Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Spatial and temporal variation in the heat tolerance limits of two abundant Southern Ocean invertebrates

While, in lower latitudes, population-level differences in heat tolerance are linked to temperature variability, in the Southern Ocean remarkably stable year-round temperatures prevail. Temporal variation in the physiology of Antarctic ectotherms is therefore thought to be driven by the intense seasonality in primary productivity. Here we tested for differences in the acute upper temperature limits (lethal and activity) of 2 Antarctic marine invertebrates (the omnivorous starfish Odontaster validus and the filter-feeding clam Laternula elliptica) across latitude, seasons and years. Acute thermal responses in the starfish (righting and feeding) and clam (burrowing) differed between populations collected at 77°S (McMurdo Sound) and 67°S (Marguerite Bay). Both species displayed significantly higher temperature performance at 67°S, where seawater can reach a maximum of +1.8°C in summer versus ? 0.5°C at 77°S, showing that even the narrow spatial and temporal variation in environmental temperature in Antarctica is biologically meaningful to these stenothermal invertebrates. Temporal comparisons of heat tolerance also demonstrated seasonal differences in acute upper limits for survival that were consistent with physiological acclimatisation: lethal limits were lower in winter than summer and higher in warm years than cool years. However, clams had greater inter-annual variation of temperature limits than was observed for starfish, suggesting that variation in food availability is also an important factor, particularly for primary consumers. Teasing out the interaction of multiple factors on thermal tolerance will be important for refining species-specific predictions of climate change impacts.
On hadronic beam models for quasars and microquasars

Most of the hadronic jet models for quasars (QSOs) and microquasars (MQs) found in literature represent beams of particles (e.g. protons). These particles interact with the matter in the stellar wind of the companion star in the system or with crossing clouds, generating gamma-rays via proton-proton processes. Our aim is to derive the particle distribution in the jet as seen by the observer, so that proper computation of the $\gamma$-ray and neutrino yields can be done. We use relativistic invariants to obtain the transformed expressions in the case of a power-law and power-law with a cutoff particle distribution in the beam. We compare with previous expressions used earlier in the literature. We show that formerly used expressions for the particle distributions in the beam as seen by the observer are in error, differences being strongly dependent on the viewing angle. For example, for $\Gamma =10$ ($\Gamma$ is the Lorentz factor of the blob) and angles larger than $\sim 20^o$, the earlier-used calculation entails an over-prediction (order of magnitude or more) of the proton spectra for $E>\Gamma mc^2$, whereas it always over-predicts (two orders of magnitude) the proton spectrum at lower energies, disregarding the viewing angle. All the results for photon and neutrino fluxes in hadronic models in beams that have made use of the earlier calculation are affected. Given that correct gamma-ray fluxes will be in almost any case significantly diminished in comparison with published results, and that the time of observations in Cherenkov facilities grows with the square of the flux-reduction factor in a statistically limited result, the possibility of observing hadronic beams is undermined.
The SAMI Pilot Survey: the kinematic morphology–density relation in Abell 85, Abell 168 and Abell 2399

We examine the kinematic morphology of early-type galaxies (ETGs) in three galaxy clusters Abell 85, 168 and 2399. Using data from the Sydney-AAO Multiobject Integral eld spectrograph (SAMI) we measured spatially-resolved kinematics for 79 ETGs in these clusters. We calculate R, a proxy for the projected specic stellar angular momentum, for each galaxy and classify the 79 ETGs in our samples as fast or slow rotators. We calculate the fraction of slow rotators in the ETG populations (fSR) of the clusters to be 0:21 0:08, 0:08 0:08 and 0:12 0:06 for Abell 85, 168 and 2399 respectively, with an overall fraction of 0:15 0:04. These numbers are broadly consistent with the values found in the literature, conrming recent work asserting that the fraction of slow rotators in the ETG population is constant across many orders of magnitude in global environment. We examine the distribution of kinematic classes in each cluster as a function of environment using the projected density of galaxies: the kinematic morphologydensity relation. We nd that in Abell 85 fSR increases in higher density regions but in Abell 168 and Abell 2399 this trend is not seen. We examine the dierences between the individual clusters to explain this. In addition, we nd slow rotators on the outskirts of two of the clusters studied, Abell 85 and 2399. These galaxies reside in intermediate to low density regions and have clearly not formed at the centre of a cluster environment. We hypothesise that they formed at the centres of groups and are falling into the clusters for the rst time.
The ctenophore Mnemiopsis leidyi A. Agassiz 1865 in coastal waters of the Netherlands: an unrecognized invasion?

