Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Changes in species richness and composition in European acidic grasslands over the past 70 years: the contribution of cumulative atmospheric nitrogen deposition

Our study investigates the negative impact of nitrogen (N) deposition on species richness in acidic grasslands, based on a temporal comparison of vegetation data spanning a period of almost 70 years. We compiled a large data base of plots assigned to the Violion caninae grassland type, composed of managed, but unfertilized semi‐natural grasslands on nutrient‐poor, acidic soils. In total 1114 plots, mainly from Great Britain, the Netherlands and Germany, were compiled, dating back to 1939. Environmental site information included geographical and soil (mean Ellenberg values) variables as well as estimates of cumulative N and sulphur (S) deposition since 1939. Statistical analyses were carried out separately for the data subsets from the three regions. In all regions, the vegetation differentiation was mainly related to soil acidity and nutrient availability, as well as to the year of sampling and the cumulative amounts of N and S deposition. Plot‐species richness of vascular plants and bryophytes (analysed for Great Britain only) decreased with time and analyses suggest these are affected by various factors, notably soil pH, but also latitude and cumulative N deposition. The latter explained more of the variation in species number than the year of sampling and cumulative S deposition, which supports the interpretation that the decline in species richness is mainly caused by increasing N availability and less by altered management and soil acidification. For Great Britain and Germany, cumulative N deposition showed a strong negative relationship with several biodiversity measures, especially the proportion of dicots, whereas it was positively related to the proportion of grass species. In general, our results give temporal evidence for the negative effect of N deposition on species richness in semi‐natural vegetation.
Cooperation and Community Responsibility: A Folk Theorem for Repeated Matching Games with Names

When large communities transact with each other and players change rivals over time, players may not recognize each other or may have limited information about past play. Can players cooperate in such anonymous transactions? I analyze an infinitely repeated random matching game between two communities. Players' identities are unobservable and players only observe the outcomes of their own matches. Players may send an unverifiable message (a name) before playing each game. I show that for any such game, all feasible individually rational payoffs can be sustained in equilibrium if players are sufficiently patient. Cooperation is achieved not by the standard route of community enforcement or third-party punishments, but by community responsibility. If a player deviates, her entire community is held responsible and punished by the victim.
Measuring dynamic market selection by persistent scale inefficiencies - new methodology applied to EU business services

The paper proposes a new way of analysing the efficiency of dynamic market selection, based on the persistence of scale economies. The new methodology is used to investigate the causes of stagnating productivity growth in EU business services. An efficient market ensures that more productive firms grow faster than others. Conversely, firms with weaker performance would be outcompeted and shrink, and eventually go broke. This paper uses scale diseconomies and their persistence as indicator for the effectiveness of market selection. We use a DEA method to construct the productivity frontier by sub-sector and size class, for business services in 13 EU countries. From this we derive scale economies and their development over time. Our results indicate malfunctioning competitive selection. Between 1999 and 2005 we observe a persistence of scale diseconomies, with scale efficiency falling rather than growing over time. In panel regressions we find the distance to the productivity frontier (within and between size classes) to be significantly explained by regulatory policies that hamper entry and exit dynamics and labour adjustment, and by a lack of import penetration and domestic start-ups. The results suggest that policy reform and more market openness may have positive productivity effects. This holds for business services itself, but also wider, because of business services’ large role in intermediary production inputs.
Rewards to Meet Market Expectations: Evidence of Stock Market Sophistication

Very often, firms report earnings that meet or beat market expectation (MBE). In this study, we empirically document that managers are rewarded more cash bonus when their firm MBE more often, and this relation holds same regardless of the extent of managerial entrenchment. We find that stock market reacts positively overall when firms MBE, but it reacts less positively for firms with entrenched managers. The study shows that stock market is more sophisticated in rewarding firms for meeting or beating market expectation than a firm’s cash bonus system does.
One dimensional image processing for eye tracking using derivative dynamic time warping

In this paper, one dimensional image processing for eye tracking approach is presented using a low cost webcam. It was found that the algorithm is resistant to illumination variation and is able to track eyes of users with and without glasses in multiple orientations. The size and location of the region of interest (ROI), which contains both eyes, is adaptive. Derivative Dynamic Time Warping (DDTW) is chosen as the classifier for this experiment since it can match patterns from one dimension data sequences with varying length. The DDTW is applied to compare distances of the area with an offline template by investigating separately, the row arrays and column arrays for eye tracking. The online one dimensional image processing for eye tracking procedure shows good accuracy and robustness when implemented at 50 frames/s on a 253 GHz Pavilion DV4 HP notebook.
Increasing employment instability among young people? Labor market entries and early careers in Germany since the mid-1980s

