Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Plant litter turnover, soil chemical and physical properties in a Ghanaian gold- mined soil revegetated with Acacia species

The effects of stand-age of Acacia sp on plant litter turnover and decomposition, soil physical properties and nutrient elements were studied in revegetated gold-mined soils. Litter in the 3 and 6-year plantation soils were significantly lower (P < 0.05) than the forest soil, whilst 9 and 12-year old revegetated soils had litter significantly higher (P < 0.05) than the forest soil. Biomass decomposition constants measured in all treatments were statistically similar, ranging from 1.03 in the forest soil to 0.94 in the revegetated treatments. Total N concentrations were higher in the forest, 12-year and 9-year revegetated treatments and varied from 0.20% to 0.50%. Organic carbon concentrations followed the increasing trend 3-year < 6-year < 9-year < 12-year < forest. Exchangeable K concentrations measured in all the soils were lower than 0.6 cmol kg,−1. Field moisture capacity (12.6 – 20.3%) and infiltration rates (25.2 – 31.1 cm h−1) in the 3-year, 6-year and 9-year stands were significantly lower than in the forest and 12-year stand whilst soil bulk density values were higher in the 3-year, 6-year and 9-year than in the forest and 12-year stands. The study indicates that after 12 years of revegetation with Acacia sp, soil physical characteristics such as bulk density, moisture holding capacity and infiltration rates improved to levels comparable to those found under un-mined soils and that revegetation is a good strategy for restoring the fertility of gold-mined soils.
Lernen von Montagestrategien in einer verteilten Multiroboterumgebung

Forschungen im Bereich der Montage blicken auf eine lange Tradition zuruck. Klassische Verfahren beschreiten meist den Weg der Demontage, wobei sie zunachst ein bereits bestehendes Aggregat zerlegen und dabei alle moglichen Zerlegungssequenzen generieren, um aus ihnen mittels einer Heuristik die optimale Montagesequenz auszuwahlen. Diese Methoden garantieren das Auffinden einer Losung auch bei sehr komplexen Konstruktionen. Dafur werden dann allerdings bereits recht ausgeklugelte Suchverfahren (A* oder AA*) verwendet. Hinzu kommt, dass die Einzelbauteile gewisse geometrische Bedingungen erfullen mussen. Beobachtet man jedoch die Vorgehensweise eines Menschen bei der Montage von Aggregaten, stellt man fest, dass hier weitestgehend vorwarts gerichtete Strategien verfolgt werden. Damit ist gemeint, dass eine Person, ein endgultiges Ziel vor Augen, schrittweise beginnt, die Einzelteile zusammenzufugen, und wenn sie feststellt, dass sie einen Fehler gemacht hat, diesen zu korrigieren versucht. Es wird also in abgewandelter Form das Prinzip des Versuchs und Irrtums verfolgt, wobei sich der Versuch meist an dem gewunschten Ziel orientiert und nicht vollig dem Zufall uberlassen wird. Jeder einzelne Montageschritt wird von einer Vielzahl unbewusster Handlungen wie Umgreifen, Umorientieren, Fixieren etc. begleitet, die durch langjahriges Training erworben wurden. In technischen Systemen, deren haptische Fahigkeiten weit eingeschrankter sind als die des Menschen, muss deshalb beim Erlernen von Montagestrategien mit langen Lernphasen gerechnet werden, besonders wenn man nicht nur einen Aspekt, z.B. das Finden einer Montagesequenz mit Lernmechanismen, realisieren mochte, sondern wenn sich das gesamte System, wie in dieser Arbeit, auf lernende Methoden abstutzt. In solchen Fallen bieten sich besondere Architekturen an wie z.B. Layered-Learning oder AA-learning. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wurden verschiedene Aspekte lernender Systeme auf ein reales Mehrrobotersystem ubertragen. Dabei wurden sowohl Einzelfahigkeiten mit Hilfe von Lernmechanismen antrainiert als auch das globale Verhalten, hier die Montage von Aggregaten aus Spielzeug, durch ein vorwartsgerichtetes, zielorientiertes Verstarkungslernen untersucht. Zur Realisation wurden unterschiedlichste Verfahren wie Funktionsapproximation, PCA, Markovsche Entscheidungsprozesse, Graphreprasentation und -vergleich etc. verwendet. Daruber hinaus wurde ein Objektmodell zur mentalen Simulation der zu konstruierenden Bauteile realisiert und eine neue Reprasentation unendlicher Zustands-/Aktionsraume entwickelt. Neben der Fragestellung des Lernens wurde eine verteilte Roboteransteuerung verwirklicht, die es erlaubt, mehrere Manipulatoren gleichzeitig in einem sich uberschneidenden Arbeitsbereich unabhangig voneinander zu betreiben. Besonderer Wert wurde dabei auf die Kooperation gelegt. Die Kommunikation der beteiligten Anwendungen beruht auf einem serverlosen Agentennetzwerk, in dem Objekte ausgetauscht werden konnen.
Inﬂation in f ( R, φ ) -theories and mimetic gravity scenario

