Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evaluation of coconut-citrus intercropping systems in the context of lethal yellowing disease of coconut in Ghana

Global coconut production is under the devastating threat of lethal yellowing diseases endemic in East and West Africa. The most practical solution to the disease problem lies in the development of resistant or tolerant coconut planting materials. Malayan Yellow Dwarf (MYD) crossed (x) Vanuatu Tall (VTT) coconut hybrid was identified in a resistance screening work to have moderate tolerance to the disease. Consequently, the hybrid was recommended for replanting of coconut fields devastated by lethal yellowing in Ghana. To stimulate a greater replanting effort however, there was the need to develop a more efficient coconut intercropping systems involving other economic tree crops that are capable of providing insurance against total crop failure and loss of income since the MYD x VTT coconut hybrid was only moderately tolerant to lethal yellowing. Four cropping systems involving the tolerant MYD x VTT coconut hybrid and Late Valencia sweet orange were evaluated in a randomized complete block design with three replicates. The cropping systems were: 1. Sole coconut (Coconut planted at 8.5m triangular spacing at 160 palms ha-1) 2. Sole citrus (Citrus planted at 6m square spacing at 277 trees ha-1) 3. Coconut-citrus intercrop I (Coconut planted at 9.5m triangular spacing at 128 palms ha-1 and intercropped with citrus at 100 trees ha-1) 4. Coconut-citrus intercrop II (Coconut planted at 10.5m triangular spacing at 105 palms ha-1 and intercropped with citrus at 80 trees ha-1). Citrus was planted at the convergence point of any two diagonal lines linked with four adjacent coconut palms. The MYD x VTT coconut hybrid planted at 9.5m triangular provided optimal spacing for citrus intercropping. The intercropping system did not hinder the optimal growth and yield of coconut or citrus. It enabled a more efficient use of land and generated higher productivity by fitting more trees (coconut/ citrus) to a unit area of land as compared with sole cropping. The costbenefit ratio of the intercropping came next to sole coconut planting. Nevertheless, intercropping enjoyed 26% of fruit income as insurance against lethal yellowing disease while sole coconut planting had no insurance cover.
Trail-Laying Behaviour as a Function of Resource Quality in theAnt Camponotusrufipes

Chemical trails have been shown to act as an orientation cue in some ant species. Here, I report that the trail-laying behaviour in the nectar-feeding ant, Camponotus rufipes, varies with the concentration of the sucrose solutions collected. Single workers collected solutions of different sucrose concentrations (5%, 20%, and 40% in weight) during 4 consecutive visits to the resource, and their trail-marking behaviour was recorded on soot-coated slides during their first and last visits. Results suggest that these chemical trails provide both an orientation cue between the nest and the food source, as previously suggested for Camponotus ants, as well as information about food quality.
Individual Time Preferences and Energy Efficiency

We examine the role of individual discount rates in energy efficiency decisions using evidence from an extensive survey of U.S. homeowners to elicit preferences for energy efficiency and cash flows over time. We find considerable heterogeneity in individual discount rates. We also find that individual time preferences systematically influence willingness to invest in energy efficiency, as measured through product choices, required payback periods, and energy efficiency tax credit claims. Individual discount rate heterogeneity is in turn significantly related to characteristics of the individual and their household, including their financial situation. Individuals with less education, larger households, low income, and low credit scores had systematically higher discount rates, as did black, non-Hispanic respondents. Our findings highlight the importance of individual discount rates to understanding energy efficiency investments, the energy-efficiency gap, and policy evaluation.
Changes in soil microbial activity and physicochemical properties in agricultural soils in Eastern Spain

