Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An optimal time incentive/disincentive -based compensation in contracts with multiple agents

This paper establishes an optimal time incentive/disincentive-based compensation in a contract between a principal and a team of agents. The establishment is based on solving an optimization problem. In order to validate the paper's theoretical development practitioners were engaged in a designed exercise. The paper demonstrates that, at the optimum: the proportion of time incentive/disincentive compensation among agents with the same risk-attitude should reflect the levels of their contributions; the proportion of time incentive/disincentive among agents with the same level of contribution should be lowered for agents with higher levels of risk aversion; and the proportion of time incentive/disincentive to a team of risk averse agents should reduce, and the fixed component of the team fee should increase, when the agents in the team become more risk-averse or the level of the uncertainty in project completion time increases. The paper’s outcome provides guidance to those involved in contracts design for choosing the best way to reward (penalise) multiple agents, form a team, and allow for any time saving (overrun) through the terms of a contract.
Classification and Composite Diagnosis of Extratropical Cyclogenesis Events in the Southwest Pacific

Abstract Characteristic patterns of cyclogenesis in the southwest Pacific region are identified from a sample of 40 developing cyclones during 1990–94. Cases were chosen objectively to ensure a realistic sampling of typical rather than “ideal” events. A subjective classification based on synoptic-scale upper-tropospheric flow signatures prior to cyclone intensification suggested four classes into which all but three cases fell. Three categories, each containing about a quarter of the population, involved direct coupling with the upper jet. They represent cyclone formation beneath (i) the poleward exit region of a 300-hPa jet upstream from a diffluent trough (class U), (ii) the confluent equatorward entrance region of the upper wind maximum (E), and (iii) the upper jet exit region where the jet is downstream from the upper trough (class D). These are analogous to previously identified categories for the western North Atlantic region. A fourth class involved cyclones forming beneath a preexisting intense up.
The Interplay among EFL Teachers´ Teaching Experience, Critical Thinking, and Classroom Management

The purpose of this study is to seek the possible relationship between the classroom management, critical thinking, and years of teaching experience of Iranian EFL teachers. A total of 85 teachers (50 female and 35 male) ranging in age from 20 to 38 and varied in their ELT experience from 2 to 18 years were invited to participate in this research. The researchers employed two kinds of instruments to conduct this correlational research: (1) a questionnaire on critical thinking by Honey (2000), and (2) a questionnaire on classroom management by Martin and Sass (2010), both of which were of Likert-scale type. The result of the data analysis showed that there was an almost strong positive relationship between Iranian EFL teachers classroom management and critical thinking, which was also statistically significant, rs = . 722, P ˂. 05. The result of the Mann-Whitney U test for the second inferential statistics showed that there was a statistically significant difference between the teachers with different teaching experiences, U=611.50, p = . 008 ˂ 0.05. Hence, it was concluded that more experienced teachers had better classroom management ability.
Technology Acceptance Model, Organizational Commitment and Turnover Intention: A Conceptual Framework

Information system is being implemented to improve job performance and facilitate employees’ work. However, implementing Information system has some negative impacts on employees and organization if employees do not accept it. Several previous studies investigated some consequences of information technology such as turnover intention and job satisfaction. This study provides a conceptual framework that shows other independent consequences of information system implementation. The model presented the impact of attitude towards using information technology on three components of organizational commitment (formative, normative and continuance). It also addresses the impact of attitude towards using information technology on turnover intention directly and via organizational commitment. Based on technology acceptance and its consequences, we develop a number of testable propositions that can guide to further research on work related outcome due to technology acceptance. Finally, we provide some recommendations for future research.
The Stormy Path from Life to Death Assemblages: The Formation and Preservation of Mass Accumulations of Fossil Sand Dollars

Abstract Clypeasteroids can be very common in Recent, shallow water environments in a variety of biogeographic settings and represent important members of benthic invertebrate communities. Mass deposits of fossil clypeasteroids are also common and characteristic of many Cenozoic shallow water deposits. Their distribution and formation, however, has received much less attention than molluscan counterparts, although fossil examples are found within all three of the clypeasteroid suborders. A comparison of two mass deposits of scutellid clypeasteroids from the Miocene of the Mediterranean (Gebel Gharra section, Eastern Desert, Egypt; Alahan Section, Mut Basin, Turkey) shows common features, but also significant differences. Both were formed in high energy, coarse sandy, shoreface environments. The Gebel Gharra section consists of a thick, multi-event accumulation with numerous sedimentary features dominated by complete and fragmented skeletal remains of a single taxon (Parascutella). The accumulations in Alahan represents a single, thin, multi-taxon (Amphiope, Parascutella) deposit dominated by very well preserved, complete specimens. Both units are interpreted as proximal storm deposits based on the general sedimentary environment, clast relationships, and taphonomic features. Four factors contributing to mass deposits of clypeasteroid sea urchins in Cenozoic sediments include: (1) their gregarious nature with very high density populations; (2) their relatively robust skeletal morphology; (3) the high transport capacity of their flattened, low density skeletons; and (4) their habitat in shoreface environments which is conducive to physical concentrations of skeletal material. The presence of mass clypeasteroid accumulations is compared to other echinoderm deposits and discussed within the context of their rapid evolution in the Cenozoic.
Modeling A Potential GCC Single Currency Dr . Ghada

