Technical efficiency comparison of container ports in Asian and Middle East region using DEA

Mustafa Faluk Shair,Khan Rafi Ullah,Mustafa Tariq 한국해운물류학회 2021 The Asian journal of shipping and Logistics Vol.37 No.1

With the instigation of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the strategic significance of South Asian and Middle Eastern ports have been vitalized. The aim of this study is to compare the technical efficiency of less explored South Asian & Middle Eastern ports with the East Asian ports and determine ways for their efficiency enhancement and management optimization. The cross sectional data for the year 2018 was collected for 15 container ports each of South & Middle Eastern and East Asian region and arranged into input and output variables. The data was analyzed through the DEA-CCR and DEA-BCC model. Results indicate that only one port each from UAE and India among the Middle & South Asian ports were found efficient on CCR model with the number of efficient ports on BCC model increased by 47%. While, in East Asian region two ports of China and one of South Korea were found efficient on CCR model, with 33% increase on BCC model. Lianyungang port was the most prominent among the efficient ports being highly benchmarked. The average efficiency for East Asian region (CCR: 0.524, BCC: 0.901) remained similar to that of South Asian and Middle East Region (CCR: 0.517, BCC: 0.906).

Reassessment of Volatility Transmission Among South Asian Equity Markets

Tariq AZIZ,Jahanzeb MARWAT,Sheraz MUSTAFA,Vikesh KUMAR,Lara AL-HADDAD 한국유통과학회 2021 The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Busine Vol.8 No.1

This study investigates the nexus among the South Asian economies. Effects of shocks in the equity market of one country on the equity market of the other country are examined. For empirical analysis, the time series monthly data is used for the period from February 2013 to August 2019. The study focuses on the four larger economies of the region, namely, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. To investigate for asymmetric effects of positive and negative shocks, EGARCH model is used. The findings show the mix nature of the spillovers between the various pairs of countries. The equity market of Pakistan has two-way spillover effects with the equity market of Bangladesh, but has no association with the equity markets of India and Sri Lanka. The volatility in the equity market of India significantly influences the volatility of the financial markets of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Similarly, the capital market of Sri Lanka has a negative association with the equity market of India as well as Bangladesh, but does not affect the equity market of any other country. These findings validate the argument in the literature that geographic location influences the nexus among equity markets. The findings are important for policy-makers and investors

Impact of Economic Policy Uncertainty and Macroeconomic Factors on Stock Market Volatility: Evidence from Islamic Indices

AZIZ, Tariq,MARWAT, Jahanzeb,MUSTAFA, Sheraz,KUMAR, Vikesh Korea Distribution Science Association 2020 The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Busine Vol.7 No.12

The primary purpose of the study is to investigate the volatility spillovers from global economic policy uncertainty and macroeconomic factors to the Islamic stock market returns. The study focuses on the Islamic stock indices of emerging economies including Indonesia, Malaysia, and Turkey. The Macroeconomic factors are industrial production, consumer price index, exchange rate. EGARCH model is employed for investigation of volatility spillovers. The results show that the global economic policy uncertainty has a significant spillover effect only on the returns of Turkish Islamic stock index. Similarly, the shocks in macroeconomic factors have little influence on the volatility of Islamic indices returns. The volatility of Indonesian and the Turkish Islamic stock indices returns is not influenced from the fluctuations in macroeconomic factors. However, there is significant volatility spillover only from industrial production to the returns of Malaysian Islamic index. The results suggest that the Islamic stock markets are less likely to influence from the global economic policies and macroeconomic factors. The stability of Islamic stocks provide opportunity for diversification of portfolios, particularly in stressed market conditions. The major price factors of Islamic markets could be firms' specific factors or investors' behaviors. The findings are helpful for policy makers and investors in formulating policies and portfolios.

