Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fiscal policy, institutions and inclusive growth: evidence from the developing Asian countries

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of fiscal policy and institutional quality on the inclusive growth process of the selected developing Asian countries. Inclusive growth is a growth process which ensures that everyone is participating and benefited by growth process. Design/methodology/approach This study uses system generalized method of moment to address the problem of endogeneity and omitted variable bias. Findings Empirical results showed that both fiscal policy and institutions have positive effects on inclusive growth. Our empirical results confirmed that fiscal policy can work more efficiently in the presence of good quality institutions in the developing Asian countries. Research limitations/implications Government should take measures to improve infrastructure, roads and transport system, and main share of government expenditures should be allocated to development, education and health projects. There is a need to transform the tax structure of the countries with the huge emphasis on the progressive tax system and this is likely to benefit the lower segment of the population. There is a need to develop institutions as they serve as a road map for the development of a country. There should be coordination between government policies and institutions. Supervision of fiscal policy through good institutions is needed for the proper allocation and utilization of public resources. Practical implications By restructuring the taxation system subject to the provision of quality institutions, government can incentivize entrepreneurs to make significant investments. This creates jobs for lower segment of a society, brings down poverty and increases the income level of a country. This increases the individual and collective welfare of an economy that ensures the inclusive growth within a country. Originality/value In this study, proxies used for fiscal policy are government expenditures and tax revenues as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) to examine its impact on the certain measures of inclusive growth such as employment, income inequality and GDP per capita. This study provides useful insights for the policy makers using fiscal policy to achieve the goal of inclusive growth in developing countries.
Un análisis ambiental desde la perspectiva educativa en Ecuador

El presente trabajo analiza como la acreditacion, certificacion y logros alcanzados por las Universidades en el Ecuador, desprende una serie de cuestionamiento sobre los problemas ambientales que se generan despues del desarrollo de capacidades organizativas que adoptan quienes conforman este sistema. Para ello se analizo la percepcion de estudiantes, autoridades, comunidad en general sobre el accionar de estas instituciones, tomando como referencia mapas organizativos relacionados a su estructura organica, modelos de evaluacion y acreditacion que organismos publicos de control cumplen, asi como de articulos que ofrece la Web of Science en pro de la educacion de calidad. Los datos se recogieron a traves de un cuestionario compuesto de 15 preguntas dirigido a estudiantes, autoridades y comunidad universitaria de las IES, tomando como referencia la categoria que el Consejo de Educacion Superior- CES asigno. Los resultados destacan el rol que cumplen sus actores para alcanzar la excelencia academica, respetando el medio ambiente y la utilizacion racional de sus recursos. Palabras clave: Ambiente, capacidades organizativas, procesos, desempeno institucional. ABSTRACT The present work analyzes how the accreditation, certification and achievements reached by the Universities in Ecuador, gives rise to a series of questions about the environmental problems that are generated after the development of organizational capacities adopted by those who make up this system. For this, the perception of students, authorities, community in general about the actions of these institutions was analyzed, taking as reference organizational maps related to their organic structure, evaluation and accreditation models that public control bodies comply with, as well as articles offered by the Web of Science in favor of quality education. The data was collected through a questionnaire composed of 15 questions addressed to students, authorities and the university community of HEIs, taking as a reference the category that the Higher Education Council-CES assigned. The results highlight the role played by their actors to achieve academic excellence, respecting the environment and the rational use of their resources. Keyowords: Environment, organizational capacities, processes institutional performance
Tree Boosting Data Competitions with XGBoost

This Master's Degree Thesis objective is to provide understanding on how to approach a supervised learning predictive problem and illustrate it using a statistical/machine learning algorithm, Tree Boosting. A review of tree methodology is introduced in order to understand its evolution, since Classification and Regression Trees, followed by Bagging, Random Forest and, nowadays, Tree Boosting. The methodology is explained following the XGBoost implementation, which achieved state-of-the-art results in several data competitions. A framework for applied predictive modelling is explained with its proper concepts: objective function, regularization term, overfitting, hyperparameter tuning, k-fold cross validation and feature engineering. All these concepts are illustrated with a real dataset of videogame churn; used in a datathon competition.
The Short-Time Behaviour of VIX Implied Volatilities in a Multifactor Stochastic Volatility Framework

