Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The structure of the spur nectary in Dendrobium finisterrae Schltr. (Dendrobiinae, Orchidaceae)

To date, the structure of the nectary spur of Dendrobium finisterrae has not been studied in detail, and the present paper compares the structural organization of the floral nectary in this species with the spurs of other taxa. The nectary spur of D. finisterrae was examined by means of light microscopy (LM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). It is composed of a single layer of secretory epidermis and several layers of small and compactly arranged subepidermal secretory cells. The secretory cells have thick cellulosic cell walls with primary pits. The secretory tissue is supplied by vascular bundles that run beneath in ground parenchyma and are additionally surrounded by strands of sclerenchymatous fibers. The flowers of the investigated species displayed morphological features characteristic of bee-pollinated taxa, as they are zygomorphic, creamy-green coloured with evident nectar guides. They also emit a weak but nice scent. However, they possess some characters attributed to bird-pollinated flowers such as a short, massive nectary spur and collenchymatous secretory tissue that closely resembles the one found in the nectaries of certain species that are thought to be bird-pollinated. This similarity in anatomical organization of the nectary, regardless of geographical distribution and phylogeny, strongly indicates convergence and appears to be related to pollinator-driven selection.
1 Fermat-Euler statistics and number-theoretic turbulence

I hope the problems of the list below might be useful even for beginners, being however open and allowing both experimental discoveries of new facts and creation of general theories. They represent my seminar talks at Moscow in September 2003 and at Paris in January 2004. I’m grateful to many participants of these seminars for active work on these problems and for their help, especially for the many remarks of F. Aicardi and of R. Uribe-Vargas, responsible for the typing at the Paris part.
Kinship and Association in Social Foraging Northwestern Crows (Corvus caurinus)

The producer–scrounger model suggests that the number of producers (animals that search for food) and scroungers (animals that consume food found by producers) may be an evolutionarily stable strategy. We investigated the role of kinship and social affiliation on these strategies by combining microsatellite DNA-based measures of relatedness with focal animal behavioral sampling of northwestern crows in the field. Scrounges were either passive (quiet ground approach without pursuit) or aggressive (noisy approach with pursuit). The combination of individually marked animals and information on relatedness allowed investigation of the roles of dominance and kinship in scrounging, including the target and form of the scrounge. Crows in foraging groups were more likely to be associated (i.e., socially affiliated) than were birds in the background population, but were not more likely to be genetically related than were birds in the background population. There was no difference between the average association of the foraging group and the average association between the scrounge interactors. There was also no difference in the average association between passive and aggressive scrounge interactions. Adults were more likely than juveniles to demonstrate a preference for social companions, and males were more likely than females to demonstrate a preference for social companions. Within foraging groups, passive scrounges tended to occur between more closely related individuals, and aggressive scrounges among less closely related individuals. Thus, scroungers modulate their mode of scrounging according to relatedness, or producers modulate their response, or both. They discriminate close from more distant relatives or unrelated individuals by adjusting the level of aggressiveness associated with theft.
Long‐term memory in 1000‐year simulated temperature records

[1] We study the appearance of long-term persistence in temperature records, obtained from the global coupled general circulation model ECHO-G for two runs, using detrended fluctuation analysis. The first run is a historical simulation for the years 1000–1990 (with greenhouse gas, solar, and volcanic forcing), while the second run is a 1000-year “control run” with constant external forcings. We consider daily data of all grid points as well as their biannual averages in order to suppress 2-year oscillations appearing in the model records for some sites near the equator. Our results substantially confirm earlier studies of (considerably shorter) instrumental data and extend their results from decades to centuries. In the case of the historical simulation we find that most continental sites have correlation exponents γ between 0.8 and 0.6. For the ocean sites the long-term correlations seem to vanish at the equator and become nonstationary at the Arctic and Antarctic circles. In the control run the long-term correlations are less pronounced. Compared with the historical run, the correlation exponents are increased, and show a more pronounced latitude dependence, visible also at continental sites. When analyzing biannual averages, we find stronger long-term correlations in the historical run at continental sites and a less pronounced latitude dependence. In all cases, the exponent γ does not depend on the continentality of the sites.
On punishment institutions and effective deterrence of illicit behavior

