Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Global spatio-temporally harmonised datasets for producing high-resolution gridded population distribution datasets

ABSTRACT Multi-temporal, globally consistent, high-resolution human population datasets provide consistent and comparable population distributions in support of mapping sub-national heterogeneities in health, wealth, and resource access, and monitoring change in these over time. The production of more reliable and spatially detailed population datasets is increasingly necessary due to the importance of improving metrics at sub-national and multi-temporal scales. This is in support of measurement and monitoring of UN Sustainable Development Goals and related agendas. In response to these agendas, a method has been developed to assemble and harmonise a unique, open access, archive of geospatial datasets. Datasets are provided as global, annual time series, where pertinent at the timescale of population analyses and where data is available, for use in the construction of population distribution layers. The archive includes sub-national census-based population estimates, matched to a geospatial layer denoting administrative unit boundaries, and a number of co-registered gridded geospatial factors that correlate strongly with population presence and density. Here, we describe these harmonised datasets and their limitations, along with the production workflow. Further, we demonstrate applications of the archive by producing multi-temporal gridded population outputs for Africa and using these to derive health and development metrics. The geospatial archive is available at https://doi.org/10.5258/SOTON/WP00650.
Survey of sematic web key techniques

The semantic web is an extension of WWW.Its goal is making computer understand and process data on the web and providing various intelligent services.On the basis of introducing the concept and system structure of semantic web,three key techniques: XML,RDF,Ontology is summarized and main problems to be solved is discussed.And the later research direction and key problems based on the current research actuality is specified.
Two-Dimensional Ship Velocity Estimation Based on KOMPSAT-5 Synthetic Aperture Radar Data

Continuously accumulating information on vessels and their activities in coastal areas of interest is important for maintaining sustainable fisheries resources and coastal ecosystems. The speed, heading, sizes, and activities of vessels in certain seasons and at certain times of day are useful information for sustainable coastal management. This paper presents a two-dimensional vessel velocity estimation method using the KOMPSAT-5 (K5) X-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) system and Doppler parameter estimation. The estimation accuracy was evaluated by two field campaigns in 2017 and 2018. The minimum size of the vessel and signal-to-clutter ratio (SCR) for optimum estimation were determined to be 20 m and 7.7 dB, respectively. The squared correlation coefficient R2 for vessel speed and heading angle were 0.89 and 0.97, respectively, and the root-mean-square errors of the speed and heading were 1.09 m/s (2.1 knots) and 17.9°, respectively, based on 19 vessels that satisfied the criteria of minimum size of vessel and SCR. Because the K5 SAR is capable of observing a selected coastal region every day by utilizing various modes, it is feasible to accumulate a large quantity of vessel data for coastal sea for eventual use in building a coastal traffic model.
Assessment of crop raiding activities of wild animal species in Kainji Lake National Park, Nigeria

The study focused on the assessment of crop raiding activities in some communities around Zugurma sector of Kainji Lake National Park, Nigeria. The study identify the species of wild animals that raid farms, farm produce that were affected in the area, seasons such activities occurred and level of destruction to farm products in the study area. Two hundred questionnaires were administered purposely to some farmers in the support zones communities with close proximity with to park boundaries and only one hundred and seventy four questionnaires were retrieved. The communities sampled were Felegi, Shafinni, Babugi, Fanga, and Ibbi. Direct observation and personal interview using an interpreter was employed to source for information. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The findings from this study revealed that Primates ( Erythrocebus patas and Chlorocebus aethiops tantalus) had the highest percentage of raid in farm with (44.7%) while Ground Squirrel ( Xerus erythopus ), Western Hartebeest ( Alcelaphus buselaphus ), Grimm’s Duiker ( Sylvicapra grimmia ) and Bushbuck ( Tragelaphus scriptus ) were the least raiders with (3.3%) respectively. This study also revealed that maize (zea mays) is the mostly raided crop with (19.1%) while cassava ( Manihot esculentus ) was the least with (2.5%). It was observed that crop raiding activities occur all year round with (43.7%) while less activity occur during the dry season with (27.6%) due to the fact that most crops had been harvested. The level of destruction caused by wild animals is very high with (94.3%) respondents attesting to this fact. The study shows that raiding activities affect farmlands that are very close to park boundaries more therefore, it is advisable for farmers to site their farmland far from park boundaries or cultivate crops that may not be destroyed by wild animals when they farm close to park boundaries. Keywords: Assessment, Crop Raiding, Primates, Protected Areas, Respondents
Tetrakis(-picoline)disilver(I)( AgAg ) bis(2-amino-5-chlorobenzenesulfonate) dihydrate

