Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The driving mechanism of plate tectonics: Relation to age of the lithosphere at trenches

Sea-floor age-depth and age-trench-depth relations suggest that the oceanic lithosphere continues to thicken and subside with age beyond 80 Ma. If so, slab-pull (FS) and ridge-push (FR) forces can be calculated from the age of the sea floor at trenches (t), and if the shear stress acting on the base of the plate increases with absolute velocity (νa), the approximate force balance equation is Dva2=Svat32+Rt where D, S and R are constants related to drag, slab pull and ridge push, respectively. The relation between velocity and age is va2=S′vat12+R′ We have tested this model by linear regression using rate and age data for 15 trenches: va(mm/a)2=(9.20±.32)vat12+(26±250) The strength of this correlation (r² = 0.98) is strong evidence in favor of the validity of this simple model. These results suggest that ridge push is just sufficient to overcome drag at the base of the plate, and does not contribute significantly to the motions of oceanic plates, though the value of R′ is consistent with the motions of plates not attached to subducted slabs.
Relationships between the extant Anomalodesmata: a cladistic test

Abstract Although ancient anomalodesmatans were apparently abundant shallow and deep burrowers, in Recent seas the subclass comprises some of the most specialized rarest of all bivalves. The morphological adaptations associated with diverse life habits has persistently frustrated attempts to achieve a widely accepted scheme for the relationships between extant families. A cladistic analysis, using 43 informative anatomical and shell characters for each of the extant anomalodesmatan families has produced a single, reasonably robust tree which is in broad, albeit imperfect, agreement with the known fossil record of the subclass. This total evidence tree places the Pandoridae, Lyonsiidae, Cleidothaeridae and Myochamidae, and also the Thraciidae, Periplomatidae and Laternulidae in monophyletic groups. Carnivory appears diphyletic, with the Parilimyidae separated from the ‘septibranch’ families (Cuspidariidae, Verticordiidae, Lyonsiellidae and Poromyidae) which form a monophyletic group. The enigmatic tube-dwelling Clavagellidae appear as a sister group to the ‘septibranchs. ’. Re-analysis of the data matrix using only those 18 characters which could be socred from shell characters alone, produced a tree which contradicted the total evidence tree rather than producing a poorly resolved version. The degree of convergence shown by shell characters make it, at least at present, difficult to include the extinct anomalodesmatan families in a cladistic analysis.
The Mediating Role of Attitude towards Digital Technology in the Relationship between Digital Citizenship and Motivation in Social Studies Course

The aim of this study is to clarify the mediating role of attitudes towards digital technology in the relationship between digital citizenship in social studies class and motivation, and to provide an important perspective for educators. The research was conducted using a correlational survey model to reveal the relationships between digital citizenship in social studies class, motivation, and attitudes towards digital technology. The study group consisted of 409 sixth and seventh-grade students attending a public school affiliated with the Ministry of National Education in Oltu district, Erzurum, during the 2022-2023 academic year. The sample size was determined using disproportionate stratified sampling technique, with a sufficiency level of 95% confidence, calculated as a minimum of 374. Accordingly, the target was to reach 420 students. However, due to some missing data during the data collection process, data from 409 students were used. After eliminating 21 data with outlier characteristics, 388 valid data were used for the analysis. Of the participating students, 212 (51.8%) were male, and 197 (48.2%) were female. The Digital Citizenship Scale, Social Studies Class Motivation Scale, and Attitudes Towards Digital Technology Scale were used for data collection in the study. Descriptive statistics, including means and coefficients, were used for data analysis. The data collected in the study were analyzed using SPSS 20 and Lisrel 8.8 software packages. The relationships between digital citizenship, motivation in social studies class, and attitudes towards digital technology were tested using Structural Equation Modeling. The study found that attitudes towards digital technology play a significant partial mediating role in the relationship between digital citizenship and motivation in social studies class.
The chemical development of a hypersaline coastal basin in the High Arctic

