Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Impact of a moderate volcanic eruption on chemistry in the lower stratosphere: balloon-borne observations and model calculations

The major volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 has been shown to have significant effects on stratospheric chemistry and ozone depletion even at mid-latitudes. Since then, only "moderate" but recurrent volcanic eruptions have modulated the stratospheric aerosol loading such as the eruption of the mid-latitude Sarychev volcano which injected 0.9 Tg of sulfur dioxide (about 20 times less than Pinatubo) in June 2009. In this study, we investigate the chemical impacts of the enhanced liquid sulfate aerosol loading resulting from this moderate eruption using data from a balloon campaign conducted in northern Sweden (Kiruna-Esrange, 67.5° N, 21.0° E) in August-September 2009. Balloon-borne observations of NO 2, HNO 3 and BrO from infrared and UV-visible spectrometers are compared with the outputs of a three-dimensional (3-D) Chemistry-Transport Model (CTM). It is shown that differences between observations and model outputs are not due to transport calculation issues but rather reflect the chemical impact of the volcanic plume below 19 km in altitude. Good measurement-model agreement is obtained when the CTM is driven by volcanic aerosol loadings derived from in situ or space-borne data. As a result of enhanced N 2 O 5 hydrolysis in the Sarychev volcanic aerosol conditions, the model calculates reductions of ~ 45 % and increases of ~ 11 % in NO 2 and HNO 3 amounts respectively over the summer 2009 period. The decrease in NO x abundances is limited due to the expected saturation effect for high aerosol loadings. The links between the various chemical catalytic cycles involving chlorine, bromine, nitrogen and HO x compounds in the lower stratosphere are discussed. The increased BrO amounts (~ 22 %) compare rather well with the balloon-borne observations when volcanic aerosol levels are accounted for in the CTM and appear to be mainly controlled by the coupling with nitrogen chemistry rather than by enhanced BrONO 2 hydrolysis. Simulated effects of the Sarychev eruption on chlorine activation and partitioning are very limited in the high temperature conditions in the stratosphere at the period considered, inhibiting the effect of ClONO 2 hydrolysis. As a consequence, the simulated ozone loss due to the Sarychev aerosols is low with a reduction of 1.1 % of the ozone budget at 16.5 km. Some comparisons with the reported Pinatubo chemical impacts are also provided and overall the Sarychev aerosols have led to less chemical effects than the Pinatubo event.
Causal relations between knowledge-intensive business services and regional employment growth

ABSTRACT Causal relations between knowledge-intensive business services and regional employment growth. Regional Studies. This paper studies the causal relations between regional employment growth in knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) and overall regional employment growth using German labour-market data for 1999–2012. Adopting a recently developed technique, it uses a structural vector autoregressive model in which the causal directions between KIBS and other sectors are examined including various time lags. Results show that although regional growth has a negative short-term effect on KIBS, KIBS growth has a long-term positive effect on the whole regional economy. This confirms the claim that KIBS can play a key role in regional policies.
South Africa calling cultural tourists

Although cultural tourism is the most prevalent type of tourism in the world it still remains invisible in South Africa’s tourism landscape. Despite the country’s unique cultural heritage resource base and the fact that cultural diversity is the core feature of South African marketing strategy, absence of culture as a purpose for travel in the South African Tourism international exit survey means that the size of cultural tourism market as well as behaviour characteristics of cultural tourists are not known to both government and industry. For this reason the main tourism stakeholders in the country are unable to make informed strategic and developmental decisions which directly affect the performance of South African cultural heritage tourism products. This paper contributes to South African cultural tourism discourse both theoretically and practically. It presents a theoretical overview of the complex nature of cultural tourism demand, specifically cultural motivation and omnivorousness of cultural consumption. These theoretical concepts are applied on the data from South African annual tourism reports, and European and USA tourism reports and research studies, in order to determine the size and behaviour characteristics of the main international cultural tourism markets in South Africa.
Controllable growth of vertically aligned zinc oxide nanowires using vapour deposition

The controllable growth of vertically aligned ZnO nanowires using a simple vapour deposition method system is reported. The growth properties are studied as a function of the thickness of the Au catalyst layer, total pressure, deposition temperature and oxygen partial pressure. The experiments indicate the existence of five main zones of growth. The zone in which the aligned wires grow varies according to the pressure, temperature and oxygen partial pressure. A specific level of low supersaturation of Zn and oxygen vapour are both necessary to ensure the correct rate of growth, which then leads to having thin and densely aligned wires. The growth kinetics are discussed in terms of the interdependent variables. It was found that the diameter and density of the nanowires is controlled mostly by the growth temperature and pressure. The zone with the most aligned nanowires with the highest aspect ratio was found to be at 5 mbar in a temperature range of 860–800 °C with a flow of 27 sccm of a N2/O2 mixture.
The role of microcredit in women empowerment and poverty alleviation in Edo State, Nigeria

