Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Timing of reproductive effort as an alternative mating strategy in young black grouse (Tetrao tetrix) males

Sexual selection generates competition over mates producing differences in reproductive success between individuals. The life history theory predicts that because of scarce resources individuals face the problem in allocating energy to different functions such as growth, survival, and reproduction. As a consequence, older age, large body size, and impressive sexual ornaments are the common characters of dominant individuals, who are often superior in competition over mates thus enjoying the highest reproductive success. Nevertheless, young or unfit individuals may have alternative mating strategies which assist them to avoid competition with superior individuals and increase their reproductive success. In this study timing of reproductive effort as a potentially alternative mating strategy of young lekking black grouse (Tetrao tetrix) males was investigated. The behavioural (lek attendance and fighting rate) features of yearling and adult males were compared, and the effect of morphological (body mass and tail length) traits on the behaviour were studied. The large long-term dataset was gathered in years 2003–2013 from three study sites, and analysed by generalized linear mixed effects models (GLMM). Yearling males, who were the most present on the lek arena, scheduled their reproductive effort later in the lekking season compared to adult males. The yearling males showing this alternative mating strategy proved to be of a high quality: compared to other yearlings, they were diligently present on the lek arena, fought actively and had larger body mass. Probably they were able to invest substantially more to the lekking season than most of the yearlings, but less than adults, and therefore profited from the alternative mating strategy. Later timing of effort in yearling males may also set more selection pressure for adult males by delaying the decrease of intensive competition in the end of the lekking season. Hence, this study supports indirectly the idea that endurance rivalry may operate on black grouse leks.
Drought in a human-modified world

In the current human-modified world, or Anthropocene, the state of water stores and fluxes has become dependent on human as well as natural processes. Water deficits (or droughts) are the result of a complex interaction between meteorological anomalies, land surface processes, and human inflows, outflows, and storage changes. Our current inability to adequately analyse and manage drought in many places points to gaps in our understanding and to inadequate data and tools. The Anthropocene requires a new framework for drought definitions and research. Drought definitions need to be revisited to explicitly include human processes driving and modifying soil moisture drought and hydrological drought development. We give recommendations for robust drought definitions to clarify timescales of drought and prevent confusion with related terms such as water scarcity and overexploitation. Additionally, our understanding and analysis of drought need to move from single driver to multiple drivers and from uni-directional to multi-directional. We identify research gaps and propose analysis approaches on (1) drivers, (2) modifiers, (3) impacts, (4) feedbacks, and (5) changing the baseline of drought in the Anthropocene. The most pressing research questions are related to the attribution of drought to its causes, to linking drought impacts to drought characteristics, and to societal adaptation and responses to drought. Example questions include Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. 3632 A. F. Van Loon et al.: Drought in a human-modified world (i) What are the dominant drivers of drought in different parts of the world? (ii) How do human modifications of drought enhance or alleviate drought severity? (iii) How do impacts of drought depend on the physical characteristics of drought vs. the vulnerability of people or the environment? (iv) To what extent are physical and human drought processes coupled, and can feedback loops be identified and altered to lessen or mitigate drought? (v) How should we adapt our drought analysis to accommodate changes in the normal situation (i.e. what are considered normal or reference conditions) over time? Answering these questions requires exploration of qualitative and quantitative data as well as mixed modelling approaches. The challenges related to drought research and management in the Anthropocene are not unique to drought, but do require urgent attention. We give recommendations drawn from the fields of flood research, ecology, water management, and water resources studies. The framework presented here provides a holistic view on drought in the Anthropocene, which will help improve management strategies for mitigating the severity and reducing the impacts of droughts in future.
An effective Analysis between Pi and Fuzzy Controllers when Operated Through a Five Level Grid Tied PhotoVoltaic Inverter

This paper grants a effective analysis between the PI and fuzzy controllers when functioned through a single-phase five-level photovoltaic (PV) inverter configuration for grid-connected PV systems with newly developed modulated (PWM) control scheme. It employs two reference signals and a carrier signal to produce PWM switching signals. The inverter compromises much less total harmonic distortion and quick steady state response when coupled through a fuzzy controller. This paper obtainable for a single-phase multilevel inverter for PV application. The circuit configuration, modulation law, and operational principle of the suggested inverter were examined in detail. MATLAB/SIMULINK results indicate that the THD of the Fuzzy Controller Circuit is much smaller than that of the THD of the PI Controller Circuit.
Comparison of cardiac time intervals between echocardiography and impedance cardiography at various heart rates

