An estimation model for private rate of return on education in high income petroleum based developing countries: The case of Kuwait

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.The benefits of a good education are numerous; it not only offers knowledge and power to individuals, but also enables them to lead the life they wish to; and to benefit both their own family and country. Education has a positive impact on the development of a country. An educated society can eradicate poverty, illiteracy and unemployment, and help in the improvement of the health care standards, the political structures, and the national productivity. The contribution of education in this development process is evident and easily recognized. Many studies show that investments in education generate benefits for people (private benefits) and society (social benefits), similar to those of the physical capital investments. Due to the important role that education plays in the development of human capital, in order to conduct the process of development in developing countries, to achieve their growth aims, significant attention should be placed on studying human capital investment accumulation through the means of the rate of return on education (RORE). So far, numerous economists and researchers have attempted to estimate the RORE for the purpose of observing the efficiency of educational spending and resource allocation (see Psacharopoulos, 1973, 1980, 1985, 1994, 2002, and 2004), in order to be able to analyse the output of the educational process on the economy. The estimation of the rate of return on education (RORE) can help in describing different phenomena, such as the following: employees of the public sector benefiting greatly from higher earnings as compared to the employees of the private sector working in the same capacity; the observed difference in the attendance between males and females to complete their education; the large demand for 'easy-discipline', 'aversion‘ (sub) specialties and the high rate of dropouts from school by males. The research problem of this thesis is that there has been a lack of information regarding estimating the RORE in high income petroleum-based developing countries, such as Kuwait, as most of the existing research has not accurately differentiated between low and high income developing nations. The aim of this research is to clarify the influencing variables and factors affecting the investment on education and their relationships by identifying these factors. This study endeavours to develop a framework based on the RORE model and to verify it by estimating the rate of return in high-income petroleum based economies in developing countries, and in this context, data is acquired from Kuwait to verify it, as a case study. The results of the employed regression model show positive and economically significant parameters for return on education and a negative return for extra years of experience. The estimated rate of return for females is relatively higher than males. The average estimated rate of return to education is 5.2%; with the estimated return for females being 6.7%; and for males 5.5%. On the other hand, by expanding the model to include the 'level of education‘ terms, the results show the highest return for primary education and lowest for intermediate and diploma education. Results indicate also that the highest rates of return on education for females occur in high school, whereas for males in bachelor-level higher education

Competitive Advantage Through Taxation In GCC Countries

This study analyzes and compares the competitive advantage of taxation for six members of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC): Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The GCC countries enjoy one of the least demanding tax systems in the world. The average total tax rate for the entire Middle East region is 23.6%, which is much less than the global average of 44.7%. Thus, the taxation structure and system of the GCC nations is uncomplicated when compared to rest of the world. Moreover, the GCC nations depend heavily on indirect taxes and revenue from energy exports, rather than internally generated funds. Though this system has its advantages, it may become a cause of concern for authorities in the future as taxation can influence the overall growth in different dimensions. Thus, this study further explores the need for an effective taxation policy to support future performance of the GCC member nations

Neighbourhood-aware counter-based broadcast scheme for wireless ad hoc networks

Broadcasting is a vital operation in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) and it is crucial to enhance its efficiency to ensure successful deployment. Although flooding is ideal for broadcast operations due to its simplicity and high reachability it suffers from high packet collision which can degrade network performance severely. Counter-based broadcast schemes have been introduced to alleviate the limitations of flooding. This study introduces an enhancement to counter-based broadcast by adjusting the threshold value and the Random Assessment Delay (RAD) using minimal neighbourhood information

A COMPARISON BETWEEN ISLAMIC AND CONVENTIONAL HOME FINANCING IN KUWAIT: CLIENT PERCEPTIONS OF THE FACILITES OFFERED BY THE NATIONAL BANK OF KUWAIT AND KUWAIT FINANCE HOUSE

This study determines the awareness of the Islamic home inance products compared with conventional home financing, as well as clients’ perceptions of home financing, with the National Bank of Kuwait represented as a traditional Bank and the Kuwait Finance House as an example of an Islamic Bank. This comparison is important since it is new in this area and ives the clients an overview about available home finance. In addition, new students can benefit from this study to build on and start from where I finished. The empirical research was conducted utilizing both quantitative and qualitative methods, as well as a case study and interviews, which is a method known as the triangulation technique. Questionnaires were distributed to 200 clients who had applied for home financing from both banks, using 100 clients from each bank. To sum up, it can be argued that an examination of Islamic banking as symbolized by the Kuwait Finance House has revealed that this type of financial institution has experienced a boom and has been successful in establishing itself as a practical substitute to conventional banking, in spite of what have been seen as authoritarian and nonflexible rules and regulations governing the activities of this type of financial institution. Islamic banks have experienced a boom and have been successful in developing alternative methods for attracting and utilizing funds in money-making outlets, regardless of the fact that they are comparative beginners in the field. Future prospects for the banks are even more promising, as experience is likely to improve the capability of these institutions to compete and to improve their performance

