Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Microsimulation Analysis of the 2006 Regime Change in the Dutch Disability Scheme

This paper introduces a microsimulation model that simulates the budgetary impact of the 2006 regime change in the Dutch disability scheme. A dynamic population model fits the case of the disability benefits the best. As opposed to macro forecasts, a microsimulation can answer questions about the individual or meso income effects, the exact distribution of expenses among different benefits and the time path of the savings. The introduction of the proposed system change decreases the number of disability benefits by more than 25% from 2020 onwards and reduces total costs by almost Euro 2 billion or 20%. Based on the better incentive structure, participation will increase and boost GDP. Microsimulation can be used to pick the winners and losers of the new system and give the time path of the savings. It is shown that for almost all partially disabled that are working, the total discounted income after the system change is as large as or larger than before the system change, for the non-working total discounted income is lower.
Policies and Predictions for a Low-Carbon Transition by 2050 in Passenger Vehicles in East Asia: Based on an Analysis Using the E3ME-FTT Model

In this paper we apply a model of technological diffusion, Future Technology Transformations in the Transport Sector (FTT: Transport), linked to the E3ME macroeconomic model, to study possible future technological transitions in personal passenger transport in four East Asian countries. We assess how targeted policies could impact on these transitions by defining four scenarios based on policies that aim to reduce emissions from transport. For each country we find that an integrated approach of tax incentives, subsidies, regulations (fuel economy efficiency), kick-start programs and biofuel programs yield the most significant emission reductions because, when combined, they accelerate effectively the diffusion of electric vehicles in the region.
Determination of dietary fibre in selected fruits and vegetables by Prosky method

The total dietary fibre (TDF), soluble dietary fibre (SDF) and insoluble dietary fibre (IDF) of selected fruits and vegetables were determined. The Prosky enzymatic-gravimetric methods were used for the determination of dietary fibres. Guava had the highest TDF content among the fruit samples while petai had the highest TDF content among the vegetable samples. Fractionation of TDF into SDF and IDF showed that in the majority of the samples, IDF values were higher than those of SDF. Crude fibre content of the samples were found to be 2.23–6.25 times lower than their corresponding TDF values.
TRANSFER AND TRANSITION IN THE SLA OF ASPECT

Previous studies have shown that it is particularly difficult for second language (L2) learners to overcome the effects of transfer when they need to unlearn specific aspects of the native language in the absence of explicit input that indicates which properties of the first language (L1) are ruled out by the L2 grammar (Inagaki, 2001; Westergaard, 2003; White, 1991a, 1991b). The present study focuses on the effects of transfer in the domain of aspectual semantics through an investigation of the interpretation of the present progressive in L2 English and the imperfective marker te-iru in L2 Japanese and examines whether L2 learners can rule out interpretations available in the L1 but not in the L2. Japanese learners of English (n = 101), English native-speaker controls (n = 23), English learners of Japanese (n = 31), and Japanese native-speaker controls (n = 33) completed an interpretation task in English or Japanese. The results show that the L2 Japanese learners were more successful than the L2 English learners in both acquiring the semantics of the imperfective in the L2 and ruling out interpretations available only in the L1. It is proposed that successful unlearning depends on both the grammatical complexity of the semantic target in the L2 and the transparency of the input cues available to the learner.
Chemical abundances in the protoplanetary disc LV 2 (Orion) – II. High‐dispersion VLT observations and microjet properties★

