Strong Explanatory Power Research Articles

Moult nestedness and its imperfections: insights to unravel the nature of passerine wing‐feather moult rules

Passerine moult shows two well‐known although intriguing characteristics: 1) a varying subset of wing feathers are retained during certain moult episodes, and 2) the identity of the replaced feathers is not random. However, the rules that underlie these moult features are largely unknown. Non‐randomness could arise under time and energy constraints if feathers differed in their importance, such that they could be ordered following a hypothetical moult rank. This rule predicts a nested relationship among wing‐feather moult phenotypes, where phenotypes of smaller extent would consist of subsets of the wing feathers replaced in phenotypes of larger extent. Here, we analysed a dataset of 3909 preformative and prealternate moult phenotypes from 434 Holarctic and Neotropical passerine species. We found that passerine wing‐feather moult was nested (nodf = 84.31). However, systematic imperfections in the nestedness pattern led us to test whether the existence of different feather moult ranks may increase nestedness in homogeneous subsets of moult phenotypes. We tested this hypothesis between moult episodes and found that nestedness increased for the preformative moult (nodf = 90.99) and decreased for the prealternate moult (nodf = 67.28). We further analysed the adaptive meaning of different moult ranks associated with feather mass, feather exposure and feather contribution to flight. Overall, these three feather traits explained 53.74% of the variation in the priority of wing‐feather replacement, with exposure having a stronger explanatory power than the other two traits. Our findings provide a first model to interpret variation of wing‐feather moult phenotypes in passerines, and outlines the relevance of season for passerine moult, suggesting a dynamic link between moult expression and plumage requirements.

Environmental risks and sustainable development indicators: determinants of impact

The concept of sustainable development brought new constraints for the old-fashioned business models. At the same time, it created new opportunities for those who have a forward-looking strategy and strive to overcome «the limits to growth», in other words, to ensure a long-term blended value creation with economic and non-economic benefits. There are numerous sets of the sustainable development indicators and indices, but the weights of each particular component are different and need further clarification. Nowadays, the environmental risks in general and climate-related in particular are priced (e.g. environmental taxes) and have a strong impact on the social and economic relations by creating negative and positive externalities for our daily life. For this reason, economic agents are forced to become sustainable to the non-financial risks through switching to the new environmental and social business models. For this reason, better sustainable development indicators are crucial for an improved management of the non-financial risks and sustainable blended value creation. Hence, the aim of this paper is to examine the role of environmental risks in shaping sustainable development conditions on the macrolevel and to elaborate the ways for a better management of the non-financial risks (Environmental, Social and Governance - ESG). For this purpose, the impact of the most important environmental risks on the main economic and social indicators has been examined (e.g. Human Development Index and GDP per capita). Such an approach allowed us to identify the extent to which specific environmental factors influencing social and economic development can reshape the sustainable development conditions. In course of research, two sets of countries have been singled out to verify statistical significance of elaborated models. To achieve this goal, the authors have split an available dataset into two groups: EU and non-EU countries. The reason behind it is the fact that EU countries are among the leaders in the area of sustainable development and have already undertaken related environmental improvements in the last decades. Moreover, the above-mentioned countries are continuing such successful pathways today and with the new European Green Deal could go even far beyond this frontier. The results of current research suggest that existing indicators cannot fully encompass all the aspects of sustainable development and should be revised. Such findings relate both to the composition of the indicators and the weights attributed to each particular component. The application of regression analysis showed that such factors as water and air quality and biodiversity have the strongest explanatory power - 67% of the fluctuations in GDP per capita and 87% in case of HDI. The R -squared is ranging from 0.7 to 0.8 in both cases and confirms consistency of the elaborated models. To verify the results achieved, the similar models have been prepared only for the EU countries. As a result, all independent variables demonstrated the same significant impact on GDP per capita also for the EU countries. However, in this case the R -squared is only 0.27 due to the fact that ESG indicators within the EU area are rather homogenous. The impact of environmental factors on the level of HDI for the EU countries is much stronger comparing to GDP per capita. An overall explanatory power of the model for the EU countries exceeds 0.45 (R -squared). The most influential factor is the quality of water resources. Other important independent variables in the model for the EU member states are biodiversity and air quality. The authors argue that it is necessary to incorporate the above-mentioned environmental factors into the updated version of the Human Development Index as the most appropriate indicators of sustainable development. Consequently, the weights of the components should be recalculated to improve management of the non-financial risks on macrolevel, facilitating the blended value creation process.

