Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
MASTERARBEIT / MASTER’S THESIS

Due to the change of instruments, inhomogenities can be found in radiosonde-data. Especially for the pre-satalite era, radiosonde-data is vital when it comes to climate analysis. Therefore, our data needs to be homogenized. To do so, we need to know the differences in measurements of the various radiosonde types. There have been experimental radiosonde comparisons before, where many different types of radiosondes were used. In this thesis the results of those comparisons should be reproduced with operational radiosonde data. There were two different approaches used to achieve this. First the change of instruments was used to compare two different radiosonde types. The time period before the change gets compared with the period after the change. Another approach was to compare different radiosonde stations with different radiosonde types in use. For this comparison, instead of observed temperatures, background departures were used. The ERA5 and the JRA55 reanalysis were used as the background. Many of the experimental results could be confirmed with the use of operational data. Especially at the upper levels, the comparisons showed big differences in the mean background departures of some radiosonde types. One reason for this is the solar radiation error. This radiation error can be seen in both, the data of the experimental comparisons and the operational data. Also, the comparison showed that the mean background departures have a regional effect. The position of radiosonde stations is relevant even though we are using background departures.
Examining interaction effects among land-use policies to reduce household vehicle travel: An exploratory analysis

Numerous studies have suggested that land-use policies can reduce vehicle travel through mode shifting and reduced trip lengths and generation of fewer or more efficient trips. The findings from previous studies also suggest that the combined effect of two or more land-use policies can be significant, although the effects of individual policies appear to be modest. These studies present area-wide impacts of land-use policies on travel and suggest that their effects are additive. However, very little is known about how each land-use policy interacts with the others at different levels of development intensity to reduce vehicle travel. In this study, we explore how three well-known land-use strategies (densification, mixed-use development, and street network improvement) interact with each other by testing possible combinations of land-use factors and focus on how these interactive effects vary by the level of development intensity. Employing ordinary least squares regression analysis using a dataset created for the Austin metropolitan statistical area (MSA) (using 2006 Austin Travel Survey data), we examine the impact of land use on household vehicle travel. Our findings suggest that interaction effects occur, but they vary by development intensity. The results of this study show the importance of considering both threshold (development intensity) and interaction (combination of policies) effects in understanding how land-use factors do and do not affect travel (based on their interactive opposed to only their direct and additive effects). Though this paper uses data from just one MSA and thus is merely suggestive, it does point to a possibly more nuanced use of the commonly prescribed planning and design policy variable to account for variation in effectiveness based on differences in development intensity. For example, we find that greater land-use intensification has higher efficacy in changing vehicle travel behavior in areas with relatively higher development intensity. Future research should include data from a broader array of metropolitan areas and incorporate additional predictor variables that were unavailable for this analysis.
Histological assessment of gonadal cyclicity of Chagunius chagunio

An attempt was made to assess the histological profile of indigenous carp Chagunius chagunio. Live specimens of C. chagunio were collected from the river Kosi Ramnagar, Uttarakhand, and reared in cement tanks at ICAR-DCFR, Bhimtal. Histological profiling study of gonads was carried out for a complete year. Different histological sections were quite similar and gave an indication towards the prolonged breeding period with batch spawning habit of fish. Findings of the study suggest that the fish might have two possible breeding seasons and fish can successfully achieve its ovarian maturity under captive condition. Testicular development indicates that the males of C. chagunio perhaps can produce viable sperms round the year.
Can violent conflicts explain the recent increase in asylum seekers from Africa to Europe?

The “refugee crisis” is currently one of the most salient issues in European public discourse. While much attention has been given to migrants fleeing the civil war in Syria, the number of asylum seekers from Africa entering the European Union has also seen considerable increases recently: Between 2010 and 2015, their number has tripled. In this paper, we address the question if this considerable increase can be explained by changes in political violence within the countries of origin. We use quarterly data on bilateral flows of asylum seekers from 38 African into 19 European countries from 2011 to 2015, resulting in roughly 14,000 observations. These data were amended by aggregated real-time data on conflict events and violent deaths as well as several other known predictors of migratory movements. We find that an increase in the number of violent incidents leads to an increase in the number of asylum seekers which can be felt around 9 months before leveling off. On the other hand, changes in the level political violence cannot explain the increase in refugee migration since late 2013, when the Italian Navy launched the sea rescue mission “Mare Nostrum”. In fact, violent conflict appears to be much stronger correlated with refugee flows before “Mare Nostrum”, when total monthly inflows to Europe oscillated around an equilibrium number of ca. 5,000. Since then, however the statistical association is greatly reduced.
L1-L2 Norms Based Target Representation for Visual Tracking

