Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Insurance Coverage amongst Low Income Households (B40) in Perak

The focus point of this very study is to identify the socio-demographic and economic factors affecting insurance coverage amongst the lowest income households (B40) in Perak. The Logit Model and Ordinary Least Square Model were applied in achieving the objectives of the study. As such, based on the results of Model 1, the findings show that gender, marital status, residential location, type of employment, savings and loans are significant features which give effect to the probability of insurance coverage ownership (Logit Model). Meanwhile, Model 2 shows that the level of education solely is crucial in affecting the total insurance expenditure (OLS Model). Furthermore, Model 3 suggests that only age and loans are the important influence to the probability of having an insurance (Logit Model). Finally, Model 4 exhibits that the factors of race, residential location, education level, type of employment sector, number of dependents, income, savings and loans are the essential influence to estimate the affordable amount of insurance expenditure (Model OLS). On average, the lowest-income households (B40) in Perak who have the most insurance procure monthly insurance expenses ranging from RM101 to RM200, while the lowest-income households (B40) who do not have insurance but hold the want to have one are most willing to obtain insurance expenses between RM51 to RM100. Hence, this indicates that the lowest income households (B40) in Perak are in fact interested in owning insurance but due to several factors or constraints; these have become the impinging reasons for their inability to pay the insurance premium monthly. To treat this, BNM should increase the participation in the ownership amongst Low Income Households (B40) by a reduction in distribution costs, simplification of the design and delivery of products as well as assurance of meaningful protection to policy holders.
Negative dream affect is associated with next-day affect level, but not with affect reactivity or affect regulation

There is increasing evidence that sleep plays an important role in affective processing. However, it is unclear whether dreaming—the subjective experiences we have during sleep—also serves an affect regulation function. Here, we investigated the within-person relationship between negative affect experienced in dreams and next-day waking affect level, affect reactivity, and affect regulation. For 5 days, 40 participants reported their dreams and rated their dream affect and post-sleep waking affect level upon morning awakening. Thereafter, they performed an affect reactivity and regulation task which involved viewing neutral and negative pictures with the instruction either to simply view the pictures or to down-regulate the affect evoked by these pictures. Multilevel regression analyses showed that the more negative affect people experienced in their dreams at night, the more negative affect and the less positive affect they reported the next morning. However, negative dream affect was associated neither with affect reactivity to the pictures nor with the ability to down-regulate negative affect in response to these pictures. In fact, Bayesian analyses favored the null hypotheses. These findings fail to provide support for the affect regulation function of dreaming and, instead, speak for affective continuity between dreaming and post-sleep wakefulness.
From Personal to Partisan: Abortion, Party and Religion in the California State Assembly, 1967-1996

We argue that the effect of legislators’ personal background on their policy stands may vary over time. We discuss several means by which this may occur. We then illustrate this process with the case of abortion politics in California from the 1960s through the 1990s. Using newly collected evidence on Assemblymembers’ and constituents’ religion and voting patterns, we show that divisions in the State Assembly on abortion were chiefly religious at first, but later became highly partisan. This shift was distinct from overall polarization, and not a result of district-level factors or “sorting” of legislators by religion into party caucuses. Instead, growing ties between new movements and parties, feminists for Democrats, and the Christian Right for the Republicans, made party affiliation supplant religion as the leading cue for legislators on abortion, impelling many incumbents to revise their positions. Examining how personal characteristics become outweighed by partisan considerations as issues evolve advances understanding of party position change and polarization and contributes to the literature on representation.
The incompatibility of traditional leadership and democratic experimentation in South Africa

After a plethora of legislative and policy frameworks have been passed to integrate traditional leadership system into the modern liberal democratic system in South Africa, incompatibilities of the two became increasingly evident, especially in respect of governance. The most protracted challenges of the incompatible governance systems are located in the local government sphere, especially in provinces that are predominantly rural with tribal settlements. Traditional leadership system has been in existence in African communities before imperial and colonial rule, and it had served good purposes for the wellbeing of citizens. Whilst it continued during imperialism and colonialism, it gradually took a form that principally benefited the alien Western ideology. With the attainment of democracy in South Africa, the traditional leadership system was further undermined through successive democratic regimes, albeit there was no overt state intention to demoralise, frustrate and discriminate against traditional leadership. But their exclusion from the mainstream of governance as well as encroachment into their selections and inauguration was palatable. Currently, the role and function of traditional leaders appear to be blurred in the day-to-day activities of municipalities, resulting in undue contestations of powers, jurisdiction and responsibility in local government. This article attempts to examine the reasons underlying incompatibility between the modern democratic system and the traditional leadership, amidst nationally-acclaimed legislative and policy framework provisions for their synergy. The article argues that harmonisation of the two would serve to enhance prospects of achieving good governance for service delivery tribal ruralities in South Africa.
Optimization of an educational search engine using learning to rank algorithms

