Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Chemical and microbiological aspects of acoustically turbid sediments: preliminary investigations

Abstract Chemical, microbiological, and geophysical measurements have been carried out on sediment cores collected from Holyhead Harbour and the Western Irish Sea, where acoustic subbottom profiling has established the presence of large areas of acoustically turbid sediments, commonly referred to as “gassy” sediments. Gas analysis of these cores have shown that the acoustic turbidity was most probably due to high concentrations (>100 nM/mL) of methane occurring at subsurface depths. Microcosm experiments on sediment slurries from Holyhead Harbour confirm that acetate and H2/CO2 are important precursors for methane generation. In sediments from Holyhead Harbour methanogenesis could be slightly stimulated by the addition of H2/CO2 and sulfate (1 mM). This suggested that in surface sediments sulfate reduction and methanogenesis can occur concurrently. Such a situation may explain the appearance of gas plumes and gas pockets detected acoustically at the sediment surface in several regions of the Western Irish.
Irritability in Youth: A Critical Integrative Review

Irritability, defined as proneness to anger that may reach an impairing extent, is common in youth. There has been a recent upsurge in relevant research. We combine systematic and narrative review approaches to integrate the latest clinical and translational findings and provide suggestions to address research gaps. Clinicians and researchers should assess irritability routinely; specific assessment tools are now available. Informant effects are prominent, stable, and vary by age and gender. The prevalence of irritability is particularly high in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorder, and mood and anxiety disorders. Irritability is associated with impairment and suicidality risk independent of co-occurring diagnoses. Irritability trajectories have been identified that are differentially associated with clinical outcomes; some begin early in life. Youth irritability is associated with increased risk later in life for anxiety, depression, behavioral problems, and suicidality. Irritability is moderately heritable and genetic associations differ based on age and comorbid illnesses. Parent management training is effective for constructs related to irritability, but its efficacy in irritability should be tested rigorously, as should novel mechanism-informed interventions (e.g., those targeted to frustration exposure).
Hydrogeologic controls imposed by mechanical stratigraphy in layered rocks of the Châteauguay River Basin, a U.S.‐Canada transborder aquifer

[1] The Châteauguay River Basin delineates a transborder watershed with roughly half of its surface area located in northern New York State and half in southern Quebec Province, Canada. As part of a multidisciplinary study designed to characterize the hydrogeologic properties of this basin, geophysical logs were obtained in 12 wells strategically located to penetrate the four major sedimentary rock formations that constitute the regional aquifers. The layered rocks were classified according to their elastic properties into three primary units: soft sandstone, hard sandstone, and dolostone. Downhole measurements were analyzed to identify fracture patterns associated with each unit and to evaluate their role in controlling groundwater flow. Fracture networks are composed of orthogonal sets of laterally extensive, subhorizontal bedding plane partings and bed-delimited, subvertical joints with spacings that are consistent with rock mechanics principles and stress models. The vertical distribution of transmissive zones is confined to a few select bedding plane fractures, with soft sandstone having the fewest (one per 70-m depth) and hard sandstone the most (five per 70-m depth). Bed-normal permeability is examined using a probabilistic model that considers the lengths of flow paths winding along joints and bedding plane fractures. Soft sandstone has the smallest bed-normal permeability primarily because of its wide, geomechanically undersaturated joint spacing. Results indicate that the three formations have similar values of bulk transmissivity, within roughly an order of magnitude, but that each rock unit has its own unique system of groundwater flow paths that constitute that transmissivity.
Analyzing Potential Benefits of Low Impact Development in Reducing Combined Sewers Overflows

Inadequately managed stormwater runoff and combined sewer overflows (CSOs) continue to threaten the biological health and diversity of our streams. The threat comes from both increased volume and rate of stormwater runoff and the pollutants transported by stormwater from various land-use practices. Research conducted provides extensive evidence that land-use decisions play a pivotal role in water quality and ecosystem health. Research also suggests that conventional stormwater management practices cannot adequately protect aquatic resources. As a result, there is significant interest among the planning and engineering communities in innovative Low Impact Development practices that protect natural hydrologic processes. Considered as a new approach to stormwater management for years, LID firmly established itself over the past few years as a powerful component in the stormwater management toolkit. LID seeks to minimize the impact of stormwater in new development and redevelopment, restore and protect ecosystems, and reduce the financial burden of construction and maintenance of stormwater management infrastructure. This paper presents an overview of LIFE™ model developed from basic principles of LID, i.e. controlling the runoff at the source and its application to a CSO sewershed for evaluating the potential benefits of LID in reducing CSO overflows. LIFE™ is a
The sustainability of cassava-based bioethanol production in southern Mali

