Search results for: item bias

Authors: Lav Kesharwani, Nalini Shankar, A. K. Gupta

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A serial number is a unique code assigned for identification of a single unit. Serial number are present on many objects. In an attempt to hide the identity of the numbered item, the numbers are often obliterated or removed by mechanical methods. The present work was carried out with an objective to develop less toxic, less time consuming, more result oriented chemical etching reagent for restoration of serial number on the copper metal plate. Around nine different reagents were prepared using different combination of reagent along with standard reagent and it was applied over 50 erased samples of copper metal and compared it with the standard reagent for restoration of erased marks. After experiment, it was found that the prepared Etching reagent no. 3 (10 g FeCl3 + 20 ml glacial acetic acid + 100 ml distilled H2O) showed the best result for restoration of erased serial number on the copper metal plate .The reagent was also less toxic and less time consuming as compared to standard reagent (19 g FeCl3 + 6 ml cans. HCl + 100 ml distilled H2O).

Keywords: serial number restoration, copper plate, obliteration, chemical method

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Authors: Ondiba Hesborn Andole, Kenichi Matsui

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Women entrepreneurs in the rural areas of Kenya have continually been affected by culturally engraved gendered bias customs. This research investigates challenges and prospects of rural women entrepreneurship in Kakamega County, Kenya. We conducted the questionnaire survey and interviews among 153 women entrepreneurs in the County to better understand how traditional norms influence them in conducting or seeking small businesses. We found that Luhya customs significantly affect growth and performance of rural women enterprises. Traditional Luhya society does not recognize women’s rights to land and higher education. The Luhya traditional roles of women are limited so that, without competing with men, they need to find gender biased works through networking activities. Also, without higher education degrees, their business prospects are limited. Among the respondents, 31% had primary education and about 5% had no formal education at all. We discuss how these women may succeed in businesses under these conditions.

Keywords: chama, culture, entrepreneurs, rural women

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Authors: Aimen Batool Bint-E-Rashid, Syed Muhammad Dawood Ali Shah, Muhammad Usman Farooq, Mahgul Anwar

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As the world is progressing, the needs and demands of the consumer market are also changing. Nowadays the trends of consumer purchase decisions are dependent upon multiple factors. This study aims to identify the influential impact of country of origin over the perception and devotion towards daily personal care products specifically in reference to the knowledge and awareness regarding that particular brand in Pakistan. To corroborate this study, a 30-item brand origin questionnaire has been used with 300 purchase decision makers belonging to different age groups. To illustrate this study, a model has been developed based on brand origin, brand awareness and brand loyalty. Correlation and regression analysis have been used to find out the results which conclude the findings on the perspective of Pakistan’s consumer market as that brand origin has a direct relationship with brand loyalty provided that the consumer has a positive brand awareness. Support for the fact that brand origin impacts brand loyalty through brand awareness has been presented in this study.

Keywords: brand awareness, brand loyalty, brand origin, personal care products, P&G, Unilever

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Authors: Mohammad Yousuf Khan, Bhavya Alankar

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Blockchain is a promising technology with its features such as immutability and decentralized database. It has applications in various fields such as pharmaceutical, finance, & the food industry. At the core of its heart lies its feature, traceability which is the most desired key in supply chains. However, supply chains have always been hit rock bottom by scandals and controversies. In this review paper, we have explored the advancement and research gaps of blockchain technology (BT) in supply chain management (SCM). We have used the Prisma framework for systematic literature review (SLR) and included a minuscule amount of grey literature to reduce publication bias. We found that supply chain traceability and transparency is the most researched objective in SCM. There was hardly any research in supply chain resilience. Further, we found that 40 % of the papers were application based. Most articles have focused on the advantages of BT, rather than analyzing it critically. This study will help identify gaps and suitable actions to be followed for an efficient implementation of BT in SCM.