In the title compound [Ag2(Pic)4]L2·2H2O, where Pic is β-picoline (C6H7N) and L is the 2-amino-5-chloro­benzene­sulfonate anion (C6H5ClNO3S), each AgI cation is coordin­­ated by two Pic mol­ecules. Two [Ag(Pic)2] units are linked by an Ag–Ag inter­action to give a centrosymmetric dication.
Soil Carbon Sequestration as Climate Change Mitigation: A Case Study of Change in Soil Organic Carbon Stock and Carbon Sequestration During Last Three Decades in Dewa Block of District Barabanki (U.P.) India

Climate change mitigation is the stabilization of Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) concentration in the atmosphere. It is generally involves reductions in human emissions of GHGs. Carbon stored in soils represents the largest carbon pool in nearly all terrestrial biomes and thus it has a huge potential for either sequestering or releasing carbon into the atmosphere. Soil Carbon Sequestration is the process of transferring of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into the soil through crop residues and other organic solids. Present studies were carried out to assess the soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks and carbon sequestration due to change in land use and three decades time interval (1986 - 2016) in different soil series of Dewa Block, District Barabanki, U.P., India. Dewa block was categorized in eight soil series i.e., Gangauli, Bajgahani, Sihali, Ukhadi, Nayagaon, Dadra, Nigari and Maharaur soil series. Gangauli and Sihali soil series were Udic Ustochrepts while Bajgahani, Nayagaon and Maharaur were Aeric Halaquept. Ukhdi and Nigari were Natric Ustochrepts but Dadra soil series was Typic Ustochrepts. The SOC stock significantly increased in surface soil than the sub-surface soil in forested, cultivated and uncultivated soil in Udic Ustochrepts, Aeric Halaquept, Natric Ustochrept and Typic Ustochrept during last three decades. The soil carbon sequestration were ranged from 20.34-32.41 Mt CO2 equivalent ha-1 in surface of Udic Ustochrepts while in subsurface it was ranged 29.72-33.02 Mt CO2 equivalent ha-1 that was significantly increased after three decades in surface (53.95 – 58.92 Mt CO2 equivalent ha-1) as well as in subsurface soil (41.77 – 59.01 Mt CO2 equivalent ha-1). Similar trends were also observed in Aeric Halaquept, Natric Ustochrept and Typic Ustochrept. Although, carbon sequestration were observed low that was increased many fold after three decades in all soil types. Thus, present work concluded that carbon dioxide can be reduced through absorption by soil in form of SOC that will helpful to mitigation of climate change.
STUDY ON VERTICAL STRUCTURE OF MARINE BOUNDARY LAYER OVER PALAU

Atmospheric Boundary Layer (ABL) over land and ocean surface is quite diriment because of the differing dynamic and thermodynamic characteristics of both the surface. The structure and characteristics of the ABL over the oceanic surface, often known as the Marine Boundary Layer (MBL) plays an important role in regulating the surface energy, moisture fluxes and in controlling the convective transfer of energy moisture of the free atmosphere. It is imperative for coupled ocean-atmosphere modelling and numerical weather prediction. PALAU (Pacific Area Long-term Atmospheric observation for the Understanding of climate change) over Aimeliik state of Babeldaob Island (7.45° N; 134.47° E) of Republic of Palau field study can advances our knowledge of marine stratocumulus by providing information on the boundary layer and cloud structure, as well as their diurnal cycle.
Image segmentation algorithm based on T-junctions cues

