Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evaluating restoration success of alluvial diamond-mined sites in South Africa using invertebrate community indicators

The relationship between treatment type and age, and arthropod and plant species composition and richness was investigated at two alluvial-mined sites on the west coast of South Africa. The first of these sites was Namaqua Diamond Company (NDC) situated approximately 200 km south from the second site, De Beers (DB). Four replicates of four treatments (overburden, young topsoil (2-4 years), old topsoil (4-7 years) and reference treatments) were investigated at each site. Plant species richness and percentage plant cover were determined using 100 m line transects. At each replicate treatment, fifteen pitfall traps, five sets of colour pan traps, two sieving areas and three emergence traps were used. This study was conducted during winter, spring and summer of 2007 for a period of five days at each site, giving a total of 15 field-sampling days for most methods. At De Beers (DB) in the north, species richness of plants and arthropods was significantly greatest on reference treatments followed by old topsoil, young topsoil and finally overburden treatments. At NDC in the south, the same pattern of decreasing species richness was observed along the same treatment gradient. Overburden (control) and reference treatments at NDC were shown to differ significantly in species richness of arthropods (Kruskall-Wallis ANOVA, p=0.036) and plants (Kruskall-Wallis ANOVA, p=0.032). At DB, arthropod species richness was significantly different between reference and overburden treatments (Kruskall-Wallis ANOVA, p=0.0025) and plant species richness also differed significantly between overburden and reference treatments (Kruskall-Wallis ANOVA, p=0.006). Overall, topsoil improved diversity and species richness of arthropods and plants, but even old topsoil treatments still had far lower species richness than reference treatments. At De Beers, species richness of arthropods on overburden treatments was 40, young topsoil treatments 70, old topsoil treatments 86 and reference treatments 107. At NDC, species richness of arthropods was 61, 64, 90 and 97 on overburden, young topsoil, old topsoil and reference treatments respectively. The total number of species collected was 423 at DB and 391 at NDC. The average number of individuals collected per treatment at DB was 162, 412, 668 and 676 for overburden, young topsoil, old topsoil and reference treatments, respectively. At NDC, the average number of individuals collected was as follows: 601, 1050, 2415 and 1509 for overburden, young topsoil, old topsoil and reference treatments, respectively. Patterns of 11 Un ive rsi ty of Ca pe To wn arthropod and plant species richness showed similar trends despite a 200 km geographical separation which provides some confidence in their use to gauge restoration success.
Exploring Reliable and Efficient Plasmonic Nanopatterning for Surface- and Tip-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopies

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is of growing interest for a wide range of applications, especially for biomedical analysis, thanks to its sensitivity, specificity, and multiplexing capabilities. A crucial role for successful applications of SERS is played by the development of reproducible, efficient, and facile procedures for the fabrication of metal nanostructures (SERS substrates). Even more challenging is to extend the fabrication techniques of plasmonic nano-textures to atomic force microscope (AFM) probes to carry out tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS) experiments, in which spatial resolution below the diffraction limit is added to the peculiarities of SERS. In this short review, we describe recent studies performed by our group during the last ten years in which novel nanofabrication techniques have been successfully applied to SERS and TERS experiments for studying bio-systems and molecular species of environmental interest.
Land Rights and Development Reform in Remote Australia

There has been escalating media coverage of the view that Indigenous economic disadvantage and housing and infrastructure shortages are linked to communal title to land resulting from land rights and native title. Jon Altman, Craig Linkhorn and Jennifer Clarke challenge the view that privatising or individuating this land might generate better economic and social outcomes for Indigenous people by reviewing the existing literature and by examining recently available statistics, especially on Indigenous housing need and affordability.
An analytical solution for the dynamic response of a seawater‐sloping seabed‐bedrock system under an oblique incident SV wave

