Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Lithostratigraphy of Late Weichselian tills on the West Estonian Islands

KADASTIK, ENE and KALM, VOLLI 1998. Lithostratigraphy of Late Weichselian tills on the West Estonian Islands. Bulletin of the Geological Society of Finland 70, Parts 1-2, 5-17. Glacial stratigraphy of the West Estonian Islands comprises three different diamicton units which are correlated event-stratigraphically to the Pandivere and Palivere ice advances of the most recent (Late Weichselian) glaciation and included into the Vörtsjärve Subformation according to Estonian stratigraphic nomenclature. A large number of till samples (1136) and drillcore sections (2500) were analysed in order to determine the genesis and composition of sediments from which the lithostratigraphical conclusions are derived. The two topmost diamictons are interpreted as genetic varieties of the Palivere Till waterline melt-out and basal till. The Pandivere Till is the lowermost widespread till layer on the islands, which lies unconformably between the Palivere Till and carbonaceous bedrock. Lacustrine Köpu Sands separate the Palivere and Pandivere Tills in a few boreholes on the Köpu and Sörve Peninsulas. In deeply buried valleys on the Sörve Peninsula the Pandivere Till is underlain by lacustrine Viieristi Sands and greenish-grey compact till of unknown age. The correlatives of the Palivere and Pandivere Tills in southern Finland, south of Salpausselkä I (SSI), are thought to be the Espoo and Siuntio Tills, respectively.
The strategic role of lean : A discussion

Operations strategy and its development have received a lot of attention in the operationsmanagement literature. However, literature related to benefits of improvement programs, suchas lean production, is often contradictory to operations strategy principles. There is a largebody of work arguing that lean can bring substantial performance improvements, indicatingthat operations strategy formalization might be unnecessary when certain operational processesimprovements are applied. However, some literature emphasize the importance of operationsstrategy, stating that its formulation leads to superior competitiveness when lean techniques areproperly related to competitive dimensions and to decision areas. In this study, a comprehensiveliterature review has been carried out to reveal insights on both streams of study and it is usedto conceive a framework and a research interview protocol based on that. Hence, this studycompares experts’ view of the strategic role of lean. Such a comparison is done through a rangeof interviews. The results support the notion that lean can generate a strong advantage in manycompetitive dimensions; even so, a formal strategy approach is still necessary to focus leanmodel implementation.
Do insect outbreaks reduce the severity of subsequent forest fires?

Understanding the causes and consequences of rapid environmental change is an essential scientific frontier, particularly given the threat of climate- and land use-induced changes in disturbance regimes. In western North America, recent widespread insect outbreaks and wildfires have sparked acute concerns about potential insect–fire interactions. Although previous research shows that insect activity typically does not increase wildfire likelihood, key uncertainties remain regarding insect effects on wildfire severity (i.e., ecological impact). Recent assessments indicate that outbreak severity and burn severity are not strongly associated, but these studies have been limited to specific insect or fire events. Here, we present a regional census of large wildfire severity following outbreaks of two prevalent bark beetle and defoliator species, mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) and western spruce budworm (Choristoneura freemani), across the US Pacific Northwest. We first quantify insect effects on burn severity with spatial modeling at the fire event scale and then evaluate how these effects vary across the full population of insect–fire events (n = 81 spanning 1987–2011). In contrast to common assumptions of positive feedbacks, we find that insects generally reduce the severity of subsequent wildfires. Specific effects vary with insect type and timing, but both insects decrease the abundance of live vegetation susceptible to wildfire at multiple time lags. By dampening subsequent burn severity, native insects could buffer rather than exacerbate fire regime changes expected due to land use and climate change. In light of these findings, we recommend a precautionary approach when designing and implementing forest management policies intended to reduce wildfire hazard and increase resilience to global change.
Epilepsy in nonhuman primates

