Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Miocene Cassidulinid Foraminifera from Japan

Members of the Family Cassidulinidae are common in Tertiary marine sediments. This family is characterized by a biserial chamber arrangement, and is subdivided by using apertural structure, chamber arrangement and crystalline wall structure. Eleven cassidulinid genera are recognized in a recent classification based mainly on these characters. The diversity of these genera and species changed dramatically and developed through the Miocene. I examined Miocene cassidulinids from Japan in order to investigate the timing and paleoenvironmental factors associated with these changes. I propose that these cassidulinids can be used to define three interval zones. The cassidulinid I Zone occurs in strata deposited between -17-14 Ma and is characterized by high diversity of globocassidulinid species. The II Zone deposited between -14-10 Ma is characterized by low diversity. The m Zone from -10 Ma to 5 Ma is characterized by high diversity among islandiellids and planocassidulinids. Viewed from wall structure, the I Zone is occupied by optically granular taxa, while the III Zone is occupied by optically radial taxa. The taxa from the Sea of Japan borderland in the II Zone are radial, but those from the southern Pacific borderland are dominated by granular. The biogeographic differences in the II Zone may be related to the uplift to the Japanese backbone range and is also related to a global cooling event. Further cooling of the ocean and increased input of organic matter associated with the increase of primary productivity may have led to the evolution of radial taxa. The most common species in the modern Arctic and Subarctic seas have evolved from the cassidulinid III Zone.
DYNAMIC FORECASTING OF DEMAND AND SUPPLY IN NONSTOP AIR ROUTES

Passenger air-travel forecasting is receiving renewed emphasis as a result of increasing congestion and delays at airports across the country. Addressing the forecasting problem, a set of dynamic demand and supply models were developed for a given airline on a nonstop air travel route (Twin Cities to Chicago). The dynamic specifications were developed using time-series analysis and the causal relationships between cause and effect were confirmed with Granger causality tests. The models were developed based on a modest amount of monthly data from sales receipts and schedule information over the 1979-1983 period. In general, the models forecast demand and supply with reasonable accuracy, with an average forecasting error of less than 4 percent. Application of the forecasting equations to policy analysis indicates that, although the effect of improved service (more seats available) on demand lasts for approximately three months, the major impact is strongest during the first month, concurrent with service changes, implying little loyalty by passengers to their airline. The policy results also indicate that the airline's reaction to a sudden surge in demand is more sluggish and lags demand change by a month, probably as a result of the costs involved in crew and aircraft allocations.
Analyse des Geburtengutes des Jahrgangs 1992 der Bundesrepublik Deutschland

eral Republic of Germany: 14 of the 16 German Federal Lands (,,Bundeslknder) participated in the first assessment in perinatal medicine in reunited Germany. A total of stored data representing 563,480 single births were used to calculate percentile values for birth weight, size (length) at birth and circumference of the head from the 23 rd week of pregnancy, presented in tabulated and graphic form. Only data of German Population were evaluated; no other selective criteria were applied. The percentile values were calculated via the cumulative frequencies. Besides the conventional somatic data, the lengthrelated birth weight percentile values were also stated, since these enable a classification more in accordance with the fetal development of the newborn. A cursory comparison with other German standard value determinations and with Lubchenco's curve is carried out.
Etudes des propriétés hydromécaniques des sols argileux non saturés proches de la saturation

Cette these presente un ensemble de resultats experimentaux sur une argile remaniee non saturee proche de la saturation, dont le degre de saturation est generalement superieur a 70%. Apres une serie d’essais de caracterisation physique et mecanique du materiau, plusieurs methodes experimentales ont ete utilisees pour etudier le comportement et certaines pathologies du sol compacte telles que l’ornierage et le matelassage.Une etude systematique du comportement du sol compacte sur chemins de drainage-humidification dans differents etats initiaux a ete effectuee, completee par des mesures de succion par papier filtre et psychrometre. Les essais de porosimetrie par intrusion de mercure ont apporte un eclairage sur la microstructure du sol.La these a egalement permis d’etudier les variations de pression interstitielle du sol compacte sur chemin triaxial non draine en utilisant la technique de translation d’axes, ou quelques ameliorations et modifications du montage ont ete proposees.
Provable Bregman-divergence based Methods for Nonconvex and Non-Lipschitz Problems

