Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Spatial and Temporal Observations of Seasonal Thaw in the Northern Kolyma Lowland

Observations carried out in 1996-2002 in the northern part of the Kolyma Lowland reveal spatial and temporal regularities in the seasonal thawing of tundra and northern taiga soils. The main factor determining differences in active-layer thickness in zonal tundra landscapes is the texture (mechanical composition) of soil parent material. Summer thaw in sandy soils is 2-3 times deeper than in loamy soils. The distribution of maximum seasonal thaw depth in watersheds and on hillslopes with loamy soils is influenced strongly by climatic zonality, which manifests itself through an increase in the depth of thaw from the arctic tundra to northern taiga. River floodplains, thermokarst depressions (alasy), and polygonal bogs have thinner active layers than adjoining watersheds. A direct correlation exists between seasonal thaw depth and mean summer air temperature in most zonal landscapes. In many cases a tendency for increased thaw depth was observed in the warm summer of 2000-2002. An inverse correlation between seasonal thaw depth and total summer precipitation occurs in most zonal biogeocenoses with loamy soils and intrazonal landscapes. This relationship was not found in well-drained zonal tundra and taiga biogeocenoses with sandy soils or in the most waterlogged alas we examined.
Carbon isotopic fractionation during decomposition of plant materials of different quality

Changes in isotopic 13C composition of solid residues and CO2 evolved during decomposition of C3 and C4 plant materials were monitored over 10 months to determine carbon isotopic fractionation at successive stages of biodegradation. We selected plant materials of different chemical quality, e.g., Zea mays (leaves, stems, coarse roots, and fine roots), Lolium perenne (leaves and roots), Pinus pinaster (needles), and Cocos nucifera (coconut shell) and also characterized these by solid‐state 13C NMR. Roots were more lignified than aerial parts of the same species. Lignin was always depleted in 13C (up to 5.2‰) as compared with cellulose from the same sample. Proteins were enriched in 13C in C3 plants but depleted in maize. Cumulative CO2 evolved fitted a double‐exponential model with two C pools of different lability. During early stages of decomposition, the CO2‐C released was usually 13C depleted as compared with the initial substrate but enriched at posterior stages. Consequently, with ongoing decomposition, the solid residue became 13C depleted, which could only partly be explained by an accumulation of lignin‐C. The extension of the initial 13C depleted CO2‐C phase was significantly correlated with the labile substrate C content, acid‐detergent soluble fraction, and total N, pointing to a direct influence of plant quality on C isotopic dynamics during early stages of biodegradation. This isotopic fractionation can also lead to an underestimation of the contribution of plant residues to CO2‐C when incubated in soils. We discuss possible implications of these mechanisms of 13C fractionation in ecosystems.
Mercury's atmospheric bright spots and potassium variations: A possible cause

An explanation is given for time-variable and spatially discrete enhancements of neutral sodium (Na) and potassium (K) in Mercury's atmosphere. Some locations of increased intensity can be explained in terms of sodium and potassium ion implantation into the surface regolith grains during the long, 88 Earth day, Mercurian night with subsequent diffusion to the atmosphere when the enriched surface of Mercury rotates into the intense sunlight of day. Support for the suggested mechanism is shown by the K data which show a marked morning/afternoon asymmetry and can be explained by time and temperature dependent degassing. The magnetospheric mechanism necessary for ion implantation is discussed as is the diffusion mechanism. Alternative source, recycling, and distribution processes are also discussed.
Improving Computation of Sensible Heat Flux over a Water Surface Using the Variational Method

Abstract In this study, the authors have performed the variational computations for surface sensible heat fluxes over a large northern lake using observed wind, temperature gradient, and moisture gradient. In contrast with the conventional (Monin–Obukhov similarity theory) MOST-based flux-gradient method, the variational approach sufficiently utilizes observational meteorological conditions over the lake, where the conventional flux-gradient method performs poorly. Verifications using direct eddy-correlation measurements over Great Slave Lake, the fifth largest lake in North America in terms of surface area, during the open water period of 1999 demonstrate that the variational method yields good agreements between the computed and the measured sensible heat fluxes. It is also demonstrated that the variational method is more accurate than the flux-gradient method in computations of sensible heat flux across the air–water interface.
A Review of CNN-Based Techniques for Accurate Plant Disease Detection

