Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Defining and Measuring Ecosystem Services

The term ‘ecosystem services’ can mean different things to different people. On the one hand this is an advantage, because it can engage people in new conversations about the importance of biodiversity and the environment. In this sense ‘ecosystem services’ might be thought of as a boundary object, that is, an idea that can be adapted to represent different perspectives while retaining some sense of continuity across these different viewpoints (Abson et al., 2014; see also Briefing Note 7.1). On the other, that multi-faceted characteristic is a disadvantage once we come to measure and monitor these things called services: if we cannot agree what they are then people will not believe what is said about them or act on the evidence we collect. These problems of definition are amplified once we start to make a case for valuing or managing ecosystem services (see for example, Ojea et al., 2012) – that is, to apply the concept in a normative way. This Handbook demonstrates the different ways that people think about ecosystem services; it is, in fact, a microcosm of the wider literature on the topic. Many authors start, quite legitimately, with the definition provided by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA, 2005) which describes them simply as the benefits that ecosystems provide to people. In contrast, others follow the guide of TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity), which views them as the direct and indirect contributions of ecosystems to human well-being (De Groot et al. 2010). Services, in other words, give rise to benefits; they are not the same thing. Despite these differences, however, both regard ecosystem services and goods as being synonymous. To add complexity to the debate, it is apparent that not all frame the idea in this way. The UK National Ecosystem Assessment (Mace et al., 2011), for example, suggests that it is ‘goods’ and ‘benefits’ that are one and the same, and that it is ‘services’ that are quite distinct (see also Mace et al., 2012; Mace, 2016). So what’s the problem with all these different perspectives? In a sense, we all know what people are ‘getting at’, namely the importance that nature has for people. The difficulty lies in the fact that if we want to understand how ecosystems provide benefits to people, we need a way of characterising the ecological structures and processes and ecosystem characteristics that underpin them in ways that can be analysed. The aim of this chapter is to take the reader on a journey through the terminology surrounding the idea of ecosystem services, not to convince that there is a single, consistent way of thinking about them, but to provide a guide through a complex, and at times, puzzling terrain. 3 DEFINING AND MEASURING ECOSYSTEM SERVICES
Dephenolization of Olive Mill Wastewater by Pellets of Some White Rot Fungi

Pınar Aytar, Serap Gedikli, Meltem Çelikdemir, Süleyman Uzuner, Burhanettin Farizoğlu, Mesut Şam, Ahmet Çabuk , Necdet Sağlam Eskişehir Osmangazi University, Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Eskişehir, Turkey Balıkesir University, Environmental Engineering Department, Engineering Architecture Faculty, Balıkesir, Turkey Aksaray University, Faculty of Arts and Science, Department of Biology, Aksaray, Turkey Eskişehir Osmangazi University, Faculty of Arts and Science, Department of Biology, Eskişehir, Turkey Hacettepe University, Institute of Science, Department of Nanotechnology and Nanomedicine, Beytepe, Ankara, Turkey
An Investigation of the Efficiency of Portfolio Investors' Behavior

This study examines whether a contrarian investment strategy, implying simultaneously buying previous shares, which had the lowest performance (losers) for a specified period and selling shares that have increased yields (winners) over the same period, works in the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE). The study is based on monthly data from a sample of 156 shares of companies listed on the Athens Stock Exchange for the 01/01/2000-01/06/2009 period. The empirical results differ seriously from period to period. Overall, research results do not lead to a conclusion while in certain cases show contradictory conclusions depending on the period under examination. It is also proved that the achievement of irregular yields, by adopting a contrarian investment strategy, is possible in a period when the Index show loses rather than profits.
Development of an in vitro screening test to evaluate the in vivo bioaccessibility of ingested mine-waste lead

A screening-level in vitro test was developed to evaluate the relative solubility of ingested lead (Pb) from different mine wastes in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. The in vitro method, modeled after assay methods for available iron from food, used a laboratory digestion procedure designed to reproduce GI tract chemistry and function. The in vitro method was independently calibrated against a rabbit feeding study, demonstrating that only 1-6% of the total Pb in four mine-waste samples with disparate Pb mineralogy was bioaccessible. In vitro method development tests indicated that H + concentration and Cl - compleration control dissolution of Pb-bearing minerals in the stomach and that both GI tract enzymes and organic acids are necessary to maintain Pb in the soluble form on entering the small intestine
I Just Ran Four Million Regressions

