Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Rapid Diversity Loss of Competing Animal Species in Well-Connected Landscapes

Population viability of a single species, when evaluated with metapopulation based landscape evaluation tools, always increases when the connectivity of the landscape increases. However, when interactions between species are taken into account, results can differ. We explore this issue using a stochastic spatially explicit meta-community model with 21 competing species in five different competitive settings: (1) weak, coexisting competition, (2) neutral competition, (3) strong, excluding competition, (4) hierarchical competition and (5) random species competition. The species compete in randomly generated landscapes with various fragmentation levels. With this model we study species loss over time. Simulation results show that overall diversity, the species richness in the entire landscape, decreases slowly in fragmented landscapes whereas in well-connected landscapes rapid species losses occur. These results are robust with respect to changing competitive settings, species parameters and spatial configurations. They indicate that optimal landscape configuration for species conservation differs between metapopulation approaches, modelling species separately and meta-community approaches allowing species interactions. The mechanism behind this is that species in well-connected landscapes rapidly outcompete each other. Species that become abundant, by chance or by their completive strength, send out large amounts of dispersers that colonize and take over other patches that are occupied by species that are less abundant. This mechanism causes rapid species loss. In fragmented landscapes the colonization rate is lower, and it is difficult for a new species to establish in an already occupied patch. So, here dominant species cannot easily take over patches occupied by other species and higher diversity is maintained for a longer time. These results suggest that fragmented landscapes have benefits for species conservation previously unrecognized by the landscape ecology and policy community. When species interactions are important, landscapes with a low fragmentation level can be better for species conservation than well-connected landscapes. Moreover, our results indicate that metapopulation based landscape evaluation tools may overestimate the value of connectivity and should be replaced by more realistic meta-community based tools.
A novel composite right-/left-handed coupled-line directional coupler with arbitrary coupling level and broad bandwidth

A novel composite right-/left-handed (CRLH) backward-wave coupled-line directional coupler with arbitrary coupling level and broad bandwidth is presented, explained by even/odd-mode analysis, validated by full-wave simulations, and demonstrated by experiments. First, the CRLH-transmission-line (CRLH TL) theory is given, and a microstrip implementation of a CRLH TL is described. A simple circuit model is then proposed both for the understanding and design of the coupler. The coupler exhibits very unusual characteristics, such as zero electrical length, imaginary even/odd-mode characteristic impedances, and coupling dependence on even/odd attenuation length (instead of propagation length). Both a quasi-0and 3-dB coupler are demonstrated experimentally. The 3-dB coupler exhibits amplitude balance of /spl plusmn/2 dB over a huge bandwidth of 50% (3.5-5.8 GHz), phase balance of 90/spl deg//spl plusmn/5/spl deg/ from 3.0 to 4.0 GHz and directivity of 20 dB.
Link prediction in citation networks

In this article, we build models to predict the existence of citations among papers by formulating link prediction for 5 large-scale datasets of citation networks. The supervised machine-learning model is applied with 11 features. As a result, our learner performs very well, with the F1 values of between 0.74 and 0.82. Three features in particular, link-based Jaccard coefficient, difference in betweenness centrality, and cosine similarity of term frequency-inverse document frequency vectors, largely affect the predictions of citations. The results also indicate that different models are required for different types of research areas--research fields with a single issue or research fields with multiple issues. In the case of research fields with multiple issues, there are barriers among research fields because our results indicate that papers tend to be cited in each research field locally. Therefore, one must consider the typology of targeted research areas when building models for link prediction in citation networks.
Characterizing model usage in embedded software engineering: a case study

During development of complex products, such as automotive software, models -- formal and informal -- are used throughout the development process by different roles and for different purposes -- as requirement, as implementation or as documentation. This paper reports results from a case-study of the development of embedded software at a Swedish vehicle manufacturer. We investigated use of models from high-level product planning to low-level requirements specifications for software components. Furthermore, we investigated the distribution of effort among the models, requirements and other artefacts. The goal was to explore the spectrum of modelling techniques, methods and languages used and to establish a baseline for comparison with the state-of-the-art and other companies. The results show that there exist at least 8 different modelling notations. Moreover, we found that the majority of effort was spent on behaviour models, while static models -- such as high-level design and requirements -- were considered most important.
The formation of a star cluster: predicting the properties of stars and brown dwarfs

