Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Investigating Factors Affecting Purchase Intention of iPhone

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate factors affecting purchase intention of iPhone. Which is the world famous product. That can be seen from the trend of the iPhone which is very popular among big cities allure the world. This study found the reason why consumers purchase intention of iPhone product and chooses the only people who use iPhone. Design/methodology/ approach The hypothesis were tested with a random survey (People use iPhone only) of 419 respondents in Bangkok area and using face-to-face and email survey method. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the empirical data. Finding The results indicated that the person who has the power to purchase iPhone in Bangkok (Thailand) is influenced by brand consciousness and perceived quality as mediator and positive related with future purchase intention. Research limitations/ implications Results of this study are limited by a group of people living in Bangkok area. Which may lead to the data received from the questionnaires, the only group of people in the capital and results of the study may not have been enough. To provide the guidelines for practitioner in enhancing the purchase intention, in this particular study of smartphone as iPhone brand. Originality/value – The topic of the smartphone marketing through iPhone is important to marketing researcher in Bangkok and the researches contribute to fulfilling the need for research evidence.
Creating Eco-Innovations for Sustainable Entrepreneurship and Development within European Countries

There is no doubt that innovations represented key source of competitive advantage in the last years. Therefore, firms were forced to come up with new or significantly improved goods, services as well as organizational and marketing practices. However, countries, firms and policy makers are facing great environmental challenges for sustainable development and entrepreneurship, which create large demand for Eco-innovations with environmental benefits nowadays. For these reasons, we are analyzing different factors influencing creation of firms´ Eco-innovations in the EU. To obtain an interpretable model of firms´ Eco-innovations and their determinants, we use fuzzy rule-based classification models and latest available data form Community Innovation Survey 2012-2014 created by Eurostat. Our results show that firms´ Eco-innovations are influenced by different factors according to the nature of innovation (product, process, organizational, marketing) in the EU. Public financial subsidies and firms´ environment (e.g. existing environmental regulations, taxes, charges or fees, market demand, and costs of inputs) play key role in the process of creation Eco-innovation with environmental benefits. These results show possible ways how support sustainable entrepreneurship and regional (national) development not only within analyzed countries. We provide initial analysis dealing with different kinds of Eco-innovations and its determinants that could help firms to develop and enhance their corporate innovation and environmental policies. These results could also inspire policy makers at different levels because we propose some practical implications. Keywords: eco-innovations, sustainable development, environmental benefits, entrepreneurship
A Structural Investigation of Quantitative Easing preliminary, please do not disseminate without consent authors’ consent

Did the quantitative easing measures (QE) conducted by the Fed during the Great Recession induce real effects? We seek to answer this question by estimating and filtering a medium scale DSGE model featuring a banking sector, financial frictions and the zero lower bound (ZLB). The expected duration of the ZLB is modeled to be endogenous. Using the smoothed series for counterfactual analysis we conclude that from 2009 to 2015 the overall QE measures contributed about 0.5 percent to output. While the effects of the liquidity provision was negligible, both the bond and MBS purchases had positive impact on consumption. Other than MBS purchases, government bond purchases had negative effects on investment and a negative net contribution to GDP. Whereas QE stimulates asset prices in the short-run, the persistent reduction of excess spreads lowers banks’ net worth, the loan supply, and hence real economic activity in the mid-run. Forecasts suggest that, through the link between banks balance sheet and investment, shutting down the QE program will have a strong recessionary ”hangover” effect, leading to a negative net-effect on output in the years after the end of QE.
D-NET: A Pre-Training and Fine-Tuning Framework for Improving the Generalization of Machine Reading Comprehension

In this paper, we introduce a simple system Baidu submitted for MRQA (Machine Reading for Question Answering) 2019 Shared Task that focused on generalization of machine reading comprehension (MRC) models. Our system is built on a framework of pretraining and fine-tuning, namely D-NET. The techniques of pre-trained language models and multi-task learning are explored to improve the generalization of MRC models and we conduct experiments to examine the effectiveness of these strategies. Our system is ranked at top 1 of all the participants in terms of averaged F1 score. Our codes and models will be released at PaddleNLP.
The Community Structure of RD Cooperation in Europe. Evidence from a social network perspective