The characteristics of seabed ground motion are the theoretical basis for the study of seawater‐soil‐structure interactions and seismic‐induced geological hazards. There are numerous offshore marine structures located on sloping seabeds. Therefore, the sloping seabed's seismic response requires to be investigated. Engineers and scholars are more interested in the SV waves because they carry more energy than the P waves in earthquakes. An analytical solution for the steady‐state response of the inclined seafloor under an oblique incident SV wave is offered. The impacts of the seafloor angle on the fluid pressure and displacement of the saturated sediment layer are investigated under different incident wave frequencies, incident angles, and thicknesses of the seawater layer and sediment layer. By observing along the seabed surface, we discovered that the slope angle might cause considerable variances between different positions even at a small site. While examining the seabed at varying depths, we discovered that the incline angle has distinct impacts on different areas of the seabed. It has an amplifying effect at some depths and a reducing effect at other depths. Generally, as the slope angle increases, the distinction between the responses of the inclined and horizontal seabed becomes more prominent. Especially when the incidence angle of the SV waves is near the critical angle, the impacts of the slope angle become more significant. Even if the horizontal seabed model is employed with the same seawater depth, it is not suitable for analyzing the seismic response of a sloping seabed. Otherwise, significant errors would arise.
THE ROLE OF HINDU RELIGION TEACHERS IN CO-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES TO DEVELOP THE EXISTENCE OF RELIGIOUS MODERATION AT SD SARASWATI 6 DENPASAR

An exclusive attitude is a challenge for the plural and multicultural country of Indonesia. Overcoming these challenges, Hindu Religion teachers at Saraswati 6 Elementary School in Denpasar (SD Saraswati 6 Denpasar) play an active role in co-curricular activities to develop a moderate attitude in the school environment. This research then comes to identify specifically about the role of Hindu Religion teachers in co-curricular activities to develop the existence of religious moderation at SD Saraswati 6 Denpasar. This research uses qualitative research with a descriptive naturalistic approach. Through the use of primary and secondary data sources, data collection methods that use observation techniques, interviews, and literature studies, the results of this study indicate that, the role of Hindu Religion teachers in co-curricular activities leads to the utilization of flag ceremony activities, religious ceremonies, and guidance and counseling activities to foster moderate attitudes. The results of this study aim to guide other teachers and schools in developing the existence of religious moderation in the world of education.
Discrete-Fourier-Transform-Based Evaluation of Physiological Measures as Workload Indicators : A Human-in-the-loop Study linking Workload and Fatigue in a Multi Remote Tower Environment

We propose a new approach to evaluate ocular measurements of air traffic controllers (ATCOs) as potential workload and fatigue indicators. We employ the Fast Fourier transform (FFT) to test our assumption that humans respond to increasing fatigue with harmonic oscillations in the eye movement, while they respond to increasingly high workload with disruptions to these harmonic oscillations. The FFT yields the frequency spectrum and we suggest to use the center of gravity of this spectrum to capture the variations. We give a proof-of concept study to evaluate our approach and we were able to verify our hypotheses in some cases, in particular, we identify the fixation duration as a promising indicator of changes in workload.
Improved Intrusion Detection System to Alleviate Attacks on DNS Service

: Cybercriminals continuously devise new and more sophisticated ways to attack their targets’ security and cyberattacks are on the rise. One of the earliest and most vulnerable network services is the Domain Name System (DNS), which has had several security issues that have been repeatedly exploited over time. Building a strong Intrusion Detection System (IDS) that guards against unwanted access to network resources is essential to identify DNS attacks in the network and safeguard data. Recently, a number of interesting approaches have been developed as a cure-all for intrusion detection, but constructing a safe DNS system remains difficult because attackers frequently alter their tactics to move around the system’s security measures. In this study, we provide a self-learning model that detects the new attacks on DNS using machine learning classifiers. Support Vector Machine (SVM), K-nearest neighbor, Naive Bayes, and Decision Tree are used in the proposed model to classify data as intrusive or normal. The UNSW_NB15 dataset is used to assess the model performance. Data are pre-processed to eliminate irrelevant attributes from the dataset given that the dimensions of the data affect the success of an IDS. Empirical findings show that SVM and Decision Tree have the best performance for all the classifiers, with an accuracy rate of 99.99%. The performance of Naive Bayes is 99.89% for all attack types, which is the lowest of all the classifiers.
Macroinfauna Zonation in Microtidal Sandy Beaches: is it Possible to Identify Patterns in Such Variable Environments?

