Impact of Socialization on Organizational Commitment of Employees: A Case Study of Private Degree Colleges in Nowshehra, District, KPK

Implementations of HR practices carry a significant weightage towards organization’s success. The study was focused to find out the impact of socialization process on organizational commitment of employees working in private degree colleges. 200 hundred questionnaires were distributed among the teaching staff of degree colleges using convenient sampling technique. 126 properly filled questionnaires forming a response rate of 63% were analyzed to get meaningful results. The results of the study showed that socialization process was found to have significant impact on organizational commitment of employees

The Impacts of Entrepreneurial Orientation on Organizational Performance: Study of Pakistani SMEs

Entrepreneurial orientation has been the area of interest by many researchers in the field of entrepreneurship and management. However, empirical evidences reveal that most of these studies have been conducted in developed countries and have reported mixed results. Analyses on the subject in developing countries are lacking. This study investigates the role of entrepreneurial orientation on firm performance. This study used survey data from a random sample of 213 small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) located in Sialkot region, Province of Punjab Pakistan. The findings support the hypothesis that entrepreneurial orientation associates with firm performance. This study contributes to the body of knowledge by taking EO as five dimensional construct (innovativeness, risk taking, proactiveness, competitive aggressiveness, autonomy) rather three dimensional construct. and organizational performance comprising of non financial indicators such as customer satisfaction, employees satisfaction, service quality, innovation and growth. The study offers suggestions to policy makers and future directions

The Effect of Training and Development Practices on Employees’ Organizational Commitment among the Employees in Private Health Care Sector in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

This study examined the relationship between training and development practices, and organizational commitment for a sample of employees working in private healthcare sector in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The results showed that training and development practices were positively related to organizational commitment. To examine this relationship, a survey was conducted on 134 employees working in private healthcare sector in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, selected randomly. Correlation and regression analysis techniques were used to analyze the relationship of training and development practices and organizational commitment. The results of the study showed that organizational commitment of private healthcare sector employees were dependent on the training and development practices

Weather effects on stock returns and volatility in South Asian markets

We study the effect of mood-proxy variables on index returns and volatility in six South Asian markets. Our mood-proxy variables include six weather (temperature, humidity, cloud cover, air pressure, visibility, and wind speed), three weather indicator variables (fog, thunder storm and rain or drizzle) and two biorhythmic variables (SAD and lunar phases). We adopt a robust approach and attempt to select the best parsimonious econometric model for each market. Our findings suggest that mood-proxy variables have some convincing influences in South Asian capital markets. In some instances, these variables are influencing returns while in other instances they are influencing volatility

Effect of Pretreatment and Substrate Ratios in Biorefinery Employing Co-digestion of Plant Biomass and Poultry Waste

The current study investigated the optimization of biogas generation during co-digestion of various plant biomasses with poultry waste at different ratios and pretreatment of plant biomass. The biochemical tests were executed at 35°C in a thermostat. Water hyacinth was found as the suitable substrate for mono and co-digestion due to high volatile solids (VS) and total soluble contents. However, poultry waste was appropriate only if it was co-digested with other biomasses. The experiments evaluating biogas generation at different ratios of plant biomasses and poultry waste demonstrated that water hyacinth and poultry (50:50) produced 262 mL g−1VS, giant reed and poultry (80:20) produced 235 mL g−1VSwhile maize and poultry (60:40) generated 193 mL g−1VS. However, the pretreating the plant biomass with either Fenton's or Fenton's plus ultrasonic had no effect on biogas generation. The volumes of biogas generated after various pretreatment were low as compared to condition without pretreatment. The codigestion can be classified as WH:P (50:50 > GR:P (80:20) > M:P (60:40). So, these ratios can be applied at decentralized scale for better waste management and biogas generation due to balanced C:N ratio of plant biomass and poultry manure. Co-digestion can also be applied at large scale with optimized ratio in Pakistan and other developing countries for biogas generation and waste management and reduce the methane emission through landfills

The Impacts of Entrepreneurial Orientation on Organizational Performance: Study of Pakistani SMEs

