Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Application and Challenges of Signal Processing Techniques for Lamb Waves Structural Integrity Evaluation: Part B-Defects Imaging and Recognition Techniques

The wavefield of Lamb waves is yielded by the feature of plate-like structures. And many defects imaging techniques and intelligent recognition algorithms have been developed for defects location, sizing and recognition through analyzing the parameters of received Lamb waves signals including the arrival time, attenuation, amplitude and phase, etc. In this chapter, we give a briefly review about the defects imaging techniques and the intelligent recognition algorithms. Considering the available parameters of Lamb waves signals and the setting of detection/monitoring systems, we roughly divide the defect location and sizing techniques into four categories, including the sparse array imaging techniques, the tomography techniques, the compact array techniques, and full wavefield imaging techniques. The principle of them is introduced. Meanwhile, the intelligent recognition techniques based on various of intelligent recognition algorithms that have been widely used to analyze Lamb waves signals in the research of defect recognition are reviewed, including the support vector machine, Bayesian methodology, and the neural networks.
Modeling the Japanese financial market's volatility and its relationship with other financial markets

Modeling the Japanese financial market's volatility and its relationship with other financial markets Sub Title Author Sung, Edward Kaiyu(Sung, Edward Kaiyu) 西村, 秀和(Nishimura, Hidekazu) Publisher 慶應義塾大学大学院システムデザイン・マネジメント研究科 Publication year 2010 Jtitle 修士論文 (2011. 3) Abstract Since 1982, numerous GARCH (Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedascity) models have been developed. Some of the more popular ones include the GJR-GARCH, and EGARCH. Even though these models are effective at mapping out the "true volatility" of an asset, they fail to capture periods of extremely high "true volatility" (0.08). When modeling the American subprime crisis from 2008 to 2009 as out-of-sample data, the maximum volatilities that the GJRGARCH and GARCH model provided were much less than the maximum "true volatility". Therefore, these GARCH models are not quite suitable for risk management applications as they greatly underestimate the volatility during periods of extremely high volatility (0.08). In this paper, we modified the GARCH model, while using the GJR-GARCH as inspiration, and proposed a new model named GARCH-S. We used the Nikkei 225 and SP 500 as the two asset inputs required by the GARCH-S model. The GARCH-S makes use of a secondary market (SP 500) to increase the volatility forecast of the target market (Nikkei 225). This is possible when the returns of the secondary market at time t-1 is correlated (0.20) with the returns of the target market at time t. Even though we developed a MLE program to estimate the model arameters, the Gibbs Sampling method was used in general to estimate the parameters of the models. The GARCH-S is found to effective in modeling the "upper range" of "true volatility". It greatly reduces underestimate errors as compared to the GARCH, GJR-GARCH and EGARCH models.Under the several assumptions we made, the GARCH-S was found to be ranked second best in forecasting accuracy while effectively capturing the peaks of high volatility better than other GARCH type models. Therefore, the GARCH-S model is an excellent candidate for risk management purposes as it greatly reduces the underestimate errors while still providing competitive forecast accuracy against other GARCH type models. Notes Genre Thesis or Dissertation URL http://koara.lib. keio.ac. jp/xoonips/modules/xoonips/detail.php? koara_id=KO40002001-00002010 -0010
Tirols: Local Web-Based Networks Centred on Self-Governmental Websites Vs. Local Activity - A Project Outline

Summary The paper presents an outline for the project, entitled TIROLS, dealing with the analysis of the local networks, based on links and connections related to the local authority websites at the level of municipalities. The project has been recently started, and the empirical work is in the initial stages. The aim is to gather sufficient data on the networks in question, to assess the essential properties of these networks, and to juxtapose them with the data on socio-economic development level of the respective municipalities. Thereby, important hypotheses concerning the relation of such local networks to local socio-economic development would be formulated and verified. The paper provides the prerequisites to the project, including previous work of the team of authors, the initial empirical results and the conclusions from these initial results, as well as methodological and substantive perspectives of the work to do.
Reconciling heterogeneous results on the returns to skills in Africa

ABSTRACT Recent evidence indicates substantial heterogeneity in the returns to skills across countries, but only a few studies have explained the varying patterns in the return to skills. Using the 2013 STEP data for Ghana and Kenya, we estimate the causal effect of cognitive and noncognitive skills on a large set of labour market outcomes by controlling for important predetermined variables. We find that cognitive skill remains an important predictor of labour market outcomes but its effect is largely mediated by the year of schooling. We document that the labour market effects of noncognitive skills are smaller than reading proficiency, but with large variation across labour market outcomes. Interestingly, we show that schooling does not mediate the effect of noncognitive skills, meaning most of these skills are acquired outside the classroom. A decomposition analysis shows that local labour market characteristics, such as formal jobs and skilled labour demand, explains the lion share of the heterogeneity whereas the job-skill matching quality plays a significant role in the unexplained part.
Journal of Economics and Business