We investigate inﬂation within f ( R, φ )-theories, where a dynamical scalar ﬁeld is coupled to gravity. A class of models which can support early-time acceleration with the emerging of an eﬀective cosmological constant at high curvature is studied. The dynamics of the ﬁeld allow for exit from inﬂation leading to the correct amount of inﬂation in agreement with cosmological data. Furthermore, the spectral index and tensor-to-scalar ratio of the models are carefully analyzed. A generalization of the theory to incorporate dark matter in the context of mimetic gravity, and further extensions of the latter, are also discussed. (exponential models and power-law models) describing an eﬀective cosmological constant at high curvature and whose exit from inﬂation is induced by the coupling of a scalar ﬁeld to gravity. We will show that the model can
Intérêt et limites des tests cliniques et des échelles ordinales pour l'évaluation de l'équilibre Interest and limitations of clinical tests and numerical scales in the evaluation of balance

Resume L’examen clinique d’un patient presentant un trouble de l’equilibre doit permettre d’aborder et de repondre en partie a trois questions : quelles en sont la ou les causes ? Quelle en est la severite ? Quelle en est l’evolution ? L’interrogatoire tient une place essentielle dans l’evaluation du retentissement physique, psychique et social. L’examen est conduit methodiquement afin de noter les difficultes d’equilibre du patient avec des donnees chiffrees qui permettront de suivre l’evolution selon les traitements et la reeducation avec le plus d’objectivite possible. De nombreux tests, scores et echelles ont ete construits, generiques ou specifiques de certaines pathologies. Ils sont tres utiles, notamment pour comparer les patients entre eux, mais n’ont pas toujours une grande solidite metrologique, et leur valeur predictive est tres faible. En outre, ils ne reproduisent pas les conditions naturelles et ne sont qu’un reflet partiel de la realite. Mots cles Equilibre · Evaluation clinique · Echelles
In-vitro sensitivity of bacterial and fungal pathogens to Datura alba - an antimicrobial approaches

The in vitro antimicrobial evaluation on Datura alba confirms that, the plant appears to contain substances that exhibit measurable in vitro antimicrobial activity against some bacteria and fungi used in this study. The results of the various screening tests indicate that all the parts of this plant viz., leaves and stem possess some measurable inhibitory action against both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria used in this study. It is screening to note that Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which is known to be a very resistant bacterium even to synthetic drugs, and Salmonella typhi, a multi drug resistant strain to Amphicillin and Chlor amphenicol, which infects only human and produce typhoid fever were found to be very susceptible to the leaf extract of this plant I k -Fungal strains such as Aspergillus niger and Aspergillus flavus which usually parasitize man and animal and cause pulmonary Aspergillosis and Candida albicans an ubiquitous fungus associated with the pathogenesis of skin diseases, urinary tract infections, vulva vaginitis and oral thrash were also found to be susceptible to the Datura alba extracts.
Drug prices, rents, and votes in the German health care market: An application of the Peltzman model

