Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sub-basin scale sea level budgets from satellite altimetry, Argo floats and satellite gravimetry in the North Atlantic

Abstract. In this study for the first time an attempt is made to close the sea level budget on a sub-basin scale in terms of trend, annual amplitude and residual time series, after removing the trend, the semi-annual and annual signals. To obtain errors for altimetry and Argo full variance-covariance matrices are computed using correlation functions and their errors are fully propagated. For altimetry we apply a geographically dependent intermission bias (Ablain et al., 2015), which leads to differences in trends up to 0.8 mm yr−1. Since Argo float measurements are non-homogeneously spaced, steric sea levels 5 are first objectively interpolated onto a grid before averaging. For the Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) gravity fields full variance-covariance matrices are used to propagate errors and statistically filter the gravity fields. We use four different filtered gravity field solutions and determine which post-processing strategy is best for budget closure. As a reference the standard 96-degree DDK5-filtered CSR solution is used to compute OBP. A comparison is made with two anistropic Wiener-filtered CSR solutions up to d/o 60 and 96 and a Wiener-filtered 90-degree ITSG solution. Budgets are computed for 10 ten polygons in the North Atlantic, defined in a way that the error on the trend of Ocean Bottom Pressure (OBP) + steric sea level remains within 1 mm yr−1. Using the anisotropic Wiener filter on CSR gravity fields expanded up to spherical harmonic degree 96, it is possible to close the sea level budget in nine-out-of-ten sub-basins in terms of trend. Wiener-filtered ITSG and the standard DDK5-filtered CSR solutions also close the trend budget, if a Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA) correction error of 10-20 % is applied, however the performance of the DDK5-filtered solution strongly depends on the orientation of the polygon 15 due to residual striping. In seven-out-of-ten sub-basins the budget of the annual cycle is closed, using the DDK5-filtered CSR or the Wiener-filtered ITSG solutions. The Wiener-filtered 60and 96-degree CSR solution in combination with Argo lack amplitude and suffer from what appears to be hydrological leakage in the Amazon and Sahel regions. After reducing the trend, semi-annual and annual signals, 24-53 % of the residual variance in altimetry-derived sea level time series is explained by the combination of Argo steric sea levels and Wiener-filtered ITSG OBP. Based on this, we believe that the best overall solution 20 for the OBP component of the sub-basin scale budgets is the Wiener-filtered ITSG gravity fields. The interannual variability is primarily a steric signal in the North Atlantic, so for this the choice of filter and gravity field solution is not really significant.
ARIMA model for forecasting of evaporation of Solapur station of Maharashtra, India

This paper deals with the stochastic modeling of weekly evaporation by using Seasonal ARIMA model for weekly evaporation data for the period of 1987-2008 with a total of 1144 readings for semi-arid Solapur station in Maharashtra. ARIMA models of 1st order were selected based on observing autocorrelation function (ACF) and partial autocorrelation function (PACF) of the weekly evaporation series. The model parameters were obtained by using maximum likelihood method with the help of three tests (i.e., standard error, ACF and PACF of residuals and Akaike Information Criteria). Adequacy of the selected models was determined. The ARIMA model that passed the adequacy test was selected for forecasting. The Seasonal ARIMA (1, 0, 1) (1, 0, 1)52 with lower RMSE is finally selected for forecasting of weekly evaporation values, at Solapur.
Calculation of lightning channel height and return stroke propagation speed from electromagnetic field waveforms

For obtaining typically observed or measured lightning electromagnetic field characteristics of the return stroke channel current different models can be used. Modified transmission line model with exponential decay with height, as an engineering model, and the functions earlier proposed by the authors for the channel-base current approximation, are used in this paper for lightning electric and magnetic field computation. The relationships between the lightning channel height, the return stroke propagation speed, the distance from the channel-base and time of the discontinuity appearance in electric and magnetic field waveforms are presented in this paper. These relationships can be used for obtaining any of these quantities of interest from other three experimentally determined or estimated. For different lightning channel heights the electric and magnetic field at ground surface points at different distances from the channelbase are presented in the paper for the chosen return stroke propagation speed. Index Terms Lightning, electromagnetic field, antenna, return stroke, channel-base current function
Optical Properties of Nanocomposite Materials like CdSe-CdS and CdSe-ZnS Core-Shell Quantum Dots

