Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Scaling properties of sea ice deformation from buoy dispersion analysis

[1] A temporal and spatial scaling analysis of Arctic sea ice deformation is performed over timescales from 3 h to 3 months and over spatial scales from 300 m to 300 km. The deformation is derived from the dispersion of pairs of drifting buoys, using the IABP (International Arctic Buoy Program) buoy data sets. This study characterizes the deformation of a very large solid plate (the Arctic sea ice cover) stressed by heterogeneous forcing terms like winds and ocean currents. It shows that the sea ice deformation rate depends on the scales of observation following specific space and time scaling laws. These scaling properties share similarities with those observed for turbulent fluids, especially for the ocean and the atmosphere. However, in our case, the time scaling exponent depends on the spatial scale, and the spatial exponent on the temporal scale, which implies a time/space coupling. An analysis of the exponent values shows that Arctic sea ice deformation is very heterogeneous and intermittent whatever the scales, i.e., it cannot be considered as viscous-like, even at very large time and/or spatial scales. Instead, it suggests a deformation accommodated by a multiscale fracturing/faulting processes.
Multiple solutions for a null mass Neumann problem in exterior domains

In this paper we study the existence and multiplicity of solutions for the semilinear elliptic equation u = Q(x)f 0 (u) in an exterior domain with Neumann boundary conditions. We prove the existence of a positive ground state as well as a sign-changing solution under a double power growth condition on the nonlinearity.
Sensored and sensorless speed control methods for brushless doubly fed reluctance motors

The study considers aspects of scalar V/f control, vector control and direct torque (and flux) control (DTC) of the brushless doubly fed reluctance machine (BDFRM) as a promising cost-effective alternative to the existing technological solutions for applications with restricted variable speed capability such as large pumps and wind turbine generators. Apart from providing a comprehensive literature review and analysis of these control methods, the development and results of experimental verification, of an angular velocity observer-based DTC scheme for sensorless speed control of the BDFRM which, unlike most of the other DTC-concept applications, can perform well down to zero supply frequency of the inverter-fed winding, have also been presented in the study.
Molecular cloning, expression profiles and associations of KLF6 gene with intramuscular fat in Tibetan chicken

Abstract The aim of this study was to clone KLF6 gene of Tibetan chicken, clarify its temporal-spatial expression characteristics, and build the correlation between the expression level of KLF6 gene and IMF content in different developmental stages. RT-PCR was used to clone Tibetan chicken KLF6 gene, qPCR was used to detect the expression level of KLF6 gene in different tissues and developmental stages. The sequence of KLF6 gene was 919 bp including a complete 852 bp CDS region. The gene was highest expression in lung tissues, which was significantly higher than in other tissues (p < 0.01). In male Tibetan chicken breast muscle the levels of KLF6 mRNA were negatively related to IMF content (r=–0.097, p > 0.05), while in females they were positively correlated (r = 0.077, p > 0.05). At the age of 119–210 days, the expression of KLF6 mRNA in the male chicken leg muscles was highly positively correlated (r = 0.506, p < 0.01), but negatively correlated in the female chicken leg muscles (r=–0.198, p > 0.05). The expression level of KLF6 in breast muscle decreased gradually with the increasing age, while in leg muscle the expression level increased firstly and then descended with the increasing age.
Relationships between tree species diversity and above-ground biomass in Central African rainforests: implications for REDD

SUMMARY Tropical forests are both important stores of carbon and among the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet. Reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) schemes are designed to mitigate the impacts of climate change, by conserving tropical forests threatened by deforestation or degradation. REDD schemes also have the potential to contribute significantly to biodiversity conservation efforts within tropical forests, however biodiversity conservation and carbon sequestration need to be aligned more closely for this potential to be realized. This paper analyses the relationship between tree species diversity and above-ground biomass (AGB) derived from 1-ha tree plots in Central African rainforests. There was a weakly significant correlation between tree biomass and tree species diversity (r = 0.21, p = 0.03), and a significantly higher mean species diversity in plots with larger AGB estimates (M = 44.38 species in the top eight plots, compared to M = 35.22 in the lower eight plots). In these Central African plots, the relationship between tree species diversity and AGB appeared to be highly variable; nonetheless, high species diversity may often be related to higher biomass and, in such cases, REDD schemes may enhance biodiversity by targeting species diverse forests.
Asset Allocation and Security Selection in Theory & in Practice: A Literature Survey from a Practitioner's Perspective

