Author : Hazem Al Samman, Chadi Azmeh

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the influence of financial liberalization on economic growth in developing countries indirectly through their effect on financial development. It selects the size and activity of the financial system as indicators of financial development.The General agreement on Trade and Services (GATS) is a very useful option for developing countries to consolidate their financial sector reform to give foreign investors more certainty about financial investment opportunities in the economies of developing countries.

This study chooses the level of commitments taking by developing countries in the GATS in banking sector as a measure of financial liberalization. The main objective is to examine the effect of developing countries financial liberalization commitments at the GATS on economic growth through their effect on the size and activity of the financial sector. According to the analysis conducted, the results show no real effect of the level of commitments taking by developing countries in the GATS on Economic Growth through their effect on the size and activity of financial development. Even though the effect of financial development on economic growth is positive, the effect of financial liberalization through the GATS on financial development is almost zero.

Keywords : : Financial Liberalization, Economic Growth, Developing Countries, GATS, Financial Development.

JEL Classifications : F65, O16

Link to read full paper : http://www.econjournals.com/index.php/ijefi/article/view/2089

Author : Moutasem Shafa’amry

ABSTRACT

Multicast communications seem particularly well adapted for large scale commercial distribution applications, for example interactive distance-learning, the pay TV channels, board-meetings, group discussions, publish-subscribe systems, and secure videoconferencing. The security for this type of applications is essential for data transmission through an insecure network. A more difficult and challenging issue arises due to the multicast group membership being dynamic. Users can leave and join the groups, thus making the issue of group management more difficult in large-scale systems. Therefore, one of the most important issues in multicast security is the group key management. Key management mainly has to do with the distribution and update of keying material during the group life. Several approaches have been proposed by various authors to create and distribute the multicast group key in effective manner. There are different key management algorithms that facilitate efficient distribution and rekeying of the group key. These protocols normally add communication overhead as well as computation overhead at the both sides, the group key controller and the group members. Those schemes can be generally classified into three basic types, the centralized scheme, decentralized scheme and the distributed scheme. In this paper, we investigate the-state-of-art multicast group key management algorithms and protocols. We also provide the comparative analysis of the various algorithms, evaluating their features based on criteria containing the following elements: The algorithm properties, the type of costs, the secrecy, and the amount of storage. Additionally, the study explores the pros and cons of each scheme, providing conclusions and a guideline for a future development and work in securing multicast group communication. Keywords: Multicast security, key management, secure communication, secrecy, security, secure group communication.

Link to read full paper : https://www.researchgate.net/publication/221875487_Security_and_Risk_in_the_Current_Multicast_Group_Key_Distribution_Protocols

Author : Chadi Azmeh , Hazem Al Samman  Sulaiman Mouselli

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the impact of financial liberalization on economic growth through its effect on the size and activity of the financial sector in a set of developing countries. We use the relative number and share of Foreign banks as proxies for financial liberalization and liquid liabilities and claims on private sector as share of GDP as proxies for the financial development. We find a negative real effect of the level of Foreign banks entry on the size and activity of financial development. However, the effect of financial development on economic growth is positive. This result contradicts the first component of Levine’s theory that Foreign bank’s entry has positive effect on financial development but confirms the second component that financial development has positive effect on economic growth. Our result is also consistent with Ghosh who finds that a greater banking sector openness reduces economic growth in developing countries.

International Business Management

Year: 2017 | Volume: 11 | Issue: 6 | Page No.: 1289-1297

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3923/ibm.2017.1289.1297

Link to read full paper : http://medwelljournals.com/abstract/?doi=ibm.2017.1289.1297

Author : Chadi Azmeh 

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the impact of foreign banks entry on financial development in the MENA countries. We use the relative number of foreign banks as proxy for foreign banks entry, and liquid liabilities and claims on private sector as share of GDP as proxies for the financial development. We find a positive long-term and significant effect of foreign banks entry on the size and activity of financial development. We also find that the effect of foreign banks entry depends on the time period and the level of economic development. This result seems to suggest that MENA countries should not be taken as one group when studying the impact of financial sector reform on financial development. The impact of foreign bank entry is positive for the 10 richest MENA countries, while it is negative (but not statistically significant) or negligible for the group of less developed MENA countries. The last result indicates that there is a cherry picking phenomenon in less developed MENA countries. The negative effect of foreign banks cherry picking is diminished over time, since the period 2005-2014 show more positive impact of foreign bank entry on financial development, than the period 1995-2004. This result gives evidence that foreign banks need time to overcome informational disadvantage caused by geographical and cultural distance, to expand their lending into soft information borrowers, and to realize the expected positive effect of its entry on financial development in poorest MENA countries.

