A structural VAR (SVAR) approach to cost channel of monetary policy

The study aims at investigating, whether or not the cost channel of monetary policy is effective in Pakistan. The cost channel is one of the theoretical justifications of Price Puzzle, a phenomenon that has been observed in a number of empirical studies. Using Structural Vector Autoregression (SVAR) and data from different industries of manufacturing sector of Pakistan over the period 2001:M07-2008:M04, we find strong evidence in favor of Price Puzzle in major industries. In industries like textile, food and beverages, pharmaceuticals, automobiles, and fertilizers, cost channel dominates the traditional demand channel. Same behavior is observed for aggregate price level in the overall manufacturing sector. The main reason for the result is the dependency of the above mentioned industries on short-term borrowing to finance their operational liquidity.Cost Channel, Price Puzzle, Working Capital, Monetary Policy, Marginal Cost, Structural Vector Autoregression (SVAR)

Academic literacies and attitudes of EFL students in a CMC environment

There is a growing volume of research showing that academic literacy is discipline specific. To become proficient in a specific discipline and be a part of a discourse community, learners have to learn ways of communication acquired through understanding and practising the necessary genres associated with that discipline. Both synchronous and asynchronous Computer-mediated communication (CMC) provides opportunities for learners to be a part of that discourse community and learn particular ways of discourse in a collaborative environment. This research investigated how a group of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners in a Saudi Arabian university was introduced to academic writing by completing CMC tasks collaboratively. Learners' interactions were examined via a descriptive design to explain how students negotiate academic literacy using synchronous chat and asynchronous discussion boards. Data were gathered from 6 sources: observations, survey questionnaires, texts of participants' online discussion entries, online peer feedback, students' assignments, and interviews. Data were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively to investigate how these EFL undergraduate students negotiate their academic literacy in a CMC environment in terms of language functions and focus; how CMC influences both the process and the product of student's academic writing activities; and what EFL students' attitudes were towards CMC in the process of acquiring academic literacy. Data analysis revealed the various discourse functions EFL learners used in their online discussions. Results indicated that computer-mediated communication facilitated students' understanding of tasks and performance of writing activities and promoted collaboration. Analysis of the students' draft and revised essays in the online peer review activities showed that students integrated peers' feedback into their revisions and benefited from such activities although they were not satisfied with the quality and quantity of feedback. A comparison of the students' participation in the face-to-face classrooms with their participation in both synchronous and asynchronous CMC activities afforded through Blackboard® learning management system (LMS) revealed more active interaction during CMC activities in terms of its content and quality. Finally, the EFL students perceived that CMC facilitated their acquisition of academic literacy in academic writing and promoted collaboration despite some limitations

Green Communications: Techniques and Challenges

Green technology has drawn a huge amount of attention with the development of the modern world. Similarly with the development in communication technology the industries and researchers are focusing to make this communication as green as possible. In cellular technology the evolution of 5G is the next step to fulfil the user demands and it will be available to the users in 2020. This will increase the energy consumption by which will result in excess emission of co2. In this paper different techniques for the green communication technology and some challenges are discussed. These techniques include device-to-device communication (D2D), massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) systems, heterogeneous networks (HetNets) and Green Internet of Things (IoT)

An Empirical Study on the Preferred Leadership Style of Saudi Women Entrepreneurs

The last decade has seen increased contribution of Saudi women in senior management roles and organizational decision- making. There is also a steady progress in the number of Saudi women entrepreneurs. Women Entrepreneurs are the leaders, idea generator and the sole owner of the available resources. Women Leaders and Entrepreneurs have similar job responsibility as they both work as per the available limited resources and manage their tasks in the presence of these constraints.The principal objective of this research is to study the different leadership styles being practiced by Saudi women entrepreneurs or managers, as well as to study the effectiveness of these leadership styles. Primary data was collected through a structured questionnaire which consists of questions designed to collect data about the leadership style being practiced by the Saudi women entrepreneurs or managers. Data was collected from 210 women entrepreneurs in Saudi Arabia. The survey data was analyzed using various analytical softwares. The result shows that authoritarian leadership style is highly practiced by women entrepreneurs followed by democratic leadership style in Hail and Riyadh region. This study can be used to acquire knowledge about the various leadership styles being practiced by women entrepreneurs or managers in Saudi Arabia. It will also be useful to the Saudi women entrepreneurs / managers in identifying the most effective leadership style. This study aims to add to the limited research by offering fresh understanding into the leadership styles embraced by Saudi female entrepreneurs

A User-Centric QoS-Aware Multi-Path Service Provisioning in Mobile Edge Computing

