Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
High frequency of albinism and tumours in free-living birds around Chernobyl

The effects of radioactive contamination on the phenotype of free-living organisms are poorly understood, mainly because of the difficulty of capturing the large numbers of individual specimens that are required to quantify rare events such as albinism and tumour formation. We hypothesized that the frequency of abnormalities like albinism and the frequency of radiation-induced diseases like cancer would increase with the level of background radiation, that the two markers of radiation would be positively correlated, and that the reduction in abundance of animals would be greater in species with a higher frequency of albinism and tumour formation, if these markers reliably reflected poor viability. Here we analyzed the frequency of albinistic feathers and tumours in a sample of 1669 birds captured during 2010–2012 at eight sites around Chernobyl that varied in level of background radiation from 0.02 to more than 200 Sv/h. We recorded 111 cases of partial albinism and 25 cases of tumour formation. Nominal logistic models were used to partition the variance into components due to species and background radiation. Radiation was a strong predictor of the two markers in birds, with a small, but significant effect of species for albinism. The slope of the relationship between abundance and radiation in different bird species was significantly inversely correlated with the frequency of albinism and tumours, as was to be expected if a common underlying cause (i.e. radiation) affects both variables. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that background radiation is a cause of albinism and tumours, that albinism and tumours are biomarkers of radiation exposure, and that high frequencies of albinism and tumours were present despite the low viability of birds with these conditions. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
University of

Existing literature has led to a consensus among researchers that the presence of user trust in a specific innovation will result in user's increased willingness to adopt that technology. However, there exists a lack of consensus on the specific factors contributing to users trust in a specific technology innovation. This study addresses this lack of consensus by identifying and empirically evaluating a set of antecedents to Nigerians’ trust mobile banking technology; using an integrative model. Research was conducted using a questionnaire developed and distributed in Nigeria and out of 2256 returned questionnaires, 1725 were deemed to have been completed and hence usable. The data was analysed using confirmatory factor analysis and the results showed that confidentiality, integrity, authentication, access control, best business practices and non-repudiation
A structural dynamic of form: Displacements in memory for the size of an angle

Memory for the angular size of a chevron (V) shaped target was examined in four experiments. When the target was stationary, memory was displaced inwards (i.e., towards a smaller angle), and the magnitude of displacement increased with increases in absolute angle size. When the target moved vertically or horizontally, memory was displaced inwards, but the effect of absolute angle size was weakened, and displacement was not influenced by whether the direction of motion and the direction in which the angle pointed were the same or different. When the target expanded or contracted (i.e., increased or decreased in angular size), memory for expanding targets was displaced inwards more than was memory for contracting targets, and displacement was not influenced by whether motion was coherent or incoherent. Implications of the data for the possibility of dynamic aspects of mental representation based on the shape of a stimulus are discussed.
Gun Policy, Opinion, Tragedy, and Blame Attribution: The Conditional Influence of Issue Frames

Political events and policy discussion set parameters for debate and help to determine how an issue comes to be defined. Though existing research has examined the effects of alternative representations of political issues on public opinion, less attention has been given to highly salient issues, such as gun policy, and the potential effect of framing on causal attributions of blame for tragic events. This study expands the framing research to include opinion on policies concerning guns as well as the attributions of blame following the school shooting in Littleton, Colorado. We test several hypotheses using data from two field polls-one examining support for concealed handgun laws and the other examining blame attribution following the shootings at Columbine High School. We find that alternative gun frames influence opinion about concealed handgun laws as well as attributions of blame for Columbine. However, the effect is conditional, hinging on the nature of respondents' predisposition and existing knowledge. We consider these findings within the context of the policy-making process.
Combining Geographic Information Systems and Regression Models to Generate Locational Value Residual Surfaces in the Assessment of Residential Property Values

Abstract Locational Value Residual Surface (LVRS) has been suggested as an alternative to resolving the difficulty in the traditional modelling of locational influence on property values in a particular area. The objective of this paper was to compare the relative performance of models that apply locational value residual surface (LVRS) and the traditional multiple regression models in the prediction of residential property values. A controlled sample of 125 single- and double-storey residential properties was used to construct regression models. It was found that models applying LVRS were marginally better than the traditional models in predicting property values.
Anaemia in Patients with Malignant Neoplasms

