Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
High sediment yields and cool, wet winters: Test of last glacial paleoclimates in the northern Mediterranean

Opposing models have been proposed for last glacial paleoclimates in the Mediterranean area. To discriminate between the alternative models, we calculate variations in sediment yield within a high-resolution stratigraphic framework developed for the Alkyonides basin, central Greece. Latest Quaternary highstand deposits are distinguised from lowstand Lake Corinth deposits on the basis of seismic reflection data and micropaleontological and palynological analyses of drop cores. After depth conversion and calculation of solid sediment masses in successive time slices, sediment discharge rates during the last glacial lowstand interval (ca. 70-12 ka) are shown to have exceeded discharge rates during the preceeding interglacial highstand interval (ca. 128-70 ka) by =60%, implying enhanced seasonality during the glacial period, with cool, dry summer and wet winter conditions in the region. Sediment yield calculations can thus provide an empirical test of paleoclimate models and offer input to sequence stratigraphic models.
A semianalytic radiance model of ocean color

A semianalytical radiance model is developed which predicts the upwelled spectral radiance at the sea surface as a function of the phytoplankton pigment concentration for Morel Case 1 waters. The model is in good agreement with experimental measurements carried out in waters which were not included in the data base used to derive it. It suggests that the observed variability in the radiance is due to variations in the backscattering of plankton and the associated detrital material. The model is extended to include other material in the water, such as dissolved organic material, referred to as yellow substances, and detached coccoliths from coccolithophorids, e.g., Emiliana huxleyi. Potential applications include an improved bio-optical algorithm for the retrieval of pigment concentrations from satellite imagery in the presence of interference from detached coccoliths and an improved atmospheric correction for satellite imagery. The model also serves to identify and to interpret deviations from Case 1 waters.
Analysis of Lightweight Cryptographic Algorithms on IoT Hardware Platforms

Highly constrained devices that are interconnected and interact to complete a task are being used in a diverse range of new fields. The Internet of Things (IoT), cyber-physical systems, distributed control systems, vehicular systems, wireless sensor networks, tele-medicine, and smart grid are a few examples of these fields. In any of these contexts, security and privacy might be essential aspects. Research on secure communication in Internet of Things (IoT) networks is a highly contested topic. One method for ensuring secure data transmission is cryptography. Since IoT devices have limited resources, such as power, memory, and batteries, IoT networks have boosted the term “lightweight cryptography”. Algorithms for lightweight cryptography are designed to efficiently protect data while using minimal resources. In this research work, we evaluate and benchmark lightweight symmetric ciphers for resource-constrained devices. The evaluation is performed using two widely used platform: Arduino and Raspberry PI. In the first part, we implement 39 block ciphers on an ATMEGA328p micro-controller and analyze them in terms of speed, cost, and energy efficiency during encryption and decryption for different block and key sizes. In the second part, the 2nd round NIST candidates (80 stream and block cipher algorithms) were added to the first part ciphers in a comprehensive analysis for equivalent block and key sizes in terms of latency and energy efficiency.
Warming trends in the continental shelf of Málaga Bay (ALBORÁN SEA)

Temperature time series from 1992 to 2001 (ECOMÁLAGA Project), show an intense warming trend in deep layers (200m depth) of Málaga Bay (0.02°C/yr). Data from MEDATLAS show that this trend is 0.005°C/yr throughout the whole century. Another striking change in Málaga Bay is the disappearance of the cold Western Intermediate Water (WIW) after 1992. This could be the responsible of temperature changes in the Málaga continental shelf.
Lateral thinking – interocular symmetry in neurovascular patterning, in health and disease

Citation for published version (APA): Cameron, J. R. , Megaw, R. D. , Tatham, A. J., McGrory, S. , MacGillivray, T. J., Doubal, F. N. , Wardlaw, J. M. , Trucco, E. , Chandran, S. , & Dhillon, B. (2017). Lateral thinking: interocular symmetry in neurovascular patterning, in health and disease. Progress in Retinal and Eye Research , 59, 131-157. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.preteyeres. 2017.04. 003
Relativism and Retraction: The Case Is Not Yet Lost

