Search results for: private bond market

Authors: Biswanath Swain

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Ethical relativism, as an ethical perspective, holds that moral worth of a course of action is dependent on a particular space and time. Moral rightness or wrongness of a course of action varies from space to space and from time to time. In short, ethical relativism holds that morality is relative to the context. If we reflect conscientiously on the scope of this perspective, we will find that it is wide-spread amongst the marketers involved in the offshore business. However, the irony is that most of the marketers gone along with ethical relativism in their offshore business have been found to be unsuccessful in terms of loss in market-share and bankruptcy. The upshot is purely self-defeating in nature for the marketers. GSK in China and Nestle Maggi in India are some of the burning examples of that sort. The paper argues and recommends that a marketer, as an alternative, should have recourse to Kantian ethical perspective to deliberate courses of action sensitive to offshore business as Kantian ethical perspective is logically and methodologically sound in nature.

Keywords: business, course of action, Kant, morality, offshore, relativism

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Authors: David Barney, Francis Pleban, Muna Muday

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The purpose of this study was to explore gender differences of former physical education students related to reflective experiences of competition in physical education learning environment. In the school environment, students are positioned in competitive situations, including in the physical education context. Therefore it is important to prepare future physical educators to address the role of competition in physical education. Participants for this study were 304 college-aged students and young adults (M = 1.53, SD = .500), from a private university and local community located in the western United States. When comparing gender, significant differences (p < .05) were reported for four (questions 5, 7, 12, and 14) of the nine scaling questions. Follow-up quantitative findings reported that males (41%) more than females (27%) witnessed fights in physical education environment during competitive games. Qualitative findings reported fighting were along the lines of verbal confrontation. Female participants tended to experience being excluded from games, when compared to male participants. Both male and female participants (total population; 95%, males; 98%; and females 92%) were in favor of including competition in physical education for students. Findings suggest that physical education teachers and physical education teacher education programs have a responsibility to develop gender neutral learning experiences that help students better appreciate the role competition plays, both in and out of the physical education classroom.

Keywords: competition, physical education, physical education teacher education, gender

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Authors: Pin-Hua Chou

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MACAN (Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara) is a new private art museum in Jakarta, Indonesia. Facing challenges of rapidly changing social, cultural environments, MACAN is responding by devoting themselves to not only presenting famous international artists but also constructing the context of artists from Indonesia by interdisciplinary education and cultural exchange. This paper discusses the exhibitions, collections and the activities of MACAN. The purpose of this museum is to make people aware of the dialogue between local and international artist, and also Indonesia’s own art history. Yet how they build up the cultural consciousness for their audience inside and outside Indonesia? What strategy or method do they adapt to enhance general understanding of their own history and the relation between Indonesia and the world through their exhibition? MACAN has tried to convey their mission by every action they took since its opening (2017). The discussion begins with the premise that the initiative of MACAN offers us a new vision to better understand how a modern and contemporary art museum can make an effort to connect art with cultural identity and stimulate the awareness of recognition in Indonesia. This paper will adopt a case study, curator interview, and document analysis. Last but not least, the paper seeks to contribute towards the narrative of its first exhibition Art Turns, World Turns, Exploring the collection of the MACAN, as well as the possibility of raising audience’s cultural consciousness by a variety of public programs.

Keywords: contemporary art museum, challenges for art museum curators today, culture heritage, museum collections and exhibitions

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Authors: Yuan-lin Liu, Ye Li, Tian Xia

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There are some shortcomings in Chinese existing taxi management modes. This paper suggests to establish the third-party comprehensive information management platform and put forward an evaluation model based on credit. Four indicators are used to evaluate the drivers’ credit, they are passengers’ evaluation score, driving behavior evaluation, drivers’ average bad record number, and personal credit score. A weighted clustering method is used to achieve credit level evaluation for taxi drivers. The management of taxi industry is based on the credit level, while the grade of the drivers is accorded to their credit rating. Credit rating determines the cost, income levels, the market access, useful period of license and the level of wage and bonus, as well as violation fine. These methods can make the credit evaluation effective. In conclusion, more credit data will help to set up a more accurate and detailed classification standard library.

