Growth, debt, and sovereign risk in a small, open economy

The continuing debt crisis that many developing countries have faced in the current decade has underscored the need to understand the relationships between debt accumulation and growth, as well as the need to develop policy approaches that foster adjustment in the external account while maintaining the growth of output. The purpose of this paper is to develop a macroeconomic model for a small open developing economy that borrows abroad. This model will assist in studying the dynamic interaction between debt and growth, as well as the impact of various policies and exogenous shocks on the rate of capital accumulation, the current account and debt. From this analysis, the authors make the following conclusions. An upward shift in the supply of debt leads to a long run decline in external debt, a higher domestic interest rate, less capital stock, and a reduced trade surplus. An increase in the marginal cost of debt may or may not lower long run external debt as well. An increase in productivity raises the long run stock of capital but leaves the level of external debt and the interest rate unchanged in the long run. Finally, fiscal expansion has almost no effect in either the short run or the long run.Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Strategic Debt Management,Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Intermediation

SIMPLE: Stable Increased-throughput Multi-hop Protocol for Link Efficiency in Wireless Body Area Networks

In this work, we propose a reliable, power efficient and high throughput routing protocol for Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs). We use multi-hop topology to achieve minimum energy consumption and longer network lifetime. We propose a cost function to select parent node or forwarder. Proposed cost function selects a parent node which has high residual energy and minimum distance to sink. Residual energy parameter balances the energy consumption among the sensor nodes while distance parameter ensures successful packet delivery to sink. Simulation results show that our proposed protocol maximize the network stability period and nodes stay alive for longer period. Longer stability period contributes high packet delivery to sink which is major interest for continuous patient monitoring.Comment: IEEE 8th International Conference on Broadband and Wireless Computing, Communication and Applications (BWCCA'13), Compiegne, Franc

Predatory Journals: a Literature Review

Background: Predatory publishing is an exploitative fraudulent open-access publishing model. Most predatory journals do not follow policies that are set forth by organizations including the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Council of Science Editors (CSE), and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Jeffrey Beall, an associate professor at the University of Colorado Denver and a librarian at Auraria Library, coined the term ‘predatory journals' to describe pseudo-journals. Our literature review has highlighted that predatory journal authorship is not limited to early-career researchers only. Majority of authors are unfamiliar with practices in pseudo journals despite publishing manuscripts. Methodology: For the purpose of this review, a systematic literature search was carried in October 2019 of the following databases: (1) Web of Science (all databases), (2) ERIC, and (3) LISTA. All stages of the review process included access to the search results and full articles for review and consequent analysis. Articles were added after screening fulltext articles by meeting the inclusion criteria and meeting none of the exclusion criteria. As there were a high number of articles reporting findings on predatory journals, they were further screened re-evaluating them for any deviations from the theme of this study. Relevant material published within the last five years was used. Results: After a thorough review, 63,133 were located using the Boolean logic. After reviewing 63 abstracts and titles for relevance, 9 articles were included in the literature review. Four themes are concerned with the results of the synthesis that demarcate legitimate and predatory publications. They include factors: (1) Related to the journal, (2) Academic and professional, (3) Dissemination, and (4) Personal. Conclusion: Our literature review found that there is a lack of one single definition for predatory journals. We believe that it is essential for potential authors and young researchers to have clear guidelines and make demarcations of potential journals that seem dubious. Moreover, the authors' selection of publishers should be modified to control the risks of tainting ‘open-access' publishing with fraudulent journals. The academic and research community ought to revise their criteria and recognize high quality and author journals as opposed to ‘predatory' journals. Research mentorship, realigning research incentives, and education is vital to decrease the impact of predatory publishing in the near future

Estimation of volatile organic compounds in farmed and wild rohu, Labeo rohita

Volatile organic compounds in farmed and wild rohu, Labeo rohita, were extracted by Likens-Nickerson concurrent distillation apparatus. The farmed raised rohu of two weight categories designated as FW1 (1001-1200g) and FW2 (501-700g) were procured from the Fish Seed Hatchery, Faisalabad. Concurrently, wild rohu of two weight categories designated as WW1 (1001-1200g) and WW2 (501-700g) were captured with gillnet from the Trimu Head. Quantitative and qualitative estimation was made by gas chromatography. In farmed and wild L. rohita of the weight group FW1 and WW1, 14 and 6 volatile compounds were extracted, respectively. In weight group FW1, six compounds were identified as 3-methyl-1-butanol, 3-hexene-1-ol, heptanal, 3-octanol, decanal and 2-undecanone. In weight group WW1, out of six compounds three were identified as heptanal, 1-octen-3-ol, 2-nonanone. In weight categories FW2 and WW2, 14 and 13 volatile compounds were detected, respectively. In weight category FW2, out of 14 compounds, 3-hexene-1-ol, heptanal, 3-octanol, 2-undecanone and decanal were identified. In weight category WW2, out of 13 compounds, 7 were identified as 3-methyl-1-butanol, 2-heptanone, heptanal, 3-octanol, 2-nonanone, decanal and 2-undecanone. The analysis of variance for retention time and concentration of volatile compounds showed no significant difference (p>0.05). The correlation coefficient between retention time and concentration was significant (p< 0.05)

