping treads. These landscape‐scale features have long been associated with periglacial environments, but the processes involved in their formation remain vaguely specified and contentious. The two leading hypotheses for the formation of cryoplanation terraces are centered on: (1) geologic structure; and (2) nivation‐driven scarp retreat. The nivation‐formation hypothesis invokes scarp retreat under erosion processes associated with late‐lying snowbanks. To test whether cryoplanation terraces develop through scarp retreat, six relative weathering indices (fracture counts, Cailleux roundness, Cailleux flatness, Krumbein sphericity, rebound, and weathering rind thickness) were measured across well‐developed terraces in unglaciated eastern Beringia (central and western Alaska) at Mt Fairplay, Eagle Summit, and Skookum Pass. Statistically significant differences in relative weathering indices detected through chi‐square and multiple‐comparison procedures indicate that material is less weathered closer to scarps, i.e. that these areas were more recently exposed than those distant from the scarp. Based on these findings, a refined model of time‐transgressive cryoplanation terrace development through nivation‐driven scarp retreat is proposed. This new qualitative model addresses the removal of weathered material from terrace treads down side slopes through piping and gravity‐driven mass‐wasting processes. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Characterization of the CO
 2
 System in a Coral Reef, a Seagrass Meadow, and a Mangrove Forest in the Central Red Sea

The Red Sea is characterized by its high seawater temperature and salinity, and the resilience of its coastal ecosystems to global warming is of growing interest. This high salinity and temperature might also render the Red Sea a favorable ecosystem for calcification and therefore resistant to ocean acidification. However, there is a lack of survey data on the CO2 system of Red Sea coastal ecosystems. A 1‐year survey of the CO2 system was performed in a seagrass lagoon, a mangrove forest, and a coral reef in the central Red Sea, including fortnight seawater sampling and high‐frequency pHT monitoring. In the coral reef, the CO2 system mean and variability over the measurement period are within the range of other world's reefs with pHT, dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC), total alkalinity (TA), pCO2, and Ωarag of 8.016±0.077, 2061±58 μmol/kg, 2415±34 μmol/kg, 461±39 μatm, and 3.9±0.4, respectively. Here, comparisons with an offshore site highlight dominance of calcification and photosynthesis in summer‐autumn, and dissolution and heterotrophy in winter‐spring. In the seagrass meadow, the pHT, DIC, TA, pCO2, and Ωarag were 8.00±0.09, 1986±68 μmol/kg, 2352±49 μmol/kg, 411±66 μatm, and 4.0±0.3, respectively. The seagrass meadow TA and DIC were consistently lower than offshore water. The mangrove forest showed the highest amplitudes of variation, with pHT, DIC, TA, pCO2, and Ωarag, were 7.95±0.26, 2069±132 μmol/kg, 2438±91 μmol/kg, 493±178 μatm, and 4.1±0.6, respectively. We highlight the need for more research on sources and sinks of DIC and TA in coastal ecosystems.
Attenuation of contaminants in landfill leachate by lateritic soil enhanced with bentonite

ABSTRACT The current research was carried out to evaluate improvement in the attenuative capacity of lateritic soil for landfill leachate contaminants as a result of bentonite addition. Laboratory batch adsorption test was performed using lateritic soil treated with 0%, 2.5%, 5%, 7.5% and 10% bentonite by dry weight of soil with Pb2+ and K+ ions as selected contaminants in the landfill leachate. The experimental data were analysed by both the linear and Freundlich isotherms. In this study, the untreated lateritic soil achieved about 85% and 81% removal efficiencies for K+ and Pb2+ species, respectively, while 90% and 97% removal efficiencies were achieved by lateritic soil mixed with 10% bentonite. Maximum Pb2+ adsorption capacities for soil mixtures with 0%, 2.5%, 5%, 7.5% and 10% bentonite were 1.48, 1.51, 1.55, 1.58 and 1.6 mg/g, respectively, leading to Kd values ranging from 30.04 to 77.72 mL/g, while the adsorption capacities calculated for K+ ranged from 797.68 to 907.82 mg/g with corresponding Kf values of 59.7–206.54. Correlation coefficients indicate that the adsorption data for Pb2+ were adequately described by the linear model while the adsorption equilibrium data for K+ ion fitted well to the Freundlich isotherm model. Overall, the soil mixture with higher bentonite contents produced enhanced adsorption capacities for both Pb2+ and K+ ions.
Residential indoor pollution by nitrogen dioxide: conference series

