Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The response of the carbon cycle in undisturbed forest ecosystems to climate change: a review of plant-soil models

We compared six plant-soil models from the literature which describe the C-dynamics in forests and include climatic forcing explicitly. Our selection included the two physiological models FOREST-BGC and TCX, the ecosystem/population model FORCLIM, two ecosystem/ tissue models, MBL-GEM and CENTURY Forest and the global model TEM. The review revealed a multitude of differences with respect to the model structure, the incorpor- ation of particular processes and the coupling with the abiotic environment. We made an assessment of what kind of questions the models can be best applied to and how well they are suited for studying the response of the C
Consistent Immediate Effects of Foot Orthoses on Comfort and Lower Extremity Kinematics, Kinetics, and Muscle Activity

In order to accommodate patients to new foot orthoses over time, two steps are required: The first is to obtain a baseline reading of the immediate effects across several weeks to ensure consistency. The second step is to look at changes with progressively longer wear periods similar to what occurs in general practice. This study addressed the first step. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the baseline reading of the immediate effects of foot orthoses on comfort and lower extremity kinematics, kinetics, and muscle activity is consistent between days. Participants were 21 recreational runners who volunteered for the study. Three orthotic conditions (posting, custom-molding, posting and custom-molding) were compared to a control (flat) insert. Lower extremity kinematic, kinetic, and EMG data were collected for 108 trials per participant and condition in 9 sessions for each person for running at 4 m/s. Comfort for all orthotic conditions was assessed in each session using a visual analog scale. Statistically significant session effects were detected using repeated-measures ANOVA (α = .05). Three of the 93 variables had a significant session effect. A significant interaction between orthotic condition and session was observed for 6 of the 93 variables. The results of this study showed that the effects of foot orthoses on comfort, lower extremity kinematics, kinetics, and muscle activity are consistent across a 3-week period when the wear time for each condition is restricted. Thus, foot orthoses lead to immediate changes in comfort, kinematics, kinetics, and muscle activity with limited use. These immediate effects of foot orthoses on comfort, kinematics, kinetics, and muscle activity are consistent between days.
Kappa Number Prediction of Acacia melanoxylon Unbleached Kraft Pulps using NIR-PLSR Models with a Narrow Interval of Variation

A total of 120 Acacia melanoxylon R. Br. (Australian blackwood) stem discs, belonging to 20 trees from four sites in Portugal, were used in this study. The samples were kraft pulped under standard identical conditions targeted to a Kappa number of 15. A Near Infrared (NIR) partial least squares regression (PLSR) model was developed for the Kappa number prediction using 75 pulp samples with a narrow Kappa number variation range of 10 to 17. Very good correlations between NIR spectra of A. melanoxylon pulps and Kappa numbers were obtained. Besides the raw spectra, also pre-processed spectra with ten methods were used for PLS analysis (cross validation with 48 samples), and a test set validation was made with 27 samples. The first derivative spectra in the wavenumber range from 6110 to 5440 cm-1 yielded the best model with a root mean square error of prediction of 0.4 units of Kappa number, a coefficient of determination of 92.1%, and two PLS components, with the ratios of performance to deviation (RPD) of 3.6 and zero outliers. The obtained NIR-PLSR model for Kappa number determination is sufficiently accurate to be used in screening programs and in quality control.
Extra-Pair Paternity in the Black-Capped Chickadee