We consider a modelling setup where the VIX index dynamics are explicitly computable as a smooth transformation of a purely diffusive, multidimensional Markov process. The framework is general enough to embed many popular stochastic volatility models. We develop closed-form expansions and sharp error bounds for VIX futures, options and implied volatilities. In particular, we derive exact asymptotic results for VIX implied volatilities, and their sensitivities, in the joint limit of short time-to-maturity and small log-moneyness. The obtained expansions are explicit, based on elementary functions and they neatly uncover how the VIX skew depends on the specific choice of the volatility and the vol-of-vol processes. Our results are based on perturbation techniques applied to the infinitesimal generator of the underlying process. This methodology has been previously adopted to derive approximations of equity (SPX) options. However, the generalizations needed to cover the case of VIX options are by no means straightforward as the dynamics of the underlying VIX futures are not explicitly known. To illustrate the accuracy of our technique, we provide numerical implementations for a selection of model specifications.
Functional Analysis and Design Approach for an Optimal Virtual IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) Architecture

Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) is the greatest transformation in Telecommunications industry. It reveals the challenge of transformation from traditional monolithic to optimal virtual architectures, while meeting the standards driven functional, performance constraints and stakeholders conflicting objectives: maximizing flexibility, capacity, autonomy, minimizing expense in terms of financial and human effort (Capex, Opex), etc.
Contrastive phonological analysis of Arabic and English

Khaled Huthaily, M.A., July 2003 Linguistics Contrastive Phonological Analysis o f Arabic and English 128 pages / ' Director: Prof. Anthony Mattina L. / ̂ _________________________________ It is commonly believed that when adults start learning a second language, they are very often guided by their first language, especially at the level o f phonology. This is usually referred to as a foreign accent. In the field o f linguistics, this is referred to as first language (LI ) transfer. In this paper, I study the phonological difficulties that adult native speakers o f American English encounter while learning Modem Standard Arabic as a foreign language. The study focuses on describing the segmental phonemes o f both Arabic and English and analyzes the Arabic speech o f three American students o f Arabic, in an attempt to track LI transfer. The study also investigates the extent to which the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (CAH) can help in predicting the pronunciation errors that American students o f Arabic are likely to commit in their production o f Arabic speech. Chapter one presents a brief discussion o f the Arabic and English languages. In chapter two, I present an outline o f the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis, the framework on which the study is based. Chapter three addresses the phonological systems o f Arabic and English, with a focus on the former. In chapter four, I use the CAH as a framework to predict the errors that adult English-speaking students o f Arabic would make in their Arabic speech. Chapter five discusses the study and its results, and chapter six presents the conclusion. The study concludes that there is evidence that the subjects’ first language has an effect on their production o f speech sounds o f the second language. However, the study confirms that this effect could not be predicted by simply comparing and contrasting the sounds o f the first and second languages.
IMPROVED LEAST SQUARES TWIN SUPPORT MATRIX MACHINES

In this paper, a new classification method named as improved least squares twin support matrix machines (ILS-TSMM) is presented, which is an improvement of linear support tensor machines (STM) and linear least squares twin support vector machines (LS-TSVM). We know that nonlinear classifiers for vector data are a lot of but for matrix data are few. In order to study the nonlinear version of ILS-TSMM (NILS-TSMM), a new matrix kernel function is introduced and based on which, we provide a detailed theoretical derivation for NILS-TSMM. The advantage of our methods is that the structural risk minimization problem is considered by introducing the regularization term and that the utility of twin skill and least squares technology aims to reduce the computation time (training time and testing time). The experiment results show that the proposed methods are effective and efficient.
Automatic Spiking Pulse-Coupled Neural Network for Image Segmentation

Image segmentation is the process of partitioning a digital image into multiple segments with the purpose to simplify and/or change the representation of an image. The edges identified by edge detection are often disconnected. This paper introduces a 2-D Pulse-coupled neural network for the image segmentation. A new automatic spiking pulse-coupled neural network (SPCNN) parameters setting method is presented. The dynamic of the neuron and static characteristics of image could be connected so as to ensure the parameters of SPCNN. This approach does not need the training and experiments, which is very suitable for the real-time image processing. The experiments show the outperformances with Normalized Cuts approach. From the comparison, it could be observed that given the parameter L V , if  is bigger, then the neuron in SPCNN model will be greater influenced by the neighboring neurons. That means in the space, there will be a bigger area which is formed by the neighboring neurons that can form a segmented sub-area. Additionally, e  is bigger, then the precision of the SPCNN model will be lower. That indicates the segmented sub-areas will have wider gray range in the beginning iterations of SPCNN model.
Towards a Taxonomy of Display Styles for Ubiquitious Multimedia

