Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Structure of Large-scale Stellar Disks in Cluster Lenticular Galaxies

By obtaining imaging data in two photometric bands for 60 lenticular galaxies—members of eight southern clusters—with the Las Cumbres Observatory one-meter telescope network, we have analyzed the structure of their large-scale stellar disks. The parameters of radial surface-brightness profiles have been determined (including also disk thickness), and all the galaxies have been classified into pure exponential (Type I) disk surface-brightness profiles, truncated (Type II) and antitruncated (Type III) piecewise exponential disk surface-brightness profiles. We confirm the previous results of some other authors that the proportion of surface-brightness profile types is very different in environments of different density: in the clusters, the Type-II profiles are almost absent while according to the literature data, in the field they constitute about one-quarter of all lenticular galaxies. The Type-III profiles are equally presented in the clusters and in the field, while following similar scaling relations; but by undertaking an additional structural analysis including the disk thickness determination we note that some Type-III disks may be a combination of a rather thick exponential pseudobulge and an outer Type-I disk. Marginally, we detect a shift of the scaling relation toward higher central surface brightnesses for the outer segments of Type-III disks and smaller thickness of the Type-I disks in the clusters. Both effects may be explained by enhanced radial stellar migration during disk galaxy infall into a cluster that in particular represents an additional channel for Type-I disk shaping in dense environments.
Emissivity of vegetation: theory and computational aspects

Direct formulas to compute the absorption cross section of lossy dielectric discs in the Physical Optics approximation, and cylinders in the Infinite Length approximation, are derived and their validity is checked by means of the Forward Scattering Theorem. These formulas are helpful in modeling microwave emissivity from vegetation. Due to enhanced directivity of large cylinder bistatic patterns, an exact computation of emissivity of those cylinders would require a tremendous amount of computational resources. In this paper it is demonstrated that for a layer of cylinders large with respect to the wavelength, the absorption cross section direct formula allows to compute emissivity in a simple way and with acceptable accuracy.
Rethinking borders of national systems of innovation Austrian perspectives on Korea's internationalization of green technologies

The recent decades have seen a growing rate of international cooperation in science, technology, and innovation (STI) including in the field of green technologies. However, current approaches to national systems of innovation (NSI) have not kept up with this development. International aspects are rather treated as external conditions within which policymakers operate and respond but not influence. This paper tackles this problem by applying a refined NSI concept that includes an international dimension and complements past frameworks by focusing on those Korean government policies, actors, and activities relevant for the internationalization of STI. Austria and Korea have both formulated differing strategies to acquire international leading positions in the field of innovation and the development of green technologies. In the first step, the paper assesses Korea’s international activities within the field of green technologies that transcend national boundaries and establish international connections. The government has still a strong influence on selecting technology areas for strategic funding but our findings show that international STI actors have difficulties in identifying the appropriate point of contact to initiate cooperation or apply for related funding. Second, an external perspective on Korea’s international collaborations in the field of green technologies is offered. Austria has tentatively identified the East Asian country as a second-priority cooperation partner for its future STI internationalization activities. Interviews with Austrian stakeholders in the field of green technologies indicate a high interest in cooperation with Korea that is facilitated by a similar business culture based on personal networks. Moreover, researchers and policymakers referred to a shared need of small countries for intelligent decision-making processes regarding potential cooperation partners abroad. However, in order to enhance awareness, visibility and demand for Korean STI cooperation in European countries, more longterm funding programs featuring a more permanent point of contact should be introduced.
Mobilizing nature: The environmental history of war and militarization in modern France

Chris Pearson’s Mobilizing Nature: The Environmental History of War and Militarization in Modern France is a recent offering from the ever-growing subfield of environmental history that is focusing on the relationship between militaries, war and environment. A number of large projects and research networks have emerged in recent years that have brought scholars working within these broad parameters – from environmental histories of the American Civil War to contemporary studies of boundaries in the Gaza strip, to name two examples – into closer contact and sustained dialogue. Despite the broad scope of potential subjects, the area has become more cohesive, and Pearson is a notably productive and active member of the community of environmental historians of war and military environments.
Secure and Intelligent Decision Making in Semantic Web Mining using XML, XSLT and Xquery