CAPM verification using overnight and daytime returns

Purpose The capital asset pricing model has failed to explain the effect of systematic risk (referred to as beta) on actual stock market returns. Accordingly, this study analyzes daily returns by splitting it into overnight and daytime returns. The study analysis empirically confirms a positive relationship between overnight returns and beta and a negative relation between daytime returns and beta. Furthermore, this paper aims to determine that empirical results are mostly the same with three different beta calculations, namely, daily, overnight and daytime returns. The study concludes that beta on overnight returns has the strongest explanatory power and is statistically significant.

Services Trade Policies and Economic Integration: New Evidence for Developing Countries

AbstractThis paper applies machine learning to recreate to a high degree of accuracy the OECD's Services Trade Restrictiveness Index (STRI) to provide quantitative evidence on the restrictiveness of services policies in 2016 for a sample of developing countries, using regulatory data collected by the World Bank and WTO. Resulting estimates are used to extend the OECD STRI approach to 23 additional countries, producing what we term a Services Policy Index (SPI). Converting the SPI to ad valorem equivalent terms shows that services policies are typically much more restrictive than tariffs on imports of goods, in particular in professional services and telecommunications. The SPI has strong explanatory power for bilateral trade in services at the sectoral level, as well as for aggregate goods and services trade.

The role of generic examples in teachers’ proving activities

This paper explores how in-service teachers enrolled in a graduate proof course interpret, understand, and use generic examples as part of their proving and justification activities. Generic examples, which are capable of proving and justifying with strong explanatory power, are particularly important for teachers considering teaching proof in their classrooms. The teachers in our study used generic examples to produce three types of proof: example-based arguments enhanced with generic language; incomplete generic examples; and complete generic examples. We found that teachers conflate generic examples and visual representations, prefer visual generic examples for teaching, and consider a generic example with symbolic representation to be more convincing than a generic example without. We conclude with implications for secondary school teaching, as well as suggestions for future professional development efforts.

Data-driven choice set generation and estimation of route choice models

This paper proposes a novel combination of machine learning techniques and discrete choice models for route choice modeling. The data-driven choice set generation method identifies routes characteristics by clustering, and implicitly generates the choice set by sampling route characteristic attributes from the clusters. Important features are selected by random forests for route choice model development. With the selected features, the methodological-iterative approach is applied to specify the utility functions and to find significant explanatory variables automatically.Results show that the proposed data-driven method produces a discrete route choice model not only with strong explanatory power, but also with high prediction accuracy compared to models estimated with conventional choice set generation methods.

Investigating the Factors that Enhance Tourists’ Intention to Revisit Touristic Cities. A Case Study on Luxor and Aswan in Egypt

This article examines the impact of some factors that enhance tourists’ revisit intention to touristic cities. It adopts the TPB to predict tourists’ intention to revisit these destinations. An online the questionnaire was utilized to collect data from tourists that have earlier visited two touristic cities in Egypt which are Luxor and Aswan. The responses of 373 visitors to Luxor and Aswan were analyzed and the proposed hypotheses were evaluated using the Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The results show that the model has a strong explanatory power to understand travelers’ revisit intention. Besides the TPB infrastructure, the added variables were found to exert a significant influence on the revisit intention. Specifically, the results show that: (1) e-WOM positively influences tourists’ attitudes and perceived behavioral control and subjective norms (2) tourist’s satisfaction positively influences tourists’ revisit intention and e-WOM (3) perceived behavioral control positively influences tourists’ revisit intention. The paper offers to the academic literature by implementing a framework that explains tourists’ intention to revisit the touristic cities. Also, it provides practitioners who are interested in tourism marketing with some guidelines to follow to enhance the revisit intention of tourists. Keywords: Revisit intention, Touristic cities, e-WOM, Theory of planned behavior DOI: 10.7176/JAAS/69-04 Publication date: October 31 st 2020

