Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
THE LINEAR RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GROWTH TRAITS OF SHARPLANINA LAMBS IN EXTENSIVE FARMING PRACTICES

The fastest phase of growth, observed in young animals, is often assumed to be linear, and linear regressions or ratios between BW gain and time are used to model growth. However, growth curves, due to their flexibility, are likely to be more suitable to describe even early growth. The research was performed in the region of Sharplanina Mountain in the population of the local Sarplanina breed of sheep. The following traits of lambs were considered: BWB, BW30, BW60 and BW90. Statistical analysis was conducted using the Pearson's correlation and multivariate linear regression model. This involved computing all possible and the best subset regression equation. Each equation was then assessed by its coefficient of determination (R2) and the constant based on the number of variable that used for the prediction. Results showed that weight of lambs from birth to weaning increased by about six times. Specifically lambs achieved an average total gain of 17.66 kg, or 196 g per day. There were a very significant correlation (P<0.01) between BWB and BW30, BW60 and BW90. Likewise, shown a very significant correlation (P<0.01) between BW30-BW60, BW30- BW90 and BW60-BW90. Also shown the coefficient of multiple determinations (R-squared R2) was 0.507 which means that 50.7% of the variance BW90, determined variance of the predictor variables represented in the model. Adjusted coefficient of multiple determination (adjusted R2) is 0.506 which means that 50.6% of the variance BW90, determined variance of the predictor variables that are in the model. Any increase in weight of lambs during the observed period of age is associated with an increase of dependent variable BW90. In particular, any increase in BW30 to 1 kg, is associated with an increase in BW90 to 1.928 kg.
Effect of extrusion barrel temperatures on residence time and physical properties of various flour extrudates

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of barrel temperature and flour types on the residence time and physical properties of various flour extrudates. Corn flour, rice flour, corn flour with potato starch (30% w/w, d.b), and rice flour with potato starch (30%w/w, d.b) were extruded at screw speed of 75rpm, feed moisture at 25% (w/w, w.b.), barrel temperature ranging from 80°C to 140°C and die size of 1.88mm. The extrudates were dried at 50°C overnight and further analysed. Results showed that an increase in extruder barrel temperature decreased the residence time of the flours in the extruder (from 4.11-11.32min to 2.24-6.76min), but increased the expansion ratio, rehydration ratio, water absorption index, water solubility index and b value of the extrudate (p≤0.05). The extrudates had the mean residence time and physical properties of rice flour<rice flour with potato starch<corn flour with potato starch<corn flour (p≤0.05). Results showed conclude that barrel temperature and flour types showed significant effect on the residence time and physical properties of the extrudates.
Reducing Rents from Energy Technology Adoption Programs by Exploiting Observable Information

In this paper, we study how regulators may improve upon the efficiency of their energy technology adoption programs by exploiting readily observable information to limit rent extraction by firms. Using panel data on 862 investment decisions in the Netherlands, we find that rent extraction is closely linked not only to technology characteristics, but also to the firm's capital budgetting technique. In particular, we find that firms are more likely to extract rent when either the technology's pay-back period or its required investment is lower, but less likely if they do not use a formal capital budgeting technique. Standard firm characteristics, such as size and sector, correlate with firms' use of capital budgeting techniques, thereby partly resolving the regulator's asymmetric information problem.
Applicability of non-modular assessment in construction management and allied undergraduate programmes: perspective of the academics involved

Abstract Undergraduate programmes on construction management and other closely related built environment disciplines are currently taught and assessed on a modular basis. This is the case in the UK and in many other countries globally. However, it can be argued that professionally oriented programmes like these are better assessed on a non-modular basis, in order to produce graduates who can apply knowledge on different subject contents in cohesion to solve complex practical scenarios in their work environments. The examples of medical programmes where students are assessed on a non-modular basis can be cited as areas where this is already being done. A preliminary study was undertaken to explore the applicability of non-modular assessment within construction management undergraduate education. A selected sample of university academics was interviewed to gather their perspectives on the applicability of non-modular assessment. General acceptance was observed among the academics involved that integrating non-modular assessment is applicable and will be beneficial. All academics stated that at least some form of non-modular assessment was being currently used in their programmes. Examples where cross-modular knowledge is assessed included comprehensive/multidisciplinary project modules and creating larger modules to amalgamate a number of related subject areas. As opposed to a complete shift from modular to non-modular, an approach where non-modular assessment is integrated and its use further expanded within the current system is therefore suggested. This is due to the potential benefits associated with this form of assessment for professionally aligned built environment programmes.
The central region of M83: massive star formation, kinematics, and the location and origin of the nucleus

