Search results for: Informal housing market

Authors: Kayun Chantarasathaporn, Chonawat Srisa-an

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Low power consumption is a major constraint for battery-powered system like computer notebook or PDA. In the past, specialists usually designed both specific optimized equipments and codes to relief this concern. Doing like this could work for quite a long time, however, in this era, there is another significant restraint, the time to market. To be able to serve along the power constraint while can launch products in shorter production period, objectoriented programming (OOP) has stepped in to this field. Though everyone knows that OOP has quite much more overhead than assembly and procedural languages, development trend still heads to this new world, which contradicts with the target of low power consumption. Most of the prior power related software researches reported that OOP consumed much resource, however, as industry had to accept it due to business reasons, up to now, no papers yet had mentioned about how to choose the best OOP practice in this power limited boundary. This article is the pioneer that tries to specify and propose the optimized strategy in writing OOP software under energy concerned environment, based on quantitative real results. The language chosen for studying is C# based on .NET Framework 2.0 which is one of the trendy OOP development environments. The recommendation gotten from this research would be a good roadmap that can help developers in coding that well balances between time to market and time of battery.

Keywords: Low power consumption, object oriented programming, power conscious system, software.

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Authors: Iruka C. Anugwo, Winston M. Shakantu

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The objective of this study is to uncover the basic business-forces that necessitated the survival and sustainable performance of the medium scale contractors in the South African construction market. This study is essential as it set to contribute towards long-term strategic solutions for combating the incessant failure of start-ups construction organizations within South African. The study used a qualitative research methodology; as the most appropriate approach to elicit and understand, and uncover the phenomena that are basic business-forces for the active contractors in the market. The study also adopted a phenomenological study approach; and in-depth interviews were conducted with 20 medium scale contractors in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, between months of August to October 2015. This allowed for an in-depth understanding of the critical and basic business-forces that influenced their survival and performance beyond the first five years of business operation. Findings of the study showed that for potential contractors (startups), to survival in the competitive business environment such as construction industry, they must possess the basic business-forces. These forces are educational knowledge in construction and business management related disciplines, adequate industrial experiences, competencies and capabilities to delivery excellent services and products as well as embracing the spirit of entrepreneurship. Convincingly, it can be concluded that the strategic approach to minimize the endless failure of startups construction businesses; the potential construction contractors must endeavoring to access and acquire the basic educationally knowledge, training and qualification; need to acquire industrial experiences in collaboration with required competencies, capabilities and entrepreneurship acumen. Without these basic business-forces as been discovered in this study, the majority of the contractors gaining entrance in the market will find it difficult to develop and grow a competitive and sustainable construction organization in South Africa.

Keywords: Basic business-forces, medium scale contractors, South Africa, sustainable organisations.

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Authors: Kazufumi Ueno

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Kobe City is a metropolis including large suburbs, where housing communities have been developed for many years. People have been recently moving to the urban areas and the suburbs are losing their power to attract population. At the same time, many blocks of high-rise flats have being built near railway stations adjoining town centers, and are drawing people of all generations. Residents with different lifestyle preferences are making good use of town centers and city centers based on effective railway services to live together happily in a household as well as the same flats. Thus railway services can play an essential role in sustainable urban development.

Keywords: Compact town, railway services, suburbs, sustainable development.

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Authors: Nazym Shedenova, Aigul Beimisheva

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The market transformation in Kazakhstan during the last two decades has essentially strengthened a gap between development of urban and rural areas. Implementation of market institutes, transition from public financing to paid rendering of social services, change of forms of financing of social and economic infrastructure have led to strengthening of an economic inequality of social groups, including growth of stratification of the city and the village. Sociological survey of urban and rural households in Almaty city and villages of Almaty region has been carried out within the international research project “Livelihoods Strategies of Private Households in Central Asia: A Rural–Urban Comparison in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan" (Germany, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan). The analysis of statistical data and results of sociological research of urban and rural households allows us to reveal issues of territorial development, to investigate an availability of medical, educational and other services in the city and the village, to reveal an evaluation urban and rural dwellers of living conditions, to compare economic strategies of households in the city and the village.

