Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
OBSERVING NATURAL OBJECTS: CHARACTERISTICS OF FLOWERING PLANTS PERCEIVED AS IMPORTANT BY 5- AND 10-YEAR-OLD CHILDREN

This research examined the ways in which children observe flowering plants, namely: which features they perceive as significant, whether the skill of observing flowering plants develops with age, and what is the difference between genders. The research involved 174 children: 89 children aged 5 and 85 children aged 10 who were given the task of choosing the plant they recognised as the same as each of the 10 given test plants among a total of 37 plants which looked more or less similar to the test plants. The analysis of the plant combinations the children most frequently mismatched showed, that colour is the feature to which they attribute the most importance. Shape turned out to be considered more important to the children than size. Older children revealed better plant observation skills than younger ones with the girls achieving better results than the boys in both age groups. The findings show that children's observation skills develop with age, and corroborate the need to support the development of observation in the educational process. Keywords: biology education, observation skills, plant characteristics, preschool children, primary school children.
Integration of hemicellulose recovery and cold caustic extraction in upgrading a paper-grade bleached kraft pulp to a dissolving grade

In this study, a hemicellulose recovery process was integrated with a cold caustic extraction (CCE) process in upgrading paper-grade bleached kraft pulp to dissolving grade. Under the conditions of 15% NaOH, 10% pulp consistency, 30 ℃ and 1 h, a paper-grade softwood bleached kraft pulp was purified to a dissolving-grade pulp with 97.57% α-cellulose and 1.67% pentosan contents. The spent liquor from the cold caustic extraction process was sequentially extracted with ethanol to precipitate and recover the dissolved hemicelluloses, followed by evaporation to recover the ethanol. After the recovery of hemicelluloses and ethanol, the spent liquor can be reused as the caustic solution for the CCE process without compromising the resulting pulp properties. The results demonstrated that it is feasible to integrate hemicellulose production with the cold caustic extraction process of dissolving pulp production, based on the concept of biorefinery.
Structural complexity: Quantification, validation and its systemic implications for engineered complex systems

The complexity of today’s highly engineered products is rooted in the interwoven architecture defined by its components and their interactions. Quantitative assessment of structural complexity is mandatory for characterization of engineered complex systems. In this paper, we develop a quantitative measure for structural complexity and illustrate its application to a real-world, complex engineered system. It is observed that low topological complexity implies centralized architecture and it increases as we march towards highly distributed architectures. We posit that the development cost increases super-linearly with structural complexity. Empirical evidences from literature and preliminary results from simple experiments strengthen our hypothesis. Preliminary experiments show that the effort increases super-linearly with increasing structural complexity (i.e., exponent, b = 1.69). We further introduce complicatedness as an observer-dependent property that links structural complexity to system level observables like the development cost. We further discuss distribution of complexity across the system architecture and its strategic implications for system development efforts.
Tagetes erectus - A Tool for the Management of Alternaria alternata Strains of Tomato

Tomato (Lycopersicum esculentum Mill.) is among the most economically valuable vegetable crops in the world. It is estimated that diseases reduce tomato production to a greater extent worldwide. Natural plants derivative compounds contribute a lot in fight against pathogens. The current study indicates the pathogenic potential of Alternaria alternata FCBP-573 against tomato. RAPD analysis confirmed that A. alternata FCBP-573 had variability in its genetic constitution with other two isolates; this disparity in genetic constitution might be a cause to stir up more pathogenicity in this isolate. Therefore, A. alternata FCBP-573 was selected and subjected to biological control by Tagetes erectus L. In antifungal bioassays plant parts of T. erectus with 1, 2, 3, & 4% conc. of aqueous, methanol and n-hexane extracts of each part were evaluated against A. alternata FCBP573. Results revealed that growth of A. alternata FCBP-573 was greatly inhibited at 4% conc. of methanol extract followed by aqueous and n-hexane extract. Among different plant parts tested, root extract exhibited more promising results by causing 81-92% reduction in biomass. The study concludes that aqueous and organic extracts of ornamentals have potential to obstruct dreadful effect of pathogenic fungi by suppressing their growth. T. erectus conferred vital and surprisingly stable compounds having inhibitory potential against A. alternata FCBP-573.
Influence of Diet Induced Changes in Rumen Microbial Characteristics on Gas Production Kinetics of Straw Substrates In vitro

