The effects of social capital, mentoring and innovation practices on small business performance : the moderating role of environmental turbulence

This research studies the relationship between social capital, innovative practice, mentoring, and SME performance of manufacturing firms in Punjab, Pakistan. The primary objective is to identify the moderating role of environmental turbulence on the relationship between social capital, innovative practice, mentoring, and SME performance. A theoretical model based on Contingency theory and Resource Based View (RBV) approach to the business performance of SMEs is developed. A survey method is employed, and questionnaires were used to obtain information from the owner/managers of SME in Punjab, Pakistan and cluster sampling is used for sample selection. Therefore, 500 questionnaires are distributed to the owner/managers of a small enterprise and only 340 of them are returned, giving a response rate of 68% percent. However, only 313 useable questionnaires are used for further analysis using the PLS-SEM. The high response rate is achieved due to the survey instrument being personally distributed by the researcher to the owner/managers of SME. The findings revealed that innovative practices and mentoring are positive and significant predictors of SME performance. While study fails to find the relationship between social capital and SME performance. Meanwhile mixed results are found upon investigating the moderating effect of environmental turbulence on the relationships between social capital, innovative practices, mentoring and SME performance. The findings of this study provided significant insights for both managers and researchers to further understand the effects of these variables on SME performance. The study concluded with a discussion of practical, theoretical and methodological contributions, the study limitations and suggestions for future research

Organizational Performance and Entrepreneurial Orientation: The Intervening Role of Organizational Learning

Many past studies have examined the association between entrepreneurial orientation (E.O.) and organizational performance (O.P.). However, these studies have not adequately addressed the mediating roles of acquisition learning (A.L.) and experiential learning (E.L.) on organizational performance. Given this gap, we have developed a new model that contains six direct relationships, three mediating relationships, and one multi-mediating relationship. The focus of the study was on Indonesian Pharmaceutical SMEs. We have collected a sample of 365 respondents non-randomly. For statistical analysis, we have used Smart PLS version 3.2. The statistical analysis includes reliability, validity, and descriptive statistics. The results confirm that acquisition learning (A.L.), experiential learning (E.L.), and entrepreneurial orientation (E.O.) promote organizational performance (O.P.). We also found that entrepreneurial orientation (E.O.) impacts acquisition learning (A.L.) and innovative performance (I.P.) but does not affect organizational performance (O.P.). However, the results suggest that acquisition learning (A.L.) and experiential learning (E.L.) are positively linked. Our results also support all the mediating relationships

Childhood non-Hodgkin\u27s Lymphoma: An immunophenotypic analysis.

Objective: To observe the frequency of histological subtypes of childhood non-Hodgkin`s lymphoma and its immunohistochemical profile. Setting: All cases of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma diagnosed in children (\u3c15 years) in the section of histopithology at the Aga Khan University Hospital Karachi during the period of three years. Methods: These consecutive cases were evaluated on H&E stained sections and then immunohistochemistry analysis of these tumors was performed by employing Peroxidase Anti-Peroxidase (PAP) technique. Results: The present series included 61 cases of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. NHL was more common in males as compared to females with male to female ratio of 5.8:1. High grade NHL comprised 87% of childhood lymphoma. The mode of presentation in majority of NHL (57%) was extranodal. Burkitt’s lymphonia (33%) was the most prevalent histological subtypes, followed by lymphoblastic (28%), diffuse large cell (15%), diffuse mix small and large cell (13%), small non cleaved Non-Burkitts (7%) and immunoblastic (4%). Immunophenotypic analysis of the childhood Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma revealed that 67% of the Non-Hodgkin’s Iy mphoma are cell type while 33% are those of T-cell lineage. Conclusion: NHL was more common in males. Majority of NHL in children were high grade tumors. Burkitt’s lymphoma was the most frequent histological subtype. T-cell NUL comprised a significant portion of childhood lymphoma

CASUAL FACTROS OF CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR IN PUNJAB, PAKISTAN

This study was conducted to find out the casual factors of criminal behavior in, Punjab Pakistan. Punjab is the largest province of Pakistan and crime ratio is also highest in this province. A questionnaire of 114 items was constructed through focus group discussion, Literature and DSM-5. Five point Likert scale was used to measure the casual factors. Data was collected from 200 criminals who conducted the crime more than one time. Data was collected from District jails of Multan and Vehari from south Punjab. Mean value was selected as 2 for mentioning a factors as cause of criminal behavior which indicate the presence of a factor. In last 20 factors were mentioned as casual factors of criminal behavior including physical abuse in schools, stubbornness in childhood, feelings of hopelessness and helplessness in childhood, strict family restrictions in childhood. Failure in intimate relations, high media exposure, short temperament, feelings of revenge and deprivation in childhood. Most of the criminals found to get their primary and secondary education in schools whereas there were lowest ratio of criminals who get religious education. There is needed to make policies to reduce these casual factors to control crime in Pakistan. Key Words: Crime, Criminal Behavior, Criminal Tendency, Criminal Factors, Causes of Crime.

