Impact of Credit Risk Management on Bank Performance: An Empirical Study on Commercial Banks Listed at Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX)

Commercial banks are involved in uncontrolled credit risk management that negatively affects their sustainable banking performance. Many guidelines, strategies, and judgments have been made, such as the Basel Accords, to control these issues and adequately manage their lending and borrowing policies. This study aims to analyse the impact of credit risk management on the sustainable performance of commercial banks. For this purpose, secondary panel data was collected from the annual financial reports of 27 commercial banks out of the 31 listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) for the period 2017-2021. E-views 10 software was applied to perform descriptive correlation and multiple regression analyses. In the current study’s model, credit risk management proxies, return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE), and net interest margin (NIM) were employed as dependent variables. At the same time, capital adequacy ratio (CAR), loan and advances (LA), non-performing loans (NPL) ratio, market profit opportunity (MPO), and bank liquidity (BL) were employed as independent variables. The study concludes that bank liquidity has a significant positive relationship with bank performance. Comparably, capital adequacy ratio, non-performing loans, bank liquidity, market profit opportunity, and loan and advances harm the sustainable performance of commercial banks. The research suggests that implementing stricter policies and strategies, such as the regulation of customer loans, is required to control these issues

Latent iron deficiency in non-anemic children under five years of age

Background: The most common nutritional deficiency in world is iron deficiency. The iron deficiency is the most common cause of anemia due to nutritional deficiency and is seen most commonly in children under five years of age. Objective: To determine the frequency of iron deficiency in non-anemic children under five years of age. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional survey was conducted in pediatrics department of –removed for blind review---from August 2020 to February 2021. A total of 145 non-anemic children, ages 2-59 months were enrolled through non-probability consecutive sampling in this study. The complete blood count and C-reactive protein were sent for laboratory tests to rule out infection/inflammation. In children with normal hematocrit (30-40%) and CRP (≤ 6), serum ferritin levels were sent. Those children in whom serum ferritin levels were ≤12ng/ml was regarded as cases of latent iron deficiency. SPSS version 23 was used for data entry and analysis. Age and gender for effect modifiers were controlled by stratification. The chi square test was used for post stratification. The value of p ≤ 0.05 was considered significant. Results: The mean age of the patients was 3.20±5.41 years. Among all children, 69 (47.6%) were boys and remaining 76 (52.4%) were girls. Out of 145 children, 62 (42.8%) were iron deficient whereas 83 (57.2%) were non-iron deficient. The male to female ratio of iron deficiency was 1:1.3. The prevalence of iron deficiency among infants was 46%, followed by toddlers 42% and preschoolers 41%. The mean serum ferritin level was 22.96±2.21 ng/ml. The mean hematocrit was 33.84±2.68. The statistical analysis showed that there was an insignificant association between iron deficiency and age groups of children (p ≥ 0.5). Conclusion: The study concluded that the iron deficiency in children is very common, especially in infants. Screening of iron deficiency in children under five years of age seems to be a very important task for better child care. Key words: Anemia, Iron-Deficiency; Child, Preschool; Malnutrition

DOES OPTIMAL CASH HOLDING MATTER IN MAINTAINING AND IMPROVING PROFITABILITY?

ABSTRACT   Purpose: This study was aimed to identify optimal cash holding factors and how they impacted the profitability of Pakistani-listed enterprises

Screening of marigold (Tagetes erecta L.) cultivars for drought stress based on vegetative and physiological characteristics

Drought tolerance is an important genotypic character to be exploited for the plant cultivar selection under water deficit conditions. In the recent study, we examined the response of two marigold cultivars (Inca and Bonanza) under different regimes of drought stress. The aim was to determine the best performing cultivar under water/drought stress. Three irrigation treatments include; 4 days (T1), 6 days (T2) and 8 days (T3) in comparison to control 1 day (T0) interval were imposed. Response characters under study were morphological, physiological and anatomical. Complete Randomized Design (CRD) with four replications in two factorial arrangements was followed for experiment layout. The results revealed that increasing water stress adversely affect plant height, in both cultivars. Both cultivars showed a decreasing trend to the number of flowers under water stress. Total chlorophyll contents including a, b were also showed reduction under prolonged drought treatment in both cultivars from (2.7 mg g-1 FW) to (1 mg g-1 FW). Overall, the performance of cultivar (cv.) Inca was satisfactory under water stress regimes. These results are helpful for selecting drought tolerant marigold cultivars in water scarce areas.  Â

Impact of unhygienic conditions during slaughtering and processing on spread of antibiotic resistant Escherichia coli from poultry