Abstract Prior studies on sandy beach macroinfauna have been directed to elucidate generalizable zonation patterns. These studies, usually based on a reduced temporal scale (i.e. one sampling date), have often highlighted the discrepancies between their results and the classical, static zonation schemes. This paper demonstrates that snapshot studies might fail to obtain conclusive results about zonation patterns in microtidal sandy beaches, because these constitute dynamic environments subjected to many sources of uncertainty. For this purpose, a yearly study (February 1988–January 1989) of the macroinfauna was carried out on a dissipative beach on the Atlantic coast of Uruguay. An average zonation pattern with three main belts was recognized between the sand dunes and the lower levels of the swash zone when considering annual mean abundances. This pattern roughly matched traditional zonation schemes, whereas monthly patterns did not always fit them—with the exception of some species. Important spatial variability of the macroinfauna was observed, with aperiodic and seasonal components. The former was associated with unpredictable movements of tidal levels, with the macroinfauna changing its position, tracking the high water level. Concerning seasonal periodicity, the species tended to occupy the upper levels of their respective distribution areas during spring and summer, whereas in autumn and winter they inhabited the lower levels. The fact that faunal zones are dynamic, and track sea levels and seasons, diminishes the applicability of static traditional patterns. It was concluded that a yearly study is needed to give a more representative picture of the zonation patterns in microtidal sandy beaches.
Origin and distribution of Pteridophytes in the Mediterranean area

Abstract The distribution and origins of selected Pteridophyta in the Mediterranean area is discussed. Five main periods and sources are indicated: ancient taxa in Equisetopsida and Lycopodiopsida which had an early Laurasian origin; Polypodiopsida that evolved in deciduous forest of the Northern Hemisphere in Paleocene- Eocene times; elements that arose in the tropics of the Cretaceous-Paleocene flora and developed in the warmer and wetter periods to be residual in the south-west of our area; those later species that secondarily spread from east or south-west Asia. The importance of Gondwanaland as a source of some of the older taxa is also briefly discussed.
Modelling ﬂood frequency and magnitude in a glacially conditioned, heterogeneous landscape: testing the importance of land cover and land use

A reliable ﬂood frequency analysis (FFA) requires selection of an appropriate statistical distribution to model historical streamﬂow data and, where streamﬂow data are not available (ungauged sites), a regression-based regional ﬂood frequency analysis (RFFA) often correlates well with down-stream channel discharge to drainage area relations. However, the predictive strength of the accepted RFFA relies on an assumption of homogeneous watershed conditions. For glacially conditioned ﬂuvial systems, inherited glacial land-forms, sediments, and variable land use can alter ﬂow paths and modify ﬂow regimes. This study compares a multivariate RFFA that considers 28 explanatory variables to characterize variable watershed conditions (i.e., surﬁcial geology, climate, topography, and land use) to an accepted power-law relationship between discharge and drainage area. Archived gauge data from southern Ontario, Canada, are used to test these ideas. Mathematical goodness-of-ﬁt criteria best estimate ﬂood discharge for a broad range of ﬂood recurrence intervals, i.e., 1.25, 2, 5, 10, 25, 50, and 100 years. The log-normal, Gumbel, log-Pearson type III, and generalized extreme value distributions are found most appropriate in 42.5 %
Calibrated Functional Projection of Sexual Interest: A Speed-Dating Cosmetics Experiment

