Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Satisfacción en el Trabajo, Creencias y Prácticas Instruccionales: El Caso de los Profesores de Matemáticas de Letonia y Estonia

Introduction. An effective teaching and learning environment has been identified as a factor having an impact on the functionality of school. The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between the satisfaction level of mathematics teachers with their collaboration and recognition at school as a significant component of general job satisfaction, and their general and subject-specific beliefs about teaching and learning as well as their self-reported instructional practice. Method. The data was collected from 9th grade mathematics teachers in Latvia (N=390) and Estonia (N=327) using scales measuring teacher job satisfaction, general beliefs on teaching/learning, beliefs about mathematics teaching/learning and regular practice in class from the questionnaire created for a larger study on mathematic teachers within the international NorBa Project. Results. The results show significant positive inter-relationships between collaboration and recognition on the one hand and constructivist beliefs, beliefs in the constructivist-oriented process aspect of mathematics teaching and constructivist practice on the other hand. Although the influence of teachers’ age and work experience was also examined, it did not appear to be significant in the context of the research. Some cultural differences between Latvian and Estonian teachers were discovered in relation to the main variables and their relationships. Discussion. The findings of this study indicate the importance of teachers’ satisfaction with the collaborative culture of schools in developing teachers’ beliefs and instructional practice in line with school reforms oriented toward the ideology of constructivism. Implications for practice and directions for future research are discussed.
The Elementary Dynamics Analysis of Rill Flow

The determination of the velocity in rill flow is the basis of studying the soil erosion. The velocity of rill flow is influenced by flow discharge, sediment concentration, underlying soil and so on. Under the steady discharge, by assuming the resistance of viscosity is directly proportional to the velocity of flow, the dynamics equation of rill flow is deduced. By nonlinear simulation of the experiment data, we obtained functions between velocity of flow and time, the friction coefficient and erosion intensity, and the viscosity force and sediment concentration in flow. The simulating procedure and results showed that the model is feasible when the velocity of flow is lower. Velocity of flow is mainly affected by slope and sediment concentration when slope and texture of soil are different. The steeper the slope is, the more time the velocity needs to achieve steady. When the friction between water flow and underlying soil is bigger than soil anti-erodibility, sediment concentration in rill flow will increase accordingly.
ASSESSING FOR TIME VARIATION IN OIL RISK PREMIA: AN ADCC-GARCH-CAPM INVESTIGATION

This paper focuses on oil market dynamics through the investigation of oil systematic risk and oil risk premium dynamics over the period 1997-2012, which includes several different economic episodes, enabling us to capture a considerable number of statistical properties for oil prices. Interestingly, unlike previous studies, the authors retained data for several developed and emerging oil markets and used different oil prices in order to provide a comprehensive and wide-ranging vision of oil price dynamics. To this end and in order to take eventual time variation and asymmetry in oil price dynamics into account, the authors applied recent econometrics tests associated with the ADCC-GARCH class of model. This modelling enabled us to appropriately specify the dynamics of oil conditional variance and time-varying oil risk premium. Accordingly, this study offers three interesting findings. First, the hypotheses of asymmetry and time variation in oil risk premia are not rejected. Second, the recent global financial crisis has increased systematic oil risk and oil risk premia in different regions. Finally, oil risk premia in emerging countries are significantly higher than those in developed countries, suggesting the inclusion of additional premium induced by political instability and geopolitical changes in emerging economies.
Development of IEEE 802.11p transceiver in Simulink and evaluation of the electromagnetic interference effects

Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) always causes operation disruption in any electronic device. Due to the increase of electronic components in cars, the effect of EMI on other safety critical devices has to be analyzed. In this thesis we investigate the effect of EMI on Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V) communication systems, which will enable safety critical applications in the future. In this thesis, an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11p transceiver in Simulink is implemented for evaluating the effects of EMI. The model can be used for different scenarios and interference environments, like changing the channels characteristics, adding a simulated channel or even to test with different modulation schemes. The transceiver implementation consists of three parts, the transmitter, the receiver and the intermediate channel block. The transmitter model generates IEEE 802.11p compliant frames, the intermediate channel block can be used to introduce fading, noise and different interference signals, and the receiver model contains the frame detection, the alignment of the In-phase and Quadrature (IQ) samples, frequency offset correction, and the removal of the preamble and guard signals to recover the transmitted data source. The simulation model has been verified by comparing the results of the model with and without convolutional encoder and decoder. The simulation results were compared to the theoretical performance results to check the correctness of the model. Different types of interference signals are introduced in the system to calculate packet error rates at different values of signal to noise ratio for each interference signal. A complete physical layer implementation of IEEE 802.11p has been developed and it can be used to interface with a compatible software defined radio in the future.
Problems using ratios of galaxy shape moments in requirements for weak lensing surveys