— Various techniques have revolutionized the field of plant disease detection, offering accurate approaches for timely detection and recognition of crop diseases. This comprehensive review explores the current utilization of diverse techniques for plant disease detection and classification. It analyzes recent publications, considering aspects such as disease detection methods and dataset characteristics. These techniques have significantly advanced object detection and recognition in agriculture, facilitating efficient crop management and higher yields. However, the complexity of identifying and detecting plant diseases from images necessitates species-specific detection for customized control strategies. This study discusses the challenges and proposed solutions associated with the use of different techniques in early disease detection concentrated on deep learning methods. Overall, the review demonstrates the considerable potential of these techniques in disease detection and emphasizes the ongoing need for research and development to address current challenges and optimize their benefits in agriculture. and also underscores the importance of incorporating emerging technologies and data-driven approaches to further enhance the precision and scalability of plant disease detection systems.
High-Performance Domain-Specific Library for Hydrologic Data Processing

Hydrologists must process many gigabytes of data for hydrologic simulations, which takes time and resources degrading performance. The performance issues are caused mainly by domain scientists’ preference for using Python, which trades performance for productivity. In my thesis, I demonstrate that using the static compilation technique to compile Python to generate C code along with several optimizations reduces time and resources for hydrologic data processing. I developed a Domain Specific Library (DSL) which is a subset of Python and compiles to Sparse Polyhedral Framework - Intermediate Representation (SPF-IR), which allows opportunities for optimizations like read reduction fusion which are not available in Python. We fused the file I/O to perform computation on small chunks of data (stream computation) in order to reduce the memory footprint. The C code we generated from SPF-IR shows an average speed-up of 2.58x over the existing hand-optimized implementations and can totally eliminate the temporary storage required. DSL users can still enjoy the ease of use of Python but get performance better than the C code.
La prévision à l’aide des modèles ARMMI et d’information à priori

The method of ARIMA forecasting with benchmarks developed in this paper allows the production of univariate forecasts which take into account the historical information of a series, captured by an ARIMA model (Box and Jenkins, 1970), as well as partial prior information on the future behaviour of the series. The prior information, or benchmarks, stems from the conclusions of a study on the phenomenon to be extrapolated, from forecasts of an annual econometric model or simply from pessimistic, realistic or optimistic scenarios contemplated by the current economic analyst. It may take the form of annual levels to be achieved, of neighbourhoods to be reached for a given time period, of movements to be displayed or more generally of any linear criteria to be satisfied by the forecasted values. By means of this method, the forecaster may then exercize his current economic evaluation and judgement to the fullest extent in deriving the forecasts, since the labouriousness and the "trial and errors" experienced without a systematic method are avoided.
Unveiling the Relationship between Talent Development Interventions and Organization Effectiveness: Evidence from the Telecommunication Sector of Pakistan

In recent talent management research, the significance of nurturing talent has beenhighlighted. However, there remains a lack of sufficient quantitative investigations into theimpact of these practices on organizational effectiveness, particularly in developing countrieslike Pakistan, and specifically within the telecommunications sector. This study seeksto address this gap by examining the relationship between different bundles of talent development practices and overall organizational effectiveness. Data was collected from 196high-potential employees with diverse roles through online platforms. The results of the study indicate that various bundles of talent development practices, including formal, job-based,relationship-based, and informal approaches, positively influence organizational effectiveness.The findings of the study hold important implications for practitioners, indicating that the implementation of talent development practices can significantly enhance the overall effectiveness of telecommunication firms operating in Pakistan.
Flexible Use of Diesel or Biodiesel: An Approach Via Real Options

Our main goal is to study the development of biodiesel as a renewable energy source in Brazilian reality. Specifically, we shall discuss the flexibility between traditional diesel and biodiesel. It will be evaluated the option pricing of a diesel-run device where it is possible to use diesel or biodiesel. The evaluation will be done by means of a Real Options Approach, where the choice is modeled on a European options sequence. We also comment on the added gains for a country like Brazil.
When Meals Turn Into a Medical Mystery: A Case Report of Sigmoid Colon Impaction by a Chicken Bone

The presence of foreign objects in the digestive system can lead to various complications within the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. In certain cases, ingesting foreign objects can pose a significant dilemma for surgical teams, primarily because they can lead to blockages or punctures in the upper or lower sections of the GI tract. On occasion, foreign objects located in the lower regions of the digestive tract, such as the colon and rectum, might have entered via the anal pathway, thereby carrying the potential risk of causing perforations in the rectum or sigmoid colon. The other complications encompass the creation of abscesses, blockages in the bowel, fistula, and bleeding. Although these issues associated with foreign objects can arise in a healthy bowel, they can pose challenges in diagnosis when occurring in a bowel that is already affected by inflammation, constrictions, or malignancy. We present a unique case report of a 72-year-old female who presented to the emergency department with left lower quadrant pain associated with nausea and vomiting. Following a detailed clinical evaluation and radiographic imaging, a chicken bone was identified as the culprit, causing an unusual impaction in the sigmoid colon. The patient's medical history revealed no prior GI complications, making this case particularly noteworthy. Timely identification and precise diagnosis of complications arising from foreign bodies are essential to efficiently handle and prevent unfavorable consequences.
Spawning season and size at first sexual maturity of freshwater mussel Lamellidens marginalis (Lamarck, 1819) in the Brahmaputra River, Bangladesh

