Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Climatology of northern polar latitude MLT dynamics: mean winds and tides

Abstract. Mean winds and tides in the northern polar Mesosphere and Lower Thermosphere (MLT) have been studied using meteor radars located at Resolute Bay (75° N, 95° W) and Yellowknife (62.5° N, 114.3° W). The measurements for Resolute Bay span almost 12 years from July 1997 to February 2009 and the Yellowknife data cover 7 years from June 2002 to October 2008. The analysis reveals similar wind flow over both sites with a difference in magnitude. The summer zonal flow is westward at lower heights, eastward at upper heights and the winter zonal flow is eastward at all heights. The winter meridional flow is poleward and sometimes weakly equatorward, while non winter months show equatorward flow, with a strong equatorward jet during mid-summer months. The zonal and meridional winds show strong interannual variation with a dominant annual variation as well as significant latitudinal variation. Year to year variability in both zonal and meridional winds exists, with a possible solar cycle dependence. The diurnal, semidiurnal and terdiurnal tides also show large interannual variability and latitudinal variation. The diurnal amplitudes are dominated by an annual variation. The climatological monthly mean winds are compared with CIRA 86, GEWM and HWM07 and the climatological monthly mean amplitudes and phases of diurnal and semidiurnal tides are compared with GSWM00 predictions. The GEWM shows better agreement with observations than the CIRA 86 and HWM07. The GSWM00 model predictions need to be modified above 90 km. The agreements and disagreements between observations and models are discussed.
The long run share price performance of Malaysian firms issuing equity private placements

ABSTRACT The result of this study reveals an evidence of long run underperformance of equity private placements in Malaysia using market index as a benchmark. When the firms are matched to firms with similar size and market-to-book, they neither over-perform nor underperform the matching firms over the three-year period under the equal-weighting scheme. However, a considerable difference exists between the CARs and BHARs under the value-weighting scheme. Unlike previous studies that find small firms underperform more than large firms, results of this study show the opposite. We find that large firms show greater degree of underperformance than small firms. The result definitely does not conform to the widely acceptable idea that smaller firms are more likely to issue equity when they are overvalued due to higher degree of information asymmetry. Further results indicate that the underperformance is driven by the outlier in the sample. When it is excluded from the sample, no significant result is detected for the two-year period. Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that for both CAR and BHAR, the underperformance under equal-weighted scheme is worse when the returns are benchmarked against market index but in sharp contrast, the underperformance under value-weighted scheme is worse when the returns are benchmarked against matching firms. ABSTRAK Keputusan kajian menunjukkan prestasi jangka panjang syarikat-syarikat Malaysia yang menerbitkan tawaran persendirian ekuiti adalah lebih rendah berbanding dengan indeks pasaran. Tiada sebarang keputusan signifikan dicatatkan apabila syarikat-syarikat padanan saiz and nisbah nilai pasaran kepada nilai buku digunakan untuk jangka masa tiga tahun bagi skim berwajaran sama. Walau bagaimanapun, wujud perbezaan antara pulangan abnormal kumulatif (CAR) dan pulangan abnormal belian-pegangan (BHAR) bagi skim berwajaran nilai. Keputusan kajian ini menunjukkan keputusan yang bercanggah dengan kajian-kajian terdahulu di mana prestasi syarikat-syarikat kecil adalah lebih teruk berbanding dengan syarikat-syarikat besar. Keputusan ini adalah tidak selari dengan pendapat bahawa syarikat-syarikat kecil lebih cenderung menerbitkan ekuiti terlebih nilai (overvalued) disebabkan oleh maklumat tidak seimbang (information asymmetry) yang lebih tinggi. Keputusan kajian ini juga dipengaruhi oleh data ekstrem (outlier), yang mana apabila data ini dikeluarkan, tiada keputusan signifikan yang direkodkan. Sesuatu yang menarik adalah untuk skim berwajaran sama, pulangan yang rendah dicatatkan bagi indeks pasaran tetapi bagi skim berwajaran nilai, pulangan yang rendah dicatatkan bagi syarikat-syarikat padanan.
Examining the assumptions of heterogeneity-based management for promoting plant diversity in a disturbance-prone ecosystem

