Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Oil Price Shocks and Variations in Macroeconomic Variables in Nigeria

The study was an evaluation of the impact of oil price fluctuations on specific macroeconomic variables in Nigeria for the period, 1981-2017. This was examined to establish the innovations oil price will caused on some selected macroeconomic variables such as government revenue, government expenditure, money supply, inflation, real gross domestic product and unemployment. Using results from impulse responses and variance decompositions from a VAR, the result showed that oil price fluctuations largely accounted for the variations in six out of seven macroeconomic variables namely government revenue (GREV), government expenditure (GEXP), money supply (MS2), real gross domestic product (RGDP) and unemployment (UEMP) while its impact on inflation (INF) was found to be insignificant thus, providing evidence that oil price is not inflationary in an open economy such as Nigeria. The result of the impulse response function (IRF) also revealed that aside from inflation which had a negative response to oil shock, all other six variables such as government revenue, government expenditure, money supply, real gross domestic product and unemployment had a positive significant response to oil shock throughout the 10 th quarters.From the empirical investigation, it can be concluded that a combination of fiscal and monetary policies could provide effective instruments for the stabilization of the economy after an oil shock. DOI : 10.7176/JETP/9-5-01 Publication date :June 30 th 2019
Development of social functioning in children with congenital visual impairment.

Effects of significant visual impairment (VI) in childhood are profound and far-reaching, impacting on most developmental areas. In recent years, there has been a particular emphasis on the effects of VI on social communication and social cognition, with a focus on a potential link with autism. However, the mechanisms underlying specific socio-developmental difficulties and the 'autistic-like' presentation shown by some children with VI, as well as the mechanism by which many children with VI are able to overcome such developmental vulnerabilities, remain poorly understood and require further clarification. The goal of the research reported in the present thesis was to elicit further understanding of the developmental patterns of social functioning in children with VI, and gain a better appreciation of the role that language may play in these processes. The thesis focused on children with severe and profound degrees of congenital vision loss without additional impairments, as learning difficulties have been identified as a confounding factor. Their developmental outcomes were compared to those of a group of typically developing sighted children of similar age and ability. The children were assessed using parental/teacher questionnaires and a battery of developmental and experimental tasks targeting language, social communication, mental state understanding and discourse, and executive functioning. An important finding was a discrepancy between the structural language skills and pragmatic language use in children with VI. Additionally, a substantial proportion of children with VI showed socio-communicative profiles that were consistent with a broader autism phenotype. An investigation of the children's mental state language use, which was also reported, provided a useful context within which socio-pragmatic difficulties seen in children with VI in this research could be considered. A similar contribution was provided by a study of mother-child mentalistic language exchange, which emphasised specific strengths of socio-interactive environment of children with VI that future interventions can capitalise on. Furthermore, the developmental vulnerabilities imposed by VI were found to extend to a broader behavioural presentation in children with VI, including weaknesses in specific executive function domains. Such weaknesses, notably in cognitive shifting, were considered in the context of attentional mechanisms that may be particularly affected by vision loss in early development. A retrospective examination of attentional behaviours in pre-school development of children with VI helped to clarify these issues further, by shedding light on the potential precursors to the vulnerabilities in achieving social competence and adjustment in children with VI at school age. The findings are believed to offer original contribution to understanding the development of social functioning in children with congenital VI, and are hoped to contribute towards the diagnostic considerations and intervention strategies aiming to boost such children's developmental potential.
Self-medication practices among Vietnamese residents in highland provinces

Background: Monitoring self-medication practice, which refers to individuals using medicine without instructions of physicians, is critical to control its harmful effects. However, in Vietnam, evidence about self-medication among individuals in highland areas is constrained. This study examined self-medication practice among residents living in highland areas in Vietnam and determined associated factors. Materials and methods: A cross-sectional study was performed in five highland provinces with 1000 individuals. Information about individual and household’s socioeconomic status and self-medication practice in the last 12 months was surveyed. Multivariate logistic and Poisson regressions were used to identify associated factors with self-medication. Results: 83.3% reported self-medication in the last 12 months, with the mean times of self-medication being 4.5 times (SD=4.1). Female (OR=0.62, p<0.01), ethnic minorities, higher number of members having health insurance in family (OR=0.82, p<0.01) and higher annual household income (OR=0.78, p<0.05) were associated with the lower likelihood of “Only buy medicines at pharmacy stores when having illness in the last 12 month”. Moreover, people who were females (OR=0.59, p<0.05), white-collar worker (OR=0.25, p<0.01) and had higher number of children in the family (OR=0.68, p<0.05) were less likely to practice self-medication. People who were ethnic minorities, white-collar worker (Coef.=−0.32, p<0.01) and higher number of members having health insurance in family had lower times of self-medication in the last 12 months compared to other groups. Meanwhile, individuals having higher number of members in the family (Coef.=0.07, p<0.01) and higher annual household income (Coef.=0.08, p<0.01) had highertimes of self-medication in the last 12 months. Conclusion: Residents in highland areas in Vietnam had a considerably high 12-month prevalence of self-medication. Medical products quality management and self-medication guideline are potential to maximize the effects of self-medication. Moreover, promoting the use of health insurance should also be concerned as a solution to address this issue.
Positive Psychological Traits and Career Adaptability among Millennials