To improve the over-segmentation and over-merge phenomenon of single image segmentation algorithm,a novel approach of combing Graph-Based algorithm and T-junctions cues is proposed in this paper. First, a method by L0 gradient minimization is applied to the smoothing of the target image eliminate artifacts caused by noise and texture detail; Then, the initial over-segmentation result of the smoothing image using the graph-based algorithm; Finally, the final results via a region fusion strategy by t-junction cues. Experimental results on a variety of images verify the new approach’s efficiency in eliminating artifacts caused by noise,segmentation accuracy and time complexity has been significantly improved.
Occlusion-Aware Crowd Navigation Using People as Sensors

Autonomous navigation in crowded spaces poses a challenge for mobile robots due to the highly dynamic, partially observable environment. Occlusions are highly prevalent in such settings due to a limited sensor field of view and obstructing human agents. Previous work has shown that observed interactive behaviors of human agents can be used to estimate potential obstacles despite occlusions. We propose integrating such social inference techniques into the planning pipeline. We use a variational autoencoder with a specially designed loss function to learn representations that are meaningful for occlusion inference. This work adopts a deep reinforcement learning approach to incorporate the learned representation into occlusion-aware planning. In simulation, our occlusion-aware policy achieves comparable collision avoidance performance to fully observable navigation by estimating agents in occluded spaces. We demonstrate successful policy transfer from simulation to the real-world Turtlebot 2i. To the best of our knowledge, this work is the first to use social occlusion inference for crowd navigation. Our implementation is available at https://github.com/yejimun/PaS_CrowdNav.
Concentration level of phosphate and nitrate in Ikpoba River of Edo State, Nigeria

Water is vital to the existence of all living organisms, but its value is increasingly being threatened as human populations grow and demand more water of high quality for various activities. This has led to water deterioration in quality and quantity for consumption by humans and has also impacted in the aquatic ecosystem. The aim of this paper is to access the vulnerability of Ikpoba River to eutrophication through the determination of phosphate and nitrate concentration. Eighteen water samples were collected from six stations in triplicate at an interval of two weeks throughout the duration of sampling. Temperature, pH, and conductivity were recorded in-situ and there was significant difference between nitrate and phosphate concentration together with majority of the other parameters recorded at the various stations. Comparison of results obtained from this study with those of other studies indicated that increased concentration of nitrate and phosphate in Ikpoba River are probably caused by discharge of pollution load from Guinness Nigerian Brewery’s domestic sewage, agriculture, and slaughter house which have further accelerated the occurrence of eutrophication. Key words: Eutrophication, nutrients, phosphate, nitrate.
Effect of Traditional Persian Materials and Parametric Design on the Thermal Performance of a Generic Building in Mediterranean Climate

Concerns related to buildings’ green-house emissions in recent years lead to the increase of architectural adaptation to local environment. While passive conditioning strategies emphasising natural ventilation are common alternatives to achieve indoor comfort in hot and humid climate, they are not widely used in temperate climates. In this context, this paper presents a computer simulation study carried out through Archsim plug-in of Grasshoper/Rhinoceros. The object of study consists of a single family housing unit (flat) with an area of 31.25 m2 and a height of 2.80 m, with one user, under naturally ventilated conditions. As a reference case, the model used the climate of the city of Yazd in Iran and the simulations assessed parameters such as window-to-floor area ratios of 10% and 20%, as well as the thermal transmittance of exterior walls, considering an envelope with insulation materials, as a common European configuration, and an envelope with Persian materials, such as adobe. Two different Mediterranean climates, Palermo and Valencia, were investigated and the influence of these parameters at the building thermal performance was evaluated using cooling and heating degree-hours indicator, using as thermal comfort limits the Operative Temperature criteria established by ISO 7730. Using Persian materials at the model envelope increased its thermal inertia, thus reducing the temperature variation in the internal environment and improving its interior comfort, especially during the warmest seasons.
Investigating thermal decay in K-feldspar for the application of IRSL thermochronometry on the Mont Blanc massif