Agricultural land management greatly affects soil properties. Microbial soil communities are the most sensitive and rapid indicators of perturbations in land use and soil enzyme activities are sensitive biological indicators of the effects of soil management practices. Citrus orchards frequently have degraded soils and this paper evaluates how land management in citrus orchards can improve soil quality. A field experiment was performed in an orchard of orange trees (Citrus Sinensis) in the Alcoleja Experimental Station (Eastern Spain) with clay-loam agricultural soils to assess the long-term effects of herbicides with inorganic fertilizers (H), intensive ploughing and inorganic fertilizers (P) and organic farming (O) on the soil microbial properties, and to study the relationship between them. Nine soil samples were taken from each agricultural management plot. In all the samples physicochemical parameters, basal soil respiration, soil microbial biomass carbon, microbial indexes (BSR/C, Cmic/C and BSR/Cmic) and enzymatic activities (urease, dehydrogenase, ß-glucosidase and acid phosphatase) were determined. The results showed significant differences between the different agricultural management practices for the microbial properties and soil microbial indexes, since these were strongly associated with the soil organic matter content. Unlike herbicide use and intensive ploughing management practices that both showed similar microbial soil properties the organic management practices contributed to an increase in the soil biology quality, aggregate stability and organic matter content.
On the Demand for Grandchildren: Tied Transfers and the Demonstration Effect

It is argued that parents provide help with housing downpayments in order to encourage the production of grandchildren, and that such a subsidization emanates from the "demonstration effect:" a child's propensity to furnish parents with attention and care can be conditioned by parental example. Parents who desire such transfers in the future have an incentive to make transfers to their own parents in order to instill appropriate preferences in their children. This generates a derived demand for grandchildren since potential grandparents will be treated better by their adult children if the latter have their own children to whom to demonstrate the appropriate behavior. Empirical work indicates behavior consistent with subsidization of the production of grandchildren and the demonstration effect.
Do Individual Index Futures Investors Destabilize the Underlying Spot Market

This paper investigates the impact of introducing index futures trading on the volatility of the underlying stock market. We exploit a unique institutional setting in which presumably uninformed individuals are the dominant trader type in the futures markets. This enables us to investigate the destabilization hypothesis more accurately than previous studies do and to provide evidence for or against the in uence of individuals trading in index futures on spot market volatility. To overcome econometric shortcomings of the existing literature we employ a Markov-switching-GARCH approach to endogenously identify distinct volatility regimes. Our empirical evidence for Poland surprisingly suggests that the introduction of index futures trading does not destabilize the spot market. This nding is robust across 3 stock market indices and is corroborated by further analysis of a control group.
Estimation of Phenotypic and Genetic Parameters and Genetic Trend of Weights in the Weaning Phase (P205), Weight at one Year (P365), the Yearling (P505) in Nellore Cattle in the Northern Region and Under-Region Middle-North of Brazil

We studied 257 herds of 257 farms, totaling 79,051 observations in eight States of the Federation, which genetic and phenotypic parameters were estimated for the weights to 205 (P205), 365 (P365) and 550 days old (P550) of Nelore, included in the system of development Control by weight (CDP) conducted by the Brazilian Association of Zebu breeders (ABCZ) and raised in the northern region and sub-region Means North. Estimates of variance components and genetic parameters were obtained by the MTDFREML application, which uses the methodology of the Restricted Maximum Likelihood Derivative Free with an animal model that considers as fixed the effects of the farm such as year, month of birth, and gender. The heredity for P205 was 0.13 ± 0.02 and for P365 was 0.18 ± 0.05, which may indicate little additional genetic variation for these characteristics. For P550 days the estimated heredity was 0.23 ± 0.07, considered average, what indicates that at this age it is possible to select for weight gain. The genetic, phenotypical and environmental likeness among the weights in different ages were: P205-P365 = 0.92, 0.72 and 0.79; P205-P550 = 0.89, 0.61 and 0.87 and P365-550 = 0.98, 0.80 and 0.87. The genetic tendency in P365, for direct effect was significant and positive equals 0.455 kg (P < 0.001). Genetic trends in P205, P365 and P550 for direct effect were significant and positive, equal to 0.272 kg (P < 0.001), 0.455 kg (P < 0.001) and 0.744 kg (P < 0.001), respectively.
Forecasting Aggregates with Disaggregate Variables: Does Boosting Help to Select the Most Relevant Predictors?

