Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Editorial for the Special Issue: "Ten Years of Remote Sensing at Barcelona Expert Center"

This book celebrates the ten year anniversary of the Barcelona Expert Center by presenting recent contributions related to the topics on which the team has been working during those years. The Barcelona Expert Center’s expertise covers a wide variety of remote sensing fields, but the main focus of the research is on the SMOS data processing and its ocean, land, and ice applications. This book contains 14 scientific papers addressing topics that go from the description of the new data processing algorithms that are implemented in the last version of the operational SMOS level 1 processor to scientific applications derived from SMOS: results on the sea-surface salinity assimilation in coastal models, synergies of the sea-surface salinity with temperature and chlorophyll and their impact on the better retrieval of ocean surface currents, quality assessment of SMOS-derived sea ice thickness, sea-surface salinity, and soil moisture products, among others. Moreover, one of the papers verifies the potential of the future Copernicus Imaging Microwave Radiometer (CIMR) mission within the CMEMS sea-surface salinity (SSS) operational production after the SMOS era.
Evaluation of Ocean Color Remote Sensing Algorithms for Diffuse Attenuation Coefficients and Optical Depths with Data Collected on BGC-Argo Floats

The vertical distribution of irradiance in the ocean is a key input to quantify processes spanning from radiative warming, photosynthesis to photo-oxidation. Here we use a novel dataset of thousands local-noon downwelling irradiance at 490 nm (Ed(490)) and photosynthetically available radiation (PAR) profiles captured by 103 BGC-Argo floats spanning three years (from October 2012 to January 2016) in the world’s ocean, to evaluate several published algorithms and satellite products related to diffuse attenuation coefficient (Kd). Our results show: (1) MODIS-Aqua Kd(490) products derived from a blue-to-green algorithm and two semi-analytical algorithms show good consistency with the float-observed values, but the Chla-based one has overestimation in oligotrophic waters; (2) The Kd(PAR) model based on the Inherent Optical Properties (IOPs) performs well not only at sea-surface but also at depth, except for the oligotrophic waters where Kd(PAR) is underestimated below two penetration depth (2zpd), due to the model’s assumption of a homogeneous distribution of IOPs in the water column which is not true in most oligotrophic waters with deep chlorophyll-a maxima; (3) In addition, published algorithms for the 1% euphotic-layer depth and the depth of 0.415 mol photons m−2 d−1 isolume are evaluated. Algorithms based on Chla generally work well while IOPs-based ones exhibit an overestimation issue in stratified and oligotrophic waters, due to the underestimation of Kd(PAR) at depth.
Greening and Browning Trends across Peru's Diverse Environments

If he were living today, Alexander von Humboldt would be using current technology to evaluate change in the Andes. Inspired by von Humboldt’s scientific legacy and the 2019 celebrations of his influence, we utilize a Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)time-series vegetation index to ask questions of landscape change. Specifically, we use an 18-year record of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data as a proxy to evaluate landscape change in Peru, which is well known for its high biological and ecological diversity. Continent-level evaluations of Latin America have shown sites with a positive trend in NDVI, or “greening” and “browning”, a negative trend in NDVI that suggests biophysical or human-caused reductions in vegetation. Our overall hypothesis was that the major biomes in Peru would show similar NDVI change patterns. To test our expectations, we analyzed the NDVI time-series with Thiel-Sen regression and evaluated Peru overall, by protected area status, by biome, and by biome and elevation. Across Peru overall, there was a general greening trend. By protected area status, surprisingly, the majority of greening occurred outside protected areas. The trends were different by biome, but there were hotspots of greening in the Amazon, Andean Highlands, and Drylands where greening dominated. In the Tropical Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forest biome, greening and browning signals were mixed. Greening trends varied across the elevation gradient, switching from greening, to browning, and then back to greening as elevation increased. By biome and elevation, the results were variable. We further explored biome-specific drivers of greening and browning drawing on high-resolution imagery, the literature, and field expertise, much as we imagine von Humboldt might have approached similar questions of landscape dynamism.
Reconfiguration of αmplitude driven dominant coupling modes (DoCM) mediated by α-band in adolescents with schizophrenia spectrum disorders

