Operational Risk Management in Corporate and Banking Sector of Pakistan

This paper is to examine the current status of operational risk management in Pakistan concerning corporate and banking sector and explore the reasons for the adoption or lack of adoption of integrated approach to operational risk management. It identifies the imperatives for implementation of comprehensive risk management solutions leading to enterprise risk management (ERM).The mode of research is qualitative. The paper shows that effective risk management can enhance organizational performance but appropriate infrastructure is not available in companies.  This paper highlights the fact that knowledge of risk management in corporate sectors of Pakistan is insufficient and sample companies hesitate to respond thinking that it may reflect inefficiencies and in banking sectors the concept of operational risk management can be seen up to some extent. Keywords: Operational risk management, corporate and banking, integrated approach, Enterprise risk management, organizational performanc

Utilization and outcomes with low dose tissue plasminogen activator as intravenous thrombolytic therapy for ischaemic stroke at Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi: A retrospective analysis

Objective: To determine the utilisation of intravenous tissue plasminogen activator at a certain dose for ischaemic stroke thrombolysis and to compare the outcomes with those of a different dosage mentioned in literature.Methods: The retrospective study was conducted at the Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, and comprised medical records from January, 2007, to October, 2016, of all patients having received intravenous tissue plasminogen activator for ischaemic stroke thrombolysis. Primary safety outcome variables included symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage after the start of treatment (0.6mg/kg) and death within three months as per the modified Rankin scale 6. Secondary efficacy outcome variable was functional independence as per modified Rankin scale 0-2 at three months. The outcomes were compared with those mentioned in literature with a dose of 0. 9mg/kg.Results: Of the 79 patients, 52 (66%) were male and 27 (34 %) were female. Median pre-treatment tissue plasminogen activator score was 12 (interquartile range: 8-15). Overall utilisation of t-PA remained at 1.7%. Symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage was not seen in our cohort while it was seen in 107 (1.7%) patients at the higher dose. Using another definition, it was seen in 3 (3.8%) patients versus 468 (7.3%) patients at the higher dose. Functional independence was seen in 40 (50.6%) patients at three months compared to 3362 (54.8%) patients at the higher dose.Conclusion: Low-dose intravenous thrombolytic therapy for ischaemic stroke patients was found to be safe and efficacious, and yielded comparable results with those obtained at a higher dose

Structural, Interfacial, and Electrochemical Stability of La0.3Ca0.7Fe0.7Cr0.3O3-δ Electrode Material for Application as the Oxygen Electrode in Reversible Solid Oxide Cells

A detailed study aimed at understanding the structural, interfacial, and electrochemical performance stability of La0.3Ca0.7Fe0.7Cr0.3O3-δ (LCFCr) electrode material for application as the oxygen electrode in reversible solid oxide cells (RSOCs) is presented. Specifically, emphasis is placed on the stability of the LCFCr oxygen electrode during oxygen evolution (electrolysis mode), whereby many known electrode materials are known to fail due to delamination. The porous microstructure of the electrode was characterized by nanoscale X-ray microscopy (XRM) to reveal the percentage porosity, pore connectivity, average pore size, and electrochemical surface area, etc. Under polarization in a two-electrode symmetrical-cell configuration, while the working electrode was under anodic polarization, a very stable performance was observed at a cell potential of 0.2 V, although increasing the cell potential to 0.65 V caused significant performance degradation. This degradation was reversible when the cell was run at open circuit for 10 h. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy and wavelength dispersive spectroscopy revealed that the working electrode (LCFCr)/electrolyte (GDC) interface was structurally and chemically stable after hundreds of hours under polarization with no interdiffusion of the various species observed across the interface, hence rendering LCFCr a viable alternative for the oxygen electrode in RSOCs.Depto. de Química InorgánicaFac. de Ciencias QuímicasTRUEMitacsMinisterio de Ciencia e InnovaciónMCIN/AEIpu

A dipole sub-array with reduced mutual coupling for large antenna array applications

The use of large array antennas in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) exploits diversity and reduces the overall transmission power making it a key enabling technology for 5G. Despite all the benefits, mutual coupling (MC) between elements in these array antennas is a concerning issue as it affects the antenna terminal impedance, reflection coefficients, etc. In this paper, a four-element printed dipole sub-array with reduced MC for S-band has been proposed. A balanced transmission line structure has been designed with two dipole arms on the opposite side of the substrate. Simulated and measured results are in good agreement making the design suitable for large array applications such as phased array radars. The proposed array exhibits good impedance matching with a reflection coefficient of -45 dB and resonating at the center frequency of 2.8 GHz. Moreover, isolation of -20 dB has been achieved for each element in a 2×2 planar array structure using out of band, parasitic elements, and planar shift by distributing the separation between the elements

Kernel recursive least square tracker and long-short term memory ensemble based battery health prognostic model

Summary: A data-driven approach is developed to predict the future capacity of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) in this work. The empirical mode decomposition (EMD), kernel recursive least square tracker (KRLST), and long short-term memory (LSTM) are used to derive the proposed approach. First, the LIB capacity data is split into local regeneration and monotonic global degradation using the EMD approach. Next, the KRLST is used to track the decomposed intrinsic mode functions, and the residual signal is predicted using the LSTM sub-model. Finally, all the predicted intrinsic mode functions and the residual are ensembled to get the future capacity. The experimental and comparative analysis validates the high accuracy (RMSE of 0.00103) of the proposed ensemble approach compared to Gaussian process regression and LSTM fused model. Furthermore, two times lesser error than other fused models makes this approach an efficient tool for battery health prognostics

