Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Exploring growers' understanding of sustainability and resilience in organic greenhouse horticulture : Italy vs United Kingdom

Protected cropping is recognised as a highly productive but intensive farming system, with a covered area steadily growing worldwide, and research has been mainly looking at solutions to improve the sustainability of these productions, particularly in terms of long-term soil fertility and agrobiodiversity enhancement, which become even more relevant if production is certified organic. However, no extensive research has been dedicated to the more social aspects of this agricultural sector, therefore this study aims, through the employment of a mixed methods approach comprising online surveys and semi-structured interviews, at gaining a better understanding of how organic growers identify practices that affect their management the most, those factors of any given nature that have major influence on their decisions about improving and/or implementing these practices, and any potential benefits to it. The study also acts as a comparative analysis between two case-study countries, Italy and the United Kingdom, which will help shed light on differences and commonalities between the groups of producers, and give a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of each country. Survey results showed that growers from both countries rated fertility management the highest in terms of importance for their management; biodiversity conservation and landscape protection were rated higher by Italian growers, while energy efficiency and weed management were considered more important by British producers. Issues like short food supply chains, product traceability and traditional knowledge were considered equally relevant by both groups of respondents, since most were small-scale and rooted into local economies. Face-to-face interviews revealed differences between producers within and between scales of operations, showing that the level of intensiveness they employ inside greenhouses is more varied than what literature shows, and it links up to multiple factors (e.g. crops, growing season, available technologies, scale, channels of distribution), which also have a potential influence on growers’ management practices, which vary accordingly to how intensive the cropping system is. For organic growers, employing protected structures is commonly considered a necessary step for production, regardless of business size, to shelter crops from extreme events and to place produce on the market during the yearly ‘hungry’ gaps, and it is a trend that is likely going to continue in the future too, with greater protected areas, higher quality production, and a more effective resources management; therefore, a policy integration of a ‘greenhouse clause’, in terms of coverable areas and applicable
Epipelagic copepod assemblage in the Gerlache Strait (Antarctica) during the 2015 austral summer

Oblique zooplankton tows were carried out in the Gerlache Strait from 17 to 22 January 2015 as part of the first Colombian oceanographic expedition to the Antarctic continent, to document the composition and structure of the epipelagic copepod assemblage, taking into account variations at a small spatial scale. The epipelagic environment of the Gerlache Strait was divided into two oceanographic regions during sampling: a stratified northern region and a homogeneous southern region. The epipelagic copepod assemblage comprised 17 species belonging to four orders and 13 families. Adult copepods as well as developmental stages ranging from copepodite II (C2) to copepodite V (C5) from eight different species were recorded in the study area. The dominant species by number was Oithona similis, followed by O. frigida, Ctenocalanus citer, Drescheriella glacialis, and Calanoides acutus. There were significant differences between the epipelagic copepod assemblages present in the northern and southern regions of the Gerlache Strait (Anosim, p = 0.01), with a dissimilarity percentage of 52%. Moreover, Aetideus armatus is reported for the first time in the western sector of the Antarctic Peninsula. The oceanographic conditions and the geomorphological characteristics of the study area modulated the surface circulation pattern, as well as the structure and composition of the primary producers during the study period, determining the spatial variation of the abundance and composition of the epipelagic copepod assemblage in the Gerlache Strait during the 2015 Austral summer.
A case study on the public knowledge and awareness of the Philippine Pangolin Manis culionensis (Mammalia: Pholidota: Manidae)

Pangolins are poorly known species despite their high demand in the illegal international trade. This study has been conducted to analyze the awareness of Filipinos towards the endemic Philippine Pangolin Manis culionensis and how much they would be willing to contribute to its conservation. The respondents were selected from the social media reach of the researchers. The results showed that most of the respondents know about the pangolin from mass media such as news from television. Social media is also a factor in their awareness of the animal. They unanimously agreed that pangolins are important ecologically rather than its medicinal value in the illegal market trade. Overall, the respondents showed a high degree of knowledge of pangolins and have favorable attitudes towards its conservation.
Changes in Antarctic coastline between 1997 and 2016 using RADARSAT and MODIS data

