Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
New Challenges for STI Policy from the Internationalization of R&D: The Case of Russian-German R&D Cooperation

Over the last two decades national policy makers drew special attention to the implementation of policy tools which foster international cooperation in the fields of science, technology, and innovation. In this paper, we look at cases of Russian-German collaborations to examine the initiatives of the Russian government aimed at stimulating the innovation activity of domestic corporations and small and medium enterprises. The data derived from the interviews with companies’ leaders show positive effects of bilateral innovative projects on the overall business performance alongside with major barriers hindering international cooperation. To overcome these barriers we provide specific suggestions relevant to the recently developed Russian Innovation Strategy 2020
Land Ownership, Rent-Seeking, and Rural Gentrification: Reconstructing Villages for Sustainable Urbanization in China

Gentrification is a widespread urban phenomenon across the post-industrial world. However, rural gentrification has been explored insufficiently in the context of China’s unprecedented urbanization. By reviewing the redevelopment processes in Zengcuoan village, Xiamen City, China, this study empirically reveals that the socio-spatial transformation of this village has been mainly led by artists and villagers based on institutional arrangements of land ownership. Rural gentrification, which involves refurbishing houses and public spaces, has played a key role in social life and the engagement between indigenous villagers and artists. As active rent-seekers, indigenous villagers contribute to gentrification in a combined effect with China’s rural land property rights. Contrary to Western findings, villagers in China act as landlords who benefit from rural gentrification, which in turn causes grassroots artists or young people to move out because of the increasing rent or property prices. This paper attempted to enrich the extant understanding of rural Chinese gentrification and broaden the analytics of gentrification studies of the institutional arrangements from a land-ownership perspective. Contributing to the literature on rural gentrification, this study highlights the excessive commercialization of rent-seeking as the trigger of gentrification.
Mapping and characterisation of the sorghum cell suspension culture secretome

Here we reported the first secretomic study of sorghum ( Sorghum bicolor ), a naturally drought tolerant cereal crop. In this study, we used a gel-based proteomic approach in combination with mass spectrometry to separate and identify proteins secreted into the culture medium of sorghum cell suspensions, a first step towards understanding their functions during plant growth and development. Proteins secreted into the culture medium of 10-day old sorghum cell suspension cultures termed culture filtrate (CF) proteins were separated by two dimensional gel electrophoresis (2DE) and visualised using Coomassie brilliant blue (CBB) R-250 staining. Of the 25 visualised CBB stainable spots, 15 abundant, well resolved and reproducible spots amongst the three biological replicates used were selected for identification using matrix assisted laser desorption/ionisation-time of flight/time of flight tandem mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-TOF MS). Of these spots, 14 were positively identified, representing four different protein classes: Peroxidases, germin proteins, oxalate oxidases and α-galactosidases. All the identified proteins are known secretory proteins, with predicted signal peptides, which target proteins for the secretory pathway. The identified proteins have known functions in signalling processes, defence mechanisms and cell wall metabolism which is consistent with their location outside the cell. Western blotting analysis of the CF protein extracts using an antibody against β-tubulin, a cytoplasmic protein, indicated that our CF protein preparations are free from any detectable amounts of this marker protein. Therefore, our sorghum cell culture system is ideal for use in the proteomic analysis of secreted proteins. The findings of this study are a step in the process of bridging the gap that currently exists in sorghum proteomics and also provides a foundation for future studies on understanding the roles played by secreted proteins during plant growth and development of the same crop. Keywords: Sorghum, cell suspension cultures, culture filtrate, secreted proteins, proteomics analysis, two-dimensional gel electrophoresis, β-tubulin
Perception of End Users on I-Kelahiran in Sabah, Malaysia

I-Kelahiran (Inovasi-Kelahiran) is a health informatics system that manages birth data developed and implemented in Sabah to intervene birthing discrepancy, delayed reporting of high risk pregnancy and immunization coverage. Since its implementation, there has not been any formal evaluation on the acceptance of the system. This study aims to assess the perception and acceptance of i-Kelahiran among the nurses in Sabah Health Department. It was a cross-sectional web-based study, conducted on February 2013 among nurses actively working with i-Kelahiran in 21 hospitals and 292 health clinics. A 12-items questionnaire based on “perceived usefulness" and “perceived ease-of-use", adapted from technology acceptance model (TAM) was used for data collection. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 21. A total of 800 nurses participated in this study, with a mean age of 33.62 years (SD=8.060) and majority of them are community and staff nurses. About 63% of them are from primary health clinics and only 6.3% do not have any experience with computer. Mean score for both perceived usefulness 6.11 (SD=1.058) and perceived ease of use 6.14 (SD=0.952) were found to be high. Significant associations were found between perceived usefulness (p=0.001) and perceived ease of use (p=0.008) towards place of work. Significant higher score in perceived ease of use (p=0.033) and perceived usefulness (p=0.047) were found among nurses who have qualification at degree level or higher than those who have diploma. Though the study indicates that overall perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use were high, future study is needed to assess the effectiveness of this system as a whole using other study models.
Implementation of a Functional Semantic Similarity Measure between Gene-Products

