Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
FROST PENETRATION UNDER BITUMINOUS PAVEMENTS

THIS STUDY WAS MADE NEAR MINNEAPOLIS IN THE WINTER OF 1953-54. NINE SITES WERE SELECTED, EACH WITH A BITUMINOUS- SURFACED ROAD. AT EACH OF THESE LOCATIONS BORINGS WERE MADE TO A DEPTH OF 8 FEET TO OBTAIN SOIL TEXTURAL INFORMATION, MOISTURE CONTENTS, AND A FEW DENSITIES. DURING THE WINTER SEASON BORINGS WERE MADE BY A MACHINE-DRIVEN AUGER AT ABOUT 3-WEEK INTERVALS TO DETERMINE THE FROST DEPTHS. DAILY MAXIMUM AND MINIMUM AIR TEMPERATURES WERE RECORDED. THE SUBGRADE SOILS AT THE TEST SITES SELECTED REPRESENT A VARIETY OF TEXTURES. THE FINEST-GRAINED SOIL WAS A SILTY CLAY LOAM WITH MOISTURE CONTENTS BETWEEN 25 AND 30 PERCENT. OTHER SOILS INCLUDED LOAM, SANDY LOAM, SANDY LOAM TILL, AND FINE SANDS. MOISTURE CONTENTS IN SOME OF THE SANDS WERE AS LOW AS 5 PERCENT. OBSERVED FROST PENETRATIONS AT THE END OF THE FREEZING SEASON VARIED FROM ABOUT 3 1/2 FEET IN THE SILTY CLAY LOAMS TO MORE THAN 5 FEET FOR SOME OF THE SANDY SOILS. THEORETICAL CALCULATIONS OF FROST PENETRATION WERE MADE BY MEANS OF THE STEFAN EQUATION, UTILIZING AN AIR- SURFACE CORRECTION FACTOR AND THE LAYERED SYSTEM SOLUTION DEVELOPED BY THE CORPS OF ENGINEERS. THE MOISTURE CONTENT AND DENSITY DATA FOR THE SOILS AND THE AIR TEMPERATURES ARE THE ONLY INFORMATION REQUIRED FOR THESE SOLUTIONS. (THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COEFFICIENTS WERE TAKEN FROM PUBLISHED CHARTS). COMPARISONS OF THE OBSERVED AND CALCULATED FROST DEPTHS INDICATE THAT AN AIR-SURFACE CORRECTION FACTOR OF 0.8 GIVES BEST RESULTS FOR THE SITES INVESTIGATED. UTILIZING THIS VALUE, THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ACTUAL AND CALCULATED DEPTHS OF FREEZE IS COMMONLY ABOUT 1/2 FOOT, PLUS OR MINUS. CONSIDERING THE MANY FACTORS WHICH AFFECT FROST PENETRATION, THIS COMPARISON IS THOUGHT TO BE GOOD. IN SECURING AVERAGE DAILY TEMPERATURES BY AVERAGING MAXIMUM AND MINIMUM VALUES FOR 24-HOUR PERIODS, IT WAS FOUND THAT THE TIME OF RECORDING MADE A SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE. FOR THE FREEZING SEASON STUDIED, THE USE OF A PERIOD FROM 6 P.M. TO 6 P.M. GAVE A FREEZING INDEX ABOUT 6 PERCENT LESS THAN THAT FOR A MIDNIGHT TO MIDNIGHT PERIOD. THE INVESTIGATION INDICATES THE FEASIBILITY OF MAKING REASONABLE FROST DEPTH PREDICTIONS FOR KNOWN SOIL AND TEMPERATURE CONDITIONS. ADDITIONAL MEASUREMENTS SHOULD YIELD FURTHER REFINEMENTS. FURTHER STUDY OF THE AIR-SURFACE IS CONSIDERED PARTICULARLY DESIRABLE. SIMILAR PROCEDURES COULD ALSO BE APPLIED TO A STUDY OF THE THAWING OF SOILS. /AUTHOR/
Post-fire regeneration in Pinus brutia forest ecosystems of Sam os island (Greece): 6 years after

