Exogenous Shocks and Exchange Rate Management in Developing Countries

Even though globalization benefits less developed countries (LDCs), it also makes them more vulnerable to the exogenous shocks to the economies. Many LDCs rely on imported technologies and intermediate inputs to compete in the international export markets with better quality and cost efficient products. In this regard, exchange rate policies in respective countries have a direct bearing on the cost of production. This paper examines alternative exchange rate regimes to suggest an appropriate exchange rate policy in the context of developing countries. The paper utilizes a small open economy model involving direct supply-side effects of exchange rate and expectations of key economic variables and considers four possible exchange rate policies, e.g., fixed exchange rate, perfectly flexible exchange rate, leaning against the wind, and leaning with the wind. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the paper finds that in the event of a shock, leaning against the wind is likely to be the most appropriate exchange rate policy. Moreover, in the event of rigid wages, a fixed exchange rate policy is advisable.globalization, exchange rate regimes, exchange rate policy

Drivers and Barriers of Mobile Commerce: The Role of Consumers’ Personal Innovativeness

Mobile commerce (m-commerce) has experienced rapid growth in recent years, gaining importance in both academia and industry. However, extant literature has paid little attention to how m-commerce value is shaped, particularly in emerging economies. This study develops a framework of m-commerce value by studying its determinants. These comprise of the benefit: ubiquity (time convenience and accessibility), and barriers to m-commerce: perceived risk (financial risk /performance risk), and perceived cost. Moreover, this research investigates the moderating role of personal innovativeness on the relationship between the drivers/barriers and value. The findings of the empirical survey-based study in emerging m-commerce economies reveal a positive impact of ubiquity on value, while risk and cost have a negative influence. Furthermore, innovativeness was found to moderate the relationships between the determinants and value, apart from that between cost and value. The results further show that value positively affects actual usage and is enhanced by consumer innovativeness

KORELASI JABATAN FUNGSIONAL, KEPANGKATAN, MASA KERJA, IJASAH DENGAN PROFESIONALITAS DOSEN JURUSAN TARBIYAH SEKOLAH TINGGI AGAMA ISLAM NEGERI (STAIN) KEDIRI

The present study aims at examining teacher’s professionalism and its reciprocal relation with functional position, rank stratification, length of work, and the diploma. Besides intended to verify the theory of James H. Stronge et al, this study can also be employed to evaluate Peraturan Pemerintah RI number 37 year 2009 Chapter 7, that states that teacher certification is valid as long as the teachers conduct their assignment as teachers, and it is not necessarily evaluated regularly. Data collection technique in the present study was executed through documentation and questionnaire. The  total of the student sample who provided their assessment on the teacher professionalism was 328, with 8 students representing each class. Each student provides their assessment for all teachers who were teaching in even semester of 2013-2014. Kendali tau was then employed for the data analysis technique. This study concluded that, firsly, functional position is negatively correlated with teacher professionalism at the Department of Tarbiyah STAIN Kediri; secondly, rank stratification is also negatively correlated with teacher professionalism; thirdly, length of teaching is not correlated with teacher professionalism; and fourthly, level of diploma is also not correlated with teacher professionalism at the Department of Tarbiyah STAIN Kediri.Keywords; Korelasi, Jabatan Fungsional, Kepangkatan, Masa Kerja, Ijasah, Profesionalitas, STAIN Kediri

Landlessness and Rural Poverty in Pakistan

Although reducing rural poverty has been the key agenda of economic reforms in Pakistan, the rural poverty continued to rise during the 1990s. The causes of rural poverty are complex and multidimensional. The rural poor are quite diverse both in the problems they face, and the possible solutions to these problems are also different. The paper uses the most recent household data set available—PIHS 2001-02—to examine the causes of rural poverty, as to what accounts for its persistence and what policy measures should be taken to alleviate it. Poverty estimates using official poverty line suggest the high prevalence of rural poverty ranging from 39 percent to 48 percent in all provinces. Rural poverty is found to be strongly correlated with lack of asset in rural areas. The unequal land ownership in the country is found to be one of the major causes of rural poverty, as poverty level was the highest among the landless households followed by non-agriculture households. The incidence of landlessness is common in rural areas. About 67 percent households own no land in the country. Unusually, just 0.3 percent households own 55 and above acres of land across the country, suggesting a highly skewed landownership pattern. Gini Coefficient of landholding suggests that Punjab has the most unequal landownership pattern, followed by the NWFP, Sindh, and Balochistan. The highly unequal land distribution seems to have resulted in tenancy arrangements such as sharecropping, resulting in high prevalence of absolute poverty particularly in Sindh. A broad-based land reform programme, including land redistribution and fair and enforceable tenancy contracts together with rural public works programmes and access to credit, is critical to reducing rural poverty in Pakistan.Poverty, Pakistan

