Books

Differences between Digital and Physical Cash Availability across Digital Supply Chains: A Case Study about Brazilian Banking Systems

Purpose: This research work differentiates digital and physical cash availability based in the hypothesis that digital money is created using further virtual enterprises efficiency while physical cash, even utilizing digital supply chains, depends fundamentally of material management efficiency. This research was also considering that banks were one segment which very developed virtual integrations due to their peculiarities (high value transportation, storage, and etc.). Design Methodology: They are three different case studies. The first one about BB (Banco do Brasil), Itau, and Bradesco (the three biggest commercial banks) operations in Brazil for availability of Physical money, using official data kept by Central Bank of Brazil, IBGE, and those three above cited Banks. The digital money availability was another case study investigating the whole payment system of Brazil using POS, card, credit, debit information provided by BCB. The third case study was designed for investigating practices of digital supply chains through further usages in BB, Bradesco, and Itau. However, during the research, the original plan got no enough results, turning the last case investigation more about the same whole payment system, informing the clouding computing, the interoperability, and the reduction of physical demands like introductory results. Finding: This dissertation were able of mapping graphically how the physical money is spread across banking operations into the Brazilian territory, better saying, it shows Brazilian Bank – the total sum of Branches of BB , Bradesco and Itaú – concentrations in each municipality, and the availability of M0- Branches Reserves of those same banks across those same municipalities. The Digital money applications pointed the debit, credit, online transferring, STR, TED, DOC, intrabank operations as very used examples of digital money. Visa and Master card are the two main banner card used in Brazil, but this country has challenges of internet and mobile usages for accomplishing its ambitious project of further integration and instantaneous electronic Payments (PIX). Practical Implications: The Digital money today’s availability is not instantaneous (up to 2 workdays), it is expensive (up to R$20.00 each transaction) and not able 24 hours per day, all week (only workdays). The physical money is also compounded by hidden costs of storage, packaging, transportation and purchase, making Central Bank of Brazil spend more than R$700.00 million each year. The second tier, from BCB to Commercial Banks, has also potential of being expensive, once transportation, physical installations, third party services, surveillance, and transport represent the majority of those operational costs and should be also applied to commercial banks physical distribution.

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Technology Acceptance Of Information Services

The goal of this research is to develop and test a theoretical model of the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations on user acceptance of Internet-based information services. The model, referred to as the integrated model of technology acceptance, is being developed with two major objectives. First, it should improve our understanding of user acceptance behavior, providing new theoretical insights into the successful design and implementation of Internet-based information services. Second, the integrated model should provide the theoretical basis for a practical system design and analysis approach that would enable practitioners to develop new information services or modify their current services. For user acceptance to be viable, the model of user acceptance must be valid. The present research takes several steps toward establishing a valid motivational model of the user, and aims to provide the foundation for future research that will lead toward this end. Research steps taken in the present research include: (1) choosing U&G (Uses and Gratifications) theory, a well-studied theoretical approach from mass communication to formulate an integrated technology acceptance model with TAM (Technology Acceptance Model); (2) developing and pre-testing the measures for the model’s factors in two pilot studies; (3) conducting two rounds of data collection and analyze them to prove that the integrated model is applicable to the present context; (4) reviewing literature in both information systems and mass communication to demonstrate that empirical support exists for various elements of the proposed model, and (5) using advanced statistical technique, structural equation modeling (SEM), to test the model’s structure. vi The results confirm our proposed integrated model. The model posits that entertainment motivation is another important factor in determining the use of online services in addition to the behavioral intention, as postulated by TAM. The integrated model also confirms that TAM’s belief constructs, perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness, are predictors of behavioral intention. Furthermore, perceived usefulness predicts behavioral intention. It also argues that the level of use influences the degree of satisfaction. Satisfaction is a construct that is heavily studied due to its important role as an indicator of system success.

