Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The application of automated segmentation methods and fragmentation statistics to characterise rocky reef habitat

The techniques presented in this study remove the qualitative assessment of rocky reef patch identification by applying robust methods for automated reef delineation from sidescan sonar records using a segmentation algorithm. Object texture, shape and size are investigated to discriminate reef from sand habitat. These results are applied to spatially explicit fragmentation statistics to examine the role of scale and habitat arrangement in determining habitat distribution patterns on the east coast of Tasmania.
Understanding controlled trials: What are pragmatic trials?

Trials of healthcare interventions are often described as either explanatory or pragmatic. Explanatory trials generally measure efficacy-the benefit a treatment produces under ideal conditions, often using carefully defined subjects in a research clinic. Pragmatic trials measure effectiveness-the benefit the treatment produces in routine clinical practice. An explanatory approach recruits as homogeneous a population as possible and aims primarily to further scientific knowledge. By contrast, the design of a pragmatic trial reflects variations between patients that occur in real clinical practice and aims to inform choices between treatments. To ensure generalisability pragmatic trials should, so far as possible, represent the patients to whom the treatment will be applied. The need for purchasers and providers of health care to use …
We're managing! Climate change and livelihood vulnerability in Northwest Ghana

Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: http://uba.uva. nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible.
Land Cover Changes Between 1958 and 1986 in Kalu District, Southern Wello, Ethiopia

Abstract This paper evaluates changes in land use/land cover (hereafter land cover) in a specific area in Kalu District, Southern Wello, Ethiopia, by comparing two aerial photographs from 1958 and 1986. An attempt is also made to discuss possible implications of these land cover changes for land degradation. By applying Geographic Information Systems (GIS), two maps of the study area (for the years 1958 and 1986) were produced. The maps show a decrease in coverage by shrublands, riverine vegetation and forests, and an increase in remaining open areas, settlements, floodplains, and a water body. The areal extension of nine categories of land cover was calculated and, by overlaying the two maps, the percentage of each type of land cover that was converted into other categories was computed. Land cover changes were most noticeable for shrublands, with a decrease of 15.5 km2 (–51%), and for remaining open areas (ie, excluding cultivated areas and settlements), with an increase of 14.3 km2 (+333%). Areas under cultivation remained more or less unchanged. By and large, land cover changes observed in this study were the result of clearing of vegetation for fuelwood, grazing lands, new cultivation areas, etc., thus contributing to the current problem of land degradation in the country. If coordinated efforts are not made to rehabilitate degraded hillslopes, further deterioration of shrublands, forests, and riverine vegetation into areas with little or no plant cover will adversely affect the hillslopes and eventually those areas that are currently used for crop production.
The Market Price of Risk and Macro-Financial Dynamics

We propose the conditional volatility of GDP spanned by financial factors as a “Volatility Financial Conditions Index” (VFCI) and show it is closely tied to the market price of risk. The VFCI exhibits superior explanatory power for stock and bond risk premia compared to other FCIs. We use a variety of identification strategies and instruments to demonstrate robust causal relationships between the VFCI and macroeconomic aggregates: a tightening of financial conditions as measured by the VFCI leads to a persistent contraction of output and triggers an immediate easing of monetary policy. Conversely, contractionary monetary policy shocks cause tighter financial conditions. JEL Classification Numbers: E32, E44, G12, C22
Understanding Chorematic Diagrams: Towards a Taxonomy

Abstract title/> Chorematic diagrams are prospective candidates for communicating highly generalised geographic information about a given region of interest. Chorematic diagrams were popularized in France as the graphical artefacts of a specific school of geographic thought established by Roger Brunet, with GIP-RECLUS as his institutional backing. Although many maps were created and a lively debate ensued, only few consolidated cartographic findings were generated and even less were made known to the international scientific community. This article presents a contextualizing review and proposes a cartographic taxonomy aimed at being a first step towards efforts for the automated generation of chorematic diagrams.
Lane Following using Behavioural Cloning

With the rise in the research relating to Artificial Intelligence along with the growing concern of everyday road accidents due to human error, the research pertaining to Autonomous Vehicles has been soaring to new highs. However, this technology in its current form has serious limitations such as restricted use during adverse conditions (such as snow), inability to identify manual traffic instructions, abnormal traffic behaviours etc. This is one of the reasons that even the vehicles with most autonomous features, exhibit only a Level 2 or Level 3 of driving automation. Hence, in order to reach further levels of automation, it may be useful to create a symbiotic technology between autonomous vehicles and traffic control models. This thesis work will work as an elementary stepping stone to create such a symbiosis by identifying a Lane Following Model using Convolutional Neural Networks. Specifically, a Behavioural Cloning Model along with a Road Classification Model is developed in order to mimic human driving characteristics which ideally works independent of lane markings and to regulate this driving characteristics by reading road signs with satisfactory levels of accuracy.
Comparative analysis of the multi-type atmospheric aerosol lidar ratios

