Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The role for local government in energy conservation: An Australian perspective with particular reference to Fremantle, Western Australia

Increasing environmental and economic pressure to conserve energy will force Governments of all nations to introduce fossil fuel conservation policies in the 1990's. These national and state policies will require support at the local level, if they are to succeed. This thesis seeks to determine whether local governments are capable of maintaining that policy support, and to assess the level of influence they can have on energy conservation within the community, as well as within their own operations. The City of Fremantle, Western Australia was chosen in 1983 as the site for a four-year national energy demonstration programme, focussing on transport fuel conservation. An attractive mix of projects ranging from short-term in-house conservation and bicycle planning to longer term mixed land-use research, were carried out. This thesis is based on that experience in Fremantle. Continual monitoring and evaluation, combined with regular promotion has shown that local governments, despite their current indifference, can conserve energy. Technical and policy mechanisms for energy conservation within local government were developed and tested for their Australian applicability. Overseas experience was found to have limited relevance due to different local government structures and energy priorities. Common to all however was the requirement for strong political and management support. backed up by constant promotion and energy monitoring to assess performance. Some models for implementing local government energy conservation in Australia are proposed. An emphasis on transport energy policies within local government, through bicycle planning and land-use mixing, is found to have major energy saving potential by reducing travel distances. The research established a relationship between increased land-use mixing and lower transport energy use, whilst also showing that increased land use does not lower neighbourhood satisfaction. This provides a supportive policy base for pursuing more energy efficient town planning techniques, some of which are presented within. It concludes, therefore, in favour of the hypothesis that "Australian local government can play a key role in the conservation of energy, and for this to be effective requires an integrated staged implementation of both policies and projects, with priority being given to liquid fuel conservation through land use and transport planning. " Further research opportunities were identified in the transport and land-use planning areas in particular.
Design and analysis of an analog signal readout circuit for SPAD

-In this paper, an ultralow and high speed photocurrent analog signal readout circuit in order to amplify and process the output of SPAD(single-photon avalanche diodes) photocurrent is presented. The four main parts of the ASIC are low temperature coefficient(7.85ppm/°C) bandgap reference circuit, high linearity and high common-mode rejection ratio(120.6dB) operational amplifier, filter circuit and low-delay(63ns/1MHZ) comparator circuit. The SPAD readout chip is fabricated in a standard 0.5um CMOS process and size of 672um*780um. The simulation results indicate the chip successfully amplifies and processes 80nA and 1MHZ photocurrent analog signal. The circuit is fit for processing fleetness change and faint signal in CMOS image sensor of acquisition technology.
Improving Working Conditions in Global Supply Chains: The Role of Institutional Environments and Monitoring Program Design

Activism seeking to improve labor conditions in global supply chains has led many transnational corporations to adopt codes of conduct and to monitor suppliers for compliance. Drawing on thousands of audits conducted by a major social auditor, the authors identify structural contingencies in the institutional environment and program design under which codes and monitoring are more likely to be associated with improvements in conditions. At the institutional level, suppliers improve more when they face greater risk that nongovernmental organizations and the press will expose harmful working conditions. They also improve more when their buyers have experienced negative publicity for supply chain labor abuses. At the program design level, suppliers improve more on average when audits are pre-announced, when auditors are highly trained, and especially when both elements are present. Extended analysis of variations across violation types reveals nuances to these findings. For instance, pre-announced audits were followed by greater improvement in occupational safety and health practices but not child labor practices. These findings can inform strategies for improving supply chain working conditions.
Stage financing and syndication in the IPO underpricing of venture-backed firms: Venture capital and IPO underpricing

The article investigates the impact of stage financing and syndication practices on the underpricing level of venture-backed firms (VBFs) undertaking their initial public offerings (IPOs). This empirical study uses a unique hand-collected data set concerning more than 260 VBFs that went public on Euronext Paris and Alternext between 1997 and 2013. Our findings suggest a lower level of underpricing for firms backed by syndicated venture capital investment. Additionally, we find that the syndicate size is negatively associated with the level of underpricing. However, there is no evidence that stage financing has a significant impact. Syndication thus appears to be the only relevant mechanism to improve IPO performance (measured by the underpricing level), as it reduces agency costs and information asymmetry between the different stakeholders in an IPO process.
Antena de Microfita com Metasuperfície para Sistemas Citizens Broadband Radio Service