Keywords: credit, mobile internet, e-hailing taxi, management mode, weighted cluster

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Authors: Charity Okeke, Elizabeth Venter

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Verbal discipline is one of the most regularly used disciplinary strategies to deal with classroom misconduct in schools globally. This study provides effective verbal discipline strategies to deal with classroom misconduct in primary schools. The study was qualitative research of ten teachers that took place in two South African primary schools. Data were collected through recorded semi-structured face-to-face interviews. The interview recordings were transcribed and analysed using content analysis. Findings from the study show that talking to learners in a calm and polite manner, raising one’s voice occasionally to show seriousness and disapproval of misconduct, engaging misbehaved learners in private talk to understand the reasons behind their unruly actions, verbal praise and rewards are effective in dealing with classroom misconduct. The study recommends that teachers should avoid shouting at learners and talk to them politely to get them to behave well in class. Teachers should avoid embarrassing misbehaving learners in the classroom but engage them privately to understand the reasons behind their unruly activities. Teachers should also use verbal praise and rewards such as well-done stickers to motivate learners to keep behaving well, as reinforcement is very important in the classroom. The study concludes that the verbal disciplining strategies mentioned above are effective in achieving a conducive teaching and learning atmosphere in the classroom.

Keywords: classroom discipline, classroom misconduct, verbal discipline, verbal discipline strategies

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Authors: Elmo Thiago Lins Cöuras Ford, Valentina Alessandra Carvalho do Vale, Rubens Maribondo do Nascimento, José Ubiragi de Lima Mendes

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Recycling has been greatly stimulated by the market. There are already several products that are produced with recycled materials and various wastes have been studied in various forms of applications. The vast majority of insulation applications in domestic, commercial and industrial systems in the range of low and medium temperatures (up to 180 ° C), using the aggressive nature materials such as glass wool, rock wool, polyurethane, polystyrene. Such materials, while retaining the effectiveness of the heat flux, are disposed as expensive and take years too absorbed by nature. Thus, trying to adapt to a global policy on the preservation of the environment, a study in order to develop an insulating compound of natural / industrial waste and biodegradable materials conducted. Thus, this research presents the development of a composite material based zest tire and latex for thermal and electrical insulation.

Keywords: composite, latex, scrapes tire, insulation, electrical

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Authors: Arnesh Vijay

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Ever since its early introduction in the late 1980s, the mobile industry has been rapidly evolving with each passing year. The development witnessed is not just in its ability to support diverse applications, but also its extension into diverse technological means to access and offer various services to users. Amongst the various technologies present, radio systems have clearly emerged as a strong contender, due to its fine attributes of accessibility, reachability, interactiveness, and cost efficiency. These advancements have no doubt guaranteed unprecedented ease, utility and sophistication to the cell phone users, but caused uncertainty due to the interdependence of various systems, making it extremely complicated to exactly map concepts on to 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) standards. Although the close interrelation and interdependence of intellectual property rights and mobile standard specifications have been widely acknowledged by the technical and legal community; there, however, is a requirement for clear distinction between the scope and future-proof of inventions to influence standards and its market place adoptability. For this, collaborative work is required between intellectual property professionals, researchers, standardization specialists and country specific legal experts. With the evolution into next generation mobile technology, i.e., to 5G systems, there is a need for further work to be done in this field, which has been felt now more than ever before. Based on these lines, this poster will briefly describe the importance of intellectual property rights in the European market. More specifically, will analyse the role played by intellectual property in various standardization institutes, such as 3GPP (3rd generation partnership project) and ITU (International Telecommunications Union). The main intention: to ensure the scope and purpose is well defined, and concerned parties on all four sides are well informed on the clear significance of good proposals which not only bring economic revenue to the company but those that are capable of improving the technology and offer better services to mankind. The poster will comprise different sections. The first segment begins with a background on the rapidly evolving mobile technology, with a brief insight on the industrial impact of standards and its relation to intellectual property rights. Next, section two will succinctly outline the interplay between patents and standards; explicitly discussing the ever changing and rapidly evolving relationship between the two sectors. Then the remaining sections will examine ITU and its role played in international standards development, touching upon the various standardization process and the common patent policies and related guidelines. Finally, it proposes ways to improve the collaboration amongst various sectors for a more evolved and sophisticated next generation mobile telecommunication system. The sole purpose here is to discuss methods to reduce the gap and enhance the exchange of information between the two sectors to offer advanced technologies and services to mankind.

