Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Contribution of expanded marine sulfur chemistry to the seasonal variability of dimethyl sulfide oxidation products and size-resolved sulfate aerosol

Abstract. Marine emissions of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and the subsequent formation of its oxidation products methanesulfonic acid (MSA) and sulfuric acid (H2SO4) are well-known natural precursors of atmospheric aerosols, contributing to particle mass and cloud formation over ocean and coastal regions. Despite a long-recognized and well-studied role in the marine troposphere, DMS oxidation chemistry remains a work in progress within many current air quality and climate models, with recent advances exploring heterogeneous chemistry and uncovering previously unknown intermediate species. With the identification of additional DMS oxidation pathways and intermediate species that influence the eventual fate of DMS, it is important to understand the impact of these pathways on the overall sulfate aerosol budget and aerosol size distribution. In this work, we update and evaluate the DMS oxidation mechanism of the chemical transport model GEOS-Chem by implementing expanded DMS oxidation pathways in the model. These updates include gas- and aqueous-phase reactions, the formation of the intermediates dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and methanesulfinic acid (MSIA), and cloud loss and aerosol uptake of the recently quantified intermediate hydroperoxymethyl thioformate (HPMTF). We find that this updated mechanism collectively decreases the global mean surface-layer gas-phase sulfur dioxide (SO2) mixing ratio by 40 % and enhances the sulfate aerosol (SO42-) mixing ratio by 17 %. We further perform sensitivity analyses exploring the contribution of cloud loss and aerosol uptake of HPMTF to the overall sulfur budget. Comparing modeled concentrations to available observations, we find improved biases relative to previous studies. To quantify the impacts of these chemistry updates on global particle size distributions and the mass concentration, we use the TwO-Moment Aerosol Sectional (TOMAS) aerosol microphysics module coupled to GEOS-Chem and find that changes in particle formation and growth affect the size distribution of aerosol. With this new DMS-oxidation scheme, the global annual mean surface-layer number concentration of particles with diameters smaller than 80 nm decreases by 16.8 %, with cloud loss processes related to HPMTF being mostly responsible for this reduction. However, the global annual mean number of particles larger than 80 nm (corresponding to particles capable of acting as cloud condensation nuclei, CCN) increases by 3.8 %, suggesting that the new scheme promotes seasonal particle growth to these sizes.
The Performance of LBP and NSVC Combination Applied to Face Classification

The growing demand in the field of security led to the development of interesting approaches in face classification. These works are interested since their beginning in extracting the invariant features of the face to build a single model easily identifiable by classification algorithms. Our goal in this article is to develop more efficient practical methods for face detection. We present a new fast and accurate approach based on local binary patterns LBP for the extraction of the features that is combined with the new classifier Neighboring Support Vector Classifier NSVC for classification. The experimental results on different natural images show that the proposed method can get very good results at a very short detection time. The best precision obtained by LBP-NSVC exceeds 99%.
Novel approaches to quantify the emergence of anthropogenic climate change

Understanding how the climate system will respond to ongoing human interference is a question of profound societal importance. A significant barrier to quantifying the effect of human activity on the climate system is interpreting how the signal of anthropogenic change can be isolated and distinguished from the background noise of internal variability. An emerging framework in the scientific community is now to investigate signal-to-noise ratios as a more effective measure of the impact of human influence on the climate. As the cumulative amount of greenhouse gases emitted by the global population continues to increase, emerging (human-induced) signal-to-noise ratios in temperatures are starting to become clear for highly aggregated spatial and temporal scales. However, some other climate phenomena, such as meteorological drought, exhibit a more complex response to anthropogenic forcings. Identifying how further warming will change the characteristics of such phenomena is therefore more difficult, despite the significant policy implications for both climate adaptation and mitigation. In this thesis, I investigate novel approaches towards separating the relative signal of anthropogenic climate warming from internal variability for these cases of low signal-to-noise ratios. By more effectively understanding the drivers of emergent changes to the climate system, these results help to quantify, and thus communicate, the increasingly damaging effects of human interference on the climate system.
Selfhood in younger onset dementia: Transitions and testimonies

