Search results for: market potential.

Authors: Mouse, cardiac myocytes, computer simulation, action potential.

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Heterogeneous repolarization causes dispersion of the T-wave and has been linked to arrhythmogenesis. Such heterogeneities appear due to differential expression of ionic currents in different regions of the heart, both in healthy and diseased animals and humans. Mice are important animals for the study of heart diseases because of the ability to create transgenic animals. We used our previously reported model of mouse ventricular myocytes to develop 2D mouse ventricular tissue model consisting of 14,000 cells (apical or septal ventricular myocytes) and to study the stability of action potential propagation and Ca2+ dynamics. The 2D tissue model was implemented as a FORTRAN program code for highperformance multiprocessor computers that runs on 36 processors. Our tissue model is able to simulate heterogeneities not only in action potential repolarization, but also heterogeneities in intracellular Ca2+ transients. The multicellular model reproduced experimentally observed velocities of action potential propagation and demonstrated the importance of incorporation of realistic Ca2+ dynamics for action potential propagation. The simulations show that relatively sharp gradients of repolarization are predicted to exist in 2D mouse tissue models, and they are primarily determined by the cellular properties of ventricular myocytes. Abrupt local gradients of channel expression can cause alternans at longer pacing basic cycle lengths than gradual changes, and development of alternans depends on the site of stimulation.

Keywords: Mouse, cardiac myocytes, computer simulation, action potential

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Authors: Amina Amirat, Abdelfettah Bouri

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If price and quantity are the fundamental building blocks of any theory of market interactions, the importance of trading volume in understanding the behavior of financial markets is clear. However, while many economic models of financial markets have been developed to explain the behavior of prices -predictability, variability, and information content- far less attention has been devoted to explaining the behavior of trading volume. In this article, we hope to expand our understanding of trading volume by developing a new measure of herding behavior based on a cross sectional dispersion of volumes betas. We apply our measure to the Toronto stock exchange using monthly data from January 2000 to December 2002. Our findings show that the herd phenomenon consists of three essential components: stationary herding, intentional herding and the feedback herding.

Keywords: Herding behavior, market return, trading volume.

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Authors: Justinian Anatory, Ekael Stephen Manase

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The use of mobile phones is growing tremendously all over the world. In Tanzania there are a number of operators licensed by Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) aiming at attracting customers into their networks. So far telecommunications market competition has been very stiff. Various measures are being taken by mobile operators to survive in the market. Such measure include introducing of different air time bundles on daily, weekly and monthly at lower tariffs. Other measures include the introduction of normal tariff, tourist package and one network. Despite of all these strategies, there is a dynamic competition in the market which needs to be explored. Some influences which attract customers to choose a certain mobile operator are of particular interest. This paper is investigating if the network effects and Quality of Services (QoS) influence mobile customers in selection of their mobile network operators. Seventy seven students from high learning institutions in Dodoma Municipality in Tanzania participated in responding to prepared questionnaires. The data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) Software. The results indicate that, network coverage does influence customers in selection of mobile operators. In addition, this paper proposes further research in some areas especially where the study came up with different findings from what the theory has in place.

Keywords: Network effects, Quality of services, Consumer Buying, mobile operators.

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Authors: Jolanta Brodowska-Szewczuk

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The article includes the results and conclusions from empirical researches that had been done. The research focuses on the impact of investments made in small and medium-sized enterprises financed from EU funds on the competitiveness of these companies. The researches includes financial results in sales revenue and net income, expenses, and many other new products/services on offer, higher quality products and services, more modern methods of production, innovation in management processes, increase in the number of customers, increase in market share, increase in profitability of production and provision of services. The main conclusions are that, companies with direct investments under this measure shall apply the modern methods of production. The consequence of this is to increase the quality of our products and services. Furthermore, both small and medium-sized enterprises have introduced new products and services. Investments were carried out, thus enabling better work organization in enterprises. Entrepreneurs would guarantee higher quality of service, which would result in better relationships with their customers, what is more, noting the rise in number of clients. More than half of the companies indicated that the investments contributed to the increase in market share. Same thing as for market reach and brand recognition of particular company. An interesting finding is that, investments in small enterprises were more effective than medium-sized enterprises.

Keywords: Competitiveness, efficiency, EU funds, small and medium-sized enterprises.