ABSTRACT Studies have already indicated more disintegrations and calving of ice margins and a significant negative ice balance at certain parts of Antarctica in recent times. Changes in extent of ice shelves as well as glacier fronts are indeed good signatures of climate change. This paper essentially discusses the changes in Antarctic ice margins between 1997 and 2016. Change-detection technique has been employed using the Radar Satellite (RADARSAT) mosaic of 1997 and the mosaic of Antarctic ice margins generated using MODerate resolution Imaging Satellite (MODIS) images of 2016, with the help of Earth Resources Development Assessment system (ERDAS) Imagine software. Hotspots, where significant changes occurred, have been identified. Most part of the Antarctic coast between 75° E and 45° W, covering all West Antarctica and about half of East Antarctica, has shown definite retreat during this period. Major retreats are observed over the both sides of Ross ice shelf, Ronne ice shelf, Thwaites glacier, and Mertz glacier. Major advancements are observed over Filchner ice shelf, Amery ice shelf, middle portion of Ross ice shelf, and Stancomwills glacier tongue. Over the East Antarctica, areas of advancement and retreat are nearly same. But, over the West Antarctica, the area of retreat is significantly higher than area of advancement.
Modality of Particle Swarm Optimization to Improve Decision Making Process of Analytical Hierarchy Processing *

AHP has been widely used in various real world applications. Numerous decision making process involves the use of pair-wise comparison matrix of AHP, and consistency ration is the most key issue related with AHP. In this research work, Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm is employed to reduce the consistency ratio of decision making process Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). The aim of proposed method is to reduce the CR. Consistency evaluation of AHP have been studied in literature since from 70’s. The reported methods are quite complicated and difficult. Many methods could not maintain the original judgment provided by domain expert. We have presented a very simple and yet effective method to minimize of consistency ratio (almost zero) which will also preserves the domain expert’s opinion. The robustness of proposed method is presented by applying it to real world case study. The experimentation shows that the proposed method is efficient and accurate to satisfy the consistency requirements of AHP.
Performance of NGA Models in Predicting Ground Motion Parameters of The Strong Earthquake

Next Generation Attenuation (NGA) West 1 and 2 models are employed to predict the ground motion parameters of strong earthquake during the 6.9 Mw Kobe Earthquake in 1995. This study is initiated by collecting the data of ground motion parameters of the earthquake. Furthermore, the ground motion prediction is performed by using the NGA models. There are three ground motion parameters observed, i.e. peak ground acceleration (PGA), spectral acceleration (SA) at 0.2 second and SA at 1 second. The performances of the models are evaluated by using the Residual Values and Root Mean Square (RMS) Error. The results show that the NGA models could predict the ground motion parameters quite appropriately. It can be seen from the correlation values of the observed and the predicted values, which is relatively consistent each other, especially for peak ground acceleration. In general, this study could recommend the procedure in selecting the attenuation model for strong earthquakes. The study framework could be implemented to predict the ground motion in other regions.
Energy and exergy analysis of a centrifugal pump driven by a diesel engine operating with passion fruit biodiesel and mixtures with diesel

The present study is related with the analysis of energy and exergy of a centrifugal pump driven by a single cylinder diesel engine operating with passion fruit biodiesel and mixtures with diesel. Values of the useful work, the reversible work and the efficiency of the second law of thermodynamics were obtained. The passion fruit oil used to obtain the biodiesel was produced by mechanical extraction, filtration and degumming process from seeds discarded from the production process of passion fruit juice. The passion fruit biodiesel was produced by transesterification using ultrasound and methanol in the proportion of 40% v/v with a 1% of NaOH as a catalyst. The passion fruit biodiesel-diesel mixtures were prepared and classified as B0, B25, B50, B75 and B100. These mixtures were submitted to physical-chemical characterization and utilized in the centrifugal pump driven by a diesel engine. For the mixtures of passion fruit biodiesel with diesel, the maximum efficiency of the second law was 29.83% in the case of B25 mixture, at 9.45 m3/h and at maximum pump speed. When the centrifugal pump operated at maximum flow rate, the maximum efficiency of the second law was 31.78% in the case of passion fruit biodiesel (B100), at 2722 rpm.
Enhancing Tsunami Warning Using P Wave Coda

Most large tsunamis are generated by earthquakes on offshore plate boundary megathrusts. The primary factors influencing tsunami excitation are the seismic moment, faulting geometry, and depth of the faulting. Efforts to provide rapid tsunami warning have emphasized seismic and geodetic methods for quickly determining the event size and faulting geometry. It remains difficult to evaluate the updip extent of rupture, which has significant impact on tsunami excitation. Teleseismic P waves can constrain this issue; slip under deep water generates strong pwP water reverberations that persist as ringing Pcoda after the direct P phases from the faulting have arrived. Event‐averaged Pcoda/P amplitude measures at large epicentral distances (>80°), tuned to the dominant periods of deep water pwP (~12–15 s), correlate well with independent models of whether slip extends to near the trench or not. Data at closer ranges (30° to 80°) reduce the time lag needed for inferring the updip extent of rupture to <15 min. Arrival of PP and PPP phases contaminates closer distance Pcoda measures, but this can be suppressed by azimuthal or distance binning of the measures. Narrowband spectral ratio measures and differential magnitude measures of Pcoda and direct P (mB) perform comparably to broader band root‐mean‐square (RMS) measures. Pcoda/P levels for large nonmegathrust events are also documented. Rapid measurement of Pcoda/P metrics after a large earthquake can supplement quick moment tensor determinations to enhance tsunami warnings; observation of large Pcoda levels indicates that shallow submarine rupture occurred and larger than typical tsunami (for given MW) can be expected.
Human Action Recognition Based on RGB-D and Local Interactive Regions Detection

