Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Physically-based modelling of granular flows with Open Source GIS

Abstract. Computer models, in combination with Geographic Information Sciences (GIS), play an important role in up-to-date studies of travel distance, impact area, velocity or energy of granular flows (e.g. snow or rock avalanches, flows of debris or mud). Simple empirical-statistical relationships or mass point models are frequently applied in GIS-based modelling environments. However, they are only appropriate for rough overviews at the regional scale. In detail, granular flows are highly complex processes and physically-based, distributed models are required for detailed studies of travel distance, velocity, and energy of such phenomena. One of the most advanced theories for understanding and modelling granular flows is the Savage-Hutter type model, a system of differential equations based on the conservation of mass and momentum. The equations have been solved for a number of idealized topographies, but only few attempts to find a solution for arbitrary topography or to integrate the model with GIS are known up to now. The work presented is understood as an initiative to integrate a fully physically-based model for the motion of granular flows, based on the extended Savage-Hutter theory, with GRASS, an Open Source GIS software package. The potentials of the model are highlighted, employing the Val Pola Rock Avalanche (Northern Italy, 1987) as the test event, and the limitations as well as the most urging needs for further research are discussed.
The probabilistic analysis of a greedy satisfiability algorithm

On input a random 3-CNF formula of clauses-to-variables ratio r3 applies repeatedly the following simple heuristic: Set to True a literal that appears in the maximum number of clauses, irrespective of their size and the number of occurrences of the negation of the literal (ties are broken randomly; 1-clauses when they appear get priority). We prove that for r3 < 3.42 this heuristic succeeds with probability asymptotically bounded away from zero. Previously, heuristics of increasing sophistication were shown to succeed for r3 < 3.26. We improve up to r3 < 3.52 by further exploiting the degree of the negation of the evaluated to True literal. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg. , 2006
The geological map of Sardinia (Italy) at 1:250,000 scale

ABSTRACT Over the last 25 years the Italian national geological mapping program of the Italian Geological Survey (CARG Project, italian: Progetto Carta Geologica) at 1:50,000 scale has led to significant improvements in the geological knowledge for the Island of Sardinia (Italy). As a result, about one half of the island now is covered by new geological maps with 1:10,000–1:25,000 accuracy and geological maps at the 1:50,000 scale whose explanatory notes are available electronically. At the beginning of the CARG Project a geological map for Sardinia Island at 1:200,000 scale was published [Carmignani, L. (1996). Carta Geologica della Sardegna (1:200.000). Servizio Geologico Nazionale, Regione Autonoma della Sardegna], summarizing all the geological information available at that time, and a book with explanatory notes for the map was later published [Carmignani, L. , Oggiano, G. , Barca, S. , Conti, P., Salvadori, I. , Eltrudis, … Pasci, S. (2001). Geologia della Sardegna: Note Illustrative della Carta Geologica della Sardegna in scala 1:200.000, Memorie Descrittive della Carta Geologica d'Italia (Vol. 60). Roma: Servizio Geologico d'Italia, 283 pp]. The enclosed Geological map of Sardinia at 1:250,000 scale incorporates all maps of the CARG Project, unpublished author studies and recently published maps and represents the most updated synthesis of an area characterised by a complex geological evolution that, with few exceptions, can be considered continuous during the last 540 Ma. The main events that influenced the geology of the island are the Variscan orogen that deeply involved the passive margin of North Gondwana and then the complex episodes that occurred in the present-day Mediterranean area after the accretion of Pangea up to the opening of the Tyrrhenian basin.
Improved estimation of photochemical reflectance index using MODIS ocean bands

The photochemical reflectance index (PRI) derived from narrow bands reflectance at 531 and 570 nm is related to the light use efficiency (LUE) of terrestrial vegetation. However, the satellite sensor that has these two spectral bands has not existed so far. Therefore, it is necessary to substitute PRI using spectral bands of current satellite sensors. In this study, first we investigated the effectiveness of PRI alternatives by the band combination and the multiple regression analyses that used the MODIS land and ocean band reflectance simulated from ground observation data. In the band combination analysis, it was possible to substitute PRI when each growth stage of vegetation was separately analyzed. But, it was difficult to substitute PRI by a single equation in all growth stages of vegetation. In the multiple regression analysis, it was possible to substitute PRI by using the logarithms of MODIS land and ocean band reflectance even when all growth stages of vegetation were analyzed at the same time. Second we verified accuracy of alternative by the multiple regression analysis that used the logarithm of MODIS ocean band reflectance to apply the different observation periods and sites data. It was found that the error was 0.011 in RMSE and this corresponds to 10% error of LUE. Finally we applied this PRI alternative to the actual MODIS. It was possible to show the changes of the PRI alternative by spatial pattern and land surface cover types.
Scale, Direction, and Pattern in Riparian Vegetation-Environment Relationships

