Success Factors of Entrepreneurship in Emerging Rural Economies

One factor of the leadership stratagem is to account for the core values, operations, and growth of the organization. The purpose of this case study was to ascertain the financial strategies small business leaders incorporate to help ensure growth of small businesses. The conceptual framework of Schumpeter\u27s innovation and entrepreneurship theory and the Grameen model were included to drive the scope and analysis of this study. A purposive sample of 8 leaders from successful small businesses in Islamabad contributed to a focus group session; 4 out of these participants originated from the finance and management department and 4 represented sales and product development departments working in 3 outlets of the firm. Transcript review and member checking were used to support the reliability of the interpretation of participants regarding what they said and meant from their responses. Moreover, company documents were reviewed to triangulate the data. Yin\u27s 5-step data analysis plan was used for the final data analysis. Four major themes surfaced from data analysis: Microfinance, product quality, customer care, and strategic vision. These endorse business leader stratagem and association to their mission, financial strategy, overall business operations, and survival and growth. Product quality is vital to maintain and retain valuable customer for revenue generation. Customer care is emphasized for its importance as an ethical practice and gaining customers confidence. Strategic vision is recognized as the foremost leadership skillset to plan and organize future business strategies effectively, which impacts business growth and longevity. The outcome of this study may contribute to positive social change by enhancing understanding of the leadership strategies that impact the longevity of the business to secure jobs and benefit employees, their families, and the surrounding community

The Political Economy of Foreign Aid and Growth: Theory and Evidence

In this paper, we demonstrate that even when foreign aid is used to fund patronage, it may still have a positive - and significant - effect on economic growth in developing countries. First, we present a theory that formalizes the effect of aid on economic growth and patronage. Next, we provide evidence from Pakistan consistent with the predictions of the model that foreign aid increases economic growth, despite being used for patronage. The identification strategy we propose allows us to provide causal evidence for the predictions of the model

Terrorism and the macroeconomy: Evidence from Pakistan

Pakistan with highest number of terrorism related deaths of any country over the past decade, the number exceeding the total terrorism related deaths for both the European and North American continents, provides an ideal laboratory to study impact of terrorism on the macroeconomy (GTD, 2012). Quasi-Structural VAR, VECM, Impulse Response Functions and Granger-Causality tests on a sample that covers over 4500 terrorist incidents and consequent 10, 200 deaths [from 1973 to 2010] are employed to study the relationship between terrorism and the macroeconomy. One of the major advantages of the current methodology is that it not only enables one to circumvent the heterogeneity biases inherent in cross-country studies but it also allows distinguishing between short and long-run effects. It is documented that cumulatively terrorism has cost Pakistan around 33.02 % of its real national income i.e. terrorism costs Pakistan around 1 % of real GDP per capita growth every year

Terrorism and the macroeconomy: Evidence from Pakistan

Pakistan with highest number of terrorism related deaths of any country over the past decade, the number exceeding the total terrorism related deaths for both the European and North American continents, provides an ideal laboratory to study impact of terrorism on the macroeconomy (GTD, 2012). Quasi-Structural VAR, VECM, Impulse Response Functions and Granger-Causality tests on a sample that covers over 4500 terrorist incidents and consequent 10, 200 deaths [from 1973 to 2010] are employed to study the relationship between terrorism and the macroeconomy. One of the major advantages of the current methodology is that it not only enables one to circumvent the heterogeneity biases inherent in cross-country studies but it also allows distinguishing between short and long-run effects. It is documented that cumulatively terrorism has cost Pakistan around 33.02 % of its real national income i.e. terrorism costs Pakistan around 1 % of real GDP per capita growth every year

The Impact of Corporate Governance on Financial Reporting Quality: Evidence from Pakistan

This research aims to investigate whether corporate governance (CG) mechanisms and Financial Reporting Quality (FRQ) are related with each other in the context of Pakistan. For this purpose panel data is used and a sample of 200 firms is extracted for the period 2003 to 2017. In this study system GMM and STATA software is used for estimation of parameters. The findings suggest that board independence enhances FRQ by 0.0011% in large sample, 0.0018% in medium sample and 0.0033% in small sample. In addition, audit committee independence raises FRQ in all three samples. Specifically, a rise of 1% in audit committee independence increases FRQ by 0.0088% in large sample, 0.0083% in medium sample and 0.0087% in small sample. Institutional ownership improved the FRQ of Pakistani firms. More specifically, the result indicates that a 1% rise in institutional ownership bring 0.022% increase in large sample, 0.029% in medium sample and 0.018% in small sample. The results show that a rise of 1% in gender diversity brings about 42% increase in large sample, 15% in medium sample and 7% increase in small sample. The result indicates that a 1% rise in shareholder activism is associated with an increase of 6% (large sample), 28% (medium sample) and 22% (small sample) respectively. Concentrate ownership insignificantly affect FRQ in case of large and small sample but on other hand in medium size firm’s the relationship is significant and positive with FRQ. Keywords: Financial Reporting Quality, Corporate Governance, Pakistan Stock Exchange. DOI: 10.7176/RJFA/11-17-17 Publication date:October 31st 202

