Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Short-run and long-run elasticities of gasoline demand in Mauritius : an ARDL bounds test approach

An Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) cointegration framework is used to examine the short-run and longrun characteristics of gasoline demand in the transport sector in Mauritius. Results indicate that gasoline demand, per capita income and real price of gasoline are integrated of order 1 and the ARDL bounds test confirms that these variables are cointegrated. The long-run income and price elasticities of gasoline demand are estimated to be 0.77 and -0.44 respectively. The short-run income elasticity is estimated to be 0.37 based on an ARDL error-correction model while the short-run price elasticity is found to be -0.21. The adjustment parameter is 0.48 which implies that around 95% of the demand adjustment occurring after five periods.
Signatures of primordial non-Gaussianities in the matter power-spectrum and bispectrum: the time-RG approach

We apply the time-renormalization group approach to study the effect of primordial non-Gaussianities in the non-linear evolution of cosmological dark matter density perturbations. This method improves the standard perturbation approach by solving renormalization group-like equations governing the dynamics of gravitational instability. The primordial bispectra constructed from the dark matter density contrast and the velocity fields represent initial conditions for the renormalization group flow. We consider local, equilateral and folded shapes for the initial non-Gaussianity and analyze as well the case in which the non-linear parameter fNL parametrizing the strength of the non-Gaussianity depends on the momenta in Fourier space through a power-law relation, the so-called running non-Gaussianity. For the local model of non-Gaussianity we compare our findings for the power-spectrum with those of recent N-body simulations and find that they accurately fit the N-body data up to wave-numbers k ∼ 0.25 h/Mpc at z = 0. We also present predictions for the (reduced) matter bispectra for the various shapes of non-Gaussianity.
Fractal analysis of subionospheric LF propagation data and consideration of the lithosphere-atmosphere-ionosphere coupling

Abstract. Fractal analysis has been applied to the local nighttime data of subionospheric LF propagation, and the fractal dimension is estimated every day in the two distinct frequency ranges (AW: acoustic wave and AGW: atmospheric gravity wave). The data during several years are analyzed for the propagation paths from the Japanese transmitter of JJY to Moshiri (Hokkaido) and to Kochi. As the result of analysis, we come to the conclusion that when we pay attention to the period just around the earthquake, we sometimes detect some significant increases in the fractal dimension either in AW or AGW range. This indicates that the self – organization effect prior to an earthquake in the lithosphere, might be seen even in the lower ionosphere, probably in terms of atmospheric oscillation effect.
Epidemiological Dimensions of Social Anhedonia

Social anhedonia (SA)—reduced drive for and pleasure from social interaction—is associated with social/emotional dysfunction and risk for psychopathology. However, our understanding of the factors that contribute to variation in SA remains limited. Here, we investigate the epidemiology of SA in an international population-based sample of more than 19,000 individuals who completed the Revised Social Anhedonia Scale through TestMyBrain.org. We find that SA exhibits considerable variation over the life span and is higher in males versus females, people of lower socioeconomic status, those of African ethnicity, nonmigrants, and people living in ethnically dense locations and less urban environments. Gender, socioeconomic status, and urbanicity were the only factors that captured unique variance in SA. These findings provide a framework for understanding how variation in epidemiological factors contribute to variation in elemental building blocks of psychopathology, and demonstrate the utility of using big data approaches toward the study of risk and Research Domain Criteria dimensions.
Netted radar hough detector in randomly arriving impulse interference

In this paper, two Hough detectors, decentralized and centralized, with the polar Hough transform (PHT) that operate in the presence of randomly arriving impulse interference (RAII) are proposed and studied. The usage of the Hough transform (HT) in systems for air traffic control enables to detect more effectively the target trajectory in the presence of RAII. The study of the signal processing employed in detectors is carried out using Monte-Carlo simulations in MATLAB computing environment. The results obtained show that the detection probability of the multi-sensor centralized Hough detector is higher than that of the decentralized detector. (5 pages)
An empirical study of consumer behavior in housing market in Colombo

