Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Understanding the potential of climate teleconnections to project future groundwater drought

Abstract. Predicting the next major drought is of paramount interest to water managers globally. Estimating the onset of groundwater drought is of particular importance, as groundwater resources are often assumed to be more resilient when surface water resources begin to fail. A potential source of long-term forecasting is offered by possible periodic controls on groundwater level via teleconnections with oscillatory ocean–atmosphere systems. However, relationships between large-scale climate systems and regional to local-scale rainfall, evapotranspiration (ET) and groundwater are often complex and non-linear so that the influence of long-term climate cycles on groundwater drought remains poorly understood. Furthermore, it is currently unknown whether the absolute contribution of multi-annual climate variability to total groundwater storage is significant. This study assesses the extent to which multi-annual variability in groundwater can be used to indicate the timing of groundwater droughts in the UK. Continuous wavelet transforms show how repeating teleconnection-driven 7-year and 16–32-year cycles in the majority of groundwater sites from all the UK's major aquifers can systematically control the recurrence of groundwater drought; and we provide evidence that these periodic modes are driven by teleconnections. Wavelet reconstructions demonstrate that multi-annual periodicities of the North Atlantic Oscillation, known to drive North Atlantic meteorology, comprise up to 40 % of the total groundwater storage variability. Furthermore, the majority of UK recorded droughts in recent history coincide with a minimum phase in the 7-year NAO-driven cycles in groundwater level, providing insight into drought occurrences on a multi-annual timescale. Long-range groundwater drought forecasts via climate teleconnections present transformational opportunities to drought prediction and its management across the North Atlantic region.
Effect of Ripening and Extraction Method on the Physicochemical Properties of Pectin Extracted from Peels of Apem and Apantu Plantain Cultivars in Ghana

Fruit waste has emerged as a significant environmental issue in recent years, adding to the global burden. In Ghana, the extensive use of plantains at various stages of ripeness results in substantial waste during each processing stage, leading to disposal challenges. Interestingly, these wastes often hold considerable economic value and can be repurposed as a source of valuable raw materials or products. Given the broad range of uses for plantains and the significant pollution problems associated with their processing, finding new uses for this organic waste has become a pressing necessity. This study investigated the impact of the method of extraction and ripening stages on the physicochemical characteristics of pectin obtained from two different cultivars of plantains, namely, Apem (M) and Apantu (T), which are indigenous to Ghana. Pectin samples were extracted from different stages of ripening (matured-green (G), half-ripe (H), and full-ripe (R)) by the utilization of acidic (D) and alkaline (L) extraction methods. The analyses conducted on the extracted pectin included proximate composition and moisture content determination, assessment of mineral/elemental composition, and solubility testing. Phytochemical investigations were performed to determine the phytoconstituents present in these pectin extracts. The pectin samples were characterized by determining their equivalent weight, methoxyl and anhydrouronic acid content, and the degree of esterification. The pectin yields obtained from the samples ranged from 10.01% to 46.55%. The moisture levels of all the pectins were below 20%. All pectin samples had swelling indexes between 37.5 ± 0.01% and 185.71 ± 0.02%. The equivalent weight (EW) of the pectin samples ranged from 1351.00 ± 0.6 g/mol to 10000.00 ± 0.07 g/mol. The methoxyl content (MeO) fell within the range of 6.2 ± 0.07% to 14.88 ± 0.14%, while the anhydrouronic acid content (AUA) varied between 38.72 ± 0.28% and 86.59 ± 0.21%. The degree of esterification (DE) ranged from 81.22 ± 0.21% to 97.56 ± 0.14%. Furthermore, the result of the micronutrient and mineral analysis indicated compliance with nutritional requirements. The levels of heavy metals were also within acceptable thresholds, thereby adhering to existing regulatory requirements. These findings highlight the significance of both the extraction technique and the ripening stage on the physicochemical properties of the extracted pectins. Generally, the extracted pectins possess excellent nutritional quality and physicochemical properties, rendering them a very valuable resource that holds promising potential for use in the food and pharmaceutical sectors.
Non-antigen-specific Immunoadsorption Is a Risk Factor for Severe Postoperative Infections in ABO-Incompatible Kidney Transplant Recipients