Motivation: Sequence similarity is a common technique to compare gene-products. However, many applications need to compare gene-products based on what they do, not how they are. Most gene-products are being annotated with terms describing their biological function. These terms are defined in biological ontologies. This makes it possible to implement similarity measures between gene-products based on their behavior. Results: We define FuSSiMeG, a functional similarity measure between gene-products that compares the semantic similarity between the terms in their annotations. Availability: Software available from http://xldb.fc. ul.pt/rebil/ssm/. Contact: fcouto@di.fc. ul.pt
Ethics in the Letter for Shareholders

This paper proposes a qualitative study of the ethical values that chairmen use in the letter included in the annual report of 52 listed French firms. An in depth study of the European and North American ethical and moral philosophy enables us to build a grid of concepts within the letters. The aim of the paper is to define what kind of ethical values the chairman discloses and if the nature of values communicated to the shareholders depends on the economical environment. Therefore, we scrutinized the evolution of ethical values between 2007 and 2010. Results show that being a listed firm doesn’t induce a common use of ethical values in the letters. The letter contains several different concepts of ethics but the most important remains the financial one. But some firms disclose only one ethical value, some show substitution of values, and some an increase and an enrichment of the nature of ethical values. Our observation enhances the identification of some stereotypes of ethical values configurations that are independent from activities or size. We discuss the results and link them to practical situations and some theoretical propositions in the corporate social responsibility field.
Pricing interest rate caps and floors under the Pearson-Sun interest rate model

Interest rate derivatives are largely used to manage interest rate risk. For this reason, the accuracy of their pricing is very important as mispricing can result in huge financial losses. In this study, the Pearson-Sun model, an extension of the CIR model, was used to price interest rate caps and floors. In the pricing process, the prices of zero-coupon bonds and European options on zero-coupon bonds were derived. These were then used to obtain the prices of caps and floors. The parameters of the Pearson-Sun model were estimated using maximum likelihood method on a daily term structure time series data. The results of the study showed that the CIR model is rejected in favour of the Pearson-Sun model. This implies that it would provide a better pricing accuracy as Corresponding author 976 Abubakari Abdul Ghaniyyu, Philip Ngare and Joseph Mung’atu compared to the CIR model and would provide better prices to interest rate derivatives. The prices of caps and floors were simulated using the estimated parameters under the Pearson-Sun model. Mathematics Subject Classification: 91G20, 91G30
The Role of Exclusive Territories in Producers&Apos; Competition

The central objective of this paper is to show how vertical restraints, which affect intra-brand competition, can and will be used as an effective mechanism for reducing inter-brand competition and increasing producer profits. We show how exclusive territories alter the perceived demand curve, making each producer believe he faces a less elastic demand curve, thereby inducing an increase of the equilibrium price. The use of exclusive territories may increase producers' profits, even if the producers cannot charge franchise fees, and so cannot recapture, from the retailers, the monopoly rents they earn from their exclusive territory: we show that 'double marginalization' effects can be overcome by the strategic effect on producers' competition. We provide a model in which we can clearly specify the full range of feasible contracts between producers and retailers, and show that it is always a dominant strategy for firms to use exclusive territories (so that exclusive territories are used in equilibrium) and that the best situation from the producers' viewpoint may or may not entail franchise fees. In all cases, exclusive territories hurt consumer surplus and reduce total welfare, which yields a different light on vertical restraints from a competition policy perspective.
Anomalous particle and impurity transport in JET and implications for ITER

