Search results for: share%20of%20electricity%20generation

Authors: Shivkumar Krishnamurti, Ruchi Agarwal

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The study examines the influence of marital status on consumers of products and services using blogs as a source of information. A pre-designed questionnaire was used to collect the primary data from the respondents (experiences). Data were collected from one hundred and eighty seven respondents residing in and around the Emirates of Sharjah and Dubai of the United Arab Emirates. The collected data was analyzed with the help of statistical tools such as averages, percentages, factor analysis, student’s t-test and structural equation modeling technique. Objectives of the study are to know the reasons how married and unmarried or single consumers of products and services are motivated to use blogs as a source of information, to know whether the consumers of products and services irrespective of their marital status share their views and experiences with other bloggers and to know the respondents’ future intentions towards blogging. The study revealed the following: Majority of the respondents have the motivation to blog because they are willing to receive comments on what they post about services, convenience of blogs to search for information about services and products, by blogging respondents share information on the symptoms of a disease/ disorder that may be experienced by someone, helps to share information about ready to cook mix products and are keen to spend more time blogging in the future.

Keywords: blog, consumer, information, marital status

Procedia PDF Downloads 359

Authors: Anudeep Appe, Bhanu Poluparthi, Lakshmi Kasivajjula, Udai Mv, Sobha Bagadi, Punya Modi, Aditya Singh, Hemanth Gunupudi, Spenser Troiano, Jeff Paul, Justin Stovall, Justin Yamamoto

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The necessity of data-driven decisions in healthcare strategy formulation is rapidly increasing. A reliable framework which helps identify factors impacting a healthcare provider facility or a hospital (from here on termed as facility) market share is of key importance. This pilot study aims at developing a data-driven machine learning-regression framework which aids strategists in formulating key decisions to improve the facility’s market share which in turn impacts in improving the quality of healthcare services. The US (United States) healthcare business is chosen for the study, and the data spanning 60 key facilities in Washington State and about 3 years of historical data is considered. In the current analysis, market share is termed as the ratio of the facility’s encounters to the total encounters among the group of potential competitor facilities. The current study proposes a two-pronged approach of competitor identification and regression approach to evaluate and predict market share, respectively. Leveraged model agnostic technique, SHAP, to quantify the relative importance of features impacting the market share. Typical techniques in literature to quantify the degree of competitiveness among facilities use an empirical method to calculate a competitive factor to interpret the severity of competition. The proposed method identifies a pool of competitors, develops Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs) and feature level word vectors, and evaluates the key connected components at the facility level. This technique is robust since its data-driven, which minimizes the bias from empirical techniques. The DAGs factor in partial correlations at various segregations and key demographics of facilities along with a placeholder to factor in various business rules (for ex. quantifying the patient exchanges, provider references, and sister facilities). Identified are the multiple groups of competitors among facilities. Leveraging the competitors' identified developed and fine-tuned Random Forest Regression model to predict the market share. To identify key drivers of market share at an overall level, permutation feature importance of the attributes was calculated. For relative quantification of features at a facility level, incorporated SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations), a model agnostic explainer. This helped to identify and rank the attributes at each facility which impacts the market share. This approach proposes an amalgamation of the two popular and efficient modeling practices, viz., machine learning with graphs and tree-based regression techniques to reduce the bias. With these, we helped to drive strategic business decisions.

Keywords: competition, DAGs, facility, healthcare, machine learning, market share, random forest, SHAP

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Authors: Fatemeh Fahimifar, Rouhollah Nazari, Seyed Mohammad Reza Hosseini

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Achieving an adaptable rate of economic growth has always been at the forefront of Iran development programs. In order to increase welfare level of the people in the society, all economic and social indices should be improved which is possible just in case of country's economic development and growth. While developing countries has realized the gap between developed countries and developing countries in today's world, a massive movement has been emerged in less developed countries to eliminate this economic gap. Hence this study investigates the effect of financial development, foreign direct investment and intellectual property on Iran's economic growth and taking into account other variables on economic growth such as impact of the share of foreign direct investment on GDP, government consumptive expenditure share of GDP has been paid. Period used in this study is related to the years 1974 to 2009. Also, in this research we have used Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) to examine relationship between variables. The results of this study indicate a meaningful and negative impact of financial development, the share of government consumptive expenditure to GDP and similarly, the initial GDP on economic growth. Also, the degree of economy openness, foreign direct investment and intellectual property has a meaningful positive impact on economic growth.

Keywords: financial development, FDI, intellectual property, economic growth, Iran

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Authors: Shoji Katagiri

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This paper is to clarify the relationship between ICT and income inequality. To do so, we develop the general equilibrium model with ICT investment, obtain the equilibrium solutions, and then simulate the model with these solutions for some OECD countries. As a result, generally, during the corresponding periods we confirm that the relationship between ICT investment and income inequality is positive. In this mode, the increment of the ratio of ICT investment to the aggregated investment in stock enhances the capital’s share of income, and finally leads to income inequality such as the increase of the share of the top decile income. Although we confirm the positive relationship between ICT investment and income inequality, the upward trend for that relationship depends on the values of parameters for the making use of the simulations and these parameters are not deterministic in the magnitudes on the calculated results for the simulations.