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Authors: Heeyong Noh, Sungjoo Lee

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The goal of this research is discovering the determinants of the success or failure of external cooperation in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). For this, a survey was given to 190 SMEs that experienced external cooperation within the last 3 years. A logistic regression model was used to derive organizational or strategic characteristics that significantly influence whether external collaboration of domestic SMEs is successful or not. Results suggest that research and development (R&D) features in general characteristics (both idea creation and discovering market opportunities) that focused on and emphasized indirected-market stakeholders (such as complementary companies and affiliates) and strategies in innovative strategic characteristics raise the probability of successful external cooperation. This can be used meaningfully to build a policy or strategy for inducing successful external cooperation or to understand the innovation of SMEs.

Keywords: External collaboration, Innovation strategy, Logisticregression, SMEs.

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Authors: Mohammed A. Kafaji

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This paper aims to investigate the influence of quality of education and quality of research, provided by local educational institutions, on the adoption of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in managing business operations for companies in Saudi market. A model was developed and tested using data collected from 138 Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of foreign companies in diverse business sectors. The data is analyzed and managed using multivariate approaches through standard statistical packages. The results showed that educational quality has little contribution to the ICT adoption while research quality seems to play a more prominent role. These results are analyzed in terms of business environment and market constraints and further extended to the perceived effectiveness of applied pedagogical approaches in schools and universities.

Keywords: Domestic Competition, Quality of Education, Quality of Research, ICT Adoption, Mediation.

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Authors: Maia Seturi, Tamari Todua

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Economic growth is seen as the increase in the production capacity of a country. It enables a country to produce more and more material wealth and social benefits. Today, the success of any product on the market is closely related to the issue of branding. The brand is a source of information for a user/consumer, which helps to simplify the choice of goods and reduce consumer risk. The paper studies the role of branding in order to promote Georgian tea brands. The main focus of the research is directed to consumer attitudes regarding Georgian tea brands. The methodology of the paper is based on marketing research. The findings study revealed that the majority of consumers prefer foreign tea brands. The final part of the article presents the main recommendations.

Keywords: Marketing research, customer behavior, brand, successful brand.

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Authors: Kari Björn

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Introduction of games has expanded the application area of computer-aided learning tools to wide variety of age groups of learners. Serious games engage the learners into a real-world -type of simulation and potentially enrich the learning experience. Institutional background of a Bachelor’s level engineering program in Information and Communication Technology is introduced, with detailed focus on one of its majors, Health Technology. As part of a Customer Oriented Software Application thematic semester, one particular course of “eHealth Business and Solutions” is described and reflected in a gamified framework. Learning a consistent view into vast literature of business management, strategies, marketing and finance in a very limited time enforces selection of topics relevant to the industry. Health Technology is a novel and growing industry with a growing sector in consumer wearable devices and homecare applications. The business sector is attracting new entrepreneurs and impatient investor funds. From engineering education point of view the sector is driven by miniaturizing electronics, sensors and wireless applications. However, the market is highly consumer-driven and usability, safety and data integrity requirements are extremely high. When the same technology is used in analysis or treatment of patients, very strict regulatory measures are enforced. The paper introduces a course structure using gamification as a tool to learn the most essential in a new market: customer value proposition design, followed by a market entry game. Students analyze the existing market size and pricing structure of eHealth web-service market and enter the market as a steering group of their company, competing against the legacy players and with each other. The market is growing but has its rules of demand and supply balance. New products can be developed with an R&D-investment, and targeted to market with unique quality- and price-combinations. Product cost structure can be improved by investing to enhanced production capacity. Investments can be funded optionally by foreign capital. Students make management decisions and face the dynamics of the market competition in form of income statement and balance sheet after each decision cycle. The focus of the learning outcome is to understand customer value creation to be the source of cash flow. The benefit of gamification is to enrich the learning experience on structure and meaning of financial statements. The paper describes the gamification approach and discusses outcomes after two course implementations. Along the case description of learning challenges, some unexpected misconceptions are noted. Improvements of the game or the semi-gamified teaching pedagogy are discussed. The case description serves as an additional support to new game coordinator, as well as helps to improve the method. Overall, the gamified approach has helped to engage engineering student to business studies in an energizing way.

Keywords: Engineering education, integrated curriculum, learning experience, learning outcomes.

