Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of pre‐ and post‐prandial starvation on meal size and evacuation rate of juvenile Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar L.

After a pre-prandial period of starvation or feeding with unlabelled food, 0+ salmon parr (0.8–11.7 g) were fed a test meal of iron particle labelled food and subsequently were again either starved or fed unlabelled food. The quantity of labelled food consumed and the evacuation rate was determined by serial radiographs. In fish of all sizes, pre-prandial starvation causes a larger test meal (as a percentage of body weight) to be consumed when compared to pre-prandially fed fish. In addition, pre-prandial starvation results in relatively larger meals as a percentage of body weight being taken by smaller compared to larger fish. This result was not evident for pre-prandially fed fish. Evacuation rate was unrelated to body size irrespective of feeding history. Post-prandial starvation decreased evacuation rate but this effect was inversely related to the quantity of food consumed. Larger meals were not evacuated differently from smaller meals if feeding occurred post-prandially, irrespective of pre-prandial starvation.
Bicudoa amazonica gen. nov. et sp. nov. (Bacillariophyta)—a new freshwater diatom from the Amazon basin with a complete raphe loss in the Eunotioid lineage

Bicudoa amazonica C.E. Wetzel, Lange-Bertalot & Ector gen. nov . et sp. nov . is described using light and scanning electron microscopy. It differs from ‘araphid’ genera by a unique combination of characters such as the absence of a raphe system, helictoglossae, rimoportulae, apical pore fields and linking spines, while other features including striae, areolae apparently without occlusion on valve and girdle elements, structure of the cingulum, and displacement of axial area place Bicudoa close to Eunotia . The taxonomic placement of the new organism at the class and family levels is discussed and it is concluded that placing Bicudoa in any of the current Fragilariophyceae families would be inappropriate. Instead, we place Bicudoa in the Bacillariophyceae and reserve the decision to place it in a family until further evidence is gathered. Based on ultrastructure, it is proposed that Bicudoa is a rather recent result of a complete loss of the raphe system and associated structures in a relatively recent eunotioid ancestor. Bicudoa amazonica was found in the upper reaches of the Rio Negro basin (Brazilian Amazon), a low pH, black water river (oligotrophic and humic). While the taxon was rare in plankton and benthic samples, it was rather common in excrement samples of the turtle Podocnemis erythrocephala (Testudines, Podocnemididae). The discovery of Bicudoa amazonica besides to the recent description of several new eunotioid taxa from Rio Negro basin suggests that speciation and isolation leading to endemism in Amazonian oligotrophic/dystrophic habitats is remarkable.
Bank-Affiliated Private Equity and Shocks to the Banking Sector

This paper examines the differential impact of an unexpected regulatory banking sector shock on the portfolio companies of the private equity arms of affected and unaffected banks. Robust to a battery of checks, we find that portfolio companies of the private equity subsidiaries of banks affected by the 2011 EBA Capital Exercise suffer significantly weaker investment and financing at the onset of the shock, and subsequently poorer performance, relative to portfolio companies of unaffected banks. The results are amplified where the portfolio company is more likely to be financially constrained and where the private equity investor is less experienced. Our findings confirm recent literature's concerns over the approach to the capital regulation of banks and its impact on the real economy.
Corruption and Economic Development New Evidence from the Middle Eastern and North African Countries

This paper analyzes the role of economic development in curbing corruption by focusing on political and economic freedoms for a sample of Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries over the period 1984-2013. In addition, the analysis investigates whether political and economic freedoms lower corruption in natural-resource-rich countries by considering both linear and non-linear effects. The results reveal that the interactive relationship between economic and political freedoms and government size leads to a reduction in corruption. Furthermore, our results show robust support to suggest that an increase in income increases corruption in natural-resource-rich countries. Overall, our findings provide some relevant policy implications for MENA countries.
Do Social Connections Mitigate Hold-up and Facilitate Cooperation? Evidence from Supply Chain Relationships

Abstract We show that prior social connections can mitigate hold-up in bilateral relationships and encourage relation-specific investment and cooperation when contracts are incomplete. We examine vertical relationships and show that relation-specific innovative activities by suppliers increase with the existence and strength of prior social connections between the suppliers’ managers and board members and those of their customers. To establish causality, we exploit connection breaches due to manager/director retirements or deaths and find that innovation drops for affected suppliers after the departure of socially connected individuals relative to unaffected suppliers. Our work sheds light on how social connections can shape firm boundaries.
Off-Market Buybacks in Australia: Evidence of Abnormal Trading around Key Dates