Keywords: mobile technology, mobile standards, intellectual property rights, 3GPP

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Authors: Deni̇z Ezgi̇ Gülmez, Mesut Kirca

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Nanoporous (np) metals have attracted considerable attention owing to their cellular morphological features at atomistic scale which yield ultra-high specific surface area awarding a great potential to be employed in diverse applications such as catalytic, electrocatalytic, sensing, mechanical and optical. As one of the carbon based nanostructures, fullerenes are also another type of outstanding nanomaterials that have been extensively investigated due to their remarkable chemical, mechanical and optical properties. In this study, the idea of improving the mechanical behavior of nanoporous metals by inclusion of the fullerenes, which offers a new metal-carbon nanocomposite material, is examined and discussed. With this motivation, tensile mechanical behavior of nanoporous metals reinforced with carbon fullerenes is investigated by classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Atomistic models of the nanoporous metals with ultrathin ligaments are obtained through a stochastic process simply based on the intersection of spherical volumes which has been used previously in literature. According to this technique, the atoms within the ensemble of intersecting spherical volumes is removed from the pristine solid block of the selected metal, which results in porous structures with spherical cells. Following this, fullerene units are added into the cellular voids to obtain final atomistic configurations for the numerical tensile tests. Several numerical specimens are prepared with different number of fullerenes per cell and with varied fullerene sizes. LAMMPS code was used to perform classical MD simulations to conduct uniaxial tension experiments on np models filled by fullerenes. The interactions between the metal atoms are modeled by using embedded atomic method (EAM) while adaptive intermolecular reactive empirical bond order (AIREBO) potential is employed for the interaction of carbon atoms. Furthermore, atomic interactions between the metal and carbon atoms are represented by Lennard-Jones potential with appropriate parameters. In conclusion, the ultimate goal of the study is to present the effects of fullerenes embedded into the cellular structure of np metals on the tensile response of the porous metals. The results are believed to be informative and instructive for the experimentalists to synthesize hybrid nanoporous materials with improved properties and multifunctional characteristics.

Keywords: fullerene, intersecting spheres, molecular dynamic, nanoporous metals

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Authors: Marta Tryzna, Shahd Al Shammari

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Though Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is the only official language in GCC states, including Kuwait, and traditionally the preferred vehicle for literacy in the Arab countries, recent studies in Qatar and the UAE observe a growing role of English, particularly in literacy and knowledge transmission contexts. The present study examines the attitudes to Arabic and English and the use of both languages in literacy-related domains based on a sample of bilingual Arabic-English undergraduates (N=522) at a private university with EMI in Kuwait. The results indicate that Arabic (Kuwaiti dialect) is associated with familial interactions, Arabic-English bilingualism predominates in interactions with classmates, friends, on social media and at work, while English is prevalent in literacy-related contexts such as reading books, magazines, or online material, domains traditionally associated with MSA. Attitudes towards Arabic and English are equally positive according to the majority of the respondents, who report being comfortable expressing themselves and projecting their identity in both languages. No statistically significant differences were found comparing the importance of Arabic and English in the sample. Future trends were identified based on high agreement on the importance of speaking English with children and low agreement on speaking only Arabic at home. The study corroborates recently observed trends in the GCC favoring bilingualism across personal, academic and professional domains, with English becoming the preferred language of literacy among young bilingual Kuwaitis.

Keywords: bilingual, English, Arabic, EMI, identity

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Authors: Mufide Cotuk, Muslim Bakir

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National education in Turkey aims to provide superior education opportunities to students in order to develop their intellectual abilities in accordance with contemporary pedagogy. Physical education (PE) plays an important role in this context. Various factors affect the quality and efficiency of the process of PE. Factors related to governance are crucially important, especially those of authority and responsibility. For educational institutions at high school level, the factors affecting authority and responsibility have not been clearly delineated. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine authority and responsibility of PE teachers as the balance between them. The study sample consisted of 60 PE teachers (19 women, 41 men) at 57 high schools in Istanbul (65% state and 35% private institutions). All PE teachers completed the study questionnaire collecting demographic and institutional data as knowledge and attitudes regarding authority and responsibility issues. The determination of authority and responsibility of PE teachers has been grounded on the law for government officials, course-passing regulations, and school sports regulations. The PE teachers declared as the primary source of their authority and responsibility ‘school sports regulations’ (56,7% of PE teachers), ‘course-passing regulations’ (36,7% of PE teachers) and ‘the law for government officials’ (30,0% of PE teachers). The PE teachers mentioned that the school administration burdened them with additional responsibilities (58,3% of PE teachers). Such ‘additional’ responsibilities were primarily related to ‘disciplinary regulations’ (21,7% of PE teachers) and ‘maintenance of school order’ (16,0% of PE teachers). In conclusion, authority and responsibility of PE teachers were not well balanced. As authority issues were not clearly stated, ‘compulsory’ responsibilities increased causing this imbalance.

