Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Income redistribution through taxation – how deductions undermine the effect of taxes

This paper shows the potential of administrative data to grant us a more complete picture of the redistributive effects of the visible (tax rates) and hidden (tax deductions) instruments of the fiscal welfare state. Based on administrative tax data from a large Swiss canton, we apply a gini-based redistributive effect decomposition to demonstrate how several taxes and deductions impact the post-tax income distribution. We show that tax deductions drastically reduce the redistributive effect of taxes because lump sum deductions in a progressive tax system lead to greater tax relief for higher income earners. Moreover, high income earners have additional options to claim deductions such as real-estate expenses or extra-mandatory payments to the pension scheme. Comparison over time furthermore shows that the role of deductions for real-estate expenses decreased. All in all, because deductions reduce the redistributive effect of taxes, they lead to higher post tax income inequality compared to a hypothetical system without deducations. The redistrubtive effect of the tax system should therefore be studied, not only with respect to tax rates, but also with respect to deductions.
Supporting Metacognitive Awareness and Strategy Use Through Digital Photography in a Rural Title I School

The Photography and Media Literacy Project (PMLP) was an after-school program designed to teach fourth and fifth grade children about the science and art of photography in a Title I school in rural southeast Georgia. Through the completion of a problem-based applied project, we endeavored to further enhance and develop students’ media literacy, critical thinking, and metacognitive skills. The project involved having students consider some aspect of their environment (i.e., a problem from the natural, physical, school or social environment) and develop a media presentation about the topic (e.g., a movie), which included images that they took (with iPods that we provided), as well as a narrative that described their observation, research, argument and/or experience. Through the use of technology and various other media, our purpose was to help these young learners improve their metacognitive planning and monitoring skills, as well as their problem-solving and reasoning ability, all foundational skills critical for success in high stakes assessments such as Georgia Milestone Assessment. Although no significant differences were found in pre-posttest assessments, we believe that with minor modifications, this type of program shows promise in its potential for boosting participants’ metacognitive functioning and other skills related to critical evaluation of information, which have been found to enhance learning outcomes.
OMI air-quality monitoring over the Middle East

Abstract. Using Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) trace gas vertical column observations of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), formaldehyde (HCHO), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and glyoxal (CHOCHO), we have conducted a robust and detailed time series analysis to assess changes in local air quality for over 1000 locations (focussing on urban, oil refinery, oil port, and power plant targets) over the Middle East for 2005–2014. Apart from NO2, which is highest over urban locations, average tropospheric column levels of these trace gases are highest over oil ports and refineries. The highest average pollution levels over urban settlements are typically in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. We detect 278 statistically significant and real linear NO2 trends in total. Over urban areas NO2 increased by up to 12 % yr−1, with only two locations showing a decreasing trend. Over oil refineries, oil ports, and power plants, NO2 increased by about 2–9 % yr−1. For HCHO, 70 significant and real trends were detected, with HCHO increasing by 2–7 % yr−1 over urban settlements and power plants and by about 2–4 % yr−1 over refineries and oil ports. Very few SO2 trends were detected, which varied in direction and magnitude (23 increasing and 9 decreasing). Apart from two locations where CHOCHO is decreasing, we find that glyoxal tropospheric column levels are not changing over the Middle East. Hence, for many locations in the Middle East, OMI observes a degradation in air quality over 2005–2014. This study therefore demonstrates the capability of OMI to generate long-term air-quality monitoring at local scales over this region.
Late Paleozoic and Early Mesozoic rare-metal granites in Central Mongolia and Baikal region: review of geochemistry, possible magma sources and related mineralization

