Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Development of clusters and international competitiveness of the agro-food sectors in the EU countries

It is quite widely believed that well developed clusters are vehicles for competitiveness and innovation. In the paper we test a hypothesis that occurrence of strong clusters in a country’s agro-food sector is positively related to its international competitiveness. Using the European Cluster Observatory dataset on cluster mapping and WTO data on international trade we have looked for correlation between relative strength of the clusters in the EU countries agro-food sectors and international trade measures of competiveness such as RCA, RMA and RC indices. We found that the EU countries differ in terms of both occurrence and relative strength of the agro-food clusters and levels of comparative advantage in agriculture commodities and food products. However, statistical evidence for relationships between variables under consideration appeared to be weak what leads to some suggestions regarding cluster mapping methodology and further studies in this area which could allow to formulate useful policy recommendations.
Modern Synthetic Approaches to Phthalonitriles with Special Emphasis on Transition-Metal Catalyzed Cyanation Reactions

Series of substituted phthalonitriles (4,5-bis[2'-(2''-benzyloxyethoxy)ethoxy]phthalonitrile, 4,5-bis(2-ethoxyethoxy) phthalonitrile and 4',5',4'',5''-tetracyanodibenzo-24-crown-8) was obtained by means of Pd-catalyzed cyanation reaction in high yields. Analysis of the obtained results together with previously reported data concerning transition metal catalyzed synthesis of phthalonitriles and analogues reveals advantages of each of these methods in comparison with classical approaches - ammonolysis/dehydratation and Rosenmund-Braun cyanation.
Quadratic-Exponential Growth BSDEs with Jumps and Their Malliavin's Differentiability

We investigate a class of quadratic-exponential growth BSDEs with jumps. The quadratic structure introduced by Barrieu & El Karoui (2013) yields the universal bounds on the possible solutions. With local Lipschitz continuity and the so-called A_gamma-condition for the comparison principle to hold, we prove the existence of a unique solution under the general quadratic-exponential structure. We have also shown that the strong convergence occurs under more general (not necessarily monotone) sequence of drivers, which is then applied to give the sufficient conditions for the Malliavin's differentiability.
Automatic Tailored Multi Rhetorical Document Profile

In order to assist researchers in relevance in using scientific articles, an automati c ailored multi summarization (TMPS) is proposed. In this paper, we extend Teufel ’s tailored summary to deal with multi information needs . Our TMPS extracts Rhetorical Document Profile each paper and presents a Plan Language (BPLAN ) is introduced as a formalization of Teufel’s buil ding plan and used to represent representation of user information n BPLAN for improving the readability of extractive shows that the average performance of RDP extractio n m dule is 94.46%, which promises high quality of extracts for summary compo siti n. Ge evaluation shows that our BPLAN is flexible enough in composing various forms of summary. Subjective evaluation provides ev id nce that surface repair operators can improve the resulting summary
A Contingent Valuation Approach to Estimating Regulatory Costs: Mexico's Day Without Driving Program

Little is known about the cost of environmental regulations such as residential zoning restrictions and recycling mandates that target households instead of firms, partly because of significant methodological and data challenges. We use a survey-based approach, the contingent valuation method, to measure the costs of Mexico City’s Day Without Driving program, which seeks to stem pollution and traffic congestion by prohibiting vehicles from being driven one day each week. To our knowledge, ours is the first study of an actual regulation to use this approach. We find that the Mexican program’s costs are substantial: up to US $103 per vehicle per year, about 1 percent of drivers’ annual income. Recent research has questioned whether programs for driving restrictions in Mexico City and several other megacities actually have environmental benefits. Our results suggest that whatever benefits these programs may have, they can be quite costly.
Tuning nanopatterns on fused silica substrates: a theoretical and experimental approach

