Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The impact of supply chain management practices on industry competitiveness: A mixed-methods study on the Zimbabwean petroleum industry

Effective supply chain management practices can enhance competitiveness along the supply chain. Fuel supply chain competitiveness requires a reliable flow of product and customer satisfaction. Competitiveness eluded the Zimbabwean petroleum industry over time and so this research looked at the impact of supply chain management practices on industry competitiveness. Owing to the complex nature of the petroleum industry’s supply chain, the concurrent parallel mixed methods research design was adopted for its robustness and suitability for researching complex situations. In the qualitative research, in-depth interviews were held with six experienced and knowledgeable executives who were strategically positioned in the petroleum industry. In the quantitative research, data were collected through objective questionnaires from 57 managers who were in charge of supply chain practices in the participating petroleum companies. The research results revealed that the unfriendly business environment that was driven by the shortage of foreign currency, a restrictive tax regime, a weak regulatory system and the lack of stable government policy on fuel industry operations resulted in financial, procurement, inventory, logistics and communication challenges and the weakening of all the supply chain practices. Therefore, the resultant high cost of products, expensive and bureaucratic logistics, lack of investment in fuel distribution technology and poor customer service negatively impacted the petroleum industry’s competitiveness. The study recommends the strengthening of the petroleum industry’s supply chain management strategies, international benchmarking of industry processes, adopting international best practices and carrying out further research in the industry’s supply chain areas like procurement and pricing models for landlocked states.
Seeking a Common Framework for Research on Narcissism: An Attempt to Integrate the Different Faces of Narcissism within the Circumplex of Personality Metatraits

The current paper presents a proposal for integrating different narcissism constructs (grandiose, vulnerable, communal, and collective) within the Circumplex of Personality Metatraits (CPM), an integrative model of personality structure that could also be used to accommodate the narcissism spectrum model. The study was conducted on a community sample (N = 781 adults). The theoretically predicted locations of the different narcissism constructs within the CPM space were empirically verified using the structural summary method. We found that grandiose, vulnerable, and communal narcissism can be meaningfully located within the CPM, while the status of collective narcissism remains unclear. Thus, the CPM can serve as a personality matrix explaining the differences and similarities between the various faces of narcissism. © 2019 European Association of Personality Psychology
Retornos a la educación en Guatemala

El presente articulo aborda el tema de los retornos o rendimientos de la educacion en Guatemala, con base en la teoria del capital humano y el modelo de Mincer, que es el mas utilizado para este tipo de estudios, con el objetivo comparar los rendimientos de los anos 2002 y 2016. La base de datos utilizada en las estimaciones, mediante minimos cuadrados ordinarios, se obtuvo de Encuestas de Empleo e Ingresos de los anos 2002 y 2016. Los resultados revelan rendimientos positivos y crecientes por nivel educativo, aunque menores en 2016 comparados con 2002. La reduccion en los retornos a la educacion se registra mas a nivel de la educacion universitaria. La evidencia muestra que los retornos a la educacion evolucionan conforme el ciclo economico.
Fuzzy Based Summarization of Product Reviews for Better Analysis

Background/Objectives: There is a tremendous growth in the online marketing where customers buy a product and leave a comment on it about their experience. These experiences which are in the form of Reviews help in two ways. Methods/Statistical Analysis: Firstly, the buyer will have a clear idea about the product pros and cons. Secondly; manufacturer will also find them helpful to make the user experience better by improving the product or service in negative areas. This converges at a point where, if the user reviews are thousands in number for a single product, we can propose a system which provides the summary of all user generated reviews. This is what motivated opinion mining systems to summarize the user review. Opinion mining is the current technology which can classify the review documents to summarize them. Findings: This paper implements the opinion mining based on fuzzy logic to improve classification of reviews for generating the concise summary about the product. Application/Improvements: This is a Feature based sentiment classification which is a multistep process which involves pre-processing phase, fuzzy score to classify each review, training the Naive bayes classifier, evaluating each sentence in the test set depending on the trained classifier and ranking the sentences for each feature. Thus sentences evaluated are a fine grained classification to better summarize the reviews.
Analysis of the Accuracy of Expert Judgment and Method to Identify the Star-level of Expert

