Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Litigation as a Measure of Well-Being

The common perception is that high or growing litigation rates in a country are a sign of societal pathology. Studies of litigation rates, however, consistently report that lawsuit filings per capita increase with economic prosperity, thus suggesting that litigation rates are a natural consequence of prosperity and not necessarily evidence of an overly litigious populace. India’s substantial interstate variation in litigation rates and in economic and noneconomic measures of well-being provide an opportunity to evaluate the relation between well-being and litigation rates. Using many years of data on civil filings in India’s lower courts and High Courts, we present evidence that more prosperous states have higher civil litigation rates. We also report the first evidence that accounting for noneconomic well-being, as measured by the education and life expectancy components of the Human Development Index, explains litigation rate patterns better than using a purely economic measure of well-being, GDP per capita. Despite India’s continuing economic growth, we present data that indicates India’s enormous and growing civil case backlog has discouraged civil case filings in recent years. These findings raise the question whether India’s future economic growth will be compromised if courts at all levels, particularly lower courts, do not resolve disputes more quickly.
Executive Compensation as an Agency Problem

This paper provides an overview of the main theoretical elements and empirical underpinnings of a managerial power' approach to executive compensation. Under this approach, the design of executive compensation is viewed not only as an instrument for addressing the agency problem between managers and shareholders but also as part of the agency problem itself. Boards of publicly traded companies with dispersed ownership, we argue, cannot be expected to bargain at arm's length with managers. As a result, managers wield substantial influence over their own pay arrangements, and they have an interest in reducing the saliency of the amount of their pay and the extent to which that pay is de-coupled from managers' performance. We show that the managerial power approach can explain many features of the executive compensation landscape, including ones that many researchers have long viewed as puzzling. Among other things, we discuss option plan design, stealth compensation, executive loans, payments to departing executives, retirement benefits, the use of compensation consultants, and the observed relationship between CEO power and pay. We also explain how managerial influence might lead to substantially inefficient arrangements that produce weak or even perverse incentives.
Probability-based prediction model using multivariate and LVQ-PNN for diagnosing dementia

Objective: The aim of this study was to develop a prediction model that integrated various image features and neuropsychological scores to yield a single estimate reflecting the probability of dementia. Method: A total of 130 subjects belong to Normal control group, AD group, and MCI group, were recruited in this study. For these subjects, the multiple features obtained from different modalities, including structural MRI morphometry (volume / shape), rs-fMRI, and neuropsychological assessment measures (NPA) were used to explore an optimal set of predictors of conversion from MCI to AD. Unlike previous studies using logistic regression analysis, a new method based on learning vector quantization (LVQ) and probabilistic neural network (PNN) is proposed to establish a prediction model. Results: We test the baseline, 1-year follow-up, and 2-year follow-up scans of 17 AD subjects (M/ F=5/12), 22 normal controls (NC; 13/9), 16 subjects that remain stable MCI (MCI-s; 11/5), and 4 subjects convert to AD within a given timeframe (MCI-c; 2/2). This study found that the proposed quantitative indicator provides well-behaving AD state estimates, corresponding well with the actual diagnosis. Conclusion: According to the results, all of the test data have the trend that decreased over time. It has the potential to establish an effective decision support and data visualization framework for improving AD diagnostics, allowing clinicians to rapidly analyze large quantities of diverse patient data and as a screening measure and evaluated tool in therapeutic trials.
THE ROLE OF DUST IN THE EARLY UNIVERSE. I. PROTOGALAXY EVOLUTION