Spawning season and size at first sexual maturity of Freshwater mussel Lamellidens marginalis was studied from the specimens collected from Brahmaputra River, Mymensingh district, Bangladesh from July 2015 to June 2016. The present study has investigated sex ratios, gamogenetic cycle, condition index, and size at first sexual maturity by means of standard histological procedures. The results indicated no significant difference in the overall sex ratio (M: F = 1:1.3). The qualitative analysis of gonad developmental stages has provided confirmation of the presence of a yearly reproductive cycle characterized by prolonged gonadal activity. The highest percentages of ripe gonads were observed in July for males (77.78%) and August for females (53.85%). The spawning activity was highest in October for males (50%) and November for females (83.33%). Furthermore, ripening and spawning stages in different shell lengths ranged from 58–63 to 88–93 mm for both sexes. The findings from the qualitative observation of gonad developmental stages, a single annual spawning peak observed between October and November. A statistically significant correlation was detected between the average condition index of male and female. Males reached sexual maturity at smaller standard length (SL50 = 63.25 mm) compared to females (SL50 = 72.10 mm SL). Acquired knowledge regarding the present state and distinctive gonad developmental characteristics of L. marginalis will aid fisheries management professionals and conservation biologist in the effective management of this particular species of mussels in the waters of Bangladesh.
Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) Quality Tool in Education. A Systematic Literature Review

The purpose of this study is to determine the effects of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) quality tool in education. Identifying the main themes of these effects is an additional aim of the present study. Understanding these issues can enable higher and secondary education centres to direct their management towards achieving outstanding results. A systematic literature review was conducted based on data from two academic publishers, Emerald, Taylor and Francis. The 41 peer-reviewed journals articles were published between 1990 and 2023 and presented the results of the MBNQA quality tool in education. According to this research, several implications of the MBNQA quality tool in education are presented. The review of the literature reveals that there are many results found about the application of the quality tool in Tertiary and Secondary education, the challenges they face in terms of innovation, human resources and operations, as well as the achievement of excellent results from the application of the methodology. The main topics supported in the literature are human resources, knowledge management and the quality of services offered for the satisfaction of teachers and students. An important limitation is that data were drawn from only two major journals (Emerald, Taylor and Francis), as implementation of the MBNQA quality tool is mainly found in the private sector. In addition, many keywords such as Quality Assurance and Business Excellence, led to application of the quality tool in businesses and organisation and little is its application in the public sector and education as a result the findings of articles were limited. An equally important limitation is that the authors did not always have got access to all databases and peer-reviewed journals, as well as in any review articles in languages ​​other than English. This research is of interest to academic researchers, scholars and key decision makers in the field of education. The advantages recorded from the implementation of the MBNQA quality tool and the limitations from the study and presentation of the 41 articles motivate academic researchers to further study service quality in order to create a climate focused on learning for the satisfaction of students and teachers so as to fill the gap of limited publications in the field of education. Many models have been adapted to higher education including the MBNQA quality tool. The MBNQA appears to have the largest number of historical applications in higher education, with its focus on customer satisfaction and improvement information. However, the systematic literature review reveals the increasing trend of using quality tools in the field of education in recent years. Moreover, literature reviews on the use of models in this field are limited. Therefore, more research is needed to determine the benefits, as well as limitations and outcomes of applying qualitative tools in Education in the future.
Unpaired intra-operative OCT (iOCT) video super-resolution with contrastive learning

Regenerative therapies show promise in reversing sight loss caused by degenerative eye diseases. Their precise subretinal delivery can be facilitated by robotic systems alongside with Intra-operative Optical Coherence Tomography (iOCT). However, iOCT’s real-time retinal layer information is compromised by inferior image quality. To address this limitation, we introduce an unpaired video super-resolution methodology for iOCT quality enhancement. A recurrent network is proposed to leverage temporal information from iOCT sequences, and spatial information from pre-operatively acquired OCT images. Additionally, a patchwise contrastive loss enables unpaired super-resolution. Extensive quantitative analysis demonstrates that our approach outperforms existing state-of-the-art iOCT super-resolution models. Furthermore, ablation studies showcase the importance of temporal aggregation and contrastive loss in elevating iOCT quality. A qualitative study involving expert clinicians also confirms this improvement. The comprehensive evaluation demonstrates our method’s potential to enhance the iOCT image quality, thereby facilitating successful guidance for regenerative therapies.
Gly-Leu instead of Gly promoted the proliferation and protein synthesis of chicken intestinal epithelial cells

