Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Automatizing photo interpretation of satellite imagery in the context of the Common Agriculture Policy subsidy control

Computer Assisted Photo-Interpretation (CAPI) uses remotely sensed imagery to control farmers’ subsidy applications in the context of the EU’s Common Agriculture Policy. A simple and reproducible method to automatize CAPI in an operational context with the overreaching goal to reduce control costs and completion time was developed in this study. Validated control data provided by the Portuguese Control and Paying Agency for Agriculture (IFAP) and a multispectral atmospherically corrected Landsat ETM+ time series were used to calibrate and test the method. Taking advantage of the nature of subsidy declarations, object-based land cover classification for the 12 most controlled classes was carried out in the region of Ribatejo. The main feature of the presented method is that it allows choosing a confidence level on the automatic classification of farmers’ parcels. While higher confidence levels reduce the risk of misclassifications, lower levels increase the number of automatic control decisions. A confidence level of 80% is a good compromise. This confidence level leads to over 55% of automatically taken control decisions with an overall accuracy of 84%. Furthermore, over 85% of all parcels classified as maize, rice, wheat or vineyard can be controlled by the method with the optimal confidence level.
LEPTIN IN CHILDHOOD OBESITY

The latest theories suggest that resistance to leptin is the first link of the metabolic changes in obesity. In adults, leptin levels predict the onset of the metabolic syndrome (MS) and its components, and in those with metabolic syndrome the worsening of the MS. The objectives of the study was to determine the leptin levels in overweight children and establish correlation of the leptin with changes in glucidic and lipid metabolism present in child obesity, with metabolic syndrome and the influence of lifestyle on leptinemia. The study was performed on 33 subjects, overweight and obese children aged between 5-16 years. The nutritional status was assessed by BMI and laboratory test needed to diagnose MS according to IDF criteria. Fasting leptin levels were determined. Leptin levels in obese were 82,74 ng/ml, in overweight 48,81ng/ml. No statistical significant correlations were found with glucidic and lipidic metabolism changes or with MS. Negative correlation r=-0,58 were between leptin level and physical activity in boys. Leptinemia positively correlates with the degree of the obesity (BMI) , with the degree of abdominal obesity (WC) and negatively with regular physical activity in boys. Cuvinte cheie: obezitate, copil, leptină Rezumat: Cele mai recente teorii sugerează rezistența la leptină ca fiind prima verigă a modificărilor metabolice din obezitate. La adul ți, nivelul leptinei prezice apariția sindromului metabolic și a componentelor sale, iar la cei cu sindrom metabolic agravarea ei. Obiectivele studiului au fost determinarea nivelului leptinei la copiii supraponderali și obezi și stabilirea unor corelații ale leptinei cu modific ări ale metabolismului glucidic și lipidic prezente in obezitatea copilului, cu sindromul metabolic și stabilirea influenței stilului de viață asupra leptinemiei. Studiul a cuprins 33 subiecți, copii supraponderali și obezi cu vârsta intre 5-16 ani. Statusul nutrițional a fost apreciat pe baza indicelui de masă corporală. Au fost efectuate examinări paraclinice necesare diagnosticului sindromului metabolic, pe baza criteriilor IDF. Leptinemia a jeun a fost de asemenea determinată. Nivelul leptinemiei a fost 82,74 ng/ml la obezi și 48,81ng/ml la supraponderali. Nu au fost corelații semnificative ale leptinemiei cu parametrii metabolismului glucidic, lipidic sau sindromul metabolic. Corelație negativ ă r=-0,58 a fost cu activitatea fizică la băieți. Leptinemia s-a corelat pozitiv cu gradul obezității (IMC), cu gradul obezității abdominale (CA) și negativ cu activitatea fizică regulată la băieți.
Charcoal (biochar) as a carbon sequestration approach and its effect on soil's functions

