AN APPROPRIATE INVESTMENT PORTFOLIO FOR STOCK MARKET INVESTORS: EVIDENCE FROM PAKISTAN

The study is based on two main objectives. First, it aims to identify a portfolio of stocks as the most appropriate investment portfolio (AIP) for investors, specifically in the context of Pakistan. Second, this research intends to identify the characteristics of the portfolio which forms AIP. For this purpose, the researcher has formed sixteen time series portfolios, using Fama and French five factor model (2015). Beside marker factor, four risk factors have been constructed which include SMB, HML, RMW, and CMA. The results show that five portfolios which are BHRA, BLRA, BLRC, BHRC, and SHRA are appropriate investment portfolios for investors in Pakistan. Amongst these portfolios, BHRA earns highest monthly average returns of 1.17% having standard deviation of 9.13%, followed by BLRA with average monthly returns of 1.05% with standard deviation of 7.59%.  The average return of BHRA is 11.4% higher than BLRA, whereas standard deviation of BHRA is almost 20% larger than the standard deviation of BLRA. Both, the average per month return and risk of BHRA are highest amongst all higher returns portfolios. Contrarily, the excess return of BLRA is not considerably low from BHRA but the incremental risk per unit return of BHRA is almost double of BLRA. Therefore, amongst all five appropriate portfolios, BLRA is justifiably the most appropriate investment portfolio which has the highest adjusted R-square of 77.106 %, the highest average returns of 1.053 % per month, and minimum risk of 7.5%.  The results, therefore, suggests all investors to include big, low book/market, robust profitable, and aggressive investment stocks in their portfolios to earn above average returns with minimum risk

AN APPROPRIATE INVESTMENT PORTFOLIO FOR STOCK MARKET INVESTORS: EVIDENCE FROM PAKISTAN

The study is based on two main objectives. First, it aims to identify a portfolio of stocks as the most appropriate investment portfolio (AIP) for investors, specifically in the context of Pakistan. Second, this research intends to identify the characteristics of the portfolio which forms AIP. For this purpose, the researcher has formed sixteen time series portfolios, using Fama and French five factor model (2015). Beside marker factor, four risk factors have been constructed which include SMB, HML, RMW, and CMA. The results show that five portfolios which are BHRA, BLRA, BLRC, BHRC, and SHRA are appropriate investment portfolios for investors in Pakistan. Amongst these portfolios, BHRA earns highest monthly average returns of 1.17% having standard deviation of 9.13%, followed by BLRA with average monthly returns of 1.05% with standard deviation of 7.59%.  The average return of BHRA is 11.4% higher than BLRA, whereas standard deviation of BHRA is almost 20% larger than the standard deviation of BLRA. Both, the average per month return and risk of BHRA are highest amongst all higher returns portfolios. Contrarily, the excess return of BLRA is not considerably low from BHRA but the incremental risk per unit return of BHRA is almost double of BLRA. Therefore, amongst all five appropriate portfolios, BLRA is justifiably the most appropriate investment portfolio which has the highest adjusted R-square of 77.106 %, the highest average returns of 1.053 % per month, and minimum risk of 7.5%.  The results, therefore, suggests all investors to include big, low book/market, robust profitable, and aggressive investment stocks in their portfolios to earn above average returns with minimum risk

PERCEPTION OF UNDERGRADUATE NURSING STUDENTS REGARDING RESEARCH

Introduction: Nursing-research is a crucial part of undergraduate nursing curricula that improves best possible care for patients through evidence-based-practice (EBP). It helps nursing students think critically and utilize the result of research finding in clinical settings to achieve positive patient outcomes. Nursing research on undergraduate level has been considered the neglected part in Pakistan. Therefore, this study was conducted to find out the perception of nursing- students regarding research. Material & Methods: A quantitative based, cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted among undergraduate nursing students (n= 131) at two colleges. The convenient sampling technique was adopted with a margin of 5% error and a 95% of confidence-interval. Data was collected by distributing a questionnaire in the participants with their own consent. Results: It was revealed from the findings of the study that majority of the nursing students responded that research is useful to their profession and they had an overall positive perception towards research. While the response of the participants towards research anxiety domain was that most of them (n=88, 67.2) expressed that research is a complex subject, stressful and difficulty to understand arithmetic research. Conclusion: The majority of the participants agreed that-research at this level is valuable and it may have a good impact on evidence-based-practice. It is recommended to the nursing administrator and educators to implement research-related workshops from the first year of undergraduate degree, as it is beneficial for future nursing students and it improves evidence-based practice

A study of classical and novel markers of disease in multiple sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory and degenerative condition of the Central Nervous System. Focal demyelinating lesions are its neuropathological hallmark, but widespread abnormalities found in otherwise “normal-appearing” tissue are better associated with disability outcomes. HMGB1 is a promiscuous sensor of cellular stress, acting as a link between sterile damage and innate immune mechanisms, with its extra-nuclear release producing diverse outcomes. We report novel findings of significantly increased HMGB1 expression throughout the brain tissue of MS vs. non-MS patients, particularly in macrophages/microglia and oligodendrocytes (OGD). In addition, cerebrospinal fluid HMGB1 levels were increased in early-stage MS patients compared to non-inflammatory control patients. HMGB1 stimulation in-vitro upregulates expression of its receptors in an OGD cell line, potentially propagating chronic inflammation. Expression of the Leucine Rich Repeat and Ig-domain-containing molecules, AMIGO-3 and LINGO-1 is also significantly increased by HMGB1 stimulation in-vitro. These molecules demonstrate particularly intense immunoreactivity in human brain tissue taken at biopsy, at an early disease stage. Thus, exogenous HMGB1 may influence neurodegenerative processes via AMIGO-3 and LINGO-1 and blocking their function could have therapeutic value. Increased expression of HMGB1 in OGD, however, may highlight endogenous neuroprotective mechanisms in response to an unknown trigger