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Being and Existence: An Anthropocentric Metaphysics and Poetry

Being and Existence is, in this work, examined from, unpopular combination of philosophical doctrines that would have, as western humanists had perceived them, remained disparate concepts in the world dominated by materialism, science and theory. Similarly, anthropocentric metaphysics is a voluptuous and amorphous amalgam of notions whose meanings are consistent and unified as a whole in the extent African cosmography but which in the Western philosophy are different schools and thoughts with often contradictory nuances and meanings. The basic keywords in his work, though of different histories, are therefore integrated into a whole here to answer to the pertinent question of being and Existence spanning from before life, to life-hereafter which burden explanation resides in anthropocentricism and metaphysics of life and death.

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Mathematical Model of Geopolitics

The mathematical model of geopolitics is a conditional name for several models, which are naturally connected and act as accompaniment to the main theme — geopolitics. All constructed work models made the transition to computing experiment, the results of which are given and discussed. The central concept of the mathematical model of geopolitics is introduced — the capacity of the habitat. Geopolitics is the climate, the relief, the logistics features of global commodity flows, the geopolitical confrontation in terms of the “sea-continent”, i.e. all that constitutes the material complex of living conditions of the inhabitants of the Earth. This complex, to a large extent, mediates the population’s behavior from the political point of view. The author does not adhere to the position of natural determinism, which acts in the form of geopolitics, but tries to delineate the scope of the manifestation of geopolitics in real politics.
The monograph provides clarification and generalization of the generally accepted geopolitical classification of territories in terms of orientation and positioning either at sea or on the continent. The mathematical model of transport costs minimization for an arbitrary number of points acting in the form of logistic centers is formulated.

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African Discourse- Humanities, Literature and Public Sphere

African Discourse is a literary expression designating the meta-theoretical and metanarrative interpretation of the subject of African predicament in the age of imperialism globalization and imperialism. The issues raised are for good reasons inheritances from the Western modernity, colonialism and neo-colonialism which are largely and collectively acculturation, enculturation and psychological or mental disequilibrium, to use Fraz Fanon analysis or metaphor, of black skin and while mind. This discourse therefore, point blankly and causally places the origin of African predicament or retardation at the door step of European or western modernity which with all its problematic eroded uninterruptedly and calculatively African continent and culture. A definition of African predicament, is therefore, necessary to charting the course of this discourse, it is three fold; the 18th century modernity crisis generated by the problems of the literary and public sphere and as it were inherited by the peripherical states in Africa; the colonial content of modernity and the western invasion of African states; and thirdly the failure of the African to decolonize themselves and propagate their cultural tapestory of literary and public spheres, otherwise, captured here as African philosophy of culture and good governance.

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The Influence of Leadership Styles on Church Growth with Special Reference to Pentecostal Churches in Zimbabwe

The study focused on the influence of leadership styles in Pentecostal churches with reference to Zimbabwe. There has not been a comprehensive study on leadership styles amongst Pentecostal churches in Zimbabwe which extends the leadership theories developed for business organizations to church organizations. The mixed methods (pragmatic) approach was adopted in the study using both qualitative and quantitative data. It allows the researcher to use multiple methods, different worldviews and assumptions as well as different forms of data collection and analysis. The pragmatic approach is not committed to one system of philosophy and reality and it gives the researcher freedom of choice of methods, techniques and procedures of the research that best answers the research problem. The mixed methods was also adopted for triangulation purposes. A case study approach using exploratory and descriptive research designs was employed. Interviews, questionnaires and observations were the main data collection tools. Document analysis was also used as a triangulation method. Three main participant groups in this study were the founders of the church, the leaders of the church such as pastors, elders, deacons and departmental leaders and finally the members of the church. Six Pentecostal churches were identified using specified criteria in order to create boundaries. Analysis of data was guided by the grounded theory propounded by Glaser and Strauss (1967) using the Constant Comparative Method. In addition the Public and Hidden Transcripts Theory by Scott (1992) was used as a discourse analysis tool. The findings were divided into four main categories, the leadership styles, growth strategies, sustainability and succession plan in order to address the influence of leadership styles on growth among the Pentecostal churches in Zimbabwe. Under the leadership styles, the study sought to find out first the leadership styles of the founders or senior pastors of Pentecostal churches in Zimbabwe. Overall the findings indicate that the transformational leadership style is the leadership style of founders of the Pentecostal churches in Zimbabwe. The second part on leadership was to find out the leadership styles of leaders in which the democratic leadership style was the mostly practiced one. The final aspect was to identify the dominant leadership style within the Pentecostal churches in Zimbabwe. The supportive leadership style was found to be the dominant leadership style in Pentecostal churches in Zimbabwe. Two models are presented as contribution to knowledge especially which can either be adapted or adopted by leaders in churches, business and management circles. The first model, the Ordinary-Questioning-Decision Making and Stability Model (OQDS) identifies the levels that people are at within the organisation (church). After that identification relevant leaders need to groom them using the Contextualised Leadership-Follower Model (CLF), in order to bring about loyalty and commitment.