Keywords: blockchain technology, supply chain management, supply chain transparency, supply chain resilience

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Authors: Said S. Aldhafri, Marwa N. Alrajhi

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This study examines gender differences in emotional intelligence levels in the Sultanate of Oman, an Arabic country in the Middle East. As a collective culture, the Omani culture rears children differently based on the Islamic beliefs and the Arabic culture. Gender differences across the different dimensions of emotional intelligence are possible within this collective culture. Emotional intelligences reflect the ability to understand and act upon one’s and others’ emotions. The sample of the study consisted of 338 (50.6% were females) adults from different regions in Oman. The participants completed a 25-item emotional intelligence scale, using 5-point Likert type responses. The results showed that the total scores of the scale as well as the scores from the five dimensions (self management, self motivation, social skills, empathy, and self-awareness) all have good reliability coefficients. Using independent sample t-tests, the findings show that female adults scored higher than male adults. The differences were all statistically significant across the five dimensions of emotional intelligence. The findings are discussed from a cultural perspective and applications for the development of emotional intelligence skills are outlined.

Keywords: emotional intelligence, gender, Arab, Oman

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Authors: Liuyao Chai, Colin Clark

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Analysis of 574 participants in a simulated two-person distributive negotiation revealed that the first price 245 (42.7%) of these participants actually asked/offered for the item under negotiation (a used car) differed from the first price they previously stated they intended to ask/offer during their negotiation. This discrepancy between a negotiator’s intended first asking/offer price and his/her actual first asking/offer price had a significant and economically consequential impact on both the course and the outcomes of the negotiations studied. Participants whose actual first price remained the same as their intended first price tended to secure better negotiation outcomes. Moreover, participants who changed their intended first price tended to obtain relatively lower outcomes regardless of whether their modified first announced price had created a negotiating position that was ‘stronger’ or ‘weaker’ than if they had opened with their intended first price. Subsequent investigation of over twenty negotiation behaviours and pre-negotiation perceptual variables within this dataset indicated that the three types of first price announcers—i.e. intended first asking/offer price ‘weakeners’, ‘maintainers’ and ‘strengtheners’— comprised persons who tended to have significantly different pre-negotiation perceptions and behaved in systematically different ways during their negotiation. Typically, the most negative, outcome-compromising consequences of changing, weakening or strengthening an intended first price occurred at the very beginning of a negotiation when participants exchanged their actual first asking/offer prices.

Keywords: business communication, negotiation, persuasion, intended first asking/offer prices, bargaining

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Authors: Ansari Mohammad Reza, Hiroko Ono

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In this study, we investigated how much of the urban facilities are fairly distributing in the city of Kabul based on the factor of population. To find the answer to this question we simulated a fair model for the distribution of investigated facilities in the city which is proposed based on the consideration of two factors; the number of users for each facility and the average distance of reach of each facility. Then the model was evaluated to make sure about its efficiency. And finally, the two—the existing pattern and the simulation model—were compared to find the degree of bias in the existing pattern of distribution of facilities in the city. The result of the study clearly clarified that the facilities are not fairly distributed in Kabul city based on the factor of population. Our analysis also revealed that the education services and the parks are the most and the worst fair distributed facilities in this regard.

Keywords: Afghanistan, ArcGIS Software, Kabul City, fair distribution, urban facilities

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Authors: Pablo Enrique Sartor Del Giudice

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Penalty shootouts often decide the outcome of important soccer matches. Although usually referred to as ”lotteries”, there is evidence that some national teams and clubs consistently perform better than others. The outcomes are therefore not explained just by mere luck, and therefore there are ways to improve the average performance of players, naturally at the expense of some sort of effort. In this article we study the payoff of player performance improvements in terms of the performance of the team as a whole. To do so we develop an analytical model with static individual performances, as well as Monte Carlo models that take into account the known influence of partial score and round number on individual performances. We find that within a range of usual values, the team performance improves above 70% faster than individual performances do. Using these models, we also estimate that the new ABBA penalty shootout ordering under test reduces almost all the known bias in favor of the first-shooting team under the current ABAB system.

