Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
What does the Romanian workaholic look like? A first glimpse into the links between workaholism and employee characteristics; a validation attempt of DUWAS scale

Universitatea OvidiusPrincipalul obiectiv al acestui studiu constă in investigarea caracteristicilor socio-economice și demografice ale angajaților români pentru a vedea dacă acestea pot influența aparita fenomenului de workaholism. Pentru a realiza acest lucru, a fost necesară validarea unui instrument de evaluare a workaholismului. DUWAS (Dutch Work Addiction Scale) este scala asupra căreia ne-am concentrat in acest studiu. Rezultatele preliminare sugerează o traducere și adaptare adecvată, ceea ce o recomandă pentru viitoare studii in România. Mai mult decât atât, cercetarea de față explorează legăturile dintre statutul socio-economic și caracterisitici demografice cu predispoziția spre workaholism.
A Two-Phase Dynamic Programming Algorithm Tool for DNA Sequences

Sequence alignment has to do with the arrangement of DNA, RNA, and protein sequences to identify areas of similarity. Technically, it involves the arrangement of the primary sequences of DNA, RNA, or protein to identify regions of similarity that may be a consequence of functional, structural, or evolutionary relationships between the sequences. Similarity may be a consequence of functional, structural, or evolutionary relationships between the sequences. If two sequences in an alignment share a common ancestor, mismatches can be interpreted as mutations, and gaps as insertions. Such information becomes of great use in vital areas such as the study of diseases, genomics and generally in the biological sciences. Thus, sequence alignment presents not just an exciting field of study, but a field of great importance to mankind. In this light, we extensively studied about seventy (70) existing sequence alignment tools available to us. Most of these tools are not user friendly and cannot be used by biologists. The few tools that attempted both Local and Global algorithms are not ready available freely. We therefore implemented a sequence alignment tool (CU-Aligner) in an understandable, user-friendly and portable way, with click-of-a-button simplicity. This is done utilizing the Needleman-Wunsh and Smith-Waterman algorithms for global and local alignments, respectively which focuses primarily on DNA sequences. Our aligner is implemented in the Java language in both application and applet mode and has been efficient on all windows operating systems. Keywords— sequence, global alignment, local alignment, dynamic programming and java applet.
Do Women Directors Constraint Accrual Management? Malaysian Evidence

Women are found to be more risk averse than men (Fehr-Duda, 2006; Watson & McNaughton, 2007; Eckel & Grossman, 2008). Women are also different from men in their leadership styles and attitudes towards ethics and risks (Gul, Srinidhi & Tsui, 2007). These differences suggest that the presence of women is capable of reducing accrual management. Our empirical results show that the presence of women on the board and audit committee is not associated with accrual management. Hence, women do not appear to perform the accounting oversight role well.
New Open Economy Macroeconomics: Evidence from an Empirical Test on South Asian Economic Data

This study first conducts a detailed survey on recently emerged new field in economics called new open economy macroeconomics and then carries out an empirical test of theoretical predictions of these models to observe transmission effects of Indian economic shocks in South Asia region. In the survey, the study starts with the seminal work of Obstfeld and Rogoff (1995) and then evaluates the subsequent evolution of this field. The survey reveals that the field is rapidly evolving with many dimensions added on it within a short period of time, making this field richer and betterable to perform better predictions. The estimation of Vector Autoregression model for South Asia region, on the other hand, uncovers that the effects of Indian shocks in South Asia region, have mixed results. Since the real, nominal, and financial shocks generated in India affect the economies of neighboring countries with varied extent.
A Smart Driving Smartphone Application: Real-World Effects on Driving Performance and Glance Behaviours

A smart driving Smartphone application – which offers real-time fuel efficiency and safety feedback to the driver in the vehicle – was evaluated in a real-world driving study. Forty participants drove an instrumented vehicle over a 50 minute mixed route driving scenario, with 15 being selected for video data analysis. Two conditions were adopted, one a control, the other with smart driving advice being presented to the driver. Key findings from the study showed a 4.1% improvement in fuel efficiency when using the smart driving system, and an almost 3-fold reduction in time spent travelling closer than 1.5 seconds to the vehicle in front. Glance behavior results showed that drivers spent an average of 4.3% of their time looking at the system, at an average of 0.43 seconds per glance, with no glances of greater than two seconds. In conclusion this study has shown that a smart driving system specifically developed and designed with the drivers’ information requirements in mind can lead to significant improvements in real-world driving behaviours, whilst limiting visual distraction, with the task being integrated into normal driving.
Investigating the Correlates and Predictors of Affective and Continuance Organizational Commitment: A Cross sectional Survey of Malaysian Academic Librarians