We develop one-zone galaxy formation models in the early universe, taking into account dust formation and evolution by supernova (SN) explosions. We focus on the time evolution of dust size distribution, because H2 formation on the dust surface plays a critical role in the star formation process in the early universe. In the model, we assume that star formation rate (SFR) is proportional to the total amount of H2. We consistently treat (1) the formation and size evolution of dust, (2) the chemical reaction networks including H2 formation both on the surface of dust and in gas phase, and (3) the SFR in the model. First, we find that, because of dust destruction due to both reverse and forward shocks driven by SNe, H2 formation is more suppressed than in situations without such dust destruction. At the galaxy age of ∼0.8 Gyr, for galaxy models with virial mass Mvir = 109 M☉ and formation redshift zvir = 10, the molecular fraction is 2.5 orders of magnitude less in the model with dust destruction by both shocks than that in the model without dust destruction. Second, we show that the H2 formation rate strongly depends on the interstellar medium (ISM) density around SN progenitors. The SFR in higher ISM density is lower, since dust destruction by reverse shocks is more effective in higher ISM density. We conclude that not only the amount but also the size distribution of dust related to star formation activity strongly affects the evolution of galaxies in the early universe.
Comparison of techniques for determining the nutritional carrying capacity for white-tailed deer.

Estimates of carrying capacity for herbivores are useful for determining the relative value of different ranges. We compared 6 estimates of nutritional carrying capacity for white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus L.): digestible energy consumed by tame deer, and 5 methods using forage supplies of dry matter, digestible energy, digestible nitrogen, dry matter*digestible energy, and dry matter*digestible nitrogen in two 1-ha enclosures of different shrub plant communities in southern Texas. For the north enclosure, carrying capacity estimates (90% CI) were 3.65 (CI = 3.61-3.69), 4.5 (CI = 3.7-5.3), 9.4 (Cl = 73-11.5), 15.2 (CI = 11.6-18.8), 3.5 (CI = 2.7-4.3), and 3.5 (CI = 2.7-4.3) deer ha-1 58 days-1 for the digestible energy tame deer, dry matter, digestible energy, digestible nitrogen, dry matter*digestible energy, and dry matter*digestible nitrogen techniques, respectively. Corresponding estimates for the south enclosure were 2.6 (CI = 2.5-2.7), 3.5 (CI = 3.2-3.9), 6.8 (CI = 6.0-7.6), 10.1 (CI = 8.8-11.3), 2.1 (CI = 1.8-2.6), and 2.8 (CI = 2.4-3.1). Some methods for estimating carrying capacity provided different absolute estimates, but all produced similar relative estimates between enclosures. Similar relative results between enclosures suggests any of the methods can be used to determine the relative nutritional quality of plant communities. However, the dry matter-based technique was less expensive than the other techniques; therefore, there is no need to use more costly techniques for determining the relative stocking rates for white-tailed deer, unless forage quality differs greatly among plant communities.
Renewable Energy Consumption, CO 2 Emissions and Economic Growth: A Case of Jordan

This study inspects the causal relationship between renewable energy consumption, CO2 emissions, labor, capital and economic growth for Jordan over the period 1986-2012 within a multivariate framework. The time series cointegration test suggests a long-run equilibrium relationship among real GDP, renewable energy consumption, real gross fixed capital formation and labor force. The outcomes of the error correction models reveal that there is a unidirectional causality running from renewable energy consumption to real GDP. Also there is a unidirectional causality running from renewable energy consumption to carbon dioxide while unidirectional causality is revealed from real GDP to capital and finally bidirectional causality is detected between capital and renewable energy consumption in the short-run. Furthermore the error correction terms indicate that there is a long-run bidirectional causality between the variables except for labor model which is statistically insignificant. In addition the outcomes revealed that an increase in the usage of renewable energy has a desirable effect on environment as it reduces the CO2 emissions.
Teaching Indigenous Children: Listening To And Learning From Indigenous Teachers

This article is based on the findings of a qualitative case study that examined the professional experiences and career pathways of fifty current and former Australian Indigenous teachers. Here, we draw on data obtained from semi-structured interviews with the teachers to highlight their knowledge in three key areas: 'Indigenous ways of knowing', 'Indigenous learners' lives beyond the classroom' and 'Building relationships with Indigenous students and communities'. We suggest that Indigenous teachers can potentially play important roles as teacher educators and as mentors to non- Indigenous teachers and preservice teachers. We argue that it is important for schooling systems and teacher education to create and formalise opportunities for non-Indigenous teachers and preservice teachers to listen to, and learn from their Indigenous colleagues.
THE PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS AND EXPLOSIVE STRENGTH OF SCHOOLCHILDREN UDC 796-053 . 3012 . 11

