Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Soules matrices and their applications

In this paper we study the properties of the basic Soules matrices in Rn,n which are a special subclass of the n × n Soules matrices generated via the basic Soules basis. The basic Soules basis has the sign pattern N and it corresponds to the vector en ∈ Rn of all 1’s. The basic Soules matrices are up to a multiple by a positive scalar, symmetric and doubly stochastic. We begin by investigating the permanents of basic Soules matrices. Next, for a nonsingular basic Soules matrix A ∈ Rn,n, we show that the matrix A ◦ A−1, which is known to be a nonsingular M-matrix, has a basic Soules basis of eigenvectors. Furthermore, we obtain explicit formulas for the eigenvalues of A ◦ A−1 in terms of the eigenvalues of A. Finally, let A ∈ Rn,n be a basic Soules matrix of spectral radius 1 and set Q = I − A. By investigating the sign pattern of the off-diagonal entries of the group inverse Q# of Q, we determine when the Perron root is a concave function in each of the off-diagonal entries at A. © 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. AMS classification: 15F48; 15A57; 15A18; 15A09
Multivariate genetic analysis on body weight traits in Ghezel sheep

The present study was carried out to estimate the genetic and phenotypic parameters for growth traits in Ghezel sheep, using pedigree information and body weight records which collected from 2000 to 2009 at Ghezel Sheep Breeding Station. Traits of interest were birth weight (BW, n=2,073), weaning weight (WW, n=1,663) and six-month old weight (6MW, n=1,315). The environmental factors were studied using GLM procedure in SAS software. (Co) variance components estimated based on multivariate animal model by REML method, using DMU-package. All traits were significantly influenced by birth year, lamb’s sex, type of birth and dam age (p<0.01). Heritability estimates for BW, WW and 6MW were 0.16±0.05, 0.24±0.06 and 0.35±0.07, respectively. All genetic correlations between traits were estimated positive and ranged from 0.57 (BW-6MW) to 0.97 (WW-6MW). The phenotypic correlations among all traits were also positive. The results of this study indicate that because of high genetic correlation between traits, selection for each of these traits may result in improvement in other traits as well.
Do Payments for Environmental Services Affect Forest Cover? A Farm-Level Evaluation from Costa Rica

Payments for environmental services (PES) are popular despite little empirical evidence of their effectiveness. We estimate the impact of PES on forest cover in a region known for exemplary implementation of one of the best-known and longest-lived PES programs. Our evaluation design combines sampling that incorporates prematching, data from remote sensing and household surveys, and empirical methods that include partial identification with weak assumptions, difference-in-differences matching estimators, and tests of sensitivity to unobservable heterogeneity. PES in our study site increased participating farm forest cover by about 11% to 17% of the mean area under PES contract over eight years. (JEL Q57, Q58)
Why Your Friends Have More Friends Than You Do

It is reasonable to suppose that individuals use the number of friends that their friends have as one basis for determining whether they, themselves, have an adequate number of friends. This article shows that, if individuals compare themselves with their friends, it is likely that most of them will feel relatively inadequate. Data on friendship drawn from James Coleman's (1961) classic study The Adolescent Society are used to illustratite the phenomenon that most people have fewer friends have. The logic underlying the phenomenon is mathematically explored, showing that the mean number of friends of friends is always greater than the mean number of friends of individuals. Further analysis shows that the proportion of individuals who have fewer friends than the mean number of friends their own friends have is affected by the exact arrangement fo friendships in a social network. This disproportionate experiencing of friends with many friends is related to a set of abstractly similar "class size paradoxes" that includes such diverse phenomena as the tendencies for college students to experience the mean class size as larger than it actually is and for people to experience beaches and parks as more crowded than they usually are.
Phagocytic and chemotactic responses of manila and carpet shell clam haemocytes against Vibrio tapetis, the causative agent of brown ring disease

Phagocytic and chemotactic activities of haemocytes from two clam species, Tapes decussatus and T. philippinarum have been studied using bacterial challenge. Three strains of Vibrio tapetis, the causative agent of the brown ring disease a#ecting these clam species, and one strain of Escherichia coli were used in the study. All extracellular products of the bacterial strains were demonstrated to be chemoattractants to clam haemocytes, however, significant di#erences (P<0·025) in migration indices of haemocytes were obtained between the E. coli and V. tapetis strains. Phagocytosis by T. decussatus and T. philippinarum haemocytes is apparently a non-specific process, although a#ected by the viability of the microorganisms. Soluble haemolymph proteins are not required for identification of non-self or in the internalisation process. 1999 Academic Press
Performance analysis of fluid flow production lines with finite buffers and generally distributed up and downtimes