The effect of diets varying in level and source of nitrogen (N) and fermentable organic matter on dynamic characteristics of microbial populations in rumen liquor and their impact on substrate fermentation in vitro was studied. The diets tested were straw alone, straw+concentrate mixture and straw+urea molasses mineral block (UMMB) lick. The same diets were taken as substrates and tested on each inoculum collected from the diets. Diet had no effect on the amino acid (AA) composition of either bacteria or protozoa. Differences among the diets in intake, source of N and OM affected bacterial and protozoal characteristics in the rumen. Upper asymptote of gas production (Yα) had a higher correlation with bacterial pool size and production rate than with protozoal pool size and production rate. Among the parameters of the gas production model, Yα and lag time in total gas has showed significant (p<0.01) correlation with bacterial characteristics. Though the rate constant of gas production significantly differed (p<0.01) between diet and type of straw, it was least influenced by the microbial characteristics. The regression coefficient of diet and type of straw for Yα indicated that the effect of diet on Yα was threefold higher than that of the straw. As microbial characteristics showed higher correlation with Yα, and diet had more influence on the microbial characteristics, gas production on a straw diet could be used effectively to understand the microbial characteristics. (Asian-Aust. J. Anim. Sci. 2005. Vol 18, No. 7 : 990-996)
Closer to the total?: Long distance travel of French mobile phone users

Analysis of long-distance travel demand has become more relevant in recent times. The reason is the growing share of traffic induced by journeys related to remote activities, which are not part of daily life. In today? s mobile world, these journeys are responsible for almost 50 percent of the overall traffic. Traditionally, surveys have been used to gather data needed for the analysis of travel demand. Due to the high response burden and memory issues, respondents are known to underreport the number of journeys. The question of the real number of long-distance journeys remains unanswered without additional data sources. This paper is the first to quantify the underreporting of long-distance tour frequencies in travel diaries. We take a sample of mobile phone billing data covering 5 months and compare the observed long distance travel with the results of a national travel survey covering the same period and the same country. The comparison shows that most of the error estimates calculated by researchers so far are too low. Our work suggests that the number of long distance journeys is twice as high as reported in surveys. It is shown that there two different reasons causing for the underreporting. On the one hand, soft-refusals travelled long-distances, but reported no long-distance tours. On the other hand, respondents underestimate their number of long-distance tours. Consequently, there is a need to use alternative data sources in order to gain better estimates of long-distance travel demand.
Learning English as Thai Adult Learners: An Insight into Experience in Using Learning Strategies

This research aims to understand language learning strategies of Thai adult learners and factors affecting their strategy use. The participants are forty officers of General Service Division of the Council of State of Thailand, attending an English training course for developing their work potential. The data were collected through the questionnaire adapted from the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL). To further explore personal views about their experience in learning strategies and factors influential on their strategy use, fifteen participants were selected for individual interviews. Findings revealed that the learners reported an overall preference for the use of social strategies. Analysis of the qualitative data confirmed most of the SILL responses and revealed additional strategies and factors affecting the strategy use. Individual learners chose strategies suitable for the achievement of their goals and take account of their affective needs and work context. Overall, this study has emphasized the necessity of having qualitative data which can enrich and illuminate the findings of quantitative data and could be valuable resources for considering appropriate ways in which English proficiency of Thai adult learners could be developed. Implications are drawn regarding the language learning strategies of adult learners and their strategy use as professional engagement as well as recommendations for future research.
Thinking about Characters and Thinking about People: Social Cognition, Literary Response, and Character Attribution Processes among Young Adult Readers.

A study compared the literary response and character attribution processes of 40 undergraduate students on the basis of differences in their interpersonal construct repertoire, or "interpersonal cognitive complexity. " No studies to date have explored the ways in which cogniti7e complexity influences readers' overall responses to literature or the "types" of attributions that readers of high and low complexity are likely to make about literary characters. Informants were asked to complete a measure of cognitive complexity, to read a short story, and to respond in writing to two questions at four separate junctures in the story: "What is your overall response? " and "Why do you suppose the main character behavz;d as he did? " Analyses of written protocols indicated that cognitive complexity is more associated with the ways in which readers make inferences in search of meaning than with their literal/descriptive responses, personal associations, or engagement. Attributions which frane characters' personality traits in the context of temporal psychological states and external influences appear to characterize this search for meaning. The findings and analytic framework generated by the study are userul for researchers and practitioners interested in identifying and understanding readers' literary response and character attribution processes from a social-cognitive perspective. (Three tables of data are included; 48 references are attached.) (Author) AIRItAt****************************************************************** Reproductlons supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ***********************************************************************
Do Financial Advisors Live Up to Their Reputation: The Case of Major Assets Restructurings of Chinese Listed Companies

