Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Stability of the climate system and extreme climates in model experiments = Stabilität des Klimasystems und extreme Klimate in Modellexperimenten

The present thesis examines the ocean and atmospheric dynamics of presentday climate and Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) through Ocean and Atmosphere General Circulation models. Simulating the glacial climate different LGM reconstructions of sea surface temperatures (SST) and sea-ice margins are used as forcing fields for the models: CLIMAP (1981), a in~d i f i~a t ion of CLIMAP (1981), with additional cooling in the tropics, and reconstructions as produced from Weinelt et al . (1996) and GLAMAP 2000, which show seasonally ice free conditions in the Nordic seas. The stability of the therrnohaline circulations (THC) under different reconstructions is investigated togetlier with the corresponding atmospheric dynamics. The stability analysis, by means of freshwater flux hysteresis maps reveals monostability for each glacial background state, which appears to be a robust feature of the glacial ocean. The impact of the changed orography in North America t.ogether with the ice-albedo feedback due to the largely expanded Laurentide Ice Sheet and the reduction of the CO2 concentration are assessed. The results show a strong dependence of the glacial Northern Hemisphere circulation pattern to the changed orography. The Laurentide Ice Sheet forces a deflection of the westerlies, their enhanceinent and a southward displacement. The oceanic heating contributes only 20-40% to tlle North Atlantic cooling. Motivated by the extreme climates in the Earth's history, namely the full earth glaciation in the Neoproterozoic era (600-800 million years ago), known as "snowball" Earth, the atmospheric model is forced with extreme boundary and initial conditions. The impact of land albedo, oceanic heat transport, CO2 concentration, initial temperature conditions 011 the extreme climates are examined. Changing only one boundary or initial condition, the model produces Open ice free tropical oceans. Using a proper combination of the varied forcing parameters a full 'Earth glaciation' results. Oceanic heat transport and orography have only a minor influence on the climate instability.
The Relation between the Tibetan Winter Snow and the Asian Summer Monsoon and Rainfall: An Observational Investigation.

Abstract Utilizing winter (November–March) accumulated snow depth data at 60 stations over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) for the period 1960–98, three typical patterns of the TP snow anomaly's spatial distribution were objectively classified by means of empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis. They are characterized by light snow over the entire Tibet region (LS pattern), by an eastern Tibet heavy snow (ETHS pattern), and by a southwestern Tibet heavy snow (SWTHS pattern), respectively. The possible relations between various patterns of the Tibet winter snow anomaly and subsequent summer monsoon and rainfall over south, southeast, and east Asia are investigated using composite analysis. In ETHS and SWTHS years, the south and southeast Asian summer monsoon becomes weak and there is less summer rainfall over south and southeast Asia than in normal years. In LS years, the anomalies of the subsequent summer monsoon and rainfall are opposite to those in ETHS and SWTHS years. The physical mechanism is, in part,.
Evaluation of P 2 P Algorithms for Probabilistic Trust Inference in a Web of Trust

The problem of finding trust paths and estimating the trust one can place in a partner arises in various application areas, including virtual organisations, authentication systems and reputation systems. We study the use of peer-to-peer algorithms for finding trust paths and probabilistically assessing trust values in systems where trust is organised similar to the 'web of trust'. We do this through discrete event simulation of random as well as scale free trust networks based on flooding as well as selective search algorithms. Our main conclusion is that in many situations these algorithms can be seen as belonging to a single class of algorithms that perform equally, and only differ through (and are sensitive to) parameter choices. We will also see that flooding is the only applicable method if one stresses the requirement for finding all trust paths, and if networks are less connected. © 2008 University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Printed and published by the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Computing Science, Claremont Tower, Claremont Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, England. Bibliographical details ZHANG, H. , VAN MOORSEL, A. Evaluation of P2P Algorithms for Probabilistic Trust Inference in a Web of Trust [By] H. Zhang, A. van Moorsel. Newcastle upon Tyne: University of Newcastle upon Tyne: Computing Science, 2008. (University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Computing Science, Technical Report Series, No. CS-TR-1113)
LEADERSHIP IN NEWSPAPERS – SOME FINDINGS FROM RESEARCH IN NORWAY AND SWEDEN

