Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The role of Mauritian Creole in the religious practices of Mauritian Muslims

In post-colonial Mauritius, linguistic practices are an important way for Hindus, Christians and Muslims to construct, assert or redefine their ethnic, religious and personal identities. This paper analyses the role of Mauritian Creole (MC) in the religious practices and in the construction of the religious identity of Mauritian Muslims. The material presented in this article is based on first-hand knowledge of the Mauritian Muslim community and also, information obtained from representative members of the community. Results from a survey analyzing the use of, and attitudes to the use of, MC in the religious activities of twenty-five Muslims of different ethnic groups are reported. While Arabic and Urdu are still generally associated with the Mauritian Muslims, in the mosques, imams tend to make extensive use of MC for preaching. The paper explores the reason for this widespread use of MC in mosques and also, the differing attitudes towards its use in talks on Islam. It is argued that MC is preferred over other languages because it is the language most known in Mauritius. Finally, it is shown that the use of MC in the mosque is not perceived as a threat to the maintenance of Muslim practices on the island.
(UBS Pensions series 19) Are Annuities Value for Money? Who Can Afford Them?

This paper solves an empiricaly parameterized model of households’ optimal demand for nominal and inflation indexed annuities. The model incorporates mortality, inflation, and real interest rate risk. The model draws some interesting predictions. First, the welfare calculations on the access to annuities markets show that nominal annuities are welfare improving even when sold at the empirically parameterized cost, which is above fair value. Real annuities are welfare improving over nominal annuities when sold at a fair price, but when we incorporate the empirically parameterized annuity premium the gains become negative at all wealth levels. Second, the simulation of the model for the British population wealth distribution shows that an important explanation for the little interest in annuities comes from the fact that annuities are extremely expensive, compared with the total accumulated assets held by households. In other words many households can not afford even to enter the annuity market. The paper also compares the simulated annuity demand to the actual demands reported in the Family Resources Survey. For those individuals who buy annuities, the simulated demands are not very different from those observed in the survey.
Talking about motion in Danish, French and Russian. Some implications for LSP in theory and practice.

The article addresses the lexicalization of motion and space in the verb lexicons of Danish, French, and Russian and the impact that cross-linguistic differences in this regard have for LSP communication and translation. Several authors have suggested a sharp typological distinction between so-called MANNER languages (e.g. Danish) and PATH languages (e.g. French). This article further develops the semantic classification underlying such a typology by introducing the notion of location-based action verbs, or in short, relocation verbs. Using this framework, it will be argued that Russian presents an interesting special case in being a MANNER language which is in the process of switching over to a PATH oriented approach, allowing more room for manoeuvring to its speakers than is the case for both Danish and French. This hypothesis is tested in a pilot study based on Danish and Russian step-by-step process descriptions relating to the sugar industry. In the introductory part of the article, the relevance and place of typological data of the present sort in a broader LSP context are discussed at some length.
Robustly Complete Synthesis of Memoryless Controllers for Nonlinear Systems With Reach-and-Stay Specifications

This article proposes a finitely terminating algorithm to solve reach-and-stay control problems for nonlinear systems. The algorithm is guaranteed to return a control strategy if the specification is robustly realizable. Such a feature is desirable as the commonly used abstraction-based methods are sound but not complete for systems that are not incrementally stable. Fundamental to the proposed method is a fixed-point characterization of the winning set of the system with respect to a given specification, i.e., the initial states that can be controlled to satisfy the specification. The use of an adaptive partitioning scheme not only guarantees the approximation precision of the winning set but also reduces computational time. The effectiveness and efficiency are illustrated by several benchmarking examples.
Influence of relative humidity on the heterogeneous oxidation of secondary organic aerosol

Abstract. Secondary organic aerosol (SOA) is a complex mixture of hundreds of semi-volatile to extremely low-volatility organic compounds that are chemically processed in the atmosphere, including via heterogeneous oxidation by gas-phase radicals. Relative humidity (RH) has a substantial impact on particle phase, which can affect how SOA evolves in the atmosphere. In this study, SOA from dark α-pinene ozonolysis is heterogeneously aged by OH radicals in a flow tube at low and high RH. At high RH (RH =89 %) there is substantial loss of particle volume (∼60 %) at an equivalent atmospheric OH exposure of 3 weeks. In contrast, at low RH (RH =25 %) there is little mass loss (<20 %) at the same OH exposure. Mass spectra of the SOA particles were measured as a function of OH exposure using a vacuum ultraviolet aerosol mass spectrometer (VUV-AMS). The mass spectra observed at low RH overall exhibit minor changes with oxidation and negligible further changes above an OH exposure =2×1012 molecule cm−3 s suggesting limited impact of oxidation on the particle composition. In contrast, the mass spectra observed at high RH exhibit substantial and continuous changes as a function of OH exposure. Further, at high RH clusters of peaks in the mass spectra exhibit unique decay patterns, suggesting different responses of various species to oxidation. A model of heterogeneous oxidation has been developed to understand the origin of the difference in aging between the low- and high-RH experiments. Differences in diffusivity of the SOA between the low- and high-RH experiments alone can explain the difference in compositional change but cannot explain the difference in mass loss. Instead, the difference in mass loss is attributable to RH-dependent differences in the OH uptake coefficient and/or the net probability of fragmentation, with either or both larger at high RH compared to low RH. These results illustrate the important impact of relative humidity on the fate of SOA in the atmosphere.
POLYTHERMAL GLACIER HYDROLOGY: A REVIEW

