Problems Encountered during the Transition to Market Economy in Azerbaijan and Solution Attempts

After re-gaining its independence on 18 October 1991, the Republic of Azerbaijan started the transformation to the market-based economy and the integration into the world economy. The country’s oil and natural gas reserves have been considered the main source for financing a range of government programs for reforms. On the one hand, these reserves had to be used effectively; on the other hand, there was a huge demand for foreign investment for extraction. To this end, Azerbaijan has signed “Contract of the Century” in 1994. Although Azerbaijan has wide oil and natural gas reserves, it has faced a number of difficulties in its transition path. This study analyzes these problems and reforms for solving them. One of the types of the problems related to the economic structure of the former Soviet Union: disruption of the economic ties between the republics resulted in a decline of production, high levels of unemployment and prices and consequently led to an economic recession in all of the republics. Another set of problems related to the lack of sufficient institutional bases to transform to the market economy. Moreover, internal conflicts between the political parties and groups for having authority as well as political chaos in the republic can be considered other serious problems during the transition period. Furthermore, Karabakh war and occupation of 20 percent of the Azerbaijani territory by the Armenian military forces had made the situation extremely complicated. Despite all of these extremes, Azerbaijan transformed to the market-based economy decidedly and even became one of the fast growing countries of the world. Even in 2013, with the GDP growth rate of 5.6 percent, Azerbaijan was a leader among growing economies. In parallel with this significant economic development, there is still a need for some socio-economic and institutional reforms in order to get a well-functioning market-based economy in Azerbaijan

Relaparotomy: review of indications and outcome in tertiary care hospital

Background: Relaparotomy is a rare complication after surgery associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Inappropriate selection of patients for relaparotomy, especially those who will not clearly benefit from surgery can be deleterious. This study was thus, planned to identify the indications, procedure, risk factors and outcomes of relaparotomy.Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study conducted in department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, King George’s Medical University from January 2008 to January 2014.Results: 19 cases of relaparotomy were identified. 17 patients (89.5%) had emergency primary surgery while 2 (10.5%) had elective surgery. Majority of patients required relaparotomy in view of hemorrhage (63.15%) followed by burst abdomen (31.5%) and bowel injury (5.26%). Obstructed labor was the major indication of primary surgery in patients operated for burst abdomen while placenta previa was the major indication of primary surgery in patients operated for PPH. Increased duration of hospital stay, requirement of blood transfusion and incidence of post-operative fever and sepsis was seen in patients undergoing relaparotomy. Out of 19 patients, 3 (15.7%) patients died.Conclusions: Relaparotomy is a rare condition which surgeon might have to encounter. However, ensuring proper hemostasis and asepsis during surgical procedures can reduce the incidence of relaparotomy. Calculative decision before embarking on relaparotomy can decrease the incidence of morbidity and mortality associated with the procedure

Thermoelectric efficiency in model nanowires

Ankara : The Departmant of Physics and the Graduate School of Engineering and Science of Bilkent University, 2013.Thesis (Master’s) -- Bilkent University, 2013.Includes bibliographical references leaves 53-57.Nowadays, the use of thermoelectric semiconductor devices are limited by their low efficiencies. Therefore, there is a huge amount of research effort to get high thermoelectric efficient materials with a fair production value. To this end, one important possibility for optimizing a material’s thermoelectric properties is reshaping their geometry. The main purpose of this thesis is to present a detailed analysis of thermoelectric efficiency of 2 lead systems with various geometries in terms of linear response theory, as well as 3 lead nanowire system in terms of the linear response and nonlinear response theories. The thermoelectric efficiency both in the linear response and nonlinear response regime of a model nanowire was calculated based on Landauer-B¨uttiker formalism. In this thesis, first of all, the electron transmission probability of the system at the hand, i.e. 2 lead or 3 lead systems are investigated by using R-matrix theory. Next, we make use of these electron transmission probability of model systems to find thermoelectric transport coefficients in 2 lead and 3 lead nanowires. Consequently, the effect of inelastic scattering is incorporated with a fictitious third lead in the 3 lead system. The efficiency at maximum power is especially useful to define the optimum working conditions of nanowire as a heat engine. Contrary to general expectation, increasing the strength of inelastic scattering is shown to be a means of making improved thermoelectric materials. A controlled coupling of the nanowire to a phonon reservoir for instance could be a way to increase the efficiency of nanowires for better heat engines.Badalov, SabuhiM.S

Monitoring time-varying systemic risk in sovereign debt and currency markets with generative AI

We propose generative artificial intelligence to measure systemic risk in the global markets of sovereign debt and foreign exchange. Through a comparative analysis, we explore three novel models to the econòmics literature and integrate them with traditional factor models. These models are: Time Variational Autoencoders, Time Generative Adversarial Networks, and Transformer-based Time-series Generative Adversarial Networks. Our empirical results provide evidence in support of the Variational Autoencoder. Results here indicate that both the Credit Default Swaps and foregin exchange markets are susceptible to systemic risk, with a historically high probability of distress observed by the end of 2022, as measured by both the Joint Probability of Distress and the Expected Proportion of Markets in Distress. Our results provide insights for governments in both developed and developing countries, since the realistic counterfactual scenarios generated by the AI, yet to occur in global markets, underscore the potential worst-case scenarios that may unfold if systemic risk materializes. Considering such scenarios is crucial when designing macroprudential policies aimed at preserving financial stability and when measuring the effectiveness of the implemented policies

