Possibilities of Trade Expansion among the SAARC Countries: Evidence from the Macro-Economic and Regional Trade Link Models

The paper examines the macroeconomic structure of SAARC countries-Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka- individually with a view that this would help policy makers and planners to analyse the impacts of different policy options and costs and benefits of increased economic integration in the SAARC region. It also explores the possibility of trade expansion among these countries by examining the macro-economic and regional trade link models based on time series data of 28 years. The study finds that there are inter-country differences in production and consumption patterns, investment behaviour, tax and non-tax structures in the SAARC countries. Hence there is a considerable scope for trade expansion among the SAARC countries based on comparative advantages. The study also confirms that aggregate regional consumption and regional GNP increase significantly with the increase of aggregate regional trade, and the consumption and income elasticities are 1.70 and 1.61 respectively. The study also exhibits that the GNP of Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, with limited exceptions, are significantly increased with the increase of their exports to the region. So these countries would definitely be benefited from the regional trade expansion. The same may be true for India if the smuggled trade is prevented or reduced, and true economic factors, keeping aside political conflicts, dominate for regional trade policy.Trade Expansion; SAARC Countries; Macroeconomic and Trade Link Models; Time Series Data

An Analysis of Wikipedia

Wikipedia is defined by its founders as the “free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.” This property, we argue, makes Wikipedia a public good and hence subject to under-provision. A puzzling feature of Wikipedia however is its enormous size, at roughly seven times that of its commercial counterparts. What is driving this growth? And how can we assess the reliability of this giant encyclopedia arising solely from free-editing? We model contribution to Wikipedia and its reliability. We demonstrate that Wikipedia is indeed subject to free-riding, and offer a novel explanation for the mitigation of under-provision under such circumstances. We also find that the public-good feature of Wikipedia and free-riding introduce a lower-bound in the quality of Wikipedia. This finding is consistent with a previous empirical study that established Wikipedia‟s surprisingly high level of quality. We identify Wikipedia as part of a general Internet phenomenon that we call the Collaborative Net, and that includes features such as citizen journalism and online reviews

Marginal abatement cost curves (MACCs): important approaches to obtain (firm and sector) greenhouse gases (GHGs) reduction

The study aims to identify appropriate methods that can help organisations to reduce energy use and emissions by using an effective concept of sustainability. In different countries, estimates of marginal abatement costs for reducing GHG emissions have been widely used. Around the world, many researchers have focused on MACCs and reported different results. This may due to different assumptions used which in turn lead to uncertainty and inaccuracy. Under these circumstances, much attention has been paid to the need for the role of MACC in providing reliable information to decision makers and various stakeholders. By reviewing the literature, this paper has analysed MACCs in terms of the role of different approaches to MACCs, representations of MACCs, MACC applications, pricing carbon, verification, and sectors analysis for energy and emissions projections. This paper concludes that MACCs should depend on actual data to provide more reliable information that may assist (firms and sectors) stockholders to determine what appropriate method for reducing emission

Chemical and biological investigations of Delonix regia (Bojer ex Hook.) Raf.

U radu je opisana izolacija pet sastojaka petroleterske i diklormetanske frakcije metanolnog ekstrakta kore biljke Delonix regia: lupeol (1), epilupeol (2), β-sitosterol (3), stigmasterol (4) i p-metoksibenzaldehid (5). Nadalje, testirano je antimikrobno djelovanje različitih ekstrakata difuzijskom metodom na disku (15 μg mm2). Zone inhibicije za sastojke topljive u petroleteru, tetraklormetanu i diklormetanu bile su 914 mm, 1113 mm, odnosno 920 mm, dok je zona inhibicije standarda kanamicina bila 2025 mm. U biološkom pokusu smrtnosti morskih kozica najveću toksičnost pokazali su spojevi topljivi u tetraklormetanu (LC50 = 0,83 μg mL1), dok je topljivost sastojaka topljivih u petroleteru i diklormetanu bila LC50 14,94, odnosno 3,29 μg mL1, a standarda vinkristin sulfata 0,812 μg mL1. Ovo je prvo izvješće o izolaciji sastojaka, antimikrobnom djelovanju i citotoksičnosti biljke D. regia.In this study five compounds, lupeol (1), epilupeol (2), β-sitosterol (3), stigmasterol (4) and p-methoxybenzaldehyde (5) were isolated from the petroleum ether and dichloromethane fractions of a methanolic extract of the stem bark of Delonix regia. Antimicrobial screening of the different extracts (15 μg mm2) was conducted by disc diffusion method. The zones of inhibition demonstrated by the petroleum ether, carbon tetrachloride and dichloromethane fractions ranged from 914 mm, 1113 mm and 920 mm, respectively, compared to kanamycin standard with the zone of inhibition of 2025 mm. In brine shrimp lethality bioassay, the carbon tetrachloride soluble materials demonstrated the highest toxicity with LC50 of 0.83 μg mL1, while petroleum ether and dichloromethane soluble partitionates of the methanolic extract revealed LC50 of 14.94 and 3.29 μg mL1, respectively, in comparison with standard vincristine sulphate with LC50 of 0.812 μg mL1. This is the first report on compounds separation from D. regia, their antimicrobial activity and cytotoxicity

