Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Testing the Effectiveness of Environmental Variables to Explain European Terrestrial Vertebrate Species Richness across Biogeographical Scales

We compared the effectiveness of environmental variables, and in particular of land-use indicators, to explain species richness patterns across taxonomic groups and biogeographical scales (i.e. overall pan-Europe and ecoregions within pan-Europe). Using boosted regression trees that handle non-linear relationships, we compared the relative influence (as a measure of effectiveness) of environmental variables related to climate, landscape (or habitat heterogeneity), land-use intensity or energy availability to explain European vertebrate species richness (birds, amphibians, and mammals) at the continental and ecoregion scales. We found that dominant land cover and actual evapotranspiration that relate to energy availability were the main correlates of vertebrate species richness over Europe. At the ecoregion scale, we identified four distinct groups of ecoregions where species richness was essentially associated to (i) seasonality of temperature, (ii) actual evapotranspiration and/or mean annual temperature, (iii) seasonality of precipitation, actual evapotranspiration and land cover) and (iv) and an even combination of the environmental variables. This typology of ecoregions remained valid for total vertebrate richness and the three vertebrate groups taken separately. Despite the overwhelming influence of land cover and actual evapotranspiration to explain vertebrate species richness patterns at European scale, the ranking of the main correlates of species richness varied between regions. Interestingly, landscape and land-use indicators did not stand out at the continental scale but their influence greatly increased in southern ecoregions, revealing the long-lasting human footprint on land-use–land-cover changes. Our study provides one of the first multi-scale descriptions of the variability in the ranking of correlates across several taxa.
Experimental Studies on Gastro-Intestinal Nematode Infection; The Effects of Age on Clinical Observations and Haematological Changes Following Haemonchus contortus Infection in West African Dwarf (WAD) Goats

The effects of age on clinical observations and haematological changes following gastro-intestinal worm Haemonchus contortus was investigated experimentally in West African Dwarf (WAD) goats. 10 apparently healthy adults and 10 kid goats were experimentally infected orally with 750 infective larvae of Haemonchus contortus for a period of 5 weeks. The adults and kids were weighed, the blood and faecal samples were collected before and after infection. Student's t-test statistical analysis was used. The age had no effects on clinical observations on the infected WAD adults and kids. There were normal rectal temperature, normal respiratory rate, normal heart rate with muscular weakness, anorexia, intestinal distension by worms, weight loss, reduced carcass quality, reduced feed intake, diarrhea and anaemia. The observable anaemia was characterized by responsive normocytic-nomochromic anaemia. The age had effects on weight and erythrocytic values which were significantly different at P 0.05 and P>0.01. The weight and erythrocytic values are directly proportional to the level of helminthes eggs in the faeces.
The environmental dimension of multifunctionality: economic analysis and implications for policy design

In this study an analytical model was developed, and then empirical results were obtained by calibrating the model to Finnish data. First, the farmer's private optimim was compared to the social optimum where nutrient runoffs, landscape diversity, and agrobiodiversity were valuated at their social marginal values. Next, solutions were developed for the first-best differentiated policy instruments and the second-best uniform and semi-uniform policy instruments. Finally, farm income support measures and environmental cross-compliance schemes were analysed.
Implementing Lean Six Sigma: A Case Study in Concrete Panel Production

Lean Six Sigma method is recognized widely and has been implemented predominately in manufacturing rather than in the construction industry. To illustrate the point, this paper draws attention to the adoption of Lean Six Sigma in the construction industry with a case study. The combination of Lean tools and Six Sigma methodology is used on projects to improve the process by eliminating the variations and creating workflow in a process. Despite its relatively new introduction to the construction industry, it has been popularized by several organizations and adopted as the primary improvement process. The hypothesis of this experimental study was that the Six Sigma technique can be applied to the construction-based production system along with lean construction techniques. To test the hypothesis, we applied Lean Six Sigma methods on concretepanel production system in a multi-housing complex project. The paper shows how the production rate of concrete panel was improved and stabilized along with the use of Lean Six Sigma tools. Also the case study uses the variation of panel production as a critical total quality (CTQ) to measure the performance indicator of Six Sigma system.
A cost-benefit analysis of going from low inflation to price stability in Spain

This paper performs a cost-benefit analysis of moving from low inflation (roughly 3.5 percent) to price stability (about 1.5 percent) in Spain. Estimates of the costs (in terms of output losses) and the benefits (resulting from lower distortions in the tax system) are compared and evaluated. According to our results, going from low inflation to price stability in Spain seems a worthy enterprise, yielding an expected net beneficial permanent effect of about 0.7-1.0 percentage points of GDP per year in the more reasonable scenarios.
Fracture and Size Effect on Strength of Plain Concrete Disks under Biaxial Flexure Analyzed by Microplane Model M7

