Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Macroeconomic Factors of Emerging Stock Market: The Evidence from Thailand

This paper aims to examine the importance of macroeconomic factors to determine the performance of stock market. The regression analysis is used to examine this relationship. The result shows that macroeconomic variables can explain stock return significantly after adjusting for some lags of data availability. Moreover, the lead-lag relationship is examined by Vector Autoregression model and Granger causality test. They reveal that macroeconomic variables are less important to predict future stock return whereas stock return can be used to predict macroeconomic variables more. In the other word, stock return is good candidate as a leading economic indicator. Finally, the variance decomposition technique reveals that interest rate is the most important macroeconomic variable to explain the variance in stock return. However, it is clearly noticed that all macroeconomic variables can explain only a little variance in stock return.
Corporate Culture and Organizational Effectiveness: A Study of the Nigerian Banking industry

The study examined the effect of Corporate Culture on organizational effectiveness in the banking industry. A total of 388 managers were randomly drawn from a population of 13,339 managers of all the 24 banks in Nigeria. The instruments used for data collection were questionnaires and oral interview. A total of 320 copies of the questionnaire were retrieved and analyzed. Spearman’s Rank Correlation Statistical tool was used to test the hypotheses. The findings indicate that adaptability positively influences organizational profitability and market share. There is no significant relationship between adaptability and organizational productivity. Shared mission, employee involvement, and shared values (consistency) are positively related to profitability, productivity and market share. Based on these findings we concluded that corporate culture has significant influence on organizational effectiveness. It is therefore recommended that in addition to continuous adaptability, organizations should put in place definite plans to minimize cost and waste, as this will promote effectiveness. Organizations’ mission should be shared amongst employees to enable them contribute effectively to the achievement of organizational goals. Employees should be involved in decision-making process, especially in issues that concern them, as this will make them to be committed to the achievement of such decisions taken. Organization’s values should be shared amongst employees as it will enable them to act in the interest of the organization at all times. Socialization of new employees should be encouraged, as it is a powerful tool in managing shared values. New bases for shared values need to be reformulated in response to variety in the organization’s environment to enable the organization adapt to environmental turbulence. Keywords: Corporate culture, adaptability, shared mission, employee involvement, shared values, organizational effectiveness,
Explosive Bubbles in House Prices? Evidence from the OECD Countries

We conduct an econometric analysis of bubbles in housing markets in the OECD area, using quarterly OECD data for 18 countries from 1970 to 2013. We pay special attention to the explosive nature of bubbles and use econometric methods that explicitly allow for explosiveness. First, we apply the univariate right-tailed unit root test procedure of Phillips et al. (2015) on the individual countries' price-rent ratio. Next, we use Engsted and Nielsen's (2012) co-explosive VAR framework to test for bubbles. We find evidence of explosiveness in many housing markets, thus supporting the bubble hypothesis. However, we also find interesting differences in the conclusions across the two test procedures. We attribute these differences to how the two test procedures control for cointegration between house prices and rent.
Taxonomic diversity of understorey vegetation in Kumaun Himalayan forests

Taxonomic diversity of understorey vegetation (herb species) was studied in two evergreen forests, viz. oak and pine in the Kumaun Himalaya. In terms of taxonomic diversity, Asteraceae and Lamiaceae were the two dominant families in the sampling forest types. Maximum number of species was found at hill base and minimum at hill top in both the forests. The number of families, genera and species ratio observed for pine forest was of course higher with compared to the oak forest showed about the higher taxonomic diversity. Perennials form had higher contribution as compared to annuals forms indicated better ability to store up soil. Very few species (9 species) were found to be common indicates higher dissimilarity in both type of forests. Species richness (per m 2 ) was higher in the pine forest than the oak forest. A high value of beta-diversity in the oak forest point out that the species composition varied from one stand to another. However, low concentration of dominance value in the pine forest with compare to the oak forest point towards the dominance, which is shared by many species. (Journal of American Science 2009;5(6):1-5). (ISSN: 1545-1003).
(ENV08) Biotechnological production of xylitol from oil palm empty fruit bunch, a lignocellulosic waste