We investigated a hypersaline, seasonally isolated marine basin (SIMB) in the Canadian High Arctic to elucidate the role of brine rejection, tidal forcing, and groundwater input over the formation of hypersalinity. Analyses of physical parameters and seasonal sampling of ionic and isotopic composition were carried out on a coastal basin near Shellabear Point, Melville Island, Northwest Territories (75°N, 113°W). Observations reveal daily and seasonal variability in the water column due to a seasonal tidal connection during the ice‐free season, which lasts substantially longer than the period of freshwater inflow from the catchment. An ice formation model of the volume of brine rejected from surface ice formed from marine water indicates that rapid saline enrichment of the basin due to ice formation is possible from tidally replenished marine water, and that the current hypersalinity may have formed in less than a decade. Modeled isotopic composition of brines are consistent with observations and provide an alternative to freshwater isotopic dilution suggested by other workers. A tidal connection is a critical consideration in lake evolution, and many hypersaline polar lakes could have developed their current chemical composition before full marine isolation. By contrast, in some coastal lakes, marine stratification caused by ice shelves before isolation provides a setting for minimal brine formation and subsequent meromictic conditions to develop. Hence, the marine setting at the time of isolation represents a key factor in explaining divergent lake chemical evolution in the High Arctic.
Contribution of lakes in sustaining the Sahara greening during the mid-Holocene

Abstract. The climate impact contribution of lakes to sustain the Green Sahara in the mid-Holocene (MH, 6000 years ago) is still under debate. To assess the lake-induced climate response over North Africa, we investigated the roles of western Sahara lakes and Megalake Chad using reconstructions of MH Sahara lake maps as surface boundary conditions for the isotope-enabled atmospheric model MIROC5-iso. Our results show that the western Sahara lakes pushed the West African monsoon northward and extended it eastward by expanding Megalake Chad. This lake–climate impact was caused by the cyclonic circulation response related to the weakened African Easterly Jet and enhanced Tropical Easterly Jet. According to the Budyko aridity index, the northwestern Sahara climate region shifted from hyper-arid to arid or semi-arid with the lake expansion. Moreover, precipitation scarcity could have been reduced by up to 13 % to sustain the semi-humid conditions. Such lake–climate impacts could alleviate Sahara aridity, relying on lake positions in the monsoon regions. Our findings are promising for understanding the contribution of lakes to sustaining the Green Sahara.
Migration methods for imaging different‐order multiples

Multiples contain valuable information about the subsurface, and if properly migrated can provide a wider illumination of the subsurface compared to imaging with VSP primary reflections. In this paper we review three different methods for migrating multiples. The first method is model‐based, and it is more sensitive to velocity errors than primary migration; the second method uses a semi‐natural Green's function for migrating multiples, where part of the traveltimes are computed from the velocity model, and part of the traveltimes (i.e., natural traveltimes) are picked from the data to construct the imaging condition for multiples; the third method uses cross‐correlation of traces. The last two methods are preferred in the sense that they are significantly less sensitive to velocity errors and statics because they use “natural data” to construct part of the migration imaging conditions. Compared with the interferometric (i.e., crosscorrelation) imaging method the semi‐natural Green's function method is more computationally efficient and is sometimes less prone to migration artifacts.
Mechanisms of ginseng in pancreatic cancer metastasis

It has been shown that ginsenosides can inhibit proliferation, migration, and invasion of pancreatic cancer (PC) cells, and promote apoptosis of PC cells. However, the potential mechanisms of ginseng in treating PC metastasis (PCM) have not been fully elucidated. In this study, we employed an integrated bioinformatics approach of network pharmacology analysis. By selecting common targets of diseases and drugs, a drug-component-target-disease network was constructed to analyze the biological functions and signaling pathways involved in the targets. A total of 6 PC samples were includedd, which were divided into primary PC group (PANC-1, n=3) and metastatic PC group. A total of 9263 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and 14 PC target genes were identified. According to the network pharmacology analysis, we found that ginsenoside Rg3 was associated with the treatment of PCM and identified 6 potential targets. Among them, CD44, EGFR, KRAS, and PRNP were the main DEGs related to the treatment of PC by ginsenoside Rg3. These genes were mainly enriched in the Proteoglycans in Cancer pathway, and KRAS, EGFR, and CD44 were upregulated in the pathway, which may be affected by the ginsenoside Rg3. This provides a new direction for further research on the mechanisms of ginseng in PCM.
Unsupervised Mixture Models on the Edge for Smart Energy Consumption Segmentation with Feature Saliency