In this paper I try to move away from the Extreme Bounds method of identifying" Instead of analyzing the" extreme bounds of the estimates of the coefficient of a particular variable distribution. My claim in this paper is that, if we do this, the picture emerging from the" empirical growth literature is not the pessimistic Robust" that we get with the" extreme bound analysis. Instead, we find that a substantial number of variables can be found" to be strongly related to growth.
Performance of Kohonen Self-organising Map in Statistical Analysis of Hydrologic Data

The statistical characteristics of a hydrological data for the purposes of decision making in water resource planning and management is only justifiable if the data has the right attributes. This requires that the data being analysed are consistent, free of trend and being part of a stochastic process whose random characteristics is described by an appropriate distribution hypothesis. The data available for statistical analysis had a lot of missing values which could not be ordinarily filled but required a more comprehensive approach to fill these missing values. The KSOM (Kohonen Self-organising Map) was used to fill the missing runoff data from the Jidere-Bonde, Lokoja and Makundi river sites in the Niger basin. Results from the studies have shown that KSOM is the best tool for filling hydrological data with high number of missing values. After the data had been processed, some statistical applications were used to establish the runoff time-series characteristics of the three river sites of the Niger River basin. The results showed good attributes for all three river sites, except that Jidere River’s data exhibited inconsistency. The presence of trend was also established for all three river sites; Jidere River was modelled based on 3-parameter lognormal, the other two river sites were modelled based on normal distribution probability. The presence of trend and other attributes require that a more stochastic modelling process be carried out. However, the results established give reference for water resource planning and management.
Design of 900 MHz SiGe Power Amplifier with Linearization Bias Circuit

A single stage 900MHz power amplifier (PA) with linearization bias circuit is designed with HHNEC 0. 5μm BIS500G power SiGe BiCMOS process. It is implemented by single-ended common emitter structure as a class AB power amplifier. The adopted active bias circuit is originally explained by using two virtue current sources, so that the mechanism of the improvement of linearity can be described more clearly. Then the mechanism is applied to guide the design of a power amplifier with an active bias circuit, which shows better linearity than resistor biased power amplifier by simulation. Through further design and measurement, the fabricated single stage power amplifier exhibits output power 1 dB compression point (OP1dB) of 18.9 dBm, with power added efficiency (PAE) of 26.75% and power gain of 20.9 dB under 3.3V voltage supply.
A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF BUPIVACAINE AND FENTANYL V/s BUPIVACAINE AND BUTORPHANOL IN LABOUR ANALGESIA BY EPIDURAL TECHNIQUE

BACKGROUND: Pain is a subjective experience with sensory and emotional components that are inextricably linked to each other. Pain during labour is very intense for many mothers. Severe labour pains may adversely affect both mother and fetus. Variety of regional analgesia techniques are available, Of all these techniques epidural analgesia using local anaesthetics and opiates has gained popularity as a safe and effective technique of pain relief largely replacing other modalities. AIM: The present study was undertaken to compare bupivacaine and fentanyl with a combination of bupivacaine and butorphanol by intermittent bolus epidural technique in relieving pain during labour. DESIGN: Randomized control study. METHODS: A total number of 100 parturients studied were divided into two groups randomly. Group-1: received a combination of Bupivacaine and Fentanyl. The initial bolus dose was 0.1% Bupivacaine 10ml with 2mcg/ml [20mcg] of Fentanyl and top up doses were 0.1% Bupivacaine with Fentanyl 2mcg/ml [10ml]. Group-2: This Group received a combination of Bupivacaine and Butorphanol. The initial bolus dose was 0.1% Bupivacaine 10ml with 0.01% of Butorphanol [1mg] and top up doses were with 0.1% Bupivacaine [10ml]. Maternal blood pressure, pulse rate, fetal heart rate were monitored every 1-2 min for first 10 min and then every 5-10 min for subsequent 30 min and later every half an hour. Time of onset of analgesia, level of sensory blockade and motor blockade, if any was noted. VISUAL ANALOGUE PAIN SCALE [VAPS] assessed pain at different time intervals. The sedation was assessed by WILSON GRADING, BROMAGE SCALE assessed the motor blockade. RESULTS: The onsets of analgesia were quicker in group-1 parturients who received 0.1% bupivacaine with 0.0002% fentanyl. The duration of analgesia with the 1st dose was significantly more in the group-2 also the requirement of top up doses was also less in group-2 and also the quality in group-2 was superior. There was no significant increase in the requirement of instrumentation, surgical intervention in both the groups. Neonatal outcome was good and almost equal in both the groups without any respiratory depression even with addition of low dose butorphanol by epidural route. CONCLUSION: From this study it may be concluded that using a combination of 0.1% Bupivacaine with 1mg Butorphanol during epidural analgesia for labour provides excellent pain relief, prolonged duration of action with simultaneously decreasing the top-ups required, thereby reducing the total local anesthetic requirement compared to 0.1% bupivacaine with 0.0002% fentanyl [20mcg]
Sediment supply and relative size distribution effects on fine sediment infiltration into immobile gravels

