Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Distribution of Temperature and Strength in the Central Andean Lithosphere and Its Relationship to Seismicity and Active Deformation

We present three‐dimensional (3D) models of the present‐day steady‐state conductive thermal field and strength distribution in the lithosphere beneath the Central Andes. Our primary objective was to investigate the influence that the structure of the Central Andean lithosphere has on its thermal and rheological state, and the relationship between the latter and the active deformation in the region. We used our previous data‐driven and gravity‐constrained 3D density model as starting point for the calculations. We first assigned lithology‐derived thermal and rheological properties to the different divisions of the density model and defined temperature boundary conditions. We then calculated the 3D steady‐state conductive thermal field and the maximum differential stresses for both brittle and ductile behaviors. We find that the thickness and composition of the crust are the main factors affecting the modeled thermal field, and consequently also the strength distribution. The orogen is characterized by a thick felsic crust with elevated temperatures and a low integrated strength, whereas the foreland and forearc are underlain by a more mafic and thinner crust with lower temperatures and a higher integrated strength. We find that most of the intraplate deformation coincides spatially with the steepest strength gradients and suggest that the high potential energy of the orogen together with the presence of rheological lateral heterogeneities produce high compressional stresses and strong strain localization along the margins of the orogen. We interpret earthquakes within the modeled ductile field to be related to the weakening effect of long‐lived faults and/or the presence of seismic asperities.
Subsurface Migration of Methane From Oil Sands Thermal Recovery Operations

Steam injection into oil sands reservoirs for bitumen extraction leads to the in situ generation of gases (mainly methane). Many oil sands formations have permeable cap rocks that may allow these gases to migrate to the overlying formations and pose environmental challenges to the groundwater. We present a detailed analysis of the long‐term fate of the in situ generated gases over the course of thermal oil recovery operations. The impacts of capillary barriers on upward migration of the in situ generated gases are quantified. Our findings reveal that the upward migration of gases over a 100‐year period in formations with continuous flow barriers with a permeability of less than ∼1 × 10−18 m2 is negligible. However, for formations with discontinuous flow barriers, the migrated gas can potentially leak to the surface depending on the capillary entry pressure of the preferential pathways (e.g., sand layers). In this case, the upward migration is primarily controlled by high permeability pathways. It was found that the migrated gas is effectively trapped by the residual and dissolution trapping mechanisms, and the gas migration to the overlying formations is prevented or significantly reduced by capillary pressure of sand layers. The results indicate that the migrated gas to the shallow groundwater is primarily comprised of methane and is free of CO2 and H2S. These results provide valuable insights into the long‐term fate of these gases in thermal oil recovery operations. They also offer potential opportunities for the development of regulatory frameworks and screening considerations for caprock/seal integrity/risk assessments.
Recent Advances on Nitrogen Use Efficiency in Rice

Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is a daily staple food crop for more than half of the global population and improving productivity is an important task to meet future demands of the expanding world population. The application of nitrogen (N) fertilization improved rice growth and productivity in the world, but excess use causes environmental and economic issues. One of the main goals of rice breeding is reducing N fertilization while maintaining productivity. Therefore, enhancing rice nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) is essential for the development of sustainable agriculture and has become urgently needed. Many studies have been conducted on the main steps in the use of N including uptake and transport, reduction and assimilation, and translocation and remobilization, and on transcription factors regulating N metabolism. Understanding of these complex processes provides a base for the development of novel strategies to improve NUE for rice productivity under varying N conditions.
An Analysis of the Determinants of Maize Import Volumes in Kenya

The objective of our study is to investigate the key factors that determine maize import volumes in Kenya. To achieve this objective, we used time series secondary data from FAOSTAT, World Bank and World Trade Organization (WTO) for the period 1963 to 2016. We consider this period to be long enough to allow us to accurately capture the domestic maize price patterns before and after the onset of maize market reforms in Kenya. Our econometric analysis of the time series data using an error correction version of Autoregressive distributed lag model shows that maize import volume is determined by trade openness, domestic price of maize and gross domestic product in the long run. In the short run, the results show that maize import volume is determined by exchange rate, lag of exchange rate, lag of maize import volume and production. The findings suggest that to reduce overreliance on maize imports, effective management of macroeconomic environment should be stimulated to create a favourable environment for improving domestic maize production so as to discourage a surge in maize imports and at the same time improve the country’s food security.
Three‐Phase Reconstruction Reveals How the Microscopic Structure of the Carbon‐Binder Domain Affects Ion Transport in Lithium‐Ion Batteries

