Impact of coronavirus disease 2019 on prevention and elimination strategies for hepatitis B and hepatitis C

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has resulted in significant morbidity and mortality since its first case was discovered in December 2019. Since then, multiple countries have witnessed a healthcare system collapse due to the overwhelming demand for COVID-19 care. Drastic measures have been taken globally in order to curb the spread of the virus. However, those measures have led to the disruption of other aspects of healthcare, increasing the burden due to other medical conditions. We have also stepped back in achieving the ambitious goal set in place by World Health Organization to eliminate viral hepatitis as a public threat by 2030. Hepatitis B and C are chronic conditions with a significant worldwide burden, and COVID-19 has resulted in many hepatitis elimination programs slowing or stopping altogether. In this review, we elucidate the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on the interventions targeted towards the elimination of hepatitis B virus and hepatitis C virus. Some of the salient features that we have covered in this review include hindrance to screening and diagnostic tests, neonatal vaccinations, the transmission dynamics affecting hepatitis B virus and hepatitis C virus, role of limited awareness, restrictions to treatment accessibility, and disparity in healthcare services. We have highlighted the major issues and provided recommendations in order to tackle those challenges

Predicting noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) in TNB workers using GDAM algorithm

Noise is a form of a pollutant that is terrorizing the occupational health experts for many decades due to its adverse side-effects on the workers in the industry. Noise�Induced Hearing Loss (NIHL) handicap is one out of many health hazards caused due to excessive exposure to high frequency noise emitted from the machines. A number of studies have been carried-out to find the significant factors involved in causing NIHL in industrial workers using Artificial Neural Networks (ANN). Despite providing useful information on hearing loss, these studies have neglected some important factors. The traditional Back-propagation Neural Network (BPNN) is a supervised Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) algorithm. It is widely used in solving many real time problems in world. But BPNN possesses a problem of slow convergence and network stagnancy. Previously, several modifications were suggested to improve the convergence rate of Gradient Descent Back-propagation algorithm such as careful selection of initial weights and biases, learning rate, momentum, network topology, activation function and ‘gain’ value in the activation function. This research proposed an algorithm for improving the current working performance of Back-propagation algorithm by adaptively changing the momentum value and at the same time keeping the ‘gain’ parameter fixed for all nodes in the neural network. The performance of the proposed method known as ‘Gradient Descent Method with Adaptive Momentum (GDAM)’ is compared with ‘Gradient Descent Method with Adaptive Gain (GDM-AG)’ (Nazri, 2007) and ‘Gradient Descent with Simple Momentum (GDM)’ by performing simulations on classification problems. The results show that GDAM is a better approach than previous methods with an accuracy ratio of 1.0 for classification problems like ix Thyroid disease, Heart disease, Breast Cancer, Pima Indian Diabetes, Wine Quality, Australian Credit-card approval problem and Mushroom problem. The efficiency of the proposed GDAM is further verified by means of simulations on Noise-Induced Hearing loss (NIHL) audiometric data obtained from Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB). The proposed GDAM shows improved prediction results on both ears and will be helpful in improving the declining health condition of industrial workers in Malaysia. At present, only few studies have emerged to predict NIHL using ANN but have failed to achieve high accuracy. The achievements made by GDAM has paved way for indicating NIHL in workers before it becomes severe and cripples him or her for life. GDAM is also helpful in educating the blue collared employees to avoid noisy environments and remedies against exposure to excessive noise can be taken in the future to prevent hearing damage

