Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pension Reform and Its Effect on Government Recurrent Expenditure: Evidence from Nigeria’s Data

The study seeks to find out the impact of pension reform on government recurrent expenditure in Nigeria. The Augmented Dickey Fuller and Phillips-Perron unit root tests conducted showed the variables for the research to be integrated at different orders of I(0) and I(1), necessitating the adoption of Autoregressive Distributive Lag (ARDL) for the analysis. The optimal lag structure was 1 which was determined through the Akaike Information criteria. The null hypothesis of no co-integration was rejected based on the ARDL bound test. The error correction term indicates that the speed of adjustment emanating from any short run disequilibrium in the variables is about twenty-one (21) times in the long run. Granger causality showed unidirectional causality running from recurrent expenditure to national pension fund, bidirectional causality running from recurrent expenditure to government revenue and vice versa and unidirectional causality running from national pension fund to government revenue. Diagnostic test also indicated the model to be appropriate, it has no serial correlation, no heteroskedasticity and the model was properly specified. The study recommends increase participation in the contributory pension scheme among public sector employees, increased awareness campaign on the benefits of the contributory pension especially in states and local government, contributor’s confidence should be taken into consideration among other recommendations.
Low-Level Wind Variability over the Indochina Peninsular during Boreal Winter

Low-level wind can be used to represent winter monsoon as an index constructed from 850 hPa wind. The vector empirical orthogonal function (VEOF) method is used to decompose variability of the low-level wind from JRA-25 reanalysis data during the boreal winter (December to February) over the Indochina peninsular. The first VEOF mode exhibits tropical anomalous easterlies over the southern region and anomalous southeasterlies over the central of region. A spatial pattern in positive phase of the first mode exhibits anomalous northeasterlies, and the pattern of negative phase reveals anomalous southwesterlies over the interior of the region. The variability of winter monsoon over the Indochina peninsular shows interannual variation, and long term variability is of interest. The relationship of winter monsoon over the Indochina peninsular to the East Asian winter monsoon (EAWM), which is a major climate feature during boreal winter, is investigated and discussed.
The Impact of Foreign and Indigenous Innovations on the Energy Intensity of China’s Industries

China’s industrial sectors have an approximate consumption amounting to 70% of the aggregate power of the entire country. Investigating the driving forces of the decline in the energy intensity is essential for accelerating China’s conversion into a low-carbon economy. Nowadays, there has been no agreement as yet when it comes to the impacts of China’s industrial sectors on energy intensity. The current research work studies the impacts of key driving forces, in particular foreign as well as indigenous innovations, on China’s industrial energy intensity in 34 industrial sectors between 2000 and 2010. Linear and nonlinear analysis methodologies are put to use. The linear empirical findings show that indigenous innovation primarily contributes to driving down the industrial energy intensity across the sampling duration. The foreign innovations, which take the shape of FDI as well as imports, are seen as benefiting the decline in industrial energy intensity; on the other hand, exports ramp up the industrial energy intensity. An additional investigation, on the basis of the panel threshold framework, indicates that the impact of foreign innovations by means of openness as well as industrial energy intensity has an association with the technological absorptive potential. The empirical evidence puts forward some pivotal inferences for policymakers with regard to China’s declining industrial energy intensity—for instance, exploitation of the maximum benefit associated with the technology spillovers; in addition, it is important to take into consideration the attributes and scenarios that impact industrial energy intensity.
Enhancing Peer Relationships in a Class of Refugee Children Through Drama in Education: An Action Research

This study examines the use of Drama in Education (DiE) techniques and activities of socio-emotional approach in improving peer relationships inside a class of refugee children learning Greek as a second language in a non-formal education context. The study tries to connect literature on peer relationships with theory on Drama in Education and socio-emotional activities. The action research included a three- circle educational intervention aiming at group bonding, conflict management and encouragement of empathy/acceptance/self-awareness. At the end of the intervention, collaboration was easier, students developed their critical thinking and empathy skills, and they bonded more as a group.
Use of Statistical Implicative Analysis in Complement of Item Analysis

In many different situations, students or more generally individuals fill forms or surveys. Such forms could be used to evaluate the knowledge of students after a lesson in a classroom or could form a global evaluation of all the students in a country. More generally a survey aims at gathering the opinion of people on a particular subject. In such a case, item analysis gives interesting information on how the items have been answered. In this paper, we present the Statistical Implicative Analysis (SIA) that produces oriented rules. A survey about the future of students in the different schools of the ESPOCH is studied to highlight the interest of using SIA in order to be able to analyze the general behavior of the population.
Seismological criticality concept and percolation model of fracture

