Banking Sector Soundness, Innovation, and Development: Emerging Europe and South Asia. ACES Working Papers, 2012

While most academic and practitioner researchers agree that a country’s commercial banking sector’s soundness is a very significant indicator of a country’s financial market health, there is considerably less agreement and substantial confusion surrounding what constitutes a healthy bank in the aftermath of 2007+ financial crisis. Global banks’ balance sheets, corporate governance, management compensation and bonuses, toxic assets, and risky behavior are all under scrutiny as academics and regulators alike are trying to quantify what are “healthy, safe and good practices” for these various elements of banking. The current need to quantify, measure, evaluate, and compare is driven by the desire to spot troubled banks, “bad and risky” behavior, and prevent real damage and contagion in the financial markets, investors, and tax payers as it did in the recent crisis. Moreover, future financial crisis has taken on a new urgency as vast amounts of capital flows (over $1 trillion) are being redirected to emerging markets. This study differs from existing methods in the literature as it entail designing, constructing, and validating a critical dimension of financial innovation in respect to the eight developing countries in the South Asia region as well as eight countries in emerging Europe at the country level for the period 2001 – 2008, with regional and systemic differentials taken into account. Preliminary findings reveal that higher stages of payment systems development have generated efficiency gains by reducing the settlement risk and improving financial intermediation; such efficiency gains are viewed as positive financial innovations and positively impact the banking soundness. Potential EU candidate countries: Albania; Montenegro; Serbi

Obstacles Faced by Women in Food Crop Cultivation in the Urbanized Areas of Kandy District, Sri Lanka

Women contribute significantly to urban agriculture. Generally, they participate in pre-planting activities as well as post-harvest activities rather than the cultivation activities. However, it is noted that many women engage in gardening without the aid of men. Regardless of their roles, women, farmers face numerous challenges that prevent them from being as productive as they may be in urban environments.  This study investigated the problems faced by women farmers in urban areas with a focus on Kandy, Sri Lanka. According to the matrix ranking, lack of sufficient land was cited as the critical issue that is 48.5% of the respondents, while 9 (13.6%) and 3 (4.5%) respondents placed it as the second and third biggest problem, respectively. Appropriate suggestions were also made, such as agricultural extension programs particularly for women farmers, and including women in agricultural decision-making. © 2022 The Authors. Published by Department of Estate Management and Valuation, University of Sri Jayewardenepura.   Keywords: Women farmers, Urban agriculture, Participation&nbsp

Validation of a functional screening instrument for dementia in an elderly sri lankan population: comparison of modified bristol and blessed activities of daily living scales

Abstract Background Cognitive tests have been used in population surveys as first stage screens for dementia but are biased by education. However functional ability scales are less biased by education than the cognitive scale and thus can be used in screening for dementia. Objective To validate Activities of Daily Living (ADL) scale appropriate for use in assessing the presence of dementia in an elderly population living in care homes in Sri Lanka. Method Sinhalese version of the modified Bristol and Blessed scale was administered to subjects aged 55 years and above residing in 14 randomly selected elders' homes. Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) was used to determine the cut-off scores of both the scales. Results Based on the ROC analysis, optimal cut off score of the modified Bristol scale was 20 with a sensitivity of 100%, specificity of 74.2% and the area under the curve 0.933(95% CI: 0.871-0.995) while the optimal cut off score of the modified Blessed scale was 10.5 with a sensitivity of 100%, specificity of 71% and the area under the curve 0.892 (95% CI: 0.816-0.967). Conclusion The findings confirm that both the scales can be used in screening for dementia in the elderly living in care homes in Sri Lanka.</p

Key Success Factors of Scrum Software Development Methodology in Sri Lanka

The information technology industry emerged with distinctive differences compared to other industries due its wide application on day-to-day business processes. Today, it is important for businesses to identify the information technologies that are going to have an effect on them, and respond suitably with IT-based solutions to remain competitive. These traits trickle down to the identical fundamental activities of software development, where having maximum flexibility to accurately and quickly comply with the client’s demands had become a must-have in every cutting edge development company. In this context, software development companies have shifted their development from conventional methodologies like waterfall methodology towards agile software development. Amongst, agile software development methodologies, “scrum” has become more popular amongst IT firms due to several advantages inherent in it especially from the customer’s perspective. The main aim of this study was to identify the key success factors that affect the scrum software development project success. According to the literature, a preliminary list of potential key success factors of agile project success was identified by the authors in [1] and their model was primarily considered in this study due to its wide application in agile software development arena. Data from 241 IT professionals were collected through an online questionnaire, and based on the results, the hypotheses were tested in order to identify the effect of each key success factor on the scrum software development project success.It was found that the management commitment, organizational environment, team capability, customer involvement, customer satisfaction, practice of agile software techniques, project management process, project nature, project type, project acceptability, and intension to use were having significant and positive effect on scrum software development project success