Smart meter datasets have recently transitioned from monthly intervals to one-second granularity, yielding invaluable insights for diverse metering functions. Clustering analysis, a fundamental data mining technique, is extensively applied to discern unique energy consumption patterns. However, the advent of high-resolution smart meter data brings forth formidable challenges, including non-Gaussian data distributions, unknown cluster counts, and varying feature importance within high-dimensional spaces. This article introduces an innovative learning framework integrating the expectation-maximization algorithm with the minimum message length criterion. This unified approach enables concurrent feature and model selection, finely tuned for the proposed bounded asymmetric generalized Gaussian mixture model with feature saliency. Our experiments aim to replicate an efficient smart meter data analysis scenario by incorporating three distinct feature extraction methods. We rigorously validate the clustering efficacy of our proposed algorithm against several state-of-the-art approaches, employing diverse performance metrics across synthetic and real smart meter datasets. The clusters that we identify effectively highlight variations in residential energy consumption, furnishing utility companies with actionable insights for targeted demand reduction efforts. Moreover, we demonstrate our method’s robustness and real-world applicability by harnessing Concordia’s High-Performance Computing infrastructure. This facilitates efficient energy pattern characterization, particularly within smart meter environments involving edge cloud computing. Finally, we emphasize that our proposed mixture model outperforms three other models in this paper’s comparative study. We achieve superior performance compared to the non-bounded variant of the proposed mixture model by an average percentage improvement of 7.828%.
Assessing a Medication Safety and Disposal Educational Program using the Health Belief Model

Abstract Background: Self-medication practices continue to grow due to reclassification of prescription to OTC status and self-care information on the internet, however unintended injuries and inappropriate use of medications continue to challenge healthcare providers during the provision of patient care. Pharmacists have an integral role in pharmacovigilance and patient education activities to ensure safe medication use, storage, and disposal practices. Objectives: The objective of this medication safety and disposal educational program was to provide comprehensive informational support to the community coupled with an assessment using the Health Belief Model (HBM) to gauge participants’ perceived behavior change. Methods: The HBM was selected to assess the understanding of the community members’ benefits and barriers to safe medication practices. The HBM posits that health behaviors are influenced by perceptions of a diseases’ severity, perceived susceptibility, perceived barriers to health practices, perceived benefits of health practices, self-efficacy, and cues to action. An 8 item pre/post survey following the HBM constructs was developed which used a 5 point Likert scale. Results: A total of 25 senior participants attended the educational program. Twenty-three pre/post surveys were completed (RR=92%). Five items revealed a statistically significant change from pre to post-educational content including understanding risk of herbal/OTC products (p=0.021), improved awareness of medication disposal methods (p=0.044), comprehension of OTC ‘Drug Facts’ information (p=0.004), understanding OTC label information to prevent medication interactions and side effects (p=0.008), and routinely reviewing expiration dates on medications and disposing of these properly (p=0.019). Conclusion: This study suggests a comprehensive approach which covers a wide range of medication safety topics and disposal practices can successfully improve the knowledge and skill of community participants and potentially improve medication harm reduction practices.
Evidence for Using Lagged Climate Indices to Forecast Australian Seasonal Rainfall

