Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Chemical composition and fermentative losses of sugar cane ensilage with different Brix degrees , with or without calcium oxide 1

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of sugar cane ensilage with different Brix degrees, with or without the addition of 0.5% of calcium oxide (lime) on the chemical composition and fermentation losses of silages. A complete random design in a 9 × 2 factorial arrangement was used. Experimental silos were used, ensilage was done every 15 days with Brix measuring, and they were opened after 30 days of fermentation. As the Brix degree of the ensiled material increased, the contents of dry matter (DM) increased and contents of ash, crude protein (CP) and fibers (neutral and acid detergent fiber corrected for proteins – NDFap and ADFap) reduced. After fermentation, DM content of the silage presented a linear increase with the Brix degree content concentration, positively correlating with content of lime, but the contents of ash, CP, EE and NDFap were linearly reduced with the Brix increase. Content of ADFap suffered linear reduction for the treated silage whereas quadratic behavior was found in the untreated silage. Production of ethanol was presented in a quadratic manner for the silages without lime, and cubically in silages with lime, according to the Brix degree. The treated or untreated silages presented an average pH of 3.98 and 3.50, respectively.
Trade-Off of Lives in Moral Dilemmas

In moral dilemmas performing an action often leads to both a good primary and a bad secondary effect. In such cases, how do people judge whether the bad secondary effect was brought about intentionally, and how do they assess the moral value of the act leading to the secondary effect? Various theories have been proposed that either focus on the causal role or on the moral valence of the secondary effect as the primary determinants of intentionality and morality assessments. We present experiments which show that these theories have neglected a further important factor, the primary effect. A new theory is proposed that is based on the key assumption that people’s judgments of intentionality and morality depend on the strength of assumed reasons the agent has for the primary and secondary effects.
Deviation from Optimal CEO Ownership and Firm Value

The transaction cost theory on managerial ownership and firm value predicts that a deviation from optimal managerial ownership reduces firm value. This paper empirically tests the transaction cost theory by studying the relation between the deviations on both sides of optimal CEO ownership and firm value. We find that both above-optimal and below-optimal deviations reduce firm value. We find that the change in CEO ownership is associated with a higher abnormal return if it moves CEO ownership towards the optimal level, and that the change in CEO ownership is associated with a lower abnormal return if it moves CEO ownership away from the optimal level. These findings are consistent with the transaction cost theory on managerial ownership and firm value.
THE CURSE OF STUDENT HOUSING : EVIDENCE FROM WOLFVILLE , NOVA SCOTIA

Wolfville is a small town in Nova Scotia, known for its picturesque Victorian houses and as home to Acadia University. Acadia University is the prime economic driver, with students almost doubling the town’s population when classes are in session. The large student population translates into student housing being an important land use in Wolfville, with several neighbourhoods well described as ‘student ghettos’. Rental income from students is an important income source for many property owners, while the challenges of living near student housing are also well known. Student housing ranges from rooms and small apartments in single family homes to large converted homes with multiple units, and town zoning largely determines and/or reflects the location of these different land uses. The town lies on a north facing hill, with an important provincial highway marking the southern boundary of the town. Provincial plans include twinning the highway, which would likely increase traffic volumes and speeds, and increase noise levels in the town. While business and property owners are generally in favour of upgrading the highway, doing so does carry a negative external cost which should be considered in assessing the full costs and benefits of twinning the highway. This research project aims to quantify this negative externality and thereby contribute to identifying the best approach to this highway expansion. Twenty-four hour noise level measurements were made at 28 different sites throughout the town. A quadratic spatial regression was used to interpolate sound levels for each of 146 property transactions in Wolfville between 1998 and 2003. Listings data were combined with from the street observations to build a table of property characteristics. These were included in a square root regression to predict property prices. Common dependent variables generated the expected signs. Average sound level did not enter significantly, but peak sound level did. Since the background noise level is relatively low, the infrequent peak events are a more appropriate measure of the noise that people are adverse to. A one decibel increase in peak sound level reduces the average property price by about $2,700, suggesting that for the town as a whole, twinning the highway would generate a significant negative externality that offsets some of the expected benefits. Zoning classification explained the largest share of property price variation, likely capturing the negative externality generated by student housing. Thus, while the income opportunity generated by offering rental accommodation is important in the town, Wolfville home buyers are willing to pay a substantial premium to not live in neighbourhoods dominated by student housing. While these results largely confirm previous work, whether student tenant welfare is increased by such segregation remains to be addressed.
Hyperspectral Vibrational Imaging of Tumor Tissue

