Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hadley cell bias in climate models linked to extratropical eddy stress

Recent theoretical and observational work shows that the Reynolds stresses due to large‐scale extratropical eddies play a key role in determining Hadley cell strength. This implies that errors in the representation of extratropical eddies in climate models could force a bias in the tropical circulation. Here, this hypothesis is assessed using output from 17 coupled climate models, focusing on Northern Hemisphere winter. Inter‐model variability in Hadley cell strength, tropical temperature and tropical humidity is found to be significantly correlated with inter‐model differences in stationary eddy stress. Thus, a significant fraction of the tropical climate bias found in current climate models may be forced from the extratropics.
PHENOTYPIC VARIATION AMONG MENTHA SPP.

The aim of the present study was to investigate the morphological diversity and relationship within 17 genotypes of mentha species. Different species of Mentha were collected from different ecological zones of the world. Great variation was observed in stem length with the coefficient of variation of 198.7% and standard deviation of 14.1. Among the 17 mint collection, nine special aromas was smelled including mint gum, strong camphoraceous, mint like, spicy, lemon, pungent, musky and acrid due to the presence of diverse bioactive compounds and essential oils. The present study may help to patronize the essential oil industry on latest scientific techniques. Like other herbs Mentha have diverse aromatic properties that can be explored for utilization in the industry and this information will be helpful for exploitation and development of natural agricultural resources on scientific grounds.
Risk of bias assessment in credible quasi-experimental studies

: Rigorous and transparent critical appraisal is a core component of high quality systematic reviews. Well-conducted quasi-experiments have been empirically shown to estimate credible, unbiased treatment quantities. Conversely, when inappropriately designed or executed, these estimates are likely to be biased. This paper draws on recent advances in risk of bias assessment. It presents an approach to evaluating the internal validity of credible quasi-experiments. These are non-randomised studies using design-based approaches to control for unobservable sources of confounding such as difference studies, instrumental variables, interrupted time series, natural experiments and regression discontinuity designs. Our review suggests that existing risk of bias tools provide, to different degrees, incomplete transparent criteria to assess the validity of credible quasi-experiments. We argue that a tool is needed to assess risk of bias consistently across credible quasi-experiments. Drawing on existing tools, in particular Cochrane’s new tool for non-randomized studies of interventions (Sterne et al., 2014), we discuss domains of bias and suggest directions for evaluation questions.
Open Innovation: A New Classification and Its Impact on Firm Performance in Innovative SMEs

This paper attempts to deepen understanding of the relationship between open innovation (OI) and firm performance in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Based on survey data from 306 Korean innovative SMEs, the results of this study show that: (1) broad and intensive engagement in OI and cooperation with external partners are positively associated with firm performance; (2) technology and market-oriented OI modes (Joint RD and (3) innovative SMEs benefit from working with non-competing partners, such as customers, consultancy/intermediaries and public research institutes. This work has broadened the evidence available on SMEs’ OI adoption and has proposed a new way to study OI adoption and implementation.
Studies on the Resistance of Cowpea Seeds (Vigna unguiculata) to Weevil (Callosobruchus maculatus) Infestations

Three cowpea varieties namely: Kafanji, Brown variety and Ex-potiskum were used in this study to test their resistance on weevil infestation. Cowpea samples of 60grams were measured from each variety and were artificially infested with different weevil densities made up of male and female ratios of 5:10, 10:15 and 15:15. The samples had three replicates and a control treatment each. These were allowed to stand on the shelves without disturbance, thus making it possible for the weevils to mate and oviposit naturally. The results were analysed statistically and the differences between the treatments with respect to weight loss and adult emergence were significant (P>0.05) and the damages were also closely related to the infestation density increasing with the densities. Kafanji suffered more damage while the Brown variety and Ex-potiskum suffered less damage. This indicates that Ex-potiskum and Brown-variety exhibits more resistance qualities to the weevil attack than Kafanji which is more susceptible to the weevil attack. The physical as well as the chemical characteristics of the seeds were also found to influence the growth and development of the weevil forming the basis for resistance in the varieties. Breeding programmes utilizing the resistance characters in certain varieties are therefore suggested.
THE STRUCTURE OF N18 S. T. Wlodek, M. Kelly and D. Alden Engineering Materials Technology Laboratory GE Aircraft Engines