Web mining is the application of data mining technologies to automatically interact and discover information from web documents, which can be in structured, unstructured or semi- structured form. The Semantic Web is an extension of the current web in which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation. We present an enterprise framework regarding semantic web mining in distance learning, which can be used to not only improve the quality of web mining results but also enhances the functions and services and the interoperability of long distance educational information systems and standards in the educational field. For on line distance education system we propose an Ontology-based approach to share online data and retrieve all relevant data about students and their courses. Thus semantic web ontology help build better web mining analysis in educational institute and web mining in-turns helps contract basis more powerful ontology in distance learning. Since the majority of the online data considered as private data we need various mechanism for privacy preservation and control over the online presence data. We propose privacy protection in semantic web mining using role back access control.
The Role of Shorting on Market Anomalies: Chinese Evidence

We utilize the special institutional setting in China, in which the tightness of short-sale constraints and shorting costs are clearly specified, to examine the impact of shorting on the profits of zero-cost strategies based on the size, value, and momentum anomalies. The major results are as follows. (1) After the short-sale reform in 2010, only the size strategy delivers a positive alpha. The value and momentum strategies are unprofitable. (2) After we impose the short-sale constraints by including only shortable stocks in the short-leg portfolio, profits of the size strategy are largely unaffected. (3) After rebate cost, profits on the size strategy are wiped off. (4) Profits of the size strategy come mainly from the long leg. To conclude, the impact of shorting is nontrivial: no anomalies exist after shorting costs are considered.
Cap-and-Trade Climate Policies with Price-Regulated Industries: How Costly are Free Allowances?

We examine the impacts of alternative cap-and-trade allowance allocation designs in a model of the US economy where price-regulated electric utilities generate 30 percent of total CO2 emissions. Our empirical model embeds a generator-level description of electricity production—comprising all 16,891 electricity generators in the contiguous US—in a multiregion multi-sector general equilibrium framework that features regulated monopolies and imperfectly competitive wholesale electricity markets. The model recognizes the considerable heterogeneity among households incorporating all 15,588 households from the Consumer and Expenditure Survey as individual agents in the model. Depending on the stringency of the policy, we find that distributing emission permits freely to regulated utilities increases the welfare cost of the policy by 40-80 percent relative to an auction if electricity rates do not reflect the opportunity costs of permits. Despite an implicit subsidy to electricity prices, efficiency costs are disproportionately borne by households in the lowest income deciles.
Energy consumption and real GDP: Panel co-integration and causality tests for sub-Saharan African countries

This paper investigates the causal relationship between energy consumption and real GDP in 14 Sub-Saharan African countries over the period 1971–2004. The results of panel co-integration tests showed that energy consumption and real GDP do not have a stable long-run equilibrium relationship. We find that for all members of the panel, there is homogenous causality from energy consumption to real GDP and vice versa. This bi-directional causality supports the feedback hypothesis.
1992: Recasting the European Bargain

Under the banner of “1992,” the European Communities aim to remove all barriers to the movement of persons, capital, and goods among the member countries. The 1992 movement comprises a set of bargains among European elites. Structural change (relative U.S. decline and Japanese ascent) provoked a rethinking of European roles and interests. The 1992 project emerged as a response because of: (1) the policy leadership exercised by the Commission of the European Communities, with support from a transnational business coalition; and (2) a changed domestic political context in several key countries—specifically, the failure of previous national economic strategies and the transformation of the left. The changes under way will alter regional business competition and politics and will affect the world economic system.
Anatomy of Cartel Contracts

We study the contracts of 898 legal Finnish cartels. Cartels that exclusively allocate markets, either geographically or in the product/production space, are dominant in manufacturing. They are often bilateral and include a vertical dimension. Structural industry characteristics predict the type of a cartel, e.g., consistent with theory, quota cartels are more common in manufacturing and when buyers are primarily industrial. The contracts of quota cartels include more (governance) clauses. Pure pricing cartels are the dominant cartel type in non-manufacturing and are more common when demand is primarily from retail buyers. Pricing cartels are larger than other types of cartels.
Factoring Information into Returns

We examine the potential profits of trading on a measure of private information (PIN) in a stock. A zero-investment portfolio that is size-neutral but long in high PIN stocks and short in low PIN stocks earns a significant abnormal return. The Fama-French, momentum, and liquidity factors do not explain this return. However, significant covariation in returns exists among high PIN stocks and among low PIN stocks, suggesting that PIN might proxy for an underlying factor. We create a PIN factor as the monthly return on the zero-investment portfolio above and show that it is successful in explaining returns to independent PIN-size portfolios. We also show that it is robust to inclusion of the Pastor-Stambaugh liquidity factor and the Amihud illiquidity factor. We argue that information remains an important determinant of asset returns even in the presence of these additional factors.
Introduction: The Importance of Productivity

