Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Scaling of the Source Dimensions of Interface and Intraslab Subduction-zone Earthquakes with Moment Magnitude

This paper derives source scaling relations between rupture dimensions and moment magnitude for subduction-zone earthquakes, separating between interface events occurring at the contact of the subducting and overriding tectonic plates, and intraslab events, which occur within the subducting slab. These relations are then compared with existing scaling relations, which are predominantly based on data from crustal events. Relations between the dimensions of the rupture zone of earthquakes and the amount of energy released as measured by the seismic moment, M , or equivalently moment magnitude, Mw , (Hanks and Kanamori 1979), are of great practical use in engineering seismology. Early relations ( e.g. , Kanamori and Anderson 1975; Wyss 1979) were derived with the purpose of using rupture dimensions to constrain estimates of magnitude. Additionally, the relation between independently determined rupture dimensions and seismic moment also was used to draw inferences in terms of source scaling from comparisons between observed data and predictions of theoretical seismological models ( e.g. , Kanamori and Anderson 1975; Astiz et al. 1987). Nowadays, moment magnitude is routinely estimated from instrumental recordings, and the scaling relations described above are predominantly used to infer the probable dimensions of an earthquake of given magnitude. Applications include distance calculations using finite-fault distance metrics ( e.g. , Chiou and Youngs 2006), characterization of seismic sources in seismic hazard analysis, and theoretical studies involving forward-modeling of fault slip and resulting ground motions ( e.g. , Atkinson and Macias 2009; Somerville et al. 2008). However, the reciprocal relations giving moment magnitude as a function of rupture dimensions may still be useful for estimating the moment magnitude of either historical or hypothetical scenario events for which an estimate of the rupture dimensions is available, for instance on the basis of the dimensions of an observed seismic gap or from fault …
Pressure–temperature–structural distance relationships within Greater Himalayan rocks in eastern Bhutan: implications for emplacement models

In the Himalayan orogen, Greater Himalayan (GH) rocks were buried to mid‐ to lower‐crustal levels and are now exposed across the strike of the orogen. Within the eastern Himalaya, in the Kingdom of Bhutan, the GH is divided into structurally lower (lower‐GH) and upper (upper‐GH) levels by the Kakhtang thrust (KT). Pressure–temperature estimates from lower‐ and upper‐GH rocks collected on two transects across the KT yield similar P–T–structural distance trends across each transect. In the eastern transect, temperatures are similar (from 730 to 650 °C) over a structural thickness of ~11 km, but peak pressures decrease from ~10 to 6 kbar with increasing structural level. In comparison, peak temperatures in the central Bhutan transect are similar (from 730 to 600 °C), but pressures decrease from 10 to 6.5 kbar with increasing structural level over a structural thickness of ~6 km. The structurally highest sample reveals slightly higher pressures of 8.0 kbar in comparison to pressures of ~6.5 kbar for samples collected from within the KT zone, ~4 km below. Within each transect, there are increases in pressure ± temperature within the overall upright P–T gradient that may demarcate intra‐GH shear zone(s). These P–T results combined with evidence that the timing of initial melt crystallization becomes older with increasing structural level suggest that the intra‐GH shear zones emplaced deeper GH rocks via progressive ductile underplating. These shear zones, including the KT, likely aided in the initial emplacement and construction of the GH as a composite tectonic unit during the Late Oligocene to Early Miocene, from c. 27 to 16 Ma.
Autoimmune Diseases: The New Frontiers

Immunosuppressive drugs have long been used in the treatment of autoimmune diseases (AD). These drugs such as corticosteroids, methotrexate and cyclophosphamide cause the suppression of the immune system particularly on the T cell activation and inhibition of inflammatory cytokines production. However, patients prescribed with these drugs suffer from reduced immunity. They have increased susceptibility to serious infections and risk of malignancies. Therefore, more specific approaches against AD were developed to reduce the negative effects resulting from the blanket immunosuppression of AD-related drugs. These approaches; antigen based immunotherapy, checkpoint-based immunotherapy, targeted inflammatory cytokines and stem cell therapy, although not refined has shown great promises in animal models and were at various stages of clinical trials.
Fault array evolution in extensional basins: insights from statistical analysis of gravel deposits in the Cecina River (Tuscany, Italy)

