Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The role of geophysical ERT method to evaluate the leakproofness of diapragm wall of deep foundation trenches on the example of the construction of retail and office complex in Lublin, Poland

Abstract This paper addresses the problem of assessing the leakproofness of the bottom of a deep foundation trench, secured by cavity wall, using geophysical methods of electrical resistivity tomography. The study was conducted on a large construction project in Lublin, in a place where there are complicated soil-water conditions: the groundwater level is above the proposed depth of foundation trench, the subsoil is heterogeneous, and there are karsted and weathered carbonate sediments with confined aquifer below the bottom of the trench. A hydraulic fracture occurred at the bottom of the trench during the engineering works, which caused the water flow into the trench. In order to recognize the soil-water conditions the first stage of geophysical measurements of electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) was made. The applied methodology allowed to determine the extent of the hydraulic fracture zone within the bottom of foundation trench. In order to assess the leakproofness of Diaphragm Wall the geophysical ERT measurements were repeated (stage 2) A clear reduction in the value of the electrical resistivity of soils in the area of hydraulic fracture was caused by clay injection. The results of ERT measurements are discussed and graphically presented.
Results from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory stratospheric ozone lidar during STOIC 1989

Stratospheric ozone concentration profiles measured by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory differential absorption lidar system during the Stratospheric Ozone Intercomparison Campaign in July/August 1989 are presented. These profiles are compared with the mean profiles based on all of the measurements made by the different participating instruments. The results from the blind intercomparison showed that the lidar results agreed with the overall Stratospheric Ozone Intercomparison Campaign average profile to better than 5% between 21 and 45 km altitude. At 20 km the difference was {approximately}10%, as it was also in the region from 47 to 50 km altitude. Some systematic features were observed in the comparison of the blind results and these were subsequently investigated. The results of this investigation allowed the analysis algorithm to be refined and improved. The changes made are discussed and the comparison of the refined results showed agreement with the STOIC average to better than 4% from 18 to 48 km altitude. For both cases the results above 45 km altitude are subject to the greatest uncertainty and error and are of questionable value even though they agree within 10% with the STOIC average. Examples of comparisons of individual lidar profiles with each of the other instrumentsmore » are also presented. 23 refs., 11 figs., 2 tabs. « less
Pore geometry effects on intrapore viscous to inertial flows and on effective hydraulic parameters

In this article, the effects of different diverging‐converging pore geometries were investigated, and the microscale fluid flow and effective hydraulic properties from these pores were compared with that of a pipe from viscous to inertial laminar flow regimes. The flow fields are obtained using computational fluid dynamics, and the comparative analysis is based on a new dimensionless hydraulic shape factor β, which is the “specific surface” scaled by the length of pores. Results from all diverging‐converging pores show an inverse pattern in velocity and vorticity distributions relative to the pipe flow. The hydraulic conductivity K of all pores is dependent on and can be predicted from β with a power function with an exponent of 3/2. The differences in K are due to the differences in distribution of local friction drag on the pore walls. At Reynolds number (Re) ∼ 0 flows, viscous eddies are found to exist almost in all pores in different sizes, but not in the pipe. Eddies grow when Re → 1 and leads to the failure of Darcy's law. During non‐Darcy or Forchheimer flows, the apparent hydraulic conductivity Ka decreases due to the growth of eddies, which constricts the bulk flow region. At Re > 1, the rate of decrease in Ka increases, and at Re >> 1, it decreases to where the change in Ka ≈ 0, and flows once again exhibits a Darcy‐type relationship. The degree of nonlinearity during non‐Darcy flow decreases for pores with increasing β. The nonlinear flow behavior becomes weaker as β increases to its maximum value in the pipe, which shows no nonlinearity in the flow; in essence, Darcy's law stays valid in the pipe at all laminar flow conditions. The diverging‐converging geometry in pores plays a critical role in modifying the intrapore fluid flow, implying that this property should be incorporated in effective larger‐scale models, e.g., pore‐network models.
Tourism geography in the global South: new South African perspectives

This article introduces a theme collection of geographical authored contributions on tourism in Southern Africa to reinforce the position of South Africa's premier geographical serial as an important publishing outlet for research in tourism studies as a whole and for tourism geographical works in particular. The group of papers addresses a diverse set of themes around greening and tourism, business tourism, Visiting Friends and Relatives (VFR) travel, second homes tourism and tourism development issues. Two sections of material are offered. First, a brief context is provided of directions in international tourism geography. Second, a review is offered on the directions and contributions which have been made by geographers to tourism studies in South Africa. In particular, the starting point is the benchmark paper which appeared in 2002 in this journal by Magi and Nzama [2002. Perspectives on recreation and tourism geographies in South Africa, South African Geographical Journal, 84, 67–76] outlining the relative novelty of tourism geography research in Southern Africa as well as its possibilities for future development. With the publication of over 100 articles by local tourism geographers, a decade later this paper reflects on the growing maturity of South African tourism geography scholarship.
Differential innate immune response of endometrial cells to porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus type 1 versus type 2

