Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dynamic interactions between forest structure and fire behavior in boreal ecosystems

This paper reviews and synthesizes literature on fi re as a disturbance factor in boreal forests. Spatial and temporal variation in the biophysical environment, specifi cally, vegetative structure, terrain, and weather lead to variations in fi re behavior. Changes in slope, aspect, elevation, and soil affect site energy and water budgets and the potential plant community. These terrain features also have a major infl uence on fi re-caused disturbance through their role in determining moisture conditions and fl ammability of fuels on hourly, seasonal, and successional time-scales. On fi ne time scales (minutes to hours), changes in weather, specifi cally wind and relative humidity, signifi cantly affect a fi re’s intensity and aboveground effects. Normal seasonal changes in dryness and periodic drought infl uence fi re intensity and severity principally by affecting the depth of burn and belowground effects. On decades-long time scales changes in vegetative structure affect the mass of fuel available for burning and therefore the potential energy that can be released during a fi re. The severity of fi re varies in time and space depending not only on the biophysical environment, but also on the location on the fi re’s perimeter (head vs. fl ank vs. rear). Spatial and temporal variation in severity within a fi re can have long-lasting impacts on the structure and species composition of post-fi re communities and the potential for future disturbances. Characteristic temperature histories of ground, surface, and crown fi res are used to illustrate variations in fi re severity. A soil-heating model is used to illustrate the impact of varying depth of burn on the depth at which various fi re effects occur in the soil profi le. A conceptual model is presented for the effects of fi re severity on fi re-plant regeneration interactions. The conceptual model can be used by restoration ecologists to evaluate the differential effects of controlled or prescribed fi res and wildfi res and to plan and implement fi re treatments to conserve biodiversity.
Associations of Jet Streams with Tornado Outbreaks in the North America

Jet streams, a current of fast winds located about seven miles up near the tropopause, are major weather driving factors in the mid-latitudes. Using the Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) reanalysis data resources for the period 1979 to 1988, we defined the latitudinal distribution of daily wind maxima by month, and analyzed latitudinal distribution of the highest daily wind speed at the selected longitude in the 19th week of the year. We showed the typical diving pattern of jet stream over Central America in spring. We found that latitudinal distribution of daily wind maxima was concurrently oscillated with latitudinal distribution of tornado outbreaks in April, May and June. KZ filter smoothed latitudinal distribution of highest daily wind speed on tornado days showed a substantial increase in number of daily wind maxima over tornado alley region, compared to that on non-tornado-days.
Uniformly ergodic A-contractions on Hilbert spaces

We study the concept of uniform (quasi-) A-ergodicity for A-contractions on a Hilbert space, where A is a positive operator. More precisely, we investigate the role of closedness of certain ranges in the uniformly ergodic behavior of A-contractions. We use some known results of M. Lin, M. Mbekhta and J. Zemánek, and S. Grabiner and J. Zemánek, concerning the uniform convergence of the Cesàro means of an operator, to obtain similar versions for A-contractions. Thus, we continue the study of A-ergodic operators developed earlier by the author. 1. Notations and preliminaries. Let H be a complex Hilbert space and B(H) be the algebra of all bounded linear operators on H, where the identity operator is denoted by I = IH. For T ∈ B(H), T ∗ means the adjoint operator, while R(T ) and N (T ) denote the range and the null-space of T , respectively. An operator T ∈ B(H) is mean ergodic on H if the limit
The Impact of Brand Image , Customer Loyalty with Customer Satisfaction as A Mediator in Mcdonald ’ s

The objective of this paper is to examine the impact of McDonald’s brand image towards customer loyalty with customer satisfaction as a mediator by using descriptive and Partial Least Square (PLS) analyses. The results show that three hyphotheses are accepted which mean that there is a positive impact of strength of brand association towards customer loyalty, there is a positive impact of strength of brand association towards customer satisfaction, and there is a positive impact of customer satisfaction towards customer loyalty.
Accounting for the effects of biological variability and temporal autocorrelation in assessing the preservation of species abundance