Determinants of capital structure decisions among publicly listed Islamic banks

This research aims to examine bank specific, market and regulatory determinants of leverage and capital structure based on a panel data of publicly listed Islamic banks in 12 countries over the period 2008-2017. Apart from testing standard corporate finance parameters using both OLS and M-Estimators, this study adds several idiosyncratic and regulatory environment related determinants of leverage unique to Islamic banks. The significance of potential determinants is tested for market and book leverage as well as newly introduced ‘Islamic banking leverage’. Overall, the results show that Islamic banks with higher growth opportunities, tangibility, low profitability and low risk are likely to have a high leverage. Similarly, the findings suggest important role played by debt market conditions, share of investment accounts and regulatory environment in such decisions, providing an evidence of the significance of trade-off and pecking order theory in capital structure in Islamic banks. The results are more robust for market and Islamic banking leverage, rather than book leverage. The findings offer insights to regulators, standard setters and especially Islamic banks regarding parameters to strengthen their capital, enhance resilience and thus contribute to the stability of relevant financial. This paper is among the few extant studies that focus on listed Islamic banks and tests determinants based on stock market data

Intracytoplasmic sperm injection and advanced maternal age: Success or treatment failure

Infertility rate documented in Pakistan is 21.9% with only 25% success rate even after procedures like intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). This rate is further on the decline with enhancement of female age. We aimed to observe the effect of female age on oocyte parameters and reproductive outcome after ICSI. It was done by retrospective analysis of a quasi- experimental design carried out after approval from Ethical review board of Islamabad clinic serving infertile couples from July 2010 to August 2011. The response to ovarian stimulation in (282) females was assessed on the basis of groups, A, B, C and D with age ranges up to 25years; 25.1 to 30years; 30.1 to 35years and \u3e35years, respectively. The outcome was assessed as non-pregnant, preclinical abortion and clinical pregnancy groups on the basis of beta hCG and cardiac activity by trans-vaginal scan. We observed that maximum number of pregnancies 32 (38%) occurred in C group, and least 10 (10%) in group A. There was a statistical reduction in the number of mature and fertilized oocytes as the age advanced from group C to D (p\u3c0.05).This shows that reduction in maturity and fertilization of oocytes with advancement of age recommends early referral of couples to assisted reproductive clinics

Terrorism in Emerging Economies: A Double-Edged Sword

Terrorism is the unlawful use of violence against civilians to intimidate a government or its citizens to further certain social and political objectives. Usually terrorist attacks on government officials and property to create panic and dictate or enforce their illegal terms and conditions on sitting government. The chapter discussed the definitions of terrorism, types of definitions and consequences on terrorism in developing countries. Finally, the chapter draws a picture of terrorism and economic growth with the support of literature reviews

Predicting Distress in Islamic Banks: The Effectiveness of Capital Measures in CAMELS Framework

This study aims to identify key capital adequacy measures and other parameters that effectively predict distress in Islamic banks taking a panel of 65 banks from 13 countries between 2008-2017 using logistic regression model. The paper also intends to see whether simpler ratios perform better than more complex, risk weighted measures in predicting distress in these banks. A total of nine alternative capital and leverage indicators are used in the model that mainly rely on financial and accounting data, which are supplemented by the addition of market leverage for listed banks. In order to capture variability in cross country analysis and impact of economic conditions and shocks, the study also adds several macroeconomic indicators in the model. The results suggest that most of the standard CAMELS indicators are relevant for studying distress in Islamic banks. Further, it is shown that three other capital ratios – Tier 1, tangible common ratio and market leverage - are equally effective in studying Islamic bank failures. The findings, however, reflect that Basel III leverage ratio and other accounting-based ratios do not offer effective early warning signals of Islamic bank stress. Overall, equity based risk-weighted capital ratios offer a more robust framework of regulation and supervision in Islamic banks

Impact of Brand Loyalty on Brand Extension

The key objective of this study is to explore the effects of different dimensions of brand loyalty towards the original brand on the evaluation of brand extensions. This was a primary research and questionnaire was distributed among 200 respondents and 183 were processed for analysis. The target respondents were the students of different universities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi, Pakistan. The scale was taken from the existing research (Hem and Iversen, 2003). SPSS was used to analyze the data. The result finds that there is positive and significant relationship between brand loyalty and brand extension. So on the bases of these results that all the hypotheses (H1, H2, H3, H4 and H5) are proved positively and significantly and affect the evaluation of brand extension. Keywords: Brand Loyalty, Brand Extension, original bran