Nonhuman primates (NHPs) are model organisms for understanding the pathophysiology and treatment of epilepsy in humans, while data from human patients informs the diagnosis and treatment of NHP with seizures and epilepsy. We reviewed the literature and surveyed veterinarians at zoos and NHP research centers to (a) better define the range of seizures and epilepsy in NHP, (b) understand how NHPs can inform our knowledge of the pathophysiology and treatment of epilepsy in humans, and (c) identify gaps of knowledge and develop more effective guidelines to treat seizures and epilepsy in NHP.
Left R-prime (R,S)-submodules

We introduced (R,S)-modules as a generalization of bimodule structures. Moreover, we presented the ways to study primalities of (R,S)submodules, which we called fully prime and jointly prime (R,S)-submodules. In this paper, we define the third way to study primality of (R,S)submodules, which we call left R-prime (R,S)-submodules. Characterizations and some properties of left R-prime submodules are also investigated. Mathematics Subject Classification: 16D99
On (σ, τ)-Lie Ideals with Generalized Derivations in Rings

Let R be a 2-torsion free prime ring and F : R −→ R be a generalized derivation associated with a non-zero derivation d. Suppose that σ, τ are automorphisms of R such that dσ = σd, dτ = τd . Further, suppose that U is a non zero (σ, τ)-Lie ideal of R and C(R)σ,τ = {x ∈ R | xσ(y )= τ(y)x, for all y ∈ R}. In the present paper it is shown that (i )I fF(U) ⊆ C(R)σ,τ, then R is commutative or U ⊆ C(R)σ,τ . (ii )I f F(U) ⊆ Z(R) and d(U) ⊆ Z(R), then U ⊆ Z(R). (iii )I fF 2 (U) ⊆ Z(R) and d(U) ⊆ Z(R), then U ⊆ Z(R )o rR is commutative. Some more related results have also been obtained. Mathematics Subject Classification: 16W25, 16N60, 16U80
Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and participatory fandom: mapping new congruencies between the internet and media entertainment culture

The culture of media entertainment, as exemplified in the Lord of the Rings and Star Wars film franchises, is being infused with new modes of authorship, production, marketing, and consumption that are characterized by Internet fan clubs, online producer‐consumer affiliations, and real‐world legal controversies over the proprietary ownership of digital bits of information. To analyze these new interactive patterns being employed by two competing media franchises, Bourdieu's theory of cultural production is supplemented with Jenkins's study of participatory fandom. Then, the contested nature of computer‐mediated communication is explored using a model that brackets the opposing potentialities of Internet influence on offline society.
TECHNOLOGY ACCEPTANCE MODEL (TAM) AS A PREDICTOR MODEL FOR EXPLAINING AGRICULTURAL EXPERTS BEHAVIOR IN ACCEPTANCE OF ICT

This study aimed to develop Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) model to explain adoption of information technologies process. a Descriptive – correlation study was conducted and data were collected through a survey. Statistical population was West Azerbaijan Agricultural Extension agents who 120 of them were selected randomly using the Krejcie and Morgan table. A questionnaire was employed to measure the variables in the model. Its validity was confirmed by a panel of experts. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient ranged between from 0.704 to 0.816 show satisfied reliability. For data processing, partial least squares (PLS) method as a new approach to structural equation modeling was used. The results showed that among three variables for development of technology acceptance model including Job relevance, experience and organization willingness to invest, the first and second show significant effects. Thus, Job relevance and experience as an external variable was added to the basic TAM. Other relations between variables in basic technology acceptance model in current study were also seen significant. Our developed TAM can explain 64% of the actual behavior of employee in information technology utilization. TAM is one of the most influential extensions of Ajzen and Fishbein’s theory of reasoned action (TRA) in the literature. The theories behind it assume that when a person forms an intention to act, that s/he will be free to act without limitation. While In the real world there will be many constraints, such as limited freedom to act. For example, people in organized working environments are forced to use most of the relevant applications irrespective of their opinion or attitude. In this research mentioned model was used as a strong model to predict actual use behavior that affected by three variables namely Job relevance, experience and organization willingness to invest.
Inter-Generational Differences in Individualism/Collectivism Orientations: Implications for Outlook towards HRD/HRM Practices in India and the United States

