Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Assessment of spring floods and surface water extent over the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District

Remote sensing of Arctic water bodies is an essential method for monitoring the dynamics of frozen ground. Thaw lake change provides insight into the state of permafrost. In the vast Arctic and sub-Arctic areas capturing changes in lake extent is assisted by satellite data. In particular, active microwave sensors can be used in a straightforward manner for water body classifications. This study uses the pan-Siberian datasets that are provided under the ESA STSE-ALANIS methane project. Surface water classifications in 10-day intervals have been produced using Envisat ASAR (Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar) operating in wide swath mode. The high temporal frequency of these data allows an investigation of surface hydrology on an intra-annual basis. The current study applies a post-processing algorithm to the ALANIS products in order to investigate changes in surface inundation across the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District over the summer period of 2007. Multiple areas are found to exhibit changes in surface inundation. Strong seasonal variations occur in areas where previous investigations determined disappearing lakes. Spring floods associated with the depletion of snow-cover and melt waters as well as floodplain dynamics can be identified. On the Yamal peninsula, these changes occur most dominantly in the west; an area subject to anthropogenic land-use change. Changes in water body extent for each hot spot of seasonal variations are quantified and discussed.
Adenoviral Vector Driven by a Minimal Rad51 Promoter Is Selective for p53-Deficient Tumor Cells

Background The full length Rad51 promoter is highly active in cancer cells but not in normal cells. We therefore set out to assess whether we could confer this tumor-selectivity to an adenovirus vector. Methodology/Principal Findings Expression of an adenovirally-vectored luciferase reporter gene from the Rad51 promoter was up to 50 fold higher in cancer cells than in normal cells. Further evaluations of a panel of truncated promoter mutants identified a 447 bp minimal core promoter element that retained the full tumor selectivity and transcriptional activity of the original promoter, in the context of an adenovirus vector. This core Rad51 promoter was highly active in cancer cells that lack functional p53, but less active in normal cells and in cancer cell lines with intact p53 function. Exogenous expression of p53 in a p53 null cell line strongly suppressed activity of the Rad51 core promoter, underscoring the selectivity of this promoter for p53-deficient cells. Follow-up experiments showed that the p53-dependent suppression of the Rad51 core promoter was mediated via an indirect, p300 coactivator dependent mechanism. Finally, transduction of target cells with an adenovirus vector encoding the thymidine kinase gene under transcriptional control of the Rad51 core promoter resulted in efficient killing of p53 defective cancer cells, but not of normal cells, upon addition of ganciclovir. Conclusions/Significance Overall, these experiments demonstrated that a small core domain of the Rad51 promoter can be used to target selective transgene expression from adenoviral vectors to tumor cells lacking functional p53.
A Feature Fusion-Based Method for Remaining Useful Life Prediction of Rolling Bearings

Predicting the remaining useful life (RUL) of rolling bearings is a critical technology for ensuring safe operation and reducing the maintenance costs of rotating mechanical equipment. The accuracy of RUL prediction is highly dependent on the quality of degradation features screened from the original statistical features. However, there is redundancy between degradation features after screening, and the screening rule is highly subjective. In addition, some useful information of the unselected features is lost. To solve the above problems, this article proposes a feature fusion-based method for bearing RUL prediction. First, the self-organizing map (SOM) method is used to cluster the statistical features, which are then subjected to dimensionality reduction by the principal component analysis (PCA) method to obtain a fusion degradation feature set. Second, a bidirectional long short-term memory (BiLSTM) network combined with the self-attention (SA) mechanism (BiLSTM-SA model) is established to predict bearing RUL with the fusion feature set. The SA mechanism is introduced to assign different weights to different fusion features to adaptively obtain the optimal feature combination. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed feature fusion-based prediction method is verified on the Franche-Comté Electronics Mechanics Thermal Science and Optics (FEMTO) bearing dataset and the Intelligent Maintenance Systems (IMS) bearing dataset. The experimental results show that the proposed method can accurately predict bearing RUL, and its performance is superior to that of some state-of-the-art methods.
Deformation of olivine under mantle conditions: An in situ high-pressure, high-temperature study using monochromatic synchrotron radiation

