Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Growth Impact of Structural Reforms in Latin America. Another Look

Aim of this paper is to further investigate the growth effects of structural reforms in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Although some work on the topic already exists this is based on dynamic panel data models where reforms are measured by means of the Reform Indexes, originally calculated by Lora et al.(1997) and then extended by Morley et al.(1999) for the period 1970-1995. Now, with much of the reform effort in LAC countries concentrated in the end of the 80s and in the beginning of the 90s, an empirical analysis with observations up to 1995 might not be enough for a correct detection of growth effects of structural reforms. Moreover, previous results might be driven by the estimation strategy too. ;Within this frame, this paper tries to contribute in both ways. Firstly, an actualized version of the Reform Indexes(Escaith et al.(2003)) is used with observations up to 2000. Secondly, differently from previous studies, the estimation strategy is based on the adoption of Within Group estimator and Kiviet(1995) correction for Within Group estimator when, given the number of cross-section units, a shorter time dimension is at hand. Results are compared to estimates from Arellano and Bondo first difference estimator. Finally a sensitivity analysis is performed in order to check the robustness of results.
Subjective Sleep Quality, Caffeine, and Dieting Behaviors Among University-Attending Young Adults

Background Research has shown that university students engage in behaviors that are associated with poor sleep quality, such as higher caffeine and alcohol intake. Yet studies exploring eating habits and weight loss mechanisms related to sleep quality have generally been inconclusive. This study explored total daily caffeine consumption (along with different sources of caffeine) as well as dieting and exercising to lose weight in the last 30 days as risk factors for poor sleep quality among an undergraduate university population. Methods Full-time undergraduate students (n = 400) participated in an anonymous online survey about various health behaviors at a large, mid-Atlantic university. Multivariable linear regressions were run to consider subjective sleep quality in relation to caffeine consumption and dieting behavior along with other covariates. A sensitivity analysis was run to explore how different types of caffeinated beverages were associated with sleep quality as well. All analyses were conducted using SAS JMP Version 16. Results A stepwise multivariable linear regression controlling for alcohol use, grade point average, biological sex, and stress showed significant increases in sleep quality scores (indicating worsening sleep quality). Total caffeine consumption remained significant through the models until psychosocial factors were added (B = 0.003, p = 0.0035). The sensitivity analysis indicated that total caffeine consumption from soda remained significant across all models, significantly increasing sleep quality scores (B = 0.01; p = 0.0054). Discussion Higher amounts of caffeine from sodas were associated with more significant decreases in sleep quality than other types of caffeine, including energy drinks, coffee, and tea. Dieting or exercising to lose weight was not significantly associated with sleep quality. The results of this study can help to refine intervention efforts designed to improve sleep quality among undergraduate university students. Behavioral interventions specific to reducing caffeine intake, specifically from caffeinated sodas, may prove to be beneficial with this population.
Impact of the surface characteristics on the quality of INSAR elevation data

Due to upcoming new data driven technologies in the aviation the impact of digital terrain data is growing conspicuously. Especially for ground near operations reliable terrain information is necessarily demanded. Based on modern earth observation technologies a new generation of elevation data is obtainable. However it shall be analysed how far data derived from remote sensing techniques like INSAR or LIDAR can be applied for aviation purposes. Formerly terrain data were represented in relation to the bare earth to obtain a "Digital Terrain Model" (DTM). For aviation purposes a "Digital Surface Model" (DSM) representing the real surface of the earth including all cover like vegetation and buildings is recommended. Due to the characteristics of active remote sensors the derived model always describes an in between of the two elevation representations. To satisfy the special requirements the Institute of Flight Systems and Automatic Control (FSR) at the Technische Universitaet Darmstadt is dealing with the determination of the influencing factors which affect the quality of the terrain models being appropriate to be used as a DSM. In order to enhance the integrity of the data a "safety buffer" is created to allow the applicability for dedicated applications (figure 1).
Identification of three dominant rainfall regions within Indonesia and their relationship to sea surface temperature

