Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Threshold Effects in the Foreign Aid-Economic Growth Relationship: The Role of Institutional Quality and Macroeconomic Policy Environment

Since the influential paper of [1], the issue relating to the conditions in recipient countries has become central in the foreign aid debate. Scholars and policymakers alike are interested in identifying the conditions which make foreign aid more effective. To contribute to this growing debate, this paper investigates the role of macroeconomic policy environment, institutional policy and a combination of these two previous variables in aid-growth relationship. The empirical analysis is based on a panel data set including 13 ECOWAS1 countries during the period from 1984 to 2010. Using a modified panel threshold model, the evidence strongly supports the view that the relationship between aid and economic growth is nonlinear with a unique threshold. The paper finds that a stable macroeconomic environment and better institutional quality are sine qua non for the effective contribution of aid to sustainable growth in ECOWAS countries. Furthermore, we find that institutional quality is an important determinant condition which allows aid affects economic growth. One of main contributions of this paper is to successfully identify the conditions under which the aid has a positive impact on economic growth. It is desirable to keep the combination condition in States II and IV (the macroeconomic policy environment is below or above and institutional quality above their threshold respectively) because it may be helpful for the achievement of sustainable economic growth. The results seem to indicate that bad institutional quality may have detrimental effects on economic growth. This will be an important result for the policymakers and international financial institutions, which increasingly favour conditionality and selectivity in the allocation of aid resources. The major policy implication of our results is not a call for a reduction of foreign aid but rather a call for rethinking strategies for international assistance and redesigning existing aid programs.
AMI observations of 10 CLASH galaxy clusters: SZ and X-ray data used together to determine cluster dynamical states

We thank the staff of the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory for their invaluable assistance in the commissioning and operation of AMI, which is supported by Cambridge University. WJH and CR are grateful for the support of STFC Studentships. CR also acknowledges the support of Cambridge University. MO and YCP acknowledge support from Research Fellowships from Sidney Sussex College and Trinity College, Cambridge, respectively. We thank Arif Babul for his assistance in accessing the Poole et al. online materials. Much of this work was undertaken on the COSMOS Shared Memory system at DAMTP, Cambridge University, operated on behalf of the STFC DiRAC HPC Facility. This equipment is funded by BIS National E-infrastructure capital grant ST/J005673/1 and STFC grants ST/H008586/1, ST/K00333X/1.
Work engagement and workaholism: comparing the self-employed and salaried employees

This study among a Dutch convenience sample of self-employed individuals (n = 262) and salaried employees (n = 1900) tested to what extent workaholism and work engagement relate to self-reported work performance. After controlling for measurement inequivalence, results of structural equation modeling showed that the self-employed score higher on engagement and working excessively then employees, but not on working compulsively. In addition, work engagement related positively to task performance and innovativeness for both groups. However, engagement only related to contextual performance (performance beyond role requirements) for employees. Workaholism had positive and negative relationships with self-reported performance. Working excessively related positively to innovativeness for both groups, and to contextual performance for the self-employed. Working compulsively suppressed this positive relationship between excessive working and innovativeness in both groups, and between excessive working and contextual performance for the self-employed. In contrast to our expectations, working compulsively related positively to contextual performance for employees.
FTIR and FT-raman spectroscopic studies of fired clay artifacts recently excavated in Tamilnadu, India

The spectroscopic techniques represent one of the most powerful tools to investigate the structure of all the materials and chemical composition of the cultural objects like potteries, tiles and ceramics. The spectroscopic techniques that have been used in the present study are FTIR absorption and Raman scattering spectroscopy. The potteries maintain aesthetic characteristics so that this type of artifacts can be considered very specific trace of every civilization. Therefore, it is of great importance to acquire knowledge about the chemical composition and the manufacturing techniques of an artifact. From the behaviour of the absorption bands and their corresponding Raman shifts in specific regions and their intensity showing the presence of minerals, traces of elements in the clay, the knowledge of the artisans and the conditions of the temperature control to make qualitatively good materials of archaeological artifacts. The temperature of firing and the vitrification stage are also being established in the case of potteries from the recent excavations at Maligaimedu, Thiruverkadu and Palur in Tamilnadu, India.
SELECTION OF SENSORS BY A NEW METHODOLOGY COUPLING A CLASSIFICATION TECHNIQUE AND ENTROPY CRITERIA