An electrode design rule for high performance top-illuminated organic photovoltaics

An electrode design rule for high performance top-illuminated bulk-heterojunction organic photovoltaics is proposed, that enables the device architecture to be simplified by removing the need for the electron selective layer at the interface with the low work function reflective electrode. This new guideline for electrode design is underpinned by device studies in conjunction with a study of the energetics at the interface between five widely used solution processed organic semiconductors of both electron donor and acceptor type, and a stable low work function reflective substrate electrode. The magnitude and distribution of space charge resulting from ground-state electron transfer from the electrode into each organic semiconductor upon contact formation is derived from direct measurements of the interfacial energetics using the Kelvin probe technique, which enables the variation in potential across the entire film thickness used in the devices to be probed

The Effects of Weather on the Life Time of Wireless Sensor Networks Using FSO/RF Communication

The increased interest in long lasting wireless sensor networks motivates to use Free Space Optics (FSO) link along with radio frequency (RF) link for communication. Earlier results show that RF/FSO wireless sensor networks have life time twice as long as RF only wireless sensor networks. However, for terrestrial applications, the effect of weather conditions such as fog, rain or snow on optical wireless communication link is major concern, that should be taken into account in the performance analysis. In this paper, life time performance of hybrid wireless sensor networks is compared to wireless sensor networks using RF only for terrestrial applications and weather effects of fog, rain and snow. The results show that combined hybrid network with three threshold scheme can provide efficient power consumption of 6548 seconds, 2118 seconds and 360 seconds for measured fog, snow and rain events respectively resulting in approximately twice of the life time with only RF link

Sugarcane trash chopper cum spreader-A viable machine to avoid trash burning

Trash burning is a major problem in sugarcane to overcome this, a sugarcane trash chopper cum spreader was tested at farmer’s field for its performance and economic feasibility. The chopper cum spreader was tested at five levels of moisture content of trash (13.2, 14, 15.15, 16.6, and 18.8% db) and five levels of operationalspeed (2.6, 2.8, 2.9, 3.1, and 3.4 km/h). The performance of the sugarcane trash chopper cum spreader heavily depends on moisture content and speed of operation. The maximum field capacity (0.43ha/h) was obtained at a speed of 3.2 km/h, but maximum shredding efficiency (90.40%) was found at a speed of 2.9 km/h. Maximumuniformity coefficient (0.95) and shredding capacity (4.31 t/h) was obtained at a speed of 2.9 km/h and at a moisture content of 13.13%. Maximum trash lifting efficiency (93.95%) was observed at a speed of 2.76 km/h and at a moisture content of 13.13%. The cost of operation was Rs. 2015/ha with B: C ratio of 1.5. The break-even point ofthe chopper cum spreader was 17.7 ha and payback of the machine was 1.3 years if operated for 250 h/year. The energy consumption of machine was calculated to be 1327.7 MJ ha-1. The optimum performance of sugarcane trash chopper cum spreader was obtained at a moisture content of 13.13% (M5) and forward speed of 2.9 km h-1 (V3). The sugarcane trash chopper cum spreader may be recommended for chopping of sugarcane trash for mulching to avoid burning of trash and conserving natural resources

Hybridizing Micro - B4C with Carbon nanotubes to Enhance the Mechanical Properties of Aluminium Matrix Composites

In present work, the effects of hybridizing micron sized B4C particles with multi walled carbon nanotubes on the microstructural and mechanical properties of Al - B4C composite were investigated. Microstructure reveals grain refinement ascribed to the presence of uniformly distributed micron sized B4C particles with multi walled carbon nanotubes. The Al - (B4C + MWCNT) hybrid composite indicates the alliance of mechanical properties such as hardness, tensile strength and ductility. The enhanced attribute of Al - (B4C + MWCNT) hybrid composite when compared to Al - B4C is the increased content and uniform distribution of MWCNTs. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd