Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Why Praise Inequality? Public Good Provision, Income Distribution and Social Welfare

We consider a two-person Cournot game of voluntary contributions to a public good with identical individual preferences, and examine equilibrium aggregate welfare under a separable, symmetric and concave social welfare function. Assuming the public good is pure, Itaya, de Meza and Myles (Econ. Letters, 57: 289-296; 1997) have shown that maximization of social welfare precludes income equality in this setting. We show that their case breaks down when the public good is impure: there exist individual preferences under which maximization of social welfare necessitates exact income equalization. Even if the public good is pure, any given, positive level of income inequality can be shown to be socially excessive by suitably specifying individual preferences. Thus, sans knowledge of individual preferences, one cannot reject the claim that a marginal redistribution from the rich to the poor will improve social welfare, regardless of how small inequality is in the status quo.
Modulational instability of dust acoustic waves in dusty plasmas : Modulation obliqueness , background ion nonthermality , and dust charging effects

The oblique modulational instability of dust acoustic DA waves in an unmagnetized warm dusty plasma with nonthermal ions, taking into account dust grain charge variation charging , is investigated. A nonlinear Schrödinger-type equation governing the slow modulation of the wave amplitude is derived. The effects of dust temperature, dust charge variation, ion deviation from Maxwellian equilibrium nonthermality and constituent species’ concentration on the modulational instability of DA waves are examined. It is found that these parameters modify significantly the oblique modulational instability domain in the k plane. Explicit expressions for the instability rate and threshold have been obtained in terms of the dispersion laws of the system. The possibility and conditions for the existence of different types of localized excitations are also discussed. The findings of this investigation may be useful in understanding the stable electrostatic wave packet acceleration mechanisms close to the Moon, and also enhances our knowledge on the occurrence of instability associated to pickup ions around unmagnetized bodies, such as comets, Mars, and Venus. © 2006 American Institute of Physics. DOI: 10.1063/1.2205197
Molecular Characterization of Multidrug-Resistant Bacteria Isolated from a Boyacá Hospital, Colombia

There is a growing number of beta-lactamase extended spectrum bacteria, which inactivate a wide variety of beta-lactam drugs (ESBLs), including third-generation cephalosporins, penicillins, and monobactams, which are commonly identified in nosocomial infections. Genetic variability and molecular approaches have been widely used for bacterial phylogeny and have been applied in bacterial identification. The bacterial isolates were obtained from June 2014 to December 2014 in a second-level hospital in the state of Boyacá-Colombia. Phenotypic identification was performed using the BioMerieux VITEK-2 system® following the standards of the Institute of Clinical and Laboratory Standards. ESBLs genes, including TEM, SHV, CTXM and AmpC, were analyzed, and 11 strains with drug resistance were analyzed. From the isolates, 100% expressed the blaCTX gene, while 18.2% expressed blaSHV and 27.3% expressed blaTEM. The researchers observed two different amplifications of AmpC genes, one that was 170 bp and the other that was 500 bp. The first had a frequency of 100% in the samples and the second had a frequency of 63.6%. Bioinformatic analysis was performed for each sequence. ESBLs-producing strains are considered a major problem due to multi-drug resistance, their implications in nosocomial outbreaks, and their tendency to spread rapidly throughout the world. Therefore, they are considered important clinical markers; consequently, the knowledge of incidence and origin play an important role in the selection of appropriate treatment.
The Disclosure Practices of a South African-Born Adolescent Raised in an American Lesbian-Parent Family

This qualitative case study explores the disclosure practices of a South African-born adolescent who is raised in a lesbian-parent family in the United States of America, in an attempt to understand how adolescents negotiate their unique family structure throughout their daily lives. The data in this study were analysed using thematic content analysis. The concept of moral cultures is adopted from the work of Hart and Carlo (2005) and identified in the following dominant discourses in the life of the adolescent participant, namely: religion, school, friends, acquaintances and society at large, and emotions. Furthermore, social control seems to be a very prominent factor in the decision of adolescents raised in same-gendered families to disclose or withhold information. Casual-calculated disclosure is identified as a method for social control, when disclosing information about the family structure becomes inevitable for an individual. Furthermore, the decision to disclose is generally based on (1) a perception of urgency, (2) the existence of an intimate relationship, and (3) the disclosure of information based on a shared experience.
A Stacked Microstrip Antenna Array with Fractal Patches