Whether for the sake of trying to make a fortune or for the sake of knowledge, both practitioners and academicians have had interests in studying the behavior of financial time series data since the existence of financial markets. Academicians contributed equilibrium models that aim to describe the process of price formation in capital markets. Over time, two schools of thoughts were established: the efficient markets school and the behavioral finance school. Proponents of the former believed in the Efficient Markets Hypothesis (EMH), whereas the latter brought evidence from behavioral finance and neurosciences showing that investors, especially retail traders, exhibit irrational behavior, which can explain the observed violations of the EMH in financial markets. Practitioners were not interested in developing models of price formation; rather they were interested in developing techniques to analyze and predict the price movements of financial assets. Same as academicians, practitioners can also be grouped into two schools of thought: the fundamental analysis school and the technical analysis school. Although both schools of thought share the same objective, which is to give advice on what and when to buy and sell assets for the sake of making profit, they differ in their ways of analysis. The significant role played by academicians and practitioners in the finance industry and the interconnection between both schools and the approaches followed within each of them are best perceived in the way financial assets are allocated and portfolios are constructed. In an attempt to cross that bridge between the theory of price formation in financial markets and its practical implementations, this paper aims to survey the literature on both the theoretical and the practical frontiers of asset allocation and portfolio construction, and the best way of carrying on this task is through a thorough description of the portfolio management process (PMP). To this end, the paper breaks the PMP into three main steps, namely, portfolio planning, portfolio construction, and portfolio evaluation, in that order, and then discusses each step while surveying the literature pertaining to it. In addition to the description of the PMP, the paper also answers questions of particular interest to young practitioners, who are taking their first steps towards a career in the finance industry, such as: How portfolio theory, which is at the core of finance theory, is applied in practice? How a financial portfolio of assets is constructed in practice? How the individual assets forming a portfolio are selected and allocated? And is the process of constructing portfolios unique? Although the answers to these questions might appear to be simple and straightforward, they are, in fact, quite complicated. The complication lies not only in making the theory, which is based on certain restrictive and unrealistic assumptions, work in practice, but also in the simultaneous use of a variety of tools and financial concepts in forming a sound investment strategy.
Recasting the Customer Experience in Today's Omni-channel

Omni-channel marketing refers to the synergetic management of the available channels and customer touchpoints to enhance the customer experience and improve performance. It has become a cornerstone of marketing strategy but putting it into practice is still one of the major challenges that firms face today. In this study, we aim to understand how firms can manage all touchpoints across all channels in an integrated manner to provide a superior customer experience and gain competitive edge. To do so, we identify a number of key issues that firms must consider before they can embrace the changes that their organizations need to recast the customer experience and obtain superior performance. These include adopting a customer-centric approach, unifying all touchpoints across all channels, delivering personalized customer experiences, integrating the available channels, delight customers across channels, redefining the role of the physical store and embracing mobile marketing.
A Review on Tridax Procumbens

