cometadata/datacite-rtg-text-other-reclassification-records huggingface dataset:
Almost home: The federal halfway house as a rite de passage and inmate as liminal personae
Creators: name: Ortiz, Jonathan Anthony
Publisher: name: American University
Year: 2023

description: Halfway houses, in their long history, have been used by various groups to aid inmates as they transition back into communities. For many Federal inmates placement in a Community Corrections Center or halfway house marks both the final stage of the prison experience and the beginning of the post-prison experience. The time at a halfway house is then a transitional one, a period between prison and life after prison. This study, conducted at a halfway house in California, is an examination of the transitional state inmates are in while residing at this halfway house. While confined to a halfway house inmates are in a liminal stage, there time at this halfway house is best understood when framed within the theoretical concept of 'rite de passage'. In order to support this thesis I have relied on ethnographic fieldwork. In order to make the argument that residency at a halfway house is best understood as a liminal stage for inmates I have first set out to create a history of halfway houses and place the Federal Bureau of Prison's use of them within that historical context. This was accomplished by the use of archival data. Once this historical context for halfway houses was established, I then located this facility within a specific community and set out to provide a description of inmate's lived experiences while residing there. With this description and understanding of life at the halfway house in place, I then use the theories of rites of passage to direct my analysis of this form of correctional practice. The work entailed here is meant to offer a starting point from with which to address the needs of the increasing number of inmates being released from federal institutions. If inmates are to successfully to reintegrate back into their home communities, then federally funded halfway houses must prepare them for the challenges and obstacles they will face upon releases.
High-Resolution Near-Infrared Imaging and Polarimetry of Four Proto-Planetary Nebulae
Creators: name: Su, Kate Y. L.
name: Hrivnak, Bruce J.
name: Kwok, Sun
name: Sahai, Raghvendra
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2003
Subjects: subject: Astrophysics (astro-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: High-resolution near-infrared HST NICMOS (F160W, F222M) images and polarization (2 um) observations were made of four bipolar proto-planetary nebulae (PPNs): IRAS 17150-3224, IRAS 17441-2411, IRAS 17245-3951, and IRAS 16594-4656. The first three of these are viewed nearly edge-on, and for the first time the central stars in them are seen. Color maps reveal a reddened torus between the bipolar lobes in the edge-on cases, with bluer lobes. The polarization values are high, with maximum values ranging from 40 to 80%. The polarization patterns are basically centrosymmetric, with some deviations in the low polarization equatorial regions. For IRAS 17150-3224, circumstellar arcs are seen at 1.6 um, along with a newly-discovered loop in the equatorial region. Bright caps are seen at the end of the lobes, indicating that they are not open-ended. A distinct point-symmetric pattern is seen in the strengths of the polarization vectors, especially in IRAS 17150-3224. HST NICMOS observations provide a valuable complement to the WFPC2 visible images in deriving the basic structure of bipolar PPNs.
description: 20 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomical Journal higher resolution figures are available on http://katherine.as.arizona.edu/~ksu/cv/su_nicmos7840.ps.gz
Almost home: The federal halfway house as a rite de passage and inmate as liminal personae
Creators: name: Ortiz, Jonathan Anthony
Publisher: name: ProQuest
Year: 2023
Subjects: classificationCode: 44
subject: Human society
classificationCode: 4401
subject: Anthropology
subject: FOS: Sociology
classificationCode: 4402
subject: Criminology
subject: FOS: Law

description: Halfway houses, in their long history, have been used by various groups to aid inmates as they transition back into communities. For many Federal inmates placement in a Community Corrections Center or halfway house marks both the final stage of the prison experience and the beginning of the post-prison experience. The time at a halfway house is then a transitional one, a period between prison and life after prison. This study, conducted at a halfway house in California, is an examination of the transitional state inmates are in while residing at this halfway house. While confined to a halfway house inmates are in a liminal stage, there time at this halfway house is best understood when framed within the theoretical concept of 'rite de passage'. In order to support this thesis I have relied on ethnographic fieldwork. In order to make the argument that residency at a halfway house is best understood as a liminal stage for inmates I have first set out to create a history of halfway houses and place the Federal Bureau of Prison's use of them within that historical context. This was accomplished by the use of archival data. Once this historical context for halfway houses was established, I then located this facility within a specific community and set out to provide a description of inmate's lived experiences while residing there. With this description and understanding of life at the halfway house in place, I then use the theories of rites of passage to direct my analysis of this form of correctional practice. The work entailed here is meant to offer a starting point from with which to address the needs of the increasing number of inmates being released from federal institutions. If inmates are to successfully to reintegrate back into their home communities, then federally funded halfway houses must prepare them for the challenges and obstacles they will face upon releases.
Economic development and social stratification in Russia
Creators: name: Novozhilov, Roman
Publisher: name: American University
Year: 2023

