Foreign direct investment, institutional quality and business regulatory environment: Evidence from Africa

Foreign direct investment (FDI) plays a significant role in both the economic growth and development of a nation. Given Africa\u27s development and economic characteristics, FDI is an attractive tool for economic development. Hence, understanding the key drivers of FDI is of major importance to help promote the sustainable development of the private sector. This thesis focuses on the interrelation between two key determinants of FDI inflows: institutional quality and the business regulatory environment, while controlling for economic determinants including the market and resource characteristics of a country. Using a panel of 46 countries for the period 2012-2016, a mediation analysis is employed to examine the relationship between an established governance index, as a proxy measure of institutional quality, using Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) and the doing business score developed by the World Bank (WB), as a proxy measure of business regulatory environment. The conditions of mediation analysis were tested using a number of multivariate log-linear regression models. The model is estimated using fixed effect panel regression analysis with robust cluster standard error to account for homoscedasticity and serial autocorrelation. The data on the included variables were gathered from publicly available resources. In line with literature such as Globerman and Sharpio (2002) and Gani (2007), the findings of the study regarding the relevance of governance index for FDI inflows showed a robust, consistent significance using different estimation techniques. However, contrary to the literature such as Piwonski (2010) and Morriz and Aziz (2011), the business regulatory environment did not demonstrate any robust significance to FDI inflows. Though these findings result in a statistical rejection of the main hypothesis, it does not constitute conclusive evidence that the business regulatory environment does not mediate the effect of institutional quality on FDI inflows within the African context. This is due to a concern regarding the validity of the doing business score validity as a proxy for the business regulatory environment

Experimental Investigation of the Thermal-hydraulic Performance of Conically Coiled Tubes using Al2O3/Water Nanofluid

The thermal-hydraulic performance of conically coiled tubes (CCTs) was investigated experimentally under constant heat flux boundary conditions in this study. The effect of several factors, such as the flow Dean number, coil torsion, and varied nanoparticle weight concentrations, on the flow\u27s heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop was studied. Thermo-hydraulic performance was studied at 0.3%, 0.6%, and 0.9% volume concentrations (ϕ) of Al2O3/water nanofluid, a Dean number (De) of 1148–2983, and coil torsions (λ) ranging from 0.02 to 0.052. Results indicated that the heat transfer rates (HTRs) of CCTs increased when the coil torsion was decreased. According to the findings, the average heat transfer coefficient (havg) rises as De increases, while friction factor (ƒ) tends to decrease. The average increase in havg is 32% at lower De values and 26% at higher De values as the nanofluid concentration increased from 0.3% to 0.9%. The thermal performance factor (TPF) improved when λ lowered from 0.052 to 0.02

Global nomads: Struggles third culture kids face living in Egypt

This audio documentary explores the struggles that Egyptian third culture kids face when they move back to Egypt from a different culture they’ve lived in and how they cope with these struggles. Interview with Karim Kadry about language barriers. Interview with Yasmine Bassily about making friends. Interview with Sara Abdelghany about finding romantic relationships. Interview with Dr Fouad Bouzeineddine about psychological aspect. Interview with Nouran Allam about finding home

DNA修復欠損TK6細胞を使った化学物質のDNA毒性の向上を目指した実験評価系の開発

京都大学0048新制・課程博士博士(医学)甲第22723号医博第4641号新制||医||1045(附属図書館)京都大学大学院医学研究科医学専攻(主査)教授 篠原 隆司, 教授 溝脇 尚志, 教授 増永 慎一郎学位規則第4条第1項該当Doctor of Medical ScienceKyoto UniversityDFA

Structural and physical studies of PVC/PVDF doped Nano lithium salt for electrochemical applications

  Polymer blend of poly (vinyl chloride) and poly(vinylidene fluoride) of nominal composition (30PVC/70PVDF) wt:wt were prepared in the form of thin films using casting technique. Samples of the same composition doped with gradient concentration of nano lithium salt (LTO) were prepared and studied. Proposed filler was characterized using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), UV/vis. optical absorption, X-ray diffraction (XRD), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Electron diffraction (ED).  Obtained data approve the crystalline nano structure of filler with a cubic structure of average size (25-30 nm). Prepared nano composites were then investigated using different spectroscopic methods. XRD reveals the amorphous nature of the base polymer blend with tendency for increase in crystallinity with increasing the content of lithium salt. FTIR shows a preservation of the main vibrational spectral bands in their position with small variation in the area and intensity of some spectral bands related to the interaction between polymer and filler. &nbsp

Code–checkable group rings

A code over a group ring is defined to be a submodule of that group ring. For a code $C$ over a group ring $RG$, $C$ is said to be checkable if there is $v\in RG$ such that {$C=\{x\in RG: xv=0\}$}. In \cite{r2}, Jitman et al. introduced the notion of code-checkable group ring. We say that a group ring $RG$ is code-checkable if every ideal in $RG$ is a checkable code. In their paper, Jitman et al. gave a necessary and sufficient condition for the group ring $\mathbb{F}G$, when $\mathbb{F}$ is a finite field and $G$ is a finite abelian group, to be code-checkable. In this paper, we give some characterizations for code-checkable group rings for more general alphabet. For instance, a finite commutative group ring $RG$, with $R$ is semisimple, is code-checkable if and only if $G$ is $\pi'$-by-cyclic $\pi$; where $\pi$ is the set of noninvertible primes in $R$. Also, under suitable conditions, $RG$ turns out to be code-checkable if and only if it is pseudo-morphic