Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Length of Chain in Pyramidal Firms towards Expropriation of Minority Interest

It is documented that there is a large divergence of cash flow rights and control rights in ownership concentrated corporations whereby power lies in the hands of the ultimate controlling shareholder especially for Malaysian pyramidal firms. The divergence of these two rights via length of chain leads to the expropriation of minority shareholders interest. Thus, this study aims to examine the factors influencing the length of chain of Malaysian pyramidal firms implying expropriation of minority interest. This study hypothesizes that the distance separating the ultimate controlling shareholder from their affiliated firms is positively related to the presence of eventual negative shocks and vice-versa. Applying the Attig Model and Panel Generalised Least Square (GLS) estimation on Malaysian pyramidal firms between 1990 to 2010 as the underlying statistical test, the results show that there is association between the length of chain separating ultimate controlling shareholder from the affiliated groups and the entrenchment effect. Factors influencing the length of chain such as risk, cash, size, TobinQ, duality, financial institution and liquidity posit significant results and consistent with the entrenchment effect. Future research needs to highlight on identifying the heterogeneous factors that improve the generalizability of research.
Correlates of Disordered Eating Behavior among Pregnant Women

There is large number of research evidence on the existence of disordered eating behavior during pregnancy. However, in Pakistan no such study has been conducted so far that could address this issue. An initiative has been taken in the present study in this regard. For this purpose, a sample of 300 pregnant women (100 from each trimester of pregnancy) of age range 20-40 years was selected through nonprobability purposive sampling. A self-constructed structured interview schedule was used to probe demographic information (such as age, education, monthly income, and profession as well as information related to pregnancy such as month/trimester of pregnancy, height, weight, nausea experienced during pregnancy, and use of dietary supplements during pregnancy). In order to assess disordered eating behavior in pregnant women, the Disordered Eating Behavior Scale developed by Muazzam and Khalid (2011) was used. The focus of the present study was to find out the existence of disordered eating behavior in this sample of pregnant women as well as to know how factors like age, income, profession, education, trimester of pregnancy, nausea, and body mass index influence disordered eating in pregnancy. The research findings revealed the existence of disordered eating behavior in pregnant women as well as the factors mentioned earlier influenced disordered eating in pregnancy. Furthermore, participants' characteristics and pregnancy related factors predicted disordered eating behavior in pregnant women.
Double-averaged velocity and stress distributions for hydraulically-smooth and transitionally-rough turbulent flows

We analyse experimental measurements of turbulent open-channel flow over hydraulically-smooth and transitionally-rough beds using the double-averaging methodology. Oil with a viscosity of 15×10−6 m2/s is used instead of water so that transitional-range roughness Reynolds numbers can be achieved with large (11.1 mm) roughness elements, allowing spatial variations in the mean velocity field to more easily be measured. Distributions of double-averaged velocities, turbulence intensities, form-induced intensities, and viscous, Reynolds, form-induced and total shear stresses are studied with comparisons made between distributions for hydraulically-smooth, transitionally-rough, and fully-rough boundaries. Measured streamwise turbulence intensities for all experiments peaked at a constant distance from the bed (z++d+ = 15) when elevation scale is adjusted using the zero-plane displacement d for the logarithmic velocity distribution. This collapse suggests that turbulence intensity distributions may be useful in assessing appropriate values of d for transitionally-rough and fully-rough boundaries. Form-induced normal and shear stresses above the roughness tops were found to collapse towards a common curve independent of roughness Reynolds number.
Exact theory for photon subtraction for fields from quantum to classical limit

