Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Carbon isotope chemostratigraphy, geochemistry, and biostratigraphy of the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum, deepwater Wilcox Group, Gulf of Mexico (USA)

Abstract. The Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) represents the most pronounced hyperthermal of the Cenozoic era and is hypothesized to have resulted in an intensification of the paleohydrologic cycle, including enhanced seasonality and increased sediment discharge to the coastal ocean. Although the PETM has been widely documented, there are few records from deposits that form the distal, deepwater components of large sediment-routing systems. This study presents new constraints on the stratigraphic placement of the PETM in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico basin through analysis of geochemical, carbon isotopic, and biostratigraphic data within a ∼124 m cored interval of the Wilcox Group. Biostratigraphic and carbon isotopic data indicate that the PETM extends over ∼13 m based on acmes in the dinoflagellate Apectodinium homomorphum and calcareous nannoplankton Rhomboaster cuspis as well as a ∼-2 ‰ shift in bulk organic δ13C values. A decrease in bioturbation and benthic foraminifera suggests that a reduction in oxygen of Gulf of Mexico bottom waters and/or an increase in sedimentation rates were coincident with the onset of the PETM. A ∼2 m lag in the depositional record separates the onset of the PETM negative carbon isotope excursion (CIE) and deposition of a 5.7 m thick interval of organic-lean claystone and marlstone that reflects a shut-off of the supply of sand, silt, and terrestrial palynomorphs to the basin. We interpret deposits of the PETM in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico to reflect the combined effects of increased erosional denudation and rising sea level that resulted in sequestration of sand and silt near the coastline but that allowed delivery of terrigenous mud to the deep sea. The similarity of oceanographic changes observed in the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean during the PETM supports the inference that these water masses were connected during latest Paleocene–earliest Eocene times. Although deposition of typical Wilcox Group facies resumed during and after the PETM recovery, an increased influx of terrestrial detritus (i.e., pollen, spores, terrestrial organic debris) relative to marine dinoflagellates is suggestive of long-lasting effects of the PETM. This study illustrates the profound and prolonged effects of climatic warming on even the most distal reaches of large (≥1×106 km2) sediment-routing systems.
Estimation of nutrient contents in wolfberry (Lycium barbarum L.) based on hyperspectral analysis

Rapid and accurate determination of the nutrient contents in wolfberry (Lycium barbarum L.) is of great significance for identifying the quality and origin of the fruit. Compared to traditional chemical analysis methods, hyperspectral remote sensing has the advantages of high speed and low cost. In this study, the dried fruits of wolfberry (cultivar ‘Ningqi No. 7’) taken from the Huinong, Yinchuan, Zhongning, and Tongxin regions of Ningxia, China, in 2020 were selected as samples. Two methods, the variable importance measure (VIM) under random forest and the successive projection algorithm (SPA), were applied to select the hyperspectral characteristic variables. The test set coefficient of determination (R2p), root mean square error of prediction (RMSEP), and relative percent deviation (RPD) for different pre-treatments and characteristic variable selection methods were compared. Finally, the optimal estimation models of partial least squares regression (PLSR) for the contents of eight nutrients in wolfberry were established. The results were as follows: (1) The variation trends of the original hyperspectral reflectance curves of wolfberries from different yield areas and harvest dates were similar, and the spectral characteristic absorption bands were significantly enhanced after first-order differential transformation. (2) After extracting the characteristic bands using SPA, the RPD values were all above 2.0, and the estimation performance was significantly better than that of the full bands. (3) The optimal estimation model for total sugar (TS), crude protein (CP), and Ca was found to be SG-MSC-SPA-PLSR; the optimal estimation model for Lycium barbarum polysaccharide (LBP), Mn, and Zn was found to be SG-2ndD-SPA-PLSR; and the optimal estimation model for Cu and Fe was found to be SG-1stD-SPA-PLSR. The results have important reference value for the quality evaluation and origin traceability of wolfberry.
Adoption of mass media for agricultural purposes by smallholder farmers in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa

Smallholder agriculture is one of the imperative segments in the South African economy and it remains the imperative sector for livelihood generation. Farmers use mass media to access information needed for agricultural purposes to enhance agricultural practice and profitability. This study investigates the socio-economic drivers of using mass media for agricultural purposes by smallholder farmers in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. The study applied a descriptive survey research design to interview 200 smallholder farmers using a semi-structured survey. Data engendered were analyzed using descriptive statistics and the Logistic regression model. The investigation outcome displays that 80% of the smallholder farmers currently use mass media for agricultural purposes. The study concludes that socioeconomic factors influence the use of mass media for agricultural purposes by smallholder farmers. Therefore, the study recommends the government to train farmers on the use of mass media usage and subsidize farmers so that they can purchase these modern technology tools.
Monte Carlo simulation of a CsI-based flat-panel imager for mammography

