Search results for: interest rate and trade openness

Authors: Beaudoin Marie-Joelle, Poirier Nathalie

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Introduction: Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) tend to lack socio-emotional skills (e.g., emotional regulation and theory of mind). Eisenberg’s theoretical model on emotion-related socialization behaviors suggests that mothers of children with ASD could play a central role in fostering the acquisition of socio-emotional skills by engaging in frequent educational conversations about emotions. Although, mothers’ perceptions of their own emotional skills and their child’s personality traits and social deficits could mitigate the benefit of their educative role. Objective: Our study aims to explore the association between mother-child conversations about emotions and the socio-emotional skills of their children when accounting for the moderating role of the mothers’ perceptions. Forty-nine mothers completed five questionnaires about emotionally related conversations, self-openness to emotions, and perceptions of personality and socio-emotional skills of their children with ASD. Results: Regression analyses showed that frequent mother-child conversations about emotions predicted better emotional regulation and theory of mind skills in children with ASD (p < 0.01). The children’s theory of mind was moderated by mothers’ perceptions of their own emotional openness (p < 0.05) and their perceptions of their children’s openness to experience (p < 0.01) and conscientiousness (p < 0.05). Conclusion: Mothers likely play an important role in the socio-emotional education of children with ASD. Further, mothers may be most helpful when they perceive that their interventions improve their child’s behaviors. Our findings corroborate those of the Eisenberg model, which claims that mother-child conversations about emotions predict socio-emotional development skills in children with ASD. Our results also help clarify the moderating role of mothers’ perceptions, which could mitigate their willingness to engage in educational conversations about emotions with their children. Therefore, in special needs' children education, school professionals could collaborate with mothers to increase the frequency of emotion-related conversations in ASD's students with emotion dysregulation or theory of mind problems.

Keywords: autism, parental socialization of emotion, emotional regulation, theory of mind

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Authors: Thinh Huu Nguyen, Shahab Sharfaei, Jindřich Soukup

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In the pursuit of reducing production costs, offshoring has been a major trend throughout global value chains for many decades. However, with the rise of advanced technologies, new opportunities to automate their production are changing the motivation of multinational firms to go offshore. Instead, many firms are working to relocate their offshored activities from developing economies back to their home countries. This phenomenon, known as reshoring, has recently garnered much attention as it becomes clear that automation in advanced countries might have major implications not only on their own economies but also through international trade on the economy of low-income countries, including their labor market outcomes and their comparative advantages. Thus, while using robots to substitute human labor may lower the relative costs of producing at home, it has the potential to decrease employment and demand for exports from developing economies through reshoring. In this paper, we investigate the recent literature to provide a further understanding of the relationships between robotization and the reshoring of production. Moreover, we analyze the impact of robot adoption on international trade in both developed and emerging markets. Finally, we identify the research gaps and provide avenues for future research in international economics. This study is a part of the project funded by the Internal Grant Agency (IGA) of the Faculty of Business Administration, Prague University of Economics and Business.

Keywords: automation, robotization, reshoring, international trade

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Authors: Tran Van Long

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Beyond trade facilitation, transparency in the WTO legal context is, implicitly and explicitly, aimed at addressing problems in domestic administrative law. Through the lens of global governance, this paper attempts to shed more light on the power of transparency norms enshrined in multilateral trading agreements under the aegis of the WTO. In this global ruled-base system, transparency has become sufficiently powerful to be a multifunctional instrument for promoting rule of law, good governance, and democracy.

Keywords: WTO, transparency, good governance, rule of law, global administrative law.

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Authors: Yuncang Li, Cuie Wen

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Biodegradable metallic materials such as magnesium (Mg)-based alloys have attracted extensive interest for use as bone implant materials. However, the high biodegradation rate of existing Mg alloys in the physiological environment of human body leads to losing mechanical integrity before adequate bone healing and producing a large volume of hydrogen gas. Therefore, slowing down the biodegradation rate of Mg alloys is a critical task in developing new biodegradable Mg alloy implant materials. One of the most effective approaches to achieve this is to strategically design new Mg alloys with low biodegradation rate, excellent biocompatibility, and enhanced mechanical properties. Our research selected biocompatible and biofunctional alloying elements such as zirconium (Zr), strontium (Sr), and rare earth elements (REEs) to alloy Mg and has developed a new series of Mg-Zr-Sr-REEs alloys for biodegradable implant applications. Research results indicated that Sr and Zr additions could refine the grain size, decrease the biodegradation rate, and enhance the biological behaviors of the Mg alloys. The REE addition, such as holmium (Ho) and dysprosium (Dy) to Mg-Zr-Sr alloys resulted in enhanced mechanical strength and decreased biodegradation rate. In addition, Ho and Dy additions (≤ 5 wt.%) to Mg-Zr-Sr alloys led to enhancement of cell adhesion and proliferation of osteoblast cells on the Mg-Zr-Sr-Ho/Dy alloys.

