Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An EU Inter- and Intra-National Tax Regime: Some Lessons from the German Federalist Experience

The paper by Christian Kastrop describes the German federal system with a view to drawing some lessons for the European Union. The German system is reckoned to be very good at promoting cooperation and integration, but it has been showing growing problems in terms of efficiency and transparency. Efficiency problems mainly stem from the fact that while on the expenditure side of the budget a high degree of autonomy is guaranteed to Lander, on the revenue side two factors strongly limit such autonomy: the predominant role of revenue sharing in financing local expenditures and the extensive system of horizontal and vertical financial equalisation. Moreover, the two-tier federal state requires a complex process of coordination for every policy: any tax reform results from a compromise between federal and Lander interests. The German experience shows that the allocation of expenditure decisions to local governments in order to be closer to citizens’ preferences does not yield gains in terms of efficiency if there is a mismatch between the responsibilities for expenditures and the ones for collecting revenue, since accountability problems emerge. Kastrop points to a “German disease,” where problems determined by institutional factors are accentuated by stagnating economic conditions.
Coplanar waveguide-fed uniplanar bow-tie antenna

The design of coplanar waveguide (CPW)-fed bow-tie antenna for the 2.4-GHz ISM band is described. A coplanar waveguide-to-coplanar strips (CPW-to-CPS) balun is used to obtain the balanced feed line for the printed bow-tie. An analysis method based on the mixed potential integral equation method is used to characterize the input characteristics of the bow-tie antenna. The numerical results obtained are in good agreement with the experimental data. Through experiments with bow-tie antennas of various extended angles, the bow-tie antenna with a 90/spl deg/ extended angle exhibits the widest bandwidth in the desired frequency band which has a bandwidth of 17% for a VSWR <1.5:1.
The roles of diurnal forcing and large‐scale moisture transport for initiating rain over northwest Australia in a GCM

The representation of rainfall, and in particular its diurnal cycle, is generally poor in general circulation models (GCMs). Nonetheless, studies make use of GCMs in future climate projections in regions where precipitation has a strong diurnal cycle. In this study we evaluate whether one GCM (ACCESS1.3) can represent the rainfall in such a region (Australia) where the diurnal cycle of rainfall is produced as a result of both the destabilisation of the boundary layer (convection) and a larger‐scale reorganisation of the low‐level flow, the latter of which may be resolved by a GCM. In northern and eastern Australia, where the diurnal cycle of rainfall is controlled by convective processes, the GCM produces rain 3 to 6 h too early in the day. Nevertheless, the model represents the continental‐scale reorganisation of the low‐level circulation that results from the diurnal cycle of surface heating and cooling. A nocturnal low‐level jet forms over the western half of the continent with strong convergence at the jet exit, which initiates rain overnight in the continental northwest, in agreement with previous work. The model also captures the change in the air‐flow direction, from a southeasterly to a northeasterly, responsible for bringing the necessary moisture for precipitation to occur. Thus, while the model may have a tendency to initiate convection too early, it is able to represent the larger‐scale nocturnal reorganisation of the flow and the associated rainfall.
Measuring the Efficiency of the Dairy Industry: Using DEA Models

This paper measures the relative efficiency of some of milk-producing states in the United States (US) by Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). 23 milk production states are selected with 12 factors, inclusive 8 inputs and 4 outputs. The recent unique model, Kourosh and Arash Model (KAM), is used to discriminate, rank and benchmark the states. There are 20 technically efficient states while Constant Returns to Scale (CRS) is applied. However, KAM suggests there is only one efficient company when thickness of the DEA frontier is less than 0.017 and other companies are inefficient with one millionth degree of freedom in inputs and outputs. Indeed, if only one millionth errors of the minimum values of positive factors are introduced in inputs and outputs values of the DEA frontier, the efficiency scores of technically efficient companies are sharply decreased. Reference sets for each technically efficient company as well as the rank of all companies are illustrated. Simulations are also calculated with Microsoft Excel Solver 2013.
Strategizing to improve entrepreneurial orientation: The case of small firms

Developing an entrepreneurial orientation has been proven beneficial to firms, but for small firms this may be too resource consuming. This paper aims to offer a unique perspective on how small firms can improve their entrepreneurial orientation while making optimal use of limited resources. It describes the results of an empirical study of strategy-making processes and entrepreneurial orientation in small firms. The structural equation analysis of the data from 454 small firms indicates that adaptive strategy-making has the strongest impact on entrepreneurial orientation, supported by participative and intrapreneurial strategy-making.
Survey of Generative and Discriminative Appearance Models in Visual Object Tracking

