Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Vertical tectonics at a continental crust‐oceanic plateau plate boundary zone: Fission track thermochronology of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia

The topographically prominent Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta forms part of a faulted block of continental crust located along the northern boundary of the South American Plate, hosts the highest elevation in the world (∼5.75 km) whose local base is at sea level, and juxtaposes oceanic plateau rocks of the Caribbean Plate. Quantification of the amount and timing of exhumation constrains interpretations of the history of the plate boundary, and the driving forces of rock uplift along the active margin. The Sierra Nevada Province of the southernmost Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta exhumed at elevated rates (≥0.2 Km/My) during 65–58 Ma in response to the collision of the Caribbean Plateau with northwestern South America. A second pulse of exhumation (≥0.32 Km/My) during 50–40 Ma was driven by underthrusting of the Caribbean Plate beneath northern South America. Subsequent exhumation at 40–25 Ma (≥0.15 Km/My) is recorded proximal to the Santa Marta‐Bucaramanga Fault. More northerly regions of the Sierra Nevada Province exhumed rapidly during 26–29 Ma (∼0.7 Km/My). Further northward, the Santa Marta Province exhumed at elevated rates during 30–25 Ma and 25–16 Ma. The highest exhumation rates within the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta progressed toward the northwest via the propagation of NW verging thrusts. Exhumation is not recorded after ∼16 Ma, which is unexpected given the high elevation and high erosive power of the climate, implying that rock and surface uplift that gave rise to the current topography was very recent (i.e., ≤1 Ma? ), and there has been insufficient time to expose the fossil apatite partial annealing zone.
High-mass star-forming cloud G0.38+0.04 in the Galactic Center Dust Ridge contains H2CO and SiO masers

We have discovered a new H$_2$CO (formaldehyde) $1_{1,0}-1_{1,1}$ 4.82966 GHz maser in Galactic Center Cloud C, G0.38+0.04. At the time of submission, this is the eighth region containing an H$_2$CO maser detected in the Galaxy. Cloud C is one of only two sites of confirmed high-mass star formation along the Galactic Center Ridge, affirming that H$_2$CO masers are exclusively associated with high-mass star formation. This discovery led us to search for other masers, among which we found new SiO vibrationally excited masers, making this the fourth star-forming region in the Galaxy to exhibit SiO maser emission. Cloud C is also a known source of CH$_3$OH Class-II and OH maser emission. There are now two known SiO and H$_2$CO maser containing regions in the CMZ, compared to two and six respectively in the Galactic disk, while there is a relative dearth of H$_2$O and CH$_3$OH Class-II masers in the CMZ. SiO and H$_2$CO masers may be preferentially excited in the CMZ, perhaps due to higher gas-phase abundances from grain destruction and heating, or alternatively H$_2$O and CH$_3$OH maser formation may be suppressed in the CMZ. In any case, Cloud C is a new testing ground for understanding maser excitation conditions.
Validation of the North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS) retrospective forcing over the southern Great Plains : GEWEX Continental-Scale International Project, Part 3 (GCIP3)

[1] Atmospheric forcing used by land surface models is a critical component of the North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS) and its quality crucially affects the final product of NLDAS and our work on model improvement. A three-year (September 1996-September 1999) retrospective forcing data set was created from the Eta Data Assimilation System and observations and used to run the NLDAS land surface models for this period. We compared gridded NLDAS forcing with station observations obtained from networks including the Oklahoma Mesonet and Atmospheric Radiation Measurement/Cloud and Radiation Testbed at the southern Great Plains. Differences in all forcing variables except precipitation between the NLDAS forcing data set and station observations are small at all timescales. While precipitation data do not agree very well at an hourly timescale, they do agree better at longer timescales because of the way NLDAS precipitation forcing is generated. A small high bias in downward solar radiation and a low bias in downward longwave radiation exist in the retrospective forcing. To investigate the impact of these differences on land surface modeling we compared two sets of model simulations, one forced by the standard NLDAS product and one with station-observed meteorology. The differences in the resulting simulations of soil moisture and soil temperature for each model were small, much smaller than the differences between the models and between the models and observations. This indicates that NLDAS retrospective forcing provides an excellent state-of-the-art data set for land surface modeling, at least over the southern Great Plains region.
Exploring The Short-Term Effects Of Probiotic And Prebiotic Supplementation On The Microbiota And Physiology Of Male C57bl/6 Mice