We compared the microbial biomass, basal respiration, dehydrogenase activity, mineral<N (nitrogen) and hot<water extractable carbon (HWC) of the soil with and without charcoal as a biological and a chemical property. Using quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) we tested for the presence of microbial groups and genes associated with methane metabolism as indicators of any change in microbial diversity resulting from the addition of charcoal. As a soil physical property we analysed if the addition of charcoal increased soil water repellency. Our preliminary analysis showed that the addition of charcoal resulted in no significant change to microbial biomass, basal respiration or HWC. The qPCR analysis showed that there was also no significant change to biodiversity. The soil in the orchard prior to the addition of charcoal was not hydrophobic; after the addition of charcoal this did not change.
The Extent of Fire Damage to Middle English Prose in the Cotton Library

The library of Sir Robert Bruce Cotton (1570/1-1631) has been described as the most important collection of manuscripts assembled by a single person in Britain. The collection was partly destroyed in a library fire in 1731. While the Cotton collection has been celebrated (and the damage it suffered lamented) for its Old English manuscripts, the extent of fire damage to Middle English prose within the collection has not been systematically explored. This article aims to address this gap by conducting a comprehensive comparison of surviving manuscripts which are now part of the Cotton collection in the British Library with surviving pre- and post-fire catalogues, book lists and reports of Cotton’s manuscripts. The investigation was undertaken during the compilation of an Index of Middle English Prose (IMEP) volume dedicated to the Cotton collection.
Mierobial biogeochemistry and heterotrophy in sediments of a marine hydrocarbon seep

Vertical profiles of sediment and pore-water constituents and rates of microbially mediated geochemical processes were determined in surficial sediments (O-7-cm depth) of three stations in and around Isla Vista hydrocarbon seep off Santa Barbara, California. Measurements were made of pore-water alkalinity (total and carbonate), pH, Eh, dissolved oxygen, sulfate, and sulfide, total sedimentary organic carbon (TOC) and nitrogen, ATP, sulfate reduction and dark bicarbonate uptake and incorporation, and oxygen flux across the sediment-water interface in benthic chambers. In general, alkalinity, PH, sulfide, TOC, ATP, and all rate processes were greatest in sediments of that station (A) with active seepage and decreased with increasing distance from the seep. Sulfate depletion and extremely low Eh values occurred in station A sediments. At a station (B) with lower seepage rates than station A, sedimentary and pore-water constituents and rate processes were intermediate to those measured at station A and a station (C) without seepage. Pore-water and sedimentary constituents as well as oxygen flux were strongly correlated with total extractable sedimentary hydrocarbons (TEH) measured at each station and for each corresponding depth interval. All parameters exhibited seasonal differences that may have been temperature-dependent. The greater concentrations of TEH, sulfide, and alkalinity with increasing sedimentary depth indicate that seep sediments are a source of these constituents to the water column and a sink for 0, and S0,2-. The strong heterotrophic, and possibly chemoautotrophic, character of seep sediments resembles that of other organically enriched systems. The diagenesis of petroleum hydrocarbons is a function of the biogeochcmical patterns and microbial heterotrophic activities in surficial sediments.
Attribute Graph Clustering Based on Self-Supervised Spectral Embedding Network

Attribute graph clustering requires joint modeling of both graph structure and node properties, which is challenging. In recent years, graph neural networks have been utilized to mine deep information on attribute graphs through feature aggregation, learning node embeddings, and using traditional methods to obtain clustering results, exhibiting excellent clustering performance. However, these approaches often face the following issues: the original graph structure and node features contain noise, and the quality dramatically affects the clustering results; the two-step framework of first learning node embeddings and then clustering is often suboptimal as it is not target-oriented and prone to producing suboptimal results. Through research, we propose an attribute graph clustering method called FK-SENet based on a self-supervised spectral embedding network. It utilizes Laplacian smoothing filters to smooth and denoise node features. It optimizes the initial graph structure by leveraging shared neighbor information to improve the quality of the original data, thereby enhancing clustering performance. Soft labels are generated from the node embeddings themselves to achieve self-supervision, and they jointly guide the clustering process with spectral clustering loss, iteratively optimizing the clustering results. The effectiveness of this model has been demonstrated through extensive experiments and comparisons with baseline methods.
Outage Performance of Uplink Pre-Amplified FSO Links Over Turbulence, Beam Wander, and Pointing Errors