Analysing the Impact of Good Governance on Socio-Economic Development: A Case Study of Pakistan

The concept of “good governance” has emerged as vital driving force in the past few decades to positively shape economic growth and sustainable socio-economic development across the globe in general and developing countries in particular. However, Pakistan’s turbulent political landscape and deeply entrenched systemic corruption in the recent decades have utterly harmed the good governance at large, resulting in socio-economic developmental woes and increased sufferings of the people. This paper focuses on analysing the influences of good governance on the socio-economic development in Pakistan in the light of World Bank good governance indicator and also probe the impact of prevalent perceived corruption in the country in accordance with observation taken by Transparency International, UNDP, and other renowned State Institutions. The paper has emphasized on the last two decades to ascertain the contributory factors by using the appropriate qualitative / quantitative and statistical techniques that debilitated good governance in Pakistan and caused continual political instability, pessimism, and recurring political crises and undermined socio-economic development in the country. Based on the ascertained findings, the paper has identified impediments to existing governance situation and prevalence of corrupt practices and has proposed workable suggestions/ recommendations to assist policy makers, development planners, intellectuals, politicians, and succeeding governments in Pakistan to take corresponding structural or policy reforms to address the said hurdles

TREADING TURBULENT WATERS: PAKISTAN’S READINESS TO THE LOOMING THREAT OF MARITIME TERRORISM

Houthis’ recent attacks on Merchant ships in the Red Sea have renewed focus on maritime terrorism. These attacks have pushed the global power centres to think seriously about this intensifying threat to international maritime trade and movement. South Asia, particularly India and Pakistan, have already faced the issue of marine terrorism, yet it has remained primarily a neglected field of enquiry, particularly in Pakistan. This paper aims to fill this void in the literature by critically analysing the threat of Maritime terrorism to Pakistan and how prepared it is to counter this problem. This paper attempts to dissect the threats that exist in the Arabian Sea and how maritime terrorism has the potential to push Pakistan and India into a new conflict, which may have grave consequences for the global community. The paper starts with an overview of maritime terrorism and how it has evolved over time and with technological advancements. This follows an analysis of marine terrorism incidents in India and Pakistan and how Pakistan has built up its organisational structure to cover the threats posed by it. It contends that Pakistan has a ready organisational structure; it requires improved inter-departmental coordination and more importantly, constitutional cover. In the end, the paper provides policy recommendations at the organisational, national and regional levels to address the issue of maritime terrorism.   Bibliography Entry Shahid, Mubashar Hassan and Rizwan Zeb. 2024. "Treading Turbulent Waters: Pakistan’s Readiness to the Looming Threat of Maritime Terrorism." Margalla Papers 28 (1): 211-225

Joint optimization of Age of Information and Energy Efficiency in IoT Networks

Age of information (AoI) refers to the freshness of data generated by a status-update system. It is a crucial metric in networks such as Internet of things (IoT), specially when the underlying application demands fresh update. In environmental monitoring and smart agriculture, apart from the importance of AoI, energy efficiency (EE) becomes inevitable owing to network longevity. This paper studies an IoT network where the end devices transfer their information to a central gateway residing on a moving platform such as a tractor, which collects information from a large number of sensors in an agri-field. An optimal trajectory of the mobile reader is proposed using a modified nearest neighbor algorithm to gather the information from randomly distributed sensors. A clustering algorithm is also used to cluster the data in such a way that the overall EE of the network is maximized keeping a desired AoI and outage probability

Recurrence of Benign Astrocytoma in a Benign form 20 Years after Surgery and Radiotherapy Treatment

A 43 years old male primary school teacher presented with the chief complaints of headache for 20 days, double vision for 20 days, unsteady gate and 04 episodes of vomiting in last 20 days before presentation. He had presented 20 years back with the same complaints and on workup he was found to have posterior fossa tumor with resultant hydrocephalus. He had undergone ventriculoperitoneal shunting followed by posterior fossa crani-ectomy with tumor excision followed by radiotherapy. Histopathology examination of his biopsy done at that time was showing grade ΙΙ Astrocytoma

Absence of Left Circumflex Artery: A Rare Congenital Disorder of Coronary Arteries

Congenital absence of left circumflex artery is a rare occurrence and very few cases have been reported in literature. It is a benign incidental finding; however some patients present with sudden onset chest pain mimicking acute coronary syndrome often resulting in detection of this rare anatomy on coronary angiography. Coronary computed tomography angiography is a relatively new noninvasive imaging modality which can be used to confirm this suspicion and diagnose this unique morphology reliably

NOMA Enhanced Backscatter Communication for Green IoT Networks

Backscatter communication has recently emerged as a promising technology to enable the passive sensing-based Internet-of-things (IoT) applications. In a backscatter communication network, uplink transmissions of multiple nodes are usually multiplexed in time- or frequency-domain to avoid collisions, yet it is desirable to improve the uplink capacity further. In this paper, we study a wireless-powered backscatter communication system, where the sensors use a hybrid channel access scheme by combining time division multiplexing access (TDMA) with power-domain non-orthogonal multiple access (PD-NOMA) to enhance the system performance in terms of outage probability and throughput. Our analysis shows that the proposed PD-NOMA increases both the spectrum efficiency and the throughput of the system