Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Heterogeneous integration of SiGe/Ge and III-V for Si photonics

The heterogeneous integration of SiGe/Ge and III-V semiconductors gives us an opportunity to enhance functionalities of Si photonics platform through their superior material properties which lack in Si. In this paper we discuss what SiGe/Ge and III-V can bring to Si photonics. We have predicted that the light effective hole mass in strained SiGe results in the enhanced the free-carrier effects such as the plasma dispersion effect and free-carrier absorption. We observed significantly larger free-carrier absorption in the SiGe optical modulator than in the control Si device. By fabricating asymmetric Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) SiGe optical modulators, the enhancement of the plasma dispersion effect in strained SiGe has been successfully demonstrated. Mid-infrared integrated photonics based on Ge waveguides on Si have also been investigated. Since Ge is transparent to the entire mid-infrared range, Ge photonic integrated circuits on the Ge-on-Insulator (GeOI) wafer are quite attractive. We have successfully fabricated the GeOI wafer with 2-μm-thick buried oxide (BOX) layer by wafer bonding. The passive waveguide components based on Ge strip waveguides have been demonstrated on the GeOI. We have also demonstrated carrier-injection Ge variable optical attenuators. We have proposed and investigate the III-V CMOS photonics platform by using the III-V on Insulator (IIIV- OI) on a Si wafer. The strong optical confinement in the III-V-OI enables us to achieve high-performance photonic devices. We have successfully demonstrated InGaAsP MZI optical switch with the low on-state crosstalk on the III-V-OI. Ultra-low dark current waveguide InGaAs PDs integrated with an InP grating coupler are also achieved.
Thickness effect on the structure, grain size, and local piezoresponse of self-polarized lead lanthanum zirconate titanate thin films

Polycrystalline lanthanum lead zirconate titanate (PLZT) thin films were deposited on Pt/TiO2/SiO2/Si substrates to study the effects of the thickness and grain size on their structural and piezoresponse properties at nanoscale. Thinner PLZT films show a slight (100)-orientation tendency that tends to random orientation for the thicker film, while microstrain and crystallite size increases almost linearly with increasing thickness. Piezoresponse force microscopy and autocorrelation function technique were used to demonstrate the existence of local self-polarization effect and to study the thickness dependence of correlation length. The obtained results ruled out the bulk mechanisms and suggest that Schottky barriers near the film-substrate are likely responsible for a build-in electric field in the films. Larger correlation length evidence that this build-in field increases the number of coexisting polarization directions in larger grains leading to an alignment of macrodomains in thinner films.
KheOps: Cost-effective Repeatability, Reproducibility, and Replicability of Edge-to-Cloud Experiments

Distributed infrastructures for computation and analytics are now evolving towards an interconnected ecosystem allowing complex scientific workflows to be executed across hybrid systems spanning from IoT Edge devices to Clouds, and sometimes to supercomputers (the Computing Continuum). Understanding the performance trade-offs of large-scale workflows deployed on such complex Edge-to-Cloud Continuum is challenging. To achieve this, one needs to systematically perform experiments, to enable their reproducibility and allow other researchers to replicate the study and the obtained conclusions on different infrastructures. This breaks down to the tedious process of reconciling the numerous experimental requirements and constraints with low-level infrastructure design choices. To address the limitations of the main state-of-the-art approaches for distributed, collaborative experimentation, such as Google Colab, Kaggle, and Code Ocean, we propose KheOps, a collaborative environment specifically designed to enable cost-effective reproducibility and replicability of Edge-to-Cloud experiments. KheOps is composed of three core elements: (1) an experiment repository; (2) a notebook environment; and (3) a multi-platform experiment methodology. We illustrate KheOps with a real-life Edge-to-Cloud application. The evaluations explore the point of view of the authors of an experiment described in an article (who aim to make their experiments reproducible) and the perspective of their readers (who aim to replicate the experiment). The results show how KheOps helps authors to systematically perform repeatable and reproducible experiments on the Grid5000 + FIT IoT LAB testbeds. Furthermore, KheOps helps readers to cost-effectively replicate authors experiments in different infrastructures such as Chameleon Cloud + CHI@Edge testbeds, and obtain the same conclusions with high accuracies (> 88% for all performance metrics).
BARON: Base-Station Authentication Through Core Network for Mobility Management in 5G Networks

