Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
DETERMINANTS OF USER ACCEPTANCE OF INTERNET BANKING: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

The explosion of Internet usage and the huge funding initiatives in electronic banking have drawn the attention of researchers towards Internet banking. In the past, the conventional focus of Internet banking research has been on technological development, but this is now shifting to user‐focused research. Although millions of dollars have been spent on building Internet banking systems, reports have shown that potential users may not use the systems in spite of their availability. This points out the need for research to identify the factors that determine acceptance of Internet banking by the users. According to the technology acceptance model (TAM), perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness constructs are believed to be fundamental in determining the acceptance and use of various IT. These beliefs may however not fully explain the user's behavior toward newly emerging IT, such as Internet banking. Using the technology acceptance model (TAM) as a theoretical framework, this study introduces “perceived credibility” as a new factor that reflects the user's security and privacy concerns in the acceptance of Internet banking. It also examines the effect of computer self‐efficacy on the intention to use Internet banking. Based on a sample of 123 users from a telephone interview, the results strongly support the extended TAM in predicting the intention of users to adopt Internet banking. It also demonstrates the significant effect of computer self‐efficacy on behavioral intention through perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and perceived credibility.
Soil Endowments, Female Labor Force Participation and the Demographic Deficit of Women in India

Differences in relative female employment by soil texture are used to explain the heterogeneous deficit of female children across districts within India. Soil texture varies exogenously and determines the depth of land tillage. Deep tillage, possible in loamy but not in clayey soil textures, reduces the demand for labor in agricultural tasks traditionally performed by women. Girls have a lower economic value where female labor opportunities are fewer. Consistently, higher relative female employment in agriculture improves the ratio of female to male children in districts that have a smaller fraction of loamy relative to clayey soils.
Life history trends of copepods Drepanopus forcipatus (Clausocalanidae) and Calanus australis (Calanidae) in the southern Patagonian shelf (SW Atlantic)

The copepods Drepanopus forcipatus and Calanus australis are key species in the mesozooplankton community over the southern Patagonian shelf. Their population abundance, stage composition and vertical distribution within the region were studied during late summer 2000. Individual size of adult females was also examined. Maximum abundances of D. forcipatus were recorded in outer waters of Grande Bay at ca. 51°S and decreased noticeably towards the northern and southern parts of the study area. Calanus australis was much less abundant but rather uniformly distributed over the entire study area. Highest numbers were recorded in the inner area of the Grande Bay and lowest in shelf waters offshore. Both populations were also differently distributed in the water column. Drepanopus forcipatus were concentrated mainly within the upper layers down to ca. 50 m, whereas C. australis were deeper close to the bottom. Late copepodids were dominant in both populations over most of the shelf. Size variation of adult females was much larger in D. forcipatus than in C. australis. Overall, these preliminary data suggest that both copepod species have developed different life-cycle strategies to contend with the suboptimal food conditions that typically follow the spring net-phytoplankton bloom in high latitude ecosystems.
Savings and wealth of the lifetime rich: evidence from the UK and US

Whether higher lifetime income households do save a larger share of their income is one of the longstanding empirical questions in economics that has been surprisingly difficult to answer. We use both consumption data and a new dataset containing both individual survey data on wealth holdings and administrative data on earnings histories from the UK to examine this question. We find evidence of a positive relationship between saving rates (and wealth accumulation) and levels of permanent income. Our findings are consistent with earlier results from Dynan, Skinner and Zeldes (2004) using consumption data from the US, but somewhat at odds with evidence from the UK which has examined retirement wealth and lifetime earnings in the Health and Retirement Study, HRS (Gustman & Steinmeier 1999, Venti & Wise 1998). We present new evidence using more recent HRS data, applying exactly the same methodology as we have used on the UK data, and find broadly the same results as these earlier papers. This suggests that the differences are not solely driven by differences in methodology or time period considered.
Niche Market and Product Customization: Approaches to Increase the Arab Tourist Arrivals to Egypt: A Study of Hotels and Travel Agents