Linkage between US Financial Uncertainty and Stock Markets of SAARC Countries

AZIZ, Tariq,MARWAT, Jahanzeb,MUSTAFA, Sheraz,ZEESHAN, Asma,IQBAL, Yasir Korea Distribution Science Association 2021 The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Busine Vol.8 No.2

The primary purpose of the study is to investigate the volatility spillover from financial uncertainty (FU) of the United States (US) to the stock markets of SAARC member countries including India, Sri-Lanka, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The empirical literature overlooked SAARC countries and the FU index. Based on the estimation method, the data of FU is available for three different forecast horizons including 1-month, 3-months, and 12-months. For empirical analysis, monthly data is used from February 2013 to September 2019. EGARCH model is employed to investigate the volatility spillover effects. The findings of the study show that the spillover effect of FU varies with the forecast horizon. The FU with a higher forecast horizon has a significant spillover effect on more countries. The spillover effect of US financial uncertainty is negative in most of the SAARC countries. Bangladesh stock market is influenced by FU with all three forecast horizons whereas the volatility of the Pakistan stock market is not influenced by FU with any forecast horizon. The findings are consistent with the concept of "limited trade openness" in the financial markets of emerging economies. The emerging economies avoid financial market openness to minimize the risk of spillover of other countries.

Genome-Wide Supported Risk Variants in MIR137, CACNA1C, CSMD1, DRD2, and GRM3 Contribute to Schizophrenia Susceptibility in Pakistani Population

Ambrin Fatima,Muhammad Farooq,Uzma Abdullah,Muhammad Tariq,Tanveer Mustafa,Muhammad Iqbal,Niels Tommerup,Shahid Mahmood Baig 대한신경정신의학회 2017 PSYCHIATRY INVESTIGATION Vol.14 No.5

Objective: Schizophrenia is a chronic neuropsychiatric disease afflicting around 1.1% of the population worldwide. Recently, MIR137, CACNA1C, CSMD1, DRD2, and GRM3 have been reported as the most robustly emerging candidates involved in the etiology of schizophrenia. In this case control study, we performed an association analysis of rs1625579 (MIR137), rs1006737, rs4765905 (CACNA1C), rs10503253 (CSMD1), rs1076560 (DRD2), rs12704290, rs6465084, and rs148754219 (GRM3) in Pakistani population. Methods: Schizophrenia was diagnosed on the basis of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 4th ed (DSM-IV). Detailed clinical information, family history of all patients and healthy controls were collected. RFLP based case control association study was performed in a Pakistani cohort of 508 schizophrenia patients and 300 healthy control subjects. Alleles and genotype frequencies were calculated using SPSS. Results: A significant difference in the genotype and allele frequencies for rs4765905, rs1076560 and rs6465084 were found between the patients and controls (p=0.000). Conclusion: This study provides substantial evidence supporting the role of CACNA1C, GRM3 and DRD2 as schizophrenia susceptibility genes in Pakistani population.

Application of Variable Neighborhood Search Algorithm for Time Dependent School Service Routing Problem

Saurabh Singhal,Biju Theruvil Sayed,Feruza Kodirova,Heba Jassim Mohammed,Qasim Khlaif Kadhim,Zahraa Tariq Sahi,Untung Rahardja,R. Sivaraman,Yasser Fakri Mustafa 대한산업공학회 2022 Industrial Engineeering & Management Systems Vol.21 No.3

Today, due to the size of metropolitan areas and population growth, the issue of school services, as well as routing for each service, has become of particular importance This study seeks to provide a model for routing school services considering time dependence. In the suggested model for the current research, it is attempted to provide a model that can plan the problem of routing school services considering traffic constraints. Therefore, the route problem of time-dependent school service vehicles was considered in such a way that there is a school and potentially a number of stations were considered. In this study, to model the travel time, the linear fragment function with linear slope values greater than -1 was considered, which resulted in guaranteeing the non-transient property or the property of the first input of the first output in the modeling. After the research model was presented, the next step was to present the problem-solving algorithm. In this step, VNS algorithm was used to solve numerical problems in different dimensions. Then numerical problems were defined in small and large dimensions and problems in different dimensions were solved and the results indicate the ability of the model and algorithm to solve different problems.