The Italian Footwear Industry: an Empirical Analysis

OpenAIRE

Pirolo, Luca; Giustiniano, Luca; Nenni, Maria Elena

2013-01-01

This paper aims to provide readers with a deep empirical analysis on the Italian footwear industry in order to investigate the evolution of its structure (trends in sales and production, number of firms and employees, main markets, etc.), together with the identification of the main drivers of competitiveness in order to explain the strategies implemented by local actors.

Biofuels policy and the US market for motor fuels: Empirical analysis of ethanol splashing

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Walls, W.D., E-mail: wdwalls@ucalgary.ca [Department of Economics, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, Alberta, T2N 1N4 (Canada); Rusco, Frank; Kendix, Michael [US GAO (United States)

2011-07-15

Low ethanol prices relative to the price of gasoline blendstock, and tax credits, have resulted in discretionary blending at wholesale terminals of ethanol into fuel supplies above required levels-a practice known as ethanol splashing in industry parlance. No one knows precisely where or in what volume ethanol is being blended with gasoline and this has important implications for motor fuels markets: Because refiners cannot perfectly predict where ethanol will be blended with finished gasoline by wholesalers, they cannot know when to produce and where to ship a blendstock that when mixed with ethanol at 10% would create the most economically efficient finished motor gasoline that meets engine standards and has comparable evaporative emissions as conventional gasoline without ethanol blending. In contrast to previous empirical analyses of biofuels that have relied on highly aggregated data, our analysis is disaggregated to the level of individual wholesale fuel terminals or racks (of which there are about 350 in the US). We incorporate the price of ethanol as well as the blendstock price to model the wholesaler's decision of whether or not to blend additional ethanol into gasoline at any particular wholesale city-terminal. The empirical analysis illustrates how ethanol and gasoline prices affect ethanol usage, controlling for fuel specifications, blend attributes, and city-terminal-specific effects that, among other things, control for differential costs of delivering ethanol from bio-refinery to wholesale rack. - Research Highlights: > Low ethanol prices and tax credits have resulted in discretionary blending of ethanol into fuel supplies above required levels. > This has important implications for motor fuels markets and vehicular emissions. > Our analysis incorporates the price of ethanol as well as the blendstock price to model the wholesaler's decision of whether or not to blend additional ethanol into gasoline at any particular wholesale city

Biofuels policy and the US market for motor fuels: Empirical analysis of ethanol splashing

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Walls, W.D.; Rusco, Frank; Kendix, Michael

2011-01-01

Low ethanol prices relative to the price of gasoline blendstock, and tax credits, have resulted in discretionary blending at wholesale terminals of ethanol into fuel supplies above required levels-a practice known as ethanol splashing in industry parlance. No one knows precisely where or in what volume ethanol is being blended with gasoline and this has important implications for motor fuels markets: Because refiners cannot perfectly predict where ethanol will be blended with finished gasoline by wholesalers, they cannot know when to produce and where to ship a blendstock that when mixed with ethanol at 10% would create the most economically efficient finished motor gasoline that meets engine standards and has comparable evaporative emissions as conventional gasoline without ethanol blending. In contrast to previous empirical analyses of biofuels that have relied on highly aggregated data, our analysis is disaggregated to the level of individual wholesale fuel terminals or racks (of which there are about 350 in the US). We incorporate the price of ethanol as well as the blendstock price to model the wholesaler's decision of whether or not to blend additional ethanol into gasoline at any particular wholesale city-terminal. The empirical analysis illustrates how ethanol and gasoline prices affect ethanol usage, controlling for fuel specifications, blend attributes, and city-terminal-specific effects that, among other things, control for differential costs of delivering ethanol from bio-refinery to wholesale rack. - Research highlights: → Low ethanol prices and tax credits have resulted in discretionary blending of ethanol into fuel supplies above required levels. → This has important implications for motor fuels markets and vehicular emissions. → Our analysis incorporates the price of ethanol as well as the blendstock price to model the wholesaler's decision of whether or not to blend additional ethanol into gasoline at any particular wholesale city-terminal. �

Application of parameters space analysis tools for empirical model validation

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Paloma del Barrio, E. [LEPT-ENSAM UMR 8508, Talence (France); Guyon, G. [Electricite de France, Moret-sur-Loing (France)

2004-01-01

A new methodology for empirical model validation has been proposed in the framework of the Task 22 (Building Energy Analysis Tools) of the International Energy Agency. It involves two main steps: checking model validity and diagnosis. Both steps, as well as the underlying methods, have been presented in the first part of the paper. In this part, they are applied for testing modelling hypothesis in the framework of the thermal analysis of an actual building. Sensitivity analysis tools have been first used to identify the parts of the model that can be really tested on the available data. A preliminary diagnosis is then supplied by principal components analysis. Useful information for model behaviour improvement has been finally obtained by optimisation techniques. This example of application shows how model parameters space analysis is a powerful tool for empirical validation. In particular, diagnosis possibilities are largely increased in comparison with residuals analysis techniques. (author)

Opposing the nuclear threat: The convergence of moral analysis and empirical data

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hehir, J.B.

1986-01-01

This paper examines the concept of nuclear winter from the perspective of religious and moral values. The objective is to identify points of intersection between the empirical arguments about nuclear winter and ethical perspectives on nuclear war. The analysis moves through three steps: (1) the context of the nuclear debate; (2) the ethical and empirical contributions to the nuclear debate; and (3) implications for policy drawn from the ethical-empirical data

Uncertainty analysis and validation of environmental models. The empirically based uncertainty analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Monte, Luigi; Hakanson, Lars; Bergstroem, Ulla; Brittain, John; Heling, Rudie

1996-01-01

The principles of Empirically Based Uncertainty Analysis (EBUA) are described. EBUA is based on the evaluation of 'performance indices' that express the level of agreement between the model and sets of empirical independent data collected in different experimental circumstances. Some of these indices may be used to evaluate the confidence limits of the model output. The method is based on the statistical analysis of the distribution of the index values and on the quantitative relationship of these values with the ratio 'experimental data/model output'. Some performance indices are described in the present paper. Among these, the so-called 'functional distance' (d) between the logarithm of model output and the logarithm of the experimental data, defined as d 2 =Σ n 1 ( ln M i - ln O i ) 2 /n where M i is the i-th experimental value, O i the corresponding model evaluation and n the number of the couplets 'experimental value, predicted value', is an important tool for the EBUA method. From the statistical distribution of this performance index, it is possible to infer the characteristics of the distribution of the ratio 'experimental data/model output' and, consequently to evaluate the confidence limits for the model predictions. This method was applied to calculate the uncertainty level of a model developed to predict the migration of radiocaesium in lacustrine systems. Unfortunately, performance indices are affected by the uncertainty of the experimental data used in validation. Indeed, measurement results of environmental levels of contamination are generally associated with large uncertainty due to the measurement and sampling techniques and to the large variability in space and time of the measured quantities. It is demonstrated that this non-desired effect, in some circumstances, may be corrected by means of simple formulae

Empirical Validation of the Importance of Employees' Learning Motivation for Workplace E-Learning in Taiwanese Organisations

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Hsiu-Ju; Kao, Chia-Hung

2012-01-01

E-learning systems, adopted by organisations for employee training to enhance employees' performance, are characterised by self-directed, autonomous learning. Learning motivation is then of importance in the design of e-learning practices in workplace. However, empirical study of the alignment of e-learning with individual learning needs and…

An Empirical Bayes Approach to Mantel-Haenszel DIF Analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Zwick, Rebecca; Thayer, Dorothy T.; Lewis, Charles

1999-01-01

Developed an empirical Bayes enhancement to Mantel-Haenszel (MH) analysis of differential item functioning (DIF) in which it is assumed that the MH statistics are normally distributed and that the prior distribution of underlying DIF parameters is also normal. (Author/SLD)

Empirical Analysis of Using Erasure Coding in Outsourcing Data Storage With Provable Security

Science.gov (United States)

2016-06-01

computing and communication technologies become powerful and advanced , people are exchanging a huge amount of data, and they are de- manding more storage...NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA THESIS EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF USING ERASURE CODING IN OUTSOURCING DATA STORAGEWITH PROVABLE SECURITY by...2015 to 06-17-2016 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF USING ERASURE CODING IN OUTSOURCING DATA STORAGE WITH PROVABLE SECURITY 5. FUNDING

Development of an empirical model of turbine efficiency using the Taylor expansion and regression analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fang, Xiande; Xu, Yu

2011-01-01

The empirical model of turbine efficiency is necessary for the control- and/or diagnosis-oriented simulation and useful for the simulation and analysis of dynamic performances of the turbine equipment and systems, such as air cycle refrigeration systems, power plants, turbine engines, and turbochargers. Existing empirical models of turbine efficiency are insufficient because there is no suitable form available for air cycle refrigeration turbines. This work performs a critical review of empirical models (called mean value models in some literature) of turbine efficiency and develops an empirical model in the desired form for air cycle refrigeration, the dominant cooling approach in aircraft environmental control systems. The Taylor series and regression analysis are used to build the model, with the Taylor series being used to expand functions with the polytropic exponent and the regression analysis to finalize the model. The measured data of a turbocharger turbine and two air cycle refrigeration turbines are used for the regression analysis. The proposed model is compact and able to present the turbine efficiency map. Its predictions agree with the measured data very well, with the corrected coefficient of determination R c 2 ≥ 0.96 and the mean absolute percentage deviation = 1.19% for the three turbines. -- Highlights: → Performed a critical review of empirical models of turbine efficiency. → Developed an empirical model in the desired form for air cycle refrigeration, using the Taylor expansion and regression analysis. → Verified the method for developing the empirical model. → Verified the model.

Competencies in Higher Education System: an Empirical Analysis of Employers` Perceptions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adela Deaconu

2014-08-01

Full Text Available This study offers insight into the European Qualifications Framework (EQF, as agreed and detailed by the Romanian qualifications framework, applied to the economic sector. By means of a survey conducted on 92 employing companies, it validates the importance of competencies for the Romanian labour market and employers` degree of satisfaction with the competencies of business graduates. In terms of typology, employers attach more importance to transversal competencies than to professional competencies, both at conceptual level and as degree of acquirement following higher education. The empirical analysis provides data on employers` ranking of transversal and professional competencies and identifies the classes of competencies deemed to be in short supply on the labour market. Through its results, the study enhances the relationship between the higher education system and the labour market, providing key information for an efficient implementation of the competence-based education system.

An Empirical Analysis of the Relationship between Minimum Wage ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

An Empirical Analysis of the Relationship between Minimum Wage, Investment and Economic Growth in Ghana. ... In addition, the ratio of public investment to tax revenue must increase as minimum wage increases since such complementary changes are more likely to lead to economic growth. Keywords: minimum wage ...

Empirical research in medical ethics: How conceptual accounts on normative-empirical collaboration may improve research practice

Science.gov (United States)

2012-01-01

Background The methodology of medical ethics during the last few decades has shifted from a predominant use of normative-philosophical analyses to an increasing involvement of empirical methods. The articles which have been published in the course of this so-called 'empirical turn' can be divided into conceptual accounts of empirical-normative collaboration and studies which use socio-empirical methods to investigate ethically relevant issues in concrete social contexts. Discussion A considered reference to normative research questions can be expected from good quality empirical research in medical ethics. However, a significant proportion of empirical studies currently published in medical ethics lacks such linkage between the empirical research and the normative analysis. In the first part of this paper, we will outline two typical shortcomings of empirical studies in medical ethics with regard to a link between normative questions and empirical data: (1) The complete lack of normative analysis, and (2) cryptonormativity and a missing account with regard to the relationship between 'is' and 'ought' statements. Subsequently, two selected concepts of empirical-normative collaboration will be presented and how these concepts may contribute to improve the linkage between normative and empirical aspects of empirical research in medical ethics will be demonstrated. Based on our analysis, as well as our own practical experience with empirical research in medical ethics, we conclude with a sketch of concrete suggestions for the conduct of empirical research in medical ethics. Summary High quality empirical research in medical ethics is in need of a considered reference to normative analysis. In this paper, we demonstrate how conceptual approaches of empirical-normative collaboration can enhance empirical research in medical ethics with regard to the link between empirical research and normative analysis. PMID:22500496

Innovation in Information Technology: Theoretical and Empirical Study in SMQR Section of Export Import in Automotive Industry

Science.gov (United States)

Edi Nugroho Soebandrija, Khristian; Pratama, Yogi

2014-03-01

This paper has the objective to provide the innovation in information technology in both theoretical and empirical study. Precisely, both aspects relate to the Shortage Mispacking Quality Report (SMQR) Claims in Export and Import in Automotive Industry. This paper discusses the major aspects of Innovation, Information Technology, Performance and Competitive Advantage. Furthermore, In the empirical study of PT. Astra Honda Motor (AHM) refers to SMQR Claims, Communication Systems, Analysis and Design Systems. Briefly both aspects of the major aspects and its empirical study are discussed in the Introduction Session. Furthermore, the more detail discussion is conducted in the related aspects in other sessions of this paper, in particular in Literature Review in term classical and updated reference of current research. The increases of SMQR claim and communication problem at PT. Astra Daihatsu Motor (PT. ADM) which still using the email cause the time of claim settlement become longer and finally it causes the rejected of SMQR claim by supplier. With presence of this problem then performed to design the integrated communication system to manage the communication process of SMQR claim between PT. ADM with supplier. The systems was analyzed and designed is expected to facilitate the claim communication process so that can be run in accordance with the procedure and fulfill the target of claim settlement time and also eliminate the difficulties and problems on the previous manual communication system with the email. The design process of the system using the approach of system development life cycle method by Kendall & Kendall (2006)which design process covers the SMQR problem communication process, judgment process by the supplier, claim process, claim payment process and claim monitoring process. After getting the appropriate system designs for managing the SMQR claim, furthermore performed the system implementation and can be seen the improvement in claim communication

Refined discrete and empirical horizontal gradients in VLBI analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Landskron, Daniel; Böhm, Johannes

2018-02-01

empirical a priori gradients slightly reduce (improve) the BLRs with respect to the estimation of gradients. In general, this paper addresses that a priori horizontal gradients are actually more important for VLBI analysis than previously assumed, as particularly the discrete model GRAD as well as the empirical model GPT3 are indeed able to refine and improve the results.

Some connections for manuals of empirical logic to functional analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cook, T.A.

1981-01-01

In this informal presentation, the theory of manuals of operations is connected with some familiar concepts in functional analysis; namely, base normed and order unit normed spaces. The purpose of this discussion is to present several general open problems which display the interplay of empirical logic with functional analysis. These are mathematical problems with direct physical interpretation. (orig./HSI)

A new measure of uncertainty importance based on distributional sensitivity analysis for PSA

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Han, Seok Jung; Tak, Nam Il; Chun, Moon Hyun

1996-01-01

The main objective of the present study is to propose a new measure of uncertainty importance based on distributional sensitivity analysis. The new measure is developed to utilize a metric distance obtained from cumulative distribution functions (cdfs). The measure is evaluated for two cases: one is a cdf given by a known analytical distribution and the other given by an empirical distribution generated by a crude Monte Carlo simulation. To study its applicability, the present measure has been applied to two different cases. The results are compared with those of existing three methods. The present approach is a useful measure of uncertainty importance which is based on cdfs. This method is simple and easy to calculate uncertainty importance without any complex process. On the basis of the results obtained in the present work, the present method is recommended to be used as a tool for the analysis of uncertainty importance

Parallel imports of hospital pharmaceuticals: An empirical analysis of price effects from parallel imports and the design of procurement procedures in the Danish hospital sector

OpenAIRE

Hostenkamp, Gisela; Kronborg, Christian; Arendt, Jacob Nielsen

2012-01-01

We analyse pharmaceutical imports in the Danish hospital sector. In this market medicines are publicly tendered using first-price sealed-bid procurement auctions. We analyse whether parallel imports have an effect on pharmaceutical prices and whether the way tenders were organised matters for the competitive effect of parallel imports on prices. Our theoretical analysis shows that the design of the procurement rules affects both market structure and pharmaceutical prices. Parallel imports may...

On the Empirical Importance of the Conditional Skewness Assumption in Modelling the Relationship between Risk and Return

Science.gov (United States)

Pipień, M.

2008-09-01

We present the results of an application of Bayesian inference in testing the relation between risk and return on the financial instruments. On the basis of the Intertemporal Capital Asset Pricing Model, proposed by Merton we built a general sampling distribution suitable in analysing this relationship. The most important feature of our assumptions is that the skewness of the conditional distribution of returns is used as an alternative source of relation between risk and return. This general specification relates to Skewed Generalized Autoregressive Conditionally Heteroscedastic-in-Mean model. In order to make conditional distribution of financial returns skewed we considered the unified approach based on the inverse probability integral transformation. In particular, we applied hidden truncation mechanism, inverse scale factors, order statistics concept, Beta and Bernstein distribution transformations and also a constructive method. Based on the daily excess returns on the Warsaw Stock Exchange Index we checked the empirical importance of the conditional skewness assumption on the relation between risk and return on the Warsaw Stock Market. We present posterior probabilities of all competing specifications as well as the posterior analysis of the positive sign of the tested relationship.

Strategic Management Tools and Techniques: A Comparative Analysis of Empirical Studies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Albana Berisha Qehaja

2017-01-01

Full Text Available There is no doubt that strategic management tools and techniques are important parts of the strategic management process. Their use in organizations should be observed in a practice-based context. This paper analyzes the empirical studies on the usage of strategic management tools and techniques. Hence, the main aim of this study is to investigate and analyze which enterprises, according to their country development level, use more strategic management tools and techniques and which of these are used the most. Also, this paper investigates which strategic management tools and techniques are used globally according to the results of empirical studies. The study presents a summary of empirical studies for the period 1990–2015. The research results indicate that more strategic tools and techniques are used in developed countries, followed by developing countries and fewest in countries in transition. This study is likely to contribute to the field of strategic management because it summarizes the most used strategic tools and techniques at the global level according to varying stages of countries’ economic development. Also, the findings from this study may be utilized to maximize the full potential of enterprises and reduce the cases of entrepreneurship failures, through creating awareness of the importance of using strategic management tools and techniques.

Energy efficiency determinants: An empirical analysis of Spanish innovative firms

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Costa-Campi, María Teresa; García-Quevedo, José; Segarra, Agustí

2015-01-01

This paper examines the extent to which innovative Spanish firms pursue improvements in energy efficiency (EE) as an objective of innovation. The increase in energy consumption and its impact on greenhouse gas emissions justifies the greater attention being paid to energy efficiency and especially to industrial EE. The ability of manufacturing companies to innovate and improve their EE has a substantial influence on attaining objectives regarding climate change mitigation. Despite the effort to design more efficient energy policies, the EE determinants in manufacturing firms have been little studied in the empirical literature. From an exhaustive sample of Spanish manufacturing firms and using a logit model, we examine the energy efficiency determinants for those firms that have innovated. To carry out the econometric analysis, we use panel data from the Community Innovation Survey for the period 2008–2011. Our empirical results underline the role of size among the characteristics of firms that facilitate energy efficiency innovation. Regarding company behaviour, firms that consider the reduction of environmental impacts to be an important objective of innovation and that have introduced organisational innovations are more likely to innovate with the objective of increasing energy efficiency. -- Highlights: •Drivers of innovation in energy efficiency at firm-level are examined. •Tangible investments have a greater influence on energy efficiency than R&D. •Environmental and energy efficiency innovation objectives are complementary. •Organisational innovation favors energy efficiency innovation. •Public policies should be implemented to improve firms’ energy efficiency

Tax morale : theory and empirical analysis of tax compliance

OpenAIRE

Torgler, Benno

2003-01-01

Tax morale is puzzling in our society. Observations show that tax compliance cannot be satisfactorily explained by the level of enforcement. Other factors may well be relevant. This paper contains a short survey of important theoretical and empirical findings in the tax morale literature, focussing on personal income tax morale. The following three key topics are discussed: moral sentiments, fairness and the relationship between taxpayer and government. The survey stresses the ...

An empirical analysis of Diaspora bonds

OpenAIRE

AKKOYUNLU, Şule; STERN, Max

2018-01-01

Abstract. This study is the first to investigate theoretically and empirically the determinants of Diaspora Bonds for eight developing countries (Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Lebanon, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Sri-Lanka) and one developed country - Israel for the period 1951 and 2008. Empirical results are consistent with the predictions of the theoretical model. The most robust variables are the closeness indicator and the sovereign rating, both on the demand-side. The spread is ...

Does gender equality promote social trust? An empirical analysis

OpenAIRE

Seo-Young Cho

2015-01-01

Fairness can be an important factor that promotes social trust among people. In this paper, I investigate empirically whether fairness between men and women increases social trust. Using the data of the World Value Survey from 91 countries, I find that gender discriminatory values negatively affect the trust level of both men and women, while actual conditions on gender equality, measured by labor and educational attainments and political participation, are not a significant determinant of so...

Empirical psychology, common sense, and Kant's empirical markers for moral responsibility.

Science.gov (United States)

Frierson, Patrick

2008-12-01

This paper explains the empirical markers by which Kant thinks that one can identify moral responsibility. After explaining the problem of discerning such markers within a Kantian framework I briefly explain Kant's empirical psychology. I then argue that Kant's empirical markers for moral responsibility--linked to higher faculties of cognition--are not sufficient conditions for moral responsibility, primarily because they are empirical characteristics subject to natural laws. Next. I argue that these markers are not necessary conditions of moral responsibility. Given Kant's transcendental idealism, even an entity that lacks these markers could be free and morally responsible, although as a matter of fact Kant thinks that none are. Given that they are neither necessary nor sufficient conditions, I discuss the status of Kant's claim that higher faculties are empirical markers of moral responsibility. Drawing on connections between Kant's ethical theory and 'common rational cognition' (4:393), I suggest that Kant's theory of empirical markers can be traced to ordinary common sense beliefs about responsibility. This suggestion helps explain both why empirical markers are important and what the limits of empirical psychology are within Kant's account of moral responsibility.

Empirical Risk Analysis of Severe Reactor Accidents in Nuclear Power Plants after Fukushima

OpenAIRE

Kaiser, Jan Christian

2012-01-01

Many countries are reexamining the risks connected with nuclear power generation after the Fukushima accidents. To provide updated information for the corresponding discussion a simple empirical approach is applied for risk quantification of severe reactor accidents with International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES) level ≥5. The analysis is based on worldwide data of commercial nuclear facilities. An empirical hazard of 21 (95% confidence intervals (CI) 4; 62) severe accidents am...

What 'empirical turn in bioethics'?

Science.gov (United States)

Hurst, Samia

2010-10-01

Uncertainty as to how we should articulate empirical data and normative reasoning seems to underlie most difficulties regarding the 'empirical turn' in bioethics. This article examines three different ways in which we could understand 'empirical turn'. Using real facts in normative reasoning is trivial and would not represent a 'turn'. Becoming an empirical discipline through a shift to the social and neurosciences would be a turn away from normative thinking, which we should not take. Conducting empirical research to inform normative reasoning is the usual meaning given to the term 'empirical turn'. In this sense, however, the turn is incomplete. Bioethics has imported methodological tools from empirical disciplines, but too often it has not imported the standards to which researchers in these disciplines are held. Integrating empirical and normative approaches also represents true added difficulties. Addressing these issues from the standpoint of debates on the fact-value distinction can cloud very real methodological concerns by displacing the debate to a level of abstraction where they need not be apparent. Ideally, empirical research in bioethics should meet standards for empirical and normative validity similar to those used in the source disciplines for these methods, and articulate these aspects clearly and appropriately. More modestly, criteria to ensure that none of these standards are completely left aside would improve the quality of empirical bioethics research and partly clear the air of critiques addressing its theoretical justification, when its rigour in the particularly difficult context of interdisciplinarity is what should be at stake.

A sensitivity analysis of centrifugal compressors' empirical models

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yoon, Sung Ho; Baek, Je Hyun

2001-01-01

The mean-line method using empirical models is the most practical method of predicting off-design performance. To gain insight into the empirical models, the influence of empirical models on the performance prediction results is investigated. We found that, in the two-zone model, the secondary flow mass fraction has a considerable effect at high mass flow-rates on the performance prediction curves. In the TEIS model, the first element changes the slope of the performance curves as well as the stable operating range. The second element makes the performance curves move up and down as it increases or decreases. It is also discovered that the slip factor affects pressure ratio, but it has little effect on efficiency. Finally, this study reveals that the skin friction coefficient has significant effect on both the pressure ratio curve and the efficiency curve. These results show the limitations of the present empirical models, and more reasonable empirical models are reeded

Importance-performance analysis as a guide for hospitals in improving their provision of services.

Science.gov (United States)

Whynes, D K; Reed, G

1995-11-01

As a result of the 1990 National Health Services Act, hospitals now compete with one another to win service contracts. A high level of service quality represents an important ingredient of a successful competitive strategy, yet, in general, hospitals have little external information on which to base quality decisions. Specifically, in their efforts to win contracts from fundholding general practitioners, hospitals require information on that which these purchasers deem important with respect to quality, and on how these purchasers assess the quality of their current service performance. The problem is complicated by the fact that hospital service quality, in itself, is multi-dimensional. In other areas of economic activity, the information problem has been resolved by importance-performance analysis and this paper reports the findings of such an analysis conducted for hosptials in the Trent region. The importance and performance service quality ratings of fundholders were obtained from a questionnaire survey and used in a particular variant of importance-performance analysis, which possesses certain advantages over more conventional approaches. In addition to providing empirical data on the determinants of service quality, as perceived by the purchasers of hospital services, this paper demonstrates how such information can be successfully employed in a quality enhancement strategy.

An Empirical Analysis of the Impact of Capital Market Activities on ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

An Empirical Analysis of the Impact of Capital Market Activities on the Nigerian Economy. ... Others include the expansion of the stock market in terms of depth and breadth and the attraction of foreign direct investment and foreign portfolio investment into the Nigerian economic landscape. Keywords: Nigeria, Market ...

Victim countries of transnational terrorism: an empirical characteristics analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Elbakidze, Levan; Jin, Yanhong

2012-12-01

This study empirically investigates the association between country-level socioeconomic characteristics and risk of being victimized in transnational terrorism events. We find that a country's annual financial contribution to the U.N. general operating budget has a positive association with the frequency of being victimized in transnational terrorism events. In addition, per capita GDP, political freedom, and openness to trade are nonlinearly related to the frequency of being victimized in transnational terrorism events. © 2012 Society for Risk Analysis.

The effect of marketing expenses on car sales – an empirical analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tudose Mihaela Brînduşa

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The paper assesses empirically the relationship between marketing expenditures and sales in a highly competitive industry, namely automotive, by analyzing the marketing expending of Automobile Dacia S.A. The first part of the paper presents the state-of-the-art and discusses the studies previously conducted which focus on the structure, dynamic and the impact of marketing expenses, while the second part consists in an empirical analysis conducted on Automobile Dacia S.A. marketing spending. The results of the study show that the company managed to increase its’ market share by adopting differentiated marketing for each geographical area. Although the research revealed that the allocation percentage from sales for marketing spending is relatively low (5-6%, the analysis conducted on the cost per unit sold reveals a share of 3% on marketing spending.

An Empirical Analysis of Human Performance and Nuclear Safety Culture

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jeffrey Joe; Larry G. Blackwood

2006-01-01

The purpose of this analysis, which was conducted for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), was to test whether an empirical connection exists between human performance and nuclear power plant safety culture. This was accomplished through analyzing the relationship between a measure of human performance and a plant's Safety Conscious Work Environment (SCWE). SCWE is an important component of safety culture the NRC has developed, but it is not synonymous with it. SCWE is an environment in which employees are encouraged to raise safety concerns both to their own management and to the NRC without fear of harassment, intimidation, retaliation, or discrimination. Because the relationship between human performance and allegations is intuitively reciprocal and both relationship directions need exploration, two series of analyses were performed. First, human performance data could be indicative of safety culture, so regression analyses were performed using human performance data to predict SCWE. It also is likely that safety culture contributes to human performance issues at a plant, so a second set of regressions were performed using allegations to predict HFIS results

Extended Analysis of Empirical Citations with Skinner's "Verbal Behavior": 1984-2004

Science.gov (United States)

Dixon, Mark R.; Small, Stacey L.; Rosales, Rocio

2007-01-01

The present paper comments on and extends the citation analysis of verbal operant publications based on Skinner's "Verbal Behavior" (1957) by Dymond, O'Hora, Whelan, and O'Donovan (2006). Variations in population parameters were evaluated for only those studies that Dymond et al. categorized as empirical. Preliminary results indicate that the…

Critical Access Hospitals and Retail Activity: An Empirical Analysis in Oklahoma

Science.gov (United States)

Brooks, Lara; Whitacre, Brian E.

2011-01-01

Purpose: This paper takes an empirical approach to determining the effect that a critical access hospital (CAH) has on local retail activity. Previous research on the relationship between hospitals and economic development has primarily focused on single-case, multiplier-oriented analysis. However, as the efficacy of federal and state-level rural…

Importul de mărfuri din Imperiul Rus în Principatul Moldovei la sfârşitul secolului al XVIII-lea - începutul secolului al XIX-lea / Imports from the Russian Empire into the Principality of Moldavia at the end of the 18th century - the beginning of the 19th century

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Irina Cereş

2016-10-01

Full Text Available In the period under review trade relations between the Principality of Moldavia and the Russian Empire experienced a new stage of development. Moldavia continued to import consumer goods from the Russian Empire. The increase in the volume of trade between the Russian Empire and the Romanian Principalities took place after the signing of the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca. Trade relations between the Principality of Moldavia and the Russian Empire were based on the Russian-Turkish trade treaty concluded in 1783. Particularly important and especially expensive imported goods were furs. In addition to the furs, there were imported iron and steel products, which competed with the products from Austria. The government of the Russian Empire encouraged the duty-free importation of large quantities of goods from Russia ostensibly for the army, and this caused damage to the Moldavian treasury. An important role in the import of goods from the Russian Empire into the Principality of Moldavia played merchants, especially foreign ones. The analysis showed that furs, canvas, cloth, iron and ironware, linen, and vodka were predominant among these imports.

Sources of Currency Crisis: An Empirical Analysis

OpenAIRE

Weber, Axel A.

1997-01-01

Two types of currency crisis models coexist in the literature: first generation models view speculative attacks as being caused by economic fundamentals which are inconsistent with a given parity. Second generation models claim self-fulfilling speculation as the main source of a currency crisis. Recent empirical research in international macroeconomics has attempted to distinguish between the sources of currency crises. This paper adds to this literature by proposing a new empirical approach ...

Empirical analysis of online human dynamics

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Zhi-Dan; Zhou, Tao

2012-06-01

Patterns of human activities have attracted increasing academic interests, since the quantitative understanding of human behavior is helpful to uncover the origins of many socioeconomic phenomena. This paper focuses on behaviors of Internet users. Six large-scale systems are studied in our experiments, including the movie-watching in Netflix and MovieLens, the transaction in Ebay, the bookmark-collecting in Delicious, and the posting in FreindFeed and Twitter. Empirical analysis reveals some common statistical features of online human behavior: (1) The total number of user's actions, the user's activity, and the interevent time all follow heavy-tailed distributions. (2) There exists a strongly positive correlation between user's activity and the total number of user's actions, and a significantly negative correlation between the user's activity and the width of the interevent time distribution. We further study the rescaling method and show that this method could to some extent eliminate the different statistics among users caused by the different activities, yet the effectiveness depends on the data sets.

Lessons Learned on Benchmarking from the International Human Reliability Analysis Empirical Study

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Boring, Ronald L.; Forester, John A.; Bye, Andreas; Dang, Vinh N.; Lois, Erasmia

2010-01-01

The International Human Reliability Analysis (HRA) Empirical Study is a comparative benchmark of the prediction of HRA methods to the performance of nuclear power plant crews in a control room simulator. There are a number of unique aspects to the present study that distinguish it from previous HRA benchmarks, most notably the emphasis on a method-to-data comparison instead of a method-to-method comparison. This paper reviews seven lessons learned about HRA benchmarking from conducting the study: (1) the dual purposes of the study afforded by joining another HRA study; (2) the importance of comparing not only quantitative but also qualitative aspects of HRA; (3) consideration of both negative and positive drivers on crew performance; (4) a relatively large sample size of crews; (5) the use of multiple methods and scenarios to provide a well-rounded view of HRA performance; (6) the importance of clearly defined human failure events; and (7) the use of a common comparison language to 'translate' the results of different HRA methods. These seven lessons learned highlight how the present study can serve as a useful template for future benchmarking studies.

Lessons Learned on Benchmarking from the International Human Reliability Analysis Empirical Study

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ronald L. Boring; John A. Forester; Andreas Bye; Vinh N. Dang; Erasmia Lois

2010-06-01

The International Human Reliability Analysis (HRA) Empirical Study is a comparative benchmark of the prediction of HRA methods to the performance of nuclear power plant crews in a control room simulator. There are a number of unique aspects to the present study that distinguish it from previous HRA benchmarks, most notably the emphasis on a method-to-data comparison instead of a method-to-method comparison. This paper reviews seven lessons learned about HRA benchmarking from conducting the study: (1) the dual purposes of the study afforded by joining another HRA study; (2) the importance of comparing not only quantitative but also qualitative aspects of HRA; (3) consideration of both negative and positive drivers on crew performance; (4) a relatively large sample size of crews; (5) the use of multiple methods and scenarios to provide a well-rounded view of HRA performance; (6) the importance of clearly defined human failure events; and (7) the use of a common comparison language to “translate” the results of different HRA methods. These seven lessons learned highlight how the present study can serve as a useful template for future benchmarking studies.

Intuition in Decision Making –Theoretical and Empirical Aspects

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kamila Malewska

2015-11-01

Full Text Available In an economy dominated by information and knowledge, analysis ceases to be the sole and sufficient source of knowledge. Managers seek alternative ways of obtaining and interpreting information and knowledge. Here, managerial intuitive potential begins to play an important role. The aim of this paper is to present the issue of intuition in decision making in both theoretical and empirical terms. The first part presents the essence of intuition and its role in management, especially in decision making. Then, the empirical part attempts to identify the intuitive potential of managers and the extent of its use in practical decision making. The case study method was used in order to achieve this goal. The analysis involved a Polish food company “Fawor” that employs more than 300 workers. These literature and empirical studies in the area of intuition were conducted within the research project „The impact of managerial intuitive potential on the effectiveness of decision making processes”, financed by the National Science Centre, Poland (funds allocated on the basis of decision No. DEC-2014/13/D/HS4/01750

Estimating Aggregate Import-Demand Function In Nigeria: A Co ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

This paper investigates the behaviour of Nigeria's aggregate imports between the periods 1980-2005. In the empirical analysis of the aggregate import demand function for Nigeria, cointegration and Error Correction modeling approaches have been used. Our econometric estimates suggest that real GDP largely explains ...

Fast multidimensional ensemble empirical mode decomposition for the analysis of big spatio-temporal datasets.

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, Zhaohua; Feng, Jiaxin; Qiao, Fangli; Tan, Zhe-Min

2016-04-13

In this big data era, it is more urgent than ever to solve two major issues: (i) fast data transmission methods that can facilitate access to data from non-local sources and (ii) fast and efficient data analysis methods that can reveal the key information from the available data for particular purposes. Although approaches in different fields to address these two questions may differ significantly, the common part must involve data compression techniques and a fast algorithm. This paper introduces the recently developed adaptive and spatio-temporally local analysis method, namely the fast multidimensional ensemble empirical mode decomposition (MEEMD), for the analysis of a large spatio-temporal dataset. The original MEEMD uses ensemble empirical mode decomposition to decompose time series at each spatial grid and then pieces together the temporal-spatial evolution of climate variability and change on naturally separated timescales, which is computationally expensive. By taking advantage of the high efficiency of the expression using principal component analysis/empirical orthogonal function analysis for spatio-temporally coherent data, we design a lossy compression method for climate data to facilitate its non-local transmission. We also explain the basic principles behind the fast MEEMD through decomposing principal components instead of original grid-wise time series to speed up computation of MEEMD. Using a typical climate dataset as an example, we demonstrate that our newly designed methods can (i) compress data with a compression rate of one to two orders; and (ii) speed-up the MEEMD algorithm by one to two orders. © 2016 The Authors.

EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF THE ROLE OF THE FIRMS’ VALUE DRIVERS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anita KISS

2015-12-01

Full Text Available This paper focuses on the value creation and the value drivers. One of the objectives of this paper is to present the concept of maximizing shareholder value. The main goal is to categorize the most important value drivers, and their role of the firms’ value. This study proceeds as follows. The first section presents the value chain, the primary and the support activities. The second part describes the theoretical background of maximizing shareholder value. The third part illustrates the key value drivers. The fourth empirical section of the study analyses the database featuring data from 18 European countries, 10 sectors and 1553 firms in the period between 2004 and 2011. Finally, the fifth section includes concluding remarks. Based on the related literature reviewed and in the conducted empirical research it can be assessed that, the EBIT, reinvestment, invested capital, the return on invested capital, the net margin and the sales growth rate all have a positive effect on firm value, while the tax rate and the market value of return on asset (MROA has a negative one.

Deriving Multidimensional Poverty Indicators: Methodological Issues and an Empirical Analysis for Italy

Science.gov (United States)

Coromaldi, Manuela; Zoli, Mariangela

2012-01-01

Theoretical and empirical studies have recently adopted a multidimensional concept of poverty. There is considerable debate about the most appropriate degree of multidimensionality to retain in the analysis. In this work we add to the received literature in two ways. First, we derive indicators of multiple deprivation by applying a particular…

Islamic banks and profitability: an empirical analysis of Indonesian banking

OpenAIRE

Jordan, Sarah

2013-01-01

This paper provides an empirical analysis of the factors that determine the profitability of Indonesian banks between the years 2006-2012. In particular, it investigates whether there are any significant differences in terms of profitability between Islamic banks and commercial banks. The results, obtained by applying the system-GMM estimator to the panel of 54 banks, indicate that the high bank profitability during these years were determined mainly by the size of the banks, the market share...

Exploring Advertising in Higher Education: An Empirical Analysis in North America, Europe, and Japan

Science.gov (United States)

Papadimitriou, Antigoni; Blanco Ramírez, Gerardo

2015-01-01

This empirical study explores higher education advertising campaigns displayed in five world cities: Boston, New York, Oslo, Tokyo, and Toronto. The study follows a mixed-methods research design relying on content analysis and multimodal semiotic analysis and employs a conceptual framework based on the knowledge triangle of education, research,…

Empirical analysis of the environmental and energy policies in some developing countries using widely employed macroeconomic indicators: the cases of Brazil, China and India

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Focacci, Antonio

2005-01-01

This paper proposes an empirical analysis concerning the environmental and energy policies of some important developing countries (Brazil, China and India) today present in the international scenario with very different features than in the past. The research is carried out using two of the most important macroeconomic indicators several times proposed in the field of policy analysis: emission-intensity ratio and energy-intensity ratio. Moreover, the emission-intensity ratio is used in order to verify the empirical existence of the so-called 'Environmental Kuznets Curve' for the three countries. For what concerns this last point, final results do not correspond closely to the theoretical strict formulations hypothesised in the classical Environmental Kuznets Curve model. This paper follows (completing and concluding) the previous one carried out by the same author for some industrialised countries. After a brief, but ineluctable, premise considering the theoretical basic assumptions to define the question and regarding general statements, the specific cases are analysed. Main findings show that resulting trends in these developing countries are different and, furthermore, they differ from those already observed in industrialised ones. (Author)

Empirical analysis of the environmental and energy policies in some developing countries using widely employed macroeconomic indicators: the cases of Brazil, China and India

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Focacci, Antonio [Bologna Univ., Business and Management Dept., Bologna (Italy)

2005-03-01

This paper proposes an empirical analysis concerning the environmental and energy policies of some important developing countries (Brazil, China and India) today present in the international scenario with very different features than in the past. The research is carried out using two of the most important macroeconomic indicators several times proposed in the field of policy analysis: emission-intensity ratio and energy-intensity ratio. Moreover, the emission-intensity ratio is used in order to verify the empirical existence of the so-called 'Environmental Kuznets Curve' for the three countries. For what concerns this last point, final results do not correspond closely to the theoretical strict formulations hypothesised in the classical Environmental Kuznets Curve model. This paper follows (completing and concluding) the previous one carried out by the same author for some industrialised countries. After a brief, but ineluctable, premise considering the theoretical basic assumptions to define the question and regarding general statements, the specific cases are analysed. Main findings show that resulting trends in these developing countries are different and, furthermore, they differ from those already observed in industrialised ones. (Author)

An Empirical Analysis of the Budget Deficit

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ioan Talpos

2007-11-01

Full Text Available Economic policies and, particularly, fiscal policies are not designed and implemented in an “empty space”: the structural characteristics of the economic systems, the institutional architecture of societies, the cultural paradigm and the power relations between different social groups define the borders of these policies. This paper tries to deal with these borders, to describe their nature and the implications of their existence to the fiscal policies’ quality and impact at a theoretical level as well as at an empirical one. The main results of the proposed analysis support the ideas that the mentioned variables matters both for the social mandate entrusted by the society to the state and thus to the role and functions of the state and for the economic growth as a support of the resources collected at distributed by the public authorities.

Reflective equilibrium and empirical data: third person moral experiences in empirical medical ethics.

Science.gov (United States)

De Vries, Martine; Van Leeuwen, Evert

2010-11-01

In ethics, the use of empirical data has become more and more popular, leading to a distinct form of applied ethics, namely empirical ethics. This 'empirical turn' is especially visible in bioethics. There are various ways of combining empirical research and ethical reflection. In this paper we discuss the use of empirical data in a special form of Reflective Equilibrium (RE), namely the Network Model with Third Person Moral Experiences. In this model, the empirical data consist of the moral experiences of people in a practice. Although inclusion of these moral experiences in this specific model of RE can be well defended, their use in the application of the model still raises important questions. What precisely are moral experiences? How to determine relevance of experiences, in other words: should there be a selection of the moral experiences that are eventually used in the RE? How much weight should the empirical data have in the RE? And the key question: can the use of RE by empirical ethicists really produce answers to practical moral questions? In this paper we start to answer the above questions by giving examples taken from our research project on understanding the norm of informed consent in the field of pediatric oncology. We especially emphasize that incorporation of empirical data in a network model can reduce the risk of self-justification and bias and can increase the credibility of the RE reached. © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Business ethics and economic growth: An empirical analysis for Turkish economy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ekrem Erdem

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Purpose – The roots of the science of modern economics are originated from the ideas of Adam Smith who is not a pure economist but a moralist-philosopher. Basic concepts in the Wealth of Nations which is perceived as the hand book of economics depend on the arguments that Adam Smith suggests in his Theory of Moral Sentiments. In this theory, business ethics as a part of the Law of Sympathy appears as one of the factors that provide the invisible hand to operate properly. In light of this property, it is possible to assume business ethics as one of the components of the market mechanism. In this context, this study aims to analyse the link between business ethics and economic growth in the Turkish economy. Design/methodology/approach – The study employs bounced cheques and protested bonds for representing the degradation of business ethics and tries to show how this degradation affects economic growth in the Turkish economy for the period 1988-2013. Findings – Either illustrative or empirical results show that business ethics is an important determinant of economic growth in the Turkish economy and damaging it negatively effects the growth rate of the economy. Research limitations/implications – One of the most restrictive things conducting the present empirical analysis is the lack of various and longer data sets. Using different indicators in terms of business ethics with longer time span will definitely increase the reliability of the study. However, in the current form, results imply a policy that is capable of limiting the failures of business ethics may boost the Turkish economy up. Originality/value – The results tend to support the close link between business ethics and economic growth.

The effect of loss functions on empirical Bayes reliability analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Camara Vincent A. R.

1998-01-01

Full Text Available The aim of the present study is to investigate the sensitivity of empirical Bayes estimates of the reliability function with respect to changing of the loss function. In addition to applying some of the basic analytical results on empirical Bayes reliability obtained with the use of the “popular” squared error loss function, we shall derive some expressions corresponding to empirical Bayes reliability estimates obtained with the Higgins–Tsokos, the Harris and our proposed logarithmic loss functions. The concept of efficiency, along with the notion of integrated mean square error, will be used as a criterion to numerically compare our results. It is shown that empirical Bayes reliability functions are in general sensitive to the choice of the loss function, and that the squared error loss does not always yield the best empirical Bayes reliability estimate.

Nudges and coercion: conceptual, empirical, and normative considerations.

Science.gov (United States)

Cratsley, Kelso

2015-01-01

Given that the concept of coercion remains a central concern for bioethics, Quigley's (Monash Bioethics Rev 32:141-158, 2014) recent article provides a helpful analysis of its frequent misapplication in debates over the use of 'nudges'. In this commentary I present a generally sympathetic response to Quigley's argument while also raising several issues that are important for the larger debates about nudges and coercion. I focus on several closely related topics, including the definition of coercion, the role of empirical research, and the normative concerns at the core of these disputes. I suggest that while a degree of precision is certainly required when deploying the relevant concepts, perhaps informed by empirical data, we need to continue to push these debates towards more pressing normative considerations.

Empirical Analysis of Closed-Loop Duopoly Advertising Strategies

OpenAIRE

Gary M. Erickson

1992-01-01

Closed-loop (perfect) equilibria in a Lanchester duopoly differential game of advertising competition are used as the basis for empirical investigation. Two systems of simultaneous nonlinear equations are formed, one from a general Lanchester model and one from a constrained model. Two empirical applications are conducted. In one involving Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola, a formal statistical testing procedure is used to detect whether closed-loop equilibrium advertising strategies are used by the c...

Intermodal connectivity in Europe, an empirical exploration

NARCIS (Netherlands)

de Langen, P.W.; Lases Figueroa, D.M.; van Donselaar, K.H.; Bozuwa, J.

2017-01-01

In this paper we analyse the intermodal connectivity in Europe. The empirical analysis is to our knowledge the first empirical analysis of intermodal connections, and is based on a comprehensive database of intermodal connections in Europe. The paper focuses on rail and barge services, as they are

An Empirical Analysis of the Default Rate of Informal Lending—Evidence from Yiwu, China

Science.gov (United States)

Lu, Wei; Yu, Xiaobo; Du, Juan; Ji, Feng

This study empirically analyzes the underlying factors contributing to the default rate of informal lending. This paper adopts snowball sampling interview to collect data and uses the logistic regression model to explore the specific factors. The results of these analyses validate the explanation of how the informal lending differs from the commercial loan. Factors that contribute to the default rate have particular attributes, while sharing some similarities with commercial bank or FICO credit scoring Index. Finally, our concluding remarks draw some inferences from empirical analysis and speculate as to what this may imply for the role of formal and informal financial sectors.

A theoretical and empirical evaluation and extension of the Todaro migration model.

Science.gov (United States)

Salvatore, D

1981-11-01

"This paper postulates that it is theoretically and empirically preferable to base internal labor migration on the relative difference in rural-urban real income streams and rates of unemployment, taken as separate and independent variables, rather than on the difference in the expected real income streams as postulated by the very influential and often quoted Todaro model. The paper goes on to specify several important ways of extending the resulting migration model and improving its empirical performance." The analysis is based on Italian data. excerpt

Characterizing Social Interaction in Tobacco-Oriented Social Networks: An Empirical Analysis

OpenAIRE

Liang, Yunji; Zheng, Xiaolong; Zeng, Daniel Dajun; Zhou, Xingshe; Leischow, Scott James; Chung, Wingyan

2015-01-01

Social media is becoming a new battlefield for tobacco ?wars?. Evaluating the current situation is very crucial for the advocacy of tobacco control in the age of social media. To reveal the impact of tobacco-related user-generated content, this paper characterizes user interaction and social influence utilizing social network analysis and information theoretic approaches. Our empirical studies demonstrate that the exploding pro-tobacco content has long-lasting effects with more active users a...

Research on Browsing Behavior in the Libraries: An Empirical Analysis of Consequences, Success and Influences

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shan-Ju L. Chang

2000-12-01

Full Text Available Browsing as an important part of human information behavior has been observed and investigated in the context of information seeking in the library in general and has assumed greater importance in human-machine interaction in particular. However, the nature and consequences of browsing are not well understood, and little is known of the success rate of such behavior.In this research, exploratory empirical case studies from three types of libraries were conducted, using questionnaires, observation logs, interviews, and computer search logs, to derive the empirical evidence to understand, from the user point of view, what are the consequences of browsing, what constitutes successful browsing, and what factors influence the extent of browsing. Content analysis and statistical analysis were conducted to analyze and synthesize the data. The research results show: (1 There are nine categories of the consequence of browsing, including accidental findings, modification of information need, found the desirable information, learning, feeling relaxation/recreational, information gathering, keeping updated, satisfying curiosity, and not finding what is needed. (2 Four factors that produce successful browsing: intention, the amount or quality of information, the utility of what is found, and help for solving problem or making judgment. (3 Three types of reasons for unsuccessful experience in browsing: not finding what one wanted, inadequate volume or quality of information, and not finding some things useful or interesting. (4 Three types of reasons for partial success: found the intended object but not happy with the quality or amount of information in it, not finding what one wanted but discovering new or potential useful information, not accomplish one purpose but achieve another one given multiple purposes. (5 The influential factors that affect the extent one engages in browsing include browser’s time, scheme of information organization, proximity to

An empirical analysis of strategy implementation process and performance of construction companies

Science.gov (United States)

Zaidi, F. I.; Zawawi, E. M. A.; Nordin, R. M.; Ahnuar, E. M.

2018-02-01

Strategy implementation is known as action stage where it is to be considered as the most difficult stage in strategic planning. Strategy implementation can influence the whole texture of a company including its performance. The aim of this research is to provide the empirical relationship between strategy implementation process and performance of construction companies. This research establishes the strategy implementation process and how it influences the performance of construction companies. This research used quantitative method approached via questionnaire survey. Respondents were G7 construction companies in Klang Valley, Selangor. Pearson correlation analysis indicate a strong positive relationship between strategy implementation process and construction companies’ performance. The most importance part of strategy implementation process is to provide sufficient training for employees which directly influence the construction companies’ profit growth and employees’ growth. This research results will benefit top management in the construction companies to conduct strategy implementation in their companies. This research may not reflect the whole construction industry in Malaysia. Future research may be resumed to small and medium grades contractors and perhaps in other areas in Malaysia.

