Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Are Ugandan Farmers Using the Right Quality Inorganic Fertilizers

This brief highlights the quality concerns of inorganic fertilizers on the Ugandan market. The findings reported are an excerpt from a study that analysed the quality of inorganic fertilizers on the Ugandan market1. The analysis was based on 170 samples (in 50 kg bags and small 1-2 kg packs) of the commonly used fertilizers on the Ugandan market i.e. urea, NPK, DAP and CAN were purchased and subjected to a laboratory analysis. Procedures followed in the purchasing of fertilizer samples mimicked a farmer purchasing fertilizers randomly from any input dealer country wide. Analytical results from the fertilizer samples revealed low quality fertilizers with moisture content above acceptable limits of 0.5-1.5 percent; and untruthfulness in both weight and nutrient content. In some instances, the nutrient content quoted on the labels did not match with the analytical content. This has serious consequences because fertilizer recommendations are based on the nutrient content. If the nutrients are not of the right quality, then the end-user (a farmer) will not attain the intended crop response to fertilizer application. The study findings reveal that re-packaging fertiliser into smaller quantities is justifiable to meet the requirements of smallholder farmers, but leads to loss of nutrients (especially nitrogen); and also aggravates the high moisture content problem. Results reveal gaps in the current regulatory system; therefore there is an urgent need for government to approve and operationalize the fertilizer policy, regulations and strategy.
THE INEFFICIENT MANAGEMENT AND DISCIPLINARY MOTIVES FOR TAKEOVER IN AUSTRALIA

The disciplinary motive and removal of inefficient target management are widely cited as explanations for takeovers. This study tests the prevalence of these explanations using Australian takeover targets from 1990 to 2002. We find that the vast majority of target firms are unlikely candidates for disciplinary action. Contrary to the disciplinary hypothesis, we find that target shareholdings are highly concentrated and are more concentrated than non-target firms. Unlike Agrawal and Jaffe’s (2003) US study, we find ASX targets are typically poor performers but, contrary to the inefficient management hypothesis, we find that takeover success is higher for better performing targets.
Behavioral and Emotional Problems in Abused and Nonabused Children in a Pakistani Cohort

The study aimed to el ucidate whether the trauma of abuse refleciS upon the behavioral and emotional pattern in children. Abused and nonabused children (50 each) were drawn from 5 cities of Punjab. Child Abuse Scale (Malik & Shah. 2007) was used to identify nature and level of abuse. Class teachers rated children's behavior on Comprehensive Behavior Rating Scale (Neeper, Lahey. & Frick, 1990). Univariate ANOVA revealed reliable differences of behavioral problems across abused and nonabused group and gender with a general trend for abused group than nonabused and girls than boys. The data remained even. when differences across groups were controlled by covariance in terms of socio-economic status, maternal education. and fami ly system. The implications of the childhood trauma as a marker for behavioral problems in children are discussed in the context of Pakistani culture.
Soil Heterogeneity Effects on Tallgrass Prairie Community Heterogeneity: An Application of Ecological Theory to Restoration Ecology

Spatial heterogeneity of resources can influence plant community composition and diversity in natural communities. We manipulated soil depth (two levels) and nutrient availability (three levels) to create four heterogeneity treatments (no heterogeneity, depth heterogeneity, nutrient heterogeneity, and depth + nutrient heterogeneity) replicated in an agricultural field seeded to native prairie species. Our objective was to determine whether resource heterogeneity influences species diversity and the trajectory of community development during grassland restoration. The treatments significantly increased heterogeneity of available inorganic nitrogen (N), soil water content, and light penetration. Plant diversity was indirectly related to resource heterogeneity through positive relationships with variability in productivity and cover established by the belowground manipulations. Diversity was inversely correlated with the average cover of the dominant grass, Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum), which increased over time in all heterogeneity treatments and resulted in community convergence among the heterogeneity treatments over time. The success of this cultivar across the wide range of resource availability was attributed to net photosynthesis rates equivalent to or higher than those of the native prairie plants in the presence of lower foliar N content. Our results suggest that resource heterogeneity alone may not increase diversity in restorations where a dominant species can successfully establish across the range of resource availability. This is consistent with theory regarding the role of ecological filters on community assembly in that the establishment of one species best adapted for the physical and biological conditions can play an inordinately important role in determining community structure.
Marketing Strategies for Competitive Advantage: A Survey of Selected Public and Private University in Kenya

