Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An inquiline fig wasp using seeds as a resource for small male production: a potential first step for the evolution of new feeding habits?

The processes allowing evolutionary transitions in resources used by parasitic wasps are largely unknown. Microhymenopteran communities associated with figs could provide a model system to investigate such transitions. We investigate here a species of genus Idarnes. The larvae generally develop as inquilines of the pollinating wasp larvae. However, in figs where the parasitic pressure is high, eggs are laid in developing seeds. These eggs turn into small males. This is the first report of seed consumption by a fig wasp. Using an alternative resource to produce small males could provide a pathway to select for increased ability to use this resource and hence provide an intermediate step for evolving the capacity to use new resources. © 2007 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2007, 92, 9–17.
The ionizing source of the bipolar HII region S106: A close massive binary

Context. S106, one of the best known bipolar HII regions, has been thoroughly studied and modeled at infrared, submillimeter, and millimeter wavelengths. This region is one of the nearest examples of the late stages of massive star formation, in which the newly formed star that ionizes it is still surrounded by vast amounts of gas and dust. However, little is known about the heavily obscured central source of this region, S106IR. Aims. We investigate the possible binarity of the central source is investigated; this binarity is considered to be likely given the high binarity fraction among massive stars. Methods. We have carried out visible and near-infrared photometric monitoring looking for short-term variability, and we took special interest in that related to the presence of a close binary companion to S106IR, which may produce periodic eclipses or tidal distortion of the shape of the members of the system. Results. A periodic variability of S106IR in the J band is found with a period of 5.0 days and an amplitude of ≃0.1 mag. The light curve displays a slow rise from minimum to maximum followed by a steep decrease, and can be well reproduced by a close binary system composed of two stars with different luminosities orbiting each other in an elliptical orbit of moderate eccentricity. S106IR also shows hints of short-term variability that is possibly related to accretion. We also report variability of four other stars previously classified as members of the S106 cluster, all of which are strong X-ray emitters. Conclusions. The newly discovered close binarity of S106IR adds a new element to the modeling of the nebula and the understanding of the dynamics of the gas around the ionizing source, which suggests that the components of the binary are accreting via a circumbinary disk. Binarity also helps to explain the apparent mismatch between the spectral type of the ionizing source inferred from the nebular spectrum and its high brightness at near-infrared wavelengths.
On the Use of Aggregate Book-To-Market Ratios

In the financial and market-based accounting research, the analysis of the consequences on the findings of using the arithmetic mean to summarize ratios has received little attention. In this paper we show how the use of this wrong procedure can lead to infer mistaken conclusions from the empirical results achieved. To do it, we conduct a market-based accounting research that uses aggregate ratios by country. The analysis of the evolution of balance-sheet accounting conservatism, using aggregate measures of the firm-specific Book-to- Market ratios, allows us to show the different patterns that alternative specifications of the aggregate measure have. Additionally, the analysis of the effect of mandatory first application of the International Financial Reporting Standards on the balance-sheet conservatism allows us to show how the use of the arithmetic mean to summarize Book-to-Market ratios can result in misleading conclusions.
Relationships and Growth

In this paper we present a dynamic general equilibrium model to investigate how different contracting modes based on formal and relational enforcements endogenously emerge and are dynamically linked with the process of economic development. Formal contracts are enforced by third party institutions (courts), while relational contracts are self-enforcing agreements without any third party involvement. The novel feature of our model is to demonstrate the co-evolution of these different enforcement modes and market equilibrium conditions, all of which are jointly determined. We then characterize the equilibrium paths of such dynamic processes and show the time structure of relational contracting (self-enforcing agreement) in the endogenous process of economic development. In particular we show that relational contracting fosters the emergence of the market-based economy in low development stages but its role declines as the economy grows and enters high development stages.
Estimation of Methane Emission from a Waste Dome in a Tropical Insular Area