This study attempts to identify the correlates and predictors of affective and continuance organizational commitment. Meyer & Allenâ€™s (1997) conceptualization and operationalization of organizational commitment has been adopted for this study. This study was carried out to determine whether work related variables such as job satisfaction, job involvement, job autonomy, job performance feedback, role conflict and role clarity would have a predictive relationship with affective as well as continuance organizational commitment. Additionally, the study also investigated whether worker related variables such as employeeâ€™s age, job tenure and employment tenure would also account for the variance in both affective as well as continuance organizational commitment. It employs a cross-sectional survey design in which 279 academic librarians from all the eight universities were randomly selected to participate in the study. The survey resulted in a 63 percent response rate in which 139 of the questionnaires returned were usable. The results of running Pearson Product Moment Correlation analyses showed that worker related variables such age, job tenure and organizational tenure to be significantly but negatively correlated with continuance organizational commitment but not significantly correlated with affective continuance commitment. Similarly, the results of running Pearson Product Moment Correlations showed that work related variables such as job satisfaction, job autonomy, job involvement, job feedback, role conflict and role clarity to be significantly and positively correlated with affective organizational commitment but not with continuance organizational commitment. The study provides an empirical glimpse of the organizational commitment phenomenon in a Malaysian academic library setting. The findings provide encouraging empirical illumination that most Western based organizational commitment theories have important application for academic librarians in Malaysia
A Robust Valuation Model for Entrepreneurial Ventures

Pro forma estimation of financial statements often builds on constant ratios to sales revenue. While constant ratios may be relevant for established firms operating in predictable industries, they yield noninformative and possibly misleading information when applied to new firms, and particularly to technology ventures. Because new firms grow and change rapidly, a robust analysis should be based on intimate familiarity with the specific firm's business plan. This paper presents an alternative approach that links the firm's budget, as derived from its business plan, to pro forma financial statements, and to valuation models. The resulting estimated firm value is less sensitive to exogenous parameter assumptions than other methodologies.
New cognitive info-communication channels for human-machine interaction

— The main goal of this paper is to discuss a new paradigm for robot teaching and supervising which is based on cognitive info-communication channels for human-machine interaction. According to the studied concept the robot is considered as an unskilled worker “who” (which) is strong and capable for precise manufacturing. “He” (it) has a special kind of intelligence, but “he” is handicapped in some senses, that is why “he” needs special treatment. We must command “him” clearly in a special way and we must supervise “his” work. If we can elaborate a proper way for communicating with this “new worker”, as an additional dimension of robotization, we can get a capable new “colleague”. The ultimate goal is to help the boss to be able to give the daily task to a robot in a similar way as he/she able to give the jobs to the human workers. For example, by providing the CAD documentation with some additional verbal explanation.
A Special Event Loyalty Model: Comparing First Time and Repeat Attendees

This study developed a conceptual model to examine attendee loyalty to special events. The model anticipated that attendees’ loyalty can be influenced by their motivation, involvement, satisfaction, and perceived value of the special event by surveying visitors to Airshow China. The study also compared the loyalty of first time and repeat attendees. CFA and SEM were used for data analysis. Findings indicated that attendee involvement, satisfaction, and perceived value are important antecedents their loyalty. In addition, while first time visitors put more weight on perceived value of the show when developing their loyal behavior, repeat visitors emphasized more on their level of satisfaction. Conclusions were drawn and implications provided based on the findings.
An Efficient Solution for the VRP by Using a Hybrid Elite Ant System

The vehicle routing problem (VRP) is a well-known NP-Hard problem in operation research which has drawn enormous interest from many researchers during the last decades because of its vital role in planning of distribution systems and logistics. This article presents a modified version of the elite ant system (EAS) algorithm called HEAS for solving the VRP. The new version mixed with insert and swap algorithms utilizes an effective criterion for escaping from the local optimum points. In contrast to the classical EAS, the proposed algorithm uses only a global updating which will increase pheromone on the edges of the best (i.e. the shortest) route and will at the same time decrease the amount of pheromone on the edges of the worst (i.e. the longest) route. The proposed algorithm was tested using fourteen instances available from the literature and their results were compared with other well-known meta-heuristic algorithms. Results show that the suggested approach is quite effective as it provides solutions which are competitive with the best known algorithms in the literature.
Preliminary Uncertainty Estimation of the Pressure Distortion Coefficient of a Pressure Balance by FEM Calculations

