Private Profits, State Sanctions and Public Participation: The Disservice of the Media and Development Orthodoxy

This paper analyzes critically the state of regulated media in developing economies. In order to engender rapid growth and structural change the state is required to control the media to provide the essential conditions of stability and societal change. This media-for-development orthodoxy has held sway for more than six decades now, leading to governments, often authoritarian, utilizing the media to prolong their hegemony over society. Taking the welfare of citizens as the basis of public-private partnerships, this paper argues that it is precisely consideration of citizen well-being that is missing in media policy and practice in the developing countries in general and Malaysia in particular. The paper then discusses the emergence of the new media and provides an assessment of the possibility of media reform, leading to the democratization of media policy and structures. (Please Purchase For Further Reading)Media, modernization, state, market, public service, reform

The Unanticipated Effects of Insider Trading Regulation

Using a sample of 2,827 firms from 21 countries we examine whether insider trading laws achieve the primary objective for which they are introduced – protecting uninformed investors from private information-based trading. We find that when control is concentrated in the hands of a large shareholder, insider trading regulation is less effective in reducing private information-based trading if investor protection is poor. We suggest that controlling shareholders who are banned from trading may resort to covert expropriation of firm resources, creating more information asymmetry and thereby encouraging private information trading by informed outsiders. Consistent with this, we find evidence that when the rights of controlling shareholders are high, insider trading restrictions are associated with greater earnings opacity.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/40081/3/wp695.pd

Pembangunan augmanted reality (AR) bagi matapelajaran sains (sistem suria)

Kajian ini bertujuan untuk membangunkan aplikasi augmented reality bag itopik sistem suria untuk pembelajaran murid-murid Tahun Empat. Aplikasi ini berperanan sebagai penggayaan ilmu yang menggunakan elemen-elemen multimedia dalam pengajaran dan pembelajaran (PdP). Pembangunan aplikasi augmented reality ini adalah berasaskan model Hannafin dan Peck yang melibatkan tiga fasa utama iaitu fasa analisis keperluan, fasa reka bentuk serta fasa pembangunan dan implementasi. Kemajuan teknologi boleh digunakan dalam pendidikan sebagai cara mengajar dalam institusi pendidikan formal dan bukan formal, dalam pendidikan. Kaedah pembelajaran boleh dipersembahkan menggunakan alat bantuan pembelajaran atau sering dikenali sebagai media pembelajaran. Augmented reality dilihat sebagai media pengajaran masa depan yang inovatif, menarik dan efektif

Longitudinal Study of Child Face Recognition

We present a longitudinal study of face recognition performance on Children Longitudinal Face (CLF) dataset containing 3,682 face images of 919 subjects, in the age group [2, 18] years. Each subject has at least four face images acquired over a time span of up to six years. Face comparison scores are obtained from (i) a state-of-the-art COTS matcher (COTS-A), (ii) an open-source matcher (FaceNet), and (iii) a simple sum fusion of scores obtained from COTS-A and FaceNet matchers. To improve the performance of the open-source FaceNet matcher for child face recognition, we were able to fine-tune it on an independent training set of 3,294 face images of 1,119 children in the age group [3, 18] years. Multilevel statistical models are fit to genuine comparison scores from the CLF dataset to determine the decrease in face recognition accuracy over time. Additionally, we analyze both the verification and open-set identification accuracies in order to evaluate state-of-the-art face recognition technology for tracing and identifying children lost at a young age as victims of child trafficking or abduction

Performance of ad hoc networks with two-hop relay routing and limited packet lifetime (extended version)

We consider a mobile ad hoc network consisting of three types of nodes (source, destination and relay nodes) and using the two-hop relay routing. This type of routing takes advantage of the mobility and the storage capacity of the nodes, called the relay nodes, in order to route packets between a source and a destination. Packets at relay nodes are assumed to have a limited lifetime in the network. Nodes are moving inside a bounded region according to some random mobility model. Closed-form expressions and asymptotic results when the number of nodes is large are provided for the packet delivery delay and for the energy needed to transmit a packet from the source to its destination. We also introduce and evaluate a variant of the two-hop relay protocol that limits the number of generated copies in the network. Our model is validated through simulations for two mobility models (random waypoint and random direction mobility models), and the performance of the two-hop routing and of the epidemic routing protocols are compared.\ud \u

Predicting the Impact of Measures Against P2P Networks on the Transient Behaviors

The paper has two objectives. The first is to study rigorously the transient behavior of some P2P networks whenever information is replicated and disseminated according to epidemic-like dynamics. The second is to use the insight gained from the previous analysis in order to predict how efficient are measures taken against peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. We first introduce a stochastic model which extends a classical epidemic model and characterize the P2P swarm behavior in presence of free riding peers. We then study a second model in which a peer initiates a contact with another peer chosen randomly. In both cases the network is shown to exhibit a phase transition: a small change in the parameters causes a large change in the behavior of the network. We show, in particular, how the phase transition affects measures that content provider networks may take against P2P networks that distribute non-authorized music or books, and what is the efficiency of counter-measures.Comment: IEEE Infocom (2011