Calibrating a combined energy systems analysis and controller design method with empirical data

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Murphy, Gavin Bruce; Counsell, John; Allison, John; Brindley, Joseph

2013-01-01

The drive towards low carbon constructions has seen buildings increasingly utilise many different energy systems simultaneously to control the human comfort of the indoor environment; such as ventilation with heat recovery, various heating solutions and applications of renewable energy. This paper describes a dynamic modelling and simulation method (IDEAS – Inverse Dynamics based Energy Assessment and Simulation) for analysing the energy utilisation of a building and its complex servicing systems. The IDEAS case study presented in this paper is based upon small perturbation theory and can be used for the analysis of the performance of complex energy systems and also for the design of smart control systems. This paper presents a process of how any dynamic model can be calibrated against a more empirical based data model, in this case the UK Government's SAP (Standard Assessment Procedure). The research targets of this work are building simulation experts for analysing the energy use of a building and also control engineers to assist in the design of smart control systems for dwellings. The calibration process presented is transferable and has applications for simulation experts to assist in calibrating any dynamic building simulation method with an empirical based method. - Highlights: • Presentation of an energy systems analysis method for assessing the energy utilisation of buildings and their complex servicing systems. • An inverse dynamics based controller design method is detailed. • Method of how a dynamic model can be calibrated with an empirical based model

An ACE-based Nonlinear Extension to Traditional Empirical Orthogonal Function Analysis

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hilger, Klaus Baggesen; Nielsen, Allan Aasbjerg; Andersen, Ole

2001-01-01

This paper shows the application of the empirical orthogonal unctions/principal component transformation on global sea surface height and temperature data from 1996 and 1997. A nonlinear correlation analysis of the transformed data is proposed and performed by applying the alternating conditional...... expectations algorithm. New canonical variates are found that indicate that the highest correlation between ocean temperature and height is associated with the build-up of the El Niño during the last half of 1997....

Empirical analysis of retirement pension and IFRS adoption effects on accounting information: glance at IT industry.

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, JeongYeon

2014-01-01

This study reviews new pension accounting with K-IFRS and provides empirical changes in liability for retirement allowances with adoption of K-IFRS. It will help to understand the effect of pension accounting on individual firm's financial report and the importance of public announcement of actuarial assumptions. Firms that adopted K-IFRS had various changes in retirement liability compared to the previous financial report not based on K-IFRS. Their actuarial assumptions for pension accounting should be announced, but only few of them were published. Data analysis shows that the small differences of the actuarial assumption may result in a big change of retirement related liability. Firms within IT industry also have similar behaviors, which means that additional financial regulations for pension accounting are recommended.

Let the Weakest Link Go! Empirical Explorations on the Relative Importance of Weak and Strong Ties on Social Networking Sites

OpenAIRE

Nicole C. Krämer; Leonie Rösner; Sabrina C. Eimler; Stephan Winter; German Neubaum

2014-01-01

Theoretical approaches as well as empirical results in the area of social capital accumulation on social networking sites suggest that weak ties/bridging versus strong ties/bonding social capital should be distinguished and that while bonding social capital is connected to emotional support, bridging social capital entails the provision of information. Additionally, recent studies imply the notion that weak ties/bridging social capital are gaining increasing importance in today’s social media...

Does risk management contribute to IT project success? A meta-analysis of empirical evidence

NARCIS (Netherlands)

de Bakker, K.F.C.; Boonstra, A.; Wortmann, J.C.

The question whether risk management contributes to IT project success is considered relevant by people from both academic and practitioners' communities already for a long time. This paper presents a meta-analysis of the empirical evidence that either supports or opposes the claim that risk

Pharmacoeconomic analysis of voriconazole vs. caspofungin in the empirical antifungal therapy of febrile neutropenia in Australia.

Science.gov (United States)

Al-Badriyeh, Daoud; Liew, Danny; Stewart, Kay; Kong, David C M

2012-05-01

In two major clinical trials, voriconazole and caspofungin were recommended as alternatives to liposomal amphotericin B for empirical use in febrile neutropenia. This study investigated the health economic impact of using voriconazole vs. caspofungin in patients with febrile neutropenia. A decision analytic model was developed to measure downstream consequences of empirical antifungal therapy. Clinical outcomes measured were success, breakthrough infection, persistent base-line infection, persistent fever, premature discontinuation and death. Treatment transition probabilities and patterns were directly derived from data in two relevant randomised controlled trials. Resource use was estimated using an expert clinical panel. Cost inputs were obtained from latest Australian sources. The analysis adopted the perspective of the Australian hospital system. The use of caspofungin led to a lower expected mean cost per patient than voriconazole (AU$40,558 vs. AU$41,356), with a net cost saving of AU$798 (1.9%) per patient. Results were most sensitive to the duration of therapy and the alternative therapy used post-discontinuation. In uncertainty analysis, the cost associated with caspofungin is less than that with voriconazole in 65.5% of cases. This is the first economic evaluation of voriconazole vs. caspofungin for empirical therapy. Caspofungin appears to have a higher probability of having cost-savings than voriconazole for empirical therapy. The difference between the two medications does not seem to be statistically significant however. © 2011 Blackwell Verlag GmbH.

Perception of urban retailing environments : an empirical analysis of consumer information and usage fields

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Timmermans, H.J.P.; vd Heijden, R.E.C.M.; Westerveld, J.

1982-01-01

This article reports on an empirical analysis of consumer information and usage fields in the city of Eindhoven. The main purposes of this study are to investigate the distance, sectoral and directional biases of these fields, to analyse whether the degree of biases is related to personal

Regulatory reforms and productivity: An empirical analysis of the Japanese electricity industry

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nakano, Makiko; Managi, Shunsuke

2008-01-01

The Japanese electricity industry has experienced regulatory reforms since the mid-1990s. This article measures productivity in Japan's steam power-generation sector and examines the effect of reforms on the productivity of this industry over the period 1978-2003. We estimate the Luenberger productivity indicator, which is a generalization of the commonly used Malmquist productivity index, using a data envelopment analysis approach. Factors associated with productivity change are investigated through dynamic generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation of panel data. Our empirical analysis shows that the regulatory reforms have contributed to productivity growth in the steam power-generation sector in Japan

An Empirical Investigation of Telecommunications Investment and Economic Development in Developing Countries

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Seung-Hoon Yoo

2001-12-01

Full Text Available Evaluating the sources of economic development is of obvious importance, and numerous attempts have been made to judge the impact of many different factors on economic development. Since some empirical studies have reported that telecommunications investment is one of the important factors in economic development, this paper empirically investigates the impact of telecommunications investment on economic development using a cross-country analysis based on data from 56 developing countries for the years 1970-98. To this end, a further augmented version of the neoclassical Solow growth model is suggested and applied. Subject to the appropriate caveats, the results provide further support for several key conclusions of the former studies - investment in physical capital, population growth, and human capital seem to be quite important in accounting for economic development in developing countries. In addition, more importantly, it is concluded that telecommunications investment significantly contributes to economic development in the developing world.

Factors affecting on customers’ satisfaction an empirical investigation of ATM service

OpenAIRE

Kumbhar, Vijay

2011-01-01

The present empirical study focuses on identifying key factors that have influences customers satisfaction in ATM service provided by public and private sector banks. For the purpose of the study primary data were collected using schedule and collected data from March to November 2010. Results of factor analysis, correlation and regression analysis show that a cost effectiveness, easy to use and security and responsiveness in ATM service were most important factors in customer satisfaction.

Ancient DNA Analysis Suggests Negligible Impact of the Wari Empire Expansion in Peru's Central Coast during the Middle Horizon.

Science.gov (United States)

Valverde, Guido; Barreto Romero, María Inés; Flores Espinoza, Isabel; Cooper, Alan; Fehren-Schmitz, Lars; Llamas, Bastien; Haak, Wolfgang

2016-01-01

The analysis of ancient human DNA from South America allows the exploration of pre-Columbian population history through time and to directly test hypotheses about cultural and demographic evolution. The Middle Horizon (650-1100 AD) represents a major transitional period in the Central Andes, which is associated with the development and expansion of ancient Andean empires such as Wari and Tiwanaku. These empires facilitated a series of interregional interactions and socio-political changes, which likely played an important role in shaping the region's demographic and cultural profiles. We analyzed individuals from three successive pre-Columbian cultures present at the Huaca Pucllana archaeological site in Lima, Peru: Lima (Early Intermediate Period, 500-700 AD), Wari (Middle Horizon, 800-1000 AD) and Ychsma (Late Intermediate Period, 1000-1450 AD). We sequenced 34 complete mitochondrial genomes to investigate the potential genetic impact of the Wari Empire in the Central Coast of Peru. The results indicate that genetic diversity shifted only slightly through time, ruling out a complete population discontinuity or replacement driven by the Wari imperialist hegemony, at least in the region around present-day Lima. However, we caution that the very subtle genetic contribution of Wari imperialism at the particular Huaca Pucllana archaeological site might not be representative for the entire Wari territory in the Peruvian Central Coast.

Ancient DNA Analysis Suggests Negligible Impact of the Wari Empire Expansion in Peru's Central Coast during the Middle Horizon.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Guido Valverde

Full Text Available The analysis of ancient human DNA from South America allows the exploration of pre-Columbian population history through time and to directly test hypotheses about cultural and demographic evolution. The Middle Horizon (650-1100 AD represents a major transitional period in the Central Andes, which is associated with the development and expansion of ancient Andean empires such as Wari and Tiwanaku. These empires facilitated a series of interregional interactions and socio-political changes, which likely played an important role in shaping the region's demographic and cultural profiles. We analyzed individuals from three successive pre-Columbian cultures present at the Huaca Pucllana archaeological site in Lima, Peru: Lima (Early Intermediate Period, 500-700 AD, Wari (Middle Horizon, 800-1000 AD and Ychsma (Late Intermediate Period, 1000-1450 AD. We sequenced 34 complete mitochondrial genomes to investigate the potential genetic impact of the Wari Empire in the Central Coast of Peru. The results indicate that genetic diversity shifted only slightly through time, ruling out a complete population discontinuity or replacement driven by the Wari imperialist hegemony, at least in the region around present-day Lima. However, we caution that the very subtle genetic contribution of Wari imperialism at the particular Huaca Pucllana archaeological site might not be representative for the entire Wari territory in the Peruvian Central Coast.

Electricity and Empire in 1920s Palestine under British Rule.

Science.gov (United States)

Shamir, Ronen

2016-12-01

This article examines some techno-political aspects of the early years of electrification in British-ruled 1920s Palestine. It emphasizes the importance of local technical, topographical and hydrological forms of knowledge for understanding the dynamics of electrification. Situating the analysis in a general colonial context of electrification, the study shows that British colonial rulers lagged behind both German firms and local entrepreneurs in understanding the specific conditions pertaining to electrification in Palestine. Subsequently, the study shows that the British had limited control of the actual electrification process and its declared/professed developmental purposes, thereby complicating assumptions about electrification as a tool of the Empire/tool of empire. Finding some similarities between the cases of electrifying Palestine and India, the article's findings may shed further light on the importance of micro-politics of knowledge for understanding the trajectory of electrification in the colonies.

Assessment of radiation damage behaviour in a large collection of empirically optimized datasets highlights the importance of unmeasured complicating effects

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Krojer, Tobias; Delft, Frank von

2011-01-01

A retrospective analysis of radiation damage behaviour in a statistically significant number of real-life datasets is presented, in order to gauge the importance of the complications not yet measured or rigorously evaluated in current experiments, and the challenges that remain before radiation damage can be considered a problem solved in practice. The radiation damage behaviour in 43 datasets of 34 different proteins collected over a year was examined, in order to gauge the reliability of decay metrics in practical situations, and to assess how these datasets, optimized only empirically for decay, would have benefited from the precise and automatic prediction of decay now possible with the programs RADDOSE [Murray, Garman & Ravelli (2004 ▶). J. Appl. Cryst.37, 513–522] and BEST [Bourenkov & Popov (2010 ▶). Acta Cryst. D66, 409–419]. The results indicate that in routine practice the diffraction experiment is not yet characterized well enough to support such precise predictions, as these depend fundamentally on three interrelated variables which cannot yet be determined robustly and practically: the flux density distribution of the beam; the exact crystal volume; the sensitivity of the crystal to dose. The former two are not satisfactorily approximated from typical beamline information such as nominal beam size and transmission, or two-dimensional images of the beam and crystal; the discrepancies are particularly marked when using microfocus beams (<20 µm). Empirically monitoring decay with the dataset scaling B factor (Bourenkov & Popov, 2010 ▶) appears more robust but is complicated by anisotropic and/or low-resolution diffraction. These observations serve to delineate the challenges, scientific and logistic, that remain to be addressed if tools for managing radiation damage in practical data collection are to be conveniently robust enough to be useful in real time

A social work study using factor analysis on detecting important factors creating stress: A case study of hydro-power employees

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Batoul Aminjafari

2012-08-01

Full Text Available The study performs an empirical study based on the implementation of factor analysis to detect different factors influencing people to have more stress in a hydropower unit located in city of Esfahan, Iran. The study performed the survey among all 81 people who were working for customer service section of this company and consisted of two parts, in the first part; we gather all private information such as age, gender, education, job experience, etc. through seven important questions. In the second part of the survey, there were 66 questions, which included all the relevant factors impacting employees' stress. Cronbach alpha was calculated as 0.946, which is well above the minimum acceptable level. The implementation of factor analysis has detected 16 important groups of factors and each factor is determined by an appropriate name. The results of our factor analysis show that among different factors, difficulty of working condition as well as work pressure are two most important factors increasing stress among employees.

An empirical analysis of the risk of crude oil imports in China using improved portfolio approach

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wu, Gang; Wei, Yi-Ming; Fan, Ying; Liu, Lan-Cui

2007-01-01

This paper quantifies the diversification index of China's crude oil imports during the period 1996-2004, and explores the relationship between the monthly prices and Brent crude oil cash prices. Accordingly, we calculate the systematic and specific risks using portfolio theory of China's crude oil import over the period 1996-2004. Because China's crude oil import increased rapidly since 1996, we improve upon the traditional portfolio theory and develop a risk index model of portfolio theory for crude oil imports in order to explore objectively the changes in China's crude oil import risks. The results show that China's crude oil import risk is affected extensively by the fluctuation of international oil prices. So the traditional portfolio theory is insufficient to measure China's crude oil import risk. The improved portfolio theory risks index model reflects the effect of international oil prices, diversification, imports, and geopolitics factors etc., on crude oil import risk, and changes in crude oil import risk. Therefore, the risk index model of portfolio theory provides greater theoretical and methodological robustness as an indicator of China's crude oil import security than that offered from the application of traditional measures of dependence. (author)

The incident of repetitive demands resolution in consumer affairs: empirical analysis of legal feasibility

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lucas do Monte Silva

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Faced with the scenario of massification of lawsuits, this article intends to analyze the main arguments and questionings of the demands related to moral damage and health plans, on Santa Catarina’s Court of Justice, in order to analyze the possible application of the incident of repetitive demands resolution of the new Civil Procedure Code. To do so, it will be done, first, an analysis of the current context of the Brazilian judiciary, presenting the context of repetitive demands and massification of contracts and introductory aspects of the incident of repetitive demands resolution. Then it will made be a judicial empirical analysis, quantitative and qualitative, through a case study of Santa Catarina Courts of Justice, conducting an empirical study of cross descriptive analysis of the demands related to the issue highlighted above, in order to demonstrate an 'argumentative radiography’ of the judgments of that Court. The results confirmed the possibility of applying IRDR in repetitive demands relating to subjects of this study, with due legal caution, taking into account the high number of “issues of fact” that involve lawsuits that have, among their claims, compensation for moral damages.

Empirical Analysis of Retirement Pension and IFRS Adoption Effects on Accounting Information: Glance at IT Industry

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

JeongYeon Kim

2014-01-01

Full Text Available This study reviews new pension accounting with K-IFRS and provides empirical changes in liability for retirement allowances with adoption of K-IFRS. It will help to understand the effect of pension accounting on individual firm’s financial report and the importance of public announcement of actuarial assumptions. Firms that adopted K-IFRS had various changes in retirement liability compared to the previous financial report not based on K-IFRS. Their actuarial assumptions for pension accounting should be announced, but only few of them were published. Data analysis shows that the small differences of the actuarial assumption may result in a big change of retirement related liability. Firms within IT industry also have similar behaviors, which means that additional financial regulations for pension accounting are recommended.

Empirical evidence from an inter-industry descriptive analysis of overall materiality measures

OpenAIRE

N. Pecchiari; C. Emby; G. Pogliani

2013-01-01

This study presents an empirical cross-industry descriptive analysis of overall quantitative materiality measures. We examine the behaviour of four commonly used quantitative materiality measures within and across industries with respect to their size, relative size and stability, over ten years. The sample consists of large- and medium-sized European companies, representing 24 different industry categories for the years 1998 through 2007 (a total sample of over 36,000 data points). Our resul...

An Empirical Analysis of Economic and Socio-Demographic Determinants of Entrepreneurship Across German Regions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mrożewski Matthias

2014-11-01

Full Text Available Entrepreneurship is fundamental for a country's economic development through its positive effect on innovation, productivity growth, and job creation. In entrepreneurial research, one of the most important problems is to define the factors that actually determine entrepreneurial action. This study analyzes that question in the case of Germany by taking an aggregated approach that focuses on socio-demographic and economic determinants of regional entrepreneurship. Based on a literature review of German and international regional-level research, six hypotheses are developed and empirically tested using the most recent available data on 385 German regions as units of analysis. The results are surprising. In the case of household income, unemployment, education and marital status the relationship is significant but contrary to earlier research. Only regional age structure seems to be a stable predictor of regional entrepreneurship. The results indicate that in recent years there was a major shift in the determinants and characteristics of entrepreneurship in Germany.

The Determinants of the Global Mobile Telephone Deployment: An Empirical Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sheikh Taher ABU

2010-01-01

Full Text Available This study aims to analyze the global mobile phones by examining the instruments stimulating the diffusion pattern. A rigorous demand model is estimated using global mobile telecommu-nications panel dataset comprised with 51 countries classified in order to World Bank income categories from 1990-2007. In particular, the paper examines what factors contribute the most to the deployment of global mobile telephones. To construct an econometric model, the number of subscribers to mobile phone per 100 inhabitants is taken as dependent variable, while the following groups of variables (1 GDP per capita income and charges, (2 competition policies (3 telecom infrastructure (4 technological innovations (5 others are selected as independent variables. Estimation results report the presence of substantial disparity among groups. Additionally GDP per capita income and own-price elasticity comprised with call rate, subscription charges, are reported. The analysis of impulse responses for price, competition policies, and technological innovations such as digitalization of mobile network, mobile network coverage indicates that substantial mobile telephone growth is yet to be realized especially in developing countries. A new and important empirical finding is that there are still many opportunities available for mobile phone development in the world pro-poor nations by providing better telecom infrastructure.

An empirical likelihood ratio test robust to individual heterogeneity for differential expression analysis of RNA-seq.

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Maoqi; Chen, Liang

2018-01-01

The individual sample heterogeneity is one of the biggest obstacles in biomarker identification for complex diseases such as cancers. Current statistical models to identify differentially expressed genes between disease and control groups often overlook the substantial human sample heterogeneity. Meanwhile, traditional nonparametric tests lose detailed data information and sacrifice the analysis power, although they are distribution free and robust to heterogeneity. Here, we propose an empirical likelihood ratio test with a mean-variance relationship constraint (ELTSeq) for the differential expression analysis of RNA sequencing (RNA-seq). As a distribution-free nonparametric model, ELTSeq handles individual heterogeneity by estimating an empirical probability for each observation without making any assumption about read-count distribution. It also incorporates a constraint for the read-count overdispersion, which is widely observed in RNA-seq data. ELTSeq demonstrates a significant improvement over existing methods such as edgeR, DESeq, t-tests, Wilcoxon tests and the classic empirical likelihood-ratio test when handling heterogeneous groups. It will significantly advance the transcriptomics studies of cancers and other complex disease. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

An Empirical Analysis of Differences in GDP per Capita and the Role of Human Capital

Science.gov (United States)

Sfakianakis, George; Magoutas, Anastasios I.; Georgopoulos, Demosthenes

2010-01-01

Using a generalized production function approach and insights from empirical research on the determinants of growth, this paper assesses the relative importance of specific factors in explaining differences in the levels of per capita GDP. Emphasis is placed on education, physical capital accumulation, the share of the public sector in economic…

A new approach for crude oil price analysis based on empirical mode decomposition

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhang, Xun; Wang, Shou-Yang; Lai, K.K.

2008-01-01

The importance of understanding the underlying characteristics of international crude oil price movements attracts much attention from academic researchers and business practitioners. Due to the intrinsic complexity of the oil market, however, most of them fail to produce consistently good results. Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD), recently proposed by Huang et al., appears to be a novel data analysis method for nonlinear and non-stationary time series. By decomposing a time series into a small number of independent and concretely implicational intrinsic modes based on scale separation, EMD explains the generation of time series data from a novel perspective. Ensemble EMD (EEMD) is a substantial improvement of EMD which can better separate the scales naturally by adding white noise series to the original time series and then treating the ensemble averages as the true intrinsic modes. In this paper, we extend EEMD to crude oil price analysis. First, three crude oil price series with different time ranges and frequencies are decomposed into several independent intrinsic modes, from high to low frequency. Second, the intrinsic modes are composed into a fluctuating process, a slowly varying part and a trend based on fine-to-coarse reconstruction. The economic meanings of the three components are identified as short term fluctuations caused by normal supply-demand disequilibrium or some other market activities, the effect of a shock of a significant event, and a long term trend. Finally, the EEMD is shown to be a vital technique for crude oil price analysis. (author)

What is a Leading Case in EU law? An empirical analysis

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sadl, Urska; Panagis, Yannis

2015-01-01

Lawyers generally explain legal development by looking at explicit amendments to statutory law and modifications in judicial practice. As far as the latter are concerned, leading cases occupy a special place. This article empirically studies the process in which certain cases become leading cases....... Our analysis focuses on Les Verts, a case of considerable fame in EU law, closely scrutinising whether it contains inherent leading case material. We show how the legal relevance of a case can become “embedded” in a long process of reinterpretation by legal actors, and we demonstrate that the actual...

Empirical Hamiltonians

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Peggs, S.; Talman, R.

1987-01-01

As proton accelerators get larger, and include more magnets, the conventional tracking programs which simulate them run slower. The purpose of this paper is to describe a method, still under development, in which element-by-element tracking around one turn is replaced by a single man, which can be processed far faster. It is assumed for this method that a conventional program exists which can perform faithful tracking in the lattice under study for some hundreds of turns, with all lattice parameters held constant. An empirical map is then generated by comparison with the tracking program. A procedure has been outlined for determining an empirical Hamiltonian, which can represent motion through many nonlinear kicks, by taking data from a conventional tracking program. Though derived by an approximate method this Hamiltonian is analytic in form and can be subjected to further analysis of varying degrees of mathematical rigor. Even though the empirical procedure has only been described in one transverse dimension, there is good reason to hope that it can be extended to include two transverse dimensions, so that it can become a more practical tool in realistic cases

Minimizing the trend effect on detrended cross-correlation analysis with empirical mode decomposition

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhao Xiaojun; Shang Pengjian; Zhao Chuang; Wang Jing; Tao Rui

2012-01-01

Highlights: ► Investigate the effects of linear, exponential and periodic trends on DCCA. ► Apply empirical mode decomposition to extract trend term. ► Strong and monotonic trends are successfully eliminated. ► Get the cross-correlation exponent in a persistent behavior without crossover. - Abstract: Detrended cross-correlation analysis (DCCA) is a scaling method commonly used to estimate long-range power law cross-correlation in non-stationary signals. However, the susceptibility of DCCA to trends makes the scaling results difficult to analyze due to spurious crossovers. We artificially generate long-range cross-correlated signals and systematically investigate the effect of linear, exponential and periodic trends. Specifically to the crossovers raised by trends, we apply empirical mode decomposition method which decomposes underlying signals into several intrinsic mode functions (IMF) and a residual trend. After the removal of residual term, strong and monotonic trends such as linear and exponential trends are successfully eliminated. But periodic trend cannot be separated out according to the criterion of IMF, which can be eliminated by Fourier transform. As a special case of DCCA, detrended fluctuation analysis presents similar results.

Critical Realism and Empirical Bioethics: A Methodological Exposition.

Science.gov (United States)

McKeown, Alex

2017-09-01

This paper shows how critical realism can be used to integrate empirical data and philosophical analysis within 'empirical bioethics'. The term empirical bioethics, whilst appearing oxymoronic, simply refers to an interdisciplinary approach to the resolution of practical ethical issues within the biological and life sciences, integrating social scientific, empirical data with philosophical analysis. It seeks to achieve a balanced form of ethical deliberation that is both logically rigorous and sensitive to context, to generate normative conclusions that are practically applicable to the problem, challenge, or dilemma. Since it incorporates both philosophical and social scientific components, empirical bioethics is a field that is consistent with the use of critical realism as a research methodology. The integration of philosophical and social scientific approaches to ethics has been beset with difficulties, not least because of the irreducibly normative, rather than descriptive, nature of ethical analysis and the contested relation between fact and value. However, given that facts about states of affairs inform potential courses of action and their consequences, there is a need to overcome these difficulties and successfully integrate data with theory. Previous approaches have been formulated to overcome obstacles in combining philosophical and social scientific perspectives in bioethical analysis; however each has shortcomings. As a mature interdisciplinary approach critical realism is well suited to empirical bioethics, although it has hitherto not been widely used. Here I show how it can be applied to this kind of research and explain how it represents an improvement on previous approaches.

Tools for Empirical and Operational Analysis of Mobile Offloading in Loop-Based Applications

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alexandru-Corneliu OLTEANU

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Offloading for mobile devices is an increasingly popular research topic, matching the popu-larity mobile devices have in the general population. Studying mobile offloading is challenging because of device and application heterogeneity. However, we believe that focusing on a specific type of application can bring advances in offloading for mobile devices, while still keeping a wide range of applicability. In this paper we focus on loop-based applications, in which most of the functionality is given by iterating an execution loop. We model the main loop of the application with a graph that consists of a cycle and propose an operational analysis to study offloading on this model. We also propose a testbed based on a real-world application to empirically evaluate offloading. We conduct performance evaluation using both tools and compare the analytical and empirical results.

The effect of loss functions on empirical Bayes reliability analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vincent A. R. Camara

1999-01-01

Full Text Available The aim of the present study is to investigate the sensitivity of empirical Bayes estimates of the reliability function with respect to changing of the loss function. In addition to applying some of the basic analytical results on empirical Bayes reliability obtained with the use of the “popular” squared error loss function, we shall derive some expressions corresponding to empirical Bayes reliability estimates obtained with the Higgins–Tsokos, the Harris and our proposed logarithmic loss functions. The concept of efficiency, along with the notion of integrated mean square error, will be used as a criterion to numerically compare our results.

Canonical Least-Squares Monte Carlo Valuation of American Options: Convergence and Empirical Pricing Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xisheng Yu

2014-01-01

Full Text Available The paper by Liu (2010 introduces a method termed the canonical least-squares Monte Carlo (CLM which combines a martingale-constrained entropy model and a least-squares Monte Carlo algorithm to price American options. In this paper, we first provide the convergence results of CLM and numerically examine the convergence properties. Then, the comparative analysis is empirically conducted using a large sample of the S&P 100 Index (OEX puts and IBM puts. The results on the convergence show that choosing the shifted Legendre polynomials with four regressors is more appropriate considering the pricing accuracy and the computational cost. With this choice, CLM method is empirically demonstrated to be superior to the benchmark methods of binominal tree and finite difference with historical volatilities.

Review essay: empires, ancient and modern.

Science.gov (United States)

Hall, John A

2011-09-01

This essay drews attention to two books on empires by historians which deserve the attention of sociologists. Bang's model of the workings of the Roman economy powerfully demonstrates the tributary nature of per-industrial tributary empires. Darwin's analysis concentrates on modern overseas empires, wholly different in character as they involved the transportation of consumption items for the many rather than luxury goods for the few. Darwin is especially good at describing the conditions of existence of late nineteenth century empires, noting that their demise was caused most of all by the failure of balance of power politics in Europe. Concluding thoughts are offered about the USA. © London School of Economics and Political Science 2011.

Ancient DNA Analysis Suggests Negligible Impact of the Wari Empire Expansion in Peru’s Central Coast during the Middle Horizon

Science.gov (United States)

Barreto Romero, María Inés; Flores Espinoza, Isabel; Cooper, Alan; Fehren-Schmitz, Lars

2016-01-01

The analysis of ancient human DNA from South America allows the exploration of pre-Columbian population history through time and to directly test hypotheses about cultural and demographic evolution. The Middle Horizon (650–1100 AD) represents a major transitional period in the Central Andes, which is associated with the development and expansion of ancient Andean empires such as Wari and Tiwanaku. These empires facilitated a series of interregional interactions and socio-political changes, which likely played an important role in shaping the region’s demographic and cultural profiles. We analyzed individuals from three successive pre-Columbian cultures present at the Huaca Pucllana archaeological site in Lima, Peru: Lima (Early Intermediate Period, 500–700 AD), Wari (Middle Horizon, 800–1000 AD) and Ychsma (Late Intermediate Period, 1000–1450 AD). We sequenced 34 complete mitochondrial genomes to investigate the potential genetic impact of the Wari Empire in the Central Coast of Peru. The results indicate that genetic diversity shifted only slightly through time, ruling out a complete population discontinuity or replacement driven by the Wari imperialist hegemony, at least in the region around present-day Lima. However, we caution that the very subtle genetic contribution of Wari imperialism at the particular Huaca Pucllana archaeological site might not be representative for the entire Wari territory in the Peruvian Central Coast. PMID:27248693

Trade and Empire

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bang, Peter Fibiger

2007-01-01

This articles seeks to establish a new set of organizing concepts for the analysis of the Roman imperial economy from Republic to late antiquity: tributary empire, port-folio capitalism and protection costs. Together these concepts explain better economic developments in the Roman world than the...

Steering the Ship through Uncertain Waters: Empirical Analysis and the Future of Evangelical Higher Education

Science.gov (United States)

Rine, P. Jesse; Guthrie, David S.

2016-01-01

Leaders of evangelical Christian colleges must navigate a challenging environment shaped by public concern about college costs and educational quality, federal inclinations toward increased regulation, and lingering fallout from the Great Recession. Proceeding from the premise that empirical analysis empowers institutional actors to lead well in…

Factors of economic growth in Palestine: an empirical Analysis during the period of (1994-2013

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Omar Mahmoud Abu-Eideh

2014-07-01

Full Text Available This study aimed to analyze the impact of the size of domestic working labour force, real gross domestic capital formation, real domestic exports and imports of goods and services, and political instability on real gross domestic product( RGDP in Palestine during the period of 1994 -2013. To examine the empirical relationship between these explanatory variables and real (GDP growth the study adopted a standardized Cobb- Douglas production function by using the annual official data of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS, and applying the Ordinary least Square method (OLS and Second Order Auto Correlation Techniques. The empirical results of the model applied indicated that there is a positive relationship between the size of domestic working labour force, real gross domestic capital formation, real domestic exports and real gross domestic product( RGDP, and a negative relationship between real domestic imports of goods and services, and political instability and the real growth of (GDP. The study suggested several recommendations that can boost the level of growth, among them the most important one, is the urgent need for more investment in the economy as it leads to more formation of domestic capital which can count more in terms of economic growth in many ways.

An Empirical Analysis of Romania’s Comovement with the Euro Zone

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nicolae Dardac

2009-11-01

Full Text Available In light of adopting the euro in the near future, it is important to asses to which extent the Romanian business cycle evolves in a similar fashion with that of the euro zone. The present study is an empirical investigation of the degree of business cycle synchronization between Romania and the euro area, based on macroeconomic series that capture the cyclical features of the two economies. The results indicate that the most recent period, characterized by major economic and financial turmoil, has lead to an increase of the degree of comovement between of the Romanian economy with that of the euro area.

Empowering Kanban through TPS-Principles - An Empirical Analysis of the Toyota Production System

OpenAIRE

Thun , Jörn-Henrik; Drüke , Martin; Grübner , Andre

2010-01-01

Abstract The purpose of this paper is the empirical investigation of the Toyota Production System in order to test existing relationships as they are proposed in theory. The underlying model consists of seven factors reflecting the key practices of the Toyota Production System. Using data from 188 manufacturing plants participating in the High Performance Manufacturing research project, the model?s measurement characteristics were validated through confirmatory factor analysis. Pat...

Empirical mono- versus combination antibiotic therapy in adult intensive care patients with severe sepsis – A systematic review with meta-analysis and trial sequential analysis

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sjövall, Karl Fredrik Lennart; Perner, Anders; Hylander Møller, Morten

2017-01-01

assessment and trial sequential analysis (TSA). We included randomised clinical trials (RCT) assessing empirical mono-antibiotic therapy versus a combination of two or more antibiotics in adult ICU patients with severe sepsis. We exclusively assessed patient-important outcomes, including mortality. Two...... reviewers independently evaluated studies for inclusion, extracted data, and assessed risk of bias. Risk ratios (RRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were estimated and the risk of random errors was assessed by TSA. Results Thirteen RCTs (n = 2633) were included; all were judged as having high risk...... of bias. Carbapenems were the most frequently used mono-antibiotic (8 of 13 trials). There was no difference in mortality (RR 1.11, 95% CI 0.95–1.29; p = 0.19) or in any other patient-important outcomes between mono- vs. combination therapy. In TSA of mortality, the Z-curve reached the futility area...

Is knowledge important? Empirical research on nuclear risk communication in two countries.

Science.gov (United States)

Perko, Tanja; Zeleznik, Nadja; Turcanu, Catrinel; Thijssen, Peter

2012-06-01

Increasing audience knowledge is often set as a primary objective of risk communication efforts. But is it worthwhile focusing risk communication strategies solely on enhancing specific knowledge? The main research questions tackled in this paper were: (1) if prior audience knowledge related to specific radiation risks is influential for the perception of these risks and the acceptance of communicated messages and (2) if gender, attitudes, risk perception of other radiation risks, confidence in authorities, and living in the vicinity of nuclear/radiological installations may also play an important role in this matter. The goal of this study was to test empirically the mentioned predictors in two independent case studies in different countries. The first case study was an information campaign for iodine pre-distribution in Belgium (N = 1035). The second was the information campaign on long-term radioactive waste disposal in Slovenia (N = 1,200). In both cases, recurrent and intensive communication campaigns were carried out by the authorities aiming, among other things, at increasing specific audience knowledge. Results show that higher prior audience knowledge leads to more willingness to accept communicated messages, but it does not affect people’s perception of the specific risk communicated. In addition, the influence of prior audience knowledge on the acceptance of communicated messages is shown to be no stronger than that of general radiation risk perception. The results in both case studies suggest that effective risk communication has to focus not only on knowledge but also on other more heuristic predictors, such as risk perception or attitudes toward communicated risks.

An exploration study to detect important factors influencing insurance firms

OpenAIRE

Farzaneh Soleimani; Fattaneh Alizadeh Meshkani; Abdullah Naami

2013-01-01

The recent trend on competition among insurance firms has increased motivation to look for important factors influencing this industry. In this paper, we present an empirical investigation to find important factors shaping this industry. The proposed study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale and, using principal component analysis, detects important factors on the success of this industry. Cronbach alpha is calculated as 0.849, and Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin and Bartlett's Test are calculated as ...

Advancing Empirical Scholarship to Further Develop Evaluation Theory and Practice

Science.gov (United States)

Christie, Christina A.

2011-01-01

Good theory development is grounded in empirical inquiry. In the context of educational evaluation, the development of empirically grounded theory has important benefits for the field and the practitioner. In particular, a shift to empirically derived theory will assist in advancing more systematic and contextually relevant evaluation practice, as…

Relationships between moment magnitude and fault parameters: theoretical and semi-empirical relationships

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Haiyun; Tao, Xiaxin

2003-12-01

Fault parameters are important in earthquake hazard analysis. In this paper, theoretical relationships between moment magnitude and fault parameters including subsurface rupture length, downdip rupture width, rupture area, and average slip over the fault surface are deduced based on seismological theory. These theoretical relationships are further simplified by applying similarity conditions and an unique form is established. Then, combining the simplified theoretical relationships between moment magnitude and fault parameters with seismic source data selected in this study, a practical semi-empirical relationship is established. The seismic source data selected is also to used to derive empirical relationships between moment magnitude and fault parameters by the ordinary least square regression method. Comparisons between semi-empirical relationships and empirical relationships show that the former depict distribution trends of data better than the latter. It is also observed that downdip rupture widths of strike slip faults are saturated when moment magnitude is more than 7.0, but downdip rupture widths of dip slip faults are not saturated in the moment magnitude ranges of this study.

Gun Laws and Crime: An Empirical Assessment

OpenAIRE

Matti Viren

2012-01-01

This paper deals with the effect of gun laws on crime. Several empirical analyses are carried to investigate the relationship between five different crime rates and alternative law variables. The tests are based on cross-section data from US sates. Three different law variables are used in the analysis, together with a set of control variables for income, poverty, unemployment and ethnic background of the population. Empirical analysis does not lend support to the notion that crime laws would...

Assessment of autonomic nervous system by using empirical mode decomposition-based reflection wave analysis during non-stationary conditions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chang, C C; Hsiao, T C; Kao, S C; Hsu, H Y

2014-01-01

Arterial blood pressure (ABP) is an important indicator of cardiovascular circulation and presents various intrinsic regulations. It has been found that the intrinsic characteristics of blood vessels can be assessed quantitatively by ABP analysis (called reflection wave analysis (RWA)), but conventional RWA is insufficient for assessment during non-stationary conditions, such as the Valsalva maneuver. Recently, a novel adaptive method called empirical mode decomposition (EMD) was proposed for non-stationary data analysis. This study proposed a RWA algorithm based on EMD (EMD-RWA). A total of 51 subjects participated in this study, including 39 healthy subjects and 12 patients with autonomic nervous system (ANS) dysfunction. The results showed that EMD-RWA provided a reliable estimation of reflection time in baseline and head-up tilt (HUT). Moreover, the estimated reflection time is able to assess the ANS function non-invasively, both in normal, healthy subjects and in the patients with ANS dysfunction. EMD-RWA provides a new approach for reflection time estimation in non-stationary conditions, and also helps with non-invasive ANS assessment. (paper)

The elusive importance effect: more failure for the Jamesian perspective on the importance of importance in shaping self-esteem.

Science.gov (United States)

Marsh, Herbert W

2008-10-01

Following William James (1890/1963), many leading self-esteem researchers continue to support the Individual-importance hypothesis-that the relation between specific facets of self-concept and global self-esteem depends on the importance an individual places on each specific facet. However, empirical support for the hypothesis is surprisingly elusive, whether evaluated in terms of an importance-weighted average model, a generalized multiple regression approach for testing self-concept-by-importance interactions, or idiographic approaches. How can actual empirical support for such an intuitively appealing and widely cited psychological principle be so elusive? Hardy and Moriarty (2006), acknowledging this previous failure of the Individual-importance hypothesis, claim to have solved the conundrum, demonstrating an innovative idiographic approach that provides clear support for it. However, a critical evaluation of their new approach, coupled with a reanalysis of their data, undermines their claims. Indeed, their data provide compelling support against the Individual-importance hypothesis, which remains as elusive as ever.

Differences in Dynamic Brand Competition Across Markets: An Empirical Analysis

OpenAIRE

Jean-Pierre Dubé; Puneet Manchanda

2005-01-01

We investigate differences in the dynamics of marketing decisions across geographic markets empirically. We begin with a linear-quadratic game involving forward-looking firms competing on prices and advertising. Based on the corresponding Markov perfect equilibrium, we propose estimable econometric equations for demand and marketing policy. Our model allows us to measure empirically the strategic response of competitors along with economic measures such as firm profitability. We use a rich da...

Brand importance across product categories in the Czech Republic

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Formánek Tomáš

2016-04-01

Full Text Available This paper deals with customer loyalty to brands and provides an analysis of brand-related attitudes among Czech consumers. Brand loyalty is a very important aspect of competitive marketing and we contribute an empirically supported point of view on the topic. Based on primary data from a complex consumer survey carried out for the purpose of this study, we investigate the extent of brand loyalty across different product categories, mostly fast moving consumer goods (FMCG. For convenience, the analysis of our survey-data may be divided in two main areas. First, product categories are ranked according to their potential power to attract customers’ interest and loyalty towards brands. When loyalty programs are prepared, it is important to discern product categories where loyalty potential is weak from those categories that attract consumer loyalty. Second, sociodemographic features and lifestyle factors from the survey are evaluated with respect to different product categories, by means of logistic regression and subsequent average partial effect (APE analysis. A detailed and practically oriented interpretation of the empirical results is provided by the authors. However, both corporate marketers and academic readers can use the tables with empirical estimation outputs that are provided in this article to draw their own conclusions, which may be focused on the product category of interest and/or focused on any specific consumer group that is of particular interest. Among other topics, this paper emphasizes the fact that brand loyalty is a highly complex phenomenon and that it can and should be analysed from different perspectives.

Efficiency indicators versus forntier methods: an empirical investigation of italian public hospitals

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lorenzo Clementi

2013-05-01

Full Text Available Efficiency has a key-role in the measurement of the impact of the National Health Service (NHS reforms. We investigate the issue of inefficiency in health sector and provide empirical evidence derived from Italian public hospitals. Despite the importance of efficiency measurement in health care services, only recently advanced econometric methods have been applied to hospital data. We provide a synoptic survey of few empirical analyses of efficiency measurement in health care services. An estimate of the cost efficiency level in Italian public hospitals during 2001-2003 is obtained through a sample. We propose an efficiency indicator and provide cost frontiers for such hospitals, using stochastic frontier analysis (SFA for longitudinal data.

Ancient DNA analysis suggests negligible impact of the Wari Empire expansion in Peru's central coast during the Middle Horizon

OpenAIRE

Valverde, G.; Romero, M.; Espinoza, I.; Cooper, A.; Fehren-Schmitz, L.; Llamas, B.; Haak, W.

2016-01-01

The analysis of ancient human DNA from South America allows the exploration of pre-Columbian population history through time and to directly test hypotheses about cultural and demographic evolution. The Middle Horizon (650?1100 AD) represents a major transitional period in the Central Andes, which is associated with the development and expansion of ancient Andean empires such as Wari and Tiwanaku. These empires facilitated a series of interregional interactions and socio-political changes, wh...

Economic Growth and the Environment. An empirical analysis

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

De Bruyn, S.M.

1999-12-21

A number of economists have claimed that economic growth benefits environmental quality as it raises political support and financial means for environmental policy measures. Since the early 1990s this view has increasingly been supported by empirical evidence that has challenged the traditional belief held by environmentalists that economic growth degrades the environment. This study investigates the relationship between economic growth and environmental quality and elaborates the question whether economic growth can be combined with a reduced demand for natural resources. Various hypotheses on this relationship are described and empirically tested for a number of indicators of environmental pressure. The outcome of the tests advocates the use of alternative models for estimation that alter conclusions about the relationship between economic growth and the environment and give insight into the driving forces of emission reduction in developed economies. refs.

Import Penetration, Export Orientation and Plant Size in Indonesian Manufacturing

OpenAIRE

Sadayuki TAKII

2014-01-01

This paper empirically examines differential impacts of globalisation on plant size among plants with different characteristics, including initial plant size, import and export status, and ownership. After accounting for other characteristics, results of this analysis suggest that both import penetration and export orientation do not have differential impacts on the size of larger and smaller plants. This is contrary to fears that only relatively large plants can benefit from globalisation wh...

Empirical laws, regularity and necessity

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Koningsveld, H.

1973-01-01

In this book I have tried to develop an analysis of the concept of an empirical law, an analysis that differs in many ways from the alternative analyse's found in contemporary literature dealing with the subject.

1 am referring especially to two well-known views, viz. the regularity and

Foreign Remittances, Foreign Direct Investment, Foreign Imports and Economic Growth in Pakistan: A Time Series Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Muhammad Tahir

2015-10-01

Full Text Available This empirical research paper focuses on establishing a relationship between external determinants and economic growth of Pakistan economy. Empirical analyses are carried out with time series econometric techniques using data over the period of 1977-2013. The main finding is that external determinants such as foreign remittances, foreign direct investment, and foreign imports matter from a growth perspective. Foreign remittances and foreign direct investment have a significant positive role in the growth process of Pakistan economy. Furthermore, it is found that foreign imports have adversely influenced the economic growth of Pakistan. The study recommends that policy makers shall take appropriate steps to increase the inflow of both foreign remittances and foreign direct investment in order to achieve the long run economic growth.

Univariate and Bivariate Empirical Mode Decomposition for Postural Stability Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jacques Duchêne

2008-05-01

Full Text Available The aim of this paper was to compare empirical mode decomposition (EMD and two new extended methods of  EMD named complex empirical mode decomposition (complex-EMD and bivariate empirical mode decomposition (bivariate-EMD. All methods were used to analyze stabilogram center of pressure (COP time series. The two new methods are suitable to be applied to complex time series to extract complex intrinsic mode functions (IMFs before the Hilbert transform is subsequently applied on the IMFs. The trace of the analytic IMF in the complex plane has a circular form, with each IMF having its own rotation frequency. The area of the circle and the average rotation frequency of IMFs represent efficient indicators of the postural stability status of subjects. Experimental results show the effectiveness of these indicators to identify differences in standing posture between groups.

Bioactive conformational generation of small molecules: A comparative analysis between force-field and multiple empirical criteria based methods

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jiang Hualiang

2010-11-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Conformational sampling for small molecules plays an essential role in drug discovery research pipeline. Based on multi-objective evolution algorithm (MOEA, we have developed a conformational generation method called Cyndi in the previous study. In this work, in addition to Tripos force field in the previous version, Cyndi was updated by incorporation of MMFF94 force field to assess the conformational energy more rationally. With two force fields against a larger dataset of 742 bioactive conformations of small ligands extracted from PDB, a comparative analysis was performed between pure force field based method (FFBM and multiple empirical criteria based method (MECBM hybrided with different force fields. Results Our analysis reveals that incorporating multiple empirical rules can significantly improve the accuracy of conformational generation. MECBM, which takes both empirical and force field criteria as the objective functions, can reproduce about 54% (within 1Å RMSD of the bioactive conformations in the 742-molecule testset, much higher than that of pure force field method (FFBM, about 37%. On the other hand, MECBM achieved a more complete and efficient sampling of the conformational space because the average size of unique conformations ensemble per molecule is about 6 times larger than that of FFBM, while the time scale for conformational generation is nearly the same as FFBM. Furthermore, as a complementary comparison study between the methods with and without empirical biases, we also tested the performance of the three conformational generation methods in MacroModel in combination with different force fields. Compared with the methods in MacroModel, MECBM is more competitive in retrieving the bioactive conformations in light of accuracy but has much lower computational cost. Conclusions By incorporating different energy terms with several empirical criteria, the MECBM method can produce more reasonable conformational

Comparative empirical analysis of temporal relationships between construction investment and economic growth in the United States

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Navid Ahmadi

2017-09-01

Full Text Available The majority of policymakers believe that investments in construction infrastructure would boost the economy of the United States (U.S.. They also assume that construction investment in infrastructure has similar impact on the economies of different U.S. states. In contrast, there have been studies showing the negative impact of construction activities on the economy. However, there has not been any research attempt to empirically test the temporal relationships between construction investment and economic growth in the U.S. states, to determine the longitudinal impact of construction investment on the economy of each state. The objective of this study is to investigate whether Construction Value Added (CVA is the leading (or lagging indicator of real Gross Domestic Product (real GDP for every individual state of the U.S. using empirical time series tests. The results of Granger causality tests showed that CVA is a leading indicator of state real GDP in 18 states and the District of Columbia; real GDP is a leading indicator of CVA in 10 states and the District of Columbia. There is a bidirectional relationship between CVA and real GDP in 5 states and the District of Columbia. In 8 states and the District of Columbia, not only do CVA and real GDP have leading/lagging relationships, but they are also cointegrated. These results highlight the important role of the construction industry in these states. The results also show that leading (or lagging lengths vary for different states. The results of the comparative empirical analysis reject the hypothesis that CVA is a leading indicator of real GDP in the states with the highest shares of construction in the real GDP. The findings of this research contribute to the state of knowledge by quantifying the temporal relationships between construction investment and economic growth in the U.S. states. It is expected that the results help policymakers better understand the impact of construction investment

Updating an empirical analysis on the proton’s central opacity and asymptotia

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fagundes, D A; Menon, M J; Silva, P V R G

2016-01-01

We present an updated empirical analysis on the ratio of the elastic (integrated) to the total cross section in the c.m. energy interval from 5 GeV to 8 TeV. As in a previous work, we use a suitable analytical parametrization for that ratio (depending on only four free fit parameters) and investigate three asymptotic scenarios: either the black disk limit or scenarios above or below that limit. The dataset includes now the datum at 7 TeV, recently reported by the ATLAS Collaboration. Our analysis favors, once more, a scenario below the black disk, providing an asymptotic ratio consistent with the rational value 1/3, namely a gray disk limit. Upper bounds for the ratio of the diffractive (dissociative) to the inelastic cross section are also presented. (paper)

The Apocalyptic Empire of America L’Empire apocalyptique américain

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Akça Ataç

2009-10-01

Full Text Available En général, les études traitant de « l’Empire » américain tendent à chercher à comprendre celui-ci à partir de termes concrets tels que la frontière, l’intervention militaire, le commerce international. Néanmoins, les Empires sont d’abord le résultat de profondes traditions intellectuelles intangibles qui encouragent et justifient les actions entreprises dans le cadre de politiques impériales. Dans le cas de l’Amérique, les fondements intellectuels du nouvel idéal impérial sont ancrés dans la vision apocalyptique transportée dans les bagages des premiers colons puritains. Si l’on ne prend pas en compte cet ancrage apocalyptique, on ne peut saisir, dans leur totalité, les principes fondamentaux de « l’Empire » américain. On devrait examiner des termes qui entrent en résonance avec le discours impérial tels que « mission » et « destinée » ainsi que de l’engagement explicite dans la rhétorique présidentielle en faveur de « l’amélioration » du monde à n’importe quel prix du point de vue de cette croyance apocalyptique éternelle. Cet article essaie d’élucider l’origine et l’essence de la vision apocalyptique américaine en portant une attention particulière sur son influence dans la genèse du concept d’Empire américain.

