Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
CH4 and N2O emissions embodied in international trade of meat

Although previous studies have quantified carbon dioxide emissions embodied in products traded internationally, there has been limited attention to other greenhouse gases such as methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O). Following IPCC guidelines, we estimate non-CO2 emissions from beef, pork and chicken produced in 237 countries over the period 1990–2010, and assign these emissions to the country where the meat is ultimately consumed. We find that, between 1990 and 2010, an average of 32.8 Mt CO2-eq emissions (using 100 year global warming potentials) are embodied in beef, pork and chicken traded internationally. Further, over the 20 year period, the quantity of CO2-eq emissions embodied in traded meat increased by 19%. The largest trade flows of emissions embodied in meat were from Brazil and Argentina to Russia (2.8 and 1.4 Mt of CO2-eq, respectively). Trade flows within the European region are also substantial: beef and pork exported from France embodied 3.3 Mt and 0.4 Mt of CO2-eq, respectively. Emissions factor of meat production (i.e. CO2-eq emissions per kg of meat) produced depend on ambient temperature, development level, livestock category (e.g. cattle, pork, and chicken) and livestock management practices. Thus, trade may result in an overall increase of GHG emissions when meat-consuming countries import meat from countries with a greater emissions intensity of meat production rather than producing the meat domestically. Comparing the emissions intensity of meat production of trading partners, we assess trade flows according to whether they tend to reduce or increase global emissions from meat production.
Multivariate Characterization of Biological Efficiency in Dairy Cows in Grazing Systems

Retrospective data was used corresponding to the lactation of 216 first and multi-pregnancy cows, American-Canadian Holstein with registers of their whole productive life, from their entrance to the system till their sale or death, registers were gathered from1992-2012 in the Argentinian Holstein farm located in Casilda, province of Santa –Argentina. During the mentioned time, all the cows were managed in the same dairy premises. The animals were divided into two categories: pure cows (VP,n=88) and cows with breeding registers (VRC,n = 128). The variables under use were: age at first calving, in days (EPP), first calving – conception interval in days (IPP), milk production adapted to 305 lactation days, in litres (PL), the amount of butyric fat produced, in kilograms (GB), the number of calvings registered throughout its reproductive life (NP), milk index in litres (IL) and the fat index in kilograms (IG). There were statistically significant differences as regards the productive characteristics PL and GB. N average, throughout the cycle under study, the VP produced 591 litres of milk and 161 kg of fat more. There were no significant differences when considering the age of first calving or the calving – conception interval. VP cows registered higher IL and IG than VRC cows, with significant differences which favoured the former, in both cases. The four components generated by the multivariate analysis explained important portions of the total variance which lead to consider all of them when interpreting the joint relations between productive performance indicators and reproductive achievement. It is concluded that even though the biotypes under study behave differently, both coincide at the point of stating that those cows which belong to quadrant IV were those which presented the best adaptation to the environment, being the ones who live longer and with an intermediate reproductive efficiency, regardless their biotype.
On Two Types of the Hermit Crab Pagurus lanuginosus (Crustacea : Anomura : Paguridae)

White-spot type (W-type) and black-spot type (B-type) of Pagurus lanuginosus De Haan were examined for their distribution in Japan, morphological differences in two characters, and a possibility of sexual isolation. W-type crabs were mainly found in areas directly subjected to oceanic water, whereas B-type crabs tended to inhabit rather protected areas. Morphological comparisons on accessory teeth of the 3rd maxilliped and molar teeth of the major cheliped revealed no consistent differences between the two types. Encounter tests composed of homotypic and heterotypic combinations suggested that the two types are sexually isolated. This suggested that they are different species, but detailed morphological comparisons on characters other than those treated in the present study are needed for specific discrimination.
Articulating five liquids: A single speaker ultrasound study of Malayalam

We investigate the lingual shapes of the five liquid phonemes of Malayalam: two rhotics, two laterals and a more problematic 5th liquid. Ultrasound is used to image the mid-sagittal tongue surface, mainly in an intervocalic within-word /a__a/ context. The dark retroflex lateral and trill have a retracted tongue root and lowered tongue dorsum, while the three other clear liquids show advanced tongue root and dorsal raising. The 5th liquid is post-alveolar and laminal. Some additional data from an /a__i/ context is considered: the liquids are slightly clearer before /i/: all have a slightly advanced tongue root, and all bar the trill show palatalization. Dynamically, the trill and retroflex lateral have a very stable tongue root in /a__a/, and the 5th liquid has unusual anterior kinematic properties which require further investigation.
Cognitive function of young male tennis players and non-athletes