Studies of the mating strategies of birds are increasingly shifting their focus to the role that females take in controlling copulation (Hunter et al. 1993, Petrie 1992, Birkhead and Moller 1993). In some avian species, females appear able to control whether copulations occur by accepting or rejecting copulation attempts (BjSrklund et al. 1992, Lifjeld and Robertson 1992, Westneat 1992). Similarly, females of some species actively solicit copulations by seeking the extra-pair male in his own territory (Smith 1988, Kempenaers et al. 1992, Venier et al. 1993). In species where females do control the outcome of copulation attempts, there is a need to, first, determine the extent that extra-pair copulations (EPCs) lead to fertilizations and, second, establish potential benefits that a female may obtain by engaging in EPCs. Smith (1988) reported that female Black-capped Chickadees, Parus atricapillus, seek EPCs from males on territories adjacent to the territory defended by the female's mate. Interestingly, Smith observed that females preferentially sought males for EPCs that held higher dominance rank than the female's mate in the preceding winter's flock. Thus, female Black-capped Chickadees may be engaging in a mixed reproductive strategy of social monogamy while increasing reproductive success by extra-pair copulations with males of higher genetic quality than their own mate (Trivers 1972, Smith 1988, Hamilton 1990). Females may also benefit from engaging in EPCs with dominant males if, by doing so, this facilitates rapid pair bonding with the dominant male in the event that his mate dies. There is a need for data on whether EPCs are resulting in extra-pair paternity of the nestlings in order to imply a fitness benefit to the female's behavior. In this study we document rates of extra-pair paternity in an Ontario population of Black-capped Chickadees, using DNA fingerprinting, and provide support for Smith's hypothesis by showing that extra-pair males were of higher dominance rank than the female's mate. We also suggest a paternity-related explanation for occasional observations ofpolyandry in chickadees (Waterman et al. 1989, Howitz 1991).
All That is Users Might Not be Gold: How Labeling Products as User Designed Backfires in the Context of Luxury Fashion Brands

An emerging literature stream posits that drawing on users rather than internal designers in new product creation may benefit firms because the resulting products effectively satisfy consumer needs. Four studies conducted in the context of the luxury fashion industry uncover an important conceptual boundary condition of this positive user-design effect. Contrary to extant research, the results show that being “close” to users does not help but rather harms luxury fashion brands. Specifically, the authors find that user design backfires because consumer demand for a given luxury fashion brand collection is reduced if the collection is labeled as user (vs. company) designed. The results further reveal the underlying rationale for this reversal: user-designed luxury products are perceived to be lower in quality and fail to signal high status, which results in a loss of agentic feelings for the consumer. The authors explore several strategies luxury brands can pursue to overcome this negative user-design effect. Finally, they find that negative outcomes of user design are attenuated for luxury fashion products that are not used for status signaling—that is, product categories of a luxury brand that are characterized by lower status relevance for the consumer.
Does It Pay To Be a Woman? Labour Demand Effects of Maternity-Related Job Protection and Replacement Incomes

In countries with strong employment protection laws it is often considered to be unwise to hire a woman in childbearing age because she might get pregnant. However, such labour demand e ects of job protection measures related to maternity leave are often rather anecdotal. To provide analytical evidence, this paper studies the impact of changes in maternity-related job protection in Germany on employment opportunities for women in childbearing age without children for whom the observed e ects should be largely demand-related. Exogenous, discrete policy changes in the German labour market of the 1980s and 1990s constitute the setting for a difference-in-differences analysis of the transition into employment as well as wages. The data for this study are taken from the German Socio-Economic Panel and from the German Microcensus. Doubling the job-protected leave period from 6 months to 12 months between 1986 and 1988 led to an approximately 6% lower probability of being hired for women in childbearing age without a university degree.In addition, I nd a 5-10% increase in wages for women in childbearing age associated with the latter reform. Since this effect disappears when controlling for having a child in the future, this may indicate an increased need to signal commitment by increased effort after the reform.
Anomalously old biotite 40Ar/39Ar ages in the NW Himalaya

