Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Feasibility of a static spatial model

Jerome K. Vanclay Center for International Forestry Research, Bogor, Indonesia Abstract A model is proposed that will allow forest and land use policy options to be explored in a repeatable, objective and quantitative way. Construction and use of the model should lead to a better understanding of spatial and temporal land use patterns. It will provide detailed spatially-explicit data on a range of parameters to enable rigorous testing and offer insights for further development. The model is based on the assumption that land use patterns ultimately are shaped by individuals who make rational decisions based on available information, obligations and expectations (social as well as economic). Since these decisions are rational, they, and the resulting land use patterns, can be modelled and predicted. In making these decisions, individuals balance the anticipated returns and risks, and individual strategies (i.e. emphasis on profit-maximization or risk minimization) reflect status and security. Important inputs to the model include spatial (land tenure, topography, soils), social (demography, clan obligations, cultural traditions), and economic data (crop yields, market prices, transport costs). Land use is not an input to the model, but the model can predict spatially-explicit land use patterns. Thus land use predictions may provide a robust way to test the model. The model can be implemented in a hierarchical way, so that it can operate at the village, provincial or national scale, with the detail of inputs and outputs varying accordingly.
Negotiating trade-offs in water resources development in the Mekong Basin: implications for fisheries and fishery-based livelihoods

A revitalised hydropower development narrative is emerging in the Mekong in which the concept of ‘trade-offs’ plays a central role. The importance of and risks to capture fisheries in the Mekong is such that any degradation has huge social, economic and environmental implications. While potential impacts of hydropower development on capture fisheries are acknowledged in this emerging narrative, it is argued that these are less than anticipated previously, that impacts can be assessed, mitigation measures introduced and trade-offs negotiated. The concept of trade-offs has an immediate appeal but it is also problematic. It draws attention away from considering development objectives and options towards focusing on impacts, and infers a technical approach as opposed to a political process of decision making. This paper draws on anthropological approaches to development policy to consider the implications of a hydropower narrative based on trade-offs in light of experience in the Mekong Basin, and to consider alternative ways of framing debate on hydropower and capture fisheries.
MONETARY POLICY FRAMEWORK IN AFRICA: THE NIGERIAN EXPERIENCE

This paper discusses the evolution of monetary policy in Nigeria in the past four decades. Overall, the socio-economic and political milieu, including the legal framework under which the Central Bank of Nigeria has operated, was found to be the critical factor that influenced the outcome of monetary policy. Specifically, the existence of fiscal dominance, a persistent liquidity overhang, an oligopolistic banking system and dualistic financial markets are major systemic factors that have undermined the efficacy of monetary policy in Nigeria. The paper, however, observes that monetary management has been largely more successful under monetary targeting and indirect monetary control introduced since the early 1990s, than during the regime of direct control. The author is the Director of Research at the Central Bank of Nigeria. The views expressed in this paper are entirely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the organisation with which he is affiliated. He gratefully acknowledges the research assistance of Mr E.A. Essien in the preparation of this paper.
Banks as Continuous Reinvention

While one can sympathise with . (the bank branch) manager who realised some time around the year 1980 that his world was disappearing, his position was not sustainable in a business which was increasingly driven by sales targets and capital returns. Things had to change. Banking had to rediscover itself: how it worked, the sort of people it needed to employ, how it intended to serve its customers.
A Feature-based Image Normalization Technique for Handling Geometric Distortions

In this paper, a technique for image normalization to deal with geometric distortions is proposed. The technique is based on transforming the image into a standard form with the objective to achieve invariance with respect to geometric distortions. The proposed technique relies on extracting some feature points from the image using a robust feature points extractor based on scale-interaction of Mexican-hat wavelets. The locations of such points are used to estimate the normalization parameters needed to normalize the image. Experimental results illustrate the accuracy of normalization and the robustness against several common image-processing operations.
Size fractionation of primary muscle cells using hydrodynamics in microchannels

A microfluidic device based on hydrodynamic fractionation by size was applied for enrichment of muscle precursor cells obtained from heterogeneous primary cells of muscle tissues. In this paper, the relationship between cell size and quality of regenerative muscles in vitro was focused on. Fractionation of primary cells from rat limbs was demonstrated using a microfluidic device based on hydrodynamics in the microchannels. The precise size sorting of cells was achieved. Observations of each cell fraction showed smaller cells had high activity for muscle differentiation. This suggested the good potential for cell processing by size fractionation using a microfluidic device for tissue engineering in regenerative medicine.
Board Supervision Capability and Information Transparency