Fifth-generation (5G) cellular communication networks are being deployed on applications beyond mobile devices, including vehicular networks and industry automation. Despite their increasing popularity, 5G networks, as defined by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), have been shown to be vulnerable against fake base station (FBS) attacks. An adversary carrying out an FBS attack emulates a legitimate base station by setting up a rogue base station. This enables the adversary to control the connection of any user equipment that (inadvertently) connects with the rogue base station. Such an adversary can gather sensitive information belonging to the user. While there is a large body of work focused on the development of tools to detect FBSs, the user equipment will continue to remain vulnerable to an FBS attack. In this paper, we propose BARON, a defense methodology to enable user equipment to determine whether a target base station that it is connecting to is legitimate or rogue. BARON accomplishes this by ensuring that the user receives an authentication token from the target base station which can be computed only by a legitimate and trusted entity. As a consequence, receiving such an authentication token from a base station ensures legitimacy of the base station. We evaluate BARON through extensive experiments on the handover process between base stations in 5G networks. Our experimental results show that BARON introduces an overhead of less than 1% during handover completion, which is 10000× lower than the overhead reported by a state-of-the-art method. BARON is also effective in thwarting an FBS attack and quickly recovering connection to a legitimate base station.
Procedural Metamaterials: A Unified Procedural Graph for Metamaterial Design

We introduce a compact, intuitive procedural graph representation for cellular metamaterials, which are small-scale, tileable structures that can be architected to exhibit many useful material properties. Because the structures’ “architectures” vary widely—with elements such as beams, thin shells, and solid bulks—it is difficult to explore them using existing representations. Generic approaches like voxel grids are versatile, but it is cumbersome to represent and edit individual structures; architecture-specific approaches address these issues, but are incompatible with one another. By contrast, our procedural graph succinctly represents the construction process for any structure using a simple skeleton annotated with spatially varying thickness. To express the highly constrained triply periodic minimal surfaces (TPMS) in this manner, we present the first fully automated version of the conjugate surface construction method, which allows novices to create complex TPMS from intuitive input. We demonstrate our representation’s expressiveness, accuracy, and compactness by constructing a wide range of established structures and hundreds of novel structures with diverse architectures and material properties. We also conduct a user study to verify our representation’s ease-of-use and ability to expand engineers’ capacity for exploration.
Integrated Reproducibility with Self-describing Machine Learning Models

Researchers and data scientists frequently want to collaborate on machine learning models. However, in the presence of sharing and simultaneous experimentation, it is challenging both to determine if two models were trained identically and to reproduce precisely someone else’s training process. We demonstrate how provenance collection that is tightly integrated into a machine learning library facilitates reproducibility. We present MERIT, a reproducibility system that leverages a robust configuration system and extensive provenance collection to exactly reproduce models, given only a model object. We integrate MERIT with Tribuo, an open-source Java-based machine learning library. Key features of this integrated reproducibility framework include controlling for sources of non-determinism in a multi-threaded environment and exposing the training differences between two models in a human-readable form. Our system allows simple reproduction of deployed Tribuo models without any additional information, ensuring data science research is reproducible. Our framework is open-source and available under an Apache 2.0 license.
Cropping system shifts enhanced nutrient yields under changing daily hydrological processes in a coastal watershed of Eastern China