In this chapter, we study the influence of CdS on CdSe quantum dots and ZnS on CdSe quantum dots. The first part of this chapter deals with the influence of shell thickness of CdS on linear optical properties of CdSe QDs. The second section deals with the influence of ZnS on optical properties of CdSe QDs. In this section, CdSe-ZnS QDs with varying shell thickness is studied as an optical limiting material.
Designing Force Field Engines

The main objective of this paper is to present sample conceptual propulsion engines that researchers can tinker with to gain a better engineering understanding of how to research propulsion that is based on gravity modification. A Non- Inertia (Ni) Field is the spatial gradient of real or latent velocities. These velocities are real in mechanical structures, and latent in gravitational and electromagnetic field. These velocities have corresponding time dilations, and thus g=τc2 is the mathematical formula to calculate acceleration. It was verified that gravitational, electromagnetic and mechanical accelerations are present when a Ni Field is present. For example, a gravitational field is a spatial gradient of latent velocities along the field’s radii. g=τc2 is the mathematical expression of Hooft’s assertion that “absence of matter no longer guarantees local flatness”, and the new gravity modification based propulsion equation for force field engines. To achieve Force Field based propulsion, a discussion of the latest findings with the problems in theoretical physics and warp drives is presented. Solomon showed that four criteria need to be present when designing force field engines (i) the spatial gradient of velocities, (ii) asymmetrical non-cancelling fields, (iii) vectoring, or the ability to change field direction and (iv) modulation, the ability to alter the field strength. The importance of Podkletnov’s gravity modification experiments is that they can lead to the confirmation that mass does not cause gravitational fields and therefore, matter and not mass is the cause of gravitational fields. Two examples on how to construct Ni Field engines are presented. First, the Gravitational Column Launch, using Podkletnov-type devices to reverse the gravitational field above a launch vehicle and propel it into space. Second, the Unibeam Projector, a topological modification of Podkletnov’s spinning superconducting disc, to create spacecraft artificial gravity, and tractor beams.
A Novel Compact Polarization Diversity Ultra-Wideband MIMO Antenna

─ A very compact modified simple structure Ultra-Wideband (UWB) antenna with a size of 18 mm by 30 mm is presented for polarization diversity applications. The antenna employs two orthogonal monopole antenna to achieve polarization diversity over the UWB. The antenna was fabricated to study the performance such as S-parameters, radiation pattern, radiation efficiency, peak gain, envelope correlation coefficient and group delay. The measured results demonstrated that the proposed antenna has not only UWB (147.96% impedance bandwidth) but also good isolation less than about -25 dB. Moreover, the system fidelity factor is sufficient for pulse transmission with average 89.6% and 85.3% for ports 1 and 2, respectively. Furthermore, a low envelope correlation coefficient of less than 0.001 occurred, too. All these features show that the proposed UWB MIMO antenna can meet the requirement of MIMO/diversity of communication applications well. Index Terms ─ Microstrip feed, monopole antenna, polarization diversity, UWB.
The relationship between franchise and franchisor: A study of the Vietnamese retail franchising

