Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Increasing Liana Abundance and Basal Area in a Tropical Forest: The Contribution of Long‐distance Clonal Colonization

Recent evidence suggests that liana abundance and biomass are increasing in Neotropical forests, representing a major structural change to tropical ecosystems. Explanations for these increases, however, remain largely untested. Over an 8‐yr period (1999–2007), we censused lianas in nine, 24 × 36 m permanent plots in old‐growth and selectively logged forest at La Selva Biological Station, Costa Rica to test whether: (1) liana abundance and basal area are increasing in this forest; (2) the increase is being driven by increased recruitment, decreased mortality, or both; and (3) long‐distance clonal colonization explains the increase in liana abundance and basal area. We defined long‐distance clonal colonization as lianas that entered and rooted in the plots as vegetative propagules of stems that originated from outside or above the plot, and were present in 2007, but not in 1999 or 2002. Our hypotheses were supported in the old‐growth forest: mean liana abundance and BA (≥1 cm diameter) increased 15 and 20 percent, respectively, and clonal colonization from outside of the plots contributed 19 and 60 percent (respectively) to these increases. Lianas colonized clonally by falling vertically from the forest canopy above or growing horizontally along the forest floor and re‐rooting—common forms of colonization for many liana species. In the selectively logged forest, liana abundance and BA did not change, and thus the pattern of increasing lianas may be restricted to old‐growth forests. In summary, our data support the hypothesis that lianas are increasing in old‐growth forests, and that long‐distance clonal colonization is a major contributor.
Factors Motivating and Inhibiting Faculty in Offering Their Courses via Distance Education

While many colleges and universities have moved forward with implementing distance education (D.E.) programs, administrators still find difficulty in getting faculty to participate willingly. An understanding of faculty motivators and inhibitors, especially faculty perception of the “hassle factor” involved with D.E. , will give administrators an edge in D.E. implementation. This study also provides important information that will help administrators understand why some faculty members are more open to involvement with D.E.
High-Frequency Runs and Flash-Crash Predictability

This article describes research into the short-term nature of movements in price data. The study’s key finding is that asset returns do not evolve at the Gaussian increments commonly assumed by continuous pricing models. Instead, prices exhibit strong autocorrelation, often resulting in predictable one-directional sequences, or runs. These runs are more pronounced ahead of market crashes. Identifying these runs can help predict impending flash crashes as much as a day before a crash. The research further contributes to asset pricing and derivatives literature by deriving discreet and continuous closed-form expressions for the probability of flash crashes.
Loss of 26S Proteasome Function Leads to Increased Cell Size and Decreased Cell Number in Arabidopsis Shoot Organs1[C][W][OA]

Although the final size of plant organs is influenced by environmental cues, it is generally accepted that the primary size determinants are intrinsic factors that regulate and coordinate cell proliferation and cell expansion. Here, we show that optimal proteasome function is required to maintain final shoot organ size in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana). Loss of function of the subunit regulatory particle AAA ATPase (RPT2a) causes a weak defect in 26S proteasome activity and leads to an enlargement of leaves, stems, flowers, fruits, seeds, and embryos. These size increases are a result of increased cell expansion that compensates for a reduction in cell number. Increased ploidy levels were found in some but not all enlarged organs, indicating that the cell size increases are not caused by a higher nuclear DNA content. Partial loss of function of the regulatory particle non-ATPase (RPN) subunits RPN10 and RPN12a causes a stronger defect in proteasome function and also results in cell enlargement and decreased cell proliferation. However, the increased cell volumes in rpn10-1 and rpn12a-1 mutants translated into the enlargement of only some, but not all, shoot organs. Collectively, these data show that during Arabidopsis shoot development, the maintenance of optimal proteasome activity levels is important for balancing cell expansion with cell proliferation rates.
Acute chest syndrome" in adults with sickle cell anemia. Microbiology, treatment, and prevention.

