Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Economic and environmental impacts of vertical and horizontal competition and integration

We explore the economic and environmental impacts of market structures (competition or integration at vertical and horizontal levels). We consider a bilateral duopoly consisting of two manufacturers and two retailers in which each manufacturer offers a wholesale price contract to the respective retailer. The manufacturers decide on wholesale prices and abatement efforts concerning pollution emissions related to manufacturing processes, whereas the retailers compete in quantities in the consumer market. To understand the comprehensive effects of market structures on economic competitiveness and environmental sustainability, we examine a measure of eco‐friendly social welfare, which is the ratio of social welfare and environmental pollution. Interestingly, we find that the market structures that have been believed to be more efficient are less efficient from a broader perspective: (1) double marginalization can generate higher eco‐friendly social welfare, and (2) horizontal competition between firms can result in lower eco‐friendly social welfare. Although vertical integration and horizontal competition yield greater social welfare by facilitating more production activities, these market structures often fail to induce sufficient abatement efforts to balance the polluting effect of the large volume, resulting in more significant environmental degradation. We also show that, despite the pollution‐curbing effect, higher emission penalties can result in less eco‐friendly social welfare. They can even curtail the abatement efforts of firms under particular circumstances. When products become more substitutable, the eco‐friendly social welfare can decrease depending upon the market structure.
Tuna fishery of the Tinnevelly coast, Gulf of Mannar

During the last few years, the world-wide demand for fresh sources of protein has increased considerably and this has been a stimulus for the rapid development of the fishery for some of the pelagic fishes in the tropical and subtropical oceans. The scombroid fishes (mackerels, seerfishes, tunas and billfishes) constitute an important element of pelagic fishes, the annual world production of which has more than doubled, from about 0.93 million metric tons in 1948 to about 2.1 1 million metric tons in 1961. This quantum of increased production has naturally added to the volume of selected, preserved and processed fishery commodities of tunas and related fishes sold in the world markets during the last few years. In figures, from 301,000 metric tons in 1955, it has risen to about 420,000 metric tons (net product weight) in 1961 (FAO, 1960-61). A bulk of the increase in fresh catches as well as in processed goods mentioned above is constituted by tunas, the fishery of which has rapidly expanded during this period, and is being most actively pursued by Japan and the United States.
Comments of the Auditing Standards Committee of the Auditing Section of the American Accounting Association on IESBA Consultation Paper: Improving the Structure of the Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants

SUMMARY: Recently, the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants (IESBA) solicited public comments on its Consultation Paper, Improving the Structure of the Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants. This commentary summarizes the contributors' views on the various questions asked in the IESBA Consultation Paper. Our comments submitted to IESBA appear below. Data Availability: The invitation to comment (which invited comments through February 4, 2015), with links to the consultation paper, is available at: http://www.ifac. org/publications-resources/improving-structure-code-ethics-professional-accountants/.
A correlation of suspended particulate matter with lead concentration in ambient air at different traffic junction of Madurai city.

•HIND INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY• The urban population is exposed to higher levels of suspended particulate matter and lead metal due to urbanization and industrialization. Concentration of ambient air particulates has been found to be associated with a wide range of effects on human health (Dockery and Pope, 1994; Schwartz, 1991; Schwartz, 1994; Zmirou et al., 1998). Approximately fifty thousand premature deaths occur annually due to particulate matter pollution in India (Brandon and Hommann, 1995). The high concentration of particulate matter in the environment has become a problem for many countries (Elbir et al., 2000). Air pollution has been aggravated by development that typically occurs as countries become industrialized: growing cities, increasing traffic, rapid economic development, industrialization and higher levels of energy consumption. The high influx of population to urban areas increase in consumption patterns and unplanned urban and industrial development have led to the problem of air pollution currently in India. Air pollution is widespread in urban areas where vehicles are the major contributors and in a few See end of the article for authors’ affiliations
Hydraulics of Subglacial Cavities

