Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Working Paper Series Demographics and inflation Task force on low inflation ( LIFT )

Most euro area countries have entered an unprecedented ageing process: life expectancy continues to rise and fertility rates have declined, while retirement age in the last twenty to thirty years hardly increased. This implies an ever smaller fraction of the working age population in total population, leading to changes in consumption and saving behaviours and having an important impact on the macroeconomy. In this paper we focus on the relationship between demographic change and inflation. We find that based on a cointegrated VAR model there is a positive long-run relationship between inflation and the growth rate of working-age population as a share in total population in the euro area countries as a whole, but also in the US and Germany. We also find that this relation is mitigated by the effect of monetary policy, which we account for by including the short-term interest rate in our analysis. One caveat of the analysis could be that the empirical relationship as found does not sufficiently take into account changes in policy settings following the high inflation experiences in the 1970s. Our findings support the view that demographic trends are among the forces that shape the economic environment in which monetary policy operates. This is particularly relevant for countries, like many in Europe, that face an ageing process. JEL Classification: E31, J11, C22
What Drives Returns to Higher Education : Evidence from Russian Regions

In this study, we examine cross-regional variation in the rates of private return to higher education (RoRHE) in Russia. We obtain estimates of RoRHE for each of about 80 regionssubjects of the Russian Federation by estimating region-specific mincerian wage equations using micro-data from the Occupational Wages Survey conducted by Rosstat in 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013, and 2015. In any year, differences in regional RoRHEs were huge. For instance, in 2015 they ranged from about 38% to 125% (to the mean wage of workers with secondary education) against about 65% at the country level. Next, we regress estimates of RoRHEs on regional economic and labor market indicators, controlling for regional and time fixed effects. We find positive and robust correlation of RoRHEs with both regional per capita GDPs and relative stocks of workers with higher education. RoRHE also tend to be higher in regions with less favorable living conditions. Overall, our findings raise questions regarding the usefulness of the country-level approach to estimate return to education, at least in large countries, and may have important implications for cross-national research.
Organizational agility and firm performance : evidence from information and communication technology ( ICT ) businesses in Thailand

The research objective of this investigation aims at testing the consequences of organizational agility on enterprises’ performances through the intermediating influences of marketing effectiveness, productivity in any organizations, business excellence and competitive advantage. The data were gathered by survey questionnaires deal to the organizational managers from Information and Communication Technology (ICT) businesses in Thailand. The analysis counts on 153 entire questionnaires. The OLS regression analysis illustrates that responsiveness; competency, flexibility, and speed disclose a positive effect on consequences significantly. In addition, marketing effectiveness, organizational productivity, business excellence, competitive advantage increases demonstrate a positive association significantly with the firm performance. Long-term vision, market culture, and resource richness are the antecedents of organizational agility scheme. What’s more, the competitive climate is the moderating variable of the relationships. Practicable discussion is efficaciously carried out in this research. Contributions to both theories and management are expressly arranged for further research.
Relationship Between Emotional Intelligence , Work Attitude & Outcomes : Examination of Indian Middle-Managerial Level

This study is an attempt to assess the impact of emotional intelligence on middle level managers in Indian organizations. The study examines the extent to which middle level managers with high emotional intelligence are capable of developing positive work attitudes and outcomes. The results indicate that emotional intelligence had significant relationship with work attitudes and work outcomes which also impacted work family conflict, job involvement and job performance in the Indian context. However, career commitment, organisational commitment and job satisfaction was found to have no impact of high/low emotional intelligence possessed by employees in Indian cultural context.
Fanti Informal incentive labour contracts and product market competition

This paper studies the dynamic interaction between product market competition and incentives against shirking. It is shown that efficiency wages can both increase and decrease when competition becomes fiercer. Instead, discretionary bonuses do not vary with competition but there exists an upper threshold for the number of competing firms, over which such schemes are no longer sustainable as equilibrium. Finally, industry profits under bonuses are generally higher than under efficiency wages, but the reverse actually applies when information about firms’ misbehaviour flows at a low rate and the number of firms exceeds the critical threshold. Classificazione JEL: J33, J41, L13
Audit Market Concentration and Audit Quality in Nigeria

The broad objective of this study is to examine audit market concentration and audit quality in Nigeria. The longitudinal research design was adopted for this study. The data used in the study were obtained from 540 firm-year observations, comprising of sixty (60) Nigeria listed companies from the period of 20072015. Model on the input-based measure of audit quality was adopted in the study. Regression analysis was carried out with the aid of E-views 8.0. The results revealed that audit market concentration increases audit quality of the sampled firms in Nigeria. Implying that the Big 4 audit firm tends to have more far reaching client base and cannot help but render quality audit to ensure clients retention and public confidence. We recommended that the non-Big 4 audit firms should invest in human capital development so as to improve and expand the knowledge and technical skills of their staff.
Three perspectives on sustainable food security : ef fi ciency , demand restraint , food system transformation . What role for LCA ?