Keywords: foreign bank entry, financial development, cherry picking, MENA

JEL classifications: F65, O16

 Article: 1452343 | Received 23 Nov 2017, Accepted 11 Mar 2018, Accepted author version posted online: 15 Mar 2018, Published online: 26 Mar 2018

Link to read full paper : https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/23322039.2018.1452343

Author : Sharif Ashkar, Maziar Mir and Mohamed Youssef

ABSTRACT

It has been emphasized that one of the most valuable treatment objectives in dental practice is to afford the patient a pain-free treatment. By the evolution of the laser applications, the dental committee aimed to achieve this goal without analgesic drugs and painful methods. Orthodontic treatment is one of these concerns, that one of the major components of patient to reject this treatment is the pain accompanied during the different treatment phases. Another great concern of the patient is not to get through prolonged periods of treatment. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of the low-level (GaAlAs) diode laser (809 nm, 100 mW) on the canine retraction during an orthodontic movement and to assess pain level during this treatment. A group of 15 adult patients with age ranging from 14 to 23 years attended the orthodontic department at Dental School, Damascus University. The treatment plan for these patients included extraction of the upper and lower first premolars because there was not enough space for a complete alignment or presence of biprotrusion. For each patient, this diagnosis was based on a standard orthodontic documentation with photographs, model casts, cephalometric, panorama, and superior premolar periapical radiographies. The orthodontic treatment was initiated 14 days after the premolar extraction with a standard 18 slot edgewise brackets [Rocky Mountain Company (RMO)]. The canine retraction was accomplished by using prefabricated Ricketts springs (RMO), in both upper and lower jaws. The right side of the upper and lower jaw was chosen to be irradiated with the laser, whereas the left side was considered the control without laser irradiation. The laser was applied with 0-, 3-, 7-, and 14-day intervals. The retraction spring was reactivated on day 21 for all sides. The amount of canine retraction was measured at this stage with a digital electronic caliper (Myoto, Japan) and compared each side of the relative jaw (i.e., upper left canine with upper right canine and lower left canine with lower right canine). The pain level was prompted by a patient questionnaire. The velocity of canine movement was significantly greater in the lased group than in the control group. The pain intensity was also at lower level in the lased group than in the control group throughout the retraction period. Our findings suggest that low-level laser therapy can highly accelerate tooth movement during orthodontic treatment and can also effectively reduce pain level.

Keywords: foreign bank entry, financial development, cherry picking, MENA

Article (PDF Available) in Lasers in Medical Science 

Link to read full paper : https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6446620_The_effect_of_low-level_laser_therapy_during_orthodontic_movement_A_preliminary_study

Author : Chadi Azmehf

ABSTRACT

In the framework of a work on the developing countries, this thesis analyzes the effects of liberalization of financial services on their economic development. The theory predicts positive effects of liberalization on the economies. This study takes part in it by exploring new forms of correlation between liberalization and economic development. The method used in our research is to treat liberalization of trade in services by three of its aspects. These are the theoretical aspect, the legal aspect and the empirical aspect.

Article · May 2009 

Link to read full paper : https://www.researchgate.net/publication/278634052_The_role_of_the_liberalization_of_trade_in_services_in_the_economic_development_the_case_of_financial_services

Author : Mahmoud Mahfuri, Muhammad Wannous

ABSTRACT

As a result of the war situation in Syria, several private universities had to completely close their campuses and move into safer places inside the capital city Damascus. This huge step made it possible to keep the educational process going on at these universities. However, in the new places even small tasks like commuting and distributing the course materials were still challenging. To address the second issue, we thought of utilizing “Cloud-Computing” technology to store these materials. Students possessing computers were able to download lectures and upload reports. However, this did not work as expected with the students wishing to use their mobile devices. For this reason, we decided to expand the system with “Mobile-Learning” technology to support a wider range of devices.

Conference Paper · December 2014

Link to read full paper : http://researchgate.net/publication/282785742_Facilitating_access_to_course_contents_during_war_situation_with_M-Learning_and_Cloud_Computing_technologies