Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Alluvial Valleys and Alluvial Sequences: Towards a Geomorphic Assessment

Criteria for identifying alluvial-valley fills in the geological record have commonly been derived from coastal areas, where high-magnitude glacioeustatic fluctuations generate predictable systems tracts. In contrast, inland alluvial valleys formed in response to climatic, tectonic, and intrinsic events of varied magnitude and duration. Sequence boundaries and architecture reflect a variety of causes, typically mediated through changes in the river’s equilibrium profile and equilibrium floodplain height. We evaluate valley and sequence models using Quaternary examples from southern Asia and Australia. For these areas, proxy records are well established for climate and sea level, but the scarcity of records for tectonic activity and intrinsic channel changes hamper an interpretation of stratigraphic events. On the large alluvial plains of northern India and central Australia, climatic changes have radically affected sediment and water discharge on timescales as short as 10 to 10 years. Periods of incision and aggradation generate discontinuity-bounded sequences (aggradational–degradational rhythms), and reaches may vary between valley and channel morphology over short periods and distances. Across Asia, changes in monsoonal precipitation have caused near-synchronous incision and aggradation in varied tectonic settings. However, mature interfluve paleosols correlative with valley bases may be local or absent on these large plains, where small interfluve channels, eolian dunes, and lakes aggrade while mainstem valleys incise. Gullied floodplains, adjacent to valleys and tributaries, and terrace deposits are useful indicators of incised systems. Climatic effects appear to be underrepresented in interpretations of ancient alluvial sequences in general. Angular unconformities, channel diversion, and incised and tilted fans near major faults reflect tectonic controls on architecture, and soft-sediment deformation and rare surface ruptures testify to earthquake events. In smaller basins such as the Rio Grande Rift of southwestern USA, alluvial architecture reflects both tectonic and climatic controls. Channel-body amalgamation may not be a good proxy for tectonically induced subsidence, especially for megafans at upland exits where a low degree of amalgamation may reflect rapid accumulation rather than rapid subsidence and accommodation creation. Multistory valleys and extensive multistory and single-story sheets are present in inland and coastal alluvial areas. However, below the Australian continental shelf, seismic profiles identify entrenched channels and channel belts rather than the valley fills that are commonly assumed to form under such conditions. This example shows that sea-level fall and river extensions need not generate deeply incised fluvial valleys in coastal settings.
STUDIES ON THE CHARACTERISTICS OF VEGETATION AND SOIL ON MOUNT SEJILA, TIBET

In order to better understand the ecosystems of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, we studied the characteristics of the vegetation and soil on Mount Sejila in Tibet, at altitudes ranging from 3700m to 4700m was studied. Eleven sampling areas were examined, and the vegetation composition, species diversity, plant biomass and soil properties were measured in each one. Representatives of 99 different plant species from 26 families were identified, and the plant communities exhibited a clear degree of altitude dependence: some species were found in all samples while others were only present in a single sampling area. Plant aboveground biomass correlated negatively with altitude, but the species diversity (based on the Shannon-Wiener and Simpson diversity indices as well as evenness and species richness measurements) were not altitude dependent. Community similarity decreased as the difference in altitude between sites increased. The measured soil properties had significant effects on plant characteristics, especially the soil nitrogen, soil moisture and temperature. The results presented herein provide a solid foundation for a more comprehensive study of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau’s ecosystems and will be useful in drawing up biodiversity and ecosystem preservation schemes.
Motivational Attributes of Occupational Possible Selves for Low-Income Rural Women.

