Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A carbon horse race: abatement subsidies vs. permit trading in Switzerland

ABSTRACT Swiss climate policy consists of three regulatory instruments for greenhouse gas emissions reduction: A CO levy, the Swiss Emissions Trading System (CH EHS) and an additional program for medium-sized plants that is labeled ‘nonEHS’ and consists of command-and-control elements plus a sizeable abatement subsidy. Our paper informs about this tripartite climate policy, which is unique in the international context. Second, we estimate the differential impact of the CH EHS and the nonEHS program on plants' emissions. Our empirical strategy exploits a policy change in 2013 that instituted a mandatory emissions trading system for a subset of previously regulated plants. We find that the nonEHS outperforms the CH EHS for a minority of plants, but that on average, the two programs result in similar abatement efforts despite very different financial incentives. Plants that previously engaged in abatement efforts continue to do so even after the financial incentives were reduced by an order of magnitude. Key policy insights We find similar pollution abatement for plants regulated by an emissions trading system relative to plants receiving an abatement subsidy in Switzerland This is surprising given that the allowance price in the CH EHS is an order of magnitude lower than the abatement subsidy Emissions reductions in the ETS are especially pronounced for large plants, and for plants that had engaged in significant abatement in the past
Can The Switch From Fair Value Method To Cost Method For Plant Asset Valuation Be Justified

International Accounting Standards (IAS) No. 16 allows companies to use either the fair value method or the cost method for plant asset valuation. Once an entity selects one of the two methods, a switch is permitted only if it results in a more appropriate valuation, which, according to the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), is highly unlikely for a switch from the fair value method to the cost method. Using a sample of firms that adopted IAS No.16’s fair value method, we document significant evidence indicating that investors discount plant assets measured at fair value. Furthermore, investors also discount fair value firms’ other assets and liabilities. Finally, when fair value firms switch to the cost method, the value relevance of their accounting amounts improves significantly. Taken together, the evidence is consistent with the view that investors perceive the fair value of plant assets to be less reliable and, thus, place less weight on it in equity valuation. In addition, the improved value relevance in the post-switch period justifies the switch by many fair value firms to the cost method.
The transferability of airborne laser scanning based tree-level models between different inventory areas

In this paper, we examine the transferability of airborne laser scanning (ALS) based models for individual-tree detection (ITD) from one ALS inventory area (A1) to two other areas (A2 and A3). All areas were located in eastern Finland less than 100 km from each other and were scanned using different ALS devices and parameters. The tree attributes of interest were diameter at breast height (Dbh), height (H), crown base height (Cbh), stem volume (V), and theoretical sawlog volume (Vlog) of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) with Dbh ≥ 16 cm. All trees were first segmented from the canopy height models, and various ALS metrics were derived for each segment. Then only the segments covering correctly detected pines were chosen for further inspection. The tree attributes were predicted using the k-nearest neighbor (k-NN) imputation. The results showed that the relative root mean square error (RMSE%) values increased for each attribute after the transfers. The RMSE% values were, for A1, A2, and A3, respectively: Dbh, 13.5%, 14.8%, and 18.1%; H, 3.2%, 5.9%, and 6.2%; Cbh, 13.3%, 15.3%, and 18.3%; V, 29.3%, 35.4%, and 39.1%; and Vlog, 38.2%, 54.4% and 51.8%. The observed values indicate that it may be possible to employ ALS-based tree-level k-NN models over different inventory areas without excessive reduction in accuracy, assuming that the tree species are known to be similar.
Drought stress during the reproductive stage of two soybean lines

The objective of this work was to evaluate the effects of drought stress in the reproductive stage (R3) on the physiological parameters and grain yield of two soybean (Glycine max) lines. The Vx-08-10819 and Vx-08-11614 soybean lines were grown in a greenhouse, where they were irrigated until they reached the R3 development stage. During three days, the weight of the pots was monitored daily in order to maintain 100, 60, and 40% field capacity (control and moderate and severe stress, respectively). The parameters gas exchange and chlorophyll a fluorescence, as well as chloroplast pigments, osmoregulatory solutes and antioxidant enzymes, were determined. After stress, the plants were rehydrated until the end of the reproductive stage (R8), to evaluate grain yield. Vx-08-10819 showed traits that contributed to drought tolerance, such as better water-use efficiency, modulation of leaf area, and enzymatic activity, as well as a more efficient photosynthetic apparatus and a lower lipid peroxidation rate than Vx-08-11614. In addition, Vx-08-10819 maintained its productivity even after the severe water deficit. By contrast, water limitations affected negatively the productivity of Vx-08-11614. The Vx-08-10819 soybean line can efficiently withstand drought periods during the reproductive stage, without any interferences on final grain yield.
Perceived Job Quality in German Minijobs. A Multidimensional Analysis of Work in Marginal Part-time Employment RelationshipsDate submitted: August 23, 2018Revised version accepted after double-blind review: February 11, 2019.