The Central Asian Orogenic Belt (CAOB) was a scene of intense granitoid magmatism during the Phanerozoic with formation of vast batholiths: Angara-Vitim and Daurian-Khentei. In the Late Paleozoic and Early Mesozoic times, the peripheral zones of batholiths underwent granitic magmatism associated with rare-metal mineralization. Petrological and geochemical studies show that the rare-metal Li–F granites formed, with a gap about 100 My, large igneous provinces of the Mongol-Okhotsk Belt. Late Paleozoic rare-metal granites build a series of multiphase plutons in the Baikal region (e.g. Kharagul 318 ± 7 Ma, Bitu-Dzhida 311 ± 10 Ma and Urugudei 321 ± 5 Ma). The early medium-grained biotite granites and leucogranites were followed by topaz-bearing microclineand amazonite–albite granites and a series of dikes. The Early Mesozoic epoch was marked by the formation of the Daurian-Khentei Batholith (230–190 Ma) in the center of area and rifting zones with alkaline and rare-metal granite plutons on the peripheries. In contrast to the Late Paleozoic, small Early Mesozoic intrusions (e.g., Avdar Pluton ~10 km2, 212–209 Ma) of rare-metal Li–F granites within the Avdar-Khoshutul series of granitoids coexisted with sizable plutons (e.g., Janchivlan Pluton ~70 km2, 227–195.3 Ma). Rare-metal Li–F granites of the Janchivlan Pluton produced small domal intrusions composed of microcline–albite, amazonite–albite and albite–lepidolite granites. The Sn–Ta–Nb mineralization is associated with albite–lepidolite granites. The rare-metal granites of the Baikal region and Central Mongolia of contrasting ages show an identical geochemical signature of Li–F granites. It is expressed by increase in F, Li, Rb, Cs, Sn, Be, Ta and Pb and decrease in Sr, Ba, Zn, Zr, Th and U contents in course of multiphase intrusions formation. The geochemical data confirm the magmatic model for genesis of the studied rare-metal Li–F granites. However, this process of magma differentiation was terminated with formation of albitites, microclinites and muscovite greisens. The whole-rock geochemistry and isotopic composition of the granites points to the Precambrian crust of the Baikal region (T2DМ = 1.0–1.3 Ga) as the most likely source. We propose the formation of the initial granitic melts due to anatexis of the higher levels of the continental crust, with fluids released during granulite-facies metamorphism in the lower crust. The rare-metal Li–F granites of the studied provinces are intraplate formations geochemically different from the Early Paleozoic collisional granitoids. This could be caused by the influence of deep-seated source on the occurrence of rare-metal magmatism.
Genetic Analysis of Cuttlefish Sepia pharaonis (Ehrenberg, 1831) Populations in Persian Gulf with Microsatellite Markers

ABSTRACT The Correct cuttlefish Sepia pharaonis (Ehrenberg, 1831) is an abundant cephalopod in Persian Gulf and Oman Sea. Despite the commercial and conservation importance of this species, information on population structure and diversity at the molecular level in S. pharaonis is scarce. Seventeen microsatellite loci from other species were analyzed to study genetic variation in populations of S. pharaonis from Iranian waters of the northern Persian Gulf coasts (Bandarabass, Lengeh and Bushehr). Eleven of the seventeen primer pairs failed to amplify, whereas six primer pairs successfully amplified: four pairs were polymorphic and two pairs were monomorphic. All loci were significantly deviated from Hardy—Weinberg equilibrium (P < 0.01). In the three samples of Persian Gulf analyzed, the four polymorphic microsatellite loci exhibited a mean allele number (Na) of 7.5, mean expected heterozygosity (He) of 0.802 and mean observed heterozygosity (Ho) of 0.541. Weak genetic differentiation was present among the populations with FST values ranging from 0.020 to 0.31. This investigation represents the first microsatellite study of population genetics of this species in Iran, and the reported results could be of interest for management and conservation programmers of this species.
Synthesis of Nanosphere α-Fe 2 O 3 / MWCNT composite as Photo-catalyst for the Degradation of Rhodamine B