In the Caribbean, most of the waste is stored in open landfills without biogas collection systems. Methane emission from landfills is a major contributor to Greenhouse effect. Several models projecting methane emissions from landfills have been proposed in literature. The Landfill Gas Emissions Model (LandGEM) is one the conventional models allowing to take into account, though roughly, the climate environment. By comparing model results with field measurements in previous works, the LandGEM gave good results. Most of the studies using the LandGEM were principally conducted in the United States or in Europe. Few studies have made use of LandGEM in tropical areas. Caribbean islands are characterized by significant rainfall and high humidity throughout the year. In this study, we apply the LandGEM to La Gabarre, the main open landfill of Guadeloupe archipelago in the Lesser Antilles. By comparing model results to field measurements, we observe that the model biogas production is greater than recovered biogas collected to be flared by a factor of 1.94. However, accounting for numerous error factors such as a recovery efficiency of the collection system which is necessarily lower than 100%, waste coverage type or the fact that LandGEM model assumes that all waste is household waste, this bias remains acceptable. For the same amount of stored waste, the methane production calculated by LandGEM model will be 4 times higher in Guadeloupe than in drier areas.
Metabolic Mechanism Investigation of Antibacterial Active Cysteine-Conjugated Gold Nanoclusters in Escherichia coli

Elucidating the metabolic mechanism of gold nanoclusters (AuNCs) in bacteria will play a pivotal role in bacterial detection and inhibition. A facile method to investigate the metabolic mechanism of AuNCs is demonstrated in this work. The cysteine-conjugated gold nanoclusters (Cys-AuNCs) were successfully prepared with orange-red fluorescence, high water solubility, and superior biocompatibility by one-pot green synthesis to determine bacterial metabolism. The suggested metabolic process was that Cys-AuNCs were metabolized by Escherichia coli, as verified through a decrease in the fluorescence intensity that was clearly detected at 30 min, indicating the breakage of cysteine on Cys-AuNCs, which was further confirmed via X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) that was used to observe the decrease in the size of Cys-AuNCs after being metabolized. The metabolic kinetics of Cys-AuNCs was determined by fitting the change in the fluorescence of Cys-AuNCs as a function of incubation time with E. coli, in which t.
Green Advertising Appeal and Consumer Purchase Intention ( Rayuan Pengiklanan Hijau dan Niat Pembelian Pengguna )

This study investigates the influences of various types of green message (self-benefit and other-benefit appeals) on consumers’ green purchase intentions among Malaysians and Iranians. In particular, this study examines whether the type of appeal affects consumers’ purchase intentions differently, and whether this effect is moderated by the consumer’s home country. A sample of 117postgraduate students was exposed to one of two printed hypothetical green messages promoting either self-benefit or other-benefit appeals. The results reveal that other-benefit appeal influences purchase intentions more than self-benefit appeal. Furthermore, green product purchase intention among Malaysian postgraduate participants is higher as compared to that of the Iranians. However, home country does not moderate the relationship between appeal type and purchase intentions. Both theoretical and practical contributions are discussed.
An Association Rule Based Method to Integrate Metro-Public Bicycle Smart Card Data for Trip Chain Analysis

Smart card data provide valuable insights and massive samples for enhancing the understanding of transfer behavior between metro and public bicycle. However, smart cards for metro and public bicycle are often issued and managed by independent companies and this results in the same commuter having different identity tags in the metro and public bicycle smart card systems. The primary objective of this study is to develop a data fusion methodology for matching metro and public bicycle smart cards for the same commuter using historical smart card data. A novel method with association rules to match the data derived from the two systems is proposed and validation was performed. The results showed that our proposed method successfully matched 573 pairs of smart cards with an accuracy of 100%. We also validated the association rules method through visualization of individual metro and public bicycle trips. Based on the matched cards, interesting findings of metro-bicycle transfer have been derived, including the spatial pattern of the public bicycle as first/last mile solution as well as the duration of a metro trip chain.
Learning and Anticipating Future Actions During Exploratory Data Analysis

The goal of visual analytics is to create a symbiosis between human and computer by leveraging their unique strengths. While this model has demonstrated immense success, we are yet to realize the full potential of such a human-computer partnership. In a perfect collaborative mixed-initiative system, the computer must possess skills for learning and anticipating the users’ needs. Addressing this gap, we propose a framework for inferring focus areas from passive observations of the user’s actions, thereby allowing accurate predictions of future events. We evaluate this technique with a crime map and demonstrate that users’ clicks appear in our prediction set 95% – 97% of the time. Further analysis shows that we can achieve high prediction accuracy typically after three clicks. Altogether, we show that passive observations of interaction data can reveal valuable information that will Unpublished working draft. Conference’17, July 2017, Washington, DC, USA 2018. ACM ISBN 978-x-xxxx-xxxx-x/YY/MM. $15.00 allow the system to learn and anticipate future events, laying the foundation for next-generation tools.
Experimental evaluation of sex differences in territory acquisition in a cooperatively breeding bird

