The Role of Mutual Funds and Non- Banking Financial Companies in Corporate Governance in Pakistan

This paper advances the argument that institutional investors, particularly mutual funds can play a vital role in enhancing corporate governance in emerging economies. Accordingly, regulatory framework need to be structured in a manner that would encourage the growth of the mutual fund industry and enable it to play a proactive role in corporate governance. The paper reviews and evaluates the regulation of mutual funds in Pakistan in the light of the above propositions. The Role of Mutual Funds and Non-Banking Financial Companies in Corporate Governance in Pakistan.Corporate governance, mutual fund, Non-Banking Financial Companies, Pakistan

Poverty, Income Distribution and Social Development in Lahore

In this paper we present a comparative analysis of poverty and income inequality prevalent in the seven towns of Lahore. Further, an analysis of gender inequality and overall social development is presented by considering education, health, and labor market conditions. We have computed the Herfindahl Index, Gini Coefficient, ratio of share of income of the bottom 20% to the top 20% and Sen index in this study. Finally, a composite index of social development is estimated and on the basis of this, index ranking of each town is outlined. Nishter Town is the least socially developed town whereas Aziz Bhatti, Shalimar, and Allama Iqbal towns are less socially developed as compared to Ravi, Cantt and Gunj Buksh towns.Poverty, Income distribution, Gini, Lorenz curve, Gender inequality, Social Development, Lahore, Pakistan

SYNTHESIS, CHARACTERIZATION AND EVALUATION OF MIXED MATRIX MEMBRANES FOR C02 SEPARATION

The use of membrane technology for gas separation applications has been successfully employed since the last few decades. For efficient separation of CO2/CH4, high performance gas separating membranes is desired. For CO2 separation, asymmetric flat sheet membranes are preferred because of their high gas permeance as compared to dense films. In this study, various composition of polyimide (PI) ranging from 5 to 20 wt.% were blended with polysulfone (PSF) and used for the formation of asymmetric flat sheet membranes via dry/wet phase inversion technique. Morphological analysis indicated that the surfaces of the fabricated membrane blends possessed homogenous surfaces and their cross-sections showed a non-porous top and a diminutive porous substructure. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis showed the existence of single glass transition temperature (Tg) for different membrane blends which indicated miscibility among the polymeric blends. Mechanical analysis showed improvement in young's modulus, tensile strength and elongation at break properties with the increase in PI composition in the membrane blends

Frege: The Theory of Meaning Concerning Proper Names

Gottlob Frege may be considered as the first intellectual giant in thePhilosophy of Language. He was the first to raise the issue ofmeaning by formulating an organized theory of meaning for a part ofnatural language as the theory of meaning is at the core of philosophy of language. He emphasizes that the meaning of a sentence directly depends on the meaning of its constituent parts. That is why he has to dissect the internal structure of a sentence or complex expressions provided by a logical syntax, while the truth value of such sentences may be revealed by logical semantics which can be put forward by treating these sentences as a whole

Printing money can be a hidden form of taxation in developing countries

Printing new money tends to create inflation unless excess money is removed from circulation by higher taxes. Muneeb Sikander writes that governments in emerging economies usually lack the ability to collect higher taxes, especially from the wealthy, and might choose to print money as opposed to taking more financially prudent mechanisms such as raising taxes or carrying out necessary fiscal reforms

Value management: An effective innovation management tool for strategic management of technology in the services sector - Case of a VTI

The concept of Strategic technology management (STM) places technology in a strategic context. STM did not emerge as a distinct area of managerial and academic interests until late 1980s. The key managers may initiate efforts to gain access to newer technologies, but the question is whether the approach they adopt is strategic or a series of ad hoc decisions [Quinn, 1988]. Value Management (VM) has assumed an important role in providing leadership and strategic growth to technology firms. Historically VM emphasized use of alternatives to reduce cost, promote innovation and enhance the performance of products. VM has moved beyond manufacturing and can be applied for strategic decision making in the services sector. It is envisaged the VM can be an effective tool for STM. It should help in generating creative ideas on the most appropriate technologies, examination of alternatives, evaluating the alternatives and developing a strategy. A study conducted by the author in the East, revealed that the performance of firms is influenced by the type of strategies developed during the VM process. This result provided the motivation to explore if such strategies are relevant to the managers of the "services" sector and if their performance too is influenced by these adoptions. There is dearth of similar studies in the literature. More importantly, in this age of technology, there is a dire need for management to understand and implement ideas not perceived before. The results could contribute to the literature/management in developing a set of VM strategies which could be termed as "global" and applied to any sector and those termed as "unique" which are specific to firm/service sector. In terms of the services sector, the nearest similarity to the technology intensive firms appear to be the vocational and technical institutions (VTI). The big study sought to identify and analyse the level of awareness of participants on strategy issues and the perception of departments (including those in the Ministries) about STM (and the inherent VM). This paper attempts to present the results on that part of the study which deals with the relationship between the type of the managers/management (gender, qualification, age etc) and the application of developed strategies. The participants included the staff and heads of departments at a technical college from an oil rich ASEAN country, the senior management at the college and the policy makers at the Department of Technical Education (DTE). The strategy and management data was desired from all the three groups. Data was collected through a questionnaire and analyzed using statistical techniques. A pilot-study helped to refine the questionnaire before it was administered. The study sets the tone to open up discussions and research interest towards applying VM tools in the strategic management of technology in the education sector in a rapidly growing digital world. The type of managers/management revealed as part of this study has implications to the senior planners in the education sector in keeping pace with the technology age by providing valuable inputs to innovate, discover, evaluate and develop strategies to provide value to the stakeholders, decision makers and technology lecturers

