Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Can Strategic Environmental and Social Assessment of REDD+ Improve Forest Governance?

The Forest Carbon Partnership Facility has recently proposed the application of strategic environmental social assessment (SESA) for incorporating environmental and social considerations in the preparation of REDD+ initiatives. This paper discusses the potential contribution of SESA to REDD+ initiatives drawing on experiences from earlier attempts to large scale forestry sector reforms and a recent World Bank pilot program on strategic environmental assessment. The paper suggests that SESA can be a useful approach for strengthening institutions and governance needed for managing diverse environmental and social impacts related to REDD+. More specifically, SESA can enhance policy making and governance through raising attention to environmental and social priorities, strengthening constituencies for policy change and improving social accountability. In order for SESA to contribute to these outcomes it needs to be assured that broad national “ownership” is achieved and that it becomes part of a long-term policy learning process with repeated and sustained stakeholder interaction. Through strengthening constituencies in policy reform SESA can potentially reduce the risk of regulatory capture of REDD+ by vested interests and make institutional checks and balances more effective. An analysis of Kenyas process of preparing a national REDD+ strategy is used to illustrate our case in the paper.
Do Muslims Vote Islamic?

Islamic parties have won parliamentary elections in several countries in recent years, leading some observers to speculate that Muslims vote Islamic whenever they are given the chance. However, a review of every parliamentary election in Muslim societies over the past 40 years shows that Islamic parties often compete and rarely win—and the freer the election, the worse these parties perform. In addition, an unprecedented collection of Islamic party platforms shows that Islamic parties have transformed since the 1980s, publicly endorsing democracy and women's rights and de-emphasizing shari'a and jihad. This record suggests that Islamic parties have embraced elections more than engulfing them.
Phosphorylation of Na,K-ATPase by Protein Kinase C at Ser18 Occurs in Intact Cells but Does Not Result in Direct Inhibition of ATP Hydrolysis*

Na,K-ATPase activity has been demonstrated to be regulated by a variety of hormones in different tissues. It is known to be directly phosphorylated on its α-subunit, but the functional effects of protein kinases remain controversial. We have developed a sensitive, antibody-based assay for detection of the level of phosphorylation of the α1-isoform of rat Na,K-ATPase at the serine residue that is most readily phosphorylated by protein kinase C (PKC)in vitro, Ser18. By stimulation of endogenous PKC and inhibition of phosphatase activity, it was possible to consistently obtain a very high stoichiometry of phosphorylation (close to 0.9) in several types of intact cells. This demonstrates the accessibility and competency of the site for endogenous phosphorylation. The cells used were derived from rat (NRK 52E, C6, L6, and primary cultures of cerebellar granule cells, representing epithelial cells, glia, muscle cells, and neurons). In the presence of the phosphatase inhibitor calyculin A, full phosphorylation was preserved during subsequent assays of enzyme activity in vitro. Assay of the hydrolysis of ATP in NRK and C6 cells, however, indicated that there was no significant effect of phosphorylation on the V max of the Na,K-ATPase or on the apparent affinity for Na+. Any regulatory effect of PKC on sodium pump activity thus must be lost upon disruption or permeabilization of the cells and is not a direct consequence of enzyme alteration by covalent phosphorylation of Ser18.
Information and Industry Dynamics

This paper develops a dynamic industry model in which firms compete to acquire customers over time by disseminating information about themselves under the presence of random shocks to their efficiency. The properties of the model’s stationary equilibrium are related to empirical regularities on firm and industry dynamics. As an application of the model, the effects of a decline in the cost of information dissemination on firm and industry dynamics are explored.
Effect of P/E cycling on drain disturb in flash EEPROMs under CHE and CHISEL operation

Drain disturb is studied in NOR flash EEPROM cells under CHE and CHISEL programming operation, before and after repeated program/erase (P/E) cycling. Drain disturb is shown to originate from band-to-band tunneling under CHISEL operation, unlike under CHE operation where it originates from source-drain leakage. Under identical initial programming time, CHISEL operation always shows slightly lower program/disturb (P/D) margin before cycling but similar P/D margin after repetitive P/E cycling when compared to CHE operation. The degradation of gate coupling coefficient that affects source/drain leakage and the increase in trap-assisted band-to-band tunneling seems to explain well the behavior of CHE and CHISEL drain disturb after cycling.
Sex matters: n-back modulates emotional mismatch negativity