Impact of ICT-Usage on SMEs’ Innovations in Western Province of Sri Lanka

Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs) are major sources of employment and value creation, as it plays a key role in Sri Lankan livelihood. It is evident that the SME sector in Sri Lanka does not provide the expected results and this sector lacks innovation. Thus, it is important to identify opportunities to improve the SME’s innovative capacity and business performance. This study was designed to investigate the impact of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on innovations of SMEs in the Western Province of Sri Lanka, and to identify the existing level of ICT usage among the SMEs in the Western Province of Sri Lanka. This study used a quantitative research method. The population of the study was SMEs with less than 500 employees in the Western Province. The sample frame was derived from the two main listings of organizations: the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce and the Ministry of Industries and Industrial Development Board. Accordingly, 350 respondents were selected by using the simple random sampling method. Data were analyzed using the SPSS statistical tool with descriptive and inferential statistics. This study identified four main types of innovations namely: product, process, market, and organizational, and found that there is a significant effect of ICT usage on SMEs innovations. Future research could be undertaken to examine the mediating effect of ICT-based innovations and ICT usage on business performance. Keywords: Entrepreneur, Innovation, Small and Medium size Enterprises, Information and Communication Technolog

Dissecting and modelling the comparative adaptation to water limitation of sorghum and maize: role of transpiration efficiency, transpiration rate and height

Maize is considered less drought-tolerant than sorghum, but sorghum is commonly grown as a short triple dwarf (3dwarf) type, so difference in plant height confounds the species comparison. The objectives of this study were to experimentally determine effects of species and plant height differences on transpiration efficiency (TE) and transpiration rate per unit green leaf area (TGLA) and use findings to explain input parameters in a simulation study on the comparative adaptation of 3dwarf sorghum and maize in environments with contrasting water availability. Maize, tall double dwarf (2dwarf) and short 3dwarf sorghum genotypes were grown in two lysimeter experiments in 2011 in SE Queensland, Australia. Each plant was harvested after anthesis and total transpiration, shoot and root dry mass were measured to estimate TE. Daily TGLA was used to compare transpiration rates. Species and height had limited effect on TE, but significantly affected TGLA. This was associated with differences in biomass allocation. The similar TE but higher TGLA in maize compared with 3dwarf sorghum meant it potentially produces more biomass, consistent with published differences in biomass accumulation and radiation use efficiency (RUE). The simulation study, which used similar TE for maize and 3dwarf sorghum, but captured differences in TGLA through differences in RUE, predicted crossover interactions for grain yield between species and total water use. The greater TGLA of maize decreased grain yield in water-limited environments, but increased yields in well-watered situations. Results highlight that similarity in TE and differences in TGLA can influence comparative adaptation to water limitation

Peripubertal high-fat diet promotes c-Myc stabilization in mammary gland epithelium

Dietary fat consumption during accelerated stages of mammary gland development, such as peripubertal maturation or pregnancy, is known to increase the risk for breast cancer. However, the underlying molecular mechanisms are not fully understood. Here we examined the gene expression profile of mouse mammary epithelial cells (MMECs) on exposure to a high-fat diet (HFD) or control diet (CD). Trp53-/- female mice were fed with the experimental diets for 5 weeks during the peripubertal period (3-8 weeks of age). The treatment showed no significant difference in body weight between the HFD-fed mice and CD-fed mice. However, gene set enrichment analysis predicted a significant enrichment of c-Myc target genes in animals fed HFD. Furthermore, we detected enhanced activity and stabilization of c-Myc protein in MMECs exposed to a HFD. This was accompanied by augmented c-Myc phosphorylation at S62 with a concomitant increase in ERK phosphorylation. Moreover, MMECs derived from HFD-fed Trp53-/- mouse showed increased colony- and sphere-forming potential that was dependent on c-Myc. Further, oleic acid, a major fatty acid constituent of the HFD, and TAK-875, an agonist to G protein-coupled receptor 40 (a receptor for oleic acid), enhanced c-Myc stabilization and MMEC proliferation. Overall, our data indicate that HFD influences MMECs by stabilizing an oncoprotein, pointing to a novel mechanism underlying dietary fat-mediated mammary carcinogenesis.Nilakshi Kulathunga, Susumu Kohno, Paing Linn, Yuuki Nishimoto, Shin‐ichi Horike ... Sharad Kumar ... et al

Mupirocin resistance of <em>Staphylococcus aureus</em> in clinical isolates and nasal carriage isolates

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