Keywords: football, penalty shootouts, Montecarlo simulation, ABBA

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Authors: Saba Riaz, Syed A. Hussain

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This paper is addressing the estimation method of the unknown population variance of the variable of interest. A new generalized class of estimators of the finite population variance has been suggested using the auxiliary information. To improve the precision of the proposed class, known population variance of the auxiliary variable has been used. Mathematical expressions for the biases and the asymptotic variances of the suggested class are derived under large sample approximation. Theoretical and numerical comparisons are made to investigate the performances of the proposed class of estimators. The empirical study reveals that the suggested class of estimators performs better than the usual estimator, classical ratio estimator, classical product estimator and classical linear regression estimator. It has also been found that the suggested class of estimators is also more efficient than some recently published estimators.

Keywords: study variable, auxiliary variable, finite population variance, bias, asymptotic variance, percent relative efficiency

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Authors: Yu-Chien Huang, Shu-Chen Yang

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Introduction: Parenting style, non-attachment, and inferiority are important topics in psychology, but the related research on nonattachment is still lacking. Therefore, the purposes of this study were to explore the relationship between parenting style, nonattachment, and inferiority. Methods: We conducted a correlational study, and three instruments were utilized to collect data: parenting style scale, nonattachment scale, and inferiority scale. The inter-reliability Cronbach's α used in this research indicated good inter item reliability and the test-retest reliability that showed a good consistency. The data were analyzed using the descriptive statistics, Chi-square test, one way ANOVA, Pearson’s correlation, and regression analysis. Results: A total of 200 participators were tested in this research. As a result of the study, inferiority had a positive correlation with authoritarian parenting style; nonattachment had a negative correlation with authoritarian parenting style; and with inferiority, the hypothesis was supported. In the linear mediation models, nonattachment was found to be partially mediated the relationship between authoritarian parenting style and inferiority. Conclusion: These findings imply that interventions aimed at enhancing nonattachment as a way to improve inferiority are a good strategy.

Keywords: inferiority, nonattachment, parenting style, psychology

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Authors: Roberta Martino, Viviana Ventre

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The Discounted Utility Model is the essential reference for calculating the utility of intertemporal prospects. According to this model, the value assigned to an outcome is the smaller the greater the distance between the moment in which the choice is made and the instant in which the outcome is perceived. This diminution determines the intertemporal preferences of the individual, the psychological significance of which is encapsulated in the discount rate. The classic model provides a discount rate of linear or exponential nature, necessary for temporally consistent preferences. Empirical evidence, however, has proven that individuals apply discount rates with a hyperbolic nature generating the phenomenon of intemporal inconsistency. What this means is that individuals have difficulty managing their money and future. Behavioral finance, which analyzes the investor's attitude through cognitive psychology, has made it possible to understand that beyond individual financial competence, there are factors that condition choices because they alter the decision-making process: behavioral bias. Since such cognitive biases are inevitable, to improve the quality of choices, research has focused on a personalized approach to strategies that combines behavioral finance with personality theory. From the considerations, it emerges the need to find a procedure to construct the personalized strategies that consider the personal characteristics of the client, such as age or gender, and his personality. The work is developed in three parts. The first part discusses and investigates the weight of the degree of impatience and impatience decrease in the anomalies of the discounted utility model. Specifically, the degree of decrease in impatience quantifies the impact that emotional factors generated by haste and financial market agitation have on decision making. The second part considers the relationship between decision making and personality theory. Specifically, four behavioral categories associated with four categories of behavioral investors are considered. This association allows us to interpret intertemporal choice as a combination of bias and temperament. The third part of the paper presents a method for constructing personalized strategies using Analytic Hierarchy Process. Briefly: the first level of the analytic hierarchy process considers the goal of the strategic plan; the second level considers the four temperaments; the third level compares the temperaments with the anomalies of the discounted utility model; and the fourth level contains the different possible alternatives to be selected. The weights of the hierarchy between level 2 and level 3 are constructed considering the degrees of decrease in impatience derived for each temperament with an experimental phase. The results obtained confirm the relationship between temperaments and anomalies through the degree of decrease in impatience and highlight that the actual impact of emotions in decision making. Moreover, it proposes an original and useful way to improve financial advice. Inclusion of additional levels in the Analytic Hierarchy Process can further improve strategic personalization.