Keywords: authority, PE teacher, responsibility, sport management

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Authors: Mimi Hafizah Abdullah, Hanani Farhah Harun, Nik Ruzni Nik Idris

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With the implied volatility as an important factor in financial decision-making, in particular in option pricing valuation, and also the given fact that the pricing biases of Leland option pricing models and the implied volatility structure for the options are related, this study considers examining the implied adjusted volatility smile patterns and term structures in the S&P/ASX 200 index options using the different Leland option pricing models. The examination of the implied adjusted volatility smiles and term structures in the Australian index options market covers the global financial crisis in the mid-2007. The implied adjusted volatility was found to escalate approximately triple the rate prior the crisis.

Keywords: implied adjusted volatility, financial crisis, Leland option pricing models, Australian index options

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Authors: Albert Acheampong, Tamer Elshandidy

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We investigate the extent to which sustainability disclosure from the narrative section of European banks’ annual reports improves analyst forecast accuracy. We capture sustainability disclosure using a machine learning approach and use forecast error to proxy analyst forecast accuracy. Our results suggest that sustainability disclosure significantly improves analyst forecast accuracy by reducing the forecast error. In a further analysis, we also find that the induction of Directive 2014/95/European Union (EU) is associated with increased disclosure content, which then reduces forecast error. Collectively, our results suggest that sustainability disclosure improves forecast accuracy, and the induction of the new EU directive strengthens this improvement. These results hold after several further and robustness analyses. Our findings have implications for market participants and policymakers.

Keywords: sustainability disclosure, machine learning, analyst forecast accuracy, forecast error, European banks, EU directive

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Authors: Sameh Ibrahim Ghali Hanna

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Information system (IS) are fairly crucial in the operation of private and public establishments in growing and developed international locations. Growing countries are saddled with many project failures throughout the implementation of records systems. However, successful information systems are greatly wished for in developing nations in an effort to decorate their economies. This paper is extraordinarily critical in view of the high failure fee of data structures in growing nations, which desire to be decreased to minimal proper levels by means of advocated interventions. This paper centers on a review of IS development in developing international locations. The paper gives evidence of the IS successes and screw-ups in developing nations and posits a version to deal with the IS failures. The proposed model can then be utilized by means of growing nations to lessen their IS mission implementation failure fee. A contrast is drawn between IS improvement in growing international locations and evolved international locations. The paper affords valuable records to assist in decreasing IS failure, and growing IS models and theories on IS development for developing countries.

Keywords: research information systems (RIS), research information, heterogeneous sources, data quality, data cleansing, science system, standardization artificial intelligence, AI, enterprise information system, EIS, integration developing countries, information systems, IS development, information systems failure, information systems success, information systems success model

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Authors: Qitao Xie, Qingquan Zhang, Xiaofei Zhang, Di Tian, Ruixuan Wen, Ting Zhu, Ping Yi, Xin Li

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Inspired by the recent movement of digital currency, we are building a question answering system concerning the subject of cryptocurrency using Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT). The motivation behind this work is to properly assist digital currency investors by directing them to the corresponding knowledge bases that can offer them help and increase the querying speed. BERT, one of newest language models in natural language processing, was investigated to improve the quality of generated responses. We studied different combinations of hyperparameters of the BERT model to obtain the best fit responses. Further, we created an intelligent chatbot for cryptocurrency using BERT. A chatbot using BERT shows great potential for the further advancement of a cryptocurrency market tool. We show that the BERT neural networks generalize well to other tasks by applying it successfully to cryptocurrency.

Keywords: bidirectional encoder representations from transformers, BERT, chatbot, cryptocurrency, deep learning

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Authors: Viktorija Mano

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The objective of my research is to critique the International Monetary Fund (IMF) stance on foreign investment and the benefits for small, open economies of allowing the free movement of capital. In my research as a whole I will explore the extent to which this stance impacted upon and influenced the economic policies of Macedonia. This will involve providing a contextualized, critical account of the policy of the IMF focusing on a comparison of its policies during the early 2000s through policy documents, political discourse and enacted policies in Macedonia. The conditionality associated with these policies, such as the enforcement of austerity measures (including cutting public spending and reducing debt) and the privatization of public institutions has provoked strong reactions in countries which receive such loans. My main focus in my research is on exploring how the process of Financial Liberalization (FL) of the Macedonian economy affected capital flows in the form of foreign direct investments (FDI) in the private sector and how the recent Greek crisis of 2008 has impacted on this. In the case of Macedonia, the reality of FL was tested by the collapse of the Greek economy. However, this paper will highlight the main duties of the IMF and the goals of the FL process implemented in various countries.Additionally, I will undertake a rhetorical documentary analysis on the IMF reports regarding the process of FL in Macedonia since its independence until today.