Introduction Palm oil mills in Malaysia generate approximately 15 million tons of oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB) annually during processing of palm oil from fresh fruit bunch. This OPEFB fiber is a lignocellulosic waste which is renewable and contain high amount of xylan (approximately 24%), a polymer made of pentose sugar xylose. Hydrolyzing acid such as sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid or hydrofluoric acid can be used as catalyst for reduction of xylan polymer to monomeric sugar xylose. Xylose is used as the starting material for xylitol production. During hydrolysis process other sugars such as arabinose, galactose, glucose and some unwanted components such as acetic acid and furfural are also released. For optimum production of xylitol it is necessary that the byproducts like acetic acid and furfural concentrations in the hydrolysate are to be kept minimum for efficient bioconversion of xylose to xylitol. Xylitol is a polyol which is widely used as sweetener in food, beverage, pharmaceutical, and in toothpaste industries. This sugar has drawn people’s interest as its sweetness is equivalent to sucrose but lower in calories content. Xylitol can be used as sugar substitute for diabetic patient. It is also used to prevent tooth decay and against acute otitis of children (Bot et al., 1995). Oil palm empty fruit bunch fiber was selected as raw material for xylitol production as it contains high amount of xylan. So far no report is available on production of xylitol from empty fruit bunch fiber. The present work deals with the biotechnolgical production of xylitol from raw and treated hydrolysate using empty fruit bunch fiber as raw material and Debaryomycess hansenii NRRL Y-7426 as fermentative organism. Materials and methods
Exploring the Possibility of Semi-Automated Quality Evaluation of Spatial Datasets in Spatial Data Infrastructure

Over the past decades, World Wide Web technology has developed greatly. One of the most important outcomes of this technology is to share data in a worldwide domain. A considerable amount of available data have spatial components and are hence called spatial data. The level of quality that spatial datasets conform plays an important role in their reliability for use in projects. This research aims to overview spatial data quality elements and select appropriate elements suitable for means of semi-automated quality evaluation. In this paper, the ISO 19100 series of standards for geographic information is used as basis for quality evaluation. The possibilities of use of different spatial data quality elements for semi-automated quality evaluation are explored and discussed. Finally, based on argumentation and reference to other research studies, a list of spatial data quality elements and sub-elements suitable for semi-automated quality evaluation of spatial datasets are presented.
A Single Trial Analysis of EEG in Associative Recognition Memory: Tracking the Neural Correlates of Associative Memory Strength

ii Dedication . iv Acknowledgments. v Vita . vi List of Figures . viii List of Tables . ix Chapter 1: Introduction . 1 Chapter 2: Methods . 6 Chapter 3: Results . 19 Chapter 4: Discussion . 32 References . 36
Cultural heritage and memory: untangling the ties that bind

Today in heritage studies memory looms larger than ever, there are memory parks, memory politics, and memory wars, there is discussion of ‘dissonant’, ‘dark’, and ‘difficult’ heritage linked to memories of traumatic past events. But what to we mean when we use the word ‘memory’ in the field of heritage? How is the divide between its social and individual realms bridged? This article theorizes the intimate relationship between heritage and memory by focusing on three areas. First, it maps out the vocabulary that has emerged from the heritage-memory dyad including how notions of collective memory and lieux de memoire have been used, and occasionally misused, as well as the metaphors employed in the process. Second, the emergence of memory studies is considered, providing a brief overview of its foundations as well as assessing how it differs from, overlaps with, and contributes to heritage research. A third section offers a brief review of recent developments in cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology relating to memory and how this might inform heritage studies. The concluding discussion provides a synthesis of the theoretical and empirical contribution of memory research to furthering out understanding of cultural heritage and proposes directions for future work on the area of confluence between the two.
Nodal domain statistics for quantum chaotic maps

We study the statistical distribution of nodal domains in the eigenvectors of quantum chaotic maps in the semiclassical limit. For generic quantum maps, which are believed to behave statistically like random matrices, the nodal domains are described by an uncorrelated critical percolation model. This leads to predictions for the distribution of the number, size and fractal dimension of the nodal domains, which are tested numerically. Furthermore, we find that the corresponding nodal lines can be modelled by stochastic Loewner evolution (SLE) with parameter κ close to 6. Interestingly, the percolation model and SLE are also found to describe the statistical properties of the nodal domains for the quantum cat map, which is non-generic in that its spectral statistics do not fall into any of the random matrix universality classes.
The Views of Spanish Undergraduates on Gender Equality, Parental Responsibilities and Joint-Custody

In recent years we have witnessed concerted efforts to achieve real equality between men and women through legislative reform in the European Union (i.e., EU Directives 2002/73/EC; 76/207/EEC), and nationwide in Spain (e.g., Law 3/2007, of 22 March, for Effective Gender Equality) as well as regional legislation (e.g., Law 7/2004, 16 July, Galician Law for the Equality of Women and Men). In view of the principle of equal rights enshrined in legislative reform, one would expect social change entailing the removal of existing inequalities on the grounds of sex. In order to explore the views of Spanish youth regarding gender equality, a pioneering field study was carried out to assess their knowledge of current legislation, and to examine their views towards gender equality, particularly in relation to specific issues such as family, divorce, separation, joint-custody, sexual relationships, education, and employment. Moreover, perceived or real models of equality were contrasted with ideal or desired models of equality. Thus, a total of 2071 Spanish undergraduates were administered an ad hoc questionnaire. The results reveal the vast majority of undergraduates favoured gender equality, and the equal participation of women and men in family and working life as well as joint-custody in cases of divorce or separation. Nevertheless, differences in gender were observed i.e., more women supported policies promoting the principle of equality than men. The findings underscore the need for implementing intervention strategies designed to foster shared responsibility and address different forms of discrimination based on sex in the family and the workplace and to combat them.
Conventional and Molecular Detection of Newcastle Disease and Infectious Bursal Disease in Chickens