The structural relationships that control the behavior of the disk alloy N18, in current use at SNECMA, were studied. The alloy, in the fully heat-treated condition, contains three sizes of gamma prime. The largest, 4.3~ diameter, termed primary, forms during forging. The secondary, 0.2wr that forms during cooling exhibits a high sensitivity to cooling rate. The finest, 0.02~, that forms during aging, and termed tertiary, appears to control properties. Extraction of the gamma prime phases, and their separation, allowed their individual chemical and x-ray analysis. Based on the extracted weight, the total gamma prime content of all three gamma prime forms is about 60 vol.%. The three forms of gamma prime were extracted and each was found to possess a different chemistry and lattice parameter. All forms exhibited a negative mismatch to the matrix, varying from -0.23% for the primary form to -0.38% of the tertiary. The chemistry of the gamma prime varied in such a manner that the Al, Ti and Co level decreased and the Cr and MO level increased as the particle size i.e. temperature of formation of that particular gamma prime form, decreased. The effect of temperature on the amount of primary gamma prime and the effect of cooling rate on the particle size of the secondary gamma prime were quantified using image analysis. Cooling rate was found to have no effect on grain boundary curvature. On prolonged exposure above 650°C, the N18 alloy precipitates grain boundary sigma phase, tetragonal a = 0.8906nm and 0.4610nm with a (Ni, Co) (Cr, MO) chemistry and, subsequently, rnp phase (rhombohedral, a = 0.4746nm, c = 2.554Onm) with a high Cr and high MO content. The formation of these topologically close-packed phases is associated with the solution of the 0.02~, aging, gamma prime and a reduction in properties. It is believed that the excellent properties of this alloy in the 650°C region, and the very good hold time fatigue properties, which it exhibits, are due to the presence of the 0.02 p gamma prime and a gamma matrix high in Cr, Co and MO.
Categorifying the sl(2,C) Knizhnik-Zamolodchikov Connection via an Infinitesimal 2-Yang-Baxter Operator in the String Lie-2-Algebra

We construct a flat (and fake-flat) 2-connection in the configuration space of n indistinguishable particles in the complex plane, which categorifies the sl(2,C)-Knizhnik-Zamolodchikov connection obtained from the adjoint representation of sl(2,C). This will be done by considering the adjoint categorical representation of the string Lie 2-algebra and the notion of an infinitesimal 2-Yang- Baxter operator in a differential crossed module. Specifically, we find an infinitesimal 2-Yang-Baxter operator in the string Lie 2-algebra, proving that any (strict) categorical representation of the string Lie-2-algebra, in a chain-complex of vector spaces, yields a flat and (fake-flat) 2-connection in the configuration space, categorifying the sl(2,C)-Knizhnik-Zamolodchikov connection. We will give very detailed explanation of all concepts involved, in particular discussing the relevant theory of 2-connections and their two dimensional holonomy, in the specific case of 2-groups derived from chain complexes of vector spaces.
Exploring Student Choice Criteria for Selecting an Indonesian Public University: A Preliminary Finding

Like any other business institution, a higher education institution needs to understand its customer needs and wants in order to remain competitive and survive among higher education providers. Studies on student choice criteria have been carried out, but none have addressed these in Indonesia, as these criteria may be unique to Indonesia. This paper aims to explore the factors that influence student choice in the selection of an Indonesian Public University. Semi-structured and focus-groups interviews were carried out with the same cohort of 48 first-year undergraduate students in five Indonesian public universities. Preliminary results revealed 25 choice criteria for selecting a university considered by Indonesian students. The factors considered by Indonesian students namely cost, reputation, proximity, job prospect, and parents as the five most important factors. Finally, implications and recommendations are presented.
IDENTIFICATION OF AGRONOMIC MANAGEMENT UNITS BASED ON PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES OF SOIL

Oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq) is an alternative for the development of productive systems in the tropics. By determining the spatial variability of physical characteristics of soil, specific recommendations for certain areas within a zone can be made. Geostatistical analysis can determine the existence and characteristics of the spatial distribution and is an appropriate tool for analyzing the spatial variability of soil properties. The aim of this study was to determine areas with homogeneous physical characteristics in order to establish agricultural management units, using geostatistical techniques. For this study, 62 samples were collected in 10.6 ha in the municipality of El Reten (Magdalena, Colombia). The properties analyzed were: content of sand, silt and clay, particle density, bulk density, total porosity, gravimetric and volumetric water content, hydraulic conductivity and infiltration rate. All properties showed spatial correlation, with adjustments to semivariograms theoretical models, mostly to the spherical model, with ranges between 84.87 and 218.60 m and moderate to strong spatial dependence. The contour maps obtained through ordinary kriging, allowed for the identification of the relationship between the different physical properties of the soil and subsequent classification to determine the Agronomic Management Units (AMU).
Discriminative structure selectionmethod of gaussian mixture models with its application to handwritten digit recognition

