Initial Empirical Analysis Research Articles

Extended model to explain customer attitude toward NFT and moderating effect of technology optimism

PurposeThis study empirically examined consumer adoption attitudes and behaviors toward nonfungible tokens (NFTs). Findings indicate that consumer attitudes toward NFTs are influenced by perceived usefulness, reliability and profit expectancy and that strong attitudes are associated with purchase intentions. Additionally, the relationship between attitudes and purchase intentions was moderated by technology optimism.Design/methodology/approachThe authors utilized a partial least squares (PLS) model to examine the hypotheses in this empirical analysis. Obtaining a sample of actual NFT holders or experienced users is challenging. A total of 105 individuals participated in the study as valid responders by answering the screening question in the questionnaire. The authors opted for the PLS model as a research approach due to the limited size of the consumer population in the NFT market.FindingsThis study discovered that the adoption of NFTs was affected by technical aspects such as usefulness and reliability and the potential for future asset growth. Furthermore, the degree of attitude-to-intention conversion varied based on optimism, an inherent characteristic.Research limitations/implicationsThis study offers valuable insights for NFT owners, content providers and trading firms. For the NFT market to expand, it must meet consumers' expectations for the desired content features and asset investment attributes. Additionally, customer targeting strategies should attract and appeal to technology enthusiasts with an optimistic outlook on technology.Originality/valueThe authors conducted an initial empirical analysis of actual NFT consumers, an area of research studied sparingly despite its significance.

Development and Psychometric Evaluation of Life Skills Scale: An Indigenous Approach

The word adolescence is used interchangeably with young people. This current research aims to formulate and evaluate an indigenous scale to assess life skills in adolescents. The scale was standardized in multiple phases including the search for relevant constructs and item generation, initial data collection and empirical analysis. Forty-six items were finalized through a committee approach for initial data collection. A sample of the current research was taken from the Peshawar division. Principal Component Analysis with varimax rotation was run. KMO and Bartlet Test of Sphericity were found significant (χ2 = 15060, p < .001). 38 items and six different sub-domains were identified. The Social and Emotional Competence Questionnaire (SEC-Q) and Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale confirmed this new scale. (DASS). Validation was verified. Exploratory factor analysis checked factor loadings. Life Skills tool, an adolescent tool, is reliable.

Development and Psychometric Properties of Prosocial Behaviour Scale for Rescue Workers

Prosocial behaviour is a widely studied area in social and behavioral research. Aim of this current research was to develop and validate prosocial behavior scale for those responding to the emergency situations. Most of the earlier work and validated scales of prosocial behaviour are for children and adolescents. The scale was constructed in multiple phases including identification of relevant constructs, item generation, item selection for initial data collection, data collection and empirical analysis of the newly devised scale. Thirty items were finalized through committee approach. Sample of the current study include operational rescuers from four adjacent districts, Peshawar, Kohat, Hangu and Karak. Principal Component Analysis with varimax rotation was performed. KMO and Bartlet Test of Sphericity were found significant indicating adequate and appropriate values for factor analysis. Finally, 23 items and five different constructs were identified including, Emotional Behavior, Social Behavior, Empathetic Behavior, Helping Behavior and Caring & Sharing Behavior. This newly devised scale was validated with two different constructs (scales) of work engagement and Counterproductive Work behaviour respectively to check convergent and discriminate validity. Confirmatory factor analysis was carried out with excellent and acceptable values of model fit. CFA confirmed the same five factors and 23 items of the scale.

Customer satisfaction of urban farming application services: “e-Buruan Sae”

This study evaluates the customer satisfaction model in adopting the Web 2.0-based e-Buruan Sae application. The e-Buruan Sae application is an interactive Web 2.0-based application used by the government and the people of Bandung City to manage urban farming activities. This research is quantitative correlational research and applies a research method based on Design Research Methodology (DRM). The stages of this research are the literature review stage with the output of research objectives, the initial empirical analysis stage with the outputs of the hypothesis and research model, the experimental stage for data collection, and the final empirical analysis stage with the output of the data analysis results. This study uses six variables to measure customer satisfaction: ease of use, service quality, interactivity, trust, customer satisfaction, and IT development. The results of empirical testing show that the ease of use and IT development variables do not affect the customer satisfaction variable. In contrast, the remaining variables have a positive effect on customer satisfaction. This research produces measurements to evaluate customer satisfaction on the Web 2.0-based urban farming application.