In this paper a microstrip antenna with metasurface is presented for applications in Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) band which require a bandwidth of 150 MHz located between 3.55 and 3.70 GHz. This technology is key enabler of Neutral Host services, which aims spectrum and infrastructure sharing, since spectral shortage can become a bottleneck for the implementation of new high-capacity networks. The choice to use metasurfaces was made to provide improvement in gain and maintain good bandwidth. We first simulate the antenna in the Ansoft HFSS software and after that desired results was obtained, the prototypes were implemented and the measurements performed, yielding a good agreement between the experimental and simulation results. Keywords—Microstrip antenna, Metasurface, CBRS, Neutral
Impact of External Supply Chain Management on Financial Performance of Firms in Thailand; With the Mediating Role of Supply Chain Sustainability

This study aims to provide empirical results about the external management practices in supply chain on the financial performance of manufacturing firms in Thailand. It also emphasizes the mediating role of sustainable supply chain management and its importance while considering the relation between external practices and performance. Quantitative method in the form of questionnaires is adopted in this paper. Using this survey method, the information is collected from the 346 manufacturing firms of Thailand and is then analyzed by using statistical tools such as SPSS and AMOS. The findings clearly depicts that there rely a positive significant relationship between external supply chain practices and firm financial performance. It also positively signifies the intervening role of sustainable efforts among this relationship. It is an extension to literature related to sustainable supply chain management practices and their impact on performance levels of firms. It also help mangers to focus on their external socially responsible supply chain practices to elevate financial performance. This study focuses on the comprehensive supply chain management practices on the manufacturing firms of Thailand. It also elaborate the significance of sustainability and its impact on performance indicators and growth of firms.
Who Benefits from Local Financing of Public Services? A Causal Analysis

Tiebout theorizes that local public services are provided more e ciently if costs are paid out of local revenues rather than by inter-governmental grants. But if local politics is not as pluralistic as Dahl has argued, citizens of higher socio-economic status will exercise greater influence, resulting in higher inequalities in service provision. We use administrative data to estimate the impacts of local revenue shares on individual performance of a nationally representative sample of over 140,000 U.S. eighth graders in math and reading. Causal e↵ects are estimated with geographic discontinuity models and 2SLS models that use change in housing prices as an instrument. For every 10 percent increase in local revenue share, students perform about 0.05 standard deviations higher. Gains from local funding are less for disadvantaged students. Local financing a↵ords better education for all but widens achievement gaps. ⇤Word count: 9,732. We would like to thank Alberto Abadie, Christopher Berry, Torben Iversen, Ken Scheve, Martin West for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. We also appreciate comments from participants at Harvard University’s American Politics Research Workshop, the Berkeley-Stanford Political Economy Workshop, the American Politics Workshop at the University of Chicago, and the Southern Political Science Conference. We would also like to express our thanks to the Program on Education Policy and Governance at the Harvard Kennedy School, the Walton Family Foundation, and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation for their financial support and to Antonio Wendland for his administrative support.
A broader view on brands’ growth and decline

What does it take to grow a brand? How to avoid its decline? Some popular answers to these questions can be found in the research by Byron Sharp and others from the Ehrenberg-Bass (EB) Institute on “how brands grow. ” In this article, we propose that such an approach, despite its strengths, lends itself to some limitations when taken too literally. We maintain that a broader notion and role of branding—encompassing brand equity, brand portfolio, and circular relationship of attitudes and behaviors—should be adopted by marketeers to derive better managerial implications for sustainable brand growth. We, therefore, invite marketers to not oversimplify Dirichlet evidences by thinking of availability as the only (costly) response to all marketing challenges.
Corporate Responsibility: In the Dilemma between Fake and Trust?

The accusation of whitewashing accompanied the discussion about corporate social responsibility (CSR) since its inception the 1950s. That's not surprising. Ever since its beginnings in Scottish moral philosophy, economics did not expect the general good to be enhanced by the individual's social orientation, but rather by its self-interest, a concept less liable to disappointment, and the work of the invisible hand (Hirschman, 1977). The latter aims to promote a common goal that individuals have not intended. Following his famous text, Adam Smith (2007 [1786], p. 350) continues: ‘I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. ’ The ‘mistrust’ of the ‘goodwill’ of the capitalist lives on in various streams such as Marxism, (neo-)liberalism or sociological system theory, to name but a few schools of thought. Marxists do not expect societal progress any more than (neo-)liberals from benevolent capitalists who, demand more taxable profits, instead of social responsibility, in the framework of the market organization of companies. System theorists find that ethical demands are hardly transferable directly into the economy code of payment/non-payment. Although Adam Smith (2007 [1786], p. 350) shared the view that the claim of public good orientation is ‘indeed, not very common among merchants’, but that ‘very few words need to be employed in dissuading them from it. ’
EVALUASI PERAN INSPEKTORAT DAERAH SEBAGAI APARAT PENGAWASAN INTERN PEMERINTAH (STUDI PADA INSPEKTORAT KABUPATEN PASER KALIMANTAN TIMUR)