Results from an extensive database analysis of JET density profiles show that the density peaking factor ne0/ in JET H-modes increases form near 1.2 at high collisionality to around 1.5 as the plasma collisionality decreases towards the values expected for ITER. This result confirms an earlier observation on AUG. The density peaking behaviour of L modes is remarkably different from that of H modes, scaling with overall plasma shear as (ne0/ ∝li), independently of collisionality. H-mode density profiles show no shear dependence, except at the lowest collisionalities. No evidence for additional LTe, LTi, Te/Ti, β or ρ* dependences has been obtained. Carbon and neon impurity density profiles from Charge Exchange Spectroscopy are less peaked than electron density profiles and usually flat in H modes. The possibility of heavy impurity accumulation at ITER collisionalities remains an issue. The peaking of the electron density profiles, together with the flatness of the light impurity density profiles, are favourable for fusion performance if they can be extrapolated to ignited conditions. Peaked density profiles would help to recover the fusion performance loss resulting from a possible lower-than-expected density limit in ITER. 1. Density profiles in ELMy H modes Peaked electron and fuel density profiles in reactor plasmas provide the advantage of higher reactivity, higher bootstrap fraction and stronger electron-ion coupling in the core, than obtained with flat density profiles at the same average density, albeit at the risk of impurity accumulation in the core. Most importantly, they may allow a recovery of the thermonuclear power loss, which would result if the density limit in ITER [1] is as low as half of the Greenwald density limit, as expected from a recent analysis in AUG and JET [2]. Therefore the discovery of a clear collisionality dependence of density peaking in AUG [3] H-modes called for an independent verification in JET. The theoretically important effective collisionality defined as (assuming kθρ=1/3), where νei is the electron collision frequency and the curvature drift frequencyωDe is a rough estimate of the ITG growth rate, and is therefore expected to govern both anomalous diffusion and convection [3]. The collisionality dependence of the density peaking factors for a large representative set of stationary ELMy JET H modes and ‘hybrid scenario H-modes’ (which have moderate to νeff νei ωDe ⁄ = 3 mi me ⁄ ( ) 1 2 ⁄ e 2 ⁄ ν∗ei q ⁄ ∼
Benefit-Based Tree Valuation

Benefit-based tree valuation provides alternative estimates of the fair and reasonable value of trees while illustrating the relative contribution of different benefit types. This study compared estimates of tree value obtained using cost- and benefit-based approaches. The cost-based approach used the Council of Landscape and Tree Appraisers trunk formula method, and the benefit-based approach calculated the net present value (NPV, total future benefits minus costs discounted to the present) of future benefits and costs using tree growth data and numerical models. In a hypothetical example, the value of a 40 year old green ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanica) was $5,807 using the cost-based approach and either $3,102 (for a tree growing in Fort Collins, CO, U.S.) or $5,022 (for a tree growing in Boulder, CO) using the benefit-based approach. This example, however, did not consider planting and management costs. In a multitree example, 15 years after planting five pistache (Pistacia chinensis) street trees in Davis, California, the trunk formula (cost-based) value was $8,756, whereas the benefit-based value NPV of benefits was negative at discount rates ranging from 0% to 10%. Negative NPVs occurred because future sidewalk repair costs were projected to be in excess of benefits, a relationship not fully captured in the cost-based approach to valuation. Removing and replacing the five pistache street trees was not cost-effective at 7% and 10% discount rates, primarily because high future sidewalk repair costs associated with retaining the trees were heavily discounted. Planting the five pistache trees in their current location was not an economically sound decision, but planting the same trees in a nearby shrub bed would have saved an estimated $1,102 (10%) to $12,460 (0%) over 40 years. These examples illustrate the use of the benefit-based approach as a decision support tool for design and management.
A preliminary analysis model of big data for prevention of bioaccumulation of heavy metal-based pollutants: focusing on the atmospheric data analyses for smart farm

It is expected that the building-type fish or agricultural farms will appear in towns or suburbs of the Republic of Korea in the near future. The advanced water-circulating systems and LED technology are already in use helping the farmers to settle in these areas. Nevertheless, there are some other requirements for a successful operation of the farm. One of the surrounding factors is the atmospheric conditions which often have an impact on the growth of fishes or produce. This research describes a process of obtaining the analytical results by visualizing the data of atmospheric environment of the Gangnam District, one of the busiest areas in the capital city of Seoul. The data was used to create a model for the preliminary big data analysis which will be appropriate for the establishment of adequate city-oriented farms. Also, this model can be used to establish countermeasures to suppress bioaccumulation of heavy metals in the farm-grown fishes or produces. The basic research process involves visualization Corresponding author 1448 Jun-Ho Huh and Kyungryong Seo of data obtained from the univariate, simple and multiple regression analyses so that the data can be viewed conveniently. This also facilitates the procedures of finding a log-transformed model and modeling of overall characteristics through categorization of the explanatory variables.
Simultaneous hydrolysis and fermentation of lignocellulose versus separated hydrolysis and fermentation for ethanol production.