The paper explores different views of regime choice and investigates theoretically and empirically the feasibility of a potential monetary union among the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Councilthe United Arab Emirates, the State of Bahrain, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Sultanate of Oman, the State of Qatar, and the State of Kuwait. The theoretical model suggests that the optimum foreign regime needs to maximize oil revenues under the assumptions of internal and external balances. This is proved to occur at the possible maximum expected foreign-exchange rate or at the minimal level of uncertainty and volatility in foreignexchange rate markets. Calculations using a calibrated model show that the proposed monetary union is likely to yield economic benefits for the GCC countries if they adopt a foreign regime pegged to SDR.
Haematological and Biochemical Assessment of Composite Wood Extracts in Albino Rat (Male Wistar Strain)

The study was carried out to evaluate the haematological and biochemical potential indices of exposure to composite woodshavings with great attention to artisans and consumers of shell and fin fishes consequent on bioaccumulation. Woodshavings/sawdusts of four wood species namely: N. diderrichii, Picea sp. , Quercus and A. boonei were used for the experiment while 55 albino rats with weights between 160g – 180g as experimental animals. Methanol extraction for woodshavings extract was done and graded in three concentration of 50mg/kg, 200mg/kg and 500mg/kg per body weight. Oral administration of the extract was adopted. Blood samples were collected after 28days of exposure. Biochemical study revealed decrease in values of AST, ALP and ALT (P < 0.05). However, creatinine and urea levels in the treated group increased when compared to the control group. In like manner, combined increase in total cholesterol and low density lipoprotein was recorded. The haematological parameters as studied showed increased haematoglobin and haemocrit ratio concentration. Based on the results obtained from the study, it is crystal clear, that, deliberate or accidental exposure to these wood shavings/sawdusts result in reduction in kidney efficiency, impairment in the biliary system and compromised blood flow to the tissue. Keywords : Biochemical, Haematological, Woodshavings, Assessment.
On Cobb-Douglas Preferences in Bilateral Oligopoly

Bilateral oligopoly is a simple model of exchange in which a finite set of sellers seek to exchange the goods they are endowed with for money with a finite set of buyers, and no price-taking assumptions are imposed. If trade takes place via a strategic market game bilateral oligopoly can be thought of as two linked proportional-sharing contests: in one the sellers share the aggregate bid from the buyers in proportion to their supply and in the other the buyers share the aggregate supply in proportion to their bids. The analysis can be separated into two “partial games”. First, fix the aggregate bid at B; in the first partial game the sellers contest this fixed prize in proportion to their supply and the aggregate supply in the equilibrium of this game is (B). Next, fix the aggregate supply at X; in the second partial game the buyers contest this fixed prize in proportion to their bids and the aggregate bid in the equilibrium of this game is (X). The analysis of these two partial games takes into account competition within each side of the market. Equilibrium in bilateral oligopoly must take into account competition between sellers and buyers and requires, for example, ((B)) = B. When all traders have Cobb-Douglas preferences (B) does not depend on B and (X) does not depend on X: whilst there is competition within each side of the market there is no strategic interdependence between the sides of the market. The Cobb-Douglas assumption provides a tractable framework in which to explore the features of fully strategic trade but it misses perhaps the most interesting feature of bilateral oligopoly, the implications of which are investigated.
Market Structure Conduct Performance (SCP) Hypothesis Revisited using Stochastic Frontier Efficiency Analysis

Use of efficiency measures as a proxy for performance to test the market structure-conduct-performance (SCP) hypothesis is explored. Utilizing Battese and Coelli specification, we estimate stochastic frontier production function and SCP equations with output and efficiency measures as endogenous variables. An empirical application to U.S. trucking carries over the period 1994-2003 with emphasis on the agricultural commodity and refrigerated food products carriers is examined. Results reveal that the variables average haul, average load and market concentration significantly affected the efficiency of firms with 2-8 number of years within each firm.
Organizational Socialization and Collective Self-Esteem as Drivers of Organizational Identification

