Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Experimental Comparison Of Directly And Indirectly Derived Modulation Transfer Functions

The modulation transfer function (MTF) is the indicator most frequently used for image resolution assessment. Traditionally in photogrammetry, the MTF is directly estimated using specifically designed targets such as the USAF 1952 three‐bar resolution test target, but it can also be indirectly derived from the system degradation function known as the point‐spread function (PSF). Theoretically, MTF and PSF are related through a spatial–frequency domain transformation (a Fourier transformation), meaning the same attributes are expressed in different domains. When using real images, however, it is not clear whether these two functions produce the same result. In this study, both spatial and frequency domain approaches were experimentally compared through simulations. Results show that the MTF derived from the PSF has better accuracy than an MTF estimated directly from the resolution target.
Higher-Order Turbulence Closure and Its Impact on Climate Simulations in the Community Atmosphere Model

AbstractThis paper describes climate simulations of the Community Atmosphere Model, version 5 (CAM5), coupled with a higher-order turbulence closure known as Cloud Layers Unified by Binormals (CLUBB). CLUBB is a unified parameterization of the planetary boundary layer (PBL) and shallow convection that is centered around a trivariate probability density function (PDF) and replaces the conventional PBL, shallow convection, and cloud macrophysics schemes in CAM5. CAM–CLUBB improves many aspects of the base state climate compared to CAM5. Chief among them is the transition of stratocumulus to trade wind cumulus regions in the subtropical oceans. In these regions, CAM–CLUBB provides a much more gradual transition that is in better agreement with observational analysis compared to CAM5, which is too abrupt. The improvement seen in CAM–CLUBB can be largely attributed to the gradual evolution of the simulated turbulence, which is in part a result of the unified nature of the parameterization, and to the general i.
Fabrication of Carbonaceous-Modified Halloysite Nanotubes for the Removal of Metal Ions from Aqueous Solution

: Halloysite nanotube-carbonaceous (HNT-C) composites were fabricated through one-pot hydrothermal carbonization of fructose and sodium carboxymethyl cellulose for use as an adsorbent for the removal of Pb(II), Zn(II), and Cu(II) from wastewater. The composites were chemically treated with sulfuric acid after carbonization. The acidic treatment of HNT-C structures contributed to a larger specific surface area and surface functionality, which was favorable for adsorbing more metal ions. Carbonaceous-modified HNTs were characterized by elemental analysis, FT IR, XRD, and BET analysis. Metal ion adsorption experiments were conducted with solutions containing low and high total metal ion concentrations (Cu, Zn, Pb) by mixing with HNT-C composites at a solid/liquid ratio of 1.0 and 10.0 g/L. The results indicated that the HNT C composites exhibited promising Zn(II) adsorption up to 94%, while no Zn(II) adsorbed onto unmodified HNTs. The amount of Pb(II), Zn(II), and Cu(II) ions that were taken up increased as the amount of adsorbent was increased up to 10 g/L in an aqueous solution. The HNT-C composites exhibited the highest adsorption efficiency for Pb(II) ions.
Static stress transfer and earthquake triggering: No lower threshold in sight?

The main objective of this study is to see if a lower threshold for earthquake triggering exists. Resolving this issue is important for the understanding of earthquake mechanics and for the purpose of hazard analysis. We compute the cumulative static stress changes imposed on 63 M > 4.5 earthquakes in central California between 1969 and 1998, by adding the stress changes imposed by all previous M > 4.5 earthquakes as a function of time prior to the events. We find that 85% of the cumulative stress changes at the time of rupture are positive for stress change magnitudes of >10 kPa (>0.1 bar), and 70% are positive for stress changes of <10 kPa (< 0.1 bar) as well as <1 kPa (<0.01 bar). A comparison between these results and those obtained for synthetic catalogs, in which the timing or focal mechanisms of the earthquakes were randomized, shows that this degree of triggering is very unlikely to be found in a random catalog. Thus we conclude that no lower threshold for earthquake triggering in central California has been found. We show that the temporal distribution of stress changes that discourage failure is consistent with the theoretical prediction that the time delay increases with the magnitude of the stress change.
Induced Seismicity and Its Applications