Keywords: ICT, inequality, capital accumulation, technology

Procedia PDF Downloads 189

Authors: Peter Dzakah Fanam, Hong O. Nguyen, Stephen Cahoon

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The objective of this study is to explore the buying behavior of the freight forwarders and to evaluate how their buying decision affects the ocean container carriers’ market share. This study analysed the buying decisions of the freight forwarders and validated the process of stages that the freight forwarders’ pass through before choosing an ocean container carrier. Factor analysis was applied to data collected from 105 freight forwarding companies to unveil the influential factors the freight forwarders’ consider important when selecting an ocean container carrier. This study did not only analysed the buying behaviour of the freight forwarders but also unveiled the influential factors affecting the competitiveness of the ocean container carriers in their market share maximisation. Furthermore, the study have made a methodological contribution that helps in better understanding of the critical factors influencing the selection of the ocean container carriers from the freight forwarders’ perspective. The implications of the freight forwarders’ buying behaviour is important to the ocean container carriers because it have severe effect on the market share of the ocean container carriers and the percentage of customers they control within the liner shipping sector. The findings of this study will help the ocean container carriers to formulate relevant marketing strategies in attracting the freight forwarders in purchasing the liner shipping service.

Keywords: ocean carrier, freight forwarder, buying behaviour, influential factors

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Authors: Jae-Soo Do, Kyoung-Seok Kim

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The crisis theory of Samsung Electronics is becoming a hot topic today. Due to its performance deterioration, the share of Samsung Electronics lost its driving power. Considering the public opinion about the bad rumors circulating within the company, it is quite probable that the company is currently facing crisis. Then, what company has challenged the stronghold of Samsung Electronics? At the core of the crisis is 'Xiaomi' who snatched the first place of the market share, pushing Samsung Electronics aside in the Chinese market. In June 2010, Xiaomi, established by eight co-founders, has been showing a miraculous growth as the smart device manufacturer, taking the first place in the Chinese market and coming in fifth worldwide in just four years after its establishment. How did Xiaomi instantaneously achieve enough growth to overtake Samsung? Thus, we have conducted a comparative analysis on the competitive strategies of Samsung and Xiaomi.

Keywords: Samsung, Xiaomi, industrial attractiveness, VIRO

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Authors: Richa Rai

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The purpose of this study is to analyze the role of the services sector in economic development of Indian economy, especially in the post reform period. Due to adoption of liberalization policy in developing economy like India, international transaction in services has been increased at a rapid pace which compensated to the current account of Balance of Payment which was in a pitiable condition. But this increased share of services in GDP is not commensurate with share in employment, which is a matter of great concern for Indian economy. Although the increased share of service in GDP indicates the advanced stage of growth of the economy, but this theory is not applicable in context of Indian economy completely. In the preliminary stage, this study finds a positive correlation between growth of services and export earnings and gross domestic product and this growth of services is not equal in terms of all aspects on Indian economy, and also all components of services has not been increased at an equal rate. This paper seeks to examine the impact of liberalization in post reform era on the growth of services in India. The analysis is done for the period of 1991 to 2013. Data has been collected from the secondary sources, especially from the website of Reserve Bank of India, World Trade Organization, and United Nation Conference on Trade and Development. The data has been analyzed with the help of appropriate statistical tools (Causality Relation and Group t-test).

Keywords: export earnings, GDP, gross domestic product, liberalization, services

Procedia PDF Downloads 109

Authors: Li-hsing Shih, Wei-Jen Hsu

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Recently, the sale of electrical vehicles (EVs) has increased dramatically due to maturing technology development and decreasing cost. Governments of many countries have made regulations and policies in favor of EVs due to their long-term commitment to net zero carbon emissions. However, due to uncertain factors such as the future price of EVs, forecasting the future market share of EVs is a challenging subject for both the auto industry and local government. This study tries to forecast the market share of EVs using conjoint models and Monte Carlo simulation. The research is conducted in three phases. (1) A conjoint model is established to represent the customer preference structure on purchasing vehicles while five product attributes of both EV and internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEV) are selected. A questionnaire survey is conducted to collect responses from Taiwanese consumers and estimate the part-worth utility functions of all respondents. The resulting part-worth utility functions can be used to estimate the market share, assuming each respondent will purchase the product with the highest total utility. For example, attribute values of an ICEV and a competing EV are given respectively, two total utilities of the two vehicles of a respondent are calculated and then knowing his/her choice. Once the choices of all respondents are known, an estimate of market share can be obtained. (2) Among the attributes, future price is the key attribute that dominates consumers’ choice. This study adopts the assumption of a learning curve to predict the future price of EVs. Based on the learning curve method and past price data of EVs, a regression model is established and the probability distribution function of the price of EVs in 2030 is obtained. (3) Since the future price is a random variable from the results of phase 2, a Monte Carlo simulation is then conducted to simulate the choices of all respondents by using their part-worth utility functions. For instance, using one thousand generated future prices of an EV together with other forecasted attribute values of the EV and an ICEV, one thousand market shares can be obtained with a Monte Carlo simulation. The resulting probability distribution of the market share of EVs provides more information than a fixed number forecast, reflecting the uncertain nature of the future development of EVs. The research results can help the auto industry and local government make more appropriate decisions and future action plans.

