Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Electro-osmotic dispersion in a circular tube with slip-stick striped wall

The hydrodynamic dispersion of a neutral non-reacting solute due to steady electro-osmotic flow (EOF) in a circular channel with longitudinal step changes of zeta potential and hydrodynamic slippage is analysed in this study. The channel wall is periodically micro-patterned along the axial position with alternating slip-stick stripes of distinct zeta potentials. Existing studies on electrically driven hydrodynamic dispersion are based on flow subject to either the no-slip boundary condition on the capillary surface or simplification of the lubrication approximation. Taking wall slippage into account, a homogenization analysis is performed in this study to derive the hydrodynamic dispersion coefficient without being subject to the long-wave constraint of the lubrication approximation, but for a general case where the length of one periodic unit of wall pattern is comparable with the channel radius. The flow and the hydrodynamic dispersion coefficient are calculated numerically, using the packages MATLAB® and COMSOL®, as functions of controlling parameters including the period length of the wall pattern, the area fraction of the slipping region (EOF-suppressing) in a periodic unit, the ratio of the two zeta potentials, the intrinsic hydrodynamic slip length, the Debye parameter, and the Péclet number. The dispersion is found to show notable, non-monotonic in certain situations, dependence on these controlling parameters. It is noteworthy that the introduction of non-uniform slip will generate much richer behaviors of the hydrodynamic dispersion than the situation with no-slip or uniform-slip boundary conditions, as slippage interacts with zeta potentials in the EOF-suppressing region and EOF-supporting region.
DISCUSSION OF “ONE-STEP SPARSE ESTIMATES IN NONCONCAVE PENALIZED LIKELIHOOD MODELS (H. ZOU AND R. LI)” By Peter Bühlmann and Lukas Meier ETH Zürich

Hui Zou and Runze Li ought to be congratulated for their nice and interesting work which presents a variety of ideas and insights in statistical methodology, computing and asymptotics. We agree with them that oneor even multi-step (or -stage) procedures are currently among the best for analyzing complex data-sets. The focus of our discussion is mainly on high-dimensional problems where p n: we will illustrate, empirically and by describing some theory, that many of the ideas from the current paper are very useful for the p n setting as well.
People with intellectual disability and ICTs

New technologies have dramatically changed our daily lives and the way we are connected to other people. Television, cellular telephony and the Internet have opened up new opportunities in communication, leisure and training, and yet barriers prevent certain social groups from accessing these new technologies. People with intellectual disability (ID), for instance, are often «invisible» to communication and new technology researchers. An exploratory study was made of 156 adults with ID (workers and users of the Carmen Pardo-Valcarce Foundation sheltered employment programs and workshops in Madrid, Spain) to show their patterns of new technology (cell phones, Internet and television) use. The study confirms that these patterns are similar to those expected of the general public but spe cific differences were found. Some could be attributed to the direct effects of intellectual disability, but others could result from the hypothetical stigma effect on the attitude of those close to the person with intellectual disability, which might lead to discriminatory behaviors.
Forecasting Dividend Growth to Better Predict Returns

The dividend-price ratio changes over time due to variation in expected returns and in forecasts of dividend growth. We adjust the dividend-price ratio to isolate the uctuations that are due to variation in expected returns from those that are due to changing forecasts of dividend growth. This adjusted dividend-price ratio is statistically signi cant in predictive regressions and yields an in-sample R of 16.27% and an out-of-sample R of 12.35%, which compare with 7.88% and -2.94% for the unadjusted multiple. Structural estimation of our model obtains even higher measures of t. Our results are robust across subsamples.
Empirical Analysis of the Variability of Wind Generation in India: Implications for Grid Integration - eScholarship

We analyze variability in load and wind generation in India to assess its implications for grid integration of large scale wind projects using actual wind generation and load data from two states in India, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. We compare the largest variations in load and net load (load ? wind, i.e., load after integrating wind) that the generation fleet has to meet. In Tamil Nadu, where wind capacity is about 53percent of the peak demand, we find that the additional variation added due to wind over the current variation in load is modest; if wind penetration reaches 15percent and 30percent by energy, the additional hourly variation is less than 0.5percent and 4.5percent of the peak demand respectively for 99percent of the time. For wind penetration of 15percent by energy, Tamil Nadu system is found to be capable of meeting the additional ramping requirement for 98.8percent of the time. Potential higher uncertainty in net load compared to load is found to have limited impact on ramping capability requirements of the system if coal plants can me ramped down to 50percent of their capacity. Load and wind aggregation in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka is found to lower the variation by at least 20percent indicating the benefits geographic diversification. These findings suggest modest additional flexible capacity requirements and costs for absorbing variation in wind power and indicate that the potential capacity support (if wind does not generate enough during peak periods) may be the issue that has more bearing on the economics of integrating wind
Genetic Characterization of Stripe Rust and Yield Traits in Bread Wheat

