Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The impact of the El Niño‐Southern Oscillation on maximum temperature extremes

The impact of the El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on temperature extremes is examined in both observations and coupled climate model simulations. HadEX2, a newly developed observed gridded dataset of climate extremes indices shows marked contrasts in seasonal composites of the monthly maximum value of daily maximum temperature during the cold and warm phases of ENSO. Extreme maximum temperatures are significantly cooler over Australia, southern Asia, Canada and South Africa during strong La Niña events compared to El Niño events and significantly warmer over the contiguous United States and southern South America. Two climate models are contrasted for their ability to capture these relationships given their very different simulations of ENSO. While both models capture some aspects of the observed patterns, the fidelity of the ENSO simulation appears to be crucial for simulating the magnitude and sign of the extreme maximum temperature relationships. The impact of future climate change on these patterns is also investigated.
The quasi-geostrophic model for rapidly rotating spherical convection outside the tangent cylinder

Rapidly rotating convection in spherical geometry outside the tangent cylinder is investigated using the quasi-geostrophic approximation. The validity of the approximation is discussed, and numerical simulations using these equations are performed, reaching Ekman numbers, $E$, down to $10^{-6}$. The results are compared with experiments and fully three-dimensional numerical simulations. We find that the inertial scaling developed to study rapidly rotating convection does not represent the Prandtl-number dependence of our results adequately. Instead, we find that even in strongly supercritical situations the dominant wavenumbers at the onset of convection still have a strong influence on the behaviour. We find that the local Péclet number, the product of the typical convective velocity and local convective length scale divided by the thermal diffusivity, is helpful for understanding the dynamics of rapidly rotating convection. We explore the zonal flows driven by Reynolds stresses with no-slip boundaries and explore their Prandtl-number dependence. We also study the convective heat transport at low $E$, and consider the boundary layer structures that can form at large Rayleigh number, slowing down the rate of growth of the Nusselt number with Rayleigh number.
Real-time Sound Source Separation: Azimuth Discrimination and Resynthesis

We present a real-time sound source separation algorithm which performs the task of source separation based on the lateral displacement of a source within the stereo field. The algorithm exploits the use of the pan pot as a means to achieve image localisation within stereophonic recordings. As such, only an interaural intensity difference exists between left and right channels for a single source. Gain scaling and phase cancellation techniques are used in the frequency domain to expose frequency dependent nulls across the azimuth plane. The position of these nulls in conjunction with magnitude estimation and grouping techniques are then used to resynthesise separated sources. Results obtained from real recordings show that for music, this algorithm outperforms current source separation schemes.
THE IMPACT OF MOTIVATION ON EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE IN THE ELECTRONICS INDUSTRY IN CHINA

Motivation and its impact on performance has always remained highly researched area and have gone through many discussions and iterations and through this paper a deeper investigation is made to identify the impact of Motivation on performance of the employees. Independent variables used to gauge Motivation are Training and Development, Reward and Recognition and Delegation of Authority whereas the dependent variable is employee performance. Descriptive and explanatory design has been adopted for this study and the survey questionnaire comprised of 20 questions prepared based on Likert Scale (strongly disagree -1 and 5 for strongly agree). Sample size consisted of 100 employees from electronic manufacturing company in china and used simple random probability sampling technique. Collected details were analyzed via SPSS employing regression and correlation. The most interesting aspect is that result of this study found all the factors chosen have significant relationship with motivation. Moreover, it found Training and Development, Reward and Recognition, and Delegation of Authority has significant impact on performance of employee. Key Terms: Motivation, Employee Performance, Training and Development, Reward and Recognition, Delegation, Authority. Connie Bao FTMS Alumni, Master of Business Administration, School of Accounting and Business Management, FTMS Global Malaysia, Cyberjaya E-mail: conniebao888@gmail.com Dr. Ismail Nizam Head of MBA Programs, School of Accounting and Business Management, FTMS Global Malaysia, Cyberjaya E-mail: nizam@ftms.edu. my
Recent changes of relative humidity: regional connections with land and ocean processes