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Authors: Mohammad Namazi, Mohammad Sadeghzadeh Maharluie

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Predicting earnings management is vital for the capital market participants, financial analysts and managers. The aim of this research is attempting to respond to this query: Is there a significant difference between the regression model and neural networks’ models in predicting earnings management, and which one leads to a superior prediction of it? In approaching this question, a Linear Regression (LR) model was compared with two neural networks including Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP), and Generalized Regression Neural Network (GRNN). The population of this study includes 94 listed companies in Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) market from 2003 to 2011. After the results of all models were acquired, ANOVA was exerted to test the hypotheses. In general, the summary of statistical results showed that the precision of GRNN did not exhibit a significant difference in comparison with MLP. In addition, the mean square error of the MLP and GRNN showed a significant difference with the multi variable LR model. These findings support the notion of nonlinear behavior of the earnings management. Therefore, it is more appropriate for capital market participants to analyze earnings management based upon neural networks techniques, and not to adopt linear regression models.

Keywords: Earnings management, generalized regression neural networks, linear regression, multi-layer perceptron, Tehran stock exchange.

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Authors: F. Pagliara, F. Mauriello

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The objective of this paper is to investigate the relationship between the increase of accessibility brought by high speed rail (HSR) systems and the tourism market in Italy. The impacts of HSR projects on tourism can be quantified in different ways. In this manuscript, an empirical analysis has been carried out with the aid of a dataset containing information both on tourism and transport for 99 Italian provinces during the 2006-2016 period. Panel data regression models have been considered, since they allow modelling a wide variety of correlation patterns. Results show that HSR has an impact on the choice of a given destination for Italian tourists while the presence of a second level hub mainly affects foreign tourists. Attraction variables are also significant for both categories and the variables concerning security, such as number of crimes registered in a given destination, have a negative impact on the choice of a destination.

Keywords: Tourists, overnights, high speed rail, attractions, security.

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Authors: R. Noori, F. Feizi, M.R. Jafari

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Khatunabad area is situated geologically in Urmieh- Dokhtar magmatic belt in NW of Iran. In this research, studied area has been investigated in order to recognize the potential copper and molybdenum-bearing target areas. The survey layers include the lithologic units, alteration, geochemical result, tectonics and copper and molybdenum occurrence. As an accurate decision can have a considerable effect on exploration plans, so in this efforts have been made to make use of new combination method. For this purpose, the analytical hierarchy process was used and revealed highly potential copper and molybdenum mineralization areas. Based on achieved results, geological perspective in north of studied area is appropriate for advance stage, especially for subsurface exploration in future.

Keywords: Analytical hierarchy process, Potential targets, Khatunabad, Iran

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Authors: Ahmad Rouhani

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Iran has several potential for using renewable energies, so use them could significantly contribute to energy supply. The purpose of this paper is to identify the potential of the country and select the appropriate DG technologies with consideration the potential and primary energy resources in the regions. In this context, hybrid energy systems proportionate with the potential of different regions will be determined based on technical, economic, and environmental aspect. In the following the proposed structure will be optimized in terms of size and cost. DG technologies used in this project include photovoltaic system, wind turbine, diesel generator and battery bank. The HOMER software is applied for choosing the appropriate structure and the optimization of system sizing. The results have been analyzed in terms of technical and economic. The performance and the cost of each project demonstrate the appropriate structure of hybrid energy system in that region.

Keywords: Feasibility, Hybrid Energy System, Iran, Renewable Energy.

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Authors: Y. T. Boon, M. N. Naim, R. Zakaria, N. F. Abu Bakar, N. Ahmad, I. W. Lenggoro

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In this study, encapsulation of agarwood oil with non-ionic surfactant, Tween 80 was prepared at critical micelle concentration of 0.0167 % v/v to produce the most stable nano-emulsion in aqueous. The encapsulation has minimized the bioactive compounds degradation in various pH conditions thus prolong their shelf life and maintained its initial oil grade. The oil grading of the prepared samples were conducted using the gel electrophoresis instead of using common analytical industrial grading such as gas chromatography- mass spectrometry (GC- MS). The grading method was chosen due to their unique zeta potential value after the encapsulation process. This paper demonstrates the feasibility of applying the electrophoresis principles to separate the encapsulated agarwood oil or grading of the emulsified agarwood oil. The results indicated that the grading process are potential to be further investigate based on their droplet size and zeta potential value at various pH condition when the droplet were migrate through polyacrylamide gel.

