What determinants affect remittance trends and patterns in Ethiopia

What determinants affect remittance trends and patterns in Ethiopia Migration by its nature has negative impacts to the emigrant countries through brain drain especially to the developing one. (HDR, 2009) states that mobility of skilled human power harms the economy of the origin country especially for small states and poor countries. Apart from the economic point, there are also other associated problems that cant be measured in terms monetary aspects. People move within their country or cross their borders with the hope of getting better opportunities benefiting the people migrating, their families as well as their areas of origin and destination (HDR, 2009). Though it is not an easy task to come through different challenges, there are many people who combine their efforts and talents to expand their opportunities by moving into other better areas. Successful immigrants keep connected with their home country and send what is usually expected from them. The benefits could be direct remittance sent to family or for other purposes and could also be in other multidimensional effects such as technology transfers, brain gain and help strengthen diplomatic efforts in their destination and international stages. (HDR, 2009) argued that moving generally brings benefits most directly in the form of remittance sent to immediate family members, thereby generating jobs for local workers as multiplier effect and behavioural changes in response to ideas from abroad. The benefits even go beyond this by increasing investment level of their origin. Further, the same report states that at the place of origin, impacts can be seen in income and consumption, education, health and broader cultural and social process. Moreover, the macro impact can be visibly seen in the countries foreign currency reserves. This is because foreign currency reserve is one of the most important components for economic growth of developing countries. Murinde, 1993 ac cited in Elsakka and Mcnabb (1999) argued that remittances are major sources of foreign exchange for man y developing countries where its limited availability acts as a major constraint on economic development programmes and stabilization policy. For countries like Ethiopia which witnessed shortage of foreign reserves for the last three years, it is so crucial to think about how national policy can be made favourable for remittance flow. The increase in remittance not only helps in solving the foreign reserve crunch but also contributes to poverty reduction programmes through the increase of consumption at household level, encouraging investment, creating additional savings to the economy and through other multiplier effects. However, too much remittance could make the economy dependent on it which will affect the diversification of the economy for export and production. McCormick and Wahba (2000) argued that one of the drawbacks of remittance for the receiving country could beDutch Diseaseas the economy of the home country can weaken as a result of receiving remittance. Further, the d ependency on remittance could make the economy susceptible to external shocks that could decline the flow of remittance as happened in 2009 global economic downturn. But still remittance has been less volatile to external shocks than other sources of capital such as export, FDI and foreign aid in the same period when there was decline in capital flows to developing countries in the global financial crises. Remittance could be more stable than private capital flows, and that they might even provide a stabilizing element during periods of financial instability (Buch and Kuckulenz, 2004). In anyway, for countries like Ethiopia which badly needs capital inflows, this shouldnt be a concern as the country is suffering from shortage of foreign currency reserve for importing basic and capital goods. Further, dependency on remittance wouldnt be a threat as the country is progressing economically by diversifying its exports and attracting more FDI ever. Recipients however should also consider the availability of these funds could develop a continuing trend of migration of working age population (ibid: 2004). Remittance therefore could be incentives for the working age population and for the educated ones to migrate which in turn affects the overall growth of the economy in the long run. The main focus of this study will be on matters associated with remittance and its determinants. International remittances refer to the money and goods that are transmitted to households by migrant workers outside their origin countries (World Bank). The Remittance industry is one of the multi-billion industries in the world which helps countries get foreign currency from different sources abroad. The volume of remittance flow is increasing in many folds from year to year especially starting from the 1990s. The amount has shown an increase of ____fold from __ in _____to 316 billion USD in 2009 (WB, 2009). Globalization, decreasing cost of transfers and the increase in technology usage in the business could contribute for the faster increase in the flow. Remittances have been identified as the third pillar of development as their volume is second to foreign direct investment and higher than overseas development assistance.  [1]  Remittance enables income redistribution between persons and across sectors, increases consumption in excess of locally generated income and is used as source of additional capital fund (Lucas and Stark, 1985). It is for this big reason that governments have been taking different initiatives for increasing the proportion of capital flows to their account and actually the business has increased tremendously for the last few years. Its importance is inevitable especially for those developing countries which often suffer due to short of hard currency. Since 2008, developing countries have experienced foreign currency crises which in some of them resulted in shutting down businesses, high inflation, increasing the poverty level which in turn led to clashes between government and ordinary people. The World Banks official data shows that remittance flows to developing countries reached $316 billion in 2009, down 6% from $336 billion in 2008 but is expected to increase by 6.2% to $335 billion in 2010 (World Bank, 2010). Unofficial remittances are believed to be large enough to underestimate the figure of the total remittance flow. Howe ver, Official Development Assistance was three times less than the above figure at the same period. This is not to underestimate the volume of ODA given to developing countries, but to show how much attention is given to ODA than to remittances as sources of capital flows. The same data sources (WB and ODA figures) reveal similar trends for Africa. Some studies on this issue show that remittances have direct implications for the development of developing countries both in household and national level. However, some countries are not giving that much emphasis for changing and increasing remittance flow to their country; if taken, the initiatives are not enough to bring change. Ethiopia like any other developing country needs remittance flow to its account so as to help the countrys overall development. It is one of the countries which passed critical times since 2008 due to hard currency crunch. Still there is no guarantee for this problem. For passing these hard times, the country has been dependent on foreign aid from the IMF to stabilize its economy.  [2]  Further the country has also been one of the main recipients of foreign aid from other sources. Ethiopia stands third next to Iraq and Afghanistan on the list of ODA recipient by taking 3% of the total Official Development Assistance given to developing countries in 2008 (ODA, 2010). This doesnt include the capital flow from China and India which they are becoming another source of capital for Ethiopia and other African countries. However, capital flows to Ethiopia through remittances is very low when compared with the ODA and other unofficial foreign assistance. Official data from the WB shows th at remittance flow was 387 and 383 million USD in 2008 and 2009 respectively. And this flow accounts 1.5% of the GDP as of 2008.  [3]  Even with simple comparison, the remittance flow is four times as low as the amount Kenya receives from the same business. The flow of remittance to Kenya was 1692 and 1572 billion USD in 2008 and 2009 respectively.  [4]  This comparison only shows the gross flow of remittance to Ethiopia and Kenya as my main intention is to look how low the flow to Ethiopia is. To the contrary, in 2005, Ethiopian stock of emigrants was 445,926 and that of Kenya was 427, 324 (WB factbook, 2008) which makes Ethiopia advantageous over the number of people living abroad. There can be other factors that determine remittance flow; however, Ethiopia at least should have benefited more from the gross remittance flow than Kenya depending on the stock of emigrants which the actual trend is the reverse. Even without comparison with any country, the remittance flow to E thiopia is very small. What triggered me to deal with this issue is that; first, the flow of remittance to Ethiopia is much lower than from what I expected. Second, as can be seen from the above comparison with Kenya which they lay in the same geographical, social, economical and political standard in many aspects, Kenya suppressed its East African competitor by four fold in the gross remittance flow and actually Ethiopia should have been benefited more. Third, what is the reason behind this? Where the difference does lays, from the Ethiopian Diaspora or from the national policy? My aim in this study is to look into what are the determinants that made remittance to Ethiopia so low by mainly focusing on the Ethiopian Diasporas patterns of remitting. Research questions: The research problem is already explained above. To deal with the research problem, this study will focuses on the following research questions: What are the determinants that affect remittance trends and patterns of the Ethiopian immigrants in Sweden? What are the factors that affect remittance flows to Ethiopia? What makes remittance flows to Ethiopia very small? Is it in the national policy related to remittance and capital flows or it is in Ethiopian immigrants? How can this business work better for Ethiopia as source of hard currency? Methodology: The study will apply qualitative method for investigating the research questions. This method is selected based on the appropriateness to the research issues considering the effectiveness of the method to investigate research questions in depth and suitability to the phenomenon. Controversies have raged over the appropriateness of research methods in the social science as whether to use qualitative or other methods (Mikkelsen, 2004:141). Flick, (2009:15) discussed that in scientific discipline; methods become the point of reference for checking the suitability of ideas and issues for empirical investigation and should be appropriately selected and applied. Moreover, the method helps in exploring the actual explanation of facts behind the research problem. However, making generalization based on the findings is difficult as the samples taken for the study are limited in proportion for the intended generalization. (Flick, 2009: 122) asserted that generalization is not in every case the goal of qualitative study. Qualitative study typically focuses on compiling a selection of micro-level case studies which are investigated using a combination of informal interviews, participant observation (Dessai and Potter, 2006:118). It could also include exploring policy documents and other material for complementary purposes. In order to facilitate these all, a case study will be used. This is because case study helps the study to be more specific on the key aspects and focus on the issue. Thus, the research will use Ethiopian immigrants in Stockholm, Sweden as a case study. The target group will be Ethiopians living in Sweden as the writer is also living in Sweden and at the same time Sweden is one of the top favorable destinations of Ethiopian immigrants (Sweden is within top 10 as a stock to Ethiopian immigrants). Interview with selected Ethiopian immigrants in Stockholm will be used for collecting data along with other secondary materials. Semi-structured and open ended q uestions will be prepared for the interviews so as to use the advantage of high degree of flexibility during the interview. Different themes will be created while preparing the interviews so as to structure the different issues and aspects on the remittance trends of the specific interviewee. Sampling Different sampling methods are combined depending on the particular dimension of the issue being considered: different purposive sampling techniques, identification of key informants who possess the particular knowledge sought and also random encounters to cross-check information or highlight yet more differing perspectives on the same problem (Dessai and Potter, 2006:118). By doing so, the researcher will select the appropriate people or target group which will enable the study in getting reliable information. The study will use purposive sampling and key informant selection for interview. The sample will include both male and female interviewees; it will also consider taking those who have investment in Ethiopia and those who dont have, this is because investment is one factor that could affect money flow. In addition to this, the sample will consist people of different backgrounds. Apart from these interviewees, one interview will be held with the head of the economic affairs of E thiopian embassy official if the embassy allows. This will give another perspective to the study. Theoretical framework Theory increases our awareness of interconnections and of the broader significance of data. Without making theory explicit, it is easy to fall into the trap of hazy thinking, faulty logic, and imprecise concepts (Mikkelsen, 2004:156). Indeed, theory helps us to have better understanding of the study prior to the start of the project and connect the findings of the research with the existing knowledge of the issue. It is also sound to link the theory with the empirics of the study throughout the research process. For this big reason the research will use a theoretical framework which suits with the study. The literature available on the subject, determinants of remittance flows from emigrants has almost developed into two thoughts viz. the micro-economic and the macro-economic factors which it meant that most studies have been made on micro-level and macro-level. (Lucas and Stark, 1985; Lucas and Stark, 1988 ; Agarwal and Horowitz, 2002; Adams, 2008; Dustmann and Mestres, 2008; Gupta and Hedge, 2009) could be studies that support the micro-economic thought and (El-sakka and Mcnabb, 1999; Buch and Kuckulenz 2004; Higgins et al, 2004 and Ratha, 2003 ) could be in support of the macro-economic factors. These two theories give their own explanations on what affects the migrants behavior in remitting. For instance, (Lucas and Stark, 1985) in giving the initial model for the micro-economic theory of remittance argued that emigrants are motivated for remitting due to many reasons ranging from pure altruism to self interest including mutual agreements between migrants and family. Moreover, th e models did show that migrants are said to be altruistic if the flow of remittance increased with a decline in family income back home; whilst, if remittance flows are directly related with the family income back home, then they are said to be self-motivated (ibid, 1985). Beyond these two pure factors of altruism and self-interest, (Lucas and Stark, 1985) have also discussed tempered altruism and enlightened self-interest to refer to the remittance motivated by a combination of altruism and self-interest. The combination is meant to show the possibility of remitting based on contractual agreements made between the migrant and the family back home so as to get mutual benefits. Independently after almost two decades of the above theory of Lucas and Stark, (Agarwal and Horowitz, 2002) pointed out that the two primary incentives explored in the remittance literature are altruism and risk sharing (some sort of self interest according to Lucas and Stark, 1985) which is similar concepts t o other literatures but slightly different. In the same theoretical explanation, however, (Quinn, 2005 as cited in Niimi et al, 2009) in contrast, suggested another model of remittance behavior whereby remittance are treated as both consumption transfer to households and as alternative saving mechanism for migrants. Many immigrants use the alternative saving mechanism when they think that they will be back to their country of origin some day in the future. Under such circumstances, immigrants want to own fixed assets that will help them live without any problem upon return. Though it is not usual to see immigrants returning to their country of origin; this increases the flow of remittance. (Dustmann and Mestres, 2008) contended that immigrants return policy increases the probability of remitting more motivated by holding assets and savings in home country for future purposes. Similarly, remittances are also attached with household consumption especially in the altruism concept so as to take care of family in origin country. Depending on these theoretical arguments, it can be said that income of both the household back home and the migrant determines how the remittance flow could be. Income of the migrants has many factors that could affect which otherwise would contribute the lion share in determining how to remit. Buch and Kuckulenz (2004) claimed that microeconomic factors such as education and income level of the migrant and his family are the main determinants of remittance. Briere et al (2002) and Agarwal, Buch and Kuckulenz (2004) also found that migrants destination, gender and household composition are the other factors that affect the flow of remittances. Adams, Guptaà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦.. On the other hand, at the macro-level, factors operating in both the host and the country of origin will affect the flow of remittance (El-sakka and Mcnabb, 1999). However, for countries who would like to maximize the capital inflow it looks difficult to frame policies based on the different factors of the host country as it is out of their control. Indeed, the factors in the host country are important