Penalized EM algorithm and copula skeptic graphical models for inferring networks for mixed variables

In this article, we consider the problem of reconstructing networks for continuous, binary, count and discrete ordinal variables by estimating sparse precision matrix in Gaussian copula graphical models. We propose two approaches: $\ell_1$ penalized extended rank likelihood with Monte Carlo Expectation-Maximization algorithm (copula EM glasso) and copula skeptic with pair-wise copula estimation for copula Gaussian graphical models. The proposed approaches help to infer networks arising from nonnormal and mixed variables. We demonstrate the performance of our methods through simulation studies and analysis of breast cancer genomic and clinical data and maize genetics data

Minimum Acceptable Diet and its Predictors among Children Aged 6-23 Months in Mareka District, Southern Ethiopia: Community Based Cross-Sectional Study

Background: Optimal infant and young child feeding practices are essential for normal growth, better health, and mental and physical development. Even though there are a lot of nutrition intervention programs in Ethiopia, still suboptimal feeding practices are prevalent. This study was devised to assess a level of minimum acceptable diet (MAD) and predictors among children aged 6-23 months in Mareka District, south Ethiopia. Method: A community-based cross-sectional study was employed on 662 study participants from August 15 to September 15/ 2015. They were selected by a multi-stage sampling technique. Data were collected by interviewer-administered semi-structured questionnaires. Statistical significance was declared at p-value <0.05 at multivariable logistic regression. Result: The study showed that 35.5 % of the children aged 6-23 months met the recommended MAD. Maternal primary and secondary education (AOR: 1.90; 95% CI: 1.15-3.16 and AOR: 2.06, 95% CI: 1.12-3.77), Media exposure (AOR: 2.16; 95% CI: 1.46-3.29), health facility delivery (AOR:2.52; 95% CI: 1.54-4.13), child age of 9-11 and 12-23 months (AOR:2.73; 95% CI: 1.41-5.49 and AOR:2.55; 95% CI: 1.39-4.69) and GMP service utilization (AOR: 4.09; 95% CI: 2.51-6.65) were associated with MAD of children. Conclusion: The level of MAD among children was low. Maternal educational status, media exposure, institutional delivery, child age, and GMP service utilization were associated with MAD. Increasing utilization of GMP service, health facility delivery, maternal education, and media promotion was recommended to increase the level of MAD

Major Causes of Organ Condemnations and Its Economic Implications in Cattle Slauughtered at Kombolcha Elfora Abattoir, Northeastern, Ethiopia

A cross sectional study from November 2016 to April 2017 and two years retrospective study were conducted at Kombolcha ELFORA abattoir. Ante mortem examinations to the slaughtered cattle were carried out at the lairage during this their origin, sex, age and body conditions were recorded, followed by post mortem examinations using their identification numbers given at ante mortem. Potential risk factors were analyzed and found that there was statistically significant difference between body conditions of animals (p˂ 0.05). However no significant difference was seen in age and sex of animals. Out of 2000 organs belonging to 400 slaughtered animals examined at postmortem 105(26.25%) livers, 79 (19.75%) lungs, 33(8.25%) hearts, 35 (8.75%) kidneys and 25 (6.25%) tongue were rejected due to various causes. The major causes of these condemnations were cirrhosis (11%) for liver; pneumonia (5.25%) for lung; hemorrhage (3.25%) for kidney; hydated cyst (3%) for heart and ulcer (2.75%) for tongue. From a retrospective data of 9811 cattle slaughtered, it was found that lung (46.6%), kidney (42.6%), liver (38.3%), heart (19.22%) and tongue (6.5%) were condemned due to pneumonia, nephritis, hepatitis, oedema and abscess with respective rates of 13.6%, 10.8%, 15.64%, 4.56% and 2.1%. A direct annual financial loss of 342,574.98 ETB (9,578.55 USD) was estimated within three years 121,310.48 ETB (5,251.54 USD) per annum from the active abattoir survey study and 221,264.5 ETB (9578.55 USD) from the retrospective data investigation. The result warrants, the need of public awareness about the effects of animal disease and proper disposal of condemned organs must be practiced in order to break the life cycle of some of the parasitic disease. Keywords: Abattoir, Ante and Postmortem inspection, Cattle, Condemnation, Economic loss, Kombolcha ELFORA

Environmental social responsible practices of hospitality industry: The case of first level hotels and lodges in Gondar city, Ethiopia