Context. The shapes of galaxies are typically quantified by ratios of their quadrupole moments. Knowledge of these ratios (i.e. their measured standard deviation) is commonly used to assess the efficiency of weak gravitational lensing surveys. For faint galaxies, observational noise can make the denominator close to zero, so the ratios become ill-defined. Aims. Since the requirements cannot be formally tested for faint galaxies, we explore two complementary mitigation strategies. In many weak lensing contexts, the most problematic sources can be removed by a cut in measured size. This first technique is applied frequently. As our second strategy, we propose requirements directly on the quadrupole moments rather than their ratio. Methods. As an example of the first strategy, we have investigated how a size cut affects the required precision of the charge transfer inefficiency model for two shape measurement settings. For the second strategy, we analysed the joint likelihood distribution of the image quadrupole moments measured from simulated galaxies, and propagate their (correlated) uncertainties into ellipticities. Results. Using a size cut, we find slightly wider tolerance margins for the charge transfer inefficiency parameters compared to the full size distribution. However, subtle biases in the data analysis chain may be introduced. These can be avoided using the second strategy. To optimally exploit a Stage-IV dark energy survey, we find that the mean and standard deviation of a population of galaxies' quadrupole moments must to be known to better than 1:4 x 10(-3) arcsec(2), or the Stokes parameters to 1:9 x 10(-3) arcsec(2). Conclusions. Cuts in measured size remove sources that otherwise make ellipticity statistics of weak lensing galaxy samples diverge. However, size cuts bias the source population non-trivially. Assessing weak lensing data quality directly on the quadrupole moments instead mitigates the need for size cuts. Such testable requirements can form the basis for performance validation of future instruments.
Optimising the management of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) stands in Spain based on individual-tree models

L'article decrit un systeme de simulation et optimisation, SPINE, pour la sylviculture des peuplements de pin sylvestre en Espagne. Le sous-systeme de simulation est base sur un modele de croissance en diametre et un modele statique de centres-individu, et des modeles pour la limite d'eclaircie naturelle et la probabilite de survie pendant la periode des 5 annees suivantes. Le sous-systeme de simulation etait combine avec l'algorithme d'optimisation developpe par Hooke et Jeeves. La combinaison des systemes simulation-optimisation est capable de trouver le rythme et l'intensite optimale des eclaircies ainsi que le temps optimal pour commencer les coupes de regeneration. Les coupes de regeneration consistaient en une coupe preparatoire, une coupe d'ensemencement 10 ans plus tard et une coupe finale 20 ans apres la coupe preparatoire. Les variables de decision etaient des periodes d'eclaircies, exprimees comme annees apres 1'etablissement du peuplement ou annees apres l'eclaircie precedente, et la surface terriere du peuplement residuel apres chaque eclaircie. Le systeme etait utilise pour trouver des scenarios sylvicoles optimaux pour les peuplements de pin sylvestre pour des indices de fertilite de 17, 24 et 30 m (hauteur dominante a 100 annees). Quand la valeur d'attente du fonds, pour un taux d'escompte de 2 %, etait maximisee, le scenario de sylviculture comprenait cinq eclaircies sur toutes les stations. Les revolutions optimales, de l'etablissement du peuplement jusqu'a la coupe finale, etaient 119, 90 et 94 ans, respectivement pour des indices de fertilites de 17. 24 et 30 m Sur toutes les stations, les scenarios de sylviculture optimaux etaient sensibles au taux d'escompte. cout fixe des coupes et objectifs de gestion (valeur d'attente du fonds, coupe annuelle et moyenne). Des changements jusqu'a 30 % de la valeur optimale d'une variable de decision n'influencait pas beaucoup la valeur d'attente du fonds.
PLANNING OF VEHICLE ROUTES FOR HANDLING MIXED PICKUP AND DELIVERY OPERATIONS WITH SIMULATED ANNEALING ALGORITHM

