Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Systemic inflammation and subsequent risk of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: prospective cohort study

Importance: While systemic inflammation has been implicated in the aetiology of selected neurodegenerative disorders, its role in the development of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is untested. Objective: To quantify the relationship of C-reactive protein (CRP), an acute-phase reactant and marker of systemic inflammation, with ALS occurrence. Design, Setting, Participants: UK Biobank, a prospective cohort study of 502,649 participants who were aged 37 to 73 years when examined at research centres between 2006 and 2010. Exposure: Venous blood was collected at baseline in the full cohort and assayed for CRP. Repeat measurement was made 3-7 years later in a representative subgroup (N=14,514) enabling correction for regression dilution. Main Outcome(s) and Measure(s): ALS as ascertained via national hospitalisation and mortality registries. We computed multi-variable hazard ratios with accompanying 95% confidence intervals for log-transformed CRP expressed as standard deviation and tertiles. Results: In an analytical sample of 400,884 individuals (218,203 women), a mean follow-up of 12 years gave rise to 231 hospitalisations and 223 deaths ascribed to ALS. After adjustment for covariates which included health behaviours, comorbidity, and socio-economic status, a one standard deviation higher log-CRP was associated with elevated rates of both ALS mortality (hazard ratios; 95% confidence intervals: 1.32; 1.13, 1.53) and hospitalisations (1.20; 1.00, 1.39). There was evidence of dose-response effects across tertiles of CRP for both outcomes (p for trend[≤]0.05). Correction for regression dilution led to a strengthening of the relationship with CRP for both mortality (1.62; 1.27, 2.08) and hospitalisations (1.37; 1.05, 1.76) ascribed to ALS. Conclusions and Relevance: Higher levels of CRP, a blood-based biomarker widely captured in clinical practice, were associated with a higher subsequent risk of ALS.
Cyclical components of local rainfall data

This paper reports on the use of a comparatively simple statistical methodology to study local short time series rainfall data. The objective is to help in agricultural planning, by diminishing the risks associated with some uncertainties affecting this business activity. The analysis starts by assuming a model of unobservable components, trend, cycle, seasonal and irregular, that is well known in many areas of application. When series are in the realm of business and economics, the statistical methods popularized by the US Census Bureau US National Bureau of Economic Research are used for seasonal and cyclical estimation, respectively. The flexibility of these methods makes them good candidates to be applied in the meteorological context, and this is done in this paper for a selection of monthly rainfall time series. Use of the results to help in analysing and forecasting cyclical components is emphasized. The results are interesting. An agricultural entrepreneur, or a group of them located in a single geographical region, will profit by systematically collecting information (monthly in our work) about rainfall, and adopting the scheme of analysis described in this paper. Copyright © 2000 Royal Meteorological Society
An Improved Device for Gasometric Determination of Carbonate in Sediment: METHOD PAPER

ABSTRACT Simple modifications in carbonate bomb design allow more precise and more convenient determination of carbonate content in sediments. The modified device has been operated successfully in our laboratory for two years. Sample determination is rapid (10 to 18 preweighed samples per hour) with a daily precision of 0.3% CaCO3, for a typical one gram sample. Details for construction, calibration, and operation are described.
CollabVP: Structure-Enhanced VP Detector

We introduce in this paper a novel structure-enhanced VP detector, CollabVP, which uses a multi-task learning frame-work to estimate multiple horizontal vanishing points (VPs) from a single RGB image. Collab VP exploits contextual information and scene structures through masks of vertical structures to accurately estimate the horizon line and VP positions. The proposed approach is not limited to Manhattan worlds and can detect any number of VPs.
Fusion of vision, GPS and 3D gyro data in solving camera registration problem for direct visual navigation

This paper presents a precise and robust camera registration solution for the novel vision-based road navigation system - VICNAS, which superimposes virtual 3D navigation indicators and traffic signs upon the real road view in an Augmented Reality (AR) space. Traditional vision based or inertial sensor based solutions of registration problem are mostly designed for well-structured environment, which is however unavailable in a wide-open uncontrolled road environment for navigation purposes. This paper proposed a hybrid system that combines computer vision, GPS and 3D inertial gyroscope technologies to provide precise and robust camera pose estimation. The fusion approach is based on our PMM (parameterized model matching) algorithm, in which the road shape model is derived from the digital map data, and matched with road features extracted from real images. Inertial data estimates the initial possible motion, and also serves as relative tolerance to stable the pose output. The algorithms proposed in this paper are validated with the experimental results of real road tests under different road conditions.
The Early−Middle Palaeozoic Oceanic Events Along the Southern European Margin: The Deli Jovan Ophiolite Massif (NE Serbia) and Palaeo-oceanic Zones of the Great Caucasus