This work investigates the impact of task load on irrelevant emotional voice processing between the sexes. The working memory task was manipulated by asking participants to evaluate the position of a visual stimulus (0-back) and compare the position of the current stimulus with the one or two trials before (1-back and 2-back). We recorded auditory event-related potentials while presenting the emotionally spoken syllables ‘dada’ and acoustically matched nonvocal sounds to healthy adults. Women, not men, showed larger amplitudes of emotional mismatch negativity (MMN), presumed to reflect preattentive auditory change detection, during the 1-back task than the 0-back and 2-back tasks. Among women only weaker emotional MMN amplitudes were associated with a higher 2-back accuracy. Neither task difficulty nor sex had any effect on MMN when responding to nonvocal sounds. Our findings suggest that there are sex differences in preattentive emotional voice processing under varying levels of task load.
Strategic Orientation of Russian Managers

Summary This paper explores the strategic orientation of managers in the setting of the Russian transition economy. We propose that change in economic policies coupled with access to capital and knowledge gained through partnerships with foreign firms will affect the development and use of discernible strategic orientation. We report survey results from a group of 41 top managers in St. Petersburg, Russia regarding their strategic orientation and how that orientation relates to market needs. Cluster analysis procedures confirm distinguishable strategic types may be emerging, but that even where top managers are developing distinctive orientations, they are not yet focused on identifying and responding to customer needs, an antecedent of market orientation.
A Survey on Fault Management in Software-Defined Networks

Software-defined networking (SDN) is an emerging paradigm that has become increasingly popular in recent years. The core idea is to separate the control and data planes, allowing the construction of network applications using high-level abstractions that are translated to network devices through a southbound interface. SDN architecture is composed of three layers: 1) infrastructure layer, responsible exclusively for data forwarding; 2) control layer, which maintains the network view and provides core network abstractions; and 3) application layer, which uses abstractions provided by the control layer to implement network applications. SDN provides features, such as flexibility and programmability, that are key enablers to meet current network requirements (e.g., multi-tenant cloud networks and elastic optical networks). However, along with its benefits, SDN also brings new issues. In this survey we focus on issues related to fault management. Different fault management threat vectors are introduced by each layer, as well as by the interface between layers. Nevertheless, besides addressing fault management issues of its architecture, SDN also must handle the same problems faced by legacy networks. However, programmability and centralized management might be used to provide flexibility to deal with those issues. This paper presents an overview of fault management in SDN. The major contributions of this paper are as follows: 1) identification of the main fault management issues in SDN and classification according to the affected layers; 2) survey of efforts that address those issues and classification according to the affected planes, issues concerned, general approaches, and features; and 3) discussion about trade-offs of different approaches and their suitability for different scenarios.
Employee-Proposed Discipline: How Well is it Working?

Using data from 298 disciplinary action records of employees with the City of Albuquerque (New Mexico) Public Works Department from 1995–1999, the researchers examined the use of employee-proposed discipline as provided for in two collective bargaining agreements. Unlike punitive discipline, which typically involves managers coercing employees into changing conduct or job performance, an employee-proposed discipline policy encourages workers to take responsibility for their actions by allowing them to propose their own discipline. Results of the study indicate that employee-proposed discipline is being used in approximately 40 percent of the disciplinary actions and that the management acceptance rate is about 60 percent, even though the discipline proposed by employees was more lenient than that recommended by management.
Audit tenure and the equity risk premium: evidence from Jordan

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relation between audit firm tenure and the perceived audit quality measured by the client-specific equity risk premium. The study population consists of all the manufacturing and service firms traded in Amman Bourse during the period 2002-2005. Design/methodology/approach - The Boone Findings - The results show that the relation between audit firm tenure and equity risk premium is positive, the equity risk premium increases with tenure as a result of reduced audit quality. These results were consistent with some previous studies, which showed that long relationships between an audit firm and a client are associated with lower perceived audit quality and, as a result, higher equity risk premium. Practical implications - The audit firm should be rotated in order to enhance auditor independence and audit quality, and increase investors' confidence in reported earnings. Additionally, investors are encouraged to give higher attention to the tenure of the audit firm when evaluating the quality of the financial reports of the companies they are planning to invest in. Originality/value - This is the first paper to provide evidence from a developing country about an important issue – audit quality – which is expected to support and sustain improvement of audit quality, and therefore, financial reporting quality.
Foreign direct investment, urban unemployment and welfare