Two statistical analyses of gravel clasts from the Lower Pleistocene deposits in the Lower Cecina Valley (Tuscany, Italy) have been combined to unravel changes in the palaeo‐drainage system. Data from 16 outcrops were collected and 6400 clasts described. Facies analysis, micro‐palaeontology and macro‐palaeontology and petrographic characteristics of the gravel deposits have highlighted the presence of three allostratigraphic units. Clast lithology is the main discriminator among these units. Cluster and principal component analyses of the 6400 clasts have improved understanding of the stratigraphy of the Lower Pleistocene deposits and constrain the re‐routing of the lower palaeo‐Cecina River from a supposedly south‐east to north‐west direction to the present east to west direction. Short rivers feeding small fan deltas represented by the oldest allostratigraphic units were abandoned in the Lower Pleistocene, when the re‐routing of the Cecina River caused the capture of these streams. This evolution suggests a change in the tectonic regime of the area. The fan deltas developed on the hanging wall of normal faults sub‐parallel to the coast; a change to a transtensile tectonic regime caused the deviation of the main river channel toward the present coast and the formation of a pull‐apart basin, which is now exploited by the Cecina River. This study illustrates the value of lithological analyses of gravel deposits for understanding the tectonic evolution of an area.
Nutrient budget of a montane evergreen broad‐leaved forest at Ailao Mountain National Nature Reserve, Yunnan, southwest China

Hydrological fluxes and associated nutrient budget were studied during a 2 year period (1998–99) in a montane moist evergreen broad‐leaved forest at Ailao Mountain, Yunnan. Water samples of rainfall, throughfall, and stemflow, and of surface runoff, soil water, and stream flow were collected bimonthly to determine the concentration and fluxes of nutrients. Soil budgets were determined from the difference between precipitation input (including nutrient leaching from canopy) and output via runoff and drainage.
Montclair State University Digital Montclair State University Digital Commons Commons

Heightened attention to bullying in research and in the media has led to a proliferation of school climate surveys that ask students to report their level of involvement in bullying. In this study, the authors reviewed the challenges associated with measuring bullying and the implications they have on the reliability of school climate surveys. Then they used data from a sample of 810 students in a large public high school in New Jersey to evaluate the merits of using a more generalized definition of aggression in school climate research. Similar to national surveys of bullying, the authors found that boys were more likely than girls to be involved as aggressors, victims, and victim-aggressors for verbal aggression, physical aggression, threats, and damage to property. Girls were more likely to be involved in social aggression. Few differences were observed in aggressive behaviors by grade, but grade level moderated the differences by gender for all types of aggression. The findings demonstrate what school social workers can expect to learn about school climate by using a survey instrument to measure the prevalence of specific categories of aggression that do not include the requisite power differential, a minimum duration of victimization, or an intentionality test.
Nonlinear Mohr Envelopes Based on Triaxial Data

A substantial amount of experimental evidence suggests that Mohr envelopes of many soils are not linear, particularly in the range of small normal stresses. This departure from linearity is significant for slope stability calculations since for a wide range of practical stability problems, critical slip surfaces are shallow and normal stresses acting on such surfaces are small. The present work presents a procedure for estimating parameters of the Mohr form of Hoek and Brown empirical failure criterion, based on triaxial data. This nonlinear Mohr envelope provides significantly better representation of experimental information than the Mohr-Coulomb criterion in cases when the data set includes tests at small enough normal stress. Application of the estimation procedure to published data sets shows that effective cohesive strength of most soils is close to zero, and Mohr envelopes are continuous at the tensile strength limit.
U-Pb zircon dates from North American and British Avalonia bracket the Lower–Middle Cambrian boundary interval, with evaluation of the Miaolingian Series as a global unit

