Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Focal length precise measurement method for optics system based on lunar imaging

In this paper an accurate measurement method for optics system based on the lunar imaging is presented, and this method has the following steps. Firstly, the optical imaging system observes the lunar and acquires the image on the ground or in orbit, and records the position and the time simultaneously, with which the distance to the lunar can be computed. Secondly, the initial region of the lunar in the acquired image is decided by the gray value threshold, and the Canny edge detection method with parabola fitting is used to acquire the sub-pixel image edge points. Thirdly, the extracted edge points are used to preliminary fit the lunar disc, and the lunar ring is formed based on the fitted lunar disc expanded two pixels, then the initial coarse fitting disc is acquired according to the maximum number of edge points located in the lunar ring. Fourthly, the sub-pixel lunar disk can be obtained via the least squares fitting on the base of the initial coarse fitting disc. At last, the focal length of the optical imaging system can be computed with the position relationship between the optical imaging system and the lunar. Experiments show that this method has the ability to focal length measurement with high accuracy and frequency. By the means of imaging to the lunar, taking advantage of the long distance, sub-pixel edge detection and fitting for the lunar disc diameter, etc, whether in the full lunar and the waning lunar，the focal length could be measured accurately. It has a wide application prospects both in the developing and in orbit operating stage for optical imaging system.
The Effect of Material Design Course in Turkish Teaching on Turkish Teacher Candidates' Perceptions of Digital Teaching Material Development Self-Efficacy

This research aims to determine the effect of the Material Design Course in Turkish Teaching on the self-efficacy perceptions of Turkish teacher candidates in developing digital teaching materials. The research was carried out with a quasi-experimental method with pre-test post-test control group, which is one of the quantitative methods. The sample of the study consists of (N=53) prospective Turkish teachers, 25 of whom are in the experimental group and 28 in the control group. In the study, "Self-Efficacy Scale of Teachers’ Digital Teaching Material Development" was used as data collection tool. The scale was applied to the experimental and control groups as pre-test and post-test. The findings showed that the Material Design course in Turkish teaching positively affected the self-efficacy perceptions of Turkish teacher candidates in benefiting from digital teaching materials. While the variable related to the frequency of Web 2.0 use created a significant difference in the self-efficacy perceptions of the experimental group, it did not create a significant difference in the variables of gender, age, previous material design course, and technology usage environments.
Plastic flow of two‐phase marbles

[1] To quantify the effect of rigid inclusions on the flow behavior of a creeping matrix, we fabricated a suite of two-phase marbles by hot isostatically pressing mixtures of calcite and quartz powders and subsequently deformed these synthetic rocks at 300 MPa confining pressure, up to 100 MPa pore pressure, temperatures ranging from 873 to 1073 K, strain rates and stresses ranging from ∼10−7 s−1 to ∼10−3 s−1 and ∼4 MPa to 190 MPa, respectively. In constant displacement rate tests performed to axial strains of up to about 30%, we observed deformation at approximately constant stress for samples with 20% or less quartz. Even small additions of second phase significantly strengthen the aggregate, although the magnitude of the strengthening varies significantly with temperature and imposed strain rate. Investigation of the microstructure of starting samples reveals that initial porosity directly varies with quartz content and that matrix grain size inversely varies with the amount of second phase. Strength decreases modestly with increasing porosity, and consequently, strength increases as the samples compact. The effect of matrix grain size on the aggregate strength depends on the deformation conditions. The majority of tests exhibit an inverse relation between strength and matrix grain size (i.e., similar to a Hall-Petch relation), but fine-grained samples deformed at the highest temperatures exhibit decreasing strength with decreasing grain size. The addition of the quartz particles seems to result in both structural strengthening owing to decreased grain size and to transfer of load from the flowing matrix to the rigid quartz particles.
on "On biological signaling" by G. Nimtz and H.

