Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Un partenariat scientifique original : la Coopérative de données sur la croissance des arbres et peuplements forestiers

La Cooperative de donnees sur la croissance des arbres et peuplements forestiers regroupe, dans un Groupement d'Interet Scientifique, sept organismes de recherche et de developpement. Son but est de mettre en place et de suivre des reseaux multilocaux et multiorganismes de placettes permanentes, a tres long terme, selon un protocole standardise couvrant au mieux toute la gamme de variabilite des conditions de croissance (milieux et sylviculture). La cooperative s'interesse actuellement a six especes forestieres: Chenes sessile et pedoncule, Pin maritime, Douglas, Merisier et Pin laricio. Les resultats des mesures effectuees dans ces reseaux, selon un protocole propre a chaque espece, sont centralises, puis redistribues aux membres concernes de la cooperative. Les essais sont implantes sur l'ensemble du territoire metropolitain; plus de 800 placettes sont actuellement installees.
Visualising the Output Area Classification

Abstract Please click here to download the map associated with this article. We present methods of visualisation developed to aid the speed and depth of understanding complex geographic information. We first show how the mapping of a social area classification of the UK greatly enhances our understanding of both the pattern and extent of different social groupings within society. The classification places each 2001 Census output area into one of seven clusters based on the socioeconomic attributes of the residents of each area. The classification uses cluster analysis to reduce 41 census variables to a single socio-economic indicator. However, although a simple mapping of the classification greatly enhances the understanding we have of the location and distribution of the groups. The size of each group on the map is dictated by physical space (the area taken up), rather than the social space (the number of people who live there) which is inherently what the classification seeks to represent. We then further explain how this understanding can be further enhanced by the use of non standard techniques for visualising data. This enables a focus on the social space and a greater understanding of the patterns and distributions of the groups within the classification. We use a cartogram to alter the geography of the UK to enable a clearer view of social patterns within cities whilst keeping a detailed and recognisable representation of the whole country.
Antarctic tourists: ambassadors or consumers?

ABSTRACT Two complementary studies were conducted to investigate both the immediate and longer-term influence of Antarctic cruise tourism experiences on participants’ knowledge of Antarctica, attitudes toward management issues facing the Antarctic region, and environmental behaviours and future intentions. In addition, the study investigated tourists’ attitudes toward visitor guidelines. The results suggest that Antarctica nature-based tourism operators have the potential to provide experiences that educate the public to the importance of Antarctica.
A Comparison of Zagros Geology to Island Arcs

The tectonic models which have been previously suggested for the Zagros Mountain Ranges in Iran did not take into account some geological and morphological aspects which are important for the orogenic history of the Zagros. Considering these phenomena, the Zagros region is now interpreted as the result of collision and subduction, using present-day arc models. The Zagros displays an arc system, in different stages of development, and attributed to the converging continental Arabian Shield and its unusual shape. Although the arc elements in the southern Zagros (Fars area) and in the northwestern-most part (the region of the Rezaiyeh Depression) are well preserved, they are almost absent in a middle part which shows an advanced stage of collision. In this part, major flexuring and lateral movements are dominant.
Desilication veins in the Cadillac Mountain granite (Maine, USA): a record of reversals in the SiO2 solubility of H2O‐rich vapour released during subsolidus cooling

Late‐stage hydrous fluids, which evolved during the cooling of the Cadillac Mountain granite, Maine, USA, produced narrow veins that transect the pluton. The vein margins contain microstructures transitional between granite and the vein centre. They preserve the vestige shapes of original Na‐rich alkali feldspar crystals that have been pseudomorphed by cordierite+quartz+K‐rich alkali feldspar. Closer to the centres of the veins, the minerals change from an outer zone with cordierite, hercynitic–galaxite spinel, minor corundum, K‐feldspar and plagioclase to an inner zone with remnant cordierite, hercynitic gahnite, strongly zoned almandine–spessartine garnet, chlorite and quartz. Three allochemical reactions are inferred to have occurred with the influx of hydrous fluids during the replacement process. Reaction (1) is Na‐rich alkali feldspar+iron ions in solution=Fe‐cordierite+quartz+K‐feldspar+sodium ions in solution. Reactions (2) and (3) occurred during desilication. Reaction (2) is Fe‐cordierite=hercynite+silica in solution, and reaction (3)isFe‐cordierite+water=corundum+iron hydroxide in solution+silicic acid in solution.Two independent techniques, experimental silica‐solubility data and spinel–cordierite thermobarometry, constrain the conditions of vein formation to c. 1.0 kbar and both methods indicate that the progressive mineral reactions occurred during cooling of the hydrous fluids from c. 775° to 400–340 °C. This cooling trend is consistent with the petrographic evidence, which demonstrates that reactions occurred before desilication, during desilication, and then diminished with a final phase of resilication. Although the veins are minor features of the Cadillac Mountain granite, they provide insight into the conditions that prevailed during cooling of the pluton, and similar features may be important for constraining the cooling history of shallow‐level plutonic complexes elsewhere.
Physiological Significance of Low Atmospheric CO2 for Plant–Climate Interactions

