Social network sites (SNSs) have become so popular that the number of people joining and actively participating on such sites is increasing on a daily basis. Although there are several SNSs, Facebook is currently the most popular and most commonly used. SNSs have primarily been developed with able-bodied people in mind and as a result of this, people with disabilities find it difficult to join and participate on these sites. Furthermore, this topic has received little attention by researchers around the world. Facebook pages usually consist of text, graphics, and sound where the users navigate through the pages using a mouse. As a step towards addressing this need and finding a possible elegant solution, the authors have developed a voice-activated PC-based system (called NEU-FACE) in the form of an interface to Facebook. With the aid of this system, a person with a physical disability can join and participate in Facebook by giving voice commands to manage the typical Facebook activities.
[Hurter and Moses, 1964] presented a solvable model combining input-output analysis and linear programming to derive regional product ’shadow’ prices. Their measure of prices is incomplete since it includes only regional variation-in transport and resource costs and not the intermediate product costs. The reason for this exclusion is obvious: product prices are needed to obtain intermediate product costs. In this note we extend the Hurter-Moses model to derive a full measure of regional shadow prices. 相似文献
This paper brings together discussions of Geary–Khamis indexes now available only in scattered sources, and considers their application to a range of uses. The first section traces the development of the method from its initial proposal by Geary in 1953, with the aid of a numerical example illustrating differences among various formulations. The second section considers the least squares properties of Geary-Khamis indexes and some related variants. The final section considers adjustments to the method required for regionalization and spatio-temporal bilateral and multilateral comparisons, as well as to take account of the nature of available data. 相似文献
This paper attempts to develop and empirically test a conceptual model of relationship quality (RQ) in the financial sector from the perspective of the individual consumer (B2C). Based on a review of RQ research, the paper proposes a model of RQ from the customer perspective using the constructs most often examined in empirical RQ research (customer satisfaction, trust and commitment) and considers the relative importance of these dimensions within the stages of the relationship development process (RDP). A survey of 150 bank customers was undertaken in Egypt and the results tested using structural equation modelling. Respondents were selected on a convenience sampling basis and administered a questionnaire instrument for completion. The findings show that there is a strong relationship between the customer’s perceived relationship development phase and the perceived RQ. An important contribution of this paper lies in the alternative conceptualization of RQ as composed of three dynamic dimensions which are dependent on the RDP phase or stage. A second contribution is methodological and relates to the development of a modified scale to identify the relationship phases of customers. To the best of the researchers’ knowledge, these contributions are unique and have not been made previously to the body of knowledge on service relationship management. 相似文献
This article studies the monthly net job creation (NJC) at the aggregate and the sectoral levels in the United States over the period 1950 to 2011. The article has few important findings. First, NJC did not show a significant trend over the last six decades, which led to a fall in the NJC rate. Second, NJC was very volatile and it could change course even in the span of 1 month. Third, there was no clear pattern about the co-movement between NJC and the change in the unemployment rate. Fourth, the averages of total NJC and private NJC since late 2010 were significantly higher than their respective historical averages and the volatility in NJC since the end of the Great Recession was not unusual by historical standards. Fifth, while the evidence about the effects of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on employment is inconclusive, some sectors appeared to benefit from it. Finally, the most frequent drop in the unemployment rate was by 0.1%, and drops of more than 0.2% should not be highly expected. 相似文献
This paper aims to study the Central and Eastern European Countries' (CEECs) dynamics of financial integration in the euro area with the prospect of their integration into the European Monetary Union. Our empirical analysis is based, successively, on a MGARCH model with time-varying correlations, a state-space model and a Markov-switching model. The results show that financial integration (i) is not perfect but is increasing and (ii) is linked to currency stability. The growing financial integration in 2007–2009 seems to be rather the result of the shock propagated by the global crisis. 相似文献
The study examines whether corporate carbon risk exposure is associated with financial reporting quality and whether voluntary carbon disclosure mediates the relationship. We analyze data drawn from firms traded on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), for the period 2011 to 2015. We document robust evidence that firms with higher carbon risk exposure tend to provide financial statements of poorer quality (i.e., direct effect) and this association is partially mediated through voluntary carbon disclosure (i.e., indirect effect). The overall negative association between corporate carbon risk exposure and the firm's financial reporting quality is partly explained by the quality of voluntary carbon disclosure. 相似文献
Using the monthly “Employment Situation” reports for 1994–2013, this paper studies the revisions to US employment data. The paper shows that the first press release underestimates net job creation in expansions and overestimates it in downturns. The “errors” in reporting the data on the labor market can distort the public’s perception about the stance of the labor market and have some political consequences. This is well reflected by the finding that the job approval rating of President Obama, the index of consumer confidence, and the economic conditions index of Gallup have all been responding to the initial news on the US labor market as they were published in the Employment Situation reports. 相似文献
In this paper we propose a model to generate an effective timetable for time definite parcel distribution companies operating a hierarchical hub-and-spoke network. The model, referred to as parcel distribution timetabling problem, provides the departure times from each serviced city and each servicing facility in order to minimize the travel times of all shipments from their origin cities to their destination cities. Although the problem is faced by every parcel distribution company, it is rarely addressed in the literature. There is no evidence that parcel distribution companies, including the international ones, are developing operational research models in generating their timetables. The application of the model to a real-world case led to a decrease of more than 11% in the average travel time of the shipments. The company was even more delighted by the rapidity of the model in generating the timetable; this task that used to take weeks is decreased to just minutes. 相似文献