The introduction of the American ctenophore Mnemiopsis leidyi to the Black Sea was one of the most dramatic of all marine bioinvasions and, in combination with eutrophication and overfishing, resulted in a total reorganization of the pelagic food web and significant economic losses. Given the impacts this animal has exhibited in its invaded habitats, the spread of this ctenophore to additional regions has been a topic of much consternation. Here, we show the presence of this invader in estuaries along the Netherlands coast, based both on morphological observation and molecular evidence (nuclear internal transcribed spacer region 1 [ITS-1] sequence). Furthermore, we suggest the possibility that this ctenophore may have been present in Dutch waters for several years, having been misidentified as the morphologically similar Bolinopsis infundibulum. Given the level of shipping activity in nearby ports (e.g. Antwerp and Rotterdam), we find it likely that M. leidyi found its way to the Dutch coast in the ballast water of cargo ships, as is thought for Mnemiopsis in the Black and Caspian Seas. Given the magnitudes of the impacts this ctenophore has shown in its native and introduced ranges, the animal’s potential effects on the North Sea pelagic ecosystem and fisheries warrant close observation in the coming years. The development of large ctenophore aggregations during recent years was probably driven by the higher than average sea surface temperatures in the North Sea, and we hypothesize that populations from the southern North Sea may have been the source of the invaders reported in the Baltic Sea and the Skagerrak. If these northern populations (Baltic, etc.) are not able to over-winter, it is possible that established populations in southern North Sea estuaries may serve as a yearly supply of invaders to the colder waters to the north.
Arctic Mixed-Phase Clouds Simulated by a Cloud-Resolving Model : Comparison with ARM Observations and Sensitivity to Microphysics Parameterizations

Abstract Single-layer mixed-phase stratiform (MPS) Arctic clouds, which formed under conditions of large surface heat flux combined with general subsidence during a subperiod of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program’s Mixed-Phase Arctic Cloud Experiment (MPACE), are simulated with a cloud-resolving model (CRM). The CRM is implemented with either an advanced two-moment [Morrison et al. (MCK)] or a commonly used one-moment [Lin et al. (LFO)] bulk microphysics scheme and a state-of-the-art radiative transfer scheme. The MCK simulation, which uses the two-moment scheme and observed aerosol size distribution and ice nulei (IN) number concentration, reproduces the magnitudes and vertical structures of cloud liquid water content (LWC), total ice water content (IWC), and number concentration and effective radius of cloud droplets as suggested by the MPACE observations. The simulation underestimates ice crystal number concentrations by an order of magnitude and overestimates effective radius of ice c.
The Effect of Learners’ Motivation on Their Reading Comprehension Skill: A Literature Review

Motivation is one of the neglected parts of English language teaching. Teachers often forget that motivation is the basic part of learners’ English language learning activities. In this sense, learners control the flow of the classroom. Without learners’ motivation, there is no pulse and no life in the class. When learners learn to incorporate direct approaches to generate motivation in their learning, they will become happier and more successful learners. This paper is an attempt to investigate the impact of motivation on learners’ reading comprehension. It reviews the terms motivation, different types of motivation, reading comprehension, and different models of reading comprehension. The review of the literature indicated that motivation has an influential role in learners’ reading comprehension.
Inflation Expectations: Does the Market Beat Professional Forecasts?