It is the key aspect for meta-evaluation to analyze the accuracy of the expert judgment in education evaluation.The paper explores the approaches to analyze the accuracy of expert judgment through the commonly used subjective evaluation methods,such as scoring,grading,voting and ranking,and presents the model to identify and adjust the star-level of expert according to the judgment accuracy in the database of experts,which will improve the scientific and professional level of education evaluation.
Effects of social media, electronic word-of-mouth, and price on U.S. female consumers’ attitude toward purchase and purchase intention of ethical apparel

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of: (a) social media, (b) electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), and (c) price on attitude towards purchase and purchase intention of ethical apparel products using the theory of reasoned action (TRA) (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980). Additionally, the study investigated the importance of different ethical characteristics to U.S. female consumers in different generation groups. Using a 2 (media: video and blog) x 3 (eWOM: positive, neutral, and negative) x 2 (price: high and low) experimental design, information was disseminated to participants about a t-shirt with nine ethical characteristics: organic cotton, recycled polyester, reduced energy, reduced water, reduced pollution, fair trade, safe working conditions, cruelty free, and donation to charity. Participants were randomly assigned to view one of the 12 stimuli conditions, preceding a survey that measured attitude and purchase intention. Participants also rated the importance of each of the nine ethical characteristics and provided open-ended feedback about the eWOM and additional ethical apparel characteristics not included in the study. A sample of 891 female U.S. residents between 18 and 72 years old was obtained using Amazon Mechanical Turk. Data analysis was conducted in three phases, including: (a) preliminary analysis, (b) hypotheses testing, and (c) content analysis of open-ended responses. Preliminary analysis included descriptive statistics, factor analysis, and reliability analysis. Hypotheses were tested with regression, series of one-way ANOVA, and a 4 x 9 mixed ANOVA. Open-ended feedback from participants was content analyzed. Regression analysis confirmed a positive relationship between attitude towards purchase and purchase intention of ethical apparel. ANOVA revealed that positive eWOM resulted in higher attitude and purchase intention. Media type (video vs. blog) and price (high vs. low) did
The Rio De Janeiro international airport privatization: a problem of overbidding?

Abstract We analyze the case of the Rio de Janeiro International Airport concession, which suffered severe financial difficulties after it posted the highest auction bid premium of the 2011–2013 Brazilian government airport privatization program. Given that this airport had significant potential for future expansion, we investigate whether this could have justified the high bid, or whether the value of this flexibility was overestimated. The concession is analyzed using the real options approach because these expansion opportunities have option-like characteristics. The results suggest that these options may have been overpriced, because they are insufficient to justify the bid premium offered.
Complexity in mate choice

Fisherian "good taste" arguments on populations with mate choice are based on the development of a correlation between consistently choosing preferences and their preferred traits (Kirkpatrick, 1987). This correlation indirectly confers an advantage to such preferences. The e ect increases with the consistency of choice. We argue that some level of complexity in the way preferences evaluate traits may favor choiceconsistency and thus be advantageous for them.
PERFORMANCE OF EMERGING MARKET DIVERSIFIED EQUITY FUNDS

This paper examines the performance of diversified emerging market funds during the period of January 2000 and November 2011. The emerging market funds provide U.S. investors an alternative to expose their portfolios. Emerging markets differs from developed markets on a wide range of market and economic characteristics, including size, liquidity, and regulation. The results show that diversified emerging market funds generate some significant alphas for their investors during the study period. An analysis of sub-period performance suggests that these funds do not consistently provide excess returns, showing great variations from one period to another
Factors influencing adherence to home-based exercises among community-dwelling stroke survivors in India: a qualitative study

Abstract Purpose To explore the factors influencing adherence to home-based exercises among community-dwelling stroke survivors using Intervention Mapping (IM) approach. Material and methods Qualitative interviews were conducted with ten stroke survivors living in semi-urban regions of India. The data were analysed using Atlas.Ti8 software and categorised using the Social Ecological Model. Results The mean age of the stroke participants was 61 ± 11 years. Key factors such as lack of awareness about stroke recovery and exercises, poor perceived recovery, hopelessness and lack of emphasis on exercises by healthcare professionals led to non-adherence while commitment, continued supervision, supportive family and society facilitated adherence. Some cultural specific factors such as opting for folk medicine over rehabilitation and social stigma were also identified. Conclusions The factors which influenced adherence to home-based exercises in stroke are existent at the individual, interpersonal, organisational and community level. This study can lead to the development of effective interventions for promoting exercise adherence among stroke survivors in low and middle income countries (LMICs).
The Majic Bus An American Odyssey