Keywords: Urban and rural households, social and economic infrastructure, territorial availability.

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Authors: Emad Hezbkhah, Ebrahim Akhlaghi

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From a long time age, human beings have chosen their place of residence and comfort so that those places would have relatively ideal natural and climatic conditions. For this reason, from the beginning, the civilizations have been formed in the susceptible natural regions such as Mesopotamia in Iran and Nile coasts in Egypt. Also, the core of human density has been made in the form of an oasis in the deserts. Regarding the formation and combination of the native architecture in different regions of Iran, we find that different properties of these climates have affected frequently the formation of cities and the architectural combinations of these regions. Thus, the precise determinations of climatic areas and attaining the climatic properties of different regions have a great deal of importance in presenting appropriate and compatible-with-climate designs.

Keywords: climate and architecture, energy Optimizing, Greenhouse

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Authors: A. Kablan

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The prediction of financial time series is a very complicated process. If the efficient market hypothesis holds, then the predictability of most financial time series would be a rather controversial issue, due to the fact that the current price contains already all available information in the market. This paper extends the Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference System for High Frequency Trading which is an expert system that is capable of using fuzzy reasoning combined with the pattern recognition capability of neural networks to be used in financial forecasting and trading in high frequency. However, in order to eliminate unnecessary input in the training phase a new event based volatility model was proposed. Taking volatility and the scaling laws of financial time series into consideration has brought about the development of the Intraday Seasonality Observation Model. This new model allows the observation of specific events and seasonalities in data and subsequently removes any unnecessary data. This new event based volatility model provides the ANFIS system with more accurate input and has increased the overall performance of the system.

Keywords: Adaptive Neuro-fuzzy Inference system, High Frequency Trading, Intraday Seasonality Observation Model.

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Authors: Riki Mukhaiyar

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The integration between technology of remote sensing, information from the data of digital image, and modeling technology for the simulation of water quality will provide easiness during the observation on the quality of water changes on the river surface. For example, Ciliwung River which is contaminated with non-point source pollutant from household wastes, particularly on its downstream. This fact informed that the quality of water in this river is getting worse. The land use for settlements and housing ranges between 62.84% - 81.26% on the downstream of Ciliwung River, give a significant picture in seeing factors that affected the water quality of Ciliwung River.

Keywords: Digital Image, Digitize, Landuse, Non-Point SourcePollutant, Qual2e Simulation

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Authors: Zahra Hatami, Hesham Ali, David Volkman

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Selecting a portfolio for investing is a crucial decision for individuals and legal entities. In the last two decades, with economic globalization, a stream of financial innovations has rushed to the aid of financial institutions. The importance of selecting stocks for the portfolio is always a challenging task for investors. This study aims to create a financial network to identify optimal portfolios using network centralities metrics. This research presents a community detection technique of superior stocks that can be described as an optimal stock portfolio to be used by investors. By using the advantages of a network and its property in extracted communities, a group of stocks was selected for each of the various time periods. The performance of the optimal portfolios was compared to the famous index. Their Sharpe ratio was calculated in a timely manner to evaluate their profit for making decisions. The analysis shows that the selected potential portfolio from stocks with low centrality measurement can outperform the market; however, they have a lower Sharpe ratio than stocks with high centrality scores. In other words, stocks with low centralities could outperform the S&P500 yet have a lower Sharpe ratio than high central stocks.

Keywords: Portfolio management performance, network analysis, centrality measurements, Sharpe ratio.

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Authors: Hastuti Saptorini

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The urbanization phenomenon in Yogyakarta Special Province, Indonesia, encouraged people move to the city for getting jobs in the informal sectors. They live in some temporary houses in the three main riverbanks: Gadjahwong, Code, and Winongo. Triggered by its independent status they use it as the space for accommodating domestic, social and economy activities because of the non standardized room size of their houses, where are recognized as the environmental hazards. This recognition makes the ambivalent perception when was related to the twelfth point of the philosophy of community development concept: the empowering individuals and communities. Its spatial implication have actually described the territory and the place making phenomena. By analyzing some data collected the author-s fundamental research funded by The General Directorate of Higher Education of Indonesia, this paper will discuss how do the spatial implications of the occupants- behavior and the numerous perceptions of those phenomena.

