Search results for: Australian housing market

Authors: Paul Lajbcygier, Seng Lee

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Co-integration models the long-term, equilibrium relationship of two or more related financial variables. Even if cointegration is found, in the short run, there may be deviations from the long run equilibrium relationship. The aim of this work is to forecast these deviations using neural networks and create a trading strategy based on them. A case study is used: co-integration residuals from Australian Bank Bill futures are forecast and traded using various exogenous input variables combined with neural networks. The choice of the optimal exogenous input variables chosen for each neural network, undertaken in previous work [1], is validated by comparing the forecasts and corresponding profitability of each, using a trading strategy.

Keywords: Artificial neural networks, co-integration, forecasting, trading rule.

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Authors: Mohammed Saleem Tariq

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The enthusiasm for gluten avoidance in a growing market is met by improvements in sensitive detection methods for analysing gluten content. Paradoxically, manufacturers employ no such systems in the production process but continue to market their product as gluten free, a significant risk posed to an undetermined coeliac population. This paper resonates with an immunological response that causes gastrointestinal scarring and villous atrophy with the conventional description of personal injury. This thesis divulges into evaluating potential inadequacies of gluten labelling laws which not only present a diagnostic challenge for general practitioners in the UK but it also exposes a less than adequate form of available legal protection to those who suffer adverse reactions as a result of gluten digestion. Central to this discussion is whether a claim brought in misrepresentation, negligence and/or under the Consumer Protection Act 1987 could be sustained. An interesting comparison is then made with the legal regimes of neighboring jurisdictions furthering the theme of a legally un-catered for gluten kingdom.

Keywords: Coeliac, litigation, misrepresentation, negligence.

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Authors: L. Agneni, F. Carta, C. Micheletta, V. Tersigni

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The development of a qualitative method to profile jobseekers is needed to improve the quality of the Public Employment Services (PES) in Italy. This is why the National Agency for Active Labour Market Policies (ANPAL) decided to introduce a Qualitative Profiling Service in the context of the activities carried out by local employment offices’ operators. The qualitative profiling service provides information and data regarding the jobseeker’s personal transition status, through a semi-structured questionnaire administered to PES clients during the guidance interview. The questionnaire responses allow PES staff to identify, for each client, proper activities and policy measures to support jobseekers in their reintegration into the labour market. Data and information gathered by the qualitative profiling tool are the following: frequency, modalities and motivations for clients to apply to local employment offices; clients’ expectations and skills; difficulties that they have faced during the previous working experiences; strategies, actions undertaken and activated channels for job search. These data are used to assess jobseekers’ personal and career characteristics and to measure their employability level (qualitative profiling index), in order to develop and deliver tailor-made action programmes for each client. This paper illustrates the use of the above-mentioned qualitative profiling service on the national territory and provides an overview of the main findings of the survey: concerning the difficulties that unemployed people face in finding a job and their perception of different aspects related to the transition in the labour market. The survey involved over 10.000 jobseekers registered with the PES. Most of them are beneficiaries of the “citizens' income”, a specific active labour policy and social inclusion measure. Furthermore, data analysis allows classifying jobseekers into a specific group of clients with similar features and behaviours, on the basis of socio-demographic variables, customers' expectations, needs and required skills for the profession for which they seek employment. Finally, the survey collects PES staff opinions and comments concerning clients’ difficulties in finding a new job and also their strengths. This is a starting point for PESs’ operators to define adequate strategies to facilitate jobseekers’ access or reintegration into the labour market.

Keywords: Labour market transition, Public Employment Services, qualitative profiling, vocational guidance.

