Tracking COVID-19 Decease Through Rolling Conditional Variance

The effects of COVID-19 have been devastating globally. However, countries have essential asymmetries regarding the disease spread dynamics and the respective mortality rates. In addition to containment strategies and boosting growth and economic development in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, society calls for solutions that allow the development of vaccines, treatments for the disease, and especially, indicators or early warnings that anticipate the evolution of new infections and deaths. This research aims to track the total deaths caused by COVID-19 in the most affected countries by the pandemics after the approval, distribution, and implementation of vaccines from 2021. We proposed an Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) specification as a first adjustment. Subsequently, we estimate the conditional variance of total deaths from an Exponential Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity (EGARCH). Finally, we compute a rolling density backtesting within a 7-day rolling window to demonstrate the robustness estimation for COVID-19 mortality. The work's main contribution lies in exhibiting a tracking indicator for volatility and COVID-19 direction, including a weekly window to observe its evolution.

Influence of Parents, Peers and the Public on the Behavior of Street Children in Khartoum, Sudan

Children living on the streets are a common sight in Khartoum, the capital city of Sudan, and other parts of the country. These children have been exposed to many types of pressure which influence behavior outcomes. This study aims to investigate the street children’s socioeconomic profiles and examine the social-psychological influence of parents, peers and the public on the children’s behavior. A systematic sampling technique was used to select 12 markets in Khartoum state. 350 street children from the 12 markets volunteered for the face-to-face interview administered questionnaire. The study found that parents stressors and peers stressors significantly influence the children to perform maladaptive behavior. However, the public did not have any significant effect on children’s maladaptive behavior. The study suggests intervention programs should be applied to stop children from ending up on the streets by providing families with a basic income to guarantee children's welfare, security and sense of family life. To stop children from going back to the streets, a free education policy, fee waivers and free meals for poor children are recommended.

A Study of Financial Development Impact on Economic Growth: A Comparison Between Egypt and Saudi Arabia

Economic growth is always seen as one of the chief economic goals countries try to achieve, in order to develop its economics. Economic growth takes different forms following the varying economic theories, and it's mostly defined as achieving increase in average share of individual from the real gross national income at certain time period. One of the most frequently used indexes to measure economic growth is: Measuring economic growth based on the expected – no the real – income, especially in countries that possess rich resources. And based on gross domestic product at fixed price and one year, and the average individual share from real income.

Effect of Backward Design With Virtual Learning Ecosystem to Enhance Design Thinking and Innovation Skills

The backward design with virtual learning ecosystem aims to enhance design and innovative ideas as an application that simulates a virtual learning environment where students can interact with the simulated environment using their smartphones and digital goggles. This approach allows continuous, limitless self-learning based on cloud computing and social network, a guideline for the 21st century skill training that focuses on the learner, and enhance design and innovative ideas. This research aims were to (1) develop a backward design with virtual learning ecosystem to enhance design thinking and innovation skills, (2) study posttest learning achievement after application of the backward design with virtual learning ecosystem to enhance design thinking and innovation skill, (3) study design thinking skills assessment of students after using the backward design with virtual learning ecosystem to enhance design thinking and innovation skills, and (4) study posttest innovation of students after using backward design with virtual learning ecosystem to enhance design thinking and innovation skills. The sample group in this study is divided into 2 groups, i.e., (1) the seven experts in design and development of information technology media and technology digital media selected from various educational institutes, and (2) the 20 undergraduates from Digital Media Technology Program, Faculty of Industrial Technology, Muban Chombueng Rajabhat University currently enrolled in the DMT60711 Development of Mobile Application course.

Investigating the Relationship Between Country Competitiveness and Financial Market Development in Times of Crisis

A country’s competitiveness depends on many factors related to general governance, effectiveness of markets, social development, and business perspectives. The role of financial markets for economic growth has been the subject of many scientific studies; most of them concluded that a well-developed financial system should improve the efficiency of financing decisions, favouring a better allocation of resources and thereby economic growth. The financial crisis that started in the summer of 2007 is still testing the strength of the global economic system. It started in the financial sector, but is now having an important impact on the real economy. The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between a country’s financial market development and its competitiveness in particular in times of crisis, with the use of a series of econometric models. We find evidence that financial market development is affected (with the anticipated sign of impact) by the Global Competitiveness Index, the GDP per capita and the (un)employment level of a country. It is also related (with an unexpected direction of impact) with the foreign market size and exports, as well as infrastructure. Our findings can be used by the policymakers of countries which wish to improve their competitiveness so as to steer the determining variables in the desired directions and approach their desired competitiveness levels.