Using the health care reform of 2004 as an experience, the reaction of consumers (insured persons) and producers (pharmaceutical industry) based on electoral behavior and relating to drug prices and copayments imposed on drugs is analyzed. The changes in prices and medications after this reform make it to a natural choice. For the analysis, the interest group model by Peltzman (1976) is applied to the German health care market. The vote-maximizing government has to find the optimal combination of rent and price of regulation. As a result, the vote-maximizing outcome is determined by a price level which reflects the interests of consumers as well as the pharmaceutical industry. The analysis of the reaction of consumers related to the co-payment rules of 2004 leads to the hypothesis that the regulator, and finally the pharmaceutical industry, sets drug prices in a way that they are ranging from 5 to 50 Euro. Prices between 50 and 100 Euro are possible as well, reflecting a balance of power facing the pharmaceutical industry. Producers who had accepted the 1989 reference price had an incentive to increase their price while lowering their sales volume.
Estimation of starvation and diel variation of the RNA/DNA ratios in field-caught Sardina pilchardus larvae off the north of Spain

The aim of this study was to analyse the general larval condition, to determine the lncidence of starvation and to investigate the effect of time of day on RNA/DNA ratios among field-caught Sardina pilchardus (L.) larvae. The larvae were collected during 4 research cruises off northern Spain, during March, April, May and June 1992. A highly sensitive fluorometric method for nucleic acid quantification was applied to larvae of S. pilchardus. The means of the RNA/DNA ratio were relat~vely high, so the larvae collected off northern Spain were generally in good condition. Low percentages of starving larvae (RNA/DNA ratio less than 1.3), ranging from 0 to 3.23%, were found over the 4 mo. The RNA/DNA ratios were significantly correlated with zooplankton biomass. Larvae collected at night revealed higher RNA/DNA ratios compared to larvae caught during the day. This seems to indicate that there is some endogenous rhythm in the production of RNA. It would then follow that, if there are die1 changes in RNA concentrations, average RNA Indices can be unrepresentative if there IS any day/night bias in sampling.
Do Portfolio Diversification Opportunities exist across the Euro Zone Islamic Equity Markets? MGARCH-DCC and Wavelet Correlation Analysis

The economic process that Euro Zone countries have gone through created contradictory claims about whether those particular financial markets have converged, which has implications for the portfolio diversification issue for the investors and policy makers alike. Thus, this paper aims to examine whether there are opportunities for creating optimally diversified portfolios from the perspectives of the Islamic investors which is a missing point in the existing literature for the above-mentioned markets. The focus of the study is the correlations among the selected Shariah Indices‟ daily returns covering the period from April 2008 to March 2014, to illustrate not only the static picture, but the dynamic comovements which can be tested through the recent econometric methodologies (M-GARCH/DCC, MODWT, and CWT/WTC). Hence, the unique contribution of this research is the enhancement of the existing literature by empirically testing the „time-varying‟ and „scale dependent‟ volatilities and correlations of the particular markets by relying on the Shariah (Islamic) indices. By incorporating scale dependence, the paper is able to identify unique portfolio diversification opportunities for different set of investors bearing different investment horizons/holding periods of stock (e.g. weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc.) The overall result driven is that since there appears to be only continuous portfolio diversification opportunities between the French and Danish Islamic equity markets for up to six-month investment holding periods, in general, the possibility of portfolio diversification benefits for the short-, medium- and long-run does not seem to be available among these markets. This result implies that the Euro Zone financial markets are highly correlated/converged yielding minimal portfolio diversification benefits for all the heterogeneous investment horizons.
Development of reading skills through video games : state of the art Desarrollo de habilidades de lectura a través