Modification of cellular and immunological events due to porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) infection is associated with pathogenesis in lungs. PRRSV also causes female reproductive dysfunction and persistent infection which can spread to fetus, stillbirth, and offspring. In this study, alterations in cellular and innate immune responses to PRRSV type 1 or type 2 infection, including expression of PRRSV mediators, mRNA expression of toll-like receptor (TLRs) and cytokine, and cytokine secretion, were examined in primary porcine glandular endometrial cells (PGE). Cell infectivity as observed by cytopathic effect (CPE), PRRSV nucleocapsid proteins, and viral nucleic acids was early detected at two days post-infection (2 dpi) and persisted to 6 dpi. Higher percentage of CPE and PRRSV positive cells were detected in type 2 infection. PRRSV mediator proteins, CD151, CD163, sialoadhesin (Sn), integrin and vimentin, were upregulated following type 1 and type 2 infection. CD151, CD163 and Sn were upregulated by type 2. Both PRRSV types upregulated TLR1 and TLR6. Only type 2 infection upregulated TLR3, but downregulated TLR4 and TLR8. By contrast, both types upregulated TLR4 and downregulated TLR6 protein expression. Interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-6 and tumor necrotic factor (TNF)-α were upregulated by type 2, but IL-8 was upregulated by type 1. Both PRRSV type 1 and 2 stimulated IL-6 but suppressed TNF-α secretion. In addition, IL-1β secretion was suppressed by type 2. These findings reveal one of the important mechanisms underlying the strategy of PRRSV on innate immune evasion in endometrium which is associated with the viral persistence. Author Summary Widely prevalence of porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) remains the leading cause of huge economic losses to the global swine industry. Due to an infection of macrophages, PRRSV can persist in animals for extended periods of time associated with long-lasting reproductive disorders. Modification of cellular and immunological responses to PRRSV infection which may be related with the pathogenesis of reproductive disorders remains unclear. Herein, direct PRRSV infection of primary porcine glandular endometrial epithelial cell culture (PGE) demonstrated that PRRSV type 1 and 2 upregulated the protein expression of PRRSV mediators correlated with cell persistence of PRRSV. However, TLR and cytokines gene expression, and cytokine secretion were differentially modulated in response to PRRSV type 1 vs. type 2. Our study provides new insights into the cellular mechanism associating with PRRSV persistence in the endometrial cells and the underlying interaction of virus with the host.
Disconnected: Haves and Have-Nots in the Information Age

From the Publisher: In the Information Age, information is power. Who produces all that information, how does it move around, who uses it, to what ends, and under what constraints? Who gets that power? And what happens to the people who have no access to it? With vivid anecdotes and data, William Wresch contrasts the opportunities of the information-rich with the limited prospects of the information-poor. Surveying the range of information - personal, public, organizational, commercial - that has become the currency of exchange in today's world, he shows how each represents a form of power. He analyzes the barriers that keep people information-poor: geography, tyranny, illiteracy, psychological blinders, "noise," crime. Technology alone, he demonstrates, is not the answer. Even the technology-rich do not always get access to important information - or recognize its value. Wresch spells out the grim consequences of information inequity for individuals and society. Yet he ends with reasons for optimism and stories of people who are working to pull down the impediments to the flow of information.
Chemical data assimilation of Transport and Chemical Evolution over the Pacific (TRACE-P) aircraft measurements

[1] In this paper, the four-dimensional variational (4D-Var) technique is applied to assimilate aircraft measurements during the Transport and Chemical Evolution over the Pacific (TRACE-P) field experiment into a chemical transport model, Sulfur Transport Eulerian Model, version 2K1 (STEM-2K1). Whether data assimilation would produce better analyzed fields is examined. It is found that assimilating ozone observations from one of two independent flights improves model prediction of the other flight ozone measurements, which are withheld as validation data. The adjusted initial fields after only assimilating the total reactive nitrogen (NOy) observations lead to better predictions of NO, NO2, and PAN, based on their agreement with the withheld measurements. One experiment simultaneously assimilating the observations of O3, NO, NO2, HNO3, PAN, and RNO3 demonstrates that the model is able to match those measurements well by changing the initial fields. In addition, the model predictions of NOy improve significantly after assimilating the aforementioned multiple observation species, which are independent of the withheld NOy measurements. In the paper, we also show that the key species whose initial mixing ratios would significantly affect the agreement between model and measurements can be identified using adjoint sensitivity analysis. Such information can be used to reduce the number of control variables in the 4D-Var data assimilation. To speed up the optimization process in the 4D-Var, we enforce the concentration upper bounds through the limited memory–Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno-B (L-BFGS-B) algorithm, and this proves to be effective.
Evaluación espacio-temporal de vegetación y uso de suelo de la Cuenca Río Caliente, Jalisco, México

