Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Influence of trawling activity on the breeding ecology of a threatened seabird, Audouin\'s gull Larus audouinii

The ~nfluence of a trawling moratorium on the breedlng ecology of Audouin's gulls (Larus audouinii Payraudeau) was investigated during 1992 and 1993 in the largest colony of the species in the world (70% of total population), at the Ebro Delta, NE Spain. western Mediterranean. In this colony, Audouin's gull behaves partly as a scavenger following the trawling fleet and exploiting fishing discards. Each year, the trawling moratorium affected different breeding stages of the species: in 1992 it overlapped with pre-laying and laying stages, while in 1993 it affected most of the chick-rearing stage. We examined differences in laying dates, laying interval, clutch and egg slzes, nest desertion during laying, hatching success, hatchling mass and condition, growth rates, chick survival and breeding success. The moratorium greatly affected egg production in 1992, delaying the start of l ay~ng and dramatically decreasing clutch and egg sizes. Intraclutch egg size variation between the 2 years suggests that egg size profiles are outcomes of the interaction between physiological and environmental factors rather than the result of ultimate factors. Nest desertion was much higher in 1992, probably because some females were under a critical body condit~on threshold and they deserted after laying the first egg. Hatching success also decreased significantly during 1992, probably related to changes in the size and the quality of the eggs. Chick growth and survivorship was h ~ g h e r in 1992, when trawler discards were normally available, than in 1993. Trawler discard availability during chick rearing was more important than egg size in determining chick survival. However, differences were not always significant, since In 1993 the n~oratorium did not start until the chicks were 1 wk old, and, further, chicks had h ~ g h e r skeletal size and body condition (in order of Importance) than In 1992. In fact, chicks had similar fledgling condition in both years at the end of the reanng stage. In 1993, the overall breeding success decreased by 4 8 % Nevertheless, gulls' breed~ng performance for the 2 years was much lower than before the establishment of the flrst moratorium In 1991, and the situation suggests that clupeo~ds, the prey on wh.ich Audouin's gull feed, are scarce. It seems that gulls were not able to compensate for the lack of trawler discards during egg production, since the avallablllty of secondary feeding resources was much lower in March and April (pre-laying and laying stages) than in June (chick-rearing stage). Although in long-lived species a decrease in food supply should affect fecundity before affecting adult survival, results confirm the importance of the trawler fleet activity for the conservat~on of this threatened species.
Eemian Greenland SMB strongly sensitive to model choice

Abstract. Understanding the behavior of the Greenland ice sheet in a warmer climate, and particularly its surface mass balance (SMB), is important for assessing Greenland's potential contribution to future sea level rise. The Eemian interglacial period, the most recent warmer-than-present period in Earth's history approximately 125 000 years ago, provides an analogue for a warm summer climate over Greenland. The Eemian is characterized by a positive Northern Hemisphere summer insolation anomaly, which complicates Eemian SMB calculations based on positive degree day estimates. In this study, we use Eemian global and regional climate simulations in combination with three types of SMB models – a simple positive degree day, an intermediate complexity, and a full surface energy balance model – to evaluate the importance of regional climate and model complexity for estimates of Greenland's SMB. We find that all SMB models perform well under the relatively cool pre-industrial and late Eemian. For the relatively warm early Eemian, the differences between SMB models are large, which is associated with whether insolation is included in the respective models. For all simulated time slices, there is a systematic difference between globally and regionally forced SMB models, due to the different representation of the regional climate over Greenland. We conclude that both the resolution of the simulated climate as well as the method used to estimate the SMB are important for an accurate simulation of Greenland's SMB. Whether model resolution or the SMB method is most important depends on the climate state and in particular the prevailing insolation pattern. We suggest that future Eemian climate model intercomparison studies should include SMB estimates and a scheme to capture SMB uncertainties.
Fetal Malnutrition and Cognitive Development: Evidence from Ethiopia Master Thesis

This thesis investigates the impact of potential fetal malnutrition on the cognitive development. It accounts for the endogeneity of fetal malnutrition by using the exposure to the two months of Easter fasting (Lent) during the time in utero as a natural experiment. The study assumes some Orthodox mothers might have fasted when they were pregnant. Non-Orthodox Christian children are considered in the specifications as a control group to use a diffrence-in-diffrence framework. The results show exposure to fasting while in utero has a negative effect on cognitive development of Orthodox Christian children. Moreover, the result reveals the negative impact is severe on females and children from low socioeconomic background families. This study highlights the importance of prenatal interventions and the need to focus more on the disadvantaged groups.
Transformational Leadership or Effective Managerial Practices?

