“After all, most of the ‘Myth’ has some blurred empirical foundation: determinants of University level performance of students: case study of Rural Development Course covered in 2008 with in Mekelle University"

There is a widely accepted claim which insists that students’ performance at Ethiopian universities is constrained by poor educational input provided at high school level and especially by students’ limited capacity to communicate in English. For the specific course analyzed under this paper the impact of high school performance is found to be positive but very marginal. But based on Grade point average there is positive and significant association between high school performance and university performance, especially at freshman level. But this strong association is not specifically related to math or English performance per se but to over all performance.Education attendance university class-size student performance

"Who was getting the highest share of the tiny pie? : Robust analysis of poverty dynamics and its decomposition by Ethiopian socioeconomic groups in the period of 1995 - 2000"

The general distribution of benefit was skewed to major urban centers, educated individuals, employee and individuals headed by formal employee and employers. But in terms of income the economic environment was very effective in avoiding the destitution among the most impoverished but not to rise the over all income among the poor. The economic environment in period 1995 to 2000 seems to discourage the risk takers and failed to improve the welfare of those better off poor. So if better distribution was strong side of this period; inability to raise incomes and discouraged risk taking behavior were the main short comings.poverty ethiopia dynamics change in poverty

Structure, conduct and performance of grain trading in Tigray and its impact on demand for commodity exchange: The case Maychew, Mokone, Alemata, Mekelle and Himora

Grain markets of Alemata, Maychew, Mokone, Mekelle and Himora are observed to operate in highly inefficient market structure, with very low level of trust at meso and macro level. As result the marking system is less developed and less efficient in terms of creating space and time utility. In which lack of finance is the most critical problem. Under such reality warehouse receipt system with receipts that can be used as collateral for loan are critical first stage needed to get the market right. If ECX’s exchange service has to be introduced it has to be low cost and low value added service, if not it may not find significant demand among grain traders.commodity exchange; Ethiopian Commodity exchange; social capital; networks; grain trade; warehouse receipt

Determinants of capital structure: Evidence from Sidama credit and saving microfinance institution

Different industry-specific and macro-economic factors influence the capital structure of microfinance institutions (MFI). So, the objective of this study is to identify industry-specific determinants of capital structure with the selected branch of Sidama MFI, Sidama region, Ethiopia. To this end, the researcher employed a quantitative research approach with an explanatory research design where the effect caused by the independent variable on the dependent variable is observed through regression analysis. The secondary data were collected from Sidama MFIs consolidated and audited financial statements from 2009 to 2019 G.C. Then, both descriptive and inferential statistical analysis has been done. The researcher employed a regression analysis model to identify the effect of five explanatory variables on capital structure measured through debt to equity ratio. Thus, the result of regression analysis showed that out of five independent variables incorporated in the model, all five variables such as growth (negative), profitability (positive), firm size (positive), earning volatility (positive), and asset tangibility (positive) and statistically significant respectively. This study recommends that the microfinance institutions at all company levels improve debt capacity in proportion to asset tangibility more than the current status

The Ethiopian Tax System: Excesses and Gaps

Article published in the Michigan State International Law Review

The Impacts of Land Degradation on Crop Productivity in Ethiopia. A Review

Land degradation has great threat to crop productivity for the future and it requires effort and resources to ameliorate land degradation consequence. It is one of the major causes of low and declining agricultural productivity and continuing food in-security and rural poverty. Therefore, the purpose of this revision could be to determine impacts of land degradation on crop productivity in Ethiopia.  As the revision display, land degradation directly affects agricultural crops and plants, reduced availability of clean water, lessened volume of surface water, depletion of aquifers and biodiversity loss. The major causes and consequence of land degradation are the rapid population escalation, serve soil loss, deforestation, low vegetation cover and unbalanced crop and livestock production rearing. In appropriate land use systems and land tenure enhance desertification and loss of ecosystem. Generally, common problem of land degradation in Ethiopia puts disastrous impact on crop productivity, socio economic, environment and ecological setting of the country. Therefore to struggle the effect of land degradation, the stakeholders focused on developing physical and biological soil and water conservation structures, sustainable use of things and services from cultivation land and development of Silvopastoral system which can contribute to poverty lessening, making the farmers fewer susceptible to effect of land degradation. Key note: Land degradation, crop productivity and Ethiopia.