Esta investigación analiza la vinculación sistemática de los videojuegos hacia el desarrollo de la lectura dentro del entorno mediático y digital a través de la revisión teórica. Para ello, fueron examinadas diversas publicaciones académicas provenientes de bases de datos internacionales presentadas entre 2005 y 2016, relacionadas con la implicación de los videojuegos en la enseñanza de la lectura organizada según ámbito escolar, planteamiento teórico y diseño de la investigación. Los resultados demostraron la predominancia en la enseñanza secundaria, fundamentando su repercusión como agente educativo en los cambios de hábitos de la lectura, abriendo una ventana de conexión entre los lectores y motivando la interacción colaborativa. De igual modo, se vislumbró su impacto en la transformación de la lectura orientada a la búsqueda de información y a la adquisición de habilidades de comprensión. Tras esta argumentación, el artículo concluye a favor de la inclusión de los videojuegos en el programa curricular educativo, al fortalecer el interés por la lectura adaptada al contexto digital y mediático. Abstract
The role of management decisions in explaining firm market exit

We study factors of firm market exit and focus on the role of the firm’s management. We assume that the quality of decisions made by the firm’s management can be assessed by the firm’s technical and cost efficiency levels. We argue that the decisions of management are an important determinant of firm market exit and hypothesise that the characteristics of the macroeconomic environment influence the impact of technical and cost efficiency on firm market exit. This is why we study whether the importance of decisions that are relevant for attaining technical efficiency and decisions that contribute to cost efficiency for firm market exit depend on the macroeconomic environment of the analysed firms. Such an analysis reveals which types of managerial decisions are relevant for firm market exit in differing macroeconomic environments. We use a logistic regression for rare events to estimate non-nested microeconomic models of firm market exit in Slovenia for two periods characterised by differing macroeconomic conditions. The results confirm that firms in which decisions of management result in inferior efficiency are more likely to exit the market. Even though a firm’s management plays many relevant roles within the firm, our research demonstrates that those management decisions that refer to input selection and their substitution are those which are most crucial for preventing a firm from failing and ensuring its survival. We also find that in differing macroeconomic environments different types of management decisions explain firm market exit. The results show that technical efficiency has a more significant influence on a firm’s market exit compared to cost efficiency in a favourable macroeconomic environment, while cost efficiency has a more significant influence on a firm’s market exit than technical efficiency in unfavourable macroeconomic conditions.
Social media marketing, functional branding strategy and intentional branding

It has been suggested that social media marketing may be inclined more towards functional branding than intentional branding. The present study empirically examined the relationship between social media marketing strategies, intentional branding and functional branding with a view to determining where social media marketing strategies are more strongly inclined towards intentional than functional branding. Quantitative data were collected from 133 participants from Jordan marketing departments using questionnaires and analyzed using SPSS. The results of the study confirmed the relationship between social media marketing strategies. However, results showed that social media marketing strategies are more strongly inclined towards intentional branding than functional branding suggesting that social media marketing strategies are oriented towards intentional branding. The study recommends examining the idea of intentional branding and its role in controlling the image of the brand among customers. Mohammad Fahmi Al-Zyoud (Jordan) BUSINESS PERSPECTIVES LLC “СPС “Business Perspectives” Hryhorii Skovoroda lane, 10, Sumy, 40022, Ukraine www.businessperspectives. org Social media marketing,
Ischemia-Reperfusion Injury, Reactive Oxygen Metabolites, and the Surgeon

Surgeons are confronted with ischemia-reperfusion (IR) injury more often than they anticipate. Hypoperfusion associated with hypotension and hypovolemia is probably the most common cause of non-occlusive ischemia. When this patient in hypovolemic shock is recussicated and tissue perfusion restored, the treating physician or surgeon is faced with the reperfusion injury (1). Organ transplantation is another example where the transplanted organ is reperfused after a period of ischemia. The surgeon is faced with IR injury when an incarcerated hernia is reduced or a volvulus of sigmoid colon is detortioned. Occlusion of the portal triad with the Pringle maneuver during liver surgery renders the liver ischemic and reperfusion injury begins when the occluding clamp is released. Surgeons, for long years, had difficulty in understanding the cause of renal failure and death after an apparently successful embolectomy from the femoral artery. Although the human body has its own defense system, understanding the pathophysiology of IR injury is essential for the surgeon in preventing and/or treating the reperfusion injury in common clinical practice as there are times when the organism fails. In this review, after a brief description of IR injury and natural defense systems, IR injury associated with organ transplantation, mesenteric IR injury, and the role of reactive oxygen metabolites (ROM) in tumorigenesis will be covered. Ischemia-Reperfusion Injury
Business Model Innovation Research in the Theory of E=MC2

