Export potential of cottage industry: a case study of Sialkot (Pakistan)

Sialkot, the export city of Pakistan is earning $900 million per annum by exports. The major exports are the sports goods, surgical instruments, leather products, martial art instruments, musical instruments and sports wear. All these products are value-added by cottage industry. How the export potential of cottage industry in Sialkot may be increased,that is the question. The current paper estimated the export potential of the cottage industry by measuring it through Cobb-Douglas production function. The data has been collected from 354 cottage industrial units selected by random sampling. The results explain that labor, capital, experience and education of entrepreneur, and working conditions enhance the export potential of the units. The labor is more used in cottage industrial units as compared to capital so the elasticity of export production with respect to labor is higher as compared to capital. The football making units and other sports goods producing units use a minor ratio of capital and largely depend upon labor for production. Although leather and surgical producing units use higher ratio of capital in production. The education and experience of the entrepreneur also lead to increased export production. The better working condition increases the export production by raising the productivity of labor. The study proposes the education and training of the individuals involved in cottage industry and provision of good working conditions by the Export Promotion Bureau, Sialkot Chamber of Commerce and Industry and vocational training institutes in their respective areas. The surprising results of the study are that credit availed by the units decrease the export production while distance to market from the unit raises the export production. The relationship between credit and export production explains the misutilization of credit while positive association between distance to market and export production explains the involvement of more number of household members in production in the units away from city as compared to the units situated near to market or city. The misutilization of loaning is needed to be checked.Cottage industry, Pakistan, Exports, Cobb-Douglas production function, Sialkot

Using XTCE on the GOES-R Series

This presentation provides an overview of the mechanisms and methods used to implement the XTCE (XML (eXtensible Markup Language) Telemetric and Command Exchange format) schema for Telemetry and Command databases for the GOES-R series satellites

Understanding Business Cycle Fluctuations in Pakistan

Notwithstanding the level of improvement in understanding the complexities of an economy, it is now well accepted that the ultimate incidence of various policy interventions leads to varied outcomes in terms of magnitude and persistence depending upon the structure of the economy. The objective of the present study is to disentangle the relative contributions of various exogenous and domestic shocks that contribute to business cycle fluctuations in Pakistan. The study is based on the New-Keynesian Open economy model, which is an extended version of (Gali & Monacili 2005). Keating’s two-step approach (1990, 2000) is employed to capture the dynamic behaviour of the variables of interest. Impulse response functions, along with forecast error variance decomposition analyses, are used to gain useful insights into the understanding of the transmission mechanism of policy and non-policy shocks. It is observed that fiscal policy does matter, at least in the short-run. The interest rate shock leads to the exchange rate appreciation thereby confirming the exchange rate puzzle. In response to adverse supply shocks, the Monetary Authority responds with a monetary contraction that prolongs the recessionary periods. Furthermore, it has a limited power to control inflation as inflation in Pakistan stems from supply-side factors as well as fiscal dominance. JEL Classification: C32, E52, E62, F41 Keywords: Open Economy, New Keynesian Model, Rational Expectations, Exchange Rate Puzzl

Conducting Monetary Policy in South Asian Economies: An Investigation

Monetary policy which until recently aimed at targeting monetary aggregates has quietly given way to adjusting interest rates. Most of the Central Banks now focus on money reaction function that directly targets inflation or price level. This paper examines the way monetary policy is being conducted in the four major South Asian economies, namely, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The analysis is based on a variant of the Taylor rule framework. Using quarterly data over the period 1990Q1 to 2012Q4, the study finds that the monetary authorities in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have accommodated some degree of inflationary pressure, whereas Bangladesh has continuously smoothened interest rate while setting its monetary policy. Besides pursuing a mild monetary policy stance against inflation, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are also giving importance to foreign interest rate and real exchange rate movements to justify their relevance in monetary policy setting. However, the same has not been found to be true for Bangladesh. JEL Classification: E52, E58, E60 Keywords: Monetary Policy Rule, Central Banks, SAARC Countrie

DISASTER MANAGEMENT IN COAL MINE INDUSTRY OF BALOCHISTAN

The room and pillar mining method is responsible for high death toll and disability rate of coal mine workers in Baluchistan. The frequent incidents of roof falls day to day accidents, and suffocation due to sufficient emission of methane are the main causes of increased death rate. Substantial increase in injuries are also causing complications in the life of poor coal workers

M-GEAR: Gateway-Based Energy-Aware Multi-Hop Routing Protocol for WSNs

In this research work, we advise gateway based energy-efficient routing protocol (M-GEAR) for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). We divide the sensor nodes into four logical regions on the basis of their location in the sensing field. We install Base Station (BS) out of the sensing area and a gateway node at the centre of the sensing area. If the distance of a sensor node from BS or gateway is less than predefined distance threshold, the node uses direct communication. We divide the rest of nodes into two equal regions whose distance is beyond the threshold distance. We select cluster heads (CHs)in each region which are independent of the other region. These CHs are selected on the basis of a probability. We compare performance of our protocol with LEACH (Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy). Performance analysis and compared statistic results show that our proposed protocol perform well in terms of energy consumption and network lifetime.Comment: IEEE 8th International Conference on Broadband and Wireless Computing, Communication and Applications (BWCCA'13), Compiegne, Franc

Identification of novel anticancer terpenoids from Prosopis juliflora (Sw) DC (Leguminosae) pods

Purpose: To identify a novel source of terpenoid anticancer compounds from P. juliflora (Sw.) DC. (Leguminosae) pods as a medicinal substitute for cancer medicines.Methods: The pods were collected, dried and pulverized. The ethanol extract was prepared by maceration. Various phyto-constituents were detected in the extract by UV-VIS spectroscopy at a wavelength ranging from 200 - 800 nm. The molecular formula, chemical structure, and percent peak area of these phyto-constituents were determined by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) was used for functional group determination of bioactive compounds.Results: P. juliflora pods were rich in tannins, carotenoid and terpenoids. Nineteen bioactive compounds were detected. Out of these, thirteen are here reported for the first time with four of them exhibiting anticancer activities, while two belong chemically to terpenoids. Furthermore, FTIR established characteristic peaks for the various biologically-active functional groups.Conclusion: The results show that P. juliflora pods is a valuable source of anticancer, antitumor and chemoprotective compounds, especially terpenoids, that can potentially be developed as alternatives to current painful and costly cancer therapies.Keywords: Prosopis juliflora (Sw.) DC., Anticancer terpenoids, Attenuated total reflectance-FTIR, Herbal medicin

Currencies analysis based on stability using apriori-algorithm

This paper presents the stability of currency that is more stable with respect to other currencies. Various currencies are studied and graphs are plotted with reference to dates on a yearly basis and analyze its patterns. The stability of a currency was determined by using Apriori-algorithm. This algorithm maneuver in continues manner unless the desired results are achieved.