The aim of this research was to determine the trend of relations between the system of body characteristics and the system of explosive strength variables. 402 participants aged 7 to 10 participated in this study. Seventeen measures for assessing anthropometric characteristics were applied and 4 tests for assessing explosive strength. Based on the obtained results on the relation of body characteristics and explosive strength it has been determined that there are significant relations of the two studied areas on the subsamples of participants aged 8, 9 and 10. The relations on the subsample of participants aged 7 are not statistically significant (p<0.05). When it comes to the trend of relations between the ages of 7 to 10 a permanent increase is evident, except for the subsample of participants aged 8, which shows a slight decline compared to the participants aged 7. Based on the cross-correlation of the two studied areas, it can be concluded that voluminosity and skinfolds measures appear to be negative (interfering) with tasks performance which highlights explosive leg strength in all the subsamples of participants.
Exploring the Reliability and Convergent Validity of Implicit Racial Evaluations

Racial evaluations have received considerable attention by researchers of implicit cognition, especially with the Implicit Association Test (IAT). The IAT measures associative biases in a relativistic manner, whereby attitudes toward a given racial category are compared to attitudes toward another. The Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP) is a new behavior analytic measure of cognition that may provide a less relativistic and more specific measure of cognitive repertoires. The current study utilized a race IRAP to assess evaluative biases among a balanced sample of Black and White undergraduates. The race IRAP was administered twice in a row in conjunction with a collection of self-report measures of racial attitudes. Results for reliability and convergent validity were generally supportive. Furthermore, observed biases appeared to reflect positive in-group biases rather than derogatory attitudes toward the out-group, an effect that would not be apparent with a similarly configured race IAT. Future research may benefit from consideration of the evaluative content of the IRAP as well as the racial demographics for both the participants and the experimenters.
Modeling energy consumption for the generation of microfibres from bleached kraft pulp fibres in a PFI mill

The objective of this paper is to model the energy consumed in generating cellulose microfibres, 1 μm in diameter, as reinforcing agents, by refining bleached softwood kraft pulp in a PFI mill. An average initial fibre diameter of 13 μm was assumed. 125,000 revolutions in a PFI mill was found to produce a high yield of fibres 1.3 μm in diameter, and the minimum refining energy needed to reduce the fibre diameter to 1.3 μm was estimated as 1875 kJ for each 24 g charge in the PFI mill. Since elastic deformation of the fibres was found to be negligible, the size reduction was assumed to follow Rittinger’s Law. This gave a Rittinger’s constant of 28 J.m/kg for the given system. Using this value of Rittinger’s constant, the energy required to generate microfibres 1 μm in diameter was predicted as 2480 kJ for each 24 g charge in the PFI mill. It was deduced that microfibres generated in this way would cost a minimum of $2.37 per kilogram. Hence even this relatively inefficient method of grinding would not be prohibitively expensive, provided the resulting microfibres can be used as high quality reinforcements.
Investigation of the perceived spatial resolution of higher order ambisonic sound fields : a subjective evaluation involving virtual and real 3D microphones

Natural sound field can be reproduced through loudspeakers using ambisonics and Higher Order Ambisonics (HOA) microphone recordings. The HOA sound field encoding approach is based on spherical harmonics decomposition. The more components used to encode the sound field, the finer the spatial resolution is. As a result of previous studies, two HOA (2 and 4 order) microphone prototypes have been developed. To evaluate the perceived spatial resolution and encoding artefacts on the horizontal plane, a localisation test was performed comparing these prototypes, a SoundField microphone and a simulated ideal 4 order encoding system. The HOA reproduction system was composed of twelve loudspeakers equally distributed on a circle. Thirteen target positions were chosen around the listener. An adjustment method using an auditory pointer was used to avoid bias effects of usual reporting methods. The human localisation error occurring for each of the tested systems has been compared. A statistical analysis showed significance differences when using the 4 order system, the 2 order system and the SoundField microphone.
Research for Young Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders

The social and ecological validity of a body of research may impact the degree to which interventions will be used outside of research contexts. The purpose of this review was to determine the extent to which social and ecological validity were demonstrated for interventions designed to increase social skills for young children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Results indicated that although the percentage of studies including social validity assessment has remained stable over the 20-year review period, subjective assessments of social validity have increased and objective assessments have decreased. Acceptability was measured more often than feasibility or importance. Approximately half of the studies included indigenous implementers, typical social partners, or typical settings. Suggestions include additional research on the validity of measures, explicit reporting by researchers, and the use of multiple, objective, and psychometrically sound social validity assessments.
Probing into the aging dynamics of biomass burning aerosol by using satellite measurements of aerosol optical depth and carbon monoxide

Abstract. Carbonaceous aerosol released into the atmosphere from open biomass burning (BB) is known to undergo considerable chemical and physical transformations (aging). However, there is substantial controversy about the nature and observable effects of these transformations. A shortage of consistent observational evidence on BB aerosol aging processes under different environmental conditions and at various temporal scales hinders development of their adequate representations in chemistry transport models (CTMs). In this study, we obtain insights into the BB aerosol dynamics by using available satellite measurements of aerosol optical depth (AOD) and carbon monoxide (CO). The basic concept of our method is to consider AOD as a function of the BB aerosol photochemical age (that is, the time period characterizing the exposure of BB aerosol emissions to atmospheric oxidation reactions) predicted by means of model tracers. We evaluate the AOD enhancement ratio (ER) defined as the ratio of optical depth of actual BB aerosol with respect to that of a modeled aerosol tracer that is assumed to originate from the same fires as the real BB aerosol but that is not affected by any aging processes. To limit possible effects of model transport errors, the AOD measurements are normalized to CO column amounts that are also retrieved from satellite measurements. The method is applied to the analysis of the meso- and synoptic-scale evolution of aerosol in smoke plumes from major wildfires that occurred in Siberia in summer 2012. AOD and CO retrievals from MODIS and IASI measurements, respectively, are used in combination with simulations performed with the CHIMERE CTM. The analysis indicates that aging processes strongly affected the evolution of BB aerosol in the situation considered, especially in dense plumes (with spatial average PM2. 5 concentration exceeding 100 µg m−3). For such plumes, the ER is found to increase almost 2-fold on the scale of ∼ 10 h of daytime aerosol evolution (after a few first hours of the evolution that are not resolved in our analysis). The robustness of this finding is corroborated by sensitivity tests and Monte Carlo experiments. Furthermore, a simulation using the volatility basis set framework suggests that a large part of the increase in the ER can be explained by atmospheric processing of semi-volatile organic compounds. Our results are consistent with findings of a number of earlier studies reporting considerable underestimation of AOD by CTMs in which BB aerosol aging processes have either been disregarded or simulated in a highly simplified way. In general, this study demonstrates the feasibility of using satellite measurements of AOD in biomass burning plumes in combination with aerosol tracer simulations for the investigation of BB aerosol evolution and validation of BB aerosol aging schemes in atmospheric models.
The influence of pickup protons, from interstellar neutral hydrogen, on the propagation of interplanetary shocks from the Halloween 2003 solar events to ACE and Ulysses: A 3‐D MHD modeling study