Abstract. We analyzed changes in surface relative humidity (RH) at the global scale from 1979 to 2014 using both observations and the ERA-Interim dataset. We compared the variability and trends in RH with those of land evapotranspiration and ocean evaporation in moisture source areas across a range of selected regions worldwide. The sources of moisture for each particular region were identified by integrating different observational data and model outputs into a Lagrangian approach. The aim was to account for the possible role of changes in air temperature over land, in comparison to sea surface temperature (SST), but also the role of land evapotranspiration and the ocean evaporation on RH variability. The results demonstrate that the patterns of the observed trends in RH at the global scale cannot be linked to a particular individual physical mechanism. Our results also stress that the different hypotheses that may explain the decrease in RH under a global warming scenario could act together to explain recent RH trends. Albeit with uncertainty in establishing a direct causality between RH trends and the different empirical moisture sources, we found that the observed decrease in RH in some regions can be linked to lower water supply from land evapotranspiration. In contrast, the empirical relationships also suggest that RH trends in other target regions are mainly explained by the dynamic and thermodynamic mechanisms related to the moisture supply from the oceanic source regions. Overall, while this work gives insights into the connections between RH trends and oceanic and continental processes at the global scale, further investigation is still desired to assess the contribution of both dynamic and thermodynamic factors to the evolution of RH over continental regions.
Turkish Adaptation of the Mentorship Effectiveness Scale: A Validity and Reliability Study.

The purpose of this study is to adapt the Mentoring Relationship Effectiveness Scale to Turkish, and to conduct validity and reliability tests regarding the scale. The study group consisted of 156 university science students receiving graduate education. Construct validity and factor structure of the scale was analyzed first through exploratory factor analysis, then with confirmatory factor analysis. One item was deleted from the scale after the exploratory factor analysis and the scale was observed in its original one dimensional form. The confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the one dimensional model of the scale was acceptable. Reliability of the scale was examined with test-retest and internal consistency (Cronbach Alpha) methods. The internal consistency coefficient for the whole scale was 0.936. The reliability coefficient for the test-retest, which was carried out two weeks apart, was 0.89. The findings suggest that Mentoring Relationship Effectiveness Scale is sufficiently reliable and valid for science education of graduate students.
Host population perceptions of the social impacts of sport tourism events in transition countries: Evidence from Croatia

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate residents’ perceptions of social impacts from co‐hosting the 2009 World Men's Handball Championship (WMHC09) in a small Croatian city – Split – in response to the need for social impacts research at a variety of sport tourism events and locations. Additional analysis was performed on a number of socio‐demographic factors that may affect the magnitude of residents’ perceptions.Design/methodology/approach – A quantitative methodology was employed using a convenience sampling method. A drop and mail‐back technique with self‐completed surveys was used. A total of 92 completed surveys were returned. Mann‐Whitney U and Kruskal‐Wallis tests were used to test for patterns of social impacts across demographic variables.Findings – Overall, respondents’ perceived the social impacts from co‐hosting WMHC09 as mostly positive. However, the majority of respondents believed that the public monies spent on a new arena construction should have been allocated.
ACUTE RESIDUAL EFFECTS OF SHORT AND LONG DURATION STATIC STRETCHING ON COUNTER MOVEMENT JUMP PERFORMANCES IN WELL-TRAINED FEMALE COMBAT ATHLETES

Duration of static stretching is the most crucial factor associated with static stretch-induced impairments in explosive muscular performances. The aim of this study was to investigate the acute residual effects of lower body short (S-SS) and long duration static stretching protocols (L-SS) on counter movement jump (CMJ) performances in skilled female combat athletes. Twelve well-trained female combat athletes (training experience: 11.5 ∓ 3.6 years) performed S-SS (6 min of total stretch duration) and L-SS (12 min of total stretch duration) separated by 48 hours in a randomized, balanced order. After each protocol, participants performed, respectively, counter movement jump with arm swing (CMJ AS ) and with hands on hip (CMJ HH ) separated by 30-second rest interval at the 15th second and 1st, 5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th minute of the 20-minute recovery period. An insignificant interaction effect was found for Protocol × Time in CMJ heights (p = 0.722) indicating that both S-SS and L-SS reduced CMJ heights to a similar extent over the course of 20 min recovery period. S-SS and L-SS led to a mean CMJ height reduction of 6.29% (p < 0.05, d = 0.603) and 6.74% (p < 0.05, d = 0.610), respectively. Greater than 50% of participants experienced a reduction in CMJ AS height exceeding minimum detectable change score with 90% confidence at each time point during the recovery period without exception. Use of static stretching protocols ≥ 6 minutes prior to competitions and/or training sessions may lead to impairment in lower body explosive strength of well-trained female combat athletes that persists at least 20 minutes. This impairment may also indirectly hinder their sport-specific performance since combat sports include a great deal of movement patterns related to lower body explosive strength. Article visualizations:
How Advertising Affects the Buying Behavior of Consumers in Rural Areas: A Case of Pakistan