Over the past several years, much attention has been given to Bass and Avolio's notion of transformational leadership. However, there are striking similarities between Bass and Avolio's concepualization and several fundamental managerial practices. To examine this concern, we conducted a study that compared the transformational leadership scales from Bass and Avolio's Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) with four scales from Yukl's Managerial Practices Survey (MPS). The results provided mixed support for the distinctiveness of the MQ. A confirmatory factor analysis supported a distinction between the underlying constructs measured by the MLQ and MPS scales. In addition, a composite measure of transformational leadership did account for a significant proportion of variance in ratings of leader effectiveness, beyond that accounted for by the MPS scales. However, the proposed dimensionality of the MLQ was not supported, and the MLQ scales were highly related to the MPS scales.
Sulfur geochemistry of hydrothermal waters in Yellowstone National Park , Wyoming , USA . II . Formation and decomposition of thiosulfate and polythionate in Cinder Pool

Cinder Pool is an acid-sulfate-chloride boiling spring in Norris Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park. The pool is unique in that its surface is partially covered with mm-size, black, hollow sulfur spherules, while a layer of molten sulfur resides at the bottom of the pool (18 m depth). The sulfur speciation in the pool was determined on four different days over a period of two years. Samples were taken to evaluate changes with depth and to evaluate the importance of the sulfur spherules on sulfur redox chemistry. All analyses were conducted on site using a combination of ion chromatography and colorimetric techniques. Dissolved sulfide (H2S), thiosulfate (S2O3 ), polythionates (SxO6 ), and sulfate were detected. The polythionate concentration was highly variable in time and space. The highest concentrations were found in surficial samples taken from among the sulfur spherules. With depth, the polythionate concentrations dropped off. The maximum observed polythionate concentration was 8mM. Thiosulfate was rather uniformly distributed throughout the pool and concentrations ranged from 35 to 45 mM. Total dissolved sulfide concentrations varied with time, concentrations ranged from 16 to 48 mM. Sulfate was relatively constant, with concentrations ranging from 1150 to 1300 mM. The sulfur speciation of Cinder Pool is unique in that the thiosulfate and polythionate concentrations are significantly higher than for any other acid-sulfate spring yet sampled in Yellowstone National Park. Complementary laboratory experiments show that thiosulfate is the intermediate sulfoxyanion formed from sulfur hydrolysis under conditions similar to those found in Cinder Pool and that polythionates are formed via the oxidation of thiosulfate by dissolved oxygen. This last reaction is catalyzed by pyrite that occurs as a minor constituent in the sulfur spherules floating on the pool’s surface. Polythionate decomposition proceeds via two pathways: (1) a reaction with H 2S, yielding thiosulfate and elemental sulfur; and (2) by disproportionation to sulfate and thiosulfate. This study demonstrates that the presence of a subaqueous molten sulfur pool and sulfur spherules in Cinder Pool is of importance in controlling the pathways of aqueous sulfur redox reactions. Some of the insights gained at Cinder Pool may be relevant to acid crater lakes where sulfur spherules are observed and variations in polythionate concentrations are used to monitor and predict volcanic activity. q 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Chronology of the Last Deglaciation in the Southeastern Baltic Region on the Basis of Recent OSL Dates

Chronology of the Last Deglaciation in the Southeastern Baltic Region on the Basis of Recent OSL Dates The study of the deglaciation chronology in the south-eastern Baltic Region belonging to the outer zone of the last Pleistocene glaciation has a long history. The Finnish investigator H. Hausen (1913) who worked in the north-western portion of the East-European Plain at the beginning of the 20th century was the first to attempt a reconstruction of the course of glacial retreat during the last glaciation. At that time investigators had no physical dating methods and the time scale based on varvometric method, introduced by the Swedish geologist G. de Geer (1912) who divided the deglaciation history of Scandinavia into Daniglacial, Gotiglacial and Finiglacial, each of which had different palaeoglaciological conditions. During last decades different dating methods, including 14C, ESR, luminescence methods and 10Be techniques have been used, but they could not help essentially improve the existing stratigraphical charts and many problems of topical interest in the history of deglaciation have not been solved yet. During last years the first two authors have studied the suitability of OSL method for the geochronological purposes, paying the most attention to the waterlaid sediments. In the first step they have found the most promising genetical varieties of glaciofluvial sediments (glaciofluvial deltas and sandurs) and in this paper they widened the study area to all three Baltic states with close cooperation with Latvian and Lithuanian colleagues. The obtained results demonstrated, that not all mineral grains in the uppermost glaciofluvial and glaciolacustrine sediments were fully bleached during the last deglaciation. Probably the older sediments also influenced to the luminescence results. It means, that stratigraphic conclusions based on single dates or their small sets are inadmissible and in each case luminiscence dating requires a verification using other methods.
The Impact of the Crisis on Employment and the Role of Labour Market Institutions

