Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Setting of the Operating Conditions of Stereo CCTV Cameras by Weather Condition

A wide variety of image application methods, such as aerial image, terrestrial image, terrestrial laser, and stereo image point are currently under investigation to develop three-dimensional 3D geospatial information. In this study, matching points, which are needed to build a 3D model, were examined under diverse weather conditions by analyzing the stereo images recorded by closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras installed in the U-City. The tests on illuminance and precipitation conditions showed that the changes in the number of matching points were very sensitively correlated with the changes in the illuminance levels. Based on the performances of the CCTV cameras used in the test, this study was able to identify the optimal values of the shutter speed and iris. As a result, compared to an automatic control mode, improved matching points may be obtained for images filmed using the data obtained through this test in relation to different weather and illuminance conditions.
Acid frogs can stand the heat: amphibian resilience to wildfire in coastal wetlands of eastern Australia

Fire has varying effects on species ecology. Knowledge of amphibian responses to fire is particularly limited, with variable responses reported amongst studies. Variability is attributed to differences in fire regimes, sampling methodologies, historical exposure to fire and species traits. Acid frogs, a group of amphibians restricted to acidic coastal heath wetlands of eastern Australia, occupy a discrete ecological niche that is exposed to regular and intense fires. Visual encounter surveys conducted monthly over 2 years revealed different short- and long-term responses to fire in three threatened acid frog species (Litoria olongburensis, Litoria freycineti and Crinia tinnula). Fires altered the thermal properties of habitats by increasing substrate temperature and widening daily temperature ranges. Acid frog populations did not suffer adversely from moderate intensity fires as suitable refuges, including standing water, were available. All species were present shortly after fire with subsequent successful reproduction occurring once wetlands were sufficiently inundated. Time since fire was a strong predictor of landscape scale differences in average relative abundance of acid frogs, yet the relationships varied among species. This highlights the importance of assessing community-wide responses to fire at the landscape scale. The dynamic and adaptive responses observed within acid frog populations demonstrate substantial resilience to fire processes in these fire prone environments.
The structure of 0‐ to 0.2‐m.y.‐old oceanic crust at 9°N on the East Pacific Rise from expanded spread profiles

We analyze four expanded spread profiles acquired at distances of 0, 2.1, 3.1, and 10 km (0–0.2 m.y.) from the axis of the East Pacific Rise between 9° and 10°N. Velocity-depth models for these profiles have been obtained by travel time inversion in the τ-p domain, and by x-t forward modeling using the WKBJ and the reflectivity methods. We observe refracted arrivals that allow us to determine directly the uppermost crustal velocity structure (layer 2A). At the seafloor we find very low Vp and VS/Vp values around 2.2 km/s and ≤ 0.43. In the topmost 100–200 m of the crust, Vp remains low (≤ 2.5 km/s) then rapidly increases to 5 km/s at ∼500 m below the seafloor. High attenuation values (Qp < 100) are suggested in the topmost ∼500 m of the crust. The layer 2–3 transition probably occurs within the dike unit, a few hundred meters above the dike-gabbro transition. This transition may mark the maximum depth of penetration by a cracking front and associated hydrothermal circulation in the axial region above the axial magma chamber (AMC). The on-axis profile shows arrivals that correspond to the bright AMC event seen in reflection lines within 2 km of the rise axis. The top of the AMC lies 1.6 km below the seafloor and consists of molten material where Vp ≈ 3 km/s and VS = 0. Immediately above the AMC, there is a zone of large negative velocity gradients where, on the average, Vp decreases from ∼6.3 to 3 km/s over a depth of approximately 250 m. Associated with the AMC there is a low velocity zone (LVZ) that extends to a distance no greater than 10 km away from the rise axis. At the top of the LVZ, sharp velocity contrasts are confined to within 2 km of the rise axis and are associated with molten material or material with a high percentage of melt which would be concentrated only in a thin zone at the apex of the LVZ, in the axial region where the AMC event is seen in reflection lines. Away from the axis, the transition to the LVZ is smoother, the top of the LVZ is deeper, and the LVZ is less pronounced. The bottom of the LVZ is probably located near the bottom of the crust and above the Moho. Moho arrivals are observed in the profiles at zero and at 10 km from the rise axis. Rather than a single discontinuity, these arrivals indicate an approximately 1-km-thick Moho transition zone.
Explaining the Size of the Mutual Fund Industry Around the World