Achieving food system sustainability is a global priority but there are different views on how it might be achieved. Broadly three perspectives are emerging, defined here as: efficiency oriented, demand restraint and food system transformation. These reflect different conceptualisations on what is practically achievable, and what is desirable, underpinned by different values and ideologies about the role of technology, our relationship with nature and fundamentally what is meant by a ‘good life. ’ This paper describes these emerging perspectives and explores their underlying values; highlights LCA’s role in shaping these perspectives; and considers how LCA could be oriented to clarify thinking and advance policy-relevant knowledge. It argues that more work is needed to understand the values underlying different approaches to the food sustainability problem. This can shed light on why stakeholders disagree, where there are genuine misunderstandings, and where common ground is possible and ways
A Comparative Analysis of Reinforcement Learning Methods

This paper analyzes the suitability of reinforcement learning (RL) for both programming and adapting situated agents. We discuss two RL algorithms: Q-learning and the Bucket Brigade. We introduce a special case of the Bucket Brigade, and analyze and compare its performance to Q in a number of experiments. Next we discuss the key problems of RL: time and space complexity, input generalization, sensitivity to parameter values, and selection of the reinforcement function. We address the tradeoffs between the built-in and learned knowledge and the number of training examples required by a learning algorithm. Finally, we suggest directions for future research.
Geophysicae Study of desert dust events over the southwestern Iberian Peninsula in year 2000 : two case studies

Strong desert dust events occurring in 2000 over the southwestern Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsula are detected and evaluated by means of the TOMS Aerosol Index (A.I.) at three different sites, Funchal (Madeira Island, Portugal), Lisboa (Portugal) and El Arenosillo (Huelva, Spain). At the El Arenosillo station, measurements from an AERONET Cimel sunphotometer allow a more precise retrieval of the spectral AOD and the derived alphå Angstr̈om coefficient. After using different threshold values of these parameters, we conclude that it is difficult to establish reliable and robust criteria for an automatic estimation of the number of dust episodes and the total number of dusty days per year. As a result, additional information, such as airmass trajectories, were used to improve the estimation, from which reasonable results were obtained (although some manual editting was still needed). A detailed characterization of two selected desert dust episodes, a strong event in winter and another of less intensity in summer, was carried out using AOD derived from Brewer spectrometer measurements. Size distribution parameters and radiative properties, such as arefractive index and the aerosol single scattering albedo derived from Cimel data, were analyzed in detail for one of these two case studies. Although specific to this dust episode, the retrieved range of values of these parameters clearly reflect the characteristics of desert aerosols. Back-trajectory analysis, synoptic weather maps and satellite images were also considered together, as supporting data to assess the aerosol desert characterization in this region of study.
The effect of udder health on mineral concentrations and fatty acid composition of alpine goat milk *

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the concentrations of minerals and fatty acid content in milk of of multiparous Alpine goats (n=38). Milk samples for analyses were taken at four sampling times during the lactation period only in the evening milking (DIM: 56, 118, 196 and 224 days) from the fully milked udder, thus 152 milk samples were collected. Somatic cell counts (SCC) and milk constituents (fat, protein, lactose) were investigated from milk samples and the prevalence of pathogen bacteria presence was determined by bacteriological tests. In this study only mastitis free samples were analysed for their contents of minerals (Ca, K, Na, Mg, Zn and chlorine) and fatty acid composition. Samples were divided into two groups by somatic cell count: below 400.000 somatic cells/ml (n=19) and above 1.000. 000 somatic cells/ml (n=20). The somatic cell counts have significant effects on milk composition, mineral and fatty acid contents of the milk. Milk quality parameters gradually changed in the samples above 1.000. 000 cells/ml. Concentrations of the milk fat content, Na, Mg, and chlorine increased (P<0.05), while the lactose content and Zn concentration decreased. Furthermore, the udder health had great effect on the short and medium chain fatty acids de novo synthesis in the mammary gland. The unfavourable udder health status resulted in the reduced secretory activity of mammary epithelium, leading to lower concentrations of short and medium chain fatty acids in milk fat in the high SCC group. These results suggest that the higher SSC is associated with disadvantageous milk properties, which significantly reduced milk quality.
Restricted Boltzmann Machine as Recommendation Model for Venture Capital GUSTAV FREDRIKSSON