This study examined the affects of advertising and some factors of rural areas on consumers buying behavior. The study used questionnaires based survey to collect data in rural areas. The collected data were analyzed through correlation statistics and simple regressions. Results indicated that advertising has positive and statistically significant effects, while, the factors of rural areas have negative but statistically significant effects on consumers buying behavior. Further, advertising is positively but factors of rural areas are negatively correlated with consumers buying behavior.
Intratemporal Nonseparability between Housing and Nondurable Consumption: Evidence from Reinvestment in Housing Stock

This paper presents a model to assess the socioeconomic resilience to natural disasters of an economy, defined as its capacity to mitigate the impact of disaster-related asset losses on welfare, and a tool to help decision makers identify the most promising policy options to reduce welfare losses due to floods. Calibrated with household surveys, the model suggests that welfare losses from the July 2005 floods in Mumbai were almost double the asset losses, because losses were concentrated on poor and vulnerable populations. Applied to river floods in 90 countries, the model provides estimates of country-level socioeconomic resilience. Because floods disproportionally affect poor people, each $1 of global flood asset loss is equivalent to a $1.6 reduction in the affected country's national income, on average. The model also assesses and ranks policy levers to reduce flood losses in each country. It shows that considering asset losses is insufficient to assess disaster risk management policies. The same reduction in asset losses results in different welfare gains depending on who benefits. And some policies, such as adaptive social protection, do not reduce asset losses, but still reduce welfare losses. Asset and welfare losses can even move in opposite directions: increasing by one percentage point the share of income of the bottom 20 percent in the 90 countries would increase asset losses by 0.6 percent, since more wealth would be at risk. But it would also reduce the impact of income losses on wellbeing, and ultimately reduce welfare losses by 3.4 percent.
ICT in an ESP classroom - looking for a balance

ICT has become an inseparable part of language teaching; e-learning or blended learning is a must especially in a university environment and mobile learning with its wide range of applications is increasingly popular due to unlimited ways of employing them. This paper is focused exclusively on the use of technology in a face-to-face setting, specifically in an undergraduate course of legal English; however, the findings and suggestions could be further generalized to any university course of English for Specific Purposes. Although the majority of current university students belong to the generation of digital natives, our experience suggests that not all of them may be enthusiastic about using their laptops, tablets or smart phones in the course of the lesson since the answer to the choice “a pen or a keyboard” is not 100% the same. The paper addresses the question of balancing the number of technology activities throughout a 4-semester undergraduate legal English course, the author shares good practice from using Google Docs and Socrative for various tasks reaching specific learning goals.
Impact of waterlogging on the nutrition of cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) produced in sodic soils

Abstract. Sodicity in Vertosols used for agricultural production can adversely affect the growth and nutrition of cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) plants. Cotton produced in sodic soils has reduced dry matter and lint yield and can develop toxic plant tissue concentrations of sodium (Na) but limited tissue concentrations of phosphorus (P,) potassium (K), and micronutrients. Crops produced on sodic soils frequently suffer from aeration stress after an irrigation or rainfall event, and it was hypothesised that the adverse physical and/or chemical conditions of sodic soils may exacerbate the effects of waterlogging. We measured the impacts of sodicity on the growth, nutrition, and root recovery time of cotton during and after waterlogging in two experiments. In the first, cotton plants were subjected to a 7-day period of inundation in Grey Vertosols with a range of exchangeable sodium percentage (ESP) values from 2 to 25%; 32P was placed in the pots and its accumulation in the plant was used to indicate root activity and recovery after the waterlogging event. In a second experiment, agar was dissolved in nutrient solutions with a range of Na concentrations (9, 30, and 52 mm) matching soil solution Na concentrations in sodic soils, in order to simulate a waterlogging event. Following the waterlogging event, the solutions were labelled with 32P, in order to determine the effect of sodic soil solution chemistry on the rate of recovery of cotton root function after the event. Plant nutrient analysis was used to determine the effects of sodicity and waterlogging on cotton nutrition. In both experiments, waterlogging reduced root activity and reduced the uptake and transport of labelled P by the cotton plants, decreased plant P and K concentrations, and increased the plant Na concentrations. Sodicity exacerbated the effects of waterlogging on root function and cotton nutrition in the soil experiment but not in the nutrient solution experiment, suggesting that any contribution of waterlogging to the patterns of nutrient accumulation in cotton crops produced in sodic fields occurs due to soil physical factors rather than soil solution chemistry.
Climate Change and Migration in the MENA Region: An Overview

