Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Contamination potential of an urban mine tailings deposit in Central Mexico-A preliminary estimation. International Journal of Geosciences

This study consisted of a geochemical analysis of the Dos Carlos tailings’ deposit located in the Mining District of Pachuca-Real del Monte in the state of Hidalgo, Central Mexico. The goal of the study was to determine the potential effects of this deposit on the environment and health of the population of the metropolitan area of Pachuca. Sampling was conducted from the top to the base of two raised sections at opposite ends of the deposit, and macroscopic features (profiles A and B) of these deposits were evaluated. Subsequently, mineralogical analyses of the collected samples were performed using X-ray diffraction and physico-chemical analysis of the leachates. The results were compared with the maximum permissible limits established by different national and international standards for drinking water and hazardous waste. In addition, geochemical modeling was conducted using PHREEQC to calculate the distribution of aqueous species, ionic activities and saturation indices. Of the 35 samples of leachate analyzed for profile A, two samples had two to nearly three times the national permissible maximum limits of Cr6+ in drinking water, four samples had 3 NO − levels that exceeded these limits and 19 samples had 2 NO − levels that exceeded these limits. Of the 10 samples analyzed from profile B, six samples had 3 NO − levels that were up to fourteen times higher than the limit for human consumption, and six samples had levels of 2 NO − that were up to 28 times higher than the permissible limit. The predominant minerals found in the Dos Carlos tailings’ deposit were quartz, feldspar, clay from the kaolinite group, and calcite and orCorresponding author. L. Lizárraga-Mendiola et al. 297 thopyroxene (enstatite-ferrosilite series). The samples from profile A indicated that minerals containing Agmetallic, Cd2+, Cu+, Ni2+, Pb2+ and Zn2+ were dissolved, whereas minerals containing Fetotal, Mn2+, Pb(OH)3 and Zn2+ were in a state of precipitation. In profile B, the dissolution of minerals containing Agmetallic, As5+, Cd2+, Cu+, Mn2+, Ni2+, Pb2+ and Zn2+ was observed only in a superficial sample, whereas Agmetallic, Fetotal, Mn2+, Pb3(PO4)2 and PbHPO4 were found in a precipitated state. The above-mentioned species that occurred in a state of dissolution pose an environmental threat to the groundwater in the study area; indeed, the tailings’ deposit provides the conditions necessary for these minerals to leach and infiltrate into the subsoil or be transported by wind, deposited in the soil of the surrounding area and inhaled by the nearby population, potentially compromising respiratory health.
Climate determinants of breeding and wintering ranges of lesser kestrels in Italy and predicted impacts of climate change

Climate warming would theoretically create conditions for the breeding range expansion of pseudo-steppe Mediterranean and long-distance migrant species and provide the possibility for these to overwinter in the same breeding areas. However, contemporary changes in rainfall regimes might have negative effects on the climate suitability and in turn, shrink species potential range. The lesser kestrel, Falco naumanni, is highly sensitive to rainfall oscillations and has recently extended its Italian breeding range towards northern latitudes and increasing its wintering records. We modelled the effects of temperature and rainfall on current and future climate suitability for lesser kestrels in both the breeding and wintering periods by using MaxEnt. Models were based on the distribution of 298 colonies and 45 wintering records. Future climate suitability was assessed under eight different scenarios.
A Bioassay Method for Metabolizable Energy of Feedstuffs for Peking Ducks

