Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The controls on boreal peatland surface water chemistry in Northern Alberta, Canada

Spatial and temporal variability in surface water chemistry, organic soil chemistry and hydrologic indicators were investigated at three poor‐fen complexes in two boreal catchments in Northern Alberta to provide insight into the dominant controls on surface water chemistry. Improved understanding of these controls is required to enable prediction of runoff chemistry in the region under changing atmospheric deposition conditions. Surface water chemistry exhibited considerable variability; within each fen conductivity, dissolved organic carbon (DOC), and Cl− tended to decrease and pH tended to increase with increasing distance from the lake edge. Variations in evaporative isotopic enrichment in 2H and 18O, expressed as deuterium excess, were used to distinguish between throughflow waters and those that were more evaporatively enriched. Throughflow surface waters were more acidic primarily due to higher concentrations of DOC and NO3−. Exchangeable base saturation and pH of organic soils were strongly related to surface water chemistry at two of the fen complexes, demonstrating the capacity for cation exchange to influence surface water chemistry. Fen surface water concentrations of most elements and DOC increased during the summer period (between June and August), while pH of water decreased. Evaporative concentration of the surface waters was a dominant driver, with surface water temperature increasing at both catchments. Localized groundwater discharge was an important contributor of base cations to the fens, while the organic soils are sinks for atmospherically deposited SO42−, N and Cl−. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Ambiguity of financial environmental information: A case study of a Finnish energy company

Purpose - Voluntary corporate social responsibility reporting has developed into an everyday activity for many commercial organizations, and scholarly interest in these practices continues to increase. This paper focuses on one subset of these disclosures, namely the figures relating to environmental expenditures and investments published by various organizations. The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the nature, role and significance of such financial environmental information. Despite their seeming accuracy and preciseness, little is known about how such financial environmental information is constructed and subsequently used in organizational settings. Design/methodology/approach - The paper is based on a qualitative case study focusing on a Finnish energy company. We build our investigation primarily on 26 semi-structured interviews with employees at all organizational levels, which we supplement with various documentary sources. Our interpretation draws on the notion of loose coupling, which we use as a method theory to provide a better understanding of this complex organizational practice. Findings - We highlight the ambiguous and imprecise nature of the outwardly accurate figures provided by the company. We argue that disclosed financial environmental information is only loosely coupled with various dimensions, including the organization’s actual activities, its environmental impacts and organizational decision-making. Originality/value - Our findings contrast with those of some prior research, which has considered financial environmental information highly valuable. As for broader implications, the paper discusses the accuracy of public records based on such ambiguous organizational figures.
Throughput-based importance measures of multistate production systems

Many production systems are multistate, with a finite number of performance levels that are between perfect functioning and complete failure. Importance measures are often used in the maintenance planning of complicated systems, to observe the criticalities of components, reveal the system weakness, and thus to guide the allocation of limited maintenance resources. This paper compares several commonly used importance measures for multistate systems, and investigates their effectiveness and limitations with a simple example. These existing measures focus on the states of a system at some moment, while ignoring the dynamic behaviours in the long-term. For a production system, however, its throughput in a certain period, rather than the instantaneous performance, is the system property of interest. Therefore, two new long-term throughput-based importance measures: total throughput importance measure and maintenance effect importance measure are proposed in this paper, to answer the questions about the criticalities of different components and the long-term effects of successful maintenance activities on the throughput of a production system in a certain period. A case study on an offshore production system is conducted, to illustrate how the new importance measures work and what kind of implications can be provided to the maintenance crew.
Workaholics on site! Sustainability of site managers' work situations?

Site-managerial practice in construction has been depicted as a 'muddling through', being everywhere at the same time and skilfully solving problems as these crop up. The purpose of this paper is to explore work patterns and related well-being implications of site managers in construction. Drawing on the work-life stories of 21 site managers, which have been analysed using narrative analysis we argue that muddling through put high demands on these managers' abilities and possibilities of coping with and balancing their work situations. In all the accounts, several features of workaholism were identified as driving forces, often leading to negative well-being symptoms. The site managers were passionate about their work, but deplored organisational and institutional constraints, which mostly obstructed rather than supported or facilitated their work. This resulted in periods of exhaustion and stress, leaving little energy over for family and life outside work. We conclude that the warnings we perceive concerning the unsustainable work situations of site managers warrant further research.
Loess-Palaeosol-Sequences from the loess area of Saxony (Germany)

