Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Understanding the Ecology of Three Mixed Northern Hepatic Mat Species at Regional Scale through Species Distribution Modelling, and Local Scale through Growth Measurements and Micro-Climatic Assessment

In order to successfully manage species and plant communities, it is important to have a good understanding of the ecology and distributions. Species distribution modelling (SDM) is a useful tool to increase our understanding of the distribution of species and their ecological requirements at a regional scale. Through SDMs, this study aims at predicting the potential distribution in Norway of three mixed northern hepatic mat species, Anastrophyllum donnianum (Hook.) Steph. , Scapania ornithopodioides (With.) Waddell and S. nimbosa Taylor, which are restricted to the most oceanic parts of north-western Europe. The models can be used to assess whether these species are limited by dispersal or suitable habitat, in addition to identifying which climatic factors are most important in determining their distribution. Maxent models were made using target-group background data, and five environmental coverage layers. All three species seem to be limited by dispersal rather than suitable habitats in Norway, although the model for S. nimbosa is associated with uncertainty. Anastrophyllum donnianum seems to be limited from reaching highly suitable areas in northern Norway due to insufficient summer rain in areas in between. If climate change leads to an increase in summer precipitation, this area may become more suitable. Scapania ornithopodioides is absent from northern Norway despite the presence of highly suitable habitats scattered along the coast. Both A. donnianum and S. ornithopodioides seem to prefer high rain frequency and summer rain, and medium summer temperatures peaking at approximately 10 ◦C, which agrees with our current understanding of the ecology for these two species. Both species seem to be limited from southern Norway due to too high summer temperatures. If climate change leads to higher summer temperatures, their range may be even more contracted in the southern parts. Areas of interest for the search of potentially undiscovered populations include northern Norway, the Fosen Peninsula and the Lofoten Islands.
Clinical practice. Allergic rhinitis.

An audio version of this article is available at NEJM.org A 35-year-old woman has a history of nasal congestion on most days of the year, dating back to her late teens. She has chronic nasal drainage, which is clear and thick. Her congestion is worst in the late summer and early fall and again in the early spring; at these times, she also has sneezing, nasal itching, and cough. Five years ago, she had an episode of shortness of breath with wheezing on a day when her nasal symptoms were severe, but this episode resolved spontaneously and has not recurred. Her eyes do not bother her. Over-the-counter oral antihistamines help her symptoms a little, as do nasal decongestants, which she uses occasionally. Her 6-year-old son has similar symptoms. How should this case be managed?
The natural history of pityriasis rosea in black American children: how correct is the "classic" description?

OBJECTIVES To delineate the natural history of pityriasis rosea in black children and to compare our findings with those of the American, European, and African literature on pityriasis rosea. Textbook and journal article descriptions of pityriasis rosea usually offer information about the presentation and clinical course of this condition in white patients. DESIGN Prospective observational study. SETTING The general pediatric clinic, adolescent clinic, and emergency department of Children's Hospital of Michigan, Detroit, from June 2003 through May 2005. PATIENTS We followed up 50 black children with pityriasis rosea from the time of diagnosis through follow-up visits at 1, 2, and 4 weeks. Detailed observations were made and digital photographs taken at each visit. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Duration of illness and pigmentary sequelae. RESULTS Similarities with the medical literature were found regarding season of onset and prevalence of pruritus and of a herald patch. Our patients had more frequent facial involvement (30%) and more scalp lesions (8%) than usually described in white populations. One third had papular lesions. The disease resolved in nearly one half of patients within 2 weeks. Residual hyperpigmentation was seen in 48% of patients. Hypopigmentation developed in 29% of patients with purely papular or papulovesicular lesions. CONCLUSIONS Pityriasis rosea in black children differs in several ways from textbook descriptions. Physicians may use this information to better counsel patients about the course and potential sequelae of this condition.
DEVELOPMENT OF MOTORIZED SLEWING MIRROR STAGE FOR THE UFFO PROJECT

The Ultra-Fast Flash Observatory (UFFO) is a space observatory for optical follow-ups of gamma ray bursts (GRBs), aiming to explore the first 60 seconds of GRBs optical emission. UFFO is utilized to catch early optical emissions from GRBs within few sec after trigger using a Gimbal mirror which redirects the optical path rather than slewing entire spacecraft. We have developed a 15 cm two-axis Gimbal mirror stage for the UFFO-Pathfinder which is going to be on board the Lomonosov satellite which is to be launched in 2013. The stage is designed for fast and accurate motion with given budgets of 3 kg of mass and 3 Watt of power. By employing stepping motors, the slewing mirror can rotate faster than 15 deg/sec so that objects in the UFFO coverage (60 deg × 60 deg) can be targeted in ~1 sec. The obtained targeting resolution is better 2 arcmin using a close-loop control with high precision rotary encoder. In this presentation, we will discuss details of design, manufacturing, space qualification tests, as well as performance tests.
Influence of Growing Media on Physiological Disorders Incidence in Oriental Radishes.

