Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mediating Role of Working Capital Management in the Relationship of Corporate Governance Measures and Firm Performance: Panel Study from Pakistan

*Corresponding author’s email: awaisjaveed@uog.edu. pk ARTICLE DETAILS ABSTRACT History Revised format: Mar 2021 Available Online: Apr 2021 Purpose: Corporate governance and management of working capital are seen as two main fields of corporate finance. The purpose of the research study is to examine the interrelationships between corporate governance, working capital management and performance of the firm. Design/Methodology/Approach: Sample consists of 140 non-financial firms listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange from 2008 to 2015. Data has been analyzed by using structural equation model. Mediating effects of managing working capital have been tested by using the approach suggested by Preacher and Hayes (2008). Findings: The findings revealed that current ratio partially mediates the effect of size of the board and CEO role duality. For the other relationship the study found that board size affects firm performance positively whereas CEO duality and audit committee independence have negative impact on profitability of firms. For the relationship of working capital management on firm Performance, the study identified substantial negative and positive impacts on firm performance of the cash conversion period and current ratio, respectively. Implications/Originality/Value: The current study was based on least considered variables and the pioneer in testing the complex relationship through SEM-AMOS.
The impact of momentum and contrarian strategies on fund performance during the financial crisis

This paper empirically investigates whether managers used momentum or contrarian strategies as performance-enhancing strategies for aggressive growth funds before the financial crisis and, if so, whether those investment strategies continued to be effective during the 2007–2009 financial crisis period. Our empirical results show that both momentum and contrarian strategies significantly increase fund performance before the financial crisis. However, during financial crisis, the momentum strategy loses influence on the performance of aggressive growth funds, and the contrarian strategy increases its significant impact on fund performance to become the dominant strategy. These findings imply that effective investment strategies are state dependent and that fund managers can improve their performance by switching to and focusing on contrarian strategies during financial crises. JEL classification: G11, G23, and G01
New Insights into the Interactions of CO2 with Amine-Functionalized Silica

The CO2−amine chemistry in gas−solid processes was investigated under both humid and dry conditions using aminopropyl-grafted pore-expanded MCM-41 silica (MONO-PE-MCM-41). To draw accurate conclusions, a set of conditions had to be met including (i) the use of an adsorbent with open pore structure and readily accessible adsorption sites, e.g. MONO-PE-MCM-41 with a mean pore size of 7.2 nm; (ii) the CO2 concentration in the feed should be high enough to achieve saturation via chemisorption, but low enough to avoid any additional physisorption, e.g., 5% CO2 in N2; (iii) the use of a reliable method for the accurate measurement of CO2/N ratio. Under such conditions, the obtained CO2/N ratios were reminiscent of those obtained in the CO2 scrubbing process using ethanolamine solutions. Under dry conditions, the CO2/N ratio was close to 0.5, consistent with the formation of carbamate. Streams with relative humidity (RH) of 27, 61, and 74% were studied as well. As RH in the feed increased, CO2/N ratio increased .
Contrast-Induced Nephropathy: Comparative Effects of Different Contrast Media

Objectives To evaluate the comparative effects of different types of contrast media with respect to the risk of developing contrast-induced nephropathy (CIN) by synthesizing the current literature. Data sources We searched for original studies in MEDLINE®, Embase®, and the Cochrane Library through October 1, 2014. We also searched for studies in ClinicalTrials.gov and the Scopus database. Methods Two reviewers independently reviewed each article to identify randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that reported on CIN-related outcomes in patients after receiving low-osmolar contrast media (LOCM) or iso-osmolar contrast media (IOCM). We included head-to-head comparisons of one LOCM versus another LOCM or of LOCM versus IOCM. (Only 1 IOCM is currently available in the United States.) For each study, one reviewer extracted the data and a second reviewer verified the accuracy. Both reviewers assessed the risk of bias for each study. Together, the reviewers graded the strength of evidence for the comparisons and outcomes of interest. We quantitatively pooled the results of studies that were sufficiently similar, using a 25-percent relative risk reduction as the threshold for a minimally important difference. Results We identified five RCTs that compared two or more LOCMs, including two studies of intra-arterial administration, two studies of intravenous administration, and one study examining both routes. We identified 25 RCTs that compared IOCM with LOCM, including 18 studies of intra-arterial administration and 7 studies of intravenous administration. No study comparing LOCMs reported a statistically significant or clinically important difference between study arms, and the overall analysis did not suggest that any one LOCM was superior to another. In a meta-analysis, we found a borderline significant reduction in short-term CIN risk with IOCM compared with a diverse group of LOCMs (pooled relative risk, 0.80; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.65 to 0.99, p=0.045). When the analysis was stratified by route of administration, the aggregate pooled relative risk was 0.80 (95% CI, 0.64 to 1.01) for intra-arterial and 0.84 (95% CI, 0.42 to 1.71) for intravenous. In studies that investigated IOCM versus LOCM, the outcomes of mortality, cardiovascular outcomes, need for renal replacement therapy, and imaging quality or diagnostic accuracy showed no significant difference between groups. One study comparing different LOCMs investigated the outcomes of death and adverse events, and found no difference between groups. Conclusions We found low strength of evidence that the risk of CIN did not differ between LOCMs, and moderate strength of evidence that IOCM had a slightly lower risk of CIN than LOCM. The lower risk was not clinically important and just reached statistical significance.
The Role of Protamine in Male Fertility