This paper studies the mutual fund industry in 56 countries and examines where this financial innovation has flourished. The fund industry is larger in countries with stronger rules, laws, and regulations, and specifically where mutual fund investors’ rights are better protected. The industry is also larger in countries with wealthier and more educated populations, where the industry is older, trading costs are lower and in which defined contribution pension plans are more prevalent. The industry is smaller in countries where barriers to entry are higher. These results indicate that laws and regulations, supply-side and demand-side factors simultaneously affect the size of the fund industry.
Seasonal variation of carbon dioxide, water vapor, and energy exchanges of a boreal black spruce forest

Measurements of the fluxes of latent heat λE, sensible heat H, and CO2 were made by eddy covariance in a boreal black spruce forest as part of the Boreal Ecosystem-Atmosphere Study (BOREAS) for 120 days through the growing season in 1994. BOREAS is a multiscale study in which satellite, airborne, stand-scale, and leaf-scale observations were made in relation to the major vegetation types [Sellers et al., 1995]. The eddy covariance system comprised a sonic anemometer mounted 27 m above the forest, a system for transferring air rapidly and coherently to a closed path, infrared gas analyzer and a computer with the Edinburgh EdiSol software. Over the measurement period, closure of the energy balance on a 24 hour basis was good: (H + λE)/(Rn - G - B - S) = 0.97. The midday Bowen ratio was typically in the range 1.0–2.5, with an average value of ∼1.9 in the first Intensive Field Campaign (IFCl) and 1.3–1.4 in IFC2 and IFC3. Daily ecosystem evapotranspiration from moss, understory, and trees followed daily net radiation. Mean half-hourly net ecosystem flux followed photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD) closely, reaching −9 μmol m−2 s−1 in June and August. The mean respiratory efflux on nights during which the atmosphere was well mixed (u*>0.4 m s−1) reached 6 μmol m−2s−1. The PPFD-saturated biotic CO2 assimilation reached 20 μmol; m−2 s−1 and showed little response to air temperature or vapor pressure deficit (VPD). Storage of CO2 in the air column at night did not account adequately for respiration on stable nights, so nighttime efflux was modeled for periods when u*<0.4 m s−1. There was a net gain of CO2 on most of the 120 days, but on 31 days of high temperature or low PPFD there was a net carbon loss. High PPFD promoted influx of CO2 by the foliage, whereas high temperatures reduced net CO2 influx through high respiration rates by the roots and soil microorganisms, leading to lower net uptake at high PPFD. Over the 120 day period, 95 g m−2 of C were stored (an average of 0.8 g m−2 d−1), and 237 mm of water evaporated (an average of 2 mm d−1).
Measuring hydraulic properties using a line source: I. Analytical expressions.

In situ measurement of soil hydraulic properties remains a challenge. This study presents new analytical expressions for estimation of soil hydraulic properties below a surface line source by means of multi-purpose time domain reflectometry (TDR) probes and existing quasi-analytical, steady-state solutions for infiltration from a surface line source. Inverse procedures are used to estimate the inverse macroscopic capillary length scale, a, and the hydraulic conductivity at saturation, K s , from pressure head (ψ), water storage (W), and conservative ionic tracer travel time (T) measured via multi-purpose TDR probes placed at several depths below a line source with constant flux of water. Soil water content at saturation, θ s , can also be estimated if prior information is available. The parameter and spatial sensitivities of each solution were calculated by means of sensitivity coefficients. The uniqueness of possible combinations of measurements to estimate α, K s , and θ s was tested by means of two-dimensional response surfaces. Significant correlation exists between K, and θ s , and thus it is not possible to estimate both K s and θ s by globally minimizing the objective function. Combination approaches with W (i.e., ψ and W, T and W, or ψ and W and T) give unique estimates of α and K, if either θ s is known or prior information on θ s is available.
Great Lakes Literacy Principles