Many times, what we say proves to be wrong. It might turn out that what we took to be a comforting remark was, in fact, making things worse. Or that a joke was inappropriate. Or that yelling out loud was rude. More importantly for this paper, there are plenty of cases in which what we said turns out to be false: we spoke without paying attention, we were misinformed or tricked, or we made a reasoning mistake. A particular instance of this latter phenomenon is when someone changes their perspective and doesn’t find their previous assertions true anymore. For example, imagine that you used to like licorice as a child, and that you went around saying things like “Licorice is tasty. ” But, growing up, you find licorice too strong and quite boring; your tastes have changed. While the taste of licorice itself has not changed, you are not going around anymore uttering “Licorice is tasty. ” In fact, in certain cases, you might even think that what you said in your childhood was wrong – at least in light of your present preferences. Sometimes we “take back” the assertions we made when we realize they are no longer true. Such speech acts of taking back can be performed in various ways: more formally, as effected in a court of law or when an official speaks to the press, or more informally in our day-by-day interactions. These acts of taking back are known as retraction. Retraction is usually achieved by employing certain linguistic markers (‘I was wrong’, ‘I was mistaken’, ‘I retract’, “Scratch that’ etc.) that signal that the retractor takes their previous speech act to be faulty in a certain way. This phenomenon has formed the basis for a popular argument used by relativists about a variety of natural language expressions (predicates of taste, epistemic modals, moral and aesthetic claims etc.) in support of their view. Recently, several considerations (mostly from contextualists about the same expressions) – both from the armchair and based on empirical studies – have been offered to undercut the support retraction has been taken to provide for relativism. In this paper, I consider and reevaluate that support in light of both types of considerations, showing that neither of them decisively undermines it. However, to survive the contextualist counterattack, the relativist needs to pay a price: that is, she will be forced to make some concessions or rethink certain claims. I show what I think those concessions should be and what needs to be rethought (and how). The upshot is that, while the support retraction offers relativism is not as strong as initially believed, appeal to retraction remains a legitimate move in the debate. Armchair data are investigated in section 2 and proper experimental studies in section 3, while section 4 summarizes and concludes. In the next section, I introduce the views in the debate and clarify the phenomenon of retraction and its dialectical role.
PREDICTIVE PERFORMANCE AND SCALABILITY MODELING OF A LARGE-SCALE APPLICATION

In this work we present a predictive analytical model that encompasses the performance and scaling characteristics of an important ASCI application. SAGE (SAIC’s Adaptive Grid Eulerian hydrocode) is a multidimensional hydrodynamics code with adaptive mesh refinement. The model is validated against measurements on several systems including ASCI Blue Mountain, ASCI White, and a Compaq Alphaserver ES45 system showing high accuracy. It is parametric basic machine performance numbers (latency, MFLOPS rate, bandwidth) and application characteristics (problem size, decomposition method, etc.) serve as input. The model is applied to add insight into the performance of current systems, to reveal bottlenecks, and to illustrate where tuning efforts can be effective. We also use the model to predict performance on future systems.
Experiments with Relevance and Rhetorical Status

In this paper we propose a strategy for the summarisation of scientific articles which concentrates on the rhetorical status of statements in the article: material for summaries is selected in such a way that summaries can highlight the new contribution of the source paper and situate it with respect to earlier work. We provide a gold standard for summaries of this kind consisting of a substantial corpus of conference articles in computational linguistics annotated with human judgements of the rhetorical status and relevance of each sentence in the articles. We present several experiments measuring our judges’ agreement on these annotations. We also present an algorithm which, on the basis of the annotated training material, selects content from unseen articles and classifies it into a fixed set of seven rhetorical categories. The output of this extraction and classification system can be viewed as a single-document summary in its own right; alternatively, it provides starting material for the generation of task-oriented and user-tailored summaries designed to give users an overview of a scientific field.
Immunomodulatory potential of anticancer therapy composed of methotrexate nanoconjugate and dendritic cell‑based vaccines in murine colon carcinoma

Chemotherapy with low‑molecular weight compounds, despite elimination of cancer cells, entails adverse effects. To overcome this disadvantage, innovative drug delivery systems are being developed, including conjugation of macromolecular carriers with therapeutics, e.g. a nanocon‑ jugate of hydroxyethyl starch and methotrexate (HES‑MTX). The purpose of the present study was to determine whether HES‑MTX, applied as a chemotherapeutic, is able to modulate the immune response and support the antitumor response generated by dendritic cells (DCs) used subsequently as immu‑ notherapeutic vaccines. Therefore, MTX or HES‑MTX was administered, as sole treatment or combined with DC‑based vaccines, to MC38 colon carcinoma tumor‑bearing mice. Alterations in antitumor immune response were evaluated by multiparameter flow cytometry analyses and functional assays. The results demonstrated that the nanoconjugate possesses greater immunomodulatory potential than MTX as reflected by changes in the landscape of immune cells infiltrating the tumor and increased cytotoxicity of splenic lymphocytes. In contrast to MTX, therapy with HES‑MTX as sole treatment or combined with DC‑based vaccines, contributed to signifi‑ cant tumor growth inhibition. However, only treatment with HES‑MTX and DC‑based vaccines activated the systemic specific antitumor response. In conclusion, due to its immu‑ nomodulatory properties, the HES‑MTX nanoconjugate could become a potent anticancer agent used in both chemo‑ and chemoimmunotherapeutic treatment schemes. tumor anti‑ gens as described above. The phenotype of mature DCs was analyzed. For this purpose, DCs were stained with anti‑CD11c BV650, anti‑MHC II FITC, anti‑CD40 PE, anti‑CD80 APC (all from BioLegend) and anti‑CD11c BV650 (BioLegend) with anti‑CD86 PE (BD Biosciences). The analysis was performed using FACS Fortessa with Diva software (Becton Dickinson).
Effects of water table conditions on water level changes near pumping wells

