The Determinants Of Capital Flight: Evidence From MENA Countries

This paper examines the determinants of capital flight in seven Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries during the period of 1981-2008. The results are robust to four econometrics techniques: Ordinary least Squares, Fixed effects, Random Effects, and Seemingly Unrelated Regression Model. The empirical findings indicate that the capital flight in MENA countries is driven mainly by lag capital flight, external debt, foreign direct investment, real GDP growth rate and uncertainty. Based on these results, the paper recommends that governments in these countries should manage their external debt efficiently, and stabilize their monetary and macroeconomic policies in order to staunch capital flight

Toward Securing Cloud-Based Data Analytics:A Discussion on Current Solutions and Open Issues

In the last few years, organizations and business professionals have realized the value of data analytics in supporting decision-making. Where several activities are performed on on-line data by different stakeholders, such as cleansing, aggregation, analysis and visualization, cloud-based data analytics has become a favored choice for business professionals due to the elasticity, availability, scalability, and pay-as-you-go features offered by cloud computing. However, large amounts of data stored on the cloud are very sensitive (e.g., innovation, financial, legal, customers’ data), and so data privacy remains one of the top concerns for many reasons;mainly those relating to legal or competition issues. In this paper, we review the security and cryptographic mechanisms which aim to make data analytics secure in a cloud environment, and discuss current research challenges

Implementing process improvement initiative: the role of visualisation and standardisation methods

Purpose: Due to the difficulties organisations face in implementing process improvement initiatives (PIIs), this research explores how visualisation and standardisation of business processes help organisations achieve PIIs to improve organisational performance. Design/methodology/approach: A multi-staged case study strategy that analyse qualitative data and performs a process modelling analysis of quantitative data. Findings: The paper makes two main contributions to existing knowledge. Firstly, it explains how taking the visualised and standardised methods on PIIs can reduce service delivery times and enhance organisational performance. Secondly, it demonstrates how adopting these dual methods offers a better chance of increasing organisational performance than using only a single method. Research limitations/implications: Although the paper considers the flexibility in the standardisation of business processes as it gives scope for innovation and creativity on the part of the process, it did not consider if flexibility is possible without breaking the standardised working way. Hence, future research can consider this. Also, future research can hypothesise the BPM model and test for statistical generalisability. Originality/value: The research offers new insight into how and when both visualisation and standardisation of PIIs can benefit organisations

Investigating The Common Perceptual Qualities of Urban Morphology and Subjective Wellbeing Scales for Urban Mobility Studies: A Literature Review.

The impact of the built environment, urban form, and urban morphology on individual\u27s perception, experience and wellbeing has been the focus of many studies in the past few decades. Additionally, the impact of the built environment and its spatial characteristics has been recently studied from different approaches. Literature review shows that various research has been conducted on the impact of the built environment and travelers’ behavior and modal choice. However, few studies have been conducted on the impact of the built environment on travelers’ perception during mobility. Thus, this manuscript attempts to theoretically establish a link between the epistemology of urban form and morphology, urban mobility and transportation, and subjective wellbeing. A review of the body of literature on urban form, morphology and built environment is carried out. This to identify the main points related to subjective wellbeing which are listed by urban planning and design pioneers. In addition to reviewing literature on transportation, urban mobility, and travel behavior and its relationship with subjective wellbeing. This to highlight the main subjective wellbeing variables that are effective, as long as transportation and urban mobility is concerned. Afterwards, a review is conducted on the field of subjective wellbeing metrics, scales, and schedules. In which each scale is reviewed to identify the fields it was deployed in for further studies. The manuscript concludes by highlighting the subjective wellbeing scales that could be deployed in further studies related to urban form, morphology, built environment characteristics, and urban mobility. The findings could be deployed in further urban studies that target measuring subjective wellbeing in relation to the characteristics of the built environment

Location prediction based on a sector snapshot for location-based services

In location-based services (LBSs), the service is provided based on the users' locations through location determination and mobility realization. Most of the current location prediction research is focused on generalized location models, where the geographic extent is divided into regular-shaped cells. These models are not suitable for certain LBSs where the objectives are to compute and present on-road services. Such techniques are the new Markov-based mobility prediction (NMMP) and prediction location model (PLM) that deal with inner cell structure and different levels of prediction, respectively. The NMMP and PLM techniques suffer from complex computation, accuracy rate regression, and insufficient accuracy. In this paper, a novel cell splitting algorithm is proposed. Also, a new prediction technique is introduced. The cell splitting is universal so it can be applied to all types of cells. Meanwhile, this algorithm is implemented to the Micro cell in parallel with the new prediction technique. The prediction technique, compared with two classic prediction techniques and the experimental results, show the effectiveness and robustness of the new splitting algorithm and prediction technique

Toward an Adaptive Enterprise Modelling Platform

For the past three decades, enterprise modelling (EM) has been emerging as a significant yet complex paradigm to tackle holistic systematic enterprise analysis and design. With a high fluctuation in the global economy, industrial stability and technology shift, the necessity of such paradigms becomes crucial in determining the decisions that an enterprise can make for surviving in such a highly dynamic business ecosystem. EM practices have focused for a long time, on the design-time of enterprise systems. Recently, there has been a rapid development in data analytics, machine learning and intelligent systems from which an EM platform can benefit. EM needs to cope with the new changes in both business and technology; it should also help architects to determine optimum decisions and reduce complexity in technical infrastructure. In this paper, the author discusses several challenges facing enterprise modelling practices and offers an architectural notion for future development focusing on the requirements of a platform that can be called intelligent and adaptive

Financial and monetary policy responses to oil price shocks: evidence from oil-importing and oil-exporting countries

In this study, we investigate the financial and monetary policy responses to oil price shocks using a Structural VAR framework. We distinguish between net oil-importing and net oil-exporting countries. Since the 80s, a significant number of empirical studies have been published investigating the effect of oil prices on macroeconomic and financial variables. Most of these studies though, do not make a distinction between oil-importing and oil-exporting economies. Overall, our results indicate that the level of inflation in both net oil-exporting and net oil-importing countries is significantly affected by oil price innovations. Furthermore, we find that the response of interest rates to an oil price shock depends heavily on the monetary policy regime of each country. Finally, stock markets operating in net oil-importing countries exhibit a negative response to increased oil prices. The reverse is true for the stock market of the net oil-exporting countries. We find evidence that the magnitude of stock market responses to oil price shocks is higher for the newly established and/or less liquid stock market