The manner by which meltwater drains through a glacier is critical to ice dynamics, runoff characteristics, and water quality. However, much of the contemporary knowledge relating to glacier hydrology has been based upon, and conditioned by, understanding gleaned from temperate valley glaciers. Globally, a significant proportion of glaciers and ice sheets exhibit nontemperate thermal regimes. The recent, growing concern over the future response of polar glaciers and ice sheets to forecasts of a warming climate and lengthening summer melt season necessitates recognition of the hydrological processes in these nontemperate ice masses. It is therefore timely to present an accessible review of the scientific progress in glacial hydrology where nontemperate conditions are dominant. This review provides an appraisal of the glaciological literature from nontemperate glaciers, examining supraglacial, englacial, and subglacial environments in sequence and their role in hydrological processes within glacierized catchments. In particular, the variability and complexity in glacier thermal regimes are discussed, illustrating how a unified model of drainage architecture is likely to remain elusive due to structural controls on the presence of water. Cold ice near glacier surfaces may reduce meltwater flux into the glacier interior, but observations suggest that the transient thermal layer of near surface ice holds a hydrological role as a depth‐limited aquifer. Englacial flowpaths may arise from the deep incision of supraglacial streams or the propagation of hydrofractures, forms which are readily able to handle varied meltwater discharge or act as locations for water storage, and result in spatially discrete delivery of water to the subglacial environment. The influence of such drainage routes on seasonal meltwater release is explored, with reference to summer season upwellings and winter icing formation. Moreover, clear analogies emerge between nontemperate valley glacier and ice sheet hydrology, the discussion of which indicates how persistent reassessment of our conceptualization of glacier drainage systems is required. There is a clear emphasis that continued, integrated endeavors focused on process glaciology at nontemperate glaciers are a scientific imperative to augmenting the existing body of research centered on ice mass hydrology.
Evaluation of milk thistle (Silybum marianum (L.) Gaertn.) seed germination in relation to seed health and seedling emergence

Summary Introduction: : Milk thistle (Silybum marianum (L.) Gaertn. ) is an important medicinal plant. Achenes of milk thistle contain sylimarin, protecting liver cells against toxic compounds. Objective: The aim of the research was to find an optimum method of evaluation of milk thistle seed germination. Methods: Ten seed samples were tested. The seeds were germinated: on top of blotter paper, on top of blotter paper after seed disinfection, between pleated blotter paper, in rolled blotter paper and in sand. Germination at the first and final counts, the percentages of abnormal seedlings and dead seeds were determined. The correlation coefficients between seed germination, evaluated with various methods, and seedling emergence were calculated. Moreover, fungi associated with seeds and diseased seedlings were identified. Results: The lowest percentage of normal seedlings was observed after germination on the top of blotter. Highly significant positive correlations were noted between seedling emergence and seed germination at the final count evaluated in rolled paper, between pleated paper and in sand. The fungi from genera: Alternaria, Fusarium, Penicillium, Trichoderma, Ulocladium and Verticillium were frequently identified on seeds and seedlings. Conclusions: Infestation with fungi significantly affected milk thistle seed germination and plant emergence. Germination in rolled blotter paper may be recommended for evaluation of milk thistle seed germination, as the most practical and significantly correlated with seedling emergence.
Morphine's chemical messenger status in animals

