Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Shell Dissolution in Larger Benthic Foraminifers Exposed to Ph and Temperature Extremes: Results from an in Situ Experiment

Areas where CO 2 -enriched gases discharge into shallow-marine environments can serve as natural laboratories to study the effects of elevated p CO 2 (i.e., ocean acidification) on benthic communities. Hydrothermal vents in Tutum Bay, Ambitle Island, Papua New Guinea, occur at depths of ~10 m and are surrounded by a tropical fringing coral reef. Live specimens of seven species of larger benthic foraminifers were collected from a nearby reef location, placed in small mesh bags, and deployed for five days at six different sites along a gradient of temperature (60–29°C) and pH (5.9–8.1). Foraminiferal species that differ in shell structure (porcelaneous vs. hyaline) and composition (high- and intermediate-Mg calcite) were used in the experiment. Approximately 25% of the specimens, representing four of the seven species, retained normal symbiont color and exhibited minimal dissolution when exposed for five days to temperatures up to 60°C and pH as low as 6.2; shells of specimens that lost symbiont color during deployment exhibited extensive corrosion. More than 80% of the specimens, representing at least one of each species, retained normal symbiont color where the temperature was approximately 40°C and pH fluctuated between 5.9 and 7.4. These observations indicate that shells of reef-dwelling foraminifers can substantially resist dissolution, as long as organic matter is largely intact, under pH conditions sufficiently extreme to erase any fossil footprint.
Effect of fasting during Ramadan on fetal Doppler indices and amniotic fluid volume

Aim of work: To assess the effect of fasting for a whole month during Ramadan on the fetal Doppler indices and amniotic fluid index.Patients and Methods: The study involved 240 healthy women in the third trimester of a normal singleton pregnancy. The umbilical artery resistance index (RI) and middle cerebral artery (MCA) pulsatility index (PI) and the amniotic fluid index were measured at the beginning of Ramadan and at the end of the month. Of the included women, 157 (65.4%) chose to fast (Group 1) and 83 (34.6%) were not fasting (Group 2). Results: On reassessment, 9 participants were lost to follow up, 2 women developed hypertension and another woman had preterm delivery. Thus, results at the end of Ramadan were presented for 228 women; 152 in the fasting and 76 in the non-fasting group. On initial assessment, there was no significant difference between fasting and non-fasting women regarding umbilical artery RI (p = 0.645), MCA PI (p = 0.581) and AMF (p = 0.070). During re-assessment at the end of Ramadan, there was no significant difference between the two groups regarding umbilical artery RI (p = 0.519), MCA PI (p = 0.383) and AMF (p = 0.339). At the end of Ramadan, there was a statistically significant decrease of Doppler indices and AFI. However, all values were within the clinically accepted range.Conclusion: Maternal fasting during Ramadan does not adversely affects fetal condition based on finding of normal Doppler indices and amniotic fluid index, provided woman is young and healthy.
Comparing Value and Growth Stock Return: Empirical Test

In this study, we investigate to compare average return of value and growth stock during 8 years from 2001 until 2008 in Tehran Stock Exchange. Samples include 91 firms in order to classify value and growth we used B/M. data mining for beginning book value and ending market value of stock performed. Three classes were separate. Highest and lowest classes were chosen and middle class was omitted. Average return of highest group (value stock) and lowest group (growth one) were computed . statistical method was paired samples T test. Results corroborate average value stock holding returns of one year to 7 years were greater than average growth stock holding return. This difference during 7 years was significant. On the other hands, the different average return on 8 th year was not
The velocity modulation of galaxy properties in and near clusters: quantifying the decrease in star formation in backsplash galaxies