Biotite 40 Ar/ 39 Ar ages older than corresponding muscovite 40 Ar/ 39 Ar ages, contrary to the diffusion properties of these minerals, are common in the Himalaya and other metamorphic regions. In these cases, biotite 40 Ar/ 39 Ar ages are commonly dismissed as “too old” on account of “excess Ar. ” We present 32 step-heating 40 Ar/ 39 Ar ages from 17 samples from central Himachal Pradesh Himalaya, India. In almost all cases, the biotite ages are older than predicted from cooling histories. We document host-rock lithology and chemical composition, mica microstructures, biotite chemical composition, and chlorite and muscovite components of biotite separates to demonstrate that these factors do not offer an explanation for the anomalously old biotite 40 Ar/ 39 Ar ages. We discuss possible mechanisms that may account for extraneous Ar (inherited or excess Ar) in these samples. The most likely cause for “too-old” biotite is excess Ar, i.e., 40 Ar that is separated from its parent K. We suggest that this contamination resulted from one or several of the following mechanisms: (1) 40 Ar was released during Cenozoic prograde metamorphism; (2) 40 Ar transport was restricted due to a temporarily dry intergranular medium; (3) 40 Ar was released from melt into a hydrous fluid phase during melt crystallization. Samples from the Main Central Thrust shear zone may be affected by a different mechanism of excess-Ar accumulation, possibly linked to later-stage fluid circulation within the shear zone and chloritization. Different Ar diffusivities and/or solubilities in biotite and muscovite may explain why biotite is more commonly affected by excess Ar than muscovite.
Effects of microhabitat on leaf traits in Digitalis grandiflora L. (Veronicaceae) growing at forest edge and interior

The morphological, anatomical and biochemical traits of the leaves of yellow foxglove (Digitalis grandiflora Mill.) from two microhabitats, forest interior (full shade under oak canopy) and forest edge (half shade near shrubs), were studied. The microhabitats differed in the mean levels of available light, but did not differ in soil moisture. The mean level of light in the forest edge microhabitat was significantly higher than in the forest interior. Multivariate ANOVA was used to test the effects of microhabitat. Comparison of the available light with soil moisture revealed that both factors significantly influenced the morphological and anatomical variables of D. grandiflora. Leaf area, mass, leaf mass per area (LMA), surface area per unit dry mass (SLA), density and thickness varied greatly between leaves exposed to different light regimes. Leaves that developed in the shade were larger and thinner and had a greater SLA than those that developed in the half shade. In contrast, at higher light irradiances, at the forest edge, leaves tended to be thicker, with higher LMA and density. Stomatal density was higher in the half-shade leaves than in the full-shade ones. LMA was correlated with leaf area and mass and to a lesser extent with thickness and density in the forest edge microsite. The considerable variations in leaf density and thickness recorded here confirm the very high variation in cell size and amounts of structural tissue within species. The leaf plasticity index (PI) was the highest for the morphological leaf traits as compared to the anatomical and biochemical ones. The nitrogen content was higher in the “half-shade leaves” than in the “shade leaves”. Denser leaves corresponded to lower nitrogen (N) contents. The leaves of plants from the forest edge had more potassium (K) than leaves of plants from the forest interior on an area basis but not on a dry mass basis; the reverse was true for phosphorus.
Stochastic Motion of Heavy Quarks in Holography: A Theory-Independent Treatment

Stochastic dynamics play a central role in strongly coupled phenomena. We present and review a theory independent approach in holography to study such phenomena. We firstly argue that the heavy quark diffusion occurs in realistic strongly coupled systems. Then we analyze the quantum and thermal fluctuation, dissipation and the corresponding Brownian motion of a heavy particle in such environments for a wide class of theories. The holographic study is based on the properties of the straight string fluctuations. The observables and coefficients associated with the stochastic motion depend on a single parameter which encodes the properties of the different theories. Moreover, certain Dp-brane fluctuations can be mapped one-to-one to the string fluctuations and therefore the stochastic brane observables can be read from the string ones. Then we review the Langevin diffusion of a moving heavy quark in generic thermal holographic theories. The analysis is based on the properties of the trailing string and its fluctuations. The string world-sheet has a black hole horizon and the quark feels an effective temperature different than the environmental one. The formulas of the effective temperature, the drag force on the particle and the Langevin coefficients are given in terms of the background metric elements readily applicable to any theory. At the end we comment on the backreaction effects on the medium and present results of the Monte Carlo simulations.
Temperature cycling effects between Sn/Pb solder and thick film Pd/Ag conductor metallization

