Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sperm whale social units : variation and change

Sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) photoidentification data spanning 12 years of study around the Galapagos Islands were examined to investigate the size, variability, and stability of social units. Adult females and immature whales of both sexes have two types of associates: "constant companions," which are members of an individual's "stable" social unit, and "casual acquaintances," which are temporarily associating members of different units. We analysed long-term association patterns and calculated that individuals have a mean of 11.3 constant companions. Estimated social unit size ranged from 3 to 24 individuals. Evidence of splitting and merging of units and of transfer of individuals between units is presented. The estimated overall frequency of these unit-membership changes is 6.3% per individual per year. These forms of unit dynamics are rare in species with male dispersal and matrilineally related social groups, and cannot be easily explained in this species. There is considerable variation in unit size (perhaps caused by demographic processes), suggesting that the benefits of remaining in a social unit usually outweigh selection for some optimal unit size. However, the occurrence of merging and transfers suggests that the ecological or social cost/benefit of leaving one's matrilineal unit may sometimes outweigh the cost/benefit of staying. Resume : Des photographies individuelles de cachalots (Physeter macrocephalus), recouvrant une periode d'etude de 12 ans dans les Galapagos, ont servi a etudier la taille, la variabilite et la stabilite des groupes sociaux. Les femelles adultes et les individus immatures des deux sexes s'allient a deux types de compagnons : ils ont des « compagnons constants », qui sont des membres du meme groupe social « stable », et des « connaissances d'occasion » qui sont des membres d'autres groupes auxquels ils s'associent temporairement. Nous avons procede a une etude a long terme de ces associations et avons calcule qu'un individu a en moyenne 11,3 compagnons constants. Un groupe social contient de 3a2 4 individus. Nous avons observe des separations et des fusions au sein des groupes, de meme que des transferts d'individus d'un groupe a un autre. La frequence globale de ces changements d'appartenance a ete estimee a 6,3% par individu par annee. Ce type de dynamique au sein des groupes est rare chez des especes dont les mâles se dispersent et ou les groupes sociaux sont formes par affiliation maternelle, et il est impossible a expliquer chez cette espece. Il y a une variation considerable de la taille des groupes (peut-etre causee par des processus demographiques), ce qui semble indiquer que les benefices d'appartenir a un groupe social depassent generalement les benefices de la selection pour la taille optimale d'un groupe. Cependant, les fusions et transferts qui se produisent au sein des groupes indiquent que les couts/benefices ecologiques ou sociaux relies au fait de quitter son groupe d'affiliation maternelle depassent parfois les couts/benefices relies au fait d'y rester.
Regional Convergence – And Divergence – In the US

Previous studies on regional convergence in the US have employed varied methodologies and yielded different conclusions. Some authors report evidence that convergence has grown stronger in recent decades, while others find recent years have seen an end to convergence. We test for convergence with a method that allows for structural change. We find, first, that there is little overall evidence for convergence within the US. Results also indicate a series of positive breaks in the 1980s, indicating movement away from convergence was pronounced during this decade. Diverging housing costs may have played a role in limiting convergence.
Does Intellectual Capital Matter for Organizational Performance in Emerging Markets? Evidence from Chinese and Russian Contexts

In recent decades, numerous empirical studies have demonstrated the importance of intellectual capital (IC) for efficiency and value creation (e.g. Chen et al. 2015; Kianto et al. 2013; Pulic 2000; Sydler et al. 2014). However, differences of cultural, economic or institutional context pose a range of challenges for the management of intellectual capital and knowledge (Glisby and Holden 2003; May and Stewart 2013; Andreeva and Ikhilchik 2011). As most studies have been conducted in developed countries (Sharabati et al. 2010), the significance of IC in emerging economies remains unclear (Liang et al. 2013), with no comparative analyses of IC management in such markets. This chapter compares how intellectual capital impacts the performance of companies in China and Russia. These major emerging economies are of particular interest here because while both prioritize innovation and are increasingly integrated into the global economy, their traditional management approaches differ significantly from those in developed countries. Based on survey data collected from 139 Chinese and 86 Russian companies, the chapter examines the performance impact of the human, structural and relational components of IC. The results are relevant for IC research and practice, as they extend the understanding of IC and its consequences in emerging economies.
Investments in Lean Agile Software Development Training: The Impact on Productivity and Financial Performance

