Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mazatec agricultural calendar, milpa and peasant dietary strategy in the territory of Huautepec, Oaxaca.

The objectives of this research were to document the knowledge and use of the Mazatec agricultural calendar, and to contribute to characterize the functioning of the agri-food system in Agua Colorada and Agua Evangelista, in the municipality of Huautepec, Oaxaca, a Mazatec ethnolinguistic region. In the methodology, a mixed approach was used, analyzing qualitative and quantitative data. A simple random sample allowed selecting 34 peasants/indigenous people, to apply questionnaires. Results indicate that the knowledge and use of the Chan Mazatec agricultural calendar is still valid in the communities of study, directed basically at signaling the periods for dates for sowing, agricultural tasks and harvesting of species that make up the milpa and backyard systems. The milpa constitutes the fundamental economic agricultural activity; it is a means for the recreation of their traditional knowledge and the social production of various food products for self-consumption, basic in the local gastronomy. The Mazatec family economic systems (MFES) are based on the understanding of their natural environment, decisive for biodiversity management in the milpa and the consequent stability and resilience of the system; as indicators of their territorial strategies that allow their operation, adaptability and permanence as socioeconomic production and consumption organizations.
Concentration and Foreign Penetration in Latin American Banking Sectors: Impact on Competition and Risk

In recent years, Latin American banking sectors have experienced an accelerated process of concentration and foreign penetration that has prompted diverse views regarding its implications for the competitive behavior of banks and for the financial stability of the system as a whole. Exploiting a rich bank-level balance sheet database for eight Latin American countries, we examine the evolution of concentration and foreign penetration indicators and their impact on competition and risk. We find that, while concentration did not reduce competition in the industry, foreign penetration appears to have led to less competitive banking sectors. Moreover, we find banking sector fragility to be positively related to competition and, through this channel, negatively related to foreign participation, despite the fact that foreign banks in the region are associated with higher insolvency risk due to higher leverage ratios and more volatile returns.
Child Soldiers: From Violence to Protection

Compelling and humane, this book reveals the lives of the 300,000 child soldiers around the world, challenging stereotypes of them as predators or a lost generation. Kidnapped or lured by the promise of food, protection, revenge, or a better life, children serve not only as combatants but as porters, spies, human land mine detectors, and sexual slaves. Nearly one-third are girls, and Michael Wessells movingly reveals the particular dangers they face from pregnancy, childbirth complications, and the rejection they and their babies encounter in their local contexts. Based mainly on participatory research and interviews with hundreds of former child soldiers worldwide, Wessells allows these ex-soldiers to speak for themselves and reveal the enormous complexity of their experiences and situations. The author argues that despite the social, moral, and psychological wounds of war, a surprising number of former child soldiers enter civilian life, and he describes the healing, livelihood, education, reconciliation, family integration, protection, and cultural supports that make it possible. A passionate call for action, "Child Soldiers" pushes readers to go beyond the horror stories to develop local and global strategies to stop this theft of childhood.
Perspectives on public choice: When is it rational to vote?

As for popular suffrage, it may be further remarked that especially in large states, it leads inevitably to electoral indifference, since the casting of a single vote is of no significance where there is a multitude of electors. Hegel (1984, 202–3) I'll understand why people vote when I understand why someone, alone in his room, salutes during the national anthem. Paraphrase of a comment by Gerald Kramer, overheard by author at a conference The rationality of voting is the Achilles' heel of rational choice theory in political science. Public choice theorists themselves divide over the question of whether turnout can be considered a rational decision. As my paraphrase of Gerald Kramer's comment illustrates, some of the very best theorists think it unlikely, to say the least, though many others have sought for some satisfactory means to conclude the opposite (e.g., Downs 1957; Riker and Ordeshook 1968; McKelvey and Ordeshook 1972; Ferejohn and Fiorina 1974). The stakes are high. Voting is perhaps the most common and the most important action considered by citizens in a democracy. If such a common and important decision faced by ordinary people cannot be understood as “rational,” then how can our complex theories of politics, public choice, and even economics stand, if based on such infirm ground? As arcane and complicated as public choice accounts of voting can be, the fundamental problem is really quite simple. Hegel, not often considered a major contributor to public choice theory, put the problem clearly.
The Arboviruses: Epidemiology and Ecology

What do you do to start reading arboviruses epidemiology and ecology? Searching the book that you love to read first or find an interesting book that will make you want to read? Everybody has difference with their reason of reading a book. Actuary, reading habit must be from earlier. Many people may be love to read, but not a book. It's not fault. Someone will be bored to open the thick book with small words to read. In more, this is the real condition. So do happen probably with this arboviruses epidemiology and ecology.
Grid and Cloud Computing: A Business Perspective on Technology and Applications