For lidar probing technique, the lidar ratio is one of key factors which impact the precision of lidar detection. Lidar ratio depends on not only incident laser wavelength but also aerosol size distribution and complex refractive index, and its value is between 0 and 90sr. However, lidar ratio was simply suggested as a fixed value of 50 sr for a long time, which means that the atmospheric aerosol size distribution and chemical compositions do not change with temporal and special variableness. In order to improve the detection precision of lidar extinction profile, it is necessary to study the changes of lidar ratio. For the measurements with an upward-looking monostatic lidar system, due to the change of the relative humidity along the measurement path, the lidar ratio may differ considerably from an assumed constant range-independent value. One of the objectives of this study is to quantify this variability for different aerosol types by numerical methods, and we will give out multi-type aerosol lidar ratios, such as continental clean, continental average, continental polluted, urban, desert, maritime clean maritime polluted and maritime tropic et al. The results will provide valuable references for the lidar development and the derivation of atmospheric aerosol extinction profile.
Holocene evolution of a lowland Scottish landscape: Kirkpatrick Fleming. Part I, peat- and pollen-stratigraphic evidence for raised moss development and climatic change

This series of papers addresses the principal natural and anthropogenic environmental changes that have transformed a typical lowland Scottish landscape during the Holocene. Sediment- and pollen- stratigraphic techniques, together with radiocarbon dating, are applied in this paper to the stratigraphy of a raised bog at Burnfoothill Moss, eastern Dumfriesshire, to deduce changes in groundwater levels within the bog, and by inference, changes in effective precipitation. The basin, initially a shallow pond, was rapidly colonized by fen peat at 9600 BP, possibly during a phase of drier climate, which ended at c. 8700 BP. Short-lived fluctuations in bog-surface wetness are identified before a major change to a wetter bog surface at around 7700 cal. BP, representing the transformation from fen peat to raised moss. Anthropogenic interference with surrounding woodland is believed to have destabilized the water balance within the peat. Drier bog-surface conditions occur at c. 6700 cal. BP, and a shift to a wetter climate at around 5250 cal. BP, but a perhaps more substantial wet shift is recorded at c. 4000 cal. BP. At c. 1900 cal. BP a dry climate shift is recognized, ending at c. 1200 cal. BP. Slightly prior to the 'Little Ice Age', represented by a very wet phase before c. 400 cal. BP, is a dry period between c. 600 and 400 cal. BP.
A search for split SKS waveforms in the North Atlantic

SUMMARY To test a prediction of the anisotropic properties of the upper mantle beneath the central North Atlantic, we measure splitting of the waveforms of SKS phases recorded at WWSSN stations in the Azores (PDA), and on Bermuda (BEC). Because the analysis of individual, analogue records does not provide sufficient resolution, we have developed a new technique for representing the confidence limits that permits a straightforward estimation of the average splitting beneath a station from a group of events. If events from a variety of different azimuths are recorded, the average splitting parameters can be tightly constrained. We found five records for PDA and eight for BEC that have good signal-to-noise ratio and a prominent SKS phase. Only one of the phases at PDA shows evidence of splitting; the average anisotropy must be small if it exists at all. At BEC, the average anisotropy is significant with a fast direction between NW-SE and N-S and a time delay between the two split components of about 1 s. Both of these observations are significantly smaller than predicted by a model of the upper mantle anisotropy based on SS-S differential traveltimes. The absence of systematic anisotropy at PDA may be attributable to a complex flow pattern in the upper mantle at this site near the Eurasian-African plate boundary in the vicinity of an active hotspot. At BEC, the observed direction is consistent with the prediction and both the direction and the magnitude of the average anisotropy are indicative of a sublithospheric source. To check the reliability of these results from analogue records, we have performed a similar analysis for station KIP on Oahu where digital records are available for comparison. The results from digital and analogue records are similar. At KIP, the splitting is more variable than expected for uniform anisotropy, with the fast directions for individual records ranging from about N26"E to about N83"E and with variable time delays. Similar variability is observed at all three stations. The average anisotropy at KIP is well-constrained, however, with a time delay of about 0.6 s and fast direction N75"E. The fast direction coincides with the fossil sea-floor spreading direction beneath the Hawaiian islands, suggesting that the dominant source of anisotropy beneath KIP is lithospheric.
Water Footprint and Impact of Water Consumption for Food, Feed, Fuel Crops Production in Thailand