components behind the motivation of the remitter as these factors affect the remitters income status. These are related with economics nature of the host country which have direct impact upon wages earned by the migrants and this in turn will determine their won consumption and saving behavior and thus the potential amount to be remitted. This type of experience can be easily found from the 2009 global financial crises which affected the income of migrants and eventually decreased the capital inflow to developing countries. The decrease in remittance to developing countries in this per iod has bitterly affected those countries which depend on remittance for their national foreign currency reserve. This gave these countries a message to review their remittance related policies and diversify their source of capital funds. El-sakka and Mcnabb, (1999) suggested that macro-economic factors such as interest rates, exchange rates and political instability of the country of origin affects the behavior of remitters. Accordingly, they argue that macro-economic factors should be suitable enough so as to encourage remittance flows to the country of origin. For these reasons countries would like to make exchange rates competitive by depreciating their own currencies with the intention of attracting more capital inflows, but sometimes it is associated with risk of bringing high inflation rate for the country. El-sakka and Mcnabb, (1999) on their part argued that higher inflation could discourage the flow of remittance as higher inflation rate could be a sign of economic and pol itical instability. To curb such associated problems, therefore, different variables should be taken into consideration while framing remittance related policy. On the other hand, empirical analysis using data from Egypt shows that remittance flows are responsive to interest rate and exchange rate differentials (ibid, 1985). Attractive interest and exchange rates would eventually lead immigrants to think of investing their money in their home country. Ratha (2003) also suggested that macroeconomic policies of the country of origin matter a lot whether remittances are to be invested or not. If remittances are encouraged to be invested, there is better chance for the economy to get more than two benefits from the same source. Interest rate differential between country of origin and host country, government domestic policies, wages, political risk factors and the rate of inflation determines remittance flows (Buch and Kuckulenz 2004). Since the aim of the study is to find out the factors that determine the patterns and trends of remittance flow; the two approaches can contribute some from different perspectives in framing the better solution for the research question. Off course, both the micro and macro level factors focus on the individual behavior of the remitter from personal experience and from national policy perspective. The personal experiences are those factors that affect at the micro-level: whilst, the national policy factors are those at macro-level factors that contribute in determining the individuals behavior in remitting. However, in most literatures the advocates of each approach neither discussed nor ruled out the counter ideas. For instance, the micro-economic theorists didnt discuss the possibility of macro-economic factors and the same goes for the macro-level theorists. This makes difficult to uncover the exact relationship of each theory and what they actually think of each other. For instan ce, Buch and Kuckulenz (200) argued that the main problem of microeconomic case studies is that they tend to undervalue the macroeconomic impact of remittance by focusing on isolated communities. (reference for combined studies). Thus, this study will have the chance to investigate this problem by looking into both approaches at the same time and adding up other perspectives beyond the economic theorization. The two theories focuses on the economic determinants of remittance, however, this study will go beyond this and touches other aspects that affects the patterns and trends of remittance flow. The study will also add another perspective to the remittance literature by going deep using qualitative method of studies. This is because most studies on this business have been made using quantitative method. This means, this theoretical framework adds other variables such as cultural, social and political factors that affect the flow of remittance. In a different perspective, Elbadawi and Rocha (1992) discussed concerning motivations to remit as two broad approaches viz. the endogenous which is based on the social and human aspects that cause remittance and the exogenous which is based on only the economic aspects.

Ion Mobility as Explosive Detector

Ion Mobility as Explosive Detector INTRODUCTION Explosives are highly reactive substances which possess large amount of energy (potential energy) that leads to the production of explosions, they are usually accomplish with lighten, heat, sound and pressure when they are suddenly released. Explosive can be classified based on their sensitivity, velocity, composition and physical forms [23]. Ion Mobility Spectrometry is an analytical technique which is widely acknowledge in the area of detection of explosives as a result of it powerful sensitivity using electrophoresis techniques. The use of IMS as an explosive detector is based on the capability of IMS to detect almost any substance which can undergo ionisation and ability of detecting lightest element such as helium, to the most complex mixture and in complete organism [26].IMS is used in the detection of explosive compounds such as trinitrotoluene (TNT),Dinitroluene(DNT),Cyclo-1,3,5-trimethylene-2,4,6,8-tetranitramine(RDX),Pentaerythriol tetranitrate(PETN, Hexafluorobenezene (HFB),TETRYL(2,4,6-Trinitrophenylmethylnitramine), etc. [27]. IMS is widely used has a powerful analytical technique for detection of various explosive warfare chemical agent, trace level of nitro-organic explosives which may be found on hand bags and carry on-luggage’s [22] in various airport all around the world, all this has been made possible by the ionisation sources used and development in the drift tube materials. Most recently produced IMS are cheap and classy making it possible to carry out analysis on samples without pre-treatment [6]. IMS is carried out by allowing analyte which have undergo ionisation to be separated according to their movement in gas phase [1] .IMS also enable the possibilities of this Ionised analytes to be distinguished using parameters such as their masses, size, shapes and charges and it aid separation and identification of the ionised molecule which are in gas phase using their movement in carrier gas [2-4] .In IMS the analytes are converted to ionisable molecule at Atmospheric pressure in a weak electric field leading to the ions separated according to their movement in the gas phase [5] This analytical measurement techniques of an ion mobility spectrometry to detect explosive involve the use of ion mobility spectrometer which is made up of important component such as ion source, ion gate drift tube and the detector plate [21]. IMS is a techniques mostly used in the aspect of detection of explosive as a result of the technique being able to easily detect object by the possibility of screening individuals who might have concealed explosive; a major employment in monitoring of site which might be contaminated with explosive substances or materials also including buried land mile which might have explosive [7]. IMS can detect explosives materials even if it is in small amount or large quantities and used in post offices for the detections of dangerous substances which might be present in mails [8].IMS have been used in the detection of min-explosive devices and expose charges in order to show individuals which might have come in contact with explosive based on the great analytical abilities to detect explosive in limited time, high sensitivity, and resolution power [10].The use IMS has a major detector of explosives, factors such as it been easy to use, low cost of production and maintenance , portability, and low level of detection limits are considered and the ability to hyphenate IMS with other analytical method such as GC,LC and MS so as to improve it sensitivity have been involved as ways of improving the technique and it detection, and most of this analysis are done in seconds [26]. The aim of this research on IMS as an explosive Detector includes; the principles, instrumentations, application, innovation of IMS based on limitation from the first invention to the recent years and possible ways of improving IMS for future application in detection of explosives. HISTORY In 1985,JUNE 23,the Canadian government initiated a trace detector which was as a result of the airplane crash that killed 329 people blown up at 31000 feet at the Atlantic ocean, although in 1987 the government developed a high speed detector that use ion mobility spectrometry to detect explosives[14].Ims has been a major technique of interest especially in the Detection of Explosive based on the high selectivity and Sensitivity with good resolution of the techniques in the detection of explosive without the sample to be detect undergoing any form of