Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Influence of silvicultural practices on the hydrology of pine flatwoods in Florida

Slash pine (Pinus elliottii Engelm.) flatwoods in diked watersheds were harvested and regenerated with high and low levels of disturbance. One watershed received machine harvesting, slash burning, windrowing, bedding, and machine planting, which are practices causing a high level of disturbance. A second watershed received manual harvesting, slash chopping, bedding, and machine planting, which are practices causing a low level of disturbance. Water regimes of the two watersheds were compared against that of the third, an undisturbed control. Water table levels were higher after harvest because of reduced evapotranspiration (Et) posttreatment. The differences in water table levels due to treatment were more pronounced at deeper soil depths, probably owing to a lower specific yield of the soil matrix with depth. Daily runoff during the first year increased somewhat in proportion to the area clear-cut in each watershed. However, only the 15-cm first-year runoff increase from the high-disturbance watershed was significant at 150% of predicted runoff. This increase dropped to 65% of predicted runoff 6 years later, suggesting a return to normal about 11 years after treatment. In contrast, an unexpectedly early decrease in runoff from the low-disturbance watershed was apparent by the last year indicative of anomalous watershed behavior likely due to greater seepage through the perimeter dikes. A severe drought which occurred during the study caused a very slow recovery of the hydrologie regime; it took a full year of normal rainfall to restore runoff patterns. Moreover, the drought demonstrated the importance of pond storage in the attenuation of surface runoff. High-disturbance site preparation resulted in many windrows oriented toward the drainages, less resistance to surface runoff, and some compaction of normally wet soils. The net effect was less infiltration and more storm flow. First-year storm flow was increased on the high-disturbance watershed, but flooding by large storms often overwhelmed this effect. Pine Et estimates were used in the annual water balances to calculate seepage. A seepage value of 3 cm/yr, or 2% of annual rainfall, showed good agreement with previously published information for pine flatwoods.
Enhanced Structural Complexity Index: An Improved Index for Describing Forest Structural Complexity

The horizontal distribution of stems, stand density and the differentiation of tree dimensions are among the most important aspects of stand structure. An increasing complexity of stand structure is often linked to a higher number of species and to greater ecological stability. For quantification, the Structural Complexity Index (SCI) describes structural complexity by means of an area ratio of the surface that is generated by connecting the tree tops of neighbouring trees to form triangles to the surface that is covered by all triangles if projected on a flat plane. Here, we propose two ecologically relevant modifications of the SCI: The degree of mingling of tree attributes, quantified by a vector ruggedness measure, and a stem density term. We investigate how these two modifications influence index values. Data come from forest inventory field plots sampled along a disturbance gradient from heavily disturbed shrub land, through secondary regrowth to mature montane rainforest stands in Mengsong, Xishuangbanna,Yunnan,China. An application is described linking structural complexity, as described by the SCI and its modified versions, to changes in species composition of insect communities. The results of this study show that the Enhanced Structural Complexity Index (ESCI) can serve as a valuable tool for forest managers and ecologists for describing the structural complexity of forest stands and is particularly valuable for natural forests with a high degree of structural complexity.
Acid in the environment: lessons learned and future prospects