Auf der Grundlage von neu aufgenommenen Lossprofilen im sachsischen Losshugelland wird ein Standardprofil fur die Region vorgestellt. Den fruheren Arbeiten von Lieberoth & Haase konnten neue stratigraphische Markerhorizonte und Palaoboden hinzugefugt werden. Besonders im bisher kaum differenzierten Hochweichsel konnten 3 Palaobodenhorizonte detektiert werden. Aus den neuen Befunden zu den Loss-Palaobodensequenzen Sachsens wird eine Klimarekonstruktion abgeleitet und zur Diskussion gestellt.
reflections on Wealth Quintile Distribution and health outcomes

Udaya S Mishra (mishra@cds.ac.in) and T R Dilip (dilip@cds.ac.in) are at the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram. This study focuses on the method the National Family Health Survey-3 adopts to compute national wealth quintiles using the wealth index score of households as a basis. It argues that the survey’s national wealth quintile classification does not account for interstate variations in wealth possession as well as rural-urban differences within states, which could lead to biased outcomes when applied to health indicators. It suggests that working out state-specific wealth quintiles that allow for the differentials would be more appropriate. In the absence of information on income and expenditure in demographic and health surveys, alternatives like the wealth index are employed to comprehend the economic status of households. Such yardsticks are also used for understanding poor-rich inequalities in demographic and health outcomes.
Wanting to be better but thinking you can't: Implicit theories of personality moderate the impact of self-discrepancies on self-esteem

Two studies examined the role of implicit theories of personality in the relation between actual – ideal self-discrepancies and self-esteem. Replicating previous work, we found that those with greater actual – ideal self-discrepancies reported lower self-esteem. Moreover, we hypothesized that this outcome would be especially stronger for those possessing an entity theory of personality (i.e., believing that personality is relatively fixed and unchangeable) than for those possessing an incremental theory of personality (i.e., believing that personality is relatively flexible and malleable). Both studies supported this prediction, using either a nomothetic measure of actual – ideal self-discrepancy (Study 1) or an idiographic measure of actual – ideal self-discrepancy (Study 2). In other words, the relation between self-discrepancy and self-evaluation was stronger for entity theorists than for incremental theorists. Implications of these findings for topics ranging from emotional regulation to educational settings are discussed.
Effect of Adaption-level and Range-frequency on Subjective Judgment

This study intends to provide a better understanding of the cognitive representation of reference points, and how consumers formulate their reference levels in a judgment task. To approach this issue, the range theory, the range-frequency theory, and the adaptation-level theory are compared while manipulating the range and frequency of stimulus in a contextual set. This article comprises two studies that test the range effect and frequency effect. Study 1 examines the range effect on the attractiveness evaluated by subjects exposed to different ranges with the same number of stimuli in a context set. Study 2 examines the frequency effect on the attractiveness evaluated by subjects exposed to two context sets, each of which contains a different number of stimuli within identical ranges. In addition, we consider each prediction of subjective judgment using the range-frequency theory and the adaptation-level theory. The MANOVA results and the nonlinear regression model fittings of the two studies reveal that the adaptation-level theory provides a sufficiently good cognitive representation of a reference point Journal of Cognitive Science 20-1:111-145, 2019 ©2019 Institute for Cognitive Science, Seoul National University * Corresponding author 112 Sang Yun Seo, Seong Chan Jo, Hoon Young Lee when subjects are simultaneously exposed to a series of stimuli. Furthermore, the adaptation-level outperformed the range effect as regards a consumer’s cognitive representation when the range is fixed, but the frequency varies within the context set.
Social Buffering Prevents Stress-Induced Decreases in Dendritic Length, Branching in Dentate Granule Cells and Hippocampus-Related Memory Performance

Abstract Objectives: A robust stressor regimen may cause a rapid decrease in BDNF level in the dentate gyrus (DG) while social buffering appears to prevent such decrease. Local BDNF levels and downstream phosphorylation of ERK and CREB play a critical role in mediating morphological and synaptic plasticity in DG. Thus, this study was undertaken to assess whether an acute stressor regimen may render morphological changes and whether the social buffering may prevent such changes in the existing DG granule cells. Moreover, we attempted to assess whether the stressor regimen and social buffering may also affect local ERK and CREB phosphorylation and the hippocampus-related memory. Methods: Six hours after the conclusion of the stressor regimen, morphological indices of the granule cell in DG were obtained in Balb/C mice experiencing no stressor, the stressor regimen alone or in a group. Results: The stressor caused significant decreases in the total length of dendrites, number of dendritic branches, and the size of the dendritic field in granule cells, while the social buffering prevented all these changes. Likewise, the stressor caused decreases in local ERK phosphorylation and object location performance, while the social buffering prevented such decreases of ERK phosphorylation and deteriorated memory performance. Conclusion: These results, taken together, suggest that stress and social buffering may rapidly affect the existing DG granule cell morphology and hippocampus-related memory performance by modulating local ERK phosphorylation.
Evaporation from rangeland with and without honey mesquite.