Unconfined flow of water to wells is related to anisotropy of the aquifer, changes in the coefficient of storage with time, degree of penetration of the pumping well, and position of the water table. Sluggish response of observation wells to changes of head in the aquifer may lead to erroneous analysis of pumping-test data. The manner and extent to which these factors affect water levels have been studied by field observation, by analytical equations, and by electric analogs. The typical S-shaped curves of log drawdown versus log time, observed around wells pumping from water table aquifers, can be explained by an infinity of combinations of possible flow patterns and observation conditions. Equations developed for artesian flow cannot be used for analysis of tests made under water table conditions unless steady-state conditions have been approached or reached. From a practical standpoint the time required to approach steady flow is much greater than the duration of most pumping tests. Thus if pumping tests are to be used for measuring the hydraulic properties of unconfined aquifers, the boundary conditions attending unconfined flow must be recognized in the analysis of test data.
Control of 2 x 2 Linear Hyperbolic Systems: Backstepping-Based Trajectory Generation and PI-Based Tracking

—We consider the problems of trajectory generation and tracking for general 2 × 2 systems of ﬁrst-order linear hyperbolic PDEs with anti-collocated boundary input and output. We solve the trajectory generation problem via backstepping. The reference input, which generates the desired output, incorporates integral operators acting on advanced and delayed versions of the reference output with kernels which were derived by Vazquez, Krstic, and Coron for the backstepping stabilization of 2 × 2 linear hyperbolic systems. For tracking the desired trajectory we employ a PI control law on the tracking error of the output. We prove exponential stability of the closed-loop system, under the proposed PI control law, when the parameters of the plant and the controller satisfy certain conditions, by constructing a novel “non-diagonal” Lyapunov functional.
Inversion for the rupture details of the 1987 East Chiba Earthquake, Japan, using a fault model based on the distribution of relocated aftershocks

The rupture of the 1987 east Chiba earthquake was investigated using an empirical Green's function method and a nonlinear inversion technique. In order to discuss what happened on the fault plane in more detail, we relocated the aftershocks as well as the main shock. Relocations were done using a joint hypocenter method in order to increase the accuracy of the relative locations. Based on this aftershock distribution, we propose a double-fault model. The main fault strikes N11°W with nearly vertical dip. A subsidiary fault is perpendicular to the main fault. The results of a source inversion using strong motion waveforms are as follows: (1) moment release was large both in the deep northern area of the main fault and on the subsidiary fault, where aftershock activity was weak; (2) rupture propagated on both main and subsidiary faults simultaneously, and rupture velocity decreased at the depth of around 35 km, near the upper boundary of the Philippine Sea plate; and (3) stress drop was high on the lower northern corner of the main fault where the rupture terminated and on the deep southern area of main fault where the rupture initiated. A negative correlation was found between moment release during the main shock and that during the aftershock sequence, but they did not compensate each other quantitatively. This suggests the existence of a heterogeneous strain distribution in the fault area either before the main shock or after its aftershock sequence.
Huskie Commons Huskie Commons

US students who are blind or have visual impairments do not read at the level of a third-grader with typical sight until, on average, halfway through the seventh grade. As a first step toward narrowing that gap, we investigated levels of linguistic awareness among teachers of students who are blind or visually impaired (TSBVIs) because research with general education teachers has demonstrated a link between teacher linguistic awareness and student literacy outcomes. We also examined the accuracy of dyslexia beliefs among TSBVIs and whether TSBVI linguistic awareness and dyslexia beliefs are associated with training and experience variables. A survey of licensed or certified TSBVIs (N = 236) in the US revealed that TSBVIs’ understanding of linguistic concepts was comparable to that of educators in previous studies, and TSBVIs’ overall beliefs about dyslexia were more accurate than those of other educators. Linguistic awareness was not associated with training and experience variables, suggesting linguistic awareness is not a focus of reading courses offered to preservice TSBVIs and they do not acquire it in the field. Master’s degree attainment was significantly related to the overall accuracy of TSBVIs’ dyslexia beliefs and years of experience working as a TSBVI was marginally associated with the overall accuracy of TSBVIs’ dyslexia beliefs. Only years of experience diminished the misconception that dyslexia is a visual disorder. Because TSBVIs did not appear to know less about linguistic concepts and dyslexia than other educators, the reading achievement gap between students with visual impairments and students with typical sight is unlikely to be attributable to underdeveloped TSBVI knowledge.
14C Dating of Humic Acids from Bronze and Iron Age Plant Remains from the Eastern Mediterranean

