Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Determinants of Profitability of Islamic Banking Industry: An Evidence from Pakistan

The financial sector plays a vital role in the expansion and growth of an economy. The essential factor for the financial growth of a country is a stable banking system. Over the past few years, Islamic banking industry of Pakistan has grown substantially, however, it faces many challenges regarding its financial stability. This study tries to assess factors that affect the profitability of Islamic banking industry over the period of 2007 to 2014. Return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE), and earnings per share (EPS) are used as dependent variables. Bank’s size, gearing ratio, non-performing loans (NPL) ratio, operational efficiency, asset composition, asset management, capital adequacy ratio, deposit ratio, gross domestic product (GDP), and consumer price index (CPI) are used as independent variables. Findings of the study indicate that measures of Islamic banking profitability are significantly affected by bank-specific factors such as gearing ratio, asset management, deposit ratio, and NPL ratio and external factor such as CPI.
Review on Integrated Nutrient Management on Growth and Yield of Wheat (Triticum spp ) in Ethiopia

Soil fertility maintenance requires a balanced application of inorganic and organic nutrient sources. Wheat (Triticumaestivum L.) is a dominant cereal crop of north-western zone of India and it is second most common crop of the country. Ethiopia is the second largest wheat producer, after South Africa, in Sub-Saharan Africa. Wheat is one of the major staple crops in the country in terms of both production and consumption. In terms of caloric intake, it is the second--most important food in the country behind maize. Sustainable agricultural productivity might be achieved through a wise use of integrated nutrient management. Integrated use of chemical and organic fertilizer on yield and yield components of wheat is very crucial for assurance of food security. Integrated nutrient supply/management (INS) aims at maintenance or adjustment of soil fertility and plant nutrient supply to an optimum level for sustaining the desired crop productivity through optimization of benefit from all possible sources of plant nutrients in an integrated manner which includes; Maintain or enhance soil productivity through a balanced use of fertilizers combined with organic and biological sources of plant nutrients. Improve the stock of plant nutrients in the soils, and the efficiency of plant nutrients, thus, limiting losses to the environment. The integrated nutrient management system (INMS), nevertheless, remains the maintenance and possible improvement of soil fertility for sustained crop productivity on long term-basis and also to reduce inorganic (fertilizer) input cost. Different kinds of organic materials such as FYM, animal manures, green manures, crop residues, composts, and industrial wastes have been used in wheat systems. The amount and availability of nutrients in organic materials vary widely, which makes interpretation of the value of nutrients supplied. The literatures lines of research in wheat are presented in an elaborative method were reviewed in this paper. Keywords : Integrated nutrient management, organic fertilizer, Chemical fertilizer Bio-fertilizer
Comparison of Risk Factor Profile and Angiographic Pattern AmongPre-Menopausal and Post-Menopausal Women Presenting with Angina:Results from a Prospective Single Center Observational Study

Background: Coronary artery disease (CAD) has become the major killer in women. The exact mechanism of postmenopausal increase in CAD is still under research. Limited data exists on the comparison of risk factor profiles and angiographic disease patterns in premenopausal and postmenopausal women. Methods: This prospective study included a total of 674 consecutive female patients who underwent coronary angiogram for suspected ischemic heart disease over a period of 2 years from March 2015. Detailed risk factor profiles and angiographic patterns of disease were recorded and analyzed using EPIINFO statistical software. Results: Out of total 674 patients, 137(20.3%) were in the premenopausal group with mean age of (42.05 ± 4.40) years, and 537(79.7%) in the postmenopausal group with mean age of (59.05 ± 8.01) years. Premenopausal women were more likely to be obese (57.7% vs 46.9%, p=0.0), hypothyroid (23.4% vs 10.2%, p 3 risk factors more frequently (42.1% vs 30.7%, p=0.009). Atypical chest pain was more common as presenting diagnosis among premenopausal women (23.4% vs 10.2%, p<0.0001). They were also more likely to have positive exercise stress test (62.1% vs 38.3%, p<0.0001) and normal coronary angiogram (59.9% vs 32%, p<0.0002) with endothelial dysfunction (84.7% vs 66.8%, p<0.0001) than post-menopausal women. Post-menopausal women had greater burden of obstructive CAD characterized by more prevalent multivessel disease in the form of double vessel (17.5% vs 8%, p=0.06) and triple vessel disease (20.5% vs 5.8%, p<0.0002). Conclusion: There is a distinct difference between the risk factor profile and angiographic disease pattern among women according to the status of menopause. Recognition of these differences would help in better understanding of relationship of menopause to development of CAD.
Value of Single Source and Backgrounded Cattle as Measured by Health and Feedlot Profitability