SMEs are a major source of livelihood for most people in the developing world, but most of them fail within a very short period. Several studies have been conducted on SME success, but the focus is usually on one section of SMEs, with no study yet on a cross-section of SMEs to allow inter-sectoral comparisons. This study, therefore, set out to conduct an inter-sectoral study amongst 600 SMEs with 150 SMEs each from the agriculture, hospitality, manufacturing and trading sectors in Ghana. There may be inherent differences between the success factors for the various SME sectors and as such, the need for a study that cuts across four sectors to better inform policy and investment decisions. The study employed a survey strategy to obtain quantitative data through the random distribution of questionnaires. The data were then coded into NCSS 19 software. Multiple regression was used to analyze data, and generalizations were made based on these analyses. From the findings, there is no key success factor common to all four factors. However, number of employees affect three sectors, namely: agriculture, manufacturing, and trading sectors. Infrastructure and education affect the agriculture and manufacturing sectors. Cost control and access to finance affect both the hospitality and manufacturing sectors. Some factors are peculiar to specific sectors, for example, tax and business plan for the hospitality sector, leverage, and inflation for the manufacturing sector while work experience, training, and marital status affect the trading sector. The study makes recommendations based on the findings of the study.
The Success of Water Refill Stations Reducing Single-Use Plastic Bottle Litter

Bottled water is one sector of the beverage industry that has recently experienced substantial growth. The littering of plastic water bottles and the carbon emissions produced from bottled water production results in harmful effects on the environment. To reduce the harm of bottled water production and litter, government and non-government organisations have implemented litter abatement and behavioural change strategies targeting bottled water consumption and subsequent loss of bottles to the environment. Our study evaluated the success of one of these strategies, which is a filtered water refill station, implemented along the Brisbane River in Queensland, Australia. We found plastic bottle litter decreased after a water refill station was put into operation. However, given the location of the refill station, we suggest the behavioural change strategy employed did not reach its full potential. We highlight factors that could be employed to achieve maximum benefits when implementing similar behavioural change strategies.
Eurosceptics into the Limelight? Eurosceptic Parliamentary Actors and Media Bias in EU Affairs

In the spotlight for some time now, the potential of national parliaments to legitimise EU politics has become even more salient given the growing politicisation and public contestation of EU issues. Their ability to realise this potential depends, however, vitally on citizens being actually aware of parliamentary involvement in EU affairs. Academic as well as political attention has therefore more recently turned to the communication function of parliaments, and here the media play a crucial role. Important is not only whether EU parliamentary affairs are covered in the media, but also who within parliament gets the opportunity to raise European issues in the media. In the context of this thematic issue, the question of media visibility is of particular interest with regard to Eurosceptic parliamentary party groups and their members. Do Eurosceptics in parliament get to dominate parliamentary EU news in the media and thus to take ownership of EU issues—or do the media freeze parliamentary Eurosceptics out of the coverage? Both would seriously undermine the legitimising potential of national parliaments. The article therefore analyses to what extent we can find a visibility bias in the print media coverage of Eurosceptic parliamentary actors and explores the factors that contribute to such bias. For the analysis, it draws on a quantitative dataset of all newspaper articles covering parliamentary EU affairs in six member states (Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Poland and the UK) over a period of four years (2010 to 2013).
Determinants of global capital volatility in the BRICS grouping

This paper assesses the determinants of capital flow volatility in the BRICS economies by differentiating between foreign direct investment (FDI) and portfolio capital flow volatilities. Moreover, the paper distinguishes between external variables, policy variables and control variables among the important drivers of capital flow volatiltiy in these economies. Use is made of the general method of moment (GMM) estimation in panel regression for this end. The findings of the empirical analysis show, among other things, the importance of global volatility spillover in driving capital flow volatility in the BRICS countries.
Determinants of educational expenditure in Vietnam

Using the Vietnamese Household Living Standards Survey from 2006 (VHLSS 2006), this study investigates the factors affecting household expenditure on children's education. The main findings from the Tobit model in this study are as follows: First, household income has significant effects on the total amount of educational expenditure. In most cases, increase in the income of the household is always associated with an increase in educational expenditure. Second, households where the household heads have a higher level of education or with professional jobs, enhances the probabilities of educational expenditure. Third, households with more primary-school-age or secondary school-age children spend more on education, while households with pre-school-age or college-age children spend less on education. These results show that families with more resources and better human capital are those who are able to spend more resources on their children's education.
Toward a Value-Sensitive Absorptive Capacity Framework: Navigating Intervalue and Intravalue Conflicts to Answer the Societal Call for Health