We propose a novel method to recognize human actions by fusing information from RGB-D sensors. Human action recognition is a challenging task because of the complexity movements, the variety of actions performed by different subjects and the changes of view and illumination. We propose to detect human motion from body parts by extracting sets of spatial-temporal interest points from RGB sequence and projecting them into depth map. Then, extract local interactive regions as supplementary information for action recognition. An improve classifier based on linear SVM coupled with dynamic time warping is developed for classification. We evaluate our method on two public datasets, including MSRDailyActivity3D dataset and ReadingAct RGB-D action dataset.
Grapho-analytical modelling of technological chain of logging operations in dynamic natural and production conditions

Different variants of technological chain can be organized in logging process. Water or land types of transport can be used for transportation of timber. The use of timber landings where wood can be processed also increases the number of multiple variants of technological process. Performance of operations in various natural and production environment differs in productivity and material costs. Production efficiency depends on the choice of technology of logging operations in dynamic natural and production environment. The given research suggests the variant of the grapho-analytical model for solution of the set task. Detailed graphic models of transportation of wood from logging unit to consumer, loading /unloading and processing operations at the intermediate and lower timber landing are developed. They show possible options of technological chains of logging process. Mathematical dependences are shown on the basis of the problem of finding the maximum flow of minimum cost in the suggested dynamic network. They define the conditions for solution of the set problem.
Quality Control and Risk Management of Carbon Nanomaterials

Our atmosphere contains a substantial number of nanoparticles in which some are unintentionally produced, whereas others are intentionally produced engineered nanoparticle. Among all ENPs, the single-walled and multi-walled carbon nanotubes, spherical fullerenes, and dendrimers are attracting attention for biomedical applications, such as biosensor design, drug delivery, tumor therapy, and tissue engineering. Because of the inert nature of pristine carbon nanotubes (CNTs), it needs to be functionalized to make it reactive with other organic and inorganic materials. The functionalization leads to the addition of functional groups, e.g., C ‖ O, C ▬ O, ▬ OH, and ▬ COOH, to CNTs, which make them dispersible in solvents and suitable for numerous applications. Functionalized CNTs and their composite need to be tested for biocompatibility before real-time applications. Various toxicity mechanisms have been suggested for CNTs, including interference of transmembrane electron transfer, interruption/penetration of the cell envelope, oxidation of cell elements, and formu-lation of secondary products such as dissolved heavy metal ions or reactive oxygen species (ROS). Numerous studies have insinuated that well-functionalized CNTs are innoxious to animal cells, while raw CNTs or CNTs without functionalization mani-fest toxicity to cells at even modest dosage. Further of of
Occupational Noise and Vibration Assessments in Forest Harvesting Equipment in North-eastern Brazil

Occupational hazards arising from physical agents present in wood harvesting equipment may cause irreversible damage to the health of exposed operators. Thus, the objective of this study was to quantify the noise and vibration levels emitted by three types of wood harvesting equipment (Feller-buncher, Harvester and Forwarder) in a forestry company in north-eastern Brazil during a workday. Noise measurements were performed with an equivalent noise level meter (audiodosimeter) at the workstation and compared with the limits set in NR-15. To evaluate the vibration was used a full cup gauge, which has a sensor called triaxial accelerometer (directions X, Y and Z), installed on the operator's seat. As a result, the average noise dose of all activities in the operation studied did not exceed the maximum allowable limit of 85 dB (A) for 8 hours of continuous work. The whole body vibration in all equipment was below the exposure level, however, some equipment obtained indexes slightly higher than the alert level, a fact that shows a higher accuracy in the equipment.
Regional differences in population aging in Europe viewed through prospective indicators