In many species, territory ownership is a prerequisite for reproduction; consequently, factors that affect success in territory acquisition can have a large impact on fitness. When competing for territories, some individuals may have an advantage if, for example, they are phenotypically superior or more familiar with the site than others. The relative importance of the many factors involved in territory acquisition is, at present, unclear. We studied patterns of natural territory acquisition in a closed and saturated population of Seychelles warblers. Furthermore, by removing breeders, we experimentally investigated the relative importance, to territory acquisition, of a range of factors and assessed whether this differed between the sexes. In both sexes, the main route to natural territory acquisition was to disperse from the natal territory to immediately claim a vacant dominant position. Males were older than females when acquiring a territory for the first time. In the removal experiment, for both sexes, the proximity of an individual's natal territory to a vacant dominant position was positively related to the individual's chance of claiming the vacancy. Older males were more likely to gain an experimental vacant dominant position than were young males, whereas age did not affect territory acquisition in females. In the Seychelles warbler, the degree of intrasexual competition for territory ownership may be stronger for males than for females because territory ownership is a prerequisite for male reproduction, whereas females can reproduce on their natal territory. In such competition, young males subsequently lose out to older ones. Copyright 2009, Oxford University Press.
Study on the performance of Cd2+ sorption using dimethylethylenediamine-modified zinc-based MOF (ZIF-8-mmen): optimization of the process by RSM technique

ABSTRACT Cadmium as a highly toxic metal is released into the environment through paper production, metal processing, phosphate fertilizers, insecticides, and treatment of wastewater. Cadmium also inhibits the body activities and is very toxic for kidney and other organisms. In the current study, zinc-based metal–organic framework, zeolitic imidazolate framework (ZIF)-8, was synthesized and modified by dimethylethylenediamine (ZIF-8-mmen) for the removal of cadmium. To optimize the experiments, response surface methodology was applied with three variables including pH, adsorbent dosage, and contact time using central composite design. The optimum conditions for pH, dosage, and time were 2, 0.1 g, and 89 min, respectively, with removal efficiency of 85.38%. The Langmuir isotherm (q m = 1000 mg/g) indicates the monolayer adsorption. The kinetic studies reveal that the Lagergren model was predominant and cadmium was not chemisorbed. Thermodynamic parameters show spontaneous, endothermic, and physisorption processes.
COMPLEX MORPHOLOGY OF SUBDUCTED LITHOSPHERE IN THE MANTLE BELOW THE MOLUCCA COLLISION ZONE FROM NON-LINEAR SEISMIC TOMOGRAPHY

Results of seismic studies presented in previous publications depict two opposing subducted oceanic lithospheric slabs under the Molucca region. This unique structure is related to the arc-arc collision between the Halmahera and Sangihe arcs. Recently, we have revisited the complex subduction zone structure by employing a non-linear tomographic imaging technique in which 3-D ray tracing has been implemented. We have used P- as well as S-wave arrival times from carefully reprocessed global data set. The results provide some improvements in the positioning of wave-speed anomalies. Consistent with earlier results, the new P-wave model depicts the two opposing subducted slabs of the Molucca Sea plate. The intriguing new observation is that the westward dipping slab appears to penetrate into the lower mantle by taking the form of folded slab. We envisage that the folding behavior may have been caused by the shift of the whole subduction system in the Molucca region toward the Eurasian continent due to the westward thrust of the Pacific plate combined with the large left-lateral movement of the Sorong fault. The inversion of traveltime residuals of direct S phases strongly confirms the new observation.
Earnings Management to Avoid Earnings Decreases and Losses: Empirical Evidence from Islamic Banking Industry