The paper deals with the Middle Palaeozoic oceanic events on the northern margin of the Eastern Mediterranean Hercynides. The Balkan-Carpathian Ophiolite Belt (BCO) and palaeo-oceanic zones of the Great Caucasus, all framing the East European Platform from the south, are correlated. The BCO palaeo-oceanic complex was widely thought to be a Late Precambrian-earliest Cambrian oceanic thrust sheet (563±5 Ma), a part of the South European Palaeo-oceanic Suture. The geochronological studies carried out on gabbroic series of the Deli Jovan Massif (BCO, NE Serbia), showed, however, that they are of much younger (Early Devonian) age: (a) Sm-Nd mineral isochron age of 406±24 Ma, eNdT= 8.32±0.39; 87Sr/86Srinit= 0.702592±0.000160; and (b) U-Pb SHRIMP zircon age, 405.0±2.6 Ma. All the studied gabbroic rocks represent high-alumina (19-24.5% Al2O3) gabbro-troctolites, originating from shallow level (
Remote Sensing Applications for Aviation Weather Hazard Detection and Decision Support

ABSTRACT The NIST role in supporting our Nations climate research is described. The assembly of climate data records over decadal time scales requires assimilating readings from a large number of optical sensors deployed in space and on the Earth by various nations. NIST, in partnership with NASA and NOAA, develops and disseminates the calibration tools and standards to ensure that the measurements from these sensors are accurate, comparable, and tied to international standards based on the SI system of units. This effort helps to provide confidence that the small decadal changes in environmental variables attributed to climate change are not an artifact of the measurement system. Additionally, it ensures that the measurements are physics based an d thus comparable to climate models. Keywords: climate change, measurement science, metrology, remote sensing 1. INTRODUCTION The Earths climate is complex and highly variable, making it difficult to measure and model small changes that occur over decadal and longer time scales. The resulting uncertainties in measurement and modeling underlie the long-term debate over the direction, magnitude, and consequence of climate change. Even as the consensus grows on climate change, climate monitoring will continue to be necessary to quantify regional variation; to establish the effectiveness of mitigation efforts, including possible geo-engineering solutions;
HC-TUS: Human Cognition-Based Trust Update Scheme for AI-Enabled VANET

Recently, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has received more attention for being used in many applications. It is expected to play a key role in Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANET). On the other hand, AI-enabled VANET (AI-VANET) has become an emerging field. However, its cyber security is facing enormous challenges. Although many trust schemes are proposed for addressing these issues, the reliance on only trust updates could increase the risk of long-term attacks before being detected. In this article, we design a human cognition-based trust update scheme (HC-TUS) for AI-VANET. Significantly, the novel trust update scheme is designed by strategically incorporating the Ebbinghaus forgetting theory. The simulation results indicate that 1) HC-TUS could better meet the principle of ÒHard to get, easy to loseÓ for trust than BRSN and BTDS; 2) HC-TUS could detect and resist the collusion attack more quickly than BRSN and BTDS. The open issues in terms of trust for AI-VANET are also investigated and highlighted.
The Extrapolation of Recent Climatological Series With Spectral Canonical Regression

This paper describes a simple but efficient method, based on classical techniques, which enables one lo estimate missing data and to extrapolate short instrumental climate series from other instrumental or proxy ones. By mutually exclusive digital filters, the variations of the data are decomposed into a rough spectrum. A canonical analysis is performed on each of these parts, providing relationships for each principal time-scale. A global equation is then computed by inverse transformation. Generally, the predictands are better fitted by this method than by a standard regression. The improvement is shown for both instrumental and proxy data. The method can easily be applied in many topics where relationships between two groups of variables have to be estimated: agroclimatology, ecology and geophysics in general. It can run on a microcomputer with a BASIC program available from the author. By this method, a reconstruction of June-July temperature at Marseille (France) is proposed showing a period of weak variability of the temperature during 1400-1850, that is to say a period of rare warm summers with very cold summers only in the early 16th and late 17th centuries. An extrapolation of the instrumental series at Nice from corresponding series of Marseille and Gap is also developed.
Radiative‐convective model with an explicit hydrologic cycle: 1. Formulation and sensitivity to model parameters