Agricultural cropping systems in coastal areas of China have experienced significant shifts, and nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) losses via surface runoff from fields have considerably increased. However, it is unclear how changes in cropping systems coupled with rainfall‐runoff affect nutrient losses in coastal areas. In this study, in‐situ daily rainfall‐runoff events in agricultural fields in the Dagu River watershed (a coastal area of Shandong Province, Southeastern China) were observed and the dissolved nutrient losses measured. The fields comprised three cropping systems—wheat‐maize rotation (W‐M), vegetable‐maize rotation (V‐M) and vegetable‐vegetable rotation (V‐V). The runoff yields of total dissolved nitrogen (TDN) and total dissolved phosphorus (TDP) in V‐V (10.4 ± 0.8 kg N ha−1 year−1 and 3.90 ± 0.1 kg P ha−1 year−1) and V‐M (6.52 ± 0.31 kg N ha−1 yr−1 and 2.12 ± 0.08 kg P ha−1 year−1) were significantly higher than those in W‐M (1.51 ± 0.15 kg N ha−1 year−1 and 0.84 ± 0.08 kg P ha−1 year−1), and the nutrient export coefficients were 291–1271 and 146–489 kg ha−1 year−1 m runoff−1 for TDN and TDP, respectively. Remarkable shifts in cropping systems coupled with varied rainfall‐runoff are dominant factors responsible for agricultural nutrient losses. TDN and TDP losses would increase by 70.0% and 59.8%, respectively, if the watershed traditional cropping system of W‐M is completely replaced by V‐V. The TDN and TDP losses would increase by 36.36%–46.97% under the SSP2‐4.5 and SSP5‐8.5 climate scenarios until 2100 with a 50% of the watershed area of traditional agricultural plantation converted to modern plantation. This study can enhance our understanding of the effects of cropping system changes coupled with varied rainfall‐runoff on nutrient losses in coastal areas of China.
Contact toxicity of eucalyptol and RNA sequencing of Tribolium castaneum after exposure to eucalyptol

Eucalyptol, the main active component of Artemisia vulgaris (A. vulgaris) essential oil, can reduce the activity of Tribolium castaneum (T. castaneum) metabolic detoxification enzymes. However, the molecular mechanism underlying the toxic effect of eucalyptol on T. castaneum is still unclear. Here, results showed that the eucalyptol caused time‐dependent increase in larval mortality. Further, 1669 differential expressed genes (DEGs) expressed between the control group and the experimental group were detected via RNA sequencing, of which 504 were upregulated and 1165 were downregulated. The validity of the RNA‐Seq results was verified by qRT‐PCR. Further, Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) databases were used to analyze the DEGs, focusing on immune system process, response to stimulus, and developmental process in the GO analysis and on the excretory system and the metabolism of terpenoids and polyketides in the KEGG analysis. The results showed that the upregulation of Apolipoprotein D and the downregulation of V‐type proton ATPase subunits, farnesol dehydrogenase, receptor tyrosine‐protein phosphatase ε and α may affect the growth and metabolism of T. castaneum larvae. In the KEGG pathway analysis, we focused on the role of certain metabolic detoxification enzymes in the regulation of eucalyptol‐stimulated T. castaneum. Among them, the expression of metabolic detoxification enzymes OBP10, CYP4C1, CYP6BS1, CYP4g15, CYP301A1, CYP49A1, UGTs2C1, UGTs2B2, UGTs2B16, and Est FE4 was downregulated. The expression of OBPC01, OBPC09, OBPC12, OBPC02, OBPC11, CYP345B1, CYP346B1, Est E4, Est 6, and GST1 increased significantly. These metabolic detoxification enzymes were involved in the detoxification of eucalyptol by T. castaneum, and their downregulation or upregulation may indirectly affect insect survival and death. Our results provide an overview of transcriptomic changes in eucalyptol‐stimulated T. castaneum and enriches the candidate transcripts that can be exploited for pest control initiatives.
Soil‐dependent β and γ shape parameters of the Haverkamp infiltration model for 3D infiltration flow

