Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Resilience of a eucalypt forest woody understorey to long-term (34-55 years) repeated burning in subtropical Australia

We investigated the effects of annual burning since 1952, triennial burning since 1973, fire exclusion since 1946 and infrequent wildfire (one fire in 61 years) on woody understorey vegetation in a dry sclerophyll eucalypt forest, south-eastern Queensland, Australia. We determined the influence of these treatments, and other site variables (rainfall, understorey density, topsoil C : N ratio, tree basal area, distance to watercourse and burn coverage) on plant taxa density, richness and composition. The richness of woody understorey taxa 0–1 m in height was not affected by burning treatments, but richness of woody plants 1–7.5 m in height was lower in the annually burnt treatment than in the triennially burnt treatment from 1989 to 2007. Fire frequency and other site variables explained 34% of the variation in taxa composition (three taxon groups and 10 species), of which 33% of the explained variance was explained by fire treatment and 46% was explained by other site variables. Annual burning between 1974 and 1993 was associated with lower understorey densities mainly due to reduced densities of eucalypts 1–7.5 m in height. Triennial burning during the same period was associated with higher densities of eucalypts 0–7.5 m in height relative to the annually burnt and unburnt treatments. Most woody taxa persisted in the frequently burnt treatments through resprouting mechanisms (e.g. lignotuberous regeneration), and fire patchiness associated with low-intensity burning was also found to be important. Persistence of plants <1 m tall demonstrates the resilience of woody taxa to repeated burning in this ecosystem, although they mainly exist in a suppressed growth state under annual burning.
Extended-p + Stepped Gate LDMOS for Improved Performance

In this brief, we propose a new extended-p stepped gate (ESG) thin-film silicon-on-insulator laterally double-diffused metal–oxide–semiconductor (LDMOS) with an extended-p region beneath the source and a stepped gate structure in the drift region of the LDMOS. The hole current generated due to impact ionization is now collected from an n-p junction instead of an n-p junction, thus delaying the parasitic bipolar junction transistor action. The stepped gate structure enhances RESURF in the drift region and minimizes the gate–drain capacitance. Based on 2-D simulation results, we show that the ESG LDMOS exhibits approximately 63% improvement in breakdown voltage, 38% improvement in ON-resistance, 11% improvement in peak transconductance, 18% improvement in switching speed, and 63% reduction in gate–drain charge density compared with the conventional LDMOS with a field plate.
Fermented Pulse-Based Food Products in Developing Nations as Functional Foods and Ingredients

Pulses play a significant and diverse role in the agricultural systems and diets of underprivileged populations worldwide. They are ideal produce for reducing poverty, improving human health and nutrition, and enhancing resilience of the ecosystem. Fermentation is a processing technique that has been used for decades to transform food produce with improved health, functional, and nutraceutical benefits. In tandem with the United Nations’ (UN’s) sustainable development goal Number 3, fermented food products from pulses with health benefits align with this initiative to end hunger, achieve food security, and improve nutrition. In solidarity with the celebration of International Year of Pulses 2016 (IYP2016) and considering the relative neglect of pulses as compared with other food groups, this chapter would be vital in positioning pulses and fermented products from them as readily available functional foods. With increased interest in fermentation, fermented pulse-based foods have been identified as excellent sources of bioactive and functional foods. Thus, fermented pulse-based products present a viable alternative, relatively available, affordable, and cheap source of foods with properties beyond that of basic nutrition.
Robustness of multidimensional analyses against local item dependence

The negative impact of local item dependence (LID) on analyses using item response theory (IRT) has been investigated by many authors. Hitherto though, these investigations focused on unidimensional analyses. The objective of the simulation study presented here is to investigate the impact of LID on multidimensional analyses. The chosen simulation design considers tests with LID due to item bundles and compares the results of multidimensional analyses obtained with varying item bundle effect sizes, varying correlation levels for the latent traits, and different test designs. The results indicate that in multidimensional analyses LID results in a bias for the covariance estimation and that the direction of the bias interferes with the chosen test design.
Use of Innovative Forms of Teaching Students to Create Business Discourse

This article highlights an important role of speech studies disciplines in teaching students to create business discourse, stresses practical orientation of teaching, a need to achieve a greater and more effective balance of theory and practice. The article presents innovative forms of teaching students to create and percept institutional business discourse, notably to model speech situations close to a real communicative situation; to develop and analyze verbal behaviour scenarios, analyze speech situations, reflecting communication needs, discursive matrices. In the article we emphasize that use of speech situations and situational problems, close to real life during training, will allow transferring the student from a learner’s position to a researcher’s position and enhance his/her creativity, contribute to development of intellectual abilities.
Survey, Classification and Future Direction for Packet Scheduling in 4G Networks to Provide Quality of Service

