Board Characteristics Impact on the Firm Performance in the Indian Context

The research aims to determine the impact of the board characteristics on the firm performance for 348 firms of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) 500 Index listed on the National Stock Exchange of India for the period 2012-2018 using (OLS) Ordinary Least Square (FEM) Fixed Effect Model and more robust (GMM) Generalized Method of Moments regression techniques. GMM regression technique also controls for the endogeneity as well as heteroscedasticity and heterogeneity in panel data. Further, the moderating effects of market capitalization are also observed considering the impact of board characteristics on the firm performance using the interaction effects technique. Lastly, the ideal board size was determined based on the classification of market capitalization including small, mid and large market cap. Board characteristics including board size and percentage of shares held by the promoters have a positive significant impact on the firm performance while the percentage of shares pledged by the promoters has a negative significant impact on the firm performance. The results show that market capitalization moderates the relationship between board characteristics and firm performance. Findings also suggest an ideal board size of 8 for mid-cap firms and a range of 7-18 for large-cap firms which show a similar result to the Kotak Committee Report (2017) recommendations with the ideal board size being a minimum of 6 directors on the board. The results cannot be generalized as only the manufacturing and services (excluding financial) industries are taken into account, but the results can be applied to the abovesaid industry sectors.   CITE THIS PAPER: Naim, Hamza; Aziz, Tariq (2022). "Board Characteristics impact on the Firm Performance in the Indian Context" Journal of World Economy: Transformations & Transitions (JOWETT) 2(05):19. DOI: https://doi.org/10.52459/jowett2519102

Corporate Social Responsibility and Firm Performance in the Indian Context

In this study, we examine the impact of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as a measure of Corporate Governance on firm performance for 348 firms in the NSE 500 Index listed in the National Stock Exchange (NSE) of India for the period 2012-2019. The results show that the total amount spent on CSR by the firms has a negative impact on the firm performance as there is a significant difference between the total amount incurred to be spent on CSR as per amendments in the Companies Act, 2013 and the total amount actually spent on CSR by the firms. It’s concluded that the number of CSR meetings held had no significant impact on firm performance. Results also show that firm size moderates the relationship between CSR and firm performance.   CITE THIS PAPER: Hayat, Feeroz; Naim, Hamza; Aziz, Tariq (2022). "Corporate Social Responsibility and Firm Performance in the Indian Context" Journal of World Economy: Transformations & Transitions (JOWETT) 2(04):16. DOI: https://doi.org/10.52459/jowett2416092

Shear Failure Control of RC Box Beams Using Internal Transverse Diaphragms

The rapid development in construction and material technology arising the needs for simple techniques to increase the shear strength of RC box beams. This paper is devoted to investigating experimentally the structural behavior of RC box beams which have internal in-plane solid diaphragms under the effect of shear stresses. For this purpose, four beam specimens with (200x300x1200mm) dimensions are poured using normal strength concrete of class (f'c=22MPa) and longitudinal flexural steel of class (fy=410MPa) without transverse reinforcement (stirrups). Three of these specimens were a box with or without different locations of internal diaphragms and one of them was a solid. The number of the internal diaphragms is the major variable adopted in this study, while, the other variables are kept constant for all tested specimens. The experimental results indicated that the shear strength is increased for about (35%) to (47%) for beams containing internal in-plane diaphragms in comparison with the reference beam. Also, the change of beam section from box section to solid section led to increasing the capacity for about (100%). Keywords: Shear Failure, Box Beam, Reinforced Concrete, Diaphragms, ACI-318 Code DOI: 10.7176/CER/12-8-06 Publication date:August 31st 202

Modelling Customer Satisfaction at Ghana Commercial Bank: An Application of Ordinal Logit Regression

In the competitive banking business, customer satisfaction is taken as a matter of success. It rely on a multitude of factors and varies from one customer to another and product to product. The capability and ability of a bank depends on the degree of its customer satisfaction. Thus banks usually place more weight on customer satisfaction and loyalty. This paper analysed the effect of service quality on customer satisfaction at Ghana commercial bank. It was noted in the results that service quality dimensions on tangible, responsiveness, empathy and trust are relevant contributing factors to customer satisfaction at Ghana commercial bank. However, reliability and assurance, in terms of, service quality aspects are not really contributing significantly to customer satisfaction. The study suggest the following managerial policies. First, the managers should regularly conduct customer surveys and should incorporate feedback in the changes desired by the customers. The banks can provide training programs for their employees in order to make them more effective while dealing with the customers, especially in handling customer complaints. This can help to improve satisfaction by reducing defections of dissatisfied customers

Acute Traumatic Subdural Hematoma: Series of Thirty Cases

Objectives: Acute Traumatic Subdural Hematoma (ASDH) is one of the most dangerous and challenging neurosurgical problems faced by neurosurgeons. Road traffic accidents (RTAs) and falls are the most common causes of ASDH. This study focused to evaluate the incidence, mode, and severity of the injury, treatment options, and determine outcomes in patients with ASDH. Material & Methods:  Thirty patients with ASDH were studied over a period of three years. Detailed history, general and neurological examination including GCS were noted, CT scans were done and patients managed according to said protocol. Results:  Twenty-three (76.66%) were male and Seven (23.33%) were female. The common mode of injury were road traffic accidents (66.66%) and falls (26.66%). Out of 30 patients, 53.33% had GCS 3-5. Overall, the mortality rate was 60%. 23.33% of patients survived with severe disability and 10% of patients showed moderate disability and good recovery. The mortality rate was higher in patients above 50 years of age. Conclusion:  Acute traumatic subdural hematoma is still very fatal and has a high mortality. Early CT scanning emergency, surgery and good postoperative ICU care can play a role in improving the outcome in patients with ASDH