Preface Acknowledgements List of Figures List of Tables 1. Acid in the Environment: An Overview Gerald R. Visgilio, Jane Dawson, Peter A. Siver and Diana M. Whitelaw 2. Lessons Learned From the Acid Deposition Research Experience: An Historical Perspective Anthony C. Janetos PART I. ECOLOGICAL IMPACTS OF ACID DEPOSITION 3. Acidic Deposition: Sources and Ecological Effects Charles T. Driscoll, Kathy Fallon Lambert and Limin Chen 4. Long-Term Changes in Boreal Lake and Stream Chemistry: Recovery From Acid Deposition and the Role of Climate Peter J. Dillon, Shaun A. Watmough, M. Catherine Eimers and Julian Aherne 5. Atmospheric Nitrogen Deposition: Implications for Terrestrial Ecosystem Structure and Functioning Knute J. Nadelhoffer 6. Atmospheric Deposition and Nitrogen Pollution in Coastal Marine Ecosystems Robert W. Howarth PART II. ACID EMISSIONS ENERGY AND POLICY 7. The Politics of Acid Rain in Europe Miranda A. Schreurs 8. Acid Rain in a Wider Europe: The Post-Communist Transition and the Future European Acid Rain Policies Liliana B. Andonova 9. Acid Rain Politics in North America: Conflict to Cooperation to Collusion Don Munton 10. Air Quality and Power Production in the United States: Emissions Trading and State-Level Initiatives in the Control of Acid-Producing Emissions, Mercury, and Carbon Dioxide Daniel Sosland PART III. SULFUR DIOXIDE AND THE MARKET 11. Market-Based Approaches to Environmental Policy: A 'Refresher" Course Paul R. Portney 12. Economic Incentives Versus Command and Control: What's the Best Approach for Solving Environmental Problems? Winston Harrington and Richard D. Morgenstern 13. Benefits and Costs From Sulfur Dioxide Trading: A Distributional Analysis Ronald J. Shadbegian, Wayne Gray and Cynthia Morgan 14. From SulfurDioxide to Greenhouse Gases: Trends and Events Shaping Future Emissions Trading Programs in the United States Joseph Kruger PART IV. LESSONS LEARNED AND FUTURE PROSPECTS 15. Atmospheric Deposition and Conservation: What is the Role for Conservation Organizations? Timothy H. Tear 16. Achieving a Solution to Acid Deposition and Other International Environmental Problems Robert A. Askins Contributors Index
Demystifying Inductive Biases for (Beta-)VAE Based Architectures

The performance of β -Variational-Autoencoders ( β -VAEs) and their variants on learning semantically meaningful, disentangled representations is unparalleled. On the other hand, there are theoretical arguments suggesting the impossibility of unsupervised disentanglement. In this work, we shed light on the inductive bias responsible for the success of VAE-based architectures. We show that in classical datasets the structure of variance induced by the generating factors is conveniently aligned with the latent directions fostered by the VAE objective. This builds the pivotal bias on which the disentangling abilities of VAEs rely. By small, elaborate perturbations of existing datasets, we hide the convenient correlation structure that is easily exploited by a variety of architectures. To demonstrate this, we construct modiﬁed versions of standard datasets in which (i) the generative factors are perfectly preserved; (ii) each image undergoes a mild transformation causing a small change of variance; (iii) the leading VAE-based disentanglement architectures fail to produce disentangled representations while the performance of a non-variational method remains unchanged .
Assessment of dryland condition using spatial anomalies of vegetation index values

A landscape's long‐term capacity to retain, utilize and recycle local resources is an objective basis for assessing its ecological functionality or condition. In subtropical and tropical drylands, where plant growth is moisture‐limited for much of the time, land condition is reflected in the local water balance. The ratio of long‐term actual evapotranspiration and precipitation (E a/P) is proposed as an objective indicator of dryland condition. A spatial modelling framework is developed for the quantification of E a/P over large areas using remotely sensed vegetation density patterns. Model parameters are defined by two particular situations: (i) non‐vegetated sites, where E a/P depends on the long‐term runoff coefficient of bare soil surfaces (RCbs), and (ii) non‐degraded sites with a vegetation density close to the potential value for which E a/P≅1.0. Specht's evaporative coefficient is used as an independent variable for the prediction of the potential vegetation density, whereas RCbs is estimated with the curve number method. The performance of the method was evaluated in a 900 km2 area in south‐east Spain, where predicted land condition was found to be in good agreement with qualitative field observations on the nature and intensity of land degradation processes.
Controls on accretion of flysch and mélange belts at convergent margins: Evidence from the Chugach Bay thrust and Iceworm mélange, Chugach accretionary wedge, Alaska