Presented here is the research done in course of a Master’s assignment for Applied Physics, in the Optical Sciences research group at the University of Twente. Raman spectroscopy is a technique used in a wide variety of research fields including cancer research. By probing the vibrational resonances of tissue in both the specific fingerprint region as well as the stronger but more general high wavenumber region, spectral differences between healthy and cancerous tissue can be detected. While accurate, it is a very slow method. An alternative called CARS, Coherent anti-Stokes Raman Scattering, yields results much faster but suffers from a strong non-resonant background that deforms the original Raman spectrum. This research aims to evaluate the possible use of CARS spectroscopy to distinguish cancer tissue from healthy tissue. The non-resonant background is largely dealt with by applying a modified Kramers-Kronig algorithm that isolates the resonant signal from the background. Results were very promising in the high wavenumber region while the SNR in the fingerprint region was too low for successful extraction of useful data. The retrieved spectra are displayed using a hyperspectral imaging scheme that displays more information than a standard 3-channel RGB image. In the high wavenumber region, spectral differences within tissue samples were easily shown in many results. We were unable to show that differences between healthy and cancer tissue could be detected as well due to difficulties locating tumor areas in order to perform comparative measurements. Nonetheless, we are confident that CARS can be used to distinguish tumors from healthy tissue in the high wavenumber region. With some adjustments and improvements useful operation is also expected in the fingerprint region. Recommendations for a successful continuation of the project are provided.
A COMPARATIVE REVIEW OF SIZE-WEIGHT RELATIONSHIPS IN NORTH ATLANTIC SWORDFISH (XIPHIAS GLADIUS) BASED ON RECORDS OBTAINED IN THE SPANISH SURFACE LONGLINE FLEET

Linear and non-linear fits were performed for 38,660 LJFL cm-RW kg data pairs from the North Atlantic stock. The equations obtained from both fits (RW= 3.71811E * LJFL and RW= 7.8485161E * LJFL) were compared with other previously obtained in this fleet. The equations obtained using linear fit were almost identical to those previously reported. Minor differences in predicting individual weight at size were observed for most size classes, but all equations tested seem to show a less satisfactory fit for some of the largest fishes. Despite differences in constants among the equations tested, less impact was observed for both the predictive individual mean weight in most size ranges regularly caught as well as for predicted whole weight from size distributions representative of the fish caught by longline fleets. A review of the literature on size-weight relationships was carried out, suggesting a diversity of results probably due to various factors which are discussed.
Goat scrotal-testicular biometry : In luence of the season on scrotal bipartition

