Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
DYNAMIC ECONOMICS

: This study aims to empirically examine the auditor choice in family firms. The study investigates the relationship between family firms, family ownership, and the family identity of the CEO with auditor choice. The research sample consists of 931 firm-year observations non-financial listed companies on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in 2015-2021. A company is considered to use a high-quality auditor if it is audited by one of the BIG 4 Firms. Logistic regression analysis results indicate that family firms are less likely to hire high-quality auditors compared to non-family firms. Besides, the percentage of family ownership is negatively related to auditor choice, where companies with higher family ownership less likely to hire high-quality auditors. In terms of the family identity of the CEO, companies with a descendant CEO are less likely to hire high-quality auditors. However, the presence of a founding family CEO and a professional CEO is not related to auditor choice.
EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT IN THE KARAKORUM: EDUCATIONAL EXPANSION AND ITS IMPACTS IN GILGIT-BALTISTAN, PAKISTAN

Summary: Despite countless political declarations of commitment and continued efforts to improve rural education in the Global South, little progress has been made in the last decades. Some parts of the Gilgit-Baltistan Region in northern Paki stan constitute a rare exception in this respect. The analysis of this instructive example of a successful educational expansion allows for identifying key facilitating factors which made possible here what was doomed to fail elsewhere. Starting from very low education levels only six decades ago, parts of the region today are among the educational front-runners of Paki stan. Various education sector initiatives of the government, non-government institutions, denominational networks and the private sector have improved access to education and created new educational opportunities. This educational expansion has not been a homogeneous and linear process but is characterized by variegated ruptures, inequalities and disparities along regional, denominational, socio-economic, inter- and intra-generational as well as gendered lines. Many households could largely benefit from the educational opportunities in form of off-farm income generation and professional employment, but a group of continuously poor and educationally marginalized is threatened to be left behind. Zusammenfassung: Trotz unzahliger politischer Absichtserklarungen und anhaltender Bemuhungen, die Bildungssitu ation in landlichen Regionen des Globalen Sudens zu verbessern, wurden in den letzten Jahrzehnten dabei nur geringe Fortschritte erreicht. Teile der Region Gilgit-Baltistan im Norden Pakistans stellen eine der wenigen Ausnahmen in dieser Hinsicht dar. Eine Analyse dieses aufschlussreichen Beispiels einer erfolgreich verlaufenden Bildungsexpansion erlaubt es, entscheidende Erfolgsfaktoren zu identifizieren, die hier ermoglichten, was in vielen anderen Regionen bislang nicht reali siert werden konnte. Ausgehend von sehr niedrigen Bildungsraten konnten einige Gebiete Gilgit-Baltistans innerhalb von nur etwa sechs Jahrzehnten zu den fuhrenden Bildungsregionen Pakistans aufschliesen. Durch zahlreiche Bildungssektor initiativen von Seiten der pakistanischen Regierung, Nicht-Regierungsorganisationen, konfessionellen Netzwerken und dem Privatsektor wurde der Zugang zu Bildung verbessert und neue Bildungschancen geschaffen. Der Bildungsexpansions prozess verlief jedoch nicht homogen und linear, sondern ist charakterisiert durch vielfaltige Bruche, Ungleichheiten und regionale, konfessionelle, sozio-okonomische, inner- und intergenerationelle sowie Gender-bezogene Disparitaten. Viele Haushalte konnten stark von den neuen Bildungsmoglichkeiten profitieren, etwa in Form von formaler Beschaftigung und auserlandwirtschaftlichen Einkommen. Doch eine Gruppe von fortwahrend Armen und bezuglich Bildung Marginalisierten droht zunehmend abgehangt zu werden.
Psychological distress among married and unmarried Female Teenagers in Mt Darwin District in Zimbabwe