Keywords: conjoint model, electrical vehicle, learning curve, Monte Carlo simulation

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Authors: Bello, A., Muhammed Ibrahim Abba., Abdullahi, M., Dauda, Sabo, & Shittu, A. T.

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This study investigated the Predictors of Lecturers Knowledge Sharing Acceptance on Open Educational Resources (OER) in North-East Nigerian in Universities. The study population comprised of 632 lecturers of Federal Universities in North-east Nigeria. The study sample covered 338 lecturers who were selected purposively from Adamawa, Bauchi and Borno State Federal Universities in Nigeria. The study adopted a prediction correlational research design. The instruments used for data collection was the questionnaire. Experts in the field of educational technology validated the instrument and tested it for reliability checks using Cronbach’s alpha. The constructs on lecturers’ acceptance to share OER yielded a reliability coefficient of; α = .956 for Performance Expectancy, α = .925; for Effort Expectancy, α = .955; for Social Influence, α = .879; for Facilitating Conditions and α = .948 for acceptance to share OER. the researchers contacted the Deanery of faculties of education and enlisted local coordinators to facilitate the data collection process at each university. The data was analysed using multiple sequential regression statistic at a significance level of 0.05 using SPSS version 23.0. The findings of the study revealed that performance expectancy (β = 0.658; t = 16.001; p = 0.000), effort expectancy (β = 0.194; t = 3.802; p = 0.000), social influence (β = 0.306; t = 5.246; p = 0.000), collectively indicated that the variables have a predictive capacity to stimulate lecturer’s acceptance to share their resources on OER repository. However, the finding revealed that facilitating conditions (β = .053; t = .899; p = 0.369), does not have a predictive capacity to stimulate lecturer’s acceptance to share their resources on OER repository. Based on these findings, the study recommends among others that the university management should consider adjusting OER policy to be centered around actualizing lecturers career progression.

Keywords: acceptance, lecturers, open educational resources, knowledge sharing

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Authors: Alexander Cramer, Kenneth Cramer

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Since the inauguration of President George Washington in 1789, the United States of America has seen the governance of some 44 individual presidents. Although such presidents share a variety of attributes, they still differ from one another on many others. Significantly, these traits may be used to construct distinct sets of 'families' of presidents throughout American history. By comparatively analyzing data from experts on the U.S. presidency – in this case, the C-SPAN Presidential Historians Surveys from 2000, 2009, and 2017 – this article identifies a consistent set of six presidential families: the All Stars; the Conservative Visionaries; the Postwar Progressives; the Average Joes; the Forgettables; and the Regrettables. In situating these categories in history, this article argues that U.S. presidents can be accurately organized into cohesive, like-performing families whose constituents share a common set of criteria.

Keywords: C-SPAN, POTUS presidential performance, presidential ranking, presidential studies, presidential surveys, United States

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Authors: Andrea Bellucci, Martina Tofi

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The aim of paper is to analyze business models of bancassurance in Italy for life business. The life insurance business is very developed in the Italian market and banks branches have 80% of the market share. Given its maturity, the life insurance market needs to consolidate its organizational form to allow for the development of non-life business, which nowadays collects few premiums but represents a great opportunity to enlarge the market share of bancassurance using its strength in the distribution channel while the market share of independent agents is decreasing. Starting with the main business model of bancassurance for life business, this paper will analyze the performances of life companies in the Italian market by balance sheet indicators and by main discriminant variables of business models. The study will observe trends from 2013 to 2015 for the Italian market by exploiting a database managed by Associazione Nazionale delle Imprese di Assicurazione (ANIA). The applied approach is based on a bottom-up analysis starting with variables and indicators to define business models’ classification. The statistical classification algorithm proposed by Ward is employed to design business models’ profiles. Results from the analysis will be a representation of the main business models built by their profile related to indicators. In that way, an unsupervised analysis is developed that has the limit of its judgmental dimension based on research opinion, but it is possible to obtain a design of effective business models.