morphine; CYP2D6; autocrine; paracrine; Parkinson's Disease; nitric oxide; alcohol; mental health Abstract Conventional wisdom recognizes morphine only as a plant product with profound phar - macological actions on mammalian tissues. This widely held belief ignores 30 years of empirical evidence from different laboratories, demonstrating its presence and synthesis in animal tissues, including human. Using state-of-the-art technologies, we recently demon- strated that normal healthy animal tissues, including human, have the ability to synthesize morphine in a process that both resembles that occurring in plants and one which is subject to pharmacological manipulation via existing mammalian enzymes. Importantly, this ability also occurs in invertebrate neural tissues in animals 500 million years divergent in evolution. Morphine is present in human immune, vascular and neural tissues, along with its own receptor, µ3, which we have cloned and found to be opioid peptide insensitive and opiate alkaloid selective, establishing its endogenous signaling capabilities. The func- tional implications of endogenous morphine expression as a parallel, but independently regulated signaling system, confers a major adaptive advantage to an expanding cadre of L-tyrosine-derived molecular species as autocrine, paracrine, and hormonal regulators of cellular systems involved in immune function, neural-immune coupling in the media- tion of nociception and antinociception, and cardiovascular integrity linked to functional recruitment of constitutive nitric oxide (NO). These linkages are the driving knowledge that now supports a role for intracellular morphine expression and its biosynthetic inter - mediates as developmental chaperones in the evolutionary adaptation of dopamine and its catecholamine derivatives norepinephrine and epinephrine as signaling molecules.
Influence of bait type, weather and prey abundance on bait uptake by feral cats (Felis catus) on Peron Peninsula, Western Australia

Bait uptake by feral cats has shown variability both on a temporal and spatial scale. This study examined whether bait uptake is influenced by short-term weather parameters and/or the time of year and if so, when bait uptake is at its peak. We aimed to determine the optimum timing of baiting programs to maximize efficiency. The result was that bait uptake by feral cats displayed a high degree of short-term variability but clearly became more frequent and consistent into late summer/early autumn. A number of temperature factors were significantly related to bait uptake over the entire sampling period (longterm weather conditions) but insignificant when bait uptake was a regular occurrence. The exception was fluctuations in minimum temperature, which was of significance in both the long and short-term. Of the other environmental factors, rabbit abundance had a significant relationship with bait uptake. As rabbit abundance decreased from late spring through to early autumn, there was an increase in bait uptake. The two most important environmental factors that affected bait uptake in the short-term were wind speed and fluctuations in minimum temperature. There was a significant preference for the kangaroo meat sausage bait over a chicken meat sausage bait and dayold cockerel and this could be potentially enhanced by the use of visual lures. Baiting efficacy was also significantly affected by non-target species, particularly Varanids and Corvids, consuming baits, reducing bait availability to feral cats.
Energy Growth Linkage and Strategy for Meeting the Energy Demand in Indian Agriculture

The relationship between energy-use and agricultural production has been examined for major states in India. The study has indicated that high-productivity states like Punjab and Haryana use energy more than seven-times as compared to the low-productivity states like Odisha (4 GJ/ha). The paper has demonstrated that the use of energy-intensive inputs is higher on marginal farms than on large farms. The energy-related foresight exercise has suggested that the energy requirement in Indian agriculture will be double of the present consumption level (22 million tonnes of oil equivalent) for achieving 280 Mt of foodgrains production by 2020. The enhanced farm energy demand will call for a robust energy policy which should ensure reliable supply of energy to the agricultural sector, particularly to small farmers at affordable cost. The policy should also aim to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emissions by replacing fossil fuel by renewable energy sources like crop residues and solar energy. The preliminary analysis has indicated that the system of rice intensification (SRI) method is more energy-efficient as compared to transplanted rice.
Students' Expectations towards Careers in the Hospitality Industry in Egypt

The aim of this study is to predict students' expectations towards career in the hospitality industry. A sample of 327 undergraduate students studying in hospitality management programmes at eight different universities in Egypt was surveyed. Results showed that the majority of the students intended to work in a career relates to the hospitality. The participants for this study think they will start their career in elementary level job and they also preferred to work in job position at food and beverage department. Opportunity to meet new people with different cultures and providing job opportunities were found to be the most important advantages of the hospitality industry that encourage students after graduation. Willingness to work long hours was considered the most important personal quality needs a competent employee. On the other hand, respondents believed that solid work experience is the most important factor HR managers are looking for in potential candidates. Conversely, language skills and communication skills were viewed as the important ones for career development purposes.
Belowground Fungal Community Change Associated with Ecosystem Development

Academic) Numerous studies have looked at biotic succession at the aboveground level; however, there are no studies describing fungal community change associated with long-term ecosystem development. To understand ecosystem development, the organisms responsible for shaping and driving these systems and their relationships with the vegetation and soil factors, it is critical to provide insight into aboveground and belowground linkages to ultimately include this new information into ecosystem theory. I hypothesized that fungal communities would change with pedogenesis, that these changes would correlate with vegetation community change, and that they should show change of composition and diversity as the seasons change. Chapter 1 discusses the main topics related to this dissertation. Chapter 2 includes a publication draft that describes a study of sand-dune soil samples from northern Michigan that were analyzed to pinpoint the structural change in the fungal community during the development of the ecosystem. The samples were analyzed by pyrosequencing the soil DNA, targeting the internal transcribed spacer region. Chapter 3 contains a coauthored published paper that describes plant invasion of fields in Virginia to determine how they impact soil bacterial and fungal communities. The bacterial and fungal communities that were invaded by 3 different plant species exhibited similar changes, regardless of plant species, suggesting that some functional traits of invasives may have similar impacts on belowground communities. Chapter 4 remarks the conclusions of this research. Belowground Fungal Community Associated with Ecosystem Dynamics
CAUSALITY RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENTS AND ECONOMIC IMPROVEMENT FOR DEVELOPING ECONOMIES