Including disaggregate variables or using information extracted from the disaggregate variables into a forecasting model for an economic aggregate may improve the forecasting accuracy. In this paper we suggest to use the boosting method to select the disaggregate variables which are most helpful in predicting an aggregate of interest. We conduct a simulation study to investigate the variable selection ability of this method. To assess the forecasting performance a recursive pseudo-out-of-sample forecasting experiment for six key Euro area macroeconomic variables is conducted. The results suggest that using boosting to select relevant predictors is a feasible and competitive approach in forecasting an aggregate.
Species diversity and nestedness of ant assemblages in an urban environment

Ant assemblages were studied in Warsaw in the context of the effects of urban pressure. Four types of urban greenery were selected: (1) green areas bordering streets, (2) in housing estates, and (3) in parks, and (4) patches of urban woodland. In total, there were 27 species of ants. In terms of the total ant activity density, Lasius niger predominated in all the the lawn biotopes (1-3) and Myrmica rubra in the wooded areas. Ant species diversity was highest in parks and wooded areas and lowest in green areas bor- dering streets. In contrast, activity density was highest in green areas bordering streets and lowest in wooded areas. Some species are found only in a few habitats. Stenamma debile, Lasius brunneus, L. fuliginosus and Temnothorax crassispinus almost exclusively occurred in wooded areas, whereas L. niger was most often found in lawn biotopes. Myrmica rugulosa and Tetramorium caespitum were most abundant in green areas bordering streets, while in parks Lasius flavus, Formica cunicularia and Solenopsis fugax were most abundant. In general, the ant assemblages recorded showed a significantly nested pattern, with biotope type being a significant determinant of nestedness. The assemblages found in green areas in housing estates and bordering streets constituted a subsample of the assemblages in parks and wooded areas. Ant species were non-randomly distributed in this urbanized landscape and the species recorded in the most transformed biotopes constitute subsamples of those inhabiting less transformed biotopes. This finding empha- sizes the importance of wooded areas for the maintenance of biodiversity in urban areas.
Load Frequency Control of a Two Area-Power System with Non-reheat Turbines by SMC Approach

Load frequency is an important issue in power system operation and control. In this paper, load frequency control for suppression frequency deviation in an interconnected power system with nonlinearities using SMC (sliding mode control) is studied. The governor dead band and GRC (generation rate constraint) is considered in this article. Digit simulations for both two areas and three areas power system with non-reheat turbines are provided to validate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. The results show that, the robustness of the control method under parameters variation and different load disturbances with the SMC technique.
Surface plasmon resonance sensor sensitivity enhancement using gold-dielectric material

There has been increasing interest in the field of surface plasmon resonance sensing technology according to its advantages such as the small amount of sensing samples re-quired, freedom of electromagnetic interference and greater sensitivity. This research investigates the using of a thin layer of dielectric material such as Barium Titanate (BaTio3) over the Gold (Au) layer for enhancing the sensitivity of the surface plasmon resonance sensor-based phase interrogation technique. BaTio3 is adopted due to its excellent dielectric proper-ties such as high dielectric constant and low dielectric loss. Numerical results have demon-started that the surface plasmon resonance sensor with utilizing thin layer of the BaTio3 lay-er (5nm) over a fixed Au layer thickness of (50nm) exhibited a high sensitivity of (250 degree/RIU) among other thickness values of BaTio3. Contrarily, the comparison of the surface plasmon resonance sensor without utilizing BaTio3 layer provides (160 degree/RIU) for fixed Au layer thickness (50nm). Hence, using of 5mm thin layer of BaTio3 over 50nm of Au lay-er within surface palsmon layer yield higher sensitivity of 250 (degree/RIU).
Integrating Genetic Algorithm with MoM Analysis for Planar Microstrip Structures