Background: Cognitive functions can be defined as the ability of individuals to participate, recognize and plan responses to external and internal impulses. We can define attention as the active focus of our consciousness and the ability to concentrate mental functions on a certain activity. In competitive tennis, attention, especially conscious attention which is controlled by cognitive and volitional processes plays a significant role. Objective: The aim of this study was to assess differences in cognitive functions between tennis players and non-athletic adolescents. Methods: The research sample consisted of 98 subjects: 44 tennis players (age 18.11 ± 1.35 years) and 54 nonathletic adolescents (age 18.04 ± 1.33 years). The level of cognitive functions was investigated using the standardized neuropsychological cognitive Stroop test. Results: The tennis players had higher cognitive function scores compared to the non-athletes in two of the three segments of the Stroop test. There was no significant difference between the groups in the simplest segment of the Stroop test (segment T). However, a significant difference (p = .028; d = 0.45) was found between the tennis players and non-athletes in segment S of the Stroop test and in segment B, the most difficult segment of the test, the difference between research groups was also significant (p = .002; d = 0.63). Conclusion: Based on acquired data, we can see a difference between athletes and non-athletes in cognitive functions such as cognition inhibitory control, concentration of attention, conscious and selective attention. However, the differences have only been demonstrated in moderate difficulty and most difficulty segment, in the simplest segment we have not found difference between athletes and non-athletes.
Knowledge, attitude and practices of healthcare providers towards MERS-CoV infection at Makkah hospitals, KSA

Middle East Respiratory Syndrome-coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infection is becoming a global health problem that is primarily detected in KSA with progressive increase in cases and deaths. Mass gathering and cross country mixture during season of Hajj and Umrah, the associated hygienic conditions and limited community knowledge about the infection are possible causes. Although many researchers have analyzed epidemiology of the infection, there are few reports of knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) of healthcare providers towards the infection in KAS. A cross-sectional study was conducted in Makkah public hospitals from September 2014 to April 2015. A total of 281 participants representing healthcare providers were included in this study. Data representing knowledge, attitude and practices were collected using structured self-administered questionnaires. The mean age of the participants was 30.8 ± 6.3, years ranged from 21 to 57. More than half of them were females (57.7%) and 46.3% were nurses. In general, our findings showed that only one third of them (32.4%) acquired good knowledge about the infection with mean knowledge score 18.3 ± 3.9 (out of 28) and most of them (91.8%) showed negative attitude towards the infection with mean attitude score 5.4 ± 1.6 (out of 11). However, 87.9% reported good practices with mean practice score 7.2 ± 1.5 (out of 8). There are significant positive associations between knowledge and both attitude and practices scores. The mean knowledge score was significantly higher among those with age ≥ 30 years, physicians and those with > 10 years of experience and the mean practice score was significantly more among females. In conclusion, our study showed that there are knowledge gap and negative attitude among healthcare providers at Makkah hospitals towards MERS-CoV infection although they reported good practices. Continued and strengthened educational programs are needed to improve their knowledge and change their attitudes towards MERS-CoV infection that will be in the interest of global public health.
A 1000-year record of forest fire, drought and lake-level change in southeastern British Columbia, Canada

High-resolution charcoal analysis of lake sediments and stand-age information were used to reconstruct a 1000-year fire history around Dog Lake, which is located in the montane spruce zone of southeastern British Columbia. Macroscopic charcoal (>125,um) accumulation rates (CHAR) from lake sediment were compared with a modern stand-origin map and fire-scar dates in the Kootenay Valley to determine the relative area and proximity of fires recorded as CHAR peaks. Small fires close to the lake and larger more distant fires appear as similar-sized peaks in the record. This information reinforces previous findings where CHAR peaks represent a complex spatial aggregation of local to extra-local fires around a lake site. CHAR peaks indicate frequent stand-destroying fires during the 'Mediaeval Warm Period' (-AD 1000-1300), and other significant fires at c. 1360, 1500, 1610 and 1800. We also present a proxy measure of lake-level changes based on a comparison of accumulation rates of Chara globulanis-type oospores over the last millennium and the present distribution of charophytes in the lake basin. Lower water levels, represented by few or no Chara oospores, correspond to times of regional drought and large forest fires around the lake. Higher lake levels, represented by increased Chara oospore accumulation rates, correspond to wetter climate periods during the Oort, Wolf, Sporer and Maunder solar sunspot minima, when little or no fire activity occurs around the lake.
The Cantorian Monadic Plasma behind the Zero Point Vacuum Spacetime Energy

Stimulated by the recent work on quarks-gluons plasma we present E-infinity theory in the form of Cantorian monadic plasma and proceed from there to a general explanation of the Casimir effect and dark energy as a zero point vacuum energy which could be utilized via advanced nanotechnology to build a clean energy reactor with near to unlimited capacity.
Flexibilisation of Employment in the Knowledge-Based Economy: Empirical Reality, Thrilling Menace, or Wishful Thinking?

