The impact of bank-specific attributes on web based disclosure practices of global banks / Manpreet Kaur and Mandeep Kaur.

This paper examines the extent of web disclosure practices of the top thirty global banks. The paper also investigates the impact of bank-specific characteristics such as bank size, financial performance and corporate governance on web disclosure practices. To analyse the extent of web disclosure practices, a disclosure index of 101 items of information was formulated. To check the hypotheses of the study, an OLS regression framework was estimated on a sample of the top thirty global banks. Descriptive analysis indicates that global banks’ web disclosure is at an acceptable level as the mean value was 73. The results show that large sized banks and banks that follow good corporate governance practices extensively use their websites to disclose information. On the contrary, financial performance negatively affects the extent of web-based disclosure in a global context. The study contributes to the existing literature of web based disclosure and the findings are useful for managers and investors. For managers it helps to meet the actual and potential informational needs of investors and for investors it helps in the decision to invest in a richer informational environment and better-assessed firm value

Three Essays on Diversity-Performance Relationship from a Positive Psychology Lens

Workplace diversity is an incessant notion in today’s world. Scholars have examined different aspects of diversity (e.g. demographic, cultural, and informational) in context of varying processes and outcomes (e.g. satisfaction, innovation, creativity, and performance). Diversity has been proposed as a double-edged sword, but the overall effects of diversity have been inconclusive, necessitating the investigation of more contextual variables. Efforts have been made to focus on this paucity of diversity research, however, the emphasis has been on objective variables and the positive characteristics of an individual or a team are neglected. Thus, the purpose of this three-essay dissertation is to address this gap by integrating the positive organizational behavior theme with the diversity literature. I aim to amalgamate positive psychology components in the diversity-performance relation and identify its fruitful effects. As a foundational step, the first essay offers insights on the extant patterns and research trends of diversity research at two levels – individual and team. In this comprehensive literature review, I analyze different variables used to investigate effects of both, relational demography and diversity, on performance. The study highlights theoretical underpinnings, distinguishes the analytical approaches, and offers guidelines for future research. In Essay 2, I theorize a multi-level model highlighting the direct and interaction effects of relational demography and positive psychology traits on individual outcomes. I propose that the detrimental effects of surface- and deep-level diversity on individual team members will be alleviated by the positive effects such as cultural intelligence and psychological empowerment at the individual-level and empowerment and psychological capital at the team-level. A longitudinal investigation of more than 480 participants constituting 139 teams at two major research universities provides evidence for the interesting effects of these positive traits. Results demonstrate that cultural quotient of an individual has a positive significant interaction effect on psychological empowerment and intrinsic motivation. Also, the level of psychological empowerment has a direct positive effect on the sense of thriving at work. In a similar setting, in Essay 3 a team-level model is proposed to identify the effect of surface- and deep-level diversity with social integration and team learning. I investigate the interaction effects of collective psychological capital, team goal orientation, and team empowerment. Further, the direct effect of psychological capital and team processes on team performance is also analyzed. Findings from this study suggest that team goal orientation acts as a positive moderator for both social integration and team learning behavior. Likewise, team psychological capital has a positive interaction effect on the two team processes. Overall, this dissertation highlights the importance of considering the positive psychological capacities of individuals to overcome diversity-related challenges. This research makes a critical contribution by including the unexplored positive psychological traits in the diversity literature and illustrating its virtues. Findings from the studies generate several fruitful implications for theory and practice. Future research directions are suggested

Physical Unclonable Function Reliability on Reconfigurable Hardware and Reliability Degradation with Temperature and Supply Voltage Variations

A hardware security solution using a Physical Unclonable Function (PUF) is a promising approach to ensure security for physical systems. PUF utilizes the inherent instance-specific parameters of physical objects and it is evaluated based on the performance parameters such as uniqueness, reliability, randomness, and tamper evidence of the Challenge and Response Pairs (CRPs). These performance parameters are affected by operating conditions such as temperature and supply voltage variations. In addition, PUF implementation on Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) platform is proven to be more complicated than PUF implementation on Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) technologies. The automatic placement and routing of logic cells in FPGA can affect the performance of PUFs due to path delay imbalance. In this work, the impact of power supply and temperature variations, on the reliability of an arbiter PUF is studied. Simulation results are conducted to determine the effects of these varying conditions on the CRPs. Simulation results show that ± 10% of power supply variation can affect the reliability of an arbiter PUF by about 51%, similarly temperature fluctuation between -40 0C and +60 0C reduces the PUF reliability by 58%. In addition, a new methodology to implement a reliable arbiter PUF on an FPGA platform is presented. Instead of using an extra delay measurement module, the Chip Planner tool for FPGA is used for manually placement to minimize the path delay misalignment to less than 8 ps

