Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Study of CRFP Shell Structures under Dynamic Loading in Shock Tube Setup

The paper gives the study of the response of carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CRFP) quasi-isotropic shell structures under the influence of dynamic loading. The quasi-isotropic CRFP shell specimens are fabricated using Multipreg E720 laminates. These laminates are laid in such a way that shell structure has equal strength and mechanical properties in the two-dimensional (2D) plane and hence can be regarded as quasi-isotropic. In this study, the dynamic loading is generated using shock waves in a shock tube experimental setup. The strain and pressure data is collected from the experiments. Additional tests are carried out using Material Test System (MTS) for both tensile and flexural response of CRFP. Results obtained from experiments are compared with numerical simulations using ANSYS Multiphysics 14.0 finite element method (FEM) package. The numerical simulation and experimental results are found to be in good agreement.
Comparison of growth, basal area and survival rates in ten exotic and native species in Northern Sweden

As choice of species is important to reforest harvested areas and regenerate damaged areas, the present study compares growth of ten different species in Northern Sweden. Height growth, diameter, basal area and survival rates were compared, fifteen years after planting. By regression analysis, relationship between diameter and height was studied, suggesting that species which grew faster until that age were pioneer species as Betula pendula, Larix sukaczewii and Pinus contorta. Abies and Picea species showed the lowest values for all the parameter except for the survival rate. This agrees with its slow growth under the shade of pioneer species. Pinus species had the largest values for basal area; although this parameter doesn’t highlight the reality in the site due to many trees of slow growth species didn’t reach breast height and thus, these species had low basal areas. Pinus contorta, P. banksiana and Larix sukaczewii seem to be the exotic species best adapted to site conditions in the studied area, but further research will determine how the rest of the species can fit to the northern part of the country. The different characteristics of the species together with the location and desired final product will determine the choice of species.
Reasons Influencing Selection Decision Making of Parental Choice of School.

There are various studies, primarily conducted in the Western World, that have investigated the reasons why parents select a school, which they perceive best meets their children’s needs and parental aspirations for their children. In order to contribute to the established knowledge it was essential to conduct an investigation into parents’ reasons for their selection private or public school in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Such an investigation had not been conducted previously. This article details identified a factor highly regarded as influencing parental decision making: Academic Factor - divided into three identified elements - class size, quality of instruction and student/teacher relationship. Analysis and discussion along with the study’s conclusions and recommendations will be cited. Randomly selected parents, whose children attend private or public schools in Riyadh City, Saudi Arabia were invited to complete a standardized questionnaire after which to participate in a semi-structured interview to identify factors that influenced their preference for school. Two methodologies analysis of the reasons given highlighted demonstrating the frequency of cited range of reasons: class size, quality of instruction and student/teacher relationships, identified as the main elements that influenced their selection decision making.
Home Bias in International Equity Portfolios: A Review

This paper reviews the recent literature on equity home bias - the empirical finding that people over invest in domestic stocks relative to the theoretically optimal investment portfolio. We cover different home bias measures and we illustrate the extent and the evolution of equity home bias both with recent portfolio holdings data and longer time series. Institutional-based and behavior-based explanations for the puzzle are considered and discussed. We conclude that none of the proposed theories can explain the full extent of the bias by itself, thus we argue that international portfolio choice should be explained by a mixture of rational and irrational behavior.
Effects of Wolf Removal on Livestock Depredation Recurrence and Wolf Recovery in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming

Wolf predation on livestock and management methods used to mitigate conflicts are highly controversial and scrutinized especially where wolf populations are recovering. Wolves are commonly removed from a local area in attempts to reduce further depredations, but the effectiveness of such management actions is poorly understood. We compared the effects of 3 management responses to livestock depredation by wolf packs in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming: no removal, partial pack removal, and full pack removal. From 1989 to 2008, we documented 967 depredations by 156 packs: 228 on sheep and 739 on cattle and other stock. Median time between recurrent depredations was 19 days following no removal (n = 593), 64 days following partial pack removal (n = 326), and 730 days following full pack removal (n = 48). Partial pack removal was most effective if conducted within the first 7 days following depredation, after which there was only a marginally significant difference between partial pack removal and no action (HR = 0.86, P = 0.07), and no difference after 14 days (HR = 0.99, P = 0.93). Ultimately, pack size was the best predictor of a recurrent depredation event; the probability of a depredation event recurring within 5 years increased by 7% for each animal left in the pack after the management response. However, the greater the number of wolves left in a pack, the higher the likelihood the pack met federal criteria to count as a breeding pair the following year toward population recovery goals.
MEASURING PERCEIVED MAGNITUDE: IT’S LEGAL BUT IS IT LAWFUL?