We report new near-IR integral field spectroscopy of the central starburst region of the barred spiral galaxy M83 obtained with Cambridge Infra-Red Panoramic Survey Spectrograph (CIRPASS) on Gemini-South, which we analyse in conjunction with GHαFaS Fabry–Perot data, an Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) IRIS2 Ks-band image, and near- and mid-IR imaging from the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes. The bulk of the current star formation activity is hidden from optical view by dust extinction, but is seen in the near- and mid-IR to the north of the nucleus. This region is being fed by inflow of gas through the bar of M83, traced by the prominent dust lane entering into the circumnuclear region from the north. An analysis of stellar ages confirms that the youngest stars are indeed in the north-west. A gradual age gradient, with older stars further to the south, characterizes the well-known star-forming arc in the central region of M83, and is consistent with a stable scenario where gas inflow into the central regions is facilitated by the galactic bar. Detailed analyses of the Paβ ionized gas kinematics and near-IR imaging confirm that the kinematic centre coincides with the photometric centre of M83, and that these are offset significantly, by about 3 arcsec or 60 pc, from the visible nucleus of the galaxy. We discuss two possible options, the first of which postulates that the kinematic and photometric centre traces a galaxy nucleus hidden by a substantial amount of dust extinction, in the range AV= 3–10 mag. By combining this information with kinematic results and using arguments from the literature, we conclude that such a scenario is, however, unlikely, as is the existence of other ‘hidden’ nuclei in M83. We thus concur with recent authors and favour a second option, in which the nucleus of the galaxy is offset from its kinematic and photometric centre. This is presumably a result of some past interaction, possibly related to the event which lies at the origin of the disturbance of the outer disc of the galaxy. We find some indications for a disturbance in the Hα velocity field which would confirm the influence of the m= 1 perturbation in the gravitational potential, but note that further high-quality stellar kinematic data are needed to confirm this scenario.
The influence of the fractal particle size distribution on the mobility of dry granular materials

This study presents an experimental analysis on the influence of the particle size distribution (psd ) on the mobility of dry granular materials. The psd obeys a power law of the form: N(L>d)=kd-Df , where N is the number of particles with diameter L greater than a given diameter d , k is a proportionality constant, and Df is the fractal dimension of the psd . No laboratory or numerical study has been conducted to date analysing how a fractal psd influences the mobility of granular flows as in the case of rock avalanches. In this study, the flow characteristics of poly-dispersed granular materials that have a fractal psd were investigated in the laboratory. Granular mixtures having different fractal psd values were placed in a hollow cylinder. The cylinder was lifted and the distance of flow of the mixture was measured with respect to the original position of the cylinder. It was determined that the distance of flow of the mixtures was directly related to their fractal psd values. That is, the larger the distance of flow of the mixture, the larger is the fractal psd of the granular mixture tested. Thus, the fractal psd in dry granular mixtures seems to have a large influence on the easiness by which dry granular mixtures move in the field.
A ‘fatal’ flaw in hospital mortality models: How spatiotemporal variation in all-cause mortality invalidates hidden assumptions in the models

Both policy makers and health care regulators require measures to reveal instances of poor care. Both in-hospital mortality and mortality within 30 days of admission are commonly used measures to reveal the number of ‘excess deaths’. However, all models contain hidden assumptions which can invalidate the model. In this instance, all current approaches to hospital mortality make the assumption that there are no large spatiotemporal events capable of creating disparate effects in time and place in both all-cause mortality in general, and hospital mortality in specific. The study of international trends in deaths, does however, reveal one such large an unexplained effect against deaths, which also appears to simultaneously affect medical admissions, i.e. both the numerator and denominator in the models are subject to unexplained forces. The action of these forces upon all-cause mortality in England is demonstrated, along with evidence for spatiotemporal variation in age-standardised mortality within 30 days of admission for myocardial infarction across various locations and organisations in England. Cyclic and parallel movement in both all-cause mortality and SHMI are demonstrated in Milton Keynes, Ipswich and Northampton hospitals. An identical situation is demonstrated at the Wigan Royal Infirmary for HSMR. Finally the potential contribution of these events to the ‘excess’ deaths at the Mid Staffordshire hospital are investigated. It would appear that hospital mortality models do indeed contain a ‘fatal’ flaw which severely limits their ability to detect true instances of excess hospital mortality. Correspondence to: Rodney P Jones (PhD, ACMA, CGMA), Healthcare Analysis and Forecasting, Camberley, UK, Tel: +44(0)1276 21061; E-mail: hcaf_rod@yahoo.co.uk
Optimal Coordination of Automated Vehicles at Intersections: Theory and Experiments