Keywords: FDI, financial liberalization, Greece, IMF, Macedonia

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Authors: Samet Sen, Yalcin Alver

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Before Izmir Commuter Rail System (IZBAN), most of the respondents along the railway were making their trips by city buses, minibuses or private cars. After IZBAN was put into service, some people changed their previous trip behaviors and they started travelling by IZBAN. Therefore a big travel demand in IZBAN occurred. In this study, the characteristics of passengers and their trip behaviors are found out based on the longitudinal data conducted via two wave trip surveys. Just after one year from IZBAN's opening, the first wave of the surveys was carried out among 539 passengers at six stations during morning peak hours between 07.00 am-09.30 am. The second wave was carried out among 669 passengers at the same six stations two years after the first wave during the same morning peak hours. As a result of this study, the respondents' socio-economic specifications, the distribution of trips by region, the impact of IZBAN on transport modes, the changes in travel time and travel cost and satisfaction data were obtained. These data enabled to compare two waves and explain the changes in socio-economic factors and trip behaviors. In both waves, 10 % of the respondents stopped driving their own cars and they started to take IZBAN. This is an important development in solving traffic problems. More public transportation means less traffic congestion.

Keywords: commuter rail system, comparative study, longitudinal survey, public transportation

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Authors: Kevin Wongleedee

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The purposes of this research were to study the image of a flight attendant career from the perspective of high school students in Bangkok and to study the level of interest to pursue a flight attendant career. A probability random sampling of 400 students was utilized. Half the sample group came from private high schools and the other half came from public high schools. A questionnaire was used to collect the data and small in-depth interviews were also used to get their opinions about the image and their level of interest in the flight attendant career. The findings revealed that the majority of respondents had a medium level of interest in the flight attendant career. High school students who majored in Math-English were more interested in a flight attendant career than high school students who majored in Science-Math with a 0.05 level of significance. The image of flight attendant career was rated as a good career with a chance to travel to many countries. The image of flight attendance career can be ranked as follows: a career with a chance to travel, a career with ability to speak English, a career that requires punctuality, a career with a good service mind, and a career with an understanding of details. The findings from the in-depth interviews revealed that the major obstacles that prevented high school students from choosing a flight attendant as a career were their ability to speak English, their body proportions, and lack of information.

Keywords: flight attendant, high school students, image, media engineering

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Authors: Upasna Bhandari, Indranil Saha, Deepak John Mathew

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The green fashion market is growing rapidly as eco-friendly consumers are willing to expand their organic lifestyle to include clothing. With an increasing share of fashion consumers globally, Indian consumers are observed to consider the social and environmental ethics while making purchasing decisions. While some research clearly identifies the efforts of responsible consumers towards green fashion, some argue that fashion-orientated consumers who are sensitive towards environment do not actively participate towards supporting green fashion. This study aims to analyze the current perception of green fashion among Indian consumers. A small-scale exploratory study is conducted where consumers’ perception of green fashion is examined followed by an analysis of translation of this perception into purchase decision making. This research paper gives insight into consumer awareness on green fashion and provides scope towards the expansion of ethical fashion consumption within the demography of India.

Keywords: consumer perception, environmental attitudes, fashion retailing, green fashion, sustainability

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Authors: Pei-Gi Shu, Yin-Hua Yeh, Chao-Ting Chen

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Using a dataset consisting of 7,120 firm-year observations from the Taiwan stock market over the 2007-2011 sample period, we find a significantly negative relationship between board external connectedness and firm diversification. We propose a learningeffect hypothesis indicating that an externally connected board member’s experiences in other companies directly affect his recommendations regarding the underlying firm’s diversification. The partial correlation between diversification and the performance of firms with externally connected board members is used as a proxy for the learning effect. The empirical results show that the learning effect is asymmetrically embedded in firm diversification, with negative experiences having a greater effect on firm diversification than positive experiences. Externally connected board members are associated with reduced diversification in one firm after they learn that diversification is detrimental to value in other companies. Moreover, the diversification of a firm due to board external connectedness is moderated by the controlling owner’s interest alignment and entrenchment.