Keywords: bancassurance, business model, non life bancassurance, insurance business value drivers

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Authors: Hassan Abubakar

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This paper will serve as a guide to good design and implementation of wireless networking for campus institutions in Nigeria. It can be implemented throughout the primary, secondary and tertiary institutions. This paper describe the some technical functions, standard configurations and layouts of the 802.11 wireless LAN(Local Area Network) that can be implemented across the campus network. The paper also touches upon the wireless infrastructure standards involved with enhanced services, such as voice over wireless and wireless guest hotspot. The paper also touch the benefits derived from implementing campus wireless network and share some lights on how to arrive at the success in increasing the performance of wireless and using the campus wireless to share resources like software applications, printer and documents.

Keywords: networking, standards, wireless local area network (WLAN), radio frequency (RF), campus

Procedia PDF Downloads 386

Authors: Reina Kawase

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World GHG emissions should be reduced 50% by 2050 compared with 1990 level. CO2 emission reduction from steel sector, an energy-intensive sector, is essential. To estimate CO2 emission from steel sector in the world, estimation of steel production is required. The world steel production by process is estimated during the period of 2005-2050. The world is divided into aggregated 35 regions. For a steel making process, two kinds of processes are considered; basic oxygen furnace (BOF) and electric arc furnace (EAF). Steel production by process in each region is decided based on a current production capacity, supply-demand balance of steel and scrap, technology innovation of steel making, steel consumption projection, and goods trade. World steel production under moderate countermeasure scenario in 2050 increases by 1.3 times compared with that in 2012. When domestic scrap recycling is promoted, steel production in developed regions increases about 1.5 times. The share in developed regions changes from 34 %(2012) to about 40%(2050). This is because developed regions are main suppliers of scrap. 48-57% of world steel production is produced by EAF. Under the scenario which thinks much of supply-demand balance of steel, steel production in developing regions increases is 1.4 times and is larger than that in developed regions. The share in developing regions, however, is not so different from current level. The increase in steel production by EAF is the largest under the scenario in which supply-demand balance of steel is an important factor. The share reaches 65%.

Keywords: global steel production, production distribution scenario, steel making process, supply-demand balance

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Authors: Ahmad Khachan, Ahmet Ozmen

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This study aims to introduce a mobile bite-sized learning concept, a mobile application with social networks motivation factors that will encourage students to practice critical thinking, improve analytical skills and learn knowledge sharing. We do not aim to propose another e-learning or distance learning based tool like Moodle and Edmodo; instead, we introduce a mobile learning tool called Interactive M-learning Application. The tool reconstructs and strengthens the bonds between educators and learners and provides a foundation for integrating mobile devices in education. The application allows learners to stay connected all the time, share ideas, ask questions and learn from each other. It is built on Android since the Android has the largest platform share in the world and is dominating the market with 74.45% share in 2018. We have chosen Google-Firebase server for hosting because of flexibility, ease of hosting and real time update capabilities. The proposed m-learning tool was offered to four groups of university students in different majors. An improvement in the relation between the students, the teachers and the academic institution was obvious. Student’s performance got much better added to better analytical and critical skills advancement and moreover a willingness to adopt mobile learning in class. We have also compared our app with another tool in the same class for clarity and reliability of the results. The student’s mobile devices were used in this experimental study for diversity of devices and platform versions.

Keywords: education, engineering, interactive software, undergraduate education

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Authors: A. H. Elkholy, A. H. Falah

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A new approach has been developed to estimate the load share and stress distribution of worm gear sets. The approach is based upon considering the instantaneous tooth meshing stiffness where the worm gear drive was modelled as a series of spur gear slices, and each slice was analyzed separately using the well established formulae of spur gears. By combining the results obtained for all slices, the entire envolute worm gear set loading and stressing was obtained. The geometric modelling method presented, allows tooth elastic deformation and tooth root stresses of worm gear drives under different load conditions to be investigated. On the basis of the method introduced in this study, the instantaneous meshing stiffness and load share were obtained. In comparison with existing methods, this approach has both good analysis accuracy and less computing time.

Keywords: gear, load/stress distribution, worm, wheel, tooth stiffness, contact line

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Authors: Mojtaba Molaahmadi, Morteza Raei Dehaghi, Abdolrahim Arghavan

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The present study aims to explore the effect of computerization on marketing performance in Snowa Company. In other words, this study intends to respond to this question that whether or not there is a relationship between utilization of computerization in marketing activities and marketing performance. The statistical population included 60 marketing managers of Snowa Company. In order to test the research hypotheses, Pearson correlation coefficient was employed. The reliability was equal to 96.8%. In this study, computerization was the independent variable and marketing performance was the dependent variable with characteristics of market share, improving the competitive position, and sales volume. The results of testing the hypotheses revealed that there is a significant relationship between utilization of computerization and market share, sales volume and improving the competitive position

Keywords: computerization, e-marketing information, information technology, marketing performance

