Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The global SF6 source inferred from long-term high precision atmospheric measurements and its comparison with emission inventories

Emissions of sulphur hexafluoride (SF6), one of the strongest greenhouse gases on a per molecule basis, are targeted to be collectively reduced under the Kyoto Protocol. Because of its long atmospheric lifetime (estimated as 800 to 3200 years), the accumulation of SF6 in the atmosphere is a direct measure of its global emissions. Examination of our extended data set of globally distributed high-precision SF6 observations shows an increase in SF6 abundance from near zero in the 1970s to a global mean of 6.7 ppt by the end of 2008. In-depth evaluation of our long-term data records shows that the global source of SF6 decreased after 1995, most likely due to SF6 emission reductions in industrialised countries, but increased again after 1998. By subtracting those emissions reported by Annex I countries to the United Nations Framework Convention of Climatic Change (UNFCCC) from our observation-inferred SF6 source leaves a surprisingly large gap of more than 7080% of non-reported SF6 emissions in the last decade. This suggests a strong under-estimation of emissions in Annex I countries and underlines the urgent need for independent atmospheric verification of greenhouse gases emissions accounting.
Exploring the Effects of Uncertainty in Structural Design

Introduction Abstract: Modern structures require more complex and accurate designs than ever before. In order to achieve an economic and safe design it is necessary to account for the uncertainties in design variables. This paper presents a technique in which the science of design of experiments (DOE) is employed to assess in modern structure design. A case study of a simple structure that is idealized as a simply supported beam is investigated. The design variables are categorized according to their sources as: load, geometry and material types. Each variable value is assumed to vary within a given numerical distribution. The deflection at the mid span of the structure is considered as the performance response of interest. DOE is applied to evaluate the effect of uncertainty within the design variables on the performance response. It is also used to calculate the interaction effect between design variables. This technique yields a better understanding of how the design variables are interacting and how this will affect the overall performance of the structure. It is believed that the intelligent use of DOE techniques will help in the design of safer and more economic structures.
A Technique for Estimating Greenhouse Gas Exchange Adjacent Cattle Feedlots

Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO) such as open-air beef cattle feedlots are known ‘hot spots’ of emissions of numerous gases including the major greenhouse gases methane, nitrous oxide, and carbon dioxide. Some work has documented CAFOs to derive typical emission factors, but few studies have looked beyond the CAFO to the local landscape to derive the net off-farm emissions. To address the net emissions, the exchange of gases downwind of CAFOs is required, determined in part by the air quality of the gas plume from the CAFO and the characteristics of the underlying surface. Our study measured these downwind fluxes at an open-air beef cattle feedlot using an open-path Fourier Transform Infrared detector and a flux-gradient method. The results showed the dynamic response of fluxes to gas concentration (fresh air or feedlot air) and surface condition (actively growing crop and tilled stubble). These results shed light on the pathways of greenhouse gas flow near a CAFO source, and showed that solely measuring source emissions from a CAFO would lead to errors when developing emission factors.
Asset Pricing with Epstein-Zin Preferences. ∗

Hansen, Heaton and Li (2005) have recently shown, how news about changes in the long-run growth rates of consumption can impact on current asset prices, if preferences are nonseparable over time. This paper provides a complementary approach to theirs. It examines asset pricing with generalized Epstein-Zin preferences, allowing for nonseparabilities between consumption and leisure as well as trend growth in consumption. A log-linear approximation for the asset pricing formula is provided, showing how news about future consumption and leisure changes matter for asset prices. The asset pricing formulas are evaluated empirically.
Intestinal phytase activity in chickens (Gallus Domesticus)

The objective of the study was to adapt an assay and determine the effect of innate and dietary factors on intestinal phytase activity (IPA). The release of phosphorus, when an extract of intestinal mucosa was incubated with phytate as substrate, was used to measure phytase activity. Maximum IPA was detected between pH 5.6 and 6.2, and it was very low and non-detectable at pH 7.0-7.4. Activity was dependent on the presence of Zn2+ and Mg2+, and IPA was inhibited by a commercial phosphatase inhibitor cocktail but not by L-phenylalanine, an inhibitor of alkaline phosphatase. The activity in the proximal portion of the duodenal loop was higher than in the distal portion. Newly hatched chicks exhibited IPA and neither age (1 to 8 weeks) nor gender had an effect on IPA in broiler chickens. However, a gender effect was evident in a layer strain; females had 94.7% higher IPA than males. Lowering the total phosphorus level of the broiler starter diet increased IPA. During the growing period, IPA was almost twice as high when the diet contained no supplemental inorganic Phosphorus. High dietary iron depressed IPA in fast- and slow-growing meat strains. The results indicate that phytase activity is present along the gastro-intestinal tract of chickens and that intestinal pH and nutrient composition are important modulators of intestinal phytase activity and phytate phosphorus utilization. Key words: Intestinal phytase activity (IPA), inhibition, broilers, layers, phytate phosphorus.
Towards A Macroeconomic Model for Fiji

