Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Determinants of interest in mountain food products: a European cross-country study.

Developing and promoting mountain food production is a way to encourage sustainable development of mountain areas, which are generally rural areas, with specific geographic and climatic constraints. A key interest lies in identifying consumer propensity to purchase "mountain-type" food. The present paper measures the adequacy between a) the importance of a set of characteristics as consumers' food purchase criteria and b) the appeal of these characteristics in mountain food products according to retailers, in five European countries. We used a weighted adding procedure that produced an index of fit, showing which consumers have purchase criteria that match best the mountain product characteristics. The socio-demographic characteristics, purchase behaviour, and the perception and expectations of mountain food products of the consumers whose purchase criteria match best were then identified by means of a statistical criterion. The results show that consumers most likely to be interested in mountain food products are older, more often women, and more often from Austria. They more often purchase preferably at producers or speciality shops rather than in supermarkets and pay more attention to environmental and social issues when purchasing food. They expect to find mountain products in short supply chains. They tend to link mountain food products with supporting local employment and regional culture, and are stricter on the mountain origin of raw materials and on processing in mountain areas. They are more favourable towards a governmental/EU label for mountain food products. The results meet those of previous research on environmentally-friendly or regional food products.
Investigation on defensive enzymes activity of Brassica juncea genotypes during pathogenesis of Alternaria blight

The investigation was carried out to know the biochemical basis of defense mechanism of seven Brassica juncea genotypes infected with Alternaria blight, under field conditions. Genotypes EC-399299, EC- 399296, EC-399313 and PHR-2 showed lowest percent Disease Severity Index. The activity of PAL, PPO, Peroxidase and Catalase were recorded at 65DAS, 25DPI and 50DPI. Biochemical analysis of infected genotypes revealed an increase in PAL, PPO and peroxidase activity. EC-399299, EC-399296 and PHR-2 exhibited maximum increase in these parameters. Catalase activity was decreased, with the progresses of disease. The activity of PAL, PPO, peoxidase and catalase were used as parameter to identify the resistant genotype for breeding programmes. The finding revealed that EC-399299, EC-399296, EC-399313 and PHR-2 are comparatively more resistance against infection of Alternaria brassicae then other observed genotypes and suggested that PAL, PPO and peroxidase may play an important role in under taking the defense mechanisms of Brassica juncea genotypes against Alerternaria blight pathogenesis. (Pankaj Singh Parihar, Om Prakash and H. Punetha. Investigation on defensive enzymes activity of Brassica juncea genotypes during pathogenesis of Alternaria blight. Nature and Science 2012;10(2):63-68). (ISSN: 1545-0740). http://www.sciencepub. net . 11
CLINICAL RISK FACTORS UNDERLYING THE OCCURRENCE OF RETINAL VEIN OCCLUSION

Retinal vein occlusion (RVO) is the second commonest cause of retinal vascular disorder just after diabetic retinopathy. RVO is associated with a wide variety of systemic and local complicating factors. In over half of the cases with RVO, the age of the disease onset is over 65 years. The most recognized risk factors for RVO are the senility and accompanying systemic vascular diseases. Additional risk factors include thrombophilic mutations, systemic inflammatory conditions and ophthalmic risk factors. The aim of this review is to outline clinical risk factors underlying the occurrence of RVO.
Determinants of vegetable farmers' decision to use poultry litter in the southern region of Nigeria

This study specifically modeled poultry litter equation among Telfairia occidentalis farmers in Ikot Ekpene area of Akwa Ibom State in Southern Nigeria. One hundred and twenty Telfairia (fluted pumpkin) farmers were randomly sampled and used for this study. Structured questionnaires were used to collect the data needed for the analysis. Logit model regression based on the maximum likelihood estimation was specified and used to analyze the data collected. The choice of the Logit model was based on the nature of the dependent variable which was a probability or decision based variable. The explanatory variables used in this study were derived following a careful review of the literature and observed characteristics of the respondents. The result of the empirical estimation revealed that age, education, farm size, previous year’s harvest, farming practice adopted, farming experience, soil management practice, farm income, off-farm income and household expenditure were important determinants of the Telfairia farmers’ decision to use poultry litter in the study area. Based on the findings, it was recommended that Telfairia farmers in the study area should be exposed to more years of formal education so as to enhance organic manure technology adoption. Efforts should be channeled towards sensitizing the Telfairia farmers on the need to embrace the family planning programme so as to reduce the household size and expenditure. This will enhance increase farm budget allocation and hence organic manure utilization. This study also advocated mixed crop farming system among Telfairia farmers as this will reduce production risk and increase the tendency of poultry litter usage. In addition, the study supported agricultural income diversification among Telfairia farmers; this will guarantee increase in aggregate income of farmers and hence poultry litter usage even in the face of increased household expenditure.
A new parametrization for ambient particle formation over coniferous forests and its potential implications for the future

