Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of the Internal Banking Mechanisms of Governance on the Risk-taking by the Tunisian Banks

This study aims to analyze the relationship between internal governance mechanisms and risk -taking by banks in Tunisia. Empirical analyzes conducted from a sample of 10 Tunisian banks during an analysis period of 8 years from 2002 to 2009, also show significant results. Indeed, the concentration of capital and the size of banks have negative impact and highly significant risk on banks. In addition, Tunisian banks are foreign owned and tend to take less risk than other banks. As for the particip ation of the state in the capital, it has increased the risk in Tunisian banks. In addition, the size of the board has a positive and highly significant impact on bank risks, while the proportion of institutional administrators on the board is negatively and signifi cantly related to the ris k.
Analytical Evaluation of Chunk-Based Tractable Multi-cell OFDMA system

This paper evaluates thoroughly the performance of multi-cell OFDMA system. The two types of deployment in multi-cell OFDMA system, such as Strict Fractional Frequency Reuse (FFR) and Soft FFR (SFR) were evaluated. In order to model the base station locations, homogeneous Poisson point processes were used, i.e. tractable model instead of hexagonal grid was considered. In order to reduce complexity, chunk-based resource allocation scheme was embedded. Each cell divides the users into the users of the central cell area and the users of the cell edge area according to their average received Signal to Interference and Noise Ratio (SINR) compared with FFR threshold. The primary stage of the analysis includes the spectral eﬃciency’s expression deriving from these two deployment scenarios, followed by the analysis with the use of coverage probability. However, the improvement of spectral eﬃciency is achieved in the case of SFR. On the contrary, coverage probability is far improved by using strict FFR scheme. Through numerical anaysis, We have shown that the optimal FFR threshold to achieve the highest spectral eﬃciency was 12 dB for both Strict FFR as well as SFR.
The inhibitive effect of tannin in Psidium guajava leaves towards 304SS corrosion in concentrated HCl

Tannin isolated from Psidium guajava leaves are developed to enhance the corrosion protection of austenitic stainless steel. It is used as a green inhibitor, extracted from Psidium guajava which grow in East java, Indonesia. In the present work, the corrosion inhibition properties of the tannin inhibitors were investigated in 3M HCl by polarization potentiodynamic measurements. The result reveals that tannin 1g/L could enhance the inhibition efficiency up to 91.81%.
Comparison between active stress field and tectonic structures in Northern Italy, Lombardy Region

The aim of this work is to understand the complex pattern of active stress field orientations revealed by borehole breakout analysis with respect to the tectonic structures in a wide region of Northern Italy. The area is located in the central-western part of the Po Plain between the south verging Southern Alps structures and the north verging buried folds and thrusts of the Monferrato and Emilia arcs. Little information concerning the active stress field is available because of the low seismicity level and the thick layer of sediments that covers the entire zone. A de- tailed borehole breakout analysis has been performed in 36 wells with depths ranging from 2.2 to 7.3 km, whose data have been supplied by Eni. Breakout analysis determined the minimum and maximum horizontal stress di- rections (Shmin and SHmax). The results show a very complex pattern, pointing out that the stress field is not uni- form. In this area the regional stress field seems not «strong» enough, compared to the local one, so most of the wells detect only the local field. This work contributes to clarify the various Shmin orientations observed in this area, pointing out at wide scale, a general compression in NNE-SSW direction in this complex region.
Effect of pH and Floc Property on Disinfection By-p roducts Precursors Removal by Coagulation in Treating Low Organic Matter Surface Water

Two pre-hydrolyzed coagulants, polyaluminum chloride (PAC) and polyferric chloride (PFC) were used to treat the low organic matter (OM) surface water. The coagulation performance, disinfection by-products (DBPs) pr ecursors removal and floc properties at pH 4, 6 and 8 were i nvestigated. The results showed that the best DOC, UV 254 and DBPs precursors removal was achieved at pH 6, while the DOC and UV 254 trend were different from the chlorine demand results for the low OM surface water. At pH 8, the DBPs precursors were not effectively removed as DOC and UV 254 because the conditions were not favorable for prec ipitate formation. The differences of the PFC-flocs size were not significant in the pH range while the PAC-flocs were larger at pH 6. The flocs strength decreased with the increasing pH. The compact flocs tend to be gen erated at alkaline solution in the study. The preli minary study of the relationship between the floc properties and DB Ps precursors removal showed that the small flocs were not favorable for DBPs precursors removal. Similarly, the compact flocs may not provide high removal efficie ncy on the DBPs precursors.
Knowledge Creation Process and Firms' Innovation Performance: Mediating Effect of Organizational Learning