Radiocarbon dating of plant remains is often difficult due to the complete dissolution of the samples in the alkaline step of the ABA pretreatment. At the VERA laboratory, this problem was encountered frequently when numerous Bronze and Early Iron Age samples from the eastern Mediterranean were dated in the course of the special research program SCIEM2000 and in other collaborations with archaeologists focused on that area and time period. For these samples, only a 14C age determination of the humic acid fraction was possible. Humic acids from archaeological samples are always assessed as a second-choice material for 14C dating. It is assumed that the 14C ages may be affected by the presence of humic acids originating from other (younger) organic material, e.g. from soil horizons located above a sample. Therefore, when humic acids are dated a verification of the dates is crucial. To address this basic requirement, we started some time ago to date both fractions of charred seeds, wood, and charcoal samples whenever available, i.e. the residue after the ABA treatment and the humic acids extracted from the samples in the alkaline step. The results of this comparison showed that for the investigated eastern Mediterranean archaeological sites, 50 (out of 52) humic acid dates were in agreement with the 14C dates of the respective ABA-treated samples. Statistical analysis of the age differences leads to the conclusion that the extracted humic acids originated from the samples themselves or from contemporaneous material and were not appreciably contaminated by extraneous material of different age.
Additive Manufacturing of RF Waveguide Components

The exponential growth of publications, in the last years, on the use of additive manufacturing (AM) technologies in the microwave field proves the increasing interest of research institutions and industries in these techniques. Some advantages of AM with respect to conventional machining are weight reduction, design flexibility, and integration of different functionalities (electromagnetic, thermal, and structural) in a single part. This chapter presents the most employed AM technologies for the manufacturing of RF waveguide components. First, an overview of the AM processes is discussed with particular care on material properties and post-processing. Then, an extensive survey on microwave-guided components fabricated by AM processes published in literature is shown.
outputs Determining citizens ’ opinions about stories in the news media : analysing Google , Facebook and Twitter

We describe a method whereby a governmental policy maker can discover citizens’ reaction to news stories. This is particularly relevant in the political world, where governments’ policy statements are reported by the news media and discussed by citizens. The work here addresses two main questions: whereabouts are citizens discussing a news story, and what are they saying? Our strategy to answer the first question is to find news articles pertaining to the policy statements, and then perform internet searches for references to the news articles’ headlines and URLs. We have created a software tool that schedules repeating Google searches for the news articles and collects the results in a database, enabling the user to aggregate and analyse them to produce ranked tables of sites that reference the news articles. Using data mining techniques we can analyse data so that resultant ranking reflects an overall aggregate score, taking into account multiple datasets, and this shows the most relevant places on the internet where the story is discussed. To answer the second question, we introduce the WeGov toolbox as a tool for analysing citizens’ comments and behaviour pertaining to news stories. We first use the tool for identifying social network discussions, using different strategies for Facebook and Twitter. We apply different analysis components to analyse the data to distil the essence of the social network users’ comments, to determine influential users and identify important comments.
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● Crown damage can account for over 23% of canopy biomass turnover in tropical forests and is a 39 strong predictor of tree mortality, yet it is not typically represented in vegetation models. We 40 incorporate crown damage into the Functionally Assembled Terrestrial Ecosystem Simulator 41 (FATES), to evaluate how lags between damage and tree recovery or death alter demographic 42 rates and patterns of carbon turnover. 43 ● We represent crown damage as a reduction in a tree’s crown area and leaf and branch 44 biomass, and allow associated variation in the ratio of aboveground to belowground plant 45 tissue. We compare simulations with crown damage to simulations with equivalent instant 46 increases in mortality and benchmark results against data from Barro Colorado Island (BCI), 47 Panama. 48 ● In FATES, crown damage causes decreases in growth rates that match observations from BCI. 49 Crown damage leads to increases in carbon starvation mortality in FATES, but only in 50 configurations with high root respiration and decreases in carbon storage following damage. 51 Crown damage also alters competitive dynamics, as plant functional types that can recover 52 from crown damage outcompete those that cannot. 53 ● This is a first exploration of the trade-off between the additional complexity of the novel crown 54 damage module and improved predictive capabilities. At BCI, a tropical forest that does not 55 experience high levels of disturbance, both the crown damage simulations and simulations with 56 equivalent increases in mortality do a reasonable job of capturing observations