Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Half-BPS M2-brane orbifolds

Smooth Freund-Rubin backgrounds of eleven-dimensional supergravity of the form AdS_4 x X^7 and preserving at least half of the supersymmetry have been recently classified. Requiring that amount of supersymmetry forces X to be a spherical space form, whence isometric to the quotient of the round 7-sphere by a freely-acting finite subgroup of SO(8). The classification is given in terms of ADE subgroups of the quaternions embedded in SO(8) as the graph of an automorphism. In this paper we extend this classification by dropping the requirement that the background be smooth, so that X is now allowed to be an orbifold of the round 7-sphere. We find that if the background preserves more than half of the supersymmetry, then it is automatically smooth in accordance with the homogeneity conjecture, but that there are many half-BPS orbifolds, most of them new. The classification is now given in terms of pairs of ADE subgroups of quaternions fibred over the same finite group. We classify such subgroups and then describe the resulting orbifolds in terms of iterated quotients. In most cases the resulting orbifold can be described as a sequence of cyclic quotients.
Examination of the Relationship Between Test Anxiety and Selective Attention Among Adolescents

The purpose of this study is to determine the predictive level of test anxiety and selective attention skills on test performances of adolescents, who are studying in public and private schools and took high school entrance exams in 2015-2016. The sample of this study consists of 258 8 th grade students in total, including 134 boys and 124 girls, between 13-14 ages. The data of the study were obtained from d2 Test of Attention, Test Anxiety Inventory and from TEOG exams. After examination of the results of the study, it has been indicated that there is a significant relationship between students’ performance on high school entrance exams and selective attention skills. As the quality of student’s visual scanning accuracy, rule compliance and attention performance increase during the exam, test performance increases as well. Likewise, as the students’ negative thoughts about themselves and negative assessments about failing their exams increase, then test performance decreases.
CHARACTERIZATION OF POLYPHARMACY IN THE ELDERLY IN THREE UNITS OF HEALTH SERVICES

The aim of this study is to determine the characteristics of poly pharmacy in the elderly in three units of Health Services in the state of Hidalgo, Mexico . A cross - sectional study of 282 patients treated at three units of the Health Services of Hidalgo during July - August 2014. A questionnaire was applied to collect the variables age, gender, diagnosis, drugs (p rescription or s elf - medication) and the presence of adverse drug reactions. Descriptive statistics were performed using SPS S version 18 and the freely available software "Drug Interaction Checker" was used for identifying drug interactions. Mean age was 72 ± 11 years and 74.46 % were women (ratio 3:1); the most frequent illnesses were hypertension (30.1 %) and type 2 diabetes mellitus (17 %); regarding co - morbidities , 43.61 % had two concomitant pathologies followed by 25.9 % who presented three. Of the patients studied, 6 6 % consume d 3 - 5 drugs (median 4). The longest administration of a drug was 38 years (glibenclamide). The predominant route of administration was oral (93 %) with tablets (83.8) being the most prescribed pharmaceutical form. The ratio for self - medication w as 10:100 with herbal products (57 %) being the most consumed by self - medication. Patients fe lt unwell after administration of a drug in 22.3 % with the main reaction referred being dyspepsia. Losartan , naproxen and sertraline were the main drugs associate d with a suspected adverse reaction. At least one drug interaction was identified in 60 % of patients, with a median of 2 interactions; 63 % were classified as clinically significant, 33.7 % as minor, and 3.3 % as severe . The drug most often involved in an interaction was metformin; however, the most frequent interaction was aspirin - losartan. The characterization of poly pharmacy in the elderly sets the tone for developing interventions aimed at the prevention of drug interactions and promoting the rational use of drugs.
Resource Dependence, Economic Performance, and Political Stability

In many resource-dependent states, elites may face an important trade-off between the economic benefits of diversification and the possibility for future political competition that diversification may engender. However, distinctive features of global resource markets and national political economies may make diversification more or less attractive to political elites. The author argues that in three cases which illustrate the equilibrium paths of the game-theoretic model developed here—postindependence Bostwana, Mobutu’s Zaire, and Suharto’s Indonesia—three variables influenced elites’ incentives for diversification and thereby shaped outcomes along the dimensions of political stability and economic performance: the world market structure for the resource, the degree of societal opposition to elites, and the prior development of the nonresource private sector. These countries’ varied paths from resource wealth to political and economic outcomes suggest the need for conditional theories of the resource curse.
www.econstor.eu Decisions under Uncertainty in Social Contexts∗

