Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Drought timing and primary productivity in a semiarid grassland

While most studies account for the effect of total annual precipitation on aboveground net primary production (ANPP), few studies have demonstrated how decreased precipitation within specific periods of growing season affects ANPP. Using a precipitation manipulation experiment, we assessed the response patterns and underlying mechanisms of ANPP to decreased precipitation in the early (DEP) and late (DLP) growing seasons on a temperate steppe in northern China. The results showed that both DEP and DLP decreased ANPP by averages of 28.3 and 39.4 g m−2, respectively. The decline of ANPP in DEP was primarily attributed to a 20.7 g m−2 decrease in grass and 4.9 g m−2 decrease in sub‐shrubs, whereas the decrease in ANPP in DLP was due to a 36.6 g m−2 decrease in perennial forbs and an 8.7 g m−2 decrease in sub‐shrubs. The reduction in grass ANPP under DEP was likely due to decreased soil moisture and increased specific leaf area of grass during the early growing season, whereas the reduction in perennial forbs ANPP under DLP was mainly caused by decreased soil moisture during late growing season. The decline of sub‐shrubs ANPP under DEP and DLP could be explained by shallow root length of sub‐shrubs in DEP and by high soil temperature in DLP. Our findings demonstrated how droughts timing affects ANPP at both community and functional group levels. Different responses of functional groups to drought timing indicate that future studies should not neglect the role of precipitation timing in regulating ecosystem productivity.
The Opportunities and Challenges of using Electronic Information Resources in Higher Education Teaching and Learning: A Case Study

This study aimed to investigate the usage patterns of the electronic information resources in Sur University College to highlight the importance of these resources in the higher education environment. The descriptive research methodology was adopted using the questionnaire technique; a total number of 232 valid questionnaires were analyzed based on Kronbach Alpha test to measure the stability of the questionnaire content (α = 0.817) using SPSS. The study revealed the high impact of the e-resources in the teaching and learning process among SUC community. There is an overall satisfaction of the e-resources and the related services; the users are generally satisfied with the library support; however, the study outlined some of the challenges that may affect the effective use, such as the insufficient number of e-resources in Arabic, user preference of print form, the complexity of the search techniques and interfaces. The study recommends the library staff to conduct more workshops using innovative learning techniques, such as the gaming technique, to motivate the users to utilize the e-resources in the coursework and research extensively and to enhance their information literacy skills in dealing with them.
High‐Precision Sr‐Nd‐Hf‐Pb Isotopic Composition of Chinese Geological Standard Glass Reference Materials CGSG‐1, CGSG‐2, CGSG‐4 and CGSG‐5 by MC‐ICP‐MS and TIMS

To assess the homogeneity of and provide the first Sr‐Nd‐Hf‐Pb isotopic reference values for the Chinese Geological Standard Glasses CGSG‐1, CGSG‐2, CGSG‐4 and CGSG‐5, we measured these isotopes in several measurement sessions over the course of nearly 3 years. The results were obtained by high‐precision MC‐ICP‐MS and TIMS. Our investigation indicates that these CGSG glass reference materials are homogenous with regard to Sr‐Nd‐Hf‐Pb isotopic distribution and are therefore suitable geochemical materials for Sr‐Nd‐Hf‐Pb isotope measurements. Clear differences in Sr‐Nd‐Hf‐Pb isotopic composition were observed between the glasses and the original powdered rock reference materials (CGSG‐2 and GSR‐7, and especially CGSG‐5 and GSR‐2) because of flux addition during preparation of the glasses. The new Sr‐Nd‐Hf‐Pb isotope data provided here might be useful to the geochemical community for in situ and bulk analysis.
The diversity of leaves and asiaticoside content on three accessions of Centella asiatica with the addition of chicken manure fertilizer

