Economic Integration in South Asia: An Exploratory Study. By Ayubur Rahman Bhuyan. Dacca: The University of Dacca. 1979. Appendix; Bibliography; Index. xi + 224 pp.US S 12.00 or Bangladesh Taka 125.00.

In the book under review, Dr. Ayubur Rahman Bhuyan has made a commendable effort to analyse some of the economic effects of a "possible" customs union among the South Asian countries: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. While an attempt has been made to quantify the static effects of integration, the rest of the analysis is mostly qualitative. In spite of the limitations imposed by the paucity of data, Dr. Bhuyan's scholarly discussion goes a long way to bring the relevant issues to light. Before going into empirical estimation of the gains and losses of a customs union among the South Asian countries, the author provides a rationale for economic integration among developing countries in terms of the theory of customs unions. He bases his case for economic integration on the need for industrialization. In line with the argument advanced by Johnson as well as by Cooper and Massell, he considers industrial production to be a "public good" which yields to the community satisfaction over and above that obtained through private consumption of industrial products. Industrialization of an underdeveloped country is believed to be virtually impossible in the face of an open competition with developed countries. Hence the need for protection. However, protection has a cost to the economy. Integration is likely to reduce this cost by making available benefits of economies of scale and external economies, thereby bringing about an improvement in productive efficiency

Computational investigations of atmospheric pressure discharges

This research work presents the numerical simulations of multispecies multi-dimensional fluid model of atmospheric pressure discharge. The semi-implicit sequential iterative scheme is used to solve the coupled system of plasma fluid model equations with a proper set of boundary conditions. A one- dimensional self consistent drift-diffusion fluid model is developed to investigate the characteristics of atmospheric pressure discharge in pure helium and He-N2 gases. The uniform atmospheric pressure glow and Townsend discharge modes are examined under different operating conditions. The intricate dynamic patterns are evolved with the temporal evolution of discharge current densities at lower frequencies (≲7 kHz), which represent the discharge plasma operation between atypical lower and higher ionization modes in several consecutive cycles. To deduce different aspects of internal distributions of atmospheric pressure discharge, a two-dimensional fluid model is advanced with symmetric boundary conditions in the parallel plate reactor geometry. The filamentary and uniform behavior of discharge is emerged by the presence and removal of specific imposed conditions in APD. The periodic stationary pattern of various discharge parameters are exhibited at different times during the prebreakdown, breakdown, formation of cathode fall layer and decay phases. The Penning ionization process performs an outstanding role during the different phases of a complete cycle, which is explored with the temporal evolution of averaged chemical reaction rates. The analysis of spatio- temporal species distribution demonstrates that they are distinguished with their distinctive properties in various regimes of APD. In the presence of bulk gas flow, the two-dimensional symmetric uniform distributions of discharge species are transformed into non-symmetric form. The transport effects of heavy species, such as He+, He2+, N2+, He* and He2* are considered for the numerical solution of gas temperature equation and the numerical magnitude of gas temperature in the glow mode decreases with the increase of imposed bulk gas flow speed. The temporal profiles of discharge current density provide an insight in different bulk gas flow regimes, which are elucidated with the spatial structures of discharge species densities in the uniform, filamentary and constricted filamentary modes of APD. Finally, the three-dimensional fluid model is developed and employed to describe the space and time variations of discharge variables in the uniform and filamentary discharges. The homogeneous uniform slice distributions of electrons density are compared at different frequencies, which show the trapping of electrons in the positive column at higher frequencies. The non-uniform distribution of axial electric field illustrates that the field strength is higher in the constricted part than the smooth part of the dielectric barrier surface. The shape and configuration of filaments exhibit that they are directed from the anode towards the cathode barrier in the filamentary APD. The noticeable structures of filaments are prominently observed from 5 to 20 kHz than higher frequencies because of the coalescence of filaments at higher frequencies, leading to the formation of uniform APD. The temporal evolution of discharge current density exhibits that it represents the composite behavior in different driving frequency regimes from 20 to 100 kHz. The numerical simulation study reveals that it is useful to deliver a satisfactory information for the uniform and filamentary atmospheric pressure discharges, and describes the origin of non-uniformities

Unity and Closure through Performatism: A Possible Replacement of Postmodernism?

Through the use of aesthetically mediated devices, the contemporary literary theory is argued, by Raoul Eshelman, to have ushered into a new epoch making era of performatism by assigning unity and closure to the current art works in the world. Eshelman attempts to apply his newly formed concept in different art works ranging from literary writings to architecture, movies and paintings in his book, Performatism or End of Postmodernism in 2008. This paper is an attempt to overview and analyse the concept of Performatism by applying it, as an example, on a recent Pakistani narrative The Party Worker by Mohsin Hamid Shahid. The rationale for the selection of this work is owing to the claim by Eshelman that Performatism has seeped into art works globally. The textual analysis of the selected novel signifies that Eshelman’s view of contemporary state of literary theory cannot be neglected as there are attempts at unification and closure of the narratives, a departure from postmodern disintegration and fragmentation. However, the imposition of unity and closure owing a great deal to the use of aesthetic devices and authoriality through the strategic maneuvering by the writer poses a threat to the smooth shifting from postmodernism to performatism.Through the use of aesthetically mediated devices, the contemporary literary theory is argued, by Raoul Eshelman, to have ushered into a new epoch-making era of performatism by assigning unity and closure to the current art works in the world. Eshelman attempts to apply his newly formed concept in different art works ranging from literary writings to architecture, movies and paintings in his book, Performatism or End of Postmodernism in 2008. This paper is an attempt to overview and analyse the concept of Performatism by applying it, as an example, on a recent Pakistani narrative The Party Worker by Mohsin Hamid Shahid. The rationale for the selection of this work is owing to the claim by Eshelman that Performatism has seeped into art works globally. The textual analysis of the selected novel signifies that Eshelman’s view of contemporary state of literary theory cannot be neglected as there are attempts at unification and closure of the narratives, a departure from postmodern disintegration and fragmentation. However, the imposition of unity and closure owing a great deal to the use of aesthetic devices and authoriality through the strategic maneuvering by the writer poses a threat to the smooth shifting from postmodernism to performatism