According to the tourism competitiveness report, Egypt occupied the 64th rank globally in 2010, 75th in 2011, and 85th in 2013, while regionally Egypt occupied the 6th rank in 2009, and the 9th rank in 2013. This decrease in Egypt’s rank globally and regionally is mainly due to the lack of political stability and terrorist attacks in the Arab Area. While efforts could be made to retrieve the international arrivals, two alternatives could be adopted to promote tourism activities and support the contribution of tourism to the country’s economy; the first is to promote internal tourism activities, while the second is to target a niche market and customize a specific product/ service to satisfy the requirements of its customers. A niche market is the subset of the market on which a specific product is focused. The market niche defines the product features aimed at satisfying specific market needs, as well as the price range, production quality and the demographics that is intended to impact. Product customization is producing a physical good or a service that is tailored to a particular customer’s or market’s requirements. Having Egypt in its location in addition to having the same language, culture, and similar habits should push tourism stakeholders to make use of that in targeting the Arab tourism market. Therefore, this study aims to identify the approaches that hotels and travel agents in Egypt can adopt to attract the Arab tourist and increase the Arab arrivals to Egypt. The study focuses on two approaches (niche market and product customization) through which hotels and travel agents can produce specific packages to attract the Arab Tourist. To achieve the aim of this study, the quantitative-qualitative approaches will be incorporated in this research. A questionnaire form will be used to collect the perceptions of travel agent and hotel managers towards the Arab niche market and customizing a product to target this significant global market subset. Personal interviews will be conducted with some managers of travel agents and hotels to help identify the needs of the Arab tourism market. This study has many managerial implications to hotels and travel agents and significant insights to public authorities to encourage the Arab tourists and improve the numbers of tourist arrivals to Egypt. Key Words: Niche Market, Product customization, Arab Tourists, Hotels, Travel agents, Egypt.
The aerosol-climate model ECHAM6.3-HAM2.3: Aerosol evaluation

Abstract. We introduce and evaluate the aerosol simulations with the global aerosol-climate model ECHAM6.3-HAM2.3, which is the aerosol component of the fully coupled aerosol-chemistry-climate model ECHAM-HAMMOZ. Both the host atmospheric climate model ECHAM6.3 and the aerosol model HAM2.3 were updated from previous versions. The updated version of the HAM aerosol model contains improved parameterizations of aerosol processes such as cloud activation, as well as updated emission fields for anthropogenic aerosol species and modifications in the online computation of sea salt and mineral dust aerosol emissions. Aerosol results from nudged and free running simulations for the 10-year period 2003 to 2012 are compared to various measurements of aerosol properties. While there are regional deviations between model and observations, the model performs well overall in terms of aerosol optical thickness, but may underestimate coarse mode aerosol concentrations to some extent, so that the modeled particles are smaller than indicated by the observations. Sulfate aerosol measurements in the US and Europe are reproduced well by the model, while carbonaceous aerosol species are biased low. Both mineral dust and sea salt aerosol concentrations are improved compared to previous versions of ECHAM-HAM. The evaluation of the simulated aerosol distributions serves as a basis for the suitability of the model for simulating aerosol-climate interactions in a changing climate.
Does Early Child Care Help or Hurt Children's Development?

More children than ever attend center-based care early in life. We study whether children who attend center-based care before age 3 have better or worse language and motor skills, socio-emotional maturity, and school readiness just before entering primary school. In data covering about 36,000 children in one West German state, we use a marginal treatment effects framework to show how causal effects vary with observed characteristics of children, parents, and care centers and with unobserved preferences for center-based care. Early center-based care benefits children with less educated mothers or foreign parents. Benefits increase when parents have a preference for center-based care. Centers with small playgroups and with experienced, trained, or full-time working staff produce the best effects. A modest expansion of the number of places in early care centers improves children's development, whereas a strong expansion has no significant effects.
Water exchanges versus water works: Insights from a computable general equilibrium model for the Balearic Islands

We present a computable general equilibrium model (CGE) for the Balearic Islands, specifically performed to analyze the welfare gains associated with an improvement in the allocation of water rights through voluntary water exchanges (mainly between the agriculture and urban sectors). For the implementation of the empirical model we built the social accounting matrix (SAM) from the last available input‐output table of the islands (for the year 1997). Water exchanges provide an important alternative to make the allocation of water flexible enough to cope with the cyclical droughts that characterize the natural water regime on the islands. The main conclusion is that the increased efficiency provided by “water markets” makes this option more advantageous than the popular alternative of building new desalinization plants. Contrary to common opinion, a “water market” can also have positive and significant impacts on the agricultural income.
Shear Wave Splitting Analysis to Estimate Fracture Orientation and Frequency Dependent Anisotropy

Shear wave splitting is a well-known method for indication of orientation, radius, and length of fractures in subsurface layers. In this paper, a three component near offset VSP data acquired from a fractured sandstone reservoir in southern part of Iran was used to analyse shear wave splitting and frequency-dependent anisotropy assessment. Polarization angle obtained by performing rotation on radial and transverse components of VSP data was used to determine the direction of polarization of fast shear wave which corresponds to direction of fractures. It was shown that correct implementation of shear wave splitting analysis can be used for determination of fracture direction. During frequencydependent anisotropy analysis, it was found that the time delays in shearwaves decrease as the frequency increases. It was clearly demonstrated throughout this study that anisotropy may have an inverse relationship with frequency. The analysis presented in this paper complements the studied conducted by other researchers in this field of research.
Nominal Frictions, Monetary Policy, and Long-Run Risk