The Great Unequalizer: Initial Health Effects of COVID-19 in the United States

We measure inequities from the COVID-19 pandemic on mortality and hospitalizations in the United States during the early months of the outbreak. We discuss challenges in measuring health outcomes and health inequality, some of which are specific to COVID-19 and others that complicate attribution during most large health shocks. As in past epidemics, preexisting biological and social vulnerabilities profoundly influenced the distribution of disease. In addition to the elderly, Hispanic, Black and Native American communities were disproportionately affected by the virus, particularly when assessed using the years of potential life lost metric. We provide a conceptual framework and initial empirical analysis that seek to shed light on contributors to pandemic-related health inequality, and we suggest areas for future research.

Influence-Based Policy Abstraction for Weakly-Coupled Dec-POMDPs

Decentralized POMDPs are powerful theoretical models for coordinating agents’ decisions in uncertain environments, but the generally-intractable complexity of optimal joint policy construction presents a significant obstacle in applying Dec-POMDPs to problems where many agents face many policy choices. Here, we argue that when most agent choices are independent of other agents’ choices, much of this complexity can be avoided: instead of coordinating full policies, agents need only coordinate policy abstractions that explicitly convey the essential interaction influences. To this end, we develop a novel framework for influence-based policy abstraction for weakly-coupled transition-dependent Dec-POMDP problems that subsumes several existing approaches. In addition to formally characterizing the space of transition-dependent influences, we provide a method for computing optimal and approximately-optimal joint policies. We present an initial empirical analysis, over problems with commonly-studied flavors of transition-dependent influences, that demonstrates the potential computational benefits of influence-based abstraction over state-of-the-art optimal policy search methods.

Humorous similes

AbstractHumorous descriptions are often couched in the form of a simile, whose flexible frame allows an author to yoke a topic to a perspective that is at once both incongruously different yet appropriately similar. Humorous similes exhibit all the commonly accepted hallmarks of verbal humour, from linguistic ambiguity to expectation violation and appropriate incongruity. But so too do non-humorous poetic similes, which exhibit an equal tendency for the ingenious and the incongruous. What then separates humorous similes from the broader class of creative similes, and can their signature characteristics, if any, be expressed via the presence or absence of specific formal, structural or semantic features? To address these questions, we describe the construction of a very large database of creative similes, and present the results of an initial empirical analysis upon this data-set. Our results are two-fold: humorous similes exhibit many of the same structural and semantic features that are considered characteristic of poetic similes, though none appears either necessary or sufficient to make a simile not just creative, but humorously creative; nonetheless, similes that employ either irony or ridicule (or both) are often explicitly marked with a marker of semantic imprecision such as “about”. We go on to show that “about”-marked similes typically exhibit an identifiable affective signature that further telegraphs an author’s humorous intent to the intended audience of the simile.

Counting-Based Search: Branching Heuristics for Constraint Satisfaction Problems

Designing a search heuristic for constraint programming that is reliable across problem domains has been an important research topic in recent years. This paper concentrates on one family of candidates: counting-based search. Such heuristics seek to make branching decisions that preserve most of the solutions by determining what proportion of solutions to each individual constraint agree with that decision. Whereas most generic search heuristics in constraint programming rely on local information at the level of the individual variable, our search heuristics are based on more global information at the constraint level. We design several algorithms that are used to count the number of solutions to specific families of constraints and propose some search heuristics exploiting such information. The experimental part of the paper considers eight problem domains ranging from well-established benchmark puzzles to rostering and sport scheduling. An initial empirical analysis identifies heuristic maxSD as a robust candidate among our proposals.eWe then evaluate the latter against the state of the art, including the latest generic search heuristics, restarts, and discrepancy-based tree traversals. Experimental results show that counting-based search generally outperforms other generic heuristics.

The implication for climate change and peak fossil fuel of the continuation of the current trend in wind and solar energy production

Climate change, and more recently, the risk of fossil fuel production being unable to keep pace with demand (peak fossil fuel) are both considered as risks to civilisation, or global risks. In an initial empirical analysis, this paper attempts to answer the following questions, which have often been posed but have not, to our knowledge, been answered empirically at global level. At which date, if unaddressed, will the risks become critical? Given that the substitution of fossil fuels by wind and solar energy is often proposed as a solution to these problems, what is its current aggregate growth rate and is there a plausible future growth rate which would substitute it for fossil fuels before the risks become critical? The study finds that the peak fossil fuel risk will start to be critical by 2020. If however the future growth rate of wind and solar energy production follows that already achieved for the world mobile phone system or the Chinese National Expressway Network the peak fossil fuel risk can be prevented completely. For global warming, the same growth rate provides significant mitigation by reducing carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels to zero by the early 2030s.