Fifty-two episodes of fever, chest pain, increased leukocytosis, and pulmonary infiltrate ("acute chest syndrome") were studied in 28 adults with sickle cell anemia. Possible bacterial pathogens were identified in sputum cultures from less than half of the episodes; no pneumococci were found, and Staphylococcus aureus was the only bacterium associated with a longer illness than that seen when only normal flora were recovered. Much disease diagnosed as "pneumonia" in adults with sickle cell anemia is probably pulmonary infarction. Many of these patients will recover with no more than modest supportive care; if antibiotics are used they should be directed against S aureus (and possibly Hemophilus species). Pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine has great potential for preventing life-threatening infection in children with sickle cell anemia, but may not change the incidence or severity of the acute chest syndrome in adults. ( Arch Intern Med 139:67-69, 1979)
The Labour Retention Strategies of UK Hotel Managers

This article presents the evidence from a small study of the strategies used by hotel managers to retain their employees. The focus of attention is on exactly what managers do when confronted with an employee who is voluntarily leaving their employment. Two aspects are of particular interest; the role of increasing pay and the effect of increasing merit on strategies. The background to the study is the well-documented high level of labour turnover [Johnson, 1980 and 1985] and the evidence that managers appear to have chosen a dependence on the external labour market as a means of regulating labour [Simms et al., 1988].
Workers with Occupational Contact Dermatitis: Work Outcomes and Return to Work Process in the First Six Months following Diagnosis

Workers with occupational contact dermatitis may have poor outcomes that impact their health, work, and quality of life. While there is information available on overall return to work, little is known about the actual return to work process. The objectives of the study were to describe the return to work experience and work outcome in workers with contact dermatitis following diagnosis. 78 workers with occupational contact dermatitis were followed for 6 months after assessment. Information collected included clinical presentation and status, the return to work process and work outcomes. Six months after assessment, 38% were not working, almost all because of their skin problem. Of the 62% working 32% had changed job, most because of their skin problem. Limited advice to enable return to work and communication were reported. These findings suggest that there are gaps in return to work programs for occupational contact dermatitis and further research is needed.
Economics as a Moral Science: The Political Economy of Adam Smith

Part I Positive economics - the impartial spectator jurisprudence and the theory of natural price: Adam Smith, moral philosophy and science the theory of moral sentiments and political economy the impartial spectator and natural price - markets as a social phenomena natural jurisprudence and the theory of value. Part II Normative economics - natural liberty, justice and the common good: natural price and commutative jsutice -Adam Smith and the just price traditions (with Barry Gordon) distributive jsutice (with Barry Gordon).
An approach to control a photovoltaic generator to damp low frequency oscillations in an emerging distribution system

Factors like diminishing fossil fuels and environmental concerns are driving the integration of locally available energy resources at a distribution level. As a result, a number of stability issues have become a concern for utilities at distribution systems. One of the important stability concerns is the small signal stability caused by electromechanical or other low frequency oscillations. The oscillations with lower values of frequency and damping may cause instabilities. In such cases, a suitable control methodology must be applied to ensure the stability of an emerging distribution system. In this paper, a methodology to control the power factor of photovoltaic generator (PV) is proposed for enhancement of system stability. The impact of PV power factor control on a low damped mode is assessed by using both eigenvalue sensitivity and time domain analysis. An appropriate signal for the proposed controller is identified by residue technique. The effectiveness of the controller is tested in IEEE 43 bus test distribution system with distributed generators. Results show that reactive power support from PV is better for damping of critical mode.
Why do patients decline participation in offered pulmonary rehabilitation? A qualitative study

Objective: The purpose of this study is to produce insight in the explanations for declining pulmonary rehabilitation given by patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Setting: The participants were recruited from a hospital in Denmark, among patients hospitalized due to an exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and among stable patients attending an outpatient clinic. Participants: Patients who decline participation in offered pulmonary rehabilitation, who speak Danish, who are able to give informed consent and to participate in a 1-hour interview. Method: The research question was answered through interviews with 19 patients. Data Analysis: The interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. The transcripts were analyzed using inductive content analysis. The transcripts were condensed; categories were developed providing different types of explanations for declining pulmonary rehabilitation. Each category was named using a content characteristic word. Results: This study shows that some patients do not remember or recall that they have been offered pulmonary rehabilitation during hospitalization. Especially the oldest patients perceive themselves to be too frail from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, comorbidity or multimorbidity. The male patients tend to find pulmonary rehabilitation irrelevant because they do not consider themselves ill. Furthermore, the study shows that pulmonary rehabilitation is perceived to be time-consuming and conflicting with daily activities. Conclusions: Patients decline pulmonary rehabilitation because the intervention does not fit their perception of health and because they find that participation in the program may collide with priorities and daily activities.
DeepTriage: Exploring the Effectiveness of Deep Learning for Bug Triaging