ABO-incompatible (ABOi) living kidney transplantation (KTx) is an established procedure to address the demand for kidney transplants with outcomes comparable to ABO-compatible KTx. Desensitization involves the use of immunoadsorption (IA) to eliminate preformed antibodies against the allograft. This monocentric retrospective study compares single-use antigen-selective Glycosorb® ABO columns to reusable non-antigen-specific Immunosorba® immunoglobulin adsorption columns regarding postoperative infectious complications and outcome. It includes all 138 ABOi KTx performed at Freiburg Transplant Center from 2004–2020. We compare 81 patients desensitized using antigen-specific columns (sIA) to 57 patients who received IA using non-antigen-specific columns (nsIA). We describe distribution of infections, mortality and allograft survival in both groups and use Cox proportional hazards regression to test for the association of IA type with severe infections. Desensitization with nsIA tripled the risk of severe postoperative infections (adjusted HR 3.08, 95% CI: 1.3–8.1) compared to sIA. nsIA was associated with significantly more recurring (21.4% vs. 6.2%) and severe infections (28.6% vs. 8.6%), mostly in the form of urosepsis. A significantly higher proportion of patients with sIA suffered from allograft rejection (29.6% vs. 14.0%). However, allograft survival was comparable. nsIA is associated with a two-fold risk of developing a severe postoperative infection after ABOi KTx.
Discrete and Continuum Numerical Modeling of Soil Arching between Piles

22 The aim of the study involves investigating the soil-arching phenomenon between piles by adopting two dif23 ferent numerical methods. The first method is the discrete element method that allows analysis of the phe24 nomena at the microscopic level in which soil is represented by an assembly of particles of various shapes that 25 interact with friction at contact points. The method naturally captures the mechanical behavior of frictional 26 materials. The second method is the finite difference method that examines the problem at the macroscopic 27 level. Specifically, soils are considered homogeneous materials from the macroscopic viewpoint. In the con28 tinuum approach, an appropriate constitute model that considers the shear resistance degradation is used to 29 capture the evolution of frictional materials as obtained by using the discrete approach. The numerical micro30 parameters and macro-parameters for the two numerical models are calibrated from triaxial test simulations. 31 A comparison between these two approaches for the case of a soft soil improved by vertical piles is conducted. 32 The study highlights the limitations and advantages of each method with respect to the soil-arching investiga33 tion. 34 35
LEEP excision of high grade cervical intraepithelial lesion to LEEP excision of high grade cervical intraepithelial lesion to achieve appropriate excision margins achieve appropriate excision margins

Background : In the case of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN), cervical conization is the treatment of choice. If resection is only partial, the remaining disease remains a risk. Yet, so far, there have been very few studies looking at how to optimize LEEP resection by removing more of the lesion. Aims and objectives : The goal of loop electrosurgical excision techniques (LEEP) for high-grade cervical intraepithelial lesions is to remove as much of the tumor as possible without leaving any healthy tissue behind. Subjects and methods : The Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology of Al Zahraa University Hospital, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt, participated in this cross-sectional, analytical study. Our study took part in and lasted for two and a half years. Sixty women with high-grade cervical intraepithelial lesions diagnosed with Pap smear undergone LEEP conization. Six subjects were excluded due to having benign lesions on their LEEP biopsies. So, 54 subjects continued to be analyzed. All patients were subjected to the following: history taking, general examination, and local examination. Results : 68.5% of subjects had negative biopsy margins, while 31.5% had positive margins, with a statistically signi ﬁ cant association with obesity, high-grade lesions, and carcinoma. Conclusion : It was concluded that the 7 mm cone depth for treating high-grade cervical intraepithelial lesions was appropriate for a higher negative cone margin after LEEP biopsy. Ki-67 staining is bene ﬁ cial in con ﬁ rming the histo-pathological diagnosis.
Rapid early‐Holocene deglaciation in the Ross Sea, Antarctica

Deglaciation of the Ross Sea following the last ice age provides an important opportunity to examine the stability of marine ice sheets and their susceptibility to changing environmental conditions. Insufficient chronology for Ross Sea deglaciation has helped sustain (i) the theory that this region contributed significantly to Meltwater Pulse 1A (MWP‐1A) and (ii) the idea that Ross Sea grounding‐line retreat occurred in a “swinging gate” pattern hinged north of Roosevelt Island. We present deglaciation records from southern Transantarctic Mountain glaciers, which delivered ice to the central Ross Sea. Abrupt thinning of these glaciers 9–8 kyr B.P. coincided with deglaciation of the Scott Coast, ∼800 km to the north, and ended with the Ross Sea grounding line near Shackleton Glacier. This deglaciation removed grounded ice from most of the central and western Ross Sea in less than 2 kyr. The Ross Sea Sector neither contributed nor responded significantly to MWP‐1A.
Hf- and O-isotope data from detrital and granitoid zircons reveal characteristics of the Permian–Triassic magmatic belt along the Antarctic sector of Gondwana

David H. Elliot1, C. Mark Fanning2, Samuel B. Mukasa3, and Ian L. Millar4 1School of Earth Sciences and Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA 2Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia 3College of Science and Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA 4British Geological Survey, Keyworth, Nottingham NG12 5GG, UK
Ocean Surface Wave‐Current Signatures From Satellite Altimeter Measurements

