Do Japanese Foreign Direct Investment and Trade Stimulate Agricultural Growth in East Asia? Panel Cointegration Analysis

The agricultural sector is an important sector that most people in East Asia rely on and growth in this sector may help to lift their standard of living. This study assessed what factors contributed to agricultural growth by applying the panel econometric approach. First, the long-run relationship between the agriculture growth and its explanatory variable was investigated by applying the IPS unit root test and Pedroni panel cointegration test. The results indicated that all variables showed an integration of order unity, and showed strong evidence to support the existence of long-run relationship. The results from Fixed Effect (FE) regression indicated that imports, exports and trade liberalization were the important factors that contributed to growth in China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, and Thailand. Thus, promoting trade policy in these countries would stimulate the agricultural growth. In contrast, only imports and trade liberalization were important factors contributing to growth in Korea and Taiwan. The study also found that Japanese FDI significantly helped to stimulate the growth, but the evidence was weak in the case of Korea and Taiwan. The finding of this study will help policy makers to understand the likely implications of possible future policies. The agricultural sectors of countries cannot rely solely on internal factors such as land and labor to promote agricultural growth. Agricultural growth requires more trade liberalization, especially when imports are an important factor for promoting growth. Attempting to lower imports would lead to retarded growth. Meanwhile, appropriate policies to attract Japanese FDI into the agricultural sector are also important in order to help accelerate growth in this sector.Agricultural growth, East Asia, Foreign Direct Investment, Trade, Panel Data, International Relations/Trade, O4, Q17, R0,

Fatigue During High-Intensity Exercise: Relationship to the Critical Power Concept

The hyperbolic power-duration relationship for high-intensity exercise is defined by two parameters: an asymptote (critical power; CP) reflecting the highest sustainable rate of oxidative metabolism, and a curvature constant (W'), which indicates a fixed amount of work that can be completed above CP (W>CP). According to the CP model of bioenergetics, constant work rate exercise above CP depletes the capacity-limited W' with fatigue occurring when W' is completely expended. The complete depletion of W' has been reported to occur when VO2max is attained and a critical degree of muscle metabolic perturbation (decline of finite anaerobic substrates and accumulation of fatigue-related metabolites) is reached. However, while the CP model is effective at predicting metabolic perturbation and the tolerable duration of severe-intensity constant work rate (CWR) exercise, it is unclear if metabolic perturbation and exercise performance can be explained by the CP model when different methods of work rate imposition are applied. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis was to: 1) investigate the efficacy of the CP concept to predict performance in exercise tests using different work rate forcing functions; and 2) explore whether the physiological bases for W' are consistent across different methods of work rate imposition. In study 1, compared to severe-intensity CWR exercise, the tolerable duration of intermittent severe-intensity exercise with heavy- (S-H) moderate- (S-M) and light-intensity (S-L) ‘recovery’ intervals was increased by 47%, 100% and 219%, respectively. W>CP (W') was significantly greater by 46%, 98%, and 220% for S-H, S-M and S-L, respectively, when compared to S-CWR, and the slopes for the increases in VO2 and iEMG were progressively lowered as the recovery work rate was reduced. In study 2, both the VO2max and W>CP were similar across incremental cycling protocols that imposed a fixed ramp rate and cadence (4.33 ± 0.60 L•min-1; 14.8 ± 9.2 kJ), a fixed ramp rate with cadence self-selected by the subjects (4.31 ± 0.62 L•min-1; 15.0 ± 9.9 kJ) and a step incremental test where subjects were instructed to select power output according to prescribed increments in ratings of perceived exertion (4.36 ± 0.59 L•min-1; 13.0 ± 8.4 kJ). In study 3, the VO2max and W>CP were also not different across a 3 min all-out cycling test (4.10 ± 0.79 L•min-1; 16.5 ± 4.0 kJ), cycling at a constant work rate predicted to lead to exhaustion in 3 min until the limit of tolerance (4.20 ± 0.77 L•min-1; 16.6 ± 7.4 kJ) and a self-paced 3 min work-trial (4.14 ± 0.75 L•min-1; 15.3 ± 5.6 kJ). In study 4, after completing severe-intensity exercise (>CP) to exhaustion, muscle homeostasis ([PCr], pH, [ADP] and [Pi]) returned towards baseline and subjects were able to exercise for at least 10 min at a heavy-intensity work rate (CP), muscle metabolites ([PCr], pH, [ADP] and [Pi]) did not recover and exercise tolerance was severely limited (39 ± 31 s). Finally in study 5, during severe-intensity intermittent knee extension exercise, the tolerable duration of exercise was 304 ± 68 s when 18 s recovery was allowed and was increased by ~69% and ~179% when the intermittent recovery periods were extended to 30 s and 48 s, respectively. The increased exercise tolerance with longer recovery periods occurred in concert with increased W>CP (3.8 ± 1.0 kJ, 5.6 ± 1.8 kJ and 7.9 ± 3.1 kJ for the intermittent protocols with 18, 30 and 48 s of recovery, respectively) and a delayed attainment of critical intramuscular metabolite concentrations ([PCr], pH, [ADP] and [Pi]). Therefore, the results of this thesis demonstrate that fatigue during various high-intensity exercise protocols is influenced by the capacity to complete work above the CP (W') and that W' depletion is linked to the attainment of VO2max and the attainment of critical levels of intramuscular [PCr], pH, [ADP] and [Pi]. These findings suggest that the CP model can be adapted to predict the degree of metabolic perturbation and exercise performance across a range of exercise settings in humans