In this study we develop a novel approach to tune nanopatterns on fused silica substrates exploiting the polarization dependence of the strongly localized near field of highly ordered triangular nanoparticle arrays. For this purpose such arrays were prepared by nanosphere lithography on fused silica substrates and subsequently irradiated with single 35 fs long laser pulses. The irradiation leads to the excitation of localized surface plasmon polariton resonances, followed by ablation of the nanoparticles and partially of the substrate. By this means, nanostructures were generated on the substrate surface, reflecting the local fields in the vicinity of the triangular nanoparticles. Depending on the applied fluence, small holes as well as extended nanostructures with dimensions well below the diffraction limit have been created. Furthermore, by rotating the linear polarization of the laser light by 90° with respect to the orientation of triangular nanoparticles, different plasmon modes have been excited, which in turn, alter the local field distribution. As a result, either nanochannels or bone like shaped nanogrooves in a chequered structure were generated on the fused silica substrates. Finite-difference time-domain simulations demonstrate, that the results can, in fact, be explained by the enhanced near field distribution, which is dominated by the excitation of localized surface plasmon polariton resonances in the triangular nanoparticles. It is shown, that the fluence and the polarization of the laser light are the key parameters in nanogroove and nanochannel formation.
Acquiring firm long-term performance and governance characteristics

Acquiring Firm Long-term Performance and Governance Characteristics. (May 2004) Jonathan Paul Breazeale, B.S., United States Military Academy; M.B.A., Millsaps College Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. L. Paige Fields I examine the market reaction to merger announcements and the long-term post-merger stock price performance of newly merged firms. For a sample of 484 acquiring firms completing mergers between 1993 and 2000, the average valueweighted abnormal announcement date return (market-adjusted) is a statistically significant -1.02%. On average, this reaction is more negative for firms with “good governance. ” Specifically, a governance index comprised of three governance variables is significantly negative in a multivariate regression of announcement date abnormal returns. Comp is the percentage of CEO salary consisting of equity incentives (including stock options and restricted stock grants), InsideOwn is the percentage of the firm owned by officers and directors, and InstOwn is the percentage of the firm owned by large outside block shareholders. Value-weighted calendar-time portfolios consisting of the full sample of acquirers exhibit significant abnormal returns of 9.12%, 33.84% and 55.8% for the 12, 36 and 60 months following the merger, respectively. This overperformance is limited to the value-weighted portfolios. There is calendar-time evidence of abnormal performance for some subsamples on a risk adjusted basis. However, when compared to a control group, abnormal performance is limited to large glamour acquirers on a 12-month horizon, large cash acquirers on a 36 and 60-month horizon, and small focusing acquirers on a 60-month horizon. Multivariate analysis of long-run returns reveals that use of equity and corporate diversification are associated with lower post-merger performance. With regard to governance and long-run stock returns, there is also evidence that suggests higher levels of incentive compensation for CEOs is associated with more successful merger transactions for long-term investors.
NEURAL NETWORK APPROACH TO THE FORMATION MODELS OF MULTIATTRIBUTE UTILITY

The inverse problem of choice is formulated as a problem of the settings multiattribute utility model for known-rank alternatives. This problem has the analogy with neural network learning. There is the difference between multiattribute utility model and neural network learning: useful function parameters are subjects for updating instead weight inputs of neurons. It is formulated the main condition alternatives reordering. They must be not comparable in Pareto-dominance analyses. Two alternatives are changed their places due to useful function ratio under its parameters variation. The algorithm is proposed to train the choice model. Algorithm is illustrated by an example.
Quality of the Governing Temperature Variables in WRF in Relation to Simulation of Primary Biological Aerosols