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, indoor air quality (IAQ) is defined as air quality within and around buildings and structures and it is related to the health and comfort of building occupants. A better understanding of IAQ is essential, since people spend more than 90 percent of their time indoors. The greatest amount of time spent indoors is at home, so it is important to control indoor air pollution and to reduce the risk of health effects related with indoor air pollutants exposure. The aim of this study was to determine indoor air pollution of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in different seasons and to compare indoor and outdoor NO2 concentrations. The sampling of NO2 was performed in cold, warm and intermediate seasons using passive sampling technique inside and outside of the residential houses. The results of the study showed that the average NO2 concentration in cold season was 10.5 μg/m3 and 20.0 μg/m3, respectively in indoor and outdoor air. The lowest indoor and outdoor levels of NO2 were observed in warm season, 9.7 and 11.3 μg/m3, respectively. The strongest positive relationship between indoor and outdoor concentrations of NO2 was determined in warm season.
Analysis of monitoring data for a nZEB in Mediterranean climate

The proposed paper is focused on some of the main conceptions, design criteria and expected energy performance of a new nZEB built in Benevento, a middle-size city of South Italy with typical Mediterranean climate. It is the result of an Italian research project – SMARTCASE – promoted under the umbrella of the European Regional Development Fund. The paper discusses the results of the wintertime monitoring campaign. Measurements on building envelope are shown as well as monitoring of energy uses and indoor microclimatic conditions. The discussion about the hourly energy balance evidences the effectiveness of selected solutions to reach the zero objective also during the winter and to evaluate the incidence of PV-production.
Idaho’s forest resources, 2006-2015

This report presents a summary of the most recent Forest Inventory and Analysis data of Idaho’s forests based on field data collected between 2006 and 2015. The report includes descriptive highlights and tables of area, numbers of trees, biomass, volume, growth, mortality, and removals. Most sections and tables are organized by forest type or forest-type group, tree species group, diameter class, or owner group. Results show that Idaho’s forest land covers 21.6 million acres, of which 3 million acres (14 percent) are privately owned, and another 16.3 million acres (76 percent) are administered by the USDA Forest Service. The State’s most abundant forest type is Douglas-fir, which covers more than 6 million acres. Subalpine fir is the most abundant tree species by number of trees 5.0 inches or greater in diameter, and Douglas-fir is the most abundant by volume and biomass. Idaho’s forests contain 48 billion cubic feet of net volume in trees 5.0 inches diameter and larger. Annual net growth of all live trees 5.0 inches diameter and larger averaged 304.6 million cubic feet per year. Average annual mortality totaled 902 million cubic feet per year.
Application of Machine Learning to Model Wetland Inundation Patterns Across a Large Semiarid Floodplain

Inundation is a primary driver of floodplain ecology. Understanding temporal and spatial variability of inundation patterns is critical for optimum resource management, particularly in striking an appropriate balance between environmental water application and extractive use. Nevertheless, quantifying inundation at the fine resolution required of ecological modeling is an immense challenge in these environments. In this study, Random Forest, a machine learning technique, was implemented to predict the inundation pattern in a section of the Darling River Floodplain, Australia, at a spatial scale of 30 m and daily temporal resolution. The model achieved very good performance with an average accuracy of 0.915 based on the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve over 10 runs of the model in testing data sets. Six variables explained 70% of the total contribution to inundation occurrence, with the most influential being landscape shape (local deviation from global mean elevation), elevation‐weighted distance to the river, the magnitude of river flow (10‐ and 30‐day accumulated river discharge), local rainfall, and soil moisture. This approach is applicable to other floodplains across the world where understanding of fine‐scale inundation pattern is for operational ecological management and scenario testing.
Bird communities across varying landcover types in a Neotropical city