For a given software bug report, identifying an appropriate developer who could potentially fix the bug is the primary task of bug triaging. Automatic bug triaging is formulated as a classification problem, which takes the bug title and description as the input, and maps it to one of the available developers. A major challenge in doing this is that the bug description usually contains a combination of unstructured text, code snippets, and stack traces making the input data highly noisy. The existing bag-of-words (BOW) models do not consider the semantic information in the unstructured text. In this research, we propose a novel bug report representation using a deep bidirectional recurrent neural network with attention (DBRNN-A) that learns the syntactic and semantic features from long word sequences in an unsupervised manner. Using attention enables the model to remember and attend to important parts of text in a bug report. For training the model, we use unfixed bug reports (which constitute about 70% of bugs in a typical open source bug tracking system) which were ignored in previous studies. Another major contribution of this work is the release of a public benchmark dataset of bug reports from three open source bug tracking systems: Google Chromium, Mozilla Core, and Mozilla Firefox. The dataset consists of 383,104 bug reports from Google Chromium, 314,388 bug reports from Mozilla Core, and 162,307 bug reports from Mozilla Firefox. When compared to other systems, we observe that DBRNN-A provides a higher rank-10 average accuracy.
The introduction of an environmental cooling method is proved by using a reduced tool life cycle time method

Heat generation at the tool–chip interface has long been recognized as a major factor that causes sudden tool failure and shortened tool life in machining operations. Cooling fluids have traditionally been used to remove heat from the tool tip in an attempt to prolong tool life. Numerous health issues linked to the prolonged exposure of cooling fluids and pollution concerns require costly and regulated disposal process of the cooling fluid. Metal cutting using alternative cooling methods has been considered by the manufacturing industry as a possible alternative to liquid-based cooling. However, low heat removal rates or the expense of alternative cooling processes have resulted in the manufacturing industry's continued use of liquid cooling. To assist in determining the most effective cooling process a tool life model for the cutting tool is used to reduce the lifecycle testing. The work presented in this paper examines the effectiveness of an air-cooling technique based on jet impingement to prolong the effective life cycle of cutting tools. Results obtained so far clearly indicate a highly significant reduction in tool tip temperature with the air-jet arrangement, and at an economical cost. The cooling effectiveness of this technique is found to be comparable to liquid coolants with no significant decrease in tool life with air jet cooling.
FRS 15 – Friend or foe?

This article considers the recent release of Accounting Standard FRS15 Accounting for Tangible Fixed Assets and reviews the impact of the standard on the hotel industry where previously hotel companies were able to avoid charging depreciation on buildings. The work of the British Association of Hospitality Accountants, in particular the Guidance Notes for the Hotel Industry on Tangible Fixed Assets, is considered in detail and from this the implications for the industry are reviewed.
Demographic Indicators of Economic Development

The levels of economic activity and growth, despite complex conceptual and technical problems, are reasonably well measured in the economically more advanced nations of the world. In such countries statistics relating to economic activity are generally available, including data on national income, industrial production, agricultural production, employment, size and composition of the labor force, non-human energy utilized, transport and communication facilities, and the like. Where such direct measurements are available, population statistics need not be resorted to as "indicators of economic development". On the contrary, the economic data are often used as independent variables to help explain the significant demographic changes that have occurred as concomitants of economic development.
Third-order spin-wave theory for the Heisenberg antiferromagnet.

Spin-wave perturbation theory for the anisotropic Heisenberg antiferromagnet at zero temperature is carried to third order, using both the Dyson-Maleev and Holstein-Primakoff formalisms. Physical quantities calculated include the ground-state energy, staggered magnetization, staggered parallel susceptibility, transverse susceptibility, and energy gap. For the Holstein-Primakoff formalism, some terms diverge in the isotropic limit, but these divergences eventually cancel one another, and the final results are the same as for the Dyson-Maleev formalism. Applying these results to the square-lattice case, we find that the convergence of the spin-wave theory towards our recent estimates is further improved if we promote the spin-wave theory to third order.
Motivations and barriers affecting the implementation of ISO 14001 in Saudi Arabia: an empirical investigation