Pre-treatment or pre separation (textbook 23).It major use of interest have increased as a result of terrorism in various aviation sectors .In Ims ionisation occurs in gas phase chemistry of explosives in the air which permit part-per-billion(ppb) detection limit for explosive such as nitro-organic explosive[15-18 i.e 77-80 of textbook].Based on the increase in terrorism and crime rate two ion mobility spectrometers were discovered to m ake possible quick, non-invasive screening and this two models are 400 IONSCAN which was from Barringer Research Limited but now called Smith Detection[81 of textbook] and Itemizer which was produced from Ion track ,Inc. also now regarded as GE Interlogix. As a result of this two Models a new interest has been given to IMS and it has been accepted as a technique in analytical measurement [19]. The discovery of IMS became a major point of interest from the formation of ion and the behaviours of this ion when they are in the gas phase at ambient pressure. Researches on IMS were can be divided into two major periods which are the period IMS was discovered and Innovated(1850-1938) also the period IMS was foundational studied (1948-1970)[28]. The development of Ion mobility for the detection of explosive have been improved after the initial design which was described by Eiceman et al [20] in which the experiment were performed with pulse laser ionization (266nm.8nsec pulse ) as the source the use of naphthalene and anthracene as high vapour pressure organic compounds[21].furtherly, same compounds were also studied another source of ionisation called 63Ni which are currently used in explosive detection[1].optimisation of ion mobility in achieving detection of ng for explosive so as to improve sensitivity by improving temperature of the spectrometer cell, high voltage pulse, applied electric field with appropriate resolution in order to obtain different features for various explosive species were carried out on the geometry spectrometer[21].Ion mobility spectrometry as also involved the use of various ionisation source such as electro-spray ionisation[46], thermal ionisation, corona spray and corona discharge ionisation[47, [48]],MALDI laser ionisation [48]. Based on the aspect of the high voltage (dc and pulsed) provided only very small current ( Researches also have shown the discovered of how IMS has been used in the detection of various explosives [22] after the incident in 1985, JUNE 23, when the Canadian government initiated a trace detector which was as a result of the airplane crash that killed 329 people blown up at 31000 feet at the Atlantic ocean, although in 1987 the government developed a high speed detector that use ion mobility spectrometry to detect explosives [14].There is also an increase in the publication of IMS over the past few years and till current date which shows interest in the technique and in its development [29 ] Table 1: history in the Development on IMS 2.3 Application Area of ion mobility Based on the development in ims is the ability to couple ims with other analytical techniques inorder to improve it detection ability The use of IMS as a detection can be for explosive such as 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene(TNT) ,2,4-Dihydro-5-nitro-3H-1,2,4-triazol-3-one (NTO), Pentaerythritol Tetrenitrate (PETN) which are detected at in positive polarity in air at temperature of 150 to 250 degrees[12].Cases where the it required to resolve explosive compounds that are available in the presence of Interferents ,IMS is regarded as a valuable technique when coupled with Gas chromatography[13]. IMS aid in the classification of explosive compounds which is usually by the use of Laser ION Mobility Spectrometry and the process is usually done with the transfer of the ion with Photo-ionised Naphthalene in ambient air and the wavelength of the laser is usually fixed(266nm).Common explosive are GE ,vapour TRACERS ,Smith Sabre 4000 and Russian built M0-2M and M0-8 although companies are coming up with non-radioactive ionisation procedures for IMS in the detection of explosive trace for instances Bruker â€Å"DE-detector including implant services†QS-B220 which can be referred to as the next Innovation of IMS[9]. PRINCIPLE OF IMS IN DETECTION OF EXPLOSIVES THE DIAGRAM OF IMS [45]

The Son :: essays research papers

The Son Years ago, there was a very wealthy man who, with his devoted son, shared a passion for art collecting. Together they traveled around the world, adding only the finest art treasures to their collection. Priceless works by Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet and many others adorned the walls of the family estate. The widowed elder man looked on with satisfaction, as his only child became an expienced art collector. The son's trained eye and sharp business mind caused his father to beam with pride as the dealt with art collectors around the world. As winter approached, war engulfed the nation, and the young man left to serve his country. After only a few short weeks, his father received a telegram. His beloved son was missing in action. The art collector anxiously awaited more news, fearing he would neer see his beloved son again. Within days, his fears were confirmed. The young man had died while rushing a fellow soldier to a medic. Distraught and lonely, the old man faced the upcoming Easter holidays with anguish and sadness. The joy of the season, a season that he and his son had so looked forward to, would visit his house no longer. On Easter morning, a knock on the door awakened the depressed old man. As he walked to the door, the masterpieces of art on the walls only reminded him that his son was not coming home. As he opened the door, he was greeted by a soldier with a large package in his hand. He introduced himself to the man by saying, "I was a friend of your son. I was the one he was rescuing when he died. May I come in for a few moments? I have something to show you." As the two began to talk, the soldier told of how the man's son had told everyone of his father's love of fine art. "I'm an artist," said the soldier, "and I want to give you this." As the old man unwrapped the package, the paper gave way to reveal a portrait of the man's son. Though the world would never consider it the work of a genius, the painting featured the young man's face in striking detail. Overcome with emothion, the man thanked the soldier, promising to hang the picture above the fireplace. A few hours later, after the soldier had departed, the old man set about his task. True to his word, the painting went above the fireplace, pushing aside thousands of dollars of paintings.

Hopelessness of the Irish in Nineteenth Century England Essay -- Europ

Hopelessness of the Irish in Nineteenth Century England Throughout my research into the subject of the Irish in England's industrial north during the early nineteenth century, one fact became quite clear; contemporary writers' treatment of the Irish was both minimal and negative. I consulted many sources, Friedrich Engels, Leon Faucher, James Kay-Shuttleworth to name but a few and the reoccurring theme as pertaining to the Irish in all these works was mainly consistent; the Irish were a lazy, vulgar people prone to drinking and brawling. It was not until 1841 that Great Britain's government made its first attempt to count the number of Irish migrants in the Census of 1841. Data compiled from the actual census and other parliamentary sources at the time illuminate the fact that in 1841 and in the preceding years of this century, most migrants from Ireland were of the seasonal type. Typically, they would plant their potatoes in their mostly minuscule plots of land in May, travel to Great Britain for the summer months to partake of seasonal harvesting work and return in time for their own harvest. During this same time there were Irish who settled in Great Britain on a more permanent basis but they were outnumbered by their fellow countrymen who were strictly seasonal migrants. This latter group seemed quite successful in finding work in the agricultural districts of the industrial north, those parts of the country surrounding Manchester, Liverpool and the other great towns. After the Irish potato famine of 1822, the in flux of Irish into England grew and a large majority of these were seasonal migrants. These Irish were in great demand in the agricultural districts of England and in Labour Migration in England 1800-1850, Ar... ...ion of the Working Class in England Oxford University Press,1993. Faucher, Leon. Manchester in 1844. Frank Cass and Company Limited,1969. Gaskell, Elizabeth. Mary Barton. Penguin Group 1970,1985. Gaskell, Peter. The Manufacturing Population of England: Its Moral, Social. and Physical Condition and the Changes which have Arisen from the Use of Steam Machinery, with an Examination of Infant Labour. Baldwin & Cradock, 1833. Harris, Ruth-Ann M. The Nearest Place That Wasn't Ireland. Iowa University Press,1994. Jackson, John Archer. The Irish in Britain. Richard Clay and Company,1963. Kay-Shuttleworth, James. The Moral and Physical Condition of the Working Classes Employed in the Cotton Manufacture of Manchester. Frank Cass and Company Limited, 2nd ed. 1970. Redford, Arthur. Labour Migration in England 1800-1850. Manchester,1926 reprint,1964.

