Labor absorptive capacity of export expansion and import substitution in Egypt, 1954 to 1970

In the post war era, much has been said about the role of the foreign trade sector in affecting the rate and the level of domestic economic growth in the group of LDCs. The impact of exports in particular received the lion's share of attention. It has been frequently argued that exports act as an engine of growth. The line of causation here runs from exports to domestic economic growth. Through the effects of both the multiplier and the accelerator, output expands by a multiple of the initial value of exports. Exportation also tends to reduce the opportunity cost of domestic resources by providing foreign exchange necessary to meet domestic demands from abroad at relatively lower prices. Forward and backward linkages stimulate growth in export-related activities. Export expansion, in addition, gives rise to external economies, economies of scale, an efficient allocation of resources, and a greater-than-one elasticity of expectations on the part of domestic exporters. Thus, we set out in this note to measure the labour absorptive capacity of exports and import substitution in Egypt. Our objective function which we seek to maximize (minimize) is that of labour employment (unemployment) via the foreign trade sector.

Optimal Energy Allocation For Delay-Constrained Traffic Over Fading Multiple Access Channels

In this paper, we consider a multiple-access fading channel where $N$ users transmit to a single base station (BS) within a limited number of time slots. We assume that each user has a fixed amount of energy available to be consumed over the transmission window. We derive the optimal energy allocation policy for each user that maximizes the total system throughput under two different assumptions on the channel state information. First, we consider the offline allocation problem where the channel states are known a priori before transmission. We solve a convex optimization problem to maximize the sum-throughput under energy and delay constraints. Next, we consider the online allocation problem, where the channels are causally known to the BS and obtain the optimal energy allocation via dynamic programming when the number of users is small. We also develop a suboptimal resource allocation algorithm whose performance is close to the optimal one. Numerical results are presented showing the superiority of the proposed algorithms over baseline algorithms in various scenarios.Comment: IEEE Global Communications Conference: Wireless Communications (Globecom2016 WC

Fast non-recursive extraction of individual harmonics using artificial neural networks

A collaborative work between Northumbria University and University of Peradeniya (Sri Lanka). It presents a novel technique based on Artificial Neural Networks for fast extraction of individual harmonic components. The technique was tested on a real-time hardware platform and results obtained showed that it is significantly faster and less computationally complex than other techniques. The paper complements other publications by the author (see paper 1) on the important area of “Power Quality” of electric power networks. It involves the application of advanced techniques in artificial intelligence to solve power systems problems

Immunochemical studies on calcitonin

Imperial Users onl

Proactive Location-Based Scheduling of Delay-Constrained Traffic Over Fading Channels

In this paper, proactive resource allocation based on user location for point-to-point communication over fading channels is introduced, whereby the source must transmit a packet when the user requests it within a deadline of a single time slot. We introduce a prediction model in which the source predicts the request arrival $T_p$ slots ahead, where $T_p$ denotes the prediction window (PW) size. The source allocates energy to transmit some bits proactively for each time slot of the PW with the objective of reducing the transmission energy over the non-predictive case. The requests are predicted based on the user location utilizing the prior statistics about the user requests at each location. We also assume that the prediction is not perfect. We propose proactive scheduling policies to minimize the expected energy consumption required to transmit the requested packets under two different assumptions on the channel state information at the source. In the first scenario, offline scheduling, we assume the channel states are known a-priori at the source at the beginning of the PW. In the second scenario, online scheduling, it is assumed that the source has causal knowledge of the channel state. Numerical results are presented showing the gains achieved by using proactive scheduling policies compared with classical (reactive) networks. Simulation results also show that increasing the PW size leads to a significant reduction in the consumed transmission energy even with imperfect prediction.Comment: Conference: VTC2016-Fall, At Montreal-Canad

For I Was a Stranger and You Welcomed Me In : Explaining White Evangelical Attitudes Toward Immigrants and Refugees

White evangelical Christians in the United States are a population that plays a vital role in political influence. Data supports the assertion that a significant number of white evangelicals in America harbor negative attitudes toward immigrants, refugees, or the perceived “other.” A contradiction then arises between the political attitudes of white evangelicals toward migrant groups and the main tenants of the faith that evangelicals so firmly proclaim, such as compassion, justice, and love. This thesis will specifically seek to answer the question what explains white evangelical attitudes toward immigrants and refugees? This research utilizes a cross tab analysis consisting of data from the Pew Research Center to support the hypothesis that the stronger a white evangelical identifies with their white identity, the more likely they are to oppose immigrants and refugees. This research contributes new findings to the existing literature on white evangelical political behavior by arguing that the very faith they so strongly proclaim directly contradicts their political attitudes. Rather than letting love, compassion, and the teachings of Jesus motivate their political views, the data reveals that racial perspectives represent a much stronger predictor

Experimental investigations on temperature-dependent mechanical properties of artificially frozen sandy clay soils

Long term records indicate that on-going global warming has resulted in the thawing of some permafrost regions, which led to extensive geological disasters including slumps and ground settlements that were causing damage to infrastructures. An accurate characterization of the temperature-dependent mechanical properties of frozen clay soils is critical for predicting and preventing geological disasters in cold regions. This thesis presents the experimental investigations on measuring mechanical properties of two artificial frozen clay soils (kaolinite-sand and bentonite-sand) at different temperatures. A practical approach for preparing artificial frozen clay soils samples is proposed. The reason for using artificial frozen clay is to enable control and repeatability. The approaches of split cylinder test and double punch test are applied to measure the tensile strength. Uniaxial compressive tests are used to measure the uniaxial compressive strength, Young’s modulus, Poisson’s ratio, and stress relaxation characteristics. The tests are conducted at different deformation rates in a temperature-controlled cold room. The results show that the double punch test approach is more effective in measuring the tensile strength of artificially frozen clay soil when compared with the split cylinder approach. The effects of temperature and deformation rates on the sample’s tensile and compressive strengths are significant. Low temperature and a high deformation rate tend to generate brittle failure with post-peak softening behavior. A temperature close to the frozen fringe and a low deformation rate results in a diffuse failure associated with strain hardening. The temperature-dependent mechanical property relationships for the frozen kaolinite-sand and frozen bentonite-sand are modeled using a power-law function which covers a broad temperature range from -15°C to 0°C. The parameters for the modeling function are highly dependent on the applied deformation rates. Since the artificial frozen clay soils have pre-determined mineralogical composition, stress history, water content, and pore fluid salinity, these experimental results can be used as a considerable data resource for theoretical modeling the failure behavior of frozen clay soils. Keywords: Artificially frozen clay soil, double punch test, tensile strength, temperature-dependent properties, strain rate effect, uniaxial compressive behavior