An Empirical Investigation into the Matching Problems among Game Theoretically Coordinating Parties in a Virtual Organization

Virtual organization emerged as a highly flexible structure in response to the rapidly changing environment of 20th century. This organization consists of independently working parties that combine their best possible resources to exploit the emerging market opportunities. There are no formal control and coordination mechanisms employed by the classical hierarchical structures. Parties, therefore, manage their dependencies on each other through mutual understanding and trust. Mathematician John Nash, having significant contributions in Game Theory suggests that in every non-cooperative game there is at least one equilibrium point. At this point, according to him, every strategy of the player represents a response to the others’ strategies. Such equilibria could exist in a virtual organization, at which parties coordinate which each other to optimize their performance. Coordination/Matching problems are likely to arise among game theoretically coordinating parties in a virtual organization, mainly due to lack of binding agreements. By identifying and resolving these matching problems, virtual organizations could achieve efficiency and better coordination among parties.Virtual organization, Game theory, Matching problems, Coordination

EVOLUTION OF ACCOUNTABILITY FRAMEWORKS IN PAKISTAN: 1947 TO 2022

This paper focuses on the evolution of laws and institutions related to public sector accountability in Pakistan since its independence. It critically outlines a chronological legal history of the regulatory and institutions anti-corruption frameworks since 1860. It overviews the development phases of the promulgation, amendments, and annulment of such laws and points to the intent of the legislature and lawmakers in defining the scope of and promulgating these laws. In this regard, it outlines several different laws and seven evolution categories of accountability institutions. The authors also touch upon the influence of political government changes on such laws, especially through to contemporary political situation of Pakistan. In the later sections, there is a discussion on the international (comparative) context of accountability mechanisms followed up by conclusion. This paper offers a comprehensive review of accountability history vis-à-vis its institutional mechanisms and bodies, and serves as a source document for policy makers, academic researchers, and students of accountability in the context of Pakistan

ACCOUNTABILITY AT CROSSROADS: GOVERNANCE CHALLENGES AND CONSEQUENCES IN PAKISTAN

This paper points to how anti-corruption efforts in Pakistan at the national and provincial levels actually contribute to their failure. The broad and flexible definitions of corruption in prevailing laws have led to miscarriages of justice, as numerous interpretations result in potential unfair targeting of individuals. The complex landscape of accountability in Pakistan also evolves from multiple institutional overlaps—lacking clear jurisdictional boundaries. A case in point is the use of plea bargaining as a corruption prevention model that faced criticism for being coercive as well as an infringement on one’s right to fair trial. The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has often been accused of violating fundamental rights protected in the Constitution of Pakistan, and the accountability procedures are seen as humiliating for civil servants. This paper discusses how the overall institutional-legal framework is shaped by its heavy dependence on the government that undermines the operational effectiveness of the Anti-Graft Bodies (A-GBs). It overviews anti-corruption efforts in Pakistan facing mainstream challenges: political-policy implications, legal-institutional inconsistencies, violations of rights, and operational inefficiency, which collectively hinder their effectiveness

The State of Pakistan’s Economy and the Ineffectiveness of Monetary Policy

Purpose: Higher interest rate policy by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has not only been failed to control inflation in Pakistan but adversely impacted public and private investment. High cost of doing business retarded economic growth as well. Therefore, the aim of this study is to inspects the ineffectiveness of monetary policy measures in Pakistan and suggest possible actions to improve effectiveness of the monetary policy. Method: This study utilizes the monthly data from 2007(4)-2019(8) to compute the variance decomposition and impulse responses using VAR modelling. Findings: The impulse response analysis from the VAR model clearly highlights the ineffectiveness of interest rate channel in trying to control inflation in Pakistan. The empirical results indicate that both domestic food price and exchange rate channels are effective means of managing price levels in the country. It is, therefore, recommended that Pakistan should switch from demand side to supply-side policies when forming strategies to control economic vices like inflation

Reaching out: a strategy to provide primary eye care through the indigenous educational system in Pakistan

IntroductionIn Pakistan, there is a unique and indigenously established system of education called the madaris . It is the plural of madrassa, which is an Arabic word for a school system. In the context of Pakistan, it refers to an institutional set-up that runs in parallel to the conventional schooling system and is community-based. It is perhaps the oldest and the largest educational system of its kind whereby the students are provided with free religious education. Some institutions offer a combination of religious learning and regular schooling.The facilities and the curricula vary from one madrassa to another. Since a majority of the students studying here belong to the poor and neglected socio-economic level of society, many offer free accommodation and food to the students in hostels, and most of these provide free education. These institutions are mostly funded by philanthropists; the standard of living of the students, however, is not always satisfactory.A few madaris provide basic health care services to their students, but most are neglected both by the government and the voluntary sectors. It is difficult to find data on the health status of these students.This article reports a study on these madaris that was carried out in 2002 in the district of Peshawar, the capital of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan which has a population of 2.5 million. It aimed to determine the prevalence of blindness and low vision among students in the age group of five to 15 years. It offers an agenda for primary eye care and highlights the importance of integrated health care reforms at the national level for this large non-government community education system that caters to an estimated half a million children throughout Pakistan

Management and Planning for Primary Eye Care of the Elderly: the Need to Create Public Awareness of Age-related Cataract in Pakistan

This article focuses on the significance of management and planning for primary eye care for the population aged 60 and over, in Pakistan. It takes the case of age-related cataract and highlights the importance of creating public awareness about cataract in terms of the respective roles of health planners, policy makers and service providers

BRAND Journal - An Empirical Investigation into the Matching Problems among Game Theoretically Coordinating Parties in a Virtual Organization

<div><i>Abstract</i></div><div><br></div><div>Virtual organization emerged as a highly flexible structure in response to the rapidly changing environment of 20th century. This organization consists of independently working parties that combine their best possible resources to exploit the emerging market opportunities. There are no formal control and coordination mechanisms employed by the classical hierarchical structures. Parties, therefore, manage their dependencies on each other through mutual understanding and trust.</div><div>Mathematician John Nash, having significant contributions in Game Theory suggests that in every non-cooperative game there is at least one equilibrium point. At this point, according to him, every strategy of the player represents a response to the others’ strategies. Such equilibria could exist in a virtual organization, at which parties coordinate which each other to optimize their performance.</div><div>Coordination/Matching problems are likely to arise among game theoretically coordinating parties in a virtual organization, mainly due to lack of binding agreements. By identifying and resolving these matching problems, virtual organizations could achieve efficiency and better coordination among parties.</div><div><br></div><div><b>Find more at:</b></div><div><b>https://www.edusoft.ro/brain/index.php/brand/article/view/123</b><br></div

Efficient Application Protection against Untrusted Operating Systems

Commodity monolithic systems are enormous, having lots of unprotection that leads to attacks. In this era of increasing technology, relying on mobile devices and other electronic devices increases the threat from adversaries as they have the potential to obtain physical access to many computers through breaching and security theft. It is still challenging to secure data as our operating systems are less trustworthy than we expected. When the operating system (OS) is destabilized, the application data and implementation are at the attacker's mercy. Other operating systems are less trustworthy than we imagined. Therefore when the OS is unstable, data and application implementation are vulnerable to attackers. Our protective application strategy includes a secure network platform, equipment modification, and efficiency expenditure. Existing protecting application scheme has different drawbacks, such as a vast trusted computing base, hardware refinement, and high-performance overhead. To overcome these drawbacks, we present the scheme of AppShield, which has a bare-metal hypervisor-based technique in which we safely protect the data of critical applications and their execution by application localization. Due to this, we protect only critical applications, and due to this, our operating system can run without performance loss