OPTIMIZATION OF AN EDUCATIONAL SEARCH ENGINE USING LEARNING TO RANK ALGORITHMS Arif Usta M.S. in Computer Engineering Advisor: Prof. Dr. Özgür Ulusoy September, 2015 Web search is one of the most popular internet activities among users. Due to high usage of search engines, there are huge data available about history of user search issues. Using query logs as a source of implicit feedback, researchers can learn useful patterns about general search behaviors. We employ a detailed query log analysis provided by a commercial educational vertical search engine. We compare the results of our query log analysis with the general web search characteristics. Due to difference in terms of search behavior between web users and students, we propose an educational ranking model using learning to rank algorithms to better reflect the search habits of the students in the educational domain to further enhance the search engine performance. We introduce novel features best suited to the educational domain. We show that our model including educational features outperforms two baseline models which are the original ranking of the commercial educational vertical search engine and the model constructed using the state of the art ranking functions, up to 14% and 11%, respectively. We also employ different learning to rank models for different clusters of queries and the results indicate that having models for each cluster of queries further enhances the performance of our proposed model. Specifically, the course of the query and the grade of the user issuing the query are good sources of feedback to have a better model in the educational domain. We propose a novel Propagation Algorithm to be used for queries having lower frequencies where information derived from query logs is not enough to exploit. We report that our model constructed using the features generated by our proposed algorithm performs better for singleton queries compared to both the educational learning to rank model we introduce and models learned with common features introduced in the literature.
Firms' Choices to Cross-list Stocks on the U.S. and the U.K. Markets: An Earnings Quality Perspective

• Any use you make of these documents or images must be for research or private study purposes only, and you may not make them available to any other person. • Authors control the copyright of their thesis. You will recognise the author's right to be identified as the author of this thesis, and due acknowledgement will be made to the author where appropriate. • You will obtain the author's permission before publishing any material from their thesis.
Principled Explanations in Comparative Biomusicology – Toward a Comparative Cognitive Biology of the Human Capacities for Music and Language

The current thesis tackles the question “Why is music the way it is? ” within a comparative biomusicology framework by focusing on musical syntax and its relation to syntax in language. Comparative biomusicology integrates different comparative approaches, biological frameworks as well as levels of analysis in cognitive science, and puts forward principled explanations, regarding cognitive systems as different instances of the same principles, as its central research strategy. The main goal is to provide a preliminary answer to this question in form of hypotheses about neurocognitive mechanisms, i.e., cognitive and neural processes, underlying a core function of syntactic computation in language and music, i.e., mapping hierarchical structure and temporal sequence. In particular, the relationship between language and music is discussed on the basis of a top-down approach taking syntax as combinatorial principles and a bottom-up approach taking neural structures and operations as implementational principles. On the basis of the top-down approach, the thesis identifies computational problems of musical syntax, cognitive processes and neural correlates of music syntactic processing, and the relationship to language syntax and syntactic processing. The neural correlates of music syntactic processing are investigated by ALE meta-analyses. The bottom-up approach then studies the relationship between language and music on the basis of neural processes implemented in the cortico-basal ganglia-thalamocortical circuits. The main result of the current thesis suggests that the relationship between language and music syntactic processing can be explained in terms of the same neurocognitive mechanisms with different expressions on the motor-to-cognitive gradient. The current thesis, especially its bottom-up approach, opens up a possible way going toward comparative cognitive biology, i.e., a comparative approach to cognitive systems with a greater emphasis on the biology.
Sourcing and Manufacturing in the Market Region

It has been a common practice to transfer making goods to faraway low-labor-cost countries. For many managers, this seemed to make commercial sense. Sourcing in remote corners of the world takes advantage of reduced labor hour cost. This can be the most significant direct cost. This chapter focuses on the emerging trend to bring manufacturing back, via reshoring within the nation state or near(er) shoring where production is closer by taking advantage of lower cost neighboring locations. Financial analysis presented is based on differential wage rate and pipeline liability. The financial case analysis indicates overall profit that may be reduced due to labor cost; however, risk-free profit can be significantly higher. Four supply chain configurations can be determined using a simple two-by-two matrix: long and short distances between supplier and plant, and between plant and market/customer. Typically, longer distances increase the end-to-end time that is taken and increase inventory. Activity-based cost models (ABCDM) and cases originally focused on internal plant operations now are applied along the supply chain. Long inbound supply and long outbound distribution increase pipeline liability risks and typically increase the inventory due to less frequent and larger volume consignments.
Developing Human Capital through Apprenticeships: A Post-Intentional Phenomenological Study of an Insurance Industry Learning Model