Abstract. Mumtazah HM, Supriyono, Widyastuti Y, Yunus A. 2020. The diversity of leaves and asiaticoside content on three accessions of Centella asiatica with the addition of chicken manure fertilizer. Biodiversitas 21: 1035-1040. Centella asiatica (L.) commonly known as an essential medicinal herb. This plant has high diversity, especially in leaf morphology. The main objective of this research was to determine the morphology of leaves and the effect of chicken manure dosage on the increase of asiaticoside content. The leaves of three accessions characterized, and then C. asiatica planted. The research design used a completely randomized design (CRD) factorial, with the first factor is accession (C) with 3 levels (C1: accession 1, C2: accession 2, C3: accession 3). The second factor was chicken manure with 4 levels dosage (P1: 0 ton ha-1, P2: 10 tons ha-1, P3: 15 tons ha-1 and P4: 20 tons ha-1). Asiaticoside analysis used the TLC method with chloroform: methanol: water (65:25:4) as mobile phase. The result from this research showed that the diversity in leaf morphology of three accessions is in leaf size and petiole length. Accession 3 has the widest leaf size (7.3 cm) and the longest petiole (9.8 cm), accession 2 with a leaf width of 5.8 cm and petiole length in 8.5 cm, while the accession 1 has the least leaf width (5.3 cm) and the length of the petiole is the shortest with 7.3 cm. Observation results of asiaticoside showed that the highest content of asiaticoside produced by accession 3 (0.19%), then accession 1 with a content of 0.15%, while accession 2 showed the lowest asiaticoside content (0.13%). The treatment of chicken manure addition significantly increase asiaticoside content in accessions 1 and 3, but in accession 2 it was not significantly increased. The highest content of asiaticoside (0.34%) were in accession 3 with the addition of chicken manure 20 tons ha-1 (P4).
Production potential and economic analysis of direct wet seeded aromatic rice (Oryza Sativa L.) Cv. Pusa Basmati 1 as influenced by fertility levels and weed management practices

A field experiment was conducted on sandy loam soil during wet season of 2003 and 2004 to evaluate the grain yield and economic feasibility of direct wet seeded aromatic rice under different fertility levels viz. 80: 40: 40; 100: 50: 50; 120:60:60 kg ha-1 of N, P2O5 and K2O respectively and weed management practices viz. anilofos @ 0.4 kg a.i ha-1, butachlor @ 1.5 kg a.i ha-1, 2 handweedings and weedy check. There was increase in yield and net income by subsequent increase in fertility levels. Among weed management practices, 2 handweeding recorded highest grain yield followed by anilofos. The maximum grain yield was observed in plots treated with 120: 60: 60 kg ha-1 of N: P2O5: K2O respectively and 2 handweedings, however, higher net return and benefit cost ratio(BCR) was observed in 120: 60: 60 kg ha-1 of N: P2O5: K2O and anilofos. treatment. Maximum weed index was observed in weedy check plots (67–69%). The unit increase in intensity of monocots, dicots and weed dry weight causes decrease in rice grain yield by 2.18, 1.64 and 2.85 q ha-1 respectively.
Characteristics of a precessing flow under the influence of a convecting temperature field in a spheroidal shell

We present results from direct numerical simulations of flows in spherical and oblate spheroidal shells, driven both by precession and thermal convection, with Ekman number $Ek=10^{-4}$, non-diffusive Rayleigh numbers from $Ra=0.1$ to $Ra=10$ and unity Prandtl number. The applied precessional forcing spans seven orders of magnitude. Our experiments show a clear transition between a convective state and a precessing flow that can be approximated by a reduced dynamical model. The change in the flow is apparent in visualizations and a decomposition of the velocity into symmetric and antisymmetric components. For the flow dominated by precession, some parameter combinations show two stable solutions that can be realized by a hysteresis or a strong thermal forcing. An increase of the Rayleigh number at a constant precession rate exhibits established scaling properties for the heat transfer, with exponents $2/7$ and $6/5$.
‘Had a lovely week at #conference2018 ’: An Analysis of Interaction through Conference Tweets