Development of a Device for Remote Monitoring of Heart Rate and Body Temperature

We present a new integrated, portable device to provide a convenient solution for remote monitoring heart rate at the fingertip and body temperature using Ethernet technology and widely spreading internet. Now a days, heart related disease is rising. Most of the times in these cases, patients may not realize their actual conditions and even it is a common fact that there are no doctors by their side, especially in rural areas, but now a days most of the diseases are curable if detected in time. We have tried to make a system which may give information about one's physical condition and help him or her to detect these deadly but curable diseases. The system gives information of heart rate and body temperature simultaneously acquired on the portable side in real time and transmits results to web. In this system, the condition of heart and body temperature can be monitored from remote places. Eventually, this device provides a low cost, easily accessible human health monitor solution bridging the gaps between patients and doctors

Contributing Factors to Under-Five Child Malnutrition in Rural Bangladesh

Background and objectives: Bangladesh has the highest malnutrition rates in the world. The main objective of this study is to identify and determine the main factors for child malnutrition among children under the age 5 years in rural Bangladesh. Material and methods: This research was conducted in rural areas at Meherpur district in Bangladesh. Convenience sampling method is used and 85 under 5 child information is collected through a structured questionnaire. The information’s of child’s are gathered from the mothers of the child. Malnourished children is measured by using APLS method and WHO Child Growth Standard Median Index. Binary logistic regression model is used to find out the key factors of malnutrition. Results: It is found that family income, maintain proper diet during pregnancy period, proper diet maintain for children have negative significant (p\u3c0.05) effect on child malnutrition. Conclusion: The magnitude of the child’s malnutrition still is of great concern in Bangladesh. Since, poverty, imbalanced diet during pregnancy period and imbalanced diet for under 5 children influences to malnutrition are significantly associated with high prevalence of malnutrition, so government and people should reduce these factor to reduce malnutrition in rural area of Bangladesh

Comparison of Compressive Strength and Flexural Capacity between Engineered Cementitious Composites (Bendable Concrete) and Conventional Concrete used in Bangladesh

The Engineered Cementitious Composites (ECC) is made of the same ingredients as in regular concrete. The coarse aggregate is replaced with tiny Polyvinyl Alcohol fibres. This structure offers maximum flexibility and it is expected to cost less. It looks exactly like normal concrete, but under excessive strain, the ECC concrete allows, the specially coated network of fibre in the cement to slide within the cement, thus avoiding the inflexibility that causes brittleness and breakage. As this is a special type of concrete there are no defined codes for it, thus for these reasons, the parameters needed are to be obtained using trial and error method. During the composite preparation, sieve analysis was carried out. Composites were reinforced with Polyvinyl Alcohol (PVA) at the following ratios: 0 % (control), 0.5 %, 1 % and 1.5 %. The cylindrical specimens were subjected to compression and the slab specimens were subjected to flexural test using a Universal Testing Machine, while acquiring data with GOM Correlation Software. Test results reveal that fibre ratio 1% is most acceptable for attaining best compressive strength along with high flexural value. Even though 1% fibre content concrete in the flexural strength test showed 33% less strength of what 1.5% fibre content concrete gained, in the long run, for having the highest compressive strength value (almost 62% more than of 0% fibre content concrete and 15% more than of 1.5% fibre content concrete), 1% fibre content concrete is most suited for constructions

A novel customer churn prediction model for the telecommunication industry using data transformation methods and feature selection

Data transformation (DT) is a process that transfers the original data into a form which supports a particular classification algorithm and helps to analyze the data for a special purpose. To improve the prediction performance we investigated various data transform methods. This study is conducted in a customer churn prediction (CCP) context in the telecommunication industry (TCI), where customer attrition is a common phenomenon. We have proposed a novel approach of combining data transformation methods with the machine learning models for the CCP problem. We conducted our experiments on publicly available TCI datasets and assessed the performance in terms of the widely used evaluation measures (e.g. AUC, precision, recall, and F-measure). In this study, we presented comprehensive comparisons to affirm the effect of the transformation methods. The comparison results and statistical test proved that most of the proposed data transformation based optimized models improve the performance of CCP significantly. Overall, an efficient and optimized CCP model for the telecommunication industry has been presented through this manuscript.Comment: 24 page