We have evaluated three prognostic variables in Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, mean daily temperature, daily maximum temperature, and daily minimum temperature using 9 months of model simulations at 36 and 12 km resolution, and compared the results with 1182 observational sites in north and central Europe. The quality of the results is then determined in the context of the governing variables used in crop science, forestry, and aerobiological models. We use the results to simulate the peak of the birch pollen season (aerobiology), growth of barley (crop science), and development of the invasive plant pathogen Hymenoscyphus pseudoalbidus (the cause of ash-dieback). The results show that the crop and aerobiological models are particularly sensitive to grid resolution and much higher quality is obtained from the 12 km simulations compared to 36 km. The results also show that the summer months have a bias, in particular for maximum and minimum temperatures, and that the low/high bias is clustered in two areas: continental and coastal influenced areas. It is suggested that the use of results from meteorological models as an input into biological models needs particular attention in the quality of the modelled surface data as well as the applied land surface modules.
Metastable and chimera-like states in the C.elegans brain network

We model the neuronal activity of the C.elegans network by coupling Hindmarsh-Rose oscillators through the adjacency matrix obtained from its corresponding brain connectivity. By means of numerical simulations, we produce the parameter spaces for quantities related to synchronization, metastability and chimera-like dynamics, identifying, thus, interesting complex patterns of collective behaviour.
A novel method for calculating ambient aerosol liquid water content based on measurements of a humidified nephelometer system

Abstract. Water condensed on ambient aerosol particles plays significant roles in atmospheric environment, atmospheric chemistry and climate. Before now, no instruments were available for real-time monitoring of ambient aerosol liquid water contents (ALWCs). In this paper, a novel method is proposed to calculate ambient ALWC based on measurements of a three-wavelength humidified nephelometer system, which measures aerosol light scattering coefficients and backscattering coefficients at three wavelengths under dry state and different relative humidity (RH) conditions, providing measurements of light scattering enhancement factor f (RH). The proposed ALWC calculation method includes two steps: the first step is the estimation of the dry state total volume concentration of ambient aerosol particles, Va (dry), with a machine learning method called random forest model based on measurements of the “dry” nephelometer. The estimated Va (dry) agrees well with the measured one. The second step is the estimation of the volume growth factor Vg(RH) of ambient aerosol particles due to water uptake, using f (RH) and the Angstrom exponent. The ALWC is calculated from the estimated Va (dry) and Vg(RH). To validate the new method, the ambient ALWC calculated from measurements of the humidified nephelometer system during the Gucheng campaign was compared with ambient ALWC calculated from ISORROPIA thermodynamic model using aerosol chemistry data. A good agreement was achieved, with a slope and intercept of 1.14 and − 8.6 µ m 3 cm −3 ( r2 = 0.92), respectively. The advantage of this new method is that the ambient ALWC can be obtained solely based on measurements of a three-wavelength humidified nephelometer system, facilitating the real-time monitoring of the ambient ALWC and promoting the study of aerosol liquid water and its role in atmospheric chemistry, secondary aerosol formation and climate change.
Assessment of the radiative effects of aerosols in an on-line coupled model over the Iberian Peninsula

The effects of atmospheric aerosol particles over the Earth’s climate mainly depend on their optical, microphysical and chemical properties, which modify the Earth radiative budget. The aerosol radiative effects can be divided into direct and semi-direct effects, produced by the aerosol-radiation interactions (ARI); and indirect effects, produced by aerosol-cloud interactions (ACI). In this sense the objective of this work is to assess whether the inclusion of aerosol radiative feedbacks in 15 the on-line coupled WRF-Chem model improves the modelling outputs over the Iberian Peninsula (IP). For that purpose, the methodology bases on the evaluation of modelled aerosol optical properties under different simulation scenarios. The evaluated data come from two WRF-Chem simulations for the IP differing in the inclusion/no-inclusion of ARI and ACI (NRF/RF simulations). The case studies cover two episodes with different aerosol types over the IP in 2010, namely a Saharan desert dust outbreak and a forest fire episode. The evaluation uses observational data from AERONET stations and 20 MODIS sensor, including aerosol optical depth (AOD) and Angström exponent (AE). Experimental data of aerosol vertical distribution from the EARLINET Granada station are used for checking the models. The results indicate that for the spatial distribution the best-represented variable is AOD and the largest improvements of including the radiative feedbacks are found for the vertical distribution. In the case of the dust outbreak, a slight improvement(worsening) is produced over the areas with medium(high/low) levels of AOD (-9%/+12% of improvement) when including the radiative feedbacks. For the 25 wildfires episode, improvements of AOD representation (up to 11%) over areas further away from emission sources are estimated, which compensates the computational effort of including aerosol feedbacks in the simulations. No evident improvement is observed for the AE representation, whose variability is largely underpredicted by both simulations. Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss. , doi:10.5194/acp-2016-473, 2016 Manuscript under review for journal Atmos. Chem. Phys. Published: 6 July 2016 c © Author(s) 2016. CC-BY 3.0 License.
RNA INTERFERENCE AS ANTIVIRAL THERAPY: DREAM OR REALITY?