Packet scheduling is crucial in providing Quality of Service (QoS) at a network node. There is plenty of research related to QoS provisioning in fourth generation (4G) networks because wireless networks have shifted from voice-centric networks to an efficient and flexible data networks. 4G mobile networks are already providing seamless personal mobile communication and QoS guarantee to IP‐based multimedia services. This paper gives a survey and classification of some of the well known scheduling algorithms proposed for 4G systems to achieve “Quality of Service”. Classification is done along three different dimensions which are independent of one another and need not be mutually exclusive. Finally, this paper presents outcomes of survey which includes significant observations, limitations of existing scheduling algorithms and scope for further improvement in achieving QoS in 4G networks.
Fragmentation of armor piercing steel projectiles upon oblique perforation of steel plates

In this study, a constitutive strength and failure model for a steel core of a14.5 mm API projectile was developed. Dynamic response of a projectile steel core was described by the Johnson-Cook constitutive model combined with principal tensile stress spall model. In order to obtain the parameters required for numerical description of projectile core material behavior, a series of planar impact experiments was done. The parameters of the Johnson-Cook constitutive model were extracted by matching simulated and experimental velocity profiles of planar impact. A series of oblique ballistic experiments with x-ray monitoring was carried out to study the effect of obliquity angle and armor steel plate thickness on shattering behavior of the 14.5 mm API projectile. According to analysis of x-ray images the fragmentation level increases with both steel plate thickness and angle of inclination. The numerical modeling of the ballistic experiments was done using commercial finite element code, LS-DYNA. Dynamic response of high hardness (HH) armor steel was described using a modified Johnson-Cook strength and failure model. A series of simulations with various values of maximal principal tensile stress was run in order to capture the overall fracture behavior of the projectile’s core. Reasonable agreement between simulated and x-ray failure pattern of projectile core has been observed.
On the potential distribution in Hall thrusters

A model of the plasma flow in a Hall thruster channel is developed that takes into account the two-dimensional current conservation effect and relies on some experimental input parameters, such as magnetic field and electron temperature distribution. The model is an attempt to explain the experimentally found nonuniform potential distribution across the thruster channel. This effect is explained by the change of the electron mobility across a magnetic field due to the magnetic field gradient and due to the electron current along the magnetic field driven by the electron temperature gradient.
Seasonal and Diurnal Variations of Fluorescent Bioaerosol Concentration and Size Distribution in the Urban Environment

A recently introduced fluorescence based real-time bioaerosol instrument, BioScout, and an ultraviolet aerodynamic particle sizer (UVAPS) were used to study fluorescent bioaerosol particles (FBAP) in the Helsinki metropolitan area, Finland, during winter and summer. Two FBAP modes at 0.5–1.5 µm (fine) and 1.5–5 µm (coarse) were detected during the summer, whereas the fine mode dominated in the winter. The concentration and proportion of the coarse FBAP was high in summer (0.028 #/cm 3 , 23%) and low in winter (0.010 #/cm 3 , 6%). Snow cover and low biological activity were assumed to be the main reasons for the low coarse FBAP concentration in the wintertime. Both the fine and the coarse FBAP fraction typically increased at nighttime during the summer. Correlations between the BioScout and the UVAPS were high with the coarse (R = 0.83) and fine (R = 0.92) FBAP. The BioScout showed 2.6 and 9.7 times higher detection efficiencies for the coarse and fine FBAP, respectively, compared to the UVAPS. A long-range transport episode of particles from Eastern Europe increased the fine FBAP concentration by over two orders of magnitude compared to the clean period in the winter, but these FBAP probably also included fluorescent non-biological particles. Correlation analysis indicates that local combustion sources did not generate fluorescent non-biological particles that can disturb fine FBAP counting. The results provide information that can be used to estimate health risks and climatic relevance of bioaerosols in the urban environment.
Emphasis on Referential Ambiguity to Extract Correct Datasets

An individual is known by more than one name on the web. Identifying the correct alias for an entity is playing a crucial role in the field of information retrieval, relation extraction, sentiment analysis, and entity name disambiguation as well as in biomedical fields. Traditional system provides the solution on solving lexical ambiguity, but it lagged on the problem of referential ambiguity. Through this paper we emphasis on referential ambiguity to extract correct alias for a given name. Given a name alias dataset retrieves lexical pattern from a web search engine. With the help of Lexical-pattern and using second level depth extract candidate aliases. As to identify correct alias from a list of aliases we used similarity measures as well as graph mining measures such as degree distribution and clustering coefficient. We integrate different word sore and calculate the final weight of each candidate alias. There by our method providing more promising result in terms achieving a statistically significant mean reciprocal rank (MRR) of 0.611 and improves the precision and minimize the recall that than the previous baseline method.
The Role of the Policy Framework for the Effectiveness of Benchmarking in Regulatory Proceedings