Upgrading Thai Folk-Designed Rehabilitative Devices for Children with Cerebral Palsy: A Systematic Approach

Assistive devices born of indigenous inventiveness possess great potential for systematic refinement through the use of modern design technologies. This paper presents a product development process that began with the selection of suitable folk-designed devices for incorporating into a single new product – an integrated assistive device for children afflicted with cerebral palsy. The process then followed the procedures given by the Sensuous Association Method (SAM) and the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) to arrive at an optimal design. The finished product incorporates functions for rehabilitating five neuro-motor skills of the afflicted children. After six months of field testing with a sample of nine users, the new product was found to deliver statistically significant benefits to the trial users, i.e. overall strengthening of their gross motor functions. Their sitting skill, in particular, was found to have improved the most

Acceptance of Using Thai Air Asia’s Online Application of Thai Senior Citizens

This research mainly aimed to 1) study the acceptance of Thai Air Asia Airline’s Application and 2) to study the variables affecting the senior citizens’ acceptance of the airline. The research instrument was the questionnaires which were distributed to 400 Thai senior citizens. The statistics were frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, t-test, One-Way ANOVA at a statistical significance level of 0.05. The results found that mostly respondents were females, ages between 60-74, having lower than bachelor degree level, the current or previous occupation before retirement was freelancers, staying and learning from their children, frequency of use was 1-2 times per year, and objective of flying was travelling. The results of overall acceptance of Thai Air Asia’s online application was at a high level (mean = 3.70, S.D.= 0.909). The hypothesis testing found that the different education level, occupation, learning, frequency of use and objectives of travelling, not genders and age ranges affected the acceptance level. The results showed that learning and social factor, particularly staying with their children and learning from the children were the factors affecting the senior  citizens’ acceptance level of Thai Air Asia Airline’s application.&nbsp

DISCOURSE OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN THAI MASS MEDIA: A TRANSMISSION OF PATRIARCHY THROUGH THE LANGUAGE

Since its beginnings, feminism has studied the relationship between men and women which is based on sexual inequality.  It indicated that the needs of men to dominate women has lead to sexual violence at present.  This concept, sometimes called ‘Patriarchy’, was implemented almost at the same time as the beginning of urbanization.  Patriarchism is the concept that men have the power to oppress women.  It is the power in society, ideology, family, and the political system which men use to oppress directly or through worship, law, language, custom,  idioms, education as well as the division of labour in which women are always less powerful.  Patriarchism is the system by which men use the law, culture and religion to give them the confidence that they have more power than women.  Therefore, they use violence because women are lower in status and they need women to be lower in status.  This also affects men’s need to overcome their sense of alienation caused by women’s fertility whereby women give birth and raise children.  This article focuses on the discourse about violence against women through the language of various Thai media, which reflects the transformation of the patriarchy mechanism to the social truth establishment by the media