Soon aft er discovery of RNA interference (RNAi), its potential as eff ective antiviral therapy was recognized. Since then RNAi has been variously exploited for antiviral purposes which could eff ectively block viral replication in vitro. For invivo use, however, delivery issue, toxicity, RNAi suppression and viral escape are still major hurdles. Here, we providean overview of the RNAi strategy and review the approaches that have been developed to surpass the obstacles and to achieve targeted gene silencing for antiviral and other therapies. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.17525/vrr.v18i1-2.92
Extraction of DNA from eggs of grape phylloxera ( Daktulosphaira vitifoliae FITCH) for use in RAPD testing

Three different extraction methods for preparing DNA from single grape phylloxera ( Daktulosphaira vitifoliae ) eggs for use in PCR-RAPD assay were compared. Pulverization in a glass micro-grinder produced much more clear and consistent RAPD results than when the egg DNA was extracted with a Chelex lysis or a proteinase-K + lysis. Multiple single egg extractions from the same parthenogenetic colony were done with all three methods; no RAPD assay differences were detected. This technique will allow evaluation of the roles population diversity, mutation rates, and reproductive mechanisms play in the Vitis /phylloxera interaction.
An Incentive-Based, Multi-Period Decision Model for Hierarchical Systems

This paper derives multi-period decision strategies for agents in hierarchical systems. We contribute to the multiscale decision theory by extending a one-period, base model to a multiperiod framework. By combining game theory and Markov decision processes, we enable strategically interacting agents to derive optimal decision strategies. The model allows supremal agents to determine incentive levels that encourage cooperative behavior from their subordinates. Furthermore, our results show that limited information about the current and next period is sufficient for both agents to make optimal decisions for their entire decision horizon.
The Hp-Filter in Cross-Country Comparisons

Many empirical studies have applied the Hodrick-Prescott …lter in crosscountry comparisons of business cycle ‡uctuations. The Hodrick-Prescott …lter involves the smoothing parameter, �, and standard practise in the literature is to set this parameter equal to 1600 (in quarterly data) for all countries. We show that this choice might distort the results when the cyclical comoponent is highly serially correlated, and that care should be taken in checking if the results are “reasonable” in the light of common wisdom. For example, for Spanish data we show that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the results imply that the Spanish cycle is very smooth and that the period of 1975-1985 was one of macroeconomic tranquility. We propose to recast the HP-…lter as a
Synthesis, characterization and evaluation of physico-chemical profile of Cu-Chitosan Nanocomposite

In this paper, we have synthesized stable and monodisperse Cu-chitosan nanocomposites (NCPs) based on the ionic gelation of chitosan with tripolyphosphate anions and Copper ions. The physicochemical properties i.e. particle size (295.4 nm), polydispersity index (0.28), zeta potential (+ 19.6 mV), functional group analysis (chitosan, TPP and Cu interaction by frequency distribution), shape (sphere), morphology (highly porous), elemental composition (C,O,P,N and Cu) were characterized by Dynamic light scattering (DLS), Fourier transforms infrared (FTIR), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and SEM energy dispersive X-ray spectroscope (SEM-EDS). Further, release profile of metal elements in Cu-chitosan NCPs was studied by atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS) under varying pH, agitation period and agitation rate. The objective of this study was to solve the problem of preparation of Cu-chitosan NCPs with high degree of monodispersity and stability and investigate the effect of various parameters on the release profile of metal elements in Cu-
RESEARCH ON MICROWAVE PROPERTY OF HIGH-TC SUPERCONDUCTOR

