Determinants of Non-performing Loans: A Comparative Study of Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh

The aim of the empirical study is to investigate credit risk determinants in banking sectors across three kinds of South Asian economies. An accumulated sample of 105 unbalanced panel data of financial firms over the period of 2000-2015, by applying General Method of Moment (GMM) estimation techniques one-step at the difference in order to identify factors influencing credit risk. This study is inspired by two broad categories of explanatory variables which are bank-specific and macroeconomic. Bank-specific factors influencing unsystematic risk, while macroeconomic factors promoting systematic risk. The study uses a proxy of non-performing loans for credit risk in banking sectors of Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. The empirical results have been found aligned with theoretical arguments and literature as expected. In comparison, NPLs in Pakistan is greater than India and Bangladesh, while India has the lowest ratio of non-performing loans. The study documents that bank-specific factors (inefficiency, profitability, capital ratio and leverage) have a significant contribution towards credit risk. Further, the study also finds a significant impact of macroeconomic variables on non-performing loans. While, the result in the case of Bangladesh predicts contradictions that have no significant effect on non-performing loans at various levels. The overall results indicate that credit risk is not influenced by only external factors but also affect by internal factors like bad management and skimping etc

Robust Method for Semantic Segmentation of Whole-Slide Blood Cell Microscopic Image

Previous works on segmentation of SEM (scanning electron microscope) blood cell image ignore the semantic segmentation approach of whole-slide blood cell segmentation. In the proposed work, we address the problem of whole-slide blood cell segmentation using the semantic segmentation approach. We design a novel convolutional encoder-decoder framework along with VGG-16 as the pixel-level feature extraction model. -e proposed framework comprises 3 main steps: First, all the original images along with manually generated ground truth masks of each blood cell type are passed through the preprocessing stage. In the preprocessing stage, pixel-level labeling, RGB to grayscale conversion of masked image and pixel fusing, and unity mask generation are performed. After that, VGG16 is loaded into the system, which acts as a pretrained pixel-level feature extraction model. In the third step, the training process is initiated on the proposed model. We have evaluated our network performance on three evaluation metrics. We obtained outstanding results with respect to classwise, as well as global and mean accuracies. Our system achieved classwise accuracies of 97.45%, 93.34%, and 85.11% for RBCs, WBCs, and platelets, respectively, while global and mean accuracies remain 97.18% and 91.96%, respectively.Comment: 13 pages, 13 figure

Detection and comparison of light metals in hair among workers of different industries using Particle Induced X-Ray Emission (PIXE) for forensic casework

Background: The study was planned to evaluate the deposition of some metals in the scalp hair of the people working in the particular environment. Scalp hair samples were collected from different industry workers including pharmaceutical, textile and paint industry and analyzed for the determination of aluminum (Al), calcium (Ca), potassium (K) and sulfur (S). Hair analysis provides a better assessment of light metals present in the surroundings, as well as monitoring of variation of metals from place to place.Methods: The hair samples were collected from 21-55 years old employees working in industry for more than four years. Workers of the age less than 20 years and less than 4 years working experience were not including in this study. Particle Induced X-ray Emission (PIXE) system was used to detect the light metals from hair and probable matches were searched through National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) library.Results: The metals Al, S, K and Ca concentration was found maximum in the pharmaceutical industry workers. i.e., 575.1 µg/g, 190.7 µg/g, 11.1 µg/g and 9.1 µg/g respectively. The minimum concentration so these metals was found in paint industry workers i.e. 103.7 µg/g, 8.87 µg/g, 2.3 µg/g, and 1.7µg/g respectively.Conclusion: Light metal concentrations in hair samples showed a significant positive correlation. Our findings can play vital role for health departments and industrial environmental management system (EMS) authorities in policy making and implementation. Taken all together, the workers were facing minor health implications in these industries and need immediate protective measures to remediate the current situation. Keywords: Forensic, Scalp Hair Analysis, Particle Induced X-ray Emissio

Factors Affecting Post Acceptance of E-Learning Platform in times of COVID-19: An Evidence from an Emerging Economy