I show that long-run risk - highly persistent variation in expected consumption growth - arises endogenously in a production economy with nominal frictions. The `long-run' part comes from price stickiness. Nominal frictions in the model generate a consumption growth process that shows low persistence unconditionally, but has a highly persistent conditional mean. The `risk' part comes from Epstein-Zin preferences, which result in a large risk premium being associated with variation in the conditional mean. The model provides new testable implications for long-run-risk models, and restricts the joint distribution of consumption and nominal equity and bond risk premia. A calibrated version of the model generates consumption, a risk-free interest rate, and equity risk premium behavior that are consistent with U.S. data.
Socio-Economic And Socio-Cultural Predisposing Risk Factors To Hiv/Aids: Case Study Of Some Locations In Eastern Nigeria

The prevalence of HIV/AIDS and associated sociocultural and socioeconomic risk behaviours were studied among Commercial Sex Workers, Single parents, Long-Distance-Truck Drivers, Street Children and Students along the North-South highway in Eastern Nigeria. Screening for HIV antibodies was by EIA and ELISA. Structured questionnaires and focus group discussions were used for investigative data collection tested by t-test and Chi-square. HIV prevalence occurred as follows: Commercial Sex Workers 23%; Students 21%; Single Parents 20%, Long-Distance-TruckDrivers 19%, Street Children 16%. Major mode of HIV transmission was heterosexual transmission; severe economic repression (poverty), illiteracy, economic-driven-migrationalactivities and unemployment were chief socioeconomic risk factors, while polygamy/concubinage, marriage for the dead, surrogate marriage of women to woman were main sociocultural lapses which create vulnerability of women to clandestine sex working/prostitution and subsequent exposure to STDs including HIV/AIDS. The study further observed that major high-ways constitute flashpoints through which the HIV gets foothold in the communities.
Facilitating the Commercialization of Collaborative Consumption Websites: Effects of Free Trial Strategy and Price Transparency on Users' Behavioral Intentions, Attitudes, and Emotions.

The rise of the sharing economy over the last decade is a disruptive megatrend that is profoundly transforming consumer behavior. This study investigates the case of collaborative consumption (CC) platforms, which enable the peer-to-peer-based exchange of goods and services facilitated by information and communications technologies (ICT). In doing so, it seeks to address the problem of user backlashes in the context of a start-up platform’s commercialization. The aim of this paper is to identify effective measures to counteract user resentment and user migration as negative consequences of a payment scheme introduction. Specifically, the effects of different types of trialability strategies (freemium vs. time-locked free trial) and different levels of price transparency (low vs. high) on users’ perceived risk, trust, future usage intention, word-of-mouth intention, brand attitude, and brand affect are assessed. To put these considerations into practice, a 2x2 scenario-based experiment was carried out by means of an online survey. A fictitious CC marketplace start-up formed the basis of the data collection. The gathered sample (N = 219) was balanced in terms of age distribution, gender, and educational background and consisted of German individuals. After applying structural equation modeling, the results revealed significant main effects for price transparency on all above mentioned outcome variables. Moreover, interaction effects of trialability strategy and price transparency as predictors on CC platform users’ perceived risk and trust were detected. Risk and trust in turn function as mediators in the model: While perceived risk was found to negatively impact trust, trust determined users’ behavioral intentions, attitudes, and emotions in regard to the portrayed CC platform. This study underlines the importance of a marketing approach geared towards cultivating long-term consumer-brand relationships on the basis of trust. CC platforms may achieve this by implementing a communication strategy with consistent high levels of price transparency. Firstly, companies should reveal both current and future accruing fees as early as at the time of a user’s initial registration. Secondly, this pricing information should be presented in a salient manner, while being supported by appropriate formatting and graphical elements. Thirdly, platforms can profit from deliberately pairing high price transparency with a certain type of trialability strategy: In order to stimulate trust while reducing perceived risk, employing the time-locked free trial promises optimized results. Future studies are advised to focus on investigating other useful risk-reducing and trust-building measures, which may promote more positive user responses in regards to the commercialization of CC platforms. Keywords: sharing economy, collaborative consumption, platform commercialization, trialability strategy, freemium, time-locked free trial, price transparency, brand trust
MINANGKABAU WOMEN IN JAKARTA : THEIR PERCEPTIONS OF MINANG LANGUAGE , INDONESIAN LANGUAGE , AND MINANG CULTURE