AbstractLagged oceanic and atmospheric climate indices are potentially useful predictors of seasonal rainfall totals. A rigorous Bayesian joint probability modeling approach is applied to find the cross-validation predictive densities of gridded Australian seasonal rainfall totals using lagged climate indices as predictors over the period of 1950–2009. The evidence supporting the use of each climate index as a predictor of seasonal rainfall is quantified by the pseudo-Bayes factor based on cross-validation predictive densities. The evidence strongly supports the use of climate indices from the Pacific region with weaker, but positive, evidence for the use of climate indices from the Indian region and the extratropical region. The spatial structure and seasonal variation of the evidence for each climate index is mapped and compared. Spatially, the strongest supporting evidence is found for forecasting in northern and eastern Australia. Seasonally, the strongest evidence is found from August–October to Nove.
Efficient and robust global motion estimation for automatic target recognition

In the automatic target recognition with complex background, the method of detecting motion target using the global motion estimation (GME) in image sequences is often proposed. Due to the possible presences of differently moving foreground objects and other sources of distortions, improvement of robustness and preciseness of GME is very difficult. Therefore the method of GME based on the M-estimators' formulation with direct multi-resolution is proposed in our paper. The M-estimators' formulation is not only executed in gradient descent at each level of the pyramid, but also applied in initial translation estimation with minimal SSD at the coarsest level, which assures the convergence of the subsequent gradient descent algorithm. Comparative experiments are performed to validate the performance of the proposed algorithm. The effectiveness and improvements can be observed from the comparisons.
The Idea of Pakistan

Stephen Cohen updates his critically acclaimed book with a discerning view of significant recent events in the region, particularly the devastating earthquake in Kashmir and its after affects. The quake killed over 70,000 people and left another 3 million homeless in one of the most remote, inhospitable parts of the world. Cohen observes how the catastrophic event has affected Pakistan's political, military, and economic structures, as well as its relationships with other countries. Praise for the previous edition: "A lucid, penetrating and brilliantly constructed book on the state and nation of Pakistan. Cohen, an old South Asia hand, brings to the fore all his knowledge and expertise of one of America's most important allies in the war against terror. " --Choice "Cohen's facts are indisputable, his logic cold and clear, and his omissions deliberate and meaningful. " --Foreign Affairs "A singularly successful effort to explain Pakistan.The intellectual power and rare insight with which the book breaks through the complexity of the subject rivals that of classics that have explained other societies posing a comparable challenge to understanding. " --Middle East Journal "Cohen knows Pakistan well and his analysis is very perceptive. " --Newsline (Karachi, Pakistan) "A personal, perceptive, and policy-oriented study of Pakistan. This is an important work, by a leading expert of South Asia. " --Economic and Political Weekly (India) Book Review "[Cohen's] survey of how the country has developed and why it is at the crossroads it is now is most insightful and useful. A first class primer and more as I commence my work. " --David B. Collins, high commissioner of Canada, Islamabad
Discoaster zonation of the Miocene of the Kutei Basin, East Kalimantan, Indonesia (Mahakam Delta Offshore)

Thirteen time-stratigraphic associations of the nannofossil Discoaster have been defined and used in the Miocene Kutei Basin of eastern Borneo to establish a regional stratigraphic framework. The methodology used is discussed and the fossils employed are figured and annotated. Their aid in resolving the timing, stages and details of delta construction is presented graphically.
Design and Analysis of Quadratic Buck Converter Based on the Reduced Redundant Power Processing

Due to the growing interest in the production of renewable energy sources, there is a great effort to improve the performance of these systems. Therefore, dc/dc converters play a fundamental role, being a relevant research topic for the power industry, which aims to increase the energy efficiency of these systems. There is currently a significant number of techniques or strategies that aim to provide high efficiencies to dc/dc converters. This article analyzes a buck converter with quadratic gain and differential output voltage based on a technique for the reduction of redundant power processing. The proposed converter consists of two conventional buck converters with a storage buffer element and a three-port structure, where there is a path between the first converter and the load. The resulting converter exhibits low voltage stress on the switching elements and improves the efficiency of the power transference process. In addition, a theoretical design methodology, the experimental validation and analysis of efficiency in an experimental prototype, is presented.
Multicyclic Streams and the Equilibrium Theory of Grade

