683 research outputs found
Institutional determinants of tax buoyancy in developing nations / Munnaza Ashraf, Dr. Saima Sarwar
No full textThis study was conducted to examine the role of institutions on tax buoyancy in a set of developing nations. The analysis of 50 nations from the time period 1996-2013 indicates that mostly institutional factors such as bureaucratic efficiency, rule of law, corruption are affecting negatively to the tax collection in these regions. Revenue from indirect taxes is more sensitive to these non-economic factors in a society. Moreover, the study suggests that nature of relationship between tax buoyancy and institutional characteristics of the system is sensitive to different categories of political regimes i.e. Democracy and Autocracy. Results showed that democracy is affecting positively to the tax collection while autocracy is having negative impact in each case i.e. direct, indirect or total tax revenues. But in autocratic regimes, proportion of indirect and direct taxes in total revenue is more than in case of democracy. Findings help to suggest that efforts should be made to democratize the political system mostly in developing world so that more and more tax revenue generation could be made possible
HERStory Makers 2022: Shirin Ashraf
No full textShirin Ashraf is a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Glasgow studying novel viruses from Uganda and other parts of Africa. She took part in HERStory Makers 2022.What is HERStory Makers?HERStory Makers is a social media competition for female-identifying early career researchers to share their research, their career journeys, and to inspire the next generation. Winners are selected by public vote. HERStory Makers is also part of EXPLORATHON, Scotland's contribution to European Researchers' Night.In 2022-23, EXPLORATHON was supported by the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council [grant number EP/X020894/1].Author contributions to contentShirin Ashraf conceived, planned, and recorded the video content. Kirsty Ross edited the video content to insert HERStory Maker credits, add subtitles, and maintain video length below Twitter/X limit of 2 mins and 20 secs, prior to scheduling the social media posts.</p
EMPLOYING NATION BRANDING AND PUBLIC DIPLOMACY: STRATEGIES FOR PAKISTAN
No full textIn the 21st century, states use nation-branding techniques to safeguard their national interests. They employ public diplomacy strategies to maintain their international image. Through branding techniques and public diplomacy strategies, nations can build a positive image among the committee of nations. It is argued in this paper that the international image of Pakistan is required to be improved, and there is a need to shun the notion of negative characteristics associated with terrorism, religious extremism, Talibanization, and allegedly branding as a failed state. There is also a need to study the mindset for conducting various surveys about Pakistan’s image and its sponsors. The main argument of this research work is that Pakistan has all the variables required for nation branding and building positive public perception. To improve its international image, Pakistan has to adopt innovative nation-branding techniques and public diplomacy strategies.
Bibliography Entry
Kayani, Saima Ashraf, and Muhammad Saif ur Rehman. 2022. "Employing Nation Branding and Public Diplomacy: Strategies for Pakistan." Margalla Papers 26 (1): 34-46
Improving the review classification of Google apps using combined feature embedding and deep convolutional neural network model
No full textETCNN: Extra Tree and Convolutional Neural Network-based Ensemble Model for COVID-19 Tweets Sentiment Classification
No full textPandemics influence people negatively and people experience fear and disappointment. With the global outspread of COVID-19, the sentiments of the general public are substantially influenced, and analyzing their sentiments could help to devise corresponding policies to alleviate negative sentiments. Often the data collected from social media platforms is unstructured leading to low classification accuracy. This study brings forward an ensemble model where the benefits of handcrafted features and automatic feature extraction are combined by machine learning and deep learning models. Unstructured data is obtained, preprocessed, and annotated using TextBlob and VADER before training machine learning models. Similarly, the efficiency of Word2Vec, TF, and TF-IDF features is also analyzed. Results reveal the better performance of the extra tree classifier when trained with TF-IDF features from TextBlob annotated data. Overall, machine learning models perform better with TF-IDF and TextBlob. The proposed model obtains superior performance using both annotation techniques with 0.97 and 0.95 scores of accuracy using TextBlob and VADER respectively with Word2Vec features. Results reveal that use of machine learning and deep learning models together with a voting criterion tends to yield better results than other machine learning models. Analysis of sentiments indicates that predominantly people possess negative sentiments regarding COVID-19
IoD swarms collision avoidance via improved particle swarm optimization
No full textDrones flights have been investigated widely. In the presence of high density and complex missions, collision avoidance among swarm of drones and with environment obstacles becomes a challenging task and indispensable. This paper aims to enhance the optimality and rapidity of three dimensional IoD path generation by improving the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm. The improvements include using chaos map logic to initialize the population of PSO. Also, adaptive mutation is utilized to balance local and global search. Then, the inactive particles are replaced by new fresh particles to push the solution toward global optimal. Furthermore, Monte Carlo simulation is carried out and the results are compared with slandered PSO and with recent work CIPSO. The results exhibit significant improvement in convergence speed as well as optimal solution which prove the ability of proposed method to generate safety path for IoD formation without collision with terrain obstacle and among drones.The authors would like to acknowledge the support of the department of the computer engineering at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals for this work.Ahmed, G (corresponding author), King Fahd Univ Petr & Minerals, Comp Engn Dept, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.
