Trade Openness, Human Capital, and Economic Resilience in SAARC Countries: A Post-COVID-19 Analysis

The present study analyzes the interrelationship between trade openness, labor force participation, human capital, and economic growth in the SAARC countries, with particular attention to the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on these linkages. In this paper, an attempt has been made to gauge both the short-run and long-run impacts that have resulted in the facilitation of economic growth through trade openness by increased market access, technology transfers, and competitive efficiency. However, the pandemic distorted trade flows and lost labor to more labor-intensive industries, generally hitting the low-income and marginal groups harder while underlining vulnerabilities in the trade-dependent economies. These disruptions thus underline the need for adaptive economic policies that balance trade openness with resilience and self-sufficiency in the SAARC nations. The study further identifies human capital as crucial, especially education and skill development, to maximize benefits from trade. The policy recommendations are promoting intraregional trade, investing in digital infrastructure, and promoting better skills in the workforce for sustainable growth. Therefore, this research concludes by calling for a twin-track approach combining trade liberalization with substantial investment in human capital to lead to economic resilience and inclusive development in the SAARC region. especially in the wake of global disruptions like the COVID-19 crisis

The effects of document\u27s format, size, and storage media on memory forensics

Main memory or RAM contains volatile but critical data about the system\u27s state and its recent activities. Often, RAM based artifacts are hard to be found elsewhere. Digital investigators can find in this volatile data an essential information about the recent usage of a system including the used documents. Nowadays, documents are often fetched from a variety of storage media, most of which are internet based. This can complicate the digital investigation process due to the remote nature of these storage media; most of these remote files cannot be traced on the local hard disk drive (HDD) of the captured machine. However, whenever the document\u27s contents are successfully recovered from RAM images, it can ensure the actual usage of the document. This paper studies the effects of various storage media (local and remote) on the amount of volatile artifacts of different types of documents. Experiments are designed to evaluate the effects of local hard drives, removable media, and a set of cloud based platforms such as Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive on the RAM based artifacts of a used document. Results show that the recovered contents are significantly affected by the used storage media. Moreover, the document\u27s type has an effect too. Frequently, a good ratio of the document\u27s contents are recovered from RAM even when the document is living on the cloud, the document is closed, and the connection is terminated

Targeting Persistence: Student Profiles Reveal Strengths and Challenges in Chemistry and Biochemistry Undergraduate Student Development

Student mindset and identity play a role in STEM persistence. On average, half of STEM majors leave their program without earning a degree, many within the first two years of study. Qualitative analysis of surveys and self-reflection writings of under- and upperclassmen in the chemistry department at a midsized university in the midwestern U.S. revealed that upperclassmen had shifts toward growth mindsets, more developed STEM identities, embraced challenge, and recognizing value in learning from failure. Underclassmen tended toward fixed mindsets, had limited sense of STEM identity, held contradicting beliefs about challenge, and feared failure. This highlights existing strengths within the department, such as undergraduate research experiences, as well as targets for future interventions to improve these traits earlier in the students’ university careers with the hope of increasing persistence

AbstractTrace: The Use of Execution Traces to Cluster, Classify, Prioritize, and Optimize a Bloated Test Suite

Due to the incremental and iterative nature of the software testing process, a test suite may become bloated with redundant, overlapping, and similar test cases. This paper aims to optimize a bloated test suite by employing an execution trace that encodes runtime events into a sequence of characters forming a string. A dataset of strings, each of which represents the code coverage and execution behavior of a test case, is analyzed to identify similarities between test cases. This facilitates the de-bloating process by providing a formal mechanism to identify, remove, and reduce extra test cases without compromising software quality. This form of analysis allows for the clustering and classification of test cases based on their code coverage and similarity score. This paper explores three levels of execution traces and evaluates different techniques to measure their similarities. Test cases with the same code coverage should generate the exact string representation of runtime events. Various string similarity metrics are assessed to find the similarity score, which is used to classify, detect, and rank test cases accordingly. Additionally, this paper demonstrates the validity of the approach with two case studies. The first shows how to classify the execution behavior of various test cases, which can provide insight into each test case’s internal behavior. The second shows how to identify similar test cases based on their code coverage

SDGs in the Americas and Caribbean Region

This volume provides an overview of the ways sustainable development issues as a whole, and the SDGs in particular, are perceived and practiced in a variety of countries in the Latin America and Caribbean region. It also discusses the extent to which its many socio-economic problems hinder progresses towards the pursuit of a sustainable future, and documents successful experiences from across the region.This book is part of the 100 papers to accelerate the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals initiative .https://digitalcommons.lewisu.edu/biology_fac-books/1001/thumbnail.jp

Sulfur-bridging the gap: investigating the electrochemistry of novel copper chelating agents for Alzheimer\u27s disease applications