Model structure selection is currently an open problem in modeling data via Gaussian Mixture Models (GMM). This paper proposes a discriminative method to select GMM structures for pattern classification. We introduce a GMM structure selection criterion based on a discriminative objective function called Soft target based Max-Min posterior Pseudo-probabilities (Soft-MMP). The structure and the parameters of the optimal GMM are estimated simultaneously by seeking the maximum value of Laplace’s approximation of the integrated Soft-MMP function. The line search algorithm is employed to solve this optimization problem. We evaluate the proposed GMM structure selection method through the experiments of handwritten digit recognition on the well-known CENPARMI and MNIST digit databases. Our method behaves better than the manual method and the generative counterparts, including Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC), Minimum Description Length (MDL) and AutoClass. Furthermore, to our best knowledge, the digit classifier trained by using our method achieves the best error rate so far on the CENPARMI database and the error rate comparable to the currently best ones on the MNIST database.
Utilization of Agricultural By-Products for Alpha-Amylase Production under Solid State Fermentation by Bacillus Subtilis

The production of alpha-amylase by Bacillus subtilis was investigated under different cultivation conditions on two different solid substrates as the support, i.e. oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB) fibers and rice straw using solid state fermentation (SSF) process. Both solid substrates were first pre-treated using NaOH to remove lignin and silica and to break down the hemicellulose structures. The influences of incubation time, incubation temperature and the additional carbon and nitrogen sources on the production of alpha-amylase by B. subtilis were investigated. After 48 h of incubation, the highest enzyme activities were obtained at 39.9 U/g and 23.5 U/g for rice straw and OPEFB fibers, respectively. The optimum temperature for alpha-amylase production was observed at 45°C for the OPEFB fibers and 55°C for the rice straw. Among the defined carbohydrates, the addition of glucose (0.02 g/g dry substrate) has significantly improved the production of alpha-amylase. Similar effect was observed when yeast extract (0.01 g/g dry substrate) was supplemented as the additional nitrogen source. Rice straw appeared to be the best solid substrate in producing alpha-amylase (276 U/g) in SSF under these optimum cultivation conditions.
Parental leave benefits, household labor supply, and children's long-run outcomes

We study how parental leave benefit levels affect household labor supply, family income, and child outcomes, exploiting the Speed Premium (SP) in the Swedish leave system. The SP grants mothers higher benefits for a subsequent child without re-establishing eligibility through market work, if two births occur within a pre-specified interval. We use the spacing eligibility cutoffs in a Regression Discontinuity framework and find that the SP improves educational outcomes of the older child, but not of the younger. Impacts are likely driven by increased maternal time and the quality of maternal time relative to the counterfactual mode of care.
Occupational Risk of Upper Extremity Injury due to Extended Fingernails in Clerical Workers

Twenty-two volunteer clerical workers entered this pilot study. They were screened with regard to inclusion and exclusion criteria, which consisted of nail length and presence or absence of artificial nails. A questionnaire was administered regarding a possible relationship between nail length (whether artificial or not) and extension injury of their hands, wrists, and forearms. The results of this pilot study did not show a statistically positive association. This may have resulted from the choice of the clerical workers and/or low power (given that it was a pilot study). A more diversified multi-location study with more volunteers is recommended to determine if there is any relationship between hand, wrist, or forearm injury and over-sized fingernails in clerical workers.
Effects of extrusion parameters on rheological properties, chromatism, protein solubility and microstructure of flaxseed-corn mixture

As a kind of significant functional food material, flaxseed can be processed into snacks by extrusion technology. This research mainly studied the effects of different extrusion conditions: temperature, screw speed, material moisture content and proportion of added flaxseed, respectively. Moreover, the rheological properties of steady state were also investigated. Results showed that the steady state shear sweep tendency of extruded disperse system accorded to the power law model of non-Newtonian fluid. By fitting extrusion parameters and the parameters of power law model with polynomial, the maximum of consistency index and minimum of liquidity index can be gained when extruding temperature was 120C, screw speed was 100 r/min and the proportion of added flaxseed was 20%. Maillard reaction could occur in extruded melt when material moisture content was less than 18.2%, and then formed to be brown by-products; however, the Maillard reaction slowed down and color aberration decreased when the moisture content increased. Protein soluble index observably reduced after extrusion, which indicated that protein denaturation during extruding process and created hydrophobic structure. The study of scanning rheological and electron microscope explained the process of starch, protein and fat in mixture formed steady polymer during extruding process. Keywords: flaxseed, extrusion, flaxseed-corn blend, steady shear, rheological property, food processing DOI: 10.3965/j.ijabe. 20150806.2067 Citation: Wu M, Liu Y, Wang L J, Li D. Effect of extrusion parameters on rheological properties, chromatism, protein solubility and microstructure of flaxseed-corn mixture. Int J Agric & Biol Eng, 2015; 8(6): 89－98.
Lessons from the past: investigating historical data from bluefin tuna fisheries

