Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bushmeat Exploitation in Tropical Forests: an Intercontinental Comparison

Abstract: We calculated extraction and production rates of bushmeat species in two main tropical, moist‐forest regions, the Amazon and Congo basins. Extraction was estimated from the average number of animals consumed per person per year from anthropological studies that reported animal kills brought into settlements in the regions. We calculated extraction rates ( kg / km 2/year) for 57 and 31 mammalian taxa in the Congo and Amazon, respectively. We then examined the sustainability of these extraction rates by basin and by taxa, using extraction‐to‐production ( E:P) mass‐balance equations. Production (tonnes/year) was calculated as the product of rmax (the intrinsic rate of natural increase), mammal biomass, and total area of forest in each region. Species exploitation rates at specific body masses were significantly greater in the Congo than in the Amazon. The E :P ratio for the Congo was 2.4, 30 times the Amazon's ratio of 0.081. Thus, Congo Basin mammals must annually produce approximately 93% of their body mass to balance current extraction rates, whereas Amazonian mammals must produce only 4% of their body mass. We calculated sustainability levels derived from Robinson and Redford's harvest model for each taxa. On a basin‐wide level, 60% and none of the mammal taxa in the Congo and Amazon basins, respectively, were exploited unsustainably. To evaluate the effect of error on the estimates of E :P, we conducted a sensitivity analysis, which suggests that the mass‐balance was most sensitive to error in standing stock but that our results are robust. We estimated that over 5 million tons of wild mammal meat feed millions in Neotropical (0.15 million) and Afrotropical (4.9 million) forests annually. Our Congo basin estimates are four times higher than those calculated for the region by other workers, and we conclude that the current situation of bushmeat extraction in African rain forests is more precarious than previously thought.
Title : Pricing differentials for Organic , Ordinary and Genetically Modified food

Purpose: Research was undertaken to determine whether consumers are willing to buy genetically modified (GM) foods with a price advantage and other benefits, compared to organic and ordinary types of foods. This question becomes important as the volume of GM foods grown and distributed globally increases as consumer fears surrounding perceived risk decrease and consumer benefits are made explicit. Methodology: A real market setting involved cherries sold through a roadside stall in a popular fruit-growing region of New Zealand. In contrast to survey-based experiments on choice and willingness-to-buy, which may lack credibility with some practitioners and academics, customers chose between three levels of price and three categories of fruit (organic, GM, and ordinary) in a real purchasing situation. Buyers were advised after presenting fruit for purchase that all the fruit was standard commercially-grown low spray residue fruit, that this was a university-run experiment, and that they could purchase the fruit at the lowest of the prices shown. Data were analysed with multinomial logit models. Parameter estimates are interpreted and instructive market scenarios are simulated. Findings and Practical Implications: We conclude that (1) when the GM label is combined with a typical functional food benefit, GM fruit can indeed achieve significant market share amongst organic and ordinary fruit, even in a country where the GM issue has been highly controversial; (2) GM fruit can gain a sustainable competitive advantage from any price reduction associated with production cost savings and (3) market shares of organic fruit are least sensitive to pricing and the introduction of GM fruit.
Continuous Recording and Stochastic Analysis of PD P

We describe the design and use of a digital partial discharge (PD) data recording system capable of continuous real-time recording of PD pulse trains. The recording system consists of a custom two-channel PD digitizer coupled to a personal computer via a 16-bit parallel interface. The digitizer is under software control with the resulting data being stored in binary files on the computer's hard disk. The stored data subsequently are subjected to stochastic analysis using appropriate computer software. Because all data are retained and the computer provides the desired stochastic analysis of data files, the new system is well suited to investigate non-stationary PD behavior such as encountered in aging studies. By way of illustration, the new system was used to determine the time-varying stochastic behavior of ac-generated PD from point-to-dielectric gaps in air where the insulation material was cast epoxy with aluminum oxide filler. The results confirm and extend previous measurements made with an analog stochastic analyzer. With these sample results, we demonstrate how the system allows detaUed stochastic analyzes not possible with data obtained from existing conventional PD measurement systems.
D7.1 - An Experimental Setup for Piezoelectric Cantilevered Vibration Energy Harvesters on a Rotating Drive Shaft