We analytically derive the outage probability (OP) estimation of a ground-to-satellite pre-amplified free-space optical (FSO) link. Our derivations analysis, for the first time, takes into account all the probabilistic impairments, i.e., atmospheric turbulence, beam wander and pointing errors (PEs). Novel, analytical closed-form expressions are extracted for the probability density function (PDF) and the cumulative distribution function (CDF) of the optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) at the receiver pre-amplifier output. Furthermore, we conduct the asymptotic outage analysis in the high-OSNR regime, which provides insightful results for the uplink amplified FSO systems. Numerical OP results are presented for the case of a ground FSO link to a Geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) satellite under various turbulence conditions and misalignment scenarios. Finally, the whole outage analysis is verified by Monte Carlo simulations.
A Review of Pilot-operated Hydraulic Valves – Development, Challenges, and a Comparative Study

Hydraulic systems have been widely used due to their high power-to-weight ratio. Despite the growing instances of being superseded by the electromechanical counterparts at low power levels, the market was incapable of presenting alternatives for large-size applications. Additionally, in recent years, the demand for more significant heavy machinery (Mobile & Industrial) has increased, which led to the necessity of even higher flow and pressure Pilot-operated valves, despite the fact that these valves have several issues. One might think the alternative could be developing a hydraulic system that does not rely on Pilot-operated valves, but after decades of research, these systems could not get close to the performance of Pilot-operated Multistage valves. The paper presents a comprehensive study of the progress accomplished from the year 2016 to early 2022 in hydraulic Pilot-operated valves; they are widely employed among ordinary valves, proportional valves, and state-of-the-art digital hydraulics. Higher efficiency will be a primary factor in the success of the new designs. The academia presented several studies to improve the Pilot valves’ performance, but still, they are limited. There are no dramatic developments, and there are only a few upgrades.
Responses of upland herpetofauna to the restoration of Carolina Bays and thinning of forested Bay Margins.

Research on the effects of wetland restoration on reptiles and amphibians is becoming more common, but almost all of these studies have observed the colonization of recently disturbed habitats that were completely dry at the time of restoration. In a similar manner, investigations herpetofaunal responses to forest management have focused on clearcuts, and less intensive stand manipulations are not as well studied. To evaluate community and population responses of reptiles and amphibians to hydrology restoration and canopy removal in the interior of previously degraded Carolina bays, I monitored herpetofauna in the uplands adjacent to six historically degraded Carolina bays at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina for four years after restoration. To evaluate the effects of forest thinning on upland herpetofauna, forests were thinned in the margins of three of these bays. I used repeated measures ANOVA to compare species richness and diversity and the abundance of selected species and guilds between these bays and with those at three reference bays that were not historically drained and three control bays that remained degraded. I also used Non-metric Multidimensional Scaling (NMDS) to look for community-level patterns based treatments.
CRUSTAL THICKNESS BENEATH UTAKO ABUJA USING RECEIVER FUNCTION ANALYSIS

Understanding the Mohorovicc discontinuity (Moho depth) is crucial in unraveling the Earth’s subsurface structure. In this research, we present the report of the crustal thickness and the ratio of the primary wave to the shear wave velocities (p-to-s) beneath the seismic station located at the Nigerian Geological Survey Agency (NGSA) Abuja using Receiver Function Analysis (RFA). The primary objective of this study is to determine the depth of the Moho boundary and gain insights into the geological properties of the Earth’s crust and upper mantle beneath the receiver station. This analysis focused on teleseismic earthquakes that were recorded at the station between 2020 and 2021, with epicentere distances between 30o and 90o and magnitudes 5.5 or greater. The P wave Receiver Function (PRF) was modeled from iterative time domain deconvolution using the converted phases (Ps) at the Moho interface.
Cardiac magnetic field map topology quantified by Kullback–Leibler entropy identifies patients with clinically suspected myocarditis