In the light of rising economic uncertainty, employers increasingly try to transfer market risks to their employees and to establish more flexible employment relationships. Young people are supposed to be especially exposed to labor market flexibilization as the lack of seniority, work experience, lobby, and networks make it possible to shift precarious employment forms to them. In our paper, we investigate whether employment instabilities are indeed rising among young people in Germany and whether certain groups of young people are at a particularly high risk. Our analyses are based on data from the German SocioEconomic Panel (GSOEP) and refer to the period since the mid-1980s; they include young people from Eastern and Western Germany as well as migrants of three different educational cohorts. To capture employment instabilities among young people in Germany, we focus (1) on the duration of first job search, (2) on the risk of fixed-term employment in the first job, (3) on the risk of unemployment after having entered first employment, and (4) the re-entry chances of unemployed persons. Our analyses show that young people face increasing difficulties at labor market entry in recent years: it takes them a longer time to find a first job; a rising share of them is confronted with unemployment directly after leaving the educational system; and starting the employment career in a fixed-term contract is more frequent nowadays. We find growing employment turbulence also in the early career: unemployment risks have been rising for those who have already found a job. Flexible forms of employment (fixed-term positions) seem to be particularly at risk to end in unemployment. Furthermore, it has become more difficult to reenter employment after a phase of unemployment. Employment instabilities do not hit all employees alike, but especially the lowly educated and the lower occupational classes as well as East Germans and migrants. The results indicate that qualification and class became increasingly important for young people’s labor market chances since the mid-1980s. We thus find a relative strengthening of inequality structures among young people in Germany in an era of increasing labor market problems. 3 Increasing employment instability among young people? Labor market entries and early careers in Germany since the mid-1980s Sandra Buchholz and Karin Kurz
West Virginia Story: Achievement Gains from a Statewide Comprehensive Instructional Technology Program

This report describes West Virginia's Basic Skills/Computer Education (BS/CE) program and connects its features to gains in student test scores that are practically and statistically significant. The program consists of three components: (1) software that focuses on the state's basic skills goals in reading, language arts, and mathematics; (2) enough computers in the schools so that all students will be able to have easy and regular access to the basic skills software; and (3) professional development for teachers in the use of the software and the use of computers in general. Data were collected from all fifth graders (n=950) in 18 elementary schools selected to represent the range of variables that might influence technology use and student achievement. Survey data were also collected from 290 teachers. Results were analyzed using a model that includes access to software and computers, attitudes toward technology, and teacher training and involvement. The relationship of BS/CE to student achievement, as measured by the Stanford-9 achievement test, is examined. Findings suggest that the BS/CE program had a powerfully positive effect, especially in those schools that used it most intensively. Ten figures and tables illustrate findings. (AEF) ******************************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ********************************************************************************
Efficacy of passive hair-traps for the genetic sampling of a low-density badger population

A hair-trapping survey was carried out in the western River Po plain (NW Italy). We aimed to test whether barbed wire hair snares in combination with DNA profiling might represent an effective tool to study a low-density badger population. Traps were placed above the entrances of twelve badger setts between 15 February and 30 April 2010. Trapping effort was expressed as the number of trap-nights required to pluck a hair sample and the trend in the number of genotyped individual over time was analysed by regression analysis. Forty-three hair samples were collected, with an overall trapping effort of 54.8 trap-nights per one hair sample. Twenty-eight samples yielded reliable genotypes, allowing the identification of nine individual badgers. The length of storage period (1-3 months) before DNA extraction did not seem to affect genotyping success. According to the regression model, trapping effort allowed to sample 75% of the overall population. Our results suggest that the efficacy of passive devices is affected by population density.
The Impact of Microeconomic Variables on Stock Return by Moderating of Money Supply

The purpose of this study is to empirically investigate the effect of microeconomic variables on stock return with moderating role of money supply (MS). The selected microeconomic variables in this study are debt-to-equity ratio (DE), dividend per share (DPS), and quick ratio (QR). Firm size and book-to-market value are considered as controlling variables. The period of the study is from 2003 to 2012 and the sample population of this study is 300 companies listed on Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange (KLSE). Secondary data were collected from DataStream International, financial annual reports, and the World Bank databank. Generalized least squares (GLS) technique was used to estimate the predictive regressions in form of multiple models of panel data sets. According to the findings, MS moderates the impact of DE and QR on stock return, but does not moderate the effect of DPS on stock return. Besides, MS moderates the impact of all selected predictors on stock return. The findings of this study further show that an increase in value of a firm’s debt relative to its equity would cause a decrease in the firm’s stock return. The results also indicate that firms with higher QR and DPS are likely to have a higher stock return. Overall, the findings of this research are consistent with Modigliani and Miller's capital structure theory, as well as Pecking Order and Bird In Hand theory. The findings of this study would be of interest to domestic and international investors, stockbrokers, board of directors, financial managers, and policy makers.
Privacy Infrastructure for Content and Communications