We present results and analyses from flume experiments investigating the infiltration of sand into immobile clean gravel deposits. Three runs were conducted, each successive run with the same total sediment feed volume, but a 10‐fold increase in sand feed rate. The highest sand feed rate produced less sand infiltration into the subsurface deposits than the other two runs, which had approximately equivalent amounts of sand infiltration. Experimental data, combined with simple geometric relations and physical principles, are used to derive two relations describing the saturated fine sediment fraction in a gravel deposit and the vertical fine sediment fraction profile resulting from fine sediment infiltration. The vertical fine sediment fraction profile relation suggests that significant sand infiltration occurs only to a depth equivalent to a few median grain diameters of the bed material.
Retinotopic Preservation in Deep Belief Network Visual Learning

One of the foremost characteristics of the mammalian visual system is the retinotopic mapping observed in the low-level visual processing centres; the spatial pattern of activation in the lateral geniculate nucleus and primary visual cortex corresponds topologically to the pattern of light falling on the retina. Various vision systems have been developed that take advantage of structured input such as retinotopy, however these systems are often not biologically plausible. Using a parsimonious approach for implementing retinotopy, one that is based on the biology of our visual pathway, we run simulations of visual learning using a deep belief network (DBN). Experiments show that we can successfully produce receptive fields and activation maps typical of the LGN and visual cortex respectively. These results may indicate a possible avenue of exploration into discovering the workings of the early visual system (and possibly more) on a neuronal level.
Stability Analysis of Bean Yields of Arabica Coffee Genotypes across Different Environments

An evaluation of stability of thirty Arabica coffee genotypes was carried out across different environments. The interaction of genotype by environment (G x E) across the different environments was highly significant. Both heterogeneity of regression and pooled deviation mean square from regression were highly significant. On this basis stability analysis was done using regression and AMMI models. On the basis of the analyses, different sets of genotypes were found as stable by the two models. Genotypes 7803A and 7803B, which were at the 13 th and 14 th ranks from thirty genotypes, were found as stable by the regression model. On the other hand genotypes 8143, 75187B and 8019, which were at the second, third and seventh ranks, were found as stable by the AMMI model. The discrepancy noticed in the two models in indicating the stable genotypes was largely attributed to their differences in accounting the interaction sum of squares. The result of the study is considered as one remarkable success in the history of Arabica coffee research as identifying stable genotype for multi-locations / diverse environments has long been a major challenge and in practice able for decades.
Comparison of sea surface microlayer and subsurface water bacterial communities in the Baltic Sea

Sea surface microlayer (SML) and underlying subsurface water (SSW) bacterial communities from the Baltic Sea were studied using culturing, flow cytometry and terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP). Dissolved organic matter (DOM) of water samples was determined using high performance liquid size-exclusion chromatography and by measuring dissolved organic carbon. Cadmium, copper, lead and mercury were also measured from the water samples. Two methods were compared for SML sampling: metal screen (MS) and polycarbonate membranes (PCM). All sampling sites were located in the Archipelago Sea off the southwest coast of Finland. The hypothesis was that because of its unique features, such as accumulation of nutrients and pollutants and being unshaded from UV-radiation, the SML would support a different bacterial community to that of SSW. T-RFLP profiles showed differences between the bacterial community compositions of SML and SSW at most sampling sites. In addition, temporal and sampling-site-dependent differences were observed. There were no significant differences in DOM in SML and SSW samples. In most cases, the number of bacteria was slightly higher in the SML than in SSW. No significant cytotoxicity was observed in any of the water samples. Since no temporal trends were obvious, our results suggest that, although bacterial communities in the SML Archipelago Sea differ to some extent from the ones living in SSW, SML is a dynamic environment where bacterial communities possibly develop originally from bacterioplankton and change over time.
Effects of salinity on diel vertical migration behavior in two red-tide algae, Chattonella antiqua and Karenia mikimotoi