A parallel plate resonator technique for the measurement of microwave surface resistance and penetration depth of superconductive film is discussed. The method allows the evaluation of small, flat samples over a broad range of temperature. It can accurately characterize samples with surface resistance as low as 5μΩ or as high as 1mΩ at 5GHz, and with penetration depth to the accuracy of 100 A. In addition to high resolution, it has several other advantages.
Presence of plasmid-R in isolated bacteria of oyster (Crassostrea virginica), during its process of collection, distribution, commercialization, and consumption

The aim of the present study is to determine presence of Plasmid-R in isolated bacteria of C. virginica, during its process of collection, distribution, commercialization, and consumption in Alvarado, Veracruz lagoon. After being identified, strains were subjected to processes of: alkaline extraction of Plasmid-R; electrophoresis in agarose gel; and to susceptibly to antibiotics determination, through plate diffusion. 34 different species of pathogenic bacteria for humans were identified, belonging to Enterobacteriaceae, Vibrionaceae, Aeromonadaceae and Pseudomonadaceae families, from which a total of 519 Plasmid-R were obtained, 37 in recollection, 87 in distribution, 203 in sale and 192 in the phase of oyster consumption. There was no significant difference in number of plasmids between each phase, nevertheless, the increase in number of Plasmids-R through the process of commercialization is significant. In each phase it was registered bacteria with resistance to antibiotics like ampicillin, carbenicillin, cephalothin and nitrofurantoin.
The genesis of oceanic crust: Magma injection, hydrothermal circulation, and crustal flow

In this study we construct a thermal and mechanical model for the genesis of oceanic crust. Magma is halted in its ascent within the oceanic crust when it reaches a freezing horizon, where the dilational volume change associated with magma freezing leads to viscous stresses that favor magma ponding near the freezing horizon. To model the steady state thermal impact of crustal accretion via dike injection and pillow flows, we treat all crustal accretion in rocks cooler than a magma “solidus” to occur in a narrow 250-m-wide dike-like region centered about the ridge axis. The rest of the oceanic crust is modeled to be emplaced as a steady state magma lens directly beneath the “solidus” freezing horizon where the steady state emplacement rate is determined by the constraint that this lens supply all crust that is not emplaced through diking/extrusion above the magma lens. If hydrothermal heat transport within crustal rocks cooler than 600°C removes heat 8 times as efficiently as heat conduction, then we find that a steady state magma lens will only exist within the crust for ridges spreading faster than a 25 mm/yr half rate. The depth dependence of the magma lens with spreading rate is in good agreement with seismic observations. These results suggest that a fairly delicate balance between magmatic heat injection during crustal accretion and hydrothermal heat removal leads to a strongly different Crustal thermal structure at fast and slow spreading ridge axes. Our results support the hypothesis that median valley topography is due to extension of strong ridge axis lithosphere; it is the difference in thermal regime that is directly responsible for the striking difference between the typical median valley seen at slow spreading ridges (e.g., Mid-Atlantic Ridge) and the axial high seen at fast spreading ridges (e.g., East Pacific Rise). This paradigm for the origin of a median valley at a slow spreading ridge predicts that along-axis variations in median valley topography of a slow spreading center reflect variations in recent magmatic heat input along a segment, that is, that the axial topography is a good time-averaged indicator of the relative importance of hydrothermal cooling and magmatic injection along a given section of a ridge segment. We determine the accumulated crustal strain associated with lower crustal flow which supports the hypothesis that the Oman Ophiolite crust was created at a paleo-analogue to a fast spreading ridge and also suggests that crustal strain, and not cumulate layering, may be the dominant physical process that generates “layered gabbros” within the Oman Ophiolite.