In this paper we analyze continuous- ow production lines consisting of a number of machines or servers in series and a finite buffer between each pair of machines. Each machine suffers from breakdowns, for instance because of failures, cleaning, changeover, etcetera. The resulting up- and downtime periods are generally distributed. Because of breakdowns and non-identical machine speeds, the machines are in uenced by each other, resulting in starvation, blocking, and speed adaption. We are interested in throughput and mean buffer content of this production line. The newly developed method relies on decomposition of the production line into two-stage, one-buffer subsystems. The parameters for each subsystem are determined iteratively. A crucial feature of the model is that we deal with generally distributed up- and downtimes. The use of aggregation techniques on the subsystem level is important to be able to analyze larger production lines of up to 16 machines. The proposed method performs very well on a large test set consisting of over 49,000 cases. Remarkably, the performance of the method does not deteriorate for cases with high variation in up-and downtimes, making this model suitable for highly unpredictable up- and downtimes as often seen in practice.
Management Quality and Operating Performance: Evidence for Canadian IPOs

This study investigates the impact of management quality on the operating performance of Canadian IPO’s. Several dimensions of management quality are explored, including: the average tenure of management team members, the heterogeneity of tenures of team members, the size of the top management team, the number of outside directors, the educational and professional credentials of managers, the CEO dominance of the team, the past industry-specific experience of team members, and the presence of the founder in the management team. Operating performance is positively associated with the management team’s tenure, size, and the team’s inclusion of chartered accountants. Heterogeneous tenures of the top management team as well as dominant CEO’s, and MBAs are negatively related to performance. Some evidence of earnings management by managers in the sample is also observed. Equity retention of directors and officers following the IPO has a nonlinear relationship with firm value.
The Impact of Meditation on the Therapist and Therapy

While meditation techniques have been used in therapy for at least the past 30 years (Kabat-Zinn, 1982), few studies have looked at the impact of the therapist having a personal meditation practice on therapist qualities and the effectiveness of therapy. The studies that have been conducted on this topic have looked at the effects of teaching therapists in training to meditate (Grepmair, Mitterlehner, Loew, Bachler, Rother, & Nickel, 2007; Newsome, Christopher, Dahlen, & Christopher, 2006). The results of these studies support the hypothesis that having a personal meditation practice as a therapist may improve the effectiveness of the therapy provided. The present qualitative study involved interviewing six therapists about how they think that meditation has influenced them and their therapy. The study provides an exploration and development of the variables that may be influenced by therapist meditation. Participants reported that meditation has made them more effective therapists and allows them to build stronger alliances with their clients by increasing positive therapist characteristics including empathy, unconditional positive regard, and non-judgment. Because of their experience with meditation’s beneficial impact on therapy, the participants suggested that meditation be taught to therapists in training and stated that they would not be the therapists that they are today without meditation. Finally, the participants reported that meditation allows them to handle the stresses related to being a therapist.
An adaptive chaotic secure communication scheme with channel noise and time delay

In this paper, by using synchronization scheme of chaotic neural networks with delay, an adaptive secure communication scheme with channel noise and time delay is proposed. Based on the idea of chaotic maskingmodulation, the transmitted message is encrypted by the chaotic signal, and via the adaptive feedback control techniques, the transmitter and the receiver are synchronized with channel noise, so the masked signal can be perfectly recovered by the receiver in the presence of channel noise. In light of the Lyapunov stability theory for stochastic differential equations, several theoretical results are rigorously established. Finally, a numerical example is provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed scheme, and the time required for recovering the information signal and the performance of the recovered signal very sensitively depending on the time delay and the frequency of the information signal will also be found from the simulation results.
Market Frictions and Consumption-Based Asset Pricing

A fundamental equilibrium condition underlying most utility-based asset pricing models is the equilibration of intertemporal marginal rates of substitution (IMRS). Previous empirical research, however, has found that the comovements of consumption and asset return data fail to satisfy the restrictions imposed by this equilibrium condition. In this paper, we examine whether market frictions can explain previous findings. Our results suggest that a combination of short-sale, borrowing, solvency, and trading cost frictions can drive a large enough wedge between IMRS so that the apparent violations may not be inconsistent with market equilibrium.
Genetic diversity study of Kenyan cassava germplasm using simple sequence repeats