The ‘risk society discourse’, which originated in the 1980ies (Beck 1986 & 1992), has made its arrival in public opinion and contemporary politics. It is now a conventional wisdom that labour markets are becoming ever more flexible and that lifetime jobs (which allegedly dominated the good old times of industrial societies 1 ) are being superseded by ‘lifelong learning’ in terms of having to retrain for a new occupation several times during an individual’s life course. Be all this reality already or be it a goal still to be achieved – at any rate, the ‘high velocity labour market’ has become an indispensable ingredient of the contemporary narrative of modernisation. There are actually several good reasons to expect decreasing job stability and thus increased mobility of workers on labour markets. With the lowering of international trade barriers, easier and cheaper means of transport, the emergence of a global communication and information network through which immaterial services can be transmitted, and with the abandonment of state monopolies, enterprises are facing a larger number of competitors than previously. Increased competition forces upon them a shortening of innovation cycles. For high wage economies like Germany, in particular, which cannot excel in international competition primarily through cost advantages, ‘time to market’, in addition to quality and reliable delivery, becomes the crucial parameter of competitiveness. Against this background it is obvious that companies are facing the challenge to react more flexibly and rapidly to market signals than before. From this it is commonly inferred that employment, too, would have to become more flexible. ‘Flexible employment’ is usually assumed to signify that employers take on a position where they can adapt the number and composition of their workforces to changing requirements with less external restraints and within shorter periods of time. These increasing challenges for flexibility have to be met by organisational units, which – notwithstanding the unbroken tendency towards a global concentration of economic power – tend to become smaller in terms of the numbers of their employees. Be it because of rising productivity in saturated markets, because of (global) outsourcing, because of the restructuring of operations into independent units, because of initial smallness of new start-ups or, finally, for reasons of physical proximity to the customer as is the case in all ‘material’ services – in any case, the era of huge and
Export Experience of Managers and the Internationalisation of Firms

As the firm gravitates to the core analysis of international trade models, the possibilities to learn from the theory of the multinational enterprise developed in international business studies increase. The managerial resources and capabilities that are so emphasized in this theory for export initiation have largely been neglected in the empirical studies of international trade. Probably not because they are unimportant, but rather because of the challenge to identify and measure them. We exploit Danish employer-employee matched data to overcome this barrier and analyze the impact of managers’ international experience together with other managerial characteristics on the likelihood that the firm starts exporting. We find that productivity and fixed costs associated to exporting are not the sole determinants of the selection of firms into international markets, but “managerial inputs” are as important. Our data allows us to identify managers’ export experience based on the CEOs’ historical career as documented in official registry statistics. This puts our study apart from earlier survey based studies which rely on self-assessments.
Formation Control of Multiple Elliptical Agents with Limited Sensing Ranges

This paper presents a design of cooperative controllers that force a group of N mobile agents with an elliptical shape and with limited sensing ranges to perform a desired formation. The controllers guarantee no collisions between any agents in the group. The desired formation can be stabilized at feasible reference trajectories with bounded time derivatives. The formation control design is based on an algebraic separation condition between ellipses, Lyapunov’s method, and smooth or p-times differentiable step functions. These functions are introduced and incorporated into novel potential functions to solve the collision avoidance problem without the need of switchings under the agents’ limited sensing ranges.
Molecular Phylogenetics and Phylogeography of sand lizards, Pedioplanis (Sauria: Lacertidae) in southern Africa

The present study aims to determine the phylogenetic relationships among the sand lizards, Pedioplanis. In addition, a single mitochondrial gene is used to investigate the geographic genetic structure of the widey distributed P. burchelli. With 11 species, Pedioplanis is the most speciose genus among the southern African genera of the family Lacertidae. All the species are restricted to the subcontinent with the exception of three (P. namaquensis, P. undata and P. benguellensis), which extend their range northwards into Angola. A total of 2200 nucleotide positions derived from two mitochondrial markers (ND2 and 16S rRNA) and one nuclear gene (RAG-1) are used to determine the phylogenetic relationships among ten of the eleven Pedioplanis species. The first well resolved gene tree for the genus, drawn from 100 individuals, is presented and this is largely congruent with a phylogeny derived from morphology. Contrary to some previous suggestions, Pedioplanis forms a monophyletic assemblage with Heliobolus and Nucras. The genus Pedioplanis is monophyletic with P. burchelli/P. laticeps forming a sister clade to all the remaining congeners. Two distinct geographic lineages can be identified within the widespread P. namaquensis; one occurs in Namibia, while the other occurs in South Africa. The “P. undata” species complex is monophyletic, but one of its constituent species, P. inornata, is paraphyletic. Relationships among the subspecies of P. lineoocellata are much more complex than previously documented. An isolated population previously assigned to P. l. pulchella is paraphyletic and sister to the three named subspecies. The phylogeny identifies two biogeographical groupings that probably diverged during the mid-Miocene. The development of the Benguella Current could have iii Stellenbosch University http://scholar.sun.ac.za
Understanding Popular Media Production and Potential Tourist Consumption: A Methodological Agenda