A novel microstrip antenna array, which utilizes Giuseppe Peano fractal shaped patches as its radiation elements and adopts a two-layer stacked structure for achieving both wideband and high-gain properties, is proposed. Parametric study estimates that the proposed antenna’s size can be arbitrarily adjusted by changing the fractal proportion while high aperture efficiency is maintained. Two prototypes with 2 × 2 and 4 × 4 fractal patches, respectively, on each layer are designed, fabricated, and measured. Both simulation and measurement results demonstrate that the proposed antenna possesses encouraging performances of wideband, high directivity, and high aperture efficiency simultaneously; for example, for the two prototypes, their dB impedance bandwidths are 23.49% and 18.49%, respectively; at the working frequency of 5.8 GHz, their directivities are 12.2 dBi and 18.2 dBi, and their corresponding aperture efficiencies are up to 91.0% and 90.5%, respectively.
The Implied Market Price of Weather Risk

Abstract Weather derivatives (WD) are end-products of a process known as securitization that transforms non-tradable risk factors (weather) into tradable financial assets. For pricing and hedging non-tradable assets, one essentially needs to incorporate the market price of risk (MPR), which is an important parameter of the associated equivalent martingale measure (EMM). The majority of papers so far has priced non-tradable assets assuming zero or constant MPR, but this assumption yields biased prices and has never been quantified earlier under the EMM framework. Given that liquid-derivative contracts based on daily temperature are traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), we infer the MPR from traded futures-type contracts (CAT, CDD, HDD and AAT). The results show how the MPR significantly differs from 0, how it varies in time and changes in sign. It can be parameterized, given its dependencies on time and temperature seasonal variation. We establish connections between the market risk premium (RP) and the MPR.
The Impact of Implausible Anchors Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University By Steven Timothy Bengal, B.A. Graduate Program in Social Psychology

ii Dedication . iii Acknowledgments . iv Vita . v List of Figures . vii Chapter 1: Introduction to Anchoring . 1 Chapter 2: Study 1 . 13 Chapter 3: Study 2 . 19 Chapter 4: Discussion and Concluding Remarks.27 References . 30
Synthesis of Stable Grasp by Four-Fingered Robot Hand for Pick-and-Place of Assembling Parts

Abstract This paper proposes a synthesis methodology of stable grasp by a four-fingered robot hand in order to automate preparation for assembling work, which is composed of recognition, grasp and carry of assembling parts. An optimization method of grasping forces, object configuration and contact points is proposed. The criterion of the optimization is appropriate normalized distances from the planes of a constraint polyhedron, which is derived by the friction and joint torque limitations. An experimental result of grasp of a door mirror is shown to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.
A comparison of fitting techniques for ponderosa pine height-age models in British Columbia