The development of new digital mammography techniques such as dual-energy imaging, tomosynthesis and CT mammography often requires investigating optimal camera design parameters and imaging techniques. One tool that is useful for this purpose is Monte Carlo simulation. This paper presents a methodology for generating simulated images from a CsI-based, flat-panel imager by using the Geant 3 Monte Carlo code to model x-ray transport and absorption within the CsI scintillator, and the DETECT-II code to track optical photon spread within a columnar model of the CsI scintillator. The Monte Carlo modeling of x-ray transport and absorption within the CsI was validated by comparing to previously published values for the probability of a K-shell interaction, the fluorescent yield, the probability of a K-fluorescent emission, and the escape fraction describing the probability of a K x-ray escaping the scintillator. To validate the combined (Geant coupled with DETECT-II) Monte Carlo approach to form simulated images, comparison of modulation transfer functions (MTFs) and system sensitivity (electrons/mR/pixel) obtained from simulations were compared to empirical measurements obtained with different x-ray spectra and imagers with varying CsI thicknesses. By varying the absorption and reflective properties of the columnar CsI used in the DETECT-II code, good agreement between simulated MTFs and system sensitivity and empirically measured values were observed.
Estimation of Variance Components by the Expectation-Maximization Algorithm for Restricted Maximum Likelihood in a Repeatability Model for Semen Production

Abstract Restricted maximum likelihood by the expectation-maximization algorithm was used to estimate variance components in a mixed linear model parameterized to separate additive genetic from nonadditive genetic and permanent environmental sources of variation. In this model, heritability is not estimable unless animals are related and the inverse numerator relationship matrix is incorporated in the mixed model equations. The expectation-maximization algorithm guarantees that variance components will remain positive with positive priors. However, convergence of the algorithm tends to zero if any variance component tends to zero. In practice, some form of acceleration routine may be required to speed convergence. The procedure was applied to analyze 2,216 semen output measures for first ejaculates of volume, concentration, and total sperm on 200 young bulls from one bull stud. Heritabilities and repeatabilities were . 12, . 00, . 02 and . 24, . 45, . 44 for volume, concentration, and total sperm.
Acoustic imaging of high‐temperature hydrothermal plumes at seafloor spreading centers

We explore the possibility of using active sonar techniques to acoustically image high‐temperature ‘‘black smoker’’ hydrothermal plumes. We examine recent sonar images of a hydrothermal vent field at 11°N on the East Pacific Rise obtained from DSRV Alvin which may show the presence of plumes. For vent fields on the East Pacific Rise estimates are obtained of the minimum detectable concentration of precipitates as a function of the range between the sonar and the plume boundary. These estimates are compared with measured concentrations. Some of the anticipated advantages of acoustic imaging are discussed. We conclude that acoustic imaging techniques have the potential of providing a coherent framework for point sampling of physical and chemical properties of hydrothermal plumes and for determining the dynamics of their injection into the surrounding water mass.
Assessment methodologies and determinants of employability and skills level among Technical and Vocational Education Training ( TVET) graduates in Central Uganda

Globally, unemployment persists because skill levels and learner capabilities are not in tandem with job market requirements. Using logistic analysis, the present study probed determinants of employability of 150 graduates of Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) in Central Uganda and further predicted factors influencing their skills level by applying Tobit regression. On a 1 to 5 scale, skills averaged at 3.3. Employability depended on the skills level, age, gender, possessing a national award and disability status whereby the disabled had less likelihood of being employed. Class size, the training period, age and gender of the graduate significantly explained skill level of graduates. It was reported that the main methodology used to assess the graduates was class-based written testing. The paper argues that administrators of training institutions originate a special training and assessment methodology for the disabled. Class sizes should also be small and manageable for learners to be adequately trained and assessed. The study further proposes that the training period be longer and learners attend for the entire period to acquaint themselves with work-world demanded capabilities.
The Burden of a Multiple Myeloma Diagnosis on Patients and Caregivers in the First Year: Western European Findings

