Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sustainability assessment of agricultural production: Case study of latvian crop sector

The concept of sustainability in agricultural production is characterised by three interrelated dimensions: environmental sustainability; economic sustainability; and social sustainability. Research studies are needed to understand what the specific characteristics of each dimension are and how they interact in time and space. The aim of this research is to make a sustainability assessment of agricultural production in the crop sector in Latvia. In the paper, the authors have compiled existing studies that have tried to include all the three dimensions of sustainability analysis and to provide explanations of factors determining sustainable agricultural production. It was concluded that some agricultural development indicators pointed to the challenges of meeting sustainable economic development objectives in agricultural production. The results showed that this development of agricultural production in the crop sector took place at the expense of natural capital impairment, as the environmental sustainability index had fallen from a neutral value of 0 to a negative value of -0.25 during the last decade. Activity data characterising the production practices of crop farms pointed to a non-sustainable farming system, where the intensity of exploitation of production resources of fossil origin had essentially increased.
An Object Detection Algorithm based on Deformable Part Models with Bing Features

To solve the problem that the positioning strategy with sliding window approaches requires exhaustive search in feature pyramids, the paper proposes an object detection algorithm based on deformable part models with Bing features to help object detection. First of all, input images are preprocessed with the objectness detection algorithm with Bing features and a set of potential windows that may contain target objects are obtained, and then the deformable part model is regarded as the class-specific detector to match potential windows, at last Non-Maximum Suppression is used to merge and reduce window areas of results to obtain final detection results. The experimental results on Pascal VOC 2007 dataset show that the algorithm in the paper outperforms the original DPM in 19 out of 20 classes, achieving an improvement of 2.7% mAP.
THE VAST PROJECT: VALORISATION OF HISTORY AND LANDSCAPE FOR PROMOTING THE MEMORY OF WWI

Abstract. The VAST (valorisation of history and landscape) project (http://vast.fbk.eu/) was part of the initiatives promoted by the Autonomous Province of Trento (Italy) for the commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the First World War (WWI) outbreak. The project was primarily aimed to document and promote, through 3D digitization approaches and communication material, the memory of sites, theatre of the world conflict. The Italian Trento’s province had been under the Austro–Hungarian Empire until the end of the WWI, during which represented a crucial and bloody war front between the Austrian and Italian territories. The region was constellated of military fortresses, trenches and tunnels, most of them now ruined and at risk to slowly disappear. 3D surveying and modelling techniques have been exploited to produce 3D digital models of structures and objects, along with virtual tours, communication material and a WebGIS of the area. All the products are available on the web for valorisation, educational and communication purposes.
Retirement in the Shadow (Banking)

We analyze the aggregate implications of the increase in life expectancy with the emergence of shadow banking. We consider a standard overlapping generations economy with neoclassical technology. Agents live and work with certainty for the first part of their life and then retire and can die with constant probability. Since after retirement agents cannot work and have an uncertain life span, they buy insurance during their working life in the form of equity or annuities. These financial instruments are provided by a financial intermediary with CRS technology. The intermediation cost has two main components, a constant cost per unit of loan and a liquidity cost. We show that since 1990 there has been a large decrease in the borrowing and lending interest rate spread, and that almost all of it is due to the fall in the liquidity cost attributed to emergence of shadow banking. At the same time, life expectancy has increased substantially from 74 years in 1980 to around 79 years. We calibrate the model economy to replicate the level of financial intermediation in 1980 and then introduce the observed changes in the liquidity cost and life expectancy. The model generates the same increase in the quantities intermediated and changes in prices as observed in the data. Neither the decrease in the liquidity cost or the change in life expectancy alone account for the observed changes.
Rapid monitoring of seagrass biomass using a simple linear modelling approach, in the field and from space

Seagrass meadows are globally significant carbon sinks and increasingly threatened; and seagrass habitat provides critical ecosystem services, for which above-ground biomass is a key indicator. The capacity to quantify biomass in seagrass ecosystems is both critical and urgent, yet no methods exist to perform this at the large spatial scale required for management (e.g. regional/continental). We built linear model relationships between in situ above-ground biomass and seagrass percentage cover per seagrass species to estimate biomass from both point-based and landscape scale (>100 km2) seagrass data. First we used a set of linear models to estimate the biomass component of each seagrass species in over 20 000 benthic photos. We then adapted this approach to estimate biomass from a time-series of remote sensing derived seagrass percentage cover and dominant species maps. We demonstrate accurate estimation of above-ground biomass using a set of methods that is not only more time and resource efficient than existing methods, but is sufficiently robust and generalisable for application at large spatial or temporal scales. Our method allows for quantification of above-ground biomass in seagrass ecosystems over spatial scales larger than can be tractably assessed using current site- and point-based measurement approaches, and at scales that are required to understand and manage seagrass systems to tackle anthropogenic climate change and other impacts.
Foreign Direct Investment, Institutional Framework and Economic Growth