요 약: 유발지진은 인류에 의한 수많은 영향 및 다양한 지질학적 조건과 연관되어서 지난 수십 년 동안 관측되어 왔다. 이 논문에서는 다양한 유발지진을 고찰하고 자연적인 조구조 지진뿐만 아니라 유발지진의 종류에 따라 서로 비교한다. 수압파쇄는 암석층에서 새로운 균열을 통해 투수성을 높이는데 보편적으로 사용된다. 이 과정에서 유발지진이 발생하는데,이 지진은 단열망과 석유/가스의 이동에 관한 중요한 정보를 제공한다. 유사한 방식으로 탄화수소 생산과정이나, 댐 저수지, 채광 활동 또는 폐수 주입 등의 과정에서도 의도하지 않은 유발지진이 발생하며, 이를 이용하여 다양한 수리역학적인 과정과 다양한 규모에서 저류층 특성의 변화를 파악할 수 있다. 일반적인 결론으로 지금까지 알려진 유발지진에 대한불확실성과 지식의 한계를 요약하고 향후 연구에서 다루어야 할 몇 가지 주제를 제시한다. 주요어: 유발지진, 인간 활동, 수압파쇄, 수리역학적 과정, 저류층 특성, 탄화수소Abstract: Induced seismicity has been observed in the relation with lots of anthropogenic influence and at variety ofgeological conditions over the last several decades. This paper reviews those induced earthquakes and compares with eachother as well as with natural tectonic earthquakes. Hydraulic fracturing is commonly used to enhance the permeabilitythrough new cracks in the rock formation. The process triggers the induced seismicity, which can give crucial informationon the fracture network and oil/gas migration. In the similar way, unintentionally induced events during the productionprocedure of the field, dam reservoir, minig activity, or wastewater injection can be used to give insight into varioushydrodynamic processes and changes of reservoir properties at a various scales. The general conclusion summarizes theuncertainty or limitations of knowledge up to date and presents some issues to be dealt with in the future research.Keywords: Induced seismicity, human activities, hydraulic fracturing, hydrodynamic processes, reservoir properties,hydrocarbon
Imaging high-pressure rock exhumation in eastern Taiwan

Increasingly detailed studies of out crops of high-pressure rock terranes in combination with rapidly evolving numerical modeling studies have given rise to a number of possible explanations for the processes by which these rocks are exhumed. Imaging actively exhuming high-pressure terranes remains one of the fundamental, but elusive, tasks that could advance the understanding of how these important rocks reach Earth’s surface. Seismic tomography along the active arc-continent collision in eastern Taiwan images a high P- and S-wave velocity zone that extends from the shallow subsurface beneath a high-pressure metamorphic terrane to ∼50 km depth. We present a petrophysical analysis of this high-velocity zone that indicates the presence of rock types common to high-pressure terranes. The high-velocity zone is seismically active throughout. We determine focal mechanisms for 57 earthquakes, and carry out full waveform modeling on 10; these have double-couple focal mechanisms with a compensated linear vector dipole component up to 20.6%. We suggest that the high-velocity zone comprises an exhuming high-pressure terrane. Focal mechanisms for earthquakes within it indicate that shear faulting dominates in the deformation, but high fluid pressure may also play a role.
CXCR4 in breast cancer: oncogenic role and therapeutic targeting