In 2005, we proposed that the nerve pulse is an electromechanical soliton [1]. This concept represents a challenge to the well-known Hodgkin-Huxley model [2] which is of a purely electrical nature. The soliton theory was criticized by Nimtz and Aichmann in a recent article in Zeitung f¨ur Naturforschung A [3]. Here, we wish to comment on some statements that we regard as misinterpretations of our views.
Alphabet Size Reduction for Secure Network Coding: A Graph Theoretic Approach

We consider a communication network where there exist wiretappers who can access a subset of channels, called a wiretap set, which is chosen from a given collection of wiretap sets. The collection of wiretap sets can be arbitrary. Secure network coding is applied to prevent the source information from being leaked to the wiretappers. In secure network coding, the required alphabet size is an open problem not only of theoretical interest but also of practical importance, because it is closely related to the implementation of such coding schemes in terms of computational complexity and storage requirement. In this paper, we develop a systematic graph-theoretic approach for improving Cai and Yeung’s lower bound on the required alphabet size for the existence of secure network codes. The new lower bound thus obtained, which depends only on the network topology and the collection of wiretap sets, can be significantly smaller than Cai and Yeung’s lower bound. A polynomial-time algorithm is devised for efficient computation of the new lower bound.
MICROBIOLOGICAL QUALITY OF PUGET SOUND BASIN STREAMS AND IDENTIFICATION OF CONTAMINANT SOURCES 1

ABSTRACT: Fecal coliforms, Escherichia coli, enterococci, and somatic coliphages were detected in samples from 31 sites on streams draining urban and agricultural regions of the Puget Sound Basin Lowlands. Densities of bacteria in 48 and 71 percent of the samples exceeded U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's freshwater recreation criteria for Escherichia coli and enterococci, respectively, and 81 percent exceeded Washington State fecal coliform standards. Male‐specific coliphages were detected in samples from 15 sites. Male‐specific F+RNA coliphages isolated from samples taken at South Fork Thornton and Longfellow Creeks were serotyped as Group II, implicating humans as potential contaminant sources. These two sites are located in residential, urban areas. F+RNA coliphages in samples from 10 other sites, mostly in agricultural or rural areas, were serotyped as Group I, implicating non‐human animals as likely sources. Chemicals common to wastewater, including fecal sterols, were detected in samples from several urban streams, and also implicate humans, at least in part, as possible sources of fecal bacteria and viruses to the streams.
An analysis of field feedback in consumer electronics industry

• A submitted manuscript is the version of the article upon submission and before peer-review. There can be important differences between the submitted version and the official published version of record. People interested in the research are advised to contact the author for the final version of the publication, or visit the DOI to the publisher's website. • The final author version and the galley proof are versions of the publication after peer review. • The final published version features the final layout of the paper including the volume, issue and page numbers.
A halite‐siderite‐anhydrite‐chlorapatite assemblage in Nakhla: Mineralogical evidence for evaporites on Mars

Abstract— We report the results of a study of a halite‐siderite‐anhydrite‐chlorapatite assemblage in the Shergotty‐Nakhla‐Chassigny (SNC) Martian meteorite Nakhla. These minerals are found associated with each other in interstitial areas, with halite often being adjacent to or enclosing siderite. We suggest the halite and other minerals are Martian in origin because (1) the conditions of fall preclude significant amounts of terrestrial contamination or weathering having taken place; (2) textures indicate that the minerals within this assemblage crystallized at the same stage as some silicate and oxide minerals within the Nakhla parent; and (3) the association with siderite, which previous studies have shown has C and O‐isotopic compositions incompatible with an origin on the Earth. Siderite has the range of compositions: CaCO3, 0.1–5.7; MgCO3, 2.0–40.9; FeCO3, 23.2–87.0; MnCO3, 1.0–39.9 mol%. There are two compositional groupings: high‐MnCO3 (≥30 mol%) and low‐MnCO3/high‐FeCO3, with a gap identified between the two. This may be a miscibility gap or, alternatively, the two compositional groupings may mark separate generations of carbonate. We have not found any textural evidence for the latter explanation, but acceptance of the presence of a miscibility gap would require independent work on Fe‐Mn carbonates to verify its existence. Trace element abundances have been determined by ion microprobe analysis on three siderite and one anhydrite grains. Siderite has light rare earth elements (2.2–7.3 × C1) greater than heavy rare earth elements (0.32–0.79 × C1) without Ce or Eu anomalies, and the anhydrite has a similar pattern. These abundances reflect the source composition rather than partitioning or complexing controls. They are not typical of hydrothermal signatures which generally do not have such smooth REE abundance patterns. The nature of the mineral assemblage suggests that its source rocks on Mars were evaporites. These may be common in the craters and flood plains of the Martian southern highlands. Two models are suggested in this paper to explain the incorporation of evaporitic material into the Nakhla igneous parent. It may have happened as a low‐temperature process (<200 °C) by crystallisation from an aqueous fluid. An origin at low temperature is compatible with the available experimental data on siderite stability. Alternatively, we suggest evaporitic material may have been incorporated into the Nakhla parent while melt was still present and crystallized ∼800 °C. The latter model can more readily explain the trace element abundances and also the siderite textures that imply intergrowth with residual interstitial melt. Both high‐ and low‐temperature models are consistent with the presence of evaporite sediments on Mars.
Monsoon-induced partial carbonate platform drowning (Maldives, Indian Ocean)

