Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Types of Internet Use, Well-Being and the Good Life: Ethical Views from Prudential Psychology

Drawing on Haybron (2008a-b), this chapter introduces the field of Prudential Psychology and examines empirical research on the effects of different types of Internet use on the users’ well-being and their consequences for the Good Life. The interfaces between Prudential Psychology and philosophical approaches to the Good Life are highlighted. Finally, some implications of Prudential Psychology research on Internet use for the Good Life in a Technological Age are provided.
The polluter pays principle and the remediation of the land

Purpose The purpose of this article is to examine the national law regimes related to the remediation of contaminated land. Design/methodology/approach The methodology used is comparative. Models for different systems are described on the basis of varying interpretations of the polluter pays principle. The regimes present in the Member States are then analysed to see which model they have adopted. A comparator from each model group is then considered. Findings This article presents three key findings. First, it concludes that the extent to which additional national legislation relating to environmental damage is permitted, which depends upon the notion of “more stringent” legislation, is incoherent where more than one interpretation is given to the polluter pays principle. Second, the different interpretations given to the principle undermine harmonisation. Finally, this has wider implications for how we justify liability for contaminated land. Originality/value This comparative study of the interpretation of the polluter pays principle, through its implementation in Member States, provides a valuable and novel insight into environmental liability regimes in Europe. It also demonstrates the different type of regimes that are developed on the basis of such different interpretations. Although the different national attitudes to contaminated land policy and remediation have been considered before, this article adds to this debate by suggesting a central cause of such variation in the shape of different interpretations of a principle of the European Union.
Prolonged Water Deficit Stress and Methyl Jasmonate-Mediated Changes in Metabolite Profile, Flavonoid Concentrations and Antioxidant Activity in Peppermint (Mentha × piperita L.)

Peppermint (Mentha × piperita L.) infusion is one of the main important sources of antioxidants. This antioxidant property can be enhanced by using elicitors and inducing abiotic stress. This study was conducted to evaluate the foliar application of Methyl Jasmonate (50 µM) and water deficit stress (no stress, mild stress and moderate stress as 100, 75 and 50% of field capacity, respectively) and their interactions on cultivated peppermint on plant growth, secondary metabolite and antioxidant capacity of infusions made under different treatment. Water deficit stress treatments increased flavonoid contents and total phenolic as well as antioxidant capacity significantly. Some phenolic compound such as luteolin, naringenin, coumaric acid, and quercetin were detected only in some drought and Methyl Jasmonate treatments. Also, fewer amino acids such as L-serine, Threonine, 4-aminobutiric acid, 5-oxo-L-proline and unsaturated fatty acids were identified. Also, foliar application of 50 µM Methyl Jasmonate treatment improved plant growth parameters and metabolite profile such as carbohydrates and amino acids in non-stress and stress conditions. Therefore, inducing water stress and applying MeJA is recommended to enhance the biologic properties of peppermint and improve bioactive compounds and the antioxidant capacity of peppermint infusions.
KAtex antigen-detection test as a diagnostic tool for latent visceral leishmaniasis cases

Kala-azar is an infectious disease that mostly affects children under 5 years old, and, in untreated cases, is fatal. There are several routine serological tests employed to diagnose the disease, but these tests have disadvantages. Parasitological diagnosis tools are accurate but invasive, while molecular tools are expensive and not commonly used. We report that the newly developed kAtex test is a rapid, non invasive and simple tool for the detection of visceral leishmaniasis (VL), capable of detecting and distinguishing between recovered, subclinical and latent cases. The study was carried out in endemic areas of Kalibar and Ahar districts, East Azerbaijan province, Northwest Iran. Urine and Sera samples were collected from 313 children under age 5 years old from the endemic area. Additionally, sera and urine of 18 confirmed VL patients were studied. Urine samples were tested by kAtex kit to detect VL antigen. All sera samples were also tested by other serological tests such as DAT, IFA, and ELISA (IgG and IgM). kAtex tests were positive for 10 out of 313 examined urine samples of children and 2 positive samples for ELISA-IgM, but were negative all for other serological tests. During clinical follow up of the kAtex positive individuals, three of them developed VL disease, with DAT titers for these individuals reaching 1/3200. The results show that kAtex is an effective screening test for latent infection of VL. The test discriminates between active disease, sub clinical and latent infections. Its results can complement DAT for the diagnosis of unconfirmed visceral leishmaniasis cases.
Busy Bees: Variation in Insect Flower-Visiting Rates across Multiple Plant Species