[1] Lakes Superior, Huron, Michigan, Ontario, and Erie together form North America's Great Lakes, a region that contains 20% of the world's fresh surface water and is home to roughly one quarter of the U.S. population (Figure 1). Supporting a $4 billion sport fishing industry, plus $16 billion annually in boating, 1.5 million U.S. jobs, and $62 billion in annual wages directly, the Great Lakes form the backbone of a regional economy that is vital to the United States as a whole (seehttp://www.miseagrant.umich.edu/downloads/economy/11-708-Great-Lakes-Jobs.pdf). Yet the grandeur and importance of this freshwater resource are little understood, not only by people in the rest of the country but also by many in the region itself. To help address this lack of knowledge, the Centers for Ocean Sciences Education Excellence (COSEE) Great Lakes, supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, developed literacy principles for the Great Lakes to serve as a guide for education of students and the public. These “Great Lakes Literacy Principles” represent an understanding of the Great Lakes' influences on society and society's influences on the Great Lakes.
An Improved Stacked Multicell Converter with Fault Tolerant Capability Using Finite-Control-Set Model Predictive Control

The stacked multicell (SMC) converter suffers from low-frequency voltage fluctuations in the neutral point (NP), which gets substantially larger at specific operating conditions and affects the safe operation of the converter. This paper proposes an improved SMC (ISMC) converter to cope with this shortcoming. A finite control set model predictive control (FCS-MPC) strategy is designed to accurately track the output current and voltage balancing across the flying capacitors (FC). With this strategy, a fault-tolerant ability of the proposed converter is also presented. A post-fault reconfiguration of the controller is proposed to achieve FC voltage balancing under bidirectional switch faults. Simulation results under steady-state, dynamic, and faulty operating conditions justify the feasibility of the proposed converter.
A Low Complexity Beam Selection Method for MmWave Massive MIMO Systems

The levels of inter-user interference (IUI) usually vary due to the different geographical locations of users, but, most existing beam selection methods apply the same beam selection criteria for all users, which is detrimental to maintain an attractive trade-off between complexity and system performance. Considering the discrepancy of IUI comprehensively, a low complexity beam selection method for millimeter-wave massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems is proposed. Firstly, a candidate beam set (CBS) is constructed in light of the sparsity and power distribution of the beamspace channel, thereby all users are classified into non-interfering users (NIUs), low-interference users (LIUs) and high-interference users (HIUs). For NIUs, the beams with large power are selected from CBS under the magnitude maximization (MM) criterion; for LIUs, a novel MM criterion with a tabu list is designed, which can effectively tackle the drawback of assigning shared beams in traditional MM; for HIUs, the incremental algorithm based on the sum-rate maximization criterion is developed to find the optimal beams from CBS. Simulation results validate that the proposed method can achieve almost the same sum-rate performance as the existing methods with the lower computational complexity.
Communication Center Effectiveness: The Impact of Tutoring on Speech Performance

In this study, the researchers explore required public speaking tutoring in communication centers and the effect it has on students’ grades, speaking apprehension, and expected speech outcomes. Test and control group participants completed the Situational Communication Apprehension Measure after the completion of their persuasive speeches in a traditional public speaking course. Recorded speeches were also analyzed by the researchers. No significant difference was identified between the test and control group related to either communication apprehension or speech delivery. Students in the test g roup (those students attending required tutoring) did, however, have statistically higher scores related to organizational outcomes and final speech grades. Future directions of research and limitations are discussed.
Some effects of the background removal of interest in archaeological GPR prospecting