The focus of this paper is on pre-competitive R&D cooperation across Europe, as captured by R&D joint ventures funded by the European Commission in the time period 1998-2002, within the 5th Framework Program. The cooperations in this Framework Program give rise to a bipartite network with 72,745 network edges between 25,839 actors (representing organizations that include firms, universities, research organizations and public agencies) and 9,490 R&D projects. With this construction, participating actors are linked only through joint projects. We formally describe and analyze the network from a social network perspective that shifts attention to the detection and analysis of the community structure within the network. Distinct communities within networks may be loosely defined as groups of actors such that there is a higher density of relations within groups than between them. In this study, we attempt to detect communities of actors solely on the basis of the relational structure within the network, and to characterize and differentiate the identified network communities by means of information-theoretic methods, community-specific profiles and the location of their major actors. We expect the results to enrich our picture of the European Research Area by providing new insights into the global and local structures of R&D cooperation across Europe.
Detecting Malware in TLS Traffic

The use of encryption on the Internet has spread rapidly these last years, a trend encouraged by the growing concerns about online privacy. TLS (Transport Layer Security), the standard protocol for packet encryption, is now implemented by every major websites to protect users’ messages, transactions and credentials. However cybercriminals have started to incorporate TLS into their activities. An increasing number of malware leverage TLS encryption to hide their communications and to exfiltrate data to their command server, effectively bypassing traditional detection platforms. The goal of this project is to design and implement an effective alternative to the unpractical method of decrypting TLS packets’ payload before looking for signs of malware activity. This work presents a highly accurate supervised classifier that can detect malicious TLS flows in a company’s network traffic based on a set of features related to TLS, certificates and flow metadata. The classifier was trained on curated datasets of benign and malware observations, which were extracted from capture files thanks to a set of tools specially developed for this purpose. We detail in this report the complete development process, from data collection and feature extraction to model selection and performance analysis.
PROJECTED CHANGES IN SNOWFALL EXTREMES AND INTERANNUAL SNOWFALL VARIABILITY IN THE WESTERN UNITED STATES*

Projected warming and more variable precipitation will impact snowfall accumulation and melt, with implications for water availability and management in snow-dominated regions. Projected changes in extreme snowfall events, which constitute 20-38% of annual snowfall water equivalent (SFE) in the western U.S., are confounded by projections of more extreme precipitation and the differential temperature sensitivities of snowfall events. Data from 20 global climate models downscaled and bias corrected to western U.S. Snowpack Telemetry stations are used to assess projected changes in extreme snowfall events and annual SFE. Annual SFE is projected to decrease at all stations. In the coldest regions, changes in the distribution of snowfall and precipitation events are similar, with substantial increases in the most extreme events and smaller changes in small and moderate events. In warmer regions, reductions are projected for all snowfall events, however large events will be far more resilient than small and moderate events due to differential temperature sensitivities and changes in precipitation. Variability in annual SFE is projected to increase, particularly in warmer regions, due to fewer snowfall days and the increasing importance of heavy snowfall events. In the coming century, water management will be challenged by reduced and significantly more variable snowpack. (
FIRM CHARACTERISTICS, DEMAND FOR EXTERNAL AUDITING SERvICES AND FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON COOPERATIvE ENTERPRISES IN EAST jAvA, INDONESIA

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of firm characteristics (consisting of members, cooperative scale and liabilities) on the demand for external auditing services and their implications on financial performance. This study uses secondary data collected from the Department of Small and Medium Enterprises and Cooperatives in East Java Province and then analysed using path analysis. Results showed that the effect of firm characteristics consisting only of members and cooperative scale is statistically significant on requests for external audit services. They also showed that the effect of firm characteristics in terms of liabilities and the demand for external auditing services is statistically significant on financial performance, indicating that the number of cooperative members determines the voluntary requests for external audit services. Cooperatives with large numbers of members tend to request for external auditing services. Large-scale cooperatives will increase the volume of transactions, which may cause errors in financial data and statements that will lead to requests for external auditing services. These requests are done to obtain accurate information. The agency theory indicates that cooperation with great amounts of liabilities has to show better performance because activities are monitored by stakeholders. In this case, financial reports are important in forming business decisions.
THE ROLES OF IT IN PHYSICAL AND INFORMATION PRODUCT INDUSTRIES: TESTING A CONTINGENCY MODEL OF THE IT- PRODUCTIVITY RELATIONSHIP

