Impact of Intellectual Capital on Performance of Karachi Stock Exchange 30-Index Companies of Pakistan

The aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of Intellectual Capital (IC) on the financial performance of the organization. IC relationship is measured with the firm performance by using Pulic’s method known as value added intellectual coefficient (VAICTM) and its mechanisms i.e., human, structural and capital employed efficiencies (HCE, SCE, CEE). The outcome provides an additional empirical confirmation for the contribution of IC on the company’s financial performance. The financial indicators of this study are Karachi stock exchange (KSE)-30 index companies. In this regard, quantitative data is collected by the companies of Pakistan from the period of 2010 to 2014. In the era of competition, every company is seeking for the efficient way to increase their financial performance, the IC plays a significant role in the economy as found evidence in developed countries, this study will help the organizations to make modern operations by using different sources in order to increase their financial performance. The study of IC has endured on various stages, from initial conscious awareness efforts to the sorting of IC, and to the search for suitable measures of IC. This article presents the first study that explores IC impact on financial performance of KSE-30 index companies in Pakistan

Securing Synchrophasors Using Data Provenance in the Quantum Era

Trust in the fidelity of synchrophasor measurements is crucial for the correct operation of modern power grids. While most of the existing research on data provenance focuses on the Internet of Things, there is a significant need for effective malicious data detection in power systems. Current methods either fail to detect malicious data modifications or require certain Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) to be physically secured. To solve these issues, this paper presents a new protocol to establish data provenance in synchrophasor networks. The proposed protocol is based on Physically Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and harnesses the principles of quantum unreality and uncertainty. It aims not only to verify the source of data but also to provide robust protection against data tampering. The proposed protocol serves the purpose of devising new protocols to protect our critical infrastructure sectors in the quantum era. Security and performance analyses, along with experiments conducted on IBM’s Qiskit platform, demonstrate that the protocol offers a strong defense against cyberattacks while maintaining a lightweight profile. In particular, the proposed protocol has a worst-case computational complexity of O(1), an execution time per packet bounded by the time required to compute a cryptographically secure hash, and an upper bound for the per packet communication overhead of 256-bits. In terms of storage overhead, the proposed protocol requires each PMU to store the output of a cryptographically secure hash function, while the PDC needs to store one challenge-response pair (CRP) for each PMU

A Survey on Information-Centric Networking with Cloud Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence

The Internet is evolving, and data is a critical component of today's Internet. People are more interested in data than data location. An information-centric network (ICN) uses this idea and makes data, instead of host addresses, an integral component. Another essential topic in the contemporary period is cloud or edge computing, as well as the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), which becomes even more critical when combined with ICN. We initially rate the configuration of ICN with cloud or edge IoT and AI (ICN-CIoT-AI) in this study so that readers may learn about the latest trends and merging of ICN-CIoT-AI. As data rates rise and the Internet becomes a requirement for any technology, we require IoT settings in which data can be cached locally, which is possible when ICN collaborates with cloud or edge computing. To make this arrangement more intelligent, we require AI, and machine learning algorithms can help to overcome many obstacles. In this paper, we first discuss ICN, its deployment, and its unique features that distinguish it from its archrival TCP/IP. We then present the most recent research on ICN-CIoT-AI and provide a comprehensive analysis of this domain in terms of technology, AI/ML domain, IoT, and cloud technology. The study framework, simulation software, and results achieved by the researchers are also listed. Finally, we explore three broad categories of open issues and challenges raised by the researchers: security, performance, and in-network caching. We also exhibit the technologies that were employed in the study

Named Data Networking: A Survey on Routing Strategies

As the Internet grows in popularity, data become an increasingly crucial component. People now care more about the data than the data location. Named data network (NDN) takes this concept and pairs it with the idea of making data a core component rather than host addresses. As data traffic increases exponentially, NDN offers three main advantages over current Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol-based networks. These advantages are in-network caching, smooth mobility, and robust content dissemination. NDN-related challenges are open for investigation as NDN becomes more invaluable. Routing in NDN is another essential domain that needs to be addressed, and several approaches are presented to address routing concerns in NDN. In this study, we discuss and highlight NDN and its routing strategies comprehensively. In addition, this research compares important routing paradigms to emphasize the breadth of routing research in NDN. Moreover, we investigate the routing attributes of NDN and expose the latest literature on this critical topic. Finally, this study provides useful insights into the emerging areas of guidance in NDN to assist future studies in addressing challenges and open research issues

FairHealth: long-term proportional fairness-driven 5G edge healthcare in Internet of Medical Things

