Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Distribution and abundance of pteropod and heteropod molluscs in the EEZ and adjoining waters of India

The pteropod and heteropjod molluscs formed an important constituent in the zooplankton of the EEZ of India and the adjacent areas. Between them the pteropods dominated numerically over the heteropods in all situations. The average density of pteropods in the area investigated was 734 (expressed as number per 1000 m' of water) and heteropods was 335. Both the groups wore more in the eastern Arabian Sea than in the Bay of Bengal. However, the difference in the rate of ocicurrence in the two sea areas was more pronounced in the case of heteropods, being 46.56% against 21.35% for the other group. Both the groups were relatively more in the shelf waters, the increase over the oceanic area being more than one and a half times for the pteropods which sometimes exhibited some kind of population explosion in the shelf waters. For the heteropods theinceaseinthe shelf area was of the order of 87.88%. The pteropods had a trimonthly abundance, say, during February, May, August and November. November and December were the favourable months for the heteropods. A seasonal variation was not very significant for both the groups. However, pteropods were comparatively more during the premonsoon season off the west coast (826) and the east coast (729). With regard to heteropods, while an increase (449) was noticed in postmonsoon season in the eastern Arabian Sea, in the Bay of Bengal the increase was during the premonsoon period (373). In the eastern Arabian Sea there appeared to be a gradual reduction in f)opulation of both the groups from south to the north. However, in the Bay of Bengal the situation prevailed was exactly the opposite. The observed reduction in population was effected through the various seasons starting from premonsoon througji monsoon to the postmonsoon. A population outburst was noticed for pteropods in the shelf waters of the southernmost latitudinal region of the eastern Arabian Sea during the pcrmonsoon. In the same region off the east coast a similar phenomenon occurred during the nwnsoon season. The day-night variations in the two groups was striking in that both had an overall increase by 27% in the night samples. There was considerable difference in regard to diurnal variations during different months for pteropods and heteropods.
INCENTIVE BASED FISHERIES REGULATION SYSTEMS: THE CASE STUDY OF THE CANTABRIAN ANCHOVY FISHERY *

A partir de un enfoque de optimizacion dinamica se comparan los distintos sistemas indirectos de regulacion de pesquerias basados en la creacion de incentivos: a) impuestos piguvianos (sobre inputs, sobre output) b) mecanismos basados en la asignacion de derechos de propiedad (cuotas/licencias individuales transferibles) de distinto horizonte temporal (transitorio, multianual o perpetuo). Se calculan los impuestos optimos, asi como los precios de las cuotas individuales que incentivarian a los pescadores a la adopcion de la asignacion socialmente deseable y se analiza la sensibilidad de dichos impuestos/precios ante cambios en los parametros del modelo de referencia. Se pone especial atencion en la aplicabilidad de los sistemas descritos, para
Factors That Affect Teaching Scores in Economics Instruction: Analysis of Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) Data

This paper explores the factors that affect students’ evaluations of economics instructions using a sample of over 2400 completed questionnaires at a large Australian university. Ordered probit analysis is used to determine the changes in the predicted probability of teaching evaluation (TEVAL) scores with variations, amongst other things, in students’ perceptions of the quality of presentation; explanation and organization of lecture material; and helping students improve their learning skills. Analyses of the comparative importance of the relationships both for undergraduate and postgraduate courses reveal significant differences across levels of the undergraduate program but little differences in students’ responses in higher level undergraduate and postgraduate instructions. One disturbing finding is that a key variable, namely emphasis on thinking rather than memorizing (THINKMEM) has little or no substantive impact on TEVAL. Thus the implication is that high TEVALs can be achieved at the cost of some critically important factors in teaching and learning. Consequently, those using just TEVAL score to evaluate teaching need to look closely at other factors of critical importance.
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ACTIVITY BASED COSTING, BUSINESS STRATEGY AND PERFORMANCE IN MOROCCAN ENTERPRISES