Background : The psychological distress is one of the leading silent causes of mental illnesses particularly in developing countries like Zimbabwe. Most communities in the Sub-Sahara Africa relate mental illnesses to witch crafting or avenging spirits for wrongdoing, without considering the human environments. In Zimbabwe, early marriage, as one of the causes of mental illnesses has not been much researched and documented.The empirical evidence is key in enhancing understanding of psychological distress as one of negative impacts of early marriages. This study is meant to increase evidence of the effects of early marriage through comparing married and non-married female teenagers in line with the likelihood of developing the psychological distress. The study sought to answer the following questions: (a) Does early marriage expose female teenagers to psychological distress? (b) How prevalent is psychological distress among married and unmarried female teenagers? (c) Are levels psychological distress significantly different among married and unmarried female teenagers? Findings might be helpful to inform interventions for minimizing and/ or curbing the languishing of female teenagers in marriage by pointing to effective social support systems. Materials and Methods : In this study, the researchers randomly selected 192 married and 192 unmarried female teenager respondents within 16 to 19 year age range. All respondents were drawn from purposively selected eight wards with high prevalence of early marriage in Mount (Mt) Darwin District of Zimbabwe. A modified Kessler Psychological Distress Scale K (10) was assess to determine the level of likelihood of developing psychological distress in married and unmarried female teenagers. Results : More married female teenagers were likely to develop psychological distress when compared with the unmarried female teenagers. Psychological distress was most prevalent among married female teenagers within the 16 to 17 year age range probably due to swift changes in roles from parent-depended to self/husband depended young adults and immaturity to handle roles and responsibilities of marriage. The unmarried female teenagers who were orphans, with primary education and belonging either to Apostolic Sects of African Traditional Religion reported psychological distress. Conclusion: The study established that the married female teenagers were more likely to develop psychological distress than their unmarried female teenager counterparts. In Mt Darwin District there aremany adolescent females who are already married and are experiencing challenges in their marriages. Those unmarried female adolescents who have not yet experienced early marriage challenges would in the long run be victims. A dual approach, emphasising prevention of anticipated problems and amelioration of already existing problems should be adopted in Mt Darwin.
Science, Technology and Skills

The invention of agriculture that occurred around 10,000 years ago heralded a shift from nomadic hunting and gathering to more managed forms of food, feed and fiber production. Since then, agricultural innovation and research has produced great results in feeding the earth's population. This report looks at the changing context of agricultural research and development (RD changing incentives to innovate; collective action in R&D, and financing of R&D. The report also looks at the state of sciences for agriculture as well as technological distance, spillovers, and knowledge stocks. The final section of the paper deals with technological risk and how to regulate technology in the agricultural sector.
Help or Hurt? The Impact of ESG on Firm Performance in S&P 500 Non-Financial Firms

The paper aims to investigate the impact of ESG practice on firms’ financial performance in the context of U.S. market from 2018 to 2020. The paper examines a sample of 57 U.S. non-financial firms belonging to the S&P 500. The Two-Stage Least Squares (2SLS) estimation is employed with an instrumental variable - the political views of the states where the studied firms are located. The paper shows that having a better practice of ESG could enhance firms’ financial performance measured by ROA, ROE, and TobinQ. These findings are consistent with the stakeholder-focused theory instead of shareholder-focus perspective. In addition, the magnitude of the influence of the ESG practice on TobinQ is significantly higher than that of the ESG-ROA and ESG-ROE relations. It reveals that the ESG benefits could make the firms appear more attractive to investors, creating higher market values of the firms’ assets and then higher TobinQ ratio. Not as the TobinQ enhancement, the significant improvement in ROA and ROE would be realized in the long run rather than short term. The low managerial ownership in the U.S. market may increase the chance of ESG overinvestment by the firms’ managers, hence reducing firm value. However, under the pressure of the investors’ strong demand for socially responsible investing, the U.S. firms tend to become involved in ESG activities, obtaining a strong stakeholder commitment and thus creating additional firm value in the long run.
Astérisque