Introduction: Approximately 40-50% of infertilities is related to males. Abnormal sperm chromatin structure is suggested as a significant cause of infertility. Protamines constitute a significant component of the sperm chromatin, and they play a vital role in the proper packaging of chromatin. Numerous studies have shown that protamine deficiency in sperm is associated with low sperm quality and infertility. Given the importance of protamine infertility, the purpose of this article is to investigate the content of protamine and its biological importance in male fertility. Material and Methods: In this study, data and information collected on Englishlanguage articles from PubMed and MEDLINE databases. For Persian articles, Persian-language databases, including SID Scientific Database, IranMedex Medical Articles Database, IranDoc (Iran Scientific Information and Documents Research Institute), Magiran Publication Information and MedLib investigated. Results: Based on previous studies about protamine and its role in spermatogenesis, any disruption in protamine genes, including PRM1 and PMR2, can disrupt histone/protamine ratio, leading to abnormal spermatozoa. Conclusion: Most the previous studies approved any mutation in protamine genes correlates with infertility in men. These results can be a potential subject for future researches into infertility treatment in men.
Social Skills and Student Organization Activities: A Cross-sectional Study Among Medical Students of Tehran

Background: Lack of effective training and practice of social skills in childhood in many communities necessitates finding costless solutions to improve these skills in adulthood. Healthcare staff may especially benefit from such advantages regarding their professional needs. Organized activity involvement can improve children social competence; such relationship, however, is not well known in adults. As the first step, the association of university student organization activity involvement and social skills level was evaluated in medical students. Methods: In this analytical cross-sectional study, a total of 205 female and male medical students from any grade and ethnicity, were selected by stratified random sampling from medical schools of two main universities of medical sciences of Tehran, the capital of Iran. Social competence of students was assessed by using Social Skills Inventory along with history of involvement in student organization activities and outside university group activities. Results: A statistically significant difference between social skills scores of students with and without a history of involvement in university student organization activities was detected (p=0.028). In students with such history, a positive correlation was found between social skills scores and total hours of participation in activities (r=0.206, p=0.035). A significant difference was also found between social skills scores of students involved and not involved in group activities outside the university (p<0.001). Conclusion: Medical students taking part in organized activities had significantly more social skills scores —the more active they were, the more social competence they reported. Future longitudinal researches can investigate causality and may suggest organized activity involvement for adults who experienced no effective social skills training in childhood which is a common problem in developing communities.
Bulbocavernosus Reflex and Pudendal Nerve Somatosensory Evoked Potential in a Cauda Equina Syndrome Patient with Only Lower Sacral Nerve Root Symptoms: A Case Report

pain, sensory loss, motor weakness, bladder dysfunction, and bowel dysfunction. A 37-year-old man was admitted with saddle-type hypesthesia, bladder dysfunction, and bowel dysfunction, but without motor weakness and radiating pain. He was diagnosed with large sequestrated lumbar disc herniation at L5-S1 and underwent decompression surgery. The initial bulbocavernosus reflex (BCR) and pudendal nerve somatosensory evoked potential (PSEP) on postoperative day 10 showed no response. After 1 month, bladder dysfunction and bowel dysfunction improved and saddle-type hypesthesia slightly improved. We also observed improvement in the BCR and PSEP during a follow-up evaluation on postoperative day 35. These results suggest that BCR and PSEP can indicate improvements in clinical symptoms and improved prognoses for CES patients with bladder dysfunction and bowel dysfunction.
Academic Self-Concept and Critical Thinking Dispositions: Devising a Predictive Model of College Students’ Degree Commitment