Recently Parigi et al. (Science, 317 (2007) 1890) measured the statistics of a photon-subtracted and a photon-added thermal field. They showed that the measurements agree with the theoretical predictions of the beam splitter (BS) model. We show the equivalence of the quantum trajectory approach and the BS model in photon subtraction by deriving the BS model from the generalized photon counting operators. Our photon counting operators, corresponding to measurements using a resolving detector and a nonresolving detector, are generalization of the standard quantum jump approach. Our model is exact from weak quantum fields to the classical limit of strong fields. We show that our generalized photon counting operators reproduce exactly the results of the BS model when the reflection probability of the beam splitter is equated with the absorption probability of a photon in the standard quantum jump model of cavity field damping. Our theory can explain the recent experimental results of Parigi et al. and shows how similar experiments can be made to test the photon subtraction for the whole range of electromagnetic field intensities ranging from quantum to classical limit. We propose new experiments to test the generalized photon counting operators in the intermediate regime between the quantum and classical limits.
Discrete-Mixture HMMs-based Approach for Noisy Speech Recognition

It is well known that the application of hidden Markov models (HMMs) has led to a dramatic increase of the performance of automatic speech recognition in the 1980s and from that time onwards. In particular, large vocabulary continuous speech recognition (LVCSR) could be realized by using a recogn ition unit such as phones. A variety of speech characteristics can be modelled by using HMMs effectively. The HMM represents the transition of statistical characteristics by using the state sequence of a Markov chain. Each state of the chain is composed by either a discrete output probability or a continuous output probability distribution. In 1980s, discrete HMM was mainly used as an acoustic model of speech recognition. The SPHINX speech recognition system was developed by K. -F. Lee in the late 1980s (Lee & Hon, 1988). The system was a speaker-independent, continuous speech recognition system based on discrete HMMs. It was evaluated on the 997-word resource management task and obtained a word accuracy of 93% with a bigram language model. After that, comparative investigation between discrete HMM and continuous HMM had been made and then it was concluded that the performance of continuous-mi xture HMM overcame that of discrete HMM. Then almost all of recent speech recognition systems use continuous-mixture HMMs (CHMMs) as acoustic models. The parameters of CHMMs can be estimated efficiently under assumption of normal distribution. Meanwhile, the discrete Hidden Markov Models (DHMMs) based on vector quantization (VQ) have a problem that they are effected by quantization distortion. However, CHMMs may unfit to recognize noisy speech because of false assumption of normal distribution. The DHMMs can represent more complicated shapes and they are expected to be useful for noisy speech. This chapter introduces new methods of noise robust speech recognition using discretemixture HMMs (DMHMMs) based on maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimation. The aim of this work is to develop robust speech recognition for adverse conditions which contain both stationary and non-stationary noise. Especially, we focus on the issue of impulsive noise which is a major problem in practical speech recognition system. DMHMM is one type of DHMM frameworks. The method of DMHMM was originally proposed to reduce computation costs in decoding process (Takahashi et al., 1997).
The MCXC: a meta-catalogue of x-ray detected clusters of galaxies

We present the compilation and properties of a meta-catalogue of X-ray detected clusters of galaxies, the MCXC. This very large catalogue is based on publicly available ROSAT All Sky Survey-based (NORAS, REFLEX, BCS, SGP, NEP, MACS, and CIZA) and serendipitous (160SD, 400SD, SHARC, WARPS, and EMSS) cluster catalogues. Data have been systematically homogenised to an overdensity of 500, and duplicate entries from overlaps between the survey areas of the individual input catalogues are carefully handled. The MCXC comprises 1743 clusters with virtually no duplicate entries. For each cluster the MCXC provides three identifiers, a redshift, coordinates, membership in the original catalogue, and standardised 0.1−2.4 keV band luminosity L500 ,t otal massM500, and radius R500. The meta-catalogue additionally furnishes information on overlaps between the input catalogues and the luminosity ratios when measurements from different surveys are available, and gives notes on individual objects. The MCXC is available in electronic format for maximum usefulness in X-ray, SZ, and other multiwavelength studies.
Export Behaviour and Propensity to Innovate in a Developing Country: The Case of Tunisia

