Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The influence of information technology on marketing performances of tourist agencies

The effi cient management of the relationships between the entities in the tourism chain of the off er is conducted by applying information technology (hereinafter referred to as IT). Via the Internet, providers of tourism services (e.g. airline companies or hotels) provide intermediaries (tourist agencies) or the end users of tourism services with useful pieces of information about the off er and sale of services. During the 1960s, the Computer Reservation System CRS, which was in the function of forming the bases of data in the Airline Sector, was introduced (Radosavljević, 2009, 321). Via this system, airline companies were managing their electronic reservations and forwarding them to their remote branches, tourism intermediaries and passengers. That enabled agencies, too, to make reservations more simply, operate more fl exibly and cooperate with service providers. Later, by the introduction of the Global Distribution System (GDS) during the 1980s, electronic tourism (i.e. e-tourism) began to develop at a more intensive pace.
Playful learning in the early years – through the eyes of children

ABSTRACT UK policy and curriculum frameworks for early years appear to value play for learning; however, its implementation is fraught with misunderstandings and difficulty. It has been suggested that one of the difficulties is due to the language and terminology regarding play used in official documentation and how this contrasts with the beliefs and play experiences of practitioners. It has been argued that traditional views of play, based on adult perceptions of the observable act of play (Howard, J. 2002. “Eliciting Young Children's Perceptions of Play, Work and Learning Using the Activity Apperception Story Procedure.” Early Child Development and Care 172: 489–502), contrast to children’s perceptions of play, although this has not been robustly assessed. In this study a photo elicitation procedure was used with 80 children and 14 early years practitioners to identify similarities and differences in how they view play. A crucial difference between the two groups was their use of the cue of adult presence, as children but not practitioners, used this to differentiate between activities viewed as play and not play. The implications of this finding are discussed, particularly the need to focus on the role of the adult in play.
Kondo temperature in a quantum dot

We study the dependence of the Kondo temperature on the gate voltage in a strongly blockaded quantum dot with a small single-particle level spacing. We show that the dependence cannot be fitted to that of the Anderson impurity model with the gate voltage-independent level width. The effect originates in high-order tunneling processes, which make a dominant contribution to the exchange amplitude when the gate voltage is tuned away from the middle of the Coulomb blockade valley.
Unrepeatable repeatabilities: a common mistake

-Repeatability is a useful tool for the population geneticist or genetical ecologist, but several papers have carried errors in its calculation. We outline the correct calculation of repeatability, point out the common mistake, show how the incorrectly calculated value relates to repeatability, and provide a method for checking published values and calculating approximate repeatability values from the F ratio (mean squares among groups/ mean squares within groups). Received 6 February 1986, accepted 25 August 1986. REPEATABILITY is a measure used in quantitative genetics to describe the proportion of variance in a character that occurs among rather than within individuals. Repeatability, r, is given by: r = (VG + VEg)/ VP, (1) where VG is the genotypic variance, VEg the general environmental variance, and Vp the phenotypic variance (Falconer 1960, 1981). In addition to its use in assessing the reliability of multiple measurements on the same individual, repeatability may be used to set an upper limit to the value of heritability (Falconer 1960, 1981) and to separate, for instance, the effects of "self" and "mate" on a character such as clutch size (van Noordwijk et al. 1980). Repeatability is therefore a useful statistic for population geneticists and genetical ecologists. Recently, we have noticed an increasing number of published papers and unpublished manuscripts in which repeatability was miscalculated. Our purpose is fivefold: (1) to outline the correct method of calculating repeatability; (2) to point out a common mistake in calculating repeatability; (3) to show how much this mistake affects values of repeatability; (4) to provide a quick way of checking published estimates, and to calculate an approximate value of repeatability from published F ratios and degrees of freedom; and (5) to make recommendations for authors, referees, editors, and readers to prevent the promulgation and propagation of incorrect repeatability values in the literature. CALCULATION OF REPEATABILITY Repeatability is the intraclass correlation coefficient (Sokal and Rohlf 1981), which is based on variance components derived from a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). The intraclass correlation coefficient is given by some statistical packages; otherwise it can be calculated from an ANOVA. ANOVA is described in most statistics textbooks (e.g. Sokal and Rohlf 1981; Kirk 1968 gives a detailed treatment of more complex designs of ANOVA), so we will not repeat it here, but give the general form of the results from such an analysis in Table 1. Repeatability, r, is given by r = sA / (S + SA)' (2) where S2A is the among-groups variance component and s2 is the within-group variance component. These variance components are calculated from the mean squares in the analysis of variance as:
Extreme Voices: A Dark Side of Civic Engagement

"Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right" -from Stealer's Wheel, "Stuck in the Middle with You" There are several reasons why Americans who have more opportunities than ever before to influence the actions of their government trust their government less than before. One explanation--popular two decades ago--is "overload. " Noting the increase in interest group activity and popular participation described above, some democratic theorists expressed their concern that with encompassing organizations such as parties and unions declining, interestaggregating structures were being overwhelmed by the rise in interest articulation. Moreover, if the scope of government has expanded, so that expectations are higher than in the past, the problem would be compounded. Although the relevant evidence is mostly circumstantial, this explanation has a good deal of plausibility. More recently, Hibbing and Theiss-Morse have resurrected Bismarck's caution against watching the production of sausages or laws. Considering the low standing of Congress in relation to the presidency and the Supreme Court, Hibbing and Theiss-Morse argue that Congress is despised precisely because of its openness. Congress allows citizens to see democracy in all its messiness-interest groups lobbying, parties posturing, members dealing and compromising. Generalizing this argument, the more open American politics becomes, the less citizens can maintain the fiction of public-spirited officials working cooperatively to solve social problems and defuse social conflicts. Again, this explanation certainly is plausible. While seeing merit in both of the preceding hypotheses, I propose a third that is not inconsistent with either: the transition to a more participatory democracy increasingly has put politics into the hands of unrepresentative participators--extreme voices in the larger political debate. Consider another brief listing of research findings. Back in the 1960s political science students studied Anthony Downs's exposition of the centrist logic of two-party competition. A generation later intellectual inheritors of the Downsian tradition were working to develop models in which the candidates did not converge to the center. A changed reality caused this shift in the modeling agenda. During the 1980s pundits and scholars alike remarked on the (electorally) unhealthy influence of "cause groups" in the Democratic primaries who exerted a "left shift" on popular perceptions of Democratic candidates. With a "new Democrat" in titular control of his party for most of the 1990s, the problem has become more serious in the Republican Party, where observers judge that the religious right controls two-thirds of the state party organizations. Party activism today is ideologically motivated to a much greater extent than in the past. The demise of the spoils system, public sector unionization, conflict-of-interest laws, changes in our political culture, and other factors have cumulated to diminish the material rewards for party
HIGHER ORDER THINKING SKILLS PADA PEMBELAJARAN ABAD 21 (PRE RESEARCH)

Higher order thingking skills adalah skills yang penting dalam pembelajaran abad 21 sehingga perlu untuk mengetahui level skills tersebut. Tujuan penulisan artikel ini untuk mengetahui higher order thinking skills peserta didik di Surakarta. Penelitian ini adalah penelitian deskriptif. Sampel pada penelitian ini terdiri dari Surakarta. SMK Negeri 1 Surakarta, SMK Batik 1 dan SMK Batik 2 Surakarta. C onvenience sampling adalah teknik pemilihan sampel. Teknik pengumpulan data yang digunakan adalah observasi, wawancara, dan dokumentasi. Hasil menunjukkan bahwa higher order thinking skills peserta didik masih rendah. Hal tersebut dikarenakan selama ini implementasi kurikulum belum dijalankan sepenuhnya dalam kegiatan pembelajaran, seperti pelaksanaan model, strategi, maupun pendekatan yang berorientasi higher order thingking skills, yaitu mengedepankan kegiatan menganalisis, mengevaluasi, dan mencipta Kata Kunci : Higher Order Thinking Skills, Pembelajaran Abad 21
Complete genome sequence of Oceanithermus profundus type strain (506)