Keywords: occupants' behavior, socio-economic-cultural activities, spatial implication

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Authors: Marzena Świgoń

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Nowadays, graduates should be prepared for serious challenges in the internal and external labor market. The notion that a degree is a “passport to employment” has been relegated to the past. In the last few years a phenomenon in the form of the increasing unemployment of highly educated young people in EU countries, including Poland has been observed. Empirical studies were conducted among Polish students in the scope of the so-called self-perceived employability review. In this study, a special scale was used which consisted of 19 statements regarding five components: student’s perception of university; field of study; self-belief; state of the external labor market; and, personal knowledge management. The respondent group consisted of final-year master’s students of International Relations at the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Poland. The findings of the empirical studies were compiled using statistical methods: descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. In general, in light of the conducted studies, the self-perceived employability of the Polish students was not high. Limitations of the studies were discussed, as well as the implications for future research in the scope of the students’ employability.

Keywords: Self-perceived employability, students of international relations, university education.

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Authors: Anna Rogozińska-Pawełczyk

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A psychological contract is an agreement between the employer and an employee that covers the parties’ informal and frequently non-verbalized obligations and expectations towards each other. The contract is a cognitive pattern-governing employee’s behaviour in the organization. A gap between employee’s expectations and the organizational reality may lead to difficult-to-solve conflicts or cause the employee to modify their behaviour towards organizational values and goals, if they are willing and ready to verbalize their expectations. The article discusses psychological contracts in the financial institutions in Poland. Its theoretical part outlines the types of psychological contracts in organizations (relational, transactional, and balanced) and shows the process of their verbalization. The purpose of the article is to present how the type of the psychological contract relates to employee’s readiness to verbalize it. The article ends with conclusions arising from the study.

Keywords: Customer contact staff in banks, employee expectations, financial institutions, mutual expectations, psychological contract, verbalization of the psychological contract.

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Authors: Sa’ed Abed, Mohammad H. Al Shayeji, Ovais Ahmed, Sahel Alouneh

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Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is a signaling layer protocol for building, adjusting and ending sessions among participants including Internet conferences, telephone calls and multimedia distribution. SIP facilitates user movement by proxying and forwarding requests to the present location of the user. In this paper, we provide a formal Specification and Description Language (SDL) and Message Sequence Chart (MSC) to model and define the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) SIP protocol and its sample services resulted from informal SIP specification. We create an “Abstract User Interface” using case analysis so that can be applied to identify SIP services more explicitly. The issued sample SIP features are then used as case scenarios; they are revised in MSCs format and validated to their corresponding SDL models.

Keywords: Modeling, MSC, SDL, SIP, validating.

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Authors: T. Y. Huang, B. Z. Wang, S. C. Lin, S. Y. Hsu

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A CFD software was employed to analyze the characteristics of the flat round porous aerostatic bearings. The effects of gap between the bearing and the guide way and the porosity of the porous material on the load capacity of the bearing were studied. The adequacy of the simulation model and the approach was verified. From the parametric study, it is found that the depth of the flow path does not influence the load capacity of the bearing; the load capacity of the bearing will decrease if the thickness of the porous material increases or the porous material protrudes above the bearing housing; the variation of the chamfer at the edge of the bearing does not affect the bearing load capacity. For a bearing with an air gap of 5μm and a porosity of 0.1, the average load capacity and the pressure distribution of the bearing are nearly unchanged no matter the bearing moves at a constant or a varying speed.

Keywords: Aerostatic bearing, Load capacity, Porosity, Porous material.

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Authors: H.B. Nguendo Yongsi

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An epidemiological cross sectional study was undertaken in Yaoundé in 2002 and updated in 2005. Focused on health within the city, the objectives were to measure diarrheal prevalence and to identify the risk factors associated with them. Results of microbiological examinations have revealed an urban average prevalence rate of 14.5%. Access to basic services in the living environment appears to be an important risk factor for diarrheas. Statistical and spatial analyses conducted have revealed that prevalence of diarrheal diseases vary among the two main types of settlement (informal and planned). More importantly, this study shows that, diarrhea prevalence rates (notably bacterial and parasitic diarrheas) vary according to the sub- category of settlements. The study draws a number of theoretical and policy implications for researchers and policy decision makers.

