Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Taxonomy and paleoecology of the Pleistocene Equidae from Makuyuni , Northern Tanzania

The Pleistocene equid material found at Makuyuni, Tanzania, is diverse. Despite the poor preservation of the specimens, there is measurement data evidence that the site features at least two species of Equus and at least one species of hipparionine horse (genus Eurygnathohippus). Taxonomic comparisons suggest a horse fauna similar to that seen in the Daka Member of the Bouri Formation in Ethiopia. Mesowear and microwear as well as stable carbon and oxygen isotopes analyses indicate that all Makuyuni equids fed predominantly on C4 grasses, but that browse was an important component of their diet as well; as evidenced by microwear, the diet must also have been rich in grit. Eurygnathohippus is marked by an overall more abrasive paleodiet than Equus. There is evidence that the putative larger species of Equus preferred a diet similar to the hipparionine horses, whereas the smaller form of Equus preferred shorter and possibly less coarse grasses. Serial carbon and oxygen isotope sampling reveals climate shifts. Some of the isotope data indicates that the smaller species of Equus might have migrated. K e y w o r d s : Equidae, Makuyuni, taxonomy, mesowear, microwear, stable isotopes. Z u s a m m e n f a s s u n g Das Pleistozäne Equiden-Material von Makuyuni, Tansania, ist divers. Trotz des schlechten Erhaltungszustandes der Exemplare deuten Messdaten darauf hin, dass die Fundstelle mindestens zwei Spezies der Gattung Equus und eine Hipparion-Spezies (Gattung Eurygnathohippus) aufweist. Taxonomische Vergleichsstudien legen eine Pferde-Fauna nahe, die der Fauna der Daka-Subformation der Bouri-Formation in Äthiopien ähnelt. Mesowearund Microwear-Analysen sowie stabile Kohlenstoffund Sauerstoff-Isotopen-Untersuchungen zeigen, dass alle Equiden von Makuyuni sich vorwiegend von C4-Gräsern ernährten, aber dass Blattnahrung ebenfalls ein wichtiger Nahrungsbestandteil war. Die Untersuchung von Microwear deutet darüber hinaus darauf hin, dass die Nahrung reich an Staub war. Eurygnathohippus bevorzugte Nahrung, die insgesamt abrasiver als die von Equus war. Die größere der beiden Equus-Spezies nahm vermutlich Nahrung zu sich, die der der hipparionen Pferde ähnelte, während die kleinere Equus-Spezies kürzeres und möglicherweise weniger raues Gras bevorzugte. Serielle Kohlenstoffund Sauerstoff-Isotopen-Beprobung zeigt saisonale Klimaveränderungen an. Ein Teil der Isotopen-Untersuchungsergebnisse lässt außerdem vermuten, dass die kleinere Equus-Spezies jahreszeitlich bedingt gewandert seien mag.
In Goods We Trust Trade Barriers in Services – Should We Care?

This thesis examines the impact of regulatory barriers to trade in services on trade in goods. For this purpose, I use the gravity model and the Poisson pseudo-maximum-likelihood estimator. As a measure of restrictions on trade in services, I use the OECD sectoral Services Trade Restrictiveness Index (STRI). The results reveal that there is a significant negative association between regulatory barriers to trade in telecommunications, distribution, road transport, legal, computer, and accounting services and goods imports. Furthermore, the findings suggest that trade performance in the service-intensive highand medium-high-technology manufacturing industries (e.g., pharmaceuticals and motor vehicles) is more likely to benefit from liberalisation of trade in services in both the exporting and importing country. The findings have important implications from a trade policy perspective. The results suggest that liberalisation of trade in services – in both trading partners – may have a sizable positive effect on trade in goods, and the impact is larger for trade in skilland service-intensive industries.
Design Thinking: Organizational Learning in Vuca Environments

Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity (VUCA) now defines the competitive environment of the digital economy in which organizations must adapt structures to match rapidly changing and more complex landscapes. Prior VUCA research identified frequent and rapid knowledge acquisition, pattern and trend recognition and cause and effect analysis as organizational learning imperatives which must be strategically considered. In response to increased disruption of VUCA environments, design thinking has gained popularity and widespread acceptance as a method to facilitate speed and frequency of organizational learning. This study approached design thinking from an absorptive capacity perspective to describe and document the perspectives of subject matter experts on how design thinking promotes organizational learning in VUCA environments. The present findings reveal design thinking learning structures increase the speed and efficiency of absorptive capacity and organizational learning. In return, this increased speed and efficiency results in faster decision making and innovation to pre-empt disruptive VUCA environments. As such, this study advocates for a reconceptualization of design thinking from a problem solving and innovation construct into an organizational learning construct. This re-conceptualization will aide in removing vague definition and ambiguity from the concept while allowing for richer theory building and broader application of design thinking in a variety of contexts.
Improving the sandy soil physical properties and Conocarpus erectus L. seedlings growth by the application of hydrogel.