Kenya’s higher education has remained the fastest-growing segment of the education system over the past 20 years, with enrolments increasing on average by 6.2 percent per year. The current trend in universities is characterized by aggressive competition especially with the establishment of satellite centers across the country and use of different marketing communication (MC) tools to attract potential students. To examine the differentiation strategies used by public and private universities in Kenya to attain competitive advantage the study was conducted in one private and one public university in Nairobi, Kenya. The target population comprised of students, senior administrative staff and marketing units of the selected universities. Comparative study research design was used. Purposive sampling was used to select a private and a public university, based on student enrolment, brand image and demand for programmes offered. Following this, the selected universities were stratified by disciplines and courses taken and the respective respondents were finally selected using systematic random sampling. The data was collected using questionnaires and interviews. Questionnaires were used to collect data from students while interviews schedules were used to collect data from senior administrative staff, marketing units and key informants of the study. Both descriptive and inferential statistics (correlations and regression) through the use of statistical package for social sciences were used to analyze the raw data. The findings indicated there is variance in the application of differentiation strategies. Key Words: Differentiation, Marketing, University
Habitat relationships of Asian elephants in shifting-cultivation landscapes of Meghalaya, Northeast India

The state of Meghalaya consists of the three hill regions, east to west, of Jaintia, Khasi, and Garo Hills. The regions constitute steeply inclined and eroded topography with local valleys, and are each inhabited by peoples of varying origin and cultures. From such geography, the elephant population of Meghalaya is essentially isolated from other populations in south Asia (Santiapillai & Jackson 1990).
Rotating massive O stars with non-spherical 2D winds

We present solutions for the velocity field and mass-loss rat es for 2D axisymmetric outflows, as well as for the case of mass accretion through the use of the Lambert W-function. For the case of a rotating radiation-driven wind the velocity field is obtained analytically using a parameterised description of the line acceleration that only depends on radius r at any given latitude �. The line acceleration g(r) is obtained from Monte-Carlo multi-line radiative transfer calculations. The critical/sonic point of our equation of motion varies with latitude �. Furthermore, an approximate analytical solution for the supersonic flow of a rotating wind is derived, which is found to closely resemble the exact solution. For the simultaneous solution of the mass-loss rate and velocity field, we use the iterative method of our 1D method extended to the non-spherical 2D case. We apply the new theoretical expressions with our iterative method to the stellar wind from a differentially rotating 40 M⊙ O5‐V main sequence star as well as to a 60 M⊙ O‐giant star, and we compare our results to previous studies that are extensions of the Ca stor et al. (1975, ApJ, 195, 157) CAK formalism. Next, we account for the effects of oblateness and gravity darkening. Our numerical results predict an equatorial decrease of the mass-loss rate, w hich would imply that (surface-averaged) total mass-loss rates are lower than for the spherical 1D case, in contradiction to the Maeder & Meynet (2000, A&A, 361, 159) formalism that is oftentimes employed in stellar evolution calculations for rotating massive sta rs. To clarify the situation in nature we discuss observational tests to co nstrain the shapes of large-scale 2D stellar winds.
ROOT-KNOT NEMATODES OF CUCURBITS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT - A REVIEW

Cucurbits are grown as warm season crops and have multiple uses. These crops are damaged by many plant parasitic nematodes. The information on nematodes associated, yield loss, pathogenicity and control is very limited. Use of chemicals cannot be advocated due to safety issues. Hence other methods viz. biological, organic amendments and resistant cultivars should be adopted. The information so for generated are presented briefly in this review.
Socioemotional Wealth, Generations and Venture Capital Involvement in Family-Controlled Businesses