The demand for biofuels has been rising, which has led developing countries to focus on production of feedstocks for biodiesel and bioethanol production. This has caused concerns for the impacts on food security, food prices and environmental sustainability. This paper examines a hypothetical case of cassava-based bioethanol production in southern Mali, assessing its environmental, economic and social sustainability. Results demonstrate that environmental sustainability of cassava-based bioethanol production depends on the ‘baseline’ chosen: Compared to the situation before the decline in cotton production 10 years ago, the carbon stocks will increase. However, if compared to the current situation, where considerable carbon stocks have accumulated in fallow fields, the loss of carbon will be substantial. Increased cassava production will create greater incomes and better temporal distribution of labour input. Analysis of the significance of current cassava production for food security shows that bioethanol production should be based on the attiéké variety of cassava, thereby avoiding interference with the important role of the bonouma in assuring food security in northern Mali. The key factor determining the economic feasibility is whether local farmers will be willing to supply cassava at a realistic price. The results indicate that this is likely to be the case.
Applying global warming levels of emergence to highlight the increasing population exposure to temperature and precipitation extremes

Global temperatures exceeded pre-industrial conditions by 1.1°C during the decade 2011-2020 and further warming is projected by climate models. An increasing number of climate variables exhibit significant changes compared to the past decades, even beyond the noise of internal climate variability. To determine the year when climate change signals can be 15 detected, the concept of time of emergence (ToE) is well established. Additionally, climate projections are communicated increasingly frequently through global warming levels (GWLs) rather than time horizons. Yet, ToE and GWL have barely been combined so far. Here, we apply five Single Model Initial-condition Large Ensembles (SMILEs) to derive global warming levels of emergence (GWLoE) of four temperature and precipitation indices. We show that the concept of GWLoE is particularly promising to constrain temperature projections and proves a viable tool to communicate scientific results. We find 20 that >75% of the global population is exposed to emerged signals for nighttime temperatures at a GWL of 1.5°C, increasing to >95% at 2.0°C. Daily maximum temperature follows a similar, yet less pronounced path. Emerged signals for mean and extreme precipitation start appearing at current GWLs and increase steadily with further warming (~20% population exposed at 2.0°C). Related probability ratios for the occurrence of extremes indicate a strong increase where temperature extremes reach widespread saturation (extremes occur every year) particularly in (sub)tropical regions below 2.5°C warming. These 25 results indicate that current times are a critical period for climate action as every fraction of additional warming substantially increases the
External Shocks in a Small Open Economy: A CGE -

This paper studies the impact of changes in the external balance of Pakistan. We explain why the economic growth achieved during the past decade was highly dependent on improvements in the external balance. Between 2001 and 2007, Pakistan benefited from an increase in remittances, foreign assistance from bilateral and multilateral sources, and a relatively stable exchange rate. After 2007, this performance came under pressure from external price shocks. The rise in the import prices of petroleum, raw materials and other manufactured goods has the potential to reduce the country’s growth performance, impacting the competitiveness of the economy and threatening the gains achieved during past years. We integrate a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model with a microsimulation model to study the effects of changes in foreign savings and import prices faced by Pakistan. An increase in foreign savings leads to an increase in imports and a decrease in exports. The main sectors facing a decline in exports are textiles, leather, cement, and livestock. In this simulation food and oil prices decline and the factors of production that gain are agricultural wage labor and nonagricultural unskilled wage labor. The increase in import prices of petroleum or industrial raw material leads to a reduction in exports. In this simulation the crop sector is negatively impacted and returns to land and profits to farm owners increase, showing a change in favor of agricultural asset owners, while poverty and inequality increase.
An impact origin for hydrated silicates on Mars: A synthesis

Recent Mars‐orbiting spectrometers continue to detect surface materials containing hydrated silicates, particularly clays and amorphous phases (e.g., silica glasses), concentrated within the heavily cratered Noachian highlands crust. This paper provides a review, summary, and synthesis of observations from terrestrial impact structures with current Martian data. It is suggested that numerous and frequent impacts into the volatile‐rich silicate crust of Mars, through direct and indirect impact‐generated mechanisms, represent a plausible hypothesis that can explain the widespread distribution of hydrated silicates in the surface and subsurface of the heavily cratered Noachian highlands crust largely independent of climate. In addition to impact‐generated hydrothermal activity, devitrification, autometamorphism, and the voluminous production of impact “damaged” materials that are susceptible to alteration must be considered. When taken together, a drastically different early climate on Mars, in which water is stable at the surface for extended periods of time, cannot be ruled out; however, it is noted here that these additional impact mechanisms can operate and thereby extend the range of possible alteration settings to include climate conditions that may have been predominately colder and drier. Such a climate would not be dissimilar to the conditions of today, with the important exceptions of a higher geothermal gradient, and punctuated thermal disturbance to the cryosphere and hydrosphere from igneous activity and an exponentially higher impact flux.
SHARING ECONOMY IN THE CONTEXT OF SHARED MOBILITY: EXPLORING USER ATTITUDES AND DIGITAL PLATFORM PREFERENCES IN CROATIA