Off-market share buybacks in Australia are often structured with the buyback price comprising a large dividend component (which may carry imputation tax credits) and a small capital component. This unique structure has the consequence that institutions on low tax rates stand to benefit most from selling shares back to the company. In this paper, we explore evidence of abnormal trading activities around key dates in the conduct of off-market buybacks and investigate the drivers of these activities. We find evidence of abnormal trading activities around the initial announcement and the final announcement dates of the buyback. The significant differences in abnormal volumes between the buybacks with and without imputation tax credits highlight the importance of tax motivations in explaining abnormal trading activities in the shares of companies conducting off-market buybacks.
Measuring Market Power and the E fficiency of Alberta's Restructured Electricity Market: An Energy-Only Market Design

We measure the degree of market power execution and inefficiencies in Alberta's restructured electricity market. Using hourly wholesale market data from 2008 to 2014, we find that firms exercise substantial market power in the highest demand hours with limited excess production capacity. The degree of market power execution in all other hours is low. Market inefficiencies are larger in the high demand hours and elevate production costs by 14%-19% above the competitive benchmark. This reflects 2.35% of the average market price across all hours. A recent regulatory policy clarifies that certain types of unilateral market power execution is permitted in Alberta. We find evidence that suggests that strategic behavior changed after this announcement. Market power execution increased. We illustrate that the observed earnings are often sufficient to promote investment in natural gas based technologies. However, the rents from market power execution can exceed the estimated capacity costs for certain generation technologies. We demonstrate that the energy market pro ts in the presence of no market power execution are generally insufficient to promote investment in new generation capacity. This stresses the importance of considering both short-run and long-run performance measures.
How Important are Inflation Expectations in Driving Asian Inflation?

Using simple statistical methods, this note examines the relationship between expected and actual inflation and the importance of inflation expectations in driving actual inflation in Asia. We find that, in Asia, short-term inflation expectations tend to co-move among economies while international energy and food price inflation seems to be an important driver of inflation expectations. The analysis of impulse responses also suggests that inflation expectations appear to play an important role in driving actual inflation, with expectation shocks having significant dynamic effects on actual inflation in many Asian economies.
Spatially explicit integrated population models

Studies of demographic processes are typically restricted to small geographic areas and short time periods due to the costs of marking and monitoring individuals. However, environmental changes are occurring at much broader spatial and temporal scales, and thus, inferences about the mechanisms governing population dynamics need to be scaled accordingly. Recently developed integrated population models (IPMs) represent an approach for doing so, by jointly analysing survey data and capture–recapture data. Although promising, several shortcomings of conventional IPMs exist, including difficulties accounting for spatial variation in demographic, movement and detection parameters; limited ability to make spatially explicit predictions of abundance or vital rates; and a requirement that the survey data and the capture–recapture data are independent. We demonstrate how each of these limitations can be resolved by adopting a spatial population dynamics model upon which both the survey data and the capture–recapture data are conditioned. We applied the model to 6 years of hair data collected on the threatened Louisiana black bear Ursus americanus luteolus. For years in which the hair samples were genotyped, the resulting data are information‐rich (but expensive) spatial capture–recapture (SCR) data. For the remaining years, the data are binary detection data, of the type often analysed using occupancy models. We compared estimates of demographic parameters and annual abundance using various combinations of the SCR and detection data, and found that combining the SCR data and the detection data resulted in more precise estimates of abundance relative to estimates that did not use the detection data. A simulation study provided additional evidence of increased precision, as well as evidence that the estimators of annual abundance are approximately unbiased. The ability to combine survey data and capture–recapture data using a spatially explicit model opens many possibilities for designing cost effective studies and scaling up inferences about the demographic processes influencing spatial and temporal population dynamics.
Genetic diversity and parasite defense in a fragmented urban metapopulation of earthworms

Habitat fragmentation can seriously affect the population biology and persistence of small isolated populations. We evaluated the interplay between the patch size of natural habitats, genetic diversity, immunocompetence and parasite load in an urban metapopulation of the earthworm Lumbricus terrestris. Large‐scale genetic analysis of earthworm populations was accomplished using newly established mtDNA markers in combination with single‐strand conformation polymorphism haplotype screening. Our analysis yielded the following: (1) parasite load varied significantly among patches, but small versus large patches did not differ; a similar pattern was found for immunocompetence and genetic diversity; (2) in general, the urban metapopulation showed genetic structuring, which seems to be due to restricted gene flow among small and large patches; (3) the overall genetic variability of the patch has little or no effect on parasite load, as it was not significantly associated with parasite load; (4) small patches do not show molecular patterns associated with a general reduction in genetic diversity. These findings are in accordance with the view that among‐ and within‐patch components of genetic diversity approach equilibrium values at differing rates and suggest that the date of isolation (i.e. patch age) could be too recent for the expected pattern between genetic diversity, immunocompetence and parasite load to become evident. Our study provides initial insights into the population genetics of one of the most economically important soil organisms and, as such, will prove valuable as a primer for future research regarding the human impact on soil environments.
Is Hedge Accounting Designation Informative About How Firms Use Derivatives?

