Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Building social capital: a grassroots language program for refugees and politics of integration

With the increased migration stimulated by economic transformations and political unrest in different parts of the globe, the issue of cultural and economic integration of newcomers has become pressing for hosting societies. Apart from state-sponsored integration projects, various grassroots initiatives have started to emerge. This study looks at the format and effects of an informal education programme for refugees titled 'Capture the Moment and Learn Something New', organised by a person with a foreign background in a small-sized town in western Sweden. Through qualitative network analysis, we demonstrate ways in which the programme facilitates the development of interconnections within the group of newcomers and formation of a shared identity of a migrant, simultaneously helping acquisition of cultural fluency and social recognition that might improve immigrantsâ€™ chances in establishing ties with the local ethnic majority. The notion of social capital is employed to explain variations in the range of resources potentially available for the newcomers.
Penteco/Charismatic Worldview of Prosperity Theology.

This article reviews the penteco/charismatic concept of material blessing (material prosperity) using the Circle and Chorkor branches of Perez Chapel International of Ghana and the clergy of 7 other charismatic churches in Ghana. This is of particular interest in this contemporary era considering the fact that today the emphasis on prosperity gospel by many Penteco/charismatic clergy is dwindling the spirituality of the flock. Methodological triangulation was used in data collection. Twenty clergy from ten penteco/charismatic churches were sampled and interviewed. Questionnaires were also administered. The thematic analysis started by looking for patterns of meaning and issues of potential interest in the data and harnessing them into meaningful coding schemes or groups. This was followed by sorting the different codes into potential themes and interpreting them. Findings among others are: the Holy Spirit is an indispensable factor in material wealth creation; God is the sole architect of a good prosperity; material prosperity is meant to be used for God’s glory. It was also found out that many of the penteco/charismatic church members are materially poor and this is contrary to the prosperity theology of the churches in question.
The effects of metallicity and cooling physics on fragmentation: implications on direct-collapse black hole formation

A promising supermassive black hole seed formation channel is that of direct collapse from primordial gas clouds. We perform a suite of 3D hydrodynamics simulations of an isolated turbulent gas cloud to investigate conditions conducive to forming massive black hole seeds via direct collapse, probing the impact of cloud metallicity, gas temperature floor and cooling physics on cloud fragmentation. We find there is no threshold in metallicity which produces a sharp drop in fragmentation. When molecular cooling is not present, metallicity has little effect on fragmentation. When molecular cooling is present, fragmentation is suppressed by at most ∼25%, with the greatest suppression seen at metallicities below 2% solar. A gas temperature floor ∼10^4 K produces the largest drop in fragmentation of any parameter choice, reducing fragmentation by ∼60%. At metallicities below 2% solar or at temperatures ∼10^3 K we see a reduction in fragmentation ∼20−25%. For a cloud of metallicity 2% solar above and a temperature below 10^3 K, the detailed choices of temperature floor, metallicity, and cooling physics have little impact on fragmentation.
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN EMPLOYEES AND MANAGERS REGARDING SOCIO-EMOTIONAL COMPETENCES

The main goal of this paper is to examine differences between employees and managers in attachment styles, emotional intelligence, life satisfaction, personality traits and humour styles, as well to discuss implications of this connection to the quality of management at work. The survey includes 240 participants from Serbia. The sample includes employees and managers of both genders and of a various age. The instruments used are: Emotional Skills and Competence Questionnaire (Taksic, Moharic, Munjas, 2006), Experiences in Close Relations (Kamenov & Jelic, 2003), Personality Questionnaire (Zuckerman, 2002), Humour Styles Questionare (Martin et al, 2003) and Satisfaction With Life Scale (Diener, 1985) . The results indicate that the owners, top managers and managers in relation to employees have higher scores on all three dimensions of emotional intelligence, dominant affiliative humour style, they are more satisfied with life and show higher activity. Employees have dominant aggressive and self-defeating humour style and neuroticism in relation to owners, managers and top managers. Keywords: attachment style, emotional intelligence, personality traits, humour styles, life satisfaction, management
Diagnosing sea-surface dimethylsulfide (DMS) concentration from satellite data at global and regional scales