Ownership dynamics with large shareholders : An empirical analysis

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Donelli, M.; Urzua Infante, F.; Larrain, B.

2013-01-01

We study the empirical determinants of corporate ownership dynamics in a market where large shareholders are prevalent. We use a unique, hand-collected 20-year dataset on the ownership structure of Chilean companies. Controllers’ blockholdings are on average high -as in continental Europe, for

Double-dividend analysis with SCREEN: an empirical study for Switzerland

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Frei, Christoph W.; Haldi, Pierre-Andre; Sarlos, Gerard

2005-01-01

This paper presents an empirical study that quantifies the effects of an ecological fiscal reform as recently rejected by the Swiss population. The measure aims to encourage employment and, at the same time, to dissuade from an excessive energy use and thereby decrease energy-induced external costs (CO 2 , etc.). The analysis is based on the model SCREEN, a general equilibrium model using the complementarity format for the hybrid description of economy-wide production possibilities where the electricity sector is represented by a bottom-up activity analysis and the other production sectors are characterised by top-down production functions. A dynamic formulation of the activity analysis of technologies allows for the reproduction of endogenous structural change (see Frei, C.W., Haldi, P.-A., Sarlos, G., 2003. Dynamic formulation of a top-down and bottom-up merging energy policy model. Energy Policy 31 (10), 1017-1031.). The labour market is formulated according to the microeconomically founded efficiency wages and calibrated for Switzerland. The study includes the development of a consistent set of top-down, bottom-up and labour data for Switzerland. The collection of bottom-up data on the electricity sector, just before liberalisation, was not easy. The electricity sector characterising data was prepared, based on original statistics about 140 Swiss electricity companies

An Automated Defect Prediction Framework using Genetic Algorithms: A Validation of Empirical Studies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Juan Murillo-Morera

2016-05-01

Full Text Available Today, it is common for software projects to collect measurement data through development processes. With these data, defect prediction software can try to estimate the defect proneness of a software module, with the objective of assisting and guiding software practitioners. With timely and accurate defect predictions, practitioners can focus their limited testing resources on higher risk areas. This paper reports the results of three empirical studies that uses an automated genetic defect prediction framework. This framework generates and compares different learning schemes (preprocessing + attribute selection + learning algorithms and selects the best one using a genetic algorithm, with the objective to estimate the defect proneness of a software module. The first empirical study is a performance comparison of our framework with the most important framework of the literature. The second empirical study is a performance and runtime comparison between our framework and an exhaustive framework. The third empirical study is a sensitivity analysis. The last empirical study, is our main contribution in this paper. Performance of the software development defect prediction models (using AUC, Area Under the Curve was validated using NASA-MDP and PROMISE data sets. Seventeen data sets from NASA-MDP (13 and PROMISE (4 projects were analyzed running a NxM-fold cross-validation. A genetic algorithm was used to select the components of the learning schemes automatically, and to assess and report the results. Our results reported similar performance between frameworks. Our framework reported better runtime than exhaustive framework. Finally, we reported the best configuration according to sensitivity analysis.

An empirical investigation of German tourist anglers’ preferences for angling in Denmark

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bonnichsen, Ole; Jensen, Carsten Lynge; Olsen, Søren Bøye

The quality of angling sites is important for attracting tourists who enjoy recreational angling. In this paper, we conduct an empirical analysis investigating which attributes of angling sites are particularly important for attracting tourist anglers from abroad. We conduct an online survey of 968...... at the site. To attract tourist anglers an angling site manager may use this information to target marketing efforts towards segments of tourist that prefer the type and quality of angling characteristics of the angling site in the managers possession. Additionally, he may seek to adjust and improve...

Analysis of soybean production and import trends and its import factors in Indonesia

Science.gov (United States)

Ningrum, I. H.; Irianto, H.; Riptanti, E. W.

2018-03-01

This study aims to analyze the factors affecting soybean imports in Indonesia and to know the trend and projection of Indonesian soybean production as well as the import in 2016-2020. The basic method used in this research is the description analysis method. The data used are secondary data in the form of time series data from 1979-2015. Methods of data analysis using simultaneous equations model with 2SLS (Two Stage Least Square) method and Trend analysis. The results showed that the factors affecting soybean imports in Indonesia are consumption and production. Consumption has positive effect while production is negatively affected. The percentage changed in soybean imports is greater than the percentage change in consumption and production of soybeans. Consumption is positively influenced by imports and production, while production is influenced positively by consumption and negative by imports. The production trend of soybean in 2016-2020 has a tendency to increase with a percentage of 11.18% per year. Production in 2016 is projected at 1.110.537 tons while in 2020 it will increase to 1,721,350 tons. The import trend in 2016-2020 has a tendency to increase with an average percentage of 4.13% per year. Import in 2016 is projected at 2.224.188 tons while in 2020 it will increase to 2.611.270 tons.

Compassion: An Evolutionary Analysis and Empirical Review

OpenAIRE

Goetz, Jennifer L.; Keltner, Dacher; Simon-Thomas, Emiliana

2010-01-01

What is compassion? And how did it evolve? In this review, we integrate three evolutionary arguments that converge on the hypothesis that compassion evolved as a distinct affective experience whose primary function is to facilitate cooperation and protection of the weak and those who suffer. Our empirical review reveals compassion to have distinct appraisal processes attuned to undeserved suffering, distinct signaling behavior related to caregiving patterns of touch, posture, and vocalization...

Autobiography After Empire

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rasch, Astrid

of the collective, but insufficient attention has been paid to how individuals respond to such narrative changes. This dissertation examines the relationship between individual and collective memory at the end of empire through analysis of 13 end of empire autobiographies by public intellectuals from Australia......Decolonisation was a major event of the twentieth century, redrawing maps and impacting on identity narratives around the globe. As new nations defined their place in the world, the national and imperial past was retold in new cultural memories. These developments have been studied at the level......, the Anglophone Caribbean and Zimbabwe. I conceive of memory as reconstructive and social, with individual memory striving to make sense of the past in the present in dialogue with surrounding narratives. By examining recurring tropes in the autobiographies, like colonial education, journeys to the imperial...

An empirical analysis of the relationship between cost of control activities and project management success

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Al-Tmeemy Samiaah

2018-01-01

Full Text Available To achieve the objectives of continuous improvement programs, construction managers must link the achievement of quality with cost. This paper aims to associate project management success (PMS with cost of control (COC activities in an empirical manner. Thus, the purpose is to determine the extent to which COC activities impact PMS. Quantitative method was adopted to collect data from Malaysian building companies using postal and email surveys. Hypothesis is tested using correlation and simple linear regression analysis. The findings of this study indicate that COC activities are positively associated with the PMS. The empirical evidences obtained from this research, provides financial justification for all quality improvement efforts. This can assist building contractors to enhance the success of project management by reducing the level of business failures due to poor quality, cost overruns, and delays.

Insurability of Cyber Risk: An Empirical Analysis

OpenAIRE

Biener, Christian; Eling, Martin; Wirfs, Jan Hendrik

2015-01-01

This paper discusses the adequacy of insurance for managing cyber risk. To this end, we extract 994 cases of cyber losses from an operational risk database and analyse their statistical properties. Based on the empirical results and recent literature, we investigate the insurability of cyber risk by systematically reviewing the set of criteria introduced by Berliner (1982). Our findings emphasise the distinct characteristics of cyber risks compared with other operational risks and bring to li...

Research on Food Quality Security of China’s Food Import and Export

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pengling Liu

2014-04-01

Full Text Available This article researches quality and safety of food at home and abroad on the basis of present situation, cause and effect, from the point of import and export of food quality and safety in China, by combining with economic theories and empirical analysis, from a macro perspective study of China’s import and export food safety issues impact on economic and social development, and study the experience of other developed countries advanced management experience in the quality and safety of food imports and exports. Finally, after the combination of the analysis, make recommendations to protect China’s import and export food safety measures and provide policy proposals.

Empirical analysis of online social networks in the age of Web 2.0

Science.gov (United States)

Fu, Feng; Liu, Lianghuan; Wang, Long

2008-01-01

Today the World Wide Web is undergoing a subtle but profound shift to Web 2.0, to become more of a social web. The use of collaborative technologies such as blogs and social networking site (SNS) leads to instant online community in which people communicate rapidly and conveniently with each other. Moreover, there are growing interest and concern regarding the topological structure of these new online social networks. In this paper, we present empirical analysis of statistical properties of two important Chinese online social networks-a blogging network and an SNS open to college students. They are both emerging in the age of Web 2.0. We demonstrate that both networks possess small-world and scale-free features already observed in real-world and artificial networks. In addition, we investigate the distribution of topological distance. Furthermore, we study the correlations between degree (in/out) and degree (in/out), clustering coefficient and degree, popularity (in terms of number of page views) and in-degree (for the blogging network), respectively. We find that the blogging network shows disassortative mixing pattern, whereas the SNS network is an assortative one. Our research may help us to elucidate the self-organizing structural characteristics of these online social networks embedded in technical forms.

Integrated empirical ethics: loss of normativity?

Science.gov (United States)

van der Scheer, Lieke; Widdershoven, Guy

2004-01-01

An important discussion in contemporary ethics concerns the relevance of empirical research for ethics. Specifically, two crucial questions pertain, respectively, to the possibility of inferring normative statements from descriptive statements, and to the danger of a loss of normativity if normative statements should be based on empirical research. Here we take part in the debate and defend integrated empirical ethical research: research in which normative guidelines are established on the basis of empirical research and in which the guidelines are empirically evaluated by focusing on observable consequences. We argue that in our concrete example normative statements are not derived from descriptive statements, but are developed within a process of reflection and dialogue that goes on within a specific praxis. Moreover, we show that the distinction in experience between the desirable and the undesirable precludes relativism. The normative guidelines so developed are both critical and normative: they help in choosing the right action and in evaluating that action. Finally, following Aristotle, we plead for a return to the view that morality and ethics are inherently related to one another, and for an acknowledgment of the fact that moral judgments have their origin in experience which is always related to historical and cultural circumstances.

A Price Index Model for Road Freight Transportation and Its Empirical analysis in China

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Liu Zhishuo

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The aim of price index for road freight transportation (RFT is to reflect the changes of price in the road transport market. Firstly, a price index model for RFT based on the sample data from Alibaba logistics platform is built. This model is a three levels index system including total index, classification index and individual index and the Laspeyres method is applied to calculate these indices. Finally, an empirical analysis of the price index for RFT market in Zhejiang Province is performed. In order to demonstrate the correctness and validity of the exponential model, a comparative analysis with port throughput and PMI index is carried out.

Empirical techniques in finance

CERN Document Server

Bhar, Ramaprasad

2005-01-01

This book offers the opportunity to study and experience advanced empi- cal techniques in finance and in general financial economics. It is not only suitable for students with an interest in the field, it is also highly rec- mended for academic researchers as well as the researchers in the industry. The book focuses on the contemporary empirical techniques used in the analysis of financial markets and how these are implemented using actual market data. With an emphasis on Implementation, this book helps foc- ing on strategies for rigorously combing finance theory and modeling technology to extend extant considerations in the literature. The main aim of this book is to equip the readers with an array of tools and techniques that will allow them to explore financial market problems with a fresh perspective. In this sense it is not another volume in eco- metrics. Of course, the traditional econometric methods are still valid and important; the contents of this book will bring in other related modeling topics tha...

Empirical Analysis of Intonation Activities in EFL Student’s Books

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dušan Nikolić

2018-05-01

Full Text Available Intonation instruction has repeatedly proved a challenge for EFL teachers, who avoid getting involved in intonation teaching more than their EFL textbooks demand from them. Since a great number of teachers rely on EFL textbooks when implementing intonation practice, the intonation activities in EFL materials are often central to their classroom. Even though the research on intonation instruction has been well-documented, few papers have explored intonation activities in EFL materials. The present study thus provides an empirical analysis of intonation activities in five EFL student’s books series by exploring the overall coverage of intonation activities across the series and the quality of these activities. The results reveal that intonation activities are underrepresented in the EFL student’s books, and that discourse intonation deserves more attention in the activities. Considerations for EFL teachers and publishers are also discussed.

Organisational Learning and Performance--An Empirical Study

Science.gov (United States)

Jyothibabu, C.; Pradhan, Bibhuti Bhusan; Farooq, Ayesha

2011-01-01

This paper explores the important question "how the learning entities--individual, group or organisation--are affecting organisational performance". The answer is important for promoting learning and improving performance. This empirical study in the leading power utility in India found that there is a positive relation between…

Risk and Protective Factors of Internet Addiction: A Meta-Analysis of Empirical Studies in Korea

OpenAIRE

Koo, Hoon Jung; Kwon, Jung-Hye

2014-01-01

Purpose A meta-analysis of empirical studies performed in Korea was conducted to systematically investigate the associations between the indices of Internet addiction (IA) and psychosocial variables. Materials and Methods Systematic literature searches were carried out using the Korean Studies Information Service System, Research Information Sharing Service, Science Direct, Google Scholar, and references in review articles. The key words were Internet addiction, (Internet) game addiction, and...

Short-term memory of TiO2-based electrochemical capacitors: empirical analysis with adoption of a sliding threshold

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lim, Hyungkwang; Kim, Inho; Kim, Jin-Sang; Jeong, Doo Seok; Seong Hwang, Cheol

2013-01-01

Chemical synapses are important components of the large-scaled neural network in the hippocampus of the mammalian brain, and a change in their weight is thought to be in charge of learning and memory. Thus, the realization of artificial chemical synapses is of crucial importance in achieving artificial neural networks emulating the brain’s functionalities to some extent. This kind of research is often referred to as neuromorphic engineering. In this study, we report short-term memory behaviours of electrochemical capacitors (ECs) utilizing TiO 2 mixed ionic–electronic conductor and various reactive electrode materials e.g. Ti, Ni, and Cr. By experiments, it turned out that the potentiation behaviours did not represent unlimited growth of synaptic weight. Instead, the behaviours exhibited limited synaptic weight growth that can be understood by means of an empirical equation similar to the Bienenstock–Cooper–Munro rule, employing a sliding threshold. The observed potentiation behaviours were analysed using the empirical equation and the differences between the different ECs were parameterized. (paper)

An Empirical Analysis of the Changing Role of the German Bundesbank after 1983

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Juselius, Katarina

and expansion or contraction of money supply had the expected effect on prices, income, and interest rates. After 1983, the conventional mechanisms no longer seemed to work. The empirical analysis pointed to the crucial role of the bond rate in the system, particularly for the more recent period......A cointegrated VAR model describing a small macroeconomic system consisting of money, income, prices, and interest rates is estimated on split sample data before and after 1983. The monetary mechanisms were found to be significantly different. Before 1983, the money supply seemed controlable...

Importance Ratings and Weighting: Old Concerns and New Perspectives

Science.gov (United States)

Russell, Lara B.; Hubley, Anita M.

2005-01-01

This article describes key concepts, reviews empirical findings, and discusses important issues related to the use of subjective importance ratings and importance weighting. The review of empirical findings focuses on weighting achieved via the multiplicative model and on 3 areas in which weighting is commonly used: quality of life, self-esteem,…

An empirical analysis оn logistics performance and the global competitiveness

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Turkay Yildiz

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Logistics has been identified as an area to build cost and service advantages. Therefore, companies are more focused on customer needs and trying to find ways to reduce costs, improve quality and meet the growing expectations of their clients. Indeed, the global competition has led managers to begin to address the issue of providing more efficient logistics services. In this regard, this paper presents an empirical study on logistics performance and global competitiveness. This paper also identifies the associations between logistics performances and global competitiveness. The results indicate that some variables in global competitiveness scores contribute much higher to the logistics performances than the other variables through analysis. The variables that contribute much higher than the other variables to the logistics performances are shown.

Empirical data and moral theory. A plea for integrated empirical ethics.

Science.gov (United States)

Molewijk, Bert; Stiggelbout, Anne M; Otten, Wilma; Dupuis, Heleen M; Kievit, Job

2004-01-01

Ethicists differ considerably in their reasons for using empirical data. This paper presents a brief overview of four traditional approaches to the use of empirical data: "the prescriptive applied ethicists," "the theorists," "the critical applied ethicists," and "the particularists." The main aim of this paper is to introduce a fifth approach of more recent date (i.e. "integrated empirical ethics") and to offer some methodological directives for research in integrated empirical ethics. All five approaches are presented in a table for heuristic purposes. The table consists of eight columns: "view on distinction descriptive-prescriptive sciences," "location of moral authority," "central goal(s)," "types of normativity," "use of empirical data," "method," "interaction empirical data and moral theory," and "cooperation with descriptive sciences." Ethicists can use the table in order to identify their own approach. Reflection on these issues prior to starting research in empirical ethics should lead to harmonization of the different scientific disciplines and effective planning of the final research design. Integrated empirical ethics (IEE) refers to studies in which ethicists and descriptive scientists cooperate together continuously and intensively. Both disciplines try to integrate moral theory and empirical data in order to reach a normative conclusion with respect to a specific social practice. IEE is not wholly prescriptive or wholly descriptive since IEE assumes an interdepence between facts and values and between the empirical and the normative. The paper ends with three suggestions for consideration on some of the future challenges of integrated empirical ethics.

AND/OR Importance Sampling

OpenAIRE

Gogate, Vibhav; Dechter, Rina

2012-01-01

The paper introduces AND/OR importance sampling for probabilistic graphical models. In contrast to importance sampling, AND/OR importance sampling caches samples in the AND/OR space and then extracts a new sample mean from the stored samples. We prove that AND/OR importance sampling may have lower variance than importance sampling; thereby providing a theoretical justification for preferring it over importance sampling. Our empirical evaluation demonstrates that AND/OR importance sampling is ...

Joint production and corporate pricing: An empirical analysis of joint products in the petroleum industry

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Karimnejad, H.

1990-01-01

This dissertation investigates the pricing mechanism of joint products in large multi-plant and multi-product corporations. The primary objective of this dissertation is to show the consistency of classical theories of production with corporate pricing of joint products. This dissertation has two major parts. Part One provides a theoretical framework for joint production and corporate pricing. In this part, joint production is defined and its historical treatment by classical and contemporary economists is analyzed. Part Two conducts an empirical analysis of joint products in the US petroleum industry. Methods of cost allocation are used in the pricing of each individual petroleum product. Three methods are employed to distribute joint production costs to individual petroleum products. These methods are, the sales value method, the barrel gravity method and the average unit cost method. The empirical findings of dissertation provide useful guidelines for pricing policies of large multi-product corporations

Why do electricity utilities cooperate with coal suppliers? A theoretical and empirical analysis from China

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhao Xiaoli; Lyon, Thomas P.; Wang Feng; Song Cui

2012-01-01

The asymmetry of Chinese coal and electricity pricing reforms leads to serious conflict between coal suppliers and electricity utilities. Electricity utilities experience significant losses as a result of conflict: severe coal price fluctuations, and uncertainty in the quantity and quality of coal supplies. This paper explores whether establishing cooperative relationships between coal suppliers and electricity utilities can resolve conflicts. We begin with a discussion of the history of coal and electricity pricing reforms, and then conduct a theoretical analysis of relational contracting to provide a new perspective on the drivers behind the establishment of cooperative relationships between the two parties. Finally, we empirically investigate the role of cooperative relationships and the establishment of mine-mouth power plants on the performance of electricity utilities. The results show that relational contracting between electricity utilities and coal suppliers improves the market performance of electricity utilities; meanwhile, the transportation cost savings derived from mine-mouth power plants are of importance in improving the performance of electricity utilities. - Highlights: ► We discuss the history of coal and electricity pricing reforms. ► The roots of conflicts between electricity and coal firms are presented. ► We conduct a theoretical analysis of relational contracting. ► The role of mine-mouth power plants on the performance of power firms is examined.

THE LISBON STRATEGY: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Silvestri Marcello

2010-07-01

Full Text Available This paper investigates the European economic integration within the frame work of the 2000 Lisbon Council with the aim of studying the dynamics affecting the social and economic life of European Countries. Such a descriptive investigation focuses on certain significant variables of the new theories highlighting the importance of technological innovation and human capital. To this end the multivariate statistic technique of Principal Component Analysis has been applied in order to classify Countries with regard to the investigated phenomenon.

THE IMPACT OF REFORMING WHEAT IMPORTING STATE-TRADING ENTERPRISES ON THE QUALITY OF WHEAT IMPORTED

OpenAIRE

Lavoie, Nathalie

2003-01-01

Recent surveys of wheat importers indicate that countries that import wheat via a state trader are less sensitive to quality issues in import decision making than countries that import wheat through private traders. This study examines conceptually and empirically the impact of the deregulation of wheat imports on the quality and source of wheat imports.

Phenomenology and the Empirical Turn

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Zwier, Jochem; Blok, Vincent; Lemmens, Pieter

2016-01-01

This paper provides a phenomenological analysis of postphenomenological philosophy of technology. While acknowledging that the results of its analyses are to be recognized as original, insightful, and valuable, we will argue that in its execution of the empirical turn, postphenomenology forfeits

Linezolid Versus Vancomycin in the Empiric Treatment of Nosocomial Pneumonia: A Cost-Utility Analysis Incorporating Results from the ZEPHyR Trial.

Science.gov (United States)

Collins, Curtis D; Schwemm, Ann K

2015-07-01

To examine the cost-effectiveness of vancomycin versus linezolid in the empiric treatment of nosocomial pneumonias incorporating results from a recent prospective, double-blind, multicenter, controlled trial in adults with suspected methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) nosocomial pneumonia. A decision-analytic model examining the cost-effectiveness of linezolid versus vancomycin for the empiric treatment of nosocomial pneumonia was created. Publicly available cost, efficacy, and utility data populated relevant model variables. A probabilistic sensitivity analysis varied parameters in 10,000 Monte-Carlo simulations, and univariate sensitivity analyses assessed the impact of model uncertainties and the robustness of our conclusions. Results indicated that the cost per quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) increased 6% ($22,594 vs. $23,860) by using linezolid versus vancomycin for nosocomial pneumonia. The incremental cost per QALY gained by using linezolid over vancomycin was $6,089, and the incremental cost per life saved was $68,615 with the use of linezolid. Vancomycin dominated linezolid in the subset of patients with documented MRSA. The incremental cost per QALY gained using linezolid if no mortality benefit exists between agents or a 60-day time horizon was analyzed was $19,608,688 and $443,662, respectively. Linezolid may be a cost-effective alternative to vancomycin in the empiric treatment of patients with suspected MRSA nosocomial pneumonia; however, results of our model were highly variable on a number of important variables and assumptions including mortality differences and time frame analyzed. Copyright © 2015 International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Imports, and competitive business cycle: an approach nonlinear; Importaciones, ciclo economico y competitividad: una aproximacion no lineal

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Mourelle, E.; Cancelo, J. R.

2012-11-01

The analysis of imports has traditionally been based on the linearity assumption, even though empirical evidence suggests more complex dynamics. Their behaviour is mainly influenced by the level of economic activity and prices, and economic theory maintains a linear long-run relationship linking these variables. This paper investigates whether short-run deviations of imports from this equilibrium also show a linear evolution or not. Empirical evidence based on Spanish imports of goods reveals the existence of non-linearity in their short-run deviations and it is also demonstrated that the underlying factor behind this asymmetric behaviour is the cyclical state of the economy. (Author) 25 refs.

Manager’s decision-making in organizations –empirical analysis of bureaucratic vs. learning approach

OpenAIRE

Jana Frenová; Daniela Hrehová; Eva Bolfíková

2010-01-01

The paper is focused on the study of manager’s decision-making with respect to the basic model of learning organization, presented by P. Senge as a system model of management. On one hand, the empirical research was conducted in connection with key dimensions of organizational learning such as: 1. system thinking, 2. personal mastery, 3. mental models, 4. team learning, 5. building shared vision and 6. dynamics causes. On the other hand, the research was connected with the analysis of the bur...

Semi-Empiric Algorithm for Assessment of the Vehicle Mobility

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ticusor CIOBOTARU

2009-12-01

Full Text Available The mobility of military vehicles plays a key role in operation. The ability to reach the desired area in war theatre represents the most important condition for a successful accomplishment of the mission for military vehicles. The off-road vehicles face a broad spectrum of terrains to cross. These terrains differ by geometry and the soil characteristics.NATO References Mobility Model (NRMM software is based on empirical relationship between the terrain characteristics, running conditions and vehicles design. The paper presents the main results of a comparative mobility analysis for M1 and HMMWV vehicles obtained using NRMM.

Investigating complex patterns of blocked intestinal artery blood pressure signals by empirical mode decomposition and linguistic analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yeh, J-R; Lin, T-Y; Shieh, J-S; Chen, Y; Huang, N E; Wu, Z; Peng, C-K

2008-01-01

In this investigation, surgical operations of blocked intestinal artery have been conducted on pigs to simulate the condition of acute mesenteric arterial occlusion. The empirical mode decomposition method and the algorithm of linguistic analysis were applied to verify the blood pressure signals in simulated situation. We assumed that there was some information hidden in the high-frequency part of the blood pressure signal when an intestinal artery is blocked. The empirical mode decomposition method (EMD) has been applied to decompose the intrinsic mode functions (IMF) from a complex time series. But, the end effects and phenomenon of intermittence damage the consistence of each IMF. Thus, we proposed the complementary ensemble empirical mode decomposition method (CEEMD) to solve the problems of end effects and the phenomenon of intermittence. The main wave of blood pressure signals can be reconstructed by the main components, identified by Monte Carlo verification, and removed from the original signal to derive a riding wave. Furthermore, the concept of linguistic analysis was applied to design the blocking index to verify the pattern of riding wave of blood pressure using the measurements of dissimilarity. Blocking index works well to identify the situation in which the sampled time series of blood pressure signal was recorded. Here, these two totally different algorithms are successfully integrated and the existence of the existence of information hidden in high-frequency part of blood pressure signal has been proven

Investigating complex patterns of blocked intestinal artery blood pressure signals by empirical mode decomposition and linguistic analysis

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Yeh, J-R; Lin, T-Y; Shieh, J-S [Department of Mechanical Engineering, Yuan Ze University, 135 Far-East Road, Chung-Li, Taoyuan, Taiwan (China); Chen, Y [Far Eastern Memorial Hospital, Taiwan (China); Huang, N E [Research Center for Adaptive Data Analysis, National Central University, Taiwan (China); Wu, Z [Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies (United States); Peng, C-K [Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School (United States)], E-mail: s939205@ mail.yzu.edu.tw

2008-02-15

In this investigation, surgical operations of blocked intestinal artery have been conducted on pigs to simulate the condition of acute mesenteric arterial occlusion. The empirical mode decomposition method and the algorithm of linguistic analysis were applied to verify the blood pressure signals in simulated situation. We assumed that there was some information hidden in the high-frequency part of the blood pressure signal when an intestinal artery is blocked. The empirical mode decomposition method (EMD) has been applied to decompose the intrinsic mode functions (IMF) from a complex time series. But, the end effects and phenomenon of intermittence damage the consistence of each IMF. Thus, we proposed the complementary ensemble empirical mode decomposition method (CEEMD) to solve the problems of end effects and the phenomenon of intermittence. The main wave of blood pressure signals can be reconstructed by the main components, identified by Monte Carlo verification, and removed from the original signal to derive a riding wave. Furthermore, the concept of linguistic analysis was applied to design the blocking index to verify the pattern of riding wave of blood pressure using the measurements of dissimilarity. Blocking index works well to identify the situation in which the sampled time series of blood pressure signal was recorded. Here, these two totally different algorithms are successfully integrated and the existence of the existence of information hidden in high-frequency part of blood pressure signal has been proven.

Importance analysis for the systems with common cause failures

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pan Zhijie; Nonaka, Yasuo

1995-01-01

This paper extends the importance analysis technique to the research field of common cause failures to evaluate the structure importance, probability importance, and β-importance for the systems with common cause failures. These importance measures would help reliability analysts to limit the common cause failure analysis framework and find efficient defence strategies against common cause failures

Comparative empirical analysis of flow-weighted transit route networks in R-space and evolution modeling

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Ailing; Zang, Guangzhi; He, Zhengbing; Guan, Wei

2017-05-01

Urban public transit system is a typical mixed complex network with dynamic flow, and its evolution should be a process coupling topological structure with flow dynamics, which has received little attention. This paper presents the R-space to make a comparative empirical analysis on Beijing’s flow-weighted transit route network (TRN) and we found that both the Beijing’s TRNs in the year of 2011 and 2015 exhibit the scale-free properties. As such, we propose an evolution model driven by flow to simulate the development of TRNs with consideration of the passengers’ dynamical behaviors triggered by topological change. The model simulates that the evolution of TRN is an iterative process. At each time step, a certain number of new routes are generated driven by travel demands, which leads to dynamical evolution of new routes’ flow and triggers perturbation in nearby routes that will further impact the next round of opening new routes. We present the theoretical analysis based on the mean-field theory, as well as the numerical simulation for this model. The results obtained agree well with our empirical analysis results, which indicate that our model can simulate the TRN evolution with scale-free properties for distributions of node’s strength and degree. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the global evolutional mechanism of transit network that will be used to exploit planning and design strategies for real TRNs.

Competition in the German pharmacy market: an empirical analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Heinsohn, Jörg G; Flessa, Steffen

2013-10-10

Pharmaceutical products are an important component of expenditure on public health insurance in the Federal Republic of Germany. For years, German policy makers have regulated public pharmacies in order to limit the increase in costs. One reform has followed another, main objective being to increase competition in the pharmacy market. It is generally assumed that an increase in competition would reduce healthcare costs. However, there is a lack of empirical proof of a stronger orientation of German public pharmacies towards competition thus far. This paper analyses the self-perceptions of owners of German public pharmacies and their orientation towards competition in the pharmacy markets. It is based on a cross-sectional survey (N = 289) and distinguishes between successful and less successful pharmacies, the location of the pharmacies (e.g. West German States and East German States) and the gender of the pharmacy owner. The data are analysed descriptively by survey items and employing bivariate and structural equation modelling. The analysis reveals that the majority of owners of public pharmacies in Germany do not currently perceive very strong competitive pressure in the market. However, the innovativeness of the pharmacist is confirmed as most relevant for net revenue development and the profit margin. Some differences occur between regions, e.g. public pharmacies in West Germany have a significantly higher profit margin. This study provides evidence that the German healthcare reforms aimed at increasing the competition between public pharmacies in Germany have not been completely successful. Many owners of public pharmacies disregard instruments of active customer-orientated management (such as customer loyalty or an offensive position and economies of scale), which could give them a competitive advantage. However, it is clear that those pharmacists who strive for systematic and innovative management and adopt an offensive and competitive stance are quite

On the relationship between fiscal plans in the European Union: An empirical analysis based on real-time data

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Giuliodori, M.; Beetsma, R.M.W.J.

2007-01-01

We investigate the interdependence of fiscal policies, and in particular deficits, in the European Union using an empirical analysis based on real-time fiscal data. There are many potential reasons why fiscal policies could be interdependent, such as direct externalities due to cross-border public

On the relationship between fiscal plans in the European Union: an empirical analysis based on real-time data

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Giuliodori, M.; Beetsma, R.

2008-01-01

We investigate the interdependence of fiscal policies, and in particular deficits, in the European Union using an empirical analysis based on real-time fiscal data. There are many potential reasons why fiscal policies could be interdependent, such as direct externalities due to cross-border public

Empirical Likelihood in Nonignorable Covariate-Missing Data Problems.

Science.gov (United States)

Xie, Yanmei; Zhang, Biao

2017-04-20

Missing covariate data occurs often in regression analysis, which frequently arises in the health and social sciences as well as in survey sampling. We study methods for the analysis of a nonignorable covariate-missing data problem in an assumed conditional mean function when some covariates are completely observed but other covariates are missing for some subjects. We adopt the semiparametric perspective of Bartlett et al. (Improving upon the efficiency of complete case analysis when covariates are MNAR. Biostatistics 2014;15:719-30) on regression analyses with nonignorable missing covariates, in which they have introduced the use of two working models, the working probability model of missingness and the working conditional score model. In this paper, we study an empirical likelihood approach to nonignorable covariate-missing data problems with the objective of effectively utilizing the two working models in the analysis of covariate-missing data. We propose a unified approach to constructing a system of unbiased estimating equations, where there are more equations than unknown parameters of interest. One useful feature of these unbiased estimating equations is that they naturally incorporate the incomplete data into the data analysis, making it possible to seek efficient estimation of the parameter of interest even when the working regression function is not specified to be the optimal regression function. We apply the general methodology of empirical likelihood to optimally combine these unbiased estimating equations. We propose three maximum empirical likelihood estimators of the underlying regression parameters and compare their efficiencies with other existing competitors. We present a simulation study to compare the finite-sample performance of various methods with respect to bias, efficiency, and robustness to model misspecification. The proposed empirical likelihood method is also illustrated by an analysis of a data set from the US National Health and

Population density and efficiency in energy consumption: An empirical analysis of service establishments

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Morikawa, Masayuki

2012-01-01

This study, using novel establishment-level microdata from the Energy Consumption Statistics, empirically analyzes the effect of urban density on energy intensity in the service sector. According to the analysis, the efficiency of energy consumption in service establishments is higher for densely populated cities. Quantitatively, after controlling for differences among industries, energy efficiency increases by approximately 12% when the density in a municipality population doubles. This result suggests that, given a structural transformation toward the service economy, deregulation of excessive restrictions hindering urban agglomeration, and investment in infrastructure in city centers would contribute to environmentally friendly economic growth.

Selection Bias in Educational Transition Models: Theory and Empirical Evidence

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Holm, Anders; Jæger, Mads

variables. This paper, first, explains theoretically how selection on unobserved variables leads to waning coefficients and, second, illustrates empirically how selection leads to biased estimates of the effect of family background on educational transitions. Our empirical analysis using data from...

Niche Overlap and Discrediting Acts: An Empirical Analysis of Informing in Hollywood

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Giacomo Negro

2015-06-01

Full Text Available This article examines informing on others as a discrediting act between individual agents in a labor market. We conduct an empirical analysis of artists called to testify during the 1950s Congressional hearings into Communism in Hollywood, and multi-level regression models reveal that the odds of an artist informing on another increase when their career histories are more similar. The similarity reflects levels of niche overlap in the labor market. The finding that similarity contributes to discredit in the context of resource competition is compatible with a social comparison process, whereby uncertainty about performance leads more similar people to attend to and exclude one another to a greater extent.

Environmentalism and elitism: a conceptual and empirical analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Morrison, Denton E.; Dunlap, Riley E.

1986-09-01

The frequent charge that environmentalism is “elitist” is examined conceptually and empirically. First, the concept of elitism is analyzed by distinguishing between three types of accusations made against the environmental movement: (a) compositional elitism suggests that environmentalists are drawn from privileged socioeconomic strata, (b) ideological elitism suggests that environmental reforms are a subterfuge for distributing benefits to environmentalists and/or costs to others, and (c) impact elitism suggests that environmental reforms, whether intentionally or not, do in fact have regressive social impacts. The evidence bearing on each of the three types of elitism is examined in some detail, and the following conclusions are drawn: Compositional elitism is an exaggeration, for although environmentalists are typically above average in socioeconomic status (as are most sociopolitical activists), few belong to the upper class. Ideological elitism may hold in some instances, but environmentalists have shown increasing sensitivity to equity concerns and there is little evidence of consistent pursuit of self-interest. Impact elitism is the most important issue, and also the most difficult to assess. It appears that there has been a general tendency for environmental reforms to have regressive impacts. However, it is increasingly recognized that problems such as workplace pollution and toxic waste contamination disproportionately affect the lower socioeconomic strata, and thus reforms aimed at such problems will likely have more progressive impacts.

The importance of culture in treating abused and neglected children: an empirical review.

Science.gov (United States)

Cohen, J A; Deblinger, E; Mannarino, A P; de Arellano, M A

2001-05-01

There is growing evidence that cultural factors may influence symptom development and treatment referral patterns among abused and neglected children. To date, few treatment outcome studies have specifically examined the impact of race, culture, or ethnicity on treatment response among maltreated children. Those that have attempted to include these factors have typically suffered from lack of clarity of the meaning of these terms. This article reviews the available empirical evidence that addresses the influence of culture on symptom formation, treatment-seeking behaviors, treatment preference, and response following child maltreatment. Hypotheses regarding these findings are addressed, and implications for practice, research, and public policy are discussed.

The Impact of Tourism on Economic Growth in the Western Balkan Countries: An Empirical Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Prof. Dr Nasir Selimi

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Purpose: The purpose of this research paper is to empirically analyse the effects of tourism on economic growth in Western Balkan countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, FYROM, Montenegro and Serbia. Design/Methodology/Approach: The empirical analysis consists of 17-year panel data of 6 countries over the period 1998 to 2014. Several models are analysed using the panel regression econometric techniques. The study investigates the random and fixed effects, as well as individual heterogeneity across those countries. Also, the Hausman Taylor IV estimator is used as the most appropriate model for this analysis. The real income per capita of the sample countries is modelled as dependent on the lagged income per capita, tourist arrivals, tourism receipts, FDI stock, exports and government expenditures. Findings: The estimation results in all types of models, and indicate that tourism has a positive and significant impact on economic growth in the Western Balkan countries. The Hausman Taylor IV model suggests that for every 1% increase of tourist arrivals, the output will increase approximately by 0.08%. Research limitations/implications: Although the Hausman Taylor IV model performs well, the results should be interpreted with caution. The analysis has its limitations; firstly, the total number of observations is relatively small for a panel regression analysis; secondly, the problem of endogenity is not completely avoided. However, the study implies that these countries should enhance efforts for joint tourism sector policies to engender economic sustainability. Originality/Value: To our best knowledge, this is the first attempt of estimating the effects of tourism on economic growth in the Western Balkan countries using the Hausman Taylor IV model.

Identifying ideal brow vector position: empirical analysis of three brow archetypes.

Science.gov (United States)

Hamamoto, Ashley A; Liu, Tiffany W; Wong, Brian J

2013-02-01

Surgical browlifts counteract the effects of aging, correct ptosis, and optimize forehead aesthetics. While surgeons have control over brow shape, the metrics defining ideal brow shape are subjective. This study aims to empirically determine whether three expert brow design strategies are aesthetically equivalent by using expert focus group analysis and relating these findings to brow surgery. Comprehensive literature search identified three dominant brow design methods (Westmore, Lamas and Anastasia) that are heavily cited, referenced or internationally recognized in either medical literature or by the lay media. Using their respective guidelines, brow shape was modified for 10 synthetic female faces, yielding 30 images. A focus group of 50 professional makeup artists ranked the three images for each of the 10 faces to generate ordinal attractiveness scores. The contemporary methods employed by Anastasia and Lamas produce a brow arch more lateral than Westmore's classic method. Although the more laterally located brow arch is considered the current trend in facial aesthetics, this style was not empirically supported. No single method was consistently rated most or least attractive by the focus group, and no significant difference in attractiveness score for the different methods was observed (p = 0.2454). Although each method of brow placement has been promoted as the "best" approach, no single brow design method achieved statistical significance in optimizing attractiveness. Each can be used effectively as a guide in designing eyebrow shape during browlift procedures, making it possible to use the three methods interchangeably. Thieme Medical Publishers 333 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001, USA.

Research on the factors of return on equity: empirical analysis in Chinese port industries from 2000-2008

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Wei

2012-01-01

Port industries are the basic industries in the national economy. The industries have become the most modernized departments in every country. The development of the port industry is not only advantageous to promote the optimizing arrangement of social resources, but also to promote the growth of foreign trade volume through enhancing the transportation functions. Return on equity (ROE) is a direct indicator related to the maximization of company's wealth. It makes up the shortcomings of earnings per share (EPS). The aim of this paper is to prove the correlation between ROE and other financial indicators by choosing the listed port companies as the research objectives and selecting the data of these companies from 2000 to 2008 as empirical sample data with statistical analysis of the chartered figure and coefficient. The detailed analysis method used in the paper is the combination of trend analysis, comparative analysis and the ratio of the factor analysis method. This paper analyzes and compares all these factors and draws the conclusions as follows: Firstly, ROE has a positive correlation with total assets turnover, main profit margin and fixed asset ratio, while has a negative correlation with assets liabilities ratio, total assets growth rate and DOL. Secondly, main profit margin has the greatest positive effect on ROE among all these factors. The second greatest factor is total assets turnover, which shows the operation capacity is also an important indicator after the profitability. Thirdly, assets liabilities ratio has the greatest negative effect on ROE among all these factors.

SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS IN FLEXIBLE PAVEMENT PERFORMANCE USING MECHANISTIC EMPIRICAL METHOD (CASE STUDY: CIREBON–LOSARI ROAD SEGMENT, WEST JAVA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

E. Samad

2012-02-01

Full Text Available Cirebon – Losari flexible pavement which is located on the North Coast of Java, Indonesia, is in the severe damage condition caused by overloading vehicles passing the road. The need for developing improved pavement design and analysis methods is very necessary. The increment of loads and quality of material properties can be evaluated through Mechanistic-Empirical (M-E method. M-E software like KENLAYER has been developed to facilitate the transition from empirical to mechanistic design methods. From the KENLAYER analysis, it can be concluded that the effect of overloading to the pavement structure performance is difficult to minimize even though the first two layers have relatively high modulus of elasticity. The occurrence of 150%, 200%, and 250% overloading have a very significant effect in reducing 84%, 95%, and 98% of the pavement design life, respectively. For the purpose of increasing the pavement service life, it is more effective to manage the allowable load.

An Empirical Study Based on the SPSS Variance Analysis of College Teachers' Sports Participation and Satisfaction

OpenAIRE

Yunqiu Liang

2013-01-01

The study on University Teachers ' sports participation and their job satisfaction relationship for empirical research, mainly from the group to participate in sports activities situation on the object of study, investigation and mathematical statistics analysis SPSS. Results show that sports groups participate in job satisfaction higher than those in groups of job satisfaction; sports participation, different job satisfaction is also different. Recommendations for college teachers to address...

Anterior temporal face patches: A meta-analysis and empirical study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rebecca J. Von Der Heide

2013-02-01

Full Text Available Studies of nonhuman primates have reported face sensitive patches in the ventral anterior temporal lobes (ATL. In humans, ATL resection or damage causes an associative prosopagnosia in which face perception is intact but face memory is compromised. Some fMRI studies have extended these findings using famous and familiar faces. However, it is unclear whether these regions in the human ATL are in locations comparable to those reported in non-human primates, typically using unfamiliar faces. We present the results of two studies of person memory: a meta-analysis of existing fMRI studies and an empirical fMRI study using optimized imaging parameters. Both studies showed left-lateralized ATL activations to familiar individuals while novel faces activated the right ATL. Activations to famous faces were quite ventral, similar to what has been reported in monkeys. These findings suggest that face memory-sensitive patches in the human ATL are in the ventral/polar ATL.

Let the Weakest Link Go! Empirical Explorations on the Relative Importance of Weak and Strong Ties on Social Networking Sites

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nicole C. Krämer

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Theoretical approaches as well as empirical results in the area of social capital accumulation on social networking sites suggest that weak ties/bridging versus strong ties/bonding social capital should be distinguished and that while bonding social capital is connected to emotional support, bridging social capital entails the provision of information. Additionally, recent studies imply the notion that weak ties/bridging social capital are gaining increasing importance in today’s social media environments. By means of a survey (N = 317 we challenged these presuppositions by assessing the social support functions that are ascribed to three different types of contacts from participants’ network (weak, medium, or strong tie. In contrast to theoretical assumptions, we do not find that weak ties are experienced to supply informational support whereas strong ties first and foremost provide emotional support. Instead we find that within social networking sites, strong ties are perceived to provide both emotional and informational support and weak ties are perceived as less important than recent literature assumes.

Empirical Evaluation of Two Best-Practices for Energy-Efficient Software Development

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Procaccianti, G.; Fernandez, H.J.; Lago, P.

2016-01-01

Background. Energy efficiency is an increasingly important property of software. A large number of empirical studies have been conducted on the topic. However, current state-of-the-Art does not provide empirically-validated guidelines for developing energy-efficient software. Aim. This study aims at

Lessons from empirical studies in product and service variety management.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andrew C.L. Lyons

2013-07-01

Full Text Available For many years, a trend for businesses has been to increase market segmentation and extend product and service-variety offerings in order to provid more choice for customers and gain a competitive advantags. However, there have been relatively few variety-related, empirical studies that have been undertaken. In this research, two empirical studies are presented that address the impact of product and service variety on business and business function performance. In the first (service-variety study, the focus concerns the relationship between service provision offered by UK-based, third-party logistics (3PL providers and the operational and financial performance of those providers. Here, the results of a large survey identify the  most important services offered by 3PLs and the most important aspects of 3PL operational performance. Also, the research suggests that the range of service variety offered by 3PLs does not directly influence the 3PLs’ financial performance. The second (product-variety study presents the findings from an analysis of data from 163 manufacturing plants where the impact of product variety on the performance of five business functions is examined. An increase in product variety was found to influence business functions differently depending on the combination of customisation and variety offered to customers

Network Analysis Approach to Stroke Care and Assistance Provision: An Empirical Study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Szczygiel Nina

2017-06-01

Full Text Available To model and analyse stroke care and assistance provision in the Portuguese context from the network perspective. We used the network theory as a theoretical foundation for the study. The model proposed by Frey et al. (2006 was used to elicit and comprehend possible interactions and relations between organisations expected to be involved in the provision of care and assistance to stroke patients in their pathway to rehabilitation. Providers were identified and contacted to evaluate the nature and intensity of relationships. Network analysis was performed with the NodeXL software package. Analysis of 509 entities based on about 260 000 entries indicates that stroke care provision in the evaluated context is best captured in the coalition-collaboration setting, which appears to best demonstrate the character of the network. Information from analysis of the collaboration stage was not sufficient to determine the network dynamics. Application of the network theory to understand interorganisational dynamics of the complex health care context. Empirical validation of the model proposed by Frey et al. (2006 in terms of its operationalisation and the way it actually reflects the practical context. Examination and analysis of interorganisational relationships and its contribution to management of compound health care context involving actors from various sectors.

Biosphere dose conversion Factor Importance and Sensitivity Analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

M. Wasiolek

2004-01-01

This report presents importance and sensitivity analysis for the environmental radiation model for Yucca Mountain, Nevada (ERMYN). ERMYN is a biosphere model supporting the total system performance assessment (TSPA) for the license application (LA) for the Yucca Mountain repository. This analysis concerns the output of the model, biosphere dose conversion factors (BDCFs) for the groundwater, and the volcanic ash exposure scenarios. It identifies important processes and parameters that influence the BDCF values and distributions, enhances understanding of the relative importance of the physical and environmental processes on the outcome of the biosphere model, includes a detailed pathway analysis for key radionuclides, and evaluates the appropriateness of selected parameter values that are not site-specific or have large uncertainty

Methods for Calculating Empires in Quasicrystals

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fang Fang

2017-10-01

Full Text Available This paper reviews the empire problem for quasiperiodic tilings and the existing methods for generating the empires of the vertex configurations in quasicrystals, while introducing a new and more efficient method based on the cut-and-project technique. Using Penrose tiling as an example, this method finds the forced tiles with the restrictions in the high dimensional lattice (the mother lattice that can be cut-and-projected into the lower dimensional quasicrystal. We compare our method to the two existing methods, namely one method that uses the algorithm of the Fibonacci chain to force the Ammann bars in order to find the forced tiles of an empire and the method that follows the work of N.G. de Bruijn on constructing a Penrose tiling as the dual to a pentagrid. This new method is not only conceptually simple and clear, but it also allows us to calculate the empires of the vertex configurations in a defected quasicrystal by reversing the configuration of the quasicrystal to its higher dimensional lattice, where we then apply the restrictions. These advantages may provide a key guiding principle for phason dynamics and an important tool for self error-correction in quasicrystal growth.

Federalism and regional health care expenditures: an empirical analysis for the Swiss cantons.

Science.gov (United States)

Crivelli, Luca; Filippini, Massimo; Mosca, Ilaria

2006-05-01

Switzerland (7.2 million inhabitants) is a federal state composed of 26 cantons. The autonomy of cantons and a particular health insurance system create strong heterogeneity in terms of regulation and organisation of health care services. In this study we use a single-equation approach to model the per capita cantonal expenditures on health care services and postulate that per capita health expenditures depend on some economic, demographic and structural factors. The empirical analysis demonstrates that a larger share of old people tends to increase health costs and that physicians paid on a fee-for-service basis swell expenditures, thus highlighting a possible phenomenon of supply-induced demand.

Teaching Integrity in Empirical Research: A Protocol for Documenting Data Management and Analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Ball, Richard; Medeiros, Norm

2012-01-01

This article describes a protocol the authors developed for teaching undergraduates to document their statistical analyses for empirical research projects so that their results are completely reproducible and verifiable. The protocol is guided by the principle that the documentation prepared to accompany an empirical research project should be…

The scale-dependent market trend: Empirical evidences using the lagged DFA method

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Daye; Kou, Zhun; Sun, Qiankun

2015-09-01

In this paper we make an empirical research and test the efficiency of 44 important market indexes in multiple scales. A modified method based on the lagged detrended fluctuation analysis is utilized to maximize the information of long-term correlations from the non-zero lags and keep the margin of errors small when measuring the local Hurst exponent. Our empirical result illustrates that a common pattern can be found in the majority of the measured market indexes which tend to be persistent (with the local Hurst exponent > 0.5) in the small time scale, whereas it displays significant anti-persistent characteristics in large time scales. Moreover, not only the stock markets but also the foreign exchange markets share this pattern. Considering that the exchange markets are only weakly synchronized with the economic cycles, it can be concluded that the economic cycles can cause anti-persistence in the large time scale but there are also other factors at work. The empirical result supports the view that financial markets are multi-fractal and it indicates that deviations from efficiency and the type of model to describe the trend of market price are dependent on the forecasting horizon.