Thermal cycling effects on solder joints between thick-film mixed bonded conductor and Sn/Pb solder are investigated. Microstructural evolution of the interfacial morphology, elemental, and phase distribution are probed with the aid of electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction. Microstructural analysis reveals the formation of intermetallic compounds Pd/sub 3/Sn, Pd/sub 2/Sn, Pd/sub 3/Sn/sub 2/, PdSn, Pd/sub 3/Pb, Ag/sub 5/Sn, and Ag/sub 3/Sn, after thermal cycles from -55 to +125 degrees C. A transverse crack is observed across the joint from the conductor/substrate interface to the conductor/solder interface, which results in the failure of the joint. The microstructural analysis and stress analysis reveal that the transverse crack is initiated by the microcracks at the glass-penetrated region of the substrate and propagates under a tensile stress due to the solder shrinkage. An appropriate joint geometry and a materials system with good interface strength and with negligible thermal expansion mismatch are important in the enhancement of the life time for the solder joints in thick-film microelectronics. >
Detection in Natural Scene Images

The text detection and localization in scenery images are important for content based analysis. Here the problem is due to complex background, the non-uniform illumination, variations of text, font and line orientation. A hybrid approach is used to detect and localize the text.The text region detector is designed to estimate the text confidence map based on the text components, segmented by local binarization method. A conditional Random Field (CRF) model should consider the unary and binary component relationships and it is presented to label the components as “text “or “non-text”. Finally, text components are grouped into text lines with energy minimized method. Key Terms — text localization, text detection, Conditional Random field (CRF).
A model reference approach for implementing active structural acoustic control.

A model reference active structural acoustic control (ASAC) approach is investigated as a method for replacing microphone error sensors located in the acoustic field with accelerometers located on the structure. The suggested controller is the multi‐input/multi‐output adaptive LMS algorithm. As opposed to driving the response of the sensor located on the structure to zero with the control inputs, the response is driven to some predetermined ‘‘reference’’ value corresponding to a cost function which originally implemented microphones or the supersonic region of the wave‐number transform as error information. In effect, the uncontrolled structure is adaptively modified to behave like the reference structure. Results indicate that the identical optimal control solution can be obtained when implementing the structural sensors, and the required number of sensors must simply equal the number of control actuators. In addition, for the example studied here, significant reduction in far‐field sound radiation can be achieved even when errors of ±5% are present in the reference model. A considerable level of attenuation in sound can also be achieved for a band of frequencies within ±5% of the reference frequency used to obtain the models for creating the disturbance. Thus it appears that the model reference approach is reasonably robust. [Work supported by ONR/DARPA. ]
Some remarks on the delay stabilizing effect in SISO systems

This note addresses the stabilization problem of a class of SISO systems with a time delay in the input, and explore the stabilizing effect of time delay. More precisely, for a fixed feedback gain such that the closed loop system is unstable when the delay is set to zero, we present necessary and sufficient conditions for the delays such that the stability in closed-loop is achieved, and provide an explicit construction of the controllers. Next, we analyze conditions for preserving the closed-loop stability if parametric or time-varying delay uncertainties are present in the control law. Illustrative examples are also proposed.
View-Dependent Text Placement for Augmented Reality using Offset Surfaces

