Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Governance and Public Service Delivery in India

Citizens in low income democracies depend, to a large extent, on the state for the provision of basic services either due to absence of a market for these services or poverty. This paper synthesizes the findings of the International Growth Centre (IGC) supported research on governance and public service delivery in India. Existing research suggests that the quality of public services affects economic growth via its impact on poverty alleviation, human capital formation and corruption. There is near consensus, however, that India has had limited success in reducing poverty and enhancing human capital inspite of myriad programs that provide free or heavily subsidised essential services to its citizens. The paper identifies incentives, transparency and state capacity as the key challenges to reducing the governance deficit in India. IGC supported research emphasizes building state capacity to implement and monitor public programs, rewarding performance of civil servants and providing information to stakeholders as key policies that can be implemented, and scaled up, to both improve the quality of public service delivery and spur economic growth.
Wavelet Transform-Spectrum Sensing

Spectrum sensing is a vital cognitive radio function that protects licensed users from dangerous interference and finds accessible spectrum for better spectrum use. In practice, however, multipath fading, shadowing, and receiver uncertainty frequently degrade detection performance. Communication performance and continuity in cognitive radio networks are heavily dependent on how well the spectrum sensing function is implemented. The significance of selecting the right wavelet system is discussed.
It’s the Heat and the Humidity: The Complementary Roles of Temperature and Specific Humidity to Recent Changes in the Energy Content of the Near‐Surface Atmosphere

Global climate change is a change in the planetary energy (E) balance. It is usually expressed as a change in near‐surface air temperature (Ta), but changes in energy content due to Ta (ET) represent only part of the near‐surface energy balance, which also includes E changes due to specific humidity (ESH). We analyzed MERRA‐2 and ERA5 reanalysis data and 15 CMIP6 Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (AMIP) models from 1980 to 2014. Some 44%, 39%, and 50% of MERRA‐2 pixels showed significant increases in ET, ESH, and E, respectively. The average increase in ET (ESH) was 16.9 (13.6) J kg−1 year−1, but AMIP models estimated larger average ET (21.6 J kg−1 year−1) and ESH (16.7 J kg−1 year−1). Global Ta would have increased at nearly double the observed rate if energy was not partitioned into latent heat. Results demonstrate the critical role that specific humidity plays in recent climate changes.
Ecological Indicator Development, Integration and Knowledge Mapping

The overall goals of this project were: (1) to develop a microbiological ecological indicator that would describe military land disturbance, (2) integrate previously collected ecological indicator data from five separate research teams, and (3) produce knowledge maps with the resulting information that illustrates how the selected indicators are involved in ecosystem processes. To address goal one, soil samples were obtained from four levels of military traffic (reference, light, moderate, and heavy) with an additional set of samples taken from previously damaged areas. Using the soil microbial biomass and community composition as ecological indicators, reproducible changes showed increasing traffic disturbance decreases soil viable biomass, biomarkers for microeukaryotes and Gram-negative bacteria, while increasing the proportions of aerobic Gram-positive bacterial and actinomycete biomarkers. To address the second goal, ecological indicator data was collected by five separate research teams. Landmanagement categories (LMCs) were developed that described the uses or causes of the ecological effect from military use(s) of land. A mechanism of multiple solutions was developed that combined the results and tested the efficacy of the proposed indicators. Results from the integration effort showed that Soil A horizon depth and soil compaction were important soil physical indicators of military land disturbance. Soil Nitrogen and Carbon content were important soil chemical indicators of land use. Soil mineralization rate, soil respiration, microbial composition and Beta Glucosidase activity were important microbiological indicators. Important plant indicators included tree stand age, canopy
Determining the glacial equilibrium line altitude (ELA) for the northern Retezat Mountains, southern Carpathians and resulting paleoclimatic implications for the last glacial cycle