The proliferation of food, feed and biofuels demands promises to increase pressure on water competition and stress, particularly for Thailand, which has a large agricultural base. This study assesses the water footprint of ten staple crops grown in different regions across the country and evaluates the impact of crop water use in different regions/watersheds by the water stress index and the indication of water deprivation potential. The ten crops include major rice, second rice, maize, soybean, mungbean, peanut, cassava, sugarcane, pineapple and oil palm. The water stress index of the 25 major watersheds in Thailand has been evaluated. The results show that there are high variations of crop water requirements grown in different regions due to many factors. However, based on the current cropping systems, the Northeastern region has the highest water requirement for both green water (or rain water) and blue water (or irrigation water). Rice (paddy) farming requires the highest amount of irrigation water, i.e., around 10,489 million m 3 /year followed by the maize, sugarcane, oil palm and cassava. Major rice cultivation induces the
Communication strategies for promoting sports participation for health: an examination of goal-framing effects in South Korea

ABSTRACT The South Korean government has implemented a public campaign promoting sports participation for health since 2005. However, research on the communication strategies of this campaign is limited. This study examined message strategies to promote sports participation for health through two experiments. A convenient sample comprising individuals aged 18–55 years was recruited from a large public university in South Korea. The results of experiment 1 support the basic tenet of goal-framing effects that gain-framed messages are more effective than loss-framed messages in promoting sports participation, which is a typical preventive health behavior. In experiment 2, gain-framed messages for sports participation were further classified into two types: easy but small-gain (ESG) messages and difficult but large-gain (DLG) messages. Experiment 2 examined whether the persuasive impact of the two types of gain-framed messages varies according to individuals’ past sports experience levels (i.e. active vs. occasional sports participants). As predicted, ESG was more persuasive than DLG for occasional sports participants. However, the persuasive effects of ESG and DLG did not significantly differ among active sports participants. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
TREE-RING RECONSTRUCTION OF UPPER GILA RWER DISCHARGE1

: Effective planning for use of water resources requires accurate information on hydrologic variability induced by climatic fluctuations. Tree-ring analysis is one method of extending our knowledge of hydrologic variability beyond the relatively short period covered by gaged streamflow records. In this paper, a network of recently developed tree-ring chronologies is used to reconstruct annual river discharge in the upper Gila River drainage in southeastern Arizona and southwestern Arizona since A.D. 1663. The need for data on hydrologic variability for this semi-arid basin is accentuated because water supply is inadequate to meet current demand. A reconstruction based on multiple linear regression (R2=0.66) indicates that 20th century is unusual for clustering of high-discharge years (early 1900s), severity of multiyear drought (1950s), and amplification of low-frequency discharge variations. Periods of low discharge recur at irregular intervals averaging about 20 years. Comparison with other tree-ring reconstructions shows that these low-flow periods are synchronous from the Gila Basin to the southern part of the Upper Colorado River Basin.
Nitrogen Uptake by Phytoplankton in a Shallow Water Tidal Front

Abstract Nitrogen uptake by phytoplankton was studied in a shallow water tidal front and its adjacent stratified and well-mixed sectors on the Armorican shelf (north-west Europe) in July 1992. The front was characterized by relatively high phytoplankton biomass (>3·4 μg l−1) and high ammonium and nitrate uptake rates (1·05 and 0·63 mmol m−2 h−1respectively) compared with the stratified (0·71 and 0·21 mmol m−2 h−1) and well-mixed (0·49 and 0·25 mmol m−2 h−1) waters. Ammonium regeneration rates at the front were of the same order as ammonium uptake rates indicating intense recycling of nitrogen by microheterotrophs. The high total nitrogen uptake, in terms of both absolute and chlorophyll-specific rates, in the front suggests that in situ growth, rather than physical processes, is the main cause of phytoplankton abundance in the front. Despite high nitrate uptake rates, the f -ratios (ρNO−3/(ρNO−3+ρNH+4)) were lower than in the deep water tidal fronts, because of low nitrate concentrations below the thermocline.
Health, alcohol and EU law: understanding the impact of European single market law on alcohol policies.

