Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Understanding and Interpretation of Innovative Technology-Enabled Multidimensional Physical Activity Feedback in Patients at Risk of Future Chronic Disease

Background Innovative physical activity monitoring technology can be used to depict rich visual feedback that encompasses the various aspects of physical activity known to be important for health. However, it is unknown whether patients who are at risk of chronic disease would understand such sophisticated personalised feedback or whether they would find it useful and motivating. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether technology-enabled multidimensional physical activity graphics and visualisations are comprehensible and usable for patients at risk of chronic disease. Method We developed several iterations of graphics depicting minute-by-minute activity patterns and integrated physical activity health targets. Subsequently, patients at moderate/high risk of chronic disease (n=29) and healthcare practitioners (n=15) from South West England underwent full 7-days activity monitoring followed by individual semi-structured interviews in which they were asked to comment on their own personalised visual feedback Framework analysis was used to gauge their interpretation and of personalised feedback, graphics and visualisations. Results We identified two main components focussing on (a) the interpretation of feedback designs and data and (b) the impact of personalised visual physical activity feedback on facilitation of health behaviour change. Participants demonstrated a clear ability to understand the sophisticated personal information plus an enhanced physical activity knowledge. They reported that receiving multidimensional feedback was motivating and could be usefully applied to facilitate their efforts in becoming more physically active. Conclusion Multidimensional physical activity feedback can be made comprehensible, informative and motivational by using appropriate graphics and visualisations. There is an opportunity to exploit the full potential created by technological innovation and provide sophisticated personalised physical activity feedback as an adjunct to support behaviour change.
Virtual Network Function Migration Considering Load Balance and SFC Delay in Cloud Datacenter

With the emergence of Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and Software-Defined Networks (SDN), Service Function Chaining (SFC) has evolved into a popular paradigm for carrying and fulfilling network services. This new networking and computing paradigm enables virtual network functions (VNFs) to be placed in virtual machines/software entities on a network of physical devices elastically and flexibly with lower capital and operating expenditures. However, for cloud service providers, how to migrate VNFs in NFV-enabled networks for more flexible services is a critical issue that needs to be addressed. Currently, research on VNF migration mainly focuses on how to migrate a single VNF while ignoring the VNF sharing and concurrent migration. This paper assumes that each placed VNF can serve multiple SFCs. We focus on selecting the best migration location for concurrently migrating VNF instances based on actual network conditions. First, we formulate the VNF migration problem as an optimization model whose goal is to minimize the end-to-end delay of all influenced SFCs while guaranteeing network load balance after migration. Next, we design a Two-Stage Hybrid Genetic Evolution (T-SHGE) solution to solve the VNF migration problem. Finally, we combine previous experimental data to generate realistic VNF traffic patterns and evaluate the algorithm. Simulation results show that the SFC delay after migration calculated by T-SHGE is close to the optimal results and much lower than the benchmarks. In addition, it effectively guarantees the load balancing of the network after migration.
A Unique Energy Management Scheme for Harnessing Electric Vehicle Potential to Improve Grid Resiliency

With the shift in energy systems towards greener technologies, by incorporating renewable energy sources in the power sector and electric vehicles in the transportation sector, this work intends to harness both technologies’ optimum potential for a more resilient system architecture. With minimal upgradation in available power sources, this paper aims to provide power back up during extreme power blackouts such as floods, hurricanes, etc. The system consists of a microgrid containing solar PV, wind, a UPS battery and EV attached to the grid. Three modes of operation: Grid connected, Isolated (Fault condition) and Isolated (Natural Disaster condition) has been discussed here. A novel energy management scheme is presented for improvement in system resiliency by utilizing a fraction of the butter SOC of the EV battery during the V2G mode and saving it only for usage only under extreme conditions. Such an arrangement, not only helps us move towards decarbonization, but also enhances the grid resiliency. The suggested approach is verified utilizing a real-time simulation environment based on OPAL-RT.
Clay record of climate change since the mid‐Pleistocene in Jiujiang, south China

