Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
3D Deformation In Strike-Slip Systems: Analogue Modelling And Numerical Restoration

Regional and local strike-slip systems in Chile are complex and pose interesting questions, such as the interaction between strike-slip and reverse faults, how they evolve, and the relationship between shortening, rotation and uplift. Within this context, we developed a new analytical method based on analogue and numerical modelling applied to 3D, pure and transtensional-transpressional strike-slip systems. Analogue modelling results indicate that in restraining stepovers of strike-slip fault systems, where antiformal pop-up structures are usually formed, pre-existent basement structures with a high angle to the main strike-slip fault will generate a higher rotation of blocks. However, when these structures are oriented at a high angle with respect to the main stress convergence vector, the rotation will be less and therefore a higher tendency to uplift will be produced. These results were applied to NW- and SE-striking basement faults oblique to N-S mega-thrust faults in central Chile (32o-35oS), for which we propose a simultaneous development based on the analogue model results. Moreover, we propose that strike-slip movement occurred on thrust faults in central Chile. Furthermore, we performed a numerical restoration of an analogue experiment which modeled a pure strike-slip system, and concluded that the restoration is very sensitive to shortening data as well as to rotational data. These results are extremely important for future numerical and regional analysis of strike-slip systems.
Morphological characterization of leaves and fruit of Jujube (Ziziphus mauritiana Lamk.) germplasm in Faisalabad, Pakistan.

The genus Ziziphus (Jujube) with more than 100 species of deciduous or evergreen trees and shrubs distributed in the tropical and subtropical regions of the world offers sufficient plants genetic resources suitable for arid and semi arid climates to enhance food security. Some of the species, like Z. mauritiana occur in nearly every continent and is thought to possess great genetic diversity. The traditional selection and cultivation of Ziziphus varieties in China and India resulted in better known and more widely researched varieties than those in other regions. Several local and exotic ber varieties are cultivated for fruit production in Pakistan with the least research work regarding different aspects including morphological characterization of the available germplasm resources. In this study, existing gene pool was characterized for physical and morphological diversity to develop a reliable identification key which would lead to characterization, selection and approval of better germplasm for further cultivation. Eleven commercial varieties (Desi, Selection–13, Gola, Selection 11, Karnal Local, Gourh, Karela, Umran–9, Mirpuri, Khati Mithi, and Badam) and two unknown strains (Anonymous–1 and Anonymous–2) of ber were studied for qualitative and quantitative characters. The quantitative studies included leaf area, petiole length and fruit diameter, weight and volume while, qualitative studies comprised of leaf shape, apex, base, margins and characteristics of leaf dorsal and ventral surface. Fruits from the selected strains were also subjected to morphological studies including shape, type of stem-end and cavity, form of styler-end and skin appearance. Results showed great physico-morphological diversity suggesting division of all the 13 cultivars into 4 sections.
ACCOUNTING WORKSHOP “ The CEO-Employee Pay Ratio ”

We examine the ratio of CEO to employee pay (the pay ratio) for a broad sample of U.S. commercial banks. For the vast majority of the sample, pay ratios are substantially lower than the levels popularized in the financial press. Pay ratios are increasing in firm size, performance and leverage, and decreasing in firm risk. We document a significant convex (concave) relation between the pay ratio and future firm risk (operating performance), but the economic magnitude of these effects is relatively small. The results also reveal a nonlinear relation between pay ratios and shareholder votes on “say on pay” proposals such that dissent is higher in the tails of the pay ratio distribution. All results are robust to controlling for CEO pay, indicating that required disclosures of executive compensation are not a substitute for pay ratios. JEL classification: D33; G21; G32; G38; J33; K22
Technical Analysis and Stochastic Properties of Exchange Rate Movements: Empirical Evidence from the Romanian Currency Market

Romanian currency market considering the episodic character of linear and/or nonlinear dependencies, between 1999 and 2008. The main conclusion is that profitability of moving average strategies is not constant over time and that is mainly due to linear and nonlinear episodic dependencies. The trading rule profits did not declined over time in the case of the Romanian currency market. Exploring the causes of profitability, it was found that it was closely related to the intensity of manifestation of episodic linear and nonlinear dependencies, the state of the market, and it was not the result of a time varying risk premium. The empirical results are consistent with the Adaptive Markets Hypothesis (Lo, 2004), but not with the Efficient Market Hypothesis.
A Cross-Sectional Study on the Prevalence, Antimicrobial Susceptibility Patterns, and Associated Bacterial Pathogens of

