Search results for: developing countries

Authors: Sara D. Garduño-Diaz, Philippe Y. Garduño-Diaz

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To date, one of the few comprehensive indicators for the measurement of food security is the Global Food Security Index (GFSI). This index is a dynamic quantitative and qualitative benchmarking model, constructed from 28 unique indicators, that measures drivers of food security across both developing and developed countries. Whereas the GFSI has been calculated across a set of 109 countries, in this paper we aim to present and compare, for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), 1) the Food Security Index scores achieved and 2) the data available on affordability, availability, and quality of food. The data for this work was taken from the latest available report published by the creators of the GFSI, which in turn used information from national and international statistical sources. MENA countries rank from place 17/109 (Israel, although with resent political turmoil this is likely to have changed) to place 91/109 (Yemen) with household expenditure spent in food ranging from 15.5% (Israel) to 60% (Egypt). Lower spending on food as a share of household consumption in most countries and better food safety net programs in the MENA have contributed to a notable increase in food affordability. The region has also, however, experienced a decline in food availability, owing to more limited food supplies and higher volatility of agricultural production. In terms of food quality and safety the MENA has the top ranking country (Israel). The most frequent challenges faced by the countries of the MENA include public expenditure on agricultural research and development as well as volatility of agricultural production. Food security is a complex phenomenon that interacts with many other indicators of a country’s wellbeing; in the MENA it is slowly but markedly improving.

Keywords: Diet, food insecurity, global food security index, nutrition, sustainability.

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Authors: Habibi Said Mustafa, Hiroko Ono

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Since 2006, Afghanistan is dealing with one of the most dramatic trend of urban movement in its history, cities and towns are expanding in size and number. Kabul is the capital of Afghanistan and as well as the fast-growing city in the Asia. The influx of the returnees from neighbor countries and other provinces of Afghanistan caused high rate of artificial growth which slums increased. As an unwanted consequence of this growth, today informal settlements have covered a vast portion of the city. Land Readjustment (LR) has proved to be an important tool for developing informal settlements and reorganizing urban areas but its implementation always varies from country to country and region to region within the countries. Consequently, to successfully develop the informal settlements in Kabul, we need to define an Afghan model of LR specifically for Afghanistan which needs to incorporate all those factors related to the socio-economic condition of the country. For this purpose, a part of the old city of Kabul has selected as a study area which is located near the Central Business District (CBD). After the further analysis and incorporating all needed factors, the result shows a positive potential for the implementation of an adaptable Land Readjustment model for Kabul city which is more sustainable and socio-economically friendly. It will enhance quality of life and provide better urban services for the residents. Moreover, it will set a vision and criteria by which sustainable developments shall proceed in other similar informal settlements of Kabul.

Keywords: Adaptation, informal settlements, Kabul, land readjustment, preservation.

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Authors: Nesli Aydin

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Waste management decision making in developing countries has moved towards being more pragmatic, transparent, sustainable and comprehensive. Turkey is required to make its waste related legislation compatible with European Legislation as it is a candidate country of the European Union. Improper Turkish practices such as open burning and open dumping practices must be abandoned urgently, and robust waste management systems have to be structured. The determination of an optimum waste management system in any region requires a comprehensive analysis in which many criteria are taken into account by stakeholders. In conducting this sort of analysis, there are two main criteria which are evaluated by waste management analysts; economic viability and environmentally friendliness. From an analytical point of view, a central characteristic of sustainable development is an economic-ecological integration. It is predicted that building a robust waste management system will need significant effort and cooperation between the stakeholders in developing countries such as Turkey. In this regard, this study aims to provide data regarding the cost and environmental burdens of waste treatment technologies such as an incinerator, an autoclave (with different capacities), a hydroclave and a microwave coupled with updated information on calculation methods, and a framework for comparing any proposed scenario performances on a cost and environmental basis.

Keywords: Decision making, economic viability, environmentally friendliness, stakeholder, waste management systems.