While empirical findings indicate that the IT-productivity relationship varies by industry, review research notes the lack of conceptual and empirical studies explaining these differences [39]. This paper conceptualizes an industry-level variable that is crucial to the IT-Productivity relationship: whether an industry produces physical products or information products. As IT is primarily used for information processing [18], industries that make products composed of information have very different IT effects from those that produce products composed of physical materials, and this may be the most important difference in IT effects between industries [48]. The few papers in this area study the IT-Productivity link at the industry or sector level, and find that information product industries have less of a link between IT and productivity than physical product industries. Drawing upon the information-processing view [18] and the concept of industry information-intensity [48], we hypothesize that this link should be in the opposite direction. Our empirical tests using a seven-year dataset find two differences in IT intensity between the two types of industries: Information product industries are not only more IT intense, but the variance in IT intensity is much higher than in physical product industries. In addition, we find that the firm-level ITProductivity relationship is much stronger in information product industries than in physical product industries, in contrast with prior industry and sector level studies.
Ecology of bivalves in the intertidal area of Ngemboh, Gresik, East Java, Indonesia

Bivalves are filter feeders that play important roles in providing food for local communities, as well as promoting ecosystem stability. A study of bivalve diversity, distribution and abundance, was conducted in the intertidal area of Ngemboh, Gresik, East Java, Indonesia, in March 2018, during rainy season. The aim was to investigate the ecological indices, like species richness and species abundance, as well as the environmental parameters that might influence these bivalve communities. Three replicates of 15 m transect lines with five 1x1 m quadrant plots in each line were set up seawards, perpendicular to the coastline. All bivalves in the quadrants were counted. There were 278 individual bivalves from 11 species, 8 genera, and 5 families in the research areas. On average, the species abundance was 3.08 ind/m. The values for Shannon’s diversity index (H'), Pielou’s evenness index (J’), and Simpson’s dominance index (C) were 1.16, 0.82 and 0.34, respectively. The Pearson correlation showed that the dissolved oxygen (DO) had a very high correlation with both species richness and diversity index (r=0.93 and r=0.92 respectively, P<0.01). Furthermore, Gafrarium pectinatum dominated 30% of the total abundance from all stations, suggesting this species to strongly shape the ecologicall indices in most research stations.
OP-BRAI190331 1..11

Gait freezing is a complex and devastating paroxysmal motor arrest commonly suffered in Parkinson’s disease that causes significant impairment to mobility, commonly resulting in falls and subsequent injury. The neurobiological basis of gait freezing in Parkinson’s disease is poorly understood and thus, currently available therapies are partially effective at best. We used a validated virtual reality gait paradigm to elicit freezing behaviour intraoperatively in eight patients undergoing subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation surgery while microelectrode recordings were obtained. This allowed us to directly test the hypothesis that increases in pathological multi-unit activity in the subthalamic nucleus are associated with freezing onset in real time, manifest as dysfunctional firing of lower limb muscles typical of freezing that were detected by EMG. We present evidence that freezing is related to transient increases in pathological subthalamic nucleus activity. We performed time-frequency analysis to characterize the oscillatory dynamics of subthalamic nucleus activity coincident with freezing onset, demonstrating an increase in pathological beta and theta rhythms that are followed by a temporal chain of activity culminating in characteristically abnormal lower limb muscle firing detected by EMG. Finally, we interrogate the potential clinical utility of our findings by contrasting the subthalamic nucleus activity signature during pathological freezing against purposeful stopping. These results advance our understanding of the neurobiological basis of gait freezing in Parkinson’s disease, highlighting the role of the subthalamic nucleus and emergent synchronous activity in basal ganglia circuits in driving non-purposeful motor arrests in individuals with Parkinson’s disease. Pathological subthalamic nucleus activity identified in association with freezing is discernible from that of volitional stopping, paving the way towards more effective therapeutics such as adaptive closed-loop deep brain stimulation protocols.
The Deep Roots of Inequality