Methods of palaeoclimate reconstruction from pollen are built upon the assumption that plant–climate interactions remain the same through time or that these interactions are independent of changes in atmospheric CO2. The latter may be problematic because air trapped in polar ice caps indicates that atmospheric CO2 has fluctuated significantly over at least the past 400,000 yr, and likely the last 1.6 million yr. Three other points indicate potential biases for vegetation-based climate proxies. First, C3-plant physiological research shows that the processes that determine growth optima in plants (photosynthesis, mitochondrial respiration, photorespiration) are all highly CO2-dependent, and thus were likely affected by the lower CO2 levels of the last glacial maximum. Second, the ratio of carbon assimilation per unit transpiration (called water-use efficiency) is sensitive to changes in atmospheric CO2 through effects on stomatal conductance and may have altered C3-plant responses to drought. Third, leaf gas-exchange experiments indicate that the response of plants to carbon-depleting environmental stresses are strengthened under low CO2 relative to today. This paper reviews the scope of research addressing the consequences of low atmospheric CO2 for plant and ecosystem processes and highlights why consideration of the physiological effects of low atmospheric CO2 on plant function is recommended for any future refinements to pollen-based palaeoclimatic reconstructions.
Unbundling Package Tours: a Machine Learning Application with the LASSO

In order to estimate the travel item of the Italian Balance of Payments (BoP), the Bank of Italy carries out an extensive border survey, collecting information about travel expenditures from a sample of resident and foreign travellers. The travel item covers an assortment of goods and services: in particular, according to the international standards, it includes local transport, i.e. transport within the economy being visited, but excludes international transport, reported in a separate BoP item. In the questionnaire of the survey a detailed breakdown of expenditures is asked, allowing the correct split between the travel and international passenger transport components. However, this breakdown is not available if these two items are purchased in a package tour with a single transaction. The unbundling of package tours is therefore needed for the correct compilation of the BoP. The present paper proposes a machine learning algorithm based on LASSO techniques to impute the components of package tours, improving the performance of the current procedure employed by the Bank of Italy.
Failure forecast for large rock slides by surface displacement measurements

Forecasting the failure of large rock slides is difficult because of nonlinear time dependency and seasonal effects, which affect the displacements. Starting from the accelerating creep theory proposed by Voight, a method is suggested to forecast slope failures and to assess alert velocity thresholds using monitoring data. The 20 Mm3 Ruinon rock slide (Valfurva, Central Alps, Italy), susceptible to evolve into a rock avalanche, is studied. Three different evolutionary patterns of displacements have been recognized through the analysis of the monitoring data for a 5 year period. Data representing the surface-based large-scale behaviour of the rock mass were fitted by power-law curves, according to the "accelerating creep" model. Voight's equation has been expressed in terms of displacement and used to fit the data by nonlinear estimation techniques. Values for the controlling parameters (A, α, tf), representative of the mechanical behaviour of the rock mass approaching failure, have been determined both fo.
Elastic thickness of the lithosphere in the Central Canadian Shield

We have used the coherence between Bouguer gravity and topography to determine the elastic thickness (Te) of the lithosphere in central Canada. In order to improve the resolution, we have estimated the spectra with the maximum entropy method. The variations in elastic thickness delineate three main regions: (1) The Interior Platform where Te varies between 25 and 50 km; (2) The Shield includes several high rigidity cores, in particular in the Trans‐Hudson orogen and in the Hearne Province where Te >80 km; (3) The Hudson Bay basin has an elastic thickness between 50 and 70 km with higher values in the eastern part.
Potassium Carbonate as Catalyst for Transesterification of Cellulose in TBAF/DMSO Solvent System Instead of KH 2 PO 4 and Na 2 HPO 4 Salt Mixture

Aim of study : This study's goal is to evaluate potassium carbonate as a catalyst for the transesterification of cellulose dissolved in TBAF/DMSO and to identify the optimal reaction conditions. Material and methods: First, a solvent system consisting of 33 g TBAF and 165 g DMSO was prepared for 10 g dissolving pulp in this solvent system for one hour, then the cellulose solution was generated. The catalysts were added to the solution. At reaction temperature, vinyl acetate was added to the solution and the 70-h transesterification process was started. The product was precipitated in ethyl alcohol and washed with water on a sieve, and then dried at room temperature. The effects of changes in catalyst ratio and temperature on bond acetyl groups were investigated by heterogeneous saponification method, FTIR, XRD, DSC, viscosity and solubility test. Main results : The samples' DS values ranged from 1.39 to 2.37 and using phosphate salt mixture catalyst and increasing the ratio of catalyst increased the DS. FTIR and XRD data revealed that acetylation was effective. DSC thermograms showed a minor endotherm at 283.3-291.2°C, and it was identified as the melting point. With potassium carbonate, the viscosity and the solubility of the products increased. Highlights : Cellulose in TBAF/DMSO could be acetylated using potassium carbonate as the catalyst. Potassium carbonate's catalyst activity was weak on DS.
Increasing Critic Robustness with Degenerate Distribution Mixtures in Discrete Action Reinforcement Learning