The Conditional Impact of Competence Trust on Inter-Firm Learning in a Collectivist SME Context

This study investigates the interactive influence of competence and goodwill trust on inter-firm learning. The study examines whether goodwill trust moderates the relationship between competence trust and inter-firm learning. Although earlier research points to an additive effect of competence and goodwill trust on inter-firm learning, this study hypothesizes an interactive effect of the two trust types. The study's basic premise is that, in collectivist contexts characterized with a weak legal system, goodwill trust determines the efficacy of competence trust. Empirical tests of this hypothesis involve data collected from 158 small-scale manufacturers of furniture located in Turkey. Initial empirical analysis shows that whereas goodwill trust has a positive main effect on inter-firm learning, competence trust does not. Introducing an interaction term reveals that competence trust positively influences inter-firm learning only when goodwill trust is high. Additionally, cluster analysis indicates that inter-firm learning is lowest when both competence trust and goodwill trust are low and highest when both forms of trust are high.

Macro-Prudential Regulation from the Perspective of the Financial Network

From the perspective of financial network stability analysis achieved by studying the network formed with linkages of individual financial institutes, this article aims to delve into the monitoring, warning, and analyzing of the systematic risk of the financial system as a whole, which is the key to drive macro-prudential regulation forward within the regime of existing financial regulations. Through our analysis we've achieved the following. First, a new way of depict of the structure of financial system's network and a practical method of macro-prudential regulation is proposed. Second, by analyzing the stability of the banking network, it can be seen that after the explosion of the economic crisis, the country's macro-economic policies to improve the stability of China’s own financial network produced positive results. Third, through an initial empirical analysis of the national banking network, the country's inter-banking network displays a structural characteristic of the coexistence of important nodes and locally closely-connected clusters.

Caring for informal caregivers: policy approaches to the provision of direct support services

Despite being the backbone of modern welfare states, the informal care sector for elderly people in need of long-term care is highly dysfunctional. The majority of informal caregivers are overburdened on account of their care-related activities, although an evolving market for support services directly aimed at relieving informal caregivers is observable. In this paper, we examine the reasons for the imperfect exchange between demand and supply in this market, applying the economic theory of market failure. Through a case study of Austria based on an empirical, qualitative survey of all direct support services and their suppliers on the national level as well as in three provinces, an understanding of this market's main players and mechanisms is derived. Thus, the authors determine that three different system types can be identified beyond the historical regional discrepancies. They illustrate the approaches to service provision for informal caregivers: centralized and public, laissez-faire and private, and a radically decentralized network for informal caregivers. Still, lack of information, social and psychological barriers, as well as high transaction costs, are identified which undermine the support service market for informal care. If the costs of the formal long-term care sector are to be contained despite demographic developments, better policy approaches will be necessary to overcome this challenge. In light of this, recommendations are derived to ensure a better exchange between supply and demand. By providing an initial empirical understanding and analysis of this market and its imperfections, the authors pioneer future quantitative research in this field.

Do we really understand homeownership rates? An international study

PurposeThis paper attempts to fill two gaps in the homeownership literature identified by Dietz and Haurin: homeownership in less developed countries and the effects of race, ethnicity and income on tenure choice.Design/methodology/approachUnited Nations data from 1993 and 1998 are used to offer a cross‐country analysis of the determinants of homeownership rates. Consistent with the previous literature, this study confirms that the price‐to‐rent ratio is an important factor in tenure choice and increases in income are associated with increases in the percentage of consumers who choose to own. However, these relationships seem to hold generally only for higher income developed countries.FindingsIn contrast to the previous literature that finds race and ethnicity account for a significant portion of the differences in US homeownership rates, this study finds no evidence that these determinants account for differences across countries. The authors investigate the rule of law and find it is closely correlated with income measures which may indicate that countries with stronger laws encourage higher homeownership rates. Finally, capitalist/(formerly) communist regime differences do not appear to explain cross country differences in homeownership rates.Research limitations/implicationsThis research is limited by the scope and quality of the UN data.Practical implicationsThe paper offers insights from the international evidence for the potential of selected policies to increase domestic homeownership rates and identifies several avenues for future international homeownership research.Originality/valueThis paper provides an initial empirical analysis on international homeownership in an attempt to fill gaps in the homeownership literature.

Determinants of Demand for HIV Testing

This paper provides an initial empirical analysis of the impact of changing epidemiological, economic and sociological conditions on the amount of HIV testing in primary care, outpatient clinics. Particular attention is paid to examining whether changes in HIV/AIDS prevalence impact the amount of testing these clinics perform, and also how financial constraints impact this relationship. Using a sample of California clinics, we find that changing epidemiological conditions do impact the demand for HIV testing. Additionally, certain clinic characteristics, such as the type of practitioners providing care and the socio-economic characteristics of patients treated at each clinic also affect the demand for testing. However, we find little evidence supporting increased government or private grants, contracts and donations as a means of enhancing the demand for HIV testing.