COVID 19- has changed the landscape and the method to conduct daily tasks since past two years. Considering the restrictions and lockdowns enforced by the government, educational institutes were greatly impacted. It became challenging for the teachers to complete the courses on required schedule and to teach the students. The students suffered due to constant lockdown and the restriction enforced by the government regarding the use of physical spaces. Amidst such time adopting e-learning platform became essential as it can help in completing the curriculum on time and to cover the incurred loss. This study was aimed at analyzing the factors that is PU, PEOU, SE, PE, CM, and PDR and is impact on the adoption of e-learning platform by students and teachers. A survey was conducted for collection of data for this study. A total of 250 participants constituted the sample size for this research work. The results were analyzed in PLS-SEM software. The results concluded that (PE), perceived usefulness, perceived daily routine and critical masshad positive relation and significant relationship on the adoption of e-learning platform. Whereas self-efficiency and(PEU)have positive and insignificant relationship on adoption of e-learning platform

Experimental study on lightning discharge attachment to the modern wind turbine blade with lightning protection system

Lightning strike is one of the most severe threats to the wind turbine blades and causes huge damage. Mostly wind turbines are struck by lightning when the blades are rotating. The effect of blade rotation on a lightning discharge attachment is unclear. Therefore, a rod electrode was used in a wind turbine lightning discharge test to investigate the difference in lightning triggering ability when blades are rotating and stationary. A standard switching waveform of 250/2500μs was applied to the rod electrode. Lightning discharge tests of a 1:30 scale wind turbine model with 3m air gaps were performed and the discharge process was observed. Three side receptors were used for Lightning protection system (LPS) of wind turbine blade (WTB). Distance between each receptor was 40cm and 1 st receptor had 5cm distance from tip of the WTB. Standard switching impulses (negative and positive) were applied to the WTB with different orientations and rotating speed. The experimental results demonstrated that when negative switching impulses were applied to the wind turbine blade, all the lightning discharges hit on the 1 st receptor; however, in the case of positive switching impulse, some discharges also hit on the other receptors, blade surface and nacelle of WTB. The attachment points remain same when the blade is stationary or rotating. The analysis revealed that polarity of switching impulse has significant influence on attachment point, and the rotation has little influence during the attachment process. The results can contribute to optimize the design of LPS of wind turbine blade

Experimental study on lightning attachment manner to rotation wind turbine blade

Lightning strike is one of the most serious damages to the wind turbine blade. The blade is in rotation when lightning strike happens. The influence of the rotation to the lightning attachment manner of wind turbine blade is not fully studied. Experimental work has been done in this paper. A 1:30 scale 3MW wind turbine is built. There are 3 side receptors on each blade according to the real wind turbine blade. A rod electrode is used as the high voltage electrode to simulate the downward leader. Both negative and positive 250/25000μs standard switching impulses are applied. Different blade tip linear speeds, equal to the real wind turbine, are used to study the influence of the blade rotation to attachment process. The results show that the influence of the rotation can be classified into two types, one is the impact on the location of the striking attachment point, the other is the impact on the discharge channel close to the blade. The influence depends on the polarity of the discharge. Positive discharge is more dangerous to wind turbine blade in rotation

Experimental study on interception failure of lightning protection system of wind turbine blade

Wind turbine (WT) blades are equipped with lightning protection system (LPS) consisting of receptors and down conductor in order to intercept lightning strikes. However, severe damages caused by lightning strikes still happen frequently, which costs huge losses. In this paper, experiments were conducted to study the lightning interception failure of WT blade LPS, and the results can be useful to improve the optimal design of LPS. Experiments using 5m blade specimen with tip receptor from 1.5MW wind turbine under 3m air gap are conducted to investigate the lightning interception failure of LPS in different orientations and lateral distances (LDs). Factors such as the polarity of lightning strikes, the blade orientation of wind turbine and lateral distance between wind turbine and lightning downward leader were investigated. The lateral distance between downward leader (DL) and wind turbine blade is a key factor which influences the interception efficiency. Three patterns of receptor interception failure are discovered. The protection area shows asymmetry under different lateral distance. Multi-upward leaders (UL) from WT blade have been observed in the experiment