Keywords: Electrophoretic mobility, essential oil, nanoemulsion, polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, Tween 80, zeta potential.

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Authors: Chun-Der Chen, Yi-Wen Fan, Cheng-Kiang Farn

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In today-s competitive global business environment, the concept of supply chain management (SCM) continues to become increasingly market-oriented, shifting the primary driver of the value chain from supply to demand. Recent recommendations encourage researchers to focus investigations on the supply chain process integration (SCPI) capabilities that integrate a focal firm with its network of suppliers and business customers to create value for it. However, theoretical and empirical researches pertaining to the antecedents and consequences of a focal firm-s SCPI capabilities have been limited and piecemeal. The purpose of this study is to investigate the critical determinants and consequences of a focal firm-s SCPI capabilities. We test our proposed research framework using a sample of 139 sales managers of manufacturing industries in Taiwan, our research findings show that (1) both perceived business customer-s power and focal firm-s market-oriented culture positively influences a focal firm-s SCPI capabilities, and (2) SCPI capabilities positively influence a focal firm-s SCM performance, both operational and strategic benefits. Implications for practitioners and researchers and suggestions for future research are also addressed in this study.

Keywords: Supply chain process integration capabilities, Perceived business customer's power, Market-oriented culture, Supply chain management performance.

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Authors: D. Kubiliute

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The Republic of Lithuania is known as a trusted location for global business institutions and it attracts investors with its competitive environment for financial service providers. Along with the aspiration to offer a strong results-oriented and innovations-driven environment for financial service providers, Lithuanian regulatory authorities consistently implement the European Union's high regulatory standards for financial activities including sustainability-related disclosures. Since the European Union directed its policy towards transition to a climate-neutral, green, competitive and inclusive economy, additional regulatory requirements for financial market participants are adopted: disclosure of sustainable activities, transparency, prevention of greenwashing, and other. The financial sector is one of the key factors influencing the implementation of sustainability objectives in the European Union policies and mitigating the negative effects of climate change – public funds are not enough to make a significant impact on sustainable investments, therefore directing public and private capital to green projects may help to finance the necessary changes. The topic of the study is original and has not yet been widely analyzed in Lithuanian legal discourse. There are used quantitative and qualitative methodologies, logical, systematic and critical analysis principles, hence the aim of this study is to reveal the problematic of the implementation of regulation on sustainability in the Lithuanian financial sector. Additional regulatory requirements could cause serious changes in financial business operations: additional funds, employees and time have to be dedicated in order the companies could implement these regulations. Lack of knowledge and data on how to implement new regulatory requirements towards sustainable reporting causes a lot of uncertainty for financial market participants. And for some companies it might even be an essential point in terms of business continuity. It is considered that the supervisory authorities should find a balance between financial market needs and legal regulation.

Keywords: Financial, market participant, legal, regulation, sustainability.

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Authors: Mateusz Rak

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Objective: The paper aims to present various sources of competitive advantage which may occur when an enterprise strategically applies its concept of corporate philanthropy. Methodology: The review of the literature and available reports on the research regarding corporate philanthropy. Results: Strategic philanthropy is a positive phenomenon. Unfortunately, enterprises in Poland do not see all positive sides of such activities yet. Three kinds of corporate philanthropy may be described. They are to fulfil a social duty, improve the company reputation and gain a competitive edge. Practical implications: Showing enterprises the advantages of taking philanthropic actions, in particular, a large role of strategic philanthropy in gaining a competitive edge in the market as well as how to avoid negative consequences of corporate philanthropy. The paper presents corporate philanthropy on a few layers: as a CSR element, actions generating values in products, actions improving a corporate image in the market, altruist actions of employees.

Keywords: Corporate philanthropy, corporate social responsibility, corporate foundations, CSR.

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Authors: Anam Azam, Muhammad Rafiq

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The study identified the socio-economic and demographic factors of both married and unmarried females in third world countries. Almost all the countries have same problems but we have selected Pakistan as a sample country. The main purpose of this study was to examine which factors forced women to participate in labor market. So the best technique of data collection was survey of both married and unmarried females between the ages of 20 to 49. Two models (probit and logit) were used to analyze the factors which effect on FLFP. The result showed that some factors e.g. age; education and marital status have significant effect on FLFP. The findings showed that educated women and those who belong to joint families are more participate because of financial pressure.