The characteristics of climatic rainfall variability in Indonesia are investigated using a double correlation method. The results are compared with empirical orthogonal function (EOF) and rotated EOF methods. In addition, local and remote responses to sea‐surface temperature (SST) are discussed. The results suggest three climatic regions in Indonesia with their distinct characteristics. Region A is located in southern Indonesia from south Sumatera to Timor island, southern Kalimantan, Sulawesi and part of Irian Jaya. Region B is located in northwest Indonesia from northern Sumatra to northwestern Kalimantan. Region C encompasses Maluku and northern Sulawesi. All three regions show both strong annual and, except Region A, semi‐annual variability. Region C shows the strongest El Niño–southern oscillation (ENSO) influence, followed by Region A. In Region B, the ENSO‐related signal is suppressed. Except for Region B, there are significant correlations between SST and the rainfall variabilities, indicating a strong possibility for seasonal climate predictions. March to May is the most difficult season to predict the rainfall variability. From June to November, there are significant responses of the rainfall pattern to ENSO in Regions A and C. A strong ENSO influence during this normally dry season (June to September) is hazardous in El Niño years, because the negative response means that higher SST in the NIÑO3 of the Pacific region will lower the rainfall amount over the Indonesian region. Analyses of Indonesian rainfall variability reveal some sensitivities to SST variabilities in adjacent parts of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Copyright © 2003 Royal Meteorological Society
Agrotóxicos e saúde: realidade e desafios para mudança de práticas na agricultura

Este artigo apresenta os resultados de uma pesquisa que teve como objetivo principal caracterizar o contexto e as praticas relacionadas ao uso de agrotoxicos entre agricultores residentes na Serrinha do Mendanha, comunidade agricola situada em Campo Grande, municipio do Rio de Janeiro. A proposta metodologica teve uma abordagem qualitativa, sendo a principal fonte de dados a aplicacao de questionario semiestruturado. Participaram da pesquisa 38 agricultores familiares. O perfil socioeconomico mostra uma realidade de idosos no trabalho agricola, percentuais expressivos de analfabetismo e baixa renda. O uso de agrotoxicos e uma rotina para essas familias. Apesar de existir uma naturalizacao do uso, a maioria dos informantes acredita que agrotoxicos podem afetar sua saude, apresenta preocupacao com o consumidor e gostaria de conhecer formas alternativas de cultivo. Tais achados apontam para a possibilidade de busca de mudanca de praticas. Nao se trata de repasse de conhecimento, pois este tipo de informacao de alguma forma eles ja possuem. Trata-se de desenvolver estrategias objetivando a minimizacao dos riscos ou mesmo o desuso de agrotoxicos na lavoura.
Made in America? Immigrant Occupational Mobility in the First Half of the Twentieth Century1

Assimilation research largely assumes that Southern, Central, and Eastern European immigrants achieved assimilation due to job ladders within manufacturing firms in the first half of the 20th century. But this literature has never tested whether Italians and Slavs experienced upward mobility. Did manufacturing allow for the upward advancement of all European-origin groups? Using data sets containing employment histories from 1900 to 1950 in three manufacturing companies—A. M. Byers Company, Pullman-Standard Manufacturing, and the Ford Motor Company—this article offers the first empirical analysis of occupational mobility within factories among European-origin groups. Results suggest that organizational structures within firms through the formation of internal labor markets did little to counter other forces that kept immigrants from achieving upward mobility. Southern, Central, and Eastern European immigrants ended their careers within firms where they began—positions at the bottom of the occupational hierarchy—contrary to the implicit assumptions of assimilation research.
Tertiary sediments in the Sea of the Hebrides