description: The social stratification structure of Russian society underwent significant changes during the transition from socialism to capitalism. A number of theoretical approaches were developed in the last fifteen years to describe the process of transition and its impact on stratification structure in post-Socialist societies. This study attempts to combine these theories and uncover the major determinants of stratification standing in contemporary Russia as well as to analyze the consequences of stratification changes using data from the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) from 1998 to 2003. The study finds that individual factors, such as human capital, play a greater role in mobility chances in Russia today, than they used to play in the socialist times, and their importance is increasing with the development of the market economy. At the same time, structural location factors, such as industry of employment and geographic location, that had previously played an important role in the Socialist model of stratification, continue to be important determinants of an individual's stratification position. Along with these old structures of inequality, new structures emerged during the reforms, such as the gender gap and the gap between the public and the private sectors, and the significance of these new dimensions of inequality is increasing. In spite of the recent economic growth, informal strategies for socio-economic mobility, that had emerged as 'survival' strategies during the economic downturn, continue to be widely used by the population, but instead of becoming an equalizing factor in socio-economic mobility, they reinforce the advantages of already advantaged groups of the population. Increased differentiation of the population during transition led to polarization of society and declining social cohesion, as the differences in attitudes and opinions about the socially important dimensions of public life reflect growing differentiation in socio-economic positions. The increased differentiation between positions in the structure of social stratification is accompanied by a higher level of consciousness of these differences among the individuals, contributing to the process of strata formation. Increased socio-economic differentiation, coupled with the general decline of living standards led to social and economic marginalization of some groups of the population and brought them to the brink of impoverishment, and economic deprivation. These two major consequences of stratification change are causes for concern as they can hinder the prospects of future development in Russia by contributing to the increase in social tensions, spread of chronic poverty and degradation of human capital at the bottom of the stratification structure.
Which parents provide zero-alcohol beverages to adolescents? A survey of Australian parents' practices and intentions
Creators: name: Bartram, Ashlea
name: Harrison, Nathan J
name: Norris, Christina A
name: Kim, Susan
name: Pettigrew, Simone
name: Room, Robin
name: Miller, Caroline
name: Olver, Ian
name: Jenkinson, Rebecca
name: Bowshall, Marina
name: Bowden, Jacqueline A
Publisher: name: La Trobe
Year: 2024
Subjects: classificationCode: 4206
subject: Public health
classificationCode: 4202
subject: Epidemiology

description: OBJECTIVE: Zero-alcohol beverages (<0.5% alcohol by volume) appear and taste similar to alcoholic beverages but are regulated similarly to soft drinks in many countries, blurring the distinction between alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. How parents view provision of zero-alcohol beverages to adolescents is likely a key determinant of adolescent consumption. We investigated factors associated with parents' provision of zero-alcohol beverages to adolescents, including attitudes toward zero-alcohol beverages and demographic, knowledge, and behavioural factors known to be associated with provision of alcoholic beverages. METHODS: We conducted an online cross-sectional survey of N = 1197 Australian parents of adolescents aged 12-17 years in April-May 2022. We examined associations with zero-alcohol beverage provision using binomial logistic regression, and with future provision intentions using multinomial logistic regression analyses. RESULTS: Factors significantly associated (p < .001) with parents' provision and future intentions to provide zero-alcohol beverages to their adolescent included beliefs that zero-alcohol beverages had benefits for adolescents (Adjusted Odds Ratio [AOR] 2.69 (provision); 3.72 (intentions)), provision of alcoholic beverages (AOR 2.67 (provision); 3.72 (intentions)), and an incorrect understanding of alcohol guidelines for adolescents (AOR 2.38 (provision); 1.95 (intentions)). CONCLUSIONS: Parents' provision and intentions to provide zero-alcohol beverages were associated with beliefs about zero-alcohol beverages as well as some factors associated with provision of alcoholic beverages. Precautionary advice to parents that the provision of zero-alcohol beverages may serve to normalise alcohol consumption may be warranted.
Selected Configuration Interaction in a Basis of Cluster State Tensor Products
Creators: name: Abraham, Vibin
name: Mayhall, Nicholas J.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2020
Subjects: subject: Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
subject: Chemical Physics (physics.chem-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Selected configuration interaction (SCI) methods are currently enjoying a resurgence due to several recent developments which improve either the overall computational efficiency or the compactness of the resulting SCI vector. These recent advances have made it possible to get full CI (FCI) quality results for much larger orbital active spaces, compared to conventional approaches. However, due to the starting assumption that the FCI vector has only a small number of significant Slater determinants, SCI becomes intractable for systems with strong correlation. This paper introduces a method for developing SCI algorithms in a way which exploits local molecular structure to significantly reduce the number of SCI variables. The proposed method is defined by first grouping the orbitals into clusters over which we can define many particle cluster states. We then directly perform the SCI algorithm in a basis of tensor products of cluster states instead of Slater determinants. While the approach is general for arbitrarily defined cluster states, we find significantly improved performance by defining cluster states through a Tucker decomposition of the global (and sparse) SCI vector. To demonstrate the potential of this method, called tensor product selected configuration interaction (TPSCI), we present numerical results for a diverse set of examples: 1) modified Hubbard model with different inter- and intra-cluster hopping terms, 2) less obviously clusterable cases of bond breaking in N2 and F2, and 3) ground state energies of large planar π-conjugated systems with active spaces of up to 42 electrons in 42 orbitals. These numerical results show that TPSCI can be used to significantly reduce the number of SCI variables in the variational space, and thus paving a path for extending these deterministic and variational SCI approaches to a wider range of physical systems.
Nomada crotchii Cresson 1878
Creators: name: Pedro, Diego De
name: Ceccarelli, Fadia Sara
name: Sagot, Philippe
name: López-Reyes, Eulogio
name: Mullins, Jessica L.
name: Mérida-Rivas, Jorge A.
name: Falcon-Brindis, Armando
name: Griswold, Terry
name: Ascher, John S.
name: Gardner, Joel
name: Ayala, Ricardo
name: Vides-Borrell, Eric
name: Vandame, Rémy
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2024
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy

description: Nomada crotchii Cresson, 1878
[Holotype: ANSP; ♀ Fort Tejon, California, USA]
This species is distributed from the southwestern Canada to northwestern Mexico. In BC, there is a record of a specimen collected in 1961 preserved at the SEMC and collected in the Chaparral habitat (GBIF 2023). We examined four specimens collected in Chaparral in March 1961 (LACM), and one male collected in the Baja California Mountains in Sierra Juarez in May 1982 (SDNHM). Additionally, the BBPT collected one female in Chaparral in April 2022 (MABC). See fig. 143.
description: Published as part of Pedro, Diego De, Ceccarelli, Fadia Sara, Sagot, Philippe, López-Reyes, Eulogio, Mullins, Jessica L., Mérida-Rivas, Jorge A., Falcon-Brindis, Armando, Griswold, Terry, Ascher, John S., Gardner, Joel, Ayala, Ricardo, Vides-Borrell, Eric & Vandame, Rémy, 2024, Revealing the Baja California Peninsula's Hidden Treasures: An Annotated checklist of the native bees (Hymenoptera: Apoidea: Anthophila), pp. 1-391 in Zootaxa 5522 (1) on page 217, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5522.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/13920532
The avifauna, conservation and biogeography of the Njesi Highlands in northern Mozambique, with a review of the country’s Afromontane birdlife
Creators: name: Jones, Samuel EI
name: Jamie, Gabriel A
name: Sumbane, Emidio
name: Jocque, Merlijn
Publisher: name: Taylor & Francis
Year: 2020
Subjects: subject: Evolutionary Biology
subject: FOS: Biological sciences
subject: 59999 Environmental Sciences not elsewhere classified
subject: FOS: Earth and related environmental sciences
subject: Ecology
subject: Cancer
subject: 60506 Virology

description: Northern Mozambique’s ‘sky-island’ mountains have become increasingly recognised for their Afromontane birdlife. Despite growing ornithological coverage, however, several Mozambican mountains remain poorly known. We present results from a three-week survey of three such mountains: the Njesi Plateau, Mount Chitagal and Mount Sanga (collectively termed the Serra Jeci/Njesi highlands) in Niassa, north-western Mozambique. These mountains had received little/no previous biological surveys, but are the only known locality of the endangered Mozambique Forest-warbler Artisornis sousae (formerly Long-billed Tailorbird A. moreaui sousae). We recorded 159 species, including several range-extensions of both conservation and biogeographical importance (e.g. Dapple-throat Arcanator orostruthus), and 15 Afromontane biome-restricted species, including two species new for Mozambique (Montane Nightjar Caprimulgus poliocephalus and Dark Batis Batis crypta). We found good numbers of Mozambique Forest-warblers on all three mountains, extending the distribution of this little-known and highly range-restricted taxon. Combining our data with previous surveys (collectively totalling 184 species), we critically appraise the Njesi Important Bird Area (MZ015), based on the occurrence of 26 Important Bird Area (IBA) trigger species, correcting previous errors in its assessment and suggest extensions that include Mount Sanga to the north, and extensive miombo woodland to the west. The site also qualifies as a Key Biodiversity Area (KBA) and Alliance for Zero Extinction (AZE) site. Finally, we review all published ornithological literature from Mozambique’s mountains and discuss emergent biogeographical patterns in their Afromontane avifauna, while also highlighting key sites that require ornithological surveys. We find that the Njesi highlands are more biogeographically linked to Tanzania, than to mountains farther south in Mozambique and Malawi. Collectively, our results illustrate the critical value of even small Afromontane forests on remote highlands for some of Africa’s least known, and most threatened avifauna.
Economic development and social stratification in Russia
Creators: name: Novozhilov, Roman
Publisher: name: ProQuest
Year: 2023
Subjects: classificationCode: 44
subject: Human society
classificationCode: 4410
subject: Sociology
subject: FOS: Sociology