Future mobile and ubiquitous multimedia systems will be even more an integrated part of our everyday reality than it is the case today. A digital layer of information will be available in everyday situations and tasks, displayed on mobile devices, blended with existing contents of the real, physical world. Such an “augmented reality” (Azuma et al., 2001) will put into practice recent developments in the area of mobile devices, wireless networking, and ubiquitous information spaces, to be able to provide the right information to the right person at the right time. abstract
WTO Negotiations on the Non-agricultural Market Access (NAMA): Implications for the Bangladesh Economy

This paper has explored three different NAMA scenarios with a view to estimate the preference erosion of Bangladesh’s RMG exports in the EU market and the possible gains in the USA and other markets. Using the GTAP general equilibrium method this paper has also estimated the welfare impacts of different NAMA scenarios. It appears from the simulation results that a full implementation of NAMA will lead to large preference erosion of Bangladesh RMG exports in the EU and Canadian markets, where Bangladesh in currently enjoying duty-free-quota-free market access. Though, there is a large gain in the USA market the gain is sufficient enough to offset the losses in the EU and Canadian market, and as a result, both total RMG exports and welfare rise under NAMA1. Under NAMA2 and NAMA3, which are the scenarios based on the modified Swiss-type formula with different coefficients for the developed and developing countries, also lead to a situation where the preference erosion in the EU and Canadian market is offset by the expansion of RMG exports in the US market. Therefore, total RMG exports of Bangladesh increases. Also, aggregate welfare increases, though in smaller margin. The Bangladesh dynamic CGE model has been applied to explore the impacts of different NAMA scenarios on the economy of Bangladesh. All NAMA scenarios generate some positive impact on the economy and leads to some expansion of the RMG sectors. They also increase households’ welfare and reduce poverty.
Are There Spillovers from China on the Global Energy-Growth Nexus? Evidence from Four World Regions

This paper analyses China’s energy consumption and economic growth spillover effects on four world regions: (i) America (North and South); (ii) Europe and Central Asia; (iii) Asia Pacific; and (iv) Africa and the Middle East. An annual aggregated time series by world region, from 1970 to 2016, and an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach were used. The results are consistent with the feedback hypothesis in the short run. With regard to the long run, feedback is present in America and the Asia Pacific. In Europe and Central Asia and in Africa and the Middle East, the results are consistent with the conservation hypothesis. Additionally, China’s spillover effects on the world energy-growth nexus are essentially a long-run phenomenon, with impacts on Europe and Central Asia, Asia Pacific, and Africa and the Middle East. Accordingly, policy-makers should be aware that China’s policies may have impact around the world, which indirectly may cause a restriction in economic growth.
Privacy-preserving controls for sharing mHealth data

Mobile devices allow people to collect and share health and health-related information with recipients such as health providers, family and friends, employers and insurance companies, to obtain health, emotional or financial benefits. People may consider certain health information sensitive and prefer to disclose only what is necessary. In this dissertation, we present our findings about factors that affect people’s sharing behavior, describe scenarios in which people may wish to collect and share their personal health-related information with others, but may be hesitant to disclose the information if necessary controls are not available to protect their privacy, and propose frameworks to provide the desired privacy controls. We introduce the concept of close encounters that allow users to share data with other people who may have been in spatio-temporal proximity. We developed two smartphonebased systems that leverage stationary sensors and beacons to determine whether users are in spatio-temporal proximity. The first system, ENACT, allows patients diagnosed with a contagious airborne disease to alert others retrospectively about their possible exposure to airborne virus. The second system, SPICE, allows users to collect sensor information, retrospectively, from others with whom they shared a close encounter. We present design and implementation of the two systems, analyse their security and privacy guarantees, and evaluate the systems on various
Do English Skills Affect Muslim Immigrants' Economic and Social Integration Differentially?

This paper estimates the returns to English‐speaking fluency on the socioeconomic outcomes of childhood immigrants. We further investigate whether Muslim childhood immigrants face additional hurdles in economic and social integration into the host country. Motivated by the critical age hypothesis, we identify the causal effects of English skills on socioeconomic outcomes by exploring the differences in the country of origin and age at arrival across childhood immigrants. We first document that all childhood immigrants who migrate from non‐English‐speaking countries at a younger age attain higher levels of English skills. We also find that acquiring better English‐language skills improves the educational attainment and labour and marriage market prospects of non‐Muslim childhood immigrants significantly and increases their participation in volunteer work. However, our results show that while a good command of English enhances the educational attainments of Muslim childhood immigrants, it shows no positive return in either the labour or marriage markets. Our results also show that progress in English fails to improve Muslim childhood immigrants' engagement in voluntary work, meaning that the opportunity for social cohesion is missed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
Partitioning of Spatial Data in Publish-Subscribe Messaging Systems