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Authors: Amalka Nawarathna, Nirodha Fernando, Zaid Alwan

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Global carbon reduction is not merely a responsibility of environmentally advanced developed countries, but also a responsibility of developing countries regardless of their less impact on global carbon emissions. In recognition of that, Sri Lanka as a developing country has initiated promoting green building construction as one reduction strategy. However, notwithstanding the increasing attention on Embodied Carbon (EC) reduction in the global building sector, they still mostly focus on Operational Carbon (OC) reduction (through improving operational energy). An adequate attention has not yet been given on EC estimation and reduction. Therefore, this study aims to identify the reasons for the slow uptake of EC estimation in the Sri Lankan building sector. To achieve this aim, 16 numbers of global barriers to estimate EC were identified through existing literature. They were then subjected to a pilot survey to identify the significant reasons for the slow uptake of EC estimation in the Sri Lankan building sector. A questionnaire with a three-point Likert scale was used to this end. The collected data were analysed using descriptive statistics. The findings revealed that 11 out of 16 challenges/ barriers are highly relevant as reasons for the slow uptake in estimating EC in buildings in Sri Lanka while the other five challenges/ barriers remain as moderately relevant reasons. Further, the findings revealed that there are no low relevant reasons. Eventually, the paper concluded that all the known reasons are significant to the Sri Lankan building sector and it is necessary to address them in order to upturn the attention on EC reduction.

Keywords: Embodied carbon emissions, embodied carbon estimation, global carbon reduction, Sri Lankan building sector.

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Authors: Azhar E. Serikkaliyeva, Nurzhamal A. Aldabek

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The purpose of this article is to analyze economic and political tendencies of development of integration processes with different developing level and speed on the Eurasian space, by considering two organizations at the region – Eurasian Economic Community and Shanghai Cooperation Organization, by considering the interests of participations in organizations of Russia and China as a global powers and Kazakhstan as a leader among the Central Asian countries. This article investigates what certain goals Eurasian countries (especially Russia, Kazakhstan and China) are waiting from integration within the SCO and the EurAsEC, linking the process with the theories of regional integration. After European debt crisis it is more topically to research the integration within the specific region's conditions.

Keywords: Eurasian Economic Community, China, Kazakhstan, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Regional integration, Russia.

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Authors: Rayeheh Khatami, Toktam Hanaei, Mohammad Reza Mansouri Daneshvar

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The growth of the agricultural sector is known as an essential way to achieve development goals in developing countries. Urban agriculture is a way to reduce the vulnerability of urban populations of the world toward global environmental change. It is a sustainable and efficient system to respond to the environmental, social and economic needs of the city, which leads to urban sustainability. Today, many local and national governments are developing urban agriculture as an effective tool in responding to challenges such as poverty, food security, and environmental problems. In this study, we follow a perspective based on urban agriculture literature in order to indicate the urban agriculture’s benefits in environmental planning strategies in non-western countries like Iran. The methodological approach adopted is based on qualitative approach and documentary studies. A total of 35 articles (mixed quantitative and qualitative methods studies) were studied in final analysis, which are published in relevant journals that focus on this subject. Studies show the wide range of positive benefits of urban agriculture on food security, nutrition outcomes, health outcomes, environmental outcomes, and social capital. However, there was no definitive conclusion about the negative effects of urban agriculture. This paper provides a conceptual and theoretical basis to know about urban agriculture and its roles in environmental planning, and also conclude the benefits of urban agriculture for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers who seek to create spaces in cities for implementation urban agriculture in future.

Keywords: Urban agriculture, environmental planning, urban planning, literature.

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Authors: Shaira Ismail

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The empirical studies on High Performance Work Systems (HPWSs) and their impacts on firm performance have remarkably little in the developing countries. This paper reviews literatures on the HPWSs practices in different work settings, Western and Asian countries. A review on the empirical research leads to a conclusion that, country differences influence the Human Resource Management (HRM) practices. It is anticipated that there are similarities and differences in the extent of implementation of HPWSs practices by the Malaysian manufacturing firms due to the organizational contextual factors and, the HPWSs have a significant impact on firms- better performance amongst MNCs and local firms.

Keywords: Firm Performance, High Performance Work Systems (HPWSs), Human Resource Management (HRM), Multinational Corporations (MNCs).

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Authors: Shahin Dezdar

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Over the past few years, companies in developing countries have implemented enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Regardless of the various benefits of the ERP system, its adoption and implementation have not been without problems. Many companies have assigned considerable organizational resources to their ERP projects, but have encountered unexpected challenges. Neglecting a number of important factors in ERP projects might lead to failure instead of success. User satisfaction is among those factors that has a major influence on ERP implementation success. So, this paper intends to investigate the key factors that create ERP users- satisfaction and to discover whether ERP users- satisfaction varies among different users- profiles. The study was conducted using a survey questionnaire which was distributed to ERP users in Iranian organizations. A total of 384 responses were collected and analyzed. The findings indicated that younger ERP users tend to be more satisfied with ERP systems. Furthermore, ERP users with more experiences in IT and also more educated users have more satisfaction with ERP softwares. However, the study found no satisfaction differences between men and women users.