In todays dynamic business environment, IT departments are under permanent pressure to meet two divergent requirements: to reduce costs and to support business agility with higher flexibility and responsiveness of the IT infrastructure. Grid and Cloud Computing enable a new approach towards IT. They enable increased scalability and more efficient use of IT based on virtualization of heterogeneous and distributed IT resources. This book provides a thorough understanding of the fundamentals of Grids and Clouds and of how companies can benefit from them. A wide array of topics is covered, e.g. business models and legal aspects. The applicability of Grids and Clouds in companies is illustrated with four cases of real business experiments. The experiments illustrate the technical solutions and the organizational and IT governance challenges that arise with the introduction of Grids and Clouds. Practical guidelines on how to successfully introduce Grids and Clouds in companies are provided.
Shades of urbanity: diverging statistical definitions

Metropolitan landscapes typically are patchworks of urban land use and open space. What seems to be straightforward for an observer appears to be ambig uous for researchers seeking fixed criteria. Pinnin g down urbanity is scale-dependent and culture-dependent. In fact, statistical definitions on urbanity t hat take inhabitants per hectare as a measure vary wide ly across countries. Applying definitions from abroad result in maps in which people don’t recogni se their own country any more. Where does this leave us when we study the sustaina bility of urban networks? This paper explores the linkages between human perception and statistical e xpression by comparing definitions across nations and conceptualisating meaning-giving related to geo graphy.
Phenology in the diet of Chaunus arenarum (Anura: Bufonidae) in a soybean field of Córdoba province,Argentina

El proposito de este trabajo fue analizar la dieta de Chaunus arenarum durante el desarrollo de un cultivo de soja en la provincia de Cordoba, Argentina. Se examinaron los contenidos gastroinstestinales de 62 individuos adultos de C. arenarum (14 en diciembre, 10 en enero, 14 en febrero, 14 en marzo y 10 en abril). Un total de 1963 items fueron encontrados, de los cuales 1439 son considerados perjudiciales para la planta de soja. En diciembre la presa consumida con mayor frecuencia fue Acromyrmex sp. (Hymenoptera, Formicidae), mientras que en enero, febrero, marzo y abril fue Armadillium vulgare (Crustacea, Isopoda). La correlacion entre el porcentaje de artropodos perjudiciales consumidos y la altura de la planta de soja a traves de todo el periodo de estudio fue significativa. Los resultados obtenidos permiten afirmar que C. arenarum podria ser considerado como un importante agente en el control biologico de especies perjudiciales en los cultivos de soja.
Gated Hall effect measurements on selectively grown InGaAs nanowires

InGaAs nanowires is one of the promising material systems of replacing silicon in future CMOS transistors, due to its high electron mobility in combination with the excellent electrostatic control from the tri-gate geometry. In this article, we report on gated Hall measurements on single and multiple In0.85Ga0. 15As nanowires, selectively grown in a Hall bridge geometry with nanowire widths down to 50 nm and thicknesses of 10 nm. The gated nanowires can be used as junctionless transistors, which allows for a simplified device processing as no regrowth of contact layer or ion implantation is needed, which is particularly beneficial as transistor dimensions are scaled down. The analysis shows that the InGaAs layer has a carrier concentration of above 1019 cm−3, with a Hall carrier mobility of around 1000 cm2 V−1 s−1. The gated Hall measurements reveal an increased carrier concentration as a function of applied gate voltage, with an increasing mobility for narrow nanowires but no significant effect on larger nanowires.
Local methods for estimating pagerank values

The Google search engine uses a method called PageRank, together with term-based and other ranking techniques, to order search results returned to the user. PageRank uses link analysis to assign a global importance score to each web page. The PageRank scores of all the pages are usually determined off-line in a large-scale computation on the entire hyperlink graph of the web, and several recent studies have focused on improving the efficiency of this computation, which may require multiple hours on a workstation. However, in some scenarios, such as online analysis of link evolution and mining of large web archives such as the Internet Archive, it may be desirable to quickly approximate or update the PageRanks of individual nodes without performing a large-scale computation on the entire graph. We address this problem by studying several methods for efficiently estimating the PageRank score of a particular web page using only a small subgraph of the entire web. In our model, we assume that the graph is accessible remotely via a link database (such as the AltaVista Connectivity Server) or is stored in a relational database that performs lookups on disks to retrieve node and connectivity information. We show that a reasonable estimate of the PageRank value of a node is possible in most cases by retrieving only a moderate number of nodes in the local neighborhood of the node.
Regulatory Agencies: Impact on Firm Performance and Social Welfare