Women constitute the majority of the society that are greatly deprived, they experienced adverse situations in term of socio-economic inequality and gender disparity. Women have limited access to economic and income generating assets such as land and funds. Microcredit is viewed as a veritable tool for women empowerment and poverty alleviation. The study is focused on the role of microcredit in women empowerment and poverty alleviation in Edo State, Nigeria. It specifically identified the sources of microcredit to women, the effect of microcredit on income, savings and investment level of women and the constraint militating against women access to microcredit. Data for the study were collected using a well structured questionnaire administered to 100 women who have had access to microcredit in the study area. This study used two stage sampling procedure where the respondents were selected randomly. Data analysis was done using descriptive statistics and regression analysis. The result shows women in the study area sourced their credit from four micro credit institutions in Edo State with majority (33.33%) obtaining the sum of N30, 000.00 and above. Family size and loan volume had positive and significant effect on the income of the respondents. Access to microcredit had effect on the income and savings of the women as the income and savings of these women were greater than their income and savings before accessing micro loans with the difference in income and savings of N225, 809.50 and N9, 772.70 respectively. This showed that micro credit is a tool that could be used to improve the income and savings level of women and thus empower them for better living. It is therefore recommended that Government should help to create awareness through radio, television and the print media on the activities of micro credit institutions and their credit functions so that more women may be aware of their on-going activities. More resources should be made available to these micro credit institutions so that more women can be benefited by the programme.
Comparing various machine learning methods for prediction of patient revisit intention: a case study

Many techniques have been proposed for analysis of costumer intention, from surveys to statistical models. During the last few years, different machine learning approaches have successfully been applied to costumer-centric decision-making problems. In this study, we conduct a comparative assessment of the performance of ten widely used machine learning methods, (i.e., logistic regression, multilayer perceptron, support vector machines, IBk linear NN search, KStar, locally weighted learning, decisionstump, C4.5., randomtree and reduced error pruning tree) for the aim of suggesting appropriate machine learning techniques in the context of patient revisit intention prediction problem. Experimental results reveal that the C4.5 decision tree demonstrates to be the best predictive model since it has the highest overall average accuracy and a very low percentage error on both Type I and Type II errors, closely followed by the locally weighted learning and decisionstump, whereas the logistic regression and the IBk linear NN search algorithms appear to be the worst in terms of average accuracy and type II error. Besides the randomtree and the IBk linear NN search algorithms appear to be the worst in terms of type I error.
The Relationship among Social Capital, Entrepreneurial Orientation, Organizational Resources and Entrepreneurial Performance for New Ventures

This research examines empirically the relationship among social capital, entrepreneurial orientation, organizational resource, and entrepreneurial performance for new ventures. Data was collected by means of mailing questionnaire to new ventures in Taiwan, and a total of one hundred and four qualified observations were collected. The results obtained in this research indicate that there are significant relationships among social capital, entrepreneurial orientation, and organizational resources. Additionally, the influence of social capital, entrepreneurial orientation, and organizational resources on entrepreneurial performance is significant.The findings suggest that new ventures can speed up information diffusion and look for the opportunities of new technology, new product, niche market, and financial resources through expanding external business
Nonlinear Pricing and Tariff Differentiation: Evidence from the British Electricity Market

Abstract Liberalisation of the British household electricity market, in which previously monopolised regional markets were exposed to large-scale entry, is used as a natural experiment on oligopolistic nonlinear pricing. Each oligopolist offered a single two-part electricity tariff, but inconsistent with current theory, the two-part tariffs were heterogeneous in ways that cannot be attributed to explanations such as asymmetric costs or variations in brand loyalty. Instead, the evidence suggests that firms deliberately differentiated their tariff structures, resulting in market segmentation according to consumers’ usage.
Plasmodium falciparum drug resistance gene status in the Horn of Africa: A systematic review