The relation between export behaviour and the propensity to innovate is an important question for a developing economy. This article dedicated to this question through the analysis of the first innovation survey of Tunisian firms. We analyze the relationship between the export behaviour and the innovation propensity of the firms as it can be qualified using econometric estimations (mainly probit models) and non-parametrical regression trees on the results of the first community innovation survey in Tunisia. Our results show that firms that address both the domestic and foreign demands (partial- exporters) have the highest propensity to innovate, and they better benefit from external knowledge sources, as well as a diversified demand. We find that external knowledge sources, internal R&D efforts and some types of cooperative agreements are complementary for product innovations, but the first play an essential role, in the sense that firms must benefit from at least one external knowledge source to attain a significant innovation propensity. We show that innovation behaviour of three subsets of firms are strongly contrasted: pure exporters who only address the foreign demand, pure domestic firms, and partial exporters.
Species composition, diversity and distribution in a disturbed Takamanda Rainforest, South West, Cameroon

This study assessed the diversity and distribution of trees and shrubs in a 16 ha disturbed plot in the Takamanda Rainforest. Linear transects (8) were laid in the field which radiated from the centre of the plot. The girth of the trees and shrubs were measured and species identified. A total of 99 species (72 trees and 27 shrubs) belonging to 87 genera and 34 families were recorded. Caesalpinaceae was the most represented tree family (9 species) while Rubiaceae was the most represented among shrubs (9 species). Baphia nitida recorded the highest tree density (143.75 individual’s ha-1) and lowest tree density (1.56 individual’s ha-1) was recorded for Khaya anthotera. The highest shrub density (192.19ha-1) was recorded for Angylocalyx pynatii while the lowest was (1.56 ha-1) was recorded for Voacanga africana. The girth class distribution showed a reverse J-shape distribution, with the highest densities in the lower girth (15-30 and 30-45 cm) classes. This decreases in density with the larger girth (> 75) class. The Importance Value Index (IVI) of trees was highest for Baphia nitida (20.06) while the lowest was recorded for Millettia sanagana (0.51). For shrubs, Chytranthus macrobotrys had highest IVI of 45.05 while the lowest was observed in V. Africana (1.24). Diversity index of trees and shrubs were 3.87 and 2.88, respectively. A dominance index of trees was 0.03 and that of shrubs was 0.08. The species evenness for trees (0.90) and shrubs (0.87) showed a slight variation in distribution. Abundance/ frequency ratio (A/F) for tree and shrub was >0.05 and showed a clumped pattern of distribution. Sustainable management of the forest would continue to provide goods and services for communities around the rainforest. Key words: Diversity index, distribution, abundance/frequency ratio’ contagious, importance value index, evenness index.
Competition and critical mass

Empirical literature and related legal practice using concentration as a proxy for competition measurement are prone to a fallacy of division, as concentration measures are appropriate for perfect competition and perfect collusion but not intermediate levels of competition. Extending the classic Cournot-type competition model of Cowling and Waterson (1976) and Cowling (1976) used to derive the Hirschman-Herfindahl Index (HHI) of market concentration, we propose an adaptation of this model that allows collusive rents for all, none, or some of the firms in a market. Application of our model and new critical mass measures to data for U.S. commercial banks in the period 1984-2004 confirms that concentration measures are unreliable competition metrics. Our results lead us to conclude that critical mass is a promising new market power metric for competition analyses. Policy and future research implications are briefly discussed.
Progress in satellite remote sensing for studying physical processes at the ocean surface and its borders with the atmosphere and sea ice