A hydrological cycle is explicityl included in a one-dimensional radiative-convective equilibrium model which is coupled to a “swamp” surface and tested with various cumulus convection schemes: the hard and soft convective adjustment schemes, the Kuo scheme, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) (1974) model 1 scheme, the GISS (1983) model 2 scheme, and the Emanuel scheme. The essential difference between our model and other radiative-convective models is that in our model the moisture profile (but not cloudiness) is interactively computed by the cumulus convection scheme. This has a crucial influence on the computation of the radiative fluxes throughout the atmosphere and therefore on the model's sensitivities. Using the Emanuel scheme, we show that the climate equilibrium is very sensitive to cloud microphysical processes. Clouds with high precipitation efficiency produce cold and dry climates. Clouds with low precipitation efficiency lead to moist and warm climates. Since climate equilibrium can be very sensitive to the cloud microphysical processes, any cumulus convection scheme adequate for use in general circulation models (GCMs) should be strongly based on them. The cumulus convection schemes currently in use in GCMs bypass the microphysical processes by making arbitrary moistening assumptions. We suggest that they are inadequate for climate change studies.
A 128-Gb/s D-Band Receiver With Integrated PLL and ADC Achieving 1.95-pJ/b Efficiency in 22-nm FinFET

This work presents a <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${D}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-band (110–170 GHz) receiver (RX) with integrated analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and phase-locked loop (PLL). The receiver front end (RXFE) consists of a coupled-line-based Guanella balun matching network, 140-GHz low-noise amplifier (LNA), and Cherry–Hooper (CH) amplifier providing <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$>$ </tex-math></inline-formula>20-GHz baseband bandwidth. A quadrature PLL provides I/Q local oscillator (LO) signals for down-conversion. Two 32-GS/s hybrid voltage- and time-domain ADCs digitize the RXFE output. The fully integrated 22-nm FinFET CMOS prototype achieves a peak data rate of 128 Gb/s using 16-QAM modulation with –15.2-dB EVM and consumes 246 mW for 1.95-pJ/b efficiency. The stand-alone RXFE without ADC provides 160-Gb/s data rates with –16.4-dB EVM and consumes 166 mW for 1.04-pJ/b efficiency.
Sequence stratigraphy and orbital forcing in Permian (Rotliegend) desert deposits: a discussion

Rotliegend sequence stratigraphy in the Southern Permian Basin suggests climatically forced fluctuations in the level of an expanding playa lake system. The associated facies changes are abrupt and define essentially isochronous sequence boundaries. Spectral analyses of gamma ray logs have indicated that individual sequences display internal cyclicity consistent with orbital (Milankovitch) forcing. Confirmatory results have been reported from the spectral analysis of field logs from the continental Permian Brodick Beds of the Isle of Arran. These studies claim that, since the cycles are orbitally forced, they have chronostratigraphic significance. However, they are based on dubious assumptions concerning the unvarying rate and continuity of deposition of the sequences in question. In the case of the Southern Permian Basin, the assumption is applied to c. 50 m units, but the result is an implausible chronostratigraphic model. For the Brodick Beds, the assumption is applied to a 675 m succession and there is a crucial ambiguity in the relationship between the lithostratigraphic cycles and the Permian orbital cycles. The studies do not provide persuasive evidence of the consistent encoding of Milankovitch orbital cycles in Permian desert deposits.
No evidence of sex-specific differences in choice or size of fish caught for chicks or self-feeding among Common Guillemots Uria aalge

Despite slight but significant differences in size of male and female Common Guillemots Uria aalge and previously published sex differences in parental behaviour, foraging ranges and diving behaviour, no evidence of sex-specific differences in choice or size of fish caught for chicks or for self-feeding was found among adults caught in a North Norwegian colony.
The Human Development Index in Historical Perspective: Italy from Political Unification to the Present Day

The aim of this research is to provide a long run estimate of the Human Development Index (HDI) for Italy. To this purpose we have reconstructed Italian historical series relative to life expectancy, literacy rate, school enrolment rates and income. All the series presented are the result of a study which has produced, starting from primary sources, original series disaggregated to the regional level. The possibility of having, for Italy, a basis of comparison with the main developed countries has permitted us to show that, even though there has been significant progress in the values of the single variables, the country has not appreciably improved its position in the world ranking. This seems to be due, in large part, to the trend of the education variables that displays values decidedly distant from those of the main industrialized countries. As far as regional trends are concerned, we can observe a slow process of alignment of the values of the Southern regions to the values of the other Italian regions for levels of education and longevity, while income levels for the 1990s still remain quite distant.
Odors modulate color appearance

