War and the Fiscal Capacity of the State

__Abstract__ We examine the role of war in retarding state fiscal capacity in developing countries, measured by tax revenue ratios to GDP. This in contrast to the European experience from the Renaissance to the 20th century, where it is believed that war and state-building were inseparable, enhancing the fiscal capacity of the state; in turn enlarging the scope and magnitude of government expenditure. We build a simple theoretical model of a factionalized state, where patronage substitutes for common interest public goods, along with the possibility of violent contestation over a rent or prize, typically in the form of natural resource revenues. Our dynamic panel empirical analysis on the determinants of fiscal capacity is applied to 79 developing countries, during 1980-2010. Results indicate that war, especially in its current dominant form of civil war, retards fiscal capacity, along with imperfect democracy, political repression, the quality of governance, dependence on oil and macroeconomic mismanagement. High intensity conflict is particularly destructive of state capacity. Countries experiencing low intensity wars, other institutional factors may matter more for fiscal capacity formation compared to war. The diminution of state capacity due to war appears less pronounced after the end of the cold war

A tripartite inquiry into volatility-efficiency-integration nexus - case of emerging markets

The objective of this paper is to analyse the time-varying changes of the three parameters, volatility, efficiency and integration on stock markets across emerging markets. We do this using a four-step process with focus on Multifractal Detrended Fluctuation Analysis to measure its efficiency. Our analysis show that lower volatility was found in short-term for countries that experienced fast paced economic growth. This increase in volatility is supported by a decrease in efficiency for the short-term, while market integration rose during periods of crises, which represent higher volatility. Hence, a tripartite relationship between our parameters is observed

On Eccentric Digraphs of graphs

The eccentricity e(u) of a vertex u is the maximum distance of u to any other vertex of G. A vertex v is an eccentric vertex of vertex u if the distance from u to v is equal to e(u). The eccentric digraph ED(G) of a graph (digraph) G is the digraph that has the same vertex as G and an arc from u to v exists in ED(G) if and only if v is an eccentric vertex of u in G. In this paper, we have considered an open problem. Partly we have characterized graphs with specified maximum degree such that ED(G) =

Diversity and abundance of storage pest in rice warehouses in Klang, Selangor, Malaysia

Insect’s pest infestation on rice product cause a serious damage either in quantitative or qualitative aspect. This paper assesses the abundance and diversity of insects pest of stored products in rice warehouses, through a study in three rice warehouse (Jasa, Tenggara, Target Lane) in Klang Selangor, Malaysia. Investigations recorded four main insect species in all the warehouses are Oryzaephilus surinamensis, Tribolium castaneum, Sitophilus oryzae and Cadra cautella. Oryzaephilus surinamensis showed the highest abundance in all warehouse with total 47403 individuals (97%), T. castaneum with 431 individuals (0.88%), C. cautella with 760 individuals (1.56%) and S. oryzae with the lowest abundance (11 individuals; 0.02%). The Shannon-Weiner index shows that highest insects diversity was in Tenggara warehouse (Shannon’s, H’ = 0.28), while Target Lane were the lowest (Shannon’s, H’=0.11). The information on insect’s pest diversity in rice warehouses is very useful to implementation of management and controlling insect’s pest infestation in stored rice grains

Synthesis and liquid crystalline behaviour of substituted (E)-phenyl-4-(phenyldiazenyl) benzoate derivatives and their photo switching ability

Azobenzene derivatives containing phenyl/4-halogen-phenyl 4-{(E)-[4-(pent-4-en-1-yloxy)phenyl]diazenyl}benzoate group with different electronegative substituent (H, F, Cl, Br and I) at other end was synthesised. These azo-based benzoate derivatives have been characterised by FTIR, 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR, elemental analyser, POM and UV-Vis spectroscopy. Photosaturation at 358 nm obtained after 82 s of UV irradiation and the longest thermal back relaxation time of 45 h recorded by UV-Vis. The azo derivative could be possible photolock under UV light, as observed by the improved thermal back relaxation time. The resulting photolockable chain of azobenzene might prove valuable in the development of optical device application. These azobenzene moieties also exhibit liquid crystalline behaviour with respect to the halogen substitution as an electron withdrawing group shows that strong structure property relationship exists among them