This article proposes a conceptual model to explore the effects of intergenerational transition in individualism/collectivism orientations on the outlook towards different human resource development (HRD) and management practices. It contributes to the existing cross-cultural research in HRD by defining three prominent generations in India and by proffering a comparative cross-cultural study of the effect of generations on individualism/collectivism orientations and preferences for human resource practices in India and the United States.
Determinants and Effects of Foreign Direct Investment in Ghana – Review of Literature

This paper reviewed papers published on foreign direct investment (FDI) on Ghana to determine the factors that gravitate FDI into Ghana, the effects of FDI on Ghana and identify the gaps that exist for further research. The literature used excluded long essays and thesis as well as working papers that have not been published in a journal. The resulting literature retrieved numbered 27, while 23 were subjected to detailed review. The review revealed a publication bias towards inward FDI, publishing in journals outside Ghana and a preponderance of use of time series data. Results of recent data tended to produce more statistically significant results than previous and shorter span data. Factors that determined inflow of FDI into Ghana are exchange rate, exchange rate volatility, real exchange rate, previous level of FDI, inflation, size of the economy, democracy and trade. FDI inflow benefited Ghana’s economy through its effect on agricultural exports, firm productivity, industrial output, stock market and ultimately GDP and GDP growth. However, agricultural FDI negatively impacted food security. Studies on directional spillover effects of FDI in Ghana are non-existent and deserve investigation among other areas. Key words : foreign direct investment, Ghana, determinants, effects, review.
THE INFLUENCE OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES ON ORGANIZATIONAL INNOVATION. A PERSPECTIVE OF MEXICAN SMES

The adoption of new organizational methods is essential for any firm to improve its ability to seize and create new knowledge, which is necessary to develop alternative types of innovations. Hence, the appropriate use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can substantially improve organizational innovation. In this sense, an empirical study of 288 manufacturing SMEs in the Guanajuato region, Mexico, was conducted to determine the influence of ICTs usage on organizational innovation in a developing country. The results obtained through the Structural Equation Modeling demonstrate that the use of ICTs substantially impacts on organizational innovation. Therefore, SMEs should use ICTs effectively and collaboratively with suppliers and customers to meet market trends and improve or innovate their products.
Solar energetic particle drifts in the Parker spiral

Drifts in the Parker spiral interplanetary magnetic field are known to be an important component in the propagation of galactic cosmic rays, while they are thought to be negligible for solar energetic particles (SEPs). As a result, they have so far been ignored in SEP propagation modeling and data analysis. We examine drift velocities in the Parker spiral within single particle first‐order adiabatic theory, in a local coordinate system with an axis parallel to the magnetic field. We show that, in the presence of scattering in interplanetary space, protons at the high end of the SEP energy range experience significant gradient and curvature drift. In the scatter‐free case, drift due to magnetic field curvature is present. The magnitude of drift velocity increases by more than an order of magnitude at high heliographic latitudes compared to near the ecliptic; it has a strong dependence on radial distance r from the Sun, reaching a maximum at r∼1 AU at low heliolatitudes and r∼10 AU at high heliolatitudes. Due to the mass over charge dependence of drift velocities, the effect of drift for partially ionized SEP heavy ions is stronger than for protons. Drift is therefore likely to be a considerable source of cross‐field transport for high‐energy SEPs.
Some encrusted hardgrounds from the Ordovician of Estonia (Baltica)

