Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
ship: a value-chain analysis of institutional reforms in Uganda’s sugarcane industry with key insights from South Africa and Kenya

This study aimed to analyse institutional reforms in determining the productivity of Uganda’s commercial sugarcane industry. A case study approach was employed by using multiple methods of data collection; a survey, interviews, observation and archives were used for collecting quantitative and qualitative data. Institutional reforms determine the reward structure in the economy, which in turn influences the allocation of entrepreneurial talent between productive activities such as innovation and largely unproductive or predatory activities such as rent-seeking behaviour. In addition, power imbalance among the actors impacts on productivity within value chains in that it creates inequitable distribution of benefits, which in turn dis-incentivizes the less powerful actors to be productive. In this study, it was evident that ring-fencing policies (protectionism/monopoly) inhibit effective competition, leading to inefficiencies in the form of low cane yields and cane quality, and prolonged time-to-market due to delayed harvesting. Value sharing was not equitable among the value-chain actors, with farmers earning approximately 30% of the proceeds of cane and its by-products. Farmers in other parts of the world earn 50-70% and millers earn 30-50% of the sugarcane industry proceeds. The Ugandan sugar industry had no governing body and the proposed governing body in the Draft Sugar Bill 2015 has a gap in power distribution for effective industry competitiveness. The results suggest that institutional reforms are needed to address monopolistic policies that encourage unproductive and/or predatory entrepreneurship behaviours in Uganda’s sugar industry. Equitable representation of millers and growers on the regulatory board is necessary for adequate governance, as well as to shift in the power balance if meaningful decision-making for industry competitiveness is to be achieved.
Design of a FSS Bandpass Filter for C-Band Application with Equivalent Circuit Model

In this paper, a frequency selective surface (FSS) configuration has been reported which behaves as a bandpass filter in C-band. The structure consists of a couple of metallic square loops designed over both sides of FR-4 dielectric as its unit cell. The simulation of the structure yields a −10 dB transmission bandwidth of 2.35 GHz with reflection coefficient achieving minima at 6.58 GHz. The field plots have been studied at 6.58 GHz to determine an equivalent circuit model of the proposed bandpass filter. The proposed equivalent circuit model has been simulated and it has been found that the results from equivalent circuit model and full wave simulation are in good agreement.
Turkish Adaptation of the 3 x 2 Goal Orientation Scale

Bu arastirmanin amaci Elliot, Murayama ve Pekrun (2011) tarafindan 3 x 2 modeline gore guncellenen Hedef Yonelimi Olcegi’ni Turkce’ye cevirmek, gecerlik ve guvenirlik analizlerini yapmaktir. Olcegin Turkce uyarlamasi universite duzeyinde “Egitim Psikolojisi” dersini almakta olan ogretmen adaylari ile yapilmistir. Arastirma pilot ve asil calisma olmak uzere iki kisimdan olusmaktadir. Pilot calismaya 198 ogretmen adayi katilirken asil calismaya 311 ogretmen adayi katilmistir. Pilot calisma sonucunda, uzman gorusleri dikkate alinarak maddelerin cumle yapilarinda bazi degisiklikler yapilmistir. Asil calisma sonucunda ise, olcegin, aslina uygun olarak 18 maddeden ve alti alt boyuttan (gorev-yaklasma, gorev-kacinma, oz-yaklasma, oz-kacinma, diger-yaklasma, diger-kacinma) olustugu bulunmustur. Her boyut icin Cronbach alfa guvenirlik katsayisi yeterli duzeyde cikmistir. Bu calismanin sonucunda, Turkce’ye uyarlanan 3 x 2 Hedef Yonelimi Olcegi kullanilarak elde edilen puanlarin gecerli ve guvenilir oldugu bulunmustur. Bu dogrultuda 2 x 2 modelindeki “ogrenmeye yonelik” hedeflerin “gorev” ve “oz” seklinde ayrildigi 3 x 2 modelinin Turkiye orneklemi icin uygun oldugu gorulmustur.
Effects of Local Electricity Trading on Power Flows and Voltage Levels for Different Elasticities and Prices