Islamic finance: An attractive new way of financial intermediation

Financial intermediation is a value-enhancing service. Banks are among the most important financial institutions in a modern economy for that service. Conventional banks use rates of interest (charged to clients and paid to depositors) on both the assets and the liabilities sides. Since interest is prohibited in Islam, Islamic financial experts have developed a number of financial instruments that avoid any involvement in interest. They take the form of either risk-and-reward sharing or trading in commodities/assets to price assets. In this paper we describe the basic features of the most important among these financial instruments. Even though Islamic banks emerged in response to market needs of Muslim clients, they are not religious institutions. Like other banks, these are profit seeking institutions, simply following a different model of financial intermediation. While it is the preferred way of banking for one fifth of humanity, it offers a wider choice of financial products to all by generating a number of benefits for the society. The successful operation of Islamic financial institutions has proven that this new model of financial intermediation is not only viable, but in many aspects, it is rather superior to the conventional model. The appealing features of the Islamic model have attracted world-wide attention. Islamic financial industry which started as a niche market in early 1970s in the Middle East has made a place for it in more than fifty countries around the globe and has grown into a multi-trillion dollars industry. This paper attempts to explain the basic features of this fascinating model

Analisis sentimen tentang opini masyarakat terhadap Klub Persib Bandung menggunakan metode Naive Bayes Classifier

INDONESIA: Analisis sentimen akan mengelompokkan polaritas dari teks yang ada dalam kalimat atau dokumen untuk mengetahui pendapat yang dikemukakan dalam kalimat atau dokumen tersebut apakah bersifat positif, negatif atau netral. mengenai review pada akun resmi Persib Bandung yang terdapat pada twitter, dimana menurut web www.jelasberita.com PERSIB adalah satu-satunya klub di Indonesia yang dapat bersaing dengan kepopuleran klub-klub elit Eropa di internet. Tujuan adanya penelitian ini Sistem yang dibangun mampu mengimplementasikan metode Naive Bayes Classifier dalam menentukan kalimat beropini positif dan negatif dan netral terhadap tweet tentang PERSIB lalu menentukan fanatisme terhadap PERSIB di masyarakat dalam media sosial Twitter. Dengan begitu manajemen dapat lebih memperhatikan opini masyarakat sehingga dapat mengetahui mana yang harus dipertahankan dan mana yang harus diperbaiki. Berdasarkan perhitungan akurasi dan error dari hasil klasifikasi maka dari 300 data uji di dapatkan akurasi sebesar 67,67% dan error sebesar 32,32%. Hasil ini menunjukan bahwa algoritma naive bayes classifier dapat bekerja dengan baik dalam menentukan kalimat beropini positif, negatif dan netral terhadap tweet tentang Persib Bandung. ENGLISH: Sentiment analysis will classify the polarity of the text in a sentence or document to find out the opinions expressed in the sentence or document whether they are positive, negative or neutral. regarding a review on the official Persib Bandung account found on twitter, where according to the web www.jelasberita.com PERSIB is the only club in Indonesia that can compete with the popularity of elite European clubs on the internet. The purpose of this study is that the system built is able to implement the Naive Bayes Classifier method in determining positive and negative and neutral opinion sentences against tweets about PERSIB then Determining fanaticism towards PERSIB in the community on Twitter social media. That way management can pay more attention to public opinion so that they can find out which ones must be maintained and which ones must be improved. Based on the calculation of accuracy and errors from the classification results, from 300 test data, it was obtained an accuracy of 67.67% and an error of 32.32%. These results indicate that the naive bayes classifier algorithm can work well in determining positive, negative, and neutral opinion sentences for tweets about Persib Bandung

Determining the Role of Debt in the Economy and a New Approach for Solving Sovereign Debt Crises

This paper aims to begin a dialogue on how to seek a longer term solution to the sovereign debt problems in general and those of EU in particular. Although the history of debt crises is quite old, none of the several solutions proposed and tried in the past have been successful to curb recurring debt crisis. This issue has assumed critical importance as the Eurozone debt crisis, which followed after the 2007-09 global financial crisis. Several governments have been outvoted in Europe due to this crisis and the cohesion of Eurozone is at stake. A rethinking on debt creation and its macroeconomic effects are being seriously studied. It seems that traditional options available to policy makers have lost much of their luster. It is high time that unconventional measures may have to be offered for consideration to provide longer term solution. This paper is a brief on the Islamic approach to the role of debt, and has potential to limit debt creation in the long term. We present some basic tenets of that approach referring in particular to the current developed nation sovereign debt crisis