Terrorism & Its Impact On Foreign Flows: Lessons From Pakistan

High terrorist attack frequency and intensity in Pakistan provides a unique data to study the impact of terrorism on foreign inflows and trade. After 9/11, Pakistan has suffered from rapidly decreasing foreign inflows and a contraction in trade. The paper estimates the unit cost of a terrorist attack in terms of foreign inflows and international trade lost to be $51.92 million

Jatropha curcas leaves mulch effect on seedling emergence and growth of maize (zea mays)

Allelopathy is a process in which one plant species may usefully or adversely affect the growth of other plant species through the production of allelochemicals. During the present investigation, mulch effect of Jatropha curcas leaves was evaluated on seed germination and seedling growth of maize varieties viz. Pioneer (V1), Azam (V2) and Jalal (V3). Mulch was applied at 1 and 2 tons/hectare. Phenolic compounds were detected in Jatropha curcas leaf (131.15 mg gallic acid eq./gm extract). Mulch applied at 2 tons/hectare significantly reduced seed germination (%), germination index, relative water content, root width and seedling dry weight. From the findings of the present investigation, it was inferred that Jatropha curcas leaves exhibited phytotoxic effects on maize at high concentrations

Health care intelligent system: A neural network based method for early diagnosis of Alzheimer\u27s disease using MRI images

Alzheimer\u27s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease that causes memory loss and is considered the most common type of dementia. In many countries, AD is commonly affecting senior citizens having an aged more than 65 years. Machine learning-based approaches have some limitations due to data pre-processing issues. We propose a health care intelligent system based on a deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) in this research work. It classifies normal control (NC), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and AD. The proposed model is employed on white matter (WM), and grey matter (GM) tissues with more cognitive decline features. In the experimental process, we used 375 Magnetic Resonance Image (MRI) subjects collected from Alzheimer\u27s disease neuroimaging initiative (ADNI), including 130 NC people, 120 MCI patients, and 125 AD patients. We extract three major regions during pre-processing, that is, WM, GM and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). This study shows promising classification results for NC versus AD 97.94%, MCI versus AD 92.84%, and NC versus MCI 88.15% on GM images. Furthermore, our proposed model attained 95.97%, 90.82%, and 86.87% on the same three binary classes on WM tissue, respectively. When comparing existing studies in terms of accuracy and other evaluation parameters, we found that our proposed approach shows better results than those approaches based on the CNN method

FPGA IMPLEMENTATION OF ADVANCE ENCRYPTION STANDARD WITH SINGLE KEY

Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), is known as most secured encryption standard now a days. Many researchers have implemented it in different languages like java, C and C++ with different algorithms. Recently the AES 128-bit has been implemented using Verilog on FPGA with equipped key being encrypted along with data input in whole process. In this paper the AES 128-bit encryption and decryption process with key which is only used for data input and is not encrypted throughout the encryption/decryption process. Results are same but our algorithm is slightly faster because only data is encrypted in the process of encryption, thus process time and area is optimized

Health risks assessment diagnosis of toxic chemicals (heavy metals) via food crops consumption irrigated with wastewater

The present study investigated the concentration of metals in commonly grown vegetables (Luffa acutangula L., Zea mays L., Solanum melongena L.) irrigated with waste water in District Bannu, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The pH (5.80) and electrical conductivity (13 dS/m) of waste water indicated the acidic nature that is not suitable for irrigation purposes. Soil and vegetables samples were analyzed for metals concentration through flame atomic absorption spectrometry (Varian FAAS-240). The findings showed that waste water irrigated soil was highly contaminated with Cd (4.62 mg/kg) which was above permissible limits set by European Union Standard (EU 2006, 2002). The concentrations of heavy metals such as Cr and Cd in vegetables were higher than the permissible limits set by World Health Organization/Food and Agriculture Organization U.S.A guidelines 2001. The health hazard quotient (HQ) of waste water irrigated vegetables was observed higher for Ni (0.699-0.1029 mg/kg), (0.0456-0.1040 mg/kg), (0.731-0.0994 mg/kg) in Luffa acutangula, Solanum melongena and Zea mays, respectively. The study concluded that the consumption of commonly grown vegetables in waste water zone of the study area may pose potential health threats in local population