The morphology of the electrolyte-filled pore space in lithiumion batteries is determined by the solid microstructure formed by μm-sized active material particles and the smaller-featured carbon binder domain (CBD). Tomographic reconstructions have largely neglected the CBD, resulting in inadequately defined pore space morphologies at odds with experimental ionic tortuosity values. We present a three-phase reconstruction of a LiCoO2 composite cathode by focused ion-beam scanning electron microscopy tomography. Morphological analysis proves that the reconstruction, which combines an unprecedented volume (20 μm minimum edge length) with the hitherto highest resolution (13.9×13.9×20 nm voxel size), represents the cathode’s pore space morphology. Pore-scale diffusion simulations show consideration of the resolved CBD as indispensable to reproduce ionic tortuosity values from electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Our results reveal the CBD as a convoluted network that dominates the pore space morphology and limits Li transport through tortuous and constricted diffusion pathways.
Mathematical Modelling of the COVID-19 Epidemic in Northern Ireland in 2020

In this study, we investigate the dynamics of the COVID-19 epidemic in Northern Ireland from 1st March 2020 up to 25th December 2020, using several copies of a Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Recovered (SEIR) compartmental model, and compare it to a detailed publicly available dataset. We split the data into 10 time intervals and fit the models on the consecutive intervals to the cumulative number of confirmed positive cases on each interval. Using the fitted parameter estimates, we also provide estimates of the reproduction number. We also discuss the limitations and possible extensions of the employed model.
An Advanced Image Captioning using combination of CNN and LSTM

Article History: Received: 10 November 2020; Revised: 12 January 2021; Accepted: 27 January 2021; Published online: 05 April 2021 Abstract: The Captioning of Image now a days is gaining a lot of interest which generates an automated simple and short sentence describing the image content. Machines indeed are trained in a way that they can understand the Image content and generate captions which are almost accurate at a human level of knowledge is a very tedious and interesting task. There are various solutions used to solve this tedious task and generate simple sentences known as captions using neural network which still comes with problems such as inaccurate captions, generating captions only for the seen images, etc. In this paper, the proposed system model was able to generate more precise captions using a two staged model which consists of a combination of Deep Neural Network algorithms (Convolutional and Long Short-Term Memory). The proposed model was able to overcome the problems arise using Traditional CNN and RNN algorithms. The model is trained and tested using the Flicker8k Data set.
Zinc Oxide–Titania Heterojunction‐based Solid Nanospheres as Photoanodes for Electron‐Trapping in Dye‐Sensitized Solar Cells

Agile nanostructure architectures and smart combinations of semiconducting metal oxide materials are key features of high-performing dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Herein, we synthesize mesoporous solid nanospheres of ZnO–TiO2 with type-II heterojunction and use these as an efficient photoanode material for excellent photoconversion. These polydisperse aggregates doped with 1 %, 5 %, and 10 % of ZnO exhibit improved solar cell performance with respect to pristine TiO2 under AM 1.5 G. The 1 % ZnO doped TiO2 nanosphere possess high specific surface area (84.23 m2 g−1) as a photoanode and shows high photoconversion efficiency of about 8.07 % with ca. 18 % improvement in the photocurrent density (Jsc) compare to TiO2 nanosphere. The improved solar cell performance (Δη=40 %) of ZnO decorated TiO2 nanospheres is ascribed to type-II heterojunction of ZnO–TiO2, that reduces the electron recombination and synergistically enhances the electron mobility and charge collection capability.
Real-time volume exploration technique for holographic display

The volume exploration refers to the observation of internal structures by manipulating visualization widgets such as a slicing plane. Since the advent of a commercial holographic display, the demand for 3D contents is also increasing in the medical visualization area. Holographic displays deliver a set of viewpoints through the lenticular lens so that a user can observe different sides of the object without wearing a pair of special glasses. Moreover, it comes natural for the user to perform the volume exploration using mid-air interaction. In this work, we present a novel volume exploration technique for holographic display. To accelerate the hologram rendering, we adopt the volume rendering pipeline to the holographic display mechanism. Also, to support a spatial interaction for volume exploration, we develop a cut-and-annotate interaction between volume object and point cloud. The proposed voxel classification algorithm produces a set of class properties for delineating different structures of the 3D object. We demonstrate our volume exploration method on several volume data sets under real-time user interaction.
Personal Involvement of U.S. Vietnam Veterans in Harming Civilians and Prisoners: The Roles of Antisocial Predispositions and Combat Situations

Our previous research with U.S. Vietnam veterans focused on war-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We used data from a clinically diagnosed subsample of 254 men from the 1986–1988 National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study (NVVRS). We found that one of the most important factors associated with war-related PTSD was veterans’ participation in harm to civilians and/or prisoners (13% of the veterans). In the present research, we used the larger sample (1,183) of NVVRS male veterans to investigate the relative importance of veterans’ predispositions to antisocial behavior by contrast with their combat situations in their involvement in harm. We found that severity of combat situation is much more important. However, veterans who harmed both civilians and prisoners have elevated scores on prewar antisocial behavior and the most elevated Vietnam-related guilt feelings. In addition, harmers as a whole are more likely than nonharmers to have died by the time of a 2012–2013 follow-up of the NVVRS study.
Detection and attribution of reference evapotranspiration change (1951–2020) in the Upper Yangtze River Basin of China