Earnings Management and Audit Quality: Evidence from Southeast Asia

This thesis contributes quantitative and qualitative evidence from Southeast Asia to the literature on earnings management and audit quality. The association between earnings management and audit quality is investigated primarily by a new measure of audit quality and a new probit model. The new probit model tests the degree to which audit firms can be tolerant of earnings management at different levels of the artificial audit materiality. The tests of the probit model cover time-series data from 1992 to 2011 for 2,148 listed companies in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand with a total of 20,757 firm-year observations. To extend the results of the probit model and to explore the stakeholders of audits’ perspectives on earnings management and audit quality, 16 semi-structured interviews with respondents from the audit firms, the listed companies, the regulators and the academic institute in Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore are also conducted. This thesis finds that the term earnings management is seen differently from its extant definition. In addition, this thesis provides evidence that the different roles in the process of an audit lead to different definitions and measures of audit quality; therefore, audit quality remains an imprecise measure. The evidence of this thesis also indicates that in the context of Southeast Asia, big firms have higher quality audits than non-big firms. This is likely to be because big firms are more concerned with their reputation and the serious consequences of an audit failure and big firms are perceived to have more resources. This thesis also explores whether long audit tenure impacts audit quality. The evidence on this suggests that audit partner rotation rather than audit firm rotation is being appointed by key stakeholders. Moreover, there is evidence that in comparison to audit firms from Singapore, those from Malaysia are more tolerant of earnings management whilst those from Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand are less so. This thesis goes on to explore the possible impact of some national level factors such as the number of registrant audit firms, the use of non-English standards, corporate governance and type of legal system. From the probit model tests, it was found that non-English accounting standards and a limited number of registrant audit firms did not restrict audit quality, as perceived by some key stakeholders of audits

Small-Scale Turned Windrow to Manage Residue Waste of Curcuma Nursery

AbstractA small-scale of turned windrow system was applied to recycle the residue waste from curcuma nursery as compostmaterial. The mixture was piled with cow manure, pig manure, residue waste, and used sawdust at the ratio of 1:0.1:0.9:0.6 (wet weight basis), and adjusted to the initial C/N ratio of 30 and moisture content between 50-60%. The performance of two replicates of composting piles (width 1.5m, length 2 m and height 1.5m) was investigated by measuring physical and chemical parameters including temperature, moisture content, pH, C, and C/N. The effect of composting ages to plant toxicity includingseed germination, root length, and germination index of three plant species (Canton lettuce, Chinese spinach, and Cucumber) wasexamined. The result indicated that both piles achieved thermophile phase (50-60oC) within 3 days and remained at this level for 20 days, thus satisfying the PFRPs (Process to Further Reduce Pathogens). The rate constant (k rate) for organic C decomposition which follows first-order kinetic model and the dry mass loss of both piles were about 0.013 day-1 and 24-33%, respectively. The phytotoxicity test indicated that the inhibitory effects of compost on seed germination, root length, and germination index (GI) of three plant species were observed in the first 20 days of composting and decreased with the age of compost onwards. The qualities of final compost of replicates were acceptable and similar to the recommended criteria regulated by Department of Agriculture of Thailand (2548 B.E.). It is also recommended that two months is suitable composting period for this investigation and turning every 15 days should be adopted for an effective process

The semantics of Chemical Markup Language (CML) for computational chemistry : CompChem.

: This paper introduces a subdomain chemistry format for storing computational chemistry data called CompChem. It has been developed based on the design, concepts and methodologies of Chemical Markup Language (CML) by adding computational chemistry semantics on top of the CML Schema. The format allows a wide range of ab initio quantum chemistry calculations of individual molecules to be stored. These calculations include, for example, single point energy calculation, molecular geometry optimization, and vibrational frequency analysis. The paper also describes the supporting infrastructure, such as processing software, dictionaries, validation tools and database repositories. In addition, some of the challenges and difficulties in developing common computational chemistry dictionaries are discussed. The uses of CompChem are illustrated by two practical applications.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

ตัวบ่งชี้ที่เหมาะสมในการประเมินสมรรถนะของนักศึกษาสหกิจศึกษา สาขาวิชาวิศวกรรมโยธา

The purposes of this research was to 1) develop the appropriate indicators for evaluating the competency of cooperative education students in civil engineering on hypothesis model with empirical data and 2) test the construct validity of the measurement model of cooperative education student in civil engineering. The sample consisted of 410 subjects comprised 326 supervisors of King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok student and 84 supervisors of Suranaree University of Technology student. The research instrument was supervisor expectation questionnaires. Data were analyzed by means, standard deviation, frequency, correlation coefficient and the goodness fit from confirmatory factor analysis. Results indicated that 1) the 30 quality indicators were developed which covered 3 main component, namely, the professional knowledge and skill component with 13 indicators, the practical knowledge and skill component with 7 indicators, and the attribute component with 10 indicators. Ranging from the highest standardized factor loading value to the lowest, they were from .94 to .73 respectively: practical knowledge and skill, attribute, and professional knowledge and skill. The standardized factor loading value were .94, .89, and .73 respectively and 2) the construct validity of models was consistent with empirical data, with chi-square goodness of fit test at 343.33 with 352 degrees of freedom; p=0.064; Goodness of Fit Index (GFI) = 0.94; Adjusted Goodness of Fit Index (AGFI) = 0.92; Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = 0.99; Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) = 0.04, and Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = 0.02 with statistically significant at p = .0