Three experiments were carried out to determine optimal feed input and excreta collection time in bioassay of feedstuff true metabolizable energy for ducks. In experiment 1, 20 drakes had been food withdrawn and were allocated to 4 groups, each of which contained 5 birds. Birds of each group were force- fed 50 g complete feed, approximately 48 h after food withdrawal. The excreta voided during the exact 56 h following feeding were collected. In experiment 2, 28 drakes were force-fed 50 g complete feed, approximately 48 h after food withdrawal. 4 birds were killed by an intravenous dose of sodiu m pentobarbitone 4 h, 8 h, 14 h, 24 h, 32 h, 38 h and 48 h after feeding. The residues in alimentary canal were collected and dried in an oven at 65 C. In experiment 3, 70 mature drakes were allocated to 7 groups. The o treatments comprised an unfed negative control and five levels of feed input (30, 50, 70, 90, 110 and 150 g complete feed). The birds were force-fed at approximately 48 h after food withdrawal. The excreta voided during the exact 36 h following feeding were collected. The results indicated that the time prior to force - feeding and excreta collection period should be 32-36 h when evaluating feed metabolizable energy and 50- 70 g feed per bird is feasible for evaluating feed metabolizable energy.
User engagement and quality in the design of UK schools

For over fifty years, dating back to the Simon report (1944), commentators on the UK construction industry have been lamenting the design-construct divorce and advocating earlier contractor involvement to produce, inter alia, better quality buildings. Since 2003 a substantial part of the addition to the value of UK new building stock has been in the form of schools. Most have been delivered through the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme and the majority of projects within BSF have been procured under a modified PFI (PPP) system. This of course means that early contractor involvement is a ‘given’. Despite this, in 2006 a CABE report on new schools was still critical of their quality. The paper explores whether other factors – in particular the degree and timing of user-engagement – have had an influence on the quality of the end product, and presents a method for testing this
Change in Thermal Metabolic Rate Reaction Norms of Daphnia in Response to Rearing Temperature

Temperature is an important environmental factor that affects the distribution of organisms. It affects the biochemical and physiological processes which are the basis of life. The metabolic cold adaptation (MCA) hypothesis predicts an increase in the metabolic rate of ectotherms from cold environments compared with their more temperate counterparts. This hypothesis is one of the most controversial in ecophysiology. MCA is an example of counter gradient variation, a geographical pattern of genotypes where genetic influences on a trait oppose environmental influences. Environmental gradients are common in nature and are considered to have major effects on intraspecific variation patterns. In this study, I tested the MCA hypothesis at an intraspecific level. As a study model I utilized the water flea, Daphnia magna. These are planktonic crustaceans, common in lakes and ponds, and have a wide geographical and thermal distribution. I tested the MCA hypothesis in a laboratory experiment in which oxygen consumption of water fleas reared at three different temperatures for one year (12 ? 35 generations), were measured at three different experimental temperatures. My results show that the animals from the coldest rearing temperature (10 °C) had the highest metabolism at all three experimental temperatures (10, 17 and 25 °C), compared with animals reared at higher temperatures (17 and 25 °C). Elevated metabolism in animals from cold environment is consistent with the metabolic cold adaptation hypothesis. The present study does however not provide conclusive evidence that clone-specific variation in thermal performance has a genetic basis. Organisms may adjust their thermal reaction norms as a response to the thermal regime in which they live through three mechanisms: acclimation, epigenetic effects and evolution, and these could not be distinguished in experimental design used here.
Analysis of Soil Moisture Changes in Europe during a Single Growing Season in a New ECMWF Soil Moisture Assimilation System

Abstract This study aims at stimulating the development of soil moisture data assimilation systems in a direction where they can provide both the necessary control of slow drift in operational NWP applications and support the physical insight in the performance of the land surface component. It addresses four topics concerning the systematic nature of soil moisture data assimilation experiments over Europe during the growing season of 2000 involving the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) model infrastructure. In the first topic the effect of the (spinup related) bias in 40-yr ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-40) precipitation on the data assimilation is analyzed. From results averaged over 36 European locations, it appears that about half of the soil moisture increments in the 2000 growing season are attributable to the precipitation bias. A second topic considers a new soil moisture data assimilation system, demonstrated in a coupled single-column model (SCM) setup, where precipitation and .
Evaluating Benthic Macroinvertebrate Fauna and Water Quality of Suleymanli Lake (Buldan-Denizli) in Turkey