The (global) Lipschitz smoothness condition is crucial in establishing the convergence theory for most optimization methods. Unfortunately, most machine learning and signal processing problems are not Lipschitz smooth. This motivates us to generalize the concept of Lipschitz smoothness condition to the relative smoothness condition, which is satisfied by any finite-order polynomial objective function. Further, this work develops new Bregman-divergence based algorithms that are guaranteed to converge to a second-order stationary point for any relatively smooth problem. In addition, the proposed optimization methods cover both the proximal alternating minimization and the proximal alternating linearized minimization when we specialize the Bregman divergence to the Euclidian distance. Therefore, this work not only develops guaranteed optimization methods for non-Lipschitz smooth problems but also solves an open problem of showing the second-order convergence guarantees for these alternating minimization methods.
Success factors of virtual communities from the perspective of members and operators: an empirical study

Virtual communities have been the focus of research for some time. However, while many studies provide recommendations on how to build, extend and manage virtual communities, few verify the success factors they consider essential for virtual communities. Conclusions made regarding basic preferences and distinct priorities of different stakeholders in virtual communities have not been empirically substantiated. This study uses an online survey of members and operators of virtual communities to evaluate success factors discussed in the literature. Incongruences between members and operators are identified and analysed. This research gains first empirically validated insights into success factors for establishing and managing virtual communities. The study results are summarised in ten hypotheses.
Liquid absorption into porous media

In this project, the influence of surfactants on the absorption of aqueous liquids into porous media is investigated both experimentally and numerically. The experiments are conducted with an Automatic Scanning Absorptometer (ASA) that measures the liquid volume transferred to a substrate as a function of time. It is shown that the ASA is not the most accurate measurement device to measure the absorption of liquids and therefore it is not possible to quantitatively compare the numerical model to the experiments. A 1D numerical model is created that uses Darcy’s law together with the continuum equation for incompressible flow to model the absorption process, and an advection-diffusion-adsorption equation is used to model the transport of surfactants. Both the pure absorption model and the model including surfactants are validated with experimental or numerical studies from literature. It is shown that surfactants can accelerate absorption if the timescales of penetration and adsorption are similar. Additionally, it is shown that if penetration is faster than adsorption, all surfactants reach the wetting front, but adsorption is too slow to significantly increase the penetration rate. If adsorption is faster than penetration, all surfactants are adsorbed at the pore walls before reaching the wetting front which results in the same penetration rate as without surfactants. Furthermore, a parametric analysis is conducted to investigate the influence of individual model parameters on the absorption behavior. Liquid absorption into porous media M.D. Mampaey
Improving the Predictive Accuracy of Static-99 and Static-2002 With Older Sex Offenders

Actuarial risk assessment scales and their associated recidivism estimates are generally developed on samples of offenders whose average age is well below 50 years. Criminal behavior of all types declines with age; consequently, actuarial scales tend to overestimate recidivism for older offenders. The current study aimed to develop a revised scoring system for two risk assessment tools (Static-99 and Static-2002) that would more accurately describe older offenders’ risk of recidivism. Using data from 8,390 sex offenders derived from 24 separate samples, age was found to add incremental predictive validity to both Static-99 and Static-2002. After creating new age weights, the resulting instruments (Static-99R and Static-2002R) had only slightly higher relative predictive accuracy. The absolute recidivism estimates, however, provided a substantially better fit for older offenders than the recidivism estimates from the original scales. We encourage evaluators to adopt the revised scales with the new age weights.
Three Way Comparison between Two OMI/Aura and One POLDER/PARASOL Cloud Pressure Products

The cloud pressures determined by three different algorithms, operating on reflectances measured by two space-borne instruments in the "A" train, are compared with each other. The retrieval algorithms are based on absorption in the oxygen A-band near 760 nm, absorption by a collision induced absorption in oxygen near 477nm, and the filling in of Fraunhofer lines by rotational Raman scattering. The first algorithm operates on data collected by the POLDER instrument on board PARASOL, while the latter two operate on data from the OMI instrument on board Aura. The satellites sample the same air mass within about 15 minutes. Using one month of data, the cloud pressures from the three algorithms are found to show a similar behavior, with correlation coefficients larger than 0.85 between the data sets for thick clouds. The average differences in the cloud pressure are also small, between 2 and 45 hPa, for the whole data set. For optically thin to medium thick clouds, the cloud pressure the distribution found by POLDER is very similar to that found by OMI using the O2 - O2 absorption. Somewhat larger differences are found for very thick clouds, and we hypothesise that the strong absorption in the oxygen A-band causes the POLDER instrument to retrieve lower pressures for those scenes.
On the study of a rational expectation model with lagged endogenous variables