Post-fire regeneration of pine (Pinus brutia) forest of Samos island was investigated 6 years after the great wildfire of August 1983. Results and observations concerning floristics of woody plants and pine sapling demography are presented and discussed in relation to those gathered during the first two post-fire years and already reported in a previous publication. By 1989, most of the burnt area was dominated by two species of Cistus, the vegetation being a dense shrubland of phryganic and evergreen species. The overall density of 6-year-old pine saplings was around 0.15 plants m-2, adequately high for natural reforestation in most sites. The survival of saplings was considerable: 43% of the pine seedlings tagged in May 1984 were found alive. The height of 6-year-old pine saplings was largely variable with an overall average around 60 cm. The striking discovery of numerous, very short (10-20 cm) saplings, evidently suppressed by neighboring vegetation, led to the postulate that a pine sapling bank may be formed during the early post-fire recovery stage. Since pine seed supply during this stage is absent or scarce, a pine sapling bank may be proven an important or indispensable adaptative strategy for the regeneration of a burnt Mediterranean forest.
WORKING PAPERS IN MANAGEMENT AND ECONOMICS Environmental Regulation and Investment: Evidence from European Country-Industry Data

This paper contributes to the empirical literature on the relationship between environmental regulation and firm behavior. In particular, we ask whether and how strongly an industry’s investment responds to stringency in environmental regulation. Environmental stringency is measured as (i) an industry’s total current expenditure on environmental protection, and (ii) a country’s revenue from environmental taxes. Focusing on European industry level data between 1995 and 2005, we estimate the differential impact of environmental stringency on four types of investment: gross investment in tangible goods, in new buildings, in machinery, and in ‘productive’ investment (investment in tangible goods minus investment in abatement technologies). Both environmental variables enter positively, and their quadratic terms exhibit significantly negative parameter estimates. This, in turn, indicates a positive but diminishing impact of environmental regulation on investment.
Lessons from Fraxinus, a crowd-sourced citizen science game in genomics

In 2013, in response to an epidemic of ash dieback disease in England the previous year, we launched a Facebook-based game called Fraxinus to enable non-scientists to contribute to genomics studies of the pathogen that causes the disease and the ash trees that are devastated by it. Over a period of 51 weeks players were able to match computational alignments of genetic sequences in 78% of cases, and to improve them in 15% of cases. We also found that most players were only transiently interested in the game, and that the majority of the work done was performed by a small group of dedicated players. Based on our experiences we have built a linear model for the length of time that contributors are likely to donate to a crowd-sourced citizen science project. This model could serve a guide for the design and implementation of future crowd-sourced citizen science initiatives. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.07460. 001
UC Merced Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

In virtually every activity we engage in — from analyzing economic trends, to predicting which of two football teams is more likely to win a game — our minds are tasked with separating signal from noise. Such computations benefit from the fact that our minds are highly attuned to the statistical structure of the world. But how quickly do we detect statistical structure — and to what extent is our sensitivity to structure rooted in perceptual processes? To address this, we asked observers to judge whether briefly presented visual stimuli were generated randomly or non-randomly. In as little as a tenth of a second, people exhibited the same stable biases of statistical perception that they exhibit in classic cognitive tasks (i.e., without time constraints). These results suggest that certain biases of subjective probability may arise not from how we think about randomness, but from how we perceive statistical information in the first place.
Translation-oriented Word Sense Induction Based on Parallel Corpora

Word Sense Disambiguation (WSD) is an intermediate task that serves as a means to an end defined by the application in which it is to be used. However, different applications have varying disambiguation needs which should have an impact on the choice of the method and of the sense inventory used. The tendency towards application-oriented WSD becomes more and more evident, mostly because of the inadequacy of predefined sense inventories and the inefficacy of application-independent methods in accomplishing specific tasks. In this article, we present a data-driven method of sense induction, which combines contextual and translation information coming from a bilingual parallel training corpus. It consists of an unsupervised method that clusters semantically similar translation equivalents of source language (SL) polysemous words. The created clusters are projected on the SL words revealing their sense distinctions. Clustered equivalents describing a sense of a polysemous word can be considered as more or less commutable translations for an instance of the word carrying this sense. The resulting sense clusters can thus be used for WSD and sense annotation, as well as for lexical selection in translation applications.
Iris recognition: an emerging biometric technology