The Genomic Standards Consortium Complete genome sequence of Oceanithermus profundus type strain (506) Amrita Pati, Xiaojing Zhang, Alla Lapidus, Matt Nolan, Susan Lucas, Tijana Glavina Del Rio, Hope Tice, Jan-Fang Cheng, Roxane Tapia, Cliff Han, Lynne Goodwin, Sam Pitluck, Konstantinos Liolios, Ioanna Pagani, Natalia Ivanova, Konstantinos Mavromatis, Amy Chen, Krishna Palaniappan, Loren Hauser, Cynthia D. Jeffries, Evelyne-Marie Brambilla, Alina Röhl, Romano Mwirichia, Manfred Rohde, Brian J. Tindall, Johannes Sikorski, Reinhard Wirth, Markus Göker, Tanja Woyke, John C. Detter, James Bristow, Jonathan A. Eisen, Victor Markowitz, Philip Hugenholtz, Nikos C. Kyrpides, Hans-Peter Klenk, and Miriam Land
Trees and the City: Diversity and Composition along a Neotropical Gradient of Urbanization

In this study we assessed tree species richness, density, and composition patterns along a gradient of urbanization of a megacity. Our results show that total, native, and exotic tree densities were highest in green areas where larger spaces are considered for greening purposes. Conversely, total, native, and exotic tree species richness were highest in land uses with intermediate levels of urban development (residential, residential-commercial areas). Not finding highest tree species richness in less developed urban areas suggests that cultural factors may shape the array of species that are planted within cities. Supporting this, tree composition analyses showed that green areas are comprised of different tree species when compared to the rest of the studied urban land uses. Thus, our results suggest that, to increase the ecological quality of cities, residents and managers should be encouraged to select a greater variety of trees to promote heterogeneous green areas.
Seed Systems and Climate Change: Exploring Perceptions and Options for Building Resilience of Farmer Seed Systems in Uganda

ii 1. Study background and rationale . 1 2. Methodology . 3 2.1 Data and study area . 3 2.2 Theoretical framework . 6 2.3 Statistical methods . 7 3. Results and discussion . 8 3.1 Farming systems in the sample districts . 8 3.2 Perception of climate variability and effects on rural livelihoods . 10 3.3 The role of seed systems . 15 3.4 Factors affecting farmer’s choice of type of seed . 19 3.5 Seed system functions and climate variability . 21 4. Building resilience of farmers seed systems to climate change . 23 4.1 Identification and promotion of climate resilient crop varieties . 25 4.2 Broadening seed supply and distribution . 26 5. Conclusions and policy implications . 27 Acknowledgement . 28 References . 28
Development of Corrosion-Resistant Equipment for Tomato Paste Production using Nanoparticle Coating

Tomato paste is processed in industrial factories by means of systems and equipment that are mostly made of metal (mainly steel AISI 304). A lifelong problem in producing tomato paste is the entering of heavy metals into the tomato paste due to the reaction between the tomato juice and the metal surface. Heavy metals, even in small quantities in tomato paste, endanger human health. Nano coating is widely considered among the best methods of control and prevention of corrosion. The aim of this research is to study the effect of Titanium Oxide (TiO2) nanoparticle coating in constructing corrosion-resistant equipment in tomato paste production. The steel samples AISI304 were covered with a thin layer of Titanium Oxide nanoparticle using electrophoretic. A corrosion simulator system was developed to measure the rate corrosion. The tests were conducted in a completely randomized factorial design with two factors and three replications. Tomato juice solution was tested in three temperature levels of 60, 70 and 80 °C and four coating voltages of 0, 10, 15 and 20 Volt. Results showed that Titanium Oxide nanoparticle coating significantly increased the corrosion resistance of AISI 304 steel in reacting with tomato juice. Increasing in temperature from 60 to 80 °C enhanced the rate of corrosion in all samples to 46.2%. Samples with coating voltages of 10, 15 and 20 Volt decreased the corrosion speed to 85.2%, 79% and 67.6%, respectively.
Do Mergers and Acquisitions Vacillate the Banks Performance? (Evidence from Pakistan Banking Sector)

