SoB - Teaching Assistant for Intro to Business Statistics course - Winter 2024
The main goal of this project is to assist faculty members who are teaching Principles of Business Statistics at MacEwan University in creating examples, developing model answers to questions and supporting the study of other students. This includes connecting with faculty members to get guidance and then helping other students in understanding some topics.
SoB - Teaching Assistant for Intro to Business Statistics course- Fall 2023 (Phase 1)
The main goal of this project is to assist faculty members who are teaching Principles of Business Statistics at MacEwan University in creating examples, developing model answers to questions and supporting the study of other students. This includes connecting with faculty members to get guidance and then helping other students in understanding some topics.
SoB - Teaching Assistant for Intro to Business Statistics course- Fall 2023 (Phase 2)
The main goal of this project is to assist faculty members who are teaching Principles of Business Statistics at MacEwan University in creating examples, developing model answers to questions and supporting the study of other students. This includes connecting with faculty members to get guidance and then helping other students in understanding some topics.
Agricultural Productivity and Nutritional Security in Bangladesh
Bangladesh is a highly densely populated country with an average population density of over 1200 people per square kilometer. Agriculture remains the primary source of nutrition to the country’s population of 166 million, although the economic contribution of agriculture in terms of its share of GDP continues to decline. The agriculture sector has progressed over the past half a century since its independence in 1971, especially in increasing productivity in nearly all subsectors – crops, livestock, poultry, fish, and others. However, the increasingly shrinking availability of productive land, fragmented landholding, and the lack of ample capital assets pose serious challenges to coping with the expanded population and offering sufficient nutrition. In this paper, we would like to examine the trajectory of Bangladesh's agricultural and food production system over the past couple of decades and what role it has been playing in offering nutritional security to the people of Bangladesh. We will also explore the contribution international trade plays in providing nutritional security for the people. The specific objectives are: 1. Identify per capita production of different food crops and examine the trend. 2. Identify the variability among different food products and their trend 3. The per capita availability of major nutrition: protein, carbohydrate, fat, etc. 4. Trends of other health and nutrition variables [i.e., infant mortality, life expectancy, live birth weight, women anemic, etc.,] 5. Relate agricultural productivity with nutritional security. 6. Recommend policy options The raw secondary data for this project has already been downloaded from different sites, especially FAOSTAT, the World Bank Databank, and the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics. Some literature searches and downloading literature have also been done. This was the first phase of the project.
Electric Vehicles as a panacea to vehicular pollution in India: Status, Impediments and Future Trajectory
Over 80% of global energy consumption comes from fossil fuels, and the transportation sector is the biggest consumer. India is currently the world’s third-largest emitter of carbon dioxide behind the US and China (IEA 2019). Its transportation sector is by far the largest consumer of petroleum products. We want to look at the prospect of Electric Vehicles emerging as a tool to reduce fossil fuel consumption and carbon emission in a country like India.
SoB - Teaching Assistant for Intro to Business Statistics course- Summer 2023
The main goal of this project is to assist faculty members who are teaching Principles of Business Statistics at MacEwan University in creating examples, developing model answers to questions and supporting the study of other students. This includes connecting with faculty members to get guidance and then helping other students in understanding some topics.
SoB - Teaching Assistant for Intro to Business Statistics course- Sp 2023
The main goal of this project is to assist faculty members who are teaching Principles of Business Statistics at MacEwan University in creating examples, developing model answers to questions and supporting the study of other students. This includes connecting with faculty members to get guidance and then helping other students in understanding some topics.
SoB - Teaching Assistant for Intro to Business Statistics course- Win 2023 - 1
The main goal of this project is to assist faculty members who are teaching Principles of Business Statistics at MacEwan University in creating examples, developing model answers to questions and supporting the study of other students. This includes connecting with faculty members to get guidance and then helping other students in understanding some topics.
SoB - Teaching Assistant for Intro to Business Statistics course- Win 2023 -2
The main goal of this project is to assist faculty members who are teaching Principles of Business Statistics at MacEwan University in creating examples, developing model answers to questions and supporting the study of other students. This includes connecting with faculty members to get guidance and then helping other students in understanding some topics.
Success and Challenges of the Readymade Garments Industry in Bangladesh
Bangladesh has also been one of the success stories, transforming itself from one of the poorest counties in the world to a lower-middle-income country in 40 years. The garment industry in Bangladesh has been the driving force behind its success. It has contributed to higher per-capita income and helped improve social development, especially gender empowerment. Bangladesh is now the world's second-largest exporter of readymade garments behind China. However, there are still significant challenges faced by the garment industry in terms of unsafe working conditions, low wages, and child labor. In this context, this project intends to investigate the following questions: 1) What were the reasons behind the rapid growth of the readymade garment sector in Bangladesh, and how did it outperform its colonial cousins India and Pakistan. 2) How did it contribute to social development and gender equality? 2) What are its critical current challenges, and how best to overcome them?
Factors Affecting Retail Gas Prices in Canada
Brief description: This research project focuses on identifying the key factors that determine the retail gas price variations in Canada. In particular, this project will examine the following key issues, among others: (1) Are there specific differences in the trends in retail gasoline prices across various Canadian cities and provinces? Which provinces typically have higher retail gas prices and lower retail gas prices? Which cities and provinces have higher variation in retail prices across their various gas stations? (2) Are retail gas prices typically higher on certain days of the week, and is there a "weekend effect" in the sense that that the retail prices are higher during the weekends compared to the weekdays? (3) What are the provincial and federal carbon tax effects on retail gas prices in various Canadian regions? (4) How did the Covid 19 pandemic affect the gasoline prices across the Canadian cities and provinces? Was there any effect of CERB (When it was started as well as when it was stopped on October 23, 2021) (6) Are there any relationship between the retail gas prices in a city/town with its temperature and precipitation? (7) What are the effects of macroeconomic variables like GDP, unemployment rate, exchange rate, and Consumers Price Index (CPI) on the retail gas prices across Canada?