The marine biogenic gas dimethylsulfide (DMS) can modulate regional and global climate by enhancing aerosol light scattering and seeding cloud formation. However, the lack of time- and space-resolved estimates of DMS concentration and emission hampers the assessment of its climatic effects. Here we present DMS SAT , a new remote sensing algorithm that relies on the nonlinear relationship between DMS, its phytoplanktonic precursor dimethylsulfoniopropioante (DMSPt) and plankton light exposure. The DMS SAT algorithm is computationally light and can be easily optimized for global and regional scales. At the global scale, it reproduces the main climatological features of DMS seasonality across contrasting biomes with remarkable skill compared to previous algorithms. Shortcomings of the global-scale optimized algorithm are the propagation of regional biases in remotely sensed chlorophyll (causing underestimation of DMS in the Southern Ocean) and the inability to reproduce high DMS/DMSPt ratios in late summer and fall in specific regions (which suggests the need to account for additional DMS drivers). Our work also highlights the shortcomings of interpolated DMS climatologies, caused by sparse and biased in situ sampling. Time series of DMS SAT between 2003–2016 in northern subpolar regions show wide interannual variability in the magnitude and timing of the annual DMS peak(s), demonstrating the need to move beyond the climatological view in studies of ocean-atmosphere interactions. By providing time- and space-resolved estimates of DMS emission, DMS SAT can leverage atmospheric chemistry and climate models and advance our understanding of plankton-aerosol-cloud interactions in the context of global change.
Diel cycles in viral infection of bacterioplankton in the North Sea

Diel variations in substrate availability (largely due to variations in phytoplankton production) can lead to pronounced diel patterns in prokaryotic activity in the euphotic zone. We examined short-term changes in viral infection of bacterioplankton and its relation to bacterial activ- ity in 3 distinct masses of North Sea surface waters marked by drifting buoys in June 2001 and April 2002. The water masses were sampled every 4 to 6 h for a period of 20 to 36 h. The frequency of infected cells (FIC) estimated by a virus dilution approach varied from 5 to 64% at the western site, 17 to 55% at the southern site, and 10 to 22% at the northern site and was generally higher during the night than at daytime. Furthermore, FIC was negatively related to bacterial activity at all sites. Bacterial activity, measured via ( 14 C)-leucine incorporation, was ca. 1.5- to 5-fold higher during the day than at night. Our results indicate that viral lysis of bacteria occurs around noon to afternoon, and infection mainly during the night. Moreover, lysis and viral production seem to take place during high bacterial activity; this could be a strategy to increase the number of newly produced viruses.
A remarkably simple and accurate method for computing the Bayes Factor from a Markov chain Monte Carlo Simulation of the Posterior Distribution in high dimension

Weinberg (2012) described a constructive algorithm for computing the marginal likelihood, Z, from a Markov chain simulation of the posterior distribution. Its key point is: the choice of an integration subdomain that eliminates subvolumes with poor sampling owing to low tail-values of posterior probability. Conversely, this same idea may be used to choose the subdomain that optimizes the accuracy of Z. Here, we explore using the simulated distribution to define a small region of high posterior probability, followed by a numerical integration of the sample in the selected region using the volume tessellation algorithm described in Weinberg (2012). Even more promising is the resampling of this small region followed by a naive Monte Carlo integration. The new enhanced algorithm is computationally trivial and leads to a dramatic improvement in accuracy. For example, this application of the new algorithm to a four-component mixture with random locations in 16 dimensions yields accurate evaluation of Z with 5% errors. This enables Bayes-factor model selection for real-world problems that have been infeasible with previous methods.
The two faces of secondary headship

Men continue to outnumber women at the secondary head teacher level. This article reports on some of the preliminary findings of a larger study exploring the ways in which women deputy head teachers, as potential aspirants to headship, perceive the secondary head teacher role. Using an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis methodology, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 participants. The data revealed that, while making decisions about their professional futures, the majority of the women held dual, contradictory images of secondary headship. One image consisted of a role plagued by risk, performativity and stress, whereas the other focused on the agentic capacity head teachers have to transform lives and communities. The article highlights the ways in which a belief in the power of headship to make a meaningful difference to the lives of young people can encourage some women to aspire towards headship regardless of the precarity they perceive as being ingrained within the head teacher role.
Improving Efficiency in Parameter Estimation Using the Hamiltonian Monte Carlo Algorithm

Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences Department of Informatics Master of Science by Mohammed Alfaki The Hamiltonian Monte Carlo algorithm, or alternately called hybrid Monte Carlo is Markov chain Monte Carlo technique, which combines a Gibbs sampling update with the Metropolis acceptance-rejection rule. The Hamiltonian Monte Carlo algorithm simulates the distribution using Hamiltonian dynamics which, involves gradient information to investigate the distribution space, and thus has better convergence properties than Metropolis–Hastings and Gibbs sampling algorithms. The Hamiltonian Monte Carlo algorithm suffers from random walk in generating the dynamics momentum, and an additional error when the dynamics is simulated using constant step–size. This thesis investigates three approaches to improve the performance of the Hamiltonian Monte Carlo algorithm. The first approach enhances the Hamiltonian Monte Carlo by suppressing random walk in the Gibbs sampling using ordered over–relaxation. The second approach investigates the simulation of the Hamiltonian dynamics using an adaptive step–size to reduce the error of the simulation. The third proposal is to combine the two versions into one algorithm.
Total RNA Isolation and cDNA synthesis from Bixa orellana bark