Abstract: The Carpathians are one of the dominating mountain ranges in Europe. Their transitional climatic situation between maritime (west) and continental (east) air masses arouses special interest with respect to the timing of the glaciations. In reconstructing the past history of the Pietrele-Nucsoara glacier complex on the northern slope of the Retezat mountains, Southern Carpathians, a combined geomorphological, pedological and geochronological (surface exposure dating) study was carried out. A detailed GPS survey assisted in reconstructing the paleoequilibrium line altitude (pELA) in a Geographical Information System (GIS). Two glacial stages were identified. Using exposure ages, the younger (Capra-Judele, M2) advance dates back to about 16.5 kyr, delayed in comparison to the onset of deglaciation in other mountain ranges like the Alps. The respective pELA-depression was determined to about 1050 m (present-day snowline, approx. 2900 m asl as reference level). Due to the absence of datable boulders, it was not possible to date the older (Lolaia, M1) advance. Hence, pedological investigations assisted in estimating the age of the Lolaia advance. Our results indicate that the maximum advance of the Pietrele-Nucsoara glacier complex corresponds to the early Wuermian (MIS 4? ). The pELA-depression of the Lolaia advance during the early Wuermian was estimated to be approx. 1100 m (present-day snowline as reference level). Further investigations in other mountain ranges in the Southern Carpathians are required to confirm our preliminary interpretations.
Automatic annotation of musical audio for interactive applications

As machines become more and more portable, and part of our everyday life, it becomes apparent that developing interactive and ubiquitous systems is an important aspect of new music applications created by the research community. We are interested in developing a robust layer for the automatic annotation of audio signals, to be used in various applications, from music search engines to interactive installations, and in various contexts, from embedded devices to audio content servers. We propose adaptations of existing signal processing techniques to a real time context. Amongst these annotation techniques, we concentrate on low and mid-level tasks such as onset detection, pitch tracking, tempo extraction and note modelling. We present a framework to extract these annotations and evaluate the performances of different algorithms. The first task is to detect onsets and offsets in audio streams within short latencies. The segmentation of audio streams into temporal objects enables various manipulation and analysis of metrical structure. Evaluation of different algorithms and their adaptation to real time are described. We then tackle the problem of fundamental frequency estimation, again trying to reduce both the delay and the computational cost. Different algorithms are implemented for real time and experimented on monophonic recordings and complex signals. Spectral analysis can be used to label the temporal segments; the estimation of higher level descriptions is approached. Techniques for modelling of note objects and localisation of beats are implemented and discussed. Applications of our framework include live and interactive music installations, and more generally tools for the composers and sound engineers. Speed optimisations may bring a significant improvement to various automated tasks, such as automatic classification and recommendation systems. We describe the design of our software solution, for our research purposes and in view of its integration within other systems.
2 2 M ay 2 01 8 Real Forms of the Complex Neumann System : Real Roots of Polynomial U S ( λ )

The topology of Liouville sets of the real forms of the complex generic Neumann system depends indirectly on the roots of the special polynomial US(λ). For certain polynomials, the existence and positions of the real roots, according to the suitable parameters of the system, is not obvious. In the paper, a novel method for checking the existence and positions of the real roots of the polynomials US(λ) is given. The method and algorithm are based on searching of a positive solution of a system of linear equations. We provide a complete solution to the problem of existence of real roots for all special polynomials in case n = 2. This is a step closer to determining the topology of the Liouville sets.
Radionuclide Inventory and Distribution Program: the Galileo area

The Galileo area is the first region of the Nevada Test Site to be surveyed by the Radionuclide Inventory and Distribution Program (RIDP). This report describes in detail the use of soil sampling and in situ spectrometry to estimate radionuclide activities at selected sampling locations; the descriptions of these methods will be used as a reference for future RIDP reports. The data collected at Galileo were analyzed by kriging and the polygons of influence method to estimate the total inventory and the distribution of six man-made radionuclides. The results of the different statistical methods agree fairly well, although the data did not give very good estimates of the variogram for kriging, and further study showed the results of kriging to be highly dependent on the variogram parameters. The results also showed that in situ spectrometry gives better estimates of radionuclide activity than soil sampling, which tends to miss highly radioactive particles associated with vegetation. 18 references, 28 figures, 11 tables.
Total number of 
J
 levels for identical particles in a single-
j
 shell using coefficients of fractional parentage