The present paper compares expected inflation to (econometric) inflation forecasts based on a number of forecasting techniques from the literature using a panel of ten industrialized countries during the period of 1988 to 2007. To capture expected inflation we develop a recursive filtering algorithm which extracts unexpected inflation from real interest rate data, even in the presence of diverse risks and a potential Mundell-Tobin-effect. The extracted unexpected inflation is compared to the forecasting errors of ten econometric forecasts. Beside the standard AR(p) and ARMA(1,1) models, which are known to perform best on average, we also employ several Phillips curve based approaches, VAR, dynamic factor models and two simple model avering approaches.
Facilitating resolution of forest conflicts through understanding the complexity of the relationship between forest industry and environmental groups

Conflict over the utilisation of forest resources is ubiquitous, often as a result of clashing interests and values regarding their use. Though there are positive dimensions to these conflicts, they often result in the inefficient use of the resource on which many livelihoods and societies rely. Therefore, management of these conflicts is vital. A prominent feature of these conflicts are the roles played by environmental non-government organisations (ENGOs) campaigning against the operating practices of forestry industry. The main objective of this research is to analyse the various dimensions of conflicts between ENGOs and forestry related industries, culminating in the creation of a tool to facilitate resolution. The study achieves this through examining the impact of ENGO campaigns against the operating practices of Asia Pacific Resources International Holdings Ltd (APRIL), a pulp and paper company in Indonesia (paper I), and the roles of legitimacy in this arena (paper II). It also examines the motivations of ENGOs, with regards to campaigns against corporations (paper III). The final paper presents a tool for facilitating resolution of complex forest conflicts (paper IV) of which relationship between ENGOs and forest industry is a key part. The research was conducted in two stages, the first stage involved interviewing and questioning various stakeholders regarding the campaigns against APRIL in order to determine their impact as well as examine the roles of legitimacy. The second stage primarily involved over 40 ENGOs completing a questionnaire to determine how they define a successful campaign, in addition this stage also involved questioning various ENGO campaign leaders related to the APRIL campaigns, and interviewing leaders of ENGO campaigning against the Finnish Forest and Park Service, a State owned enterprise, related to its operation in Upper Lapland, Finland. The interviews and questionnaires, as well as analysis of published and unpublished documents from the various organisations showed that there is a high level of complexity in conflict between the ENGOs and APRIL, as well as in the Upper Lapland conflict, based on the differing perspectives of the situation which has foundations in the interests and values of the different parties. This complexity makes resolution of the conflict very difficult, leading to the creation of a tool, ethical analysis, which may facilitate the resolution of conflicts of these types. The findings of this research have theoretical and practical implications not least the ethical analysis tool for helping to resolve conflict, but also the need, for example, of ENGOs to take measures to protect their legitimacy.
Liquidity and Dividend Policy

We document the association between a firm's payout policy and its stock's liquidity. In particular, we show that dividend-paying firms have a more liquid market for their stock and measures of a stock's liquidity is positively linked to its probability of being a dividend payer. Furthermore, this link between dividends and liquidity is stronger when shareholders are more powerful. This is consistent with a mechanism in which payout decisions act as a commitment not to invest: by distributing cash, the firm reduces its potential for internal equity financing, raising its cost of capital and leading to less investment. Such a mechanism may lead to less volatile stock prices and potentially to a decrease in the adverse selection costs faced by liquidity-constrained shareholders, increasing stock price liquidity. When shareholders have more power, liquidity would be more strongly linked with dividends as managers would be more likely to pay dividends to meet shareholders�preference for liquidity.
The effect of hydroxycinnamic acids on growth and H+-ATPase activity of the wine spoilage yeast, Dekkera bruxellensis

