Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Microscopic Transportation Simulation on a Computer Cluster Based on the IEEE 1394 Interface

Microscopic transportation simulation systems often demand much more computing power than that of macroscopic transportation simulation systems. But microscopic transportation simulation systems are getting more popular because the microscopic simulation method can produce more accurate results than macroscopic simulation method in which, individual traveller is abstracted into ‘flows’. A typical microscopic transportation simulation system for a metropolitan areas often need to carry-out computation on millions of individual travellers, super computers or highend computer clusters are often utilised to achieve this goal. Although costs of super computers or computer clusters are reducing, they are still the major obstacle for deploying microscopic transportation simulation systems widely. In this paper we discuss a cost-effective computer cluster that is based on the IEEE 1394 bus as the interconnection and how the cluster can be used in two typical microscopic transportation simulation systems with their performances improved.
Mechanisms of Social Capital in Organizations: How Team Cognition Influences Employee Commitment and Engagement

While previous research has shown that organizational social capital benefits organizations and creates performance gains, most of this work examined this relationship at the macro level based on organizational aggregates. In this article, we study organizational social capital effects at the micro level, that is, its impact on important work-related attitudes of employees within organizations. We argue that individual perceptions of organization-wide social capital matter in determining employee attitudes such as engagement and commitment. We also point to the critical role of team cognition in shaping individual perceptions of social capital in organizations. Using an organizationally representative sample of nearly 1,200 individuals from two local government organizations in North Carolina, we find support for the indirect effect of team cognition on employee work attitudes. The findings suggest that a promising way to increase the social capital of organizations is through interventions at the team level.
A study of bugs in test code and a test model for analyzing tests

Testing has become a wide-spread practice among practitioners. Test cases are written to verify that production code functions as expected and are modified alongside the production code. Over time the quality of the test code can degrade. The test code might contain bugs, or it can accumulate redundant test cases or very similar ones with many redundant parts. The work presented in this dissertation has focused on addressing these issues by characterizing bugs in test code, and proposing a test model to analyze test cases and support test reorganization. To characterize the prevalence and root causes of bugs in the test code, we mine the bug repositories and version control systems of 448 Apache Software Foundation projects. Our results show that around half of all the projects had bugs in their test code; the majority of test bugs are false alarms, i.e., test fails while the production code is correct, while a minority of these bugs result in silent horrors, i.e., test passes while the production code is incorrect; missing and incorrect assertions are the dominant root cause of silent horror bugs; semantic, flaky, environment related bugs are the dominant root cause categories of false alarms. We present a test model for analyzing tests and performing test reorganization tasks in test code. Redundancies increase the maintenance overhead of the test suite and increase the test execution time without increasing the test suite coverage and effectiveness. We propose a technique that uses our test model to reorganize test cases in a way that reduces the redundancy in the test suite. We implement our approach in a tool and evaluate it on four open-source softwares. Our empirical evaluation shows that our approach can reduce the number of redundant test cases up to 85% and the test execution time by up to 2.5% while preserving the test suite’s behaviour.
Understanding the Relation of Policy Discourse and Re-Conceptualising Curriculum: A Kosovo Perspective on a New Meaning of Context

This article is an analysis of the meaning of context in implementing curriculum reform. It uses an analysis of two Kosovo curriculum reforms in the previous two decades to elaborate on how education systems engage in the transfer of transnational ideas as well as how they face challenges in making those ideas succeed. The article uses Discursive Institutionalism and the debate between the Didaktik and Curriculum Theory Traditions as a framework for analysis to understand the form of ideas and types of discourses that are relevant for successful curriculum reform. While the Kosovo curriculum reform has been struggling to find a balance between the Didaktik and Curriculum Theory traditions, it is evident that two reform projects did not provide sufficient possibilities forcoordinative discourse among key actors in the reform implementation. For reform to succeed, education systems need to balance between both background and foreground ideas as well as communicative and coordinative discourses. In education systems whose professional capacities are limited and whose resources are scarce, such a balance gains greater importance, indicating the need for more school-based development activities. Therefore, the context should not be viewed as solely static, but needs to be assigned a new meaning regarding what it is and should be placed at the service of reform implementation by recognising the importance of critical reflection when adopting a particular curriculum policy orientation and tailoring the discourse for promoting reform ideas.
Palestinian Nation Branding via Public Diplomacy

