Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Income Elasticity of Demand versus Consumption: Implications for Energy Policy Analysis

The income elasticity of consumption depends not only on the demand function but also on the characteristics of the supply function. If the supply of the underlying good (e.g., gasoline, natural gas, or housing) is not completely elastic, the income elasticity of equilibrium consumption will be less than the income elasticity of demand, with the difference depending on the shapes of both the demand and supply functions. We show that if supply is sufficiently inelastic, extending the individual-level estimates of the income elasticity of demand to aggregate values can produce biased estimates with erroneous and misleading policy implications, even if the original elasticity estimate was unbiased. This point is particularly important when extrapolating the impact of national income on aggregate emissions.
Remote Sensing to Detect Herbicide Drift on Crops1

Glyphosate and paraquat herbicide drift injury to crops may substantially reduce growth or yield. Determining the type and degree of injury is of importance to a producer. This research was conducted to determine whether remote sensing could be used to identify and quantify herbicide injury to crops. Soybean and corn plants were grown in 3.8-L pots to the five- to seven-leaf stage, at which time, applications of nonselective herbicides were made. Visual injury estimates were made, and hyperspectral reflectance data were recorded 1, 4, and 7 d after application (DAA). Several analysis techniques including multiple indices, signature amplitude (SA) with spectral bands as features, and wavelet analysis were used to distinguish between herbicide-treated and nontreated plants. Classification accuracy using SA analysis of paraquat injury on soybean was better than 75% for both 1/2- and 1/8× rates at 1, 4, and 7 DAA. Classification accuracy of paraquat injury on corn was better than 72% for the 1/2× rate at 1, 4, and 7 DAA. These data suggest that hyperspectral reflectance may be used to distinguish between healthy plants and injured plants to which herbicides have been applied; however, the classification accuracies remained at 75% or higher only when the higher rates of herbicide were applied. Applications of a 1/2× rate of glyphosate produced 55 to 81% soybean injury and 20 to 50% corn injury 4 and 7 DAA, respectively. However, using SA analysis, the moderately injured plants were indistinguishable from the uninjured controls, as represented by the low classification accuracies at the 1/8-, 1/32-, and 1/64× rates. The most promising technique for identifying drift injury was wavelet analysis, which successfully distinguished between corn plants treated with either the 1/8- or the 1/2× rates of paraquat compared with the nontreated corn plants better than 92% 1, 4, and 7 DAA. These analysis techniques, once tested and validated on field scale data, may help determine the extent and the degree of herbicide drift for making appropriate and, more importantly, timely management decisions. Nomenclature: Corn, Zea mays L. ; soybean, Glycine max (L.) Merr. Additional index words: Glyphosate, hyperspectral imagery, indices, paraquat, ROC curve, wavelet analysis. Abbreviations: DAA, days after application; DINO, differential index of normalized observations; DWT, discrete wavelet transform; EPSP, 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate; LDA, linear discriminant analysis; NDVI, normalized difference vegetation index; NIR, near-infrared; POST, postemergence; ROC, receiver operator characteristics; SA, signature amplitudes.
The Empirics of China’s Outward Direct Investment

We investigate the empirical determinants of China’s outward direct investment (ODI). It is found that China’s investments in developed and developing countries are driven by different sets of factors. Subject to the differences between developed and developing countries, there is evidence that a) both market seeking and resources seeking motives drive China’s ODI, b) the Chinese exports to developing countries induce China’s ODI, c) China’s international reserves promote its ODI, and d) the Chinese capital tends to agglomerate among developed economies but diversify among developing economies. Similar results are obtained using alternative ODI data. We do not find substantial evidence that China invests in African and oil-producing countries mainly for their natural resources.
Do Index Funds' Family Ties Benefit the Firms They Own?

