Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Biodiversity and Climate Change Adaptation in Australia: Strategy and Research Developments

Many countries are developing national strategies and action plans aimed at minimising the negative impacts of climate change on biodiversity. The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief overview not only of strategies and plans that have been developed in Australia, but also of research that has been carried out in Australia by the Commonwealth Scientiflc and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) Climate Adaptation Flagship to assist the development of future strategies and plans. Major points are summarised from key policy documents such as the National Biodiversity and Climate Change Action Plan 2004{2007, and Australia’s Biodiversity Conservation Strategy 2010{2030, as well as the 2009 report on \Australia’s Biodiversity and Climate Change". Within the flrst three years of its existence, the Natural Ecosystems theme in CSIRO Climate Adaptation Flagship has carried out studies analysing impacts and identifying potential adaptations across the whole of Australia’s vast terrestrial and marine environments. Techniques used in these studies could be applied easily in other countries and could assist the development of more efiective national strategies and adaptation action plans for the conservation of biodiversity under climate change.
Agents of Hope

This paper considers the Christian teacher’s “place” in today’s increasingly diverse public school classrooms. Specifically, the paper explores the complexities of working as a Christian within educational systems which promote tolerance of all cultures and religious views. Is it possible for a Christian teacher to remain committed to The Way while employed in a system which encourages pluralism, equity, and diversity? Using insights and responses of participants in a Christian university education course on teaching in multicultural classrooms, a framework is provided to consider what it means to teach as a Christian in multicultural school settings.
Large-Scale CFD Parallel Computing Dealing with Massive Mesh

In order to run CFD codes more efficiently on large scales, the parallel computing has to be employed. For example, in industrial scales, it usually uses tens of thousands of mesh cells to capture the details of complex geometries. How to distribute these mesh cells among the multiprocessors for obtaining a good parallel computing performance (HPC) is really a challenge. Due to dealing with the massive mesh cells, it is difficult for the CFD codes without parallel optimizations to handle this kind of large-scale computing. Some of the open source mesh partitioning software packages, such as Metis, ParMetis, Scotch, PT-Scotch, and Zoltan, are able to deal with the distribution of large number of mesh cells. Therefore they were employed as the parallel optimization tools ported into Code_Saturne, an open source CFD code, for testing if they can solve the issue of dealing with massive mesh cells for CFD codes. Through the studies, it was found that the mesh partitioning optimization software packages can help CFD codes not only deal with massive mesh cells but also have a good HPC.
Can Hot Water Be Used to Kill Eurasian Watermilfoil

Hot water has been used as a safe and efficient strategy to control unwanted pest species in row crops and to control zebra mussel infestations of water intake and discharge pipes. The goal of this study was to determine if hot water can be used as an effective prevention strategy for killing an aquatic invasive plant species like Eurasian watermilfoil ( Myriophyllum spicatum L.) attached to watercraft. In 2006, 20-cm Eurasian watermilfoil fragments with and without an apical meristem were exposed to six different water temperatures ranging from 45 to 80 C for 2-, 5-, and 10-min intervals to see if they could be killed. Fragment viability after treatment was determined in three ways: (a) the presence of living tissue at the end of a 30-day observation period; (b) change in biomass from before treatment to after treatment over the 30-day observation period; and (c) enzyme activity within fragments immediately after heat treatment. The 20-cm fragments were killed at temperatures ≥ 60 C. All fragments at temperatures ≥ 60 C lost mass, and enzyme activity was significantly reduced at temperatures ≥ 60 C for fragments without an apical meristem. Temperature was the most important variable causing death, and time of exposure had little effect at the tested temperatures. These results suggest that using hot water alone to kill fragments of Eurasian watermilfoil attached to watercraft may not be feasible because of the high water temperatures required. More research into additives, such as chlorine or bromine, may reveal ways to reduce the temperature of water necessary to kill plant fragments and make hot water control feasible.
Effects of E-Learning System on Teacher Orientation Programs: A Case Study of Kenya Institute of Education

