Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Atmospheric correction algorithm for multiangular satellite measurements in the solar spectrum

Multiangular and hyperspectral capabilities of the last generation of remote sensing sensors require new data processing algorithms that can take advantage of this new type of information. In terms of atmospheric correction, taking into account surface directional reflectance properties leads to a coupling between surface and atmospheric radiative transfer effects that cannot be analitically decoupled in the most general case, so other strategies must be developed. In addition to this, commonly used radiative transfer codes are based on a plane-parallel atmosphere approximation, what causes problems for large view and illumination zenith angles. The aim of this paper is to present an atmospheric correction method based on Vermote et al. scheme for MODIS atmospheric correction. It considers BRDF effects in the surface, improving 6S code calculations in off-nadir configurations . We have simulated the top-of-the-atmosphere reflectances using nine different natural surfaces by means of MODTRAN4 radiative transfer code. The reflectance angular pattern retrieved for each surface has allowed us to validate the model and check the improvements versus the original MODIS algorithm.
Traces from the past: the Cenozoic regolith and intraplate neotectonic history of the Gun Emplacement, a ferricreted bench on the western margin of the Mt Lofty Ranges, South Australia

The Gun Emplacement is a small but distinctive bench on the Eden–Burnside Fault Escarpment near Anstey Hill, in the northeastern suburbs of Adelaide, South Australia, occurring at an elevation of ∼210–220 m asl. It is underlain by Middle Eocene North Maslin Sand and is capped by resistant, ferricreted colluvium. Paleomagnetic dating of hematitic mottles in the ferricreted colluvium, immediately underlying the emplacement, returned a Pliocene/Early Pleistocene age. This age is equivalent to that obtained for summit surface weathering. Fault scarps and exposures, including slickensides and fault gouge material, suggest that the Eden–Burnside Fault at this location has a strong en échelon pattern developed in response to reverse-sinistral oblique-slip faulting, reflecting continental stress fields. Remnants of ferricrete cappings forming stranded benches on the Eden–Burnside Fault Escarpment at elevations up to 25 m above the Gun Emplacement demonstrate recurrent tectonism of the South Mt Lofty Ranges related to intraplate deformation. There are at least four distinct ferricrete benches preserved on the eastern side of the active fault leading up from the Gun Emplacement surface. These benches demonstrate alternating periods of stability and tectonic activity disrupting and uplifting the ferricreted surfaces. A fresh surface rupture occurs and may be related to a recent seismic event.
The Impact of Sensory Marketing: Analysis of its Attributes Towards Online Perfum Users’ Behavior

Purpose: The tendency of consumers to purchase online today is enormous and requires the role of sensory marketing in providing a positive and memorable experience to all. In addition, since sensory marketing whether in online or offline settings can unconsciously govern shoppers’ judgement and purchase behavior, this paper aims to understand how multi-sensory information processing in the online environment is diverted from offline in the cosmetic perfume industry by leveraging previous research to analyze its effect on offline stores and emphasizing the present study on online retail stores. Theoretical framework: The research study conducted by Petit et al. (2019) attempts to explore more about digital sensory marketing and multisensory technologies. However, offline and online settings would have different effects and since perfume products require the use of our senses, there would be obstacles that prevent us from using our senses when sold online. This requires us to understand sensory marketing in the online shopping environment. Design/Methodology/Approach: This paper uses an exploratory study approach to gain in-depth understanding of the topic. The qualitative study is essentially built on primary data sources, through naturalistic observation and semi-structured interviews with 9 Generation Z individuals who are Indonesian citizens and have undertaken frequent perfume purchases online. A snowball sampling method was used in finding respondents for this study while interview results were analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings: The paper highlights the significant impact of sensory marketing through the use of sensorial cues, sensorial attributes, and individual differences in sensory perception. Ethical considerations when utilizing sensory marketing are also being emphasized throughout this study. Research, Practical & Social implications: Results of this study can encourage future research to help bring benefits for website/internet site designers, content managers, online perfume retailers, as well as academicians in general. Originality/Value: This paper draws attention to the growing use of online channels by cosmetic perfume industry actors and sheds light on the importance of sensory marketing practices in affecting online user behavior by answering what and how questions using exploratory studies.
The impedance of soil seals and the forces of emerging seedlings

Surface seals were produced on field plots of Tippera sandy clay by simulated rainfall and natural drying. The impedance was determined by recording the force required to bring about the emergence of mechanical probes buried prior to seal formation. In comparison with the impedance of loose dry soil, wetting and draining to field capacity caused a two- to threefold increase in impedance. On drying to 6% water content the impedance increased to a maximum of four to nine times the initial dry soil value. On further drying to 2% water content the impedance decreased to about two-thirds of the maximum value. Axial seedling forces calculated for a range of stem diameters and assumed turgor pressures were matched with the seal impedance data to produce a model which provides a quantitative assessment of the mechanical impedance met by seedlings.
Sources and distributions of dust aerosols simulated with the GOCART model