The Ordovician hardground faunas of Estonia are not diverse. They include echinoderm holdfasts (i.e., eocrinoids and crinoids), edrioasteroids, bryozoans (both hemispherical trepostomes and stalked ptilodictyids) and cornulitids. The earliest hardground faunas appeared in the Dapingian (i.e., bryozoans and echinoderms). The Estonian hardground faunas are less diverse than the North American ones. North American hardgrounds seem to be more heavily encrusted than the Estonian ones. These differences may be due to the paleogeographic distances, different climates and different sedimentation environments of the paleocontinents.
DEVELOPMENT OF A MICROSCALE ENERGY HARVESTING SYSTEM FOR PORTABLE DEVICE RECHARGING: A LAPTOP CASE MODEL

A design study is presented for a piezoelectric energy harvesting device designed to recharge a laptop computer battery. The piezoelectric energy harvesting structure is designed to be built into the laptop case, and use the laptop computer as the seismic mass for vibration-based energy harvesting, thereby achieving a low resonance frequency in order to maximize the energy output during typical activities (walking, bicycling, riding in a car). Macro-scale models of the energy harvesting element were constructed and measured, and their performance was used to validate a SPICE-based model. The results of the model were then used as the basis for a design and comparison of the complete system using microscale PZT and AlN bimorph energy harvesters.
Indirect climate forcing over the western US from Asian dust storms

Aerosols lofted to high altitudes by springtime Asian dust storms advect across the Pacific Ocean and, as recognized in recent years, regularly reach the western US. As part of our long‐term cirrus cloud research program using remote sensing measurements, we have observed unusually warm cirrus ice clouds associated with transported Asian dust aerosols. The polarization lidar data presented for illustration here suggest that the dust particles, which are indicated to be especially active ice nuclei, can affect the formation and phase of clouds, and hence alter their radiative properties at least as far away as the eastern Great Basin of the US.
Kernel adaptive filtering algorithms with improved tracking ability

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in kernel methods in areas such as machine learning and signal processing as these methods show strong performance in classification and regression problems. Interesting "kernelized" extensions of many well-known algorithms in artificial intelligence and signal processing have been presented, particularly, kernel versions of the popular online recursive least squares (RLS) adaptive algorithm, namely kernel RLS (KRLS). These algorithms have been receiving significant attention over the past decade in statistical estimation problems, among which those problems involving tracking time-varying systems. KRLS algorithms obtain a non-linear least squares (LS) regressor as a linear combination of kernel functions evaluated at the elements of a carefully chosen subset, called a dictionary, of the received input vectors. As such, the number of coefficients in that linear combination, i.e., the weights, is equal to the size of the dictionary. This coupling between the number of weights and the dictionary size introduces a trade-off. On one hand, a large dictionary would accurately capture the dynamics of the input-output relationship over time. On the other, it has a detrimental effect on the algorithm's ability to track changes in that relationship because having to adjust a large number of weights can significantly slow down adaptation. In this thesis, we present a new KRLS algorithm designed specifically for the tracking of time-varying systems. The key idea behind the proposed algorithm is to break the dependency of the number of weights on the dictionary size. In the proposed method, the number of weights K is fixed and is independent from the dictionary size.Particularly, we use a novel hybrid approach for the construction of the dictionary that employs the so-called surprise criterion for admitting data samples along with a simple pruning method ("remove-the-oldest") that imposes a hard limit on the dictionary size. Then, we propose to construct a K-sparse LS regressor tracking the relationship of the most recent training input-output pairs using the K dictionary elements that provide the best approximation of the output values. Identifying those dictionary elements is a combinatorial optimization problem with a prohibitive computational complexity. To overcome this, we extend the Subspace Pursuit algorithm (SP) which, in essence, is a low complexity method to obtain LS solutions with a pre-specified sparsity level, to non-linear regression problems and introduce a kernel version of SP, which we call Kernel SP (KSP). The standard KRLS is used to recursively update the weights until a new dictionary element selection is triggered by the admission of a new input vector to the dictionary. Simulations show that that the proposed algorithm outperforms existing KRLS-type algorithms in tracking time-varying systems and highly chaotic time series. %%%%Au cours des dernieres annees, il y a eu un interet accru pour les methodes a noyau dans des domaines tels que l'apprentissage…
Behaviour, tolerance and anaerobic metabolism under hypoxia in the brackish-water shrimp Crangon crangon