The term “branding” is still contested when linked to nations; colleagues in Palestine would argue that the term “promotion” could be of a more positive impact; in fact, this paper will examine this issue as scholars automatically link “branding” to products, business, and trade. It is not easy to imagine the nation as a brand; a nation cannot re-make itself, like a company launching a new product. Branding a nation is inspired by its national identity which started to evolve with the evolution of the nation states; it heavily relies on people’s attachment to a shared land, shared history, shared language, shared culture, religion, clothing, behaviours, values, attitudes, or positions in dealing with internal and external variables. It is crucial to distinguish the identity for a nation which is usually done through studying the elements depending on which a nation promotes itself using public diplomacy. Public diplomacy is a soft power’s key instrument which we cannot ignore; in soft power, the narrative and the reality have to reflect each other. A nation’s identity is partly inherited from history and partly a continuing construction; there are aspects of national reputation which can be altered, for better or worse, by choice of actions, words, and images. Even the inherited parts of national reputation are open to revision as time goes by, states have gun a long way in their nation branding and Palestine cannot remain indifferent. This paper aims to address the importance of Palestinian national branding and to further shed light on how this could be done. Based on examples of other successful countries―case studies, the paper shall introduce a number of elements that shape a national identity; those elements are expected to inspire scholars and policy-makers in determining what is worth promoting in Palestine that would lead to successful branding of Palestine as a nation. In branding for Portugal, Cristiano Ronaldo, the soccer player was determined to be a national brand; the Portuguese chose to brand themselves with his initials CR7. Today, if you read, hear, or visit Portugal, you will find a lot related to CR7, whether we like soccer or not, CR became an attractive brand for his country. For their nation branding, Portuguese chose tourism, cuisine, culture, and sports rather than their history of conquering the world, and this paper will be inspired by this example and others. In Palestine, not much work had been put on nation branding; therefore, this paper will introduce the concepts and will try to examine how important it is for serving the national cause and the strategic national goals, in doing so, the paper will try to answer the following questions: What is nation branding? How is public diplomacy related to nation branding? Can public diplomacy replace nation branding? What is the image of Palestine and Palestinians abroad? How are we seen by others vs. how do we wish to be seen? Does Israel play a role in branding Palestine and Palestinians internationally? Is it important to consider a national brand/s for Palestine? What is the Palestine that we aspire to promote?
Challenges of Governing Off-Grid “Productive” Sanitation in Peri-Urban Areas: Comparison of Case Studies in Bolivia and South Africa

Globally, peri-urban areas are experiencing rapid urbanization. Conventional infrastructure development is generally slow to catch up and the lack of basic sanitation in peri-urban areas is a constantly growing—and often overlooked—problem. There are examples where these challenges have been addressed by off-grid “productive” sanitation systems that provide opportunities for recovery and reuse of valuable waste stream resources. However, governing such systems and ensuring effective municipal policies can be challenging since the socio-economic contexts in many peri-urban areas are transforming rapidly. A comparison of two initiatives in Bolivia and South Africa offers valuable insights for introducing functional off-grid “productive” sanitation systems relying on urine-diverting dry toilets (UDDTs) in peri-urban settlements. Findings suggest that acceptance of the UDDTs by households largely rely on consistent awareness raising and capacity building, in addition to adaptation to the local needs and creating a sense of ownership over the toilet system. Changing perceptions of what constitutes an aspirational toilet, and developing services for waste management collection, seem to be crucial components for ensuring long-term use and functionality of the UDDTs. Investments and further innovations for upscaling of resource recovery systems are needed to make these systems cost-effective and logistically viable. To attract these additional investments, it will be crucial to assess the societal economic benefits of off-grid “productive” sanitation compared to centralized wastewater systems. The comparison also highlights that off-grid sanitation requires a clear division and coordination of roles and responsibilities among different authorities, in order to transcend political difficulties that emerge where these boundaries overlap. Thus, integrating clear boundaries into urban planning policies, and including informal processes in communities, play an important role in improving governance of basic services in peri-urban areas.
New support vector machine based classification algorithm and its application

Vapnik's support vector machine(SVM) based soft-margin classifier is one of the most popular pattern classification models in use.The main difficult work in this SVM classifier is to determine the regulation parameter C.A proposes a new soft-margin SVM classification algorithm was proposed,which could avoid the design problem of parameter C.The main idea of the new classification al-gorithm is to permit data-points located in the separated area but not cross the hyper-plane through modifying the restriction conditions with slack variables.The simulation examples and fault diagnosis results show that the new algorithm can make SVM classifier have good generalization performance.
EFFECTIVE CROSS HEDGING: EVIDENCE FROM PHYSICAL CRUDE PALM OIL AND ITS INTER-RELATED AGRICULTURAL FUTURES CONTRACTS