Controls on accretion of flysch and mélange terranes at convergent margins are poorly understood. Southern Alaska's Chugach terrane forms the outboard accretionary margin of the Wrangellia composite terrane, and consists of two major lithotectonic units, including Triassic‐Cretaceous mélange of the McHugh Complex and Late Cretaceous flysch of the Valdez Group. The contact between the McHugh Complex and the Valdez Group on the Kenai Peninsula is a tectonic boundary between chaotically deformed melange of argillite, chert, greenstone, and graywacke of the McHugh Complex and a less chaotically deformed mélange of argillite and graywacke of the Valdez Group. We assign the latter to a new, informal unit of formational rank, the Iceworm mélange, and interpret it as a contractional fault zone (Chugach Bay thrust) along which the Valdez Group was emplaced beneath the McHugh Complex. The McHugh Complex had already been deformed and metamorphosed to prehnite‐pumpellyite facies prior to formation of the Iceworm mélange. The Chugach Bay thrust formed between 75 and 55 Ma, as shown by Campanian‐Maastrichtian depositional ages of the Valdez Group, and fault‐related fabrics in the Iceworm mélange that are cut by Paleocene dikes. Motion along the Chugach Bay thrust thus followed Middle to Late Cretaceous collision (circa 90–100 Ma) of the Wrangellia composite terrane with North America. Collision related uplift and erosion of mountains in British Columbia formed a submarine fan on the Farallon plate, and we suggest that attempted subduction of this fan dramatically changed the subduction/accretion style within the Chugach accretionary wedge. We propose a model in which subduction of thinly sedimented plates concentrates shear strains in a narrow zone, generating mélanges like the McHugh in accretionary complexes. Subduction of thickly sedimented plates allows wider distribution of shear strains to accommodate plate convergence, generating a more coherent accretionary style including the fold‐thrust structures that dominate the outcrop pattern in the Valdez belt. Rapid underplating and frontal accretion of the Valdez Group caused a critical taper adjustment of the accretionary wedge, including exhumation of the metamorphosed McHugh Complex, and its emplacement over the Valdez Group. The Iceworm mélange formed in a zone of focused fluid flow at the boundary between the McHugh Complex and Valdez Group during this critical taper adjustment of the wedge to these changing boundary conditions.
The Diophantine Equation x4 ± y4 = iz2 in Gaussian Integers

Abstract In this note we find all the solutions of the Diophantine equation x4 ± y4 = iz2 using elliptic curves over ℚ(i). Also, using the same method we give a new proof of Hilbert's result that the equation x4 ± y4 = z2 has only trivial solutions in Gaussian integers.
The El Niño southern oscillation and long‐range forecasting of flows in the Ganges

Several recent studies have shown that the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) index has a significant influence on various climatic and hydrologic signals across the globe. This study attempts to identify the nature and strength of possible teleconnections between the Ganges River flow and ENSO, and to develop a model which can capture, at least in part, the natural variability of flow, and provide a large forecasting lead‐time. The motivation came from the fact that, in the past, hydrologic forecasts of the basin through rainfall‐runoff modelling could provide a lead‐time on the order of the basin response time, which is several days or so. Such a short forecasting lead‐time is not adequate to hedge against extreme events (flood or drought) in large river basins. This is, perhaps, the first attempt to relate flows in the Ganges with ENSO.
Ripple Network: Propagating User Preferences on the Knowledge Graph for Recommender Systems

To address the sparsity and cold start problem of collaborative filtering, researchers usually make use of side information, such as social networks or item attributes, to improve recommendation performance. This paper considers the knowledge graph as the source of side information. To address the limitations of existing embedding-based and path-based methods for knowledge-graph-aware recommendation, we propose Ripple Network , an end-to-end framework that naturally incorporates the knowledge graph into recommender systems. Similar to actual ripples propagating on the water, Ripple Network stimulates the propagation of user preferences over the set of knowledge entities by automatically and iteratively extending a user’s potential interests along links in the knowledge graph. The multiple "ripples" activated by a user’s historically clicked items are thus superposed to form the preference distribution of the user with respect to a candidate item, which could be used for predicting the final clicking probability. Through extensive experiments on real-world datasets, we demonstrate that Ripple Network achieves substantial gains in a variety of scenarios, including movie, book and news recommendation, over several state-of-the-art baselines.
Algorithmic Bias? An Empirical Study of Apparent Gender-Based Discrimination in the Display of STEM Career Ads