Entrepreneurial orientation has been the area of interest by many researchers in the field of entrepreneurship and management. However, empirical evidences reveal that most of these studies have been conducted in developed countries and have reported mixed results. Analyses on the subject in developing countries are lacking. This study investigates the role of entrepreneurial orientation on firm performance. This study used survey data from a random sample of 213 small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) located in Sialkot region, Province of Punjab Pakistan. The findings support the hypothesis that entrepreneurial orientation associates with firm performance. This study contributes to the body of knowledge by taking EO as five dimensional construct (innovativeness, risk taking, proactiveness, competitive aggressiveness, autonomy) rather three dimensional construct. and organizational performance comprising of non financial indicators such as customer satisfaction, employees satisfaction, service quality, innovation and growth. The study offers suggestions to policy makers and future directions

Microbial Ecology of Anaerobic Digesters: The Key Players of Anaerobiosis

Anaerobic digestion is the method of wastes treatment aimed at a reduction of their hazardous effects on the biosphere. The mutualistic behavior of various anaerobic microorganisms results in the decomposition of complex organic substances into simple, chemically stabilized compounds, mainly methane and CO2. The conversions of complex organic compounds to CH4 and CO2 are possible due to the cooperation of four different groups of microorganisms, that is, fermentative, syntrophic, acetogenic, and methanogenic bacteria. Microbes adopt various pathways to evade from the unfavorable conditions in the anaerobic digester like competition between sulfate reducing bacteria (SRB) and methane forming bacteria for the same substrate. Methanosarcina are able to use both acetoclastic and hydrogenotrophic pathways for methane production. This review highlights the cellulosic microorganisms, structure of cellulose, inoculum to substrate ratio, and source of inoculum and its effect on methanogenesis. The molecular techniques such as DGGE (denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis) utilized for dynamic changes in microbial communities and FISH (fluorescent in situ hybridization) that deal with taxonomy and interaction and distribution of tropic groups used are also discussed

Confirmation of root-knot nematode resistant gene Rmi1 using SSR markers

Background: The Root Knot Nematode (RKN) is a serious economic threat to various cultivated crops worldwide. It is a devastating pest of soybean and responsible to cause severe yield loss in Pakistan. The cultivation of resistant soybean varieties against this pest is the sustainable strategy to manage the heavy loss and increase yield. There is an utmost need to identify RKN resistant varieties of soybean against cultivated in Pakistan. The presented study is an attempt to identify and confirm the presence of resistant gene Rmi1 in soybean. Method: Molecular studies have been done using Simple Sequence Repeat (SSR) marker system to identify resistant soybean varieties against Root Knot Nematode (RKN) using fifteen (15) indigenous cultivars and four (4) US cultivars. DNA was isolated, purified, quantified and then used to employ various SSR markers. The amplified product is observed using gel documentation system after electrophoresis.  Results: Diagnostic SSR markers Satt-358 and Satt-492 have shown the presence of Rmi1 gene in all resistance carrying genotypes. Satt-358 amplified the fragment of 200 bp and Satt-492 generated 232 bp bands in all resistant genotypes. This study confirmed the Rmi gene locus (G248A-1) in all internationally confirmed resistant including six (6) native varieties.Conclusion: These investigations have identified six (6) resistant cultivars revealing the effective and informative sources that can be utilized in breeding programs for the selection of RKN resistance soybean genotypes in Pakistan.

Heat transfer augmentation and entropy generation analysis of Microchannel Heat Sink (MCHS) with symmetrical ogive-shaped ribs

This study proposes the use of symmetrical ogive-shaped ribs on the walls of microchannel heat sinks (MCHS) to improve their thermal performance with minimal pressure drop. The ribs are arranged in three different configurations: ribs attached to all channel walls (MC-SAWR), ribs attached to side channel walls (MC-SSWR), and ribs attached to the bottom channel wall (MC-SBWR). Numerical investigations are conducted using the laminar conjugate heat transfer model to study the flow and heat transfer characteristics of the MCHS. The augmentation entropy generation number and thermal enhancement factor criterion are used to quantify the overall hydrothermal performance of the MCHS. The results show that the inclusion of symmetrical ogive-shaped ribs improves the Nusselt number of MCHS. The MC-SAWR configuration shows the highest Nusselt number improvement of 13–50% compared to the smooth MCHS over the Reynolds number range of 100–1000. Additionally, the MC-SAWR configuration shows a maximum reduction of 58% in the total entropy generation rate as it has the smallest augmentation entropy generation number value of 0.42. In terms of the thermal enhancement factor criterion, the MC-SSWR configuration shows the highest performance at Reynolds numbers below 400, but the MC-SAWR configuration outperformed the MC-SSWR configuration at Reynolds numbers above 400. Therefore, the MC-SAWR configuration is the best configuration that provides high cooling performance