The Cognitive Prominence of Euphemism Production: A Perspective of the Embodied-Cognitive Approach

The previous research on euphemism is mainly conducted from the perspectives of traditional linguistics, sociolinguistics, pragmatics, cognitive linguistics, and the philosophy of mind, but few studies focus on the cognitive prominence of euphemism production from the perspective of the embodied-cognitive approach. This paper takes the euphemisms in English literary works as the corpora and explores the cognitive prominence of euphemism production from the perspective of the embodied-cognitive approach to reveal the production mechanism of euphemism. It is found that euphemism production highlights the linguistic subject’s embodied cognition of identity, causal implication, and supervenience with reality. The linguistic subject’s embodied cognition of identity with reality explains that euphemism is in place of the common expression to direct at an unpleasant or embarrassing thing or event in reality because euphemism is identical to common expression. The linguistic subject’s embodied cognition of causal implication with reality accounts for the fact that the interaction between the mental and the physical follows the principle of causal interaction. Common expression causally implicates euphemism and the causal implication between them is restricted by the specific context and the linguistic subject’s intentionality. The linguistic subject’s embodied cognition of supervenience with reality indicates that the consciousness of the linguistic subject towards the described thing or event supervenes globally on its physical property. Euphemism production is the result of the linguistic subject’s embodied cognition with reality. Cognitive prominence from the perspective of the embodied-cognitive approach has very strong explanatory power over the production mechanism of linguistic expressions.

To WeChat or to more chat during learning? The relationship between WeChat and learning from the perspective of university students

WeChat has become an indispensable part of university students’ life in China. However, there was little research into the relationship between WeChat and learning. This study investigates university students’ attitudes towards the impact of WeChat on learning, the determinants of WeChat learning engagement, and how WeChat usage influences students’ academic performance. A total of 719 valid questionnaires were sent and collected from university students. The results indicate: 1) WeChat is perceived as a “double-edged sword” of learning with two-sided effects. 2) Students’ engagement with WeChat on learning is at the upper-medium level, over which the motivation of WeChat usage, other than usage duration and login time, is found to have strong explanatory power. 3) The frequency of WeChat usage affects students’ academic performance in a complicated way with self-control playing a moderating role. The findings have significant value for future research about WeChat usage among university students.

Evaluation of the Temporal and Spatial Changes of Ecological Quality in the Hami Oasis Based on RSEI

Given the restrictions on special geographic locations in development processes, the measurement and analysis of the ecological quality of the Hami Oasis are of great significance for the protection of this fragile oasis. In this study, the ecological quality of the Hami Oasis was monitored by constructing a remote sensing ecological index (RSEI) for arid areas. Using the standard deviation ellipse and moving window method, the ecological status and space–time changes were explored for both their external and internal factors in the Hami Oasis. Finally, a geo-detector was employed to determine the driving factors of the ecological quality of the Hami Oasis. The results revealed that: (1) In the remote sensing ecological index constructed in the Hami Oasis, the main influencing factors were dryness and wetness. The average value of the ecological quality of the oasis was less than 0.5, and the ecological quality level was relatively poor. Among the five grades of ecological quality in the Hami Oasis, the poor grade and the good grade showed the largest changes, decreasing by 200 and increasing by 300, respectively, which were mainly concentrated in the periphery of the oasis. (2) The improved ecological quality of the Hami Oasis was mainly manifested in the expansion of the artificial oasis, while the deteriorated area was manifested as an increase in the built-up area. Moreover, the ecological quality of the Hami Oasis presented a ringlike nesting distribution pattern from the internal built-up area to the artificial oasis periphery. (3) The external expansion direction of the ecological quality of the Hami Oasis featured southeast–northwest expansion, which was consistent with the direction of the rivers and traffic roads. The transformation between different ecological qualities in the oasis and the expansion of the built-up area were the reasons for the fragmentation of the Hami Oasis’ landscape. (4) Compared to a single factor, the dual-factor for the ecological quality of the Hami Oasis had stronger explanatory power. Moreover, changes in land use types caused changes in the ecological quality of the Hami Oasis. During the study period, we found that human activities had a more significant impact than natural factors on the development of the Hami Oasis. (5) The Moran’s I Index increased from 0.835268 in 2000 to 0.923976 in 2018, and the p values in the study area all reached a 0.05 significant level. At the same time, the areas with p values above the 0.01 and 0.001 significant levels have also increased significantly in the past 18 years.