Keywords: biocompatibility, magnesium, mechanical and biodegrade properties, rare earth elements

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Authors: Xiaofei Zhu

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As a 'weapon of the weak', the Public Interest Law can provide a better perspective for the cause of gender justice. In recent years, the legal practice of single female reproductive rights in China has already possessed the elements of public interest law activities and the possibility of public interest law operation. Through the general operating procedures of public interest law practice, that is, from the choice of subject, the planning of the case, the operation of the strategy and the later development, the paper analyzes the gains and losses of the legal practice of single female reproductive rights in China, and puts forward some ideas on its possible operation path. On this basis, it is believed that the cause of women's rights should be carried out under the broad human rights perspective; it is necessary to realize the particularity of different types of women's rights protection practice; the practice of public interest law needs to accurately grasp the constituent elements of all aspects of the case, and strive to find the opportunities of institutional and social change; the practice of public welfare law of gender justice should be carried out from a long-term perspective.

Keywords: single women’s reproductive rights, public interest law, gender justice, legal strategies, legal change

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Authors: Peter S. Kim

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The increasing availability of music facilitated by new technology and open sourcing has eliminated many traditional limiting factors in musical taste, creating a culture of choice. This study tested 191 international subjects, mostly young adults more decisively shaped by emerging technologies like Facebook, the platform for the study. Using an aggregated Big Five personality test, subjects were asked to self-report on questions related to extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness. Subsequently, subjects listened to five pairs of musical works reflecting opposite extremes of one of five musical qualities: tempo (fast/slow), complexity (simple/complex), degree of dissonance (tonal/atonal), familiarity (familiar/unfamiliar), and extra-musical significance (significant/not significant). Subjects were then asked to record listening times and preferences among the selections. Strikingly, this study shows a relatively high positive correlation between agreeableness and musical preferences (predicting preferences for simple, familiar, and fast music), as compared to extraversion, openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism. Thus, this research suggests that the not yet well-understood relationship between personality traits and musical qualities merits further study.

Keywords: music perception, psychology, cognition, musical preference

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Authors: N. Yachou, R. Aboulaich

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Home is a basic necessity for human life, that why home financing takes a large chunk of people’s income. Therefore, Islamic and Conventional Banks try to offer new product in order to respond to customer needs related to home financing. Basing on this fact, we propose a Modified Diminishing Partnership model based on profit and loss sharing to reduce the duration of getting the full shares in the house property. Our proposition will be represented by the rental that customer has to give every month to the bank with redemption to increase his shares on the property of the house.

Keywords: home financing, interest rate, rental rate, modified diminishing partnership

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Authors: Opemiposi Adegbulu

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Conflicts of interest is an elusive, diverse and engaging subject, a cross-cutting problem of governance; all levels of governance, ranging from local to global, public to corporate or financial sectors. In all these areas, its mismanagement could lead to the distortion of decision-making processes, corrosion of trust and the weakening of administration. According to Professor Peters, an expert in the area, conflict of interest, a problem at the root of many scandals has “become a pervasive ethical concern in our professional, organisational, and political life”. Conflicts of interest corrode trust, and like in the public sector, trust is mandatory for the market, consumers/clients, shareholders and other stakeholders in the private sector. However, conflicts of interest in the private sector are distinct and must be treated in like manner when regulatory efforts are made to address them. The research looks at identifying conflicts of interest in the private sector and differentiating them from those in the public sector. The public interest is submitted as a criterion which allows for such differentiation. This is significant because it would for the use of tailor-made or sector-specific approaches to addressing this complex issue. This is conducted through extensive review of literature and theories on the definition of conflicts of interest. This study will employ theoretical, doctrinal and comparative methods. The nature of conflicts of interest in the private sector will be explored, through an analysis of the public sector where the notion of conflicts of interest appears more clearly identified, reasons, why they are of business ethics concern, will be advanced, and then, once again, looking at public sector solutions and other solutions, the study will identify ways of mitigating and managing conflicts in the private sector. An exploration of public sector conflicts of interest and solutions will be carried out because the typologies of conflicts of interest in both sectors appear very similar at the core and thus, lessons can be learnt with regards to the management of these issues in the private sector. Conflicts of interest corrode trust, and like in the public sector, trust is mandatory for the market, consumers/clients, shareholders and other stakeholders in the private sector. This research will then focus on some specific challenges to understanding and identifying conflicts of interest in the private sector; origin, diverging theories, the psychological barrier to the definition, similarities with public sector conflicts of interest due to the notions of corrosion of trust, ‘being in a particular kind of situation,’ etc. The notion of public interest will be submitted as a key element at the heart of the distinction between public sector and private sector conflicts of interests. It will then be proposed that the appreciation of the notion of conflicts of interest differ according to sector, country to country, based on the public interest test, using the United Kingdom (UK), the United States of America (US), France and the Philippines as illustrations.