The majority of studies on absorptive capacity (AC) underscore the importance of absorbing technological knowledge from other firms to create economic value. However, to preserve moral legitimacy and create social value, firms must also discern and adapt to (shifts in) societal values. A comparative case study of eight firms in the food industry reveals how organizations prioritize and operationalize the societal value health in product innovation while navigating inter- and intravalue conflicts. The value-sensitive framework induced in this article extends AC by explaining how technically savvy, economic value–creating firms diverge in their receptivity, articulation, and reflexivity of societal values.
A Content Analysis of Flow and Music: Teaching, Performance, and Consumption

ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . iii DEDICATION . iv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS . viii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION . 1 Balance of Challenge and Skill . 3 Merging of Action and Awareness . 3 Clear Goals and Feedback . 4 Concentration of the Task at Hand . 5 The Paradox of Control . 6 The Loss of SelfConsciousness . 6 Transformation of Time . 7 CHAPTER II – REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE . 13 Measuring Flow . 13 The Autotelic Personality . 16 Flow and Online Activities . 18 Flow in the Workplace . 19 Flow Inside and Outside Schools . 20 Flow and Athletics . 22 vi Flow and Music. 25 CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY . 37 CHAPTER IV – RESULTS . 41 Flow in Music Performance . 43 1. Flow Proneness and Musical Performance . 44 2. Musical Performance Anxiety and Flow . 46 3. Physiological Responses to Music Performance and Flow . 50 4. Flow and Togetherness . 52 5. Positivity, Enjoyment, and Flow in Music Performance . 57 Flow in Music Teaching . 59 1. High Achievement and Flow . 61 2. Flow Informing Teaching Methods . 64 3. Music Teachers and Flow . 69 4. Individual Instruction and Flow . 72 5. Flow in Groups and Large Ensembles . 74 6. Young Children’s Music Learning and Flow . 77 7. Other Studies in Flow and Music Teaching . 80 Flow in Music Consumption . 81 CHAPTER V – DISCUSSION . 86 Music Performance . 87 vii Music Teaching . 90 Music Consumption . 93 Limitations of the Study. 95 Future Research on Flow and Music . 96 REFERENCES . 103
Valuation Uncertainty and Short-Sales Constraints: Evidence from the IPO Aftermarket

We use the initial public offering (IPO) setting to provide evidence that the combination of valuation uncertainty and short-sales constraints generates significant equity market mispricing. The IPOs that we predict to be most susceptible to overpricing in the immediate aftermarket have first-day returns of +47% and lockup expiration returns of [Formula: see text]9%. Our detailed analysis of securities lending market data confirms that these IPOs experience severe short-sales constraints that peak around the lockup expiration. Our paper both explains the anomalous pricing of IPOs and highlights the importance of valuation uncertainty and short-sales constraints in explaining equity mispricing. This paper was accepted by Brian Bushee, accounting.
Debt covenant slack and ex-post conditional accounting conservatism

This study examines how conditional accounting conservatism varies after debt contracts are executed (ex-post conditional conservatism) depending on the closeness to violations of debt covenants, the costs of covenant violations, and bank monitoring. I hypothesise that borrowers with lower debt-covenant slack have an incentive to avoid covenant violations and will have lower ex-post conditional conservatism levels than those with higher slack. I find that borrowers with both lower and higher slack increase their ex-post conditional conservatism, but that the magnitude of this increase in conservatism is positively associated with the level of covenant slack. Further, this positive relationship between the ex-post change in conditional conservatism and the debt-covenant slack is more pronounced when the costs of the debt-covenant breach are greater, and is less pronounced when lenders have stronger incentives to monitor borrowers. This study provides evidence that the ex-post change in conditional conservatism is affected by the costs of a covenant breach and bank monitoring.
Central Kentuckians’ Willingness to Pay for Horse Farm Preservation

This study estimates the non-market value of horse farms of Central Kentucky’s equine economic cluster using a contingent valuation approach. Utilizing a payment card, respondents are asked to indicate how much they would be willing to pay in additional taxes for a hypothetical “horse farm preservation program. ” Results from the study showed that, on average, a Central Kentucky household was willing to pay an additional $55.14–$67.78 in taxes annually to maintain the equine industry at its current levels. The additional taxes generated would compensate for lost tax revenue from development of the land.
Public perception of Syrian refugees in Turkey: an empirical explanation using extended integrative threat theory