The present study was undertaken to compare different diagnostic procedures for the detection of Newcastle disease and Infectious bursal disease in broilers and layers (during the period from March 2011 to February 2012 in the laboratory of the Department of Microbiology and Pathology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University Putra Malaysia (UPM) . A total of 187 sick and dead chickens (63 broilers and 124 layers) of different ages (1 week to >15 weeks) were collected from 12 selective poultry farms (4 broilers and 8 layers). Clinically, 7 (14.89%) of 63 affected broiler and 27 (30.68%) of 124 affected layer chickens were diagnosed as Newcastle disease (ND) whereas, 11 (23.4%) of 63 affected broiler and 6 (4.82%) of the 124 affected layer birds were diagnosed as IBD on the basis of clinical history, clinical signs and postmortem findings. Virus isolation from field samples was performed by inoculating each suspected sample into 10-day-old chicken embryos. Out of 34 ND suspected field samples, 26 (5 broilers and 21 layers) were positive for NDV isolation and 11 (8 broilers and 3 layers) of 17 IBD suspected field samples, were positive for IBDV isolation. For confirmatory diagnosis, virus detection was confirmed by serological tests (HI and AGID) and RT-PCR assay. Out of 34 clinically diagnosed ND field samples, 20 (5 broiler and 15 layer) were positive by RT-PCR assay and 15 (10 broiler and 5 layer) of 17 IBD suspected field samples, were positive by both AGIDT and RT-PCR assay. Of the 26 HA positive NDV suspected AF, 19 (4 broilers and 15 layers) were positive by both HI and RT-PCR assay whereas, 10 (7 broilers and 3 layers) of 11 IBDV isolation positive tissue suspension were positive by both AGIDT and RT-PCR assay in the laboratory. Therefore, it may be concluded that serological (HI and AGIDT) and molecular (RT-PCR) techniques which allow rapid identification of most of samples are the reliable, sensitive, specific and more accurate methods to detect the viruses for the confirmatory diagnosis of diseases.
Patients’ Awareness of a Dental Implant as an Option for Tooth Replacement: a Survey in Alkharj Province, Saudi Arabia

Objectives: To evaluate patient awareness’s and source of information about dental implant as an option of treatment to replace the missing teeth, in Alkharj Province Saudi Arabia. Methods: Cross-sectional study performed to access the level of awareness regarding dental implants. Self-explanatory questionnaire was designed and distributed in two places: Military Hospital and College of Dentistry (Prince Sattam Bin Abdul-Aziz University) both in Alkharj, Saudi Arabia. The questionnaires were handed to the patients during their regular dental visits. The quantitative data was entered onto computer for analysis using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). The Student’s t-test and ANOVA test were used to test the significance level (p< 0.05). Result: Out of 360 persons approached, 355 answered the questionnaire. 276 respondents heard about dental implant (77.7%) and 79(22.3%) persons they did not heard about dental implant. 105 (32.31%) of the patient heard about dental implant from newspaper Magazine, 91 (28%) from friends, 75 (23.08%) from dentist and 54 (16.61%) from other patients. Answer of the respondents to question what the advantages you know about replacing missing teeth with dental implants, 170 (44.5%) believed that it provided a higher esthetic, 153(40.05%) improve function, 32(8.38%) high success rate and 27 (7.07) no risk. Conclusion: Among the participants, the awareness level was more than seventy percent and media were the major sources of information. Patient are willing to know more about dental implant and the dentists should give more detailed information to the patients about dental implants and different treatment options that implant will provide.
Cost efficiency on organic farming: a comparison between organic and conventional raisin-producing households in Turkey.

The paper uses data envelopment analysis to compute overall technical and input-specific technical efficiency measures of conventional and organic raisin-producing households in Turkey. The questionnaires were applied to fourty-four organic and thirty-eight conventional producers determined by stratified random sampling. For each household group the average cost efficiency and technical efficiency coefficients are determined to be 0.712 and 0.862 for organic households, while 0.844 and 0.903 for the conventional group. According to the coefficients calculated for individual and different returns to scale, it can be stated that conventional households are on average more efficient relative to their own technology.
Acquiring foreign languages: a two-sided market approach