The global distribution of dust aerosol is simulated with the Georgia Tech/Goddard Global Ozone Chemistry Aerosol Radiation and Transport (GOCART) model. In this model all topographic lows with bare ground surface are assumed to have accumulated sediments which are potential dust sources. The uplifting of dust particles is expressed as a function of surface wind speed and wetness. The GOCART model is driven by the assimilated meteorological fields from the Goddard Earth Observing System Data Assimilation System (GEOS DAS) which facilitates direct comparison with observations. The model includes seven size classes of mineral dust ranging from 0.1–6 μm radius. The total annual emission is estimated to be between 1604 and 1960 Tg yr−1 in a 5-year simulation. The model has been evaluated by comparing simulation results with ground-based measurements and satellite data. The evaluation has been performed by comparing surface concentrations, vertical distributions, deposition rates, optical thickness, and size distributions. The comparisons show that the model results generally agree with the observations without the necessity of invoking any contribution from anthropogenic disturbances to soils. However, the model overpredicts the transport of dust from the Asian sources to the North Pacific. This discrepancy is attributed to an overestimate of small particle emission from the Asian sources.
The Ubiquitin-Proteasome System Facilitates Membrane Fusion and Uncoating during Coronavirus Entry

Although the involvement of the ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS) in several coronavirus-productive infections has been reported, whether the UPS is required for infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) and porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) infections is unclear. In this study, the role of UPS in the IBV and PEDV life cycles was investigated. When the UPS was suppressed by pharmacological inhibition at the early infection stage, IBV and PEDV infectivity were severely impaired. Further study showed that inhibition of UPS did not change the internalization of virus particles; however, by using R18 and DiOC-labeled virus particles, we found that inhibition of UPS prevented the IBV and PEDV membrane fusion with late endosomes or lysosomes. In addition, proteasome inhibitors blocked the degradation of the incoming viral protein N, suggesting the uncoating process and genomic RNA release were suppressed. Subsequently, the initial translation of genomic RNA was blocked. Thus, UPS may target the virus-cellular membrane fusion to facilitate the release of incoming viruses from late endosomes or lysosomes, subsequently blocking the following virus uncoating, initial translation, and replication events. Similar to the observation of proteasome inhibitors, ubiquitin-activating enzyme E1 inhibitor PYR-41 also impaired the entry of IBV, enhanced the accumulation of ubiquitinated proteins, and depleted mono-ubiquitin. In all, this study reveals an important role of UPS in coronavirus entry by preventing membrane fusion and identifies UPS as a potential target for developing antiviral therapies for coronavirus.
Performance assessment of slope greening techniques in Hong Kong

The hilly topography makes slopes an integral component of the urban cityscape in Hong Kong. Conventionally, safety is the key factor under consideration, while environmental aesthetics and ecological values are usually neglected. In recent years, environmental concerns have drawn more attention from the government and the general public. While most slopes are still covered by impermeable materials, soil mix is applied onto the surface to provide a substrate layer for the establishment and growth of vegetation. Up to 2004, more than 25 slope greening products falling into four technical categories are available in the market and more than 350 slopes have been constructed or renovated using these products. This study assessed the performance of 73 slopes representing 15 common slope greening products in Hong Kong. The assessment included coverage, richness and diversity of the vegetation on the slopes. Their structural integrity was also qualitatively evaluated. Results indicated that these greening products generally were successful in establishing vegetation cover but failed to develop a diversified vegetation community. This study can provide reference for the management of man-made slopes that is relevant not only to Hong Kong but also to other places across the world.
Closure domains in magnetite

We have observed clear arrays of closure domains at internal and external boundaries, such as crystal edges, cracks, and chemically altered regions, in a single crystal of magnetite, using the Bitter colloid technique with a {110} viewing plane. The common occurrence of closure domains in magnetite confirms the controlling role of magnetostatic energy in determining domain structures in strongly magnetic materials, first postulated by Landau and Lifschitz (1935). Closure domains also reconcile a long-standing discrepancy between the numbers of body domains observed in magnetite and the numbers predicted, which we show are much reduced when closure domains are taken into account. We verify experimentally that closure domains change their shape and internal structure depending on the crystallographic orientation of the boundary at which they form. When the boundary intersects the {110} viewing plane along a easy axis, for example, at favorably oriented internal boundaries or cracks, the closure domains are asymmetric in shape and are bounded by 71° and 109° walls. However, when the boundary is a {111} crystal face, containing no easy axis, the closure domains are symmetric in form and bounded by ≈90° walls. Closure domains of this latter type collect colloid densely along one of the two bounding walls, suggesting concentrations of magnetic poles, and the two walls are at angles of 70°–80° to each other, rather than the expected 90°. Several possible models are proposed to explain this behavior. Our study shows that internal domain structures in magnetite are relatively simple. Much more complicated structures appear on viewing surfaces that do not contain two sets of easy axes. The lack of orientation of the viewing surface in most previous studies may account for the reported rarity of closure domains in magnetite. Closure domain arrays forming at the margin of a chemically altered area are the first reported evidence for a direct link between chemical alteration and domain structures that could result in remagnetization.
Saline outflow from the Arctic Ocean: Its contribution to the deep waters of the Greenland, Norwegian, and Iceland seas