The effects of foreign direct investments on welfare and unemployment are examined in the case where there is urban unemployment. Our main findings are that an increase in foreign capital investment leaves social welfare intact and reduces unemployment if foreign capital is specific to foreign firms, and it may increase social welfare and reduce unemployment if foreign capital is also used in the domestic manufacturing sector. Thus, our analysis is consistent with many empirical evidences that emerging economies employ export processing zones or duty free zones intensively as their development strategies.
Searching for Mr. Right: The duration of remaining single based on evidence from Japan

The age at first marriage for women has increased in Japan over the past decade. Previous studies show both rising female labor force participation and education levels attribute to the delay in marriage for women, but only for a small fraction. Applying search theory indicates that the utility of being singles, the arrival rate of marriage offers, the discount rate and change in distribution of men all affect the duration of remaining single. In theory, the change in variance of the distribution of men raises women's reservation utility but has an ambiguous effect on the duration of remaining single. This paper examines this hypothesis with a discrete proportional hazard model using the 1993-99 Japanese Panel Surveys of Consumers. The main finding is that highly educated women, working either full time or part time or as students and living in a larger city all tend to delay marriage. On the other hand, an increase in distribution of men in terms of mean characterized by wage attributes to raising the probability of getting married earlier for women. Men's distribution in terms of variance characterized by the unemployment rate turned out to be a factor for marriage delay in Japan. It suggests the larger the variance, such as a more risky situation for women, the less likely they are to encounter a Mr. Right. Moreover, the observed delay in marriage among Japanese women is also partially explained by the effect of decreasing mean and increasing variance of distribution of men due to long term economic recession
THE REDSHIFT DISTRIBUTION OF DUSTY STAR-FORMING GALAXIES FROM THE SPT SURVEY

We use the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Cycle 1 to determine spectroscopic redshifts of high-redshift dusty star-forming galaxies (DSFGs) selected by their 1.4 mm continuum emission in the South Pole Telescope (SPT) survey. We present ALMA 3 mm spectral scans between 84 and 114 GHz for 15 galaxies and targeted ALMA 1 mm observations for an additional eight sources. Our observations yield 30 new line detections from CO, [C i], [N ii], H2O and NH3. We further present Atacama Pathfinder Experiment [C ii] and CO mid-J observations for seven sources for which only a single line was detected in spectral-scan data from ALMA Cycle 0 or Cycle 1. We combine the new observations with previously published and new millimeter/submillimeter line and photometric data of the SPT-selected DSFGs to study their redshift distribution. The combined data yield 39 spectroscopic redshifts from molecular lines, a success rate of >85%. Our sample represents the largest data set of its kind today and has the highest spectroscopic completeness among all redshift surveys of high-z DSFGs. The median of the redshift distribution is z = 3.9 ± 0.4, and the highest-redshift source in our sample is at z = 5.8. We discuss how the selection of our sources affects the redshift distribution, focusing on source brightness, selection wavelength, and strong gravitational lensing. We correct for the effect of gravitational lensing and find the redshift distribution for 1.4 mm selected sources with a median redshift of z = 3.1 ± 0.3. Comparing to redshift distributions selected at shorter wavelengths from the literature, we show that selection wavelength affects the shape of the redshift distribution.
Culture time and reagent minimization in the chemical PCC assay

Abstract The possibility to reduce the culture time and volume of blood and reagents required for the chemical Premature Chromosome Condensation (PCC) assay is demonstrated in this work. Peripheral whole blood was exposed to gamma radiation (1–20 Gy). Lymphocytes were cultured for 40 h, using 50 μl of blood and 450 μl of culture medium. The dose-response curves were adjusted, using length ratio (LR) of the longest to the shortest chromosome piece, and the frequency of rings per cell. No statistical differences were found between the results obtained with this method and those reported with the classical PCC assay culture. The minimization of culture time and reagents in combination with the automatic measurement of the LR of the chromosome pieces, or the scoring of rings, can be a valuable biodosimetry tool in a mass casualty scenario.
Entrepreneurship, Social Capital, and Institutions: Social and Commercial Entrepreneurship across Nations

We model and test the relationship between social and commercial entrepreneurship drawing on social capital theory. We propose that the country prevalence rate of social entrepreneurship is an indicator of constructible nation–level social capital and enhances the likelihood of individual commercial entry. We further posit that both social and commercial entrepreneurial entry is facilitated by certain formal institutions, namely strong property rights and (low) government activism, albeit the latter impacts each of these types of entrepreneurship differently. We apply bivariate discrete choice multilevel modeling to population–representative samples in 47 countries and find support for these hypotheses.
Örgütsel sinizmin iş performansına etkisi: meslek yüksekokullarında bir araştırma