Abstract Because of the linear nature of riparian environments, direction and scale are closely linked. Cross-valley variation in mountain stream valleys is typically seen on a scale of meters, while variation up- and down-valley may be measured in kilometers. As a result, environmental factors at transverse scale (varying within a cross section) and at longitudinal scale (varying between cross sections) impose different patterns on vegetation. This paper compares these scale influences on the composition of woody riparian vegetation in southern California. Using cover data from 37 valley cross sections in the Transverse Ranges, and dividing these into four-meter segments, I determine segment values for the longitudinal-scale variables of elevation, years since burning, aspect, valley width and lithology, and for the transverse-scale variables of water-table depth, unit stream power (for the 20-year flood), and substrate particle size. The influence of variables at these contrasting scales on the vegetati.
DECISION MAKING AND STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT

Strategic Environmental Assessment aims to incorporate environmental and sustainability considerations into strategic decision making processes, such as the formulation of policies, plans and programmes. In order to be effective, the assessment must take the real decision making process as the departure point. Existing SEA approaches are frequently tailored after an EIA model conceived from a rational perspective on decision making. However, there are good reasons to assume that most strategic decision making processes are characterised by a bounded rationality. Furthermore, the predictability of environmental consequences generally becomes weaker at strategic levels than at the project level and complexity increases in terms of the numbers of actors involved in the decision. This paper examines various theoretical perspectives to decision making and discusses the implications for decision support in general and SEA in particular. The authors argue that the design of the SEA must be more sensitive to the real characteristics of the decision making context.
Study of polar thin ice clouds and aerosols seen by CloudSat and CALIPSO during midwinter 2007

[1] Data sets from CloudSat radar reflectivity and CALIPSO lidar backscattering measurements provide a new regard on Arctic and Antarctic winter cloud systems, as well as on the way aerosols determine their formation and evolution. Especially, links between the cloud ice crystal size and the surrounding aerosol field may be further investigated. In this study, the satellite observations are used to heuristically separate polar thin ice clouds into two crystal size categories, and an aerosol index based on the attenuated backscattering and color ratio of the sampled volumes is used for identifying haze in cloud-free regions. Statistics from 386 Arctic satellite overpasses during January 2007 and from 379 overpasses over Antarctica during July 2007 reveal that sectors with the highest proportion of thin ice clouds having large ice crystals at their top are those for which the aerosol index is highest. Moreover, a weak but significant correlation between the cloud top ice effective radius and the above-cloud aerosol index suggests that more polluted clouds tend to have higher ice effective radius, in 10 of the 11 sectors investigated. These results are interpreted in terms of a sulphate-induced freezing inhibition effect.
Deep Learning-Based Method for Vision-Guided Robotic Grasping of Unknown Objects

Collaborative robots must operate safely and efficiently in ever-changing unstructured environments, grasping and manipulating many different objects. Artificial vision has proved to be collaborative robots’ ideal sensing technology and it is widely used for identifying the objects to manipulate and for detecting their optimal grasping. One of the main drawbacks of state of the art robotic vision systems is the long training needed for teaching the identification and optimal grasps of each object, which leads to a strong reduction of the robot productivity and overall operating flexibility. To overcome such limit, we propose an engineering method, based on deep learning techniques, for the detection of the robotic grasps of unknown objects in an unstructured environment, which should enable collaborative robots to autonomously generate grasping strategies without the need of training and programming. A novel loss function for the training of the grasp prediction network has been developed and proved to work well also with low resolution 2-D images, then allowing the use of a single, smaller and low cost camera, that can be better integrated in robotic end-effectors. Despite the availability of less information (resolution and depth) a 75% of accuracy has been achieved on the Cornell data set and it is shown that our implementation of the loss function does not suffer of the common problems reported in literature. The system has been implemented using the ROS framework and tested on a Baxter collaborative robot.
Impact of interfacial tension on residual CO2 clusters in porous sandstone

