SMEs BUSINESS GROWTH MODEL AND THE MEDIATING ROLE OF MARKET ORIENTATION

SMEs business growth is a central point for their success.Literature suggests different factors which inculcate smallerenterprises to grow but a tripod of three factors: reward system,decentralization of organization and owners’ attitude with amediating effect of market orientation have not been addressed.This study addresses the internal factors that contribute to the growthof SMEs with a mediating effect of market orientation. Data iscollected using survey method from Pakistani SMEs. The study arguesthat a significant potential lies in smaller enterprises to grow byadopting stated factors if firms are market oriente

Deep Neural Networks for Speech Enhancement in Complex-Noisy Environments

In this paper, we considered the problem of the speech enhancement similar to the real-world environments where several complex noise sources simultaneously degrade the quality and intelligibility of a target speech. The existing literature on the speech enhancement principally focuses on the presence of one noise source in mixture signals. However, in real-world situations, we generally face and attempt to improve the quality and intelligibility of speech where various complex stationary and nonstationary noise sources are simultaneously mixed with the target speech. Here, we have used deep learning for speech enhancement in complex-noisy environments and used ideal binary mask (IBM) as a binary classification function by using deep neural networks (DNNs). IBM is used as a target function during training and the trained DNNs are used to estimate IBM during enhancement stage. The estimated target function is then applied to the complex-noisy mixtures to obtain the target speech. The mean square error (MSE) is used as an objective cost function at various epochs. The experimental results at different input signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) showed that DNN-based complex-noisy speech enhancement outperformed the competing methods in terms of speech quality by using perceptual evaluation of speech quality (PESQ), segmental signal-to-noise ratio (SNRSeg), log-likelihood ratio (LLR), weighted spectral slope (WSS). Moreover, short-time objective intelligibility (STOI) reinforced the better speech intelligibility

Exploring End-Users’ Digital Literacy Skills in the Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Pakistan

This study aimed to explore end-users’ digital literacy skills in the Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Pakistan. The study employed the quantitative research method to address the research questions. The quantitative data were collected from research students (M.Phil. and PhD) studying at different departments in the university through the questionnaire. The findings of the study suggest that the respondents had a high level of knowledge and skills to use the Internet, MS Word and computers. The participants were not aware of most of electronic resources. They possessed a low level of skills to retrieve digital information, produce and create digital contents, and evaluate digital information. The findings of the study will help university authorities, academic departments and the university library to take necessary measures to develop and improve students’ digital literacy skills, so that they can use digital resources effectively and undertake their research and study efficiently

ENTREPRENEURIAL MARKETING, ENVIRONMENTAL UNCERTAINTY AND PERFORMANCE OF FAMILY FIRMS

Businesses in general and family SMEs in specific are vulnerable to environmental uncertainty in underdeveloped countries. Stiff competitions, technological bursts and market turbulence appears as a catastrophe and a major cause for short life of many family SMEs. A few family SMEs still exist and survive in all these uncertain conditions. Various reasons been discussed in previous literature and had proved the importance of entrepreneurial marketing as one of the major sources of high performances. The marketing strategies opted by family SMEs having dimension of entrepreneurship, are not only self-beneficial but also the cause of new market trends. The primary purpose of this study is to consider the effect of opportunity vigilance, consumer centric innovation, value creation and risk management termed as entrepreneurial marketing and used as a fundamental approach for family SMEs to survive and grab high performances even under uncertain conditions. Results show that entrepreneurial marketing in family SMEs is positively associated with high performances even under uncertain environments. Previously uncertain environments were considered as one of the major cause for entrepreneurial marketing that does not qualify in our case. Family SMEs use entrepreneurial marketing as their vital tool for competitive markets to perform high irrespective of environmental conditions i.e. either favorable or unfavorable.Â

Environmental Regulations and Industrial Trade Competitiveness: Evidence from South Asian Countries

This thesis examines the impact of environmental regulations on trade competitiveness for South Asian countries. The study further investigates whether South Asian countries have become a pollutive haven of industrial exports to OECD countries during 1984-2004. The thesis also analyses whether tariff walls created by the governments to offsets stringent environmental regulations negatively affect pollutive industrial trade flows. This study has identified gaps in the literature after critically reviewing both competing trade theories and empirical literature surrounding the subject. Firstly, most of the empirical literature on the subject has focused on developed countries while ignoring less developed regions like South Asia. Second, several studies concluded trade competitiveness impact of environmental policy following a single estimation method when results are sensitive to the choice of the method used. Hence, for robust results, cross-methods analysis was imperative. Thirdly, the empirical literature on the subject focused on most pollutive industries and ignored the research on somewhat pollutive and least pollutive sectors as well as comparative analysis between those industries. This study has contributed to the literature by filling these gaps. Following the neo-classical theory, the central hypothesis of this thesis is that environmental regulations negatively affect different categories of pollutive industrial export competitiveness. By using the highest dis-aggregated ISIC level trade data and incorporating other socio-economic variables, this study has deployed comparative advantage trade models by Balassa (1965), competitiveness indicator by XU (1999), and bilateral RCA model by Grether and de Melo (2004). The study used the gravity model to control for un-observed effects over time on trade flows while capturing environmental regulations impact on pollutive industrial trade competitiveness. Accordingly, to avert endogeneity/data sensitivity issues and to ascertain robust estimates, the present research has among others computed Random Effect and Newey-West standard error models. The statistical modeling results show that while India gained trade competitiveness in most pollutive industrial trade, Pakistan and Bangladesh lost their trade competitiveness in the same category. The research finds evidence of most pollutive industries of South Asian countries increasing their bilateral RCAs and exports with OECD countries and reset of the world. A comparative analysis between most pollutive to less pollutive industries showed a lack of support for any systematic specialization patterns of trade for South Asia during 1984-2004. Nonetheless, this study findings based on gravity modeling clearly depicted a statistically significant negative impact of environmental regulations on total exports, most pollutive exports, and less pollutive industrial exports for South Asia and OECD countries. This study rejected the pollution haven hypothesis between South Asian pollutive industrial exports with OECD. It further concluded that tariff barriers created by countries to offsets environmental regulation costs would prove counterproductive to competitiveness. At the policy level, instead of lobbing for protectionism to balance out environmental regulatory costs, the governments in both developed and developing countries need to focus on forming better environmental policies fostering both competitiveness and environmental quality. Also, trade-offs between environmental regulations and competitiveness are challenging situations for South Asia and OECD countries. Therefore, sustainable production and trade policies combined with innovative and cost-effective environmental policies are needed to accomplish environmental gains and competitiveness