Commingling cattle in the feedlot increases the odds of cattle getting sick. However, backgrounded cattle are less susceptible to diseases which allow the generalizing statements like "backgrounding is just like single source". Using data from over 15,000 cattle fed in 12 Iowa feedlots, we show that although backgrounded cattle do better than preconditioned cattle commingled in the feedlot, they have poorer carcass quality, health, and performance than single source cattle. Backgrounded cattle should be discounted $8.24/head relative to single source, and only received a small premium over multi-source preconditioned cattle though not significantly different.
Impact of Nutrition Counselling on Anthropometric and Biochemical Parameters of School Girls (7-9 Years)

Abstract Sixty girls of 7-9 years belonging to low socio economic group in Ludhiana were divided equally in control (C) and Experimental (E) groups. The Experimental group comprising of 30 girls and their mothers were imparted Nutrition Counselling (N.C.) twice a month for a period of four months. Assessment of nutritional status was done before and after imparting nutrition counselling. In case of anthropometric measurements: the mean height of subjects in C and E group was 116.1 and 117.1 cm at baseline and 116.2 and 117.9 cm after experimentation. Also, a significant increase in weight and MUAC was observed in E group after N.C. However all the anthropometric indices were lower than the standards. In case of biochemical parameters: the hemoglobin level of school girls was 9.47 and 9.6 g/dl in C and E group at baseline which significantly increased to 10.5g/dl in E group after N.C. All the haemopoetic indices revealed the occurrence of iron deficiency anaemia in both the groups before and after N.C. But the status of respondents in E group was comparatively better after N.C. when compared to before N.C. Thus nutrition counselling should be imparted for a longer duration and should be included in school curriculum.
Celebrity influences on consumer decision making: new insights and research directions

ABSTRACT Throughout human history, people have expressed admiration for heroes who possessed extraordinary abilities and achieved superhuman goals. For many, modern-day celebrities fulfil this role and are prominent in various marketing communications activities. This paper addresses the literature review gaps and provides an in-depth review of the psychological and social psychological perspectives which are relevant to the celebrity endorsement literature. The contributions of this paper consist of a detailed analysis of important types of consumer-celebrity relationships, key emotional drivers (e.g. envy and admiration) of celebrity influence and the development of an original conceptual model. The conceptual model pulls together the past research and identifies new research gaps, which synthesises different research perspectives and provides a sound theoretical basis guiding future researchers and marketing managers.
Prokaryotic and diazotrophic population dynamics within a large oligotrophic inverse estuary

The ecology of microbial assemblages inhabiting classical (positive) estuaries has been well documented. However, we know relatively little about the microbial ecology of inverse (negative) estuaries, which exhibit different physical and hydrodynamic properties, including oligotrophy and hypersalinity. We investigated the dynamics of bacterioplankton communities in Spencer Gulf, an inverse estuary in temperate South Australia. We characterised patterns in the overall diversity and composition of the resident microbial assemblage, and tested the hypothesis that pelagic nitrogen-fixing bacteria (diazotrophs) could be an important functional group in the nutrient limited waters of the region. Prokaryotic and diazotrophic communities were evaluated using 16S ribosomal DNA and nifH amplicon tag pyrosequencing, respectively. Significant heterogeneity in microbial community composition and diazotrophic population structure was observed, which was driven by shifts in the relative importance of temperate vs. subtropical and oceanic vs. coastal ecotypes of Cyanobacteria throughout the inverse estuary. The globally significant unicellular cyanobacterium, UCYN-A 'Candidatus Atelocyano-bacterium thalassa', was the dominant diazotrophic phylotype. Temperature, chlorophyll a and nitrogen availability were all significant drivers of bacterioplankton dynamics within the gulf. These results demonstrate the heterogeneous microbiology of inverse estuaries, indicating that specific abiotic and biotic characteristics select for discrete microbial communities, and that pelagic nitrogen fixation may be important in this temperate oligotrophic system.
Anthropological and Sociological Thoughts on Financial Education and Economic Practices of Young People

The contribution by humanities and social sciences with regard to economic education is modest and fragmentary. However, it gives tools to better understand it. We suggest that the relationship with money can be conceived as a process that is built up via tests or experience with economic dimensions; tests that are determined by specific historical, geographical and social contexts. We understand the mastering of them as being less a case of progressively taking possession of areas of autonomy and financial independence and more one of achieving the capability, i.e. mobilising and creating one’s own social, relational, financial, administrative, psychological, and other resources in order to succeed with these tests. The way in which young people “pass” these tests will have economic and financial consequences but also social, status-related and emotional ones that will contribute towards forging the process and content of the learning process.
Pleistocene centennial-scale vegetational, environmental, and climatic change in the Colombian Andes: based on biotic and abiotic proxy analyses from Lake Fúquene sediments