Since its establishment, Crude Palm Oil futures contract (FCPO) has been used to directly hedge its physical crude palm oil (CPO). However, due to the excessive speculation activities on crude palm oil futures market, it has been said to be no longer an effective hedging tool to mitigate the price risk of its underlying physical market. This triggers the need for market players to find possible alternatives to ensure that the hedging role can be executed effectively. Thus this investigation attempts to examine whether other inter-related grains and oil seed futures contracts could serve as effective cross-hedging mechanisms for the CPO. Weekly data of inter-related futures contracts from Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) and Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) are employed to cross hedge the physical crude palm oil prices. The study starts from 2006 until 2016. Empirical results indicate that FCPO is still the best futures contract for hedging purposes while Chicago Soybean (CBOTBO) provides second best alternative if cross-hedging is considered. Keywords: Crude palm oil, Crude palm oil futures, Cross Hedging, Optimal Hedge Ratio, Effective Hedging
Optimal Travel Route Recommendation Mechanism Based on Neural Networks and Particle Swarm Optimization for Efficient Tourism Using Tourist Vehicular Data

With the swift growth in tourism all around the world, it has become vital to introduce advancements and improvements to the services provided to the tourists, in order to ensure their ease of travel and satisfaction. Optimal travel route identification and recommendation is one of these amenities, which requires our attention as a basic and much-needed facility to improve the experience of travelers. In this work, we propose an optimal route recommendation mechanism for the prediction of the next tourist attraction and optimal route recommendation to the predicted tourist attraction. The algorithms used in the proposed methodology are neural networks for prediction and particle swarm optimization for finding the optimal route. We design an objective function for the route optimization based on the five route parameters of distance, road congestion, weather conditions, route popularity, and user preference. The data used is the tourism data of Jeju Island from December 2016 to December 2017. The performance analysis in the prediction mechanism is performed based on the accuracy of test data results with varying route sizes, while for route optimization, the obtained results are compared with the non-optimized technique. Also, comparisons analysis is performed by comparing the performance of the applied particle swarm optimization algorithm with an identical system-level implementation of the genetic algorithm, which is one of most widely used optimization algorithms. An extended comparative analysis with some related recommendation system studies is also performed based on key optimization factors in route optimization.
Using the Improved CGE Model to Assess the Impact of Energy Structure Changes on Macroeconomics and the Carbon Market: An Application to China

ABSTRACT A reasonable energy structure can secure the orderly development of the economy and effectively control carbon emissions. This paper builds a CGE (Computable General Equilibrium) model that incorporates the carbon market module, uses 2012 as a base period, and uses carbon prices and energy investments as starting points to simulate and assess China’s impact on macroeconomics and carbon markets under three scenarios. The results show that a reasonable energy structure has a positive impact on macroeconomics, and macroeconomic indicators under the three scenarios show an increasing trend compared with 2012. The comparison of economic indicators under the different scenarios shows that the expected energy structure of the 12th Five-Year Plan is the most judicious among the three scenarios and can produce greater economic benefits with lower energy investments. The study concluded that carbon market spending as a percentage of GDP is the most appropriate indicator for analyzing the relationship between carbon prices and carbon dioxide emissions. Our analysis of the indicators found that the higher the carbon price, the smaller the carbon dioxide emissions, and the lower the carbon price, the greater the carbon dioxide emissions. This article will help provide a reference for China’s future energy structure adjustment.
Resurrecting the C-Capm: Empirical Evidence from France and Germany

In this paper we analyse whether the consumption based capital asset pricing model is consistent with asset return data from the French and German stock markets. We evaluate the performance of the CCAPM by applying the non-parametric methodology of Hansen and Jagannathan (1991) and adopting alternative specifications of utility. The first specification assumes standard power utility, or time separable constant relative risk aversion (TS-CRRA) while the second allows for habit persistence (TNS-HP) and the final specification follows an Abel (1990) type model. We find that the model is consistent with the data. However, high degrees of risk aversion are implied for the models to be consistent. Incorporating habit persistence only partially reduces the implied levels of risk aversion.
Time-Varying Exchange Rate Risk Premium