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Parametric competing risks models in clinical trials

Some fully general parametric competing risks models, which allow the underlying (possibly dependent) lifetimes to be modeled as a function of an arbitrary number of covariables, are formulated, and their resulting likelihood function is derived. Under carefully stated regularity conditions, large sample tests of hypotheses concerning the model parameters are obtained for the single point truncation (Type I censoring) and single point (Type II) censoring schemes, as well as for the case when all the observations are complete. Due to ethical considerations and possible loss of efficiency associated with single point truncation or censoring schemes, time-sequential procedures, which allow termination of the experiment at the earliest possible stage based on the accumulated statistical evidence, are often advocated for clinical trials. For parametric competing risks models a progressively truncated scheme (PTS) is used to develop a (large sample) time-sequential test procedure, and this procedure is modified to allow the presence of "nuisance" parameters and a form of stagger~d entry. Although it has limited applicability, a (restricted) sequential procedure is also obtained in the context of repeated significance testing, and a parallel procedure based on truncated observations is given. Under suitable regularity conditions, we show that the distributions of the proposed test statistics for both the time-sequential and sequential procedures converge weakly to those of a functional of certain Gaussian processes under the appropriate null hypotheses. iii Unfortunately, these null distributions are not available in the statistical literature, and theoretical derivation appears mathematically intractable, at least in general. However, the computer generation of general Gaussian processes is discussed and subsequently used to provide an algorithm which obtains the distributions of the appropriate functionals empirically. Finally, the regularity conditions for the procedures developed in this investigation are verified for a general independent risks exponential model and a dependent risks model based on Gumbel's bivariate exponential distribution, and numerical illustrations are provided for these procedures using simulated data from exponential populations. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Working with my adviser, Professor P. K. Sen, has been an honor and priviledge, and it is indeed a pleasure to express my sincere appreciation for his invaluable advice, constant guidance, and encouragement, as well as his patience, warm personality, and sense of humor. I also wish to thank the other committee members, Professors C. r wish to thank my wife, Mary Lou, for her continued support and encouragement during my entire graduate education. Appreciation is also expressed to my mother, Valeria, …
Algorithms to improve topography preservation in self-organizing maps

The self-organizing map (SOM) has become a valuable and widely-used tool for diverse applications in engineering, business, and numerous other fields. The value of the SOM lies in its ability to learn and summarize a data set, clustering the data and performing a regression upon it. This regression is intended to preserve in the SOM lattice some of the structural relationships of the data on which the map has been trained. The preservation of data structure in mappings such as the SOM is the focus of this dissertation. In preparation for the primary thrust of this document, several topics are discussed. These include a general introduction to the SOM to present terminology that will be used, and an examination of the various ways that SOM quality has been judged, particularly with respect to the way a mapping preserves and represents relationships in the data on which it is trained. Another important part of this preparatory discussion concerns what has been expected of the SOM, what has not been expected, and what can and cannot reasonably be expected. This in turn leads to a clarification of terms and an introduction to the notion of topography preservation as a worthwhile goal for mapping algorithms such as the SOM. The main body of the dissertation follows, with a proposal of six original algorithms for modifying or replacing the SOM in an effort to achieve the goal of topography preservation. The variety of these algorithms serves to illustrate the ambiguity that is inherent in the definition of topography advocated here. The usefulness of topography preservation as defined herein is further supported by a chapter describing four original illustrative applications. These demonstrate a breadth of practical uses for mappings that exhibit the quality of topography preservation.
Compilation of Stream Programs onto Embedded Multicore Architectures