Minijobs, a special form of part-time employment, have developed into an established form of employment on the German labour market since the 1990s. They are heavily criticised for their potential labour market effects, their impact on employees’ social security and their bad working conditions. Due to the multiple risks, minijobs are often considered as prime examples of low-quality jobs. However, to date there has been hardly any research dealing with the subjective perception of the work situation of minijobbers, resulting in a minijob debate without minijobbers’ views. This article examines the perceived job quality in minijobs. Based on a quantitative survey, different dimensions of work in minijobs are being analysed, concentrating on the relationship between desired and experienced work situations. Moreover, the global job satisfaction of minijobbers and its predictors are investigated. The analysis shows that minijobs are evaluated positively regarding many intrinsic, social and health-related aspects of work and that the overall job evaluation is significantly correlated to the perceived job quality. The study underlines the need for multidimensional and subjective approaches to job quality as well as a nuanced critique of minijobs which has to differentiate between the institutional regulation, the working conditions and employees’ subjective perception.
Adaptations of the red fox (Vulpes vulpes) to urban environments in Sydney, Australia

With urban encroachment on wild landscapes accelerating globally, there is an urgent need to understand how wildlife is adapting to anthropogenic change. We compared the behaviour of the invasive red fox (Vulpes vulpes) at eight urban and eight peri-urban areas of Sydney, Australia. We observed fox behaviour around a lure and compared fox activity patterns to those of potential prey and to two domestic predators (dogs—Canis lupus familiaris and cats—Felis catus). We assessed the influence of site type, vegetation cover, and distance from habitation on fox behaviour, and compared the temporal activity patterns of urban and peri-urban red foxes. Urban red foxes were marginally more nocturnal than those in peri-urban areas (88% activity overlap). There was greater overlap of red fox activity patterns with introduced mammalian prey in urban areas compared with peri-urban areas (90% urban vs 84% peri-urban). Red fox temporal activity overlapped 78% with cats, but only 20% with dogs, across both site types. The high degree of overlap with cats and introduced mammalian prey is most likely explained by the nocturnal behaviour of these species, while pet dogs are generally kept in yards or indoors at night. The behavioural differences we documented by urban red foxes suggest they may adapt to human modifications and presence, by being more nocturnal and/or more confident in urban areas.
Is the quality or the frequency of communication? The communication on social networks sites moderates the association between attachment and relational satisfaction

Online social networks are very important in every-day life as they offer new possibilities for communication. Couples may benefit from new opportunities and thus achieve better levels of relationship satisfaction. Some psychological characteristics may interfere with online communication in predicting satisfaction. This study was designed to examine associations between attachment insecurity, communication on Social Network Sites (SNS), and relational satisfaction. SNS communication was postulated to be a moderator in the relationship between attachment and relational satisfaction among Romanian young couples. The participants were 73 couples (146 individuals). Structural equation modeling using the actor-partner interdependence moderated model demonstrated that attachment insecurities show strong associations with relational satisfaction (both actor and partner effects) and that both the quality and the frequency of the communication on social network sites shape in different ways these associations. The results emphasize the role of SNS communication and how it can determine different patterns of relational satisfaction based on the attachment orientation of partners.
Designing Engaging Games for Education: A Systematic Literature Review on Game Motivators and Design Principles

Effective educational interventions require sufficient learner engagement, which can be difficult to achieve if the learner is inadequately motivated. Games have been shown to possess powerful motivators that fuel a person's desire to engage in unattractive activities, such as learning theoretical material. However, to design an educational game that is capable of providing motivated engagement is a challenging task. Previous research has proposed various game motivators and game design principles to alleviate this, but a comprehensive synthesis has yet to appear. In this article, we conducted a systematic literature review that yielded two major contributions: 1) a taxonomy of 56 game motivators in 14 classes; and 2) a taxonomy of 54 educational game design principles in 13 classes, with linkages to the identified game motivators. As a minor contribution, we have also presented a classification of gamification-related terms and proposed different strategies for applying gamification. The results of this article are available for educational game designers and researchers to use as a practical toolkit for the creation and evaluation of motivating educational games that keep players engaged. Moreover, this article is the first step toward the creation of a unified gamification framework.
CRLEDD: Regularized Causalities Learning for Early Detection of Diseases Using Electronic Health Record (EHR) Data