Ocean currents can strongly impact the propagation of swell systems. Satellite altimetry routinely provides measurements of ocean surface significant wave heights (Hs). A self‐consistent space‐scale decomposition is applied to Hs measurements obtained from different altimeters. This method helps reveal overlooked statistical properties at scales less than 100 km, where mesoscale and submesoscale upper ocean circulation drives a significant part of the variability in the coupled ocean‐atmosphere system. In particular, systematic signatures related to wave‐current interactions are clear at global and regional scales. In the Agulhas current system, the proposed space‐scale decomposition further reveals organized and persistent patterns. To leading order, the redistribution of swell energy follows the cumulative impact of the large‐scale current vorticity field on wave train kinematics. This relationship causes significant swell ray deflection and localized trapping phenomena, which are adequately captured by altimeter measurements.
POPULATION DENSITY OF LEAF-EATING MONKEYS AND DOMINANT VEGETATION AT THE IPUKAN, GUNUNG CIREMAI NATIONAL PARK, INDONESIA

The purpose of this study was to analyze the population density of leaf-eating monkeys (javan langur and girzzled leaf monkey) and vegetation dominating their habitat. The research has been done in the Ipukan of Gunung Ciremai National Park and used line transect method for population data collection and sample plot for data collection of vegetation. The results showed that the population density was 0.49 animals/ha for javan langur and 0.24 animals/ha for grizzled leaf monkey and the mean of group size were 7.42 and 8 animals, respectively. Vegetation was dominated by Pinus merkusii, followed by Ficus fistulosa, Macaranga rhicinoides, and Ficus ribes indicating that monkey habitat was a modified ecosystem and secondary forest. Keywords: conservation, grizzled leaf monkey, javan langur, Presbytis comata, Trachypithecus auratus.
The Role of Fibrogenesis and Extracellular Matrix Proteins in the Pathogenesis of Graves’ Ophthalmopathy

Graves’ ophthalmopathy (GO), or thyroid eye disease (TED), is the most frequent extrathyroidal manifestation of Graves’ disease (GD). Inflammation and subsequent aberrant tissue remodeling with fibrosis are important pathogenesis. There are many proposed mechanisms and molecular pathways contributing to tissue remodeling and fibrosis in GO, including adipogenesis, fibroblast proliferation and myofibroblasts differentiation, oxidative stress, endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, hyaluronan (HA) and glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) accumulation in the extracellular matrix (ECM) and new concepts of epigenetics modification, such as histone modification, DNA methylation, non-coding RNAs, and gut microbiome. This review summarizes the current understanding of ECM proteins and associated tissue remodeling in the pathogenesis and potential mediators for the treatment of GO.
Tectonic drivers of the Wrangell block: Insights on fore‐arc sliver processes from 3‐D geodynamic models of Alaska

Intracontinental shear zones can play a key role in understanding how plate convergence is manifested in the upper plate in regions of oblique subduction. However, the relative role of the driving forces from the subducting plate and the resisting force from within intracontinental shear zones is not well understood. Results from high‐resolution, geographically referenced, instantaneous 3‐D geodynamic models of flat slab subduction at the oblique convergent margin of Alaska are presented. These models investigate how viscosity and length of the Denali fault intracontinental shear zone as well as coupling along the plate boundary interface modulate motion of the Wrangell block fore‐arc sliver and slip across the Denali fault. Models with a weak Denali fault (1017 Pa s) and strong plate coupling (1021 Pa s) were found to produce the fastest motions of the Wrangell block (∼10 mm/yr). The 3‐D models predict along‐strike variation in motion along the Denali fault, changing from dextral strike‐slip motion in the eastern segment to oblique convergence toward the fault apex. Models further show that the flat slab drives oblique motion of the Wrangell block and contributes to 20% (models with a short fault) and 28% (models with a long fault) of the observed Quaternary slip rates along the Denali fault. The 3‐D models provide insight into the general processes of fore‐arc sliver mechanics and also offer a 3‐D framework for interpreting hazards in regions of flat slab subduction.
The Impact of Process‐Based Warm Rain Constraints on the Aerosol Indirect Effect

Many global climate models have been found to generate warm rain too frequently. This study, with a particular global climate model, found that the problem can be mitigated via altering the autoconversion process so as to inhibit rain formation under conditions of a large cloud number concentration and small droplet sizes. However, this improvement was found to cause an overly large aerosol indirect effect. This dichotomy between the constraint on warm‐rain formation process and the energy‐budget requirement on aerosol indirect effect was found to result from a pronounced cloud‐water response to aerosol perturbations, which is amplified through the wet scavenging feedback to an extent depending on precipitation‐formation parameterization. Thus, critical compensating errors exist between warm‐rain formation and other key processes, and better constraint on these processes, particularly wet scavenging, is required to mitigate the dichotomy. The results have broad implication for models that suffer from the aforementioned too‐frequent warm‐rain formation bias.
Cross-Scene Building Identification Based on Dual-Stream Neural Network and Efficient Channel Attention Mechanism