The Activity Based Costing (ABC) represents a new model in the management accounting. In recent decades, it has been the subject of several research papers, especially in developed countries (USA, UK, France.). However, this type of works is still absent in the Arab countries. In this context, this article highlights the results of an empirical study on the relationship between ABC, business strategy and organizational performance in 62 Moroccan enterprises. 12 . 9% of the responding companies reported using the ABC method. The results using logistic regression indicate that the business strategy has not a significant influence on the use of this new method of the management accounting. Also, we found that the man agement accounting system based on ABC method results in a better performance for enterprises that have adopted it. Finally, we demonstrated that the both types of firms (prospectors and defenders) have an interest to adopt the ABC method.
Barriers to Entry and Development

We ask whether barriers to entry are a quantitatively important reason for the income gap between developing countries and the United States. We develop a tractable general equilibrium model that captures the effects of barriers to entry and the other main distortions typically considered in the development literature. We carry our model to the data and ask it to match the main development facts from the Penn World Table. We find that this requires large barriers to entry in developing countries, which account for about half of the income gap with the United States.
Changes in fluxes of dissolved and particulate carbon and nitrogen from two watersheds of different tree species during intense storm events

Heavy storm events may increase the amount of organic matter in runoff from forested watersheds as well as the relation of dissolved to particulate organic matter. Little is known about the behaviour of dissolved and particulate organic N and its relations to C. This study evaluated the effects of monsoon storm events on the runoff fluxes and on the quality of dissolved (< 0.45 μm) and particulate (0.7 μm to 1 mm) organic carbon and nitrogen (DOC, DON, POC, PON) in a mixed coniferous/deciduous (mixed watershed) and a deciduous forested watershed (deciduous watershed) in South Korea. During 15 storm events, DOC concentrations in runoff increased with discharge, while DON concentrations were stable. DOC, DON and NO3-N fluxes in runoff increased linearly with discharge pointing to changing flow paths from deeper to upper soil layers at high discharge, whereas nonlinear responses of POC and PON fluxes were observed likely due to the origin of particulate matter from the erosion of mineral soil along the stream benches. The cumulative C and N fluxes in runoff were in the order; DOC > POC and NO3-N > DON > PON. The cumulative DOC fluxes in runoff during the 2 months of study 20 period were much larger at the deciduous watershed (16 kg C ha) than at the mixed watershed (7 kg C ha), while the cumulative NO3-N fluxes were higher at the mixed watershed (5.2 kg N ha) than at the deciduous watershed (2.9 kg N ha ). The latter suggests a larger N uptake by deciduous trees. Cumulative fluxes of POC and PON were similar at both watersheds. Quality parameters of organic matter in soils and runoff indicate that the contribution of near surface flow to runoff was larger at the deciduous than at the mixed watershed. Our results demonstrate different responses of particulate 25 and dissolved C and N in runoff to storm events as a combined effect of tree species composition and watershed specific flow paths.
Impacts of Land use on Selected Physicochemical Properties of Soils of Gindeberet Area, Western Oromia, Ethiopia