In this paper, iris recognition as one of the important method of biometrics-based identification systems and iris recognition algorithm is described. As technology advances and information and intellectual properties are wanted by many unauthorized personnel. As a result many organizations have being searching ways for more secure authentication methods for the user access. In network security there is a vital emphasis on the automatic personal identification. Due to its inherent advantages biometric based verification especially iris identification is gaining a lot of attention. Iris recognition uses iris patterns for personnel identification. The system steps are capturing iris patterns; determining the location of iris boundaries; converting the iris boundary to the stretched polar coordinate system; extracting iris code based on texture analysis. The system has been implemented and tested using dataset of number of samples of iris data with different contrast quality. The developed algorithm performs satisfactorily on the images, provides 93% accuracy. Experimental results show that the proposed method has an encouraging performance.
Analysis of cellular behavior and cytoskeletal dynamics reveal a constriction mechanism driving optic cup morphogenesis

Contractile actomyosin networks have been shown to power tissue morphogenesis. Although the basic cellular machinery generating mechanical tension appears largely conserved, tensions propagate in unique ways within each tissue. Here we use the vertebrate eye as a paradigm to investigate how tensions are generated and transmitted during the folding of a neuroepithelial layer. We record membrane pulsatile behavior and actomyosin dynamics during zebrafish optic cup morphogenesis by live imaging. We show that retinal neuroblasts undergo fast oscillations and that myosin condensation correlates with episodic contractions that progressively reduce basal feet area. Interference with lamc1 function impairs basal contractility and optic cup folding. Mapping of tensile forces by laser cutting uncover a developmental window in which local ablations trigger the displacement of the entire tissue. Our work shows that optic cup morphogenesis is driven by a constriction mechanism and indicates that supra-cellular transmission of mechanical tension depends on ECM attachment. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.15797. 001
UNE ANALYSE GLOBALE DE LA TENDANCE DANS LES HAUTES VALEURS D'OZONE MESURÉES EN RÉGION PARISIENNE

In this paper, we complete the extrem value analysis of ozone level exceedances registred in Paris area described in a previously one. A non-homogeneous Poisson process, which parameters depend on covariables, is used to model the occurences and sizes of exceedances over a very high level threshold. This approach is applied to four available sites. Then, we construct a global model gathering these sites, by introducing dummy variables representing sites. Finally, we compare station model and global model.
Methods for Estimating Mean Annual Rate of Earthquakes in Moderate and Low Seismicity Regions

Yan Jiaquan,Jia Sujuan. The principle and methodology of delineation of potential seismic source for moderate earthquakes in Northeast and North China[J]. Earthquake Research in China,1996,12(2):173 ~ 194 ( in Chinese with English abstract) . Zhang Lifang,Lv Yuejun,Peng Yanju,et al. Estimate of seismic parameters in low seismicity region by using spatially smoothing approach[J]. Technology for Earthquake Disaster Prevention,2008,3(1):27 ~ 36 ( in 6 4 3 Earthquake Research in China
Exploring Pandora's Box: Potential and Pitfalls of Low Coverage Genome Surveys for Evolutionary Biology

High throughput sequencing technologies are revolutionizing genetic research. With this “rise of the machines”, genomic sequences can be obtained even for unknown genomes within a short time and for reasonable costs. This has enabled evolutionary biologists studying genetically unexplored species to identify molecular markers or genomic regions of interest (e.g. micro- and minisatellites, mitochondrial and nuclear genes) by sequencing only a fraction of the genome. However, when using such datasets from non-model species, it is possible that DNA from non-target contaminant species such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, or other eukaryotic organisms may complicate the interpretation of the results. In this study we analysed 14 genomic pyrosequencing libraries of aquatic non-model taxa from four major evolutionary lineages. We quantified the amount of suitable micro- and minisatellites, mitochondrial genomes, known nuclear genes and transposable elements and searched for contamination from various sources using bioinformatic approaches. Our results show that in all sequence libraries with estimated coverage of about 0.02–25%, many appropriate micro- and minisatellites, mitochondrial gene sequences and nuclear genes from different KEGG (Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes) pathways could be identified and characterized. These can serve as markers for phylogenetic and population genetic analyses. A central finding of our study is that several genomic libraries suffered from different biases owing to non-target DNA or mobile elements. In particular, viruses, bacteria or eukaryote endosymbionts contributed significantly (up to 10%) to some of the libraries analysed. If not identified as such, genetic markers developed from high-throughput sequencing data for non-model organisms may bias evolutionary studies or fail completely in experimental tests. In conclusion, our study demonstrates the enormous potential of low-coverage genome survey sequences and suggests bioinformatic analysis workflows. The results also advise a more sophisticated filtering for problematic sequences and non-target genome sequences prior to developing markers.
Atmospheric methanol measurement using selective catalytic methanol to formaldehyde conversion