In this paper we analyze how the will to protect socioemotional wealth affects venture capital (VC) involvement in family-controlled businesses (FCBs). We find that first generation FCBs receiving VC show significantly lower productivity growth than other investees prior to the initial VC investment. We argue that the higher reluctance to lose control in first generation FCBs explains why only those that are not performing well are willing to accept an external investor as new shareholder. We also find, however, that the impact of VC financing on productivity growth is higher in first generation FCBs than in other investees. Since managers’ entrepreneurial orientation decreases over time, the effect of VC involvement is more limited in second or following generation FCBs.
Energy Consumption and Modeling of output energy with Multilayer Feed-Forward Neural Network for Corn Silage in Iran

In this study, various Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) were developed to estimate the output energy for corn silage production in Esfahan province, Iran. For this purpose, the data on 65 corn silage production farms in the Esfahan province, were collected and analyzed. The results indicated that total energy input for corn silage production was about 83126 MJ ha –1 ; machinery (with 38.8 %) and chemical fertilizer (with 24.5 %) were amongst the highest energy inputs for corn silage production. The developed ANN was a multilayer perceptron (MLP) with eight neurons in the input layer (human power, machinery, diesel fuel, chemical fertilizer, water for irrigation, seed, farm manure and pesticides ), one, two, three, four and five hidden layer(s) of various numbers of neurons and one neuron (output energy) in the output layer. The results of ANNs analyze showed that the (8-5-5-1)-MLP, namely, a network having five neurons in the first and second hidden layer was the best-suited model estimating the corn silage output energy. For this topology, MAB, MAE, RMSE and R 2 were 0.109, 0.001, 0.0464 and 98%, respectively. The sensitivity analysis of input parameters on output showed that diesel fuel and seeds had the highest and lowest sensitivity on output energy with 0.0984 and 0.0386, respectively. The ANN approach appears to be a suitable method for modeling output energy, fuel consumption, CO 2 emission, yield, and energy consumption based on social and technical parameters. This method would open new doors to advances in agriculture and modeling.
Far infrared properties of Hickson compact groups of galaxies. I. High resolution IRAS maps and fluxes

The Far Infrared (FIR) properties of galaxies which are members of compact groups bear relevant information on the dynamical status and the physical properties of these structures. All studies published so far have been undermined by the poor sensitivity and spatial resolution of the IRAS-PSC and IRAS Sky Survey data. We used the HIRAS software available at the IRAS server at the Laboratory for Space Research in Groningen to fully exploit the redundancy of the IRAS data and to approach the theoretical diraction limit of IRAS. Among the 97 groups which were observed by IRAS, 62 were detected in at least one band, while reliable upper limits were derived for all the others. Among the detected groups, 49 were fully or partially resolved, i.e. it was possible to discriminate which member or members emit most of the FIR light. At 60 m, for instance, 87 individual sources were detected in 62 groups. In order to ease the comparison with data obtained at other wavelengths - and in particular in the X and radio domains - we give co-added and HIRAS maps for all the detected groups.
An Empirical Study of Asian Stock Volatility Using Stochastic Volatility Working

This paper is an empirical study of Asian stock volatility using stochastic volatility factor (SVF) model of Cipollini and Kapetanios (2005). We adopt their approach to carry out factor analysis and to forecast volatility. Our results show some Asian factors exhibit long memory that is in line with existing empirical findings in financial volatility. However, their local-factor SVF model is not powerful enough in forecasting Asian volatility. This has led us to propose an extension to a multi-factor SVF model. We also discuss how to produce forecast using this multi-factor model. JEL Codes: C32, C33, C53, G15
The long Term Effects of the Printing Press in Sub Saharan Africa