Integral field spectroscopy of the LV 2 proplyd is presented taken with the Very Large Telescope (VLT)/FLAMES Argus array at an angular resolution of 0.31 × 0.31 arcsec2 and velocity resolutions down to 2 km s−1 pixel−1. Following subtraction of the local M42 emission, the spectrum of LV 2 is isolated from the surrounding nebula. We measured the heliocentric velocities and widths of a number of lines detected in the intrinsic spectrum of the proplyd, as well as in the adjacent Orion nebula falling within a 6.6 × 4.2 arcsec2 field of view. It is found that far-ultraviolet to optical collisional lines with critical densities, Ncr, ranging from 103 to 109 cm−3 suffer collisional de-excitation near the rest velocity of the proplyd correlating tightly with their critical densities. Lines of low Ncr are suppressed the most. The bipolar jet arising from LV 2 is spectrally and spatially well detected in several emission lines. We compute the [O iii] electron temperature profile across LV 2 in velocity space and measure steep temperature variations associated with the red-shifted lobe of the jet, possibly being due to a shock discontinuity. From the velocity-resolved analysis the ionized gas near the rest frame of LV 2 has Te= 9200 ± 800 K and Ne∼ 106 cm−3, while the red-shifted jet lobe has Te≈ 9000–104 K and Ne∼ 106–107 cm−3. The jet flow is highly ionized but contains dense semineutral clumps emitting neutral oxygen lines. The abundances of N+, O2 +, Ne2 +, Fe2 +, S+and S2 +are measured for the strong red-shifted jet lobe. Iron in the core of LV 2 is depleted by 2.54 dex with respect to solar as a result of sedimentation on dust, whereas the efficient destruction of dust grains in the fast microjet raises its Fe abundance to at least 30 per cent solar. Sulphur does not show evidence of significant depletion on dust, but its abundance both in the core and the jet is only about half solar.
Effect of host availability on reproduction and survival of the parasitoid wasp Trichogramma minutum

1. We tested the hypothesis that females of the egg parasitoid, Trichogrummu minutum Riley (Hymenoptera: Trichogrammatidae), could adjust their fecundity schedule according to host availability and that there was a negative correlation between reproduction and survival in these wasps. 2. Newly-emerged females were provided with an unlimited or limited number of hosts in the first trial and with either unlimited, limited or zero hosts in the second trial. 3. When hosts were unlimited, wasps had the highest rate of reproduction in the first day, which decreased dramatically thereafter. When hosts were limited, wasps from the two trials differed in their response. In Trial I , females with limited hosts had lower first-day fecundity than, and the same subsequent-day fecundity as, those with unlimited hosts. However, in Trial 11, females with limited host had a lower first-day but a higher subsequent-day fecundity than those with unlimited hosts. This indicates variation in Trichogrummu's ability to shift its fecundity schedule in response to host availability. 4. There was a positive (rather than a negative) correlation between reproduction and survival. Wasps that oviposited (in host-unlimited treatment) had greater longevity than those that could not (in host-unavailable treatment). 5. The sex ratio of the progeny produced by wasps in both host-unlimited and limited treatments shifted gradually from a female to a male bias as the wasps aged. 6. We consider the ability of parasitoids to adjust their fecundity schedule as an adaptation to changing host resources and discuss our findings with regard to theories of life history evolution.
SMALL VERTEBRATES FROM THE LATE CRETACEOUS AND EARLY TERTIARY OF THE NORTHEASTERN ARAL SEA REGION, KAZAKHSTAN

Abstract Field work conducted in the northeastern Aral Sea Region, southwestern Kazakhstan has produced a large number of vertebrates from late Cretaceous and early Tertiary sediments. Included among these vertebrates are sharks, bony fishes, amphibians, turtles, lizards, crocodiles, and dinosaurs. This fauna comes from three formations, the Turonian-Coniacian Zhirkindek, the Santonian-Campanian Bostobe, and the early Tertiary Akzhar formations. In this paper we describe the microvertebrate fauna. The Akzhar fauna consists only of marine sharks, one hexanchiform species (Notidanodon cf. loozi) and four lamniform species (Carcharias teretidens, Striatolamia striata, Otodus obliquus var. minor, and Palaeocarcharodon orientalis). These suggest a Paleocene age, most likely Selandian or earliest Thanetian. In addition to previously described components, the Bostobe fauna now includes a discoglossid frog and the lizard Slavoia cf. darevskii. This is the first Mesozoic record of each in Kazakhstan and the latest record anywhere of the latter. The Zhirkindek fauna is now known to include a varanid lizard.
Growth potential of spring forage cereals for silage.