Keywords: analytic hierarchy process, behavioral finance anomalies, intertemporal choice, personalized strategies

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Authors: Fakieh Alrabai

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This paper presents an experimental study designed to explore some of the learner’s individual and interpersonal factors (e.g. persistence, interest, regulation, satisfaction, appreciation, etc.) that Saudi learners experience when learning English as a Foreign Language and how learners’ perceptions of these factors influence various aspects of their motivation to learn English language. As part of the study, a 27-item structured survey was administered to a randomly selected sample of 105 Saudi learners from public schools and universities. Data collected through the survey were subjected to some basic statistical analyses, such as "mean" and "standard deviation". Based on the results from the analysis, a number of generalizations and conclusions are made in relation to how these inherent factors affect Saudi learners’ motivation to learn English as a foreign language. In addition, some recommendations are offered to Saudi academics on how to effectively make use of such factors, which may enable Saudi teachers and learners of English as a foreign language to achieve better learning outcomes in an area widely associated by Saudis with lack of success.

Keywords: persistence, interest, appreciation, satisfaction, SL/FL motivation

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Authors: Won Il Jung, Gene Lee, Luis Rabelo

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Since many weapon systems are getting more complex and diverse, various problems occur in terms of the acquisition cost, time, and performance limitation. As a matter of fact, the experiment execution in real world is costly, dangerous, and time-consuming to obtain Required Operational Characteristics (ROC) for a new weapon acquisition although enhancing the fidelity of experiment results. Also, until presently most of the research contained a large amount of assumptions so therefore a bias is present in the experiment results. At this moment, the new methodology is proposed to solve these problems without a variety of assumptions. ROC of the new weapon system is developed through the new methodology, which is a way to analyze big data generated by simulating various scenarios based on virtual and constructive models which are involving 6 Degrees of Freedom (6DoF). The new methodology enables us to identify unbiased ROC on new weapons by reducing assumptions and provide support in terms of the optimal weapon systems acquisition.

Keywords: big data, required operational characteristics (ROC), virtual and constructive models, weapon acquisition

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Authors: Mohammad Ebrahim Arbabian

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This paper investigates the impact of 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, on a multi-item supply chain comprising a manufacturer and retailer. Operating under a wholesale-price contract and catering to stochastic customer demand, this study delves into the largely unexplored realm of how 3D printing technology reshapes supply chain dynamics. A distinguishing aspect of 3D printing is its versatility in producing various product types, yet its slower production pace compared to traditional methods poses a challenge. We analyze the trade-off between 3D printing's limited capacity and its enhancement of production flexibility. By delineating the economic circumstances favoring 3D printing adoption by the manufacturer, we establish the Stackelberg equilibrium in the retailer-manufacturer game. Additionally, we determine optimal order quantities for the retailer considering 3D printing as an option for the manufacturer, ascertain optimal wholesale prices in the presence of 3D printing, and compute optimal profits for both parties involved in the supply chain.

Keywords: additive manufacturing, supply chain management, contract theory, Stackelberg game, optimization

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Authors: Hasanah Md. Amin

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The existence of cyberspace and its growing contents is real and overwhelming. Visual as one of the properties of cyber contents is increasingly becoming more significant and popular among creator and user. The visual and aesthetic of the content is consistent with many similarities. Aesthetic, although universal, has slight differences across the world. Aesthetic power could impress, influence, and cause bias among the users. The content creator who knows how to manipulate this visuals and aesthetic expression can dominate the scenario and the user who is ‘expressive literate’ will gain much from the scenes. User who understands aesthetic will be rewarded with competence, confidence, and certainly, a personality enhanced experience in carrying out a task when participating in this chaotic but promising cyberworld. The aim of this article is to gain knowledge from related literature and research regarding User-Generated Content (UGC), which focuses on aesthetic expression by the Net generation. The objective of this preliminary study is to analyze the aesthetic expression linked to visual from the participatory cultural viewpoint looking for meaning, value, patterns, and characteristics.