This paper shows how wealth inequality was lower in East Asia than Western Europe over the very long-run, 1300-2000. A rich new dataset of village censuses in Japan, 1640-1870, and secondary evidence suggest Gini coefficients of wealth inequality in the East were 0.4-0.5 relative to 0.7-0.9 in the West preceding industrialization. Such regional patterns also precede the black death so any explanation must predate this. I propose the demographic institution of adoption as one such explanation. Adoption prevented the failure of male lines through which wealth was inherited. Adoption was practiced across Eurasia until the 5th century when the church began preaching against it. This increased household extinctions in Europe causing wealth concentration among surviving male lines. In contrast, the Japanese data suggest adoption prevented household extinctions and kept wealth in the family. Simulations show that this mechanism can explain much of the gap in regional wealth inequality. ∗Visiting Assistant Professor, Bocconi University, Department of Social and Political Sciences †The research leading to this article has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Program/ERC Grant agreement No. 725687, SMITE-Social Mobility and Inequality across Italy and Europe, 1300-1800. I thank Satomi Kurosu for giving me access to data from the Population and Family History Project at Reitaku University. I thank Hiroshi Kawaguchi for giving me access to the DANJURO database. I thank Gregory Clark for giving me access to data from England.
Perceptions of Indonesia's Decentralization – The Role of Performance Based Grants and Participatory Planning in Public Health Service Delivery

This paper analyses the perception of different stakeholders with respect to performance based transfer schemes and participatory planning in Indonesia. The paper presents theories of fiscal decentralization and participatory governance from an interdisciplinary perspective and illustrates a gap between the ideal, conceptualized by the academic discourse, and the actual implementation. With regard to Indonesia's Intergovernmental transfer design, the stakeholders refer to: the imbalanced and incomplete devolution of fiscal revenue authority and expenditure responsibilities, the high degree of uncertainty in transfers, the inadequate deployment of incentive schemes, and the low quality of spending, as the major shortcomings of Indonesia's intergovernmental transfer system. Regarding participatory governance, a lack of bureaucrats' capacity, resulting unsatisfactory guidance of participatory meetings, a bias towards the investment in infrastructure, lacking inclusion of marginalized groups and women as well as an inadequate implementation of participatory planning results, are frequently referred to as the major shortcomings. We present further insights into performance-based transfers schemes and participation designs and how they can induce organizational changes at the health service provider level, improve the quality of planning and spending, and lead to positive behavioral changes at the level of health service users.
EMPLOYEE TRAINING AND THE PERFORMANCE OF EMBU COUNTY GOVERNMENT, KENYA

Implementation of strategies is one of the most challenging task County Governments are facing in Kenya today including Embu County. Due to challenges of implementing formulated strategies Embu County Government has been experiencing declining performance. Therefore, it is on this background that this study sought to establish the effect of employee on the performance of Embu County Government. The specific objective of the study was to determine the effect of employee training on performance of Embu County Government. The study was informed by resource based view and holistic strategy implementation theories. The study adopted a descriptive research design and census sampling approach where the respondents of the study comprised top level management of Embu County Government. Primary data was obtained by use of questionnaires containing semi structured questions with secondary data being obtained from strategic plans and sessional papers on development of Counties in Kenya. Validity of the instrument was determined by using experts in strategic management in the school of Business, Kenyatta University while reliability of the instrument was determined by using Cronbach Alpha coefficients of 0.7. Qualitative data and quantitative data was analyzed using content analysis, correlation and regression analysis respectively.95% confidence level, regression analysis was used to test for statistical significance between variables. The study established that there exist a positive significant relationship between employee training and performance of Embu County Government. Since employee training had a positive effect on performance of Embu County Government the study recommends that more funds be allocated for training to enhancing employee capability to implement formulated strategies hence improving the overall county performance.
Are Political and Economic Integration Intertwined?

Economic incentives play a key role in the decision to run for office, but little is known on how they shape immigrants' selection into candidacy. We study this question using a two-period Roy model and show that if returns to labour market experience are higher for migrants than natives, migrants will be less likely to seek office than natives. We empirically assess this prediction using administrative data from Norway, a country with a very liberal regime for participation in local elections. Our results strongly support our theoretical model and indicate that immigrants' political and economic integration are closely intertwined.
Predicting axial performance of piles in pumiceous materials

The design of piles is typically undertaken using empirical or semi-empirical methods developed for ‘regular’ silica sands or clays. The application of such methods to geological materials whose physical characteristics are unlike those on which the conventional design methods were derived can result in unconservative estimates of pile capacity. The pumiceous deposits that occur extensively throughout the central North Island of New Zealand are one group of materials where such standard methods of design must be used with caution. Pile tests undertaken as part of the Stella Passage Bridge and Tauranga Harbour Bridge projects have provided a rare opportunity to examine the performance of different pile types within pumiceous soils. Although the highly frictional nature of pumiceous soils can lead counterintuitively to lower shaft capacities, the use of grouted or bored piles can give very good performance through the establishment of good soil-pile wall contact.