Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Density and climate effects on age‐specific survival and population growth: consequences for hibernating mammals

The impact of factors such as density dependence, food availability and weather are known to be important for predicting population change in a wide range of species. However, a challenge in ecology is understanding the contributory and interactive role of these drivers on populations. This is necessary to design effective conservation and management strategies. Using data from long‐term studies of five hazel dormouse Muscardinus avellanarius populations in Europe, we tested the relationship between population density and weather and their impact on demographic rates. We used an integrated population modelling approach, estimating age‐specific overwinter survival, annual population growth and fecundity rates. We found strong negative effects of population density, precipitation and winter temperature on population growth rates. This suggests that warmer and wetter weather negatively affects dormouse survival for both adults and juveniles, but we found subtle differences in these effects between age classes. We also identified an interaction between weather measures and population density on age‐specific survival, possibly as a result of weather impacts during hibernation. Although we found low winter temperature was positively associated with population growth, we found evidence consistent with density dependence. We discuss our results in the context of woodland habitat conservation management.
Singular perturbations for certain partial differential equations without boundary‐layers

Linear parabolic partial differential equations with a small parameter multiplying some of the higher space derivatives are considered, in the limiting case when such parameter vanishes. A number of different boundary-value problems for singularly perturbed equations are examined. Such problems are unified by the rather unexpected property that no boundarylayers are required, despite of the presence of the small vanishing parameter. The high points are the following. First, solvability theorems for some classes of ultraparabolic problems have been established. Second, the boundary conditions to be imposed to obtain well-posed problems do not depend on the sign of the coefficient multiplying the time-like derivative. Third, all coefficients are allowed to depend on all space and time variables. These results, in part, have been established by imposing suitably generalized compatibility conditions on coefficients and data.
Monitoring metrics over time: Why clinical trialists need to systematically collect site performance metrics

Background: Over the last decade, there has been an increasing interest in risk-based monitoring (RBM) in clinical trials, resulting in a number of guidelines from regulators and its inclusion in ICH GCP. However, there is a lack of detail on how to approach RBM from a practical perspective, and insufficient understanding of best practice. Purpose: We present a method for clinical trials units to track their metrics within clinical trials using descriptive statistics and visualisations. Research Design: We suggest descriptive statistics and visualisations within a SWAT methodology. Study Sample: We illustrate this method using the metrics from TEMPER, a monitoring study carried out in three trials at the MRC Clinical Trials Unit at UCL. Data Collection: The data collection for TEMPER is described in DOI: 10.1177/1740774518793379. Results: We show the results and discuss a protocol for a Study-Within-A-Trial (SWAT 167) for those wishing to use the method. Conclusions: The potential benefits metric tracking brings to clinical trials include enhanced assessment of sites for potential corrective action, improved evaluation and contextualisation of the influence of metrics and their thresholds, and the establishment of best practice in RBM. The standardisation of the collection of such monitoring data would benefit both individual trials and the clinical trials community.
Universal and Integrable Aspects of an Elliptic Vortex Representation in 2+1‐Dimensional Magneto‐Gasdynamics

Integrable substructure of a 2+1‐dimensional magneto‐gasdynamic system is investigated via a general elliptic vortex ansatz. Certain universal and Hamiltonian aspects of the admitted representation are uncovered. A class of confined magneto‐gasdynamic flows with an elliptic cylindrical boundary is isolated with time‐dependent semiaxes determined by an integrable Ermakov–Ray–Reid system.
Existence Theorems and a Solution Algorithm for Piecewise-Linear Resistor Networks

This paper deals with nonlinear networks which can be characterized by the equation ${\bf f}({\bf x}) = {\bf y}$, where ${\bf f}$ is a continuous piecewise-linear mapping from $R^n $ into itself. The main theorem asserts that the existence of solutions ${\bf x} \in R^n $ of ${\bf f}({\bf x}) = {\bf y}$ for an arbitrary given ${\bf y} \in R^n $ is guaranteed by fairly general conditions based on the theory of the degree of mapping. Then it is shown that an iterative algorithm (generalized Katzenelson algorithm) leads to a solution in a finite number of iteration steps. Finally, a comprehensive study of physical nonlinear elements demonstrates that the theory can be applied to most of the currently used nonlinear networks.
LINKING GAMIFICATION, LUDOLOGY AND PEDAGOGY: PRINCIPLES TO DESIGN A SERIOUS GAME

