Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Environmental Changes in Lakes Catchments as a Trigger for Rapid Eutrophication - A Prespa Lake Case Study

Elucidating upon and/or separating the natural processes of eutrophication from the anthropogenically induced ones in a lake’s history have proven to be a formidable task. The nature and patterns of the eutrophication processes, their overall impact on the ecosystem and biota, as well as the possible management practices to be introduced to reverse or slow down the accelerated eutrophication have been in focus only very recently mainly due to imposed EU legislation such as the WFD. Another important and also very demanding task that greatly influences management plans, costs and activities is the detection of the reference conditions for every particular water body. Among various suggested approaches, we have concluded that the best way is to reveal the past changes of the lake’s environment by conducting paleo-ecological research (the so called state change approach) using core sample analyses of as many parameters as possible and relate them to the biota, algae in particular. In that regard, under the comprehensive River Basin Management Plan developed for the Prespa Lake catchment (the part that belongs to Macedonia), the most wide-ranging 12 month surveillance monitoring has been conducted in order to reveal the present ecological situation and the past changes during the last 10 ka period. The results of these investigations are presented in this chapter.
A biometric approach to secure big data

Biometrics is the science of establishing the identity of an individual based on the physical, chemical or behavioral attributes of the person. The relevance of biometrics in modern society has been reinforced by the need for large-scale identity management systems whose functionality relies on the accurate determination of an individual's identity in the context of several different applications. Recently a very popular technology and concept is followed by many Social networking Web sites this is “Big Data”. A data which is not only large in volume but also in unstructured way is termed as Big Data. Security in Big Data is the main issue now a day. In this paper we throw some light on how different bio-metric technologies play an important role to maintain and provide security in Big Data.
The high-lightness LED controller using solar energy basing on PSoC

Aiming at the situation where solar energy is rich in remote mountain areas and in field but inconvenient for wiring and maintaining power grid, this paper put forward the idea of using the HBLED as the illumination light source and taking advantage of solar energy at the same time. Then, the HBLED controller based on PSoC (programmable system-on-chip) technology is introduced in this paper. This controller can extend the life time of HBLED, save the energy in a much more effective way by improving the P&O algorithm to achieve the solar cells MPPT(Maximum Power Point Tracking), and regulate the brightness of HBLED according to the light of circumstance. Finally, the wide used controller which contains the control circuit and HBLED driver circuit is introduced in this paper. In this paper, the design of the control circuit and the HBLED driver circuit and the method of calculating the inductor L of the driver circuit are introduced. This controller has wide applications.
Comparing Methods of Hydrologic Regionalization

: Data splitting is used to compare methods of determining “homogeneous” hydrologic regions. The methods compared use cluster analysis based on similarity of hydrologic characteristics or similarity of characteristics of a stream's drainage basin. Data for 221 stations in Arizona are used to show that the methods, which are a modification of DeCoursey's scheme for defining regions, improve the fit of estimation data to the model, but that is is necessary to have an independent measure of predictive accuracy, such as that provided by data splitting, to demonstrate improved predictive accuracy. The methods used the complete linkage algorithm for cluster analysis and computed weighted average estimates of hydrologic characteristics at ungaged sites.
Flavor-Specific Inclusive B Decays to Charm

We have measured the branching fractions for B → ¯ DX , B → DX , and B → ¯ DXℓ + ν , where “ B ” is an average over B 0 and B + , “ D ” is a sum over D 0 and D + , and “ ¯ D ” is a sum over ¯ D 0 and D − . From these results and some previously measured branching fractions, we obtain B ( b → c ¯ cs ) = (21.9 ± 3.7)%, B ( b → sg ) < 6.8% @ 90% c.l, and B ( D 0 → K − π + ) = (3.69 ± 0.20)%. Implications for the “ B semileptonic decay problem” (measured branching fraction being below theoretical expectations) are discussed. The increase in the value of B ( b → c ¯ cs ) due to B → DX eliminates 40% of the discrepancy.
Cooperative foraging behaviour by crabeater seals (Lobodon carcinophaga) at Pleneau Island, Antarctic Peninsula