Research papers on productivity frequently begin with a statement regarding the importance of productivity growth in raising standards of living. That this needs repeating suggests that the writers feel it necessary to emphasise the positive contribution of productivity growth. In the past, productivity growth was often seen as synonymous with job cutting mainly due to substitution of capital for labour, cost cutting or intensification of work effort. However, in the recent past, policymakers have focussed more attention on productivity growth, both here in the UK and in the EC. Simultaneously, there has been a greater emphasis on positive aspects: the realisation that, by investing and learning to do things better, society as a whole benefits. This change in attitude probably stems from the acceleration of productivity growth in the US since the mid1990s and its link with the introduction and use of information and communications technology (ICT).
Prediction and Control: A Commentary on Catania (1981)

The main point of Catania’s (1981) paper, “The flight from experimental analysis,” was that “some types of mathematical treatments have led researchers to overlook the operation of variables that should have been revealed in the ordinary course of experimental analysis” (p. 49). In support of that claim, Catania cited several published experiments using a variety of complex reinforcement schedules, for example, on behavioral contrast (e.g., Terrace, 1968) and the matching law (e.g., Baum, 1979; Hollard & Davison, 1971; Leigland, 1979), in which absolute rates of responding were converted into relative measures. By comparing graphs of each response measure (relative vs. absolute rates), Catania pointed out that converting and displaying absolute rates as relative rates not only obscured important properties of behavior, but in some instances actually led to conclusions opposite of those based on absolute response rates. Catania initially presented his discussion as a paper at a conference, but it was not a commentary on any of the other papers. It was, rather, a comment on the more general “trend toward quantitative and away from experimental analysis” at the time (Catania, personal communication). In my commentary, I support Catania’s position by describing some personal reflections on my own behavior as a basic researcher. I then conclude with the assertion that the most fruitful approach to collecting and displaying behavioral data is the one that allows the most accurate prediction and control of behavior. Catania (1981) criticized experiments designed to test the validity of theories, and argued instead that experiments should assess whether “particular variables affect behavior in particular contexts” (p. 50). In other words, Catania was not commenting on the theories themselves, but rather on the transformation of data from the experiments used to test the theories. In short, he was making the case for an experimental, rather than a statistical, analysis to account for data variance. As Catania noted, Skinner (1956) made similar arguments. In his slightly tonguein-cheek account of his early experience as an experimenter, Skinner contrasted his behavior in the laboratory with that of those who tested hypotheses. He stated that he “never faced a Problem which was more than the eternal problem of finding order” (p. 227), and that he got the clue from Pavlov that one must control the conditions to find order. Skinner’s famous quip that “No one goes to the circus to see the average dog jump through a hoop significantly oftener than untrained dogs raised under the same circumstances . ” (p. 228) was another way of stating the engineering problem of the animal trainer, which is to make sure “that a given organism will engage in a given sort of behavior at a given time” (p. 228). According to Skinner such practical control Prediction and Control: A Commentary on
Effects of Alkali and Alkaline Earth Metals on N-Containing Species Release during Rice Straw Pyrolysis

We translate between energetic and economic metrics that characterize the role of energy in the economy. Specifically, we estimate monetary expenditures for the primary energy and net external power ratio (NEPR direct ; NEPR, net external power ratio), a power return ratio of annual energy production divided by annual direct energy inputs within the energy industry. We estimate these on an annualized basis for forty-four countries from 1978 to 2010. Expressed as a fraction of gross domestic product (GDP), f e , GDP , the forty-four country aggregate (composing >90% world GDP) worldwide expenditures on energy decreased from a maximum of 10.3% in 1979 to a minimum of 3.0% in 1998 before increasing to a second peak of 8.1% in 2008. While the global f e , GDP fluctuates significantly, global NEPR direct declined from a value of 34 in 1980 to 17 in 1986 before staying in a range between 14 and 16 from 1991 to 2010. In comparing both of these metrics as ratios of power output over power input, one economic ( f e , GDP - 1 ) and one biophysical (NEPR direct ), we see that when the former divided by the latter is below unity, the world was in a low-growth or recessionary state.
Goldilocks and the Three Electricity Prices: Are Irish Prices "Just Right"?