Decades saw the fast growth and high success of franchising in global market but the very early stage of franchising in Vietnam market. Previous researches about franchising have considerably contributed to better understanding of relationships between franchisor and franchise. However, the franchisor-franchise relationship has yet to be fully explored, knowledge of the factors that produce a high quality relationship between franchisor and franchise are critical to the advancement of knowledge in the retail industry. Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) theory is offered of an effective theoretical model of antecedents that can predict the effectiveness the franchisor-franchise relationship. The model proposed has been tested with 500 franchises operating in the retail (fashion, food and beverage) in the Vietnamese franchised distribution system. The results of this study generally support the hypothesized model and strongly support for the idea that the quality of the relationship will lead to higher level of franchise’s job satisfaction, performance business, trust and commitment. This study also confirms the importance of the franchisor’s support and mediating role of trust and commitment to the success of franchising relationship. Finally, this study provides franchisors with valuable information for establishing an effective management to improve the relationship between franchisor and franchise and thus improves the rate of success of both franchise and franchisor.
Rebels Without a National Cause? Is Youth a Better Predictor of Socio- Political Values Than Nationality?

Using data from the World Values Survey (1990), this paper examines a series of strongly held values and beliefs concerning the political and wider social world, on a cross-nationally comparative basis. Orientations such as political outlook, attitudes towards religion, political participation, social movements, women’s roles and satisfaction with life are examined. Tentative groupings of young people by country are attempted, revealing a commonality of values amongst the old and young in certain clusters of societies. Within these clusters the relative magnitude of gender and age differences in attitudinal positioning are analysed, to show how nationality and youth interact differently when examining different attitudes. It is found that young people do have common values cross-nationally, but only within certain supra-national limits.
Alleviating Extreme Poverty in Chile: The Short Term Effects of Chile Solidario

This paper evaluates the effect of an anti-poverty program, Chile Solidario, during its first two years of operation. We find that the program tends to increases significantly their take-up of cash assistance programs and of social programs for housing and employment, and to improve education and health outcomes for participating households. There is no evidence that the participation to employment program translates into improved employment or income outcomes in the short term. Finally, we provide suggestive evidence of the key role that the psycho-social support had in enabling this change, by increasing awareness of social services in the community as well as households’ orientation towards the future.
Conserving original in situ diversity in microzooplankton grazing set-ups

Grazing experiments targeting the determination of in situ grazing rates are standard. In two separate experiments the effect of the frequently used siphon filling technique on the abundance of microzooplankton during the set-up of grazing experiments was investigated and compared to results from an alternative filling method. Hereby, water containing natural communities from Helgoland Roads, Germany (54°11.3′ N 7°54.0′ E ), was transferred into incubation bottles using a funnel system (funnel-transfer technique (FTT)). The impact of pre-screening with a 200 µm net for excluding larger mesozooplankton grazers from the incubations was evaluated. Results show that the ciliate community was strongly affected by siphoning and pre-screening, leading to significant differences in abundance and Margalef diversity. The most affected ciliates were Lohmanniella oviformis and Myrionecta rubra , both important species in the North Sea. Dinoflagellates did not show any significant response to either siphoning or pre-screening with the exception of one athecate species. Such artificial bias in ciliate assemblages is very problematic for biodiversity consideration and grazing investigations. Simply changing the method of filling during the experimental set-up can ensure the measurement of accurate grazing rates of field abundances of microzooplankton. We thus recommend using conservative filling approaches like the FTT in experiments, especially when sensitive species are present, in order to avoid shifts in the overall microzooplankton community. Furthermore, we recommend introducing a control to evaluate the degree of changes in the target community due to the experimental set-up.
Osmotic regulation of the amphipod Gammarus chevreuxi (Sexton, 1912)

