281 research outputs found
Life in lockdown: Diary of a Pakistani student in Beijing
No full textJournal #2 from Media Rise's Quarantined Across Borders Collection by Azmat Khan. From Pakistan. Quarantined in China, Beijing, Chaoyang district.Media Rise Publications. Quarantined Across Borders Collection. Edited by Dr. Srividya "Srivi" Ramasubramanian.The essay illustrates my initial state of disorientation but also my struggle and hope for new life during lockdow
Development and Evaluation of a Near Real Time System for Assessing Hydrologic Response in Chenab River Catchment
No full textInvestigating the hydrologic response of a catchment to adverse climate changes is crucial for managing land and water resources and mitigating the natural hazards like floods. Limited availability of the in situ data, especially in case of transboundary rivers, further highlights the need to develop and evaluate decision support systems which may predict the flows in near real time using open source satellite rainfall data. Study was conducted in the Chenab river catchment to develop and evaluate a hydrologic model using HEC-HMS for predicting flows based on TRMM rainfall data. The catchment was analyzed regarding hydromorphological properties using HEC-GeoHMS tools. Digital soil map of the world developed by FAO and global land cover map developed by European Space Agency were utilized to develop Curve Numbers for the sub-basins. The model was calibrated and validated for summer/rainy months (June-September) for 2006 and 2007, respectively. There was found consistency between simulated and observed flows with percent difference in volume to be 5.49% and 6.61% for calibration and validation periods, respectively. Values of NashSutcliffe Efficiency were found relatively less (0.57 for calibration and 0.07 for validation) possibly due to continuous nature of simulations. Further refinement in calibrated parameters can be performed based on event-based simulations to better capture the effects of extreme rainfall events in terms of floods, and all this analysis may help as a mile stone in developing a near real time decision support syste
Evidence from East Germany: how young people’s education plans are shaped by their environment
No full textThe decision to go to university can have a major impact on an individual’s financial future and quality of life. Yet we know relatively little about how these decisions are made and adapted within different contexts. Drawing on a new study of East German students following German reunification, Ghazala Azmat and Katja M. Kaufmann show how the education plans of young people are shaped by their environment
ترک جامعات میں اردو زبان و ادب کی تدریس
No full textThe teaching of Urdu was started in Turkey in 1915. Istanbul University was the pioneer in this effort. The love of Turks for Urdu was the basic reason. During the last one hundred years, the teaching of Urdu language and literature has spread and so there are the full fledged Urdu departments in three Turkish universities i.e., Istanbul, Ankara and Konia. Department of Urdu, Istanbul University, in collaboration with Istanbul City Govt. held an International seminar to commemorate 100 years of Urdu teaching on 12-14 Oct 2015. Dr. Azmat Rubab and Dr. M. K. Ashraf participated in this Seminar. This paper was presented during this Seminar. It gives a survey of the Urdu language and literature teaching carried out in these Universities during this period
European Business Interests In Lebanon: An assessment of EU private foreign direct investment in the reconstruction era
No full textThe flow of foreign direct investment has long been regarded as the main engine of growth in developing countries. Lebanon has aimed at attracting foreign direct investment to contribute to its economic recovery in the post-civil war period. EU countries were expected to be a major source of investment inflows, partly, due to their rich historical relationship, and partly, as an expected result of the new Euro-Med approach, adopted in the 1990s.This thesis assesses the EU private business interests in Lebanon during the reconstruction period, and investigates to what extent EU business engagements involved FDI. Within this framework, this thesis examines the role of the EU in encouraging the flow of EU private investments into Lebanon. This thesis falls into two parts. The first assesses the history of economic relations between Lebanon and Europe in the modern period, and the development of these relations after the establishment of the EC, examining the role of the latter in reshaping these relations. It also assesses the development of the Lebanese economy since independence from France. In the second part of the thesis, the theoretical framework of FDI is applied to a survey of EU private businesses operating in Lebanon. This helped in answering two questions: what business activities did involve FDI, and why EU firms engagement in FDI was very shallow. The thesis concludes that the lack of FDI activities in Lebanon, whether EU or non-EU, was a result of the lack of comparative location-specific advantages. It also suggests that the Lebanese government should assume a stronger role in improving Lebanon’s comparative advantages in order to attract FDI. The EU should provide substantial help - within the Euro-Med approach - to encourage EU private business investments in the country
