Does female representation on corporate boards improve intellectual capital efficiency?

© 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship between female representation on corporate boards and intellectual capital (IC) efficiency – while prior studies focus on the relationship between gender diversity and firms’ financial performance. Design/methodology/approach: Drawing on data from top 500 UK listed firms for 2007–2016 (3,279 firm-years), this study employs an adjusted-value-added intellectual coefficient as a measure of IC efficiency. Further, the two-step system-generalised method of moments has been applied to account for endogeneity issues. Findings: The results reveal a significant positive relationship between female representation on boards and IC efficiency, including human capital, structural/innovation capital and financial capital efficiency. These results are robust to alternative proxies for the independent variable and difference-in-difference estimation. Practical implications: The results posit that female representation on boards is associated with IC efficiency, which is vital for firms’ value creation and competitive advantage in the knowledge-economy era. The study also endorses current legislation to increase female representation on corporate boards. Originality/value: This is among the limited studies to explore the role of female representation on boards in IC efficiency – while most prior studies relate IC efficiency to financial performance

Board gender diversity and environmental, social, and economic value creation: Does family ownership matter?

© 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Prior literature on firm value creation for stakeholders has oversimplified and narrowed the concept of value down to “economic returns.” Although economic returns are fundamental to a firm\u27s core stakeholders (i.e., shareholders), other legitimate stakeholders want “value” beyond economic returns. We define stakeholder value as the financial and nonfinancial returns a firm can offer to its legitimate stakeholders, and empirically investigate whether board gender diversity (BGD) improves our multidimensional measure of value. Using Thomson Reuters\u27 ASSET4 data for U.K.-listed firms available from Eikon for the period 2007–2017, we report a significant positive relationship between BGD and stakeholder value creation. In particular, BGD increases social and environmental value creation in addition to economic returns. Furthermore, our results suggest that even though gender-diverse boards are associated with stakeholder value creation in family firms, this is only conspicuous for environmental value creation. The findings suggest that although female directors cater to the interests of broader stakeholder groups, family ownership causes them to mainly focus on environmental stakeholders. The study provides important implications for regulators, stakeholders, and academic scholars

Diabetes Diagnosis through Machine Learning: An Analysis of Classification Algorithms

Diabetes is a serious and chronic disease characterized by high levels of sugar in the blood. If left untreated, it can lead to numerous complications. In the past, diagnosing diabetes required a visit to a diagnostic center and consultation with a doctor. However, the use of machine learning can help to identify the disease earlier and more accurately. This study aimed to create a model that can accurately predict the likelihood of diabetes in patients using three machine learning classification algorithms: Logistic Regression (LR), Decision Tree (DT), and Naive Bayes (NB). The model was tested on the Pima Indians Diabetes Database (PIDD) from the UCI machine learning repository and the performance of the algorithms was evaluated using various metrics such as accuracy, precision, F-measure, and recall. The results showed that Logistic Regression had the highest accuracy at 71.39% outperforming the other algorithms

Impact of Work Environment on Teachers’ Job Satisfaction A Case Study of Private Business Universities of Pakistan

The main purpose of the study was to check the relationship between work environment and teachers’ job satisfaction in private business universities of Karachi, Pakistan. The factors that include in work environment are freedom of teachers, involvement of teachers, management policies, co-workers’ relationships and employer – employee relationships used as independent variables and teachers’ job satisfaction used as a dependent variable. The structured 5 points likert scale questionnaire was used to collect the data from 105 private business universities’ teachers from Pakistan. The data was analyzed through SPSS 17 by using statistical tools such as descriptive statistical, Pearson correlation and simple linear regression. The results indicate that there is a positive relationship between all factors of work environment and job satisfaction in teachers. Research also found that the employer – employee relationships is most important factor of work environment in private business universities of Pakistan. It is suggested that the universities’ management should focus on favorable work environment particularly the factor of relationship between employer and employee to increase the job satisfaction amongst teachers, which may lead to higher performance. As research only was conducted with teachers of private business universities of Pakistan, it cannot be generalized to all sectors of country. Variables and sample size should be increased in the future research to get the better results. Keywords: Work Environment, Job satisfaction, Teacher, Education Sector, Private Universities Area of Research: Human Resource Management, Educatio