This article delves into the relationship between newspaper readership and civic attitudes, and its effect on economic development. To this end, we investigate the long-term consequences of the introduction of the printing press in the 19th century. In sub-Saharan Africa, Protestant missionaries were the first both to import the printing press technology and to allow the indigenous population to use it. We build a new geocoded dataset locating Protestant missions in 1903. This dataset includes, for each mission station, the geographic location and its characteristics, as well as the educational and health-related investments undertaken by the mission. We show that, within regions located close to missions, proximity to a printing press significantly increases newspaper readership today. We also document a strong association between proximity to a printing press and contemporary economic development. Our results are robust to a variety of identification strategies.
Optimal estimation of the intensity function of a spatial point process

Although optimal from a theoretical point of view, maximum likelihood estimation for Cox and cluster point processes can be cumbersome in practice due to the complicated nature of the likelihood function and the associated score function. It is therefore of interest to consider alternative more easily computable estimating functions. We derive the optimal estimating function in a class of first-order estimating functions. The optimal estimating function depends on the solution of a certain Fredholm integral equation and reduces to the likelihood score in case of a Poisson process. We discuss the numerical solution of the Fredholm integral equation and note that a special case of the approximated solution is equivalent to a quasi-likelihood for binary spatial data. The practical performance of the optimal estimating function is evaluated in a simulation study and a data example.
Accounting Frameworks and Cross-Cultural Effects on Accounting disclosure Practices in Nigeria

This study examines the distinct dimensions of culture (power distance, collectivism and individualism) using the Hofstede framework and its effect on accounting disclosure practices in the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Using the OLS regression method of data analysis, it was observed that the collec tivism and power distance dimension of culture impacts positively on accounting disclosure practices, though only the cultural dimension of collectivism was found to be significant. The cultural dimension of individualism was found to be negatively and non-significantly associated with accounting disclosure practices. Based on this finding some recommendations were made, prominent amongst which was that, in harmonization of accounting disclosure practices/standards toward ensuring uniformity in accounting practices, there is need to consider cultural values related to collectivism and power distance; while cultural values in terms of individualism need not be given much attention when developing uniform accounting standards like the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).
Long-term hypophagic effect of chronic cannabis (Δ9-THC) administration on body weight progress investigated in a rat model

Background:The use of cannabis to prevent weight gain or weight loss as unwanted side effects complementary to certain primary therapies inducing such side effects is still under study. Previous studies of different dose- and time-dependent ? 9-Tetrahydrocannabinol treatment approaches have shown contradictory effects on food intake behavior and body weight changes. Here we examined the effect of a daily dose of3 mg/kg over a period of up to 8.5 month in a rat model which is equivalent to about 0.25 grams over a period of 21.5 years in terms of human life spans. Moreover, this effect was investigated in both, a native start generation and a ? 9-THC-biased offspring filial generation. Methods:In this open, controlled study 48 nude rats (f+m) originating from two different generations were separated in ? 9-THC-treatment- and control groups. The daily administration of THC and control vehicle was done intraperitoneally. Body weight change was recorded at 14 (SG) and 9 (F1) time points throughout the study. Results:In addition to a clear hypophagic effect found with long-term THC treatment, we observed an immediate cessation of this effect after settlement of the drug during recurrent lactation periods in both, SG and F1 generations. Thus the mechanisms involved in weight loss after chronic THC treatment at this dose-rate seem to remain reversible over a long period of time. Conclusion:We conclude that long-term THC administration at a dose level of 3 mg/kg might be suitable for complementary therapies effecting controlled weight loss when intended (e.g. treatment of type-2 diabetes, obesity, lack of sufficient sleep (insomnia), some types of cancer, etc.).
Relationship of post-weaning growth and age at puberty in crossbred beef heifers

ABSTRACT This study was intended to evaluate body size structure and growth parameters of crossbred heifers fed at four nutritional levels to achieve puberty earlier. Animals were classified depending on their level of crossing between Nelore and Hereford and subjected to four nutritional levels (kg day−1) as follows: 0.5 (light; n = 32), 0.75 (medium; n = 32), 1.00 (high; n = 29), and 1.25 (very high; n = 27). Heifers at puberty and at weaning were individually classified for [. ]
Infant Facial Discrimination and Perceptual Narrowing