Keywords: conflicts of interest, corporate governance, global governance, public interest

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Authors: Yuanxiaoyue Yang

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Emissions trading, or ‘cap-and-trade', has been long promoted by economists as a more cost-effective pollution control approach than traditional performance standard approaches. While there is a large body of empirical evidence for the overall effectiveness of emissions trading, relatively little attention has been paid to other unintended consequences brought by emissions trading. One important consequence is that cap-and-trade could introduce the risk of creating high-level emission concentrations in areas where emitting facilities purchase a large number of emission allowances, which may cause an unequal distribution of environmental benefits. This study will contribute to the current environmental policy literature by linking trading activity with environmental injustice concerns and empirically analyzing the causal relationship between trading activity and emissions reduction under a cap-and-trade program for the first time. To investigate the potential environmental injustice concern in cap-and-trade, this paper uses a differences-in-differences (DID) with instrumental variable method to identify the causal effect of allowance trading behaviors on emission reduction levels under the clean air interstate rule (CAIR), a cap-and-trade program targeting on the power sector in the eastern US. The major data source is the facility-year level emissions and allowance transaction data collected from US EPA air market databases. While polluting facilities from CAIR are the treatment group under our DID identification, we use non-CAIR facilities from the Acid Rain Program - another NOx control program without a trading scheme – as the control group. To isolate the causal effects of trading behaviors on emissions reduction, we also use eligibility for CAIR participation as the instrumental variable. The DID results indicate that the CAIR program was able to reduce NOx emissions from affected facilities by about 10% more than facilities who did not participate in the CAIR program. Therefore, CAIR achieves excellent overall performance in emissions reduction. The IV regression results also indicate that compared with non-CAIR facilities, purchasing emission permits still decreases a CAIR participating facility’s emissions level significantly. This result implies that even buyers under the cap-and-trade program have achieved a great amount of emissions reduction. Therefore, we conclude little evidence of environmental injustice from the CAIR program.

Keywords: air pollution, cap-and-trade, emissions trading, environmental justice

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Authors: Ali Seddiki, Mohamed Djebbouri, Driss Guerchi

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Medical imaging produces human body pictures in digital form. Since these imaging techniques produce prohibitive amounts of data, compression is necessary for storage and communication purposes. In some areas in medicine, it may be sufficient to maintain high image quality only in region of interest (ROI). This paper discusses a contribution to quality purpose compression in the region of interest of scintigraphic images based on dual tree complex wavelet transform (DT-CWT) using Run-Length coding (RLE) and Huffman coding (HC).

Keywords: DT-CWT, region of interest, run length coding, Scintigraphic images

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Authors: Mohieddine Benghersallah, Lakhdar Boulanouar, Salim Belhadi

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Currently, higher production rate with required quality and low cost is the basic principle in the competitive manufacturing industry. This is mainly achieved by using high cutting speed and feed rates. Elevated temperatures in the cutting zone under these conditions shorten tool life and adversely affect the dimensional accuracy and surface integrity of component. Thus it is necessary to find optimum cutting conditions (cutting speed, feed rate, machining environment, tool material and geometry) that can produce components in accordance with the project and having a relatively high production rate. Response surface methodology is a collection of mathematical and statistical techniques that are useful for modelling and analysis of problems in which a response of interest is influenced by several variables and the objective is to optimize this response. The work presented in this paper examines the effects of cutting parameters (cutting speed, feed rate and depth of cut) on to the surface roughness through the mathematical model developed by using the data gathered from a series of milling experiments performed.

Keywords: Statistical analysis (RSM), Bearing steel, Coating inserts, Tool life, Surface Roughness, End milling.

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Authors: José M Martín-Moreno, Rafaela Pérez, Jesús Ruiz

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In this paper we use a small open economy Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Model (DSGE) for the Spanish economy to search for a deeper characterization of the determinants of Spain’s macroeconomic fluctuations throughout the period 1970-2008. In order to do this, we distinguish between tradable and non-tradable goods to take into account the fact that the presence of non-tradable goods in this economy is one of the largest in the world. We estimate a DSGE model with supply and demand shocks (sectorial productivity, public spending, international real interest rate and preferences) using Kalman Filter techniques. We find the following results. First of all, our variance decomposition analysis suggests that 1) the preference shock basically accounts for private consumption volatility, 2) the idiosyncratic productivity shock accounts for non-tradable output volatility, and 3) the sectorial productivity shock along with the international interest rate both greatly account for tradable output. Secondly, the model closely replicates the time path observed in the data for the Spanish economy and finally, the model captures the main cyclical qualitative features of this economy reasonably well.