It is now believed that nature has given the cure of every disease in one way or another. The researchers today are emphasizing on evaluation and characterization of various plants and plant constituents against a number of diseases based on their traditional claims of the plants given in Ayurveda. Nature has been a source of medicinal agents for thousands of years and an impressive number of modern drugs have been isolated from natural resources. Traditional medicine is an important source of potentially useful new compounds for the development of chemotherapeutic agents. The essential values and uses of some plants have been worked out and published, but many of them remain unexplored to date. Tridax procumbens L is a highly valuable drug and is one of the essential ingredients in the most of the compound preparations included in Ayurvedic literature. The phytochemical screening revealed the presence of alkaloids, carotenoids, flavonoids (catechins and flavones), fumaric acid, fl-sitosterol, saponins and tannins. It is richly endowed with carotenoids, saponins, oleanolic acid and ions like sodium, potassium and calcium. Luteolin, glucoluteolin, quercetin and isoquercetin have been reported from its flowers. The leaf juice possesses antiseptic, insecticidal and antiparasitic properties. Leaf extracts can be used to treat infectious skin diseases in folk medicines. It is also used to check hemorrhage from cuts, bruises and wounds. The juice of leaves has been found to remove subcutaneously harvested granuloma tissue formed on dead space wound in rats at 4 days interval up to 32 days of wounding. Antioxidant properties have also been found in this plant. This review focus on folk occurrence and the wide pharmacological activities like hepatoprotective activity, antiinflammatory, wound healing, antidiabetic activity, hypotensive effect, immunomodulating property, bronchial catarrh, dysentery, diarrhea and to prevent falling of hair, promotes the growth of hair, and antimicrobial activity against both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria Tridax procumbens .
A Survey on the Use of Causal Discourse Markers among Chinese English Majors

Chinese English Majors mainly write argumentative compositions which itself is a kind of causal relations. Thereby, causal discourse markers, as one of the Discourse Markers can be employed in their argumentations to tighten the coherence and logical relations. Based on the results of other scholars’ previous research, this thesis applies questionnaires to investigate the reasons of using causal discourse markers in English majors’ oral and written English. According to the analysis of questionnaires, the reasons that caused English majors using of causal discourse markers are as follows: 1) lack of stylistic awareness; 2) intentionally avoiding making mistakes; 3) time factor (timed); 4) negative L1 transfer; 5) teachers’ influence. The results generated from the data analysis and discussions have also provided some pedagogical implications.
Prospects for axion searches with Advanced LIGO through binary mergers

The observation of gravitational waves from a binary neutron star merger by LIGO/VIRGO and the associated electromagnetic counterpart provides a high precision test of orbital dynamics, and therefore a new and sensitive probe of extra forces and new radiative degrees of freedom. Axions are one particularly well-motivated class of extensions to the Standard Model leading to new forces and sources of radiation, which we focus on in this paper. Using an effective field theory (EFT) approach, we calculate the first post-Newtonian corrections to the orbital dynamics, radiated power, and gravitational waveform for binary neutron star mergers in the presence of an axion. This result is applicable to many theories which add an extra massive scalar degree of freedom to General Relativity. We then perform a detailed forecast of the potential for Advanced LIGO to constrain the free parameters of the EFT, and map these to the mass $m_a$ and decay constant $f_a$ of the axion. At design sensitivity, we find that Advanced LIGO can potentially exclude axions with $m_a \lesssim 10^{-11} \ {\rm eV}$ and $f_a \sim (10^{14} - 10^{17}) \ {\rm GeV}$. There are a variety of complementary observational probes over this region of parameter space, including the orbital decay of binary pulsars, black hole superradiance, and laboratory searches. We comment on the synergies between these various observables.
The Role of Women's Creativity and Innovations in the Nigerian Informal Sector of Oke Ogun Zone.