In 1963, the leading fisheries targeting Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) in the Norwegian Sea and North Sea suddenly collapsed without any warning. Little is known about this collapse and several hypotheses have been put forward, such as changes in migratory routes, recruitment failure or eradication of a sub-population: all of these hypotheses could result from natural causes and/or from overfishing. To help explain this mysterious event, an original data set of the main bluefin tuna fisheries of the 20th century, including total catch and size composition of the catch, has been compiled and analysed. The results reveal a strong and unambiguous link between the Nordic purse seine and Spanish trap fisheries during the 1950s and 1960s. However, this link vanished during the 1970s. In addition, the North-west Atlantic and Mediterranean trap fisheries appeared also to be partially connected to the Nordic fisheries. During the 1950s and 1960s, the main migration routes of bluefin tuna were probably from the Mediterranean spawning grounds and from the West Atlantic coasts to the Norwegian coast and North Sea, which were probably a key feeding ground at that time. The analyses also lead to the conclusion that interactions between environmental, trophic and fishing processes have probably affected bluefin tuna migration patterns which would have finally caused the Nordic fisheries collapse. This retrospective analysis finally leads to an original – albeit more speculative – hypothesis concerning Atlantic bluefin tuna population structure, therein conjectured as an assemblage of at least three sub-populations.
Short‐term slow slip and correlated tremor episodes in the Tokai region, central Japan

We observe the related phenomenon of short‐term slow slip event (SSE) and low‐frequency nonvolcanic tremor on the deeper extension of the 1944 Tonankai and the anticipated Tokai earthquake rupture areas, central Japan. Japan nation‐wide seismometer and tiltmeter array, NIED Hi‐net has recorded these correlated episodes of SSE and tremor, known as episodic tremor and slip (ETS) in 2004 and 2005. The events are located on two areas in the Tokai region, one is near the Shima peninsula, and the other is around the Aichi area. Both episodes have a typical duration of 2–3 days and released seismic moment corresponding to Mw ∼ 6.0. Moreover, these episodes repeatedly occur with a recurrence interval of about six months in both areas. This evidence suggests that the coincidence between the SSE and the tremor is a characteristic behavior in the whole tremor belt‐like zone in the Nankai trough subduction zone.
Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Metacognition Scale for Primary School Students

Th e purpose of this study is to develop the Metacognition Scale (MS) which is designed for primary school students. Th e sample of the study consisted of 426 primary school students in Izmir, Turkey. In order to examine the construct validity of the MS, exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were performed. For the validity of the MI, corrected item-total correlations were used. Th e corrected item-total correlations ranged from . 35 to . 65. In addition, t-tests between items’ means of upper 27% and lower 27% points were compared. For each factor and each item, the diff erences between mean scores of upper 27% and lover 27% groups are significant. Finally, Cronbach alpha correlation coeff icients were used. Th e internal consistency of the MS is . 96 for the entire scale. Th e MS has eight scales: declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge and conditional knowledge, planning, self-control, cognitive strategies, self assessment and self monitoring. According to these findings, the MS is appropriate for researchers or teachers whose aim is to measure his/her students’ metacognitive awareness and metacognitive abilities.
A Novel Approach to Assessing the Quality of Coach-Athlete Relationships: Can the Coach-Athlete Relationship Be Evaluated for Motivational Support by Analysis of Published Coach Interviews?

The aim of this paper is to present a novel methodology to be used in evaluating the quality of the coach-athlete relationship in line self-determination theory and based on the motivational model of the coach-athlete relationship proposed by Mageau and Vallerand. This paper consists of a review of the extant literature surrounding self-determination theory as applied to sports, followed by a pilot study testing the proposed new methodology. The methodology utilizes existing coach interviews conducted by institution media to evaluate the language used by NCAA D1 soccer coaches in reference to their teams. The findings of the study serve to aid the development of the new methodology and provide direction for future use in answering the following question: Does the quality of the coach-athlete relationship predict team success within NCAA D1 women’s soccer?
Spatial diversity in cereal crops: What do we learn from CAP reforms? A farm-level analysis

On-farm agricultural biodiversity conservation has long been recognized as a fundamental resource to the maintenance of ecologic and economic functions. Among the factors affecting biodiversity, institutional failures at different scales are reported as potential causes of biodiversity loss both in developed and developing areas. In this paper, we hypothesise the existence of a potential relationship linking CAP support measures and crop-diversity. To assess this hypothesis we construct a diversity function in which a measure of spatial diversity among cereal species is expressed as a function of a set of economic and agro-ecological variables. Using a panel dataset for the period 2004-2010, we compare the results obtained from the pooled estimator with Fixed Effects results. The empirical analysis shows the existence of a stable relationship between our measure of spatial diversity and CAP support