R&D Intensity, Technology Transfer and Absorptive Capacity

In the line of Schumpeterian fully endogenous growth theory, this study attempts to investigate whether differences in research intensity as well as absorptive capacity help to explain cross-country differences in productivity growth in a panel of 55 sample countries including 23 OECD and 32 developing economies over the period 1970 to 2004. Using several indicators of innovative activity and product variety empirical results from system GMM estimator confirm that research intensity has significant positive effect on productivity growth in both the OECD and developing countries. TFP growth is also found to be enhanced by the distance to technology frontier in both the group of countries. R&D based absorptive capacity seems to have significant positive impact on productivity growth in both the groups though strong in OECD countries. Human capital based technology transfer is found significant and robust in both the OECD and developing countries. Absorptive capacity appears to be sensitive to the model specification and measurement of innovative activity as well as product variety.Schumpeterian growth theory, R&D intensity, TFP growth, technology transfer, human capital, absorptive capacity, system GMM, OECD, developing countries

Quality-adjusted Human Capital and Productivity Growth

Both the quality and quantity of human capital are important for growth. Although the quality aspects of human capital may have greater potential in explaining growth, given that the quantity effects of human capital have been found to be ambiguous, they have long been ignored in empirical growth literature. This paper empirically tests the joint effects of both the quantity and quality of human capital in stimulating productivity growth for a panel of 89 countries over the period 1970-2007. Based on different measures of human capital quantity and quality, the results show that the growth effects of educational attainment can be significantly enhanced when the quality of schooling is improved. The joint effect of human capital quality and quantity is found to be stronger in developing countries.quantity, quality, human capital, growth, world

Human Capital Composition, Proximity to Technology Frontier and Productivity Growth

The role of human capital composition has been given importance in the most recent endogenous growth models. Assuming that primary as well as secondary education is more suitable for imitation and higher education is more appropriate for innovation, this paper empirically investigates whether the contribution of human capital to productivity growth depends on the composition of human capital and the proximity to technology frontier in a panel of 87 sample countries over the period of 1970 to 2004. The sample is further divided into 28 high, 37 medium, and 22 low income countries to gain some insights into the importance of composition effects of human capital on growth in developing countries relative to their developed counterparts. Using different levels of human capital data from four alternative sources empirical results from system GMM estimator demonstrate that growth enhancing effect of skilled human capital increases with the proximity to the technology frontier only for high and medium income countries. Unskilled human capital is contributing more for low income countries as they move closer to the technology frontier. Matured workers with tertiary education are more growth enhancing for high and medium income countries, whereas younger workers with secondary education are more growth improving for low income countries. Estimated results are consistent across male and female workers.Human capital composition, proximity, technology frontier, growth, GMM, world

Improvement of Text Dependent Speaker Identification System Using Neuro-Genetic Hybrid Algorithm in Office Environmental Conditions

In this paper, an improved strategy for automated text dependent speaker identification system has been proposed in noisy environment. The identification process incorporates the Neuro-Genetic hybrid algorithm with cepstral based features. To remove the background noise from the source utterance, wiener filter has been used. Different speech pre-processing techniques such as start-end point detection algorithm, pre-emphasis filtering, frame blocking and windowing have been used to process the speech utterances. RCC, MFCC, ?MFCC, ??MFCC, LPC and LPCC have been used to extract the features. After feature extraction of the speech, Neuro-Genetic hybrid algorithm has been used in the learning and identification purposes. Features are extracted by using different techniques to optimize the performance of the identification. According to the VALID speech database, the highest speaker identification rate of 100.000% for studio environment and 82.33% for office environmental conditions have been achieved in the close set text dependent speaker identification system