Crabeater seals (Lobodon carcinophaga (Hombron & Jacquinot)) are circum-Antarctic and probably the second most abundant pinniped (after harp seals). Current estimates suggest that there are at least five million individuals, primarily distributed in the pack ice zone around Antarctica, and also, rarely, along the far southern margins of Australia, New Zealand, Africa and South America (Bengtson 2009, Bengtson et al. 2011). Despite their common name, it is well known that their diet is dominated by Antarctic krill, Euphausia superba Dana, which accounts for up to c. 95% of their food intake (Øritsland 1977, Huckstädt et al. 2012), and which they catch using their multi-lobed teeth as a sieve. Individuals make repeated dives in feeding sessions lasting up to 44 hours during the summer foraging season (Bengtson 2009). It has been anecdotally suggested that crabeater seals forage cooperatively (Gales et al. 2004). This paper reports on observations of a large group of crabeater seals engaged in protracted and clearly organized feeding behaviour at Pleneau Island (western Antarctic Peninsula). These observations were made during an expedition on the MV Polar Pioneer.
The Importance of Preoperative Hemoglobin Evaluation in Large Volume Liposuction: Lessons Learned From Our 15-Year Experience

Liposuction of >5 L of total aspirate at one setting is defined as large volume liposuction (LVL). A retrospective chart review was performed on all patients who underwent LVL from January 1990 to June 2005. Sixty-two patients underwent LVL. The mean volume of total aspirate was 8 L (5.0–11.7 L). There were a total of 6 patients who had complications. These included symptomatic postoperative anemia requiring blood transfusions on postoperative day 1 (n = 5), and an expanding hematoma requiring operative evacuation without transfusion (n = 1). Two of the patients who had blood transfusions had a history of gastric bypass and all of the patients were preoperatively anemic (<11.5 mg/dL). The mean follow up was 38 months. LVL is safe when performed in healthy patients under strict guidelines. Hemoglobin levels of all potential LVL patients should be checked preoperatively, and surgery should be withheld for levels <12 g/dL.
Nitrate:processes, patterns and management

Part 1 Nitrogen cycling and nitrate production in catchment ecosystems: nitrogen cycling in catchment ecosystems - an overview, Dr. A.L.Heathwaite et al nitrogen and nitrogen compounds in the atmosphere, Dr.R. P.Wayne, Physical Chemistry Oxford University nitrogen cycling in agricultural soils, Dr.K. Smith, Dr. A.Vinten, Edinburgh School of Agriculture nitrate dynamics in forest soils, Dr.H. Van Miegroet, Oak Ridge Dr.Dale Johnson, University of Nevada nitrogen cycling in surface waters and lakes, Dr.A.L.Heathwaite nitrogen cycling in wetlands, Dr.C. Howard-Williams and Dr.Malcolm Downes, Taupo, New Zealand nitrate cycling in marine waters, Dr. Nicholas Owens, Plymouth Marine Laboratory. Part 2 Spatial and temporal patterns of nitrate transfer: nitrate in groundwater, Dr.T. P.burt Oxford, Dr.S. T.Trudgill, Sheffield nitrate losses from agricultural land, Dr.A.D.Armstrong, FDEU Cambridge Dr.T. P.Burt, Oxford nitrate in surface waters, Dr. P.J.Johnes, Liverpool Dr.T. P.Burt, Oxford. Part 3 Management strategies: changes in agricultural practice, Dr.R. J.Parkinson, Polytechnic South West controlling losses of nitrate by changing land use, Dr.T. P.Burt, Oxford N.E. Haycock, Silsoe treatment processes for nitrate removal from water supplies, Dr.T. Hall, WRc Swindon Dr.B. T.Croll, Anglia Water Services nitrate and the law, S.Ball, Sheffield. Part 4 Overview: The politics of nitrate in the UK, Professor T.O'Riordan, Dr.G. Bentham, University of East Anglia nitrate - future problems - future solutions? , Dr.A.L.Heathwaite, Dr.T. Burt, Dr.S. T.Trudgill.
Establishment of Botswana's national park and game reserve system