We explore data from a ﬁ eld test of how an algorithm delivered ads promoting job opportunities in the science, technology, engineering and math ﬁ elds. This ad was explicitly intended to be gender neutral in its delivery. Empirically, however, fewer women saw the ad than men. This happened because younger women are a prized demographic and are more expensive to show ads to. An algorithm that simply optimizes cost-effectiveness in ad delivery will deliver ads that were intended to be gender neutral in an apparently discriminatory way, because of crowding out. We show that this empirical regularity extends to other major digital platforms.
Dual-Primal Isogeometric Tearing and Interconnecting methods for the Stokes problem

We are interested in a fast solver for linear systems obtained by discretizing the Stokes problem with multi-patch Isogeometric Analysis. We use Dual-Primal Isogeometric Tearing and Interconnecting (IETI-DP) methods. In resent years, IETI-DPand related methods have been studied extensively, mainly for the Poisson problem. For the Stokes equations, several challenges arise since the corresponding system is not positive definite, but has saddle point structure. Moreover, the Stokes equations with Dirichlet boundary conditions have a null-space, consisting of the constant pressure modes. This poses a challenge when considering the scaled Dirichlet preconditioner. We test out two different scaled Dirichlet preconditioners with different choices of primal degrees of freedom. The tests are performed on rather simple domains (the unit square and a quarter annulus) and a more complicated domain (a Yeti-footprint).
The oldest magnetic anomalies in the Australian-Antarctic basin : Are they isochrons?

We present a revised tectonic interpretation of Australia and Antarctica incorporating new magnetic data off of Wilkes Land, Antarctica, for the earliest period of seafloor spreading on the Southeast Indian Ridge, from the Late Cretaceous to Early Tertiary. Reconstructions based on our revised anomaly identifications are characterized by a surprisingly large amount of continental overlap, involving the South Tasman Rise, Tasmania, and the Victoria Land region of Antarctica. The overlap is due to continental extension and/or deformation of oceanic crust in the Australian-Antarctic Basin. The second hypothesis would imply that the magnetic anomalies older than chron 31 in the Australian-Antarctic Basin are not isochrons. We also find evidence for a previously unrecognized period of extremely slow spreading on the Southeast Indian Ridge from chron 31 (68.7 Ma) to chron 24 (53.3 Ma) in the Australian-Antarctic Basin. In the western end of the basin we have tentatively identified a hiatus in the generation of crustal accretion associated with a minimum sustainable threshold half spreading rate of 1.5 mm/yr. In addition, we recognize a new fracture zone on the Antarctic plate, the Vincennes fracture zone, as the conjugate to the Perth fracture zone on the Australian plate, in the western Australian-Antarctic Basin. These fracture zones record the initial NW-SE opening direction between Australia and Antarctica.
Panquilma y Cieneguilla en la discusión arqueológica del Horizonte Tardío de la costa central

Aprovechando los trabajos arqueológicos iniciales realizados en el sitio de Panquilma, los autores aportan algunos datos nuevos sobre el sitio y analizan los datos ya existentes para el área de Cieneguilla, lugar donde se encuentra este sitio. Esta rápida revisión intenta abarcar la geografía, el patrón de asentamiento y las fuentes etnohistóricas conocidas, así como ensayar algunas conclusiones preliminares.
Uplink sum-rate analysis of C-RAN with interconnected radio units

This study addresses the achievable sum-rate for the uplink of a cloud radio access network (C-RAN) operating in a linear Wyner-type topology, i.e., with partial channel connectivity. In the system, the radio units (RUs) communicate with a central, or cloud, unit (CU) by means of digital finite-capacity fronthaul links. The messages sent by the user equipments (UEs) are jointly decoded by the CU based on the compressed baseband signals received on the fronthaul links. Unlike prior works, each RU is assumed to be also connected to its neighboring RUs via finite-capacity fronthaul links. Under the standard assumption that the RUs do not perform channel decoding (i.e., oblivious RUs), each RU performs in-network processing of the uplink received signal and of the compressed baseband signal received from the adjacent RU, with the CU carrying out channel decoding. A closed-form expression of the achievable sum-rate is derived assuming point-to-point compression, and then analytical expressions are provided for more advanced fronthaul compression schemes that leverage side information. Numerical examples provide insights into the advantages of inter-RU communications and into the performance gap to existing sum-rate upper bounds.
Results of the Ontology Alignment Evaluation Initiative 2020