Background Myocarditis is a condition that can have severe adverse outcomes and lead to sudden cardiac death if remaining undetected. This study tested the capability of cardiac magnetic field mapping to detect patients with clinically suspected myocarditis. This could open up the way for rapid, non-invasive, and cost-effective screening of suspected cases before a gold standard assessment via endomyocardial biopsy. Methods Historical cardiac magnetic field maps (n = 97) and data from a state-of-the-art magnetocardiography device (n = 30) were analyzed using the Kullback–Leibler entropy (KLE) for dimensionality reduction and topological quantification. Linear discriminant analysis was used to discern between patients with ongoing myocarditis and healthy controls. Results The STT segment of a magnetocardiogram, i.e., the section between the end of the S wave and the end of the T wave, was best suited to discern both groups. Using a 250-ms excerpt from the onset of the STT segment gave a reliable classification between the myocarditis and control group for both historic data (sensitivity: 0.83, specificity: 0.85, accuracy: 0.84) and recent data (sensitivity: 0.69, specificity: 0.88, accuracy: 0.80) using the KLE to quantify the topology of the cardiac magnetic field map. Conclusion The implementation based on KLE can reliably distinguish between clinically suspected myocarditis patients and healthy controls. We implemented an automatized feature selection based on LDA to replace the observer-dependent manual thresholding in previous studies.
Precision Alignment in Cell Microinjection Based on Hybrid Triple-View Micro-Vision

Alignment between the injection pipette and the holding pipette/biological entity is crucial for successful cell microinjection. Precision alignment can reduce cell damage and improve cell microinjection. However, in the traditional microscopic vision-based method, lack of depth perception is a drawback in monocular vision. On the other hand, stereo vision with a limited baseline distance and field of view (FOV) makes it challenging to observe biological samples. In this article, a novel hybrid triple-view micro-vision system, in which a binocular telecentric micro-vision unit and an inverted microscope are combined for scene depth and detail sense, is presented for cell microinjection. Based on this system, coarse-to-fine feature extraction methods for two discrepant pipettes are proposed, and a two-stage needle alignment strategy is established based on hybrid pose/image servo control. Some feature extraction and alignment experiments are implemented, and the results demonstrate that the proposed method achieves satisfactory alignment performance (mean position deviation: about 0.1 <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu$</tex-math></inline-formula>m; mean orientation deviation: about 0.4<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$^\circ$</tex-math></inline-formula>) for zebra embryo microinjection, and the defined symmetry measure can reach 0.09.
Estimation of Crop Coefficient and Irrigation Water Requirements of Cucumber Using the Accumulated Heat Units (Hus) in Open Field and Greenhouse Conditions

The present study was conducted to compare the reference evapotranspiration ( 𝐸𝑇𝑜 ), crop coefficient ( 𝑘 𝑐 ) , applied irrigation water ( 𝐴𝐼𝑊 ) and water productivity ( WP ) under the open field and greenhouse conditions for cucumber crops. Precise estimation of 𝐸𝑇𝑜 , 𝑘 𝑐 , 𝐸𝑇 𝑐 daily is important to apply water through a drip system in the open field and greenhouse. The 𝐸𝑇𝑜 was estimated in the open field using “FAO-56 Penman-Monteith method” whereas, inside the greenhouse 𝐸𝑇𝑜 was estimated using “Makkink FAO-24”. The 𝑘 𝑐 value represents crop specific water use and it is a requirement for accurate estimation of irrigation requirements for cucumber crops. The accumulated heat units ( 𝐻𝑈𝑠 ) were used to determine the 𝑘 𝑐 daily for each growing stage. The results revealed that the monthly 𝐸𝑇𝑜 values under greenhouse were less than those under open field for all months. Mean values of 𝑘 𝑐 in the open field during the Four growth stage (Initial, Development, Mid and late stage) was 0.30, 0.60, 1.01 and 0.81 while it was 0.32, 0.79, 1.03 and 0.56 under greenhouse, where the Mid stage recorded the highest value in both cultivation systems. The estimated results of total 𝐴𝐼𝑊 indicated that significant irrigation water saving occurs through the cultivation of cucumber under the greenhouse as compared to open field cultivation by nearly 33.5 % as the value of 𝐴𝐼𝑊 inside the greenhouse was 903.9 m 3 /fed, while the value outside was 1359.7 m 3 /fed. Regarding the WP result, values were 33.46 and 15.97 kg/m 3 under the greenhouse and open field conditions respectively.
Fan-Delta Sedimentology and Tectonic Setting--Yallahs Fan Delta, Southeast Jamaica