Humorous Wedding Speech †Best Man :: Wedding Toasts Roasts Speeches

Humorous Wedding Speech – Best Man Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen - I would like to start by thanking Steve for saying such nice things about me during his speech, though I must admit, I did deserve them. I mean, where would a bridegroom be without his best man? The friend at hand when he couldn’t find the rings. The reassuring voice in his ear when it looked like it might rain. And the chaperone who persuaded him to leave the strip club last night. Actually, I believe it was this morning! I think we all agree that Linda looks fantastic today, a number one hit if ever there was one. And Steve’s looking a bit like a chart-topper himself in that suit – although I’m not sure from which year. As for the bridesmaids, they look wonderful, and have performed their duties splendidly. It can't have been easy dragging Linda to the church – it certainly wasn't easy dragging Steve. We have now reached that pivotal moment in the speech where I am meant – in good taste – to put the groom down. However, when the subject of my speech cropped up during the meal, and my obligation to discuss Steve, Linda made me promise that I restrict myself to speaking only of the good things about her husband. Because a one-minute speech would seem ridiculous, I’ve decided to change course completely. And tell you about how we came to be sitting here today. Steve and Linda met five years ago in a very, very romantic location - the Hippodrome nightclub in Exeter. This place was renowned for being the hangout of drunken wide boys and white stiletto girls, so it was pure coincidence that they met on that fateful night. Steve had nearly given up hope of ever pulling a girl when he caught a glimpse of Linda across a crowded dance floor. I can see now, lying there. She smiled and shouted hello but the music swallowed her voice before it could reach him. He untucked his jeans from his florescent socks and casually strolled over to her as she slid through the crowd to meet him. With their arms wrapped tightly around each other, the two danced into the night, igniting a passion that threatened to engulf them both. When the music stopped, the legendary silver tongue – legendary in the sense that it only exists in Steve’s imagination – took over: ‘Are you lost, love?

Literature Review of Fault Tolerant Systems

CHAPTER-2 PROBLEM STATEMENT Aim of the undertakingis to build Fault Tolerant System. Fault Tolerant system is a system which runs efficaciously in any status. Even if there is a mistake in the processor our system will observe it and advise to user or admin. It will non merely notify but we are seeking that it will take mistake over the air. Triple Modular Redundancy is bosom of our system ; it detects the mistake through vote system. To build a CFTP design is a truly complex work and needs a important sum of clip to complete. In order to hold a flawless design, tonss of conditions need to be considered and all jobs should be solved in a sensible manner. Choosing constituents may take few yearss or months depending on how much information or information is collected. Decisions may still be changed at the last minute due to some unpredictable state of affairss or inevitable factors. Any alteration in the concluding design on a constituent sometimes will do a series of alterations to others. It is obvious that constructing a fully-functional CFTP does take much attempt and interior decorators have to truly understand how circuits relate each other in order to revise or debug it. Unfortunately, graduate pupils at Naval Postgraduate School merely stay a short sum of clip. A large design like CFTP is chopped into several sections and assigned to different pupils. In this clip restraints, pupils non merely necessitate t o recognize what old pupils have done but besides take up a design in advancement. Largely, pupils picking up the sections do non hold a opportunity to larn straight from pupils who have worked on this design earlier. Therefore, thesis becomes an of import interface of experience heritage between coevalss of pupils. CHAPTER-3 LITERATURE REVIEW 3.1 LITERATURE SURVEY: – 3.1.1. Lashomb’s Design Peter A. LaShomb expressed many constructs in both TMR design and FPGA choice. Traditional solutions for radiation effects were introduced including hardware redundancy, like Quadded Logic, and package betterment for mistake tolerance, like clip redundancy or package redundancy. In the TMR subdivision, RADHARD and COTS were compared in handiness, public presentation and cost. Potential benefits of those two were clearly described as good. The processor used in his TMR design was KCPSM, an 8-bit microcontroller. It was free downloaded from Xilinx’s web site and served as a readily available test-case processor while waiting handiness of other high public presentation processors. Constructing and testing of the TMR were done on Xilinx Foundation series package which was available at Naval Postgraduate School ( NPS ) . Voters and an mistake encoder were designed and explained in item. Other issues including interrupt modus operandi and memory/error accountant were left as follow- on research. In the FPGA subdivision, different FPGAs were compared in a figure of facets. Five major parametric quantities for taking a good FPGA were gate count, handiness of hardware and package, bundles ( flat-pack vs. ball-grid-array ) , re-programmability and radiation tolerance. The Xilinx XCV800 was chosen as the campaigner at that clip for future execution [ 25 ] . 3.1.2. Ebert’s Research A complete CFTP conceptual design presented was in Dean A. Ebert’s thesis. For hardware considerations, his thesis discussed why specific constituents were chosen and how french friess communicated in an incorporate circuit. More item and realistic constructs about FPGA and CFTP constellations were described than earlier and french friess were selected based on a figure of space-environment considerations. Discussion of system memory was of import and first described in this thesis. Memory constellation accountant, functional logic and glue logic were besides new thoughts ne'er talked about in old work. The TMR circuitry was non one of the chief subjects in his research, but from his work one can visualise the external connexions of the FPGA and understand the function of TMR in the CFTP procedure. Figure 4 illustrates the layout of the board he developed The CFTP will be launched into LEO orbit on two orbiters, NPSAT-1 and Mid- STAR-1, in 2006. How the Department of Defense a nd Navy Space Experiment Review Board ( SERB ) and the Space Test Program ( STP ) Office were involved with these two orbiters was described in his thesis. Other paperss related to plan descriptions and demands of the STP office were attached every bit appendixes as good [ 26 ] . 3.1.3. Johnson’s Implementation Steven A. Johnson [ 5 ] focused his work on TMR design. The indispensable constituents to do a circuit be fault-tolerant were identified. Circuits designed in Lashomb’s thesis could non be used due to different design architecture and the important ascent of computer-aided-design package employed. Basic constructs for building a TMR circuit were still the same, but implemented in a different manner. All processor end product signals have to be voted. Interrupt was compiled in a province diagram and used to trip the interrupt service modus operandi to rectify an mistake inside the processor.ESSDwas used to salvage the mistake syndrome in order to offer a log file for analysis. The off-chip memory for the CFTP is Von Neumann architecture. The Von Neumann architecture has merely one reference coach and one information coach. Due to this difference, aConciliatorwas designed to organize different timing restraints in order to do a proper read and compose on memory. Normally, TMR communicates withConciliatorin order to entree memory. Meanwhile, the syndrome informations is latched intoESSDirrespective of an mistake happening or non. When an mistake occurs, a signal will be sent to disrupt and starts the Interrupt Service Routine ( ISR ) . At this minute, KDLX is stalled andESSDsaves the mistake syndrome to memory throughConciliator. Then interrupTgenerates a TRAP direction to KDLX and leads the whole circuit into an mistake rectification status. When KDLX sees the TRAP direction, it jumps to a specific memory location and the plan counter value before the leap is saved in an interrupt reference registry ( IAR ) , a particular registry inside KDLX. In the mistake rectification status, the contents of all registries inside KDLX are saved to memory through electors. Then, each registry is reloaded from memory. The intent for making this measure is to rectify any incompatibilities of the registries in all three KDLX processors. Since all contents ha ve to go through electors while salvaging, any mistake inside any registry will be corrected [ 26 ] . 