Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOWARDS ORGANISATIONAL SUCCESS OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES IN SULTANATE OF OMAN: A MEASUREMENT MODEL

The role of quality management has been limited to attract and train the staff. Therefore, this study discusses the relationship between TQM and project management towards organisational success in the Sultanate of Oman Agriculture and Fisheries context. For this study, data were collected through a self-administered questionnaire from the various Agriculture and Fisheries companies operating in Sultanate of Oman. The respondents for this study were the employees working at various Agriculture and Fisheries companies in Oman. A random sampling method was used to select the samples for this study. A self-administered questionnaire was developed basing on the literature review. However, few items were also be adapted from the existing scales on TQM, organisational success and project management. After adapting, all the items were modified according to the study requirements to make those fit for Oman context. The respondents were chosen from different companies randomly. Before that, the respondents were asked their willingness to participate in this survey, and only those who voluntarily agreed were given the questionnaire. The study findings show that there is a strong relationship between TQM and project management towards organisational success in the Agriculture and Fisheries context. The potential implications and recommendations of this study are discussed from methodological, empirical, and practical standpoints. Article visualizations:
Improved Algorithm of Classification Based on Association

Classification Based on Association(CBA) algorithm is one of the main methods in data mining.However,this algorithm only uses confidence parameter to process classification problem which may impact the classification accuracy.In this paper,a new improved method of CBA is presented.On the basis of CBA method,shorter rules are selected firstly for classification.Experimental results show this algorithm has higher classification accuracy and fewer numbers of classification rules than traditional ones.
Generation of Stereoscopic Image from 2D Image based on Saliency and Edge Modeling

2D영상의 3D변환 기술은 3D 디스플레이 및 3DTV에 기본적으로 장착된 기술로 꾸준히 연구 및 상업화가 진행된 기술이다. 이 기술은 3D 입체영상 콘텐츠 부족을 해결할 수 있다는 장점이 있다. 3D변환은 정지영상으로부터 다양한 깊이단서를 이용하여 깊이맵을 추출한 후에, DIBR(Depth Image Based Rendering)로 입체영상을 생성한다. 특정 영상이외에는 영상에서 신뢰성 있는 단서가 있는 경우는 많지 않다. 따라서 3D변환 기술은 일반 영상에서도 우수하고, 일관된 입체영상이 생성하는 것이 중요하다. 이러한 관점에서 본 논문에서는 상기 조건을 만족할 수 있는 3D변환 방법을 제안한다. 주 기술로 최근 다양한 분야에서 활용되는 관심맵과 에지를 활용한다. 깊이맵을 생성하기 위해서 기하적 투영, 근접 모델 및 바이노믹 필터를 활용한다. 실험에서는 제안한 방법을 24개의 2D 비디오 콘텐츠에 적용하였고, 입체감 및 시각적 피로도 등의 주관적 평가를 통해 3D 콘텐츠의 우수한 만족도를 확인하였다.
Drivers of key performance indicators achievement and its mediating effect on salesforce intention to retain in the banking industry

Personal selling has become a core strategy of banks’ competitiveness.The key success of personal selling is the imperative role of the salesforce in delivering quality sales of banking products and services and achieving individual Key Performance Indicator (KPI). KPI is a new performance measurement adopted in modern banking. Hence, this was a maiden study to identify the drivers for KPI achievement in Malaysian banks, namely individual competencies (performance orientation, affiliate interest, job quality, commitment to work, agility, adaptive selling, planning, communication and learning) and perceived organizational factors (articulate visionary leader, high performance culture and teamwork). Malaysian banks face great challenges to retain the salesforce in sales job. Hence, this study also examined the impact of individual competencies and the organizational factors to retain the salesforce. The novelty of this study was the investigation of the mediating effects of KPI achievement on the relationship between individual competencies, organizational factors, and salesforce retention. Data was obtained through questionnaires to 190 members of the salesforce who were attached to eight domestic banks in three regions. Multiple regression results show performance orientation, agility flexibility and teamwork have significant impacts on KPI achievement. Meanwhile, performance orientation, affiliate interest, commitment to work and all organizational factors significantly influenced the salesforce’s intention to retain. The results support the Herzberg Motivation Theory that the ability to perform well and the synergy of teamwork in banks increase the salesforce’s KPI achievement and the intention to retain. The result of the hierarchical regression analysis shows that KPI achievement fully mediates the relationship between performance orientation, teamwork and intention to retain, which supports the Expectancy Theory. The findings of this study provide statistical evidence of KPI drivers and the important role of KPI and the intention to retain. The findings also indicate practical, theoretical and policy implications to relevant parties.
Directors’ Ties to Non-CEO Executives: Information Advantage or Entrenchment?