A cross-sectional study on mastitis in lactating goats was undertaken to estimate the prevalence, associated bacterial pathogens, and their antimicrobial resistance patterns in the Southern Rift Valley Region of Ethiopia. Of the 340 lactating goats physically examined, 8 (2.4%) showed clinical mastitis. Among the 680 milk samples collected from the 340 lactating goats, 278 (40.9%) were California mastitis test positive, and on culturing, 250 (89.9%) yielded bacterial growth. The main bacterial pathogens isolated were coagulase-negative staphylococci (CNS) (9.6%), Staphylococcus aureus (12.8%), and Bacillus (13.8%) and
A Review of Forest Policies, Institutions, and Changes in the Resource Condition in Nepal

SUMMARY This paper reviews the evolution of forest policies and forestry institutions in Nepal and tracks the accompanying trends of change in the country's forest cover over the last century. Our objective is to provide an essential foundation to the policy reform process that is underway in Nepal and many other Asian countries. The review shows that before 1957 the Nepalese government's focus was on conversion of forestlands to farmlands, and extraction of timber for export. After the nationalisation of the forests in 1957 until 1976, policy-making efforts were oriented towards national control of forests through stringent laws and expansion of the forest bureaucracy. This approach failed as evidenced by widespread deforestation and forest degradation across the country during the 1960s through 1980s. Early efforts of the government and donor agencies to rectify the problem through reforestation and afforestation also largely failed, but these efforts paved the way for subsequent initiation of the participatory approach to forest management in the late 1970s. Since then, community-based forest management evolved continuously under the aegis of supportive forest policies and legislations. The present community forestry program has met with notable successes in some areas. However, the program has been confronted with some contentious issues in recent years including a policy debate over the suitability of forests in the southern lowlands (the terai) for community management and sharing of income obtained from community forests. These and some other issues surrounding the community forestry program are discussed and their implications for designing or improving future forest governance have been identified.
Talking on a Wireless Cellular Device While Driving: Improving the Validity of Crash Odds Ratio Estimates in the SHRP 2 Naturalistic Driving Study

Dingus and colleagues (Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2016, 113, 2636–2641) reported a crash odds ratio (OR) estimate of 2.2 with a 95% confidence interval (CI) from 1.6 to 3.1 for hand-held cell phone conversation (hereafter, “Talk”) in the SHRP 2 naturalistic driving database. This estimate is substantially higher than the effect sizes near one in prior real-world and naturalistic driving studies of conversation on wireless cellular devices (whether hand-held, hands-free portable, or hands-free integrated). Two upward biases were discovered in the Dingus study. First, it selected many Talk-exposed drivers who simultaneously performed additional secondary tasks besides Talk but selected Talk-unexposed drivers with no secondary tasks. This “selection bias” was removed by: (1) filtering out records with additional tasks from the Talk-exposed group; or (2) adding records with other tasks to the Talk-unexposed group. Second, it included records with driver behavior errors, a confounding bias that was also removed by filtering out such records. After removing both biases, the Talk OR point estimates declined to below 1, now consistent with prior studies. Pooling the adjusted SHRP 2 Talk OR estimates with prior study effect size estimates to improve precision, the population effect size for wireless cellular conversation while driving is estimated as 0.72 (CI 0.60–0.88).
From induction to suppression: How to manipulate plant defenses

Plants have evolved traits, including induced defenses, to resist herbivores. However, some plant-eating spider mites (Tetranychus spp.) have adapted to plant defenses to maintain a high reproductive performance. From natural populations of two species of mites, T. urticae and T. evansi, three lines were selected and demonstrated to suppress induced defenses of tomato plants downstream from the accumulation of the defense-regulating hormones jasmonate (JA) and salicylate (SA), and independently of JA-SA crosstalk. When sharing a leaflet, the suppression by T. evansi is powerful enough to co-suppress the JA and SA responses induced by T. urticae mites that cannot suppress defenses (‘inducers’), thereby improving the reproductive performance of the latter. A subsequent analysis of the spatiotemporal dynamics of induction and suppression at the within leaflet scale revealed that these are predominantly local events. Furthermore, T. evansi was found to hyper-suppress defenses in response to the nearby presence of T. urticae competitors and this coincided with an increased reproductive performance of T. evansi, but not T. urticae. Hence, inducer mites do not always - or immediately - benefit from co-occurring suppressors. Zooming in further, inducer and suppressor T. urticae were shown to harbor different bacterial endosymbionts and removal of these bacteria with antibiotics affected mite performance, mite gene expression, mite feeding intensity, and tomato responses to mite feeding. Finally, genome-wide transcriptomic responses of tomato plants to feeding by suppressor and inducer mites were analyzed to identify T. evansi-responsive tomato promoters to use these to engineer an inducible resistance to suppressor mites.
Low-Insertion-Loss and Power-Efficient 32 × 32 Silicon Photonics Switch With Extremely High-Δ Silica PLC Connector

