Growth and Financing Behaviour of Firms of Textile Industry in Pakistan: A Panel Data Analysis.

High economic growth, extremely low nominal interest rate and negative real interest rate gave a boost to financial leverage (gearing ratio) of the textile sector to its peak in 2005. Firms are now are facing the consequence of high gearing. An explosion in their financing costs along with removal of textile quota from 2005 onwards and later on an acute energy crisis hampered their profitability and ability to repay their debt. This in turn contributed to non-performing loans which is now is likely to pose a big challenge for financial sector and push economy into another crisis. Most of the previous studies including a very few on capital structure of Pakistani firms focus on understanding only the firm specific determinants of financial leverage and completely ignore macroeconomic or institutional factors. Findings of this paper prove that all firm specific determinants including profitability and efficiency, firms‘ growth, risk and collateral excluding size significantly influence corporate financial leverage of textile industry in Pakistan. All macroeconomic variables including overall economic growth, equity market conditions and nominal cost of debt also have significant impact on corporate gearing. Negative sign with the composite measure of profitability and efficiency implies that banks are compelled to fund inefficient and unprofitable firms because demand for loans comes more from inefficient and unprofitable firms. Positive sign with growth and negative sign with risk is indicative of the fact that banks prefer to lend to growing rather than riskier firms. JEL classification: C13, C23, C51, L65, G10, G30 Keywords: Capital Structure Determinants, Corporate Financial Leverage, Corporate Gearing Rati

Virtual Education: The Voices of Learners in Pakistan

Virtual education is one of modern means of education. It adopted Modern Information and Communication Technologies to provide as like face to face educational opportunities. It is an alternate to formal system of education for those who feel difficulty in attending educational institutions regularly. In Pakistan, Virtual University was established in 2002 with the clear mission “education for all” and “not for profit education”. It has availed about fourteen years for its development but virtual learners still face certain problems in Pakistan. The present study was entitled “Virtual Education: the Voices of Learners in Pakistan”. The aims of the study were (1) to study the virtual paradigms in Pakistan, and (2) to identify the problems of virtual learners in Pakistan. A research tool; questionnaire was developed and used to collect data from the respondents. Total sample size was 451 virtual learners. The major findings of the study were virtual education worked with the agenda of education for all, convenient and low cost education.  The study also found certain problems faced by virtual learners; isolation, technology hurdles and high dropout rate. These problems were serious in nature and must be addressed to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of virtual education in Pakistan. The study also suggested some recommendations to improve the virtual education system in Pakistan that the government of Pakistan should promote virtual education facilities in the country. These facilities must be accessible and affordable for the common public. The government should launch various kinds of scholarships for the virtual learners to meet their study expenses. Keywords: trends in education, virtual education, problems of virtual education in Pakistan

MACRO ECONOMY AND PROFITABILITY OF INSURANCE COMPANIES: A POST CRISIS SCENARIO IN PAKISTAN

This paper uses firm level data of 39 companies of insurance industry of Pakistan for the period 2006-11. The findings of this study suggest that based on overall regression results, macroeconomic environment, equity market conditions and inflation have a positive and significant impact on profitability of insurance companies in Pakistan. This is also true for non-life insurance companies. However, significance and signs of the coefficients of firm-specific characteristics and macroeconomic variables vary across life, non-life and takaful insurance companies on account of varying nature of their clientele and coverage of insurance policies. Corporate managers of life insurance companies should especially focus on exploring opportunities for growth and diversification and management of underwriting risk and investment portfolios in view of changing equity market conditions. Financial strength, firm size and financial leverage cannot be ignored in profitability management of life insurance companies. The management of non-life insurance companies should also keep in view the macroeconomic environment, equity market conditions, inflation in addition to firm specific characteristics including financial leverage, relative firm size, financial soundness, growth opportunities, underwriting risk and diversification in particular to manage profitability. The takaful business managers should especially focus on underwriting risk, diversification and working capital management to manage their return on asset

Preliminary Studies of Germination Requirements of Shadscale Atriplex Confertifolia Torr. and Ferm. Wats

Shadscale (Atriplex confertilolia (Torr. and Frem.) Wats.) is an important component of the salt-desert-shrub vegetation type in the intermountain region. This species dominates a large portion of the 41 million acres occupied by this vegetation type. Shapscale reaches greatest importance at lower elevations of Utah and Nevada, where despite the low productivity due to its harsh habitat, this vigorous shrub furnishes considerable winter grazing for sheep and cattle. Gates et al. (1966) have observed that poor drainage conditions, coupled with low precipitation, results in the concentration of salts, a chief habitat factor determining the growth and distribution of this species. Fautin (1946) found pure stands of Shadscale in the drier valleys of Utah, usually where a saline sub-soil occurred

Importance of Simpson/Shinshu Grading in Meningioma’s Excision, Outcome and Recurrence

Objective:  The study was aimed to determine the recurrence rate and recurrence-free survival of meningioma surgery with reference to Simpson grading of excision. Material and Methods:  The study was conducted in the Department of Neurosurgery, Punjab Institute of Neurosciences (PINS), Lahore. Total 325 patients both male and female of age (13 – 70 years) with supratentorial grade I meningioma operated. The craniotomy with maximum safe excision of the meningioma was done in all patients under general anesthesia. All patients followed-up to one year clinically and radiologically. MRI brain plain and IV contrast were done at 6 months and then annually. The extent of resection was determined with the help of operative notes and post-op MRI and recurrences were studied with help of follow-up MRI. Results:  There were 227 female and 98 male patients in ages 13 – 70 years. The mean age of patients was 53.5 years. 227 (70%) skull base meningioma, 71 (22.0%) convexity meningioma, and 26 (8%) falx or tentorium meningioma were operated. We achieved Simpson grade I excision in 55 (17.45%), grade II in 208 (64%), grade III in 23 (7%), and grade IV in 36 (11%) cases. The median recurrence free survival (RFS) with reference to Simpson grading of excision was 250, 120, 98, 80 months for grades I, II, III, and IV excision; it was statistically significant according to the grading of excision.  Conclusion:  Excision of meningioma up to grades I and II had an excellent outcome with minimum chances of complications