Keywords: business cycle, DSGE models, Kalman filter estimation, small open economy

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Authors: Maziyar Nouraee

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Electronic markets in recent decades contribute remarkably in business transactions. Many organizations consider traditional ways of trade non-economical and therefore they do trade only through electronic markets. There are different categorizations of electronic markets functions. In one classification, functions of electronic markets are categorized into classes as information, transactions, and value added. In the present paper, effects of the three classes on the two major elements of the supply chain management are measured. The two elements are decrease in the product unit cost and reduction in response time to the customer. The results of the current research show that among nine minor elements related to the three classes of electronic markets functions, six factors and three factors influence on reduction of the product unit cost and reduction of response time to the customer, respectively.

Keywords: electronic commerce, electronic market, B2B trade, supply chain management

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Authors: Bárbara Magalhães Bravo, Cláudia Figueiras

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The economical globalization through the liberalization of the markets and capitals boosted the economical development of the nations and the needs for sorting out the disputes arising from the foreign investment. The arbitration, for all the inherent advantages, such as swiftness, arbitrators’ specialise skills and impartiality sets a pacifier tool for the interest in account. Safeguarded the public interest, we face the problem of the confidentiality in the arbitration. The urgent development of impelling mechanisms concerning transparency, guaranty and protection of the interest in account, reveals itself urgent. Through a bibliography review, we will dense the state of art, by going through the several solutions concerning, and pointing out the most suitable. Through the jurisprudential analysis we will point out the solution for the conflict confidentiality/public interest. The transparency, inextricable from the public interest, imposes the arbitration process can be open to all citizens. Transparency rules have been considered at the UNCITRAL in attempting to conciliate the necessity of publicity and the public interest, however still insufficient. The arbitration of foreign investment carries consequences to the citizens of the State. Articulating mechanisms between the arbitral procedures secrecy and the public interest should be adopted. The arbitration of foreign investment, being a tertius genius between the international arbitration and the administrative arbitration would claim its own regulation in each and every States where the confidentiality rules and its exceptions could be identified. One should enquiry where the limit of the citizens’ individual rights protection and the public interest should give way to the principle of transparency

Keywords: arbitration, foreign investment, transparency, confidenciality, International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes UNCITRAL

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Authors: M. Barsa

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This paper argues that current jurisprudence under the Dormant Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution and the WTO should be altered to allow states to more freely foster clean energy production. In particular, free trade regimes typically prevent states from discriminating against 'like' products, and whether these products are considered 'like' is typically measured by how they appear to the consumer. This makes it challenging for states to discriminate in favor of clean energy, such as low-carbon fuels. However, this paper points out that certain courts in the US—and decisions of the WTO—have already begun taking into account how a product is manufactured in order to determine whether a state may discriminate against it. There are also compelling reasons for states to discriminate against energy sources with high carbon footprints in order to allow those states to protect themselves against climate change. In other words, fuel sources with high and low carbon footprints are not, in fact, 'like' products, and courts should more freely recognize this in order to foster clean energy production.

Keywords: clean energy, climate change, discrimination, free trade

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Authors: Pedro Mario Gonzalez Jimenez

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The novelties introduced by the last Notice on agreements of minor importance tighten the application of the ‘De minimis’ safe harbour in the European Union. However, the undetermined legal concept of effect on trade between the Member States becomes importance at the same time. Therefore, the current analysis that the jurist should carry out in the European Union to determine if an agreement appreciably restrict competition under Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union is double. Hence, it is necessary to know how to balance the significance in competition and the significance in effect on trade between the Member States. It is a crucial issue due to the negative delimitation of restriction of competition affects the positive one. The methodology of this research is rather simple. Beginning with a historical approach to the ‘De Minimis Rule’, their main problems and uncertainties will be found. So, after the analysis of normative documents and the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union some proposals of ‘Lege ferenda’ will be offered. These proposals try to overcome the contradictions and questions that currently exist in the European Union as a consequence of the current legal regime of agreements of minor importance. The main findings of this research are the followings: Firstly, the effect on trade is another way to analyze the importance of an agreement different from the ‘De minimis rule’. In point of fact, this concept is singularly adapted to go through agreements that have as object the prevention, restriction or distortion of competition, as it is observed in the most famous European Union case-law. Thanks to the effect on trade, as long as the proper requirements are met there is no a restriction of competition under article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, even if the agreement had an anti-competitive object. These requirements are an aggregate market share lower than 5% on any of the relevant markets affected by the agreement and turnover lower than 40 million of Euros. Secondly, as the Notice itself says ‘it is also intended to give guidance to the courts and competition authorities of the Member States in their application of Article 101 of the Treaty, but it has no binding force for them’. This reality makes possible the existence of different statements among the different Member States and a confusing perception of what a restriction of competition is. Ultimately, damage on trade between the Member States could be observed for this reason. The main conclusion is that the significant effect on trade between Member States is irrelevant in agreements that restrict competition because of their effects but crucial in agreements that restrict competition because of their object. Thus, the Member States should propose the incorporation of a similar concept in their legal orders in order to apply the content of the Notice. Otherwise, the significance of the restrictive agreement on competition would not be properly assessed.