Abstract Quantifying the effects of taphonomic processes on species abundances in time-averaged death assemblages (DAs) is pivotal for paleoecological inference. However, fidelity estimates based on conventional “live-dead” comparisons are fundamentally ambiguous: (1) data on living assemblages (LAs) are based on a very short period of sampling and thus do not account for biological variability in the LA, (2) LAs are sampled at the same time as the DA and thus do not necessarily reflect past LAs that contributed to the DA, (3) compositions of LAs and DAs can be autocorrelated owing to shared cohorts, and (4) fidelity estimates are cross-scale estimates because DAs are time-averaged and LAs are not. Some portion of raw (total) live-dead (LD) variation in species composition thus arises from incomplete sampling of LAs and from biological temporal variation among LAs (together = premortem component of LD variation), as contrasted with new variation created by interspecific variation in population turnover and preservation rates and by the time-averaging of skeletal input (together = postmortem component of LD variation). To tackle these problems, we introduce a modified test for homogeneity of multivariate dispersions (HMD) in order to (1) account for temporal autocorrelation in composition between LAs and DAs and (2) decompose total LD compositional variation into premortem and postmortem components, and we use simulations to evaluate the contribution of within-habitat time-averaging on the postmortem component. Applying this approach to 31 marine molluscan data sets, each consisting of spatial replicates of LAs and DAs in a single habitat, we find that total LD variation is driven largely by variation among LAs. However, genuinely postmortem processes have significant effects on composition in 25–65% of data sets (depending on the metric) when the effects of temporal autocorrelation are taken into account using HMD. Had we ignored the effects of autocorrelation, the effects of postmortem processes would have been negligible, inflating the similarity between LAs and DAs. Simulations show that within-habitat time-averaging does not increase total LD variation to a large degree—it increases total LD variation mainly via increasing species richness, and decreases total LD variation by reducing dispersion among DAs. The postmortem component of LD variation thus arises from differential turnover and preservation and multi-habitat time-averaging. Moreover, postmortem processes have less effect on the compositions of DAs in habitats characterized by high variability among LAs than they have on DAs in temporally stable habitats, a previously unrecognized first-order factor in estimating postmortem sources of compositional variation in DAs.
Quantifying Ecosystem Service Trade-offs

The ecosystem services concept evaluates ecosystem functions from a human perspective, e.g. the concept focuses on the contribution of ecosystem functions, ecosystem goods and services or human well-being. An evaluation allows the analysis of trade-offs between different ecosystem services as well as between ecosystem services and other components of human well-being. We will test two options to compare trade-offs between ecosystem services, namely map comparison and trade-off analysis using optimized landscapes.
Bilateral Home Bias: New Perspective, New Findings

While it is generally agreed that international diversification improves portfolio performance, many countries hold puzzling low levels of foreign assets. The difference between optimal and observed (far too low) foreign holdings is known as the home bias puzzle (see French & Poterba, 1991). The academic literature has proposed several possible explanations for the home bias puzzle. The prime targets were transaction costs such as fees, commissions and higher spreads (see Glassman & Riddick, 2001; Tesar & Werner, 1995; Warnock, 2001) and direct barriers to international investment (see Black, 1974; Errunza & Losq, 1985; Stulz, 1981). Evidence in Tesar & Werner (1995) and more recently Glassman & Riddick (2001) and Warnock (2001), however, rules out transaction cost as an important driver of the equity home bias. Moreover, the home bias puzzle persists even in times when most direct obstacles to foreign investment have disappeared. Important contributions focus on differences in the amount and quality of information between domestic and foreign stocks (see Brennan & Cao, 1997; Gehrig, 1993; Veldkamp & Van Nieuwerburgh, 2006), on hedging of non-traded goods consumption as a motive for holding domestic securities (see Adler & Dumas, 1983; Cooper & Kaplanis, 1994; Stockman & Dellas, 1989), and more recently on psychological or behavioral factors (see Coval & Moskowitz, 1999; Grinblatt & Keloharju, 2000; Huberman, 2001). However, also these alternative explanations do not fully account for the observed home bias in international financial markets (see Ahearne et al., 2004, among others). A relatively new surge in cross-border equity holdings works towards narrowing the gap and the documented decline in home bias (see Baele et al., 2007) suggests that countries are taking steps towards optimizing their international equity portfolios. Until recently, available data only allowed for a comparison between domestic equity holdings and (aggregated) rest-of-the-world foreign holdings. The International Monetary Fund’s Coordinated Portfolio Investment Survey (CPIS) collects information regarding the foreign equity holdings of 74 countries and territories, detailed by issuing country. Fidora et al. (2007) use this database available for the years 1997, 2001, 2002 and 2003 in order to compute bilateral home bias and show the contribution of real exchange volatility to explaining the well-known preference for local assets. This chapter combines the (increasingly extensive) CPIS database for the period 2001-2009 to compute bilateral home bias together with a new perspective on optimal investment "benchmarks" in order to explore the dynamics of bilateral home bias and the importance of
The revolution of lung cancer treatment: from vaccines, to immune checkpoint inhibitors, to chimeric antigen receptor T therapy