Machado Júnior A.A. N. , Assis Neto A.C. , Ambrósio C.E. , Leiser R. , Lima G.S. , Oliveira L.S. & Carvalho M.A.M. 2011. Goat scrotal-testicular biometry: In luence of the season on scrotal bipartition. Pesquisa Veterinária Brasileira 31(12):1116-1119. Curso de Medicina Veterinária, Universidade Federal do Piauí, Campus Profa Cinobelina Elvas, Bom Jesus, PI 64900-000, Brazil. E-mail: machadojunior2@yahoo.com. br The scrotal-testicular biometry was evaluated in goats raised in Piaui state, Brazil, presenting different levels of scrotal division, in rainy and dry periods of the year. For this study, eighteen male goats at mating age were accomplished and arranged into three groups (6 animals each), obeying the classi ication as goats with no scrotal bipartition (GI), goats showing scrotal bipartition up to 50% of testicular length (GII), and goats with more than 50% of scrotal bipartition (GIII). The biometry of the scrotal-testicular was made evaluating the scrotal length (SL), scrotal circumference (SC), testicular length (TL) and testicular volume (TV). The results were evaluated following the variance analysis (ANOVA) and the SNK test applied on the average comparisons. The analysis of the data demonstrated high values, in dry and rainy periods, of SC (24.63cm/ 26.97cm), SL (16.61cm/ 18.24cm), TL (5.32cm/ 5.93cm), TV (173.81cm/ 203.01cm). This supports the hypothesis of the in luence of the period of the year and of the scrotal bipartition on the scrotal-testicular biometry in goat.
THE INHIBITION O F HAEMOPHILUS INFLUENZAE BY CERTAIN AGAR AND PEPTONE PREPARATIONS

A MEDIUM developed for nutritional studies of Haemophilus influenzae proved satisfactory for a period of about 2 years @vans and Smith, 1972), but subsequently certain batches were found to be defective. The inoculum required to initiate growth increased from less than 10 cells to 107, the colonies were of irregular size and microscopically many filamentous forms were evident. The constituents of both satisfactory and unsatisfactory media appeared to be identical, and preliminary investigations suggested that the duration and temperature of autoclaving might adversely affect the medium. Inhibitory effects of media have been attributed to a number of agents including copper, colloidal sulphur, peroxides, fatty acids, certain amino acids and other substances (Burnet, 1925; Gordon and McLeod, 1926; O'Meara and Macsween, 1936; Ley and Mueller, 1946; Casman, 1947; Proom et al., 1950; Nieman, 1954; Woiwod, 1954; Traxler and Lankford, 1957; Dukes and Gardner, 1961). This paper describes an extension of earlier studies on proteose peptone as a basal medium for H. infuenzae and the value of dithionite and sodium oleate as additives to neutralise potential inhibitors.
Beaked whale phylogeography SC / 64 / SM 14 1 Preliminary analysis of mitochondrial genome phylogeography of Blainville ’ s , Cuvier ’ s and Gervais ’ beaked whales

1 Protected Resources Division, Southwest Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 3333 North Torrey Pines Ct, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA 2 Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Dr., La Jolla, CA 92037, USA 3 Bahamas Marine Mammal Research Organisation, P.O. Box AB-20714, Marsh Harbour, Abaco, The Bahamas
Aalborg Universitet Sharing the Pi Testbed Description and Performance Evaluation of Network Coding on the Raspberry Pi Paramanathan

This paper presents the design and performance evaluation of an inexpensive testbed for network coding protocols composed of Raspberry Pis. First, we show the performance of random linear network coding primitives on the Raspberry Pi in terms of processing speed and energy consumption under a variety of configuration setups. Our measurements show that processing rates of up to 230 Mbps are possible with the Raspberry Pi. Also, the energy consumption per bit can be as small as 3 nJ/bit, which is several orders of magnitude smaller than the transmission/reception energy use. Surprisingly, overclocking the Raspberry Pi from 700 MHz to 1000 MHz not only produces an increase in processing speed of up to 68 % for large generation sizes, but also provides a reduction of 64 % in the processing energy per bit for most tested scenarios. Then, we show Raspberry Pi as an inexpensive, viable, and flexible platform to deploy large research networking testbeds for the evaluation of network coding protocols. We propose key parameters and representations to evaluate protocol performance in network nodes as well as validating the testbed’s statistics using the case of a one–hop broadcast with random linear network coding, which is well understood in theory.
Early Cognitive Development and Educational Assimilation of Bilingual Children Working Draft