We present an experimental setup along with a simulation environment for piezoelectric cantilevered Energy Harvesting structures under the influence of a stationary rotation. We explain the physical effects that lead to changes in the natural frequencies of the harvester. Consideration of the effects by the Finite Element Method is outlined. For the computation of damped eigenfrequencies, we exploit a model order reduction scheme based on a modal truncation technique, extended to piezoelectric structures. Parameters that influence the tuning behavior are identified and simulation based parameter studies are presented.
Analysing REDD + Challenges and choices

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Careful Commitments: Democratic States and Alliance Design

Evidence suggests that leaders of democratic states experience high costs from violating past commitments. We argue that because democratic leaders foresee the costs of violation, they are careful to design agreements they expect to have a high probability of fulfilling. This may cause democratic leaders to prefer flexible or limited commitments. We evaluate our argument by analyzing the design of alliance treaties signed by countries of the world between 1815 and 2003. We find that alliances formed among democratic states are more likely to include obligations for future consultation rather than precommitting leaders to active conflict, and defense pacts formed among democratic states are more likely to specify limits to the conditions under which member states must join their partners in conflict. This research suggests that separating screening effects and constraining effects of international agreements is even more difficult than previously believed. States with the greatest likelihood of being constrained are more carefully screened.
Comparison among Phenomenological Correlations for Convective Heat Transfer of Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Flowing in Mini/Micro Channels under Cooling Conditions

Finned compact gascoolers made of flat extruded aluminium tubes with internal mini/micro channels constitute a promising technology and the optimisation of this type of heat exchangers is therefore one of the main research goal for the development of refrigerating systems operated with carbon dioxide transcritical cycles. Unfortunately relevant discrepancies exist among different phenomenological correlations which have been suggested throughout the last years for predicting the convective heat transfer in mini/micro channels of carbon dioxide under cooling conditions close to the critical point. This work aims to compare different phenomenological correlations with the numerical results due to some turbulent closure models, which have been adopted in order to properly take into account the effects due to density fluctuations appearing when the thermo-physical properties strongly depend on temperature. The numerical predictions show that the effects due to density fluctuations are smaller than it could have been initially supposed and that the heat transfer impairment for mini/micro channels, which some experiments seem to highlight, is not completely explained by conventional models. The calculations are not exhaustive because of the high scattering of the numerical results, but a moderate preference for a specific phenomenological correlation has been outlined.
Reliable load-balancing routing algorithm for wireless sensor networks

The most critical routing-related issue of wireless sensor network (WSNs) is the quality of the underlying links. While most routing protocols are formulated in a graphtheoretical manner, it is often by no means clear which sensor nodes are connected by a wireless link. Links fluctuate in reliability and can have relatively high packet error rates. Using flooding-based protocols over such links can result in rather convoluted routing tables where nodes are considered to be neighbors only because a flooding packet happened to go through despite actually poor link quality. To overcome these problems, the proposed routing scheme advocate a careful selection of actual parents for a routing tree toward the base station, using information that the link layer can provide. In addition, the determined routes evidently influence the lifetime of the network. Hence, the proposed routing scheme goes a step further in that it attempts to provide guarantee on the lifetime of the network. The initial experimental results, on Crossbow’s Mica2 sensor nodes, show that the proposed routing scheme achieves an overall average of over 30% energy savings over the standard network layer provided by TinyOS, i.e., MintRoute and achieves greater than 60% connectivity to neighboring nodes and communication reliability. Particularly, it shows a higher success rate of packet delivery and moderate energy consumption.
Vulnerability to the impact of climate change on renewable groundwater resources: a global-scale assessment