This paper theoretically and experimentally studies decision-making in risky and social environments. We explore the interdependence of individual risk attitudes and social preferences in form of inequality aversion as two decisive behavioral determinants in such contexts. Our model and the data demonstrate that individual risk aversion is attenuated when lagging behind peers, whereas it is amplified under favorable income inequality. Moreover, people’s choices are not only contextdependent, but are sensitive to their degree of inequality aversion. The majority of our experimental findings cannot be rationalized by rank-dependent utility models or cumulative prospect theory. Our results contribute to the basic understanding of the underlying principles of decision-making in environments like trading at stock markets, the saving patterns of households or charitable giving under uncertainty. JEL Classification numbers: C91, D03, D63, D81
Monetary Stability and Stock Returns: A Bivariate Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity Modelling Study

This paper employs a constant conditional correlation bivariate EGARCH-in-mean model to investigate interactions among the rate of inflation, stock returns and their respective volatilities. This approach is capable of accommodating all the possible causalities among the four variables simultaneously, and therefore could deliver contemporary evidence of the nexus between monetary stability and stock market. The postwar dataset of the US inflation and stock returns is divided into pre- and post- Volcker period and the estimation results show some significant changes of inflation-stock return relation, as well as indirect links between two volatilities. The core findings in this study suggest that promoting monetary stability contributes to more mutual interactions among the four variables, in particular, common stock is a more effective hedge against inflation, and the level of inflation rate is central to explaining the relation between the two volatilities.
Operating costs of pension funds: the impact of scale, governance, and plan design

Abstract Administrative and investment costs per participant appear to vary widely across pension funds. These costs are important because they reduce the rate of return on the investments of pension funds and consequently raise the cost of retirement security. This article examines the impact of determinants of these costs, such as the size, governance, pension plan design and outsourcing decisions, using data on all Dutch pension funds across the 1992–2004 period, including more than 10,000 observations. We find that economies of scale dominate the strong dispersion in both administrative and investment costs across pension funds. Industry-wide pension funds are significantly more efficient than company funds and other funds. The operating costs of pension funds' defined contribution plans are lower than those of defined benefit plans. Higher shares of pensioners make funds more costly, whereas the reverse is true when relatively many participants are inactive.
Safety of Annona muricata Extract Supplementation for Colorectal Cancer Patients

Background: People have used Annona muricata leaves traditionally as tea drinks. Traditional use of A. muricata leaves is as an infusion which is closed to water extract. The potential health benefit of A . muricata tea leaves that is traditionally used for maintaining health which lately is being used by cancer patients. Therefore it is urgent to verify the safety of A . muricata leaves extract. Method : A randomized double blind placebo controlled trial was conducted on 30 colorectal cancer out patients who had undergone primary tumor resection. Twenty eight subjects completed the study, divided into two groups, namely ethanol-soluble fraction of A . muricata leaves water extract (ESFAM) (n = 14), and placebo (n = 14) for 8 weeks. Peripheral blood samples were withdrawn from subjects by venipuncture at baseline and at the end of the study period. Result s : The effect on bone marrow can be considered to be safe. The measure in indices of organs function, i.e liver and kidney also showed similar results and within normal range after supplementation. The dose given to the subjects is safe and highly tolerable, as shown by very few (6.7%) of patients complained intolerable adverse effects. Conclusion : This study indicates the safety of ESFAM supplementation.
Safeguarding children in the UK: a longitudinal study of services to children suffering or likely to suffer significant harm

This paper presents findings from a prospective longitudinal study which set out to track the progress of 105 children and young people newly identified as having suffered, or being likely to suffer, significant harm through maltreatment or neglect. Baseline data were collected on these children in four English social services departments. Descriptive data on the services and child outcome data were analysed on all the children between 12 and 18 months later, and on 77 of the young people 8–9 years after concerns were first identified. Forty per cent of the children stayed at home with a parent throughout, while the majority of children experienced either some or considerable disruption to their lives. Fifty-seven per cent experienced further maltreatment or neglect. Some children appear to have made good progress in spite of repeated moves, disruption and re-abuse. The paper examines the pattern of services to children and parents. Factors are explored which appeared to either help or hinder the children's capacity to deal with the stresses and adversities faced over the 8 years. Implications for policy and practice are explored which may be more likely to promote positive outcomes for these high-risk children.
Current achievements and future directions of physical weed control in Europe

This paper reviews major results achieved with physical weed control methods and strategies especially adapted for horticultural and agricultural crops. Mechanical methods, such as weed harrowing and inter-row hoeing, have provided promising results in cereals, pulse and oil seed rape, particularly when they are part of a strategy that also involves cultural methods such as fertiliser placement or crop seed vigour. In row crops, intra-row weeds constitute a major challenge, and research has mainly aimed at replacing laborious hand weeding with mechanization. A number of investigations have focussed on optimising the use of thermal and mechanical methods against intra-row weeds. And new methods are now under investigation such as robotic weeding for row crops with abundant spacing between individual plants and band-steaming for row crops developing dense crop stands.
TIME RESOLVED MEASUREMENT OF ELECTRON CLOUDS AT CESRTA USING SHIELDED PICKUPS