Evaluation of risk factors in women attending a sexually transmitted infection clinic at a tertiary care centre

Background: Reproductive tract infections (RTIs) continue to present major health, social and economic problems all over the world and their complications are the most important causes of morbidity and mortality for women especially in the developing countries. Interest in RTIs and their management has increased tremendously because presence of a RTI in the sexual partner increases the risk of acquisition of HIV. Aim was to evaluate the risk factors in women attending a sexually transmitted infection clinic at a tertiary care centre and prevalence of RTI in our setup.Methods: The present study was conducted on 318 women of reproductive age group (18-45 years) attending the Reproductive tract infection/ sexually transmitted infection (RTI/STI) clinic at our tertiary care centre, they were evaluated for the prevalence of following RTIs: chlamydia, gonorrhoea, syphilis, bacterial vaginosis, trichomoniasis and candidiasis; and their correlation with clinical features and associated risk factors.Results: The factors found to be significantly associated with RTI were illiteracy, unemployment, past history of RTI in patient and presence of RTI in their partner. The prevalence of RTI in our setup reported 9.7%. The prevalence of candidiasis was maximum (11.5%) followed by chlamydia (4.1%), syphilis (4.1%), bacterial vaginosis (1.73%) and trichomoniasis (0.57%).Conclusions: None of the women was found positive for gonorrhoea. No coexistence of any two diseases found in any patient. Most common presentation was genital discharge (52.8%) followed by lower abdominal pain (45.2%)

Acceptance for Human Papilloma virus vaccines, experience at tertiary care centre of northern india: a hospital-based survey

Background: Acceptance of HPV vaccine is varying widely worldwide in   range of 10-70%. For increasing the acceptability for HPV vaccine, finding the obstacles and catering them diligently is required. The aim of the study was to find out acceptability rate for HPV vaccine in northern India and various obstacles and facilitators affecting acceptance of HPV vaccine.Methods: A questionnaire based descriptive study was done in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology of King George Medical University, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India from June 2016 to June 2017.  Questionnaire was filled by doctor after taking face to face interview of individuals. Ethical approval was obtained from the Institutional Ethical Committee of the KGMU, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India. (1689/Ethics/R cell/17) acceptability rate and various facilitators and obstacles for HPV vaccine were studied. For continuous variables mean with standard deviation was used. For categorical variables frequencies and percentages were used. IBM SPSS statistics applied.Results: A total of 302 cases were face to face interviewed, amongst which, 70 cases (23%) showed acceptability and 232 did not accept the vaccine. The most common obstacles were lack of knowledge and high monetary cost being the cause of nonacceptance in 48.3% and   33.6% of cases respectively.Conclusions: Higher level of awareness and knowledge about HPV vaccine and inclusion in government immunization programmed may increase acceptability

Monitoring time-varying systemic risk in sovereign debt and currency markets with generative AI

We propose generative artificial intelligence to measure systemic risk in the global markets of sovereign debt and foreign exchange. Through a comparative analysis, we explore three novel models to the economics literature and integrate them with traditional factor models. These models are: Time Variational Autoencoders, Time Generative Adversarial Networks, and Transformer-based Time-series Generative Adversarial Networks. Our empirical results provide evidence in support of the Variational Autoencoder. Results here indicate that both the Credit Default Swaps and foreign exchange markets are susceptible to systemic risk, with a historically high probability of distress observed by the end of 2022, as measured by both the Joint Probability of Distress and the Expected Proportion of Markets in Distress. Our results provide insights for governments in both developed and developing countries, since the realistic counterfactual scenarios generated by the AI, yet to occur in global markets, underscore the potential worst-case scenarios that may unfold if systemic risk materializes. Considering such scenarios is crucial when designing macroprudential policies aimed at preserving financial stability and when measuring the effectiveness of the implemented policies

The effects of electron irradiation and thermal dependence measurements on 4H-SiC Schottky diode

In this paper the effects of high energy (3.0 MeV) electrons irradiation over a dose ranges from 6 to 15 MGy at elevated temperatures 298 to 448 K on the current-voltage characteristics of 4H-SiC Schottky diodes were investigated. The experiment results show that after irradiation with 3.0 MeV forward bias current of the tested diodes decreased, while reverse bias current increased. The degradation of ideality factor, n, saturation current, Is, and barrier height, Φb, were not noticeable after the irradiation. However, the series resistance, Rs, has increased significantly with increasing radiation dose. In addition, temperature dependence current-voltage measurements, were conducted for temperature in the range of 298 to 448 K. The Schottky barrier height, saturation current, and series resistance, are found to be temperature dependent, while ideality factor remained constant. © 2017, Pleiades Publishing, Ltd