Evaluation and optimization of supercritical cycles using CO₂ based mixtures as working fluids:A thermodynamic study

This study focuses on the thermodynamic performance analysis and optimization of CO2-based binary fluid mixtures in supercritical thermodynamic power cycles exploiting high-temperature waste heat. Response surface method is used to establish relationships between cycle performances and significant cycle parameters. Multi-objective optimization is carried out to obtain optimal solutions with higher cycle specific work and higher cycle efficiency. The analysis reveals that increasing additive molar fraction of the considered mixtures improves cycle thermodynamic performance. Among considered mixtures, the CO2-R152a mixture exhibits a higher cycle specific work and a larger cycle efficiency. For instance, in the recompression cycle configuration, the CO2-R152a mixture achieves cycle specific work of 83.9 kJ/kg and corresponding cycle efficiency of 37.2% at the optimal conditions. Comparative analysis demonstrates improved cycle-specific work for CO2-based mixtures compared to supercritical pure CO2 power cycles. In the recompression cycle configuration, the CO2-R152a mixture shows an average increase of 12 kJ/kg in cycle specific work compared to the supercritical CO2 power cycle. The simple recuperated cycle configuration exhibits an average increase of 13 kJ/kg. The utilization of these mixtures results in a substantial gain in cycle specific work, thereby contributing to enhanced energy efficiency and sustainability in high-temperature waste heat recovery applications.</p

Incidental Detection of Adrenal Myelolipoma in a middle age female patient: a case report

Adrenal myelolipoma is a rare benign neoplastic lesion, mostly asymptomatic and unilateral. It originates from the adrenal gland and is made up of mature adipose tissues with the hematopoietic series. Adrenal lipomas are extremely rare and always benign and non-secreting. We describe a case of a hypertensive female patient who presented with abdominal pain. Physical examination and investigations were unremarkable. Ultrasound abdomen showed a hyperechoic mass on the left side of the abdomen. Contrast-enhanced abdomen illustrated a large heterogeneous mix density lesion in the left suprarenal gland showing enhancing soft tissue and macroscopic fat components suggesting adrenal myelolipoma. Although the patient did not have any related complications but owing to the large size of the tumor, surgical resection was planned which was later done successfully

Pattern and Knowledge of HbA1C Testing among Diabetic Patients at The Indus Hospital (TIH), Karachi

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RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CORPORATE TAX AND PRIVATE INVESTMENT IN PAKISTAN: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS

Investment plays a pivotal role in promoting growth andbringing prosperity countries. However higher Corporate Tax rates are considered to be one of the main hurdles in the way of Investment.Keeping in view this fact, the present study has been an effort toempirically explore this contrivance for Pakistan. The Study usedtime series data for the time period 1984-2014 by applying AutoRegressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) technique for econometricsanalysis. Results show that higher corporate tax rate has mitigated private investment in Pakistan. High tax rate for corporate sector increases the cost and reduces the corporate profits; hence it decreases private investment. The present study recommends that corporate tax rate should be decreased to enhance private investment in Pakistan

SGLT2-Inhibitors and Euglycemia Diabetic Ketoacidosis: A Missed Diagnosis

Euglycemic diabetic ketoacidosis (EuDKA), is an uncommon but potentially fatal medical emergency characterized by metabolic acidosis, ketosis, and either normal or near normal blood glucose level. The Diagnosis is delayed due to a lack of hyperglycemia leading to adverse consequences. It’s not a routine diagnosis but patients with both types of diabetes mellitus may suffer from it. Since august 2014, after the inclusion of sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors (SGLT2i) for the management of diabetes mellitus, the incidence of euglycemia DKA has raised. The other conditions that may contribute to this metabolic disorder include fasting, chronic liver disease, pregnancy, gastroparesis, bariatric surgery, glycogen storage disease, cocaine intoxication, and insulin pump failure. Euglycemic DKA, a diagnosis of exclusion, should be considered in any unexplained metabolic acidosis among diabetic patients, who report to the hospital with nonspecific symptoms not suggesting DKA and have been taking sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors. Here we are describing a case of ketoacidosis with normoglycemia caused by empagliflozin in a female suffering from type 2 diabetes mellitus to raise awareness of physicians to minimize the delays in the identification of this life-threatening metabolic disorder