Abstract High-precision U-Pb zircon ages on SE Newfoundland tuffs now bracket the Avalonian Lower–Middle Cambrian boundary. Upper Lower Cambrian Brigus Formation tuffs yield depositional ages of 507.91 ± 0.07 Ma (Callavia broeggeri Zone) and 507.67 ± 0.08 Ma and 507.21 ± 0.13 Ma (Morocconus-Condylopyge eli Assemblage interval). Lower Middle Cambrian Chamberlain’s Brook Formation tuffs have depositional ages of 506.34 ± 0.21 Ma (Kiskinella cristata Zone) and 506.25 ± 0.07 Ma (Eccaparadoxides bennetti Zone). The composite unconformity separating the Brigus and Chamberlain’s Brook formations is constrained between these ages. An Avalonian Lower–Middle Cambrian boundary between 507.2 ± 0.1 and 506.3 ± 0.2 Ma is consistent with maximum depositional age constraints from southwest Laurentia, which indicate an age for the base of the Miaolingian Series, as locally interpreted, of ≤ 506.6 ± 0.3 Ma. The Miaolingian Series’ base is interpreted as correlative within ≤ 0.3 ± 0.3 Ma between Cambrian palaeocontinents, although its exact synchrony is questionable due to taxonomic problems with a possible Oryctocephalus indicus-plexus, invariable dysoxic lithofacies control of O. indicus and diachronous occurrence of O. indicus in temporally distinct δ 13C chemozones in South China and SW Laurentia. The lowest occurrence of O. indicus assemblages is linked to onlap (epeirogenic or eustatic) of dysoxic facies. A united Avalonia is shown by late Early Cambrian volcanics in SW New Brunswick; Cape Breton Island; SE Newfoundland; and the Wrekin area, England. The new U-Pb ages revise Avalonian geological evolution as they show rapid epeirogenic changes through depositional sequences 4a–6.
Anti-Laundering Approach for Bitcoin Transactions

Money laundering has significantly increased in recent years as a result of the quick growth of financial systems and the emergence of cryptocurrencies. These crimes threaten the stability of both economic and social systems and impact the security of public and private financial institutions. In response, detecting and preventing money laundering has become a top priority for financial systems, which rely on deep analysis of assets and the nature of funds to uncover illegitimate sources. With the rise of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, criminals have adopted new technologies and channels to cover up their illegal activities. This research aims to develop a new deep learning architecture for detecting illegitimate Bitcoin transactions in order to prevent Bitcoin laundering crimes. In this study, a deep investigation of the previous works will be conducted for better understanding of the problem statement. Besides, a new framework will be designed to exceed the performance of current best practices with regard to accuracy. Ultimately, the findings of this research will aid the financial sector in combating Bitcoin laundering activities and strengthening the security of digital financial transactions. An elliptic dataset used for bitcoin transactions that belong to real entities, where it consists of 203,769 nodes and 234,355 edges for illicit and licit transactions. The licit transaction families are licit services, exchanges, miners, and wallet providers. While the illicit transaction families are malware, frauds, Ponzi (fraud) schemes, ransomware, and terrorist organizations. The proposed model semi-supervised generative adversarial network (SGAN) utilized to complete the labelling process of the unknown entities. Based on the experimental results, the proposed model significantly improved upon previous methods, achieving a 98% success rate in accurately predicting illicit transactions. Thus, we consider it as a competitive stand in terms of anti-laundering for the Bitcoin cryptocurrency.
Improved Water Flooding through Injection Brine Modification