This study investigates the vehicle routes for a firm with its own delivery fleets and a single depot. A mathematical programming approach is employed to construct a vehicle routing model for handling mixed pickup and delivery operations by referring to the Vehicle Routing Problem with Pickup and Delivery (VRPPD). Furthermore, this study utilizes a heuristic algorithm to develop a problem-solving procedure. A revised Nearest Neighbor (NN) method is developed to obtain an initial solution. The 2-Opt exchange and Simulated Annealing (SA) method are adopted to develop the solution-improving procedure. Analytical results of this study are the optimal sequence of vehicle routes and the customer sets served by each vehicle. A sensitivity analysis among vehicle capacity, travel distance and number of routes is also proposed.
Isolation and Characterization of Palmitic Acid from Ethyl Acetate Extract of Root Bark of Terminalia Glaucescens

The aim of this study is to identify and characterized the bioactive compounds from the root bark of the plant. Preliminary phytochemical screening of the root bark extract of Terminalia glaucescens revealed the presence of steroids, terpenoids, saponins, flavonoids, tannins and cardiac glycoside. The plant has wide folk medicinal use in traditional medicine. The air dried root bark was pulverized to powder, subjected to hot extraction (soxhlet) with methanol, and fractionated into n-hexane, ethyl acetate, and n-butanol fractions. Ethyl acetate as bioactive fraction based on sensitivity test was subjected to TLC and column chromatography. The isolated compound was colourless powder, which was further subjected to IR, UV, 13 CNMR and 1 HNMR for proper characterization and elucidation of the structure. The compound was concluded as palmitic acid.
The role of energy losses in photosynthetic light harvesting

Photosynthesis operates at the bottom of the food chain to convert the energy of light into carbohydrates at a remarkable global rate of about 130 TW. Nonetheless, the overall photosynthetic process has a conversion efficiency of a few percent at best, significantly less than bottom-up photovoltaic cells. The primary photosynthetic steps, consisting of light harvesting and charge separation, are often presented as having near-unity quantum efficiency but this holds only true under ideal conditions. In this review, we discuss the importance of energy loss mechanisms to establish robustness in photosynthetic light harvesting. Thermal energy dissipation of light-harvesting complexes (LHCs) in different environments is investigated and the relationships and contrasts between concentration quenching of high pigment concentrations, photoprotection (non-photochemical quenching), quenching due to protein aggregation, and fluorescence blinking are discussed. The role of charge-transfer states in light harvesting and energy dissipation is highlighted and the importance of controlled protein structural disorder to switch the light-harvesting antennae between effective light harvesters and efficient energy quenchers is underscored. The main LHC of plants, LHCII, is used as a prime example.
Does Corporate Governance Matter? Evidence from New Chinese Corporate Governance Disclosures

This paper examines the association between corporate governance, financial distress risk, and firm financial and market performance by using the Corporate Governance in Finance (CGF) Index developed for Chinese firms. We find that the CGF Index is significantly negatively associated with financial distress risk measured by the Zmijewski-score, O-score, and Z-score. We also find that accounting and market performance measures are significantly positively related to the CGF Index. Finally, for the short-window cumulative abnormal returns (CAR), we find that, around the release of CGF Index, the CAR of firms with lower scores are significantly negative, while that of firms with higher CGF Index scores are not significant. Our results provide further support for the important role of corporate governance effectiveness in the financial reporting process in the emerging markets.
Romantic Attachment Styles, Gender, and Reasons for Living.

The purpose of this study was to examine reasons for living in people with secure, avoidant, and anxious/ambivalent romantic attachment styles. Romantic attachment style was assessed by use of the Adult Attachment Questionnaire (AAQ). Reasons for living were assessed using the Reasons for Living Inventory (RFL). The independent variables were gender and romantic attachment style. The dependent variable was the RFL score. Participants included 235 male and female students from a southeastern university. A brief demographic questionnaire, the RFL (Linehan,M., Goodstein, J., Neilson, S., & Chiles J., 1983), and the AAQ (Hazan & Shaver, 1987), were administered in electronic format on-line. A 3 (attachment style) X 2 (gender) Analysis of Variance with unequal cell sizes was used to test for main and interaction effects. The significance level was set at . 05. Implications of findings and suggestions for future research were discussed.
Variations in flow and transport in thick desert vadose zones in response to paleoclimatic forcing (0–90 kyr): Field measurements, modeling, and uncertainties

