Infrastructure finance : issues, institutions, and policies

The author analyzes the distinctive features of formal and informal financing of infrastructure and the principal issues policymakers must address in dealing with infrastructure finance: its adequacy in competitive financial systems, its budgetary vulnerability, the rationale for foreign finance, the role of user charges and taxes, the pros and cons of earmarking taxes, the institutional framework for infrastructure finance, the role of municipal finance, different approaches to the private financing of infrastructure (such as franchises, leases, management contracts, and consumer cooperatives), the critical role of contractor finance, and informal financing of infrastructure.The author concludes the following points. Not only the amount of funds but the regularity of their flow is central to maintaining infrastructure. But infrastructure must compete on a level playing field with other sectors. Any essential (but not open-ended) subsidies for maintaining universal minimum standards of service are best carried on the government budget, subject to periodic review. Institutional reform is needed to rationalize the division of resources and responsibilities among all layers of government and to provide mechanisms for insulating infrastructure finance from budgetary and other pressures. Such mechanisms include earmarking, privatization, and objective criteria for sharing value-added tax and other national tax revenue. Most developing countries do not have a national infrastructure agency to fund and coordinate technical assistance for infrastructure projects. The author makes a case for an apex financial entity in charge of municipal financial intermediaries for infrastructure, pointing to the instructive experience of intermediaries in Colombia and Jordan. One responsibility of such an agency would be to determine the necessary import content (for equipment, technical, and managerial expertise) of infrastructure finance, to prevent overborrowing. Privatization of infrastructure should be viewed as implicit earmarking, but official regulation of public utility prices should allow private utilities to generate retained earnings (to encourage self-financing) and should allow adjustments for inflation and exchange rate fluctuations. Infrastructure policy should allow for cost recovery through user charges as well as for tax revenues, especially through municipal taxes, since even the viability of loan finance depends on an efficient tax effort. While infrastructure finance is important, it is not always the decisive constraint, judging from the operating losses of even adequately funded infrastructure projects.Banks&Banking Reform,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Housing Finance,Urban Economics,Public&Municipal Finance

Technology Triggered Automated College Management System

In recent years, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) based systems have seen large improvement and have been successfully applied to different areas including health care, security, and IT industry. RFID technology provides wireless identification using electronic tags (passive and active) with suitable scanners. This project is worked on an attempt to solve recurrent attendance monitoring problem and leave management system for the faculties in present global academic situation. The application of attendance monitoring system to RFID is developed and deployed in this work, i.e. capable of reducing the time wasted during manual roll calls for attendance and perform managerial decisions by the fact and proof that student or faculty was present or absent on the particular day. This study is also extended to faculty attendance system, library management system and student welfare module

HOMOGENEOUS MULTI-INTERFACE MOBILE NODE SUPPORT IN NS2

NS2 is a widely used, open source tool for network simulation. A Mobile Node (MN) in NS2 by default provides only a single Wi-Fi interface. It makes difficult for users to simulate the scenario where a mobile node is connected to multiple networks through different interfaces at the same time. Some projects have been done to implement multiple Wi-Fi interfaces but according to our view they have some limitations. This paper presents the implementation of mobile nodes in NS2 with multiple Wi-Fi interfaces and multiple WiMAX interfaces trying to overcome those limitations

The Informal Financial Sector in Developing Countries: Analysis, Evidence and Policy Implications

A framework for the macroeconomic analysis of the informal financial sector in developing countries is developed in this paper in the light of the available empirical evidence. It also appraises its implications for monetary policy and financial intermediation.

Surface melting of methane and methane film on magnesium oxide

Experiments on surface melting of several organic materials have shown contradictory results. We study the Van der Waals interactions between interfaces in surface melting of the bulk CH_4 and interfacial melting of the CH_4 film on the MgO substrate. This analysis is based on the theory of Dzyaloshinskii, Lifshitz, and Pitaevskii for dispersion forces in materials characterized by the frequency dependent dielectric functions. These functions for magnesium oxide and methane are obtained from optical data using an oscillator model of the dielectric response. The results show that a repulsive interaction between the solid-liquid and liquid-vapor interfaces exists for the bulk methane. We also found that the van der Waals forces between two solid-liquid interfaces are attractive for the CH_4 film on the MgO substrate. This implies that the van der Waals forces induce the presence of complete surface melting for the bulk methane and the absence of interfacial melting for CH_4 on the MgO substrate.Comment: 11 pages, 4 ps figure