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Authors: Han Guan Chew, Keith Yong Ngee Ng, Shan-Wei Fan

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In Singapore, talent retention is one of the most persistent and real issue companies have to grapple with due to the tight labour market. Being resource-scarce, Singapore depends solely on its talented pool of high quality human resource to sustain its competitive advantage in the global economy. But the complex and multifaceted nature of turnover phenomenon makes the prescription of effective talent retention strategies in such a competitive labour market very challenging, especially when it comes to monetary incentives, companies struggle to answer the question of “How much is enough?” By examining the interactive effects of perceived alternative employment opportunities, annual salary and satisfaction with compensation on the turnover intention of 102 Singapore Professionals, Managers, Executives and Technicians (PMET) through correlation analyses and multiple regressions, important insights into the psyche of the Singapore talent pool can be drawn. It is found that annual salary influence turnover intention indirectly through mediation and moderation effects on PMET’s satisfaction on compensation. PMET are also found to be heavily swayed by better external opportunities. This implies that talent retention strategies should not adopt a purely monetary based blanket approach but rather a comprehensive and holistic one that considers the dynamics of prevailing market conditions.

Keywords: Employee Turnover, High Performers, Knowledge Workers, Perceived Alternative Employment Opportunities Salary, Satisfaction on Compensation, Singapore PMET, Talent Retention.

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Authors: Jihye Jeon

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This paper analyzes the political and economic issues that people with disabilities face related to globalization; how people with disabilities have been adapting globalization and surviving under worldwide competition system. It explains that economic globalization exacerbates inequality and deprivation of people with disabilities. The rising tide of neo-liberal welfare policies emphasized efficiency, downsized social expenditure for people with disabilities, excluded people with disabilities against labor market, and shifted them from welfare system to nothing. However, there have been people with disabilities' political responses to globalization, which are characterized by a global network of people with disabilities as well as participation to global governance. Their resistance can be seen as an attempt to tackle the problems that economic globalization has produced. It is necessary paradigm shift of disability policy from dependency represented by disability benefits to independency represented by labor market policies for people with disabilities.

Keywords: Economic Globalization, People with Disability, Deprivation, Welfare Cut, Disability Right Movement, Resistance.

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Authors: M. Shukry

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According to the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, every human being is entitled to rights in life that should be respected by others and protected by the state and community. Such rights are inherent regardless of colour, ethnicity, gender, religion or otherwise, and it is expected that all humans alike have the right to live without discrimination of any sort. However, that has not been the case with Aborigines in Australia. Over a long period of time, the governments of the State and the Territories and the Australian Commonwealth denied the Aboriginal and Indigenous inhabitants of the Torres Strait Islands such rights. Past Australian governments set policies and laws that enabled them to forcefully remove Indigenous children from their parents, which resulted in creating lost generations living the trauma of the loss of cultural identity, alienation and even their own selfhood. Intending to reduce that population of natives and their Aboriginal culture while, on the other hand, assimilate them into mainstream society, they gave themselves the right to remove them from their families with no hope of return. That practice has led to tragic consequences due to the trauma that has affected those children, an experience that is depicted by Jane Harrison in her play Stolen. The drama is the outcome of a six-year project on lost children and which was first performed in 1997 in Melbourne. Five actors only appear on the stage, playing the role of all the different characters, whether the main protagonists or the remaining cast, present or non-present ones as voices. The play outlines the life of five children who have been taken from their parents at an early age, entailing a disastrous negative impact that differs from one to the other. Unknown to each other, what connects between them is being put in a children’s home. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the play’s text in light of the 1948 Declaration of Human Rights, using it as a lens that reflects the atrocities practiced against the Aborigines. It highlights how such practices formed an outrageous violation of those natives’ rights as human beings. Harrison’s dramatic technique in conveying the children’s experiences is through a non-linear structure, fluctuating between past and present that are linked together within each of the five characters, reflecting their suffering and pain to create an emotional link between them and the audience. Her dramatic handling of the issue by fusing tragedy with humour as well as symbolism is a successful technique in revealing the traumatic memory of those children and their present life. The play has made a difference in commencing to address the problem of the right of all children to be with their families, which renders the real meaning of having a home and an identity as people.

Keywords: Aboriginal, audience, Australia, children, culture, drama, home, human rights, identity, indigenous, Jane Harrison, memory, scenic effects, setting, stage, stage directions, Stolen, trauma.