A novel nanosphere α-Fe2O3/MWCNT composite has been prepared by a simple hydrothermal method. The characterization of morphology and structure of α-Fe2O3/MWCNT composite was carried out by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy. It is found that MWCNT was well dispersed in spherical nano-Fe2O3. Furthermore, there is a strong interaction between Fe2O3 and MWCNTs. The α-Fe2O3/MWCNT composite with 10 wt% of MWCNT content exhibits optimal photocatalytic activity. For the degradation tests of Rhodamine B, the degradation performance of α-Fe2O3/10% wt MWCNT is 11 times that of pure α-Fe2O3.
Pilot Innovative Territorial Clusters in Russia: A Sustainable Development Mode

Leading countries consider regional clusters an efficient tool of interaction between actors of a regional innovation system, which enables new poles of economic growth to be formed. There is a large literature describing the positive experience of public support for clusters. In Russia, this process is still at an early stage. Russia’s strategy of innovative development up to 2020 includes a programme for supporting pilot innovative regional clusters. The aim is to make these clusters self-sustainable. The emergence and outlook of a cluster largely depend on a range of basic conditions such as: the urban environment; an available critical mass of specialized companies; internal competition; and openness to the outside world. There is always a risk that without government support, the cluster will not be able to shift to the desired trajectory. The paper reviews existing studies on the best practices of implementing state cluster policy in different parts of the world. It provides a detailed analysis of the characteristic features of successful clusters, and evaluates the extent to which Russia’s pilot innovative regional clusters match these criteria of success. It also quantitatively compares domestic and foreign clusters, and suggests a model for sustainable cluster development. The study is based on an empirical analysis of the development programmes of pilot innovative regional clusters that were submitted to the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia in 2012 as part of a special competition. The paper also analyses the results of a survey commissioned by the joint stock company ‘Russian Venture Company’ at the end of 2013.
Distributional effects of public education transfers in Greece

The usual practice in empirical distributional studies is to use distributions of disposable income. However, a household’s command over resources is determined not only by its spending power over commodities it can buy but also on resources available to the household members through the in-kind provisions of the welfare state (as well as private non-cash incomes). In most modern societies, one of the most important public transfers inkind to the members of the population takes place through the education system. One of the main aims of such transfers is the mitigation of socio-economic inequalities. The present paper examines the short-run distributional impact of public education in Greece using the micro-data of the 2004/5 Household Budget Survey. It employs static incidence analysis under the assumption that public education transfers do not create externalities. The aggregate distributional impact of public education is found to be progressive although the incidence varies according to the level of education under examination. In-kind transfers of public education services in the fields of primary and secondary education lead to a considerable decline in relative inequality, whereas transfers in the field of tertiary education appear to have a small distributional impact whose size and sign depend on the treatment of tertiary education students living away from the parental home (a result confirmed by inequality decomposition by factor components). When absolute inequality indices are used instead of the relative ones, primary education transfers retain their progresssivity, while secondary education transfers appear almost neutral and tertiary education transfers become quite regressive. The main policy implications of the findings are outlined in the concluding section. JEL Classification Numbers: I21, D31 Address for correspondence: Panos Tsakloglou, Department of International and European Economic Studies, Athens University of Economics and Business, 76 Patission Str. , Athens 10434 GREECE e-mail: panos@aueb.gr
Power, ideology, and electoral competition

The literature on electoral competition frequently assumes that politicians are symmetric and single-minded, in the sense that their electoral motivations are identical and fully focused on either (i) being in power, or (ii) the ideological position of the winning policy. This paper relaxes both assumptions. It analyzes a onedimensional model of electoral competition with two candidates, which care about what policy is enacted after the election, but they intrinsically value being in offlce too, and not necessarily in the same way. The paper provides necessary and su‐cient conditions for policy convergence and policy difierentiation, and it characterizes the equilibrium platforms in both cases, uncovering a new type of pure strategy equilibrium, called \one-sided policy difierentiation. " This work also shows that the efiect of candidates’ motivations over voters’ welfare depends on the underlying model of electoral uncertainty.
Quantitative genetic manipulation for nauplii size reduction of Artemia franciscana Kellogg, 1906 from Indian salinas and correlated changes in the polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) profile