To obtain a better understanding of climate change in south China in the Quaternary, a clay mineralogical study was undertaken on the red earth profile at Jiujiang, using X‐ray diffraction (XRD) and particle‐size distribution analysis methods. The XRD results showed that the clay minerals of the Jiujiang red earth were mainly mixed‐layer illite–smectite (I/S), illite, kaolinite and vermiculite, with trace amounts of mixed‐layer kaolinite–smectite (K/S). Changes in clay mineral composition displayed a trend of three‐stage evolution. The higher mixed‐layer I/S clays and kaolinite contents in the lower portion suggest extremely warm and humid climates over the period c. 700 to c. 350 ka ago. A gradual decrease in I/S clays and kaolinite reveals a gradual climate change from warm/humid to cool/dry during the period c. 350 to c. 130 ka ago. The higher illite and vermiculite contents indicate a relatively cool and dry climate during the period since c. 130 ka ago. The particle‐size distribution pattern of the upper section was similar to that of the Xiashu loess, while that of the middle to lower section was similar to those of fluvially reworked red earth. A rapid increase in the abundance of large grain‐size components at 2.6 m depth indicates an intensification of the winter monsoon and a cool and dry climate during the period, in good agreement with results from the clay mineral composition and homogeneous structure. The red earth sequences in south China could probably be used to test the response of tropical to subtropical regions to global climate changes.
Study of Consciousness

Abstract. The human brain is a powerful organ that controls most of the body. Researchers around the world have long tried to uncover how the brain operates, how memories are formed and stored. Our understanding of neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease has been rapidly improving, yet much remains to be done. In this work, we attempt to study changes in intracranial pressure (ICP) for a 12-hour period and discuss whether the resulting estimates could be used as a measure of consciousness.
Un poco de rock&love. Recursos creativos empleados por las marcas en la publicidad para móviles

Los cambios sociologicos, culturales y simbolicos que se han producido en la era digital han tenido una gran repercusion en el ambito de la comunicacion y evidencian que es necesario que las marcas tracen nuevos caminos en su busqueda para conectar con sus publicos. Ante esta realidad, nuestra propuesta de rock&love apuesta por un modo diferente de aproximarse a los publicos, mas en sintonia con las nuevas posibilidades que brinda el contexto digital. Este articulo presenta una investigacion en la que se parte de la hipotesis de que la comunicacion para moviles —vehiculada a traves de apps principalmente— es el terreno idoneo para que las marcas se comporten de acuerdo a los postulados del rock&love y tiene como principal objetivo la identificacion de los factores que permiten determinar cuales son los recursos creativos que responden a los conceptos de rock y love. Para ello, se ha realizado un analisis de contenido a un corpus de trabajo compuesto por las campanas ganadoras del Festival Cannes Lions 2014 en la categoria de campanas moviles (mobile). Los resultados de la investigacion, efectivamente, verifican los recursos creativos que responden al postulado del rock&love en la comunicacion publicitaria para moviles.
Synql: Replicated Relations and Integrity Maintenance

Many offline-first applications use an embedded relational database, such as SQLite, to manage their data. The replication of the database eases the addition of collaborative features to its applications. Most of the approaches for replicating a relational database require coordination at some extent. A few approaches propose a coordination-less replication to allow offline work. These approaches are limited in two ways: (i) They don’t respect Strong Eventual Consistency that states that two replicas converge as soon as they integrate the same set of modifications; (ii) They fail to preserve user intent in complex scenarios. We propose a new CRDT that addresses these two limitations. Our replicated state is defined by the composition of CRDT primitives. The state of the database is computed over the replicated state. The user modifications are compensated so that the computed state corresponds to what the users saw and changed.
Land Use Dynamics in a Marine Protected Area System in Lower Andaman Coast of Thailand, 1990–2005