Antibiotic resistance in Escherichia coli is a global health concern. We studied all possible routes of cross contamination of broiler meat with resistant E. coli from broiler feces at poultry shops. Various sample categories namely poultry feces, meat (n=225 for each), slaughterer hands, consumer hands, slaughterer knife, canister, tap water, carcass, feed and drinking water (n=50 for each) were collected from local poultry processing market. Samples were screened for prevalence of E. coli, resistance of isolates against ten antibiotics and presence of tetracycline- resistance genes in the isolates. Fecal samples had greatest colony count (4.1×104 CFU/g) as compared to meat (1.9×104 CFU/g) samples. Samples of consumer hands (6%) and tap water (12%) had less prevalence percentages of E. coli as compared to slaughterer hands (92%) and drinking water of broiler (86%). Isolates of eight sample categories had high resistant rate (≥90%) against oxytetracycline. On average, about 94% of the isolates from various sample categories possessed multidrug-resistance (MDR). Tetracycline-resistance genes (tetA and tetB) were identified in all sample categories except isolates of consumer hands and tap water. The distribution of tetracycline-resistance genes was significantly greater in fecal isolates (42%) than meat isolates (25%). The study depicted the spread of resistant E. coli in broiler meat through all studied routes of contamination of slaughtering periphery. This problem can be mitigated by strict monitoring of antibiotics use at poultry farms, prevention of cross contamination by adopting hygienic slaughter and vigorously screening the market meat for resistant E. coli

Richness and Cover of Nontimber Economic Plants along Altitude in Temperate Himalayan Forest-Use Types

Pakistani Himalaya stretches over a wide range of altitudinal gradients and supports high diversity of medicinal plants that are an important source for rural livelihood. Altitudinal effects on ground vegetation have already been indicated but ground vegetation is also under severe threat of grazing and over collection. The present study investigated the effect of altitude on medicinal plants abundance in both old-growth and derived woodland forests. Each of the five line transects was selected in old-growth and derived woodland forests. Each line transect consisted of four plots distributed at four altitudinal levels (2200, 2300, 2400, and 2500 m asl). Species richness under derived woodland had shown strong negative correlation (r=-0.95) with altitude while it was found to be nonsignificant under old-growth. Cover of most of the species such as Veronica laxa (r=-0.95, P≤0.05) had shown significant negative correlation with altitude under derived woodland. Cover abundance of some species like Valeriana jatamansi and Viola canescens has also shown significant negative correlation under old-growth forest. Derived woodland can decrease the cover abundance of valuable medicinal plants towards extension at higher altitudes. Thus, protection of the derived woodland could serve as a tool for the improvement of rural livelihood and ecological restoration

Climate change and mental health: a call to action to include mental health and psychosocial support services (MHPSS) in the Pakistan flood crisis

The recent flood crisis in Pakistan has had significant impacts on the physical, mental and socioeconomic fabric of almost 33 million people. Floods in Pakistan are leading to a range of negative impacts on health and major disruptions to healthcare services. The lack of mental health and psychosocial support services (MHPSS) is a significant concern in rural areas of Pakistan in providing support to communities affected by floods. It is important for the government and mental health policymakers to work with academic coalitions and non-governmental organisations to replicate low-resource MHPSS models that will develop and advocate for effective, gender-sensitive mental healthcare throughout the country

Biochar-mediated control of metabolites and other physiological responses in water-stressed Leptocohloa fusca

We investigated biochar-induced drought tolerance in Leptocohloa fusca (Kallar grass) by exploring the plant defense system at physiological level. L. fusca plants were exposed to drought stress (100%, 70%, and 30% field capacity), and biochar (BC), as an organic soil amendment was applied in two concentrations (15 and 30 mg kg−1 soil) to induce drought tolerance. Our results demonstrated that drought restricted the growth of L. fusca by inhibiting shoot and root (fresh and dry) weight, total chlorophyll content and photosynthetic rate. Under drought stress, the uptake of essential nutrients was also limited due to lower water supply, which ultimately affected metabolites including amino and organic acids, and soluble sugars. In addition, drought stress induced oxidative stress, which is evidenced by the higher production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) including hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), superoxide ion (O2−), hydroxyl ion (OH−), and malondialdehyde (MDA). The current study revealed that stress-induced oxidative injury is not a linear path, since the excessive production of lipid peroxidation led to the accumulation of methylglyoxal (MG), a member of reactive carbonyl species (RCS), which ultimately caused cell injury. As a consequence of oxidative-stress induction, the ascorbate–glutathione (AsA–GSH) pathway, followed by a series of reactions, was activated by the plants to reduce ROS-induced oxidative damage. Furthermore, biochar considerably improved plant growth and development by mediating metabolites and soil physio-chemical status

Study of wettability and cell viability of H implanted stainless steel

In the present work, the effect of hydrogen ion implantation on surface wettability and biocompatibility of stainless steel is investigated. Hydrogen ions are implanted in the near-surface of stainless steel to facilitate hydrogen bonding at different doses with constant energy of 500 KeV, which consequently improve the surface wettability. Treated and untreated sample are characterized for surface wettability, incubation of hydroxyapatite and cell viability. Contact angle (CA) study reveals that surface wettability increases with increasing H-ion dose. Raman spectroscopy shows that precipitation of hydroxyapatite over the surface increase with increasing dose of H-ions. Cell viability study using MTT assay describes improved cell viability in treated samples as compared to the untreated sample. It is found that low dose of H-ions is more effective for cell proliferation and the cell count decreases with increasing ion dose. Our study demonstrates that H ion implantation improves the surface wettability and biocompatibility of stainless steel