This study was carried out with the objective of determining impact of land uses on selected soil physicochemical properties of Gindeberet area, Western Ethiopia. Disturbed and undisturbed surface soil samples (0-20 cm) were collected from each land use type and examined for their analysis of soils physicochemical properties. Soil samples were analyzed at Ambo University Chemistry Laboratory. Standard procedures were employed for the analyses of selected soil properties. Soil pH ranged from 4.88 (cultivated land) to 5.65 (forest land). Soil bulk density was ranged from 1.09 (forest land) to 1.28 (g/cm 3 ) (cultivated lands). Mean organic matter ranged from 1.38 (cultivated land) to 2.01% (forest land). Mean soil available phosphorus ranged from 2.23 (cultivated land) 4.30ppm (forest land). Mean total nitrogen ranged from 0.08% (cultivated land) to 0.11% (forest land). Mean soil exchangeable calcium and magnesium ranged from 8.16(cultivated land) to 13.44 cmol( + )/ kg (forest land) and 3.54(cultivated land) to 5.33 cmol( + )/ kg (forest land) respectively, while mean soil exchangeable potassium and sodium ranged from 0.28 (cultivated land) to 0.71 cmol( + )/ kg (forest land) and 0.36(cultivated land) to 0.75 cmol( + )/ kg (forest land) respectively. The CEC ranged from 7.63 (cultivated land) to 16.53 cmol( + )/ kg (forest land). Mean available iron, manganese, zinc and copper ranges from 37.08 to 37.71, 22.18 to 37.70, 4.79 to 6.39 and 1.88 to 2.49 respectively. All available micronutrients are higher in forest land and lower in cultivated land. The study pointed out that, the difference between different land use type on soil moisture content, pH, cation exchange capacity, organic carbon, total nitrogen, available phosphorus and exchangeable bases. From the present study, it could be concluded that the soil quality and health were maintained relatively under the forest land, whereas the influence on most soil parameters were negative on the cultivated land, indicating the need for employing integrated soil fertility management in sustainable manner to optimize and maintain the favorable soil physicochemical properties.
CENTRAL TO REM SLEEP ASSOCIATED DREAMS: VISUAL DREAMS

The latest experimental results support that multiple retinotopic visual systems play a central role not only in the processing of visual signals but also in the integration and processing of internally represented auditory and tactile information. These retinotopic maps have access to higher levels of cognitive processing, performed by the frontal lobes, for example. The occipital cortex may have a special role in multisensory integration. There is a functional basis for the development and maturation of visual memory in association of rapid eye movement sleep (REMS) which is linked to dreams and visual imagery. Physiological and psychological processes of REMS are similar to waking visual imagery. Furthermore, visual imagery during REMS utilize a common visual neural pathway similar to that used in wakefulness. This pathway subserves visual processes accompanied with auditory experiences and intrinsic feelings. We argue that the activation of the retinotopic visual areas is central to REM sleep associated dreams and that REMS associated dreaming and visual imagery may have coevolved in homeothermic animals during evolution. We also suggest that protoconscious state during REM sleep, as introduced by Hobson many years ago, may be a basic visual process.
Growing Pereskia aculeata under intermittent irrigation according to levels of matric potential reduction

Pereskia aculeata Mill. , popularly known in Brazil as “Ora-pro-nobis”, is an unconventional edible vegetable. Taking into account its potential for agronomic cultivation, this study aimed to evaluate the growth response of this plant under intermittent drought through controlled reductions in the substrate matric potential, in a greenhouse. Treatments consisted of adding to the pots a volume of water to raise the matric potential to -5 kPa, according to the water retention curve in the substrate, whenever the mean substrate matric potential reached values between -10 kPa and -70 kPa, depending on the treatment. At 140 days after transplanting, leaf area and dry mass of leaves, stems and roots were determined. The intermittent reduction of the matric potential in the root zone of “Ora-pro-nobis” affected less the dry mass accumulation in leaves (reduction of 21.4%) than in stems (reduction of 48.1%) and roots (reduction of 63.7%), and that is interesting because leaves are the main commercial product of this plant. The treatment also modified the proportionality of dry mass allocation among plant parts and reduced the photosynthetic efficiency of leaves, fact evidenced by the linear increase of the specific leaf area (0.63 cm 2 g -1 kPa -1
Studying the involvement of phenotypic characters towards resistance of variant cucumber cultivars against phytophagous mites

Cucumber is an important vegetable crop, belongs to the family Solanaceae. In Pakistan, Cucumber crop is attacked by number of sucking pests, which ultimately reduce yield to a significant level. Among these, phytophagous mites are important, which cause losses to the Cucumber. The host plant characters affect the magnitude of losses by these pests. Therefore, experiment was conducted to find out the effect of different morphological plant characters, viz., number of leaf, leaf area, plant height, hair density and thickness of leaf lamina on six Cucumber varieties viz., Cucumis, Cucumber Salman, and Cucumber 72, Sialkot, Yousef and Punjab. The results showed that Cucumber Salman is a resistant variety against phytophagous mite and Yousef and Cucumber 72 are highly susceptible varieties. It can also be concluded that no single factor is responsible in mite population fluctuation but all the factors work in compliment with each other.
Competing Risks: Modelling Crude Cumulative Incidence Functions