Local electricity trading is a concept that allows active electricity trading between consumers, producers and/or prosumers located in a local low voltage distribution grid. The concept should provide added value to the participants and accelerate the democratization, decarbonization and decentralization of the power sector. The effects of local electricity trading on voltage levels in distribution grids are just in the early stage of research, together with the possible means of control, market design, market-clearing approaches and integration of the local electricity trading within the electricity markets. The aim of this work is to contribute to the research by examining if near real-time local electricity trading can be implemented in a distribution grid without time-consuming security-constrained unit commitment calculations for the observed time horizon and without security-constrained economic dispatch calculations for each trading period. Moreover, this work investigates if the implementation of local electricity trading can contribute to the avoidance of unpredictable and unfavorable consumption/production patterns, which can appear in the distribution grid due to the random behavior of a large number of participants. It is analyzed if a contribution to the maintenance of the voltages and currents within limits can be achieved that way. The method for simulation of a local electricity market and analysis of power flows and voltage levels is presented. The auction-based local electricity trading is simulated and applied on the modified IEEE European Low Voltage Test Feeder where the effects of local electricity trading on power flows and voltage levels are studied for boundary elasticities and prices of demand and supply offering curves. It is shown that the local electricity trading has potential to incentivize active participation of prosumers, which can lead to better demand/supply balancing at the local level and to a decrease of voltage fluctuations.
在未標號圖形資料中高效率的圖形探勘演算法 An Efficient Algorithm for Mining Frequent Unlabeled Graphs 研 究 生:李 銘 Student :

In recent years, academic research on pattern discovery progressed from mining frequent itemsets and sequences to mining structured patterns including trees, lattices, and graphs. Among them, graphs serve as a general model to represent data and have consequently been widely and extensively used in many domains like cheminformatics, bioinformatics, web exploration, etc. However, mining large graph patterns effectively and efficiently is challenging due to the presence of an exponential number of frequent subgraphs and the complexity of graph data. In response to the dilemma, several graph miners, such as gSpan, have been published in the last decade and all of these newly developed graph miners work on undirected labeled simple graph. By examining the state-of-the-art pattern growth algorithm gSpan, which uses a right-most extension method, we learn that it dramatically reduces the number of candidate graphs, compared with traditional join method. Nevertheless, right-most extension was designed originally for rooted trees. It still
A Taylor Based Sampling Scheme for Machine Learning in Computational Physics

Machine Learning (ML) is increasingly used to construct surrogate models for physical simulations. We take advantage of the ability to generate data using numerical simulations programs to train ML models better and achieve accuracy gain with no performance cost. We elaborate a new data sampling scheme based on Taylor approximation to reduce the error of a Deep Neural Network (DNN) when learning the solution of an ordinary differential equations (ODE) system.
Data-Driven Chemical Reaction Classification with Attention-Based Neural Networks

Organic reactions are usually clustered in classes that collect entities undergoing similar structural rearrangement. The classification process is a tedious task, requiring first an accurate mapping of the rearrangement (atom mapping) followed by the identification of the corresponding reaction class template. In this work, we present a transformer-based model that infers reaction classes from the SMILES representation of chemical reactions. The model reaches an accuracy of 93.8 % for a multi-class classification task involving several hundred different classes. The attention weights provided by the model give an insight into what parts of the SMILES strings are taken into account for classification, based solely on data. We study the incorrect predictions of our model and show that it uncovers different biases and mistakes in the underlying data set.
Agricultural productivity and off-farm labor decisions by males and females in Nicaragua: a semiparametric analysis using panel data

The objective of this study was to analyze the variables that influence the decisions of male and female farmers in Nicaragua to work off-farm. Using a three-year unbalanced panel dataset, we applied the approach introduced by Jacoby (1993) and Skoufias (1994) to estimate shadow wages and shadow income. To mitigate biases not only from key individual and farm time-invariant characteristics, but also from sample selection, we applied the semi-parametric approach to panel data developed by Kyriazidou (1997). Our main findings suggest that the shadow wages and shadow income of males and females play a major role in the extent they engage in off-farm labor. In addition, as the marginal productivity of agricultural households rises, both genders reduce the hours they allocate to off-farm activities. Other variables considered that affect the decision to work off-farm are an individuals’ age, education level, but not the work of other family members, such as children and teens, both working on-farm and off-farm.
Molecular design of novel fluorescent PET sensor for proton and water: phenylaminonaphtho[1,2-d]oxazol-2-yl-type fluorophore with proton donor and acceptor groups

Novel fluorescent dyes for sensing protons and water, phenylaminonaphtho[1,2-d]oxazol-2-yl-type fluorophores having diethylamino group as proton binding site and carboxyl group as proton donating site have been designed and developed, and their photophysical properties were investigated in various solutions. In 1,4-dioxane, the fluorophores 1a and 1b without a proton binding site exhibit an intense fluorescence band, however, the fluorophores 1c and 1e with a proton binding site exhibit a feeble fluorescence band. On the other hand,
The Essential Links between Genetic Susceptibility and Environmental Pathogens in Multiple Sclerosis Progression and Initiation

Conglomerate dimensionality in the pathogenesis and initiation of injury to the myelin sheath and to the axon in multiple sclerosis indicates a concerted array of events within the markedly heterogeneous nature of a disease process that progresses essentially as a function of such directly acting heterogeneity. The simple phases of progression are derivative defines of injury that promote the re-distribution of multiple arrays of protein profiles and as pathogen molecular patterns that render the myelin sheaths and axons as prime targets of an autoimmune disease process.
Airborne hyperspectral trace gas sensors as testbeds for geostationary air quality missions