Background: This research aimed to quantify the burden of illness (BoI) in transplant eligible (TE) and transplant non-eligible (TNE) newly diagnosed multiple myeloma (NDMM) patients and their caregivers, in the first year after diagnosis: at months 0, 3, and 12. Methods: Prospective, cross-sectional, observational NDMM study of TE and TNE patients and their caregivers from France, Germany, Italy, and Spain was conducted between May 2019 and January 2021. A structured, online questionnaire measuring disease burden, direct and costs, out-of-pocket expenses, and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) was used. Descriptive statistics were performed. Results: A total of 164, 160, and 190 NDMM patients [>65 years; self-described healthy; not working; living with caregiver] answered at months 0, 3, and 12. Patients lost independence to perform daily activities; mean pain intensity rose and opioid utilization increased, more significantly among TNE patients. Overall health status and HRQoL remained stable. Median 3-month direct medical costs peaked at month 3. Specialist consultations and hospital admissions were the greatest cost amongst TE and TNE patients. Home adaptations increased out-of-pocket expenditures amongst TNE patients. Patients describing themselves as working spent a median 0 hours in the office at all time points. A total of 131, 122, and 124 caregivers answered at months 0, 3, and 12. Mean self-rated burden score rose. By month 12, half of caregivers developed stress, anxiety or depression. Most employed caregivers continued working. Productivity was low at month 0 with a trend of recovering at month 12. Caregivers of TNE compared to TE patients reported greater time burden. Caregivers’ HRQoL was stable over time. Conclusion: NDMM is burdensome for patients and caregivers in the first year after diagnosis. TNE patients are more dependent on caregivers and incur higher care costs than TE patients. Despite the financial, physical, and emotional burden, HRQoL remains stable possibly indicating resilience and illness adjustment amongst patients and caregivers.
Improved process representation of leaf phenology significantly shifts climate sensitivity of ecosystem carbon balance

Abstract. Terrestrial carbon cycle models are routinely used to determine the response of the land carbon sink under expected future climate change, yet these predictions remain highly uncertain. Increasing the realism of processes in these models may help with predictive skill, but any such addition should be confronted with observations and evaluated in the context of the aggregate behavior of the carbon cycle. Here, two formulations for leaf area index (LAI) phenology are coupled to the same terrestrial biosphere model: one is climate agnostic, and the other incorporates direct environmental controls on both timing and growth. Each model is calibrated simultaneously to observations of LAI, net ecosystem exchange (NEE), and biomass using the CARbon DAta-MOdel fraMework (CARDAMOM) and validated against withheld data, including eddy covariance estimates of gross primary productivity (GPP) and ecosystem respiration (Re) across six ecosystems from the tropics to high latitudes. Both model formulations show similar predictive skill for LAI and NEE. However, with the addition of direct environmental controls on LAI, the integrated model explains 22 % more variability in GPP and Re and reduces biases in these fluxes by 58 % and 77 %, respectively, while also predicting more realistic annual litterfall rates due to changes in carbon allocation and turnover. We extend this analysis to evaluate the inferred climate sensitivity of LAI and NEE with the new model and show that the added complexity shifts the sign, magnitude, and seasonality of NEE sensitivity to precipitation and temperature. This highlights the benefit of process complexity when inferring underlying processes from Earth observations and representing the climate response of the terrestrial carbon cycle.
Optical in situ surface control during MOVPE and MBE growth

Reflectance anisotropy spectroscopy (RAS) and Raman scattering are presented as in situ and online analytical tools for epitaxial growth of semiconductors. While RAS derives its surface sensitivity from an anisotropic surface structure, Raman scattering has monolayer resolution at heterointerfaces due to the fingerprint character of the vibrational properties of the overlayers. The growth examples discussed are movpe growth of GaAs on GaAs analysed by RAS and MBE growth of InSb on Sb as well as CdTe on InSb monitored by Raman scattering. The information gained concerns the status of the pregrowth surface (RAS), growth rate with monolayer resolution (RAS), growth morphology (Raman scattering) and the detection of interface reactions (Raman scattering). Both methods can be applied with a time resolution of a few seconds (Raman scattering) or better (RAS).
VOICES FROM THE FIELDS. MIGRANT A GRICULTURE WORKERS DURING COVID-19 IN SPAIN AND NEW FORMS OF ACTIVISM FOR DIGNITY 1

: The health crisis has revealed many of the structural and endemic problems that have existed in the agriculture sector in Spain over the last two decades: the high volume of foreigners in an irregular situation, the miserable informal settlements and substandard housing in which they are forced to “reside”, and the extreme physical and social vulnerability of the workers, including those employed under of- ficial seasonal labor mobility schemes. These structural problems have traditionally been ignored by the administration, whose policies have focused on managing the mobility of migrants while neglecting the needs of migrant workers present in the territory. During the health crisis the emergence of the narrative on their “essential role”, which was incorporated in the political discourse, together with the visibility of their poor working and living conditions, have generated, promoted or consolidated several struggles based on what we can call the right to live in dignity. In the Spanish case these struggles have been caused by three types of tensions that have become particularly intense during the Covid-19 pandemic: the tension between essentiality and disposability, between temporality and permanence, and between an active and a passive citizenship.
How fast did Cicero speak? The speech rate of Classical Latin versus its Romance descendants