Cassava ( Manihot esculenta Cranzt) is an important food security crop for resource poor rural communities particularly in Africa. Little is however known about molecular diversity of Kenyan cassava germplasm. This led to a study whose objective was to identify genetic constitution of cassava accessions from different regions of Kenya using molecular tools. Seven pairs of micro satellite (SSR) primers previously developed from cassava were used to detect polymorphic 21 alleles in a sample of 69 accessions. The cluster analysis of similarity matrix obtained at 68% with SSR data showed that the 69 accessions were grouped into five marker based groups. This study proved that SSRs could be used to identify cassava accessions as well as in the assessment of level of genetic relatedness among accessions. Keywords : Cassava, simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers, genetic diversity.
Biomechanical factors associated with the risk of knee injury when landing from a jump

Objectives. To systematically assess the literature investigating biomechanical knee injury risk factors when an individual lands from a jump. Data sources. Four electronic databases were searched for peer-reviewed English journals containing landing biomechanical studies published over 14 years (1990 - 2003). Study selection. Publications describing research into knee joint kinetics and/or kinematics when landing from a jump were included. A total of 26 eligible articles met the inclusion criteria. Data extraction. A review of the 26 eligible studies was undertaken to describe the key study components including the study aims, sample populations, measurement tools, measurement procedures and knee risk factors. Methodological quality was scored using the Crombie Checklist and PEDro Scale. Data synthesis. The methodological quality of the studies reviewed was fair. Information on risk factors was variable. One proposed risk factor, landing with the knee in a relatively more extended position, may increase injury risk. Validity was compromised when the landing action was isolated by studying drop-jumping instead of the whole landing task. Results of reviewed studies were potentially confounded by a number of factors. Conclusion. High-level evidence for biomechanical knee injury risk factors when landing from a jump is lacking and it is difficult to draw conclusions regarding knee injury risk factors when landing. However, the published research reviewed provides important information on injury causality and theories to direct future studies. Further research should be directed towards younger populations using valid testing protocols applicable to real life scenarios. South African Journal of Sports Medicine Vol. 18 (1) 2006: pp. 18-23
The relationship between human resource development factors, career growth and turnover intention: the mediating role of organizational commitment

Retaining the best employees is of high concern for most organizations and this issue has become a significant focus of attention for many researchers. For this reason, this paper discusses different factors which influence the employee turnover intention-behavior in the organization, specifically to examine the effect of salary, performance appraisal, training & development and career growth on turnover intention. In addition, based on the social exchange theory this paper explains the mediating role of organizational commitment in the relationship between human resource development factors, career growth and turnover intention. A cross sectional, survey data study is undertaken to investigate the relationships in a sample of 270 full time faculty members employed in different private universities of Pakistan. Partial Least Square two step path modeling is used to test the direct and the indirect hypothesis of the study. The results of PLS (SEM) path modeling reveal that human resource development factors specially salary and performance appraisal were negatively associated with turnover intention. In addition, the results also indicate that career growth had significant relationships with turnover intention. Moreover, out of four dimensions of career growth, only two dimensions, namely promotion speed and remuneration growth, have strong influence on turnover intention. Finally, in terms of organizational commitment as mediating variable between the relationships of salary, performance appraisal, career growth and turnover intention, four out of six variables indicate partial mediation including career growth (career goal progress), career growth (promotion speed), career growth (remuneration growth) and performance appraisal.
Moral Hazard and Dynamic Insurance Data

This paper exploits dynamic features of insurance contracts in the empirical analysis of moral hazard. We first show that experience rating implies negative occurrence dependence under moral hazard: individual claim intensities decrease with the number of past claims. We then show that dynamic insurance data allow to distinguish this moral-hazard effect from dynamic selection on unobservables. We develop nonparametric tests and estimate a flexible parametric model. We find no evidence of moral hazard in French car insurance. Our analysis contributes to a recent literature based on static data that has problems distinguishing between moral hazard and selection and dealing with dynamic features of actual insurance contracts. Methodologically, this paper builds on and extends the literature on state dependence and heterogeneity in event-history data. (JEL: D82, G22, C41, C14)
Do class size effects differ across grades?