Keywords: Education, Financial status, Family pressure Labor Market participation.

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Authors: Gysele Lima Ricci, Jose Miguel Rodriguez Anton

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Companies in the tourism sector need to achieve competitive advantages for their survival in the market. In this way, the models based on association, cooperation, complementarity, distribution, exchange and mutual assistance arise as a possibility of organizational development, taking as reference the concept of networks. Many companies seek to partner in local networks as clusters to act together and associate. The main objective of the present research is to identify the specificities of management and the practices of cooperation in the tourist destination of São Paulo - Brazil, and to propose a new management model with possible cluster of tourism. The empirical analysis was carried out in three phases. As a first phase, a research was made by the companies, associations and tourism organizations existing in São Paulo, analyzing the characteristics of their business. In the second phase, the management specificities and cooperation practice used in the tourist destination. And in the third phase, identifying the possible strengths and weaknesses that potential or potential tourist cluster could have, proposing the development of the management model of the same adapted to the needs of the companies, associations and organizations. As a main result, it has been identified that companies, associations and organizations could be looking for synergies with each other and collaborate through a Hiperred organizational structure, in which they share their knowledge, try to make the most of the collaboration and to benefit from three concepts: flexibility, learning and collaboration. Finally, it is concluded that, the proposed tourism cluster management model is viable for the development of tourism destinations because it makes it possible to strategically address agents which are responsible for public policies, as well as public and private companies and organizations in their strategies competitiveness and cooperation.

Keywords: Cluster, management model, networks, tourism sector.

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Authors: Marijana Ivanov, Roman Šubić

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This study analyzes the critical gaps in the architecture of European stability and the expected role of the banking union as the new important step towards completing the Economic and Monetary Union that should enable the creation of safe and sound financial sector for the euro area market. The single rulebook together with the Single Supervisory Mechanism and the Single Resolution Mechanism - as two main pillars of the banking union, should provide a consistent application of common rules and administrative standards for supervision, recovery and resolution of banks – with the final aim of replacing the former bail-out practice with the bail-in system through which possible future bank failures would be resolved by their own funds, i.e. with minimal costs for taxpayers and real economy. In this way, the vicious circle between banks and sovereigns would be broken. It would also reduce the financial fragmentation recorded in the years of crisis as the result of divergent behaviors in risk premium, lending activities and interest rates between the core and the periphery. In addition, it should strengthen the effectiveness of monetary transmission channels, in particular the credit channels and overflows of liquidity on the money market which, due to the fragmentation of the common financial market, has been significantly disabled in period of crisis. However, contrary to all the positive expectations related to the future functioning of the banking union, major findings of this study indicate that characteristics of the economic system in which the banking union will operate should not be ignored. The euro area is an integration of strong and weak entities with large differences in economic development, wealth, assets of banking systems, growth rates and accountability of fiscal policy. The analysis indicates that low and unbalanced economic growth remains a challenge for the maintenance of financial stability and this problem cannot be resolved just by a single supervision. In many countries bank assets exceed their GDP by several times and large banks are still a matter of concern, because of their systemic importance for individual countries and the euro zone as a whole. The creation of the Single Supervisory Mechanism and the Single Resolution Mechanism is a response to the European crisis, which has particularly affected peripheral countries and caused the associated loop between the banking crisis and the sovereign debt crisis, but has also influenced banks’ balance sheets in the core countries, as the result of crossborder capital flows. The creation of the SSM and the SRM should prevent the similar episodes to happen again and should also provide a new opportunity for strengthening of economic and financial systems of the peripheral countries. On the other hand, there is a potential threat that future focus of the ECB, resolution mechanism and other relevant institutions will be extremely oriented towards large and significant banks (whereby one half of them operate in the core and most important euro area countries), and therefore it remains questionable to what extent will the common resolution funds will be used for rescue of less important institutions. Recent geopolitical developments will be the optimal indicator to show whether the previously established mechanisms are sufficient enough to maintain the adequate financial stability in the euro area market.

Keywords: Banking Union, financial integration, single supervisory mechanism (SSM).