To tax or not to tax: is that really the question? VAT, bank foreclosure sales, and the scope of exemptions for financial services in Ethiopia

The Ethiopian Value Added Tax of 2002 follows the standard approach of exempting financial services from VAT. Not all ‘financial services’ are, however, exempted from VAT. A number of services provided by the financial institutions are made taxable by the VAT laws of Ethiopia. No subject in this regard has probably attracted as much attention and controversy as that of sale by foreclosure of property held as security by banks. Both sides (i.e., members of the financial industry and the tax authorities) seemed locked in their conviction over the treatment of foreclosure sales in VAT. Members of the financial industry (in particular banks) are convinced that foreclosure sales enjoy the privilege of exemption in VAT while some within the Tax Authorities are equally convinced that foreclosure sales should be chargeable with VAT. These controversies have played out in the courtrooms, the press and a number of communications between the Tax Authorities and the members of the financial industry. This article examines these controversies and analyzes the scope of exemptions for financial institutions under Ethiopian VAT laws

SENSING SMALL CHANGES IN A WAVE CHAOTIC SCATTERING SYSTEM AND ENHANCING WAVE FOCUSING USING TIME REVERSAL MIRRORS

Wave-based motion sensors, such as radar and sonar, are designed to detect objects within a direct line-of-sight of the sensor. As a result, surveillance of a cavity with multiple internal partitions generally demands use of a network of sensors. In the first part of the dissertation, we propose and test a new paradigm of sensing that can work in such cavities using a single sensor. The sensor utilizes the time reversal invariance and spatial reciprocity properties of the wave equation, and the ray chaotic nature of most real world cavities. Specifically, classical analogs of the quantum fidelity and the Loschmidt echo are developed. The sensor was used to detect perturbations to local boundary conditions of an acoustic cavity, and the medium of wave propagation. This result opens up various real world sensing applications in which a false negative cannot be tolerated. The sensor is also shown to quantitatively measure perturbations that change the volume of a wave chaotic cavity while leaving its shape intact. Volume changes that are as small as 54 parts in a million were measured using microwaves with 5cm wavelength inside a one cubic meter wave chaotic cavity. These results open up interesting applications such as monitoring the spatial uniformity of the temperature of a homogeneous cavity during heating up / cooling down procedures, etc. The second part of the dissertation is dedicated to improving the performance of time reversal (TR) mirrors, which suffer from dissipation. TR mirrors can, under ideal circumstances, precisely reconstruct a wave disturbance which happened at an earlier time, at any given later time. TR mirrors have found applications in imaging, communication, targeted energy focusing, sensing, etc. Two techniques are proposed and tested to overcome the effects of dissipation on TR mirrors. First, a tunable iterative technique is used to improve the temporal focusing of a TR mirror. Second, the technique of exponential amplification is proposed to overcome the effect of dissipation on TR mirrors. The applicability of these techniques is tested experimentally using an electromagnetic TR mirror, and numerically using a model of the star graph

A Multi-Agent Architecture for An Intelligent Web-Based Educational System

An intelligent educational system must constitute an adaptive system built on multi-agent system architecture. The multi-agent architecture component provides self-organization, self-direction, and other control functionalities that are crucially important for an educational system. On the other hand, the adaptiveness of the system is necessary to provide customization, diversification, and interactional functionalities. Therefore, an educational system architecture that integrates multi-agent functionality [50] with adaptiveness can offer the learner the required independent learning experience. An educational system architecture is a complex structure with an intricate hierarchal organization where the functional components of the system undergo sophisticated and unpredictable internal interactions to perform its function. Hence, the system architecture must constitute adaptive and autonomous agents differentiated according to their functions, called multi-agent systems (MASs). The research paper proposes an adaptive hierarchal multi-agent educational system (AHMAES) [51] as an alternative to the traditional education delivery method. The document explains the various architectural characteristics of an adaptive multi-agent educational system and critically analyzes the system’s factors for software quality attributes