Multibeam maps and high-resolution seismic images from the Maldives reveal that a late Miocene to early Pliocene partial drowning of the platform was linked to strong sea-bottom currents. In the upper Miocene to Holocene, currents shaped the drowned banks, the current moats along the bank edges, and the submarine dune fields. Bottom currents in the Maldives are driven by the monsoon. It is proposed that the onset and the intensification of the monsoon during the Neogene provoked platform drowning through injection of nutrients into surface waters. Since the late Miocene, topographically triggered nutrient upwelling and vigorous currents switched the Maldives atolls into an aggradational to backstepping mode, which is a growth pattern usually attributed to episodes of rising sea level.
Similarity search and mining in uncertain databases

Managing, searching and mining uncertain data has achieved much attention in the database community recently due to new sensor technologies and new ways of collecting data. There is a number of challenges in terms of collecting, modelling, representing, querying, indexing and mining uncertain data. In its scope, the diversity of approaches addressing these topics is very high because the underlying assumptions of uncertainty are different across different papers. This tutorial provides a comprehensive and comparative overview of general techniques for the key topics in the fields of querying, indexing and mining uncertain data. In particular, it identifies the most generic types of probabilistic similarity queries and discusses general algorithmic methods to answer such queries efficiently. In addition, the tutorial sketches probabilistic methods for important data mining applications in the context of uncertain data with special emphasis on probabilistic clustering and probabilistic pattern mining. The intended audience of this tutorial ranges from novice researchers to advanced experts as well as practitioners from any application domain dealing with uncertain data retrieval and mining.
Variations of the Urban Heat Island in Summer of the Recent 10 Years over Beijing and Its Environment Effects

With observed temperature data of July and August in Beijing during 1993 to 2003, the interannual variability and the environment effects of the Urban Heat Island (UHI) are studied. The results show that with the rapid development of Beijing, the UHI has expanded to the outskirts and the horizontal distribution of UHI is characterized by multi-center. In addition, the average UHI intensity becomes stronger and even the strong UHI can be seen during summer. The days with UHI and even strong UHI during summer increase, and the horizontal distribution and the intensity of UHI show a daily variation. The intensity of the strongest UHI during July also increases year by year. Because the UHI can make the temperature increase evidently in the city, the hot days (Tmax ≥ 35°C) in Beijing during summer increase accordingly. Furthermore, as shown in this paper, the station in Chaoyang district is no longer the representative of the urban areas due to the effect of surrounding vegetation. The result has a scientific reference to the development and planning of the Beijing city.
Orthogonal Parameters For Anisotropic Velocity Analysis

Velocity analysis is one of the most time-consuming and error-prone aspects of seismic processing, particularly when the presence of anisotropy requires multiparameter estimation. The use of orthogonal parameters to describe moveout, whether full or residual, can help make velocity analysis more efficient and robust. We describe here a method for deriving orthogonal parameterizations for anisotropic multiparameter velocity analysis, and illustrate this methodology with a synthetic example using Legendre polynomials as basis functions for semblance analysis of residual moveout.
Wood energy: predicting costs.