Education is shifting towards a more technology focused mode of delivery, or at least combining technology use with standard methods. A potential effect of this could be the introduction and use of games in classrooms. This study looks at the possibility of adapting various domains of knowledge into digital games referred to as serious games. The implementation of serious games within teaching may help keep certain students engaged with the content being presented and create further interest in the topic. However, before reaching this stage the means to transform these knowledge domains into serious games must be studied. This is done by focusing on three fields: gamification, ludology, and pedagogy. Through the use of a literature analysis, both a literature review and a focus on previous implementations, several key principles for the design of a serious game were identified, namely reflection, feedback, a story-based environment, and thorough structuring of content. These principles stem from the design choices of the previous implementations and pedagogical theories - Merrill’s First Principles and the ARCS model. The aim of the study is to investigate the possibility of using digital games as a means to encourage learning in teaching environments.
Spacecraft charging at synchronous orbit.

ATS 5 can charge to potentials as high as 10,000 volts during eclipse, and as high as 200 volts in sunlight. This charging has been used to infer the presence of the plasmasphere at synchronous altitude in the midnight region, and its prompt disappearance when hot plasma is injected in association with substorms. Although injected plasma has a density of 1.0/cm³, the remaining cold plasma (<50 ev) has a density of 0.01/cm³. A mathematical model of ATS 5 has been constructed that can be used to predict spacecraft potentials. In addition, parts of ATS 5 can charge to several hundred volts without affecting the over-all spacecraft potential appreciably.
Class-Incremental Semantic Segmentation of Aerial Images via Pixel-Level Feature Generation and Task-Wise Distillation

Deep neural networks achieve significant progress in semantic segmentation but still suffer from the catastrophic forgetting problem, i.e., networks will forget old classes as they learn new ones. In this article, we propose an effective class-incremental segmentation framework without storing old data. Specifically, to alleviate the issue of catastrophic forgetting, we present two important modules, i.e., the pixel-level feature generation (PFG) module and the task-wise knowledge distillation (TKD) module. The PFG module is designed to constantly generate any number of features of the old classes to keep the old memory. The PFG module is the first attempt to use the generative method in class-incremental segmentation of aerial images, and it abandons the previous image generation approach but generates pixel-level features, which is more suitable for the segmentation task. Meanwhile, the proposed TKD module is specially designed for class incremental tasks, and it only compares classes in the same learning step (task), thus avoiding the squeezing of new classes into old classes when the output is normalized (softmax), making distillation more effective. Sufficient experiments show that our method is remarkably effective and achieves more than 4.5% gains compared with state-of-the-art methods and more than 13% compared with baselines on all learning conditions. The ablation studies show that the PFG module and the TKD module are both indispensable. Besides, the proposed framework can be well combined with any existing class incremental learning method to achieve better performance.
The effect of remediating PCB-contaminated sediments on home prices in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA

Abstract This paper estimates the effect of environmental remediation on housing prices in the Milwaukee Estuary Area of Concern (AOC) using a hedonic analysis of individual arms-length sales before and after a major remediation action between 2011 and 2015. Our design leverages this before-after comparison as well as the proximity of homes to remediation and the AOC boundary. Measuring the effect of AOCs in the housing market has always been a difficult task, given that water in AOCs can provide a mix of amenities and disamenities. Indeed, we find little evidence of a negative proximity effect when applying hedonic analysis to cross-section data. However, when we apply the analysis to a repeated cross section in a quasi-experimental framework, we find statistically significant evidence that living near the affected part of the AOC became more desirable after cleanup.
Communication networks, soap films and vectors

The problem of constructing the least-cost network of connections between arbitrarily placed points is one that is common and which can be very important financially. The network may consist of motorways between towns, a grid of electric power lines, buried gas or oil pipe lines or telephone cables. Soap films trapped between parallel planes with vertical pins between them provide a 'shortest path' network and Isenberg (1975) has suggested that soap films of this sort be used to model communication networks. However soap films are unable to simulate the different costs of laying, say, a three-lane motorway instead of a two-lane one or of using a larger pipeline to take the flow from two smaller ones. Soap films, however, have considerable intrinsic interest. In the article the emphasis is on the use of soap films and communication networks as a practical means of illustrating the importance of vector and matrix methods in geometry. The power of vector methods is illustrated by the fact that given any soap film network the total length of the film can be written down by inspection if the vector positions of the pins are known. It is also possible to predict the boundaries at which 'catastrophes' occur and to decide which network has the least total length. In the field of communication networks a method is given of designing the minimum cost network linking, say, a number of oilwells, which produce at different rates to an outlet terminal.
Experimental determination of anisotropy and demagnetizing factors of single Co nanowires by magnetoresistance measurements