Abstract A theoretical model is developed to describe the steady-state behavior of interconnected, water-filled cavities at the glacier bed. Physically plausible cavities should contain constrictions along the flow path, with flow in the wider sections being relatively sluggish. Mean flow rates in cavities may be at least one order of magnitude less than in channels incised into the basal ice (R channels). Melting due to viscous dissipation - the process that allows R channels to exist - probably plays a minor or negligible role, as compared to glacier sliding, in determining the size of cavities. Furthermore, a system of subglacial cavities should not show a tendency for localization of flow in a few main conduits, as does an R-channel system. If water pressure rises to within several bars of overburden pressure, the rate of cavity closure by creep falls below the rate of cavity opening by sliding and melting, with cavities then becoming unstable. Subsequent evolution of the drainage system should depend upon the total melt-water flux. Circumstances may arise in which cavities and channels act as conduits for melt water; such a configuration would probably show unusual transient behavior.
NYMBLE: Protecting the Privacy of Users in Anonymous Networks and Blacklisting Misbehaving Users

Anonymizing networks hide the client's IP address and allow the client to access the internet. It protects the privacy of users but unfortunately some users have misused such networks for abusive purposes. Website administrators block the IP addresses of misbehaving users and as a result they block all the known exit nodes of the anonymizing networks, denying anonymous access to misbehaving and behaving users alike. Since the server does not identify individual user's activities all the users are blocked from accessing resources of the server from the particular anonymous network. In the proposed system the users are identified individually without revealing their identity. Nymble is the proposed system in which the servers can "blacklist" misbehaving users, thereby blocking users without compromising their anonymity. The system detects the misbehaving users and adds them to the blacklist. Thus the server can blacklist the misbehaving users without knowledge of their IP address and allows behaving users to connect anonymously. Those of the users in the blacklist are blocked from accessing the resources for a specified time that is set by the administrators. The proposed system has several important properties which overcomes the drawbacks of the existing system. The properties are anonymous authentication, backward unlinkability, subjective blacklisting, fast authentication speeds, blacklist sharing, rate limited anonymous connections, revocation auditability and also addresses Sybil attacks.
Book Review: ‘Wind Power in View — Energy Landscapes in a Crowded World’

applications such as smart cards can aid the users of public transport, and the provision of an effective flow of information to the public on traffic flows can also enable commuters to plan their trips more effectively. But it should be made clear that more fundamental problems, such as the inadequacy of public transport systems in many cities, cannot be compensated for by the new technologies. It is essential, therefore, to contextualize the potential contribution of ICTso that policy-makers are fully aware of the limitations of these technologies for solving fundamental problems. I doubt, for example, if the authors fully intended to suggest that the application of telematics in the area of health care would mean that ‘‘you no longer need to go to the doctor for any complaint’’ (p. 13). The rapidity of change in the area of ICTwill always mean that the time needed to produce a publication will result in some views appearing as outdated. The downturn in the telecommunications sector in particular, and in the ICT sector generally, is not addressed because much of the text appears to have been written in 1999. The significant impact of this downturn raises questions about some of the commentary in relation to telecommunications. Despite the limitations of this research report, however, it provides a very useful guide for policy-makers involved in urban management and will also provide useful empirical background for researchers in the ICTarea.
Short-period observations of speed, strain and seismicity on Ice Stream B, Antarctica

Abstract The speed of Ice Stream B, Antarctica, was measured twice a day-over a 1 month study period, and found to be steady at about the ±3½% level, the sensitivity of the measurements. The vertical strain was measured at three sites over a 1 year period at 1 h intervals with sensitivities of 2 or 0.2 ppm. The strain rate varied on all time-scales. Events of high strain rate were observed, but never at more than one site at a time. They can probably be understood in terms of local modification of the strain field associated with crevassing. Diurnal variation in strain rate was observed at one and possibly two sites during two summers. The seismicity was measured at all three sites, and diurnal and seasonal variations were prominent at all, the seismicity being much more intense in winter. Several possible causes of the diurnal variations in strain and seismicity are considered: thermal and atmospheric effects, and the effects of tides in the Ross Sea.
Towards Open Network-on-Chip Benchmarks

Measuring and comparing performance, cost, and other features of advanced communication architectures for complex multi core/multiprocessor systems on chip is a significant challenge which has hardly been addressed so far. This document outlines the top-level view on a system of benchmarks for networks on chip (NoC), which intends to cover a wide spectrum of NoC design aspects, from application modeling to performance evaluation and post-manufacturing test and reliability. For performance benchmarking, requirements and features are described for application programs, synthetic micro-benchmarks, and abstract benchmark applications. Then, it proposes ways to measure and benchmark reliability, fault tolerance and testability of the on-chip communication fabric. This paper introduces the main concepts and ideas for benchmarking NoCs in a systematic and comparable way. It will be followed up by a report that will define a benchmark framework and the syntax of interfaces for benchmark programs that will allow the community to build-up a benchmark suite
Dental trauma: restorative procedures using composite resin and mouthguards for prevention.

