Nighttime Light Intensity and Child Health Outcomes in Bangladesh

This study examines the impact of nighttime light intensity on child health outcomes in Bangladesh. We use nighttime light intensity as a proxy measure of urbanization and argue that the higher intensity of nighttime light, the higher is the degree of urbanization, which positively affects child health outcomes. In econometric estimation, we employ a methodology that combines parametric and non-parametric approaches using the Gradient Boosting Machine (GBM), K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN), and Bootstrap Aggregating that originate from machine learning algorithms. Based on our benchmark estimates, findings show that one standard deviation increase of nighttime light intensity is associated with a 1.515 rise of Z-score of weight for age after controlling for several control variables. The maximum increase of weight for height and height for age score range from 5.35 to 7.18 units. To further understand our benchmark estimates, generalized additive models also provide a robust positive relationship between nighttime light intensity and children's health outcomes. Finally, we develop an economic model that supports the empirical findings of this study that the marginal effect of urbanization on children's nutritional outcomes is strictly positive.Comment: 44 page

A Probit Estimation of Urban Bases of Environmental Awareness: Evidence from Sylhet City, Bangladesh

This paper evaluates the significant factors contributing to environmental awareness among individuals living in the urban area of Sylhet, Bangladesh. Ordered Probit(OPM) estimation is applied on the value of ten measures of individual environmental concern. The estimated results of OPM reveal the dominance of higher education, higher income, and full-employment status on environmental concern and environmentally responsible behavior. Younger and more educated respondents tended to be more knowledgeable and concerned than older and less educated respondents. The marginal effect of household size, middle-income level income, and part-time employment status of the survey respondents played a less significant role in the degree of environmental awareness. Findings also validate the "age hypothesis" proposed by Van Liere and Dunlap (1980), and the gender effect reveals an insignificant role in determining the degree of environmental concern. Environmental awareness among urban individuals with higher income increased linearly with environmental awareness programs which may have significant policy importance, such as environmental awareness program for old-aged and less-educated individuals, and may lead to increased taxation on higher income group to mitigate city areas' pollution problems

Parliamentary By-Election in Bangladesh: The Study of Bhola-3 Constituency

This analytical study based on the secondary sources examines the nature of the by-election in the Bhola-3 constituency held on April 24, 2010. The ruling party Awami League (AL) took this by-election as a prestige issue and chance for a renewed mandate in favour of the Hasina government, while the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s (BNP) plan was to create an issue by saying that the by-election was rigged. The Election Commission (EC) and the ruling party clamed that the poll was free and fair, while the BNP rejected the electoral outcome for widespread corruption. The analysis shows that the election was not free, fair and peaceful and the role of EC was controversial. The EC didn’t deploy the army, although BNP demanded this several times to maintain law and order. Moreover, the EC didn’t take any action against the violation of electoral laws by the ruling party’s candidate. Widely shared anecdotal evidence of voter intimidation and physical violence besmirched the election.Key words: By-election; AL; BNP; Election Commissio

Enhancement of Web Security Against External Attack

The security of web-based services is currently playing a vital role for the software industry. In recent years, many technologies and standards have emerged in order to handle the security issues related to web services. This paper shows techniques to enhance the security of web services, and some of the recent challenges and recommendations of a proposed model to secure web services. It shows the security process of a real life web application, which includes; HTML5 forms, login security, and a single signon solution. This paper also aim to discuss the ten (10) most common web security vulnerabilities and how to prevent the web application from three (3) of the vulnerabilities. Amongst them are; SQL Injection, Cross Site Scripting and Broken Authentication, and Session Management

A Probit Estimation of Urban Bases of Environmental Awareness: Evidence from Sylhet City, Bangladesh

This paper evaluates the significant factors contributing to environmental awareness among individuals living in the urban area of Sylhet, Bangladesh. Ordered Probit(OPM) estimation is applied on the value of ten measures of individual environmental concern. The estimated results of OPM reveal the dominance of higher education, higher income, and full-employment status on environmental concern and environmentally responsible behavior. Younger and more educated respondents tended to be more knowledgeable and concerned than older and less educated respondents. The marginal effect of household size, middle-income level income, and part-time employment status of the survey respondents played a less significant role in the degree of environmental awareness. Findings also validate the "age hypothesis" proposed by Van Liere and Dunlap (1980), and the gender effect reveals an insignificant role in determining the degree of environmental concern. Environmental awareness among urban individuals with higher income increased linearly with environmental awareness programs which may have significant policy importance, such as environmental awareness program for old-aged and less-educated individuals, and may lead to increased taxation on higher income group to mitigate city areas' pollution problems

A Novel Design and Implementation of 8-3 Encoder Using Quantum-dot Cellular Automata (QCA) Technology

In recent years Quantum-dot Cellular Automata (QCA) has been considered one of the emerging nano-technology for future generation digital circuits and systems. QCA technology is a promising alternative to Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) technology. Thus, QCA offers a novel electronics paradigm for information processing and communication system. It has attractive features such as faster speed, higher scale integration, higher switching frequency, smaller size and low power consumption compared to the transistor based technology. It is projected as a promising nanotechnology for future Integrated Circuits (ICs). A quantum dot cellular automaton complex gate is composed from simple 3-input majority gate. In this paper, a 8-3 encoder circuit is proposed based on QCA logic gates: the 4-input Majority Voter (MV) OR gate. This 7-input gate can be configured into many useful gate structures such as a 4-input AND gate, a 4-input OR gate, 2-input AND and 2-input OR gates, 2-input complex gates, multi-input complex gates. The proposed circuit has a promising future in the area of nano-computing information processing system and can be stimulated with higher digital applications in QCA

Revisiting the Feldstein-Horioka Hypothesis of savings, investment and capital mobility: evidence from 27 EU countries

This paper is an attempt to estimate the magnitude of integration for capital mobility among EU economies for the time period 1991-2009. It has been empirically observed that there is strong evidence in favor of higher degree of capital mobility for many EU countries, especially at euro currency period and in euro zone. We conclude that short run and long run capital mobility test based on Feldstein-Horioka (F-H) estimation method is likely to provide a measure of EU capital mobility.

A comparative study of the Malaysian financial and economic policies in Islamic perspective, 1970-85

The estimated equations of Islamic general economic equilibrium for the Malaysian economy, for the period 1970-85, will now be examined in view of the actual changes that have taken place in Malaysia for the stated period. We shall then study the related policy issues and the potential for policy development in Islamic perspectives. The general forms of the estimated equations were found to reinforce the theoretical structure of the Islamic macro-economic system developed in an earlier work. By the same token the Keynesian element of the Islamic macroeconomic system were found to hold in our estimated model system. However, a critical examination on the stability of the IIS and ILM curves showed low levels of reliability on the estimated slopes of these curves expressed in the log-linear forms. The unstable nature of the slopes of IIS-equation was also reflected in the variable interrelationships within the expenditure sector equation; that is, as shown among income, investment and profit rate variables in their log-linear forms. Likewise, in the case of ILM-equation, the monetary sector equilibrium was found to be unstable. While such cases of instability, shown by the possible ambiguity of the slopes of 11s-ILM-equations, are consistent both with the Keynesian general equilibrium system and the Islamic macro-economic equilibrium, they must be interpreted now in relation to the actual economic changes in the Malaysian economy for the period 1970-85