In this paper we analyse the 2008 electricity price in the Irish All-Island Market. We test whether this price is 'efficient' by comparing it to the electricity price in Great Britain. This analysis suggests that around ? 16 per MWh of the difference in wholesale prices between Ireland and Britain is due to differences in generating technology. The new wholesale electricity market for the island of Ireland appears to be working well ? it is producing a wholesale price that approximates the long run marginal cost that would apply in a large liquid competitive market. In the British market the wholesale price appears to be below the long run marginal cost of producing electricity. Retail margins in Great Britain are high, especially for households. Only some of this margin compensates vertically integrated utilities for the low wholesale price. In the Republic of Ireland the retail margin was probably also higher than it should have been.
Lenders’ Response to Peer and Customer Restatements

We investigate whether restatements announced by economically related firms influence the contract terms a borrower receives from lenders. A restatement by major customer firm increases the loan spread of a borrower by 11 basis points. The contagion effects of customer restatements are higher (45 basis points) when a borrower’s switching costs are high. Peer restatements also increase a borrower’s loan spread, with lenders reacting more strongly to restatements related to revenue recognition issues. The sensitivity of loan spread to peer restatements is also significantly greater when the restating peer firms are also in the bank’s lending portfolio, suggesting that a lender’s personal experience with restatements in an industry makes its more attuned to the potential implications of these restatements for the borrowing firm. Moreover, our results suggest that lenders utilize information from peer restatements to anticipate future restatements by the borrowing firm.
Whither Chinese HRM? Paradigms, models and theories

In this introduction to this volume, we ask ‘Whither Chinese HRM? ’ We explore the applicability of the concept of ‘paradigm’ to management in the Chinese context. Moving from the general to the particular, we discuss the notion of ‘paradigm-shift’ both in the natural and social sciences, moving on to the field of management studies and asking where this impinges on all things Chinese, including its HRM. A number of new original empirical studies chosen for this edited collection are then discussed vis-a-vis the above-mentioned themes. Of particular interest, is whether there is a dominant existing paradigm in play and what might be the prospect for the future. However, all things considered, we conclude that it would be premature as yet to say whether there is a ‘new paradigm’ emerging in the field.
Worker Activism After Successful Union Organizing

Shows how different levels of worker participation during a union organizing campaign influence the perceptions and actions of those same workers after the campaign ends, and, thereby, the long-term effectiveness and success of the organizing effort. Drawing on historical and current examples, the author analyzes the political and economic contexts within which today's unions are organizing, including a detailed examination of the impact of the Wagner Act.
Carbon Taxes: Their Macroeconomic Effects and Prospects for Global Adoption: A Survey of the Literature

The carbon tax is a major instrument for curbing greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. Yet its adoption has been limited because of concerns over its effects on economic growth, income distribution, and international competitiveness. The paper shows that policymakers can minimize the effects of the tax on economic growth through an efficient recycling of tax revenues and on equity through the adoption of appropriate mitigating or compensating measures. To eliminate the worry about the loss of competitiveness, the paper suggests an international agreement on a coordinated adoption of the tax.
Lifetime Ruin Minimization: Should Retirees Hedge Inflation or Just Worry About it?

Inflation for retirees is different from, and mostly higher than, the macroeconomic (average) inflation rate for the entire population. In the U.S. for example, the Consumer Price Index for the Urban population (CPI-U) calculated and reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has a lesser known cousin called the CPI-E (for the elderly) in which the sub-component weights are based on the consumption patterns of Americans above the age of 62. This suggests that Inflation Linked Bond Funds (ILBFs) - whose individual component bond adjustments are based on broad population (CPI-U) inflation - might not be the best hedge for individual retirees’ cost of living. But then again, broad shocks to inflation are likely to impact both indices. So, motivated by the question, "Is it good enough? " The current paper uses lifetime ruin minimization (LRM) techniques to investigate the optimal allocation between an ILBF and a nominal investment fund for a retiree facing an exogenous liability. Our model trades-off the benefit of an imperfect hedge against the cost of lower investment growth. Alas, our numerical results suggest that although ILBFs can be a large part of the optimal retirement portfolio, it should treated as just another asset class in the broad optimization problem as opposed to a special or unique category.
Moodle course design best practices : Learn the best practices to design and develop interactive and highly effective Moodle courses

This book is an easy to follow guide with a handson approach that will help you learn the best practices for designing attractive and highly interactive courses with the help of Moodle. This book can be used by training managers, teachers, instructors, Moodle network specialists, instructional designers, and elearning entrepreneurs. If you are involved in online, cloudbased education, training, or professional development, this is the book for you. No prior experience with Moodle is required, though it would be helpful to understand the basics of using HTML and also working with different multimedia file formats and social media. If you would like to find a very easy and convenient way to organize learning activities along with group projects and activities, then this is the book for you.