Keywords: De minimis rule, effect on trade, minor importance agreements, safe harbour

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Authors: Luciana Aparecida Bastos, Tatiana Diair L. F. Rosa, Jesus Creapldi

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The idea of Latin American integration occurred from the ideals of Simón Bolívar that, in 1824, called the Ibero-American nations to Amphictyonic Congress of Panama, on June 22, 1826, where he would defend the importance of Latin American unity. However, this congress was frustrating and the idea of Bolívar went no further. It was only after the European Union to start the process, driven by the end of World War II that the subject returned to emerge in Latin America. Thus, in 1960, supported by the European integration process, started in 1957 with the excellent result of the ECSC - European Coal and Steel Community, a result of the Customs Union of the BENELUX (integration between Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg) in 1948, was created in Latin America, LAFTA - Latin American Free Trade Association, in 1960. In 1980, LAFTA was replaced by LAAI- Latin American Association, both with the same goal: to integrate Latin America, it´s economy and its trade. Most researchers in this period agree that the regional market would be expanded through the integration. The creation of one or more economic blocs in the region would provide the union of Latin American countries through a fusion of common interests and by their geographical proximity, which would try to develop common projects to promote mutual growth and economic development, tariff reductions, promotion of increased trade between, among many other goals set together. Thus, taking into account Mercosur, the main Latin-American block, created in 1994, the aim of this paper is to make a brief analysis of the trade balance performance of Brazil (larger economy of the block) in Mercosur in the periods: 1989-1994 and 1994-2012. The choice of this period was because the objective is to compare the period before and after the integration of Brazil in Mercosur. The methodologies used were the literature review and descriptive statistics. The results showed that after the integration of Brazil in Mercosur, the exports and imports grew within the bloc and the country turned out to become the leading importer of other economies of Mercosur after integration, that is, Brazil, after integration to Mercosur, was largely responsible for promoting the expansion of regional trade through the import of products from other members of the block.

Keywords: Brazil, mercosur, integration, trade balance, comparison

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Authors: M. Hadi Bordbar, Matthew England, Alex Sen Gupta, Agus Santoso, Andrea Taschetto, Thomas Martin, Wonsun Park, Mojib Latif

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Climate models generally simulate long-term reductions in the Pacific Walker Circulation with increasing atmospheric greenhouse gases. However, over two recent decades (1992-2011) there was a strong intensification of the Pacific Trade Winds that is linked with a slowdown in global surface warming. Using large ensembles of multiple climate models forced by increasing atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations and starting from different ocean and/or atmospheric initial conditions, we reveal very diverse 20-year trends in the tropical Pacific climate associated with a considerable uncertainty in the globally averaged surface air temperature (SAT) in each model ensemble. This result suggests low confidence in our ability to accurately predict SAT trends over 20-year timescale only from external forcing. We show, however, that the uncertainty can be reduced when the initial oceanic state is adequately known and well represented in the model. Our analyses suggest that internal variability in the Pacific trade winds can mask the anthropogenic signal over a 20-year time frame, and drive transitions between periods of accelerated global warming and temporary slowdown periods.

Keywords: trade winds, walker circulation, hiatus in the global surface warming, internal climate variability

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Authors: Maulana Ayoub Ali

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“Both Socialist as well as the capitalist in the economic systems have proven their failure to ensure economic justice that serves to benefit all in the society, both the rich and the poor. In particular, capitalism is currently causing a terrifying scenario by making the rich richer and the poor poorer” . In this paper, the author looks at the level of exploitation which is taking place to small and middle entrepreneurs (SME’s), government and private employees as well as large investors in East African countries who depends on interest-based loans which undermines their lives every day due to heavy monthly returns. Numbers of families have been evicted from their family premises and SME’s properties have been attached in the courts due to failure to return their loans timely. In fact, there are a lot of issues which have taken place on the ground which badly affected number of families socially and most importantly economically due to engagement in interest-based loans offered by commercial banks in East Africa. This paper looks on the alternative ways of eliminating interest-based loans to better lives of devastated Africans who are almost “dying” of heavy debts generated through higher interest loans. Reaching to that particular root the author has visited various literatures in a bid to deeply investigate and find out the best alternative mode of enabling African SME’s, businessmen and employees to benefit from the interest-free loans. The question is whether interest-free loans can be a long term solution towards poverty alleviation in East Africa generally and Tanzania in particular.