— A fundamental tool in noncommutative geometry is Connes’ character formula. This formula is used in an essential way in the applications of noncommutative geometry to index theory and to the spectral characterisation of manifolds. A non-compact space is modeled in noncommutative geometry by a non-unital spectral triple. Our aim is to establish the Connes character formula for non-unital spectral triples. This is significantly more difficult than in the unital case and we achieve it with the use of recently developed double operator integration techniques. Previously, only partial extensions of Connes’ character formula to the non-unital case were known. In the course of the proof, we establish two more results of importance in noncommutative geometry: an asymptotic for the heat semigroup of a non-unital spectral triple, and the analyticity of the associated ζ -function. We require certain assumptions on the underlying spectral triple, and we verify these assumptions in the case of spectral triples associated to arbitrary complete Riemannian manifolds and also in the case of Moyal planes.
Testing the Ephemeral Gully Erosion Model (EGEM) for two Mediterranean environments

Few models can predict ephemeral gully erosion rates (e.g. CREAMS, EGEM). The Ephemeral Gully Erosion Model (EGEM) was specifically developed to predict soil loss by ephemeral gully erosion. Although EGEM claims to have a great potential in predicting soil losses by ephemeral gully erosion, it has never been thoroughly tested. The objective of this study was to evaluate the suitability of EGEM for predicting ephemeral gully erosion rates in Mediterranean environments. An EGEM-input data set for 86 ephemeral gullies was collected: detailed measurements of 46 ephemeral gullies were made in intensively cultivated land in southeast Spain (Guadalentin study area) and another 40 ephemeral gullies were measured in both intensively cultivated land and abandoned land in southeast Portugal (Alentejo study area). Together with the assessment of all EGEM-input parameters, the actual eroded volume for each ephemeral gully was also determined in the field. A very good relationship between predicted and measured ephemeral gully volumes was found (R2 = 0·88). But as ephemeral gully length is an EGEM input parameter, both predicted and measured ephemeral gully volumes have to be divided by this ephemeral gully length in order to test the predictive capability of EGEM. The resulting relationship between predicted and measured ephemeral gully cross-sections is rather weak (R2 = 0·27). Therefore it can be concluded that EGEM is not capable of predicting ephemeral gully erosion for the given Mediterranean areas. A second conclusion is that ephemeral gully length is a key parameter in determining the ephemeral gully volume. Regression analysis shows that a very significant relation between ephemeral gully length and ephemeral gully volume exists (R2 = 0·91). Accurate prediction of ephemeral gully length is therefore crucial for assessing ephemeral gully erosion rates. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Macro‐ and micro‐sedimentology of a modern melt‐out till – Matanuska Glacier, Alaska, USA

The macro‐ and micro‐sedimentology of a supraglacial melt‐out till forming at the Matanuska Glacier was examined in relationship to the properties of the stratified basal zone ice and debris from which it is originating. In situ melting of the basal ice has produced a laminated to bedded diamicton consisting mainly of silt. Macroscopic properties include: discontinuous laminae and beds; lenses of sand, silt aggregates and open‐work gravel; deformed and elongate clasts of clay; widely dispersed pebbles and cobbles, those that are prolate usually with their long axes subparallel to parallel to the bedding. Evidence for deformation is absent except for localized bending of beds over or under rock clasts. Microscopic properties are a unique element of this work and include: discontinuous lineations; silt to granule size laminae; prolate coarse sand and rock fragments commonly with their long axis subparallel to bedding; subangular to subrounded irregular shaped clay clasts often appearing as bands; sorted and unsorted silt to granule size horizons, sometimes disrupted by pore‐water pathways. Limited deformation occurs around rock clasts and thicker parts of lamina. This study shows that in situ melting of debris‐rich basal ice can produce a laminated and bedded diamicton that inherits and thereby preserves stratified basal ice properties. Production and preservation of supraglacial melt‐out till require in situ melting of a stagnant, debris‐rich basal ice source with a low relief surface that becomes buried by a thick, stable, insulating cover of ice‐marginal sediment. Also required are a slow melt rate and adequate drainage to minimize pore‐water pressures in the till and overlying sediment cover to maintain stability and uninterrupted deposition. Many modern and ancient hummocky moraines down glacier of subglacial overdeepenings probably meet these process criteria and their common occurrence suggests that both modern and pre‐modern supraglacial melt‐out tills may be more common than previously thought.
SMHI-RCA Model Captures the Spatial and Temporal Variability inPrecipitation Anomalies over East Africa