The paper takes a comparative perspective on the labour market impact on G20 and EU countries of the financial and economic crisis that began in 2008. It starts from the observation that the decline in employment and rise in unemployment in relation to output or GDP reductions varies significantly across countries. It examines the impacts from an institutional perspective taking into account different channels of external, internal and wage flexibility determined by both the institutional arrangements in place before the crisis and discretionary reforms implemented during the crisis. Emphasis is placed on the role of permanent and temporary jobs, working time adjustment, wage flexibility and active and passive labour market policies. The paper shows that, at least for the time being, unemployment increases have been contained in countries with comparatively strong internal flexibility. At the same time, however, it appears that the crisis has – at least in some cases – contributed to a further dualization of labour markets given that risks are allocated unequally across types of employment.
The 6dF Galaxy Survey: cosmological constraints from the velocity power spectrum

We present scale-dependent measurements of the normalized growth rate of structure f sigma 8(k, z = 0) using only the peculiar motions of galaxies. We use data from the 6-degree Field Galaxy Survey velocity sample together with a newly compiled sample of low-redshift (z 300 h(-1) Mpc, which represents one of the largest scale growth rate measurement to date. We find no evidence for a scale-dependence in the growth rate, or any statistically significant variation from the growth rate as predicted by the Planck cosmology. Bringing all the scales together, we determine the normalized growth rate at z = 0 to similar to 15 per cent in a manner independent of galaxy bias and in excellent agreement with the constraint from the measurements of redshift-space distortions from 6-degree Field Galaxy Survey. We pay particular attention to systematic errors. We point out that the intrinsic scatter present in Fundamental Plane and Tully-Fisher relations is only Gaussian in logarithmic distance units; wrongly assuming it is Gaussian in linear (velocity) units can bias cosmological constraints. We also analytically marginalize over zero-point errors in distance indicators, validate the accuracy of all our constraints using numerical simulations, and demonstrate how to combine different (correlated) velocity surveys using a matrix 'hyperparameter' analysis. Current and forthcoming peculiar velocity surveys will allow us to understand in detail the growth of structure in the low-redshift universe, providing strong constraints on the nature of dark energy.
Induced Resistance in Mycorrhizal Tomato is correlated to Concentration of Jasmonic Acid

The study shows that Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi (AMF) are capable of imparting disease tolerance in tomato plants pre-infected with Fusarium Oxysporum f. sp. Lycopersici (FOL). Inoculation of tomato seedlings with Glomus Macrocarpum (GM) or Glomus Fasciculatum (GF), 20 days after infection with FOL reduced pathogen spread and disease severity by 75 and 78 %, respectively. The mycorrhizal plants showed increased growth, possessed higher Phenylalanine Ammonia Lyase activity (PAL), phenol concentration and foliar trichome density. Upto nine-fold increase in concentration of Jasmonic Acid (JA) was observed in mycorrhizal tomato plants compared to FOL-infected control plants. The increased JA concentration in mycorrhizal plants was concomitant to systemic enhanced defence response measured in terms of increase in PAL activity, concentration of phenols and trichome density in leaves. The above parameters shoFwed strong positive correlation with endogenous level of JA. The results suggest implication of JA in AMF-induced systemic resistance.
The emergence of toroidal flux tubes from beneath the solar photosphere

Context. Models of flux emergence frequently use a twisted cylindrical loop as the initial starting configuration and ignore the coupling between the radiation field and plasma. In these models, the axis of the original tube never emerges through the photosphere. Without the axis emerging, it is very difficult to form a realistic sunspot. Aims. The aim is to use a toroidal flux loop, placed beneath the solar photosphere and study whether the axis of the system emerges fully into the atmosphere. The toroidal curvature means that the plasma can drain more effectively than in a straight cylindrical tube. Methods. Three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic numerical simulations of an emerging magnetic flux tube are presented for an initial toroidal loop model. The simulations use a Lagrangian-Remap code that is particularly suited to dealing with shocks and strong current sheets. Results. The evolution of the toroidal loop is followed and the characteristics of the emergence process are compared with the traditional cylindrical loops. The flux sources seen at the photosphere are more circular, and there are less shearing motions in the upper photosphere. When the initial magnetic field strength is relatively weak the evolution of the system is similar to the cylindrical loop case, with the formation of a new flux rope above the photosphere. A striking result is that for large values of field strength the axial field of the toroidal loop emerges fully into the corona. This is reported for the first time in experiments of flux emergence in a highly stratified atmosphere that do not solve self-consistently the radiation transfer problem. In addition, the new flux rope forms below the original axis of the toroidal tube when the field strength is sufficiently strong.
Management and ownership effects: evidence from five countries