The great development of the Finite Element, the Volume Element and the Boundary Element Methods allows the solution of metrological problems with estimated uncertainties that are improving as far as experience is reached and methods are validated by experimental results. Consequently the uncertainty estimation in the numerical Finite Element Method is still an open object of debate. In the present work an iterative method based on Finite Element Method, developed by the IMGC-CNR in Turin and the University of Cassino, is applied to characterize the national primary standard for liquids from 10 MPa to 100 MPa (IMGC-100NNtc). Particular attention is paid to the evaluation of the different contributions to the uncertainties in the calculation of the pressure distortion coefficient of the piston-cylinder unit.
Defining Communities of Interest in Redistricting Through Initiative Voting

Abstract Scholars of redistricting often make reference to “communities of interest,” either to describe what districts should look like, or to criticize blatant partisan gerrymanders. The term, however, suffers from a great deal of ambiguity, the lack of an objective measurement strategy, and the absence of a methodology for translating beliefs about communities of interest into districting plans. In this article, I suggest a novel approach to defining communities of interest: using the results from statewide initiative votes to allow voters to essentially define their own communities of interest at the ballot box. Such a definition would be fundamentally political—as opposed to geographic, demographic, civic, or historical—but would not be rooted solely in partisanship. This approach would also satisfy two of the concerns addressed above. First, it recommends a specific, objective, affirmative basis for constructing districts, not merely a list of recommendations, prohibitions, or standards that need to.
DESIGN INTENT MANAGEMENT FOR DESIGN REUSE

The creation of new designs depends on precedent designs. There is an extreme variety in the types and degrees of dependence, ranging from direct copying and reverse engineering till unconscious inspiration of the designer by existing products, earlier experiences or education. To increase the competitiveness of design and engineering, the reuse of precedent work can be systematically incorporated into the design process, e.g. by establishing a methodology around product platforms and reconfigurable product architectures. A question is whether design reuse can happen without organizational investment and without having to anticipate on what types of precedent work is prone to reuse. Ultimately, the designer should be able to arbitrarily select a portion from an earlier design and insert that portion into the current design, where the imported information is expected to "adapt" to the context of the new design. We have investigated these questions in the domain of freeform designs, where the product's shape should fulfill aesthetic, ergonomic and functional requirements. In this paper we describe a framework for design intent management and propose a procedure to obtain a freeform shape parameterization according to an emerging design intent. The method involves feature recognition in the freeform domain, and the availing of shape parameters to the designer. We have partially implemented the method in a CAD environment and successfully tested it for several types of freeform features.
The Lost Foam method – pre-expansion process

In the study, a pre-expansion station, designed by authors, was presented. It consists of a batch pre-expander with a 90 liters capacity foaming chamber, equipped with fluidized-solid dryer of pre-expanded beads and a pneumatic transport system of granules to the silo. Steam is delivered to the pre-expander from the electric vapor generator type LW 40.1. In the study, work principle of the pre-expansion station and pre-expansion tests carried out on this position were presented.
Dynamic Pricing by Restricted Boltzmann Machine

This paper presents an investigation of mechanisms for price setting algorithms on dynamic pricing based on group buying discounts for electronic commerce using Restricted Boltzmann Machine. It is proposed for the optimal cost of production functions which provide the marginal cost for the unit price of the product. The investigation finds techniques to set automatic the profitable price for online group buying discounts where the marginal cost is changing with the change of quantity demand. The simple example of production functions is used for Restricted Boltzmann Machine. The example confirmed the convergence of production costs within their isoquants. The production costs continue to decrease up to the point where they can’t decrease any more. Those are the points of the optimal costs, from which we obtain the marginal cost to be inserted automatic into the formula for the calculation of the selling price of the product.
Monitoring surface and groundwater variations using multisatellite observations and hydrological modelling

We present a methodology combining information from complementary remote sensing datasets and hydrological modelling for the monitoring of surface and groundwater variations in two large drainage basins, the Negro and the Mekong rivers. Spatiotemporal variations of surface waters can be determined combining observations from satellite imagery (i.e. JERS-1, SPOT VGT, multisatellite products) and radar altimetry (i.e. Topex/Poseidon, ERS-1&2 RA, ENVISAT RA-2). The orbital characteristics and the type of sensors present advantages and drawbacks depending on the nature of the study region, and account for the spatial and temporal resolutions, and the accuracy of the surface water storage estimates. Water stored in aquifers is isolated from the total water storage measured by GRACE by removing the contributions of both the surface reservoir derived from satellite imagery and radar altimetry, and the root zone reservoir simulated by hydrological models.
An analysis of the South African fruit logistics infrastructure