We quantified insect visitation rates by counting how many flowers/inflorescences were probed per unit time for five plant species (four native and one garden: California lilac, bramble, ragwort, wild marjoram, and ivy) growing in Sussex, United Kingdom, by following individual insects () from nine functional groups (honey bees (Apis mellifera), bumble bees (Bombus spp.), hoverflies, flies, butterflies, beetles, wasps, non-Apidae bees, and moths). Additionally, we made a census of the insect diversity on the studied plant species. Overall we found that insect groups differed greatly in their rate of flower visits (), with bumble bees and honey bees visiting significantly more flowers per time (11.5 and 9.2 flowers/minute, resp.) than the other insect groups. Additionally, we report on a within-group difference in the non-Apidae bees, where the genus Osmia, which is often suggested as an alternative to honey bees as a managed pollinator, was very speedy (13.4 flowers/minute) compared to the other non-Apidae bees (4.3 flowers/minute). Our census showed that the plants attracted a range of insects, with the honey bee as the most abundant visitor (34%). Therefore, rate differences cannot be explained by particular specializations. Lastly, we discuss potential implications of our conclusions for pollination.
The Capital Asset Pricing Model’s Risk-Free Rate

The risk-free rate is an important input in one of the most widely used finance models: the Capital Asset Pricing Model. Academics and practitioners tend to use either short-term Treasury bills or long-term Treasury bonds as the risk-free security without empirical justification. This study investigates the market and inflation risks of Treasury securities with different maturities over different investment horizons. The results show that mean real returns, volatility, and market and inflation risks, of Treasury securities increase with the maturity period. Only Treasury bills do not have any market risk for 1- and 5-year periods, and they have the lowest market risk over 10 years. Although Treasury securities of all maturities have significant inflation risk, Treasury bills have the lowest inflation risk over all three horizons. Further, the inflation beta and explanatory power of inflation for real Treasury bill returns decline with the investment horizon. Over 10 years, inflation and market risks explain only 13% of variations in real Treasury bill returns, compared to 20% of intermediate government bond returns, and 23% of long government bond returns. These findings indicate that Treasury bills are better proxies for the risk-free rate than longer-term Treasury securities regardless of the investment horizon.
1 R & D Partnerships and Innovation Performance : Can There be too Much of a Good Thing ?

R&D collaboration facilitates pooling of complement ary skills, learning from the partner as well as sharing risks and costs. Research therefore repeatedly stressed the positive relationship between collaborative R&D and innovation performanc e. Fewer studies addressed potential drawbacks of collaborative R&D. Collaborative R&D c omes at the costs of coordination and monitoring, requires knowledge disclosure and invol ves the risk of opportunistic behaviour by the partners. Thus, while the net gains from collab r tion can be high initially, cost may start to outweigh those benefits if firms engage in multi ple collaborative projects simultaneously. This study explicitly considers a firm’s collaborat ion intensity, that is, the share of collaborative R&D projects in the firms’ total R&D project portfolio. For a sample of 2,891 firms located in Germany, active in abroad range of manufacturing and service sectors and of which 86% are SMEs, we indeed find that increasing the share of collaborative R&D projects in total R&D projects is associated with a higher p robability of product innovation and with a higher market success of new products. While we can confirm previous findings in terms of gains for innovation performance, we also find that collaboration has decreasing and even negative returns on product innovation if its inten sity increases above a certain threshold. Consequently, the relationship between collaboratio n ntensity and innovation has an inverted-U shape. In particular, costs start outwei ghing benefits if a firm pursues more than about two thirds of its R&D projects in collaborati on. This result is robust to conditioning market success to the introduction of new products and to accounting for the selection into collaborating.
A Comparison between the 4DVAR and the Ensemble Kalman Filter Techniques for Radar Data Assimilation

Abstract A four-dimensional variational data assimilation (4DVAR) algorithm is compared to an ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) for the assimilation of radar data at the convective scale. Using a cloud-resolving model, simulated, imperfect radar observations of a supercell storm are assimilated under the assumption of a perfect forecast model. Overall, both assimilation schemes perform well and are able to recover the supercell with comparable accuracy, given radial-velocity and reflectivity observations where rain was present. 4DVAR produces generally better analyses than the EnKF given observations limited to a period of 10 min (or three volume scans), particularly for the wind components. In contrast, the EnKF typically produces better analyses than 4DVAR after several assimilation cycles, especially for model variables not functionally related to the observations. The advantages of the EnKF in later cycles arise at least in part from the fact that the 4DVAR scheme implemented here does not use a forecast .
The Relationship of Anxiety, School Burnout and Well-Being in High School Students