Ongoing or recent star formation in galaxies is known to increase with increasing projected distance from the centre of a cluster out to several times its virial radius (Rv). Using a complete sample (Mrlm20.5, 0.02 lzl 0.15) of galaxies in and around 268 clusters from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey's Fourth Data Release, we investigate how, at a given projected radius from the cluster centre, the stellar mass and star formation properties of a galaxy depend on its absolute line-of-sight velocity in the cluster rest frame, |vLOS|. We find that for projected radii R l 0.5 Rv, the fraction of high-mass non-brightest cluster galaxies increases towards the centre for low |vLOS|, which may be the consequence of the faster orbital decay of massive galaxies by dynamical friction. At a given projected radius, the fraction of Galaxies with Ongoing or Recent (l1n3 Gyr) Efficient Star Formation [GORES; with EW(Hd) g 2 A a Dn4000 g 1.5] is slightly but significantly lower for low |vLOS| galaxies than for their high-velocity counterparts. We study these observational trends with the help of a dark matter (DM) cosmological simulation. We classify DM particles as virial, infall and backsplash according to their present positions in (r, vr) radial phase space and measure the frequencies of each class in cells of (R, |vLOS|) projected phase space. As expected, the virial class dominates at projected radii R l Rv, while the infall particles dominate outside, especially at high |vLOS|. However, the backsplash particles account for at least one-third (half) of all particles at projected radii slightly greater than the virial radius and |vLOS| l sv (|vLOS| ≪sv). The deprojection of the GORES fraction leads to a saturated linear increase with radius. We fit simple models of the fraction of GORES as a function of class only or class and distance to the cluster centre (as in our deprojected fraction). While GORES account for 18 p 1 per cent of all galaxies within the virial cylinder, in our best-fitting model, they account for 13 p 1 per cent of galaxies within the virial sphere, 11 p 1 per cent of the virial population, 34 p 1 per cent of the distant (for projected radii R l 2 Rv) infall population and 19 p 4 per cent of the backsplash galaxies. Also, 44 p 2 per cent of the GORES within the virial cylinder are outside the virial sphere. These fractions are very robust to the precise good-fitting model and to our scheme for assigning simulation particle classes according to their positions in radial phase space (except for two of our models, where the fraction of GORES reaches 27 p 4 per cent). Given the 1n3 Gyr lookback time of our GORES indicators, these results suggest that star formation in a galaxy is almost completely quenched in a single passage through the cluster.
A Theoretical Critique of the Western Biases in the Political Process Theory of Social Movements

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the construction of a theoretical framework for empirical examination of social movements in Third World countries. Political process theory, currently a dominant perspective on social movements, is the most promising starting point for such a research program; however, it has inherent Western biases, which severely limit its explanatory power for examining Third World social movements. Specifically, I contend that political process theory's understanding of the relationship between the state and social movements, as well as its assumptions about the dynamics of political opportunity structures, inadequately capture the complexities of the Third World social movements. Therefore, as the basis of a larger project, I critique the western biases inherent in the theoretical framework of the political process theory, focusing exclusively on Doug McAdams contributions to this approach. I employ a hermeneutic method, since it provides a useful means for engaging in discourse with texts. I conclude that McAdams views on political opportunity and the state reflect a Eurocentric reading and understanding, in large part because his analyses have been based on democratic states. Accordingly, some of the political process theory's key shortcomings for Third World applications are that it overemphasizes the analytic and practical importance of the
A Monte Carlo Comparison between Ridge and Principal Components Regression Methods

A basic assumption concerned with general linear regression model is that there is no correlation (or no multicollinearity) between the explanatory variables. When this assumption is not satisfied, the least squares estimators have large variances and become unstable and may have a wrong sign. Therefore, we resort to biased regression methods, which stabilize the parameter estimates. Ridge regression (RR) and principal components regression (PCR) are two of the most popular biased regression methods. In this article, we used Monte Carlo experiments to estimate the regression coefficients by RR and PCR methods. A comparison between RR and PCR methods was made in the sense of having smaller mean squares error (MSE). Based on this simulation study, we found that RR method performs better than PCR method. Mathematics Subject Classification: 62J07; 62H25; 65C05
Bankruptcy Law and Entrepreneurship