Keywords: board, external, connectedness, diversification

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Authors: Marie Louis

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Even though many stakeholders are doing their very best to promote public transportation around the world, many areas are still public transportation non-accessible. With travelers purchasing and driving their private vehicles can be considered as a threat to all three aspects of the sustainability (e.g., economical, social, environmental). However, most studies that considered simultaneously all three aspects of the sustainability concept when planning and designing public transportation for a corridor have found tradeoffs among the said three aspects.One of the tradeoffs was identified by looking at tipping points of the travel demands to question whether transit agencies/and or transportation policymakers should either operate smaller buses or provide incentives to purchase Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)-Qualified low-emission vehicles or greener vehicles (e.g., hybrid). However, how and when do the department of environmental protection (DEP) and the department of revenue (DOR) figure out how much incentives to give to each traveler who lives in a zoning that is considered as public transportation inaccessible or accessible? To answer this policy question, this study aims to compare the greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions when hybrid and conventional cars are used to access public transportation stops/stations. Additionally, this study also intends to review previous states that have already adopted low-emissions vehicle (LEVs) or Zero-Emissions Vehicles (ZEVs) to diminish the daily GHGs pollutants.

Keywords: LEED-qualified vehicles, public transit accessibility, hybrid vehicles incentives, sustainability trade-offs

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Authors: Satinder Bhatia

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Limited Liability Partnerships (LLPs) was a concept introduced in India in 2009. Ever since then, there has been a fierce growth in the number of organizations registered as LLPs outpacing the number of registrations as private companies. Among other benefits extended to LLPs, the audit being mandated only for LLPs having a turnover of at least Rs 40 lakhs or capital contribution of Rs 25 lakhs, has been a major attraction. This has resulted in only about 10 per cent of LLPs coming under mandatory audit. Even for such companies, the accounting standards to be followed in the preparation of financial statements have not been specified. The Revised Indian Accounting Standards (Revised IndAS) which are aligned with IFRS to a great extent, may apply to LLPs only under limited conditions. Thus, the veracity of even the audited financial statements of LLPs can be questioned. If in future, these LLPs would like to list on a stock exchange to raise capital, there can be serious hurdles if investors do not find the financial statements to be reliable and consistent. LLPs are generally governed by country-specific rules in the area of accounts and audit. Thus, such rules vary across UK, EU and the USA. Some countries have adopted the IFRS for SMEs and since LLPs can be referred to as SMEs; they would come under the ambit of these IFRS provisions. Besides, as the scope of audit widens to cover qualitative information in addition to quantitative data, audit of LLPs has now acquired a new meaning and a new urgency as demands for at least limited purpose audits are arising from different stakeholders including lenders, suppliers, customers and joint venture partners.

Keywords: audit disclosures, audit quality, guidance for SMEs, non-audit services

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Authors: Malay Bhattacharyya, Saparya Suresh

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The Correlation Structure associated with a portfolio is subjected to vary across time. Studying the structural breaks in the time-dependent Correlation matrix associated with a collection had been a subject of interest for a better understanding of the market movements, portfolio selection, etc. The current paper proposes a methodology for testing the change in the time-dependent correlation structure of a portfolio in the high dimensional data using the techniques of generalized inverse, singular valued decomposition and multivariate distribution theory which has not been addressed so far. The asymptotic properties of the proposed test are derived. Also, the performance and the validity of the method is tested on a real data set. The proposed test performs well for detecting the change in the dependence of global markets in the context of high dimensional data.

Keywords: correlation structure, high dimensional data, multivariate distribution theory, singular valued decomposition

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Authors: Natanya Meyer, Johann Landsberg

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Unemployment among the youth is a significant problem in South Africa. Large corporations and the public sector simply cannot create enough jobs. Too many youths in South Africa currently do not consider entrepreneurship as an option in order to become independent. Unlike the youth of the Netherlands, South African youth prefer to find employment in the public or private sector. The Netherlands has a much lower unemployment rate than South Africa and the Dutch are generally very entrepreneurial. From early on entrepreneurship is considered a desirable career option in the Netherlands. The purpose of this study was to determine whether there is a difference in the perceptions of some Dutch and South African students in terms of unemployment and entrepreneurship. Questionnaires were distributed to students at the North West University's Vaal Triangle campus in Vanderbijlpark in Gauteng, South Africa and the Technical University of Delft in the Netherlands. A descriptive statistical analysis approach was followed and the means for the independent questions were calculated. The results demonstrate that the Dutch students are not as concerned about unemployment after completion of their studies as this is not as significant a problem as it is in South Africa. Both groups had positive responses towards the posed questions, but the South African group felt more strongly about the issues. Both groups of students felt that there was a need for more practical entrepreneurship training. The South African education system should focus on practical entrepreneurship training from a young age.