Climate change will lead to significant changes of groundwater recharge and thus renewable groundwater resources. Using the global water resources and use model WaterGAP, the impact of climate change on groundwater recharge and the number of affected people was computed for four climate scenarios by two climate models. Vulnerability of humans to decreased groundwater resources depends on both the degree of decrease and the sensitivity of the human system to the decrease. For each grid cell, a sensitivity index composed of a water scarcity indicator, an indicator for dependence of water supply on groundwater and the Human Development Index was quantified. Combining per cent groundwater recharge decrease with the sensitivity index, global maps of vulnerability to the impact of decreased groundwater recharge in the 2050s were derived. In the A2 (B2) emissions scenario, 18.4–19.3% (16.1–18.1%) of the global population of 10.7 (9.1) billion would be affected by groundwater recharge decreases of at least 10%, and 4.8–5.7% (3.8–3.8%) of the global population would be in the two highest vulnerability classes. The highest vulnerabilities are found at the North African rim of the Mediterranean Sea, in southwestern Africa, in northeastern Brazil and in the central Andes, which are areas of moderate to high sensitivity. For most of the areas with high population density and high sensitivity, model results indicate that groundwater recharge is unlikely to decrease by more than 10% until the 2050s. However, a fifth to a third of the population may be affected by a groundwater recharge increase of more than 10%, with negative impacts in the case of shallow water tables. The spatial distribution of vulnerability, even at the continental scale, differs more strongly between the two climate models than between the two emissions scenarios.
Rescuing Fanon from the Critics

My real interest in Fanon dates from a night in August 1967 when, together with a couple hundred West Indian students in London, we converged on our Students' Center to listen to a lecture delivered by Stokely Carmichael. One or two of us in the audience had even been at primary school with him in Trinidad, though he probably didn't suspect it. “Can't you remember him? ” asked an old classmate of mine, trying to jolt my memory. “He was always fighting! ” My recollections from that night are several--the white agent provocateur who entered the building and tried unsuccessfully to incite us to violence against him; the contingent of policemen who, transported in an assortment of vehicles, swooped down on the building from all directions as we stood talking to Stokely after the lecture; the haste with which Stokely was spirited away from the scene by his friends wishing to avoid an “incident”; the anguish with which I watched some of my friends come to within an inch of blowing their cool in the face of the police provocations--yet a riot was avoided, and though the British government still banned Stokely from the country shortly afterwards, their arguments would have looked much more plausible if we had succumbed to the provocations of that night.
Comparative evaluation of photovoltaic MPP trackers: A simulated approach

Abstract This paper makes a comparative assessment of three popular maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithms used in photovoltaic power generation. A 120 Wp PV module is taken as reference for the study that is connected to a suitable resistive load by a boost converter. Two profiles of variation of solar insolation at fixed temperature and varying temperature at fixed solar insolation are taken to test the tracking efficiency of three MPPT algorithms based on the perturb and observe (P&O), Fuzzy logic, and Neural Network techniques. MATLAB/SIMULINK simulation software is used for assessment, and the results indicate that the fuzzy logic-based tracker presents better tracking effectiveness to variations in both solar insolation and temperature profiles when compared to P&O technique and Neural Network-based technique.
Continuous particle manipulation and separation in a hurdle-combined curved microchannel using DC dielectrophoresis

This paper presents a novel dielectrophoresis (DEP)-based microfluidic device which combines round hurdle with an S-shaped curved microchannel for continuous manipulation and separation of microparticles. Local nonuniform electric fields are generated by means of both constricted gaps and curved sections having equal width. Under the effect of negative DEP, particles transporting throughout the microchannel electrokinetically will be directed away from either inner wall or hurdle edge. Both experiment and numerical simulation were conducted, the results of which showed that the trajectories of fix-sized (i.e. 10 or 15 μm) polystyrene (PS) particles could be controlled by adjusting applied voltage, and continuous size-based separation of 10 and 15 μm particles was achieved. Compared to other microchannel designs that make use of either obstacle or curvature individually for electric field gradient, the developed microchannel offers advantages such as improved controllability over particle motion, lower req.
Improving Tax Administration in Developing Countries

The Reform of Tax Administration Tax Administration and Tax Policy - Case Studies - Tax administration reform in Bolivia and Uraguay, The nexus of tax administration and tax policy in Jamaica and Guatamala, Improving the administration of the Colombian income tax, The introduction of a value-added tax in Trinidad and Tobago, Information technology - strategy of the Spanish tax administration, Comments Reforming Tax Administration Tax administration and inflation Improving tax compliance Assisting taxpayers in meeting their obligations Organisational structure and human resources in tax administration Privatization of tax administration.
Strategic Partnership and Equity Alliances in the Function of Crisis Prevention and Elimination