It is a challenging task to develop a robust appearance model due to complicated appearance variations such as illumination variation, partial occlusion, motion blur and background clutters. Some existing appearance models are often built upon a linear combination of a set of templates with least square methods. With such kind of representation, visual tracking is not robust when significant appearance variations are in presence. In this work, we propose a novel target representation for visual tracking. A target candidate is represented by a linear combination of a set of target templates from previous frames with `1-norm to characterize the coding residual. In the meantime, `2norm is used to regularize the coding coefficient. The proposed target appearance model is robust to partial occlusion. A novel likelihood evaluation function is proposed based on the reconstruction residual and coding coefficient. Experimental results on challenging video sequences in comparison with state-of-the-art algorithms demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed tracking algorithm.
Optimization of the key parameters for extraction of polyphenol compounds from tomato fruits (Solanum lycopersicum L.). Kinetics of the process

The main parameters that affect extraction process of polyphenolic compounds from tomato were investigated. The most suitable solvent for reaching maximum yield of polyphenols was acetone-water mixture 80:20 (v:v). Using this extragent the concentration of extracted polyphenols was approximately 17% higher than using ethanol and methanol. The optimal extraction time, temperature and solid to solvent ratio were 45 min, 60oC and 1:40, respectively. Using these extraction parameters the yield of total polyphenols in tomato variety Desperado was 27.80 GAE/100 g fresh weight. The kinetics of extraction process was investigated and theoretical model describing extraction process was proposed. This mathematical model provides the theoretical initial amount of polyphenols in tomato fruits which could be useful for the breeding programs of varieties with high amount of polyphenol compounds.
The preliminary study of the PM1 main components and of their seasonal variation using a linear parametric model

This study presents the mass concentration PM1(aerosol particles with an aerodynamic diameter below 1μm) together with sixteen related trace elements (i.e. Al, Ca, Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, K, Li, Mg, Mn, Na, Ni, Pb, S, Ti, Zn) measured during Summer and Winter periods in a characteristic anthropized area. Soil, Sulfate, total-metal-oxide (TMO) and the carbonaceous material (CM) masses were evaluated and considered as the main components of PM1. All variables were log transformed to smooth extreme recording influence. A linear parametric model was estimated to asses components influence on the log PM1 and to evaluate the possible differential effect of observation periods on the components contribution. Results showed that CM, Sulfate, Soil and TMO explained about 44.32%, 33.56%, 11.4% and 0.2% of the total variance of PM1, respectively. The contributions of CM, Sulfate and Soil to PM1 were significative with an error of 5%. The contribution of TMO to PM1 was significative with an error of 10%. CM, Soil and TMO contributed to PM1 with a significant difference between Summer and Winter, whereas Sulfate contributed to PM1 with non significant difference between Summer and Winter. Therefore, the CM, Sulfate and TMO components which were mainly related to anthropogenic origin explained about 78% of the PM1 total variance, whereas the Soil component which was mainly related to natural origin explained about 11.4% of the PM1 total variance. CM, Soil and TMO components contributed differently to PM1 in Summer and Winter. This result suggested possible seasonal sources activities for these components.
Stomatos41 ingles.indd

Mucocele is a common condition of the minor salivary glands that is generally found on the lower lip. Although etiology is uncertain, mucocele are usually caused by local trauma. Cases involving infants are rarely reported in the literature. The objective of this study is to report an unusual case of mucocele in the fi rst year of life that was treated with surgical removal and postoperative follow-up. This report illustrates the main features of clinical interest and discuss classifi cation, differential diagnosis and the treatment approaches described in the literature.
KALDI: Yet Another ASR Toolkit? Experiments on Italian children speech

In this paper, the KALDI ASR engine adapted to Italian is described and the results obtained so far on some children speech ASR experiments are reported. We give a brief overview of KALDI, we describe in detail its DNN implementation, we introduce the acoustic model (AM) training procedure and we end describing some ASR experiments on Italian children speech together with the final test procedures.
NON-REGULAR GRAPH COVERINGS AND LIFTING THE HYPERELLIPTIC INVOLUTION

In this paper, we prove that there exists a non-regular hyperelliptic covering of any odd degree over a hyperelliptic graph. Also, some properties of a dihedral covering, with a rotation being of odd degree, over a genus two hyperelliptic graph are derived. In the proof, the Bass-Serre theory is employed.
Coarse-graining and entropy production out of equilibrium

The problem of establishing how different coarse-graining procedures affect the law of generalized detailed balance and the rate of entropy production is addressed in the context of different models describing systems in stationary states out of equilibrium. The most microscopic descriptions involve Langevin dynamics, while the coarse-grained counterparts amount to Markov jump processes. The study has also the aim to validate and test procedures recently adopted for identifying non-equilibrium in active soft matter system. The work will involve both analytical and numerical work.
Marine Ecology Progress Series 616:37