Benthic macroinvertebrate samples were taken seasonally from October 2006 to April 2008 except winter seasons with the aim of evaluate macroinvertebrate fauna and water quality of Suleymanli Lake. In total, 61 benthic macroinvertebrate taxa were found and 40 of them are new records for the lake. Chandler Score and Shannon-Weiner Diversity Index provided more compatible data than Revised Biological Monitor- ing Working Party, Extended Trent Biotic Index and Belgian Biotic Index with physical-chemical results. Also, Principle Component Analysis was carried out to establish associations between benthic macroin- vertebrates and environment variables. In our study, the lake water quality was determined as moderately polluted. Obtained environmental variables from water samples showed that the temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH, total dissolved solids and electrical conductivity are the most important parameters in ex- plaining the macroinvertebrate community variation in the lake.
Career education that works: an economic analysis using the British Cohort Study

Abstract There is significant policy interest in the issue of young people’s fractured transitions into the labour market. Many scholars and policy-makers believe that changes in the education system and labour market over recent decades have created a complex world for young people; and that this can partly be addressed by enhanced career education while individuals are at school. However, the literature lacks in-depth quantitative analysis making use of longitudinal data. This paper draws on the British Cohort Study 1970 to investigate the link between career talks by external speakers and employment outcomes, and finds some evidence that young people who participated in more career talks at age 14–16 enjoyed a wage premium 10 years later at age 26. The correlation is statistically significant on average across all students who receive talks at age 14–15; but remains the case for 15–16 year olds only if they also described the talks as very helpful.
DEVELOPMENTS IN WEAR MAPS AS MACHINING OPTIMISATION TOOLS

Tool wear maps can be a diagnostic instrument for failure analysis. This paper presents a summary of the recent developments of wear maps and experimental results from the milling of a Ti6Al4V benchmark component. This forms the foundation of understanding the cutting demands on the tools, in order to analyze the main wear mechanisms. Remedial actions are integrated via this understanding of the failure modes and related mechanisms. These maps present wear data in a graphical manner and are able to provide a more global picture of how materials behave during cutting. In tool wear maps there is a region where the rate of wear is at its lowest, called the safe zone. The presence of this safe zone suggests that it may be possible to select the machining parameters so that a machinist can operate with the lowest amount of tool wear, without compromising the level of productivity desired. Some thoughts on future directions for research in this area are also discussed.
From transfers to capital: analyzing the Spanish demand for wealth using NTA

Inter- and intra-family transfers are a very important part of our daily economic activity. These transfers, whether familial or public, may influence our economic decisions to the same extent that financial markets do. In this paper, we seek to understand how the Spanish stock of capital will evolve if the set of intergenerational transfers observed in year 2000 are maintained in the future. With that aim in mind, we have implemented a general equilibrium overlapping generations model with realistic public and familial transfers drawn from the National Transfer Accounts project (NTA). Given that familial transfers go from parents to children, and public transfers go from children to parents, we show that the Spanish baby boom and baby bust will make the second demographic dividend temporary, and that welfare will be reduced from 2040 onwards.
The Role of Religious Orientation in the Business Performance of Women Owned Firms: A Preliminary Study in Malaysia Halal Food Industry

This paper examines the relationship between religious orientation and firm performance for women and men-owned small medium firms in the Malaysia halal food industry. In this preliminary study, results indicate that religious orientation variable had a positive impact on the business performance of men and women-owned firms. The relationship was investigated using Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient. There was a weak, positive correlation between the two variables. An independent samples t-test was conducted to compare the religious orientation scores for males and females. There was a significant difference in scores for males and females. These findings suggest that the growth aspirations for women-owned firms may be driven by factor other than religious orientation as compared to men-owned firms.
Supervised and non-supervised AE data classification of nanomodified CFRP during DCB tests

