The Role of Non-Parity Fundamentals in Exchange Rate Determination: Australia and the Asia Pacific Region

This paper extends the literature by looking at the contribution of non-parity variables after extracting the impact of parity variables on exchange rates of Australia and the Asia Pacific countries. Exchange rates are examined using high- and low-frequency multi-country panel time series data for a group of trade-related nations in the Asia Pacific, including Japan. Our findings suggest that exchange rate is affected by growth rate, and trade and capital flows: other less significant variables include sovereign debt; balance of payments; money supply; and trade openness. It also confirms that interest rate has significant effect on exchange rates while price effect is not significant in short run regressions. These key findings are robust across different time intervals, thus showing new findings on the exchange rate dynamics consistent with theories.

Government public policy, regulatory intervention, and their impact on IPO underpricing: the case of Malaysian IPOs

This study examines the impact of government initial public offering (IPO) regulation intending on promoting public policy. The study examines the results of the implementation of a Malaysian government policy in 1976, which mandated that at least 30 percent of any new shares on an IPO offer be sold to the indigenous Bumiputera population or to mutual funds owned by them. The study examined the short-run and long-run underpricing of Malaysian IPOs and found that Malaysian IPOs are highly underpriced compared to IPOs in developing countries, creating a market microstructure effect. It also confirmed that the Malaysian government's regulatory intervention in spite of noble public policy intentions appeared to be the significant factor for the emergence of an average first-day underpricing increase of Malaysian IPOs by 61 percent during the period after the regulatory economic policy was instituted. Furthermore, the study found that this high underpricing persists even for the long run, in contrast to the long-run performance of IPOs in the United States

Isolation of a kojic acid-producing fungus capable of using starch as a carbon source

A fungal strain (S33-2), able to grow on cooked starch and produce a substantially high level of kojic acid, was isolated from morning glory flower (Bixa orellana). The fungus was characterized and identified as Aspergillus flavus. The effect of different types of starch (sago, potato and corn starch) on growth of strain S33-2 and kojic acid production was examined using shake flasks. It was found that strain S33-2 grew well on all types of starch investigated. However, kojic acid production was highest when corn starch was used, with the maximum kojic acid obtained being comparable to fermentation using glucose. The highest kojic acid production (19.2 g l-1) was obtained when 75 g l-1 corn starch was used. This gave a yield, based on starch consumed, and an overall productivity of 0.256 g g-1 and 0.04 g l-1 h-1, respectively

Cross match-CHMM fusion for speaker adaptation of voice biometric

The most significant factor affecting automatic voice biometric performance is the variation in the signal characteristics, due to speaker-based variability, conversation-based variability and technology variability. These variations give great challenge in accurately modeling and verifying a speaker. To solve this variability effects, the cross match (CM) technique is proposed to provide a speaker model that can adapt to variability over periods of time. Using limited amount of enrollment utterances, a client barcode is generated and can be updated by cross matching the client barcode with new data. Furthermore, CM adds the dimension of multimodality at the fusion-level when the similarity score from CM can be fused with the score from the default speaker modeling. The scores need to be normalized before the fusion takes place. By fusing the CM with continuous Hidden Markov Model (CHMM), the new adapted model gave significant improvement in identification and verification task, where the equal error rate (EER) decreased from 6.51% to 1.23% in speaker identification and from 5.87% to 1.04% in speaker verification. EER also decreased over time (across five sessions) when the CM is applied. The best combination of normalization and fusion technique methods is piecewise-linear method and weighted sum

Training needs assessment in Malaysia: Exercise held at Kuala Lampur and Kota Bharu from 13th October 1989

Training / Irrigation / Evaluation / Malaysia

The important role of concurrent engineering in product development process

Nowadays, Concurrent Engineering (CE) is becoming more important as companies compete in the worldwide market. Reduced time in product development process, higher product quality, lower cost in manufacturing process and fulfilment of customers' requirements are the key factors to determine the success of a company. To produce excellent products, the concept of Concurrent Engineering must be implemented. Concurrent Engineering is a systematic approach which can be achieved when all design activities are integrated and executed in a parallel manner. The CE approach has radically changed the method used in product development process in many companies. Thus, this paper reviews the basic principles and tools of Concurrent Engineering and discusses how to employ them. Similarly, to ensure a product development process in the CE environment to run smoothly and efficiently, some modifications of the existing product development processes are proposed; these should start from market investigation to detail design

A panel of cultivate specific marker based on polymorphisms at microsatellite markers for Iranian cultivated Almonds (Prunus dulcis).

Molecular markers developed for Prunus also offer a powerful tool to study the evolution of the genome, and for understanding of genome structure and determinants of genetic diversity. Two hundred eighty almond genotypes/cultivars from different origins distributed throughout Iran besides some foreign cultivars and their hybrids with Iranian ones were collected. Microsatellite analysis was carried out using 9 pair flanking SSR sequences previously cloned and sequenced specifically in almond. The total number of detected alleles was 152 (9 to 20 alleles per locus with an average of 16.87). The mean PIC value of the polymorphic loci wasrelatively high (0.81) and the mean value for He was 0.83, so that we were able to distinguish 98% of the genotypes using 5 loci. Incluster analysis, the genotypes were divided into 2 major groups, foreign cultivars and Iranian almond genotypes. Principal coordinate analysis based on Shared Allele method indicated proper distribution of the studied markers through the genome. Some specific markers were recorded among the germ plasm which can be used efficiently in rapid and precise identification of the related genotypes and also in breeding programs through MAS. Genotypes were coded using our suggested coding method for genotype molecular identification

Maturing pattern for body weight, body length and height at withers of Jamnapari and Boer goats

The objective of this study was to examine the growth pattern of three size measurements, namely body weight, body length, and height at withers of Jamnapari and Boer goats reared under common semi-intensive environment in Johor, Malaysia. Cross-sectional data of the above measurements of 234 Jamnapari and 312 Boer female goats (age ranged from 6 to 54 months) were used to fit Gompertz and von Bertalanffy growth curve models for the estimation of mature size, constant of integration, and maturing rate for the three size measurements. Jamnapari and Boer female goats were found to be significantly different (p<0.05) in term of their mature weight (52.19 and 58.23 kg, respectively, for the Gompertz model and 53.89 and 59.31 kg, respectively, for the von Bertalanffy model). The estimates of height at maturity were significantly larger (p<0.05) for the Jamnapari than Boer females. Although the maturing rate for body weight of the Jamnapari and Boer goats was not different, but their rates of maturing for body length and height at withers were found to be significantly different (p<0.05). The correlation coefficients between the mature size and rate of maturing for their body weight, body length, and height at withers were negative, implying that goats of larger size measurements tended to have a slower growth rate in relation to their mature size

Numerical prediction of air flow within street canyons based on different two-equation k-ε models

Numerical simulations on airflow within street canyons were performed to investigate the effect of the street aspect ratio and wind speed on velocity profiles inside a street canyon. Three-dimensional Standard, Renormalization Group (RNG) and Realizable k-ε turbulence model are employed using the commercial CFD code FLUENT to solve the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations. A comparison of the results from the presently adopted models with those previously published demonstrated that the k-e model is most reliable when simulating wind flow. The model is then employed to predict the flow structures in a street canyon for a range of aspect ratios (building height to street width ratio) between 0.5-2 at Reynolds number of 9000, 19200 and 30700 corresponding to the ambient wind speeds of 0.68m/s, 1.46m/s and 2.32m/s respectively. It is observed that the flow structure in the street canyon is influenced by the buildings aspect ratios and prevailing wind speeds. As the street aspect ratio increases, the air ventilation within the canyon reduces.</p