Atmospheric new particle formation is a general phenomenon observed over coniferous forests. So far nucleation is either parameterised as a function of gaseous sulphuric acid concentration only, which is unable to explain the observed seasonality of nucleation events at different measurement sites, or as a function of sulphuric acid and organic molecules. Here we introduce different nucleation parameters based on the interaction of sulphuric acid and terpene oxidation products and elucidate the individual importance. They include basic trace gas and meteorological measurements such as ozone and water vapour concentrations, temperature (for terpene emission) and UV B radiation as a proxy for OH radical formation. We apply these new parameters to field studies conducted at conducted at Finnish and German measurement sites and compare these to nucleation observations on a daily and annual scale. General agreement was found, although the specific compounds responsible for the nucleation process remain speculative. This can be interpreted as follows: During cooler seasons the emission of biogenic terpenes and the OH availability limits the new particle formation while towards warmer seasons the ratio of ozone and water vapour concentration seems to dominate the general behaviour. Therefore, organics seem to support ambient nucleation besides sulphuric acid or an OH-related compound. Using these nucleation parameters to extrapolate the current conditions to prognosed future concentrations of ozone, water vapour and organic concentrations leads to a significant potential increase in the nucleation event number.
"When I steal, it is for the benefit of me and you": Is collectivism engendering corruption in Uganda?

This paper examines the beliefs and practices that collectivism engenders in Uganda and how they may influence the principal-agent relationships present in the situation of “corruption”. Within some specific contexts of collectivism, vices that may qualify to be corruption may be interpreted otherwise as long as they are perceived not only serve only individual but also group or community goals. The paper shows that in some societies in Uganda, corruption or even theft can be acceptable as long as it is perceived to bring benefits to the family, kinship or community. The paper argues that the drivers and manifestations of corruption in Uganda cannot be understood without reference to beliefs and practices engendered by collectivism. It provides examples that show that in quite many collectivistic cultures, acceptance or rejection of corruption depends on the contextual interpretations of the act and the perception and meaning attached to the party to whom the act has been committed. In some cases, especially where the state has either lost or has never gained legitimacy among some sections of the population; stealing state funds may be interpreted as being “smart” rather than immoral. This tendency towards conceptualizing ‘corruption’ as something that takes place only when the individual does not share his loot with others but enjoys its benefits alone contributes to making individuals shun the individual responsibility for their corrupt actions and complicates the moral issues related to corruption in the context of collectivism. It could be that the level of individuals’ sense of responsibility for their actions in collectivistic environments is lower thus making interventions that solely focus on individual retribution less effective in combating corruption.
Press-pulse: a general theory of mass extinction?

Abstract Previous discussions of mass extinction mechanisms generally focused on circumstances unique to each event. However, some have proposed that extensive volcanism combined with bolide impact may offer a general mechanism of mass extinction. To test this hypothesis we compared generic extinction percentages for 73 stages or substages of the Mesozoic and Cenozoic. We found that the highest frequency of intervals with elevated extinction occurred when continental flood basalt volcanism and bolide impact co-occurred. In contrast, neither volcanism nor impact alone yielded statistically elevated extinction frequencies. Although the magnitude of extinction was uncorrelated with the size of the associated flood basalt or impact structure, crater diameter did correlate with extinction percentage when volcanism and impact coincided. Despite this result, case-by-case analysis showed that the volcanism-impact hypothesis alone cannot explain all intervals of elevated extinction. Continental flood volcanism and impact share important ecological features with other proposed extinction mechanisms. Impacts, like marine anoxic incursions, are pulse disturbances that are sudden and catastrophic, and cause extensive mortality. Volcanism, like climate and sea level change, is a press disturbance that alters community composition by placing multigenerational stress on ecosystems. We propose that the coincidence of press and pulse events, not merely volcanism and impact, is required to produce the greatest episodes of dying in Phanerozoic history.
International diversification and the Irish economy

We take an initial step in investigating the international diversification of Irish production risk. We find evidence that Ireland displays some properties associated with international risksharing. These include: high gross stocks of foreign assets and liabilities; high international consumption correlations relative to output correlations; and pro-cyclical behaviour of the yield on net external liabilities.
Improving the Representation of Cross-Boundary Transport of Anthropogenic Pollution in East Asia Using Radon-222

