A comparative study of five Dutch disease models: a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Social Sciences at Massey University

During the past decade, the sudden and sharp increases in oil prices, coupled with the discovery and extraction of oil in the North Sea, have contributed considerable interest in the macroeconomic problems of oil-exporting countries. It is well known that a domestic oil discovery can give rise to wealth effects that cause a squeeze in the traded goods sector of an open economy. The decline of the manufacturing sector following an oil discovery is termed the 'Dutch disease', and has been investigated in many recent studies which embody a general equilibrium model. This is detailed in Chapter One where the development of Dutch disease literature is discussed. Despite the development of a wide range of the Dutch disease models, There is still a lack of consensus regarding the analysis on the issue of Dutch disease. This thesis aims to study a number of different models of the Dutch disease by focussing on the following considerations: i) the underlying theoretical framework with reference to some main-stream economic theories, such as those based on Trade theory, Neoclassical and Keynesian traditions; ii) the assumptions made within each framework regarding monetary and supply-side conditions; iii) analysis of the various effects of exogenous disturbances on the economy; and iv) evaluation of the relationship between the underlying assumptions and the conclusions drawn from the model analysis. Chapter Two outlines the classification of the Dutch disease model into three broad categories. These categories distinguish between the types of macroeconomic effects which give rise to the Dutch disease phenomenon. Detailed algebraic specification of each model, using standard notations developed for this thesis, along with the assumptions made are described in Chapter Three. Chapter Four is devoted to a comparative study of the models. In each section, two models are compared to draw out the differences in their assumptions and approach, and to show how these differences can affect their final conclusions about the effect of various exogenous disturbances. A summary of the main results of the comparative study is given in Chapter Five. Some points for further research are also briefly discussed

Unpacking Creativity for Language Teaching

Before unlocking creativity, we must first unpack what it means. In this book, creativity is unravelled from various perspectives and the relevance for language teaching and learning is explored. Tin offers a coherent discussion of creativity, adopting an inclusive and integrated but, at the same time, focused approach to creativity. Divided into 12 chapters, the book covers: • A critical review of the way the term ‘creativity’ is used, defined and written about in various disciplines • Various models and theories of creativity, the product- and process-oriented views of creativity and their relevance for language teaching • Three pillars on which creative language pedagogy should be based • Over 60 practical tasks, applying theoretical arguments and principles of creativity to language teaching and learning. Based on the author’s own practice and research on creativity over the last two decades, the book provides exciting new ideas for scholars and practitioners interested in creativity and creative language pedagogy. The book serves as an important contribution for students, teachers and scholars in the field of applied linguistics, language teaching and education

Chinese Public Attitudes Toward Epilepsy (PATE) scale: translation and psychometric evaluation

None of the quantitative scale for public attitudes toward epilepsy was translated to Chinese language. This study aimed to translate and test the validity and reliability of a Chinese version of the Public Attitudes Toward Epilepsy (PATE) scale. Methods: The translation was performed according to standard principles and tested in 140 Chinese-speaking adults aged more than 18 years for psychometric validation. Results: The items in each domain had similar standard deviations (equal item variance), ranged from 0.85-0.95 in personal domain and 0.75-1.04 in general domain. The correlation between an item and its domain was 0.4 and above for all, and higher than the correlation with the other domain. Multitrait analysis showed the Chinese PATE had a similar variance, floor and ceiling effects, and relative relationship between the domains, as the original PATE. The Chinese PATE scale showed a similar correlation with almost all demographic variable except age. Item means were generally clustered in the factor analysis as hypothesized. The Cronbach’s α values was within acceptable range (0.773) in the personal domain and satisfactory range (0.693) in the general domain. Conclusion: The Chinese PATE scale is a validated and reliable translated version in measuring the public attitudes toward epilepsy

Unpacking Creativity for Language Teaching

Before unlocking creativity, we must first unpack what it means. In this book, creativity is unravelled from various perspectives and the relevance for language teaching and learning is explored. Tin offers a coherent discussion of creativity, adopting an inclusive and integrated but, at the same time, focused approach to creativity. Divided into 12 chapters, the book covers: • A critical review of the way the term ‘creativity’ is used, defined and written about in various disciplines • Various models and theories of creativity, the product- and process-oriented views of creativity and their relevance for language teaching • Three pillars on which creative language pedagogy should be based • Over 60 practical tasks, applying theoretical arguments and principles of creativity to language teaching and learning. Based on the author’s own practice and research on creativity over the last two decades, the book provides exciting new ideas for scholars and practitioners interested in creativity and creative language pedagogy. The book serves as an important contribution for students, teachers and scholars in the field of applied linguistics, language teaching and education

Analisis Perkembangan Riset Akuntansi Keperilakuan Studi Pada Jurnal Behavioral Research in Accounting (1998-2003)