Tremendous advances in computer technology and the evolution of the Internet have led to new approaches in learning and training which are summarized under the term e-Learning. This research studied the effects of e-learning system on teacher orientation programs conducted by Kenya Institute of Education (KIE), which is a National Curriculum Development and Research Centre, offers online teacher orientation courses using Elimika learning management system. The objectives of this study were to establish the extent of use of e-learning system by teachers in curriculum orientation programs, assess teachers' perceptions, identify challenges and establish possible mechanisms that can be put in place to encourage teachers to use e-learning system in curriculum orientation programs. Theoretical framework for the study was Technology Acceptance Model which postulates that a person's behavioural intention to use e-learning is determined by perceived usefulness and ease of use. The population consisted of 800 primary school teachers enrolled in Elimika e-learning system and 124 curriculum developers working at KIE. Stratified random sampling was used to select a sample of 214 teachers and 110 curriculum developers. The curriculum developers who responded to the questionnaire were 198 and teachers were 80 representing a response rate of 92.52 percent and 72.73 percent respectively. Data was collected using questionnaires and analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 19. The study found out that e-learning system features such as ease of use, interactivity and flexibility had significant total effects upon usage by teachers in curriculum orientation. Also teachers' perceptions on the appropriate content, saving on time and effort, learning enhancement and enjoyment had a significant effect on intention to use Elimika system. The study also identified various challenges encountered by teachers and some mechanisms that can be put in place to encourage teachers to use e-learning system. Slow internet connectivity, network downtime and lack of computers were the main challenges encountered by teachers when using Elimika e-learning system.
Embedding the country-of-origin in the corporate brand name

In der jungeren Vergangenheit haben Forscher vermehrt die Existenz des so genannten Herkunftslandeffektes bezweifelt. Dieser besagt, dass das Ursprungsland (UL) eines Produktes, einer Marke oder Dienstleistung Einfluss auf deren Evaluation beziehungsweise die Intention diese zu konsumieren hat. Die vorliegende Arbeit hat mit Hilfe einer internationalen Studie untersucht, inwiefern das Image des UL einer Marke die Evaluation derselben bzw. die Intention, mit dieser in Kontakt zu treten, beeinflusst. Dabei wird eindeutig gezeigt: Je starker einem Konsumenten bewusst ist (gemacht wird), aus welchem Land eine Marke (angeblich) stammt, desto starker projiziert er das Image dieses Landes auf jenes der Marke. Diese Studie ist somit ein Beleg dafur, dass das UL eines Produktes, einer Marke oder Dienstleistungen von hoher Bedeutung ist. Daruber hinaus wurde der Einfluss diverser Variablen auf die Evaluation eines Landes sowie einer auslandischen Marke, sowie die Intention, letztere zu konsumieren, uberpruft. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass ein hoherer sogenannter Ethnozentrismus weder zwangslaufig dazu fuhrt, dass eine der beiden schlechter beurteilt wird, noch dadurch die Intention, mit letzterer in Kontakt zu treten, sinkt. Daruber hinaus wird keiner dieser drei in einem messbaren Rahmen von soziodemografischen Charakteristika von Konsumenten beeinflusst. Ein weiteres interessantes Resultat ist die Tatsache, dass eine hohere Vertrautheit mit dem Herkunftsland einer Marke, oder ihrer Branche, nicht zwangslaufig zu einer besseren Evaluation derselben fuhrt. Insgesamt bietet diese Arbeit wichtige Einblicke in die Funktionsweise des Images eines UL und assoziierten Konstrukten. Diese Ergebnisse sind sowohl fur Akademiker, als auch fur Praktiker von hoher Relevanz. Erstere erhalten einen tiefgehenderen Einblick in die Funktionsweise des Herkunftslandeffektes und gleichzeitig einen Beweis fur seine wirtschaftliche Relevanz. Zweitere wiederum konnen die Ergebnisse dieser Studie in der Er- und Uberarbeitung der Kommunikationsstrategie ihrer Marke(n) nutzen.
Recent contrasting winter temperature changes over North America linked to enhanced positive Pacific‐North American pattern

Recently enhanced contrasts in winter (December‐January‐February) mean temperatures and extremes (cold southeast and warm northwest) across North America have triggered intensive discussion both within and outside of the scientific community, but the mechanisms responsible for these contrasts remain unresolved. Here we use a combination of observations and reanalysis data sets to show that the strengthened contrasts in winter mean temperatures and extremes across North America are closely related to an enhancement of the positive Pacific‐North American (PNA) pattern during the second half of the 20th century. Recent intensification of positive PNA events is associated with amplified planetary waves over North America, driving cold‐air outbreaks into the southeast and warm tropical/subtropical air into the northwest. This not only results in a strengthened winter mean temperature contrast but increases the occurrence of the opposite‐signed extremes in these two regions.
Suppression of multiples by wavefield separation techniques