We report on 10 years of hourly atmospheric radon, CO, and SO_2 observations at Gosan Station, Korea. An improved radon detector was installed during this period and performance of the detectors is compared. A technique is developed whereby the distribution of radon concentrations from a fetch region can be used to select air masses that have consistently been in direct contact with land-based emissions, and have been least diluted en route to the measurement site. Hourly radon concentrations are used to demonstrate and characterise contamination of remote-fetch pollution observations by local emissions at this key WMO GAW site, and a seasonally-varying 5-hour diurnal sampling window is proposed for days on which diurnal cycles are evident to minimise these effects. The seasonal variability in mixing depth and “background” pollutant concentrations are characterised. Based on a subset of observations most representative of the important regional fetch areas for this site, and least affected by local emissions, seasonal estimates of CO and SO_2 in air masses originating from South China, North China, Korea and Japan are compared across the decade of observations.
Extension of CSRSM for the Parametric Study of the Face Stability of Pressurized Tunnels

The Collocation-based Stochastic Response Surface Methodology (CSRSM) is a powerful probabilistic method. It aims at replacing a complex deterministic model by a simple analytical expression (called meta-model) to reduce the time cost of the classical probabilistic methods. The meta-model is based on a Polynomial Chaos Expansion (PCE). The coefficients of the PCE are computed in this paper by regression from the response of the deterministic model at a limited number of collocation points. The conventional formalism of CSRSM requires performing a new set of deterministic computations each time the probabilistic parameters of the input random variables are slightly modified. An extension of CSRSM is therefore proposed in this paper. It allows the realization of a parametric study at a limited time cost without loss of accuracy. This is demonstrated by comparing the results obtained from the original CSRSM and its extension when performing a parametric study concerning the stability analysis of a pressurized tunnel face.
Statistical downscaling methods based on APCC multi‐model ensemble for seasonal prediction over South Korea

An investigation was conducted to optimize the application of the multi‐model ensemble (MME) technique for statistical downscaling using 1‐ to 6‐month lead hindcasts obtained from six operational coupled general circulation models (GCMs) participating in the APEC Climate Center (APCC) MME prediction system. Three different statistical downscaling MME methods (SDMMEs) were compared and estimated over South Korea. The study results revealed that under the same number of ensemble members, simple changes in the statistical downscaling method, such as an applicative order or a type of MME, can help to improve the predictability. The first method, the conventional technique, performed MME using data downscaled from the single‐model ensemble means of each GCM (SDMME‐Sm), whereas the second and third methods, newly designed in this study, calculated the simple ensemble mean (SDMME‐Ae) and the weighted ensemble mean (SDMME‐We) after statistical downscaling for each member of all model ensembles. These three methods were applied to predict temperature and precipitation for the 6‐month summer‐fall season over 23 years (1983–2005) at 60 weather stations over South Korea. The predictors were variables from hindcasts integrated by the six coupled GCMs. According to the analysis, both SDMME‐Ae and SDMME‐We showed increased predictability compared with SDMME‐Sm. In particular, SDMME‐We showed more significant improvement in long‐term prediction. In addition, in order to assess the dependence of predictability on the number of downscaled ensemble members and the type of MME, an additional experiment was performed, the results of which revealed that the model performance was closely related to the number of downscaled ensemble members. However, after approximately 30 ensemble members, the predictive skills became rapidly saturated when using the SDMME‐Ae method. SDMME‐We overcame the limited skills that can be achieved by merely increasing the number of downscaled ensemble members, thereby improving the performance.
Entry and exit, multi-product firms, and allocative distortions

This paper proposes a multi-product model of firm dynamics to understand the implications of allocative distortions for the decisions of firms to enter, exit, and supply products to the market. These margins of adjustment have been largely neglected in the literature yet have direct contributions to welfare and productivity. The paper finds that when the analysis accounts for these channels, the traditional focus on long-run gains in Total Factor Productivity from reversing misallocation strongly underestimates the welfare gains that accrue when accounting for transitional dynamics. Calibrating the distortions to China in 1998, the analysis finds a welfare gain of 32 percent and a steady-state gain of 10 percent.
A new estimate on the indirect Coulomb Energy

We prove a new lower bound on the indirect Coulomb energy in quantum mechanics in terms of the single particle density of the system. The new universal lower bound is an alternative to the classical Lieb--Oxford bound (with a smaller constant, 1.45 < 1.68) but involving an additive kinetic energy term of the single particle density.
The Use of Fruits and Seeds by Ants in the Atlantic Forest of Southeast Brazil 1