Abstract The non-invasively measured initial systolic time interval (ISTI) reflects a time difference between the electrical and pumping activity of the heart and depends on cardiac preload, afterload, autonomic nervous control and training level. However, the duration of the ISTI has not yet been compared to other time markers of the heart cycle. The present study gauges the duration of the ISTI by comparing the end point of this interval, the C-point, with heart cycle markers obtained by echocardiography. The heart rate of 16 healthy subjects was varied by means of an exercise stimulus. It was found that the C-point, and therefore the end point of ISTI, occurred around the moment of the maximum diameter of the aortic arch in all subjects and at all heart rates. However, while the time difference between the opening of the aortic valves and the maximum diameter of the aortic arch decreased significantly with decreasing RR-interval, the time difference with respect to the moment of the C-point remained constant within the subjects. This means that the shortening of the ISTI with increasing heart rate in response to an exercise stimulus was caused by a shortening of the pre-ejection period (PEP). It is concluded that the ISTI can be used as a non-invasive parameter indicating the time difference between the electrical and mechanical pumping activity of the heart, both inside and outside the clinic.
Designing Causal Maps Adopting an Intellectual Capital Perspective: A Case Study Analysis

Causal maps are a useful tool by which managers can understand what the key resources in their organization are and how these resources contribute to the value creation process. The aim of this paper is to understand, from an empirical perspective, if, how and why a causal map can be designed grounding on the Intellectual Capital (IC) studies. To achieve this aim a case study has been examined to reply to our research questions. The contribution of this paper to the management accounting literature is twofold. First it suggests a method to improve causal maps by making visible two aspects, time and interconnections, that traditionally overlooked (Marr et al., 2004 Norreklit, 2000). Second, it systematizes and extends the literature on how to account for time and on the relative importance of the temporal dimension in developing effective strategies. The main findings of the research can be summed up as follows. From a methodological point of view, the use of multi-method approach in designing a casual map offers the opportunity to take into considerations the intensity of the relations and the time lag between activities and effects. Adopting an IC perspective, it emerges that the properties of IC (i.e. connectivity, dynamicity and specificity) have a great impact on the map and the adoption of an IC perspective in designing casual maps may be useful to enrich this management tool and to better consider the specific properties of IC.
Improved Method for Determining Soybean Phospholipid Composition by Two-dimensional TLC-phosphorus Assay

An improved microscale procedure for determining phospholipid composition by two-dimensional thin-layer chromatography (TLC) in conjunction with phosphorus analysis was established. For the quantitative determination of lipid phosphorus, an organic phosphate is converted to an inorganic phosphate by perchloric-nitrate digestion, which then made into an ammonium phosphomolybdate complex.Absorbance of the complex extracted with ethyl acetate/butyl acetate (9 : 1, vol/vol) was determined at 310 nm. A liner relationship between 0.051. 00μg of phosphorus and absorbance was found.This two-dimensional TLC method was carried out using synthesized P, P'-bis (1, 2-dihexadecylether-sn-glycerol-3-) -pyrophosphate as the internal standard. It was possible to analyze the phospholipid composition of soybean lecithin by this method using only 50μg of crude lipid extract.
Personal Knowledge of Audit Partners and Organizational Knowledge of Audit Firms and the Impact on Audit Fees

This study develops a conceptual framework for auditor knowledge comprising both the personal knowledge of auditors and the organizational knowledge of audit firms. We use this to examine how three measures of the personal knowledge held by engagement audit partners.the depth and width of knowledge and industry expertise.impact upon audit fees. We find that an engagement partner with deeper knowledge provides audit services more efficiently. In addition, audit fees are negatively associated with partners’ wider knowledge and positively with partners’ industry expertise, but only for audits by Big 4 audit firms.
A methodology for assessing poverty in Moldavia (Romania)

Community poverty, analyzed as the sum of several types of social and territorial deprivation, is the geographical expression of various processes and phenomena, commonly the object of sociological and economic studies. In this paper we performed a statistical compaction of a series of synthetic indicators, generating an indicator called the index of community development. The statistical validation of these results is accompanied by a spatial validation, which identifi es the legitimate social structures in rural areas, emphasizing that obtaining valid results in the implementation of territorial development strategies depends more on the consistency of the scientifi c methods used to interpret statistical analysis.
Current Development Status of a Particle Size Analyzer for Coated Particle Fuel

Work was performed to develop a prototype Particle Size Analyzer (PSA) for application to coated particle fuel characterization. This system was based on a light obscuration method and targeted towards high throughput analysis. Although never matured to the point of replacing existing lower throughput optical microscopy shadowgraph methods, the system was successfully applied to automating the counting of large particle samples for increased accuracy in calculating mean particle properties based on measurements of multiparticle samples. The measurement of particle size with the PSA was compared to current shadowgraph techniques and found to result in considerably greater throughput at the cost of larger measurement uncertainty. The current algorithm used by the PSA is more sensitive to particle shape and this is a likely cause of the greater uncertainty when attempting to measure average particle diameter. The use of the PSA to measure particle shape will require further development. Particle transport through the PSA and stability of the light source/detector are key elements in the successful application of this technique. A number of system pitfalls were studied and addressed.
Inflation And The Subsequent Timing Of The Chinese Stock Market