This research aimed at assessing the factors influencing the implementation of ISO 14001 in Saudi Arabia. For this purpose, primary data were collected using a survey questionnaire that was administered to a representative sample of companies in the Jeddah area. The results indicate that the main drivers behind the adoption of the ISO 14001 standard among Saudi companies are corporate image, status, and to some extent the improvement of environmental performance. Hence, the findings suggest that a legitimacy-based model best fits Saudi companies. However, the study also reveals that there are important barriers hindering the adoption of the standard. Among these, the lack of government support and appropriate legislation together with limited pressure from stakeholders as well as the certification costs involved and the huge amount of documentation required are the most prominent. This explains the low number of certified companies in Saudi Arabia. Overall, the study reveals that companies are less likely to voluntarily consider adopting the standard and that the government should develop strategies, policy reforms and incentive schemes to reduce the barriers to implementing ISO 14001.
Dimensioning of survivable WDM networks

In this paper routing, planning of working capacity, rerouting, and planning of spare capacity in wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) networks are investigated. Integer linear programming (ILP) and simulated annealing (SA) are used as solution techniques. A complex cost model is presented. The spare capacity assignment is optimized with respect to three restoration strategies. The benefit of wavelength conversion, the choice of the fiber line system, and the influence of cost parameter values are discussed, with respect to the different restoration strategies and solution techniques. Wavelength conversion is found to be of limited importance, whereas tunability at the end points of the connections has substantial benefits.
Correlation between rates of brain atrophy and cognitive decline in AD

Article abstract Twenty-nine untreated patients diagnosed with probable AD and 15 control patients underwent two or more clinical and volumetric MRI assessments with intervals ranging from 5 months to 6 years. The change in global cerebral volume for an individual was calculated by a novel method of registration and subtraction of serial scans. Rate of global cerebral volume loss correlated strongly with rate of change in Mini-Mental State Examination scores (r = 0.80, p < 0.001), implying clinical relevance to this marker of progression.
Lateral stock transshipments in a two-location inventory system with fixed and joint replenishment costs

We address the problem of inventory management in a two-location inventory system, in which the transshipments are carried out as means of emergency or alternative supply after demand has been realized. This model differs from previous ones as regards its replenishment costs structure, in which nonnegligible fixed replenishment costs and a joint replenishment cost are considered. The single period planning horizon is analyzed, with the form and several properties of the optimal replenishment and transshipment policies developed, discussed and illustrated. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 46: 525–547, 1999
Detrended Windowed (lag one) Autocorrelation: A new Method for Distinguishing between Event-Based and Emergent Timing

The aim of this study was to test different methods for distinguishing between two known timing processes involved in human rhythmic behaviours. We examined the implementation of two approaches used in the literature: the high-frequency slope of the power spectrum and the lag one value of the autocorrelation function, ACF(1). We developed another method based on the Wing and Kristofferson (1973a) model and the predicted negative ACF(1) for event-based series: the detrended windowed (lag one) autocorrelation (DWA). We compared the reliability and performance of these three methods on simulation and experimental series. DWA gave the best results, and guidelines are given for its appropriate use for identifying underlying timing processes.
Building Social Capital Through Participatory Research: An Analysis of Collaboration on Tohono O'odham Tribal Rangelands in Arizona

On the Tohono O'odham (TO) Nation, an American Indian nation in southern Arizona, where local institutions and community norms govern management of communal rangelands, government interventions in rangeland management have historically overlooked social aspects of management and consequently met with little success. Similarly, past research on the TO Nation has fueled resentment due to a lack of local collaboration. Participatory research offers one way to create power-sharing relationships between researchers and communities and to develop locally appropriate resource management strategies. In partnership with local groups on the TO Nation, we used participatory research to develop, implement, and evaluate a rangeland ecology and management curriculum. The participatory curriculum development and research processes led to increased social capital among participants, creation and adoption of a locally tailored curriculum, and institutionalization of participatory approaches within tribal organizations, demonstrating high levels of quality and validity according to emerging post-positivist criteria for evaluating qualitative research.
Short‐term prediction of motorway travel time using ANPR and loop data

Travel time is a good operational measure of the effectiveness of transportation systems. The ability to accurately predict motorway and arterial travel times is a critical component for many intelligent transportation systems (ITS) applications. Advanced traffic data collection systems using inductive loop detectors and video cameras have been installed, particularly for motorway networks. An inductive loop can provide traffic flow at its location. Video cameras with image-processing software, e.g. Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) software, are able to provide travel time of a road section. This research developed a dynamic linear model (DLM) model to forecast short-term travel time using both loop and ANPR data. The DLM approach was tested on three motorway sections in southern England. Overall, the model produced good prediction results, albeit large prediction errors occurred at congested traffic conditions due to the dynamic nature of traffic. This result indicated advantages of use of the both data sources. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.