This contribution deals with the effect of the background removal procedure on GPR data for an inverse scattering algorithm funded on the Born Approximation in the simple case of a scalar two-dimensional geometry. The effect is examined with regard to both the problem of the extraction of scattered field data from the total field data and to the performances of the reconstruction approach. As it will be shown, the background removal amounts to a spatial filtering of the available reconstruction and, depending on the kind of target looked for, it can be very useful but also quite useless or even harmful.
Assimilation of GRACE Terrestrial Water Storage Data into a Land Surface Model: Results for the Mississippi River Basin

Abstract Assimilation of data from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) system of satellites yielded improved simulation of water storage and fluxes in the Mississippi River basin, as evaluated against independent measurements. The authors assimilated GRACE-derived monthly terrestrial water storage (TWS) anomalies for each of the four major subbasins of the Mississippi into the Catchment Land Surface Model (CLSM) using an ensemble Kalman smoother from January 2003 to May 2006. Compared with the open-loop CLSM simulation, assimilation estimates of groundwater variability exhibited enhanced skill with respect to measured groundwater in all four subbasins. Assimilation also significantly increased the correlation between simulated TWS and gauged river flow for all four subbasins and for the Mississippi River itself. In addition, model performance was evaluated for eight smaller watersheds within the Mississippi basin, all of which are smaller than the scale of GRACE observations. In seven of e.
A kind of image real-time enhance processing technology of visible light with low contrast

The effective distance of the optical imaging system based on CCD/CMOS is affected strongly by fog or haze on the border less travelled by or the sea level, so this paper aims to adopt an effective method to use near-infrared filter and digital image processing to increase the system effective distance. Firstly, this paper analyzes theoretically that the system has a longer visual distance in the near-infrared than that in the visible light in the low visibility condition, and makes clear that the visual distance of the system will increase to about 1.5 times as much as before. Secondly, given the border/ coastal surveillance having the characteristics of broad visual angle and the large distance between the observed targets, this paper works out a partially overlapped sub-block local histogram equalization algorithm, which will achieve the real-time image enhancement processing of beyond visual range optical imaging on the condition of enhancing the contrast and maintaining the image specifics. Thirdly, it has developed a real-time enhancement image processing system of beyond visual range photoelectric image with high-performance DSP and FPGA. And the observed distance of the system can realize more than two times as much as the visibility in the weather condition with the visibility is about 7 KM.
Acoustic 3D Shape Reconstruction of Zygomatic Bone for Non-Invasive Spatial Registration

Image-to-patient registration is an essential step in the overall image-guided surgery and determines the accuracy of precise surgery. Currently used registration methods, such as implanting titanium nails in the patient’s face, using occlusal splints or surface registration techniques based on soft tissues, etc., have their own problems such as invasiveness, high cost, or poor stability. Ultrasound imaging has the advantages of non-invasiveness and low cost, and facial bones are usually considered to have minimal deformation. Therefore, we hope to use ultrasound to non-invasively obtain facial bone surface features to complete the preoperative image-patient registration process. Therefore, we propose a technology for craniomaxillofacial surgery that segments and reconstructs 3D images from 2D ultrasound images obtained by ultrasound scanning of the zygomatic bone surface. In the segmentation module, we use nnU-Net with improved loss function and learning rate strategy to segment the zygomatic bone, achieving a Dice score of 0.8405. In the 3D reconstruction module, we propose a PNN algorithm with image downsampling that can quickly process data and a DSBezier algorithm that adds Bezier curves to fill voxels. The reconstruction results are registered with the head CBCT data, and the average residual can reach within 0.6 mm. The experimental results show that this system can accurately segment and reconstruct the zygomatic bone in three dimensions from ultrasound images.
Non-Foster Circuit Compensation for Piezoelectric Energy Harvesters