We characterize the exchange rate risk premium on the context of a small open economy with controlled floating exchange rate regime. The data set includes 100 observations on case of Vietnam over 01/2011-04/2019. The risk premium is varying over time. And it is determined by output growth rate, inflation rate, foreign capital inflows and liquidity supply. As one application, the existence of time varying risk premium reduces the effectiveness of foreign exchange market intervention by forward contract.
Trade in a two sector endogenous growth model with two accumulating factors

This paper provides an endogenous growth model including technology diffusion induced by openness. A two sector model composed of a consumption good sector and an education sector shows that the openness leads to a compensation of the lack considering the human capital stock. It is a comparison between a relatively less developed country, which does not use physical capital in the education sector, and a relatively developed country using both, human and physical capital in the education sector. By importing a relatively human capital intensive good, the relatively less developed country benefits from technology diffusion. This paper shows, that introducing trade implies a higher growth rate than in a closed economy.
One-click scanning of large-size documents using mobile phone camera

Currently mobile apps for document scanning do not provide convenient operations to tackle large-size documents. In this paper, we present a one-click scanning approach for large-size documents using mobile phone camera. After capturing a continuous video of documents, our approach automatically extracts several key frames by optical flow analysis. Then based on key frames, a mobile GPU based image stitching method is adopted to generate a completed document image with high details. There are no extra manual intervention in the process and experimental results show that our app performs well, showing convenience and practicability for daily life.
Market valuations of bargain purchase gains: are these true gains under IFRS?

This study investigates stock market valuations for bargain purchase gains (BPGs) in the context of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) between 2005 and 2014. Motivated by the increased frequency and high concentration of BPGs in Europe, we study a sample of acquirers listed on the London Stock Exchange to assess the value relevance of BPGs (a) under discrepant disclosure practices (i.e. disclosure versus non- disclosure of the reasons for the gains), (b) before and after the revision of IFRS 3, and (c) considering different income classifications for BPGs (operating or non-operating earnings). BPGs, on average, are not significantly valued by the stock market. However, the post-IFRS 3 revision period, marked by stricter measurement criteria and additional disclosure requirements, witnessed a significant shift in firm valuations. BPGs for which the reason for the gain is disclosed are positively valued only in the post-IFRS 3 revision period. BPGs are consistently perceived as value irrelevant for those firms which fail to comply with mandated IFRS 3 disclosure requirements regarding the reason for the gain. Finally, BPGs classified as a component of non-operating income with sufficient note disclosure on the reason for the gain are significantly associated with prices and returns.
Maximum Torque Control for Field Weakening Operationof Asynchronous Motor Applied in Electric Vehicle

Based on the analysis of the field weakening operation of asynchronous motor, a maximum torque control method was proposed for the field weakening of asynchronous motor to satisfy the higher torque output of motor driven system in electric vehicle. It was simple and reliable. The validity and feasibility of this method were proved by the theory analysis and simulation results.
DOES GOLD INVESTMENT OFFER PROTECTION AGAINST STOCK MARKET LOSSES? EVIDENCE FROM FIVE COUNTRIES

This study aims to analyze the characteristics of gold as a diversifier, a hedge or a safe haven against the stock market collapse in five countries. We propose the standard and quantile techniques in the volatility models, with the time-varying conditional variance of the regression residuals based on the TGARCH specifications. Gold exhibits considerable evidence of the strong hedge in India and the US and diversified role in China. With regards to its role as a safe haven, gold retains its status as a key investment particularly in a country where gold has a preeminent cultural role, i.e., India, as well as in the US and the UK. On the contrary, gold only plays a minor role in emerging markets like in Malaysia. Therefore, investors in India and the US can use gold to protect against losses in the stock market at all times, whereas in the UK, gold is only viewed as a profitable asset to own during the stock market collapse. Contrariwise, Chinese investors should hold a well-diversified portfolio to earn sustainable returns and offer protection against the stock market collapse. We conclude that the recent worldwide financial crises have increased the investment demand for gold over the last 17 years at least.
The “grammar” in Universal Grammar: A biolinguistic clarification

Abstract This short piece addresses the confusion over terminology that has reigned, and partly still reigns, when it comes to the concept of Universal Grammar (UG). It is argued that whilst there might be changes in terminology and theory, conceptually UG cannot be eliminated. From a biolinguistic perspective, UG is not a hypothesis by any rational epistemological standard, but an axiom. Along these lines, the contemporary evolutionary perspective on the language faculty (FL) is briefly discussed to then argue that UG is necessarily part of FL in both a narrow and broad sense. Ultimately, regardless of terminology, UG is inevitably one of the factors determining the growth of FL.