To explore the influence of theorized motivational properties of possible selves on participants' perceived likelihood of achieving their most hoped-for self and avoiding their most feared self, the authors surveyed 198 low-income rural women attending either adult basic education classes (DHS, n = 95) or community college developmental classes (DEV, n = 103), who provided demographic information and completed questionnaires about occupational possible selves and personal efficacy. Affect, knowing someone in a hoped-for occupation, self-initiated actions, and personal efficacy each accounted for significant variance in predicting the participants' perceptions of achieving their most hoped-for self. None of the variables was predictive of participants' perceptions of avoiding their most feared self. Information about this population, implications for research, and career counseling are discussed.
Neonatal mortality rate in Iran: the Iranian Perinatal Mortality Surveillance System

Background: Neonatal mortality is the major proportion of children mortality under five years and it is considered as the main health indicator in the first year of life. This paper has aimed to review the neonatal mortality in the numbers recorded at the Iranian Perinatal Mortality Surveillance System (IPMSS) by Iran Ministry of Health and Medical Education. Methods: A descriptive study was done in 2014. For assessment of sampling quality and quantity, 24 hospitals randomly were selected. Recorded information, related to perinatal mortality (deaths from 22 completed weeks of gestation until 30 completed days after birth inclusive of stillbirths and neonatal mortality) from selected hospitals, was compared with recorded data in IPMSS. Results: Results showed that, out of 1,725 perinatal deaths occurred in hospitals, 1,480 (85.80%) deaths were recorded in IPMSS. Of 1,041 neonatal deaths that occurred in hospitals (in hospital wards and delivery rooms), 875 (84.05%) were in IPMSS. It shows that a correction coefficient for hospital neonatal mortality was 1.1904. Based on analyzing process, correction coefficients for stillbirth reported by hospitals, stillbirth for all over the country and perinatal death were 1.130, 1.1775 and 1.2443, respectively. Considering these correction coefficients – that enabled to calculate 15,130 neonatal deaths – and 1,421,689 live births (according to Statistics Center) in 2012, neonatal mortality rate was 10.64 in 1,000 live births. Conclusion: Our data showed some problems in the registration system. Although implementation and supervision of such Surveillance System are not easy, they are essential and provide valuable data in perinatal audit and neonatal health care practices.
Explorer Investor Sentiment and Bidder Announcement Abnormal Returns

We introduce the significance of a direct sentiment proxy as an explanatory variable of bidder announcement returns. We argue that sentiment subconsciously influences investor perception of potential merger synergies and risks, and therefore relates to bidder abnormal returns. We proxy daily sentiment based on Facebook status updates across seventeen international markets and show that there is a positive relation between sentiment and bidder announcement returns. In line with behavioral literature stating that sentiment more heavily influences uninformed traders, this relation is more pronounced in acquisitions with a low percentage of blockholder ownership, acquisitions of US public targets, and acquisitions of large targets relative to the size of the bidders. Our study goes beyond the conventional sentiment and stock market returns literature, uncovering a significant relation between sentiment and firm-specific abnormal returns to acquiring companies.
Understanding the Sentencing Process in France

French sentencing is characterized by broad judicial discretion and an ethos of individualized justice focused on rehabilitation. The aims are to prevent recidivism, and so protect the interests of society, while reintegrating the offender. By contrast, the political Right, characterized by the recent Sarkozy regime, favors deterrence through harsher penalties, minimum prison sentences, increased incarceration, and preventive detention of offenders considered dangerous. The sentencing process can be understood only within the broader context of inquisitorially rooted criminal procedure. The central part played by the prosecutor (including in case disposition through alternative sanctions) and her role in recommending sentences that the court almost invariably endorses, together with the unitary nature of the judicial profession, means that there is remarkable consistency in penalties imposed. The contrainte pénale, based on a reconsideration of the range of available penalties put forward by the Consensus Commission and legislated in 2014, is unlikely to have great impact without investment in the probation service and a change in the judicial culture that still favors simple sentencing options, including imprisonment, compared with alternatives now in place.
MEDIA ADDICTS IN SERBIA: PROBLEM DIMENSIONS AND POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