This working paper is about leadership research in newspapers in Norway and Sweden. In 2002 I have conducted a study of leadership and performance of Norwegian and Swedish newspapers. 147 managers at senior levels participated in the study. The changes that are taking place in the newspaper industry these days are many and profound. New market challenges, new methods of production, the coming of the internet – all these factors have influence on the development of the newspapers today. As a consequence of this we also have great challenges on the leadership practices of editors and managers. The base model for the leadership research has been the LPI – leadership practices in the newspaper industry did not confirm directly with the five factor model given by the LPI, but rather with a factor model based on 3 components (Vision and change, collaboration, and motivation). This working paper gives a summary of the research findings of my doctoral thesis, some perspectives on significance of the research and suggestions for further research. First, the results of the hypothesis testing are summarized in table form. Second, building on the analysis, the possible contribution to knowledge and limitations are outlined and discussed in a theoretical framework. Third, the managerial implications for the newspaper industry is discussed and presented. Fourth, some suggestions for further research into the subject are suggested – and finally there are some comments on my own learning experiences throughout this research project. From time to time in this presentation there will be references to specific newspapers or situations. These newspapers are not necessarily among the participating newspapers, but are selected on the basis of inside knowledge of the industry and will serve as a practical example of the theoretical concepts that I have been working with. This explanation will perhaps have some limited value from an academic viewpoint, but for people familiar with the newspapers situation in Norway and Sweden it will be well known and useful to put the theories into perspective. In the introductory paragraphs the reasons why it is interesting to study newspapers were outlined. I pointed towards the great changes that are taking place in the industry and that reveal new challenges, opportunities and alliances almost every day. In a marketing context one could place the traditional newspaper in a maturity/decline stage in a product life cycle analysis (Kotler 2000), as has also been observed in some …
Influence of temperature and organic solvents (isopropanol and 1,4-dioxane) on the micellization of cationic gemini surfactant (14-4-14).

The micellar properties of gemini surfactant, tetramethylene-1,4-bis(dimethyltetradecylammonium bromide) (14-4-14) in binary aqueous mixtures of isopropanol (IP) and 1,4-dioxane (DO) were investigated by tensiometric, conductometric and microcalorimetric methods in the temperature range of 298 to 323 K. The values of both critical micelle concentration (cmc) and degree of dissociation increase with increasing temperature and concentration of cosolvent. The energetics of micellization was determined from the temperature dependence of critical micelle concentration values. The standard Gibbs free energy of micellization (ΔG) was found to be negative and the negative value decreases with both temperature and concentration of cosolvent. The Gibbs free energy of micellization (ΔG) is mainly controlled by tail transfer free energy. The enthalpy of micellization obtained from direct calorimetry, Gibbs-Helmholtz equation and van't Hoff methods are presented and compared. Entropic contribution is found to be larger than the enthalpy and for all the systems, an enthalpy-entropy compensation phenomenon was obtained. Some interfacial parameters, e.g., Gibbs surface excess (Γmax), minimum area per surfactant molecule (Amin), surface pressure (Πcmc) were been calculated. The fluorimetric technique was used to understand the microenvironment of the solution under the influence of cosolvent. The micellar aggregation number of 14-4-14 in a binary mixed solvent was also determined from fluorimetry using pyrene as a probe. Two fluorophores, fluorescein and curcumin delivered the information of the peripheral region of the micellar interface and palisade region. The self-diffusion coefficients of the micellar media were evaluated using the cyclic voltammetry (CV) method. Such multi-technique investigation provides a new look into the role of solvation in micellization.
Attribute extraction from eCommerce product descriptions