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Integrated quantile functions: properties and applications

In this paper we provide a systematic exposition of basic properties of integrated distribution and quantile functions. We define these transforms in such a way that they characterize any probability distribution on the real line and are Fenchel conjugates of each other. We show that uniform integrability, weak convergence and tightness admit a convenient characterization in terms of integrated quantile functions. As an application we demonstrate how some basic results of the theory of comparison of binary statistical experiments can be deduced using integrated quantile functions. Finally, we extend the area of application of the Chacon--Walsh construction in the Skorokhod embedding problem.
The Pleiades eclipsing binary HD 23642 revisited

Context. HD 23642 is the only known eclipsing binary in the Pleiades, and therefore of importance in determining the distance to this cluster. Aims. To use new photometric and spectroscopic data in combination with existing data in the literature in order to improve the determination of the parameters of the system, its distance and reddening. Methods. New photometric and spectroscopic data are presented for HD 23642. The spectroscopic data are “spectrally disentangled” using the KOREL code. The new and literature photometric and radial velocity data are simultaneously analysed using the FOTEL code to obtain the orbital solution and derive the fundamental parameters of the two stars. The distance and reddening are determined by fitting 7-colour Geneva, $B,V$ and Stromgren colours, and considering surface-brightness relations for the two components in $(B-V)$ and Stromgren c 1 -index. Results. The preferred distance is $138.0 \pm 1.5$ pc for a reddening of $E(B-V) = 0.025 \pm 0.003$. The reddening value is larger than the 0.012 adopted in the recent works on this stars by Munari et al. (2004) and Southworth et al. (2005), and smaller than other values in the literature for the cluster reddening. The distance is in agreement with other recent works on the distance to the Pleiades. A comparison with evolutionary models suggests that the inclusion of convective core overshoot gives a much better fit to the empirical mass-radius relationship obtained from the binary analysis. Both this comparison and the “spectral disentangling” are consistent with HD 23642 having [ Fe/H$]=+0.06$, a value determined by the most recent spectroscopical analyses of Pleiades stars.
IMPACT OF INDUSTRY SPECIFIC VARIABLES ON THE DIVIDEND POLICY OF OIL AND GAS SECTOR IN PAKISTAN

Dividends act as a pathway to attract investments and petroleum industry of Pakistan has remained an important element in economic progress. Therefore, this research investigates the impact of corporate tax, financial leverage and sales growth on dividend payout ratio of oil & gas sector companies in Pakistan. Secondary data of 10 companies for 12 years have been incorporated. Hypotheses have been tested using fixed effects regression technique which was confirmed through Hausman specification test. Empirical findings reveal that corporate tax and sales growth have insignificant positive impacts, whereas financial leverage has an insignificant negative impact on the dividend payout ratio. The study concludes that decisions about dividend payouts should be made by considering other variables.
Workiing Paper Seriies Democracy , Property Rights , Income Equality , and Corruption

This paper presents theoretical and empirical evidence on the nexus between corruption and democracy. We establish a political economy model where the effect of democracy on corruption is conditional on income distribution and property rights protection. Our empirical analysis with cross-national panel data provides evidence that is consistent with the theoretical prediction. Moreover, the effect of democratization on corruption depends on the protection of property rights and income equality which shows that corruption is a nonlinear function of these variables. The results indicate that democracy will work better as a control of corruption if the property right system works and there is a low level of income inequality. On the other hand if property rights are not secured and there is strong income inequality, democracy may even lead to an increase of corruption. In addition, property rights protection and the mitigation of income inequality contribute in a strong manner to the reduction of corruption. Democracy, Property Rights, Income Equality, and Corruption Bin Dong a and Benno Torgler a,b,c a The School of Economics and Finance, Queensland University of Technology, GPO Box 2434, Brisbane, QLD 4001, Australia b CREMA – Centre for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts, Gellertstrasse 18, CH-4052 Basel, Switzerland c CESifo, Poschingerstrasse 5, D-81679 Munich, Germany
Exploring Discourses on Transport Governance and Policy Implementation Challenges by Using Q Methodology