Recent initiatives in a number of countries have sought to promote entrepreneurship through relaxing the legal consequences of personal bankruptcy. Whilst there is an intuitive link, relatively little attention has been paid to the question empirically, particularly in the international context. We investigate the relationship between bankruptcy laws and entrepreneurship using data on self-employment over 16 years (1990--2005) and fifteen countries in Europe and North America. We compile new indices reflecting how "forgiving" personal bankruptcy laws are. These measures vary over time and across the countries studied. We show that bankruptcy law has a statistically and economically significant effect on self-employment rates when controlling for GDP growth, MSCI stock returns, and a variety of other legal and economic factors. Copyright 2008, Oxford University Press.
Commercial banks efficiency in Tanzania: A non parametric approach

This paper employs Data Envelopment analysis (DEA) to estimate the relative efficiency of selected 20 commercial banks in Tanzania from 2008 to 2011. The findings are categorized based on two groups of commercial banks operating in Tanzania i.e. small and large groups. The selection of these two groups is based on Total asset accumulation, the empirical findings indicates technical efficiency of the selected large banks in Tanzania ranges from 0.54(2008) to 0.79(2011) respectively. There were sharp decline of technical efficiency from 0.79(2008) to 0.54(2009) there after showing increasing trend of technical efficiency to 0.74(2010), generally the results shows that banks are using more resources than what they are producing. In this study this is to say selected large Banks were supposed to use 79 percent to 54 percent of resources available for them to be efficient without compromising the output level under CRS. On another hand small banks were found to be performing worse compared to large banks for example under constant return to scale, the average technical efficiency ranges from 0.70(2008) to 0.65(2011). Similarly the small banks were supposed to use 70% to 65% respectively to produce the current level of output. Under VRS both large and small banks were found to have different efficiency levels, with large banks experiencing more efficiency level compared to small banks, pure technical efficiency declined from 0.91 for large banks in the year 2008 to 0.83 by the year 2011.In this scenario large banks were supposed to reduce input resources by 9 percent 2008, 22%2009, 10 percent 2010 and 17 percent 2011 in similar vein small banks were supposed to reduce input resources by 29 percent (2008), 40 percent 2009, 24 percent (2010) as well as 31 percent 2011while maintaining the present output levels. Therefore inefficiency utilization of input resources could be one of the reasons for inefficiency of commercial banks in Tanzania. Commercial banks operating in the country still have a chance of improvement. It is observed that through make use of underutilized resources and reduce operating expenses most commercial banks will remain to be relative efficient in the production frontier. Key words : Data Envelopment Analysis, Tanzania Commercial banks, Efficiency,
Television content and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms: Testing the relationship on preschoolers

The present study examined the role that the violent television plays in the manifestation of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) symptoms in a Canadian sample of preschool-aged children. The parents of preschool-aged children at increased risk (n = 8) and low risk (n = 25) for ADHD provided information about their child’s television viewing patterns and favourite programs. Separate ANOVAs were used to evaluate the relationship between the group status and the amount of television viewing per day and the level of violence in their preferred television program. Results indicated that television exposure is not significantly related to the manifestation of ADHD symptoms in a Canadian sample of preschool-aged children. These findings partially replicate those from a recent study indicating lack of correlation between television exposure and ADHD associated behaviours in children at-risk of ADHD. However, further research should be conducted with a larger sample size.
Intervention of Self-Monitoring Body Movement has an Immediate Beneficial Effect to Maintain Postural Stability