Turkey has provided asylum for Syrian refugees following the civil war in Syria. This process has given rise to considerable public debate, which is often associated with negative attitudes within the community. Previous studies have indicated that realistic and symbolic threats are important components of the integrated theory of threat for understanding opposition towards immigrants and refugees. But the extended Integrative Threat Theory (ITT) suggests that the citizens of the host country may perceive refugees as both threat and benefit. The purpose of this study is to examine the public perception of Syrian
Boundaries of Focus and Volume: An Empirical Study in Neonatal Intensive Care

Our study contributes to the scholarly debate whether organizational units should have a narrow focus and admit a homogeneous patient cluster or whether they should admit a pool of patient clusters. We investigate whether the benefits of increased volume through pooling patients outweigh the disadvantages of increased heterogeneity and pursue our analysis in the context of neonatal care. Our empirical studies relies on 4020 patient episodes collected in 18 German neonatal intensive care units and we distinguish between two patient clusters that differ with respect to the inherent medical risk and operational heterogeneity. Cluster 1 consists of very‐low birth weight (VLBW) infants with increased risk of complications but similar service trajectories and lower operational heterogeneity. Cluster 2 contains non‐VLBW infants with lower risk of complications but more diversity in disease patterns and higher operational heterogeneity. Our analysis shows that cluster volume, that is, the unit's absolute patient volume in a cluster, is positively related to process outcomes as indicated by decreasing length of stay. This relationship is found for both clusters. Regarding focus, we do not find any evidence of positive effects. In fact, we even find that cluster focus, that is, the unit's relative volume of the cluster, is detrimentally related to process outcomes for non‐VLBW patients with lower risk of complications and more operational heterogeneity. This indicates that organizational units providing services for complex patients should not have a narrow focus, but should rather provide services for related patient clusters in order to achieve higher volume levels within the unit.
Investor Horizons, Long-Term Blockholders, and Corporate Social Responsibility

Abstract This paper investigates whether or not shareholders benefit from corporate social responsibility (CSR) by studying the effect of institutional investors on CSR. After all, arguing against CSR is hard when investors push for it. I find that longer investor horizons lead to significantly more CSR. This positive effect, however, is moderated by long-term investors who hold large ownership blocks. Long-term blockholders ensure, through monitoring, that managers do not blindly increase CSR, but rather that managers pursue a CSR strategy that reduces the risk of costly incidents. A battery of robustness tests indicates causality. Overall, these findings indicate that CSR is in the interests of long-term investors if CSR prevents incidents.
Inpainting technology in art pictures based on edge and texture feature

Abstract Image inpainting is a kind of method to restore and correct the missing information or remove the redundant interference information from the image. This method is of great significance in the research of the image restoration. And dealing with art pictures, computer graphics and image technology can be used to show the original style and appearance of the damaged pictures. This paper first summarizes the process which common algorithm is used to restore image information, then analyzes the shortcomings of these algorithms in the judgment of image texture and edge part and puts forward by the Criminisi algorithm which adding differential factors in the original algorithm and optimizes the priority model based on image texture and edge features. The proposed algorithm has obvious advantages in identification ability, and it also upgrades the search matching as well as overcomes the drawbacks of the original algorithm. Finally, the improved algorithm is tested, and the experimental results show that the algorithm successfully overcome the drawbacks of the classical algorithm, and better restore the picture.
Relieve the congestion by shuttle bus in rush hours using aggregation clustering algorithm on group travel pattern

The travel demand is of vital importance for transport planning. Especially in rush hours, the commuters aggregate in certain areas, resulting in traffic jams, which hinder the normal operation of the urban traffic. The key issue to solve the problem is to find out the demand of the passengers and accordingly arrange the transit resource more reasonably. This paper proposes a framework that provides a shuttle bus solution to satisfy the travel demand of the gathered passengers in rush hours according to their travel history obtained by smartcard data. Firstly, an aggregation algorithm basing on Clustering by fast search and find of density peaks (CFSFDP) is presented to highlight the area, which consists of adjacent bus stations with high passenger flow, addressed as spark region. Secondly, group travel pattern (GTP) is put forward to describe the travel trend on a city‐wide scale, which reveals the common travel demand of the commuters. Lastly, an algorithm named Variable Visibility Path Optimization Algorithm based on ant colony algorithm is proposed to make schedule solution of shuttle bus according to GTP basing on the historical running information of the bus. The experiment basing on the bus passenger flow data collected by AFCS in Aug 2014 from Beijing shows that our method helps to ease the traffic aggregation effectively and practically and offer reference to the bus scheduling issue.