The Association of Experienced in-service EFL teachers’ immunity with engagement, emotions, and autonomy

The construct of language teacher immunity has recently been introduced as a robust protective armor allowing language teachers to take on challenges within classroom context. However, due to the novelty of the concept, scant research attention has been given to the predictors of language teacher immunity, especially in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the association between autonomy, emotions, engagement, and immunity of experienced in-service EFL teachers (N = 390) in the Iranian context. After collecting data through four electronic questionnaires, standard multiple regression analysis was performed. The results indicated that autonomy, emotions, and engagement could be significant predicators of language teacher immunity. More specifically, the findings suggested that teacher autonomy had the strongest explanatory power in predicting experienced in-service EFL teachers’ immunity. In addition, regarding the inextricable connection between EFL teachers’ immunity, autonomy, engagement, and emotions, the centrality of language teacher immunity was underscored. These findings contribute to the field of teacher education by depicting the areas on which educators should focus to develop EFL teachers’ immunity. The findings imply that providing experienced EFL teachers with opportunities to exercise autonomy, demonstrate commitment, and regulate emotions through teacher education courses can be helpful to facilitate their productive immunity development. Finally, suggestions for future research are offered.

Computational methods of brain-to-brain coupling during human interaction

Hyperscanning—the simultaneous recording of hemodynamic or neuroelectric activity of the brain——is the new technology to directly observe the brain communication between individuals. Since the publication of the first hyperscanning study in 2002, it has developed rapidly in the past decade. Brain-to-brain coupling (BBC) technology of human interaction was widely used in the research of action coordination, cooperative game, classroom teaching and other interactive tasks, which involved the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), Electroencephalogram (EEG), magnetoencephalography (MEG), functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and other neuroimaging technologies. In addition, hyperscanning research experienced a leap from pseudo-interaction to real interaction, a leap from a strictly controlled laboratory paradigm to the “field research” paradigm in nature situations. Based on the differentiation and analysis of the core concepts such as coupling and synchronization, taking the development of time and technology as the main line, this paper reviewed the common BBC indicators and their application conditions, introduced the related theories and forecasted the future research direction of BBC. In hyperscanning study, BBC refers to the interaction and influence of two or more brains, or between two or more brain regions within a single brain, while the inter-brain synchronization (IBS) refers to the consistency (relative stability) in frequency, phase, and other characteristics of signals from different brain or different regions of the brain. Thus, the similarities and differences between hyperscanning, BBC and IBS can be summarized as follows: Hyperscanning is the technique of recording the neural activity of two or more brains simultaneously. BBC refers to the interaction or interaction between two or more brains. BBC sometimes manifests as IBS, the degree of IBS can represent the strength of BBC in this case, but BBC is not the same as IBS: (1) In addition to IBS, BBC can also be manifested as functional connections and interactions between the brains; (2) due to the possibility of pseudo-synchronization, the occurrence of IBS does not mean that there must be BBC. In the field of physics and electronic engineering, the characteristics of a signal can be described by multiple indicators such as amplitude, period, frequency and phase. Accordingly, neurologic studies have found that brain activity induced by external events may take the form of phase response, frequency response, amplitude response, and production of new components. Therefore, it is not surprising that many different indicators are used to characterize the strength of BBC in existing hyperscanning studies. These indicators including the circular correlation coefficient (CCorr), wavelet transform coherence (WTC), directed coherence, phase-locking value (PLV), the coupling indexes based on the event-related potentials (ERP) such as the latency difference and the amplitude difference, the coupling indexes based on the Graph Theory such as the shortest path length, global efficiency, local efficiency, divisibility, modularity, small-word network. Through the review, we found the following three issues deserve the attention of the future hyperscanning research. Firstly, as different coupling indicators have different characteristics and applicable conditions, we suggest that the selection of indicators should be based on specific research methods, technical equipment and research problems. There are no best indicators, only the most suitable ones. Secondly, the existing theory of BBC is not complete, integrating existing theories and proposing theories with stronger explanatory power should be the focus of future hyperscanning theory research. Thirdly, there are many forms of coupling in neural processing, and the meaning of coupling is different in different forms. Therefore, it is necessary to take into account the comprehensive consideration of the specific research task type, interactive mode and other factors when discussing the significance of coupling.