description: The social stratification structure of Russian society underwent significant changes during the transition from socialism to capitalism. A number of theoretical approaches were developed in the last fifteen years to describe the process of transition and its impact on stratification structure in post-Socialist societies. This study attempts to combine these theories and uncover the major determinants of stratification standing in contemporary Russia as well as to analyze the consequences of stratification changes using data from the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) from 1998 to 2003. The study finds that individual factors, such as human capital, play a greater role in mobility chances in Russia today, than they used to play in the socialist times, and their importance is increasing with the development of the market economy. At the same time, structural location factors, such as industry of employment and geographic location, that had previously played an important role in the Socialist model of stratification, continue to be important determinants of an individual's stratification position. Along with these old structures of inequality, new structures emerged during the reforms, such as the gender gap and the gap between the public and the private sectors, and the significance of these new dimensions of inequality is increasing. In spite of the recent economic growth, informal strategies for socio-economic mobility, that had emerged as 'survival' strategies during the economic downturn, continue to be widely used by the population, but instead of becoming an equalizing factor in socio-economic mobility, they reinforce the advantages of already advantaged groups of the population. Increased differentiation of the population during transition led to polarization of society and declining social cohesion, as the differences in attitudes and opinions about the socially important dimensions of public life reflect growing differentiation in socio-economic positions. The increased differentiation between positions in the structure of social stratification is accompanied by a higher level of consciousness of these differences among the individuals, contributing to the process of strata formation. Increased socio-economic differentiation, coupled with the general decline of living standards led to social and economic marginalization of some groups of the population and brought them to the brink of impoverishment, and economic deprivation. These two major consequences of stratification change are causes for concern as they can hinder the prospects of future development in Russia by contributing to the increase in social tensions, spread of chronic poverty and degradation of human capital at the bottom of the stratification structure.
Nomada edwardsii Cresson 1878
Creators: name: Pedro, Diego De
name: Ceccarelli, Fadia Sara
name: Sagot, Philippe
name: López-Reyes, Eulogio
name: Mullins, Jessica L.
name: Mérida-Rivas, Jorge A.
name: Falcon-Brindis, Armando
name: Griswold, Terry
name: Ascher, John S.
name: Gardner, Joel
name: Ayala, Ricardo
name: Vides-Borrell, Eric
name: Vandame, Rémy
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2024
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy

description: Nomada edwardsii Cresson, 1878
[Lectotype: ANSP; ♂ California, USA]
Nomada edwardsii occurs from southern Canada to northern Mexico along the western side of the Rocky Mountains. This species has been reported to parasitize Andrena perimela nests but may have other hosts as well (Linsley & McSwain 1955). Within BC it was reported in the Coastal Sage Matorral by Cockerell (1941). We examined five specimens collected in the Succulent Coastal Matorral: two females collected in Arroyo Santo Domingo 5.7 mi E. Hamilton Ranch in May 1963; one male in El Rosario 2 in May 1957 (CASC); and two females at Nr. Consuelo 6 mi. NW El Rosario (1 LACM; 1 CASC). Additionally, the BBPT collected one female in the Coastal Sage Matorral south of Ensenada City in April 2021, and one in Chaparral in Sierra San Pedro Mártir in April 2023 (MABC). See fig. 144.
description: Published as part of Pedro, Diego De, Ceccarelli, Fadia Sara, Sagot, Philippe, López-Reyes, Eulogio, Mullins, Jessica L., Mérida-Rivas, Jorge A., Falcon-Brindis, Armando, Griswold, Terry, Ascher, John S., Gardner, Joel, Ayala, Ricardo, Vides-Borrell, Eric & Vandame, Rémy, 2024, Revealing the Baja California Peninsula's Hidden Treasures: An Annotated checklist of the native bees (Hymenoptera: Apoidea: Anthophila), pp. 1-391 in Zootaxa 5522 (1) on page 217, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5522.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/13920532
Scheme for preparation of W state via cavity QED
Creators: name: Cao, Zhuo-Liang
name: Yang, Ming
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2003
Subjects: subject: Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: In this paper, we presented a physical scheme to generate the multi-cavity maximally entangled W state via cavity QED. All the operations needed in this scheme are to modulate the interaction time only once.
description: 8 pages, 1 figure
Willingness to Pay for a new farm technology given Risk Preferences. Evidence from an experimental auction in Kenya.
Creators: name: Channa, H.
name: Ricker-Gilbert, J.
name: De Groote, H.
name: Marenya, P.
name: Bauchet, J.
name: Channa, H.
name: Ricker-Gilbert, J.
name: De Groote, H.
name: Marenya, P.
name: Bauchet, J.
Publisher: name: Unknown
Year: 2018
Subjects: Risk and Uncertainty