Climate change and migration are major concerns in the MENA region, yet the empirical evidence on the impact of climate change and extreme weather events on migration remains limited. Information is broadly lacking on how households in vulnerable areas perceive changes in the climate, how they are affected by extreme weather events, whether they benefit from community and government programs to help them cope with and adapt to a changing climate, and how these conditions influence the decision of household members to migrate, either temporarily or permanently. This introductory chapter summarizes briefly the main results of the study which relied on existing data as well as focus groups and new household surveys collected in 2011 in Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Syria, and Yemen. The results suggest that households do perceive important changes in the climate, and that many households are being affected by extreme weather events resulting in losses in income, crops, and livestock. The coping and adaptation strategies used by households to deal with weather shocks are diverse, but also limited, with most households not able to recover from the negative impact of weather shocks. The ability of community level responses and government programs to support households is also very limited. Finally, while climate change is not today the main driver of migration flows, it does appear to contribute to these flows, and worsening climatic conditions are likely to exacerbate future migration flows.
Advancing the country image construct from a public relations perspective

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a new model for the measurement of the constitution and effects of the country image as a central target construct in international public relations. Design/methodology/approach – The authors combine concepts from reputation management (Eisenegger and Imhof, 2008; Ingenhoff and Sommer, 2007), national identity theory (Smith, 1987), and attitude theory (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980) to derive a four-dimensional model, conceptualizing country images as stakeholder attitudes toward a nation and its state, comprising specific beliefs and general feelings in a functional, normative, aesthetic, and emotional dimension. Furthermore, the authors develop a path model to analyze the country image’s effect on stakeholder behavior. This model is operationalized and tested in a survey regarding the country image of the USA and its effects on travel behavior. Findings – Results show how functional, normative and aesthetic image dimensions vary in affecting the form.
Aboveground carbon stocks in oil palm plantations and the threshold for carbon-neutral vegetation conversion on mineral soils

Abstract The carbon (C) footprint of palm oil production is needed to judge emissions from potential biofuel use. Relevance includes wider sustainable palm oil debates. Within life cycle analysis, aboveground C debt is incurred if the vegetation replaced had a higher C stock than oil palm plantations. Our study included 25 plantations across Indonesia, in a stratified study design representing the range of conditions in which oil palm is grown. From allometric equations for palm biomass and observed growth rates, we estimated the time-averaged aboveground C stock for 25-year rotation and 95%-confidence interval to be 42.07 (42.04–42.10) Mg C ha−1 for plantations managed by company on mineral soils, 40.03 (39.75–40.30) Mg C ha−1 for plantations managed by company on peat, and 37.76 (37.42–38.09) Mg C ha−1 for smallholder oil palm on mineral soils. Oil palm can be established C debt-free on mineral soils with aboveground C stocks below these values; neutrality of mineral soil C pools was documented in a parallel study. Acknowledging variation in shoot:root ratios, the types of vegetation that can be converted debt-free to oil palm include grasslands and shrub, but not monocultural rubber plantations, rubber agroforest, and similar secondary or logged-over forests of higher C stock.
Building relationships between scientists and business in ocean iron fertilization

The potential use of ocean iron fertilization (OIF) as a tool for either carbon reduction projects like those used to generate carbon credits or offsets, or for larger-scale mitigation to remove a significant percentage of CO2 from the atmosphere has interested the private sector. Scientists have highlighted the additional research that must be completed to understand the efficacy and impact of OIF at either scale. Carbon markets also place requirements on the nature of the credits generated if they are to be trusted and valued. The challenge for the future is to find effective ways for the science, business and carbon market communities to collaborate in ways that adhere to the high standards of scientific research. A code of conduct that recognizes the needs for scientific excellence and trans- parency, carbon market quality controls, and regulatory requirements like permitting can facilitate collaboration.
Student to lecturer link

Interactivity and feedback are key contributors to providing an effective learning environment for students. Lectures provide the main resource for university students to discover what is expected of them and to identify the key learning goals related to a course, from a lecturer. This paper focuses on resolving the problems and anxieties faced by first year Computer Science students at the University of Southampton, through various user-centred design methodologies. Lecturers are also considered to look into providing a design idea or recommendation that will motivate students to be more forthcoming with their problems, as well as support the current practices of lecturers. To facilitate interaction with lecturers, it is important that students can acknowledge that the lecturer will deal with their problems and that the participation from the lecturer is not excessive. Results from the interviews, questionnaire and diary study highlighted anonymity and feedback as focal areas to consider in an online-based system. This would encourage students to voice their concerns about lectures or topics that they find difficult.