The sharing economy is a very dynamic research area in different research contexts. It enables consumers to better manage their time, resources, budgets and experiences. In general, the sharing economy, with the help of ICT technology, enables greater efficiency of available resources and opens up new possibilities for solving some social, economic and environmental problems. In the transport sector, shared mobility has become increasingly important in the last decade, especially in the context of addressing the problems of sustainability and efficiency of the transport system resulting from excessive motorization and the way passenger cars are used. This paper examines the sharing economy in the context of the transportation sector, specifically shared mobility as an economic, transportation, and environmental phenomenon. The empirical part of this paper presents the results of a survey conducted with a sample of 172 respondents in the Republic of Croatia. Of the 172 completed questionnaires, 68 respondents (39.5%) use ridesharing services, while 104 (60.5%) do not. At the same time, 65% of these respondents also do not plan to use them in the future. The main motive cited for using ridesharing was financial. Users expressed a preference for using specialized digital platforms because of their functionality, with the ability to rate drivers and passengers standing out.The aim of this paper is to further clarify the specific motivating factors that encourage users to use mobility sharing services in order to provide guidelines for designing targeted policies to promote and raise awareness of the benefits and importance of these services for individual users, but also for the broader socio-economic and environmental context.
Toward reconstructing fingerprints from minutiae points

We show that minutiae information can reveal substantial details such as the orientation field and the class of the associated fingerprint that can potentially be used to reconstruct the original fingerprint image. The proposed technique utilizes minutiae triplet information to estimate the orientation map of the parent fingerprint. The estimated orientation map is observed to be remarkably consistent with the underlying ridge flow. We next discuss a classification technique that utilizes minutiae information alone to infer the class of the fingerprint. Preliminary results indicate that the seemingly random minutiae distribution of a fingerprint can reveal important class information. Furthermore, contrary to what has been claimed by several minutiae-based fingerprint system vendors, we demonstrate that the minutiae template of a user may be used to reconstruct fingerprint images.
Purranisaurus potens Rusconi, an Enigmatic Metriorhynchid from the Late Jurassic—Early Cretaceous of the Neuquén Basin

ABSTRACT The Tithonian record from northwestern Patagonia (Neuquén Basin) documents a complete succession of lower, middle, and late Tithonian marine reptiles. From the late Tithonian—early Berriasian of Patagonia, three marine crocodyliforms have been recorded: Dakosaurus andiniensis, Cricosaurus araucanensis, and Purranisaurus potens. Although P. potens includes the first metriorhynchid skull described from Patagonia, no detailed description and/or illustrations have been published. Since the mid-20th century, several authors have discussed the validity of P. potens. Recent preparation of the type material allowed a detailed description as well as exploration of its phylogenetic relationships. We consider P. potens as a valid taxon characterized by a unique combination of characters, such as medial and posterolateral processes of the frontal forming an angle of 60°; supratemporal fossae reaching the minimum interorbital distance, with the dorsal margin of the supratemporal arch being slightly concave in lateral view; thin bony lamina projecting from the lateral and medial alveolar margins of the maxilla; occipital surface ventral to occipital condyle parallel to transverse plane of skull; well- developed crest that extends along the entire height of the supraoccipital; and orbital process of the quadrate very conspicuous and acute, horizontal, and without bony attachment. Phylogenetic analysis recovers P. potens as deeply nested within Geosaurini and, contrary to previous proposals, not closely related to ‘Metriorhynchus’ casamiquelai and ‘M. ’ westermanni. Internal relationships within Geosaurini are unresolved. Purranisaurus, as a monotypic genus, is restricted to the late Tithonian—early Berriasian. http://zoobank.Org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:CDB288F2-087C-4E19-A897-8AB94BD60EC2
Safe water for all : harnessing the private sector to reach the underserved

This report addresses the role of the private sector in increasing access to safe drinking water, as well as identifying challenges and opportunities in the sector. Despite several years of efforts by Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and donors to scale up access to safe drinking water technologies, none of these initiatives has achieved its targeted macro level impact, although a number of countries have reported boiling as a near-universal practice at the household level. In this report, authors examine a range of technologies and revenue models intended to increase safe-water access among lower-income populations, with primary attention on East Africa, India, and China as important emerging markets. Although sanitation and hygiene are key factors of human health and well-being, the survey primarily targeted the safe-water sector, while recognizing that there are several similar applications to business models that provide sanitation services. As the Kenya case study on Ecotact Ltd. demonstrates, opportunities for integrated sanitation and water services hold promise for scaling up. Authors discuss some of these barriers and opportunities, and end this report by providing recommendations for market-based approaches that could harness the private sector's power in providing access to safe water for the underserved.
The farnesyltransferase inhibitor lonafarnib induces growth arrest or apoptosis of human lung cancer cells without downregulation of Akt