Second generation of biofuels relay mostly on lignocellulose as raw materials. There are several technologies applied to obtain ethanol from lignocellulose. In this study we try to compare the productivity and efficiency of two technologies: simultaneous hydrolysis (saccharification) and fermentation (SSF) and separated hydrolysis and fermentation (SHF). We used a BlueSens equipment with CO2 ant EtOH cap sensors mounted on the fermentation flasks. In the first part we have studied how the size and type of inoculums and agitation influence the production o ethanol. In the next steps, we applied the two technologies to hydrolyze and ferment different types of cellulose from agriculture. The biomass was pretreated using alkaline and steam combined method. The cellulases used for hydrolysis are Trichoderma cellulases Onozuka from Merk, Aspergillus cellulases from Fluka, and cellobiase from Novo. The results show that the type of the yeasts is very important, especially for SSF technology, where high temperature is applied to ferment and hydrolyze in the same time. Also, the size of inoculums influence the speed of fermentation. Regarding the rate of hydrolysis and ethanol production, in case of Avicel cellulose, the hydrolysis rate is between 21 – 24% (in a fermentation medium of 10% cellulose). As for wheat straw and corn stalks, the rate of hydrolysis is much higher, over 80%. The ethanol production from lignocellulosic biomass is higher in SSF than in SHF. The results indicate that SSF is more efficient that SHF in terms of total production time, energy consumption and total production costs.
Evaluation of canola chlorophyll index and leaf nitrogen under wide range of soil moisture

Abstract The paper presents a study on the effect of soil matric suction on the variation of leaf chlorophyll index and nitrogen concentration of canola. Results showed that chlorophyll index increases exponentially with soil matric suction, especially at the late season of canola growing time. At moderate matric suction (200 and 300 kPa soil suction heads), chlorophyll index remains nearly constant, but in drier soil (matric suction >300 kPa), chlorophyll index increases gradually with time. Despite the variation of the total leaf nitrogen with the soil matric suction, it is similar to the variation of the chlorophyll index, but the results showed that the chlorophyll index - nitrogen concentration curve has a demarcated bi-modal shape. We suggest that 2.7% of nitrogen and 69.8 of the chlorophyll index value represent the upper limit of the chlorophyll meter reliability for estimation of canola nitrogen under a wide range of soil moisture levels. These results confirm that the chlorophyll meter can be used as an effective tool for rapid and non-destructive estimation of the relative chlorophyll and nitrogen content in canola leaves at a wide range of soil moisture content, except for nearly wilting coefficient or extremely high drought stress
Chromosomes of Three Flatfishes (Pleuronectiformes)

The chromosomes of the pleuronectiform fishes have been reported in 23 species from five families within eight families(Nogusa, 1960; Ohno and Atkin,1966; Ivanov,1969; Fukuoka and Niiyama,1970; Barker,1972; LeGrande,1975). In the present paper,the karyotypes of a paralichthyid,Paralichthvs olivaceus,and two cynoglossids,Paraplagusia japonica and Cynoglossus interruptus are described and compared with other members of this order.P.olivaceus has been karyotyped by Nogusa(1960)using the gonad section method,and the other species represent the second and third records on the karyotypes in the family Cynoglossidae respectively.
How to Reward Co-authorship?

Consider an academic department using a merit-based payment scheme to induce faculty to undertake the efficient allocation of research effort across solitary and joint projects. A common practice in the award of merit is to give a coauthor of a N-author work the fraction 1/N of the credit for the work in calculating merit. In this paper we show that if the departments objective is to maximize its total research output, agents are risk neutral, and the joint work is within the department then even when effort is unobservable solo authored and joint work should be equally weighted. Only if the department gets 1/N of the credit for the joint work (i.e. the joint work is with N-1 coauthors outside the department) should the joint work be discounted by 1IN. Dedicated to ba-ba and ma-ma
In search of the worlds of compliance: culture and transposition performance in the European Union

ABSTRACT This paper tests the argument that assigning countries into three worlds of compliance helps to explain transposition performance in the European Union. Looking into what cultural features distinguish the ‘culture of compliance’ worlds shows that attitudes towards law-abidingness and rule-following, and trust in the EU institutions, are not directly related to membership in the three types. Then, focusing on the explanatory potential of the typology, the study finds that levels of non-transposition are consistent with the argument although the differences between the groups are only marginally significant. The implications of the typology for the variability of transposition performance and the differentiated impact of domestic politics in the compliance worlds are not, however, supported by the empirical analysis of yearly policy-specific data on non-transposition rates (1998–2005).
Introduction: Transforming Security and Development in an Unequal World

Security is a contested concept, which means very different things to different people. It bears the heavy historical imprint of the existing state system and of global capitalism. However this IDS Bulletin contends that it is essential that the development community understands and engages with security issues, for violent conflict and insecurity can no longer be treated as exogenous shocks disturbing the smooth course of development; but rather they should be seen as intrinsic to development itself. In the twenty-first century, the dominant state-based narratives of security are no longer credible and need to be rethought, especially from the perspective of the poor, vulnerable and dispossessed. This article and this IDS Bulletin as a whole are an attempt to sketch out a multilevel framework for the governance of (in)security, taking human and citizen security as its starting point, and addressing the gender, class, ethnic, religious, etc. inequalities built into the dominant narratives of security.