Polycrystalline samples of San Carlos olivine were deformed at high-pressure (2.8-7.8 GPa), high-temperature (1153 to 1670 K), and strain rates between 7.10{sup -6} and 3.10{sup -5} s{sup -1}, using the D-DIA apparatus. Stress and strain were measured in situ using monochromatic X-rays diffraction and imaging, respectively. Based on the evolution of lattice strains with total bulk strain and texture development, we identified three deformation regimes, one at confining pressures below 3-4 GPa, one above 4 GPa, both below 1600 K, and one involving growth of diffracting domains associated with mechanical softening above {approx}1600 K. The softening is interpreted as enhanced grain boundary migration and recovery. Below 1600 K, elasto-plastic self-consistent analysis suggests that below 3-4 GPa, deformation in olivine occurs with large contribution from the so-called 'a-slip' system [100](010). Above {approx}4 GPa, the contribution of the a-slip decreases relative to that of the 'c-slip' [001](010). This conclusion is further supported by texture refinements. Thus for polycrystalline olivine, the evolution in slip systems found by previous studies may be progressive, starting from as low as 3-4 GPa and up to 8 GPa. During such a gradual change, activation volumes measured on polycrystalline olivine cannot be linked to a particular slip systemmore » straightforwardly. The quest for 'the' activation volume of olivine at high pressure should cease at the expense of detailed work on the flow mechanisms implied. Such evolution in slip systems should also affect the interpretation of seismic anisotropy data in terms of upper mantle flow between 120 and 300 km depth. « less
Tests of Australian aerial radiometric data for use in petroleum reconnaissance

Recon Exploration Pty. Ltd. has successfully completed initial testing of a new method for processing and interpretation of AGSO’s (Australian Geological Survey Organization, formerly Bureau of Mineral Resources) aerial gamma‐ray spectrometer data for petroleum exploration in the Canning Basin, Western Australia and the Otway Basin, Victoria. Count‐rate data for potassium and uranium were normalized to the thorium count rate for each sample to suppress unwanted effects of variations in surface lithology or soil type, soil moisture, vegetation cover, and counting geometry. The Canning Basin test area included five producing oil fields. All except one clearly exhibit significant and characteristic radiometric anomalies which include negative normalized potassium and more positive normalized uranium values. The Otway Basin test areas included PPL-1 commercial gas production which is associated with a group of significant radiometric anomalies similar to those in the Canning Basin. These results are similar t.
Health, Climate and Development in Brazil: A Cross-Section Analysis

This study uses a cross-section of Brazilian municipal data in an attempt to estimate the impact of climate changes on the pattern of disease morbidity and infant mortality. Brazil is a country with climate conditions that range from tropical rain forest to temperate savanna regions in the southern part of the country. When one travels from north to south and west to east, and from sea level to altitudes of 1,300 meters, it is possible to examine the results of a stochastic process and a range of global warming experiences. Therefore looking at the relationship between health and climate in Brazil could help to explain the impact of climate change on the health of the population. The objective of this study is to understand the relationship between health and climate after taking into account the interaction between man and nature represented by the level of economic development and the effects of policies to create a more (or less) adequate life environment.
P‐V‐T equation of state of cubic CaSiO3 perovskite from first‐principles computation

