Prediction distribution for linear regression model with multivariate Student-t errors under the Bayesian approach

[Abstract]: Prediction distribution is a basis for predictive inferences applied in many real world situations. It is a distribution of the unobserved future response(s) conditional on a set of realized responses from an informative experiment. Various statistical approaches can be used to obtain prediction distributions for different models. This study derives the prediction distribution(s) for multiple linear regression model using the Bayesian method when the error components of both the performed and future models have a multivariate Student-t distribution. The study observes that the prediction distribution(s) of future response(s) has a multivariate Student-t distribution whose degrees of freedom depends on the size of the realized sample and the dimension of the regression parameters’ vector but does not depend on the degrees of freedom of the errors distribution

Employment and Millennium Development Goals

This paper looks at the role of employment-intensive growth in attaining the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000 ratified by setting specific targets with respect to eight different goals: eradication of extreme poverty and hunger; universal primary education; gender equality; reduction of child mortality; improved maternal health; combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensuring environmental sustainability; and promoting global partnership for development. With the exception of the last goal, which is a matter for the international community dominated by the advanced countries, the remaining goals are to be pursued by individual developing countries by adopting appropriate policies. The seven such goals may conveniently be divided into three categories: (a) those that may by and large be treated as private goods whose benefits are mainly captured by their recipients; the promotion of personal income is the principal instrument for their achievement; (b) those that are characterized by substantial externalities in that they provide benefits not only to their direct recipients but also to others; their achievement is a matter of both private income generation and public action; and (c) those goals that are public goods characterized by non-excludability and non-rivalry; their achievement is primarily a matter of public action. The first MDG - reduction of poverty and hunger - is achieved by rapid and inequality-averse economic growth filtering down to households and providing the poor with an increase in personal income to enable them to rise above the poverty threshold which is defined in terms of personal income. Employment-intensive growth is the principal instrument for the achievement of this goal. There can be plenty of scope for public action in promoting this kind of growth and for supplementary public action to augment the income of the poor households who are bypassed by such growth. But the instrument for the reduction of poverty and hunger is the augmentation of personal income. For the attainment of the MDGs entailing externalities it is not enough to augment personal income. Households would not spend enough to purchase the socially desirable amounts of education and health for children and healthcare for mothers. Public action would be necessary to supplement private expenditure to attain desirable quantities of these services. The attainment of desirable levels of public goods like gender empowerment, control of epidemic diseases and environmental protection would be even more a matter of public action and expenditure with at best a limited role for private expenditure. Compared to the earlier development goal of promoting growth with poverty reduction, the endorsement of MDGs as the principal development strategy by the world community thus represents a substantial widening of the role of public action in development, a point that should be adequately recognized. Employment-intensive growth would need to be supplemented by a broad range of public action in the achievement of the MDG package. The paper analyzes the range of policies related to the promotion of employment-intensive growth and other public actions needed to attain the three categories of MDGs. It illustrates the above by taking a close look at the performance of four countries – Armenia, Cambodia, Ethiopia and Mongolia – in attaining MDGs. It also looks at a more limited set of aspects of performance in attaining MDGs for a larger set of so-called poor Integrated Package Service countries.

Globalisation, Liberalisation, and Equitable Growth: Lessons from Contemporary Asian Experience

Since the beginning of the 1980s the less developed countries (LDCs) have been getting integrated with the global economy at a rapidly accelerating rate. The impetus for the process came from the need to make adjustment in the unsustainable imbalance in the external account that most of these countries experienced in the aftermath of the oil shocks of the 1970s and the declining demand for their exports due to the recession in the OECD countries during the 1980s. Many of these countries had to subject themselves to structural adjustment programmes at the behest of the multilateral donor agencies, led by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, who emphasised the urgency of reforming the protectionist trade regimes of these countries. Simultaneously, these countries came to realise the inefficiency of resource use fostered by their past strategy of import-substituting industrialisation (ISI) characterised by a trade and investment regime that enshrined overvalued exchange rates, quantitative import controls, high and non-uniform rates of effective protection, discrimination against export and strong impediments to foreign direct investment. The reform programme that these countries gradually implemented during the 1980s and the early 1990s dismantled many of the components of the ISI strategy. The extent of dependence on quantitative import controls was sharply curtailed. The exchange rate came to be increasingly determined by market forces. The rates of tariff were brought down. The discrimination against exports, relative to import substitutes, was reduced. There was also a sharp reduction in restrictions to which foreign direct investment had been subjected in the past.

Spin waves at itinerant electron magnets

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Socio-economic Dimension of Indoor Radon Gas in West Michigan - A Public Health Discourse and Merit to Use HIT in Shaping Health Behavior

This study focuses on indoor radon levels and socioeconomic data from West Michigan, MI. It was designed to: i) analyze the relationship between indoor radon levels and socioeconomic status of the participating households, and ii) assess the degree of public awareness about the danger of indoor radon gas. The study participants expressed that they knew that radon was negative, and a health risk, but were not equipped with the knowledge to test for or mitigate radon. With nearly half of the participants affected in some way by cancer, radon is a concern and a source for worry among many citizens. Health information technology (HIT) will be an effective tool to shape people’s health behavior along with accelerating awareness about radon gas, its health risks, and measures to mitigate unsafe radon level

Carbocationic cyclisations and rearrangements in the damascone series

A regio- and stereoselective synthesis of the tertiary chloride 7 is described, involving the Lewis acid catalysed addition of the allyl chloride 6 to isobutene as a key step. Acid catalysed cyclisation of 7 yields the damasconoid compounds 12–15

Overcoming access barriers for facility-based delivery in low-income settings: insights from Bangladesh and Uganda.