This paper investigates whether investments in lean agile software development via training, specifically retraining and coaching, increase software development productivity and produce commensurate improvements in financial performance of the software development firm. Two experiments involving software development teams were conducted using treatment and control groups. One experiment focused on lean agile retraining and the other focused on lean agile coaching. The treatment group received a multi-day lean agile development retraining exercise designed to enhance existing skills. In the coaching experiment, a treatment group received monthly coaching for a three-month period. In the retraining experiment, cycle time, the average number of days to complete a story, decreased 81% for those retrained compared to a 23% reduction for the control group. There were similar improvements in throughput, flow efficiency and work-in-process, all measurements of productivity. In the coaching experiment, the treatment group realized a 52% decrease in cycle time compared to a 15% decrease for the control group. Again, there were comparable improvements in other productivity measures. These improvements resulted in a 6.2% and 6.1% reduction in development costs after retraining and coaching, respectively. This empirical analysis uniquely uses experimental design and incorporates the financial impact of the operational improvements of lean agile software training. It applies productivity and financial metrics associated with manufacture of tangible products and applies these measures to intangible software products. Because operational improvements are not apparent to many senior executives unless the financial impact is understood, this analysis should encourage further investments in training.
Following Artifacts

The essay discusses the historiographical strategy of “following artifacts” in the history of contemporary economics. Following models as artifacts means (1) to follow the shifts and changes in their form and meaning; (2) to follow the ideas, theories, fictions, and imaginary worlds they provoke; and (3) to investigate the ways in which some of them stabilize and remain as infrastructures of economic reasoning in academic and policy realms, as well as the ways in which some of them either do not circulate at all or simply get lost. Such perspectives regarding the complexity and dynamics of knowledge creation lead out of the narrower history of disciplinary knowledge and, moreover, direct attention to different temporal scales.
Price Optimization Under the Finite-Mixture Logit Model

We consider price optimization under the finite-mixture logit model. This model assumes that customers belong to one of a number of customer segments, where each customer segment chooses according to a multinomial logit model with segment-specific parameters. We reformulate the corresponding price optimization problem and develop a novel characterization. Leveraging this new characterization, we construct an algorithm that obtains prices at which the revenue is guaranteed to be at least [Formula: see text] times the maximum attainable revenue for any prespecified [Formula: see text]. Existing global optimization methods require exponential time in the number of products to obtain such a result, which practically means that the prices of only a handful of products can be optimized. The running time of our algorithm, however, is exponential in the number of customer segments and only polynomial in the number of products. This is of great practical value, because in applications, the number of products can be very large, whereas it has been found in various contexts that a low number of segments is sufficient to capture customer heterogeneity appropriately. The results of our numerical study show that (i) ignoring customer segmentation can be detrimental for the obtained revenue, (ii) heuristics for optimization can get stuck in local optima, and (iii) our algorithm runs fast on a broad range of problem instances. This paper was accepted by Omar Besbes, revenue management and market analytics.
Preliminary Investigation of Bioactive Compounds and Bioautographic Studies of Whole Plant Extract of Euphorbia pulcherrima on Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella typhi, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa

The aim of this study is to carry out preliminary investigation of bioactive compounds and bioautographic studies of whole plant extract of Euphorbia pulcherrima on Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella typhi, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Tukey HSD test of hierarchy for the effect of different solvents crude extract on bacterial isolates indicates the methanol extract as the most bioactive. The Tukey HSD analysis also showed that the bioactivities of the crude extracts of the various parts of Euphorbia pulcherrima were part dependent and the whole plant was the most bioactive. The ethyl acetate fraction of the methanol extract of the whole plant of Euphorbia pulcherrima has been shown in this work to contain phytochemicals which have shown remarkable activities against Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella typhi, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The bioactivities against the test organisms were due to the combined effects of the compounds separated on TLC plates. Families of terpenoids, flavonoids, alkaloids, saponin, and steroids that were detected in the extracts were identified by GC-MS. The various classes of phytochemicals in the E. pulcherrima plant provided the antimicrobial potency of the plant.
The effect of hydoroxamic acid concentration at late growth stages of wheat on the performance of the aphid Sitobion avenae

Summary From a previous worldwide screen of wheat cultivars as seedings, five were selected to encompass a wide concentraiton range of the hydroxaminc acid DIMBOA (0.99-8.07 mmol Kg -1 fr. wt). Compared with those in seedings, the concentrations of DIMBOA in flag leaves of the same cultivars were relatively low (0.06-0.87 mmol kg-1 fr. wt). Concentraions of hydroxamic acids in whole ears at anthesis and the early milk stage were even lower, ranging from undetectable to 0.05 mmol kg-1 fr. wt. The three-day mean relaive growth rate (MRGR) was determined for nymphs of Sitobion avenace on the flag leaf (GS 39) and on the ear (GS 60-60) of the five cultivars. No significant differences in MRGR were found between cultivatrs at the same growth stage, although MRGR was higher on ears on than on flag leaces. The results are discussed in realtion to the potential of hydroxamic acids in programmses aimed at breeding mature-plant aphid resistance into wheat cultivars.
The Heterogeneous Impact of Foreclosure on Housing Prices

We evaluate the impact of foreclosure on house prices and are especially interested to evaluate heterogeneous impacts of foreclosure along the house size and income distributions across geographic regions. The study uses a novel and comprehensive dataset that encompasses detailed housing and neighborhood characteristics, home sales, locations, foreclosure transactions and mortgage and income information and covers parts of Florida and Indiana from 2000 to 2008. We find that foreclosed homes in Fort Lauderdale (Florida) lost, on average, $42,110, while foreclosed houses in Lafayette (Indiana) lost $23,798. In much of Florida, foreclosed houses lost most value at the upper part of the house size and income distributions. In contrast, foreclosed houses in Indiana lost most value at the lower part of those distributions. Finally, we show that non-foreclosed houses experienced losses (between 0.8 and 4.7 percent) due to other houses in the neighborhood being foreclosed.
Is Your Alpha Pure and Your Beta Fit for Purpose?

Quantitative investors produce high backtested alpha, however, sometimes “less is more”. A beta that is unfit for purpose will favor factors with inflated alpha putting investment models at risk. Purifying alpha does not maximize past returns. It reduces unwanted risks and increases the probability of aligning live performance with backtests. Because there is no statistical procedure to choose one beta over another, the literature is filled with “better betas”. We suggest alpha purity should be the key differentiator between betas and we study how to bring alpha closer to normality. Practitioners fearful of blindly maximizing backtests will appreciate this approach.
The Informational Value of Consensus Prices: Evidence from the OTC Derivatives Market

This paper provides empirical evidence on the ability of consensus prices to reduce valuation uncertainty in the over-the-counter market for financial derivatives. The analysis is based on a proprietary data set of price estimates for S&P500 index options provided by major broker-dealers to a consensus pricing service. We develop and estimate a model of learning about fundamental asset values from consensus prices. The panel dimension of the data set allows us to estimate Bayesian updating dynamics at the individual broker-dealer level. We find that uncertainty about index option values, as measured by the variance of broker-dealers' posterior beliefs about the options' fundamental value, is substantial across the volatility surface of S&P500 index options that are traded over-the-counter. The 95% confidence intervals around posterior means can be as large as 10 volatility points for index options with strike prices that correspond to extreme moves of the S&P500 index. Having access to consensus pricing data is found to significantly reduce broker-dealers' strategic uncertainty, that is uncertainty about the positioning of their option valuations in relation to other market participants' valuations.
The Effect of In-Service Entrepreneurship Training on Mass Media Managers’ Entrepreneurship: A Case Study of IRIB