Aim of the paper is to use acoustic emissions to study the effect of electrospun nylon 6,6 Nanofibrous mat on carbon-epoxy composites during Double Cantilever beam (DCB) tests. In order to recognize the effect of the nanofibres and to detect different damage mechanisms, k-means clustering of acoustic emission signals applied to rise time, count, energy, duration and amplitude of the events is used. Supervised neural network (NN) is then applied to verify clustered signals. Results showed that clustered acoustic emission signals are a reliable tool to detect different damage mechanisms; neural network showed the method has a 99% of accuracy.
Characteristics of firms that issue concise financial reports in Australia

This study represents quantitative replication research in the area of summarised annual reporting in Australia. It investigates the characteristics of 176 publicly listed Australian firms and through both univariate and multivariate analyses finds that firm size and shareholder dispersion are significant determinants of firms that voluntarily choose to issue Concise Financial Reports (CFRs). Given the nature of summarised reporting the implications of these findings are important for preparers, users, professional and regulatory bodies and academics. If the CFR is the only formal communication between large complex companies (Whittred, 1987) and large numbers of individual shareholders it is essential that relevant information is not merely summarised but represents complete, comparable and effectively communicated financial information.
On the Predictive Power of Sentiment - Why Institutional Investors are Worth Their Pay

We use a unique dataset of private and institutional investors' sentiments to describe their forecasting behavior and to develop a trading strategy based on sentiment. We show that professional analysts are indeed able to forecast future price movements in the medium term (about 6 months in advance). Private investors are not skilled at predicting price movements; we even find evidence that suggests that their sentiment may be a contra indicator. Neither institutional nor private investors can correctly forecast returns a month in advance. It seems that for this kind of short-term prediction, private and institutional investors heavily rely on the past weeks' and months' returns. Applying our trading strategy on out-of-sample data, delivers mixed results. We conclude that institutional investors' sentiment is useful when forecasting returns, especially in respect of their home market.
Resistance to 3 rd generation cephalosporin of Escherichia coli isolated from the feces of healthy broilers chickens in Algeria

High resistance of Escherichia coli have been demonstrated to 3rd generation cephalosporin in livestock, especially in broiler chickens; however, data on emission sources of these bacteria into Algeria are still rare. From January to March 2014, a preliminary epidemiological study of E. coli contamination in healthy broiler chicken flocks was carried out in the regions of Tlemcen, Algeria. 21 E. coli resistant isolates were examined to 3rd generation cephalosporin antibiotics (ceftriaxone, ceftazidime and cefotaxime). The antimicrobial susceptibility was determined by disk diffusion, and the MICs were determined by agar dilution method with Antibiogram Committee of the French Society for Microbiology (CA-SFM) 2013 guidelines. All strains were resistant to ceftriaxone and cefotaxime referring to CA-SFM, Antibiogram Committee of the French Society for Microbiology (EUCAST), and Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI). However, the resistance rate of ceftazidime is different according to the breakpoints criteria used; the susceptibility result of CA-SFM and EUCAST is similar for each farm. Farm B 50% of E. coli was resistant and 50% was susceptible, and 21% was susceptible and 79% was resistant for the farm C. However, comparing these two with CLSI, all strains were susceptible to ceftazidime.
Developing a Catalog of Socio-Sexual Behaviors of Beluga Whales ( Delphinapterus leucas ) in the Care of Humans

The repertoire of socio-sexual and sexual behaviors of cetaceans is relatively unknown. The purpose of the current study was to advance the existing knowledge of socio-sexual behavior of beluga whales through the development of a behavioral catalog that lists the full repertoire of sexual and socio-sexual behaviors. A behavioral catalog was developed initially from 800 hours of observations, collected across a 7-year period from 11 belugas ranging in age (birth to 30+ years), sex, and social.
Adaptation and validation of the Beliefs about Medicines Questionnaire (BMQ) in primary care patients in Greece