Recently, the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) could offload healthcare services to 5G edge computing for low latency. However, some existing works assumed altruistic patients will sacrifice quality of service for the global optimum. For priority-aware and deadline-sensitive healthcare, this sufficient and simplified assumption will undermine the engagement enthusiasm, i.e., unfairness. To address this issue, we propose a long-term proportional fairness-driven 5G edge healthcare, i.e., FairHealth. First, we establish a long-term Nash bargaining game to model the service offloading, considering the stochastic demand and dynamic environment. We then design a Lyapunov-based proportional-fairness resource scheduling algorithm, which decouples the long-term fairness problem into single-slot subproblems, realizing a tradeoff between service stability and fairness. Moreover, we propose a block-coordinate descent method to iteratively solve nonconvex fair subproblems. Simulation results show that our scheme can improve 74.44% of the fairness index (i.e., Nash product), compared with the classic global time-optimal scheme

A survey on the architecture, application, and security of software defined networking: challenges and open issues

Software Defined Networking (SDN) is a new technology that makes computer networks farther programmable. SDN is currently attracting significant consideration from both academia and industry. SDN is simplifying organisations to implement applications and assist flexible delivery, offering the capability of scaling network resources in lockstep with application and data. This technology allows the user to manage the network easily by permitting the user to control the applications and operating system. SDN not only introduces new ways of interaction within network devices, but it also gives more flexibility for the existing and future networking designs and operations. SDN is an innovative approach to design, implement, and manage networks that separate the network control (control plane) and the forwarding process (data plane) for a better user experience. The main differentiation between SDN and Traditional Networking is that SDN removes the decision-making part from the routers and it provides, logically, a centralised Control-Plane that creates a network view for the control and management applications. Through the establishment of SDN, many new network capabilities and services have been enabled, such as Software Engineering, Traffic Engineering, Network Virtualisation and Automation, and Orchestration for Cloud Applications. This paper surveys the state-of-the-art contribution such as a comparison between SDN and traditional networking. Also, comparison with other survey works on SDN, new information about controller, details about OpenFlow architecture, configuration, comprehensive contribution about SDN security threat and countermeasures, SDN applications, benefit of SDN, and Emulation & Tested for SDN. In addition, some existing and representative SDN tools from both industry and academia are explained. Moreover, future direction of SDN security solutions is discussed in detail

XTRA study protocol: eXploring medical sTudents' caReer reAdiness-a cross-sectional study in the UK

Background and objectives Professional and career enhancing opportunities are essential for developing skills required for a successful career in medicine. Research to date has mainly focused on the extent to which medical schools prepare students for clinical work as junior doctors. However, there remains a need to ascertain how students prepare for their career and what facilitates or hinders learning regarding careers in medicine. The purpose of the XTRA study is to examine career readiness of medical students at UK universities and the support they receive during their studies regarding career planning. Methods The eXploring medical sTudents’ caReer reAdiness (XTRA) study is a national cross-sectional study of all medical students enrolled at a UK medical school. Data collection will occur via a secure online survey designed as a training need analysis based on the principles of Super’s theory (Super, 1953) of career development. A snowball sampling strategy will be used to recruit participants via social media and networks. Results will be analysed using quantitative analysis and thematic analysis to identify themes in qualitative responses. The primary outcome is to understand the perspective of current medical students on how well prepared they are about entering their careers in healthcare. Conclusions We anticipate that findings from this study will help identify career readiness of medical students to facilitate the development of career development programmes and resources to ensure medical students are well equipped for their future careers

Transboundary Water Governance in the Kabul River Basin: Implementing Environmental and Public Diplomacy Between Pakistan and Afghanistan

This research highlights the outcomes of the environmental diplomacy workshop held between members of civil society from Afghanistan and Pakistan on water cooperation in the Kabul River Basin, one of the most heavily conflicted transboundary river basins in the world. Lack of trust among these upstream and downstream riparian partners and persistent failures of Track 1 diplomacy initiatives has led to an absence of governance mechanisms for mitigating the water security concerns in the region. This research shows that science and public diplomacy, democratic participation, and social learning may pave a way to clear local misconceptions, improve transboundary water cooperation, and increase ecological stewardship in the Kabul River Basin

The impact of surgical delay on resectability of colorectal cancer: An international prospective cohort study