This paper is an attempt to create a quarterly macroeconomic model for Fiji and as would be expected for starters, it uses calibrated coefficients from other studies to run impulse response functions. It builds on a standard small open economy model (which includes Argov et al (2007) among others) with several extensions/modifications. The model incorporates a large foreign economy making it a two-country model to ensure that transactions between the exporting and importing country are modeled explicitly. This addition is vital for a better understanding of global economic shocks. To suit the Fijian case study, instead of using the extended forward looking Uncovered Interest Parity (UIP) condition that is commonly assumed for small open economy models, a constant nominal exchange rate index was assumed. The model also introduces detailed trade balance measures given the importance of trade in Fiji as a source of foreign exchange. Overall, the model captures part of Fiji’s history qualitatively and future work is required to improve the magnitudes and the lags of the responses.
Worldwide Contrast in Application of Bio-Fertilizers for Sustainable Agriculture: Lessons for Sub-Saharan Africa

The use of bio-fertilizers in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is low compared to selected developed and Asian countries. The later have perceived the products as useful and have invested in use of bio-fertilizers in their agricultural systems. Effective regulations in developed and selected Asian countries have enhanced the availability of high quality products. Conversely, lack of awareness, infrastructure, skill and absence of a supportive regulatory framework in SSA has negatively impacted the use of bio-fertilizers. This review aims at pointing out what SSA could learn from selected developed and Asian countries to improve the availability and adoption of high quality bio-fertilizers. The benefits in terms of biological nitrogen fixation, nutrient uptake, yield increases, cost saving, and utilization constraints are discussed to create awareness of stakeholders interested in the agricultural application of the technology in SSA. Keywords: bio-fertilizer, availability, adoption, profitability, sub-Saharan Africa
The effect of foliar nutrition of spinach (Spinacia oleracea L.) with magnesium salts and urea on gas exchange, leaf yield and quality

In a pot experiment conducted in a phytotron, the effectiveness of foliar nutrition of spinach (Spinacia oleracea L.) with different magnesium salts with and without the addition of 0.5% CO(NH 2 ) 2 was studied. Magnesium was applied 3 times in the form of solutions of MgSO 4 x 7H 2 O, Mg(NO 3 ) 2 x 6H 2 O, MgCl 2 x 6H 2 O, C 4 H 6 O 4 Mg x 4H 2 O, compared to water as the control treatment. The obtained results showed that foliar feeding of spinach with inorganic magnesium salts was an efficient method for supplementing the Mg level in plants during the growing period. But the application of a metalo-organic complex in the form of magnesium acetate (C 4 H 6 O 4 Mg x 4H 2 O) at a concentration of 1.7%, in spite of a similar effect on leaf Mg content, induced phytotoxic symptoms in the form of chlorotic and necrotic spots on the leaves. The application of the solutions of inorganic magnesium salts had a significant effect, resulting in more intensive leaf gas exchange (stomatal conductance, transpiration and photosynthesis) and an increase in leaf yield. Magnesium sulphate affected the abovementioned processes in the most effective way, while magnesium acetate had a negative impact. Foliar feeding of spinach with the magnesium salts resulted in an increased leaf content of protein, chlorophyll, carotenoids, nitrates and proline, but a decrease in vitamin C content. The addition of urea to the applied magnesium salt solutions increased the plant gas exchange rates and the leaf content of protein, chlorophyll, carotenoids, nitrates and proline, but it decreased the content of vitamin C, potassium and magnesium.
Measuring Income Polarization Using an Enlarged Middle Class

In this paper, a new class of polarization measures is derived axiomatically. The concept of polarization is here identified with the decline of the middle class. In particular, we extend the definition of middle class towards a more realistic framework: the middle class is defined in terms of central interval rather than median income. Then polarization is measured both as the presence of well-separated poles and as the dispersion inside the middle class. This new class of indices can be seen as a generalization of existing measures of income polarization. Also, a new polarization ordering is introduced. The new approach is illustrated with an application to EU countries.
Soft extragalactic X-ray binaries at the Eddington threshold.