An evolutionary analysis suggests that people’s perceptions of potential mates’ sexual desires should be functionally correlated with their own level of sexual desire so as to moderate the likelihood of decision errors. Our research tests this possibility using experimental methods in a speed-dating context. We attempted to manipulate men’s level of sexual interest by having women wear different amounts of cosmetics. The final sample was 76 men and 92 women, with 459 dyadic interactions. Surprisingly, men did not have significantly greater sexual interest in women wearing more cosmetics as compared to women wearing less cosmetics. Men also did not think women wearing more cosmetics had greater sexual interest than women wearing less cosmetics. Despite not finding a cosmetics effect, the study replicates prior findings regarding perceptions of sexual interest. More specifically, men and women projected their own levels of sexual interest onto their dating partners.
Contaminant trends in US National Estuarine Research Reserves

Inputs of toxic chemicals provide one of the major types of anthropogenic stress threatening our Nation's coastal and estuarine waters. To assess this threat, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA’s) National Status and Trends (NS&T) Program Mussel Watch Project monitors the concentrations of more than 70 toxic chemicals in sediments and on the whole soft-parts of mussels and oysters at over 300 sites around the U.S. Twenty of the 25 designated areas that comprise NOAA's National Estuarine Research Reserve System (NERRS) have one or more Mussel Watch monitoring sites. Trace elements and organic contaminants were quantified including As, Ag, Cd, Cu, Hg, Ni, Pb, Zn, ΣPCBs, ΣPAHs, DDT and its metabolites, and butyltins. The Mussel Watch sites located in or near the 20 Reserves provide for both status and trends. Generally the Reserves have trace element and organic contaminant concentrations that are at or below the median concentration determined for all NS&T Mussel Watch monitoring data. Trends were derived using the Spearman-rank correlation coefficient. It was possible to determine if trends exist for sites at which six or more years of data are available. Generally no trends were found for trace elements but when trends were found they were usually decreasing. The same general conclusion holds for organic contaminants but more decreasing trends were found than for trace elements. The greatest number of decreasing trends were found for tributyltin and its metabolites. (PDF contains 203 pages)
Spatial Structure of Tourist Source Areas for the Naturally Scenic Sightseeing Places:A Case Study of Jiuzhaigou

The spatial structure of the source or market areas of tourists is basic to tourist geography. Although there are case studies on such issues as mathematical modeling of distance decay of tourists from a tourist site, its market potential and actual market structure, many questions remain. Take tourist distance decay for example. Whereas hypothetical theoretical curves have been suggested, no basic mathematical model based on case studies exists. In addition, the application of distance cumulative curve in tourist research is still limited to descriptions of the actual distribution of tourists, which is ineffective in analyzing the spatial structure of tourist market potential. Jiuzhaigou Conservation District, one of China's most picturesque tourist areas with numerous colorful lakes and waterfalls, is recognized by UNESCO as one of the world's natural heritage sites. Distance decay model is used to reveal the characteristics of its market area structure. Several types of distance cumulative curve are also used to reveal its market structure at varying distances from the site. A sample of more than 16 000 tourists was obtained from entrance registration which shows the they come from 235 cities and counties. Through regression analysis we calculated the main coefficients of the distance decay model and found that the best fit model is the Pareto model with a distance decay exponent of 0 48. The next best are the lognormal model and square root exponential model, while the normal model is unfit. As the relative coefficients of these models are not high enough, we used the gravity model to analyze distance decay versus the influence of population and economic growth. The result shows a distance decay exponent of 1.84 and a clear increase in relative coefficient to 0 70. Gravity model was also used to better understand how the sampled tourists declined proportionally with increasing distance from the site. The result shows the distance decay exponents range between 1 74 and 1 92. When per capita industrial and agricultural output is replaced with total industrial and agricultural output of cities and counties, the exponents range between 2 5 and 3 0. This study demonstrates that the several distance cumulative curves of the market areas of the site and the population of the market areas can be effectively used to analyze the spatial structure of the site's ultimate market area potentials.
Quantifying New Zealand’s fault lines:fractal dimension and orientation