With the widespread popularity of deep learning, various neural network models are extensively employed in the recognition, classification, and segmentation of remote sensing images. Convolutional neural networks (CNNs), fully convolutional networks, including their variants like Unet, have demonstrated significant results within this particular domain. Nevertheless, CNNs exhibit limitations when it comes to grasping extended global dependencies. Conversely, transformers exhibit exceptional ability in effectively dealing with long-range dependencies. Considering this, we have introduced the efficient channel attention-enhanced dual-stream neural network (ECA-DSNN) to improve the identification of buildings across various scenes. Specifically, we developed a dual-stream network that incorporates the Unet and transformer framework in order to capture both the local and global context. In addition, we introduced an attention mechanism module to augment the model's generalization capability. With the advanced identification and generalization capability of ECA-DSNN, only fine-tuning and data augmentation are needed to achieve superior performance in cross-scene transfer, even with limited samples in the target domain. The outcomes indicated that the ECA-DSNN proposed achieved superior performance in comparison to the state-of-the-art methodologies, particularly in the experiment transferring from the source domain Beijing to the target domain Shanghai. In this scenario, the overall accuracy surpassed 96.3% and an F1 score exceeded 78.6%.
Mid-Pliocene (3.4-2.9 Myr) climate: Testing the atmospheric response of Pliocene sea surface temperatures (SST) revised to match proxy observations

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007) established with 90% confidence that anthropogenic climate change will result in a warmer world. In order to more fully understand possible future climate, past analogues of warm periods should be analyzed. The Pliocene epoch is an appropriate analogue because 1. ) The continents were in their current configuration, and 2. ) CO2 levels were comparable to present, possibly as high as 400 ppmv. In 1999 the United States Geological Survey (USGS) created the Pliocene Research, Interpretation and Synoptic Mapping datasets, version 2 (PRISM2), a set of 39 gridded datasets for use as boundary conditions in General Circulation Model (GCM) Experiments. Dekens et al. (2007) proxy observations reveals PRISM2 underestimates sea surface temperatures (SST's) for the California, Peruvian, North African, and South African margins. In this study, we modified the PRISM2 SST's to match these proxy observations. The sensitivity of the atmosphere to these SST revisions was tested using the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Community Atmospheric Model, version 3 (CAM3). The experiment results show increased cumulative precipitation and humidity in regions where PRISM2 predicted drying. For North America the predicted precipitation increase was in better agreement with geologic proxies indicating wetter conditions. Correlation of model results to geologic data for South America and Africa was more difficult due to the lack of Pliocene proxy data for these regions. The patterns of change displayed on wind vector and sea level pressure maps suggest new possibilities for Pliocene air-ocean dynamics. The Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Research and Science (SOARS) Program is managed by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) with support from participating universities. SOARS is funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate Program Office, the NOAA Oceans and Human Health Initiative, the Center for Multi-Scale Modeling of Atmospheric Processes at Colorado State University, and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. SOARS is a partner project with Research Experience in Solid Earth Science for Student (RESESS).
Correlational patterns of neuronal activation and epigenetic marks in the basolateral amygdala and piriform cortex following olfactory threat conditioning and extinction in rats

Introduction Cumulative evidence suggests that sensory cortices interact with the basolateral amygdala (BLA) defense circuitry to mediate threat conditioning, memory retrieval, and extinction learning. The olfactory piriform cortex (PC) has been posited as a critical site for olfactory associative memory. Recently, we have shown that N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR)-dependent plasticity in the PC critically underpins olfactory threat extinction. Aging-associated impairment of olfactory threat extinction is related to the hypofunction of NMDARs in the PC. Methods In this study, we investigated activation of neuronal cFos and epigenetic marks in the BLA and PC using immunohistochemistry, following olfactory threat conditioning and extinction learning in rats. Results We found highly correlated cFos activation between the posterior PC (pPC) and BLA. cFos was correlated with the degree of behavioral freezing in the pPC in both adult and aged rats, and in the BLA only in adult rats. Markers of DNA methylation 5 mC and histone acetylation H3K9/K14ac, H3K27ac, and H4ac exhibited distinct training-, region-, and age-dependent patterns of activation. Strong correlations of epigenetic marks between the BLA and pPC in adult rats were found to be a general feature. Conversely, aged rats only exhibited correlations of H3 acetylations between the two structures. Histone acetylation varied as a function of aging, revealed by a reduction of H3K9/K14ac and an increase of H4ac in aged brains at basal condition and following threat conditioning. Discussion These findings underscore the coordinated role of PC and BLA in olfactory associative memory storage and extinction, with implications for understanding aging related cognitive decline.