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Authors: Mlondi Ndovela

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Globally, the manufacturing employment has been declining and the South African manufacturing sector experiences the very same trend. Despite the commonality between the global and South African manufacturing trend, there is an understanding that local areas provide distinct contributions to the provincial/national economy. Therefore, the growth/decline of a particular manufacturing division in one local area may not be evident in another area since economic performances vary from region to region. In view of the above, the study employed the Esteban-Marquillas model of shift-share analysis (SSA) to conduct an empirical analysis of manufacturing employment performance at uMhlathuze Local Municipality in the KwaZulu-Natal province. The study set out two objectives; those are, to quantify uMhlathuze manufacturing jobs that are attributed to the provincial manufacturing employment trends and identify manufacturing divisions are growing/declining in terms of employment. To achieve these objectives, the study sampled manufacturing employment data from 2010 to 2017 and this data was categorised into ten manufacturing divisions. Furthermore, the Esteban-Marquillas model calculated manufacturing employment in terms of two effects, namely; provincial growth effect (PGE) and industrial mix effect (IME). The results show that even though uMhlathuze manufacturing sector has a positive PGE (+230), the municipality performed poorly in terms of IME (-291). A further analysis included other economic sectors of the municipality to draw employment performance comparison and the study found that agriculture; construction; trade, catering and accommodation; and transport, storage and communication, performed well above manufacturing sector in terms of PGE (+826) and IME (+532). This suggests that uMhlathuze manufacturing sector is not necessarily declining; however, other economic sectors are growing faster and bigger than it is, therefore, reducing the employment share of the manufacturing sector. To promote manufacturing growth from a policy standpoint, the government could create favourable macroeconomic policies such as import substitution policies and support labour-intensive manufacturing divisions. As a result, these macroeconomic policies can help to protect local manufacturing firms and stimulate the growth of manufacturing employment.

Keywords: allocation effect, Esteban-Marquillas model, manufacturing employment, regional competitive effect, shift-share analysis

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Authors: T. P. Muhammed Jamsheer

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This paper tries to explains some of differences between migrants and non-migrants households by taking ten indicators like land ownership, land distribution, lease in land, lease out land, demand of labour, supply of labour, land operational potential, holding of agriculture implements and livestock’s, irrigation potential of households and credit holding by the households of highly dry, drought affected, poverty stricken, multi caste and pluralistic sub castes village in very backward Mahabubnagar district of Andhra Pradesh. The paper is purely field work based research and conducted census survey of field work among the 298 households in highly dry village called Keppatta from Bhoothpur mandel. One of the main objectives of the paper is that, to find out the factors which differentiate migrants and non-migrants households and what are distress elements which forced the poor peasants migrants to outside the village. It concludes that among the migrants and non-migrants households and among the differences between the categories wise of both types of households, there are differences, except two indicators like lease in and lease out, all other indicators like land holding pattern, demand and supply of labour, land operation, irrigation potential, implements and livestock and credit facilities of migrants and non-migrants households shows that non-migrants have high share than the migrants households. This paper also showing the landed households are more migrants, means among the BC and FC households landed households are migrants while SC landless are more migrants which is contradictory to general/existing literatures conclusion that, landless are more migrant than landed households, here also showing that when the number of land in acres increases the share of SC is declining while the share of FC is increasing among the both migrants and non-migrants households. In the class wise SC households are more in distress situation than any other class and that might be leading to the highest share of migrants from the respective village. In the logistic econometric model to find out the relation between migration and other ten variables, the result shows that supply of labour, lease in of the land and size of the family are statically significantly related with migration and all other variables not significant relation with migration although the theoretical explanation shows the different results.

Keywords: class, migrants, non migrants, economic indicators, distress factors

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Authors: Edward Chamisa, Colin C. Smith, Hamutyinei H. Pamburai, Abdul C. Abdulla

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South Africa (SA) adopted International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) for listed firms effective 1 January 2005. However, it was not until 2011 that substantial financial reporting enforcement changes were introduced, which were meant to ensure compliance with IFRS. This innovative setting allows us to examine the value relevance of accounting amounts during the (1) pre-IFRS adoption period (2002-2004); (2) post-IFRS adoption, but pre-enforcement changes period (2006-2010); and (3) post-enforcement changes period (2011-2012). The results show that accounting amounts were most value relevant in the post-enforcement changes period (R2, 75.5%) compared to both the pre-IFRS adoption period (adjusted R2 is 24.3%) and the period after IFRS adoption but before enforcement changes (adjusted R2 is 37.5%). Also, during the 2008 financial crisis, the equity book value per share was significantly value relevant (at 1%) but not earnings per share, whereas before the crisis, the opposite was true. We make two important contributions to the literature. First, we identify SA as an innovative setting that allows researchers to examine separately the effects of IFRS adoption and enforcement changes on capital markets and accounting quality. This is a departure from prior studies that are dominated by the European Union setting, where IFRS adoption occurred contemporaneously with enforcement and other regulatory changes. Second, we provide preliminary findings which suggest that while the adoption of IFRS seems to have improved the financial reporting quality of accounting amounts of SA listed firms, its impact appears to be limited unless combined with effective enforcement.

