Historical path of traditional and modern idea of ‘conscious universe’

What this study shows is that although the ‘idea of conscious universe’ is given further advance by some discoveries of modern sciences, it was articulated by many ancient and previous thinkers. Philosophically, the idea of ‘Consciousness’ can be traced back to ancient times and can be proven through historical documents in various traditions, cultures and religions. In this study, the ideas are provided from perspectives of West, East and Islam. Simply, the term ‘awareness’ and the concept of ‘ability to be aware of the environment’ imply the notion of ‘Consciousness’ in linguistic and psychology. In a comparative study, we show that philosophical and scientific views in the past and contemporary period highly recommended the existence of ‘Consciousness’ attribute. In fact, all of the mentioned studies are talking about the same ideology based on the qualitative perceptions. However, there are some differences in parts, but the major theme is same.     

Determining the Optimum Guarantee Period for a One-Life Retirement Annuity

Abstract

We consider a risk averse retiree from a defined contribution plan who decides to purchase a onelife annuity with a guarantee period. Given the retiree has a bequest motive, we focus on the problem of determining the optimum length of the guarantee period. Assuming the retiree’s bequest function is proportional to his or her utility function, we determine necessary and/or sufficient conditions under which the retiree would choose an annuity with (i) no guarantee period, (ii) the maximum guarantee period, or (iii) an intermediate guarantee period.     

Does economic freedom fosters banks’ performance? Panel evidence from Malaysia

The present paper provides new empirical evidence on the impact of economic freedom on banks’ performance. The empirical analysis is confined to the Malaysian banking sector during the period of 1999–2007. We find that overall economic freedom and business freedom exerts positive impacts, implying that higher (lower) freedom on the activities that banks can undertake and entrepreneurs to start businesses increases (reduces) banks’ profitability. The empirical findings seem to suggest that corruption has a corrosive impact on Malaysian banks’ profitability. Interestingly, the impact of monetary freedom is negative, demonstrating the importance of government intervention in determining the profitability of banks operating in the Malaysian banking sector.     

Welfare and technology in the network society—Concerns for the future of welfare

The last decade of explosive innovation thanks to the growth of information and communication technologies (ICT) has left the public sector, and particularly the provision of welfare services, largely unchanged. Where socialising, commerce, information finding, entertainment and travel have all undergone profound structural transformations, the workings of government have not seen a similar shift. To be sure, the pace of decision-making has been sped up, as it has elsewhere, by Blackberries, and a small number of services are delivered online. But these services are still based around their offline equivalents, and usually aim simply at cutting the costs associated with their delivery by moving online. While this will continue to be a key motivation for the digitisation of government, other more fundamental developments are set to take place which will herald new online-only services, and which will encourage radical decentralisation of power.The first part of this paper will look at the private sector's experience over the past decade for clues as to why the public sector has moved relatively slowly, and likely directions of development in coming years. We will also here present evidence from our own forecasts of the likely narrowing of the digital divide. The next two sections will then deal with future developments in more detail, firstly looking at ICT's future role in welfare service delivery, and secondly at the ways in which it might be used for greater citizen engagement, and the reshaping of power structures that will result from this. The final section will examine some conflicts that arise from this reorientation away from the centre.     

Analysing the correlation between social network analysis measures and performance of students in social network-based engineering education

Social network-based engineering education (SNEE) is designed and implemented as a model of Education 3.0 paradigm. SNEE represents a new learning methodology, which is based on the concept of social networks and represents an extended model of project-led education. The concept of social networks was applied in the real-life experiment, considering two different dimensions: (1) to organize the education process as a social network-based process; and (2) to analyze the students’ interactions in the context of evaluation of the students learning performance. The objective of this paper is to present a new model for students evaluation based on their behavior during the course and its validation in comparison with the traditional model of students’ evaluation. The validation of the new evaluation model is made through an analysis of the correlation between social network analysis measures (degree centrality, closeness centrality, betweenness centrality, eigenvector centrality, and average tie strength) and the grades obtained by students (grades for quality of work, grades for volume of work, grades for diversity of work, and final grades) in a social network-based engineering education. The main finding is that the obtained correlation results can be used to make the process of the students’ performance evaluation based on students interactions (behavior) analysis, to make the evaluation partially automatic, increasing the objectivity and productivity of teachers and allowing a more scalable process of evaluation. The results also contribute to the behavioural theory of learning performance evaluation. More specific findings related to the correlation analysis are: (1) the more different interactions a student had (degree centrality) and the more frequently the student was between the interaction paths of other students (betweenness centrality), the better was the quality of the work; (2) all five social network measures had a positive and strong correlation with the grade for volume of work and with the final grades; and (3) a student with high average tie strength had a higher grade for diversity of work than those with low ties.     

陕西软件龙头企业成长状况分析与对策研究

软件龙头企业在软件产业化经营中具有关键作用,文章对陕西软件龙头企业成长状况及其存在的问题与差距进行分析,探讨陕西软件龙头企业实现快速健康可持续发展的对策。     

The resource dynamics of early internationalising Indian IT firms

Building on the resource-based view of the firm, this study explores how firms entering into early internationalisation combine different resources to discover the international market opportunities. Based on an in-depth analysis of case studies of five knowledge-intensive firms from India, this study suggests that the differences in the extent of resources available and their combinations influence the early stage of the internationalisation process and pace of learning in the foreign markets. This study contributes to the existing research on international entrepreneurship by explaining how new international ventures overcome the challenges of internationalisation by wisely utilising a broad set of available and potential resources during their early internationalisation efforts and gradually shift the focus on the internalisation of resources. Moreover, this study suggests that the effects of the combination of resources vary across different ventures. A strong combination can increase internationalisation and minimise the risks of failure in new international ventures.     

The Impact Of Business Intelligence Systems on an Organization’s Effectiveness: The Role of Metadata Quality From a Developing Country’S View

ABSTRACT

Business Intelligence (BI) systems are extensively used by large hotels in Jordan; however their effectiveness has not yet been researched. The aim of this research is to explore the relationships among definitional metadata quality, data quality metadata quality, navigational metadata quality, lineage metadata quality, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and system effectiveness in enhancing organizational effectiveness of five star hotels in Aqaba, Jordan. To test the research hypotheses, 225 usable responses containing 37 items were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) and a Machine Learning technique. Results suggest that organizational effectiveness was directly and positively affected by perceived usefulness and BI systems effectiveness. Nevertheless, perceived usefulness did not impact BI systems effectiveness.     

区域经济合作中地方政府政策选择的博弈分析——以山东半岛城市群为例

根据经济实力的差距将同一区域内的城市分为两种不同类型的组合,通过对每种组合中两个不同城市之间的合作分别进行静态和动态博弈分析,指出：区域合作可以有效促进城市群整体的发展,其中政府任期和政绩考核、政策干预以及利益分配比例是影响区域合作成败的三大重要因素。同时,结合山东半岛城市群区域合作实践中存在的问题和不足指出,只有在三大因素科学协调的基础上,区域经济一体化才能朝着持续、良好的方向发展。     

论我国旅游消费者的权益保护

旅游已逐渐成为我国人们生活中必不可少的消费娱乐活动,但随之产生的旅游消费者的权益保护问题也暴露出来。我国还尚未制定出一套完善的旅游法律体系、旅游信息的不对称、旅游消费者自身的法律意识薄弱,我国旅游消费者的合法权益在实践中无法得到有效的保护,这在一定程度上制约了我国旅游经济的发展,为了进一步促进旅游业的发展,我国必须采取各种措施保护旅游消费者的合法权益。