AIM The aim of this article is to describe a step-by-step protocol for emergency care of a patient with a dentoalveolar injury in the anterior region of the mouth as well as the fabrication of a mouthguard to prevent future trauma. BACKGROUND Dental trauma is one of the most serious oral health problems in active children and adolescents. Care of traumatized patients requires immediate initial emergency treatment followed by integrated procedures to restore damaged oral structures along with a subsequent trauma prevention strategy. Dentoalveolar injuries in the anterior region of the mouth are often characterized by tooth avulsion and coronal fracture. They are managed using procedures such as dental splinting, endodontic therapy with its unique characteristics, and restorative techniques to re-establish function and esthetics as well as protective mouthguards. REPORT A 16-year-old male presented with avulsion of his maxillary central incisors as a result of a direct, unintentional impact with an opponent during a basketball game. The teeth had been stored in physiological serum immediately following the injury and the patient received immediate care. On clinical examination, the right central incisor was fractured at the incisal third of the crown but no bone fractures were found. The teeth were reimplanted and splinted. The fractured right central incisor was restored following endodontic treatment and a mouthguard was fabricated for the patient. SUMMARY The dentist must be knowledgeable about the most efficient and suitable treatment for each traumatic scenario in order to provide appropriate care for dental injuries. Coordinated multi-disciplinary action is fundamental in the successful treatment of these injuries. The dental mouthguard is an effective device for protecting the teeth and supportive structures during physical activities and must be part of the protective equipment used by athletes. It is the responsibility of the dental professional to make parents, trainers, and athletic associations aware of the risks associated with physical activities without orofacial protection; this should encourage the proper use of all protective devices to prevent dentoalveolar injuries that compromise oral functions, esthetics, and increase the cost of healthcare.
A study of feature selection approaches for classification

Classification approaches need to be improved in the domain of medical applications. Feature selection for classification is a very active research field in data mining Selecting only relevant features before classification reduces the workload of classifier using feature selection. Feature selection optimizes the classification performance. It finds only useful features and removes non- relevant features, and reduces the input dimensionality which simplifies the implementation of the classifier and speed up the processing rate. Researchers have introduced many feature selection algorithms with different selection criteria. However, it has been found that no single criterion is best for all applications. A hybrid approach for feature selection called based on genetic algorithms (GAs) that employs a target learning algorithm to evaluate features. The merits of this method includes t multiple feature selection criteria and find small subsets of features that perform well for the target algorithm.
Scene Text Recognition using part-based TSM and Soft Output Viterbi Algorithm

In recent years, detecting text in natural is an emerging problem and gained increasing attention from the computer vision community. Detecting text in natural scene text image is an important step for number of applications such as computerized aid for visually impaired, automatic sign reading, language translation and navigation. Natural scene text image may contain complex background and increased the challenges for the research community in detection and recognition. The novel scene text recognition method uses Part-based tree-structure model to improve the performance of the system by modeling each category of character to detect and recognize simultaneously. For word recognition, Soft Output Viterbi Algorithm was used to improve the measure of reliability in hard bit decision of the Viterbi algorithm. It maximizes the character sequence posterior probability using Bayesian decision view and n-gram model. To evaluate the performance of the system Char74k dataset was used for character detection and two more datasets ICDAR2003 and SVT was used for word recognition.
The Cambrian Explosion: The Construction of Animal Biodiversity.