The Impact of Change Management on the Efficiency of Organizations: An Applied Study on the DAL Dairy Factory - Sudan 2019 - 2020

Objectives: This study aims to know the effect of change in culture and technology on efficiency in Dairy Factory - Sudan, 2019-2020 and to know the views of managers on the impact of change management on efficiency, to identify the positive aspects that help in improving this efficiency as well as to identify the negatives Which limit the company's efficiency in this field, by answering the following research questions: - Is there an impact of changing culture and technology on increasing the efficiency of institutions? To answer these questions on which the problem is centered around, the following scientific hypotheses were put forward: - There is a statistically significant relationship between changing the organization's culture and increasing the efficiency of organizations, as well as the existence of a statistically significant relationship between changing technology in the organization and increasing the efficiency of organizations. Methods: The descriptive and analytical approach was used to describe the phenomenon under study, and the questionnaire was used to collect various data. The questionnaire was distributed to the sample members who numbered (55) employees to conduct the statistical analysis for this study, through the program used for the statistical analysis of social sciences, the hypotheses were tested by Median and chi-square. Finding: inflating the culture of the departments and divisions of the company, the stagnation and inflexibility of the society's culture, and the inadequacy of that culture to the requirements of work within the community, which led to an overlap in the powers and responsibilities? The most important recommendations: The necessity of changing the organizational structure to comply with the requirements of work, after carefully studying the internal and external environment, and for the change to take place based on the recommendations of specialists in administrative sciences. So that it is not random and does not lead to an inflation of the organizational structure without success. Value: The importance of the study stems from the fact that it addresses an important topic in business administration, which is managing change in organizations, which is the only way for these organizations to develop and continue to exist. It also studies the reality of change management in the DAL Dairy Factory - Sudan.

Government Size and Corruption: A Non-linear Analysis in the Case of EMCCA

This article analyzes the relationship between Government size and corruption. Unlike the works in the way which suppose a linear relationship between the two variables, we estimate a panel with change of the modes to characterize the impact of the size of the Central Government on corruption, in the countries of the economic community and monetary of Central Africa (EMCCA). The results show that there is a non-linear relationship between these two variables. Indeed, a strong involvement of the Government in economic activity results in a significant increase in corruption when the Government exceeds a size of 13.5508% of the GDP.

Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility and Value Creation: Empirical Study in Palestine

This study empirically evaluates the potential relation between strategic Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) dimensions and strategic value creation and establishes an order of importance of these dimensions according to Palestinian public shareholding corporates listed on Palestine Exchange. This is a quantitative research that analyzes corporates’ responses on a descriptive and correlational questionnaire designed specifically for the research purpose.Cross-sectional analysis revealed important correlations between the strategic value and CSR dimensions across various sectors, such as a strong positive correlation with Proactivity in the Banking sector, a moderate negative correlation with Voluntarism in the Industrial sector, a strong positive correlation with Visibility in the Investment and Services sectors and no correlation in the Insurance sector. The order of preference with respect to dimensions also varied among sectors: the most important dimensions for the Banking, Industrial, Investment, Services and Insurance sectors were Visibility, Centrality, Voluntarism, Centrality and Proactivity; Respectively.

Structural Constraints to African Continental Free Trade Area: Prospects, Issues and Policy Options

The foremost intents of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) predicates on the integration of the African continent into mobile flows of trade and investment. This framework is structured to boost industrial development within the continent. However, statistics show an abysmal trade performance for Africa in comparism to the rest of the world. In contrast, projections indicate that the benefactors of the AfCFTA framework would be SMEs in the short term, which account for more than 75% of the continent’s businesses. Notwithstanding Africa’s resolve to disassemble trade restrictions, barricades to intra-African trade have persisted. Conversely, the scheduling of AfCFTA stands in sharp contrast with an international perspective framed by a tenacious increase in trade-restrictive processes. The pertinent question remains, can the objectives of AfCFTA increase Intra African Trade, given the persistent structural barriers in the continent. Using a desktop approach and secondary data, this article examines contemporary issues, which encumber trade within and amongst the regional blocks. From our examination, the foremost obstacle to AfCFTA have a fundamental political focus rather than an economic dimension. Accomplishing AfCFTA objectives would entail a strong political will and efforts by political leaders in Africa; if the barriers are effectively fixed, AfCFTA could attain a welfare improvement projected at over 16 billion dollars.

Analysis of Inter-Country Trade Flows Based on Input - Output Model Between Vietnam - EU - China and the United States

In recent years, although the balance of trade in goods of Vietnam has always been surplus for many years but the real domestic economy has been also deficit. People were thrilled for that achievement. The study attempts to estimate how the trade flows between the four countries Vietnam, China, the United State (US) and the Europe (EU) induce to output and value added of each country?The research used inter - country input - output model between those countries for analyzing the effects of trade flow to the economy of each country, especially for Vietnam.