Ca‐perovskite (Pv) is considered to be one of the most abundant minerals in the Earth's lower mantle (LM) with an ideal cubic structure at LM pressures and temperatures. In this study, a pressure‐volume‐temperature (P‐V‐T) equation of state model for Ca‐Pv is constructed using density functional first‐principles molecular dynamics simulations. The calculated P‐V‐T data yield KT01000K = 203.95 GPa, V01000K = 46.17 Å3/formula unit, γ0 = 1.576, and q = 0.96 within the framework of the Mie–Grüneisen–Debye formulation. We compare the density and bulk sound velocity of Ca‐Pv with those of iron‐bearing Mg‐Pv and seismological values. Along an adiabatic temperature gradient, Ca‐Pv has ~2.5% higher density and ~0.7% faster bulk sound velocity than the preliminary reference Earth model, while it has ~3.8% higher density and ~2.7% slower bulk sound velocity than iron‐bearing Mg‐Pv. Our results indicate that a possible lateral variation in the Ca‐Pv fraction in the LM could produce an anticorrelation between VΦ and ρ.
Gstruct: a system for extracting schemas from GML documents

Geography Markup Language (GML) becomes the de facto standard for geographic information representation on the internet. GML schema provides a way to define the structure, content, and semantic of GML documents. It contains useful structural information of GML documents and plays an important role in storing, querying and analyzing GML data. However, GML schema is not mandatory, and it is common that a GML document contains no schema. In this paper, we present Gstruct, a tool for GML schema extraction. Gstruct finds the features in the input GML documents, identifies geometry datatypes as well as simple datatypes, then integrates all these features and eliminates improper components to output the optimal schema. Experiments demonstrate that Gstruct is effective in extracting semantically meaningful schemas from GML documents.
Shelf Sediments of Alexandria Region, Egypt: Explorations and Evaluation of Offshore Sand Sources for Beach Nourishment and Transport Dispersion

Textural and compositional characteristics of beach and bottom sediments collected from the beach-continental shelf of Alexandria region on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt were examined to search for quality nourishment borrow material, and to initially assess its compatibility with the existing native beaches. Sediment characteristics and carbonate content combined with analyses of coastal processes (waves and currents) and seabed morphology are also explored to interpret sediment transport pathways. Three sediment types composed of carbonate material are identified on the Alexandria shelf based on their texture and compositional characteristics. These are: Late Holocene to modern fine to medium sand (average Mz = 0.23 mm; range of 0.063–0.4 mm), a relict late Pleistocene to mid-Holocene shelly coarser material, coarse to very coarse sand (average Mz = 0.7 mm; range of 0.41–3.3 mm), and relict mud to very fine sand (average Mz = < 0.051 mm; < 0.063 mm). Textural and compositional evaluations indicate that the coarse-grained relict sand (54 km2) is locally found just seaward of the Alexandria Metropolitan area between water depths of ∼10 and 70 m; corresponds to 1 to 10 km distance from the coastline, and could be used as a nourishment and borrow material for eroded beaches of Alexandria that have experienced prolonged sediment deficiency combined with anthropogenic influences. Compatibility analysis indicates that the characteristics of the defined borrow material and those of the native beach are generally compatible with each other. With respect to the quality standards, the borrow material is similar to and slightly coarser than the native beach sand and also matches the same range of sorting (0.25–2.37 Ø) and carbonate content (8.0 to 99.9%); therefore it is compatible to use as a sand source for beach nourishment. Moreover, estimated overfill factor (RA) implies that eroded beaches would maintain a stable state following the sand-filling operation with a re-nourishment factor (Rj) of 0.39. Our observations indicate that shelf sediments, both relict and modern, are displaced northeasterly in the alongshore and offshore directions by the N and NW wave-induced currents in conjunction with the counter-clockwise geostrophic East Mediterranean current. These sediments are reworked and deposited as mixed carbonate and biogenic sands on the irregular rocky seafloor of the submerged ridges that characterize the inner shelf and are considered as the major source of sediment in the study region.
Asymmetric Information and Imperfect Competition in the Loan Market