In this paper, we present a bilevel, model predictive controller for coordination of automated vehicles at intersections. The bilevel controller consists of a coordination level, where intersection occupancy timeslots are allocated, and a vehicle level, where the control commands for the vehicles are computed. We establish persistent feasibility and stability of the bilevel controller under some mild assumptions and derive conditions under which closed-loop collision avoidance can be ensured with bounded position uncertainty. We thereafter detail an implementation of the coordination controller on a three-vehicle test bed, where the intersection-level optimization problem is solved using a distributed Sequential Quadratic Programing method. We present and discuss results from an extensive experimental campaign, where the proposed controller was validated. The experimental results indicate the practical applicability of the bilevel controller and show that safety can be ensured for large positioning uncertainties.
Booms and Busts in House Prices Explained by Constraints in Housing Supply

We study the importance of supply constraints in explaining the heterogeneity in house price cycles across geographies in the United States. Comparing the equilibrium house price generated with and without supply constraints in a representative-agent model under irreversibility of housing investment, we derive a relationship between housing returns and changes in supply constraints and determinants of housing demand. Our empirical analysis shows that supply constraints play an important role in Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) with boom-and-bust behavior. We estimate that, in 19 of the largest MSAs in the United States, supply constraints contributed 25% to the dramatic rise in house prices from 2000 to 2006, and 17% to their sharp fall from 2006 to 2010.
Seasonality of the ventilation of the tropical Atlantic thermocline in an ocean general circulation model

[1] This paper presents an analysis of subduction and advection within the shallow subtropical-tropical connections (STC) of the Atlantic Ocean. We carried out a kinematic study of the seasonal cycle of subduction, entrainment, and subsurface circulation in an upper Atlantic Ocean general circulation model (GCM), with a particular emphasis on the southern STC that is less studied but more important for the water supply of the equatorial upwelling. It is found that the southern STC, like the northern, has a typical water mass formation rate of 25–50 m/year, depending on the wind product used. This formation lasts 1 to 2 months in the south (longer in the northern tropics) and starts from early winter to late spring, in contrast to the common view of the end of March start. Such a large span of starting time is explained by a key control mechanism of the wind through the spatial distribution and seasonal variations of its speed. Each of these results stresses the importance of the variability as well as the uncertainties of the wind forcing for understanding the sustenance and variability of the characteristics of the tropical and equatorial thermocline. The slow currents within the thermocline branches of the STC may play a role in setting an interannual to decadal timescale for tropical or equatorial SST variability; we estimate an Atlantic STC timescale associated with the main advective pathways that at maximum reaches 5 years.
Rapid Nestling Mortality in Arctic Peregrine Falcons due to the Biting Effects of Black Flies

This note describes nestling mortality in Arctic Peregrine Falcons ( Falco peregrinus tundrius ) due to the biting effects of blood-feeding black flies (Diptera: Simuliidae). At a nest site near Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, Canada (62˚49′ N, 92˚05′ W), a brood of four nestlings died on 20 July 2013 from the direct effects of severe bites attributed to black flies. Within three hours of the onset of blood-feeding, black flies had caused widespread, uniformly distributed hemorrhagic coalescent lesions over the head and body of all nestlings. Approximately seven hours after the first flies appeared, the female falcon removed the carcasses of the dead nestlings from the nest. Nestlings at eight additional sites also suffered the effects of biting black flies in 2013, resulting in the deaths of 13 of 35 nestlings. A less pronounced outbreak also occurred in 2012 and resulted in the deaths of seven nestlings at four sites. No nestling mortality due to black flies has been documented in any other year from 1982 through 2015. To our knowledge, these observations document the northernmost lethal attack by ornithophilic black flies in North America.
Corporate Governance Ratings and Firm Value: Empirical Evidence from the Bucharest Stock Exchange