An innovative Method of Moments (MoM) analysis using a genetic algorithm for modeling planar structures is presented. An adaptive genetic algorithm (AGA) is used to optimize the choice of trial functions. Two different bases of trial functions are used to model the current density, namely; Daubechies wavelets and sinusoidal functions. The efficient coupling between AGA and the MoM analysis allows a significant reduction of the central processing unit time and the memory storage. Results for a microstrip circuit and patch antennas are presented to show the effectiveness of the method.
The influence of employees’ perceptions of organizational politics on turnover intentions in Zimbabwe’s SME sector

Despite increasing awareness of the importance of managing the negative effects of organizational politics at the workplace, research on consequences relating to employees’ perceptions of the same in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Africa has received little attention. Therefore, using data from 250 SMEs in Zimbabwe, this study examines the effects of employees’ perceptions of organizational politics on turnover intentions and the mediating influence of employees’ perceptions of equity and organizational commitment. All the posited six hypotheses were supported by the sample data. Managerial implications of the findings are discussed and limitations and future research directions are indicated.
An RFLP study of relationships between species, populations and resistance-breaking lines of tropical species of Meloidogyne

Summary - To deterrnine the identity of resistance-breaking Meloidogyne spp. showing the esterase phenotype pVI, six pVI lines were compared by RFLP with ten lines of M. incognita, seven of M. arenaria, four of A1. javanica, one of M. hapla and one of M. mayaguensis. A total of three groups were identified in these analyses. Two groups, represented by M. incognita and M. maya­ guensis, displayed low level of intraspecific variation, but were clearly distinct from each other. The second group included the lines exhibiting the pVI esterase phenotype. A third group was more variable; it consisted of the M. arenaria and M. javanica /ines. From the comparison of Meloidogyne spp. , the resistance-breaking ! ines, with the pVI esterase phenotype, were shown to belong to the species M. mayaguensis, and they were not lines selected from other existing tropical Meloidogyne spp. following the use of resistant cultivars. Resume - Etudepar le polymorphismeen longueurdesfragments ck restriction (RFLP) cks relations entre especes, populationset lignees brisant la resistance appartenantaux Meloidogyne tropicaux- Afin d'etablir l'identite de certaines especes de Meloidogyne, caracterisees par le phenotype esterasique pVI et pouvant se developper sur certains cultivars resistants, six de ces lignees sont comparees par RFLP a dix lignees de M. incognita, sept de M. arenaria, quatre de M. javanica, une de M. hapla et une de M. mayaguensis. Deux groupes tres homogenes sont identifies: le premier comprend les lignees de lvI. incognila, le deuxieme les lignees pVI et la lignee de M. mayaguensis; un troisieme, plus variable, regroupe les lignees appartenant a M. arenaria et a M. javanica. Les lignees se developpant sur cultivars resistants et dotees du phenotype pVI apparaissent comme une espece distincte, M. mayaguensis, et non comme la consequence de la selection, par l'usage de cultivars resistants, de variants parmi les especes tropicales.
Tensile Strengths of Silicon Carbide (SiC) Under Shock Loading

Abstract : The present work was initiated to measure and compare tensile strengths (i.e., spall thresholds) of five different types/varieties of silicon carbide materials. Two of these materials were sintered, and the remaining three were hot-pressed. Three types of silicon carbides (one sintered by Sohio and. the other two hot-pressed by Cercom) were manufactured in the United States. The remaining two varieties of silicon carbides were manufactured in France. Spall strengths of these five different silicon carbide materials were measured by performing plane shock wave experiments to a maximum impact-generated stress level of 17 GPa on the light gas-gun facility at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL). The single most important result of this investigation is that spall strength of silicon carbide, irrespective of its manufacturing process, improves initially to a certain impact stress level before it begins to deteriorate under higher impact stress. The decline in the spall strength of both sintered materials and Cercom SiC-B begin at an impact stress between 3-5 GPa. SiC-N data have a very large scatter. Spall strength of the French sintered and hot-pressed material increases to an impact stress of 11.7 GPa. Its spall strength increases from 0.8 GPa at an impact stress of 1.6 GPa to 1.8 GPa at an impact stress of 11.7 GPa. In terms of spall strength, the French sintered and hot-pressed materials show the least scatter and largest increase with an increase in the impact stress. The results of the present work thus offer new challenges to modeling ceramic materials.
Behaviour of Flyash Reinforced Sub-bases on Expansive Soil Subgrades Under Cyclic Loading