EXPLORING THE SHORT-TERM EFFECTS OF PROBIOTIC AND PREBIOTIC SUPPLEMENTATION ON THE MICROBIOTA AND PHYSIOLOGY OF MALE C57BL/6 MICE by MIGUEL A. RIVAS December 2017 Advisor: Dr. Yifan Zhang Major: Nutrition and Food Science Degree: Master of Science The gut microbiome may play a role in the development of chronic diseases like obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. Diets including prebiotics or probiotics can alter the abundance of gut bacterial groups and have subsequent health effects. In this study we wanted to establish a method for comparing the benefits of commercial supplements that alter the microbiota by monitoring fecal microbial profiles in male C57BL/6 mice (n = 24) exposed to 15 days of dietary supplementation. A probiotic diet (VSL#3) and a prebiotic diet (potato starch) were compared to a standard diet (n = 8 for each group). Microbial profiles were obtained through qPCR using group-specific 16S RNA primers. The potato starch group showed higher body weight than the control (p < 0.05), but was similar to the VSL#3 group. The large intestine weight of the potato starch group was higher than the control and the potato starch group (p < 0.05). Food intake remained the same across the groups. Daily water consumption was higher in the VSL#3 group (6.65 ± 1.38 mL) as opposed to the potato starch and the control group
Gene Diversity among Some Muslim Populations of Western Uttar Pradesh,India

Abstract The present paper deals with the distribution of ABO, Rh (D) and PTC tasting ability markers to study the genetic structure and microdifferentiation among Muslim populations of Aligarh.We have undertaken a survey of the allele frequencies of the ABO, Rh (D) and PTC tasting ability for different endogamous Muslim groups viz. Syed, Sheikh, Pathan, Ansari and Shia. For ABO only Pathan and Ansari showed significant differences in allele frequencies, while other combinations showed non-significant values. For the Rh (D) factor, Syed and Sheikh showed the least different values. All the populations showed non-significant differences for the marker PTC tasting ability. The average of the DST and GST values for the three markers were found to be 0.020 and 0.035, respectively. The Pathan and Ansari populations separate earlier than the sheikh, as well as Syed and Shia cluster which might have been the migrants to Indian population from outside quite later.
Antarctic climate, Southern Ocean circulation patterns, and deep-water formation during the Eocene

We assess early-to-middle Eocene seawater neodymium (Nd) isotope records from seven Southern Ocean deep-sea drill sites to evaluate the role of Southern Ocean circulation in long-term Cenozoic climate change. Our study sites are strategically located on either side of the Tasman Gateway and are positioned at a range of shallow (<500 m) to intermediate/deep (~1000–2500 m) paleowater depths. Unradiogenic seawater Nd isotopic compositions, reconstructed from fish teeth at intermediate/deep Indian Ocean pelagic sites (Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Sites 738 and 757 and Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) Site 264), indicate a dominant Southern Ocean-sourced contribution to regional deep waters (eNd(t) = −9.3 ± 1.5). IODP Site U1356 off the coast of Adelie Land, a locus of modern-day Antarctic Bottom Water production, is identified as a site of persistent deep water formation from the early Eocene to the Oligocene. East of the Tasman Gateway an additional local source of intermediate/deep water formation is inferred at ODP Site 277 in the SW Pacific Ocean (eNd(t) = −8.7 ± 1.5). Antarctic-proximal shelf sites (ODP Site 1171 and Site U1356) reveal a pronounced erosional event between 49 and 48 Ma, manifested by ~2 eNd unit negative excursions in seawater chemistry toward the composition of bulk sediments at these sites. This erosional event coincides with the termination of peak global warmth following the Early Eocene Climatic Optimum and is associated with documented cooling across the study region and increased export of Antarctic deep waters, highlighting the complexity and importance of Southern Ocean circulation in the greenhouse climate of the Eocene.
Swimming Physical Training in Rats : Cardiovascular Adaptation to Exercise Training Protocols at Different Intensities