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Authors: Talal Alsulaiman, Khaldoun Khashanah

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In this paper, we provided a literature survey on the artificial stock problem (ASM). The paper began by exploring the complexity of the stock market and the needs for ASM. ASM aims to investigate the link between individual behaviors (micro level) and financial market dynamics (macro level). The variety of patterns at the macro level is a function of the AFM complexity. The financial market system is a complex system where the relationship between the micro and macro level cannot be captured analytically. Computational approaches, such as simulation, are expected to comprehend this connection. Agent-based simulation is a simulation technique commonly used to build AFMs. The paper proceeds by discussing the components of the ASM. We consider the roles of behavioral finance (BF) alongside the traditionally risk-averse assumption in the construction of agent’s attributes. Also, the influence of social networks in the developing of agents interactions is addressed. Network topologies such as a small world, distance-based, and scale-free networks may be utilized to outline economic collaborations. In addition, the primary methods for developing agents learning and adaptive abilities have been summarized. These incorporated approach such as Genetic Algorithm, Genetic Programming, Artificial neural network and Reinforcement Learning. In addition, the most common statistical properties (the stylized facts) of stock that are used for calibration and validation of ASM are discussed. Besides, we have reviewed the major related previous studies and categorize the utilized approaches as a part of these studies. Finally, research directions and potential research questions are argued. The research directions of ASM may focus on the macro level by analyzing the market dynamic or on the micro level by investigating the wealth distributions of the agents.

Keywords: Artificial stock markets, agent based simulation, bounded rationality, behavioral finance, artificial neural network, interaction, scale-free networks.

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Authors: Pei. P. Tan, Don. U.A. Galagedera, Elizabeth A.Maharaj

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This paper examines predictability in stock return in developed and emergingmarkets by testing long memory in stock returns using wavelet approach. Wavelet-based maximum likelihood estimator of the fractional integration estimator is superior to the conventional Hurst exponent and Geweke and Porter-Hudak estimator in terms of asymptotic properties and mean squared error. We use 4-year moving windows to estimate the fractional integration parameter. Evidence suggests that stock return may not be predictable indeveloped countries of the Asia-Pacificregion. However, predictability of stock return insome developing countries in this region such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines may not be ruled out. Stock return in the Thailand stock market appears to be not predictable after the political crisis in 2008.

Keywords: Asia-Pacific stock market, long-memory, return predictability, wavelet

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Authors: J. McCullagh, T. Whitfort

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Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) have been used successfully in many scientific, industrial and business domains as a method for extracting knowledge from vast amounts of data. However the use of ANN techniques in the sporting domain has been limited. In professional sport, data is stored on many aspects of teams, games, training and players. Sporting organisations have begun to realise that there is a wealth of untapped knowledge contained in the data and there is great interest in techniques to utilise this data. This study will use player data from the elite Australian Football League (AFL) competition to train and test ANNs with the aim to predict the onset of injuries. The results demonstrate that an accuracy of 82.9% was achieved by the ANNs’ predictions across all examples with 94.5% of all injuries correctly predicted. These initial findings suggest that ANNs may have the potential to assist sporting clubs in the prediction of injuries.

Keywords: Artificial Neural Networks, data, injuries, sport

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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, is there any 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: M. Nassereddine, J. Rizk, G. Nasserddine

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High Voltage (HV) transmission lines are widely spread around residential places. They take all forms of shapes: concrete, steel, and timber poles. Earth grid always form part of the HV transmission structure, whereat soil resistivity value is one of the main inputs when it comes to determining the earth grid requirements. In this paper, the soil structure and its implication on the electrode resistance of HV transmission poles will be explored. In Addition, this paper will present simulation for various soil structures using IEEE and Australian standards to verify the computation with CDEGS software. Furthermore, the split factor behavior under different soil resistivity structure will be presented using CDEGS simulations.

Keywords: Earth Grid, EPR, High Voltage, Soil Resistivity Structure, Split Factor, Step Voltage, Touch Voltage.