School as center of adolescent social life has an important role to help students to achieve well-being. But in fact, adolescence is often vulnerable to individual problems such as stress, anxiety, and self-destructive behavior. The current study examined the mediation effect of state and trait anxiety in the association between school burnout and well-being. State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), School Burnout Inventory (SBI), and Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) was administered to 192 vocational high school students. Mediator analysis using bias corrected bootstrap method N = 5000 and 95% confidential interval on PROCESS software. The results show that school burnout as predictors on well-being students only indirectly via state and trait anxiety. These findings can be beneficial to our understanding of how and when state and trait anxiety impacts student‟s well-being, and have implication for development guidance and counseling programs to improve student‟s well-being.
DESIGN PRINCIPLES FOR CREATIVE SPACES

Work and study environments that facilitate creative design processes—so called creative spaces—have gained an increased interest in the past years. This paper contributes to this emerging field by providing a set of guidelines for creating such environments. We developed a set of 49 abstracted design principles (patterns) that are empirically developed, embedded in the broader system of creative spaces, and supplemented by examples. The suggested principles provide concrete, yet adaptable, guidelines for designers, educators, and spatial planners who want to redesign their creative environments.
VLBI detection of the HST-1 feature in the M 87 jet at 2 cm

Context. A bright feature 80 pc away from the core in the powerful jet of M 87 shows highly unusual properties. Earlier radio, optical, and X-ray observations have shown that this feature, labeled HST-1, is superluminal, and is possibly connected with the TeV flare detected by HESS in 2005. It has been claimed that this feature might have a blazar nature because of these properties. Aims. To examine whether HST-1 has a blazar-like nature, we analyzed λ2 cm VLBA archival data from dedicated full-track observations and the 2 cm survey/MOJAVE VLBI monitoring programs performed between 2000 and 2009. Methods. We studied the subparsec scale structure of M 87 jet by using wide-field imaging techniques, after checking different weighting of the interferometric visibilities as a function of distance. The HST-1 region was imaged at milliarcsecond resolution. Results. We present the first 2 cm VLBI detection of HST-1 in observations performed between early 2003 and early 2007, and analyze its evolution with time. Using the detections of HST-1, we find that the projected apparent speed is 0.61 ±0.31c. A comparison of the VLA and VLBA flux densities of this feature indicates that it is mostly resolved on milliarcsecond scales. This feature is optically thin (α ∼ ―0.8 for S ∝ ν +α ) between λ2 cm and λ20 cm. Conclusions. We do not find evidence that HST-1 has a blazar nature.
European Conference on Information Systems ( ECIS ) 2005 Examining the Linkage Between Technology Use , Emotional Expression and Service Quality Perceptions : The Data Collection Pool

Research-in-progress concerned with an investigation of the impact of service technologies on boundary-spanning personnel (BSP) and the implications for the interaction with the end customer is presented in this paper, with specific attention given to the development of the data collection protocol. The associated research project seeks to investigate the interplay between technology use, emotional expression and service quality perceptions in the context of a technology-mediated relationship. Specifically, the research investigates this linkage within a business to consumer (B2C) context where employees are using customer relationship management (CRM) technologies at the point of interaction with the customer in a voice-to-voice situation. The resulting data collection builds on previous studies with adaptations enabling a close investigation of the social forces at play in dyadic interactions centered on voice-to-voice interactions.
The Auto Annotation Latent Dirichlet Allocation

In this paper, we introduce the Auto-Annotation LDA models (aaLDA), a statistical model of non-labeled documents. This model generates the annotation of LDA automatically. We derive the annotation of LDA using a k-means methods combined with a pre-processing of the corpus. In this paper, we use aaLDA models to categorize “zhongwenshilei” corpus, which is a famous Chinese corpus. Then we make a compare with the traditional LDA methods.
The Impact of Feasibility Study in Enhancing Growth and Development of Business Organisations in Nigeria

The need as to the relevance of feasibility study in the structure of a business has attracted attention from both the business circle as well as academics. It has often been concluded that a business can thrive without undergoing a feasibility study. A healthier debate is that there are no available statistics of many businesses that went under unnecessarily due to lack of such a study, thereby negating economic growth. This paper examines the impact of feasibility study in enhancing growth and development of business organizations in Nigeria. It was proven that a well planned feasibility studies enables the business owner to understand the schematics of the venture and boost confidence in facing challenges that may arise in the business life circle because the target, through feasibility study has been attained; howbeit abstract. A man who knows where he is going arrives there no matter the obstacles. The work concluded that feasibility study impact significantly on the growth of a business and reduces the level of exposure to risk and ensures success.
The concept of environmental comfort in workplace performance