Guerreiro LF, Pereira AA, Martins CN, Wally C, Gonçalves CAN. Swimming Physical Training in Rats: Cardiovascular Adaptation to Exercise Training Protocols at Different Intensities. JEPonline 2015; 18(1):1-12. There have been many studies of physical exercise in laboratory animal models. However, these studies are limited by their experimental protocols. The aim of the present study was to develop physical training protocols of low, moderate, and high intensity and to compare the cardiovascular acclimation of Wistar rats to these protocols. Forty male rats 60 days old at the beginning of the experiment and weighing 310 ± 10 g were divided into four groups (n=10): control, low intensity (LI), moderate intensity (MI), and intermittent high intensity (HI). The training was divided into an acclimation phase and a maintenance phase and took place 5 times a week over 16 wks. After the training, the animals were euthanized. Creatine kinase and heart morphometry analyses were conducted. Lactate values were 4.0 ± 0.5 mmol·L for LI, 5.5 ± 0.4 mmol·L for MI, and 9.2 ± 1.0 mmol·L for HI. Heart rate was significantly reduced in the LI (339 ± 20 beats·min) and MI (344 ± 20 beats·min). Morphometric analyses showed that the thickness of the free wall of the left ventricle was greater in the HI group (2.233 ± 0.29 mm) (P≤0.05). The thickness of the interventricular septum was greater in the HI group (2.158 ± 0.71 mm) and the area of the left ventricle chamber significantly greater in the MI group (25.657 ± 3.6 mm) (P≤0.05). Our results show that these protocols induce different metabolic pathways and promote distinct adaptations in the cardiovascular system to the type of physical training experienced.
Waveform modeling of shear wave splitting from anisotropic models in Iceland

No quantitative model of seismic anisotropy beneath Iceland has yet explained the observed shear wave splitting results in Iceland. In this study we explore the structure of mantle seismic anisotropy associated with plume ridge interaction beneath Iceland by modeling synthetic waveforms using a pseudo‐spectral method. First, predicted SKS waveforms are shown to produce shear wave splitting results for two anisotropic layers that are in generally agreement with analytic solutions. Next, simple models in which anisotropy are imposed at different depths and geographic regions around Iceland are used to examine different hypothesized effects of plume‐ridge interaction. The model that is designed to represent crystallographic fabric due to mantle deformation associated with lithosphere spreading in western Iceland and along‐axis, channeled asthenospheric flow in eastern Iceland can predict the distinct shear wave splitting observations on the east and west sides of the island. Last, we analyze geodynamic models that simulate 3‐D mantle flow and evolution of mineral fabric. The predicted fast directions of shear wave splitting from the models with realistic spreading rate (10 km/Myr) and broad range of plume viscosities are consistent with the observations in central and eastern Iceland. However, because these models are symmetric about the ridge, none of them can predict the observed shear wave splitting results in western Iceland.
Predator-Resembling Aversive Conditioning for Managing Habituated Wildlife