The clinical course of a disease is often characterized by the possible occurrence of several types of events, each one having a specific role for the evaluation of the therapeutical strategies. The event occurring as first is of particular interest, since it could be considered as ’’treatment failure’’ or ’’response to treatment’’. The measure of concern is the crude cumulative incidence, i.e. the probability of developing a specific event as first accounting for the competing action of the other events. A widespread approach to infer on this quantity, accounting for the effect of covariates, is the semi-parametric Cox regression model on the cause specific hazard. However, it has to be pointed out as the inference on the prognostic impact of a covariate on the cause specific hazard cannot be extended to the crude cumulative incidence. To face this issue, Fine and Gray (1999) observed as the crude cumulative incidence can be thought as the incidence associated to a quantity referred as subdistribution hazard. They proposed a semi-parametric regression model , accounting for the covariate effects. Despite the crude cumulative incidence is of interest in several clinical applications, Fine and Gray’s model has not been routinely applied in the medical literature. Aiming at promoting the application of this model, the present note emphasizes the differences between the Cox model on the cause specific hazard and Fine and Gray’s model on the subdistribution hazard, resorting to a standard probabilistic formalism. To enlighten the differences between the results of the two inferences, themodels are applied on two historical data sets; a carcinogenesis experiment on mice and a clinical trial on breast cancer patients.
The Effect of Hedge Fund Activism on Corporate Tax Avoidance

ABSTRACT: This paper examines the impact of hedge fund activism on corporate tax avoidance. We find that relative to matched control firms, businesses targeted by hedge fund activists exhibit lower tax avoidance levels prior to hedge fund intervention, but experience increases in tax avoidance after the intervention. Moreover, findings suggest that the increase in tax avoidance is greater when activists have a successful track record of implementing tax changes and possess tax interest or knowledge as indicated by their Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) 13D filings. We also find that these greater tax savings do not appear to result from an increased use of high-risk and potentially illegal tax strategies, such as sheltering. Taken together, the results suggest that shareholder monitoring of firms, in the form of hedge fund activism, improves tax efficiency. JEL Classifications: G32; G34; H26. Data Availability: Data are available from sources identified in the text.
On Plutocratic and Democratic CPIs

Prais (1958) showed that the standard CPI computed by most statistical agencies can be interpreted as a plutocratic weighted average of household price indexes because the weight of each household in the official CPI is determined by its total expenditures. In this paper, we decompose the difference between the standard CPI and a democratically weighted index as the product of a measure of income inequality and the sample covariance between the elementary individual price indexes and a parameter which is a function of the income elasticity of each good.
Joint Impact of the Dimensions of Governance and Economic Freedom on Economic Growth in O.E.C.D. Nations: An Analysis with Controls for Budget Deficits and G8 Status

This study examines the impact of various forms of economic freedom and various dimensions of governance, as well as a number of economic factors, on economic growth among O.E. C.D. nations. The study period runs from 2004 through 2007. The study adjusts for status as a G8 nation and for budget deficits. Panel least squares estimation finds that the natural log of per capita purchasing-power-parity adjusted real GDP in O.E. C.D. nations is positively impacted by business freedom, monetary freedom, trade freedom, and property rights security. Economic growth is found to be negatively affected by perceived government corruption while being positively impacted by both control of corruption and political stability. Other findings indicate that higher unemployment rates and higher long term nominal interest rates inhibit economic growth, while net export growth enhances economic growth.
SOCIAL CAPITAL, WELL-BEING, AND EARNINGS