Organizational identification can explain various employees’ attitudes, so that it is thought to be a root construct in organizational phenomena. Although organizational identification means process, no previous studies have focused on the process by which organizational identification is developed. This study reveals the mechanisms involved in developing organizational identification. For this paper, a model was constructed from the perspective of Bandura’s modeling theory. Three hypotheses emerged: (1) Organizational socialization influences organizational identification positively, (2) collective self-esteem influences organizational identification positively, and (3) organizational socialization influences collective self-esteem positively. These were tested by means of SEM. Through this model, this paper demonstrates a new process of organizational identification via a new perspective.
Licenciatura em Computação: Desafios e Oportunidades na Perspectiva do Estudante

The Computers in Education is in a paradoxical situation, highlighting a series of challenges in the field of the use of new digital technologies in education, as well the teaching of Computers Science. In order to form professionals capable of dealing with these situations, the Computer Science Degree course was created in Brazil. Over the past few years, the course has been expanded to bring forth a series discussed. Thus, this paper aims to identify and discuss challenges and opportunities of course from a student perspective. The results point to three main challenges and opportunities: (i) articulation between theory and practice in the perspective of teacher education, (ii) structuring and organization of supervised internships (stages), and (iii) promotion and comprehensiveness of opportunities for the egress.
The Impact of Tax Reform in Japan on the Work-Hour and Income Distributions of Married Women

In 2004, Japan abolished part of its spousal exemption regulations. This paper examines, on theoretical and empirical levels, the effects of this tax reform on the income of married women, allowing for heterogeneous effects across income distribution. The empirical results from quantile difference-in-difference estimations and novel decomposition methods indicate that low-income wives increased their labor supply and incomes, in accordance with changes in tax incentives. In contrast, medium- and high-income wives, who were presumably unaffected by the tax reform, decreased their incomes in response to the upward trend of their husbands’ incomes during the same period. I argue that this behavior of middle- to high-income wives is due to an increased awareness of the shape of the budget line that were less conspicuous under the previous tax regime.
The Impact of Technical Analysis on Stock Returns in an Emerging Capital Markets (ECM’s) Country: Theoretical and Empirical Study

Technical analysis, even if deliberated by some as purely conjecture, is still generally acknowledged as additional information to main brokerage companies. There are existent two reasons for the achievement of technical analysis and why its success is still debated: (1) stock return predictability stems from efficient markets that can be analysed by time-varying equilibrium returns, and (2) stock return predictability forms from prices wandering apart from their fundamental valuations. Fundamentally, both explanations show some kind of overall market inefficiency where investors are capable of exploiting. Therefore, technical analysis derived its importance from its ability to train investors to take investment decision based on historical trends of securities prices. To help find answers to the issues raised and to structure the study, the following general research question is set: is it possible for technical analysis to achieve abnormal returns in an Emerging Capital Markets (ECMi¯s) country, more specifically, the Egyptian Stock Exchange? If yes, hence it could be possibly used to help individual investors to take effective investment decision. By means of theoretical and empirical investigation, this study provides significant evidences that technical analysis achieved abnormal returns in inefficiency periods. This study suggests that simple trading rules, more specifically; the simple moving average beat the standard buy-and-hold strategy for the Egyptian stock exchange.
Association of bovine PPARGC1A and OPN genes with milk production and composition in Holstein cattle.

Several studies have reported quantitative trait loci on chromosome 6 affecting milk production and composition traits in dairy cattle. Osteopontin ( OPN) and peroxisome proliferator activated receptor-γ coactivator-1α (PPARGC1A) genes have been located on this chromosome and identified as positional candi - dates for milk traits. We investigated the associations of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) T>C at position 1892 and SNP A>C at position 3359 in PPARGC1A gene as well as SNP C>T at position 8514 in OPN gene with milk production and composition. Hence, 398 Iranian Holstein cows were genotyped through polymerase chain reaction and restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP). The Least Squares methods were used to examine the effects of genotypes on milk traits. The frequencies of the C allele at position 1892, A allele at position 3359, and T allele at position 8514 were 0.56, 0.64, and 0.53, respectively. In this study, c.1892T>C genotypes indicated significant associations with milk fat content adjusted for two milkings per day (FAT P2X ; %), estimated breeding value for milk (EBV M ; kg), milk protein yield adjusted for mature body weight (PRO ME ; kg), milk protein yield adjusted for 305 days (PRO 305 ; kg) (P C genotypes and FAT P2X , EBV FP (P T genotypes in OPN gene and FAT P2X (P < 0.05), and PRO PER305 (P < 0.01). Thus, these SNPs would provide an excellent opportunity for marker assisted selection programs in dairy cattle.
The Next Generation Transit Survey—Prototyping Phase