We have investigated the low-temperature magnetoresistance (MR) behavior of Co nanowires with varying widths between 40nm and 5. 2μm prepared by high-resolution electron-beam lithography. The wires have a thickness of 20nm and are protected from oxidation by a 10nm carbon cap layer. The magnetoresistance—for magnetic fields applied transversal or perpendicular to the wire—is negative and can be attributed to anisotropic magnetoresistance. The MR curves exhibit a strong dependence on the wire width from which the shape anisotropy and the demagnetizing factors can be deduced. The experimental results are in perfect agreement with the theoretical values for the demagnetization tensor of the general ellipsoid. During the magnetization rotation process a minor contribution from domain-wall nucleation and annihilation occurs.
The interconnectedness of financial inclusion and bank profitability in rising economic powers: evidence from heterogeneous panel analysis

PurposeThe objective is to assess the relationship between financial inclusion and bank profitability in emerging economies, i.e. “Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, and Vietnam”. Design/methodology/approachThe second-generation econometrics of panel data has been applied to examine the cross-section independence and control the heterogeneity between cross sections. Additionally, the authors employ the following tests for the analysis: “the unit root test, Westerlund's (2007) bootstrap cointegration, Pedroni cointegration, fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS), and heterogeneous panel causality techniques”. The annual data consist of the period from 2000 to 2019.FindingsThe findings reveal that financial inclusion fosters bank profitability. Therefore, easier access to financial services and products will maximize banks' profitability. Additionally, the association between financial inclusion and bank profitability is unidirectional.Originality/valueThis research is a first attempt to bring a novel contribution to the subject of emerging economies by investigating the association between financial inclusion and bank profitability. Another unique addition to the literature is the use of a novel financial inclusion index. At last, a panel cointegration technique, FMOLS and heterogeneous panel non-causality tests are taken into consideration for the in-depth analysis.
Do European, Middle-East and Asian Stock Markets Impact on Indian Stock Market? A Case Study Based on NIFTY Stock Index Forecasting

This paper estimates NIFTY index from Indian stock market by considering a cluster of MSCI European, Middle East and Asian stock market indices. In the forecasting process, we obtain group of independent variables to test its relative impact over dependent variable (NIFTY) considering a sample size of daily observations from January 2000 to December 2021 abstracted from Bloomberg. We run OLS regression, Quantile estimations with additional parameter of VIF and BKW. We found significant impact association with China (Asian index) and Saudi Arabia (Middle East index) during the forecasting process compared to rest of sample indices that exceed unexpectedly out of VIF limits. Further, we recorded strong association of independent variables despite of statistical significance (<1%) in OLS regression estimation.
Genetic characterization of Tunisian donkey with DNA microsatellites

The genetic characterization of Tunisian donkeys with microsatellite markers led to the identification of a total of 214 alleles, with an average of 14.27 alleles per locus. The number of effective alleles per locus (Ne) indicates a rich genetic polymorphism for the used markers. The number of alleles per locus (Na) is higher than Ne,confirming the high genetic diversity in the investigated population. Observed heterozygosis(Ho) for all the studied loci inthe entire population equals 0.744. The FIS index was significantly different from zero, pointing toan excess of heterozygotes. The mean of the number of effective migrants exchanged per generation (Nm) was 3.05 indicating a high level of gene exchange. Genetic distances and the principal coordinate analysis showed three distinct population groups/breeds, with a commongenetic structure for all the individuals. This genetic characterization of the Tunisian donkey population constitutes a valuable basis for further investigations, and to the elaboration of adequate conservation strategies.
The Onset of Strain Localization in Cross-Anisotropic Soils Under True Triaxial Condition