Les modeles de croissance en hauteur pour le pin ponderosa actuellement en vigueur en Colombie-Britannique ont ete mis au point pour le sud-ouest de l'Oregon. Les modeles de croissance en hauteur en Colombie-Britannique peuvent differer toutefois de ceux que l'on retrouve en Oregon. De plus, ils peuvent differer d'une zone biogeoclimatique a une autre a l'interieur de la Colombie-Britannique. Afin de verifier ceci, 80 placettes d'analyse de tige ont ete realisees afin de mettre au point un nouveau modele de croissance en hauteur pour le pin ponderosa. Un arbre par placette de 0,01 ha a ete echantillonne de facon detaillee dans le but d'obtenir les valeurs annuelles de hauteur a partir des verticilles. Une fonction logistique logarithmique a ete adaptee et utilisee comme base du modele de hauteur. Plusieurs procedures d'ajustement ont ete utilisees afin de satisfaire les hypotheses concernant les donnees et les regressions. Ces procedures concernent l'utilisation d'un modele d'autoregression afin de tenir compte de la correlation en serie ainsi que l'utilisation d'un modele nonlineaire mixte de facon a ce que l'indice de fertilite de station soit examine en supposant la presence d'une composante aleatoire. La version finale du modele a ete testee pour des differences entre les modeles de croissance selon les quatre zones biogeoclimatiques ou l'on retrouve plus frequemment le pin ponderosa. Bien que des differences de croissance entre les zones ont ete detectees, les resultats sont incertains en raison de petites differences dans les trajectoires de croissance et de la taille reduite de l'echantillon pour certaines zones. Un nouveau modele de croissance en hauteur pour le pin ponderosa est maintenant disponible pour la Colombie-Britannique. Ce modele fournit seulement des estimations de croissance en hauteur legerement differentes si on le compare aux modeles actuellement utilises, bien que l'utilisation du modele precedent dans le passe n'a pas eu d'impact negatif sur les prises de decision en matiere d'amenagement forestier.
The Role of Non-Verbal Interaction in a Short-Term Psychotherapy: Preliminary Analysis and Assessment of Paralinguistic Aspects

Analysis at a paralinguistic level of communication, already conceptualized within the multiple code theory, would appear to be very important in order to fully describe the quality of the patient-therapist relationship. In this study the therapeutic process and microprocess are analyzed taking into consideration a specific paraverbal aspect (speech rate) present in patient and therapist's communication. More specifically, in this paper we aim to investigate the relationship between the speech rate of both patient and therapist with the linguistic aspects of their referential process as obtained by the IDAAP dictionaries, relating to three sessions belonging to different phases of the psychotherapy. The results show that there are many significant correlations between the considered values. These findings are interpreted as an expression of the alignment between patient and therapist which can be linked to the outcome of the psychotherapy.
Diatom species diversity and their ecological patterns on different substrates in two karstic streams in the Slovak karst

Many karstic streams are threatened both by anthropogenic and climate changes, but little is known about their algal biodiversity and conservation value, especially in the Slovak Karst. Diatom assemblages occurring on seven substrates, including stones, mud, submerged mosses and filamentous algae: Cladophora glomerata, Vaucheria sp. , Ulothrix zonata, Spirogyra sp. in two nameless karstic streams in the Krásnohorská Dlhá Lúka Village and the Gombasek Cottage Settlement (the Slavec Village) in the Košice Region of central-eastern Slovakia (the Silická Plateau) were studied. A total of 124 diatom taxa were found at four sites, where epilithic and epiphytic diatom assemblages dominated. Both species’ richness and Shannon-Wiener indices showed congruent biotic integrity. The dominant taxa were alkaliphilous, halophobous-oligohalobous, requiring xeno-oligosaprobic and oligotrophic waters. Diatoms include: Diploneis krammeri, Encyonema ventricosum, Gomphonema acuminatum, Gyrosigma attenuatum, Navicula tripunctata, and Paraplaconeis cracoviensis. The latter species is a new report for Slovakia, reflecting the calcareous, geological nature of the Silická Plateau (the Slovak Karst). Diatom assemblages in two karstic streams consisted mainly of small-celled species of Achnanthidium, Amphora, Caloneis, Planothidium, and Stauroneis. Our results showed that the diatom assemblages were mostly structured by environmental factors of calcium and pH gradients, confirmed by canonical variates analysis (CVA) and Monte Carlo permutation tests. However, unique spatial and biological gradients, specific to different guilds related to each other, were also evident. The Slovak karstic streams should be especially protected and regularly monitored.
Effect of gas injection during LH wave coupling at ITER-relevant plasma–wall distances in JET