THE EFFECT OF PARENTING STYLES ON DEPRESSION AMONG COLLEGE STUDENTS

Researchers, during the past few decades have found there to be an association between parenting styles and levels of depression in children, adolescents, and adults. In the current study, the effects of parenting styles on depression among college students was targeted. This current study predicted that: 1. Females will show greater levels of depression than males. 2. Asians will show increased levels of depression. 3. Participants with authoritarian parents will exhibit significantly higher levels of depression as compared to authoritative, permissive, and uninvolved parenting styles. In addition to these, additional exploratory analyses were also conducted. Two hundred eighty-eight college undergraduates participated. There were two hundred thirty-one females and fifty-seven males. Participants retrospectively completed questionnaires about parental bonding in childhood and answered questions about current levels of depression and anxiety. There were no significant differences in level of depression reported by men versus women. Results showed Asians experience higher levels of depression than other ethnicities. However, there was no overall significant difference in young adults with authoritarian parents exhibiting higher levels of depression as compared to levels of depression in students who described their parents as having an authoritative, permissive or uninvolved parenting styles for father/male guardian

ANALYSIS OF EMOTIONAL STABILITY IN BASKETBALL PLAYERS

The reason for display examine was to survey the Emotional Stability in basketball players. For this reason, the agents had chosen thirty (N=30) male basketball players of 20 to 25 years old to go about as subjects. They were partitioned into three distinctive playing position in basketball players (i.e., N1=10; Point Guard, N2=10; center, N3=10 power forward). The purposive testing method was utilized to choose the subjects. One Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was utilized to think about the distinctive playing position in basketball players. Where 'F' values were discovered huge, LSD (Least Significant Difference) Post-hoc test was connected to discover the heading and level of distinction. For testing the theories, the level of importance was set at 0.05. The outcomes delineated that insignificant contrasts have been found concerning the parameter self-acknowledgment among point guard, center and wicket guardian players as the P-value (Sig.) .862 was discovered higher than the 0.05 level of importance (P>0.05).  Article visualizations

Understanding the Structural and Functional Correlates of Acute Lung Inflammation in Two Murine Models

