Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
SOIL SLIP EROSION AS A CONSTRAINT TO HILL COUNTRY PASTURE PRODUCTION

The results and implications of applying remote sensing techniques together with pasture measurements to quantify the influence of soil slip erosion oh hill country pasture productivity in the Wairarapa are reviewed. Sequential aerial photographs were used to identify, date, and measure the area of slip scars of different age. The reduction in potential productivity of hillslopes due to erosion was then determined by measuring the pasture growth ratesof the different aged slips (and uneroded ground) and integrating these with the proportions of the hillslopes of each age class. Three years of pasture measurements in the Wairarapa hill country showed that although slips revegetated rapidly over the first 20 years to within 7080% of the uneroded productivity, further recovery was slow. Our evidence suggests that these man-modified forest soils, once eroded, may never regain the same potential for agricultural production under a pasture regime. Reduction in pasture production associated with erosion was most severe in summer and mid-winter when farmers have the highest risk of major feed deficits. Since native forest removal, the reduction due to erosion in potential pastoral productivity, integrated over whole hillslopes, has reached 18% on these hillslopes. An estimation of the extent to which improved farming technology has probably masked this reduction in potential productivity is discussed. On hillslopes where severe erosion occurs continually, farmers will be faced with increasing difficulty in maintaining animal production levels unless soil conservation and farm management strategies are designed to further mask the impacts of erosion and thereby prolong the viability of pastoral agriculture on such hill country.
Isolation and identification of gibberellins A4 and A9 from a fungus Phaeosphaeria sp.

Apres fractionnement des cellules du champignon Phaeosphaeria, on utilise la chromatographie couche mince pour purifier les differentes fractions. La caracterisation des gibberellines A4 et A9 est realisee par spectrometrie infra-rouge et en spectrometrie de masse couplee a l'impact d'electrons
Zentrum für Europäische Integrationsforschung Center for European Integration Studies

Inter-firm information exchange with respect to the reliability of trade partners may be unmediated in the sense that it involves direct communication between the personnel of two firms. Alternatively, this information flow may be channeled by or through an organization such as a trade association. We assess the relationship between these two mechanisms for conveying reputational information. Based on evidence from five transition countries, we find that trade associations’ role as informational intermediaries in this regard is sensitive to the geographic relationship between a potential supplier (demander) of reputational information and the firm whose behavior may be reported (acquired). What is more, the use of trade associations as conduits for reputation flows is more strategic than the use of unmediated communication in that the former is highly sensitive to the effects of market structure.
Zentrum für Europäische Integrationsforschung Center for European Integration Studies

The aim of this paper is to check whether intergovernmental transfers for water projects accepted in 1986 can be rationalized by a simple efficiency criterion. The empirical Þndings support this conjecture only partially. ∗The author is grateful to Robert Inman for his guidance and numerious comments. Alison Del Rossi and Robert Inman have kindly provided crucial data for this project. I also wish to thank the participants of the seminar in the Center for European Integration in Bonn (ZEI). The last part of this paper was written while the author was visiting ZEI, the hospitality of which is greately appreciated. Sergio O. Parrerias, Reuven Shnaps and Clara Vega provided valuable comments. Any remaining errors are mine.
Pol-InSAR Forest Height Estimation at Different Frequencies: Opportunities and Limitations

Pol-InSAR is a remote sensing technology making structural forest attributes including forest height accessible. In this thesis an approach for a step by step estimation of forest height from Pol-InSAR data was introduced and constraints are discussed. Pol-InSAR forest height was successfully estimated and validated at L-band, P-band and X-band over boreal, temperate and tropical forests by means of airborne and spaceborne SAR.
The influence of consumer characteristics on the acceptance of new seaweed food products

This paper examines the factors that influence the acceptance of the new products. 304 participants from ages 16 and above were each given a sample of seaweed cake, seaweed chocolate, seaweed crackers and seaweed biscuits to taste. Data on consumers’ characteristics and consumers’ willingness to accept these products were collected through a selfadministered questionnaire. The study shows that consumers’ characteristics play a significant role in the food choice. Beliefs the consumers hold about the outcome of accepting the new food products will strongly affect his/her acceptance of the new seaweed food products.
Preferential Rules of Origin in Regional Trade Agreements