I investigate the impact of ties between index and non-index funds within the same mutual fund family on the value of firms in which both funds invest. Theoretically, I show that family ties increase non-index funds’ incentives to purchase additional shares and monitor a firm. This is because non-index funds are more likely to be able to influence management when index funds in the same family hold the same firm. Empirically, using exogenous variation in family ties following a firm’s addition to an index, I show that family ties are associated with higher non-index fund ownership. Furthermore, firms held by funds with family ties are more profitable and have higher valuations. The effect of family ties on valuation is larger for “dedicated” fund-firm relations and for firms in highly innovative industries, for which the potential gains from monitoring are the highest ex-ante.
Effects of night enclosure and extensive walking on the productivity of zebu cattle

Summary The effects of night enclosure and walking 3000 km on growing and breeding cattle were examined over an 8-month period. Walking consisted of an 8 h walk of 40 km every 3rd day and experimental cattle were enclosed each night for 11 h. In addition, all cattle were allowed water once every 3 days. In cattle which both walked and were enclosed, a reduction of nearly 40% in grazing time was recorded. This was associated with a depression of dry-matter intake of only 12%, suggesting an intensification of eating in response to a restriction of grazing time. The overall effects of walking and enclosing on productivity, as determined by adult weight loss, calf and weaner growth, calving percentage and birth weight, were negligible and masked by the greater effects of poor nutrition during the dry season which affected all the animals. It is concluded that the additional energetic requirements for walking are small and this is attributed to adaptation, fitness and a possible depression of metabolic rate. These factors may explain why the observed costs of walking were lower than those reported in the literature.
Sustainability Disclosures and Market Value of Firms in Emerging Economy: Evidence from Nigeria

This study investigates how overall sustainability disclosures and it’s disaggregate dimensions of environment, social and governance affect the market value of firms in Nigeria as an emerging economy using the company's specific disclosures. Tobin's Q was used to proxy firm market value. The study selected 93 out of 120 non-financial firms listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange as at2015. Ex Post Facto research design was adopted and the secondary data was collected from annual reports of sampled firms from 2006 to 2015 through content analysis. The data were analysed with descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, principal component analysis while pooled ordinary least squares regression was employed to test formulated hypotheses. The analysis showed that overall sustainability disclosures have significant positive effects on firm value. When treated individually, environmental sustainability disclosures and corporate governance disclosures have a significant positive effect on market value of firm. The study also reveals that social sustainability disclosures have negative and insignificant effect on market value of firm. Based on these findings, the study recommended among other that companies should foster greater sustainability and long-term value creation by integrating sustainability metrics into their reporting model and strategy. Firms in Nigeria should adopt and disclose environmental friendly policies since it portrays their commitment towards achieving the goal of sustainable development.
Proteolysis in cheese during ripening

This chapter discusses proteolysis process in cheese during ripening. Proteolysis contributes to: (1) The development of cheese texture: via hydrolysis of the protein matrix of cheese; via a decrease in aw through changes to water binding by the new carboxylic acid and amino groups liberated on hydrolysis of peptide bonds. These groups are ionized at the pH of cheese and thus bind water; indirectly via an increase in pH caused by the liberation of ammonia from amino acids produced by proteolysis. (2) Flavor and perhaps the off-flavor of cheese, directly by the production of short peptides and amino acids, some of which have flavors; indirectly by the liberation of amino acids, which act as substrates for a range of catabolic reactions, which generate important volatile flavor compounds; by facilitating the release of sapid compounds from the cheese matrix during mastication. Proteolysis in cheese during ripening is catalyzed by proteinases and peptidases from six sources: (1) the coagulant—the enzymes involved depend on the type of coagulant used. (2) the milk—a number of indigenous proteinases are present in milk, the most important of which is plasmin, which is produced from an inactive precursor, plasminogen. (3) starter lactic acid bacteria (LAB) contain a cell envelope-associated proteinase, which contributes to ripening principally by hydrolyzing intermediate-sized and short peptides produced from the caseins by the action of chymosin or plasmin. The other three sources are nonstarter lactic acid bacteria (NSEAB), secondary starter ( Propionibacterium freudenreichii subsp, shermanii in Swiss-type cheese), and exogenous proteinases and peptidases.
Zooplankton variability in 49 shallow tropical reservoirs of Ivory Coast (west Africa)

