Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
How stratospheric are deep stratospheric intrusions

Abstract. Preliminary attempts of quantifying the stratospheric ozone contribution in the observations at the Zugspitze summit (2962 m a.s.l.) next to Garmisch-Partenkirchen in the German Alps had yielded an approximate doubling of the stratospheric fraction of the Zugspitze ozone during the time period 1978 to 2004. These investigations had been based on data filtering by using low relative humidity (RH) and elevated 7Be as the criteria for selecting half-hour intervals of ozone data representative of stratospheric intrusion air. To quantify the residual stratospheric component in stratospherically influenced air masses, however, the mixing of tropospheric air into the stratospheric intrusion layers must be taken into account. In fact, the dewpoint mirror instrument at the Zugspitze summit station rarely registers RH values lower than 10% in stratospheric air intrusions. Since 2007 a programme of routine lidar sounding of ozone, water vapour and aerosol has been conducted in the Garmisch-Partenkirchen area. The lidar results demonstrate that the intrusion layers are drier by roughly one order of magnitude than indicated in the in situ measurements. Even in thin layers RH values clearly below 1% have frequently been observed. These thin, undiluted layers present an important challenge for atmospheric modelling. Although the ozone values never reach values typical of the lower-stratosphere it becomes, thus, obvious that, without strong wind shear or convective processes, mixing of stratospheric and tropospheric air must be very slow in most of the free troposphere. As a consequence, the analysis the Zugspitze data can be assumed to be more reliable than anticipated. Finally, the concentrations of Zugspitze carbon monoxide rarely drop inside intrusion layers and normally stay clearly above full stratospheric values. This indicates that most of the CO, and thus the intrusion air mass, originates in the shallow "mixing layer" around the thermal tropopause. The CO mixing ratio in these descending layers between 1990 and 2004 exhibits a slightly positive trend indicating some Asian influence on the lowermost stratosphere in the high-latitude source region of most intrusions reaching the station.
02 MORPHOTYPES OF THE COCCOLITHOPHORE GEPHYROCAPSA AS A PROXY FOR SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE

Previous works have established that six morphotypes of the genus Gephyrocapsa are recognized and related to the sea surface temperature. However, applying Gephyrocapsa morphotypes to reconstruct this parameter is challenging because morphotype descriptions and photographs are done in an Electron Scanning Microscope (SEM), while the majority of quantitative analysis research of fossil assemblages is done with an Optical Microscope (OM). Therefore, we aim to evaluate coccolith image correspondence in these two kind of microscopes. Four sediment core samples were used from the offshore section of the Pelotas Basin. For each sample and each analysis type, 60 coccoliths were measured, photographed, and classified by morphotype in the SEM and the OM. The morphotype proportions found in the SEM and the OM were correlated using a sum of squares statistical analysis. Weak correlations were found. It does not seem possible to securely identify Gephyrocapsa morphotypes in the OM, as the image differs considerably from that found in the SEM. Paleotemperatures were calculated from morphotype proportions in the SEM and the OM and discrepancies were very large, demonstrating that this proxy is not viable when studies are completed in the OM.
General equilibrium modelling in South Africa: What the future holds

Abstract This paper provides an overview of the main research contributions of the past decade using general equilibrium models to analyse agricultural issues in South Africa. The methodological developments since the change to democracy ten years ago are viewed in the context of developments in this area of research carried out internationally. It will be shown in this paper that the modelling and computing techniques have vastly improved during the past decade, both in an ongoing attempt to refine existing models, and in an attempt to extend the modelling framework to make provision for issues that cannot be sufficiently captured in the standard comparative static models. These extensions include dynamic modelling, global modelling, environmental modelling and micro simulation. The paper highlights the non-trivial data requirements of this type of modelling. The national statistical agency, Statistics South Africa, supports general equilibrium modellers by their development of input-output tables, social accounting matrices and, more recently, supply and use tables. This decade has therefore witnessed an improvement in the data for the construction of national level social accounting matrices. Requirements for provincial level data have however not been met sufficiently, posing huge challenges for provincial and regional modelling. The lack of primary data has however stimulated development of advanced data estimation techniques that can be applied to overcome this data challenge. Application of general equilibrium techniques to analyse agricultural issues in South Africa still remains limited and substantial support and training of researcher is still needed to expand domestic capacity in this field of research.
Analysis of Cost at FAA’s En Route Centers: An Empirical Perspective