This study surveys preferential rules of origin applied by 192 regional trade agreements (RTAs) covering trade in goods notified to the GATT/WTO up to 1 November 2010. It takes into account the preferential rules of origin that were notified to the WTO; whenever known and available, modifications to the original rules of origin have been updated. This study contains two basic features: a description of some key elements of preferential rules of origin in RTAs, followed by an attempt to provide a reality-check of how these rules affect actual trade. That is done by an ex-post examination of data on the use of RTAs' preferences and, in their absence, of their margins of preference (MOPs). While the raison d'etre of preferential rules of origin is the avoidance of trade deflection, the practice in RTAs has diluted this objective and it would seem that preferential rules of origin are increasingly becoming an economic, political and trade instrument. In its descriptive part, the study identifies what seems to be a tendency to design stricter rules of origin, while detecting concomitantly the inclusion in modern preferential rules of origin of flexibilities that provide, through the rules of origin themselves, a preference beyond the lower tariff rate resulting from the preferential treatment and mechanisms that allow the integration of third-parties into preferential rules of origin regimes. The reality-check part of the study points to the fact that much beyond the coverage of RTAs, it is their effective implementation that poses a challenge to economic operators. Though data on the use of preferences is either not disclosed or inexistent, they are nevertheless available for some economies. On the basis of existing data of preference utilization, the analysis of the effects of rules of origin on preferential trade flows appears to give rise to a dual reality - namely a relatively high use of preferences in certain instances coexisting with preferences failing to attain their potential in other cases. As regards RTAs for which utilization rate is not available, the paper analysis preferential rules of origin from a MOPS perspective, assuming that MOPs of at least 5 percentage points would offset compliance costs and thus provide a stimulus to comply with rules of origin in order to benefit from preferences. The analysis, made for 68 out of 192 RTAs, do not allow any conclusion regarding that generally presented hypothesis. Finally, the paper briefly outlines some suggestions for further action, including the launching in the WTO of exploratory work on preferential rules of origin within an open regionalism scenario.
Automation and the Labor Force

Technological progress has been the catalyst behind the increases in living standards across time. One aspect of technological progress is automation. Automation, more than other technologies, has significant effects on the labor force. From World War II until now, routine tasks have largely been automated. Perceptive tasks have belonged mainly to the domain of human labor until very recent innovations. These innovations may change the labor force, as new employment opportunities will not replace jobs as quickly as the old ones are automated. The number of labor hours needed to produce the goods in the U.S. economy will soon decrease significantly. This has both short-term and long-term implications. In the short-term, those with the right skills will benefit financially, while those with the wrong skills will not reap this bountiful harvest. In response to this, it is imperative to continually educate society to match skills with the level of technology. I n the long-term, i t i s theoretically possible to automate all of human labor. If that occurs, then the economic problem would be solved, and resources could be distributed equally.
Constructive natural deduction and its ‘ω-set’ interpretation

Various Theories of Types are introduced, by stressing the analogy ‘propositions-as-types’: from propositional to higher order types (and Logic). In accordance with this, proofs are described as terms of various calculi, in particular of polymorphic (second order) λ-calculus. A semantic explanation is then given by interpreting individual types and the collection of all types in two simple categories built out of the natural numbers (the modest sets and the universe of ω-sets). The first part of this paper (syntax) may be viewed as a short tutorial with a constructive understanding of the deduction theorem and some work on the expressive power of first and second order quantification. Also in the second part (semantics, §§6–7) the presentation is meant to be elementary, even though we introduce some new facts on types as quotient sets in order to interpret ‘explicit polymorphism’. (The experienced reader in Type Theory may directly go, at first reading, to §§6–8).
Bias in population growth rate estimation: sparse data, partial life cycle analysis and Jensen's inequality

Demographic matrix models have become an integral part of population viability analysis for threatened and endangered species, but their use is often limited by data availability. A common solution to this problem is to assume constant annual rates within a multi-year stage. Partial life cycle analysis (PLC), which incorporates only juvenile and adult stages, is a noteworthy example of this approach because it has been described in the literature as a reliable approximation of age-structured populations. However, we predict from Jensen's Inequality that the required lumping of age classes leads to over- or underestimation of population fitness when survival rates are truly age-dependent. We illuminate this problem by comparing fitness estimates from Leslie matrix and PLC models for theoretical populations having different levels of age-dependence in their survival rates. We also propose a modification of the PLC approach to address this problem and demonstrate its applicability using data from a published long-term study of red deer Cervus elephas.
Adapting the built living environment for the needs of older people

Due to ageing of the population, developed countries are dealing with increasing needs in providing adequate residential care for older people and (with this) demands in providing appropriate social and services for the elderly. This article assumes that these needs could be reduced with the physical (re) design of the built living environment, by which elderly people would be given the opportunity to remain in their home environments as long as possible, capable of independently living with as high a quality of life as possible. Three approaches are presented and critically evaluated: adaptation of the living environment according to the principles of design for all, arrangement of living environments in the smart (intelligent) environment based on the assistive technologies, integration of the living environment into a remote monitoring network. It turns out that despite the advantages and opportunities of the built environment redesigning many weaknesses, risks and dilemmas appear. In the conclusion, some ideas are presented on how approaches discussed could be implemented in practice.
Immatricolazioni, Percorsi Accademici E Mobilità Degli Studenti Italiani (Academic Enrolment, Careers and Student Mobility in Italy)

