Bivariate Hydrologic Risk Assessment of Flood Episodes using the Notation of Failure Probability

Floods are becoming the most severe and challenging hydrologic issue at the Kelantan River basin in Malaysia. Flood episodes are usually thoroughly characterized by flood peak discharge flow, volume and duration series. This study incorporated the copula-based methodology in deriving the joint distribution analysis of the annual flood characteristics and the failure probability for assessing the bivariate hydrologic risk. Both the Archimedean and Gaussian copula family were introduced and tested as possible candidate functions. The copula dependence parameters are estimated using the method-of-moment estimation procedure. The Gaussian copula was recognized as the best-fitted distribution for capturing the dependence structure of the flood peak-volume and peak-duration pairs based on goodness-of-fit test statistics and was further employed to derive the joint return periods. The bivariate hydrologic risks of flood peak flow and volume pair, and flood peak flow and duration pair in different return periods (i.e., 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 years) were estimated and revealed that the risk statistics incrementally increase in the service lifetime and, at the same instant, incrementally decrease in return periods. In addition, we found that ignoring the mutual dependency can underestimate the failure probabilities where the univariate events produced a lower failure probability than the bivariate events. Similarly, the variations in bivariate hydrologic risk with the changes of flood peak in the different synthetic flood volume and duration series (i.e., 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 years return periods) under different service lifetimes are demonstrated. Investigation revealed that the value of bivariate hydrologic risk statistics incrementally increases over the project lifetime (i.e., 30, 50, and 100 years) service time, and at the same time, it incrementally decreases in the return period of flood volume and duration. Overall, this study could provide a basis for making an appropriate flood defence plan and long-lasting infrastructure designs. Doi: 10.28991/cej-2020-03091599 Full Text: PD

Determinants of Non-Alcoholic Beverages: A Case of Punjab Pakistan

This current research endeavors to study important factors having a significant impact on consumer’s choice of beverages in Punjab province of Pakistan. Beverages in two major categories of ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ have been studied to examine consumer consumption pattern. Data has been collected through interview from 80 respondents belonging to these two major cities of Punjab i.e. Lahore and Faisalabad by incorporating stratified random sampling technique. These two cities of Punjab were selected because of their big departmental stores like Metro cash and carry store, ALFateh and others. A pre-tested and well-arranged questionnaire was used for data gathering from the respondents. To estimate the outcome of factors affecting the choices of consumers (demand function), multiple regression was incorporated. Results of this research showed that consumption pattern of cold beverages was affected significantly by consumer income, cold beverages prices, city selected for survey and number of adolescents in a family whereas factors which affected the consumption of hot beverages were food expenditure, living area, marital status, income, working persons in a family and family size. Due to availability of various brands of beverages, consumption is accelerating with the passage of time and consumers are willing to pay for beverages due to change in various socio-economics factors in the society. So, local industry should produce cost effective and quality drinks to enhance the usage

Parametric Vine Copula Construction for Flood Analysis for Kelantan River Basin in Malaysia

The multivariate approach of flood characteristics such as flood peak flow (P), volume (V), and duration (D) is much beneficial in recognizing the critical behaviour of flood episodes at a river basin scale. The incorporation of 2-dimensional copulas for establishing bivariate flood dependency frequently appears, but it could be more comprehensive if we focus all the three flood characteristic simultaneously. In such circumstances, incorporation of vine or Pair-Copula Construction (PCC) could produce a better approximation of joint probability density and much practical approach in the uncertainty analysis, in comparison with conventional trivariate copula distribution. This study demonstrated the efficacy of parametric vine copula in the modelling of trivariate flood characteristics for the Kelantan River basin in Malaysia. The D-vine tree structure is selected where the Gaussian and Frank copula is recognized for bivariate flood pairs (P-V) and (P-D) pairs in the first stage, using the maximum-pseudo-likelihood (MPL) estimation procedure. Similarly, the Gumbel copula is selected in the modelling of conditioned data obtained through the conditional distribution function of bivariate copulas selected in the previous stage based on the partial differentiation, also called h-function. Finally, the full density function of the 3-dimension structure is derived and compared with the observed flood characteristics. Furthermore, tail dependence properties and behaviour of D-vine copula are also investigated, which reveals for well capturing the general behaviour of Gaussian and Frank copula fitted to flood pair (P-V) and (V-D) and reproduces the overall flood correlation structure fairely well. Both the primary ‘OR’ and ‘AND’ joint return periods for trivariate flood events are estimated which pointing that ‘AND’ joint case produces higher return value than ‘OR’ case.