The Unanticipated Effects of Insider Trading Regulation

Using a sample of 2,827 firms from 21 countries we examine whether insider trading laws achieve the primary objective for which they are introduced – protecting uninformed investors from private information-based trading. We find that when control is concentrated in the hands of a large shareholder, insider trading regulation is less effective in reducing private information-based trading if investor protection is poor. We suggest that controlling shareholders who are banned from trading may resort to covert expropriation of firm resources, creating more information asymmetry and thereby encouraging private information trading by informed outsiders. Consistent with this, we find evidence that when the rights of controlling shareholders are high, insider trading restrictions are associated with greater earnings opacity.Insider Trading Regulation, Ownership, Private Information Trading, Earnings Opacity

Transesterificación de triglicéridos en una columna de contacto líquido-líquido

Objetivo General. Establecer el porcentaje de ésteres metílicos obtenidos mediante la transesterificación de un aceite vegetal en presencia de un catalizador heterogéneo y en una Columna de contacto líquido-líquido-sólido (DLCR), adaptada como reactor con el fin de disminuir la resistencia a la transferencia de masa líquido-líquido-sólido. Objetivos Específicos. Determinar si la cal viva calcinada presenta actividad catalítica igual o superior al CaO grado reactivo en la transesterificación de un aceite vegetal. Establecer el tipo de aceite, entre cártamo y canola, que favorece la producción de ésteres metílicos. Determinar las condiciones de reacción en las cuales se obtiene un mayor porcentaje de ésteres metílicos en un reactor de tanque agitado. Determinar las condiciones de reacción en las cuales se obtiene un mayor porcentaje de ésteres metílicos en una columna de contacto líquido-líquido-sólido. Establecer el modelo cinético que mejor represente la transesterificación del aceite vegetal estudiado. El presente trabajo comprende 4 capítulos principales, además de una sección de referencias y una de anexos. En el primer capítulo se detallan los antecedentes que no solamente ayudan a justificar la realización del presente trabajo sino también a comprenderlo y a discutir los resultados obtenidos. En el capítulo 2 se detalla la metodología para lograr los objetivos arriba planteados. Los resultados obtenidos se presentan y discuten en el capítulo 3 y las conclusiones en el capítulo 4. Las referencias empleadas se presentan en la penúltima sección de este trabajo. Finalmente, en el apartado de anexos se incluyen datos importantes empleados para los cálculos realizados, principalmente. También se incluyen ejemplos representativos de resultados que no se incluyen en el capítulo 3 como cromatogramas. Para mejor comprensión del presente trabajo también se incluye un glosario y finalmente se presenta constancia de presentación de resultados en un congreso internacional y la evidencia de un artículo publicado en una revista indizada.The relevance in recent years for the minimization of polluting gases and the search for alternative energy sources apart from oil, has led research in various forms of renewable energy including power generated by wind, hydro, solar, biomass and biofuels; and among them biodiesel. Despite extensive research related to the production of biodiesel, there are some issues that desserve to be addressed from the point of view of engineering, especially in the efficiency of mass transfer between the two organic phases (methanol and oil), which plays a critical role during transesterification and thereby controls the rate of reaction in the initial stage, and the use of heterogeneous catalysts which allows an easy and less expensive separation of the product. This thesis aims at studying the efficiency of a cocurrent downflow bubble column as a liquid-liquid contactor reactor in order to carry out the transesterification reaction of canola oil to biodiesel using heterogenous catalysis. The reactor provides great potential for chemical reactions that are limited by mass transfer and has several advantages over typical reactors used for transesterification. At the reactor inlet a high speed liquid flow is produced by venturi effect and this results in a vigorous agitation system with high shear and energy. This high mixing intensity allowed the production of biodiesel according to EN14214 (content greater than or equal of esters ≥ 96.5%), obtaining a 97% of esters in a time of 300 min at a temperature of 50 °C, using CaO from a rather low cost source (quicklime) as heterogeneous catalyst, with a catalyst loading of 8 % (w/w with respect to the reaction mixture oil-methanol), an oil : methanol molar ratio of 1 : 9. In order to understand the effect of the process variables the reaction was also studied in a batch reactor. The studied variables were reagents addition order, methanol quality, methanol-oil molar ratio, amount of catalyst, temperature dependence, type of catalyst and a reaction kinetic model was established. In general there is a minimal difference in the rate of reaction profiles between the lab scale STR and the pilot scale contactor column; beside the desearible content of FAME’s (97% EN14214) was achieve in both reactors after 300 min of reaction. It is worth to be mentioned that the reaction volume in the liquid-liquid contactor was about 24 times higher than the STR volume.proyecto 3685/2014 y al Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología por el apoyo financiero y la formación académica a trasvés de la beca No. 383423, así como a la beca mixta para realizar estancias de investigación en Alemania con número (CVU/Becario): 627380/328718.Proyecto UAEM 3685/201