In this thesis, we introduce restricted Boltzmann machines (RBMs) as a recommendation model in the context of venture capital. A network of connections is used as a proxy for investors’ preferences of companies. The main focus of the thesis is to investigate how RBMs can be implemented on a network of connections and investigate if conditional information can be used to boost RBMs. The network of connections is created by using board composition data of Swedish companies. For the network, RBMs are implemented with and without companies’ place of origin as conditional data, respectively. The RBMs are evaluated by their learning abilities and their ability to recreate withheld connections. The findings show that RBMs perform poorly when used to recreate withheld connections but can be tuned to acquire good learning abilities. Adding place of origin as conditional information improves the model significantly and show potential as a recommendation model, both with respect to learning abilities and the ability to recreate withheld connections. Restricted Boltzmann Machine som Rekommendationsmodell för Riskkapital Sammanfattning Denna studie introducerar restricted Boltzmann machines (RBMs) som rekommendationsmodell i kontexten av riskkapital. Ett nätverk av relationer används som proxy för att modellera investerares bolagspreferenser. Studiens huvudfokus är att undersöka hur RBMs kan implementeras för ett dataset bestående av relationer mellan personer och bolag, samt att undersöka om modellen går att förbättra genom att tillföra av ytterligare information. Nätverket skapas från styrelsesammansättningar för svenska bolag. För nätverket implementeras RBMs både med och utan den extra informationen om bolagens ursprungsort. Vardera RBM-modell undersöks genom att utvärdera dess inlärningsförmåga samt förmåga att återskapa manuellt gömda relationer. Resultatet påvisar att RBM-modellerna har en bristfällig förmåga att återskapa borttagna relationer, dock noteras god inlärningsförmåga. Genom att addera ursprungsort som extra information förbättras modellerna markant och god potential som rekommendationsmodell går att urskilja, både med avseende på inlärningsförmåga samt förmåga att återskapa gömda relationer.
Detecting Auctioneer ’ s Corruption : Evidence from Russian Procurement Auctions ̊

This paper documents evidence of large-scale auctioneer’s corruption in procurement using a novel data set of first-price sealed-bid auctions in Russia. We develop a set of new methods for detecting the leakage of bids by the auctioneer to one of the bidders in a sealed-bid auctions setting. The data set consists of more than three million auctions over the last five years. Our first group of methods employs both the information on timings when the bids were placed as well as the bids’ data itself. Our second group of methods only uses the information on bids, without timings. The estimates from bids and timings’ method show that 8-9% of the auctions are affected by auctioneer’s corruption in the form of bid leakage. The estimates from the bids’ method show that 16% of the auctions are affected. Both types of methods allow us to explore heterogeneity of bid leakage corruption across industries and regions.
Robust Structured Controllers for Uncertain Piezoelectric Microactuators

This paper introduces a new control scheme which incorporate the concept of shaping filter together with the use of the ν-gap metric and the robust design of a structured controller. The main motivation in doing this is related to the development of efficient control laws for piezoelectric microactuators in the context of micromanipulation and microassembly. These systems are intrinsically nonlinear and very sensitive to the environmental conditions, thus requiring robust control to ensure a precise positioning despite disturbances. Designing a structured controller is known to be computationally intractable via the traditional H∞ method. This is mainly due to the non-convexity of the resulting control problem which is of fixed order or structure type. To solve this kind of control problem easily and directly, without using any complicated mathematical manipulations and without using too many “user defined” parameters, we utilize the heuristic Kalman algorithm (HKA) for the resolution of the underlying constrained non-convex optimization problem. The experimental results validate the proposed technique and demonstrate its convenience for the development of fast and precise micropositioning systems.
Spatiotemporal variations in the climatic response of Larix decidua from the Slovakian Tatra Mountains

Understanding past climate variability is crucial for the assessment of recent warming. Only a few millennium-long temperature reconstructions, mainly from Northern Scandinavia and the Alps, have so far been developed in Europe (Büntgen et al. 2011, Esper et al. 2012). For the Eastern part of the continent, dendroclimatological studies extending back into medieval times are, however, restricted to a single tree-ring width (TRW) record from historical timbers and living individuals of Larix decidua Mill. from the Slovakian Tatra Mountains (Büntgen et al. 2013). The Tatra comprises two sub-regions: In the High Tatra, trees grow under treeline conditions up to 1500 m asl in a subalpine environment, whereas the Low Tatra lacks alpine and treeline characteristics due to lower maximum elevations of 1100 m asl. A combined TRW dataset integrating samples from both sub-regions displayed a distinct May-June (MJ) summer temperature signal (Büntgen et al. 2013). Most of the historical timbers sampled in this region were, however, used in buildings in lower elevations. The provenance of this historical material could not clearly be identified, though it seems reasonable to assume that the timbers used in lower elevations originate from lower elevation forest sites. Changing climate-growth response patterns as a function of altitude are, however, a well-known feature in alpine settings (Hartl-Meier et al. 2014) and have also been reported for various species across the Tatra Mountains (Büntgen et al. 2007). Here, we assess the variability of site-specific climate signals of Larix decidua Mill. as a function of altitude and time. TRW data from site in the High and Low Tatra were separately analyzed to obtain a better understanding of the underlying climatic controls of tree growth in different altitudes. Temporal robustness of the incorporated climate signals is also tested throughout the 20 century (1901-2009), while focusing on variations in the best-responding seasonal windows within the vegetation period.
Efficient VLSI implementation of modern symmetric block ciphers