—Reinforcement Learning (RL) commonly employs critics to assist in training the actor, often using deterministic or categorical action-value approximations. While continuous action spaces have their merits, they tend to suffer from expressiveness constraints and introduce limitations when calculating entropy. We propose a novel method, Degenerate Distribution Mixture (DDM), designed to combine the strengths of deterministic policy gradient (DPG) style gradients and discrete action distributions. Unlike existing techniques, DDM trains the critic on a mixture of the policy distribution and the degenerate distribution of sampled actions. This allows the critic to guide the actor efficiently towards actions that maximize the expected return while meeting entropy regularization constraints. Initial experiments suggest that our DDM approach has the potential for faster training times and may offer improved stability compared to existing techniques like Gumbel noise-based methods. While these findings are preliminary, they hint at the promise of more computationally efficient and robust RL methods that could be developed using our approach across diverse action spaces.
The Journal of Social Encounters The Journal of Social Encounters

Part of the Africana Studies Commons, African Languages and Societies Commons, African Studies Commons, Catholic Studies Commons, Christianity Commons, Economics Commons, Environmental Studies Commons, International Relations Commons, Peace and Conflict Studies Commons, Place and Environment Commons, Politics and Social Change Commons, Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons, and the Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons
Verification of Mobile Emission for CMAQ using an Observation-based Approach in Seoul Metropolitan Area

The objective of this study was to simulate surface air pollutants and to examine reliability of mobile emission for CMAQ system using an observation-based approach in the Seoul Metropolitan Area. Accurate assessment of emissions from mobile source is one of the most debatable parts in the entire emissions inventory process. For this study, we evaluated the official emission inventories of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) and nitrogen oxides () using an observation-based approach. In this paper, we achieved VOCs/CO and /CO ratios derived from ambient measurements taken from June to August of 2005 in early morning (07:00~08:00). And we compared them with those derived from the emission inventory. Based on these ratios and on the assumption that official inventory of CO emissions is reasonably accurate, mobile emissions of seem to be slightly overestimated and VOCs emissions significantly underestimated. The results of simulations using modified emission of mobile source were in closer agreement with the observation results except NO. Predicted NO values based on revised emissions were considerably lower than the observed values. Using modified emission inventories brings the modeled values into closer agreement with observed ozone levels in Seoul. Especially in case of CO, and VOCs emission, the modified values were suitable for simulating ozone levels in Seoul and Gyeonggi. However, ozone values predicted using the modified emissions were higher than the observed and predicted values based on original emissions. According to the 95 percentile ozone concentrations, emission revised by CO, and VOCs from mobile source was the best for predicting high concentration.
Water waves generated by distant landslides

Waves generated in a reservoir by a landslide are modeled by injecting an instantaneous point source of fluid through the bottom of a reservoir of infinite extent. This assumes that times are large relative to the duration time of the landslide and that distances are large relative to a characteristic horizontal dimension of the volume of water displaced by the slide material. Solutions are obtained for two-dimensional and axisymmetric problems, and the characteristics of each are discussed. Since the solutions assume a constant reservoir depth, and since maximum wave amplitudes always occur along shorelines of sloping beaches, it is suggested that these solutions may be of most use for providing boundary conditions for models of wave runup on sloping beaches. A comparison with experimental results is made, and agreement between the calculated and measured results is found to be good.
Intrinsic and extrinsic approaches to recognizing textual entailment