Of the so many ethnic groups in Indonesia, the Minangkabau-or Minang-people have the strongest tradition of migration. This ethnic group is also known as the largest matrilineal society in the world (Wikipedia). This qualitative study looks at how the Minang women who live in the surrounding areas of Jakarta perceive the Minang language, Indonesian language, and Minang culture in their daily lives. The data were collected through in-depth interviews with four adult female Minang informants, aged between 39 to 55 years old. This study reveals that the four women no longer perceive the Minang language as important to be maintained. They prefer to use Indonesian in their daily communication, both in the family domain as well as the public domain. In relation to the Minang culture, the four women tend to maintain the egalitarian and democratic principles of the Minang tradition. In fact, the quality of maintaining and passing on the Minang culture to their children depends on the attachment of the women to the culture itself.
ANALYSIS OF THE ADOPTION OF FARM YARD MANURE AMONG SMALL -SCALE FARMERS IN DELTA STATE, NIGERIA

Based on the concept of technology adoption, a logit model was us ed to analyze the determinant of farm yard manure (FYM) adoption decision by small scale farmers in Delta State, Nigeria. One hundred and twenty seven extension contact farmers were randomly selected and studied with the use of structured questionnaire/interview schedule. The logit model was used to analyze the primary data collected. The results of the study revealed that, the small
Evaluation of XpertMTB/Rif performance for diagnosis of tuberculosis among HIV positive patients in northern Tanzania

Background: Diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) in patients co-infected with HIV poses an important challenge since they are usually smear negative for pulmonary TB. The reason for this is the low sensitivity and specificity of microscopy as the standard diagnostic method . This study aimed to evaluate the performance of the XpertMTB/Rif tool for TB diagnosis among TB-HIV co-infected patients in order to characterize TB features in HIV co-infections. The study assessed the sensitivity, specificity and positive and negative predictive values of XpertMTB/Rif for TB detection in symptomatic and asymptomatic patients. Methods: This was a cross-sectional analytical study involving 69 patients as study participants. Demographic, clinical, laboratory and radiological data were collected. The performance of the XpertMTB/RIF and microscopy using LJ culture as a gold standard were determined and compared. Results: XpertMTB/Rif had a higher sensitivity (100%), specificity (100%), PPV (79.2%) and NPV (98.9%) as compared to microscopy. There was a strong correlation between XpertMTB/Rif, LJ culture and Microscopy in terms of their sensitivity and specificity. Conclusion: While using TB symptoms screening tool alone in HIV infected individuals may result into overtreatment, relying on microscopy alone has the potential of TB under-diagnosing, miss-diagnosing and delayed treatment. Our results show XpertMTB/Rif to be highly sensitive and specific to detect all culture positive TB cases among HIV patients. We recommend the adoption of XpertMTB/Rif as an early TB diagnosis tool among HIV patients for early detection of TB among HIV patients.
On the Stationary Convection of Thermohaline Problems of Veronis and Stern Types

The stability of thermohaline convection problems of Veronis and Stern types for stationary convection is studied for quite general nature of boundaries. It is shown by means of an appropriately chosen linear transformation, that in case of stationary convection the equations describing the eigenvalue problem for thermohaline convection problems are identical to equations describing the eigenvalue problem for classical Benard convection problem. As a consequence, the values of the critical Rayleigh numbers for the onset of stationary convection in thermohaline convection problems are obtained. Also, necessary conditions for the validity of principle of exchange of stabilities for thermohaline convection problems are derived using variational principle.
QUENCH DYNAMICS IN SRF CAVITIES : CAN WE LOCATE THE QUENCH ORIGIN WITH 2ND SOUND ?

A newly developed method of locating quenches in SRF cavities by detecting second-sound waves has been gaining popularity in SRF laboratories. The technique is based on measurements of time delays between the quench as determined by the RF system and arrival of the second-sound wave to the multiple detectors placed around the cavity in superfluid helium. Unlike multi-channel temperature mapping, this approach requires only a few sensors and simple readout electronics; it can be used with SRF cavities of almost arbitrary shape. One of its drawbacks is that being an indirect method it requires one to solve an inverse problem to find the location of a quench. We tried to solve this inverse problem by using a parametric forward model. By analyzing the data we found that the approximation where the second-sound emitter is a near-singular source does not describe the physical system well enough. A time-dependent analysis of the quench process can help us to put forward a more adequate model. We present here our current algorithm to solve the inverse problem and discuss the experimental results.
Existence of continuous solutions to evolutionary quasi-variational inequalities with applications

The author presents dynamic elastic trafﬁc equilibrium problems with data depending explicitly on time and studies under which assumptions the continuity of solutions with respect to the time can be ensured. In particular, regularity results for solutions to time-dependent quasi-variational inequalities associated to a general class of closed lower semicontinuous multifunctions will be showed. These results will be obtained making use of the property of the Mosco’s convergence. At last, it will be applied an example of the dynamic elastic trafﬁc equilibrium problem.