Electroencephalography (EEG) based biomarkers have been shown to correlated with the presence of psychotic disorders. Increased delta and decreased alpha power in psychosis indicate an abnormal arousal state. We investigated brain activity across the basic EEG frequencies and also dynamic functional connectivity of both intra and cross-frequency coupling that could reveal a neurophysiological biomarker linked to an aberrant modulating role of alpha frequency in adolescents with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSDs). A dynamic functional connectivity graph (DFCG) has been estimated using the imaginary part of phase lag value (iPLV) and correlation of the envelope (corrEnv). We analyzed DFCG profiles of electroencephalographic resting state (eyes closed) recordings of healthy controls (HC) (n=39) and SSDs subjects (n=45) in basic frequency bands {{delta},{theta},1,2,{beta}1,{beta}2,{gamma}}. In our analysis, we incorporated both intra and cross-frequency coupling modes. Adopting our recent Dominant Coupling Mode (DoCM) model leads to the construction of an integrated DFCG (iDFCG) that encapsulates the functional strength and the DoCM of every pair of brain areas. We revealed significantly higher ratios of delta/alpha1,2 power spectrum in SSDs subjects versus HC. The probability distribution (PD) of amplitude driven DoCM mediated by alpha frequency differentiated SSDs from HC with absolute accuracy (100%). The network Flexibility Index (FI) was significantly lower for subjects with SSDs compared to the HC group. Our analysis supports a central role of alpha frequency alterations in the neurophysiological mechanisms of SSDs. Currents findings open up new diagnostic pathways to clinical detection of SSDs and supports the design of rational neurofeedback training.
Partial Service Caching at the Edge

We consider the problem of service caching at the edge, in which an application provider can rent resources at the edge to cache its codes/libraries to serve incoming requests. A key characteristic of current edge computing platforms is that they provide pay-as-you-go flexibility via short term contracts. This implies that the client can make significant cost benefits by dynamically adjusting its caching decisions depending on the intensity of service requests. A novel feature of this work in contrast to the literature is that we allow the service to be partially cached at the edge. The probability that the edge is able to serve an incoming request is assumed to be an increasing function of the fraction of service cached. The focus of this work is on characterizing the benefits of partial service caching at the edge. The key insight from this work is that partial service caching can bring down the cost of service only if there is at least one intermediate caching level at which the probability that an incoming request can be served at the edge is strictly more than the fraction of service cached and the cost of renting edge storage resources falls within a range of values which depends on the statistics of the request arrival process. We use these insights to design near-optimal service caching policies.
Design of Low-Power Structural FIR Filter Using Data-Driven Clock Gating and Multibit Flip-Flops

Optimization for power is one of the most important design objectives in modern digital signal processing (DSP) applications. The digital finite duration impulse response (FIR) filter is considered to be one of the most essential components of DSP, and consequently a number of extensive works had been carried out by researchers on the power optimization of the filters. Data-driven clock gating (DDCG) and multibit flip-flops (MBFFs) are two low-power design methods that are used and often treated separately. The combination of these methods into a single algorithm enables further power saving of the FIR filter. The experimental results show that the proposed FIR filter achieves 25% and 22% power consumption reduction compared to that using the conventional design.
Homing, Survivorship, and Overwintering of Larvae in Spotted Salamanders, Ambystoma maculatum

