The Effects of Financial Crises on International Trade

This paper studies empirically the effects of financial crises on international trade. The major findings are that banking crises had a negative impact on imports but a positive impact on exports in the short term, whereas currency crises decreased imports in the short term and stimulated exports in the longer term.

RELIABILITY-BASED MODELING FOR MISSOURI RIVER DAM SYSTEM

Recently, the dam failure types shift from traditional causes (such as system nature of incidents) to operational risk. These failures occur because of unforeseen combinations of usual conditions. Since the operational components have complex internal and external interactions, we take them into an integrated system. Moreover, the Monte-Carlo simulation method was applied to develop a reliability-based model to study the system performance. Our approach incorporates different sources of uncertainty, including failure probability of components such as turbines and spillway gate facilities. This model allowed us to evaluate the reliability and availability of the system. The system reliability analysis helps us understand the relationship between failure modes and safety decisions made. In further, the model also allows experimenting on operational strategies as well as maintenance guidelines. This thesis presents the framework we have developed and illustrated the results and analysis of our application in the Missouri River mainstem reservoir system. In addition, four scenarios which Corps engineers are going to consider, have been applied to explicit the impacts of modeling system with different maintenance strategies. Besides, we used the stochastic time-series inflow instead of our historical data to evaluate the system performance

Lean Accounting, Fat Problem? A Critical Analysis of Lean Accounting’s Value

Lean accounting is an accounting system that is designed specifically to facilitate the application of lean manufacturing. It is considered a new tool among the various accounting methods available to management. As a managerial accounting method, the purpose of lean accounting should be to provide valuable, insightful information to management for decision-making. However, lean accounting sometimes fails to serve this ultimate purpose as a managerial accounting alternative. We conduct a case study of Toyota to examine lean accounting’s value. The analysis shows that lean accounting tends to be short-term focused, which may jeopardize a company’s long-term growth prospective. Lean accounting is also incapable of providing accurate product cost information, and therefore is unable to support a strategic decision-making process. Traditional standard costing and activity-based costing may be superior to lean accounting for long-term planning and decision-making. The potential exists for a dual system with lean accounting for tactical short-term information and either standard costing or activity-based costing for strategic long-term information

Thriving in a Pandemic: Lessons Learned from a Resilient University Program Seen Through the CoI Lens

In March 2020, college campuses underwent a sudden transformation to online learning due to the COVID-19 outbreak. To understand the impact of COVID-19 on students' expectations, this study conducted a three-year survey from ten core courses within the Project Management Center for Excellence at the University of Maryland. The study involved two main steps: 1) a statistical analysis to evaluate students' expectations regarding "student," "class," "instructor," and "effort;" and 2) a lexical salience-valence analysis (LSVA) through the lens of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework to show the changes of students' expectations. The results revealed that students' overall evaluations maintained relatively consistent amid the COVID-19 teaching period. However, there were significant shifts of the student expectations toward Cognitive, Social and Teaching Presence course elements based on LSVA results. Also, clear differences emerged between under-graduates and graduates in their expectations and preferences in course design and delivery. These insights provide practical recommendations for course instructors in designing effective online courses

A Bibliometric Review of Large Language Models Research from 2017 to 2023

Large language models (LLMs) are a class of language models that have demonstrated outstanding performance across a range of natural language processing (NLP) tasks and have become a highly sought-after research area, because of their ability to generate human-like language and their potential to revolutionize science and technology. In this study, we conduct bibliometric and discourse analyses of scholarly literature on LLMs. Synthesizing over 5,000 publications, this paper serves as a roadmap for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to navigate the current landscape of LLMs research. We present the research trends from 2017 to early 2023, identifying patterns in research paradigms and collaborations. We start with analyzing the core algorithm developments and NLP tasks that are fundamental in LLMs research. We then investigate the applications of LLMs in various fields and domains including medicine, engineering, social science, and humanities. Our review also reveals the dynamic, fast-paced evolution of LLMs research. Overall, this paper offers valuable insights into the current state, impact, and potential of LLMs research and its applications.Comment: 36 pages, 9 figures, and 4 table

Rapid Analysis of Illegal Cationic Dyes in Foods and Surface Waters Using High Temperature Direct Analysis in Real Time High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry

A high temperature desorption (HTD) direct analysis in real time-high-resolution mass spectrometric (DART-HRMS) method was developed for the rapid analysis of four banned cationic dyes. Rhodamine B is used to dye foods, while malachite green, crystal violet, and methylene blue are added to fishponds as antimicrobials. A simple induced phase separation extraction was used to pretreat samples. The DART-HRMS method employed two temperature steps, i.e., 200 °C for drying, purification, and enrichment of sample solution and 500 °C for thermal desorption and ionization of analytes. The calibration curves of dyes in the range of 50-2000 ng/mL were linear using deuterated malachite green as an internal standard. The LODs vary for all analytes between 0.1 and 30 ppb depending on the matrix and experimental conditions. Through analyses of real samples, two chili powders and one chili oil were found to be contaminated by rhodamine B. The concentrations were comparable with those found by an HPLC-MS/MS method.</p