Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Converting forests into rubber plantations weakened the soil CH4 sink in tropical uplands

Large‐scale conversion of natural forest to rubber plantations has taken place for decades in Southeast Asia, help to make it a deforestation hot spot. Besides negative changes in biodiversity, ecosystem water, and carbon budgets, converting forests to plantations often reduced CH4 uptake by soils. The latter process, which might be partly responsible for resumed increase in the growth rate of CH4 atmospheric concentrations since 2006, has not been adequately investigated. We measured soil surface CH4 fluxes during 2014 and 2015 in natural forests and rubber plantations of different age and soil textures in Xishuangbanna, Southwest China—a representative area for this type of land‐use change. Natural forest soils were stronger CH4 sinks than rubber soils, with annual CH4 fluxes of −2.41 ± 0.28 and −1.01 ± 0.23 kg C ha−1 yr−1, respectively. Water‐filled pore space was the main factor explaining the differences between natural forests and rubber plantations, even reverting rubber soils temporarily from CH4 sink into a methane source during the rainy season in older plantations. Soil nitrate content was often lower under rubber plantations. Added as a model covariate, this factor improved explanation power of the CH4 flux—water‐filled pore space regression. Although soils under rubber plantation were more clayey than soils under natural forest, this was not the decisive factor driving higher soil moisture and lower CH4 uptake in rubber soils. Thus, the conversion of forests into rubber plantations exerts a negative impact on the CH4 balance in the tropics and likely contributes to global climate.
Sequential Latent Spaces for Modeling the Intention During Diverse Image Captioning

Diverse and accurate vision+language modeling is an important goal to retain creative freedom and maintain user engagement. However, adequately capturing the intricacies of diversity in language models is challenging. Recent works commonly resort to latent variable models augmented with more or less supervision from object detectors or part-of-speech tags. In common to all those methods is the fact that the latent variable either only initializes the sentence generation process or is identical across the steps of generation. Both methods offer no fine-grained control. To address this concern, we propose Seq-CVAE which learns a latent space for every word. We encourage this temporal latent space to capture the 'intention' about how to complete the sentence by mimicking a representation which summarizes the future. We illustrate the efficacy of the proposed approach on the challenging MSCOCO dataset, significantly improving diversity metrics compared to baselines while performing on par w.r. t. sentence quality.
The Association between Health-Related Fitness and Physical Activity during Weekdays: Do Fit Students Exercise More after School?

Physically active students are more likely to be fit and learn better in school than sedentary ones. For school-aged children, it is unclear whether physical fitness level is an important determinant for student’s activity afterschool. This study examined the association between health-related physical fitness test performance and afterschool physical activity during weekdays. Participants (n = 97, 11–13 years old) completed health-related fitness tests. They wore Actigraph GT3X accelerometers for five consecutive days, recording physical activity participation during after school hours. Descriptive statistics for both afterschool physical activity and health-related fitness were summarized. Regression analyses were conducted to determine the association between variables. Participants spent most of their afterschool hours participating in sedentary behaviors (274.27 ± 66.89 min) and light physical activity (73.68 ± 51.66 min), and only 11.35 ± 16.92 min of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), accumulating approximately 2058.52 ± 1690.56 steps each day afterschool. The regression model explained 22.8% of the variance in afterschool MVPA, and Progressive Aerobic Cardiovascular Endurance Run (PACER) scores were the only statistically significant predictor (β = 0.47, p < 0.01). Fit students do tend to exercise more after school. Promoting physical fitness in school is an important factor for students’ afterschool physical activity participation during weekdays.
The infantilization of intellectual disability and political inclusion: a pedagogical approach