SUMMARY In the present paper we consider an anisotropically correlated percolation model of fracture (PMF), namely, the geometry of fracture structures, the energy emission model and the evolution of scatter of emitted (effective) amplitudes at attaining the critical point (CP; percolation threshold). The sequences of effective amplitudes calculated from PMF are considered as proxies of seismic catalogues and are analysed by various linear and non-linear methods, developed in modern time-series analysis. It is shown that the drastic increase in the scatter of amplitudes is a good precursor of the impending CP even in the case of an individual percolation run. The Lempel-Ziv (LZ) complexity test reveals clear non-linear structure in the sequence of effective amplitudes; the value LZ = 0.750 is significantly less than LZ for random process (LZ = 1) and the Hurst exponent is in the range 0.8‐0.85. Both these results point to the appearance of some order in the generation of effective emission events, due, probably, to the memory property of percolation processes. Various tests (curvature parameter, Shannon entropy) show that the acceleration of model seismicity close to the CP increases with the growth of anisotropic correlation (AC). The role of AC in the acceleration of energy emission, and Shannon entropy behaviour close to the CP, are analysed.
Winter Braids

This is an expanded version of a three-hour minicourse given at the winterschool Winterbraids IV held in Dijon in February 2014. The aim of these lectures was to present some aspects of the dimer model to a geometrically minded audience. We spoke neither of braids nor of knots, but tried to show how several geometric tools that we know and love (e.g. (co)homology, spin structures, real algebraic curves) can be applied to very natural problems in combinatorics and statistical physics. These lecture notes do not contain any new results, but give a (relatively original) account of the works of Kasteleyn [14], Cimasoni-Reshetikhin [4] and Kenyon-Okounkov-Sheffield [16].
Coping style & stressor susceptibility

Male wild house-mice, selected for short (SAL) and long (LAL) attack latency, show distinctly different behavioural strategies in coping with environmental challenges. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that this difference in coping style is associated with a differential stress responsiveness of the hypothalamicpituitary-adrenal (HPA) system. SAL rather than LAL mice showed a clear fluctuation in circulating corticosterone concentrations around the circadian peak with significantly higher levels in the late light phase. LAL mice showed lower basal ACTH levels and higher thymic and spleen weights compared to SAL mice. Under basal conditions, glucocorticoid receptor (GR) and mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) mRNA in the hippocampus and corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) mRNA in the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus were not different between the two lines. Forced swimming for 5 min induced high immobility behaviour in LAL mice which was associated with an enhanced and prolonged corticosterone response compared to SAL mice, while absolute ACTH levels did not differ. In addition, LAL mice showed an increase in hippocampal MR mRNA (but not GR) and hypothalamic CRH mRNA at 24 h after forced swimming. In conclusion, a genetic trait in coping style of wild house-mice is associated with an idiosyncratic pattern of HPA activity, and greater responsiveness of physiological and molecular stress markers in LAL mice. In view of the profound differences in behavioural traits and stress system reactivity, these mouse lines genetically selected for attack latency present an interesting model for studying the mechanism underlying individual variation in susceptibility to stress-related psychopathology. HPA regulation in LAL and SAL mice 37
Eurozone Real Output and Covered Interest Parity Deviations: Can Stronger Real Output Lessen the Deviations?

Evidence shows that covered interest parity deviations have expanded over time in the EUR/USD cross currency basis swap market – the world’s largest basis swap market – even across the less erratic long-end of the basis swap curve. We analyze the long-run impact and dynamic interdependencies of eurozone macroeconomic factors on the long-end of the EUR/USD cross-currency basis swap spread, utilizing quarterly data from 2003–2018. Our stylized model predicts that a rise in euro area real output relative to the US would lead to a tighter euro basis swap spread; however, an increase in euro area money supply relative to the US as well as a depreciation of the euro would widen the euro basis in the long run. Our model suggests that the magnitude of the effect of real output on the basis is particularly more pronounced than the magnitude of the individual or combined effect of money supply increases and euro depreciation on the basis. Interestingly, our empirical results are consistent with these predictions. In addition, after examining convergence to long run, we find that among the eurozone variables, it is the cross-currency basis that is the predominant adjusting variable in the event of a divergence from the estimated long-run relation. Finally, using accumulated impulse response, we show that shocks to the exchange rate which strengthen the US dollar have permanent effects on the basis.
Understanding Students’ Self-Management Skills at State Islamic University in Indonesia