O conceito de desempenho do ambiente de trabalho e aplicavel no projeto do espaco de trabalho cujo objetivo explicito e apoiar o desempenho no trabalho. Neste artigo, argumentamos que existe uma variedade de abordagens para definir a produtividade do trabalhador em relacao aos edificios que eles ocupam. Como resultado do aumento de conhecimento sobre esta area de estudo, mais se conhece sobre como o ambiente de trabalho afeta os usuarios dos edificios e o trabalho destes. O conceito de conforto ambiental e apresentado como uma forma eficaz de organizar e explorar o conhecimento sobre esta area. O conforto ambiental e constituido de tres tipos de conforto, cada qual passivel de medicao, sendo que os tres juntos determinam a moral e o bem-estar dos usuarios, assim como o seu desempenho e eficacia na realizacao de tarefas. A teoria do conforto ambiental considera como estressantes situacoes nas quais o conforto e inadequado. Um importante ingrediente desta abordagem e desenvolver procedimentos para medicao do estresse no trabalho por conta do ambiente inadequado. Na segunda parte do artigo, sao apresentados dados obtidos de funcionarios de uma grande empresa canadense na area de seguros. Estes dados foram analisados para testar a pertinencia de hipoteses especificas de diferentes categorias de conforto ambiental. Os resultados indicam que, embora se tenha um caso convincente sobre a influencia das tres categorias de conforto, mais pesquisas sao necessarias para testar a utilidade desta abordagem teorica.
Parental Income Shocks and the Education Attendance of Youth

In this study I find that parental income shocks that occur at the time of high school completion have significant negative impacts on the education attendance of youth. Parental job loss, which results in family income reductions that persist over time, is particularly important. This alarming evidence of the consequences of labour market dislocation has received little prior attention. My results highlight the importance of financial constraints on post-secondary education attendance of youth, and support the case that parental income has a significant causal effect on the education outcomes of youth. I employ longitudinal information on youth from the Canadian Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) to conduct this analysis. I estimate a full year-to-year grade transition model to uncover the immediate and lagged causal impacts of parental job loss on education attendance. These shocks lead to both a greater likelihood of dropping out of high school and lower rates of university entry.
Production of hybrid FRP / steel structures with a new sheet metal connecting element

This article considers the technology of thermal welding of new auxiliary elements for the connection of composite materials and metal components in hybrid structures. As the basis, the iterative adjustment process of optimization penetration into the composite material with the lowest level of material damage is used. Also, in this paper, the main requirements, which appear through the process of the welding element adjustment, are considered from the welding prospective. Various concepts of elements connection will be represented and analyzed. Moreover, the achievement of low energy input in a base material in order to minimize the thermal damage of the composite materials will be showed. Therefore, new approaches in resistance spot welding are required and some of them are represented in this article. Despite the obtained welding joints, the article also represents their mechanical characteristics and welding parameters.
Spatiotemporal segregation regulates species richness along biomass gradients in estuarine fish assemblages

The number of fish species in subtropical and tropical estuaries is much greater than in temperate regions and is greater in large estuaries than in small ones. Thus, large estuaries of the tropics are of primary interest for biodiversity conservation, and the processes underpinning the dis- tribution of fish diversity in these ecosystems deserve attention. Factors controlling biodiversity pat- terns have been the focus of numerous recent investigations and include species interactions, speci- ation, environmental gradients and heterogeneity, with all of these operating differently at each observation scale. Today, the question is no longer whether particular biodiversity patterns occur, but why they occur and whether they are consistent across scales and organisms under study. In this study we combined the results of 2 classical ecological patterns, namely diversity-biomass relation- ships and species co-occurrences, into a common framework. Fish sampling was carried out in the coastal Terminos Lagoon (southern Gulf of Mexico) during 2 periods (1980-1981 and 1998-1999) using 408 tows. A total of 22 834 individuals representing 106 fish species were collected. Our study revealed that both diversity-biomass relationships and species co-occurrences show inconsistent patterns across years, seasons and zones. However, taken together, our results show that C-score val- ues, which measure spatiotemporal segregation among species, were closely related to the shape of observed richness-biomass relationships. When fish assemblages showed positive C-score values (species segregation), the relationship between species richness and fish biomass was either hump- shaped or non-significant. Conversely, negative C-score values (species aggregation) were associ- ated with an increase in fish species richness along the total biomass gradient. Our results support the idea that species segregation due to competition or spatiotemporal partitioning can be an important determinant of biodiversity patterns in species-rich tropical fish assemblages, but only during some periods and for some spatial strata.