Luminescence thermochronometry is based on the balance between electron trapping due to environmental radiation and temperature-dependent electron detrapping in certain minerals, mainly quartz and feldspar. Based on the acquired luminescence signal and derivation of the associated kinetics, this method enables the thermal history of rocks to be quantitatively constrained. For reliable extrapolation from laboratory to geological timescales, an appropriate model of thermal detrapping is required. However, the kinetic processes controlling charge transport in feldspar remain a subject of discussion. A range of models describe infra-red stimulated luminescence (IRSL) laboratory decay and have been used for the application of feldspar luminescence thermochronometry: a multiple first-order kinetic model based on band-tail states, a model based on localized transitions and a general-order kinetics model. In this study, we validate the band-tail states model using published IRSL data of samples of known steady-state thermal conditions from the KTB borehole in Germany. Furthermore, we investigate thermal decay of trapped charge in IR sensitive traps in feldspar through exploring the effect of a Gaussian distribution of trap depths. Our results show that the band-tail states, a Gaussian distribution of trap depths and the combination of the two can all describe the laboratory and field data. We conclude that these models are suitable for application in IRSL-thermochronometry studies.
Spatiotemporal Variability of the Global Ocean Internal Processes Inferred from Satellite Observations

Using a new analysis tool, namely, multiscale window transform (MWT), and the MWT-based theory of canonical transfer, this study investigates the spatiotemporal variations of the nonlinear interactions among the mean flows, interannual variabilities, quasi-annual fluctuations, and eddies in the global ocean. It is found that the canonical kinetic energy (KE) transfers are highly inhomogeneous in space, maximized in the western boundary current (WBC), Southern Ocean, and equatorial regions. In contrast to the equatorial and WBC regions where the temporal KE cascades are mainly forward, the Southern Ocean is the very place where coherent large-scale patterns of inverse KE cascade take place. The canonical transfers are also found to be highly variable in time. Specifically, in the Kuroshio Extension, the transfer from the mean flow to the interannual variability is in pace with the external winds from the eastern North Pacific; in the subtropical gyre, the mean flow-to-eddy transfer is responsible for the variability of the eddy kinetic energies (EKE) at both interannual and seasonal scales; in the tropics, the downscale transfers to the eddies from the other three scales all contribute to the interannual modulation of the EKE, and these transfers tend to decrease (increase) during El Niño (La Niña) events. In the Southern Ocean, the high-frequency eddies are found to feed KE to the low-frequency variability through temporal inverse cascade processes, which have been strengthened due to the enhanced eddy activities in the recent decade. Also discussed here is the relation between the seasonal EKE variability and the eddy–quasi-annual fluctuation interaction.
Stable Isotope Constraints on Marine Productivity Across the Cretaceous‐Paleogene Mass Extinction

The effects of the Cretaceous‐Paleogene (K/Pg) mass extinction (~66 Ma) on marine primary and export productivity remain debated. We studied changes in carbon and nitrogen cycling in eight neritic and upper bathyal sections with expanded K/Pg boundary clay layers in the western Tethys and northeastern Atlantic Ocean, by measuring stable carbon isotopes of bulk carbonate (δ13Ccarb) and organic matter (δ13Corg), nitrogen isotopes in bulk organic matter (δ15N), and selected compound‐specific carbon isotopic records (δ13Clipid). Negative carbon isotope excursions (CIEs) in δ13Ccarb, δ13Corg, and δ13Clipid are temporally and spatially heterogeneous as well as decoupled from each other, suggesting that factors affecting the δ13C of dissolved inorganic carbon, as well as isotopic fractionation during carbon fixation across the K/Pg, are more complex than commonly assumed. The negative CIEs in δ13Corg and δ13Clipid at each site are smaller in amplitude and shorter in duration than those in δ13Ccarb, but in most sections both carbon pools recovered to preboundary conditions within the time of deposition of the boundary clay layer (<103–104 Kyr) or shortly thereafter. This rapid recovery is supported by limited δ15N data, which mostly suggests moderate or minor changes in redox conditions (except in Denmark), marine productivity, and phytoplanktonic nitrate utilization in the earliest Danian. Our results indicate that carbon cycling and primary productivity in neritic and upper bathyal regions recovered to preboundary levels faster (<104Kyr) than in oceanic regions (105–106 years), likely sustained by resilient noncalcifying phytoplankton with resting stages, consistent with modeling and proxy studies.
Paleomagnetic Evidence for a Partially Differentiated Ordinary Chondrite Parent Asteroid

