The University of Buckingham Press Journals
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Periodicity: Interpreting Waves of Information in Osundare’s Harvestcall
The study investigated the waves of information of Osundara’s Harvestcall to show textual movements as layered by the poet. To achieve that objective, the poem of about 76 lines was collapsed into 44 clauses as a tradition that paves a way for systemic analysis of texts in different shapes, sizes and constructs. Halliday’s Theme and Rheme served as analytical tools that processed the text after which the investigation utilized tables and graphs as indicators of waves of information of Harvestcall. The analysis reveals three separate waves of the text, namely: (i) sectional organization – perceives Sections I, II and III are the Theme while Section IV is the Rheme; (ii) clause constructs – demonstrates multiple Themes that flow to rhematic structures; and (iii) time frame exposition – espouses the past farming commitment as Theme and its current neglect as Rheme. In addition, observation shows waves interference. That is, the switching of Theme 2 and Subject Theme in Sections I, II and III for Subject Theme and Theme 2 respectively in Section IV. As linguistic concepts can reveal so much meanings of a literary device, the study suggests their applications across the board of genres of literature
PUBLIC GOODS AND CRIMINALISATION
Theories of criminalisation seek to identify the criteria by which behaviour is legitimately criminalised. This article believes that their success in so doing is best assessed if they examine the question of criminalisation in light of four desirable features for any such theory. These desirable features, which this article will term desiderata for short, are as follows:Desideratum 1: a theory of criminalisation should offer an evaluative framework that justifies the form of legal regulation known as the criminal law.Desideratum 2: a theory of criminalisation’s evaluative framework under Desideratum 1 should allow for a coherent and defensible account of the criminal law as morally censorious, thereby articulating something distinctive about the criminal law as a form of legal regulation.Desideratum 3: a theory of criminalisation should display a coherent understanding of how its evaluative framework under Desideratum 1 integrates with a theoretical account of the purpose, and legitimacy, of the state. Desideratum 4: a theory of criminalisation’s evaluative framework under Desideratum 1 should distil criminal from non-criminal behaviour in principled and defensible way. Given that the defence of each desideratum would arguably generate an article apiece, the aims of this article are consequently more modest. It is aimed at those who already accept one or more of them. It will demonstrate the success, in satisfying the desiderata, of a theory of criminalisation embedded in the notion of public goods. It shall call this theory the public goods account (the ‘PGA’). The PGA is not an entirely new theory, as elements of it can be found in the writings of a number of theorists.However, by expanding on, exploring and assessing these elements in light of the desiderata, this article offers further support to a theory of criminal law embedded in the notion of public goods. In order to understand the PGA, it is necessary to begin this article with a section outlining the nature of public goods. Subsequent sections will then address how the PGA satisfies each desideratum, in the order they are set out above.
Structural breaks in unbiased volatility estimator: Modeling and forecasting
The study provides a framework to model the unbiased extreme value volatility estimator (The AddRS estimator) in presence of structural breaks. We observe that the structural breaks in the volatility based on the AddRS estimator can partly explain its long memory property. We evaluate the forecasting performance of the proposed framework and compare the results with the corresponding results of the models from the GARCH family. The forecasts evaluation exercises consider the cases when future breaks are known as well as unknown. Our findings indicate that the proposed framework outperform the sophisticated GARCH class of models in forecasting realized volatility. Moreover, we devise a trading strategy based on the forecasts of the variance to highlight the economic significance of the proposed framework. We find that a risk averse investor can make substantial gain using the volatility forecasts based on the proposed frameworks in comparison to the GARCH family of models
The Structure of Prediction Market Research: Important Publications and Research Clusters
This research paper identifies the most important publications and research clusters in the field of prediction markets. Two literature reviews in 2007 and 2014 have already shown a rising number of publications and classified them into several classes. However, the a priori selection of classes limited the analysis. Furthermore, it is still not quantitatively measured which publications have influenced prediction market research most. This research paper extends the existing literature based on the analysis of more than 18,000 citations. Thus, it identifies the most important publications and relevant research topics. It indicates that prediction market research relies primarily on publications within its own field. This paper concludes that some publications have already become “classic” and four main research clusters have emerged: Efficient information aggregation, manipulation, innovation markets and forecasting elections
A Note on Sandroni-Shmaya Belief Elicitation Mechanism