ABSTRACT A rational expectation model with lagged endogenous variables is used to describe how the current price level is influenced by the expectation and historic price level. The time domain of the rational expectation model is extended to a complex discrete time domain which is a collection of points along the real number line. The rational expectation model with lagged endogenous variables is solved in multi-dimensional cases where the agents possess multiple assets, and the current price of each asset is related to the expected price and historical prices. An example about price determination process of storable commodities is given to illustrate the advantages of the rational expectation model on isolate time domain.
Seasonal climate summary southern hemisphere (autumn 2009): signs of an El Niño in the Pacific

Southern hemisphere circulation patterns and associated anomalies for the austral autumn 2009 are reviewed, with emphasis given to Pacific Basin climate indicators and Australian rainfall and temperature patterns. Autumn 2009 saw neutral or near-neutral conditions in the Pacific following from the La Nina conditions experienced since late 2008. By the end of May 2009, the equatorial Pacific showed consistent warming, and the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) fell, reaching −5.1 in May. In the Indian Ocean, a positive Indian Ocean Dipole sea-surface temperature pattern started to establish itself during May. In the Australian region, autumn was drier than normal, with maximum temperatures above average over most of Australia.
Tropical forest diversity and dynamism : findings from a large-scale plot network

Long-term Forest Dynamics Plots (FDPs) allow ecologists to explain patterns in diversity and dynamics in tropical forests around the world. In this collection, Elizabeth Losos and Egbert Giles Leigh Jr. assemble extensive standardized data - collected here in one location for the first time - from sixteen tropical FDPs and synthesize the findings, putting these unique and valuable plots in a global context by highlighting the utility of the collected data for conservation and forest management. Written by experts in the field of tropical ecology, Tropical Forest Diversity and Dynamism will appeal to students and professionals with an interest in community ecology and patterns of diversity.
Diabetes, Its Treatment, and Catastrophic Medical Spending in 35 Developing Countries

OBJECTIVE To assess the individual financial impact of having diabetes in developing countries, whether diabetic individuals possess appropriate medications, and the extent to which health insurance may protect diabetic individuals by increasing medication possession or decreasing the risk of catastrophic spending. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Using 2002–2003 World Health Survey data (n = 121,051 individuals; 35 low- and middle-income countries), we examined possession of medications to treat diabetes and estimated the relationship between out-of-pocket medical spending (2005 international dollars), catastrophic medical spending, and diabetes. We assessed whether health insurance modified these relationships. RESULTS Diabetic individuals experience differentially higher out-of-pocket medical spending, particularly among individuals with high levels of spending (excess spending of $157 per year [95% CI 130–184] at the 95th percentile), and a greater chance of incurring catastrophic medical spending (17.8 vs. 13.9%; difference 3.9% [95% CI 0.2–7.7]) compared with otherwise similar individuals without diabetes. Diabetic individuals with insurance do not have significantly lower risks of catastrophic medical spending (18.6 vs. 17.7%; difference not significant), nor were they significantly more likely to possess diabetes medications (22.8 vs. 20.6%; difference not significant) than those who were otherwise similar but without insurance. These effects were more pronounced and significant in lower-income countries. CONCLUSIONS In low-income countries, despite insurance, diabetic individuals are more likely to experience catastrophic medical spending and often do not possess appropriate medications to treat diabetes. Research into why policies in these countries may not adequately protect people from catastrophic spending or enhance possession of critical medications is urgently needed.
CRAC : an integrated approach to the analysis of RNA-seq reads Additional File 2 Supplementary Methods : CRAC , simulation , and other tools

Differences with the genome at the read’s extremities (border cases). This aspect does not influence CRAC’s algorithm; rather, the sequencing depth of NGS data saves border cases. Indeed, the random fragmentation of molecules implies that a sequence difference will be uniformly located within the reads that cover these positions. The coverage ensures that these positions will likely be located in the middle of some other reads. Hence, if a biologicial event is missed in some border case read, it will be detected in other reads if the transcript is not rare. The results on simulated data illustrate well this situation. Reads with a difference near their extremities have a break lacking a start or an end (i.e. the location before or after the break cannot be determined): this prevents CRAC from identifying the type of difference and from finding its exact position in the read. As some characteristics of the difference are left undetermined, the read is classified either as "undetermined" or "biologically undetermined" depending on its support profile.
Fact Discovery from Knowledge Base via Facet Decomposition