The Bowen ratio/energy balance technique was used to estimate evaporation (E) from honey mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa Torr. var. glandulosa) as the difference in total E (plant and soil) between that of adjacent mesquite-dominated and mesquite-free rangeland areas near Throckmorton, Tex. After treatment with diesel in July 1988 to defoliate the honey mesquite, E from the treated area decreased to a minimum value of about 40% of that from the untreated area. In 1989, seasonal E totals from the untreated and treated areas were, respectively, 190 and 176 mm-a 7% reduction in E due to mesquite defoliation. Total E for the herbaceous and honey mesquite vegetation in 1989 in the untreated area was 117 and 73 mm, respectively. Honey mesquite foliar cover was 15% in the untreated area, but it accounted for 38% of the total E. These honey mesquite E data were supported by independent measurements of sap flow. While honey mesquite used substantial amounts of water, E from the rangeland from which it was removed was just slightly lower due to increased herbaceous evaporation associated with increases in standing crop. Under the circumstances of low grazing intensity and low runoff potential, honey mesquite removal would provide little if any additional water for off-site uses in the short-term and, therefore, the removal of this species for purely hydrological purposes would not be justified. Increases in off-site water availability may, however, result from honey mesquite control under grazing regimes which preclude accumulation of additional herbaceous standing crop or at site with greater runoff potential.
Monetary Policy Rules and Exchange Rates:A Structural VAR Identified by No Arbitrage

Expected exchange rate changes are determined by interest rate differentials across countries and risk premia, while unexpected changes are driven by innovations to macroeconomic variables, which are amplified by time-varying market prices of risk. In a model where short rates respond to the output gap and inflation in each country, I identify macro and monetary policy risk premia by specifying no-arbitrage dynamics of each country's term structure of interest rates and the exchange rate. Estimating the model with US/German data, I find that the correlation between the model-implied exchange rate changes and the data is over 60%. The model implies a countercyclical foreign exchange risk premium with macro risk premia playing an important role in matching the deviations from Uncovered Interest Rate Parity. I find that the output gap and inflation drive about 70% of the variance of forecasting the conditional mean of exchange rate changes
Morphological characterization of indigenous vegetable (Atriplex hortensis L.) from trans-Himalayan region of Ladakh (Jammu and Kashmir), India

In the present study a total of one hundred thirty two accession of indigenous vegetable (Atriplex hortensis L.) collected from fifteen different Trans-Himalayan geographical regions of Jammu and Kashmir, India, were morphologically characterized for 6 qualitative and 15 quantitative traits following descriptors developed by the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resource (NBPGR), New Delhi, India, during the year 2014 2015. Multivariate analysis, principal component analysis (PCA), multidimensional scaling (MDS) and cluster analysis were performed using morphological traits to determine whether these populations are reliably similar or diverse. The first two principal components encompass more than 60% variation among population. The results of PCA and MDS analysis were comparable to the cluster analysis, which shows considerable phenotypic variation. Study of morphological characteristics of the accessions showed considerable variations which signify rich diversity within populations from different regions of cold desert.
Shaped Beam Pattern Synthesis of Antenna Arrays Using Composite Differential Evolution with Eigenvector-Based Crossover Operator

This paper addresses the problem of designing shaped beam patterns with arbitrary arrays subject to constraints. The constraints could include the sidelobe level suppression in specified angular intervals, the mainlobe halfpower beamwidth, and the predefined number of elements. In this paper, we propose a new Differential Evolution algorithm, which combines Composite DE with an eigenvector-based crossover operator (CODE-EIG). This operator utilizes eigenvectors of covariance matrix of individual solutions, which makes the crossover rotationally invariant. We apply this novel design method to shaped beam pattern synthesis for linear and conformal arrays. We compare this algorithm with other popular algorithms and DE variants. The results show CODE-EIG outperforms the other DE algorithms in terms of statistical results and convergence speed.
The contribution of color to object recognition