In recent years, we have observed the prevalence of stream applications in many embedded domains. Stream programs distinguish themselves from traditional sequential programming languages through well defined independent actors, explicit data communication, and stable code/data access patterns. In order to achieve high performance and low power, scratch pad memory (SPM) has been introduced in today's embedded multicore processors. Current design frameworks for developing stream applications on SPM enhanced embedded architectures typically do not include a compiler that can perform automatic partitioning, mapping and scheduling under limited on-chip SPM capacities and memory access delays. Consequently, many designs are implemented manually, which leads to lengthy tasks and inferior designs. In this work, optimization techniques that automatically compile stream programs onto embedded multi-core architectures are proposed. As an initial case study, we implemented an automatic target recognition (ATR) algorithm on the IBM Cell Broadband Engine (BE). Then integer linear programming (ILP) and heuristic approaches were proposed to schedule stream programs on a single core embedded processor that has an SPM with code overlay. Later, ILP and heuristic approaches for Compiling Stream programs on SPM enhanced Multicore Processors (CSMP) were studied. The proposed CSMP ILP and heuristic approaches do not optimize for cycles in stream applications. Further, the number of software pipeline stages in the implementation is dependent on actor to processing engine (PE) mapping and is uncontrollable. We next presented a Retiming technique for Throughput optimization on Embedded Multi-core processors (RTEM). RTEM approach inherently handles cycles and can accept an upper bound on the number of software pipeline stages to be generated. We further enhanced RTEM by incorporating unrolling (URSTEM) that preserves all the beneficial properties of RTEM heuristic and also scales with the number of PEs through unrolling.
Inflation Dynamics in Madagascar, 1971-2000

The paper analyzes the dynamics of inflation in Madagascar in the period 1971-2000, applying cointegration analysis and error correction modeling. The empirical results, based on quarterly data, confirm that there exists a stable money demand relationship, as well as a purchasing power relationship in the long run. The former enters the short-run dynamics of inflation and money growth, while the latter affects the short-run dynamics of the exchange rate only. We also find that an appreciation has a direct negative impact on inflation and that inflation inertia is important. In addition, we conduct FIML estimation of the system and trace the impulse responses to various shocks.
The Dynamics of Malaysian Takaful Market: Challenges and Future Prospects

While Islamic finance industry has witnessed a tremendous growth across the globe, one of the markets, takaful, still requires attention in order to strengthen their position in the industry as well to increase their market share over their conventional counterparts. In the first part of this study, an overview of takaful and Malaysian takaful market will be discussed. Next, this paper will deliberate the challenges facing the takaful operators in developing the market and lastly, future prospects of takaful business will be discussed. This study is important to policy maker, practitioner and researcher who are dealing in Islamic finance, especially the takaful market. This study is useful as a guideline to revamp strategies in promoting the market as well as in enhancing the understanding on the local takaful market.
Examination of Chinese Tourists’ Unsustainable Food Consumption: Causes and Solutions

Gastronomic tours have become a prevalent form of travel in many destinations and have boosted the development of destinations’ tourism economy. However, unsustainable food consumption, especially the wastage of food by tourists, is severe and has yet to receive sufficient academic attention. Thus, this study aimed to examine this kind of unsustainable behavior from tourists’ perspective to help the academia and practitioners to better understand the causes and solutions pertaining to the issue. Participants’ demographic information and content data were collected and analyzed. Content analysis was adopted to summarize the major themes emerging from the data. Results indicated that tourists, the industry, and government should be responsible for the issue. The reasons related to each stakeholder are shown together with the countermeasures. This study is among the first to examine the issue, which can lay the foundation for further studies in the same research area and help to address unsustainable food consumption.
An Efficient Algorithm for Compressed Sensing Image Reconstruction

Most existing compressed sensing reconstruction algorithms are based on single measurement vector.When processing image signal,the efficiency of these algorithms is low because the image is treated as one-dimension signal and the quality of the reconstructed image needs to be improved.A reconstruction algorithm based on multiple measurement vectors and sparse Bayesian learning is proposed in this paper.The image is reconstructed quickly because the weighting coefficient matrix can be got directly by processing each column of the measurement matrix simultaneously.The proposed algorithm has better reconstructed image and the efficiency has been improved significantly under the same sample rate.The validity of the proposed algorithm is proved by the experiments to the standard test images.
The Rise of U.S. Antidumping Actions in Historical Perspective

Empirical studies of antidumping activity focus almost exclusively on the period since 1980. This paper puts recent U.S. antidumping experience in historical context by studying the determinants of annual case filings over the past half century. The conventional view that few antidumping cases existed prior to 1980 is not correct, although most did not result in the imposition of duties. The increased number of cases in recent decades largely reflects petitions that target multiple source countries; the number of imported products involved has actually fallen since the mid 1980s. The annual number of antidumping cases is influenced by the unemployment rate, the exchange rate, import penetration (closely related to the decline in average tariffs), and changes in the antidumping law and enforcement in the early 1980s.