Next generation air quality sensors are currently planned to launch in the 2020-2021 timeframe. The Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO-United States) and Geostationary Environment Monitoring Sensor (GEMSKorea) are two such missions that will probe the boundary layer and lower troposphere at unprecedented spatial and temporal scales. These missions are designed to provide constraints on chemical forecast models and specifically to answer the question: “What are the temporal and spatial variations of emissions of gases and aerosols important for air quality and climate? ” In preparation for these missions a number of airborne air quality field missions have been performed to collect data at similar spatial and temporal scales, and during relevant seasonal air quality episodes. This data is being used to improve the trace gas retrieval algorithms and explore the unique spatial scales and diurnal patterns that will be encountered when the Geostationary experiments are operational. This overview will present details of two of the instruments used during these campaigns, the GEO-CAPE Airborne Simulator (GCAS) and the Geostationary Trace Gas and Aerosol Sensor Optimization (GeoTASO) instruments. The instruments' performance will be compared to predicted on-orbit values for the TEMPO and GEMS sensors in the retrieval of high spatial resolution nitrogen dioxide and formaldehyde. Examples of vertical column retrievals will be presented under various source/weather conditions as well as some of the uncertainties that result from radiative transfer assumptions.
Using solar eclipse events to validate VIIRS reflective solar band calibration at multiple radiance levels

The VIIRS instruments aboard the SNPP and NOAA-20 (N20) satellites have 14 reflective solar bands (RSB) covering a spectral range from 412 nm to 2250 nm. The radiance of each VIIRS RSB is calculated from a quadratic function of the background-subtracted digital count, 𝑑𝑛, with the quadratic coefficients determined during pre-launch testing. On orbit, calibration is maintained using observations of a sunlit solar diffuser (SD), which views the Sun every orbit through a fixed attenuation screen. The SD observations, which are at nearly the same radiance level every orbit, provide a timevarying overall calibration adjustment factor, the F-factor. But there is no designed on-orbit mechanism for calibration at multiple radiance levels, so the relative strengths of the quadratic coefficients continue to be fixed at the pre-launch values. On a few rare occasions, the VIIRS instruments have passed through a partial solar eclipse during the part of the satellite orbit when the SD is illuminated by the Sun (near the South Pole). As of August 2019, the SNPP and N20 VIIRS SDs have observed five and three partial solar eclipses, respectively. While these events are rare, they offer a unique opportunity to test the RSB calibration using the SD at different radiance levels. In this paper, we compare the reduction in the measured SD signals during an eclipse to the predicted radiance reduction based on the Sun-Moon geometry and a solar radiance model. We find good agreement between the data and model for all events, indicating that the VIIRS RSB gain linearity has remained fairly stable on-orbit. The most significant deviation is for the N20 short-wave infrared bands, which had non-linearity concerns during pre-launch testing. We also investigate the SNPP results using different versions of the prelaunch quadratic gain coefficients.
Interaction of two coherent light beams with ultrasonic wave

The accurate theory describing interaction of two coherent light beams with ultrasonic wave where one of the light beam is incident at positive Bragg angle while the other at negative was developed by Leroy and Blomme in 1984 . The assumed geometry in this theory resembles an interferometer wherein ultrasonic beam plays a role of the output beam splitter of the light. The output light intensity is modulated with ultrasonic frequency as a result of interference between the light in diffraction orders in which the frequency is changed due to the Doppler effects with those diffracted with unchanged frequency. Temporal modulation of the light intensities in diffraction orders, that was foreseen by Leroy and Blomme, was confirmed experimentally and the results will be presented. In addition, the Leroy-Blomme theory has been extended to include the effect of the initial phase of the ultrasonic wave on the phase of modulation of light intensity in diffraction orders. According to the best knowledge of the author, Leroy and Blomme theory has not been verified experimentally, although many years have passed. This theory could be applied to the quantum optics phenomenon when pairs of entangled photons are incident on ultrasonic wave instead of two coherent light beams. The geometry of interaction of two coherent light beams with ultrasonic wave in Leroy-Blomme theory is the same as for Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometer wherein a beam splitter is replaced by the ultrasonic wave. Similarities and differences between Leroy-Blomme and Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometers will be presented.
Development of laser radar imaging technology based on compressive sensing