Peraturan Pemerintah Nomor 60 Tahun 2008 tentang Sistem PengendalianIntern Pemerintah (SPIP) membawa perubahan besar dalam pelaksanaan peranAparat Intern pemerintah Indonesia (APIP). Peran APIP yang sebelumnya sebagaipemberi keyakinan saja bertambah menjadi peran konsultansi yang dirancanguntuk dapat memberi nilai tambah bagi organisasi. Peran konsultansi yangoptimal harus dapat memenuhi empat kriteria yang terdapat dalam PedomanTeknis Peningkatan Kapabilitas APIP. Empat kriteria peran konsultansi tersebutmenggunakan metode Internal Audit Capability Model (IA-CM) dalampenilaiannya. Dari empat kriteria penilaian mandiri, Inspektorat Kabupaten Paserbaru memenuhi dua kriteria yang ada sehingga peran konsultansi yang dilakukanbelum optimal,Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengidentifikasi faktor-faktor penghambatyang dihadapi Inspektorat Kabupaten Paser dalam pelaksanaan peran konsultansiyang belum optimal. Penelitian ini dilakukan dengan pendekatan kualitatif studikasus dan metode pengumpulan data dilakukan dengan identifikasi dokumen danwawancara. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa faktor-faktor penghambattersebut adalah kurangnya pengembangan kompetensi sumber daya manusia(auditor), kurangnya jumlah auditor, pedoman atau kebijakan pengawasan yangmasih kurang, dan hubungan antara inspektorat dengan objek pemeriksaan masihkurang kuat.
Distributed SPARQL Query Processing: a Case Study with Apache Spark

This chapter focuses on to the problem of evaluating SPARQL queries over large resource description framework (RDF) datasets. RDF data graphs can be produced without a predefined schema and SPARQL allows querying both schema and instance information simultaneously. The chapter presents the challenges and solutions for efficiently processing SPARQL queries and in particular basic graph pattern (BGP) expressions. The main challenge in processing complex graph pattern queries is to optimize the join operations which dominate the cost of all other operators. The chapter introduces the specific solution using the MapReduce framework for processing SPARQL graph patterns. It describes the use of Apache Spark and explains the importance of the physical data layers for the query performance. Spark SQL translates a SQL query into an algebraic expression composed of DF operators such as selection, projection and join.
Understanding Chinese Gamblers' Adoption of Online Casinos based on E-Marketing Mix Model

This paper presents a quantitative study of online casino adoption based on the e-marketing mix model. The Internet has changed the business context of many industries. Online casino is one such rapidly growing industry. Different e-marketing approaches have been widely adopted by online casinos to attract more customers. In China, there are twice as many online gamblers as there are online shoppers. Due to the high population in China, the market potential is huge. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of Chinese gamblers’ perceptions of e-marketing mix elements on their adoption of online casinos. The results can provide a reference for investors to develop more effective online casino businesses.
Why upskill?: examining AQF 5, 6 and 7 level qualifications in construction

The construction industry is extremely important to the Australian economy, as the fourth largest employer with nearly one million employees and contributing [AUD] 61 billion or 12 per cent of [gross domestic product] GDP per annum (ABS, 2011). Despite its economic significance, it has one of the least qualified workforces of all Australian industries. There are significant skill gaps at the higher levels of the [Australian Qualifications Framework] AQF from Diploma level (AQF 5) upwards with less than 10 per cent of the industry possessing a higher education qualification. This is in spite of the fact that over the last decade demand for higher skilled occupations, such as construction managers, has outstripped demand for construction trades (DEEWR, 2010). Movement between the [vocational education and training] VET and [higher education] HE sectors is low. Of all construction students qualifying at AQF 4, less than 11 per cent continue on to higher education and less than one per cent of all VET qualified persons in the construction workforce seek re-entry to university to gain higher level qualifications. A key workforce supply issue is the number of students at these levels and why so few students move from VET studies on to HE studies in building and construction. This paper examines national data in construction education pathways and explores some of the ‘enablers’ that facilitate pathways to mid-level and higher-level qualifications in construction. Through national research in seven Australian tertiary institutions offering construction programs at AQF levels 5-7 and selected student interviews, a number of ‘enablers’ of upskilling were identified. The results indicate that tertiary pathway programs in construction can attract articulating cohorts, but there are critical elements such as learner engagement, confidence, people-rich resources and collaboration that must be present to facilitate successful pathways and ongoing industry upskilling.
RISK MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES OF SORGHUM FARMERS IN FEDERAL CAPITAL TERRITORRY (FCT) ABUJA, NIGERIA