The availability of Electronic Health Records (EHR) in health care settings has provided tremendous opportunities for early disease detection. While many supervised learning models have been adopted for EHR-based disease early detection, the ill-posed inverse problem in the parameter learning has imposed a significant challenge on improving the accuracy of these algorithms. In this paper, we propose CRLEDD – Causality-Regularized Learning for Early Detection of Disease, an algorithm to improve the performance of Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) on top of diagnosis-frequency vector data representation. While most existing regularization methods exploit sparsity regularization to improve detection performance, CRLEDD provides a unique perspective by ensuring positive semi-definiteness of the sparsified precision matrix used in LDA which is different from the regular regularization method (e.g., L2 regularization). To achieve this goal, CRLEDD employs Graphical Lasso to estimate the precision matrix in the ill-posed settings for enhanced accuracy of LDA classifiers. We perform extensive evaluation of CRLEDD using a large-scale real-world EHR dataset to predict mental health disorders (e.g., depression and anxiety) of college students from 10 universities in the U.S. We compare CRLEDD with other regularized LDA and downstream classifiers. The result shows that CRLEDD outperforms all baselines in terms of accuracy and F1 scores.
Higher-order assembly of Sorting Nexin 16 controls tubulation and distribution of neuronal endosomes

The activities of neuronal signaling receptors depend on the maturation state of the endosomal compartments in which they reside. However, it remains unclear how the distribution of these compartments within the uniquely complex morphology of neurons is regulated, and how this distribution itself affects signaling. Here we identified mechanisms by which Sorting Nexin 16 (SNX16) controls neuronal endosomal maturation and distribution. We found that higher-order assembly of SNX16 via its coiled-coil domain drives membrane tubulation in vitro and endosome association in cells. In Drosophila motor neurons, activation of Rab5 and coiled-coil-dependent self-association of SNX16 lead to its endosomal enrichment, concomitant with depletion of SNX16-positive endosomes from the synapse, and their accumulation as Rab5- and Rab7-positive tubulated compartments at the cell body. This leads to higher levels of synaptic growth-promoting BMP receptors at the cell body, and correlates with increased synaptic growth. Our results indicate that Rab regulation of SNX16 assembly controls the endosomal distribution and signaling activities of neuronal receptors.
Experimental Evaluation of Theoretical Formulations for the Correction of Spectral Widths of MST Radar Spectra

The turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) per unit mass estimated from the spectral width of very high frequency/ultra high frequency (VHF/UHF) radars often produce unrealistic negative values, particularly in the presence of strong winds, due to excess correction of nonturbulent factors. An experiment has been conducted with the newly acquired capabilities of the Advanced Indian MST Radar (AIR), in which several antenna configurations, providing different beamwidths, have been employed to evaluate various existing theoretical formulations for the estimation of nonturbulent factors. These formulations include traditional single-beamwidth, symmetric dual-beamwidth, and asymmetric beamwidth methods. The large variation is seen in the observed spectral widths with different antenna apertures with broader beams showing larger biases due to beam and shear broadening even in moderate winds. Wind-driven biases in spectral width are found to be larger for beams pointed perpendicular to the wind direction than those pointed parallel, particularly at heights of strong wind. After employing the above-mentioned correction methods, all profiles of mean spectral widths obtained with different antenna configurations converge and produce nearly equal values, indicating that the corrected spectral width (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\sigma ^{2}_{\mathrm{ turb}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) values may represent realistic estimates of turbulence intensity. Comparison of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\sigma ^{2}_{\mathrm{ turb}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> estimated using east and south beams indicates that the turbulence (on average) is isotropic. Among all the correction methods, the <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\sigma ^{2}_{\mathrm{ turb}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> obtained by employing the asymmetric dual-beamwidth method has relatively larger bias than other methods. The <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\sigma ^{2}_{\mathrm{ turb}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> values are used to estimate the vertical eddy diffusion coefficients and eddy dissipation rates to have direct comparisons with those available in the literature.
Phytoseiid mites of Mayotte Island (Acari: Mesostigmata)

Mayotte is one of the four main islands constituting Comoros Archipelago, with Anjouan, Mohéli and Grande Comore. Among them, it is the closest island to Madagascar. So far, only one species of the mite family Phytoseiidae (Acari: Mesostigmata) had been reported from this island in an early study. In addition, only five species were recently collected from Grande Comore. In this paper, we report the results of a survey conducted at the end of 2018 in Mayotte Island, in which 18 species are reported for the first time for the Mayotte Island.
Global Simulation of Noble Gases and Their Binary Mixtures