Analytical expressions of the total number of $J$ levels for three and four fermions in a nuclear $j^n$ shell are provided. The formulas were derived using a combination of sum rules for coefficients of fractional parentage, and "unusual" identities, i.e. which do not contain the weighting factor $(2J + 1)$ involving $6j$ and $9j$ symbols.
Supplementary Material for “Causal Feature Selection with Dual Correction”

In this section, we give a tracing example as shown in Fig. 1 to show how DCMB works. In Fig. 1, the yellow feature denotes the class variable and the true MB of the class variable in the BN is highlighted in orange. First, Fig. 1(a) gives an example of a simple BN including 9 features, i.e., F={T,A,B,O,D,E,G,H,N}. Assuming T is the class variable, then MB(T )={A,B,O,D}. Let k or = 0.5 and k and = 0.5, using the BN in Fig. 1(a), DCMB is implemented as follows.
SAND EQUIVALENT TEST FOR CONTROL OF MATERIALS DURING CONSTRUCTION

A TEST METHOD IS PRESENTED WHICH PROVIDES A RAPID METHOD FOR DETECTING THE PRESENCE OR ABSENCE OF DETRIMENTAL FINES OR CLAY-LIKE MATERIALS IN SOILS AND MINERAL AGGREGATES. THE RELATIVE PROPORTIONS OF FINE MATERIAL AND SAND ARE COMPARED ON AN ARBITRARY VOLUME BASIS BY A SIMPLE TEST PROCEDURE WHICH TENDS TO MAGNIFY OR EXPAND THE VOLUME OF CLAY SOMEWHAT IN PROPORTION TO ITS DETRIMENTAL OR OBJECTIONABLE EFFECT. THE TEST IS APPLIED TO THE FRACTION OF MATERIAL PASSING THE NO. 4 SIEVE AND REQUIRES RELATIVELY SIMPLE EQUIPMENT. BRIEFLY THE TEST METHOD CONSISTS OF SHAPING THE MATERIAL TO BE TESTED IN A WEAK SOLUTION OF CALCIUM CHLORIDE. THE MATERIAL IS ALLOWED TO SETTLE IN THE SOLUTION FOR TWENTY MINUTES AND THE RELATIVE VOLUME OF SETTLED SAND IS DIVIDED BY THE TOTAL VOLUME OF CLAY PLUS SAND TO GIVE THE SAND EQUIVALENT RATIO. MATERIALS SUCH AS CLEAN WASHED SAND THEN APPROACH 100 SAND EQUIVALENT WHILE FINE-LIKE MATERIALS HAVE A ZERO SAND EQUIVALENT. A TABLE IS PROVIDED OF PROPOSED SAND EQUIVALENT VALUES FOR BASES, BITUMINOUS MIXES AND CONCRETE SAND BASED UPON CALIFORNIA EXPERIENCE. THE FUNDAMENTAL SIGNIFICANCE OF VOLUMETRIC RELATIONSHIPS ARE DISCUSSED AS CONTRASTED TO THE WEIGHT PERCENTAGES WHICH ARE COMMONLY USED TO DESCRIBE THE COMPOSITION OF SOILS AND AGGREGATES PARTICULARLY WHEN APPLIED TO BITUMINOUS MIXTURES. GRAPHS ARE PRESENTED SHOWING THE DIFFERENCES IN SAND EQUIVALENT VALUES OBTAINED WHEN COMPARABLE AMOUNTS OF KAOLINITE, BENTONITE AND QUARTZ DUST ARE MIXED WITH OTTAWA SAND. TEST RESULTS ARE ILLUSTRATED WHICH SHOW THE EFFECT ON THE SAND EQUIVALENT VALUES OF PARTICULAR AGGREGATE WHEN THE NATURAL DUST IS REPLACED WITH CRUSHED ROCK DUST. THE EFFECT OF FINENESS IS GRAPHICALLY ILLUSTRATED. IT IS CONCLUDED THAT THE SAND EQUIVALENT TEST IS USEFUL IN DETECTING THE PRESENCE OF ADVERSE AMOUNTS OF CLAY IN GRANULAR BASE MATERIALS. IT MAY BE USED AS A QUICK FIELD TEST TO CONTROL THE AMOUNT OF ADVERSE CLAYS IN CONCRETE SAND. IT MAY ALSO BE USED TO LIMIT THE AMOUNT OF FINE DUST OR CLAY THAT MAY EXIST AS A COATING ON PARTICLES OF MINERAL AGGREGATE INTENDED FOR BITUMINOUS MIXTURES.
Determining the shear-rate of shear-thinning fluids at the surface with an ultrasonic waveguide viscometer