We develop a numerical simulation that uses the lattice Boltzmann method to directly calculate the characteristics of residual nonwetting‐phase clusters to quantify capillary trapping mechanisms in real sandstone. For this purpose, a digital‐rock‐pore model reconstructed from micro‐CT‐scanned images of Berea sandstone is filtered and segmented into a binary file. The residual‐cluster distribution is generated following simulation of the drainage and imbibition processes. The characteristics of the residual cluster in terms of size distribution, major length, interfacial area, and sphericity are investigated under conditions of different interfacial tension (IFT). Our results indicate that high interfacial tension increases the residual saturation and leads to a large size distribution of residual clusters. However, low interfacial tension results in a larger interfacial area, which is beneficial for dissolution and reaction processes during geological carbon storage. Analysis of the force balance acting on the residual clusters demonstrates that trapping stability is higher in high interfacial tension case, and the interfacial tension should be a controlling factor for the trapping stability in addition to the pore geometry and connectivity. The proposed numerical method can handle the complex displacement of multicomponent systems in porous media. By using this method, we can obtain residual‐cluster distributions under different conditions for optimizing the storage capacity of carbon‐storage projects.
On the Long-Term Climate Memory in the Surface Air Temperature Records over Antarctica: A Nonnegligible Factor for Trend Evaluation

AbstractIn this study, observed temperature records of 12 stations from Antarctica island, coastline, and continental areas are analyzed by means of detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA). After Monte Carlo significance tests, different long-term climate memory (LTM) behaviors are found: temperatures from coastal and island stations are characterized by significant long-term climate memory whereas temperatures over the Antarctic continent behave more like white noise, except for the Byrd station, which is located in the West Antarctica. It is argued that the emergence of LTM may be dominated by the interactions between local weather system and external slow-varying systems (ocean), and therefore the different LTM behaviors between temperatures over the Byrd station and that over other continental stations can be considered as a reflection of the different climatic environments between West and East Antarctica. By calculating the trend significance with the effect of LTM taken into account, and further compa.
Association between psychosocial work-related factors at midlife and arterial stiffness at older age in a prospective cohort of 1736 white-collar workers

Objective Arterial stiffness and exposure to psychosocial work-related factors increase the risk of developing cardiovascular disease. However, little is known about the relationship between psychosocial work-related factors and arterial stiffness. We aimed to examine this relationship. Design Prospective cohort study. Setting Public organisations in Quebec City, Canada. Participants The study included 1736 white-collar workers (women 52%) from 19 public organisations. Primary and secondary outcome measures Association between psychosocial work-related factors from the job strain and effort–reward imbalance (ERI) models assessed at study baseline (1999–2001) with validated instruments and arterial stiffness assessed using carotid–femoral pulse wave velocity at follow-up, on average 16 years later (2015–2018). Generalised estimating equations were used to estimate differences in arterial stiffness between exposed and unexposed participants. Subgroup analyses according to sex, age, blood pressure (BP), cardiovascular risk score and employment status were conducted. Results Among participants with high diastolic BP (≥90 mm Hg) at baseline, aged 47 on average, those exposed to high job strain had higher arterial stiffness (1.38 m/s (95% CI: 0.57 to 2.19)) at follow-up, 16 years later, following adjustment for a large set of potential confounders. The trend was similar in participants with high systolic BP (≥140 mm Hg) exposed to high job strain (0.84 m/s (95% CI: −0.35 to 2.03)). No association was observed for ERI in the total sample and counterintuitive associations were observed in subgroup analyses. Conclusions Job strain may have a long-term deleterious effect on arterial stiffness in people with high BP. Interventions at midlife to reduce job strain may mitigate arterial stiffness progression.
Control on the emplacement of the andesite lava dome of the Soufriere Hills volcano, Montserrat by degassing‐induced crystallization

Lava solidification is controlled by two mechanisms: external cooling and gas exsolution, the latter inducing crystallization due to increasing liquidus temperature. The andesite lava dome of the Soufriere Hills Volcano, Montserrat, is an extrusion dominated by crystallization caused by gas exsolution where cooling is unimportant in controlling emplacement. In the magma chamber the magma has an estimated viscosity of 7 × 106 Pa s. During ascent, gas exsolution caused the magma to extrude in a highly crystalline state, with only 5–15% residual melt, viscosities in the range 1013–1014 Pa s and mechanical strength > 1 MPa. Deformation can be heterogeneous with extrusion along shear zones. Rheological stiffening in the upper conduit also causes large overpressures, shallow seismicity, and cyclic patterns of dome extrusion. Gas‐rich porphyritic andesites tend to be the least mobile kind of lava, because transition from magma into hot crystalline material was reached during ascent.
Herbaceous-Layer Community Dynamics along a Harvest-Intensity Gradient after 50 Years of Consistent Management