Managed realignment by deliberate flooding of coastal areas is an adaptation to sea level rise but may risk enriching the coastal zone with nutrients when seawater floods agricultural soil. This study focuses on the early development of macroalgae and their sources of nitrogen (N) in Gyldensteen Coastal Lagoon, Denmark. The lagoon was claimed for agricultural purposes in 1871 and reflooded by managed realignment 143 yr later (2014). Our hypotheses were: (1) that nutrients of agricultural origin from the newly flooded soil initiate opportunistic macroalgal blooms; and (2) that the isotopic composition of green algae rapidly reflects the origin of nutrient sources. We monitored macroalgal cover and conducted stable isotope (δ15N) analyses to assess the origin of N sources. Intense green macroalgal blooms occurred during the first summer after flooding and diminished in the 2 following years as a result of rapid water exchange. Low δ15N in macroalgae in the first year (mean ± SE, 4.2 ± 0.3‰) increased significantly in the next year (8.0 ± 0.1‰). A laboratory experiment tested the δ15N response of opportunistic green macroalgae (Ulva spp.) exposed to organic manure and synthetic inorganic fertilizers. Higher δ15N (11.1 ± 0.1‰) characterized manure-treated algae compared to fertilizer-treated algae (2.7 ± 0.2‰). Based on these field and laboratory results, we accept both hypotheses and conclude that the major N source supporting macroalgal growth in 2014 was derived from synthetic fertilizers; however, rapid tidal flushing during the following years resulted in nutrient limitation and lower macroalgal growth.
A quantitative assessment of human interventions and climate change on the West African sediment budget

The West African coastal barrier is maintained by significant wave-driven longshore sand transport. This sand originates from rivers and large coastal sand deposits. Today, however, much of the fluvial sand is trapped behind river dams and/or interrupted at several locations by port jetties. As a result, the sandy coastal barrier is eroding almost everywhere along its length. The aim of this study is to derive a large-scale sediment budget analysis, following a consistent approach, for the following countries: Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo and Benin, and pointing out the effects of major human interventions and climate change in this large common sediment system. The results are used as a basis to raise awareness among local governments and organizations on the effects and interdependency that major anthropogenic interventions (i.e. port jetties and river dams) and climate change (i.e. sea level rise, changes in wave climate, precipitation and temperature) may have on this shared sediment system. These detrimental effects can even occur in neighboring countries, as shown by some of the results. This estimation was carried out using a quantitative approach, based on one consistent numerical modelling system and validated with regional
Methane production by three widespread marine phytoplankton species: release rates, precursor compounds, and potential relevance for the environment

Abstract. Methane (CH4) production within the oceanic mixed layer is a widespread phenomenon, but the underlying mechanisms are still under debate. Marine algae might contribute to the observed CH4 oversaturation in oxic waters, but so far direct evidence for CH4 production by marine algae has only been provided for the coccolithophore Emiliania huxleyi. In the present study we investigated, next to E. huxleyi, other widespread haptophytes, i.e., Phaeocystis globosa and Chrysochromulina sp. We performed CH4 production and stable carbon isotope measurements and provide unambiguous evidence that all three investigated marine algae are involved in the production of CH4 under oxic conditions. Rates ranged from 1.9±0.6 to 3.1±0.4 µg of CH4 per gram of POC (particulate organic carbon) per day, with Chrysochromulina sp. and E. huxleyi showing the lowest and highest rates, respectively. Cellular CH4 production rates ranged from 16.8±6.5 (P. globosa) to 62.3±6.4 ag CH4 cell−1 d−1 (E. huxleyi; ag = 10−18 g). In cultures that were treated with 13C-labeled hydrogen carbonate, δ13CH4 values increased with incubation time, resulting from the conversion of 13C–hydrogen carbonate to 13CH4. The addition of 13C-labeled dimethyl sulfide, dimethyl sulfoxide, and methionine sulfoxide – known algal metabolites that are ubiquitous in marine surface layers – resulted in the occurrence of 13C-enriched CH4 in cultures of E. huxleyi, clearly indicating that methylated sulfur compounds are also precursors of CH4. By comparing the algal CH4 production rates from our laboratory experiments with results previously reported in two field studies of the Pacific Ocean and the Baltic Sea, we might conclude that algae-mediated CH4 release is contributing to CH4 oversaturation in oxic waters. Therefore, we propose that haptophyte mediated CH4 production could be a common and important process in marine surface waters.
Thermal and spectroscopy characterization of pyridin-2-ylaminomethylene Meldrum ́s acid derivatives

Solid compounds of pyridin-2-ylaminomethylene Meldrum’s acid derivatives was synthesized and characterized by nuclear magnetic resonance (1H and 13C NMR), mass spectrometry (MS), Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), simultaneous thermogravimetry-differential thermal analysis (TG-DTA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The results provided information on the thermal stability and thermal decomposition of the compounds with different substituent groups. The TG-DTA curves show mass losses in two or three steps between 441 978 K. The molecular geometry of the compounds was optimized using B3LYP method and 6-311G basis set. The molecular vibration of the optimized compounds was calculated in comparison with the experimental values. The molecular vibration frequencies calculated are generally higher than the corresponding experimental quantities, and it are due to a combination of effects of electronic correlation.
The concept of familiarity : one-or multidimensional ?