Marine geophysical surveys in the Sea of the Hebrides show that there are several basins containing sediments up to 1 km in thickness resting on the offshore extensions of the Palaeocene–Eocene lava piles of Skye and Mull. Close geological and geophysical similarities with the Lough Neagh Clays of Northern Ireland suggest that the sediments are argillaceous deposits of probable Oligocene age; rocks of this age do not occur onshore in W Scotland. The early Tertiary history of the inner continental shelf now closely resembles that of the continental margin and Rockall trough, where an important Eocene–Oligocene unconformity preceded rapid Oligocene subsidence. South-west of Mull the main branch of the Great Glen fault downthrows the Tertiary to the SE. by about 0 5 km.
Potential Eocene and Oligocene stratigraphic traps of the Rockall Plateau, NE Atlantic Margin

Abstract Following thermal uplift during the late Paleocene to early Eocene, the denudation of the subaerial hinterland provided a massive sediment supply that led to the development of a number of large, prograding sedimentary wedge systems flanking the Hatton and Rockall basins. Regional seismic data mapping and borehole data indicate that the wedges are Eocene in age and have a high percentage of coarse clastic material typical of high-energy, fluvial or near-shore marine environments. The prograding wedges have been mapped and can be viewed as large, clastic fairways within which trapping at a number of scales exists. Seismic interpretation suggests that the wedges are present at various stratigraphic levels within the Eocene and are locally separated by unconformities. However, all pre-date the margin-wide late Eocene unconformity (C30), which resulted in subsidence and deepening of the Rockall and Hatton basins. A marine transgression inundated most former land areas, and a marked change occurred in basinal facies; a change from fluvial/near-shore clastic sedimentation to deep-water mud and ooze deposition influenced by bottom-currents. These conditions persisted throughout most of the Oligocene and Neogene and hence provided a seal for potential hydrocarbon-bearing sand-prone Eocene reservoirs internal to the wedge-systems. Additional sealing potential may be provided by shale layers internal to the wedges. Buried Eocene pinchout lobes, submarine fans at the base of basalt scarp faces and Oligocene slump deposits also provide potential trapping mechanisms. High, and probably unacceptable, risks include biodegradation and poor seal development due to the typically shallow depth of burial of the wedges. However, the majority of the wedges should be treated as analogues, with some of the deeper examples providing some scope for consideration as exploration targets. The scale of the prograding wedge play fairway is massive, with volumes measured in tens of cubic kilometres.
The Service Economy in OECD Countries: OECD/Centre d'études prospectives et d'informations internationales (CEPII)

Improving the performance of the services sector is important to enhance aggregate economic growth. This is primarily since the service sector has become the quantitatively most important sector in all OECD economies. The growing role of services is not only the result of a resource re-allocation towards services, as the sector with low productivity growth. It is also related to demand side factors, such as a high income elasticity of demand for some services, demographic developments, the provision of certain services as public goods, and the growing role of services as providers of intermediate inputs. The empirical evidence points to several areas where employment and productivity growth in services is held back. For example, labour-intensive production in many services industries may reduce the potential for productivity growth. Innovation is held back by obstacles that are particularly relevant for services industries. The evidence also shows that the regulatory environment for . L'economie de services dans les pays de l'OCDE : OCDE/Centre d'etudes prospectives et d'informations internationales (CEPII) Il est important d’ameliorer les performances du secteur des services pour renforcer la croissance economique globale. Celui-ci est en effet devenu dans tous les pays de l’OCDE le secteur le plus important sur le plan quantitatif. Le role croissant des services ne resulte pas seulement d’une reaffectation des ressources en direction de cette branche d’activite, dont la productivite augmente peu. D’autres facteurs entrent en ligne de compte du cote de la demande, comme la forte elasticite revenu de la demande de certains services, l’evolution demographique, la fourniture de certains services a titre de biens publics et le role croissant des services en tant que fournisseurs de facteurs de production intermediaires. Les donnees empiriques dont on dispose montrent que l’emploi et la productivite progressent peu dans plusieurs domaines. La forte intensite de main-d’œuvre de nombreux secteurs de services peut reduire les possibilites de croissance de la productivite. L’innovation est .
Hydroclimate Variability and Change in the Prairie Pothole Region, the “Duck Factory” of North America*