On the road to lower the carbon emission, nuclear energy plays a significant role. The Molten Salt Fast Reactor (MSFR) is a reactor investigated by the Reactor institute Delft in order to make it a safe and efficient energy source for the future. Properties of the fuel salt in the MSFR, such as density and rheology need to be known in order to predict the flow behaviour of the fluid. Because of the extreme circumstances in the reactor, like the high temperature and radioactivity of the molten salt, an ultrasonic waveguide is used to determine the rheological parameters of the molten salt. In this thesis, the shear-rate on the boundary, of a wave generated by a ultrasonic waveguide viscometer is investigated. This investigation is done on the following shear thinning fluids: blood, ketchup and soybean oil. When more is known about this shear-rate for these non-Newtonian fluids this can be used to find the rheological parameters of the fluid. As to determine the relation for the shear-rate, a dimension analysis is performed. This di-mension analysis gives a relation for the shear-rate to dimensionless parameters, a constant pre-factor k and a constant power δ . This relation is tested in a computer simulation of the waveguide experiment. The value for B and ω of the shear-wave generated by the waveguide are altered, and the simulation then produces the corresponding shear-rate in the fluid. Then, the obtained shear-rate is plotted over the dimensionless parameter. After this, the pre-factor k and the power of the dimensionless parameter δ can be determined, using least squares fitting of the data to the relation from the dimensional analysis. When the relation was tested for different values of B , the fitted δ and k were almost the same for the ketchup and soybean oil. The fitted δ and k for blood were different.
A Study of the American Black Bear (Ursus americanus) in Utah: An Analysis of the Post-Denning Activities and Bear-Human Conflict

A Study of the American Black Bear (Ursus americanus) in Utah: An Analysis of the Post-Denning Activities and Bear-Human Conflict Julie Ann Miller Department of Plant and Wildlife Sciences, BYU Master of Science This study examined two different aspects of black bear (Ursus americanus) ecology in Utah. First, we determined the post-denning behaviors of female black bears in order to help management agencies protect bears from human disturbances as well as set spring hunts that minimize the taking of females with dependent young. We looked at the timing of den emergence ( = 25 March), the number of days at the den site post emergence ( = 11 days), and departure ( = 8 April) for female black bears in Utah from 2011—2013. We also analyzed the effects of cohort (lone female, female with cubs, and female with yearlings), region of Utah, year, elevation, and weather on emergence, departure, and total number of days at den. Lastly, we describe behaviors observed at the den site. We found that first emergence was significantly correlated with cohort and spring temperature. Departure date was significantly correlated with geographic region, spring temperature during emergence and departure, and temperature the spring and summer before denning. Total number of days at den was significantly correlated with cohort and last frost date from the year before. Bears spent little of the post-denning period outside of the dens ( = 9.8% of total observation time). When outside of dens, bears were often observed walking, lying down, sitting and standing. We also observed unique behaviors, including gathering nest materials, nursing, and ingesting. Dens were frequently visited by other wildlife as well. Second, we analyzed conflict between humans and black bears in Utah. The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources initiated a black bear sightings and encounters database in 2003. We upgraded this database by gathering available records and organizing them into a new database for analysis using Microsoft Access®. From 2003—2013 there were 943 records, with 499 bearhuman encounters, 33 incidents, 10 attacks, 208 property damages, 187 sightings, and 6 vehicle collisions. Utah county had the highest number of events (n = 115). The majority of events took place at campsites (n = 363). Summer was the most common season for events (n = 715). Time of day was frequently not reported, but when it was, most events occurred at night (n = 173). We found no significant increase in the number of events over the last ten years. We also found no significant relationship between the number of events per year and drought data. The highest number of events involved single bears (n = 843), and over half of events had food or garbage available for the bear (n = 475).
Summary report : water quality in the Daly River : a multi-disciplinary management approach