Delivery of micro credit services for poverty reduction : the case of Changamoto Life Preservation Fund

Changamoto LPF as an NGO located in Zanzibar extends service to over 500 individuals. A major concern of Changamoto LPF just like other semi formal microfinance institutions that are not for profit NGOs, is the problem of inadequate loan amount and high transaction costs even if repayment rate is now high. The gap between requirements for credit and the supply is too big and a major constrain to Changamoto LPF. It is a challenge that needs to be overcome in order to enhance sustainable means to income generation. Besides resource requirements, capacity constrain to manage micro financing services, lack of entrepreneurial skill inhibits product improvement. An assessment of the organization was undertaken to derive findings that would form the basis to justify seeking more support to maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of providing microfinance services not exclusively to the poorer but also to minimize leakage to the less poor. To begin with, attention was given to identify the main characteristics, features, aspirations and needs of Changamoto LPF in relation to credit delivery for poverty reduction. Henceforth, the organizational assessment extended to the Changamoto LPF culminated in project proposal writing as justification to potential donors to secure soft loan or grant thus increase loan portfolio and widening outreach to the needy individuals or groups in the community, as well as to enhance core networks in credit delivery. Support is also required to consolidate ongoing effort to improve management of Changamoto LPF to operate more efficiently so that members of the communities are motivated to undertake viable ventures that would change their economic well being for the better. The organization can best deliver effective and sustainable service to their clientele if management itself has the skills and capacity to manage and monitor credit delivery to meet the sector goals and enhance poverty reduction and gender equity at large within the emerging economies. In this context, complementary services like infrastructure require more public sector investment. (Author abstract)Said, M. H. (2005). Delivery of micro credit services for poverty reduction: the case of Changamoto Life Preservation Fund. Retrieved from http://academicarchive.snhu.eduMaster of Science (M.S.)School of Community Economic Developmen

The dynamic counter-based broadcast for mobile ad hoc networks

Broadcasting is a fundamental operation in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) crucial to the successful deployment of MANETs in practice. Simple flooding is the most basic broadcasting technique where each node rebroadcasts any received packet exactly once. Although flooding is ideal for its simplicity and high reachability it has a critical disadvantage in that it tends to generate excessive collision and consumes the medium by unneeded and redundant packets. A number of broadcasting schemes have been proposed in MANETs to alleviate the drawbacks of flooding while maintaining a reasonable level of reachability. These schemes mainly fall into two categories: stochastic and deterministic. While the former employs a simple yet effective probabilistic principle to reduce redundant rebroadcasts the latter typically requires sophisticated control mechanisms to reduce excessive broadcast. The key danger with schemes that aim to reduce redundant broadcasts retransmissions is that they often do so at the expense of a reachability threshold which can be required in many applications. Among the proposed stochastic schemes, is counter-based broadcasting. In this scheme redundant broadcasts are inhibited by criteria related to the number of duplicate packets received. For this scheme to achieve optimal reachability, it requires fairly stable and known nodal distributions. However, in general, a MANETs‟ topology changes continuously and unpredictably over time. Though the counter-based scheme was among the earliest suggestions to reduce the problems associated with broadcasting, there have been few attempts to analyse in depth the performance of such an approach in MANETs. Accordingly, the first part of this research, Chapter 3, sets a baseline study of the counter-based scheme analysing it under various network operating conditions. The second part, Chapter 4, attempts to establish the claim that alleviating existing stochastic counter-based scheme by dynamically setting threshold values according to local neighbourhood density improves overall network efficiency. This is done through the implementation and analysis of the Dynamic Counter-Based (DCB) scheme, developed as part of this work. The study shows a clear benefit of the proposed scheme in terms of average collision rate, saved rebroadcasts and end-to-end delay, while maintaining reachability. The third part of this research, Chapter 5, evaluates dynamic counting and tests its performance in some approximately realistic scenarios. The examples chosen are from the rapidly developing field of Vehicular Ad hoc Networks (VANETs). The schemes are studied under metropolitan settings, involving nodes moving in streets and lanes with speed and direction constraints. Two models are considered and implemented: the first assuming an unobstructed open terrain; the other taking account of buildings and obstacles. While broadcasting is a vital operation in most MANET routing protocols, investigation of stochastic broadcast schemes for MANETs has tended to focus on the broadcast schemes, with little examination on the impact of those schemes in specific applications, such as route discovery in routing protocols. The fourth part of this research, Chapter 6, evaluates the performance of the Ad hoc On-demand Distance Vector (AODV) routing protocol with a route discovery mechanism based on dynamic-counting. AODV was chosen as it is widely accepted by the research community and is standardised by the MANET IETF working group. That said, other routing protocols would be expected to interact in a similar manner. The performance of the AODV routing protocol is analysed under three broadcasting mechanisms, notably AODV with flooding, AODV with counting and AODV with dynamic counting. Results establish that a noticeable advantage, in most considered metrics can be achieved using dynamic counting with AODV compared to simple counting or traditional flooding. In summary, this research analysis the Dynamic Counter-Based scheme under a range of network operating conditions and applications; and demonstrates a clear benefit of the scheme when compared to its predecessors under a wide range of considered conditions