Background Patch-burn management approaches attempt to increase overall landscape biodiversity by creating a mosaic of habitats using a patchy application of fire and grazing. We tested two assumptions of the patch-burn approach, namely that: (1) fire and grazing drive spatial patch differentiation in community structure and (2) species composition of patches change through time in response to disturbance. Methods We analyzed species cover data on 100 m2 square quadrats from 128 sites located on a 1 × 1 km UTM grid in the grassland habitats of the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve. A total of 20 of these sites were annually sampled for 12 years. We examined how strongly changes in species richness and species composition correlated with changes in management variables relative to independent spatial and temporal drivers using multiple regression and direct ordination, respectively. Results Site effects, probably due to edaphic differences, explained the majority of variation in richness and composition. Interannual variation in fire and grazing management was relatively unimportant relative to inherent site and year drivers with respect to both richness and composition; however, the effects of fire and grazing variables were statistically significant and interpretable, and bison management was positively correlated with plant richness. Conclusions There was some support for the two assumptions of patch-burn management we examined; however, in situ spatial and temporal environmental heterogeneity played a much larger role than management in shaping both plant richness and composition. Our results suggest that fine-tuning the application of fire and grazing may not be critical for maintaining landscape scale plant diversity in disturbance-prone ecosystems.
Rheological Properties Comparison of Aqueous Dispersed Nanocellulose Derived from a Novel Pathway-produced Microcrystalline Cellulose or by Conventional Methods

Abstract Novel-produced never-dried and dried microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) was previously compared with a commercial MCC. The novel MCC was shown to be a suitable starting material for producing cellulose nanofibrils, in turn having similar molecular weight Mw, crystallinity, and particle size comparable to those from sequentially enzymatic and mechanically treated softwood sulphite pulp, but at lower cost. The study here presents a rheological parameterisation of the aqueous suspension throughout the process, aimed at delivering a correlation between specific surface area, at equal material particle size, and adsorptive coupling between neighbouring cellulose particles and interstitial water under flow. We conclude that combining dynamic viscosity with an independent measure of particle size provides a suitable quality control of MCC-derived cellulose nanofibrils, obviating the need for individual property-raw material relationships to be evaluated, and this principle may provide a generalised method for use in the production of cellulose nanofibrils.
The Seasonal Change of the Water Budget in the Congo River Basin

The seasonal change of the water budget in the Congo river basin is investigated by using hydrometeorological data averaged over long-term periods. Vapor flux convergence is calculated using the global objective analysis data of the ECMWF from 1985 to 1988. Precipitation and river discharge data mainly cover the periods 1920-1960 and 1932-1959, respectively. Evapotranspiration is estimated as precipitation minus vapor flux convergence on the monthly basis. The atmospheric water balance terms are related to the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) derived from the NOAA/AVHRR averaged from 1985 to 1987. On the monthly basis, the NDVI and evapotranspiration are in phase with the seasonal change of precipitation in the evergreen forest region, which mainly covers the northern part of the basin. In contrast, the NDVI and evapotranspiration lag precipitation by one month in the southern deciduous forest region covering the southern part of the basin. As for the entire basin, the lag-relationship between the NDVI/evapotranspiration and precipitation is similar to that for the southern deciduous forest region. In the dry season of the southern deciduous forest region, evapotranspiration exceeds precipitation in the entire basin, causing a decrease of the basin storage to its minimum value. In addition, from the viewpoint of the seasonal change of precipitation and evapotranspiration, it is concluded that the feature of the seasonal change of the water budget in the entire basin mainly reflects the characteristics of the southern deciduous forest region.
ITS sequences of nudear ribosomal DNA support the generic placement and the disjunct range of Plagiochila ( Adelanthus ) cam ’ ngtonii

According to phylogenetic analyses of NDNA IT! 51 and ITS2 sequences (including the 5.8s unit) Plagiochila carringtonii and E! carringtonii subsp. lobuchensis form a monophyletic lineage. Plagiochila carringtonii is sister to r! sandei, type species of P. sect. Cucullatae, and is placed in a clade with I! asplenioides and I? porelloides of sect. Plagiochila. A placement of Plagiochila (Adelanthus) carringtonii in another genus is clearly rejected by Kishino-Hasegawa-tests lnfraspeciflc ITS variation in Plagiochila can be high and potentially provides a tool for the analysis of dispersal events Junge * les I PlagkMlaeeae I Plagiaehila sect. Carrfngtoniac I nudear ribosomal DNA I internal transcribed spacer
On the Equivalence of Nonnegative Matrix Factorization and K-means - Spectral Clustering