Cereals sown in the spring provide suitable supplements for grazing animals either as conserved feed or a standing crop. Comparisons were made between the growth responses of wheat, barley, oats and triticale cultivars over two seasons. The objective was to relate crop performance to key environment variables and to use the differences in crop responses (quantified as biomass accumulation and leaf growth) to discriminate among new cultivars and commercial standards. There were differences among cultivars in their biomass response to thermal time, particularly for early and late sown crops. There was more variation in radiation use efficiency among trials than for cultivars within trials. Growth response to temperature was a more useful indicator than radiation use efficiency for selecting cultivars with improved productivity. However, thermal time was not the sole factor determining growth. Timing of harvest was shown to be a predictable event because the change in moisture content progressed in a linear manner. Timing of harvest can, therefore, be adjusted by choosing cultivars with differing durations to maturity or by managing sowing dates. Additional key words: wheat, barley, oats, triticale, radiation use efficiency, crop development, thermal time
Baobabs on Kubu Island, Botswana – A dendrochronological multi-parameter study using ring width and stable isotopes (δ13C, δ18O)

Summary : According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ( IPCC ), all of Africa is very likely to warm up more than the global average during this century. Especially (semi-)arid regions are expected to experience particularly high warm - ing and possibly catastrophic droughts. However, assessments of the impacts of climate change on these regions are currently impeded by a lack of transregional high temporal resolution proxy data for the African continent. Baobab trees are widely distributed in (semi-)arid Africa and can reach ages of up to 2000 years. This pilot study was aimed at investigating African baobabs, Adansonia spp. , from a site in Botswana using multiple dendroclimatological methods. Increment cores from 16 indi - vidual baobabs growing on Kubu Island (20°53’ S, 25°49’ E), a granite pluton located in the Kalahari, were collected in June 2011 to test for annual growth and the species’ utility for palaeoclimatic studies. Due to the particular wood fabric and relatively high water content, baobab increment cores were packed in air-tight opaque tubes and stored in a freezer to prevent drying and mould formation. The complicated wood anatomical structure was found to be analysed best using a microscope with incident UV light, allowing tree-ring boundaries to be distinguished. Nonetheless, potential differences in individual site conditions, as well as diverse tree ages, caused conventional dendrochronological crossdating to fail. Missing and false tree rings could be identified due to the strong relationship between tree-ring width and annual precipitation amount allowing the development of a preliminary 50 year-long baobab chronology (1960 – 2009). Subsequently, stable carbon and oxygen isotope analyses revealed significant correlations of Δ 13 C and δ 18 O of tree rings with climate data. Year-to-year isotope variability and trends were found to be in good agreement with established models of fractionation. Intrinsic water-use efficiency has mainly increased over the study period (2 – 30 %). Despite the demonstrated high potential of African baobabs as a valuable high-resolution climate archive, we conclude that more dendrochronological calibration studies are required at various sites in southern Africa. Further -
Integrating Usage Stage Risk Measurement Tools in Distributed Applications

Distributed application features are presented along with associated risks occurring during the development and production stages. Issues raised by incidents catalogued as risks are described. The MERICS software application is presented, being built for user-distributed system interaction analysis and component reliability measurement. The steps taken to accurately describe risks from an end-user scope, based on a comparative system, are shown. The model is implemented using previously-described elements as parameters. The operational impact of analysis is detailed within successive versions of modules composing distributed applications. Risk management decisions are to be based on the analytic database built by applying the above.
Lecture 3 : Bayesian Bootstrap ∗