Keywords: ERP, Enterprise resource planning, User satisfaction, Iran, Developing country

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Authors: C. Ardil

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In this research, the Balkan peninsula countries' developmental integration into European Union represents the strategic economic development objectives of the countries in the region. In order to objectively analyze the level of economic development competition of Balkan Peninsula countries, the mathematical compromise programming technique of multicriteria evaluation is used in this ranking problem. The primary aim of this research is to explain the role and significance of the multicriteria method evaluation using a real example of compromise solutions. Using the mathematical compromise programming technique, twelve countries of the Balkan Peninsula are economically evaluated and mutually compared. The economic development evaluation of the countries is performed according to five evaluation criteria forming the basis for economic development evaluation. The multiattribute model is solved using the mathematical compromise programming technique for producing different Pareto solutions. The results obtained by the multicriteria evaluation gives the possibility of identification and evaluation of the most eminent economic development indicators for each country separately. Finally, in this way, the proposed method has proved to be a successful model for the evaluation of the Balkan peninsula countries' economic development competition.

Keywords: Balkan peninsula countries, standard deviation, multicriteria decision making, mathematical compromise programming, multicriteria decision making, multicriteria analysis, multicriteria decision analysis.

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Authors: Harriet Koshie Lamptey, Richard Boateng

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Mobile learning (m-learning) is a novel approach to knowledge acquisition and dissemination and is gaining global attention. Steady progress in wireless technologies and the portability of communication devices continue to broaden the scope and use of mobiles. With the convergence of Web functionality onto mobile platforms and the affordability and availability of mobile technology, m-learning has the potential of being the next prevalent channel of education in both formal and informal settings. There is substantive literature on developed countries but the state in developing countries (DCs) however appears vague. This paper is a synthesis of extant literature on mobile learning in DCs. The research interest is based on the fact that in DCs, mobile communication and internet connectivity are popular. However, its use in education is under explored. There are some reviews on the state, conceptualizations, trends and teacher education, but to the authors’ knowledge, no study has focused on mobile learning adoption and integration issues. This study examines issues and gaps associated with its adoption and integration in DCs higher education institutions. A qualitative build-up of literature was conducted using articles pooled from electronic databases (Google Scholar and ERIC). To enable criteria for inclusion and incorporate diverse study perspectives, search terms used were m-learning, DCs, higher education institutions, challenges, benefits, impact, gaps and issues. The synthesis revealed that though mobile technology has diffused globally, its pedagogical pursuit in DCs remains quite low. The absence of a mobile Web and the difficulty of resource conversion into mobile format due to lack of funding and technical competence is a stumbling block. Again, the lack of established design and implementation rules to guide the development of m-learning platforms in DCs is a hindrance. The absence of access restrictions on devices poses security threats to institutional systems. Negative perceptions that devices are taking over faculty roles lead to resistance in some situations. Resistance to change can be a hindrance to the acceptance and success of new systems. Lack of interest for m-learning is also attributed to lower technological literacy levels of the underprivileged masses. Scholarly works on m-learning in DCs is yet to mature. Most technological innovations are handed down from developed countries, and this constantly creates a lag for DCs. Lack of theoretical grounding was also identified which reduces the objectivity of study reports. The socio-cultural terrain of DCs results in societies with different views and needs that have been identified as a hindrance to research. Institutional commitment decisions, adequate funding for the necessary infrastructural development as well as multiple stakeholder participation is important for project success. Evidence suggests that while adoption decisions are readily made, successful integration of the concept for its full benefits to be realized is often neglected. Recommendations to findings were made to provide possible remedies to identified issues.

Keywords: Developing countries, higher education institutions, mobile learning, literature review.

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Authors: O. Starineca

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Some organizations as employers have difficulties to attract job seekers and retain their employees. Strategic planning of Human Resources (HR) presumes broad analysis of perspectives including analysis of potential job seekers in the field. Human Resources Recruitment (HRR) influences employer brand of an organization and peculiarities of both external organizational factors and stakeholders. Defining peculiarities of the future job seekers, who could potentially become the employees of the organization, could help to adjust HRR tools and methods adapt to the youngest generation employees’ preferences and be more successful in selecting the best candidates, who are likely to be loyal to the employer. The aim of the empirical study is definition of some students’ as job seekers peculiarities and their requirements to their potential employer. The survey in Latvia, Lithuania and Spain. Respondents were students from these countries’ tertiary education institutions Public Administration (PA) or relevant study programs. All three countries students’ peculiarities have just a slight difference. Overall, they all wish to work for a socially responsible employer that is able to provide positive working environment and possibilities for professional development and learning. However, respondents from each country have own peculiarities. The study might have a practical application. PA of the examined countries might use the results developing employer brand and creating job advertisements focusing on recent graduates’ recruitment.