The luminosity range at and just below the 1039 erg s−1 cut-off for defining ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) is a little-explored regime. It none-the-less hosts a large number of X-ray sources, and has great potential for improving our understanding of sources with ∼Eddington accretion rates. We select a sample of four sources in this Eddington Threshold regime with good data for further study; these objects possess a variety of soft spectral shapes. We perform X-ray spectral and timing analysis on the XMM-Newton and Chandra data for these objects to gain insight into their accretion mechanisms, and also examine their optical counterparts using HST images. NGC 300 X-1 is a highly luminous and well-known example of the canonical steep power-law accretion state. M51 ULS exhibits a cool blackbody-like spectrum and is consistent with being an ultraluminous supersoft source (ULS), possibly a super-Eddington accreting object viewed at a high inclination through an optically thick outflowing wind. NGC 4395 ULX-1 and NGC 6946 ULX-1 have unusually steep power-law tails, for which we discuss a variety of possible physical mechanisms and links to similar features in Galactic microquasars, and we conclude that these sources are likely intermediate objects between the soft ultraluminous regime of ULXs and classic ULSs.
International scientific communication in the context of social networking sites for scientists

In this paper, the author considers the alterations that occurred in the international scientific communication. It is mainly technological development that exerts the influence over these alterations – particularly the emergence of new media. The major part of this paper is dedicated to the issue of the use of social networking sites in scientific communication. In her considerations, the author refers to the world-wide research pertaining to social media in the meantime demonstrating the attitudes of Polish scientists in connection with the former. This paper also contains the results of the research on the attendance to social networking sites of the academics from the Nicolaus Copernicus University with the particular attention paid to Research Gate. The considerations lead to the conclusions that in Poland scientists approach the possibilities offered by social media with the slight skepticism.
An Investigative Model of Marketing Expansion Strategies: PPL Shipyard, Singapore

This research project addresses the issues of marketing expansion strategy and its effectiveness with regards to PPL Shipyard Pte Ltd, Singapore within the backdrop of the oil rig industry in Singapore. The project will focus on the expansion methods of globally expanding the company’s products and services, namely the expansion of itsoffshore rig designing abilities, rig building capabilities and repair operations. The company was chosen for due to the author’s affiliation with the company and that it is a well-known establishment under its parent company, Sembawang Corporation, which is well known in Singapore for its purview of products and services in the shipping andengineering industry. The literature previews Singapore’s oil rig industry and its global growth. The report will primarily focus on the strategic perspective of the marketing department with regards to identify the marketing expansion strategies using the Ansoffmatrix framework, being the most popular framework for marketing expansion, as well as other related strategies. The research is based on quantitative analysis based on data collection. Summarizedstatistical results of the secondary research has shown that marketing expansion had evolved in a dramatic way and has become a strategic notion for most companies in modern society, especially in the oil rig industry. Further analysis through the BCG group matrix and critical success factors of project expansion and tabulated data will provide further insights. Marketing in a global economy has had a major impact on the oil rigs industry, being one of the largest and fastest growing industries in the world. Marketing expansion had a particular impact on the business because it provides unique opportunities for growth and interaction between partners, suppliers and customers no matter how distant they may be.
Detection of Music Mood for Context-aware Music Recommendation

ABSTRACT To provide context-aware music recommendation service, first of all, we need to catch music mood that a user prefers depending on his situation or context. Among various music characteristics, music mood has a close relation with people’s emotion. Based on this relationship, some researchers have studied on music mood detection, where they manually select a representative segment of music and classify its mood. Although such approaches show good performance on music mood classification, it's difficult to apply them to new music due to the manual intervention. Moreover, it is more difficult to detect music mood because the mood usually varies with time.To cope with these problems, this paper presents an automatic method to classify the music mood. First, a whole music is segmented into several groups that have similar characteristics by structural information. Then, the mood of each segments is detected, where each individual's preference on mood is modelled by regression based on Thayer's two-dimensional mood model. Experimental results show that the proposed method achieves 80% or higher accuracy.Keywords:Context-aware Music Recommendation; Musical Genre Classification; Musical Structure Analysis; Salient Segment Detection; Content-based Musical Feature Extraction
Log-Rank Test on Road Traffic Accident Data in Batu Pahat, Johor, Malaysia

Road traffic accident (RTA) is defined as an accident, which happens on the road between two or more objects, one of which must be any types of a moving vehicle. Nowadays, Malaysia went through rapid growth experienced in the population, economy, and motorization. Therefore,the accidents rates increased every year then become huge threat to public health and national authorities.Batu Pahat is one of the district in the south of Malaysia state, known as Johor that recorded the highest accident rate compared to other district". Thus, this study aims to determine if there are any significant difference on survival of RTA for different years in Batu Pahat district.Besides, this study identified the peak time of road network to determine associated measured could be adopt to reduce the likelihood and severity of accident. The log-rank test has been used to determine the Kaplan-meier curves of RTA for the different year. Data that been used in this study collected from Batu Pahat Police Station. Result shows that three peak times of RTA identified and the log-rank test concluded that there are no significant difference in survival of RTA for different years.
Phase stability and shear softening in CaSiO3 perovskite at high pressure