On the basis of the Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995)’s study, this paper examines the effects of knowledge creation process on firm’s innovation performance and the mediating role of organizational learning in this relationship. Conceptually, we develop a research model summarizing the relationships between these variables. This model was tested within 214 companies belonging to the information technology and communication (ICT) sector. Results highlight the role of organizational learning as a partial mediator in the relationship between the knowledge creation process and innovation performance. Findings identify also the importance of tacit-linked activities namely socialization, internalization and externalization for innovation performance of the Tunisian ICT companies.
Measurement of penile size in healthy Nigerian newborns using conventional penile length measurement technique

ObjectivesWe attempted to establish a standard penile length for male newborn Nigerians using the conventional penile length measurement technique. SummaryDefining the normal penile size in the neonate is paramount to making accurate diagnosis of abnormalities of the penis and the medical and surgical management of these anomalies. Patients and methodsWe carried out a prospective cross-sectional study of all term male neonates within 72 h of birth from April 2013 to March 2014 in the three largest obstetric centres (University College Hospital, Adeoyo Maternity Hospital and Our Lady of Apostles Catholic Hospital) in Ibadan, Nigeria. They underwent clinical examination, and their penile sizes were measured using the conventional penile length measurement technique. ResultsA total of 675 male Nigerian newborns were studied. The mean penile length was 3.14±0.65 cm, and the mean penile width was 0.97±0.15 cm. ConclusionThe penile dimensions obtained are comparable with reported values in previous studies in other parts of the world.
Multidecadal climate variability over northern France during the past 500 years and its relation to large‐scale atmospheric circulation

We examine secular changes and multidecadal climate variability on a seasonal scale in northern France over the last 500 years and examine the extent to which they are driven by large‐scale atmospheric variability. Multiscale trend analysis and segmentation procedures show statistically significant increases of winter and spring precipitation amounts in Paris since the end of the 19th century. This changes the seasonal precipitation distribution from one with a pronounced summer peak at the end of the Little Ice Age to an almost uniform distribution in the 20th century. This switch is linked to an early warming trend in winter temperature. Changes in spring precipitation are also correlated with winter precipitation for time scales greater than 50 years, which suggests a seasonal persistence. Hydrological modelling results show similar rising trends in river flow for the Seine at Paris. However, such secular trends in the seasonal climatic conditions over northern France are substantially modulated by irregular multidecadal (50–80 years) fluctuations. Furthermore, since the end of the 19th century, we find an increasing variance in multidecadal hydroclimatic winter and spring, and this coincides with an increase in the multidecadal North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) variability, suggesting a significant influence of large‐scale atmospheric circulation patterns. However, multidecadal NAO variability has decreased in summer. Using Empirical Orthogonal Function analysis, we detect multidecadal North Atlantic sea‐level pressure anomalies, which are significantly linked to the NAO during the Modern period. In particular, a south‐eastward (south‐westward) shift of the Icelandic Low (Azores High) drives substantial multidecadal changes in spring. Wetter springs are likely to be driven by potential changes in moisture advection from the Atlantic, in response to northward shifts of North Atlantic storm tracks over European regions, linked to periods of positive NAO. Similar, but smaller, changes in rainfall are observed in winter.
Floe-size distributions in laboratory ice broken by waves

Abstract. This paper presents the analysis of floe-size distribution (FSD) data obtained in laboratory experiments of ice breaking by waves. The experiments, performed at the Large Ice Model Basin (LIMB) of the Hamburg Ship Model Basin (Hamburgische Schiffbau-Versuchsanstalt, HSVA), consisted of a number of tests in which an initially continuous, uniform ice sheet was broken by regular waves with prescribed characteristics. The floes' characteristics (surface area; minor and major axis, and orientation of equivalent ellipse) were obtained from digital images of the ice sheets after five tests. The analysis shows that although the floe sizes cover a wide range of values (up to 5 orders of magnitude in the case of floe surface area), their probability density functions (PDFs) do not have heavy tails, but exhibit a clear cut-off at large floe sizes. Moreover, the PDFs have a maximum that can be attributed to wave-induced flexural strain, producing preferred floe sizes. It is demonstrated that the observed FSD data can be described by theoretical PDFs expressed as a weighted sum of two components, a tapered power law and a Gaussian, reflecting multiple fracture mechanisms contributing to the FSD as it evolves in time. The results are discussed in the context of theoretical and numerical research on fragmentation of sea ice and other brittle materials.
Economics of Groundnut Production in East Hararghe Zone of Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia

Groundnut is one the five widely cultivated oilseed crops in Ethiopia. However, the subsector has been overlooked yet by development program interventions and analysis of its technical as well as economic is lacking far behind. Hence, this study presents of groundnut production in East Hararghe zone of Oromia regional state. It focuses on technical relationships between groundnut output and different inputs, economic resources use efficiency and cost benefit analysis. The result for the generated from 86 randomly sampled groundnut farm households at different stage by means of structured and semi-structured questionnaire. From the total of seven explanatory variables to be estimated by using CobbDouglas function, quantity of seed labor and livestock in tropical livestock unit were significant at different significance level and they showed positive effect on groundnut output. The economic efficiency of resource used showed the seed, fertilizer and labor were underutilized and land was over utilized.
Market value of R&D, patents, and organizational capital: Finnish evidence

This paper studies how knowledge and organizational capital (OC) affect the market valuation of firms. Detailed occupational information from Finnish linked employer–employee data is used to form new estimates of firms’ organizational investments. The market value of OC is analyzed together with research and development (R&D) and patent variables. A nonlinear least-squares regression is used to investigate the contribution of these variables to the market value of Finnish firms during the period 1995–2008. The results show that OC, R&D, patents, and patent citations all have positive and significant effects on market value. A particularly interesting finding is that the effect of OC appears to be even stronger than the effect of R&D investments. This study also provides internationally comparable results on the market valuation of knowledge assets that indicate that in Finland, the market valuation of R&D, but not patents, is lower than in the USA and many European countries.
BAD NEWS ANNOUNCEMENT ON INVESTOR’S MONDAY IRRATIONALITY: INSIGHT FROM MALAYSIA

The lack of empirical dossiers on the examination of the weekend effect causes intrigues us to investigate its determinant in the trading behaviour perspective. Employing one traditional interaction dummy model, and one day-by-day model, we found the market index and size-based portfolios of weekend effect have been driven by the attention of investor. Further, under the attention bias hypothesis, we confirm that investor’s irrationality during Monday is the driver of the anomaly because of its heuristical bias judgment. We address the difficulties that investors face on searching the thousands of stocks they can potentially deal on the first trading day as the rationalization. In a short, our findings surmise that attention bias is the driver of investor irrationality on Monday and resulting Weekend Effect. Keywords: weekend anomaly, bad news, attention bias, Malaysia stock market
Induced immunelike resistance to spider mites in cotton

Al though immunization is the primary means of disease control in animals, plant biologists have made relatively little use of induced resistance to protect crops. Plant pathologists have recently found that restricted inoculations of viruses, bacteria, and fungi can induce resistance in plants against subsequent disease caused by these pathogens. For some years, commercial tomato growers in Europe have. successfully used sprays of mild strains of tobacco mosaic virus to protect their crops against economically damaging strains of this virus. Stimulated by reports of “plant conditioning” in the entomological and ecological literature, work at the University of California, Davis, has explored the possibility of inducing resistance in cotton seedlings against spider mites and other pests. Other researchers working on plants as varied as sugarbeets attacked by beet flies, English walnuts attacked by walnut aphids, and native birch trees attacked by autumnal moth caterpillars had noticed that damaged plant tissue was inferior as food for insects developing later. Coincident with these field observations were reports by chemists that plants damaged by feeding insects contained higher concentrations of “secondary metabolites,’’ which were presumed to possess deterrent or antibiotic activity against some insect species. These results suggested that it might be possible to induce resistance against economically important pests such as spider mites on cotton, thus reducing the need to use chemical pesticides. In an initial set of laboratory experiments, my colleague, entomologist James Carey, and I found that changes in cotton seedlings induced by prior feeding of mites reduced the population growth of spider mites. We randomly assigned cotYoung cotton seedlings exposed to caged spider mites developed resistance to later mite feeding, lending support to the belief that resistance to a variety of insects can be induced by stressing the host plant.
Seeing Through News concerning Unfunded Pension Benefit Obligation Write-Off Policies in Japan : Market Reaction to News on Newspaper

This paper focuses on the information content of the periodic allocation of expense by managers. In this paper, we analyzed the direction and magnitude of stock price changes in response to the disclosure of write-off policies of 424 Japanese companies on two newspapers. We obtained some empirical evidence that information concerning write-off policies confirms or changes the expectation of investors about the target companies. This was achieved by our examination concerning market reactions to information about write-off policies of unfunded pension benefit obligations; good and bad performances by short and long write-off periods. Companies that had disclosed their write-off policies were assigned to one of the two categories: companies with good performance or companies with poor performance. Our observation of the effect of the length of unfunded pension benefit obligation (UPBO) write-off periods on stock prices made it clear that the disclosed write-off policies contained information that either confirmed or caused the revision of investors had formed opinions regarding the target companies. In the first section, we explain the change of accounting standards and consequent 1 Main Author, Professor of Accounting, Graduate School of Economics, Kyoto University 2 Coauthor, Professor of Accounting, College of Business, Pusan National University 3 Coauthor, Specially Appointed Research Assistant, Graduate School of Management Mizuho Securities Endowment, Kyoto University 3 burden of write-off expense. In the second section, we review previous research. The hypothesis which will be verified is offered in the third while research design is in the forth section. The results of our examination and their implications are given in the fifth section. Lastly, we make concluding remarks in the sixth section.
Environmental Economics, Ecological Economics, and the Concept of Sustainable Development