[1] We describe our 3-D, time-dependent, MHD solar wind model that we recently modified to include the physics of pickup protons from interstellar neutral hydrogen. The model has a time-dependent lower boundary condition, at 0.1 AU, that is driven by source surface map files through an empirical interface module. We describe the empirical interface and its parameter tuning to maximize model agreement with background (quiet) solar wind observations at ACE. We then give results of a simulation study of the famous Halloween 2003 series of solar events. We began with shock inputs from the Fearless Forecast real-time shock arrival prediction study, and then we iteratively adjusted input shock speeds to obtain agreement between observed and simulated shock arrival times at ACE. We then extended the model grid to 5.5 AU and compared those simulation results with Ulysses observations at 5.2 AU. Next we undertook the more difficult tuning of shock speeds and locations to get matching shock arrival times at both ACE and Ulysses. Then we ran this last case again with neutral hydrogen density set to zero, to identify the effect of pickup ions. We show that the speed of interplanetary shocks propagating from the Sun to Ulysses is reduced by the effects of pickup protons. We plan to make further improvements to the model as we continue our benchmarking process to 10 AU, comparing our results with Cassini observations, and eventually on to 100 AU, comparing our results with Voyager 1 and 2 observations.
Effect of Morphological Traits on Sheath Blight Resistance in Rice

Sheath blight, caused by the Rhizoctonia solani Kuhn, is one of the most serious diseases of rice (Oryza sativa L). The relationship between morphological traits and sheath blight resistance was investigated in 1999 and 2000 by using a segregant population consisting of 240 inbred recombination lines, derived from an elite combination of Zhenshan 97× Minghui 63. Partial correlation analysis between phenotypic data (morphological characteristics and heading date (HD)) and sheath blight ratings (SBR) showed that only one trait, plant compactness, was significantly correlated with resistance to sheath blight in both 1999 and 2000, eight traits, such as plant height, heading date, and penultimate leaf angle, were significantly correlated with SBR in either of the two years, and the remaining 10 morphological traits were not consistently associated with SBR in the two years. A major quantitative trait locus (QTL) controlling plant compactness was found to be in the site on chromosome 9 adjacent to the region responsible for qSB9, a major QTLs conferring sheath blight resistance. One out of the three QTLs contributing to a penultimate leaf angle was mapped approximately on the same region as another sheath blight resistance QTL, qSB5, located on chromosome 5. Whereas, no QTLs underlying most other traits was detected on the chromosomal region correlated with sheath blight resistance QTL The results in the present study suggested that the morphological traits were not the main factors responsible for the SBR separation among the recombinant inbred lines (RILs) population. Nevertheless, some morphological characteristics had some indirect influence on expression of sheath blight resistance genes through altering a microclimate on paddy field so as to influence the infection of the pathogen and development of the disease. An efficient approach in resistance breeding to sheath blight was recommended by pyramiding major QTLs for sheath blight resistance and selecting those morphological traits that favor resistance gene expression.
A Flow Importance Measure with Application to an Italian Transmission Power System

Potential catastrophic events have been historically assessed through the techniques of power system security analysis. A correct assessment must consider not only events associated with “credible outages” but also the possibility of attacks and/or “rare” events. This paper combines concepts of reliability engineering and operations research to develop a new importance measure, D(α), that identifies the most vulnerable group of α links in a network. Since the computation of the new importance measure, D(α), becomes computationally prohibitive for large systems, an approximation technique is provided based on the optimization of a multi-objective deterministic network interdiction problem. The efficiency of the algorithm is then illustrated by analyzing the Italian high-voltage electrical transmission network. In summary, D(α) can be useful for an initial screening of the critical elements of the network.
FREE CASH FLOW AND EARNINGS MANAGEMENT: BOARD OF COMMISSIONER, BOARD INDEPENDENCE AND AUDIT QUALITY

How to cite this paper: Susanto, Y. K. , Pradipta, A. , & Djashan, I. A. (2017). Free cash flow and earnings management: board of commissioner, board independence and audit quality. Corporate Ownership & Control, 14(4-1), 284-288. doi:10.22495/cocv14i4c1art10 How to access this paper online: http://dx.doi. org/10.22495/cocv14i4c1a