Evaluation Studies on flexible pavement system were carried out by using the different reinforcement materials in the flyash subbase courses laid on expansive soil subgrades. It was observed from the laboratory test results of direct shear and CBR, that the optimum percentage of waste plastics is equal to 0.4% for flyash materials. Cyclic load tests were carried out in the field by placing a circular metal plate on model flexible pavements. It is observed that the maximum load carrying capacity associated with less value of rebound deflection is obtained for geogrid reinforced stretch followed by bitumen coated bamboo mesh and waste plastics reinforced stretch in the flexible pavement system laid on expansive subgrades.
Comparative analysis of the anatomy of two populations of red-root amaranth (Amaranthus retroflexus L.)

SUMMARY The anatomy of stems and leaves of two populations of the weed species Amaranthus retroflexus L. (red-root amaranth) (pop. AMARE1 having green stems covered in sparse hairs and pop. AMARE2 with green but notably dense stem hairs) was analysed in order better to understand the uptake and translocation of herbicides that could be indicative of the species’ evolving resistance to herbicides. Samples of the two populations (AMARE1 and AMARE2) were collected from arable land of the Institute of Maize Research at Zemun Polje in 2006. Sampling was performed at the stage of full vegetative growth of plants. Permanent microscoping preparations were made to measure and analyze elements of the anatomy of stems (stem epidermis, cortex, collenchyma, central cylinder and diameter) and leaves (leaf epidermis upper surface and underside, mesophyll, leaf thickness and bundle sheath thickness). Both analysed populations of A. retroflexus, morphologically characterized by different density of stem hairiness, were found to have a typical structure of herbaceous dicots. The stem had three distinctive zones: epidermis, cortex and central cylinder. Amaranth leaves have dorsoventral structure, i.e. their upper surface and underside can be differentiated. The results indicated high and very high significance of differences found in stem anatomy between the two analysed populations, while leaf anatomy was not found to display significant differences other than in mesophyll thickness.
Road infrastructure and mobility of consumption in the Mexicali-Imperial Valley border area Infraestructura vial y movilidad de consumo en el espacio transfronterizo de Mexicali y Valle Imperial

Summary The objective of this study is to analyze the mobility of consumption in the MexicaliImperial Valley border area. The study shows that the population in the Mexicali sections closer to border crossings generates the greatest amount of consumption dynamics with places located in Imperial Valley. Conversely, Imperial Valley sections that are more distant from the border concentrate a greater number of destination sites for these cross-border trips. It is concluded that a higher quality and more integrated road infrastructure allows the new consumption centers in Imperial Valley to be located farther away from the border and that the Mexicali population with visas can cross indiscriminately through any border crossing by taking longer journeys toward these centers.
The Diffusion of Performance Evaluation Measures: An Empirical Study in Jordanian Banks

This research aims to provide a view of the present role of performance evaluation measures, to identify theextent of usage of performance evaluation measures, and finally to examine the contingent variables in order tofind out their effect upon the extent of usage in the Jordanian banks. In order to achieve these objectives, theresearch used a questionnaire method; 80 (out of 140) valid questionnaires were returned, giving a (57.14%)response rate. Several statistical tests were used to analyze the data, namely, descriptive and bivariate correlationanalysis (Kendall`s tau test). The results revealed that there is a lack of use of non-financial measures that areconsidered as contemporary management accounting practices. However, the financial measures wereconsidered as the highest practice being utilised. In addition, the results confirmed the hypothesized relationshipsbetween contingency variables and the extent of usage, namely; age of the company; net sale growth, number ofemployees; sophistication of operations; professional certificates; and academic certificates. Finally, it can beconcluded that the traditional Performance evaluation measures are still widely used.