Keywords: Generation Y, human resources recruitment, public administration.

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Authors: Pei. P. Tan, Don. U.A. Galagedera, Elizabeth A.Maharaj

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This paper examines predictability in stock return in developed and emergingmarkets by testing long memory in stock returns using wavelet approach. Wavelet-based maximum likelihood estimator of the fractional integration estimator is superior to the conventional Hurst exponent and Geweke and Porter-Hudak estimator in terms of asymptotic properties and mean squared error. We use 4-year moving windows to estimate the fractional integration parameter. Evidence suggests that stock return may not be predictable indeveloped countries of the Asia-Pacificregion. However, predictability of stock return insome developing countries in this region such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines may not be ruled out. Stock return in the Thailand stock market appears to be not predictable after the political crisis in 2008.

Keywords: Asia-Pacific stock market, long-memory, return predictability, wavelet

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Authors: Abubakar Dikko

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The research investigates the causes of unemployment in Namibia, Nigeria and South Africa and the role of Capital Accumulation in reducing the unemployment profile of these economies as proposed by the post-Keynesian economics. This is conducted through extensive review of literature on the NAIRU models and focused on the post-Keynesian view of unemployment within the NAIRU framework. The NAIRU (non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment) model has become a dominant framework used in macroeconomic analysis of unemployment. The study views the post-Keynesian economics arguments that capital accumulation is a major determinant of unemployment. Unemployment remains the fundamental socio-economic challenge facing African economies. It has been a burden to citizens of those economies. Namibia, Nigeria, and South Africa are great African nations battling with high unemployment rates. The high unemployment rate in the country led the citizens to chase away foreigners in the country claiming that they have taken away their jobs. The study proposes there is a strong relationship between capital accumulation and unemployment in Namibia, Nigeria, and South Africa, and capital accumulation is responsible for high unemployment rates in these countries. For the economies to achieve steady state level of employment and satisfactory level of economic growth and development, there is need for capital accumulation to take place. The countries in the study have been selected after a critical research and investigations. They are selected based on the following criteria; African economies with high unemployment rates above 15% and have about 40% of their workforce unemployed. This level of unemployment is the critical level of unemployment in Africa as expressed by International Labour Organization (ILO). And finally, the African countries experience a slow growth in their Gross fixed capital formation. Adequate statistical measures have been employed using a time-series analysis in the study and the results revealed that capital accumulation is the main driver of unemployment performance in the chosen African countries. An increase in the accumulation of capital causes unemployment to reduce significantly. The results of the research work will be useful and relevant to federal governments and ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) of Namibia, Nigeria and South Africa to resolve the issue of high and persistent unemployment rates in their economies which are great burden that slows growth and development of developing economies. Also, the result can be useful to World Bank, African Development Bank and International Labour Organization (ILO) in their further research and studies on how to tackle unemployment in developing and emerging economies.

Keywords: Capital accumulation, NAIRU, post-Keynesian economics, unemployment.

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Authors: José Carlos Rodríguez, Mario Gómez

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This paper analyzes innovation trends in Latin America countries by means of the number of patent applications filed by residents and non residents during the period 1965 to 2012. Making use of patent data released by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), we search for the presence of multiple structural changes in patent application series in Argentina, Brazil Chile, and Mexico. These changes may suggest that firms’ innovative activity has been modified as a result of implementing a particular science, technology and innovation (STI) policy. Accordingly, the new regulations implemented in these countries during 1980s and 1990s have influenced their intellectual property regimes. The question conducting this research is thus how STI policies in these countries have affected their innovation activity? The results achieved in this research confirm the existence of multiple structural changes in the series of patent applications resulting from STI policies implemented in these countries.

Keywords: Econometric methods, innovation activity, Latin America countries, patents, science, technology and innovation (STI) policy.

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Authors: Ahmet Ay, Hakan Acet, Ceyhun Can Özcan

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Economic freedoms, most emphasized issue in the recent years, are considered to affect economic growth and performance via institutional structure. In this context, a model that includes Turkey and Middle East Countries, and where the effects of economic freedom on growth are examined, was formed. For the groups of countries determined, in the study carried out by using the dataset belonging the period of 2004 - 2009, between economic freedoms and growth, a negative relationship was observed as group. In the sense of individual effects, it was identified that there was a positive relationship in terms of some Middle East Countries and Turkey.