The present paper looks at the way in which political and scientific frameworks, as well as everyday life dynamics work to exclude people living with intellectual disability (ID) in Romania from political life and how these dynamics could be overcome through crafting communicative-dialogic pedagogical interventions geared at political inclusion. I argue that the political exclusion of people with ID is built into the formal political order, as well as doubled by a twofold infantilizing dynamic. On the one hand, the scientific and academic psycho-pedagogical discourse still operates with classifications that inscribe people with ID with chronological “normal” ages inferior to their biological age. Their subject position is thus “fixed” at an age below the voting limited. This move is seconded by the way in which (formerly) institutionalized people with ID are referred to as “children” (despite their fully adult ages) in a small (post)institutional town, as well as in other care settings that I have explored ethnographically. Finally, the paper explores the stepping stones of alternative interventions, built on a communicative-dialogic methodology for politically including people with ID that could work to overcome the infantilizing dynamics.
Information and volatility linkages across energy and financial markets

This study examines information and volatility linkages across energy and financial markets. In a world economy so connected, the impacts of climate change are likely to be transmitted through interlinked global markets. Hence, uncovering and understanding the interaction across these markets is a fundamental concern during the energy transition as it helps to understand how to strengthen incentives to facilitate energy investments. Based on the relation between information flows and volatility, this study employs a simple correlation approach based on implied volatility measures and the trading model of Fleming et al. to measure the common information linkages, as gauged by the correlation of return volatilities. The results suggest that volatility linkages across these markets are strong due to common information sharing and cross-market hedging. JEL Classification: G12, G14
IMPLEMENTASI TEKNOLOGI FIREBASE PADA APLIKASI PENCARIAN LOKASI SERVICE KAMERA BERDASARKAN RATING BERBASIS ANDROID

Lokasi service kamera di Yogyakarta memang banyak dan beragam akan spesialisasinya. Masing-masing lokasi ada yang sudah terkenal dan memiliki nama, namun ada juga yang kurang dikenal tetapi memiliki kualitas yang baik dalam penanganannya. Bagaimana pelayanan mereka dalam menangani keluhan pelanggan merupakan faktor utama dalam membuat pelanggan merasa puas dan yakin untuk datang. Dalam penelitian sistem ini, digunakan teknologi Firebase. Firebase merupakan database NoSQL yang menyimpan data sebagaidokumen JSON sederhana (Firebase, 2015), sehingga penelitian ini tidak perlu membuat file php seperti pada penggunaan mySQL sebagai database. Penelitian ini akan membahas mengenai Aplikasi Pencarian Lokasi Service Kamera Berdasarkan Rating Berbasis Android. Implementasi dari penelitian ini memiliki fasilitas untuk menampilkan beberapa lokasi pencarian service kamera di wilayah Yogyakarta. Fungsionalitas dari penelitian ini adalah menampilkan profile lokasi seperti lokasi melalui Google MAPS, menghubungi langsung via Message, telepon seluler, dan e – mail serta pemberian rating terhadap lokasi tersebut. Kata kunci: Android, Firebase, NoSQL, service kamera
Behavioural approach to larval dispersal in marine systems

La plupart des organismes marins demersaux presentent une phase larvaire pelagique avant le recrutement dans la population adulte. Cet episode pelagique est souvent la seule opportunite de dispersion au cours du cycle de vie. De ce fait, il structure les connections entre populations, qui regissent la dynamique et la composition genetique des metapopulations benthiques. Cependant, ces "larves" ne sont pas de simples ebauches des adultes, dispersees au gre des courants en attendant leur metamorphose. Ce sont des organismes souvent tres specifiquement adaptes a leur milieu. Dans cette these nous nous sommes efforces d'evaluer l'impact du comportement des larves lors de la phase pelagique. Nous nous sommes focalises sur les larves de poissons (coralliens plus specifiquement) dont les capacites sensorielles et motrices sont particulierement elevees. Des approches experimentales ont ete developpees afin de quantifier leur orientation et leur nage in situ. Grâce a une observation synchrone des caracteristiques physiques du milieu et de la distribution des larves lors d'une campagne oceanographique, nous avons tente de caracteriser leur distribution en trois dimensions dans le milieu pelagique, afin de comprendre les interactions physico-biologiques determinant le recrutement. Enfin, une approche de modelisation novatrice, faisant appel a des concepts de minimisation des couts et de maximisation des benefices habituellement utilises en economie ou en theorie de l'approvisionnement optimal, a permis d'integrer le comportement des larves aux modeles Lagrangiens de dispersion
Unveiling International New Ventures’ Success: Employee’s Entrepreneurial Behavior