Background I commence this paper at the year 1925, some few years before declaration of Botswana's first Game Reserve. At that time, Botswana was a 'Protectorate' of Britain (called the Bechuanaland Protectorate), administered through a High Commissioner located in Pretoria and a Resident Commissioner with Secretariat (Headquarters) located in Mafeking (Mafikeng), South Africa. Kalahari sands cover about 75% of the county, while the remainder, a broad north-south belt in the east, is hardveldt with rocky outcrops and ranges of hills. Although flat, the Kalahari is by no means an uninteresting area, for it contains not only the Okavango Delta, but fossil rivers, dead lakebeds and grass-covered pans, dune formations, parkland, mosaics of varying woodlands, savanna and open grassland. Three different legal forms of land ownership pertained in the 1930s and still do. Crownland, now called State Lands, have been much reduced in size. Tribal Reserves, the property of individual tribes where the greater part of the country's population lived and still lives, have been enlarged at the expense of Crownland. And small areas of Freehold land, originally owned by White farmers, were, and still are, used for cattle ranching. Differences in the land's legal statuses have, to some extent, shaped the ways in which reserves and parks have been established.
Fast convergence of natural bargaining dynamics in exchange networks

Bargaining networks model the behavior of a set of players who need to reach pairwise agreements for making profits. Nash bargaining solutions in this context correspond to solutions which are stable and balanced. Kleinberg and Tardos [19] proved that, if such solutions exist, then they can by calculated in polynomial time. This left open the question: Are there dynamics which can describe the bargaining process of real-world players, and which converge quickly to a Nash bargaining solution? This paper provides an affirmative answer to that question. The contribution of this paper is threefold: (1) We introduce a single-stage local dynamics which models the way in which actual players could bargain. We show that (approximate) fixed points of our dynamics are in one-to-one correspondence with (approximate) Nash bargaining solutions. (2) We prove that our dynamics converges to an ε-fixed point in O(1/ε2) iterations independent of the network size when the potential earnings (weights) are uniformly bounded. We use this to prove that an approximate Nash bargaining solution is reached in time polynomial in 1/ε, the network size and 1/g. Here g is the difference between the weights of the two corners of the matching polytope having largest weights, and controls the behavior of fast message passing algorithms for maximum weight matching (matching naturally arises as a subproblem of Nash bargaining). (3) Our proof introduces a new powerful technique from functional analysis to this set of problems. The technique allows us to extend our results in various directions. We believe the tools introduced here will be useful in many related problems. As a corollary, for bipartite graphs we prove polynomial time convergence to an approximate Nash bargaining solution, with probability close to one under small random perturbations.
Science opportunities for a long‐range Antarctic research aircraft

The polar regions play a critical role in thegeodynamic and climate system of the Earth. Although located far from the main centers of human civilization, the polar atmosphere and oceans have strong global connections and therefore directly affect global weather, climate, and the world's population, living mostly in tropical and midlatitude environments. Antarctic geodynamic processes are the driving forces for ice sheet dynamics and global environmental change that affect current and long-term, large-magnitude sea level changes. The importance of the polar regions for our natural environment has long been recognized. Many nations around the world are currently planning the International Polar Year 2007–2008 (IPY), an intense, coordinated effort of novel and comprehensive observations combined with multidisciplinary research, analysis, and educational activities (http://www.ipyorg).
Simple models for predicting dead fuel moisture in eucalyptus forests

Fire behaviour prediction requires models of dead fuel moisture that are both accurate and suitable for use for operational applications. The paper investigates two methods of developing a simple operational fine fuel moisture model from a more complex process-based model. The first simple model is a table of fuel moisture predictions for values of air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and solar radiation. The second model reduces the original model to a single differential equation, which may be used on low-powered computers. The simple models are tested against the output of the original model and against observations from two case studies in dry eucalyptus forest in south-western Australia. The single differential equation model was capable of reproducing the prediction of the process-based model at all times of the day, with mean error (ME) in predictions of –0.1% and mean absolute error (MAE) of 0.6%. The table model performed less well, with ME = –0.7% and MAE = 1.1% at 1500 hours, and ME = –1.2% and MAE = 3.0% at other times of the day.
Strain accumulation across the Prince William Sound asperity, Southcentral Alaska