140 GPa. The c/a ratio of the tetragonal structure is 1.018 at 100 GPa and increases on compression, as does the static enthalpy difference between tetragonal and cubic structures. The elastic constants of the tetragonal phase at static conditions differ substantially from those of the cubic phase with the Voigt-Reuss-Hill shear modulus 29% less at 100 GPa. Computations are based on density functional theory in the local density and generalized gradient approximations. The phase diagram and high temperature elastic constants are computed using a mean field theory with parameters of the Landau potential determined via structurally constrained density functional theory calculations. We present a simple scheme for systematically searching for the ground state over all perovskite structures derivable from octahedral rotations within the context of symmetrypreserving relaxation, which confirms tetragonal I4/mcm as the ground state in density functional theory. We argue that the experimental x-ray diffraction pattern can be explained by the I4/mcm phase by considering the development of preferred orientation under uniaxial compression.
Location and Performance of Microfinance Institutions

The objective of this study is to show in which way location is a performance factor in microfinance institutions (MFIs). By highlighting the link between location and performance, it emerges from this research that owing to proximity with customers and suppliers, location is the source of two types of performances. The first type of performance involves the economic, financial, social, and environmental performances of MFIs which are linked to improvement in firm productivity through the reduction of supply costs, the dissemination of knowledge and know-how and their technological repercussions, as well as social and environmental dynamics. Secondly, location is an improvement factor in the structural performances of MFIs through, on the one hand, customer network dynamics which generate positive consumption externalities and the positive feedback effects of the supply of goods on their demand and, on the other hand, the firm and subcontracting network dynamics which, through agglomeration forces, develop the size or scale economies effect, the supply diversity effect or scope economies effect, and the network effect or the organizational gain.
Graded algebra automorphisms

We consider the Clifford algebra $C(q)$ of a regular quadratic space $(V,q)$ over a field $K$ with its structure of $\mathbb{Z} / 2\mathbb{Z}$-graded $K$-algebra. We give a characterization of the group of graded automorphisms of $C(q)$. \newline In the last section we introduce the $\mathbb{Z} /n\mathbb{Z}$-graded algebras and we study as well as the group of graded automorphisms for some of them.
Economic evaluation of mining projects under conditions of uncertainty for prices and operating costs

Evidence suggests that mining projects include risk and this kind of business is complex and includes unpredictable costs and also in many cases, such as exploration evaluation, uncertainty of the mining engineering and economic uncertainty are affective. In this paper we use two scenarios for economic evaluation of project. First scenario investigates certainty of prices and operating costs and second scenario uncertainty of prices and costs. It is concluded that the mine evaluation suggests greater net present value when uncertainty is considered for both price and operating costs. The purpose of this study is investigated decision making in certain and uncertain situations. For investigate this subject binominal tree by DiverGen software and for calculating of present value of the project Excel software were used . results show that binominal tree is better device for decision making in uncertain situations.
A critical survey of approximate scattering wave theories from random rough surfaces

Abstract This review is intended to provide a critical and up-to-date survey of the analytical approximate methods that are encountered in scattering from random rough surfaces. The underlying principles of the different methods are evidenced and the functional form of the corresponding scattering amplitude or cross-section is given. The reader is referred to the original papers in order to obtain the explicit expressions of the coefficients and kernels. We have tried to identify the main strengths and weaknesses of the various theories. We provide synthetic tables of their respective performances, according to a dozen important requirements a valuable method should meet. Both scalar acoustic and vector electromagnetic theories are equally addressed.
Global Centers of Vascular Plant Diversity

The diversity of vascular plants is very unevenly distributed across the globe. The five centres that reach species richness of more than 5,000 spp. /10,000 km 2 (Costa Rica-Choco, Atlantic Brazil, Tropical Eastern Andes, Northern Borneo, New Guinea) cover only 0.2 % of the terrestrial surface. On the other hand approximately 18,500 spp. are endemic to these centres which represent 6.2 % of all vascular plant species. A world map of vascular plant richness is presented based on an extensively expanded data base (more than 3,300 species richness figures for different regions of the world) and a refined methodology. Most of the global centres are located in mountainous regions within the humid tropics, where suitable climatic conditions and high levels of geodiversity, i.e., the diversity of abiotic conditions, coincide. A complete review of most prominent climatic, geologic, and floristic features of the 20 centres of phytodiversity with more than 3,000 spp. / 10,000 km 2 is presented.
SLOW DYNAMICS, AGING AND HISTORY-DEPENDENT EFFECTS IN THE PARKING-LOT MODEL

We review the properties of the Parking Lot Model and their connection with the phenomenology of vibrated granular materials. New simulation results concerning the out-of-equilibrium, aging behavior of the model are presented. We investigate in particular the relation between two-time response and correlation functions and the so-called violation of the fluctuation-dissipation theorem.