We examine patterns of acquiring non-native languages in a model with two languages corresponding to two populations with heterogeneous learning skills, where every individual faces the choice of self learning the foreign language or refraining from doing so. We then introduce a profit-maximizing international school with two divisions (one in each population) so that each individual may now also choose to learn the other language at school. Comparative statics are analyzed in each model, and the solutions of both models are compared.
Anomalous Dispersion of Fourier Components of Surface Gravity Waves in the Near Shore Area

Water level deflections μ (t) have been measured synchronously at some positions in a beach profile on the isle of SYLT / North Sea during severe storm surge conditions as well as at attenuating wave action.A steadily increasing wave period T¯z in the upbeach direction, turning out from strip chart evaluations, is in accordance with the result of FOURIER syntheses. Near shore wave deformation is explained by ANOMALOUS dispersion of the frequency components.
Time-Varying Betas and Cross-Sectional Return-Risk Relation : Evidence form the UK FRASER

The seminal study by Fama and MacBeth (1973) initiated a stream of papers testing for the cross-sectional relation between return and risk. The debate wether beta is a valid measure of risk has been renimated by Fama and French (1992) and subsequent studies. Rather than focusing on exogenous variables that have a larger explanatory power than an asset's beta in cross sectional tests, we assume the matrix of variances-covariances to follow a time varying ARCH process. Using monthly data from the UK market from February 1975 to December 1996, we compare the cross sectional return-risk relations obtained with an unconditional specification for asset's betas to those obtained when the estimated betas are based on an ARCH model. We also investigate the Pettengill, Sundaram and Mathure (1995) approach, which allows a negative cross sectional return-risk relation in periods in which the market portfolio yields a negative return relative to the risk free rate. These tests are also carried out on samples pertaining to a specific month and on samples from which a particular month is removed. Our result suggest that CAPM holds in [. ] FRASER, Daniel Patricia, et al. Time-Varying Betas and Cross-Sectional Return-Risk Relation:Evidence form the UK. 2000
Attenuation of polarization echoes in nuclear magnetic resonance: A study of the emergence of dynamical irreversibility in many-body quantum systems

The reversal of the time evolution of the local polarization in an interacting spin system involves a sign change of the effective dipolar Hamiltonian which refocuses the “spin diffusion” process generating a polarization echo. Here, the attenuation of these echo amplitudes as a function of evolution time is presented for cymantrene and ferrocene polycrystalline samples, involving one and two five spin rings per molecule, respectively. We calculate the fraction of polarization which is not refocused because only the secular part of the dipolar Hamiltonian is inverted. The results indicate that, as long as the spin dynamics is restricted to a single ring, the non-inverted part of the Hamiltonian is not able by itself to explain the whole decay of the polarization echoes. A crossover from exponential (cymantrene) to Gaussian (ferrocene) attenuation is experimentally observed. This is attributed to an increase of the relative importance of the spin dynamics, as compared with irreversible interactions, which .
Interacting Bose gases in quasi-one-dimensional optical lattices

We study a two-dimensional (2D) array of coupled 1D tubes of interacting bosons. Such systems can be produced by loading ultracold atoms in anisotropic optical lattices. We investigate the effects of coupling the tubes via hopping of the bosons (i.e. Josephson coupling). In the absence of a periodic potential along the tubes, or when such potential is incommensurate with the boson density, the system undergoes a transition from an array of incoherent Tomonaga–Luttinger liquids at high temperature to an anisotropic Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC), at low temperature. We determine the transition temperature and long wavelength excitations of the BEC. In addition to the usual gapless (Goldstone) mode found in standard superfluids, we also find a gapped mode associated with fluctuations of the amplitude of the order parameter. When a commensurate periodic potential is applied along the tubes, they can become 1D Mott insulators. Intertube hopping leads to a deconfinement quantum phase transition between the 1D Mott insulators and the anisotropic BEC. We also take into account the finite size of the gas tubes as realized in actual experiments. We map out the phase diagram of the quasi-1D lattice and compare our results with the existing experiments on such systems.
Value versus Growth on the Dhaka Stock Exchange: Risk- Return Relationship

This paper examines the risk-return relationship in Dhaka Stock Exchange during 2000- 2009. The P/E and the P/B ratios are used to classify value and growth stocks. The risk-return relationship is positive and statistically significant for P/E sorted portfolios. However P/B sorted portfolios cannot be satisfied the positive risk-return relationship. The value stocks portfolio is less risky but produces higher returns than that of growth stocks portfolio. This paper sheds light on the discussion of efficiency of value stocks portfolio and growth stocks portfolio and also their risk -adjusted performance. The study found that value stocks portfolio is more efficient than that of growth stocks portfolio. The risk –adjusted performance of value stocks portfolio is better than that of growth stocks portfolio i.e. value stocks portfolio outperforms growth stocks portfolio. However, the paper shows that a P/E based search process does a better job of identifying value stocks and arriving at more consistent and sizeable value premium than does a search process based on P/B ratio in the Dhaka Stock Exchange during the study period.