The Impact of Capital Structure on Firm’s Performance ( A case of Non-Financial Sector of Pakistan)

This paper tends to investigate the impact of capital structure on the firm performance of the firms from the non-financial sector of Pakistan. Non-financial firms listed on Karachi Stock Exchange are taken as the sample size for the study. For measuring the performance of the firms Return on Assets (ROA), Return on Equity (ROE), Net Profit Margin (NPM) and Earning per Share (EPS) are used as proxies. Short Term Debt (STD), Long Term Debt (LTD) and Leverage of the Firm or Total Debt (LEV) are variables for the capital structure. Controlled variables installed in the study are Size of the Firms (SIZE), Sales Growth (SALG), Assets Growth (ASSG) and Assets Turnover or Efficiency of the Firm (ASST). The total firms were 441, due to incomplete data it came down to 380 firms. Ordinary Least Square (OLS) method is used to analyze the performance, data is taken from 2005 to 2011 i.e. 7 years. Short Term Debt (STD), Long Term Debt (LTD) and Leverage of the Firm (LEV) have a negatively affected Return on Assets (ROA). Return on Equity (ROE) has a negative relation with all the capital structure variables but with Long Term Debt (LTD) and Leverage of the Firm (LEV) it was insignificant. In case of Net Profit Margin (NPM) the impact was positive but was insignificant for all the variables i.e. Long Term Debt (LTD), Short Term Debt (STD) and Leverage of the Firm (LEV). All the capital structure variables negatively affected Earning per Share (EPS) and were significant. Assets Turnover affected the performance positively for all proxies except Net Profit Margin (NPM) for which it was positive but insignificant. Size of the firm positively affected the performance overall while Sales Growth (SALG) has a significantly negative impact on Return on Assets. Assets Growth was found to have on impact on the performance of the firms. Keywords: Capital Structure, Firm’s Performanc

Establishment of Hand Rearing Protocols with Respect to Feeding, Physiological and Behavioral Aspects in Abandoned Lion Cubs at Safari Zoo Lahore

African lion (Panthera leo) being most attractive but vulnerable exhibit of zoos and safaris; need particular attention to breeding plans. At captive sites, lioness neglects newborns commonly; at that stage, hand rearing is preferred. This study will highlight the best practices for hand-rearing lion cubs, including knowledge of early medical issues along with their treatment during the first 4 months of growth. 34 lions (08Male: 17Females: 9Cubs) were housed on 15 acres during 2019-21 at Safari Zoo Lahore. A total of 04 lionesses were found entirely abandoned to 05 newborns (03 males & 02 females). The hand-rearing period was divided into four phases based on age and feeding protocol and every cub was offered formula milk with or without meat depending upon age. The average weight gain of all the cubs was recorded along with problems/ conditions faced during process. The male cub 3 was found highest in weight gain but statistically no age wise or sex wise difference in growth was observed. The major problems faced were constipation, diarrhea, hyperthermia, eye blindness, and hind quarter weakness in 100 %, 100 %, 40 %, 20 %, and 40 % animals, respectively. All five successfully hand-reared cubs were shifted to 03 sub- adult lion’s enclosures. The behavioral changes of all the lion cubs were also recorded concerning aggression while feeding and pacing in the enclosure, etc. The study outcomes the protocol for hand rearing abandoned lion cubs, which would ultimately be helpful to the zoo keepers and wildlife conservationists

Corporate Social Responsibility and Firms’ Financial Performance: A Conceptual Framework

This paper conceptually analyses the impact of corporate social responsibility(CSR) on firms’ financial performance. CSR is considered as an important business strategy that achieves a steady growth in firms’ profitability through improving their image. It includes all those strategies which account for are an ethical conduct and society friendly approach beneficial for the development of society. In addition to profit-maximization, the firm is also supposed to undertake activities which uplift the life of employees and the general public. In this regard, the conceptual framework of the current study shows that firms spend on awarding scholarships to needy students, health activities such as health awareness program, free medical camps, environmental protection awareness programs and sports activities. The conceptual framework alsohighlights that firms with large capital spend more on CSR activities owing to anincreased pressure of the government, public, media and other stakeholders. Based on the previous extant literature, it is also assumed that firms which earn higher profits spend more on CSR in the coming year/s that have positive impacts on their profitability. However, by following theoretical postulations, it is assumed the relationship between CSR and firms’ profitability may be endogenous. Accordingly, this study proposes dynamic GMM estimation that is a preferred technique, particularly in the presence of endogeneity

GENDER DIVERSITY, CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND FIRM PERFORMANCE IN MAJOR ASIAN ECONOMIES

This study analyzes the effects of gender diversity and corporate governance on firm’s performance in Asian major economies. The study finds positive and significance impact of gender diversity on firm’s performance. In addition, the study explored significant role of executive female directors as compared to non-executive female directors. The impact of board characteristics and ownership structure on firm’s performance were also examined and found the evidences of positive association of them with firm’s performance in most cases except India (where the state ownership exhibited negative impact on firm’s performance). The study also provides comparative analysis of developed and developing economies in Asia and reported significance role of female representation in emerging markets as compared to developed and overall markets results. Lastly, the study also confirms non-existence of reverse causality between gender diversity and firm’s performance by applying t-tests and breaking down the sample according to women participation in the corporate board. The results confirm the role of female representation on firm performance from tokenism to critical mass. Consequently, the results strongly suggest that gender diversity in firm’s board needs to be enhanced, compulsory laws being a key determinant to achieve the desired results in Asian context