Incentive-compatible methods for eliciting beliefs, such as proper scoring rules, often rely on strong assumptions about how humans behave when making decisions under risk and uncertainty. For example, standard proper scoring rules assume that humans are risk neutral, an assumption that is often violated in practice. Under such an assumption, proper scoring rules induce honest reporting of beliefs, in a sense that experts maximize their expected scores from a proper scoring rule by honestly reporting their beliefs.Sandroni and Shmaya [Economic Theory Bulletin, volume 1, issue 1, 2013] suggested a remarkable mechanism based on proper scoring rules that induces honest reporting of beliefs without any assumptions on experts’ risk attitudes. In particular, the authors claimed that the mechanism relies only on the natural assumptions of probabilistic sophistication and dominance. We suggest in this paper that the reduction of compound lotteries axiom is another assumption required for Sandroni and Shmaya’s mechanism to induce honest reporting of beliefs. We further elaborate on the implications of such an extra assumption in light of recent findings regarding the reduction of compound lotteries axiom
Intonation in Iraqi Musical Melodies
This paper deals with intonation in Iraqi musical melodies (MMs). As such, it aims to analyze the intonational patterns in the Iraqi music. The main musical melodies in the Iraqi music are Rast, Dasht, Hijaaz, Kurd, and Bayaat. In this vein, the current study attempts to answer the following questions: the current paper attempts to answer the following questions: (i) What are the intonational patterns of Iraqi MMs? And (ii) What is the additional function of intonation in MMs? In the light of these questions, the corner hypothesis is that Iraqi MMs have their own specific definable intonational patterns. On the basis of the analysis, it is concluded that intonation can be a useful tool for analyzing musical variations in the basic Iraqi MMs. Moreover, musical intonation, which is the task of musicologists, is accompanied by phonological intonation to create the final form of the melody. Finally, in addition to previous functions of intonation, such as grammatical, semantic, and so on, intonation has a new one, namely ‘musical function’ because it gives music special effects and evaluations
Age-related differences in language use within the mathematical register
The struggles that learners face as they attempt to produce mathematical explanations have been widely documented from researchers working in the systemic functional linguistics tradition. The approach has been to isolate specific grammatical patterns which differ across the natural and mathematical register and then argue that these represent a source of trouble for learners. This manuscript explores the extent to which age accounts for differences in the production of explanations within the mathematical register, but does so from a cognitive linguistic tradition.Data was collected over three weeks from 50 students, 30 boys and 20 girls in five different classrooms. A Chi-Square test of independence demonstrated age-related differences in the use of six different grammatical patterns within the mathematical register. The larger argument is made that producing explanations within the mathematical register relies more on the strategic use of multiple grammatical patterns and semantic forms than the mastery of a single grammatical pattern.
Dynamic Linkages between Singapore and NSE listed NIFTY Futures and NIFTY Spot Markets
This study examines the dynamic linkages of Nifty stock index and Nifty index futures contract traded on the home market, National Stock Exchange (NSE) and on the off-shore market, Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX). The study uses daily closing prices of the Nifty index and the Nifty futures contract traded on both the exchanges for the period July 15, 2010 to July 15, 2016. The study finds a causality running from the returns of the spot market to the returns from the Nifty futures market in both the exchanges, NSE and SGX, with the help of Vector Error Correction model and Granger causality test. Variance Decomposition and Impulse Response Analysis also confirm that the spot market is the leading market in price discovery, making it the most efficient amongst others.
jackpot rollover and lottery regressivity
have found the lottery to be a regressive form of taxation that varies by game and whose regressivity declines at higher jackpot size. This paper conducts an in-depth analysis of the effect of consumer spending on lottery regressivity during the Mega Millions rollover sequence and reports the following findings. First, regressivity among six games examined in the paper varies by game and is inversely related to the prize/jackpot size of the game. Second, an increase in the jackpot size reduces the regressivity for the Mega Millions game, but not for the other five games. Third, the impact of household income distribution on lottery sales varies by game, and in the case of Mega Millions, by jackpot size as well. We did not find a significant difference in the demand for the Mega Millions game between below middle-income households and high-income households. However, the demand by middle and upper-middle income households is significantly higher than the demand by high-income households, especially at a higher jackpot size. Lastly, as the jackpot size grows over $100 million and higher, a large cash inflow from states with no Mega Millions flows into the New Jersey lottery market. The majority of the additional cash inflow is spent on the Mega Millions game and there does not appear to be a significant spillover to other New Jersey lottery games.
Pre-schoolers who stutter score lower in verbal skills than their non-stuttering peers
Purpose: The study aimed at the examination of a link between stuttering and verbal skills (speech comprehension, articulation, grammar, vocabulary, and phonological short-term memory) in three- to five-year-old children.Method: Two samples with a total of 7,217 unselected German children were tested with the validated speech and language test Marburger Sprachscreening – revised version (MSSrev). Linguistic domains were compared for pre-school children who stuttered (CWS; n=110) and those who did not (CWNS; n=7,107) by means of Mann-Whitney U tests, general linear models, Spearman correlations, and cross-tables. Results: In both samples, CWS scored lower in grammar, articulation, and overall performance on the MSSrev. Statistically significant associations between stuttering and (a) sex of the child, and (b) language disorders in the family were identified.Conclusions: Taking into account the effect sizes, there appears to be a weak, but statistically significant link between stuttering and verbal skills.