AND . 1964b. Synthesis of complex carbohydrates in the Golgi region, as shown by radioautography after injection of labeled glucose. J. Cell Biol. 21:143-148. PRETO PARVIS, V. AND C. RAVETTO. 1963. Contributo allo studio istochimico delle sialomucine. Riv. Istoch. norm. pat. 9:279-309. QUINTARELLI, G. 1963. Histochemical identification of salivary mucins. Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. 106:339-363. REVEL, J. P. AND E. D. HAY. 1964. Light and electron microscopic studies of mucopolysaccharides in developing amphibian and mammalian cartilage. Anat. Rec. 148:326. ROMEIS, B. 1948. Mikroskopische Technik. Leibniz Verlag, Munich, Germany. SATAKE, M. , Y. MURATA, AND T. SUZUKI. 1963. Studies on snake venom. XIII. Chromatographic separation and properties of three proteinases from Agkistrodon halys blomhoffii venom. J. Biochem. Tokyo 53:438-447. SHACKLEFORD, J. M. AND C. E. KLAPPER. 1962. Structure and carbohydrate histochemistry of mammalian salivary glands. Amer. J. Anat. 111:25-47. SOUBEIRAN, J. L. 1855. De la vipere de son venin et de sa morsure. Victor Masson, Libr. , Paris, France. 1861. De la structure de la glande a venin dans le genre Vipera et le genre Cerastes. Ann. Soc. Linn. 4:98-102. SPICER, S. S. AND J. DUVENCI. 1964. Histochemical characteristics of mucopolysaccharides in salivary and exorbital lacrimal glands. Anat. Rec. 149:333-358. AND D. B. MEYER. 1960. Histochemical
Preparation of isolated cells of eel liver.

Isolated cells of the eel liver were prepared from the liver perfused by the medium containing collagenase. Cells isolated by this method were undamaged when viewed with light microscopy; the viability of the cells was 85 to 90%, as judged by staining with 0.02% trypan blue. Adrenalin at 10-4M promoted glycogenolysis in isolated cells, while insulin at 5×10-5M significantly inhibited it. These cells actively incorporated 14C-pyruvate or 14C-lactate into glucose. Amino-oxyacetate (0.5mM) inhibited 14C-glucose synthesis not only from 14C-lactate but also from 14C-pyruvate. Respiratory inhibitors such as methylene blue (5×10-3mM), KCN (1mM), and 2, 4-dinitrophenol (0.5mM) inhibited 14C-glucose synthesis from 14C-pyruvate by 58, 86, and 100% respectively.
Decision making in slow and rapid reaching: Sacrificing success to minimize effort

Current studies on visuomotor decision making come to inconsistent conclusions regarding the optimality with which these decisions are made. When executing rapid reaching movements under uncertainty, humans tend to automatically select optimal movement paths that take into account the position of all potential targets (spatial averaging). In contrast, humans rarely employ optimal strategies when making decisions on whether to pursue two action goals simultaneously or prioritise one goal over another. Here, we manipulated whether spatial averaging or pre-selection of a single target would provide the optimal strategy by varying the spatial separation between two potential movement targets as well as the time available for movement execution. In Experiment 1, we aimed to determine the time needed to reach for targets with small and large separation between them and to measure baseline strategies under low time pressure. Given generous time limits, participants did not employ a pure averaging approach but instead tended to pre-select the target that was easiest to reach and corrected their movement path in-flight if required. In Experiment 2, a strict time limit was set such that the optimal strategy to reach the correct target depended on the separation between the potential targets: for small separations, there was enough time to employ averaging strategies, but higher success for larger separations required pre-selecting the final target instead. While participants varied in the strategies they preferred, none of them flexibly adjusted their movement strategies depending on the spatial separation of the targets. In Experiment 3, we confirm the bias toward targets that are easiest to reach and show that this comes at the expense of overall task success. The results suggest a strong tendency for humans to minimize immediate movement effort and a general failure to adapt movement strategies flexibly with changes in the task parameters.
A new method of determining growth stress and relationships between associated wood properties of Eucalyptus globulus Labill