Soil physical properties of a growing medium are important for optimal plant growth. The present factorial pot experiment was carried out at the Faculty of Agriculture, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt, during two successive seasons of 2010 and 2011. The study aimed at investigating the effects of synthetic commercial amendment (hydrogel) levels applied under two irrigation rates, to assess their influence on some sandy soil physical properties and buttonwood (Conocarpus erectus L.) seedlings growth traits. The irrigation rates were 65 and 35% of the available soil moisture depletion (ASMD), whereas the hydrogel levels were 0.00 (control), 0.05, 0.10, and 0.20%. Soil physical properties were evaluated by determining the total porosity, field capacity, wilting point, available water, and soil bulk density. Moreover, the plant height, root length, shoots and roots fresh and dry weights, and shoots: roots ratio, as expressions of seedlings growth responses, were also measured. Generally, the sandy soil physical properties as well as the seedlings shoot and root growths were improved by increasing hydrogel concentration in the soil when compared to their controls. The two irrigation rates also affected both of the soil properties and the seedlings growth. Furthermore, the highest concentration of the hydrogel amendment under 35% ASMD prolonged the soil water loss time; increased the field capacity, which reflected on the soil available water; encouraged formation of aggregates that, in turn, decreased the soil bulk densities; and hence improved the seedling shoots and roots growth biometrics. This study demonstrates also that the addition of hydrogel to planting medium under different irrigation rates increases water use efficiency by preventing applied moisture from infiltrating beyond plant root zones and maximizing the portion of applied water available for plant uptake. Thereby amended sandy soil with hydrophilic-gel can be used in arid and semi-arid areas to provide a better environment for seedlings to grow.
The Effect of Distractions on Online Consumer

The prevailing wisdom in web design literature cautions against the use of distracting website features; such as animated banners, pop-ups and floating advertisements, as they have the potential to cause annoyance and disrupt the process of pre-purchase evaluation in the context of online shopping. Recent advances in the field of cognitive psychology however, have suggested that a systematic and conscious process of evaluation prior to making a purchase may not always be ideal. In particular, the deliberation-without-attention hypothesis of the theory of unconscious thought postulates that the quality of conscious decision making deteriorates as decision complexity increases such that for complex decisions, unconscious thought will outperform conscious thought. If the hypothesis holds true in the context of online shopping for complex products, and if the positive effect of better decision quality that results from the use of distracting website features can overcome the negative effect of annoyance on customer satisfaction, then much of what we assume or think we know about website design is invalidated. The enormity of the theoretical and practical implications of such a notion forms the motivation for this research-in-progress article, and an experiment is proposed to test the deliberation-without-attention hypothesis in the context of online shopping.
Effect of Emotion on Achievement Goal Performance

The effect of emotion on the performance of individuals with different achievement goals (mastery, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance) was measured using a mixed ANOVA design. Participants learned the Left-to-Right Cross Multiplication technique and were randomly assigned to one of the three achievement goals. After the completion of a multiplication test, participants viewed a positive (happiness) or negative (sadness) film clip. Participants then completed a second multiplication test to determine the effect of the emotion on performance. Results showed that participants improved from the first to the second tests. The effects of achievement goal and affect on performance were not significant. The interaction between achievement goal, affect, and performance was also not significant. 2
Effect of use of the enzymes on the quality of pan bread made from Egyptian wheat flour

The aim of this study is toevaluate the effect of some microbial enzymessuch as Xylanase (XY), glucose oxidase (GO) and α amylase (AM) to improve quality aspects, sensory attributes and rheological properties of pan bread produced from commercial wheat flour (82% ext.). The three enzymes were added by three doses. XY and GO added at 10, 15 and 20 ppm, While AM was added at 5, 10 and15 ppm. The obtained data revealed that the enzymes have been given a marked improvement todough characters and bread quality. Specific volumewas increased with XYby3.5, 3.7 and 3.8%, and by 2.9, 2.9and 3.2 for AM, while it was by 3.1, 3.0 and 3.6 for GO respectively.Compared with a control sample. The staling of breadwas decreasedwith theadding of these enzymes, this decrease was linear with increase the doses of enzymes alike. Adding of any doses of any enzymes had apositive effect of the bread texture profile and this effect were linear, which showeda decreasein the firmness, gamenessand resilience, whilethe cohesiveness, chewiness, and springiness characteristics was decreased, this refers to increase of softness and chewness of bread. Also, this improving was maintained alveogram.
GENETIC ANALYSIS OF GRAIN YIELD OF F 4 POPULATIONS FOR DEVELOPING NEW TYPE OF UPLAND RICE