: Amino acids have positive regulatory effects on the function of intestinal epithelial cells (IEC), but in the field of animal nutrition, research on the regulatory effects of amino acids on IEC is still in the initial stages. This study aims to explore the effects of Gly, Gly-Gly, and Gly-Leu on IEC proliferation and their possible mechanisms. Chicken small intestinal epithelial cells were separated using the tissue block method, and other miscellaneous cells were removed for digestion and passage culture. The IEC were cultured in the medium containing 20 nmol/l Gly, Gly-Gly and Gly-Leu for 24 h, and the expression of enterokinase and cytokeratin in cells, the growth curve and activity of IEC, cell cycle, differentially expressed genes, mRNA expression, and protein expression levels of p-mTOR and p-S6K1 in IEC were detected. Enterokinase and cytokeratin were expressed specifically in IEC. The results of growth curve and MTT revealed that the cell viability of IEC was significantly increased after treatment with Gly, Gly-Gly and Gly-Leu. The cell cycle results showed that compared with the control group, Gly, Gly-Gly and Gly-Leu intervention could increase the proportion of IEC in G1 phase, and the proportion in S phase of IEC was decreased. Transcriptome sequencing showed that compared with the control group, there were 54, 28 and 30 differential genes in Gly group, Gly-Gly group and Gly-Leu group, respectively. These genes were mainly enriched in nitric oxide synthesis and protein kinase B signalling, PI3K signal and cellular amino acid biosynthesis and transport signal pathways. RT-PCR results showed that the mRNA expression levels of PCYT2, SPP1, EMC6, GRIA2 and PKD2 were consistent with the sequencing results. Western blot results showed that compared with the control group, the protein expression of p-mTOR and p-S6K1 in Gly group, Gly-Gly group and Gly-Leu group was significantly increased. Gly-Leu can promote the protein synthesis in IEC by activating protein synthesis of mTOR signalling pathway in chicken IEC.
Exploring Transferability on Adversarial Attacks

Despite of the progress that has been made in the field, the problem of adversarial attacks remains unresolved. The most up-to-date models are still vulnerable, and there is not a simple way to defend against these kinds of attacks; even transformers can be affected by this problem, although they have not been extensively studied yet. In this paper, we study transferability, which is a property of adversarial attacks in which images generated for one architecture can be transferred to another and still be effective. In real-world scenarios like self-driving cars, malware detection, and face recognition authentication systems, transferability can lead to security issues. In order to conduct a behavioral analysis, we select a diverse set of networks and measure how effectively the images produced by various attacks can be transferred among them. We generate adversarial samples for each network and then evaluate them with other networks to determine the corresponding transferability performance. We can observe that all networks are susceptible to transferability attacks, albeit in some cases at the expense of severely distorted images.
Revisió taxonòmica mundial de la família Triglidae (Pisces, Scorpaeniformes)

Memoria de tesi doctoral presentada per Lluis del Cerro i Ramon per optar al titol de doctor per la Universitat de Barcelona (UB), realitzada sota la direccio del Dr. Domenec Lloris i Samo de l'Institut de Ciencies del Mar (ICM-CSIC). -- 254 pages
Surface air mass origins during the First Aerosol Characterization Experiment (ACE 1)

During the First Aerosol Characterization Experiment (ACE 1) a number of meteorological and atmospheric composition measurements were made to identify anthropogenically impacted conditions and to infer information about air parcels during transport to the sampling point. Radon was used as an indicator of land contact supported by back trajectory calculations; additional information on anthropogenic sources was obtained from the concentrations of condensation nuclei and elemental carbon. A limited extension of the air mass categorization utilizes altitude profiles of potential temperature and water content derived from balloon soundings at the fixed sites. The four surface platforms were found to sample a very similar range of conditions, from very clean marine air masses to those strongly influenced by anthropogenic sources. Although this was expected because the study area is essentially encompassed by the one meteorological system, the precise origins of air masses were usually different for each platform, even, for example, when the Discoverer was within a hundred kilometres of Cape Grim. There was good agreement between the different air mass indicators under conditions when they could be compared. Radon was present when the back trajectory indicated passage over land at low altitude. Vertical profiles of potential temperature and water concentration were generally consistent with the origin of back trajectories. Excursions in the concentrations of condensation nuclei and elemental carbon occurred during periods of elevated radon concentrations when the path from land was short. However, these coincident periods of elevated concentration were rare when there was a long enough time from land for the different processing of each species to take effect.