Ethnicity and Earnings: An Analysis of Data for Karachi

Pakistan is today, a case study in ethnic strife. Carved out of pre- Independence India in 1947, the country is home to five broad ethnic groups: Punjabis (the dominant segment of the population), Balochis, Pathans and Sindhis. Each has a distinctive culture and language. In spite of broad similarities stemming from a common religion (more than 98 percent of the population is Muslim), several factors combine to create dissension and discord. The fifth ethnic group in Pakistan are the Muhajirs (which literally translates to “Immigrants”) who migrated to Pakistan in large numbers from India in 1947. Most of them settled in Karachi. Pakistan’s largest city, a teeming port city with a current population of around 12 million. Charges of favouritism in the award of jobs abound, and the Muhajirs in particular allege that, not being “sons of the soil,” they are singled out for discriminatory treatment. Given that this is the case, it is surprising that no study has been carried out to ascertain if indeed, earnings differences originate from ethnic differences in Pakistan. This study attempts to examine this issue, and thus settle questions that have led to many a pitched argument.

Structural equation modelling and system dynamic in the detection of power quality events

The issues of power quality had been discussed since the starting of power system and it will keep on arise from time to time because power quality is important to electricity consumers at all levels of usage. Since sensitive equipments and power electronic devices are now more common in industrial/commercial sectors as well as domestic use, the awareness of power quality is developing amongst electricity users. In general, the main power quality issues can be identified as voltage variations, voltage imbalance, voltage fluctuations, transients, harmonic distortions, interruptions, etc. The consequences of one or more of the above non-ideal conditions may cause thermal effects, life expectancy reduction, dielectric strength reduction and disoperation of different equipments. In this project, power quality events are verified using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and System Dynamic method. In detecting power quality events, Amos 5.0.1 and Vensim PLE for Windows version 5.11 were used. The verification of power quality events involves identification, classification and mitigation process on several power quality events that occurred in electrical power system

Memetic Multi-Objective Particle Swarm Optimization-Based Energy-Aware Virtual Network Embedding

In cloud infrastructure, accommodating multiple virtual networks on a single physical network reduces power consumed by physical resources and minimizes cost of operating cloud data centers. However, mapping multiple virtual network resources to physical network components, called virtual network embedding (VNE), is known to be NP-hard. With considering energy efficiency, the problem becomes more complicated. In this paper, we model energy-aware virtual network embedding, devise metrics for evaluating performance of energy aware virtual network-embedding algorithms, and propose an energy aware virtual network-embedding algorithm based on multi-objective particle swarm optimization augmented with local search to speed up convergence of the proposed algorithm and improve solutions quality. Performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated and compared with existing algorithms using extensive simulations, which show that the proposed algorithm improves virtual network embedding by increasing revenue and decreasing energy consumption.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1504.0684

Quality management and cost of education at private universities in Bangladesh: An evaluation

An exploratory survey was conducted to analyze the consumers’ evaluation of private higher education sectors in Bangladesh with particular reference to the quality as well as the cost of education. The sample was taken on a random basis from about ten private universities in Dhaka metropolitan area. The respondents (students) were asked to evaluate the quality and the cost of education at private universities in Bangladesh. Respondents ranked the attributes on a number of itemized seven-point scale ratings bounded at each end by one of two bipolar adjectives. The result of this study shows that faculty credentials, academic calendar, campus facility, research facility and cost of education are associated with quality education and that the consumers feel most of the private universities in Bangladesh provide quality education at reasonable costs