AbstractThe Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) of the northern Great Plains is a vital ecosystem responsible each year for producing 50%–80% of new recruits to the North American duck population. Climate variability and change can impact the hydrology and ecology of the region with implications for waterfowl populations. The historical relationship between PPR wetlands, duck populations, and seasonal hydroclimate are explored. Model experiments from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project are used to determine whether a recent wetting trend is due to natural variability or changing climate and how PPR hydroclimate will change into the future. Year-to-year variations in May duck populations, pond numbers, and the Palmer drought severity index are well correlated over past decades. Pond and duck numbers tend to increase in spring following La Nina events, but the correlation is not strong. Model simulations suggest that the strengthening of the precipitation gradient across the PPR over the past cent.
Early Formative Pottery Production, Mobility, and Exchange on the Pacific Coast of Southern Mexico

ABSTRACT In this article we report ceramic stylistic and compositional (Instrumental Neutron Activation-INAA) data from two Early Formative Period (3,400–2,800 cal yrs. BP) coastal sites from the Acapetahua region of southern Mexico, datasets potentially sensitive to the study of the exchange of ideas and materials. Gourd-shaped vessels (tecomates) with red slips dominate the earliest ceramic assemblages at the two sites. The compositional comparison of these early ceramics with reference clay samples indicates that this pottery was manufactured locally. Grey, black, and white wares appear in the assemblage ∼3,000 cal yrs. BP and the number of serving bowls substantially increases. Most of these ceramics were also manufactured locally, but imported wares from farther south and the north from the Gulf Coast lowlands were also identified suggesting some connectivity within an emerging long-distance exchange network. Given the position of these settlements we hypothesize that the movement of people, goods and ideas was facilitated by water travel along the southern Pacific Coast of Mesoamerica.
On evolution of bed material waves in alluvial rivers

Field and laboratory measurements have shown distinct characteristics of bed sediment waves under differing conditions, whilst their theoretical interpretation has emerged to be equivocal. This note aims to clarify the interpretation of evolution of bed material waves. The complete set of governing equations for the flow–sediment–morphology system is deduced to demonstrate its universally hyperbolic nature, irrespective of the sediment transport functions implemented to close the equations. The hyperbolic nature can admit not only attenuating bed material waves, but also shock‐like waves that are not unusual in the real world. It is suggested that the theory of dispersion/diffusion is not universally appropriate for evolution of bed material waves. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Source parameters and three‐dimensional attenuation structure from the inversion of microearthquake pulse width data: Qp imaging and inferences on the thermal state of the Campi Flegrei caldera (southern Italy)

The three-dimensional P wave attenuation structure of the Campi Flegrei caldera and the estimate of source parameters for 87 local microearthquakes is obtained by the nonlinear inversion of pulse width and rise time measurements by using the method described by Zollo and de Lorenzo (this issue). Source radii represent the better resolved parameters with values ranging from 70 m to 230 m; the dip and strike angles defining fault orientations are usually affected by larger uncertainties and are well constrained only for 11 events. The dip fault is usually confined in the range 30°–60° (with an average uncertainty of 12°); the fault strikes mainly range between −60° and 60° and seem to define preferential directions oriented radially from the symmetry axis of the ground deformation. Stress drop estimates indicate rather low values (0.01–1 MPa) which suggest low strength properties of the incoherent and brittle materials filling the caldera (primarily yellow tuffs). The three-dimensional Qp images obtained from the inversion of P pulse durations show two significant low-Qp anomalies between 0 and 1 km of depth, in the north-eastern sector and at 2–3 km of depth in the central eastern sector of the caldera. The high degree of spatial correlation of the low-Qp zone and low-Vs (as inferred by Aster and Meyer (1988)) at 0–1 km in depth and other geophysical and geochemical observations suggest that this anomaly can be related to the presence of densely fractured, porous, and fluid-filled rocks in the NE sector of the caldera. The deeper low-Qp anomaly is interpreted as being related to a dominant thermal effect. We used the surface and deep borehole temperature measurements available in the area to obtain a local calibration curve to convert Qp in temperature at Campi Flegrei. The retrieved T(Qp) map shows a high thermal deep disturbance (450°–500°C) at depths between 2 and 3 km in the eastern sector of the caldera, where the most recent eruptive activity is concentrated. The present-day temperature field retrieved by Qp images has been interpreted by using a three-dimensional thermal conduction model assuming an extended heat source (initial temperature of 800°C) located underneath the attenuation anomalous region. The results indicate that the Qp-inferred temperature field can be related to the heat conduction effect of one or more molten bodies whose top should be at about 4-km depth, consistent with recent seismic estimates of the magma chamber top at Campi Flegrei (Ferrucci et al., 1992). This study suggests that the present thermal state and rock rheology of the inner caldera could be controlled by the cooling of molten bodies that originally intruded at depths of 1.4–1.6 km, during one or more recent (time of <10 kyr) eruptive events.
Beach Hydromorphological Analysis Through Remote Sensing