Visual object tracking is a challenging task in computer vision applications. The basic statistical appearance modeling techniques are discriminative and generative. In both cases, online learning is very essential to nullify the error due to large pose changes, illumination variations and appearance changes of the tracking framework. This paper briefly introduces the challenges and applications of visual tracking and focuses on discussing the state-of-the-art online-learning based tracking methods by category. In this paper, the existing statistical schemes for tracking-by-detection are reviewed according to their appearance model creation mechanism; generative and discriminative.
THE PROJECT METHOD IN AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION: THEN AND NOW

The purpose of this philosophical paper was to synthesize theoretical and historical foundations of the project method and compare them to modern best-practices. A review of historical and contemporary literature related to the project method yielded six themes: 1) purpose of projects; 2) project classification; 3) the process; 4) the context; 5) individual vs. group projects; and 6) the teacher’s role. Conclusions and recommendations include the continued importance of the project method with suggestions to broaden the context in which projects are classified (in class and out of class, group and individual), ensure that practitioners are educated about appropriate experiential learning processes, and emphasize the role of the teacher as facilitator.
The Use of Support Vector Machines When Designing a User-Defined Niche Search Engine

This study presents the construction of a niche search engine, whose search topic domain is to be user-defined. The specific focus of this study is the investigation of the role that a Support Vector Machine plays when classifying textual data from web pages. Furthermore, the aim is to establish whether this niche search engine can return results that are more relevant to a user than when compared to those returned by a commercial search engine Through the conduction of various experiments across a number of appropriate datasets, the suitability of the SVM to classify web pages has been proven to meet the needs of a niche search engine. A subset of the most useful webpage-specific features has been discovered, with the best performing feature being a web pages’ Text & Title component. The user defined niche search engine was successfully designed and an experiment showed that it returned more relevant results than a commercial search engine.
Peranan Vitamin D Pada Pencegahan Penyakit Degeneratif: Persfektif Baru

Vitamin D is one of the fat soluble vitamins. This vitamin is usually known as vitamin that takes apart in bone health thorough its role in increasing efficiency of calcium absorption in small intestine. Without vitamin D, human small intestine can only absorb calcium up to 15%. Vitamin D can increase efficiency of dietary calcium absorption up to 30%. Until 1980s, vitamin D was primarily known by its role in bone and tooth formation However, recent epidemiologic studies have revealed that sunlight exposure that increases the production of vitamin D in skin, takes apart in preventing degenerative diseases, e.g. cancer, diabetes mellitus type 1, and hypertension. The mystery of the role of vitamin D in the prevention of degenerative diseases started to reveal since researchers found that most of body cells and tissues, including heart, pancreas, stomach, intestines, skin, and lymphocytes, have the receptors for vitamin D. It proofs that vitamin D is needed by those tissues. One of the important findings was the ability of vitamin D in decreasing cancer cell proliferation. Many of cancers, such as colon cancer, breast cancer, and lung cancer have enzymatic tools to modify the inactive vitamin D to become active. Then vitamin D functions to regulate cells growth and to decrease their proliferation.
Firefly (Fitting IteRativEly For Likelihood analYsis): a full spectral fitting code

We present a new spectral fitting code, Firefly, for deriving the stellar population properties of stellar systems. Firefly is a chi-squared minimisation fitting code that fits combinations of single-burst stellar population models to spectroscopic data, following an iterative best-fitting process controlled by the Bayesian Information Criterion. No priors are applied, rather all solutions within a statistical cut are retained with their weight. Moreover, no additive or multiplicative polynomia are employed to adjust the spectral shape. This fitting freedom is envisaged in order to map out the effect of intrinsic spectral energy distribution (SED) degeneracies, such as age, metallicity, dust reddening on galaxy properties, and to quantify the effect of varying input model components on such properties. Dust attenuation is included using a new procedure, which was tested on Integral Field Spectroscopic (IFS) data in a previous paper. The fitting method is extensively tested with a comprehensive suite of mock galaxies, real galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and Milky Way globular clusters. We also assess the robustness of the derived properties as a function of signal-to-noise ratio and adopted wavelength range. We show that \FF\ is able to recover age, metallicity, stellar mass and even the star formation history remarkably well down to a $S/N\sim5$, for moderately dusty systems. Code and results are publicly available at www.icg. port.ac. uk/firefly.
Alternate Land Use Options for Livelihood Security of the Farmers - A Case Study of Chhata tehsil, Mathura District, Uttar Pradesh, India