An empirical analysis of the relationship between the consumption of alcohol and liver cirrhosis mortality

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bentzen, Jan Børsen; Smith, Valdemar

The question whether intake of alcohol is associated with liver cirrhosis mortality is analyzed using aggregate data for alcohol consumption, alcohol related diseases and alcohol policies of 16 European countries. The empirical analysis gives support to a close association between cirrhosis morta...... mortality and intake of alcohol - and the latter also concerns each of the specific beverages, i.e. spirits, wine and beer, where other studies usually only find evidence of spirits and wine related to liver cirrhosis mortality.  ...

Filtration of human EEG recordings from physiological artifacts with empirical mode method

Science.gov (United States)

Grubov, Vadim V.; Runnova, Anastasiya E.; Khramova, Marina V.

2017-03-01

In the paper we propose the new method for dealing with noise and physiological artifacts in experimental human EEG recordings. The method is based on analysis of EEG signals with empirical mode decomposition (Hilbert-Huang transform). We consider noises and physiological artifacts on EEG as specific oscillatory patterns that cause problems during EEG analysis and can be detected with additional signals recorded simultaneously with EEG (ECG, EMG, EOG, etc.) We introduce the algorithm of the method with following steps: empirical mode decomposition of EEG signal, choosing of empirical modes with artifacts, removing empirical modes with artifacts, reconstruction of the initial EEG signal. We test the method on filtration of experimental human EEG signals from eye-moving artifacts and show high efficiency of the method.

Multivariate Empirical Mode Decomposition Based Signal Analysis and Efficient-Storage in Smart Grid

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Liu, Lu [University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK); Albright, Austin P [ORNL; Rahimpour, Alireza [University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK); Guo, Jiandong [University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK); Qi, Hairong [University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK); Liu, Yilu [University of Tennessee (UTK) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)

2017-01-01

Wide-area-measurement systems (WAMSs) are used in smart grid systems to enable the efficient monitoring of grid dynamics. However, the overwhelming amount of data and the severe contamination from noise often impede the effective and efficient data analysis and storage of WAMS generated measurements. To solve this problem, we propose a novel framework that takes advantage of Multivariate Empirical Mode Decomposition (MEMD), a fully data-driven approach to analyzing non-stationary signals, dubbed MEMD based Signal Analysis (MSA). The frequency measurements are considered as a linear superposition of different oscillatory components and noise. The low-frequency components, corresponding to the long-term trend and inter-area oscillations, are grouped and compressed by MSA using the mean shift clustering algorithm. Whereas, higher-frequency components, mostly noise and potentially part of high-frequency inter-area oscillations, are analyzed using Hilbert spectral analysis and they are delineated by statistical behavior. By conducting experiments on both synthetic and real-world data, we show that the proposed framework can capture the characteristics, such as trends and inter-area oscillation, while reducing the data storage requirements

The Twin Deficits Hypothesis: An Empirical Analysis for Tanzania

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Manamba Epaphra

2017-09-01

Full Text Available This paper examines the relationship between current account and government budget deficits in Tanzania. The paper tests the validity of the twin deficits hypothesis, using annual time series data for the 1966-2015 period. The paper is thought to be significant because the concept of the twin deficit hypothesis is fraught with controversy. Some researches support the hypothesis that there is a positive relationship between current account deficits and fiscal deficits in the economy while others do not. In this paper, the empirical tests fail to reject the twin deficits hypothesis, indicating that rising budget deficits put more strain on the current account deficits in Tanzania. Specifically, the Vector Error Correction Model results support the conventional theory of a positive relationship between fiscal and external balances, with a relatively high speed of adjustment toward the equilibrium position. This evidence is consistent with a small open economy. To address the problem that may result from this kind of relationship, appropriate policy variables for reducing budget deficits such as reduction in non-development expenditure, enhancement of domestic revenue collection and actively fight corruption and tax evasion should be adopted. The government should also target export oriented firms and encourage an import substitution industry by creating favorable business environments.

Self-image and Missions of Universities: An Empirical Analysis of Japanese University Executives

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Masataka Murasawa

2014-05-01

Full Text Available As universities in Japan gain institutional autonomy in managing internal organizations, independent of governmental control as a result of deregulation and decentralizing reforms, it is becoming increasingly important that the executives and administrators of each institution demonstrate clear and strategic vision and ideas to external stakeholders, in order to maintain financially robust operations and attractiveness of their institutions. This paper considers whether and how the self-image, mission, and vision of universities are perceived and internalized by the management of Japanese universities and empirically examines the determinants of shaping such individual perceptions. The result of our descriptive analysis indicates that the recent government policy to internationalize domestic universities has not shown much progress in the view of university executives in Japan. An increasing emphasis on the roles of serving local needs in research and teaching is rather pursued by these universities. Individual perceptions among Japanese university executives with regard to the missions and functional roles to be played by their institutions are influenced by managerial rank as well as the field of their academic training. A multiple regression analysis reveals that the economy of scale brought out by an expanded undergraduate student enrollment gradually slows down and decelerate executive perceptions, with regard to establishing a globally recognized status in research and teaching. Moreover, Japanese universities with a small proportion of graduate student enrollment, likely opted out from competitions for gaining a greater respect in the global community of higher education between 2005 and 2012. Finally, the management in universities granted with the same amount of external research funds in both studied years responded more passively in 2012 than did in 2005 on the self-assessment of whether having established a status as a global

An exploration study to detect important factors influencing insurance firms

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Farzaneh Soleimani

2013-11-01

Full Text Available The recent trend on competition among insurance firms has increased motivation to look for important factors influencing this industry. In this paper, we present an empirical investigation to find important factors shaping this industry. The proposed study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale and, using principal component analysis, detects important factors on the success of this industry. Cronbach alpha is calculated as 0.849, and Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin and Bartlett's Test are calculated as 0.873 and 12744 with (Sig. =0.000, respectively. The study has detected four important factors including quality of service casualties, sales improvement and advertisement, quality of issuance of insurance policies and quality of work force.

Modeling ionospheric foF2 by using empirical orthogonal function analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

E. A

2011-08-01

Full Text Available A similar-parameters interpolation method and an empirical orthogonal function analysis are used to construct empirical models for the ionospheric foF2 by using the observational data from three ground-based ionosonde stations in Japan which are Wakkanai (Geographic 45.4° N, 141.7° E, Kokubunji (Geographic 35.7° N, 140.1° E and Yamagawa (Geographic 31.2° N, 130.6° E during the years of 1971–1987. The impact of different drivers towards ionospheric foF2 can be well indicated by choosing appropriate proxies. It is shown that the missing data of original foF2 can be optimal refilled using similar-parameters method. The characteristics of base functions and associated coefficients of EOF model are analyzed. The diurnal variation of base functions can reflect the essential nature of ionospheric foF2 while the coefficients represent the long-term alteration tendency. The 1st order EOF coefficient A1 can reflect the feature of the components with solar cycle variation. A1 also contains an evident semi-annual variation component as well as a relatively weak annual fluctuation component. Both of which are not so obvious as the solar cycle variation. The 2nd order coefficient A2 contains mainly annual variation components. The 3rd order coefficient A3 and 4th order coefficient A4 contain both annual and semi-annual variation components. The seasonal variation, solar rotation oscillation and the small-scale irregularities are also included in the 4th order coefficient A4. The amplitude range and developing tendency of all these coefficients depend on the level of solar activity and geomagnetic activity. The reliability and validity of EOF model are verified by comparison with observational data and with International Reference Ionosphere (IRI. The agreement between observations and EOF model is quite well, indicating that the EOF model can reflect the major changes and the temporal distribution characteristics of the mid-latitude ionosphere of the

Inglorious Empire

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Khair, Tabish

2017-01-01

Review of 'Inglorious Empire: What the British did to India' by Shashi Tharoor, London, Hurst Publishers, 2017, 296 pp., £20.00......Review of 'Inglorious Empire: What the British did to India' by Shashi Tharoor, London, Hurst Publishers, 2017, 296 pp., £20.00...

Reframing Serial Murder Within Empirical Research.

Science.gov (United States)

Gurian, Elizabeth A

2017-04-01

Empirical research on serial murder is limited due to the lack of consensus on a definition, the continued use of primarily descriptive statistics, and linkage to popular culture depictions. These limitations also inhibit our understanding of these offenders and affect credibility in the field of research. Therefore, this comprehensive overview of a sample of 508 cases (738 total offenders, including partnered groups of two or more offenders) provides analyses of solo male, solo female, and partnered serial killers to elucidate statistical differences and similarities in offending and adjudication patterns among the three groups. This analysis of serial homicide offenders not only supports previous research on offending patterns present in the serial homicide literature but also reveals that empirically based analyses can enhance our understanding beyond traditional case studies and descriptive statistics. Further research based on these empirical analyses can aid in the development of more accurate classifications and definitions of serial murderers.

Establishment of Grain Farmers' Supply Response Model and Empirical Analysis under Minimum Grain Purchase Price Policy

OpenAIRE

Zhang, Shuang

2012-01-01

Based on farmers' supply behavior theory and price expectations theory, this paper establishes grain farmers' supply response model of two major grain varieties (early indica rice and mixed wheat) in the major producing areas, to test whether the minimum grain purchase price policy can have price-oriented effect on grain production and supply in the major producing areas. Empirical analysis shows that the minimum purchase price published annually by the government has significant positive imp...

The demand for gasoline in South Africa. An empirical analysis using co-integration techniques

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Akinboade, Oludele A.; Ziramba, Emmanuel; Kumo, Wolassa L.

2008-01-01

Using the recently developed Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bound testing approach to co-integration, suggested by Pesaran et al. (Pesaran, M.H., Shin, Y., Smith, R.J. Bounds Testing Approaches to the Analysis of Level Relationships. Journal of Applied Econometrics 2001; 16(3) 289-326), we empirically analyzed the long-run relationship among the variables in the aggregate gasoline demand function over the period 1978-2005. Our study confirms the existence of a co-integrating relationship. The estimated price and income elasticities of - 0.47 and 0.36 imply that gasoline demand in South Africa is price and income inelastic. (author)

The demand for gasoline in South Africa. An empirical analysis using co-integration techniques

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Akinboade, Oludele A.; Ziramba, Emmanuel; Kumo, Wolassa L. [Department of Economics, University of South Africa, P.O.Box 392, Pretoria 0003 (South Africa)

2008-11-15

Using the recently developed Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bound testing approach to co-integration, suggested by Pesaran et al. (Pesaran, M.H., Shin, Y., Smith, R.J. Bounds Testing Approaches to the Analysis of Level Relationships. Journal of Applied Econometrics 2001; 16(3) 289-326), we empirically analyzed the long-run relationship among the variables in the aggregate gasoline demand function over the period 1978-2005. Our study confirms the existence of a co-integrating relationship. The estimated price and income elasticities of - 0.47 and 0.36 imply that gasoline demand in South Africa is price and income inelastic. (author)

Modelling of proton exchange membrane fuel cell performance based on semi-empirical equations

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Al-Baghdadi, Maher A.R. Sadiq [Babylon Univ., Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Babylon (Iraq)

2005-08-01

Using semi-empirical equations for modeling a proton exchange membrane fuel cell is proposed for providing a tool for the design and analysis of fuel cell total systems. The focus of this study is to derive an empirical model including process variations to estimate the performance of fuel cell without extensive calculations. The model take into account not only the current density but also the process variations, such as the gas pressure, temperature, humidity, and utilization to cover operating processes, which are important factors in determining the real performance of fuel cell. The modelling results are compared well with known experimental results. The comparison shows good agreements between the modeling results and the experimental data. The model can be used to investigate the influence of process variables for design optimization of fuel cells, stacks, and complete fuel cell power system. (Author)

An empirical analysis of the impact of renewable energy deployment on local sustainability

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Del Rio, Pablo [Institute for Public Goods and Policies (IPP), Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC), C/Albasanz 26-28, 28037 Madrid (Spain); Burguillo, Mercedes [Facultad de Ciencias Economicas y Empresariales, Universidad de Alcala, Pza. de la Victoria 3, 28802 Alcala de Henares, Madrid (Spain)

2009-08-15

It is usually mentioned that renewable energy sources (RES) have a large potential to contribute to the sustainable development of specific territories by providing them with a wide variety of socioeconomic benefits, including diversification of energy supply, enhanced regional and rural development opportunities, creation of a domestic industry and employment opportunities. The analysis of these benefits has usually been too general (i.e., mostly at the national level) and a focus on the regional and especially the local level has been lacking. This paper empirically analyses those benefits, by applying a conceptual and methodological framework previously developed by the authors to three renewable energy technologies in three different places in Spain. With the help of case studies, the paper shows that the contribution of RES to the economic and social dimensions of sustainable development might be significant. Particularly important is employment creation in these areas. Although, in absolute terms, the number of jobs created may not be high, it may be so with respect to the existing jobs in the areas considered. Socioeconomic benefits depend on several factors, and not only on the type of renewable energy, as has usually been mentioned. The specific socioeconomic features of the territories, including the productive structure of the area, the relationships between the stakeholders and the involvement of the local actors in the renewable energy project may play a relevant role in this regard. Furthermore, other local (socioeconomic) sustainability aspects beyond employment creation should be considered. (author)

Immigration rates in fragmented landscapes--empirical evidence for the importance of habitat amount for species persistence.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Thomas Püttker

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: The total amount of native vegetation is an important property of fragmented landscapes and is known to exert a strong influence on population and metapopulation dynamics. As the relationship between habitat loss and local patch and gap characteristics is strongly non-linear, theoretical models predict that immigration rates should decrease dramatically at low levels of remaining native vegetation cover, leading to patch-area effects and the existence of species extinction thresholds across fragmented landscapes with different proportions of remaining native vegetation. Although empirical patterns of species distribution and richness give support to these models, direct measurements of immigration rates across fragmented landscapes are still lacking. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Using the Brazilian Atlantic forest marsupial Gray Slender Mouse Opossum (Marmosops incanus as a model species and estimating demographic parameters of populations in patches situated in three landscapes differing in the total amount of remaining forest, we tested the hypotheses that patch-area effects on population density are apparent only at intermediate levels of forest cover, and that immigration rates into forest patches are defined primarily by landscape context surrounding patches. As expected, we observed a positive patch-area effect on M. incanus density only within the landscape with intermediate forest cover. Density was independent of patch size in the most forested landscape and the species was absent from the most deforested landscape. Specifically, the mean estimated numbers of immigrants into small patches were lower in the landscape with intermediate forest cover compared to the most forested landscape. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our results reveal the crucial importance of the total amount of remaining native vegetation for species persistence in fragmented landscapes, and specifically as to the role of variable immigration rates in

Living network meta-analysis compared with pairwise meta-analysis in comparative effectiveness research: empirical study

Science.gov (United States)

Nikolakopoulou, Adriani; Mavridis, Dimitris; Furukawa, Toshi A; Cipriani, Andrea; Tricco, Andrea C; Straus, Sharon E; Siontis, George C M; Egger, Matthias

2018-01-01

Abstract Objective To examine whether the continuous updating of networks of prospectively planned randomised controlled trials (RCTs) (“living” network meta-analysis) provides strong evidence against the null hypothesis in comparative effectiveness of medical interventions earlier than the updating of conventional, pairwise meta-analysis. Design Empirical study of the accumulating evidence about the comparative effectiveness of clinical interventions. Data sources Database of network meta-analyses of RCTs identified through searches of Medline, Embase, and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews until 14 April 2015. Eligibility criteria for study selection Network meta-analyses published after January 2012 that compared at least five treatments and included at least 20 RCTs. Clinical experts were asked to identify in each network the treatment comparison of greatest clinical interest. Comparisons were excluded for which direct and indirect evidence disagreed, based on side, or node, splitting test (Pmeta-analysis. The frequency and time to strong evidence was compared against the null hypothesis between pairwise and network meta-analyses. Results 49 comparisons of interest from 44 networks were included; most (n=39, 80%) were between active drugs, mainly from the specialties of cardiology, endocrinology, psychiatry, and rheumatology. 29 comparisons were informed by both direct and indirect evidence (59%), 13 by indirect evidence (27%), and 7 by direct evidence (14%). Both network and pairwise meta-analysis provided strong evidence against the null hypothesis for seven comparisons, but for an additional 10 comparisons only network meta-analysis provided strong evidence against the null hypothesis (P=0.002). The median time to strong evidence against the null hypothesis was 19 years with living network meta-analysis and 23 years with living pairwise meta-analysis (hazard ratio 2.78, 95% confidence interval 1.00 to 7.72, P=0.05). Studies directly comparing

A Meta-Analysis of Empirically Tested School-Based Dating Violence Prevention Programs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sarah R. Edwards

2014-05-01

Full Text Available Teen dating violence prevention programs implemented in schools and empirically tested were subjected to meta-analysis. Eight studies met criteria for inclusion, consisting of both within and between designs. Overall, the weighted mean effect size (ES across studies was significant, ESr = .11; 95% confidence interval (CI = [.08, .15], p < .0001, showing an overall positive effect of the studied prevention programs. However, 25% of the studies showed an effect in the negative direction, meaning students appeared to be more supportive of dating violence after participating in a dating violence prevention program. This heightens the need for thorough program evaluation as well as the need for decision makers to have access to data about the effectiveness of programs they are considering implementing. Further implications of the results and recommendations for future research are discussed.

No study left behind: a network meta-analysis in non-small-cell lung cancer demonstrating the importance of considering all relevant data.

Science.gov (United States)

Hawkins, Neil; Scott, David A; Woods, Beth S; Thatcher, Nicholas

2009-09-01

To demonstrate the importance of considering all relevant indirect data in a network meta-analysis of treatments for non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). A recent National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence appraisal focussed on the indirect comparison of docetaxel with erlotinib in second-line treatment of NSCLC based on trials including a common comparator. We compared the results of this analysis to a network meta-analysis including other trials that formed a network of evidence. We also examined the importance of allowing for the correlations between the estimated treatment effects that can arise when analysing such networks. The analysis of the restricted network including only trials of docetaxel and erlotinib linked via the common placebo comparator produced an estimated mean hazard ratio (HR) for erlotinib compared with docetaxel of 1.55 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.72-2.97). In contrast, the network meta-analysis produced an estimated HR for erlotinib compared with docetaxel of 0.83 (95% CI 0.65-1.06). Analyzing the wider network improved the precision of estimated treatment effects, altered their rankings and also allowed further treatments to be compared. Some of the estimated treatment effects from the wider network were highly correlated. This empirical example shows the importance of considering all potentially relevant data when comparing treatments. Care should therefore be taken to consider all relevant information, including correlations induced by the network of trial data, when comparing treatments.

Empirical Evidence for the Relation between Customer Satisfaction and Business Performance

NARCIS (Netherlands)

A. van der Wiele (Ton); J.P.P.E.F. Boselie (Paul); M. Hesselink

2001-01-01

textabstractThis paper focuses on the analysis of empirical data on customer satisfaction and the relationship with hard organisational performance data. The organisation is a Flexcompany with its headquarters in The Netherlands, but also operating in other countries in Europe. The empirical data on

Dynamic analysis of interhospital collaboration and competition: empirical evidence from an Italian regional health system.

Science.gov (United States)

Mascia, Daniele; Di Vincenzo, Fausto; Cicchetti, Americo

2012-05-01

Policymakers stimulate competition in universalistic health-care systems while encouraging the formation of service provision networks among hospital organizations. This article addresses a gap in the extant literature by empirically analyzing simultaneous collaboration and competition between hospitals within the Italian National Health Service, where important procompetition reforms have been implemented. To explore how rising competition between hospitals relates to their propensity to collaborate with other local providers. Longitudinal data on interhospital collaboration and competition collected in an Italian region from 2003 to 2007 are analyzed. Social network analysis techniques are applied to study the structure and dynamics of interhospital collaboration. Negative binomial regressions are employed to explore how interhospital competition relates to the collaborative network over time. Competition among providers does not hinder interhospital collaboration. Collaboration is primarily local, with resource complementarity and differentials in the volume of activity and hospital performance explaining the propensity to collaborate. Formation of collaborative networks among hospitals is not hampered by reforms aimed at fostering market forces. Because procompetition reforms elicit peculiar forms of managed competition in universalistic health systems, studies are needed to clarify whether the positive association between interhospital competition and collaboration can be generalized to other health-care settings. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

How e-business influences on time customer delivery: An empirical investigation on insurance industry

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Naser Azad

2013-11-01

Full Text Available During the past few years, e-business has revolutionized insurance industry and it has become as one of the most important techniques to reach global market. This paper presents an empirical investigation to find important factors influencing on time delivery to customers. The proposed study of this paper designs a questionnaire consists of 28 items in Likert scale, which was reduced to 24 and using principle component analysis, the study finds different important factors. Cronbach alpha is calculated as 0.94. In addition, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy and Approx. Chi-Square are 0.882 and 2462, respectively. The study determines four important factors including dynamic organization, environment opportunities, flexible structure and customer relationship management.

The impact of organizational factors on-business adoption: An empirical analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marta García-Moreno

2018-06-01

Full Text Available Purpose: Provide empirical validation of the model developed by García Moreno et al. (2016 on the factors influencing the adoption of e-business in firms. Design/methodology/approach: Consideration is given to the method for measuring each one of the variables included in the model. Use has been made of the e-Business Watch database, which contains measures for the theoretical model’s three categories: firm, technology, and environment. Multinomial logistic regression models have been provided. Findings: The variables included have revealed significant statistical relationships for the model in question, although the intensity of the relationships differs. the variables related to the environment also reveal statistically significant relationships, whereby the attitude of trading partners appears to have a relevant and growing impact on e-business adoption. Research limitations/implications: Data come from just one database: the e-Business Watch database/enriched data from alternative databases could be included. Practical implications: The infrastructure of information and communications technologies (ICTs is confirmed to be a determining factor in e-business development. Nevertheless, the effect of competitor rivalry has a more erratic influence that is encapsulated in a significant relationship in intermediate models, with a sharper increase in the likelihood of being in the category of customer-focused firms, and less internally focused. Social implications: The human capital linked to ICTs is a driving force behind the adoption of these practices. Albeit with a more moderate effect, note should also be taken of the capacity for entering into relationships with third parties within the scope of ICTs, with significant effects that become more robust as they are tested in models that seek to explain the probability of recording higher levels of e-business adoption. Originality/value: The article presents a first empirical analysis to

The money creation process: A theoretical and empirical analysis for the US

OpenAIRE

Levrero, Enrico Sergio; Deleidi, Matteo

2017-01-01

The aim of this paper is to assess – on both theoretical and empirical grounds – the two main views regarding the money creation process,namely the endogenous and exogenous money approaches. After analysing the main issues and the related empirical literature, we will apply a VAR and VECM methodology to the United States in the period 1959-2016 to assess the causal relationship between a number of critical variables that are supposed to determine the money supply, i.e., the monetary base, ban...

Review of the human reliability analysis performed for Empire State Electric Energy Research Corporation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Swart, D.; Banz, I.

1985-01-01

The Empire State Electric Energy Research Corporation (ESEERCO) commissioned Westinghouse to conduct a human reliability analysis to identify and quantify human error probabilities associated with operator actions for four specific events which may occur in light water reactors: loss of coolant accident, steam generator tube rupture, steam/feed line break, and stuck open pressurizer spray valve. Human Error Probabilities (HEPs) derived from Swain's Technique for Human Error Rate Prediction (THERP) were compared to data obtained from simulator exercises. A correlation was found between the HEPs derived from Swain and the results of the simulator data. The results of this study provide a unique insight into human factors analysis. The HEPs obtained from such probabilistic studies can be used to prioritize scenarios for operator training situations, and thus improve the correlation between simulator exercises and real control room experiences

An Empirical Analysis of Stakeholders' Influence on Policy Development: the Role of Uncertainty Handling

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rianne M. Bijlsma

2011-03-01

Full Text Available Stakeholder participation is advocated widely, but there is little structured, empirical research into its influence on policy development. We aim to further the insight into the characteristics of participatory policy development by comparing it to expert-based policy development for the same case. We describe the process of problem framing and analysis, as well as the knowledge base used. We apply an uncertainty perspective to reveal differences between the approaches and speculate about possible explanations. We view policy development as a continuous handling of substantive uncertainty and process uncertainty, and investigate how the methods of handling uncertainty of actors influence the policy development. Our findings suggest that the wider frame that was adopted in the participatory approach was the result of a more active handling of process uncertainty. The stakeholders handled institutional uncertainty by broadening the problem frame, and they handled strategic uncertainty by negotiating commitment and by including all important stakeholder criteria in the frame. In the expert-based approach, we observed a more passive handling of uncertainty, apparently to avoid complexity. The experts handled institutional uncertainty by reducing the scope and by anticipating windows of opportunity in other policy arenas. Strategic uncertainty was handled by assuming stakeholders' acceptance of noncontroversial measures that balanced benefits and sacrifices. Three other observations are of interest to the scientific debate on participatory policy processes. Firstly, the participatory policy was less adaptive than the expert-based policy. The observed low tolerance for process uncertainty of participants made them opt for a rigorous "once and for all" settling of the conflict. Secondly, in the participatory approach, actors preferred procedures of traceable knowledge acquisition over controversial topics to handle substantive uncertainty. This

The Environmental Kuznets Curve. An empirical analysis for OECD countries

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Georgiev, E.

2008-09-15

This paper tests the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis for four local (SOx, NOx, CO, VOC) and two global (CO2, GHG) air pollutants. Using a new panel data set of thirty OECD countries, the paper finds that the postulated inverted U-shaped relationship between income and pollution does not hold for all gases. A meaningful Environmental Kuznets Curve exists only for CO, VOC and NOx, where for CO2 the curve is monotonically increasing. For GHG there is indication of an inverted U-shaped relationship between income and pollution, but still most countries are on the increasing path of the curve and hence the future development of the curve is uncertain. For SOx it was found that emissions follow an U-shaped curve. Based on the empirical results, the paper concludes that the Environmental Kuznets Curve does not hold for all gases, it is rather an empirical artefact than a regularity.

The Environmental Kuznets Curve. An empirical analysis for OECD countries

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Georgiev, E.

2008-09-01

This paper tests the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis for four local (SOx, NOx, CO, VOC) and two global (CO2, GHG) air pollutants. Using a new panel data set of thirty OECD countries, the paper finds that the postulated inverted U-shaped relationship between income and pollution does not hold for all gases. A meaningful Environmental Kuznets Curve exists only for CO, VOC and NOx, where for CO2 the curve is monotonically increasing. For GHG there is indication of an inverted U-shaped relationship between income and pollution, but still most countries are on the increasing path of the curve and hence the future development of the curve is uncertain. For SOx it was found that emissions follow an U-shaped curve. Based on the empirical results, the paper concludes that the Environmental Kuznets Curve does not hold for all gases, it is rather an empirical artefact than a regularity.

Empirical evidence in the analysis of the environmental and energy policies of a series of industrialised nations, during the period 1960-1997, using widely employed macroeconomic indicators

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Focacci, Antonio

2003-01-01

This article underlines the main implications of the interrelations between the energy problem and that of environmental pollution, using the most widely used macroeconomic indicators in the field of policy analysis. In fact, carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emission intensity and energy intensity trends may be used to highlight the most important features of economic development over a given time scale in a variety of different countries. The empirical analysis proposed here--covering a time-span of some 40 years in a number of the most highly industrialised nations--seems to be useful if we are to understand the main similarities and differences in the interaction between the energy choices made by different countries and their respective environmental effects. Moreover, by using PPPs, it has been possible to propose a more detailed cross-country analysis for the different international situations

Conceptual Model of IT Infrastructure Capability and Its Empirical Justification

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

QI Xianfeng; LAN Boxiong; GUO Zhenwei

2008-01-01

Increasing importance has been attached to the value of information technology (IT) infrastructure in today's organizations. The development of efficacious IT infrastructure capability enhances business performance and brings sustainable competitive advantage. This study analyzed the IT infrastructure capability in a holistic way and then presented a concept model of IT capability. IT infrastructure capability was categorized into sharing capability, service capability, and flexibility. This study then empirically tested the model using a set of survey data collected from 145 firms. Three factors emerge from the factor analysis as IT flexibility, IT service capability, and IT sharing capability, which agree with those in the conceptual model built in this study.

Empirical research on constructing Taiwan's ecoenvironmental ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

In this paper, the material flow indicators and ecological footprint approach structured are adopted to construct eco-environmental stress indicators. We use relevant data to proceed with the empirical analyses on environmental stress and ecological impacts in Taiwan between the years of 1998 and 2007. Analysis of ...

Antecedents and Consequences of Individual Performance Analysis of Turnover Intention Model (Empirical Study of Public Accountants in Indonesia)

OpenAIRE

Raza, Hendra; Maksum, Azhar; Erlina; Lumban Raja, Prihatin

2014-01-01

Azhar Maksum This study aims to examine empirically the antecedents of individual performance on its consequences of turnover intention in public accounting firms. There are eight variables measured which consists of auditors' empowerment, innovation professionalism, role ambiguity, role conflict, organizational commitment, individual performance and turnover intention. Data analysis is based on 163 public accountant using the Structural Equation Modeling assisted with an appli...

Factors Affecting University–Industry R&D Collaboration : The importance of screening and signalling.

OpenAIRE

Roberto FONTANA; Aldo GEUNA; Mireille MATT

2005-01-01

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the determinants of research cooperation between firms and Public Research Organisations (PROs) for a sample of innovating small and mediumsized enterprises. The econometric analysis is based on the results of the KNOW survey carried out in seven EU countries during 2000. In contrast to earlier works that provide information about the importance of PROs’ research, we know how many collaborative projects a firm has had with PROs. This allows us to s...

Pluvials, Droughts, Energetics, and the Mongol Empire

Science.gov (United States)

Hessl, A. E.; Pederson, N.; Baatarbileg, N.

2012-12-01

The success of the Mongol Empire, the largest contiguous land empire the world has ever known, is a historical enigma. At its peak in the late 13th century, the empire influenced areas from the Hungary to southern Asia and Persia. Powered by domesticated herbivores, the Mongol Empire grew at the expense of agriculturalists in Eastern Europe, Persia, and China. What environmental factors contributed to the rise of the Mongols? What factors influenced the disintegration of the empire by 1300 CE? Until now, little high resolution environmental data have been available to address these questions. We use tree-ring records of past temperature and water to illuminate the role of energy and water in the evolution of the Mongol Empire. The study of energetics has long been applied to biological and ecological systems but has only recently become a theme in understanding modern coupled natural and human systems (CNH). Because water and energy are tightly linked in human and natural systems, studying their synergies and interactions make it possible to integrate knowledge across disciplines and human history, yielding important lessons for modern societies. We focus on the role of energy and water in the trajectory of an empire, including its rise, development, and demise. Our research is focused on the Orkhon Valley, seat of the Mongol Empire, where recent paleoenvironmental and archeological discoveries allow high resolution reconstructions of past human and environmental conditions for the first time. Our preliminary records indicate that the period 1210-1230 CE, the height of Chinggis Khan's reign is one of the longest and most consistent pluvials in our tree ring reconstruction of interannual drought. Reconstructed temperature derived from five millennium-long records from subalpine forests in Mongolia document warm temperatures beginning in the early 1200's and ending with a plunge into cold temperatures in 1260. Abrupt cooling in central Mongolia at this time is

Computing as Empirical Science – Evolution of a Concept

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Polak Paweł

2016-12-01

Full Text Available This article presents the evolution of philosophical and methodological considerations concerning empiricism in computer/computing science. In this study, we trace the most important current events in the history of reflection on computing. The forerunners of Artificial Intelligence H.A. Simon and A. Newell in their paper Computer Science As Empirical Inquiry (1975 started these considerations. Later the concept of empirical computer science was developed by S.S. Shapiro, P. Wegner, A.H. Eden and P.J. Denning. They showed various empirical aspects of computing. This led to a view of the science of computing (or science of information processing - the science of general scope. Some interesting contemporary ways towards a generalized perspective on computations were also shown (e.g. natural computing.

Empirical Requirements Analysis for Mars Surface Operations Using the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station

Science.gov (United States)

Clancey, William J.; Lee, Pascal; Sierhuis, Maarten; Norvig, Peter (Technical Monitor)

2001-01-01

Living and working on Mars will require model-based computer systems for maintaining and controlling complex life support, communication, transportation, and power systems. This technology must work properly on the first three-year mission, augmenting human autonomy, without adding-yet more complexity to be diagnosed and repaired. One design method is to work with scientists in analog (mars-like) setting to understand how they prefer to work, what constrains will be imposed by the Mars environment, and how to ameliorate difficulties. We describe how we are using empirical requirements analysis to prototype model-based tools at a research station in the High Canadian Arctic.

Empirical evidence about inconsistency among studies in a pair‐wise meta‐analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Turner, Rebecca M.; Higgins, Julian P. T.

2015-01-01

This paper investigates how inconsistency (as measured by the I2 statistic) among studies in a meta‐analysis may differ, according to the type of outcome data and effect measure. We used hierarchical models to analyse data from 3873 binary, 5132 continuous and 880 mixed outcome meta‐analyses within the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. Predictive distributions for inconsistency expected in future meta‐analyses were obtained, which can inform priors for between‐study variance. Inconsistency estimates were highest on average for binary outcome meta‐analyses of risk differences and continuous outcome meta‐analyses. For a planned binary outcome meta‐analysis in a general research setting, the predictive distribution for inconsistency among log odds ratios had median 22% and 95% CI: 12% to 39%. For a continuous outcome meta‐analysis, the predictive distribution for inconsistency among standardized mean differences had median 40% and 95% CI: 15% to 73%. Levels of inconsistency were similar for binary data measured by log odds ratios and log relative risks. Fitted distributions for inconsistency expected in continuous outcome meta‐analyses using mean differences were almost identical to those using standardized mean differences. The empirical evidence on inconsistency gives guidance on which outcome measures are most likely to be consistent in particular circumstances and facilitates Bayesian meta‐analysis with an informative prior for heterogeneity. © 2015 The Authors. Research Synthesis Methods published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. © 2015 The Authors. Research Synthesis Methods published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. PMID:26679486

YOUTH STUDIES – A SPECIFIC GENRE OF THE EMPIRICAL PARADIGM IN SOCIAL SCIENCES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Agnė Dorelaitienė

2017-09-01

Full Text Available The article presents the situation of youth in contemporary society. Neoliberal economy, ageing society, rapid globalisation, technological changes, increase of social risk have prompted specific, historically unfamiliar, and fairly difficult to forecast social change. Social adaptation and construction of own identity are becoming challenging to youth as a specific social group in this period of great uncertainty, risk, and opportunities. Youth studies are referred to as one of the means to help understand the youth phenomenon and form the respective policy. Aim of the article is to reveal the role of youth studies as a specific interdisciplinary genre of the empirical-analytic paradigm in social sciences. Research objectives: (1 To identify the traditions of youth studies and differences between them; (2. To reveal the specific character of youth studies as an empirical paradigm in the contemporary context. Analysis of scientific sources and document analysis are used for achievement of the goal and objectives. Since the 20th century, youth studies have been developing as an independent research discipline and tradition. Perception of the notion of a young person has been changing along with development of the paradigmatic and methodological research traditions. Modernity has doubtlessly contributed to a young person finding his/her place in other age groups and putting an emphasis on the importance of youth as a specific social group. Recently, youth has been viewed as both the risk and the opportunity group. Although qualitative research, in particular, where youth emancipation is aspired, prevails in the contemporary research tradition, the empirical-analytic paradigm has not lost its relevance. The research has demonstrated that empirical-analytic paradigm is a specific genre of the youth studies characterised by quantitative approach and strong link to politics and practical situation of the phenomenon.

Identifying Importance-Performance Matrix Analysis (IPMA) of ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Identifying Importance-Performance Matrix Analysis (IPMA) of intellectual capital and Islamic work ethics in Malaysian SMES. ... capital and Islamic work ethics significantly influenced business performance. ... AJOL African Journals Online.

Empirical mode decomposition and Hilbert transforms for analysis of oil-film interferograms

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chauhan, Kapil; Ng, Henry C H; Marusic, Ivan

2010-01-01

Oil-film interferometry is rapidly becoming the preferred method for direct measurement of wall shear stress in studies of wall-bounded turbulent flows. Although being widely accepted as the most accurate technique, it does have inherent measurement uncertainties, one of which is associated with determining the fringe spacing. This is the focus of this paper. Conventional analysis methods involve a certain level of user input and thus some subjectivity. In this paper, we consider empirical mode decomposition (EMD) and the Hilbert transform as an alternative tool for analyzing oil-film interferograms. In contrast to the commonly used Fourier-based techniques, this new method is less subjective and, as it is based on the Hilbert transform, is superior for treating amplitude and frequency modulated data. This makes it particularly robust to wide differences in the quality of interferograms

Uncertainty importance analysis using parametric moment ratio functions.

Science.gov (United States)

Wei, Pengfei; Lu, Zhenzhou; Song, Jingwen

2014-02-01

This article presents a new importance analysis framework, called parametric moment ratio function, for measuring the reduction of model output uncertainty when the distribution parameters of inputs are changed, and the emphasis is put on the mean and variance ratio functions with respect to the variances of model inputs. The proposed concepts efficiently guide the analyst to achieve a targeted reduction on the model output mean and variance by operating on the variances of model inputs. The unbiased and progressive unbiased Monte Carlo estimators are also derived for the parametric mean and variance ratio functions, respectively. Only a set of samples is needed for implementing the proposed importance analysis by the proposed estimators, thus the computational cost is free of input dimensionality. An analytical test example with highly nonlinear behavior is introduced for illustrating the engineering significance of the proposed importance analysis technique and verifying the efficiency and convergence of the derived Monte Carlo estimators. Finally, the moment ratio function is applied to a planar 10-bar structure for achieving a targeted 50% reduction of the model output variance. © 2013 Society for Risk Analysis.

Failure mode and effects analysis: an empirical comparison of failure mode scoring procedures.

Science.gov (United States)

Ashley, Laura; Armitage, Gerry

2010-12-01

To empirically compare 2 different commonly used failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) scoring procedures with respect to their resultant failure mode scores and prioritization: a mathematical procedure, where scores are assigned independently by FMEA team members and averaged, and a consensus procedure, where scores are agreed on by the FMEA team via discussion. A multidisciplinary team undertook a Healthcare FMEA of chemotherapy administration. This included mapping the chemotherapy process, identifying and scoring failure modes (potential errors) for each process step, and generating remedial strategies to counteract them. Failure modes were scored using both an independent mathematical procedure and a team consensus procedure. Almost three-fifths of the 30 failure modes generated were scored differently by the 2 procedures, and for just more than one-third of cases, the score discrepancy was substantial. Using the Healthcare FMEA prioritization cutoff score, almost twice as many failure modes were prioritized by the consensus procedure than by the mathematical procedure. This is the first study to empirically demonstrate that different FMEA scoring procedures can score and prioritize failure modes differently. It found considerable variability in individual team members' opinions on scores, which highlights the subjective and qualitative nature of failure mode scoring. A consensus scoring procedure may be most appropriate for FMEA as it allows variability in individuals' scores and rationales to become apparent and to be discussed and resolved by the team. It may also yield team learning and communication benefits unlikely to result from a mathematical procedure.

The use of empirical data sources in HRA

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hallbert, Bruce; Gertman, David; Lois, Erasmia; Marble, Julie; Blackman, Harold; Byers, James

2004-01-01

This paper presents a review of available information related to human performance to support Human Reliability Analysis (HRA) performed for nuclear power plants (NPPs). A number of data sources are identified as potentially useful. These include NPP licensee event reports, augmented inspection team reports, operator requalification data, results from the literature in experimental psychology, and the Aviation Safety Reporting System. The paper discusses how utilizing such information improves our capability to model and quantify human performance. In particular, the paper discusses how information related to performance shaping factors can be extracted from empirical data to determine their size effect, their relative effects, as well as their interactions. The paper concludes that appropriate use of existing sources can help addressing some of the important issues we are currently facing in HRA

Empirical analysis of vegetation dynamics and the possibility of a catastrophic desertification transition.

Science.gov (United States)

Weissmann, Haim; Kent, Rafi; Michael, Yaron; Shnerb, Nadav M

2017-01-01

The process of desertification in the semi-arid climatic zone is considered by many as a catastrophic regime shift, since the positive feedback of vegetation density on growth rates yields a system that admits alternative steady states. Some support to this idea comes from the analysis of static patterns, where peaks of the vegetation density histogram were associated with these alternative states. Here we present a large-scale empirical study of vegetation dynamics, aimed at identifying and quantifying directly the effects of positive feedback. To do that, we have analyzed vegetation density across 2.5 × 106 km2 of the African Sahel region, with spatial resolution of 30 × 30 meters, using three consecutive snapshots. The results are mixed. The local vegetation density (measured at a single pixel) moves towards the average of the corresponding rainfall line, indicating a purely negative feedback. On the other hand, the chance of spatial clusters (of many "green" pixels) to expand in the next census is growing with their size, suggesting some positive feedback. We show that these apparently contradicting results emerge naturally in a model with positive feedback and strong demographic stochasticity, a model that allows for a catastrophic shift only in a certain range of parameters. Static patterns, like the double peak in the histogram of vegetation density, are shown to vary between censuses, with no apparent correlation with the actual dynamical features. Our work emphasizes the importance of dynamic response patterns as indicators of the state of the system, while the usefulness of static modality features appears to be quite limited.

Quasi-experimental Methods in Empirical Regional Science and Policy Analysis – Is there a Scope for Application?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mitze, Timo; Paloyo, Alfredo R.; Alecke, Björn

Applied econometrics has recently emphasized the identification of causal parameters for policy analysis. This revolution has yet to fully propagate to the field of regional science. We examine the scope for application of the matching approach – part of the modern applied econometrics toolkit...... – in regional science and highlight special features of regional data that make such an application difficult. In particular, our analysis of the effect of regional subsidies on labor-productivity growth in Germany indicates that such policies are effective, but only up to a certain maximum treatment intensity...... to be interpreted with some caution. The matching approach nevertheless can be of great value for regional policy analysis and should be the subject of future research efforts in the field of empirical regional science....

Application of a latent class analysis to empirically define eating disorder phenotypes.

Science.gov (United States)

Keel, Pamela K; Fichter, Manfred; Quadflieg, Norbert; Bulik, Cynthia M; Baxter, Mark G; Thornton, Laura; Halmi, Katherine A; Kaplan, Allan S; Strober, Michael; Woodside, D Blake; Crow, Scott J; Mitchell, James E; Rotondo, Alessandro; Mauri, Mauro; Cassano, Giovanni; Treasure, Janet; Goldman, David; Berrettini, Wade H; Kaye, Walter H

2004-02-01

Diagnostic criteria for eating disorders influence how we recognize, research, and treat eating disorders, and empirically valid phenotypes are required for revealing their genetic bases. To empirically define eating disorder phenotypes. Data regarding eating disorder symptoms and features from 1179 individuals with clinically significant eating disorders were submitted to a latent class analysis. The resulting latent classes were compared on non-eating disorder variables in a series of validation analyses. Multinational, collaborative study with cases ascertained through diverse clinical settings (inpatient, outpatient, and community). Members of affected relative pairs recruited for participation in genetic studies of eating disorders in which probands met DSM-IV-TR criteria for anorexia nervosa (AN) or bulimia nervosa and had at least 1 biological relative with a clinically significant eating disorder. Main Outcome Measure Number and clinical characterization of latent classes. A 4-class solution provided the best fit. Latent class 1 (LC1) resembled restricting AN; LC2, AN and bulimia nervosa with the use of multiple methods of purging; LC3, restricting AN without obsessive-compulsive features; and LC4, bulimia nervosa with self-induced vomiting as the sole form of purging. Biological relatives were significantly likely to belong to the same latent class. Across validation analyses, LC2 demonstrated the highest levels of psychological disturbance, and LC3 demonstrated the lowest. The presence of obsessive-compulsive features differentiates among individuals with restricting AN. Similarly, the combination of low weight and multiple methods of purging distinguishes among individuals with binge eating and purging behaviors. These results support some of the distinctions drawn within the DSM-IV-TR among eating disorder subtypes, while introducing new features to define phenotypes.

Empirically Assessing the Importance of Characteristics of Accounting Students.

Science.gov (United States)

Baker, William M.; McGregor, Calvert C.

2000-01-01

Three employer groups (n=117), 47 accounting faculty, and 63 students rated the following characteristics of potential employees: master's degree, overall and accounting grade point average, personal integrity, communication skills, energy/drive/enthusiasm, and appearance. Employers and faculty considered integrity extremely important; students…

Empirical comparison of four baseline covariate adjustment methods in analysis of continuous outcomes in randomized controlled trials

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zhang S

2014-07-01

Full Text Available Shiyuan Zhang,1 James Paul,2 Manyat Nantha-Aree,2 Norman Buckley,2 Uswa Shahzad,2 Ji Cheng,2 Justin DeBeer,5 Mitchell Winemaker,5 David Wismer,5 Dinshaw Punthakee,5 Victoria Avram,5 Lehana Thabane1–41Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, 2Department of Anesthesia, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada; 3Biostatistics Unit/Centre for Evaluation of Medicines, St Joseph's Healthcare - Hamilton, Hamilton, ON, Canada; 4Population Health Research Institute, Hamilton Health Science/McMaster University, 5Department of Surgery, Division of Orthopaedics, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, CanadaBackground: Although seemingly straightforward, the statistical comparison of a continuous variable in a randomized controlled trial that has both a pre- and posttreatment score presents an interesting challenge for trialists. We present here empirical application of four statistical methods (posttreatment scores with analysis of variance, analysis of covariance, change in scores, and percent change in scores, using data from a randomized controlled trial of postoperative pain in patients following total joint arthroplasty (the Morphine COnsumption in Joint Replacement Patients, With and Without GaBapentin Treatment, a RandomIzed ControlLEd Study [MOBILE] trials.Methods: Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA was used to adjust for baseline measures and to provide an unbiased estimate of the mean group difference of the 1-year postoperative knee flexion scores in knee arthroplasty patients. Robustness tests were done by comparing ANCOVA with three comparative methods: the posttreatment scores, change in scores, and percentage change from baseline.Results: All four methods showed similar direction of effect; however, ANCOVA (-3.9; 95% confidence interval [CI]: -9.5, 1.6; P=0.15 and the posttreatment score (-4.3; 95% CI: -9.8, 1.2; P=0.12 method provided the highest precision of estimate compared with the change score (-3.0; 95% CI: -9.9, 3.8; P=0

Have Market-oriented Reforms Decoupled China’s CO2 Emissions from Total Electricity Generation? An Empirical Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wei Shang

2016-05-01

Full Text Available Achieving the decoupling of electric CO2 emissions from total electricity generation is important in ensuring the sustainable socioeconomic development of China. To realize this, China implemented market-oriented reforms to its electric power industry at the beginning of 2003. This study used the Tapio decoupling index, the Laspeyres decomposition algorithm, and decoupling-related data from 1993 to 2012 to evaluate the effect of these reforms. Several conclusions can be drawn based on the empirical analysis. (1 The reforms changed the developmental trend of the decoupling index and facilitated its progress towards strong decoupling. (2 The results forecasted through fitting the curve to the decoupling index indicate that strong decoupling would be realized by 2030. (3 Limiting the manufacturing development and upgrading the generation equipment of the thermal power plants are essential for China to achieve strong decoupling at an early date. (4 China should enhance regulatory pressures and guidance for appropriate investment in thermal power plants to ensure the stable development of the decoupling index. (5 Transactions between multiple participants and electricity price bidding play active roles in the stable development of the decoupling index.

International Direct Investment and Transboundary Pollution: An Empirical Analysis of Complex Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yuping Deng

2015-04-01

Full Text Available Using complex networks and spatial econometric methods, we empirically test the extent to which a country’s influence and its position in an international investment network affect environmental quality as well as the country’s role in transboundary pollution transfer. The estimated results show that the ties connecting nodes together in an international investment network have significant impacts on global environmental pollution. Additionally, node linkages between developing countries have stronger negative effects on environmental quality than node linkages between developed countries. Moreover, greater node importance and node centrality accelerate the speed and scale of the growth of polluting industries, which allows developed countries to more easily transfer their pollution-intensive industries to developing countries that possess higher node dependency. We also find that the factor endowment effect coexists with the pollution haven effect, the effects of environmental regulation advantage in the international investment network are greater than the impact of factor endowment advantage.

Essays on empirical industrial organization : Entry and innovation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Fernandez Machado, Roxana

2017-01-01

The dissertation contains three essays on empirical industrial organization devoted to studying firms' strategic interaction in different settings. The first essay develops an entry model to address an important matter in the area of urban economics: the development of cities. In particular, it

Modelling metal speciation in the Scheldt Estuary: Combining a flexible-resolution transport model with empirical functions

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Elskens, Marc [Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Analytical, Pleinlaan 2, BE-1050 Brussels (Belgium); Gourgue, Olivier [Université catholique de Louvain, Institute of Mechanics, Materials and Civil Engineering (IMMC), 4 Avenue G. Lemaître, bte L4.05.02, BE-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium); Université catholique de Louvain, Georges Lemaître Centre for Earth and Climate Research (TECLIM), Place Louis Pasteur 2, bte L4.03.08, BE-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium); Baeyens, Willy [Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Analytical, Pleinlaan 2, BE-1050 Brussels (Belgium); Chou, Lei [Université Libre de Bruxelles, Biogéochimie et Modélisation du Système Terre (BGéoSys) —Océanographie Chimique et Géochimie des Eaux, Campus de la Plaine —CP 208, Boulevard du Triomphe, BE-1050 Brussels (Belgium); Deleersnijder, Eric [Université catholique de Louvain, Institute of Mechanics, Materials and Civil Engineering (IMMC), 4 Avenue G. Lemaître, bte L4.05.02, BE-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium); Université catholique de Louvain, Earth and Life Institute (ELI), Georges Lemaître Centre for Earth and Climate Research (TECLIM), Place Louis Pasteur 2, bte L4.03.08, BE-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium); Leermakers, Martine [Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Analytical, Pleinlaan 2, BE-1050 Brussels (Belgium); and others

2014-04-01

Predicting metal concentrations in surface waters is an important step in the understanding and ultimately the assessment of the ecological risk associated with metal contamination. In terms of risk an essential piece of information is the accurate knowledge of the partitioning of the metals between the dissolved and particulate phases, as the former species are generally regarded as the most bioavailable and thus harmful form. As a first step towards the understanding and prediction of metal speciation in the Scheldt Estuary (Belgium, the Netherlands), we carried out a detailed analysis of a historical dataset covering the period 1982–2011. This study reports on the results for two selected metals: Cu and Cd. Data analysis revealed that both the total metal concentration and the metal partitioning coefficient (K{sub d}) could be predicted using relatively simple empirical functions of environmental variables such as salinity and suspended particulate matter concentration (SPM). The validity of these functions has been assessed by their application to salinity and SPM fields simulated by the hydro-environmental model SLIM. The high-resolution total and dissolved metal concentrations reconstructed using this approach, compared surprisingly well with an independent set of validation measurements. These first results from the combined mechanistic-empirical model approach suggest that it may be an interesting tool for risk assessment studies, e.g. to help identify conditions associated with elevated (dissolved) metal concentrations. - Highlights: • Empirical functions were designed for assessing metal speciation in estuarine water. • The empirical functions were implemented in the hydro-environmental model SLIM. • Validation was carried out in the Scheldt Estuary using historical data 1982–2011. • This combined mechanistic-empirical approach is useful for risk assessment.