AbstractSince 1985 various investigators have proposed that Norwegian Sea deep water (NSDW) is formed by mixing of warm and saline deep water from the Arctic Ocean with the much colder and fresher deep water formed by convection in the Greenland Sea (GSDW). We here report on new observations which suggest significant modification and expansion of this conceptual model. We find that saline outflows from the Arctic Ocean result in several distinct intermediate and deep salinity maxima within the Greenland Sea; the southward transport of the two most saline modes is probably near 2 Sv. Mixing of GSDW and the main outflow core found over the Greenland slope, derived from about 1700 m in the Arctic Ocean, cannot by itself account for the properties of NSDW. Instead, the formation of NSDW must at least in part involve a source which in the Arctic Ocean is found below 2000 m. The mixing of various saline outflows is diapycnal. While significant NSDW production appears to occur in northern Fram Strait, large amounts of saline Arctic Ocean outflow also traverse the western Greenland Sea without mixing and enter the Iceland Sea. During the past decade, deep convection in the Greenland Sea has been greatly reduced, while deep outflow from the Arctic Ocean appears to have continued, resulting in a markedly warmer, slightly more saline, and less dense deep regime in the Greenland sea. © American Geophysical Union 1991
TEmoX: Classification of Textual Emotion Using Ensemble of Transformers

Textual emotion classification (TxtEC) refers to the classification of emotion expressed by individuals in textual form. The widespread use of the Internet and numerous Web 2.0 applications has emerged in an expeditious growth of textual interactions. However, determining emotion from texts is challenging due to their unorganized, unstructured, and disordered forms. While research in textual emotion classification has made considerable breakthroughs for high-resource languages, it is yet challenging for low-resource languages like Bengali. This work presents a transformer-based ensemble approach (called TEmoX) to categorize Bengali textual data into six integral emotions: joy, anger, disgust, fear, sadness, and surprise. This research investigates 38 classifier models developed using four machine learning LR, RF, MNB, SVM, three deep-learning CNN, BiLSTM, CNN+BiLSTM, five transformer-based m-BERT, XLM-R, Bangla-BERT-1, Bangla-BERT-2, and Indic-DistilBERT techniques with two ensemble strategies and three embedding techniques. The developed models are trained, tuned, and tested on the three versions of the Bengali emotion text corpus BEmoC-v1, BEmoC-v2, BEmoC-v3. The experimental outcomes reveal that the weighted ensemble of four transformer models En-22: Bangla-BERT-2, XLM-R, Indic-DistilBERT, Bangla-BERT-1 outperforms the baseline models and existing methods by providing the maximum weighted $F1$ -score (80.24%) on BEmoC-v3. The dataset, models, and fractions of codes are available at https://github.com/avishek-018/TEmoX.
Incoherent scatter radar identification of the dayside magnetic separatrix and measurement of magnetic reconnection

Incoherent scatter (IS) radar measurements of the ionospheric electron density are analyzed for the signature of the magnetic separatrix in the dayside ionosphere by comparison with separatrix locations determined using precipitating electron data from DMSP spacecraft within 1.5 hours in magnetic local time (MLT) of the Sondrestrom radar. A model of photoionization is used to remove its effects from the measured electron density to study the ionization by precipitating particles. The altitude of peak ionization and the peak ionization rate are used to determine whether a magnetic field line is open or closed. We observe that on closed field lines the peak ionization rate is high (> 2200 cm−3 s−1) or the peak is lower than 140 km in altitude, and on open field lines the peak ionization is low (< 900 cm−3 s−1) or the peak is higher than 140 km. These rules are used to identify the separatrix with an accuracy of 0.36° and a precision of ±0.39°. This signature of the separatrix is only apparent in the prenoon and noon sectors (0600 to 1300 MLT). In the postnoon sector (1630–1800 MLT) the altitude of peak ionization and the peak ionization rate do not show any systematic difference between the open and closed field line regions. Finally, an example is presented in which the data on the location and motion of the separatrix and IS radar measurements of F region plasma velocity are used to measure the magnetic reconnection rate as a function of the interplanetary magnetic field clock angle.
University of Birmingham Collaborative tracking for multiple objects in the presence of inter-occlusions