The outcome of lung inflammation is important to host survival as lungs are necessary for oxygen exchange and fighting pathogens or any injurious stimuli. Thus, diagnosing and understanding the kinetics of lung inflammation is an emerging technological area in the field of imaging research and development. Dr. Aulakh’s lab has two separate established models of neutrophilic murine acute lung injury namely, acute low-dose (0.05 ppm) ozone-induced and intranasal bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced lung inflammation. In order to characterize the dynamics of these models, there are two research hypotheses of my project, which are a) acute low-dose ozone exposure causes lung [18F]F-FDG retention because of increased leukocyte glucose uptake due to inflammation as assessed by sequential micro-Positron Emission Tomography-Computed tomography (microPET-CT) in murine lungs, similar to the effects of intranasal bacterial lipopolysaccharide, LPS and b) acute low-dose ozone exposure induces an increase in ultra-small-angle scatter (USAXS) (due to alveolar recruitment), absorption (due to alveolar edema) and a decrease in refraction (due to peri-bronchiolar edema) comparable to intranasal LPS induced changes in these X-ray optical properties as assessed by Lung Multiple Image X-Radiography (MIR). Thus, the premise of my thesis is to test the utility of longitudinal non-invasive imaging modalities, namely sequential [18F]-fluoro-deoxy glucose ([18F]F-FDG) positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET-CT) and synchrotron multiple image X-radiography (MIR), to assess the progression of acute murine low-dose ozone or intranasal bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) induced lung inflammation over 24 and 70 h time periods, respectively. Both ozone and LPS induced an increase in murine lung [18F]F-FDG standard uptake ratio (SUR) and a heterogenous lung distribution which was unlike the craniocaudal [18F]F-FDG gradient observed in lungs before any exposure (called as baseline or control [18F]F-FDG). The whole-body distribution profiles revealed that lung [18F]F-FDG activity was higher and prolonged up to 28 h in LPS compared to ozone exposed mice. While [18F]F-FDG is a useful marker to highlight areas with high metabolic uptake of glucose in cells such as neutrophils and macrophages recruited during inflammation, the resolution of PET-CT (hundreds of μm) precludes the evaluation of microscopic histopathologic changes especially in the alveoli. Using lung hematoxylin and eosin stained cryosections, the ratios of total lung tissue to air spaces and specifically alveolar parenchyma to air spaces were assessed in mice lungs exposed to 0.05 ppm ozone for 2 h. Results from the X-ray CT lung tissue volume quantifications as well as the histologically derived percent-stained lung or alveolar area quantifications suggest significant damage that is observed as reduced percentage area as well as variability or standard deviation (S.D.) of binary lung images in mice immediately i.e., at 0 h and 6 h after exposure to 2 h of 0.05 ppm ozone. Alveolar damage was also significant at 0 h as shown by reduction in percentage area and S.D. in the binary image region restricted to alveoli. The synchrotron study aimed at following mice lungs before, immediately i.e., at 0 h, and thereafter at 24, 48 or 70 h after saline, bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS, 50 μg), or low dose (0.05 ppm for 2 h) ozone exposure. Our results indicate that the lung ultra-small-angle scatter (USAXS), which is a metric of air-tissue boundaries and refraction (which is due to bending of X-rays across air-tissue conducting airways) reduces, especially in the cranial part of left lung, with a corresponding increase in absorption upon exposure to LPS or ozone and is detectable up to 70 h. The changes in lung X-ray optical properties are indicative of the gross inflammatory changes, in response to LPS or ozone exposure, as indicated by increases in lung absorption but reduction in refraction and USAXS. Overall, the results from my project indicate that for a comprehensive analysis of lung inflammation, a combination of lung histological analysis along with objective lung image analysis as described in the longitudinal microPET-CT and lung MIR experiments form powerful techniques for sensitive delineation of inflammatory changes in gross lung structure and function

Molecular mechanism of cyanobacteria circadian clock oscillator and effect of co factors on its oscillation

The circadian rhythms arise as an adaptation to the environmental 24-hour day and night cycle due to Earth\u27s rotation. These rhythms prepare organisms to align their internal biological activities and day to day behavior or events with the environmental change of the 24-hour day and night cycle. Circadian rhythms are found widely in all living kingdoms of life on Earth. Cyanobacteria are photosynthetic prokaryotes which first used to study these circadian rhythms. Among cyanobacterial species, Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942 (henceforth, S. Elongatus) is the simplest organism with a durable and sturdy circadian clock and is study as a model organism. The S.Elongatus central pacemaker is a posttranslational oscillator(PTO) consisting of three proteins KaiA, KaiB, and KaiC, and these proteins can replicate in a test tube with ATP and Magnesium. The circadian oscillator mechanism revolves around KaiC phosphorylation at residues S431 and T432 in the CII domain throughout ~24-hours. KaiA initiates KaiC phosphorylation by binding to the KaiC region known as A-loop. KaiB then commences the process of dephosphorylation by sequestering KaiA from A-loop. This ordered phosphorylation with A loop confirmation change does not provide a detailed explanation about the molecular mechanism acting downstream of A loop. This oscillator mechanism is not well studied, yet the shift in protein concentrations, the addition of cofactors in an oscillator, and protein mutations in the circadian period are still unknown. This dissertation addresses how important it is to investigate each clock component, their protein mutations, and interactions to solve the oscillator mechanism and the whole developmental biological chronometer\u27s hidden complexity. Here I discuss the Aloop downstream mechanism for KaiC phosphorylation and how cofactors and mutations influence its oscillation in this report. And also propose the current self-sustained circadian oscillator possibly evolved from the KaiC-alone hourglass controlled by magnesiu