Immigrants come to the UK from different countries, with different resources, languages and experiences. All of these factors influence the early cognitive development and school readiness of their children. In this paper we consider how the cognitive development of young bilingual children may differ from that of their monolingual counterparts by examining children’s cognitive skills for a nationally representative cohort (UK Millennium Cohort Study). The dynamic model follows children from age of 3 until 7 years and supports the notation that cognitive skill acquisition is a cumulative process. Our empirical research shows that contrary to popular believe, bilingualism has no inherent negative impact on childrens development. On the contrary, it seems to even have some cognitive advantages. While bilingual children are found to lag behind their monolingual peers at age of 3 and 5, they catch up by the time they are 7 years old by which then any language penalty has disappeared. More importantly, at 7 years of age, bilingual children showed a general superiority over their peers in a range of cognitive outcomes such as the British Ability Scale Word reading, Pattern construction and Math tests. Thus, our study facilitates the recent language education policy initiative on the value-added of speaking foreign language.
Vitamin B 6 reduces hippocampal apoptosis in experimental pneumococcal meningitis

Background: Bacterial meningitis caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae leads to death in up to 30% of patients and leaves up to half of the survivors with neurological sequelae. The inflammatory host reaction initiates the induction of the kynurenine pathway and contributes to hippocampal apoptosis, a form of brain damage that is associated with learning and memory deficits in experimental paradigms. Vitamin B6 is an enzymatic cofactor in the kynurenine pathway and may thus limit the accumulation of neurotoxic metabolites and preserve the cellular energy status. The aim of this study in a pneumococcal meningitis model was to investigate the effect of vitamin B6 on hippocampal apoptosis by histomorphology, by transcriptomics and by measurement of cellular nicotine amide adenine dinucleotide content. Methods and results: Eleven day old Wistar rats were infected with 1x10 cfu/ml of S. pneumoniae and randomized for treatment with vitamin B6 or saline as controls. Vitamin B6 led to a significant (p > 0.02) reduction of hippocampal apoptosis. According to functional annotation based clustering, vitamin B6 led to down-regulation of genes involved in processes of inflammatory response, while genes encoding for processes related to circadian rhythm, neuronal signaling and apoptotic cell death were mostly up-regulated. Conclusions: Our results provide evidence that attenuation of apoptosis by vitamin B6 is multi-factorial including down-modulation of inflammation, up-regulation of the neuroprotective brain-derived neurotrophic factor and prevention of the exhaustion of cellular energy stores. The neuroprotective effect identifies vitamin B6 as a potential target for the development of strategies to attenuate brain injury in bacterial meningitis.
Managing infectious disease in developing countries: studies following epidemics of yellow fever, o'nyong-nyong fever, and leptospirosis

O'nyong-nyong (ONN) fever, caused by infection with a mosquito-borne central African alphavirus, is an acute, nonfatal illness characterized by polyarthralgia. During 1996-1997, south-central Uganda experienced the second ONN fever epidemic ever recognized. During January and early February 1997, active case finding and a household cluster serosurvey were conducted in two affected and two comparison areas. A confirmed case was defined as an acute illness with fever and polyarthralgia occurring within the previous 9 months, plus serologic confirmation or isolation of ONN virus from blood. In affected (n = 129) and comparison (n = 115) areas, the estimated infection rates were 45% and 3%, respectively, and the estimated attack rates were 29% and 0%, respectively, for an apparent-to-inapparent infection ratio of nearly 2 in affected areas. In villages sampled near Lake Kijanebalola, Rakai District, the estimated infection and attack rates were 68% and 41 %, respectively, and 55% of sampled households had experienced >1 ONN fever case. In conclusion, this epidemic was focused near lakes and swamps, where it was associated with high infection and attack rates.
The effect of different levels of choline and betaine on broiler performance and carcass characteristics