Highly comparative time-series analysis: the empirical structure of time series and their methods.

Science.gov (United States)

Fulcher, Ben D; Little, Max A; Jones, Nick S

2013-06-06

The process of collecting and organizing sets of observations represents a common theme throughout the history of science. However, despite the ubiquity of scientists measuring, recording and analysing the dynamics of different processes, an extensive organization of scientific time-series data and analysis methods has never been performed. Addressing this, annotated collections of over 35 000 real-world and model-generated time series, and over 9000 time-series analysis algorithms are analysed in this work. We introduce reduced representations of both time series, in terms of their properties measured by diverse scientific methods, and of time-series analysis methods, in terms of their behaviour on empirical time series, and use them to organize these interdisciplinary resources. This new approach to comparing across diverse scientific data and methods allows us to organize time-series datasets automatically according to their properties, retrieve alternatives to particular analysis methods developed in other scientific disciplines and automate the selection of useful methods for time-series classification and regression tasks. The broad scientific utility of these tools is demonstrated on datasets of electroencephalograms, self-affine time series, heartbeat intervals, speech signals and others, in each case contributing novel analysis techniques to the existing literature. Highly comparative techniques that compare across an interdisciplinary literature can thus be used to guide more focused research in time-series analysis for applications across the scientific disciplines.

Air pollutant taxation: an empirical survey

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cansier, D.; Krumm, R.

1997-01-01

An empirical analysis of the current taxation of the air pollutants sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and carbon dioxide in the Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands, France and Japan is presented. Political motivation and technical factors such as tax base, rate structure and revenue use are compared. The general concepts of the current polices are characterised

Empirical fractal geometry analysis of some speculative financial bubbles

Science.gov (United States)

Redelico, Francisco O.; Proto, Araceli N.

2012-11-01

Empirical evidence of a multifractal signature during increasing of a financial bubble leading to a crash is presented. The April 2000 crash in the NASDAQ composite index and a time series from the discrete Chakrabarti-Stinchcombe model for earthquakes are analyzed using a geometric approach and some common patterns are identified. These patterns can be related the geometry of the rising period of a financial bubbles with the non-concave entropy problem.

WHAT FACTORS INFLUENCE QUALITY SERVICE IMPROVEMENT IN MONTENEGRO: EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Djurdjica Perovic

2013-03-01

Full Text Available In this paper, using an Ordinary Least Square regression (OLS, we investigate whether intangible elements influence tourist's perception about service quality. Our empirical results based on tourist survey in Montenegro, indicate that intangible elements of tourism product have positive impact on tourist's overall perception of service quality in Montenegro.

Theories of coalition formation: An empirical test using data from Danish local government

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Skjæveland, Asbjørn; Serritzlew, Søren; Blom-Hansen, Jens

2007-01-01

Theories of coalition formation represent a diverse set of arguments about why some government coalitions form while others do not. In this article, the authors present a systematic empirical test of the relative importance of the various arguments. The test is designed to avoid a circularity...... problem present in many coalition studies - namely that the theories are tested on data of national government coalitions in postwar Europe: the very data that gave rise to the theories in the first place. Instead, the authors focus on government coalitions at the municipal level. They base their analysis...... on office and policy motives. At the same time, the analysis raises the question of whether actors really seek minimal coalitions....

Empirical Analysis on Evolution and Small World Effect of Chinese Enterprise-Enterprise Patent Cooperation Network: From the Perspective of Open Innovation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wei Li

2013-10-01

Full Text Available The patent cooperation network which enterprises join is a very important network platform for enterprises’ open innovation. However, very limited work has been done to empirically investigate the dynamic change process of the network in China. To address this issue, this paper analyzes dynamic change process of cooperation network of enterprises and the small-world effect of the biggest subgroup according to the data of 36731 items of cooperative patents between enterprises from 1985 to 2010 published by the State Intellectual Property Office of China. A conclusion can be drawn from the analysis results that the biggest subgroup has the characteristics of small-world effect, but the overall network structure also has some defects, which limit the development of open innovation. For the first time, suggestions on open innovation strategies are put forward to provide theoretical reference for both the government and enterprises.

Current-Account Imbalances and Economic Growth During the 2008-2009 Financial Crisis: an Empirical Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rossitsa Rangelova

2014-06-01

Full Text Available This study examines the relationship between current-account imbalances and economic growth during the 2008-2009 financial and economic crisis for 179 countries (covered by IMF data and within the EU-27 countries (covered by Eurostat data. The countries are divided into 4 groups by GDP per capita based on PPPs, namely, low income, lower middle-income, upper middle-income and high-income countries. Empirical analysis is applied, including descriptive statistics and regression estimates. Statistical data are used, including the average of the GDP growth rate in the years prior to the crisis (2003–2007, the average of the GDP growth rate for 2008 and 2009, current account as a percentage of GDP, and the level of average inflation. It is proved that, in general, the 2008-2009 crisis affected high- and upper middle-income countries more than poorer countries. Within the EU-27 countries, however, the crisis appears to have affected lower income countries more than higher income countries. A common tendency is observed for the two country samples: countries that experienced strong growth just prior to the crisis had an increased risk of suffering after the crisis. The boom prior to the crisis led to imbalances that rendered economies more vulnerable. Additionally, surpluses that existed prior to the crisis are an important risk factor for the two groups of countries.

Empirical Analysis and Characterization of Indoor GPS Signal Fading and Multipath Conditions

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Blunck, Henrik; Kjærgaard, Mikkel Baun; Godsk, Torben

2009-01-01

of earlier measurement campaigns to characterize GNSS signal conditions in indoor environments have been published prominently in the GNSS research literature, see, e.g. [1,2,3]. To allow for in-depth signal analysis, these campaigns use a variety of measuring machinery such as channel sounders, mobile...... signal generators and spectrum analyzers. Furthermore, the use-case-specific usability of GPS as an indoor positioning technology as been evaluated empirically on a higher level, see, e.g. [4]. In this paper we present results of a measurement campaign, designed to characterize indoor GNSS signal...... conditions. The work presented can therefore be seen as an effort to the campaigns mentioned above. As the focus of our work lies on the real-world usability of current GNSS technology for indoor use, we employ in our measurement campaign foremost commercial receivers with features, typical for the use cases...

Empirical Analysis Concerning the Correlation Fiscality Rate – Tax Incomes in Romania

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Raluca Drãcea

2009-08-01

Full Text Available In the specialized literature it is reviewed the taxation from all points of view and the question raised by the last decade analysts is: what is the optimum level of taxation? The difficulty in answering to this question stands in the opposite interests: State wants a high level of taxation due to the increasing trend of public expenses while the tax payers wants a low level in order to benefit of greater financial funds.Starting from Leffer theory, the objective of this paper is the empirical analysis of the correlation between fiscality rate and the tax incomes in Romania, using Matlab programand SPSS software. The paper is structured in three parts: first part it is review the specialized literature, in the second part is described the research methodology while the third part compound results and discussions. The paper is finished by conclusions.

Energy Taxes as a Signaling Device: An Empirical Analysis of Consumer Preferences

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ghalwash, Tarek

2004-01-01

This paper presents an econometric study dealing with household demand in Sweden. The main objective is to empirically examine the differences in consumer reaction to the introduction of, or the change, in environmental taxes. Main focus is on environmental taxes as a signaling device. The hypothesis is that the introduction of an environmental tax provides new information about the properties of the directly taxed goods. This in turn may affect consumer preferences for these goods, hence altering the consumption choice. The result from the econometric analysis shows that all goods have negative own-price elasticities, and positive income elasticities. Concerning the signalling effect of environmental taxes the results are somewhat ambiguous. The tax elasticity for energy goods used for heating seems to be significantly higher than the traditional price elasticity, whereas the opposite seems to be the case for energy goods used for transportation

Energy taxes as a signaling device: An empirical analysis of consumer preferences

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ghalwash, Tarek

2007-01-01

This paper presents an econometric study dealing with household demand in Sweden. The main objective is to empirically examine the differences in consumer reaction to the introduction of, or the change, in environmental taxes. Main focus is on environmental taxes as a signaling device. The hypothesis is that the introduction of an environmental tax provides new information about the properties of the directly taxed goods. This in turn may affect consumer preferences for these goods, hence altering the consumption choice. The result from the econometric analysis shows that all goods have negative own-price elasticities, and positive income elasticities. Concerning the signalling effect of environmental taxes the results are somewhat ambiguous. The tax elasticity for energy goods used for heating seems to be significantly higher than the traditional price elasticity, whereas the opposite seems to be the case for energy goods used for transportation

Empirical Philosophy of Science

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mansnerus, Erika; Wagenknecht, Susann

2015-01-01

knowledge takes place through the integration of the empirical or historical research into the philosophical studies, as Chang, Nersessian, Thagard and Schickore argue in their work. Building upon their contributions we will develop a blueprint for an Empirical Philosophy of Science that draws upon...... qualitative methods from the social sciences in order to advance our philosophical understanding of science in practice. We will regard the relationship between philosophical conceptualization and empirical data as an iterative dialogue between theory and data, which is guided by a particular ‘feeling with......Empirical insights are proven fruitful for the advancement of Philosophy of Science, but the integration of philosophical concepts and empirical data poses considerable methodological challenges. Debates in Integrated History and Philosophy of Science suggest that the advancement of philosophical...

Empirical solar/stellar cycle simulations

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Santos Ângela R. G.

2015-01-01

Full Text Available As a result of the magnetic cycle, the properties of the solar oscillations vary periodically. With the recent discovery of manifestations of activity cycles in the seismic data of other stars, the understanding of the different contributions to such variations becomes even more important. With this in mind, we built an empirical parameterised model able to reproduce the properties of the sunspot cycle. The resulting simulations can be used to estimate the magnetic-induced frequency shifts.

Importance Analysis of In-Service Testing Components for Ulchin Unit 3

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dae-Il Kan; Kil-Yoo Kim; Jae-Joo Ha

2002-01-01

We performed an importance analysis of In-Service Testing (IST) components for Ulchin Unit 3 using the integrated evaluation method for categorizing component safety significance developed in this study. The importance analysis using the developed method is initiated by ranking the component importance using quantitative PSA information. The importance analysis of the IST components not modeled in the PSA is performed through the engineering judgment, based on the expertise of PSA, and the quantitative and qualitative information for the IST components. The PSA scope for importance analysis includes not only Level 1 and 2 internal PSA but also Level 1 external and shutdown/low power operation PSA. The importance analysis results of valves show that 167 (26.55%) of the 629 IST valves are HSSCs and 462 (73.45%) are LSSCs. Those of pumps also show that 28 (70%) of the 40 IST pumps are HSSCs and 12 (30%) are LSSCs. (authors)

An empirical investigation on factors influencing export of herbal supplements

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nazanin Hajmirzahosseini Yazdi

2014-02-01

Full Text Available During the past few years, there have been growing interests in business development of herbal supplements in many developing countries especially in Iran. Herbal supplements are used to cure many deceases such as medicating anxiety, acne, weight loss, depression, etc. In this paper, we present an empirical investigation to detect important factors influencing exporting herbal supplements. The proposed study designs a questionnaire consists of 31 questions, distributes it among 210 experts who are professional in the area of production and distribution of herbal supplements and using factor analysis, the study detects eight factors including supportive laws and regulations, organizational atmosphere, marketing structure, knowledge oriented, feasibility study, research and development, competitive strategy and partnership strategies.

Empirical evaluation and justification of methodologies in psychological science.

Science.gov (United States)

Proctor, R W; Capaldi, E J

2001-11-01

The purpose of this article is to describe a relatively new movement in the history and philosophy of science, naturalism, a form of pragmatism emphasizing that methodological principles are empirical statements. Thus, methodological principles must be evaluated and justified on the same basis as other empirical statements. On this view, methodological statements may be less secure than the specific scientific theories to which they give rise. The authors examined the feasibility of a naturalistic approach to methodology using logical and historical analysis and by contrasting theories that predict new facts versus theories that explain already known facts. They provide examples of how differences over methodological issues in psychology and in science generally may be resolved using a naturalistic, or empirical, approach.

Comparison of two interpolation methods for empirical mode decomposition based evaluation of radiographic femur bone images.

Science.gov (United States)

Udhayakumar, Ganesan; Sujatha, Chinnaswamy Manoharan; Ramakrishnan, Swaminathan

2013-01-01

Analysis of bone strength in radiographic images is an important component of estimation of bone quality in diseases such as osteoporosis. Conventional radiographic femur bone images are used to analyze its architecture using bi-dimensional empirical mode decomposition method. Surface interpolation of local maxima and minima points of an image is a crucial part of bi-dimensional empirical mode decomposition method and the choice of appropriate interpolation depends on specific structure of the problem. In this work, two interpolation methods of bi-dimensional empirical mode decomposition are analyzed to characterize the trabecular femur bone architecture of radiographic images. The trabecular bone regions of normal and osteoporotic femur bone images (N = 40) recorded under standard condition are used for this study. The compressive and tensile strength regions of the images are delineated using pre-processing procedures. The delineated images are decomposed into their corresponding intrinsic mode functions using interpolation methods such as Radial basis function multiquadratic and hierarchical b-spline techniques. Results show that bi-dimensional empirical mode decomposition analyses using both interpolations are able to represent architectural variations of femur bone radiographic images. As the strength of the bone depends on architectural variation in addition to bone mass, this study seems to be clinically useful.

Global sensitivity analysis for identifying important parameters of nitrogen nitrification and denitrification under model uncertainty and scenario uncertainty

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Zhuowei; Shi, Liangsheng; Ye, Ming; Zhu, Yan; Yang, Jinzhong

2018-06-01

Nitrogen reactive transport modeling is subject to uncertainty in model parameters, structures, and scenarios. By using a new variance-based global sensitivity analysis method, this paper identifies important parameters for nitrogen reactive transport with simultaneous consideration of these three uncertainties. A combination of three scenarios of soil temperature and two scenarios of soil moisture creates a total of six scenarios. Four alternative models describing the effect of soil temperature and moisture content are used to evaluate the reduction functions used for calculating actual reaction rates. The results show that for nitrogen reactive transport problem, parameter importance varies substantially among different models and scenarios. Denitrification and nitrification process is sensitive to soil moisture content status rather than to the moisture function parameter. Nitrification process becomes more important at low moisture content and low temperature. However, the changing importance of nitrification activity with respect to temperature change highly relies on the selected model. Model-averaging is suggested to assess the nitrification (or denitrification) contribution by reducing the possible model error. Despite the introduction of biochemical heterogeneity or not, fairly consistent parameter importance rank is obtained in this study: optimal denitrification rate (Kden) is the most important parameter; reference temperature (Tr) is more important than temperature coefficient (Q10); empirical constant in moisture response function (m) is the least important one. Vertical distribution of soil moisture but not temperature plays predominant role controlling nitrogen reaction. This study provides insight into the nitrogen reactive transport modeling and demonstrates an effective strategy of selecting the important parameters when future temperature and soil moisture carry uncertainties or when modelers face with multiple ways of establishing nitrogen

Explaining foreign ownership by comparative and competitive advantage. Empirical evidence.

OpenAIRE

Bellak, Christian

1999-01-01

This paper provides empirical evidence on the determinants of foreign ownership in manufacturing industries. Foreign ownership, according to the theory of international production, is the result of the combination of comparative and competitive advantage. An adequate examination of the ownership structure of an industry requires the ability to establish empirically the extent to which international competitiveness of firms rests on comparative and competitive advantage. Analysis is based on a...

Empirical intrinsic geometry for nonlinear modeling and time series filtering.

Science.gov (United States)

Talmon, Ronen; Coifman, Ronald R

2013-07-30

In this paper, we present a method for time series analysis based on empirical intrinsic geometry (EIG). EIG enables one to reveal the low-dimensional parametric manifold as well as to infer the underlying dynamics of high-dimensional time series. By incorporating concepts of information geometry, this method extends existing geometric analysis tools to support stochastic settings and parametrizes the geometry of empirical distributions. However, the statistical models are not required as priors; hence, EIG may be applied to a wide range of real signals without existing definitive models. We show that the inferred model is noise-resilient and invariant under different observation and instrumental modalities. In addition, we show that it can be extended efficiently to newly acquired measurements in a sequential manner. These two advantages enable us to revisit the Bayesian approach and incorporate empirical dynamics and intrinsic geometry into a nonlinear filtering framework. We show applications to nonlinear and non-Gaussian tracking problems as well as to acoustic signal localization.

The Effect of RMB Exchange Rate Volatility on Import and Export Trade in China

OpenAIRE

Wanhui Jiang

2014-01-01

The exchange rate volatility always plays a key role in import and export trade. This paper investigates the effect of nominal RMB exchange rate volatility on economic growth in China from 1981 to 2012. Through the ADF stationary test, the co-integration test, and the associated econometric model and the empirical analysis, the paper concludes that in the long run, exchange rate change has a positive impact on import and export trade. Therefore, it is necessary to take relevant policies and m...

Classification of Marital Relationships: An Empirical Approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Snyder, Douglas K.; Smith, Gregory T.

1986-01-01

Derives an empirically based classification system of marital relationships, employing a multidimensional self-report measure of marital interaction. Spouses' profiles on the Marital Satisfaction Inventory for samples of clinic and nonclinic couples were subjected to cluster analysis, resulting in separate five-group typologies for husbands and…

Reliability importance analysis of Markovian systems at steady state using perturbation analysis

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Phuc Do Van [Institut Charles Delaunay - FRE CNRS 2848, Systems Modeling and Dependability Group, Universite de technologie de Troyes, 12, rue Marie Curie, BP 2060-10010 Troyes cedex (France); Barros, Anne [Institut Charles Delaunay - FRE CNRS 2848, Systems Modeling and Dependability Group, Universite de technologie de Troyes, 12, rue Marie Curie, BP 2060-10010 Troyes cedex (France)], E-mail: anne.barros@utt.fr; Berenguer, Christophe [Institut Charles Delaunay - FRE CNRS 2848, Systems Modeling and Dependability Group, Universite de technologie de Troyes, 12, rue Marie Curie, BP 2060-10010 Troyes cedex (France)

2008-11-15

Sensitivity analysis has been primarily defined for static systems, i.e. systems described by combinatorial reliability models (fault or event trees). Several structural and probabilistic measures have been proposed to assess the components importance. For dynamic systems including inter-component and functional dependencies (cold spare, shared load, shared resources, etc.), and described by Markov models or, more generally, by discrete events dynamic systems models, the problem of sensitivity analysis remains widely open. In this paper, the perturbation method is used to estimate an importance factor, called multi-directional sensitivity measure, in the framework of Markovian systems. Some numerical examples are introduced to show why this method offers a promising tool for steady-state sensitivity analysis of Markov processes in reliability studies.

Reliability importance analysis of Markovian systems at steady state using perturbation analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Phuc Do Van; Barros, Anne; Berenguer, Christophe

2008-01-01

Sensitivity analysis has been primarily defined for static systems, i.e. systems described by combinatorial reliability models (fault or event trees). Several structural and probabilistic measures have been proposed to assess the components importance. For dynamic systems including inter-component and functional dependencies (cold spare, shared load, shared resources, etc.), and described by Markov models or, more generally, by discrete events dynamic systems models, the problem of sensitivity analysis remains widely open. In this paper, the perturbation method is used to estimate an importance factor, called multi-directional sensitivity measure, in the framework of Markovian systems. Some numerical examples are introduced to show why this method offers a promising tool for steady-state sensitivity analysis of Markov processes in reliability studies

Combining Empirical and Stochastic Models for Extreme Floods Estimation

Science.gov (United States)

Zemzami, M.; Benaabidate, L.

2013-12-01

Hydrological models can be defined as physical, mathematical or empirical. The latter class uses mathematical equations independent of the physical processes involved in the hydrological system. The linear regression and Gradex (Gradient of Extreme values) are classic examples of empirical models. However, conventional empirical models are still used as a tool for hydrological analysis by probabilistic approaches. In many regions in the world, watersheds are not gauged. This is true even in developed countries where the gauging network has continued to decline as a result of the lack of human and financial resources. Indeed, the obvious lack of data in these watersheds makes it impossible to apply some basic empirical models for daily forecast. So we had to find a combination of rainfall-runoff models in which it would be possible to create our own data and use them to estimate the flow. The estimated design floods would be a good choice to illustrate the difficulties facing the hydrologist for the construction of a standard empirical model in basins where hydrological information is rare. The construction of the climate-hydrological model, which is based on frequency analysis, was established to estimate the design flood in the Anseghmir catchments, Morocco. The choice of using this complex model returns to its ability to be applied in watersheds where hydrological information is not sufficient. It was found that this method is a powerful tool for estimating the design flood of the watershed and also other hydrological elements (runoff, volumes of water...).The hydrographic characteristics and climatic parameters were used to estimate the runoff, water volumes and design flood for different return periods.

An empirical analysis of overlap publication in Chinese language and English research manuscripts.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Joseph D Tucker

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: There are a number of sound justifications for publishing nearly identical information in Chinese and English medical journals, assuming several conditions are met. Although overlap publication is perceived as undesirable and ethically questionable in Europe and North America, it may serve an important function in some regions where English is not the native tongue. There is no empirical data on the nature and degree of overlap publication in English and Chinese language journals. METHODS/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: A random sample of 100 English manuscripts from Chinese institutions was selected from PubMed. Key words and institutions were searched in the China National Knowledge Infrastructure, a comprehensive Chinese language research database. Unacknowledged overlap was a priori defined according to International Committee of Medical Journal Editor (ICMJE guidelines following examination by two individuals. 19% (95% CI 11-27 of English manuscripts from Chinese institutions were found to have substantial overlap with Chinese published work based on full text examination. None of the manuscripts met all of the criteria established by the ICMJE for an acknowledged overlap publication. Individual-level, journal-level, and institutional factors seem to influence overlap publication. Manuscripts associated with an institution outside of China and with more than one institution were significantly less likely to have substantial overlap (p<0.05. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Overlap publication was common in this context, but instances of standard ICMJE notations to acknowledge this practice were rare. This research did not cite the identified overlap manuscripts with the hope that these empirical data will inform journal policy changes and structural initiatives to promote clearer policies and manuscripts.

Verification of supersonic and hypersonic semi-empirical predictions using CFD

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

McIlwain, S.; Khalid, M.

2004-01-01

CFD was used to verify the accuracy of the axial force, normal force, and pitching moment predictions of two semi-empirical codes. This analysis considered the flow around the forebody of four different aerodynamic shapes. These included geometries with equal-volume straight or tapered bodies, with either standard or double-angle nose cones. The flow was tested at freestream Mach numbers of M = 1.5, 4.0, and 7.0. The CFD results gave the expected flow pressure contours for each geometry. The geometries with straight bodies produced larger axial forces, smaller normal forces, and larger pitching moments compared to the geometries with tapered bodies. The double-angle nose cones introduced a shock into the flow, but affected the straight-body geometries more than the tapered-body geometries. Both semi-empirical codes predicted axial forces that were consistent with the CFD data. The agreement between the normal forces and pitching moments was not as good, particularly for the straight-body geometries. But even though the semi-empirical results were not exactly the same as the CFD data, the semi-empirical codes provided rough estimates of the aerodynamic parameters in a fraction of the time required to perform a CFD analysis. (author)

Science and the British Empire.

Science.gov (United States)

Harrison, Mark

2005-03-01

The last few decades have witnessed a flowering of interest in the history of science in the British Empire. This essay aims to provide an overview of some of the most important work in this area, identifying interpretative shifts and emerging themes. In so doing, it raises some questions about the analytical framework in which colonial science has traditionally been viewed, highlighting interactions with indigenous scientific traditions and the use of network-based models to understand scientific relations within and beyond colonial contexts.

An exploration study to find important factors influencing on expert systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Naser Azad

2013-09-01

Full Text Available Knowledge management plays an important role in modern management systems since many existing systems move towards learning organizations. Expert systems, on the other hand, are considered as the most popular techniques for adapting recent developments on knowledge management. This paper presents an empirical investigation to find important factors influencing adaptation of expert systems. The proposed study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale consists of 25 questions, distributes it among 258 people who have recently graduated from computer science and they are familiar with implementation of expert systems. Cronbach alpha is calculated as 0.730 and Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy and Approx. Chi-Square are 0.748 and 1377.397, respectively. The study has implemented principal component analysis and the results have indicated that there were four factors influencing expert systems including systems management, intelligence systems, system analysis and specialized analysis.

How Certain are Dutch Households about Future Income? An Empirical Analysis

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Das, J.W.M.; Donkers, A.C.D.

1997-01-01

The growing literature on precautionary saving clearly indicates the need for measurement of income uncertainty. In this paper we empirically analyze subjective income uncertainty in the Netherlands. Data come from the Dutch VSB panel. We measure income uncertainty directly by asking questions on

Import-push or Export-pull?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jäkel, Ina Charlotte

2014-01-01

predictions regarding the export market and the role of product differentiation. Empirical results for a sample of Danish manufacturing industries confirm the import- "push" hypothesis as well as the export- "pull" hypothesis, but also reveal differences across industries. The selection effect of trade...... is mainly driven by the "import-push" if product differentiation is high, whereas it is driven by the "export-pull" if goods are homogeneous....

Import-push or Export-pull?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jäkel, Ina Charlotte

predictions regarding the export market and the role of product differentiation. Empirical results for a sample of Danish manufacturing industries confirm the import-"push" hypothesis as well as the export-"pull" hypothesis, but also reveal differences across industries. The selection effect of trade...... is mainly driven by the "import-push" if product differentiation is high, whereas it is driven by the "export-pull" if goods are homogeneous....

Partnership effectiveness in primary community care networks: A national empirical analysis of partners' coordination infrastructure designs.

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Blossom Yen-Ju; Lin, Yung-Kai; Lin, Cheng-Chieh

2010-01-01

Previous empirical and managerial studies have ignored the effectiveness of integrated health networks. It has been argued that the varying definitions and strategic imperatives of integrated organizations may have complicated the assessment of the outcomes/performance of varying models, particularly when their market structures and contexts differed. This study aimed to empirically verify a theoretical perspective on the coordination infrastructure designs and the effectiveness of the primary community care networks (PCCNs) formed and funded by the Bureau of National Health Insurance since March 2003. The PCCNs present a model to replace the traditional fragmented providers in Taiwan's health care. The study used a cross-sectional mailed survey designed to ascertain partnership coordination infrastructure and integration of governance, clinical care, bonding, finances, and information. The outcome indicators were PCCNs' perceived performance and willingness to remain within the network. Structural equation modeling examined the causal relationships, controlling for organizational and environmental factors. Primary data collection occurred from February through December 2005, via structured questionnaires sent to 172 PCCNs. Using the individual PCCN as the unit of analysis, the results found that a network's efforts regarding coordination infrastructures were positively related to the PCCN's perceived performance and willingness to remain within the network. In addition, PCCNs practicing in rural areas and in areas with higher density of medical resources had better perceived effectiveness and willingness to cooperate in the network.Practical Implication: The lack of both an operational definition and an information about system-wide integration may have obstructed understanding of integrated health networks' organizational dynamics. This study empirically examined individual PCCNs and offers new insights on how to improve networks' organizational design and

Consistency and Variability in Talk about "Diversity": An Empirical Analysis of Discursive Scope in Swiss Large Scale Enterprises

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anja Ostendorp

2009-02-01

Full Text Available Traditionally discussions of "diversity" in organizations either refer to an ideal "management" of a diverse workforce or to specific concerns of minorities. The term diversity, however, entails a growing number of translations. Highlighting this diversity of diversity, the concept cannot be merely conceived of as either social-normative or economic-functional. Therefore, the present study empirically scrutinizes the current scope of diversity-talk in Swiss large scale enterprises from a discursive psychological perspective. First, it provides five so-called interpretative repertoires which focus on: image, market, minorities, themes, and difference. Second, it discusses why and how persons oscillate between consistency and variability whenever they draw upon these different repertoires. Finally, it points out possibilities to combine them. This empirical approach to diversity in organizations offers new aspects to the current debate on diversity and introduces crucial concepts of a discursive psychological analysis. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs090218

New empirical generalizations on the determinants of price elasticity

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bijmolt, THA; Van Heerde, HJ; Pieters, RGM

The importance of pricing decisions for firms has fueled an extensive stream of research on price elasticities. In an influential meta-analytical study, Tellis (1988) summarized price elasticity research findings until 1986. However, empirical generalizations on price elasticity require

A new importance measure for sensitivity analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Liu, Qiao; Homma, Toshimitsu

2010-01-01

Uncertainty is an integral part of risk assessment of complex engineering systems, such as nuclear power plants and space crafts. The aim of sensitivity analysis is to identify the contribution of the uncertainty in model inputs to the uncertainty in the model output. In this study, a new importance measure that characterizes the influence of the entire input distribution on the entire output distribution was proposed. It represents the expected deviation of the cumulative distribution function (CDF) of the model output that would be obtained when one input parameter of interest were known. The applicability of this importance measure was tested with two models, a nonlinear nonmonotonic mathematical model and a risk model. In addition, a comparison of this new importance measure with several other importance measures was carried out and the differences between these measures were explained. (author)

Growth-corruption-health triaca and environmental degradation: empirical evidence from Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand.

Science.gov (United States)

Azam, Muhammad; Khan, Abdul Qayyum

2017-07-01

This study examines the impact of economic growth, corruption, health, and poverty on environmental degradation for three countries from ASEAN, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand using annual data over the period of 1994-2014. The relationship between environmental degradation (pollution) by carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions and economic growth is examined along with some other variables, namely health expenditure, poverty, agriculture value added growth, industrial value added growth, and corruption. The ordinary least squares (OLS) method is applied as an analytical technique for parameter estimation. The empirical results reveal that almost all variables are statistically significant at the 5% level of significance, whereby test rejects the null hypotheses of non-cointegration, indicating that all variables play an important role in affecting the environment across countries. Empirical results also indicate that economic growth has significant positive impact, while health expenditures show significantly negative impact on the environment. Corruption has significant positive effect on environment in the case of Malaysia; while in the case of Indonesia and Thailand, it has insignificant results. However, for the individual analysis across countries, the regression estimate suggests that economic growth has a significant positive relationship with environment for Indonesia, while it is found insignificantly negative and positive in the case of Malaysia and Thailand, respectively, during the period under the study. Empirical findings of the study suggest that policy-makers require to make technological-friendly environment sequentially to surmount unregulated pollution, steady population transfers from rural areas to urban areas are also important, and poverty alleviation and better health provision can also help to improve the environment.

Repatriation Readjustment of International Managers: An Empirical Analysis of HRD Interventions

Science.gov (United States)

Osman-Gani, A Ahad M.; Hyder, Akmal S.

2008-01-01

Purpose: With increasing interest in overseas business expansion, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, expatriate management, including repatriation readjustments, has become a critical international human resource development (HRD) issue for multinational enterprises (MNEs). This empirical study therefore aims to investigate the use of HRD…

Denoising of chaotic signal using independent component analysis and empirical mode decomposition with circulate translating

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wang Wen-Bo; Zhang Xiao-Dong; Chang Yuchan; Wang Xiang-Li; Wang Zhao; Chen Xi; Zheng Lei

2016-01-01

In this paper, a new method to reduce noises within chaotic signals based on ICA (independent component analysis) and EMD (empirical mode decomposition) is proposed. The basic idea is decomposing chaotic signals and constructing multidimensional input vectors, firstly, on the base of EMD and its translation invariance. Secondly, it makes the independent component analysis on the input vectors, which means that a self adapting denoising is carried out for the intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) of chaotic signals. Finally, all IMFs compose the new denoised chaotic signal. Experiments on the Lorenz chaotic signal composed of different Gaussian noises and the monthly observed chaotic sequence on sunspots were put into practice. The results proved that the method proposed in this paper is effective in denoising of chaotic signals. Moreover, it can correct the center point in the phase space effectively, which makes it approach the real track of the chaotic attractor. (paper)

Decoupling Economic Growth and Energy Use. An Empirical Cross-Country Analysis for 10 Manufacturing Sectors

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Mulder, P. [International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg (Austria); De Groot, H.L.F. [Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam (Netherlands)

2004-07-01

This paper provides an empirical analysis of decoupling economic growth and energy use and its various determinants by exploring trends in energy- and labour productivity across 10 manufacturing sectors and 14 OECD countries for the period 1970-1997. We explicitly aim to trace back aggregate developments in the manufacturing sector to developments at the level of individual subsectors. A cross-country decomposition analysis reveals that in some countries structural changes contributed considerably to aggregate manufacturing energy-productivity growth and, hence, to decoupling, while in other countries they partly offset energy-efficiency improvements. In contrast, structural changes only play a minor role in explaining aggregate manufacturing labour-productivity developments. Furthermore, we find labour-productivity growth to be higher on average than energy-productivity growth. Over time, this bias towards labour-productivity growth is increasing in the aggregate manufacturing sector, while it is decreasing in most manufacturing subsectors.

Empirical likelihood

CERN Document Server

Owen, Art B

2001-01-01

Empirical likelihood provides inferences whose validity does not depend on specifying a parametric model for the data. Because it uses a likelihood, the method has certain inherent advantages over resampling methods: it uses the data to determine the shape of the confidence regions, and it makes it easy to combined data from multiple sources. It also facilitates incorporating side information, and it simplifies accounting for censored, truncated, or biased sampling.One of the first books published on the subject, Empirical Likelihood offers an in-depth treatment of this method for constructing confidence regions and testing hypotheses. The author applies empirical likelihood to a range of problems, from those as simple as setting a confidence region for a univariate mean under IID sampling, to problems defined through smooth functions of means, regression models, generalized linear models, estimating equations, or kernel smooths, and to sampling with non-identically distributed data. Abundant figures offer vi...

Comparison of global sensitivity analysis techniques and importance measures in PSA

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Borgonovo, E.; Apostolakis, G.E.; Tarantola, S.; Saltelli, A.

2003-01-01

This paper discusses application and results of global sensitivity analysis techniques to probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) models, and their comparison to importance measures. This comparison allows one to understand whether PSA elements that are important to the risk, as revealed by importance measures, are also important contributors to the model uncertainty, as revealed by global sensitivity analysis. We show that, due to epistemic dependence, uncertainty and global sensitivity analysis of PSA models must be performed at the parameter level. A difficulty arises, since standard codes produce the calculations at the basic event level. We discuss both the indirect comparison through importance measures computed for basic events, and the direct comparison performed using the differential importance measure and the Fussell-Vesely importance at the parameter level. Results are discussed for the large LLOCA sequence of the advanced test reactor PSA

X-ray spectrum analysis of multi-component samples by a method of fundamental parameters using empirical ratios

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Karmanov, V.I.

1986-01-01

A type of the fundamental parameter method based on empirical relation of corrections for absorption and additional-excitation with absorbing characteristics of samples is suggested. The method is used for X-ray fluorescence analysis of multi-component samples of charges of welded electrodes. It is shown that application of the method is justified only for determination of titanium, calcium and silicon content in charges taking into account only corrections for absorption. Irn and manganese content can be calculated by the simple method of the external standard

Empirical research on international environmental migration: a systematic review.

Science.gov (United States)

Obokata, Reiko; Veronis, Luisa; McLeman, Robert

2014-01-01

This paper presents the findings of a systematic review of scholarly publications that report empirical findings from studies of environmentally-related international migration. There exists a small, but growing accumulation of empirical studies that consider environmentally-linked migration that spans international borders. These studies provide useful evidence for scholars and policymakers in understanding how environmental factors interact with political, economic and social factors to influence migration behavior and outcomes that are specific to international movements of people, in highlighting promising future research directions, and in raising important considerations for international policymaking. Our review identifies countries of migrant origin and destination that have so far been the subject of empirical research, the environmental factors believed to have influenced these migrations, the interactions of environmental and non-environmental factors as well as the role of context in influencing migration behavior, and the types of methods used by researchers. In reporting our findings, we identify the strengths and challenges associated with the main empirical approaches, highlight significant gaps and future opportunities for empirical work, and contribute to advancing understanding of environmental influences on international migration more generally. Specifically, we propose an exploratory framework to take into account the role of context in shaping environmental migration across borders, including the dynamic and complex interactions between environmental and non-environmental factors at a range of scales.

WHY IS IMPORTANT TO DO THE PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maria-Mădălina VOINEA

2015-04-01

Full Text Available This paper deals with the importance that should be given to the performance analysis, mainly the one of the profit and loss account, for being able to take the best financial decisions. Profit and loss account is considered the tool that measures business performance. Although appears a question mark on the confidence you need to attach to this result because it arises from the application of the accounting standards and regulations. And there are many possibilities for recognize revenues and expenses, cutoff, income or revenue, expenditure connection, which asks a little caution about the importance given. The aim of the paper is to see how helps the economic analysis in the process of decisions making.

α-Cut method based importance measure for criticality analysis in fuzzy probability – Based fault tree analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Purba, Julwan Hendry; Sony Tjahyani, D.T.; Widodo, Surip; Tjahjono, Hendro

2017-01-01

Highlights: •FPFTA deals with epistemic uncertainty using fuzzy probability. •Criticality analysis is important for reliability improvement. •An α-cut method based importance measure is proposed for criticality analysis in FPFTA. •The α-cut method based importance measure utilises α-cut multiplication, α-cut subtraction, and area defuzzification technique. •Benchmarking confirm that the proposed method is feasible for criticality analysis in FPFTA. -- Abstract: Fuzzy probability – based fault tree analysis (FPFTA) has been recently developed and proposed to deal with the limitations of conventional fault tree analysis. In FPFTA, reliabilities of basic events, intermediate events and top event are characterized by fuzzy probabilities. Furthermore, the quantification of the FPFTA is based on fuzzy multiplication rule and fuzzy complementation rule to propagate uncertainties from basic event to the top event. Since the objective of the fault tree analysis is to improve the reliability of the system being evaluated, it is necessary to find the weakest path in the system. For this purpose, criticality analysis can be implemented. Various importance measures, which are based on conventional probabilities, have been developed and proposed for criticality analysis in fault tree analysis. However, not one of those importance measures can be applied for criticality analysis in FPFTA, which is based on fuzzy probability. To be fully applied in nuclear power plant probabilistic safety assessment, FPFTA needs to have its corresponding importance measure. The objective of this study is to develop an α-cut method based importance measure to evaluate and rank the importance of basic events for criticality analysis in FPFTA. To demonstrate the applicability of the proposed measure, a case study is performed and its results are then benchmarked to the results generated by the four well known importance measures in conventional fault tree analysis. The results

Space evolution model and empirical analysis of an urban public transport network

Science.gov (United States)

Sui, Yi; Shao, Feng-jing; Sun, Ren-cheng; Li, Shu-jing

2012-07-01

This study explores the space evolution of an urban public transport network, using empirical evidence and a simulation model validated on that data. Public transport patterns primarily depend on traffic spatial-distribution, demands of passengers and expected utility of investors. Evolution is an iterative process of satisfying the needs of passengers and investors based on a given traffic spatial-distribution. The temporal change of urban public transport network is evaluated both using topological measures and spatial ones. The simulation model is validated using empirical data from nine big cities in China. Statistical analyses on topological and spatial attributes suggest that an evolution network with traffic demands characterized by power-law numerical values which distribute in a mode of concentric circles tallies well with these nine cities.

The Wage Determination Process in Turkey: An Empirical Analysis in Kaleckian Perspective

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Başak Gül AKTAKAS

2014-05-01

Full Text Available Orthodox economists generally think about labor market that the price stability and low unemployment cannot be achieved at the same time. In this sense, the Orthodox argument discusses that a decline in the aggregate demand will decrease the money wages and real wages proportionally, and increase the volume of employment. Michal Kalecki denies such a wage policy which is consistently determined by this idea. Wages reflect the price-money wage relation in real terms. Prices set in regard to the degree of monopoly. In this context, it is assumed real wages is determined depending upon the degree of monopoly, labor productivity and price of import goods. According to Kalecki, Orthodoxian view which relates a decrease in real wages with an increase in production based on increasing marginal cost assumption and Kalecki does not accept this perspective. Kaleckian PostKeynesian labor market will be theoretically discussed and the determination process of the real wage will be empirically analyzed for Turkish economy over the period 1989:1 to 2012:4.

Empirical Test Case Specification

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kalyanova, Olena; Heiselberg, Per

This document includes the empirical specification on the IEA task of evaluation building energy simulation computer programs for the Double Skin Facades (DSF) constructions. There are two approaches involved into this procedure, one is the comparative approach and another is the empirical one. I....... In the comparative approach the outcomes of different software tools are compared, while in the empirical approach the modelling results are compared with the results of experimental test cases....

The importance of board independence

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Zijl, N.J.M.

2012-01-01

Although the attributed importance of board independence is high, a clear definition of independence does not exist. Furthermore, the aim and consequences of independence are the subject of discussion and empirical evidence about the impact of independence is weak and disputable. Despite this lack

Empirical Asset Pricing: Eugene Fama, Lars Peter Hansen, and Robert Shiller

OpenAIRE

Campbell, John Y.

2016-01-01

The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for 2013 was awarded to Eugene Fama, Lars Peter Hansen, and Robert Shiller for their contributions to the empirical study of asset pricing. Some observers have found it hard to understand the common elements of the laureates research, preferring to highlight areas of disagreement among them. This paper argues that empirical asset pricing is a coherent enterprise, which owes much to the laureates seminal contributions, and that important themes in ...

The empirical study of norms of justice - an overview

OpenAIRE

Jacquemain, Marc

2003-01-01

The paper discusses what is empirical study of justice feeling, drawing the line between this and normative study, but defending nevertheless that there are important linkis between both stances. It gives an overview of main theories whitin normative study of justice feelings

An empirical study to determine the critical success factors of export industry

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Masoud Babakhani

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Exporting goods and services play an important role on economy of developing countries. There are many countries in the world whose economy is solely based on exporting raw materials such as oil and gas. Many believe that countries cannot develop their economy as long as they rely on exporting one single group of raw materials. Therefore, there is a need to help other sectors of industries build good infrastructure for exporting diversified products. In this paper, we perform an empirical analysis to determine the critical success factors on exporting different goods. The results are analyzed using some statistical non-parametric methods and some useful guidelines are also suggested.

Empirical Support for Perceptual Conceptualism

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nicolás Alejandro Serrano

2018-03-01

Full Text Available The main objective of this paper is to show that perceptual conceptualism can be understood as an empirically meaningful position and, furthermore, that there is some degree of empirical support for its main theses. In order to do this, I will start by offering an empirical reading of the conceptualist position, and making three predictions from it. Then, I will consider recent experimental results from cognitive sciences that seem to point towards those predictions. I will conclude that, while the evidence offered by those experiments is far from decisive, it is enough not only to show that conceptualism is an empirically meaningful position but also that there is empirical support for it.

The determinants of domestic water demand. Empirical evidence from Emilia-Romagna municipal data

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mazzanti, Massimiliano; Montini, Anna

2004-01-01

This paper presents empirical evidence on the determinants of water demand for domestic use in one Italian region, the Emilia Romagna, by using municipal data. Two main stems in urban/domestic demand analysis cab be found in the empirical literature. The first deals with the estimation of price or income demand elasticities in the short and the long run. The price demand elasticities can be used for water demand managements purpose while the income price elasticities can be useful in the forecasting process of the water requirements. The second one deals with the estimate of customer willingness to pay increasing in water service quality in holistic sense or concerning single characteristics of the service: safety, flavour, continuity, appearance, pollution rate and cost. The aim of the analysis in this case the elicitation of the direct use, indirect use and non-use values associated to the water resource consumption, by means of direct or indirect techniques. In this paper we focused the analysis in the first stem of the empirical literature in which a cross section data set is required. The paper explores the topic problems of the estimating process whit the analysis of the empirical literature (with particular regard to investigations that use municipal data) and with the analysis of the econometric problems related to the demand estimate. The theoretical model for the water demand analysis is also presented and discussed. Two datasets have been implemented: one with 125 municipalities and four years, the other with 40 municipalities and eleven years. Both the databases bring together municipal water consumption and tariffs data provided by local water utilities and other municipal data (inhabitants, surface, household, income, etc.) stemming from official sources. The econometric analysis is based on both fixed effects, performing better than random effects models, and dynamic panel models. The estimated coefficient of the tariff variable arises always

Meta-Analysis and Cost Comparison of Empirical versus Pre-Emptive Antifungal Strategies in Hematologic Malignancy Patients with High-Risk Febrile Neutropenia.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Monica Fung

Full Text Available Invasive fungal disease (IFD causes significant morbidity and mortality in hematologic malignancy patients with high-risk febrile neutropenia (FN. These patients therefore often receive empirical antifungal therapy. Diagnostic test-guided pre-emptive antifungal therapy has been evaluated as an alternative treatment strategy in these patients.We conducted an electronic search for literature comparing empirical versus pre-emptive antifungal strategies in FN among adult hematologic malignancy patients. We systematically reviewed 9 studies, including randomized-controlled trials, cohort studies, and feasibility studies. Random and fixed-effect models were used to generate pooled relative risk estimates of IFD detection, IFD-related mortality, overall mortality, and rates and duration of antifungal therapy. Heterogeneity was measured via Cochran's Q test, I2 statistic, and between study τ2. Incorporating these parameters and direct costs of drugs and diagnostic testing, we constructed a comparative costing model for the two strategies. We conducted probabilistic sensitivity analysis on pooled estimates and one-way sensitivity analyses on other key parameters with uncertain estimates.Nine published studies met inclusion criteria. Compared to empirical antifungal therapy, pre-emptive strategies were associated with significantly lower antifungal exposure (RR 0.48, 95% CI 0.27-0.85 and duration without an increase in IFD-related mortality (RR 0.82, 95% CI 0.36-1.87 or overall mortality (RR 0.95, 95% CI 0.46-1.99. The pre-emptive strategy cost $324 less (95% credible interval -$291.88 to $418.65 pre-emptive compared to empirical than the empirical approach per FN episode. However, the cost difference was influenced by relatively small changes in costs of antifungal therapy and diagnostic testing.Compared to empirical antifungal therapy, pre-emptive antifungal therapy in patients with high-risk FN may decrease antifungal use without increasing mortality

Meta-Analysis and Cost Comparison of Empirical versus Pre-Emptive Antifungal Strategies in Hematologic Malignancy Patients with High-Risk Febrile Neutropenia.

Science.gov (United States)

Fung, Monica; Kim, Jane; Marty, Francisco M; Schwarzinger, Michaël; Koo, Sophia

2015-01-01

Invasive fungal disease (IFD) causes significant morbidity and mortality in hematologic malignancy patients with high-risk febrile neutropenia (FN). These patients therefore often receive empirical antifungal therapy. Diagnostic test-guided pre-emptive antifungal therapy has been evaluated as an alternative treatment strategy in these patients. We conducted an electronic search for literature comparing empirical versus pre-emptive antifungal strategies in FN among adult hematologic malignancy patients. We systematically reviewed 9 studies, including randomized-controlled trials, cohort studies, and feasibility studies. Random and fixed-effect models were used to generate pooled relative risk estimates of IFD detection, IFD-related mortality, overall mortality, and rates and duration of antifungal therapy. Heterogeneity was measured via Cochran's Q test, I2 statistic, and between study τ2. Incorporating these parameters and direct costs of drugs and diagnostic testing, we constructed a comparative costing model for the two strategies. We conducted probabilistic sensitivity analysis on pooled estimates and one-way sensitivity analyses on other key parameters with uncertain estimates. Nine published studies met inclusion criteria. Compared to empirical antifungal therapy, pre-emptive strategies were associated with significantly lower antifungal exposure (RR 0.48, 95% CI 0.27-0.85) and duration without an increase in IFD-related mortality (RR 0.82, 95% CI 0.36-1.87) or overall mortality (RR 0.95, 95% CI 0.46-1.99). The pre-emptive strategy cost $324 less (95% credible interval -$291.88 to $418.65 pre-emptive compared to empirical) than the empirical approach per FN episode. However, the cost difference was influenced by relatively small changes in costs of antifungal therapy and diagnostic testing. Compared to empirical antifungal therapy, pre-emptive antifungal therapy in patients with high-risk FN may decrease antifungal use without increasing mortality. We

Economic burden of multidrug-resistant bacteria in nursing homes in Germany: a cost analysis based on empirical data.