The Cornell Electron Storage Ring has been reconfigured as a test accelerator (CesrTA). Shielded pickups have been installed at three locations in CesrTA for the purpose of studying time resolved electron cloud build-up and decay. The pickup design provides electromagnetic shielding from the beam wakefield while allowing cloud electrons in the vacuum space to enter the detector. This paper describes the hardware configuration and capabilities of these detectors at CesrTA, presents examples of measurements, and outlines the interpretation of detector signals with regard to electron clouds. Useful features include time-of-flight measurements of cloud electrons and the use of a solenoidal field for energy measurements of photoelectrons. Measurement techniques include the use of two bunches spaced in multiples of 4 ns, where the second bunch samples the cloud produced by the first bunch. HARDWARE DESCRIPTION
Evolutionary relationships in the genus

The present study is a revision of our work on evolutionary cytogenetics of the genus Zea, including several new experiments which give a deeper insight into the nature of the DNA sequences involved in telomeric regions of Zea luxurians. These new experiments, based on the Southern blotting technique and in situ hybridization, have demonstrated the following: 1) in situ hybridization (FISH) demonstrated the presence of the 180-bp repeat maizeknob-repeat-sequence in DAPI-positive terminal heterochromatic blocks of Z. luxurians (ZL-THB region); 2) Southern blot analysis confirmed that the 180-bp repeat present in maize is also present in Z. diploperennis, Z. luxurians and Tripsacum dactyloides, but not in Z. perennis; 3) another sequence with targeted sites for endonucleases, but without recognition sites for the 180-bp repeat, may be interspersed with the 180-bp repeat in a tandem array sited in the ZL-THB region; 4) in situ hybridization (GISH) of probes and blocking-probes with chromosomes of Z. luxurians (using Z. luxurians as a probe and Z. diploperennis or Z. perennis as a blocking-probe) gave strong fluorescence in both cases. Since Z. diploperennis possesses the 180-bp repeat, fluorescence on Z. luxurians chromosomes was not expected. These results can be explained if the ZL-THB regions are composed not only of 180-bp repeats interspersed with other sequences, but also of other tandem arrays unique to Z. luxurians, which, according to our GISH results, are probably located at the subterminal position.
Filamentary Fragmentation and Accretion in High-mass Star-forming Molecular Clouds

Filamentary structures are ubiquitous in high-mass star-forming molecular clouds. Their relation with high-mass star formation is still to be understood. Here we report interferometric observations toward eight filamentary high-mass star-forming clouds. A total of 50 dense cores are identified in these clouds, most of which present signatures of high-mass star formation. Five of them are not associated with any star formation indicators and hence are prestellar core candidates. Evolutionary phases of these cores and their line widths, temperatures, abundances, and virial parameters are found to be correlated. In a subsample of four morphologically well-defined filaments, we find that their fragmentation cannot be solely explained by thermal or turbulence pressure support. We also investigate distributions of gas temperatures and nonthermal motions along the filaments and find a spatial correlation between nonthermal line widths and star formation activities. We find evidence of gas flows along these filaments and derive an accretion rate along filaments of ∼10−4 . These results suggest a strong relationship between massive filaments and high-mass star formation, through (i) filamentary fragmentation in very early evolutionary phases to form dense cores, (ii) accretion flows along filaments that are important for the growth of dense cores and protostars, and (iii) enhancement of nonthermal motion in the filaments by the feedback or accretion during star formation.
BREEDING BIRD ABUNDANCE AND HABITAT ON TWO LIVESTOCK GRAZING REGIMES IN NORTH DAKOTA

To help sustain prairie wildlife habitat on privately owned lands in North Dakota, prescribed rotational grazing (RG) systems have been implemented as part of the Prairie Pothole Joint Venture (PPJV) of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. However, impacts of these systems on nongame breeding birds are unmeasured. During 1996 and 1997 we assessed the relative abundance, species richness, and habitat of breeding birds especially passerines on five PPJV-prescribed RG pastures in central and northwestern North Dakota. Each RG pasture was paired with a nearby traditional, continuous-grazed (CG) pasture for comparison. Using 5-minute point counts on 100-m radius plots to survey breeding birds, we recorded 30 species in 1996 and 29 species in 1997. We detected no differences in relative abundance or species richness between grazing regimes in 1996 (P = 0.29 and 0.58), but relative abundance and species richness were greater on RG pastures than on CG pastures in 1997 (P = 0.08 and 0.04), a relatively dry year. A group of five species (savannah sparrow [Passerculus sandwichensis], grasshopper sparrow [Ammodramus savannarum], western meadowlark [Sturnella neglecta], bobolink [Dolichonyx oryzivorus], Baird’s sparrow [Ammodramus bairdii]) considered sensitive to heavy grazing in previous studies had a higher collec
Evidence from the UK fund industry