The aim of this project was to predict the effects of land clearing on groundwater recharge to the Oolloo aquifer and therefore to spring flows in the Daly River. The current work attempted to understand the physical processes related to recharge. This will provide further scientific basis for the development of land and water management practices and assist in preventing adverse impacts on the ecosystems sustained by spring flows into the Daly River.
Analysis of marine aquaculture developments in Namibia. Environmental, economic and legislative considerations

This multidisciplinary analysis of Namibia marine aquaculture developments has found it to have a good potential. Existing Namibian aquaculture laws are comprehensive in nature controlling aspects such as water, land, public health, sanitation and disease, however they ignore fish welfare. Mean temperature of Namibian marine coastal waters in the150 m water depth strata has averaged at 14.07 C for the last eleven years (1993-2003). The marine waters in the central area of Namibian coastline are colder than the waters both northward and southward. Temperature decreased with water depth at a gradient of about 0.1C/m in the 100 m water depth strata. Mean salinity averaged at 34.89‰ with low variation in the 100 m water depth column. Species which are considered for aquaculture are ranked on the scale of one to ten according to their respective potentials based on both environmental and economic issues: Oysters (Crassostrea gigas and Ostrea edulis) are ranked at 9/10, Abalone (Haliotis midae) 8/10, Mussels (Mytilus galloprovincialis) 8/10, Rock lobster (Jasus lalandii) 7/10, Rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) 6/10, Hake (Merluccius capensis) with 5/10 and Cobia (Rachycentron canadum) 3/10. Despite the fact that most of the species considered can live within temperature and salinity ranges of Namibian marine coastal waters at different latitudes and depths, their respective farming successes can be enhanced by research to investigate specie-specific conditions that promote their yields. Economically farming of shellfish has better potential than finfish due its low production costs which is partly a result of adjacent nutrient rich Benguela ecosystem and promising investment returns as a result increasing shellfish product demands and prices.
Shift Aggregate Extract Networks

We introduce an architecture based on deep hierarchical decompositions to learn effective representations of large graphs. Our framework extends classic R-decompositions used in kernel methods, enabling nested part-of-part relations. Unlike recursive neural networks, which unroll a template on input graphs directly, we unroll a neural network template over the decomposition hierarchy, allowing us to deal with the high degree variability that typically characterize social network graphs. Deep hierarchical decompositions are also amenable to domain compression, a technique that reduces both space and time complexity by exploiting symmetries. We show empirically that our approach is able to outperform current state-of-the-art graph classification methods on large social network datasets, while at the same time being competitive on small chemobiological benchmark datasets.
European Inventory on validation of non-formal and informal learning 2014. Final synthesis report.

This report is part of the 2018 update of the European Inventory on validation of nonformal and informal learning. Its aim is to present a synthesis of the current state of play on the validation of non-formal and informal learning across Europe and to report overall progress towards the 2012 Council Recommendation on Validation (hereinafter, Council Recommendation on validation)1. The year 2018 acquires a special significance in this update, because the Council Recommendation on validation called on Member States to establish, by 2018, validation arrangements allowing individuals to identify, document, assess and certify their competences. Validation is a process that aims to make non-formal and informal learning visible socially, in the labour market and in the education and training system, based on the identification, documentation, assessment and certification of such learning. Validation has the potential to contribute to achieving the goals set by the Europe 2020 strategy, as it can contribute to the matching between skills supply and demand, supporting mobility across sectors and countries and fighting social exclusion.
An overview of the gravitational spin Hall effect

In General Relativity, the propagation of electromagnetic waves is usually described by the vacuum Maxwell's equations on a fixed curved background. In the limit of infinitely high frequencies, electromagnetic waves can be localized as point particles, following null geodesics. However, at finite frequencies, electromagnetic waves can no longer be treated as point particles following null geodesics, and the spin angular momentum of light comes into play, via the spin-curvature coupling. We will refer to this effect as the gravitational spin Hall effect of light. Here, we review a series of theoretical results related to the gravitational spin Hall effect of light, and we compare the predictions of different models. The analogy with the spin Hall effect in Optics is also explored, since in this field the effect is well understood, both theoretically and experimentally.