Abstract Complex industrial processes invest a lot of money in sensors and automation devices to monitor and supervise the process in order to guarantee the production quality and the plant and operators safety. Fault detection is one of the multiple tasks of process monitoring and it critically depends on the sensors that measure the significant process variables. Nevertheless, most of the work on fault detection and diagnosis found in literature place more emphasis on developing procedures to perform diagnosis given a set of sensors, and less on determining the actual location of sensors for efficient identification of faults. A methodology based on learning and classification techniques and on the information quantity measured by the Entropy concept, is proposed in order to address the problem of sensor location for fault identification. The proposed methodology has been applied to a continuous intensified reactor, the ‘open plate reactor (OPR)’, developed by Alfa Laval and studied at the Laboratory of Chemical Engineering of Toulouse. The different steps of the methodology are explained through its application to the carrying out of an exothermic reaction.
Factors Affecting Academic Job Satisfaction in the Public Institutions of Higher Education, Eritrea

Although, many researches in Africa have investigated the factors which affect job satisfaction of employees in different profit and non-profit organizations, few researches are devoted in institutions of higher education. The aim of this study is to examine the factors affecting faculty job satisfaction in institutions of higher education in Eritrea. Primary data is collected through a structured questionnaire from a randomly selected sample of 100 respondents from the IHE in Eritrea with a return number of 95 responses. SPSS 20 is utilized for analysis purposes. Correlation and regression analysis is made to examine the relationships between the factors and job satisfaction, and to identify the overall contribution of the factors to the job satisfaction of the staff members. The analysis finds that research, co-workers relations, and training and development have strong positive and significant contributions to job satisfaction of the faculty in institutions of higher education in Eritrea. Although the correlation result of the other three variables was moderately strong and significant, the regression outcome has shown insignificant but positive contributions. The research finally concludes that these factors need to get more focus so that the IHE in Eritrea can retain their faculty members. Keywords: Academic job satisfaction, Eritrea, influencing factors, Institutions of Higher education,
Effect of health on economic growth in Ghana:An application of ARDL bounds test to cointegration

In this paper, the growth effect of health in Ghana is examined for the period 1982 to 2012. We use life expectancy at birth as a proxy for health, and real per capita GDP as a proxy for economic growth. After employing ARDL bounds test approach to cointegration, and controlling for the effects of education, international trade, FDI, inflation, and accumulation of physical capital, we find that economic growth is significantly driven by health, both in the short and long run. However, the favourable growth effect of health in the short run is found to be lower.The implication is that improvement in health status of the population raises output in the economy. In this regard, policy should aim at raising health sector investment and strengthen the healthcare system to improve health status.
Effects of ozone on isoprene emission from two major Quercus species native to East Asia

Quercus species occur widely in East Asia and are major tree species in Japan. The ground-grown seedlings of Quercus serrata and Quercus mongolica var. crispula were exposed to enriched ozone (ambient + 40 ppbv) over one growing season by using open-top-chambers (OTC), and isoprene emissions from the two tree-species were measured across a growing season by using the leaf cuvette method. The isoprene emission rates of the two species were significantly affected by ozone, and the rate of Q. mongolica was reduced to a greater extent by ozone in October than that of Q. serrata. The stomatal conductance of Q. mongolica was higher than that of Q. serrata and not affected by O3 even in September, suggesting that Q. mongolica absorbed a larger amount of ozone than Q. serrata did. Since the leaf content of the isoprene precursor dimethylallyl diphosphate (DMAPP) was not significantly different between the enriched ozone and filtered air treatments in July and September, isoprene synthase activity in Q. mongolica leaves might have been reduced to a greater extent by the high concentration of ozone due to higher ozone uptake via stomata. Ozone fumigation was also applied to potted Q. serrata seedlings grown in climate chambers to investigate the ozone effect under different growing conditions. The net photosynthetic rate and isoprene emission rate of the potted seedlings were much lower than those of the ground-grown seedlings in the OTC, regardless of the ozone treatments. Between treatments, the isoprene emission rate and DMAPP content were significantly decreased by enriched ozone, suggesting that reduced production of DMAPP is a cause of the decreased isoprene emission. Our two fumigation experiments revealed that the isoprene emission rates of the two Quercus species was decreased by high ozone concentration, but the possible mechanism may not be identical, depending on the experimental conditions.
Fine-scale environmental gradients formed by local pollutants largely impact zooplankton communities in running water ecosystems