New international ventures have become an important and growing role in the economics of a country. However, it seems that the literature on international entrepreneurship has paid little attention to their employees and their contribution to the success of these firms in international markets. The employee may be a key point in explaining their rapid and fruitful international development, i.e., increasing the international entrepreneurial orientation of the company. Using case study methodology, this investigation aims to unveil the human resource management in international new ventures, complete previous models explaining these organizations, and contribute to a better understanding of their international success. The findings show that the entrepreneurs aim to foster employee entrepreneurial behavior by implementing certain human resource practices.
Accelerating Sparse Matrix Kernels on Graphics Processing Units

After microprocessor clock speeds have levelled off, gener al purpose computing on Graphics Processing Units (GPGPUs) has shown some promise for the future High Performance Computing (HPC). This can be largely attributed to the performance per unit co s , performance per unit watt and CUDA, a programming model for GPU. For instance, for under $400, one can buy a GPU that can deliver more than a TFLOP of computing power while requiring less than 250 W of power. It is therefore no surprise that 3 out of the top 5 supercomputers [71] use GPUs along with other computing elements. However, this comes at the expense of reinterpreting applic ations in a highly multithreaded manner. GPUs are good at exploiting massive data parallelism, and ar e well-suited for applications with regular memory access patterns and high arithmetic intensity. For s everal regular applications, this approach has been very successful [63, 48]. For example for dense matr ix multiplication GPUs can perform upto 838GFlops/s. However, most applications in high perfo rmance computing are irregular in nature. Examples include list ranking [81], graph algorithms [53], sparse matrix computations [22], among others. Viability of using GPUs for accelerating these irre gular workloads needs to be explored. In recent works, efforts are on to arrive at efficient implement ations of irregular algorithms on the GPUs [81, 6], and on other recent multi-core architectures such a s t e Cell [4, 59, 51]. In this thesis we first accelerate Lanczos method for large sp arse matrices, an algorithm for finding eigenvectors corresponding to least eigenvalues. We then u s this in accelerating two important applications namely spectral graph partitioning and image se gmentation. For these applications our GPU imlementation shows a speedup upto 2.9 and 3.27 respectivel y wh n compared to highly optimized Intel MKL library implementation on multi-core. We then investigate sparse matrix routines from sparse blas level 2 and level 3. The investigated routines include sparse matrix multiplied with a dense vect or / sparse matrix / dense matrix. Sparse Matrix Vector Multiplication (spmv) is the heart of many numerical computations and is notoriou s f r sustaining low fractions of peak performance. This operati on finds applications in solving system of linear equations, finding eigenvalues of a matrix to name a fe w. spmv becomes bottleneck in many of these methods.spmv performance is limited by the available memory bandwidth du e to the low computation per data accessed. spmv further suffers from the memory access and thread execution constraints posed by the gpu and also from load balancing amo ng threads. To address some of these challenges we proposed a run-time methodology to choose the rig t data structures to represent sparse matrices. Our methodology uses parameters that attempt to b alance the load amongst threads and also
The Gravity of Culture for Finance

Scholarship in finance has paid relatively little attention to the role of culture in financial decision-making compared to other business disciplines and economics. This paper will review what research has been done to date including a critical assessment of the key databases used to measure differences in cultural values. Notwithstanding the concerns with the measures of cultural values, I conduct an empirical analysis of the role of cultural distance for explaining the foreign bias in international portfolio holdings using traditional gravity models in international economics. I affirm the statistical explanatory power of culture for these investment biases and outline several new potential directions for research.
Temperance beyond Discipline: Considerations on the Functions of US Temperance Drama