Demographic aging has been one of the most discussed aspects of population development in recent decades. Complex changes in reproductive behaviour and their impact on both age structure and future population development are often the source of concerns about the stability of socioeconomic systems (e.g. pension systems, healthcare and the labour market). Frequently reinforced by the development and use of standard demographic aging indicators and comparisons over time and space and/or between populations, this one-sided view is problematic given significant changes in population mortality and health. Population aging has moreover traditionally been analysed in relation to national and regional differences, with specificities frequently being overlooked. Using new methods for analysing demographic aging based on prospective age, which accounts for changes in life expectancy over time and therefore more accurately captures demographic aging, we attempt to identify the main spatial patterns of regional differentiation in aging in Europe (at the NUTS2 level). We also attempt to create a typology of Europe’s regions using the main aging indicators and thereby identify the areas most affected by demographic aging.
A Numerical Investigation of a Winglet-Propeller using an LES Model

The generation of tip vortex cavitation (TVC) is a common phenomenon in marine propellers. Therefore, it is important to find a way for the effective suppression of TVC. Based on the enlightenment of bionics, a propeller with winglets was numerically investigated by using a large eddy simulation (LES) model and the commercial software STAR-CCM+. Various variables, such as mesh size, number of prism layers, vapor properties and time step, were analyzed using the benchmark MAU5-80 propeller. The open water characteristics calculated for the benchmark propeller were compared with experimental data. The meshes in the region of the tip vortex wake were refined. The power spectral density (PSD) of the thrust coefficient and axial velocity were investigated. The comparison of TVC between the benchmark propeller and the propeller with winglets was studied with the Q-criterion, helicity and volume fraction of the vapor. The strength of the tip vortex wake is weakened by winglets; therefore, the presence of winglets leads to a reduction in vapor volume, which in turn alleviates TVC.
Effects of Integrated Support Programme for Arable Agricultural Development (ISPAAD) on the Income of Sorghum Farmers: Evidence from Kweneng District, Botswana

This paper examines the factors influencing participation decisions among the farmer’s households of the Integrated Support Program for Arable Agricultural Development with the logistic model and assesses its effects on the agricultural sector in Botswana. Using random sampling, data were collected from 397 households at Kweneng District. The results showed that farm size, type of seed provided, amount of fertilizing, household size, access to extension services, availability of labour, sex of the farmer, risk attitude, total productivity per hectare and group participation were statistically significant at 1% or 5% level. Further analysis revealed that participation improves the income of small-scale farmers.
Influence of the Atmospheric Turbulence on the Accuracy of the Missile Targeting

Abstract The article presents results of simulation of 6-DOF motion for a missile subjected to atmospheric turbulences. Therefore, an applied mathematical model of motion includes description of stochastic turbulences influencing on missile flight. Both models of the motion as well as of turbulences are shortly presented. Model validity was assessed by comparing the calculation results with the data recorded during shooting on the range. Result of series of simulations allows determining the missile sensitivity to this case of disturbances. Exemplary results of simulations are shown. The turbulence model assumes that the wind is dependent on time and space. This assumption is based on the Taylor’s “frozen turbulence” hypothesis. The advection velocity of the turbulence is much greater than the velocity scale of the turbulence itself. The velocity has two component. In the article, the first component is omitted and the second is treated as the stochastic process representing atmospheric turbulence. To describe this turbulence Shinozuka’s method was applied. Mathematical description of the missile motion, equations of translatory motion, External forces end moments, model of the turbulence are presented in the article.
Detection of Liquefaction Phenomena from the 2017 Pohang (Korea) Earthquake Using Remote Sensing Data

On 15 November 2017, liquefaction phenomena were observed around the epicenter after a 5.4 magnitude earthquake occurred in Pohang in southeast Korea. In this study, we attempted to detect areas of sudden water content increase by using SAR (synthetic aperture radar) and optical satellite images. We analyzed coherence changes using Sentinel-1 SAR coseismic image pairs and analyzed NDWI (normalized difference water index) changes using Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2 optical satellite images from before and after the earthquake. Coherence analysis showed no liquefaction-induced surface changes. The NDWI time series analysis models using Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2 optical images confirmed liquefaction phenomena close to the epicenter but could not detect liquefaction phenomena far from the epicenter. We proposed and evaluated the TDLI (temporal difference liquefaction index), which uses only one SWIR (short-wave infrared) band at 2200 nm, which is sensitive to soil moisture content. The Sentinel-2 TDLI was most consistent with field observations where sand blow from liquefaction was confirmed. We found that Sentinel-2, with its relatively shorter revisit period compared to that of Landsat 8 (5 days vs. 16 days), was more effective for detecting traces of short-lived liquefaction phenomena on the surface. The Sentinel-2 TDLI could help facilitate rapid investigations and responses to liquefaction damage.