Keywords: Cameroon, diarrheal diseases, health risk factor, planned and spontaneous settlement, urban policy, urbanization.

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Authors: H. Eshraghi., L. Salehi.

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The purpose of this study was to survey the effect of organizational communication system on the conflict in physical education offices of Isfahan province. The research methodology of this research was a descriptive study. All employees working in physical education offices of Isfahan province were included in the sample for this study (N= 236). Researcher made questionnaire and demographic questionnaire were used as investigation instruments. Based on the result of chi square test, there is significant difference between organizational communication system and interpersonal conflict. The most of participants evaluate communication in an informal way and pointed out that the communication channels were not open. Based on the result of binomial test, interpersonal conflict exists in physical education offices of Isfahan.

Keywords: Communication, Employees, Interpersonal conflict.

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Authors: Felix Wong, YT Tang

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This paper reviews the greenhouse gas emissions of prefabrication elements for residential development in Hong Kong. Prefabrication becomes a common practice in residential development in Hong Kong and is considered as a green approach. In Hong Kong, prefabrication took place at factories in Pearl River Delta. Although prefabrication reduces construction wastage, it might generate more greenhouse gas emission from transportation and manufacturing processes. This study attempts to measure the “cradle to site" greenhouse gas emission from prefabrication elements for a public housing development in Kai Tak area. The findings could help further reduction of greenhouse gas emissions through process improvement.

Keywords: Prefabrication, greenhouse gas emission, cradle-tosite, residential development.

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Authors: J. Mansvelt, G. Suddaby, D. O'Hara

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This paper focuses on issues of engagement by staff in professional development related to the delivery of e-learning. The paper reports on findings drawn from a New Zealand research project which is producing a sector-wide framework for professional development in tertiary e-learning. The research findings indicate that staff engaged in e-learning in tertiary institutions is not making the most effective use of the professional development opportunities available to them; rather they seem to gain their knowledge and support from a variety of informal means. This is despite an emphasis on the provision of professional development opportunities by both Government Policies and Institutions themselves. The conclusion drawn from the findings is that institutional approaches to professional development for e-learning do not yet fully reflect the demands and constraints that working in a digital context impose.

Keywords: Academic development, e-learning, engagement, professional development, tertiary education.

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Authors: Cristian Păuna

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In the first decades of the 21st century, in the electronic trading environment, algorithmic capital investments became the primary tool to make a profit by speculations in financial markets. A significant number of traders, private or institutional investors are participating in the capital markets every day using automated algorithms. The autonomous trading software is today a considerable part in the business intelligence system of any modern financial activity. The trading decisions and orders are made automatically by computers using different mathematical models. This paper will present one of these models called Price Prediction Line. A mathematical algorithm will be revealed to build a reliable trend line, which is the base for limit conditions and automated investment signals, the core for a computerized investment system. The paper will guide how to apply these tools to generate entry and exit investment signals, limit conditions to build a mathematical filter for the investment opportunities, and the methodology to integrate all of these in automated investment software. The paper will also present trading results obtained for the leading German financial market index with the presented methods to analyze and to compare different automated investment algorithms. It was found that a specific mathematical algorithm can be optimized and integrated into an automated trading system with good and sustained results for the leading German Market. Investment results will be compared in order to qualify the presented model. In conclusion, a 1:6.12 risk was obtained to reward ratio applying the trigonometric method to the DAX Deutscher Aktienindex on 24 months investment. These results are superior to those obtained with other similar models as this paper reveal. The general idea sustained by this paper is that the Price Prediction Line model presented is a reliable capital investment methodology that can be successfully applied to build an automated investment system with excellent results.

Keywords: Algorithmic trading, automated investment system, DAX Deutscher Aktienindex.