We examine how connections between independent directors and non-CEO executives influence board performance. This overlooked form of within-firm ties can increase board effectiveness by improving directors’ access to firm-specific information. Alternatively, such connections may weaken board monitoring by undermining directors’ independence. Consistent with the former, we find that firms with director–executive ties have stronger CEO turnover-performance sensitivity, make better acquisition decisions, and are less likely to engage in financial misconduct. Overall, the evidence suggests that, unlike director–CEO ties that were shown to adversely impact board monitoring, director–executive connections enhance board performance and help reign in the CEO.
Joint ventures success in international market: How emerging-market firms improve value in developed-market firms

Strategic alliances, joint ventures (JVs), and other cooperation agreements between firms operating in developing countries and those in emerging countries, represent a privileged instrument for accessing in the foreign market and for activating greater competitiveness of companies in the worldwide markets. For many years, strategic alliances have seen firms operating in developed-markets as their main subject. Lately, emerging economies are increasingly involved in JV operations as buyers: all these have occurred as a consequence of the phenomenon of globalization, and the drive towards liberalization processes. The paper analyzes the reaction of 120 firms listed on the stock market in developed countries in response to joint venture announcements of emergingmarket partners, in order to understand whether JV processes are drivers for value creation. Other determinants of value creation are also explored by multivariate regressions, including a battery of covariates related to industrywide, countrywide, and firm-specific factors. The results express a positive and significant reaction to the market in response to the announcements of international JV. In our case, we see that the exogenous shock of emerging-market liberalization has a positive impact on the stability of international JVs in developed-markets; in addition, international JVs show a high complementarity of partner resources, which are able to alleviate some of the stability problems. “Corporate Governance: Search for the Advanced Practices” Rome, February 28, 2019
An Initial Study into Indonesian Consumer Awareness of the Ergonomic Product

Ergonomic product refers to a product which is designed based on the principle of human centered design in order to accomodate user’s characteristics and capacities. Despite the benefits of an ergonomic design, there are not many industrial products labeled as an ergonomic one. This indicates the consumers are still unfamiliar with the existence of the ergonomic products and its utilization. The aim of this study was to investigate the consumers’ awareness toward an ergonomic product. A survey to 16 Indonesian university students and 24 employees was done utilizing a set of questionnaire representing six parameters comprising consumer awareness of ergonomic product, perceived of design, perceived of comfortability, perceived of social image, perceived ease of use, and perceived usefulness. The results revealed that only 55% of respondents were aware of ergonomic product. There were indications of positive appeal from ergonomic product for its consumer in term of its design, comfortability, social image, and usefulness.
Social Trust Based Semantic Tourism Recommender System: A Case of Medical Tourism in Tunisia

Based on the assumption that users generally have a tendency to use items recommended by friends rather than strangers and that trust among friends positively correlates with user preference, we decided to refer to research conducted on the emerging field of trust-based recommender system. We propose to integrate the temporal factor in measuring trust between social network friends. A Trusted Friend’s calculation method is developed for determining social trusted friends in Facebook. We have, accordingly, demonstrated the importance of the interactions’ time between users. Afterwards, we have used this method in a semantic tourism recommender system as a smart e-tourism tool able to recommend items based on the users’ preferences and their trusted friends’ preferences. We have also applied our tourism recommender system for the case of medical tourism in Tunisia to help users interested in traveling to Tunisia for medical purposes. Finally, we have implemented the system and collected feedback from real users to evaluate the quality of recommendation and prove its importance in improving the medical tourism domain.
Korean Dependency Parsing Based on Machine Learning of Feature Weights

In this paper, we introduce a method for Korean dependency parsing based on machine learning by learning and using feature weights. The set of features of the system is constructed by generating a given number of features for every possible dependency relation. The degree of importance of a feature is represented by its weight. The weights are learned by using a training corpus in which dependency relations are tagged for each sentence. For this purpose, we used Sejong corpus tagged with phrase-structure trees and the ETRI corpus tagged with dependency structures. The training method we adopted is an on-line learning algorithm. It exploits a technique similar to that of the MIRA learning algorithm which is based upon the concept of max-margin. The experimental results showed that our parsing system's performance was 88.15% of dependency relation accuracy when developed with Sejong corpus and 88.06% of accuracy when developed with ETRI corpus. This demonstrates that our method allows a development of a Korean dependency parsing system with high performance.
Patent categorization based on Bayes model