Estimating of soil sorptivity ( S ) and saturated hydraulic conductivity ( Ks ) parameters by field infiltration tests are widespread due to the ease of the experimental protocol and data treatment. The analytical equation proposed by Haverkamp et al. (1994) allows the modelling of the cumulative infiltration process, from which the hydraulic parameters can be estimated. This model depends on both initial and final values of the soil hydraulic conductivity, initial soil sorptivity, the volumetric water content increase ( ∆θ ) and two infiltration constants, the so‐called β and γ parameters. However, to reduce the number of unknown variables when inverting experimental data, constant parameters such as β and γ are usually prefixed to 0.6 and 0.75, respectively. In this study, the values of these constants are investigated using numerical infiltration curves for different soil types and initial soil water contents for the van Genuchten‐Mualem (vGM) soil hydraulic model. Our new approach considers the long‐time expansions of the Haverkamp model, the exact soil properties such as S , Ks and initial soil moisture to derive the value of the β and γ parameters for each specific case. We then generated numerically cumulative infiltration curves using Hydrus‐3D software and fitted the long‐time expansions to derive the value of the β and γ parameters. The results show that these parameters are influenced by the initial soil water content and the soil type. However, for initially dry soil conditions, some prefixed values can be proposed instead of the currently used values. If an accurate estimate of S and Ks is the case, then for coarse‐textured soils such as sand and loamy sand, we propose the use of 0.9 for both constants. For the remaining soils, the value of 0.75 can be retained for γ . For β constant, 0.75 and 1.5 values can be considered for, intermediate permeable soils (sandy loam and loam) and low permeable soils (silty loam and silt), respectively. We clarify that the results are based on using the vGM model to describe the hydraulic functions of the soil and that the results may differ, and the assumptions may change for other models.
Mass Extinctions and Their Relationship With Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentration: Implications for Earth's Future

Industrialization has raised the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in Earth's atmosphere by half since 1770, posing a risk from ocean acidification to global biodiversity, including phytoplankton that synthesize approximately (∼) 50% of planetary oxygen. This risk is estimated here from the fossil record and implications for our energy and economic future are explored. Over the last 534 million years (Myr), 50 extinction events present as peaks of genus loss‐and‐recovery cycles, each spanning ∼3–40 Myr. Atmospheric CO2 concentration oscillates with percent genus loss, leading in phase by ∼4 Myr and sharing harmonic periodicities at ∼10, 26 and 63 Myr. Over the last 210 Myr, where data resolution is highest, biodiversity loss is correlated with atmospheric CO2 concentration, but not with long‐term global temperature nor with marginal radiative forcing of temperature by atmospheric CO2. The end‐Cretaceous extinction of the dinosaurs is anomalous, occurring during a 20‐million year depression in atmospheric CO2 concentration and rising global temperature. Today's atmospheric CO2 concentration, ∼421 parts per million by volume (ppmv), corresponds in the most recent marine fossil record to a biodiversity loss of 6.39%, implying that contemporary anthropogenic CO2 emissions are killing ocean life now. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects that unabated fossil fuel use could elevate atmospheric CO2 concentration to 800 ppmv by 2100, approaching the 870 ppmv mean concentration of the last 19 natural extinction events. Reversing this first global anthropogenic mass extinction requires reducing net anthropogenic CO2 emissions to zero, optimally by 2% per year starting immediately.
Mega Forest Fires Intensify Flood Magnitudes in Southeast Australia

Recent forest fires potentially intensify flood hazards. However, forest fire amplification of floods is not well understood at a large scale due to the complex compound impacts of forest fires and climate variability, while available small‐scale cases may not represent regional changes. Here, we show that the 2019–2020 mega forest fires in southeast Australia, with unprecedented burned areas, significantly (p < 0.05) increased the peak discharges of floods during the 2 years after the fires. Spatially, fire impacts on these floods are much stronger in regions with winter‐dominated and uniform rainfall but insignificant in regions with summer‐dominated rainfall. The regional divergence reveals that burned areas can aggravate floods by exacerbating infiltration‐excess runoff processes but may not exert significant effects where saturation‐excess processes dominate. People may be increasingly exposed to such flood hazards, especially in regions where forest fires have become more frequent under climate change.
Characterization and Correction of Evaporative Artifacts in Speleothem Fluid Inclusion Isotope Analyses as Applied to a Stalagmite From Borneo