GENDER DIVERSITY, CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND FIRM PERFORMANCE IN MAJOR ASIAN ECONOMIES

This study analyzes the effects of gender diversity and corporate governance on firm’s performance in Asian major economies. The study finds positive and significance impact of gender diversity on firm’s performance. In addition, the study explored significant role of executive female directors as compared to non-executive female directors. The impact of board characteristics and ownership structure on firm’s performance were also examined and found the evidences of positive association of them with firm’s performance in most cases except India (where the state ownership exhibited negative impact on firm’s performance). The study also provides comparative analysis of developed and developing economies in Asia and reported significance role of female representation in emerging markets as compared to developed and overall markets results. Lastly, the study also confirms non-existence of reverse causality between gender diversity and firm’s performance by applying t-tests and breaking down the sample according to women participation in the corporate board. The results confirm the role of female representation on firm performance from tokenism to critical mass. Consequently, the results strongly suggest that gender diversity in firm’s board needs to be enhanced, compulsory laws being a key determinant to achieve the desired results in Asian context

Lipid Polymer Hybrid Nanoparticles: A Novel Approach for Drug Delivery

Applications of nanotechnology and material sciences emerge in the development of various novel drug delivery systems that have been proven as promising clinically. Among these, liposomes, noisome, polymeric carriers and lipid-based delivery system were extensively explored and enter into clinical trials and clinical applications. However, each system has its own pros and cons in term of different physicochemical, pharmacokinetics and therapeutics aspects. Lipid-polymer hybrid carriers merge the potential benefit of these structural components and can be prepared by different approaches to improve the therapeutic outcomes. In this chapter, we provide the useful insight about the lipid-polymer hybrid nanoparticles (LPHNPs) that can be prepared by using the different structural components including the synthetic and natural polymers and lipids. Among these, we also explain the various methods to prepare the LPHNPs with various desired characteristics. Finally, the various therapeutic and clinical applications have been presented briefly

Playing Doom with Anticipator-A3C Based Agents Using Deep Reinforcement Learning and the ViZDoom Game-AI Research Platform

The built-in game agents act according to the pre-written scripts and make decisions, take actions like they have been stated. They acquire and take advantage of unfair information, instead of acting flexibly like human players, who make decisions only based on game screens. This chapter focuses on studying the application of Deep Learning and Reinforcement Learning in games agents and the improvement of the related algorithms. The goal is to develop a game agent that makes decisions in human’s way and gets rid of relying on unfair information. A game agent (CNN) is implemented by augmenting the A3C algorithm. This agent takes the original real-time game screen as the input of the network, and then output the matching policy. The agent interacts with ViZDoom and reads the real-time game screen to make decisions for controlling the character to act. This chapter improved the A3C algorithm by adding an anticipator network to the original model structure. The goal of doing this is to make the agent act more like human players. It will generate anticipation before making decisions, then combine the real-time game screen with anticipation images together as a whole input of the network defined by the A3C algorithm. It can use the combination of the data to make decisions and output the discrete actions. Because the method only changes the structure of data for the input of the network, so it is a model-free method and can be easily transplanted to other algorithms. The performance of A3C is compared with variants proposed in this chapter, analyzed the differences between them and gathered the experimental data from the latest articles as a comparison which studies the same problem. The result shows, that the A3C algorithm with Anticipation performs better than the A3C algorithm

Effect of Nitrogenous Fertilizer on the Vegetative Growth and Yield Attribute of Pea (Pisum sativum L.)

An experiment was conducted to study the effect of chemical fertilizer on the pea growth and yield attributes. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to investigate the effect of chemical fertilizer alone and in combination. This study consists of three different nitrogen levels (90, 100 and 110 kg ha-1as urea), three different levels of phosphorus (60, 70 and 80 P2O5 kg ha-1 as DAP) and their combination. Treatments were arranged in a complete randomized block design with three replications. The results showed that both the single and combined application of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizer increased the growth and yield attribute of the pea plant. Maximum number of primary (6.91) and secondary branches per plant (7.97), number of leaves per plant (12.50) and plant height (51.24 cm) was attained by the combine application of P80+N110. Similarly, the maximum increase in yield parameters such as pod length (7.5 cm), number of pods per plant(7.23), pod weight (12.50 g) and number of grains per pod was obtained in P80+N110. In general, combined application of fertilizers significantly increased all the growth and yield attribute of the pea plant when compared to fertilizers applied alone with respect to control

The Influence of Plastic Mulching Materials and Sowing Dates on the Yield and Yield Components of Pea (Pisum sativum L.)

The use of plastic mulches affects the microclimate in the vicinity of the plant by modifying the radiation on the soil surface and reduce the loss of water. Pea is more nutritious and 2nd food source after cereals at Pakistan, but due to lake of proper management, yield is still not up to mark as compare to developed world. To reduce this problem, a field experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of mulching material and sowing dates on the yield of Pea. The study consisted of three different mulching materials (Polythene Black, Polythene Blue and Polythene Brown) with three different sowing dates (1st, 15th and 30th October) arranged in a Randomized Complete Block Design with three replications. The results showed that different sowing dates and mulching materials had significant effect on the yield parameters of Pea. Regarding sowing dates, maximum days to pod formation (8.08 days), pods plant?1 (21.25), Pod weight (18.84 g) and pod yield (4.39 tons ha?1) were noted in pea sown on October 1st. Whereas, minimum data of days to pod formation (3.08 days), pod plant?1 (15.34), pod weight (13.17 g) and pod yields (2.69tons ha?1) were recorded in pea sown on October 30th. In case of mulching types maximum number of pods plant?1 (19.00), pod length (6.89 cm), seeds pod?1 (7.78), pod weight (17.34 g) and pod yield (3.69 tons ha?1) were observed in pea mulched with Polythene Black, while minimum pods plant-1, pod length, seeds pod-1, pod weight and pod yield were found in control. The study suggested that pea should be sown on October 1st while mulched with Polythene Black to produce maximum yield and production in agro environment of district Peshawar