We investigate whether top-tier advisors provide superior services by examining the relationship between reputation (measured by whether it is a top-10 advisor ranked on deal value) of financial advisors on the bidder side and stock market-based/accounting-based performance of bidders. Using Chinese listed companies with major assets reorganizations (MARs, M&As with large-scale target), we find top-tier advisors are associated with higher excess returns (CARs), implying that reputation generates a verification effect on investors. But we find no significant relationship between the advisor reputation and bidders’ accounting-based performance post-MARs. The findings indicate that although advisor reputation can attract M&A business and sends positive signal to the market, it does not lead to stronger financial performance in the long run. That is, the so-called top-tier financial advisors fail to live up to their reputation. We also find that payment premium is an intervening variable between advisor reputation and the long-term accounting-based performance of bidders, suggesting that top-tier advisors fail in their duties to help clients achieve greater share of synergy gains.
An Experiment on the Effectiveness of Unit Testing when Introducing Gamification

Software testing has been associated with both technical and socio-technical difficulties. While software systems grow larger and are becoming more complex, there is simultaneously a problem with lack of motivation and interest in the software testing process. The purpose of this study is to research how the concept of Gamification, which has shown positive effects in varying areas of application, can be used to increase the effectiveness of unit testing, as well as increasing the motivation and interest among the software testers. The focus of the study was put on the number of defects found, as well as the percentage of requirements covered by tests when measuring effectiveness. The effect of Gamification in unit testing was researched through an experiment involving 24 subjects. The subjects were sampled into two groups, one group with Gamification applied to their testing process, and one group without Gamification applied to their testing process. The subjects conducted, during a one hour testing session, unit testing on a selected system, which had been seeded with a specific number of faults. The results show that the Gamification group found significantly more defects and received a significantly higher percentage of requirements covered by tests, than the Control group. Moreover, the results show that the Gamification group found the task significantly more interesting than the Control group. We conclude that, even if the significantly higher number of found defects and requirements covered by tests are hard to correlate to specific Gamification elements; Gamification might be used to improve the stated variables of effectiveness in software testing.
External Auditing, Managerial Monitoring and Firm Valuation: An Empirical Analysis for India

The paper examines how external auditing and managerial ownership relate to firm valuation. It is argued that both external auditors (which serves as an external monitoring function) and managerial ownership (which serves as an internal monitoring function) affect firm value, while internal monitoring by managers and external monitoring by auditors were viewed as substitutes or complements. After controlling for the effect of exogenous variables, the results reveal the existence of a substitution monitoring effect between auditors and the managerial group. Additionally, firm valuation is found to be a significant determinant of managerial ownership. A disaggregated analysis of firms according to size and leverage suggests the existence of a complementary monitoring effect between auditors and managers, especially for low-leveraged firms.
Frequency analysis as a tool for assessing adverse conditions during a massive fish kill in the St. Lawrence River, Canada.

During the summer of 2001, the largest fi sh kill in the recorded history of the St. Lawrence River occurred. More than 25,000 dead carp were recovered. Preliminary analyses suggested hydroclimatic factors may have triggered the fi sh kill. Long time series of hydroclimatic variables were available upstream and downstream from the study area. In order to investigate if hydroclimatic conditions were extreme during the summer of 2001, frequency analyses were performed on time series of air and water temperature, water level, and solar radiation. During this period, the daily maximum water temperature was abnormally high (return period of 47 years) relative to other years. Air temperature was also high (return period of 22 years) and water level was very low (return period of 67 years). Results showed that hydroclimatic forcings were acting at two different time scales. First, short-term extremes are more likely to have direct impacts on ecosystems, such as lethal stress caused by oxygen depletion in shallow areas. Long-term extremes have indirect effects, which are more diffi cult to detect, such as immunosuppression. These results reiterate the importance of water temperature in aquatic habitat, particularly in the present context of global warming and climate change.
Downstream evolution of the Kuroshio's time-varying transport and velocity structure

Observations from two companion field programs—Origins of the Kuroshio and Mindanao Currents (OKMC) and Observations of Kuroshio Transport Variability (OKTV)—are used here to examine the Kuroshio's temporal and spatial evolution. Kuroshio strength and velocity structure were measured between June 2012 and November 2014 with pressure-sensor equipped inverted echo sounders (PIESs) and upward-looking acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCPs) deployed across the current northeast of Luzon, Philippines and east of Taiwan with an eight-month overlap in the two arrays' deployment periods. The time-mean net (i.e., integrated from the surface to the bottom) absolute transport increases downstream from 7.3 Sv (±4.4 Sv standard error) northeast of Luzon to 13.7 Sv (±3.6 Sv) east of Taiwan. The observed downstream increase is consistent with the return flow predicted by the simple Sverdrup relation and the mean wind stress curl field over the North Pacific (despite the complicated bathymetry and gaps along the North Pacific western boundary). Northeast of Luzon, the Kuroshio–bounded by the 0 m s−1 isotach–is shallower than 750 dbar, while east of Taiwan areas of positive flow reach to the seafloor (3000 m). Both arrays indicate a deep counterflow beneath the poleward-flowing Kuroshio (-10.3 ±2.3 Sv by Luzon and -12.5 ±1.2 Sv east of Taiwan). Time-varying transports and velocities indicate the strong influence at both sections of westward propagating eddies from the ocean interior. Topography associated with the ridges east of Taiwan also influences the mean and time-varying velocity structure there. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Credit Rating Migration Risk and Business Cycles