The implementation of sustainable transport policy in practice is an issue which raises different questions about current governance structures and the efficient delivery of policy measures. Policy debates indicate that the views and perceptions of stakeholders differ across government policies, institutional priorities and the use of resources, and also that concerns are emerging with regard to weak links between policy processes, policy outcomes and uncertainties over delivery. Despite this, little attention has been given to the effectiveness of transport governance, structures and policy implementation challenges to promote sustainable transport in the UK. Stakeholders have different opinions and criteria to measure the success of a transport policy. Nevertheless, their perceptions and attitudes are significant for assessing the complexities of transport policy and implementation problems. The purpose of this paper is to present discourses on the effectiveness of transport governance structures and key barriers perceived during policy implementation. Qmethodology is used to investigate these attitudes in case study areas across the UK. The study findings highlight shortcomings associated with different aspects of transport governance arrangement and policy processes. It also reports conflicts over transport power, deficiencies in transport and land use policy co-ordination, and concerns about de-regulated bus policy. Insufficient attention to delivery of sustainable aspects of transport policy, funding constraints, lack of infrastructure investment and operational issues in implementing sustainable transport policies are other problems impacting the effectiveness of transport policies in each city-region.
Interwoven Leadership: the Missing Link in Multi‐Agency Major Incident Response

This paper reports on research into the effectiveness of strategic commanders and their multi-agency teams in response to major incidents. It is argued that current models of crisis leadership fail to establish a balance between the requirement for task skills, interpersonal skills, stakeholder awareness and personal qualities of commanders and their teams. The paper sets out a theoretical model for interwoven leadership combining these features.
Impacts of land use on the vegetation in three rural landscapes of Norway

Long-term and varied land use has had a major influence on the vegetation in rural Norway, and the traditional open landscapes are now being replaced by forests. In the present investigation, we assess and quantify structural vegetation changes caused by changes in land use and climate. Up-to-date actual vegetation maps from three rural study areas were compared with interpreted historical vegetation maps and potential natural vegetation (PNV) models. Our findings indicate that the present vegetation structure is strongly influenced by land use. In the studied sites, 56–66% of the areas presently have another vegetation type than expected from a natural state (PNV). The mean turnover of vegetation types in the study areas during the past 35–40 years was 25%. Our study highlights that the influence of land-use needs to be accounted for when considering the effects of climate change.
Discriminant analysis for the classification and clustering of robusta coffee genotypes

This study evaluated the adequacy of the composition of three clonal Coffea canephora varieties recommended for the State of Espirito Santo by a multivariate method designated discriminant analysis. This method consists in the establishment of functions that enable the classification of a given individual into one, among various distinct populations, reducing the probability of a misclassification. It simultaneously considers measures of several traits, in order to give the n ew variety homogeneity. The original classification of genotypes in the three studied varieties, based on agronomical criteria, maintained expressive concordance with the results of the discriminant analysis, with an apparent deviation rate of only 6.25%. Corrected discriminant functions were also proposed, capable of classifying a new genotype into one of the three clonal varieties to be used in improvement programs, eliminating the subjectivity of the clustering process.
"Lamentable tragedy mixed ful of pleasant mirth": The Enigma of Cambises

When Falstaff prepares to play the role of King Henry IV to a penitent Hal, he asks for a cup of sack to make his eyes look red from weeping, for, he says, "I must speak in passion, and I will do it in King Cambyses' vein" (/ Henry IV ILiv.38687). Falstaff s subsequent parody of Cambises' stilted, oldfashioned style coupled with the rude mechanicals' burlesque rendition of "The most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby," which recalls the mixture of tragedy and mirth promised in the title of Cambises, suggests Shakespeare's scorn for the popular tragedy printed a generation earlier; and for modern critics Cambises is the epitome of bad taste and "dramatic ineptitude. " 1 Yet the Thomas Preston identified as the author of the play both on the title page and at the end of the epilogue of the two undated quarto editions of the play is generally believed to be the well-known Cambridge academic who, after receiving his B.A. in 1557 and his M.A. in 1561 from King's College, became a Fellow at King's, then in 1584 Master of Trinity College, and finally in 1589-90 ViceChancellor of the University. Critics have wondered how such a distinguished scholar could have written such a crude play, particularly a Fellow who was recognized by Queen Elizabeth on her visit to Cambridge in 1564 for his skill in disputation and for his excellent performance in Halliwell's Dido.2 In the earlier twentieth century E. K. Chambers, J. M. Manley, and J. Q. Adams thought the Cambridge scholar's association with the play so incredible that they hypothesized that another Thomas Preston perhaps with connections to popular performance may have been responsible for the extant text of the play.3