The biaxial tensile strength of concrete (and ceramics) can be easily tested by flexure of unreinforced circular disks. A recent experimental study demonstrated that, similar to plain concrete beams, the flexural strength of disks suffers from a significant size effect. However, the experiments did not suffice to determine the size effect type conclusively. The purpose of this study is to use three-dimensional stochastic finite-element analysis to determine the size effect type and shed more light on the fracture behavior. A finite-element code using the microplane constitutive Model M7 is verified and calibrated by fitting the previously measured load-deflections curves and fracture patterns of disks of thicknesses 30, 48, and 75 mm, similar in three dimensions, and on flexure tests on four-point loaded beams. It is found that the deformability of the supports and their lifting and sliding has a large effect on the simulations, especially on the fracture pattern, and the strength and Young’s modulus of concrete must be treated as autocorrelated random fields. The calibrated model is then used to analyze the size effect over a much broader range of disk thicknesses ranging from 20 to 192 mm. The disks are shown to exhibit the typical energetic size effect of Type I, that is, the disks fail (under load control) as soon as the macrofracture initiates from the smooth bottom surface. The curve of nominal strength versus size has a positive curvature and its deterministic part terminates with a horizontal asymptote. The fact that material randomness had to be introduced to fit the fracture patterns confirms that the Type 1 size effect must terminate at very large sizes with a Weibull statistical asymptote, although the disks analyzed are not large enough to discern it.
Ad-hoc symbiotic interactive displays through DLNA

The concept of symbiotic displays covers the opportunistic pairing of mobile devices with screen devices that can be discovered and controlled across a network. Mobile applications that use symbiotic displays can offer the user an improved experience, but the lack of a widely deployed infrastructure means that the concept has seen little use. We design and implement a solution for using DLNA playback devices as symbiotic screens. DLNA devices are not designed to support interactive content, but to share and play media content in the home. Our work includes constructing a mechanism for real time generation of a video stream containing screen content, as well as a buffer starving mechanism that reduces buffer induced playback latency. The resulting system allows Android applications to use DLNA devices as a secondary screens. Latencies and update rates are such, that only applications that do not depend on quick and frequent updates to the remote screen content can be supported.
An Empirical Model of Property Crime: Deterrence versus Redistribution

To evaluate personal welfare, members of society refer to their relative as well as their absolute incomes. When these relative comparisons are inconsistent with a group's sense of equity, conflicts in society are likely to emerge. Economic growth with a constant distribution of income leads to rising individual incomes, as well as a rising social standard. Thus, more income for the individual will mean increased happiness only if everyone's income has not similarly risen (Easterlin, 1975). The purpose of this paper will be to focus empirically on how relative income comparisons produce one type of conflict-crime.
A Bond Consistent Derivative Fair Value

In this paper we present a rigorously motivated pricing equation for derivatives, including general cash collateralization schemes, which is consistent with quoted market bond prices. Traditionally, there have been differences in how instruments with similar cash flow structures have been priced if their definition falls under that of a financial derivative versus if they correspond to bonds, leading to possibilities such as funding through derivatives transactions. Furthermore, the problem has not been solved with the recent introduction of Funding Valuation Adjustments in derivatives pricing, and in some cases has even been made worse. In contrast, our proposed equation is not only consistent with fixed income assets and liabilities, but is also symmetric, implying a well-defined exit price, independent of the entity performing the valuation. Also, we provide some practical proxies, such as first-order approximations or basing calculations of CVA and DVA on bond curves, rather than Credit Default Swaps.
Educational investments and returns for women and men in Côte d'Ivoire

Do women in the labor market enjoy the same returns to their human capital investments as men do? Is the different treatment of women in the labor market a cause for the lower educational attainment so often observed among women in the Third World? This paper estimates wage and nonfarm self-employment earnings functions, corrected for selectivity bias based on a choice model of three regions and four employment modes. In C6te d'Ivoire, rates of return to education are high for both men and women, but men's wages exceed women's by a substantial margin for all but the most educated.
Theory and Experiments Exploring Behavioral, Financial, and Public Economics

I study three questions which relate to one another only in that each explores facets of economics. First, I theoretically examine the conditions under which introducing an impure public good decreases total public provision. I introduce a central planner who can tax the private good to correct this and identify the market characteristics that typify this scenario. Second, I test the two standard competing dividend puzzle hypotheses using a laboratory experiment. Evidence from the lab, including variables unobservable in the field, reinforces empirical work supporting the outcome model over the substitute. Last, I obscure from dictators information regarding recipients’ income sources in a standard laboratory dictator game. When other-regarding dictators are unaware how much of recipients’ income is earned relative to luck-borne, they assume recipients are unlucky rather than lazy. This supports the social insurance literature over that on moral wiggle-room.
Enemies and passing friends : settler ideologies in twentieth century Ulster