Keywords: visual overloaded, user-generated content, net generation, visual arts

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Authors: Sandra Figueiredo

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To guarantee the well-being and the academic achievement it is crucial into the global society to develop techniques to assess language competence and control psychological aspects on the second language learning context. The current scenario of the war conflicts that are emerging mostly in Europe and Middle East have been resulting in forced immigration and refugees’ maladjustment. The inclusion is the priority for United Nations concerning the sustainability of societies. For inclusion, psychological screening tests and educational tools are urgent. Method: Approximately 100 refugees from Ukraine were assessed, in Portugal, under the administration of the PCL-5. This 20-item instrument evaluates the Post-Traumatic Disorder. Expected results: The statistical analysis will be performed with the International Database Analyzer and SPSS (v. 28). The results expected are the relationship between traumatic events caused by war and post-traumatic symptomatology (anxiety, hypervigilance, stress). Implications: The data will be discussed concerning the problems of belonging, the psychological constraints and educational attainment (language needs included) experienced by the individuals more recently arrived to the hosting societies. The refugees’ acculturation process and the emotional regulation will be addressed.

Keywords: refugees, immigration, educational needs, trauma, inclusion, second language.

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Authors: Elison Eduardo Jardim Bierhals, Claudineia Brazil, Deivid Pires, Rafael Haag, Elton Gimenez Rossini

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This study evaluated the uncertainties involved in the solar radiation projections generated by the Brazilian Earth System Model (BESM) of the Weather and Climate Prediction Center (CPTEC) belonging to Coupled Model Intercomparison Phase 5 (CMIP5), with the aim of identifying efficiency in the projections for solar radiation of said model and in this way establish the viability of its use. Two different scenarios elaborated by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were evaluated: RCP 4.5 (with more optimistic contour conditions) and 8.5 (with more pessimistic initial conditions). The method used to verify the accuracy of the present model was the Nash coefficient and the Statistical bias, as it better represents these atmospheric patterns. The BESM showed a tendency to overestimate the data ​​of solar radiation projections in most regions of the state of Rio Grande do Sul and through the validation methods adopted by this study, BESM did not present a satisfactory accuracy.

Keywords: climate changes, projections, solar radiation, uncertainty

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Authors: S. Jahani, V. Choopankareh

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Many people lost their life caused by environmental pollution every year. The negative effects of environmental crises appear to be much higher in Asian countries. The most important environmental issue in the developing countries and especially in Tehran, to our best knowledge, is air pollution that has affected many aspects of life in society. Environmental topics related to technology’s development have been salient issues among the main concerns of designers. Green facades are the most considerable solutions which designers and architectures are focused on, all over the world. But there are lots of behavioral and psychological problems about this point. In this line, this excavation has tried to reveal the cultural and psychological influences of green façade in developing countries like Tehran. Green façades in developing countries are so useless, although they are so expensive. As a matter of fact, users consider green facade as a decorative item. This research is an attempt to recognize the reasons which show green façades as worthless element. Also, some solutions are presented to promote green façades in the developing countries as an intrinsic solution. There are so many environmental threats, especially about air pollution, for a city as Tehran, which might be solved by green facades.

Keywords: air pollution, developing countries, effects, green facades

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Authors: Edvard P. G. Bruun

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One of the best ways of improving our understanding of reinforced concrete is through large-scale experimental testing. The gathered information is critical in making inferences about structural mechanics and deriving the mathematical models that are the basis for finite element analysis programs and design codes. An effective way of measuring the strains across a region of a specimen is by using a system of surface mounted Linear Variable Differential Transformers (LVDTs). While a single LVDT can only measure the linear strain in one direction, by combining several measurements at known angles a Mohr’s circle of strain can be derived for the whole region under investigation. This paper presents a method that can be used by researchers, which improves the accuracy and removes experimental bias in the calculation of the Mohr’s circle, using four rather than three independent strain measurements. Obtaining high quality strain data is essential, since knowing the angular deviation (shear strain) and the angle of principal strain in the region are important properties in characterizing the governing structural mechanics. For example, the Modified Compression Field Theory (MCFT) developed at the University of Toronto, is a rotating crack model that requires knowing the direction of the principal stress and strain, and then calculates the average secant stiffness in this direction. But since LVDTs can only measure average strains across a plane (i.e., between discrete points), localized cracking and spalling that typically occur in reinforced concrete, can lead to unrealistic results. To build in redundancy and improve the quality of the data gathered, the typical experimental setup for a large-scale shell specimen has four independent directions (X, Y, H, and V) that are instrumented. The question now becomes, which three should be used? The most common approach is to simply discard one of the measurements. The problem is that this can produce drastically different answers, depending on the three strain values that are chosen. To overcome this experimental bias, and to avoid simply discarding valuable data, a more rigorous approach would be to somehow make use of all four measurements. This paper presents the derivation of a method to draw what is effectively a Mohr’s circle of 'best-fit', which optimizes the circle by using all four independent strain values. The four-strain optimized Mohr’s circle approach has been utilized to process data from recent large-scale shell tests at the University of Toronto (Ruggiero, Proestos, and Bruun), where analysis of the test data has shown that the traditional three-strain method can lead to widely different results. This paper presents the derivation of the method and shows its application in the context of two reinforced concrete shells tested in pure torsion. In general, the constitutive models and relationships that characterize reinforced concrete are only as good as the experimental data that is gathered – ensuring that a rigorous and unbiased approach exists for calculating the Mohr’s circle of strain during an experiment, is of utmost importance to the structural research community.