Keywords: Economic Freedoms, Economic Growth, Freedoms.

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Authors: Saleh Abduallah Saleh, Mohammad Basir Bin Saud, Mohd Azwardi Md Isa

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It is very important for a developing nation to developing their infrastructure on the prime priority because their infrastructure particularly their roads and transportation functions as a blood in the system. Almost 1.1 billion populations share the travel and transportation industry in India. On the other hand, the Pakistan transportation industry is also extensive and elevating about 170 million users of transportation. Indian and Pakistani specifically within bus industry are well connected within and between the urban and rural areas. The transportation industry is radically helping the economic alleviation of both countries. Due to high economic instability, unemployment and poverty rate both countries governments are very serious and committed to help for boosting their economy. They believe that any form of transportation development would play a vital role in the development of land, infrastructure which could indirectly support many other industries’ developments, such as tourism, freighting and shipping businesses, just to mention a few. However, it seems that their previous transportation planning in the due course has failed to meet the fast growing demand. As with the span of time, both the countries are looking forward to a long-term, and economical solutions, because the demand is from time to time keep appreciating and reacting according to other key economic drivers. Content analysis method and case study approach is used in this paper and secondary data from the bureau of statistic is used for case analysis. The paper focused on the mobility concerns of the lower and middle-income people in India and Pakistan. The paper is aimed to highlight the weaknesses, opportunities and limitations resulting from low priority industry for a government, which is making the either country's public suffer. The paper has concluded that the main issue is identified as the slow, inappropriate, and unfavorable decisions which are not in favor of long-term country’s economic development and public interest. The paper also recommends to future research avenues for public and private transportation, which is continuously failing to meet the public expectations.

Keywords: Bus transportation industries, transportation demand, government parallel initiatives, road and traffic congestions.

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Authors: Nerey H. Mvungi, Justinian Anatory, Fatuma Simba

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Digital broadcasting has been an area of active research, development, innovation and business models development in recent years. This paper presents a survey on the characteristics of the digital terrestrial television broadcasting (DTTB) standards, and implementation status of DTTB worldwide showing the standards adopted. It is clear that only the developed countries and some in the developing ones shall be able to beat the ITU set analogue to digital broadcasting migration deadline because of the challenges that these countries faces in digitizing their terrestrial broadcasting. The challenges to keep on track the DTTB migration plan are also discussed in this paper. They include financial, technology gap, policies alignment with DTTB technology, etc. The reported performance comparisons for the different standards are also presented. The interesting part is that the results for many comparative studies depends to a large extent on the objective behind such studies, hence counter claims are common.

Keywords: Digital terrestrial television broadcasting (DTTB) technologies, DTTB standards comparison, DTTB implementation.

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Authors: Mpofu Vongai, Vhurumuku Elaosi

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Many African countries, such as Zimbabwe and South Africa, have curricula reform agendas that include incorporation of Indigenous Knowledge and Nature of Science (NOS) into school Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education. It is argued that at high school level, STEM learning, which incorporates understandings of indigenization science and NOS, has the potential to provide a strong foundation for a culturally embedded scientific knowledge essential for their advancement in Science and Technology. Globally, investment in STEM education is recognized as essential for economic development. For this reason, developing countries such as Zimbabwe and South Africa have been investing into training specialized teachers in natural sciences and technology. However, in many cases this training has been detached from the cultural realities and contexts of indigenous learners. For this reason, the STEM curricula reform has provided implementation challenges to teachers. An issue of major concern is the teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), which is essential for effective implementation of these STEM curricula. Well-developed Teacher PCK include an understanding of both the nature of indigenous knowledge (NOIK) and of NOS. This paper reports the results of a study that investigated the development of 3 South African and 3 Zimbabwean in-service teachers’ abilities to integrate NOS and NOIK as part of their PCK. A participatory action research design was utilized. The main focus was on capturing, determining and developing teachers STEM knowledge for integrating NOIK and NOS in science classrooms. Their use of indigenous games was used to determine how their subject knowledge for STEM and pedagogical abilities could be developed. Qualitative data were gathered through the use dialogues between the researchers and the in-service teachers, as well as interviewing the participating teachers. Analysis of the data provides a methodological window through which in-service teachers’ PCK can be STEMITIZED and their abilities to integrate NOS and NOIK developed. Implications are raised for developing teachers’ STEM education in universities and teacher training colleges.