We present results from the largest numerical simulation of star formation to resolve the fragmentation process down to the opacity limit. The simulation follows the collapse and fragmentation of a large-scale turbulent molecular cloud to form a stellar cluster and, simultaneously, the formation of circumstellar discs and binary stars. This large range of scales enables us to predict a wide variety of stellar properties for comparison with observations. The calculation clearly demonstrates that star formation is a highly-dynamic and chaotic process. Star formation occurs in localized bursts within the cloud via the fragmentation both of dense molecular cloud cores and of massive circumstellar discs. Star-disc encounters form binaries and truncate discs. Stellar encounters disrupt bound multiple systems. We find that the observed statistical properties of stars are a natural consequence of star formation in such a dynamical environment. The cloud produces roughly equal numbers of stars and brown dwarfs, with masses down to the opacity limit for fragmentation (5 Jupiter masses). The initial mass function is consistent with a Salpeter slope (Γ = -1.35) above 0.5 M O . , a roughly flat distribution (r = 0) in the range 0.006-0.5 M O . , and a sharp cut-off below 0.005 M O . This is consistent with recent observational surveys. The brown dwarfs form by the dynamical ejection of low-mass fragments from dynamically unstable multiple systems before the fragments have been able to accrete to stellar masses. Close binary systems (with separations ≤10 au) are not formed by fragmentation in situ. Rather, they are produced by hardening of initially wider multiple systems through a combination of dynamical encounters, gas accretion, and/or the interaction with circumbinary and circumtriple discs. Finally, we find that the majority of circumstellar discs have radii less than 20 au due to truncation in dynamical encounters. This is consistent with observations of the Orion Trapezium cluster and implies that most stars and brown dwarfs do not form large planetary systems.
The onion universe: all sky lightcone simulations in spherical shells

Galaxy surveys provide a large-scale view of the universe that typically has a limited line of sight or redshift resolution. The lack of radial accuracy in these surveys can be modelled by picturing the universe as a set of concentric radial shells of finite width around the observer, i.e. an onion-like structure. We present a new N-body simulation with 2048 3 particles developed at the Marenostrum supercomputer with the GADGET-2 code. Using the lightcone output we build a set of angular maps that mimic this onion-like representation of the universe. The onion maps are a highly compressed version of the raw data (i.e. a factor of > 1000 smaller size for arcminute resolution maps) and they provide a new and powerful tool to exploit large-scale structure observations. We introduce two basic applications of these maps that are especially useful for constraining dark energy properties: the baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs) in the galaxy power spectrum and all-sky maps of the weak lensing distortion. In particular, from the matter density maps, we determine the smallest scale where linear theory and the Gaussianity of the error analysis applies. Using the weak lensing maps, we measure the convergence power spectra and compare it to halo fit predictions. We also discuss mass resolution effects and error determinations. As a further application, we compute the variance and higher order moments of the maps. We show that sampling variance on scales of few degrees is quite large, resulting in a significant (25 per cent at 10 arcmin scales) bias in the variance. We caution that current lensing surveys such as the COSMOS HST should take into account this bias and extra sampling error in their clustering analyses and inferred cosmological parameter constraints. Finally, we test the importance of projection effects in the weak lensing mass reconstruction. On the mean, the mass calibration works well but it exhibits a large non-Gaussian scatter what could induce a large bias in the recovered mass function.
Understanding Continuance Use in Social Networking Services

Continuance, in the information technology context, refers to sustained use of a technology by individual users over the long-term after their initial acceptance. In this research, we explore the role of enjoyment and subjective norms in continuance use of social networking services. A research model based on the IS continuance model was developed, and empirically analyzed using data from social networking service users in South Korea. The results indicated that enjoyment had a significant influence on user satisfaction and continuance use behaviors in social networks; however, enjoyment did not have a direct impact on continuance intention to use. Also, subjective norm had a significant influence on perceived usefulness as well as continuance intention to use. Our findings imply that users' continuance use of social networking service may arise not only from reasoned actions, but also from automatic behaviors, and enjoyment directly leads to these automatic behaviors.
Hospital Staff Shortage after the 2011 Triple Disaster in Fukushima, Japan-An Earthquake, Tsunamis, and Nuclear Power Plant Accident: A Case of the Soso District

Introduction In 2011, Fukushima was struck by a triple disaster: an earthquake, tsunamis, and a nuclear accident. In the aftermath, there was much fear among hospital staff members about radiation exposure and many staff members failed to report to work. Objectives One objective is to measure this shortage in hospital staff and another is to compare the difference in recovery by hospital types and by categories of hospital staff. Design The monthly records of the number of staff members from May 2011 to September 2012 were extracted anonymously from the records of 7 local hospitals in the Soso district in Fukushima. Change in the number of staff was analyzed. Results Staff shortages at hospitals reached a maximum within one month after the disaster (47% reported to work). The shortage of clerks was the most severe (38% reported to work), followed by nurses (48% reported to work). The shortages remained even 18 months after the disaster. Conclusion After a disaster in which the damage to hospital functions surpasses the structural damage, massive support of human resources in the acute phase and a smaller volume of support in the mid-term phase appear to be required, particularly for non-medical staff.
A model of integrative care for low-back pain.