Imperialism and colonialism can Ulster protestants be conceptualised as settlers? do protestant attitudes to catholics constitute racism? manipulating metropolitan opinion - from Ireland to Ulster the usurpation of the empire and the monopolisation of loyalty the legitimation of violence and illegality colonial rule and protestant alienation perceptions of British security policy ultras and moderates - some conclusions.
Anatomical properties and physiological correlates of the intrinsic connections in cat area 18

After making a map of response properties of neurons in a roughly 3 X 4 mm region of area 18 in the cat, we injected wheat-germ agglutinin horseradish peroxidase (WGA-HRP) and succinylated concanavalin A (Con A) into physiologically identified regions of the map. We observed up to 10 patches of retrogradely labeled cells surrounding each injection site. The majority of the patches occurred within 1.4 mm of the center of the injection site, but rare patches were found as far as 3.4 mm from the injection site. The mean center-to-center spacing of the intrinsic patches was about 1 mm, while the mean distance between the center of the injection site and the nearest patches was less than 1 mm. The labeled cells included both nonpyramidal and pyramidal types and were found in all layers, although they were usually most dense in layers II-IV. Between 2% and 9% of the cells within a cortical column were labeled after a single injection of WGA-HRP or Con A into area 18. Injections of different tracers into 2 neighboring areas resulted in a uniform and less patchy distribution of labeled cells, which suggests that the patches observed after a single injection were only a portion of a continuous horizontal system of interconnections. The patterns and positions of the intrinsic patches were compared to the distribution of the following receptive-field properties: preferred orientation, receptive-field location, and eye preference. The preferred orientations of the recording sites within the injected and labeled areas were different and, most frequently, orthogonal to each other. This is a highly specific projection, since regions with orientation values like those of the injection site were “within range,” yet not labeled. We were unable to detect any relationship between the ocular preferences of the injected and labeled cell regions. Injections into areas predominantly driven by the contralateral eye resulted in labeled regions exhibiting varied eye preference distributions. In some animals they were like the injection site and in others there were equal numbers of contra- and ipsilateral eye-dominated regions. The overall distribution of the patches around the injection site was elongated along the anterior-posterior cortical axis of the brain. The patches extended further in the posterior than the anterior direction. These observations appear to be related to the finding that the cortical magnification factor is greater along the anterior-posterior than the medial-lateral axis of area 18. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Essays on Growth, Poverty and Human Capital Inequality

This thesis is a collection of three empirical essays on growth, poverty and human capital inequality in a global panel. The objective of the first essay entitled: “Volatility and Growth: The Role of Education” is to examine whether the significance of volatility-growth relationship varies according to the average years of education. Unlike the focus of the previous literature on establishing the link between volatility and growth, we attempt to establish the channel through which volatility affects growth. The main contribution of our work is that while the level of volatility negatively affects growth, the effect is mediated via education. This is true even for countries with low as well as moderately high levels of volatility. The result of the interaction term, which is the key interest in this chapter, is robust to changes in definitions of variables and specification. This finding is consistent with Canton‟s (2000) theoretical work. The second essay, “Does Education Reduce Poverty in Developing Countries? ” investigates the direct effects of education on poverty in developing countries using dynamic panel estimation techniques. The results suggest that higher education, developed financial system along with growth lead to significant poverty reduction. On the other hand, unequal income distribution is associated with increases in poverty. The results are robust to alternative model specification and estimation techniques. The policy implication is that poverty reduction is more effective if we focus on developing the education system instead of relying on growth and other channels, for example foreign aid or health. The third essay deviates from the usual study of inequality and globalization. It analyzes the relationship between seven measures of globalization and education inequality using a panel of 112 countries covering the period 1970-2009. We use the KOF index of Globalization and its three different dimensions (economic, social, and political) as our main proxy for globalization. In addition, we also employ openness, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and freedom to trade internationally (EF Index) in our study. We find that globalization has a robust negative effect on human capital inequality, even when we control for other factors. Results suggest that education inequality increases with globalization in middle and high-income countries but the effect is the opposite in lowincome countries. This is the key contribution of our study where we find a variation of impact within the developing countries in contrast to the standard Hecksher-Ohlin Trade Theory. The result also holds when we restricted the sample to specific countries and add several other covariates. In contrast, the alternative measures of globalization have no such robust effects.
On the continuity of the pressure for monotonic mod one transformations

If f : [0, 1]→ R is strictly increasing and continuous define Tfx = f(x) (mod 1). A transformation T̃ : [0, 1] → [0, 1] is called ε-close to Tf , if T̃ x = f̃(x) (mod 1) for a strictly increasing and continuous function f̃ : [0, 1] → R with ‖f̃ − f‖∞ < ε. It is proved that the topological pressure p(Tf , g) is lower semi-continuous, and an upper bound for the jumps up is given. Furthermore the continuity of the maximal measure is shown, if a certain condition is satisfied. Then it is proved that the topological pressure is upper semi-continuous for every continuous function g : [0, 1] → R, if and only if 0 is not periodic or 1 is not periodic. Finally it is shown that the topological entropy is continuous, if htop(Tf ) > 0.
Binary and Long-Term (Triple?) Modulations of 4U 1820–30 in NGC 6624