Farnesyltransferase inhibitors (FTIs) have been demonstrated to induce growth arrest or apoptosis independent of Ras mutation. Alternatively, Akt has been proposed as a potential target for the FTI’s actions. This study investigated whether Lonafarnib was effective in inhibiting the growth of human non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cells and elucidated the role of Akt in mediating such growth inhibitory effects. Lonafarnib, at clinical achievable concentration ranges, was effective in inhibiting the growth of 10 NSCLC cell lines, particularly after a prolonged treatment, regardless of Ras mutational status. Lonafarnib arrested cells growth at G1 or G2/M phase in the majority tested cell lines. However it induced apoptosis when cells were cultured in a low serum (0.1%) medium. The majority of NSCLC cell lines expressed undetectable level of phosphorylated Akt (p-Akt). Lonafarnib at up to 10 µM did not decrease either total Akt level or p-Akt level in any of the tested cell lines, even after a 48 h treatment. Unexpectedly, Lonafarnib even increased p-Akt level in one cell line, although it was as sensitive as others to Lonafarnib treatment and underwent G2/M arrest. Bovine serum albumin completely rescued cells from Lonafarnib-induced apoptosis in low serum medium, indicating that proteins rather than cytokines or growth factors in serum masks Lonafarnib’s pro-apoptotic effect. Therefore, we conclude that Lonafarnib is effective in inhibiting the growth of NSCLC cells either via growth arrest or induction of apoptosis without downregulation of Akt.
The variable projection method for waveform inversion with an unknown source function

This paper compares three alternative algorithms for simultaneously estimating a source wavelet at the same time as an earth model in full‐waveform inversion: (i) simultaneous descent, (ii) alternating descent and (iii) descent with the variable projection method. The latter is a technique for solving separable least‐squares problems that is well‐known in the applied mathematics literature. When applied to full‐waveform inversion, it involves making the source wavelet an implicit function of the earth model via a least‐squares filter‐estimation process. Since the source wavelet becomes purely a function of medium parameters, it no longer needs to be treated as a separate unknown in the inversion. Essentially, the predicted data are projected onto the measured data in a least‐squares sense at every function evaluation, making use of the fact that the filter estimation problem is trivial when compared to the full‐waveform inversion problem. Numerical tests on a simple 1D model indicate that the variable projection method gives the best result; actually producing results in quality that are very similar to control experiments with a known, correct wavelet.
Graphical Models : Foundations of Neural Computation

Introduction A "graphical model" is a type of probabilistic network that has roots in several different research communities, including artificial intelligence The graphical models framework provides a clean mathematical formalism that has made it possible to understand the relationships among a wide variety of network based approaches to computation and, in particular, to understand many neural netwosk algor-i thms atid architectures as instances of a broader probabilistic methodology. Mot-eo~rer, this formal fsatnework has mndc i t possible> to identify thaw features of neural network algosithms and architec-tures that arc no\lel and to extend them to other more gencral graphical models. This interplay Lwtween the genesal f'osmal fsamewosk of grapli-ical models a n d the exploration of new algorithnxs and architectures is exennplified in the chapters included in this volume. These chapters, chosen from Nctlrcll Corl~p~it-afiorl, include many foundational papers of historical importance as well as papers that are at the research frontier. The volume is intended for a broad range of students, researchers, and practitioners who are interested in understanding the basic principles underlying graphical models and in applying them to practical problems. Probabilistic and information-theoretic approaches have become dominant in the neural network literature, as researchers have attempted to formalize "adap tivity" in neural computation and understand why some adaptive methods perform better than others. 'The probabilistic framework has also provided a guide in the exploration of new algo-ri thms and architectures. At the same time, the no tion of "locality" has continued to exert a key constraint o n neural network research, restricting the kinds of architectures and algorithms that are studied. The particular relevance of graphical models to this research effort is that the graphical models framework provides formil definitions o f both adap-tivity and locality. It does so by forging a mathematical link between probability theory and graph theory. Graphical models use graphs to represent and manipulate joint probability distributions. The graph underlying a graphical model may be directed, in which case the model is ollen refesred to as a l~c~lic~f i~c~l~oor,k or ' 1 Bnl/c>sin~r ~ic'tulork, or-the graph may he undircctcci, in \ ~ ~ I i i c h casc tlic' model is genesally referred to a s a Mur.ko71 rlll~dotri ficllj. A graphical model has both a str~lctural con~ponent-encoded L7p the pattern oI edges in the gsapl1-and a paramctr-ic compo~ient-encoded by ~iumcl-ical "potentials" associated with sets of cdgcs in thc graph. The selation-ship …