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Authors: M. Zeegers, D. Barron

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In this paper we canvass three case studies of unique research partnerships between universities and schools in the wider community. In doing so, we consider those areas of indeterminate zones of professional practice explored by academics in their research activities within the wider community. We discuss three cases: an artist-in-residence program designed to engage primary school children with new understandings about local Indigenous Australian issues in their pedagogical and physical landscapes; an assessment of pedagogical concerns in relation to the use of physical space in classrooms; and the pedagogical underpinnings of a costumed museum school program. In doing so, we engage issues of research as playing an integral part in the development, implementation and maintenance of academic engagements with wider community issues.

Keywords: communities of interest, universities, schools, partnerships

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Authors: Subarna Ferdous, Mitsuru Ikeda

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For the shrimp companies to remain relevant to its local and international consumers, they must offer new shrimp product and services. It must work actively not just to create value for the consumer, but to involve the consumer in co-creating value for shrimp product innovation in the market. In this theoretical work, we conceptualize the business concept of value co-creation in the context of shrimp products, and propose a framework of value co-creation for shrimp product innovation in shrimp industries. With guidance on value co-creation in in shrimp industry, and shrimp value chain actors mapped to the co-creation cycle, companies can use the framework to offer new shrimp product to consumer communities. Although customer co-creation is known approach in the world, it is not commonly used by the companies in Bangladesh. This paper makes an original contribution by conceptualizing co-creation and set the examples of best co-creation practices in food sector. The results of the study provide management with guidelines for successful co-creation projects with an innovation- and market-oriented approach. The framework also provides a basis for further research in this area.

Keywords: Bangladesh, shrimp industry, shrimp product, value co-creation.

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Authors: Andres Gonzalez, Adam Boies, Jacob Swanson, David Kittelson

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The concern of the indoor air quality (IAQ) has been increasing due to its risk to human health. The smoking, sweeping, and stove and stovetop use are the activities that have a major contribution to the indoor air pollution. Outdoor air pollution also affects IAQ. The most important factors over IAQ from cooking activities are the materials, fuels, foods, and ventilation. The low-cost, mobile air quality monitoring (LCMAQM) sensors, is reachable technology to assess the IAQ. This is because of the lower cost of LCMAQM compared to conventional instruments. The IAQ was assessed, using LCMAQM, during cooking activities in a University of Minnesota graduate-housing evaluating different ventilation systems. The gases measured are carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO₂). The particles measured are particle matter (PM) _2.5 micrometer (µm) and lung deposited surface area (LDSA). The measurements are being conducted during April 2019 in Como Student Community Cooperative (CSCC) that is a graduate housing at the University of Minnesota. The measurements are conducted using an electric stove for cooking. The amount and type of food and oil using for cooking are the same for each measurement. There are six measurements: two experiments measure air quality without any ventilation, two using an extractor as mechanical ventilation, and two using the extractor and windows open as mechanical and natural ventilation. 3The results of experiments show that natural ventilation is most efficient system to control particles and CO₂. The natural ventilation reduces the concentration in 79% for LDSA and 55% for PM_2.5, compared to the no ventilation. In the same way, CO₂ reduces its concentration in 35%. A well-mixed vessel model was implemented to assess particle the formation and decay rates. Removal rates by the extractor were significantly higher for LDSA, which is dominated by smaller particles, than for PM_2.5, but in both cases much lower compared to the natural ventilation. There was significant day to day variation in particle concentrations under nominally identical conditions. This may be related to the fat content of the food. Further research is needed to assess the impact of the fat in food on particle generations.

Keywords: Cooking, indoor air quality, low-cost sensor, ventilation.

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Authors: Xiao Chen, Xiaoying Kong, Min Xu

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This paper presents a road vehicle detection approach for the intelligent transportation system. This approach mainly uses low-cost magnetic sensor and associated data collection system to collect magnetic signals. This system can measure the magnetic field changing, and it also can detect and count vehicles. We extend Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients to analyze vehicle magnetic signals. Vehicle type features are extracted using representation of cepstrum, frame energy, and gap cepstrum of magnetic signals. We design a 2-dimensional map algorithm using Vector Quantization to classify vehicle magnetic features to four typical types of vehicles in Australian suburbs: sedan, VAN, truck, and bus. Experiments results show that our approach achieves a high level of accuracy for vehicle detection and classification.