Research on the tourism implications of television-induced tourism generally remains limited, with no single agreed approach to its study. In particular, there are methodological difficulties in understanding this phenomenon and a subsequent lack of empirical research into the relationships between films and TV programmes and tourism. Furthermore, there has been limited attention to the underlying mechanisms and structures in the relationships between the production and consumption of films or TV programmes, audiences and potential tourists, particularly in non-Western contexts. Considering these limitations in this subject, the paper aims to provide insights into the complicated inter­ communication processes between TV programmes from the production side and audiences/tourists as consumers. Based on a triangulated approach, this paper delineates an empirical study to investigate theoretical positions and research methodologies that may be used to explore the production end of popular TV programming and the ways in which particular production values may appeal to tourists in diverse settings. Based on a case study of the 'Hallyu' phenomenon, five major elements of the production of popular TV dramas are proposed by this paper and verified by the interviews with professional producers. Quantitative research supports examining causal relationships between the highlighted major elements of TV drama production and patterns of consumption associated with audience involvement, its sequential loyalty, and destination choice in the context of Hallyu drama tourism. This paper will, therefore, draw attention to uniquely transnational and interdisciplinary approach which will enable the researcher to develop new ideas and perspectives on the relationship and mediation between production and consumption of popular texts and associated tourism.
A true eddy accumulation system for trace gas fluxes using disjunct eddy sampling method

A new true eddy accumulation flux measurement system, based on the disjunct sampling approach, has been developed and tested. In disjunct sampling, short, separate samples are taken instead of continuously sampling the air as in traditional relaxed eddy accumulation and eddy covariance systems. This method reduces the number of samples but allows more time to process them. Simulation shows that the fluxes, calculated using disjunct data, are close to those calculated using continuous data. The disjunct true eddy accumulation instrument was successfully deployed to measure monoterpene fluxes at Niwot Ridge, Colorado. The ability of the system to measure the sample flow accurately, critical for any eddy accumulation system, was tested using atmospheric CFC-113 as a tracer, with good results. The system was capable of measuring relatively low α-pinene fluxes, below 10 ng m-2 s-1 at T = 8° - 18°C, over a subalpine forest. Copyright 2000 by the American Geophysical Union.
Green Technology For Production Of Baby Corn (Zea mays L) Under North-West Himalayan Conditions

An experiment was conducted at the research farm of Central Institute of Temperate Horticulture, Regional Station, Mukteshwar, Uttarakhand (India), during successive seasons of 2009 and 2010 to investigate the effect of different biofertilizers and organic manure on growth and yield of baby corn wit h the aim to develop green technology for baby corn production. The variety VL-78 was used as experimental material and treatments consisted of various combinations of bacterial biofertilizers viz. Azospirillum, Bacillus megaterium var phosphaticum and Frateuria aurentia and organic manures. Biofertilizers significantly increased yield and yield attributing characters. The best treatment ide ntified was Vermicompost (1.92 kg/bed) + Biospirillum (10ml/kg of seed) + Biophos (10ml/kg of seed) + biopotash (10ml/kg of seed) where yield of baby corn was recorded 18.57 q/ha. This treatment also showed increase in leaf chlorophyll content.
Incivility: The Moderating Effect of Hierarchical Status Does a Manager Inflict More Damage?

Incivility is an expression of disregard toward others in a social interaction. The current study predicts that incivility will inflict more damage when perpetrated by higher status holders, for the intention to leave the organization, the possibility that the psychological contract will be violated and concerning organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) that are expected to diminish.333 workers were sampled through a web based survey. Results showed that incivility can predict psychological contract violation and withdrawal intention. In addition, results showed that perceived incivility (i.e the perceived frequency with which incivility is experienced by its targets), was higher among those uncivil acts perpetrated by their managers compared to perceived incivility if perpetrated by a peer. Moreover, results suggested that while for some outcomes (i.e. OCB-O, withdrawal intentions, and psychological contract violation) managers inflict more damage as predicted, for OCB-I, the impact was greater when peers acted in an uncivil manner. Results as well as practical and theoretical implications are discussed.
BOARD COMPOSITION, MIMETIC BEHAVIOUR AND CORPORATE VOLUNTARY DISCLOSURES

This study examines the effects of board composition and mimetic behaviour on the extent and credibility of corporate voluntary disclosure. The investigation is based on the annual reports of 155 Malaysian listed companies during the period when these companies faced new corporate governance regulation. This study provides evidence that under the influence of dominant owners on board, management voluntary disclosure decisions are driven by incentives to conform when their company is structured to meet expectations of good corporate governance. Such incentive seems to override incentives to disclose credible information to outside investors.