A great deal of research has integrated the concept of consumer knowledge. However, 'knowledge' has been defined in very different ways, and the means used to measure it are usually poor and cannot reflect the complexity of this phenomenon. We define consumer knowledge and identify four methods used to assess it. An empirical study is done in order to assess the correlations between the measures of brand knowledge.
Plasmonic enhancement of Gold Nanoparticles in a microfluidic biochip

Gold Nanoparticles (AuNPs) exhibit extraordinary properties which are quite unlike those of bulk material, since the optical properties, such as localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR), are dependent on the displayed size and shape. This work presents the adsorption of citrate stabilized spherical gold nanoparticles of 20 nm size in a microfluidic biochip, where the LSPR acquisition was made using photodiodes and photoconductors. For particle adsorption on channel surfaces, functionalization was successfully accomplished by flowing APTES inside the channel for 10 min, on which the electrostatic interaction between the gold nanoparticless and the silane resulted in full-coloured red microfluidic channels. The immobilization of the nanoparticles was sucessful flowing uninterruptedly at 1 μL/min for 20, 30 and 75 min, in all experiments where the surface silanization was also well accomplished. The LSPR peak of these colloidal gold nanoparticles was confirmed by UV-Vis Spectroscopy, having maximum absorbance of 0.29, at 520 nm wavelength. To detect and evaluate the LSPR peak in each microchannel using photodetectors, it was necessary to couple the photodetectors with light scattering barriers aligned below the microfluidic chip. The obtained photocurrents from both devices allowed the acquisition of current spectra, in order to measure the LSPR peak, and the photocurrent measurement over time. It was analyzed that the photocurrents measurement at 520 nm decreased from initial value measured with APTES, after 10 min of flowing the gold nanoparticles, suggesting that were successfully immobilized on the channel surfaces. The spectrum acquisitions were performed after flowing the gold nanoparticles, in order to calculate absorbances values at each wavelength. The absorbance value registered a peak at plasmonic wavelength of 520 nm, in 20 min and 30 min, successfully calculated using photodiodes and photoconductors. Towards the understanding and development of simple setup for biosensing purposes in a Lab-on-a-Chip system, these findings show the possibilites to monitor in real-time gold nanoparticle interaction with biological molecules, in a robust, low cost and easily fabricated microfluidic biochip.
Enhancing Variational Autoencoders with Mutual Information Neural Estimation for Text Generation

While broadly applicable to many natural language processing (NLP) tasks, variational autoencoders (VAEs) are hard to train due to the posterior collapse issue where the latent variable fails to encode the input data effectively. Various approaches have been proposed to alleviate this problem to improve the capability of the VAE. In this paper, we propose to introduce a mutual information (MI) term between the input and its latent variable to regularize the objective of the VAE. Since estimating the MI in the high-dimensional space is intractable, we employ neural networks for the estimation of the MI and provide a training algorithm based on the convex duality approach. Our experimental results on three benchmark datasets demonstrate that the proposed model, compared to the state-of-the-art baselines, exhibits less posterior collapse and has comparable or better performance in language modeling and text generation. We also qualitatively evaluate the inferred latent space and show that the proposed model can generate more reasonable and diverse sentences via linear interpolation in the latent space.
LGM climate in the northern Sawatch Range Climate during the Last Glacial Maximum in the Northern Sawatch Range , Colorado , USA 1

Temperature-index modeling is used to determine the magnitude of temperature depression in 10 the northern Sawatch Range required to maintain steady-state mass balances of six reconstructed glaciers 11 at their extent during the local Last Glacial Maximum (LLGM), dated at ~21 ka. Assuming no significant 12 differences in precipitation compared to modern values, mean annual temperatures in the region were on 13 average 8.8 +0.5/–0.8 °C cooler than they are today. Allowing for modest increases or decreases in 14 precipitation, required temperature depressions only differ by ± 0.2 °C. Temperature depression in the 15 northern Sawatch Range are consistent, although slightly greater, with those determined in other ranges in 16 Colorado using similar approaches. The estimates presented here are, however, substantially less than those 17 suggested by several downscaled simulations of global LGM climate, that might be due to the need for 18 improved calibration of such downscalings, or the models from which they are derived. Our estimates of 19 LGM temperature depression are considerably greater than that previously determined in the study area and 20 those in two other ranges in Colorado derived using different methodologies, the latter being most likely 21 responsible for the discrepancies. 22