Organisational cynicism is a negative attitude towards one's employing organization. Research has been conducted to identify the organizational cynicism’s effect on work performance. The data was collected through a questionnaire which was implemented face to face with the academic and administrative staff at a Public University’s Vocational Colleges. 116 academic staff and 68 administrative personnel participated in the survey. The organisational cynicism displayed by the academicians and the administrative personnel has been examined consistently with the literature with respect to the dimensions of cognition, emotional response and behaviour. It has been observed that the factors of organisational cynicism have no impact on work performance which shows a single dimensional structure.
The Role of Audio-Visual Feedback in a Thought-Based Control of a Humanoid Robot: A BCI Study in Healthy and Spinal Cord Injured People

The efficient control of our body and successful interaction with the environment are possible through the integration of multisensory information. Brain–computer interface (BCI) may allow people with sensorimotor disorders to actively interact in the world. In this study, visual information was paired with auditory feedback to improve the BCI control of a humanoid surrogate. Healthy and spinal cord injured (SCI) people were asked to embody a humanoid robot and complete a pick-and-place task by means of a visual evoked potentials BCI system. Participants observed the remote environment from the robot’s perspective through a head mounted display. Human-footsteps and computer-beep sounds were used as synchronous/asynchronous auditory feedback. Healthy participants achieved better placing accuracy when listening to human footstep sounds relative to a computer-generated sound. SCI people demonstrated more difficulty in steering the robot during asynchronous auditory feedback conditions. Importantly, subjective reports highlighted that the BCI mask overlaying the display did not limit the observation of the scenario and the feeling of being in control of the robot. Overall, the data seem to suggest that sensorimotor-related information may improve the control of external devices. Further studies are required to understand how the contribution of residual sensory channels could improve the reliability of BCI systems.
Formulation and Evaluation of Taste Masked Oral Reconstitutable Suspension of Primaquine Phosphate

The purpose of this research was to mask the intensely bitter taste of primaquine phosphate (PRM) and to formulate suspension powder (cachets) of the taste masked drug. Taste masking was done using beta-cyclodextrin. To characterize and formulate taste masked cachets of PRM, the 1:25 M physical mixture was selected based on bitterness score. Phase solubility studies, fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD) were performed to identify the physicochemical interaction between drug and carrier, hence its effect on dissolution. Cachets were evaluated for angle of repose, sedimentation characterization and pH. In vitro drug release studies for physical mixture and kneaded system were performed at pH, 1.2 and 6.8. Bitterness score was evaluated using gustatory sensation test. Phase solubility studies showed weak interaction between PRM and CD. The FTIR, DSC and XRPD studies indicated inclusion complexation in physical mixture and kneaded system. In addition, kneaded system and physical mixture exhibited better drug release at pH 1.2 and negligible effect at pH 6.8. Cachets prepared using physical mixture, (DS24), showed complete bitter taste masking and easy redispersibility. Taste evaluation of cachets in human volunteers rated tasteless with a score of 0 to DS24 and 3 to DS25. Thus, results conclusively demonstrated successful taste masking and formulation of cachets with taste masked drug.
An Analysis of the of Proximate Determinants of Fertility in Malawi, 1992-2004

The paper examines trends in the proximate determinants of fertility in Malawi during the period 1992 to 2004 with the view of explaining the factors responsible for fertility decline in the country. The study uses the Malawi Demographic and Health Surveys of 1992, 2000 and 2004 and the Bongaarts model of Proximate Determinants. The analysis shows that there are increases in all three proximate determinants. The magnitude of change is greatest in contraceptive use, moderate in marriage but least in breast-feeding. The study show that postpartum infecundability has a far more dominant inhibiting effect on fertility than the other two proximate fertility determinants.
Sport motivation as driver for segmenting sport tourists in coastal regions

Purpose – The market for sport tourists is very diverse and motivations of sport tourists are manifold. This also applies to the field of water sport tourism, which has not yet intensely been analysed by researchers. In order to analyse motivations and to reach target groups such as water sport tourists adequately, market segmentation is necessary. The purpose of this paper is to investigate sport motivations of tourists during their holidays as well as the tourist's participation in water sport activities, using the example of the German North Sea island Sylt. Thereby, consumer profiles will be established.Design/methodology/approach – A quantitative research paradigm was chosen. A survey was conducted using a standardised self‐administered questionnaire. The sample comprised n=263 participants. Two indices, one for sport motivation and one for travel motivation were constructed. Factor, as well as cluster, analysis was applied to segment the sample. Furthermore, discriminant analysis was used to identif.