[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
Automating the determination of wave speed using the pu-loop method
No full textThe PU-loop (pressure-velocity loop) is a method for determining wave speed and relies on the linear relationship between the pressure and velocity in the absence of reflected waves. This linearity of the PU-loop during early systole, which is directly related to wave speed, has always been established by eye. This paper presents a new technique that establishes this linearity and thus determining wave speed online. Pressure and flow were measured in the ascending aorta of 11 anesthetised dogs. The slope of the PU-loop, indicating wave speed was determined by eye and by using the new technique. The difference between the slopes of the two methods is in the order of 3%. The new technique is convenient and allows for the online assessment of wave speed, which could be used as a bedside tool for the assessment of arterial compliance
Keratoconus : current and future state-of-the-art
No full textThis book provides a practical guide to the most recent advances in the diagnostic management of corneal ectasia. Clear, concise chapters address new standardized nomograms of treatment of early progressive ectasia, new epithelium on future crosslinking with and without oxygen supplement, customized protocols, laser assisted corneal regularization protocols and the new femtolaser assisted lamellar corneal transplant. Clinicians and surgeons seeking a go-to guide on the topic of corneal ectasia will find this book to be an essential resource for the latest developments and predicted future trends in the field. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s)
Correction to: Growth Factors and Neuroglobin in Astrocyte Protection Against Neurodegeneration and Oxidative Stress (Molecular Neurobiology, (2019), 56, 4, (2339-2351), 10.1007/s12035-018-1203-9)
No full textThe original version of this article unfortunately contained a typo error. The name of author “Ghulam Md Ashrad” should be written as “Ghulam Md Ashraf”. The authors hereby correct the name as displayed above. © 2018, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.Universidad Autónoma de Chil
IMR 665: Management of Audio Visual Records & Archives. Individual assignment: Article summary / Zuheir Ashraf Zakaria
No full textArticle on:
Article 1 - “Audio-visual piracy: towards a study of the underground networks of cultural globalization”
Article 2 - “Audiovisual Piracy, Informal Economy, and Cultural Globalization”
This article summary comprises of two article of the same author with a full name of Tristan Mattelart. The first article published on 2009 entitled; “Audio-visual piracy: towards a study of the underground networks of cultural globalization”, while the second article that were published on the year 2011 entitled; “Audiovisual Piracy, Informal Economy, and Cultural Globalization”. These two article consist of 19 and 16 pages consecutively. Both of these article discuss the cultural industries threat it presents to the western world and the underground networks it related to. Although both of these articles discuss the steps taken mainly by the US government to combat these problem in order to protect their intellectual property rights of US companies. Since both of the article are being authored by the same author, we can see that the later article; “Audiovisual Piracy, Informal Economy, and Cultural Globalization” often mention and cite the older article as a reference
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