In this thesis we investigate how spatial partitioning methods can help to scale up publish-subscribe messaging systems for processing big spatial data. For this we present a case study consisting of Apache Kafka, an open-source publish-subscribe messaging system. In the case study the Kafka system processes road traffic data. In our research we discuss existing spatial partitioning methods. We show how one of these, Voronoi, can improve processing of spatial data in a publish-subscribe system when compared to a system without spatial partitioning. In addition, we propose a new spatial partitioning method based on Geohash to overcome several drawbacks of Voronoi. Our experiments show improvements in the areas of load balancing, transferred messages, and the amount of relevant messages when using spatial partitioning methods. We show that in general Geohash was able to achieve better results than Voronoi during our experiments. Only when the amount of partitions is more than half of what Geohash can define, Voronoi shows slightly better results.
Finanzas del deporte: fuentes de ingreso y regulación financiera en el fútbol europeo

espanolEl objetivo del presente trabajo es estudiar como la evolucion de las fuentes de ingresos y de las medidas de control economico ha afectado al futbol europeo. La facturacion del futbol europeo ha tenido un fuerte crecimiento, especialmente en los derechos de television y los ingresos comerciales. Esto no evito que los equipos atravesaran por dificultades economicas, lo que llevo a la UEFA y a las ligas nacionales a imponer controles financieros mas severos. Estos acontecimientos han traido consigo una mejora general de la rentabilidad de los equipos del continente y una evolucion dispar del gasto en salarios y del endeudamiento. Tambien ha coincido con que los exitos deportivos se concentren en los equipos mas potentes tanto en las competiciones continentales como nacionales. EnglishThe purpose of this study is to examine how the evolution of revenue sources and economic control measures has affected European football. Turnovers in European football have experienced strong growth, especially as far as television rights and commercial revenue are concerned. Such growth did not prevent clubs from undergoing financial difficulties, which led UEFA and national leagues to impose stricter financial controls. These events brought about an overall increased profitability for European clubs, as well as divergent developments in debt and expenditure on wages, which were furthermore concurrent with the fact that sporting successes concentrate in the strongest teams, both in continental and national competitions.
Moving target detection and imaging using GSM-based passive radar

This paper presents the new application of using GSM-based passive radar for the ground moving target detection and imaging using Inverse Synthetic Aperture (ISAR) technique. The concept has been verified via the simulation and measurement campaign, where the signal reflected from the ground vehicles (cars and trucks) has been registered and processed. As the final results authors obtained images of the moving ground targets, which have been shown in this paper. (4 pages)
Formalization of Firms’ Evaluation Processes in Cross-Sector Partnerships for Sustainability

Extant research underlines the critical challenge for firms to rigorously and consistently evaluate their growing number of cross-sector partnerships for sustainability and suggests formalizing evaluation processes by introducing formal practices. However, empirical research is scant and inconclusive. This study aims to develop an empirically grounded understanding of how firms formalize the evaluation processes of such partnerships and of what drives this formalization, to complement the so far mostly conceptual literature. We inductively analyzed 31 semi-structured interviews with 33 experts from firms and their partnering nonprofits and further secondary data on organizations’ partnerships. We contribute to the cross-sector partnership research by analyzing firms’ practices related to the formalization of the internal as well as the joint partnership evaluation process with nonprofits. We propose a conceptual framework to explain why firms implement different formal practices to reduce the dependency on individuals’ skills, experiences, or judgments in evaluating partnerships.
Impact of trade openness on GDP growth: Does TFP matter?

ABSTRACT The objective of this study is to empirically explore the impact of trade openness on GDP growth initiating with the idea that trade openness cannot be fully characterized through the different openness measures only, we propose to account for total factor productivity (TFP) development level as an additional dimension of countries’ trade integration. Our empirical application is based on 35 years’ balanced panel of 82 countries spanning 1980–2014. To address the potential endogeneity issue, we use the system GMM estimator developed for dynamic panel data models. The results outline that there exists an interesting non-linear pattern between trade openness and GDP growth when TFP development level is taken as an intervening variable into account: trade may have a negative impact on GDP growth when countries have specialized in low-TFP development level; trade openness clearly boosts GDP growth once countries exhibit a minimum threshold of TFP development level. Therefore, there is some pattern of complementarity between trade openness and TFP development level so that the higher the TFP development level, the higher the impact of the trade openness on GDP growth.