We present timing analysis results for Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) observations of X-ray binary source 4U 1820-30 located in the globular cluster NGC 6624. The light curves of observations made between 1996 October and 1997 September show that the maximum of the 685 s binary period modulation folded by the linear ephemeris from previous observations has a phase shift of -0.20 ± 0.06. Combined with historical results (1976-1997), the binary period derivative is measured to be Ṗ/P = (-3.47 ± 1.48) × 10-8 yr-1. The previous known (~176 day) long-term modulation is significant in the X-ray light curve obtained by analysis of the RXTE All-Sky Monitor (ASM) during the years 1996-2000. The RXTE ASM ephemeris is extended by analysis of all historical data (Vela 5B and Ginga) to yield a period of 171.033 ± 0.326 days with no evidence for period change (|Ṗ/P| < 2.20 × 10-4 yr-1). All reported X-ray burst activity is confined to within ±23 days of the predicted minima. This stable long-term modulation is consistent with 4U 1820-30 being a hierarchical triple system with a ~1.1 day period companion.
The Revenues-Expenditures Nexus: Evidence from Local Government Data

This paper examines the intertemporal linkages between local government expenditures and revenues. In the terminology that has become standard in the literature on vector autoregression analysis, the issue is whether revenues Granger-cause expenditures, or expenditures Granger-cause revenues. The main results that emerge from an analysis of fiscal data from 171 municipal governments over the period 1972-1980 are that: 1) one or two years are sufficient to summarize the relevant dynamic interrelationships; 2) there are important intertemporal linkages between expenditures, taxes and grants; and 3) past revenues help predict current expenditures, but past expenditures do not alter the future path of revenues. This last finding is contrary to results that have emerged from previous analyses of federal fiscal data, and hence suggests the need for additional research on the differences in the processes generating local and federal decisions.
Conjunctival epithelial cell differentiation on amniotic membrane.

PURPOSE Amniotic membrane (AM)-reconstructed conjunctival surfaces recover the normal epithelial phenotype with a significantly higher cell density than the control. The present study was undertaken to examine how AM modulates rabbit conjunctival epithelial cell differentiation. METHODS Rabbit conjunctival epithelial cells (RCEs) were cultured on the basement membrane side of dispase-pretreated AM, with or without seeding rabbit conjunctival fibroblasts (RCFs) on the stromal side. After 7 to 12 days, half of the cultures were raised to the air-liquid interface, and the remainder stayed submerged. A small group of air-lifted cultures containing RCFs was treated with retinoic acid. After 1, 2, and 4 weeks, cultures were terminated and processed for immunostaining with antibodies directed against distinct types of mucins (SMC and AM3), glycocalyx (AMEM2), keratin K3 (AE5), and K12 (AK2). Additionally, western blot analysis was performed for K3 keratin expression. Ultrastructural changes were evaluated by transmission electron microscopy. RESULTS In general, RCEs grown on AM were uniformly small, negative to AE5 and AK2 antibodies, and positive to AMEM2 and ASPG1 antibodies. Epithelial stratification and cell polarity with prominent microvilli, tight junctions, and hemidesmosomes were more pronounced in air-lifted cultures. RCEs cocultured with RCFs showed scattered AM3-positive goblet cells, which were not increased by retinoic acid. CONCLUSIONS RCEs cultured on AM primarily exhibit a nongoblet conjunctival epithelial phenotype. Epithelial stratification and cell polarity, features essential for epithelial differentiation, are promoted by air-lifting. This culture model will be useful for studying how growth and differentiation of conjunctival epithelial cells can be modulated further.
Nonlinear gradient denoising: Finding accurate extrema from inaccurate functional derivatives

A method for nonlinear optimization with machine learning (ML) models, called nonlinear gradient denoising (NLGD), is developed, and applied with ML approximations to the kinetic energy density functional in an orbital-free density functional theory. Due to systematically inaccurate gradients of ML models, in particular when the data is very high-dimensional, the optimization must be constrained to the data manifold. We use nonlinear kernel principal component analysis (PCA) to locally reconstruct the manifold, enabling a projected gradient descent along it. A thorough analysis of the method is given via a simple model, designed to clarify the concepts presented. Additionally, NLGD is compared with the local PCA method used in previous work. Our method is shown to be superior in cases when the data manifold is highly nonlinear and high dimensional. Further applications of the method in both density functional theory and ML are discussed. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.