This study offers deeper insights for policy makers to understand the influence of board of directors' impact on corporate governance. In addition, it provides evidence to recommend further consideration of director compensation and continuing education to enhance board effectiveness. This study considers the importance of directors' compensation in corporate governance while the majority of prior studies only consider the role of management compensation. Further, the results provide additional evidence to demonstrate that board supervision capabilities may complement strong governance. Using both primary and archival data from Taiwan, we find that compensation can encourage company board of directors to act in the best interests of shareholders when there is greater board independence. Among all board supervision capabilities, continuing education is the most important factor in enhancing the transparency of a firm. Board members are charged with the responsibility of supervising company operation and firm value cannot only be influenced by managers' actions, but also by those of boards of directors. Furthermore, transparency has always played an important role in corporate governance, but few studies related it to the capacity of boards of directors. Consequently, this study focuses on the capacity, compensation, and structure of boards of directors and how they relate to company transparency. Board members are charged with the responsibility of supervising company operation and firm value cannot only be influenced by managers' actions, but also by those of boards of directors. Furthermore, transparency has always played an important role in corporate governance, but few studies related it to the capacity of boards of directors. Consequently, this study focuses on the capacity, compensation, and structure of boards of directors and how they relate to company transparency. Using both primary and archival data from Taiwan, we find that compensation can encourage company board of directors to act in the best interests of shareholders when there is greater board independence. Among all board supervision capabilities, continuing education is the most important factor in enhancing the transparency of a firm. This study considers the importance of directors' compensation in corporate governance while the majority of prior studies only consider the role of management compensation. Further, the results provide additional evidence to demonstrate that board supervision capabilities may complement strong governance. This study offers deeper insights for policy makers to understand the influence of board of directors' impact on corporate governance. In addition, it provides evidence to recommend further consideration of director compensation and continuing education to enhance board effectiveness.
Silent brain infarcts : frequency, risk factors, and prognosis

textabstractSilent- i.e. asymptomatic -brain infarcts are frequently seen on cerebral magnetic resonance imaging (MRl) scans in patients admitted to the hospital with their first stroke. With the increasing use and improvement of imaging techniques, these silent lesions are more often found in people without stroke-like symptoms. ' In contrast to symptomatic brain infarcts, the relevance of these so-called silent brain infarcts is not known. Because knowledge of the consequences of silent infarcts is lacking, special treatment regimens have not been developed yet for patients with these lesions. In selected patient groups however, silent brain infarcts seem to increase the risk of stroke and death? Furthermore, hospital-based studies found that they are more frequently present in elderly patients with dementia and depression than in other patients.3 • 4 Prospective longitudinal research in which large groups of asymptomatic people undergo brain imaging is needed to examine the clinical relevance of silent brain infarcts in the general population. In this thesis the following questions are investigated: 1. How frequent are silent brain infarcts in the general population? 2. What are the risk factors for silent brain infarcts? 3. What are the clinical consequences of silent brain infarcts? To answer these questions, data was used from the Rotterdam Scan Study, a large cohort study among elderly people from the general population who underwent MRl scanning of the brain. The presence of (silent) brain infarcts was scored on MRI, as were other brain abnormalities including white matter lesions and global brain atrophy. Both are thought to have a vascular pathogenesis and frequently coexist in ischaemic brains.5·6 In chapter 2, the prevalence and incidence of silent brain infarcts is presented. Furthermore, this chapter describes studies on the risk factors for silent brain infarcts, in which a comparison with the classical risk factors for symptomatic infarcts is made. The investigation of the relationship with one of the relative new risk factors, the potentially modifiable homocysteine, is also reported here. For studies described in chapter 3, this cohort is followed over time and monitored for mortality and major morbidity. This chapter describes the relationship between silent brain infarcts and the risk of three frequent and disabling disorders in elderly people, namely stroke, dementia, and depression. In chapter 4, I discuss and review all findings and make suggestions for further research
Women in International Management: Where are They?

In view of the dramatic increases in international business by North American Firms, the need for sophisticated international managers can be expected to increase. This article examines the current distribution of female managers sent in expatriate positions by 686 Canadian and American firms. Despite the growing numbers of women found in domestic management, this survey reveals that only 3% of all expatriate managers in the responding firms are women. Although women are being sent overseas in managerial and professional capacities by a broad range of industries, gender remains a significant factor in understanding the distribution of North Americans working overseas.
Issues in Assessing English Language Learners: English Language Proficiency Measures and Accommodation Uses. Literature Review (Part 1 of 3). CRESST Report 731.