Clinicians in rehabilitation sometimes encourage patients to become consciously aware of somatosensory inputs from the body. However, it is still unclear whether such intervention has any beneficial role on human postural control. The present study conducted two experiments to investigate whether an intervention involving conscious awareness of the body (i.e., self-monitoring) contributes to improved ability of postural control as measured immediately after an intervention of self-monitoring. All participants were subjected to four interventions: (a) self-monitoring actual movement (referred to as “move + monitoring” condition), (b) self-monitoring the imagined movement (“imagery”), (c) actual movement without self-monitoring (“move + arithmetic”), and (d) performing an arithmetic task without movement (“arithmetic”). The amounts of postural sway among measurements after the four interventions were compared. The results showed that, for the unipedal posture, but not for the bipedal posture, postural stability was higher after the move + monitoring intervention. This suggests that the self-monitoring activity is beneficial to postural control when maintaining upright posture is more challenging. Postural stability was also higher after the imagery condition, ensuring that the beneficial effects would have resulted from the activity of self-monitoring itself but not simply from accurate movement. These results were replicated in the two experiments, showing the reliability of the data. Interestingly, such beneficial effects were evident not only when participants self-monitored the movement of the ankle joint, i.e., the joint which is directly involved in upright postural control, but also when they self-monitored movement of the wrist (Experiment 1) or shoulder (Experiment 2). Therefore, the beneficial effects of self-monitoring are likely to be independent of the body parts used for self-monitoring.
Stochastic Dominance in Wheat Variety Development and Release Strategies

Variety development and release decisions involve tradeoffs between yields and characteristics valued by end-users, as well as uncertainties about agronomic, quality, and economic variables. In this study, methods are developed to determine the value of varieties to growers and end-users including the effects of variability in economic, agronomic, and quality variables. The application is to hard red spring (HRS) wheat, a class of wheat for which these tradeoffs and risks are particularly apparent. Results indicate two experimental varieties provide improvements in grower and end-user value, relative to incumbents. Stochastic dominance techniques and statistical tests are applied to determine efficient sets and robustness of the results. A risk-adjusted portfolio model, which simultaneously incorporates correlations between grower and end-use characteristics, is also developed to compare the portfolio value of varieties.
Magnetic and Transport Properties of PrNi Single Crystal

Charles University, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics Department of Electronic Structures Ke Karlovu 5, 121 16 Prague 2, Czech Republic Frequency dependence of χ′′(T ), different position of a maximum in χ′′(T ) for different crystal orientations, hysteretic behavior between magnetization measurements in zero-field cooling and field coolding regime are attributed to strong magneto-crystalline anisotropy of PrNi ferromagnetic single crystal with TC = 20.5 K, which is driven by crystal field effect. Applied pressure shifts TC to higher temperatures (dTC/dp = 1 K/GPa). Susceptibility follows the Curie–Weiss law except for b-axis, which is hard magnetic axis. An anisotropic behavior was seen in resistivity measurements with the largest difference between b-axis and c-axis. Resistivity below TC can be described by power law with ρ ∼ T 2.24 and is field dependent with a positive magnetoresistance.
Global estimates of biomass burning emissions based on satellite imagery for the year 2000

5613 Tg DM yr � 1 , of which 2814 Tg DM yr � 1 is associated with open burning and the remainder with biofuels. The total emissions are 2290 Tg C yr � 1 (as CO2), 496 Tg CO yr � 1 , 32.2 Tg CH4 yr � 1 , 38.0 Tg NHMC yr � 1 , 11.5 Tg HCHO yr � 1 , 9.2 Tg CH3OH yr � 1 , 21.7 Tg CH3COOH yr � 1 , and 38.3 Tg PM2.5 yr � 1 . Our estimates for CO2, CO, and CH4 emissions from open biomass burning combined with estimates of those from biofuel burning are in the range of the estimates constrained by chemical transport models and measurements. Our use of spatially and temporally explicit data and these comparisons to global models support the conclusion that our source map offers improvements in the emission data sets for estimating the global effects of biomass burning. INDEXTERMS:0322 Atmospheric Composition and Structure: Constituent sources and sinks; 1610 Global Change: Atmosphere (0315, 0325); 0315 Atmospheric Composition and Structure: Biosphere/atmosphere interactions; 0325 Atmospheric Composition and Structure: Evolution of the atmosphere; 4805 Oceanography: Biological and Chemical: Biogeochemical cycles (1615); KEYWORDS: biomass burning, burned area, fuel load Citation: Ito, A. , and J. E. Penner (2004), Global estimates of biomass burning emissions based on satellite imagery for the year 2000, J. Geophys. Res., 109, D14S05, doi:10.1029/2003JD004423.
How Does Corporate Governance Affect Bank Performance? The Mediating Role of Risk Governance