360º Indoors image processing for 3D model reconstruction

In this modern age of computer technology we are pushing the unimaginable limits of our reality. One of the human desires with these advances is to digitise the vast amount of information that is present in our reality. An important source of information is the 3-dimensional space in which we live. Especially indoors environments that we frequently occupy, for example, living places. With the proliferation of photographing devices, the development of cheap omnidirectional cameras has been one of the interests. So nowadays it is quite easy to obtain spatial data of interior spaces in form of equirectangular images. In this project we study the problem of 3D Indoors Model Reconstruction from Spherical Images. Though, we study it under perspective based methods as it is possible to perform the conversion from one to other. We first formally specify the problem to be solved. We find many different specifications and describe reconstruction methods for some of them. We choose one specification for our use case. Most of the methods require feature extraction and matching, and then performing multi-view geometry estimation. We continue the study of these methods in the experimentation phase. We propose different hypothesis relevant to different steps, perform experiments and form our conclusions. We finish our work by implementing a very simple system solving this problem, making use of ASIFT feature extractor, FLANN kD-Tree feature matcher, and OpenCV's essential matrix estimation algorithm.En aquesta era moderna de la tecnologia de computadors estem empenyent els líımits inimaginables de la nostra realitat. Una de les aspiracions humanes amb aquests avenços és la digitalització de l’enorme quantitat d’informació present en la nostra realitat. Una de les fonts importants d’informació és l’espai 3-dimensional en el que vivim. Especialment, els entorns interiors que habitem, per exemple, els habitatges. Amb la proliferació dels dispositius fotogràfics, el desenvolupament de càmeres omnidireccionals barates ha estat un dels interessos. Per aquest motiu, avui en dia és molt fàcil obtenir dades espacials dels espais interiors en forma d’imatges equirectangulars. En aquest projecte estudiem el problema de la Reconstrucció de Models 3D d’Interiors a partir d’Imatges Esfèriques. Tanmateix, estudiem el problema fent ús de mètodes basats en la perspectiva ja que és possible fer la conversió d’un a l’altre. En primer lloc, especifiquem formalment el problema a resoldre. A continuació, trobem diverses especificacions i descrivim mètodes de reconstruccions per algunes d’elles. Seleccionem una especificaciò pel nostre cas d’ús. La majoria de mètodes utilitzen feature extraction, feature matching i epipolar geometry. Continuem l’estudi amb la fase d’experimentació. Proposem hipòtesis rellevants a diferents passos, realitzem els experiments i extraiem conclusions. Acabem el treball implementant un sistema simple resolent el problema, fent ús de ASIFT feature extractor, FLANN kD- Tree feature matcher, i l’algorisme d’OpenCV per l’aproximació de la matriu essencialEn esta era moderna de tecnología de computadores estamos empujando los límites inimaginables de nuestra realidad. Una de las aspiraciones humanas con estos avances es la digitalización de la tremenda cantidad de información presente en nuestra realidad. Una de las importantes fuentes de información es el espacio 3-dimensional en que vivimos. Especialmente los entornos interiores que habitamos, por ejemplo, las viviendas. Con la proliferación de los dispositivos fotográficos, el desarrollo de cámaras omnidireccionales baratas ha sido uno de los intereses. Por ello, hoy en día es muy fácil de obtener datos espaciales de los espacios interiores en forma de imágenes equirectangulares. En este proyecto estudiamos el problema de Reconstrucción de Modelos 3D de Interiores desde Imágenes Esféricas. Sin embargo, estudiamos el problema bajo métodos basados en la perspectiva ya que es posible hacer la conversión de uno al otro. Primero especificamos formalmente el problema a resolver. Encontramos distintas especificaciones y describimos métodos de reconstruccion para algunas de ellas. Seleccionamos una especificación para nuestro caso de uso. La mayoría de métodos utilizan feature extraction, feature matching, y epipolar geometry. Continuamos el estudio en la fase de experimentación. Proponemos hipótesis relevantes a diferentes pasos, realizamos los experimentos y sacamos conclusiones. Acabamos el trabajo implementando un sistema simple resolviendo el problema, haciendo uso de ASIFT feature extractor, FLANN kD-Tree feature matcher, y el algoritmo de OpenCV para la aproximación de la matriz esencial