Zooplankton samples were collected from 49 small reservoirs of northern Ivory Coast in April 1997. Thirty taxa were identified, including 20 rotifers, 3 copepods and 6 cladocerans. The number of taxa per lake ranged between 12 to 22 and decreased with the total abundance of zooplankton. Copepods dominated standing biomass. Coinertia analysis suggested the role of seston food abundance, oxygen depletion and turbidity for zooplankton abundance and community structure. Rotifers, and particularly Brachionus angularis, Polyarthra and Filinia, were more abundant than copepods in the most eutrophic, turbid and deoxygenated reservoirs. The role of oxygen as a determinant of community structure is probably linked to the specific tolerance of taxa, but turbidity role could not be evaluated with certainty in the absence of information on visual predators.
Dynamic modelling of bacterial cellulose formation

The interest in cellulose produced by bacteria from surface cultures has increased steadily in recent years because of its potential for use in medicine and cosmetics. Unfortunately, the low yield of this production process has limited the commercial usefulness of bacterial cellulose. The aim of this paper is to show the effect of substrate mass transfer on the growth of the bacteria and on their physiological potential for product formation by means of a dynamic mathematical model.
Unrealized Earnings, Dividends and Reporting Aggressiveness: An Examination of Firms’ Behavior in the Era of Fair Value Accounting

This study explores changes in the dividend policy of companies following the adoption of fair value accounting rules. Using a sample of Israeli firms that adopted International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), we document a dramatic increase in the payout ratios of firms that distributed dividends based on revaluation gains from 32 percent of realized earnings in the pre‐IFRS period to 115 percent in the post‐IFRS period. Furthermore, we reveal that firms paying dividends from unrealized earnings are more aggressive both in their book and tax reporting behaviors. We demonstrate that this increased aggressiveness is associated with the payment of cash dividends from paper profits.
Dietary, environmental and microbiological aspects of methane production in ruminants

Methane gas is produced in the rumen by methanogenic bacteria as a metabolic end product. The energy released by bacteria in the process of methane formation can be used for bacterial cell formation. Methane formation acts as an electron sink into which the hydrogen from all ruminal microorganisms drains, allowing a higher yield of adenosine triphosphate. Factors such as the type of carbohydrate in the diet, level of feed intake, digesta passage rate presence of ionophores or lipids in the diet, and ambient temperature influence the emission of methane from ruminants. Methanobrevibacter spp. appear to be the major methanogens in the rumen, but it is likely that phytogenetic analyses will identify new species. The biochemical reduction of carbon dioxide to methane is well defined, and it has been shown that interspecies hydrogen transfer between methanogens and ruminal bacteria prevents the accumulation of reduced nucleotides and the inhibition of feed digestion. The development of strategies to mitigate m.
International Debt Shifting: The Value Maximizing Mix of Internal and External Debt

We study the capital structure of multinationals and expand previous theory by incorporating international debt tax shield effects from both internal and external capital markets. We show that: (i) multinationals' firm value is maximized if both internal and external debt are used to save tax; (ii) the use of internal and external debt is independent of each other; (iii) multinationals have a tax advantage over domestic firms, which cannot shift debt across international borders. We test our model using a large panel of German multinationals and find that internal and external debt shifting are of about equal importance.
Morphological correlates of diet in an assemblage of West African freshwater fishes

Morphological correlates of diet were sought among 18 species of distantly related freshwater fishes from Guinea (West Africa). With regard to the percentage occurrence of six food items, the studied species could be classified into four broad trophic categories reflecting what was eaten and where: detritivores, piscivores, surface feeders and benthic invertivores. Detrivory was associated with a high relative gut length and eyes in a dorsal position; piscivory with large body and mouth size; surface feeding with a dorsally orientated mouth; and benthic invertivory with eyes in a lateral position and small relative gut length. Similarity in diet and in morphology were both significantly correlated with taxonomic relatedness. Nevertheless, when taxonomic relatedness was accounted for, the relationship between observed similarity in diet and similarity in diet predicted from morphology was still significant. This result leads to the conclusion that species having similar diet tend to converge for some morphological attributes.
Choosing a Public-Spirited Leader. An Experimental Investigation of Political Selection