We fabricate a 32 × 32 silicon photonics switch on a 300-mm silicon-on-insulator wafer by using our complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor pilot line equipped with an immersion ArF scanner and demonstrate an average fiber-to-fiber insertion loss of 10.8 dB with a standard deviation of 0.54 dB, and on-chip electric power consumption of 1.9 W. The insertion loss and the power consumption are approximately 1/60, and less than 1/4 of our previous results, respectively. These significant improvements are achieved by design and fabrication optimization of waveguides and intersections on the chip, and by employing a novel optical fiber connector based on extremely-high-Δ silica planar-lightwave-circuit (PLC) technology. The minimum crosstalk was −26.6 dB at a wavelength of 1547 nm, and −20-dB crosstalk bandwidth was 3.5 nm. Furthermore, we demonstrate low-crosstalk bandwidth expansion by using output port exchanged element switches. We achieve a −20 dB crosstalk bandwidth of 14.2 nm, which is four-times wider than that of the conventional element switch based 32 × 32 switch.
Climatic Change A simple technique for estimating an allowance for uncertain sea-level rise

Projections of climate change are inherently uncertain, leading to considerable debate over suitable allowances for future changes such as sea-level rise (an ‘allowance’ is, in this context, the amount by which something, such as the height of coastal infrastructure, needs to be altered to cope with climate change). Words such as ‘plausible’ and ‘high-end’ abound, with little objective or statistically valid support. It is firstly shown that, in cases in which extreme events are modified by an uncertain change in the average (e.g. flooding caused by a rise in mean sea level), it is preferable to base future allowances on estimates of the expected frequency of exceedances rather than on the probability of at least one exceedance. A simple method of determining a future sea-level rise allowance is then derived, based on the projected rise in mean sea level and its uncertainty, and on the variability of present tides and storm surges (‘storm tides’). The method preserves the expected frequency of flooding events under a given projection of sea-level rise. It is assumed that the statistics of storm tides relative to mean sea level are unchanged. The method is demonstrated using the GESLA (Global Extreme Sea-Level Analysis) data set of roughly hourly sea levels, covering 198 sites over much of the globe. Two possible projections of sea-level rise are assumed for the 21st century: one based on the Third and Fourth Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and a larger one based on research since the Fourth Assessment Report. The final publication is available at www.springerlink. com Full reference: Hunter, J., 2011. A simple technique for estimating an allowance for uncertain sea-level rise, Climatic Change, DOI 10.1007/s10584-011-0332-1.
Multivariate optimization of the QuEChERS-GC-ECD method and pesticide investigation residues in apples, strawberries, and tomatoes produced in Brazilian south

Apple, strawberry and tomato are among the foods with higher contamination for pesticide use in Brazil. Thereby, a multivariate optimization of the QuEChERS method coupled to GC-ECD was proposed to investigate the level of pesticides residues clorpyrifos, dimethoate, malathion, mevinphos, pedimentalina, simazine and trifluralin in apple, strawberries and tomatoes produced in Santa Catarina state, South of Brazil. The process involved a two-level full factorial and Doehlert designs followed by validation of the modified method and its application in 91 real samples collected during the years 2010 and 2011. Modifications in the method provided increased detectability and satisfactory values of linearity, accuracy and precision. In real samples, residues of at least one pesticide (> LOQ) were found in 8 (27.6%) apple, 12 (40.0%) strawberry and 17 (53.1%) tomato samples. The results indicated the necessity of continuous monitoring for pesticide use in fruits and vegetables.
MONETARY POLICY AND THE CAUSALITY BETWEEN INFLATION AND MONEY SUPPLY IN INDONESIA

Conceptually and empirically, inflation volatility in Indonesia is a monetary and fiscal phenomenon. This study focuses on the macroeconomic policy and public policy especially causality between two variables namely inflation and money supply in Indonesia. This study uses Indonesian macroeconomic data of inflation and money supply from the Bank of Indonesia publication during 2007.1–2017.7. Inflation is measured by the consumer price index, reflects the annual percentage change in costs of acquiring a basket of goods and services to the average consumers that may change at specified intervals. Meanwhile, money supply is measured by the currency, demand deposits, time deposits, and saving deposits. Methodically, this study uses the Granger Causality model to determine the causality between inflation and money supply. The results show that there is a one-way causality between inflation and money supply in Indonesia. These findings imply that money supply causes inflation, but not vice versa. This condition implies that the role of Indonesian Government and Bank of Indonesia were very crucial in managing and controlling macroeconomic policy and public policy. Then, analysis of money supply and inflation also related to impacting factors such as money laundering, role of banks, taxation, tax evasion, and corruption.
Genetic Diversity and Correlation Studies for Cotton Leaf Curl Disease (CLCuD), Fiber & Yield Related Attributes in Exotic Lines of Gossypium arboreum L.