Objective: To evaluate anaemia in Egyptian patients with malignant neoplasms. Methods: This is a prospective study, involved 60 malignant neoplasms’ patients (30 males and 30 females) referred from Alexandria University Hospital and the Medical Research Institute in Alexandria for six months (from Jun. 1st to Dec. 30th, 2017). Results: Anaemia among solid tumors was higher than in hematological malignancies. Males showed higher anaemia with hematological malignancies while females showed higher anaemia with solid tumors. Common cancers with anaemia were GIT cancers, breast and leukemias. In males, common cancers with anaemia were GIT cancers, leukemias and lymphomas, while in females, breast cancers, GIT cancers and gynecological cancers. The common morphology of anaemia was normocytic normochromic followed by microcytic hypochromic pictures. The common grades of anaemia were grade 1 and 2, severe degree anaemia was in 21.7%. Anaemic patients with cancers showed significantly lower mean Hb, RBC count, Htc and MCHC, and significantly higher mean serum ferritin and B12 concentrations. Conclusion: This study concluded that anaemia is a common finding in cancer patients and attributed to increased RBCs destruction and cytokins mediated decreased production and recommended further studies.
Can General Purpose Technology Theory Explain Economic Growth? Electrical Power as a Case Study

Does the concept of General Purpose Technologies help explain periods of faster and slower productivity advance in economies? The paper develops a new comparative data set on the usage of electricity in the manufacturing sectors of the USA, Britain, France, Germany and Japan and proceeds to evaluate the hypothesis of a productivity bonus as postulated by many existing GPT models. Using the case of the diffusion of electrical power in the early twentieth century this paper shows that there was no generalized productivity boost from electrical power diffusion as postulated by many existing GPT models. The productivity gains from this GPT varied widely across economies and industries, suggesting that the power of GPTs to predict aggregate or sectoral growth is limited.
Comparison of carbon dioxide emissions for two landfill capping layers

Geosynthetics are commonly employed in landfill applications to provide containment in the capping layer, also referred to as a cover system. This paper presents a case study that compared the carbon dioxide emissions produced from a compacted clay landfill cap with one incorporating geosynthetics. The lifecycle analysis boundaries set for the case study were cradle to end-of-construction, and included all processes from sourcing of materials through to the end-of-construction. As-built data provided by contractors and manufacturers were used to calculate the carbon footprint of each solution and the comparison showed the geosynthetic solution to be more sustainable. However, deficiencies in standard database values revealed inconsistencies and a value for the embodied carbon of clay was calculated using primary data. The embodied carbon value calculated from the primary data was much lower than the one initially employed and hence made the clay solution more sustainable where materials were locally avail.
Effort-reward imbalance and work-home interference: a two-wave study among European male nurses

ABSTRACT This one-year follow-up study among 1,421 male nurses from seven European countries tested the validity of the Effort-Reward Imbalance (ERI) model in predicting prospective vital exhaustion and work-home interference. We hypothesised that effort and lack of reward would have both main and interactive effects on future outcomes. Results of structural equation modelling (SEM) showed that effort was positively related to exhaustion and work-home interference, both simultaneously and over time. Lack of reward predicted increased exhaustion at follow-up, but effort-reward imbalance did not influence the outcomes. Additionally, Time 1 exhaustion predicted increased work-home interference and exhaustion at follow-up. These results do not support the ERI model, which postulates a primacy of effort-reward imbalance over main effects. Instead, the findings are in line with dual path models of job stress and work-home interference. Multi-group SEM showed partial cross-cultural metric invariance for the ERI measure of effort, but the ERI measure of rewards showed no metric measurement invariance, indicating its meaning is qualitatively different across cultures. Nevertheless, the main conclusions were markedly similar for each national sub-sample. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our study.
Private Benefits, Block Transaction Premiums and Ownership Structure

A simple model shows that both price premiums and standardized block premiums (SBPs) are biased measures of private benefits because they do not account for the transfer of control effectively taking place with the block. This depends not only on the fractional size of the block, but on the whole distribution of shareholdings. We propose an alternative methodology to measure private benefits which makes it possible to weight the size of traded blocks on the basis of their strategic power. We apply our method to a sample of Italian block transactions and show that the traditional method underestimates control rents. The sensitivity of private benefits to net worth, leverage, and nonvoting shares is also examined. Finally, we show how to forecast the price of out-of-sample blocks of shares on the basis of information on company capital and ownership structure.
CBOW Is Not All You Need: Combining CBOW with the Compositional Matrix Space Model

Continuous Bag of Words (CBOW) is a powerful text embedding method. Due to its strong capabilities to encode word content, CBOW embeddings perform well on a wide range of downstream tasks while being efficient to compute. However, CBOW is not capable of capturing the word order. The reason is that the computation of CBOW's word embeddings is commutative, i.e., embeddings of XYZ and ZYX are the same. In order to address this shortcoming, we propose a learning algorithm for the Continuous Matrix Space Model, which we call Continual Multiplication of Words (CMOW). Our algorithm is an adaptation of word2vec, so that it can be trained on large quantities of unlabeled text. We empirically show that CMOW better captures linguistic properties, but it is inferior to CBOW in memorizing word content. Motivated by these findings, we propose a hybrid model that combines the strengths of CBOW and CMOW. Our results show that the hybrid CBOW-CMOW-model retains CBOW's strong ability to memorize word content while at the same time substantially improving its ability to encode other linguistic information by 8%. As a result, the hybrid also performs better on 8 out of 11 supervised downstream tasks with an average improvement of 1.2%.
Role of anthocyanins in highlight stress response