Advances in mobile devices technology enabled media access anywhere and anytime. The appearance of social networks opened new realms of life simulation, potentially boosting media addictions. Personal characteristics in combination with stressful situations may be causing repression of inner impulses, thus provoking some psychological conditions such as depression, anxiety or loneliness. In this situation, person might look into characteristics and content of different media to find the one which addresses his or her repressed impulses, thus enabling “simulation of life”. Person susceptible to one addiction might at some point decide to change it with another one, like alcohol or drugs use. The results of this research indicate that materialistic persons oriented towards societal success are more likely to become media addicts. Stressful situations coming from family, workplace, education and moral and ethical norms are strongly linked to media addiction. Family as a liberating agent has been found to correlate with a decrease in levels of media addiction. The repression of inner impulses has been increasing with levels of media addiction. Media addiction has been increasing with those research participants with feelings of happiness tied to shopping.
Evolution of Occator Crater on (1) Ceres

The dwarf planet Ceres (diameter 939 km) is the largest object in the main asteroid belt. Recent investigations suggest that Ceres is a thermally evolved, volatile-rich body with potential geological activity, a body which was never completely molten but possibly differentiated into a rocky core, an ice-rich mantle, and which may contain remnant internal liquid water. Thermal alteration and exogenic material infall contribute to producing a (dark) carbonaceous chondritic-like surface containing ammoniated phyllosilicates. Here we report imaging and spectroscopic analyses of Occator crater derived from the Framing Camera and the Visible and Infrared Spectrometer onboard Dawn. We found that the central bright spot (Cerealia Facula) of Occator is ∼30 Myr younger than the crater itself. The central spot is located in a central pit which contains a dome that is spectrally homogenous, exhibiting absorption features that are consistent with carbonates. Multiple radial fractures across the dome indicate an extrusive formation process. Our results lead us to conclude that the floor region was subject to past endogenic activity. Dome and bright material in its vicinity formed likely due to a long-lasting, periodic, or episodic ascent of bright material from a subsurface reservoir rich in carbonates. Originally triggered by an impact event, gases, possibly dissolved from a subsurface water/brine layer, enabled material rich in carbonates to ascend through fractures and be deposited onto the surface.
Fixed term contracts and employers' human capital: The role of educational spillovers

This paper analyses the role of the employers' education on the spread of temporary contracts. Taking advantage of a unique firm‐level dataset, we test whether the share of fixed term workforce in a firm is affected by the employer's level of education. Furthermore, we test whether knowledge spillovers arising from the agglomeration of university graduate employers affect the incidence of temporary employment in the firms located in the area. In both cases we find a negative effect. Interestingly, only small firms are influenced by the spillovers. The possible problems of endogeneity of the agglomeration variable are coped with an IV approach. Este documento analiza el papel de la educacion de los empleadores en el uso extendido de los contratos temporales. Aprovechando un conjunto unico de datos a nivel de empresa, se comprobo si la proporcion de la fuerza laboral contratada por un plazo fijo en una empresa se ve afectada por el nivel de educacion del empleador. Ademas, se comprobo si los spillovers de conocimiento que surgen de la aglomeracion de empleadores con graduacion universitaria afectan la incidencia del empleo temporal en las empresas ubicadas en el area. En ambos casos se encontro un efecto negativo. Curiosamente, solo las pequenas empresas estan influenciadas por los spillovers. Los posibles problemas de endogeneidad de la variable de aglomeracion se tratan con un enfoque IV. 本稿では蔓延する一時雇用契約に対する雇用主の学歴の役割を分析する。 独自の企業レベルのデータセットを利用して、ある企業における有期雇用労働者の割合が、雇用主の学歴レベルに影響されるか否かを検証する。 さらに大卒の雇用主の集中から起こる知識スピルオーバーが、その地域に立地する企業の一時雇用契約の発生率に影響を与えるか否かを検証する。 いずれの場合も負の効果が認められる。 興味深いことに、小規模の企業だけがスピルオーバー効果を受ける。 集積の変数の内生性が孕む問題に、操作変数法を用いたアプローチで対処する。
Conodont dating of the Middle Ordovician breccia cap-rock limestone on Osmussaar Island, northwestern Estonia