description: This paper describes an experimental auction conducted among maize traders and farmers in Western Kenya to measure adoption for two low-cost technologies that can measure grain moisture content. Willingness-to-pay auctions (WTP) were combined with a risk preference lottery, allowing an opportunity to study the impact of risk preferences on technology adoption. The specifics of this technology also allows us to identify the impact of risk aversion on willingness to pay for a technology when production uncertainty is not part of the equation. We also randomized two variations of the BDM method for collecting WTP data allowing for a mechanism by which to study the impact of the method on valuation data. We find some evidence that risk aversion increased willingness to pay. Another result with implications in implementation of field experiments in the developing world is that farmers were sensitive to the method in which the auction was presented but traders were not. Acknowledgement :
The homotopy branching space of a flow
Creators: name: Gaucher, Philippe
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2003
Subjects: subject: Algebraic Topology (math.AT)
subject: Category Theory (math.CT)
subject: FOS: Mathematics
subject: 55P99, 68Q85

description: In this talk, I will explain the importance of the homotopy branching space functor (and of the homotopy merging space functor) in dihomotopy theory. The paper is a detailed abstract of math.AT/0304112 and math.AT/0305169.
description: Expository paper ; 11 pages ; to appear in GETCO'03 proceeding
An implementation of the calibration approach for estimators at regional level
Creators: name: Stanca, L.
name: Sauer, J.
name: Hoop, D.
name: Stanca, L.
name: Sauer, J.
name: Hoop, D.
Publisher: name: Unknown
Year: 2018
Subjects: Research Methods/ Statistical Methods

description: Nonsampling errors such as nonresponse represent an important source of bias in the production of official statistics, as it is the case of the Bavarian Agricultural Report. This inconvenience can be reduced substantially in presence of reliable auxiliary variables that can serve to adjust the estimation weights. The calibration approach represents an important adjustment instrument within a larger class of weighting methods that employ auxiliary variables. The present article analyses the robustness of the calibration approach in close comparison with poststratification. From the empirical findings, it is proven that the calibration approach delivers more reliable estimators in terms of accuracy. Acknowledgement :
Resonant instability of axionic dark matter clumps
Creators: name: Wang, Z.
name: Shao, L.
name: Li, L. -X.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2020
Subjects: subject: High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph)
subject: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Axion is a popular candidate for dark matter particles. Axionic dark matter may form Bose-Einstein condensate and may be gravitationally bound to form axion clumps. Under the presence of electromagnetic waves with frequency $ω=m_{a}/2$, where $m_{a}$ is the axion mass, a resonant enhancement may occur, causing an instability of the axion clumps. With analytical and numerical approaches, we study the resonant instability of axionic dark matter clumps with infinite homogeneous mass distribution, as well as distribution with a finite boundary. After taking realistic astrophysical environments into consideration, including gravitational redshift and plasma effects, we obtain an instability region in the axion density-clump size parameter space with given mass and coupling of axions. In particular, we show that, for axion clumps formed by the QCD axions in equilibrium, no resonant instability will occur.
description: 25 pages, 5 figures, uses jcappub.sty
Using radar technology to assess visual monitoring accuracy of Cape Vulture movements
Creators: name: Becker, Frowin K
name: Millikin, Rhonda L
name: Leslie, Alison J
Publisher: name: Taylor & Francis
Year: 2020
Subjects: subject: 59999 Environmental Sciences not elsewhere classified
subject: FOS: Earth and related environmental sciences
subject: Ecology
subject: FOS: Biological sciences
subject: 69999 Biological Sciences not elsewhere classified