Firms use derivatives for a variety of purposes including hedging, speculating, meeting or beating benchmarks, and smoothing earnings. However, poor disclosures have made it difficult for the investors to identify the motives behind and the economic consequences of firms’ derivative use. We use the derivative disclosures required by SFAS 161 to examine whether the economic consequences and investors’ reactions to derivative use vary by the accounting designation firms use for their derivatives. We find that hedge designated derivatives are negatively associated with several measures of firm risk, suggesting that the accounting designation of these derivatives captures the intended economic use of these derivatives. However, while the majority of firms in our sample claim to use non-hedge designated derivatives only for hedging purposes, we find that such non-hedge designated derivatives are positively associated with several risk measures. We also find that investors price derivative gains differently depending on the derivative’s accounting designation. Overall, the results suggest that the accounting designation for derivatives is informative to investors as to how firms use derivatives.
Are Banks Really Special? Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Abstract Australia’s Kyoto Protocol ratification (KPR) in December 2007 mandates the country to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, hence affecting firms in the highest emitting industries. We exploit the KPR as an exogenous increase in environmental risk facing the highest GHG emitters. We find that the stock market reactions to bank loan announcements significantly increase after the KPR for these emitters relative to non-emitters. The effect is stronger for borrowers with higher information asymmetry and financial constraints. The evidence suggests that banks can certify their borrowers’ environmental risk through their loan approvals, which confirms the certification role of banks.
Variation in the size of fusiform cambial initials and vessel members in Hoheria angustifolia Raoul

Abstract The lengths and widths of fusiform cambial initials and vessel members arc examined in Hoheria angustifolia Raoul, a habit-heteroblastic tree with a storeyed cambium. A significant correlation is shown to exist between the lengths of the fusiform cambial initials and the vessel members in the last formed xylem in a number of trees sampled at various heights. No change in mean vessel member length could be detected with increasing distance from the stem centre in nine discs, though in one stem with a markedly eccentric growth, cell length decreased slightly with distance from the stem centre. Within the individual growth rings, the mean length of the vessel members tends to increase towards the late wood. This change is brought about by an increasing angle of the end wall in the late wood vessel members, and is not a result of developmental changes occurring in the vascular cambium. It is, therefore, concluded that the fusiform cambial initials in this species normally proceed without change in le.
Bicarbonate inhibits Fe‐stress response and Fe uptake‐translocation of chlorosis‐susceptible soybean cultivars

Abstract Effects of HCO‐ 3 on three chlorosis‐resistant (A2, Clark, Hawkeye) and three chlorosis‐susceptible (Anoka, Wayne, Hark) soybean cultivars (Glycine max (L.) Merr. ) were tested to determine how HCO‐ 3 induces differential Fe‐chlorosis. Effects on regulation of Fe‐stress response were measured by conditioning the plants 8 days with low Fe and 0 or 10 mM HCO‐ 3 before a 24 hour assay of 59Fe uptake‐trans location from 20 μM 59feddhA; the assay solution contained CaCO3 but no added HCO‐ 3. Conditioning with added HCO‐ 3 caused increased 59Fe movement to shoots of resistant cultivars, but decreased it for susceptible cultivars. Direct effects of HCO‐ 3 on 59Fe uptake‐trans location were tested using plants conditioned with 0 Fe and 0 HCO‐ 3. Iron uptake (59Fe) assays were conducted for 72 hour with 0 and 10 mM HCO‐ 3 treatments. HCO‐ 3 reduced 59Fe movement to shoots to 31% of the control for resistant cultivars, and 17% for susceptible cultivars. Translocation of 59Fe (shoots & whole plant) was signi.
Firms as Liquidity Providers: Evidence from the 2007-2008 Financial Crisis

Using a supplier-client matched sample, we study the effect of the 2007-2008 financial crisis on between-firm liquidity provision. Consistent with a causal effect of a negative shock to bank credit, we find that firms with high pre-crisis liquidity levels increased the trade credit extended to other corporations and subsequently experienced better performance as compared to ex-ante cash-poor firms. Trade credit taken by constrained firms increased during this period. These findings are consistent with firms providing liquidity insurance to their clients when bank credit is scarce and provide an important precautionary savings motive for accumulating cash reserves.
Presowing Seed Treatment with Cytokinins and Its Effect on Growth, Photosynthetic Rate, Ionic Levels and Yield of Two Wheat Cultivars Differing in Salt Tolerance