This work assesses the performance of the Sweden’s Meteorological and Hydrological Institute-the Rossby Centre Regional Atmospheric Climate Model, SMHI-RCA, in reproducing precipitation variability over Ethiopia. The simulated datasets, which are generated in the frame work of Coordinate Regional climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) project, are validated by Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP). Comparison of means, correlation coefficients, value of chi-square, bias test and test of significance showed that there is a good agreement between SMHI-RCA and GPCP rainfall at each grid point. Rotated Principal Components (RPCs) and the associated spectra for both datasets showed that the improvement of rainfall simulations is remarkable over different parts of the country. Classification using Hierarchical Clustering Analysis (HCLA) reasonably agrees with the reduction of data using Principal Component Analysis (PCA). Small scaled condensed homogeneous groups are identified from SMHI-RCA and GPCP datasets; several of them being shared by both. Zones of rainfall maxima for each cluster are primarily associated with the migration of Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ); even though, elevation differences induce rainfall peaks to have a phase shift at local scale.
Whole-blood hypocoagulable profile correlates with a greater risk of death within 28 days in patients with severe sepsis

Background Hypocoagulability and impaired platelet function have been associated with a high risk of death in sepsis. The aim of this cohort study was to determine whether sepsis-induced hypocoagulability and platelet dysfunction (assessed by ROTEM® and MULTIPLATE®, respectively) are increased in sepsis patients who died within 28 days after diagnosis compared with patients who died between 29 and 90 days after diagnosis. Methods Consecutive patients admitted to the intensive care unit of Padova University Hospital from March 2015 to March 2018 for severe sepsis were considered. We collected blood samples from all patients to determine ROTEM® and MULTIPLATE® parameters. Each enrolled patient underwent a 90-day follow-up and the mortality rate was recorded. Results Of 120 patients, 36 (30%) died within 28 days post-diagnosis (Group A), 23 (19%) died between days 29 and 90 post-diagnosis (Group B), and 61 (51%) were alive after 90 days (survivors). The clotting time in the ROTEM® test and clot formation time in the EXTEM test were significantly more prolonged in Group A than in B. Both groups showed a significantly higher hypocoagulability than survivors in the EXTEM test. MULTIPLATE® platelet function analysis showed that platelet function was significantly lower in Group A than in Group B. Conclusions The present study showed that the combination of thromboelastometry and impedance aggregometry may help identifying sepsis patients at high risk of short-term death. Larger studies are warranted to corroborate our results.
The Effects of Quantitative Easing on Interest Rates: Channels and Implications for Policy

We evaluate the effect of the Federal Reserve's purchase of long-term Treasuries and other long-term bonds (QE1 in 2008-09 and QE2 in 2010-11) on interest rates. Using an event-study methodology, we reach two main conclusions. First, it is inappropriate to focus only on Treasury rates as a policy target, because quantitative easing works through several channels that affect particular assets differently. We find evidence for a signaling channel, a unique demand for long-term safe assets, and an inflation channel for both QE1 and QE2, and a mortgage-backed securities (MBS) prepayment channel and a corporate bond default risk channel for QE1 only. Second, effects on particular assets depend critically on which assets are purchased. The event study suggests that MBS purchases in QE1 were crucial for lowering MBS yields as well as corporate credit risk and thus corporate yields for QE1, and Treasuries-only purchases in QE2 had a disproportionate effect on Treasuries and agency bonds relative to MBSs and corporate bonds, with yields on the latter falling primarily through the market's anticipation of lower future federal funds rates.
DOCTORAL CONGRESS IN ENGINEERING