Effect of saliva of patients with leukemia on surface hardness and roughness of enamel and dental composite resin during chemotherapy regimen: An – Invitro study

Background: Evaluate the surface roughness and hardness of tooth enamel and dental resin composite restoration immersed into saliva collected from leukemia patient. Objective: To evaluate the surface roughness and hardness of tooth enamel and dental resin composite restoration immersed on to saliva collected from 4 types of leukemia patient. Patients and Methods: 30 patients with 4 types of leukemia (Acute lymphoblastic leukemia ALL, Acute myeloid leukemia AML, Chronic lymphocytic leukemia CLL, and Chronic myeloid leukemia CML) were included for taking saliva separately. A total number of 50 enamel specimen and 50 of composite resin disk were prepared and randomly divided into 5 groups of enamel (1,2,3,4, and 5) and 5 groups of composite resin disk (A,B,C,D, and E), surface roughness and hardness were measured and data collected, group A and 1 were immersed in artificial saliva for 7 days as control, group B and 2 immersed into saliva collected from patient with ALL, group C and 3 immersed into saliva collected from patient with AML, group D and 4 immersed into saliva collected from patient with CLL and group E and 5 immersed into saliva collected from patient with CML all group for 7 days then surface roughness and hardness were measured data collected and analyzed and statistically significant regarded at  p<0.05. Results: In group A and 1 artificial saliva there were no significant effect on surface roughness and hardness of both enamel and composite resin disk, while surface roughness and hardness of enamel and composite resin significantly changed after immersing in saliva of ALL, AML, CLL, patients and surface roughness of composite resin highly significantly increased after immersing in saliva of CML patients. Conclusion: Saliva of ALL, AML, CLL, and CML seems to significantly changes in mechanical properties of enamel and composite, however saliva of CML highly significantly increase surface roughness of composite resin

Molecular epidemiology of antibiotic-associated diarrhoea due to Clostridium difficile and clostridium perfringens in Ain Shams University Hospitals

Background: As we are living in the era of antibiotic overuse, antibiotic associated diarrhea (AAD) is considered now a distinct health problem with a need for more attention. Aim of the Study: was to perform a highly specific detection and definition of pathogenic Clostridium perfringens and Clostridium difficile related AAD in children compared to adults and geriatircs. Patients and Methods: One hundred and fifty patients diagnosed for AAD were included in this study (50 children, 50 adults and 50 geriatric patients). All of them were subjected to full medical history including complete therapeutic history of antibiotics and collection of stool sample during the attack for detection of Clostridium perfringenes enterotoxin (CPEnt) and Clostridium difficile cytotoxin by (EIA) kit. PCR detection of Clostridium perfringenes cpe gene (Coding gene for CPEnt) was performed as well. Results: Results showed that prevalence of Clostridium difficile cytotoxin was 24% while Clostridium perfringenes enterotoxin was 12% as detected by EIA in faecal specimens as a whole. Detection of cpe gene by PCR was positive in 16% of all cases. Children (OR: 4.2, 95% CI: 1.3-14.8, P_0.01) and geriatric patients (OR: 3.4, 95% CI: 1.2-13.5, P_0.02) were significantly more prone to Clostridium difficile AAD compared to adults. Also, childhood was a significant risk for Clostridium perfringens AAD (OR: 2.1, 95% CI: 0.54-7.4, P_0.04). In Conclusion: children and geriatric patients are more vulnerable to develop AAD with antibiotic abuse compared to adults. Abbreviations: AAD=Antibiotic associated diarrhea, CI=Confidence interval, ELISA=Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, OR=Odd ratio, PCR=Polymerase chain reaction. Keywords: Antibiotic-associated diarrhea, children, Clostridium perfringens, Clostridium difficile. Egypt. J. Hum. Genet Vol. 8 (2) 2007: pp. 121-13

HPC as a Service: A naive model

Applications like Big Data, Machine Learning, Deep Learning and even other Engineering and Scientific research requires a lot of computing power; making High-Performance Computing (HPC) an important field. But access to Supercomputers is out of range from the majority. Nowadays Supercomputers are actually clusters of computers usually made-up of commodity hardware. Such clusters are called Beowulf Clusters. The history of which goes back to 1994 when NASA built a Supercomputer by creating a cluster of commodity hardware. In recent times a lot of effort has been done in making HPC Clusters of even single board computers (SBCs). Although the creation of clusters of commodity hardware is possible but is a cumbersome task. Moreover, the maintenance of such systems is also difficult and requires special expertise and time. The concept of cloud is to provide on-demand resources that can be services, platform or even infrastructure and this is done by sharing a big resource pool. Cloud computing has resolved problems like maintenance of hardware and requirement of having expertise in networking etc. An effort is made of bringing concepts from cloud computing to HPC in order to get benefits of cloud. The main target is to create a system which can develop a capability of providing computing power as a service which to further be referred to as Supercomputer as a service. A prototype was made using Raspberry Pi (RPi) 3B and 3B+ Single Board Computers. The reason for using RPi boards was increasing popularity of ARM processors in the field of HPCComment: 2019 8th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies (ICICT), Karachi, Pakistan, 201