Our brain constantly combines multisensory information from our surrounding environment. Odors for instance are often perceived with visual cues; these sensations interact to form our own subjective experience. This integration process can have a profound impact on the resulting experience and can alter our subjective reality. Crossmodal correspondences are the consistent associations between stimulus features in different sensory modalities. These correspondences are presumed to be bidirectional in nature and have been shown to influence our perception in a variety of different sensory modalities. Vision is dominant in our multisensory perception and can influence how we perceive information in our other senses, including olfaction. We explored the effect that different odors have on human color perception by presenting olfactory stimuli while asking observers to adjust a color patch to be devoid of hue (neutral gray task). We found a shift in the perceived neutral gray point to be biased toward warmer colors. Four out of five of our odors also trend toward their expected crossmodal correspondences. For instance, when asking observers to perform the neutral gray task while presenting the smell of cherry, the perceptually achromatic stimulus was biased toward a red-brown. Using an achromatic adjustment task, we were able to demonstrate a small but systematic effect of the presence of odors on human color perception.
Near-Field Micro-Doppler Effect and Spectrum Characteristics of Rotating Targets: Theoretical Analysis and Parameter Estimation Method

Micro-Doppler effect is of great significance in radar-based rotating target detection, classification, and micromotion monitoring leveraging on the containing rich physical information. However, there is a lack of theoretical analysis for spectrum characteristics of the near-field micro-Doppler signal of rotating targets, and the targets with 2-D and 3-D complex-shaped blades in reality are commonly not considered. Furthermore, the rotating parameter estimation is mainly depends on the traditional time–frequency distribution (TFD) method, which has limitations in stability, efficiency, and practicability. In this article, a theoretical analysis method with the Taylor formula and Jacobi–Anger formula expansion for spectrum characteristics of the near-field micro-Doppler signal is proposed. The characteristics of spectral line interval and critical frequency are theoretically demonstrated by the established analytical expression of the spectrum. Then, the proposed approach is broadened to the 2-D blade model of arbitrary shape and the 3-D blade model of complex space surface. Based on the theoretical analysis, the spectrum characteristic-based parameter estimation (SCPE) method for rotation motion parameter extraction is provided. Finally, the high accuracy, high efficiency, and good stability of the proposed SCPE method are demonstrated by simulations and experiments with various scenarios, offering an appealing near-field and far-field micro-Doppler analysis approach of rotating targets with blades of various shapes.
The introduction of woody debris into a channelized stream: effect on trout populations and habitat

Large woody debris was explored as a method of restructuring channelized streams to improve salmonid habitat. Whole trees were inserted in sections along a 2 km reach of a channelized stream to determine if large woody debris: (1) increased the abundance and biomass of brown (Salmo trutta) and rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss); (2) had an effect on physical habitat features; and (3) provided trouts with additional habitat. Trout populations and stream morphology were monitored before and after the introduction of woody debris and compared to control sections lacking woody debris. Abundance and biomass of both brown and rainbow trout increased in the treatment section compared to the control. Maximum and standard deviation of fish total length increased in all sections during summer months. The number of individuals and the standard deviations of total lengths decreased in the control section in winter, but increased in the treatment section. Mean water velocities decreased and number and volume of pools increased in treatment sections. Brown and rainbow trouts sought woody debris structures for cover. We conclude that large woody debris can serve as a method of reconstructing channelized streams to improve salmonid habitat. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Monetary Policy Shocks and Unemployment in Emerging Market Economies in Africa

ABSTRACT:Unemployment remains a global challenge that requires additional ways of dealing with it. Therefore, the role of Reserve or Central Banks in reducing unemployment is of recent seeking more attention. This paper examines monetary policy shocks and unemployment nexus in the emerging market economies in Africa. The models of this study are designed within the panel vector autoregressive (PVAR) framework. The models majorly rely on the New Keynesian model. Given the nominal rigidities of the New Keynesian model, the monetary policy can therefore, serve as an important tool which can have a reasonable leverage on real variables. As claimed by Bernanke (2007) that the stance of monetary policy was appropriate to prevent deflation and high unemployment and as it has been empirically tested for developed economies, this paper provides a quantitative evaluation of an aspect of such statement in the context of emerging economies of Africa. We used annual data series on five emerging economies in Africa over the period 1991 to 2020, making 150 balanced panel data observations. The countries include, Egypt, Mauritius, Morocco, Nigeria and South Africa. The selection was based on those African countries identified as emerging markets by various international bodies such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), James O'Neill, Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE), S&P Global Ratings, EM Bond Index, Dow Jones, Russell, Columbia University and Cornell University. The findings of the study revealed that unemployment falls for at most four periods in response to contractionary monetary policy shocks while the response dissipates afterwards. Individually, unemployment rate in Mauritius and Nigeria rose in response to contractionary monetary policy shocks while in South Africa, Egypt and Morocco, it falls in response to contractionary monetary policy shocks. By and large, the results seem to show credence to the effectiveness of monetary policy in each country to achieve desired macroeconomic targets. The main implication of the results is that, expansionary monetary and fiscal policy undertaken by policymakers of emerging economies in Africa can enhance the labor market to recover from the downturns recently experienced in these economies.