On the Equivalence of Nonnegative Matrix Factorization and K-means — Spectral Clustering Chris Ding ∗ Xiaofeng He ∗ Horst D. Simon ∗ Rong Jin † December 4, 2005 Abstract We provide a systematic analysis of nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) relating to data cluster- ing. We generalize the usual X = F G T decomposition to the symmetric W = HH T and W = HSH T decompositions. We show that (1) W = HH T is equivalent to Kernel K-means clustering and the Laplacian-based spectral clustering. (2) X = F G T is equivalent to simultaneous clustering of rows and columns of a bipartite graph. We emphasizes the importance of orthogonality in NMF and soft clustering nature of NMF. These results are veriﬁed with experiments on face images and newsgroups. Introduction Standard factorization of a data matrix uses singular value decomposition (SVD) as widely used in principal component analysis (PCA). However, for many dataset such as images and text, the original data matrices are nonnegative. A factorization such as SVD contains negative entries and is diﬃcult to interpret for some applications. In contrast, nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) [18, 19] restricts the entries in matrix factors to be nonnegative. NMF has been shown recently to be useful for many applications in environment [25], chemometrics [29], pattern recognition [20], multimedia [6], text mining [31, 26] and DNA gene expressions [3]. This is also extended to classiﬁcation [27]. A number of stuides focus on further developing NMF computational methodologies [15, 22, 26, 5, 21]. Let X = (x 1 , . . . , x n ) ∈ R p×n be the data matrix of nonnegative elements. In image processing, each column x i is a 2D array of pixels gray level. In text processing, each column is a document. The NMF factorizes X into two nonnegative matrices, X ≈ F G T , n×k where F = (f 1 , · · · , f k ) ∈ R p×k and G = (g 1 , · · · , g k ) ∈ R + . k is a pre-speciﬁed parameter. NMF can be traced back to 1970s (communication from Gene Golub) and has been studied by Paatero [25, 29]. The work of Lee and Seung [18, 19] brought much attention to NMF in machine learning and data mining communities. There appears to have some confusions, however. Lee and Seung emphasizes[18] that NMF factors f k contain coherent parts of the original data (images), for example a nose or an eye. Later experiments [16, 20] do not support the parts-of-whole interpretation of NMF. In fact, Hoyer[16] and Li, et al[20] speciﬁcally propose sparsiﬁcation schemes to achieve the parts-of-whole pictures. ∗ Lawrence † Department Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720. of Computer Science and Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824.
Does Predictability Matter ? *

We calculate optimal portfolio choices for a long-horizon, risk-averse European investor who diversifies among stocks, bonds, real estate, and cash, when excess asset returns are predictable. Simulations are performed for scenarios involving different risk aversion levels, horizons, and statistical models capturing predictability in risk premia. Importantly, under one of the scenarios, the investor takes into account the parameter uncertainty implied by the use of estimated coefficients to characterize predictability. We find that real estate ought to play a significant role in optimal portfolio choices, with weights between 10 and 30% in most cases. Under plausible assumptions, the welfare costs of either ignoring predictability or restricting portfolio choices to financial assets only are found to be in the order of at least 100 basis points per year. These results are robust to changes in the benchmarks and in the statistical framework. JEL Classification Codes: G11, L85.
Berchmansus elegans (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae): Larval and adult characteristics and new tribal affiliation

The genus Berchmansus Navas, which was previously assigned to the tribe Leucochrysini, consists of three very rare spe- cies, all described from the Neotropics and all poorly known. Our report (1) provides the first description of a Berchmansus larva, the first instar of Berchmansus elegans (Guerin Meneville), (2) illustrates and redescribes the B. elegans adult, with emphasis on male and female genitalia, and (3) examines the larval and adult characters vis-a-vis the tribal affiliation of the genus. Given that the B. elegans adult and first instar share many apomorphies with other belonopterygine genera, this species belongs in the cosmopolitan tribe Belonopterygini, rather than the New World tribe Leucochrysini. Although Berchmansus larvae have not been collected in the field, we suspect that, like other belonopterygines, they are associated with ant nests. B. elegans exhibits a number of highly modi- fied and unusual structures, some of which (#1 to #5) are not reported for any other chrysopids. Specifically: Males have (1) a unique, quadrate, dome-like hood above the gonarcus and (2) large, coiled parameres on the gonosaccus. First instars have (3) a greatly enlarged subapical seta on the flagellum, (4) a transverse row of long, hooked setae along the dorso-anterior margin of the pronotum, and (5) setose laterodorsal tubercles on the meso- and metathorax, with (6) multi-pronged, hooked setae.
Time-space characteristics of diurnal rainfall over borneo and surrounding oceans as observed by TRMM-PR

Abstract Five years of Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Precipitation Radar (PR) data were used to investigate the time and space characteristics of the diurnal cycle of rainfall over and around Borneo, an island in the Maritime Continent. The diurnal cycle shows a systematic modulation that is associated with intraseasonal variability in the large-scale circulation pattern, with regimes associated with low-level easterlies or westerlies over the island. The lower-tropospheric westerly (easterly) components correspond to periods of active (inactive) convection over the island that are associated with the passage of intraseasonal atmospheric disturbances related to the Madden–Julian oscillation. A striking feature is that rainfall activity propagates to the leeward side of the island between midnight and morning. The inferred phase speed of the propagation is about 3 m s−1 in the easterly regime and 7 m s−1 in the westerly regime. Propagation occurs over the entire island, causing a leeward enhan.
The effects of challenge and hindrance stressors on unlearning and NPD success: The moderating role of team conflict