This paper aims to investigate how bank governance (board size, board composition, ownership structure) affects performance (ROA), by considering the mediating role of risk governance (presence of a risk committee, the number of meetings of the risk committee in one year, the risk committee size, the percentage of independent directors in the risk committee, and the presence of a chief risk officer). A sample of 31 Italian listed banks is examined over a ten-year period (2008-2017), in order to delineate the changes in corporate governance structure and to catch the effects of the current national and European regulations followed to the financial crisis. Hypotheses are tested by applying a mediation analysis according to the causal steps procedure. The main findings suggest that risk governance fully mediates the corporate governance-bank performance relationship. Specifically, we find that the board size is positively related to the presence of a risk committee and to the number of meetings. The percentage of independent directors on board is positively related to the percentage of independent directors in the risky committee and, in turn, has a positive effect on performance. Finally, the presence of institutional owners is positively related to the presence of a chief risk officer and, thus, to bank performance. Summing up, banks with wider and more heterogeneous boards of directors have better risk management-related corporate governance mechanisms and reach higher performance levels.
Effects of Globalization on Labor's Share in National Income

The past two decades have seen a decline in labor's share of national income in several industrial countries. This paper analyzes the role of three factors in explaining movements in labor's share - factor-biased technological progress, openness to trade, and changes in employment protection - using a panel of 18 industrial countries over 1960-2000. Since most studies suggest that globalization and rapid technological progress (associated with accelerated information technology development) began in the mid-1980s, the sample is split in 1985 into preglobalization/pre-IT revolution and postglobalization/post-IT revolution eras. The results suggest that the decline in labor's share during the past few decades in the OECD member countries may have been largely an equilibrium, rather than a cyclical, phenomenon, as the distribution of national income between labor and capital adjusted to capital-augmenting technological progress and a more globalized world economy.
The ebb and flow of official calls in water polo

Defensive fouls play an important role in elite men’s water polo generating over half of all goals. Despite their importance, little is known about the relationship between foul calling patterns and other game-state variables in the sport. Here we apply a sequence of hierarchical mixed logistic regression models on data from major tournaments in 2012–2014 to study such relationships and find a number of significant biases in foul calling rates. Offensive teams who are winning/tied are about 31% less likely to draw a defensive foul and 32% more likely to get called for an offensive foul than teams who are losing. The magnitude of losing team bias tends to increase over the course of a game, but is not significantly affected by the size of the lead. A team’s odds of getting called for a foul also increase by about 10% for each consecutive goal scored or foul called in their favor. These biases persist across different offensive and defensive tactical decisions and tournaments suggesting that they are widespread and that it is referees, rather than teams, who are responsible for a lack of independence in water polo foul calling rates.
Beginning to Unlock the Black Box in the HR Firm Performance Relationship: The Impact of HR Practices on Employee Attitudes and Employee Outcomes

Theoretical models in strategic human resource management research commonly include employee attitudes and behaviors as key mediating links between human resource practices and firm performance. However, almost all empirical SHRM work to date has ignored the mediating hypothesis and merely examined the direct relationship between HR practices and firm outcomes. The purpose of this study is to test the relationship between HR practices and employee attitudes and behaviors. Using a sample of 174 independent work groups, we examined the relationship between HR practices and collective behaviors (turnover and absenteeism) mediated by collective attitudes (job satisfaction and commitment). Results indicate attitudes partially mediate the relationship between HR practices and employee behaviors. The direct and indirect relationships identified in this study support the notion that attitudes and behaviors play a mediating role between HR practices and firm outcomes. These findings illustrate the varying impacts of HR practices and the importance of utilizing multilevel theory and methods.