While languages convey significantly different amounts of both information per syllable and syllables per second, recent research suggests that the product of these values— information conveyed per second—is much less variable. Using new methods of extrapolation and resampling, I was able to estimate the information conveyed per syllable in a written Classical Latin corpus. I was then able to use this cross-linguistic consistency to estimate the natural speech rate of Classical Latin, a language that has not been na-tively spoken for thousands of years. My analysis suggests that it was spoken at a rate significantly slower than modern Romance languages, fairly similar to modern English; a high-level consideration of historical sound changes in Romance supports this conclusion, lending additional credence to my results
Remote Sens

Ecological remote sensing is being transformed by three-dimensional (3D), multispectral measurements of forest canopies by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and computer vision structure from motion (SFM) algorithms. Yet applications of this technology have out-paced understanding of the relationship between collection method and data quality. Here, UAV-SFM remote sensing was used to produce 3D multispectral point clouds of Temperate Deciduous forests at different levels of UAV altitude, image overlap, weather, and image processing. Error in canopy height estimates was explained by the alignment of the canopy height model to the digital terrain model (R = 0.81) due to differences in lighting and image overlap. Accounting for this, no significant differences were observed in height error at different levels of lighting, altitude, and side overlap. Overall, accurate estimates of canopy height compared to field measurements (R = 0.86, RMSE = 3.6 m) and LIDAR (R = 0.99, RMSE = 3.0 m) were obtained under optimal conditions of clear lighting and high image overlap (>80%). Variation in point cloud quality appeared related to the behavior of SFM ‘image features’. Future research should consider the role of image features as the fundamental unit of SFM remote sensing, akin to the pixel of optical imaging and the laser pulse of LIDAR.
Birth Order and Public Investments: Evidence from the United States, 1900-1940

A growing literature demonstrates that birth order aﬀects educational attainment, but the impact of public policy on sibling inequality remains largely unknown. Using linked historical Census data and a family ﬁxed eﬀects model, we examine the impact of birth order for U.S. boys born during the late 1800s and early 1900s, a period of increased public investment in education. Consistent with evidence from recent cohorts in the U.S. and Western Europe, we ﬁnd that men’s educational attainment declines with birth order. Later-born boys obtain 0.2-0.6 years (3-7 percent) fewer years of education than their ﬁrstborn brothers. Among whites, later-born boys also have lower earnings and occupation scores. Next, exploiting variation in compulsory schooling laws across states and time, we show that laws requiring eight or more years of schooling substantially compress birth order gaps in educational attainment between white brothers born outside the South.
Relation-Constrained Decoding for Text Generation

The dominant paradigm for neural text generation nowadays is seq2seq learning with large-scale pretrained language models. However, it is usually difficult to manually constrain the generation process of these models. Prior studies have introduced Lexically Constrained Decoding (LCD) to ensure the presence of pre-specified words or phrases in the output. However, simply applying lexical constraints has no guarantee of the grammatical or semantic relations between words. Thus, more elaborate constraints are needed. To this end, we first propose a new constrained decoding scenario named Relation-Constrained Decoding (RCD) , which requires the model’s output to contain several given word pairs with respect to the given relations between them. For this scenario, we present a novel plug-and-play decoding algorithm named RE lation-guided probability S urgery and b E am AL location (RESEAL), which can handle different categories of relations, e.g., syntactical relations or factual relations. Moreover, RESEAL can adaptively “reseal” the relations to form a high-quality sentence, which can be applied to the inference stage of any autoregressive text generation model. To evaluate our method, we first construct an RCD benchmark based on dependency relations from treebanks with annotated dependencies. Experimental results demonstrate that our approach can achieve better preservation of the input dependency relations compared to previous methods. To further illustrate the effectiveness of RESEAL, we apply our method to three downstream tasks: sentence summarization, fact-based text editing, and data-to-text generation. We observe an improvement in generation quality. The source code is available at https://github.com/CasparSwift/RESEAL .
Synergistic interactions between an upper-level jet streak and diabatic processes that influence the development of a low-level jet and a secondary coastal cyclone

Abstract A series of numerical simulations is presented for the February 1979 Presidents' Day cyclone in order to understand more fully the roles played by upper-level jet streaks the oceanic planetary boundary layer (PBL), and latent heat release in the development of a low-level jet (LU) and secondary cyclogenesis along the East Coast of the United States. Mesoscale model simulations with and without sensible and latent heating show that the diabatic processes, along with the jet streak circulation patterns, contribute to the enhancement of the low-level winds and the initial development of the coastal cyclone. However. none of the mechanisms acting alone is sufficient to yield a satisfactory simulation of the LIJ and secondary cyclogenesis. Furthermore, the model-based diagnostic analyses indicate that a synergistic interaction must exist among these processes to account for the substantial increase in the magnitude of the low-level winds and the decrease in the sea level pressure that mark the seconda.