Today economy of Pakistan is facing the financial, security and political problems due to which its economic growth badly disturbed. This research has been conducted to analyse either merger and acquisition increased or decreased the performance of Pakistani banks. Secondary purpose of this research paper is to provide information to bankers, government authorities, banking employees, investors and other stake holders. It also helps to the new researchers through its literature. Financial ratios such as profitability ratios (ROA,ROE.) liquidity ratios(DTA,ATD,CTA), investment ratios (ROI, EPS) and solvency ratios (DE, IC, DR) are used to analyze the impact of Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) on banks performance in Pakistan. After analyzing the merger and acquisition literature and financial ratios results it is found that not all banks which go through deal of this process (M&A) and they have not shown significant enhancement in performance and gain on equity when compared to their performance before the deals. Additionally, it is concluded that M&A have negative relationship with banks performance in Pakistan and it is suggested to Pakistani banking corporations that they should make feasible financial analysis before going to M&A deal. This research relied much on the publically available data for a sample of Pakistani Banks listed in Karachi Stock exchange. It is difficult to collect data of mergers and acquisitions of banks before 2006 and implementation of quantitative analysis. This study results will apply in Pakistan financial sector or in those developing countries which financial environment is same as Pakistan. This study is useful for the banks, employees of banks, Proprietors, Government authorities, insurance companies and manufacturing firms. These above mentioned organizations can developed their capabilities to deal with equitably and effectively to solve the social professional problems of affecters. The value of paper easily identified through its topic, it is not only a specific study of Pakistani banking performance but it may leads toward knowledge about all developing countries banking performance. It may be the first kind of paper that offers evidences on the M&A impact on Pakistani banks profitability which uses a lot of ratios and banks have been used. This study provides useful information that keeps the great value for decision makers (management), businessmen, academics and other stakeholders. Key words: Merger & Acquisition, financial ratios, financial institutions performance, Pakistan.
Tender offers, proxy contests, and large-shareholder activism

The paper analyzes tender offers and proxy contests as alternative means of resolving corporate governance conflicts between dissidents and incumbent management. We show that when a dissident shareholder is sufficiently confident about the potential benefits from changing corporate policy, he will seek majority control by making a tender offer rather than initiating a proxy contest. When the dissident is relatively uninformed, however, he may opt for a proxy contest, thereby utilizing the information of other shareholders to implement the better policy. Consistent with empirical evidence, the model predicts that announcements of tender offers will tend to be associated with larger positive stockprice reactions than announcements of proxy contests. The model is easily extended to allow for promanagement bias in proxy voting by institutional investors. Empirical observations that have been viewed as evidence of such promanagement bias are shown to be quite consistent with the absence of such bias. Policy issues are discussed as well. An interesting result is that even policies targeted at reducing the costs of conducting proxy contests may have ambiguous social consequences, given the possibility of substitution between tender offers and proxy contests. Copyright (c) 1997 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Model Uncertainty and Option Markets with Heterogeneous Beliefs

This paper provides option pricing and volume implications for an economy with heterogeneous agents who face model uncertainty and have different beliefs on expected returns. Market incompleteness makes options nonredundant, while heterogeneity creates a link between differences in beliefs and option volumes. We solve for both option prices and volumes and test the joint empirical implications using S&P500 index option data. Specifically, we use survey data to build an Index of Dispersion in Beliefs and find that a model that takes information heterogeneity into account can explain the dynamics of option volume and the smile better than can reduced-form models with stochastic volatility. Copyright 2006 by The American Finance Association.
The Role of Geomagnetic Field Intensity in Late Quaternary Evolution of Humans and Large Mammals