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore a dual-training apprenticeship program in the United States (U.S.) insurance industry through the shared lived experience of adult participants. The U.S. insurance industry is facing an unprecedented talent shortage (Johnson, 2017) due to the retiring baby boomer generation. The industry has started to look at innovative employee learning and recruitment models such as the European style dualtraining apprenticeship. This study used post-intentional phenomenological research design (Vagle, 2014) and semi-structured participant interviews to provide rich data for exploration of this new workforce initiative. A theoretical framework of Knowles’ Theory of Andragogy (1980), Deci and Ryan’s (1985) Self-Determination Theory, Mezirow’s theory on transformational learning (2000), and experiential learning theories (Dewey, 1910, 1938; Kolb & Fry, 1974) provided the fundamental underpinnings of this analysis. The purpose of this study was to assist industry leaders, workforce education professionals, and facilitators of similar programs understand how adult learners experienced a dual-training apprenticeship model in a white-collar occupation industry through the following research questions: (1) What does it mean to be an apprentice in the insurance industry? (2) What is it like to experience motivation as insurance industry apprentice? (3) How is engagement in learning experienced as an insurance industry apprentice? Key findings included six themes that manifested as sacrifice, selfdiscovery, silos, age considerations, collaborative learning, and the apprenticeship as a curiosity.
Models of Corporate Education in the United States of America

This paper analyzes the socio-economic determinants of the development of corporate education in the conditions of social changes, philosophical foundations of corporate education as an integral part of adult education, determines the methodological approaches to its analysis, reveals theoretical principles, raises the concept of the research, elucidates the features of the development of corporate education in developed countries of the world. Modern models of corporate education were singled out; interconnection and mutual influence of corporate culture and corporate training was found; the role of social partnership in the functioning and management of corporate education in the USA was defined.
Too similar to be different? ‘Syrian refugee’ coverage in the Turkish and Norwegian popular media

As the number of migrants and refugees continues to rise worldwide, so too has antiimmigrant and anti-refugee rhetoric become an increasingly alarming problem that politicizes the topic. This article analyzes and evaluates media representation on refugees/asylum-seekers in two different countries which have distinct media system as Norway and Turkey. The findings show that media coverage of migration is a salient theme. While the ‘visibility’ of migrants is not lacking, the voices that are heard in the news are still political actors after seven years of the ‘crisis’ in both countries. Unexpectedly, this persistent finding has triggered the politicization of this theme in both countries despite their great disparities.
Health co-benefits of sub-national renewable energy policy in the US

State and local policy-makers in the US have shown interest in transitioning electricity systems toward renewable energy sources and in mitigating harmful air pollution. However, the extent to which sub-national renewable energy policies can improve air quality remains unclear. To investigate this issue, we develop a systemic modeling framework that combines economic and air pollution models to assess the projected sub-national impacts of Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPSs) on air quality and human health, as well as on the economy and on climate change. We contribute to existing RPS cost-benefit literature by providing a comprehensive assessment of economic costs and estimating economy-wide changes in emissions and their impacts, using a general equilibrium modeling approach. This study is also the first to our knowledge to directly compare the health co-benefits of RPSs to those of carbon pricing. We estimate that existing RPSs in the ‘Rust Belt’ region generate a health co-benefit of $94 per ton CO2 reduced ($2-477/tCO2) in 2030, or 8¢ for each kWh of renewable energy deployed (0.2–40¢ kWh−1) in 2015 dollars. Our central estimate is 34% larger than total policy costs. We estimate that the central marginal benefit of raising renewable energy requirements exceeds the marginal cost, suggesting that strengthening RPSs increases net societal benefits. We also calculate that carbon pricing delivers health co-benefits of $211/tCO2 in 2030, 63% greater than the health co-benefit of reducing the same amount of CO2 through an RPS approach.
Effects of Integrated Resort Experience on Customers’ Hedonic and Eudaimonic Well-Being