Keywords: Indigenous knowledge, nature of science, pedagogical content knowledge, STEM education.

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Authors: Prompt Udomdech, Eleni Papadonikolaki, Andrew Davies

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Building Information Modelling (BIM) is the major technological trend among built environment organisations. Digitalising businesses and operations, BIM brings forth a digital transformation in any built environment industry. The adoption of BIM presents challenges for organisations, especially Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). The main problem for built environment SMEs is the lack of project actors with adequate BIM competences. The research highlights learning in projects as the key and explores into the learning of BIM in projects of designers and engineers within Thai design and engineering SMEs. The study uncovers three impeding attributes which are: a) lack of English proficiency; b) unfamiliarity with digital technologies; and c) absence of public standards. This research expands on the literature of BIM competences and adoption.

Keywords: BIM competences and adoption, digital transformation, learning in projects, SMEs, and developing built environment industry.

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Authors: N. Areerachakul

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In developing countries located in monsoon areas like Thailand where rainwater is currently of no value for urban dwellers due to easily access to piped water supply at each household, studies in rainwater harvesting for domestic use are of low interest. However it is needed to undertake research to find out appropriate rainwater harvesting systems particularly for small urban communities that are recently developed from a full rural structure to urban context. As a matter of fact, in such transitional period, relying on only common water resources is risky. With some specific economic settings, land use patterns, and historical and cultural context that dominate perceptions of water users in the study area, the level of service in this study may certainly be different from megacities or cities located in industrial zone. The overviews of some available technologies and background of rainwater harvesting including alternate resource are included in this paper. Among other sources of water supply, ground water use as the water resource of Thailand and also in the study area.

Keywords: Developing country, water supply, rainwater, ground water.

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Authors: Gordana Kordić, Petra Palić

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The European countries that during the past two decades based their exchange rate regimes on currency board arrangement (CBA) are usually analysed from the perspective of corner solution choice’s stabilisation effects. There is an open discussion on the positive and negative background of a strict exchange rate regime choice, although it should be seen as part of the transition process towards the monetary union membership. The focus of the paper is on the Baltic countries that after two decades of a rigid exchange rate arrangement and strongly influenced by global crisis are finishing their path towards the euro zone. Besides the stabilising capacity, the CBA is highly vulnerable regime, with limited developing potential. The rigidity of the exchange rate (and monetary) system, despite the ensured credibility, do not leave enough (or any) space for the adjustment and/or active crisis management. Still, the Baltics are in a process of recovery, with fiscal consolidation measures combined with (painful and politically unpopular) measures of internal devaluation. Today, two of them (Estonia and Latvia) are members of euro zone, fulfilling their ultimate transition targets, but de facto exchanging one fixed regime with another. The paper analyses the challenges for the CBA in unstable environment since the fixed regimes rely on imported stability and are sensitive to external shocks. With limited monetary instruments, these countries were oriented to the fiscal policies and used a combination of internal devaluation and tax policy measures. Despite their rather quick recovery, our second goal is to analyse the long term influence that the measures had on the national economy.

Keywords: Currency Board Arrangement, internal devaluation, exchange rate regime, Great recession.

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Authors: Mannan Mridha, Mohammad S. Islam

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Innovative medical technologies offer more effective medical care, with less risk to patient and healthcare personnel. Medical technology and devices when properly used provide better data, precise monitoring and less invasive treatments and can be more targeted and often less costly. The Intensive Care Unit (ICU) equipped with patient monitoring, respiratory and cardiac support, pain management, emergency resuscitation and life support devices is particularly prone to medical errors for various reasons. Many people in the developing countries now wonder whether their visit to hospital might harm rather than help them. This is because; clinicians in the developing countries are required to maintain an increasing workload with limited resources and absence of well-functioning safety system. A team of experts from the medical, biomedical and clinical engineering in Sweden and Bangladesh have worked together to study the incidents, adverse events at the ICU in Bangladesh. The study included both public and private hospitals to provide a better understanding for physical structure, organization and practice in operating processes of care, and the occurrence of adverse outcomes the errors, risks and accidents related to medical devices at the ICU, and to develop a ICT based support system in order to reduce hazards and errors and thus improve the quality of performance, care and cost effectiveness at the ICU. Concrete recommendations and guidelines have been made for preparing appropriate ICT related tools and methods for improving the routine for use of medical devices, reporting and analyzing of the incidents at the ICU in order to reduce the number of undetected and unsolved incidents and thus improve the patient safety.