This paper presents a systematic discussion, mainly for non-economists, on economic approaches to the concept of sustainable development. As a first step, the concept of sustainability is extensively discussed. As a second step, the argument that it is not possible to consider sustainability only from an economic or ecological point of view is defended; issues such as economic-ecological integration, inter-generational and intra-generational equity are considered of fundamental importance. Two different economic approaches to environmental issues, i.e. neo-classical environmental economics and ecological economics, are compared. Some key differences such as weak versus strong sustainability, commensurability versus incommensurability and ethical neutrality versus different values acceptance are pointed out.
Phytic Acid Concentration and Phytic Acid: Zinc Molar Ratio in Wheat Cultivars and Bread Flours, Fars Province, Iran

Consumption of whole-wheat breads prepared from high extraction flours is recommended because of their high content of fiber, vitamins, and minerals. Despite the beneficial effects of these breads, they contain high amounts of undesirable compounds like Phytic Acid (PA) which is believed to negatively interfere with the absorption of some such nutrients as zinc (Zn). Wheat genotypes are different in their PA and Zn concentrations; therefore, cereal-based foods may be prepared using grains of low PA and high Zn. Fars Province is ranked first in Iran in terms of wheat production. It is, therefore, important to evaluate the PA and Zn status of the wheat cultivars common in the province. Seventeen wheat cultivars obtained from Genotype Improvement Department of Fars Agricultural Research Center, Zarghan, Iran were employed in the study. These cultivars that are commonly used by local farmers were grown in test plots under identical conditions. A wheat grain sample from Parvardeh Wheat Milling Factory and 7 bread flour samples from Shiraz city ' s bakeries were also included in the study. The PA content and phytase activity of the grains either with or without bran as well as those of the flour samples were determined. Results showed that the method of grain debranning significantly affectted the concentration of PA and phytase activity. The least phytic acid was found in Pavarus and Niknejad cultivars. The PA to Zn molar ratios were highest in Falat, Niknejad and Shiraz cultivars. The highest concentration of Zn was observed in Estar, Falat, and Niknejad, while maximum phytase activity was found in cultivars Estar, S-78-11, S-79-10, and Niknejad.
Confluence effects in rivers: Interactions of basin scale, network geometry, and disturbance regimes

We reviewed 14 studies documenting the effects of tributaries on river morphology at 167 confluences along 730 km of river spanning seven orders of magnitude in drainage area in western United States and Canada. In both humid and semiarid environments the probability of observing significant confluence‐related changes in channel and valley morphology due to tributary influxes of sediment (e.g., changes in gradient, particle size, and terraces, etc.) increased with the size of the tributary relative to the main stem. Effects of confluences on river morphology are conditioned by basin shape and channel network patterns, and they include the nonlinear separation of geomorphically significant confluences in river networks. Other modifying factors include local network geometry and drainage density. Confluence‐related landforms (i.e., fans, bars, terraces, etc.) are predicted to be dominated by older features in headwaters and younger features downstream, a pattern driven by the frequency and magnitude of floods and punctuated sediment supply that scale with watershed size.
Racing : When Should We Handicap the Advantaged Player ?

Two competitors with di¤erent abilities engage in a winner-take-all race; should we handicap the advantaged competitor in order to reduce the expected completion time of the race? I show that if the discouragement e¤ect is strong, i.e., both competitors are discouraged from exerting e¤ort when it becomes more certain who will win the race, we should handicap the advantaged. We can handicap him either by reducing his ability or by o¤ering him a lower reward if he wins. Doing so induces higher e¤ort not only from the disadvantaged competitor because of his higher incentive from a higher chance of winning the race but also from the advantaged competitor because of their strategic interactions. Therefore, the expected completion time is strictly shortened. To prove the existence and uniqueness of the equilibria (including symmetric and asymmetric equilibria) that leads to the conclusion, I use a boundary value problem formulation which is novel to the dynamic competition literature. In some cases, I obtain closedform solutions of the equilibria. I wish to thank Daron Acemoglu for his advice. Also thanks to David Cesarini, Jean-Paul LHuillier and Amanda Sobel for their generous help with editing, and to Giuseppe Moscarini, Lones Smith, Ivan Werning, Yuliy Sannikov, Mike Powell, Paul Schrimpf, Alp Simpsek, Ngoc-Khanh Tran and participants at the MIT Macro Lunch for helpfull comments.