— In this paper, a new collaborative tracking algorithm is put forward to track multiple objects in video streams. First, we suggest a robust color-based tracker whose model is updated by online learned contextual information. A recursive method is performed to improve the estimation accuracy and the robustness to cluttered environment. Then, we extend this tracker to multiple targets. In order to avoid the problem of ID switch in long term occlusion, we design a hierarchical tracking system with different tracking priorities. First, the algorithm employs an adaptive collision prevention model to separate the nearby trajectories. When the inter-occlusion happens, the holistic model of tracker splits into several parts, and we use the visible parts to perform tracking as well as occlusion reasoning. In case where the targets have close appearance models, a trajectory monitoring approach is employed to handle the occlusion. Once the tracker is fully occluded, the algorithm will re-initialize particles around the occluder to capture the re-appeared target. Experimental results using open dataset demonstrate the feasibility of our proposal. Besides, comparison with several state of arts trackers has also been performed.
Recovery kinetics of short-term depression of GABAergic and glutamatergic synapses at layer 2/3 pyramidal cells in the mouse barrel cortex

Introduction Short-term synaptic plasticity (STP) is a widespread mechanism underlying activity-dependent modifications of cortical networks. Methods To investigate how STP influences excitatory and inhibitory synapses in layer 2/3 of mouse barrel cortex, we combined whole-cell patch-clamp recordings from visually identified pyramidal neurons (PyrN) and parvalbumin-positive interneurons (PV-IN) of cortical layer 2/3 in acute slices with electrical stimulation of afferent fibers in layer 4 and optogenetic activation of PV-IN. Results These experiments revealed that electrical burst stimulation (10 pulses at 10 Hz) of layer 4 afferents to layer 2/3 neurons induced comparable short-term depression (STD) of glutamatergic postsynaptic currents (PSCs) in PyrN and in PV-IN, while disynaptic GABAergic PSCs in PyrN showed a stronger depression. Burst-induced depression of glutamatergic PSCs decayed within <4 s, while the decay of GABAergic PSCs required >11 s. Optogenetically-induced GABAergic PSCs in PyrN also demonstrated STD after burst stimulation, with a decay of >11 s. Excitatory postsynaptic potentials (EPSPs) in PyrN were unaffected after electrical burst stimulation, while a selective optogenetic STD of GABAergic synapses caused a transient increase of electrically evoked EPSPs in PyrN. Discussion In summary, these results demonstrate substantial short-term plasticity at all synapses investigated and suggest that the prominent STD observed in GABAergic synapses can moderate the functional efficacy of glutamatergic STD after repetitive synaptic stimulations. This mechanism may contribute to a reliable information flow toward the integrative layer 2/3 for complex time-varying sensory stimuli.
Energy Efficiency In South Africa:Policy Perspectives And The Path ToLow Carbon Growth

Energy efficiency is becoming one of the key paths to transforming the South African economy into low carbon growth. This vision has been accepted by both the government and business community. To this end, the White Paper on Energy, National Energy Efficiency Strategy of 2005 (revised 2008), Energy Efficiency Accord and the National Climate Change Response Green Paper are among key policy documents. The Energy Efficiency Strategy spelt out a target of a national final energy demand reduction of 12% by 2015. Industry and Government agreed that the Energy Efficiency Strategy should be reviewed in three-year cycles. This paper reviews and assesses the energy efficiency policy landscape in South Africa and how this is assisting the nation to transform into a globally recognised low carbon economy. We conclude that South Africa is progressing well in terms of putting in place new as well as refining old pieces of legislation on energy efficiency leading to a low carbon growth path.
GPS geodetic constraints on the November 21, 2004 Mw 6.3 earthquake off the northwest coast of Dominica: implications for in situ volatile solubilities and eruption dynamics

Campaign GPS geodesy was initiated in Dominica in 2001. Observations collected by several REU cohorts in 2003, 2004, and 2006 were used to constrain the surface deformation field at 18 sites in 2006. The Mw 6.3 normal faulting event of November 21, 2004, which occurred between the islands of Dominica and Guadeloupe, affected our GPS interseismic time series. In order to remove the coseismic displacement, we used the Harvard CMT focal mechanism and aftershock hypocentral locations from the USGS NEIC to define a model fault plane. Our analysis yields a 35 km fault centered at 15.617 N and 61.709 W with a N33W strike and 55E dip. The rupture area is 60 by 35 km and the plane projected to the surface is 35 by 34.4 km. From the magnitude of the main event, the seismic moment was calculated (3.5075x10 dyne-cm). We assumed constant slip over the entire fault plane to derive a total finite slip of 9.74 cm.