The paper explores the role of institutional quality on economic growth and more specifically the role it plays through foreign direct investment. The paper uses an economic performance relevant indicators of institutional quality (both in aggregate and individual indicators) to evaluate its direct impact on economic growth and an indirect impact on economic growth via foreign direct investment. The paper applied instrumental variable model to a larger dataset of 106 countries and found that besides a strong direct positive effect on economic growth the aggregate institutional quality variable as well as all individual variables except for the rule of law have a small but significant indirect impact on economic that takes place through boosting foreign direct investment.
Congestion Control Using On-Board Data Units in VANET Scenar IOS

Vehicular communications becomes the rising technology in the research areas in the recent years, which gives some apparent results and their applications getting increased day-by-day. There are several applications like weather monitoring, traffic control, road safety warnings, driving assistance etc., generates enormous amount of data by sensing the physical phenomenon in order to distribute them among the communication parties. These leads to a huge amount of a load in the centralized network transportation infrastructure even if the frequently accessed data cached at the specified locations either in vehicles or Road Side Units (RSU). On board data units (OBDU) are placed in each vehicle to sense and cache the information in order to reduce the service access delay, which acts as an Access Points (AP) are placed along with the RSU’s so that the required data can be sent according to the service access time without any delay even the area is not covered by the particular RSU frequency range. Hence, the packet delivery ratio and throughput can be efficiently increased with the decrease in query latency.
Detecting and modeling multi-scale space-time structures: the case of wildfire occurrences

Wildfires due to natural origin or arson come along with important economic and ecological risks. Typically, the structure of relative risk of fire events is highly complex, shows strong variation over space and time and is driven by numerous covariates like land use, climate and weather. We here adopt a point process approach to study space-time large-scale variations and local interaction behavior in a data set reporting geolocalized fire events and burnt surfaces on a daily basis in the Bouches-du-Rhone county in Southern France, marked by a Mediterranean climate and high touristic activity. After a review of the existing literature, we explore the influence of land use and climatic covariates like temperature and precipitation on the probability of event occurrence. Statistical challenges arise from the multi-scale structure of data defined over various supports like fine grids for land use covariates, coarse grids for fire position leading to positional uncertainty, and meteorogical series observed at irregularly spaced measurement sites. We fit a log-Gaussian Cox process including covariate information and nonparametric spatial and temporal effects to our data through the technique of Integrated Nested Laplace Approximation, and we analyze the residual interaction structure through the space-time K-function adapted to the setting of second-order intensity reweighted stationarity. Specifically, we also study inhibitive effects that arise locally in time and space after fire events with relatively large burnt surfaces.
The Status of Distribution for Native Freshwater Turtles in Korea, with Remarks on Taxonomic Position

Korean freshwater turtles are divided into native turtles, Chinemys reevesii in Geoemydidae, Pelodiscus sinensis in Trionychidae, and imported turtles, Trachemys scripta elegans, T. s. scripta, Pseudemys rubriventris and Ocadia sinensis. In this study, we determined the distribution of Korean freshwater turtles based on a field study and literature study, and considered the taxonomic position of unidentified native turtles. The study was carried out between May 2010 and November 2011 during the day time, and the capturing tool used to collect turtles consisted of net and metal frame. C. reevesii and P. sinensis were found in 16 and 11 places, respectively. C. reevesii, which inhabits the Korean peninsula, is a taxonomically controversial species, but it is presumed that the turtle belongs to Mauremys. Moreover recent taxonomic studies of the soft-shell turtle have shown that the Korean native species is P. maackii, and P. sinensis was imported from abroad and has been in the natural habitats of Korea since 1970s. The exterior shape and skeletal form of P. maackii and P. sinensis are nearly similar. However, the skin color and yellow spots on the shell could be used to distinguish the two species.
Ozone-enhanced layers in the troposphere over the equatorial Pacific Ocean and the influence of transport of midlatitude UT/LS air