The Ontology Alignment Evaluation Initiative (OAEI) aims at comparing ontology matching systems on precisely deﬁned test cases. These test cases can be based on ontologies of different levels of complexity and use different evaluation modalities (e.g., blind evaluation, open evaluation, or consensus). The OAEI 2020 campaign offered 12 tracks with 36 test cases, and was attended by 19 participants. This paper is an overall presentation of that campaign.
Improved Approximation for Directed Cut Problems

We present improved approximation algorithms for directed multicut and directed sparsest cut. The current best known approximation ratio for these problems is O(n 1/2). We obtain añ O(n 11/23)-approximation. Our algorithm works with the natural LP relaxation used in prior work. We use a randomized rounding algorithm with a more sophisticated charging scheme and analysis to obtain our improvement. This also implies a ˜ O(n 11/23) upper bound on the ratio between the maximum multicommodity flow and minimum multicut in directed graphs. Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee.
Adapting Compressed Sensing Algorithms to Discrete Sparse Signals

In sensor networks, many sensors with very low duty cycles transmit their discrete-valued data independently to a fusion center. This central instance has to estimate the individual data symbols. Assuming a great number of sensors and a much lower number of antennas at the fusion center, the reconstruction has to be done based on an underdetermined system of linear equations. Since the transmit symbol vector is assumed to be sparse, a Compressed Sensing task is present. However, as the data is discrete-valued, Compressed Sensing algorithms for discrete sparse signals are requested. A possible approach is the concatenation of a standard (real-valued) Compressed Sensing algorithm and the Sphere Decoder. In this paper, we give a deeper insight into existing approaches and optimize them in order to improve performance and/or to lower the computational complexity. Thereby, a class of algorithms for the recovery of discrete sparse signals, beneficial also for other applications in digital communications, like peak-power reduction or radar detection, is designed.
Nitrogen mineralization, immobilization, and nitrification following urea fertilization of a forest soil under field and laboratory conditions.

Following a 200-kg urea-N/ha fertilization in a loblolly pine stand (Pinus taeda), soil mineral N levels (almost entirely NH/sub 4//sup +/) declined from 200 ppM 20 days after fertilization to < 10 ppM within 161 days. Similar patterns had been previously observed following urea fertilization in a Douglas-fir stand. After the decline in soil mineral N, 20% (40 ppM) of fertilizer N was mineralized within 4 weeks of aerobic incubation in the laboratory at 25/sup 0/C. Nitrogen mineralization in control soils did not occur after 7 weeks incubation.
Multiproxy evidence of an early Holocene (8.2 kyr) climate oscillation in central Nova Scotia, Canada

An early Holocene lake sediment record from central Nova Scotia contains a minerogenic oscillation that is closely correlative with the 8.2 kyr event (ca. 8200 cal. yr BP), an event that has not been reported elsewhere in Atlantic Canada. A variety of biological and sedimentological indicators have been examined to characterise autochthonous and allochthonous changes that occurred during this time. The minerogenic upper oscillation (UO, ca. 8400 cal. yr BP) is marked by an increase in the chrysophyte:diatom ratio. Following the oscillation, the diatom community reflects a shift to more productive, less acidic conditions. The pollen record shows no major response to this short‐lived event. Lithostratigraphic analyses indicates that the UO is characterised by an increase in clastic content, magnetic susceptibility and mean sediment grain size, all indicators of changing environmental conditions, most likely the result of regional cooling. The Taylor Lake record adds to a growing body of evidence for a widespread, hemispheric climate oscillation at 8.2 kyr. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.