This project presents an implementation of named entity extraction for detecting attributes in the description of eCommerce products. This problem is very important for eCommerce search and catalog building systems. Effective named entity extraction could significantly improve quality of search results in eCommerce retail system and so the experience of customers. Because description of products is provided in plain text form without any structuring, this is also very challenging problem. Using as an example BestBuy eCommerce NER dataset we demonstrate the technology which includes feature extraction pipeline and trainig the model to recognize Brands, ModelNames, Price and other attributes from the product description. We provide a review of methods which are used for the information extraction. In our project we focused on three methids: SVM, Gradient Boosting Trees and Conditional Random Fields. Models we used were evaluated against the test set.
Multispectral imaging of human blood media applied to malaria diagnostics

Malaria is a serious disease whose confirmation in laboratories, usually by optical microscopy, remains a challenge. The process involved in preparation of blood films and their examination in the conventional microscopes is time consuming, and the results may vary depending on the expertise of the examining technician, putting the lives of patients at risk. Other laboratory techniques for confirming malarial infection are expensive and may involve procedures that require extra training of personnel. In this thesis, a method for rapid detection of Plasmodia (malaria parasites) in unstained thin blood smears has been developed. The method is based on microscopically imaging red blood cells using different wavelengths of light in the UV, visible and NIR region for illumination (an emerging field known as multispectral imaging microscopy). Imaging was accomplished by use of an optical microscope modified by replacing its tungsten light source with a set of light emitting diodes (LEDs) whose emission spectra were centered at 375 nm, 400 nm, 435 nm, 470 nm, 525 nm, 590 nm, 625 nm, 660 nm, 700 nm, 750 nm, 810 nm, 850 nm and 940 nm. These LEDs were made to illuminate the samples from different orientations to obtain transmittance, reflectance, and dark-field images to reveal different optical properties of the imaged sample. The microscope was fitted with a monochrome CMOS camera that recorded the intensity of light emanating from the specimen as gray-level images. Using in vitro cultures of red blood cells infected with Plasmodium falciparum prepared as thin smears and without any stain, congruent intensity images were recorded at different wavelengths and used to compose a multispectral image. Pixels of the multispectral image . were used tp generate spectral t \ 1 ' \ • ‘ /
Models and application of transport accessibility in urban transport planning

A comparative study of 5 transprtation accessibility models emphasized the definitions,connotations and model formulations for urban transport planning.The empirical study evaluated the public transit accessibility at peak rush hours in central Dalian.The study evaluates the relationship between accessibility and mobility and presents an accessibility-oriented planning method.Compared with traditional transport planning,this method is completely people-oriented and,thus,more useful for solving urban transport problems.
Model-driven Development of Complex Software : A Research Roadmap

The term Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) is typically used to describe software development approaches in which abstract models of software systems are created and system-models of software systems are created and systematically transformed to concrete implementations. In this paper we give an overview of current research in MDE and discuss some of the major challenges that must be tackled in order to realize the MDE vision of software development. We argue that full realizations of the MDE vision may not be possible in the near to medium-term primarily because of the wicked problems involved. On the other hand, attempting to realize the vision will provide insights that can be used to significantly reduce the gap between evolving software complexity and the technologies used to manage
ENSO impacts on temperature over South Korea