Hydroxycinnamic acids are lipophilic compounds naturally present in grape must, and proposed to have antimicrobial properties. Consequently, microorganisms that grow in media containing these acids must have efficient adaptation mechanisms. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae hydroxycinnamic acids enter into the cell where they are deprotonated causing a decrease in internal pH, this variation in the intracellular pH is counteracted by an increase in the activity of the H + ATPase pump Pma1p. Dekkera bruxellensis however, is able to transform hydroxycinnamic acids into volatile-less toxic derivates, a mechanism used by few yeast species. Nonetheless, D. bruxellensis could also have an adaptation mechanism similar to that of S. cerevisiae. Our results showed that hydroxycinnamic acids caused a longer lag phase during D. bruxellensis growth, particularly when supplementing media with ferulic acid. Additionally, extracellular pH decreased while Pma1p activity increased during lag phase in media supplemented with p-coumaric acid. These results suggest the existence of a complementary mechanism of resistance to hydroxycinammic acids in D. bruxellensis which involves the H + ATPase pump Pma1p.
Propagation of measurement uncertainty in spatial characterisation of recreational fishing catch rates using logistic transform indicator kriging

Abstract: Geostatistical estimation techniques (such as kriging) have been widely accepted and applied to characterise the spatial distribution of natural phenomena. In fisheries science, these techniques have been applied for computing indices including catch per unit effort (catch rate) used for stock assessment. The nonparametric kriging approach, known as indicator kriging, is particularly helpful for the estimation of catch rates using data observed from recreational fishing surveys because it can also handle other features of the data distribution such as zero-inflation, high skewness and class-specific spatial patterns. The problem considered in this paper is the use of indicator kriging for estimation of catch rates associated with an uncertainty due to multiple measurements observed at some locations. This measurement uncertainty is often non-negligible and needs to be propagated to produce accurate estimates. In addition, the uncertainty might be spatially autocorrelated and correlated with the data and so will restrict the use of a parametric approach of uncertainty propagation. Using catch rate data for Australian herring (Arripis georgianus) from a recreational fishing survey, this study presents a soft indicator kriging approach that uses a logistic function transformation to allow the propagation of measurement uncertainty in the estimation. The performance of the uncertainty propagated model was evaluated based on the leave-one-out cross-validation method. The accuracy plot and goodness statistic indicate agreement between the expected and empirical proportions of the observed catch rates falling within probability intervals of increasing size. These suggest a good estimation performance of the approach for Australian herring catch rate data. The spatial distributions of catch rate estimates with propagated uncertainty can be used for quantifying location-specific patterns to assist stock assessment or validation of policy supporting stock assessment models. The measurement uncertainty is considered to be potentially valuable for estimation of catch rate.
Doppler W-band polarization diversity space-borne radar simulator for wind studies

Abstract. CloudSat observations are used in combination with collocated European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) reanalysis to simulate space-borne W-band Doppler observations from slant-looking radars. The simulator also includes cross-polarization effects which are relevant if the Doppler velocities are derived from polarization diversity pulse pair correlation. A specific conically scanning radar configuration (WIVERN), recently proposed to the ESA-Earth Explorer 10 call that aims to provide global in-cloud winds for data assimilation, is analysed in detail in this study. One hundred granules of CloudSat data are exploited to investigate the impact on Doppler velocity estimates from three specific effects: (1) non-uniform beam filling, (2) wind shear and (3) crosstalk between orthogonal polarization channels induced by hydrometeors and surface targets. Errors associated with non-uniform beam filling constitute the most important source of error and can account for almost 1 m s−1 standard deviation, but this can be reduced effectively to less than 0.5 m s−1 by adopting corrections based on estimates of vertical reflectivity gradients. Wind-shear-induced errors are generally much smaller (∼0.2 m s−1). A methodology for correcting these errors has been developed based on estimates of the vertical wind shear and the reflectivity gradient. Low signal-to-noise ratios lead to higher random errors (especially in winds) and therefore the correction (particularly the one related to the wind-shear-induced error) is less effective at low signal-to-noise ratio. Both errors can be underestimated in our model because the CloudSat data do not fully sample the spatial variability of the reflectivity fields, whereas the ECMWF reanalysis may have smoother velocity fields than in reality (e.g. they underestimate vertical wind shear). The simulator allows for quantification of the average number of accurate measurements that could be gathered by the Doppler radar for each polar orbit, which is strongly impacted by the selection of the polarization diversity H−V pulse separation, Thv. For WIVERN a selection close to 20 µs (with a corresponding folding velocity equal to 40 m s−1) seems to achieve the right balance between maximizing the number of accurate wind measurements (exceeding 10 % of the time at any particular level in the mid-troposphere) and minimizing aliasing effects in the presence of high winds. The study lays the foundation for future studies towards a thorough assessment of the performance of polar orbiting wide-swath W-band Doppler radars on a global scale. The next generation of scanning cloud radar systems and reanalyses with improved resolution will enable a full capture of the spatial variability of the cloud reflectivity and the in-cloud wind fields, thus refining the results of this study.
Biogeography of globally distributed bacteria in temperate and boreal Québec lakes as revealed by tag pyrosequencing of 16S rRNA genes