This paper studies innovative approaches business models based on a large background of innovation and entrepreneurship. In-depth analysis of the public A-space operationsstatus quo, based on the systematic analysis of the iterative innovation method under the pattern of innovation and entrepreneurship, the establishment of open-source platform for innovation and entrepreneurship methods of operation, and to transform the classic formula of Einstein's theory of relativity, the formation of a congregation guidelines create A-space operations, in order to promote innovative methods of work provides guidance ideas.
C D ] 3 O ct 2 00 5 Dynamics of Passive-Scalar Turbulence

We present the first study of the dynamic scaling or multiscaling of passive-scalar turbulence. For the Kraichnan version of passive-scalar turbulence we show analytically, in both Eulerian and quasi-Lagrangian frameworks, that simple dynamic scaling is obtained but with different dynamic exponents. By developing the multifractal model we show that dynamic multiscaling occurs in passive-scalar turbulence only if the advecting velocity field is itself multifractal. We substantiate our results by detailed numerical simulations in shell models of passive-scalar advection.
On the Evaluation of Economic Research: the Case of Italy

The Italian case can be considered as an internationally relevant example to suggest a critical reflection on the evaluation criteria adopted in research assessment exercises, pointing at the need of clear and shared guidelines based on transparency and accountability and aiming at preserving (or even encouraging) the pluralism of ideas. Our findings support the view that if research institutions are encouraged to engage only in those lines of research that are likely to receive the highest rating according to the adopted evaluation criteria, a convergence process is to be expected within Economics, resulting in a disregard of heterodox schools and historical methods in favour of mainstream approaches and quantitative methods. In our view, a proper fine-tuning of the assessment methodology is needed, before subsequent rankings can be used as a guide for the allocation of public financing among research institutions. In the case of Economics, this means overcoming the limits of commonly adopted peer review approaches, through the development of proper evaluation designs and the integration of qualitative appraisals with quantitative indicators. In order to preserve pluralism and originality of research, we propose a simple quantitative index based on field-normalization.
Lagged Explanatory Variables and the Estimation of Causal Effect

Lagged explanatory variables are commonly used in political science in response to endogeneity concerns in observational data. There exist surprisingly few formal analyses or theoretical results, however, that establish whether lagged explanatory variables are effective in surmounting endogeneity concerns and, if so, under what conditions. We show that lagging explanatory variables as a response to endogeneity moves the channel through which endogeneity biases parameter estimates, supplementing a “selection on observables” assumption with an equally untestable “no dynamics among unobservables” assumption. We build our argument intuitively using directed acyclic graphs and then provide analytical results on the bias of lag identification in a simple linear regression framework. We then use Monte Carlo simulations to show how, even under favorable conditions, lag identification leads to incorrect inferences. We conclude by specifying the conditions under which lagged explanatory variables are appropriate responses to endogeneity concerns.
Conceptualizations of GUO in Mandarin

This paper discusses the polysemy of Mandarin GUO from the perspective of cognitive grammar, which equates meaning to conceptualization in the broad sense. The related senses of GUO are closely examined within a single category and across categories, and are subject to a variety of substructure designations from the relevant bases. In the characterization of spatial schemas, metaphor provides a convenient avenue to enrich the polysemy by mapping one cognitive domain to another. A comparison between GUO and cross/across in English indicates that conceptualizations of linguistic forms are to some extent language-specific.