The climatic impact of the two phases (warm/cold) of ENSO phenomena on monthly temperature patterns over South Korea is examined based on the composite and harmonic analysis. The core regions, namely the north‐east region and the south‐west region, were identified with a high‐level spatial coherence and temporal consistency, which represent the geographical extent and magnitude of the response of the ENSO forcing to the temperature patterns. For the both regions, the temperature anomalies in El Nino year are below normal for summer through fall of the ENSO year and above normal for winter through spring of the following year. The spatial coherence rates of each region are 0.95, 0.97 and the temporal consistency rates are 0.70/0.70 (cold/warm) and 0.70/0.80 (cold/warm), respectively. On the other hand, in case of the cold events, the temperature anomalies for the both regions are above normal for summer through fall of the episode year and below normal for winter through spring of the following year. The spatial coherence rates of each region are 0.98, 0.99 and the temporal consistency rates are 1.00/0.78 (warm/cold) and 0.89/0.78 (warm/cold), respectively. According to the comparative analyses for both extreme episodes in two core regions, the El Niño/La Niña–temperature relationships show reverse patterns of sign, negative–positive and positive–negative temperature anomalies, respectively. Based on the results of annual cycle analysis, Mann–Whitney U test and cross‐correlation analysis, the cold–warm anomalies during the warm event years are more remarkable and significant than the warm–cold departures during the cold event years. Consequently, the climatic teleconnective pattern between the extreme phase of SO and mid‐latitude temperature is identified over South Korea.
Cereal Silage Options for Western Canada

The Alberta Agriculture Field Crop Development Centre had its beginnings in 1973 with its primary objective being the development of cereal crops for animal feed as grain and forage. We have developed 17 barley varieties, 2 spring triticale and 2 winter triticale varieties at the Centre. All of these varieties have been targeted to Alberta’s livestock industry for feed as a grain or as forage. We have therefore put all of our varieties and breeding lines through tests to evaluate them not only for grain and biomass yield but also for nutritional and effective quality. This has been much easier for monogastric nutrition than for the ruminant. It has also been difficult to determine what the industry is looking for in quality. When it comes to silage production, we find that perception and agronomic factors often play a greater role than yield and quality when farmers make decisions regarding crop and variety. With this in mind we have seen the growth of silage as a crop from about 100,000 hectares to nearly 0.4 million hectares over the last 25 years. Silage production is expected to increase to over 0.6 million hectares in the next 5 years. Some estimates indicate that in 2001, 0.56 million hectares were used for forage.
Choosing Sensitive Agricultural Products in Trade Negotiations

"The formula approach used in many trade negotiations involves large formula cuts in high tariffs, with flexibilities that allow smaller cuts for selected products. Difficulties in evaluating the effects of these exceptions can create major problems. We use a political-economy welfare function and detailed data on the current WTO agricultural negotiations to assess the implications of this approach for welfare and for market access. We find that some previous rules of thumb greatly underestimate the impacts of such exceptions. Indeed, treating even a small number of tariff lines as sensitive and subjecting them to reduced cuts has a sharply adverse impact on welfare, and a smaller but still negative impact on market access. " from authors' abstract
The optimization of pastry delivery for NOPEK bakery in Vysoké Mýto.

While transporting some material a circular way of the transportation is usually applied. Usually due to some capacity or time constraints or other reasons it is necessary to use more routes (i.e. more vehicles, or one vehicle must go out from its home place more times). This case is called the vehicle routing problem and there exist many types of this task because of the variety of reasons causing the necessity of use more than one route. Practically all the vehicle routing problems belong among the so-called NP-complete or NP-hard problems. This means that there exists no effective method which would succeed in finding a precise theoretical optimum for them. In such tasks, we can employ different approximation methods which provide us with solutions similar to a theoretical optimum and acceptable as an economic optimum. In practice, however, companies seldom pay enough attention to dealing with such problems, especially if transportation is not their principal work load and if it concerns a transportation task of a medium size. This article presents a case study of NOPEK Bakery in Vysoke Mýto. It demonstrates the effectiveness of the approximation method during the planning of the bakery products delivery to its customers. By the optimization of one of the so-called “fast deliveries“, we succeeded in the reduction of the number of vehicles needed for the delivery – about 18% – which turned out necessary. Similar savings of all “fast deliveries” in the company may lead to the reduction of tenure price (tenure fixture) by 17 mil. CZK. At the same time the profit will increase by 0.6 mil. CZK and profitability will go up by 2.5%. We also managed to ensure a balanced use of the vehicles. This made it possible for the bakery to deliver the goods to its customers in deadlines that they found more convenient.
NASYP: Online expert tool on the control of major-accident hazards involving dangerous substances