3.1.4. N-Modular Keun Soo Yim, et.al. [ 8 ] nowadayss fault-tolerant, programmable elector architecture for software-implementedNitrogen-tuple modular redundant ( NMR ) computing machine systems. Software NMR is a cost-effective solution for high-performance, mission-critical computing machine systems because this can be built on top of commercial off-the-shelf ( COTS ) devices. Due to the big volume and entropy of voting informations, package NMR system requires a programmable elector. Our experiment shows that voting package that executes on a processor has the time-of-check-to-time-of-use ( TOCTTOU ) exposures and is unable to digest long continuance mistakes. In order to turn to these two jobs, we present a special-purpose elector processor and its embedded package architecture. The processor has a set of new instructions and hardware faculties that are used by the package in order to speed up the vote package executing and turn to the identified two dependability jobs. We have implemented the pr esented system on an FPGA platform. Our rating consequence shows that utilizing the presented system reduces the executing clip of mistake sensing codifications ( normally used in voting package ) by 14 % and their codification size by 56 % . Our mistake injection experiments validate that the presented system removes the TOCTTOU exposures and recovers under both transient and long continuance mistakes. This is achieved by utilizing 0.7 % excess hardware in a baseline processor [ 27 ] .

Airline Demand Forecast

STIMATION OF AIR TRAVEL DEMAND IN TURKEY ENAR TUNC, Orhan sIvrIkaya* Okan UNIVERSITY Title: ESTIMATION OF AIR TRAVEL DEMAND IN TURKEY Orhan Sivrikaya*(Candidate Phd. ), OKAN UNIVERSITY Tel: 0-532-4265392 Fax: [0-212-4652299] Email: [email  protected] com Enar Tunc, Professor of Industrial Engineering, OKAN UNIVERSITY Keywords * Domestic Air Transportation, City Pair, Origin and Destination, Demand, Forecast, Gravity Model, Multivariate Regression and Detour Factor. Total Page: 11 AbstractAccuracy in estimating airline market demand is a key element while an airline is planning its short term or long term business plan regardless of its status quo being an incumbent or startup company. Turkish domestic market of air travel industry has been dramatically grown in recent years especially after the deregulation commencing on the renewal of air transportation policy in 2003. However there is not any relevant scientific research in the literature to analyze the determining factors on air travel demand of domestic city pairs in Turkey.A multivariate regression model is generated in order to fit the air travel demand in number of passengers carried. The model is based on aggregate individual market which consists of on-line city pairs. The model is found significantly representative within the experimental data out of the years 2008 and 2009 including the origin and destination pairs for 40 on-line cities. Then, the model is tested by using 2010 figures in order to compare prediction values with actual figures. Accuracy level is found to be encouraging for potential new airports or potential new routes to be evaluated by using the model estimates. . Introduction The deregulation of air transportation market in Turkey in 2003 has started revolutionary changes in the airline industry. New government having the target to increase the portion of air travel out of all modes of local transportation attempted to encourage more airline companies to enter the market and enabl e them to offer more attractive prices by tax cutting specific to the airline sector. Price oriented competition has worked very well to generate significant airline passenger traffic.Low Cost Carriers have contributed to exercise a sustainable two digit growth by stealing passenger traffic from bus transportation as a result of shortening the gap between relative prices. Turkish Airlines as a legacy carrier has responded to structural changes in the market by applying dynamic pricing policy and growth strategy to benefit from economies of scale resulting in increase in productivity. Big changes in airline passenger traffic in Turkey create a challenge to testify any claiming model built to estimate air travel demand. Macroeconomic or demographic changes do not seem to be responsible for whole boost in air travel demand.Competition doubled or tripled available seat capacity on some routes so that it was required a different strategy to generate additional demand to achieve in satisf actory load factor which is a key performance indicator for airline profitability. Airline traffic is most of the time considered as a significant indicator for the performance of the nation’s entire industry since it is highly correlated with the number of business events and interactions with other industries simultaneously. So, it implies that changes in economies may influence airlines traffic indirectly.However, airline specific parameters like ticket price and degrees of competition are also supposed to be main driver for passenger demand besides the macroeconomic factors. The sustainable success of any organization or company is closely related with how well management or decision makers are able to foresee the future and develop appropriate strategies. The objective of this study is to examine the demand size for air transport in Turkey and show its implications for air transport planning. 2. BACKGROUND It has been seen throughout the results of the previous research in the iterature that one of the most important issue to develop a predictive model is to choose the right combination of the variables which represent the determining factors involved in the model. These variables are categorized by two subgroups (Carson et al. 2010): 1. Geo-economics Factors: which consist of geographical characteristics, economical activities, social factor etc. 2. Service Related Factors: which are related to airline dependent factors. The other prominent aspect of model generation is the level of forecast which can be classified by two groups as well; 1.Microscopic Model: Airport specific or city pair specific data is involved such that it refers the total number of incoming and outgoing passengers per particular airport or per city pair. 2. Macroscopic Model: Region or country specific data is involved such that it refers to aggregated number of passengers in a region or country regardless of origin or destination city. Aggregate Individual Market (AIM) foreca st outperforms the aggregate approach since the forecasting power gained by exploiting heterogeneous information across markets dominates the forecasting power lost due to estimation of many coefficients (Carson et al. 2010).Local area information appears to be more relevant in determining local O&D travel than of national information such as gross domestic product (Bhadra 2003). ————————————————- 3. OVERVIEW OF THE determ? nants for air passenger demand ? n turkey Turkey is spread over a wide geographical area and road ways are not adequately constructed for all direction. Hence, air transportation is supposed to have more shares out of total statistics in domestic