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Authors: Hicham Benamirouche, Oum Elkheir Moussi

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The purpose of the study is to examine the dynamics of Algeria’s natural gas exports through the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach with break points. The analysis was carried out for the period from 1967 to 2015. Based on imperfect substitution specification, the ARDL approach reveals a long-run equilibrium relationship between Algeria’s Natural gas exports and their determinant factors (Algeria’s gas reserves, Domestic gas consumption, Europe’s GDP per capita, relative prices, the European gas production and the market share of competitors). All the long-run elasticities estimated are statistically significant with a large impact of domestic factors, which constitute the supply constraints. In short term, the elasticities are statistically significant, and almost comparable to those of the long term. Furthermore, the speed of adjustment towards long-run equilibrium is less than one year because of the little flexibility of the long term export contracts. Two break points have been estimated when we employ the domestic gas consumption as a break variable; 1984 and 2010, which reflect the arbitration policy between the domestic gas market and gas exports.

Keywords: Natural gas exports, elasticity, ARDL bounds testing, break points, Algeria.

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Authors: Jana Teplá

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This text focuses on the visual construction of youth in press photographs in socialist Czechoslovakia. It deals with photographs in a magazine for young readers, Mladý svět, published by the Socialist Union of Youth of Czechoslovakia. The aim of this study was to develop a methodological tool for uncovering the values and the ideological messages in the strategies used in the visual construction of reality in the socialist press. Two methods of visual analysis were applied to the photographs, a quantitative content analysis and a social semiotic analysis. The social semiotic analysis focused on images representing youth in their free time. The study shows that the meaning of a socialist press photograph is a result of a struggle for ideological power between formal and informal ideologies. This struggle takes place within the process of production of the photograph and also within the process of interpretation of the photograph.

Keywords: Ideology, press photography, socialist regime, social semiotics, youth.

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Authors: Edison Muzenda

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Gauteng, as the province with the greatest industrial and population density, the economic hub of South Africa also generates the greatest amount of waste, both general and hazardous. Therefore the province has a significant need to develop and apply appropriate integrated waste management policies that ensure that waste is recognised as a serious problem and is managed in an effective integrated manner to preserve both the present and future human health and environment. This paper reflects on Gauteng-s waste outlook in particular the province-s General Waste Minimisation Plan and its Integrated Waste Management Policy. The paper also looks at general waste generation, recyclable waste streams as well as recycling and separation at source initiatives in the province. Both the quantity and nature of solid waste differs considerably across the socio-economic spectrum. People in informal settlements generate an average of 0.16 kg per person per day whereas 2 kg per day is not unusual in affluent areas. For example the amount of waste generated in Johannesburg is approximately 1.2 kg per person per day.

Keywords: General waste, generation, integrated, minimisation, recycling, separation

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Authors: Alessandra Battisti, Silvia Cimini

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This article stands in the context of rural communities in Brazil, where, like many others emerging countries, the overwhelming increasing markets and the overcrowded cities are leaving behind informal settlements based on obsolete agricultural economies and techniques. The pilot project for the community of Goiabeira reflects the attempt to imagine a development model that privileges the actual improvement of living conditions, the education and training, the social inclusion and participation of the dwellers of rural communities. Through the inclusion of operative public space, the aim is for them to become self-sustaining, encouraging the use of local resources for appropriate architectural, ecological and energy technologies and devices, that are efficient, affordable and foster community participation, in the respect of the surrounding environment.

Keywords: Economical development, environment conservation, local resources, participation and social inclusion.

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Authors: Benazeer Md. Shahzada, Verelst Jan, Van Grembergen Wim, Mannaert Herwig

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This article is an extension and a practical application approach of Wheeler-s NEBIC theory (Net Enabled Business Innovation Cycle). NEBIC theory is a new approach in IS research and can be used for dynamic environment related to new technology. Firms can follow the market changes rapidly with support of the IT resources. Flexible firms adapt their market strategies, and respond more quickly to customers changing behaviors. When every leading firm in an industry has access to the same IT resources, the way that these IT resources are managed will determine the competitive advantages or disadvantages of firm. From Dynamic Capabilities Perspective and from newly introduced NEBIC theory by Wheeler, we know that only IT resources cannot deliver customer value but good configuration of those resources can guarantee customer value by choosing the right emerging technology, grasping the economic opportunities through business innovation and growth. We found evidences in literature that SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) is a promising emerging technology which can deliver the desired economic opportunity through modularity, flexibility and loosecoupling. SOA can also help firms to connect in network which can open a new window of opportunity to collaborate in innovation and right kind of outsourcing

Keywords: Absorptive capacity, Dynamic Capability, Netenabled business innovation cycle, Service oriented architecture.