Various mechanisms have hitherto been suggested to explain the formation of the Kundan (Middle Ordovician) Osmussaar Breccia in northwestern Estonia. Following the recent discovery of L-chondritic chromite in these peculiar, sand- penetrated strata, it seems plausible that the breccia is impact-related. Herein, the conodont faunas of three thin limestone intervals overlying the breccia at Osmussaar Island have been investigated, with the aim of establishing the age of the event in terms of the Baltoscandian conodont-based biostratigraphical scheme. Based on the presence of Microzarkodina ozarkodella, the limestone directly overlying the breccia is assigned to the M. ozarkodella Subzone of the Lenodus (Eoplacognathus? ) pseudoplanus Zone. This is reinforced by means of a faunal shift between this sample interval and the subsequent one, which is directly comparable with a faunal shift in the Maekalda section, mainland Estonia. The middle, orthoceratite-yielding interval is assigned to the uppermost L. (E.? ) pseudoplanus Zone (or, alternatively, the lowermost Eoplacognathus suecicus Zone), whereas the uppermost interval, an oolitic limestone, is referable to the E. foliaceus Subzone, corresponding to the lower part of the Lasnamagi Stage. These results support a connection between the Osmussaar event and the stratigraphic interval yielding abundant meteorites and/or high levels of L-type chromite in Sweden, as they both can be referred to the lower and/or middle part of the Kunda Stage. The minor difference in age between the first limestones deposited after the brecciation and the meteorite and L-chromite-yielding interval in Baltoscandia can be explained as caused by a period of non-deposition, seen as numerous hiatuses of various extent in the Kunda Stage in northwestern Estonia.
Frameworks for Comprehending Discourse

Thirty physical education students and 30 music education students read a passage that could be given either a prison break or a wrestling interpretation, and another passage that could be understood in terms of an evening of card playing or a rehearsal session of a woodwind ensemble. Scores on disambiguating multiple choice tests and theme-revealing disambiguations and intrusions in free recall showed striking relationships to the subject’s background. These results indicate that high-level schemata provide the interpretative framework for comprehending discourse. The fact that most subjects gave each passage one distinct interpretation or another and reported being unaware of other perspectives while reading suggest that schemata can cause a person to see a message in a certain way, without even considering alternative interpretations.
Spatially distributed influence of agro-environmental factors governing nitrate fate and transport in an irrigated stream–aquifer system

Elevated levels of nitrate (NO 3 ) in groundwater systems pose a serious risk to human populations and natural ecosystems. As part of an effort to remediate NO 3 contamination in irrigated stream–aquifer systems, this study elucidates agricultural and environmental parameters and processes that govern NO 3 fate and transport at the regional (500 km 2 ), local (50 km 2 ), and field scales ( 2 ). Specifically, the revised Morris sensitivity analysis method was applied to a finite-difference nitrogen cycling and reactive transport model of a regional-scale study site in the lower Arkansas River valley in southeastern Colorado. The method was used to rank the influence of anthropogenic activities and natural chemical processes on NO 3 groundwater concentration, NO 3 mass leaching, and NO 3 mass loading to the Arkansas River from the aquifer. Sensitivity indices were computed for the entire study area in aggregate as well as each canal command area, crop type, and individual grid cells. Results suggest that fertilizer loading, crop uptake, and heterotrophic denitrification govern NO 3 fate and transport for the majority of the study area, although their order of influence on NO 3 groundwater concentration and mass leaching varies according to crop type and command area. Canal NO 3 concentration and rates of autotrophic denitrification, nitrification, and humus decomposition also dominate or partially dominate in other locations. Each factor, with the exception of O 2 reduction rate, is the dominating influence on NO 3 groundwater concentration at one or more locations within the study area. Results can be used to determine critical processes and key management actions for future data collection and remediation strategies, with efforts able to be focused on localized areas.
Exploiting genomic information on purebred and crossbred pigs