Crisis management comprises planning, organizing, directing and monitoring companies experiencing difficulties that directly endanger their existence and further development and its purpose is to stop negative trends by achieving a drastic change and providing the foundation for redevelopment. The short-term measures of crisis management that put an end to negative movements (survival) in the first phase, must be followed in the second phase by middle- or long-term measures of ensuring development that are mostly connected to revolutionary changes. In regard to a corporation’s situation from its endangerment or the prospects point of view, restructuring as a method of revolutionary changes can have the different roles in crisis solving, crisis prevention, accelerated development of a corporation, insolvency procedures and business and equity alliances. For many companies or even industries, the inclusion into a strategic partnership at a certain level of development is not only a strategic possibility and opportunity, but also a business necessity, as this is the only way to preserve a competitive market position and prevent the occurrence of acute crisis in the future. On the other hand, it is also possible to heal a company crisis with strategic connections and equity alliances; whereby available assets and partner companies’ capabilities are also included into the healing process, which is also in search of synergy effects. Based on the theoretical discussion and empirical findings from the author’s research, two statements that were set forth in advance were confirmed. Strategic partnerships and equity alliances are often in the function of crisis prevention and management and they are inseparably connected with revolutionary changes, as positive effects cannot be achieved otherwise.
Blood concentrations of B-type natriuretic peptide and N-terminal prohormone B-type natriuretic peptide as markers of left ventricle diastolic function in patients with chronic renal failure

Background/Aim. Patients with chronic renal failure (CRF) have increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. It is unknown which biomarkers best describe the degree of diastolic dysfunction in patients with CRF. The aim of this study was to determine the correlation between B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP), N-terminal prohormone brain natriuretic peptide (NTproBNP) and left ventricular diastolic dysfunction (DD-LV) with the degree of CRF. Methods. The study included 100 adult patients with CRF without major cardiac and cerebral incidents who did not start actively treating CRF. According to the degree of CRF, the patients were divided into two groups: G1 (moderate degree), glomerular filtration rate (GFR) ≥ 30 mL/min/1.73 m2, and G2 (more severe degree), GFR < 30 mL/min/1.73 m2. Blood concentrations of BNP and NTproBNP were measured and Doppler echocardiographic measurement performed to estimate diastolic dysfunction (DD-LV). According to the degree of DD-LV, all the patients were divided into two groups: DD-LV1 (mild diastolic dysfunction) and DD-LV2 (severe diastolic dysfunction). According to the degree of CRF and DD-LV, the patients were divided into four groups: I (G1, DD-LV1), II (G1, DD-LV2), III (G2, DD-LV1) and IV (G2, DD-LV2). Results. There was a highly significant statistical correlation between BNP and NTproBNP with GFR (p < 0.001), and DD-LV with BNP (p < 0.023) and NTproBNP (p = 0.035). In patients with DD-LV2, a statistically significantly higher BNP concentrations were registered in patients with G2 (p < 0.001). Unlike BNP in the patients with diastolic dysfunction DD-LV1 and those with diastolic dysfunction DD-LV2, significantly higher concentrations of NTproBNP were registered in the patients with G2 (DD- LV1: p = 0.006; DD-LV2: p < 0.001). Conclusion. Biomarkers BNP and NTproBNP are not the best predictors in the assessment of diastolic dysfunction because they are correlated with the degree of renal insufficiency.
Activity and origin of digestive enzymes in gut of the tropical earthworm Pontoscolex corethrurus

Activities of glucidic digestive enzymes in the gut (content plus walls) of a tropical endogeic earthworm, Pontoscolex corethrurus, have been assayed. In order to determine the origin of the enzymes found in the gut, the wall tissues were cultured in vitro, and enzymatic activities were measured both in the cultured tissues and in the culture medium. The earthworm possesses a weak but quite complete enzyme system. In the gut, the enzymes were capable of degrading the following substrates: heteroside (N-acetylglucosamine), oligosaccharides (maltose, laminaribiose) and polysaccharides (starch, laminaran, pullulan, microcrystalline cellulose, carboxymethylcellulose, mannan, glucomannan and caroub galactomannan, lichenin). The strongest enzymatic activities were located in the foregut and midgut. Among the main enzymes found in the gut, cellulase and mannanase were neither detected, in the cultured tissues nor in the culture medium, which indicates that these two enzymes were produced by micro-organisms ingested with the soil. The oligosaccharidase and heterosidase activities were higher in the cultured tissues than in the medium, which was not the case for the polysaccharidases.