Keywords: Vehicle classification, signal processing, road traffic model, magnetic sensing.

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Authors: Fazıl Gökgöz, Fahrettin Filiz

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Electricity prices have sophisticated features such as high volatility, nonlinearity and high frequency that make forecasting quite difficult. Electricity price has a volatile and non-random character so that, it is possible to identify the patterns based on the historical data. Intelligent decision-making requires accurate price forecasting for market traders, retailers, and generation companies. So far, many shallow-ANN (artificial neural networks) models have been published in the literature and showed adequate forecasting results. During the last years, neural networks with many hidden layers, which are referred to as DNN (deep neural networks) have been using in the machine learning community. The goal of this study is to investigate electricity price forecasting performance of the shallow-ANN and DNN models for the Turkish day-ahead electricity market. The forecasting accuracy of the models has been evaluated with publicly available data from the Turkish day-ahead electricity market. Both shallow-ANN and DNN approach would give successful result in forecasting problems. Historical load, price and weather temperature data are used as the input variables for the models. The data set includes power consumption measurements gathered between January 2016 and December 2017 with one-hour resolution. In this regard, forecasting studies have been carried out comparatively with shallow-ANN and DNN models for Turkish electricity markets in the related time period. The main contribution of this study is the investigation of different shallow-ANN and DNN models in the field of electricity price forecast. All models are compared regarding their MAE (Mean Absolute Error) and MSE (Mean Square) results. DNN models give better forecasting performance compare to shallow-ANN. Best five MAE results for DNN models are 0.346, 0.372, 0.392, 0,402 and 0.409.

Keywords: Deep learning, artificial neural networks, energy price forecasting, Turkey.

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Authors: P.Cordero, R.Poler, R.Sanchis

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The environmental impacts caused by the current production and consumption models, together with the impact that the current economic crisis, bring necessary changes in the European industry toward new business models based on sustainability issues that could allow them to innovate and improve their competitiveness. This paper analyzes the key environmental issues and the current and future market trends in one of the most important industrial sectors in Spain, the furniture sector. It also proposes new decision support tools -diagnostic kit, roadmap and guidelines- to guide companies to implement sustainability criteria into their organizations, including eco-design strategies and other economical and social strategies in accordance with the sustainability definition, and other available tools such as eco-labels, environmental management systems, etc., and to use and combine them to obtain the results the company expects to help improve its competitiveness.

Keywords: Furniture sector, eco-design, sustainability, economical crisis, market trends, roadmap

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Authors: Rute Abreu, Fátima David, Liliane Cristina Segura

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The Deposit Guarantee Fund (DGF) and its communication with the Society, in general, and with the deposit client of Financial Institutions, in particular, is discussed through the challenges of the accounting and financial report. The Bank of Portugal promotes the Portuguese Deposit Guarantee Fund (PDGF) as a financial institution that enhanced the market confidence and stability on the deposit-insurance system. Due to the nature of their functions, it must be subject to regulation and supervision that provides a first line of defense against adversely affect confidence on the Portuguese financial market. First, this research provides evidence of the effectiveness of the protection mechanisms on the deposit insurance system, which provides high and equal protection to all stakeholders. Second, it emphasizes the need of requirements of rigorous accounting process and effective financial report to reduce the moral hazard implications. Third, this research focuses on the need of total disclosure of the financial information which gives higher transparency and protection to deposit client of financial institutions.

Keywords: Deposit Guarantee Fund, Portugal, Accounting, Financial Report.