Piezoelectric energy harvesters (PEH) are transducers used for electric power generation from mechanical motion or vibration, usually modeled by power source, a resistance and a capacitance. The power transferred by the PEH can be maximized by matching its intrinsic output impedance with the load. However, because the low-frequency vibration, huge inductors are required for this purpose. Non-Fosters reactances can easily match impedances for a broad range of frequencies. This paper presents a non-Foster circuit based on a negative impedance converter for impedance matching on piezoelectric energy harvesters. The proposed circuit has been evaluated for a frequency range from 5.47 Hz to 100 Hz and the power generated has been measured on a resistive load ranging from 1 kΩ to 1 MΩ. Preliminary experimental results show an increase of 68% in power transferred to the load.
Sensitivity of the global ocean circulation to parameterizations of mesoscale tracer transports

Abstract The isopycnal transport parameterization of Gent and Mc Williams has been implemented in the GFDL ocean general circulation model, replacing the physically unjustifiable horizontal mixing of tracers. The effects of this parameterization are investigated in a global domain. A comparison of its results with those of the conventional horizontal diffusion shows substantial and significant improvements in several climatically important aspects of the ocean circulation. These improvements include a sharper main thermocline, cooler abyssal ocean, elimination of the Deacon cell as a tracer transport agent, zonally integrated meridional heat transport and surface heat fluxes in better agreement with observations, and better confinement of the locations where deep convection occurs. The sensitivity of the model to the magnitude of the horizontal and isopycnal diffusion coefficients is also studied, showing that the domain averages of potential temperature and salinity, the mass transport of the Antarctic C.
Compaction of granular quartz under hydrothermal conditions: Controlling mechanisms and grain boundary processes

[1] We report isostatic compaction experiments performed on granular quartz under hydrothermal conditions (3–129 μm of initial grain size, 300–600°C, 200 MPa of fluid pressure, and 25–100 MPa of effective pressure). From microstructural evidence, it was determined that, whereas microcracking controlled precompaction at room temperature, pressure solution was the main mechanism during hydrothermal compaction, although a role of microcracking could not be excluded entirely. Our mechanical data, together with theoretical pressure solution rate models, further indicated that pressure solution was controlled by interface kinetics, dissolution being the most likely rate-controlling mechanism. An empirical relation of the form = 10−7.8 (ϕ/ϕ0)10. 0σ3. 4d−1 exp (−105,000/RT) was fitted to our data to describe experimental compaction rates. Electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) analysis performed on one sample showed limited evidence for plastic deformation (Dauphine twinning and lattice bending) at grain contact points under high stress. Contact microstructures formed during compaction were studied using quartz single crystal discs or a mica plate as reference surfaces. This showed that, in all contacts, microstructures were rough, with a micrometer scale roughness. Many contacts also showed internal microcracking, and it is inferred that microcracking is likely an important mechanism for creating and maintaining rough contacts during quartz pressure solution, at least under the present experimental conditions. Extrapolation of our empirical equation for compaction rates to natural conditions is consistent with previous observations that, during burial and diagenesis of a sandstone, pressure solution starts to operate at depths of about ∼1.5–2 km, becoming the dominant compaction mechanism at depths greater than ∼2.5–3 km. The extrapolation gives good agreement with porosity-depth trends reported for natural, arenitic sandstones.
SSL4EO-S12: A large-scale multimodal, multitemporal dataset for self-supervised learning in Earth observation [Software and Data Sets]

Self-supervised pretraining bears the potential to generate expressive representations from large-scale Earth observation (EO) data without human annotation. However, most existing pretraining in the field is based on ImageNet or medium-sized, labeled remote sensing (RS) datasets. In this article, we share an unlabeled dataset Self-Supervised Learning for Earth Observation-Sentinel-1/2 (SSL4EO-S12) to assemble a large-scale, global, multimodal, and multiseasonal corpus of satellite imagery. We demonstrate SSL4EO-S12 to succeed in self-supervised pretraining for a set of representative methods: momentum contrast (MoCo), self-distillation with no labels (DINO), masked autoencoders (MAE), and data2vec, and multiple downstream applications, including scene classification, semantic segmentation, and change detection. Our benchmark results prove the effectiveness of SSL4EO-S12 compared to existing datasets. The dataset, related source code, and pretrained models are available at https://github.com/zhu-xlab/SSL4EO-S12.