1389 C R E D IT : B E R N D T H IS S E N /D P A /C O R B IS Wood Energy: Predicting Costs THE POLICY FORUM “WOOD ENERGY IN America” (D. deB. Richter Jr. et al., 13 March, p. 1432) was a much-needed and long-overdue contribution to energy discussions. However, fossil fuels are not four times more expensive than wood per unit energy. Rather, most fossil fuels are still less expensive than wood in most places, though the price of wood shows more local variation and is more volatile even than that of fossil fuels. Global mean wholesale price for sawlogs in the first quarter of 2008 was about $170 per metric ton (MT), or about $10/GJ (1). The mean wholesale price for pellets then was about $200/MT, or about $11/GJ (2). Since then (because of the housing crash), the price of sawlogs has dropped dramatically in the United States (3), but the global wholesale price of wood pellets has remained stable (2). At $60/barrel, oil is $10/GJ; natural gas currently is about $4/GJ (4). The latest Energy Information Administration projections place the mean cost of coal to U.S. utilities in 2009 at $2/GJ, though high-grade coals can be three times as expensive ($180/MT) (4). The cost of wood seems likely to soar again within a few years. A severe pine-beetle blight began in North America in 1999, and today vast expanses (several gigatons, over 500,000 km) of the forests in North America are dead (5). These forests (containing over four times as much dead wood as current global wood annual usage) will be largely destroyed by wildfires over the next 6 years. Even in the United States, wood pellets have recently sold for over $320/MT in some areas (6), and some projections indicate global wood-pellet usage will continue to grow at over 20% annually for the next decade (7). It’s hard to image wood pellets being under $400/MT ($22/GJ) by 2013. F. DAVID DOTY
Lens‐effect in Santa Monica?

We used finite‐difference simulations of 10‐Hz P‐SV and SH waves to estimate the contribution from the deep basin structure to the large ground motion amplification in Santa Monica, California, observed for seismic waves incident from the north. Our simulations of a 17‐km deep Northridge aftershock with epicenter 30 km north of Santa Monica show that focusing at the lens‐shaped boundary of the sediments can only account for less than half the amplification observed in the area that was heavily damaged during the 1994 M 6.7 Northridge earthquake. The focusing in the simulations caused amplification of up to 1.6 times in a zone 0.65–2.4 km south of the Santa Monica fault and de‐amplification at sites just south of the fault where some of the largest amplification is observed in the data.
The 15 June 1991 Eruption of Mount Pinatubo. I. Phase Equilibria and Pre-eruption P–T–fO2–fH2O Conditions of the Dacite Magma

contents of the plagioclase. Compositional zoning of hornblende is Crystallization experiments were carried out on a representative consistent either with an early crystallization event at ~400 MPa sample of the crystal-rich dacite ejected during the 15 June 1991 and 840–900°C, or with mixing events before eruption. The eruption of Mt Pinatubo, to define the pre-eruption conditions of experiments show that addition of S leads to an increase in the this major volcanic event. Experiments were performed in the mg-number of hornblende in the redox range where pyrrhotite occurs temperature and pressure range of 750–900°C and 220–390 (Ζ NNO+ 1·4) The lack of Mg-rich overgrowth on hornblende MPa, respectively. Redox conditions were varied between those of shows that if sulfur was introduced into the magma in the course the NNO (nickel–nickel oxide) buffer and 2·7 log fO2 units above of its crystallization, such as by volatile infiltration from an (NNO + 2·7). Melt water contents ranged from 3 to 7 wt % underlying, triggering basalt magma, then it must have occurred (H2O saturation). Phase equilibria at 220 MPa reproduce the when the dacite was already oxidized. phase assemblage of the magma only at temperatures below 780°C and water-rich conditions: melt H2O content > 6 wt %, or XH2Ofluid > 0·80. Phase abundances and the compositions of hornblende, plagioclase, and melt indicate that the eruption tapped a magma body that was at a temperature of 760 ± 20°C and
Air pollutant retrieval in East Asia from space and ground: algorithm improvement