Keywords: interest-free loans, SME’s, financial institutions, poverty, east Africa

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Authors: Arjun K., Arumugam Sankaran, Sanjay Kumar, Mousumi Das

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The paper analyses the existence of endogenous growth scenario emanating from the demographic dividend in India during the liberalization period starting from 1980. Demographic dividend creates a fertile ground for the cultivation of human and knowledge capitals contributing to technological progress which can be measured using total factor productivity. The relationship among total factor productivity, human and knowledge capitals are examined in an open endogenous framework for the period 1980-2016. The control variables such as foreign direct investment, trade openness, energy consumption are also employed. The data are sourced from Reserve Bank of India, World Bank, International Energy Agency and The National Science and Technology Management Information System. To understand the dynamic association among variables, ARDL bounds approach to cointegration followed by Toda-Yamamoto causality test are used. The results reveal a short run and long run relationship among the variables supported by the existence of causality. This calls for an integrated policy to build and augment human capital and research and development activities to sustain and pace up growth and development in the nation.

Keywords: demographic dividend, young population, open endogenous growth models, human and knowledge capital

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Authors: H. Mohammadi Aliabadi, M. S. Mansouri

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The effect of two different transplanting date (March and November) in five pistachio cultivars ('Ahmad Aghaei', 'Akbri', Momtaz', 'Ghazvini', and 'Ohadi') were evaluated in Rafsanjan Azad University, Iran. Seeds were planted in plastic bags in March 2012. The seedlings were transplanted to a field in November 2012 and March 2013. Vegetative growing factors such as plant length, stem diameter, number of leaves and fresh and dry weight were measured in date. The results obtained from collected data indicated that no significant differences were found for the traits of interest. Therefore, growers should not be concerned regarding these two transplanting dates.

Keywords: pistachio, seedling, success rate, transplanting date

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Authors: B. Siva Kumar Reddy, B. Lakshmi

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WiMAX has adopted an Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC) in OFDM to endure higher data rates and error free transmission. AMC schemes employ the Channel State Information (CSI) to efficiently utilize the channel and maximize the throughput and for better spectral efficiency. This CSI has given to the transmitter by the channel estimators. In this paper, LSE (Least Square Error) and MMSE (Minimum Mean square Error) estimators are suggested and BER (Bit Error Rate) performance has been analyzed. Channel equalization is also integrated with with AMC-OFDM system and presented with Constant Modulus Algorithm (CMA) and Least Mean Square (LMS) algorithms with convergence rates analysis. Simulation results proved that increment in modulation scheme size causes to improvement in throughput along with BER value. There is a trade-off among modulation size, throughput, BER value and spectral efficiency. Results also reported the requirement of channel estimation and equalization in high data rate systems.

Keywords: AMC, CSI, CMA, OFDM, OFDMA, WiMAX

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Authors: Maria Amaia Iza Padilla, Ibai Ostolozaga

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The objective of this paper is to analyze how transportation costs between regions within a country can affect not only domestic trade but also the allocation of resources in a given region, aggregate productivity, and relative domestic prices (tradable versus non-tradable). On the one hand, there is a vast literature that analyzes the transportation costs faced by countries when trading with the rest of the world. However, this paper focuses on the effect of transportation costs on domestic trade. Countries differ in their domestic road infrastructure and transport quality. There is also some literature that focuses on the effect of road infrastructure on the price difference between regions but not on relative prices at the aggregate level. On the other hand, this work is also related to the literature on resource misallocation. Finally, the paper is also related to the literature analyzing the effect of trade on the development of the manufacturing sector. Using the World Bank Enterprise Survey database, it is observed cross-country differences in the proportion of firms that consider transportation as an obstacle. From the International Comparison Program, we obtain a significant negative correlation between GDP per worker and relative prices (manufacturing sector prices relative to the service sector). Furthermore, there is a significant negative correlation between a country’s transportation quality and the relative price of manufactured goods with respect to the price of services in that country. This is consistent with the empirical evidence of a negative correlation between transportation quality and GDP per worker, on the one hand, and the negative correlation between GDP per worker and domestic relative prices, on the other. It is also shown that in a country, the share of manufacturing firms whose main market is at the local (regional) level is negatively related to the quality of the transportation infrastructure within the country. Similarly, this index is positively related to the share of manufacturing firms whose main market is national or international. The data also shows that those countries with a higher proportion of manufacturing firms operating locally have higher relative prices. With this information in hand, the paper attempts to quantify the effects of the allocation of resources between and within sectors. The higher the trade barriers caused by transportation costs, the less efficient allocation, which causes lower aggregate productivity. Second, it is built a two-sector model where regions within a country trade with each other. On the one hand, it is found that with respect to the manufacturing sector, those countries with less trade between their regions will be characterized by a smaller variety of goods, less productive manufacturing firms on average, and higher relative prices for manufactured goods relative to service sector prices. Thus, the decline in the relative price of manufactured goods in more advanced countries could also be explained by the degree of trade between regions. This trade allows for efficient intra-industry allocation (traders are more productive, and resources are allocated more efficiently)).