High production of rice is closely related to high yield component characters namely the number of filled grains per panicle or the density of grains per panicle. These characters are complex and greatly determine yield. These traits are also controlled by many genes whose expression is influenced by environmental conditions. This research aims to study genetic diversity and inheritance patterns of rice yield characteristics in the F4 population and to obtain the best genotypes from the selection. The materials in this research were 190 F3 generation seed numbers from the pedigree selection which consisted of 24 field numbers resulting from single crosses between local varieties (Bugis and Sriwijaya) with both IR7858-1 and IR148 (N22) that are tolerant to drought. Our research used an augmented design with four parents as check varieties. The research showed that the grain yield of F4 populations was polygenic and controlled by additive gene actions. The heritability value and coefficient of genetic diversity for grain yield were classified as moderate and high. The intensity of differentials selection by 10 percent based on the grain weight/hill, increased the middle value of other observed characters, like panicle length by 20.9%, the total number of grain by 48.4%, the filled grain number per panicle by 59.7%, and grain weight/hill by 40.9%. However, it decreased percentage of empty grain/panicle by 87.6%. Selection on higher filled grains and dense panicles, regardless of panicle length should be considered for developing the new plant type for upland rice with high yield.
Boots Off the Ground : The Impact of Individual-Level Factors on American Public Approval of Lethal Drone Strikes

Although the American public is divided on many policies, the majority of Americans (commonly close to 60%) continue to support a relatively controversial form of military technology: lethal drone strikes used to target terrorists in foreign countries. This study seeks to determine what factors affect American public approval of lethal drone strikes and which factor yields the greatest impact on support. Four main arguments for and against drone strikes are explored—military effectiveness, military ineffectiveness, violations of international law, and increased ease of military intervention. Employing a survey experiment on Amazon Mechanical Turk, I find that international law concerns produce the most substantial negative impact on approval; that is, respondents exposed to the International Law treatment are the most likely to disapprove of US usage of lethal drone strikes. The other experimental conditions resulted in slight increases in approval; however, the degree of these changes is relatively inconsequential. This study also shows that identification as a Republican, Hispanic/Latino origin, prior service in the armed forces, and having a relationship to someone who has served in the military are the most significant predictors of approval. Conversely, females are significantly more likely to disapprove of lethal drone strikes. These findings answer questions about not only what underpins public attitudes regarding lethal drone strikes, but also how these determinants could apply to public approval of increasingly autonomous weaponry systems.
Material Design Workshop Playing , exploring and designing materials in products

In the early stage of product design, designers make fluid and extensive use of external representations to support their creative process. Sketching and modeling are used to quickly explore a product’s shape and configuration. Material aspects of a product are, in comparison, explored completely different, and are selected rather than created. Colors, textures and graphics, are selected by examples found in existing products, samples, or while browsing magazines or the web. We have developed a creative design technique in which we have designers do exactly the opposite. In a two-hour session designers “create” materials in a quick and playful way, while they "select" the spatial arrangement of the product out of a discrete set of shapes. We report of two workshops in industry where we applied this technique. In each workshop we used the materials designers already had, e.g. their moodboards, models, example products, and collections of visual materials. Based on the considerations that went into designing these workshops, the observations during the workshops and the results of the workshops, we derive a few considerations for tools and techniques that aim to support designing materiality in the early stage of product design.
The Effect of Customer Orientation and Entrepreneurial Orientation on Performance of SMEs : Comparison between Chinese and South Korean SMEs

The basic research, which reveal the business results although were influenced by the Strategic orientation. The main subjects of the research is the developed country, such as company of America and Europe. Conversely, for the Asian countries, the research is not sufficient, especially, China and South Korea. Also the research of Small-and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) are inadequate. Because of these reason, the research chose the SMEs as the main research subject. The majority of the basic research, which is the customer orientation as the background, divide into two concepts, business orientation and the SMEs of China and
Use of Either Exclusive English or English Mixed with Native Language in Classroom of Medical Colleges of Non-English Speaking Countries: A Debate