There is currently an unmet demand for multi-functional precision treatments for Alzheimer\u27s disease (AD) after several failed attempts at designing drugs based on the amyloid hypothesis. The focus of this work is to investigate sulfur-bridged quinoline ligands that could potentially be used in chelation therapies for a subpopulation of AD patients presenting with an overload of labile copper ions, which are known to catalyze the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and exacerbate other markers of AD progression. The ligands 1-(2′-thiopyridyl)isoquinoline (1TPIQ) and 2-(2′-thiopyridyl)quinoline (2TPQ) were synthesized and characterized before being electrochemically investigated in the presence of diferent oxidizing and reducing agents in solution with a physiological pH relevant to the brain. The electrochemical response of each compound with copper was studied by employing both hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) as an oxidizing agent and ascorbic acid (AA) as an antioxidant during analysis using cyclic voltammetry (CV). The cyclic voltammograms of each quinoline were compared with similar ligands that contained aromatic N-donor groups but no sulfur groups to provide relative electrochemical properties of each complex in solution. In a dose-dependent manner, it was observed that AA exerted dual-efcacy when combined with these chelating ligands: promoting synergistic metal binding while also scavenging harmful ROS, suggesting AA is an efective adjuvant therapeutic agent. Overall, this study shows how coordination by sulfur-bridged quinoline ligands can alter copper electrochemistry in the presence of AA to limit ROS production in solution

Design of “Soft” Cleaning Processes for Emerging Substrates via Stimuli Responsive Chemistry

The Chemical Mechanical Planarization (CMP) process (polishing and substrate cleaning) results in defects that can be classified as mechanical (i.e., scratching), chemical (i.e., corrosion), or physiochemical (i.e., adsorbed contaminants) according to the mechanism of formation. This work will focus on the rationale design of p-CMP cleaning systems for emerging materials (silicon carbide (SiC)) that activate the cleaning chemistry via external stimuli such as megasonic energy. More specifically, using megasonic energy in the presence of supramolecular assemblies such as micelles and vesicles was employed for a “soft” (low shear force) defect removal process. Results indicate a correlation between the structure of the “soft” cleaning additives and induced megasonic energy on overall simulated defect removal. It was determined that effective particle removal was a second-order kinetic process with a concentration dependency (i.e. above and below the critical micelle concentration (CMC)) emerging as a key driver for the defect removal rate. Although, one apparent drawback is the generation of post-cleaning carbon residue due to the adsorption of the supramolecular structures to the SiC substrate

Copper Chelation via beta-alanine extends lifespan in a C. elegans model of Alzheimer’s Disease

The leading hypothesis for Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) has traditionally focused on the aggregation of Amyloid-β into amyloid plaques. However, research has yet to definitively prove the role of the amyloid peptide in the pathology of the disease. Given that all therapeutics targeting amyloid plaques have failed in clinical trials, with one exception, there is a need to explore alternative approaches to treatment of this disease. Therefore, we examined other factors that are altered during AD pathogenesis. Many AD patients have dysregulation of metal ions, such as copper and zinc, in addition to accumulation of Amyloid-β. The interaction between Amyloid-β and copper can result in the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS). ROS can cause damage to neurons and surrounding tissues resulting in degradation of the brain. Therefore, our work focuses on disrupting the interaction between Amyloid-β and copper via chelation therapy to prevent ROS formation and, in turn, reduce neurotoxicity. In this study, copper chelation with beta alanine reduced the amount of ROS produced in the brains of C. elegans expressing pan-neuronal Amyloid-β, amino acids 1-42. In response to chelation, the expression of the antioxidant gene, gst-4, was also reduced. Importantly, there was also a positive correlation between copper chelation and increased lifespan in the Amyloid-β expressing C. elegans. Consistent with our previous in vitro work, Amyloid-β expression in vivo was not altered following treatment. Taken together, these results suggest that copper chelation has the potential to serve as an AD therapeutic resulting in increased longevity

Designing a Departmental Program to Improve Belonging and STEM Identity

Student sense of community and belonging are two key factors that affect student persistence in STEM higher education. On average, nearly half of STEM majors leave their program, most within the first two years of study. To address this at Lewis, strategies from learning communities are being incorporated to provide a sense of community and belonging that may be absent from a typical education experience: community events that provide students with an opportunity to interact outside of the classroom and establish connections, seminar courses that promote STEM identity development and career exploration, and specialized tutoring and mentoring services that build academic skills, STEM identity, and motivation in addition to growing student understanding of content knowledge. These non-content specific factors are key to student success4 and persistence yet are not usually formally addressed in a standard STEM program. The Chemistry and Physics departments at Lewis already have many of these components in place. With modifications and additional training for staff, we hope to strengthen the sense of community, belonging, and STEM identity for our students to improve retention

Measuring the Effects of Document Size on RAM Artifacts: A Memory Forensics Approach

Cybercrimes have significantly increased due to the rapid adoption of software and technology in almost every aspect of our lives. The main memory or RAM of a computing machine is often used to provide critical information about the recent system activities, including the running processes, network connections, used passwords, and encryption keys. Moreover, RAM may contain information about the contents of recently used documents and digital files. Therefore, this paper is focused on studying the RAM-based digital artifacts of different sizes of computer documents. It evaluates the amount of document-based digital artifacts that are recovered from the RAM of a confiscated machine. Our methodology analyzes various memory dumps and learns about the digital artifacts in relation to the contents of a document that might be related to a criminal investigation. Two different usage scenarios are assumed: The first assumes that the RAM dump is created while the document is being opened and viewed whereas the second one assumes the RAM dump is created shortly after the document is being closed. Experiments show that the recovered contents are significantly affected by the used document size; the amount of recovered volatile artifacts of a used document is impacted by the original document size. Results show that the ratio of the recovered contents is very close for various document sizes during the same usage scenario. Additionally, closing the document will reduce the amount of recovered content, but still allow for a significant ratio to be considered as evidence of the actual use of the document on the confiscated machine