Italian Abstract: L’Italia ha pochi laureati nel confronto internazionale, perche piu bassa e la probabilita di avviare gli studi universitari e piu bassa e anche quella di completarli. Nell’ultimo decennio le immatricolazioni sono calate, nonostante la ripresa degli ultimi due anni. Vi ha pesato il venir meno di alcuni effetti della riforma del 3 2, che aveva alimentato un temporaneo aumento degli studenti con pregresse esperienze di lavoro, in Italia strutturalmente molto pochi. Il calo ha pero coinvolto anche i piu giovani, per i quali ha pesato soprattutto la debole dinamica demografica e l’aumento dell’incidenza dei giovani immigrati, i cui tassi di immatricolazione sono molto piu bassi della media. Si e tuttavia ridotta anche la propensione a proseguire gli studi dei giovani di nazionalita italiana: vi ha influito una serie di fattori collegati alla crisi economica, come il forte calo del reddito familiare, in concomitanza con una crescita del rapporto tra tasse universitarie e redditi medi e una riduzione del sostegno al diritto allo studio. Le immatricolazioni sono diminuite soprattutto negli atenei del Mezzogiorno, anche per un’accresciuta propensione tra gli immatricolati a spostarsi verso gli atenei del Nord, soprattutto tra gli studenti con una migliore preparazione di base e un piu solido supporto economico da parte della famiglia. Su tutto il territorio e pero aumentata la regolarita degli studi, con un miglioramento dei tempi di conseguimento del titolo. English Abstract: Italy has fewer graduates than most OECD countries, because of both a lower university enrollment rate and a modest completion rate. During the last decade, enrollment in tertiary education in Italy has fallen, despite a slight recovery over the last two years. The decline is partly due to the fading of the effects of the Bologna Process, which had led to a temporary increase in the number of students with prior work experience. The reduction in enrollment has also involved younger students, mainly as a consequence of weak demographic dynamics, only partly offset by an increase in immigrants, whose enrollment rates are however very low. Regardless of demographic trends, many students have decided not to enroll in tertiary education for reasons also related to the economic recession, including the sharp drop in household income, the increase in the tuition fees-to-income ratio and the reduction in grants. Enrollment has fallen more noticeably in Southern universities, also reflecting a greater propensity to migrate to the North. Nevertheless, on-time graduations have increased throughout the country and time-to-degree has decreased.
association between prognostic survival of human colorectal carcinoma and ZnrF3 expression

Purpose: E3 ubiquitin ligase ZNRF3 is linked to the pathogenesis of diseases and tumorigenesis. The present study aims to explore the expression of ZNRF3 and its association with prognostic survival of human colorectal carcinoma. Methods: A follow-up survey of 168 patients with colorectal carcinoma was performed, and specimens of colorectal tissues were collected for immunohistochemistry and Western blotting analyses. Furthermore, overexpression of ZNRF3 using transient transfection with the recom-binant pEGFP-ZNRF3 plasmid and detection of apoptosis and proliferation were performed in HCT-116 cells. Results: The results showed a diverse feature of ZNRF3 staining, such as strong, moderate, weak, or negative, in colorectal carcinoma tissues. Interestingly, univariate Kaplan–Meier analysis showed that cases with strong or moderate expression of ZNRF3 showed an optimistic disease-free survival and overall survival compared with negative expression of ZNRF3, and multivariate Cox model demonstrated ZNRF3 as an independent prediction index for overall survival and disease-free survival. In vitro, the overexpression of ZNRF3 was related to the negative regulation of Wnt/ β -catenin pathway and referred to an induction of apoptosis and suppression of proliferation in ZNRF3-transfected HCT-116 cells. Conclusion: Our results suggest that the higher expression of ZNRF3 acts as a novel marker of indicating the optimistic prognosis of colorectal carcinoma by suppressing cancer cell growth and facilitating apoptosis.
Introducing water by river basin into the GTAP-BIO model: GTAP-BIO-W

This paper introduces water into the GTAP modeling framework at a river basin level. The new model: 1) distinguishes between irrigated and rainfed agriculture using different production functions; 2) takes into account heterogeneity in land quality across agro-ecological zones; 3) traces supply of water at the river basin level within each country/region; 4) fully captures competition for land among crop, livestock and forestry industries; 5) and, most importantly, offers the potential to extend the competition for managed water among agricultural and non-agricultural activities. Individuals interested in working with the GTAP-Water data base and model are referred to the following publication in the <a href="https://jgea.org/resources/jgea/ojs/index.php/jgea/article/view/35" target="_blank">Journal of Global Economic Analysis</a>
Joint Optimization of Customer Segmentation and Marketing Policy to Maximize Long-Term Pro tability