Recent development in modern wireless applications and services, such as augmented reality, image processing, and network gaming requires persistent computing on average commercial wireless devices to perform complex tasks with low latency. The traditional cloud systems are unable to meet those requirements solely. In the said perspective, Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) serves as a proxy between the things (devices) and the cloud, pushing the computations at the edge of the network. The MEC provides an effective solution to fulfill the demands of low-latency applications and services by executing most of the tasks within the proximity of users. The main challenge, however, is that too many simultaneous service requests created by wireless access produce severe interference, resulting in a decreased rate of data transmission. In this paper, we made an attempt to overcome the aforesaid limitation by proposing a user-centric QoS-aware multi-path service provisioning approach. A densely deployed base station MEC environment has overlapping coverage regions. We exploit such regions to distribute the service requests in a way that avoid hotspots and bottlenecks. Our approach is adaptive and can tune to different parameters based on service requirements. We performed several experiments to evaluate the effectiveness of our approach and compared it with the traditional Greedy approach. The results revealed that our approach improves the network state by 26.95% and average waiting time by 35.56% as compared to the Greedy approach. In addition, the QoS violations were also reduced by the fraction of 16

Incidence of Development of Hydrocephalus after Excision and Repair of Spina Bifida Aperta in Infants

Objective:  To find out the incidence of hydrocephalus after excision and repair in infants presenting with Spina Bifida Aperta. Materials & Methods:  This prospective cohort study was conducted at the Pediatric Neurosurgery Department, Children Hospital & The Institute of Child Health, Lahore, Pakistan, from January 2021 to October 2021. A total of 62 infants of both genders presenting with spina bifida Aperta undergoing repair were included. Data of the patients, i.e., name, age, gender, head circumference, location, and width of the defect, accompanying bladder, limb anomalies, radiological, laboratory findings, and diagnosis (meningocele or meningomyelocele) were noted. Patients were followed postoperatively for 1-month, and the incidence of post-surgery hydrocephalus was noted. Results:  Out of 62 children, 36 (58.1%) were male and 24 (41.9%) female. The mean age was noted to be 138.82 days. Most children, 36 (58.1%), were found to have meningocele. The most frequent local meningocele/meningomyelocele was noted to be lumbosacral, 22 (35.5%). Post-surgery hydrocephalus was noted among 11 (17.1%) cases. No significant association of gender, age, head circumference, defect size, the maximum dimension, diagnosis (meningocele or meningomyelocele), or location was noted with post-surgery hydrocephalus among study cases (p > 0.05). No mortality was reported. Conclusion:  Meningomyelocele and lumbosacral location of the defect were among the prominent factors affecting the incidence of post-surgery hydrocephalus. Keywords:  Spina Bifida Aperta, Meningiocele, Myelomeningocele, hydrocephalus, lumbosacra

The Pashtuns use of Suicide Bombing as a Military Operation in Afghanistan and Pakistan

This paper provided a new framework i.e., fifth-generation literature on suicide bombings. The latter have always been a central debate/value in warfare; however, they have taken a centre stage in asymmetric warfare. The lethality and commitment to the cause makes a suicide attacker a real danger. The Iraqi episode of Al-Qaeda used suicide bombings as a military operation, and it transferred the expertise to Taliban to fight against the U.S-led Allied Forces in Afghanistan. From there the same tactics proliferated to Pakistani Taliban who used it as a military operation against the security and civil establishments of Islamabad. Apart from the Pashtunwali Code and the strict adherence to the Deobandi School of thought, the Pashtuns of Afghanistan and Pakistan readily accepted to recruit and train suicide attackers and employed suicide bombings as a military operation. This analytical and explanatory study generally banked on secondary data, normally gathered from the academic sources; however, primary data was also used, and an interview of an anonymous security official was conducted as well. This paper is a concentrated effort to probe and investigate the advent of suicide bombings in Afghanistan and Pakistan and to examine that how and why the Pashtuns used it as a military operation to achieve their desired objectives. The article found that the selection and indoctrination of a suicide bomber involves almost eight stages

A Compact Size Implantable Antenna for Bio-medical Applications

Implantable antennas play a vital role in implantable sensors and medical devices. In this paper, we present the design of a compact size implantable antenna for biomedical applications. The antenna is designed to operate in ISM band at 915 MHz and the overall size of the antenna is 4×4×0.3mm3. A shorting pin is used to lower the operating frequency of the antenna. For excitation purpose a 50-ohm coaxial probe feed is used in the design. A superstrate layer is placed on the patch to prevent the direct contact between the radiating patch and body tissues. The antenna is simulated in skin layer model. The designed antenna demonstrates a gain of 3.22 dBi while having a -10 dB bandwidth of 240 MHz with good radiation characteristics at 915 MHz. The simulated results show that this antenna is an excellent candidate for implantable applications

Marketing Practices of Textile Business and Firm's Performance: A Case of Pakistan

Marketing is necessity of every business. In the context of local textile industry of Pakistan, Ghouri et al. (2011) study has been replicated to find the effects of marketing practices on the firm performances of textiles industry in the boundaries of Pakistan. 156 questionnaires analyze from the cities of Faisalabad, Islamabad/Pindi, Karachi, Lahore and Multan. Finding suggested that vague marketing practices are carrying out and textile firms wasting their time and money on marketing practices and forgone the potential benefits