PERAN LESBUMI DALAM MERESPON GERAKAN LEKRA PADA TAHUN 1950-1965

Indonesia mengalami sejarah yang begitu panjang dan luas, yang meliputi, politik, sosial dan kebudayaan. Dalam hal kesenian dan kebudayaan muncul pada tahun 1960-an beberpa polemik kebudayaan antara nasionalis, agama dan komunis. Nasionalis yang diwakili oleh PNI (LKN), Agama NU (Lesbumi), dan Komunis PKI (Lekra), disini akan dipaparkan Peran Lesbumi dalam merespon gerakan Lekra tahun 1950-1965. Materi yang diteliti dalam skripsi ini berkaitan dengan perdebatan kebudayaan yang terjadi pada masa pasca kemerdekaan yang berujung pada meletusnya Gestapu/G.30 S PKI. Kondisi seniman-seniman pada waktu itu tidak bisa bersifat netral mereka dituntut saling bersaing untuk kepentingan golongan-golongan yang dipergunakan untuk menarik masa. Penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui kondisi soisal masyarakat dalam bidang seni dan budaya, dan peran Lesbumi dalam menyikapi perdebatan itu. Dari latar belakang di atas Lesbumi yang memakai idiologi ahlussunnah wal jamaah dengan seni untuk seni bukan untuk politik, dengan menciptakan seni. Sedangkan lekra yang memakai seni untuk rakyat, politik adalah panglima. Untuk mengungkapakan penelitian ini yakni dengan menggunakan pendekatan politik-historis, dan teori konflik untuk mengetahui gejolak seni dan budaya yang tidak bisa dipisahkan dari politik pada waktu itu. Dengan Metode sejarah (Heuristik), kemudian (kritik), langkah selanjutnya adalah melakukan analisa teks atau (interpretasi) dari beberapa sumber dengan menyesuaikan pada masalah yang menjadi kajian penelitian. Kemudian melakukan tahap inti, yaitu Historiografi atau penulisan sejarah. Hasil penelitian yang telah dilakukan, ternyata kehadiran Lesbumi dalam partai NU sangat memberikan kontribusi yang positif. Ketika NU di hadapkan dengan aksi-aksi ormas PKI yang semakin menjadi yang bertujuan ingin mencetuskan Idiologi Komunisme, Marxisme dan Leinisme di Indonesia atau mereka menyebutnya revolusi. Salah satunya adalah ormas PKI bernama Lekra yang bergerak dalam bidang seni dan budaya dengan menunjukan sikap aksi teror terhadap seniman-seniman yang tidak sepaham denga mereka. NU yang dari dahulu sangat anti dengan PKI ketika itu meresponya dalam bidang seni dan budaya dengan mendirikan Lesbumi

Dynamic Bayesian Networks and Variable Length Genetic Algorithm for Dialogue Act Recognition

The recognition of dialogue act is a task of crucial importance for the processing of natural language in many applications such as dialogue system. However, it is one of the most challenging problems. The current dialogue act recognition models, namely cue-based models, are based on machine learning techniques, particularly statistical ones. Despite the success of the cue-based models, they still have serious drawbacks. Among them are, inadequate representation of dialogue context, intra-utterance and inter-utterances independencies assumptions, inaccurate estimation of the recognition accuracy and suboptimality of the lexical cues selection approaches. Motivating by these drawbacks, this research proposes a new model of dialogue act recognition in which dynamic Bayesian machine learning is applied to induce dynamic Bayesian networks models from task-oriented dialogue corpus using sets of lexical cues selected automatically by means of new variable length genetic algorithm. In achieving this, the research is planned in three main stages. In the initial stage, the dynamic Bayesian networks models are constructed based on a set of lexical cues selected tentatively from the dialogue corpus. The results are compared with the results of static Bayesian networks and naïve bayes. The results confirm the merits of using dynamic Bayesian networks for dialogue act recognition. In the second stage, the previous ranking approaches are investigated for the selection of lexical cues. The main drawbacks of these approaches are highlighted, and based on that an alternative approach is proposed. The proposed approach consists of preparation phase and selection phase. The preparation phase transforms the original dialogue corpus into phrases space. In the selection phase, a new variable length genetic algorithm is applied to select the lexical cues. The results of the proposed approach are compared with the results of the ranking approaches. The results provide experimental evidences on the ability of the proposed approach to avoid the drawbacks of the ranking approaches. In the final stage; the dynamic Bayesian networks models are redesigned using the lexical cues generated from the proposed lexical cues selection approaches. The results confirm the effectiveness of proposed approaches for the design of dialogue act recognition model