Wildlife habituation near urban centers can disrupt natural ecological processes, destroy habitat, and threaten public safety. Consequently, management of habituated animals is typically invasive and often includes translocation of these animals to remote areas and sometimes even their destruction. Techniques to prevent or reverse habituation and other forms of in situ management are necessary to balance ecological and social requirements, but they have received very little experimental attention to date. This study compared the efficacy of two aversive conditioning treatments that used either humans or dogs to create sequences resembling chases by predators, which, along with a control category, were repeatedly and individually applied to 24 moderately habituated, radio-collared elk in Banff National Park during the winter of 2001-2002. Three response variables were measured before and after treatment. Relative to untreated animals, the distance at which elk fled from approaching humans, i.e., the flight response distance, increased following both human and dog treatments, but there was no difference between the two treatments. The proportion of time spent in vigilance postures decreased for all treatment groups, without differences among groups, suggesting that this behavior responded mainly to seasonal effects. The average distance between elk locations and the town boundary, measured once daily by telemetry, significantly increased for human-conditioned elk. One of the co-variates we measured, wolf activity, exerted counteracting effects on conditioning effects; flight response distances and proximity to the town site were both lower when wolf activity was high. This research demonstrates that it is possible to temporarily modify aspects of the behavior of moderately habituated elk using aversive conditioning, suggests a method for reducing habituation in the first place, and provides a solution for Banff and other jurisdictions to manage hyperabundant and habituated urban wildlife.
Estimating the Turkish Sectoral Market Returns via Arbitrage Pricing Model under Neural Network Approach

As an alternative to Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT) is crucial in analyzing practical asset prices. APT provides a kind of multi factor market model which describes the expected returns with respect to macro-economic factors. In multifactor financial modeling, generally the traditional linear models are preferred. However, in the finance literature there are researches indicating the non-stationary and non-linearity of asset prices. For this purpose, in this paper the Artificial Neural Network (ANN) with Feed Forward Back Propagation algorithm has been employed to estimate the expected returns of the main sector indices of the Istanbul Stock Exchange, an emerging stock market, by using their relations with macroeconomic variables over 2003 and 2012 period. The forecasting ability of the ANN model is accessed using in sample and out of sample means square error (MSE) statistics and hypothesis test statistics testing whether there are differences between predicted returns and real returns. The results have revealed that the methodology based on ANN has a significant ability to estimate the different sectors in Turkish stock market with APT approach.
Sonification playback rates during matching tasks of visualised and sonified EEG data

In this paper, the authors discuss a user study examining the role of sonification in electroencephalography (EEG) data presentation. Conventionally, EEG data are presented using visualisation techniques and incorporate multivariate, time-critical information. As the number of EEG channels increase, or when screen real-estate is reduced, visually-presented data can become cluttered and occluded. Our user study examined how accurately users could match visualised EEG data to sonic equivalents, and at what playback rate this was most effective. Accuracy and timing data were recorded, as well as task load index (TLX) questionnaires. Results show that faster playback rates of sonified EEG data yield more accurate results. However, matching accuracy of sonified EEG data in the form presented in this study was not sufficient to replace visualized EEG. Although presently sonified electroencephalograms are not a complete replacement, sonification has the potential to effectively represent aspects of EEG data when visualisation alone becomes challenging for the user. The authors therefore propose a multimodal approach to EEG data presentation aimed at reducing visual clutter and reducing the cognitive load experienced by users when presented with too many dynamic variables on screen.
Growth and patterning in the conodont skeleton

Recent advances in our understanding of conodont palaeobiology and functional morphology have rendered established hypotheses of element growth untenable. In order to address this problem, hard tissue histology is reviewed paying particular attention to the relationships during growth of the component hard tissues comprising conodont elements, and ignoring a priori assumptions of the homologies of these tissues. Conodont element growth is considered further in terms of the pattern of formation, of which four distinct types are described, all possibly derived from a primitive condition after heterochronic changes in the timing of various developmental stages. It is hoped that this may provide further means of unravelling conodont phylogeny. The manner in which the tissues grew is considered homologous with other vertebrate hard tissues, and the elements appear to have grown in a way similar to the growing scales and growing dentition of other vertebrates.
Performance Analysis of Liquidity Indicators as Early Warning Signals

