Distributed Lag Models and Economic Growth: Evidence from Cameroon

This paper studies the intertemporal effects of various economic variables on the cameroonian growth. Using a Geometric Lag Model, we find out that 50% of the total effect of variables used is accomplished in less than half of a year. When we employ a Polynomial Distributed Lag, we find out that even if investment has a positive impact on growth in the current year, but in the presence of government expenditures, this effect becomes negative after one year due probably to the eviction effect. In addition, we find out that the consumption causes economic growth after three years whereas economic growth causes the consumption after only one year. The main lesson from this study is that any economic policy to sustain economic growth must boost in priority investment and foreign direct investment. The government should pursue policies that stimulate production instead to encourage consumption.Distributed Lag Models, Geometric Distributed Lag, Polynomial Distributed Lag, Economic Growth, Cameroon

Simple Floating Voltage-Controlled Memductor Emulator for Analog Applications

The topic of memristive circuits is a novel topic in circuit theory that has become of great importance due to its unique behavior which is useful in different applications. But since there is a lack of memristor samples, a memristor emulator is used instead of a solid state memristor. In this paper, a new simple floating voltage-controlled memductor emulator is introduced which is implemented using commercial off the shelf (COTS) realization. The mathematical modeling of the proposed circuit is derived to match the theoretical model. The proposed circuit is tested experimentally using different excitation signals such as sinusoidal, square, and triangular waves showing an excellent matching with previously reported simulations

Accès au crédit bancaire, développement du système informel et mobilisation de l’épargne en Afrique

La compréhension du développement du système informel d’épargne et de prêts constitue pour l’auteur un préalable à toute politique de mobilisation de l’épargne informelle par les institutions officielles dans les pays d’Afrique noire.L’article montre que c’est essentiellement l’existence de nombreuses barrières à l’accès au crédit bancaire à un moment où les populations en ont grand besoin qui, en marginalisant certains agents économiques, les pousserait à innover et à s’organiser par eux-mêmes. La défaillance et l’inadaptation concomitantes des structures officielles de collecte de l’épargne encourageraient en quelque sorte ces agents en laissant entre leurs mains de la monnaie grâce à laquelle leur organisation se développe librement. Cette organisation consistera à créer et à offrir un système avec une liaison très forte entre incitation ou contrainte à l’épargne et possibilité ou certitude d’obtenir automatiquement un prêt.L’auteur pense que le système informel constitue un système de transition devant déboucher sur des systèmes financiers homogènes ayant leur visage propre. Un soutien dont les moyens possibles sont préconisés faciliterait une telle évolution.According to the author, an understanding of development of the informal system of savings and loans must preceed all policy aimed at mobilizing informal savings by official institutions in black african countries.The article shows that it is essentially the existence of numerous barriers to bank credit (at a moment when the populations are in great need of them) that, by marginalizing some economic agents, will eventually drive them to innovate and organize themselves. The failure and concomitant inadaptation of official structures for mobilizing savings will encourage somehow these agents by allowing them to hold to the money which goes to help their organisation develop freely. This organisation will consist in creating and offering a system with a very strong link between incitation or urge to save and possibility or certitude of obtaining a loan automatically.The author thinks that the informal system constitutes a transitional system which finally leads to homogeneous financial systems having apropriate characteristics. The article proposes support for the system and envisages way of sustaining such an evolution

Through the keyhole: Ethnographic analysis of cyber violence in Egypt

Internet has long existed in Egypt, however sudden scholarly interest came after the 2011 revolution. The global scholarly body tended to couple internet accessibility to the so-called Arab-spring, without studying the other forms and politics of internet as an evolution, and almost none have delved in the dungeons of Cyber violence in the MENA Region, needless to say in Egypt. It focuses mainly on individual-to-individual perpetration of violence, how, when and why people variably define unsolicited intervention with their data as violence , and how, when and why, they choose other notions to define such incident(s). By doing so, it opens up questions about notions such as surveillance, privacy, kinship, control and care, sovereignty, legibility, legitimacy, marginalization and rights. The structure is seen as a vertical gradient, each chapter is a dominant colour that seeps into the one the follows. While cyber violence is visualized as a circular gradient that floods into the center, while having nodes of colours around the edges that signify the prominent hue of the violence perpetuation and the effects of other nodes on its hue. While this thesis is premised primarily on the Castellian view of the network society, various other scholars constitute the rest of the pillars of this thesis to engage more with notions of the state, the social, capital, violence, technology. From Weber, Deleuze, Das, Tilly, Arendt, and Fanon, to Haraway, Bernal, Spivak, Latour and McLuhan, these theories try to give justice to the multitude of entanglements produced by the 9 interlocutors whose stories are extremely rich and telling. From Family, to friends, to work managers, to intimate partners, to totally anonymous persons; the perpetration of violence varying in justifications between care and control, have illustrated the Chimeras that our cyber selves are. Through engaging and living the ups and downs with my interlocutors, I have come to realize the complexities that violence studies involve, beside those that Internet analysis have, through interviews, side talks, countless private messages, and cyber security measures, I have also understood the levels upon which social-scientists deal with their data, as well as themselves in the data, and how interlocutors and the social handle them

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for Integrated Access and Backhaul (IAB) Communications in Wireless Cellular Networks

An integrated access and backhaul (IAB) network architecture can enable flexible and fast deployment of next-generation cellular networks. However, mutual interference between access and backhaul links, small inter-site distance and spatial dynamics of user distribution pose major challenges in the practical deployment of IAB networks. To tackle these problems, we leverage the flying capabilities of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as hovering IAB-nodes and propose an interference management algorithm to maximize the overall sum rate of the IAB network. In particular, we jointly optimize the user and base station associations, the downlink power allocations for access and backhaul transmissions, and the spatial configurations of UAVs. We consider two spatial configuration modes of UAVs: distributed UAVs and drone antenna array (DAA), and show how they are intertwined with the spatial distribution of ground users. Our numerical results show that the proposed algorithm achieves an average of 2.9× and 6.7× gains in the received downlink signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) and overall network sum rate, respectively. Finally, the numerical results reveal that UAVs cannot only be used for coverage improvement but also for capacity boosting in IAB cellular networks

Anti-tumor activity of tetrodotoxin extracted from the Masked Puffer fish Arothron diadematus

Anti-tumor activity of tetrodotoxins extracted from the skin of the Masked Puffer fish (Arothron diadematus) from the Red Sea was evaluated using the Ehrlich ascite carcinoma tumor model in mice.Activity was assessed using a variety of cellular and liver biochemical parameters. Experimental mice were divided into 4 equal groups and injected intra-peritoneally with: saline (control); a sub-lethaldose of the toxin (1\10 LD50); 1 ml of a solution containing 2 million ECA cancer cells; and both (1 ml of a solution containing 2 million ECA cancer cells and a sub-lethal dose of toxin). Subsets of micefrom each group were dissected after 3, 6, 9, and 12 days.Statistical analyses demonstrated the following: - the anti-tumor activity of the toxin increased lifespan by 46%, in addition to decreasing the number of tumor cells. - There was also an obvious cytotoxic effect of tetrodotoxins on cells, leading to apoptosis and adecrease in the volume of the peritoneal fluid. - The negative effects of tumor cells on the biochemical processes of liver was illustrated by anincreased release of MDA & GGT enzymes and fat oxidation, and a decreased release of both enzymes and anti-oxidation agents. These negative effects were relieved for 6 days after injection by toxin