As a means of sustainability achievement and balanced assessment of positive and negative impact of tourism and hospitality industry, taking responsibility towards the silent stakeholder (environment) emerged as a new phenomenon in the late 1980s.  The main concern of this paper is to identify the environmental responsible practices of the hospitality industry in the special focus of first level hotels and lodges in Gondar city, Ethiopia. All the ten first level hotels and lodges were used as research target areas. Data for the study was obtained from the hotel employees (through questionnaire) and from the managers (through semi-structured interview). The study found that, the hotels and lodges engaged more in saving water activity in all area, management of waste and Conserve energy/example light usage, use of energy efficient equipments. Relatively, they engaged in the less extent level in the issues of involving in environmental issues in the city and giving environmental information on its services and activities to the stakeholders. In addition to these the establishments involve in specific internal environmental practices like reusing, design of the construction for compatible waste and water saving and FIFO(First In First Out) and externally, sponsoring environmental concerned nongovernmental and governmental organization practices. Very few establishments practice the environmental concerned guideline of HACCAP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point). Based on the finding of the study, the researcher recommend scholarly recommendations including the establishments engage more in the external environmental practices besides the internal environmental good practices.Keywords: Environment, Social Responsibility, Hotels and Lodges, Sustainability, Gonda

Theoretical Arguments and Debates on Public Enterprises Privatization: Ethiopian Focus

Purpose: To critically review the theoretical arguments and debates on privatization, challenges, and prospects in the Ethiopian context, and the various countries experience on privatization with especial focus on sub-Saharan countries and come up with valuable directions to undertake the privatization process successfully. Design/Methodology/Approach: The entire review basis the theoretical end empirical literature published in various national and international reputable journals. Findings: Privatization is not a recent phenomenon globally; different economies practiced it via arguing and debating in terms of its economic and political benefits. Currently, the government of Ethiopia is practicing economic reforms to get ready for the country to join middle-income countries by 2025. In filling this gap, inter alia, the government has taken new initiative to privatize the existing wholly state-owned enterprises, both for local and foreign owners, with the primary objectives of limiting government's participation in the manufacturing and service sectors, and thereby realizing economic efficiency and competition, boosting foreign exchange, rising tax revenues, simplifying problems associated with costs of living through controlling inflation, reducing unemployment and alleviating the problem of good governance. Practical Implications: Finally, it tried to forward sequential steps that the government of Ethiopia should follow at least to mitigate the common mistakes and to undertake the privatization process successfully by alleviating the fear of the citizens that those SOEs would be concerted in the hands of some oligarchies. Originality/Value: the inferences made as a result of this review will offer new insights through which countries like Ethiopia, who are suffering from political unrest and enormous amount of unemployment, can justly distribute the wealth of public enterprises especially to the local citizens and thereby mitigate the unbalanced concentration of resources in the hands of some oligarchies. Keywords: privatization; a state-owned enterprise; privatization debates; Ethiopia DOI: 10.7176/JESD/11-11-06 Publication date:June 30th 202

Determinants of Commercial Banks’ Liquidity Risk: Evidence from Ethiopia

This paper empirically examine the determinants of liquidity risk in Ethiopian banking industry spanning the period 2005 to 2014—a period characterized by increasing the bank’s growth in different aspects. The fixed effect unbalanced panel data estimation technique was used to estimate the results without compromising the classical linear regression assumptions. The results of the analysis revealed that capital adequacy ratio, total loan to total asset ratio and total deposit to total asset ratio affects the liquidity risk of commercial banks negatively and highly statistically significantly at 0.01% significant level. These variables are found to be the most important bank specific factors that determine the liquidity position of banks. The results of the study confirms the existence of the crowding-out of deposit hypothesis in Ethiopian banking industry that could be assured by the negative and significant effect of capital adequacy.  In addition, both the share of loans and deposits in total assets and total liabilities respectively indicates mismatch of obtained funds and assets operations. All in all, the management of each bank should emphasize the importance to consider the liquidity mismatch of assets and liabilities to evaluate the liquidity profile of banks. Moreover, focusing on deposit funding leads to ignore some widely used alternative sources of funding through the issue of commercial paper enter alia, as per the recommendations of international practices. Keywords: Determinants, liquidity risk, fixed effect, Ethiopia

Corporate Social Responsibility for Social Dimension of Human Development in Ethiopia: A Conceptual Paper

CSR is an important agent of change to address the challenges of social dimension of human development However, Ethiopia lagged behind the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) guideline and framework. The central theme of this paper is to analyze how Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is important for human development. Based on analysis of 50 scholarly papers and research journals, books and organizational website products/ leaflets, the importance of CSR for human development is discussed in relation to the experiences of Japan and South Africa and their relevance to Ethiopia. CSR is an essential concept for the accumulation of social capital (in the form of social networks development and activities of voluntary associations) thereby facilitating greater participation in civic and political associations, trust, honesty, reliability, and developing collaboration in the society. Ethiopians and CSR are compatible because Ethiopians are “open minded” and receptive towards socio-cultural life as reflected by the extended family structure; “collectivism” is a dominant national culture. It is suggested that it is essential that Ethiopians practice CSR by focusing on indigenous opportunities that are available locally without dogmatic copying of other countries. Keywords: Collectivism, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Human development, Social Capital