Space-temporary evaluation of vegetation and land use of the “Rio Caliente”, Jalisco (Mexico) The Mexican territory has undergone a rapid transformation from forest degradation in areas of agricultural or urban use. Studies of dynamic processes of land use are important and necessary, as they provide information on the degradation product of human factors. The aim of this study was to identify and quantify the spatial variation of vegetation types and land uses in the “Rio Caliente” Basin in the Protection Area of Flora and Fauna in the forest “La Primavera” during 1990 to 1999. Scenes were classified Landsat TM 1990 and Landsat ETM 1999. Vegetation maps were generated and land use and overcame to get a map of changes between 1990 and 1999. Classes that area lost in 1999 compared to 1990 were the oak-pine forest 58 %, pine-oak forest 51 %, induced pasture 23 % and secondary vegetation 8 %. Classes surface won in 1999 compared to 1990 were 119 % bare soil, 83 % agricultural area, 70 % oak and 50% pine. This shows the trend toward consolidation of pure stands displacing mixtures. The annual rate of change was 6.27 % oak, 4.83 % pine, -7.51 % pine-oak, -8.92 % oak-pine, -0.75 % secondary vegetation, -2.65 %, induced pasture, 7.20 % agricultural area and 9.30 % bare soil. The changes can be
Taphonomy and the Mesozoic marine revolution; preservation state masks the importance of boring predators

Exceptionally neomorphosed bivalves from a range of Jurassic sediments from England and North Ireland have been discovered to bear neat, circular, straight-sided boreholes over a millimeter in diameter. These boreholes appear to have been predatory in origin and are highly reminiscent of those produced by muricid gastropods. Although none of the known gastropod borers have stratigraphic ranges that extend into the Jurassic, it seems likely that other taxa, perhaps other gastropods, also possessed the ability to feed in this manner, thus extending the record of this type of predation by at least 90 million years. The frequency of boreholes recorded in Liassic bivalves from Blockley is as great as has been recorded in Tertiary and Recent malacofaunas that are assailed by predatory gastropods, thus indicating that these unknown predators were capable of exerting a substantial selection pressure on their prey. Recognition of Mesozoic predatory boreholes occurs only where shell preservation is particularly good. More usual moldic and castic preservation is incapable of recording borehole morphology and, thus, the presence of boreholes is overlooked in most faunas of this age. Consequently, the timing of the onset of this type of predation may be underestimated. The boreholes described in this paper probably do not represent the actions of the very earliest large, gastropod-like predators but they do have implications for further studies that seek to document the appearance of adaptations in prey taxa in response to this threat, and also indicate that taphonomy may affect evolutionary interpretations.
A new method of analyzing the dispersion of oceanic Rayleigh waves

For the period range from about 25 sec to perhaps 80 sec, the group velocity U for oceanic Rayleigh waves may be approximated as a function of frequency ƒ by 1/U = 1/U0 + B(ƒ - ƒo)2. The subscript 0 refers to the group velocity maximum. A simple method of analyzing the Airy phase to obtain the constants U0, B, and ƒ0 is shown. The fit is easily checked by calculating a synthetic seismogram to be compared with the original. In a study of 18 Rayleigh wave trains that had traversed different parts of the Pacific basin, the following ranges of values were found: U0, 3.88–4.12 km/sec; T0 (=1/ƒ0), 26.8–43.1 sec; and B, 24–107 sec3/km.
UNLOADING IS ESSENTIAL FOR GROWTH PLATE DEVELOPMENT

INTRODUCTION Growth-plate chondrocytes differentiate from resting cells via proliferating to hypertrophic cells, and eventually become apoptotic when the extracellular matrix mineralizes. This differentiation process is controlled by a variety of growth factors. The most prominent regulating mechanism is the PTHrP-Ihh feedback loop [1,2]. PTHrP, expressed by reserve-zone cells, keeps cells in the proliferative pool, and decreases the rate at which cells hypertrophy. Ihh, expressed by early hypertrophic cells, increases the rate of proliferation and stimulates PTHrP synthesis. Mechanical perturbation is known to modulate endochondral ossification. Axial compression, for instance, suppresses longitudinal bone growth in rats and changes growth-plate histology [3,4,5]. It is, however, unclear which mechanism is responsible for the decreased mineralization rate. This study evaluates the hypothesis that mechanical stimulation affects growth-plate development by modulating expression of PTHrP and Ihh. If so, the PTHrP-Ihh feedback loop can be considered a mechano-regulation system. Two main questions are addressed in this study. The first, what is the effect of dynamic hydrostatic compression on expressions of PTHrP and Ihh? The second, how would these particular changes in PTHrP and Ihh expressions affect growth-plate dynamics, either under sustained or intermittent loading? The first question was approached with in vitro experiments. For the second question, a finite element model of growth-factor controlled growth-plate development was adopted [6].
The Initiation of the Dead Sea Rift