In 1958, a demonstrational cutting trial totaling 22.2 ha was established in a northern hardwood forest in Alberta, MI. Eight different treatments were installed, including four diameter-limit treatments (56 cm, 41 cm, 30 cm, and 13 cm), three single-tree selection treatments with residual basal areas of 21 m2·ha–1, 16 m2·ha–1, and 11 m2·ha–1, and an uncut control. Within each treatment, a 0.4-ha permanent plot was established and subdivided into 0.04-ha square subplots. Harvests have been implemented every ten years with the most recent harvest occurring during the winter of 2008 - 2009. We quantified ground layer vegetation response before and after the most recent harvest. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling (NMS) ordination showed a very distinct separation between the most intensive management treatment (13-cm diameter-limit treatment) and the uncut control. Compositionally, the diameter-limit treatments moved with greater directionality and magnitude towards the 13-cm diameter-limit treatment following harvest, while compositional change in the residual basal area treatments was less pronounced and lacked strong directionality. Herbaceous species percent cover generally decreased with increasing residual overstory basal area across treatments. Weedy and early successional species were most abundant under lower residual basal area and diameter-limit treatments. Results based on 50 years of continuous management suggest that diameter-limit harvests likely have a greater impact on the herbaceous community than single-tree selection or no management.
The molecular basis for selective assembly of the UBAP1-containing endosome-specific ESCRT-I complex

ABSTRACT ESCRT-I is essential for the multivesicular body (MVB) sorting of ubiquitylated cargo such as epidermal growth factor receptor, as well as for several cellular functions, such as cell division and retroviral budding. ESCRT-I has four subunits; TSG101, VPS28, VPS37 and MVB12. There are several members of VPS37 and MVB12 families in mammalian cells, and their differential incorporation into ESCRT-I could provide function-specific variants of the complex. However, it remains unclear whether these different forms of VPS37 and MVB12 combine randomly or generate selective pairings within ESCRT-I, and what the mechanistic basis for such pairing would be. Here, we show that the incorporation of two MVB12 members, UBAP1 and MVB12A, into ESCRT-I is highly selective with respect to their VPS37 partners. We map the region mediating selective assembly of UBAP1–VPS37A to the core ESCRT-I-binding domain of VPS37A. In contrast, selective integration of UBAP1 requires both the minimal ESCRT-I-binding region and a neighbouring predicted helix. The biochemical specificity in ESCRT-I assembly is matched by functional specialisation as siRNA-mediated depletion of UBAP1, but not MVB12A and MVB12B, disrupts ubiquitin-dependent sorting at the MVB.
A Novel Chromatographic Method Allows On-line Reanalysis of the Proteome*S⃞

Liquid chromatography combined with electrospray ionization is widely used for direct analysis of polar and labile molecules by LCMS. The on-line coupling in LCMS is a major strength but also causes a principal limitation that each eluting analyte has to be analyzed immediately and is not available for detailed interrogation after the LCMS run. Here we developed a new chromatographic strategy, which removes this limitation. After column separation the flow is split, one portion is analyzed directly, and the other is diverted to a capture capillary. After the direct LCMS run, the flow is switched, and the portion stored in the capillary is analyzed (“replay run”). We describe a setup consisting of an analytical column, a splitting valve, and a focusing column, which performs at full sensitivity and undiminished chromatographic resolution. We demonstrate three principal advantages of this system: nearly continuous MS utilization, duplicate analysis without requirement for additional sample, and targeting of important but undersampled features in the replay run.
Assessing public speaking fear with the short form of the Personal Report of Confidence as a Speaker scale: confirmatory factor analyses among a French-speaking community sample

Background: The main aim of this study was to assess the reliability and structural validity of the French version of the 12-item version of the Personal Report of Confidence as Speaker (PRCS), one of the most promising measurements of public speaking fear. Methods: A total of 611 French-speaking volunteers were administered the French versions of the short PRCS, the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale, the Fear of Negative Evaluation scale, as well as the Trait version of the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and the Beck Depression Inventory-II, which assess the level of anxious and depressive symptoms, respectively. Results: Regarding its structural validity, confirmatory factor analyses indicated a single-factor solution, as implied by the original version. Good scale reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.86) was observed. The item discrimination analysis suggested that all the items contribute to the overall scale score reliability. The French version of the short PRCS showed significant correlations with the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (r = 0.522), the Fear of Negative Evaluation scale (r = 0.414), the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (r = 0.516), and the Beck Depression Inventory-II (r = 0.361). Conclusion: The French version of the short PRCS is a reliable and valid measure for the evaluation of the fear of public speaking among a French-speaking sample. These findings have critical consequences for the measurement of psychological and pharmacological treatment effectiveness in public speaking fear among a French-speaking sample.