Science.gov (United States)

Huebner, Claudia; Roggelin, Marcus; Flessa, Steffen

2016-02-23

Infections and colonisations with multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs) increasingly affect different types of healthcare facilities worldwide. So far, little is known about additional costs attributable to MDROs outside hospitals. The aim of this study was to analysis the economic burden of multidrug-resistant bacteria in nursing homes in Germany. The cost analysis is performed from a microeconomic perspective of the healthcare facilities. Study took place in six long-term care facilities in north-eastern Germany. Data of 71 residents with a positive MDRO status were included. The study analysed MDRO surveillance data from 2011 to 2013. It was supplemented by an empirical analysis to determine the burden on staff capacity and materials consumption. 11,793 days with a positive multidrug-resistant pathogen diagnosis could be included in the analysis. On average, 11.8 (SD ± 6.3) MDRO cases occurred per nursing home. Mean duration per case was 163.3 days (SD ± 97.1). The annual MDRO-related costs varied in nursing homes between €2449.72 and €153,263.74 on an average €12,682.23 per case. Main cost drivers were staff capacity (€43.95 per day and €7177.04 per case) and isolation materials (€24.70 per day and €4033.51 per case). The importance of MDROs in nursing homes could be confirmed. MDRO-related cost data in this specific healthcare sector were collected for the first time. Knowledge about the burden of MDROs will enable to assess the efficiency of hygiene intervention measures in nursing homes in the future. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/

Bias-dependent hybrid PKI empirical-neural model of microwave FETs

Science.gov (United States)

Marinković, Zlatica; Pronić-Rančić, Olivera; Marković, Vera

2011-10-01

Empirical models of microwave transistors based on an equivalent circuit are valid for only one bias point. Bias-dependent analysis requires repeated extractions of the model parameters for each bias point. In order to make model bias-dependent, a new hybrid empirical-neural model of microwave field-effect transistors is proposed in this article. The model is a combination of an equivalent circuit model including noise developed for one bias point and two prior knowledge input artificial neural networks (PKI ANNs) aimed at introducing bias dependency of scattering (S) and noise parameters, respectively. The prior knowledge of the proposed ANNs involves the values of the S- and noise parameters obtained by the empirical model. The proposed hybrid model is valid in the whole range of bias conditions. Moreover, the proposed model provides better accuracy than the empirical model, which is illustrated by an appropriate modelling example of a pseudomorphic high-electron mobility transistor device.

An empirical analysis of cigarette demand in Argentina.

Science.gov (United States)

Martinez, Eugenio; Mejia, Raul; Pérez-Stable, Eliseo J

2015-01-01

To estimate the long-term and short-term effects on cigarette demand in Argentina based on changes in cigarette price and income per person >14 years old. Public data from the Ministry of Economics and Production were analysed based on monthly time series data between 1994 and 2010. The econometric analysis used cigarette consumption per person >14 years of age as the dependent variable and the real income per person >14 years old and the real average price of cigarettes as independent variables. Empirical analyses were done to verify the order of integration of the variables, to test for cointegration to capture the long-term effects and to capture the short-term dynamics of the variables. The demand for cigarettes in Argentina was affected by changes in real income and the real average price of cigarettes. The long-term income elasticity was equal to 0.43, while the own-price elasticity was equal to -0.31, indicating a 10% increase in the growth of real income led to an increase in cigarette consumption of 4.3% and a 10% increase in the price produced a fall of 3.1% in cigarette consumption. The vector error correction model estimated that the short-term income elasticity was 0.25 and the short-term own-price elasticity of cigarette demand was -0.15. A simulation exercise showed that increasing the price of cigarettes by 110% would maximise revenues and result in a potentially large decrease in total cigarette consumption. Econometric analyses of cigarette consumption and their relationship with cigarette price and income can provide valuable information for developing cigarette price policy. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.

Dealing with noise and physiological artifacts in human EEG recordings: empirical mode methods

Science.gov (United States)

Runnova, Anastasiya E.; Grubov, Vadim V.; Khramova, Marina V.; Hramov, Alexander E.

2017-04-01

In the paper we propose the new method for removing noise and physiological artifacts in human EEG recordings based on empirical mode decomposition (Hilbert-Huang transform). As physiological artifacts we consider specific oscillatory patterns that cause problems during EEG analysis and can be detected with additional signals recorded simultaneously with EEG (ECG, EMG, EOG, etc.) We introduce the algorithm of the proposed method with steps including empirical mode decomposition of EEG signal, choosing of empirical modes with artifacts, removing these empirical modes and reconstructing of initial EEG signal. We show the efficiency of the method on the example of filtration of human EEG signal from eye-moving artifacts.

Empirical model for estimating the surface roughness of machined ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Empirical model for estimating the surface roughness of machined ... as well as surface finish is one of the most critical quality measure in mechanical products. ... various cutting speed have been developed using regression analysis software.

Estimating the empirical probability of submarine landslide occurrence

Science.gov (United States)

Geist, Eric L.; Parsons, Thomas E.; Mosher, David C.; Shipp, Craig; Moscardelli, Lorena; Chaytor, Jason D.; Baxter, Christopher D. P.; Lee, Homa J.; Urgeles, Roger

2010-01-01

The empirical probability for the occurrence of submarine landslides at a given location can be estimated from age dates of past landslides. In this study, tools developed to estimate earthquake probability from paleoseismic horizons are adapted to estimate submarine landslide probability. In both types of estimates, one has to account for the uncertainty associated with age-dating individual events as well as the open time intervals before and after the observed sequence of landslides. For observed sequences of submarine landslides, we typically only have the age date of the youngest event and possibly of a seismic horizon that lies below the oldest event in a landslide sequence. We use an empirical Bayes analysis based on the Poisson-Gamma conjugate prior model specifically applied to the landslide probability problem. This model assumes that landslide events as imaged in geophysical data are independent and occur in time according to a Poisson distribution characterized by a rate parameter λ. With this method, we are able to estimate the most likely value of λ and, importantly, the range of uncertainty in this estimate. Examples considered include landslide sequences observed in the Santa Barbara Channel, California, and in Port Valdez, Alaska. We confirm that given the uncertainties of age dating that landslide complexes can be treated as single events by performing statistical test of age dates representing the main failure episode of the Holocene Storegga landslide complex.

Protein-Ligand Empirical Interaction Components for Virtual Screening.

Science.gov (United States)

Yan, Yuna; Wang, Weijun; Sun, Zhaoxi; Zhang, John Z H; Ji, Changge

2017-08-28

A major shortcoming of empirical scoring functions is that they often fail to predict binding affinity properly. Removing false positives of docking results is one of the most challenging works in structure-based virtual screening. Postdocking filters, making use of all kinds of experimental structure and activity information, may help in solving the issue. We describe a new method based on detailed protein-ligand interaction decomposition and machine learning. Protein-ligand empirical interaction components (PLEIC) are used as descriptors for support vector machine learning to develop a classification model (PLEIC-SVM) to discriminate false positives from true positives. Experimentally derived activity information is used for model training. An extensive benchmark study on 36 diverse data sets from the DUD-E database has been performed to evaluate the performance of the new method. The results show that the new method performs much better than standard empirical scoring functions in structure-based virtual screening. The trained PLEIC-SVM model is able to capture important interaction patterns between ligand and protein residues for one specific target, which is helpful in discarding false positives in postdocking filtering.

Characterizing Social Interaction in Tobacco-Oriented Social Networks: An Empirical Analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Liang, Yunji; Zheng, Xiaolong; Zeng, Daniel Dajun; Zhou, Xingshe; Leischow, Scott James; Chung, Wingyan

2015-06-19

Social media is becoming a new battlefield for tobacco "wars". Evaluating the current situation is very crucial for the advocacy of tobacco control in the age of social media. To reveal the impact of tobacco-related user-generated content, this paper characterizes user interaction and social influence utilizing social network analysis and information theoretic approaches. Our empirical studies demonstrate that the exploding pro-tobacco content has long-lasting effects with more active users and broader influence, and reveal the shortage of social media resources in global tobacco control. It is found that the user interaction in the pro-tobacco group is more active, and user-generated content for tobacco promotion is more successful in obtaining user attention. Furthermore, we construct three tobacco-related social networks and investigate the topological patterns of these tobacco-related social networks. We find that the size of the pro-tobacco network overwhelms the others, which suggests a huge number of users are exposed to the pro-tobacco content. These results indicate that the gap between tobacco promotion and tobacco control is widening and tobacco control may be losing ground to tobacco promotion in social media.

A Study on the System Importance Analysis in SMART

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Kil Yoo; Kang, Dae Il; Kim, Tae Woon; Jin, Young Ho

2011-01-01

Importance analysis using RAW(Risk Achievement Worth) and RRW(Risk Reduction Worth) for the systems of SMART(System integrated Modular Advanced ReacTor) was performed. Usually PSA quantification software provide importance measures for basic events(BEs), and for components with receiving some users' input. However, generally, importance measures for systems are not automatically supplied by the software, but require the users' manual work. In this paper, the method how to get system importance measures is described using AIMS, and the characteristics of system importance measures in SMART are described

Linear and nonlinear determinants of the performance of informal venture capitalists’ investments. An empirical analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vincenzo Capizzi

2013-05-01

Full Text Available This paper is aimed at identifying and analyzing the contribution of the major drivers of the performance of informal venture capitalists’ investments. This study analyzes data on Italian transactions and personal features of Italian Business Angels gathered during 2007 – 2011 with the support of IBAN (Italian Business Angels Network. The econometric analysis investigates the returns of business angels’ investments and their major determinants (industry, exit strategy, experience, holding period, rejection rate, and year of divestiture. The major results are the followings: 1 differently from previous literature, the relationship between Experience and IRR is quadratic and significant; 2 for the first time, is confirmed by quantitative data that short Holding period (below 3 years earn a lower IRR; 3 the Rejection rate is logarithmic and the impact on IRR is positive and significant. Finally, the outcomes of the empirical analysis performed in this study allow identifying new and concrete insights on possible policy interventions.

An empirical analysis of the corporate call decision

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Carlson, M.D.

1998-01-01

An economic study of the the behaviour of financial managers of utility companies was presented. The study examined whether or not an option pricing based model of the call decision does a better job of explaining callable preferred share prices and call decisions compared to other models. In this study, the Rust (1987) empirical technique was extended to include the use of information from preferred share prices in addition to the call decisions. Reasonable estimates were obtained from data of shares of the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PGE) for the transaction costs associated with a call. It was concluded that the managers of the PGE clearly take into account the value of the option to delay the call when making their call decisions

Theoretical vs. empirical discriminability: the application of ROC methods to eyewitness identification.

Science.gov (United States)

Wixted, John T; Mickes, Laura

2018-01-01

Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was introduced to the field of eyewitness identification 5 years ago. Since that time, it has been both influential and controversial, and the debate has raised an issue about measuring discriminability that is rarely considered. The issue concerns the distinction between empirical discriminability (measured by area under the ROC curve) vs. underlying/theoretical discriminability (measured by d' or variants of it). Under most circumstances, the two measures will agree about a difference between two conditions in terms of discriminability. However, it is possible for them to disagree, and that fact can lead to confusion about which condition actually yields higher discriminability. For example, if the two conditions have implications for real-world practice (e.g., a comparison of competing lineup formats), should a policymaker rely on the area-under-the-curve measure or the theory-based measure? Here, we illustrate the fact that a given empirical ROC yields as many underlying discriminability measures as there are theories that one is willing to take seriously. No matter which theory is correct, for practical purposes, the singular area-under-the-curve measure best identifies the diagnostically superior procedure. For that reason, area under the ROC curve informs policy in a way that underlying theoretical discriminability never can. At the same time, theoretical measures of discriminability are equally important, but for a different reason. Without an adequate theoretical understanding of the relevant task, the field will be in no position to enhance empirical discriminability.

The value of replicationg the data analysis of an empirical evaluation

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The aim of this research was to determine whether the results of an empirical evaluation could be confirmed using a different evaluation method. In this investigation the Qualitative Weight and Sum method used by the researchers Graf and List to evaluate several free and open source e-learning software platforms, were ...

Factor analysis

CERN Document Server

Gorsuch, Richard L

2013-01-01

Comprehensive and comprehensible, this classic covers the basic and advanced topics essential for using factor analysis as a scientific tool in psychology, education, sociology, and related areas. Emphasizing the usefulness of the techniques, it presents sufficient mathematical background for understanding and sufficient discussion of applications for effective use. This includes not only theory but also the empirical evaluations of the importance of mathematical distinctions for applied scientific analysis.

Living network meta-analysis compared with pairwise meta-analysis in comparative effectiveness research: empirical study.

Science.gov (United States)

Nikolakopoulou, Adriani; Mavridis, Dimitris; Furukawa, Toshi A; Cipriani, Andrea; Tricco, Andrea C; Straus, Sharon E; Siontis, George C M; Egger, Matthias; Salanti, Georgia

2018-02-28

To examine whether the continuous updating of networks of prospectively planned randomised controlled trials (RCTs) ("living" network meta-analysis) provides strong evidence against the null hypothesis in comparative effectiveness of medical interventions earlier than the updating of conventional, pairwise meta-analysis. Empirical study of the accumulating evidence about the comparative effectiveness of clinical interventions. Database of network meta-analyses of RCTs identified through searches of Medline, Embase, and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews until 14 April 2015. Network meta-analyses published after January 2012 that compared at least five treatments and included at least 20 RCTs. Clinical experts were asked to identify in each network the treatment comparison of greatest clinical interest. Comparisons were excluded for which direct and indirect evidence disagreed, based on side, or node, splitting test (Pmeta-analyses were performed for each selected comparison. Monitoring boundaries of statistical significance were constructed and the evidence against the null hypothesis was considered to be strong when the monitoring boundaries were crossed. A significance level was defined as α=5%, power of 90% (β=10%), and an anticipated treatment effect to detect equal to the final estimate from the network meta-analysis. The frequency and time to strong evidence was compared against the null hypothesis between pairwise and network meta-analyses. 49 comparisons of interest from 44 networks were included; most (n=39, 80%) were between active drugs, mainly from the specialties of cardiology, endocrinology, psychiatry, and rheumatology. 29 comparisons were informed by both direct and indirect evidence (59%), 13 by indirect evidence (27%), and 7 by direct evidence (14%). Both network and pairwise meta-analysis provided strong evidence against the null hypothesis for seven comparisons, but for an additional 10 comparisons only network meta-analysis provided

Mission Operations Planning with Preferences: An Empirical Study

Science.gov (United States)

Bresina, John L.; Khatib, Lina; McGann, Conor

2006-01-01

This paper presents an empirical study of some nonexhaustive approaches to optimizing preferences within the context of constraint-based, mixed-initiative planning for mission operations. This work is motivated by the experience of deploying and operating the MAPGEN (Mixed-initiative Activity Plan GENerator) system for the Mars Exploration Rover Mission. Responsiveness to the user is one of the important requirements for MAPGEN, hence, the additional computation time needed to optimize preferences must be kept within reasonabble bounds. This was the primary motivation for studying non-exhaustive optimization approaches. The specific goals of rhe empirical study are to assess the impact on solution quality of two greedy heuristics used in MAPGEN and to assess the improvement gained by applying a linear programming optimization technique to the final solution.

Characterizing Student Expectations: A Small Empirical Study

Science.gov (United States)

Warwick, Jonathan

2016-01-01

This paper describes the results of a small empirical study (n = 130), in which undergraduate students in the Business Faculty of a UK university were asked to express views and expectations relating to the study of a mathematics. Factor analysis is used to identify latent variables emerging from clusters of the measured variables and these are…

Micro-Credit and Rural Poverty: An Analysis of Empirical Evidence

OpenAIRE

Chavan, P.; Ramakumar, R.

2003-01-01

This paper reviews empirical evidence on NGO-led micro-credit programmes in several developing countries, and compares them with state-led poverty alleviation schemes in India. It shows that micro-credit programmes have brought about a marginal improvement in the beneficiaries' income, though technological improvements are lacking due to its emphasis on ‘survival skills'. Also, in Bangladesh the practice of repayment of Grameen Bank loans by making fresh loans from moneylenders has resulted ...

Choice of Foreign Market Entry Mode - Cognitions from Empirical and Theoretical Studies

OpenAIRE

Zhao, Xuemin; Decker, Reinhold

2004-01-01

This paper analyzes critically five basic theories on market entry mode decision with respect to existing strengths and weaknesses and the results of corresponding empirical studies. Starting from conflictions both in theories and empirical studies dealing with the entry mode choice problem we motivate a significant need of further research in this important area of international marketing. Furthermore we provide implications for managers in practice and outline emerging trends in market entr...

Empirically Supported Treatment's Impact on Organizational Culture and Climate

Science.gov (United States)

Patterson-Silver Wolf, David A.; Dulmus, Catherine N.; Maguin, Eugene

2012-01-01

Objectives: With the continued push to implement empirically supported treatments (ESTs) into community-based organizations, it is important to investigate whether working condition disruptions occur during this process. While there are many studies investigating best practices and how to adopt them, the literature lacks studies investigating the…

An Empirical Investigation of External Debt - Military Expenditure Nexus in Bangladesh

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Khalid ZAMAN

2012-06-01

Full Text Available The objective of this paper is to empirically investigate a two-way statistical relationship between the real external debt and real military expenditure in the context of Bangladesh. A time series co-integration and Granger causality tests have been employed from 1980 - 2009 for analysis. The empirical results support the bi-directional causality between the external debt and economic growth, while unidirectional causality runs from military spending to external debt.

Different methods for ethical analysis in health technology assessment: an empirical study.

Science.gov (United States)

Saarni, Samuli I; Braunack-Mayer, Annette; Hofmann, Bjørn; van der Wilt, Gert Jan

2011-10-01

Ethical analysis can highlight important ethical issues related to implementing a technology, values inherent in the technology itself, and value-decisions underlying the health technology assessment (HTA) process. Ethical analysis is a well-acknowledged part of HTA, yet seldom included in practice. One reason for this is lack of knowledge about the properties and differences between the methods available. This study compares different methods for ethical analysis within HTA. Ethical issues related to bariatric (obesity) surgery were independently evaluated using axiological, casuist, principlist, and EUnetHTA models for ethical analysis within HTA. The methods and results are presented and compared. Despite varying theoretical underpinnings and practical approaches, the four methods identified similar themes: personal responsibility, self-infliction, discrimination, justice, public funding, and stakeholder involvement. The axiological and EUnetHTA models identified a wider range of arguments, whereas casuistry and principlism concentrated more on analyzing a narrower set of arguments deemed more important. Different methods can be successfully used for conducting ethical analysis within HTA. Although our study does not show that different methods in ethics always produce similar results, it supports the view that different methods of ethics can yield relevantly similar results. This suggests that the key conclusions of ethical analyses within HTA can be transferable between methods and countries. The systematic and transparent use of some method of ethics appears more important than the choice of the exact method.

Subjective social status, social network and health disparities: empirical evidence from Greece.

Science.gov (United States)

Charonis, Antonios; Kyriopoulos, Ilias-Ioannis; Spanakis, Manos; Zavras, Dimitris; Athanasakis, Kostas; Pavi, Elpida; Kyriopoulos, John

2017-02-27

Several studies suggest that socioeconomic status affects (SES) affects self-rated health (SRH), both in Greece and internationally. However, prior research mainly uses objective measures of SES, instead of subjective evaluations of individuals' social status. Based on this, this paper aims to examine (a) the impact of the economic dowturn on SRH in Greece and (b) the relationship between subjective social status (SSS), social network and SRH. The descriptive analysis is based on four cross-sectional surveys conducted by the National School of Public Health, Athens, Greece (2002, 2006, 2011, 2015), while the data for the empirical investigation were derived from the 2015 survey (Health + Welfare Survey GR). The empirical strategy is based on an ordinal logistic regression model, aiming to examine how several variables affect SRH. Size of social network and SSS are among the independent variables employed for the empirical analysis RESULTS: According to our findings, average SRH has deteriorated, and the percentage of the population that reports very good/good SRH has also decreased. Moreover, our empirical analysis suggests that age, existence of a chronic disease, size of social network and SSS affect SRH in Greece. Our findings are consistent with the existing literature and confirm a social gradient in health. According to our analysis, health disparities can be largely attributed to socioeconomic inequalities. The adverse economic climate has impact on socioeconomic differences which in turn affect health disparities. Based on these, policy initiatives are necessasy in order to mitigate the negative impact on health and the disparities caused by economic dowturn and the occuring socioeconomic inequalities.

Life Writing After Empire

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

A watershed moment of the twentieth century, the end of empire saw upheavals to global power structures and national identities. However, decolonisation profoundly affected individual subjectivities too. Life Writing After Empire examines how people around the globe have made sense of the post...... in order to understand how individual life writing reflects broader societal changes. From far-flung corners of the former British Empire, people have turned to life writing to manage painful or nostalgic memories, as well as to think about the past and future of the nation anew through the personal...

Mapping Perceptions of Lupus Medication Decision-Making Facilitators: The Importance of Patient Context.

Science.gov (United States)

Qu, Haiyan; Shewchuk, Richard M; Alarcón, Graciela; Fraenkel, Liana; Leong, Amye; Dall'Era, Maria; Yazdany, Jinoos; Singh, Jasvinder A

2016-12-01

Numerous factors can impede or facilitate patients' medication decision-making and adherence to physicians' recommendations. Little is known about how patients and physicians jointly view issues that affect the decision-making process. Our objective was to derive an empirical framework of patient-identified facilitators to lupus medication decision-making from key stakeholders (including 15 physicians, 5 patients/patient advocates, and 8 medical professionals) using a patient-centered cognitive mapping approach. We used nominal group patient panels to identify facilitators to lupus treatment decision-making. Stakeholders independently sorted the identified facilitators (n = 98) based on their similarities and rated the importance of each facilitator in patient decision-making. Data were analyzed using multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis. A cognitive map was derived that represents an empirical framework of facilitators for lupus treatment decisions from multiple stakeholders' perspectives. The facilitator clusters were 1) hope for a normal/healthy life, 2) understand benefits and effectiveness of taking medications, 3) desire to minimize side effects, 4) medication-related data, 5) medication effectiveness for "me," 6) family focus, 7) confidence in physician, 8) medication research, 9) reassurance about medication, and 10) medication economics. Consideration of how different stakeholders perceive the relative importance of lupus medication decision-making clusters is an important step toward improving patient-physician communication and effective shared decision-making. The empirically derived framework of medication decision-making facilitators can be used as a guide to develop a lupus decision aid that focuses on improving physician-patient communication. © 2016, American College of Rheumatology.

An empirical Bayes method for updating inferences in analysis of quantitative trait loci using information from related genome scans.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Kui; Wiener, Howard; Beasley, Mark; George, Varghese; Amos, Christopher I; Allison, David B

2006-08-01

Individual genome scans for quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping often suffer from low statistical power and imprecise estimates of QTL location and effect. This lack of precision yields large confidence intervals for QTL location, which are problematic for subsequent fine mapping and positional cloning. In prioritizing areas for follow-up after an initial genome scan and in evaluating the credibility of apparent linkage signals, investigators typically examine the results of other genome scans of the same phenotype and informally update their beliefs about which linkage signals in their scan most merit confidence and follow-up via a subjective-intuitive integration approach. A method that acknowledges the wisdom of this general paradigm but formally borrows information from other scans to increase confidence in objectivity would be a benefit. We developed an empirical Bayes analytic method to integrate information from multiple genome scans. The linkage statistic obtained from a single genome scan study is updated by incorporating statistics from other genome scans as prior information. This technique does not require that all studies have an identical marker map or a common estimated QTL effect. The updated linkage statistic can then be used for the estimation of QTL location and effect. We evaluate the performance of our method by using extensive simulations based on actual marker spacing and allele frequencies from available data. Results indicate that the empirical Bayes method can account for between-study heterogeneity, estimate the QTL location and effect more precisely, and provide narrower confidence intervals than results from any single individual study. We also compared the empirical Bayes method with a method originally developed for meta-analysis (a closely related but distinct purpose). In the face of marked heterogeneity among studies, the empirical Bayes method outperforms the comparator.

Working Capital Management and Firm Profitability. Empirical Evidence for the Romanian Industry

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Miloş Marius Cristian

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The paper aims on empirically testing the connection between a firm's liquidity, or else a firm's ability to manage short-term liabilities, without undue stress and its profitability. We are using both a static and dynamic measure of firm liquidity: the traditional current liquidity ratio alongside one of the most frequent used working capital management indicator, the cash conversion cycle. An empirical analysis is performed based on 50 listed companies from Bucharest Stock Exchange, covering various industries. The empirical results are confirming the previous research that has confirmed the negative connection between the days sales outstanding (DSO, respectively the days inventory outstanding (DIO and the profitability of the firm, while cash conversion cycle seems to be positively connected with the firm profitability, in contradiction with some of the previous empirical literature.

Temporal structure of neuronal population oscillations with empirical model decomposition

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Li Xiaoli

2006-01-01

Frequency analysis of neuronal oscillation is very important for understanding the neural information processing and mechanism of disorder in the brain. This Letter addresses a new method to analyze the neuronal population oscillations with empirical mode decomposition (EMD). Following EMD of neuronal oscillation, a series of intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) are obtained, then Hilbert transform of IMFs can be used to extract the instantaneous time frequency structure of neuronal oscillation. The method is applied to analyze the neuronal oscillation in the hippocampus of epileptic rats in vivo, the results show the neuronal oscillations have different descriptions during the pre-ictal, seizure onset and ictal periods of the epileptic EEG at the different frequency band. This new method is very helpful to provide a view for the temporal structure of neural oscillation

Toward an Empirical Characterization of Bridging and Bonding Social Capital

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Coffé, Hilde; Geys, Benny

2007-01-01

Though a vast amount of empirical work stresses the beneficial effects of social capital, the recent literature has explicitly recognized the importance of distinguishing different types of social capital. Particularly, a distinction has been made between homogeneous (or bonding) and heterogeneous

Financial incentives and psychiatric services in Australia: an empirical analysis of three policy changes.

Science.gov (United States)

Doessel, D P; Scheurer, Roman W; Chant, David C; Whiteford, Harvey

2007-01-01

Australia has a national, compulsory and universal health insurance scheme, called Medicare. In 1996 the Government changed the Medicare Benefit Schedule Book in such a way as to create different financial incentives for consumers or producers of out-of-hospital private psychiatric services, once an individual consumer had received 50 such services in a 12-month period. The Australian Government introduced a new Item (319) to cover some special cases that were affected by the policy change. At the same time, the Commonwealth introduced a 'fee-freeze' for all medical services. The purpose of this study is two-fold. First, it is necessary to describe the three policy interventions (the constraints on utilization, the operation of the new Item and the general 'fee-freeze'.) The new Item policy was essentially a mechanism to 'dampen' the effect of the 'constraint' policy, and these two policy changes will be consequently analysed as a single intervention. The second objective is to evaluate the policy intervention in terms of the (stated) Australian purpose of reducing utilization of psychiatric services, and thus reducing financial outlays. Thus, it is important to separate out the different effects of the three policies that were introduced at much the same time in November 1996 and January 1997. The econometric results indicate that the composite policy change (constraining services and the new 319 Item) had a statistically significant effect. The analysis of the Medicare Benefit (in constant prices) indicates that the 'fee-freeze' policy also had a statistically significant effect. This enables separate determination of the several policy changes. In fact, the empirical results indicate that the Commonwealth Government underestimated the 'savings' that would arise from the 'constraint' policy.

Importance Performance Analysis as a Trade Show Performance Evaluation and Benchmarking Tool

OpenAIRE

Tafesse, Wondwesen; Skallerud, Kåre; Korneliussen, Tor

2010-01-01

Author's accepted version (post-print). The purpose of this study is to introduce importance performance analysis as a trade show performance evaluation and benchmarking tool. Importance performance analysis considers exhibitors’ performance expectation and perceived performance in unison to evaluate and benchmark trade show performance. The present study uses data obtained from exhibitors of an international trade show to demonstrate how importance performance analysis can be used to eval...

An empirical study for measuring the success index of banking industry

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mohsen Mardani

2012-08-01

Full Text Available Measuring organization performance plays an important role for developing better strategic plans. In today's competitive environment, organizations attempt for the product quality or offering the service, delivery, reliability capability and the customer satisfaction. These properties are not measurable only by traditional financial criteria and we need a method, which could consider non-financial factors as well. The present study of this paper proposed a hybrid of balanced score card (BSC and data envelopment analysis (DEA method for an empirical study of banking sector. The study proposes a model for assessing the Tose`eTa`avon bank performance, which is an example of governmental credit and financial services institutes. The study determines different important factors associated with each four components of BSC and uses analytical hierarchy process to rank the measures. In each part of BSC implementation, we use DEA for ranking different units of bank and efficient and inefficient units are determined.

Empirical ethics, context-sensitivity, and contextualism.

Science.gov (United States)

Musschenga, Albert W

2005-10-01

In medical ethics, business ethics, and some branches of political philosophy (multi-culturalism, issues of just allocation, and equitable distribution) the literature increasingly combines insights from ethics and the social sciences. Some authors in medical ethics even speak of a new phase in the history of ethics, hailing "empirical ethics" as a logical next step in the development of practical ethics after the turn to "applied ethics." The name empirical ethics is ill-chosen because of its associations with "descriptive ethics." Unlike descriptive ethics, however, empirical ethics aims to be both descriptive and normative. The first question on which I focus is what kind of empirical research is used by empirical ethics and for which purposes. I argue that the ultimate aim of all empirical ethics is to improve the context-sensitivity of ethics. The second question is whether empirical ethics is essentially connected with specific positions in meta-ethics. I show that in some kinds of meta-ethical theories, which I categorize as broad contextualist theories, there is an intrinsic need for connecting normative ethics with empirical social research. But context-sensitivity is a goal that can be aimed for from any meta-ethical position.

Analysis of the Effects of Thermal Environment on Optical Systems for Navigation Guidance and Control in Supersonic Aircraft Based on Empirical Equations.

Science.gov (United States)

Cheng, Xuemin; Yang, Yikang; Hao, Qun

2016-10-17

The thermal environment is an important factor in the design of optical systems. This study investigated the thermal analysis technology of optical systems for navigation guidance and control in supersonic aircraft by developing empirical equations for the front temperature gradient and rear thermal diffusion distance, and for basic factors such as flying parameters and the structure of the optical system. Finite element analysis (FEA) was used to study the relationship between flying and front dome parameters and the system temperature field. Systematic deduction was then conducted based on the effects of the temperature field on the physical geometry and ray tracing performance of the front dome and rear optical lenses, by deriving the relational expressions between the system temperature field and the spot size and positioning precision of the rear optical lens. The optical systems used for navigation guidance and control in supersonic aircraft when the flight speed is in the range of 1-5 Ma were analysed using the derived equations. Using this new method it was possible to control the precision within 10% when considering the light spot received by the four-quadrant detector, and computation time was reduced compared with the traditional method of separately analysing the temperature field of the front dome and rear optical lens using FEA. Thus, the method can effectively increase the efficiency of parameter analysis and computation in an airborne optical system, facilitating the systematic, effective and integrated thermal analysis of airborne optical systems for navigation guidance and control.

Empirical spatial econometric modelling of small scale neighbourhood

Science.gov (United States)

Gerkman, Linda

2012-07-01

The aim of the paper is to model small scale neighbourhood in a house price model by implementing the newest methodology in spatial econometrics. A common problem when modelling house prices is that in practice it is seldom possible to obtain all the desired variables. Especially variables capturing the small scale neighbourhood conditions are hard to find. If there are important explanatory variables missing from the model, the omitted variables are spatially autocorrelated and they are correlated with the explanatory variables included in the model, it can be shown that a spatial Durbin model is motivated. In the empirical application on new house price data from Helsinki in Finland, we find the motivation for a spatial Durbin model, we estimate the model and interpret the estimates for the summary measures of impacts. By the analysis we show that the model structure makes it possible to model and find small scale neighbourhood effects, when we know that they exist, but we are lacking proper variables to measure them.

Exploratory regression analysis: a tool for selecting models and determining predictor importance.

Science.gov (United States)

Braun, Michael T; Oswald, Frederick L

2011-06-01

Linear regression analysis is one of the most important tools in a researcher's toolbox for creating and testing predictive models. Although linear regression analysis indicates how strongly a set of predictor variables, taken together, will predict a relevant criterion (i.e., the multiple R), the analysis cannot indicate which predictors are the most important. Although there is no definitive or unambiguous method for establishing predictor variable importance, there are several accepted methods. This article reviews those methods for establishing predictor importance and provides a program (in Excel) for implementing them (available for direct download at http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2480715/ERA.xlsm?dl=1) . The program investigates all 2(p) - 1 submodels and produces several indices of predictor importance. This exploratory approach to linear regression, similar to other exploratory data analysis techniques, has the potential to yield both theoretical and practical benefits.

Empire as a Geopolitical Figure

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Parker, Noel

2010-01-01

This article analyses the ingredients of empire as a pattern of order with geopolitical effects. Noting the imperial form's proclivity for expansion from a critical reading of historical sociology, the article argues that the principal manifestation of earlier geopolitics lay not in the nation...... but in empire. That in turn has been driven by a view of the world as disorderly and open to the ordering will of empires (emanating, at the time of geopolitics' inception, from Europe). One implication is that empires are likely to figure in the geopolitical ordering of the globe at all times, in particular...... after all that has happened in the late twentieth century to undermine nationalism and the national state. Empire is indeed a probable, even for some an attractive form of regime for extending order over the disorder produced by globalisation. Geopolitics articulated in imperial expansion is likely...

An empirically based model for knowledge management in health care organizations.

Science.gov (United States)

Sibbald, Shannon L; Wathen, C Nadine; Kothari, Anita

2016-01-01

Knowledge management (KM) encompasses strategies, processes, and practices that allow an organization to capture, share, store, access, and use knowledge. Ideal KM combines different sources of knowledge to support innovation and improve performance. Despite the importance of KM in health care organizations (HCOs), there has been very little empirical research to describe KM in this context. This study explores KM in HCOs, focusing on the status of current intraorganizational KM. The intention is to provide insight for future studies and model development for effective KM implementation in HCOs. A qualitative methods approach was used to create an empirically based model of KM in HCOs. Methods included (a) qualitative interviews (n = 24) with senior leadership to identify types of knowledge important in these roles plus current information-seeking behaviors/needs and (b) in-depth case study with leaders in new executive positions (n = 2). The data were collected from 10 HCOs. Our empirically based model for KM was assessed for face and content validity. The findings highlight the paucity of formal KM in our sample HCOs. Organizational culture, leadership, and resources are instrumental in supporting KM processes. An executive's knowledge needs are extensive, but knowledge assets are often limited or difficult to acquire as much of the available information is not in a usable format. We propose an empirically based model for KM to highlight the importance of context (internal and external), and knowledge seeking, synthesis, sharing, and organization. Participants who reviewed the model supported its basic components and processes, and potential for incorporating KM into organizational processes. Our results articulate ways to improve KM, increase organizational learning, and support evidence-informed decision-making. This research has implications for how to better integrate evidence and knowledge into organizations while considering context and the role of

Calibrating mechanistic-empirical pavement performance models with an expert matrix

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Tighe, S.; AlAssar, R.; Haas, R. [Waterloo Univ., ON (Canada). Dept. of Civil Engineering; Zhiwei, H. [Stantec Consulting Ltd., Cambridge, ON (Canada)

2001-07-01

Proper management of pavement infrastructure requires pavement performance modelling. For the past 20 years, the Ontario Ministry of Transportation has used the Ontario Pavement Analysis of Costs (OPAC) system for pavement design. Pavement needs, however, have changed substantially during that time. To address this need, a new research contract is underway to enhance the model and verify the predictions, particularly at extreme points such as low and high traffic volume pavement design. This initiative included a complete evaluation of the existing OPAC pavement design method, the construction of a new set of pavement performance prediction models, and the development of the flexible pavement design procedure that incorporates reliability analysis. The design was also expanded to include rigid pavement designs and modification of the existing life cycle cost analysis procedure which includes both the agency cost and road user cost. Performance prediction and life-cycle costs were developed based on several factors, including material properties, traffic loads and climate. Construction and maintenance schedules were also considered. The methodology for the calibration and validation of a mechanistic-empirical flexible pavement performance model was described. Mechanistic-empirical design methods combine theory based design such as calculated stresses, strains or deflections with empirical methods, where a measured response is associated with thickness and pavement performance. Elastic layer analysis was used to determine pavement response to determine the most effective design using cumulative Equivalent Single Axle Loads (ESALs), below grade type and layer thickness.The new mechanistic-empirical model separates the environment and traffic effects on performance. This makes it possible to quantify regional differences between Southern and Northern Ontario. In addition, roughness can be calculated in terms of the International Roughness Index or Riding comfort Index

Towards New Empirical Versions of Financial and Accounting Models Corrected for Measurement Errors

OpenAIRE

Francois-Éric Racicot; Raymond Théoret; Alain Coen

2006-01-01

In this paper, we propose a new empirical version of the Fama and French Model based on the Hausman (1978) specification test and aimed at discarding measurement errors in the variables. The proposed empirical framework is general enough to be used for correcting other financial and accounting models of measurement errors. Removing measurement errors is important at many levels as information disclosure, corporate governance and protection of investors.

Matchmaking in organizational change : does every employee value participatory leadership? An empirical study

OpenAIRE

Rogiest, Sofie; Segers, Jesse; Witteloostuijn, van, Arjen

2018-01-01

Abstract: Although leadership is generally considered an important lever to increase commitment during organizational change, empirical research has yet to unravel many of the underlying mechanisms. In this paper, we propose that the impact of participative leadership on affective commitment to change will be contingent on employees orientation toward leadership. In our empirical study in two police organizations, we find evidence that followers orientation toward leadership is a useful inter...

Social Justice Advocacy among Graduate Students: An Empirical Investigation

Science.gov (United States)

Linnemeyer, Rachel McQuown

2009-01-01

Although social justice advocacy has increasingly been acknowledged as important in the field of psychology (e.g., Goodman et al., 2004; Toporek et al., 2006a, Vera & Speight, 2003), there is a dearth of empirical research examining social justice advocacy across graduate psychology students. This mixed-methods study examined demographic and…

Empirical study of the important elements in the researcher development journey

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anthony E. Ward

2013-03-01

Full Text Available This paper presents the results of a study into what is important in the researcher development journey as perceived by students, academic supervisors and research administrators. The study was undertaken within the Department of Electronics at the University of York to test the survey instrument for a wider, multidisciplinary and multi-institutional survey. It was undertaken in the National context of a focus on the importance of postgraduate skills development being an integral part of the researcher journey. An integrated support system is used in the department for all postgraduate students. Results show that students and supervisors both agree that helping the student gain a PhD and seeing them as a professional researcher are of high importance. Research outputs were rated lowest for students and both rate administrative needs low. The study informs engagement with the administrative and skills development agendas thinking and is being used by the system development team.

Empirical Investigation into the Determinants of Compliance with IFRS 7 Disclosure Requirements

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Atanasko Atanasovski

2015-04-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this paper is to assess the quality of disclosures related to financial instruments provided in annual financial statements of Macedonian listed companies and empirically investigate factors that have the potential to influence the quality of these disclosures in accordance with IFRS 7 requirements. Based on the postulates and the results of the empirical investigations of prior IAS compliance studies I have constructed a disclosure index for each listed company and performed regression analysis with independent variables representing some characteristics of listed companies investigated, such as their size, industry, type of auditor engaged, ownership concentration, profitability and leverage. My regression analysis results supported the conclusion that the level of compliance with IFRS 7 requirements is related to the type of auditor engaged and ownership concentration in investigated companies. The results of my research will contribute the large body of empirical studies on IFRS disclosure and compliance, providing evidence from South- East European Transitional Economy that adopted IFRS as national financial reporting framework.

Developing a Clustering-Based Empirical Bayes Analysis Method for Hotspot Identification

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yajie Zou

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Hotspot identification (HSID is a critical part of network-wide safety evaluations. Typical methods for ranking sites are often rooted in using the Empirical Bayes (EB method to estimate safety from both observed crash records and predicted crash frequency based on similar sites. The performance of the EB method is highly related to the selection of a reference group of sites (i.e., roadway segments or intersections similar to the target site from which safety performance functions (SPF used to predict crash frequency will be developed. As crash data often contain underlying heterogeneity that, in essence, can make them appear to be generated from distinct subpopulations, methods are needed to select similar sites in a principled manner. To overcome this possible heterogeneity problem, EB-based HSID methods that use common clustering methodologies (e.g., mixture models, K-means, and hierarchical clustering to select “similar” sites for building SPFs are developed. Performance of the clustering-based EB methods is then compared using real crash data. Here, HSID results, when computed on Texas undivided rural highway cash data, suggest that all three clustering-based EB analysis methods are preferred over the conventional statistical methods. Thus, properly classifying the road segments for heterogeneous crash data can further improve HSID accuracy.

Theoretical and Empirical Descriptions of Thermospheric Density

Science.gov (United States)

Solomon, S. C.; Qian, L.

2004-12-01

The longest-term and most accurate overall description the density of the upper thermosphere is provided by analysis of change in the ephemeris of Earth-orbiting satellites. Empirical models of the thermosphere developed in part from these measurements can do a reasonable job of describing thermospheric properties on a climatological basis, but the promise of first-principles global general circulation models of the coupled thermosphere/ionosphere system is that a true high-resolution, predictive capability may ultimately be developed for thermospheric density. However, several issues are encountered when attempting to tune such models so that they accurately represent absolute densities as a function of altitude, and their changes on solar-rotational and solar-cycle time scales. Among these are the crucial ones of getting the heating rates (from both solar and auroral sources) right, getting the cooling rates right, and establishing the appropriate boundary conditions. However, there are several ancillary issues as well, such as the problem of registering a pressure-coordinate model onto an altitude scale, and dealing with possible departures from hydrostatic equilibrium in empirical models. Thus, tuning a theoretical model to match empirical climatology may be difficult, even in the absence of high temporal or spatial variation of the energy sources. We will discuss some of the challenges involved, and show comparisons of simulations using the NCAR Thermosphere-Ionosphere-Electrodynamics General Circulation Model (TIE-GCM) to empirical model estimates of neutral thermosphere density and temperature. We will also show some recent simulations using measured solar irradiance from the TIMED/SEE instrument as input to the TIE-GCM.

An empirical analysis of the hydropower portfolio in Pakistan

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Siddiqi, Afreen; Wescoat, James L.; Humair, Salal; Afridi, Khurram

2012-01-01

The Indus Basin of Pakistan with 800 hydropower project sites and a feasible hydropower potential of 60 GW, 89% of which is undeveloped, is a complex system poised for large-scale changes in the future. Motivated by the need to understand future impacts of hydropower alternatives, this study conducted a multi-dimensional, empirical analysis of the full hydropower portfolio. The results show that the full portfolio spans multiple scales of capacity from mega (>1000 MW) to micro (<0.1 MW) projects with a skewed spatial distribution within the provinces, as well as among rivers and canals. Of the total feasible potential, 76% lies in two (out of six) administrative regions and 68% lies in two major rivers (out of more than 125 total channels). Once projects currently under implementation are commissioned, there would be a five-fold increase from a current installed capacity of 6720 MW to 36759 MW. It is recommended that the implementation and design decisions should carefully include spatial distribution and environmental considerations upfront. Furthermore, uncertainties in actual energy generation, and broader hydrological risks due to expected climate change effects should be included in the current planning of these systems that are to provide service over several decades into the future. - Highlights: ► Pakistan has a hydropower potential of 60 GW distributed across 800 projects. ► Under-development projects will realize 36.7 GW of this potential by 2030. ► Project locations are skewed towards some sub-basins and provinces. ► Project sizes are very diverse and have quite limited private sector ownership. ► Gaps in data prevent proper risk assessment for Pakistan's hydropower development.

The Importance of Knowledge Management in Terms of Increasing Social Capital in Selected Slovene Technology Parks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Riko Novak

2013-12-01

Full Text Available This article investigates the importance of knowledge management (KM and how it is influencing social capital (SC in selected organisations that are members of Slovene technology parks. The purpose of this article is to point out statistical important characteristics between the dependant variable and several independent variables on the basis of preliminary studied empirical data based on a population of 667 organisations chosen from the subjects of the innovative environment database maintained by the Public Agency of the Republic of Slovenia for Entrepreneurship and Foreign Investments (JAPTI. On the basis of a multivariate regression analysis we wanted to present empirical findings, namely, whether communication technologies and the capability (ability of the employed to access information sources influences KM. With this article we want to present the final findings which define the development of a conceptual framework for understanding the influence of KM in small and medium sized companies on the development of social capital. We came to the conclusion that in an organisation the importance of intellectual and social capital, intangible capital assets and their continuous measurement has to be emphasised in order to increase the importance (awareness of KM.

Manager’s decision-making in organizations –empirical analysis of bureaucratic vs. learning approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jana Frenová

2010-06-01

Full Text Available The paper is focused on the study of manager’s decision-making with respect to the basic model of learning organization, presented by P. Senge as a system model of management. On one hand, the empirical research was conducted in connection with key dimensions of organizational learning such as: 1. system thinking, 2. personal mastery, 3. mental models, 4. team learning, 5. building shared vision and 6. dynamics causes. On the other hand, the research was connected with the analysis of the bureaucratic logic of decision-making process, characterized by non-functional stability, inflexibility, individualism, power, authority and hierarchy, centralization, vagueness, fragmentariness. The objective of the research was to analyse to what extent manager’s decision–making is based on bureaucratic tools or organizational learning in either complex problem-solving or non-problemsolving decision-making. (MANOVA, method of the repeated measure, intersubject factor – situation: 1. non problematic, 2. problematic. The conclusion of analysis is that there are significant differences in character of solving of problem situation and non-problem situation decision-making: the bureaucratic attributes of decision-making are more intensive in problematic situations while learning approach is more actual in non-problematic situations. The results of our analysis have shown that managers who apply the learning organization attributes in their decision-making. are more successful in problem-solving.

An Empirical Model and Ethnic Differences in Cultural Meanings Via Motives for Suicide.

Science.gov (United States)

Chu, Joyce; Khoury, Oula; Ma, Johnson; Bahn, Francesca; Bongar, Bruce; Goldblum, Peter

2017-10-01

The importance of cultural meanings via motives for suicide - what is considered acceptable to motivate suicide - has been advocated as a key step in understanding and preventing development of suicidal behaviors. There have been limited systematic empirical attempts to establish different cultural motives ascribed to suicide across ethnic groups. We used a mixed methods approach and grounded theory methodology to guide the analysis of qualitative data querying for meanings via motives for suicide among 232 Caucasians, Asian Americans, and Latino/a Americans with a history of suicide attempts, ideation, intent, or plan. We used subsequent logistic regression analyses to examine ethnic differences in suicide motive themes. This inductive approach of generating theory from data yielded an empirical model of 6 cultural meanings via motives for suicide themes: intrapersonal perceptions, intrapersonal emotions, intrapersonal behavior, interpersonal, mental health/medical, and external environment. Logistic regressions showed ethnic differences in intrapersonal perceptions (low endorsement by Latino/a Americans) and external environment (high endorsement by Latino/a Americans) categories. Results advance suicide research and practice by establishing 6 empirically based cultural motives for suicide themes that may represent a key intermediary step in the pathway toward suicidal behaviors. Clinicians can use these suicide meanings via motives to guide their assessment and determination of suicide risk. Emphasis on environmental stressors rather than negative perceptions like hopelessness should be considered with Latino/a clients. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Modeling gallic acid production rate by empirical and statistical analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bratati Kar

2000-01-01

Full Text Available For predicting the rate of enzymatic reaction empirical correlation based on the experimental results obtained under various operating conditions have been developed. Models represent both the activation as well as deactivation conditions of enzymatic hydrolysis and the results have been analyzed by analysis of variance (ANOVA. The tannase activity was found maximum at incubation time 5 min, reaction temperature 40ºC, pH 4.0, initial enzyme concentration 0.12 v/v, initial substrate concentration 0.42 mg/ml, ionic strength 0.2 M and under these optimal conditions, the maximum rate of gallic acid production was 33.49 mumoles/ml/min.Para predizer a taxa das reações enzimaticas uma correlação empírica baseada nos resultados experimentais foi desenvolvida. Os modelos representam a ativação e a desativativação da hydrolise enzimatica. Os resultados foram avaliados pela análise de variança (ANOVA. A atividade máxima da tannase foi obtida após 5 minutos de incubação, temperatura 40ºC, pH 4,0, concentração inicial da enzima de 0,12 v/v, concentração inicial do substrato 0,42 mg/ml, força iônica 0,2 M. Sob essas condições a taxa máxima de produção ácido galico foi de 33,49 µmoles/ml/min.

Theological reflections on empire

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Allan A. Boesak

2009-11-01

Full Text Available Since the meeting of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches in Accra, Ghana (2004, and the adoption of the Accra Declaration, a debate has been raging in the churches about globalisation, socio-economic justice, ecological responsibility, political and cultural domination and globalised war. Central to this debate is the concept of empire and the way the United States is increasingly becoming its embodiment. Is the United States a global empire? This article argues that the United States has indeed become the expression of a modern empire and that this reality has considerable consequences, not just for global economics and politics but for theological refl ection as well.

Voluntary Participation in Community Economic Development in Canada: An Empirical Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Laura Lamb

2011-01-01

Full Text Available This article is an empirical analysis of an individual's decision to participate in community economic development (CED initiatives in Canada. The objective of the analysis is to better understand how individuals make decisions to volunteer time toward CED initiatives and to determine whether the determinants of participation in CED are unique when compared to those of participation in volunteer activities in general. The dataset employed is Statistics Canada's 2004 Canada Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating (CSGVP. To date, there has been no prior econometric analysis of the decision to participate in community economic development initiatives in Canada. Results suggest a role for both public policymakers and practitioners in influencing participation in CED. / Cet article constitue une analyse empirique du processus de prise de décision chez les individus en ce qui a trait à la participation aux initiatives canadiennes de développement économique communautaire (DÉC. Le but de l'analyse est de mieux comprendre la façon dont les individus prennent la décision de consacrer du temps au bénévolat dans les initiatives de DÉC. Elle sert aussi à trancher la question de savoir si les facteurs de participation aux initiatives de développement économique communautaire sont uniques ou communs à la participation à des activités bénévoles en général. Les données employées dans le cadre de cette analyse sont puisées de l'Enquête canadienne sur le don, le bénévolat et la participation effectuée par Statistique Canada en 2004. À ce jour, aucune analyse économétrique n'a été menée sur la décision de participer aux initiatives canadiennes de DÉC. Les résultats suggèrent que les responsables de l'élaboration des politiques ainsi que les praticiens influencent tous deux la participation aux initiatives de DÉC.