Reducing criminal acts in society is a crucial duty of governments. Establishing punishment structures to attain this goal involves high costs. Typically, both theorists and practitioners resort to the adjustment of severity and/or certainty of punishment as effective deterrents of criminal behavior. One more cost effective, but scientifically understudied mechanism for effective deterrence is the swiftness of punishment. We carry out the first controlled economic experiment to study the effectiveness of swiftness of punishment along the following two dimensions: the timing of punishment and the timing of the resolution of uncertainty regarding punishment. Our results indicate an inverted u-shaped relation between the delay of punishment, the delay of uncertainty resolution regarding the detection of deviant behavior, and any resulting deterrence. In fact, institutions that either reveal detection and impose punishment immediately or maintain uncertainty about the state of detection and impose punishment sufficiently late deter individuals at equal rates. We conclude that the same institutional settings that are capable of reducing recidivism are also the ones deterring deviant behavior in the first place. Our results yield strong policy implications for designing effective institutions in mitigating misconduct and reducing recidivism.
Modeling of Diffuse Solar Radiation and Impact of Complex Terrain over Pakistan Using RS/GIS

Diffuse solar radiation is subject to the combined influence of ground and sky factors, such as topography, geography of the area and cloud cover. This study attempts to quantify the impacts of topography, sky factors and the cloud cover on the distribution of diffuse solar radiation over Pakistan. Distributed modeling approach by considering anisotropy scattering mechanism was adopted. Digital elevation model and observed data are used to derive average monthly diffuse solar radiation values over the rugged terrains of Pakistan. Extraterrestrial solar radiation model, sky view factor model (openness model) and digital elevation model (DEM) are applied to investigate the impacts of ground factors, while diffuse solar radiation model for horizontal surface was considered for sky factors. Furthermore, corrected MODIS cloud fraction data are incorporated using GIS plat form. Results show that the highest amount of diffused solar radiation occurs during the monsoon months along the eastern side of the River Indus, when the sky is covered by clouds of various heights and densities. The variation due to topography is evident in mountainous areas, particularly in the North Pakistan and over the Baluchistan Plateau.
Analysis of Code Refactoring Impact on Software Quality: A Scientific Explanation

Code refactoring is a “Technique used for restructuring an existing source code, improving its internal structure without changing its external behaviour”. It is the process of changing a source code in such a way that it does not alter the external behaviour of the code yet improves its internal structure. It is a way to clean up code that minimizes the chances of introducing bugs. Refactoring is a change made to the internal structure of a software component to make it easier to understand and cheaper to modify, without changing the observable behaviour of that software component. Bad smells indicate that there is something wrong in the code that have to refactor. There are different tools that are available to identify and remove these bad smells. It is a technique that change our source code in a more readable and maintainable form by removing the bad smells from the code. Refactoring is used to improve the quality of software by reducing the complexity. In this paper bad smells are found and perform the refactoring based on these bad smell and then find the complexity of program and compare with initial complexity. This paper shows that when refactoring is performed the complexity of software decrease and easily understandable.
Chronic progressive lymphedema in the Belgian draft horse in Belgium : clinical phenotyping , prevalence and risk factor analysis

Chronic progressive lymphedema (CPL) is a well-known problem in the Belgian draft horse. However, tools for clinical diagnosis have not been standardized. Therefore, the exact disease prevalence and the possible CPL risk factors have not been investigated in the Belgian breed yet. The aim of the present study was to assess a uniform CPL clinical examination method to increase diagnostic objectivity as well as to determine the occurrence and severity of lesions. Using univariate and stepwise multivariable logistic regression models, the association of factors, such as age-gender interaction, coat color and season, with CPL occurrence was examined. In this study, it was demonstrated that CPL is highly prevalent in the Belgian draft horse: 60.66% of the horses of the total sample were affected, including a large proportion of young horses (< 3 years), whereas 85.86% was affected in a subset of older horses (≥ 3 years). In the latter, the lesions were more explicit as CPL is a chronic disorder. In some horses (i.e. 14% of the yearlings), mild clinical symptoms appeared at approximately the age of one, while distinct onset of the disease occurred from the age of three onwards. The factors age-gender interaction, coat color and season, which are significantly associated with CPL occurrence, were identified and quantified. In this study, a standardized diagnostic protocol is proposed that will enhance future data collection and furthermore will offer a foundation for quantitative genetic research. Ultimately, it will help to reduce CPL occurrence in the Belgian draft horse by means of selection.
Running head: HELMET WEARING INCREASES RISK TAKING AND SENSATION SEEKING