Fluid inclusion water isotope measurements in speleothems have great potential for paleoclimate studies as they enable the reconstruction of precipitation dynamics and land temperatures. Several previous observations, however, suggest that inclusion waters do not always reflect the isotopic composition of surface precipitation. In such cases, dripwaters are thought to be modified by evaporation in the cave environment that results in more positive δ2H and δ18O values and shallow δ2H/δ18O slopes. Although evaporation can occur in cave systems, water can also be lost to evaporation during analysis but before water extraction. Here, we examine the likelihood of this possibility with a stalagmite from Borneo. We demonstrate that many samples lose water, and that water loss is controlled by the type and size of inclusions. With multiple replicate measurements of coeval samples, we calculate an evaporative δ2H/δ18O slope of 1.0 ± 0.6 (2SE). This value is consistent with model predictions of evaporative fractionation at high analytical temperature and low humidity. Finally, we propose a method to correct for this effect. We find that fluid–calcite δ18O paleotemperatures calculated with corrected δ18O data show excellent agreement with recent microthermometry temperature estimates for Borneo, supporting the validity of our approach and implying limited stalagmite δ18O disequilibrium variations. Corrected fluid inclusion δ18O and δ2H values follow the expected hydroclimate response of Borneo to periods of reduced Atlantic Ocean meridional overturning circulation. Our results suggest that careful petrographic examination and multiple replicate measurements are necessary for reliable paleoclimate reconstructions with speleothem fluid inclusion water isotopes.
Burial and Denudation Alter Microbial Life at the Bottom of the Hypo‐Critical Zone

How subsurface microbial life changed at the bottom of the kilometers‐deep (hypo) Critical Zone in response to evolving surface conditions over geologic time is an open question. This study investigates the burial and exhumation, biodegradation, and fluid circulation history of hydrocarbon reservoirs across the Colorado Plateau as a window into the hypo‐Critical Zone. Hydrocarbon reservoirs, in the Paradox and Uinta basins, were deeply buried starting ca. 100 to 60 Ma, reaching temperatures >80–140°C, likely sterilizing microbial communities present since the deposition of sediments. High salinities associated with evaporites may have further limited microbial activity. Upward migration of hydrocarbons from shale source rocks into shallower reservoirs during maximum burial set the stage for microbial re‐introduction by creating organic‐rich “hot spots. ” Denudation related to the incision of the Colorado River over the past few million years brought reservoirs closer to the surface under cooler temperatures, enhanced deep meteoric water circulation and flushing of saline fluids, and likely re‐inoculated more permeable sediments up to several km depth. Modern‐ to paleo‐hydrocarbon reservoirs show molecular and isotopic evidence of anaerobic oxidation of hydrocarbons coupled to bacterial sulfate reduction in areas with relatively high SO4‐fluxes. Anaerobic oil biodegradation rates are high enough to explain the removal of at least some portion of postulated “supergiant oil fields” across the Colorado Plateau by microbial activity over the past several million years. Results from this study help constrain the lower limits of the hypo‐Critical Zone and how it evolved over geologic time, in response to changing geologic, hydrologic, and biologic forcings.
Frontotemporal Degeneration with Transactive Response DNA‐Binding Protein Type C at the Anterior Temporal Lobe

The anatomical distribution of most neurodegenerative diseases shows considerable interindividual variations. In contrast, frontotemporal lobar degeneration with transactive response DNA‐binding protein type C (TDP‐C) shows a consistent predilection for the anterior temporal lobe (ATL). The relatively selective atrophy of ATL in TDP‐C patients has highlighted the importance of this region for complex cognitive and behavioral functions. This review includes observations on 28 TDP‐C patients, 18 with semantic primary progressive aphasia and 10 with other syndromes. Longitudinal imaging allowed the delineation of progression trajectories. At post‐mortem examination, the pathognomonic feature of TDP‐C consisted of long, thick neurites found predominantly in superficial cortical layers. These neurites may represent dystrophic apical dendrites of layer III and V pyramidal neurons that are known to play pivotal roles in complex cortical computations. Other types of frontotemporal lobar degeneration TDP, such as TDP‐A and TDP‐B, are not associated with long dystrophic neurites in the cerebral cortex, and do not show similar predilection patterns for ATL. Research is beginning to identify molecular, structural, and immunological differences between pathological TDP‐43 in TDP‐C versus TDP‐A and B. Parallel investigations based on proteomics, somatic mutations, and genome‐wide association studies are detecting molecular features that could conceivably mediate the selective vulnerability of ATL to TDP‐C. Future work will focus on characterizing the distinctive features of the abnormal TDP‐C neurites, the mechanisms of neurotoxicity, initial cellular targets within the ATL, trajectory of spread, and the nature of ATL‐specific markers that modulate vulnerability to TDP‐C. ANN NEUROL 2023;94:1–12