This study investigates the impact of in-service entrepreneurship training on the improvement of mass media managers’ entrepreneurship in Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), Tehran, Iran. Features of corporate entrepreneurship were regarded as four dimensions of creativity and innovation, risk-taking, perseverance, and competitive spirit. Also, we examined the effect of entrepreneurship training on corporate entrepreneurship. To collect the data, we developed a questionnaire. Forty four production managers of IRIB volunteered to fill in the questionnaire. However, 4 persons were excluded from the group due to incomplete completion of the questionnaire and treatment which made the participants 40 people. The participants were randomly assigned to two participating groups. To test the hypotheses, variance and multi-covariance tests were applied. The analysis of the data obtained showed that the entrepreneurship training has significant effect on creativity, risk-taking, perseverance, and competitive spirit.
Transgene stability and agronomical performance of two transgenic Basta®-tolerant lines of Populus alba L

Abstract An experimental trial was established in greenhouse with transgenic white poplars from an elite genotype (Populus alba L. cv “Villafranca”) expressing the bar gene for tolerance to Basta® herbicide. The steady-state level of bar mRNA was evaluated in different seasons, over a two-year period. Notwithstanding the presence of the 35SCaMV promoter, significant fluctuations in the amount of the bar transcript in relation to season and organ position were observed. The highest expression levels were reached in apical leaves in summer, while a consistent drop in transgene expression occurred at the onset of dormancy and in winter buds. A similar expression pattern was evidenced for the poUBI gene used as endogenous marker. The genetically modified poplars were tolerant to intense and repeated glufosinate ammonium treatments, maintaining an intact shoot sprouting and a good height increment.
Molecular Modeling, Synthesis And Biological Evaluation of Heterocyclic Hydroxamic Acids Designed as Helicobacter Pylori Urease Inhibitors

Abstract: A computer-generated homology model of the antimicrobial target Helicobacter pylori urease was derived, using the x-ray crystal structure of Klebsiellaaerogenes as a template, in order to design novel urease inhibitors. Based on thesecomputational studies, several heterocyclic hydroxamic acid derivatives have beendesigned, synthesized, and examined for their ability to inhibit urease activity. Keywords: Helicobacter pylori , antimicrobial, urease, hydroxamic acids. INTRODUCTION Almost 90% of the human population is believedinfected with the spiral-shaped, Gram-negative bacterium Helicobacter pylori ( H. pylori ) , making it one of the mostinfectious agents known [1]. After numerous studies on thepathogenic role of this bacterium, it is now widely acceptedthat H. pylori is a major causative factor in peptic ulcerdiseases [2]. Antibiotic eradication therapies in the clinichave been shown to heal gastritis, provide a cure for manypatients suffering from peptic ulcers, and even generate aremission of MALT carcinomas. While the majority of
Molecular systematics and evolution in New Zealand: Applications to cryptic skink species

Abstract The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and DNA sequencing are being used for the study of the origin and evolution of New Zealand plants and animals. Here we describe methods for rapidly obtaining DNA sequences from small amounts of fresh and preserved tissue, and apply them to the problem ofresolving relationships among skinks of the Austrnlasian genus Leiolopisma. DNA extracted from frozen tail muscle was used for the main part of the study. Part ofthe mitochondrial12S ribosomal RNA gene was isolated using PCR. Direct sequencing of this 400 nucleotide region supports the separation of “L. nigriplantare” into several genetically distinct but morphologically similar species. The sequence data have also identified a potential case of hybridisation between two sympatric species in Otago, L. nigriplantare polychroma and L. maccanni. The data set supports the view that skinks have been in New Zealand very much longer than five million years. From these results we expect that application of the PCR and o.
Is Hedonism Present in the Purchase of Academic Books? An Empirical Analysis in Online and Traditional Purchase Methods