This paper examines market-timing strategies based on inflation in a sample of three stock market indices drawn from the Shanghai and the Shenzhen Stock Exchanges between February 2002 and May 2010. Specifically, this study investigates the effectiveness of market-timing activity and its stability over time when using inflation. Consistent with previous studies, the results reveal significantly strong information conveyed through inflation in helping investors earn profits in excess of a buy-and-hold strategy. The nature of the information and the subsequent importance of the corresponding market-timing activity change over time, providing new evidence of time-varying investment opportunities in the Chinese stock market. The results of this study imply that the Chinese stock market has predictable components that can be exploited using information on inflation. However, this practice might experience time variations in a real-time framework, which draws investors' attention to asset allocation under economic uncertainty. Classification-JEL:
Regeneration of soybean via embryogenic suspension culture

In an attempt to establish an alternative plant regeneration system for soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merrill) cultivars used in Brazilian breeding programs, ten genotypes were tested for their embryogenic potential. Cotyledons were removed as explants from immature seeds harvested from field-grown plants. After 45 days on induction medium, the number of responding cotyledons and the number of somatic embryos per immature cotyledon were evaluated. The percentage of explants that produced somatic embryos varied from 1 to 70% among cultivars. The average number of somatic embryos produced per cotyledon pair ranged from 0.01 to 10.3 with a mean of 3.4. Suspension cultures were initiated with three Agrobacterium tumefaciens susceptible cultivars. Suspensions were successfully developed from Bragg and IAS5 cultivars. The packed cell volume, in one-month growth, increased 8.1 fold for Bragg and 3.5 fold for IAS5 and the fresh weight increased 6.6 and 2.8 fold, respectively. The cultivars differed for the analysed parameters. All tissue from each cultivar was transferred to the maturation medium and subsequently to the germination medium. The germination frequency was 45.7 and 54.9% for Bragg and IAS5, respectively. Plants were gradually exposed to ambient humidity over one week and then planted in soil. All plants yielded seeds in the greenhouse.
THE MECHANISM IN DISTRIBUTING ENERGY SUBSIDY TO ELIMINATE OVER CONSUMPTION IN EAST MALAYSIA.

Malaysian government had been distributing energy subsidy by employing universal subsidies scheme. This led to misallocation of energy subsidy and caused the national budget to be in deficit. Therefore, the objective of this study was to determine the over consumption incurred by the subsidy recipient for energy like petrol, diesel, electricity, LPG and kerosene in East Malaysia. A descriptive analysis was conducted using cross sectional data collected from 1002 households using open-ended questionnaire. The study looked into the cost of over consumption based on location and income groups. The findings indicated that both energy consumption with and without subsidy decreased when subsidy was removed. Besides, high income group consumed the largest amount of all types of energy except for kerosene. However, the highest cost of over consumption for each type of energy was found to have mixed results for different income groups in different location. Moreover, the findings also supported that subsidies for diesel and electricity should be eliminated. Finally, an effective energy subsidy distribution mechanism was suggested to reduce over consumption.
Genre and Register in Comparable Corpora: An English/Spanish Contrastive Analysis

A multilingual comparable corpus is a corpus containing texts that are collected using the same sampling frame and similar balance and representativeness. According to McEnery and Xiao (2007: 20), presenting proportion, genre, domain, and time constitutes the main criteria when compiling a comparable corpus and these criteria must match in the different languages for the corpus to be considered comparable. The problem is that these criteria do not always guarantee that the different language subcorpora in a comparable corpus match. This study, which analyzes two comparable corpora compiled by the authors, shows that, even when the text selection criteria are refined, genre theory cannot always guarantee enough linguistic similarities between language for specific purposes (LSP) texts in different languages. Genre seems to suffice to establish a good comparable corpus for scientific abstracts. However, the comparable corpus of wine tasting notes is not truly comparable, since the English and Spanish texts differ in register.
Molecules and dust in Cassiopeia A - II. Dust sputtering and diagnosis of supernova dust survival in remnants