Individual of the Millennial Generation are born along with technologies improvement. Consequently, it has created rapid changes in working structure as well as working environment that requires how they could continuously learn and adapt with new situation on their work future. Career adaptability is a critical variable, which convey meaning the ability to adjust oneself thus, fit with change in their career. Thus, in time with increasingly diverse, the ability to navigate and adapt with changes and challenging work are most important. Positive Psychological Traits are major predictors that been recognized as vital capacities on how these students are able to cope with turbulent changes in future work. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to investigate Positive Psychological Traits and Career Adaptability among Millennials as well as to identify the most influential factor in Positive Psychological Traits that influence career adaptability among students at Universiti Teknologi Mara Melaka City Campus. This study used convenience sampling techniques and online questionnaire as an instrument to collect data. The data from 70% out of 329 students are collected then evaluated by using Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) Version 23 Software. The result from multiple regression analysis indicates that all the elements in Positive Psychological Traits International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences Vol. 8 , No. 9, Sept. 2018, E-ISSN: 2222-6990 © 2018 HRMARS 1422 which is resilience, optimism and hope have positive significant relationship with career adaptability. Moreover, regression analysis revealed that, resilience found to be the most influential variables towards career adaptability among these millennials at Universiti Teknologi Mara Melaka City Campus.
A Study on Service Quality of a Health Care Organization

The perception which the Healthcare sector has about his functioning is completely different from the other sectors. The view of the quality of services provided by healthcare is concerned about the patient satisfaction about the service provided to them rather than then assessing the kind of service provided to the patient. The end –users view on quality deals with accepted impact when they choose on Medical practitioners. The clients are more interested in knowing the capability of medical practitioners to provide remedy for their illness in an affordable cost. The patients wish to select the hospital has prominent effect on the views on Quality. Patients complete gratification and faithfulness about private healthcare provider plays a significant role in understanding the quality of the service. Additionally, client’s inability to measure the clinical standards where each hospital possesses different professional conditions and services like medical specialist knowledge, General physician potential to find out the disease. The Quality of the serviceable aspects are easily judged by the clients when compared to the professional aspects as claimed by experimental studies. Quality is seen and defined as assessment technique in which there is a comparison between his/her requirements and his/her views on service provided by customer. There is numerous advantages in evaluating Quality in Medical sector. It creates awareness among the customer to take prior decision in choosing healthcare provider and medical practitioner. Evaluating the quality also useful for Hospitals.
Subsidized labour and firms: Investment, profitability, and leverage

Employing the difference-in-differences technique, this study examines the impact of the Employment Tax Incentive programme on a large sample of South African firms from 2011 to 2016. It finds that programme firms expanded investments by 4.8 per cent, and profits by 5.7 per cent. Consistent with the financial constraints theory, leverage rose by 6.63 per cent at smaller ETI firms, which are plagued with information asymmetry problems. Results imply both cost and liquidity mechanisms whereby the policy defrayed labour costs to boost profits and cash flows.
Social Ramifications of Dowry Transaction in Muslim Marriage: An Empirical Study

This paper delves into the exploration of social impacts of dowry transactions in Muslim marriages of Sylhet, Bangladesh. A cross-sectional study applying mixed methods was conducted with a sample of thirty women (N=30) who experienced dowry-related violence in their marital lives and reported it to women’s agencies for arbitration or having legal action. Each sampled woman was interviewed with a semi-structured interview questionnaire that included a list of socio-economic variables to elicit the context, patterns, types of dowry transaction and its consequences on their connubial life. Major findings indicate that the bride’s party paid dowries i.e. cash money, furniture, jewelries, land etcetera to the groom’s party before or after or during marriage ceremony hoping their bride’s conjugal happiness. But the unpaid or extra dowries were there in demand that generated many socio-familial effects - most of these are negative - which contributed to increase the incidences of spousal violence against married women in conjugal lives. Women experienced a wide range of controlling behaviors as well as physical, emotional, sexual and socioeconomic violence. Husband was the main perpetrator of violence followed by his parents, brothers, sisters and relatives. Inequitable societal attitudes towards them were used to justify violence by both women and men; and thereby, perpetuate a climate where violence-reduction interventions had a limited impact.
Exploring Co-Created Service Value and Interactions of Social Commerce in China: A Service-Dominant Logic Perspective