Behavioural and metabolic reactions of Crangon cranyon L. were studied at different activity levels in shrimp exposed to various degrees of hypoxia. At 20°C, the normally buried C. crangon emerges from the sand at a P,Oz of 40 to 50 % saturation (20 %O S); at 9°C the emersion response occurs at PwOz 20 %. A swimming reaction was always noted at P,Oz 30 to 40 O/O (20 %o S; 20°C). Regardless of salinity, survival was high down to P,Oz 30 %. LT,, was strongly dependent on P,02 and salinity; thus at 10 %. S, P,Oz 10 %: LTso = 4.5 h; at 20 %O S. PwO, 10 %: LTSo = 6 h; at 10 %. S, Pw02 20 %: LT5, = > 150 h. Circulating lactate was accumulated only at P,"02 10 % saturation or lower. Normoxic lactate levels were ca 10 mg 100 ml-' and increased in P . 0 2 less than 10 % to 80 to 100 mg 100 ml-' after 3 to 4 h. C. crangon will die quickly at this P,02, unless higher oxygen tensions prevail rapidly. Return to normoxic conditions caused circulating lactate to be re-oxidised to normoxic levels within 5 to 6 h. When C. crangon was forced to swim in different P , 0 2 for up to 2 h the circulating lactate remained, regardless of the P,02 (100 to 40 % sat.) at norrnoxic levels. Oxygen consumption (MO,) rose to varying degrees (5 to 70 % of routine MO,) when C. crangon was forced to swim for 2 h. No sign of oxygen debt was found after a swimming period Due to a higher MOz when exposed to Pw02 of 40 to 50 %, swimming MO2 under these conditions rose only 10 to 15 %. During escape reactions C. crangon used its abdominal muscle, but after ca 15 contractions that muscle showed signs of fatigue. No increase in circulating lactate was found after such escape reactions. MO2 under escape reactions increased up to 21 1 % of routine MO, at normoxic P,O,. Here also the MO2 returned quickly to routine levels w~thout any signs of oxygen debt.
Reconnoitering Students' Satisfaction of an Online Based Assessment System to Improve Usability using PSO: An Examination into a Problem Solving and Programming Course

End users’ computing environment has been consistently changing in recent years due to the major advancements of Information Technology. This work aimed to measure the level of users’ satisfaction and provide feedbacks for continuous improvement of a course offered in an academic institution. End users here were the students enrolled for the course and the faculty members who offered the same and also acted as an assessor for the assessments. All assessments were scheduled and conducted online. This study was conducted to focus on two different aspects: Measuring User satisfaction and investigating information systems measures to improve usability using nature inspired computing. For user satisfaction analysis, the study employed the Multicriteria Satisfaction Analysis. The course considered was a problem solving and programming course offered to the fresh students enrolled in the first year of the undergraduate degree program in the academic institution during 2015-2016. To identify the factors for improved usability, PSO was employed in this work.
Possibilities and Challenges of Teaching Integrated Math and Social Studies for Social Justice: Two Teacher Educators

In this paper, we—one mathematics teacher educator and one social studies teacher educator—describe a project where we collaborated to model teaching integrated mathematics and social studies for social justice in our methods courses. We encountered varied challenges in our efforts to prepare teacher candidates for socialjustice-oriented lessons. These challenges included teacher candidates’ perception of authority/credibility of their professors who were foreign females from the “Third World”, teacher candidates’ deficit views on minoritized students, and the limited time and resources for teacher collaboration in teacher education. Despite these challenges, we believe this kind of project is necessary to move forward in teacher preparation for social justice education.