The textures and accretion ages of chondrites have been used to argue that their parent asteroids never differentiated. Without a core, undifferentiated planetesimals could not have generated magnetic fields through dynamo activity, so chondrites are not expected to have experienced such fields. However, the magnetic remanence carried by the CV chondrites is consistent with dynamo‐generated fields, hinting that partially differentiated asteroids consisting of an unmelted crust atop a differentiated interior may exist. Here, we test this hypothesis by applying synchrotron X‐ray microscopy to metallic veins in the slowly cooled H6 chondrite Portales Valley. The magnetic remanence carried by nanostructures in these veins indicates that this meteorite recorded a magnetic field over a period of tens to hundreds of years at ∼100 Myr after solar system formation. These properties are inconsistent with external field sources such as the nebula, solar wind, or impacts, but are consistent with dynamo‐generated fields, indicating that the H chondrite parent body contained an advecting metallic core and was therefore partially differentiated. We calculate the thermal evolution of the chondritic portions of partially differentiated asteroids that form through incremental accretion across 105 to 106 years, finding this can agree with the measured ages and cooling rates of multiple H chondrites. We also predict that the cores of these bodies could have been partially liquid and feasibly generating a dynamo at 100 Myr after solar system formation. These observations contribute to a growing body of evidence supporting a spectrum of internal differentiation within some asteroids with primitive surfaces.
Exploiting impedance shaping approaches to overcome force overshoots in delicate interaction tasks

The aim of the presented article is to overcome the force overshoot issue in impedance based force tracking applications. Nowadays, light-weight manipulators are involved in high-accurate force control applications (such as polishing tasks), where the force overshoot issue is critical (i.e. damaging the component causing a production waste), exploiting the impedance control. Two main force tracking impedance control approaches are described in literature: (a) set-point deformation and (b) variable stiffness approaches. However, no contributions are directly related to the force overshoot issue. The presented article extends both such methodologies to analytically achieve the force overshoots avoidance in interaction tasks based on the on-line estimation of the interacting environment stiffness (available through an EKF). Both the proposed control algorithms allow to achieve a linear closed-loop dynamics for the coupled robot-environment system. Therefore, control gains can be analytically on-line calculated to achieve an over-damped closed-loop dynamics of the controlled coupled system. Control strategies have been validated in experiments, involving a KUKA LWR 4+. A probing task has been performed, representative of many industrial tasks (e.g. assembly tasks), in which a main force task direction is defined.
Technology for managing thermal energy flows in industrial greenhouses

The paper presents technical solutions to improve the energy efficiency of growing greenhouse vegetables using artificial irradiation. The authors describe the technology of controlling the flow of thermal energy during irradiating of plants. A comparison of the developed technology with the fifth generation Ultra Clima greenhouse technology has been carried out. Key technical solutions have been identified, the introduction of which increases the efficiency of using thermal energy by 6%, increases the area irradiated by a single irradiator by 2.5% while maintaining photosynthetically active irradiation reaching the biocenoses, and provides an increase in the yield of vegetable crops by 2-5%. It has been established that with equal economic conditions of greenhouse growing of vegetables, the savings in energy costs compared to Ultra Clima technology is 5-6%, depending on the climatic conditions of the environment.