In this paper, an empirical framework is developed using economic theories to examine the relationships between variable costs and levels of activities at the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) en route centers. Using data for three fiscal years and employing time-series pooled cross section econometrics, we have found that the Air Traffic Organization's (ATO) service provisions in the en route centers have some economies of scale. Furthermore, we have found that while controllers' wage is important, it is not statistically significant in unit cost measured in aircraft flight operation counts. However, it is statistically significant when unit variable cost is measured and estimated in terms of aircraft flight operation hours. We have also found that degree of complexity, a measure of service attributes, does not impact cost. These findings, combined with on-going policy discussion on users' fees, imply that ATO may be well positioned to implement average cost pricing if cost is to be fully recovered for en route services. The implementation of marginal cost pricing may require external funding, perhaps from general funds of the U.S. Treasury.
Exploring and Exploiting Diversity for Image Segmentation

Semantic image segmentation is an important computer vision task that is difficult because it consists of both recognition and segmentation. The task is often cast as a structured output problem on an exponentially large output-space, which is typically modeled by a discrete probabilistic model. The best segmentation is found by inferring the Maximum a-Posteriori (MAP) solution over the output distribution defined by the model. Due to limitations in optimization, the model cannot be arbitrarily complex. This leads to a trade-off: devise a more accurate model that incorporates rich high-order interactions between image elements at the cost of inaccurate and possibly intractable optimization OR leverage a tractable model which produces less accurate MAP solutions but may contain high quality solutions as other modes of its output distribution. This thesis investigates the latter and presents a two stage approach to semantic segmentation. In the first stage a tractable segmentation model outputs a set of high probability segmentations from the underlying distribution that are not just minor perturbations of each other. Critically the output of this stage is a diverse set of plausible solutions and not just a single one. In the second stage, a discriminatively trained re-ranking model selects the best segmentation from this set. The re-ranking stage can use much more complex features than what could be tractably used in the segmentation model, allowing a better exploration of the solution space than simply returning the MAP solution. The formulation is agnostic to the underlying segmentation model (e.g. CRF, CNN, etc.) and optimization algorithm, which makes it applicable to a wide range of models and inference methods. Evaluation of the approach on a number of semantic image segmentation benchmark datasets highlight its superiority over inferring the MAP solution.
Migration of the Highly Educated: Evidence from Residence Spells of University Graduates

We examine the inter-regional migration of university graduates from 1991 to 2003 in Finland. The results show that time matters: two-years before and during the graduation year the hazard rates of migration increase, and then decrease thereafter. Although university graduates are particularly mobile, we find that most of them do not move from their region of studies within 10 years after graduation. The out-migration, i.e., brain drain, is much higher among graduates in the more peripheral universities than in the growth centers (Helsinki in particular). Migration is also substantially more likely for those studying away from the home region than for those studying at home.
Determinants of knowledge transfer in inter‐firm new product development projects

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors which determine the degree of knowledge transfer in inter‐firm new product development (NPD) projects. The authors test a theoretical model exploring how inter‐firm knowledge transfer is enabled or hindered by a buyer's learning intent, the degree of supplier protectiveness, inter‐firm knowledge ambiguity, and absorptive capacity.Design/methodology/approach – A sample of 153 R&D intensive manufacturing firms in the UK automotive, aerospace, pharmaceutical, electrical, chemical, and general manufacturing industries was used to test the framework. To analyse the data, two‐step structural equation modeling in AMOS 7.0 was used.Findings – The results indicate that a buyer's learning intent increases inter‐firm knowledge transfer, but also acts as an incentive for suppliers to protect their knowledge. Such defensive measures increase the degree of inter‐firm knowledge ambiguity, encouraging buyer firms to invest in absorptive capacity as a means to .
EMG-Controlled Transradial Prostheses - An Investigation into Machine Learning Techniques

The electromyogram (EMG) signals recorded from the surface of skeletal muscles are stochastic in nature and exhibit repeatable patterns for similar muscle activations. Therefore, machine learning algorithms can be used to learn their patterns and identify the movement intent even in the absence of an actual limb. The EMG signals are recorded from the residual muscles/muscle sites after amputation (acquired or congenital) and a representative set of features is extracted. The feature data are passed on to a machine learning algorithm for training and later use in real-time for controlling a prosthetic device. Numerous features of the EMG signal based on its amplitude, spectral contents, and stochastic nature have been proposed. Similarly, various dimensionality reduction techniques, as well as, classification algorithms have also been used. In this study, we provide in-depth analyses of different features of the EMG signals and classification algorithms along with the effect of dimensionality reduction on the classification accuracy. The surface EMG data recorded from the forearm muscles of twelve able-bodied volunteers was used to extract six different feature sets (fourteen individual features). The feature data with/without dimensionality reduction was used to train and test three different classification algorithms, i.e., the linear discriminant analysis (LDA), support vector machines (SVM), and artificial neural networks (ANN). Our extensive study showed that the feature set consisting of the EMG amplitude, spectral, and stochasticity information provided the highest classification accuracy with a linear classifier, i.e., the LDA.
A Late Mississippian back-barrier marsh ecosystem in the Black Warrior and Appalachian Basins