Reference evapotranspiration (ET0) indicates atmospheric evaporating capability over a hypothetical reference surface. ET0 is an important hydrological and meteorological variable to reflect climate change. This is particularly true for the Upper Yangtze River Basin (UYRB), which is vulnerable and sensitive to changing environment. This study aims to provide a newer and longer description of ET0 change and the causes at basin and subbasin scales in the UYRB. Based on the observed data from 1951 to 2020, ET0 in the entire UYRB and subbasins is estimated using the Penman–Montieth method with local calibration. The spatial–temporal characteristics in ET0 change are identified from time-series analysis. Our results show that ET0 increases significantly by 3.3 mm/year in the entire UYRB. Stations with significant increases in annual ET0 are concentrated in the central part of the UYRB, where the mean annual ET0 is low. We further propose an improved method to assess the causes of ET0 change. Our results suggest that the relative humidity decrease has the most dominant effect, causing 4.69 mm/year of ET0 increase. Temperature increase tends to cause 1.26 mm/year of ET0 increase. Sunshine duration decrease and wind speed decrease contribute to 1.96 and 0.48 mm/year of ET0 decrease.
Investigation of Isospin Symmetry Breaking in the f7/2 Region, Studied through One-nucleon Knockout and Lifetime Measurements

In this thesis, the results of two experiments are presented. The first experiment was performed at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) at Michigan State University (MSU), USA, while the second experiment was performed at the Gesellschaft fur SchwerIonenforschung (GSI) facility near Darmstadt, Germany. For the experiment performed at MSU, γ-ray spectroscopy has been performed for both the mirror Tz=±3/2 pair 53Ni and 53Mn, produced via mirrored one-nucleon knockout, and the Tz=-1 nuclide 52Co, produced via one-neutron knockout. Several new transitions have been identified in both 53Ni and 52Co, from which new level schemes have been constructed. The presence of a high-spin isomeric state (Jπ=19/2-) in the 53Co beam facilitated the study of high-spin states up to and including the 11+ band termination state in 52Co, where this work also represents the first use of this new technique (isomer knockout) to study high-spin states in exotic nuclei. Relative cross sections for knockout have been analysed and compared with reaction model calculations, where a high level of agreement is observed, especially for states in 52Co. Mirror Energy Differences (MED) between Isobaric Analogue States (IAS) have been measured, compared to large scale shell-model calculations and interpreted in terms of INC effects for both the Tz=±1, A=52 and Tz=±3/2, A=53 mirror pairs. The analysis presented here demonstrates the importance of including a full set of J-dependent INC terms to explain the experimental observations. Finally, lifetimes for the long-lived Jπ=5/2- analogue states in both 53Mn and 53Ni have been extracted through lineshape analysis, giving half-lives of T1/2=120(14)ps and T1/2=198(12)ps, respectively. In the experiment performed at GSI, Coulex and lifetime measurements (using a novel ''stretched gold target'' technique) were performed for the analogue 2+(T=1)->0+(T=1) transition across the A=46, T=1 isobaric triplet 46Cr(Tz=-1), 46V(Tz=0) and 46Ti(Tz=+1). Preliminary Coulex cross sections have been obtained and a ''proof-of-principle'' test has been performed for the new lifetime method.
Facial expression recognition via transfer learning

INTRODUCTION: With the development of artificial intelligence, facial expression recognition has become a hot topic. Facial expression recognition has been widely applied to every field of our life. How to improve the accuracy of facial emotion recognition is an important research content. OBJECTIVES: In today's facial expression recognition, there are problems such as weak generalization ability and low recognition accuracy. Aiming to improve the current facial expression recognition problems, we propose a novel facial emotion recognition method. METHODS: This paper focuses on the deep learning-based static face image expression recognition method, and combines transfer learning and deep residual network ResNet-101 to realize facial expression recognition. RESULTS: The simulation results show that the overall accuracy of our method is 96.29± 0.78%. CONCLUSION: The performance of this model is superior to the current mainstream face emotion recognition models. In the future research, we will try other methods based on deep learning.
Modelling Petroleum Prices between Garch and Intergeated Garch, (Igarch)

In this paper, the comparison of using garch (1, 1) and intergrated garch, igarch (1, 1) models on petroleum prices will be examined. This time-varying variation of asset returns as the horizon widens about kurtosis and volatility persistence are calculated and the results shows that petroleum prices dynamics submits more to igarch (1, 1) than garch (1, 1) model.
Coccydynia—The Efficacy of Available Treatment Options: A Systematic Review