transportation covering all possible city pairs. While the gap between relative prices is being shortened, more and more people find it affordable to fly.This study is aiming to find out the determining fac tors which are concerned to turn potential demand into air travel passengers. The proposed model is not only to explain actual traffic results but also to estimate potential traffic between cross cities which are not connected directly or to evaluate off-line cities to build new airport. Population, gross domestic product per capita and employment rate are considered as the leading macroeconomic dynamics behind air travel demand as depicted in the Table 1. Average fare has a stimulating effect on airline demand as Brons et al. 2002) pointed out that ticket price is an elastic driver for airline demand generation. There are also specific indicators for a particular city pair traffic representing interactivity between the concerning cities such as distance and number of migrants from each other. The number of bus registered in a city is indicating the volume of bus transportation which is considered to be negatively related with air travel demand. Since number of carriers as a degree of competition contributes to market expansion, it is also embedded in the model expecting a positive relation with air travel demand.Table 1 Commonality in Types of Variables Variable’s Name| Percentage of Occurrence*| GDP| 50. 0 %| GDP per Capita| 35. 7 %| Unemployment Rate| 14. 3 %| Fuel Price| 7. 1 %| Number of Employees| 7. 1 %| Population| 42. 8 %| Average Fare| 57. 1 %| CPI| 14. 3 %| Trade per Capita| 14. 3 %| Exchange Rate| 14. 3 %| Service Frequency| 28. 6 %| Distance| 42. 8 %| Expenditures| 7. 1 %| * The percentages are calculated out of a sample of 14 different relevant articles. Most of the itineraries between city pairs are not directly connected that means air passengers travel with connecting flights via one or more transfer points.If there is no direct service the dummy variable transit gets 1 and 0 otherwise. Naturally, passengers would not prefer to fly with connecting flights so it is anticipated to be negatively affecting air travel demand. 4. ECONOMETRIC ESTIMATION data, Methodology and results Data availability is main issue when data coverage is decided. Experimental model is based on the data of the two years 2008 and 2009 since all explanatory variables are available within the specified period. There are 40 on-line destinations in domestic network in Turkey.This number of destinations can theoretically generate 1560 different origin and destinations (O&D’s) on which direct or connecting flights are possible. However experimental sample does not cover data for all possible on-line O&D’s because some city pairs which are at close distance are not meaningful to fly with connecting flights or the concerning flights are not connected each other. There are 231 city pairs which are served with direct flights, whereas the remaining city pairs are found to be flown by connecting flights via an appropriate domestic hub.Under the assumption of approximately the same number of O&D’s for each year, data size will be duplicated for the two year’s period. Airport statistics for all scheduled carriers are used in the experimental model as a source of the dependent variable. Transfer traffic is removed from the statistics for each city pair, since the proposed model is to estimate pure O&D passenger by using data specific to the corresponding city pairs. Average prices for each city pair are estimated by using airlines’ web site. Road distance between the cities is taken from the web site of the General Directorate Highways of Turkey.Population of the cities, GDP per capita of the cities, the number of migrants between the cities, the number of bus registered in the city’s account and labour rate of the cities are obtained from the Bureau of Statistics in Turkey. Weighted average of the corresponding city’s population is used, while GDP per capita and the labour rate are being converted to O&D level. A variety of different models exist for passenger volu me estimation. Since no single model guarantees accuracy, airlines in fact compare forecasts from several different models.Within this set of forecasting methods, the most demand models used are of the simple gravity type formulation. (S. C. Wirasinghe et al. 1998). The gravity model for the estimation of domestic passenger volume between city-pairs is examined in this study. By excluding unavailable service-related or market specific input variables, and using cross-sectional calibration data, the model is particularly applicable to city-pairs where no air service exists, historical data is unavailable, or factors describing the current service level of air transportation are not available.Average price for city-pairs with no air service is estimated by fall back mechanism that it uses the average price which is normalized by distance of the cities having similar market structure. All other explanatory variables are not service related factors and available for the city-pairs with no air service. The gravity model takes the form: D=?. AaBbCc†¦ This model assumes that the marginal effects of each variable on demand are not constant but depend on both the value of the variable and the values of all other variables in the demand function (Aderamo 2010).In other words, the explanatory variables affect demand in multiplicative manner. Partial derivation of any independent variable proves aforementioned relationship. However, this model can be made suitable for multiple regressions by applying logarithmic transformation. Logarithmic form of the gravity model takes the form: LogD=? 0 + ? 1LogA + ? 2LogB + ? 3LogC +†¦ where ? 0=Log? It is obvious that interdependency is resolved in this form so that multiple regression model can be applied. The proposed multiple regression model is generated by using SAS Jmp 9 tool.Table 2 shows the matrix of correlation between the independent variables. The results show that some of the variables are interrelated. For exa mple, Log_Migrant has a correlation coefficient of 0. 8661 and 0. 8150 with Log_Pop* and Log_Bus* respectively. Where both Log_Migrant* and Log_Pop* are calculated by taking the product of population of origin and destination cities. However, omitting any of these two variables would substantially reduce the model fit. As the goal is to obtain a reliable estimation of the passenger volume, all interrelated variables were included (Grosche et al. 007). Furthermore, it has been said that if the sole purpose of regression analysis is prediction or forecasting, then multicollinearity is not a serious problem because the higher R2, the better prediction(R. C. Geary, 1963). In order to verify stepwise regression fit of the model, stepwise process by backward direction and minimum AICc selection is used. When all independent variables as depicted in Table 2 are entered, the smallest AICc value 2665. 913 is found. Adjusted R2 as shown in the Table 3 is 0. 823991 which is fairly good.In the Table 4, adjusted R2’s are compared including the relevant articles in the reference list. This comparison table shows that the studied model efficiency is relatively successful. As shown in the table 5, the F test also shows that the regression is significant since F statistic of 497. 2411 is obviously higher than the critical value of 2. 32 at 0. 01 level of significance. In the table 6, parameter estimates are depicted. As seen in the table, all independent variables are significant at 0. 01 level of two tail significance considering their t-statistics.Since the coefficients of the regression model represent elasticities of the corresponding variables, how change of any variable affects demand estimation can be determined. The price elasticity of passenger demand is approximately -1. 