Crude oil/brine/rock interactions can lead to large variations in the displacement efficiency of waterflooding, by far the most widely applied method of improved oil recovery. Laboratory waterflood tests show that injection of dilute brine can increase oil recovery. Numerous fields in the Powder River basin have been waterflooded using low salinity brine (about 500 ppm) from the Madison limestone or Fox Hills sandstone. Although many uncertainties arise in the interpretation and comparison of field production data, injection of low salinity brine appears to give higher recovery compared to brine of moderate salinity (about 7,000 ppm). Laboratory studies of the effect of brine composition on oil recovery cover a wide range of rock types and crude oils. Oil recovery increases using low salinity brine as the injection water ranged from a low of no notable increase to as much as 37.0% depending on the system being studied. Recovery increases using low salinity brine after establishing residual oil saturation (tertiary mode) ranged from no significant increase to 6.0%. Tests with two sets of reservoir cores and crude oil indicated slight improvement in recovery for low salinity brine. Crude oil type and rock type (particularly the presence and distribution of kaolinite) both play more » a dominant role in the effect that brine composition has on waterflood oil recovery. « less
Bootstrap Your Own Variance

Understanding model uncertainty is important for many applications. We propose Bootstrap Your Own Variance (BYOV), combining Bootstrap Your Own Latent (BYOL), a negative-free Self-Supervised Learning (SSL) algorithm, with Bayes by Backprop (BBB), a Bayesian method for estimating model posteriors. We find that the learned predictive std of BYOV vs. a supervised BBB model is well captured by a Gaussian distribution, providing preliminary evidence that the learned parameter posterior is useful for label free uncertainty estimation. BYOV improves upon the deterministic BYOL baseline (+2.83% test ECE, +1.03% test Brier) and presents better calibration and reliability when tested with various augmentations (eg: +2.4% test ECE, +1.2% test Brier for Salt&Pepper noise).
Defining the shelf edge and the three‐dimensional shelf edge to slope facies variability in shelf‐edge deltas

Shelf‐edge deltas play a critical role in shelf‐margin accretion and deepwater sediment delivery, yet much remains to be understood about the detailed linkage between shelf edge and slope sedimentation. The shelf edge separates the flat‐lying shelf from steeper slope regions, and is observable in seismic data and continuous outcrops; however, it is commonly obscured in non‐continuous outcrops. Defining this zone is essential because it segregates areas dominated by shelf currents from those governed by gravity‐driven processes. Understanding this linkage is paramount for predicting and characterizing associated deepwater reservoirs. In the Tanqua Karoo Basin, the Permian Kookfontein Formation shelf‐slope clinothems are well‐exposed for 21 km along depositional strike and dip. Two independent methods identified the shelf‐edge position, indicating that it is defined by: (i) a transition from predominantly shelf‐current to gravitational deposits; (ii) an increase in soft‐sediment deformation; (iii) a significant gradient increase; and (iv) clinothem thickening. A quantitative approach was used to assess the impact of process‐regime variability along the shelf edge on downslope sedimentation. Facies proportions were quantified from sedimentary logs and photographic panels, and integrated with mapped key surfaces to construct a stratigraphic grid. Spatial variability in facies proportions highlights two types of shelf‐edge depositional zones within the same shelf‐edge delta. Where deposition occurred in fluvial‐dominated zones, the slope is sand rich, channelized with channels widening downslope, and rich in collapse features. Where deltaic deposits indicate considerable tidal reworking, the deposits are thin and pinch‐out close to the shelf edge, and the slope is sand poor and lacks channelization. Amplification of tidal energy, and decrease in fluvial drive on the shelf, coincides with a decrease in mouth bar and shelf‐edge collapse, and a lack of channelization on the slope. This analysis suggests that process‐regime variability along the shelf edge exercised significant control on shelf‐edge progradation, slope channelization and deepwater sediment delivery.
Productivity of poplar hybrid (Populus balsamifera × P. laurifolia) in Latvia.