This study aims to provide a scientific insight into the consumer behavior of the housing market in Sri Lanka. Consumer behavior in the housing market presents a veritable problem to be reckoned with, which might not yet been addressed scientifically. The broader objective of the study is, therefore, to add the knowledge of consumer behavior of housing market in Sri Lanka to the existing body of knowledge. Further, it is expected, especially, to identify the determinants of the consumer behavior, to rate them in terms of importance, and to compare the relative importance of the determinants among different market segments. This study disclosed a number of attributes of the market according to the potential buyers' views in relation to buying decision of a house. 35% of the respondents stated that they would like to buy built houses rather than engage in construction. Further, it was identified that "location" of a house is the most important determinant of the buying decision. However, it is not the dominant factor because some other factors such as "quality of construction", "price", "legality", "facilities", "neighborhood" are also more important closely as important as the location. The other revealed fact is that the demographic variables such as age, income levels, and occupation are not highly effective criteria for the segmentation of the housing market. Accordingly, it is certain that this study provides a valuable supplementary to the existing literature of the marketing management through imparting the knowledge of the consumer behavior of the housing market in Sri Lanka. DOI: 10.4038/besl.v8i1. 1906 Built-Environment Sri Lanka Vol.8(1) 2008 11-19
Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind

Despite calls for better co-operation between countries and different cultures, there is still confrontation between people, groups and nations. But at the same time they are exposed to common problems which demand cooperation for the solution of these problems. This book helps to understand the differences in the way strategists and their followers think, offering practical solutions for those in business to help solve conflict between different groups.
The role of mineral aerosols in shaping the regional climate of West Africa

This article examines the role of mineral aerosols in the regional climate of West Africa. Analysis is completed by comparing two 30 year simulations using a regional climate model (RegCM3‐IBIS). The two simulations are identical in structure except one includes the representation of mineral aerosols via a fully coupled radiatively interactive dust emissions and aerosol tracer model; the other simulation does not. To discern the impact of dust on West Africa's climate, comparisons are made between the two simulations' surface climatology as well as atmospheric dynamics. It is found that RegCM3‐IBIS and its dust model perform well in simulating the temporal and spatial distributions of mineral aerosols over the Sahel and Sahara. Consistent with previous studies over the region, RegCM3‐IBIS simulates high‐dust loading over the region (aerosol optical depth of 0.5–1.1), which results in significant incident shortwave radiation attenuation (25–50 W/m2) and temperature cooling (0.5°C–1.25°C). Depending on the underlying surface brightness, the top of atmosphere net radiative forcing may be positive (bright desert surfaces) or negative (dark, vegetated surface) with important implications on surface temperature cooling. Here it is proposed that the effects of dust on West African rainfall are distinctly different across the ocean‐land border and the desert border region of the Sahel/Sahara. Nevertheless, in both regions, the change in rainfall is less than 10% of the total annual values. Therefore, this work concludes that the current, observed, dust loading over West Africa does not significantly affect rainfall via changes in the radiation budget. However, it is important to note that this work does not include mineral aerosol effects on sea surface temperatures, which may be significant in influencing the results.
An overview of the microphysical structure of cirrus clouds observed during EMERALD‐1

High‐resolution ice microphysical, turbulence, heat and water vapour flux data in cirrus clouds were collected by the Airborne Research Australia's (ARA) Egret Grob 520T research aircraft during the first Egret Microphysics with Extended Radiation and Lidar experiment (EMERALD‐1). The in situ cirrus measurements were guided by simultaneous airborne lidar measurements collected by the ARA Super King Air research aircraft which flew below the cirrus and whose horizontal position was synchronized with the Egret. This allowed the microphysics and turbulence measurements to be interpreted and evaluated within the context of large‐scale cirrus structure and its evolution. A significant feature of the clouds observed was the presence on occasion of active convective columns. Large variations in the cirrus dynamics were observed, with significant variations in the ice crystal habit from cloud top to cloud base and within the evaporating fall‐streaks of precipitation. However, on average the picture presented is consistent with that shown by Heymsfield and Miloshevich, and by Kajikawa and Heymsfield, with the upper supersaturated region of the cloud acting as an active particle‐generation zone where homogeneous nucleation proceeds apace; ice crystals there are initially dominated by small irregular or spheroidally shaped particles, some of which can be identified as proto or ‘germ’ rosettes. These are then observed to grow into more open bullet rosette and columnar types as they fall into the less supersaturated middle and lower layers of the cloud. The mean recognisable ice particle size fell within a very narrow size band, 70–90 µm, but the actual size distribution is thought to increase in a continuous manner to smaller sizes. However, there are currently instrument limitations that make it difficult to confirm this unambiguously. Unlike most previous studies, however, the cirrus clouds observed here were mostly devoid of pristine plate‐like crystals, as nucleation and growth within the planar growth regime was rarely encountered. During some cases bullet rosettes, once formed, did undergo transition to the plate growth regime with complex crystal shapes resulting. The mean size of pristine bullet rosettes was again confined to a relatively narrow range. The likely nucleation processes dominating in cirrus clouds are discussed in the light of the observations.
IDENTIFICATION OF MYOSTATIN GENE c.960delG LOCUS POLYMORPHISM IN INDONESIAN LOCAL SHEEP BY USING PCR-SSCP METHOD