Abstract: The effects of presowing seed treatment with different concentrations of cytokinins (kinetin and benzylaminopurine; 100, 150, and 200 mg/L) on growth, photosynthetic capacity, and ion homeostasis were investigated in two spring wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivars, namely MH-97 (salt sensitive) and Inqlab-91 (salt tolerant). Primed and non-primed seeds were sown in a field in which NaCl salinity of 15 dS/m was developed. Of the different concentrations of priming agents tested, the effect of a moderate concentration of kinetin (150 mg/L) was very pronounced, particularly in improving growth and grain yield, in both cultivars. In addition, priming with kinetin alleviated the adverse effect of salt stress on gaseous exchange characteristics (net CO2 assimilation rate and water use efficiency) in both cultivars. Seed priming with a moderate concentration of kinetin also altered the pattern of accumulation of Na+ and Cl− in the shoots, irrespective of the wheat cultivar, under conditions of salt stress. However, all other priming agents at the different concentrations tested did not show any consistent effect on ion levels, except hydropriming, which increased K+ levels in the shoots of both cultivars under salt stress. In conclusion, a moderate concentration of kinetin showed a consistent effect in altering the growth and grain yield of both wheat cultivars, which was related to the beneficial effects of kinetin priming on water use efficiency and photosynthetic rate under conditions of salt stress. (Managing editor: Ping HE)
Positions on Regulations Affecting Auditing and Nonauditing Activities

The change in regulations that occurred in Spain in the domain of auditing has led to the analysis of regulations according to the positions adopted by different groups involved in the auditing market. The purpose of this study was to investigate the positions taken by professionals involved in this sector regarding those aspects of the law that regulate the provision of services other than the auditing of annual accounts, with a view to obtaining relevant conclusions for the regulation of the auditing activity. Findings show the existence of three professional subgroups according to the level of global prohibition of the incompatibilities analyzed and the level of importance assigned to the prohibitions in two important groups of prohibitions. The difference between these professional groups is analyzed in terms of their level of prohibition in comparison with the law. Other results show the most important variables for measuring a firm’s degree of independence.
Getting Handcuffs on an Octopus: Minimum Wages, Employment, and Turnover

Theoretical work on minimum wage policy emphasizes labor market dynamics, but the resulting implications for worker mobility remain largely untested. We show that in the teenage labor market minimum wages reduce worker flows and increase job stability. Furthermore, we find that the employment effects of the minimum wage vary considerably across markets that exhibit different degrees of labor market tightness. Our results help explain the small effects of minimum wages on employment commonly found in the aggregate data and are consistent with labor market involving search frictions.
Larval development of the snapping shrimp Alpheus heterochaelis Say, reared in the laboratory

Summary Larvae of Alpheus heterochaelis from North Carolina hatch from large eggs as advanced zoeae, usually moult three times, and exhibit almost no linear growth during a short (4 days at 25°c) larval development. Stage I lasts 6 hours at most and is sometimes skipped; III lasts about twice as long as II. Individuals simultaneously exhibiting characteristics of Stage III and the postlarva were occasionally seen. The three zoeal stages and postlarva are described in detail and illustrated. Stages in embryonic and juvenile development and the hatching process are briefly described. An ‘extended’ pattern of larval development, characteristic of most alpheid species, is described in a general way, and the ‘abbreviated’ development of A. heterochaelis compared to it. At hatching, A. heterochaelis larvae bear rudimentary pereiopods and pleopods; other structures are at the same level of development in both patterns, but subsequent morphogenesis is faster in A. heterochaelis. Larval development of Synalpheus s.
Market Shares, Financial Constraints, and Pricing Behavior in the Export Market

A parsimonious structural model of price and quantity dynamics is applied to Swedish exports and export prices for manufactured goods 1972-1996. Two sources of dynamics are considered: customer markets and pre-set prices. The dynamic adjustment of exports is very much in line with what the customer market model predicts: the market share adjusts slowly after a change in the relative price. Prices are sticky in the sense that they do not reflect the most recent information about costs and exchange rates. Prices are high when firms are borrowing heavily, supporting the argument in Gottfries (1991) that financial constraints affect pricing behavior.
Diel changes in invertebrate drift and the food of trout Salmo trutta L.

Diel changes in the stomach contents of 0+, 1 + and 2+ or older trout were compared with diel changes in invertebrate drift. Peaks in mean numbers and biomass of invertebrates per fish stomach occurred in the midday (10.00 to 14.00 h) and evening (18.00 to 22.00 h) samples. The major peak was usually in the evening sample, but the major peak in biomass was in the midday sample for 2+ fish. There was a good correlation between diel changes of benthic invertebrates in the diet and drift, with the major peak in the evening. A similar relationship did not always exist for emerging and terrestrial invertebrates. Known non-drifting benthic invertebrates (e.g. large caddis larvae) were excluded from the comparisons, and were only taken by 2+ or older trout in which they contributed a large biomass to the day food.