Some cultivar radishes of ‘Daikon’ or oriental radish (Raphanus sativus L. var. longipinnatus L.H. Bailey) have largely replaced in Spain the cultivation of turnips (Brassica napus L.). Market acceptance of these taproots can be affected by the incidence of various physiological disorders, such as the cracking, hollowness, malformation and the emission of secondary roots. We used two Korean cultivars, ‘Spring Favor’ and ‘Spring White’ in greenhouse cultivation in two production cycles, autumn-winter and spring season, in containers of 25 L filled with three substrates, perlite B12, coir dust and sand. In these experiments, designed according to a factorial program, we tried to establish the influence of cultivars, maturity stages and growing media on the incidence of mentioned physiological disorders, commercial production, taproot shape and size, and leaves dry weight. ‘Spring White’ was more susceptible to cracking and malformation than ‘Spring Favor’ while ‘Spring Favor’ showed a greater susceptibility to hollowness and secondary roots emission, ‘Spring White’ taproots were longer and less wide than ‘Spring Favor’. Over-maturity taproots did not influence on the hollowness and malformation. Among the three used substrates, perlite behaved worse in the incidence of almost all studied physiological disorders, while it seems that sand and coir dust did not adversely affect them. No many significant interactions were detected between cultivars x substrates.
" When the Cat ’ s Away the Mice Will Play " : Does Regulation At Home Affect Bank Risk-Taking Abroad ? ∗

This paper provides the first empirical evidence that bank regulation and supervision is associated with cross-border spillover effects through the lending activities of large multinational banks. We analyze business lending by 155 banks to 9,617 firms in 1,976 different localities across 16 countries. We find that higher barriers to entry, tighter restrictions on bank activities, and higher minimum capital requirements in domestic markets are associated with lower bank lending standards abroad. The effects are stronger when banks are less effi ciently supervised at home, and are observed to exist independently from the impact of host-country regulation. JEL classification: G21, G28, G32.
When the Cat's Away, the Mice Will Play: Gambling Behaviour of Visitors in Australia

What happens if national legal laws or enforcements and social norms are no longer able to directly regulate individual behaviour? According to our knowledge, not much empirical evidence has emerged answering such a seemingly simple question. The challenge is to distinguish between the effects of social norm and of legal enforcement. One way to explore such a question in an almost natural quasi-experimental setting is to focus on tourists? behaviour. Tourists are visiting another country for a relatively short period of time and are acting in a different (legal) environment where formal and informal rules are different to those found in their own country. Using data from Australia we focus on gambling activities since these are prohibited in some countries. We find that tourists from countries where gambling is prohibited spend a significantly larger share of their entertainment expenditure on gambling than those who come from countries where gambling is legalized. Thus, gambling increases ("mice play") without legal enforcement ("when the cat is away"). It is also noteworthy that there seems to be a lack of internalized social norms that would prevent tourists from partaking in these gambling activities.
Appendix to “ Granger-Causal-Priority and Choice of Variables in Vector Autoregressions ”

In the paper we use the set of models Ω defined in Definition 3 in Section 4. In Section 5.4 we also report findings conditional on the set of models Ω̃. In this online appendix we give the details of the exercise conditional on Ω̃. The motivation for this exercise is the following. The set of models Ω̃ is larger than the set of models Ω. In particular, Ω includes models with one Granger-noncausality relation, while Ω̃ includes models with multiple Granger-noncausality relations imposed simultaneously. We are curious whether “allowing for more zero restrictions” than in the set Ω leads to much better fit and a very different choice of variables.
Evaluating modularity in morphometric data: challenges with the RV coefficient and a new test measure

Modularity describes the case where patterns of trait covariation are unevenly dispersed across traits. Specifically, trait correlations are high and concentrated within subsets of variables (modules), but the correlations between traits across modules are relatively weaker. For morphometric data sets, hypotheses of modularity are commonly evaluated using the RV coefficient, an association statistic used in a wide variety of fields. In this article, I explore the properties of the RV coefficient using simulated data sets. Using data drawn from a normal distribution where the data were neither modular nor integrated in structure, I show that the RV coefficient is adversely affected by attributes of the data (sample size and the number of variables) that do not characterize the covariance structure between sets of variables. Thus, with the RV coefficient, patterns of modularity or integration in data are confounded with trends generated by sample size and the number of variables, which limits biological interpretations and renders comparisons of RV coefficients across data sets uninformative. As an alternative, I propose the covariance ratio (CR) for quantifying modular structure and show that it is unaffected by sample size or the number of variables. Further, statistical tests based on the CR exhibit appropriate type I error rates and display higher statistical power relative to the RV coefficient when evaluating modular data. Overall, these findings demonstrate that the RV coefficient does not display statistical characteristics suitable for reliable assessment of hypotheses of modular or integrated structure and therefore should not be used to evaluate these patterns in morphological data sets. By contrast, the covariance ratio meets these criteria and provides a useful alternative method for assessing the degree of modular structure in morphological data.
Greenhouse gases from geothermal power production

