Can the Islamic bank be an emerging leader? A panel data causality analysis

This short note investigates the ability of Islamic banks (IBs) to play a leading role in revamping and driving conventional banking. To this end, we used a panel of 10 major conventional banks (CBs) and 10 IBs over the period 2006–2013. We applied panel regression tests and carried out a panel causality analysis. Our findings identified no significant causality effect from IBs to CBs and indicated that IBs are not able to play a role of leader.     

Curriculum assessment through a capstone course: a case study in hospitality and tourism programs

The purpose of this study was to develop a systematic process that other educational institutions and programs could follow to establish a consistent and accurate evaluation method for a capstone course. Hospitality industry professionals and hospitality management faculty were interviewed through focus-group discussions, and a post-focus-group survey was conducted to determine a weighted percentage for each of the nine determined content domains. A test blueprint for a hospitality management capstone course was developed to measure programmatic student learning outcomes based on the weighted domains determined through this study. The results provide a usable instrument for hospitality and tourism management programs to enhance their current assessment methodology.     

Do terror attacks affect the dollar-pound exchange rate? A nonparametric causality-in-quantiles analysis

While much significant research has been done to study the effects of terror attacks on stock markets, less is known about the response of exchange rates to terror attacks. We suggest a non-parametric causality-in-quantiles test to study whether (relative) terror attacks affect exchange-rate returns and volatility. Using data on the dollar-pound exchange rate to illustrate the test, we show that terror attacks mainly affect the lower and upper quantiles of the conditional distribution of exchange-rate returns, while misspecified (due to nonlinearity and structural breaks) linear Granger causality test show no evidence of predictability. Terror attacks also affect almost all quantiles of the conditional distribution of exchange-rate volatility (except the extreme upper-end), with the significance of the effect being particularly strong for the lower quantiles. The importance of terror attacks is shown to hold also under an alternative measure of volatility and for an important emerging-market exchange rate as well.     

Revisiting the labor supply effect of social security earnings test: New evidence from its elimination and reinstatement in Japan

We explore the labor supply effect of the social security earnings test in Japan on those aged 65–69 years through a combined examination of the elimination of the earnings test in 1985 and its reinstatement in 2002. We present evidence showing that the effects of changes in the earnings tests on the labor supply of the elderly are not symmetric, controlling for changes in the attributes of workers and firms. The repeal of the earnings test in 1985 did affect the earnings distribution of the elderly (especially for male), while its reinstatement in 2002 did not alter the earnings distribution.     

Measuring systemic risk with regime switching in tails

This paper motivates the importance of modeling nonlinearities in measuring systemic risk. I capitalize this motivation by generalizing the CoVaR approach proposed by Adrian and Brunnermeier (2016) to allow it switching between a high and a normal risk regime filtered from data.. Considering the U.S. large bank holding companies (BHCs), this paper shows that modeling regime changes in tails is capable of capturing both amplification and mean-reversion effects of an adverse shock to a bank's balance sheet on the banking system. Using the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test statistics with and without bootstrapping, I perform the significance test to identify systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs), and the stochastic dominance test to rank the identified SIFIs. The stochastic dominance test raises the concern that the CoVaR measure underestimates systemic risk contributions for SIFIs but overestimates for non-SIFIs. Finally, applying the BHCs' characteristics and housing market price to forecast the regime-switching systemic risk out-of-sample, I obtain from 4- and 8-quarter-ahead horizons a desirable countercyclical, forward-looking measure of systemic risk.     

TEM4改革前后完形填空的考点效度对比分析

2005年以来英语专业四级考试完形填空试题的考点效度比以前有所提高,但句子层次考点数量仍然偏高。教师在教学过程中应注重培养学生的语篇理解能力和逻辑分析能力,提高学生的语言综合运用能力。     

生物工程大实验课程改革与探讨

生物工程大实验是生物工程专业的一门重要的综合性实验课程,就当前生物工程大实验教学存在的几点问题,从实验内容、实验体系、实验方法、考核方式方面对生物工程大实验进行改革与探讨。     

从某一微车气囊设计探讨安全气囊标定技术

文章以某一微车安全气囊设计为基础,详细阐述汽车设计中气囊标定整车碰撞试验矩阵确定的依据、气囊标定对车辆状态的要求及气囊标定核心——点火控制的原理,从而得出准确的标定报告,以指导设计生产。     

Economic corollaries of personalized recommendations

The impact of recommendation systems (RSs) on the diversity of consumption is not transparent or well understood. Available studies, whether experimental or theoretical, show inconsistent and even opposite results, which manifests as debate in the literature. In this paper, we investigate the impact of two main recommender systems, neural collaborative filtering and deep content filtering, on sales diversity via a randomized field experiment. Our results confirm the capability of recommender engines in increasing or decreasing aggregate sales diversity. Nonetheless, they amplify homogenization and reduce individual-level consumption diversity. In conclusion, our research reconciles seemingly contradict previous findings and illustrates that the design of the RS is the decisive factor in homogenizing or diversifying product sales.     

1GHz以上微波暗室电场强度标准及误差分析

本文阐述了利用系列角锥喇叭建立１ＧＨｚ以上微波暗室标准电场强度的原理和方法。导出了角锥喇叭近场增益的简化公式。简述了２０８０天线测试系统及三天线法测量技术，且对测量误差进行了分析。理论和实验结果表明，建立标准电场强度的误差≤０．５ｄＢ。