Keywords: Accidents reporting system, patient car and safety, safe medical devices.

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Authors: Ilze Stokmane

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Baltic competitiveness is quite controversial. In a situation with the rapid structural changes, economy develops in balance very rarely - in different fields will always be more rapid changes in another more stagnation. Analyzing different economic indices developed by international organizations the situation in three Baltic countries are described from a different competitiveness positions highlighting strengths and weaknesses of each country. Exploring the openness of the economy, it is possible to observe certain risks included in the reports describing situation of competitiveness where government policies competing in the tax system, the rates of labour market policies, investment environment, etc. This is a very important factor resulting in competitive advantage. Baltic countries are still at a weak position from a technological perspective, and need to borrow the knowledge and technology from more developed countries.

Keywords: Baltic countries, Baltic region, competitiveness, indices of competitiveness.

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Authors: Ujjwala Bhand, Mridula Goel

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Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) prepared by World Economic Forum has become a benchmark in studying the competitiveness of countries and for understanding the factors that enable competitiveness. Innovation is a key pillar in competitiveness and has the unique property of enabling exponential economic growth. This paper attempts to analyze how the pillars comprising the Global Competitiveness Index affect innovation and whether GDP growth can directly affect innovation outcomes for a country. The key objective of the study is to identify areas on which governments of developing countries can focus policies and programs to improve their country’s innovativeness. We have compiled a panel data set for top innovating countries and large emerging economies called BRICS from 2007-08 to 2014-15 in order to find the significant factors that affect innovation. The results of the regression analysis suggest that government should make policies to improve labor market efficiency, establish sophisticated business networks, provide basic health and primary education to its people and strengthen the quality of higher education and training services in the economy. The achievements of smaller economies on innovation suggest that concerted efforts by governments can counter any size related disadvantage, and in fact can provide greater flexibility and speed in encouraging innovation.

Keywords: Innovation, Global Competitiveness Index, BRICS, economic growth.

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Authors: Haksoon Kim

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The paper investigates the relationship between the foreign direct investment (FDI) and the corporate governance or transparency by investigating the country-level FDI flows, FDI inward performance, corporate governance and transparency variables. From the regression analysis with Newey-West estimator of 28 country panel data from 1990- 2002, we find strong positive relationships between corporate governance or transparency level of hosting countries and FDI inward performance within hosting countries. A strong positive relationship is found between anti-director rights level or number of analysts of hosting countries and FDI inward performance within hosting countries. Also, we find a positive relationship between the number of analysts of hosting countries and FDI inflows. The empirical results are consistent with stock market liberalizations and corporate governance explanations of reasons for FDI.

Keywords: corporate governance, corporate transparency, FDIflows, FDI inward performance

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Authors: Guneet Saini, Shahrukh, Sunil Sharma

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Traffic congestion is the most critical issue faced by those in the transportation profession today. Over the past few years, roundabouts have been recognized as a measure to promote efficiency at intersections globally. In developing countries like India, this type of intersection still faces a lot of issues, such as bottleneck situations, long queues and increased waiting times, due to increasing traffic which in turn affect the performance of the entire urban network. This research is a case study of a non-conventional roundabout, in terms of geometric design, in a small town in India. These types of roundabouts should be analyzed for their functionality in mixed traffic conditions, prevalent in many developing countries. Microscopic traffic simulation is an effective tool to analyze traffic conditions and estimate various measures of operational performance of intersections such as capacity, vehicle delay, queue length and Level of Service (LOS) of urban roadway network. This study involves analyzation of an unsymmetrical non-circular 6-legged roundabout known as “Kala Aam Chauraha” in a small town Bulandshahr in Uttar Pradesh, India using VISSIM simulation package which is the most widely used software for microscopic traffic simulation. For coding in VISSIM, data are collected from the site during morning and evening peak hours of a weekday and then analyzed for base model building. The model is calibrated on driving behavior and vehicle parameters and an optimal set of calibrated parameters is obtained followed by validation of the model to obtain the base model which can replicate the real field conditions. This calibrated and validated model is then used to analyze the prevailing operational traffic performance of the roundabout which is then compared with a proposed alternative to improve efficiency of roundabout network and to accommodate pedestrians in the geometry. The study results show that the alternative proposed is an advantage over the present roundabout as it considerably reduces congestion, vehicle delay and queue length and hence, successfully improves roundabout performance without compromising on pedestrian safety. The study proposes similar designs for modification of existing non-conventional roundabouts experiencing excessive delays and queues in order to improve their efficiency especially in the case of developing countries. From this study, it can be concluded that there is a need to improve the current geometry of such roundabouts to ensure better traffic performance and safety of drivers and pedestrians negotiating the intersection and hence this proposal may be considered as a best fit.