Based on naive bayes classifier having solid theory foundation and high accuracy rate of classification,the classical naive bayes classifier was firstly improved by using term weight function in text,and then the patent categorization was implemented.This approach not only reduced manual labor and the categorization error,but also supported for the technology tracing,competition intel-ligence etc.The experiments and applications illustratethat the improved naive bayesclassifier can beutilized to classify patents efficiently.
Rigidity of Selling, General, and Administrative Costs and Managerial Incentives to Meet Earnings Thresholds: Evidence from Conglomerates

Does the conventional wisdom of decreasing marginal cost in economics hold in the real world? Surprisingly, previous accounting literature has found opposite evidence and documented cost stickiness. This paper examines the effect of managerial incentives to avoid loss and earnings decrease on rigidity of selling, general, and administrative (SG&A) costs for conglomerates and parent companies, and the resultant implication for parent companyi¯s cost management decisions. The results show that the estimates of cost rigidity are negatively significant in the absence of managerial incentives to meet earnings thresholds for both parent company and conglomerate. In the presence of such managerial incentives for both parties, the estimates are significantly positive and indicate disappearance of cost rigidity. The results hold after controlling for asset intensity, employee intensity, ROA, and GDP growth. Additionally, parent company cuts its cost more aggressively to avoid either partyi¯s loss, but cuts conglomeratei¯s cost more aggressively to avoid either partyi¯s decrease in earnings. This suggests that parent company is more concerned about its performance in cost management than for the conglomeratei¯s. Overall, the evidence suggests that the decreasing marginal cost concept is conditional on managerial incentives to meet earnings thresholds and that parent company makes selective SG&A cost reduction decisions to meet earnings thresholds.
Integrity Advisors and the Development of Administrative Communication Culture

The integrity advisers are the central actors of integrity management systems of the administrative organizational structure, whose main task is to promote the implementation of the integrity approach within state administration institutions. As a complementary part of this task, we can separate the tasks of corruption prevention and the improvement of organizational integrity, of which the latter being discussed in more detail in this research and presentation. Integrity advisers play a key role in the development of organizational culture among public administration bodies, such as bodies exercising administrative authority. Looking at the topic more closely, with regard to the activities of integrity advisers, it can be clearly established that one of the engines of their operation is the proper and deep communication, which is not only necessary within the public administration and inter-agency transactions, but it also means communication activities that can be interpreted in the relationship between the public and clients. Equally important is their training and other activities aimed at developing staff awareness, relationships, situation assessment and action practices, which, in addition to and in part within public service training, provide an opportunity to shape organizational culture. The presentation and the paper aims to show the role of integrity advisors in developing organizational culture and transparency in the administration based on recent research experience about online presence of integrity advisors and in-depth interview surveys.
An updated review on recent trends in observational surface atmospheric variables and their extremes over Spain

This article reviewed state-of-the-art findings on recent trends in observed atmospheric variables and their extremes in Spain. Our study screened peer-reviewed articles, published within the last decade, on recent climate variability in Spain, with a particular focus on a range of the essential atmospheric variables. The review focusses on the recent evolution of precipitation and air temperature, but also on other meteorological variables such as solar radiation, wind speed, surface humidity and evapotranspiration. While this review highlights results on changes in the mean state of climate in Spain, it also gives equal attention to findings on extreme weather events (e.g. rainstorms, heat waves and droughts). This paper also reviews trends of the most extreme events, like rainstorms, heat waves and droughts. A detailed review of studies focusing on recent changes in the surface climate of Spain revealed some key findings. Studies demonstrate an overall increase of solar radiation since the 1980s. A similar behaviour was observed for surface air temperature since the 1960s, on the order of +0.3oC decade -1 , with rapid warming rates during summer. Different seasonal trend patterns of wind speed were noted over Spain, with declines in winter-spring and increases in summer-autumn. A remarkable decrease (-5%) in relative humidity was observed from 1961 to 2011. For precipitation, studies suggested a strong variability over both space and time, with a moderate decrease of the annual total precipitation. In accordance with changes in the mean conditions of climate, studies of extreme weather events stressed a notable warming in warm extremes, while changes in cold extremes were generally insignificant.
Application of ICT in Public Sector Accounting of Bangladesh

This paper investigates the application of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the Public Sector Accounting (PSA) of a developing country, Bangladesh. Transparency and efficiency of PSA has been urged by different stakeholders for a long time. Therefore, reformation of PSA in the developing countries has been suggested by the donor agencies. As a part of reforming the PSA, Bangladesh has introduced and applied the Integrated Budget and Accounting Systems (iBAS), a computer based network introduced with support of the association of the donor agencies. This study adopted document analysis and focus group interview to understand the application of ICT in the PSA of Bangladesh. Through the investigation of PSA practice and document analysis, this paper tries to explore the application of ICT in the public sector accounting of Bangladesh. The findings of the study show that different accounting authorities of Bangladesh government seem to have benefited from ICT based PSA.
PICAP 3: an SIMD architecture for multidimensional signal processing