Atmospheric methanol measurement using selective catalytic methanol to formaldehyde conversion S. J. Solomon, T. Custer, G. Schade, A. P. Soares Dias, and J. Burrows Institute of Environmental Physics, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany GRECAT-Grupo de Estudos de Catalise Heterogenea, Universidade Tecnica de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal presently with: Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University, Texas, USA Received: 16 February 2005 – Accepted: 23 March 2005 – Published: 31 May 2005 Correspondence to: S. J. Solomon (juliet@iup.physik.uni-bremen.de) © 2005 Author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Seismic Attenuation Studies in the Middle East and Southern Asia.

Abstract : Previous research has indicated that the Middle East and southern Asia are characterized by high attenuation that may be caused by high intrinsic absorption, scattering by complex velocity structure, or both. We are trying to model these attenuative properties by measuring the attenuation of Lg coda waves as well as fundamental-mode surface waves in that region. Determinations of Lg coda Q there have allowed us to complete our map of Lg coda Q for all of Eurasia. Initial determinations of fundamental-mode Rayleigh and Love wave attenuation, using a two-station method indicate that attenuation for those waves, especially at short periods, is very high. This suggests that Q in the upper crust is very low, a result that is consistent with our Lg coda Q results. A new code has been developed for measuring dispersion and polarization properties of surface waves. Initial tests with code indicate that surface wave propagation in the Middle East is often complex and marked by lateral refraction and mode conversion along the paths of propagation.
Business relationships and perceived environmental uncertainty : should I stay or should I go now ?

This paper investigates the association between perceived environmental uncertainty (PEU) and instrumental, affective and normative commitment, testing the null hypotheses that there is no significant association between PEU and the three components of commitment. The results indicate that there is a negative direct association between instrumental and normative commitment and PEU but no significant direct association between affective commitment and PEU (however there is a strong indirect effect). The conclusions drawn are that feelings of attachment, obligation and perceived need (affective, normative and instrumental commitment respectively) dissipate in environments perceived to be turbulent. Implications for the management of business-to-business relationships are canvassed.
Nuclear dependence of $R=\frac{\sigma_L}{\sigma_T}$ and Callan-Gross relation in nuclei

The electromagnetic nuclear structure functions $F_{1A} (x,Q^2)$, $F_{2A} (x,Q^2)$ and $F_{LA} (x,Q^2)$ have been calculated using a microscopic model of nucleus to study the nuclear medium effects on the ratio $R_A(x,Q^2)=\frac{\sigma_{LA} (x,Q^2)}{\sigma_{TA} (x,Q^2)} = \frac{F_{LA} (x,Q^2)}{2xF_{1A} (x,Q^2)}$ and the Callan-Gross relation(CGR) in nuclei. The nuclear medium effects due to the Fermi motion, binding energy, nucleon correlations, mesonic contribution and shadowing have been taken into account. The theoretical results for the nuclear dependence of $R_{A} (x,Q^2)$ and its impact on CGR have been presented and compared with the available experimental data on the various nuclear targets. The predictions have been made for $R_{A} (x,Q^2)$ in the kinematic region of $x$ and $Q^2$ for some nuclei relevant for the future experiments to be performed at the JLab.
Bean polygalacturonase-inhibiting protein expressed in transgenic Brassica napus inhibits polygalacturonase from its fungal pathogen Rhizoctonia solani.