India accounts for 2.4% of the global land area and supports nearly 17% of the world’s population. Agriculture is the main stay of majority of the population, as it engaged 118.7 million cultivators and accounts for about 54.6% of total employment (The Census of India 2011). The share of agriculture and allied sectors in total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) during 2014-15 was 18%, while the share of crops and livestock in total GDP was 11.8 and 3.9 %, respectively. Agriculture system in India is predominantly mixed farming (crops and livestock) type, of which livestock is considered as an important secondary source of income for 70 million rural households engaged in it (The Economic Survey, 2015). Realizing the importance of agriculture in International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 6 Number 7 (2017) pp. 279-295 Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas. com
AN INTERACTIVE ANIMATION FOR LEARNING HOW CACHE COHERENCE PROTOCOLS WORK

One of the problems a multiprocessor has to deal with is cache coherence. To put it into simple words, the memory system is coherent when each piece of data is up-to-date in all caches as well as in the main memory of the multiprocessor. A variety of protocols (algorithms) can be used to maintain memory coherence. To introduce how these protocols work to our students, we looked for simulation tools or animations that show changes in the cache blocks, transitions between states, messages that were generated, etc. Although we found some multiprocessor simulators, they were far too complex as they really were not meant to illustrate how the cache coherence protocols worked. On the other hand, unfortunately, the animations we found did not address all the details that should be covered in our computer architecture course. To solve this problem, we have developed a flash interactive animation that shows how some of the most frequently used cache coherence protocols work: MSI and MESI snoopy protocols and the MESI directory protocol. For each protocol, a sequence of read and write operations illustrates all possible situations that can take place in each protocol. The tool is interactive in that the student can go forward and backward to understand/study the different actions that occur at each step.
ACCUMULATION OF CADMIUM AND LEAD IN PLACENTA AND AMNION OF WOMEN FROM UPPER SILESIAN REGION POLAND

Toxic metals such as cadmium and lead have an ability to cross the placental barrier. Some research show that lead, but not cadmium crossed easily the placental barrier. Cadmium accumulates in the human placenta, and placental samples can be used as an indicator of Cd exposure during pregnancy. Lead is deposited also in the placenta. The aim of this research was to measure the cadmium and lead content in human placenta and in the amnion. Biological samples came from 40 women living in the Upper Silesian Region – South of Poland (n=40). The marginal and the central part of placenta and the amnion were collected from each woman (n=120). Age of patients was within the range of 18-40 years old (they were divided into three age groups: 1 st group: 18-24 years old, 2 nd group: 25-34 years old, 3 rd group: 35-40 years old). The dietary and life-style characteristics were documented by questionnaires. Dried samples were mineralized by wet mineralization technique. Metal contents were determined by the method of Flame Atomic Absorption Spectrometry (FAAS). Statistical calculations were performed with Stat Soft Statistica 7.0 program. The result of the present study demonstrated that the highest average content of Cd was found in the central part of placenta
Selecting Infrastructure Delivery Modalities: No Time for Ideology or Semantics

Developing and developed countries need to increase their investments in infrastructure to support economic growth, produc- tivity, and the competitiveness of their economies to enhance the well being of their populations. Some of these investments, being long term, illiquid and considered public services, tend to be undertaken by the public sector. Nevertheless, in some sectors and at different points in history, there has been considerable participation by the private sector. For the purposes of enhancing these investments, all possible options of private and public participation must be considered and the needs are such that ideology and semantics should not get in the way. From the very extensive experience in developing countries, it has been learned that selecting the proper modalities can enhance the long term viability of the investments, can increase the number of bankable projects, attract investments and reduce backlash from failures. These lessons can be applied to developed countries as well. This paper presents a model for the selection of the most suitable service delivery modalities adapted to the prevailing local conditions of the country.
Canola meal as a protein source for growing pigs. (Abstract)

New cultivars of Canola seed with low erucic acid and glucosinolate levels have resulted in Canadian pig producers replacing up to 75% (grower) and 100% (finisher) of soyabean meal with Canola meal (CM) in their diets. While there has been some suggestion of reductions in feed intake, no significant loss of performance and carcase quality has been noted (Bell, 1993). With Australia’s increasing production of Canola and an anticipated reduction in its price, the suitability of CM as a substitute for one of our major protein sources for pigs, Lupins (L), is worth investigating. This experiment tested the hypothesis that CM can be successfully substituted for L in diets for growing and fmishing pigs without detriment to performance or carcase quality. The proportion of CM in the diet had no significant effect on either average daily gain (ADG), feed:gain, dressing %, depth of backfat or eye muscle area. Despite a trend for ADG to decrease and backfat to increase (793 vs 763g/d and 13.6 vs 14.4mm, respectively) when diets contained any amount of CM, these differences were non significant. There were no sex ’ treatment effects but entire males grew faster, had a lower feed:gain and lower dressing % than their female counterparts (PcO.05). The thyroid glands of pigs fed the higher levels of CM were larger than those fed diets containing 10% or less CM (PcO.05) and this was attributed to the 15: 10 and 20:5 diets containing 2.3 and 3.0&l/g of glucosinolates, respectively.
Detailed Relationship Between Local Structure Polarons and Magnetization for La1-xCaxMnO3 (0.21 lt x lt 0.45)