OBJECTIVES While previous studies focused on the effectiveness of individual complementary and alternative medical (CAM) therapies, the value of providing patients access to an integrated program involving multiple CAM and conventional therapies remains unknown. The objective of this study is to explore the feasibility and effects of a model of multidisciplinary integrative care for subacute low-back pain (LBP) in an academic teaching hospital. DESIGN This was a pilot randomized trial comparing an individualized program of integrative care (IC) plus usual care to usual care (UC) alone for adults with LBP. SUBJECTS Twenty (20) individuals with LPB of 3-12 weeks' duration were recruited from an occupational health clinic and community health center. INTERVENTIONS Participants were randomized to 12 weeks of individualized IC plus usual care versus UC alone. IC was provided by a trained multidisciplinary team offering CAM therapies and conventional medical care. OUTCOME MEASURES The outcome measures were symptoms (pain, bothersomeness), functional status (Roland-Morris score), SF-12, worry, and difficulty performing three self-selected activities. RESULTS Over 12 weeks, participants in the IC group had a median of 12.0 visits (range 5-25). IC participants experienced significantly greater improvements at 12 weeks than those receiving UC alone in symptom bothersomeness (p=0.02) and pain (p=0.005), and showed greater improvement in functional status (p=0.08). Rates of improvement were greater for patients in IC than UC in functional status (p=0.02), bothersomeness (p=0.002), and pain scores (p=0.001). Secondary outcomes of self-selected most challenging activity, worry, and the SF-12 also showed improvement in the IC group at 12 weeks. These differences persisted at 26 weeks, but were no longer statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS It was feasible for a multidisciplinary, outpatient IC team to deliver coordinated, individualized intervention to patients with subacute LBP. Results showed a promising trend for benefit of treating patients with persistent LBP with this IC model, and warrant evaluation in a full-scale study.
Banks' Capital, Securitization and Credit Risk: An Empirical Evidence for Canada

This paper is the first attempt that empirically investigates the relationship between banks capital, securitization and risk in the context of the rapid growth of off-balance-sheet activities in the Canadian financial sector. The evidence over the 1988-1998 period indicates that a) securitization has negative effects on both Tier 1 and Total risk-based capital ratios, and b) there exists a positive statistical link between securitization and banks' risk. These results seem to accord with Kim and Santomero (1988) who concluded that banks might be induced to shift to more risky assets under the current capital requirements for credit risk.
A Session-based Mobile Socket Layer for Disruption Tolerance on the Internet

Several existing IP mobility solutions use invasive approaches, when adjustments in legacy protocols from the TCP/IP stack are necessary, or rely on specific network infrastructures. We devised an architecture to handle mobility using a Session-based Mobile Socket Layer (SMSL). With no need for software adaptation in the core of the network or adjustment on the TCP/IP stack, SMSL operates only at the end systems involved in the communication, being fully transparent to neighboring Transport and Application layers. The session scheme allows mobility awareness for TCP-based applications that require resilience to failures, delays, or disconnection. A general-purpose API extended from the Socket and implemented in GNU/Linux provides session services, such as tracking mobile peers, detecting disruptions, and suspending and resuming sessions with efficiency, security, and reliability. In this paper, we present the entire session support system as a mature work of research achieved with advances made in our previous study. The results of experiments in real and emulated test environments demonstrate efficiency. SMSL introduces little overhead, with a mean goodput degradation of 6.9% compared to an application implemented on top of the standard TCP/IP stack. Disruptions are detected in microseconds and suspended sessions resume in milliseconds for single-homed mobile nodes.
Higher education for happiness? Investigating the impact of education on the hedonic and eudaimonic well-being of Europeans

This study examines the impact of post-secondary education on the well-being of Europeans, comparing single-item hedonic and multi-dimensional eudaimonic models of well-being, operationalized as ‘satisfaction with life’ (SWL) and ‘flourishing’. The results indicate that the impact of education varies significantly when well-being is defined from each of these two perspectives: although vocational education is not significantly associated with the SWL of women and men, it is significantly associated with the extent to which both men and women are flourishing in their lives. Tertiary education is significant across all models for both SWL and flourishing. This study highlights the importance of comprehensive conceptualizations and measurements of well-being in European educational research and public policy.
CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION OF ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING (ERP): EMPIRICAL VALIDATION