Revitalizing the Method of Repetition in the Recitation of the Qur'an

Al Quran is the word of God, which is worth a miracle, which was revealed to the closing of the Prophets and Apostles. One of the wonders is one of the books that was recited continuously without ever stopping from the beginning announced, also a worthy reward for memorizing the Koran, so do not be surprised if Muslims race to learn it. One of the critical efforts in remembering is the method used, there are a lot of memorization methods, to improve the quality of memorization of the Qur’an, repetition is one of the essential ways to facilitate memorization that is already owned. Thus, the hope to have quality rote learning will be achieved. In the research resulted: memorization of Al-qur’an students become smoother, student becomes more disciplined with the implementation of repetition schedules, the results of the quality of memorization of these students can be seen during weekly Repetition activities, namely every Friday; when students recite their memorization by one juz on average, they are able and fluent in their memorization, students become more useful in their time.Al-Quran ialah kalam Allah yang bernilai mukjizat, yang diturunkan kepada penutup para Nabi dan Rasul. Salah satu kemukjizatannya adalah salah satu kitab yang dibacakan terus menerus tanpa pernah berhenti dari sejak awal diturunkan, juga pahala yang tanpa henti bagi penghafal Al Quran, sehingga tidak heran jika umat Islam berlomba-lomba menghafalkannya. Salah satu upaya penting dalam menghafal adalah metode yang digunakan, ada banyak sekali metode menghafal, untuk meningkatkan kualitas hafalan Al Quran, muroja’ah menjadi salah satu metode yang sangat penting guna memperlancar hafalan yang telah dimiliki. Dengan demikian, harapan untuk memiliki hafalah yang berkualitas akan tercapai. Dalam penelitian dihasilkan: hafalan Al Quran santri menjadi lebih lancar, santri menjadi lebih disiplin dengan diterapkannya jadwal-jadwal muroja’ah, hasil kualitas hafalan santri ini bisa dilihat saat kegiatan muroja’ah pekanan yaitu setiap hari jum’at, saat santri melafalkan hafalannya satu juz rata-rata mampu dan lancar dalam hafalannya, santri menjadi lebih bermanfaat waktu-waktunya

Virological Responses in Chronic Hepatitis C Patients, Treated with Sofosbuvir and Declacavir Versus Sofosbuvir and Ribazole

Objective: To determine the virological responses in chronic hepatitis c patients, treated with sofosbuvir and declacavir versus sofosbuvir and ribavirin at tertiary care Hospital Study Design And Setting: This was a prospective comparative study and was carried out at the gastroenterology department of people’s medical university Nawabshah. Duration: One year from December 2016 to November 2017. Methodology: All the patients diagnosed with chronic hepatitis C virus with detectable HCV RNA by PCR , age ranged 18 to 60 years either gender were selected. All the patients were divided in two groups according to treatment as; patients of group A were undergone treatment of sofosbuvir + declacavir and patients of group B were underwent treatment of sofosbuvir + ribazole. PCR for HCV RNA Quantitative had been performed for viral measurements at the completion of 4thweek (RVR), 12th week (EVR), 24th week (ETR) and after 24 weeks of treatment completion (SVR). All patients not complying with the treatment or developed any complication based on protocol investigations that lead to termination of treatment were excluded from the study. All the data was recorded in the proforma. Results: Total 107 patients were selected, mean age of the patients was 36.46+11.34 years.  Female was found in the majority as 58.9%. 80.4% patients were undergoing treatment of sofosbuvir+declacavir and 19.6% were underwent sofosbuvir+ribazole. Rapid viral load response (RVR), Early viral load response (EVR), End treatment response (ETR) and Sustained viral response (SVR) were s significantly more achieved in group A (sofosbuvir+declacavir) as compared to group B (sofosbuvir+ribazole) p-value 0.020, 0.020, 0.004 and 0.004 respectively. roup B (sofosbuvir+ribazole) 18 patients achieved out of 21. No significant difference was found in the mean of viral load in both groups after completion of treatment p-value 0.628. Conclusion: It is concluded that both treatments showed good efficacy, but sofosbuvir+declacavir treatment achieved more significant Rapid viral load response (RVR), Early viral load response (EVR),  End treatment response (ETR) and Sustained viral response (SVR) as compare to sofosbuvir+ribazole. Keywords:&nbsp