Educational researchers incessantly endeavor to address underlying reasons for academic success/failure, and Degree Commitment constitutes a critical sought-after academic outcome regarding college students, which is considerably associated with higher student retention rates. Educational institutions may create effective preventive strategies and interventions for minimizing attrition issues by identifying factors leading to higher Degree Commitment. The aim of the current research was to explore the potential predictive relationship between higher demonstration of college students’ Academic Self-Concept and higher levels of Critical Thinking Dispositions on their commitment of further pursuing their chosen degree. A questionnaire-based survey method was employed, adopting a correlational design on a recruited purposive sample of 120 Greek college students of a privately-owned educational institution. A multiple regression statistical analysis generated a weak positive correlation (9.2%) between the predictors, with Academic Self-Concept being the strongest predictor of Degree Commitment, implying that the combination of the aforementioned academic facets significantly predicts Degree Commitment, but with a small generalization explanatory power to a population sharing common characteristics with the utilized sample. Although the devised model is of minimal practical use, it proposes an initial attempt to construct a holistic model of academic success, while simultaneously highlighting the necessity for developing interventions that robustly target Critical Thinking Dispositions and, most importantly, Academic Self-Concept. Future research may explore factors influencing the predictors under investigation, compare them between students deriving from traditional educational systems and those deriving from international educational systems, and explore alternative factors concerning college success and attrition within various sociocultural contexts.
Whistleblowing Intention and Organizational Commitment Aruoren,

This study examined the relationship between whistleblowing intention and organizational commitment of commercial bank workers in Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria. A survey research design was adopted and a purposive sample of two hundred respondents was given copies of the questionnaire, out of which one hundred and ninety-one useful ones were retrieved. STATA statistical software package was used for the data analysis. The descriptive data analysis was carried out using mean and standard deviation, while reliability was tested using cronbach alpha coefficient. Furthermore, correlation and variance inflation factor (VIF) was used to test for multicollinearity among the independent variables. The research hypotheses were tested using multiple regression analysis. The study found a non-significant positive relationship between internal whistleblowing intention and organizational commitment. In addition, a significant positive relationship was found between external whistleblowing intention and organizational commitment. Based on this, the study recommended that commercial bank workers should be encouraged to develop organizational commitment as this would motivate them to blow the whistle when they discover wrongdoing or unethical behavior in their place of work. Future researchers should include other antecedents of whistleblowing as additional explanatory variables.
Ethnobotanical Survey of Plants in Folklore Medicine of Selected Communities of Yobe State, North-East Nigeria

Since time immemorial, traditional medicines especially medicinal plants have remained the mainstay of managing various ailments in underdeveloped and developing nations globally. Despite the availability of orthodox medicines, communities in low income countries rely largely on herbal preparations to manage and cure diseases. In this study, an ethnobotanical survey was conducted with a view to compile and document traditional medicinal plants and practices of six communities, i.e. three (3) from each of two Local Government Areas of Yobe State, Nigeria. Semi structured questionnaires aided by guided interviews were used to obtain information regarding traditional knowledge from 120 traditional herbalists, their attendants and community members. Results revealed that more males 80 (67%) than females 40 (33%) practice traditional medicines in general terms, with the majority of the respondents 36 (30%) falling in the age range of 51-60 years. Specifically, 28 (23.33%) traditional herbalists were observed to specialize in the treatment of fever and fever-related illnesses. A total of 60 medicinal plants belonging to 28 botanical families were identified and their medicinal values recorded. Out of the 28 botanical families recorded, Fabaceae was the most common family with nine (9) species of medicinal plants followed by Asteraceae and Moraceae families, with four (4) representative medicinal plant species each. Similarly, leaves are the most common parts used followed by stem bark and roots/root bark respectively. There is a need to scientifically validate the traditional claim for the use of medicinal plants reported in the treatment of management of disease conditions.
Gushing phenomenon and gene Hyd5 from Fusarium species in barley samples from Brazil

Hydrophobins produced by the Fusarium genus in brewing barley in connection with gushing phenomenon have been studied in many different countries. However, the presence of proteins associated with gushing in grains harvested in Brazil is currently unknown. The surface active class 2 hydrophobin Hyd5 has been identified as a possible causative agent for gushing of beer. For this reason, the objective of this study was to evaluate the presence of Hyd5 in isolated Fusarium strains from Brazilian barley samples. This was followed by gushing tests. The Hyd5 gene was identified in all fungal isolates and phylogenetic analysis exhibited four main linages. Gushing tests demonstrated that among the 21 analysed malt samples 8 were positive considering overfoaming at the bottle opening. Levels ranged from 8 to 124 g/bottle of gushing. No correlation between phylogenetic analysis and gushing was observed when they were evaluated together. This is due to positive isolates for gushing which are scattered throughout the phylogenetic tree. The other cause may be that all main clades contain at least one positive isolate for gushing. More research regarding hydrophobins and gushing should be carried out in the future due to the fungi isolated in Brazilian samples. These results offer excellent support that could help the brewing industry to prevent its losses and to provide further understanding of the gushing phenomenon in beer.
A mini‑review of the validity, quality and efficacy of candidate vaccines in controlling the COVID-19