This study was guided by the desire to advance whether concerted effort could enhance the creativity and innovations of women towards empowerment. Other purposes include: establishing the level of empowerment towards attaining good growth in building the informal sector economy and enhancing the status of women in Oke Ogun zone of Nigeria; determining the problems facing the creative abilities of women in improving their knowledge and skills through training. This study adopted descriptive survey design of ex-post facto type. Proportionate and simple random sampling techniques were used to select 128 women entrepreneurs as participants from four (4) purposively selected skills. Women Creativity and Innovations for Empowerment Questionnaire with reliability co-efficient of 0.86 was used as the main instrument to elicit responses from participants while 4 Focus Group Discussion sessions (FGDs) complemented the Questionnaire. The study indicated that there is a significant combined effect of women’s socio-empowerment and women’s economic empowerment on women’s creativity and innovations (F (2,111) = 3.349; R=239, R 2 = . 057, Adj. R 2 =0.040; P=0.05). However, the Nigerian government is yet to advance a committed political will towards enhancing the efforts of women through the creation of good supportive measures, and an enabling environment to reduce poverty, create job opportunities and develop her human resources. It is recommended that the Nigerian government should demonstrate a good political will in poverty alleviation programmes, women’s social groups and business organizations should be geared towards pulling labour and resources together to maximize labour productivity, information and social network which will lead to good growth of the informal sector.
The incidence of nasal staphylococcus aureus carriage among women and its relation with hormonal status

One hundred women admitted to Gynecology Department was included in this study. Relationship between nasal staphylococcus aureus carriage and hormonal status was investigated. Staphylococcus aureus carriage rate was found to be 61%. There was no statistical difference between the mean age of nasal carriers and noncarriers (p>0.05). While, carriage rate of post menopausal women was 57.14%, of premenopausal patients was 61.62% (p>0.05). Nasal carriage rate of women with penicillin therapy within the last three months was not different from that of others (p>0.05). Staphylococcus aureus carriage rates was 80% in women with high, 60.71 % in women with intermediate and 59.70% in women with low karyopyknotic indexes. Carriage rates were not statistically different between women with low, interme­ diate and high karyopyknotic indexes (p>0.05). [Turk J Med Res 1995; 13(2): 55-58]
Water-Soluble Organic Nitrogen in High Mountain Snow Samples from Central Japan

ABSTRACTWe measured water-soluble organic nitrogen (WSON) in snow pit samples, which were collected at the Murodo-Daira snowfield near the summit of Mt. Tateyama, central Japan in 2008, 2009, and 2011. The concentrations of WSON ranged from 12.8 to 96.7 ng g–1, which were significantly lower than those reported in continental wet deposition samples from the Asian continent. WSON may be largely diluted in the snow samples during snowing processes over the high mountains. We found that WSON significantly correlated with nss-Ca2+ and water-soluble organic carbon (WSOC). Concentrations of WSON are likely controlled by the intensity of Asian dust events. Contributions of WSON to water soluble total nitrogen (WSTN) in snow pit sequence was found to be 15 ± 10%, which is lower than those (63–91%) of reference dust materials collected in China. Mass concentration ratio of WSOC/WSON was on average 23.7, which is significantly higher than the C/N weight ratio (5.6) calculated from the Redfield ratio. This result suggests that WSOC is largely produced by secondary photochemical oxidation of anthropogenic volatile organic compounds during the transport from East Asia to the high mountain areas in Japan. On the other hand, WSON may be contributed from Asian dusts from arid areas in China whereas water-soluble inorganic nitrogen may be derived from pollution sources.
Ultrahigh Speed Reconfigurable Logic Operations Based on Single Semiconductor Optical Amplifier

We demonstrate an optical gate architecture using a single SOA to perform AND, OR and NOT logic functions. Simple reconfigurable all-optical logic operations are implemented using RZ modulated signals at 40 Gb/s. Contrast ratio and extinction ratio values have been analysed for the different types of logic gates. Maximum extinction ratio and contrast ratio achieved are 19dB and 17.2 dB respectively. Simple structure and potential for integration makes this architecture an interesting approach in photonic computing and optical signal processing.
Service Learning and Community Engagement in South African Universities: Towards an 'Adaptive Engagement' Approach