Citizens’ privacy is coming under greater threat as an increasing number of entities can access user data. A powerful adversary, such as a nation-state, can gain access to user data using a broad range of techniques, from privately tapping wires and collecting traffic to serving warrants or subpoenas for user data. Protecting user privacy in the face of these types of activities is challenging. Existing protocol encryption such as TLS is not sufficient, since a wide range of data, from DNS lookups to server access logs, may be visible to eavesdroppers or subject to data requests. In this dissertation, I develop new techniques that demonstrate that three aspects of the existing Internet infrastructure, specifically routing, hosting, and naming, can be used to counter surveillance. First, I study the current state of routing by measuring which countries are on the paths between users and popular websites. I then evaluate different methods for routing Internet traffic around unfavorable countries, and based on these findings, I design and implement RAN, a lightweight system that routes a client’s web traffic around specified countries with no modifications to client software. Second, I describe modifications to content hosting that prevent a powerful adversary such as a nation-state from gaining access to a user’s requests for certain Web content. In today’s Internet, Content Distribution Networks (CDNs) have rich information both about the content they are serving and the users who are requesting that content. Access to this type of information makes CDNs a target for requests for data about users’ browsing activities. To counter this threat, I developed Oblivious CDN (OCDN), which hides from the CDN both the content it is serving and the users who are requesting that content. In the last part of this dissertation, I explore how the naming infrastructure currently compromises client privacy by looking at conventional DNS as well as onion services. I highlight fundamental issues with both types of domain lookups, and iii present Oblivious DNS (ODNS) as a new approach to protecting privacy by decoupling client identities from the domains they are looking up.
The Lexicon in Language Attrition: TheCase of N|uu

N|uu is the sole remaining language of the ! Ui branch of Tuu (Southern Khoesan) family of southern Africa. The only other extant Tuu language, ! Xóõ, is still being learned by children, but N|uu is spoken by just a few elders in the Northern Cape, South Africa and Botswana. All N|uu speakers have shifted to a primary mode of communication of Afrikaans. N|uu has distinct Eastern and Western dialects, and is the subject of ongoing work by the authors, Levi Namaseb, Chris Collins, Mats Exter and Tom Güldemann. Early documentation of the language is very sparse, with related lects typically referred to as ǂKhomani or N||ng (Bleek 1929, Güldemann 2000, Güldemann forthcoming, Doke 1936, Maingard 1937, Westphal 1953-1971, Traill 1999). A number of poorly-known Tuu lects (|nu-||en, N|uusaa, ! Nusa, |Nusa, |Nusan, Nusan, |Nusa, N|ohan) are not discussed here. The case of N|uu is an interesting one for investigating the effects of language shift on the lexicon. It has been argued that lexical items “dominate as the elements that are vulnerable to attrition” (Gross 2004), but such attrition is difficult to establish in underdescribed languages, many of which are in precisely the situations that make attrition most likely. In this study, we investigate whether there is evidence of attrition in the N|uu lexicon by looking at a corpus obtained through direct elicitation. We find relatively few signs of attrition in this corpus, which is consistent with our expectations for a language that has undergone abrupt rather than gradual shift.
tRNAs as Biomarkers and Regulators for Breast Cancer

Abstract : tRNA reads mRNA codons in translation and is essential for protein synthesis. Like mRNA, tRNAs are also under stringent cellular control. Our proposal aims to determine the feasibility of using tRNA expression as biomarkers for breast cancer type and progression, and how tRNAs are used to regulate gene expression in breast cancer cells. We found that the expression of both nuclear and mitochondrial-encoded tRNAs can be useful as possible biomarkers for breast cancer. Furthermore, tRNA expression also correlates in some way to certain groups of breast cancer related genes. These results demonstrate that studies of tRNA and breast cancer biology will be useful in understanding breast cancer type and progression and may lead to new drug targets for breast cancer treatment.
Endowments, Specialization, and Policy