Normal 0 false false false EN-GB ZH-CN AR-SA This study investigated osmotic regulation in the amphipod, Gammarus chevreuxi , and is the first publication of this organism’s osmotic regulatory curves. Unlike most estuarine amphipods studied to date which are hyperosmotic regulators, G. chevreuxi is a hyper-hyposmotic regulator. The hyperosmotic gradient maintained by G. chevreuxi in dilute media is very low (~120mmol.L -1 ), which has been interpreted as evidence of freshwater ancestry among the Crustacea. Salinity acclimation did not appear to affect heart rate or pleopod beat frequency. The gill cells responsible for ion uptake appeared to be smaller in high salinities or distorted. The apical membrane in concentrated media shows signs of damage beneath the cuticle. These findings demonstrate strong osmoregulatory ability in G. chevreuxi and suggest descent from a freshwater lineage of amphipods. Keywords : osmoregulation, ion regulation, Gammarus chevreuxi , gill ultrastructure, haemolymph, sodium, calcium, magnesium, salinity acclimation, heart rate /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:-15.3pt; mso-para-margin-bottom:0cm; mso-para-margin-left:-14.2pt; mso-para-margin-bottom:. 0001pt; text-align:justify; text-indent:14.2pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}
Tissue Classification of Arterial Wall Based on Elasticity Image

The phased tracking method was developed for measuring the minute change in thickness during one cardiac cycle and the elasticity of the arterial wall. By comparing elasticity images measured by the phased tracking method with the corresponding pathological images, the elasticity distribution for each tissue in the arterial wall was determined. We have already measured the elasticity distributions for lipids, fibrous tissues (mixture of smooth-muscle and collagen fiber), blood clots and calcified tissues. From these previous studies, it was found that arterial tissues can be classified into soft tissues (lipids and blood clots) and hard tissues (fibrous tissue and calcified tissue) on the basis of their elasticity. However, it was difficult to differentiate lipids from blood clots and also fibrous tissue from calcified tissue. In this study, we investigated how to improve the tissue classification of the arterial wall using statistical properties of the elasticity distribution of each tissue.
Alternative Future Scenarios: Development of a Modeling Information System

Abstract : Military installations face challenges that may impact mission readiness and daily operations. Of these challenges, civilian urban development on lands adjacent to installations is among the most pressing, primarily due to the number and variety of unintended consequences associated with urban expansion. The consequences include safety risks; noise; impacts to plants, animals, and cultural resources; dust emissions and other air and water pollution; and installation specific issues. The Department of Defense (DoD) has investigated the use of alternative future scenario modeling (AFSM) to predict and remediate potential impacts of civilian development on military bases. The application of AFSM to military installations throughout the US has produced many predictions, or futures, that suggest how landscapes that surround selected installations may change during the next few decades. While the success of AFSM in increasing DoD's understanding of the vulnerabilities associated with regional land use changes is well documented (Cablk, et al, 1999; Gonzalez et al., 2000; Gunter et al., 2000; Steinitz et al., 1996), transfer of the AFSM process to the military has yet to occur. This is primarily due to the complexity of this process, which requires expertise in remote sensing, demography, geographic information systems (GIS), computer programming, and statistics.
A NUMERICAL STUDY OF TM-TYPE SURFACE WAVES ON A GROUNDED DIELECTRIC SLAB COVERED BY A DOUBLY PERIODIC ARRAY OF METALLIC PATCHES - Abstract

In this paper we numerically study the propagation of surface waves guided by a metal-backed dielectric slab with biperiodic metallizations on its surface. Such structures are electromagnetic absorbing screens when the dielectric slab is lossy. In this paper, the surface waves are characterized by their longitudinal and transverse wave numbers, which are deduced from the complex pole locations of the reflection coefficient of the screens. The reflection coefficients can be obtained with a moment method. These reflection coefficients are generalized to complex incident wave numbers. The poles are isolated in the complex plane with the help of the argument principle and are calculated with a numerical method based on Müller's algorithm. Then the parametric study of the wave numbers of the surface waves shows that the absorption of an electromagnetic wave by the screens at normal incidence is due to a resonance of the real part of the transverse wave number of the excited surface wave. We also show that there exists a Brewster incidence angle for the absorbing screens with suitable metallization array dimensions. This Brewster angle appears when the pole crosses the branch cut of the two-sheeted Riemann space of the reflection coefficient.
Noise Reduction of Ultrasound Image Using Wiener filtering and Haar Wavelet Transform Techniques