Few would have thought that in this century, a new coronavirus called SARS-CoV-2 would kill many people around the world, cripple the economy, and leave the medical staff helpless. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), a virus that first appeared in Wuhan, China, and spread rapidly around the world, and strict quarantines did not prevent the severe prevalence from spreading worldwide. Antiviral drugs do not work well enough for everyone. The mortality rate in the world is still significant. The only thing that gives hope to the people of the world is the hope of being vaccinated, so by producing vaccines in the shortest possible time, science has once again saved humanity. Thus, from the very beginning, pharmaceutical companies started to produce safe vaccines. Currently, more than 200 types of vaccines around the world are undergoing various stages of production, and about 30 vaccines have entered the clinical trial phase, of which 9 vaccines have entered phase 1 to 3 of clinical trials. DNA and RNA-based vaccines were first developed and were not licensed before coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Other types of vaccines, including non-replicating viral vectors as well as inactivated vaccines, are undergoing clinical phases. There are currently 9 common vaccines Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Moderna, BioNTech/Pfizer, AstraZeneca, CanSino Biological, Gam-COVID-Vac (Sputnik V), Wuhan Institute of Biological Products/Sinopharm, Beijing Institute of Biological Products/Sinopharm, and Sinovac Institutes in the world. Vaccination with the Pfizer vaccine, which is approved by the World Health Organization (WHO), is underway in many countries. The WHO predicts that by the end of 2021, one billion people worldwide will be vaccinated by the company.
Combined Power Ratio Calculation, Hadamard Transform and LMS-Based Calibration of Channel Mismatches in Time-Interleaved ADCs

: This paper presents a method for all-digital background calibration of multiple channel mismatches including offset, gain and timing mismatches in time-interleaved analog-to-digital converters (TIADCs). The average technique is used to remove offset mismatch at each channel. The gain mismatch is calibrated by calculating the power ratio of the sub-ADC over the reference ADC. The timing skew mismatch is calibrated by using Hadamard transform for error correction and LMS for timing mismatch estimation. The performance improvement of TIADCs employing these techniques is demonstrated through numerical simulations. Besides, achievement results on the field-programmable gate array (FPGA) hardware have demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed techniques.
Assessment of Left Ventricular Longitudinal Function in Hypertensive Patients with Left Ventricular Hypertrophy by MAPSE

BACKGROUND: Hypertension is an important risk factor for many cardiovascular diseases worldwide. The use of MАPSE in thе assessmеnt of LV systolic dysfunction is helpful especially in cases of poor imaging quality, since good imaging quality is needed for the modern echocardiographic techniques. OBJECTIVE: Detection of early subclinical LV systolic dysfunction in hypertensive patіents with left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) with preservеd ejectiоn fraction by MAPSE. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A comparative case-control study which took place at Al-Yаrmouk Tеaching Hospitаl in Baghdad/Iraq from October 2018 to October 2019.The study population consisted of 60 hypertensive patients with left ventriculаr hypertrophy (LVН) and 60 healthy subjects enrolled as controls. RESULTS: There was a high significant reduction in mean MAPSE for hypertensive patients with LVH compared with controls (Р value = 0.0001). There was a significant reduction in mean S’ for hypertensive patients with LVH when compared with mean S’ for controls (P = 0.0001). There was a positive linear correlations between MAPSE and S’ for hypertensive patients with LVH ( r = 0.572, P = 0.001). CONCLUSION: MAPSE can be used on daily practice for assessment of subclinical LV systolic function in hypertensive patients with left ventricular hypertrophy and select them for preventive trеatment.
APPLICATION USE OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (HRMIS) IN THE STATE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

The purpose of this study was to identify the level of readiness of using the Human Resource Management Information System or HRMIS among the staff of the Terengganu State Education Department (JPNT) based on the UTAUT Model. The respondents of this study involved 97 staff members and non-teachers representing the entire TSED staff. Descriptive statistics analysis using Smart PLS Version 2.0 was used to analyze the relationships between constructs. The researcher's proposed model contributes 45% of the variance to Behavioral Intention. The findings show that only Social Influence has a significant positive relationship with Behavioral Intention. Researchers feel the urge and encouragement from the management of the Departments and Sectors play an essential role in ensuring that all TSED citizens use the HRMIS module in their service-related matters. The results of this study can also serve as a guide to the central agencies, the Ministry of Education Malaysia and the Department for developing more effective policies and actions regarding the use of the HRMIS system. The scope of the study should be extended to the school level as HRMIS is also used by the school and the District Education Office to obtain more complete and accurate results.