Summary A new method developed at CSIRO allows longitudinal growth strain and dynamic Young's modulus in the fibre direction to be measured on the same specimen. From these two properties, longitudinal growth stress can be readily calculated by multiplying the two. In this study, growth strain, density and dynamic Young's modulus were measured on fifty-four specimens removed from 10-y-old plantation-grown trees of Eucalypts globulus Labill. The correlation between growth strain and density was found to be significant but weak (r 2 = 0.27, P < 0.05). There was no significant relationship between growth strain and Young's modulus. The large variation in growth strain (coefficient of variation = 62%) but a relatively small variation in Young's modulus (coefficient of variation = 18%) resulted in a strong linear correlation between growth strain and growth stress.
Identifying insufficient data coverage in databases with multiple relations

In today's data-driven world, it is critical that we use appropriate datasets for analysis and decision-making. Datasets could be biased because they reflect existing inequalities in the world, due to the data scientists' biased world view, or due to the data scientists' limited control over the data collection process. For these reasons, it is important to ensure adequate data coverage across different groups over the intersection of multiple attributes. Often, the dataset to be analyzed is obtained through complex joins and predicate combinations over multiple relational tables in a database. Due to the sheer data volume we often have to deal with, determining adequate coverage can require an unacceptably long execution time. In this paper, we provide an efficient approach for coverage analysis, given a set of attributes across multiple tables. To identify regions with insufficient coverage in the combinatorially large set of value combinations, we design an index scheme to avoid explicit table joins, achieve efficient memory usage, and support predicate combination at a high level of parallelism. We also propose P-WALK, a priority-based search algorithm, to traverse the lattice space. Since in practice, coverage assessment typically does not require precise COUNT aggregation results, we further present approximate methods to reduce computation time. Experimental evaluation using three real-world datasets shows the effectiveness, efficiency, and accuracy of proposed methods.
Integrated Satellite-Terrestrial Connectivity for Autonomous Ships: Survey and Future Research Directions

An autonomous vessel uses multiple different radio technologies such as satellites, mobile networks and dedicated narrowband systems, to connect to other ships, services, and the remote operations center (ROC). In-ship communication is mainly implemented with wired technologies but also wireless links can be used. In this survey paper, we provide a short overview of autonomous and remote-controlled systems. This paper reviews 5G-related standardization in the maritime domain, covering main use cases and both the role of autonomous ships and that of people onboard. We discuss the concept of a connectivity manager, an intelligent entity that manages complex set of technologies, integrating satellite and terrestrial technologies together, ensuring robust in-ship connections and ship-to-outside connections in any environment. This survey paper describes the architecture and functionalities of connectivity management required for an autonomous ship to be able to operate globally. As a specific case example, we have implemented a research environment consisting of ship simulators with connectivity components. Our simulation results on the effects of delays to collision avoidance confirm the role of reliable connectivity for safety. Finally, we outline future research directions for autonomous ship connectivity research, providing ideas for further work.
The T Index: Measuring the Reliability of Accuracy Estimates Obtained from Non-Probability Samples

In remote sensing, the term accuracy typically expresses the degree of correctness of a map. Best practices in accuracy assessment have been widely researched and include guidelines on how to select validation data using probability sampling designs. In practice, however, probability samples may be lacking and, instead, cross-validation using non-probability samples is common. This practice is risky because the resulting accuracy estimates can easily be mistaken for map accuracy. The following question arises: to what extent are accuracy estimates obtained from non-probability samples representative of map accuracy? This letter introduces the T index to answer this question. Certain cross-validation designs (such as the common single-split or hold-out validation) provide representative accuracy estimates when hold-out sets are simple random samples of the map population. The T index essentially measures the probability of a hold-out set of unknown sampling design to be a simple random sample. To that aim, we compare its spread in the feature space against the spread of random unlabelled samples of the same size. Data spread is measured by a variant of Moran’s I autocorrelation index. Consistent interpretation of the T index is proposed through the prism of significance testing, with T values < 0.05 indicating unreliable accuracy estimates. Its relevance and interpretation guidelines are also illustrated in a case study on crop-type mapping. Uptake of the T index by the remote-sensing community will help inform about—and sometimes caution against—the representativeness of accuracy estimates obtained by cross-validation, so that users can better decide whether a map is fit for their purpose or how its accuracy impacts their application. Subsequently, the T index will build trust and improve the transparency of accuracy assessment in conditions which deviate from best practices.
Anopheles culicifacies Complex: Population Cytogenetic Evidence for Species D (Diptera: Culicidae)