An outcrop of the Mississippian Hartselle Sandstone in north-central Alabama preserves in situ, erect cormose lycopsids, assigned to Hartsellea dowensis gen. and sp. nov., in association with a low diversity bivalve assemblage dominated by Edmondia. The isoetalean lycopsids are rooted in a silty claystone in which the bivalve assemblage occurs, representing the transition from tidal fl at and tidal channel regime into a poorly developed inceptisol. Two paleosols are preserved in the sequence and each is overlain by a fi ne-grained quartz arenite, responsible for casting aerial stems and cormose bases of the entombed plants. The massive quartz arenites are in sharp contact with interpreted O-horizons of the paleosol, and the lower sandstone displays a lobate geometry. The plant assemblages are interpreted as back-barrier marshes, the fi rst unequivocal marshlands in the stratigraphic record, preserved by overwash processes associated with intense storm surges in a Transgressive Systems Tract. A sample suite curated in the National Museum of Natural History, collected by David White at the turn of the last century in the Greenbrier Limestone of West Virginia, preserves rooting structures, leaves and sporophylls, and sporangia and megaspores of H. downensis in a mixed carbonate mud (micrite). The presence of isoetalean lycopsids in both siliciclastic and carbonate peritidal environments within nearshore shelf settings of the Early Carboniferous indicates that adaptation to periodic brackish water, if not tolerance to infrequent fully marine-water inundation during storm surges, had evolved in these marsh plants by the late Paleozoic.
Concentric silicon micro-ring resonators with enhanced transmission notch depth

In this work, we have analyzed, fabricated and demonstrated concentric micro-ring resonators in silicon-on-insulator (SOI) structure for enhanced transmission notches. The operation principles of the concentric ring resonators are studied by time-domain coupled-mode theory. Directional coupling between concentric rings offers another freedom in designing deep notch optical filters and ultra-sensitive biosensors. The finite-difference-time-domain (FDTD) simulations have shown the improvement of the notch depth, evenly distributed mode field and the effect of the resonance shift. The device is demonstrated in silicon-on-insulator structure. Transmission notch depth improvement of ~ 15dB is demonstrated for the 21-20.02-μm-radius double-ring structure comparing with the single 21-μm-radius ring.
Expanding Holographic Embeddings for Knowledge Completion

Neural models operating over structured spaces such as knowledge graphs require a continuous embedding of the discrete elements of this space (such as entities) as well as the relationships between them. Relational embeddings with high expressivity, however, have high model complexity, making them computationally difficult to train. We propose a new family of embeddings for knowledge graphs that interpolate between a method with high model complexity and one, namely Holographic embeddings (HolE), with low dimensionality and high training efficiency. This interpolation, termed HolEx, is achieved by concatenating several linearly perturbed copies of original HolE. We formally characterize the number of perturbed copies needed to provably recover the full entity-entity or entity-relation interaction matrix, leveraging ideas from Haar wavelets and compressed sensing. In practice, using just a handful of Haar-based or random perturbation vectors results in a much stronger knowledge completion system. On the Freebase FB15K dataset, HolEx outperforms originally reported HolE by 14.7\% on the HITS@10 metric, and the current path-based state-of-the-art method, PTransE, by 4\% (absolute).
DNA Barcoding of Four Ornamental Fishes of Genus Botia from Eastern Himalaya

Botia loaches are high demanding species having both ornamental and economical important food value and contribute to a major share of the world market for beautiful coloured indigenous ornamental fish. Their identification is difficult due to morphological variation. Genetic variation amongst the four species namely Botia alomorhae, Botia dario, Botia lohachata and Botia rostrata using mtDNA were studied. Cytochrome Oxidase I (COI) gene (655 bp) was amplified using PCR and sequenced. The pairwise genetic distances among Botia species ranged from 0.002 to 0.112. The interspecies Kimura’s 2parameter pair-wise distance was highest (0.112) between Botia dario and B. lohachata and lowest (0.002) for B.almorhae and B. lohachata. The phylogenetic tree showed that B. almorhae and B. lohachata formed a monophyletic group (supported by 100% bootstrap value). The present study is helpful for identification of the Endangered and Vulnerable Botia species from Eastern Himalayan region and population studies, management and conservation programs.
Positron Spectroscopy of Polyvinylidene Fluoride after Helium Ions Irradiation