An earlier theory proposed that the Dead Sea Rift started as a shear transform between the Arabian and African plates as a result of continental collision. Newer geological evidence implies a different mechanism for rift initiation. Mechanical theories and experimental results suggest that fracture initiation, propagation, and bifurcation along the Rift cannot be explained by shear. These features can best be explained and simulated by extensile processes. Recent discoveries of transitional properties of the crust/mantle boundary along the Rift, and considerable thinning of the crust between the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee on the west side of the Rift, are interpreted as indications of an active mantle diapir that initiated fracture in this area. By propagating (horizontally) bilaterally towards north and south this fracture reached conditions of bifurcation in several locations along the Rift. Areas of major bifurcation also show characteristic local uplifts and local small grabens oblique to the Rift axis. Thus, the evolution of the Dead Sea Rift is comprised of an early stage of fracture initiation by extension, with a later development into a major left-lateral strike-slip fault.
Batch Policy Learning in Average Reward Markov Decision Processes

We consider the batch (off-line) policy learning problem in the infinite horizon Markov Decision Process. Motivated by mobile health applications, we focus on learning a policy that maximizes the long-term average reward. We propose a doubly robust estimator for the average reward and show that it achieves semiparametric efficiency given multiple trajectories collected under some behavior policy. Based on the proposed estimator, we develop an optimization algorithm to compute the optimal policy in a parameterized stochastic policy class. The performance of the estimated policy is measured by the difference between the optimal average reward in the policy class and the average reward of the estimated policy and we establish a finite-sample regret guarantee. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first regret bound for batch policy learning in the infinite time horizon setting. The performance of the method is illustrated by simulation studies.
Geomechanical properties related to top seal leakage in the Carnarvon Basin, Northwest Shelf, Australia

The Muderong Shale is the regional top seal in the Carnarvon Basin on the Northwest Shelf of Australia. Evidence for top seal breach in this area comes from post-Muderong plays and hydrocarbon shows. Capillary pressure tests show this shale has the capability of restraining gas columns in excess of 250 m height, a value which is unlikely to be reached due to the intrinsic weakness of the Muderong Shale. Apart from one example, all hydrocarbon columns so far encountered in the Carnarvon Basin are well below this limit. Geomechanical testing of the Muderong Shale indicates it is a weak rock, commensurate with its high illite–smectite content. Comparison of laboratory-generated failure envelopes with in situ stress conditions suggest that intact Muderong Shale is not generally at risk of hydrofracture but that pre-existing faults and fractures may well be critically stressed in the present-day stress field. It is postulated that such faults and fractures may be responsible for top seal failure in the Muderong Shale and the resultant presence of hydrocarbons in the post-Muderong succession.
Analysis of adventure tourist motivation: the case of China-born international students in New Zealand universities

Despite the rapid increase of inbound tourism in New Zealand, the essence of its overseas Chinese student market has never been sufficiently studied. In response to this gap, the aim of this research is to discover the motivations of China-born international university students to experience adventure recreation activities in New Zealand. This study emphasises the importance of tourist motivations in destination planning for the Chinese overseas student market. A significant aspect of this probe is a demonstration of the application of tourist motivation theories in tourism industry practice. To develop insight into the Chinese overseas student market, the dominant focus of this study is to develop a useable model of Chinese student motivations to choose New Zealand as an adventure tour destination. The investigation utilises a quantitative methodology to determine China-born international university students’ motivations to engage in New Zealand adventure tourism. A self-administered questionnaire was used to obtain the data. With limited resources of time and money, a sample of 153 respondents was drawn from Chinese overseas university students studying in New Zealand; the survey was conducted in the four weeks from 16th May to 12th June 2014 during daylight hours. Exploratory factor analysis conducted to validate the adventure travel motivations. A suite of independent t tests and one-way ANOVA tests were adopted to explore the influence of demographics and travel characteristics. The items “achievement and risk taking”, “ego enhancement”, “novelty and knowledge seeking” and “exciting experience” were found to be the most significant motivators related to the reasons for Chinese students choosing to participate in adventure activities in New Zealand. To date no other studies have investigated the motivations of China-born international university students to choose New Zealand as an adventure destination. The findings of this research can be used by the New Zealand tourism sector to market adventure travel experiences to Chinese overseas students and to highlight how the New Zealand vii tourism sector caters to these primary motivations. This will enable the sector to deliver better quality service and provide unique tourist experiences. Recommendations for future studies are presented.