The surface velocities predicted by the conventional subduction model are compared to velocities measured in a GPS array (surveyed in 1993, 1995, 1997, 2000, and 2004) spanning the Prince William Sound asperity. The observed velocities in the comparison have been corrected to remove the contributions from postseismic (1964 Alaska earthquake) mantle relaxation. Except at the most seaward monument (located on Middleton Island at the seaward edge of the continental shelf, just 50 km landward of the deformation front in the Aleutian Trench), the corrected velocities qualitatively agree with those predicted by an improved, two‐dimensional, back slip, subduction model in which the locked megathrust coincides with the plate interface identified by seismic refraction surveys, and the back slip rate is equal to the plate convergence rate. A better fit to the corrected velocities is furnished by either a back slip rate 20% greater than the plate convergence rate or a 30% shallower megathrust. The shallow megathrust in the latter fit may be an artifact of the uniform half‐space Earth model used in the inversion. Backslip at the plate convergence rate on the megathrust mapped by refraction surveys would fit the data as well if the rigidity of the underthrust plate was twice that of the overlying plate, a rigidity contrast higher than expected. The anomalous motion at Middleton Island is attributed to continuous slip at near the plate convergence rate on a postulated, listric fault that splays off the megathrust at depth of about 12 km and outcrops on the continental slope south‐southeast of Middleton Island.
Amplitude-preserving imaging of aliased data using preconditioned Kirchhoff least-squares depth migration.

Kirchhoff migration is still the most popular imaging algorithm because it easily handles irregular geometries that occur due permitting limitations and surface obstacles. However, if not properly interpolated, irregular geometries also hinder proper amplitude preservation. Preconditioned least-squares migration (PLSM) offers an alternative to 5D interpolation and provides an approximation to Earth's reflectivity that resembles the inverse of seismic modeling. PLSM can also be viewed as an interpolation method based on the subsurface velocity-depth model. The impact of PSLM on final stacked results is minimal, with the main advantage being clean prestack gathers for subsequent AVO and AVAz analysis. Other potential uses of PLSM include regularization of data prior to RTM, as well as a component of diffraction imaging. The main disadvantage of the method is the increase in computational time by a factor of 6-12.
A Data-Driven Learning-Based Continuous-Time Estimation and Simulation Method for Energy Efficiency and Coulombic Efficiency of Lithium Ion Batteries

Lithium ion (Li-ion) batteries work as the basic energy storage components in modern railway systems, hence estimating and improving battery efficiency is a critical issue in optimizing the energy usage strategy. However, it is difficult to estimate the efficiency of lithium ion batteries accurately since it varies continuously under working conditions and is unmeasurable via experiments. This paper offers a learning-based simulation method that employs experimental data to estimate the continuous-time energy efficiency and coulombic efficiency of lithium ion batteries, taking lithium titanate batteries as an example. The state of charge (SOC) regions and discharge current rates are considered as the main variables that may affect the efficiencies. Over eight million empirical datasets are collected during a series of experiments performed to investigate the efficiency variation. A back propagation (BP) neural network efficiency estimation and simulation model is proposed to estimate the continuous-time energy efficiency and coulombic efficiency. The empirical data collected in the experiments are used to train the BP network model, which reveals a test error of 10−4. With the input of continuous SOC regions and discharge currents, continuous-time efficiency can be estimated by the trained BP network model. The estimated and simulated result is proven to be consistent with the experimental results.
Visually stimulated brain-computer interfaces compete with eye tracking interfaces when using small targets