The previous chapters emphasized optimal prediction under complete knowledge of the population data distribution. Specifically, given knowledge of the joint distribution of X and Y how does one predict Y for a random draw with X = x? Under specific parameterizations of the loss associated with prediction error, the linear, mean and quantile regression functions are all optimal prediction functions. By optimal I mean that they minimize average loss, or risk, across many replications of our prediction problem. Evaluating the risk attached to a specific prediction procedure requires knowledge of the data distribution function. Consequently, when this distribution function is unknown, a risk-minizing procedure is generally unavailable. In this lecture we consider prediction when only a random sample of size N from the target population is available. While our random sample provides information about the underlying population, it does not perfectly reveal its properties. We must proceed under varying degrees of uncertainty about the true population distribution. Our inference problem is created by this lack of knowledge. One approach to handling this uncertainty would be to calculate the risk associated with a given prediction rule under all logically possible data distributions. We could then choose rules that have low maximal risk orminimax rules (e.g., Ferguson, 1967, Chapter 2; Lehmann and Casella, 1998, Chapter 5). Here we will develop a different approach. We begin with the observation that the sample provides information about the relative plausibility of different logically possible data distributions. If the sample includes many draws from a certain region of the sample space, then we might reasonably conclude that the true population data distribution attaches a large amount of probability mass to that region. Likewise we may conclude that data distributions which attach little mass to that region are less plausible candidates for the true distribution. One way to formalize the above intuition is to conceptualize the data distribution as a ∗This note is adapted from my teaching materials from Ec 240a at Berkeley and makes references to other materials not included here.
Identifying the Writing Processes a College Student Has to Undergo : The Generating Model

In producing English compositions, five Chinese college English majors are found to undergo a series of mental processes reflecting how materials are retrieved, organized, edited, and then encoded into the written form of a language. Frequent occurrences of the L1-L2 translating act indicate that the first language (Mandarin) plays a vital role in the course of composing English passages. The structure of the composing process derived from think-aloud protocols produced by the subjects involves complicated sub-processes because of the interruption of the L1-L2 translating act. Compared with an English native speaker (who has to go through five sub-processes, according to Hayes and Flower’s model published in 1980), a Chinese English major may have to go through eight sub-processes in generating a note. That is, the latter has to endure more complex cognitive processes if L1-L2 translating acts are involved in producing English compositions.
CONSTRAINT AND INTEGER PROGRAMMING MODELS FOR BANDWIDTH COLORING AND MULTICOLORING IN GRAPHS

In this paper, constraint and integer programming formulations are applied to solve Bandwidth Coloring Problem (BCP) and Bandwidth Multicoloring Problem (BMCP). The problem definitions are explored in order to construct the constraint programming formulation. The integer programming formulation is based on a previous formulation for the related Minimum Span Frequency Assignment Problem (MS-FAP), which is modified in order to reduce its size and computation time. The two exact approaches are implemented with available solvers and applied to well-known sets of instances from the literature, GEOM and Philadelphia-like problems. Using these models, some heuristic solutions from previous works are proven to be optimal, a new upper bound for an instance is given and all optimal solutions for the Philadelphia-like problems are presented. A discussion is also made on the performance of constraint and integer programming for each considered coloring problem, and the best approach is suggested for each one of them.
Regional socio-economic factors influencing diabetes incidence: the case of Romania

We examine the relation between average net wage, urbanization rate, women density, life expectancy, medical infrastructure and medical human resources, and the incidence of total, insulin, and non – insulin diabetes among Romanians. We fitted three panel regression models with interaction terms using official data comprising of 41 Romanian counties analysed between 2007 and 2014. After controlling for age groups, we found that the share of women in the overall population moderates the influence of salary level on diabetes incidence for the total and non – insulin groups, while for the insulin – dependent category, urbanization rate was positively associated with the number of newly recorded patients. Health infrastructure was relevant only for the total, and the insulin – dependent categories. Our results are in line with the sizeable disparities in diabetes that exist within other European countries and are useful for regional decision-makers planning adequate healthcare services and target proper risk groups.
Calibration of Star-Formation Rate Measurements Across the Electromagnetic Spectrum