Occurrence of ozone (O 3 )-enhanced layers in the troposphere over the equatorial Pacific Ocean and their seasonal variation were investigated based on ozonesonde data obtained at three Southern Hemisphere ADditional OZonesondes (SHADOZ) sites, Watukosek, American Samoa and San Cristobal, for 6 years between 1998 and 2003. O 3 -enhanced layers were found in about 50% of observed O 3 profiles at the three sites. The formation processes of O 3 -enhanced layers were investigated by meteorological analyses including backward trajectories. On numerous occasions, O 3 -enhanced layers resulted from the transport of air masses affected by biomass burning. The contribution of this process was about 30% at San Cristobal during the periods from February to March and from August to September, while it was relatively low, about 10%, at Watukosek and Samoa. A significant number of the O 3 -enhanced layers were attributed to the transport of midlatitude upper-troposphere and lower-stratosphere (UT/LS) air. Meteorological analyses indicated that these layers originated from equatorward and downward transport of the midlatitude UT/LS air masses through a narrow region between high- and low-pressure systems around the subtropical jet stream. This process accounted for 50–80% at Watukosek between May and December, about 80% at Samoa on yearly average, and 40–70% at San Cristobal between November and March, indicating that it was important for O 3 budget over the equatorial Pacific Ocean.
Dynamical analysis of galaxy cluster merger Abell 2146

We present a dynamical analysis of the merging galaxy cluster system Abell 2146 using spectroscopy obtained with the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph on the Gemini North telescope. As revealed by the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the system is undergoing a major merger and has a gas structure indicative of a recent first core passage. The system presents two large shock fronts, making it unique amongst these rare systems. The hot gas structure indicates that the merger axis must be close to the plane of the sky and that the two merging clusters are relatively close in mass, from the observation of two shock fronts. Using 63 spectroscopically determined cluster members, we apply various statistical tests to establish the presence of two distinct massive structures. With the caveat that the system has recently undergone a major merger, the virial mass estimate is Mvir=8.5+4.3−4.7×1014M⊙ for the whole system, consistent with the mass determination in a previous study using the Sunyaev–Zel'dovich signal. The newly calculated redshift for the system is z = 0.2323. A two-body dynamical model gives an angle of 13°–19° between the merger axis and the plane of the sky, and a time-scale after first core passage of ≈0.24–0.28 Gyr.
DETERMINATION OF THE PROSPECTIVE WORKS AND INNOVATIVE PERFORMANCE OF THE FIRMS THAT MANUFACTURE AGRICULTURAL MACHINES IN KONYA PROVINCE

ARISOY, H. , M. N. ORNEK, I. KORKMAZ and H. HACISEFEROGULLARI, 2013. Determination of the prospective works and innovative performance of the firms that manufacture agricultural machines in Konya province. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 19: 912-918 Konya province has an important role in Turkey’s agricultural machinery manufacturing sector. The development in the sector has direct effect on agricultural production. In this study, it is aimed to determine the prospective activities and innovative performances of the firms which all of them are small and medium sized enterprises, exhibiting their present state. 112 firms are interviewed by using the complete inventory method in the study. The results of surveys are interpreted by the basic statistical methods such as frequency tables, percentage values and by using Likert Scale and Multiple Correspondence Analysis technic. 90% of the firms are micro and small sized enterprises. Firms are insufficient for the training, management and finance. It is determined that firms have no prospective work, the experienced firms are more innovative than the others. Parting of the firms should be prevented. The support of finance, quality, soft ware, quality personnel, consultancy in market ing and training and fair should be given effectively to the firms.
Projected sequential Gaussian processes: flexible interpolation for large data sets

Recently within the machine learning and spatial statistics communities many papers have explored the potential of reduced rank representations of the covariance matrix, often referred to as projected or fixed rank approaches. In such methods the covariance function of the posterior process is represented by a reduced rank approximation which is chosen such that there is minimal information loss. In this paper a sequential framework for inference in such projected processes is presented, where the observations are considered one at a time. We introduce a C++ library for carrying out such projected, sequential estimation which adds several novel features. In particular we have incorporated the ability to use a generic observation operator, or sensor model, to permit data fusion. We can also cope with a range of observation error characteristics, including non-Gaussian observation errors. Inference for the variogram parameters is based on maximum likelihood estimation. We illustrate the projected sequential method in application to synthetic and real data sets. We discuss the software implementation and suggest possible future extensions.
Integrating Disaster Risk Reduction and Urban Planning: Evidence from Class III City- Rajgir, India

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of urban planning and built environment disciplines in disaster risk reduction. Many pieces of evidence are available to illustrate that every year natural calamities cause a generous measure of harm to many cities in the entire world. Better lifestyle and employment are attracting the migrants towards emerging cities, which are predominantly vulnerable due to their peril inclination towards area like, along streams, seismic zones and many others. Dangers are particularly high in low and mid-income nations like India where a major portion of the populace in urban communities lives in ghettos and extreme weather events have tremendous effects in urban zones. This situation demands a high need in identifying how the urban planning and its related disciplines can contribute towards disaster risk reduction. Therefore this article follows disciplines of urban design and disaster management, to elaborate the concepts of disaster risk reduction at the locality level for the collective development of Rajgir, a class III city in Nalanda district of Bihar, India. The mixed methodology with multidisciplinary approach has been used to address this emerging topic, therefore this paper is based on the reviews of academic literature, journals, conference papers and reports produced by various institutions along with field analysis. Finally, this article reveals present ways to deal with hazard administration, investigating parts of disaster risk reduction, and the organizations and coordinated effort required in current procedures of urban planning the organizations and coordinated effort required in current procedures of urban planning.
Comparison of Strategies to Manage Stress Considering to Selected Socio-demographic Characteristics of Employees