Wound infiltration with Bupivacaine versus Ketorolac for postoperative pain relief in minor to moderate surgeries

OBJECTIVE: To compare the analgesic efficacy of Bupivacaine 0.25% wound infiltration with Ketorolac incisional infiltration in relieving postoperative pain for first twenty-four hours. METHODOLOGY: Analytical, interventional and comparative study was performed on seventy patients, of both sexes, with varied age groups. Patients underwent minor and moderate surgeries, confined to American Society of Anaesthesiologist ASA category 1-II. Patients were selected by convenience sampling and were divided into two groups i.e. Group I and Group II. Group-I comprised of thirty five patients and were infiltrated with Bupivacaine 0.25% at wound margins postoperatively. Group-II also comprised of thirty-five patients and were infiltrated with Ketorolac at wound margins 60 mg postoperatively. RESULTS: Bupivacaine 0.25% wound infiltration had onset of action within 4 +/- 2 minutes. Percentage pain relief was 80% in minor surgeries and 60% in moderate surgeries. Duration of action lasted for 8 +/- 2 hours regarding minor surgeries while it was 6 +/- 1 hours for moderate surgeries. Ketorolac incisional infiltration had onset of analgesic action within 10 +/- 5 minutes. Duration of action lasted for 6 +/- 1 hours regarding minor surgeries while it was 4 +/- 2 hours regarding moderate surgeries. Percentage pain relief was 60% in minor surgeries and 50% in moderate surgeries. CONCLUSION: Wound infiltration with Bupivacaine 0.25% was better for postoperative pain relief in comparison with Ketorolac regarding percentage pain relief, onset and duration of action

Assessing decision of inpatient or outpatient care in community acquired pneumonia: APT care study

Objective: To estimate the proportion of community-acquired pneumonia patients with disagreement between Confusion, Uraemia, Respiratory rate, Blood pressure, age \u3e 65 years recommendation and physician\\\\u27s decision to hospitalise or not.Methods: This cross-sectional nation-wide, non-interventional, cross-sectional study was carried out across 10 cities of Pakistan from December 2011 to May 2012, and recruited consenting adult patients with confirmatory diagnosis of community-acquired pneumonia on chest X-ray. Confusion, Uraemia, Respiratory rate, Blood pressure, age \u3e 65 years recommendation for each patient was determined at the time of analysis. This recommendation was compared with treatment decision made by the physician. Disagreement was considered when the physician\\\\u27s decision did not match with the recommendation. SPSS 18 was used for data analysis.Results: Of the 352 patients, 201(57.10%) were males. The overall mean age was 50.67±18.45 years. In 140(39.77%) patients there was disagreement between Confusion, Uraemia, Respiratory rate, Blood pressure, age \u3e 65 years recommendation and physician\\\\u27s decision regarding hospitalisation or outpatient care. Of the 352 cases 132(37.50%) were hospitalised despite the recommendation of outpatient treatment.Conclusion: In almost four out of every 10 patients there was disagreement between Confusion, Uraemia, Respiratory rate, Blood pressure, age \u3e 65 years recommendation and the physician\\\\u27s decision regarding hospitalisation of community-acquired pneumonia patients

Impact of Brand Label on Purchase Intention of a Customer

Main target of this research is examining the relationship between the purchase intention of cosmetics and brand label. The image of the store mediates the relationship between purchase intention and brand label in the cosmetics sector of Pakistan. To check the direct or indirect effect of brand label on purchase intention, data was collected from 200 customers of different stores. Snow ball sampling technique is used for the collection of data from respondents, and PLS-SEM 3 was used to test the hypothesis. The findings indicate that brand label positively and significantly impact customer purchase intention of cosmetics and store image is also positively linked with brand label and mediating the relationship between purchase intention and brand label. Findings will help the retail service sector to understand the importance of store image and how to enhance the consumers purchase intentions. Over long term, customer retention is better and business profitability is greater