Text can be used to enhance a large range of augmented reality applications by providing timely context-aware information to the users. Current methods for text placement in augmented reality applications are typically static (i.e. view-independent) and involve placing the text label away from the labeled object using lines or arrows to establish the correspondence between the objects and the labels. In this paper, we present a new method to improve text placement on objects by enhancing object-label association, visibility, readability, as well as making better use of the display real estate. We build upon previous work in visualization literature that uses an offset surface for placing text that wraps around an object and enhance it to real-time, view-dependent display of timecritical information. We have validated our approach by using an optical see-through display with a virtual surgery application on a human mannequin. We envision our system finding use in a variety of augmented reality applications with a need for real-time, view dependent text display including mechanical assembly, repair and maintenance, augmented navigation and surgical procedures.
Onset of magnetic reconnection in a collisionless, high- $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}$ plasma

In a magnetized, collisionless plasma, the magnetic moment of the constituent particles is an adiabatic invariant. An increase in the magnetic-field strength in such a plasma thus leads to an increase in the thermal pressure perpendicular to the field lines. Above a $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}$ -dependent threshold (where $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}$ is the ratio of thermal to magnetic pressure), this pressure anisotropy drives the mirror instability, producing strong distortions in the field lines on ion-Larmor scales. The impact of this instability on magnetic reconnection is investigated using a simple analytical model for the formation of a current sheet (CS) and the associated production of pressure anisotropy. The difficulty in maintaining an isotropic, Maxwellian particle distribution during the formation and subsequent thinning of a CS in a collisionless plasma, coupled with the low threshold for the mirror instability in a high- $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}$ plasma, imply that the geometry of reconnecting magnetic fields can differ radically from the standard Harris-sheet profile often used in simulations of collisionless reconnection. As a result, depending on the rate of CS formation and the initial CS thickness, tearing modes whose growth rates and wavenumbers are boosted by this difference may disrupt the mirror-infested CS before standard tearing modes can develop. A quantitative theory is developed to illustrate this process, which may find application in the tearing-mediated disruption of kinetic magnetorotational ‘channel’ modes.
Measurements of OH* and CH* Chemiluminescence in Premixed Flames in a Constant Volume Combustion Bomb under Autoignition Conditions

The objectives of this paper are as follows: (1) To study parametrically OH* and CH* chemiluminescence trace evolution as a function of the initial pressure, temperature, and equivalence ratio of premixed flames of n-heptane, under autoignition conditions, in a constant volume combustion bomb. The signals of the electronically excited states of OH* (306 nm) and CH* (430 nm) have been detected through band-pass filters with two photomultiplier tubes placed in an optical access of the combustion bomb. (2) To determine the feasibility of using OH* and CH* chemiluminescence signals as active-control parameters for premixed flames. For this purpose, a correlation between OH* chemiluminescence emissions and the equivalence ratio and the rate of heat release during the combustion process is obtained, as well as a correlation between CH* chemiluminescence emissions and the adiabatic flame temperature. (3) To investigate the relationship between the OH* and CH* chemiluminescent emissions in premixed combustions of.
Design, Simulation and Hardware Implementation of Shunt Hybrid Compensator Using Synchronous Rotating Reference Frame (SRRF)-Based Control Technique

This paper deals with the design, simulation, and implementation of shunt hybrid compensator to maintain the power quality in three-phase distribution networks feeding different types balanced and unbalanced nonlinear loads. The configuration of the compensator consists of a selective harmonic elimination passive filter, a series-connected conventional six-pulse IGBT inverter, acting as the active filter terminated with a DC link capacitor. The theory and modelling of the compensator based on current harmonic components at the load end and their decomposition in d-q axis frame of reference are utilized in the reference current generation algorithm. Accordingly, the source current waveform is made to follow the reference current waveform using a high-frequency, carrier-based controller. Further, this inner current control loop is supported by a slower outer voltage control loop for sustaining desirable DC link voltage. Performance of the compensator is evaluated through MATLAB simulation covering different types of loads and reduction of harmonic currents and THD at the supply side along with excellent regulation of DC link voltage are confirmed. The performance of a hybrid compensator designed and fabricated using the above principles is evaluated and corroborated with the simulation results.