AIM: The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has provided a unique opportunity to explore the impact of surgical delays on cancer resectability. This study aimed to compare resectability for colorectal cancer patients undergoing delayed versus non-delayed surgery. METHODS: This was an international prospective cohort study of consecutive colorectal cancer patients with a decision for curative surgery (January-April 2020). Surgical delay was defined as an operation taking place more than 4 weeks after treatment decision, in a patient who did not receive neoadjuvant therapy. A subgroup analysis explored the effects of delay in elective patients only. The impact of longer delays was explored in a sensitivity analysis. The primary outcome was complete resection, defined as curative resection with an R0 margin. RESULTS: Overall, 5453 patients from 304 hospitals in 47 countries were included, of whom 6.6% (358/5453) did not receive their planned operation. Of the 4304 operated patients without neoadjuvant therapy, 40.5% (1744/4304) were delayed beyond 4 weeks. Delayed patients were more likely to be older, men, more comorbid, have higher body mass index and have rectal cancer and early stage disease. Delayed patients had higher unadjusted rates of complete resection (93.7% vs. 91.9%, P = 0.032) and lower rates of emergency surgery (4.5% vs. 22.5%, P < 0.001). After adjustment, delay was not associated with a lower rate of complete resection (OR 1.18, 95% CI 0.90-1.55, P = 0.224), which was consistent in elective patients only (OR 0.94, 95% CI 0.69-1.27, P = 0.672). Longer delays were not associated with poorer outcomes. CONCLUSION: One in 15 colorectal cancer patients did not receive their planned operation during the first wave of COVID-19. Surgical delay did not appear to compromise resectability, raising the hypothesis that any reduction in long-term survival attributable to delays is likely to be due to micro-metastatic disease

Mortality from gastrointestinal congenital anomalies at 264 hospitals in 74 low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries: a multicentre, international, prospective cohort study

Summary Background Congenital anomalies are the fifth leading cause of mortality in children younger than 5 years globally. Many gastrointestinal congenital anomalies are fatal without timely access to neonatal surgical care, but few studies have been done on these conditions in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). We compared outcomes of the seven most common gastrointestinal congenital anomalies in low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries globally, and identified factors associated with mortality. Methods We did a multicentre, international prospective cohort study of patients younger than 16 years, presenting to hospital for the first time with oesophageal atresia, congenital diaphragmatic hernia, intestinal atresia, gastroschisis, exomphalos, anorectal malformation, and Hirschsprung’s disease. Recruitment was of consecutive patients for a minimum of 1 month between October, 2018, and April, 2019. We collected data on patient demographics, clinical status, interventions, and outcomes using the REDCap platform. Patients were followed up for 30 days after primary intervention, or 30 days after admission if they did not receive an intervention. The primary outcome was all-cause, in-hospital mortality for all conditions combined and each condition individually, stratified by country income status. We did a complete case analysis. Findings We included 3849 patients with 3975 study conditions (560 with oesophageal atresia, 448 with congenital diaphragmatic hernia, 681 with intestinal atresia, 453 with gastroschisis, 325 with exomphalos, 991 with anorectal malformation, and 517 with Hirschsprung’s disease) from 264 hospitals (89 in high-income countries, 166 in middleincome countries, and nine in low-income countries) in 74 countries. Of the 3849 patients, 2231 (58·0%) were male. Median gestational age at birth was 38 weeks (IQR 36–39) and median bodyweight at presentation was 2·8 kg (2·3–3·3). Mortality among all patients was 37 (39·8%) of 93 in low-income countries, 583 (20·4%) of 2860 in middle-income countries, and 50 (5·6%) of 896 in high-income countries (p<0·0001 between all country income groups). Gastroschisis had the greatest difference in mortality between country income strata (nine [90·0%] of ten in lowincome countries, 97 [31·9%] of 304 in middle-income countries, and two [1·4%] of 139 in high-income countries; p≤0·0001 between all country income groups). Factors significantly associated with higher mortality for all patients combined included country income status (low-income vs high-income countries, risk ratio 2·78 [95% CI 1·88–4·11], p<0·0001; middle-income vs high-income countries, 2·11 [1·59–2·79], p<0·0001), sepsis at presentation (1·20 [1·04–1·40], p=0·016), higher American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) score at primary intervention (ASA 4–5 vs ASA 1–2, 1·82 [1·40–2·35], p<0·0001; ASA 3 vs ASA 1–2, 1·58, [1·30–1·92], p<0·0001]), surgical safety checklist not used (1·39 [1·02–1·90], p=0·035), and ventilation or parenteral nutrition unavailable when needed (ventilation 1·96, [1·41–2·71], p=0·0001; parenteral nutrition 1·35, [1·05–1·74], p=0·018). Administration of parenteral nutrition (0·61, [0·47–0·79], p=0·0002) and use of a peripherally inserted central catheter (0·65 [0·50–0·86], p=0·0024) or percutaneous central line (0·69 [0·48–1·00], p=0·049) were associated with lower mortality. Interpretation Unacceptable differences in mortality exist for gastrointestinal congenital anomalies between lowincome, middle-income, and high-income countries. Improving access to quality neonatal surgical care in LMICs will be vital to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 3.2 of ending preventable deaths in neonates and children younger than 5 years by 2030