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Authors: M. F. Wu, F. T. Cheng, C. S. Wu, M. C. Tan

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It is a critical time to upgrade technology and increase value added with manufacturing skills developing and management strategies that will highly satisfy the customers need in the precision machinery global market. In recent years, the supply side, each precision machinery manufacturers in each country are facing the pressures of price reducing from the demand side voices that pushes the high-end precision machinery manufacturers adopts low-cost and high-quality strategy to retrieve the market. Because of the trend of the global market, the manufacturers must take price reducing strategies and upgrade technology of low-end machinery for differentiations to consolidate the market.By using six key success factors (KSFs), customer perceived value, customer satisfaction, customer service, product design, product effectiveness and machine structure quality are causal conditions to explore the impact of competitive advantage of the enterprise, such as overall profitability and product pricing power. This research uses key success paths (KSPs) approach and f/s QCA software to explore various combinations of causal relationships, so as to fully understand the performance level of KSFs and business objectives in order to achieve competitive advantage. In this study, the combination of a causal relationships, are called Key Success Paths (KSPs). The key success paths guide the enterprise to achieve the specific outcomes of business. The findings of this study indicate that there are thirteen KSPs to achieve the overall profitability, sixteen KSPs to achieve the product pricing power and seventeen KSPs to achieve both overall profitability and pricing power of the enterprise. The KSPs provide the directions of resources integration and allocation, improve utilization efficiency of limited resources to realize the continuous vision of the enterprise.

Keywords: Precision Machinery Industry, Key Success Factors (KSPs), Key Success Paths (KSPs), Overall Profitability, Product Pricing Power, Competitive Advantages.

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Authors: Fathi Taibi

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The abnormal increase in the number of applications available for download in Android markets is a good indication that they are being reused. However, little is known about their real reusability potential. A considerable amount of these applications is reported as having a poor quality or being malicious. Hence, in this paper, an approach to measure the reusability potential of classes in Android applications is proposed. The approach is not meant specifically for this particular type of applications. Rather, it is intended for Object-Oriented (OO) software systems in general and aims also to provide means to discard the classes of low quality and defect prone applications from being reused directly through inheritance and instantiation. An empirical investigation is conducted to measure and rank the reusability potential of the classes of randomly selected Android applications. The results obtained are thoroughly analyzed in order to understand the extent of this potential and the factors influencing it.

Keywords: Reusability, Software Quality Factors, Software Metrics, Empirical Investigation, Object-Oriented Software, Android Applications.

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Authors: Jan Busch, Maurice Schmidt, Peter Nyhuis

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The change of conditions for production companies in high-wage countries is characterized by the globalization of competition and the transition of a supplier´s to a buyer´s market. The companies need to face the challenges of reacting flexibly to these changes. Due to the significant and increasing degree of automation, assembly has become the most expensive production process. Regarding the reduction of production cost, assembly consequently offers a considerable rationalizing potential. Therefore, an aerodynamic feeding system has been developed at the Institute of Production Systems and Logistics (IFA), Leibniz Universitaet Hannover. This system has been enabled to adjust itself by using a genetic algorithm. The longer this genetic algorithm is executed the better is the feeding quality. In this paper, the relation between the system´s setting time and the feeding quality is observed and a function which enables the user to achieve the minimum of the total feeding time is presented.

Keywords: Aerodynamic feeding system, batch size, optimisation, setting time.

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Authors: F. Pourhasanzade, S. H. Sabzpoushan

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The heart tissue is an excitable media. A Cellular Automata is a type of model that can be used to model cardiac action potential propagation. One of the advantages of this approach against the methods based on differential equations is its high speed in large scale simulations. Recent cellular automata models are not able to avoid flat edges in the result patterns or have large neighborhoods. In this paper, we present a new model to eliminate flat edges by minimum number of neighbors.

Keywords: Cellular Automata, Action Potential Simulation, Isotropic Pattern.

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

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

Keywords: BERT, chatbot, cryptocurrency, deep learning.

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Authors: Mehdi Shami Zanjani, Roshanak Rouzbehani, Hosein Dabbagh

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Although current competitive challenges induced by today-s digital economy place their main emphasis on organizational knowledge, customer knowledge has been overlooked. On the other hand, the business community has finally begun to realize the important role customer knowledge can play in the organizational boundaries of the corporate arena. As a result, there is an emerging market for the tools and utilities whose objective is to provide the intelligence for knowledge sharing between the businesses and their customers. In this paper, we present a conceptual model of customer knowledge management by identifying and analyzing the existing tools in the market. The focus will be upon the emerging British dotcom industry whose customer based B2C behavior has been an influential part of the knowledge based intelligence tools in existence today.