Geothermal is a renewable source energy that can be used directly for heating or for power production. Geothermal utilization, particularly power production, may result in some greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. GHG emissions from geothermal power production is generally small in comparison to traditional base load thermal energy power generation facilities. This is mainly due to the fact that the large majority of installations draw their geothermal energy from geothermal reservoirs with low GHG concentrations. However, as the geothermal sector has expanded, a wider range of geothermal resources have been brought into exploitation, including geothermal systems with relatively high GHG concentrations in the reservoir fluid. There is a growing realization within the geothermal community that geothermal power plants can, in rare instances, release significant quantities GHG into the atmosphere. This interim technical note presents an overview of the current knowledge on GHG emissions from geothermal systems and geothermal power plants, and gives guidance on how to assess GHG emissions from geothermal projects when this is required, depending on their stage of development. This note identifies critical knowledge gaps and presents recommendations as to how close these gaps and proposes an interim methodology to estimate GHG emissions from geothermal projects that financing institutions, such as the World Bank, intend to support. The plan is to update this note when the methodology has been tested by application to actual projects and some of the current knowledge gaps have been closed as more information become available. This note proposes a way to estimate future emission factors for geothermal projects under development. For instance, if a pumped binary power plant is planned, the emission factor will be 0. Projects using other energy conversion technologies will result in some emissions. For projects where wells have been drilled and tested, formulas are provided to compute emission factors based on the chemical composition of the geothermal fluid and the design parameters of the power plant. For projects located in the vicinity of existing power plants in analogous geologic settings, emission factors from the existing plants can be used.
Research Paper Series Globalisation and Labour Markets Foreign-owned Plants and Job Security the Centre Acknowledges Financial Support from the Leverhulme Trust under Programme Grant F114/bf Foreign-owned Plants and Job Security

Acknowledgements The authors thank the Economic and Social Research Council (under grant number RES-000-22-1034) and financial support from the Leverhulme Trust under Programme Grant F114/BF is also gratefully acknowledged. The data were kindly supplied by the Institut für Arbeitsmarkt und Berufsforschung, Nürnberg. Abstract We investigate the hypothesis that workers in foreign-owned establishments face greater job insecurity. Using linked employer employee data from Germany, we examine whether foreign-owned establishments are more likely to exit production, and whether workers in foreign-owned establishments face higher separation rates, net of establishment exit. We find that, after controlling for the different characteristics of foreign and domestic establishments, foreign establishments have higher exit rates and higher separation rates, but the effect is quantitatively small. In contrast, foreign-owned establishments which do not export appear to have considerably higher exit rates and separation rates.
International Journal of Renewable Energy Development

Shipping is facing huge pressure problems in this 21st century such as climate change and environmental pollution and the depletion of energy resources. Seaports are an important component of the shipping industry architecture. Although there is no common solution, seaports around the globe face the same challenge. Challenges raised include difficulties in integrating new technology into automation, traffic congestion, harmonizing residential communities around the port, quantifying and reducing CO2 emissions as well as planning for the energy transition. In addition, improving the adaptability of the port infrastructure in the context of increased pressure from market demand, labor shortage, and escalating prices should be considered. In that context, a smart port was born as a necessity. However, the understanding of smart ports is very limited. This review examines the recently published smart port literature to clarify the common concepts of smart ports and their development progress on the way to building a sustainable seaport ecosystem. Although smart port metrics and key port performance metrics are organized around four key performance areas including operations, environment, energy, and safety. However, a comprehensive review of all four key areas is very broad and difficult to cover in a review article. Therefore, this work focuses on analyzing and discussing the approaches and applications of the technology in smart port energy management systems. Our research has shown that different smart port founding perspectives play a decisive role in technology approaches to building a port energy management system including optimizing algorithms for energy consumption, balancing demand and energy production, and comprehensively integrating renewable energy. New findings in this study contribute to the elucidation of smart port concepts based on improving energy use and management efficiency with innovative technologies in the context of sustainable development of the shipping industry.
POLITECNICO DI TORINO Repository ISTITUZIONALE Efficient Statistical Simulation of Microwave Devices Via Stochastic Testing-Based Circuit Equivalents of Nonlinear Components