The study of perceived magnitude has been a central issue in psychophysics since Fechnerproposed that it is proportional to the logarithm of stimulus strength. There is now a largebody of evidence showing that relation to follow a power law, and that it holds for a widevariety of perceptual continua. While the methods developed for the measurement ofperceived magnitude have grown in number and variety, and have been successfully appliedto a wide variety of real-world problems, critics have raised questions about the power law,and whether it or any other general rule can be shown to be generally applicable. This paperreviews such objections and argues that alleged deficiencies can be resolved, and that for thepresent, the power law is too valuable, as a summary statement encompassing a large body ofexperimental findings, to be abandoned.
A Comparative Study between a Failed and a Successful Eruption Initiated from the Same Polarity Inversion Line in AR 11387

In this paper, we analyzed a failed and a successful eruption that initiated from the same polarity inversion line within NOAA AR 11387 on 2011 December 25. They both started from a reconnection between sheared arcades, with distinct pre-eruption conditions and eruption details: before the failed one, the magnetic fields of the core region had a weaker non-potentiality; the external fields had a similar critical height for torus instability, and a similar local torus-stable region, but a larger magnetic flux ratio (of low corona and near-surface region) compared to the successful one. During the failed eruption, a smaller Lorentz force impulse was exerted on the outward ejecta; the ejecta had a much slower rising speed. Factors that might lead to the initiation of the failed eruption are identified: (1) a weaker non-potentiality of the core region, and a smaller Lorentz force impulse gave the ejecta a small momentum; (2) the large flux ratio, and the local torus-stable region in the corona provided strong confinements that made the erupting structure regain an equilibrium state.
TAXONDC: CALCULATING THE SIMILARITY VALUE OF THE 16S RRNA GENE SEQUENCES OF PROKARYOTES OR ITS REGIONS OF FUNGI

Summary: The TaxonDC program (Taxon Distance Calculator) performs pairwise sequence alignment followed by determining the similarity value between two or more sequences of interest. Unlike widely used programs, TaxonDC makes only pairwise alignment of input sequences that allows avoiding different similarity values depending on the sequences included in the analysis. The similarity values calculated with TaxonDC are the same compared to those calculated using popular identification oriented web-based tool EzBioCloud that makes calculated values comparable with previous ones. In addition, to help prevent discrepancy among different researchers, the problem concerning the influence of the order of entered sequences on similarity values is specially considered. To our knowledge, TaxonDC is the only software which includes these capabilities in combination, simplifies and widens calculation of similarity values in systematics of prokaryotes and eukaryotes. The program has easy-to-use interface and can be run on Windows and Linux. Availability and Implementation: The program is available free of charge at https://tarlachkov.ru/en/software/taxondc. Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Journal of Bioinformatics and Genomics online.
The creative class: Truth or urban myth

In the last decade, theories attempting to link culture, creativity and urban development are gaining more and more attention from the expert community and from urban policies decision makers. Strategies leaning on culture and creativity are expected to create the possibility to achieve a high level of competitiveness and compatibility with principles of sustainable development. The theoretician who has probably drawn most interest, positive and negative, is Richard Florida, a professor at the University in Toronto. This paper will analyze the concept and value implications of Florida's theory of the "creative class", with the goal to point out the positive, and that which should not be contemplated linearly as a model, but as an inspirational idea.
Determinants of interest rate exposure of Spanish banking industry

Interest rate risk represents one of the key forms of financial risk faced by banks. It has given rise to an extensive body of research, mainly focused on the estimation of sensitivity of bank stock returns to changes in interest rates. However, the analysis of the sources of bank interest rate risk has received much less attention in the literature. The aim of this paper is to empirically investigate the main determinants of the interest rate exposure of Spanish commercial banks by using panel data methodology. The results indicate that interest rate exposure is systematically related to some bank-specific characteristics. In particular, a significant positive association is found between bank size, derivative activities, and proportion of loans to total assets and banks? interest rate exposure. In contrast, the proportion of deposits to total assets is significantly and negatively related to the level of bank? s interest rate risk. El riesgo de interes representa una de las principales fuentes de riesgo financiero a las que se enfrentan las entidades bancarias. Este riesgo ha dado lugar a un extenso cuerpo de investigacion, centrado basicamente en la estimacion de la sensibilidad del rendimiento de las acciones bancarias ante las variaciones de los tipos de interes. Sin embargo, el analisis de los determinantes del riesgo de interes ha recibido mucha menos atencion en la literatura.El objetivo de este trabajo es investigar empiricamente los principales determinantes de la exposicion al riesgo de interes de las entidades bancarias espanolas utilizando metodologia de datos de panel. Los resultados obtenidos indican que la exposicion al riesgo de interes se encuentra sistematicamente relacionada con varias caracteristicas bancarias. En particular, se ha constatado una significativa asociacion positiva entre el tamano de la entidad, el volumen de operaciones con activos derivados y el ratio de prestamos sobre activos bancarios totales y el grado de exposicion al riesgo de interes. Por el contrario, se ha observado una relacion negativa significativa entre el ratio de depositos sobre activos bancarios totales y el nivel del riesgo de interes de las entidades bancarias.
The Performance of European Socially Responsible Fixed-Income Funds