Fast growing poplar clones have been widely used for biomass production in Southern Europe; however, there is insufficient information about the growth of poplar in north-eastern Europe that might hamper its wider use. The aim of the study was to assess the productivity of poplar hybrid and its potential for biomass productions. Material for the study was collected in 14 stands (age 54 -65 years) located in the central and western part of Latvia (56 -57°N, 22-23°E), which were established on fertile drained mineral soil ( Mercurialiosa mel. ) and mineral soil with normal moisture regime ( Oxalidosa and Aegopodiosa ). Tree diameter and height were measured and biomass was estimated using equation developed based on 24 sample trees. Mean tree diameter and height in stands on mineral soil varied greatly (from 29 ± 1.6 cm to 45 ± 3.9 cm and from 24 ± 0.9 m to 31 ± 0.8 m, respectively); however in stands on drained mineral soil mean diameter and height was 42 ± 2.1 cm and 27 ± 0.7 m, respectively. Mean diameter and height of poplar was 16.7 -25.1% higher compared with Norway spruce and these differences were statistically significant ( p-value < 0.05), differences with common aspen were not significant. The number of fallen and standing dead trees, reaching up to 14 -46% from the number of living trees, indicated aging and intense self-thinning. Mean annual volume increment of all stands was 11.8 m 3 ha -1 y -1 (in some of stands reaching 21.0 m 3 ha -1 y -1 ), corresponding to 4.2 -9.8 t of dry matter per year. Thus, the results suggest that poplar could be an efficient species for production of bioenergy.
Motion of the Seawater Interface in Coastal Aquifers: A Numerical Solution

The partial differential equations that describe the motion of the seawater interface and the free surface in a phreatic coastal aquifer (or the freshwater head replacing the latter, in the confined case) are presented. They are based on the Dupuit approximation and take into consideration the geometry of the vertical section through the aquifer, in whose plane the flow takes place, as well as the spatial variation of properties of the porous medium and the spatial and temporal distributions of accretion, recharge, and pumping. An implicit numerical scheme is presented to solve the set of simultaneous partial differential equations. The scheme is based on a linearization of the equations and employs a grid with one spacing over the intrusion length and a different spacing in the remainder of the field. Efficient solution of the resulting set of simultaneous linear equations for each time step is achieved by arranging them in a way that results in a 7 diagonal coefficient matrix. Examples are presented, for which the numerical solutions are compared with analytical solutions or laboratory experiments.
Free-Surface Flow Over Curved Surfaces

Abstract : Flood flows in excess of a reservoir's capacity must be passed downstream in a manner that does not endanger the dam or surrounding hydraulic structures. This is not a trivial task as the flow must fall a great distance to reach the riverbed. These high current velocities coupled with a free surface can easily lead to regions of low pressure in which cavitation may occur or the formation of standing waves and an uneven flow distribution. Poor flow distribution will yield circulation and high velocities at the base of the spillway (or outlet channel) known as the stilling basin, resulting in downstream scour, potentially undermining the structure, causing bank erosion and stilling basin damage. Numerical models of free-surface spillway flows must address high flow velocities and the nonhydrostatic pressure distribution over the curved spillway bed. Common shallow-water models invoke the hydrostatic assumption, and in the case of the St. Venant equations, also the mild-slope assumption and may not be adequate. This investigation develops the equations of a more general shallow-water formulation that includes bed curvature effects. The equations have lateral and longitudinal resolution and an assumed bed-normal velocity distribution. Finite element, Petrov-Galerkin, Nonhydrostatic, Shallow water.
Long-Term Assessment of a Layered-Geotextile Protection Layer for Geomembranes

AbstractThe effectiveness of layered-geotextile protection layers comprised of combinations of nonwoven needle-punched, woven slit-film, and nonwoven heat-bonded geotextiles to minimize strains in landfill geomembranes is examined. Results from physical experiments are reported where a sustained 700-N force was applied to a 28-mm-diameter machined steel probe on top of the protection layer, which was above a 60-mm-diameter, 1.5-mm-thick high-density polyethylene geomembrane and a 50-mm-thick compressible clay layer. The experiments are intended to simulate the physical conditions in a medium-sized landfill with an average vertical stress of 250 kPa and to capture the mean response with nominal 50-mm coarse gravel above the geomembrane. Screening tests were first conducted for up to 100 h at temperatures up to 55°C to evaluate three different combinations of layered geotextiles. Of those examined, the combination with a low-slack, heat-bonded geotextile above and below a thick, nonwoven, needle-punched geo.