Ambiguity and Investment Decisions: An Empirical Analysis on Mutual Fund Investor Behaviour

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chao Tang

2017-09-01

Full Text Available The paper empirically studies the relationship between ambiguity and mutual fund investor behaviour. Theoretical models for investment decisions incorporating ambiguity motivate our analyses. While the models indicate that investors would less likely to invest in financial markets when ambiguity increases, there is rare empirical evidence in natural occurring financial data to examine this hypothesis. In this paper, we test the hypothesis with equity fund flow data as for investment decisions and ambiguity with the degree of disagreement in equity analysts’ prediction about asset returns. Our results support the hypothesis that increases in ambiguity could lead to less fund flows and this result remains consistently when adding various control variables affecting fund flows. Besides, we find that heterogeneous impacts of ambiguity: equity funds with high yield targets and active management style are affected more than funds investing in stable stocks; funds with larger proportion of institutional investors are more sensitive and affected by the ambiguity.

National systems of innovation: determinants and industrial policy measures, empirical evidence for OECD; Sistemas nacionales de innovacion: determinantes y acciones de politica industrial. Evidencia empirica para la OCDE

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hervas, J. L.; Rojas, R.; Sempere, F.; Albors, J.

2012-11-01

The paper presents an attempt to tackle the main gaps in the national innovation systems (NIS) literature: the problem specifying the boundaries of the NIS and the lack of connection between theory and empirics. For this purpose, the paper uses 55 countries as sample and constructs an NIS index based on a factor analysis of 28 variables. Empirical evidence shows that a firm's strategies, technology infrastructure, government governance, education and linkages are the main components of the NIS. The implications are important for policy-makers and the academia. (Author) 49 refs.

Investigating important factors influencing electronic banking for export development

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vahid Abbas Zadeh

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Export is one of the most important indicators of a growing economy and it is the primary source of reaching sustainable growth on the market. This paper presents an empirical study to determine important factors influencing electronic banking in export development of Iranian organizations. The proposed study designs a questionnaire and distributes it among some regular customers who do internet banking with Parsian bank in city of Tehran, Iran. Cronbach alpha is calculated as 0.82, which is well above the minimum desirable limit of 0.70. In addition, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy and Approx. Chi-Square are 0.71 and 1955 with Sig. = 0.000, respectively. Using principal component analysis, the study has detected six factors including customer’s information, building trust, secure internet access, having good internet infrastructure and internet users.

Importance measures in global sensitivity analysis of nonlinear models

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Homma, Toshimitsu; Saltelli, Andrea

1996-01-01

The present paper deals with a new method of global sensitivity analysis of nonlinear models. This is based on a measure of importance to calculate the fractional contribution of the input parameters to the variance of the model prediction. Measures of importance in sensitivity analysis have been suggested by several authors, whose work is reviewed in this article. More emphasis is given to the developments of sensitivity indices by the Russian mathematician I.M. Sobol'. Given that Sobol' treatment of the measure of importance is the most general, his formalism is employed throughout this paper where conceptual and computational improvements of the method are presented. The computational novelty of this study is the introduction of the 'total effect' parameter index. This index provides a measure of the total effect of a given parameter, including all the possible synergetic terms between that parameter and all the others. Rank transformation of the data is also introduced in order to increase the reproducibility of the method. These methods are tested on a few analytical and computer models. The main conclusion of this work is the identification of a sensitivity analysis methodology which is both flexible, accurate and informative, and which can be achieved at reasonable computational cost

Accounting for trip frequency in importance-performance analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Joshua K. Gill; J.M. Bowker; John C. Bergstrom; Stanley J. Zarnoch

2010-01-01

Understanding customer satisfaction is critical to the successful operation of both privately and publicly managed recreation venues. A popular tool for assessing recreation visitor satisfaction is Importance- Performance Analysis (IPA). IPA provides resource managers, government officials, and private businesses with easy-to-understand and -use information about...

Latin Empire of Constantinople, the Jochids and Crimea in the Mid-Thirteenth Century »

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Aleksandar Uzelac

2015-09-01

Full Text Available The aim of this paper is the analysis of relations between the Latin Empire of Constantinople and Ulus of Jochi (the Golden Horde. It is primarily focused upon the diplomatic mission of Baldwin of Hainaut, which took place approximately between 1249 and 1252. As a representative of the namesake Latin Emperor, Baldwin of Hainaut led negotiations with the Batu’s son Sartak, and then, he traveled to the Far East, where he possibly met with the Great Khan Möngke. The aim of the mission was to secure the Mongol support for the defense of Constantinople against aggressive aspirations of the Empire of Nicaea. The immediate results of the Baldwin’s mission are not known, but it is certain that they led to the establishment of the diplomatic relations between the Latin Empire and the Jochids. It is confirmed by the fact that the famous Flemish traveler William of Rubruck carried recommendations of the Latin emperor to a Tatar representative who governed the lands to the north of Crimea. Exactly these recommendations provided Rubruck safe passage through the Tatar territory. Important factor that led to the Baldwin’s enterprise were activities of Venetian and other Italian merchants. They served as primary intermediaries between the Frankish establishment of Constantinople and the Tatars, but they were not the only ones who played this role. Political and ecclesiastical elite of the Crimean cities, especially of its main port Soldaia, also had important place in these contacts. In the mid-thirteenth century, the Crimea became a contact zone between the two civilizations. In Crimea, western and the Tatar political interests intermingled, as a result of the strategic location of the peninsula, commercial activities of its inhabitants and the cosmopolitan character of the Crimean urban centers.

Educational texts as empirical basis in qualitative research in Physical Education

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Svendsen, Annemari Munk

This presentation will focus attention on educational texts as empirical basis in qualitative research in Physical Education (PE). Educational texts may be defined as all kinds of texts used in a pedagogical setting, including textbooks, popular articles, webpages and political reports (Selander......). This makes them fundamental sites for illuminating what counts as knowledge in an educational setting (Selander & Skjeldbred, 2004). This presentation will introduce a qualitative research study obtained with discourse analysis of educational texts in Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) in Denmark...... (Svendsen & Svendsen, 2014). It will present the theoretical and methodological considerations that are tied to the analysis of educational texts and discuss the qualities and challenges related to educational texts as empirical basis in qualitative research in PE. References: Apple, M. W. & Christian...

The conceptual and empirical relationship between gambling, investing, and speculation.

Science.gov (United States)

Arthur, Jennifer N; Williams, Robert J; Delfabbro, Paul H

2016-12-01

Background and aims To review the conceptual and empirical relationship between gambling, investing, and speculation. Methods An analysis of the attributes differentiating these constructs as well as identification of all articles speaking to their empirical relationship. Results Gambling differs from investment on many different attributes and should be seen as conceptually distinct. On the other hand, speculation is conceptually intermediate between gambling and investment, with a few of its attributes being investment-like, some of its attributes being gambling-like, and several of its attributes being neither clearly gambling or investment-like. Empirically, gamblers, investors, and speculators have similar cognitive, motivational, and personality attributes, with this relationship being particularly strong for gambling and speculation. Population levels of gambling activity also tend to be correlated with population level of financial speculation. At an individual level, speculation has a particularly strong empirical relationship to gambling, as speculators appear to be heavily involved in traditional forms of gambling and problematic speculation is strongly correlated with problematic gambling. Discussion and conclusions Investment is distinct from gambling, but speculation and gambling have conceptual overlap and a strong empirical relationship. It is recommended that financial speculation be routinely included when assessing gambling involvement, and there needs to be greater recognition and study of financial speculation as both a contributor to problem gambling as well as an additional form of behavioral addiction in its own right.

The eighteenth century in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire: perspectives for a global history

OpenAIRE

Lafi , Nora

2014-01-01

International audience; In his 1954 address to the American Philosophical Society on the role of the Ottoman Empire in world history, Arnold Toynbee emphasized the importance of the year 1453. The subsequent centuries he envisioned as merely a series of splendours and failures leading inevitably to the collapse of the Empire and the creation of the modern Turkish state. For many years, the process was seen as follows: the Ottoman Empire was a counterpoint to great global frescoes which had li...

Operational Practices and Financial Performance: an Empirical Analysis of Brazilian Manufacturing Companies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

André Luís de Castro Moura Duarte

2011-10-01

Full Text Available In the operations management field, operational practices like total quality management or just in time have been seen as a way to improve operational performance and ultimately financial performance. Empirical support for this effect of operational practices in financial performance has been, however, limited due to research design and the inherent difficulties of using performance as a dependent variable. In this paper, we tested the relationship between selected operational practices (quality management, just in time, ISO certification and services outsourcing in financial performance outcomes of profitability and growth. A sample of 1200 firms, operating in São Paulo, Brazil, was used. Analysis using multiple regression explored the direct effect of practices and their interaction with industry dummies. Results did not support the existence of a positive relationship with financial performance. A negative relationship of outsourcing with both profitability and growth was found, supporting some critical views of the outsourcing practice. A weaker negative relationship between ISO certification and growth was also found. Some interactions between practices and industries were also significant, with mixed results, indicating that the effect of practices on performance might be context dependent.

Cycling empirical antibiotic therapy in hospitals: meta-analysis and models.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pia Abel zur Wiesch

2014-06-01

Full Text Available The rise of resistance together with the shortage of new broad-spectrum antibiotics underlines the urgency of optimizing the use of available drugs to minimize disease burden. Theoretical studies suggest that coordinating empirical usage of antibiotics in a hospital ward can contain the spread of resistance. However, theoretical and clinical studies came to different conclusions regarding the usefulness of rotating first-line therapy (cycling. Here, we performed a quantitative pathogen-specific meta-analysis of clinical studies comparing cycling to standard practice. We searched PubMed and Google Scholar and identified 46 clinical studies addressing the effect of cycling on nosocomial infections, of which 11 met our selection criteria. We employed a method for multivariate meta-analysis using incidence rates as endpoints and find that cycling reduced the incidence rate/1000 patient days of both total infections by 4.95 [9.43-0.48] and resistant infections by 7.2 [14.00-0.44]. This positive effect was observed in most pathogens despite a large variance between individual species. Our findings remain robust in uni- and multivariate metaregressions. We used theoretical models that reflect various infections and hospital settings to compare cycling to random assignment to different drugs (mixing. We make the realistic assumption that therapy is changed when first line treatment is ineffective, which we call "adjustable cycling/mixing". In concordance with earlier theoretical studies, we find that in strict regimens, cycling is detrimental. However, in adjustable regimens single resistance is suppressed and cycling is successful in most settings. Both a meta-regression and our theoretical model indicate that "adjustable cycling" is especially useful to suppress emergence of multiple resistance. While our model predicts that cycling periods of one month perform well, we expect that too long cycling periods are detrimental. Our results suggest that

The regulatory treatment of adverse outcomes: Empirical evidence from the electric utility industry

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ryan, N.E.

1991-01-01

This dissertation consists of two essays, both of them empirical studies using data from the US electric utility industry. Part I focuses on utilities' investment behavior, while Part II examines regulatory policy toward the industry. The first paper presents an analysis of utilities' decisions about whether to continue or cancel nuclear construction projects. During the seventies and eighties, changes in economic conditions and regulatory policy radically altered the costs and benefits of nuclear power. This study seeks to determine whether regulators pursued policies which induced utilities to employ socially efficient criteria in re-evaluating ongoing projects. The analysis also yields insights into regulators' distributional goals. Results based on data for 1978-84 are consistent with the capture theory hypothesis, which holds that regulators weigh industry interests more heavily than consumer interests. A test for structural change provides no support for the contention that the relative importance of consumer interests increased over this period. These empirical findings are inconsistent with a standard (and essential) assumption of theoretical principal-agent models of rate-of-return regulation, that regulators value consumers' payoffs more than utility profits. The second paper examines regulatory policy toward generating facilities that entered commercial service during the years 1983-88. In a significant departure from past practice, state public utility commissions often denied utilities full recovery of their investments in new plants. Although such ex post disallowances have an important efficiency rationale, they also provide a means for opportunistic regulators to effect transfers between utilities' ratepayers and shareholders. A probit model was used to assess the impact on the probability of a disallowance of firm and project characteristics as well as attributes of a state's political and institutional environment

THE CONSTRUCTION OF IMPORTANCE-PERFORMANCE GRID IN TOURIST SERVICES RESEARCH WITHOUT THE DIRECT DETERMINATION OF THE ATTRIBUTES IMPORTANCE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ban Olimpia

2012-07-01

Full Text Available The importance-performance grid is a marketing instrument used to make decisions regarding the growth of the consumers’ satisfaction, by optimizing the attributes of products. This grid is a useful instrument, as it is shown in the paper, to the extent to which the importance and performance of the attributes are correctly recorded. Another idea underlined in the paper is that regarding the difficulty to directly determine the importance of attributes or in the same stage with the determination of the service performance, according to these attributes. The objectives of this paper are to analyze the importance-performance grid (suggested by Martilla and amended by Abalo,through an empirical study in the field of tourist services used and to test the conditions to carry out this grid taking into account the hypothetical case of indirectly determining the importance of the quality attributes. The literature in the field regarding the importance-performance analysis is analysed and the subsequent amendments to the previous grid suggested by Martilla and James in 1977. The present paper is a continuation of several studies on the same subject, in which the following research methods were used: direct survey by questionnaire, the Spearman correlation coefficient, and the entropy calculus. A comparative analysis of the importance-performance grid if directly recording the importance of attributes (through survey by questionnaire and of the indirect determination of the importance of the attributes (through the Spearman coefficient and entropy calculus is being suggested. The results indicate possible uses of methods, yet it raises a series of collateral problems regarding their application. The contribution of this paper is given by the suggestion of two methods to indirectly determine the importance of attributes, which take into account the data measurement scale used and the collinearity among attributes and which lead to pertinent results

An empirical analysis of gasoline demand in Denmark using cointegration techniques

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bentzen, Jan

1994-01-01

Danish time-series data covering the period 1948-91 are used in order to estimate short-run and long-run elasticities in gasoline demand. A cointegration test for a stable long-run relationship between the variables in the model proves to be positive, showing a smaller value of the long-run price elasticity than often quoted in empirical studies of gasoline demand. Finally, an error correction model is estimated. (author)

Banking Fragility in Colombia: An Empirical Analysis Based on Balance Sheets

OpenAIRE

Ignacio Lozano; Alexander Guarín

2014-01-01

In this paper, we study the empirical relationship between credit funding sources and the financial vulnerability of the Colombian banking system. We propose a statistical model to measure and predict banking-fragility episodes associated with credit funding sources classified into retail deposits and wholesale funds. We compute the probability of financial fragility for both the aggregated banking system and the individual banks. Our approach performs a Bayesian averaging of estimated logit ...

A differentiating empirical linguistic analysis of dreamer activity in reports of EEG-controlled REM-dreams and hypnagogic hallucinations.

Science.gov (United States)

Speth, Jana; Frenzel, Clemens; Voss, Ursula

2013-09-01

We present Activity Analysis as a new method for the quantification of subjective reports of altered states of consciousness with regard to the indicated level of simulated motor activity. Empirical linguistic activity analysis was conducted with dream reports conceived immediately after EEG-controlled periods of hypnagogic hallucinations and REM-sleep in the sleep laboratory. Reports of REM-dreams exhibited a significantly higher level of simulated physical dreamer activity, while hypnagogic hallucinations appear to be experienced mostly from the point of passive observer. This study lays the groundwork for clinical research on the level of simulated activity in pathologically altered states of subjective experience, for example in the REM-dreams of clinically depressed patients, or in intrusions and dreams of patients diagnosed with PTSD. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Strategic Importance of Credit Risk Management to Shareholders’ Wealth-Sustanance in Nigerian Banks: an Empirical Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adebisi Sunday Abayomi

2012-02-01

Full Text Available This study highlighted the roles and strategic importance of credit risk management in thebanking industry vis-à-vis sustenance of shareholders’ wealth. The authors examined whether areduction in the non-performing credits in banks’ loan portfolio will reveal a possible correlationbetween effective credit risk management administration and shareholder’s wealth. In testing this,secondary data were sourced from the randomly selected five banks financials (between the period of2006 to 2010 with the use of relevant ratios. Twohypotheses were tested using multiple regressionand correlation method. The result of hypothesis one showed that the calculated r – statistics (r =.429,p<0.05 was greater than the tabulated r – statistics (r =.381 showing that the test was significantat0.05 alpha level. The result of hypothesis two alsoshowed that the calculated r-statistics (r=.403,p<0.05 was greater than tabulated r-statistics (r=.381 at 0.05 level of significance which impliedthat, there was a significant relationship betweencredit risk management and shareholders’ wealth.Based on these results, the authors recommended that, the banking sector should strive to employobjective standards of professionalism, experienceand high integrity in placement of managers whoare responsible for managing the credit portfolios;for this will largely influence the quality of riskassets management and debt recovery which will in-turn engender confidence in the banking industryand ensure the sustenance of shareholders’ wealth and investment.

Empirical Study on Total Factor Productive Energy Efficiency in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region-Analysis based on Malmquist Index and Window Model

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Qiang; Ding, Shuai; An, Jingwen

2017-12-01

This paper studies the energy efficiency of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and to finds out the trend of energy efficiency in order to improve the economic development quality of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. Based on Malmquist index and window analysis model, this paper estimates the total factor energy efficiency in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region empirically by using panel data in this region from 1991 to 2014, and provides the corresponding political recommendations. The empirical result shows that, the total factor energy efficiency in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region increased from 1991 to 2014, mainly relies on advances in energy technology or innovation, and obvious regional differences in energy efficiency to exist. Throughout the window period of 24 years, the regional differences of energy efficiency in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region shrank. There has been significant convergent trend in energy efficiency after 2000, mainly depends on the diffusion and spillover of energy technologies.

An empirical study on key factors for purchasing strategy on project based organizations: A case study of gas field development projects

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Aboulfazl Kazazi

2012-08-01

Full Text Available One of the primary concerns in development of oil and gas resources is to find the critical success factors associated with different important projects. Purchasing and procurement plays a key role in these projects. There is no doubt that in history of similar studies, there are not much studies to determine key factors. The proposed study of this paper presents an empirical study to find these factors in one of the most important gas filed in Iran is now South Pars Gas Field. The study distributes a questionnaire consists of various questions associated with purchasing activities. We investigate the feedbacks gathered from decision makers using factor analysis. The results of our survey reveal that there are three categories of organizational strategy, the relative importance of strategy and risk according to factor analysis. Each factor consists of many other factors and the relative importance of all factors are investigated.

Effects of Exchange Rate Instability on Imports and Exports of Pakistan

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Atif Kafayat

2014-04-01

Full Text Available The instability in exchange rate (appreciation and depreciation in home currency is an important factor indetermination of trade balance of a country. Fluctuating exchange rates impacts the decision making of investors and traders, it shatters their confidence which ultimately leads to the slowness of trade process. In this research paper the effect of exchange rate instability is measured on imports and exports of Pakistan. For this purpose Regression analysis is used and it is calculated that if instability is created due to depreciation in home currency (Pak rupee then it has positive impact on Pakistan‘s exports, while it has absolutely no effect on imports of Pakistan. Since Pak rupee has very limited appreciation during last 20 years so appreciation effect of home currency can not be calculated on Imports and exports of Pakistan. In theoretical prospective the devaluation of home currency should decrease the volume of imports, because it will cost more for Pakistan to import goods from other countries. But our empirical findings show that, this is not the case between exchange rate and imports of Pakistan. The imports of Pakistan grew even in large figure as the home currency depreciated against other currencies. So this shows that depreciation of home currency do not effect the imports in of Pakistan. Our findings through regression analysis show that by decrease in value of home currency imports of Pakistan increase. So depreciation in home currency has no effect on imports volume.

Birds of the Mongol Empire

OpenAIRE

Eugene N. Anderson

2016-01-01

The Mongol Empire, the largest contiguous empire the world has ever known, had, among other things, a goodly number of falconers, poultry raisers, birdcatchers, cooks, and other experts on various aspects of birding. We have records of this, largely in the Yinshan Zhengyao, the court nutrition manual of the Mongol empire in China (the Yuan Dynasty). It discusses in some detail 22 bird taxa, from swans to chickens. The Huihui Yaofang, a medical encyclopedia, lists ten taxa used medicinally. Ma...

Wireless and empire geopolitics radio industry and ionosphere in the British Empire 1918-1939

CERN Document Server

Anduaga, Aitor

2009-01-01

Although the product of consensus politics, the British Empire was based on communications supremacy and the knowledge of the atmosphere. Focusing on science, industry, government, the military, and education, this book studies the relationship between wireless and Empire throughout the interwar period.

Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Interventions: Empirically Validated Treatments for Autism Spectrum Disorder

Science.gov (United States)

Schreibman, Laura; Dawson, Geraldine; Stahmer, Aubyn C.; Landa, Rebecca; Rogers, Sally J.; McGee, Gail G.; Kasari, Connie; Ingersoll, Brooke; Kaiser, Ann P.; Bruinsma, Yvonne; McNerney, Erin; Wetherby, Amy; Halladay, Alycia

2015-01-01

Earlier autism diagnosis, the importance of early intervention, and development of specific interventions for young children have contributed to the emergence of similar, empirically supported, autism interventions that represent the merging of applied behavioral and developmental sciences. "Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Interventions…

Services outsourcing and innovation: an empirical investigation

OpenAIRE

Görg, Holger; Hanley, Aoife

2009-01-01

We provide a comprehensive empirical analysis of the links between international services outsourcing, domestic outsourcing, profits and innovation using plant level data. We find a positive effect of international outsourcing of services on innovative activity at the plant level. Such a positive effect can also be observed for domestic outsourcing of services, but the magnitude is smaller. This makes intuitive sense, as international outsourcing allows more scope for exploiting international...

Empirical Determination of Competence Areas to Computer Science Education

Science.gov (United States)

Zendler, Andreas; Klaudt, Dieter; Seitz, Cornelia

2014-01-01

The authors discuss empirically determined competence areas to K-12 computer science education, emphasizing the cognitive level of competence. The results of a questionnaire with 120 professors of computer science serve as a database. By using multi-dimensional scaling and cluster analysis, four competence areas to computer science education…

Analyses of reliability characteristics of emergency diesel generator population using empirical Bayes methods

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vesely, W.E.; Uryas'ev, S.P.; Samanta, P.K.

1993-01-01

Emergency Diesel Generators (EDGs) provide backup power to nuclear power plants in case of failure of AC buses. The reliability of EDGs is important to assure response to loss-of-offsite power accident scenarios, a dominant contributor to the plant risk. The reliable performance of EDGs has been of concern both for regulators and plant operators. In this paper the authors present an approach and results from the analysis of failure data from a large population of EDGs. They used empirical Bayes approach to obtain both the population distribution and the individual failure probabilities from EDGs failure to start and load-run data over 4 years for 194 EDGs at 63 plant units

Analysis of the Effects of Thermal Environment on Optical Systems for Navigation Guidance and Control in Supersonic Aircraft Based on Empirical Equations

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xuemin Cheng

2016-10-01

Full Text Available The thermal environment is an important factor in the design of optical systems. This study investigated the thermal analysis technology of optical systems for navigation guidance and control in supersonic aircraft by developing empirical equations for the front temperature gradient and rear thermal diffusion distance, and for basic factors such as flying parameters and the structure of the optical system. Finite element analysis (FEA was used to study the relationship between flying and front dome parameters and the system temperature field. Systematic deduction was then conducted based on the effects of the temperature field on the physical geometry and ray tracing performance of the front dome and rear optical lenses, by deriving the relational expressions between the system temperature field and the spot size and positioning precision of the rear optical lens. The optical systems used for navigation guidance and control in supersonic aircraft when the flight speed is in the range of 1–5 Ma were analysed using the derived equations. Using this new method it was possible to control the precision within 10% when considering the light spot received by the four-quadrant detector, and computation time was reduced compared with the traditional method of separately analysing the temperature field of the front dome and rear optical lens using FEA. Thus, the method can effectively increase the efficiency of parameter analysis and computation in an airborne optical system, facilitating the systematic, effective and integrated thermal analysis of airborne optical systems for navigation guidance and control.

Horizontal Price Transmission in Agricultural Markets: Fundamental Concepts and Open Empirical Issues

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Giulia Listorti

2012-05-01

Full Text Available Following the dramatic changes experienced by the prices of agricultural commodities in 2007-2008, the analysis of horizontal price transmission mechanisms in agricultural markets has attracted renewed interest. In particular, this has led to the emergence of new challenges for the empirical analysis. How to model the increasing volatility and non linear behaviour of prices, to assess the impact of the policy responses to market turbulence, and how to account for the increasing interconnections between agricultural and non-agricultural commodity markets are amongst the most investigated issues. Building on a common analytical framework, this paper discusses and reviews the most recent methodological developments and empirical contributions in the field.

Empirical Music Aesthetics

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Grund, Cynthia M.

The toolbox for empirically exploring the ways that artistic endeavors convey and activate meaning on the part of performers and audiences continues to expand. Current work employing methods at the intersection of performance studies, philosophy, motion capture and neuroscience to better understand...... musical performance and reception is inspired by traditional approaches within aesthetics, but it also challenges some of the presuppositions inherent in them. As an example of such work I present a research project in empirical music aesthetics begun last year and of which I am a team member....

A Socio-Cultural Model Based on Empirical Data of Cultural and Social Relationship

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lipi, Afia Akhter; Nakano, Yukiko; Rehm, Matthias

2010-01-01

The goal of this paper is to integrate culture and social relationship as a computational term in an embodied conversational agent system by employing empirical and theoretical approach. We propose a parameter-based model that predicts nonverbal expressions appropriate for specific cultures...... in different social relationship. So, first, we introduce the theories of social and cultural characteristics. Then, we did corpus analysis of human interaction of two cultures in two different social situations and extracted empirical data and finally, by integrating socio-cultural characteristics...... with empirical data, we establish a parameterized network model that generates culture specific non-verbal expressions in different social relationships....

Empirical philosophy of science

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Wagenknecht, Susann; Nersessian, Nancy J.; Andersen, Hanne

2015-01-01

A growing number of philosophers of science make use of qualitative empirical data, a development that may reconfigure the relations between philosophy and sociology of science and that is reminiscent of efforts to integrate history and philosophy of science. Therefore, the first part...... of this introduction to the volume Empirical Philosophy of Science outlines the history of relations between philosophy and sociology of science on the one hand, and philosophy and history of science on the other. The second part of this introduction offers an overview of the papers in the volume, each of which...... is giving its own answer to questions such as: Why does the use of qualitative empirical methods benefit philosophical accounts of science? And how should these methods be used by the philosopher?...

An empirical multivariate log-normal distribution representing uncertainty of biokinetic parameters for 137Cs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Miller, G.; Martz, H.; Bertelli, L.; Melo, D.

2008-01-01

A simplified biokinetic model for 137 Cs has six parameters representing transfer of material to and from various compartments. Using a Bayesian analysis, the joint probability distribution of these six parameters is determined empirically for two cases with quite a lot of bioassay data. The distribution is found to be a multivariate log-normal. Correlations between different parameters are obtained. The method utilises a fairly large number of pre-determined forward biokinetic calculations, whose results are stored in interpolation tables. Four different methods to sample the multidimensional parameter space with a limited number of samples are investigated: random, stratified, Latin Hypercube sampling with a uniform distribution of parameters and importance sampling using a lognormal distribution that approximates the posterior distribution. The importance sampling method gives much smaller sampling uncertainty. No sampling method-dependent differences are perceptible for the uniform distribution methods. (authors)

Enhancing importance-performance analysis

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Eskildsen, Jacob Kjær; Kristensen, Kai

2006-01-01

Purpose: The interpretation of the importance/performance map is based on an assumption of independence between importance and performance but many studies question the validity of this assumption. The aim of this research is to develop a new typology for job satisfaction attributes as well...... as a new importance/performance map that can be an aid for organizations when they prioritize their improvement actions based on a job satisfaction study. Design/methodology/approach: A typology for possible relationships between importance and performance in job satisfaction studies is developed based...... on theoretical considerations. This typology is then applied and validated on approximately 10,000 responses from the European Employee Index 2002. Ultimately a new importance/performance map for priority setting in job satisfaction studies is developed based on the new typology for possible relationships...

Measuring health lifestyles in a comparative analysis: theoretical issues and empirical findings.

Science.gov (United States)

Abel, T

1991-01-01

The concept of lifestyle bears great potential for research in medical sociology. Yet, weaknesses in current methods have restrained lifestyle research from realizing its full potentials. The present focus is on the links between theoretical conceptions and their empirical application. The paper divides into two parts. The first part provides a discussion of basic theoretical and methodological issues. In particular selected lines of thought from Max Weber are presented and their usefulness in providing a theoretical frame of reference for health lifestyle research is outlined. Next, a theory guided definition of the subject matter is introduced and basic problems in empirical applications of theoretical lifestyle concepts are discussed. In its second part the paper presents findings from comparative lifestyle analyses. Data from the U.S. and West Germany are utilized to explore issues of measurement equivalence and theoretical validity. Factor analyses indicate high conceptual equivalence for new measures of health lifestyle dimensions in both the U.S. and West Germany. Divisive cluster analyses detect three distinct lifestyle groups in both nations. Implications for future lifestyle research are discussed.

Promoting Sustainability Transparency in European Local Governments: An Empirical Analysis Based on Administrative Cultures

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andrés Navarro-Galera

2017-03-01

Full Text Available Nowadays, the transparency of governments with respect to the sustainability of public services is a very interesting issue for stakeholders and academics. It has led to previous research and international organisations (EU, IMF, OECD, United Nations, IFAC, G-20, World Bank to recommend promotion of the online dissemination of economic, social and environmental information. Based on previous studies about e-government and the influence of administrative cultures on governmental accountability, this paper seeks to identify political actions useful to improve the practices of transparency on economic, social and environmental sustainability in European local governments. We perform a comparative analysis of sustainability information published on the websites of 72 local governments in 10 European countries grouped into main three cultural contexts (Anglo-Saxon, Southern European and Nordic. Using international sustainability reporting guidelines, our results reveal significant differences in local government transparency in each context. The most transparent local governments are the Anglo-Saxon ones, followed by Southern European and Nordic governments. Based on individualized empirical results for each administrative style, our conclusions propose useful policy interventions to enhance sustainability transparency within each cultural tradition, such as development of legal rules on transparency and sustainability, tools to motivate local managers for online diffusion of sustainability information and analysis of information needs of stakeholders.

Empirically characteristic analysis of chaotic PID controlling particle swarm optimization

Science.gov (United States)

Yan, Danping; Lu, Yongzhong; Zhou, Min; Chen, Shiping; Levy, David

2017-01-01

Since chaos systems generally have the intrinsic properties of sensitivity to initial conditions, topological mixing and density of periodic orbits, they may tactfully use the chaotic ergodic orbits to achieve the global optimum or their better approximation to given cost functions with high probability. During the past decade, they have increasingly received much attention from academic community and industry society throughout the world. To improve the performance of particle swarm optimization (PSO), we herein propose a chaotic proportional integral derivative (PID) controlling PSO algorithm by the hybridization of chaotic logistic dynamics and hierarchical inertia weight. The hierarchical inertia weight coefficients are determined in accordance with the present fitness values of the local best positions so as to adaptively expand the particles’ search space. Moreover, the chaotic logistic map is not only used in the substitution of the two random parameters affecting the convergence behavior, but also used in the chaotic local search for the global best position so as to easily avoid the particles’ premature behaviors via the whole search space. Thereafter, the convergent analysis of chaotic PID controlling PSO is under deep investigation. Empirical simulation results demonstrate that compared with other several chaotic PSO algorithms like chaotic PSO with the logistic map, chaotic PSO with the tent map and chaotic catfish PSO with the logistic map, chaotic PID controlling PSO exhibits much better search efficiency and quality when solving the optimization problems. Additionally, the parameter estimation of a nonlinear dynamic system also further clarifies its superiority to chaotic catfish PSO, genetic algorithm (GA) and PSO. PMID:28472050

Empirically characteristic analysis of chaotic PID controlling particle swarm optimization.

Science.gov (United States)

Yan, Danping; Lu, Yongzhong; Zhou, Min; Chen, Shiping; Levy, David

2017-01-01

Since chaos systems generally have the intrinsic properties of sensitivity to initial conditions, topological mixing and density of periodic orbits, they may tactfully use the chaotic ergodic orbits to achieve the global optimum or their better approximation to given cost functions with high probability. During the past decade, they have increasingly received much attention from academic community and industry society throughout the world. To improve the performance of particle swarm optimization (PSO), we herein propose a chaotic proportional integral derivative (PID) controlling PSO algorithm by the hybridization of chaotic logistic dynamics and hierarchical inertia weight. The hierarchical inertia weight coefficients are determined in accordance with the present fitness values of the local best positions so as to adaptively expand the particles' search space. Moreover, the chaotic logistic map is not only used in the substitution of the two random parameters affecting the convergence behavior, but also used in the chaotic local search for the global best position so as to easily avoid the particles' premature behaviors via the whole search space. Thereafter, the convergent analysis of chaotic PID controlling PSO is under deep investigation. Empirical simulation results demonstrate that compared with other several chaotic PSO algorithms like chaotic PSO with the logistic map, chaotic PSO with the tent map and chaotic catfish PSO with the logistic map, chaotic PID controlling PSO exhibits much better search efficiency and quality when solving the optimization problems. Additionally, the parameter estimation of a nonlinear dynamic system also further clarifies its superiority to chaotic catfish PSO, genetic algorithm (GA) and PSO.

Empirically characteristic analysis of chaotic PID controlling particle swarm optimization.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Danping Yan

Full Text Available Since chaos systems generally have the intrinsic properties of sensitivity to initial conditions, topological mixing and density of periodic orbits, they may tactfully use the chaotic ergodic orbits to achieve the global optimum or their better approximation to given cost functions with high probability. During the past decade, they have increasingly received much attention from academic community and industry society throughout the world. To improve the performance of particle swarm optimization (PSO, we herein propose a chaotic proportional integral derivative (PID controlling PSO algorithm by the hybridization of chaotic logistic dynamics and hierarchical inertia weight. The hierarchical inertia weight coefficients are determined in accordance with the present fitness values of the local best positions so as to adaptively expand the particles' search space. Moreover, the chaotic logistic map is not only used in the substitution of the two random parameters affecting the convergence behavior, but also used in the chaotic local search for the global best position so as to easily avoid the particles' premature behaviors via the whole search space. Thereafter, the convergent analysis of chaotic PID controlling PSO is under deep investigation. Empirical simulation results demonstrate that compared with other several chaotic PSO algorithms like chaotic PSO with the logistic map, chaotic PSO with the tent map and chaotic catfish PSO with the logistic map, chaotic PID controlling PSO exhibits much better search efficiency and quality when solving the optimization problems. Additionally, the parameter estimation of a nonlinear dynamic system also further clarifies its superiority to chaotic catfish PSO, genetic algorithm (GA and PSO.

Reply : Collective Action and the Empirical Content of Stochastic Learning Models

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Macy, M.W.; Flache, A.

2007-01-01

We are grateful for the opportunity that Bendor, Diermeier, and Ting (hereafter BDT) have provided to address important questions about the empirical content of learning theoretic solutions to the collective action problem. They discuss two well-known classes of adaptive models— stochastic learning

Using Importance-Performance Analysis to Guide Instructional Design of Experiential Learning Activities

Science.gov (United States)

Anderson, Sheri; Hsu, Yu-Chang; Kinney, Judy

2016-01-01

Designing experiential learning activities requires an instructor to think about what they want the students to learn. Using importance-performance analysis can assist with the instructional design of the activities. This exploratory study used importance-performance analysis in an online introduction to criminology course. There is limited…

Segments of marketers based on a perceived importance of marketing knowledge and skills

OpenAIRE

Vesna Žabkar; Maja Hosta

2009-01-01

The purpose of this article is to define and empirically verify a range of knowledge and skills which are necessary in order to segment marketers, based on their perceptions of the importance of such marketing knowledge and skills. To empirically verify the importance of marketing knowledge and skills, a 28-item measurement instrument was developed. Responses from 235 marketing vice-presidents, marketing directors, sales directors or company presidents/owners in Slovenia were obtained (an 11....

Ethical and Epistemic Dilemmas in Empirically-Engaged Philosophy of Education

Science.gov (United States)

Newman, Anne; Glass, Ronald David

2015-01-01

This essay examines several ethical and epistemological issues that arise when philosophers conduct empirical research focused on, or in collaboration with, community groups seeking to bring about systemic change. This type of research can yield important policy lessons about effective community-driven reform and how to incorporate the voices of…

The Role of Empirical Evidence for Transferring a New Technology to Industry

Science.gov (United States)

Baldassarre, Maria Teresa; Bruno, Giovanni; Caivano, Danilo; Visaggio, Giuseppe

Technology transfer and innovation diffusion are key success factors for an enterprise. The shift to a new software technology involves, on one hand, inevitable changes to ingrained and familiar processes and, on the other, requires training, changes in practices and commitment on behalf of technical staff and management. Nevertheless, industry is often reluctant to innovation due to the changes it determines. The process of innovation diffusion is easier if the new technology is supported by empirical evidence. In this sense our conjecture is that Empirical Software Engineering (ESE) serves as means for validating and transferring a new technology within production processes. In this paper, the authors report their experience of a method, Multiview Framework, defined in the SERLAB research laboratory as support for designing and managing a goal oriented measurement program that has been validated through various empirical studies before being transferred to an Italian SME. Our discussion points out the important role of empirical evidence for obtaining management commitment and buy-in on behalf of technical staff, and for making technological transfer possible.

Determining Predictor Importance in Hierarchical Linear Models Using Dominance Analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Luo, Wen; Azen, Razia

2013-01-01

Dominance analysis (DA) is a method used to evaluate the relative importance of predictors that was originally proposed for linear regression models. This article proposes an extension of DA that allows researchers to determine the relative importance of predictors in hierarchical linear models (HLM). Commonly used measures of model adequacy in…

An exploration study to detect important barriers for knowledge management

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jalil Ghafourian

2014-01-01

Full Text Available This paper presents an empirical investigation to find the important factors influencing implementation of knowledge management in revenue agencies in Iran. The proposed study designs a questionnaire and distributes it among some experts and, using principal component analysis, the study detects important barriers for knowledge management implications. The study selects 170 people from 880 regular employees who work for revenue agency and distributes the questionnaire designed in Likert scale. Cronbach alpha has been determined as 0.70, which is well above the minimum acceptable level. In terms of knowledge management, the study determines six factors including support for creativity and innovation, knowledge sharing, trust, employee promotion plan, mission and training programs and they represent 66.57% of the described factors. In addition, in terms of barriers, job security, cultural issues, individual differences, infrastructure, organizational structure and lack of vision are the most important issues representing 61.98% of the factors.

Economic Growth and Transboundary Pollution in Europe. An Empirical Analysis

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ansuategi, A. [Ekonomi Analisiaren Oinarriak I Saila, Ekonomi Zientzien Fakultatea, Lehendakari Agirre Etorbidea, 83, 48015 Bilbao (Spain)

2003-10-01

The existing empirical evidence suggests that environmental Kuznets curves only exist for pollutants with semi-local and medium term impacts. Ansuategi and Perrings (2000) have considered the behavioral basis for the correlation observed between different spatial incidence of environmental degradation and the relation between economic growth and environmental quality. They show that self-interested planners following a Nash-type strategy tend to address environmental effects sequentially: addressing those with the most immediate costs first, and those whose costs are displaced in space later. This paper tests such behavioral basis in the context of sulphur dioxide emissions in Europe.

Economic Growth and Transboundary Pollution in Europe. An Empirical Analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ansuategi, A.

2003-01-01

The existing empirical evidence suggests that environmental Kuznets curves only exist for pollutants with semi-local and medium term impacts. Ansuategi and Perrings (2000) have considered the behavioral basis for the correlation observed between different spatial incidence of environmental degradation and the relation between economic growth and environmental quality. They show that self-interested planners following a Nash-type strategy tend to address environmental effects sequentially: addressing those with the most immediate costs first, and those whose costs are displaced in space later. This paper tests such behavioral basis in the context of sulphur dioxide emissions in Europe

A Multicenter Evaluation of Prolonged Empiric Antibiotic Therapy in Adult ICUs in the United States.

Science.gov (United States)

Thomas, Zachariah; Bandali, Farooq; Sankaranarayanan, Jayashri; Reardon, Tom; Olsen, Keith M

2015-12-01

The purpose of this study is to determine the rate of prolonged empiric antibiotic therapy in adult ICUs in the United States. Our secondary objective is to examine the relationship between the prolonged empiric antibiotic therapy rate and certain ICU characteristics. Multicenter, prospective, observational, 72-hour snapshot study. Sixty-seven ICUs from 32 hospitals in the United States. Nine hundred ninety-eight patients admitted to the ICU between midnight on June 20, 2011, and June 21, 2011, were included in the study. None. Antibiotic orders were categorized as prophylactic, definitive, empiric, or prolonged empiric antibiotic therapy. Prolonged empiric antibiotic therapy was defined as empiric antibiotics that continued for at least 72 hours in the absence of adjudicated infection. Standard definitions from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were used to determine infection. Prolonged empiric antibiotic therapy rate was determined as the ratio of the total number of empiric antibiotics continued for at least 72 hours divided by the total number of empiric antibiotics. Univariate analysis of factors associated with the ICU prolonged empiric antibiotic therapy rate was conducted using Student t test. A total of 660 unique antibiotics were prescribed as empiric therapy to 364 patients. Of the empiric antibiotics, 333 of 660 (50%) were continued for at least 72 hours in instances where Centers for Disease Control and Prevention infection criteria were not met. Suspected pneumonia accounted for approximately 60% of empiric antibiotic use. The most frequently prescribed empiric antibiotics were vancomycin and piperacillin/tazobactam. ICUs that utilized invasive techniques for the diagnosis of ventilator-associated pneumonia had lower rates of prolonged empiric antibiotic therapy than those that did not, 45.1% versus 59.5% (p = 0.03). No other institutional factor was significantly associated with prolonged empiric antibiotic therapy rate. Half of all

Consumer trust in food safety--a multidisciplinary approach and empirical evidence from Taiwan.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Mei-Fang

2008-12-01

Food scandals that happened in recent years have increased consumers' risk perceptions of foods and decreased their trust in food safety. A better understanding of the consumer trust in food safety can improve the effectiveness of public policy and allow the development of the best practice in risk communication. This study proposes a research framework from a psychometric approach to investigate the relationships between the consumer's trust in food safety and the antecedents of risk perceptions of foods based on a reflexive modernization perspective and a cultural theory perspective in the hope of benefiting the future empirical study. The empirical results from a structural equation modeling analysis of Taiwan as a case in point reveal that this research framework based on a multidisciplinary perspective can be a valuable tool for a growing understanding of consumer trust in food safety. The antecedents in the psychometric research framework comprised reflexive modernization factors and cultural theory factors have all been supported in this study except the consumer's perception of pessimism toward food. Moreover, the empirical results of repeated measures analysis of variance give more detailed information to grasp empirical implications and to provide some suggestions to the actors and institutions involved in the food supply chain in Taiwan.

Using Dominance Analysis to Determine Predictor Importance in Logistic Regression

Science.gov (United States)

Azen, Razia; Traxel, Nicole

2009-01-01

This article proposes an extension of dominance analysis that allows researchers to determine the relative importance of predictors in logistic regression models. Criteria for choosing logistic regression R[superscript 2] analogues were determined and measures were selected that can be used to perform dominance analysis in logistic regression. A…

Impact of Company Size on Manufacturing Improvement Practices: An empirical study

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Syan, C S; Ramoutar, K

2014-01-01

There is a constant search for ways to achieve a competitive advantage through new manufacturing techniques. Best performing manufacturing companies tend to use world-class manufacturing (WCM) practices. Although the last few years have witnessed phenomenal growth in the use of WCM techniques, their effectiveness is not well understood specifically in the context of less developed countries. This paper presents an empirical study to investigate the impact of company size on improving manufacturing performance in manufacturing organizations based in Trinidad and Tobago (T and T). Empirical data were collected via a questionnaire survey which was send to 218 manufacturing firms in T and T. Five different company sizes and seven different industry sectors were studied. The analysis of survey data was performed with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software. The study signified facilitating and impeding factors towards improving manufacturing performance. Their relative impact/importance is dependent on varying company size and industry sectors. Findings indicate that T and T manufacturers are still practicing traditional approaches, when compared with world class manufacturers. In the majority of organizations, these practices were not 100% implemented even though they started the implementation process more than 5 years ago. The findings provided some insights in formulating more optimal operational strategies, and later develop action plans towards more effective implementation of WCM in T and T manufacturers

Impact of Company Size on Manufacturing Improvement Practices: An empirical study

Science.gov (United States)

Syan, C. S.; Ramoutar, K.

2014-07-01

There is a constant search for ways to achieve a competitive advantage through new manufacturing techniques. Best performing manufacturing companies tend to use world-class manufacturing (WCM) practices. Although the last few years have witnessed phenomenal growth in the use of WCM techniques, their effectiveness is not well understood specifically in the context of less developed countries. This paper presents an empirical study to investigate the impact of company size on improving manufacturing performance in manufacturing organizations based in Trinidad and Tobago (T&T). Empirical data were collected via a questionnaire survey which was send to 218 manufacturing firms in T&T. Five different company sizes and seven different industry sectors were studied. The analysis of survey data was performed with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software. The study signified facilitating and impeding factors towards improving manufacturing performance. Their relative impact/importance is dependent on varying company size and industry sectors. Findings indicate that T&T manufacturers are still practicing traditional approaches, when compared with world class manufacturers. In the majority of organizations, these practices were not 100% implemented even though they started the implementation process more than 5 years ago. The findings provided some insights in formulating more optimal operational strategies, and later develop action plans towards more effective implementation of WCM in T&T manufacturers.

The impact of category prices on store price image formation : An empirical analysis

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Da Silva Lourenço, C.J.; Gijsbrechts, E.; Paap, R.

2015-01-01

The authors empirically explore how consumers update beliefs about a store's overall expensiveness. They estimate a learning model of store price image (SPI) formation with the impact of actual prices linked to category characteristics, on a unique dataset combining store visit and purchase

Empirical analysis of an in-car speed, headway and lane use Advisory system

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Schakel, W.J.; Van Arem, B.; Van Lint, J.W.C.

2014-01-01

For a recently developed in-car speed, headway and lane use advisory system, this paper investigates empirically advice validity (advice given in correct traffic circumstances), credibility (advice logical to drivers) and frequency. The system has been developed to optimize traffic flow by giving

Combination of canonical correlation analysis and empirical mode decomposition applied to denoising the labor electrohysterogram.

Science.gov (United States)

Hassan, Mahmoud; Boudaoud, Sofiane; Terrien, Jérémy; Karlsson, Brynjar; Marque, Catherine

2011-09-01

The electrohysterogram (EHG) is often corrupted by electronic and electromagnetic noise as well as movement artifacts, skeletal electromyogram, and ECGs from both mother and fetus. The interfering signals are sporadic and/or have spectra overlapping the spectra of the signals of interest rendering classical filtering ineffective. In the absence of efficient methods for denoising the monopolar EHG signal, bipolar methods are usually used. In this paper, we propose a novel combination of blind source separation using canonical correlation analysis (BSS_CCA) and empirical mode decomposition (EMD) methods to denoise monopolar EHG. We first extract the uterine bursts by using BSS_CCA then the biggest part of any residual noise is removed from the bursts by EMD. Our algorithm, called CCA_EMD, was compared with wavelet filtering and independent component analysis. We also compared CCA_EMD with the corresponding bipolar signals to demonstrate that the new method gives signals that have not been degraded by the new method. The proposed method successfully removed artifacts from the signal without altering the underlying uterine activity as observed by bipolar methods. The CCA_EMD algorithm performed considerably better than the comparison methods.

[Rationalization and rationing at the bedside. A normative and empirical status quo analysis].

Science.gov (United States)

Strech, D

2014-02-01

The topic of bedside rationing is increasingly discussed in Germany. Further need for clarification exists for the question how bedside rationing (e.g., in the area of overcare) can be justified despite coexistent inefficiencies. This paper outlines and analyses the relationship of waste avoidance and rationing from an ethical perspective. Empirical findings regarding the status quo of bedside rationing and rationalization are presented. These normative and empirical explorations will then be further specified regarding opportunities for future physician-driven activities to tackle overuse. The self-government partners in Germany should communicate more explicitly within their communities and to the public how and with which benchmarks they aim to reduce inefficient health care (overuse) in an appropriate manner. Physician-driven activities such as the "Choosing Wisely®" initiative in the USA could provide a first step to raise the awareness for overuse among physicians as well as in the public.

Empirical studies on the pricing of bonds and interest rate derivatives

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Driessen, J.J.A.G.

2001-01-01

Nowadays, both large financial and non-financial institutions use models for the term structure of interest rates for risk management and pricing purposes. This thesis focuses on these two important applications of term structure models. In the first part, the empirical performance of several term

Empirical Model for Predicting Rate of Biogas Production | Adamu ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Rate of biogas production using cow manure as substrate was monitored in two laboratory scale batch reactors (13 liter and 108 liter capacities). Two empirical models based on the Gompertz and the modified logistic equations were used to fit the experimental data based on non-linear regression analysis using Solver tool ...

Final Empirical Test Case Specification

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kalyanova, Olena; Heiselberg, Per

This document includes the empirical specification on the IEA task of evaluation building energy simulation computer programs for the Double Skin Facades (DSF) constructions. There are two approaches involved into this procedure, one is the comparative approach and another is the empirical one....

Empire vs. Federation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gravier, Magali

2011-01-01

The article discusses the concepts of federation and empire in the context of the European Union (EU). Even if these two concepts are not usually contrasted to one another, the article shows that they refer to related type of polities. Furthermore, they can be used at a time because they shed light...... on different and complementary aspects of the European integration process. The article concludes that the EU is at the crossroads between federation and empire and may remain an ‘imperial federation’ for several decades. This could mean that the EU is on the verge of transforming itself to another type...