Anthocyanins are red-to-blue color non-photochemical active flavonoid pigments. Chemically dyes are low molecular weight secondary metabolites. Their distribution in plant cells is mainly limited to peripheral tissues and structures, such as upper mesophyll, exposed to strong light radiation and related to their function as screening pigments. The onset of synthesis and accumulation may be initiated in response to radiation that exceeds the ability of photosynthetic machinery to utilize absorbed energy as well as low temperature or sudden high light exposition. Dyes absorb the excess radiation reaching the plant, minimizing the risk of oxidative damage. We analysed anthocyanin role in light-stress alleviation of poinsettia leaves characterized by low (green leaf) and high accumulation of screening pigments (red leaf). Analyses allow assessing photosynthetic efficiency, chlorophyll and anthocyanin content and distribution of pigments in leaf blade. Better understanding of the anthocyanins function, synthesis and distribution as screening dyes may be crucial for selection of crop varieties characterized by increased anthocyanin accumulation. It may be beneficial as increased accumulation enhances light-stress resistance. Moreover, antioxidant properties and better pronounced coloration make fruits and vegetables more attractive to customers.
Unlocking Sustained Business Value from it Investments

Surveys continue to highlight that most senior business executives are dissatisfied with the value they believe their organizations are deriving from investments in information technology. What is often forgotten is that IT in itself has no inherent value. This value must be unlocked, and only business executives and users can do this. While most IT investments are usually accompanied by a technology implementation plan, few organizations ever construct a plan focused on realizing the business benefits. This article explores how organizations can unlock business value from their IT investments by adopting a two-stage view of implementation. This model distinguishes between "problem-based" interventions and "innovation-based" interventions. Unlocking business value from IT investments is a journey not a destination and this journey requires careful planning.
Phillipsite and Al-tobermorite mineral cements produced through low-temperature water-rock reactions in Roman marine concrete

Abstract Pozzolanic reaction of volcanic ash with hydrated lime is thought to dominate the cementing fabric and durability of 2000-year-old Roman harbor concrete. Pliny the Elder, however, in first century CE emphasized rock-like cementitious processes involving volcanic ash (pulvis) “that as soon as it comes into contact with the waves of the sea and is submerged becomes a single stone mass (fierem unum lapidem), impregnable to the waves and every day stronger” (Naturalis Historia 35.166). Pozzolanic crystallization of Al-tobermorite, a rare, hydrothermal, calcium-silicate-hydrate mineral with cation exchange capabilities, has been previously recognized in relict lime clasts of the concrete. Synchrotron-based X-ray microdiffraction maps of cementitious microstructures in Baianus Sinus and Portus Neronis submarine breakwaters and a Portus Cosanus subaerial pier now reveal that Al-tobermorite also occurs in the leached perimeters of feldspar fragments, zeolitized pumice vesicles, and in situ phillipsite fabrics in relict pores. Production of alkaline pore fluids through dissolution-precipitation, cation-exchange and/or carbonation reactions with Campi Flegrei ash components, similar to processes in altered trachytic and basaltic tuffs, created multiple pathways to post-pozzolanic phillipsite and Al-tobermorite crystallization at ambient seawater and surface temperatures. Long-term chemical resilience of the concrete evidently relied on water-rock interactions, as Pliny the Elder inferred. Raman spectroscopic analyses of Baianus Sinus Al-tobermorite in diverse microstructural environments indicate a cross-linked structure with Al3+ substitution for Si4+ in Q3 tetrahedral sites, and suggest coupled [Al3++Na+] substitution and potential for cation exchange. The mineral fabrics provide a geoarchaeological prototype for developing cementitious processes through low-temperature rock-fluid interactions, subsequent to an initial phase of reaction with lime that defines the activity of natural pozzolans. These processes have relevance to carbonation reactions in storage reservoirs for CO2 in pyroclastic rocks, production of alkali-activated mineral cements in maritime concretes, and regenerative cementitious resilience in waste encapsulations using natural volcanic pozzolans.
Adipocytokine Imbalance and Ghrelin in the Development of Insulin Resistance in Patients with Chronic Hepatitis C