Younger people with dementia and their carers are an overlooked population for research, policy and practice attention. In this study, data were collected from both the United States and the UK in order to explore the meaning and construction of selfhood and identity. The US data collection included in-depth interviews with 23 people diagnosed with younger-onset dementia, while the UK data collection comprised 15 face-to-face interviews with younger carers of younger people with dementia; all carers were/had been caring for a younger person with dementia diagnosed through the DSM-IV-R criteria. A grounded theory analysis of the data resulted in the emergence of five themes to explain the interview data, these were: (1) identity as a worker; (2) identity of abandoned individual; (3) sexual identity; (4) family identity; and (5) identity as an individual engaged in living. Additional research is necessary to further develop the attributes and application of these identity profiles.
Cross-contamination, modeling, and risk assessment for pathogens on fresh-cut produce

Cross-contamination during washing has been identified as an important factor in controlling risk in leafy greens. Research with foodborne pathogens at pilot plant scale or larger can be problematic, so validated non-pathogenic or avirulent surrogates are needed. This study quantifies cross-contamination by Enterobacter aerogenes, avirulent E. coli O157:H7, and pathogenic E. coli O157:H7 during laboratory scale lettuce washing. The experimental variables were post-inoculation drying time (10 min vs. 2 h), water volume (100 ml vs. 1L), and ratio of inoculated to non-inoculated lettuce pieces (1:5 vs. 1:20). Overnight cultures were centrifuged and re-suspended in peptone water prior to inoculation. A single piece of romaine lettuce was spot inoculated with ~ 6 log CFU of bacteria, dried, and washed with the non-inoculated pieces in a stainless-steel bowl for 30 seconds. Log reduction on the inoculated lettuce and log % transfer to the non-inoculated lettuce were determined. Data were analyzed using multiple linear regression analysis, t-test for mean comparison in Statplus. The log reduction on the inoculated piece ranged between 0.5 to 2.7 log CFU/piece; and the log % transfer to the non-inoculated lettuce pieces ranged between 0 and -1.8 log % CFU/piece. This study revealed that post-inoculation drying time and water volume are significant variables when studying the log reduction (p<0.05). Post-inoculation drying time, water volume and microbe strain are important variables to consider when quantifying transfer to noninoculated lettuce piece (p<0.05). This study showed that E. aerogenes and avirulent E. coli are suitable surrogates for pathogenic E. coli O157:H7 when considering mean log reduction (p>0.05). When comparing mean log % transfer, neither E. aerogenes nor
Supporting Freeform Modelling in Spatial Augmented Reality Environments with a New Deformable Material

This paper describes how a new free-form modelling material, Quimo (Quick Mock-up), can be used by industrial designers in spatial augmented reality environments. Quimo is a white malleable material that can be sculpted and deformed with bare hands into an approximate model. The material is white in colour, retains its shape once sculpted, and allows for later modification. Projecting imagery onto the surface of the low-fidelity mock-up allows for detailed prototype visualisations to be presented. This ability allows the designer to create design concept visualisations and re-configure the physical shape and projected appearance rapidly. We detail the construction techniques used to create the Quimo material and present the modelling techniques employed during mock-up creation. We then extend the functionality of the material by integrating low-visibility retro-reflective fiducial markers to capture the surface geometry. The surface tracking allows the combined physical and virtual modelling techniques to be integrated. This is advantageous compared to the traditional prototyping process that requires a new mock-up to be built whenever a significant change of the shape or visual appearance is desired. We demonstrate that Quimo, augmented with projected imagery, supports interactive changes of an existing prototype concept for advanced visualisation.
INSURANCE OVULATION, EMBRYO MORTALITY AND TWINNING