Genetic diversity provides the foundation for crop improvement. Genetic variation and associations among Cotton Leaf Curl Disease (CLCuD), fiber and yield related traits were investigated in exotic lines of Gossypium arboreum L. in an experimental field at the Central Cotton Research Institute (CCRI), Multan, Pakistan during the crop season 2011-12. One hundred and nineteen (119) accessions imported from USA through the Pakistan and US “Cotton Productivity Enhancement Program” (CPEP), were evaluated in this study. Various statistical approaches including descriptive statistics, correlation and principal component analysis was performed to evaluate and identify desirable genotypes. Results revealed that seed cotton yield was significantly and positively correlated with boll weight and number of bolls plant-1. Similarly, plant height was also significantly correlated with sympodial branches, lint percentage and micronaire value. Lint percentage showed a highly significant and positive correlation with plant height, sympodial branches and micronaire value. With respect to fiber traits, negative and significant relationships were observed between the micronaire value (MIC) and fiber strength. CLCuD showed no relationship with any of the studied traits, as all the G. arboreum L. lines evaluated were scored resistant to CLCuD. Principal component analysis (PCA) showed that the first four out of 11 components contributed about 65.88% of the total variation having an eigen value greater than 1. Based on PCA, the genotypes GS-4, GS-9, GS-8, GS-55 and GS-50 could be utilized successfully in a future breeding program based on having the highest positive loading factor for staple length (0.135) in PC1 and seed cotton yield (0.625), number of bolls plant-1, boll weight, first sympodial nod, staple length and fiber strength in PC2 respectively.
An update on the treatment of acromegaly

Correspondence: Anthony P Heaney Department of Medicine and Neurosurgery, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, 200 Medical Building Suite 530, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA Tel +1 310 825 7922 Fax +1 310 267 1899 Email aheaney@mednet.ucla. edu Abstract: Acromegaly is caused by pituitary somatotroph hypersecretion of growth hormone leading to elevated hepatic-derived and local levels of insulin-like growth factor-1. It is associated with increased morbidity and mortality due primarily to cardiovascular disease and diabetes mellitus. Normalization of growth hormone and insulin-like growth factor-1 levels has been associated with decreased morbidity from metabolic and cardiovascular effects, as well as reduced overall mortality in epidemiologic studies. Many patients experience a delay in obtaining a diagnosis, have pituitary macroadenomas at presentation, and accordingly, a significant number will not be cured by tumor surgical resection alone. Adjunctive radiation therapy cannot always offer biochemical and clinical disease control and carries a 40% risk of partial or total pituitary failure in the medium term. Several monotherapies or combination medical therapies are currently available for both primary and adjuvant acromegaly treatment, and include long-acting somatostatin analogs, the growth hormone receptor antagonist pegvisomant, and dopamine agonists. Next generation somatostatin analogs and new drug delivery methods of existing agents are in ongoing clinical studies. This paper will review current and novel therapies under development for acromegaly.
A Retrospective Study Of Sports Injuries Reported At The National Sports Medicine Centre, Lagos, South-West, Nigeria

Background: Injuries arising from sports range from minor soft tissue strains to major disruption of vital organs and bone fractures. Each sport has its characteristic injury profile and the degree of risk and the injuries vary widely among the sports. There is however a paucity of literature on the epidemiology of sports injuries in Nigeria.Objective: The purpose of the study was to find out the nature and distribution of sports injuries presented by national athletes to the National Sports Medicine Centre, Lagos, Nigeria. Design: Retrospective study.Setting: National Sports Medicine Centre, Lagos, Southwest, Nigeria.Participants: Case files of athletic patients in six selected sports.Results: A total number of 171 sports injuries were obtained at the general records unit of the sports medicine centre with a male to female ratio of 2:1. Muscle strain was the most frequent type of injury (33.3%) followed by sprain (22.2%). Majority of the injuries were to the lower limbs of which the thigh was the most injured (22.2%) followed closely by the knee (21.6%). Track and field events presented the highest number of injuries (37.4%). Conclusions: Incidence of sports injuries was highest in track and field events with muscle/tendon strains most frequent and majority of injuries were to the lower limbs. Therefore establishing injury prevention programmes and policies directed at the lower limbs may help reduce the risk of injuries to the lower limbs.
Thermal rupture of a free liquid sheet

We consider a free liquid sheet, taking into account the dependence of surface tension on the temperature or concentration of some pollutant. The sheet dynamics are described within a long-wavelength description. In the presence of viscosity, local thinning of the sheet is driven by a strong temperature gradient across the pinch region, resembling a shock. As a result, for long times the sheet thins exponentially, leading to breakup. We describe the quasi-one-dimensional thickness, velocity and temperature profiles in the pinch region in terms of similarity solutions, which possess a universal structure. Our analytical description agrees quantitatively with numerical simulations.