The aim of this study was to determine the role of the most informative indicators of adipocytokine status and ghrelin in insulin resistance (IR) formation in chronic hepatitis C (CHC) patients at different stages of liver fibrosis. Materials and Methods: This study included 205 CHC patients with HCV genotypes 1 and 3. A comparative analysis of the laboratory parameters was carried out in a group of patients with IR (n=110) and without IR (n=95) and in patients depending on the stage of liver fibrosis. The serum levels of adipocytokines and ghrelin were determined using Bachem Group (USA) and Immundiagnostik AG (Germany) test systems with microplate reader Elx800 (FinBio, Finland). Diagnosis and assessment of the degree of fibrosis was performed by liver biopsy, liver elastometry and calculation test FibroTest. Results: Obtained data allow us to regard the decreased secretion of ghrelin, and increased production of leptin, resistin and TNF-α as a component involved in the formation of IR in CHC patients. (Int J Biomed. 2016;6(1):27-32. ).
Electrophoretic Deposition of Titanium Dioxide Thin Films for Photocatalytic Water Purification Systems

In this study, electrophoretic deposition (EPD) technique was used to deposit titanium dioxide (TiO2) thin films on conducting glass substrates for application in water purification from organic contaminants. Phenol was used as a model pollutant. The EPD suspension related parameters and deposition conditions were first optimized for good quality film deposits. The suspension stability and deposition conditions that result in good adherence of TiO2 particles to the substrate with homogeneous film coatings, is ethanol with a pH of 3.0, a TiO2 solid loading of 4.0 wt%, a 0.2 wt% iodine concentration in the solvent and a deposition voltage of 20.0V in a time of 210.0s. The photocatalytic activity of TiO2 thin films decreases exponentially with the ultraviolet light (UV) illumination time and it is also dependent on film thickness, sintering temperature and the intensity of the UV light. Highest rate of photocatalytic activity is observed at an optimal film thickness of 95.0 ± 2. 0µm sintered at 300.0°C. The implications of these results are discussed for design of inexpensive waste water purification systems for light industries before discharge into the ecosystem.
‘No county left behind?’ The distributional impact of high-speed rail upgrades in China

Infrastructure investment may reshape economic activities. In this article, I examine the distributional impacts of high-speed rail upgrades in China, which have improved passengers’ access to high-speed train services in the city nodes but have left the peripheral counties along the upgraded railway lines bypassed by the services. By exploiting the quasi-experimental variation in whether counties were affected by this project, my analysis suggests that the affected counties on the upgraded railway lines experienced reductions in GDP and GDP per capita following the upgrade, which was largely driven by the concurrent drop in fixed asset investments. This article provides the first empirical evidence on how transportation costs of people affect urban peripheral patterns.
Does Trophy Hunting Remain a Profitable Business Model for Conserving Biodiversity in Cameroon?

SUMMARY In Central Africa, trophy hunting constitutes an incentive-based approach for sustainable wildlife management. We collected data from the wildlife administration, safari hunting enterprises and local wildlife management committees, to provide an order of magnitude of the financial performance of this sector in Cameroon. In 2012, trophy hunting was likely to generate an annual turnover of € 7.5 million and its added value could amount to only 0.0001% of GDP although these hunting zones cover 12% of the national territory. The profit margin for professional guides had become negative, with a net annual profit around € −0.7 million. The severe crisis in the trophy hunting sector is mainly due to an increase in the management costs of the hunting zones and the diminishing price of hunting safaris. The State plays a crucial role in enhancing the financial attractiveness of trophy hunting by the restoration of security in the Northern region and by technical measures to (1) clarify the allocation process for hunting areas, (2) simplify regulations and (3) establish an incentives system for law enforcement at national and local levels.
In defense of external invalidity.

Many psychological investigations are accused of "failure to generalize to the real world" because of sample bias or artificiality of setting. It is argued in this article that such "generalizations" often are not intended. Rather than making predic- tions about the real world from the laboratory, we may test predictions that specify what ought to hap- pen in the lab. We may regard even "artificial" find- ings as interesting because they show what can occur, even if it rarely does. Or, where we do make gener- alizations, they may have added force because of artificiality of sample or setting. A misplaced preoc- cupation with external validity can lead us to dismiss good research for which generalization to real life is not intended or meaningful.
Business Cycle Volatility in Germany

Abstract Stylized facts suggest that output volatility in OECD countries has declined in recent years. The causes and the nature of this decline have so far been analyzed mainly for the United States. In this paper, we analyze whether structural changes in output volatility in Germany can be detected. We report evidence that output volatility has declined in Germany. It is difficult to answer the question whether this decline in output volatility reflects good economic and monetary policy or merely ‘good luck’.
AFRL-RX-WP-TP-2009-4134 DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF NONLINEAR FORCE CONTROLLERS FOR FRICTION STIR WELDING PROCESSES ( PREPRINT )

In Friction Stir Welding (FSW) processes, force control can be used to achieve good welding quality. This paper presents the systematic design and implementation of FSW force controllers. The axial and path forces are modeled as nonlinear functions of the FSW process parameters (i.e., plunge depth, tool traverse rate, and tool rotation speed). Equipment models, which include communication delays, are constructed to relate the commanded and measured actuator signals. Based on the dynamic process and equipment models, nonlinear feedback controllers for the axial