Regulation is an information problem. In this paper we show that benchmarking can have an important role to play in extracting information and providing efficiency incentives. However, the effectiveness of this role depends both on the credibility of the regulator to undertake a comparative efficiency analysis, and the impact of the benchmarking on the value of the firm. These are both affected by the policy framework within which the regulator operates. In Britain the regulator is not obliged to undertake any benchmarking, and the impact of the benchmarking that has been undertaken has been relatively low. These conditions have the effect of diminishing incentives for both information provision by the companies and model developments by the regulator. In the Netherlands, the impact on business value is high because benchmarking sets the price differentials from which a yardstick competition model – required by law – is implemented. These twin conditions of high credibility and high impact on value both sharpen incentives for the businesses to reveal information at the time of the benchmarking and also provide a stimulus for the regulator to properly account for firm-specific effects. In Austria, where similar conditions to the Netherlands have been established, we described the regulator's attempts to improve the robustness of the cost drivers in the model.
Shifting Between Cognitive and Visual Distraction: The Impact of Cognitive Ability on Distraction Caused by Secondary Tasks

We conducted an experiment in order to investigate impacts of central executive (CE) functions and modality of secondary task presentation in a dualtask experiment. We found that shifting ability, out of three major CE functions (inhibition, shifting, and updating) was particularly important in determining whether primary (pedal-tracking) task performance was better in the presence of auditory, vs. visual, presentation of the secondary task.
Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility on Financial Performance Evidence from Pharmaceutical Sector Listed Companies of Pakistan

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) on Financial Performance (FP) of pharmaceutical sector companies listed in Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX). According to published data of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX), a total of 9 pharmaceutical companies are reported in this sector. In order to achieve the purpose, data has been collected of three years from 2014 to 2016 from annual reports of the companies. In this study the spending on Education, Healthcare and Environment, Donation, and Workers Welfare Fund used as proxy for CSR measurement, while three proxies of Donation, Earning per Share (EPS), Return on Assets (ROA), and Return on Equity (ROE) as measurement of financial performance. Data has been analyzed using Panel Least Square Fixed Effect Regression. The findings s of the study revealed that there is positive impact of CSR on Financial Performance of the companies. It is evident that to boost the financial performance, the CSR phenomenon is an essential tool for growth in pharmaceutical industry of Pakistan.
Emotional Health and Weight Gain: A Prospective Study of Middle-Aged Women

EMOTIONAL HEALTH AND WEIGHT GAIN: A PROSPECTIVE STUDY OF MIDDLE-AGED WOMEN Ann Bahr Department of Exercise Sciences Master of Science The objective of this study was to investigate the extent to which risk of gaining weight or body fat is affected by emotional health in women. A secondary objective was to determine the influence of age, baseline weight and body fat, physical activity (PA), energy intake, and changes in PA and energy intake, on the relationship between emotional health and gains in weight and body fat. The study was a prospective cohort investigation over 20 months of 256 healthy, non-obese females (age: 35-45 y, BMI < 30 kg/m). All subjects were assessed for several variables using objective measurements at baseline and again at 20 months. Emotional health was assessed using the General Well-Being Schedule. Body fat percentage was indexed using the Bod Pod. PA was measured objectively using MTI (CSA) accelerometers, and energy intake was measured using weighed, 7-day food records. The results of the study demonstrated that risk of gains in weight and body fat were no greater in depressed women compared to their counterparts. However, 171 (66.8%) subjects demonstrated less than positive (LTP) emotional health at baseline, and 37.4% of these subjects gained weight during the 20-month study. Conversely, 85 (33.2%) subjects had positive emotional health at baseline, but only 23.5% gained weight over the investigational period. With no variables controlled, women with LTP emotional health had 59% greater risk of weight gain over the study period than women with positive emotional health (RR 1.59, 95% CI = 1.04-2.44). Women with LTP emotional health were at no greater risk of gains in body fat percentage than women with positive emotional health (RR 0.96, 95% CI = 0.70-1.33). After adjusting for each potential confounder individually, risk of gaining weight or body fat did not change. However, after adjusting for all of the potential confounders simultaneously, risk of weight gain was weakened (RR 1.43, 95% CI = 0.93-2.21). These results seem to demonstrate that middle-aged women with LTP emotional health may be at increased risk of gaining weight compared to women with positive emotional health.
Designing online support for families living with depression

Families living with mental illness experience an added burden and may experience such psychological distress that they require therapeutic intervention. The Internet is used as a daily tool by a growing share of the population worldwide, including for health related matters. Its potential as a health care tool, including advantages and drawbacks, should be explored. The overall aim of the present thesis was to explore the relatives’ experiences of living close to a person with depression and the Internet’s potential to address their needs.
Protection of apricot Biodiesel from Thermal Degradation by using natural antioxidants of Fagopyrum tataricum (L.) Gaertn