Compressive sensing (CS), which breaks the classical Nyquist limit and does not require a high sampling rate, can be used to recover a complete signal by using much less information and an optimization strategy. Further, it reduces the calculations required for signal reconstruction, and requires simpler signal collection and processing than other sensing techniques. It can reduce the data rate of high-resolution imaging radar systems and the amount of sampling, storage, and transmission data effectively. In this study, we first describe the basic theory model of CS. Then, we review the latest developments in radar imaging algorithms based on CS, followed by a comprehensive review of CS applications in high resolution radars, including SARs/ISARs, through-the-wall (TTW) radars, MIIMO radars, and ground-penetrating (GP) radars. This review highlights the importance of CS in simplifying radar hardware, overcoming data limitations, and improving the radar imaging performance. Next, an in-depth discussion and analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of CS-based radar imaging are presented. Finally, we highlight some of the challenges and research directions in this field.
On-orbit tracking of sub-sample gain differences in SNPP and NOAA-20 VIIRS imagery bands

The VIIRS instruments on board the SNPP and NOAA-20 (N20) satellites have 14 reflective solar bands covering a spectral range from 412 nm to 2250 nm. Three of these are imaging bands (I bands) with a nadir spatial resolution of 375 m and 11 are moderate resolution bands (M bands) with a resolution of 750 m. The higher resolution in the I bands is achieved by a combination of more detectors, with the I bands having twice as many detectors of half the size for every M band detector, and a higher data rate, with the I bands having two sub-samples for every sample of M band data. To ensure calibration accuracy, any systematic difference in the response of the two sub-samples needs to be monitored and corrected in the calibrated products. In this paper, we use the solar diffuser calibrations to monitor the gain differences between the two sub-samples of the I bands both as a function of time and signal level. We find gain differences of about 0.1% for I1, 0.3% for I2, and <0.1% for I3 that are mostly constant over the range of signal values available in the SD calibration. These values are mostly consistent throughout the mission for both instruments. The results are remarkably similar for the two VIIRS instruments, including a slightly out-of-family behavior seen in a few detectors. We discuss possible causes for the difference and the impact on the aggregated Earth view images.
Germination Traits in the Threatened Southeastern Grassland Endemic, Marshallia mohrii (Asteraceae)

ABSTRACT Marshallia mohrii (Asteraceae) is a perennial forb endemic to grasslands in the southeastern United States. Despite having been listed as federally threatened for three decades, little is known about its biology and life history. In this study, we examined the role of light, temperature, seed age, and cold stratification on seed dormancy break and germination in M. mohrii. We also quantified soil temperatures in a Ketona glade population of M. mohrii to infer dormancy breaking and germination phenologies under natural conditions. Relatively high proportions (>65%) of cold stratified seeds germinated across a range of temperature regimes in both light and darkness, whereas nonstratified seeds only germinated to high proportions in light at high temperatures. Germination proportions of laboratory stored seeds were slightly greater than freshly matured seeds, but remained much lower than those of cold stratified seeds. According to laboratory experiments, both autumn and spring germination phenologies are possible depending on the temperature and light conditions seeds experience after dispersal. Seeds of M. mohrii exhibited type 3 non-deep conditional physiological dormancy, which has been found in other members of Asteraceae from temperate grasslands. Overall, the germination niche of M. mohrii is defined by conditional seed dormancy, reduced dormancy levels following cold stratification, dark germination after dormancy loss, seasonal germination cueing, and seed traits consistent with short-term persistence in soil. Results from our study are useful for future conservation and recovery actions with M. mohrii and represent the first known published report of germination traits in this genus, which contains several other rare and range-restricted species.
Space Use by Prairie Warblers in Regenerating Mixed-oak Forests of Central Pennsylvania

Abstract Setophaga discolor (Prairie Warbler) is a Nearctic–Neotropical migratory songbird that is experiencing long-term population declines. A potentially important driver behind these decreases is the loss of shrubland and early successional forest communities in the eastern United States. Central to conservation for species like the Prairie Warbler is an understanding of breeding habitat requirements at the scale of the home range. Despite the Prairie Warbler being identified as a species of continental conservation concern, few studies have explicitly quantified habitat conditions within its home ranges. We used radio telemetry to quantify Prairie Warbler use of space during the breeding season as well as associated vegetation data across 3 study sites in north-central Pennsylvania from May to June 2016. We radio-tracked 11 adult male Prairie Warblers. Using the telemetry locations, we estimated kernel densities and classified minimum convex polygons around kernel densities to define males' home ranges and core-use areas. The average home range (95% kernel) was 6.4 ha, and the average core-use area (50% kernel) was 0.73 ha. Prairie Warbler core-use areas contained more shrubs and lower tree count than peripheral portions of home ranges. To this end, management activities that promote a dense shrub layer across early successional communities should benefit Prairie Warblers. Results from this study serve as baseline data that can be used to help direct future studies at the home-range scale of Prairie Warbler breeding-season ecology.