The ‘insurance ova’ hypothesis (Anderson, 1990) views dizygotic twinning as a by-product of selection for multiple ovulation which sometimes – in error – results in the birth of twins. From this viewpoint, polyovulation is a mechanism which reduces the risks of fertilization failure or embryo defect/mortality. If DZ twin births are a ‘side-effect’ of a mechanism which compensates for defective embryos one might predict that embryo defect rates and twinning rates will covary. This prediction is tested using national-level data on twinning rates and rates of trisomy-21 (Down's syndrome), and a strong positive correlation is found, even when controlling for maternal age. One suggestion that follows from this finding is that intra- and interpopulation variation in both twinning rates and Down's syndrome rates may result, in part, from individual variation in pre-implantation rejection of embryos in the very early stages of pregnancy. In this paper it is proposed that the ‘insurance ova’ explanation for twinning in humans could be expanded to incorporate a model of rejection of anomalous embryos, be they anomalies of number or type. Variation in the efficiency of an embryo rejection mechanism, combined with variation in frequency of polyovulation, would have consequences for individual reproductive success.
T1ρ and T2‐based characterization of regional variations in intervertebral discs to detect early degenerative changes

Lower back pain is one of the main contributors to morbidity and chronic disability in the United States. Despite the significance of the problem, it is still not well understood. There is a clear need for objective, non‐invasive biomarkers to localize specific pain generators and identify early stage changes to enable reliable diagnosis and treatment. In this study we focus on intervertebral disc degeneration as a source of lower back pain. Quantitative imaging markers T1ρ and T2 have been shown to be promising techniques for in vivo diagnosis of biochemical degeneration in discs due to their sensitivity to macromolecular changes in proteoglycan content and collagen integrity. We describe a semi‐automated technique for quantifying T1ρ and T2 relaxation time maps in the nucleus pulposus (NP) and the annulus fibrosus (AF) of the lumbar intervertebral discs. Compositional changes within the NP and AF associated with degeneration occur much earlier than the visually observable structural changes. The proposed technique rigorously quantifies these biochemical changes taking into account subtle regional variations to allow interpretation of early degenerative changes that are difficult to interpret with traditional MRI techniques and clinical subjective grading scores. T1ρ and T2 relaxation times in the NP decrease with degenerative severity in the disc. Moreover, standard deviation and texture measurements of these values show sharper and more significant changes during early degeneration compared to later degenerative stages. Our results suggest that future prospective studies should include automated T1ρ and T2 metrics as early biomarkers for disc degeneration‐induced lower back pain. © 2016 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Orthop Res 34:1373–1381, 2016.
A probabilistic MAC for cognitive radio systems with energy harvesting nodes

In this paper, we consider a cognitive radio (CR) system where the secondary user (SU) harvests energy from both the nature resources and the primary user (PU) radio frequency (RF) signal. We propose an energy-based probabilistic access scheme in which SU probabilistically accesses and senses the primary channel. The decision is based on the available energy and the PU's activity. We investigate the problem of maximizing the SU's success rate provided that the PU average quality of service (QoS) constraint is satisfied. We also assume multi-packet reception (MPR) capability and sensing errors under a Rayleigh fading channel. Numerical results show the effectiveness of the proposed probabilistic access scheme.
Evidence for a two-step mechanism operating during in vitro mouse kidney tubulogenesis.