Sexual Orientation and Neighborhood Quality: Do Same-Sex Couples Make Better Communities?

This study provides an initial empirical analysis on identifying the general relationship between housing values and the spatial distribution of same-sex couples across the U.S. The paper uses the 1990 and 2000 census 5% Public Use Microdata Samples and introduces the gay index into the social-amenity-based hedonic housing models. The results show significant correlation between the spatial concentration of same-sex couples and housing values; furthermore, housing values are higher in a city where the proportion of same-sex couples was higher a decade ago, suggesting that same-sex couples make better communities.

Cross-cultural construct complexity: an initial empirical analysis of Perú

Cross-cultural scholars continually request empirical research thatbroadens the complexity of culture. We examine the effects of culture following the broad conception of cultural constructs as cultural syndromes that are multifaceted. Based on past theoretical and empirical research, this study identifies three cultural syndromes, IndividualismCollectivism, Tolerance for Ambiguity and Status Identity, with the objective of utilizing original and existing conceptually sound measures of these constructs. The dimensionality of these constructs was assessed through the development and analysis of responses from a sample 0f226 Peruvian managers and experienced employees. Results provide support for the multi-dimensionality of these dimensions.

Social Exclusion in Britain 1991—1995

The purpose of this paper is to offer a working definition of social exclusion and to operationalize it in such a way that an initial empirical analysis of social exclusion in Britain today can be undertaken. After a brief review of conceptions of social exclusion and some of the key controversies, we operationalize one definition based on the notion of participation in five types of activity—consumption, savings, production, political and social. Using the British Household Panel Survey, indicators for participation on these dimensions are developed and analysed both cross‐sectionally and longitudinally for the period 1991–5. We find strong associations between an individual’s participation (or lack of it) on the five different dimensions, and on each dimension over time. However, there is no distinct group of socially excluded individuals: few are excluded on all dimensions in any one year and even fewer experience multiple exclusion for the whole period. The results support the view that treating different dimensions of exclusion separately is preferable to thinking about social exclusion in terms of one homogeneous group.

Domestic Political Regime Changes and Foreign Policy Restructuring in Western Europe: A Conceptual Framework and Initial Empirical Analysis

Hagan, J. D. Domestic Political Regime Changes and Foreign Policy Restructuring in Western Europe: A Conceptual Framework and Initial Empirical Analysis. Coop eration and Conflict, XXIV, 1989, 141-162. This article presents an initial investigation into the causal linkage between domestic political regime changes and foreign policy restructuring in Western Europe. A theoretical framework is developed that incorporates three elements: a typology of four kinds of regime change, a conceptualization of shifting regime properties (the leadership's orientation to foreign affairs and its internal political fragmentation) that underlay significant regime changes, and three dimensions of foreign policy restructuring likely to be affected by changes in domestic political conditions. Also reported are results from a preliminary empirical assessment of regime change effects on trends in Western European voting in the United Nations, trade with the Soviet Union, and military budgets over the past two decades.

Identification of neutron noise sources in a boiling water reactor

Measurements were made at units 2 and 3 of the Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant in order to characterize the noise signatures of the neutron and process signals and to determine the usefulness of such signatures for anomaly detection in BWR-4s. Previous measurements and theoretical analyses of BWR noise by others were concerned with the determination of steam velocity and void fraction (using the local component of neutron noise) and with the sources of global noise. The work described is under a five-part program to develop a complete and systematic analysis and representation of BWR neutron and process noise through complementary measurements and stochastic model developments. The parts are: (1) recording as many neutron detector and process noise signals as are available in a BWR-4; (2) reducing these data to noise signatures in order to perform an empirical analysis of these signatures, and documenting the relationships between the signals from spatially separated neutron detectors and between neutron and process variables; (3) developing spatially dependent neutronic models coupled with thermal-hydraulic models to aid in interpreting the observed relationships among the measured noise signatures, (4) comparing measured noise signatures with model predictions to obtain additional insight into BWR-4 dynamic behavior and tomore » validate the models; and (5) using these models to predict the sensitivity of noise monitoring for detection, surveillance, and diagnosis of postulated in-core anomalies in BWRs. The paper describes the procedures used to obtain the noise recordings and presents initial empirical analysis and observations pertaining to the noise signatures and the relationships between several noise variables in the 0.01- to 1-Hz range. The mathematical models have not been developed sufficiently to report theoretical results or to compare measured spectra with model predictions at this time.« less