Exposure to catastrophe risk and use of reinsurance: an empirical evaluation for the U.S.

Reinsurance has long been used for tail risk protection. There is ample anecdotal information from practitioners about this dimension of reinsurance. The subject, however, remains largely unexplored in the academic literature given the lack of data about non-proportional reinsurance contracts. We develop a novel approach to measure the use of non-proportional reinsurance and use it to disentangle reinsurance used for catastrophe risk protection from reinsurance used for other motivations, for example regulatory capital relief. Our findings rely on a new measure of catastrophe risk that has strong explanatory power about insurers’ behaviour towards risk beyond what has been captured by existing measures.

Knowledge Diffusion and Morality: Why Do We Freely Share Valuable Information with Strangers?

Technology enables individuals, scientists, and organizations to share valuable data and knowledge in new ways, not possible before. Scholars are divided on how this phenomenon emerges, especially among strangers. The classical homo oeconomicus type of preference does not provide an explanation for this behavior. If individuals were simply self-centered, they would choose to keep for themselves the valuable information they hold, especially in the absence of any contract or guarantee of reciprocity. In this paper, we explain why some individuals are willing to share valuable knowledge at their own cost by crafting a model with heterogeneously-moral individuals involved in a sharing social dilemma. Our model builds on the recent literature showing that moral incentives are favored by evolution theoretically and have a strong explanatory power empirically. Our analysis highlights the limit of financial incentives, and the importance of promoting a sharing culture by enhancing awareness. Shedding light on how people respond not only to financial but also moral incentives, we contribute to the ongoing policy debate on the design of efficient open science policies.

Potential of Highly Automated Vehicles for Monitoring Fatigued Drivers and Explaining Traffic Accidents on Motorway Sections

The near-future deployment of high-level automation vehicles (AVs) can render promising opportunities to solve ongoing hindrances in modern safety-related research. Monitoring fatigued drivers on any road section is one of these challenges. Vehicle trajectory big data, monitored through AVs, include key information with which to monitor fatigued drivers on roads. To mine this upcoming opportunity, a new data-driven approach which allows the direct monitoring of fatigued drivers on road segments is proposed here for the first time. A feasible study was conducted using big vehicle trajectory data and real-life traffic accident data. The results showed that fatigued drivers on a target road section can be successfully surveyed using the driving durations from departure locations to the target road section. It was found that, with a statistical correlation of 0.90, an index for fatigued drivers has strong explanatory power about the traffic accident rate. This finding indicates that the proposed method will be a promising means by which to monitor fatigued drivers at road locations in the upcoming era of autonomous vehicles. In addition, the method is immediately practicable if vehicle trajectory data are available.

语言学理论视野下的汉韩动词分类体系对比研究综述

Since the 21st century, with the broadening of research region and the emergence of new linguistic theories, the classification of Chinese-Korean verbs in academic circle is no longer limited to the perspective of classification under traditional grammar rules. There has been research on the classification of verbs from new perspectives such as light verb theory, typology linguistics, cognitive linguistics, and the research results show that new subcategories such as light verbs, unaccusativeverbs and unergative verbs, absolutive verbs and ergative verbs have been applied. The Chinese-Korean internal structure of the verb systems have changed as well, showing the trend that the subcategories become more differentiated, but the internal structure is more concise and has stronger explanatory power. After comparing the new and the old classification systems of Chinese-Korean verbs and summarizing the classification and subcategories of verbs in Chinese and Korean, it can be seen that the Chinese-Korean linguistic circle attach great importance to the application of new theories when studying the subcategories of verbs; but the Chinese academic circle seem to be one step ahead in the application of the new theory to constructing the macroscopic study of verb system; and the research on the classification system of verbs in Korean still needs improvement.