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act has made a great impact on states’ policies in assessing English language learner (ELL) students. The legislation requires states to develop or adopt sound assessments in order to validly measure the ELL students’ English language proficiency (ELP), as well as content knowledge and skills. Although states have moved rapidly to meet these requirements, they face challenges to validate their current assessment and accountability systems for ELL students, partly due to the lack of resources. Considering the significant role of assessments in guiding decisions about organizations and individuals, it is of paramount importance to establish a valid assessment system. In light of this, we reviewed the current literature and policy regarding ELL assessment in order to inform practitioners of the key issues to consider in their validation processes. Drawn from our review of literature and practice, we developed a set of guidelines and recommendations for practitioners to use as a resource to improve their ELL assessment systems. We have compiled a series of three reports. The present report is the first component of the series, containing pertinent literature related to assessing ELL students. The areas being reviewed include validity theory, the construct of ELP assessments, and the effects of accommodations in the assessment of ELL students’ content knowledge.
A Peak Power Efficient Cooperative Diversity using Star-QAM with Coherent/Noncoherent Detection

In this paper, we propose a new simple relaying strategy based on bit-interleaved convolutionally coded star-quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) along with coherent/noncoherent detection. Star-QAM is composed of multiple concentric circles of phase-shift keying (PSK). Exploiting this property, a hard limiter is used to enhance power amplifier (PA) efficiency at the relay. Moreover, we show that the proposed approach retains differential detectability, which results in a significant reduction of receiver complexity with robustness against phase ambiguity. By analyzing our proposed cooperation with coherent/noncoherent detection in terms of asymptotic pairwise error probability (PEP), we show that the full diversity order can be achieved on the condition that the minimum free distance of the convolutional codes is larger than the predetermined value specified by the number of available relays. Furthermore, the effectiveness of the proposed scheme in terms of PA efficiency is confirmed by comparing the statistical distributions of the corresponding instantaneous signal powers. All the theoretical results agree with those obtained by computer simulations.
Phylogenetic Analysis of Acute Bee Paralysis Virus Strains

ABSTRACT Reverse transcription-PCR assays have been established for a quick, sensitive, and specific diagnosis of acute bee paralysis virus (ABPV), a common virus of the honeybee (Apis mellifera), directly from clinical samples. A 3,071-nucleotide fragment of the ABPV genome, which includes the entire capsid polyprotein gene, was amplified from Austrian, German, Polish, and Hungarian ABPV samples and sequenced, and the sequences were compared. The alignment of a smaller fragment with ABPV sequences from the United States and the United Kingdom revealed nucleotide identity rates between 89 and 96%, respectively. Phylogenetic trees which display the molecular relationship between the viruses of different geographic origin were constructed.
Determinants and Effects of Foreign Direct Investment: Evidence from German Firm-Level Data

Foreign direct investment is an essential aspect of ‘globalization' yet its empirical determinants are not well understood. What we do know is based either on poor data for a wide range of nations, or good data for the US and Swedish cases. In this paper, we provide evidence on the determinants of the activities of German multinational firms by using a newly available firm-level data set from the Deutsche Bundesbank. The specific goal of this paper is to demonstrate the relative role of country-level and firm-level determinants of foreign direct investment. We focus on three main questions: First, what are the main driving forces of German firms' multinational activities? Second, is there evidence that sector-level and firm-level factors shape internationalization patterns? Third, is there evidence of agglomeration effects in the foreign activities of German firms? We find that the market access motive for internationalization dominates. Firms move abroad mainly to gain better access to large foreign markets. Cost-saving motives, however, are important for some manufacturing sectors. Our results strongly suggest that firm-level heterogeneity has an important influence on internationalization patterns – as stressed by recent models of international trade. We also find positive agglomeration effects for the activities of German firms that stem from the number of other German firms that are active on a given foreign market. In terms of lessons for economic policy, our results show that lowering barriers to the integration of markets and encouraging the formation of human capital can promote the activities of multinational firms. However, our results related to the heterogeneity of firms and agglomeration tendencies show that it might be difficult to fine-tune policies directed at the exploitation of synergies and at the creation of clusters of foreign firms.
Effectiveness of Lifestyle Interventions in Child Obesity: Systematic Review With Meta-analysis