The present study aims to improve the oxidation stability of wild apricot kernel oil biodiesel (WAKOB) by using natural antioxidants of Tartary buckwheat (Fagopyrum tataricum (L.) Gaertn). Biodiesel was synthesized at different catalyst (NaOH) concentrations, reaction temperatures, reaction time intervals and methanol-to-oil molar ratios. Thermal oxidative stability measurements were carried out according to EN14112 using a Rancimet instrument. Our results showed a high yield of biodiesel (97±1.092) at 65oC in the presence of 1% NaOH (%w/w oil) and methanol/oil molar ratio of 9:1 and for the time duration of 60 min. Proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR) confirmed the conversion percentage of kernel oil into biodiesel, which was further evidenced by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and refractometer analyses. Methanolic fraction of Tartary buckwheat leaves (MTBWLF) was standardized to contain the highest amount of phenolics (209 mg gallic acid/100 g). In this study, the mixture of synthetic antioxidant butylated hydroxyl toluene (BHT) (0.25%) and methanolic extract of Tartary buckwheat leaves (0.5%) ensured high oxidation stability of biodiesel samples, leading to stabilizing factor of 4.86.
Ethnographic action research: Media, information and communicative ecologies for development initiatives

This paper was accepted for publication in Bradbury, H. (ed.). The SAGE Handbook of Action Research, 3rd ed. London: SAGE Publications, pp. 220-229 and the definitive published version is available at https://uk.sagepub. com/en-gb/eur/the-sage-handbook-of-action-research/book242797
Nash bargaining solution with coalitions and the joint bargaining paradox

We propose a solution for bargaining problems where coalitions are bargainers. The solution generalizes the Nash solution and allows one to interpret a coalition as an institutional player whose preferences are obtained by aggregating the preferences of the individual members. One implication of our solution is that forming a coalition is unprofitable in pure-bargaining situations (the joint-bargaining paradox). We show, however, that forming a coalition can be profitable in a non-pure bargaining situation. ZUSAMMENFASSUNG - (Die Nash Verhandlungslosung mit Koalitionen und Harsanyi's Verhandlungsparadox) In der vorliegenden Arbeit schlagen wir ein Losungskonzept fur Verhandlungsspiele vor, bei denen die verhandelnden Parteien aus Koalitionen von Individuen bestehen konnen. Unser Losungskonzept basiert auf einer Verallgemeinerung der Nash-Verhandlungslosung. Nach unserem Losungskonzept kann eine Koalition als ein institutioneller Spieler aufgefasst werden, dessen Praferenzordnung auf einer Aggregierung der Praferenzen seiner Mitglieder basiert. Eine Implikation unserer Verhandlungslosung ist, dass Koalitionen in "reinen Verhandlungsspielen" nicht im Interesse der Individuen sind. In "nicht reinen Verhandlungsspielen" hingegen konnen Koalitionen durchaus vorteilhaft seien.
Performance and contribution of beekeeping enterprises to livelihood in Songea district

A DISERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE IN AGRICULTURAL AND APPLIED ECONOMICS OF SOKOINE UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE. MOROGORO, TANZANIA.
Does Supervisory Coaching Behaviour Reduce Salespeople's Lies?

Lying is pervading organizations and has a high economic and social toll. Lying among salespeople can be particularly dangerous, as they are at the boundaries of the organization and can affect many organizational outcomes. Traditionally, control systems have been used to reduce information asymmetry and the possibility of opportunistic behaviour (such as lying), and lately it was suggested that managers’ attitudes and role modeling could further reduce them. Building on the social exchange framework, we analyse relational exchanges between managers and subordinates, and we propose that managerial coaching can reduce subordinates’ lies. We present empirical evidence supporting our hypothesis and discuss significant theoretical and managerial implications.
Adaptability and security: Key aspects of the quality of employment in the changing labour markets

The Principal component analysis (PCA) is used for assessment of the position of Serbia relative to 30 other European countries on the basis of selected dimensions of the quality of employment. The analysis is based mostly on the following key employment quality dimensions: lifelong learning, labour market transitions regarding level of security, flexibility of contracts and perception of workers regarding job security and employability. Results of PCA allow identification of three factors: adaptability, transitions to lower levels of security and temporality, while total explained variability with three detected factors is 80.96%. Cluster analysis shows that Serbia, together with Macedonia, belongs to the cluster group whose main characteristics are low adaptability of the work force accompanied by high flows to lower levels of security and relatively high subjective perception of insecurity of the present job.