Antimalarial drug resistance monitoring is the key factor in malaria control policy for early detection and subsequent prevention of drug resistance spread. This review was performed to collate all available data of P. falciparum resistant genes in the Horn of Africa as a baseline for future appraisal of the regional malaria control policy. The search of this review was performed in January 2018 using the scientific databases Pub Med and Google Scholar. The search terms used included: Plasmodium falciparum AND drug resistance genes OR molecular marks AND Somalia OR Ethiopia OR Eritrea OR Djibouti. The majority of studies (9 of 18 studies, 50%) examined pfdhfr, pfcrt and pfmdr 1 genes. Eight (44%), 4 (22%), and 2 (11%) studies analyzed pfdhps, pfk 13 and pfatp 6 genes, respectively. The Pfcytbc1 associated with atovaquone resistance is the only gene with no mutation detected. High frequencies of pfdhfr and pfdhps mutations were reported with an association to treatment failure after the artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) - artesunate + sulfadoxine/pyrimethamine. The aminoquinoline resistance genes such as pfmdr1, and pfatp 6 were only reported with low frequency. The 76T mutation of pfcrt ranged from 4 to 100%, while pfmdr1 mutations at codon 86 and 184 varied depending on geographical locations. The 402V and 431K mutations of pfatp 6 were found highly prevalent at 93 % and 58 % in Southwestern Ethiopia, respectively. The pfk13 gene mutation at codon 622I was 2.4%, with an association to artemether-lumefantrine efficacy and delay of parasite clearance on day 3. Key words: Plasmodium falciparum, Drug resistance gene, Molecular marker, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Djibouti.
A Multi-Functional Distributed Generation Unit for Power Quality Enhancement

A multi-functional distributed generation unit (MFDGU) and its control strategy are proposed in this paper for the purpose of enhancing power quality in low-voltage networks. By using the 3H-bridge converter structure, an MFDGU can be applied in 3-phase 4-wire low-voltage distribution networks to compensate harmonic, reactive, and unbalanced currents. A reduced-order model of the MFDGU is derived through a weighted-average-current-feedback (WACF) approach, showing the robustness and stability of the proposed approach. The Fryze-Buchholz-Dpenbrock (FBD) power theory is employed to generate the current reference of the MFDGU, which can be easily implemented in three-phase networks. A 15kVA prototype consisting of three full bridge converters has been built and tested. Experimental results show the feasibility of the proposed topology and control strategy.
An Internet of Things Platform to Facilitate the Development of Context Aware Applications

There are several Internet of Things (IoT) platforms developed to integrate sensors and actuators in the Internet. To be successful, these platforms have to meet the expectations of different stakeholders, namely device manufactures, application developers and end-users. They should support distinct data formats provided from many different objects and be adaptable to the real characteristics and needs of each specific context and developer. They should also be provided with appropriate tools and mechanisms to facilitate the task of developing context aware applications, including support to easily integrate new objects and different types of data, as well as providing appropriate API to control and access objects and get contextual information in the appropriate way. This work describes a platform that provides support for application developers to integrate, manage and use information about standard and user customized objects. It allows for easy integration of IoT objects, to manage them and make information about them available to be used by context-aware applications. Things can be registered on the platform by its owner or they can register by themselves, sending the information using simple protocols, and referring the type of information they represent and also the accessibility level to their information. The platform processes the information about Things, stores it, and provides tools to manage Things and to make them available to be used by external applications. Examples of context-aware applications are described to illustrate the usefulness of the platform and its viability making the development of context aware applications easier.
Augmented reality - A tool for improvement in the manufacturing industry

The globalisation of the manufacturing industry leads to higher demands on quality, time and flexibility in production. Augmented Reality (AR) has been in the field of research for the last 20 years and discussed whether it could be used or not in the manufacturing industry. Today’s market on AR products is wide, where a various number of these products come with different advantages and disadvantages. This bachelor’s thesis aims to analyse how AR can be used as a support tool for shop floor workers, and which of these products would be more beneficial for usage in the industry. By analysing time and quality in several assembling tests, results were given that could be examined alongside with interviews to evaluate whether AR can be useful in the industry or not. Furthermore, the differences between the products of today’s market were evaluated. The study shows that improvements in quality can be achieved with the help of AR technology. The conclusion of this study is that the current products available on the market might need a little further development to be ready for implementation in an assembly line. LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 2D = Two-Dimensional 3D = Three-Dimensional AR = Augmented Reality OCR = Optical Character Recognition OS = Operating System on a computer, for example Windows XP QR = Quick Response, code that is built with black and white squares SDK = Software Development Kit, extensions for programming software. VR = Virtual Reality Volvo XC90 (V526) = A car model from Volvo INNEHÅLLSFÖRTECKNING
Interannual variation in terrestrial ecosystem carbon fluxes in China from 1981 to 1998