An empirical system for probabilistic seasonal climate prediction

Science.gov (United States)

Eden, Jonathan; van Oldenborgh, Geert Jan; Hawkins, Ed; Suckling, Emma

2016-04-01

Preparing for episodes with risks of anomalous weather a month to a year ahead is an important challenge for governments, non-governmental organisations, and private companies and is dependent on the availability of reliable forecasts. The majority of operational seasonal forecasts are made using process-based dynamical models, which are complex, computationally challenging and prone to biases. Empirical forecast approaches built on statistical models to represent physical processes offer an alternative to dynamical systems and can provide either a benchmark for comparison or independent supplementary forecasts. Here, we present a simple empirical system based on multiple linear regression for producing probabilistic forecasts of seasonal surface air temperature and precipitation across the globe. The global CO2-equivalent concentration is taken as the primary predictor; subsequent predictors, including large-scale modes of variability in the climate system and local-scale information, are selected on the basis of their physical relationship with the predictand. The focus given to the climate change signal as a source of skill and the probabilistic nature of the forecasts produced constitute a novel approach to global empirical prediction. Hindcasts for the period 1961-2013 are validated against observations using deterministic (correlation of seasonal means) and probabilistic (continuous rank probability skill scores) metrics. Good skill is found in many regions, particularly for surface air temperature and most notably in much of Europe during the spring and summer seasons. For precipitation, skill is generally limited to regions with known El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) teleconnections. The system is used in a quasi-operational framework to generate empirical seasonal forecasts on a monthly basis.

Empirical Analysis for the Heat Exchange Effectiveness of a Thermoelectric Liquid Cooling and Heating Unit

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hansol Lim

2018-03-01

Full Text Available This study aims to estimate the performance of thermoelectric module (TEM heat pump for simultaneous liquid cooling and heating and propose empirical models for predicting the heat exchange effectiveness. The experiments were conducted to investigate and collect the performance data of TEM heat pump where the working fluid was water. A total of 57 sets of experimental data were statistically analyzed to estimate the effects of each independent variable on the heat exchange effectiveness using analysis of variance (ANOVA. To develop the empirical model, the six design parameters were measured: the number of transfer units (NTU of the heat exchangers (i.e., water blocks, the inlet water temperatures and temperatures of water blocks at the cold and hot sides of the TEM. As a result, two polynomial equations predicting heat exchange effectiveness at the cold and hot sides of the TEM heat pump were derived as a function of the six selected design parameters. Also, the proposed models and theoretical model of conventional condenser and evaporator for heat exchange effectiveness were compared with the additional measurement data to validate the reliability of the proposed models. Consequently, two conclusions have been made: (1 the possibility of using the TEM heat pump for simultaneous cooling and heating was examined with the maximum temperature difference of 30 °C between cold and hot side of TEM, and (2 it is revealed that TEM heat pump has difference with the conventional evaporator and condenser from the comparison results between the proposed models and theoretical model due to the heat conduction and Joule effect in TEM.

The Empirical content of theories in judgment and decision making: Shortcomings and remedies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andreas Glockner

2011-12-01

Full Text Available According to Karl Popper, we can tell good theories from poor ones by assessing their empirical content (empirischer Gehalt, which basically reflects how much information they convey concerning the world. ``The empirical content of a statement increases with its degree of falsifiability: the more a statement forbids, the more it says about the world of experience.'' Two criteria to evaluate the empirical content of a theory are their level of universality (Allgemeinheit and their degree of precision (Bestimmtheit. The former specifies how many situations it can be applied to. The latter refers to the specificity in prediction, that is, how many subclasses of realizations it allows. We conduct an analysis of the empirical content of theories in Judgment and Decision Making (JDM and identify the challenges in theory formulation for different classes of models. Elaborating on classic Popperian ideas, we suggest some guidelines for publication of theoretical work.

The importance of contrastive analysis in foreign language learning ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The importance of contrastive analysis in foreign language learning with ... In the South African context, knowledge of English plays a significant part, but can ... on in the learning process should result in positive transfer of Zulu while curbing ...

Stakeholders of Voluntary Forest Carbon Offset Projects in China: An Empirical Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Derong Lin

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Climate change is one of the defining challenges facing the planet. Voluntary forest carbon offset project which has the potential to boost forest carbon storage and mitigate global warming has aroused the global concern. The objective of this paper is to model the game situation and analyze the game behaviors of stakeholders of voluntary forest carbon offset projects in China. A stakeholder model and a Power-Benefit Matrix are constructed to analyze the roles, behaviors, and conflicts of stakeholders including farmers, planting entities, communities, government, and China Green Carbon Foundation. The empirical analysis results show that although the stakeholders have diverse interests and different goals, a win-win solution is still possible through their joint participation and compromise in the voluntary forest carbon offset project. A wide governance structure laying emphasis on benefit balance, equality, and information exchanges and being regulated by all stakeholders has been constructed. It facilitates the agreement among the stakeholders with conflicting or different interests. The joint participation of stakeholders in voluntary forest carbon offset projects might change the government-dominated afforestation/reforestation into a market, where all participators including government are encouraged to cooperate with each other to improve the condition of fund shortage and low efficiency.

Empirical Models of Demand for Out-Patient Physician Services and Their Relevance to the Assessment of Patient Payment Policies: A Critical Review of the Literature

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Olga Skriabikova

2010-06-01

Full Text Available This paper reviews the existing empirical micro-level models of demand for out-patient physician services where the size of patient payment is included either directly as an independent variable (when a flat-rate co-payment fee or indirectly as a level of deductibles and/or co-insurance defined by the insurance coverage. The paper also discusses the relevance of these models for the assessment of patient payment policies. For this purpose, a systematic literature review is carried out. In total, 46 relevant publications were identified. These publications are classified into categories based on their general approach to demand modeling, specifications of data collection, data analysis, and main empirical findings. The analysis indicates a rising research interest in the empirical micro-level models of demand for out-patient physician services that incorporate the size of patient payment. Overall, the size of patient payments, consumer socio-economic and demographic features, and quality of services provided emerge as important determinants of demand for out-patient physician services. However, there is a great variety in the modeling approaches and inconsistencies in the findings regarding the impact of price on demand for out-patient physician services. Hitherto, the empirical research fails to offer policy-makers a clear strategy on how to develop a country-specific model of demand for out-patient physician services suitable for the assessment of patient payment policies in their countries. In particular, theoretically important factors, such as provider behavior, consumer attitudes, experience and culture, and informal patient payments, are not considered. Although we recognize that it is difficult to measure these factors and to incorporate them in the demand models, it is apparent that there is a gap in research for the construction of effective patient payment schemes.

Empirical models of demand for out-patient physician services and their relevance to the assessment of patient payment policies: a critical review of the literature.

Science.gov (United States)

Skriabikova, Olga; Pavlova, Milena; Groot, Wim

2010-06-01

This paper reviews the existing empirical micro-level models of demand for out-patient physician services where the size of patient payment is included either directly as an independent variable (when a flat-rate co-payment fee) or indirectly as a level of deductibles and/or co-insurance defined by the insurance coverage. The paper also discusses the relevance of these models for the assessment of patient payment policies. For this purpose, a systematic literature review is carried out. In total, 46 relevant publications were identified. These publications are classified into categories based on their general approach to demand modeling, specifications of data collection, data analysis, and main empirical findings. The analysis indicates a rising research interest in the empirical micro-level models of demand for out-patient physician services that incorporate the size of patient payment. Overall, the size of patient payments, consumer socio-economic and demographic features, and quality of services provided emerge as important determinants of demand for out-patient physician services. However, there is a great variety in the modeling approaches and inconsistencies in the findings regarding the impact of price on demand for out-patient physician services. Hitherto, the empirical research fails to offer policy-makers a clear strategy on how to develop a country-specific model of demand for out-patient physician services suitable for the assessment of patient payment policies in their countries. In particular, theoretically important factors, such as provider behavior, consumer attitudes, experience and culture, and informal patient payments, are not considered. Although we recognize that it is difficult to measure these factors and to incorporate them in the demand models, it is apparent that there is a gap in research for the construction of effective patient payment schemes.

Emotions and Motivation in Mathematics Education: Theoretical Considerations and Empirical Contributions

Science.gov (United States)

Schukajlow, Stanislaw; Rakoczy, K.; Pekrun, R.

2017-01-01

Emotions and motivation are important prerequisites, mediators, and outcomes of learning and achievement. In this article, we first review major theoretical approaches and empirical findings in research on students' emotions and motivation in mathematics, including a discussion of how classroom instruction can support emotions and motivation.…

Empirical Refinements of a Molecular Genetics Learning Progression: The Molecular Constructs

Science.gov (United States)

Todd, Amber; Kenyon, Lisa

2016-01-01

This article describes revisions to four of the eight constructs of the Duncan molecular genetics learning progression [Duncan, Rogat, & Yarden, (2009)]. As learning progressions remain hypothetical models until validated by multiple rounds of empirical studies, these revisions are an important step toward validating the progression. Our…

Tissue artifact removal from respiratory signals based on empirical mode decomposition.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Shaopeng; Gao, Robert X; John, Dinesh; Staudenmayer, John; Freedson, Patty

2013-05-01

On-line measurement of respiration plays an important role in monitoring human physical activities. Such measurement commonly employs sensing belts secured around the rib cage and abdomen of the test object. Affected by the movement of body tissues, respiratory signals typically have a low signal-to-noise ratio. Removing tissue artifacts therefore is critical to ensuring effective respiration analysis. This paper presents a signal decomposition technique for tissue artifact removal from respiratory signals, based on the empirical mode decomposition (EMD). An algorithm based on the mutual information and power criteria was devised to automatically select appropriate intrinsic mode functions for tissue artifact removal and respiratory signal reconstruction. Performance of the EMD-algorithm was evaluated through simulations and real-life experiments (N = 105). Comparison with low-pass filtering that has been conventionally applied confirmed the effectiveness of the technique in tissue artifacts removal.

Palm vein recognition based on directional empirical mode decomposition

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Jen-Chun; Chang, Chien-Ping; Chen, Wei-Kuei

2014-04-01

Directional empirical mode decomposition (DEMD) has recently been proposed to make empirical mode decomposition suitable for the processing of texture analysis. Using DEMD, samples are decomposed into a series of images, referred to as two-dimensional intrinsic mode functions (2-D IMFs), from finer to large scale. A DEMD-based 2 linear discriminant analysis (LDA) for palm vein recognition is proposed. The proposed method progresses through three steps: (i) a set of 2-D IMF features of various scale and orientation are extracted using DEMD, (ii) the 2LDA method is then applied to reduce the dimensionality of the feature space in both the row and column directions, and (iii) the nearest neighbor classifier is used for classification. We also propose two strategies for using the set of 2-D IMF features: ensemble DEMD vein representation (EDVR) and multichannel DEMD vein representation (MDVR). In experiments using palm vein databases, the proposed MDVR-based 2LDA method achieved recognition accuracy of 99.73%, thereby demonstrating its feasibility for palm vein recognition.

An empirical equation for the enthalpy of vaporization of quantum liquids

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kuz, Victor A.; Meyra, Ariel G.; Zarragoicoechea, Guillermo J.

2004-01-01

An empirical equation for the enthalpy of vaporization of quantum fluids is presented. Dimensionless analysis is used to define enthalpy of vaporization as a function of temperature with a standard deviation of about 1%. Experimental data represented in these variables show two different behaviours and exhibit different maximum values of the enthalpy of vaporization, one corresponding to fluids with a triple point and the other to fluids having a lambda point. None of the existing empirical equations are able to describe this fact. Also enthalpy of vaporization of helium-3, n-deuterium and n-tritium are estimated

Visual impact in the digital press: a Spanish empirical research

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Joan Francesc Fondevila Gascón

2010-12-01

Full Text Available Visual resource (photography and video inclusion in digital journalism is obtaining importance in the multimedia area. The principal resources of digital press are multimedia, hypertext and interactivity. Multimedia is in an initial process of evolution. The objective of this research is to observe empirically the use of visual resources by the digital pure player press. These media try to take advantage of the new multimedia possibilities in the development and presentation of the contents. We have analyzed empirically video and photography inclusion in the multimedia framework (text, photography, video, audio, infograph and animation programs in four digital newspapers (Libertad Digital and El Plural, in Spanish, and Vilaweb.cat and e-Noticies, in Catalan analyzed according to journalistic genres.

Empirical research on financial capability evaluation of A-share listed companies in the securities industry based on principal component analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xiuping Wang

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Based on the relevant financial data indicators of A-share markets of Shanghai and Shenzhen in 2009, with all of 29 listed companies in the securities industry as the research objects, this paper selects 10variables that can fully reflect the financial capability indicators and uses the principal component analysis to carry out the empirical research on the financial capability. The research results show that the comprehensive financial capability of listed companies in A-share securities industry must be focused on the following four capabilities, investment and income, profit, capital composition and debt repayment and cash flow indicators. In addition, the principal component analysis can effectively evaluate the financial capability of listed companies in A-share securities industry, and solve the problems in the previous analysis methods, such as excessive indicators, information overlapping and so on.

Electronic contributions to the transport properties and specific heat of solid UO2: an empirical, self-consistent analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hyland, G.J.; Ralph, J.

1982-07-01

From an empirical, self-consistent analysis of new high temperature data on the thermo-electric Seebeck coefficient and d.c. electrical conductivity, the value of the free energy controlling the equilibrium of the thermally induced reaction, 2U 4+ reversible U 3+ + U 5+ is determined (treating the U 3+ and U 5+ as small polarons) and used to calculate the contribution of the process to the high temperature thermal conductivity and specific heat of UO 2 . It is found that the transport properties can be completely accounted for in this way, but not the anomalous rise in specific heat - the origin of which remains obscure. (U.K.)

Evaluating Service Quality from Patients' Perceptions: Application of Importance-performance Analysis Method.

Science.gov (United States)

Mohebifar, Rafat; Hasani, Hana; Barikani, Ameneh; Rafiei, Sima

2016-08-01

Providing high service quality is one of the main functions of health systems. Measuring service quality is the basic prerequisite for improving quality. The aim of this study was to evaluate the quality of service in teaching hospitals using importance-performance analysis matrix. A descriptive-analytic study was conducted through a cross-sectional method in six academic hospitals of Qazvin, Iran, in 2012. A total of 360 patients contributed to the study. The sampling technique was stratified random sampling. Required data were collected based on a standard questionnaire (SERVQUAL). Data analysis was done through SPSS version 18 statistical software and importance-performance analysis matrix. The results showed a significant gap between importance and performance in all five dimensions of service quality (p quality gap and "responsiveness" had the lowest gap (1.97). Also, according to findings, reliability and assurance were in Quadrant (I), empathy was in Quadrant (II), and tangibles and responsiveness were in Quadrant (IV) of the importance-performance matrix. The negative gap in all dimensions of quality shows that quality improvement is necessary in all dimensions. Using quality and diagnosis measurement instruments such as importance-performance analysis will help hospital managers with planning of service quality improvement and achieving long-term goals.

Improved Empirical Mode Decomposition Algorithm of Processing Complex Signal for IoT Application

OpenAIRE

Yang, Xianzhao; Cheng, Gengguo; Liu, Huikang

2015-01-01

Hilbert-Huang transform is widely used in signal analysis. However, due to its inadequacy in estimating both the maximum and the minimum values of the signals at both ends of the border, traditional HHT is easy to produce boundary error in empirical mode decomposition (EMD) process. To overcome this deficiency, this paper proposes an enhanced empirical mode decomposition algorithm for processing complex signal. Our work mainly focuses on two aspects. On one hand, we develop a technique to obt...

Kantian Feeling: Empirical Psychology, Transcendental Critique, and Phenomenology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Patrick Frierson

2016-06-01

Full Text Available This paper explores the relationship between empirical psychology, transcendental critique, and phenomenology in Kant’s discussion of respect for the moral law, particularly as that is found in the Critique of Practical Reason. I first offer an empirical-psychological reading of moral respect, in the context of which I distinguish transcendental and empirical perspectives on moral action and defend H. J. Paton’s claim that moral motivation can be seen from two points of view, where “from one point of view, [respect] is the cause of our action, but from another point of view the moral law is its ground.” Then, after a discussion of a distinction between first- and second-order transcendental/practical perspectives where reasons for action are first-order practical judgments while the conditions of possibility for those reasons’ authority are expressed in second-order judgments, I turn to a third kind of perspective: the properly phenomenological one. I explain the general notion of Kantian phenomenology with an example of the experience of time from Kant’s Anthropology before applying this to a phenomenological reading of the discussion of respect in the Critique of Practical Reason. I end by noting that on my account, in contrast to that of Jeanine Grenberg, the distinctive phenomenology of respect is not systematically important for grounding claims in moral philosophy.

PROBLEMS WITH WIREDU'S EMPIRICALISM Martin Odei Ajei1 ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

In his “Empiricalism: The Empirical Character of an African Philosophy”,. Kwasi Wiredu sets out ... others, that an empirical metaphysical system contains both empirical ..... realms which multiple categories of existents inhabit and conduct their being in .... to a mode of reasoning that conceives categories polarized by formal.

Importance analysis based on logical differential calculus and Binary Decision Diagram

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zaitseva, Elena; Levashenko, Vitaly; Kostolny, Jozef

2015-01-01

System availability evaluation, sensitivity analysis, Importance Measures, and optimal design are important issues that have become research topics for reliability engineering. There are different mathematical approaches to the development of these topics. The structure function based approach is one of them. Structure function enables one to analyse a system of any complexity. But computational complexity of structure function based methods is time consuming for large-scale networks. We propose to use two mathematical approaches for decision to this problem for system importance analysis. The first of them is Direct Partial Boolean Derivative. New equations for calculating the Importance Measures are developed in terms of these derivatives. The second is Binary Decision Diagram (BDD), that supports efficient manipulation of Boolean algebra. Two algorithms for calculating Direct Partial Boolean Derivative based on BDD of structure function are proposed in this paper. The experimental results show the efficiency of new algorithms for calculating Direct Partial Boolean Derivative and Importance Measures. - Highlights: • New approach for calculation of Importance Measures is proposed. • Direct Partial Boolean Derivatives are used for calculation of Importance Measures. • New equations for Importance Measures are obtained. • New algorithm to calculate Direct Partial Boolean Derivatives by BDD is developed

Risk-informed importance analysis of in-service testing components for Ulchin units 3 and 4

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kang, D. I.; Kim, K. Y.; Ha, J. J.

2001-01-01

In this paper, we perform risk-informed importance analysis of in-service tesing (IST) components for Ulchin Units 3 and 4. The importance analysis using PSA is performed through Level 1 internal and external, shutdown/low power operation, and Level 2 internal PSA. The sensitivity analysis is also performed. For the components not modeled in PSA logic, we develop and apply a new integrated importance analysis method. The importance analysis results for IST valves show that 167 (26.55%) of 629 IST valves are HSSCs and 462 (73.45%) are LSSCs. The importance analysis results for IST pumps show that 28 (70%) of 40 IST pumps are HSSCs and 12 (30%) are KSSCs

Applying importance-performance analysis to evaluate banking service quality

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

André Luís Policani Freitas

2012-11-01

Full Text Available In an increasingly competitive market, the identification of the most important aspects and the measurement of service quality as perceived by the customers are important actions taken by organizations which seek the competitive advantage. In particular, this scenario is typical of Brazilian banking sector. In this context, this article presents an exploratory case study in which the Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA was used to identify the strong and the weak points related to services provided by a bank. In order to check the reliability of the questionnaire, Cronbach's alpha and correlation analyses were used. The results are presented and some actions have been defined in order to improve the quality of services.

Determinants of import demand for non-renewable energy (petroleum) products: Empirical evidence from Nigeria

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Adewuyi, Adeolu O.

2016-01-01

This study estimated determinants of import demand for refined petroleum products in Nigeria for the period 1984–2013. It employed the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds test cointegration method and analysed both long-run and short-run determinants of import demand for total and specific petroleum products. In the long-run, aggregate and sectoral incomes are significant determinants of import of refined kerosene. Further, real effective exchange rate (REER), aggregate income (GDP), manufacturing sector's income, domestic energy production (DEP) and population growth rate (PGR) are drivers of import of refined motor spirit Moreover, REER, DEP and manufacturing sector's income are propellers of import of refined distillate fuel. Also, REER and total output of petroleum products are major drivers of total import of refined petroleum products. Short-run results show that previous period GDP, PGR and manufacturing and service sectors' incomes are determinants of import demand for refined kerosene. Moreover, REER, GDP, previous PGR and manufacturing sector's income exert significant effects on the import of refined motor spirit. Further, significant effects of REER, DEP, previous PGR, domestic output of the product and manufacturing and service sectors' incomes on the import demand for distillate fuel were found. Policy implications of the foregoing are articulated in the paper. - Highlights: •Long-run and short-run drivers of import demand for petroleum products were estimated. •kerosene import is income elastic, gasoline import is income and relative price inelastic. •Exchange rate policies may have diverse effects on import of various petroleum product. •Expanding market size has implication for import demand for petroleum product varieties. •Import demand for petroleum products responds differently to various sectoral incomes.

State intervention causing inefficiency: an empirical analysis of the Norwegian Continental Shelf

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kashani, Hossein A.

2005-01-01

State intervention in the Norwegian Continental Shelf started with the establishment of Statoil as the medium of state ownership over the found petroleum and as a tool to monitor oil companies' procurement behaviour. This paper tests the extent to which the state intervention created inefficiencies in the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) activities, as measured by data envelopment analysis, stochastic frontier analysis, Malmquist Indices, and standard regression analysis. Our results confirm such inefficiencies. Accordingly, the results provide an important insight into NCS production techniques and, more generally, into governments' abilities to influence private sector behaviour through contracts and tendering

Analysis of consumption behaviour concerning current income and lags consumption: Empirical evidence from Pakistan

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Abdul Qayyum Khan

2014-10-01

Full Text Available As in other economies, consumption expenditure is the largest component of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP of Pakistan economy. The figure has been estimated around 80 percent of the GDP and demonstrates that historically, Pakistan’s economic growth is characterized as consumption-led growth. The present paper aims to explore the relationship between income and consumption using annual time series data for the period: 1975 to 2012 in Pakistan. For empirical investigation the linear regression model and the method of Least Squares is used as analytical techniques. Empirical results support the existence of a significant positive relationship between income and consumption. The finding suggests that long term committed planning is indispensable to enhance the productive capacity of the economy, employment opportunities and reduce poverty levels more effectively.

6 essays about auctions: a theoretical and empirical analysis. Application to power markets

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lamy, L.

2007-06-01

This thesis is devoted to a theoretical and empirical analysis of auction mechanisms. Motivated by allocation issues in network industries, in particular by the liberalization of the electricity sector, it focus on auctions with externalities (either allocative or informational) and on multi-objects auctions. After an introduction which provides a survey of the use and the analysis of auctions in power markets, six chapters make this thesis. The first one considers standard auctions in Milgrom-Weber's model with interdependent valuations when the seller can not commit not to participate in the auction. The second and third chapters study the combinatorial auction mechanism proposed by Ausubel and Milgrom. The first of these two studies proposes a modification of this format with a final discount stage and clarifies the theoretical status of those formats, in particular the conditions such that truthful reporting is a dominant strategy. Motivated by the robustness issues of the generalizations of the Ausubel-Milgrom and the Vickrey combinatorial auctions to environments with allocative externalities between joint-purchasers, the second one characterizes the buyer-sub-modularity condition in a general model with allocative identity-dependent externalities between purchasers. In a complete information setup, the fourth chapter analyses the optimal design problem when the commitment abilities of the principal are reduced, namely she can not commit to a simultaneous participation game. The fifth chapter is devoted to the structural analysis of the private value auction model for a single-unit when the econometrician can not observe bidders' identities. The asymmetric independent private value (IPV) model is identified. A multi-step kernel-based estimator is proposed and shown to be asymptotically optimal. Using auctions data for the anglo-french electric Interconnector, the last chapter analyses a multi-unit ascending auctions through reduced forms. (author)

Empirical Study on Learners' Self-Efficacy in ESL/EFL Context

Science.gov (United States)

Shi, Lihong

2016-01-01

With the popularity of learner-oriented approach in language teaching, research on learners is gaining more and more importance. This paper attempts to review the empirical researches on self-efficacy in the ESL/EFL settings during the past 10 years with the purpose of depicting the extent to which the self-efficacy research in ESL/EFL has…

Theoretical-empirical model of the steam-water cycle of the power unit

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Grzegorz Szapajko

2010-06-01

Full Text Available The diagnostics of the energy conversion systems’ operation is realised as a result of collecting, processing, evaluatingand analysing the measurement signals. The result of the analysis is the determination of the process state. It requires a usageof the thermal processes models. Construction of the analytical model with the auxiliary empirical functions built-in brings satisfyingresults. The paper presents theoretical-empirical model of the steam-water cycle. Worked out mathematical simulation model containspartial models of the turbine, the regenerative heat exchangers and the condenser. Statistical verification of the model is presented.

Evaluation of Service Quality in Brewery Using Importance-Performance Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ingaldi Manuela

2016-03-01

Full Text Available Because of its specificity, service quality is difficult to assess, especially since there is no materiality in it, it cannot be seen. Usually the gap between the expectations of customer and their perceptions in relation to a particular service is observed. This article aim is to evaluate the quality of catering services offered by one of the breweries (restaurant in Silesia. The importance-performance analysis, which is often underestimated, was used in order to show its advantages. The survey was conducted among 137 customers of the selected brewery in Czestochowa. The average values of evaluations of all individual questions from both parts of survey were calculated. Then, average values for the pair of statements (performance; importance were placed in the importance-performance map. The analysis revealed that the service quality of the research brewery is placed in quadrant II, i.e. the area of reasonable property of needs. This means that the improvement of service quality is not necessary.

International Joint Venture Termination: An Empirical Investigation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Ulrik B.; Rasmussen, Erik Stavnsager; Siersbæk, Nikolaj

for the article stems from data from the project portfolio of a Danish Investment Fund for Developing Countries with a total of 773 investments. A number of hypotheses are established from the literature review and tested related to the empirical data. The result indicates that the most important factor...... in successful IJV termination is the length of the investment and to some extent the size of the investment. The psychic distance plays a negative role for investments in the African region while a general recession will lead to a lower success rate....

Salmonella typhi time to change empiric treatment

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gade, C.; Engberg, J.; Weis, N.

2008-01-01

In the present case series report we describe seven recent cases of typhoid fever. All the patients were travellers returning from Pakistan, where typhoid is endemic. Salmonella typhi isolated from the patients by blood culture were reported as intermediary susceptible to fluoroquinolones in six...... out of seven cases. We recommend that empiric treatment of suspected cases of typhoid fever includes a third generation cephalosporin such as ceftriaxon. Furthermore, the present report stresses the importance of typhoid vaccination of travellers to areas where typhoid is endemic Udgivelsesdato: 2008/9/29...

Supervision for School Psychologists in Training: Developing a Framework from Empirical Findings

Science.gov (United States)

Gibbs, Simon; Atkinson, Cathy; Woods, Kevin; Bond, Caroline; Hill, Vivian; Howe, Julia; Morris, Sue

2016-01-01

Similar to other professional disciplines, the importance of supervision within school psychology has attracted considerable attention within recent years. Despite this, systematic review of current literature reveals a dearth of empirical literature proposing underlying theoretical structures. This study extends recent qualitative research by…

The Role of Empirical Research in Bioethics

Science.gov (United States)

Kon, Alexander A.

2010-01-01

There has long been tension between bioethicists whose work focuses on classical philosophical inquiry and those who perform empirical studies on bioethical issues. While many have argued that empirical research merely illuminates current practices and cannot inform normative ethics, others assert that research-based work has significant implications for refining our ethical norms. In this essay, I present a novel construct for classifying empirical research in bioethics into four hierarchical categories: Lay of the Land, Ideal Versus Reality, Improving Care, and Changing Ethical Norms. Through explaining these four categories and providing examples of publications in each stratum, I define how empirical research informs normative ethics. I conclude by demonstrating how philosophical inquiry and empirical research can work cooperatively to further normative ethics. PMID:19998120

Liquidity Risk Management: An Empirical Analysis on Panel Data Analysis and ISE Banking Sector

OpenAIRE

Sibel ÇELİK; Yasemin Deniz AKARIM

2012-01-01

In this paper, we test the factors affecting liquidity risk management in banking sector in Turkey by using panel regression analysis. We use the data for 9 commercial banks traded in Istanbul Stock Exchange for the period 1998-2008. In conclusion, we find that risky liquid assets and return on equity variables are negatively related with liquidity risk. However, external financing and return on asset variables are positively related with liquidity risk. This finding is importance for banks s...

An empirical analysis on the adoption of alternative fuel vehicles: The case of natural gas vehicles

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yeh, Sonia

2007-01-01

The adoption of alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs) has been regarded as one of the most important strategies to address the issues of energy dependence, air quality, and, more recently, climate change. Despite decades of effort, we still face daunting challenges to promote wider acceptance of AFVs by the general public. More empirical analyses are needed to understand the technology adoption process associated with different market structures, the effectiveness of regulations and incentives, and the density of infrastructure adequate to reach sustainable commercial application. This paper compares the adoption of natural gas vehicles (NGVs) in eight countries: Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Italy, New Zealand, Pakistan, and the US. It examines the major policies aimed at promoting the use of NGVs, instruments for implementing those policies and targeting likely stakeholders, and a range of factors that influence the adoption of NGVs. The findings in this paper should be applicable to other AFVs

Benchmarking FeCr empirical potentials against density functional theory data

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Klaver, T P C; Bonny, G; Terentyev, D; Olsson, P

2010-01-01

Three semi-empirical force field FeCr potentials, two within the formalism of the two-band model and one within the formalism of the concentration dependent model, have been benchmarked against a wide variety of density functional theory (DFT) structures. The benchmarking allows an assessment of how reliable empirical potential results are in different areas relevant to radiation damage modelling. The DFT data consist of defect-free structures, structures with single interstitials and structures with small di- and tri-interstitial clusters. All three potentials reproduce the general trend of the heat of formation (h.o.f.) quite well. The most important shortcomings of the original two-band model potential are the low or even negative h.o.f. for Cr-rich structures and the lack of a strong repulsion when moving two solute Cr atoms from being second-nearest neighbours to nearest neighbours. The newer two-band model potential partly solves the first problem. The most important shortcoming in the concentration dependent model potential is the magnitude of the Cr–Cr repulsion, being too strong at short distances and mostly absent at longer distances. Both two-band model potentials do reproduce long-range Cr–Cr repulsion. For interstitials the two-band model potentials reproduce a number of Cr–interstitial binding energies surprisingly well, in contrast to the concentration dependent model potential. For Cr interacting with clusters, the result can sometimes be directly extrapolated from Cr interacting with single interstitials, both according to DFT and the three empirical potentials

Mapping the Importance of the Real World

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Davida, Barberá-Tomás Davida; Fernando, Jiménez-Sáez; Castello, Itziar

2011-01-01

Recent empirical findings have questioned the use of patent citations as a measure. This points to the need of validation of patent citations methodologies, which we address by testing a recent methodology for studying technological evolution, namely connectivity analysis of citation networks. We...

Subversives Schreiben und rebellische Liebe: Lesbische Autorinnen und das britische Empire Crosswriting and Deviant Sexualities: Lesbian Authors and the British Empire

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Eva Bischoff

2002-11-01

Full Text Available In Lesbian Empire vergleicht Gay Wachman die Werke Sylvia Townsend Warners mit ausgewählten Texten anderer lesbischer Autorinnen, die nach Ende des Ersten Weltkrieges erschienen und in denen deviante Sexualitäten dargestellt wurden. Das Ziel ihrer Analyse ist es, die Einflüsse imperialistischer Ideologie auf diese literarischen Texte aufzuzeigen. Es handelt sich dabei um Repräsentationen, die eine zentrale Rolle im Prozess der Ausbildung lesbischer Identität(en am Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts spielten.Lesbian Empire compares the literary work of Sylvia Townsend Warner to select texts of fellow lesbian authors depicting deviant sexualities, all of which were published after WWI. Wachman’s analysis of these texts aims to show influences of imperial ideology on these literary representations, which played a crucial role in the process of forming lesbian identities at the beginning of the 20th century.

Using Loss Functions for DIF Detection: An Empirical Bayes Approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Zwick, Rebecca; Thayer, Dorothy; Lewis, Charles

2000-01-01

Studied a method for flagging differential item functioning (DIF) based on loss functions. Builds on earlier research that led to the development of an empirical Bayes enhancement to the Mantel-Haenszel DIF analysis. Tested the method through simulation and found its performance better than some commonly used DIF classification systems. (SLD)

Birds of the Mongol Empire

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Eugene N. Anderson

2016-09-01

Full Text Available The Mongol Empire, the largest contiguous empire the world has ever known, had, among other things, a goodly number of falconers, poultry raisers, birdcatchers, cooks, and other experts on various aspects of birding. We have records of this, largely in the Yinshan Zhengyao, the court nutrition manual of the Mongol empire in China (the Yuan Dynasty. It discusses in some detail 22 bird taxa, from swans to chickens. The Huihui Yaofang, a medical encyclopedia, lists ten taxa used medicinally. Marco Polo also made notes on Mongol bird use. There are a few other records. This allows us to draw conclusions about Mongol ornithology, which apparently was sophisticated and detailed.

EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF CRISIS MANAGEMENT PRACTICES IN TOURISM ENTERPRISES IN TERMS OF ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gülsel ÇİFTÇİ

2017-04-01

Full Text Available In this study, it is aimed to empirically analyze the crisis management practices of tourism enterprises in terms of their effects on organizational learning. It is aimed to determine the ways that the hotels in Turkey respond to previous crisis, what kind of precautions were taken and whether these crises had taught anything regarding the operation and performance of the enterprise. It is also aimed to contribute to related literature and to offer suggestions that will guide businesses and future studies. Within this context, taking account of 2016 (October data of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Turkey, Antalya, which embodies most certified 5-star hotels, and highest bed capacity and number of rooms in resort category, and Istanbul, which embodies most certified 5-star hotels, and highest bed capacity and number of rooms in urban hotels category, are included within the scope of this study. It’s decided to conduct this study on hotels, considering the effects of tourism industry on world economy. In this study, it is aimed to empirically analyze the crisis management practices of tourism enterprises in terms of their effects on organizational learning. It is aimed to determine the ways that the hotels in Turkey respond to previous crisis, what kind of precautions were taken and whether these crises had taught anything regarding the operation and performance of the enterprise. A comprehensive literature review was conducted in the first and second part of this three-part study; The concept of crisis management in the enterprises was examined and the applications on tourism enterprises were discussed. The last part of the study contains information on testing and analyzing hypotheses. The data obtained as a result of the questionnaires were analyzed in SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences and LISREL (LInear Structural RELationships program. A Pearson Correlation analysis was conducted to examine the relationship between

Corporate Social Responsibility Applied for Rural Development: An Empirical Analysis of Firms from the American Continent

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Miguel Arato

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Corporate Social Responsibility has been recognized by policymakers and development specialists as a feasible driver for rural development. The present paper explores both theoretically and empirically how firms involved in CSR provide development opportunities to rural communities. The research first evaluates the applied literature on the implementation of CSR by private firms and policymakers as means to foster sustainable rural development. The empirical research analyses the CSR activities of 100 firms from a variety of industries, sizes, and countries to determine the type of companies who are involved in rural development and the kind of activities they deployed. Results from the empirical research show that although rural development initiatives are not relevant for all types of companies, a significant number of firms from a variety of industries have engaged in CSR programs supporting rural communities. Firms appear to be interested in stimulating rural development and seem to benefit from it. This paper also includes an exploration of the main challenges and constraints that firms encounter when encouraging rural development initiatives.

Factors affecting the performance of family planning workers: importance of geographical information systems in empirical analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Ali, M; De Francisco, A; Khan, M M; Chakraborty, J; Myaux, J

1999-01-01

Substantial variation in contraceptive prevalence rates (CPRs) and fertility rates (FRs) between community health workers (CHWs) has been documented since the inception of the Matlab family planning program in rural Bangladesh. The coefficients of variation of these indicators for Matlab CHWs were 7% and 26%, respectively, in 1995. To identify the reasons for these performance variations, geographical information system (GIS) approaches were applied to longitudinal and cross-sectional data on 80 CHWs for the period 1980-95. Each observation in the data-set included catchment area-specific characteristics, measures of CHW efficiency in service delivery, and CHW-specific characteristics for one specific year. A one-unit increase in the average age of target women in the catchment area increases the CPR by 9.2%. The CPR increases by 0.2% for each 1% increase in women's literacy and decreases by 0.1% for each 1% increase in the number of Muslim households in the catchment area. An increase of 1 sq. km in the size of the catchment area reduces the CPR by 3%. CHW performance increases with age up to 45 years and then decreases. Similarly, a 1-year increase in the average age of target women reduces the FR by 2%. A 10% increase in the size of the catchment area reduces program performance by increasing the FR by 1.4%. A single geographic barrier to movement increases the FR by 1%. This analysis indicates that CHW performance can be improved significantly by defining catchment areas through use of GIS techniques. Without knowledge of the spatial distribution of population and the physical barriers to movement, allocating a fixed number of clients per CHW may not be the most efficient approach.

Empirical Design Considerations for Industrial Centrifugal Compressors

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cheng Xu

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD has been extensively used in centrifugal compressor design. CFD provides further optimisation opportunities for the compressor design rather than designing the centrifugal compressor. The experience-based design process still plays an important role for new compressor developments. The wide variety of design subjects represents a very complex design world for centrifugal compressor designers. Therefore, some basic information for centrifugal design is still very important. The impeller is the key part of the centrifugal stage. Designing a highly efficiency impeller with a wide operation range can ensure overall stage design success. This paper provides some empirical information for designing industrial centrifugal compressors with a focus on the impeller. A ported shroud compressor basic design guideline is also discussed for improving the compressor range.

Memories of the Ottoman Empires Entry into the First World War

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mehmet BİÇİCİ

2014-12-01

Full Text Available The Ottoman Empire's entry into the First World War and how it occurs in a process and the conditions under which the subject is extremely important in terms of recent history. Because the First World War, six centuries has resulted in the liquidation of the Ottoman Empire. From the Armistice more ink drying and Sevre paved the way for foreign occupation and intervention has led to the Turkish War of Independence. An independent state under the debris of destroyed large Turkey, under the leadership of Ataturk many years with great dedication and achievement are established by the National Struggle. It is therefore that the Ottoman Empire's entry into the war, perhaps more than the war itself were discussed. Today we rotate back to relive the events is not possible. But good to analyze what happened , they take lessons from this day to try to make the right decisions is the duty of the Turkish nation. Already Republic of Turkey, The lessons of these events have taken, II. World War didn‟t enter

An empirical study on identifying critical success factors on chaos management

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Naser Azad

2012-08-01

Full Text Available Chaos management is one of the most necessary efforts on managing business units. Many organizations fail to cope with undesirable circumstances, which may happen without any prior notice and as a result, they may face with significant financial losses. In this paper, we present an empirical study to determine critical success factors, which could help handle any possible chaos in organizations. The proposed study of this paper is implemented for a set of travel agencies located in Tehran, Iran. Chronbach alpha is calculated as 0.821, which is well above the minimum desirable level. In addition, we have also performed factor analysis, which yields a KMO value of 0.576 with the level of significance of 0.000. The results indicate that there are six important factors including effective management strategy, internal environmental factors, creative and innovative attitudes, external environmental factors and top level management thoughts.

An empirical study the relationship between intellectual intelligence and university performance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jamshid Salehi Sadaghiani

2012-08-01

Full Text Available Intellectual capital (IC is normally used to create value for organizations and in today's business environment; the success of each organization depends on managing such assets. During the past few years, many organizations implement IC to increase their competitive advantages. Hospitals are among business units where IC plays an important role on the success of these units. People normally choose hospitals based not only based on their equipments but also based on the specialists and physicians they have. In this paper, we present an empirical study to measure the impact of IC in accounting parts of hospitals. The results of our regression analysis indicates that when there is a unit increase in either of human, customer, structural or intellectual capital individually, we can expect of an increase of 1.278, 1.210, 1.415 and 1.620 units increase in the performance of the university, respectively.

Analysis of empirical determinants of credit risk in the banking sector of the Republic of Serbia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Račić Željko

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The aim of this paper is the detection and analysis of empirical determinants of credit risk in the banking sector of the Republic of Serbia. The paper is based on an analysis of results of the application of the linear regression model, during the period from the third quarter of 2008 to the third quarter of 2014. There are three main findings. Firstly, the higher lending activity of banks contributes to the increasing share of high-risk loans in the total withdrawn loans (delayed effect of 3 years. Secondly, the growth of loans as opposed to deposits contributes to the increased exposure of banks to credit risk. Thirdly, the factors that reduce the exposure of banks to credit risk increase profitability, growth of interest rate spread and real GDP growth. Bearing in mind the overall market conditions and dynamics of the economic recovery of the country, there is a general conclusion based on the results that in the coming period the question of non-performing loans (NPLs in the Republic of Serbia will present a challenge for both lenders and borrowers.

The Effect of Private Benefits of Control on Minority Shareholders: A Theoretical Model and Empirical Evidence from State Ownership

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kerry Liu

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of private benefits of control on minority shareholders. Design/methodology/approach: A theoretical model is established. The empirical analysis includes hand-collected data from a wide range of data sources. OLS and 2SLS regression analysis are applied with Huber-White standard errors. Findings: The theoretical model shows that, while private benefits are generally harmful to minority shareholders, the overall effect depends on the size of large shareholder ownership. The empirical evidence from government ownership is consistent with theoretical analysis. Research limitations/implications: The empirical evidence is based on a small number of hand-collected data sets of government ownership. Further studies can be expanded to other types of ownership, such as family ownership and financial institutional ownership. Originality/value: This study is the first to theoretically analyse and empirically test the effect of private benefits. In general, this study significantly contributes to the understanding of the effect of large shareholder and corporate governance.

An empirical analysis of ERP adoption by oil and gas firms

Science.gov (United States)

Romero, Jorge

2005-07-01

Despite the growing popularity of enterprise-resource-planning (ERP) systems for the information technology infrastructure of large and medium-sized businesses, there is limited empirical evidence on the competitive benefits of ERP implementations. Case studies of individual firms provide insights but do not provide sufficient evidence to draw reliable inferences and cross-sectional studies of firms in multiple industries provide a broad-brush perspective of the performance effects associated with ERP installations. To narrow the focus to a specific competitive arena, I analyze the impact of ERP adoption on various dimensions of performance for firms in the Oil and Gas Industry. I selected the Oil and Gas Industry because several companies installed a specific type of ERP system, SAP R/3, during the period from 1990 to 2002. In fact, SAP was the dominant provider of enterprise software to oil and gas companies during this period. I evaluate performance of firms that implemented SAP R/3 relative to firms that did not adopt ERP systems in the pre-implementation, implementation and post-implementation periods. My analysis takes two different approaches, the first from a financial perspective and the second from a strategic perspective. Using the Sloan (General Motors) model commonly applied in financial statement analysis, I examine changes in performance for ERP-adopting firms versus non-adopting firms along the dimensions of asset utilization and return on sales. Asset utilization is more closely aligned with changes in leanness of operations, and return on sales is more closely aligned with customer-value-added. I test hypotheses related to the timing and magnitude of the impact of ERP implementation with respect to leanness of operations and customer value added. I find that SAP-adopting companies performed relatively better in terms of asset turnover than non-SAP-adopting companies during both the implementation and post-implementation periods and that SAP

Bank Credit and Aggregate Import Demand in Nigeria: A Cointegration Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Philip Chimobi Omoke

2012-06-01

Full Text Available This study reformulated the aggregate import demand for Nigeria by including a financial variable (bank credit into the traditional import demand function for the period 1970-2009. The Johansen Multivariate cointegration analysis was used to estimate the function. The result obtained from the study shows no evidence of the existence of cointegrating relations between bank credit and import demand. This shows that bank credit is found to be insufficient as a policy instrument for long term import demand in Nigeria. Thus, the financial variable should not be included in modelling the aggregate import demand for Nigeria.

The environmental and efficiency effects of restructuring on the electric power sector in the United States. An empirical analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sharabaroff, Alexander; Boyd, Roy; Chimeli, Ariaster

2009-01-01

Recent measures to restructure the electric power sector in different US states have raised the interest of policy makers, commentators, and the general public as to the actual impact of restructuring on both the economy and the environment. This paper focuses on two aspects of restructuring, namely its potential impact on the efficiency of electricity generation and air pollution. Our empirical results suggest that restructuring contributes to improved efficiency of electricity generation and better air quality through reduced electricity-induced sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ) and carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions, although no effect was found for emissions of nitrous oxides (NO x ). These results, in turn could have important implications for policy in this area. (author)

Importance analysis for reconfigurable systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Si, Shubin; Levitin, Gregory; Dui, Hongyan; Sun, Shudong

2014-01-01

Importance measures are used in reliability engineering to rank the system components according to their contributions to proper functioning of the entire system and to find the most effective ways of reliability enhancement. Traditionally, the importance measures do not consider the possible change of system structure with the improvement of specific component reliability. However, if a component's reliability changes, the optimal system structure/configuration may also change and the importance of the corresponding component will depend on the chosen structure. When the most promising component reliability improvement is determined, the component importance should be taken into account with respect to the possible structure changes. This paper studies the component reliability importance indices with respect to the changes of the optimal component sequencing. This importance measure indicates the critical components in providing the system reliability enhancement by both enhancing the component's reliability and reconfiguring the system. Examples of linear consecutive-k-out-of-n: F and G systems are considered to demonstrate the change of the component Birnbaum importance with the optimal system reconfiguration. The results show that the change of the importance index corresponds to the change of the system optimal configuration and the importance index can change not monotonically with the variation of the component reliability

The Empirical Analysis of the Dynamic Prices Relationship between Cotton Spot Market and Futures Market in Xinjiang

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

2011-01-01

The thesis analyzes the causal relationship between the cotton spot,and the tendency and impact of prices of futures markets in Xinjiang by using ADF test,co-integration analysis,Granger causality test and other econometric methods in order to discuss the interacted relationship between futures market prices of cotton and spot market prices since the futures of cotton in Xinjiang go public.The results of empirical analysis show that the spot market prices of cotton and the futures market prices in Xinjiang fluctuate prominently in the short run and tend to counterpoise in the long run;the futures market of cotton plays the role of leading the spot market prices of cotton in Xinjiang,while the spot market prices of cotton in Xinjiang impacts little on the futures market prices.The corresponding countermeasures are put forward.The government should continuously perfect the construction of the futures market of cotton in Xinjiang,so as to exert the function of price discovery and the function of hedging,and promote the development of cotton industry in Xinjiang.

Important Non-Wood Forest Products in Turkey: An Econometric Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

R. Kurt

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Wood resources obtained from forest and non-wood forest products (NWFP have gained great importance recently as their economic values keeps increasing by the day. In this study, forecasting of Turkish Non-Wood Forest Products such as thyme, bay leaves, salvia and pine nut export amounts was carried out using a linear regression analysis method for the next fifteen years based on the data for the years between 1990 and 2009. Moreover, estimated import values and actual import values from the last years were compered and analyzed. Finally, predictions on future trends were made.

Understanding the Organizational Nature of Student Persistence: Empirically-based Recommendations for Practice.

Science.gov (United States)

Berger, Joseph B.

2002-01-01

Builds on the assumption that colleges and universities are organizations and subsequently that the organizational perspective provides important insights for improving retention on campuses. A review of existing organizational studies of undergraduate persistence serves as the basis for ten empirically-based recommendations for practice that are…

A global empirical system for probabilistic seasonal climate prediction

Science.gov (United States)

Eden, J. M.; van Oldenborgh, G. J.; Hawkins, E.; Suckling, E. B.

2015-12-01

Preparing for episodes with risks of anomalous weather a month to a year ahead is an important challenge for governments, non-governmental organisations, and private companies and is dependent on the availability of reliable forecasts. The majority of operational seasonal forecasts are made using process-based dynamical models, which are complex, computationally challenging and prone to biases. Empirical forecast approaches built on statistical models to represent physical processes offer an alternative to dynamical systems and can provide either a benchmark for comparison or independent supplementary forecasts. Here, we present a simple empirical system based on multiple linear regression for producing probabilistic forecasts of seasonal surface air temperature and precipitation across the globe. The global CO2-equivalent concentration is taken as the primary predictor; subsequent predictors, including large-scale modes of variability in the climate system and local-scale information, are selected on the basis of their physical relationship with the predictand. The focus given to the climate change signal as a source of skill and the probabilistic nature of the forecasts produced constitute a novel approach to global empirical prediction. Hindcasts for the period 1961-2013 are validated against observations using deterministic (correlation of seasonal means) and probabilistic (continuous rank probability skill scores) metrics. Good skill is found in many regions, particularly for surface air temperature and most notably in much of Europe during the spring and summer seasons. For precipitation, skill is generally limited to regions with known El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) teleconnections. The system is used in a quasi-operational framework to generate empirical seasonal forecasts on a monthly basis.

Temporal associations between weather and headache: analysis by empirical mode decomposition.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Albert C Yang

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Patients frequently report that weather changes trigger headache or worsen existing headache symptoms. Recently, the method of empirical mode decomposition (EMD has been used to delineate temporal relationships in certain diseases, and we applied this technique to identify intrinsic weather components associated with headache incidence data derived from a large-scale epidemiological survey of headache in the Greater Taipei area. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The study sample consisted of 52 randomly selected headache patients. The weather time-series parameters were detrended by the EMD method into a set of embedded oscillatory components, i.e. intrinsic mode functions (IMFs. Multiple linear regression models with forward stepwise methods were used to analyze the temporal associations between weather and headaches. We found no associations between the raw time series of weather variables and headache incidence. For decomposed intrinsic weather IMFs, temperature, sunshine duration, humidity, pressure, and maximal wind speed were associated with headache incidence during the cold period, whereas only maximal wind speed was associated during the warm period. In analyses examining all significant weather variables, IMFs derived from temperature and sunshine duration data accounted for up to 33.3% of the variance in headache incidence during the cold period. The association of headache incidence and weather IMFs in the cold period coincided with the cold fronts. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Using EMD analysis, we found a significant association between headache and intrinsic weather components, which was not detected by direct comparisons of raw weather data. Contributing weather parameters may vary in different geographic regions and different seasons.

Advancing Empirical Approaches to the Concept of Resilience: A Critical Examination of Panarchy, Ecological Information, and Statistical Evidence