ABSTRACT TEODORO, A. , PAIS-BARBOSA, J., GONÇALVES, H. , VELOSO-GOMES, F and TAVEIRA-PINTO, F. , 2011. Beach Hydromorphological Analysis Through Remote Sensing. In: Micallef, A. (ed.), MCRR3-2010 Conference Proceedings, Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue, No. 61, pp. 44-51. Grosseto, Tuscany, Italy, ISSN 0749-0208. Beach hydromorphological classification is a complex subject. Different beach classification models were presented by several authors. However, fundamental parameters are usually unavailable. Therefore, a morphological analysis using remotely sensed data and image processing techniques is a good approach to identify and to classify beach hydromorphologies. Remote sensing data is an increasingly important component of natural resources monitoring programs. Its usefulness can be maximized by understanding the constraints and capabilities of the imagery and change detection techniques, related to the monitoring objectives. The aim of this study was to explore different remotely sensed data (aerial photographs and a satellite image) and different image processing algorithms in order to identify coastal forms/patterns and further classify beach hydromorphological stage. To achieve that, different image processing techniques were applied to remotely sensed data: pixel and object-based classification algorithms and a pattern recognition approach using artificial neural networks. A stretch of the northwest coast of Portugal was chosen as the study area. The data used in this study consisted in aerial photographs and an IKONOS-2 image. Based on the obtained results two main conclusions could be taken: the pixel-based classification (supervised classification algorithms) showed better results than the object-based classification algorithms; and the pattern recognition approach is the most effective and accurate methodology. Therefore, the association of remote sensing data and image processing techniques is very useful in identifying coastal forms/patterns regarding the classification of beach morphological stage.
Distribution of recent dinocyst assemblages in the western Barents Sea

, Vol. 89, pp. 109-119, Trondheim 2009. ISSN 029-196X.Dinoflagellate cyst (dinocyst) assemblages were analyzed in 43 surface sediment samples from the Barents Sea. They can be divided into five major assemblage types, the distribution of which can clearly be linked to the overlying water masses. Notably, a very clear distinction between sites influ-enced by Atlantic water and Arctic water, respectively, is seen in the change in dominance from
Numerical simulation of the December 1997 Debris Avalanche in Montserrat, Lesser Antilles

Emplacement of a debris avalanche in the White River valley of southern Montserrat (Lesser Antilles), on 26 December 1997, was caused by sector failure of the south flank of the active Soufriere Hills volcano. Pre‐ and post‐emplacement surveys of the region indicate a debris avalanche deposit volume of about 40–50 × 106 m³. This avalanche is modeled as the gravitational flow of a homogeneous continuum governed by a basal friction law. Mass and momentum equations are depth‐averaged over the slide thickness. Numerical results show that the observed distribution of debris and duration of emplacement is simulated well for a Coulomb‐type friction law with a dynamic friction coefficient dependent upon the thickness and the velocity of the flowing mass.