Humans adapt their risk-taking behaviour based on perceptions of safety; this risk compensation phenomenon is typified by people taking more risks when using protective equipment. Existing studies have looked at people who know they are using safety equipment, and have specifically examined changes in behaviours against which that equipment might reduce risk. We demonstrate risk-taking increases in people who are not explicitly aware they are wearing protective equipment; furthermore, this happens for behaviours which could not be made safer by that equipment. In a controlled study where a helmet, rather than a hat, was used as the mount for a head-mounted eye-tracker, participants scored significantly higher on laboratory measures of both risk-taking and of sensation-seeking. This happened despite there being no risk for the helmet to ameliorate and despite it being introduced purely as an eye-tracker. The results suggest unconscious activation of safety-related concepts primes globally increased risk propensity.
Perspective Transformation Over Time: A 2-Year Follow-Up Study of HIV-Positive Adults

The purpose of this study was to find out whether HIV-positive adults who had participated in a study of the centrality of meaning-making in transformational learning had maintained 2 years later their perspectives of making meaningful contributions through service to others, or if the advent of protease inhibitors would have resulted in their reverting to previously held, self oriented, and materialistic views of the world. Fourteen of the original 18 participants were interviewed. Two major findings emerged: First, for all 14 participants, the perspective transformations that they had undergone 2 years previously had held. Second, there were changes in meaning schemes that included the adoption of a future-oriented perspective, greater attention to care of the self, and an integration of the HIV-positive status into their self-definition. The life-changing nature of transformational learning, the stability of its outcomes, and ongoing changes in meaning schemes suggest implications for adult educators.
Finding the strong defining hyperplanes of production possibility set with constant returns to scale using the linear independent vectors

Abstract Production Possibility Set (PPS) is defined as the set of all inputs and outputs of a system in which inputs can produce outputs. In Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), it is highly important to identify the defining hyperplanes and especially the strong defining hyperplanes of the empirical PPS. Although DEA models can determine the efficiency of a Decision Making Unit (DMU), but they cannot present efficient frontiers of PPS. In this paper, we propose a new method to determine all strong efficient (Pareto-efficient) DMUs and strong defining hyperplanes of the PPS with constant returns to scale including the Pareto-efficient DMUs. Furthermore, we apply the newly proposed method to find the normal vectors or gradient of the strong defining hyperplanes of the PPS including strong efficient DMUs which are under evaluation. Consequently, the equations of these hyperplanes are determined. To illustrate the applicability of the proposed method, some numerical examples are finally provided. Our method can be easily implemented using existing packages for operation research, such as GAMS.
Techno-economic Evaluation of the Effects of Impurities on Conditioning and Transport of CO 2 by Pipeline

This study analyses the effect of transporting 13.1 MTPA CO2 with impurities over a distance of 500 km on the operating and investment costs. In the cases study, two different impurity levels coming as a result of gas sweetening (GAS) and from capture from oxy-fuel combustion (OXY). The analysis includes the cost for the conditioning and the compression of the CO2 stream after capture, from atmospheric conditions to transport conditions in the dense phase. In the calculation of the operating cost in terms of compression power and cooling requirements, the effect of the impurities are taken into account by using real thermo-physical properties depending of local fluid temperature and pressure and including heat transfer with the surroundings. The analysis investigates the total cost of choosing different pipeline diameters for transporting CO2. The technical analysis shows that the number of required booster stations increases from 2 to 17 going from a 28" to an 18" pipeline and from 3 to 25 in the worst case with (GAS). In the second technical comparison, the feed flow rate for the CO2 mixtures has been reduced so that the installed compression power for transport will be equal for all three cases. In this analysis a 24" pipeline with 4 booster stations was used. The techno-economic assessments show a significant impact of the impurity cases considered on the CO2 conditioning and transport design and cost. Indeed, in the Oxy-feed and Gas-feed cases, the specific conditioning and transport costs are respectively 13 and 22% higher than in the Base-feed case for the cost-optimal diameter. In absolute value, this represents a direct increase of the specific conditioning and transport cost of 2.3 and 3.8 €/tCO2,avoided. Even if the cost evaluation leads to the same cost optimal diameter for the three impurity cases considered, it is important to note that this result is specific to the transport system considered in this paper and that in principle different impurity cases can lead to different cost-optimal diameters especially for low pipeline diameters. The impact of impurities on an existing pipeline infrastructure design not taking into account these potential impurities show an even stronger cost impact. Indeed, the cost evaluations shows that the specific cost of the Oxy-feed and Gas-feed cases can be expected to be respectively at least around 20 and 40% more expensive than in the Base-feed case due to the lower amounts of CO2 transported and the important cost-penalty associated with the CO2 emissions not transported. Finally, while the cost presented here considered only the impact of impurities on the conditioning and transport cost, impurities can also be expected to have a significant impact on the technical and economic performances of the whole CCS chain. This therefore highlights the importance of evaluating, on a case-to-case basis, the tradeoffs between impact of impurities on the CCS cost and cost of impurities removal in order to provide recommendations on cost-optimal level of impurities along the chain.
Information, Corruption and Optimal Law Enforcement