Level Up: An Analysis of patterns in Retail Gas prices in Alberta
Positions Available: 3 students Brief Description: The reason for wide variations in the prices of retail gasoline is one of the most widely debated issues in Canada. This focus of this research project is to study the patterns in retail gas price variations in Canada, with a special focus in Alberta. In particular, this project will examine the following key issues, among others: (1) What were the effects of the introduction and removal of the provincial carbon tax on retail gas prices in Alberta (2) Are there certain differences in the trends in retail gasoline price across various Canadian cities and provinces? (3) Are retail gas prices higher typically higher in certain days of the week, and is there a “weekend effect” in the sense that that the retail prices are higher during the weekends compared to the weekdays? Methods: This project involves extensive secondary data gathering, cleaning and analysis. We would like to have the student work as a part-timer during fall and winter semester as well since some work needs to be done at that time, especially data collection and preparation. Secondary data on daily retail and wholesale gasoline prices will be collected from different sources. Principal sources will be Natural Resource Canada, Statistics Canada, Kent Group Limited ( https://www.kentgroupltd.com/ ), GasBuddy ( https://www.gasbuddy.com/ ) and some other daily retail gasoline tracking websites. The principal daily gasoline data source people use is the Kent Group Limited, which posts daily price data on its website. However, this data set lacks information on weekends and statutory holidays, which makes the data set less usable than ideal. And it is for this reason, we plan to hire student Research Assistant to collect and record data from Gasbuddy daily including weekends so that we can calibrate the data and make it continuous. One important positive side is that the data can be obtained from these sources with no expenses. The only thing we still do not know is whether Gasbuddy keeps weekend data and we can access those. However, irrespective of that, data reported in these sources are often not in the same form. This requires substantial effort to convert different data to a common spreadsheet software [we plan to compile all in Excel]. These data will need to be transformed, corroborated, and synthesized to create a set of consistent workable data for analytical purposes. This is where the students we intend to hire as a research assistant is expected to be highly valuable. Data reported in these sources are not in the same form or format, neither all are in spreadsheets. This requires substantial effort to convert to a common spreadsheet software [we plan to compile all in MS-Excel]. In addition, they are not in the same units nor are in the same variables nor have the same characteristics. These data will need to be transformed, corroborated, and synthesized to create a set of consistent workable data for analytical purposes. The other major component is to review literature, prepare a bibliography, write a review on methods, procedures, and results. Plan of Division of Student Work Hours: · Data downloading from internet: 40 hours · Data manipulation, cleaning, transformation: 40 hours · Preparation of working data file in MS Excel: 40 hours · Data tabulation and graphing in MS Excel – 50 hours · Library search and bibliography – 30 hours · Literature review – 40 hours
LEVEL UP: - COVID-19 & Economic Performance in US and Canada
Positions Available: One Student The world has experienced an unprecedented heath crisis as the novel coronavirus disease, first reported in Wuhan China in December 2019, swept through the world. The pandemic has also inflicted a severe economic shock in the World Economy. Both Canada and US have been substantially affected by COVID-19, like other countries. Initially there was a swift fallout effect on the stock markets in both these countries. While the stock markets have since then recovered much of the lost ground, the negative impact on some other sectors of the economy has been more severe and long term. Canada and US are two countries that are highly integrated in pursuing regional security, international trade and investment, and global politics. In fact, these two countries share the largest trading relationship in the world. However, these two countries have taken somewhat independent approaches to deal with COVID-19. Further, to limit the spread of the virus, the two countries mutually decided to close the border for usual traffic flows. In this connection, we would like to examine the effect of COVID-19 on financial and economic situations in both countries and the similarities and differences in their responses to the pandemic. More specifically, we would like to investigate the following questions: · How did COVID-19 affect the Stock Market Closing rate in both countries [TSX, S&P 500, DOW, NASDAQ]? · How did COVID-19 affect exchange rate between two currencies? · How did COVID-19 affect interest rates, unemployment rates and inflation rates? · Did the two countries respond differently in some cases? If yes, which countries response seem to have been more successful. · What are the sectors that were most affected and least affected by the pandemic? Are these sectors the same in both the countries? · What was the effect on the Oil and Natural Gas sector, given its prime importance in these two countries? · What was the effect on the Trans-National Corporations in Canada and United States due to the closing of the border due to the pandemic? What was the effect on the Foreign Direct investment in the two countries? This project will be executed using secondary data and as such the two major works needed for the project at the initial stage are: collecting secondary data and gathering relevant literature. The secondary data will be collected from various sources and transform those in a spreadsheet [preferably MS Excel] to make those available for statistical analysis. Some of the sources of the secondary data will be Statistics Canada, Global Affairs Canada, Export Development Canada, The Canadian Trade Commission Service, USA Trade Online, The World Bank and the OECD. Literature on the effect of COVID-19 on various aspects are burgeoning and an extensive search from the library resources will be required for comprehensive literature review. These are the two major tasks the student is to perform. Possible time commitment required from the student are (hours): Data gathering – 20 hours Data processing and manipulation – 15 hours Literature Search – 15 hours Preparation of an annotated bibliography – 30 hours Computing simple statistics and developing graphs – 20 hours Qualifications of Student Research Assistant: preferably an advanced undergraduate student in Business, Economics or Statistics with sufficient understanding of (1) internet search and finding relevant resources, (2) data downloading from internet sites, (3) data conversion, manipulation, and processing using Excel, (4) developing graphs, pivot tables and other visual data summary, (5) library search and literature review, and (6) simple statistical analysis using Excel and / other statistical software.