Many freshwater ecosystems suffer from multiple environmental stressors derived from anthropogenic activities. It is therefore necessary to investigate how environmental changes influence composition and functioning of biological communities such as zooplankton. At fine geographical scales, a well-known view on meta-community dynamics suggests that high dispersal can strongly homogenize community structure along water flows, largely erasing signals left by species sorting. However, a recent study by Xiong et al. (2017; Mol Ecol 26:4351−4360) challenges this view, showing that species sorting derived from an environmental gradient overrode the process of dispersal to determine the zooplankton community structure in running river ecosystems at fine geographical scales (the fine-scale species sorting hypothesis). Here we chose zooplankton communities from Fuyang River in north China to test the newly proposed hypothesis and identified the environmental factors contributing to meta-community dynamics in running water ecosystems. Multiple analyses based on high-throughput sequencing showed significantly varied zooplankton community composition and geographical distribution determined by an environmental gradient. Our study clearly shows that local chemical pollution, such as metal pollutants Cu and Mg, largely contributes to the observed patterns. Our study successfully identified local pollutants that influenced meta-community dynamics. Thus, we support the fine-scale species sorting hypothesis, indicating that a strong environmental gradient at fine geographical scales can strengthen the process of species sorting. As many rivers suffer from anthropogenic environ mental stressors, an urgent need exists to integrate both environmental and community infor mation when investigating how environmental changes influence community composition and functioning.
The impact of pollution on aquatic invertebrates within a subterranean ecosystem - out of sight out of mind

Pollution within a subterranean ecosystem caused gross staining of stream passages within a cave, although no visible impact was observed outside of the system. The source of the pollutant was identified in the surface catchment using water tracing experiments, and the direction and destination of water and pollutants within subterranean passages determined. Impacted sites and control sites were identified within the cave and compared to pre-disturbance data for the impacted cave and an adjacent system. The abundance and diversity of invertebrate taxa at impacted sites, downstream of the pollutant source, were significantly lower than in the pre-disturbance community and unaffected control sites.
Causal Relations via Econometrics

Applied econometric work takes a superficial approach to causality. Understanding economic affairs, making good policy decisions, and progress in the economic discipline depend on our ability to infer causal relations from data. We review the dominant approaches to causality in econometrics, and suggest why they fail to give good results. We feel the problem cannot be solved by traditional tools, and requires some out-of-the-box thinking. Potentially promising approaches to solutions are discussed.
Integrating importance and intensity: a novel approach to normalize measurement of neighbour effects

An intense debate is underway on the different approaches to measuring the importance of neighbour interaction. Both the ecological meaning and the statistical suitability of one of the most popular indices have been seriously questioned, but no simpler and practical alternative tools have been proposed up to now. This paper proposes a novel approach based on the use of new normalized indices which scale the effects of neighbours and environment to the maximum target-plant potential. Two indices related to environmental suitability and size-asymmetry are suggested as tools to stratify data in homogeneous subsets before analysis, and an index of normalized neighbour effect (Nn) is proposed to integrate the measuring of neighbour importance and intensity. When tested on literature data, Nn index proves to be very highly correlated to the most currently used importance index. At the same time, it is moderately but significantly correlated to the intensity index. Yet, an accurate reanalysis of three pub - lished datasets proves that several detected trends are predictable on the basis of the inherent properties of the used indices. This is inextricably linked to the use of the same phytometers at different productivity levels. Thus, a glimpse is proposed towards the opportunity to use groups of equivalent competitors, each one working at a different point of the gradient, but all in a comparable range of environmental suitability and potential size-asymmetry relative to neighbours. Once defined these equivalence conditions, the normalized Nn metric is suited to measure how the relative weight of neighbour impact changes along the productivity gradient.
Explaining Relationships Among Student Outcomes and the School's Physical Environment

This descriptive study investigated the possible effects of selected school design patterns on third-grade students' academic achievement. A reduced regression analysis revealed the effects of school design components (patterns) on ITBS achievement data, after including control variables, for a sample of third-grade students drawn from 24 elementary schools. The sample means on the ITBS per school represented approximately 1,916 third-grade students. The independent variable set for developing a possible explanation of student achievement was the school's physical environment, defined as four sets of design patterns: movement and circulation (e.g., adequate personal space and efficient movement patterns throughout the school), large group meeting places (e.g., social gathering places), day lighting and views (e.g., windows with natural light), and instructional neighborhoods (e.g., large and small group areas that accommodate wet and dry activities). Each of the four full regression models, which included subsets of the design elements, explained between 2% and 7% of additional variance in achievement when compared to the reduced model, which included a measure of school SES. Therefore, each of the four design variables was positively related to student achievement, even after controlling for school SES.
Customer-focused strategies and information technology capabilities: Implications for service quality of Malaysian local authorities