Keywords: misallocation, relative prices, TFP, transportation cost

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Authors: Randa Ismail Sharafeddine

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The Islamic economic system is distinctive in that it implicitly recognizes money as a separate, independent component of production capable of assuming risk and so entitled to the same reward as other Entrepreneurial Factors of Production (EFP). Conventional theory does not identify money capital explicitly as a component of production; rather, interest is recognized as a reward for capital, the interest rate is the cost of money capital, and it is also seen as a cost of physical capital. The conventional theory of production examines how diverse non-entrepreneurial resources (Land, Labor, and Capital) are selected; however, the economic theory community is largely unaware of the reasons why these resources choose to remain as non-entrepreneurial resources as opposed to becoming entrepreneurial resources. Should land, labor, and financial asset owners choose to work for others in return for rent, income, or interest, or should they engage in entrepreneurial risk-taking in order to profit. This is a decision made often in the actual world, but it has never been effectively treated in economic theory. This article will conduct a critical analysis of the conventional classification of factors of production and propose a classification for resource allocation and income distribution (Rent, Wages, Interest, and Profits) that is more rational, even within the conventional theoretical framework for evaluating and developing production and distribution theories. Money is an essential component of production in an Islamic economy, and it must be used to sustain economic activity.

Keywords: financial capital, production theory, distribution theory, economic activity, riba avoidance, institution of participation

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Authors: Samuel Asiedu-Addo, Jonathan Annan, Yarhands Dissou Arthur

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The study aims to explore the relational effect of lecturers’ personal attribute on student’s interest in statistics. In this study personal attributes of lecturers’ such as lecturer’s dynamism, communication strategies and rapport in the classroom as well as applied knowledge during lecture were examined. Here, exploratory research design was used to establish the effect of lecturer’s personal attributes on student’s interest. Data were analyzed by means of confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM) using the SmartPLS 3 program. The study recruited 376 students from the faculty of technical and vocational education of the University of Education Winneba Kumasi campus, and Ghana Technology University College as well as Kwame Nkrumah University of science and Technology. The results revealed that personal attributes of an effective lecturer were lecturer’s dynamism, rapport, communication and applied knowledge contribute (52.9%) in explaining students interest in statistics. Our regression analysis and structural equation modeling confirm that lecturers personal attribute contribute effectively by predicting student’s interest of 52.9% and 53.7% respectively. The paper concludes that the total effect of a lecturer’s attribute on student’s interest is moderate and significant. While a lecturer’s communication and dynamism were found to contribute positively to students’ interest, they were insignificant in predicting students’ interest. We further showed that a lecturer’s personal attributes such as applied knowledge and rapport have positive and significant effect on tertiary student’s interest in statistic, whilst lecturers’ communication and dynamism do not significantly affect student interest in statistics; though positively related.

Keywords: student interest, effective teacher, personal attributes, regression and SEM

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Authors: Obazee Osariere

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Corporate governance has been an emerging subject of worldwide interest in the 21st century following the failure of going concerns that were hitherto thought to be financially stable before their collapse. Nigeria has had its fair share of corporate collapse, which has made it embrace and develop its corporate governance regime. This paper seeks to undertake an overview of corporate governance and accountability: Nigeria's perspective. This paper examines the various ways the concept has been viewed, its various dimensions, and its basic principles as a major instrument of ensuring corporate governance and accountability and confidence in the operations of organisations. The paper, which adopts a qualitative research method, however, provides an essential theoretical framework within which better practice of corporate governance and accountability can be evolved for appreciable corporate results in the Nigerian business environment. Thus, a historical perspective is adopted to understudy the evolution of corporate governance and accountability from its little beginning to the present time. The adoption of these strategies, it is argued, will engender participation by various principles, engender mutual understanding, build social support and ensure accountability and openness. Such strategies would also help in attitude and behavioural change required to instill in the operators of corporate organisations the best practice enshrined in corporate governance and accountability.

Keywords: corporate governance, accountability, organisations, Nigeria, perspective

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Authors: Richa Rai

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The purpose of this study is to analyze the role of the services sector in economic development of Indian economy, especially in the post reform period. Due to adoption of liberalization policy in developing economy like India, international transaction in services has been increased at a rapid pace which compensated to the current account of Balance of Payment which was in a pitiable condition. But this increased share of services in GDP is not commensurate with share in employment, which is a matter of great concern for Indian economy. Although the increased share of service in GDP indicates the advanced stage of growth of the economy, but this theory is not applicable in context of Indian economy completely. In the preliminary stage, this study finds a positive correlation between growth of services and export earnings and gross domestic product and this growth of services is not equal in terms of all aspects on Indian economy, and also all components of services has not been increased at an equal rate. This paper seeks to examine the impact of liberalization in post reform era on the growth of services in India. The analysis is done for the period of 1991 to 2013. Data has been collected from the secondary sources, especially from the website of Reserve Bank of India, World Trade Organization, and United Nation Conference on Trade and Development. The data has been analyzed with the help of appropriate statistical tools (Causality Relation and Group t-test).