description: South Africa’s expanding wind energy industry is providing much needed alleviation from an ongoing energy crisis. Its development, however, does bear environmental repercussions, which most notably include its impact on birds. Collision risks, habitat loss, and barrier effects are amongst the threats, which require effective mitigation efforts. Avian radar systems have vastly enhanced these efforts and one such system was applied in this study to assess the accuracy of the generally more employed visual monitoring efforts, with a focus on Cape Vultures Gyps coprotheres in the Eastern Cape Province. This, to the best of our knowledge, also marks the first study of this nature on the African continent. Paired observations returned substantial spatial disparity between radar and visual Cape Vulture observations. They also revealed strong relationships between altitudinal misjudgement and height of the target, as well as distance of the target from the observer. Cape Vulture flight and foraging behaviour makes it a challenging observer target. The results of this study suggest that radar technology can be effectively employed at sensitive sites for Cape Vulture movement assessments at wind farms.
Lens or Binary? Chandra Observations of the Wide Separation Broad Absorption Line Quasar Pair UM425
Creators: name: Aldcroft, T. L.
name: Green, P. J.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2003
Subjects: subject: Astrophysics (astro-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We have obtained a 110 ksec Chandra ACIS-S exposure of UM425, a pair of QSOs at z=1.47 separated by 6.5 arcsec, which show remarkably similar emission and broad absorption line (BAL) profiles in the optical/UV. Our 5000 count X-ray spectrum of UM425A (the brighter component) is well-fit with a power law (photon spectral index Gamma=2.0) partially covered by a hydrogen column of 3.8x10^22 cm^-2. The underlying power-law slope for this object and for other recent samples of BALQSOs is typical of radio-quiet quasars, lending credence to the hypothesis that BALs exist in every quasar. Assuming the same Gamma for the much fainter image of UM425B, we detect an obscuring column 5 times larger. We search for evidence of an appropriately large lensing mass in our Chandra image and find weak diffuse emission near the quasar pair, with an X-ray flux typical of a group of galaxies at redshift z ~ 0.6. From our analysis of archival HST WFPC2 and NICMOS images, we find no evidence for a luminous lensing galaxy, but note a 3-sigma excess of galaxies in the UM425 field with plausible magnitudes for a z=0.6 galaxy group. However, the associated X-ray emission does not imply sufficient mass to produce the observed image splitting. The lens scenario thus requires a dark (high M/L ratio) lens, or a fortuitous configuration of masses along the line of sight. UM425 may instead be a close binary pair of BALQSOs, which would boost arguments that interactions and mergers increase nuclear activity and outflows.
description: 13 pages, 9 figures, Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal
The Importance of Fiscal measures in Financial Incentives for Land Use Decisions
Creators: name: Ryan, M.
name: O'Donoghue, C.
name: Ryan, M.
name: O'Donoghue, C.
Publisher: name: Unknown
Year: 2018
Subjects: Land Economics/Use

description: The question of what motivates decisions to change land use or farm management practices has recently received much attention in the context of designing policies to incentivise change. This paper critically analyses aspects of the prevailing incentive policies for a long-term land use change such as farm afforestation, with a view to identifying how financial and fiscal components of income influence the land use change desision. The analysis finds that from a household welfare perspective, the inclusion of benefits and taxation in calculating relative life-cycle incomes from forestry and agriculture, provides additional information relevant to the incentivisation of farm afforestation. From the policy makers perspective, this analysis illustrates how benefits can be very significant at the bottom of the income distribution whereas taxation narrows the gap at the top of the distribution. At the lower end of the distribution, the analysis shows that low-income farms could acually be worse-off as a result of planting. The importance of such fiscal instruments has long been recognised in labour market decisions, but may well have to be considered as part of future financial incentives if the conversion of land from agriculture to forestry remains a policy priority in the overall climate change context. Acknowledgement :
Quantum electrostatics, Gauss's law, and a product picture for quantum electrodynamics; or, the temporal gauge revised
Creators: name: Kay, Bernard S.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2020
Subjects: subject: High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th)
subject: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc)
subject: Mathematical Physics (math-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We provide a theoretical foundation for the notion of the quantum coherent state of the electrostatic field of a static external charge distribution introduced in a 1998 paper and rederive formulae there for the inner products of a pair of such states. Contrary to what one might expect, these inner products are non-zero whenever the total charges of the two charge distributions are equal, even if the charge distributions themselves differ. We actually display two different frameworks for these same coherent states, in the second of which Gauss's law only holds in expectation value. We propose an experiment capable of ruling that out. The first framework leads to a 'product picture' for full QED -- i.e. a reformulation of standard QED in which it has a total Hamiltonian, arising as a sum of a free electromagnetic Hamiltonian, a free charged-matter Hamiltonian and an interaction term, acting on a 'physical subspace' of the full tensor product of charged-matter and electromagnetic-field Hilbert spaces. (The traditional Coulomb gauge formulation of QED isn't a product picture because, in it, the longitudinal part of the electric field is a function of the charged matter operators.) We do this for both Maxwell-Dirac and Maxwell-Schrödinger QED. For all states in the physical subspace of each of these systems, the charged matter is entangled with longitudinal photons and Gauss's law holds on the physical subspace as an operator equation; albeit the electric field operator and the Hamiltonian, while self-adjoint on the physical subspace, fail to be self-adjoint on the full tensor-product Hilbert space. Analogues of our coherent state inner products and of the product picture play a role in the author's matter-gravity entanglement hypothesis. Also, the product picture amounts to a temporal gauge quantization of QED which appears to be free from the difficulties of previous versions.
description: 63 pages, 3 figures. v2: title changed, substantial revision, new material added, v3: a few corrections and improvements, v4: more corrections and improvements, improved discussion of how the product picture evades the Contradictory Commutator Theorem; to appear in Foundations of Physics
Contract farming effects on technical efficiency of the export-oriented rice production sector in Vietnam
Creators: name: Le Ngoc, H.
name: Le Ngoc, H.
Publisher: name: Unknown
Year: 2018
Subjects: Land Economics/Use