Implementing an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system project is a difficult and high cost proposition as it places tremendous demands on organization’s time and resources. The ERP implementation literature contains many case studies of organizations that have implemented ERP systems successfully. However, many organizations do not achieve success in their ERP implementation projects. Much has been written about implementation and the critical success factors for ERP implementation projects. But there very few studies have scientifically developed and tested constructs that represent critical success factors of ERP implementation projects. Based on a survey of 53 organizations in Australia, the results suggest that a 65 item instrument that measures seven dimensions of ERP implementation is well validated. It is argued that model proposed in the paper is valuable to researchers and practitioners interested in implementing Enterprise Resource Planning systems.
Students’ perceptions of peer assessment effectiveness: an explorative study

ABSTRACT Despite increasing demands by stakeholders to instil teamwork skills in accounting graduates, the assessment practices associated with teamwork in the accounting curricula are not yet well developed. This study examined the association between students’ perceptions of peer assessment attributes (i.e. anonymity, question relevance and mark allocation) and the perceived effectiveness of peer assessment in preventing free riding, reducing conflict, improving communication and enhancing the quality of contributions to teamwork. A peer assessment approach was trialled at a master's accounting course at an Australian university and data were collected via a survey of students’ perceptions of their experiences. Quantitative and qualitative data were gathered to address the research objectives. The results suggested that students who found the mark allocation appropriate, also found that the peer evaluation system had a positive effect in reducing free riding, improving communication within the team and enhancing the quality of contribution of the team members. Students who highly valued the anonymity in peer assessment, also found that peer assessment reduced free riding among team members. Students’ qualitative comments suggested that additional mechanisms are needed in peer assessment, including formative feedback from peers and having teaching staff moderate the marks for summative assessment purposes.
Involvement of CD95/Apo1/Fas in cell death after myocardial ischemia.

BACKGROUND The death of cardiac cells during ischemia and reperfusion is partially mediated by apoptosis, as seen, eg, in autopsy material of patients after acute myocardial infarction. METHODS AND RESULTS To study the role of CD95/Fas/Apo1 for induction of postischemic cell death, we used an ischemia/reperfusion model of isolated rat and mouse hearts in Langendorff perfusion. In this model, caspase-dependent apoptosis occurred during postischemic reperfusion. Moreover, soluble CD95 ligand/Fas ligand was released by the postischemic hearts early after the onset of reperfusion. In addition, this ligand was synthesized de novo under these circumstances. Similar findings were observed for other "death-inducing" ligands, such as tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha and TNF-related apoptosis-inducing ligand. In primary adult rat myocyte culture, hypoxia and reoxygenation caused a marked increase in sensitivity to the apoptotic effects of CD95 ligand. Isolated hearts from mice lacking functional CD95 (lpr) display marked reduction in cell death after ischemia and reperfusion compared with wild-type controls. CONCLUSIONS These data suggest that CD95/Apo1/Fas is directly involved in cell death after myocardial ischemia. The CD95 system might thus represent a novel target for therapeutic prevention of postischemic cell death in the heart.
The Embodied Theory of Stress: A Constructionist Perspective on the Experience of Stress

An emphasis on the physiological activity related to psychological stress is hardly novel. Considering stress from the perspective of embodiment, however, places that physiological activity in a new light. Research and theory from that perspective emphasizes the reciprocal nature between psychological and physiological processes. This article incorporates findings regarding peripheral, body-based embodiment with existing theories to introduce a more integrated understanding of the experience of psychological stress. A discussion of central embodiment and modality-based simulations leads to the conclusion that the psychological construction paradigm may be more applicable than are previous stimulus–organism–response approaches. The embodied theory of stress (ETS) reflects the constructionist paradigm. The theory hypothesizes that situations are categorized as stressful, and consciously labeled as such, based on the unconscious, automatic integration of data from the body, the external environment, and previous experience. The ETS also asserts that experiences categorized as stressful are accompanied by unique patterns of physiological activity.
Not Only Individualism: The Effects of Long-Term Orientation and Other Cultural Variables on National Innovation Success

This article re-examines the effects of culture on national innovation rates. Pointing to the innovation success of some East Asian countries, it argues that the cultural dimension of individualism is not able to fully account for the role of culture in national innovativeness, and there is a need to include a wider set of cultural factors in the analysis. Several competing measures of national innovation performance over the last decade and Hofstede’s measures of culture, as well as their recently revised versions proposed by Minkov and collaborators, are employed to test the hypotheses. The findings show that, apart from individualism, long-term orientation, and flexibility, the dimensions omitted in the prior studies are positive and strong cultural predictors of national innovation intensity, whereas the role of other cultural factors finds little empirical support. The study suggests that there is no single pattern for the impact of culture on national innovation rates that should be taken into account in seeking effective innovation strategies and policies. It also highlights the need to advance the understanding of the causal mechanism between culture and innovativeness to guide further theoretical and empirical analysis.