Abstract This study integrates the Service-Dominant Logic (S-D Logic) perspective and both streams of service marketing and information systems (IS) usage literature, and proposes a research model outlining key actors of social commerce and interactions of how customers participate in social commerce, co-create service value, and remain loyal to and spread word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing effects. The model is validated with a set of the cross-sectional field survey data of 415 Chinese social commerce customers. In theory building, the study introduces the S-D Logic perspective, and conceptualizes and operationalizes the construct, co-created service value, in the Chinese social commerce context. The findings of the study should contribute to the social commerce research in general and social commerce innovations, particularly in China, and provide managerial implications for general understanding of the interplay of social commerce technologies, firms, and customers.
Japanese elementary teachers’ experiences of physical education professional development in depopulated rural school districts

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to investigate elementary teachers’ experiences of physical education professional development in depopulated rural school districts in Japan to provide future directions to offer effective support for teachers in unique teaching contexts. The study was situated in the framework of andragogy theory. Participants were five elementary teachers. Data sources included individual semi-structured interviews and professional development materials. Three emergent themes were: (a) The needs of providing context-specific professional development, (b) the limitations of child-centered professional development, and (c) insufficient preparation to be physical education directors. There are unique challenges in teaching physical education in a depopulated rural school environment, and the needs of providing context-specific professional development were evident. Establishing collaborative professional communities are key to facilitate teachers’ self-directed learning in such environments, which is the premise of andragogy theory.
EUROPEANIZATION IN SWEDEN: Opportunities and Challenges for Civil Society Organizations

Notwithstanding its many successes since 1945, the project of European integration currently faces major difficulties, from financial crises and mass immigration to the impending departure of the UK from the European Union. At the same time, these challenges have spurred civil society organizations within and across Europe, revealing a shared public sphere in which citizens can mobilize around refugee rights, opposition to austerity policies, and other issues. Europeanization in Sweden assembles new empirical research on how these processes have played out in one of the continent’s wealthiest nations, providing insights into whether, and how, the “Swedish model” can guide European integration.
The Effects of Online Formative and Summative Assessment on Test Anxiety and Performance: A Study Among First-Year Undergraduate Students at A Higher Education Institution in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

The presented study was conducted to provide greater insight into the potential positive, neutral and/or negative effects of online formative and summative assessment on test anxiety and performance. The aim of the study was to determine if online assessment could address the problems associated with test anxiety, which include poor study habits, distraction during testing, mental blocks and other physiological and psychological effects that students might experience as a result of perceived test threats. The theoretical frameworks that the study was based on were constructivism, behaviorism and multiple intelligences, as well as the constructs of Assessment for Learning, blended learning and self-paced learning. Past research on online formative and summative assessment has found that online testing and practice tests can reduce test anxiety because the conditions that facilitate test anxiety are reduced through the integration of online practice tests. In other words, students feel more confident in their knowledge and testing abilities, which in turn removed some of the pre-established, perceived test threats. The current study was carried out using a qualitative, case study approach, in which 24 students and one instructor in a first year, undergraduate social sciences general education class at a large Higher Education Institution in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The students were given two online tests, one without access to a prior online practice test, and one with access to a prior online practice test. The test scores were compared and used as supplemental quantitative data to the qualitative data collected from open-ended questionnaires. The questionnaires were modeled after the UTAUT2 technology use and acceptance model, which examines performance expectancy, effort expectancy and social influence as indicators of behavioral intention to use and accept online assessment systems. After conducting the qualitative and quantitative analyses, it was found that the students had more confidence in their test-taking abilities because they had access to the online practice test. This confidence resulted in decreased instances of test anxiety and scores all around improved on the second test. It can be concluded from the results of this study that teachers can help motivate their students to study by using online practice tests, which will in turn help reduce test threats and improve academic outcomes.
The effect of bilingualism on lexical learning and memory across two language modalities: some evidence for a domain-specific, but not general, advantage