description: Improving farming technical efficiency for smallholders by applying contract farming is an interesting topic nowadays. A cross sectional sample of 250 Vietnamese export-oriented rice households was employed to investigate how contract farming improves farming technical efficiency in the country. The Stochastic Frontier Analysis is applied to estimate the production frontier, the technical inefficiency determinants and Propensity Score Matching is used to control self-selection bias. The results show an average technical efficiency score is of 87.33 percent and suggests convincible opportunities for farmers to increase productivity of export-oriented rice in the country by nearly 13 percent. The expenditures on seed, land, and fertilizer are the key determinants of the technical efficiency level in this region. The results reveal the positive relationship of contract farming participation on technical efficiency improvement. Acknowledgement : The authors acknowledge financial support from the Stiftung Fiat Panis and the Vietnamese Educational and Tranning scholarship. We are also grateful to the Nha Trang University, Vietnam for their support in fieldwork coordination.
Ciência Aberta e novas práticas de ensino com o uso de metodologias ativas
Creators: name: Silva Brunoni, Jéssica
name: de Menezes Alencar, Maria Simone
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2024

description: Apresentação realizada na sessão “O meu Póster em 1 minuto”, da 15ª Conferência Lusófona de Ciência Aberta, na Escola Superior de Enfermagem do Porto (ESEP), de 01 a 04 de outubro de 2024.
Monetary and exchange rate policies in transitional economies: The case of Vietnam
Creators: name: Tran, Ky Viet
Publisher: name: ProQuest
Year: 2023
Subjects: classificationCode: 38
subject: Economics

description: This dissertation analyzes monetary and exchange rate policies in Vietnam, paying special attention to the role of gold. Gold has been highly valued as a store of wealth and money substitute in Vietnam, so that developments in the gold market are potentially relevant for monetary and exchange-rate policy. After defining the issues and reviewing existing research, we estimate a dynamic panel-data model of demand for gold using data from more than 20 countries for the 1992-2003 period. Demand for gold is found to be highly persistent and driven by price, exchange rate volatility and banking system depth, while income, wealth and interest, rates do not have significant effects. These findings suggest that the central bank of Vietnam (SBV) is unlikely to be able to control public demand for gold via changes in interest rates and that, in a high-demand country like Vietnam, public interest in gold is likely to wane only slowly due to its historical role. Next, it is shown that Vietnamese macro and financial data exhibit significant seasonal patterns that have not been accounted for in previous analyses, potentially leading to misleading inferences. Adjusting the Vietnamese data is not straightforward because the timing of the major Tet holiday moves from year to year. Thus, we use the two main state-of-the-art methods, X12-ARIMA and TRAMO-SEATS, to analyze and adjust the data, finding the latter method to be preferred. Finally, the adjusted data are used to characterize the policy rules used by the SBV in the post-1992 period. Rather than following a Taylor-type interest-rate rule, the SBV appears to have followed a McCallum rule, adjusting monetary growth in response to the price level, the exchange rate, and the difference between the world price of gold and the price of gold in Vietnam at the official exchange rate. When this policy-rule is incorporated into a structural vector-autoregression (SVAR), shocks to the gold-price gap are also found to be valuable for explaining changes in the domestic price level and exchange rate. Thus, given Vietnam's unique institutional, cultural and historical circumstances, the gold price gap has been a valuable indicator for the successful implementation of monetary and exchange rate policies.
The Cellular Burning Regime in Type Ia Supernova Explosions - I. Flame Propagation into Quiescent Fuel
Creators: name: Roepke, F. K.
name: Hillebrandt, W.
name: Niemeyer, J. C.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2003
Subjects: subject: Astrophysics (astro-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We present a numerical investigation of the cellular burning regime in Type Ia supernova explosions. This regime holds at small scales (i.e. below the Gibson scale), which are unresolved in large-scale Type Ia supernova simulations. The fundamental effects that dominate the flame evolution here are the Landau-Darrieus instability and its nonlinear stabilization, leading to a stabilization of the flame in a cellular shape. The flame propagation into quiescent fuel is investigated addressing the dependence of the simulation results on the specific parameters of the numerical setup. Furthermore, we investigate the flame stability at a range of fuel densities. This is directly connected to the questions of active turbulent combustion (a mechanism of flame destabilization and subsequent self-turbulization) and a deflagration-to-detonation transition of the flame. In our simulations we find no substantial destabilization of the flame when propagating into quiescent fuels of densities down to ~10^7 g/cm^3, corroborating fundamental assumptions of large-scale SN Ia explosion models. For these models, however, we suggest an increased lower cutoff for the flame propagation velocity to take the cellular burning regime into account.
description: 12 pages, 2 tables, 10 figures, resolution of figures degraded due to archive file size restrictions, submitted to A&A
Explaining Mexican Farmers Adoption of Hybrid Maize Seed - The Role of Social Psychology, Risk and Ambiguity Aversion
Creators: name: Freudenreich, H.
name: Freudenreich, H.
Publisher: name: Unknown
Year: 2018
Subjects: Crop Production/Industries