Lung carcinoma is one of malignant tumors to human health worldwide. The two main types are small-cell lung carcinoma (SCLC) and non-small-cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC). In recent years, despite the great progress in the treatment of lung cancer, the survival rate of lung cancer patients is still not satisfactory. Nowadays, the revolution of lung cancer managements is changing the situation. Here, we review recent advances in vaccines, immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) and chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR-T) cell immunotherapy in the field of lung cancer. ICIs proved to have promising efficacy and safety compared with chemotherapy. Preclinical data on CAR-T are still insufficient, and several phase I trials are being conducted. We have attempted to provide an overview of the most recent progress and a prediction on prospective advancements.
Global-Scale Evaluation of 22 Precipitation Datasets Using Gauge Observations and Hydrological Modeling

We undertook a comprehensive evaluation of 23 gridded (quasi-)global (sub-)daily precipitation ( P ) datasets for the period 2000–2016. Thirteen non-gauge-corrected P datasets were evaluated using daily P gauge observations from 76 086 gauges worldwide. Another ten gauge-corrected datasets were evaluated using hydrological modeling, by calibrating the conceptual model HBV against streamflow records for each of 9053 small to medium-sized ( 2 ) catchments worldwide, and comparing the resulting performance. Marked differences in spatio-temporal patterns and accuracy were found among the datasets. Among the uncorrected P datasets, the satellite- and reanalysis-based MSWEP-ng V1.2 and V2.0 datasets generally showed the best temporal correlations with the gauge observations, followed by the reanalyses (ERA-Interim, JRA-55, and NCEP-CFSR) and the the satellite- and reanalysis-based CHIRP V2.0 dataset, the estimates based primarily on passive microwave remote sensing of rainfall (CMORPH V1.0, GSMaP V5/6, and TMPA 3B42RT V7) or near-surface soil moisture (SM2RAIN-ASCAT), and finally, estimates based primarily on thermal infrared imagery (GridSat V1.0, PERSIANN, and PERSIANN-CCS). Two of the three reanalyses (ERA-Interim and JRA-55) unexpectedly obtained lower trend errors than the satellite datasets. Among the corrected P datasets, the ones directly incorporating daily gauge data (CPC Unified and MSWEP V1.2 and V2.0) generally provided the best calibration scores, although the good performance of the fully gaugebased CPC Unified is unlikely to translate to sparsely or ungauged regions. Next best results were obtained with P estimates directly incorporating temporally coarser gauge data (CHIRPS V2.0, GPCP-1DD V1.2, TMPA 3B42 V7, and WFDEI-CRU), which in turn outperformed those indirectly incorporating gauge data through other multi-source datasets (PERSIANN-CDR V1R1 and PGF). Our results highlight large differences in estimation accuracy, and hence, the importance of P dataset selection in both research and operational applications. The good performance of MSWEP emphasizes that careful data merging can exploit the complementary strengths of gauge-, satellite- and reanalysis-based P estimates.
Utilization OfThe Participatory Approach InThe Assessment Of Students’ Academic Performance

-Exploring the relation between the student-identified academic performance indicatorsand the academic performance of studentsis the main objective of this study. It was established that the instructional, family, and school organization support variables were indicators in their performance. It was argued in this paper that teachers, to improve the academic performance (AP) of students, have to focus on the improvement of the academic performance indicators (API) for the APIand AP are directly correlated.
An investigation into the challenges faced by Small to Medium Enterprises in Zimbabwe: A case of Gazaland Market

The main objective of the study was to assess and establish the challenges which are faced by the small and medium enterprises that hinder their performance and limit their growth. The study was relied upon Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) which are operating at Gazaland Market. Primary data were obtained mainly from semi-structure questionnaires. Observations, verbal interviews and face to face interviews were however also used to complement the data that was obtained from the use of questionnaire. Secondary data used was extracted from newspapers, journals, reports, textbooks, and articles presented by other authors on SMEs. The study revealed the major challenges hampering the growth of SMEs at Gazaland Market cut across lack of markets, lack of government support, unfair treatment from the local authority, stiff competition due to cheap imports, finance, and lack of training as well as technology. On the some minor challenges hampering them from transiting into formal business include poor infrastructure and lack of trust from the suppliers.
On Political Conspiracy Theories