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Authors: Jung-Lo Park, Sung-Sik Kim, Sun-Young Choi, Ju-Hyung Kim, Jae-Jun Kim

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Sub-prime mortgage crisis which began in the US is regarded as the most economic crisis since the Great Depression in the early 20th century. Especially, hidden problems on efficient operation of a business were disclosed at a time and many financial institutions went bankrupt and filed for court receivership. The collapses of physical market lead to bankruptcy of manufacturing and construction businesses. This study is to analyze dynamic efficiency of construction businesses during the five years at the turn of the global financial crisis. By discovering the trend and stability of efficiency of a construction business, this study-s objective is to improve management efficiency of a construction business in the ever-changing construction market. Variables were selected by analyzing corporate information on top 20 construction businesses in Korea and analyzed for static efficiency in 2008 and dynamic efficiency between 2006 and 2010. Unlike other studies, this study succeeded in deducing efficiency trend and stability of a construction business for five years by using the DEA/Window model. Using the analysis result, efficient and inefficient companies could be figured out. In addition, relative efficiency among DMU was measured by comparing the relationship between input and output variables of construction businesses. This study can be used as a literature to improve management efficiency for companies with low efficiency based on efficiency analysis of construction businesses.

Keywords: Construction Company, DEA, DEA/Window, Efficiency Analysis

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Authors: Joanna Stawska

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The main objective of this article is to examine the impact of interest rates on investments in Poland in the context of financial crisis. The paper also investigates the dependence of bank loans to enterprises on interbank market rates. The article studies the impact of interbank market rate on the level of investments in Poland. Besides, this article focuses on the research of the correlation between the level of corporate loans and the amount of investments in Poland in order to determine the indirect impact of central bank interest rates through the transmission mechanism of monetary policy on the real economy. To achieve the objective we have used econometric and statistical research methods like: econometric model and Pearson correlation coefficient. This analysis suggests that the central bank reference rate inversely proportionally affects the level of investments in Poland and this dependence is moderate. This is also important issue because it is related to preparing of Poland to accession to euro area. The research is important from both theoretical and empirical points of view. The formulated conclusions and recommendations determine the practical significance of the paper which may be used in the decision making process of monetary and economic authorities of the country.

Keywords: Central bank, financial crisis, interest rate, investments.

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Authors: Miho Tsukamoto

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Since the initial creation of the Barbie doll in 1959, it became a symbol of US society. Likewise, the Licca-chan, a Japanese doll created in 1967, also became a Japanese symbolic doll of Japanese society. Prior to the introduction of Licca-chan, Barbie was already marketed in Japan but their sales were dismal. Licca-chan (an actual name: Kayama Licca) is a plastic doll with a variety of sizes ranging from 21.0 cm to 29.0 cm which many Japanese girls dream of having. For over 35 years, the manufacturer, Takara Co., Ltd. has sold over 48 million dolls and has produced doll houses, accessories, clothes, and Licca-chan video games for the Nintendo DS. Many First-generation Licca-chan consumers still are enamored with Licca-chan, and go to Licca-chan House, in an amusement park with their daughters. These people are called Licca-chan maniacs, as they enjoy touring the Licca-chan’s factory in Tohoku or purchase various Licca-chan accessories. After the successful launch of Licca-chan into the Japanese market, a mixed-like doll from the US and Japan, a doll, JeNny, was later sold in the same Japanese market by Takara Co., Ltd. in 1982. Comparison of these cultural iconic dolls, Barbie and Licca-chan, are analyzed in this paper. In fact, these dolls have concepts of girls’ dreams. By using concepts of mythology of Jean Baudrillard, these dolls can be represented idealized images of figures in the products for consumers, but at the same time, consumers can see products with different perspectives, which can cause controversy.

Keywords: Barbie, Dolls, JeNny, Idealization, Licca-chan.