The surface of New Zealand is dissected by a complex network of fault lines. Understanding the mathematics behind this pattern could lead to better prediction of earthquakes, both large and small, that shake the country on an average of 14,000 times a year. The object of this thesis is to investigate whether fault lines are fractal and, if so, what their fractal dimension is. A spatial pattern of fault line orientation is studied, using a permutation test, specifically adapted for this study. It is found that the estimated fractal dimension is very dependent on the method chosen to analyse spatial distribution. The characteristic of the estimated fractal pattern for the South Island of New Zealand as described in this study and appears to agree with findings for the seismic area of Japan. The orientation of the fault lines depends on spatial location. This result supports leading theories of plate tectonics. This study helps build an overall picture of the fault system in New Zealand and brings us one step further towards a more complete knowledge which may one day help us to predict and prepare for earthquakes in the future.
Evaluation of growth and yield attributing characteristics of indigenous Boro rice varieties

A field experiment was conducted to evaluate the growth, yield and yield attributing characteristics of 12 indigenous Boro rice varieties collected from South-Western regions of Bangladesh namely; Nayon moni, Tere bale, Bere ratna, Ashan boro, Kajol lata, Koijore, Kali boro, Bapoy, Latai balam, Choite boro, GS one and Sylhety boro. The experiment was laid out in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replicates. Parameters on, growth parameter viz. plant height and number of tillers hill -1 (at different days after transplanting); yield contributing characters such as effective tillers hill -1 , panicle length, number of grains panicle -1 , filled grains panicle - 1 , thousand grain weight, grain yield, straw yield, biological yield and harvest index were recorded. The plant height and number of tillers hill -1 at different days after transplanting varied significantly among the varieties up to harvest. At harvest, the tallest plant (123.80 cm) was recorded in Bapoy and the shortest (81.13 cm) was found in GS one. The maximum number of tillers hill -1 (46.00) was observed in Sylhety boro and the minimum (19.80) in Bere ratna. All of the parameters of yield and yield contributing characters differed significantly at 1% level except grain yield, biological yield and harvest index. The maximum number of effective tillers hill -1 (43.87) was recorded in the variety Sylhety boro while Bere ratna produced the lowest effective tillers hill -1 (17.73). The highest (110.57) and the lowest (42.13) number of filled grains panicle -1 was observed in the variety Koijore and Sylhety boro, respectively. Thousand grain weight was the highest (26.35g) in Kali boro and the lowest (17.83g) in GS one. Grain did not differ significantly among the varieties but numerically the highest grain yield (5.01 t ha -1 ) was found in the
Vegetation type, not the legacy of warming, modifies the response of microbial functional genes and greenhouse gas fluxes to drought in Oro-Arctic and alpine regions

Abstract Climate warming and summer droughts alter soil microbial activity, affecting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Arctic and alpine regions. However, the long-term effects of warming, and implications for future microbial resilience, are poorly understood. Using one alpine and three Arctic soils subjected to in situ long-term experimental warming, we simulated drought in laboratory incubations to test how microbial functional-gene abundance affects fluxes in three GHGs: carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. We found that responses of functional gene abundances to drought and warming are strongly associated with vegetation type and soil carbon. Our sites ranged from a wet, forb dominated, soil carbon-rich systems to a drier, soil carbon-poor alpine site. Resilience of functional gene abundances, and in turn methane and carbon dioxide fluxes, was lower in the wetter, carbon-rich systems. However, we did not detect an effect of drought or warming on nitrous oxide fluxes. All gene–GHG relationships were modified by vegetation type, with stronger effects being observed in wetter, forb-rich soils. These results suggest that impacts of warming and drought on GHG emissions are linked to a complex set of microbial gene abundances and may be habitat-specific.