description: We study the process of farmer decision making, particularly the choice of productivity enhancing hybrid seed, of smallholder maize farmers in southern Mexico. Few studies regarding small-scale farming in developing countries have factored in social psychology together with economic dimensions in that context. While acknowledging the importance of risk preferences, there is still a lack of consensus on how these preferences influence the process of technology choice. We combine subjective beliefs derived from the Theory of Planned Behavior, with experimentally elicited risk and ambiguity preferences to predict the degree of farmers hybrid maize adoption in the coming season. Our results suggest that the higher farmers score on factors describing attitudes and subjective norms towards the use of hybrid seed, the higher is the degree of adoption. Farmers who are very risk averse score higher on attitudes towards the outcomes related to using hybrid seed, but intend to cultivate a smaller share of land with it. Ambiguity aversion is not significantly related to attitudes towards or the intended degree of adoption. Acknowledgement : This research was financially supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG).
A network perspective on intermedia agenda-setting
Creators: name: Stern, Samuel
name: Livan, Giacomo
name: Smith, Robert E.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2020
Subjects: subject: Physics and Society (physics.soc-ph)
subject: Computers and Society (cs.CY)
subject: Social and Information Networks (cs.SI)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Computer and information sciences

description: In Communication Theory, intermedia agenda-setting refers to the influence that different news sources may have on each other, and how this subsequently affects the breadth of information that is presented to the public. Several studies have attempted to quantify the impact of intermedia agenda-setting in specific countries or contexts, but a large-scale, data-driven investigation is still lacking. Here, we operationalise intermedia agenda-setting by putting forward a methodology to infer networks of influence between different news sources on a given topic, and apply it on a large dataset of news articles published by globally and locally prominent news organisations in 2016. We find influence to be significantly topic-dependent, with the same news sources acting as agenda-setters (i.e., central nodes) with respect to certain topics and as followers (i.e., peripheral nodes) with respect to others. At the same time, we find that the influence networks associated with most topics exhibit small world properties, which we find to play a significant role towards the overall diversity of sentiment expressed about the topic by the news sources in the network. In particular, we find clustering and density of influence networks to act as competing forces in this respect, with the former increasing and the latter reducing diversity.
description: 21 pages, 9 figures
Transaction Costs, Institutions and the Organization of Supply Chains: Three Good Questions
Creators: name: Hobbs, J.
name: Hobbs, J.
Publisher: name: Unknown
Year: 2018
Subjects: Industrial Organization

description: The paper examines how Transaction Cost Economics can shed light on a series of institutional and organizational questions in the agri-food sector through an examination of three questions. Why have economies in transition grown at different rates, and why have some been more successful at transition to a market economy than others? Why do different modes of supply chain governance emerge in agri-food supply chains? Why do public and private standards for food safety and quality co-exist? The contribution of a transaction cost lens to each of these questions is examined, drawing upon insights from the literature. Empirical challenges and opportunities are discussed. Acknowledgement :
Monetary and exchange rate policies in transitional economies: The case of Vietnam
Creators: name: Tran, Ky Viet
Publisher: name: American University
Year: 2023

description: This dissertation analyzes monetary and exchange rate policies in Vietnam, paying special attention to the role of gold. Gold has been highly valued as a store of wealth and money substitute in Vietnam, so that developments in the gold market are potentially relevant for monetary and exchange-rate policy. After defining the issues and reviewing existing research, we estimate a dynamic panel-data model of demand for gold using data from more than 20 countries for the 1992-2003 period. Demand for gold is found to be highly persistent and driven by price, exchange rate volatility and banking system depth, while income, wealth and interest, rates do not have significant effects. These findings suggest that the central bank of Vietnam (SBV) is unlikely to be able to control public demand for gold via changes in interest rates and that, in a high-demand country like Vietnam, public interest in gold is likely to wane only slowly due to its historical role. Next, it is shown that Vietnamese macro and financial data exhibit significant seasonal patterns that have not been accounted for in previous analyses, potentially leading to misleading inferences. Adjusting the Vietnamese data is not straightforward because the timing of the major Tet holiday moves from year to year. Thus, we use the two main state-of-the-art methods, X12-ARIMA and TRAMO-SEATS, to analyze and adjust the data, finding the latter method to be preferred. Finally, the adjusted data are used to characterize the policy rules used by the SBV in the post-1992 period. Rather than following a Taylor-type interest-rate rule, the SBV appears to have followed a McCallum rule, adjusting monetary growth in response to the price level, the exchange rate, and the difference between the world price of gold and the price of gold in Vietnam at the official exchange rate. When this policy-rule is incorporated into a structural vector-autoregression (SVAR), shocks to the gold-price gap are also found to be valuable for explaining changes in the domestic price level and exchange rate. Thus, given Vietnam's unique institutional, cultural and historical circumstances, the gold price gap has been a valuable indicator for the successful implementation of monetary and exchange rate policies.