Annatto is one of the important natural food colourant widely used in dairy industry. Quality RNA in large quantity is often required in the analysis of gene expression. RNA extraction from samples collected from woody plants is generally complex, and becomes the main limitation to study gene expression, particularly in crops like Bixa orellana . Standard RNA extraction protocols are time consuming, laborious and cannot be adapted for high throughput functional analysis. Therefore a simple and effective protocol for extraction of high quality total RNA from bark tissue of woody stem was achieved using the RNeasy plant mini kit (Qiagen, USA). The extracted RNA was successfully converted into double-stranded cDNA using the SMATer cDNA synthesis kit (Clontech, USA) which is based on the S witching M echanism A t 5’ End of R NA T ranscript (SMART) technology. The integrity of the total RNA used for synthesizing double stranded cDNA was assessed agarose gel electrophoresis and by PCR. As expected, the PCR product contained the full coding sequence plus 69 and 196 bp of 5’ and 3’ UTRs respectively. The double-stranded cDNA was used successfully for creating a SSH cDNA library. The cDNA could also be useful for a number of other applications like cDNA library construction, EST analysis, RACE and Next Generation Sequencing (NGS).
Gender and Educational Differences in the Association between Lifestyle and Cognitive Decline over 10 Years: The Doetinchem Cohort Study

Background: Several modifiable risk factors for cognitive decline have been identified, but whether differences by gender and educational level exist is unclear. Objective: The present study aims to clarify this by prospectively investigating the relationship between health and lifestyle factors and cognitive functioning in different subgroups defined by gender and educational level. Methods: 2,347 cognitive healthy individuals (mean age = 54.8, SD = 6.8, range: 41–71; 51.8% female; 26.2% low education) from the Doetinchem Cohort Study were examined for cognitive function at baseline, and at 5- and 10-year follow-up. Health- and lifestyle factors were captured by a poly-environmental risk score labelled ‘LIfestyle for BRAin Health’ (LIBRA). This score consists of 12 modifiable risk and protective factors for cognitive decline and dementia, with higher scores indicating greater risk (range: –2.7 to +12.7). Heterogeneity in associations between LIBRA and decline in verbal memory, cognitive flexibility, and mental speed between males and females and individuals with different levels of education were assessed in linear mixed models. Results: Overall, higher LIBRA scores predicted faster decline in verbal memory, cognitive flexibility, and mental speed over 10 years. Higher LIBRA scores were further associated with increased risk for incident cognitive impairment (one-point increase in LIBRA: HR = 1.09, 1.04–1.14, p = 0.001). In general, these effects were similar across gender and educational level. Conclusion: A composite risk score comprising unhealthy lifestyle and relatively poor health in midlife is significantly associated with a worse course of cognition 10 years later. These associations were for the most part unrelated to gender or educational differences.
Use of scanner data to analyze the table wine demand in the Italian major retailing trade

While the utilization of scanner data for food demand analyses has become increasingly popular in the United States, few food demand studies, and in particular none on table wine, have been conducted using scanner data in Italy. This paper presents a first attempt to estimate a demand system for selected brands of red tetra-packaged, plastic packaged, and bag-in-box table wine using scanner data providing new and useful insights into the marketing of Italian wine. Price and expenditure elasticities of Italian red table wine demand drawn from a linear almost ideal demand system are provided. Results suggest a partially loyal market of table wine, showing a tendency to substitution across brands and a degree of competition among the leading brands. lEconLit citations: Q110, Q130r. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Agribusiness 22: 391-403, 2006.
Digital stacking of Tech Pan films and the photometry of faint galaxies

We describe the processing and co-addition of digitised scans of Tech Pan films, and discuss the scientific and photometric gains obtained from use of co-added films. This work is based on SuperCOSMOS scans at m resolution of small regions of the Virgo cluster, which form part of a large-scale survey for low surface brightness galaxies in Virgo. Use of co-added Tech Pan films allows the detection and surface photometry of such galaxies to very faint limits, and therefore provides an invaluable tool for a deeper sampling of the cluster galaxy luminosity function over large areas of sky. The calibration steps necessary before the films can be stacked are described in detail, as well as the stacking process itself. Median-stacking is found to be more effective than averaging or simple adding of individual images, mainly due to its ability in removing spurious features present on single films. We also discuss several of the properties of stacked Tech Pan films, such as background variations, the extent of galaxy profiles and the detectability of small, faint galaxies.
The Attack‐And‐Defense Group Contests: Best Shot Versus Weakest Link

type="main" xml:id="ecin12246-abs-0001"> This study analyzes a group contest in which one group (defenders) follows a weakest link, whereas the other group (attackers) follows a best shot impact function (IF). We fully characterize the Nash and coalition-proof equilibria and show that with symmetric valuation the coalition-proof equilibrium is unique up to the permutation of the identity of the active player in the attacker group. With asymmetric valuation, it is always an equilibrium for one of the highest valuation players to be active; it may also be the case that the highest valuation players in the attacker group free-ride completely on a group member with a lower valuation. However, in any equilibrium, only one player in the attacker group is active, whereas all the players in the defender group are active and exert the same effort. We also characterize the Nash and coalition-proof equilibria for the case in which one group follows either a best shot or a weakest link but the other group follows an additive IF. (JEL C72, D70, D72, D74, H41)
Kidney Allograft Fibrosis After Transplantation From Uncontrolled Circulatory Death Donors