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Introductory Linguistics – Study Guide

This Study Guide in Introduction to Linguistics deals with the different Subfields of Linguistics (particularly Phonetics, Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Semantics, and Pragmatics) and Related Fields. The images presented in Figures 1-15 provide some insights to facilitate the students’ imagination and creativity that can very well help enhance their English vocabulary. The Midterm and Final exams require the students to reinforce their learning through thorough and extra reading on the topics presented in each unit. The Exercises as well as the Assessments can trigger the students to practice, reinforce, and discover the wonders of exploring the English language as they face the challenges to be at pace with the modern world of words.

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Political Elites and Ethnic Politics

This book presents an examination on the significance of the political elites’ role in the expansion of ethnic politics to the periphery state of Sabah in Malaysia. Ethnicity in Sabah for generations did not have the significance that it held in the peninsular states, where colonial and post-colonial policies entrenched a sense of indigenous claims by the Malays against other ethnic communities of Chinese and Indians. In Sabah, especially before the Federation of Malaysia, social identity focused more on smaller social groups who needed to find non-ethnic basis for political solidarity rather than construct ethnic differences. Nevertheless, after decades in the federation of Malaysia the political solidarity in this territory became more focused on what Tajfel and Turner (1979) calls ‘us’ versus ‘them’, an activity of constructing and reconstructing ethnic difference as in West Malaysia. The study in which this book is based is explores and explains the reason why ethnic hostilities have more recently become a marker of political activities in Sabah.

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Leadership in the Formation of an Organization

The importance of leadership in the foundation and legitimization of an organization is a pressing issue in organizational studies. This book, Leadership in the formation of an organization, which focuses on an organizational case study – the formation of Asilo de Infância Desvalida da Horta (a foster organization for girls and young women), in the Azores, Portugal, seeks to contribute to the analysis the relative autonomy that leadership faces and which it has to deal with in the search for its legitimacy as an organization. The book concludes with the reproduction of a booklet, dated 1884, titled Memória histórica sobre o Asilo de Infância Desvalida da Cidade da Horta [Historical memory on Asilo de Infância Desvalida da Cidade da Horta], which offers relevant arguments of this study. Furthermore, in addition to the analysis put forth here, its facsimile availability in digital version is deemed pertinent.

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Cricket Reading Handbook

All over the world, there is extensive folklore and tradition associated with crickets. In Brazil, a black cricket in a room is said to foretell illness; a gray one, money; and a green one, hope while chirping is sometimes interpreted as a sign of imminent rain, a financial bonanza, pregnancy, or death. During the Spanish conquest of America, the sudden chirping of a cricket heralded the sighting of new land. The Chinese have practised cricket fighting as a sport for a long time. The Cherokee Indians believed that drinking tea made of crickets would make one a good singer. In Zambia, cricket is believed to bring good fortune to anyone who sees it. Among the Luos of Kenya it is believed that eating crickets improves one’s singing prowess. Crickets are known as nyenje in Kiswahili. In Luo language, they are referred to as Onjiri. Other local names include ngiriama in Meru, Egesiriri in Kisii, Sitsilili in Luhya, Ngiria in Kikuyu and Ngili in Kamba.

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