Thirteen generations of mass selection was carried out in a strain of Artemia franciscana collected from an Indian salina. The primary trait under selection was nauplii length, and the criteria of selection was small size. While 12.4% reduction (from 517.0±59.8 µm to 452.2±25.0 µm) was realised in the trait under selection from 13 generations, substantial increase in the polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) content was realised as correlated response. The polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) content showed a steady increase during the selection. The PUFA percentage in G2, G4, G6, G9, G11 and G13 generations were 21.43, 27.96, 27.19, 33.27, 36.98 and 37.25 respectively compared to 18.04 in the base generation. The content of essential polyunsaturated fatty acids such as 20:5n-3 and 22:6n-3 were also high in the selected generations, compared to the base generation indicating their nutritional superiority. The smaller nauplii with an enhanced level of PUFA, especially the essential polyunsaturated fatty acids, developed through selective breeding in the present work make it a promising strain as live feed for larviculture of marine species.
Are Stock Return Dynamics Truly Explosive or Merely Conditionally Leptokurtic? A Case Study on the Impact of Distributional Assumptions in Econometric Modeling

This paper uses the estimation of the Self-Excited Multi Fractal (SEMF) model, which holds theoretical promise but has seen mixed results in practice, as a case study to explore the impact of distributional assumptions on the model fitting process. In the case of the SEMF model, this examination shows that incorporating reasonable distributional assumptions including a non-zero mean and the leptokurtic Student’s t distribution can have a substantial impact on the estimation results and can mean the difference between parameter estimates that imply unstable and potentially explosive volatility dynamics versus ones that describe more reasonable and realistic dynamics for the returns. While the original SEMF model specification is found to yield unrealistic results for most of the series of financial returns to which it is applied, the results obtained after incorporating the Student’s t distribution and a mean component into the model specification suggest that the SEMF model is a reasonable model, implying realistic return behavior, for most, if not all, of the series of stock and index returns to which it is applied in this study. In addition, reflecting the sensitivity of the sample mean to the types of characteristics that the SEMF model is designed to capture, the results of this study also illustrate the value of incorporating the mean component directly into the model and fitting it in conjunction with the other model parameters rather than simply centering the returns beforehand by subtracting the sample mean from them.
Accurate Analytic Models to Estimate Execution Time on GPU Applications

Today top ranked HPC systems feature several GPUs which present high processing speed at low power budget with various parallel applications. Many scientific applications still claim for even more computing speed than the available today. A general approach to provide more processing speed is to scale the system. However, aspects such as interference, the amount of resources, heterogeneity of resources and failure probabilities hinder the research towards the future HPC systems. For that reason, many research use models to understand and estimate the behavior of the systems. GPUs are present and future of HPC systems, however the community lack of models to fast estimate the behavior of several GPUs with the desired accuracy and scale. The goal of this paper is to characterize the GPU resources to infer models that can be used in large scale simulators. To create this models with the two main concerns in mind, speed and accuracy, we conduct linear regression to estimate the time. Our test show that when the workload is within the range of realistic parameters the error is less than 11 %.
Do Trade Sale Privatizations in Europe Create Value to Shareholders of Acquiring Firms

Many authors have identified zero to negative announcement returns for acquirers in traditional mergers and acquisitions. When purchasing state-owned enterprises as compared to public assets the acquirer faces one particular difference: the distinct characteristics of the seller. The selling government is assumed to lack bargaining power and experience selling off its assets and also often to consider non-economic objectives when privatizing. Furthermore it has a tendency to privilege domestic acquirers. By conducting standard event study methodology and analyzing 90 European trade-sale privatizations we document that acquirers in a privatization context yield significant positive abnormal stock returns.
Collusive Vertical Relations