We examined the effects of salinity on diel vertical migration (DVM) of two coastal flagellates, Chattonella antiqua and Karenia mikimotoi, in 90-cm-high columnar aquariums. Experiments were performed with surface sa- linities from 5 to 32 and bottom salinity constant at 32. Cells of each flagellate were injected into the bottom of the aquarium at night and the vertical distribution of cells was monitored every 4 h for 36 h in one series of experiments, or twice daily (day and night) for 5 days in another. Ascent and descent started at approximately the same time in all water columns, indicating that difference in surface salinity does not substantially affect DVM rhythm in the two flagellates. During daytime, C. antiqua and K. mikimotoi transited haloclines with surface salinities ≥ 15 and accumu- lated at the surface, although K. mikimotoi required 2 days to transit the halocline with surface salinity of 20 and 4 days for surface salinity of 15. However, neither flagellate could transit haloclines with surface salinities of 5 or 10; instead they accumulated in the halocline during daytime. At night, most cells of both species accumulated at the bot- tom in all water columns, although the distribution of K. mikimotoi gradually expanded to the upper layers on succes- sive days when surface salinity was 5 or 10. We demonstrated that low salinity in the surface layer blocks upward mi- gration in two flagellate species and delays surface accumulation and weakens population synchrony of DVM at night in K. mikimotoi.
The Weinstein-Yildiz Critique and Robust Predictions with Arbitrary Payoff Uncertainty ∗

Weinstein and Yildiz (2007b) show that under a richness assumption which relaxes all common-knowledge restrictions on payoffs, every rationalizable action of every (finite) type can be selected as a uniquely rationalizable action by perturbing the higher-order beliefs (the structure theorem). Consequently, types with uniquely rationalizable actions are generic in the universal type space (generic uniqueness). This WY critique implies that (i) a prediction for a given type is robust (for a neighborhood of the type) if and only if it consists of all rationalizable actions for that type; (ii) selecting a prediction from the rationalizable actions is either ad hoc or unnecessary. However, their richness assumption rules out prominent applications in economic models and thus undermines their critique. In this paper, we provide an algorithm that characterizes all selections from and all robust predictions of rationalizable actions without relying on any richness assumption. By invoking the characterization, we delineate the boundary of the WY critique by further characterizing the structure theorem as well as generic uniqueness from the primitives. We also use economic examples such as Cournot competition and auctions to illustrate our approach.
Investigation of the Effects of Electron Translational Nonequilibrium on Numerical Predictions of Hypersonic Flow Fields

In the present study, ight regimes of hypersonic vehicles are identi ed in which the lack of thermal equilibrium between the vibrational-electronic and the electron translational energy modes plays an important role in the determination of the ow eld character. The e ect of the nonequilibrium of the electron translational and vibrational-electronic modes on the ow eld parameters of interest such as plasma density, electron temperature, and radiative heat ux is quanti ed. Additionally, the importance of the selection of the controlling temperature when modeling the ionization source terms in the ow eld equations is investigated. The RAM-C II and Stardust vehicles and their associated missions are used as test cases. At the ight conditions investigated in this study, it appears that signi cant di erences in the prediction of electron number density and temperature exist mainly for the lower energy, RAM-C II ight conditions. At the higher energy Stardust ight conditions, the di erences in both the electron properties and the predicted radiation spectra are generally small between the electron equilibrium and nonequilibrium simulation results. The results of this study indicate that the selection of controlling temperature is important when modeling the associative ionization and reverse dissociative recombination reactions at these ight conditions.
How large is the compensating wage differential for R&D workers?

The aim of this paper is to measure the extent to which lower wages in R&D functions reflect a preference effect. In contrast to the bulk of the literature on compensating wage differentials that compares wage levels of jobs with different attributes, we constructed measures of willingness to accept (WTA) and pay (WTP) for R&D jobs using the Contingent Valuation technique. Earnings regressions using OLS show an R&D wage penalty of about 3.5%. However, hedonic OLS regressions of WTA and WTP give significant relative preference parameters for R&D jobs that range from 0.19 to 0.22.
SOCIAL DYNAMICS OF MARITAL DISSOLUTION AMONG ETHNO-ENDOGAMOUS MARRIAGES IN CONTEMPORARY NIGERIAN SOCIETY: THE YORUBA EXAMPLE

This study examines the inter-generational trend and various determinants of marital dissolution by separation or divorce among ever married women in the contemporary Yoruba society, using Osun State, Nigeria as the study location. A triangulated research design was utilised to achieve the objectives of the study. Specifically, cross-sectional survey (CSS), key-informant interview (KII) and in-depth interview (IDI) methods of data collection were adopted in the design to generate both quantitative and qualitative data. The findings of the study reveal inter-generational increase in marital dissolution. In addition, the study reveals significant interplay of three factors (personal, spousal and parental) as significant background determinants of marital dissolution in the study location. Based on the findings of the study, it has been recommended that early marriage, couple living in separate apartments and polygyny should be discouraged in order to promote stable nuptial relationships in the study location.