FINANCIAL DEVELOPMENT AND FINANCING CONSTRAINTS IN A DEVELOPING COUNTRY - THE CASE OF BANGLADESH

This paper examines the sensitivity of investment to available cash-stock, a measure for internal funds, for 192 listed non-financial firms of Bangladesh from 1992 to 2002. The empirical results show that smaller firms have greater financing constraints to investment than larger firms due to financial market imperfection and unequal access to external finance. We also find that financing constraints of investment by small firms are eased along with financial development. It is likely that financial development encourages efficiency of the financial market in Bangladesh, and hence decreases cash stock sensitivity of investment of small firms. Our finding demonstrates the importance of financial development for economic growth even in a developing country like Bangladesh.financing constraints, financial development, investment, Bangladesh

Catching Up to the Technology Frontier: The Dichotomy between Innovation and Imitation

Using data for 55 developing and developed countries, this research examines the roles of technology transfer, research intensity, educational attainment and the ability to absorb foreign technology in explaining cross-country differences in productivity growth. The results show that innovation is an important factor for growth in OECD countries whereas growth in developing countries is driven by imitation. Furthermore the interaction between educational attainment and the distance to the frontier is a significant determinant of growth in the overall sample.R&D; endogenous growth theory; absorptive capacity

Investigation of the effects of charge carrier mobility on the performance of P3HT: PCBM based organic solar cell

Effect of charge carrier mobility on P3HT: PCBM based organic solar cell has been investigated in this study.  Numerical simulation for the structure ITO/PEDOT: PSS/P3HT: PCBM/Al has been done using simulating software GPVDM (General Purpose Photovoltaic Device Model). Hole mobility has been varied from 5*10-8 m2V-1S-1 to 100*10-8 m2V-1S-1at fixed electron mobility 2*10-8 m2V-1S-1and vice-versa. Short circuit current density, open circuit voltage, fill factor, efficiency has been studied to understand the dependency of carrier mobility on device performance. Result shows that efficiency is greatly influenced by charge carrier mobility

The Valuation of Water Quality: A Conceptual Framework for Households’ and Producers’ Willingness to Pay in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Restoring the freshwater ecosystems has drawn global attention, governmental and non-governmental organizations around the globe incorporating several strategies to revive the last remaining free-flowing rivers and other high priority freshwater ecosystems. Rivers in urban setting have social, economic and ecological importance and demise of such rivers might affect many of its inhabitant’s life and living which has been established, survived and flourished over the years. Often, restoration of the river ecosystem seems challenging to the policy makers because the river ecosystem services have no price tag. Improving water quality program requires precise information about the costs and benefits which in urban areas needs to incorporate an integrated approach that implement necessary societal and technical measures. This study provides a conceptual framework using both households’ and producers’ willingness to pay for the river water quality improvement to acquire maximum information for successful restoration program. This study provides useful information which may help for further improvement of the water quality in an alike problem of developing countries. Future studies should validate empirically the proposed research framework. Keywords: Urban River Restoration, Households’ WTP, Producers’ WTP, Conceptual Framework DOI: 10.7176/JESD/10-2-1

Parametric Investigation of Near End and Far End Crosstalks in Printed Circuit Board Lands

Multi-conductor transmission line and interconnect carry signals with wide rage of frequencies from sending end to receiving end. The signal in one transmission line may be interupted by the unwanted contributions from the neighboring line conductors. If data speed increases, high frequency effects occur and the signals suffer from difficulties such as ringing, crosstalk, reflections, and ground bounce that seriously hamper the quality of the received signal. In order to estimate the signal quality, signal integrity analysis is needed. In this paper, an attempt has been made to investigate the sensitivity of the near and far end crosstalk on the parameters such as physical geometry of the conductors, electrical property of the substrate and the rise and fall time of excitation signal. The method of moments (MOM) is used to calculate the line parameters for different geometries. The simulation studies are carried out in TNT. The time domain and frequency domain analyses are performed using transmission line model of PSPICE. Moreover, a model is developed and tested in the laboratory. It is observed that the coupling inductance and capacitance vary with the variation of physical geometry and the substrate parameter