Free volume is an extremely important intrinsic defect in polymers. Structurally, the free volume is the randomly distributed holes in the polymer molecular chain segments. From the perspective of molecular movement, it is also the space needed for the movement of molecular segments. In proton exchange membrane fuel cells, the free volume is also the space needed for the directional conduction of protons. Irradiation grafting sulfonated polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) is one of the methods to produce proton exchange membrane with good proton channel rate. Using the LYS-1 program, based on the linear absorption coefficient and backscatter coefficient models, the percentage of annihilated positrons in PVDF in the two-layer model and the three-layer model was studied, and comparing the two fitting results it is determined that the model closest to the positron annihilation percentage required by the PALS experiment is the two-layer model, which allows the percentage of positrons that are annihilated in PVDF films with a thickness of 100 μm to reach 46% using the high energy positron source 44Ti without using the positron moderator. Using positron annihilation lifetime spectrum (PALS) analysis methods, based on Eldrup's classical model of free volume, the influence of absorbed doses of α particles on the free volume and crystallinity of PVDF was investigated, respectively. Based on the two test results the model of cross-linking and degradation of polyvinylidene fluoride irradiated by α particles was determined. Afterwards, X-ray diffraction (XRD) methods was used to study the change of PVDF crystal area before and after irradiation. The XRD results are consistent with the results measured by PALS.
Characterization of harmonic pressure field: Application to medical ultrasound imaging

Over the last few decades medical ultrasound has be come an established diagnostic and therapeutic tool since it produces detailed and high resolution images of tissues in human body. Harmonic imaging is among the recent developments which has brought further improvements to the image quality. Harmonic imaging for tissue or with contrast agent induced a rapid evolution of this modality to diverse clinical uses, among which myocardial perfusion determination seems to be the most important application. This brought the need to understand the physical processes involved in the propagation of finite amplitude sound beams, and the issues for redesigning and optimizing the transducers with higher performances for both tissue imaging and contrast imaging. Concerning tissue harmonic imaging, the advantage of the harmonic beam generated at two times the transmit frequency are translated by reduced reverberations , greater depth of penetration at higher frequencies and improved resolution. In order to characterize the harmonic beam, a time domain solution of the parabolic nonlinear wave equation is used. This equation is traditionally applied in a propagation direction along the central transducer axis, and has been shown to model the pulse propagation satisfactorily. In this work, the characteristics and performances of the second harmonic acoustic beam from a focused piston aperture are described and the physical principles behind tissue harmonic imaging are computed. The field properties are then discussed regarding image quality. Special attention is given to the transmitted and received bandwidths variation and the reception of the pure echo signal.
1 Improving the Accuracy in Text Classification 2 Methodology in Light of Modelling the Latent 3 Semantic Relations 4

The research presents the Methodology of Improving the Accuracy in Text Classification 16 in Light of Modelling the Latent Semantic Relations (LSR). The aim of this Methodology is to find 17 the ways of eliminating the Limitations of Discriminant and Probabilistic methods for LSR revealing 18 and customizing the Text Classification Process to the more accurate recognition of the text tonality. 19 This aim should be achieved by using the knowledge about the text’s Hierarchical Semantic Context 20 in the form of Corpora-based Hierarchical Sentiment Dictionary. The main scientific contribution of 21 this research is the following set of approaches to improve the qualitative characteristics of Text 22 Classification process: combination of the Discriminant and Probabilistic methods allowing to 23 decrease the influences of the Limitations of these methods on the LSR revealing process; 24 considering each document as a complex structure allowing to estimate documents integrally by 25 separated classification of topically completed textual component (paragraphs); taking into account 26 the features of Argumentative type of documents (Reviews) allowing to use the author’s subjective 27 evaluation of text tonality for development the Text Classification methodology. Tonality, expressed 28 by the Review’s author, has a significant, but not critical, effect on the qualitative indicators of 29 Sentiment Recognition. 30
Graphene — A Platform for Sensor and Biosensor Applications

Graphene, mother of all carbon materials, has opened up new era of exploration due to its unique properties. Graphene, one-atom thick, exhibits a unique chemical structure and outstanding electronic, optical, thermal, and mechanical properties that made it compelling for various engineering applications. Graphene and graphenebased materials are promising candidates for fabricating state-of-the-art nano-scale sensors and biosensors. They featured with good conductivity and large specific surface area thereby; graphene-based sensors/biosensors performed well with good accuracy, rapidness, high sensitivity and selectivity, low detection limits, and longterm stability. They are ideally used as gas sensors, electrochemical sensors for heavy metal ions, immunosensors and dihydronicotinamide dinucleotide NADH, DNA, catecholamine neurotransmitters, paracetamol, glucose, H2O2, hemoglobin, and myoglobin biosensors. This chapter reviews the applications of graphene in nano‐ technology since it came to the field particularly in sensing and biosensing applica‐ tions. It updates the reader with the scientific progress of the current use of graphene as sensors and biosensors. There is still much room for the scientific research and application development of graphene-based theory, materials, and devices. Despite the vast amount of research already conducted on graphene for various applications, the field is still growing and many questions remain to be answered.