Keywords: reinforced concrete, shell tests, Mohr’s circle, experimental research

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Authors: Elison Eduardo Jardim Bierhals, Claudineia Brazil, Rafael Haag, Elton Rossini

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This work aims to validate and make the projections of solar energy for the Brazilian period from 2025 to 2100. As the plants designed by the HadGEM2-AO (Global Hadley Model 2 - Atmosphere) General Circulation Model UK Met Office Hadley Center, belonging to Phase 5 of the Intercomparison of Coupled Models (CMIP5). The simulation results of the model are compared with monthly data from 2006 to 2013, measured by a network of meteorological sections of the National Institute of Meteorology (INMET). The performance of HadGEM2-AO is evaluated by the efficiency coefficient (CEF) and bias. The results are shown in the table of maps and maps. HadGEM2-AO, in the most pessimistic scenario, RCP 8.5 had a very good accuracy, presenting efficiency coefficients between 0.94 and 0.98, the perfect setting being Solar radiation, which indicates a horizontal trend, is a climatic alternative for some regions of the Brazilian scenario, especially in spring.

Keywords: climate change, projections, solar radiation, scenarios climate change

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Authors: Alireza Jalilifar, Nadia Mayahi

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The dissertation defense as a complicated conflict-prone context entails the adoption of elegant interactional strategies, one of which is self-denigration. This study aimed to develop and validate a self-denigration model that fits the context of doctoral defense sessions in applied linguistics. Two focus group discussions provided the basis for developing this conceptual model, which assumed 10 functions for self-denigration, namely good manners, modesty, affability, altruism, assertiveness, diffidence, coercive self-deprecation, evasion, diplomacy, and flamboyance. These functions were used to design a 40-item questionnaire on the attitudes of applied linguists concerning self-denigration in defense sessions. The confirmatory factor analysis of the questionnaire indicated the predictive ability of the measurement model. The findings of this study suggest that self-denigration in doctoral defense sessions is the social representation of the participants’ values, ideas and practices adopted as a negotiation strategy and a conflict management policy for the purpose of establishing harmony and maintaining resilience. This study has implications for doctoral students and academics and illuminates further research on self-denigration in other contexts.

Keywords: academic discourse, politeness, self-denigration, grounded theory, dissertation defense

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Authors: Tahereh Samenian

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There is ample evidence that source and goal are disproportionately expressed in languages, and goal usually plays a more prominent role than source. The results show that the mismatch between the goal and the source is not entirely rooted in non-linguistic behaviors, i.e. that linguistic descriptions also show the focus of the goal on the source in events; Non-verbal memory for events, on the other hand, indicates that the focus of the goal is only on events that are purposefully moving and the actor is alive. In the present study, an attempt is made to examine the principle of priority of the goal over the source by focusing on Persian directional motion verbs. For this purpose, 117 Persian directional motion verbs have been selected from the dictionary and data for them have been collected from the body of Bijan Khan and the components of goal and source have been identified in sentences and the prominence of the components of goal and source has been shown in the form of diagrams. As it was obtained from the data, Persian motion-directional verbs also showed the bias of the goal over source in motion events.