Physical oceanography is the study of physical conditions, processes and variables within the ocean, including temperature–salinity distributions, mixing of the water column, waves, tides, currents and air–sea interaction processes. Here we provide a critical review of how satellite sensors are being used to study physical oceanography processes at the ocean surface and its borders with the atmosphere and sea ice. The paper begins by describing the main sensor types that are used to observe the oceans (visible, thermal infrared and microwave) and the specific observations that each of these sensor types can provide. We then present a critical review of how these sensors and observations are being used to study: (i) ocean surface currents, (ii) storm surges, (iii) sea ice, (iv) atmosphere–ocean gas exchange and (v) surface heat fluxes via phytoplankton. Exciting advances include the use of multiple sensors in synergy to observe temporally varying Arctic sea ice volume, atmosphere–ocean gas fluxes, and the potential for four-dimensional water circulation observations. For each of these applications we explain their relevance to society, review recent advances and capability, and provide a forward look at future prospects and opportunities. We then more generally discuss future opportunities for oceanography-focused remote sensing, which includes the unique European Union Copernicus programme, the potential of the International Space Station and commercial miniature satellites. The increasing availability of global satellite remote-sensing observations means that we are now entering an exciting period for oceanography. The easy access to these high quality data and the continued development of novel platforms is likely to drive further advances in remote sensing of the ocean and atmospheric systems.
Earnings Dynamics and Profile Heterogeneity: Estimates from Japanese Panel Data

type="main"> The recent empirical work on earnings processes using US panel data finds that ignoring heterogeneity in earnings profiles among individuals leads to an upward bias in the autoregressive parameter of earnings shocks. It then argues that the existing assumptions in incomplete markets and heterogeneous-agent models, almost all of which require highly persistent earnings shocks and no individual-specific and group-specific differences in earnings growth rates, may be inappropriate. This paper investigates the applicability of this US data-based debate to other developed countries by using a panel of Japanese male earnings. The results indicate that it is possible to corroborate the recent US arguments, despite some differences in the estimates.
Toxic affects of chromium on some quality parameters of Sorghum bicolor (L.)

A pot experiment was conducted to determine the effects of varying Cr (VI) levels [0.0â€“4.0 mg Cr (VI) kg-1 soil in the form of potassium dichromate] on the some quality parameters of sorghum Sorghum bicolor (L.). Quality parameters was measured in terms of protein content, chlorophyll content, and IVDMD ( In vitro dry matter digestibility) content at different growth stages, i.e. 35 DAS, 70 DAS and 90 DAS (Days after sowing) that were adversely affected with an increase in Cr (VI) levels from 0.0 to 4.0 mg Cr (VI) kg-1 soil. The decline in protein content 4.67 g/ kg dry weight at T4 was observed as compared to control (T1) ( 8.96 g/kg dry weight basis) at 35 DAS in leaves , Total chlorophyll content declined from 3.25 mg g-1 fresh weight (T1) to 2.40 mg g-1 fresh weight (T4) at 35 DAS and IVDMD content declined from 43.60 to 33.60 per cent dry weight basis with increment in chromium concentration. It is concluded that Cr (VI) at higher doses (4.0 mg Cr (VI) kg-1 soil) adversly affects the quality parameters of Forage sorghum Sorghum bicolor (L.) however, quality parameters are responsible for nutritive value of sorghum Sorghum bicolor (L.).
The Benguela upwelling system: Quantifying the sensitivity to resolution and coastal wind representation in a global climate model

AbstractOf all the major coastal upwelling systems in the world’s oceans, the Benguela, located off southwest Africa, is the one that climate models find hardest to simulate well. This paper investigates the sensitivity of upwelling processes, and of sea surface temperature (SST), in this region to resolution of the climate model and to the offshore wind structure. The Community Climate System Model (version 4) is used here, together with the Regional Ocean Modeling System. The main result is that a realistic wind stress curl at the eastern boundary, and a high-resolution ocean model, are required to well simulate the Benguela upwelling system. When the wind stress curl is too broad (as with a 1° atmosphere model or coarser), a Sverdrup balance prevails at the eastern boundary, implying southward ocean transport extending as far as 30°S and warm advection. Higher atmosphere resolution, up to 0.5°, does bring the atmospheric jet closer to the coast, but there can be too strong a wind stress curl. The most .
Feasibility of rice procurement programme for poor farmers in Bangladesh