We present detailed local structure measurements (using the extended x-ray absorption fine structure technique) for the colossal magnetoresistive material La{sub 1-x}Ca{sub x}MnO{sub 3} (0.21 < x < 0.45) as a function of temperature and magnetic field. The local distortions of the Mn-O bonds are parameterized using {sigma}, the width of the Mn-O pair-distribution function (PDF). After subtracting thermal phonon contributions, we show that the contributions to {sigma}{sup 2} from polaron and Jahn-Teller (JT) distortions, {sigma}{sub JT/polaron}{sup 2}, are a universal function of the magnetization, independent of how the magnetization is achieved via changes in temperature or magnetic field. However this universal behavior is only observed for B fields {ge} 2 T, likely as a result of domain canting in low B fields. The resulting curve is well described by two straight lines with significantly different slopes. These regimes represent two distinctly differ distortions of the oxygen octahedra about the Mn. For low magnetizations up to {approx}65% of the theoretical maximum magnetization, M{sub T}, the slope is low and the distortion removed as the sample becomes magnetized is small - we argue this arises from polarons which have a low distortion around two (or possibly three) Mn sites. At high magnetizationsmore » large distortions per Mn site are removed as these sites become magnetized. The data are also analyzed in terms of a two Mn-O peak distribution using experimental standards for Mn-O. The results agree well with recent neutron PDF results but not with some earlier results. We discuss the limitations of assuming a two peak distribution in view of the two distortions needed to describe the Mn-O distortions as a function of T and B for B {ge} 2 T. It is likely that there is a distribution of longer bonds. Finally we show that with increasing B field, the Mn-Mn peak also has a small B-field-induced change - a measure at the unit cell level of magnetostriction but find that there is no observable B-field-induced change in the Mn-La/Ca pair distribution for fields up to {approx}10 T. « less
Comparative Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Conventional and Electric Vehicles

Electric vehicles (EVs) coupled with low‐carbon electricity sources offer the potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and exposure to tailpipe emissions from personal transportation. In considering these benefits, it is important to address concerns of problem‐shifting. In addition, while many studies have focused on the use phase in comparing transportation options, vehicle production is also significant when comparing conventional and EVs. We develop and provide a transparent life cycle inventory of conventional and electric vehicles and apply our inventory to assess conventional and EVs over a range of impact categories. We find that EVs powered by the present European electricity mix offer a 10% to 24% decrease in global warming potential (GWP) relative to conventional diesel or gasoline vehicles assuming lifetimes of 150,000 km. However, EVs exhibit the potential for significant increases in human toxicity, freshwater eco‐toxicity, freshwater eutrophication, and metal depletion impacts, largely emanating from the vehicle supply chain. Results are sensitive to assumptions regarding electricity source, use phase energy consumption, vehicle lifetime, and battery replacement schedules. Because production impacts are more significant for EVs than conventional vehicles, assuming a vehicle lifetime of 200,000 km exaggerates the GWP benefits of EVs to 27% to 29% relative to gasoline vehicles or 17% to 20% relative to diesel. An assumption of 100,000 km decreases the benefit of EVs to 9% to 14% with respect to gasoline vehicles and results in impacts indistinguishable from those of a diesel vehicle. Improving the environmental profile of EVs requires engagement around reducing vehicle production supply chain impacts and promoting clean electricity sources in decision making regarding electricity infrastructure.
A novel design process of low cost 3D printed ambidextrous finger designed for an ambidextrous robotic hand

This paper presents the novel mechanical design of an ambidextrous finger specifically designed for an ambidextrous anthropomorphic robotic hand actuated by pneumatic artificial muscles. The ambidextrous nature of design allows fingers to perform both left and right hand movements. The aim of our design is to reduce the number of actuators, increase the range of movements with best possible range ideally greater than a common human finger. Four prototypes are discussed in this paper; first prototype is focused on the choice of material and to consider the possible ways to reduce friction. Second prototype is designed to investigate the tendons routing configurations. Aim of third and fourth prototype is to improve the overall performance and to maximize the grasping force. Finally, a unified design (Final design) is presented in great detail. Comparison of all prototypes is done from different angles to evaluate the best design. The kinematic features of intermediate mode have been analysed to optimize both the flexibility and the robustness of the system, as well as to minimize the number of pneumatic muscles. The final design of an ambidextrous finger has developed, tested and 3D printed.