Evidence to date on the performance of Socially Responsible Investments (SRI) has almost exclusively been conducted within equity markets. We provide new evidence on the potential of SRI for other asset classes, by assessing the performance of SRI fixed-income funds. This is the first comprehensive investigation on the performance of European SRI bond and balanced funds, domiciled in the main European markets (France, Germany and the UK), compared to characteristics-matched conventional funds.Our results, based on a conditional multi-factor model with time-varying alphas and betas, show that in most cases European SRI balanced funds exhibit no statistically significant differences in performance in relation to conventional funds, both during the overall sample period as well as during recession and expansion periods separately. With regard to SRI bond funds, empirical evidence is mixed. French SRI bond funds match the performance of their conventional peers, German funds slightly outperform and UK funds significantly underperform conventional funds. Furthermore, during expansion periods, funds from the Euro-Area countries significantly outperform their conventional peers, whereas during recessions they are able to perform at least as well as conventional funds. These results mean that SRI funds in the fixed-income area seem to provide additional protection to investors in market downturns.
On the Similarities of American Blacks and Whites

The history of science teaches us that many ambitious racists attempted to manufacture scientific evidence for their beliefs. Sooner or later, their charlatan style methodology (e.g., the use of skull circumference measurement by Nazi "scientists" during the World War II) and logical inconsistencies resulted in their rejection by the scientific community. A contemporary example of this trend is the work of J. Philippe Rushton. He recently wrote a large number of repetitive articles in which he revived the old-fashioned Nazi method of skull circumference measurement and claimed that Blacks are genetically less intelligent, endowed with smaller brains, oversexed, and more prone to crime and mental disease than Whites. Only some of the numerous methodological flaws in his work are discussed in the present article. Although Rushton (1988, 1990a, 1991) implied that Blacks are consistently found to have smaller brains than Whites, some of the studies listed in his reviews actually show opposite trends: North American Blacks were superior to American Whites in brain weight (see Tobias, 1970, p. 6: 1355 g vs. 1301 g) or were found to have cranial capacities favorably comparable to the average for various samples of Caucasians (see Herskovits, 1930) and number of excess neurons larger than many groups of Caucasoids, for examAUTHOR'S NOTE: This article is based on a paper presented at the 100th annual convention of the American Psychological Association in Washington, DC, August 14-18, 1992. Address correspondence to Zack Z. Cernovsky, Psychology, St. Thomas Psychiatric Hospital, St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada N5P 3V9.
Heavy metal concentration of soils affected by Zn-smelter activities in the Qeshm Island, Iran

In this study, concentrations of heavy metals in soils around a Zn-smelter in Qeshm island, Iran, are investigated. Calculated geoaccumulation index (Igeo), contamination factor (Cf), and contamination degree (Cdeg) values indicate surface soil contamination by toxic metals (As, Cd, Pb, and Zn). The results also indicate that most contaminated areas are located in the vicinity of the smelter and waste pile. However, concentrations of soil metals decrease with increasing distance from the pollution sources. Results from a potential ecological risk assessment indicate high risk in areas around the smelter. Statistical analysis also confirms the role of the Zn-smelter in soil contamination in the study area.
The expression of genes involved in fatty acid transport

24 Physical deconditioning is associated with the development of chronic 25 diseases, including type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Exercise training 26 effectively counteracts these developments, but the underlying mechanisms are 27 largely unknown. To gain more insight in these mechanisms, muscular gene 28 expression levels were assessed after physical deconditioning and after exercise 29 training of the lower limbs in humans using gene expression microarrays. In order to 30 exclude systemic effects, we used human models for local physical inactivity (three 31 weeks of unilateral limb suspension) and for local exercise training (six weeks of 32 functional electrical stimulation exercise of the extremely deconditioned legs of 33 individuals with a spinal cord injury). The most interesting subset of genes, those 34 downregulated after deconditioning as well as upregulated after exercise training, 35 contained 18 genes related to both the ‘insulin action’ and ‘adipocytokine signaling’ 36 pathway. Of these genes, the three with strongest up/downregulation were the 37 muscular fatty acid binding protein 3 (FABP3), the fatty acid oxidizing enzyme 38 hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenase (HADH), and the mitochondrial fatty acid 39 transporter solute carrier 25 family member A20 (SLC25A20). The expression levels 40 of these genes were confirmed using RT-qPCR. The results of the present study 41 indicate an important role for a decreased transport and metabolism of fatty acids 42 which provides a link between physical activity levels and insulin signaling in relation 43 to physical (in)activity. 44 45
Incentives for Unaware Agents