In order to develop successful products, an NPD team needs to engage in an unlearning process by re-orienting their existing beliefs and routines. Previous studies have mostly determined that unlearning is based on external organizational stressors, while internal ones are rarely discussed. Based on expectancy theory, this study examines the effects of challenge and hindrance stressors embedded in the organization on team unlearning. Moreover, this study also investigates the moderating effects of team conflict on the relationship between team unlearning and NPD success. To test the proposed hypotheses, 87 NPD team leaders and 336 members participated in the study. The results indicate that a challenge stressor positively influences team unlearning and NPD success, while a hindrance stressor has the opposite effect. Further, higher task conflict strengthens the positive effect of team unlearning on new product success when NPD teams engage less in the unlearning process, while less relationship conflict strengthens the effect when the teams are more engaged in the unlearning process. Key words: Challenge stressor, hindrance stressor, team unlearning, team conflict, new product success.In order to develop successful products, an NPD team needs to engage in an unlearning process by re-orienting their existing beliefs and routines. Previous studies have mostly determined that unlearning is based on external organizational stressors, while internal ones are rarely discussed. Based on expectancy theory, this study examines the effects of challenge and hindrance stressors embedded in the organization on team unlearning. Moreover, this study also investigates the moderating effects of team conflict on the relationship between team unlearning and NPD success. To test the proposed hypotheses, 87 NPD team leaders and 336 members participated in the study. The results indicate that a challenge stressor positively influences team unlearning and NPD success, while a hindrance stressor has the opposite effect. Further, higher task conflict strengthens the positive effect of team unlearning on new product success when NPD teams engage less in the unlearning process, while less relationship conflict strengthens the effect when the teams are more engaged in the unlearning process. Key words: Challenge stressor, hindrance stressor, team unlearning, team conflict, new product success.
Feasibility and economic evaluation of low-cost evaporative cooling system in fruit and vegetables storage

The climate of most zones of Ethiopia is characterized as high ambient temperature combined with low relative humidity, which has a negative effect on fruit and vegetables quality during harvesting, transportation, storage and marketing. Low-cost natural and forced ventilation evaporative coolers have been developed for fresh fruit and vegetables storage under arid and semi-arid conditions. The coolers were found to be effective in maintaining micro-environmental conditions for fresh fruit and vegetables storage. This research was aimed at investigating the feasibility and economics of using forced ventilation low-cost evaporative cooling to improve the indoor air conditions such as temperature and relative humidity. To reduce the indoor temperature and raise relative humidity, low-cost forced air ventilation evaporative cooler of 2.6 m2 floor area was fabricated and tested at Haramaya University, Fruit and Vegetables Research Station, on the storability of banana, papaya, orange, mandarin, lemon, mango, tomato and carrot. A fixed operating air flow rate of 4.3 kg- 1 was used to evaluate cooling performance and energy efficiency ratio of the cooler. The results showed that the indoor dry bulb temperature significantly (P the forced ventilation evaporative cooling system should be recommended for use in developing countries in order to maintain better quality of produce. These results demonstrated the relevance of the use of this low-cost adiabatic cooling technology for shelflife extension of fruits and vegetables and thereby encourage organized women groups to involve in this perishable commodity handling and processing as a source of income. Key words: Cooling, Fruits, Vegetables, Feasibility, Storage
On the estimation of species richness based on the accumulation of previously unrecorded species

Estimation of species richness of local communities has become an important topic in community ecology and monitoring. Investigators can seldom enumerate all the species present in the area of interest during sampling sessions. If the location of interest is sampled repeatedly within a short time period, the number of new species recorded is typically largest in the initial sample and decreases as sampling proceeds, but new species may be detected if sampling sessions are added. The question is how to estimate the total number of species. The data collected by sampling the area of interest repeatedly can be used to build species accumulation curves: the cumulative number of species recorded as a function of the number of sampling sessions (which we refer to as “species accumulation data”). A classic approach used to compute total species richness is to fit curves to the data on species accumulation with sampling effort. This approach does not rest on direct estimation of the probability of detecting species during sampling sessions and has no underlying basis regarding the sampling process that gave rise to the data. Here we recommend a probabilistic, nonparametric estimator for species richness for use with species accumulation data. We use estimators of population size that were developed for capture-recapture data, but that can be used to estimate the size of species assemblages using species accumulation data. Models of detection probability account for the underlying sampling process. They permit variation in detection probability among species. We illustrate this approach using data from the North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS). We describe other situations where species accumulation data are collected under different designs (e.g., over longer periods of time, or over spatial replicates) and that lend themselves to of use capture-recapture models for estimating the size of the community of interest. We discuss the assumptions and interpretations corresponding to each situation.