Urbanization poses a serious threat to local biodiversity, yet towns and cities with abundant natural features may harbor important species populations and communities. While the contribution of urban greenspaces to conservation has been demonstrated by numerous studies within temperate regions, few consider the bird communities associated with different landcovers in Neotropical cities. To begin to fill this knowledge gap, we examined how the avifauna of a wetland city in northern Amazonia varied across six urban landcover types (coastal bluespace; urban bluespace; managed greenspace; unmanaged greenspace; dense urban; and sparse urban). We measured detections, species richness, and a series of ground cover variables that characterized the heterogeneity of each landcover, at 114 locations across the city. We recorded >10% (98) of Guyana's bird species in Georgetown, including taxa of conservation interest. Avian detections, richness, and community composition differed with landcover type. Indicator species analysis identified 29 species from across dietary guilds, which could be driving community composition. Comparing landcovers, species richness was highest in managed greenspaces and lowest in dense urban areas. The canal network had comparable levels of species richness to greenspaces. The waterways are likely to play a key role in enhancing habitat connectivity as they traverse densely urbanized areas. Both species and landcover information should be integrated into urban land‐use planning in the rapidly urbanizing Neotropics to maximize the conservation value of cities. This is imperative in the tropics, where anthropogenic pressures on species are growing significantly, and action needs to be taken to prevent biodiversity collapse.
Thermospheric Density Cells at High Latitudes as Observed by GOCE Satellite: Preliminary Results

This study provides a climatological view of density cell structures at high latitudes in the lower thermosphere, using neutral mass density at 270 km derived from Gravity field and steady‐state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) satellite. Three types of the density cells named isolated low, isolated high, and wavy density cells are analyzed. Our results revealed that the density cell structures generally occur in the Northern Hemisphere and the local summer, but they are less frequently observed in the Southern Hemisphere. The low density cell tends to have greater occurrence in the dawn side than in other sampled local times, while the high and wavy density cells occur more frequently in the morning side in terms of the GOCE trajectory. Moreover, the characteristics of density cell structures, including the central locations, horizontal scales, and relative magnitudes, strongly depend on the type of the density cell structure. These results can serve as a baseline to further validate the theoretical models and also to improve our understanding of the density variability of the lower thermosphere at high latitudes.
Mechanically Stabilized Earth Walls and Reinforced Soil Slopes Design and Construction Guidelines

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Economic value of non-timber forest products utilized by the households adjacent to the South Nandi forest reserve in Kenya

ABSTRACT Many rural dwellers in tropical regions depend on non-timber forest products (NTFPs) for their livelihood and income requirements. However, the link between the economic benefits of NTFPs and their resource base (including local availability and sustainability) and sources are poorly understood. Understanding the dependence on NTFPs requires an economic valuation to improve on sustainable utilization and planning of NTFP resources in the forest. Further, NTFPs are undervalued and not be included in the national accounts therefore lowers overall contribution of forests to the GDP. The current study, therefore, estimated the value NTFPs from The South Nandi forest reserve, using a combination of methods. Twenty-two NTFPs and associated plant species used were cited in Focused Group Discussion, but it was firewood, grazing and medicinal plants that were mostly utilized. The collection of NTFPs took 54.5% of the households’ productive time suggesting high dependence on them. The economic value of NTFP extraction household−1 yr−1 was US$ 579.51. The annual firewood extraction was 7 285.4 ± 1 586.9 kg household−1 and households spent an average of 2.9 ± 1.2 hours to collect a headload of firewood. The net economic value for grazing cattle in the forest yr−1 household−1 ranged from US$ 11.6 to US$ 205.0. NTFPs contributed between 32.7% and 48.7% to households’ income confirming the importance of NTFPs to their livelihoods. This forest should be managed based on the principles of sustainable forest management for continued provision of these benefits.
Fractional Crystallization of Martian Magma Oceans and Formation of a Thermochemical Boundary Layer at the Base of the Mantle