Basel III seeks to improve the financial sector’s resilience to stress scenarios which calls for a reassessment of banks’ credit risk models and, particularly, of their dependence on business cycles. This paper advocates a Mixture of Markov Chains (MMC) model to account for stochastic business cycle effects in credit rating migration risk. The MMC approach is more efficient and provides superior out-of-sample credit rating migration risk predictions at long horizons than a na¨? ve approach that conditions deterministically on the business cycle phase. Banks using the MMC estimator would counter-cyclically increase capital by 6% during economic expansion and free up to 17% capital for lending during downturns relative to the na¨? ve estimator. Thus, the MMC estimator is well aligned with the Basel III macroprudential initiative to dampen procyclicality by reducing the recession-versus-expansion gap in capital buffers.
Multiple Directorships of Corporate Boards and Firm Performance in India

The purpose of the paper is to investigate, first, the association between multiple directorship assignments (busyness) undertaken by corporate directors and firm performance, second, whether endogenously determined limits of multiple directorships, highlighting the ownership structure and other institutional settings, explain the above association better than those by exogenously mandated by regulators and third, the association between the nature of busyness and firm performance. The study develops measures of busyness in the light of the agency and resource dependence theories. The spline regression technique is applied in order to reflect institutional settings of a large sample and sub-samples of firms classified as local private, foreign and government firms in India. For local private firms, the association between the number of directorships and firm performance becomes negative before reaching the maximum number of directorships set by legislation, whereas, for foreign and government firms, the same continues to remain positive throughout. Endogenously determined cut-off points of busyness reflect institutional settings of firms, which may remain masked otherwise. The findings of the current paper can be useful to study the same phenomenon in other emerging markets having corporate governance, and ownership structures similar to that of India. The effect of busyness can be different on different firms; however, exogenously fixed regulatory limits do not reflect their institutional settings. The current paper is an attempt to fill in this research gap.
Social Networking and Social Support in Tourism Experience: The Moderating Role of Online Self-Presentation Strategies

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to provide an understanding of how tourists' self-presentation is managed on social networking sites (SNS). Specifically, the study investigated the effects of SNS use on social support and tourism experience and the moderating role of the different tourists' self-presentation strategies. The results emphasize the importance of SNS use for tourists to seek support from their social network while traveling. The study clarifies the importance of SNS use for tourism experience, in that the more tourists are engaged in social activities through SNS while traveling, the more social support they will get, which will contribute positively to their tourism experience. Also, it is argued that social support does not always directly result from the intense SNS use, but rather moderated by tourists' self-presentation strategies.
Another Look at the Cross-section of Expected Stock Returns

Our examination of the cross-section of expected returns reveals economically and statistically significant compensation (about 6 to 9 percent per annum) for beta risk when betas are estimated from time-series regressions of annual portfolio returns on the annual return on the equally weighted market index. The relation between book-to-market equity and returns is weaker and less consistent than that in Fama and French (1992). We conjecture that past book-to-market results using COMPUSTAT data are affected by a selection bias and provide indirect evidence. AN EXTENSIVE BODY OF empirical research over the past 10 to 15 years has provided evidence contradicting the prediction of the Sharpe (1964), Lintner (1965), and Black (1972) capital asset pricing model (CAPM) that the crosssection of expected returns is linear in beta. This research documents that deviations from the linear CAPM risk-return trade-off are related to, among other variables, firm size (e.g., Banz (1981)), earnings yield (e.g., Basu (1977, 1983)), leverage (e.g., Bhandari (1988)), and the ratio of a firm's book value of equity to its market value (e.g., Stattman (1980), Rosenberg, Reid, and Lanstein (1985), and Chan, Hamao, and Lakonishok (1991)). After carefully reexamining this research, a recent article by Fama and French (FF; 1992) draws two main conclusions about the cross-section of average stock returns. First, there is only a weak positive relation between average return and beta over the period 1941 to 1990, and virtually no relation over the shorter period 1963 to 1990. Second, firm size and book-to-market equity (B/M) do a good