BACKGROUND Many professionals in the alcohol field see the role of the the European Court of Justice (ECJ) as negative for health. This review examines ECJ and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) case law in the context of two broader debates: firstly the extension of European Union (EU) law into alcohol policy (the 'juridification' of alcohol policy), and secondly the extent to which alcohol policy is an example of the dominance of 'negative integration' (the removal of trade-distorting policy) over 'positive integration' (the creation of European alcohol policies). METHODS A comprehensive review of all ECJ/EFTA Court cases on alcohol, with interpretation aided by a secondary review on alcohol and EU law and the broader health and trade field. RESULTS From looking at taxation, minimum pricing, advertising and monopoly policies, the extension of the scope of the these courts over alcohol policy is unquestionable. However, the ECJ and EFTA Court have been prepared to prioritize health over trade concerns when considering alcohol policies, providing certain conditions have been met. CONCLUSION While a partial juridification of alcohol policy has led to the negative integration of alcohol policies, this effect is not as strong as sometimes thought; EU law is more health friendly than it is perceived to be, and its impact on levels of alcohol-related harm appears low. Nevertheless, lessons emerge for policymakers concerned about the legality of alcohol policies under EU law. More generally, those concerned with alcohol and health should pay close attention to developments in EU law given their importance for public health policy on alcohol.
Health, Poverty and Service Use Among Older West Indian Women in Greater Hartford

SUMMARY This study brings to light the phenomenon of aging in the West Indian migrant community in the United States. It presents the results of a cross-sectional exploratory survey of 107 community-dwelling West Indian women aged 55 years and over living in the Greater Hartford region of Connecticut. The data analysis reveals positive self-reports of health and few limiting or disabling conditions. However, there is substantial income inequality, a negative relationship between age group and income and limited use of services among those women most likely to require them. The findings suggest that some of the qualities which contributed to West Indians becoming the “Black success model” in the U.S. may be counterproductive for successful aging. A community-based strategy for addressing these issues is outlined.
How herbivores affect plant growth, community structure and litter decomposition in Alaskan tundra: Implications for responses to climate change

HOW HERBIVORES AFFECT PLANT GROWTH, COMMUNITY STRUCTURE AND LITTER DECOMPOSITION IN ALASKAN TUNDRA: IMPLICATIONS FOR RESPONSES TO CLIMATE CHANGE David R. Johnson, Ph.D. University of Texas at Arlington Supervising Professor: Laura Gough Increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations have caused higher air temperatures in the Arctic. Because arctic organisms are temperature limited, warmer conditions lead to higher decomposition and nutrient cycling rates by soil microorganisms resulting in positive feedbacks; more CO2 is released from warmer soils thus increasing global atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Higher decomposition and nutrient cycling rates increase soil nutrient availability for plants resulting in increased net primary productivity (NPP) and shifts in community structure. If these “warmer” communities contain more woody shrubs, they may store more carbon in plant tissue, potentially offsetting increases in CO2 from decomposition. However, little is known about how higher trophic levels affect plants under these conditions. I studied how mammalian herbivores affect individual plant growth, community structure and decomposition in two common arctic plant communities in northern Alaska that experienced ten years of experimental fertilization and herbivore exclosures in a factorial design. While fertilization increased growth of individual plants, increased community NPP and shifted species composition, the effects of herbivores were different in each community. In moist acidic tussock (MAT) tundra, long-term fertilization and herbivory decreased the growth of individual graminoids and increased
Mesoscale analysis of transport across the subtropical tropopause

An airborne ozone lidar has been operated on March 26 and 27, 1999 in order to document the ozone distribution near the subtropical jet (STJ) in the 5°W–15°W longitude band which corresponds to an area where the STJ accelerates and interacts strongly with mid‐latitude cyclones. The two main features observed are a tropopause fold in the region where the STJ accelerates and an intrusion of subtropical tropospheric air into the mid‐latitude lower stratosphere. A mesoscale meteorological model is applied with high vertical resolution in order to study the strong layering in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere.
Energy Saving in 5G Cellular Networks using Machine Learning Based Cell Sleep Strategy

The optimization of fifth-generation (5G) mobile networks through energy-saving has become a significant objective for telecom operators. By reducing energy consumption, operators can improve network performance, reduce operating costs, and minimize their carbon footprint. The Operations Support System (OSS) of telecom operators can perform real-time monitoring of cells for online mobile network services. In this article, we propose two approaches for analyzing and predicting cell traffic. The first approach uses traditional statistical methods. Historical data of the cell can be used to calculate statistical metrics and perform traffic analysis. This information can be used to predict future traffic of the cell. The second approach is based on machine learning. Since a significant amount of training data is required for machine learning, we are collecting hourly Performance Monitoring (PM) data through the OSS system. Among many Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), we select five key KPIs that have the strongest correlation with the cell’s traffic. We use these five indicators as inputs in the machine learning model, Support Vector Machine (SVM) regression [1]. Using the machine learning model, we can predict the traffic of the cell. By setting appropriate thresholds, cells can switch to sleep mode without affecting the Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of Experience (QoE) of users. We also demonstrated, through actual data from the OSS, the efficacy of our proposed cell sleep strategy in achieving relatively ideal energy-saving goals.