We present the prototype telescope for the Next Generation Transit Survey, which was built in the UK in 2008/2009 and tested on La Palma in the Canary Islands in 2010. The goals for the prototype system were severalfold: to determine the level of systematic noise in an NGTS-like system; demonstrate that we can perform photometry at the (sub) millimagnitude level on transit timescales across a wide-field; show that it is possible to detect transiting super-Earth and Neptune-sized exoplanets and prove the technical feasibility of the proposed planet survey. We tested the system for around 100 nights and met each of the goals above. Several key areas for improvement were highlighted during the prototyping phase. They have been subsequently addressed in the final NGTS facility, which was recently commissioned at ESO Cerro Paranal, Chile.
How the choice of flood damage metrics influences urban flood risk assessment

This study presents a first attempt to quantify tangible and intangible flood damage according to two different damage metrics: monetary values and number of people affected by flooding. Tangible damage includes material damage to buildings and infrastructure; intangible damage includes damages that are difficult to quantify exactly, such as stress and inconvenience. The data used are representative of lowland flooding incidents with return periods up to 10 years. The results show that monetarisation of damage prioritises damage to buildings in comparison with roads, cycle paths and footpaths. When, on the other hand, damage is expressed in terms of numbers of people affected by a flood, road flooding is the main contributor to total flood damage. The results also show that the cumulative damage of 10 years of successive flood events is almost equal to the damage of a singular event with a T = 125 years return period. Differentiation between urban functions and the use of different kinds of damage metrics to quantify flood risk provide the opportunity to weigh tangible and intangible damages from an economic and societal perspective.
Ownership Concentration and Cross-Autocorrelation in Portfolio Returns

This study investigates cross-autocorrelation in portfolio returns which are formed on the basis of ownership concentration. The study randomly selected seventy-two firms that are listed at the Karachi Stock Exchange. Eight portfolios were formed based on ownership concentration, with each portfolio comprising of nine firms. Equally-weighted daily and weekly returns were calculated for these portfolios. Vector Auto-Regressive (VAR) and Auto-Regressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (ARCH) models were employed to analyze the cross-autocorrelation among the portfolio returns. The results revealed that portfolios having higher concentration of ownership lead the returns of portfolio having lower concentration of ownership. The lead-lag relationship was found in daily returns for up to three days only. No evidence was found for lead-lag pattern in weakly returns
Six Sigma in the UK service organisations: results from a pilot survey

Six Sigma is now increasingly applied to a variety of processes ranging from manufacturing to service and variegated transactional processes. Six Sigma has been proved to be a rigorous pursuit of the reduction of process variation and defect rate in all critical business processes to achieve breakthrough improvements in process performance that generates significant savings to the bottom line of an organisation. The paper begins with a simple comparative study between manufacturing and service processes from the Six Sigma application perspective. The paper then presents the results of a pilot survey carried out in the UK service organisations to understand the status of Six Sigma. The paper finally reports the essential ingredients which are required for the successful deployment of Six Sigma in the service sector.
Does Increased Competition Affect Credit Ratings? A Reexamination of the Effect of Fitch's Market Share on Credit Ratings in the Corporate Bond Market

We examine two competing views regarding the impact of competition among credit rating agencies on rating quality: the view that rating agencies do not sacrifice their reputation by inflating firm ratings, and the view that competition among rating agencies arising from the conflict of interest inherent in an â€œissuer payâ€ model creates pressure to inflate ratings. Using Fitchâ€™s market share as a measure of competition among rating agencies and controlling for the endogeneity problem caused by unobservable industry effects, we find no relation between Fitchâ€™s market share and ratings, suggesting that competition does not lead to rating inflation.
The Effects of Bandpass Variations on Foreground Removal Forecasts for Future CMB Experiments

Time-dependent and systematic variations in the band gain and central frequencies of instruments used to study the cosmic microwave background (CMB) are important factors in the data-to-map analysis pipeline. If not properly characterized, they could limit the ability of next-generation experiments to remove astrophysical foreground contamination. Uncertainties include the instrument detector band, which could systematically change across the focal plane, as well as the calibration of the instrument used to measure the bands. A potentially major effect is time-dependent bandpass uncertainties caused by atmospheric fluctuations. More specifically, changes in atmospheric conditions lead to frequency-dependent changes in the atmospheric transmission which, in turn, leads to variations in the effective gain and central frequency of the instrument’s bandpass. Using atmospheric modeling software and ACTPol bandpasses, we simulate the expected variations in band gain and central frequency for 20, 40, 90, 150, and 240 GHz bands as a function of precipitable water vapor, observing angle, and ground temperature to set limits on the expected uncertainties in band gain and central frequency. We then introduce the uncertainties to parametric maximum-likelihood component separation methods on simulated CMB maps to forecast foreground removal performance and likelihoods on the tensor-to-scalar ratio r. We conclude that to confidently measure a σ(r = 0) ∼ 10−3 with a bias on the recovered r under control, the uncertainty in the relative gain of the bandpass must be less than 2% and the uncertainty in the central frequency must be less than 1%. We also comment on the possibility of self-calibrating bandpass uncertainties.