Akhgari A.B. , Motallebi M. , Zaman i M.R. (2012): Bean polygalacturonase-inhibiting protein expressed in transgenic Brassica napus inhibits polygalacturonase from its fungal pathogen Rhizoctonia solani . Plant Prot. Sci., 48: 1–9. Polygalacturonase-inhibiting proteins (PGIPs) selectively inhibit polygalacturonases (PGs) secreted by invad ing plant pathogenic fungi. The objective of present research was to clone and introduce the pgip 2 gene from bean (Phaseolus vulgaris ) cv. Goli, with antifungal potential, into the commercially important canola ( Brassica napus , R line Hyola 308) via Agrobacterium tumefaciens mediated transformation. Here we used a transgenic overexpression approach in order to investigate the inhibitory activity of the PGIP on the PG from Rhizoctonia solani, the causal agent of damping off and root rot of canola. PGIP expression was determined in the functional inhibition assays against fungal PGs. Crude protein extracts prepared from transgenic canola leaves were found to inhibit the R. solani PG from 29% to 37% as compared to untransformed plants. The putative transgenic canola lines harbouring the pgip 2 gene encoding polygalacturonase-inhibiting proteins were identified by polymerase chain reaction and Southern blot analysis.
Confidence intervals for long-horizon predictive regressions via reverse regressions

Long-horizon predictive regressions in finance pose formidable econometric problems when estimated using the sample sizes that are typically available. A remedy that has been proposed by Hodrick (1992) is to run a reverse regression in which short-horizon returns are projected onto a long-run mean of some predictor. By covariance stationarity, the slope coefficient is zero in the reverse regression if and only if it is zero in the original regression, but testing the hypothesis in the reverse regression avoids small sample problems. Unfortunately this only allows us to test the null of no predictability. In this paper we show how to use the reverse regression to test other hypotheses about the slope coefficient in a long-horizon predictive regression, and to form confidence intervals for this coefficient. We show that this approach to inference works well in small samples.
Multiple imputation for missing data.

Missing data occur frequently in survey and longitudinal research. Incomplete data are problematic, particularly in the presence of substantial absent information or systematic nonresponse patterns. Listwise deletion and mean imputation are the most common techniques to reconcile missing data. However, more recent techniques may improve parameter estimates, standard errors, and test statistics. The purpose of this article is to review the problems associated with missing data, options for handling missing data, and recent multiple imputation methods. It informs researchers' decisions about whether to delete or impute missing responses and the method best suited to doing so. An empirical investigation of AIDS care data outcomes illustrates the process of multiple imputation.
Present-day crustal movements and the mechanics of cyclic deformation

Contemporary crustal movements in California are concentrated within a plate-boundary deformation zone that is typically 50 to 200 km wide, centered approximately on the San Andreas fault. Observations of coseismic, postseismic, and interseismic movements define the earthquake deformation cycle and constrain models of strain accumulation and release for strike-slip plate boundaries. This chapter describes shear strain on the San Andreas fault system; aseismic slip, integrated displacement rates, and Pacific-North American plate motion; detailed displacement-rate patterns; and thick- and thin-lithosphere models and stress-slip-constitutive-law fault models of deformation.
Use of integrated GPS and INS systems in aerial photogrammetry

Recent years have been marked by a development of many different land sur-veying techniques. This has been due to an increased need for reliable andrapidly-delivered information about the subject studied. These new developmentspertain not only to the acquisition of data but also, in great degree, to data analy-sis technologies. Aerial photogrammetry is an excellent example of this. Studieshave shown that it is possible to enhance aerial photogrammetry using GPS andINS systems. The use of GPS measurements to determine the centres of imageprojections “on the fly” and to include them in the aerotriangulation process hasbecome standard. The GPS/INS system also works alongside the electro-opticscanner sensor where it is responsible for the measurement of exterior referenceparameters for every image line registered. The integrated GPS/INS system is alsoresponsible for correct spatial placement of the point clouds gathered during ae-rial laser scanning (ALS). The greatest challenge today is to eliminate the need ofuse of ground control points and the aerotriangulation process through a suffi-ciently accurate direct measurement of the camera’s exterior orientation parame-ters during flight. This would reduce costs and produce a less time-consumingprocess. The method for determining airborne sensor orientation from the mea-surements instead of from aerotriangulation is called direct georeferencing.This paper is based on a review of literature including both textbooks and sci-entific publications. It presents not only an extensive review of the literature butalso the author’s own remarks regarding the effects which integration of GPS andINS in aerial photogrammetry will bring.