This paper examines hedonism in Indian consumer behaviour and its exploration in the consumer’s perceptions towards purchasing behaviour in the world of academic and non-academic books. This study also explores the factors that might influence the consumers’ perceptions in hedonic pleasure in shopping for books. Book and publishing industry in India is under a transition period due to the onslaught of internet and its capabilities. M/s. Flipkart changed the consumer perceptions of purchase behaviour in online shopping especially books. Today consumers have plenty of options and choice of virtual companies who are luring them with low pricing and free shipping strategies. There is a war for consumers today in the web. The winner is the consumers who are benefited widely because of this. In such a platform, consumer’s behaviour specially the hedonic behaviour in shopping is examined in this paper. Quantitative survey method is used to achieve the objectives of the paper. The participants of this study are Indian citizens who made purchases of both academic and non- academic books in the past one year or plan to do so in the coming one year. The study is restricted to the geographic area of Bangalore, as Bangalore has the highest internet penetration rate amongst other Indian cities along with a heterogeneous consumer market. The factors which lead to hedonic pleasure in academic shopping are examined. Consumer perceptions of shopping experience, shopping experience in the context of affordability (prices) are also identified. The study reveals that the academic consumers are more economically oriented, enjoy shopping, very author specific and base their purchase either online or traditional, based on the type of book they want- which may be academically oriented or leisure oriented. This may be of special interest to marketers interested in entering the academic market online or traditional.
Biogeography and population genetics of whitebark pine, Pinus albicaulis.

Le pin a ecorce blanche (Pinus albicaulis Engelm.) est un conifere de haute altitude commun aux regions montagneuses de l'ouest de l'Amerique du Nord. De plus, ce conifere est le seul representant de la sous-section Cembrae du sous-genre Strobus qui ne soit pas de l'Europe ou de l'Asie. Les auteurs ont evalue les niveaux de variabilite genetique au sein et parmi 30 populations de P. albicaulis representant la distribution naturelle de l'espece. Au niveau de l'espece, 17 des 20 (85%) loci d'alloenzymes etaient polymorphes. La diversite genetique maintenue dans l'espece (H e = 0,102) et au sein des populations (H e = 0,092) etait faible comparativement aux autres especes de pin. En moyenne, l'heterozygotie observee etait plus faible que les valeurs theoriques au sein de 23 des 30 populations; pour les cinq loci les plus polymorphes, la deviation moyenne par rapport aux proportions theoriques d'equilibre d'Hardy-Weinberg au sein des populations (valeurs F IS ) etait de 0,084, ce qui represente un estime significativement different de la valeur theorique. La differenciation genetique de population etait relativement faible (G ST = 0,034). Il n'y avait que peu de variation de frequences alleliques parmi les differents regroupements hierarchiques de populations par chaine de montagnes ou par regions. Les populations ayant colonise les regions jadis recouvertes par les glaciers du Pleistocene affichaient un plus petit nombre de loci polymorphes et etaient plus differenciees les unes des autres.
How Much Inflation is Necessary to Grease the Wheels?

This paper studies Tobin's proposition that inflation "greases" the wheels of the labor market. The analysis is carried out using a simple dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with asymmetric wage adjustment costs. Optimal inflation is determined by a benevolent government that maximizes the households' welfare. The Simulated Method of Moments is used to estimate the nonlinear model based on its second-order approximation. Econometric results indicate that nominal wages are downwardly rigid and that the optimal level of grease inflation for the U.S. economy is about 1.2 percent per year, with a 95% confidence interval ranging from 0.2 to 1.6 percent.