The process of kidney tubulogenesis was investigated in mouse metanephrogenic mesenchyme, differentiating in tissue culture under the influence of an inductive stimulus from embryonic mouse brain. The metanephrogenic mesenchyme was separated from the brain by a membrane filter. The time of exposure to the inductive stimulus was controlled by removing the brain from the filter. Restricting the period of transfilter association of metanephrogenic mesenchyme and brain resulted in incomplete tubulogenesis. A 30 h interaction time with brain led to the formation of small tubules. These small tubules were at an unstable stage of differentiation, and regressed during the 6-day culture period. Stabilization and elongation was achieved by the addition of mesenchymal tissues or chick embryo extract. Induction was clearly not a one-time triggering event, and as the degree of differentiation increased so the specificity for mesenchymal requirement decreased. Embryo extract did not mimick the inductive event that initiated tubulogenesis, but supported the later stages of tubulogenesis. This was interpreted to indicate a certain specificity in the induction reaction. The incidence of tubule elongation was related to both the initial mass of metanephrogenic mesenchyme and to the total contact time with brain. The greater the initial mass of mesenchymal tissue, the less contact time with brain needed for complete tubulogenesis. The morphology of the elongated tubules depended on the nature of the mesenchyme with which the small tubules were associated. This suggested that the expression of tubule morphology may be under the control of the surrounding mesenchymal cells. Possible mechanisms operating during tubule elongation were discussed. It was concluded that an integrated two-step mechanism was operating during kidney tubulogenesis. The first step, cell condensation, was induced by contact with brain. The second step, tubule elongation, was dependent upon the association of the condensates with the surrounding non-induced mesenchymal cells.
SOIL SEED BANKS OF ESTUARINE VEGETATION COMMUNITIES ON THE NSW COAST, AUSTRALIA

Soil seed banks act as reservoirs of diversity for plant communities and can be vital to the reestablishment of habitats post disturbance. Whilst terrestrial seed banks have been well studied, relatively little is known about seed banks of estuarine plant communities across the coastal landscape. Despite this, coastal ecosystems are among the most threatened in the world and a detailed understanding of seed bank dynamics could play a critical role in their restoration. The aim of this study was to quantify the composition of seed banks, and determine how they are related to the composition of above ground vegetation, in three threatened estuarine plant communities, swamp-oak forest, saltmarsh and mangrove forest, at three locations on the south coast of New South Wales, Australia. More specifically, variation in seed banks was examined at three spatial scales: (1) amongst the three vegetation communities; (2) between single species-dominated microsites within the saltmarsh community; and (3) with soil depth. The seedling emergence method was used to determine the identity and quantity of seeds in the seed bank by collecting soil cores of known volume, placing them in greenhouses under conditions favourable to germination, and counting and identifying individual seedlings as they emerged. In total, 9117 seedlings emerged from 87 species and seed banks varied significantly with community type in density, richness and composition. Saltmarsh communities had the largest density of seeds and swamp-oak forests were the most species-rich. Although the seed banks were much richer in species, the abundance of the dominant species in the seed bank largely reflected the species assemblage of these above ground plant communities. In contrast, mangrove forests had relatively low densities of seeds, which were predominantly from plants typical of the saltmarsh. Across all vegetation communities, the seed bank was dominated by a few saltmarsh species, and Juncus kraussii and Samolus repens collectively accounted for 75% of germinating seedlings. Within saltmarsh, fine scale variation in the densities of seeds was related to variation in dominant above ground vegetation for some species. Seeds were present at all depths, but seed density and species richness varied with soil depth, with the greatest number of species occurring in the upper most layers of soil. This first study of seed banks across the coastal estuarine landscape in Australia revealed that in general seed banks among communities are distinct and represent the key taxa of the above ground communities, despite the presence of additional species. Considering their critically threatened status in New South Wales, the rich and abundant seed bank present in swamp-oak and saltmarsh communities is likely to play an integral role to their population dynamics, natural resilience and restoration.
Hybrid Beamforming Designs for Massive MIMO Millimeter-Wave Heterogeneous Systems