We investigate the possibility for two vertically related firms to at least partially collude on the wholesale price over an infinite horizon to mitigate or eliminate the effects of double marginalisation, thereby avoiding contracts which might not be enforceable. We characterise alternative scenarios envisaging different deviations by the upstream firm and different punishments. This allows us to show that the most efficient case is that in which the upstream firm deviates along its best reply function and the punishment prescribes the disruption of the vertical relation for good after a deviation from the collusive path.
The Effect of Microwave Heating on the Some Quality Properties and Shelf Life of Yoghurt

This study was carried out to determine the properties of set type yoghurts made using microwave heating after yoghurt fermentation during storage period of 28 d at 4±1°C. In this way, it will be possible to increase the yoghurt shelf-life, by preventing post-acidification. Yoghurts samples were subjected to three different microwave heating (10, 20 and 30 sec) at 720 Watt power level. Viability of yoghurt bacteria (Lactobacillus delbrueckii ssp. bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus) was assessed during 28 d of storage. Samples were subjected also physicochemical analysis (pH and titratable acidity). The results showed that microwave applications significantly affected viable counts of L. delbrueckii ssp. bulgaricus and S. thermophilus (P<0.05). The counts of L. bulgaricus and S. thermophilus increased in heated yoghurts but a delay was observed during of storage period. Also the results indicated that the microwave heating had significant effect on the titratable acidity values (P<0.05). The titratable acidity and pH showed similar patterns of increase or decrease during storage period. During refrigerated storage, decline in pH was greater in control group yoghurts than heated yoghurts. The titratable acidity increased in all yoghurt samples. However, the rate of increase was affected by the microwave heating time. The results of the study showed that the microwave heating had significant effect on the acceptability of yoghurt during shelf-life.
A new method for large-eddy simulations of clouds with Lagrangian droplets including the effects of turbulent collision

In this paper, a new Lagrangian cloud model (LCM) is introduced in which the flow field is simulated by large-eddy simulation, and the droplets are treated as Lagrangian particles responding to the simulated flow field. In order to handle the extremely large number of droplets within a cloud, the concept of a super-droplet, which represents a large number of real droplets of the same size, is introduced, and the number of contributing real droplets is called the weighting factor. A novel method is developed to realize the collision/coalescence of droplets, in which the consequent variation of the droplet spectrum is represented in terms of the modification of the radius and weighting factor of super-droplets, while keeping the number of super-droplets unchanged. Using an idealized single cloud and trade wind cumuli, the LCM is shown to reproduce the general features of shallow cumulus clouds in agreement with traditional bulk models. The droplet spectrum simulated by the LCM, using collision kernels with and without the effects of turbulence, also shows a pattern consistent with the spectral bin model. Furthermore, the sensitivity of the LCM to two model parameters, the time step and the number of super-droplets, is examined.
Semistable periods of finite slope families

We introduce the notion of finite slope families to encode the local properties of the p-adic families of Galois representations appearing in the work of Harris, Lan, Taylor and Thorne on the construction of Galois representations for (non-self dual) regular algebraic cuspidal automorphic representations of GL(n) over CM fields. Our main result is to prove the analytic continuation of semi-stable (and crystalline) periods for such families.
Filippov Ratio-Dependent Prey-Predator Model with Threshold Policy Control

The Filippov ratio-dependent prey-predator model with economic threshold is proposed and studied. In particular, the sliding mode domain, sliding mode dynamics, and the existence of four types of equilibria and tangent points are investigated firstly. Further, the stability of pseudoequilibrium is addressed by using theoretical and numerical methods, and also the local sliding bifurcations including regular/virtual equilibrium bifurcations and boundary node bifurcations are studied. Finally, some global sliding bifurcations are addressed numerically. The globally stable touching cycle indicates that the density of pest population can be successfully maintained below the economic threshold level by designing suitable threshold policy strategies.