A major part of the multiple energy in seismograms is caused by reflections from the free surface, which often contaminate the primary reflections that propagate from the subsurface as upgoing waves. Since such energy come down from the ocean surface and is contained in the downgoing wavefield, it can naturally be suppressed by attenuating the downgoing wavefield, provided the wavefield can successfully be separated into the upgoing and downgoing parts. Generally, wavefield separation is performed on multicomponent ocean-bottom seismic (OBS) data. However, as a simplification of this method, this decomposition also can be realized on dual-sensor OBS data. In this report, the wavefield separation techniques on multicomponent or dual-sensor data are discussed in detail and the algorithms for attenuating the downgoing wavefield are presented.
Coupling a global climatic model with insurance impact models for flood and drought: an estimation of the financial impact of climate change

CCR, a French reinsurance company mostly involved in natural disasters coverage in France, has been developing tools for the estimation of its exposure to climatic risks for many years. Both a flood and a drought models were developed and calibrated on a large policies and claims database supplied every year with insurers’ data. More recently, CCR has been developing a stochastic approach in order to evaluate its financial exposure to extreme events. A large and realistic event set has been generated by applying extreme value statistic tools to simulate hazard and to estimate, using our impact models, the average annual losses and losses related to different return periods. These event sets have been simulated separately for flood and drought, with a hypothesis of independence, consistent with recent annual damage data. The newest development presented here consists in the use of the ARPEGE–Climat model performed by Meteo-France to simulate two 200-years sets of hourly atmospheric time series reflecting both the current climate and the RCP 4.5 climate conditions circa year 2050. These climatic data constitute the input data for the flood and drought impact models to detect events and simulate the associated hazard and damages. Our two main goals are (1) to simulate simultaneously flood and drought events for the same simulated years and (2) to evaluate the financial impact of climate change.
Endogenous growth : analytical review of its generating mechanisms

This paper consists of an analytical review of the most relevant endogenous growth models. The objective of this literature review is to discuss analytically and understand, in an integrated form, the main mechanisms, identified in the existing literature, that generate endogenous growth. Endogenous or new growth theory has, so far, produced three main types of mechanisms through which endogenous sustained positive economic growth is made possible. One strategy brings a theory of innovations or R&D into the growth model. In this type of model, endogenously determined technological progress is the engine of economic growth. The second mechanism delivers sustained positive growth through the introduction of an endogenously determined accumulation of human capital. In this kind of model, the source of long-run per-capita growth is human capital accumulation. And a third way to obtain endogenous growth is simply to abandon one of the standard assumptions of the neoclassical model, more precisely the assumption of diminishing returns to capital.
Curvature‐ and Wind‐Driven Cross‐Channel Flows at an Unstratified Tidal Bend

Observations of currents, water levels, winds, and bathymetry collected for a month at an unstratified, narrow (150 m), shallow (8 m), 908 tidal inlet bend are used to evaluate an analytical model for curvature-driven flow and the effects of local wind on the cross-channel circulation. Along-channel flows ranged from 21.0 to 1.4 m/s (positive is inland), and the magnitudes of cross-channel flows were roughly 0.1–0.2 m/s near the outer bank of the bend. Cross-channel observations suggest the lateral sea-surface gradients and along-channel flows are tidally asymmetric and spatially variable. The depth-averaged along-channel dynamics are consistent with a balance between the surface tilt and centrifugal acceleration. The vertical structure and magnitude of cross-channel flows during weak winds are consistent with a one-dimensional depth-varying balance between centrifugal acceleration, bottom stress, and diffusion. Low-passed (to remove tides) surface and bottom cross-channel flows are correlated (r 5 0.5–0.7) with cross-channel wind velocity, suggesting that winds can enhance or degrade the local-curvature-induced, two-layer flow and can drive three-layer flow. The observed flow response to the wind is larger than that expected from a one-dimensional balance, suggesting that two-dimensional and three-dimensional processes may be important.
Reality and confusion in the recognition of post-depositional alterations and use-wear: an experimental approach on basalt tools