The success of students in undertaking their studies depends, among others, on their ability to manage and organize their activities and time. This qualitative research examined students’ self-management skills in the English Language Education Department, Ar-Raniry State Islamic University, Aceh, Indonesia. We looked at students’ motivational and behavioral strategies and scrutinized their time management, emotion, effort, and social and learning environments, and the impacts on their academic performance and social involvement. Three areas closely related to students’ self-management skills, namely academic achievement, academic awards, and social involvements were explored to understand factors contributing to their achievement. To gather the data, the researchers used the semi-structured interview with five female students from the 2017/2018 cohort, selected by using purposive sampling with certain criteria, such as their GPA, TOEFL score, and social involvements. These criteria were imposed to distinguish high-achiever students from the average one. Findings showed that students with outstanding management skills adopt motivational and behavioral strategies in their daily lives. Setting goals, finding relevant activities (worshipping, writing, and reading) were mentioned as motivational strategies; while prioritizing, self-observing, as well adaptation to the surrounding environment were crucial in their behavioral strategies. They also practiced positive and supportive illustrations in developing a good self-management system, such as setting up and executing academic priorities and evaluating how activities were done.
Combination forecasts of tourism demand with machine learning models

ABSTRACT The main objective of this study is to analyse whether the combination of regional predictions generated with machine learning (ML) models leads to improved forecast accuracy. With this aim, we construct one set of forecasts by estimating models on the aggregate series, another set by using the same models to forecast the individual series prior to aggregation, and then we compare the accuracy of both approaches. We use three ML techniques: support vector regression, Gaussian process regression and neural network models. We use an autoregressive moving average model as a benchmark. We find that ML methods improve their forecasting performance with respect to the benchmark as forecast horizons increase, suggesting the suitability of these techniques for mid- and long-term forecasting. In spite of the fact that the disaggregated approach yields more accurate predictions, the improvement over the benchmark occurs for shorter forecast horizons with the direct approach.
Entrance of a Bioartificial Capsule in a Pore

This paper deals with the numerical study of the flow of a bioartificial capsule in a long axisymmetric pore with a hyperbolic entrance. The capsule consists of an infinitely thin and hyperelastic membrane filled with a Newtonian liquid. The resolution of the problem is based on an integral formulation of Stokes equations along with a boundary element method. The model allows the study of the influence of various parameters such as the membrane rheology, the membrane elasticity, the viscosity ratio λ between the capsule fluid and the suspending fluid, the capsule shape and size. Owing to the important number of parameters involved in the problem, the effect of viscosity ratio λ and of the membrane rheology are investigated separately in the regime of large deformations. Special attention is given to the influence of the capsule initial shape. Specifically, we have considered ellipsoidal capsules with aspect ratio A/B=0.28 which thus have the same sphericity index as red blood cells. It is found that the entrance of the capsule in the pore is very sensitive to the capsule shape and volume. The influence of viscosity ratio λ is important in cases where quasi-plugging of the pore is reached. The effect of capsule rheology is significant when the deformations are very large.
Shifting to the Cloud - How SAP's Partners Cope with the Change

With the advance of cloud technology, enterprise software vendors have introduced software platforms to facilitate third-party contributions to their ecosystems. This shift towards cloud-based software platforms af-fects ecosystem partners who have to adopt the new technologies, rethink their business model, and change their sales strategies. To understand how partners cope with this change, we conducted an exploratory case study within SAP’s partner ecosystem after the intro-duction of a cloud-based software platform. By conduct-ing 14 interviews within SAP and 10 partner companies, we identify three distinct coping strategies that partners adopt in the face of the shift to the cloud. Partners either (1) embrace, (2) slow down, or (3) repurpose the change. SAP in turn engages in mediation actions to in-crease the adoption of its platform and to alleviate pos-sible negative impacts of the coping strategies. These mediation actions contribute to a continuous adjustment of SAP platform strategy. These findings contribute to literature on platform ecosystems by (1) highlighting that partners react differently to change in the ecosys-tem and by (2) shedding light on the interactions be-tween platform owner and partners in the development of a platform strategy.
Hazard Perception: Does Experience Matter?