The essay investigates the functions of representing the near destruction of nuclear family structures and values in nineteenth-century US temperance drama. The thesis underlying this investigation postulates that the embodiment of the quasi-wilful destruction of the nuclear family on stage gives expression to socially unacceptable desires of escaping that structure in the face of its oppressive potentials in antebellum middle-class society. Taking the text of the most prominent temperance play, The Drunkard, or The Fallen Saved (1844), as a point of departure, and amplifying it with readings of Ten Nights in a Bar-Room (1858) and Fifteen Years of a Drunkard’s Life (1828), the thesis assumes further that various instances of ambiguity and irony warrant an understanding of temperance plays as more than one-dimensional, didactic cautionary tales upholding given status-quo power structures. Basing itself on theoretical approaches from Cultural Studies, this thesis departs from the established interpretations of the genre as part of an ideological apparatus in tune with hegemonic imperatives of self-discipline mandated by an economy industrializing in the context of a mainstream culture determined by an Evangelical ethos. The essay first provides a historical, socio-political contextualisation of the development of the genre. What follows is an introduction of relevant precepts of Cultural Studies as formulated by John Fiske. The special focus of this theoretical lens lies on the interface of play text and the processes of encoding and decoding, excorporation and incorporation that result in ambiguous and conflicting interpretations of encoded messages. An analysis of character constructions as well as of sensationalized scenes depicting the main character’s personal downfall and decay with the concomitant damage to his family form the main part of the investigation. Keywords: temperance drama; antebellum literature; cultural studies; John Fiske; incorporation and excorporation; encoding and decoding
Research on the Migration of the Total Manganese during the Process of Water Icing

Our research focused on the migration law of the total manganese (TMn) during the process of water icing. We utilized two experimental methods: (1) natural icing and (2) simulated icing. While using laboratory simulation, we explored the effects of ice thickness, freezing temperature, and initial concentrations on the migration of TMn in the ice-water system. The distribution coefficient “K” (the ratio of the average concentration of TMn in the ice body to the average concentration of TMn in the under-ice water body) was used to characterize it. The results indicated that TMn continuously migrated from ice to under-ice water during the process of water icing. The concentration of TMn in the ice was the upper layer < middle layer < lower layer, and K decreases as the ice thickness, freezing temperature, and initial concentration increased. We explained the migration of TMn during the process of water icing from the perspective of crystallography. Our research can arouse other researcher’s attention towards the change of TMn concentration in lakes in high latitudes during the icebound period.
Challenges for Professional Development of Malaysian ESL Teachers

The paper aims to provide insights into the current understanding of the challenges faced by in-serviced primary school ESL teachers in completing their degree on a part-time basis. In relation to the government’s effort to improve the quality of primary education, many English language teachers have enrolled in the ‘Teacher’s First-degree program’ offered by the Ministry of Education. The participants of the program, somehow, face a number of challenges. As adult learners, the ESL teachers need to follow in doing the degree part time as all of them are full time teachers and teaching in different schools. Sociocultural theory of Lev Vygotsky provided the theoretical framework for this case study. This qualitative study explored the experiences of five in-service primary school English language teachers who were involved in the program. Semi-structured interviews were carried out to identify the challenges faced by the teachers in completing a primary school teacher’s first-degree program organized by the Ministry of Education (MOE). The main data generated from semi-structured interviews was analysed using thematic analysis approach. The findings revealed that job commitments, family commitments, health mental issue and time management are the main challenges faced by them. Exploring in-service primary school English teachers challenges in furthering their studies part-timely might give the Ministry of Education (MOE) consideration in understanding of language teachers’ selves and needs while pursuing their first degree. This research might also be helpful to investigate the current practices of the professional development of primary school English teachers in Malaysia.
Les microhabitats des arbres : facteurs d'influence, lien avec la biodiversité et potentiel indicateur