This study examines the impact of integrated resort brand experiences (IRBEs) on customer well-being through the satisfaction of psychological needs. Partial least squares path modeling tests the hypotheses using a sample of 535 integrated resort customers. The results reveal that four dimensions of IRBE (i.e., sensory, affective, behavioral, and intellectual) have differing effects on needs satisfaction dimensions (i.e., autonomy, competence, and relatedness). Furthermore, the results show that autonomy and relatedness needs positively influence both hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Thus, this study strongly demonstrates that specific brand experiences play an important role in the transformation of needs satisfaction into well-being. The current article appears to have a significant application of the concept of needs satisfaction on tourism brand marketing but it has not been tested empirically. Also, this article describes the significance of multidimensional IRBE to marketing strategy.
REBRANDING THE ELECTORAL PROCESS IN NIGERIA’S FOURTH REPUBLIC: ROLE OF INDEPENDENT NATIONAL ELECTORAL COMMISSION

Nigeria continued to dominate both national and international political discourse as a model of democracy for the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa immediately after the successful conduct and the outcome of the 2015 general elections that saw for the first time peaceful conduct of elections and transition from one civilian administration to the other and which brought the opposition party to power without violence or bloodshed. However, following the conclusion and outcome of the 2019 general elections, Nigeria has become a surprise to political scholars and commentators who find it difficult to unravel how she failed to consolidate the gains of the 2015 general elections so as to emerge stronger as a democratic nation. This study adopts the governance approach, and explores the need to rebrand the processes of conducting elections in Nigeria in order to achieve enhanced democratic governance and also for a healthy synergy between the electorates, the political class, political parties and the institutions of government for inclusive nation building.It adopts both the qualitative and quantitative methods of research in its study between 1999 and 2019. It takes a critical look at what has become characterized as Nigeria’s ‘brand of politics’- which is essentially corrupt, violent, and manipulative of the wishes of the people as well as lacking in legitimacy. The work argues that except the electoral process is rebranded or transformed in line with acceptable international best practices of democratic culture where the will of the people is seen to prevail, political apathy may persist and this may hinder democratic development in the country.
The role of the rand as a shock absorber

This paper investigates the impact of rand shocks on industry output and various other South African macroeconomic variables. We use a factor augmented model, which has the key advantage of providing a rich narrative about the disaggregated impacts of exchange rate shocks. We show that the currency tends to react to changes in the relative fundamentals of the economy, such as those captured by commodity export prices, and that the independent impact on the economy of exchange rate changes that are unrelated to fundamentals is estimated to be small. The results suggest that the exchange rate tends to act as a shock absorber to the shocks that hit the economy: a large proportion of the variation in the rand can be explained by other shocks, while rand shocks themselves explain a relatively small proportion of South Africaâ€™s macroeconomic volatility. That said, the role that the exchange rate plays as a shock absorber appears to be weaker in South Africa than for other commodity exporters like Australia and New Zealand.
Developing a Holistic Model of Translation Quality Assessment

—Quality is the ultimate goal of any translation practices. However, a quality translation is always debatable for different methods of assessment, widely known as translation quality assessment (TQA). The issue of relativity and subjectivity is apparent in many TQA models. This study aims at developing a holistic TQA applicable for assessing translation from English to Bahasa Indonesia. This study used a research and development method. The data were both primary and secondary data. The primary data were the results of the interview and forum group discussion (FGD), and the secondary data were the research report. The data were analyzed using an interactive model. The findings of this research indicate that: (i) TQA should be based on a holistic method, (ii) a holistic-based TQA model should provide clearly distinguishing quality criteria, and (iii) the TQA model developed in this study assesses both translation and linguistic skills. This study concludes that a good TQA should cover the whole criteria of quality translation from both the translation and the linguistic aspects.
Understanding Sex Differences in Depressive Symptomatology among Malaysian Adolescents

Depressive symptomatology is among the major psychological problems experienced by adolescents. Sex differences in the occurrence of depressive symptoms have likewise been extensively reported in literature. However, a great majority of related research have primarily been carried out in the Western context. Hence, we conducted a study to identify the prevalence of depressive symptoms among Malaysian adolescents, and to determine its relationship with certain risk factors as well as the potential moderating role of sex. The sample comprised 964 adolescents from 20 secondary schools across Malaysia. Using logistic regression, results demonstrated that stressful life events and maternal verbal aggression significantly predicted symptoms of depression. In the moderation tests, sex significantly interacted with stressful life events and parental verbal aggression in predicting depressive symptoms. Hence, there is evidence to suggest that the depressogenic impact of stressful life events and parental verbal aggression on depressive symptomatology differs between male and female adolescents.