The authors explore the relation between the establishment of a regulatory agency and the performance of the electricity sector. The authors exploit a unique dataset comprising firm-level information on a representative sample of 220 electric utilities from 51 development and transition countries for the years 1985 to 2005. Their results indicate that regulatory agencies are associated with more efficient firms and with higher social welfare.
Reduction of alcohol consumption by brief alcohol intervention in primary care: systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND Numerous trials of the efficacy of brief alcohol intervention have been conducted in various settings among individuals with a wide range of alcohol disorders. Nevertheless, the efficacy of the intervention is likely to be influenced by the context. We evaluated the evidence of efficacy of brief alcohol interventions aimed at reducing long-term alcohol use and related harm in individuals attending primary care facilities but not seeking help for alcohol-related problems. METHODS We selected randomized trials reporting at least 1 outcome related to alcohol consumption conducted in outpatients who were actively attending primary care centers or seeing providers. Data sources were the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, ISI Web of Science, ETOH database, and bibliographies of retrieved references and previous reviews. Study selection and data abstraction were performed independently and in duplicate. We assessed the validity of the studies and performed a meta-analysis of studies reporting alcohol consumption at 6 or 12 months of follow-up. RESULTS We examined 19 trials that included 5639 individuals. Seventeen trials reported a measure of alcohol consumption, of which 8 reported a significant effect of intervention. The adjusted intention-to-treat analysis showed a mean pooled difference of -38 g of ethanol (approximately 4 drinks) per week (95% confidence interval, -51 to -24 g/wk) in favor of the brief alcohol intervention group. Evidence of other outcome measures was inconclusive. CONCLUSION Focusing on patients in primary care, our systematic review and meta-analysis indicated that brief alcohol intervention is effective in reducing alcohol consumption at 6 and 12 months.
Asset Pricing and the Housing Market

House prices have risen rapidly in recent years. While there is little doubt that the rates of increase observed are unsustainable, there is uncertainty as to the sustainability of the level of house prices. This article applies asset-pricing theory to the housing market to gain additional insights into some of the factors accounting for this rise in house prices. It presents estimates of the ratio of house prices to net rentals (a concept close to an equity market's price to earnings ratio). This ratio is currently well above its long-term average, a situation that in the past has often been followed by periods in which real house prices have fallen. However, a simple 'dividend' discount model of the housing market suggests that lower real interest rates can account for part of the increase in the ratio of house prices to net rentals since 1996. Nevertheless, to account fully for this increase, the housing risk premium would need to have fallen too. Comparing the implied housing risk premium now with that in the late 1980s may suggest that house prices are closer to sustainable levels now than was the case in the late 1980s. However, because of data and model limitations no firm conclusions can be drawn.
AGENT-BASED COMPUTATIONAL ECONOMICS : A CONSTRUCTIVE APPROACH TO ECONOMIC THEORY ∗

Contents Abstract Keywords 1. Introduction 2. ACE study of economic systems 3. From Walrasian equilibrium to ACE trading 3.1 Walrasian bliss in a hash-and-beans economy 3.2 Plucking out the Walrasian Auctioneer 3.3 The ACE Trading World: Outline 3.4 Defining " equilibrium " for the ACE Trading World 4. ACE modeling of procurement processes 4.1 Constructive understanding 4.2 The essential primacy of survival 4.3 Strategic rivalry and market power 4.4 Behavioral uncertainty and learning 4.5 The role of conventions and organizations 4.6 Interactions among attributes, institutions, and behaviors 5. Concluding remarks Abstract Economies are complicated systems encompassing micro behaviors, interaction patterns, and global regularities. Whether partial or general in scope, studies of economic systems must consider how to handle difficult real-world aspects such as asymmetric information, imperfect competition, strategic interaction, collective learning, and the possibility of multiple equilib-ria. Recent advances in analytical and computational tools are permitting new approaches to the quantitative study of these aspects. One such approach is Agent-based Computational Economics (ACE), the computational study of economic processes modeled as dynamic systems of interacting agents. This chapter explores the potential advantages and disadvantages of ACE for the study of economic systems. General points are concretely illustrated using an ACE model of a two-sector decentralized market economy. Six issues are highlighted: Constructive understanding of production, pricing, and trade processes; the essential primacy of survival; strategic rivalry and market power; behavioral uncertainty and learning; the role of conventions and organizations; and the complex interactions among structural attributes, institutional arrangements, and behavioral dispositions.
A Novel Robot-Assisted Endovascular Catheterization System With Haptic Force Feedback