Gender gaps in unemployment rates in OECD countries
No full textIn some OECD countries the male and female unemployment rates are very similar but in others (notably the Mediterranean countries) the female unemployment rate is much higher than the male. Explaining these cross-country differences is the subject of this article. We show that, in countries where there is a large gender gap in unemployment rates, there is a gender gap in both flows from employment into unemployment and from unemployment into employment. We conclude that differences in human capital accumulation between men and women interacted with labor market institutions is an important part of the explanation.</p
Trading Partners and Trading Volumes: Implementing the Helpman-Melitz-Rubinstein Model Empirically
No full textHelpman, Melitz, and Rubinstein (2008)-HMR-present a rich theoretical model to study the determinants of bilateral trade flows across countries. The model is then empirically implemented through a two-stage estimation procedure. This note seeks to clarify some econometric aspects of the estimation approach used by HMR and explore the consequences of possible departures from the maintained distributional assumptions.Gravity equation, Heteroskedasticity, Jensens inequality
The provision of relative performance feedback information: An experimental analysis of performance and happiness
No full textThis paper studies the effect of providing relative performance feedback information on individual performance and on individual affective response, when agents are rewarded according to their absolute performance. In a laboratory set-up, agents perform a real effort task and when receiving feedback, they are asked to rate their happiness, arousal and feeling of dominance. Control subjects learn only their absolute performance, while the treated subjects additionally learn the average performance in the session. Performance is 17 percent higher when relative performance feedback is provided. Furthermore, although feedback increases the performance independent of the content (i.e., performing above or below the average), the content is determinant for the affective response. When subjects are treated, the inequality in the happiness and the feeling of dominance between those subjects performing above and below the average increases by 8 and 6 percentage points, respectively.relative performance, piece-rate, feedback, social comparison, happiness., leex
The importance of relative performance feedback information: Evidence from a natural experiment using high school students
No full textWe study the effect of providing relative performance feedback information on performance, when individuals are rewarded according to their absolute performance. A natural experiment that took place in a high school offers an unusual opportunity to test this effect in a real-effort setting. For one year only, students received information that allowed them to know whether they were performing above (below) the class average as well as the distance from this average. We exploit a rich panel data set and find that the provision of this information led to an increase of 5% in students’ grades. Moreover, the effect was significant for the whole distribution. However, once the information was removed, the effect disappeared. To rule out the concern that the effect may be artificially driven by teachers within the school, we verify our results using national level exams (externally graded) for the same students, and the effect remains.School performance, relative performance, absolute performance, feedback, natural experiment, social comparison, self-perception, competitive preferences.
The Provision of Relative Performance Feedback Information: An Experimental Analysis of Performance and Happiness
No full textThis paper studies the effect of providing relative performance feedback information on individuals' performance and affective response, under both piece-rate and flat-rate incentives. In a laboratory setup, agents perform a real effort task and when receiving feedback, they are asked to rate their happiness, arousal and feeling of dominance. Control subjects learn only their absolute performance, while the treated subjects additionally learn the average performance in the session. Under piece-rate, performance is 17 percent higher when relative performance feedback is provided. Furthermore, although feedback increases the performance independent of the content (i.e., performing above or below the average), the content is determinant for the affective response. When subjects are treated, the inequality in the happiness and the feeling of dominance between those subjects performing above and below the average increases by 8 and 6 percentage points, respectively. Under flat-rate, we do not find any effect on either of the outcome variables.Relative performance, feedback, piece-rate, flat-rate, happiness
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