Keywords: motion-directional verbs, priority of goal over source principle, cognitive factors, linguistic factors

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Authors: Hui Li, Xueying Zhao, Ke Ma, Yu Cao, Fan Yang, Qingwen Xu, Wenbin Liu

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Soil can often link a person or item to a crime scene, which makes it a valuable evidence in forensic casework. Several techniques have been utilized in forensic soil discrimination in previous studies. Because soil contains a vast number of microbiomes, the analyse of soil microbiomes is expected to be a potential way to characterise soil evidence. In this study, we applied massively parallel sequencing (MPS) to soil bacterial profiling on the Ion Torrent Personal Genome Machine (PGM). Soils from different regions were collected repeatedly. V-region 3 and 4 of Bacterial 16S rRNA gene were detected by MPS. Operational taxonomic units (OTU, 97%) were used to analyse soil bacteria. Several bioinformatics methods (PCoA, NMDS, Metastats, LEfse, and Heatmap) were applied in bacterial profiles. Our results demonstrate that MPS can provide a more detailed picture of the soil microbiomes and the composition of soil bacterial components from different region was individualistic. In conclusion, the utility of soil bacterial profiling via MPS of the 16S rRNA gene has potential value in characterising soil evidences and associating them with their place of origin, which can play an important role in forensic science in the future.

Keywords: bacterial profiling, forensic, massively parallel sequencing, soil evidence

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Authors: Liqiang Chen

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This study investigates the effects of political connections on the association between firms’ business strategy and their tax aggressiveness in an emerging economy such as China. By studying all public Chinese firms in the period from 2011 to 2017, we find that firms adopting innovative business strategy are more tax aggressive overall, but innovative firms with political connections are less tax aggressive compared to those without political connections. Moreover, we document several channels through which political connections affect the association between innovative business strategy and tax aggressiveness. In particular, we show that the mitigation effect of political connections on tax aggressiveness is stronger for innovative firms located in areas with a lower marketization index and for innovative firms with a lower leverage level or with less earnings management. Our results are robust to an instrumental variable approach to account for possible endogenous bias. Our study contributes to the understanding of firms’ tax behaviors in an emerging economy setting and suggests that there are costs associated with political connections, such as foregone tax saving opportunities, which are understudied in the prior literature.

Keywords: tax aggressiveness, business strategy, political connections, emerging economy

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Authors: Gil Bae, Seung Uk Choi, Jae Eun Lee, Joon Hwa Rho

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Using proprietary engagement partner identity information for the Big 4 audit firms in Korea over the 2001-2011 period, we find that expert engagement partners obtain significantly higher total compensation than do non-expert partners. Importantly, we also find that expert partners increase the number of audit hours compared to their non-expert counterparts. The hourly billing rate, calculated as total fees divided by total audit hours, of expert partners is not higher than that of non-expert partners, indicating that there is no expert partner premium reflected in the hourly rate. This finding suggests that the increase in total audit fees is attributable mainly to the increase in the quantity of audit hours that expert partners work, not from the higher fee per hour. The results are not attributable to auditor selection bias.

Keywords: industry expert partners, expert premiums, audit hours, hourly charge rate

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Authors: Ian A. McCulloh, Madelaine Zinser, Jesse Patsolic, Michael Ramos

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Recommender systems are a common artificial intelligence (AI) application. For any given input, a search system will return a rank-ordered list of similar items. As users review returned items, they must decide when to halt the search and either revise search terms or conclude their requirement is novel with no similar items in the database. We present a statistically designed experiment that investigates the impact of similarity ratings on human judgement to conclude a search item is novel and halt the search. 450 participants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk to render judgement across 12 decision tasks. We find the inclusion of ratings increases the human perception that items are novel. Percent similarity increases novelty discernment when compared with star-rated similarity or the absence of a rating. Ratings reduce the time to decide and improve decision confidence. This suggests the inclusion of similarity ratings can aid human decision-makers in knowledge search tasks.

Keywords: ratings, rankings, crowdsourcing, empirical studies, user studies, similarity measures, human-centered computing, novelty in information retrieval

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Authors: Cristie Ann Jaca-Delfin, Felino Javines Jr.