Reduction in salt deposition on carbon nano-tube immobilized membrane during desalination via membrane distillation

As water scarcity increases globally under the stresses of increasing demand, aquifer depletion, and climate change, the market for efficient desalination technologies has grown rapidly to fill the void. One such developing technology, membrane distillation (MD), has found much interest in the scientific community. MD has also been powered by solar energy and waste heat resources because it can be operated at relatively low temperatures. Recent studies indicate that MD could potentially achieve the efficiencies of state-of-the-art mature thermal desalination technologies, although additional engineering and scientific challenges must first be overcome. MD can be used to treat high salinity water where the salt concentration is high. The aim of this research is to better understand and provide solutions for one of the major challenges being faced by high concertation applications of MD, more specifically membrane fouling. Through experiments, this thesis compares different heating systems in MD, namely conventional and microwave heating, and their effect on fouling. It also looks at carbon nanotube immobilized membrane, and studies the effect of carbon nanotubes on fouling. In this research MD is carried out using highly concentrated aqueous calcium carbonate, calcium sulfate and barium sulfate solutions, and it is observed that the decline in flux over time is significantly less in microwave induced membrane distillation (MIMD). As compared to conventional heating, the salt deposition on the membrane is 50-79 % less during microwave heating. The second and third part of this research shows the effects of adding different antiscalant materials to the feed side of the experiment to investigate the fouling behavior under fixed operating parameters such as feed concentration, temperature, and feed flowrate. The results show a strong influence of using antiscalant materials on the highly concentrated salt solutions and on produced water from hydraulic fracturing as well. It is observed that using carbon nanotube based membranes and antiscalants, the fouling behavior could be reduced and water vapor flux in MD can be enhanced. Results also show that the presence of CNTs facilitates the removal of deposited salts by washing and the CNIM regains 97% of its initial water flux, whereas the unmodified polypropylene only regains 85% of the original value

A Retrospective Histopathological Study of Cutaneous Granulomatous Diseases at A Tertiary Dermatology Center in Kuwait

Background: Granulomatous inflammation is a common histological pattern observed in skin biopsy. Due to the overlapping histological features produced by different etiological agents, granulomatous inflammation poses a diagnostic problem for dermatopathologists. This study aimed to determine the frequency and histomorphological patterns of different granulomatous skin lesions in a tertiary dermatology center. Materials and Methods: This is a retrospective observational study of all skin biopsies with granulomatous skin lesions received in the Department of Dermatopathology, As’ad Al-Hamad Dermatology Center, Kuwait, over five years from 2018 to 2022. Results: Over the last five years, 77 patients were found to have a granulomatous reaction. It was common in females (53.2%), with most occurring in the second to fourth decades. Tuberculoid granulomas were the most frequent (45.5%), followed by xanthogranuloma (19.5%). One-third of the granuloma cases were due to infectious causes. Conclusion: Granulomatous skin diseases are a heterogeneous group of conditions that mainly occur in females and have diverse clinical and histopathological presentations. Tuberculoid granuloma is the leading type in this study. The best method for identifying and classifying granulomatous skin lesions is histopathology in combination with special staining

Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis Indicators of Scale of the Trends of E-learning of University of Technology and Applied Sciences Students\u27

The study aimed to identify the indicators of the exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis of a scale of trends Colleges of University of Technology Applied Sciences student\u27s towards E-learning. It also attempts to identify the model which is interpreting of the scale factors, and its psychometric properties. To achieve the objectives of the study, the researcher developed a scale, composed of (22) statements, the scale was used with a sample of (1,203); 365 male and 838 females. The results of the study concluded by identifying two factors that scale statements were load with, The eigenvalue of the first factor was (7.9), and interpret a percentage of variance of (37,8%), while the eigenvalue of the of the second factor was (1.5), and interpret a percentage of variance of (21.4%). Eleven statements were loaded on the first factor which called learning and teaching , The values of statements load were ranged between (0.81 - 0.54), while five statements were loaded on the second factor which called skills and support , and the values of their load were ranged between (0.82 - 0.53). The study found there was statistical significance to the indicator values which proved the model quality and its propertie