It is proposed to discuss the suggestion of Strahler (1950, 1952a) that erosional slopes may be regarded as open systems. This generalization enables the equilibrium theory of stream grading to be applied to a wider class of streams than one composed solely of those in which an over-all balance is realized between load supplied and load transported. In particular, it provides for the application of the classical theory of stream grading to the individual segments of multicyclic streams.
A near real-time dual-band-spatial approach to determine the source of increased radiance from closely spaced active volcanoes in coarse resolution satellite data

Bezymianny and Kliuchevskoi volcanoes (Kamchatka) present a danger as both inject ash into North Pacific air routes. Current automated monitoring algorithms do not distinguish them in real time due to their mutual proximity (10 km) and poor geolocation accuracy of Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data. Contrasting mid- and thermal infrared volcanic radiances are influenced by (1) differences in temperature and eruptive style of Bezymianny's andesite and Kliuchevskoi's basalt and (2) different temperatures of the non-volcanic portion of pixels located over their summits, due to different elevations. Data from 571 AVHRR images show the latter is more significant. Discriminant function analysis using summit and regional band 4 pixel-integrated radiant temperatures (pirT) correctly identifies the source volcano of a thermal anomaly in 89% of cases. Weather permitting, a spatial component can be added, leading to improved accuracy. The approach used here can also be applied at other closely spaced volcanoes with substantially different summit elevations.
ZONASI DAERAH RAWAN KEBAKARAN HUTAN DAN LAHAN DI KABUPATEN KUBU RAYA PROVINSI KALIMANTAN BARAT Zoning Area of Forest Fire in Kubu Raya District of West Kalimantan

Kubu Raya district has common place of forest fire every dry season. Based from Unit Penanggulangan Hutan dan Lahan (UPKHL) of forestry of Ministry West Kalimantan Province data up to October 2013, there is 349 hotspots in Kabupaten Kubu Raya. Kubu Raya indeed susceptible of forest fires, it is cause by the terrain that dominated by peatlands that easily combusted. The purpose of this research is to identified and maping forest fire spot in Kubu Raya district based on parameter analysis of peat depth, elevation and land cover. Forest fire zone in Kubu Raya district identified using Geographic Information System application is done overlaying land cover data, elevation and peat depth wich has scoring. After analyzed, data suitable with danger level of spot/zone that base of combination divided into 5 level wich is save, low, medium, high and very high. The result of this analysis shown that Kubu Raya district area is 829,969.17 Ha, consist of 92,804,54 Ha (11.18%) very high, 349,681.47 Ha (42,13%) high zone, 339,352.39 Ha (40.8% ) medium zone, 38,271.98 Ha (4.61% ) low zone and 9,858.79 Ha (1.19%) save zone.
Plug‐and‐play algorithms for convex non‐convex regularization: Convergence analysis and applications

When the sparse regularizer is convex and its proximal operator has a closed‐form, first‐order iterative algorithms based on proximal operators can effectively solve the sparse optimization problems. Recently, plug‐and‐play (PnP) algorithms have achieved significant success by incorporating advanced denoisers to replace the proximal operators in iterative algorithms. However, convex sparse regularizers such as the ℓ1$$ {\ell}_1 $$ ‐norm tend to underestimate the large values within the sparse solutions. In contrast, the convex non‐convex (CNC) sparse regularization enables the non‐convex regularizer while preserving the convexity of the objective function. In this paper, we propose several PnP algorithms for solving the CNC sparse regularization model and discuss their convergence properties. Specifically, we first derive the proximal operator for CNC sparse regularization in iterative form and subsequently integrate it with several first‐order algorithms to yield different PnP algorithms. Then, based on the monotone operator theory, we prove that the proposed PnP algorithms are convergent under the condition that the data‐fidelity term is strongly convex and the residuals of the denoisers are contractive. We also emphasized the significance of strong convexity in the data‐fidelity term for the CNC sparse regularization model. Additionally, we demonstrate the superiority of the proposed PnP algorithms through extensive image restoration tasks.