This research aims to analyze growth direction of research in journal of BRIA period 1998-2003. Growth analysis is done at topic / article content, research method, and research subject used by writer of article of BRIA 1998-2003. Topic /article content is classified using taxonomy of Birnberg and Shield (1989) which have been modified by Meyer and Rigsby (2001). Technics of descriptive analysis were used to analyze data. The results show that the most frequent topics written in BRIA as long as 1998-2003 is  Accounting Information Processing, Auditing, and Managerial Control. Most research method used are experiment (29 articles) and survey/questionaire/interview (21 articles). Type of subject most often used is accountant /auditor and student S-1. As a whole, this result not far differ from result of research of Meyer and Rigsby (2001). Thereby, until 14 year publication of BRIA, there are not growth mean in the case of topic, method, and used research subject.  This results show that we still have opportunities of doing new research in order to development of behavioral accountancy science. &nbsp

A Deep Learning Approach to Denoise Optical Coherence Tomography Images of the Optic Nerve Head

Purpose: To develop a deep learning approach to de-noise optical coherence tomography (OCT) B-scans of the optic nerve head (ONH). Methods: Volume scans consisting of 97 horizontal B-scans were acquired through the center of the ONH using a commercial OCT device (Spectralis) for both eyes of 20 subjects. For each eye, single-frame (without signal averaging), and multi-frame (75x signal averaging) volume scans were obtained. A custom deep learning network was then designed and trained with 2,328 "clean B-scans" (multi-frame B-scans), and their corresponding "noisy B-scans" (clean B-scans + gaussian noise) to de-noise the single-frame B-scans. The performance of the de-noising algorithm was assessed qualitatively, and quantitatively on 1,552 B-scans using the signal to noise ratio (SNR), contrast to noise ratio (CNR), and mean structural similarity index metrics (MSSIM). Results: The proposed algorithm successfully denoised unseen single-frame OCT B-scans. The denoised B-scans were qualitatively similar to their corresponding multi-frame B-scans, with enhanced visibility of the ONH tissues. The mean SNR increased from $4.02 \pm 0.68$ dB (single-frame) to $8.14 \pm 1.03$ dB (denoised). For all the ONH tissues, the mean CNR increased from $3.50 \pm 0.56$ (single-frame) to $7.63 \pm 1.81$ (denoised). The MSSIM increased from $0.13 \pm 0.02$ (single frame) to $0.65 \pm 0.03$ (denoised) when compared with the corresponding multi-frame B-scans. Conclusions: Our deep learning algorithm can denoise a single-frame OCT B-scan of the ONH in under 20 ms, thus offering a framework to obtain superior quality OCT B-scans with reduced scanning times and minimal patient discomfort

SPdb – a signal peptide database

BACKGROUND: The signal peptide plays an important role in protein targeting and protein translocation in both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. This transient, short peptide sequence functions like a postal address on an envelope by targeting proteins for secretion or for transfer to specific organelles for further processing. Understanding how signal peptides function is crucial in predicting where proteins are translocated. To support this understanding, we present SPdb signal peptide database , a repository of experimentally determined and computationally predicted signal peptides. RESULTS: SPdb integrates information from two sources (a) Swiss-Prot protein sequence database which is now part of UniProt and (b) EMBL nucleotide sequence database. The database update is semi-automated with human checking and verification of the data to ensure the correctness of the data stored. The latest release SPdb release 3.2 contains 18,146 entries of which 2,584 entries are experimentally verified signal sequences; the remaining 15,562 entries are either signal sequences that fail to meet our filtering criteria or entries that contain unverified signal sequences. CONCLUSION: SPdb is a manually curated database constructed to support the understanding and analysis of signal peptides. SPdb tracks the major updates of the two underlying primary databases thereby ensuring that its information remains up-to-date

Metacuration Standards and Minimum Information about a Bioinformatics Investigation

Many bioinformatics databases published in journals are here this year and gone the next. There is generally (i) no requirement, mandatory or otherwise, by reviewers, editors or publishers for full disclosure of how databases are built and how they are maintained; (ii) no standardized requirement for data in public access databases to be kept as backup for release and access when a project ends, when funds expire and website terminates; (iii) the case of proprietary resources, there is no requirement for data to be kept in escrow for release under stated conditions such as when a published database disappears due to company closure. Consequently, much of the biological databases published in the past twenty years are easily lost, even though the publications describing or referencing these databases and webservices remain. Given the volume of publications today, even though it is practically possible for reviewers to re-create databases as described in a manuscript, there is usually insufficient disclosure and raw data for this to be done, even if there is sufficient time and resources available to perform this. Consequently, verification and validation is assumed, and claims of the paper accepted as true and correct at face value. A solution to this growing problem is to experiment with some kind of minimum standards of reporting such as the Minimum Information About a Bioinformatics Investigation (MIABi) and standardized requirements of data deposition and escrow for enabling persistence and reproducibility. With easy availability of cloud computing, such a level of reproducibility can become a reality in the near term. Through standards in meta-curation and minimum standards of reporting that uphold the tenets of scientific reproducibility, verifiability, sustainability and continuity of data resources, the knowledge preserved will underpin tomorrow's scientific research. Other issues include disambiguation of authors or database names, and unique identifiers to support non-repudiability, possibly in multiple languages. The International Conference on Bioinformatics and its publications are now in the process of making attempts at addressing these issues and this presentation will highlight some of the current efforts