Abstract This study has depicted a scenario on assessing spatial and temporal land use/cover changes in and adjacent to marine protected areas (MPA) in a study site in Thailand. The measurement of landscape stability and its implications for protection and conservation of coastal resources are emphasized in this study. The methods employed include interpretation and analysis of satellite images, aerial photographs, and geographic information system (GIS) data. Image analysis and GIS techniques have been used extensively, and a site-specific geospatial database was developed accordingly. Initial temporal changes inside and outside protected areas are captured from visual interpretation of three time series satellite images, where an increase of aquaculture ponds and abandoned areas is clearly visible. The output changes derived from the image differencing techniques demonstrated considerable changes in the whole study area as well as inside the protected area boundary during 1976 to 1990. Compared to the earlier time (1976–1990) the changes during 1990 to 2005 are found to be less extensive. Although the existing marine protected areas were declared earlier than the 1990s, the changes are still found inside the protected area boundary during 1990–2005. The result shows significant increases in agriculture areas, including aquaculture development, which are, however, less inside the protected areas than the buffer areas. While mangrove areas have noticeable negative changes, an increase in Malalueca forest areas is interesting. In the discussion, a quantitative comparison of legislative boundary and buffer effects on protecting land use and land cover is illustrated. In light of existing ecological context and socioeconomic activities, observations are made on agents of change and resource use conflicts.
Evaluation of ASTER GDEM and SRTM and their suitability in hydraulic modelling of a glacial lake outburst flood in southeast Tibet

The resolution and accuracy of digital elevation models (DEMs) can affect the hydraulic simulation results for predicting the effects of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs). However, for the Tibetan Plateau, high‐quality DEM data are often not available, leaving researchers with near‐global, freely available DEMs, such as the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer Global Digital Elevation Model (ASTER GDEM) and the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission data (SRTM) for hydraulic modelling. This study explores the suitability of these two freely available DEMs for hydraulic modelling of GLOFs. Our study focused on the flood plain of a potentially dangerous glacial lake in southeastern Tibet, to evaluate the elevation accuracy of ASTER GDEM and SRTM, and their suitability for hydraulic modelling of GLOFs. The elevation accuracies of ASTER GDEM and SRTM were first validated against field global position system (GPS) survey points, and then evaluated with reference to the relatively high precision of 1:50 000 scale DEM (DEM5) constructed from aerial photography. Moreover, the DEM5, ASTER GDEM and SRTM were used as basic topographic data to simulate peak discharge propagation, as well as flood inundation extent and depth in the Hydrologic Engineering Center's River Analysis System one‐dimensional hydraulic model. Results of the three DEM predictions were compared to evaluate the suitability of ASTER GDEM and SRTM for GLOF hydraulic modelling. Comparisons of ASTER GDEM and SRTM each with DEM5 in the flood plain area show root‐mean‐square errors between the former two as ± 15·4 m and between the latter two as ± 13·5 m. Although SRTM overestimates and ASTER GDEM underestimates valley floor elevations, both DEMs can be used to extract the elevations of required geometric data, i.e. stream centre lines, bank lines and cross sections, for flood modelling. However, small errors still exist in the cross sections that may influence the propagation of peak discharge. The flood inundation extent and mean water depths derived from ASTER GDEM predictions are only 2·2% larger and 2·3‐m deeper than that of the DEM5 predictions, whereas the SRTM yields a flood zone extent 6·8% larger than the DEM5 prediction and a mean water depth 2·4‐m shallower than the DEM5 prediction. The modelling shows that, in the absence of high‐precision DEM data, ASTER GDEM or SRTM DEM can be relied on for simulating extreme GLOFs in southeast Tibet. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Climate Variability and Climate Change: Implications for Chronic Poverty

The principles of the â€˜bottom-upâ€™ approach to adaptation are followed. It believes that one of the starting points for adaptation to climate change should be the present. The focus should not just be on scenarios of the future; combined with this should be analysis of present vulnerability in the face of current climate variability. Then the focus is on the current coping strategies for climate variability by the chronically poor and highlights some of the barriers to and opportunities for successful adaptation. [WP no. 108].
Vanuatu Mortuary Practices over Three Millennia: Lapita to the Early European Contact Period