DETERMINATION OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF APTITUDE TEST TO IMPROVE SINCERITY IN THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS

ABSTRACT The use of an aptitude test is as a strong factor in organizing, selecting and deciding the work force to achieve success in hiring right applicant. The purpose of this study was therefore to find out how effective is the aptitude test evaluation in the employment of graduates. The study is scrutinized the analysis on aptitude test in quantitative, verbal and reasoning among the job seekers so as to ascertain whether the conventional methodology is still appropriate in comparison to a new proposed methodology names as 'Orthogonal Aptitude Assessment'. The study evaluated the scores gathered during a campus hiring of 193 engineering students. The new methodology was discussed inline with employability skills such as honesty and integrity, as these could be indicators for further assessment. Implications of these results were discussed and the recommendation made

Design, synthesis of 4-[2-(substituted phenyl) hydrazono]-3-(1-hydroxyethyl)-1-phenyl/methyl-3,4-dihydroquinolin-2(1H)-one derivatives and evaluation of their in vitro tyrosine kinase inhibitor activity

267-272The present investigation deals with molecular docking, synthesis, characterization, and evaluation of in vitro tyrosine kinase inhibitor activity of a series of 4-[2-(substituted phenyl) hydrazono]-3-(1-hydroxyethyl)-1-phenyl/methyl-3,4-dihydroquinolin-2(1H)-one derivatives {III-a(1-12)/III-b(1-12)}. Molecular docking studies of the title compounds were carried out using Molegro Virtual Docker (MVD-2013, 6.0) software. The MolDock scores of the derivatives ranged from (−66.508) to (−101.274); whereas the MolDock score of standard 4-anilinoquinazoline ligand was found to be (−105.219). Most of the synthesized qunolin-2-one derivatives showed better affinity towards EGFRK protein as compared to standard drug imatinib (−104.253). All the synthesized compounds were satisfactorily characterized by physical and spectral analysis (UV, IR, 1H NMR and 13C NMR and mass spectral data). Twelve derivatives were tested for their in vitro tyrosine kinase inhibitor activity using MDA-MB cell line. Compound 4-[2-(4-bromophenyl)hydrazono]-3-(1-hydroxyethyl)-1- methyl- 3,4-dihydroquinolin-2(1H)-one (III-b4) was found to be the most cytotoxic compound as compared to other synthesized derivatives, with IC50 value of 0.0515 μM against MDA- MB cell line

Design, synthesis of 4-[2-(substituted phenyl) hydrazono]-3-(1-hydroxyethyl)-1-phenyl/methyl-3,4-dihydroquinolin-2(1H)-one derivatives and evaluation of their in vitro tyrosine kinase inhibitor activity

The present investigation deals with molecular docking, synthesis, characterization, and evaluation of in vitro tyrosine kinase inhibitor activity of a series of 4-[2-(substituted phenyl) hydrazono]-3-(1-hydroxyethyl)-1-phenyl/methyl- 3,4-dihydroquinolin-2(1H)-one derivatives {III-a(1-12)/III-b(1-12)}. Molecular docking studies of the title compounds were carried out using Molegro Virtual Docker (MVD-2013, 6.0) software. The MolDock scores of the derivatives ranged from (−66.508) to (−101.274); whereas the MolDock score of standard 4-anilinoquinazoline ligand was found to be (−105.219). Most of the synthesized qunolin-2-one derivatives showed better affinity towards EGFRK protein as compared to standard drug imatinib (−104.253). All the synthesized compounds were satisfactorily characterized by physical and spectral analysis (UV, IR, 1H NMR and 13C NMR and mass spectral data). Twelve derivatives were tested for their in vitro tyrosine kinase inhibitor activity using MDA-MB cell line. Compound 4-[2-(4-bromophenyl)hydrazono]-3-(1-hydroxyethyl)-1- methyl- 3,4-dihydroquinolin-2(1H)-one (III-b4) was found to be the most cytotoxic compound as compared to other synthesized derivatives, with IC50 value of 0.0515 μM against MDA- MB cell line.