Fan deltas have been defined as alluvial fans that prograde into a standing body of water from an adjacent highland. Most large Holocene fan deltas are located at the edge of active continental margins and island-arc systems where high-gradient braided streams deposit their sediment load of coarse detritus. Such coastlines are usually wave dominated and receive between 100 and 300 cm of annual precipitation. The Yallahs fan delta along the southeast coast of Jamaica is a typical example of this type of fan-delta complex. The Yallahs River debouches from the Blue Mountains and has built a 10.5-sq km lobate fan delta composed of sand to boulder-size detritus. The morphology of the Yallahs delta is controlled in part by the foothills of the Blue Mountains which bound the delta on three sides and by a steep offshore profile which causes waves to break and expend most of their energy directly against the delta front. Environments comprising the subaerial delta plain include erosional and depositional beaches, abandoned and braided channels, flood plains, and salt-water ponds. The subaqueous delta environment is characterized by steep slopes and numerous submarine channels dominated by mass-gra ity processes resulting in patchy sediment-size distribution. Active coral growth occurs along the western delta margin. Sedimentologic characteristics of the Yallahs fan delta and published information on the southeast coast of Alaska provide data for the construction of two stratigraphic models that can be used for the recognition of ancient fan-delta deposits. The model based on the characteristics of the Yallahs fan delta is applicable to ancient fan-delta deposits that grade directly onto continental and/or island-arc slopes. These deposits are characterized by proximal, gravelly, braided-stream deposits that grade seaward into interbedded gravels and sands at the shoreline and to muddy gravels and muds of the slope. The second model, based on the characteristics of the southeast Alaska coastline, is applicable to fan-delta deposits that prograde onto continental and/or island shelves. These deposi s are characterized by gravelly, proximal, braided-stream deposits that grade seaward into sandy, distal braided-stream deposits, well-laminated sands of the beach and nearshore zone, and finally into burrowed shoreface muds. The two models represent end members of a spectrum of fan-delta types common in ancient sedimentary sequences ranging in age from Precambrian to Pleistocene.
Copper Nanoparticles Confined in a Silica Nanochannel Film for the Electrochemical Detection of Nitrate Ions in Water Samples

The nitrate ion (NO3−) is a typical pollutant in environmental samples, posing a threat to the aquatic ecosystem and human health. Therefore, rapid and accurate detection of NO3− is crucial for both the aquatic sciences and government regulations. Here we report the fabrication of an amino-functionalized, vertically ordered mesoporous silica film (NH2-VMSF) confining localized copper nanoparticles (CuNPs) for the electrochemical detection of NO3−. NH2-VMSF-carrying amino groups possess an ordered perpendicular nanochannel structure and ultrasmall nanopores, enabling the confined growth of CuNPs through the electrodeposition method. The resulting CuNPs/NH2-VMSF-modified indium tin oxide (ITO) electrode (CuNPs/NH2-VMSF/ITO) combines the electrocatalytic reduction ability of CuNPs and the electrostatic attraction capacity of NH2-VMSF towards NO3−. Thus, it is a rapid and sensitive electrochemical method for the determination of NO3− with a wide linear detection range of 5.0–1000 μM and a low detection limit of 2.3 μM. Direct electrochemical detection of NO3− in water samples (tap water, lake water, seawater, and rainwater) with acceptable recoveries ranging from 97.8% to 109% was performed, demonstrating that the proposed CuNPs/NH2-VMSF/ITO sensor has excellent reproducibility, regeneration, and anti-interference abilities.