New discoveries and previously-unpublished data on burials from south, central, and north Vanuatu are reviewed in this paper, offering a synthesis of mortuary practices over three millennia, from Lapita to the early European contact period. Relying on five attributes describing the practices and behaviours (body and bone treatment, position and orientation of the body, ornaments and associated artefacts, and use of single or multiple burial), the analysis emphasizes two major episodes of structural changes in the overall funerary system following initial settlement of Vanuatu. The first occurred towards the end of the Lapita period and the second is indicated by the distinctiveness of the second millennium AD burials. A possible interpretation of these changes, following the lines of Thomas’s ‘genealogical approach’ (2001) is proposed.
ESTIMATION OF SEISMIC NOISE STRUCTURE USING ARRAYS

A theoretical study of the use of arrays for the analysis of seismic noise fields has been completed. The frequency‐wavenumber power spectral density P(kx,ky,f) is defined and techniques for estimating it are given. The estimates require that the auto‐ and crosspower spectral densities be estimated for all elements in the array. Subject to certain asymptotic properties of these auto‐ and crosspower spectral density estimates, expressions for both the mean and variance of the estimates of P(kz,ky,f) have been obtained. It has been demonstrated that if P(kx,ky,f) is estimated by the Frequency Domain Beamforming Method, then the estimate has the same stability as the estimates of auto‐ and crosspower spectral density. P(kx,ky,f) has been estimated from both long‐ and short‐period noise recorded by the Large Aperture Seismic Array in Montana. At frequencies higher than 0.3 Hz, a compressional body‐wave component which correlates with atmospheric disturbances over distant oceans has been detected. In the frequ.
The VLT-FLAMES Tarantula Survey - IX. The interstellar medium seen through diffuse interstellar bands and neutral sodium

Context. The Tarantula Nebula (a.k.a. 30 Dor) is a spectacular star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), seen through gas in the Galactic disc and halo. Diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) offer a unique probe of the diffuse, cool-warm gas in these regions. Aims. The aim is to use DIBs as diagnostics of the local interstellar conditions, whilst at the same time deriving properties of the yet-unknown carriers of these enigmatic spectral features. Methods. Spectra of over 800 early-type stars from the Very Large Telescope Flames Tarantula Survey (VFTS) were analysed. Maps were created, separately, for the Galactic and LMC absorption in the DIBs at 4428 and 6614 A and - in a smaller region near the central cluster R 136 - neutral sodium (the Na i D doublet); we also measured the DIBs at 5780 and 5797 A. Results. The maps show strong 4428 and 6614 A DIBs in the quiescent cloud complex to the south of 30 Dor but weak absorption in the harsher environments to the north (bubbles) and near the OB associations. The Na maps show at least five kinematic components in the LMC and a shell-like structure surrounding R 136, and small-scale structure in the Milky Way. The strengths of the 4428, 5780, 5797 and 6614 A DIBs are correlated, also with Na absorption and visual extinction. The strong 4428 A DIB is present already at low Na column density but the 6614, 5780 and 5797 A DIBs start to be detectable at subsequently larger Na column densities. Conclusions. The carriers of the 4428, 6614, 5780 and 5797 A DIBs are increasingly prone to removal from irradiated gas. The relative strength of the 5780 and 5797 A DIBs clearly confirm the Tarantula Nebula as well as Galactic high-latitude gas to represent a harsh radiation environment. The resilience of the 4428 A DIB suggests its carrier is large, compact and neutral. Structure is detected in the distribution of cool-warm gas on scales between one and >100 pc in the LMC and as little as 0.01 pc in the Sun’s vicinity. Stellar winds from the central cluster R 136 have created an expanding shell; some infalling gas is also detected, reminiscent of a galactic "fountain".
UC Merced Previously Published Works