We examine the fractional crystallization of intermediate depth (~160–260 km), impact‐induced magma oceans on Mars, and find that residual liquids become denser than normal Martian mantle. Fractional crystallization near 3 GPa establishes inverted density distributions that can generate melt descent within the mantle. Liquid compositions produced by ~45–80 wt% crystallization become dense enough to descend to the core‐mantle boundary and could form a stably stratified thermochemical boundary layer (TCBL). If this layer crystallizes, its mineralogy would be dominated by either garnet and ferropericlase or stishovite and ringwoodite. Although the size of Mars' core remains uncertain, the addition of such a thermal boundary layer would impede stabilization of (Mg, Fe)SiO3‐perovskite at the base of the mantle. A TCBL would both elevate the inferred temperature of the core and inhibit heat flow out of the core, with a potentially causal relation with the current lack of an internally generated Martian magnetic field.
The Application of the SVD Method to Reduce Coupled Model Biases in Seasonal Predictions of Rainfall

The large systematic biases in coupled models impact seasonal prediction results. With a motivation to reduce the influence of coupled‐model biases on seasonal predictions, the singular value decomposition method was applied in our study to improve the ability to predict flood season precipitation. Based on the coupled climate model, CAS‐ESM‐C, we conducted ensemble seasonal prediction experiments from 1982 to 2018, with initial conditions provided by the assimilation system. The prediction system was integrated from March to August of each year with a focus on the June to August precipitation in China. The results showed that the prediction skills for anomalous summer precipitation were very low without bias corrections. However, the system effectively predicted the interannual variabilities in large‐scale atmospheric circulation systems that were associated with anomalous summer precipitation. We used the singular value decomposition method to reduce pattern‐dependent precipitation errors by replacing prediction patterns with observation patterns, and the predictive skill for precipitation dramatically improved. The results demonstrated that this correction method is a viable tool to reduce systematic biases in coupled model predictions.
Explicit Inversion Formulas for the Two-Dimensional Wave Equation from Neumann Traces

In this article we study the problem of recovering the initial data of the two-dimensional wave equation from Neumann measurements on a convex domain with smooth boundary in the plane. We derive an explicit inversion formula of a so-called back-projection type and deduce exact inversion formulas for circular and elliptical domains. In addition, for circular domains, we show that the initial data can also be recovered from any linear combination of its solution and its normal derivative on the boundary. Numerical results of our implementation of the derived inversion formulas are presented demonstrating their accuracy and stability.
Three‐dimensional reconstruction of fluvial surface sedimentology and topography using personal mobile laser scanning

High‐resolution quantification of fluvial topography has been enabled by a number of geomatics technologies. Hyperscale surveys with spatial extents of <1 km2 have been widely demonstrated by means of terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) and structure‐from‐motion (SfM) photogrammetry. Recent advances in the development and integration of global navigation satellite system (GNSS), inertial measurement unit (IMU) and lightweight laser scanning technologies are now resulting in the emergence of personal mobile laser scanners (MLS) that have the potential to increase data acquisition and processing rates by one to two orders of magnitude compared to TLS/SfM, and thus challenge the recent dominance of these technologies. This investigation compares a personal MLS survey using a Leica Pegasus Backpack that integrates Velodyne Puck VLP‐16 sensors, and a multi‐station static TLS survey using a Riegl VZ‐1000 scanner, to produce digital elevation models (DEMs) and surface sedimentology maps. The assessment is undertaken on a 500 m long reach of the braided River Feshie. Comparison to 107 independent real‐time kinematic (RTK)‐GNSS check points resulted in similar mean error (ME) and standard deviation error (SDE) for TLS (ME = −0.025 m; SDE = 0.038 m) and personal MLS (ME = −0.014 m; SDE = 0.019 m). Direct cloud‐to‐cloud (C2C) comparison between a sample of TLS and personal MLS observations (2.8 million points) revealed that C2C distances follow a sharply decreasing Burr distribution (a = 2.35, b = 3.19, rate parameter s = 9.53). Empirical relationships between sub‐metre topographic variability and median sediment grain size (10–100 mm) demonstrate that surface roughness from personal MLS can be used to map median grain size. Differences between TLS and personal MLS empirical relationships suggest such relationships are dependent on survey technique. Personal MLS offers distinct logistical advantages over SfM photogrammetry and TLS for particular survey situations and is likely to become a widely applied technique. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.