Global simulations combine quantum mechanics and molecular simulations: The potential energy surface between two molecules is calculated for a sufficient number of configurations by a standard quantum chemistry method (on a sufficient level of approximation) with suitable basis sets, then fitted to an appropriate analytical form and finally used in simulations to obtain the fluid phase equilibria. This work aims at evaluating the adequacy of ab initio pair potentials plus Axilrod-Teller (AT) three-body interactions for a description of macroscopic properties of pure and binary mixtures of noble gases. In this work, three pure noble gases, namely neon, argon, krypton, and two binary mixtures neon–argon and argon–krypton were studied. For neon–neon, argon–argon and neon–argon pair interactions the ab initio potentials available in literature were used. However, for krypton–krypton and krypton–argon, new ab initio pair potentials were developed using the CCSD(T) level of theory and two correlation consistent basis sets. An extrapolation method was used to obtain the basis set limit of the interaction energies. The resulting pair potentials were fitted to a suitable analytical form containing a repulsive exponential component and an attractive damped dispersion component. To include the interaction of trimers, Axilrod–Teller triple-dipole potentials were used. New computer programs were developed to perform standard NV T Gibbs ensemble simulations for pure systems and NPT -Gibbs ensemble simulations for binary mixtures. A comprehensive investigation is reported on the simulation of pure neon using three different ab initio pair potentials. It turns out that the better the quality of the ab initio potential is, the larger discrepancies in the results of the simulations and experimental data are observed, especially
Structures and properties of liquid crystals and related molecules from computer simulation

Computer simulations provide a powerful tool for the investigation of liquid crystalline phases. In this thesis the ability of simulations to calculate accurately the values of material parameters of liquid crystal molecules is investigated. An all-atom force field for liquid crystal molecules is developed using first principles density functional theory calculations on small organic molecules, which encompass key structural features of a range of common liquid crystalline molecules. Molecular dynamics simulations of these 'fragment' molecules are carried out in the liquid phase to test the force field parameters by determining densities and heats of vapourisation. Good agreement is found between experimental values and those calculated from simulation. Equilibrium molecular dynamics (MD) calculations were then performed for the nematogen n-4-(trans-n-pentylcyclohexyl)benzonitrile (PCH5). These simulations were performed using a fully atomistic model for several temperatures. The MD trajectories were used to obtain densities, order parameters, and values for the rotational viscosity coefficient 71. Several methods of obtaining 71 were tested based on the director angular velocity correlation function, the director mean-squared displacement, and statistical mechanics methods based on the rotational diffusion model. Good agreement is obtained between experimental values of 71 and those found from simulation. Further MD simulations of PCH5 using a 216 molecule system and the force field derived in this thesis were carried out to calculate the flexoelectric coefficients e(_s) and e(_b) for PCH5. The temperature dependence of and was examined along with the separate contributions to e(_s)and e(_b)arising bom the electrostatic and van der Waals interactions. The calculated values of e(_s)and e(_b) are consistent with available experimental data. The van der Waals and electrostatic contributions are found to be of similar magnitude and opposite sign.
Top-Down and Bottom-Up Approaches to Understanding the Fate of the Federally Endangered Schaus' Swallowtail Butterfly (Heraclides Aristodemus Ponceanus

Urbanization in Miami–Dade County has modified large tracts of suitable habitats into smaller patches and increased distance between habitats. As a result, the endangered Heraclides aristodemus ponceanus (Schaus’ swallowtail), which historically inhabited subtropical dry forests in south Florida and the Florida Keys, is now restricted to several islands in the Florida Keys and its numbers are precipitously declining. Here we report on a project that combined a remote in situ restoration project with a community outreach component that brought the restoration effort to local urban elementary schools. The
To estimate the point prevalence of Rifampicin re-sistant tuberculosis in extra pulmonary tuberculosis patients' as detected by CBNAAT in a district hospital and to analyze the data using logistic regression mathematical model

The aim of this study was to estimate the point prevalence of Rifampicin resistant Mycobacteria causing tuberculosis of lymph node as detected by cartridge based nucleic acid amplification test (CBNAAT) and analyzed using logistic regression mathematical modeling. An observational cross-sectional study was carried out in the Department of Otorhinolaryngology from July 2019 to February 2020 in a tertiary healthcare setting. Rifampicin resistant Mycobacteria were identified; data tabulated and analyzed to find the point prevalence of Rifampicin resistant tuberculosis. A total of 37 patients who presented to the OPD were included in the study. Confirmation of the tuberculosis was done either by fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) or by direct biopsy. Demographic characteristics of the patients were analyzed. A logical regression mathematical model of Rifampicin resistance in the district was created. Correlation matrix was calculated using Jamovi software. of Rifampicin resistance was dependent variable in logistic regression modeling. Levels VA and VB, posterior triangle group lymph nodes were most commonly involved. It was found that there is high prevalence 89.189% (p<0.01) of Rifampicin resistant Mycobacteria. Rifampicin resistance a 2.9672 greater odds per stage higher chance p=0.0291) treatment failure as compared to Rifampicin sensitive patients. Females have higher risk of harbouring Rifampicin Resistant Mycobacteria than males.