The cognitive processes involved in object recognition remain a mystery to the cognitive sciences. We know that the visual system recognizes objects via multiple features, including shape, color, texture, and motion characteristics. However, the way these features are combined to recognize objects is still an open question. The purpose of this contribution is to review the research about the specific role of color information in object recognition. Given that the human brain incorporates specialized mechanisms to handle color perception in the visual environment, it is a fair question to ask what functional role color might play in everyday vision. Humans possess trichromatic color vision that most likely developed for specialized uses. For instance, color vision could be used to detect ripe fruit against a background of foliage (Gegenfurtner, 2003; Surridge, Osorio, & Mundy, 2003). Traditionally, theories of object recognition suggest that objects are recognized based on shape information, largely ignoring the role of color information (Biederman, 1987; Marr & Nishihara, 1978). However, more recently, a large body of behavioral, functional neuroimaging, and neurophysiological evidence suggests that color information make an important contribution to object recognition (for a review, see Tanaka, Weiskopf, & Williams, 2001). In the first part of this chapter we discuss the relevance of research on color effects in object recognition, while reviewing the neural mechanisms that support color perception. In the second part of the chapter we present a review of the literature exploring the color effects on object recognition and we discuss some apparently contradictory results described in the scientific literature. We also present the main results of a meta-analysis in which the behavioral literature on the effect of color in object recognition has been explored and integrated (Bramao, Reis, Petersson, & Faisca, 2011). In the third section, we review some of our own behavioral and electrophysiological data that might explain some of the conflicting results found in the literature, and we discuss the level at which color information might contributes to object recognition. We argue that the color effects in object recognition depend on the color diagnosticity status of the specific objects.
Green Production Associations Study between Brand Trust, Satisfactory Degree and Re-purchase Intention

This paper takes the consumers who have purchased green products in Taiwan as the research object, and choose the three variables of brand trust, satisfaction and willingness to buy, and use the confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation method to analyze the valid questionnaires Consumer green consumption behavior. The results show that the brand trust of green products has a positive impact on satisfaction, and brand trust will indirectly affect the willingness to repurchase. This paper puts forward some relevant discussions and suggestions, hoping to provide strategies and references for the development and management of green products related industries, and hoping to make some contribution to the green product consumption theory and practice.
Can anodic aluminium oxide nanomembranes treated with nanometre scale hydroxyapatite be used as a cell culture substrate

In this study we investigate the biomedical potential of composite membranes composed of anodic aluminium oxide (AAO) and nanometre scale hydroxyapatite (HAP). The nano-porous AAO membranes were produced using a temperature controlled two-step anodization technique. The AAO/HAP composite membranes were formed using the solution template wetting technique. The Cercopithecus aethiops (African green monkey) Kidney (Vero) epithelial cell line was used to demonstrate the biocompatibility of the synthesised membranes and composites. Investigating cell adhesion, morphology and proliferation over a 72 h period assessed cellular interactions and responses of the cell line to the various membranes types.
Design of High Efficiency Power Amplifier for 900 MHz GSM Application

In this paper design of a wideband power amplifier is presented. The operating frequency of the power amplifier is from 880 MHz to 960 MHz. The circuit is designed using two 5 W GaN-HEMT. The Wilkinson power divider/combiner is used which is designed using microstrip line. The RF input applied to the power amplifier is divided into two using power divider. The RF signal is amplified in the two amplifier stages and combined. By using linear simulations, a GaN power amplifier circuit was optimized with the input and output return losses obtained as less than -15 dB. Isolation of the PA is approximately -30 dB and the maximum gain is 16.243 dB. The power amplifier is designed in Advanced Design System. The designed power amplifier is useful for GSM application.
The Importance of High Temporal Resolution in Modeling Renewable Energy Penetration Scenarios

Traditionally, modeling investment and dispatch problems in electricity economics has been limited by computation power. Due to this limitation, simplifications are applied. One common practice, for example, is to reduce the temporal resolution of the dispatch by clustering similar load levels. The increase of intermittent electricity from renewable energy sources (RES-E) changes the validity of this assumption. RES-E already cover a certain amount of the total demand. This leaves an increasingly volatile residual demand to be matched by the conventional power market. This paper quantifies differences in investment decisions by applying three different time-resolution residual load patterns in an investment and dispatch power system model. The model optimizes investment decisions in five year steps between today and 2030 with residual load levels for 8760, 288 and 16 time slices per year. The market under consideration is the four zone ERCOT market in Texas. The results show that investment decisions significantly differ across the three scenarios. In particular, investments into base-load technologies are substantially reduced in the high resolution scenario (8760 residual load levels) relative to the scenarios with lower temporal resolution. Additionally, the amount of RES-E curtailment and the market value of RES-E exhibit noteworthy differences.