This work intends to develop an efficient algorithm for aerosol retrieval in haze episodes. The increasing emissions of anthropogenic particles provide the serious air pollutants. Although extreme concentrations of aerosols in the atmosphere can prevent aerosol monitoring with surface-level sun/sky photometers, satellites can still be used in such conditions to observe the Earth’s atmosphere from space. It is known that the precise simulation of multiple light-scattering processes within the atmosphere is necessary for aerosol remote sensing and needs a long computational time especially in such an optically thick atmosphere as aerosol episode. Accordingly efficient and practical algorithms for radiation simulations are indispensable to retrieve particle characteristics in a case of serious air pollution.
Crossline Reconstruction Using Aliased 3D Deghosted Up- and Downgoing Wavefields

This paper formulates a new model for crossline reconstruction that relies on aliased, 3D decomposed, up- and downgoing waves. It also presents a closed form approach to solve the joint reconstruction and 3D deghosting problem. The new model provides additional insight into how the ghost reflection and the vertical component of particle velocity/acceleration are exploited in crossline reconstruction and joint 3D deghosting solutions for towed streamer applications.
Alluvial Channel Geometry: Theory and Applications

The downstream hydraulic geometry of alluvial channels, in terms of bank-full width, average flow depth, mean flow velocity, and friction slope, is examined from a three-dimensional stability analysis of noncohesive particles under two-dimensional flows. Four governing equations (flow rate, resistance to flow, secondary flow, and particle mobility) are solved to analytically define the downstream hydraulic geometry of noncohesive alluvial channels as a function of water discharge, sediment size, Shields number, and streamline deviation angle. The exponents of hydraulic geometry relationships change with relative submergence. Four exponent diagrams illustrate the good agreement with several empirical regime equations found in the literature. The analytical formulations were tested with a comprehensive data set consisting of 835 field channels and 45 laboratory channels. The data set covers a wide range of flow conditions from meandering to braided, sand-bed and gravel-bed rivers with flow depths and channe.
Quantitative Sequencing of 5-Methylcytosine and 5-Hydroxymethylcytosine at Single-Base Resolution

Distinguishing Epigenetic Marks Methylation of the cytosine base in eukaryotic DNA (5mC) is an important epigenetic mark involved in gene silencing and genome stability. Methylated cytosine can be enzymatically oxidized to 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC), which may function as a distinct epigenetic mark—possibly involved in pluripotency—and it may also be an intermediate in active DNA demethylation. To be able to detect 5hmC genome-wide and at single-base resolution, Booth et al. (p. 934, published online 26 April) developed a 5hmC sequencing chemistry that selectively oxidizes 5hmC to 5-formylcytosine and then to uracil while leaving 5mC unchanged. Using this method, mouse embryonic stem cell genomic DNA was sequenced to reveal that 5hmC is found enriched at intragenic CpG islands and long interspersed nuclear element–1 retrotransposons. A sequencing method can discriminate epigenetically modified cytosine nucleotides within embryonic stem cell DNA. 5-Methylcytosine can be converted to 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) in mammalian DNA by the ten-eleven translocation (TET) enzymes. We introduce oxidative bisulfite sequencing (oxBS-Seq), the first method for quantitative mapping of 5hmC in genomic DNA at single-nucleotide resolution. Selective chemical oxidation of 5hmC to 5-formylcytosine (5fC) enables bisulfite conversion of 5fC to uracil. We demonstrate the utility of oxBS-Seq to map and quantify 5hmC at CpG islands (CGIs) in mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells and identify 800 5hmC-containing CGIs that have on average 3.3% hydroxymethylation. High levels of 5hmC were found in CGIs associated with transcriptional regulators and in long interspersed nuclear elements, suggesting that these regions might undergo epigenetic reprogramming in ES cells. Our results open new questions on 5hmC dynamics and sequence-specific targeting by TETs.