META ANALYSIS ON THE DETERMINANTS OF COMMERCIAL BANK’S PROFITABILITY: (A CONCEPTUAL FRAME WORK AND MODELLING)

The purpose of this paper is to review the determinants of commercial banks’ profitability and to compare or combine results across sets of similar studies and contrasting the significant deviations in those findings by different scholars and to suggest a comprehensive model that incorporates macroeconomic, industry-specific and bank-specific determinants of commercial banks profitability. To achieve these objectives the paper has been designed to gleaned data from various national and international journal articles together with the basic theories relating to the determinants of commercial bank’s profitability irrespective of countries or economic level in which the banks are operating. Most of the research works so far, either in developed or developing counties, regarding the determinants of commercial banks profitability, comes across divergent results with the application of different models (i.e. pooled ordinary least square is mostly commonly applied by scholars in those countries). However, in finance the distribution of the data is often heavy-tailed and skewed with numerous large outliers, which violate the assumptions of classical linear regression. The variables investigated across studies have got uncommon concern by scholars. Most of the scholars used the traditional accounting measures for analysis towards determinants of banks’ profitability; ROA and ROE using multiple linear regression models. Economic measures of profitability are not used due to the lack of data and because the disclosed parameters are subject to internal policies and assessments which cannot be generalized or validated. I recommend the mixed research approach and panel data with the GMM model estimator and the inclusion of all banks specific, industry/sector specific and macro economic factors to better understand the determinants of the variations in the performance of commercial banks irrespective of the level of economic development

POTENTIALITY ASSESSMENT FOR ECOTOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN DIDA HARA CONSERVATION SITE OF BORENA NATIONAL PARK, ETHIOPIA

The main objective of this research is identifying the ecotourism resources and products for ecotourism development in the Dida Hara conservation site of BoranaNational Park, Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia. The study used a cross-sectional descriptive research design. Both qualitative and quantitative methods are used. The data were collected by using a questionnaire, interview, field observation and secondary document analysis. The questionnaire was distributed to the visitors in order to determine the market demand by using convenience sampling technique. Interview was conducted with office personnel’s, tour operators and selected local community representatives and selected by using non- probability sampling technique.  The study revealed that Dida Hara conservation site of Borana National Park has potential ecotourism resources especially in terms of wildlife (more than 40 mammal species), birds (more than 280 bird species) and cultural resources (especially Borana community Gada system and Buna Qalla ceremony). The Park area is the centre of endemic birds like; Ethiopian Bush Crow, White-Tailed Swallow, Prince Ruspoil’s Turaco. The presence of such untapped ecotourism resources has also a potential for community participation including natural resources conservation and awareness for negative and positive impacts of ecotourism. The local communities are also positive towards ecotourism development in the destination. Based on the visitor's survey result more than 90 % are interested to view wildlife and birds and 86.5 % of the visitors are willing to recommend for others to visit the site. Besides these, the visitor's survey revealed that around 97.8 % of the respondents are considering themselves as ecotourist and willing to spend more money to eco-tourism destination (84.3) as compared to regular tourism destination. Furthermore, the study confirmed that the identification of ecotourism resources play a significant role in the development of ecotourism and for marketing the destination for the future. In this destination, no research has conducted in related with the potential resources for ecotourism development by using such multi-directional data collection tools including market demand analysis.   &nbsp

META ANALYSIS ON THE DETERMINANTS OF COMMERCIAL BANK’S PROFITABILITY: (A CONCEPTUAL FRAME WORK AND MODELLING)

The purpose of this paper is to review the determinants of commercial banks’ profitability and to compare or combine results across sets of similar studies and contrasting the significant deviations in those findings by different scholars and to suggest a comprehensive model that incorporates macroeconomic, industry-specific and bank-specific determinants of commercial banks profitability. To achieve these objectives the paper has been designed to gleaned data from various national and international journal articles together with the basic theories relating to the determinants of commercial bank’s profitability irrespective of countries or economic level in which the banks are operating. Most of the research works so far, either in developed or developing counties, regarding the determinants of commercial banks profitability, comes across divergent results with the application of different models (i.e. pooled ordinary least square is mostly commonly applied by scholars in those countries). However, in finance the distribution of the data is often heavy-tailed and skewed with numerous large outliers, which violate the assumptions of classical linear regression. The variables investigated across studies have got uncommon concern by scholars. Most of the scholars used the traditional accounting measures for analysis towards determinants of banks’ profitability; ROA and ROE using multiple linear regression models. Economic measures of profitability are not used due to the lack of data and because the disclosed parameters are subject to internal policies and assessments which cannot be generalized or validated. I recommend the mixed research approach and panel data with the GMM model estimator and the inclusion of all banks specific, industry/sector specific and macro economic factors to better understand the determinants of the variations in the performance of commercial banks irrespective of the level of economic development