Risk though inevitable in agricultural business is manageable. This paper attempted to analyze the risk management strategies adopted by small-scale sorghum farmers in Abuja, Nigeria. The purpose of this research was to analyze the risk attitude of farmers, the various sources of risk, the determinants of risk attitude of the farmers as well as the various management strategies employed by sorghum farmers to mitigate its effect on their production. Primary data for the 2016 cropping season were used for the study. Analytical techniques involved the use of descriptive statistics, paired comparison method and logit regression technique. The result showed that the risk attitudinal ranking of sorghum farmers in the study area revealed that risk-averse behavior ranked first with AFS of 66. Also, the farmers were indifferent in their behavior to being risk-averse, risk-neutral or risk-preferring. In the analysis of the various sources of risk, it was revealed that production risk ranked first and accounted for almost 50% of the identified sources of risk. The main factors that affected risk attitude of the farmers were age, sex, health status, access to credit, income and total farm size. The risk management strategies adopted by the farmers among others were intercropping, farming system flexibility and planting of improved varieties of crops. It is therefore recommended that there should be synergy between Research Institutes and extension officers to continually update and train the farmers on innovations and skills in good risk management strategies to lessen the impact of this risk on their agricultural production and their wellbeing.
Structural exploration of stochastic neural networks for severely-constrained 3D memristive devices

: Neural networks architectures will be soon required to be deployed on IoT-edge systems, which will demand small and low-power circuits and application-dependent customiz-ability. Focusing on the power-eﬃciency and internal structures of 3D memristive devices, this paper proposes neural networks architectures that are implementable in those devices, together with an existing transfer learning technique. Our architectural model is stochastic and device-conscious in handling noise/variation-vulnerability and suppressing inter-layer connections. Through experiments, we quantitatively explored appropriate structures under device constraints and demonstrated comparable performance as conventional work holding complex connections. Also, we revealed an important challenge on device technologies for further performance improvement.
Using Special Economic Zones to Facilitate Development: Policy Implications

Volume 26 number 2 of the Transnational Corporations journal is a special issue dedicated to special economic zones (SEZs) and their potential as vehicles for development. The issue grew out of research and background papers that fed into UNCTAD’s World Investment Report 2019, the thematic focus of which was SEZs. In compiling this issue, we sought to contextualize the emergence of SEZs, their evolution, and the associated policy trajectories that underpin them. This introductory paper amalgamates observations from the broader academic literature, as well as the findings of the World Investment Report 2019 and its associated background papers. A common theme is that a well-designed zone will evolve with the changing comparative advantages and development level of the underlying economy, in what is described as the “SEZ development ladder”. As the locational advantages change, the emphasis and the objectives of the SEZ must also change. Reliance on “generic” locational advantages must necessarily diminish, and greater emphasis needs to be placed on developing “specialized” locational advantages. Another key finding is that the benefits of an SEZ must intentionally “leak” beyond the perimeter of the zone. The pervasiveness of the direct, indirect, and induced extra-SEZ effects beyond the geographically bounded space of the SEZ determines its success or failure. Scope remains for future research on SEZs, focusing on their sustainability, the impact of the digital economy and industry 4.0, and the involvement of new financing partners for SEZ development.
Working towards self-reliance: three lessons for disability pension reform

To successfully reduce the number of pensioners on disability support, policymakers must apply the lessons of other welfare reforms. Disability pensioners must be categorised based on their ability to work; provided tailored job search assistance; and required to follow mutual obligation conditions. Finally, the incentive to switch from unemployment benefits to DSP must be reduced.
Application of Neural Network PID Control in Hump Pushing Peak Process

The hump pushing peak speed is a key element which influences the hump disintegration ability. The neural network PID control was used to improve the push-hump speed. For every push-hump process, the neural network PID controller was designed to optimize the control of hump locomotive speed. The neural network PID control model and parameters adjustment algorithm were given. The simulation results showed that: neural network PID control and PID control all could meet the requirements, while the neural network PID control was better than PID control in the tracking ability.
Intra/Inter-frame Joint WPP Coding Algorithm on Multicore Platform

Although wavefront parallel processing (WPP) proposed in the HEVC standard and various inter frame WPP algorithms can achieved comparatively high parallelism, their scalability for its parallelism is still very limited due to various dependencies introduced in spatial and temporal prediction in HEVC. In this paper, through pixel correlation analysis, establishment of CTU node model, multi-core resource allocation strategy, we proposed an intra/inter-frame joint WPP coding algorithm for multi-core platform which can significantly improve the parallelism, while achieved good results in bit rate, PSNR, and acceleration ratio. Experiments on standard HD test sequence show that the proposed algorithm can lead to up to 2x, 1.3x speed up compared with the original WPP and IWF parallelism. Keywords—video coding; HEVC; multicore platform; high parallelism; WPP