Good coupling of lower hybrid (LH) waves has been demonstrated in different H-mode scenarios in JET, at high triangularity (δ ∼ 0.4) and at large distance between the last closed flux surface and the LH launcher (up to 15 cm). Local gas injection of D2 in the region magnetically connected to the LH launcher is used for increasing the local density in the scrape-off layer (SOL). Reciprocating Langmuir probe measurements magnetically connected to the LH launcher indicate that the electron density profile flattens in the far SOL during gas injection and LH power application. Some degradation in normalized H-mode confinement, as given by the H98(y,2)-factor, could be observed at high gas injection rates in these scenarios, but this was rather due to total gas injection and not specifically to the local gas puffing used for LH coupling. Furthermore, experiments carried out in L-mode plasmas in order to evaluate the effect on the LH current drive efficiency, when using local gas injection to improve the coupling, indicate only a small degradation (ΔILH/ILH ∼ 15%). This effect is largely compensated by the improvement in coupling and thus increase in coupled power when using gas puffing.
Identity, energy, environment, and dynamics of interfacial water molecules in a micellar solution*

The structure and energetics of interfacial water molecules in the aqueous micelle of cesium perfluorooctanoate have been investigated using-large scale atomistic molecular dynamics simulations, with the primary objective of classifying them. The simulations show that the water molecules at the interface fall into two broad classes, bound (IBW) and free (IFW), present in a ratio of 9:1. The bound water molecules can be further categorized based on the number of hydrogen bonds (one or two) that they form with the surfactant headgroups. The hydrogen bonds of the doubly hydrogen bonded species (IBW2) are found to be, on the average, slightly weaker than that in the singly bonded species (IBW1). The environment around interfacial water molecules is more ordered than that in the bulk. The surface water molecules have substantially lower potential energy due to interaction with the micelle. In particular, both forms of IBW have energies lower by about 2.5 to 4.0 kcal/mole. Entropy is found to play an important role in determining the relative concentration of the species. The lifetime and the intermolecular vibrational frequencies of the hydrogen bonds that the water molecules form with the hydrophilic, polar headgroups (PHG) of the surfactants, are calculated. Our classification (S. Balasubramanian, S. Pal and B. Bagchi, Evidence for bound and free water species in the hydration shell of an aqueous micelle, Curr. Sci., 84, 428-430 (2003); S. Pal, S. Balasubramanian and B. Bagchi, Identity, energy, and environment of interfacial water molecules in a micellar solution, J. Phys. Chem. B, 107, 5194-5202 (2003)) of the interfacial water molecules, based on structural and energetic considerations, into IBW and IFW is further validated by their dynamics (S. Pal, S. Balasubramanian, and B. Bagchi, Dynamics of bound and free water in an aqueous micellar solution: Analysis of the lifetime and vibrational frequencies of hydrogen bonds at a complex interface, Phys. Rev. E, 67, 061502-1-061502-10 (2003)). Lifetime correlation functions of the water-surfactant hydrogen bonds show the long lived nature of the bound water species. Surprisingly, the water molecules that are singly hydrogen bonded to the surfactants have longer lifetime than those that form two such hydrogen bonds. The free water molecules that do not form any such hydrogen bonds behave similar to bulk one in their reorientational dynamics. A few water molecules that form two such hydrogen bonds are orientationally locked in for durations of the order of a few hundreds of picoseconds, that is, much longer than their average lifetime.
The relationship between multilingual raters’ language background and their perceptions of accentedness and comprehensibility of second language speech

ABSTRACT The purpose of this case study is twofold: it (1) explores multilingual raters’ judgements regarding the accentedness and comprehensibility of second language speech and (2) examines how the raters’ language backgrounds influence their judgements. In this study, six multilingual Singaporean raters judged the accentedness and comprehensibility of 50 unfamiliar accented speech samples produced by Japanese learners of English with different proficiency levels. In order to investigate rater judgement, the rating scores were subjected to a multifaceted Rasch analysis. A questionnaire and an interview elicited the raters’ retrospective reports on their language backgrounds at three time points in their life (when they were 5, 11, and 21 years old). The results suggested that the raters’ language backgrounds, notably the proficiency balance between multiple languages in early childhood, are related to their rating judgement.
Optimization approaches for robot trajectory planning