In this experiment, voters select a leader who can either act in the public interest, i.e. make efficient and equitable policy choices, or act in a corrupt way, i.e. use public funds for private gain. Voters can observe candidates’ pro-social behavior and their score in a cognitive ability test prior to the election, and this fact is known to candidates. Therefore, self-interested candidates have incentives to act in a pro-social manner, i.e. to pretend to be public-spirited leaders. We find that both truly pro-social and egoistic leaders co-exist, but that political selection is ineffective in choosing public-spirited leaders. The main reason is that egoistic candidates strategically pretend to be pro-social to increase their chances of winning the election.
Agency Costs and Enforcement of Management Controls: Analyzing Punishments for Perpetrators of Economic Crimes

We examine the severity of punishments for employees who perpetrate economic crimes to understand how aggressively organizations enforce compliance with management control systems. Our dataset comprises 608 organizations around the world that identified they experienced economic crime. We find wide variation in rates of dismissal and legal action against the primary perpetrators. Further, punishment rates are lower for senior management than for middle managers and junior staff. We document that the negative relation between seniority and punishment severity holds only for senior male perpetrators; senior female perpetrators receive harsher punishments than senior males. These findings are more pronounced in organizations that operate in countries with more gender inequality, have less frequent updates to internal control, do not report the crime to regulators, and do not disclose their identity in the survey. We interpret these findings as evidence of agency costs by punishment decision-makers in setting more lenient punishments for senior perpetrators from their own male social networks.
Taxonomy and systematics of Bursaphelenchus nematodes

糸状菌食性線虫の1グループであるBursaphelenchus 属は, 2種の致死的植物病原体, マツノザイセンチュウ (B. xylophilus) とred ring nematode (B. cocophilus) を含むことから, 属全体が栽培植物や森林樹木への潜在的脅威とみなされてきた。 近年, マツノザイセンチュウがヨーロッパへ侵入し被害が発生したことから, 本属線虫の同定, 分類, 種類相の把握の重要性が世界的に再認識されている。 このような状況の下, 本総説ではBursaphelenchus 属線虫の分類, 同定に関する研究の現状をまとめ, これらの研究結果を比較した。 本属は現在約80種を含む, 形態的, 生態的にも非常に多様な属であり, 一般的には形態観察, または分子系統学的手法を用いて分類, 同定が行われている。 形態分類では, 主に交接刺の形状が重要形質とされているが, これによる分類結果と分子分類法による結果を比較したところ, 交接刺の形状は比較的よく系統関係を反映しているが, いくつかグループで形態的収斂が起こっていることが推測された。 また, 分子系統解析結果を生態的特徴と比較したところ, 昆虫を媒介者として利用する性質が属内で複数回にわたって発生したことが示された。
Optimal Voting Rules in Committee Search

We analyze a discrete-time search problem in which committee members inspect alternatives sequentially over a finite search horizon. A collective decision to stop searching and accept the current alternative is reached when it is supported by a threshold number of individual votes. We investigate optimal voting rules that maximize the committee’s expected welfare. If future utilities are not too heavily time discounted, then the optimal threshold number of votes for an alternative to be accepted is non-decreasing in the length of the search horizon; but if the discount factor is too low, then the optimal threshold number of votes could decrease in the length of the search horizon. Our conclusions are consistent with previous studies on infinite-horizon search. Our results are driven by a tension between committee welfare and individual strategies of accepting mediocre alternatives to avoid adverse mutual vetoing in the future.
Fair Dynamic Valuation of Insurance Liabilities via Convex Hedging