Potentialities of Vehicle Trajectory Big Data for Monitoring Potentially Fatigued Drivers and Explaining Vehicle Crashes on Motorway Sections

Task-related fatigue, caused by prolonged driving, is a major cause of vehicle crashes. Despite noticeable academic achievements, monitoring drivers’ fatigue on road sections is still an ongoing challenge which must be met to prevent and reduce traffic accidents. Fortunately, individual instances of vehicle trajectory big data collected through advanced vehicle-GPS systems offer a strong opportunity to trace driving durations. We propose a new approach by which to monitor task-related fatigued drivers by directly using the ratio of potentially fatigued drivers (RFD) to all drivers for each road section. The method used to compute the RFD index was developed based on two inputs: the distribution of the driving duration (extracted from vehicle trajectory data), and the boundary condition of the driving duration between fatigued and non-fatigued states. We demonstrate the potentialities of the method using vehicle trajectory big data and real-life traffic accident data. Results showed that the measured RFD has a strong explanatory power with regard to the traffic accident rate, with a statistical correlation of 0.86 at least, for regional motorway sections. Therefore, it is expected that the proposed approach is a feasible means of successfully monitoring fatigued drivers in the present and near future era of smart-mobility big data.

From Multiple Streams to Muddling Through: Policy Process Theories and “Field of Vision”

AbstractContemporary policy process theories are used to explain important aspects of the policy process, including the emergence or change of policies over time. However, these theories vary notably in their composition, such as their scope of analytical space, key concepts and assumptions, models of individual decision-making, and relationships between process-relevant factors and actors. There is little guidance on which theory may be best suited for explaining particular policy outcomes or how the different elements of the theories influence their analytical power. To begin to address this gap in the literature, a comparative analysis applied four established policy process theories to explain the emergence of the same policy outcome, a set of environmental policies associated with the North American Free Trade Agreement, while varying the analytical space or “field of vision” spatially and temporally. Overall, each theory demonstrated strong explanatory power but within analytical spaces of different scales, which indicates that the dimensionality aspects aspects the analytical space of policy process theories may contribute to a convergence in shared knowledge.

Why do firms manage their stock price levels?

Building on the catering hypothesis and institutional investor preference literature, we propose a generalized catering hypothesis that managers cater their share price level to different types of investor (individual vs institutional) in order to attract them, conditional on the firm’s preferences as to ownership mix. We show that an institutional ownership premium provides strong explanatory power to the change in share price norm. This evidence supports our hypothesis that managers cater their share price level to the preference of institutional investors, but only when there is substantial benefit in doing so. Further tests reveal that the premium is higher for long term than for short term investors.

The spatiotemporal evolution and influencing factors of hotel industry in the metropolitan area: An empirical study based on China.

Through the online booking platform, 10,543 big data of spatial and temporal distribution of Beijing hotel industry has been obtained in this paper. Then, the methods of GIS and the geographical detector are used to study the spatiotemporal evolution process and the influencing factors of Beijing hotel industry during 2003–2018. The results are as follows: a. During the period of 2003–2018, the hotel industry in Beijing maintained a high growth rate and had three growth peaks in 2008, 2010 and 2014. Meanwhile, major historical events, such as the Olympic Games had a significant influence on the development of the hotel industry. b. Between 2003 and 2018, the hotel industry in Beijing gradually developed from the centripetal agglomeration to aggregation + diffusion, and also from the single center to the multi-center. Besides, various hotels presented two characteristics of city orientation and scenic orientation. c. The natural geographical environment had shaped the overall pattern and characteristics of the spatial distribution of the hotel industry in Beijing, and the socio-economic factors such as commercial activities, public facilities, tourism services and traffic conditions significantly influenced the location selection of the hotel industry. Therefore, the urban center is the ideal area for the spatial layout of the hotel industry. d. Geographical detector research showed that the factors, such as administrative organs, road network density, leisure and recreational facilities, and companies have strong explanatory power for hotel location selection, which is an important reference index for hotels to select the micro location. This paper is a beneficial supplement to the existing research and has certain guiding significance for the sustainable development of Beijing hotel industry.