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Authors: Changju Lee, Seungmo Ku, Sondo Kim, Woojin Chang

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How to detecting financial bubble? Addressing this simple question has been the focus of a vast amount of empirical research spanning almost half a century. However, financial bubble is hard to observe and varying over the time; there needs to be more research on this area. In this paper, we used abnormal difference between common stocks price and those preferred stocks price to explain financial bubble. First, we proposed the ‘W-index’ which indicates spread between common stocks and those preferred stocks in stock market. Second, to prove that this ‘W-index’ is valid for measuring financial bubble, we showed that there is an inverse relationship between this ‘W-index’ and S&P500 rate of return. Specifically, our hypothesis is that when ‘W-index’ is comparably higher than other periods, financial bubbles are added up in stock market and vice versa; according to our hypothesis, if investors made long term investments when ‘W-index’ is high, they would have negative rate of return; however, if investors made long term investments when ‘W-index’ is low, they would have positive rate of return. By comparing correlation values and adjusted R-squared values of between W-index and S&P500 return, VIX index and S&P500 return, and TED index and S&P500 return, we showed only W-index has significant relationship between S&P500 rate of return. In addition, we figured out how long investors should hold their investment position regard the effect of financial bubble. Using this W-index, investors could measure financial bubble in the market and invest with low risk.

Keywords: Financial bubbles, detection, preferred stocks, pairs trading, future return, forecast.

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Authors: Phoenix Lawhon Isler, John Merson, David Roser

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Urban water management in Australia faces increasing pressure to deal with the challenges of droughts, growing population and the climate change uncertainty. Addressing these challenges is an opportunity to incorporate the parallel goals of sustainable water management and climate change adaptation through holistic, non-technical means. This paper presents case studies from Perth and Sydney which show how despite robust adaptation plans and experience, recent efforts to 'drought proof' cities have focused on supply-side measures (i.e. desalination), rather than rethinking how water is used and managing demand. The trend towards desalination as a climate adaptation measure raises questions about the sustainability of urban water futures in Australia.

Keywords: Climate change adaptation, desalination, drought management, sustainable urban water management.

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Authors: Siliang Wang, Minghui Wang

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This work proposes a novel market-based air traffic flow control model considering competitive airlines in air traffic network. In the flow model, an agent based framework for resources (link/time pair) pricing is described. Resource agent and auctioneer for groups of resources are also introduced to simulate the flow management in Air Traffic Control (ATC). Secondly, the distributed group pricing algorithm is introduced, which efficiently reflect the competitive nature of the airline industry. Resources in the system are grouped according to the degree of interaction, and each auctioneer adjust s the price of one group of resources respectively until the excess demand of resources becomes zero when the demand and supply of resources of the system changes. Numerical simulation results show the feasibility of solving the air traffic flow control problem using market mechanism and pricing algorithms on the air traffic network.

Keywords: Air traffic control, Nonlinear programming, Marketmechanism, Route policy.

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Authors: Camelia Iuliana Lungu, Chirața Caraiani, Cornelia Dascălu

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The business strategy of any company wanting to be competitive on the market should be designed around the concept of intangibles, with an increasingly decisive role in knowledge transfer of the biggest corporations. Advancing the research in these areas, this study integrates the two approaches, emphasizing the relationships between the components of intellectual capital and corporate social responsibility. The three dimensions of intellectual capital in terms of sustainability requirements are debated. The paper introduces the concept of sustainable intellectual capital and debates it within an assessment model designed on the base of key performance indicators. The results refer to the assessment of possible ways for including the information on intellectual capital and corporate responsibility within the corporate strategy. The conclusions enhance the need for companies to be ready to support the integration of this type of information the knowledge transfer process, in order to develop competitive advantage on the market.

Keywords: Corporate social responsibility, corporate strategy, intellectual capital, sustainability

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Authors: Chih-Hsiang Chang, Pei-Shan Kao

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This paper discusses the reaction of investors in the Taiwan stock market to the most probable unknown earnings-related information and the most probable known earnings-related information. As compared with the previous literature regarding the effect of an official announcement of earnings forecast revision, this paper further analyzes investors’ cognitive bias toward the unknown and known earnings-related information, and the role of media during the investors' reactions to the foresaid information shocks. The empirical results show that both the unknown and known earnings-related information provides useful information content for a stock market. In addition, cognitive bias and disposition effect are the behavioral pitfalls that commonly occur in the process of the investors' reactions to the earnings-related information. Finally, media coverage has a remarkable influence upon the investors' trading decisions.

Keywords: Cognitive bias, role of media, disposition effect, earnings-related information, behavioral pitfall.