ABSTRACT We study the relationship between two distinct dimensions of social capital (bridging and bonding social capital) and the personal performances of individuals: their reported subjective well-being (SWB) and earnings. A theoretical model is put forward which explains the sources and dynamics of social capital formation. It predicts an inverse U-shaped relationship between any type of social capital and SWB, an inverse U-shaped relationship between bridging social capital and earnings, and an unambiguously negative impact of bonding social capital on earnings. The key predictions of the model are confirmed using cross-section survey data from the 2005 wave of the ‘Social Diagnosis’ survey program conducted in Poland. Very low levels of bridging social capital observed in Poland imply that it is unambiguously beneficial to invest in it: both SWB of individuals and their earnings would increase in such case.
Methodological approach to the study of the daily persistence of the sea breeze in Alicante (Spain)

This study examines the degree of persistence in the sea-breeze in Alicante. This research is based upon the sequence of semi-hourly data for wind direction and speed for the five-year period from 1999 to 2003 (database of sea breeze days). The repetitive behaviour of this meteorological variable (consecutive days with sea breeze winds), is studied by applying various methods and statistical techniques: analysis of the number and length of spells of days with sea breeze; frequency distribution of the sequences according to duration (concentration, or Lorenz, curves); calculation of coefficients of persistence (empirical and conditional probabilities), and probability testing for the duration of the sea breeze spells using one and two-order Markovian chain models (cM1 and cM2). The results demonstrate the high level of persistence of this wind mechanism in the southeast of the Iberian peninsula, especially in summer. The persistence of the sea breeze is related to two main factors: the synoptic regional conditions (weak surface pressure gradient) and the characteristics of the land –topography–. Statistical characterization of the persistence of the sea breeze could become a useful tool in the analysis of annual and seasonal variability in atmospheric contamination levels in the Mediterranean basin.
Diel variations in frequency of dividing cells and abundance of aerobic anoxygenic phototrophic bacteria in a coral reef system of the South China Sea

With the ability of photoheterotrophic metabolism, aerobic anoxygenic phototrophic (AAP) bacteria are an important bacterial group in the marine microbial community. We investigated the diel variations of AAP bacteria in the coral reef water of the South China Sea, and report, for the first time, the frequency of dividing cells (FDC) of AAP bacteria. Our results showed that AAP bacte- rial abundance ranged from 1.54 × 10 4 ± 3.21 × 10 2 to 3.59 × 10 4 ± 3.04 × 10 3 cells ml -1 . The diel pat- tern of AAP bacterial abundance had 2 peak values, one at night around 21:00 h and the other in the daytime at around 9:00 h. Tidal current and light were the primary factors controlling the diel varia- tions of AAP bacteria in this area during our study period. FDC values in AAP and total bacteria were both higher during the night than during the day. The FDC values in AAP bacteria (3.53 ± 1.09 to 9.43 ± 0.80%) were significantly higher than those in total bacteria (1.06 ± 0.06 to 3.14 ± 1.38%), indicat- ing higher growth rate of AAP bacteria than total bacteria in the study area.
Paclobutrazol-induced augmented productivity of an endangered medicinal plant safed musli (Chlorophytum borivilianum Sant. et Fernand.)

In the present investigation an attempt was made to improve productivity of safed musli by using paclobutrazol (PBZ), a potent growth regulating chemical having promising influence on tuber yield. Foliar application with 100 and 200 µg ml-1 of PBZ was found to improve plant potential of safed musli and this was measured in terms of some reliable physio-biochemical parameters along with some selective yield attributes. Our results showed that the foliar application of PBZ reduced plant height, increased number of branches and leaves per plant. PBZ-induced enhanced growth parameters were associated with augmented metabolic status of the plant species as evidenced from higher chlorophyll and protein contents, significantly enhanced catalase along with reduced protease activities in leaves. The positive influence of PBZ was also recorded from the yield attributes as evidenced from the increased number and fresh weight of tubers per plant as well as length and circumference of the tubers, in comparison to control ones. Thus, it can be concluded that the PBZ may be used as a potent chemical for augmented productivity of this high-value endangered plant.