Objective: Cultural adaptation and validation of the Beliefs about Medicines Questionnaire in Primary Health Care patients in Greece. Methods: For the assessment of the psychometric properties of the Greek version of the Beliefs about Medicines Questionnaire, 150 chronic patients visiting primary healthcare settings throughout the island of Crete, Greece, were recruited. They all completed both BMQ-general and BMQ-specific scales of the BMQ version which was previously culturally adapted and translated into the Greek language. Results: The subscales of the Beliefs about Medicines Questionnaire demonstrated adequate internal consistency with Cronbach’s alphas of 0.852 for Specific Necessity, 0.763 for Specific Concern, 0.784 for General Harm and 0.676 for General Overuse. On both parts of the BMQ, the inter-item correlations were found to be sufficient. Factor analysis revealed identical patterns for all questions between the Greek and the original scales. Conclusion: The Greek Version of the Beliefs about Medicines Questionnaire is a valid and reliable instrument for evaluating patients’ beliefs about medicines in primary healthcare in Greece. Further research is needed in order to study the relationship between beliefs about medication and non-adherence to medications.
Inter-nesting distribution of flatback turtles Natator depressus and industrial development in Western Australia

Offshore interactions of inter-nesting flatback turtles Natator depressus with resource industry activities are potentially frequent, yet the associated impact is largely unquantified. Con- sequently, there is a need to understand the degree of interaction and to provide data that can assist with effective conservation and management. We used satellite tracking to highlight the potential interaction of inter-nesting flatback turtles (n = 56) from 4 rookeries in Western Australia with regional resource industry activities. Flatback turtles demonstrated varying inter-nesting movements, with displacement distances ranging from 3.4 to 62.1 km. Some turtles at all 4 rook- eries remained <10 km from the nesting beach. Core home range areas for inter-nesting flatback turtles ranged from 1.4 to 601.1 km 2 . The proportion of core home range areas for Thevenard and Barrow Island turtles that overlapped offshore petroleum title areas was 85.7 and 88.6%, respec- tively. The proportion of median daily positions that overlapped petroleum title areas was also high, 80.8% (Thevenard) and 87.3% (Barrow). There was no overlap of home range areas and median daily positions with petroleum title areas for Mundabullangana and Port Hedland turtles, although some inter-nesting movements of Port Hedland turtles were in close proximity to a pro- posed port expansion. The wide-ranging inter-nesting movement patterns highlight a need for the Australian Government and industry to expand the scope of Environmental Impact Assessments, ensuring adequate protection is provided to inter-nesting flatback turtles. The similar nearshore inter-nesting movement pattern recorded by some flatback turtles at each rookery provides an opportunity to establish boundaries for small-scale spatial and temporal protection measures.
Optimal sampling rates for approximating analytic functions from pointwise samples

We consider the problem of approximating an analytic function on a compact interval from its values at $M+1$ distinct points. When the points are equispaced, a recent result (the so-called impossibility theorem) has shown that the best possible convergence rate of a stable method is root-exponential in $M$, and that any method with faster exponential convergence must also be exponentially ill-conditioned at a certain rate. This result hinges on a classical theorem of Coppersmith & Rivlin concerning the maximal behaviour of polynomials bounded on an equispaced grid. In this paper, we first generalize this theorem to arbitrary point distributions. We then present an extension of the impossibility theorem valid for general nonequispaced points, and apply it to the case of points that are equidistributed with respect to (modified) Jacobi weight functions. This leads to a necessary sampling rate for stable approximation from such points. We prove that this rate is also sufficient, and therefore exactly quantify (up to constants) the precise sampling rate for approximating analytic functions from such node distributions with stable methods. Numerical results -- based on computing the maximal polynomial via a variant of the classical Remez algorithm -- confirm our main theorems. Finally, we discuss the implications of our results for polynomial least-squares approximations. In particular, we theoretically confirm the well-known heuristic that stable least-squares approximation using polynomials of degree $N < M$ is possible only once $M$ is sufficiently large for there to be a subset of $N$ of the nodes that mimic the behaviour of the $N$th set of Chebyshev nodes.