Keywords: Operational performance, roundabout, simulation, VISSIM, traffic.

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Authors: Jan Pavel

Abstract:

Public procurement is one of the most important areas in the public sector that introduces a possibility for a corruption. Due to the volume of the funds that are allocated through this institution (in the EU countries it is between 10 – 15% of GDP), it has very serious implications for the efficiency of public expenditures and the overall economic efficiency as well. Indicators that are usually used for the measurement of the corruption (such as Corruption Perceptions Index - CPI) show that the worst situation is in the post-communist countries and Mediterranean countries. The presented paper uses the Czech Republic as an example of a post-communist country and analyses the factors which influence the scope of corruption in public procurement. Moreover, the paper discusses indicators that could point at the public procurement market inefficiency. The presented results show that post-communist states use the institute of public contracts significantly more than the old member countries of the continental Europe. It has a very important implication because it gives more space for corruption. Furthermore, it appears that the inefficient functioning of public procurement market is clearly manifested in the low number of bids, low level of market transparency and an ineffective control system. Some of the observed indicators are statistically significantly correlated with the CPI.

Keywords: Czech Republic, Corruption, Public Procurement, Post-Communist Countries

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Authors: Mediha B. Sılaydın Aydın, Emine D. Kahraman

Abstract:

One of the important impacts of climate change is the sea level rise. Turkey is a peninsula, so the coastal areas of the country are threatened by the problem of sea level rise. Therefore, the urbanized coastal areas are highly vulnerable to climate change. At the aim of enhancing spatial resilience of urbanized areas, this question arises: What should be the priority intervention subject in the urban planning process for a given city. To answer this question, by focusing on the problem of sea level rise, this study aims to determine spatial vulnerability typologies and levels of Turkey coastal cities based on morphological, physical and social characteristics. As a method, spatial vulnerability of coastal cities is determined by two steps as level and type. Firstly, physical structure, morphological structure and social structure were examined in determining spatial vulnerability levels. By determining these levels, most vulnerable areas were revealed as a priority in adaptation studies. Secondly, all parameters are also used to determine spatial typologies. Typologies are determined for coastal cities in order to use as a base for urban planning studies. Adaptation to climate change is crucial for developing countries like Turkey so, this methodology and created typologies could be a guide for urban planners as spatial directors and an example for other developing countries in the context of adaptation to climate change. The results demonstrate that the urban settlements located on the coasts of the Marmara Sea, the Aegean Sea and the Mediterranean respectively, are more vulnerable than the cities located on the Black Sea’s coasts to sea level rise.

Keywords: Climate change, coastal cities, sea level rise, urban land use planning, vulnerability.

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Authors: Abobaker M. Q. Farhan, Olof M. A. Saif

Abstract:

The demand for parking spaces in urban areas, particularly in developing countries, has led to a significant issue in the absence of sufficient parking spaces in crowded areas, which results in daily traffic congestion as drivers search for parking. This not only affects the appearance of the city but also has indirect impacts on the economy, society, and environment. In response to these challenges, researchers from various countries have sought technical and intelligent solutions to mitigate the problem through the development of smart parking systems. This paper aims to analyze and design three models of parking lots, with a focus on parking time and security. The study used computer software and Uppaal tools to simulate the models and determine the best among them. The results and suggestions provided in the paper aim to reduce the parking problems and improve the overall efficiency and safety of the parking process. The conclusion of the study highlights the importance of utilizing advanced technology to address the pressing issue of insufficient parking spaces in urban areas.

Keywords: Preliminaries, system requirements, timed automata, uppaal.

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Authors: Ivan Lovrinović, Gordana Kordić, Martina Nakić

Abstract:

There are little subjects in macroeconomics that are so widely discussed, but at the same time controversial and without a clear solution such as the choice of exchange rate regime. National authorities need to take into consideration numerous fundamentals, trying to fulfil goals of economic growth, low and stable inflation and international stability. This paper focuses on the countries of ex- Yugoslavia and their exchange rate history as independent states. We follow the development of the regimes in 6 countries during the transition through the financial crisis of the second part of the 2000s to the prospects of their final goal: full membership in the European Union. Main question is to what extent has the exchange regime contributed to their economic success, considering other objective factors.

Keywords: European Union, exchange rate regime, ex- Yugoslavia countries

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