Keywords: entrepreneurship development, entrepreneurship development programmes, entrepreneurship intention, Netherlands, South Africa, unemployment

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Authors: Domagoj Hruska, Drazen Milkovic, Maja Darabos

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This paper empirically investigates the performance of Croatian initial public offerings (IPOs) throughout 20 years period, from 1996 until 2016. By proving the comprehensive evaluation of reasons and consequences of IPO initiatives in Croatia we give analytic evidence on the influence of this corporate action on the development of corporate governance. Furthermore, the paper discusses the relationship between internal and external corporate governance mechanisms in companies that initialize entering the financial markets. The paper will provide a synthesis of evidence of IPO-s in Croatia based on in-depth case studies of 13 cases of IPO-s. The major findings of the paper include identification of reasons for conducting IPO-s and calculation of underpricing effect and change of market capitalization. To the best of the author's knowledge, the results of the paper provide the analytical framework for understanding the impact of IPOs on the corporate governance system in transition countries.

Keywords: corporate governance, Croatia, initial public offering, transition economy

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Authors: Du Zhiqin

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WeChat is an instant messaging service similar to WhatsApp developed by Tencent, one of China's largest and most used Internet service portals. This paper investigates the penetration of WeChat among university students through a questionnaire, analyzes the effect of brand influence, information quality, interactivity, opinions of opinion-leaders, promotion, personal interests on the attitudes of university students towards WeChat marketing. This paper concludes that the penetration rate of WeChat marketing among university students is generally high enough, WeChat has generally been accepted by students as a way for businesses to market their products, and that all the above-mentioned five factors play a positive role in the process of WeChat marketing. It also proposes that businesses could maximize the effect of WeChat marketing by focusing more resources on the increase of brand influence, and the interactivity of WeChat contents and the use of opinions of opinion-leaders.

Keywords: WeChat, university students, marketing, AISAS

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Authors: Bangkit Adhi Nugraha, Bambang Suripto

Abstract:

On September 2016 Bank Indonesia (BI) release regulation no.18/18/PBI/2016 that permit bank clients for using the FX option call spread USD/IDR. Basically, this product is a combination between clients buy FX call option (pay premium) and sell FX call option (receive premium) to protect against currency depreciation while also capping the potential upside with cheap premium cost. BI classifies this product as a structured product. The structured product is combination at least two financial instruments, either derivative or non-derivative instruments. The call spread is the first structured product against IDR permitted by BI since 2009 as response the demand increase from Indonesia firms on FX hedging through derivative for protecting market risk their foreign currency asset or liability. The composition of hedging products on Indonesian FX market increase from 35% on 2015 to 40% on 2016, the majority on swap product (FX forward, FX swap, cross currency swap). Swap is formulated by interest rate difference of the two currency pairs. The cost of swap product is 7% for USD/IDR with one year USD/IDR volatility 13%. That cost level makes swap products seem expensive for hedging buyers. Because call spread cost (around 1.5-3%) cheaper than swap, the most Indonesian firms are using NDF FX call spread USD/IDR on offshore with outstanding amount around 10 billion USD. The cheaper cost of call spread is the main advantage for hedging buyers. The problem arises because BI regulation requires the call spread buyer doing the dynamic hedging. That means, if call spread buyer choose strike price 1 and strike price 2 and volatility USD/IDR exchange rate surpass strike price 2, then the call spread buyer must buy another call spread with strike price 1’ (strike price 1’ = strike price 2) and strike price 2’ (strike price 2’ > strike price 1‘). It could make the premium cost of call spread doubled or even more and dismiss the purpose of hedging buyer to find the cheapest hedging cost. It is very crucial for the buyer to choose best optimum strike price before entering into the transaction. To help hedging buyer find the optimum strike price and avoid expensive multiple premium cost, we observe ten years 2005-2015 historical data of USD/IDR volatility to be compared with the price movement of the call spread USD/IDR using Garman–Kohlhagen Model (as a common formula on FX option pricing). We use statistical tools to analysis data correlation, understand nature of call spread price movement over ten years, and determine factors affecting price movement. We select some range of strike price and tenor and calculate the probability of dynamic hedging to occur and how much it’s cost. We found USD/IDR currency pairs is too uncertain and make dynamic hedging riskier and more expensive. We validated this result using one year data and shown small RMS. The study result could be used to understand nature of FX call spread and determine optimum strike price for hedging plan.