By applying tournament analysis to the UK Unit Trusts data, we find evidence to support significant risk shifting in the family tournament; i.e. interim winning managers tend to increase their level of risk exposure more than losing managers. Our results also show that the risk-adjusted returns of the winners outperform those of the losers following the risk taking, which implies that risk altering can be regarded as an indication of managers’ superior ability. However, the tournament behaviour can still be a costly strategy for investors, since winners can be seen to beat losers in the observed returns due to the deterioration in the performance of their major portfolio holdings. JEL Classification: G20; G23
Free vibrations of functionally graded circular cylindrical shells under internal pressure

Free vibration of simply supported circular cylindrical shell made of Functionally Graded Material (FGM) under internal pressure was investigated. The effective material properties are assumed to vary continuously along the thickness direction according to a volume fraction power law distribution. First order shear deformation theory based on Love's first approximation theory was utilized in the equilibrium equations. The effects of FGM parameters such as material configuration and power law exponent, internal pressure as well as geometrical parameters such as thickness to radius and length to radius ratios on the vibration behavior were investigated. The validation of the results was achieved by comparing with those available in the literature. The results show that the vibration characteristics of Functionally Graded (FG) shells are greatly influenced by FGM parameters. Moreover, internal pressure and geometrical parameters considerably influence the frequency behavior regarded to different values of FGM parameters.
$(m,p)$-isometric and $(m,\infty)$-isometric operator tuples on normed spaces

We generalize the notion of $m$-isometric operator tuples on Hilbert spaces in a natural way to normed spaces. This is done by defining a tuple analogue of $(m,p)$-isometric operators, so-called $(m,p)$-isometric operator tuples. We then extend this definition further by introducing $(m,\infty)$-isometric operator tuples and study properties of and relations between these objects.
Quantifying heterogeneous transport of a tracer and a degradable contaminant in the field, with snowmelt and irrigation

To examine the persistence of preferential flow paths in a field soil, and to compare the leaching of a degrad- able contaminant with the leaching of a tracer, two field ex- periments were performed using a multi-compartment sam- pler (MCS). The first experiment was carried out during the snowmelt period in early spring, characterized by high in- filtration fluxes from snowmelt. The second experiment was carried out in early summer with irrigation to mimic homo- geneous rainfall. During the second experiment, the soil was warmer and degradation of the degradable contaminant was observed. For both experiments, the highest tracer concen- trations were found in the same area of the sampler, but the leached tracer masses of the individual locations were not highly correlated. Thus, the preferential flow paths were sta- ble between the two experiments. With a lower infiltration rate, in the second experiment, more isolated peaks in the drainage and the leached masses were found than in the first experiment. Therefore, it is concluded that the soil hetero- geneity is mainly caused by local differences in the soil hy- draulic properties, and not by macropores. With higher in- filtration rates, the high and low leaching cells were more clustered. The leached masses of the degradable contami- nant were lower than the leached masses of the tracer, but the masses were highly correlated. The first-order degrada- tion rate and the dispersivity were fitted with CXTFIT; the first-order degradation rate was 0.02 d 1 , and the dispersiv- ity varied between 1.9 and 7.1 cm. The persistence of the flow paths during the experiments suggests soil heterogeneity as the driver for heterogeneous flow and solute transport in this soil. At the MCS scale, heterogeneous snowmelt did not seem to have much influence on the flow and solute paths.
A simple device for determining thermal effusivity of thin plates

We measured thermal effusivity of thin plates in the longitudinal direction. This parameter is strongly correlated with lateral convection, so its determination is very difficult. Thermal quadrupole theory is presented which allows the theoretical expression of the problem to be determined. By applying a heat flux without a low-frequency component, only some characteristic times of the system are excited. A real-time method of estimation is developed by using a non-integer derivative signal. The results obtained for a copper plate are in good agreement with the literature.
Investigation of NOM size, structure and functionality (SSF): impact on water treatment process with respect to disinfection by-products formation

This study was undertaken to evaluate existing conventional treatment processes, as opposed to specific membrane processes, to minimize haloacetic acid (HAA) formation, by examining in detail the characteristics of natural organic matter (NOM) size, structure and functionality. Through these evaluations, both size exclusion and charge interaction mechanisms, based on NOM size and functionality analyses, were also used to evaluate the performance of each process in conjunction with NOM structural effects. Such integrated evaluations (beyond a simple combination of the characterizations of NOM size, structure and functionality) were shown to be useful for the selection of advanced alternative membrane processes in order to maximize the removal of hydrophilic NOM fractions, which have a relatively high HAA producing potential, as conventional drinking water treatment processes examined in this study are unable to remove the hydrophilic NOM fraction effectively.