The global distribution of comorbid depression and anxiety in people with diabetes mellitus: risk-adjusted estimates

Background: Previous reports suffer from the problem that they simply pooled data using aggregate means or standard meta-analytic method. The aim of the current study was to re-estimate the point prevalence of comorbid depression and anxiety in people with diabetes. Methods: The estimates were calculated using recently introduced directly standardized effect estimate method, which gives corrected risk-adjusted estimates for the population of interests. Reported are global and regional burden of prevalence, presented as risk-adjusted prevalence estimates with 95% confidence intervals. Results: Globally, the burden of comorbid depression was higher than the burden of anxiety (23.36% vs. 17.58%) symptoms and/or disorder in people with diabetes. There was a higher burden of comorbid depression in people living in developing regions (26.32%), in women (15.41%), and when assessed by self-report scales (SRS) (22.66%). The burden of anxiety was higher in developed regions in people with Type 2 diabetes mellitus (20.15%) and when assessed by SRS (20.75%). No statistically significant differences were observed due to gross heterogeneity across countries. Conclusions: There are wide-ranging differences in studies in developed and developing regions, regarding the burden of comorbid depression and of anxiety among people with diabetes and both conditions affect approximately a fifth of the diabetic population

The dual Function Two Highly Robust Estimators Of Scale.

Two statistics for testing the equality of central tendency measures under conditions of variance heterogeneity and non-normality, i.e. S1 and MOM-H, were compared in the context of a one-way completely randomized design

Human epidermal growth receptor-2 overexpressing early operable primary breast cancers in older (>=70 years) women: biology and clinical outcome in comparison with younger (less than 70 years) patients

Introduction: There is dearth of literature reporting the prevalence and biological characteristics as well as the long-termclinical outcome of human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER2) overexpressing tumours in older women. Currently,research involving trastuzumab at large focuses on the younger population. This study aimed to analyse their biological characteristicsand to compare them with their younger counterparts from a single centre with a long-term clinical follow-up.Methods: Over 37 years (1973–2010), 1758 older (≥70 years) women with early operable (less than 5 cm) primary breast cancer were managed in a dedicated clinic and have complete clinical information available. Of these, 813 patients underwent primary surgery and 575 had good quality tumour samples available for tissue microarray analysis using indirect immunohistochemistry. Comparison was made with data from a well-characterised younger (70 years = 70%, P = 0.51).Conclusion:HER2 overexpressing tumours in older women showed relatively a less aggressive phenotype and did not show any inferior long-term clinical outcome despite not having received chemotherapy when compared with the younger patients. The precise role of different adjuvant systemic therapies in this population needs to be delineated

Integrated Personality Profiling Framework Using Traits and Factors Theory for Malaysian HLI Enrolment: A New Approach

Personality profiling is importantespecially in education and human resourcemanagement. Inability to identify individuals’personality may cause misunderstanding ofones potential; and further more, he/she mightfail to recognize his/her own career or academicdirection. This study aimed to develop anintegrated personality framework; using Traitand Factor Theory of Occupational Choice. Thecompleted framework was used as the coreconcept of integrated profiling instrument, namedas Integrated Personality Profiling (i-PRO).The main beneficiary of the completed (i-PRO)will be students, academics and non-academicpersonnel. The sample for this initial study was380 students from one Higher Learning Institution(HLI) in Malaysia. The sampling method usedwas random sampling. The study was done toexplore the Holland’s 3-code interest traits amongengineering students of the said HLI. One of thedeveloped domain used in this initial study wascareer interest domain. The Holland’s 3-codetypologies for Higher Learning Institution (HLI)respondents are Investigative, Social and Realistic(I, S, R)