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Authors: V. Komarova

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The main purpose of this research is the calculation of implicit prices of the environmental level of air quality in the city of Moscow on the basis of housing property prices. The database used contains records of approximately 20 thousand apartments and has been provided by a leading real estate agency operating in Russia. The explanatory variables include physical characteristics of the houses, environmental (industry emissions), neighbourhood sociodemographic and geographic data: GPS coordinates of each house. The hedonic regression results for ecological variables show «negative» prices while increasing the level of air contamination from such substances as carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, and particles (CO, NO2, SO2, TSP). The marginal willingness to pay for higher environmental quality is presented for linear and log-log models.

Keywords: Air pollution, environment, hedonic prices, real estate, willingness to pay.

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Authors: Edward Pol

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All companies are confronted with the need to innovate in order to meet market demands. In so doing they are challenged with the dilemma of whether to aim to be first into the market with a new innovative product, or to deliberately wait and learn from a pioneers’ mistakes; potentially avoiding higher risks. It is therefore important to critically understand from a first mover advantage and disadvantage perspective the decision-making implications of defence industry transformation onset by an innovative paradigm shift. This paper will argue that the type of industry characteristics matter, especially when considering what role the clients play in the innovation process and what their level of influence is. Through investigation of qualitative case study research, this inquiry will focus on first mover advantages and first mover disadvantages with a view to establish practical and value-added academic findings by focusing on specific industries where the clients play an active role in cooperation with the supplier innovation. The resulting findings will help managers to mitigate risk in innovative technology introduction. A selection from several defence industry innovations is specifically chosen because of the client–supplier relationship that typically differs from traditional first mover research. In this instance, case studies will be used referencing vertical-take-off-and-landing defence equipment innovations. 

Keywords: innovation, pioneer, first mover advantage, first mover disadvantage, risk

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Authors: Karen Armstrong

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Recent concerns about the value of teaching cursive handwriting in the classroom are based on the belief that cursive handwriting or penmanship is an outdated and unnecessary skill in today’s online world. The discussion of this issue begins with a description of current initiatives to eliminate handwriting instruction in schools. This is followed by a brief history of cursive writing through the ages. Next considered is a description of its benefits as a preliminary process for younger children as compared with immediate instruction in keyboarding, particularly in the areas of vision, cognition, motor skills and automatic fluency. Also considered, is cursive’s companion, paper itself, and the impact of a paperless, “screen and keyboard” environment. The discussion concludes with a consideration of the unique contributions of cursive and keyboarding as written forms of communication, along with their respective surfaces, paper and screen. Finally, an assessment of the practical utility of each skill is followed by an informal assessment of what is lost and what remains as we move from a predominantly paper and pen world of handwriting to texting and keyboarding in an environment of screens.

Keywords: Asemic writing, cursive, handwriting, keyboarding, paper.

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Authors: Xin Bai, Kresimir Sivoncik, Damla Turgut, Ladislau Bölöni

Abstract:

Market based models are frequently used in the resource allocation on the computational grid. However, as the size of the grid grows, it becomes difficult for the customer to negotiate directly with all the providers. Middle agents are introduced to mediate between the providers and customers and facilitate the resource allocation process. The most frequently deployed middle agents are the matchmakers and the brokers. The matchmaking agent finds possible candidate providers who can satisfy the requirements of the consumers, after which the customer directly negotiates with the candidates. The broker agents are mediating the negotiation with the providers in real time. In this paper we present a new type of middle agent, the marketmaker. Its operation is based on two parallel operations - through the investment process the marketmaker is acquiring resources and resource reservations in large quantities, while through the resale process it sells them to the customers. The operation of the marketmaker is based on the fact that through its global view of the grid it can perform a more efficient resource allocation than the one possible in one-to-one negotiations between the customers and providers. We present the operation and algorithms governing the operation of the marketmaker agent, contrasting it with the matchmaker and broker agents. Through a series of simulations in the task oriented domain we compare the operation of the three agents types. We find that the use of marketmaker agent leads to a better performance in the allocation of large tasks and a significant reduction of the messaging overhead.

Keywords: grid computing, autonomous agents, market-basedgrid

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