Mentoring and Organizational Performance: A Review of Effects of Mentoring on Small and Medium Enterprises

Mentoring has gained substantial attention in small and medium enterprises in recent years due to its high impact on business performance. Several studies have delineated the impact of mentoring on small and medium enterprises and found mentoring is helpful for improving organizational performance and transferring information from experienced entrepreneurs to inexperienced or les experienced entrepreneurs which leads to higher productivity of organization, better job satisfaction, and retention of workers. This study reviews the literature of mentoring and the components of mentoring. Findings of the study depict that mentoring has a positive impact on business performance. Moreover, the results also implicate significant decision-making suggestions for SMEs that improved business performance can be achieved by enabling efficient mentoring programs. These programs would benefits employee as well as the organization. Mentoring programs not only increase the value of employees but also the effectiveness of the business

Efficacy of Various Treatment Modalities on Patientrelated Outcome in Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients –A Retrospective Study

Background: The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) began in China, in December 2019, and was declared a pandemic by WHO on March 11, 2020. The treatment is evolving and is mostly supportive in nature. Material and methods: This was a single-center retrospective study that included confirmed COVID-19 cases treated at our institute (a tertiary care hospital in Jammu and Kashmir, India), between March 2020 and December 2020. Patients with age more than 18 years were included in the study. Results: On evaluating the effect of various drug therapies used in management of COVID-19 patients of all severity, use of remdesivir and famotidine was associated with significantly higher odds of survival. In subgroup of patients with severe disease, use of systemic steroids was associated with significantly higher odds of survival in addition to remdesivir and famotidine. In patients with severe COVID-19 illness, likelihood of survival was significantly higher in those who received combination of systemic steroids plus remdesivir compared to steroids and remdesivir alone. Conclusion: Steroids were effective in severe COVID-19 illness and the combination of steroids and remdesivir was more effective in severe illness. There is a need to undertake more large scale prospective randomized trials to determine the most effective drug therapies to treat the sick patients and prevent worsening of mild cases

CMS physics technical design report : Addendum on high density QCD with heavy ions

Peer reviewe

Evaluation of appendicitis risk prediction models in adults with suspected appendicitis

Background Appendicitis is the most common general surgical emergency worldwide, but its diagnosis remains challenging. The aim of this study was to determine whether existing risk prediction models can reliably identify patients presenting to hospital in the UK with acute right iliac fossa (RIF) pain who are at low risk of appendicitis. Methods A systematic search was completed to identify all existing appendicitis risk prediction models. Models were validated using UK data from an international prospective cohort study that captured consecutive patients aged 16–45 years presenting to hospital with acute RIF in March to June 2017. The main outcome was best achievable model specificity (proportion of patients who did not have appendicitis correctly classified as low risk) whilst maintaining a failure rate below 5 per cent (proportion of patients identified as low risk who actually had appendicitis). Results Some 5345 patients across 154 UK hospitals were identified, of which two‐thirds (3613 of 5345, 67·6 per cent) were women. Women were more than twice as likely to undergo surgery with removal of a histologically normal appendix (272 of 964, 28·2 per cent) than men (120 of 993, 12·1 per cent) (relative risk 2·33, 95 per cent c.i. 1·92 to 2·84; P < 0·001). Of 15 validated risk prediction models, the Adult Appendicitis Score performed best (cut‐off score 8 or less, specificity 63·1 per cent, failure rate 3·7 per cent). The Appendicitis Inflammatory Response Score performed best for men (cut‐off score 2 or less, specificity 24·7 per cent, failure rate 2·4 per cent). Conclusion Women in the UK had a disproportionate risk of admission without surgical intervention and had high rates of normal appendicectomy. Risk prediction models to support shared decision‐making by identifying adults in the UK at low risk of appendicitis were identified

Hazardous Effects of Titanium Dioxide Nanoparticles in Ecosystem

Although nanoparticles (NPs) have made incredible progress in the field of nanotechnology and biomedical research and their applications are demanded throughout industrial world particularly over the past decades, little is known about the fate of nanoparticles in ecosystem. Concerning the biosafety of nanotechnology, nanotoxicity is going to be the second most priority of nanotechnology that needs to be properly addressed. This review covers the chemical as well as the biological concerns about nanoparticles particularly titanium dioxide (TiO2) NPs and emphasizes the toxicological profile of TiO2 at the molecular level in both in vitro and in vivo systems. In addition, the challenges and future prospects of nanotoxicology are discussed that may provide better understanding and new insights into ongoing and future research in this field

Application of GIS/RS in Assessment of Flash Flood Causes and Damages: A Case Study of Budhni Nullah, District Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to assess the flood hazard causes and damages and to draw the extent of flood hazard zones in Budhni Nullah District Peshawar on the basis of devastating historical flood data through the usage of the Geographic Information System (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS). Methodology: In this research, a descriptive methodology and GIS techniques were carried out to identify flood hazard causes, damages, and hazard zones. Therefore, qualitative and quantitative data related to flood hazards are clipped from various sources. Satellite images such as digital elevation models were generated for acquiring watershed and slope data. The data were put in the ArcMap for mapping and in SPSS for ease of statistical calculations to find the causes and damages of flood hazards. Moreover, various other tools from different applications were used such as ERDAS Imagine for Image processing and GPS application for location tracking. Main Findings: We delineated the catchment areas and different other tributaries and with the help of slope, settlements, area inundation, and past damages data we find out the flood hazard zones. These flood hazard zones were demarcated with the help of the Euclidean distance tool in which different data overlaid to others in ArcMap and through ground-truthing, we confirmed the flood hazard zones. Applications: Research results could be used for providing a recommendation to the local government authorities and communities to mitigate the flood hazard risk in the locality and improve the safety measures. Such as retaining walls to make them a little distance from levees