Twitter has become a common feature of academic conferences, used by organizers to provide information about the conference and by attendees to engage in discussion about the conference topics, share information, and create social links and networks within the community. This study examines the tweets from two conferences in Applied Linguistics in order to analyse the networked language practices of scholars using Twitter during conferences. More specifically, in this study we address the following questions: (i) what are the purposes for which scholars in this disciplinary community use Twitter during conferences? (ii) how are different semiotic resources (e.g. linguistic forms, pictures, videos, embedded slides) combined to orchestrate meaning and achieve these various rhetorical purposes? We also look at how Twitter features (hashtags, replies, retweets, mentions) contribute to these rhetorical purposes. The analysis reveals that tweets are mostly intended to create and maintain cohesive links or to encourage peers to perform specific actions. In order to achieve these functions scholars compose their tweets by using a variety of (linguistic and non-linguistic) expressions of stance and engagement (Hyland, 2005). We suggest that, given the increasingly important role of social media for scholarly communication, a central concern of EAP courses should be to help students develop the competence of composing multimodal texts. Scholars need to understand the ways in which the multiple semiotic resources available to them in social media can be used effectively to engage other members of the community in these new digital contexts.
Democratic values, education, and political trust

This article examines the links between education, democratic values, and political trust. Research on education systems as carriers of modern orientations and democratic values worldwide predicts that educated individuals will exhibit more democratic values than less educated ones, regardless of the country’s level of democracy. In the political culture approach, political trust can be understood as a reflection of the congruence or incongruence between individual democratic values and the level of democracy of the political system, which emphasizes trust’s relational character. Integrating these strands of literature, I formulate hypotheses about the mediating effect of democratic values between education and political trust. To test these hypotheses, I employ multilevel models of data from the World Values Survey and the European Values Study covering 73 countries. The results show that democratic values partially mediate the effect of education on political trust, but the magnitude of this effect depends on the level of democracy. Analyses also show that, while education is positively associated with democratic values regardless of the country’s level of democracy, this association is much stronger in democratic countries than in non-democratic ones.
Evaluating the regional cumulative impact of wind farms on birds: how can spatially explicit dynamic modelling improve impact assessments and monitoring?

Summary The Eurasian skylark Alauda arvensis is very susceptible to the negative effects of wind farms. In northern Portugal, this evidence is particularly severe due to the skylark's preference for mountain breeding habitats where most wind farms are located. Facing the frequent failure of environmental impact assessments (EIA) to evaluate the cumulative impacts of wind farms on wildlife, this study aimed to develop and test a methodology to quantify local and regional consequences on birds, using skylarks as a test species, taking into account future predictable environmental changes. We propose a spatially explicit dynamic approach that combines the results from multiple modelling techniques under a common framework to assess the local and cumulative regional impacts of wind farms on skylark populations. This includes the following: (i) modelling the local impact of wind farms (in terms of collision mortality) on the skylark population dynamics by developing an index for quantitative assessments, (ii) determining the actual and future skylark breeding distribution across northern Portugal and (iii) integrating the above contributions in an emergent spatially explicit regional representation to capture the ecological cumulative consequences as a whole. The simulations show an increasing average local impact for the skylark breeding populations directly affected by wind farms, expressed in mean number of collision fatalities per UTM study unit (1 km2), representing 1·3% of the local breeders in 2006 and 4% in 2026. The distribution area of skylark breeding populations was predicted to decrease around 4·5% throughout a period of 15 years, as a result of the scenario of climate and land cover changes in the study area. When combined with a concomitant increase in skylark global mortality (c. 184%) induced by all wind farms in the study region, the above trend contributes to an intensification of the regional cumulative impact from 1·2% to 3·7% of the total estimated breeding individuals. Synthesis and applications. The proposed modelling framework represents a step forward in evaluating the multi-scale cumulative consequences of wind farms on vulnerable birds, using skylarks as a test species. This could be used in the future to guide monitoring efforts and to improve the applicability of the data bases generated by long-term ecological research and monitoring studies.
Fat Distribution in Women Is Associated With Depot-Specific Transcriptomic Signatures and Chromatin Structure