Keywords: FX call spread USD/IDR, USD/IDR volatility statistical analysis, Garman–Kohlhagen Model on FX Option USD/IDR, Bank Indonesia Regulation no.18/18/PBI/2016

Procedia PDF Downloads 375

Authors: Serban Stere, Stefan Burciu

Abstract:

The challenging and continuously growing competition in the urban freight transport market emphasizes the need for optimal planning of transportation processes in terms of identifying the solution of consolidating traffic flows in congested urban areas. The aim of the present paper is to present the mathematical framework and propose a methodology of combining urban traffic flows between the distribution centers located at the boundary of a congested urban area. The three scenarios regarding traffic flow between consolidation centers that are taken into consideration in the paper are based on the same characteristics of traffic flows. The scenarios differ in terms of the accessibility of the four consolidation centers given by the infrastructure, the connections between them, and the possibility of consolidating traffic flows for one or multiple destinations. Also, synthetical indicators will allow us to compare the scenarios considered and chose the indicated for our distribution system.

Keywords: distribution system, single and multiple destinations, urban consolidation centers, traffic flow consolidation schemes

Procedia PDF Downloads 154

Authors: Abeba Nigussie Turi, Xiangming Samuel Li

Abstract:

Data-driven business models are more typical for established businesses than early-stage startups that strive to penetrate a market. This paper provided an extensive discussion on the principles of data analytics for early-stage digital entrepreneurial businesses. Here, we developed data-driven decision-making (DDDM) framework that applies to startups prone to multifaceted barriers in the form of poor data access, technical and financial constraints, to state some. The startup DDDM framework proposed in this paper is novel in its form encompassing startup data analytics enablers and metrics aligning with startups' business models ranging from customer-centric product development to servitization which is the future of modern digital entrepreneurship.

Keywords: startup data analytics, data-driven decision-making, data acquisition, data generation, digital entrepreneurship

Procedia PDF Downloads 322

Authors: María José Bugueño, Natalia Jaime, Cristian Castro, Diego Naranjo, Guido Trautmann, Mario Pérez-Won, Vilbett Briones-Labarca

Abstract:

Proteins play a crucial role in various prepared foods, including dairy products, drinks, emulsions, and ready meals. These food proteins are naturally present in food waste and byproducts. The alkaline extraction and acid precipitation method is commonly used to extract proteins from plants and animals due to its product stability, cost-effectiveness, and ease of use. This study aimed to investigate the impact of pH-shifting storage at two different pH levels on the conformational changes affecting the physicochemical and functional properties of quinoa protein isolate (QPI) and yellow shrimp byproduct protein isolate (YSPI). The QPI and YSPI were extracted using the alkaline extraction-isoelectric precipitation method. The dispersions were adjusted to pH 4 or 12, stirred for 2 hours at 20°C to achieve a uniform dispersion, and then freeze-dried. Various analyses were conducted, including flexibility (F), free sulfhydryl content (Ho), emulsifying activity (EA), emulsifying capacity (EC), water holding capacity (WHC), oil holding capacity (OHC), intrinsic fluorescence, ultraviolet spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) to assess the properties of the protein isolates. pH-shifting at pH 11 and 12 for QPI and YSPI, respectively, significantly improved protein properties, while property modification of the samples treated under acidic conditions was less pronounced. Additionally, the pH 11 and 12 treatments significantly improved F, Ho, EA, WHC, OHC, intrinsic fluorescence, ultraviolet spectroscopy, DSC, and FTIR. The increase in Ho was due to disulfide bond disruption, which produced more protein sub-units than other treatments for both proteins. This study provides theoretical support for comprehensively elucidating the functional properties of protein isolates, promoting the application of plant proteins and marine byproducts. The pH-shifting process effectively improves the emulsifying property and stability of QPI and YSPI, which can be considered potential plant-based or marine byproduct-based emulsifiers for use in the food industry.

Keywords: quinoa protein, yellow shrimp by-product protein, physicochemical properties, structural properties

Procedia PDF Downloads 36

Authors: Mami Sugiura, Shinichi Arakawa, Masayuki Murata, Satoshi Imai, Toru Katagiri, Motoyoshi Sekiya

Abstract:

API (Application Programming Interface) economy, where many participants join/interact and form the economy, is expected to increase collaboration between information services through API, and thereby, it is expected to increase market value from the service collaborations. In this paper, we introduce API evaluators, which are the activator of API economy by reviewing and/or evaluating APIs, and develop a multi-sided API economy model that formulates interactions among platform provider, API developers, consumers, and API evaluators. By obtaining the equilibrium that maximizes utility of all participants, the impact of API evaluators on the utility of participants in the API economy is revealed. Numerical results show that, with the existence of API evaluators, the number of developers and consumers increase by 1.5% and the utility of platformer increases by 2.3%. We also discuss the strategies of platform provider to maximize its utility under the existence of API evaluators.

Keywords: API economy, multi-sided markets, API evaluator, platform, platform provider

Procedia PDF Downloads 184