We consider the role of asymmetric information on the emergence of collusion between criminals and enforcers, in the framework proposed by Bowles and Garoupa (1997) and Polinsky and Shavell (2001). Our Paper proposes that the optimal criminal sanction for the underlying offense is not necessarily maximal. We achieve this result by coupling the criminal sanction for the underlying offense with a criminal sanction for corruption, both imposed on offenders. A higher criminal sanction for the underlying offense implies that the government must spend more resources to detect and punish corruption (since the likelihood of collusion increases). Thus, the government could reduce this sanction, save on detection, and increase the criminal sanction for corruption (in order to offset the negative effect on deterrence).
The Relationship Between Academic and Psychological Help Seeking and Attachment Styles

Research has shown a relationship between an individual’s attachment style and help seeking behaviors. However, most studies have focused either on academic or psychological help seeking separately. The goal of my study was to see if, for Trinity College students, there were differences in attitudes about two different types of help seeking depending on one’s attachment style. I predicted that students with a secure attachment would report willingness to seek help in both academic and psychological settings when necessary. Students with an avoidant attachment would report a strong resistance to seeking both psychological and academic help. Students with an anxious/ambivalent attachment would report the greatest willingness to seek help. Lastly, I predicted that female participants would report greater willingness to seek both academic and psychological help than male participants. To measure attachment style I used the Adult Attachment Scale (Collins and Read, 1990). To measure students’ propensity for seeking psychological help I used the Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help Scale-Short Form (Fischer & Farina 1995). To measure students’ willingness to seek academic help I used Karabenick’s Help-Seeking Scale (2003). No significant relationship was found between students’ attachment styles and their willingness to seek psychological help, but there do appear to be some differences in attachment styles’ influence on academic help seeking. There also appears to be a relationship between gender and willingness to seek psychological help. Relationship Between Attachment Style and Help Seeking
The social network of actors influencing age discrimination in the human resources recruiting process

The aim of the paper is to map the area where the social construction of age discrimination in the recruiting process is perceived as taking place, especially those individuals or organized groups with enough power and interest to influence this unethical reality. The research was carried out in 2010 and 2011 in Cluj-Napoca, Romania; it uses multiple qualitative methods (focus-group and interviews) and covers three layers of perception: candidate’s perception, employer’s perception and recruiter’s perception. Usually, the main social actors publically perceived as influencing age discrimination in the recruiting process are the employers (as the main responsible), some public institutions (as guardians) and the candidates (as victims). The findings of the paper show that the number of social actors perceived as interested and with power by the main social actors (employers and candidates) is much higher than the number classically targeted by researchers, reaching 20 or more.
The impact of the melting layer on the passive microwave cloud scattering signal observed from satellites: A study using TRMM microwave passive and active measurements

Concurrent passive and active microwave measurements onboard the Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM) show that under cloudy conditions, when a melting layer is detected by the precipitation radar, a polarized scattering signal at 85 GHz in passive mode is often observed. Radiative transfer simulations confirm the role of large horizontally oriented non‐spherical particles on the polarized scattering signal and assess the effect of changes in particle phase, from solid ice to dry snow to melting snow, on the radiative properties. We conclude on the necessity to account for this polarization generated by the clouds in passive microwave rain retrievals and to use this specific signature to help diagnose the precipitation type and derive more accurate algorithms. In addition, analysis of the passive microwave polarized scattering is a unique way to get insight into microphysical properties of clouds at global scale, and this potential should be explored at millimeter and submillimeter frequencies that are more sensitive to the scattering generated by smaller particles.
A Model for the Challenging “Bi-drifting” Phenomenon in PSR J0815+09

A new drifting pulsar, PSR J0815+09, was discovered in the Arecibo drift-scan searches. An intriguing feature of this source is that within the four pulse components in the integrated pulse profile, the subpulse drifting direction in the two leading components is opposite from that in the two trailing components. In the view that the leading theoretical model for pulsar subpulse drifting can only interpret one-direction subpulse drifting, the observed bi-drifting phenomenon from PSR J0815+09 poses a great challenge to the pulsar theory. The inner annular gap (IAG), a new type of inner particle accelerator, was recently proposed to explain both γ-ray and radio emission from pulsars. Here we show that the coexistence of the IAG and the conventional inner core gap offers a natural interpretation to the bi-drifting phenomenon. In particular, the peculiar drifting behavior in PSR J0815+09 can be reproduced within the inverse Compton scattering model for pulsar radio emission.