Despite the growing recognition in the corporate governance literature that the relationship between ownership concentration and profitability is context dependent, this issue has not yet been subjected to direct empirical investigation using a single cross-national sample. This study empirically examines the ownership concentration‐performance relationship across the nations of Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Essentially, we argue that the correlation (if any) between ownership concentration and firm profitability differs across countries in a systematic way determined by the national system of corporate governance. Results indicate that important and statistically significant differences do in fact exist across the countries studied. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Digital mismatch: Expectations and realities of digital competency amongst pre-service education students

Pre-service education students entering university can be categorised broadly into two distinct groups, those who are coming directly from secondary school and those who are not. The second group can be quite diverse, ranging in age, academic and/or work experience. However, what both of these groups share is a digital expectation and they expect upon completion of their studies to be more digitally fluent than when they entered university, they expect to be taught via a range of digital technologies and they expect to use their digital skills throughout their personal and professional lives. These expectations have been either largely ignored or have failed to be understood by universities, resulting in a mismatch between student expectations and their experiences. However, the teaching staff within universities may be ill-prepared to meet these demands, either due to being non-users or exhibiting the same or lower levels of digital fluency as their students. The mismatch between student expectations and the reality is highlighted by an empirical case study involving undergraduate students enrolled in pre-service education degrees at an Australian university. The study will present clear evidence that students' digital expectancy should be considered when planning and improving learning environments.
Chemical, Morphological and Electrical Properties of Porous Silicon Prepared by Photelectrochemical Etching

In this work, the nanocrystalline porous silicon (PS) films is prepared by photoelectrochemical etching of n-type silicon wafer with different currents density (20, 35 and 50 mA/cm 2 ) and etching time 15 min on the formation nano-sized pore array with a dimension of around few hundreds nanometric. The films were characterized by the measurement of FTIR spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy properties.Chemical fictionalization during the photoelectrochemical etching show on surface chemical composition of PS. The etching possesses inhomogeneous microstructures that contain a-Si clusters (Si3–Si–H) dispersed in amorphous silica matrix and (O-SiO, C-SiO). It is observed from the FTIR analyses that the Si dangling bonds of the as-prepared PS layer have large amount of Hydrogen to form weak (Si–H) bonds. The atomic force microscopy investigation shows the rough silicon surface; with increasing etching process (current density) porous structure nucleates which leads to an increase in the width (diameter) of surface pits. Consequently, the surface roughness also increases. The electrical properties of prepared PS; namely current density-voltage characteristics under dark, show that the pass current through the PS layer decreased by increasing the current density and etching time, due to increase the resistivity of PS layer. The PS layer shows a rectifying behaviour with different rectification ratio. C-V measurements demonstrate that the behaviour of the resulting junction is more like to Schottky junction. This study makes it clear that the charge carries depletion process occur in PS layer. Moreover, the charge carries decrease and width of depletion layer increase by increasing the current density. Keyword: porous silicon; nanostructure; etching; FTIIR; AFM; electrical properties.
Adherence to Antiretroviral Therapy in HIV-Positive Patients in Ethiopia: Review

Background: Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) offered HIV-positive individuals tremendous lifesustaining benefits. The benefits are sustainable only through optimal adherence. This systematic review was conducted to synthesize the available studies in order to determine average adherence, identify variables associated with adherence and shed light on the design and improvement of adherence studies and interventions. Method: Studies were selected from electronic databases (Pubmed, Hinari, Google scholar) using HAART or Highly active antiretroviral therapy and adherence [Ethiopia] as search terms. Each study was summarized by using format containing: characteristics of the study, sample size, study design and measures of adherence, factors associated with adherence, reasons for missing dose. Result: A total of 17 studies: 16 cross-sectional and 1 prospective study reporting adherence to HAART in Ethiopian HIV-positive patients were identified in our search items. Almost all of adherence to HAART studies conducted in Ethiopia used cross-sectional study design with self-report as adherence measurement. Though from the lowest evidence design the adherence rate in Ethiopia were higher than many developed countries report. Social support is major positive predictor of adherence to HAART while depression and substance abuse were negative predictors’. Conclusion: We demonstrated a better self-reported adherence to HAART in Ethiopian HIV-positive patients. However rate and determinants of HAART in Ethiopian HIV-positive patients are poorly defined. The type of study design used and the use of self-report (subjective measure) in adherence assessment made adherence to HAART unexplored in Ethiopia. Further studies should be conducted using prospective cohort and interventional study design using varying methods of adherence measurement.