Emission-aware Resource Optimization Framework for Backscatter-enabled Uplink NOMA Networks

In the last decade, a sharp surge in the number of user proximity wireless devices (UPWDs) has been observed. This has increased the level of electromagnetic field (EMF) exposure of the users substantially and hence, the possible physiological effects. Ambient backscatter communications (ABC) has appeared to be a promising solution to reduce the power consumption of UPWDs by converting ambient radio frequency (RF) signals into useful signals while non‐orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is a compelling multiplexing scheme for enhanced spectral efficiency. This chapter utilizes a novel combination of ABC and NOMA to reduce the EMF in the uplink of wireless communication systems. This contemporary approach of EMF‐aware resource optimization is based on k‐medoids and Silhouette analysis. To curtail the uplink EMF, a power allocation strategy is also derived by converting a non‐convex problem to a convex one and solving accordingly. The numerical results exhibit that the proposed ABC, NOMA, and unsupervised learning based scheme achieves a reduction in the EMF by at least 75% in comparison with the existing solutions

Privacy-Preserving Wandering Behavior Sensing in Dementia Patients Using Modified Logistic and Dynamic Newton Leipnik Maps

The health status of an elderly person can be identified by examining the additive effects of aging along disease linked to it and can lead to the ’unstable incapacity’. This health status is essentially determined by the apparent decline of independence in Activities of Daily Living (ADLs). Detecting ADLs provide possibilities of improving the home life of elderly people as it can be applied to fall detection systems.. This article looks at Radar images to detect large scale body movements. Using a publicly available Radar spectogram dataset, Deep Learning and Machine Learning techniques are used for image classification of Walking, Sitting, Standing, Picking up Object, Drinking Water and Falling Radar spectograms. The Machine Learning algorithm used were Random Forest, K Nearest Neighbours and Support Vector Machine. The Deep Learning algorithms used in this article were Long Short Term Memory, Bi-directional Long Short-Term Memory and Convolutional Neural Network. In addition to using Machine Learning and Deep Learning on the spectograms, data processing techniques such as Principal Component Analysis and Data Augmentation is applied to the spectogram images. The work done in this article is divided into 4 experiments. The first experiment applies Machine and Deep Learning to the the Raw images data, the second experiment applies Principal Component Analysis to the Raw image Data, the third experiment applies Data Augmentation to the Raw image data and the fourth and final experiment applies Principal Component Analysis and Data Augmentation to the Raw image data. The results obtained in these experiments found that the best results were obtained using the CNN algorithm with Principal Component Analysis and Data Augmentation together to obtain a result of 95.30 % accuracy. Results also showed how Principal Component Analysis was most beneficial when the training data was expanded by augmentation of the available data

Structural and dielectric properties of ultra-fast microwave-processed La_0.3Ca_0.7Fe_0.7Cr_0.3O3-delta ceramics

Perovskite La_0.3Ca_0.7Fe_0.7Cr_0.3O_(3-delta) (LCFCr) is a mixed ionic and electronic conductor (MIEC) that can be employed as an electrode material in reversible solid oxide fuel cells (RSOFCs). In this work, an ultra-fast (15 min) one-step microwave (MW)-assisted combustion synthesis route has been developed to obtain phase pure and highly crystalline LCFCr powder. The synthesized powders exhibited a sponge-like microstructure with increased electrochemical reaction sites. Neutron thermodiffraction analysis revealed a structural transition above 500 degrees C from the room temperature (RT) orthorhombic Pnma to a rhombohedral R3c perovskite phase. The oxygen vacancy concentration was found to increase from delta = 0.272(7) at RT to delta = 0.333(5) at 900 degrees C. Furthermore, a 3-dimensional G-type antiferromagnetic structure was detected at RT. MW-sintering of pressed green ceramic pellets was carried out at 950 degrees C for 1 h, using a MW-transparent quartz fiber crucible or alternatively a SiC crucible acting as a MW-absorber. Impedance spectroscopy data on sintered ceramic pellets revealed electronic inhomogeneity as demonstrated by the occurrence of three dielectric relaxation processes associated with two grain boundary (GB)-like contributions and one bulk. The dielectric inhomogeneity encountered may be restricted to the extrinsic GB areas, which may be rather thin. More homogeneous dielectric properties of the GBs were found in the pellet that was sintered in the SiC crucible

Pure motor axonal neuropathy triggered by antituberculous therapy in an undiagnosed case of acute intermittent porphyria

A man aged 22 years misdiagnosed as suffering from recurrent abdominal tuberculosis, in view of recurrent abdominal pain was treated for abdominal tuberculosis in the past. The patient was prescribed antituberculous therapy. 2 months after starting treatment, he developed progressive weakness of all 4 limbs. Electrodiagnostic examination revealed an acute severe motor axonal neuropathy. Further workup revealed elevated porphyrin precursors in urin