During the past few decades, knowledge bases (KBs) have experienced rapid growth. Nevertheless, most KBs still suffer from serious incompletion. Researchers proposed many tasks such as knowledge base completion and relation prediction to help build the representation of KBs. However, there are some issues unsettled towards enriching the KBs. Knowledge base completion and relation prediction assume that we know two elements of the fact triples and we are going to predict the missing one. This assumption is too restricted in practice and prevents it from discovering new facts directly. To address this issue, we propose a new task, namely, fact discovery from knowledge base. This task only requires that we know the head entity and the goal is to discover facts associated with the head entity. To tackle this new problem, we propose a novel framework that decomposes the discovery problem into several facet discovery components. We also propose a novel auto-encoder based facet component to estimate some facets of the fact. Besides, we propose a feedback learning component to share the information between each facet. We evaluate our framework using a benchmark dataset and the experimental results show that our framework achieves promising results. We also conduct an extensive analysis of our framework in discovering different kinds of facts. The source code of this paper can be obtained from https://github.com/thunlp/FFD.
Falcon: a highly flexible open-source software for closed-loop neuroscience

Objective. Closed-loop experiments provide unique insights into brain dynamics and function. To facilitate a wide range of closed-loop experiments, we created an open-source software platform that enables high-performance real-time processing of streaming experimental data. Approach. We wrote Falcon, a C++ multi-threaded software in which the user can load and execute an arbitrary processing graph. Each node of a Falcon graph is mapped to a single thread and nodes communicate with each other through thread-safe buffers. The framework allows for easy implementation of new processing nodes and data types. Falcon was tested both on a 32-core and a 4-core workstation. Streaming data was read from either a commercial acquisition system (Neuralynx) or the open-source Open Ephys hardware, while closed-loop TTL pulses were generated with a USB module for digital output. We characterized the round-trip latency of our Falcon-based closed-loop system, as well as the specific latency contribution of the software architecture, by testing processing graphs with up to 32 parallel pipelines and eight serial stages. We finally deployed Falcon in a task of real-time detection of population bursts recorded live from the hippocampus of a freely moving rat. Main results. On Neuralynx hardware, round-trip latency was well below 1 ms and stable for at least 1 h, while on Open Ephys hardware latencies were below 15 ms. The latency contribution of the software was below 0.5 ms. Round-trip and software latencies were similar on both 32- and 4-core workstations. Falcon was used successfully to detect population bursts online with ~40 ms average latency. Significance. Falcon is a novel open-source software for closed-loop neuroscience. It has sub-millisecond intrinsic latency and gives the experimenter direct control of CPU resources. We envisage Falcon to be a useful tool to the neuroscientific community for implementing a wide variety of closed-loop experiments, including those requiring use of complex data structures and real-time execution of computationally intensive algorithms, such as population neural decoding/encoding from large cell assemblies.
Paris Observatory (OPAR) Data Center

This report summarizes the OPAR Data Center activities in 2014. Included is information about functions, architecture, status, future plans, and staff members of the OPAR Data Center. 1 General Information The Paris Observatory (OPAR) has provided a Data Center for the International VLBI Service for Geodesy and Astrometry (IVS) since 1999. The OPAR, as well as CDDIS and BKG, is one of the three IVS primary Data Centers. Their activities are done in close collaboration for collecting files (data and analysis files) and making them available to the community as soon as they are submitted. The three Data Centers have a common protocol and each of them: • has the same directory structure (with the same control file), • has the same script, • is able to receive all IVS files (auxiliary, database, products, and documents), • mirrors the other ones every three hours, and • gives free FTP access to the files. This protocol gives the IVS community a transparent access to a Data Center through the same directory, and a permanent access to files in case of a Data Center breakdown. Observatoire de Paris/SYRTE – CNRS – UMPC – GRGS
Food web structure of a Pantanal shallow lake revealed by stable isotopes

Food webs are good ecological macro-descriptors and their study is important in ecology in understanding nutrient cycles, tracing and quantifying energy and in describing trophic interactions within an ecosystem. The knowledge of food web finds applications in various natural sciences disciplines but also in many productive sectors. This study investigated the structure of the food web of a shallow lake in the Pantanal flood plain. The food web included two macrophytes, six aquatic insects, four crustaceans and 24 fish species. Sources of carbon for the various organisms living in the lake were identified through the values of δ13C exhibited by the organisms. The δ15N signature was used to estimate the trophic position of each organism. A cluster analysis based on the two isotopic signatures revealed six different feeding guilds and emphasized on the broad occurrence of omnivory among animals living in the lake. This study revealed that the use of food carbon was the most important factor that structured the lake community. Very low values of δ13C in zooplankton, benthic dwellers and bottom-feeder organisms as well as similarities between the gradient of δ13C and that of use of methane oxidizing bacteria informed on the possible use of biogenic methane as a source carbon and energy for the lake biota.