Seven paracentric inversions, designated i1 to o1 , on polytene chromosome arm 2 and one, r , on chromosome arm 3 were found in natural populations of the Anopheles culicifacies complex. Of the polymorphic inversions on chromosome arm 2, one was found in species B , whereas all others were in species A and the r inversion on chromosome arm 3 was found in both the species. One inversion on chromosome arm 2, the i1 inversion, was observed at low frequency in parts of northern India and as a cline of progressively higher frequencies towards central India. In southern India, there was no specific pattern of i1 distribution, with most localities showing Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium frequencies. Significant deficiencies of i1 heterozygotes in a few populations, mostly towards the northern end of the cline, indicate a second species within species A . The same inversion may be floating in one species and fixed in the other; thus, the two species are homosequential for polytene chromosome arrangements. These data support a recent report of species D within this group, but polytene chromosome arrangement cannot be used to identify species A and D at an individual level.
Formation-containment control using dynamic event-triggering mechanism for multi-agent systems

The paper proposes a novel approach for formation-containment control based on a dynamic event-triggering mechanism for multi-agent systems. The leader-leader and follower-follower communications are reduced by utilizing the distributed dynamic event-triggered framework. We consider two separate sets of design parameters: one set comprising control and dynamic event-triggering parameters for the leaders and a second set similar to the first one with different values for the followers. The proposed algorithm includes two novel stages of co-design optimization to simultaneously compute the two sets of parameters. The design optimizations are convex and use the weighted sum approach to enable a structured trade-off between the formation-containment convergence rate and associated communications. Simulations based on non-holonomic mobile robot multi-agent systems quantify the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Deep Learning for Land Use and Land Cover Classification Based on Hyperspectral and Multispectral Earth Observation Data: A Review

Lately, with deep learning outpacing the other machine learning techniques in classifying images, we have witnessed a growing interest of the remote sensing community in employing these techniques for the land use and land cover classification based on multispectral and hyperspectral images; the number of related publications almost doubling each year since 2015 is an attest to that. The advances in remote sensing technologies, hence the fast-growing volume of timely data available at the global scale, offer new opportunities for a variety of applications. Deep learning being significantly successful in dealing with Big Data, seems to be a great candidate for exploiting the potentials of such complex massive data. However, there are some challenges related to the ground-truth, resolution, and the nature of data that strongly impact the performance of classification. In this paper, we review the use of deep learning in land use and land cover classification based on multispectral and hyperspectral images and we introduce the available data sources and datasets used by literature studies; we provide the readers with a framework to interpret the-state-of-the-art of deep learning in this context and offer a platform to approach methodologies, data, and challenges of the field.
Intelligent tools for creative graphics

In recent years, much research has been dedicated to the development of "intelligent tools" that can assist both professionals as well as novices in the process of creation. Using the computational power of the machine, and involving advanced techniques, the tools handle complex and tedious tasks that were difficult or even impossible for humans, thereby freeing the human creator of many constraints and allowing her to concentrate on the creative process, while ensuring high-quality and valid design. This course is aimed at presenting some of the key technologies used to assist interactive creative processes. The course allows researchers and practitioners to understand these techniques more deeply, and possibly inspire them to research this subject and create intelligent tools themselves. More specifically, the course will concentrate on four main enabling technologies: geometric reasoning, physical constraints, data-driven techniques and machine learning, and crowdsourcing. In each of these areas the course will survey several recent papers and works and provide examples of using these in the creation of a variety of outputs: 3D models, animations, images, videos and more.