Background Existing data suggest that increased interstitial fibrosis may occur abnormally in renal transplants from donations after uncontrolled circulatory death (uDCD). Methods To evaluate the factors that are associated with the progression of fibrosis and its functional impact on renal grafts, we compared 76 uDCD recipients with 86 recipients of kidney donations after brain death at 1-year after transplantation. Groups were matched for donor age, rank of transplantation, and absence of human leukocyte antigen sensitization. Histology was performed on sequential biopsies in uDCD recipients. Associations between variables were analyzed using linear mixed models and univariate analyses. Results In the uDCD group, increased fibrosis was detected 3 months after transplantation compared to before implantation. After 1 year, interstitial fibrosis and tubular atrophy score was significantly greater (1.5 ± 0.7 vs. 1.0 ± 0.9; P = 0.003) and estimated glomerular filtration rate (49.5 ± 17.4 vs. 60.6 ± 19.1 mL/min/1.73 m2; P = 0.0003) was significantly lower in the uDCD group than in the donations after brain death group. No flow duration and donor age were significantly associated with accelerated fibrosis. Interstitial fibrosis and tubular atrophy score, interstitial inflammation score, and estimated glomerular filtration rate were significantly worse in uDCD patients with no flow longer than 10 min. Conclusion Donations after uncontrolled circulatory death grafts show more fibrosis after transplantation. No flow duration is associated with accelerated fibrosis and should be considered during uDCD graft allocation.
Statistical Linkages between State Education Assessments and the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) measures the educational achievement of nationally representative samples of students in grades four, eight and twelve. Local educational agencies tend to view NAEP as a benchmark to which the educational achievement of their students can be compared. In particular, state departments of education wish to compare their assessments to NAEP. The complex design of NAEP renders simple comparisons problematic at best. A linear projection-plus-variation method is used to translate student state assessment scores onto the NAEP scale. The accuracy of this method is estimated through repeated half-sampling. A brief description of the 1998 NAEP reading assessment for grades four and eight is discussed. Results from one of the six states in the current linkage study and recommendations for establishing a successful linkage are also presented. Statistical Linkages Page 1 In Fall 1998, six states agreed to participate in a linkage study through which their state assessment results could be used to predict scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). This paper: (1) provides a brief background on NAEP, (2) discusses the methodology used in constructing the linkage, and (3) identifies the requirements for a successful linkage. The methodology proposed in this paper is justified on the grounds that it seems to work, and not from theoretical considerations. The Issue of Linking The need to link state assessments to NAEP arises from political considerations. As NAEP continues to be used to measure achievement on a national or state level, local agencies (typically state departments of education, but possibly county offices of education or even school districts) desire to compare their assessment results to those from NAEP. Ideally, these agencies would administer their assessments, then apply the linkage methodology to determine the achievement level for each student. There are several reasons for which the issue of linking is problematic. The first involves the estimation of individual scores. In state assessments, the objective typically is to estimate individual performance. States accomplish this objective by administering the same assessment to all students being assessed. However, NAEP is not designed to measure individual proficiency. Another problem with linking between the two assessments is content-related. NAGB determines the content of NAEP. Consequently, the content of NAEP may not agree with the
The Economics of Horizontal Government Cooperation

This paper analyzes the ability of intrastate and interstate cooperative agreements to either minimize or capitalize on interjurisdictional externalities. These agreements are commonly referred to as compacts or joint powers agreements (intrastate compacts). The compact mechanism allows regional governments to enter into contractual agreements with one another to coordinate policy choices and to engage in cooperative endeavors. Given the inter-jurisdictional nature of the issues that affect horizontally situated governments, this mechanism is a powerful tool to achieve welfare-enhancing outcomes for citizens. A review of the legal case law surrounding compacts is conducted to analyze the legal properties from an economic perspective. These economic properties are used to develop a simple game-theoretic environment and a neoclassical growth model. In these two environments, behavior under the compact is compared with regional governments acting in a non-cooperative manner where they take the period actions of the other governments as given. The models demonstrate that the compact mechanism can lead to Pareto-superior outcomes for the signatory governments’ citizenry.