Keywords: international financial reporting standards (ifrs), ifrs adoption, financial reporting enforcement, value relevance, price model, equity book value, earnings per share

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Authors: Syed Atif Ali, Farzan Yahya

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This research paper covers the issue of risk management impact on the company performance. Degree of financial leverage (DFL), degree of operating leverage (DOL) and the working capital ratio (WCR) are taken as independent variables which are the representative of risk and the earning price per share (EPS), return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE), Sales and Net profits which are the representative of performance. Last 10 years (2004-2013) of Cement sector of Pakistan data is chosen as sample for analyze their relations by multiple regression technique. Through analyses, it is found that WCR impact adequately on the company performance because if company has enough liquidity than it perform its operations smoothly and enhance its performance very well. DFL should be control moderately because enough DFL leads performance of company downward. On the other hand, the DOL should be less because it causes the less profitability for a company from its operations.

Keywords: degree of financial leverage (DFL), degree of operating leverage (DOL), working capital ratio (WCR), earning per share (EPS), return on equity (ROE), return on assets (ROA)

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Authors: R. Santos Alimi

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Using time-series techniques, this study empirically tested the validity of existing theory which stipulates there is a nonlinear relationship between government size and economic growth; such that government spending is growth-enhancing at low levels but growth-retarding at high levels, with the optimal size occurring somewhere in between. This study employed three estimation equations. First, for the size of government, two measures are considered as follows: (i) share of total expenditures to gross domestic product, (ii) share of recurrent expenditures to gross domestic product. Second, the study adopted real GDP (without government expenditure component), as a variant measure of economic growth other than the real total GDP, in estimating the optimal level of government expenditure. The study is based on annual Nigeria country-level data for the period 1970 to 2012. Estimation results show that the inverted U-shaped curve exists for the two measures of government size and the estimated optimum shares are 19.81% and 10.98%, respectively. Finally, with the adoption of real GDP (without government expenditure component), the optimum government size was found to be 12.58% of GDP. Our analysis shows that the actual share of government spending on average (2000 - 2012) is about 13.4%.This study adds to the literature confirming that the optimal government size exists not only for developed economies but also for developing economy like Nigeria. Thus, a public intervention threshold level that fosters economic growth is a reality; beyond this point economic growth should be left in the hands of the private sector. This finding has a significant implication for the appraisal of government spending and budgetary policy design.

Keywords: public expenditure, economic growth, optimum level, fully modified OLS

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Authors: Jens-Phillip Petersen

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The reduction of GHG emissions in buildings is a focus area of national energy policies in Europe, because buildings are responsible for a major share of the final energy consumption. It is at local scale where policies to increase the share of renewable energies and energy efficiency measures get implemented. Municipalities, as local authorities and responsible entity for land-use planning, have a direct influence on urban patterns and energy use, which makes them key actors in the transition towards sustainable cities. Hence, synchronizing urban planning with energy planning offers great potential to increase society’s energy-efficiency; this has a high significance to reach GHG-reduction targets. In this paper, the actual linkage of urban planning and energy planning in Denmark and Germany was assessed; substantive barriers preventing their integration and driving factors that lead to successful transitions towards a holistic urban energy planning procedures were identified.

Keywords: energy planning, urban planning, renewable energies, sustainable cities

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Authors: Praskovya Britskaya, Fatima Shaizadina, Alua Omarova, Nessipkul Alysheva

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Planned preventive vaccination, which is carried out in the Republic of Kazakhstan, promoted permanent decrease in the incidence of measles and viral hepatitis B. In the structure of VHB patients prevail people of young, working age. Monitoring of infectious incidence, monitoring of coverage of immunization of the population, random serological control over the immunity enable well-timed identification of distribution of the activator, effectiveness of the taken measures and forecasting. The serological blood analysis was conducted in indicator groups of the population of Central Kazakhstan for the purpose of identification of antibody titre for vaccine preventable infections (measles, viral hepatitis B). Measles antibodies were defined by method of enzyme-linked assay (ELA) with test-systems "VektoKor" – Ig G ('Vektor-Best' JSC). Antibodies for HBs-antigen of hepatitis B virus in blood serum was identified by method of enzyme-linked assay (ELA) with VektoHBsAg test systems – antibodies ('Vektor-Best' JSC). The result of the analysis is positive, the concentration of IgG to measles virus in the studied sample is equal to 0.18 IU/ml or more. Protective level of concentration of anti-HBsAg makes 10 mIU/ml. The results of the study of postvaccinal measles immunity showed that the share of seropositive people made 87.7% of total number of surveyed. The level of postvaccinal immunity to measles in age groups differs. So, among people older than 56 the percentage of seropositive made 95.2%. Among people aged 15-25 were registered 87.0% seropositive, at the age of 36-45 – 86.6%. In age groups of 25-35 and 36-45 the share of seropositive people was approximately at the same level – 88.5% and 88.8% respectively. The share of people seronegative to a measles virus made 12.3%. The biggest share of seronegative people was found among people aged 36-45 – 13.4% and 15-25 – 13.0%. The analysis of results of the examined people for the existence of postvaccinal immunity to viral hepatitis B showed that from all surveyed only 33.5% have the protective level of concentration of anti-HBsAg of 10 mIU/ml and more. The biggest share of people protected from VHB virus is observed in the age group of 36-45 and makes 60%. In the indicator group – above 56 – seropositive people made 4.8%. The high percentage of seronegative people has been observed in all studied age groups from 40.0% to 95.2%. The group of people which is least protected from getting VHB is people above 56 (95.2%). The probability to get VHB is also high among young people aged 25-35, the percentage of seronegative people made 80%. Thus, the results of the conducted research testify to the need for carrying out serological monitoring of postvaccinal immunity for the purpose of operational assessment of the epidemiological situation, early identification of its changes and prediction of the approaching danger.