Un indicateur permet de mesurer des grandeurs ou des phenomenes trop compliques ou trop couteux a mesurer de maniere directe. Lorsqu’il s’agit de biodiversite, les indicateurs sont indispensables au regard de la complexite a avoir une image precise de l’etat et de la dynamique des especes. En foret, les microhabitats des arbres (e.g.cavites, fentes du bois, carpophores de champignons lignicoles) sont consideres comme des indicateurs potentiels de biodiversite, plus specifiques que des structures telles que le volume de bois mort total. Cependant, les references scientifiques etablissant le lien entre metriques de microhabitats et mesures de biodiversite restent rares, et ne concernent la plupart du temps qu’un seul groupe taxonomique. Plus largement, et a l’instar d’autres indicateurs, les microhabitats ne beneficient pas d’une demarche standardisee permettant de les valider en tant qu’indicateurs de biodiversite forestiere. Ce travail de these contribue a cette validation. Il s’articule autour de trois aspects entrant en compte dans la validation d’un indicateur, il s’est agi : (i) De quantifier et reduire les incertitudes sur les inventaires de microhabitats. A cette fin, une premiere typologie de reference a ete etablie, avec pour but de standardiser et d’homogeneiser les releves de microhabitats. Cette typologie adopte une structure hierarchique et evolutive, ce qui permet de l’utiliser dans differents contextes. Le biais potentiel lie aux observateurs a egalement ete quantifie, de maniere a pouvoir mieux le prendre en compte dans les futurs inventaires ;(ii) De mieux comprendre les facteurs d’influence des microhabitats aux deux echelles. A l’echelle de l’arbre, l’analyse d’un jeu de donnees national a permis de generaliser la relation entre caracteristiques individuelles des arbres (espece, diametre, vitalite) et le nombre et l’occurrence des microhabitats. A l’echelle de la parcelle forestiere, une analyse des densites et des types d’arbres porteurs de microhabitats sur un gradient elargi d’exploitation forestiere, comparant zones exploitees et non exploitees, a permis de mettre en evidence le role crucial des gros arbres et des arbres morts ; (iii) D’etablir le lien entre microhabitats et la diversite de trois groupes taxonomiques au travers d’une approche mobilisant le cadre analytique des modeles d’equations structurelles. Les microhabitats sont mediateurs de l’arret de l’exploitation et de structures typiques des vieilles forets (gros arbres vivants et morts) sur la biodiversite des chauves-souris et des oiseaux, et dans une moindre mesure des coleopteres saproxyliques. Au final, les microhabitats ne constituent pas un indicateur universel de biodiversite mais ont un role complementaire des autres structures forestieres traditionnellement utilisees pour decrire la biodiversite. Ce travail de these contribue a preciser leur potentiel indicateur et envisage des pistes de recherche permettant de continuer a valider leur role.
Compton Scattering Effects on the Spectral and Temporal Properties of Terrestrial Gamma‐Ray Flashes

Terrestrial gamma‐ray flashes (TGFs) are high‐energy photon bursts originating from the Earth's atmosphere. In this study, using first‐principles Monte Carlo simulations, we quantify the effects of Compton scattering on the temporal and spectral properties of TGFs induced by a tilted source geometry. Modeling results indicate that the source orientation is a critical parameter in TGF analysis but has been significantly underestimated in previous studies. Offset distance between the lightning source and satellite location cannot be used as a single parameter characterizing Compton scattering effects. In the tilted geometry, Compton scattering effects are more pronounced in the falling part of TGF pulses and can lead to an increase of the falling part of TGF pulses by several tens of microseconds. Moreover, by performing curve‐fitting analysis on simulated TGF light curves, we explain how the symmetric and asymmetric pulses measured by the Gamma‐Ray Burst Monitor on Fermi satellite are consistent with the Compton scattering effects. Fermi‐measured TGF pulses can be fully explained using Gaussian‐distributed TGF sources with an average duration of ∼206 μs.