Abstract Background Preferential accumulation of fat in the upper body (apple shape) is associated with higher risk of developing metabolic syndrome relative to lower body fat (pear shape). We previously discovered that chromatin openness partially defined the transcriptome of preadipocytes isolated from abdominal and gluteofemoral fat. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying interindividual variation in body shape are unknown. Methods Adipocyte fraction was isolated from abdominal and gluteofemoral fat biopsies of premenopausal women (age and body mass index matched) segregated initially only by their waist-to-hip ratio. We evaluated transcriptomic and chromatin accessibility using RNA sequencing and assay for transposase-accessible chromatin using sequencing (ATAC-seq) along with key clinical parameters. Results Our data showed that higher lower body fat mass was associated with better lipid profile and free fatty acid decrease after glucose administration. Lipid and glucose metabolic pathways genes were expressed at higher levels in gluteofemoral adipocyte fraction in pears, whereas genes associated with inflammation were higher both in abdominal and gluteofemoral apple adipocyte fraction. Gluteofemoral adipocyte chromatin from pear-shaped women contained a significantly higher number of differentially open ATAC-seq peaks relative to chromatin from the apple-shaped gluteofemoral adipocytes. In contrast, abdominal adipocyte chromatin openness showed few differences between apple- and pear-shaped women. We revealed a correlation between gene transcription and open chromatin at the proximity of the transcriptional start site of some of the differentially expressed genes. Conclusions Integration of data from all 3 approaches suggests that chromatin openness partially governs the transcriptome of gluteofemoral adipocytes and may be involved in the early metabolic syndrome predisposition associated with body shape.
Controllability of stochastic nonlinear oscillating delay systems driven by the Rosenblatt distribution

Abstract In this paper, we study the controllability of second-order nonlinear stochastic delay systems driven by the Rosenblatt distributions in finite dimensional spaces. A set of sufficient conditions are established for controllability of nonlinear stochastic delay systems using fixed point theory, delayed sine and cosine matrices and delayed Grammian matrices. Furthermore, controllability results for second-order stochastic delay systems driven by Rosenblatt distributions via the representation of solution by delayed sine and cosine functions are presented. Finally, our theoretical results are illustrated through numerical simulation.
The Overnight Drift

This paper documents that U.S. equity returns are large and positive during the opening hours of European markets. These returns are pervasive and highly economically and statistically significant. Consistent with models of inventory risk, we demonstrate a strong relationship with order imbalances at the close of the preceding U.S. trading day. Rationalizing unconditionally positive “overnight drift” returns, we uncover an asymmetric reaction to demand shocks: market sell-offs generate robust positive overnight reversals, while reversals following market rallies are much more modest. We argue that demand shock asymmetry can arise in inventory management models with time-varying market maker risk-bearing capacity.
Militancia en Brasil y Argentina: reflexiones a partir de la observación participante en actos y reuniones de las organizaciones oficialistas en los gobiernos de Dilma Rousseff e Cristina Fernández de Kirchner