In the last decades, renewable energy is gaining increasing attention from the research community and new technologies, trying to further exploit renewable sources, are emerging. An example is AWES Airborne Wind Energy Systems (Schmehl 2018). These systems generate electricity using tethered wings (kites) that harvest high altitude winds. In this work, we address the testing of trajectory controllers for kites to follow a prescribed geometric path. For that, we analyze the path-following guidance method reported in (Silva 2019) and implemented in Ardupilot software. This controller is a modification of the nonlinear guidance logic described in (Park 2004). The navigation control is done by using the L1 distance reference to the desired point in the trajectory. We compute the angle η between the kite current velocity ṗ and L1 and perform the required lateral acceleration. An adjustment to this controller was performed. We define the closest point in the path and then a reference target point is defined as the point distancing L0 from the closest point in the path. In the end, the L1 resulting from this approach is given by the calculating the hypotenuse between the cross-track distance d, to the path and the distance L0. Figure 1 Path to be followed and signals included. The two methods were simulated and compared by the help of JSBsim under, for example, fast changing wind conditions, such as wind gusts. We can conclude that the new guidance method is capable of following the desired path through software-in-the-loop simulations with Ardupilot. It is possible to follow the path, even when the aircraft is distant from the desired one, without adding new conditions to the old controller. A stable L0 can be adjusted accordingly to the flight characteristics of the aircraft.
ANNALES DE L’INSTITUT FOURIER

— We introduce augmented and restricted base loci of cycles and we study the positivity properties naturally deﬁned by these base loci. Résumé. — Nous introduisons les lieux de base augmentés et restreints de cycles et nous étudions les propriétés de positivité naturellement déﬁnies par ces lieux de base.
Theoretical treatment of amplitude calibration problems in HEM data

A recent increase in the environmental usage of Airborne EM has shown the need to accurately provide values of depth and conductivity. Calibration problems in helicopter EM data produce imprecise conductivity depth images (CDIs), maps and sections, which are essential requirements in order to target smaller, near–surface objectives, such as salinity outbreaks. To ensure agreement between ground–truth, such as conductivity logs and CDIs, data recalibration is often applied before processing. Ground-based methods, if available, have spatial limitations. An alternative statistical average method has been developed to provide theoretical consistency. In conductivity-independent αβ domain, the median response of a variety of expected synthetic models based on expected geology is calculated and compared with the median of the larger amplitude field data. The data are then rescaled in the data domain so that the recalibrated median response lies exactly on the theoretical curve. The amplitude rescaling was applied to an HEM dataset, collected in the Riverland area in South Australia. The results were compared using maps and CDI images of the raw and recalibrated data. The original delivered data produced CDI images that were generally inconsistent with borehole conductivity data. However, rescaling to ensure ‘thin-sheet’ consistency has produced remarkable agreement between ground truth and the CDI sections.
European Journal of Foreign Language Teaching-ISSN 2501-1754

Reading can be a crucial skill in studying a language as it helps record a plethora of knowledge in the world. Reading can be an entertaining activity or it can be a task. This study aims at investigating the task as this is commonly seen in studying a language. More specifically, the study targets three different objectives and 30 first-year English majors were recruited to answer the survey questions. They were asked about the factors that they thought to have the greatest effects on reading comprehension. The second section asked them about their opinion about difficult reading comprehension task-types. The third section elicited their opinion about reading comprehension strategies which they thought to be difficult to apply in doing comprehension tasks. The results revealed that most of the participants posited that they had obstacles in vocabulary, grammatical structures and unfamiliarity of the topic and vocabulary was seen as the most problematic. Then, grammatical structures were seen as the second most difficult. Furthermore, they thought that true/false questions, sentence completion questions; tasks like summary/table completion; and multiple-choice questions hindered them from understanding the reading comprehension tasks. Next, guessing the meaning from the context was found to be the most difficult strategy while spotting the specific information to answer the questions was seen as the second difficulty. Some limitations of the study were also concluded.