This is a concept article which develops the argument posited by Mahlomaholo & Matobako (2006) in an earlier Alternation publication that university community engagement through service learning fails to impact on community change because insufficient attention is paid to genuine engagement (listening to the community; enhancing local resources, critiquing power relations, reciprocity). The article traces the evolutionary nature of the terms community service, community engagement and service learning, particularly over the last six years. It briefly reviews the focus of recent studies on this topic and highlights some current concerns in the community engagement and service learning literature with mutidisciplinarity, the production of knowledge and sustainable community engagement. It reflects on the paucity of literature which links service learning and community engagement with community development theories and concludes with recommendations for more multidisciplinary service learning initiatives which focus on community engagement that leads service learning rather than the other way round. In so doing the article draws attention to the advantages of framing community engagement within assetbased community development theory (Ferriera & Ebersohn 2012) and the concept of ‘adaptive leadership’ as discussed in a recent article by Stephenson (2011) from the US and offers a new concept of ‘adaptive engagement’. The article concludes by suggesting there is a need for more
Synthesis, Characterization and Their Antimicrobial Activities of Boron Oxide/Poly(Acrylic Acid) Nanocomposites: Thermal and Antimicrobial Properties

Abstract Boron oxide (B2O3)/Poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) nanocomposites were synthesized by solution intercalation method, and characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR-ATR), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction and thermogravimetric analysis (DTA/TG). The effect of boron oxide amount on the thermal stability of nanocomposites was investigated. Moreover, the antimicrobial activities of them were also determined by the serial dilution method against E. coli and S. aureus. XRD analysis showed that boron oxide was homogenously dispersed in polymer matrix; FTIR-ATR that there was interaction between PAA and boron oxide; and TEM that boron oxide particles had spherical structure, and dispersed in nano size in polymer matrix; DTA/TG that the thermal stability of polymers increased with the adding of boron oxide into polymer matrix, and changed the decomposition mechanism of PAA. B2O3/PAA nanocomposites exhibited higher decomposition temperature. The decomposition mechanisms of PAA and its nanocomposites occurred through three decomposition steps; dehydration, decarboxylation and chain scission. B2O3/PAA nanocomposites showed greater antimicrobial activity with increasing B2O3 amount.
Commodity Price Volatility, Democracy and Economic Growth

We use a new dataset on non-resource GDP to examine the impact of commodity price volatility on economic growth in a panel of up to 158 countries during the period 1970-2007. Our main finding is that commodity price volatility leads to a significant increase in non-resource GDP growth in democracies, but to no significant increase in autocracies. To explain this result, we show that increased commodity price volatility leads to a statistically significant and quantitatively large increase in net national saving in democracies. In autocracies, on the other hand, net national saving decreased significantly. Our results hold true when using indicators capturing the quality of economic institutions in lieu of indicators of political institutions.
Seroepidemiology of canine leptospirosis in Ahvaz, Iran

Abstract: The presence of dogs has been identified as a risk factor for human Leptospirosis. The aim of this study was the survey of the current state of leptospiral infection in dogs in Ahvaz. Sera from 100 rural dogs of villages around Ahvaz and 49 urban dogs referred to veterinary hospital of shahid Chamran University were detected for antibodies against serovars canicola, icterohaemorrhagiae, grippotyphosa, ballum, hardjo and pomona by microscopic agglutination test. Out of the 149 dogs investigated, 8(5.4%) were serologically positive against at least one serovar of leptospira. Titers |“| 1:100 were detected in 7 rural (7%) and one urban (2.04%) dogs. The predominant titers were directed to serovars hardjo (44.5%) followed by ballum (22.2%), icterohaemorrhagiae (22.2%) and grippotyphosa (11.1%). Mixed infection was detected only in one dog. Serovars canicola and pomona were uncommon in dogs from Ahvaz. As expected, a very low prevalence of infection was found in urban pet dogs but in contrast low prevalence of infection in rural shepherd and/or stray dogs with poor level hygiene was unexpectable. However, the sources of infection in these dogs were not clear and this is the first report of infection with serovar hardjo from dogs in Iran. Key words: Dog, Leptospirosis, serovars, zoonosis, Iran.