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The effects of lifestyle interventions on cardio-metabolic outcomes in overweight children have not been reviewed systematically. The objective of the study was to examine the impact of lifestyle interventions incorporating a dietary component on both weight change and cardio-metabolic risks in overweight/obese children. METHODS: English-language articles from 1975 to 2010, available from 7 databases, were used as data sources. Two independent reviewers assessed articles against the following eligibility criteria: randomized controlled trial, participants overweight/obese and ≤18 years, comparing lifestyle interventions to no treatment/wait-list control, usual care, or written education materials. Study quality was critically appraised by 2 reviewers using established criteria; Review Manager 5.1 was used for meta-analyses. RESULTS: Of 38 eligible studies, 33 had complete data for meta-analysis on weight change; 15 reported serum lipids, fasting insulin, or blood pressure. Lifestyle interventions produced significant weight loss compared with no-treatment control conditions: BMI (−1.25kg/m2, 95% confidence interval [CI] −2.18 to −0.32) and BMI z score (−0.10, 95% CI −0.18 to −0.02). Studies comparing lifestyle interventions to usual care also resulted in significant immediate (−1.30kg/m2, 95% CI −1.58 to −1.03) and posttreatment effects (−0.92 kg/m2, 95% CI −1.31 to −0.54) on BMI up to 1 year from baseline. Lifestyle interventions led to significant improvements in low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (−0.30 mmol/L, 95% CI −0.45 to −0.15), triglycerides (−0.15 mmol/L, 95% CI −0.24 to −0.07), fasting insulin (−55.1 pmol/L, 95% CI −71.2 to −39.1) and blood pressure up to 1 year from baseline. No differences were found for high-density lipoprotein cholesterol. CONCLUSIONS: Lifestyle interventions can lead to improvements in weight and cardio-metabolic outcomes. Further research is needed to determine the optimal length, intensity, and long-term effectiveness of lifestyle interventions.
Factors impacting on e‐business adoption and development in the smaller firm

Globalisation and technology effects appear to have spurred smaller firms around the world to embrace e‐business practices. However, there is considerable variability in adoption and usage from country to country. Drawing on existing research on e‐business and conventional business and marketing in the smaller firm, this paper formulates a conceptual framework of reasons behind adoption and non‐adoption in the smaller firm. Macro dimensions, industry sector and firm‐level factors are analysed, together with owner/manager motivations and attitudes towards e‐business adoption. A conceptual framework is constructed and research propositions are then developed in order to focus attention on sets of internal and external factors which impact on smaller firm e‐business usage. Recommendations for future theory development are presented, together with implications for industry bodies involved in supporting the SME sector.
Neuroprotective Actions of Clinoptilolite and Ethylenediaminetetraacetic Acid Against Lead-induced Toxicity in Mice Mus musculus

Objectives: Oxidative stress is considered as a possible molecular mechanism involved in lead (Pb 2+ ) neurotoxicity. Very few studies have been investigated on the occurrence of oxidative stress in developing animals due to Pb 2+ exposure. Considering the vulnerability of the developing brain to Pb 2+ , this study was carried out to investigate the effects of Pb 2+ exposure in brain regions especially on antioxidant enzyme activities along with ameliorative effects of ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) and clinoptilolite. Methods: Three-week old developing Swiss mice Mus musculus were intraperitoneally administered with Pb 2+ acetate in water (w/v) (100 mg/kg body weight/day) for 21 days and control group was given distilled water. Further Pb 2+ -toxicated mice were made into two subgroups and separately supplemented with EDTA and clinoptilolite (100 mg/kg body weight) for 2 weeks. Results: In Pb 2+ -exposed mice, in addition to increased lipid peroxidation, the activity levels of catalase, superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), and glutathione (GSH) found to decrease in all regions of brain indicating, existence of severe oxidative stress due to decreased antioxidant function. Treatment of Pb 2+ -exposed mice with EDTA and clinoptilolite lowered the lipid peroxidation (LPO) levels revealing their antioxidant potential to prevent oxidative stress. Similarly their administration led to recover the level of catalase, SOD, and GPx enzymes affected during Pb 2+ toxicity in different regions of brain. Conclusions: The protection of brain tissue against Pb 2+ -induced toxicity by clinoptilolite and EDTA in the present experiment might be due to their ability to react faster with peroxyl radicals there by reducing the severity of biochemical variable indicative of oxidative damage. Thus, the results of present study indicate the neuroprotective potential of clinoptilolite and EDTA against Pb 2+ toxicity.