An in vivo experiment was conducted to determine the effect of dietary betaine supplementation (Betafine) as a replacement for choline on broiler performance and carcass characteristics. The four betaine levels at 0, 33, 66 and 100% in replacement for choline were added to two various basal diets (without or containing 2.5% oil) in a 2×4 factorial arrangement with four replicates of 10 birds. Three hundred-twenty day-old broiler chicks were fed with the experimental diets from 0 to 49 days of age. At 49 days of age, one bird per replicate was selected randomly for blood sampling and comparison of carcass characteristics. Betaine replacement for choline had mainly no effect on FI, BW gain and feed conversion ratio (FCR), but the significant differences (P < 0.05) in BW gain (at 0-3 and 3-6 weeks of age) and FCR (at 0-3 weeks of age) were observed among the experimental diets. Replacing choline with betaine increased breast and reduced abdominal fat percentages (P < 0.05), but had no significant effect on thigh, liver, and liver fat percentages and blood lipoproteins level. The present findings indicated that although dietary addition of betaine instead of choline did not significantly improve the performance parameters, but resulted to favourable changes in abdominal fat and breast meat percentages.
The role of taxes in forced CEO turnover

Our study examines whether low and high levels of tax avoidance lead to forced CEO turnover. While prior research argues that firms often do not engage in tax avoidance due to reputational concerns, the empirical evidence suggesting the existence of reputational costs is scarce. Using a sample of forced CEO changes from Fee et al. (2013), we find no relation between the payment of low taxes and forced turnover. We do, however, find that forced CEO turnover is more likely when the firm pays a high tax rate. Our results are consistent with the existence of individual reputational costs of not engaging in tax avoidance.
econstor Make Your Publications Visible . A Service of zbw

Willingness to take risk depends on whether the risk affects others as well as oneself and on how the risk affects one’s position vis-à-vis others. Taking a bet can improve one’s position relative to others or threaten it. We present an experiment that explores individual attitudes to lotteries that involve both oneself and another subject. Individuals consistently and strongly dislike obtaining safe but unfair social outcomes rather than playing fair but risky social lotteries. This effect is apparent whether the unfair safe social outcome benefits them or the other. Subjects are also more risk averse when facing social lotteries than when facing lotteries that involve only themselves. There is a small but consistent and significant tendency to avoid social lotteries that impose a risk on the other. An attempt to reconcile those findings with standard models of social preferences shows that a high weight given to considerations of ex-ante inequality goes some way towards explaining the decisions of our subjects. It remains difficult however to account for the magnitude of their aversion to safe but unequal social outcomes.
The First Housing Bubble ? House Prices and Turnover in Amsterdam , 1582-1810 ∗

This paper uses the setting of historical Amsterdam to investigate the origins of booms and busts in housing markets. Based on archival data from more than 164,000 property transactions, I discuss the structure of the Amsterdam housing market and construct an annual house price (1604-1810) and turnover (1582-1810) index. I document the existence of various boom-bust cycles, and show that these were characterized by the same four features as modern cycles: momentum in prices, excess volatility of prices relative to fundamentals, but reversion over the longer run, and a dynamic relationship between turnover and prices. Exploiting exogenous shocks in investor demand for housing, I show that excess liquidity can be a major driver of housing cycles, in particular when accompanied by speculative behavior of investors. Changes in the availability of mortgage credit are not required for the creation of booms and busts: housing cycles appear in Amsterdam despite inactivity in its mortgage markets.
Traffic Matrix-Based Routing Optimization

Smart Identifier NETwork (SINET) is a clean-slate future Internet architecture, which has the superiority of perceiving real-time traffic matrix. We use traffic matrix as the constraint, model on load balancing routing problem, and transform the primal problem into dual problem by using Lagrange function. Therefore, the optimal objection of the dual problem can be easily achieved. In this paper, we propose a traffic matrix based load balancing routing scheme to achieve the optimization goal of the dual problem. We use OMNET++ to run the experiment simulation and the result shows that, compared with traditional routing scheme, the traffic matrix based load balancing routing could reduce congestion effectively and realize load balancing. Keywords—Smart Identifier NETwork (SINET); traffic matrix; routing optimization; Lagrange duality; load balance;