Exploranative Code Quality Documents

Good code quality is a prerequisite for efficiently developing maintainable software. In this paper, we present a novel approach to generate exploranative (explanatory and exploratory) data-driven documents that report code quality in an interactive, exploratory environment. We employ a template-based natural language generation method to create textual explanations about the code quality, dependent on data from software metrics. The interactive document is enriched by different kinds of visualization, including parallel coordinates plots and scatterplots for data exploration and graphics embedded into text. We devise an interaction model that allows users to explore code quality with consistent linking between text and visualizations; through integrated explanatory text, users are taught background knowledge about code quality aspects. Our approach to interactive documents was developed in a design study process that included software engineering and visual analytics experts. Although the solution is specific to the software engineering scenario, we discuss how the concept could generalize to multivariate data and report lessons learned in a broader scope.Comment: IEEE VIS VAST 201

Nexus between Economy, Agriculture, Population, Renewable Energy and CO2 Emissions: Evidence from Asia-Pacific Countries

This study uses panel co-integration methods and Granger causality examines to scrutinize the dynamic causal relationship between carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, gross domestic product (GDP), renewable energy (RE), agriculture value added (AVA) and population for the thirteen developed and developing Asia Pacific countries (APCs) covering the period 2005-2017. The results evaluate in two ways: in the short-run, Granger causality test (GCT) is operating from AVA to GDP and express bidirectional causation among GDP and agriculture. In the distant future, there is causality from RE and Population to CO2emissions. The short-run causality is important due to the agriculture sector which causes in boosting GDP while economic development, population and clean energy (including waste and combustible) raise CO2 emissions causes in the reduction of production and services. The research finds out that reduction in AVA, GDP increase, uncontrolled population and lack of attention on clean energy are interrelated in creating emissions. Policy recommendation insights that Asian Pacific establishments should control the population, less use of fossil fuel, encourage clean energy technologies such as solar and wind to fight with global warming

The Nexus between Economic Indicators and Economic Growth in Brazil

The objective of the paper is twofold. First is to examine the relationship between economic indicators and economic growth of Brazil economy, second is to look the impact of foreign direct investment on Gross domestic product of Brazil economy. The time series data from 1986-2014 was used of the remittance, foreign direct investment, domestic savings and capital formation to know the impact on Gross domestic product of Brazil. Results have been analyzed by using advanced econometric tools like- unit root test (both ADF and PP), OLS methods and Granger causality test. The results confirmed that, both capital formation and Remittance have positive relationship with GDP, whereas FDI and savings show insignificant influence on GDP of Brazil. In order to minimize the gap between domestic saving and investment and to bring the technology and managerial know-how, remittance could play important role on the way of economic development of Brazil. Similarly the Capital formation is playing an important role in the economic development due to positive impact on GDP. Therefore, government should take pragmatic policy, develop infrastructure, stabilized the political environment, law and order situation. Keywords: Gross Domestic Product, Unit Root test, Granger Causality, Brazi

Role of Microfinance Institutions to Transform Health and Education of Middle Class People of Pakistan

Microfinance institutions are products and services offered to the small business for improving the poor people especially health and education standards services including the saving, insurance, and money transferred facility, and a broad array of loan options. The main aim of the research paper is to deeply analyze and examine the role of micro finance institutions on bringing improvement in the health care and educational standards of middle people of Pakistan. The research is quantitative in nature. Questionnaire technique is utilized for the conduction of the research. The sample size limit is one hundred and five. Correlation and Regressions tests have being utilized for the analyses of the data. The findings of research have reflected that a micro finance institution does transform the health and education of middle class people of Pakistan. Index Terms— Microfinance Institution, Analysis, Health Standards and Education Syste

Vacillating Behavior of TOM Effect and Adaptive Market Hypothesis: A Firm Level Evidence from Emerging Stock Market of Pakistan

Through the current study we amplify the available literature on AMH (Adaptive Market Hypothesis) and calendar anomalies because this is the first study of its nature which links TOM effect with AMH which allows the behavior of conventional TOM-effect to swing over time. To fulfill the drive, study investigates daily mean return from PSX of Pakistan using data of 107 firms individually over a longer period of time ranging 1996-2015. To discover the time variation in the levels of predictability of TOM returns, study uses four different sub-samples covering identical length of observations of five years each to investigate how TOM effect has performed over time. There are few studies in the literature investigating TOM effect at firm level and very rare studies examining TOM effect through (AMH), so the current study may be of importance and interest to finance researcher, academicians and practitioners alike. To elucidate the volatility and its varying nature, the study applies GARCH (1,1) regression model which enables for time-variation in volatility of security returns. Kruskal-Wallis test-statistic is used to handle non normality in the equity return series. We find that with the passage of time performance of TOM effect evolves, consistent and aligned with the assertion of AMH. Finally, this study exhibits that behavior of TOM effect is well elucidated by Adaptive Market Hypothesis (AMH) than conventional Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH). The results may be used for better decision making for investors and the article complements studies on market efficiency and TOM effect in developing and developed countries