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The assessment of the effect of the informal use of a foreign currency on the corresponding FX rates toward the national currency is a very difficult task, requiring direct calculation and modeling. It comes mostly because of the unknown quantity of foreign money used in the informal sector, but also because of the lack of quantitative calculation models. To overcome this gap and to realize a qualitative description of this effect in a concrete economic environment, we propose herein a comparative analysis between the behavior of two typical FX rate series recorded in the Albanian currency market, the Euro-ALL and USD-ALL, providing that the Euro is used commonly as a national currency substitute in the informal economy and the USD is not. So, we have evidenced that the un-stationarity degree of the Bid and Ask spread distribution for the Euro-ALL FX series is higher than for the corresponding USD-ALL case, but with a lower variance. Those features occurring simultaneously can be explained by assuming that informal use of the Euro acts as an additional perturbation on the FX system, imposing high nonstationary, but at the same time it provides reservoir or source features for the money disbalances, reducing the average fluctuations. Next, the depth of the market measured by the average Bid-Ask Spread has resulted in a smaller price for the Euro currency, indicating a lower cost of the transactions and reinforcing the assumption regarding the distribution’s in-stationarity features. Based on those indicatory findings, we propose to realize indirect evidence for our assumptions by comparing the reproduction of the corresponding distribution using autoregressive models. In this case, we have evidenced that the distribution of the FX Euro-ALL spread can be reproduced better if we include in standard ARCHX (m, n, p) models a term that mimics the informality measure. When applying the same procedure for the USD-ALL spread, the resulting distribution has not matched equally well with the original ones. Those findings have been discussed in the framework of an alternative description of the effect of the informal use of foreign currency in a small economy with a sizeable informal sector, which convene our current system under analysis, but we believe that they can be applicable for similar economic environments. Doi: 10.28991/HEF-2024-05-01-02 Full Text: PDF

Since the introduction of the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) in 1992, the CI tests have been widely used for measuring conceptual knowledge and for studying teaching issues in almost all disciplines and levels of study. A standard concept inventory analysis includes the design of a qualitative test, adequate realization of testing, calibration procedure, and comprehensive analysis of its findings. Usually, the CI test calibration is carried out through the Rasch sociometric technique, which is also used for calculating crucial indicators of knowledge such as item difficulties, students’ abilities, and many more. Whereas the quality of the tests’ design can be guaranteed by using certified and professional CI tests, the statistical adequacy of the testing merits critical attention before going on to the final step of the analysis. Also, the analysis of CI outcomes can be advanced by contemplating auxiliary tools and complementary techniques. In this framework, we propose to enforce the test index validity requirement for qualifying the CI outcomes as local or global. Specifically, the conclusions of CI analysis are acceptable for the whole population from which the sample has been extracted if the test's indexes comply with the validity requirements provided by the index theory. In the case when test indexes are out of validity range and re-conducting them is impractical for some objective circumstances or research specifics, we suggest injecting some new records into the existing one or mixing the data gathered from different samples until the new indexes are in the desired range. Using this methodology, we have reviewed our previous FCI tests, which were initially intended to demonstrate the impairment of learning in the physics discipline triggered by online learning during the pandemic closure. Through this renormalization procedure, we obtained a credible assessment of the understanding of mechanics and electromagnetism in high school students who followed online lectures during the pandemic closure. Also, by using indexes’ validity as an auxiliary tool, we identified that for measuring the knowledge of electromagnetism in students enrolled in branches where physics is a basic discipline, a shortened version of the BEMA test was a better instrument than the corresponding shortened EMCI test. Next, we used the optimal histogram idea borrowed from distribution fitting procedures to identify the natural levels of students’ abilities for solving a certain CI test. Another intriguing proposal presented in this work consists of combining an ad-hoc Likert scale assignment for usual errors in physics exams with the FCI designation of the basic commonsense confusion in mechanics for identifying their pairing features in common exams. We believe that the methods proposed herein can improve CI analysis in more general senses. Doi: 10.28991/HEF-2023-04-01-08 Full Text: PDF

The relevance of the study is determined by the need to identify solutions to increase the productivity of agricultural and food enterprises in Albania and to improve their production. The purpose of the study is to analyse the production of agricultural and food products, the level of remuneration of agricultural workers, the impact of state financial assistance on production volumes, and to provide proposals for increasing productivity in the agricultural sector. The methodological approach is based on: statistical analysis, the analogy method, graphical method, method of logical generalisation. The key findings are the substantiation of the expediency of mechanisation in the production of agricultural products, and an increase in the budgetary financial support and the wages of employees to boost the productivity of agricultural enterprises, reducing the dependence on imported goods and increasing the export of Albanian agricultural products to the world markets. The authors confirmed that to enhance the productivity of agricultural and food enterprises, it is necessary to focus on raising the wages of workers, mechanising production, and expanding the area of irrigated land. This will raise the competitiveness of Albania's agricultural and food products to a new level and increase its exports to the world markets. The findings of the study and the conclusions formulated on their basis are of practical importance for the managers of agricultural and food enterprises in Albania when developing measures to increase the productivity of workers, as well as for the government of the country when approving the areas of financial support for economic activities