The Approach of Data Mining

The concept of data mining is to classify and analyze the given data and to examine it clearly understandable and discoverable for the learners and researchers. The different types of classifiers are there exist to classify a data accordingly for the best and accurate results. Taking a primary data, and then classifying it into different portions of parts, then to analyze and remove any ambiguities from it and finally make it possible for understanding. With this process, that data will become secondary from primary and will called information. So, the classifiers are doing the same strategy for the solution and accuracy of the data. In this paper, different data mining approaches have been used by applying different classifiers on the taken data set. The data-set consists of 500 candidates' segregated data for the analysis and evaluation to perfectly classify and to show the accurate results by using the proposed Algorithms. The data mining approaches have been used in which HUGO (Highly Undetectable steGO) Algorithm, Naïve Bayes Classification, k-nearest neighbors and Logistic Regression are used with the extension of the other classification methods that are Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) as classifiers. These classifiers are given names for further analysis that are Classifier-1 and Classifier-2 respectively. Along with these, a tool is used named WEKA (Waikato Environment for Knowledge Analysis) for the analysis of the classifier-1 and 2. For performance evaluation and analysis the parameters are used for best classification that which classifier has given best performance and why. These parameters are RRSE (Root Relative Square Error), RAE (Relative Absolute Error), MAE (Mean Absolute Error), and RMSE (Root Mean Square Error). For the best and outstanding accuracy of the proposed work, these parameters have been tested under the simulation environment along with the incorrect, correct classifying and the %age has been witnessed and calculated. From simulation results based on RRSE, RAE, MAE and RMSE, it has been shown that classifier-1 has given outstanding performance among the others and has been placed in highest priority

Endoscopic Discectomy versus Microscopic Discectomy

Objective:  A randomized control trial was conducted to compare the outcome of an endoscopic discectomy with microdiscectomy in lumbar spine disc disease. Material and Methods:  A randomized control trial was conducted at the Department of Neurosurgery, Punjab Institute of Neurosciences (PINS), Lahore. We included 80 patients of ages between 13 – 65 years, with low backache with radiation towards legs and prolapsed intervertebral disc at L5 – S1 and L4 – L5 levels on MRI were included in the study. Endoscopic/microscopic discectomy was done in a randomized manner under general anesthesia in a prone position with fluoro guidance. Postoperatively, all patients stayed in the recovery room for two hours for monitoring and then shifted to the ward. All patients followed-up-to one year clinically with the help of the Oswestry disability index (ODI). Results:  There were 37 female and 43 male patients in the ages between 13 – 65 years. The mean age of patients was 53.5 years. The 53 patients were having prolapsed disc at L5 S1 levels and 27 patients with disc prolapse at L4 – 5 levels. A good improvement was observed in visual analog scores after surgery in both endoscopic and microscopic discectomy groups. But endoscopic discectomy group required a lesser hospital stay, early mobilization, and lesser postoperative analgesia requirements than the microscopic group. Conclusion:  Endoscopic/microdiscectomy both are equally effective and safer techniques. They both can relief. However, the endoscopic discectomy was found better in terms of early mobilization and lesser postoperative pain

A Comparison of Fiscal Effort by Provincial Governments in Pakistan

Considerable variation exists among Provinces of Pakistan with respect to their abilities to raise revenues. This is due to underlying varied provincial characteristics like area, resources, population, nature of economic activities and provincial GDPs. The main focus of this paper is to make inter-provincial comparison of their fiscal efforts after allowing for difference in taxable capacity. Therefore, objective of such inter-provincial comparisons of fiscal effort is to identify whether provincial revenue collection is limited by capacity (revenue base) or if a province is unwilling to exploit the available capacity to generate revenues.12 This will enable development of the appropriate resource mobilisation strategy for each province and help in enhancing the overall provincial tax revenue to GDP ratio which is currently below 1 percent of the GDP. This analysis will also help policy-makers in designing fiscal equalisation formulae for assisting those provinces which have demonstrated lesser capacity to raise revenues from their own sources

The Impact of Public Expenditure Components on Economic Growth in Pakistan.

This study examines the relationship between health expenditure, expenditure on education, Gross Fixed Capital Formation, Military Expenditure, Fiscal Balance (Deficit) and economic growth in Pakistan. The period of study is from 1972 to 2015. ARDL Bounds Testing approach for co-integration and ECM Technique were applied to study the long run and short run relationship among the above mentioned variables. “Granger Causality Test” was applied to find out the direction of causality. The results reveal a long run relationship between Military Expenditure, Gross Fixed Capital Formation, Fiscal Balance and Economic Growth. The results of “ECM” show the short run relationship among these variables. However, there is no long run relationship between Health Expenditure, Expenditure on Education and Economic Growth. The speed of adjustment is high which 62.28% is. “Granger Causality” test reveals that “causality runs from Military Expenditure to Economic Growth”. It further reveals causality from health expenditure to fiscal balance and from fiscal balance to Military Expenditure. It is concluded that fiscal policy has an important role in boosting economic growth