The insight into the nature of gene action, involved in the expression of a trait of interest, is essential to a plant breeder for deploying a judicious breeding program. The objective of this study was to study the inheritance (additive vs., dominance) of stripe rust resistance and yield traits in wheat through diallel analysis. Six wheat cultivars i.e., Pirsabak-85, Khyber-87, Saleem2000, Pirsabak-04, Pirsabak-05 and Shahkar-13 were crossed in a half diallel fashion during 2014-2015, and advanced to F2 generation during 2015-2016. Parental genotypes along with their F1 and F2 populations were evaluated during 2016-2017 through randomized complete block design with three replications. Genotypes differed significantly (p ≤ 0.01) for all the traits in F1 and F2 generations. Additive-dominance model was partially adequate for resistance to stripe rust and yield-related traits. Greater values of additive (D) than dominance (H1, H2) components of genetic variance, average degree of dominance and VrWr graphs revealed that stripe rust resistance and yield traits were primarily controlled by additive gene action except for grain yield in F1 and area of flag leaf in the F2 generation which governed by overdominance. In loci, unequal proportions of positive (H1) and negative (H2) alleles revealed the asymmetrical distribution of genes in parental genotypes for stripe rust resistance and yield traits. The preponderance of additive gene action suggested that selection could be made in early segregating generations for improving resistance against stripe rust to enhance wheat yield. © 2019 Friends Science Publishers
Chlorophyll as a measure of plant health: agroecological aspects.

As photosynthesis is the basic process during which light energy is absorbed and converted into organic matter, the importance of the plant pigment chlorophyll (a and b forms) as an intermediary in transformation of the absorbed solar energy and its activity in the process of photosynthesis and synthesis of organic substances in plants are crucial. Therefore, this paper provides an overview of methods for monitoring the optical activity of chlorophyll molecules and methods (non-destructive and destructive) for quantification of chlorophyll in plants. These methods are used to estimate the effects of different stress factors (abiotic, biotic and xenobiotic) on the efficiency of photosynthesis and bioproductivity, aiming to assess the impact that these limiting factors have on the yield of various cultivars. Also, those methods for analysis of chlorophyll optical activity and/or content are appropriate for assessing the reaction of weed species to different agricultural practices (mineral nutrition, treatment by herbicides, etc.) and studies of different aspects of weed ecophysiology and their influence on crop harvest. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. TR 31018 and br. TR 31037]
From LiDAR Waveforms to Hyper Point Clouds: A Novel Data Product to Characterize Vegetation Structure

Full waveform (FW) LiDAR holds great potential for retrieving vegetation structure parameters at a high level of detail, but this prospect is constrained by practical factors such as the lack of available handy processing tools and the technical intricacy of waveform processing. This study introduces a new product named the Hyper Point Cloud (HPC), derived from FW LiDAR data, and explores its potential applications, such as tree crown delineation using the HPC-based intensity and percentile height (PH) surfaces, which shows promise as a solution to the constraints of using FW LiDAR data. The results of the HPC present a new direction for handling FW LiDAR data and offer prospects for studying the mid-story and understory of vegetation with high point density (~182 points/m2). The intensity-derived digital surface model (DSM) generated from the HPC shows that the ground region has higher maximum intensity (MAXI) and mean intensity (MI) than the vegetation region, while having lower total intensity (TI) and number of intensities (NI) at a given grid cell. Our analysis of intensity distribution contours at the individual tree level exhibit similar patterns, indicating that the MAXI and MI decrease from the tree crown center to the tree boundary, while a rising trend is observed for TI and NI. These intensity variable contours provide a theoretical justification for using HPC-based intensity surfaces to segment tree crowns and exploit their potential for extracting tree attributes. The HPC-based intensity surfaces and the HPC-based PH Canopy Height Models (CHM) demonstrate promising tree segmentation results comparable to the LiDAR-derived CHM for estimating tree attributes such as tree locations, crown widths and tree heights. We envision that products such as the HPC and the HPC-based intensity and height surfaces introduced in this study can open new perspectives for the use of FW LiDAR data and alleviate the technical barrier of exploring FW LiDAR data for detailed vegetation structure characterization.
Experimental Study of the Laminar-Turbulent Transition in a Tilted Taylor-Couette System Subject to Free Surface Effect

An experimental study of the laminar – turbulent transition between two coaxial rotating cylinders with the inner cylinder rotates and outer one stationary is presented in this paper. Special attention is given to the onset of various flow modes in tilted and partially filled system. The flow behaviour, the laminar turbulent transition and the features of different regimes are discussed for different inclination angles, filling ratio and Taylor numbers. It is established that the different filling ratio and the inclination angle of the system deeply affect the flow patterns. Furthermore, the most significant result concerns the relaminarization of the flow when the aspect ratio is decreased and inclination angle is increased for a given value of Taylor number.
Gross and histological observations of ovarian development in twaite shad, Alosa fallax fallax, from Rivers Mira and Guadiana (Portugal)

SUMMARY: In order to describe the stages of oogenesis of twaite shad, Alosa fallax fallax, 265 females were collected between March and June 1997, February and June 1998 and January and April 1999 in the Rivers Mira and Guadiana. From the histological study of ovaries a total of eight developmental stages were delineated. Gross examination of paired ovary revealed that they could be placed into one of seven maturity stages according to their stage of development. Two stages of atresia, alfa and beta, were identified. Upon cessation of spawning, the ovaries still contained some oocytes at various stages of development but with a greater number of atretic oocytes. The simultaneous occurrence of oocytes at different stages of development in the ovary indicates asynchronous oocyte development. Oocyte size frequency distributions do not show a gap in size between cortical alveoli and vitellogenic oocytes during the spawning season. This may represent the ability of twaite shad to push oocytes through vitellogenesis from a previtellogenic condition during the spawning period. This has important implications for twaite shad fecundity, because fish with this type of oocyte development depend on estimates of batch fecundity and spawning frequency to determine potential annual fecundity.
Extreme winter precipitation in the Iberian Peninsula in 2010: anomalies, driving mechanisms and future projections

This work provides a first assessment of the outstanding characteristics of the anom- alous precipitation occurrence in the winter of 2010 over the Iberian Peninsula, as well as on the asso- ciated atmospheric driving mechanisms. Large areas of Iberia, those located in the western and southern sectors, registered a new historical maximum in winter precipitation values. Simultane- ously, the most extreme, negative North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) index for winter was recorded in 2010. The anomalous pressure gradient in the North Atlantic region steered a large number of low pressure systems via an unusually southern path, directly influencing Iberia and northern Africa. Storms were frequent, and a high number of days occurred with weather types prone to cause pre- cipitation. In addition, the most extreme daily precipitation episodes were recorded during the period with the strongest negative NAO index. Global climate models for the entire 21st century show that strong negative NAO winters, similar to that which occurred in 2010, may be expected in the future.
A Self-Attentive Hierarchical Model for Jointly Improving Text Summarization and Sentiment Classification

Text summarization and sentiment classiﬁcation, in NLP, are two main tasks implemented on text analysis, focusing on extracting the major idea of a text at diﬀerent levels. Based on the characteristics of both, sentiment classiﬁcation can be regarded as a more abstrac-tive summarization task. According to the scheme, a Self-Attentive Hierarchical model for jointly improving text Summarization and Sentiment Classiﬁcation (SAHSSC) is proposed in this paper. This model jointly performs abstractive text summarization and sentiment classiﬁcation within a hierarchical end-to-end neural framework, in which the sentiment classiﬁcation layer on top of the summarization layer predicts the sentiment label in the light of the text and the generated summary. Furthermore, a self-attention layer is also proposed in the hierarchical framework, which is the bridge that connects the summarization layer and the sentiment classiﬁcation layer and aims at capturing emotional information at text-level as well as summary-level. The proposed model can generate a more relevant summary and lead to a more accurate summary-aware sentiment prediction. Experimental results evaluated on SNAP amazon online review datasets show that our model outperforms the state-of-the-art baselines on both abstractive text summarization and sentiment classiﬁcation by a considerable margin.
Evolution from protoplanetary to debris discs: the transition disc around HD 166191

HD 166191 has been identified by several studies as hosting a rare and extremely bright warm debris disc with an additional outer cool disc component. However, an alternative interpretation is that the star hosts a disc that is currently in transition between a full gas disc and a largely gas-free debris disc. With the help of new optical to mid-infrared (IR) spectra and Herschel imaging, we argue that the latter interpretation is supported in several ways: (i) we show that HD 166191 is comoving with the ∼4-Myr-old Herbig Ae star HD 163296, suggesting that the two have the same age; (ii) the disc spectrum of HD 166191 is well matched by a standard radiative transfer model of a gaseous protoplanetary disc with an inner hole and (iii) the HD 166191 mid-IR silicate feature is more consistent with similarly primordial objects. We note some potential issues with the debris disc interpretation that should be considered for such extreme objects, whose lifetime at the current brightness is much shorter than the stellar age, or in the case of the outer component requires a mass comparable to the solid component of the solar nebula. These aspects individually and collectively argue that HD 166191 is a 4–5 Myr old star that hosts a gaseous transition disc. Though it does not argue in favour of either scenario, we find strong evidence for 3–5µm disc variability. We place HD 166191 in context with discs at different evolutionary stages, showing that it is a potentially important object for understanding the protoplanetary to debris disc transition.
Dynamic Capabilities: An Exploration of How Firms Renew Their Resource Base