In 1909 Charles Walcott discovered the remarkable soft-bodied animal fauna of the Middle Cambrian age Burgess Shale in British Columbia. These fossils have become the iconic representation of the astonishing expansion of animal diversity during the Cambrian, including the first appearance in the fossil record of essentially all living phyla, known as the “Cambrian explosion. ” Although the Burgess Shale biota is the public face of the Cambrian explosion, even appearing on a 1995 cover of Time, it is only a small part of the story (and somewhat late in the tale). Most readers will be familiar with the Cambrian explosion through Stephen Jay Gould’s 1989 book Wonderful Life (1989) or perhaps Martin Brasier’s more recent Darwin’s Lost World (2009). Both of these books were written to reach a general audience. What has been lacking to date is a more technical book, aimed at students and professionals, which summarizes and introduces the tremendous amount of research that this episode of earth history has received in the last 25 years. The Cambrian Explosion: The Construction of Animal Biodiversity by Douglas H Erwin and James W Valentine more than fills this need. It will become required reading for anyone who wants to understand the multiple lines of evidence, from geology, geochemistry, paleontology, genetics, phylogenetics, comparative morphology, and ecology, that have to be integrated to understand one of the most important episodes in the history of life. The authors, both paleontologists, are deeply respected authorities on evolution and the Cambrian fossil record, with a welldeserved reputation for innovative approaches. This book necessarily covers a tremendous amount of ground; the forty-two pages of references demonstrate the depth and breadth of scholarship that the authors summarize. The first section covers the geological context of the explosion, stretching back to the Snowball Earth episodes of the Cryogenian. This includes summaries of the current status of the absolute and relative time scales for this period and what geochemical proxies reveal about ocean chemistry, including oxygenation states and changes in the carbon cycle. The latter is unfortunately the weakest part of the book; there is very poor integration between figures (which come from external sources) and text; the figure captions and labels are inadequate. The book hits its stride in the next section. It begins with a brief review of phylogenetics and of living metazoan morphology and relationships, a subject Valentine explored in more depth in his comprehensive earlier book, On the Origin of Phyla (2004). This is followed
Non-intrusive Load Monitors (nilms) Used for Equipment Monitoring and Fault Detection California Energy Commission Non-intrusive Load Monitors (nilms) Used for Equipment Monitoring Acknowledgement and Fault Detection Special Thanks Are given to the Support Staff from the Buildings Technologies Progr

DISCLAIMER This report was prepared as the result of work sponsored by the California Energy Commission. It does not necessarily represent the views of the Energy Commission, its employees or the State of California. The Energy Commission, the State of California, its employees, contractors and subcontractors make no warrant, express or implied, and assume no legal liability for the information in this report; nor does any party represent that the uses of this information will not infringe upon privately owned rights. This report has not been approved or disapproved by the California Energy Commission nor has the California Energy Commission passed upon the accuracy or adequacy of the information in this report. Acknowledgements In a program of this magnitude there are many people who contributed to its success. We owe the many staff members, faculty, and students of the different institutions our thanks for the superb work and long hours they contributed. All of their names may not appear in this report, but their efforts are visible in the many papers, reports, presentations, and thesis that were the major output of this program. The EETD leadership provided support in many ways. We thank Norman Bourassa performed a wide range of duties, from original research to tracking deliverables. We thank the following members of the Program Advisory Committee (PAC) for their advice and support. In a program designed to deal with real world problems their ideas were vital. The PAC Preface The Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) Program supports public interest energy research and development that will help improve the quality of life in California by bringing environmentally safe, affordable, and reliable energy services and products to the marketplace. The Program's final report and its attachments are intended to provide a complete record of the objectives, methods, findings and accomplishments of the High Performance Commercial Building Systems (HPCBS) Program. This Commercial Building Energy Benchmarking attachment provides supplemental information to the final report (Commission publication # 500-03-097-A2). The Buildings Program Area within the Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) Program produced this document as part of a multi-project programmatic contract (#400-99-012). The Buildings Program includes new and existing buildings in both the residential and the nonresidential sectors. The program seeks to decrease building energy use through research that will develop or improve energy-efficient technologies, strategies, tools, and building performance evaluation methods. Abstract and Fault Detection This report presents the field-test results of the …
Selección de centros para índices en espacios métricos

El presente trabajo se desarrolla en el ambito de la linea Tecnicas de Indexacion para Datos no Estructurados del Proyecto Tecnologias Avanzadas de Bases de Datos, cuyo objetivo principal es realizar investigacion basica en problemas relacionados al manejo y recuperacion eficiente de informacion no tradicional, disenando nuevos algoritmos de indexacion que permitan realizar busquedas eficientes sobre datos no estructurados.
Spatial heterogeneity in the mangrove vegetation structure in the Zhanjiang Mangrove National Nature Reserve (China) : an approach using remote sensing (GeoEye-1 imagery) and GIS-analyses

The study is based on cartography (remote sensing and GIS) and field work. We used the PCQM and Plot-based method to describe the vegetation. We collected data on tree height, diameter, species name, number of stems and canopy surface. The mangrove species concerned are: Aegiceras corniculatum, Avicennia marina, Bruguiera gymnorrhiza, Excoecaria agallocha, Kandelia candel, Rhizophora stylosa, Sonneratia apetala.