In this paper efficient VLSI architectures for three modern symmetric block ciphers RC5-32/12/16, SAFER K-128 and 3WAY are discussed. The connection between algorithm properties and VLSI architectures are described. An exemplary performance analysis and comparison of VLSI architectures for a 0.7 /spl mu/m CMOS standard cell process are carried out. The results of the work are reusable soft and firm cores, which can be embedded in integrated systems and allow high speed data encryption. One of the developed VLSI architectures for the 3WAY algorithm achieves a data throughput up to 1.6 Gbit/s, which is up to now the highest encryption speed of a sym. block cipher realized in a CMOS process.
Luca Spataro Financial Literacy , Human Capital and Stock Market Participation in Europe : An Empirical Exercise under Endogenous Framework Discussion

Households’ stock market participation has significant effects on savings and on an economy’s financial development and performance. Yet participation into capital markets is limited and quite heterogonous both among and within several countries. This phenomenon represents an empirical puzzle whose understanding is rather incomplete. In this work we exploit a combination of datasets for 9 European countries and use different econometric specifications that allow to control for endogeneity of financial literacy and human capital, to assess the role of several variables in affecting the probability to participate in the stock market in year 2010. Besides socio-demographic variables, we find that financial literacy has a positive and significant effect on stock market participation, together with the level of human capital. Country level differences are explained by such institutional factors as the effectiveness of the education system, captured by the student-teacher ratio, and by the attractiveness of the stock markets, proxied by the pattern of sharpe-ratios.
Acceptance of E-L earning System at Faculty of Technical Sciences

This paper shows a research carried out at the Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad regarding the acceptance of e-learning system by students. The questionnaire used as a data collection tool was created in accordance with the UTAUT model with the aim of determining the acceptance of the implemented system. Within the paper, the obtained research results are analyzed using different statistical methods, after which a final model for measuring the acceptance of the e-learning system was obtained. The results contribute to a better understanding of how to measure the acceptance of e-learning systems, and how to improve its usage.
Evolution of the Sibi ş el Shear Zone ( South Carpathians ) : A study of its type locality near R ăş inari ( Romania ) and tectonic implications

The Sibişel Shear Zone is a 1–3 km wide, ductile shear zone located in the South Carpathian Mountains, Romania. In the Rășinari area, the ductile shear zone juxtaposes amphibolite facies rocks of the Lotru Metamorphic Suite against greenschist facies rocks of the Râuşorul Cisnădioarei Formation. The first represents the eroded remnants of Peri-Gondwanan arcs formed between the Neoproterozoic-Silurian (650–430Ma), regionally metamorphosed to amphibolite facies during the Variscan orogeny (350–320Ma). The second is composed of metasedimentary and metavolcanic Neoproterozoic-Ordovician (700–497Ma) assemblages of mafic to intermediate bulk composition also resembling an island arc metamorphosed during the Ordovician (prior to ~ 463Ma). Between these lie the epidote amphibolite facies mylonitic and ultramylonitic rocks of the Sibișel Formation, a tectonic mélange dominated by mafic actinolite schists attenuated into a high strain ductile shear zone. Mineral Rb-Sr isochrons document the time of juxtaposition of the three domains during the Permian to Early Triassic (~290–240Ma). Ductile shear sense indicators suggest a right lateral transpressive mechanism of juxtaposition; the Sibişel shear zone is a remnant Permo-Triassic suture between two Early Paleozoic Gondwanan terranes. A zircon and apatite U-Th/He age transect across the shear zone yields Alpine ages (54–90Ma apatite and 98–122Ma zircon); these data demonstrate that the exposed rocks were not subjected to Alpine ductile deformation. Our results have significant implications for the assembly of Gondwanan terranes and their docking to Baltica during Pangea’s formation. Arc terranes free of Variscan metamorphism existed until the Early Triassic, emphasizing the complex tectonics of terrane amalgamation during the closure of Paleotethys.