The presented paper deals with the analysis of selected stress management strategies considering to gender and position in organization in which individual employees work. The aim of the paper is to compare the ways of managing and processing the stressful situations, as well as their variability with regard to the group of respondents, their inclusion in the organization (manager or executive employee) and the size of organization (small and medium organization). The research was conducted by using two methodologies, namely Brief COPE from Carver (1997) and SVF 78 by Janke and Erdmann (2003). The research sample consisted of 130 respondents aged 19 to 63 (mean age 40.38 with a standard deviation of 6.73), namely 53.8% of males and 47.2% of women. The research sample consisted of executive employees (49.2%) and managers (50.8%) working in a small and medium-sized organization. The research results were analyzed by t-test for two independent samples, namely the individual stress management strategies were compared. We found statistically significant differences in the level of control of the situation, self-blaming, POZ 1 and NEG among executive employees and managers. At the level of perseverance, self-blaming, religiosity and spirituality, and NEG we found statistically significant gender differences. Comparison of employees working in a small and medium-sized organization has demonstrated the existence of statistically significant differences in levels of underestimation, negation, ventilation and self-blaming. The most common strategy of stress management was the strategy of self-blaming, given the analyzed socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents.
Coping as a mediator in recovery from cardiac surgery

Abstract Recovery from surgery can be facilitated by adaptive coping or it can be inhibited by maladaptive coping. Coping itself can be influenced by personal and social coping resources. Within a longitudinal design, 174 patients undergoing coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery were surveyed before the event and interviewed afterwards. Presurgical personal and social resources, such as optimistic self-beliefs and social support, were examined along with social and ruminative ways of coping in terms of a variety of recovery outcomes. Wony, emotional states, mental activity, and physical activity were chosen as indicators of recovery. It was found that personal and social resources predicted recovery and that coping mediated presurgery resources and postsurgery readjustment. Covariance structure analysis revealed that seeking social support was an adaptive way of coping. It was positively associated with perceived self-efficacy and with recovery indicators, whereas rumination was negatively associate.
Auditor independence and non-audit services: evidence from the United Kingdom

This paper investigates whether auditor independenc e could be impaired as a result of possible economi c dependence on a client due to the level of non-audi t service (NAS) fees or total fees paid to the audi tors. Employing three different measures of the auditor’s economic dependence on clients, the study finds evidence in support of the hypothesized link betwee n two of the three measures and discretionary accru ls in reporting companies. Extending the investigation , the study also tests whether a threshold level fo r the relative amounts of audit and non-audit service fee s can distinguish between the circumstances when independence may be weakened and when it is not. Th e results reveal evidence of higher discretionary accruals when the level of non-audit service fees r eaches a level of 150% of audit fees but that this relationship is not present when the level rises ab ove 200%, suggesting that auditors may be more conscious of the potential threats to perceived ind ependence when NAS reach this higher level. The stu dy thus provides some evidence in support of the hypot hesis that higher NAS fees and total fees to the au ditor are positively correlated with the magnitude of dis cretionary accruals, but also that this relationshi p is more complicated than implied by a linear regressio n. The findings add to those of prior studies which have employed accruals based measures of audit qual y to test the effect of joint audit and non-audit service provision. The paper also makes a contribut ion to the continuing policy debate over joint prov ision reflected in consultations and commentaries on regu lation in this area such as the EU 2010 Green Paper on auditing and the 2009 report of the UK Treasury Sel ect Committee.
Selection During Larval Recruitment in a Blue Mussel Hybrid Zone

The processes of recruitment in marine bivalves and their larvae can be caused by process that occur before, during, or after these organisms settle. The mussel species Mytilus edulis and M. galloprovincialis form a hybrid zone located in southwest England. Individuals with hybrid genotypes settle in the M. galloprovincialis parental populations, but the hybrid zone does not appear to be expanding. Comparisons of allele and genotype frequencies of recently settled mussels from different age classes in the M. galloprovincialis population show a marked decrease in M. edulis-specific alleles and hybrid genotypes. These data demonstrate that there is likely selection acting against individuals with M. edulis alleles that settle in the M. galloprovincialis population.