This paper gives an overview of a study that was done on the logistics infrastructure used by the South African fruit industry. Given the increasing production and export volumes, development of new markets and the shortage of logistics infrastructure capacity during peak seasons, the SA fruit industry identified the need to investigate the optimal usage of existing infrastructure on a national level and to make recommendations with regards to the development of additional infrastructure. Some background on the SA fresh fruit industry and its export supply chain are provided. This is followed by a description of the four project phases and their deliverables. The paper is concluded with the key findings of the study.
No Touch Digital Option in Levy-Driven Model with Stochastic Interest Rate of CIR-Type

The price of no-touch digital option in a Levy driven market is considered. The underlying log-asset price Xt is the double exponential jump-diffusion process, and the risk-less interest rate in the market rt, is a stochastic function of a Markov process Yt. Under the assumption that Xt is independent of rt, we obtain a semi close-form formula for the option price, containing two factors: a bond price with the same maturity date as the option and the expectation of the infirmum process of Xt. Numerical methods are applied to the latter to realize its values, while the former is known analytically.
Comparison between Semiempirical and Computational Techniques in the Prediction of Aerodynamic Performance of the Rotor of a Quadcopter

Unmanned aerial vehicle is a growing technology used in different industries, and the main platform used for the UAVs is the quadcopter. The rotor of a quadcopter typically operates at low to moderate Reynolds number, so that the aerodynamics and an early prediction of the performance of the propellers are important in the design of the quadcopter. In the present chapter, the performance of a commercial propeller used in quadcopters is analyzed with three different techniques: momentum theory, blade element theory, and computational fluid dynamics. By applying the momentum and blade element theory, it was possible to estimate the thrust generated for a propeller in hover. A computational model based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was implemented and used to simulate a propeller in hover; the model predicts the wake and the thrust of the propeller as well. The results of the theory and computational approximations were compared with experimental measurements of flying tests.
Exploring the notion of emotional attachment in Orford's model of addiction : Review, and a step towards operationalising Orford's concept of strong attachment in addiction : A qualitative study

Orford's (2001) notion that a strong emotional attachment to an object (drug) or activity (gambling) is a central component of addiction has received little empirical attention. The published research on attachment to inanimate objects was reviewed and led to the following conclusions. First, attachment theory has been validly applied to people's relationships with inanimate objects. Second, researchers have developed technologies (e.g., psychological measures, operational definitions) to enable empirical research in this area. Third, this research is in its early phases, but has produced reliable standardised measures of people's emotional attachment to brands. Further research is needed to operationalise Orford's (2001) concept of strong attachment to a drug or addictive activity, although the progress on brand attachment and place attachment provides researchers with a framework for undertaking such research.
Transaction cost as a basis for deciding on marketing channels in the rural meat markets of the northern communal areas of Namibia

Transaction cost economics has travelled a difficult and long path to general acceptance in current economic opinion. The general theory of transaction cost has however developed in various paradigms with little or no empirical backing. It is mostly the difficulty of measurement that caused economists to shy away from empirical testing and rather, to quote Coase (1992), "to write in prose". The last 10 years there has been a renewed thrust for the empirical measurement of transaction cost. This study is an attempt to measure transaction cost by using case study data gathered in the run of the NOLIDEP study in the meat markets of the Northern Communal areas of Namibia. Until recently the method of data analysis that has been used in most empirical studies was variations of the regression technique. Regression as a tool is most useful in economics, giving quick answers and general trends to the researcher. It is however a technique that is linear in nature and therefore some information in the data will always be sacrificed. In generaland multi industry surveys this do not pose a great problem as general trends can usefully be applied in making policy recommendations. Stellenbosch University http://scholar.sun.ac.za
A new low-frequency state model of a three-phase three-switch three-level fixed-frequency PWM rectifier

This paper presents a new dynamic model of a three-phase, three-switch, three-level, fixed-frequency Pulse-Width-Modulated (PWM) rectifier. The modeling approach uses the state-space averaging technique in continuous current mode. The averaging process is applied on two time intervals: the switching period for average current evaluation, and the mains period for average voltage computation. A basic mathematical model of the converter is first established. A simplified time-invariant model is then deduced using rotating Park transformation. The steady-state regime is analyzed on the basis of the obtained model, and converter design criteria are consequently discussed. Numerical simulations are carried out in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed modeling approach.