With the advent of one-to-one marketing media, e.g. targeted direct mail or internet marketing, the opportunities to develop targeted marketing campaigns are enhanced in such a way that it is now both organizationally and economically feasible to pro tably support a substantially larger number of marketing segments. However, the problem of what segments to distinguish, and what actions to take towards the di erent segments increases substantially in such an environment. A systematic analytic procedure optimizing both steps would be very welcome. In this study, we present a joint optimization approach addressing two issues: (1) the segmentation of customers into homogeneous groups of customers, (2) determining the optimal policy (i.e., what action to take from a set of available actions) towards each segment. We implement this joint optimization framework in a direct-mail setting for a charitable organization. Many previous studies in this area highlighted the importance of the following variables: R(ecency), F(requency), and M(onetary value). We use these variables to segment customers. In a second step, we determine which marketing policy is optimal using markov decision processes, following similar previous applications. The attractiveness of this stochastic dynamic programming procedure is based on the long-run maximization of expected average pro t. Our contribution lies in the combination of both steps into one optimization framework to obtain an optimal allocation of marketing expenditures. Moreover, we control segment stability and policy performance by a bootstrap procedure. Our framework is illustrated by a real-life application. The results show that the proposed model outperforms a CHAID segmentation.
Loss characteristics of arid zone river waterholes

The rate of water loss and interaction with shallow groundwater has a fundamental impact on the longevity of waterholes in arid zone rivers. Understanding the retention time of water in waterholes provides an important context for evaluating the ecological importance of a waterhole to the river system. Examination of water level time series from ten waterbodies spread across three river systems of the Lake Eyre Basin (LEB) demonstrates that loss rates vary substantially between waterbodies and also interannually in the same waterbody. The water loss rates from the waterholes in the absence of surface flow are compared to the areal and point potential evaporation rates for that region in order to determine whether evapotranspiration is the main loss process from isolated waterholes and to what extent there is evidence of interaction between the surface water and any shallow groundwater aquifers. Of the ten waterbodies, only one shows losses consistently and significantly higher than the point potential rate, indicating net recharge to groundwater systems. Following a large flood, one waterbody displays enhanced loss rates, whilst another shows dramatically decreased loss rates, significantly less than the areal potential rate. These responses are explained by the physiography of the surrounding areas. The remainder of the waterbodies display loss rates generally between the areal and point potential rates, indicating that evapotranspiration is the most significant water loss process operating in these waterbodies. The field data also provide a rare measure of actual evapotranspiration loss rates occurring in natural arid zone waterbodies with varying salinity, surface area and geometry. Results are compared in the context of open water evapotranspiration theory. Saline to hypersaline waterholes lose water close to the areal potential rate as do larger, more equi-dimensional waterbodies, such as the lakes of the Coongie Lakes wetlands. Channelised, narrower waterbodies generally show loss rates approximately midway between the areal and point potential rates.
Vertical distribution of sand-dust aerosols and the relationships with atmospheric environment

The vertical distribution of aerosols in the troposphere is important for determining their effects on climate. The vertical distribution of aerosols under different atmospheric conditions in the free troposphere was directly observed using a surface micro-pulse LIDAR (MPL) and a TP/WVP-3000 microwave radiometer at the Semi-Arid Climate & Environment Observatory of Lanzhou University (SACOL, 35.95°N, 104.10°E) in the western Loess Plateau, China, in the spring of 2008. The results showed two possible transportation paths of a sandstorm from May 1 to May 4 in 2008. In one path, sand-dust aerosols were transported toward the east from the Taklimakan Desert to the Badain Jaran Desert and the Tengger Desert by a westerly wind and then toward the southeast to Jingtai and Lanzhou. A weak aerosol index (AI) indicated another possible transport path toward the east from the Taklimakan Desert to the Qaidam Basin and through the Tibetan Plateau eastward to SACOL. The aerosol profile of sandstorm processes over the SACOL area displayed three patterns: a single peak distribution under stable atmospheric conditions, indicating urban aerosol distribution; an exponential decrease under unstable atmospheric conditions in the presence of a sandstorm; and a slight change in the mixed layer during the first and last stages of the sandstorm, indicative of thorough mixing during lifting and deposition stages. Analyses of the aerosol layer height (ALH) showed that there are two types of ALH diurnal variation. The ALH during the first sandstorm stage was complex and disordered, and affected by atmospheric circulation. While the ALH had obvious diurnal variation in the other stage, the ALH and aerosol extinction coefficient (AEC) had a single peak, and was higher in the afternoon and lower in the morning. In the second case the ALH was in agreement with the atmospheric boundary layer height (BLH) variation. As a result of the development of the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) during day and maintenance at night, ALH during sandstorm-free days showed obvious diurnal variations. Multiple vertical distribution patterns of sand-dust aerosols will result in different climate effects; therefore, the vertical distribution patterns can be used to parameterize climate and aerosol models.