Study design Systematic Review Objective To evaluate the efficacy of available treatment options for patients with persistent coccydynia through a systematic review. Methods Original peer-reviewed publications on treatment for coccydynia were identified using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines by performing a literature search of relevant databases, from their inception to January 17, 2020, combined with other sources. Data on extracted treatment outcome was pooled based on treatment categories to allow for meta-analysis. All outcomes relevant to the treatment efficacy of coccydynia were extracted. No single measure of outcome was consistently present among the included studies. Numeric Rating Scale, (NRS, 0–10) for pain was used as the primary outcome measure. Studies with treatment outcome on adult patients with chronic primary coccydynia were considered eligible. Results A total of 1980 patients across 64 studies were identified: five randomized controlled trials, one experimental study, one quasi-experimental study, 11 prospective observational studies, 45 retrospective studies and unpublished data from the DaneSpine registry. The greatest improvement in pain was achieved by patients who underwent radiofrequency therapy (RFT, mean Visual Analog Scale (VAS) decreased by 5.11 cm). A similar mean improvement was achieved from Extracorporeal Shockwave Therapy (ESWT, 5.06), Coccygectomy (4.86) and Injection (4.22). Although improved, the mean change was less for those who received Ganglion block (2.98), Stretching/Manipulation (2.19) and Conservative/Usual Care (1.69). Conclusion This study highlights the progressive nature of treatment for coccydynia, starting with noninvasive methods before considering coccygectomy. Non-surgical management provides pain relief for many patients. Coccygectomy is by far the most thoroughly investigated treatment option and may be beneficial for refractory cases. Future randomized controlled trials should be conducted with an aim to compare the efficacy of interventional therapies amongst each other and to coccygectomy.
Walking the road together? EU polity maintenance during the COVID-19 crisis

Abstract This article investigates the ‘conflict parabola’ of the negotiations between EU member states during the COVID-19 pandemic. The crisis reopened the foundational controversy over cross-national solidarity under economic adversities. After a peak of conflict in March–April 2020, the political climate gradually shifted from antagonism to appeasement, creating the conditions necessary for the adoption of the Next Generation EU plan. Building on the negative experiences of past crises, some EU leaders engaged in a strategy of ‘polity maintenance’, i.e. keeping the EU polity together, regardless of interest-based divisions. This strategy mainly rested on public communication. The article documents both conflict and appeasement by analysing a corpus of leaders’ quotes drawn from the press (covering eight countries) and a corpus of speeches by Angela Merkel. The Chancellor made a high political investment in EU polity maintenance, presenting European cohesion as part and parcel of Germany’s national interest.
Introduction of Laser Pi-Grooving as Breakthrough Solution to Enhance die Strength of 40 nm ulow-k CMOS Silicon Technology during Wafer Saw Process

Nowadays, semiconductors and electronics are becoming part of our everyday activities. As the Integrated circuits become more useful to people, it also requires more function, which contain more complex and compact components. Aligned to this package requirement, the more challenging it become to package development as Silicon technology becomes more critical and complex from bare silicon to conventional MOS technology to Ultra Low-K, which requires a different strategy. The new process development in the Semiconductor industry is a necessity to cope up with these new technologies. Low-k devices always pose a big challenge in achieving good dicing quality. This is because of the weak mechanical properties of the low-k dielectric material used. Mechanical Sawing is the most popular cutting method for silicon, but with Ultra low-K technology, using mechanical sawing will lead to various sawing defects such as chippings and delamination [1,2]. These leads to the introduction of Laser Grooving to get rid of these dilemmas. Laser grooving uses heat to eradicate metals on this very thin metal wafer dicing saw streets in preparation for wafer saw process to prevent topside chippings and delamination/metal peel off [3]. These defects are not acceptable especially since the product application is a chip Original Research Article card. Since chip cards must be flexible and durable, they require higher die and package strength to serve its purpose. To achieve such package requirement, different method was evaluated such as standard mechanical dicing, standard Laser Grooving and the PI laser groove. The paper will discuss how we were able to achieve the quality requirement for Ultra Low the same time eliminating top reject contributor during startup of this device.
Microcredential learners need quality careers and employability support

Providers, industry, and governments have embraced microcredentialing as a solution to the volatility and velocity of changes in labour markets, workplace competencies, and the needs of the 21st century lifelong learner (Oliver, 2019). However, microcredentials do not, in and of themselves, guarantee career or employment success. Seeking a microcredential is one adaptive career behaviour that people might enact in pursuit of their career goals (Lent & Brown, 2013). Similarly, holding a microcredential is one form of employability capital that people might highlight when seeking employment (Tomlinson & Anderson, 2020).