The paper explores the relationship between industry shares in production and their determinants including factor endowments, technology, and government policies, in a GDP–function framework. We use a new international panel dataset on production and trade compiled by the World Bank. As an intermediate step we calculate Hicks-neutral productivity indices that vary across industries, time, and countries. We find that own-TFP is robustly associated with industry shares across time and countries and that, after correcting for these productivity differences, output shares are related to factor endowments (Rybczynski effects) in a plausible way. Once Rybczynski effects are controlled for, we find little evidence of demand-side policies (import tariffs) affecting the allocation of resources; we find, however, more role for supply-side policies as the relative size of capital-intensive industries is positively associated with infrastructure–capital endowments.
Toward a New Understanding of Multicellularity

Multicellularity is a widespread development of life on Earth and so is the use of the term. The term multicellularity is currently used to characterize a broad spectrum of cellular manifestations, from unicellular symbiotic arrangements, to colonial gatherings and organisms that undergo cell specialization. These manifestations are remarkably distinct and therefore should have different designations. Here we divide multicellularity into facultative and obligate life cycles, reflecting the divergence between organisms that adopt multicellularity if environmentally triggered and organisms that are multicellular from conception and cannot complete their life cycle without undergoing a multicellular phase. We then compare multicellularity throughout the three domains of life and identify the circumstances involving the emergence of obligate multicellularity. It is here hypothesized that obligate multicellularity results from extended cooperation between different life entities adopted as a strategy to survive prolonged low-fitness periods.
Chapter 7 The Cultural and Environmental Context

Città Studi”, Milan. If the name can simply reduce to the idea of a university and research district or ‘work zone’, this area encloses a series of historical signs that represent its environment. The context of the LLAW workshop was a pedestrian street of the Polimi campus that serves several departments and sport activities that have been studied through several interpretations, such as relationship, experience, imageability, identity, association, perception, knowledge and variability.
The Effect of Oxygen Supply on Nitrite Reduction by Tallgrass Prairie Soil Bacteria

Nitrite reduction, catalyzed by nitrite reductase, is a key step in the denitrification pathway because it catalyzes the reduction of soluble nitrite (NO2-) into nitric oxide gas (NO). The production of nitric oxide gas therefore decreases the amount of nitrogen in soils. Other studies have investigated the effect of oxygen on denitrification in a few specific microorganisms (e.g. Aquaspirillum magnetotacticum, Thiosphaera pantotropha, and Paracoccus denitrificans). In this study, we tested the effect of oxygen on nitrite reduction in seven strains representing 5 different genera obtained from Tallgrass Prairie soil. The strains were chosen based on positive detection of at least one functional gene in the denitrification pathway along with positive results for nitrate (NO3-) and/or nitrite reduction after growth in nitrate broth in a microtiter plate assay. Under these conditions which did not totally exclude oxygen, three strains were able to reduce nitrite while four strains did not reduce nitrite. All seven strains were retested for the production/consumption of nitrite under strictly anaerobic conditions using nitrate as the electron acceptor. In addition, the strains were screened for genes encoding the copper nitrite reductase (nirK) and the cytochrome cd1-nitrite reductase (nirS) and other functional markers of denitrification pathway, namely nitric oxide reductase gene (norB) and nitrous oxide (N2O) reductase gene (nosZ) by PCR amplification using specific primers. Our results show that under strict anaerobic conditions, two additional strains demonstrated nitrite reduction. Although none of the molecular markers showed perfect correlation with the ability to reduce nitrite, nirS/nirK, commonly used to screen environmental samples for denitrifying bacteria, was detected in only two of the five strains shown in this study to reduce nitrite. More nitrite reducing strains were correctly identified when both the cnorB and nosZ primer sets were used. ©2015 Oklahoma Academy of Science
LEACH IN MULTI-AGENT HYBRID ROBOT ARCHITECTURES

In the last decade research in wireless sensor networks has drawn attention due to the advantage regarding surveillance of phenomena's in different backgrounds. The life extension of networks, scalability and balance of recharging are just a few important parameters for wireless sensor networks. Grouping the nodes is an efficient technique to obtain such results. In this paper we will introduce an algorithm for energy efficiency in node groups based on a LEACH protocol. LEACH (Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy) is one of the most known solutions of node grouping in the last decade being proposed for any type of wireless sensor networks. LEACH protocols use TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) based on a MAC protocol which optimizes the energy consumption. The proposed protocol will be used in a simulation program. As we can observe in the accompanying results, there is a slight reduction of energy consumption compared to the classical protocols.