We use earnings distribution approach (EDA) to investigate whether and why Islamic banks manage reported earnings. First findings confirm the assumption that Islamic banks manage earnings to avoid reporting losses (with statistical tests) and earnings decreases (with visual evidence but without statistical tests). However, earning management phenomenon is not as obvious in Islamic banking institutions as in other non-Islamic institutions. That is, Islamic banking institutions practice earnings manipulations but not as well as non-Islamic institutions. Additionally findings show that prospect theory can explain the trade-off between risk and return, i.e., Islamic banks above the earnings threshold are found to be risk averters while banks below the earnings threshold are found to be risk seekers. Therefore, we have accepted the hypothesis that prospect theory explains Islamic banks’ motivation in managing earnings to exceed thresholds.
The Construction and Validation of a Consumer Orientation Questionnaire (SCOI) Designed to Measure Fromm’s (1955) >Marketing Character< in Australia

The Saunders Consumer Orientation Instrument was designed to measure Fromm’s (1955) marketing character, which is based on the notion that the self may be experienced as a commodity whose value and meaning are externally determined. In study 1 ( N = 80 and 302), the hypothesis that the SCOI would be positively correlated with conformity, authoritarianism and anger expression was supported, providing support for Fromm’s (1955) theory that these latter three traits would be evident in those individuals defined by the marketing character. The hypotheses that the SCOI and materialism (Richins & Dawson, 1992) would be positively correlated with both Commercial Television Viewing and Anxiety were also supported. In study 2 ( N = 87), the hypotheses that the SCOI and materialism would be positively correlated with depression and negatively correlated with voluntary simplicity were supported. The hypothesis that the SCOI would be negatively correlated with life satisfaction was not supported, although materialism was significantly and negatively correlated with life satisfaction. In study 3 ( N = 80), the hypotheses that the SCOI and materialism would be negatively correlated with empathy and neuroticism were not supported, the latter result suggesting that neuroticism may not be an adequate indicator of psychological health per se. In study 4 ( N = 101), the hypotheses that the SCOI and materialism would be negatively correlated with biophilia and environmentalism were also supported. Further, the SCOI was able to discriminate both between Ss from Newcastle, NSW (1 of 2 preferred test markets in Australia) and S s from a permaculture community in southeast Queensland, Australia, and between S s enrolled in management and S s enrolled in arts/science at the University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia. Hence, the SCOI generally performed as expected in tests of convergent, divergent and discriminant validity.
Mammalian septins in health and disease

License. The full terms of the License are available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/. Non-commercial uses of the work are permitted without any further permission from Dove Medical Press Limited, provided the work is properly attributed. Permissions beyond the scope of the License are administered by Dove Medical Press Limited. Information on how to request permission may be found at: http://www.dovepress. com/permissions.php Research and Reports in Biochemistry 2015:5 59–72 Research and Reports in Biochemistry Dovepress
cell lung cancer : Results from a British Thoracic Oncology Group randomised phase III trial

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Segmentation by Motivational Factors of Fantasy Football Consumers and Differences Among Segments

Abstract Market segmentation and consumer motivation are among the most important concepts utilized in the prediction and explanation of consumer behavior. Although fantasy sports consumption has shown a remarkable growth in recent years, there has been limited research on the characteristics of participants of this activity, motivational factors influencing participation, and the effects of these factors on consumer behavior and preferences. For this purpose, we aimed to reveal the motives of fantasy football consumers, to comprise motivational market segments, and to show the potential differences between the segments in terms of experience. In the present study, we used non-hierarchical clustering (K-mean analysis) and hierarchical clustering (Ward cluster algorithm) analyses to determine the number of segments. In addition, we analyzed the potential differences between segments using ANOVA and chi-square analyses. As a result, we found that fantasy football consumers were classified into three different segments (loyal gamblers, hedonists, and casual players) with a motivational basis for the different behavioral responses. According to difference analysis, the consumers who are in different segments were found to be statistically different in terms of consumption behavior and experiential characteristics. The theoretical and practical effects of the study results were evaluated for academicians and practitioners.
Estimation Methods for a Flexible INAR(1) COM-Poisson Time Series Model

Abstract Time series of counts occur in many real-life situations where they exhibit various forms of dispersion. To facilitate the modeling of such time series, this paper introduces a flexible first-order integer-valued non-stationary autoregressive (INAR(1)) process where the innovation terms follow a Conway-Maxwell Poisson distribution (COM-Poisson). To estimate the unknown parameters in this model, different estimation approaches based on likelihood and quasi-likelihood formulations are considered. From simulation experiments and a real-life data application, the Generalized Quasi-Likelihood (GQL) approach yields estimates with lower bias than the other estimation approaches.