While many experimental studies have been done on siliceous and metamorphic rocks for both use-wear and post depositional surface modification (PDSM) events, little is known about such experiments on volcanic materials (other than obsidian), and on basalt in particular. Here we present the preliminary results of several experiments related to: a) evidence for basalt use (e.g., butchery and fresh hide scraping) and the subsequent characteristic use-wear patterns that can be seen; and b) post-depositional surface modifications caused by bear ( Ursidae ) trampling on experimental basalt flakes and subsequent use of these flakes for a tumbling experiment in a special tumbling machine. The results of these experiments were compared to better understand some surface modifications noted on the Middle to Upper Pleistocene lithic assemblages of the Azokh Cave site (Nagorno Karabagh, Lesser Caucasus). Although some aspects of both events (use-wear and PDSM) remain to be studied in depth, the experiments have improved our understanding of the effects of use-wear and post-depositional trampling and tumbling on basalt lithic artefacts. In particular, it has allowed us to recognise mechanical alterations (e.g., cracks, striations, fractures, edge damage) caused by trampling and tumbling and to note differences between these modifications and those caused by use. In particular, the experiments have shown that macroscopic modifications are rarely diagnostic, especially those observed after use. Microscopic wear features such as edge rounding, polish, abrasion and striations were the most evident types of alteration on basalt flakes, although occurring at different times and from different types of use. Distribution and orientation of alterations may be key in distinguishing use-wear from post-depositional alterations on basalt artefacts.
Electrostatic stretching of grafted maleic acid copolymer chains

We report on the swelling behaviour of thin maleic acid copolymer films in dependence of pH and ionic strength. The response of the polymer films was studied by quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring. It was found that solution’s pH and ionic strength can be separately used to adjust the swelling of the maleic acid copolymer films. While the pH affects the degree of dissociation of the maleic acid groups, ionic strength triggers the interaction of the resulting charges along the polymer chains. The dominance of electrostatic interactions in the system was obvious from the maximal extension of the grafted polymer chains at very low ionic strength. Tuning the expansion of grafted polymer chains by pH and ionic strength can be utilized in various applications of biointerfacial research to adjust the physicochemical properties of polymer thin film coatings.
A Methodology for Cluster Head Selection toImprove Throughput and Channel SpaceUtilization in Power Heterogeneous MANET

Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET) are self created and self organized by a collection of mobile nodes Heterogeneous mobile ad hoc network consists of devices with heterogeneous characteristics in terms of transmission power, energy, and capacity. Large transmission range of the high power nodes leads to interference in the network which reduces the spatial utilization of the resources. Clustering scheme is used here where cluster head node will play the role of transmitting packet from one cluster to the other. Election of a Cluster Head (CH) within a local cluster structure is very important in setting up relatively stable cluster structure. But the problem is that the cluster head selection is based upon only shortest path Due to this strategy, the cluster head selection algorithm is not much effective. Hence the proposed algorithm for the cluster head selection includes the parameters such as battery power, transmission range, hop count and time to live(TTL) which can increase the throughput and channel space utilization of the network.
Case study comparisons of vapor inhalation risk estimates: ASTM RBCA model predictions vs site specific soil vapor data

The American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) Standard E-1739, Risk-Based Corrective Action Applied at Petroleum Release Sites (RBCA), offers a streamlined methodology for selecting and implementing cost-effective corrective action for petroleum hydrocarbon release sites. ASTM is also currently developing the Standard Guide for Risk Based Corrective Action which extends the RBCA process to include a wide range of chemicals of concern. Comparing the results derived from the RBCA vapor transport models with field data has underscored the extremely conservative nature of the RBCA inhalation pathway models. Two case studies are described in this paper which compare exposure point concentration and human health risk estimated from the RBCA vapor transport models and actual measurements of soil vapor concentrations and soil vapor flux.
Improving Facial Action Unit Recognition Using Convolutional Neural Networks

Recognizing facial action units (AUs) from spontaneous facial expression is a challenging problem, because of subtle facial appearance changes, free head movements, occlusions, and limited AU-coded training data. Most recently, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have shown promise on facial AU recognition. However, CNNs are often overfitted and do not generalize well to unseen subject due to limited AU-coded training images. In order to improve the performance of facial AU recognition, we developed two novel CNN frameworks, by substituting the traditional decision layer and convolutional layer with the incremental boosting layer and adaptive convolutional layer respectively, to recognize the AUs from static image. First, in order to handle the limited AU-coded training data and reduce the overfitting, we proposed a novel Incremental Boosting CNN (IB-CNN) to integrate boosting into the CNN via an incremental boosting layer that selects discriminative neurons from the lower layer and is incrementally updated on successive mini-batches. In addition, a novel loss function that accounts for errors from both the incremental boosted classifier and individual weak classifiers was proposed to fine-tune the IBCNN. Experimental results on four benchmark AU databases have demonstrated that the IB-CNN yields significant improvement over the traditional CNN and the boosting CNN without incremental learning, as well as outperforming the state-of-the-art CNN-based methods in AU recognition. The improvement is more impressive for the AUs that have the lowest frequencies in the databases. Second, all current CNNs use predefined and fixed convolutional filter size. However, AUs activated by different facial muscles cause facial appearance changes at