1 which implies that airline passenger demand in Turkey is elastic. This finding is compliant with the fact that after low cost carriers entered into the market by lowering ticket prices, mark et size has been tramendously enlarged. Domestic passenger traffic grows higher than the decreasing rate of ticket price.Both GDP per capita and ticket price seem to have elastic impact on passenger demand estimation. Air transportation and bus transportation seem to be competing each other because of their negative relation. When air service is provided by connecting flight which means transit traffic, air transport demand is decreasing. This result is not surprising because people do prefer to fly directly. Another result is that the number of airlines participating in each O&D market tends to have a positive impact on the number of passengers traveled between O&D pairs, perhaps representing the ffects of choice more than anything else. Lastly, distance and the number of migrants are found positively related with air transport demand as expected. Table 4 Model Efficiency Benchmark| Research Name| Level of Forecast| Author| Year| Independent Variables| Observation| Adjusted R Square| Demand For Air Transport In Nigeria| Aggregate| Adekunle J. Aderamo| 2010| Index of AgricultureIndex of ElectricityGDP| 23| 0. 923| Air Travel Domestic Demand Model in Bangladesh| Aggregate| Md. Jobair Bin Alam Dewan Masud KArim| 1998| PopulationGDPDistance| 31| 0. 8| An Econometric Analysis of Air Travel Demand in Saudi Arabia| Aggregate| Seraj Y. Abed Abdullah O. Ba-FailSajjad M. Jasimuddin| 2001| PopulationTotal Expenditures| 25| 0. 959| Regression Model for Passenger Demand: A case study of Cairo Airport| Aggregate| Dr. Khaled A. Abbas| 2003| Population GDPForeign Tourist| 88| 0. 82| Demand for Airravel In USA| O&D| Dipasis Bhadra| 2003| Density, Interaction, Distance, Marketshare, Fare| 2424| 0. 57| An Aggregate Demand Model in Hub-and-Spoke| Aggregate| Wenbin WeiMark Hansen| 2006| Frequency, Number of Spokes, Fare, Distance, Capacity, Traffic Type| 897| 0. 92| Gravity Model for Airline Passenger Volume Estimation| City-pairs| Tobias GroscheFranz RothlaufArmin He inzl| 2007| DistancePopulationCatchment Area| 956| 0. 761| The number of migrants indicates the relationship between city-pairs hence it positively affects on point to point air traffic demand. When distance is greater, air transport demand increases due to the fact that people get higher utility comparing to the alternative modes of transportation. In the figure 1, model fit of the experimental data is shown in scatter diagram. There are total 955 observations within experimental data.A test data is obtained from 2010 actual results which consists of 562 observations. The model predicts 2010 figures with a Mape (Mean Absolute Percentage Error) value 14. 1 %. Actual data of 2010 is refined by excluding the O&D’s having less than 104 yearly passengers flow and detour factors smaller than 3. Logic of this filtering is to choose meaningful connections out of the all itineraries. Although the model is performing significantly well with a relatively high Rsquare value, small d iscrepancy in prediction value may result in larger inaccuracy in passenger demand estimate because of logarithmic aspect of the regression. . CONCLUSION This study demonstrated that the proposed econometric estimation and using micro data based on local area information can result in substantial insights to O&D travel. The demand model reveals all the quantitative relationships among the used variables, which is helpful for airlines to understand the consequence of change of their decision variables or adjustment of their routing structures, and also useful for the related authority to quantify the benefits of airport capacity expansion and to take into account while airport building plan is being evaluated.It would be advantageous to extend the time period covered by the analysis. This would enable to examine possible differences in elasticity amongst city-pairs. Extending the data back in time would also provide observations of airfares progress. The model efficiency may be i mproved for even more reliable estimation, if more independent variables indicating bilateral relations between city-pairs are embedded in the model such as the number of call between city-pairs or credit card statistics of domestic visitors. References S. C. Wirasinghe and A. S. Kumarage, An Aggregate Demand Model for Intercity Passenger Travel in Sri Lanka.Transportation 25: 77-98, 1998. R. C. Geary, Some Results about Relations between Stochastic Variables: A Discussion Document, Review of International Statistical Institute, Vol. 31, pp. 163-181, 1963. Richard T. Carson, Tolga Cenesizoglu and Roger Parker. Aggregate Demand for USA Commercial Air Travel. Department of Economics, University of California. 2010. Elton Fernandes and Ricardo Rodrigues Pacheco. Air Transportation Analysis: Passenger Demand in Brazil. Aerlines Magazine e-zine edition, issue 33. Adakunle J. Aderamo. Demand for Air Transport in Nigeria. Journal of Economics, 1 (1): 23-31 (2010).Md. Jobair Bin Alem and De wan Masud Karim. Air Travel Demand Model For Domestic Air Transportation in Bangladesh. Journal of Civil Engineering The Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh Vol. CE 26, No. 1, 1998. Seraj Y. Abed, Abdullah O. Ba-Fail and Sajjad M. Jasimuddin. An Econometric Analysis of International Air Travel Demand in Saudi Arabia. Journal of Air Transport Management 7 (2001) 143-148. Abdullah O. Ba-Fail and Seraj Y. Abed. The Determinants of Domestic Air Travel Demand in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Journal of Air Transportation World Wide Vol. 5, No. 2 – 2000. Abdullah Omer Ba-Fail.Applying Data Mining Techniques To Forecast Number of Airline Passengers In Saudi Arabia (Domestic and International Travels). Aviation Institute, University of Nabraska at Omaha, 2004. Senanu Ashiabor, Hojong Baik and Antonio Trani. Logit Models For Forecasting Nationwide Intercity Travel Demand in the USA. Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2007, Washington, D. C. , pp. 1-12 2007. J. Scott Arm strong and Michael C. Grohman. A Comparative Study of Methods for Long-Range Market Forecasting. Management Science, 19 (2), pp. 211-221 1972. Khaled A. Abbas. Conceptual and Regression Models for Passenger Demand Prediction.Aerlines Magazine e-zine edition, issue 26 2003. Dipasis Bhadra. Demand for Air Travel in the United States: Bottom-up Econometric Estimation and Implications for Forecasts by Origin and Destination Pairs. Journal of Air Transportation Vol. 8, No. 2 – 2003. Radosav B. Jovanovic. Generalised Intrinsic Characteristics as a Forecasting Tool: A dynamic perpective. Second International Conference on Research in Air Transportation – Belgrade, June 24–28 2006. Martijn Brons, Eric Pels, Peter Nijkamp and Piet Rietveld. Price Elasticities of Demand for Passenger Air Travel. Journal of Air Transport Management 8 pp. 65-175 2002. Dail Umamil Asri and Yoriyasu Sugie. Simultaneous Demand Model for Passenger Travel. Proceedings of the Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies, Vol. 4, October, 2003. Joyce Dargay and Mark Hanly. The Determinants of the Demand for International Air Travel to and from UK. ESRC Transport Studies Unit, Centre for Transport Studies, University College London, November 2001. Catherine Zhukovskaya. Use of the Generalized Linear Model in Forecasting the Air Passengers’ Conveyances from EU Countries. Computer Modelling and Technologies, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 62–72, 2007. Wenbin Wei and Mark Hansen.An Aggregate Demand Model for Air Passenger Traffic in the Hub and Spoke Network. Transportation Research Part A 40 pp. 841–851, 2006. Matthew G. Karlaftis. Demand Forecasting in Regional Airports. Straer 7 pp. 100-111, Tr. 312, 2008. Tobias Grosche, Franz Rothlauf and Armin Heinzl. Gravity Models for Airline Passenger Volume Estimation. Journal of Air Transport Management 13 pp. 175-183, 2007. Chaug-Ing Hsu and Su-Miao Liu. Predicting City-Pair Air Passenger Traffic Using Grey Topological F orecasting Model. Journal of the Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies, Vol. 5, October, 2003.