Sequence data of 16S rRNA genes reveal that many bacterial taxa are found in all freshwater lakes. However, the global data set is highly weighted toward lakes in temperate regions of North America and northern Europe, and it is unclear whether bacterial communities in other northern latitude environments, such as boreal lakes in North America, differ from those in lower latitudes. This study used pyrosequences of the 16S rRNA gene to examine bacterial diver- sity in 37 temperate and boreal lakes in Quebec, Canada, over the course of a year. Nearly all taxa in the global data set were also found in the Quebec lakes, but relative abundances differed. Com- munity structure varied geographically and seasonally for 97% similar operational taxonomic units (OTUs) but not at lower levels of similarity. Seasonal shifts in community structure were larger in temperate lakes than in boreal lakes, and community structure differed between boreal and temperate lakes in summer but not in winter. The differences in taxonomic composition between temperate and boreal lakes appear to be driven mostly by environmental processes influ- encing community structure of temperate lakes in summer. Our results provide a baseline for interpreting impacts of climate change in boreal biomes where community structure is driven by environmental factors.
ON THE EXISTENCE AND LIMIT BEHAVIOR OF THE OPTIMAL BANDWIDTH FOR KERNEL DENSITY ESTIMATION

We prove, under mild conditions, the existence of a minimizer of the exact mean integrated square error of a kernel density estimator as a function of the bandwidth. When it exists, we also show some expected limit properties of this optimal bandwidth; in fact, for two common situations, Theorem 3 gives the exact value for the limit. Surprisingly, in some special cases (when using superkernels or the sinc kernel for estimating some classes of densities), this limit is strictly positive and a global zero-bias bandwidth can be chosen.
Critical assessment of turbulent drag reduction through spanwise wall oscillations

Direct numerical simulations of the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations are employed to study the turbulent wall-shear stress in a turbulent channel flow forced by lateral sinusoidal oscillations of the walls. The objective is to produce a documented database of numerically computed friction reductions. To this aim, the particular numerical requirements for such simulations, owing for example to the time-varying direction of the skin-friction vector, are considered and appropriately accounted for. A detailed analysis of the dependence of drag reduction on the oscillatory parameters allows us to address conflicting results hitherto reported in the literature. At the Reynolds number of the present simulations, we compute a maximum drag reduction of 44.7%, and we assess the possibility for the power saved to be higher than the power spent for the movement of the walls (when mechanical losses are neglected). A maximum net energy saving of 7.3% is computed. Furthermore, the scaling of the amount of drag reduction is addressed. A parameter, which depends on both the maximum wall velocity and the period of the oscillation, is found to be linearly related to drag reduction, as long as the half-period of the oscillation is shorter than a typical lifetime of the turbulent near-wall structures. For longer periods of oscillation, the scaling parameter predicts that drag reduction will decrease to zero more slowly than the numerical data. The same parameter also describes well the optimum period of oscillation for fixed maximum wall displacement, which is smaller than the optimum period for fixed maximum wall velocity, and depends on the maximum displacement itself.