A partir de registros de campo de la observación participante desarrollada en seis eventos políticos convocados por distintas organizaciones oficialistas en Argentina y Brasil — en cuatro distritos: Río de Janeiro, San Pablo, la ciudad de Buenos Aires y el conurbano bonaerense (especialmente La Matanza) — entre 2013 y 2014, este artículo examina prácticas, conductas y el desarrollo de la militancia política desde una perspectiva comparativa y cualitativa. En primer lugar, se argumenta la pertinencia del estudio de la militancia política en los escenarios presentes de identidades políticas y alineamientos fluctuantes en ambos países. En segundo lugar, se provee una descripción y análisis de cada uno de los seis eventos, prestando particular atención a elementos como la disposición de la escena (iconografía, escenario, acceso), los diferentes actores presentes y el modo de desenvolvimiento del acto, el tipo de apelaciones que aparecían en las intervenciones de los oradores, y las diferentes audiencias simultáneas. En tercer y último lugar, se formula una serie de argumentos generales y comparativos acerca de las características y fenómenos identificados en los distintos eventos, los cuales pueden ser contemplados en tanto espacios y momentos de desarrollo de la militancia política y de construcción de vínculos
Value Constraining or Value Enabling? The Impact of Business Group Affiliation on Post-Acquisition Performance by Emerging Market Firms

ABSTRACT Literature has advanced two contrasting theoretical perspectives related to the governance structure of business groups: the ‘value-constraining’ perspective, which focuses on principal–principal agency conflict and organizational inertia theory, and the ‘value-enabling’ perspective, which emphasizes the role of business groups in mitigation of institutional voids. Building on these two competing lenses, we develop hypotheses to examine post-acquisition performance of affiliate firms relative to stand-alone firms. As our empirical context, we study 440 majority-stake, domestic and cross-border merger and acquisition deals closed by Indian firms during the period 2002–2013. The results imply that in emerging markets, despite concerns of organizational inertia and principal–principal agency issues, the value-enabling impact of group affiliation persists. We also examine the contextual impact of intergroup heterogeneity owing to group diversification on post-acquisition performance and find that greater group diversification leads to better performance for affiliate acquirers.
Weakly-Supervised Semantic Segmentation via Self-training

Weakly-supervised semantic segmentation with image tags is a challenging computer vision task. Unlike pixel-level masks, image tags give high level semantic information, without low level appearance information. In this paper, we propose an iteratively self-training framework to bridge this two information, which expand and refine the pseudo-labels with training process going. Initial masks are generated from classification network. In the top-down step, rendered images and its labels as well as spatially weight loss are added to jointly training the model for alleviate the effect of inaccurate object masks. Then in the bottom-up step, an adaptive threshold to the confidence model predictions to keep predicted masks reliable. The top-down and bottom-up steps are conducted iteratively to extract the fine object mask. Experiments on our self-build dataset and GTA5 to CityScapes demonstrate the effectiveness of proposed framework.
Variability and genetic determination of Scots pine quantitative traits at the age of 32 years.

Survival, growth (height, diameter at breast height, stem volume, yield) and quality (thickest branch up to 2 meters of tree height, branchiness, and stem straightness in grades) of phenotypically selected Scots pine plus-tree progenies from different regions in Latvia at the age of 32 years have been analyzed. The material was planted in 4 tests in different forest types (Cladinoso-callunosa, Vacciniosa, Hylocomyosa, and Oxalidosa) in Kalsnava, eastern part of Latvia. Average number of trees per family varied from 11 to 21 (survival 18-35%). Mean height for Scots pine at the age of 32 years was 14.216. 3 m, coefficient of variation – 10-17%, diameter at breast height – 13.1-17.7 cm, 24-32%, stem volume 0.1-0.2 m, 49-64%, diameter of thickest branch at up to 2 meters of tree height – 1.3-1.7 cm, 23%. To secure ability for detection of significant (α=0.05) family differences, average number of trees per family at evaluation age should be at least 24. Narrow sense individual tree heritability (h) was 0.11 for stem volume, 0.09 for diameter at breast height, and 0.07-0.11 for diameter of thickest branch up to two meters of tree height. Best families and individuals were selected for further breeding process. Among-family selection resulted in breeding difference of 37% (80 m) in yield and 18% in stem volume without causing changes in quality properties. Combined among-family and within-family selection resulted in double increase of stem volume, improvement of stem straightness of 7-11%, but the selection caused also considerable increase of branchiness (11-42%). Additional testing for material is suggested before using it in further breeding process.