Chemokines are 8–12 kDa peptides that function as chemoattractant cytokines and are involved in cell activation, differentiation, and trafficking. Chemokines bind to specific G-protein-coupled seven-span transmembrane receptors. Chemokines play a fundamental role in the regulation of a variety of cellular, physiological, and developmental processes. Their aberrant expression can lead to a variety of human diseases including cancer. C-X-C chemokine receptor type 4 (CXCR4), also known as fusin or CD184, is an alpha-chemokine receptor specific for stromal-derived-factor-1 (SDF-1 also called CXCL12). CXCR4 belongs to the superfamily of the seven transmembrane domain heterotrimeric G protein-coupled receptors and is functionally expressed on the cell surface of various types of cancer cells. CXCR4 also plays a role in the cell proliferation and migration of these cells. Recently, CXCR4 has been reported to play an important role in cell survival, proliferation, migration, as well as metastasis of several cancers including breast cancer. This review is mainly focused on the current knowledge of the oncogenic role and potential drugs that target CXCR4 in breast cancer. Additionally, CXCR4 proangiogenic molecular mechanisms will be reviewed. Strict biunivocal binding affinity and activation of CXCR4/CXCL12 complex make CXCR4 a unique molecular target for prevention and treatment of breast cancer.
An Error Estimate for a Nite Volume Scheme for a Diiusion Convection Problem on a Triangular Mesh

We study here a nite volume scheme for a diiusion-convection equation on an open bounded set of IR 2 , using a triangular mesh for the discretization of. The 4-point numerical scheme is presented along with the geometrical assumptions on the mesh. An error estimate of order h on the discrete L 2 norm is obtained, where h denotes the "size" of the mesh. The proof uses an estimate of order h of the consistency error on the uxes and an estimate of the number of edges of the mesh between one given triangle and the boundary .
Culture‐independent characterization of a novel microbial community at a hydrothermal vent at Brothers volcano, Kermadec arc, New Zealand

[1] The bacterial and archaeal diversity of a hydrothermal vent microbial community at Brothers volcano situated in the Kermadec arc, ∼400 km off the north coast of New Zealand, was examined using culture-independent molecular analysis. An unusual microbial community was detected with only 1% and 40% of the bacterial phylotypes exhibiting >92% small subunit (SSU) rRNA gene sequence similarity with cultivated and noncultivated microbes, respectively. Of the 29 bacterial representative phylotypes, over one third of the SSU rRNA gene sequences retrieved belonged to uncultivated candidate divisions including OP1, OP3, OP5, OP8, OD1, and OP11. All archaeal phylotypes belonged to the phylum Euryarchaeota in the uncultivated groups deep hydrothermal vent euryarchaeotal (DHVE) I and II or to the phylum Korarchaeota. Like the bacterial clone library, only a small proportion of archaeal SSU rRNA gene sequences (∼2% and 20%) displayed >92% sequence identity with any archaeal isolates or noncultivated microbes, respectively. Although the bacterial phylotypes detected were phylogenetically most similar to microbial communities detected in methane, hydrocarbon, and carbon dioxide-based hydrothermal and seep environments, no phylotypes directly associated with anaerobic methane oxidation and mcrA activity could be detected. The geochemical composition of the vent fluids at the Brothers-lower cone sample site is unusual and we suggest that it may play a prominent role in the species selection of this microbial community.
Learning Reusable Manipulation Strategies

Humans demonstrate an impressive ability to acquire and generalize manipulation"tricks. "Even from a single demonstration, such as using soup ladles to reach for distant objects, we can apply this skill to new scenarios involving different object positions, sizes, and categories (e.g., forks and hammers). Additionally, we can flexibly combine various skills to devise long-term plans. In this paper, we present a framework that enables machines to acquire such manipulation skills, referred to as"mechanisms,"through a single demonstration and self-play. Our key insight lies in interpreting each demonstration as a sequence of changes in robot-object and object-object contact modes, which provides a scaffold for learning detailed samplers for continuous parameters. These learned mechanisms and samplers can be seamlessly integrated into standard task and motion planners, enabling their compositional use.
Low Latency, Low Loss, Scalable Throughput (L4S) Internet Service: Architecture