We study the dust evolution in the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A. We follow the processing of dust grains that formed in the Type II-b supernova ejecta by modelling the sputtering of grains. The dust is located in dense ejecta clumps that are crossed by the reverse shock. We also investigate further sputtering in the inter-clump medium gas once the clumps have been disrupted by the reverse shock. The dust evolution in the dense ejecta clumps of Type II-P supernovae and their remnants is also explored. We study oxygen-rich clumps that describe the oxygen core of the ejecta, and carbon-rich clumps that correspond to the outermost carbon-rich ejecta zone. We consider the various dust components that form in the supernova, several reverse shock velocities and inter-clump gas temperatures, and derive grain-size distributions and masses for the dust as a function of time. Both non-thermal sputtering within clumps and thermal sputtering in the inter-clump medium gas are studied. We find that non-thermal sputtering in the clumps is important for all supernova types and accounts for reducing the grain population by ~ 40% to 80% in mass, depending on the clump gas over-density, the grain type and size, and the shock velocity in the clump. A Type II-b SN forms small grains that are sputtered within the clumps and in the inter-clump medium. For Cas A, silicate grains do not survive thermal sputtering in the inter-clump medium, while alumina, silicon carbide, and carbon dust may survive in the remnant. Our derived masses of currently processed silicate, alumina and carbon grains agree well with the values derived from the observations of warm dust, and seem to indicate that the dust is currently being processed within clumps by non-thermal sputtering. Out of the ~ 0.03M ⊙ of dust formed in the ejecta, between 30% and 60% of this mass is present today in Cas A, and only 6% to 11% of the initial mass will survive the remnant phase. Grains formed in Type II-P supernovae are larger and better survive their journey in the remnant with mass fractions of surviving dust in the range 14-45%. For very dense ejecta, which describe the ejected material in supernovae such as SN1987A, non-thermal sputtering is inefficient within the clumps and dust survival efficiencies in the remnant range between 42% to 98% in mass. For the SN1987A model, the derived surviving dust mass is in the range ~ 0.06-0.13M ⊙ . This type of supernovae with dense ejecta may then efficiently provide galaxies with dust. Specifically, silicate grains over 0.1 μm and other grains over 0,05μm survive thermal sputtering in the remnant. Therefore, pre-solar grains of supernova origin that are found in meteorites, in particular silicate and alumina grains, possibly form in the dense ejecta clumps of Type II-P supernovae.
An FE model of a cellular polypropylene: exploring mechanical properties

Several analytical models have been suggested to describe the changes in the electromechanical properties of Cellular Polypropylene (Cell-PP) due to charging. However, there is a limited number of studies considering the non-linear dependence of the piezoelectric coefficient d33 on the mechanical load applied. One of the main reasons for this nonlinearity is the stiffness of the film that increases proportionally to the applied mechanical load. Moreover the size and shape distribution of the enclosed voids is an important determinant of the electromechanical properties. In this work, the geometry of a 3D model of Cell-PP is designed on the basis of analytical Splines. Both the manufacturing procedure of Cell-PP films (bi-axial stretching) and the pressure expansion treatment were simulated in order to account for a realistic void distribution. The FEA is done on a 2D cross-section of the modelled film. The modelled mechanical response is analysed based on increasing mechanical load applied. The load-deflection curves obtained from the analysis are then compared to the experimental results acquired via Dynamical Mechanical Analyzer (DMA) to validate the model. Four types of Cell-PP films, expanded at different pressures, were used in this validation. The aim is to develop a model that describes the effect of morphological parameters on the stiffness of the films by simulating the manufacturing procedure.
The effect of interviewers’ motivation and attitudes on respondents‘ consent to contact secondary respondents in a multi-actor design

In surveys using a multi-actor design, data is collected not only from sampled ‘primary’ respondents, but also from related persons such as partners, colleagues, or friends. For this purpose, primary respondents are asked for their consent to survey such ‘secondary’ respondents. The existence of interviewer effects on unit nonresponse of sampled respondents in surveys is well documented, and research increasingly focuses on interviewer attributes in the non-response process. However, research regarding interviewer effects on unit nonresponse of secondary respondents, more specifically, primary respondents’ consent to include secondary respondents into the survey, is sparse. We use the German Family Panel (pairfam) and an interviewer survey conducted during the fifth wave of the panel (2012) to investigate the effects of interviewer motivation and attitudes on respondents’ consent to a survey of their parents via a separate mail questionnaire. Using multi-level models, we find a substantial interviewer effect on consent rates when not controlling for interviewer characteristics. In a second step, we include variables which capture interviewers’ work motivation and attitudes. Our results show that being motivated for the job as an interviewer by interest in the work itself as well as attitudes towards persuading respondents are both associated with interviewers’ success in obtaining respondent consent to a parent survey. However, interviewer characteristics (including motivation and attitudes) are only able to explain a small part of the interviewer effect.