Women in both Bangladesh and Uganda face a number of barriers to delivery in professional health facilities, including costs, transportation problems, and sociocultural norms to deliver at home. Some women in both the countries manage to overcome these barriers. This paper reports on a comparative qualitative study investigating how some women and their families were able to use professional delivery services. The study provides insights into the decision-making processes and overcoming access barriers. Husbands were found to be particularly important in Uganda, while, in Bangladesh, a number of individuals could influence care-seeking, including unqualified local healers or traditional birth attendants. In both the settings, cost and transport barriers were often overcome through social networks. Social prohibitions on birth in the health facility did not feature strongly in women's accounts, with several Ugandan women explaining that friends or peers also used facilities, while, in Bangladesh, perceived complications apparently justified the use of professional medical care. Investigating the ways in which some women can overcome common barriers can help inform policy and planning to increase the use of health facilities for child delivery

A critique of contemporary Islamist political philosophy with specific regard to the concept of Islamic state

Bibliography: leaves 82-86.The Islamist/fundamentalist movements of the twentieth century, such as the Jama' ate Islami of Pakistan, the Ikhwan al Muslimin of Egypt, and the FIS of Algeria, have committed themselves to the ideal of attaining an 'Islamic state'. In their quest for the realization of this objective, they envisage a total mobilization of Muslim societies in accordance with "the Islamic shari'a law" under a universal state. The main architects of this ideal of Islamic state in recent times have been Sayyid Abu al-A'la Mawdudi and Sayyid Qutb. This thesis is an attempt to appraise these Islamist theories of statehood and governance in the light of traditional juristic theories of governance as well as modern and postmodern forms of democratic political formations. In this thesis I assert that the contemporary Islamist political blueprint, like traditional Muslim political philosophy is geared towards the establishment of Gemeinschaft (community) in the traditional sense, and not Gesellschaft (society/state) in the modern sense. State in the modern sense is to be understood as a complex form of social organization and public power that has authority independent from any particular office holder such as a king. The modern state is an association between the members of a society which assumes supreme authority to make and enforce laws that regulate social arrangements and social relationships. It encompasses various diverse groups, a multiplicity of religious communities, and largely disparate interests, under certain broad common goals. It is also a contention of this thesis that while Islamist political ideology condemns and challenges modernity and its modem forms of political and social organization, it has itself acquired very 'modern' traits of power, control, and statehood. It is further asserted that the juristic model of state, upon which the Islamist worldview is selectively based, is incapable of functioning as a power polity in the world of territorial states

The Forms and Ecologies of Islamist militancy and terrorism in Bangladesh

Islamist militancy and terrorism, a major sociopolitical issue of Bangladesh today, has largely remained under-researched. This paper mainly explores the forms and ecologies of Islamist militancy and terrorism based on the content analysis of media reports and interviews with some experts in Bangladesh. Ecologies, in this paper, refer to the multiple interrelated and interdependent environments: social, political, and religious, that foster, germinate and nurture the growth of militancy and terrorism.  Despite Bangladesh being globally identified as a moderate Muslim country located in South Asia, Islamist radicalization, extremism and militancy have become a major concern since the incidence of nationwide serial bomb blasts in 2005. Although an estimation of the group operatives may not be possible because these groups change names or members change groups from time to time, the presence of seventy Islamist militant outfits with thousands of militant members was identified during 1999-2010. Islamist militants carried out over 203 attacks killing 164 innocent people and injuring more than 2,658 people in this period. Using bomb explosions, these attacks targeted political parties, cultural groups, intellectuals, diplomats, movie theatres, NGO offices, and minority religious institutions. In response to these attacks, the government has adopted mostly a law-enforcement centric approach, but this study suggests a comprehensive strategy balancing enforcement, intervention and prevention urgently needed for de-radicalization and counterterrorism in Bangladesh --- the 8th most populous country and the 3rd largest Muslim country of the world. Although foreign journalistic and intelligence-based reports have argued that Islamist militants have links with madrassas (Islamic seminary institutions), this system has actually been in vogue for many years in the country. Research suggests that unemployment problems, poverty, illiteracy, and ignorance about religious matters among the youths are the common drivers for Islamist militancy in Bangladesh. An unfocused national educational policy on madrassas, the narrow and dated madrassa curriculum, and frustrations felt by madrassa graduates who cannot find jobs are likely to instigate the madrassa students to get involved in militancy. Political, educational, and religious interventions are must for countering radicalization effectively. Improving education policy and creating employment opportunities for the unemployed youth can begin to address the problem of Islamist militancy and terrorism in Bangladesh