ABSTRACT The present study was conducted to replicate bilingual advantages in short-term memory for language-like material and word learning in young adults and extend this research to the sign domain, ultimately with the goal of investigating the domain specificity of bilingual advantages in cognition. Data from 112 monolingual hearing non-signers and 78 bilingual hearing non-signers were analysed for this study. Participants completed a battery of tasks assessing sign and word learning, short-term memory, working memory capacity, intelligence, and a language and demographic questionnaire. Overall, the results of this study suggested a bilingual advantage in memory for speech-like material – no other advantage (or disadvantage) was found. Results are discussed within the context of recent large-scale experimental and meta-analytic studies that have failed to find bilingual advantages in domain-general abilities such as attention control and working memory capacity in young adults.
PENGARUH KEBIJAKAN DIVIDEN TERHADAP KINERJA PERUSAHAAN DAN NILAI PERUSAHAAN (STUDY PADA MANUFACTURING COMPANIES YANG TERCATAT DI BURSA EFEK INDONESIA)

This study aims to determine whether there is influence devidend policy on corporate performance and corporate value, where the value of the company is very important, especially in the company go public because of the high value of the company to be followed. by the shareholders of high prosperity. The purpose of this research is to know the effect of dividend policy (as measured by DPR) on company performance (as measured by ROA and ROE) and value of company (as measured by Tobin's q), Population in this research is manufacturing company listed on Bursa Effects from 2010 to 2014. Methods of sampling in this study by using non-random sampling method. The sample in this research is 10 manufacturing companies. Research data was obtained from www.idx. co.id. And ICMD 2010-2014. Testing this hypothesis using path analysis model research and data processing using SPSS (Statistical product and service solutions). Result of research: 1) dividend policy influence negative and no significant effect to company performance, 2) dividend policy have positive effect and no significant effect to company, and 3) company performance have significant positive impact to company value. Thus, the hypothesis proposed in this study has been tested. It is recommended in subsequent research to develop other variables in this study.
Predicting Sheet and Rill Erosion of Shihmen Reservoir Watershed in Taiwan Using Machine Learning

Shihmen Reservoir watershed is vital to the water supply in Northern Taiwan but the reservoir has been heavily impacted by sedimentation and soil erosion since 1964. The purpose of this study was to explore the capability of machine learning algorithms, such as decision tree and random forest, to predict soil erosion (sheet and rill erosion) depths in the Shihmen reservoir watershed. The accuracy of the models was evaluated using the RMSE (Root Mean Squared Error), MAE (Mean Absolute Error), and R2. Moreover, the models were verified against the multiple regression analysis, which is commonly used in statistical analysis. The predictors of these models were 14 environmental factors which influence soil erosion, whereas the target was 550 erosion pins installed at 55 locations (on 55 slopes) and monitored over a period of approximately three years. The data sets for the models were separated into 70% for the training data and 30% for the testing data, using the simple random sampling and stratified random sampling methods. The results show that the random forest algorithm performed the best of the three methods. Moreover, the stratified random sampling method had better results among the two sampling methods, as anticipated. The average error (RMSE relative to 1:1 line) of the stratified random sampling method of the random forest algorithm is 0.93 mm/yr in the training data and 1.75 mm/yr in the testing data, respectively. Finally, the random forest algorithm predicted that type of slope, slope direction, and sub-watershed are the three most important factors of the 14 environmental factors collected and used in this study for splits in the trees and thus they are the three most important factors affecting the depth of sheet and rill erosion in the Shihmen Reservoir watershed. The results of this study can be employed by decision-makers to improve soil conservation planning and watershed remediation.
Technocolonialism: Digital Innovation and Data Practices in the Humanitarian Response to Refugee Crises

Digital innovation and data practices are increasingly central to the humanitarian response to recent refugee and migration crises. In this article, I introduce the concept of technocolonialism to capture how the convergence of digital developments with humanitarian structures and market forces reinvigorates and reshapes colonial relationships of dependency. Technocolonialism shifts the attention to the constitutive role that data and digital innovation play in entrenching power asymmetries between refugees and aid agencies and ultimately inequalities in the global context. This occurs through a number of interconnected processes: by extracting value from refugee data and innovation practices for the benefit of various stakeholders; by materializing discrimination associated with colonial legacies; by contributing to the production of social orders that entrench the “coloniality of power”; and by justifying some of these practices under the context of “emergencies. ” By reproducing the power asymmetries of humanitarianism, data and innovation practices become constitutive of humanitarian crises themselves.