The use of genomic information has become increasingly important in a breeding program. In a pig breeding program, where the final goal is an increased crossbred (CB) performance, the use of genomic information needs to be thoroughly evaluated as it may require a different strategy of what is applied in purebred (PB) breeding programs. In this thesis, I explore the use of genomic information for the genetic improvement of PB and CB pigs. I first focus on the identification of genomic regions affecting traits that are important to breeders. I identified two quantitative trait loci (QTL) regions for gestation length, one for Dutch Landrace on Sus scrofa chromosome (SSC) 2 and the other one for Large White on SSC5. I also fine-mapped and narrowed down the region of a previously detected QTL for androstenone level SSC6 from 3.75 Mbp to 1.94 Mbp. A tag-SNP of this fine-mapped region was further investigated and no unfavorable pleiotropic effects were found; indicating that using the studied marker for selection would not unfavorably affect the other studied traits. After that, the focus was changed to the application of genomic selection in pigs. Within-population predictions showed high accuracies, whereas across-population prediction had accuracies close to zero. Using combinations among Dutch Landrace and Large White populations plus their cross showed that multi-population prediction was not better than within-population. The exception was when the CB pigs were predicted with records from both parental populations added to the CB training data. When using PB pigs to train CB ones, the predictive ability found indicates that selection in the PB pigs results in response in the CB ones. When assessing the source of information used to estimate the breeding values used as response variable, I showed that a more accurate prediction of CB genetic merit was found when training on PB data with breeding values estimated using CB performance than training on PB data with breeding values estimated using PB performance. I also studied the accuracy of using CB pigs in the training population to select PB for CB performance. Predictive ability when using CB phenotypes for training was observed, however, the accuracy was lower than using PB phenotypes in the training population. Lastly, I evaluate the inclusion of dominance in the model when using a CB training population. Results showed that accounting for dominance effects can be slightly beneficial for genomic prediction compared with a model that accounts only for additive effects.
Methoxylation and Glycosylation Effect on the Redox Mechanism of Citroflavones

The methoxylation and glycosylation effect on the redox mechanism of citroflavones, isorhoifolin, linarin, diosmetin and diosmin, was investigated. All citroflavoneshydroxyl groups can be electrochemically oxidised, and the oxida- tion at the B-ring occurs at a lower potential than at the A-ring. The electrochemical oxidation is irreversible, pH- dependent, with occurrence of one or two oxidation products, which undergo reversible redox reactions, depending on the number of OH substituents on the molecule. The glycosylation leads to a steric effect and decreasing of the oxidation peak currents whereas the methylation involves the formation of nonelectroactive oxidation products.
Internal Controls in the Retail Sector: A Case Study of a Leading Supermarket in Barbados

The literature over the last two decades has highlighted the increase in fraud and its devastating consequences for some companies worldwide. These company failures with disastrous effects for shareholders, employees and other stakeholders have brought into sharp focus the importance of internal controls. The aim of this paper is to examine the adequacy of the internal controls in place at a leading Barbadian supermarket as they relate to the company’s cash operations, and detection and prevention of fraud. Information was obtained via a structured questionnaire which was completed by the company’s Head Accountant in March 2012. The questionnaire covered the key aspects of internal controls including the control environment, risk assessment, monitoring, information and communication, and control activities. The research findings revealed that the internal control procedures utilized within the business are effective in safeguarding cash, and detecting and preventing employee fraud. However, for the future the Supermarket should strengthen the internal control system with the inclusion of a whistle-blowing mechanism and an employee assistance program. Further, the decision of the business to reward the ethical integrity of its employees is very commendable since this initiative will boost the morale of employees and engender a greater sense of loyalty.