NASYP is an online Geoportal tool being developed in cooperation with state and regional authorities to improve insufficient practices based on implementation of Directive nr. 2003/105/ES on the control of major-accident hazards involving dangerous substances. The tool is applicable for managing the permits, reporting and regular monitoring issues. Furthermore, itâ€™s applicable for a risk assessment and a rapid management of disasters in the initial phase. Thereâ€™re simple modeling tools included to simulate early stages of the contamination caused by disasters occurred to be used for decision making and effective use of emergency services. In this manner, thereâ€™re low atmospheric and surface water pollutions taken into account. For the study area, Liberec region was chosen covering the area of 3,163km2 and containing 533 potentially dangerous objects categorized accordingly to the Directive nr. 2003/105/ES. The model simulations are responding to daily hydrological and meteorological situation, a capability of automated updates from databases operated by the Czech Hydro Meteorological Institute, and communicate with databases of substances operated by the regional authorities. NASYP is suitable especially for the â€œNâ€ class of the operators defined in the Directive, where because of smaller amounts of stored dangerous substances the safety measures and regular inspections are limited.
The Board

We examine the relationship between early cognitive development, socio- economic status (SES), child health, and parenting quality in a developing country. We use a sample of more than 3,000 predominantly poor preschool-aged children from Ecuador, and analyze determinants of their scores on a widely used test of language ability. We find that household wealth and parental education are associated with higher scores, and that these asso- ciations are larger among older children. Child health and measures of parenting quality are associated with test performance, and account for a fraction, although not the majority, of the association between SES and cognitive development.
Evaluation of Heavy Metal Pollution of Farmland Soil in Jiangxi Province Based on GIS

In order to understand the contamination status of heavy metals pollution of farmland soil in Jiangxi Province,370 soil samples were collected and the contents of heavy metals Pb,Zn,Cu in these samples were measured. Based on GIS and geostatistical methods,the soils in Jiangxi Province were evaluated with single factor pollution index and nemerow comprehensive pollution index,and the pollution status in the farmland of Jiangxi Province were expressed by spatial interpolation visualization. The results showed that in Jiangxi Province the average values of the single factor pollution index of soil heavy metals Pb,Zn,Cu were 0. 4,2. 23,0. 99,but there was a big difference between the maximum and minimum values. Overall,the soils had non-pollution of Ph,light pollution of Cu,and severe pollution of Zn. The nemerow comprehensive pollution index of Pb,Cu and Zn of the soils was 1. 64,the soils of farmland in Jiangxi Province had light heavy metal contamination.
The Veldwezelt site (province of Limburg, Belgium): environmental and stratigraphical interpretations*

Abstract Uphill and drainage line environments reveal many hiatuses or discordances, because of truncation by erosion. In downslope position accumulation often prevailed outside the drainage lines and prevented erosion, even during unstable periods. Consequently, downslope sections yield the most detailed environmental data, but often lack contact with uphill series. However, for stratigraphical correlation the contact between downslope and uphill series is essential. In the Veldwezelt loess sequence this contact is intact, which provides additional data on transitional processes. In view of these special palaeoenvironmental conditions, exhibiting a transition between downslope and uphill areas and a south-east trending stream, an extraordinarily detailed Late Saalian, Eemian and Weichselian loess sequence could be reconstructed. The Veldwezelt series furnished important pedological, sedimentological, faunal, tephrochronological and cryogenic data, on the basis of which palaeoenvironmental conclusions could be drawn and six types of pedo-sedimentological cycles distinguished. A stratigraphical overview was obtained by correlating the Veldwezelt section with other west European loess frameworks and tephra sequences; the sedimentary series at Harmignies (Mons Basin, southern Belgium) and the Greenland GRIP ice core.