Myostatin (MSTN) is a protein inhibit muscle growth. This protein is a member of a superfamily ofmolecules called transforming growth factors beta (TGF-b). Deletion in c.960delG (1-bp deletion atposition 960) disrupts the reading frame from amino acid (aa) position 320 to ending in a premature stopcodon in aa position 359 have been found in Norwegian White Sheep. This deletion in the myostatingene is responsible to increase muscle mass, also known as 'double muscling', in sheep. The purpose ofthis study was to identify the polymorphism of myostatin gene in c.960delG locus of local sheep inIndonesia. The 832 DNA sampels from sheep were collected from 13 populations belonging to thePriangan (86), Javanese Thin Tail (389 i.e. Jonggol, Banjar, Ciomas), Javanese Fat Tail (94), West NusaTenggara (136), Rote Island/East Nusa Tenggara (35), Kisar Island/Southwest Maluku (22),Donggala/South East Celebes (45) and Batur cross breed/Wonosobo, Central Java (25). A gene fragmentof MSTN c.960delG length 299 bp was successfully amplified by using the technique of PCR(polymerase chain reaction) and genotyped by SSCP (single strand conformation polymorphism). Theresult showed no polymorphism in this gene. All sheep tested had G/G genotype for c.960delG locus.
Parsing Approaches for Swiss German

This paper presents different approaches towards universal dependency parsing for Swiss German. Dealing with dialects is a challenging task in Natural Language Processing because of the huge linguistic variability, which is partly due to the lack of standard spelling rules. Building a statistical parser requires expensive resources which are only available for a few dozen high-resourced languages. In order to overcome the low-resource problem for dialects, approaches to cross-lingual learning are exploited. We apply different cross-lingual parsing strategies to Swiss German, making use of Standard German resources. The methods applied are annotation projection and model transfer . The results show around 60% Labelled At-tachment Score for all approaches and provide a ﬁrst substantial step towards Swiss German dependency parsing. The resources are available for further research on NLP applications for Swiss German dialects.
Tilburg University Low ranks make the difference

This investigation tested the joint effect of achievement goals and ranking information on information exchange intentions with a commensurate exchange partner. Results showed that individuals with performance goals were less inclined to cooperate with an exchange partner when they had low or high ranks, relative to when they had intermediate ranks. In contrast, mastery goal individuals showed weaker cooperation intentions when their ranks were higher. Moreover, participants’ reciprocity orientation was found to mediate this interaction effect of achievement goals and ranking information. These findings suggest that mastery goals are more beneficial for exchange relationships than performance goals in terms of stronger reciprocity orientation and cooperation intentions, but only among low-ranked individuals. 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Public and private inputs in aggregate production and growth: a cross-country efficiency approach

In a cross section of OECD countries, we replace the macroeconomic production function by a production possibility frontier, total factor productivity being the composite effect of efficiency scores and possibility frontier changes. We consider, for the periods 1970, 1980, 1990 and 2000 one output – GDP per worker – and three inputs – human capital, public physical capital per worker and private physical capital per worker. We use a semi-parametric analysis, computing Malmquist productivity indexes, and we also resort to stochastic frontier analysis. Results show that private capital is important for growth, although public and human capital also contribute positively. A governance indicator, a nondiscretionary input, explains inefficiency. Better governance helps countries to achieve a better performance. Nonparametric and parametric results coincide rather closely on the movements of the countries vis-à-vis the possibility frontier and on their relative distances to the frontier.
The Protein Component of Sow Colostrum and Milk

The production of colostrum and milk by the sow are primary limiting factors affecting survival, growth and development of the piglets. The proteins of colostrum and milk provide not only a supply of amino acids to the neonate but also a wide range of bioactive factors. Proteins in sow mammary secretions include those associated with the milk fat membranes, caseins, mammary-derived whey proteins, immunoglobu‐ lins, hormones and growth factors, enzymes, and a wide range of other proteins. Concentrations of most milk-specific proteins typically are lower in colostrum than in milk, while concentrations of immunoglobulins and other bioactive proteins often are enriched in colostrum compared with mature milk. Dietary protein is utilized for milk protein production with approximately 50% efficiency. During both the colostrum period and at peak lactation as much as 700–800 g of protein is secreted daily by today’s highly prolific sows. Estimates of daily milk protein secretion during lactation suggest that sows are not able to consume sufficient dietary protein and energy to account for output of solids in milk and therefore must mobilize body protein and body fat to support their milk production. Milk protein content typically is not affected by dietary treatment, indicating that the sow mobilizes her body reserves to maintain milk production and milk protein production. These observations are of particular interest for today’s highly prolific sows, which may require more dietary protein than previous genotypes.
POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE AFFECT ASSOCIATED WITH AN ACUTE BOUT OF AEROBIC EXERCISE