This paper aims at assessing corporate governance by the instrumentality of ratings for a sample of 68 companies listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BSE) over the year 2011. Therewith, current research has the goal of investigating the empirical relationship between the corporate governance ratings and firm value. There were considered both accounting-based firm value measures (return on assets, ROA, as well as return on equity, ROE) and market-based firm value measures (earnings per share, EPS), all being industry-adjusted. The novelty of this study is emphasized by the corporate governance ratings developed for the companies listed on the BSE by using multidimensional data analysis techniques, namely principal component analysis (PCA). By employing PCA for a suite of seven variables (the sum of holdings corresponding to the first three shareholders, the number of shareholders having holdings over 5%, board size, the number of independent directors, the number of non-executive directors, the number of women on board, and CEO duality) there ensued three specific ratings (board independence rating, ownership concentration rating, and board diversity rating), alongside a global rating. Subsequently, by estimating multivariate linear regression models, there was noticed the lack of a statistically significant relationship between the governance global rating and firm value as proxied by ROA, ROE, and EPS, all being industryadjusted. The lack of a statistically significant relationship was reinforced also for the specific governance ratings. The utility of current research is underlined by the information related to governance ratings towards investors globally, thus being supported the investment decision making.
Molecular regulation of life and death events during plant embryo development

The early plant embryo is divided into two domains with contrasting fates: apical embryo proper (in angiosperms) or embryonal mass (in gymnosperms) and basal suspensor. While apical domain is composed of proliferating cells and develops to plant, the suspensor consists of terminally-differentiated cells and functions as a conduit of growth factors to the growing apical domain followed by elimination through programmed cell death (PCD). The strict balance between cell division and PCD in the two domains is critical for correct embryo patterning and alteration of this balance can lead to lethality. The aim of this thesis was to identify and functionally characterise new molecular components participating in the regulation of cell division and death in plant embryo. Cohesin is a multi-protein complex with important role in DNA replication and sister chromatid cohesion and separation. In non-plant species, cohesin is loaded on chromatin by the Scc2-Scc4 complex. Arabidopsis thaliana homologue of Scc4 (denoted AtSCC4) was identified and shown to form functional complex with AtSCC2. Knockout of AtSCC4 induced inverse distribution of auxin response maxima in the embryos and ectopic cell division in the suspensor leading to developmental arrest and lethality. Split nuclei iFRAP (inverse fluorescence recovery after photobleaching) assay revealed AtSCC2-independent immobilization of AtSCC4 on chromatin and critical requirement of AtSCC4 for nuclear immobilization of cohesin. During anaphase, sister chromatid cohesion is released by evolutionary conserved protease separase (also called Extra Spindle Poles, ESP). Norway spruce (Picea abies) separase gene PaESP is highly expressed in the embryonal mass cells. PaESP-deficient embryos exhibited chromosome non-disjunction phenotype and perturbed anisotropic expansion of suspensor cells. Ectopic expression of PaESP could rescue chromosome non-disjunction phenotype of Arabidopsis ESP mutant (rsw4) but failed to rescue its root-swelling phenotype. This supports the notion of evolutionary conserved role of ESP in sister chromatid separation, but suggests that angiosperms and gymnosperms have evolved different molecular mechanisms of ESP-mediated regulation of cell expansion. RNAseq analysis of transcriptomes of the Norway spruce embryo-suspensor versus embryonal mass established a set of potential regulators of suspensor PCD. Most of these regulators are conserved across various plant lineages and have been implicated in the control of developmental PCD in Arabidopsis. Interestingly, the suspensor cells showed transcriptional up-regulation of a key component of endoplasmic reticulum stress (ER)-induced PCD, PaBI-1 (Picea abies Bax inhibitor-1), suggesting that suspensor PCD may likewise implicate ER-stress. Silencing of PaBI-1 induced necrotic cell death and abnormal suspensor phenotype leading to developmental arrest, thus establishing PaBI- 1 as an indispensable component of the suspensor PCD.
Development and Validation of the Characteristics of Resilience in Sports Teams Inventory

This multistudy paper reports the development and initial validation of an inventory for the Characteristics of Resilience in Sports Teams (CREST). In 4 related studies, 1,225 athletes from Belgium and the United Kingdom were sampled. The first study provided content validity for an initial item set. The second study explored the factor structure of the CREST, yielding initial evidence but no conclusive results. In contrast, the third and fourth study provided evidence for a 2-factor measure, reflecting (a) the team’s ability to display resilient characteristics and (b) the vulnerabilities being displayed under pressure. Overall, the CREST was shown to be reliable at the between-players and the between-teams level, as well as over time. Moreover, its concurrent validity was verified by linking the characteristics of team resilience with various relevant team processes. Its discriminant validity was established by comparing the CREST measures with individual athletes’ resilient traits. In conclusion, the CREST was argued to be a usable state-like measure of team-level resilient characteristics and vulnerabilities. To gain further understanding of team resilience as a process, this measurement could be used in future process-oriented research examining adverse events and sports team’s pre- and postadversity functioning.