Hazard perception is a critical skill in driving. Without which, drivers have high chances to get involved in crashes. Previous study in literature highlighted that hazard perception test may not be a suitable diagnostic tool in distinguishing novice and experienced drivers. Current study aimed to replicate this finding, but involved drivers with more experience than the one in literature. The results revealed that while both less- and more-experienced drivers are identical in terms of reaction time to hazards, the former group recognised less hazards than the latter.
The silent epidemic: Workplace bullying in Ireland and Australia: The role of legislation and dysfunctional supervision

The aim of this paper is to examine measures aimed at countering workplace bullying in two OECD countries with strong historical, trade and economic links: Australia and Ireland. As most reported workplace bullying incidents are those directed by supervisors toward subordinates, we argue that a crucial issue facing organisations in both countries is the role that supervision plays in an organisation’s wellness. This paper begins with an overview of extant workplace bullying research. This is followed by a summary of government/legislative measures aimed at curbing workplace bullying in Ireland and Australia. Following this, we review the role that workplace supervision plays in an organisation’s wellness. We argue that organising criteria and studying different forms of dysfunctional behaviour – both egregious and innocuous may assist organisations in developing appropriate anti-bullying workplace policies. This paper is a work in progress. Material in the paper cannot be used without permission of the author. DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT WORKING PAPER SERIES I S S N 1 3 2 7 – 5 2 1 6
Unrecognized Exodus , Unaccepted Accountability The Looming Shortage of Principals and Vice Principals in Ontario Public School Boards

Thomas R. Williams Professor School of Policy Studies Queen’s University1 Abstract. To the apparent surprise of policy makers at the provincial and school board levels, Ontario’s public schools are about to experience a massive exodus of principals and vice principals. This report, funded by a grant from the Ontario Principals’ Council, details the scale of the retirement wave currently hitting Ontario’s public school boards. Data collected from 946 practicing school administrators suggest that the retirement rates will be almost 20 per cent higher than provincial estimates.
Transparent self-assembled films of reduced graphene oxide platelets

Transparent conducting films have been fabricated in one step, combining self-assembly and chemical reduction of graphene oxide platelets dispersed in water. The films are of centimeter scale and their thickness can be controlled by the concentration of the graphene oxide suspension. The optical transmittance values at a wavelength of 550 nm were 87% and 96% for the films made from 1.5 and 0.5 mg/ml suspensions, respectively, and have sheet resistances of 11.3 and 31.7 kΩ/◻. Scanning and transmission electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy were used to characterize the films.
Factors Contributing to Product Innovation in a Value Chain: Three Case Studies

A company’s capabilities can be categorized into business networks, knowledge acquisition, and strategic management. These capabilities are influenced by the constructs of the following orientations: EO (Entrepreneurial Orientation), MO (Market Orientation), LO (Learning Orientation) and TO (Technological Orientation). We propose an Innovation Conceptual Model to explain the relationship dynamics between innovation and capabilities as influenced by each orientation. The model is qualitatively applied to case studies on each key branch (manufacturer, distributor and retailer) of an international value chain in the professional aesthetics industry. Our findings show that innovation does not always have an effect on the achievement of a firm’s goals. Variables such as production costs, in-house research, development and innovation, closed niche market, invasive aesthetic medicine, and commercial mass production help explain the observed dichotomies between innovation outcomes and the firm’s goals.
Perceived Development Opportunity, Workload and Job Satisfaction as Predictors of Organizational Commitment: A Research Proposal

targets. The reason for the low commitment can occur due to the ability of personnel in dealing with the challenges of the task that has not been upgraded with training and education related to the field it carries. In investigating laka criminal acts, investigators / assistant investigators in the Laka Unit still use conventional methods. Supposedly in the field of work related to the function of service to the community, the service process is carried out with an open / transparent system. When viewed in other service functions such as criminal investigator (Criminal Investigation), the service process to the public has been carried out online with e-management investigation. In order to prepare personnel in the Laka Unit for the challenges of the digital age, competency requirements are also important to consider. The competency requirement as a TKP Unit team is to have received TKP training at the State Police School, so that personnel have qualified skills in conducting TKP work quickly and accurately. Furthermore, the competency requirement that must be possessed by a team of investigators / auxiliary investigators is to have attended a specialist development education and then to investigate at the traffic education center in Serpong. By joining specialist development education, personnel will get the development of knowledge in the investigation process. Abstract: The purpose of this study is to propose model research in order to determine the predictors of job satisfaction and organizational commitment. A proposed model has three independent variables, namely perceived development opportunity, workload, job satisfaction and one dependent variable, namely organizational commitment. The independent variable lead to a mediating variable, which is job satisfaction as predictor of dependent variable. Proposed research model has five hypotheses that will determine whether perceived development opportunity, workload and job satisfaction influence organizational commitment. The study will be conducted in Bali Regional Police Traffic Accident Unit. This study is the first in providing a proposed model to determine the organizational commitment among Police Traffic Accident in Bali Regional. The empirical finding will be useful as reference for further studies and policy making regarding human resources.