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Authors: Mike Climstein, Joe Walsh, John Best, Ian Timothy Heazlewood, Stephen Burke, Jyrki Kettunen, Kent Adams, Mark DeBeliso

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Recently, the health of retired National Football League players, particularly lineman has been investigated. A number of studies have reported increased cardiometabolic risk, premature cardiovascular disease and incidence of type 2 diabetes. Rugby union players have somatotypes very similar to National Football League players which suggests that rugby players may have similar health risks. The International Golden Oldies World Rugby Festival (GORF) provided a unique opportunity to investigate the demographics of veteran rugby players. METHODOLOGIES: A cross-sectional, observational study was completed using an online web-based questionnaire that consisted of medical history and physiological measures. Data analysis was completed using a one sample t-test (<50yrs versus >50yrs) and Chi-square test. RESULTS: A total of 216 veteran rugby competitors (response rate = 6.8%) representing 10 countries, aged 35-72 yrs (mean 51.2, S.D. ±8.0), participated in the online survey. As a group, the incidence of current smokers was low at 8.8% (avg 72.4 cigs/wk) whilst the percentage consuming alcohol was high (93.1% (avg 11.2 drinks/wk). Competitors reported the following top six chronic diseases/disorders; hypertension (18.6%), arthritis (OA/RA, 11.5%), asthma (9.3%), hyperlipidemia (8.2%), diabetes (all types, 7.5%) and gout (6%), there were significant differences between groups with regard to cancer (all types) and migraines. When compared to the Australian general population (Australian Bureau of Statistics data, n=18,000), GORF competitors had a significantly lower incidence of anxiety (p<0.01), arthritis (p<0.06), depression (p<.01) however, a significantly higher incidence of diabetes (p<0.03) and hypertension (p<0.01). The GORF competitors also reported taking the following prescribed medications; antihypertensive (13%), hypolipidemics (8%), non-steroidal anti-inflammatory (6%), and anticoagulants (4%). Significant differences between groups were observed in antihypertensives, anticoagulants and hypolipidemics. There were significant (p<0.05) differences between groups (<50yrs versus >50yrs) with regard to height (180 vs 177cm), weight (97.6 vs 93.1Kg-s), BMI (30 vs 29.7kg/m2) and waist circumference (85.7 vs 93.1cm) however, there were no differences in subsequent parameters of systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, HDL-C, LDL-C, triglycerides-C or fasting plasma glucose. CONCLUSIONS: This represents the first collection of demographics on this cohort. GORF participants demonstrated increased cardiometabolic risk with regard to the incidence of hypercholesterolemia, hypertension and type 2 diabetes. Preventative strategies should be developed to reduce this risk with education of these risks for future participants.

Keywords: Masters athlete, rugby union, risk factors, chronic disease

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Authors: K. Hardy, A. Maurushat

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Policy makers are increasingly looking to make evidence-based decisions. Evidence-based decisions have historically used rigorous methodologies of empirical studies by research institutes, as well as less reliable immediate survey/polls often with limited sample sizes. As we move into the era of Big Data analytics, policy makers are looking to different methodologies to deliver reliable empirics in real-time. The question is not why did these people do this for the last 10 years, but why are these people doing this now, and if the this is undesirable, and how can we have an impact to promote change immediately. Big data analytics rely heavily on government data that has been released in to the public domain. The open data movement promises greater productivity and more efficient delivery of services; however, Australian government agencies remain reluctant to release their data to the general public. This paper considers the barriers to releasing government data as open data, and how these barriers might be overcome.

Keywords: Big data, open data, productivity, transparency.

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Authors: Ling Zheng, Yaping Wei, Kang Cao, Songpo Shi, Jinxing Wang

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It-s difficult for China-s current land transfer institutions limited to county-wide to solve the contradiction between urban-rural development and construction land shortage. On the basis of analyzing China-s construction land transfer system, and evaluation toward Transfer of development rights (TDR) practices in Anhui and Chongqing, the passage proposes: (1) we should establish a multi-level land indicators trade market under the guidance of regional spatial objectives, and allow land transfer paid across cities and counties within a specific area following the regulation of both government and market; (2) it would be better to combine organically the policy ntentions of land plan, regional plan, urban plan and economic plan, and link them with land indicators transfer to promote a wider range of urban-rural balance and regional coordination.