Evaluating the performance of scientiﬁc data processing systems is a difﬁcult task considering the plethora of application-speciﬁc solutions available in this landscape and the lack of a generally-accepted benchmark. The dual structure of scientiﬁc data coupled with the complex nature of processing complicate the evaluation procedure further. SS-DB is the ﬁrst attempt to deﬁne a general benchmark for complex scientiﬁc processing over raw and derived data. It fails to draw sufﬁcient attention though because of the ambiguous plain language speciﬁcation and the extraordinary SciDB results. In this paper, we remedy the shortcomings of the original SS-DB speciﬁcation by providing a formal representation in terms of ArrayQL algebra operators and ArrayQL/SciQL constructs. These are the ﬁrst formal representations of the SS-DB benchmark. Starting from the formal representation, we give a reference implementation and present benchmark results in EXTASCID, a novel system for scientiﬁc data processing. EXTASCID is complete in providing native support both for array and relational data and extensible in executing any user code inside the system by the means of a conﬁgurable metaoperator. These features result in an order of magnitude improvement over SciDB at data loading, extracting derived data, and operations over derived data.
Optical Dating of Holocene Dune Sands in the Ferris Dune Field, Wyoming

Abstract Optical dating of late Quaternary quartz dune sands from the Clear Creek portion of Ferris dune field, Wyoming, demonstrates the considerable potential of the technique as a chronostratigraphic tool. A sequence of radiocarbon-dated Holocene interdune strata permit optical dating of the intercalated dune sand to be tested; the concordance is good. The optical dates for the aeolian deposits not datable by radiocarbon suggest that aeolian sedimentation at Clear Creek peaked during two relatively short phases at ca. 8500 and 4000 yr B.P. The dates indicate that aeolian accumulation maxima (at least in the Clear Creek area) may not be synchronous with previously defined phases of marked aridity.
Earthquake Stress Drops and Inferred Fault Strength on the Hayward Fault

We study variations in earthquake stress drop with respect to depth, faulting regime, creeping versus locked fault behavior, and wall-rock geology. We use the P -wave displacement spectra from borehole seismic recordings of M 1.0–4.2 earthquakes in the east San Francisco Bay to estimate stress drop using a stack-and-invert empirical Green’s function method. The median stress drop is 8.7 MPa, and most stress drops are in the range between 0.4 and 130 MPa. An apparent correlation between stress drop and magnitude is entirely an artifact of the limited frequency band of 4–55 Hz. There is a trend of increasing stress drop with depth, with a median stress drop of ∼5 MPa for 1–7 km depth, ∼10 MPa for 7–13 km depth, and ∼50 MPa deeper than 13 km. We use S / P amplitude ratios measured from the borehole records to better constrain the first-motion focal mechanisms. High stress drops are observed for a deep cluster of thrust-faulting earthquakes. The correlation of stress drops with depth and faulting regime implies that stress drop is related to the applied shear stress. We compare the spatial distribution of stress drops on the Hayward fault to a model of creeping versus locked behavior of the fault and find that high stress drops are concentrated around the major locked patch near Oakland. This also suggests a connection between stress drop and applied shear stress, as the locked patch may experience higher applied shear stress as a result of the difference in cumulative slip or the presence of higher-strength material. The stress drops do not directly correlate with the strength of the proposed wall-rock geology at depth, suggesting that the relationship between fault strength and the strength of the wall rock is complex.
Analysis of Rowing Force of the Water Strider Middle Leg by Direct Measurement Using a Bio-Appropriating Probe and by Indirect Measurement Using Image Analysis

Rowing force of the middle leg of a water strider is one of the important factors affecting water repellency and applications in biomimetics, biomechanics, and biology. However, many previous studies have been based on estimated leg rowing force and lack some credibility. Therefore, we tried to measure leg rowing force directly by a force transducer. In this article, we report the rowing force of water striders obtained by direct and indirect measurements. In the direct measurement, water striders were set onto a sensor system and the rowing force of a middle leg of the set water striders was directly measured using a bio-appropriating probe (BAP), a kind of hook. In the indirect measurement, water striders were not fixed and the rowing force of locomoting water striders was evaluated by image analysis using a high-speed camera. As a result, we determined the rowing force by the direct measurement to be 955 μN, while the rowing force by the indirect measurement was 493 μN. We considered that the indirect measurement might lack some credibility because half the propellant energy was lost in the indirect force measurement due to various other factors.