Abstract A general class of fair dynamic valuations, which are model-consistent (mark-to-model), market-consistent (mark-to-market) and time-consistent, was introduced by Barigou et al. (2019) in a multi-period setting. In this paper, we generalize the convex hedging approach proposed in Dhaene et al. (2017) to a multi-period framework and investigate the realization of fair dynamic valuations via a convex hedge-based (CHB) approach. We show that the classes of fair dynamic valuations and CHB dynamic valuations are equivalent. Moreover, we show how to implement the CHB dynamic valuations based on two specific classes of convex hedging techniques, i.e. the quadratic and exponential convex hedging.
Sensitivity to Energy Technology Costs: A Multi-Model Comparison Analysis

In the present paper we use the output of multiple expert elicitation surveys on the future cost of key low-carbon technologies and use it as input of three Integrated Assessment models, GCAM, MARKAL_US and WITCH. By means of a large set of simulations we aim to assess the implications of these subjective distributions of technological costs over key model outputs. We are able to detect what sources of technology uncertainty are more influential, how this differs across models, and whether and how results are affected by the time horizon, the metric considered or the stringency of the climate policy. In unconstrained emission scenarios, within the range of future technology performances considered in the present analysis, the cost of nuclear energy is shown to dominate all others in affecting future emissions. Climate-constrained scenarios, stress the relevance, in addition to that of nuclear energy, of biofuels, as they represent the main source of decarbonization of the transportation sector and bioenergy, since the latter can be coupled with Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) to produce negative emissions.
Chemical and physical characterisation of grain tef [Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) trotter] starch granule composition.

Chemical and physical properties of starch granules isolated from five grain tef (Eragrostis tef) varieties were characterised and compared with those of maize starch. Endogenous starch lipids extracted with hot water-saturated n-butanol and total starch lipids extracted with n-hexane after HCI hydrolysis were 7.8 mg/g (mean) and 8.9 mg/g (mean), respectively, slightly lower than in the maize starch granules. The starch phosphorus content (0.65 mg/g) was higher than that of maize starch but virtually the same as reported for rice starch. The starch granule-swelling factor was lower than that of maize starch and extent of amylose leaching was higher. The starch X-ray diffraction pattern was characteristic of A type starch with a mean crystallinity of 37%, apparently lower than the crystallinity of maize starch and more similar to that reported for rice and sorghum starches. The starch DSC gelatinisation temperature was high, like for other tropical cereals; T o , T p , T c and AH were in the range 63.8-65.4, 70.2-71.3, 81.3-81.5 °C and 2.28-7.22 J/g, respectively. The lower swelling, apparently lower percentage crystallinity and lower DSC gelatinisation endotherms than maize starch suggest that the proportion of long amylopectin A chains in tef starch is smaller than in maize starch.
Residues of aflatoxins B1 and M1 in different biological matrices of swine orally administered aflatoxin B1 and Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Riassunto Residui di aflatossine B1 e M1 in differenti matrici biologiche di suino alimentato con diete contenenti aflatossina B1 e Saccharomyces cerevisiae. – Le micotossine, e la aflatossina B1 (AFB1) in particolare, rappresentano da sempre un problema di sanità pubblica a livello mondiale di difficile risoluzione. Scopo del presente lavoro è stato quello di valutare le quantità di aflatossine B1 e M1, in fegato, rene, muscolo e grasso di suini che hanno assunto per 5 settimane diete sperimentalmente contaminate con 280 µg/kg di AFB1. E’ stata valutata anche la capacità adsorbente del Saccharomyces cerevisiae nei confronti di AFB1, somministrando la micotossina (280 ppb) insieme ad una dieta contenente lo 0.2% del lievito. Le quote residuali delle due aflatossine sono state determinate con metodo HPLC in fluorescenza, previa purificazione con estrazione solida (SPE). Muscolo e grasso sono risultati costantemente negativi per entrambe le micotossine, mentre i livelli rilevati in fegato e rene appaiono molto bassi per la AFB1 (valori compresi tra 0.03-0.12 ppb) e leggermente superiori per la AFM1 (valori compresi tra 0.39-0.72 ppb).