Keywords: antibodies, blood serum, immunity, immunoglobulin

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Authors: Misha Alexander, S. B. Waykar

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Visual Cryptography is a special unbreakable encryption technique that transforms the secret image into random noisy pixels. These shares are transmitted over the network and because of its noisy texture it attracts the hackers. To address this issue a Natural Visual Secret Sharing Scheme (NVSS) was introduced that uses natural shares either in digital or printed form to generate the noisy secret share. This scheme greatly reduces the transmission risk but causes distortion in the retrieved secret image through variation in settings and properties of digital devices used to capture the natural image during encryption / decryption phase. This paper proposes a new NVSS scheme that extracts the secret key from randomly selected unaltered multiple natural images. To further improve the security of the shares data hiding techniques such as Steganography and Alpha channel watermarking are proposed.

Keywords: decryption, encryption, natural visual secret sharing, natural images, noisy share, pixel swapping

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Authors: Ovett Nwosimiri

Abstract:

African tradition and what it entails are the content of African concepts of knowledge. The study of African concepts of knowledge is also known as African epistemology. In other words, African epistemology is a branch of African philosophy that deals with knowledge. This branch of African philosophy engages with the nature and concept of knowledge, the ways in which knowledge can be gained, the ways in which one can justify an epistemic claim or validate a knowledge claim and the limit of human knowledge, etc. The protagonists of African epistemology based their argument for a distinctive or unique African epistemology on the premise or proposition “that each race is endowed with a distinctive nature and embodies in its civilization a particular spirit”. All human beings share some certain basic values and perceptions irrespective of where you come from, and this idea actually fosters some forms of interaction between people from different nationality. Africans like other people share in some certain values, perceptions, and interaction with the rest of the world. These basic values, perceptions, and interaction that Africans share with the rest of the word prompted African people to attempt to “modernize” their societies or develop some forms of their tradition in harmony with the ethos of the contemporary world. Based on the above ideas, it would be interesting to investigate if such (African) epistemology is still unique. The advocates of African epistemology focus on the externalist notion of justification and neglect the idea that both the internalist and externalist notion of justification are needed in order to arrive at a coherent and well-founded account of epistemic justification. Thus, this paper will critically examine the claims that there is a unique African epistemology (a mode of knowing that is peculiar to Africans, and that African mode of knowing is social, monism and situated notion of knowledge), and the grounds for justifying beliefs and epistemic claims.

Keywords: internalist, externalist, knowledge, justification

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Authors: Jocelyn Jones, Louise Southalan, Lindey Andrews, Mandy Wilson, Emma Vieira, Jackie Oakley, Dorothy Bagshaw, Alice V. Brown, Patrick Egan, Duc Dau, Lucy Spanswick

Abstract:

Working with people experiencing homelessness requires careful use of methods that support them to comfortably share their experiences. This is particularly important for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, the traditional owners of Australia, who have experienced intergenerational and compounding trauma since colonisation. Aboriginal cultures regularly experience research fatigue and distrust in research’s potential for impact. They often view research as an extraction -a process of taking the knowledge that empowers the research team and its institution, rather than benefiting those being researched. Through a partnership between an Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisation and a university research institute, we conducted a community-driven research project with 70-90 Aboriginal people experiencing homelessness in Perth, Western Australia. The project aimed to listen to and advocate for the voices of those who are experiencing homelessness, guided by the Aboriginal community. In consultation with Aboriginal Elders, we selected methods that are considered culturally safe, including those who would prefer to express their experiences creatively. This led us to run a series of Photovoice workshops -an established method that supports people to share their experiences through photography. This method treats participants as experts and is regularly used with marginalised groups across the world. We detail our experience and lessons in using Photovoice with Aboriginal community members experiencing homelessness. This includes the ways the method needed to be moulded to community needs and driven by their individual choices, such as being dynamic in the length of time participants would spend with us, how we would introduce the method to them, and providing support workers for participants when taking photos. We also discuss lessons in establishing and retaining engagement and how the method was successful in supporting participants to comfortably share their stories. Finally, we outline the insights into homelessness that the method offered, including highlighting the difficulty experienced by participants in transitioning from homelessness to accommodation and the diversity of hopes people who have experienced homelessness have for the future.