Recognizing Textual Entailment (RTE) is to detect an important relation between two texts, namely whether one text can be inferred from the other. For natural language processing, especially for natural language understanding, this is a useful and challenging task. We start with an introduction of the notion of textual entailment, and then define the scope of the recognition task. We summarize previous work and point out two important issues involved, meaning representation and relation recognition. For the former, a general representation based on dependency relations between words or tokens is used to approximate the meaning of the text. For the latter, two categories of approaches, intrinsic and extrinsic ones, are proposed. The two parts of the thesis are dedicated to these two classes of approaches. Intrinsically, we develop specialized modules to deal with different types of entailment; and extrinsically, we explore the connection between RTE and other semantic relations between texts. In the first part, an extensible architecture is presented to incorporate different specialized modules handling different types of entailment. We start with one specialized module for handling text pairs with temporal expressions. A separate time anchoring component is developed to recognize and normalize the temporal expressions contained in the texts. Then it is shown that the generalization of this module can handle texts containing other types of named-entities as well. The evaluation results confirm that precision-oriented specialized modules are required. We also describe another module based on an external knowledge resource. A collection of textual inference rules is applied to the RTE task after being extended and refined with a hand-crafted lexical resource. The evaluation results demonstrate that this is a precision-oriented approach, which can also be viewed as a specialized module. As alternative resources, we also present a pilot study on acquiring paraphrased fragment pairs in an unsupervised manner. In the second part of the dissertation, a general framework is proposed to view textual entailment as one of the generalized Textual Semantic Relations (TSRs). Instead of tackling the RTE task in a standalone manner, we look at its connection to other semantic relations between two texts, e.g., paraphrase, contradiction, etc. The motivation of such a generalization is given as well as the framework of recognizing all these
Features of aerosol optical depths over the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea during premonsoon season: Variabilities and anthropogenic influence

[1] Spectral aerosol optical depths (AOD) measured on board a cruise over the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea during March–May 2006 are analyzed. Mean 0.5 μm AOD over the Bay of Bengal is higher (0.36) than the Arabian Sea (0.25). AODs obtained from MODIS Terra and Aqua are found to track well the Sun photometer AODs. A comparison between Sun photometer and MODIS AODs yielded a correlation coefficient of 0.96. MODIS fine mode fraction over the Bay of Bengal is higher (0.71) when compared to the Arabian Sea value of 0.60. Angstrom exponent (α) over the Bay of Bengal is higher at 1.12, indicating the dominance of smaller size aerosols in the aerosol columnar distribution than the Arabian Sea (0.73), while Angstrom coefficient (β) is comparable at 0.15 and 0.16 for the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea. Background AODs are higher over the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea indicating a strong continental influence. The scaling distance is lower over the Bay of Bengal due to nearly similar AODs, while the scaling distance over the Arabian Sea is about 2000 km. The anthropogenic influence in AODs over the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea estimated using wind speed dependent AODs and maritime clean AODs are found to agree within ±1σ of the anthropogenic fraction obtained from MODIS AODs and FMFs. The mean anthropogenic contribution to the AODs estimated from the three methods is higher over the Bay of Bengal (68–75%) than the Arabian Sea (51–65%).
Initiation of rain by turbulence‐induced condensational growth of cloud droplets

Rain droplet formation due to condensational growth and small‐scale turbulent fluctuations is investigated. We report here the results of Monte Carlo type simulations of the droplet activation on cloud condensation nuclei and subsequent condensational growth in a turbulent cloud medium. According to modeling results relatively small fluctuations in temperature and water vapor concentration play essential role in droplet size distribution broadening and producing big cloud droplets, responsible for onset of fast coalescence growth and initiation of precipitation.
Influences of atmospheric transport pathways on radionuclide activities in aerosol particles from over the North Atlantic

Data for 7 Be (produced in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UT/LS)) and 210 Pb (a tracer of continental emissions) activities in daily aerosol samples from over the North Atlantic were combined with meteorological information to investigate how the composition of aerosol particles varied in relation to transport pathways and precipitation scavenging. The strongest UT/LS influences (highest 7 Be/ 210 Pb ratios) occurred in winter, but differences in nuclide activities among sites reflect heterogeneity over the basin. High values for a radionuclide loading index (RLI) at Bermuda were matched to northwesterly air mass trajectories, while low RLIs, due at least in part to precipitation scavenging, occurred under easterly flow. The activities of both nuclides and the RLI at Bermuda were lower on rainy versus nonrainy days, but there was no evidence that a day-of-the-week cycle was imposed on radionuclide activities by precipitation scavenging.
Variance‐Based Global Sensitivity Analysis: A Methodological Framework and Case Study for Microkinetic Modeling

Chemical models are built up from chemical reactions and parameters. Each of these parameters has a degree of uncertainty. Sensitivity analysis has proven to be an important tool to quantify and trace this uncertainty to specific input parameters. In this study, the methodology of a prominent global sensitivity analysis method, that is, Sobol's variance‐based method, is presented for chemical modeling with a focus on microkinetic modeling. Sobol's method is developed to be used as an analysis framework, which—once set‐up for microkinetic modeling—can easily be used for different models. This analysis framework is successfully demonstrated by means of two case studies from the field of microkinetic modeling: 1) CO oxidation and 2) oxygen evolution reaction (OER) at the photoanode in a photo‐electrochemical cell. The results give insight into the influence of each input parameter on the output uncertainty. For CO oxidation, it is found that the temperature and chemisorption energies have most impact on the output. For the OER model, the valence band energy and solvent reorganization energy are most influential. Based on this, a workflow is proposed incorporating the sensitivity analysis into the modeling process, aimed at reducing the output uncertainty and at validating and optimizing the model.