This document describes the L4S architecture for the provision of a new service that the Internet could provide to eventually replace best efforts for all traffic: Low Latency, Low Loss, Scalable throughput (L4S). It is becoming common for _all_ (or most) applications being run by a user at any one time to require low latency. However, the only solution the IETF can offer for ultra-low queuing delay is Diffserv, which only favours a minority of packets at the expense of others. In extensive testing the new L4S service keeps average queuing delay under a millisecond for _all_ applications even under very heavy load, without sacrificing utilization; and it keeps congestion loss to zero. It is becoming widely recognized that adding more access capacity gives diminishing returns, because latency is becoming the critical problem. Even with a high capacity broadband access, the reduced latency of L4S remarkably and consistently improves performance under load for applications such as interactive video, conversational video, voice, Web, gaming, instant messaging, remote desktop and cloud-based apps (even when all being used at once over the same access link). The insight is that the root cause of queuing delay is in TCP, not in the queue. By fixing the sending TCP (and other transports) queuing latency becomes so much better than today that operators will want to deploy the network part of L4S to enable new products and services. Further, the network part is simple to deploy - incrementally with zero-config. Both parts, sender and network, ensure coexistence with other legacy traffic. At the same time L4S solves the long- recognized problem with the future scalability of TCP throughput. This document describes the L4S architecture, briefly describing the different components and how the work together to provide the aforementioned enhanced Internet service.
Vicious Cycles in Distributed Software Systems

A major threat to distributed software systems' reliability is vicious cycles, which are observed when an event in the distributed software system's execution causes a system degradation, and the degradation, in turn, causes more of such events. Vicious cycles often result in large-scale cloud outages that are hard to recover from due to their self-reinforcing nature. This paper formally defines Vicious Cycle, and conducts the first in-depth study of 33 real-world vicious cycles in 13 widely-used open-source distributed software systems, shedding light on the root causes, triggering conditions, and fixing strategies of vicious cycles, with over a dozen concrete implications to combat them. Our findings show that the majority of the vicious cycles are caused by incorrect error handlers, where the handlers do not obtain enough information to distinguish between 1) an error induced by incoming requests and 2) an error induced by an unexpected interference from another error handler. This paper further performs a feasibility study by 1) building a monitoring tool that prevents one type of vicious cycle by collecting information to make a more informed decision in error handling, and 2) investigating the effectiveness of one commonly suggested practice-injecting exponential backoff-to prevent vicious cycles induced by unconstrained retry.
Spatial evolution of an AMD stream in the Iberian Pyrite Belt: process characterization and control factors on the hydrochemistry

ABSTRACT This paper presents hydrochemical data of an AMD stream, Poderosa Creek, in the Iberian Pyrite Belt, obtained between its source, in the Poderosa Mine portal, and its confluence with the Odiel River. The main objective is to establish potential interdependent relationships between sulphate and metal loads and the following physico-chemical variables: pH, electrical conductivity (EC), redox potential (EH) and dissolved oxygen (DO). All the parameters show an overall increasing tendency from the tunnel exit to the confluence at the Odiel River. The TDS and EC are two relevant exceptions. They behave similarly, showing a decreasing trend and a strong inflection that describes a minimum immediately after the discharging point. Spatial analysis combined with statistical tools reveal typical AMD processes and the respective physico-chemical implications. Inputs with distinctive hydrochemical signatures impose relevant modifications in the Poderosa Creek waters. This indicates low hydrochemical inertia and high vulnerability to external stimuli. Editor D. Koutsoyiannis; Associate editor not assigned
MADDEN–JULIAN OSCILLATION Bridging Weather and Climate