This paper delivers a considerable improvement in the framework of the statistical simulation of highly nonlinear devices via polynomial chaos-based circuit equivalents. Specifically, a far more efficient and “black-box” approach is proposed that reduces the model complexity for nonlinear components. Based on recent literature, the “stochastic testing” method is used in place of a Galerkin approach to find the pertinent circuit equivalents. The technique is demonstrated via the statistical analysis of a low-noise power amplifier and its features in terms of accuracy and efficiency are highlighted.
POLITECNICO DI TORINO Repository ISTITUZIONALE Model Predictive Control of stochastic LPV Systems via Random Convex Programs /

This paper considers the problem of stabilization of stochastic Linear Parameter Varying (LPV) discrete time systems in the presence of convex state and input constraints. By using a randomization approach, a convex finite horizon optimal control problem is derived, even when the dependence of the system’s matrices on the time-varying parameters is nonlinear. This convex problem can be solved efficiently, and its solution is a-priori guaranteed to be probabilistically robust, up to a user-defined probability level p. Then, a novel receding horizon control strategy that involves, at each time step, the solution of a finite-horizon scenario-based control problem, is proposed. It is shown that the resulting closed loop scheme drives the state to a terminal set in finite time, either deterministically, or with probability no less than p. The features of the approach are shown through a numerical example.
POLITECNICO DI TORINO Repository ISTITUZIONALE Empowering End Users in Debugging Trigger-Action Rules

End users can program trigger-action rules to personalize the joint behavior of their smart devices and online services. Trigger-action programming is, however, a complex task for non-programmers and errors made during the composition of rules may lead to unpredictable behaviors and security issues, e.g., a lamp that is continuously fashing or a door that is unexpectedly unlocked. In this paper, we introduce EUDebug, a system that enables end users to debug trigger-action rules. With EUDebug, users compose rules in a web-based application like IFTTT. EUDebug highlights possible problems that the set of all defned rules may generate and allows their step-by-step simulation. Under the hood, a hybrid Semantic Colored Petri Net (SCPN) models, checks, and simulates trigger-action rules and their interactions. An exploratory study on 15 end users shows that EUDebug helps identifying and understanding problems in trigger-action rules, which are not easily discoverable in existing platforms.
Seasonal Variation in Ph and Alkalinity of Groundwaters in Sidhi District, Central India

A study of pH and alkalinity in thirty-nine groundwater locations in the semi-arid region of Central India was carried out with the objective of monitoring and controlling the groundwater pollution seasonally. The study area was Sidhi district bounded by Son river in North, Gopad river in the east, Banas river in the west and Kusmi forest in the south. Geologically, the entire Sidhi district is dissected into Vindhyan, Archean, Dharwar and Permian regions. The study revealed higher alkalinity in the area ranging beyond the standard permissible limit while pH of all locations was well within the permissible limits (8.5). Increased pH and alkalinity were reported in the monsoon. The prevailing hydrochemical processes are water-rock interaction, seepage, percolation and leaching in the Sidhi district.
60 GHz array antenna with new method of beam forming

The spectrum below 10 GHz frequency will likely be congested and the spreading of millimeter wave technology in different emerging wireless applications as well as associated increase in energy consumption will be witnessed in the near future. Array antenna technology with higher beam efficiency (BE) and lower side lobe level (SLL) is required in order to increase the coverage area of wireless communication, transmission bit rate and at the same time decrease the energy consumption and interference. It is possible to achieve higher BE and lower SLL of array antenna by implementing different power distributions for different array elements. A new and technically better method of beam forming by implementing the concept of Staircase Power Distribution (SPD) of antenna elements has been investigated and compared with other edge tapering methods for 60 GHz signal. It is found that the Maximum Side Lobe Level (MSLL) is the lowest in SPD among the compared methods and the BE is also equivalent to those of other edge tapering methods. Fabrication of antenna elements with SPD technology is also easier since the number of different power distribution in SPD is least and stepwise uniform. The use of antenna elements in SPD in terms of power distribution is also the best among the compared edge tapering methods.
Optimum Farm Plans for Fadama Farms in Niger State, Nigeria

The study sought to determine the optimal farm plan for Fadama farms in Niger State, Nigeria. A Random sampling of 105 Fadama farm families were interviewed using structuredQuestionnaires, thoughonlyninetyeight were foundusable from the site of the studyat the endof the survey. Mostof the respondents(95%) weremalesandwere within the ages groups of21to 50years (75%). Half of the respondentsin the study areahadno formal education. 70% of the respondents were, however, married couples with family sizes of eight (8). They result of the linearprogramming analysis shows that only Rice Enterprise shouldbe carriedout on a 0.66ha ofland, as this willyieldan optimalreturn of =N=43,743.47/ha. Capital was the most limiting resource in the study area. Therefore farm families engaged in other enterprises (Sugarcane, Tomato/Pepper mixture and Cassava/Sweet Potato mixture) could equally divert their resources to the Production of Rice. It was recommendedthat more Landresources be allocated to Rice Production in the study area.