It has long been speculated that biological evolution was influenced by ultraviolet radiation (UVR) reaching the Earth's surface, despite imprecise knowledge of the timing of both UVR flux and evolutionary events. The past strength of Earth's dipole field provides a proxy for UVR flux because of its role in maintaining stratospheric ozone. The timing of Quaternary evolutionary events has become better constrained by fossil finds, improved radiometric dating, use of dung fungi as proxies for herbivore populations, and improved ages for nodes in human phylogeny from human mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosomes. The demise of Neanderthals at ~41 ka can now be closely tied to the intensity minimum associated with the Laschamp magnetic excursion, and the survival of anatomically modern humans can be attributed to differences in the aryl hydrocarbon receptor that has a key role in the evolutionary response to UVR flux. Fossil occurrences and dung‐fungal proxies in Australia indicate that episodes of Late Quaternary extinction of mammalian megafauna occurred close to the Laschamp and Blake magnetic excursions. Fossil and dung fungal evidence for the age of the Late Quaternary extinction in North America (and Europe) coincide with a prominent decline in geomagnetic field intensity at ~13 ka. Over the last ~200 kyr, phylogeny based on mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosomes in modern humans yields nodes and bifurcations in evolution corresponding to geomagnetic intensity minima, which supports the proposition that UVR reaching Earth's surface influenced mammalian evolution with the loci of extinction controlled by the geometry of stratospheric ozone depletion.
Forecasting the Taiwan stock market with a stock trend recognition model based on the characteristic matrix of a bull market

Investors have expended enormous efforts on trying to find a useful tool or tools that could forecast stock market trends accurately, enabling them to maximize their profits. Past forecasting models, however, have two noticeable drawbacks, summarized as follows: (1) the forecasting used to produce daily forecasts method, and which is evaluated by the forecasting error, may not be particularly useful for the average investor, since trading on the stock market on a daily basis is not his or her typical modus operandi; and (2) stock chart patterns advanced in past research are fixed, and, therefore, do not represent the ideal way to depict stock patterns. To refine past models, this paper proposes a new stock trend recognition model to predict the stock market with three research objectives, as follows: (1) to provide a stock market recognition model, based on an expert’s experience to analyze and forecast a stock market accurately in order to make a profit from it; (2) to propose a reasonable method to extract, as much as possible, bull market patterns from historical data so as to improve forecasting performance; and (3) to offer several trading strategies, using different stock holding periods, to help investors make decisions. To examine the trading return of the proposed model, a 15 year period of the Taiwan stock index (TSI) was used to formulate experimental datasets. To verify the superiority of the proposed model, the buy-and-hold method and Wang and Chan's (2007) model are used as comparison models. The experimental results show that the total index return (%) of the proposed model is 10 times that of the buy-and-hold method and 2 times that of Wang and Chan's (2007) model. Key words: Stock market forecasting, bull market pattern, stock trend recognition, template matching technique, technical analysis, cumulative probability distribution approach (CPDA).
‘At home, he’s a pet, at work he’s a colleague and my right arm’: police dogs and the emerging posthumanist agenda

ABSTRACT Increased attention is being paid to non-human animals, inspired in part by Human-Animal Studies and theoretical frameworks which reveal the fragility of human/animal dualism. Via the application of posthumanist performativity, we explore the recruitment and careers of police dogs via organisational analysis. It reveals a complex process of a dog becoming a police dog. Police dogs are placed within a speciesist hierarchy where they hold a position of ‘good’ non-human animals, rather than instrumental tools of the organisation. However, this position is tenuous, with dogs’ retirement often resulting in death. The paper concludes by arguing that posthumanist frameworks can be used to decentre the human subject. Contributions of our work include empirical insights on the use of non-human animals in policing coupled with the theoretical application of posthumanism to intersubjectivity in organisations.