Income Inequality and Stock Pricing in the U.S. Market

In this research, the effect of income inequality as measured by the share of national income going to the wealthiest 10% of the nation in the U.S. is assessed for its significance at explaining stock returns in the U.S from 1927 to 2012. Income inequality has always been an important economic indicator and it has the potential to become one of the fundamental sources of risk that affect stock prices. By utilizing the Fama-French three-factor model, this research obtains the inequality beta coefficient, and the inequality risk premium. In turn, the findings of this research suggest the existence of a relationship between income inequality and the rate of market participation, which ultimately influences the rate of return on stocks

An investigation of cellulase activity assays

Includes vita."The economy of the world has been seriously affected by increased demands for energy and food. The price of gasoline gradually has gone up while more children have died in poor countries before the age of five from malnutrition. Ways must be found to solve these problems for the growing world population. Cellulose is the major organic material in the world with an annual production of 10^11 tons/year 1n the forms of cotton, lumber, pulp wood, etc., which could be converted Into energy and food. Numerous conventional processes have been proposed to obtain other chemicals from cellulosics such as gasification at high temperature to form synthesis gas, liquefaction under high pressure to produce oil, and pyrolysis to charcoal, gas and oil. Several unconventional processes have been developed for the biological conversion of cellulose to useful nutritional products by the hydrolysis of cellulose to glucose. Glucose can be used as food by man and animals, converted microbially into single-cell protein, or fermented to ethanol for use as a fuel."--Introduction.Includes bibliographical references

The Current Adoption of Dry-Direct Seeding Rice (DDSR) in Thailand and Lessons Learned for Mekong River Delta of Vietnam

The paper documents the joint study trip, organized by CCAFS Southeast Asia for Vietnamese rice researchers, extension workers, as well as local decision makers, to visit Thailand in April 2018. The goal of the study trip was to observe and learn the experience of Thai farmers on the large-scale adoption process of dry-direct seeding rice (DDSR), a viable alternative to address regional scarcity of fresh water in irrigation caused by the drought and salinity intrusion in the Mekong River Delta

Artificial intelligent based teaching and learning approaches: A comprehensive review

The goal of this study is to investigate the potential effects that Artificial intelligence (AI) could have on education. The narrative and framework for investigating AI that emerged from the preliminary research served as the basis for the study’s emphasis, which was narrowed down to the use of AI and its effects on administration, instruction, and student learning. According to the findings, artificial intelligence has seen widespread adoption and use in education, particularly by educational institutions and in various contexts and applications. The development of AI began with computers and technologies related to computers; it then progressed to web-based and online intelligent education systems; and finally, it applied embedded computer systems in conjunction with other technologies, humanoid robots, and web-based chatbots to execute instructor tasks and functions either independently or in partnership with instructors. By utilizing these platforms, educators have been able to accomplish a variety of administrative tasks. In addition, because the systems rely on machine learning and flexibility, the curriculum and content have been modified to match the needs of students. This has led to improved learning outcomes in the form of higher uptake and retention rates

The cycle of commodification: migrant labour, welfare, and the market in global China and Vietnam

China and Vietnam have experienced waves of labour and welfare reform since both countries shifted to market socialism, pursuing a development model that depends on the labour of millions of rural–urban migrants in global factories. Their similar development trajectories are productive for theorizing the relationship between labour and welfare. This article conceptualises the two countries’ distinctive regime of migrant labour welfare as integral to a cycle of commodifcation that encompasses the overlapping processes of commodifcation, de-commodifcation and recommodifcation of labour. After decades of collectivized labour under state socialism, the cycle begins with the commodifcation of labour through market reforms that led to mass rural–urban migration and the rise of the global factory alongside the dismantling of the former socialist welfare system. It was then followed by decommodifcation attempts aimed at providing forms of social protection that ofset the labour precarity caused by decades of labour market liberalisation. Despite the emergence of new universal welfare programs, the market has increasingly intruded into social protection, especially through fnancialized products targeted at the labouring masses who must compensate for the failings of public welfare programs. As such, these welfare regimes are undergoing a process of re-commodifcation in which the protection of labour is re-embedded into the market as a commodity to be consumed by the migrant workers with their meagre wages. The “cycle of commodifcation” ofers an analytical framework to understand welfare regimes as a social and political feld that keeps evolving in response to the changing global valuation of labour

Energy harvesting over Rician fading channel: A performance analysis for half-duplex bidirectional sensor networks under hardware impairments

In this paper, a rigorous analysis of the performance of time-switching energy harvesting strategy that is applied for a half-duplex bidirectional wireless sensor network with intermediate relay over a Rician fading channel is presented to provide the exact-form expressions of the outage probability, achievable throughput and the symbol-error-rate (SER) of the system under the hardware impairment condition. Using the proposed probabilistic models for wireless channels between mobile nodes as well as for the hardware noises, we derive the outage probability of the system, and then the throughput and SER can be obtained as a result. Both exact analysis and asymptotic analysis at high signal-power-to-noise-ratio regime are provided. Monte Carlo simulation is also conducted to verify the analysis. This work confirms the effectiveness of energy harvesting applied in wireless sensor networks over a Rician fading channel, and can provide an insightful understanding about the effect of various parameters on the system performance.Web of Science186art. no. 1781

Dental Treatment Approach in Cantho University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Vietnam

The traditional morphological concept to dental care has shown many drawbacks and is not appropriate in many cases. To counteract these shortcomings, a problem-solving approach has been introduced in dental curriculum of Cantho University of Medicine and Pharmacy (CTUMP), Vietnam. This approach should be reflected in dental practice in CTUMP. Objective: To investigate the problem-solving approach to dental care of CTUMP by patterns of tooth extraction, and tooth rehabilitation. Methods: Cross-sectional data on DMF, dental treatments planned, dental treatments delivered from 1549 dental records of patients aged ≥18 of CTUMP were analyzed. Results: The majority of patients were aged 18-29 (929, 60%), classified as professional and skilled workers (1112 subjects, 72%), lived in urban areas (1156 subjects, 75%), and women (932, 60%). The number of teeth eventually receiving dental treatment was lower than the number of teeth indicated for the treatment. On average, each patient had 2 teeth receiving treatment. Tooth restoration was the most common treatment (1390, 70%). Molars were the most treated teeth (842, 43%). Molars showed statistically significant higher chance for restoration and extraction than premolars and anterior teeth (Wilcoxon-signed-ranks test p ≤ 0.017). No statistically significance was found in tooth replacement between premolar and molar regions. The dental treatments aimed to preserve all teeth regardless of dental regions. Tooth replacement may tend to be morphologically based rather than functionally as most prostheses restored the complete dental arch. Conclusions: The approach to dental care in CTUMP tends to be morphologically conservative.DOI: 10.14693/jdi.v22i1.37