The robot-assisted endovascular catheterization system (RAECS) has the potential to address some of the procedural challenges and separate interventionalists from the X-ray radiation during the endovascular surgery. However, the employment of robotic systems is partly changing the natural gestures and behavior of medical professionals. This paper presents a RAECS that augments surgeon's motions using the conventional catheter as well as generates the haptic force feedback to ensure surgery safety. The magnetorheological fluids based haptic interfaceexperiment is proposed to measure the actions of the operator and provide the haptic force. The slave catheter manipulator is presented to actuate the patient catheter in two degrees of freedom (radial and axial direction). In addition, a force model is provided to characterize the kinematics of the catheter intervention. Afterward, the “pseudocollision” and “real collision” are utilized to descript the catheter tip–vessel interaction. The in vitro results are presented, which demonstrate that catheter-based haptic force feedback has a benefit for improving catheterization skills as well as reducing the cognitive workload of operators.
Institutional Quality and Trade : Which Institutions ? Which Trade ?

Using a panel of countries over 1920–2000, this paper examines the extent to which different dimensions of the institutional framework affect exports of total, manufactured, and nonmanufactured goods. It is observed that exports of manufactured goods are positively affected by the control of corruption, the rule of law, government effectiveness, and the lack of political violence. This result does not hold for non-manufactured and total exports. Instrumental variable regressions finally confirm that the control of corruption, but not the other dimensions of governance, robustly cause manufactured exports.
The influence of input uncertainties on remotely sensed estimates of ocean primary productivity

vi was the parameter representing irradiance-dependent vertical changes in chlorophyll-normalized photosynthetic rates. On the other hand, the largest contributor to the random uncertainty in NPP was the term describing the physiological state of phytoplankton. Thus, reductions in the respective uncertainties in these two input terms could improve the accuracy of the NPP model the most. The final part of the thesis presents an analysis of uncertainty associated with a model of the euphotic depth (Zeu), which was developed for remote sensing applications and computes Zeu from the near-surface chlorophyll concentration. The analysis disregarded any uncertainty in the input chlorophyll values and concentrated only on the intrinsic uncertainty in the Zeu model. The latter was quantified by comparisons between the Zeu model output and reference values of Zeu, derived from in situ measured vertical profiles of downward irradiance. The Zeu model uncertainty, expressed in relative terms, complied well with a normal distribution. Due to an uneven geographical coverage of the in situ data set, the uncertainty statistics were weighted with a global Zeu climatology, obtained from remote sensing. This provided an estimate of positive bias equal to 9%. The remaining part of Zeu model uncertainty, which is associated with natural variability, amounted to 22% (expressed as the zero-centred root mean square difference).
Localization of a Mobile Device with Sensor Using a Cascade Artificial Neural Network-Based Fingerprint Algorithm

One of the important functions of sensor networks is that they collect data from the physical environment and transmit them to a center for processing. The location from which the collected data is obtained is crucial in many applications, such as search and rescue, disaster relief, and target tracking. In this respect, determination of the location with low-cost, scalable, and efficient algorithms is required. This study presents the implementation of a fingerprint-based location determination algorithm by using the cascade artificial neural network (ANN). A 15.6 × 13.8 m2 implementation area, in which an anchor node is placed at each corner, is divided into grids with a 60-cm edge. The proposed algorithm consists of two phases: offline and online. In the offline phase, first a mobile device with an Xbee sensor, which is able to move sensitively and communicate with anchor nodes, is used. With this device, the implementation area is visited, and at each grid point, received signal strength indicator (RSSI) values and real distances measured from the anchor nodes are recorded in a database. The training of the cascade ANN is done using the database for both range and location determination. In the online phase, the RSSIs measured by the anchor nodes are provided as the input to the cascade ANN algorithm by means of a mobile device in any coordinate. The location of the mobile device and its distance to the anchor nodes are determined with minimum error. To show the superiority of the proposed method, the results obtained are compared with those in the literature and it has been shown that this location determination is made with a smaller error. © 2019 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press SARL. This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).
Mechanics of materials: An introduction to the mechanics of elastic and plastic deformation of solids and structural components

Introduction Notation Unsymmetrical bending Struts Strains beyond the elastic limit Rings, discs and cylinders subjected to rotation and thermal gradients Torsion of non-circular and thin-walled sections Experimental stress analysis Circular plates and diaphragms Introduction to advanced elasticity theory Introduction to the Finite Element Method Contact stress, residual stress and stress concentrations Fatigue, creep and fracture Miscellaneous topics Appendices Index.