Abstract Star-formation is one of the main processes that shape galaxies, and together with black-hole accretion activity the two agents of energy production in galaxies. It is important on a range of scales from star clusters/OB associations to galaxy-wide and even group/cluster scales. Recently, studies of star-formation in sub-galactic and galaxy-wide scales have met significant advances owing to: (a) developments in the theory of stellar evolution, stellar atmospheres, and radiative transfer in the interstellar medium; (b) the availability of more sensitive and higher resolution data; and (c) observations in previously poorly charted wavebands (e.g. Ultraviolet, Infrared, and X-rays). These data allow us to study more galaxies at ever-increasing distances and nearby galaxies in greater detail, and different modes of star formation activity such as massive star formation and low level continuous star formation in a variety of environments. In this contribution we summarize recent results in the fields of multi-wavelength calibrations of star-formation rate indicators, the Stellar Initial Mass function, and radiative transfer and modeling of the Spectrale Energy Disrtributions of galaxies.
Intensified decadal variability in tropical climate during the late 19th century

To evaluate and extend the record of decadal climate variability, we present a synthesis of 23 coral oxygen isotope records from the tropical Indo‐Pacific that extends back to A.D. 1850. Principal components analysis (PCA) on detrended records reveals a leading pattern of variance with significant interannual (3–5 year) and decadal (9–14 year) variability. The temporal evolution and spatial pattern of this variability closely resembles the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) pattern across both time scales, suggesting that this decadal tropical variability is fundamentally related to ENSO. The 19th century experienced stronger decadal tropical climate variability, compared to the 20th. Decadal variability in the tropical oceans thus remains underestimated by analysis of direct observations.
An improvement in clear‐air turbulence forecasting based on spontaneous imbalance theory: the ULTURB algorithm

Recent research has shown that Lighthill–Ford spontaneous gravity wave generation theory, when applied to numerical model data, can help predict areas of clear‐air turbulence. It is hypothesized that this is the case because spontaneously generated atmospheric gravity waves may initiate turbulence by locally modifying the stability and wind shear. As an improvement on the original research, this paper describes the creation of an ‘operational’ algorithm (ULTURB) with three modifications to the original method: (1) extending the altitude range for which the method is effective downward to the top of the boundary layer, (2) adding turbulent kinetic energy production from the environment to the locally produced turbulent kinetic energy production, and, (3) transforming turbulent kinetic energy dissipation to eddy dissipation rate, the turbulence metric becoming the worldwide ‘standard’. In a comparison of ULTURB with the original method and with the Graphical Turbulence Guidance second version (GTG2) automated procedure for forecasting mid‐ and upper‐level aircraft turbulence ULTURB performed better for all turbulence intensities. Since ULTURB, unlike GTG2, is founded on a self‐consistent dynamical theory, it may offer forecasters better insight into the causes of the clear‐air turbulence and may ultimately enhance its predictability. Copyright © 2011 Royal Meteorological Society
Detecting Dynamic Security Threats in Multi-Component IoT Systems

The rising ubiquity of the Internet of Things (IoT) has heralded a new era of increasingly prolific and damaging IoT-centric security threat vectors. Fastpaced market demand for multi-featured IoT products urge companies, and their software engineers, to bring products to market quickly, often at the cost of security. Lack of proper security threat analysis tooling during development, testing, and release cycles exacerbate security concerns. In this paper, we augment a security threat analysis tool to use audit hooks, open-source information capture components, and machine learning techniques to profile dynamic wearable and IoT operations spanning multiple components during execution. Our tool encourages data-drive threat identification and analysis approaches that can help software engineers perform dynamic testing and threat analysis to mitigate codelevel vulnerabilities that lead to attacks in IoT applications. Our approach is evaluated by means of a case study involving a system evaluation across several common attack vectors.