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between the extent of CF-strategies implementation and IT capability on organizational performance, and the moderating role IT capability on the relationship between CF-strategies and performance. Questionnaires were distributed to a sample of Malaysian Local Authorities (LGAs). The result supports a strong positive relationship between the extent of CF-strategies and IT capability on organizational performance. This study also finds that IT capability moderates the relationship between CF-strategies and organizational performance and provides justification for LGAs to invest, in term of resources and commitment, in implementing CF-strategies and IT as these variables contribute
INVESTORS ASSESSMENT OF THE CREDIBILITY OF MANAGEMENT DISCLOSURES

The objective of this study, is to examine the issue of the assessment of the credibility of management disclosures about a company from the perspective of the investors. It presents the results from a questionnaire survey of a sample of financial Analysts, accountants and other investor. The data were analyzed using the one way analysis of variance (ANOVA). The study found that management situational incentives, internal and external assurance and other characteristics of the disclosure itself, were the factors investors considered to affect the credibility of management Disclosures. The study recommends that investors should take these factors into consideration when assessing management disclosures. The study also recommends that management should also take these factors into consideration when preparing their disclosures if they want to improve on their credibility.
The Effect of Teachers’ Self-reflection on EFL Learners’ Writing Achievement

Abstract The concept of teachers’ reflection refers to the extent to which EFL teachers contemplate and reflect on their teaching experience in the classroom in order to improve their teaching skills. This study sought to explore the effect of EFL teacher’s reflection on their learners’ writing achievement. Participants of the study included 100 EFL teachers teaching in Mashhad language institutes and their 1000 EFL learners. Reflective teaching instrument designed by Akbari and Behzadpour (2007) was administered to the teachers of the study. Also, their EFL learners’ Grade Point Averages (GPAs) of their writing scores were calculated. The results of the statistical analysis revealed that teacher’s reflection significantly affects EFL learners’ writing achievement. This paper concludes with some implications for teaching and directions for further research. Key words: Teacher; Self-reflection; Learner; Writing achievement Resume Le concept de la reflexion des enseignants se refere a la mesure dans laquelle les enseignants de l'APL contempler et reflechir sur leur experience d'enseignement en classe en vue d'ameliorer leurs competences pedagogiques. Cette etude visait a explorer l'effet de la reflexion EFL enseignant sur la reussite d'ecriture de leurs apprenants. Les participants de l'etude comprennent 100 enseignants EFL l'enseignement a Mashhad instituts de langue. Instrument pedagogique reflechissant concu par Akbari et Behzadpour (2007) a ete administre aux participants de l'etude. Les resultats de l'analyse statistique revele que la reflexion de l'enseignant affecte significativement atteinte ecrit apprenants EFL. Mots-cles: Enseignant; Auto-reflexion; L'apprenant; La realisation d'ecriture
Determinants of the onset of disability in old age

With a rapidly aging population, maximizing independent living among the elderly is a growing concern. The inability to perform normal basic care activities interferes with an older individual’s ability to live independently. In this study, I examine the onset of disability among elderly Americans using the 2002 and 2004 waves of the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS). In examining the explanatory power of both the life course perspective and the medical model, I find that the medical model is better able to explain onset of disability for males while the life course perspective prevails when explaining onset of disability among females. I find little support that living arrangements among the elderly have an impact on the probability of experiencing onset of disability. Finally, I find that differences exist in the precursors of individual activities of daily living (ADLs) disability, which suggests that using an aggregate measure of ADL disability may be masking more effective preventive measures and treatments.
Asymmetric double-quantum-well phase modulator using surface acoustic waves

An AlGaAs-GaAs asymmetric double-quantum-well (DQW) optical phase modulator using surface acoustic waves is investigated theoretically. The optimization steps of the DQW structure, which so far have not been reported in detail, are discussed here. The optimized phase modulator structure is found to contain a five-period QDW active region. A surface acoustic wave induces a potential field which provides the phase modulation. Analysis of the modulation characteristics show that by using the asymmetric DQW, the large change of the induced potential at the surface and thus large modification of the quantum-well (QW) structure can be utilized. The modification of each QW structure is consistent, although this consistency is not always preserved in typical surface acoustic wave devices. Consequently, the change of refractive index in each of the five DQW's is almost identical. Besides, the change of effective refractive index is ten times larger here in comparison to a modulator with a five-period single QW as the active region and thus produces a larger phase modulation. In addition, a long wavelength and a low surface acoustic wave power required here simplify the fabrication of surface acoustic wave transducer and the acoustooptic phase modulator.