Keywords: China's land institutions, transfer of development rights, urban-rural balance, regional coordination.

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Authors: Giani Gradinaru

Abstract:

Biodiversity crisis is one of the many crises that started at the turn of the millennia. Concrete form of expression is still disputed, but there is a relatively high consensus regarding the high rate of degradation and the urgent need for action. The strategy of action outlines a strong economic component, together with the recognition of market mechanisms as the most effective policies to protect biodiversity. In this context, biodiversity and ecosystem services are natural assets that play a key role in economic strategies and technological development to promote development and prosperity. Developing and strengthening policies for transition to an economy based on efficient use of resources is the way forward. To emphasize the co-viability specific to the connection economyecosystem services, scientific approach aimed on one hand how to implement policies for nature conservation and on the other hand, the concepts underlying the economic expression of ecosystem services- value, in the context of current technology. Following the analysis of business opportunities associated with changes in ecosystem services was concluded that development of market mechanisms for nature conservation is a trend that is increasingly stronger individualized within recent years. Although there are still many controversial issues that have already given rise to an obvious bias, international organizations and national governments have initiated and implemented in cooperation or independently such mechanisms. Consequently, they created the conditions for convergence between private interests and social interests of nature conservation, so there are opportunities for ongoing business development which leads, among other things, the positive effects on biodiversity. Finally, points out that markets fail to quantify the value of most ecosystem services. Existing price signals reflect at best, only a proportion of the total amount corresponding provision of food, water or fuel.

Keywords: ecosystem services, economic evaluation, nature conservation

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Authors: Farha Sattar, Laurence Tamatea, Muhammad Nawaz

Abstract:

Drones, the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles are playing an important role in real-world problem-solving. With the new advancements in technology, drones are becoming available, affordable and user- friendly. Use of drones in education is opening new trends in teaching and learning practices in an innovative and engaging way. Drones vary in types and sizes and possess various characteristics and capabilities which enhance their potential to be used in education from basic to advanced and challenging learning activities which are suitable for primary, middle and high school level. This research aims to provide an insight to explore different types of drones and their compatibility to be used in teaching different subjects at various levels. Research focuses on integrating the drone technology along with Australian curriculum content knowledge to reinforce the understanding of the fundamental concepts and helps to develop the critical thinking and reasoning in the learning process.

Keywords: Critical thinking, drone technology, drone types, innovative learning.

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Authors: M. Mohammad, Y-C Lan

Abstract:

Australian government agencies have a natural desire to provide migrants a wide range of opportunities. Consequently, government online services should be equally available to migrants with a non-English speaking background (NESB). Despite the commendable efforts of governments and local agencies in Australia to provide such services, in reality, many NESB communities are not taking advantage of these services. This article–based on an extensive case study regarding the use of online government services by the Arabic NESB community in Australia–reports on the possible reasons for this issue, as well as suggestions for improvement. The conclusion is that Australia should implement ICT-based or e-government policies, programmes, and services that more accurately reflect migrant cultures and languages so that migrant integration can be more fully accomplished. Specifically, this article presents an NESB Model that adopts the value of usercentricity or a more individual-focused approach to government online services in Australia.

Keywords: Barriers to use, e-government, ICT, NESB community, online services.

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Authors: Xueqin Shan, Wenhua Hou, Xiaosu Ye, Chuanming Wu

Abstract:

Any decision-making is based on certain theory. Taking the public rental housing in Chongqing municipality as an example, this essay states that the stakeholder theory can provide innovative criteria and evaluation methods for Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects. It gives an analysis of how to choose decision-making criteria for different stakeholders in the PPP model and what measures to take to meet the criteria to form “symbiotic" decision-making mode through contracts and to boost the application of PPP model in large-scale public programs in China.

Keywords: PPP, Stakeholder Theory, Stakeholders, Decision- making Criteria

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