We measure the consequences of asymmetric information in the Italian market for small business lines of credit. Exploiting detailed, proprietary data on a random sample of Italian firms, the population of medium and large Italian banks, individual lines of credit between them, and subsequent individual defaults, we estimate models of demand for credit, loan pricing, loan use, and firm default based on the seminal work of Stiglitz and Weiss (1981) to measure the extent and consequences of asymmetric information in this market. While our data include a measure of observable credit risk comparable to that available to a bank during the application process, we allow firms to have private information about the underlying riskiness of their project. This riskiness influences banks’ pricing of loans as higher interest rates attract a riskier pool of borrowers, increasing aggregate default probabilities. Data on default, loan size, demand, and pricing separately identify the distribution of private riskiness from heterogeneous firm disutility from paying interest. Preliminary results suggest evidence of asymmetric information, separately identifying adverse selection and moral hazard. We use our results to quantify the impact of asymmetric information on pricing and welfare, and the role imperfect competition plays in mediating these effects.
Degree 12 model of shear velocity heterogeneity in the mantle

We obtain a three-dimensional (3D) model of shear wave velocity heterogeneity of the Earth's mantle by inverting a large set of seismic data consisting of 27,000 long-period seismograms and 14,000 travel time observations. About 60% of the data has been collected through the efforts of several research groups and used in earlier studies. The new data, which come from stations of different seismic networks including the Chinese Digital Seismographic Network (CDSN) and Geoscope, are extracted to provide sampling of mantle heterogeneity as uniform as possible. Because of the improved data coverage, we expand our model to degree 12 in spherical harmonics to describe horizontal variations, and to order of 13 in Chebyshev polynomials to describe radial variations. The resulting model shows a clear pattern of slower-than-average shear velocities at shallow depths underlying the major segments of the world-wide ridge system. These anomalies extend to depths greater than 300 km and in some cases appear to continue into the lower mantle. There is also a good correlation between the major continental shields and fast-velocity perturbations at depths extending to 300–400 km. Some of the continental “roots” extend to depths greater than in other studies. The pattern of heterogeneity is more complex in the midmantle, where the power spectrum is almost flat and has a relatively low amplitude; therefore the results in this depth range should be interpreted with caution. The pattern of the heterogeneity indicates a rapid change at a depth of about 1700 km. At this depth, the power spectrum of the model shifts from one which is almost flat in the midmantle to that dominated by degrees 2 and 3; this pattern then continues to the core-mantle boundary (CMB). The model is dominated by a few megastructures of velocity heterogeneity below the depth of 2000 km, in agreement with previous studies. Among these megastructures are the “Pangea Trough,” “Great African Plume,” and “Equatorial Pacific Plume Group. ” The model predicts well the large-scale pattern of observed S, SS absolute travel times, and SS-S, ScS-S differential travel times. It also predicts well the waveforms of mantle wave and body wave. We compare our model with several other recently published models. There is generally a good agreement in the long-wavelength pattern of the models, especially at shallow depths and near the CMB. However, the amplitude as well as the pattern of shorter-wavelength features are in some cases quite different.
The Shifting Geography of Corporate Headquarters in Australia: A Longitudinal Analysis

Tonts M. and Taylor M. The shifting geography of corporate headquarters in Australia: a longitudinal analysis, Regional Studies. Over recent years there has been a renewed interest in the role of corporate headquarters in urban systems. While much of this focus has been oriented towards global or regional city networks, it is argued here that the locational dynamics of corporate headquarters remain important within national systems. This paper considers the changing spatial concentration of the headquarters of large companies in Australia between 1953 and 2009. It demonstrates that rather than radical restructuring and upheaval in the geography of Australia's corporate headquarters, the process over the past sixty years or so has been one of gradual and relatively ordered change.
Using Low‐Resolution Satellite Data to Quantify Terrestrial Carbon in Tropical Areas