IT is often pointed out that political conspiracy theories are of limited falsifiability. Government officials’ public statements and testimonies in a court of law that contradict a conspiracy theory can be interpreted as signs that support the theory. Almost all potentially falsifying evidence can be construed to be supporting or neutral. Official reports that contradict conspiracy theories are exactly what conspiracy theorists expect governments to produce. Although some people tend to reject conspiracy theories because of this feature, limited falsifiability is not really a problem. As many authors have argued, it is not ad hoc reasoning to suppose that misleading evidence will be thrown your way when one believes that there is somebody out there actively feeding that evidence to investigators and seeking to steer the investigation away from the truth of the matter. However, limited falsifiability may lead to problems, even if it is not a problem per se. At least, this is the claim that has recently been defended. While most conspiracy theories may not warrant outright dismissal, they do “warrant a degree of skepticism. ” Although conspiracies sometimes occur, “it is usually not rational to believe in them. ” In what follows, I will briefly analyze the view that most political conspiracy theories should be rejected on the grounds that they embody “an almost nihilistic degree of skepticism about the behavior and motivations of other people and the social institutions they constitute. ” This view has been widely criticized, but I will try to show that the objections presented so far are not wholly convincing. I will then formulate my own argument against that position, and argue that, in a sense, political conspiracy theories may not be much weaker explanations than standard non-conspirational
The stability of assignment results

The most common technique used in the traffic assignment phase of transportation modelling is the user equilibrium method. This method takes the effect of congestion on travel times into account by implementing Wardrops first principle. This principle states that if two or more routes between an origin and destination pair are used then the travel times on these routes will be equal, i.e. in equilibrium. The equilibrium assignment technique is an iterative one, and one of the problems for transportation modellers is to decide on the number of iterations that should be performed. The majority of programs that implement the equilibrium assignment technique include default values for stopping the iterative process. These stopping conditions are usually the number of iterations or one or more types of stopping criteria. This paper presents the results of a study where a number of different values for stopping the iterative process were tested. It was found that the degree of convergence required for stable results is dependent on the reason for doing the assignment. More iterations are required if the results are to be used in an economic evaluation than if volumes are needed for road design purposes. The paper provides recommended values that should be used as stopping criteria when doing equilibrium assignments.
Integrating the Output and Substitution Effects of Production into the Intermediate Microeconomics Textbook

Intermediate microeconomics textbooks employ indifference curve analysis to explain the income and substitution effects of a change in the price of a good x on the demand for it, holding other variables constant. Further, they demonstrate how the shape and slope of the demand curve changes depending on whether good x is defined as normal, inferior, or Giffen. This analysis in turn enables an evaluation of public policies aimed to increase consumer welfare. Unfortunately, these textbooks do not apply a parallel analysis in production theory, creating an analytical vacuum at the undergraduate level. This paper develops a model to analyze the output and substitution effects in production when the price of one input (labor) changes, holding technology, resource availability, and the price of the other input constant. This study will also address the production equivalents of normal, inferior, and possibly Giffen inputs affecting the shape and slope of the input demand curve. Such an exercise may allow students to gain a better understanding of producer and consumer theories, and encourage them to employ these concepts to real economic problems such as the effect of wage subsidies on labor demand. It should therefore be included in intermediate microeconomics textbooks.
Neuroprotection in Glaucoma: Old and New Promising Treatments

Glaucoma is a major global cause of blindness, but the molecular mechanisms responsible for the neurodegenerative damage are not clear. Undoubtedly, the high intraocular pressure (IOP) and the secondary ischemic and mechanical damage of the optic nerve have a crucial role in retinal ganglion cell (RGC) death. Several studies specifically analyzed the events that lead to nerve fiber layer thinning, showing the importance of both intra- and extracellular factors. In parallel, many neuroprotective substances have been tested for their efficacy and safety in hindering the negative effects that lead to RGC death. New formulations of these compounds, also suitable for chronic oral administration, are likely to be used in clinical practice in the future along with conventional therapies, in order to control the progression of the visual impairment due to primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG). This review illustrates some of these old and new promising agents for the adjuvant treatment of POAG, with particular emphasis on forskolin and melatonin.
Interface and chain confinement effects on the glass transition temperature of thin polymer films

We have used Brillouin light scattering and ellipsometry to measure the glass transition temperature Tg of thin polystyrene ~PS! films as a function of the film thickness h for two different molecular weights M w . Three different film geometries were studied: freely standing films, films supported on a SiOx surface with the other film surface free ~uncapped supported! , and films supported on a SiOx surface and covered with a SiOx layer ~capped supported! For freely standing films Tg is reduced dramatically from the bulk value by an amount that depends on both h and M w . For h&REE ~the average end-to-end distance of the unperturbed polymer molecules! , Tg decreases linearly with decreasing h with reductions as large as 60 K for both M w values. We observe a large M w dependence of the Tg reductions for freely standing films which provides the first strong evidence of the importance of chain confinement effects on the glass transition temperature of thin polymer films. For both the uncapped and capped supported films, Tg is reduced only slightly (,10 K) from the bulk value, with only small differences in Tg (,4 K) observed between uncapped and capped supported films of the same thickness. The results of our experiments demonstrate that the polymer-substrate interaction is the dominant effect in determining the glass transition temperature of PS films supported on SiOx . @S1063-651X~97! 00711-3#