RICHARD H. COX, TOM R. THOMAS, AND JOSEPH E. DAVIS. Positive And Negative Affect Associated With An Acute Bout Of Aerobic Exercise. JEPonline. 2001;4(4):13-20. The purpose of this investigation was to test the hypotheses that (a) positive and negative affect would fluctuate as a function of exercise intensity and mode of exercise, and that (b) the effects of exercise on positive and negative affect would be retained for up to 60 min following an acute bout of exercise. Male participants (N=24) were randomly assigned and habituated to exercise on either a treadmill, or a stationary stepper. Participants completed 30 min of exercise on their assigned apparatus at an intensity of either 50% or 75% predicted VO2max. Psychological affect was assessed using the Subjective Exercise Experiences Scale (SEES) prior to exercise, and at 5, 30, and 60 min after. An intensity by mode by time (2x2x4) MANOVA resulted in a significant main effect for time (p=0.005), and borderline significant main effect for mode (p=0.056). From a univariate perspective a significant difference was noted between the stepper and the treadmill for perceived fatigue (p<0.025). A significant linear trend was observed across time for well-being (p=0.003), distress (p=0.001), and fatigue (p=0.037). The immediate effect of a 30 min bout of exercise was to increase well-being and fatigue but decrease distress relative to baseline measures. Thirty and 60 min after exercise, the effect was to increase well-being and decrease fatigue and psychological distress.
Imaging of Moving Target Using Capon Beam forming Algorithm and Four Channel Transmitter Antenna

Ultra-wide band (UWB) radar technology is used to detect targets and finds application in different fields such as military, industry, rescue missions, clinicalmedicine, etc. With its wide bandwidth and high spatial resolution, UWB radar can penetrate non-metallic objects, such as bricks, wood, dry walls, concrete and reinforced concrete. This paper presents the application of smart antenna technique and use of the Capon Beam forming Algorithm for imaging of the target through brick wall and in free space at a certain distance.Smart antennas replace mechanically rotated aperture antennas (Synthetic Aperture Antenna) such that radar using a smart antenna can choose direction it wants to send the signal and receives the information instantaneously. Capon Beam forming is one of the earliest adaptive beam forming techniques. It has the potential to provide significantly better resolution and interference rejection capability compared to conventional delay-and-sum beam former. M-sequence UWB radar technology have an ability to penetrate signal through natural and unnatural objects and offers low cost and quality security system.
Roles of community interpreters in pediatrics as seen by interpreters, physicians and researchers

This paper is an attempt at defining more clearly the various roles of community interpreters and the processes implicitly connected with each of them. While the role of the interpreter is a subject that has been widely discussed in the social science literature, it is less present in the biomedical one, which tends to emphasize the importance of interpreting in overcoming language barriers, rather than as a means of building bridges between patients and physicians. Hence, studies looking at interpreted medical interactions suggest that the presence of an interpreter is more beneficial to the healthcare providers than to the patient. This statement is illustrated by the results of a recent study in a pediatric outpatient clinic in Switzerland. It is suggested that, in the consultations, interpreters act mainly as linguistic agents and health system agents and rarely as community agents. This is consistent with the pediatricians’ view of the interpreter as mainly a translating machine. A new typology of the varying roles of the interpreter is proposed, outlining the relation to cultural differences maintained therein. Some recommendations for the training of interpreters and healthcare providers are suggested.
Multi-variate flood damage assessment: a tree-based data-mining approach

Abstract. The usual approach for flood damage assessment consists of stage-damage functions which relate the relative or absolute damage for a certain class of objects to the inundation depth. Other characteristics of the flooding situation and of the flooded object are rarely taken into account, although flood damage is influenced by a variety of factors. We apply a group of data-mining techniques, known as tree-structured models, to flood damage assessment. A very comprehensive data set of more than 1000 records of direct building damage of private households in Germany is used. Each record contains details about a large variety of potential damage-influencing characteristics, such as hydrological and hydraulic aspects of the flooding situation, early warning and emergency measures undertaken, state of precaution of the household, building characteristics and socio-economic status of the household. Regression trees and bagging decision trees are used to select the more important damage-influencing variables and to derive multi-variate flood damage models. It is shown that these models outperform existing models, and that tree-structured models are a promising alternative to traditional damage models.