INFANT FACIAL DISCRIMINATION AND PERCEPTUAL NARROWING Joseph E. Fair Department of Psychology Master of Science During the early stages of infant development the capacity for perceptual (i.e., visual) discrimination is shaped by infants’ perceptual experience. Perceptual narrowing is one process hypothesized to account for developmental change. Perceptual narrowing research often demonstrates that infants before 6 months of age are able to discriminate a wide variety of events whereas infants beyond 6 months of age seemingly “lose” some perceptual abilities. Two investigations are proposed to examine the claim that younger, but not older infants can discriminate faces across species. The purpose of Experiment 1 was to determine whether an increase in familiarization and trial times would result in cross-species facial (i.e. faces of macaques) discrimination in 12-month-olds. The hypothesis was supported, adding evidence that perceptual discrimination becomes more constricted, or less efficient with age, but does not decline. Experiment 2 examined whether reducing both the time of familiarization and comparison time by 50% would allow infants sufficient time to discriminate. Results were consistent with the hypothesis and previous studies were corroborated. These findings highlight the important role of perceptual experience in young infants’ perceptual discrimination abilities and provide a greater degree of clarity regarding present use of the concept perceptual narrowing.
Potentiality of lytic bacteriophages and their virolysins in lysing multi-drug resistant Salmonella typhi

Bacteriophage virolysins or lytic enzymes are bacterial peptidoglycan hydrolases responsible for lysing bacterial cells. Consequently, they are used as enzybiotics alongside with bacteriophage therapy to remedy multi-drug resistant Salmonella typhi. The objective of this study was to evaluate the potentiality of lytic bacteriophages and their virolysins in curing multi-drug resistant S. typhi. S. typhi was isolated and identified according to WHO and ISO guidelines. Antibiotics susceptibilities were tested using CLSI recommendations. Correspondingly, bacteriophage-lysing efficiency was assayed by plaques formation using the double-layer agar technique. Virolysins were extracted using ultracentrifugation and purified by dialysis after buffering in ammonium sulfate. Virolysins activity was determined by measuring the reaction mixtures spectrophotometrically (bacteria incubated as substrate in 37°C for 4 h). The phages and virolysins kinetics exponential rates were calculated using specific differential equations. Susceptibility data plotted based on antibiogram criteria confirmed that 33% of S. typhi isolates were multi-drug resistant. For bacteriophage replication and multiplicity of infection, phages were amplified to produce the maximum particles of titers. The phage titration data fit on sonogram revealed exponential decay of S. typhi incubated for 12 h. Meanwhile, the enzyme kinetics exponential decay on double reciprocal plot showed irretrievable relationship of host decay in 4 h. Since phages depend on their lytic cycle in lysing bacterial host, their enzymes have more capability in decaying the host; besides they are safe and time-saving when used in the treatment of antibiotics resistant S. typhi. Key words: Antibiotics, bacteriophage, enzybiotics, Salmonella typhi, virolysins.
Hall MHD and electron inertia effects in current sheet formation at a magnetic neutral line

An exact self-similar solution is used to investigate current sheet formation at a magnetic neutral line in incompressible Hall magnetohydrodynamics. The collapse to a current sheet is modelled as a finite-time singularity in the solution for electric current density at the neutral line. We establish that a finite-time collapse to the current sheet can occur in Hall magnetohydrodynamics, and we find a criterion for the finite-time singularity in terms of the initial conditions. We derive an asymptotic solution for the singularity formation and a formula for the singularity formation time. The analytical results are illustrated by numerical solutions, and we also investigate an alternative similarity reduction. Finally, we generalise our solution to incorporate resistive, viscous and electron inertia terms. AMS subject classifications: 76W05, 85A30