The aim of this paper is to extend the concept of dynamic capabilities. Building on prior research, we suggest that there are three levels of dynamic capabilities which are related to managers' perceptions of environmental dynamism. At the first level we find incremental dynamic capabilities: those capabilities concerned with the continuous improvement of the firm's resource base. At the second level are renewing dynamic capabilities, those that refresh, adapt and augment the resource base. These two levels are usually conceived as one and represent what the literature refers to as dynamic capabilities. At the third level are regenerative dynamic capabilities, which impact, not on the firm's resource base, but on its current set of dynamic capabilities, i.e. these change the way the firm changes its resource base. We explore the three levels using illustrative examples and conclude that regenerative dynamic capabilities may either come from inside the firm or enter the firm from outside, via changes in leadership or the intervention of external change agents.
Themes and Trends in Australian and New Zealand Tourism Research: A Social Network Analysis of Citations in Two Leading Journals (1994–2007)

Assessments and rankings of the contribution and influence of scholars, institutions and journals in tourism are becoming increasingly common. This article extends the existing literature by providing a finer grained understanding of key influences in tourism research. This study presents a bibliometric analysis of the tourism literature by examining papers authored by Australian and New Zealand researchers in Annals of Tourism Research and Tourism Management between 1994 and 2007. A general picture of the field is drawn by examining keywords, the most-cited authors and works, as well as co-citation patterns. The analysis is extended by the use of social network analysis to explore the links between keywords and influential works in the field. The article also addresses the conference theme by identifying emerging themes and influences. Results indicate that tourism research in Australia and New Zealand has been strongly influenced by sociology and anthropology, geography and behavioural psychology. Emerging themes have focused on the health and safety of tourists, risk, wine tourism and segmentation.
W 504 1 Studies of Diversity and Functions of Soil Microbes and Nematodes in NIAES Using Nucleic Acids Extracted from Soil

Since we succeeded in establishment of an improved DNA extraction method using skim milk from soils that strongly adsorb DNA, we have studied the structure and functions of soil microorganisms using nucleic acids extracted from soil. By analyzing DNA extracted from 3-chlorobenzoate (3CB) amended soil using polymerase chain reaction-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (PCR-DGGE), we succeeded in isolating effective 3CB-degraders and full length of 3-CB degradative genes from the soil and the metagenome of the soil, respectively. We could show the possibility to use DGGE bands as indicators of soils biological properties for soil management: we detected PCR-DGGE bands derived from ammonia-oxidizing bacteria specific in a field under long-term application of chemical N-fertilizer or organic manure. Based on these achievements, since 2006, National Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences (NIAES) play a central role in a national project sponsored by Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan addressing development of analytical methods for soil biological properties using environmental DNA (eDNA) which is directly extracted from soil. In the project, we have optimized and standardized the conditions for preparation of DNA from soil and PCR-DGGE using soil eDNA to compare the microbial communities in different soil samples. We determined the most suitable primer sets and "DGGE markers" for each of soil bacterial, fungal and nematode analysis and optimized conditions in PCR amplification, electrophoresis and other experimental steps. In parallel, we have been collecting soil samples under various types of agricultural management at different localities from the northern to the southern Japan, and analyzing the eDNA extracted from each soil sample by the standardized PCR-DGGE method. The obtained data have been used to construct a database (eDDASs: eDNA database for agricultural soils) collecting the results of soil eDNA analysis accompanying the physical and chemical soil properties and information about crop productivity in each agricultural fields. On the other hand, we constructed an RNA extraction method from soil with high purity. Using RNA purified from 3-CB amended soil, we could detect 3-CB-induced gene expression in soil environment. Our final goal is to determine the relationships between the biological properties evaluated by eDNA or RNA analysis and the soil physicochemical properties as affected by cultivation practice.
Gender Disparities in Sentencing Departures: An Examination of U.S. Federal Courts

Using data from the United States Sentencing Commission, the present study examines the role of guideline departures in the sentencing of male and female defendants in federal courts. Findings indicate that female defendants continue to have lower odds of incarceration and to receive shorter sentence length terms, even after legal, extralegal, and contextual factors are controlled. The largest gender difference in the odds of incarceration was found for defendants who received substantial assistance departures, while male and female defendants in this same category were given the most similar sentence lengths. When departure status was examined as a dependent variable, it was found that female defendants were more likely to receive a sentencing departure. Finally, for both males and female defendants sentenced on multiple counts, those who went to trial and had prior criminal histories were less likely to receive sentencing departures. But defendants with higher guidelines sentences, those who had committed drug offenses, and those with more education were more likely to receive a sentencing departure.