Keywords: Customer knowledge, customer knowledge management, knowledge management, B2C E-commerce.

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Authors: Yaojun Wang, Yaoqing Wang

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Stock selection is an important decision-making problem. Many machine learning and data mining technologies are employed to build automatic stock-selection system. A profitable stock-selection system should consider the stock’s investment value and the market timing. In this paper, we present a hybrid system including both engage for stock selection. This system uses a case-based reasoning (CBR) model to execute the stock classification, uses a decision-tree model to help with market timing and stock selection. The experiments show that the performance of this hybrid system is better than that of other techniques regarding to the classification accuracy, the average return and the Sharpe ratio.

Keywords: Case-based reasoning, decision tree, stock selection, machine learning.

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Authors: Amaral, António, Araújo, Madalena

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This paper seeks to give a general idea of the universe of project portfolio management, from its multidisciplinary nature, to the many challenges it raises, passing through the different techniques, models and tools used to solve the multiple problems known. It is intended to contribute to the clarification, with great depth, of the impacts and relationships involved in managing the projects- portfolio. It aims at proposing a technique for the project alignment with the organisational strategy, in order to select projects that later on will be considered in the analysis and selection of the portfolio. We consider the development of a methodology for assessing the project alignment index very relevant in the global market scenario. It can help organisations to gain a greater awareness of market dynamics, speed up the decision process and increase its consistency, thus enabling the strategic alignment and the improvement of the organisational performance.

Keywords: Project Portfolio Management Cycle, Project Portfolio Selection, Resource Assignment, Strategy Alignment technique

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Authors: Sh. Hamada, N. Burtebayev, N. Amangeldi, A. Amar

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An experiment was performed with a 24.5 MeV 14N beam on a 12C target in the cyclotron DC-60 located in Astana, Kazakhstan, to study the elastic scattering of 14N on 12C; the scattering was also analyzed at different energies for tracking the phenomenon of remarkable structure at large angles. Its aims were to extend the measurements to very large angles, and attempt to uniquely identify the elastic scattering potential. Good agreement between the theoretical and experimental data has been obtained with suitable optical potential parameters. Optical model calculations with l -dependent imaginary potentials were also applied to the data and relatively good agreement was found.

Keywords: Optical Potential Codes, Elastic Scattering, SPIVALCode.

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Authors: Manu Krishnan, Phil Jacoby

Abstract:

In this paper, we discuss the paradigm shift in bank capital from the “gone concern" to the “going concern" mindset. We then propose a methodology for pricing a product of this shift called Contingent Capital Notes (“CoCos"). The Merton Model can determine a price for credit risk by using the firm-s equity value as a call option on those assets. Our pricing methodology for CoCos also uses the credit spread implied by the Merton Model in a subsequent derivative form created by John Hull et al . Here, a market implied asset volatility is calculated by using observed market CDS spreads. This implied asset volatility is then used to estimate the probability of triggering a predetermined “contingency event" given the distanceto- trigger (DTT). The paper then investigates the effect of varying DTTs and recovery assumptions on the CoCo yield. We conclude with an investment rationale.

Keywords: CoCo, Contingent capital, Bank Capital, Tier1 Capital

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Authors: Mncedisi Trinity Dewa, Andre F. Van Der Merwe, Stephen Matope

Abstract:

Tool, Die and Mould-making (TDM) firms have been known to play a pivotal role in the growth and development of the manufacturing sectors in most economies. Their output contributes significantly to the quality, cost and delivery speed of final manufactured parts. Unfortunately, the South African Tool, Die and Mould-making manufacturers have not been competing on the local or global market in a significant way. This reality has hampered the productivity and growth of the sector thus attracting intervention. The paper explores the shortcomings South African toolmakers have to overcome to restore their competitive position globally. Results from a global benchmarking survey on the tooling sector are used to establish a roadmap of what South African toolmakers can do to become a productive, World Class force on the global market.

Keywords: Competitive performance objectives, lead time, toolmakers, world-class manufacturing.

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