In final form 28 February 2013 ©2013 American Meteorological Society T he conceptual separation of weather and climate is deeply rooted in our daily experience, as Herbertson (1901) put it: “Climate is what on an average we may expect, weather is what actually we get. ”1 Translated into a scientific language, weather is a state of the atmosphere at a particular instance and climate is a set of statistics of an ensemble of many different states (Lorenz 1975). The weather–climate separation had its scientific basis in numerical prediction. It has been perceived that weather predictability comes from initiation conditions, while climate predictability from boundary conditions (Charney and Shukla 1977). This distinction would cease to exist in the modern practice of “seamless prediction” for weather and climate using “unified prediction models” (Hurrell et al. 2009; Brown et al. 2012). In such models, all components of the Earth system are coupled to each other, the only boundary condition needed is at the top of the atmosphere, and the source of predictability comes from, in addition to initiation conditions, the “memory” of slowly varying subsystems (the ocean, soil moisture, land, and sea ice), quasiperiodic phenomena, and known external forcing (Lorenz 1975). Yet, the weather–climate separation has penetrated so deep in our thinking that their traditional definitions are still often used in scientific and official documents, leaving a gaping vacancy in between. This vacancy is occupied by intraseasonal (20–90 days) variability. Intraseasonal variability is by no means merely red noise filling the gap between synoptic and seasonal variability. Intraseasonal phenomena are distinct from higherand lower-frequency variability by their significant spectral peaks and coherent spatial patterns. The Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO; Madden and Julian 1971, 1972) is the best example. Its large-scale signals in the atmospheric circulation, deep convection, and other variables propagating eastward slowly (~5 m s–1) from the Indian to Pacific Oceans are the dominant component of the tropical intraseasonal variability. They are so robust that they can be discerned from raw data without statistical manipulation (Zhang 2005). The MJO plays a critical role in connecting or bridging weather and climate. This bridging role can
Olfactory Dysfunction in COVID-19

Since February 2020, the COVID-19 outbreak has spread rapidly in Northern Italy, determining an immediate rise in case numbers that have been accompanied by an unprecedented public health action. Due to the continuous admissions of patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection at San Gerardo Hospital in Monza, our ear, nose, and throat team visited a large number of patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection and noted a high frequency of presenting olfactory dysfunctions. In this cohort of patients, we observed the following: (1) anosmia or hyposmia usually occurred after fever but could also occur isolated (ie, without any systemic symptom); (2) most patients were young; and (3) there were no sex differences. The early outcome (from 1 to 3 weeks of follow-up) showed absence or only partial recovery. Due to the current health emergency, we reported our first clinical observations informally, as it was not possible to systematically collect and analyze the data. Awareness of this neglected association may be of great help in clinical practice, allowing one to promptly identify patients without respiratory symptoms who could nonetheless inadvertently spread the disease or subsequently worsen into a frank acute respiratory syndrome. Anosmia or hyposmia could be explained by the neurotropism of SARS-CoV-2. Given available evidence on the evolutionary related SARS-CoV, Li et al suggested that the neurologic damage may play a role in the development of acute respiratory failure as well as other neurologic symptoms of COVID-19, such as headache, nausea, and vomiting. The brain dissemination may occur via circulation and/or a nasal transcribrial route. This latter pathway may explain the frequently observed smell alterations. In fact, transient secondary olfactory dysfunction after upper respiratory tract infection is common, with reported incidences between 38% and 50%. The most common pathogens include viruses such those causing common cold and human influenza, rarely human coronavirus. Considering the large number of patients with COVID-19 presenting anosmia or hyposmia, we presumed that the incidence of postinfectious olfactory dysfunctions could be higher and clinically more relevant in these patients. In light of this, anosmia or hyposmia should promptly trigger suspected COVID-19 for general practitioners during this current epidemic phase. Further studies are needed to quantify this early clinical evidence and to disentangle the long-term evolution.
Autocorrelation of stock and bond returns, 1960–2019

Autocorrelations of stock and bond returns have changed substantially in the past decades. For individual stocks, daily autocorrelations have become less negative in recent years  after increasing in magnitude in the 1990s  but remain significant for stocks in all size, turnover, and volatility quintiles. For stock portfolios and Treasury bonds, daily autocorrelations switch from being significantly positive in the first half of the sample to significantly negative in the second half of the sample. I discuss the implications of these results for market efficiency, cross-serial correlation among stocks, and the measurement of beta.