Background: Noise reduction of the medical image is an important task to improve the medical image quality that may be helpful in medical diagnosis. Methods: The proposed system performed into two steps: First; application of Wiener filtering technique as a preprocessing step to reduce amount of noise present in ultrasound image of human kidney, Second; implementation of Haar wavelet transform for denoising the resulted image from the first step. Results: The results of noise isolation of ultrasound image after implementation of Wiener filtering and wavelet transform were presented. also; some statistical results of these images were recorded. Conclusions: We deduced that Wiener filtering and Haar wavelet techniques are efficient and powerful in reducing the noises form ultrasound images. Matlab package (version 7.3) was
Viewpoint: the state and transition model applied to the herbaceous layer of Argentina's calden forest.

The ecological trends in the vegetation of the calden (Prosopis caldenia Burk.) forest of central Argentina have generally been explained with a model that assumed a unique equilibrium state or "climax. " This model does not adequately explain the ecological changes that occur in the understory of the calden forest. Recently, models that present different stable states of vegetation have been suggested. These vegetation states do not change unless relatively drastic management or climatic actions occur. Observations of vegetation changes, grazing regimes, and other aspects of management permitted the development of a basic scheme to explain changes in the herbaceous layer in the calden forest, based on the state and transition model. Five stable states and 9 transitions are proposed to account for current herbaceous associations and their origins. This model seems to more accurately explain transitions between the different vegetation states in the area, some of which could not be readily explained by the "climax" model.
Characteristics of two Colletotrichum species and evaluation of resistance to anthracnose in pepper

Studies on growth characteristics of Colletotrichumcapsici and C. gloeosporioides were conducted from 20-36°C in 4°C increments on potato dextrose agar medium. The optimal increase in colony diameter for C. capsici was at 28 and 32°C , while for C. gloeosporioides it was 28°C. Detached mature fruits of hot and sweet peppers were inoculated with conidia of C. capsici and incubated at 20-36°C at 4°C interval. Lesion diameter was greatest at 28 and 32°C for sweet pepper and at 32 and 36°C for hot pepper. Ten of each red and green fruits were collected from sequential plantings of hot and sweet pepper plants in the greenhouse. Fruits were washed and then sprayed with a conidial suspension of C. capsici and C. gloeosporioides. Both species infected green and red fruit with more lesions developed on red fruit. Ten red-ripe detached fruits from each of 305 field-planted accessions were inoculated with C. capsici and C. gloeosporioidesusing the fruit puncture method. The accessions, C01826 and CO2220, had no visible lesions while eight other lines had less than 0.5 mm diameter lesions. All of these lines were considered highly resistant.
AMP-activated protein kinase mediates insulin-like and lipo-mobilising effects of Î2-glucan-rich polysaccharides isolated from Pleurotus sajor-caju (Fr.), Singer mushroom, in 3T3-L1 cells

Mushrooms have been used to treat various diseases for thousands of years. In the present study, the effects of Pleurotus sajor-caju mushroom on lipogenesis, lipolysis and oxidative stress in 3T3-L1 cells were investigated. The b-glucan-rich polysaccharides (GE) from P. sajor-caju stimulated lipogenesis and lipolysis but attenuated protein carbonyl and lipid hydroperoxide levels in 3T3-L1 cells. This extract caused an increase in the expression of 50-AMP-activated protein kinase subunit c-2 (PKRAG2) and 50-AMPactivated protein kinase subunit c-3 (PKRAG3) when compared to control (untreated) cells. Moreover, GE induced the expressions of hormone-sensitive lipase, adipose triglyceride lipase enzymes, leptin, adiponectin and glucose transporter-4 in 3T3-L1 cells which may have contributed to the lipolytic and insulin-like activities observed in this study. These findings suggest that GE is a novel AMPK activator that may be valuable in the formulation of nutraceuticals and functional food for the prevention and treatment of diabetes mellitus. 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.