The development of optimal trajectory planning algorithms for autonomous robots is a key issue in order to efficiently perform the robot tasks. This problem is hampered by the complex environment regarding the kinematics and dynamics of robots with several arms and/or degrees of freedom (dof), the design of collision-free trajectories and the physical limitations of the robots. This paper presents a review about the existing robot motion planning techniques and discusses their pros and cons regarding completeness, optimality, efficiency, accuracy, smoothness, stability, safety and scalability.
Enhancement of the phytochemical and fibre content of beef patties with Himanthalia elongata seaweed

Summary The effect of adding Himanthalia elongata seaweed (10–40% w/w) as a source of antioxidants and dietary fibre on physical, chemical, microbial and sensory traits of cooked beef patties was studied throughout chilled storage. Patties with seaweed showed reduced cooking losses and were nearly 50% more tender as compared to patties without seaweed. Microbiological counts and lipid oxidation were significantly lower in patties containing seaweed (P < 0.05), and by day 30 of storage, there was no bacterial growth in samples with ≥20% seaweed and lipid oxidation levels were low (0.61 mg malondialdehyde kg−1 of sample). Seaweed incorporation significantly increased the dietary fibre (1.64 g per 100 g fw in 40% seaweed patties), total phenolic content (up to 28.11 mg GAE per 100 g fw) and DPPH radical scavenging activity (up to 52.32%) of patties compared to the control. Sensory analysis indicated that the seaweed patties were accepted by consumers in terms of aroma, appearance, texture and taste. Patties containing 40% seaweed were rated highest in terms of overall acceptability, most likely due to improvement in texture and mouthfeel. Addition of seaweed in the formulation of beef patties leads to the enhancement of the nutritional and technological quality together with an acceptable sensory quality.
Applying Social Media in Crisis Communication: A Quantitative Review of Social Media-Related Crisis Communication Research from 2009 to 2017

Social media has drawn growing attention from crisis communication researchers. The purpose of this study was to provide an overview of the current paradigm of research on social media and crisis communication, to identify the research gaps, and to help scholars understand future research directions in this area. The current study examined the trends and patterns of social media-related crisis communication research published in 11 communication and public relations journals from 2009 to 2017. More specifically, it focused on the trends and characteristics of research topics, theories and theoretical models, crisis types, social media platforms, sample types, and research methods. This study found that public relations-focused journals published most of the social media-related crisis communication articles. Most studies adopted theories or theoretical models and examined the role of social media in crisis communication, which focused on product tampering and general crisis. Additionally, a considerable number of studies employed content analysis techniques that used social media content as the sample. This study discussed the trends of social media-related crisis communication research and the directions for future research. Keywords: Crisis communication, social media, research trend, public relations, communication.
Regionalizing nonparametric models of precipitation amounts on different temporal scales

Abstract. Parametric distribution functions are commonly used to model precipitation amounts corresponding to different durations. The precipitation amounts themselves are crucial for stochastic rainfall generators and weather generators. Nonparametric kernel density estimates (KDEs) offer a more flexible way to model precipitation amounts. As already stated in their name, these models do not exhibit parameters that can be easily regionalized to run rainfall generators at ungauged locations as well as at gauged locations. To overcome this deficiency, we present a new interpolation scheme for nonparametric models and evaluate it for different temporal resolutions ranging from hourly to monthly. During the evaluation, the nonparametric methods are compared to commonly used parametric models like the two-parameter gamma and the mixed-exponential distribution. As water volume is considered to be an essential parameter for applications like flood modeling, a Lorenz-curve-based criterion is also introduced. To add value to the estimation of data at sub-daily resolutions, we incorporated the plentiful daily measurements in the interpolation scheme, and this idea was evaluated. The study region is the federal state of Baden-Wurttemberg in the southwest of Germany with more than 500 rain gauges. The validation results show that the newly proposed nonparametric interpolation scheme provides reasonable results and that the incorporation of daily values in the regionalization of sub-daily models is very beneficial.