This study compares the performance of an old liquidity ratio (LiqR) and two new liquidity indicators, namely, liquidity creation (LiqC) and net stable funding difference (NSFD), in sending early warning signals for distressed banks. Recent evidence shows that the old indicator appears incapable of measuring the liquidity condition of banks. However, the two new indicators have not yet been fully examined in terms of their possible role as indicators. We classify distressed banks into banks that have experienced a bank run, bailout, and failure. Sample data are collected from the United States and the European Union from before and after the crisis (2005-2009). We estimate a model using a sample before the crisis to predict liquidity shortages in 2008 and 2009. Evidence shows that the academic (LiqC) and officially recommended indicators (NSFD) outperform LiqR as early warning signal. Furthermore, LiqC is superior when banks actively engage in income diversification but not when banks engage in fund diversification. Therefore, a well income-diversified bank with a high LiqC tends to have a high distress probability in subsequent periods.
Erratum: Physical properties, star-spot activity, orbital obliquity and transmission spectrum of the Qatar-2 planetary system from multicolour photometry

We present 17 high-precision light curves offive transits of the planet Qatar-2 b, obtained from four defocused 2 m-class telescopes. Three of the transits were observed simultaneously in the Sloan grizpassbands using the seven-beam Gamma Ray Burst Optical and Near-Infrared Detector imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-m telescope. A fourth was observed simultaneously in Gunn grz using the Centro Astron´ omico Hispano Alem´ an 2.2-m telescope with Bonn University Simultaneous Camera, and in r using the Cassini 1.52-m telescope. Every light curve shows small anomalies due to the passage of the planetary shadow over a cool spot on the surface of the host star. We fit the light curves with the PRISM+GEMC model to obtain the photometric parameters of the system and the position, size and contrast of each spot. We use these photometric parameters and published spectroscopic measurements to obtain the physical properties of the system to high precision, finding a larger radius and lower density for both star and planet than previously thought. By tracking the change in position of one star-spot between two transit observations, we measure the orbital obliquity of Qatar-2 b to be λ = 4. ◦ 3 ± 4. ◦ 5, strongly indicating an alignment of the stellar spin with the orbit of the planet. We calculate the rotation period and velocity of the cool host star to be 11.5 ± 0.2 d and 3.28 ± 0.04 km s −1 at a colatitude of 74 ◦ . We assemble the planet's transmission spectrum over the 386-976 nm wavelength range and search for variations of the measured radius of Qatar-2 b as a function of wavelength. Our analysis highlights a possible H2/He Rayleigh scattering in the blue.
An Approach: SysML-based Automated Consistency Evaluation of the System Requirements Specification

— Systems Modeling Language (SysML) is used for specifying, analyzing, designing and verifying complex systems, and is designed to provide simple but powerful constructs for modeling a wide range of Systems. SysML is not a methodology, nor a method and there are thousands of different ways to describe the using it. In this case, there cannot be a single, universal approach to evaluate the consistency of the requirements specification. It is necessary to choose a specific method in combination with SysML to accurately and comprehensively evaluate the consistency of requirements specification. The consistency evaluation of requirements specification in model-based system engineering (MBSE), depending on the modeling language and method is quite a new practice. This opens up discussions of how to utilize SysML provided infrastructure to evaluate the System Requirements Specification (SRS) and achieve a high-quality of the SRS. In this paper, a new approach of how requirements specification, expressed with sufficient precision in SysML can be used for automated consistency evaluation.
Sampling Blood from Birds: A Technique and an Assessment of Its Effect

We describe a technique and apparatus for extracting blood samples from birds in the field. We tested the effect of our technique on the health and behavior of captive Brown-headed Cowbirds (Molothrus ater) and free-living Red-winged Blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus). We found that captive Brown-headed Cowbirds that had been bled did not lose any more weight than birds that had not been bled. Territory loss by male Red-winged Blackbirds was not affected by taking blood samples, nor was annual return rate. Female Red-winged Blackbirds that were bled did not differ significantly in their rate of nest abandonment, nest success, fledging rate or annual return relative to females that were not bled. We conclude that blood sampling is not obviously harmful to wild birds as long as proper precautions are taken. Given the ease of the field technique and the vast potential for information to be gained, field ornithologists should not preclude adding laboratory blood analyses to their research program because of concerns about the technique negatively affecting the birds' health or behavior.