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Teachers especially those who are teaching elementary and high school students need to upgrade their teaching practices in order to become effective and efficient facilitators of learning. It is in this context that this study is conducted in order to present the perceived teaching-learning activities needs among basic education teachers in the three campuses of the University of San Carlos, Cebu City, the Philippines as expressed during their In-Service Teacher Training. The study employed the quantitative-qualitative research design and used the researcher-made survey questionnaire to look into the ten items under Teaching-Learning Activities to determine which item teachers need to be trained and retrained on. The data were solicited during the teachers’ In-Service Teacher Training period conducted in May 2015. It was found out that designing interesting and meaningful classroom activities, strategies in teaching and assessment procedures were identified as the most needed areas teachers want to be included in their in-service training. As these expressed needs were identified, the teachers’ in-service training must a venue for teachers’ instructional development needs to be addressed so as to maximize the students’ learning outcomes

Keywords: in-service teacher training, perceived needs, teaching-learning activities, teaching practices

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Authors: Doyin Afolabi, Phillip Adewole, Oladipupo Sennaike

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Most well-known classifiers, including the decision tree algorithm, can make predictions on balanced datasets efficiently. However, the decision tree algorithm tends to be biased towards imbalanced datasets because of the skewness of the distribution of such datasets. To overcome this problem, this study proposes a weighted decision tree algorithm that aims to remove the bias toward the majority class and prevents the reduction of majority observations in imbalance datasets classification. The proposed weighted decision tree algorithm was tested on three imbalanced datasets- cancer dataset, german credit dataset, and banknote dataset. The specificity, sensitivity, and accuracy metrics were used to evaluate the performance of the proposed decision tree algorithm on the datasets. The evaluation results show that for some of the weights of our proposed decision tree, the specificity, sensitivity, and accuracy metrics gave better results compared to that of the ID3 decision tree and decision tree induced with minority entropy for all three datasets.

Keywords: data mining, decision tree, classification, imbalance dataset

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Authors: Alireza Ladan Moghaddam, Hadi Rezghi Shirsavar, Panteha Pirayandeh

Abstract:

This study aimed to investigate the Relationship between Teachers' Empowerment and Personality Traits (Case Study: Tehran Public Schools of region 5). To achieve this objective, a descriptive research in correlation type has been used. The statistical population of this research includes all teachers and administrators in Tehran Public Schools of region 5. In this study, a five factor model of personality and a 49-item questionnaire to measure empowerment of teachers have been used to assess personality traits of administrators and the teachers' empowerment, respectively. The research hypotheses test has been done using SPSS and LISREL software. The results show that in general there is no significant relationship between personality traits of administrators and teachers' empowerment, and among the 5 dimensions of personality, there is only significant relationship between the characteristic of administrators' agreeableness and teachers' empowerment. The results suggested a way to improve knowledge and skills of teachers a top priority administrator consider. In addition, the performance of teachers affected by the performance of the executive directors, so it is necessary to improve their yield towering notice.

Keywords: personality traits, five factor model of personality, teacher, empowerment

Procedia PDF Downloads 331

Authors: Anahita Farhang Ghahfarokhi, Alessandro Berti, Wil M.P. van der Aalst

Abstract:

Process mining provides ways to analyze business processes. Common process mining techniques consider the process as a whole. However, in real-life business processes, different behaviors exist that make the overall process too complex to interpret. Process comparison is a branch of process mining that isolates different behaviors of the process from each other by using process cubes. Process cubes organize event data using different dimensions. Each cell contains a set of events that can be used as an input to apply process mining techniques. Existing work on process cubes assume single case notions. However, in real processes, several case notions (e.g., order, item, package, etc.) are intertwined. Object-centric process mining is a new branch of process mining addressing multiple case notions in a process. To make a bridge between object-centric process mining and process comparison, we propose a process cube framework, which supports process cube operations such as slice and dice on object-centric event logs. To facilitate the comparison, the framework is integrated with several object-centric process discovery approaches.

Keywords: multidimensional process mining, mMulti-perspective business processes, OLAP, process cubes, process discovery, process mining

Procedia PDF Downloads 225