The paper introduces the problem of unawareness into principal--agent theory and discusses optimal incentive contracts when the agent may be unaware of her action space. Depending on the agent's default behaviour, it can be optimal for the principal to propose an incomplete contract (that keeps the agent unaware) or a complete contract. The key trade-off is that of enlarging the agent's choice set versus adding costly incentive constraints. If agents differ in their unawareness, optimal contracts show a self-reinforcing pattern: if there are few unaware agents in the economy optimal contracts promote awareness, if unawareness is wide spread optimal contracts shroud the contracting environment, thus keeping the agent unaware. Copyright , Oxford University Press.
Toxic Effect of Glinus lotoides (Aizoaceae) on Rice-Moth, Corcyra cephalonica Staintion (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) Eggs

A b s t r a c t K e y w o r d s Hexane, chloroform and ethyl acetate extracts of Glinus lotoides were evaluated under laboratory conditions at 0.25, 0.50, 1.0 and 2.0% (W/V) concentrations against the Corcyra cephalonica eggs with two different food media (Rice flour and pearl millet flour). All the three extracts were combin ed with millet and rice flour and given to C. cephalonica. Preliminary phytochemical analysis was carried out for all the three extracts. The maximum egg mortality was caused by ethyl acetate extract (78.73%) in millet flour, followed by 75.42% in rice flour at 2% of treatment concentration. All the concentrations of the extracts applied were able to cause significant (p<0.05) ovicidal activity of the C. cephalonica eggs. The least value of LC50 was obtained with ethyl acetate extract in both rice and millet flour media (2.29% and 2.06%). There were concentration and exposure period dependent LC50 and LC90 levels and efficacy against C. cephalonica egg hatchability inhibition among all extracts, and levels increased significantly with increasing concentrations and exposure periods for all extracts. Regression equations and their probability values against lethal concentrations for all the extract revealed a significant and positive role in pest population inhibition. This study demonstrates the potential use of G. lotoides extracts for crop protection against the key pest of grains, C. cephalonica and suggests that additional bioefficacy tests against different crop pests has to be pursued to determine the efficacy of G. lotoides extracts as a biopesticide. Corcyra cephalonica Egg mortality Glinus lotoides Lethal concentrations Phytochemicals
A Hybrid Computational Approach for Turbulent Collision-Coalescence of Cloud Droplets

While it has long been speculated that air turbulence could accelerate the collision-coalescence of cloud droplets and as such promotes the formation of warm rain, progress has been very slow in quantifying the turbulence effects. This results from the complexity of the problem and the lack of quantitative research tools. In this talk, we will report on an on-going, systematic effort to quantify various effects of turbulence on the rate of collision-coalescence of small cloud droplets, including (1) the enhanced relative motion due to differential acceleration and shear effects, (2) enhanced average pair density due to local clustering of droplets, and (3) enhanced collision efficiency due to turbulent fluctuations. Recently, we have developed a Hybrid Direct Numerical Simulation (HDNS) approach to treat the motion and interactions of a large number of particles suspended in a turbulent flow. The HDNS approach integrates an improved superposition method for the disturbance flows due to droplets into a pseudospectral simulation of undisturbed air turbulence. This allows, for the first time, the direct incorporation of hydrodynamic interactions within DNS and computations from first principles of statistical information related to collision-coalescence. We are currently looking into various methods to further improve the HDNS approach in order to account for near-field lubrication forces and non-continuum effects. Here we present some representative results that we have obtained, to illustrate the capabilities and potential of the HDNS approach.
Genome-wide Mapping of Transcriptional Start Sites Defines an Extensive Leaderless Transcriptome inMycobacterium tuberculosis

Cortes, Teresa; Schubert, Olga T; Rose, Graham; Arnvig, Kristine B; Comas, Iñaki; Aebersold, Ruedi; Young, Douglas B; (2013) Genome-wide mapping of transcriptional start sites defines an extensive leaderless transcriptome in Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Cell reports, 5 (4). pp. 1121-1131. ISSN 2211-1247 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep. 2013.10. 031 Downloaded from: http://researchonline.lshtm. ac.uk/id/eprint/2373993/ DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep. 2013.10. 031
Absolute/convective instabilities and the convective Mach number in a compressible mixing layer

In this paper two aspects of the stability of a compressible mixing layer are considered: absolute/convective instability and the convective Mach number. It is shown that, for Mach numbers less than unity, the compressible mixing layer is convectively unstable unless there is an appreciable amount of backflow. A rigorous derivation of a convective Mach number based on linear stability theory for the flow of a multispecies gas in a mixing layer is also presented. In particular, the definition is based on the free‐stream Mach number in the laboratory frame and is independent of the speed of the large‐scale structures and the speed of the most unstable wave. The result is compared with the heuristic definitions of others and to selected experimental results.