Copyright: © 2017 Khan MUA. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Use of Either Exclusive English or English Mixed with Native Language in Classroom of Medical Colleges of Non-English Speaking Countries: A Debate
4B.1 RAINFALL ESTIMATION WITH A POLARIMETRIC PROTOTYPE OF THE OPERATIONAL WSR-88D RADAR

Improvement of Quantitative Precipitation Estimation (QPE) is one of the primary benefits of a dual-polarization radar. Several different polarimetric relations for rain rate estimation have been suggested during the last two decades. These relations utilize differential reflectivity ZDR, specific differential phase KDP, and conventional radar reflectivity factor Z in different combinations. The relations were obtained for different radar wavelengths using either simulated or measured drop size distributions (DSDs) with various assumptions about the size and shape dependence of raindrops. The performance of many suggested polarimetric rainfall estimation techniques has been tested on several extended data sets from Oklahoma (Ryzhkov and Zrnic 1996, Ryzhkov et al 2000, Ryzhkov et al 2001), Colorado and Kansas (Brandes et al 2001), Florida (Brandes et al 2002) for S-band radars, Australia (May et al 1999) for C-band radar, and Virginia (Matrosov et al 2002) for X-band radar. All of the above validation studies have shown that (a) there is an improvement in rainfall estimation if a dual-polarization radar is used and (b) polarimetric rainfall estimation techniques are more robust with respect to DSD variations than are the conventional R(Z) relations. At the moment, however, there is no consensus on the degree of improvement and the choice of an optimal polarization relation. The most significant improvement was reported in the latest study in Oklahoma (Ryzhkov et al 2002a) using the R(KDP, ZDR) relation. Relatively modest improvement was observed in Florida (Brandes et al 2002) with the best results obtained from the R(Z, ZDR) relation. As part of the evolution and future enhancement of the WSR-88D, the National Severe Storms Laboratory recently upgraded the KOUN WSR-88D radar to include polarimetric capability. In this paper, we assess the quality of rainfall estimation with the new radar using a dense micronetwork of 42 gages in the area approximately 40 x 30 km in central Oklahoma. Various polarimetric rainfall algorithms have been tested for large data set.
SHEAR STRENGTH OF PLATE GIRDER WEB PANEL WITH OPENING AT ELEVATED TEMPERATURE

For flexibility of accommodating building service p lants, openings are often introduced to the web of steel beams which af fects the structural behaviour of the beams. The available design method s developed only for the ambient temperature situation. This paper is co ncerning with the effect of web opening in the ultimate shear capacit y of the web panel at elevated temperature. The investigation will includ e the plate girders web panel containing centrally circular or square holes . In order to provide accurate assessment to the shear load carrying capa city of plate girder web panel with openings, a finite element model was established with both material and geometrical non-linearity by using ANS YS software package. Accuracy of the model is assessed by applying it to plate girders tested earlier by other researchers. Comparison of analyti cal results with the available experimental results for yielding pattern s, ultimate load values and load–deflection relationships show good agreeme nt b tween the finite element and experimental results thus validating th e accuracy of the proposed model. A parametric study is undertaken to gain additional insight into the overall behaviour, failure modes, and deformation capacity for circular and square shapes of web pane l openings with various sizes at elevated temperature. From these a nalyses, it is concluded that, variation of the ultimate shear cap acity of plate girders with respect to the size of openings for girders wi th circular or square openings dropped continuously with increasing the t emperature and the size of opening; and the drop in load carrying capa city increases significantly as the temperature increase and the o p ning size gets larger in size. Finally, an equation based on the results of numerical finite element analyses proposed to anticipate the reducti on of the ultimate shear force due to circular or square opening size.
Distributed discrete‐time optimization algorithms with applications to resource allocation in epidemics control

This work presents and analyzes 2 novel distributed discrete‐time nonlinear algorithms to solve a class of decentralized resource allocation problems. The algorithms allow an interconnected group of agents to collectively minimize a global cost function under inequality and equality constraints. Under some technical conditions, it is shown that the first proposed algorithm converges asymptotically to the desired equilibrium, while the second one converges to the solution in a practical way as long as the stepsize chosen is sufficiently small. Of particular interest is that the algorithms are designed to be robust to temporary errors in communication or computation. In addition, agents do not require global knowledge of total resources in the network or any specific procedure for initialization and the cost function is not required to be separable. The convergence of the algorithms is established via nonsmooth Lyapunov analysis. Finally, we illustrate the applicability of our strategies on a virus mitigation problem over computer and human networks.