This paper contributes to the class size literature by analysing whether short-run class size effects are constant across grade levels in compulsory school. Results are based on administrative data on all pupils enrolled in Danish public schools. Identification is based on a government-imposed class size cap that creates exogenous variation in class sizes. Significant (albeit modest) negative effects of class size increases are found for children at primary school levels. The effects on math achievement are statistically different across grade levels. Larger classes do not affect girls, non-Western immigrants and socioeconomically disadvantaged pupils more adversely than other pupils.
Does ochratoxin A (OTA) cause testicular cancer in humans

Ochratoxin A (OTA) is a naturally occurring contaminant of cereals, pigmeat, and other foods and is a known genotoxic in animals. It is a nephrotoxin and a carcinogen associated with Balkan endemic nephropathy and urinary tract tumours. It is also thought to be a cause of testicular cancer. A previous study has shown that consumption of foods contaminated with ochratoxin A during pregnancy induces lesions in testicular DNA of male offspring, and this supports a possible role for OTA in testicular cancer. Additionally, prenatal exposure to ochratoxin A in mice significantly depresses expression of the DMRT1 gene in male offspring, and the loss of this gene produces germ cell testicular tumours in mice. This molecular evidence supports the theory that ochratoxin A might be related to germ cell testicular tumours in mice and in humans. Keywords: ochratoxin A, testicular cancer, mycotoxins
Effects of Different Culturally-Based Materials on EFL Learners’ Reading Anxiety, Reading Self- Efficacy, and Reading Proficiency in Project-Based Classes

This article sets out to examine the effect of utilizing different culturally-based materials on EFL university students' foreign language reading anxiety, reading comprehension self-efficacy, and reading proficiency within project-based classes. The research was carried out with two classes of intermediate freshmen majoring in English Language Teaching. The comparison group had to present their projects based on the reading passages of the book "Active" (L2 culturally-oriented texts) and the experimental group had to deliver their projects based on their L1 and L2 culturally-based reading texts designed by the researcher. Reading comprehension self-efficacy scale, foreign language reading anxiety scale, and the reading section of the Michigan Test (1998) were administered to students as pre-tests and post-tests at the beginning and at the end of one academic year consisting of two project-based reading courses. ANCOVA was utilized for analyzing the data. The results indicated that although in both groups significant improvements were observed regarding the three aforementioned variables, it was the experimental group that showed significantly less degrees of anxiety, compared to the comparison group. However, no differences regarding reading self-efficacy and reading proficiency were observed between the two groups. The findings of this study suggest that EFL teachers, material developers and syllabus designers can take advantage of cultural familiar texts when generating their own learning materials.
Diasporas: Exploring their Development Potential

accelerated flow of goods and services around the world but has also fostered an increase in the movement of people across borders. In their new countries-of-residence, migrants often acquire new knowledge, skills, social contacts, and financial resources. Even though they may be far from home, migrants often maintain social and psychological connections to their countries-of-origin. They often encourage their children and grandchildren to continue these homeland connections. “Diasporans” are individuals who “reside outside of their perceived homeland, whether independent or not. They regard themselves, or are regarded by others, as members or potential members of the national community of their homeland, a standing retained regardless of the actual status of their citizenship inside or outside Diasporas: Exploring their Development Potential
Overcoming Students’ Misconceptions on Forces in Equilibrium: An Action Research Study

This collaborative action research involving a supervisor and a student teacher aims to assist 23 Form Four (16 years old) students to overcome their misconceptions on the topic of forces in equilibrium state. This study adopts the action research cycle: Identify-Plan-Act-Reflect. The pre-test results showed that students had problems in recognizing the forces. Consequently, a teaching intervention was planned and carried out to improve students’ ability to identify and recognize the forces that exist for an object in the equilibrium state. The teaching intervention emphasizes on the basic characteristics of the force arrow namely the direction, magnitude, labeling and starting point of force. The post test results showed that students’ ability to draw the force arrows correctly had improved, with the exception of identifying the starting point of force. The action research study managed to guide the student teacher to identify and help to overcome misconceptions of her students.
Research on the red king crab (Paralithodes camtschaticus) from the Barents Sea in 2005-2007

This report summarizes research activities on the red king crab in the Barents Sea the recent three years. It is a collection of extended abstracts/small articles on the different research activities carried out in the frames of a 3-year joint research program on the king crab, initiated by the Russian-Norwegian Fishery Commission in the period 2005 – 2007. The report was presented at the 37th Session of the Fishery Commission in Bergen, October 13th – 17th 2008.