An understanding of unsaturated flow and potential recharge in interdrainage semiarid and arid regions is critical for quantification of water resources and contaminant transport. We evaluated system response to paleoclimatic forcing using water potential and Cl profiles and modeling of nonisothermal liquid and vapor flow and Cl transport at semiarid (High Plains, Texas) and arid (Chihuahuan Desert, Texas; Amargosa Desert, Nevada) sites. Infiltration in response to current climatic forcing is restricted to the shallow (∼0.3–3 m) subsurface. Subsurface Cl accumulations correspond to time periods of 9–90 kyr. Bulge‐shaped Cl profiles generally represent accumulation during the Holocene (9–16 kyr). Lower Cl concentrations at depth reflect higher water fluxes (0.04–8.4 mm/yr) during the Pleistocene and earlier times. Low water potentials and upward gradients indicate current drying conditions. Nonisothermal liquid and vapor flow simulations indicate that upward flow for at least 1–2 kyr in the High Plains and for 12–16 kyr at the Chihuahuan and Amargosa desert sites is required to reproduce measured upward water potential gradients and that recharge is negligible (<0.1 mm/yr) in these interdrainage areas.
On the definition and calculation of a generalised McIlwain parameter

The L parameter, which indicates the distance where a magnetic field line crosses the equatorial plane, is defined only for an aligned magnetic dipole field. For a re- alistic planetary magnetic field, however, neither a definition nor a method to calculate this parameter are available so far. We therefore extent the definition of the McIlwain parameter for an arbitrary planetary magnetic field and numerically cal- culate it for the actual geomagnetic field. In order to do so, we first calculate the Earth's magnetic field for 2008 with the IGRF model. To motivate a proper definition for a general L parameter, each component of this field will be illustrated and discussed. In a second step, we present four possible definitions for the L parameter and discuss their properties and differences with respect to the question in how far they reflect the field geometry. We contrast our method with the traditional derivation of the L parameter employing numeri- cal simulations of the cut-off rigidities of energetic particles and an empirical relation between the latter and L.
Effect of micro-cracks on the angiogenesis and osteophyte development during degenerative joint disease

Osteoarthritis is one of the most common types of arthritis, characterized by the development of osteophytes. The main cause of joint degeneration is mechanical loading, but there are also several other factors which influence the growth of osteophytes. In order to formulate a mathematical model of bone spurs’ development we have selected the most important factors, such as angiogenesis, micro-damage of the tissue structure and cell signalling. The proposed system of integro-differential equations describes the degenerative changes in the joint. Numerical calculations were implemented into the COMSOL Multiphysics software and the results thus obtained reflect relations between certain parameters and variables. The results correspond to medical observations.
Modelling and predicting fungal distribution patterns using herbarium data

Aim The main aims of this study are: (1) to test if temperature and related parameters are the primary determinants of the regional distribution of macrofungi (as is commonly recognized for plants); (2) to test if the success of modelling fungal distribution patterns depends on species and distribution characteristics; and (3) to explore the potential of using herbarium data for modelling and predicting fungal species’ distributions.
Metal Extraction with Ionic Liquids-Based Aqueous Two-Phase System

Although ionic liquids (ILs) have excellent properties, their use as extractants in solvent extraction has not completely overcome the problems encountered when organic solvents are used. In conventional solvent extraction, a hydrophobic IL should be used to establish an IL/water biphasic system to replace the conventional organic solvent with ILs. However, the number of water-immiscible ILs is currently limited, and most contain fluorinated anions which are expensive and environmentally nonbenign. Furthermore, the use of an organic solvent as a diluent agent cannot be avoided because of the very high viscosity of ILs. An IL-based aqueous two-phase system (ATPS) can overcome these drawbacks. This chapter summarizes the use of an IL-based ATPS for the separation of metals used in various areas of human life. top a electrolyte-enriched bottom The phase
A Simple Tree Structure for Dynamic Programming Based on Real Scene

A new stereo matching approach based on first order invariant moment is proposed. First order invariant moment is utilized in our algorithm to transform the left and right images from the input space to the feature space, and the improved a simple tree structure dynamic programming ba-sed on adaptive parameters is introduced to evaluate the disparity map to reduce the mismatching points on discontinuous and low texture regions. To testify the applicability of the proposed algorithm, it is applied to gray images captured in the real situation, and the results of experiments show that the proposed algorithm can effectively improves the quality of disparity map on interference areas. Index Terms - binocular stereo matching, invariant moment, dynamic programming, a simple tree