The aim of this study is to determine whether there is a causality relationship between foreign direct investments and economic growth for developing countries. Within this context, 30 developing countries, which have the highest GDP growth rate in 2016, are taken into the consideration. Furthermore, annual data of these countries for the periods between 1991 and 2015 is evaluated with the help of Dumitrescu Hurlin panel causality analysis. It is concluded that there is a causality relationship from foreign direct investments to economic growth. In other words, it is identified that foreign direct investment is an important cause of economic growth. Hence, it can be said that developing countries should focus on the ways to attract foreign direct investments to their companies in order to have economic growth. In addition to this situation, it is also identified that there is a causality relationship from economic growth to FDI. This situation shows that when the economies of the countries are improved, it attracts foreign investors to make a direct investment in those countries.
Experimental and numerical study on the flow behind a TPS

Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) is a powerful tool for the non-intrusive investigation of complex flow fields. The present paper describes Stereo PIV measurements of the flow field behind a counter rotating ultrahigh-bypass fan turbine power simulator (CRUF-TPS) which have been performed at the low speed wind tunnel NWB of the German-Dutch Wind Tunnels (DNW). The experimental data was used for the validation of numerical codes using different turbulence models, as former CFD calculations suffered from the absence of a complete experimental data base. The aim of the study was the investigation of the turbulence and the shear flow mixing in the flow behind the CRUF-TPS. The experimental SPIV set-up was made up of two PCO4000 cameras (11 Megapixels) providing a very high spatial resolution, and a high power Nd-YAG double pulse laser with 380mJ per pulse output energy (λ = 532 nm). The flow was seeded with DEHS particles with a diameter of about 1 µm. In two different planes all three components of a large number of instantaneous velocity vector fields were measured in forward scattering mode for several different flow and turbine conditions. The first plane perpendicular to the main flow with an observation area of 410 x 330 mm² was located at x = 450 mm downstream of the TPS core trailing edge, the second plane was adjusted parallel to the main flow between x = 10 mm and x = 310 mm with a size of 360 x 300 mm². In both cases, the shear layers between free stream, fan flow and core flow of the TPS could be observed. In order to determine the differences between periodic and non-periodic effects of the turbulence mixing in the shear layers, the PIV measurements were triggered both at a random point of time and phase-locked to a fixed blade position of the TPS fan. For the evaluation of the PIV images an iterative multi-grid cross-correlation method with image deformation was applied with 32 x 32 pixels² final window size and a step width of 16 pixels in each direction, leading to instantaneous velocity fields with up to 43000 three-component-vectors. A number of 700 to 1000 double images were acquired per test case for reaching convergence of the averages and RMS-values. For the first PIV set-up (light sheet perpendicular to the main flow), also the x-component of the flow vorticity could be calculated.
Continuous Corn and Corn–Soybean Profits over a 45‐Year Tillage and Fertilizer Experiment

Studies comparing profitability of tillage systems often examine narrow historic windows or exclude annual price fluctuations. This study uses a continuous corn (Zea mays L.) (CC; 1970–1990) and corn–soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr. ] (CS; 1991–2014) Tillage × Fertilizer study in somewhat poorly drained soils in southern Illinois to reconstruct partial annual budgets with historical prices for crops, fertilizers, lime, herbicides, fuel, labor, and machinery. Combinations of tillage (moldboard plow [MP], chisel tillage [ChT], alternate tillage [AT], and no-till [NT]) and fertilizer (Control, N-only, N+NPK starter, NPK+NPK starter, and NPK broadcast) treatments were evaluated. The CC profits were highest in NPK-applied treatments followed by N-only and Control. The MP treatments were similar to ChT and more profitable than NT, while AT fell between. In CS, NPK-applied treatments were similar regardless of tillage. Combined costs for herbicide, machinery, labor, and diesel were higher in MP and ChT systems than AT and lowest in NT, but were a small percentage of total costs (26.6, 26.0, 21.5, and 18.2%, respectively). Nitrogen fertilizer offered a return on investment of 396% in CC and 133% in CS while P & K returned 78% in CC and 109% in CS. Sensitivity analysis in CS showed that NT would be less profitable than MP if herbicide costs increased 850%. A 300% machinery cost increase would have made MP less profitable than NT. These findings suggest that since 1991 CS under NT carried the same potential for profit as other tillage systems under full fertility management.