Keywords: export earnings, GDP, gross domestic product, liberalization, services

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Authors: Sandhya Rijal, Saroj Adhikari, Ramesh R. Pant

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Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) have attracted substantial interest in the recent years with the increasing recognition that these can provide essential community needs for improved and diversified rural livelihood and support the objectives of biodiversity conservation. Nevertheless, various challenges are witnessed in their sustainable harvest and management. Assuming that sustainable management with community stewardship can offer one of the solutions to existing challenges, the study assesses the linkages between NTFPs and rural livelihood in Lamabagar village of Dolakha, Nepal. The major objective was to document the status of NTFPs and their contributions in households of Lamabagar. For status documentation, vegetation sampling was done using systematic random sampling technique. 30 plots of 10 m × 10 m were laid down in six parallel transect lines at horizontal distance of 160 m in two different community forests. A structured questionnaire survey was conducted in 76 households (excluding non-response rate) using stratified random sampling technique for contribution analysis. Likewise, key informant interview and focus group discussions were also conducted for data triangulations. 36 different NTFPs were recorded from the vegetation sample in two community forests of which 50% were used for medicinal purposes. The other uses include fodder, religious value, and edible fruits and vegetables. Species like Juniperus indica, Daphne bholua Aconitum spicatum, and Lyonia ovalifolia were frequently used for trade as a source of income, which was sold in local market. The protected species like Taxus wallichiana and Neopicrorhiza scrophulariiflora were also recorded in the area for which the trade is prohibited. The protection of these species urgently needs community stewardship. More than half of the surveyed households (55%) were depending on NTFPs for their daily uses, other than economic purpose whereas 45% of them sold those products in the market directly or in the form of local handmade products as a source of livelihood. NTFPs were the major source of primary health curing agents especially for the poor and unemployed people in the study area. Hence, the NTFPs contributed to livelihood under three different categories: subsistence, supplement income and emergency support, depending upon the economic status of the households. Although the status of forest improved after handover to the user group, the availability of valuable medicinal herbs like Rhododendron anthopogon, Swertia nervosa, Neopicrorhiza scrophulariiflora, and Aconitum spicatum were declining. Inadequacy of technology, lack of easy transport access, and absence of good market facility were the major limitations for external trade of NTFPs in the study site. It was observed that people were interested towards conservation only if they could get some returns: economic in terms of rural settlements. Thus, the study concludes that NTFPs could contribute rural livelihood and support conservation objectives only if local communities are provided with the easy access of technology, market and capital.

Keywords: contribution, medicinal, subsistence, sustainable harvest

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Authors: Sorcha Bennett, Joe Sullivan

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Triple-Level Cell (TLC) NAND Flash memory at, and below, 20nm (nanometer) is still largely unexplored by researchers, and with the ever more commonplace existence of Flash in consumer and enterprise applications there is a need for such gaps in knowledge to be filled. At the time of writing, there was little published data or literature on TLC, and more specifically reliability testing, with a further emphasis on both endurance and retention. This paper will give an introduction to NAND Flash memory, followed by an overview of the relevant current research on the reliability of Flash memory, along with the planned future work which will provide results to help characterise the reliability of TLC memory.

Keywords: endurance, patterns, raw flash, reliability, retention, TLC NAND flash memory, trade-off

Procedia PDF Downloads 327

Authors: Amer Alzaidi

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Islamic banking is an alternative solution to those people who are worried about Riba (interest) in all forms of transaction while using banking services and products. Today, banks around the world have Islamic banking services and products the in one form or another. The use of Islamic banking is not only restricted to Muslims world but have reached to non-Muslim countries like UK, USA, Australia and Canada as well. Compared to conventional banking, the adoption rate of Islamic banking is low because of unawareness of customers, financial cost, and performance issues. The interest in Islamic banking by financial institutions as well as low adoption rate motivated us to look this matter into detail in order to identify Critical Success Factors, which are positively motivating customers to use Islamic banking services/ products and Critical Risk Factors, which have significantly negative effect on the adoption of Islamic banking. The CSFs and CRFs will be initially identified from the literature using methodology called Systematic Literature Review, followed by the empirical analysis of these factors using survey research method. Later, we will develop Islamic Banking Adoption Model (IBAM) to help banks to assess their Islamic banking strategic positioning and to improve their operational efficiency. The first potential contribution of this research study will be the development of IBAM protocol that will provide us guidelines for conducting our actual SLR. The second major contribution of this research will be the development of Islamic Banking Adoption Model (IBAM), and the third contribution of this research study will be the evaluation of the developed IBMA.

Keywords: Islamic banking, adoption model, protocol, technology

Procedia PDF Downloads 252