Network densification through the deployment of small cells along the coverage area of a macro-cell, employing massive multiple input multiple output (MIMO) and millimeter-wave (mmWave) technologies, is a key approach to enhancing the network capacity and coverage of future systems. For ultra-dense mmWave heterogeneous scenarios with a massive number of users, one should address both inter- and intra-tier interferences contrary to the low-density scenarios, where the network is mainly noise limited. Therefore, this paper proposes low complex hybrid analog–digital receive and transmit beamforming techniques for ultra-dense uplink massive MIMO mmWave heterogeneous systems to efficiently mitigate these interferences. At the small cells, the hybrid analog–digital receive beamforming/equalizer is computed in a distributed fashion, where the analog processing is performed at the small cell base stations or access points and the digital part at a central unit for joint processing. To optimize the analog part of the hybrid equalizer and the precoders used at the user terminals, we consider as a metric the distance relative to the fully digital counterpart induced by the Frobenius norm. In the optimization problem, apart from the analog constraints usually considered in the homogeneous systems, we further impose the constraints inherent to the distributed nature of the access points. To cancel the inter-tier interference, the digital parts of the precoders employed at the small cell user terminals are designed so that this interference resides in a low-dimensional subspace at the macro base station. The results show that the performance of the proposed hybrid analog–digital precoder/equalizer scheme is close to the fully digital counterpart and is able to efficiently remove both inter- and intra-tier interferences.
A Meta Model for Iterative Development of Requirements Leveraging

Some of the major issues associated with the requirements phase include ambiguity in requirements, lack of connect between Business-IT stakeholders and iterative nature of requirements development. Literature indicates that formal specifications and prototyping can assist in mitigating the above issues. However, iterative nature of the requirements lead to frequent changes in prototyping and formal specifications driving both the artifacts out of synch with each other. There is a lack of an overall framework to establish dynamic association between the elements of requirements specification and prototyping. This paper describes a meta model which associates the formal requirement specifications with prototyping. The meta model is executed with the help of a tool. A case study is described which show cases implementation of the meta model executed through the tool on a live project. This work provides insights on impact of dynamically associated formal specification and prototyping artifacts on requirements development.
Deglacial Warming and Hydroclimate Variability in the Central Indonesian Archipelago

We present centennial‐scale records of sea surface temperature and oxygen isotopes from the Celebes Sea, Makassar Strait, Flores Sea, and northwestern Banda Sea, which provide new insights into the variability of Indonesian hydroclimate over the past 25 kyr. Deglacial warming was generally gradual with an amplitude of 3–4 °C. Statistical evaluation of the temperature data suggests that the onset of deglacial sea surface temperatures warming in the tropical Indonesian Sea occurred earlier than the global atmospheric CO2 rise. In contrast to previous terrestrial precipitation records, our ice volume‐corrected δ18O of seawater (δ18Osw) does not support widespread aridity in central Indonesia during the last glacial period. While δ18Osw was substantially enriched during Heinrich Stadial 1 and the Younger Dryas, δ18Osw values were only ~0.2‰ heavier during the Last Glacial Maximum than during the Holocene. Heavier δ18Osw during Heinrich Stadial 1 and the Younger Dryas either reflects a decline in precipitation amount and/or increased δ18O of rainfall in central Indonesia, both likely caused by a southward displacement of the tropical rain belt. Comparison of the Celebes Sea, Makassar Strait, Flores Sea, and Banda Sea records suggests that rainfall isotope and/or amount changes were comparable over Borneo and Sulawesi during the last termination.
Real-time adaptive blur for reducing eye strain in stereoscopic displays

Stereoscopic devices are widely used (immersion-based working environments, stereoscopically-viewed movies, auto-stereoscopic screens). In some instances, exposure to stereoscopic immersion techniques can be lengthy, and so eye strain sets in. We propose a method for reducing eye strain induced by stereoscopic vision. After reviewing sources of eye strain linked to stereoscopic vision, we focus on one of these sources: images with high frequency content associated with large disparities. We put forward an algorithm for removing the irritating high frequencies in high horizontal disparity zones (i.e., for virtual objects appearing far from the real screen level). We elaborate on our testing protocol to establish that our image processing method reduces eye strain caused by stereoscopic vision, both objectively and subjectively. We subsequently quantify the positive effects of our algorithm on the relief of eye strain and discuss further research perspectives.