Abstract The ability to map and monitor terrestrial carbon is important in tropical regions where land conversion is intense and tropical moist forests store much of Earth's terrestrial carbon. The release of terrestrial carbon in the form of carbon dioxide could alter local, regional, and global weather, and enhance the greenhouse effect. This study analyzed the ability of coarse‐resolution Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) remote sensor data to quantify carbon stored in the Guaporé / Itenez River Basin in Bolivia and Brazil. This area was selected because of the amount of land conversion that has occurred there relative to other areas of the Amazon Basin. A supervised vegetation classification map was created with training sites acquired through fieldwork done in the area in summer 1998. Image pixels were classified as tropical moist forest, degraded tropical moist forest, cerrado, grasslands, degraded savanna, or bare ground. Estimated above and below‐ground carbon values of the different land cover types were applied to each class to calculate total carbon values. It was concluded that data such as AVHRR may be used to calculate the amount of carbon in terrestrial ecosystems in regional scale areas.
Constraining Circulation Changes Through the Last Deglaciation with Deep-sea Coral Radiocarbon and Sedimentary Pa231/Th230

Abstract : Radioactive isotopes can be used in paleoceanography both for dating samples and as tracers of ocean processes. Here I use radiocarbon and uranium series isotopes to investigate the ocean's role in climate change over the last deglaciation. I present a new method for rapid radiocarbon analyses as a means of age-screening deep-sea corals for further study. Based on age survey results, I selected forty corals from the Drake Passage and thirteen from the Reykjanes Ridge off Iceland and dated them with uranium series isotopes. The uranium series dates give independent ages that allow radiocarbon to be used as a tracer of circulation and carbon cycle changes. The radiocarbon records generated from the Drake Passage corals show increased stratification in the Southern Ocean during the last glacial maximum (LGM) that disappeared during the start of the deglaciation as atmospheric CO2 began to rise during Heinrich Stadial 1 (H1). Considering these data and using a simple mass budget calculation, I show that the drop in atmospheric radiocarbon activity during H1 can be explained given direct carbon exchange between the radiocarbon-depleted deep ocean and atmosphere, e.g. through the Southern Ocean. The Drake Passage radiocarbon records also show evidence for decreased air-sea gas exchange in the Southern Ocean during the Antarctic Cold Reversal/B lling-Aller d coincident with the hiatus in the deglacial CO2 rise. During this time period in the North Atlantic, radiocarbon reconstructions from deep-sea corals collected from off Iceland show a similar ventilation rate to that observed today and during the Holocene. To further investigate changes in North Atlantic ventilation over the last deglaciation, I used an inverse model to assess the consistency of sedimentary 231Pa/230Th ratios from the Holocene, H1, and the LGM with the modern circulation.
The Changing Pattern of Wage Growth for Low Skilled Workers

We examine the key components that determine an individual's early career wage growth and how these factors have changed for less skilled workers over the last twenty years. In particular, we examine the relative importance of accumulating work experience as compared to the quality of job matches in influencing wage growth. Our main finding is that over this period, the vast majority of the variation in wage growth is due to variability in the return to experience.
Ecohydrology and water resources management: a pilot study in Trinidad

Abstract An area of rainforest in Trinidad (10°N, 61°W) is remarkably rich in biodiversity, and receives the highest amount of rainfall in the island due to its orography and the dominant northeast trade winds. However, a year-round transfer of water from its pristine rivers is likely in the future, with ecological consequences. The results of a pilot study are presented, based on a simple, and graphical, segment-scale multi-objective methodology for the estimation of the optimal instream flow of the 13 rivers in this area. This methodology is based on a dimensionless ecohydrological factor, Δ, which enables the required hydraulic mean depth at a river cross-section to be expressed in terms of the average species length at maturity for a target group of amphibians, birds, fish, mammals and reptiles. Moreover, the methodology considers the socio-economic cost of ecological degradation brought about by streamflow abstraction, as well as the economic benefit of the same. An example illustrates the estimation of optimal instream flow for a value of Δ and, thereby, the corresponding optimal river intake operating rule, based on the hydraulic characteristics of a 0.1 km segment of one of the rivers, for the 20-year average dry (January—May) and wet (June–December) seasons. The limitations of the pilot study, and areas for further research, are also highlighted with a hope that it will ultimately evolve into a decision-making tool for water resources management.