Given the abundance of litter‐foraging ants and fallen fleshy diaspores on the floor of tropical forests, interactions involving them should be common and may render important consequences for the biology of the diaspores. In this study, we surveyed the interactions between ants and non‐myrmecochorous diaspores along a 5‐km transect in a lowland Atlantic rain forest of southeast Brazil. A diaspore is defined as any seed, fruit, or infructescence that constitutes the unit of dispersal of the plant. During two years of monthly samplings of naturally fallen diaspores, 886 ant– diaspore interactions involving 36 ant species and 56 different species of diaspores (range = 0.05–29.5 g) were recorded. The number of interactions was significantly and positively correlated with rainfall but not with mean temperature. The number of ant species recorded in the interactions was positively associated with both rainfall and temperature. Lipid‐rich diaspores attracted a larger ant assemblage than those with lower contents of lipids. The seasonal pattern for ant‐diaspore interactions in the Atlantic rain forest is predicted by well known seasonal patterns in ant activity and diaspore production. Other factors that also may affect the observed pattern are the massive and episodic fruiting of some plant species in which diaspores are especially attractive to ants, and a preference for lipid‐rich arillate seeds. Interactions between ants and fallen non‐myrmecochorous diaspores may be especially common in lowland rain forests in which the abundance of ants is coupled with the year‐round availability of fleshy diaspores.
Infection of Bluefish (Pomatomus saltatrix) Ovaries by the Dracunculoid Nematode, Philometra saltatrix: Prevalence, Intensity, and Effect on Reproductive Potential

Stony Brook University Libraries. School of Marine and Atomspheric Sciences. Lawrence Martin (Dean of Graduate School), Dr. David O. Conover (Professor, Dean, and Director Marine Sciences Research Center), Dr. Alistair D.M. Dove (Adjunct Assistant Professor Marine Sciences Research Center), Dr. Bassem Allam (Marine Sciences Research Center).
UvA-DARE ( Digital Academic Repository ) Researchers ’ Intuitions About Power in Psychological Research

Many psychology studies are statistically underpowered. In part, this may be because many researchers rely on intuition, rules of thumb, and prior practice (along with practical considerations) to determine the number of subjects to test. In Study 1, we surveyed 291 published research psychologists and found large discrepancies between their reports of their preferred amount of power and the actual power of their studies (calculated from their reported typical cell size, typical effect size, and acceptable alpha). Furthermore, in Study 2, 89% of the 214 respondents overestimated the power of specific research designs with a small expected effect size, and 95% underestimated the sample size needed to obtain . 80 power for detecting a small effect. Neither researchers’ experience nor their knowledge predicted the bias in their self-reported power intuitions. Because many respondents reported that they based their sample sizes on rules of thumb or common practice in the field, we recommend that researchers conduct and report formal power analyses for their studies.
Microbiota cloacal aeróbia de cracídeos cativos no Rio Grande do Sul e sua susceptibilidade a antimicrobianos

Cracids are wildlife Galliformes which inhabits the America's tropical forests. Fifty one cloacal swabs were collected from 10 different species of captive cracids from the Rio Grande do Sul State during 2007. The cloacal swab samples were submitted to bacterial isolation, identification and, subsequently; antimicrobial susceptibility testing. Ninety three bacterial isolates were obtained from the cracid population examined. The most prevalent among the isolates were Escherichia coli, and bacteria from the Staphylococcus and Streptococcus genera. All samples tested in this study were negative for Salmonella spp. The antimicrobial susceptibility tests showed that none of the 93 strains presented resistance to the antimicrobial imipinem. In addition, the lower percentages of resistance were observed against cloranfenicol and ciprofloxacine. The bacteria genus and species with the highest percentage of resistance to the different antimicrobials examined were E. coli, Serratia marcescens, Staphylococcus spp. and Streptococcus spp. In conclusion, the data presented in this article demonstrate that the cloacal microbiota of the reported cracid population is composed of several bacterial genera and species and multi-drug resistance may be a problem for the future, since some strains showed elevated percentage of resistance against several different antimicrobials.
Magnitude and Frequency of Avalanches in Relation to Terrain and Forest Cover

Abstract This paper contains an analysis of magnitude and frequency of avalanches in relation to terrain and forest cover variables. The analysis was applied to 194 avalanche paths in four avalanche areas along highways in British Columbia with approximately 25,000 avalanches recorded. The magnitude and frequency for the avalanche paths were estimated from data collected along the highways by avalanche technicians. Results show that mean magnitude and mean frequency are weakly correlated for a set of avalanche paths in an avalanche area. In addition, with magnitude and frequency viewed as response variables, magnitude and frequency correlate with different sets of predictor variables from one area to another. This paper contains the first comparison of variables which correlate with magnitude and frequency from one avalanche area to another. The results show that previous studies conducted for single areas are simplistic. However, there is some consistency between areas. Avalanche frequency is most directly related to terrain steepness and snow supply. Average avalanche magnitude appears related to terrain steepness, starting zone, and track confinement and the scale (e.g., total vertical drop of the path) with only indirect evidence for a link to snow supply.