The large amount of data involved in image processing has created a demand for more powerful computer architectures. PICAP 3 is a parallel architecture designed to meet these needs, particularly for multi-dimensional data sets. The machine efficiently handles not only conventional image operations but also operations specific to multi-dimensional images such as projections. An array of word-parallel processing elements forms the heart of the architecture. The typical system consists of 64 such elements, each with 4 Mbytes of memory for a total size of 256 Mbytes. The elements are joined in a one-dimensional fashion, forming a linear structure. All processors execute the same instructions issued by a central control unit, thus operating in SIMD-mode. Besides the pure SIMD operation, the processors are allowed some local freedom. The local activity-bit enables data-dependent operation and so does the local address modification facility, unique to an SIMD architecture. A fast but simple I/O-system gets data in and out of the array without interference with ongoing processing. The programming of new operations is done at the microinstruction level. A microcode optimizer allows the programmer to describe the algorithms in a sequential form, similar to ordinary assembly programming. The optimizer then automatically translates the result into parallel microcode. Further, direct access to all parts of the machine during execution allows for efficient debugging. The machine has been verified for a number of image processing algorithms as well as a few others. A limited number of the operations has also been implemented on the prototype system. The results indicate that the PICAP 3 performance is well in parity with other high-performance image processing architectures but at a much lower cost. This thesis describes the PICAP 3 architecture as well as the implementation of a number of algorithms. The characteristics of the architecture are also discussed and set in contrast to other image processing machines.
Impact of Social Media Management Styles on Willingness to Be a Fan: A Transaction Cost Economics Perspective

This study investigates the impacts of different styles of social media management on user’s willingness to be a fan. Six companies’ brand-pages on a social media site are examined. Data are collected using survey and interview with a group of social media users. Qualitative data analyses are conducted based on 30 observation reports and 60 open-ended surveys, with follow-up interviews. Grounded on the theoretical lens of transaction cost economics, we find that companies successful in attracting more fans adopt the bilateral governance structure (with frequent updates and mixed asset specificity) in their social media transactions. They are relatively more dedicated and allocate more amounts of resources in their social media interactions. Practicing the right governance structure is demonstrated to be more preferable to the fans, able to attract more engagement and generate organic media in the long run. This is because it is helpful for creating positive perceptions of a brand-page, and fans find it useful in reducing their efforts in information searching and product procurement and social networking costs; and this in turn shows to positively impact one’s willingness to be a fan of the page, which can possibly create the opportunities to be a potential customer, leading to future purchases from the brand. This study also identifies the key concepts or sub-constructs of (user’s) willingness to be a fan of a brand-page in the context of social media. They are brand-page management style (dedicated, caring, responsive), contents (quality, usefulness, diversity) and product (uniqueness, variety, popularity).
Analysis of Multi-Carrier Code Division Multiple Access system under clipping noise in different channels

Multi Carrier Code Division Multiple Access (MC-CDMA), a promising technology for the 4G communication systems is considered in this paper. The foremost limitation of such system is the Multiple Access Interference (MAI) which is due to frequency-selective fading, near-far effect, frequency offset, and nonlinear power amplification. The performance of MC-CDMA under such scenario is poor . The Bit Error Rate (BER) performance is analyzed under clipping noise in a variety of channels, such as AWGN, Rayleigh fading and Rician channel as a function of Signal-to-Noise Ratio.
Adaptive Bit and Power Allocation Algorithm for MIMO OFDM Systems

An adaptive bit and power allocation algorithm for the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) OFDM systems was proposed. Based on the perfect channel state information and the singular value decomposition theory, the proposed algorithm allocates bits and power for every sub-carrier of every transmitter. Monte Carlo simulations show that the 4dB relative SNR gain is gained for the 2×2 MIMO OFDM systems without adaptation at the average BER of 10-5.
Research on extended D-S theory in network anomaly detection

Network anomaly detection is an important part of the intrusion detection system,however,there are many problems in traditional network anomaly detection methods,such as high false positive rate and the limitation of detecting multiple types of the intrusion actions.A distributed anomaly detection model and the fusion method are proposed based on extended D-S evidence theory.Meanwhile,considering the unreasonableness in the traditional D-S evidence theory when there exist conflictions in the evidences,an extended D-S evidence theory with weights is adopted,and a newly fusion policy is proposed to build an anomaly detection model with multiple classifiers.According to the verification of the KDD99 data set,experiments show that the proposed model and method can obviously reduce the false positve rate,and simultaneously improve the detection rate.