A dynamic biogeochemical model was used to estimate the responses of China's terrestrial net primary productivity (NPP), soil heterotrophic respiration (HR) and net ecosystem productivity (NEP) to changes in climate and atmospheric CO2 from 1981 to 1998. Results show that China's total NPP varied between 2.89 and 3.37 Gt C/a and had an increasing trend by 0.32% per year, HR varied between 2.89 and 3.21 Gt C/a and grew by 0.40% per year, Annual NEP varied between -0.32 and 0.25 Gt C but had no statistically significant interannual trend. The positive mean NEP indicates that China's terrestrial ecosystems were taking up carbon with a total carbon sequestration of 1.22 Gt C during the analysis period. The terrestrial NEP in China related to climate and atmospheric CO2 increases accounted for about 10% of the world's total and was similar to the level of the United States in the same period. The mean annual NEP for the analysis period was near to zero for most of the regions in China, but significantly positive NEP occurred in Northeast China Plain, the southeastern Xizang (Tibet) and Huang-Huai-Hai Plain, and negative NEP occurred in the Da Hinggan Mountains, Xiao Hinggan Mountains, Loess Plateau and Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau. China's climate at the time was warm and dry relative to other periods, so the estimated NEP is probably lower than the average level. China's terrestrial NEP may increase if climate becomes wetter but is likely to continue to decrease if the present warming and drying trend sustains.
Reconstruction and Processing of Scene Point Cloud Based on Video

This paper will construct augmented reality assembly system as the goal, the 3D reconstruction efficiency is low, the late recognition and perception problems, propose a scenario based reconstruction algorithm of video sequence, 3D sparse surface structure to recover the scene from image sequences, improve operational efficiency, ensure the accuracy and robustness of the reconstruction results. According to the characteristics of visual reconstruction noise, filtering method for filtering point clouds reconstruction using statistical outliers, filtering a large amount of noise without increasing the computational cost of many conditions, reduce the number of space and enhance the surface characteristics.
Analysis of deuteron breakup reactions for energies up to 100 MeV

Inclusive nucleon spectra from deuteron breakup reactions on {sup 7}Li are analyzed in terms of the continuum discretized coupled channels theory for the elastic breakup process and the Glauber model for the nucleon stripping process. Both theoretical models use the same phenomenological nucleon optical potential of {sup 7}Li and have no other free parameters. The calculations reproduce well a prominent bump observed around half the incident energy in experimental inclusive spectra of 40-MeV (d,xn) and 100-MeV (d,xp) reactions at forward angles. The analysis shows that the stripping process is more important than the elastic breakup process in deuteron breakup reactions on {sup 7}Li.
Globalization and Conflict in Central Kenya: The Case of Nyeri County, 1980-2010

While conflicts are common in Africa, contextualizing them against the backdrop of globalization calls for new research. This paper focuses on the source of conflict in a rapidly urbanizing rural region in Kenya. Specifically, it looks at globalization and conflict in central Kenya. It links the conflict in the county of Nyeri to the emergence of Mungiki vigilantes and armed militias by arguing that economic decline occasioned by collapse of cash crop and dairy farming contributed to the intensification of conflict. The paper found out that there is a close relationship between neoliberal economic policies and origins of conflict in central Kenya. The study was based on content analysis of documents and oral interviews. Oral interviewees were identified through snowballing techniques. The paper recommends that for the government of Kenya to tackle the issue of conflict, focus must be given to economic growth. Unemployment particularly among the youth must be tackled urgently. Keywords: Kenya, Nyeri, Conflict, Mungiki, globalization.
Multiple indicators reveal river plume influence on sediments and benthos in a New Zealand coastal embayment

Abstract Multiple physico‐chemical and biological indicators were used to delineate the spatial influence of the Motueka River plume on coastal surface sediments and associated biota in Tasman Bay, New Zealand. Sediments were primarily muds at nearshore sites on all transects and comprised coarser sediments at the most seaward sites in Tasman Bay. Organic carbon/nitrogen ratios, stable carbon and nitrogen isotope signatures, and certain lipid biomarkers and trace metals provided suitable indicators of terrestrial and riverine influence on subtidal sediments. Analysis of these parameters revealed a discernible catchment influence extending at least 6 km offshore in the river outwelling plume, with a pronounced signature evident at two sampling stations within approximately 2km of the Motueka River mouth. At these two nearshore sites, nickel and chromium from natural upper‐catchment sources were present at concentrations greatly exceeding sediment quality thresholds for probable ecological effects. The infaunal assemblage at these sites comprised low densities of a few opportunistic taxa, with the spatial distribution of organisms strongly correlated with trace metal concentrations. Although a causal relationship with trace metals is possible, other unmeasured influences such as gradients of salinity, depth and physical disturbance could conceivably be the primary drivers of the biological pattern. By contrast with the effects on infauna, analyses of stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes and trace metals in epibenthic shellfish did not reveal any evidence of a direct terrestrial or riverine influence. Overall, the results from this work indicate a relatively localised river plume effect on subtidal sediments and the associated infaunal assemblage. However, because previous work has shown that the river plume can extend tens of kilometres offshore during flood flows, further investigation is required to understand changes in seabed parameters within the context of spatio‐temporal variation in catchment inputs and river plume discharge.