Visually stimulated brain-computer interfacing detects which target on a screen a user is gazing at; however, this is also accomplished by tracking gaze points with a camera. These two approaches have been independently investigated and sometimes doubts about BCI with visual stimuli are raised in terms of usability compared to eye tracking interfaces (ETI). This paper answers this question by investigating information transfer rates (ITR) and recognition accuracies of BCI and ETI having a similar interface design, where subjects were asked to gaze at one of four targets on a screen. Experimental results revealed that BCI is comparable in ITR to ETI and had better performance for relatively small targets on the screen.
Antioxidant lignans from the seeds of Vitex negundo var. cannabifolia

A new phenyldihydronaphthalene-type lignan, vitexdoin F (1), along with 22 known lignan derivatives (2–23) was isolated from the seeds of Vitex negundo var. cannabifolia. Their structures were established by comprehensive 1D and 2D NMR spectroscopic analyses. The antioxidant activities of these lignans were evaluated through 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical-scavenging assays, and 16 of these isolates exhibited obvious radical-scavenging effect on the stable-free radical, DPPH.
Prioritised best practices in a ratified consulting services maturity model for ERP consulting

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors that lead to consulting success in the enterprise software environment and thereby develop a refined consulting services maturity (CSM) model which includes prioritised best practices grouped under eight key focus areas (KFAs). Design/methodology/approach – The research is conducted among Tier‐1 enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendors using interviews, focus group sessions, and a web survey. Based on the findings of the survey, the CSM model is improved, refined, and ultimately ratified by a number of experienced ERP sector practitioners.Findings – The fundamental basis of the CSM model is that an enterprise software company will be able to improve the maturity level of its consulting services operations by focusing on certain key areas and adopting prioritised best practices in each of the key areas. These key areas include leadership, values, consulting skills, consulting success factors, adaptability, project management practices, profitab.
Influence of ENSO on the Stratosphere-Troposphere Coupling during Stratospheric Sudden Warming Events

Influence of El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on the stratosphere-troposphere dynamical linkage during stratospheric sudden warming (SSW) events is investigated based upon the composite analysis using 44 winter record of NCEP-NCAR reanalysis data. Stratospheric waves with zonal wavenumber 1 (2), which are linked with tropospheric teleconnections over the Pacific-North America-Atlantic sector (the Eurasian sector), are important for the onset of SSWs during the warm (cold) phase of ENSO. During the cold phase, easterly anomalies associated with SSWs penetrate into the troposphere, and annular-mode-like height anomalies appear subsequently in the troposphere. On the other hand, during the warm phase, easterly anomalies are restricted in the stratosphere, and zonally asymmetric height anomalies are observed in the troposphere about 10 days after the warming peak in the stratosphere. Modulation of storm track activities due to lower stratospheric anomalies is found to be important for the downward penetration of zonal wind anomalies into the troposphere.
El raleo en el comportamiento vegetativo y productivo de algunos materiales de la palma de aceite plantados en los Llanos Orientales de Colombia

Under the climatic and agronomic conditions of the eastern plains, with low solar radiation, oil palm materials sowing (especially Asian), with sow density of 143 palm/ha, have shown an increasing tendency in production until year 6. Subsequently, production gradually goes down. In Palmar El Borrego (San Carlos de Guaroa, Meta) Papua material sowed in 1986 maintained a growing production until 1992, when it reached 26.7 ton/ha. Since this year the production gradually went down until 19.1 ton/ha in 1996. It was observed that the bunch fullness was deficient and the competition for light caused leaf elongation. The palm also maintained an accelerated estimate growth of 1.2 m per year, compared with 0.7 m per year for other materials of African origin. In 1996 a thinning was performed in 165 ha, using the hexagon method (7:1), where 15% of the palms were eliminated, remaining 121 palms/ha. Initially, the bunch improved its fullness and fruit formation, and increased the average bunch weight to 27.8 kg. In 1999 the production increased 25.5 ton/ha in lots of land where thinning was performed, in comparison with 24.6 ton/ha in the other lots where thinning was not performed. Besides, the maintaining costs were reduced, especially for fertilization and pruning. This practice not only favors the normal leaf opening and the reestablishment of the coverage on the lots of land, but also supplies organic material because of the decomposition of the eradicated palms. The space left by the thinning was used for the establishment of nectarean plants.