ABSTRACT The influences of inherent cross-anisotropy on soil strength on the homogeneous deformation and bifurcation characteristic of the stress-strain relationship are studied. By neglecting the cohesion term and employing an elliptical shape function in Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion, a 3D anisotropic failure criterion is proposed to describe the strength of cross-anisotropic sands under true triaxial conditions. Based on the proposed failure criterion, the influence of the anisotropic parameter on the failure curve on the deviatoric plane and the relationship between the peak friction angle and the intermediate principal stress ratio are obtained. The suitability of the criterion is justified by comparing with a series of true triaxial tests on sands without strain localization. The proposed failure criterion is adopted to build a three dimensional anisotropic elasto-plastic model, which allows the bifurcation analysis to be incorporated with the non-coaxial flow rule for the purpose of studying the onset of strain localization. Compared with the true triaxial tests under several intermediate principal stress ratios conditions in the literature, the proposed model and bifurcation analysis is shown to be capable of predicting the influence of inherent cross-anisotropy on the onset of strain localization.
Impact of Energy Rating on House Prices and Lending Rates

The real estate market is a key component of the green transition, and thus it is worth examining the pricing and financing costs of modern residential buildings in Hungary. In our study, we investigate a) whether a significant price premium can be identified for green properties based on new housing projects in Budapest, and b) whether banks finance residential buildings with more advanced energy technologies at lower interest rates. Based on our regression estimation, the green price premium is clearly evident in the Budapest new housing market: on average, homes with an energy rating of BB or better are 5.1 per cent more expensive than homes with an energy rating of CC. Based on our estimate of housing loan interest rates, no significant difference can be identified in the interest rates on loans granted to finance properties with a certificate higher than CC compared to loans granted for properties with CC certificate, i.e. banks do not yet factor energy aspects into the pricing of loans.
PCA-based dimension reduction for splines

PCA in a reproducing kernel Hilbert space is analysed as probabilistically optimal procedure of dimension reduction given a covariance structure by the reproducing kernel. It provides a unifying framework for various seemingly disparate and special techniques of dimension reduction applied to splines, in geostatistical "kriging" or in interpolation of data resulting from computer experiments. Regarding the covariance as defining a prior for Bayesian analyses in a Hilbert function space several suggestions are derived for data analyses involving functions particularly on multivariate domains, including the choice of a parsimonious interpolation spline as regression function in generalized models, the use of a Demmler-Reinsch-like basis in kriging or interpolation and derivation of principal modes of variation in collections of surfaces.
An empirical test of auction methods in the primary market of sovereign debt

ABSTRACT There has been a long debate as to which of the most extended systems, the uniform system or the discriminatory price system, is the most appropriate for central banks and debt management offices issuing sovereign bonds. The purpose of this paper is to shed light on this question. The main variables to explore the auction mechanisms are the price difference between the primary and secondary markets (price spread) and the coverage ratio. Subsequently, to determine patterns for clarifying which auction system is optimal, we propose a new model based on the price spread and a valuation model for financial options that covers both negative and positive spreads. We conclude that the auction method and the number of primary dealers are relevant parameters in the auction outcome. Finally, the results of the new model are the cornerstone for identifying detailed patterns followed by top-performing countries.
Three Parts of the Plant Genome: On the Way to Success in the Production of Recombinant Proteins

Recombinant proteins are the most important product of current industrial biotechnology. They are indispensable in medicine (for diagnostics and treatment), food and chemical industries, and research. Plant cells combine advantages of the eukaryotic protein production system with simplicity and efficacy of the bacterial one. The use of plants for the production of recombinant proteins is an economically important and promising area that has emerged as an alternative to traditional approaches. This review discusses advantages of plant systems for the expression of recombinant proteins using nuclear, plastid, and mitochondrial genomes. Possibilities, problems, and prospects of modifications of the three parts of the genome in light of obtaining producer plants are examined. Examples of successful use of the nuclear expression platform for production of various biopharmaceuticals, veterinary drugs, and technologically important proteins are described, as are examples of a high yield of recombinant proteins upon modification of the chloroplast genome. Potential utility of plant mitochondria as an expression system for the production of recombinant proteins and its advantages over the nucleus and chloroplasts are substantiated. Although these opportunities have not yet been exploited, potential utility of plant mitochondria as an expression system for the production of recombinant proteins and its advantages over the nucleus and chloroplasts are substantiated.