Keywords: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, photovoice, homelessness, community-led research

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Authors: Anil Kumar

Abstract:

Public Bicycle System (PBS), generally known as Public Bicycle Share System or Bike-Share, is a service provided to the everyday commuters in which several cycles are available on the shared system. The concept of PBS is new to the people of India and requires more study in the fields of essential requirements, major infrastructural requirements, social acceptability, and various challenges. In various Indian cities, MRTS, BRTS, Monorail, and other modes of transport have been adopted for the main haul of transport. These modes take more time, space and are also expensive to implement. At the same time, the PBS system is more economical and takes less time to implement. The main benefit of the PBS system is that it is more environmentally friendly. PBS is being implemented in many Indian cities for public use, but various challenges are associated with this. The study aims to determine what are the basic infrastructural requirements for PBS in India, as well as to determine to what extent a Public Bike Sharing System can provide a quality and efficient service to passengers as a primary method of transportation.

Keywords: public bicycle sharing system, sustainable transport, infrastructure, smart city

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Authors: Matthias Nnadi

Abstract:

Using samples of 250 large listed firms by market capitalization in China and Hong Kong, we conducted empirical test to determine the impact of regulatory environment on reporting quality following IFRS convergence using three financial reporting measures; earning management, timely loss recognition and value relevance. Our results indicate that accounting data are more value relevant for Hong Kong listed firms than the Chinese A-share firms. The empirical results for timely loss recognition further reveal that there is a larger coefficient estimate on bad news earnings, which suggests that Chines A-share firms are more likely to report losses in a timely manner. The results support the evidence that substantial convergence of IFRS can improve financial reporting quality in a regulated environment such as China. This further supports the expectation that IFRS are relevant to China and has positive effect on its accounting practice and quality.

Keywords: reporting, quality, earning, loss, relevance, financial, China, Hong Kong

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Authors: Sevim Oztimurlenk

Abstract:

This is an exploratory study on the information behavior of human resource managers. This study is conducted by using a questionnaire survey and an interview. The data is gathered from 140 HR managers who are members of the People Management Association of Turkey (PERYÖN), and the 15 interviewees were chosen among those 140 survey participants randomly. The goal of this exploratory study is to investigate the impact of some factors (i.e., gender, age, work experience, number of employee reporting, company size, industry type) on HR managers’ information behavior. More specifically, it examines if there is a relationship between those factors and HR managers’ information behavior in terms of what kind of information sources they consult and reviews and whom they prefer to communicate with for information sharing. It also aims to find out additional factors influencing the information behavior of HR managers. The results of the study show that age and industry type are the two factors affecting the information behavior of HR managers, among other factors investigated in terms of information source, use and share. Moreover, personality, technology, education, organizational culture, and culture are the top five factors among the 24 additional factors suggested by HR managers who participated in this study.

Keywords: information behavior, information use, information source, information share, human resource managers

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Authors: Solomon Neway Jida, Jean-Francois Hetet, Pascal Chesse

Abstract:

Vehicular emission is the key source of air pollution in the urban environment. This includes both fine particles (PM_2.5) and coarse particulate matters (PM₁₀). However, particulate matter emissions from road traffic comprise emissions from exhaust tailpipe and emissions due to wear and tear of the vehicle part such as brake, tire and clutch and re-suspension of dust (non-exhaust emission). This study estimates the share of the two sources of pollutant particle emissions from on-roadside vehicles in the Addis Ababa municipality, Ethiopia. To calculate its share, two methods were applied; the exhaust-tailpipe emissions were calculated using the Europeans emission inventory Tier II method and Tier I for the non-exhaust emissions (like vehicle tire wear, brake, and road surface wear). The results show that of the total traffic-related particulate emissions in the city, 63% emitted from vehicle exhaust and the remaining 37% from non-exhaust sources. The annual roads transport exhaust emission shares around 2394 tons of particles from all vehicle categories. However, from the total yearly non-exhaust particulate matter emissions’ contribution, tire and brake wear shared around 65% and 35% emanated by road-surface wear. Furthermore, vehicle tire and brake wear were responsible for annual 584.8 tons of coarse particles (PM₁₀) and 314.4 tons of fine particle matter (PM_2.5) emissions in the city whereas surface wear emissions were responsible for around 313.7 tons of PM₁₀ and 169.9 tons of PM_2.5 pollutant emissions in the city. This suggests that non-exhaust sources might be as significant as exhaust sources and have a considerable contribution to the impact on air quality.

Keywords: Addis Ababa, automotive emission, emission estimation, particulate matters

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