The study has been conducted to examine feasibility of rice procurement system and factors influencing farmers to sell rice at procurement centers in an area of Jamalpur district. In total, 45 sampled farmers including both participant and non-participants and 15 millers who are residing in various upazillas in Jamalpur district were interviewed. Stratified sampling technique was followed to select the respondents. From the 45 farmers, 20 farmers were participating in the procurement process. To examine the financial profitability of rice procurement system, activity budget analysis was done. To find the influencing factors those encourage farmers to attend in rice procurement programme, the Logit regression model was used. The study revealed that on an average, 52 percent and 11 percent of paddy procurement targets in Boro and Aman season respectively were achieved. On the other hand, 91 percent and 49 percent of rice procurement targets in Boro and Aman season respectively were achieved. Though cost of production was higher for marginal/small farmers, but the both gross and net return was higher for medium/large farmers. Out of 9 independent variables, four variables have been found to have significant influence on adopting rice procurement system in the study area. Although, Government Boro paddy procurement has many weaknesses, but it can be reduced by taking necessary steps in making it more efficient. Progressive Agriculture 28 (2): 139-147, 2017
Literature Review of Theory and Research on the Psychological Impact of Temporary Employment: Towards a Conceptual Model

The increased use of temporary contracts has instigated debates on possible implications for employees’ attitudes, well-being and behaviour. The complex issues related to this debate are reviewed from a theoretical, empirical and conceptual point of view. First, the definitions of temporary employment that are currently used in OECD countries are reviewed. Second, theoretical views concerning possible determinants are elaborated. The theoretical frameworks discussed include Work Stress Theory, Social Comparison Theory and Social Exchange Theory. The determinants proposed in these theories have served to form the basis of hypotheses on differences between temporary and permanent workers on various psychological outcomes. Third, research on associations between temporary employment and the variables job satisfaction, organizational commitment, well-being and behaviour are reviewed. These variables are most frequently used in the realm of temporary work research. This review concludes that research results have been inconsistent and inconclusive, unlike the predictions that follow from the theoretical frameworks. This leads to a fourth section in which potential explanations for these inconsistent findings are advanced. In conclusion, a conceptual model is developed to inspire future research.
Effect of Extractives on Water Sorption and Durability of Wood-Plastic Composites

Wood—plastic composites (WPCs) were made from isotactic polypropylene and extracted and unextracted flours of one of four different wood species. WPCs made with extracted wood flour had lower mechanical properties than unextracted WPCs with the exception of pine WPCs. For all of the species except pine, WPCs made with extracted wood flours showed higher moisture sorption and thickness swelling characteristics. Higher levels of fungal decay were observed for the WPCs made with extracted wood, except for the pine WPCs, in which there was lower fungal decay from brown rot in the extracted wood samples. These results demonstrate that wood extractives affect the mechanical properties, water sorption, and fungal decay resistance of WPCs.
Strategic Differences in Balance Recovery between Athletes and Untrained Individuals

Previous research has demonstrated superior balance control among elite athletes, compared with non-athletes, as defined by the ability to maintain static balance; while only few studies investigated dynamic postural control and balance recovery. The objectives of the current study were 1) to examine whether elite athletes demonstrate superior dynamic postural control defined by reduced center of mass (COM) and center of pressure (COP) excursion during balance recovery; and 2) identify balance recovery strategies employed by the athletes. Young males (varsity-level ice hockey players, n=10; untrained controls, n=10) were exposed to forward lean-and-release postural perturbations. Following the release, participants recovered balance with a single step. Two sensory conditions were investigated: eyes-open and eyes-closed. Whole-body normalized COM (nCOM) and normalized COP(nCOP) excursions were calculated and normalized to participant height. Additionally, pre-perturbation lower body and trunk angles, trunk angle excursion, and step length, velocity, and latency were calculated. Peak nCOM excursion was lower in athletes (1.03±0.08cm/cm) than in controls (1.41±0.08cm/cm); peak nCOP was not different between groups. Peak trunk angle excursion was lower in athletes (6.8±2.02°) than in controls (14.8±1.96°). Superior balance control among ice hockey players may be attributed to a more upright trunk position, possibly due to sport-specific training.