An Investigation of Financial Leverage by Financial Performance

The aim of the study is to find and explain the nature of relationship between financial leverage and financial performance of cement industry. Degree of financial leverage is explained by overall profitability, earnings per share, return on equity and return on assets of cement industry of Pakistan.   The influence of financial performance on financial leverage is investigated by Fixed and random effect approach. Random effect approach is preferred over the fixed effect approach to determine the degree of financial leverage explained by Hausmen test. Moreover the diagnostic tests are used to check the preference between two models and their perfection of the model. Empirical results are explaining that the returns on assets and earnings per share have significant impact on the financial leverage of cement industry.  There is positive correlation between them. This study provide the first attempt in investigating the impact of financial performance on financial leverage in the context of Pakistan cement industry. This study highlights the different ways in which the financial leverage of cement industry is impacted by financial performance. Research method that is employed provides an applicable framework for investigating the relationship between economic variables. Keywords: Degree of financial leverage, Net Profit Margin (NMP), Return on Equity(ROE), Return on Assets(ROA), Earnings per Share(EPS)’ Paper type Research pape

Motion Correction and Pharmacokinetic Analysis in Dynamic Positron Emission Tomography

This thesis will focus on two important aspects of dynamic Positron Emission Tomography (PET): (i) Motion-compensation , and (ii) Pharmacokinetic analysis (also called parametric imaging) of dynamic PET images. Both are required to enable fully quantitative PET imaging which is increasingly finding applications in the clinic. Motion-compensation in Dynamic Brain PET Imaging: Dynamic PET images are degraded by inter-frame and intra-frame motion artifacts that can a ffect the quantitative and qualitative analysis of acquired PET data. We propose a Generalized Inter-frame and Intra-frame Motion Correction (GIIMC) algorithm that uni fies in one framework the inter-frame motion correction capability of Multiple Acquisition Frames and the intra-frame motion correction feature of (MLEM)-type deconvolution methods. GIIMC employs a fairly simple but new approach of using time-weighted average of attenuation sinograms to reconstruct dynamic frames. Extensive validation studies show that GIIMC algorithm outperforms conventional techniques producing images with superior quality and quantitative accuracy. Parametric Myocardial Perfusion PET Imaging: We propose a novel framework of robust kinetic parameter estimation applied to absolute flow quantification in dynamic PET imaging. Kinetic parameter estimation is formulated as nonlinear least squares with spatial constraints problem where the spatial constraints are computed from a physiologically driven clustering of dynamic images, and used to reduce noise contamination. The proposed framework is shown to improve the quantitative accuracy of Myocardial Perfusion (MP) PET imaging, and in turn, has the long-term potential to enhance capabilities of MP PET in the detection, staging and management of coronary artery disease

Minimizing Nonconvex Quadratic Functions Subject to Bound Constraints

We present an active-set algorithm for finding a local minimizer to a nonconvex bound-constrained quadratic problem. Our algorithm extends the ideas developed by Dost al and Sch oberl that is based on the linear conjugate gradient algorithm for (approximately) solving a linear system with a positive-de finite coefficient matrix. This is achieved by making two key changes. First, we perform a line search along negative curvature directions when they are encountered in the linear conjugate gradient iteration. Second, we use Lanczos iterations to compute approximations to leftmost eigen-pairs, which is needed to promote convergence to points satisfying certain second-order optimality conditions. Preliminary numerical results show that our method is e fficient and robust on nonconvex bound-constrained quadratic problems

A process evaluation of the National Youth Development Agency’s grant programme with respect to the beneficiaries of the Western Cape for the period 2013-2014

Masters in Public Administration - MPAYouth today are constantly faced with enormous challenges and are continually faced with job uncertainty and scarce opportunities with almost no means to personal growth. Faced with bleak future livelihood prospects, youth make up a large number of the world’s working poor. Inadequate youth education and lack of labour market preparation still pose challenges for South African youth. They face sizeable constraints to entrepreneurship such as a lack of entrepreneurship culture; lack of entrepreneurship knowledge through formal and informal education; relevant business development services, unsatisfactory business support and insufficient access to financing. Despite this, the extent of research on youth entrepreneurship in Africa is deficient, even non-existent in some contexts. In response to the alarming rate of youth unemployment, the South African government had embarked on realising some of the aspects of the National Youth Policy through youth empowerment via a number of interventions. The implementing agency of all youth development policies and interventions is the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA). The agency has rolled out a number of interventions to address various issues pertinent to the state of the youth in South Africa. However, the specific interventions this study addresses are those related to entrepreneurship, specifically the NYDA Grant programme. Under the Grant programme, a number of issues are addressed such as provision of physical capital, access to resources in the form of advice, guidance and mentorship made available by the National Youth Development Agency to the unemployed youth in the Western Cape. While many youth development programmes have been rolled out both around the world and in South Africa, very little monitoring and evaluation has been conducted in identifying which programmes are effective and sustainable in the long run. At the time of this research, limited information had been accessible with respect to the benefits of entrepreneurship development programmes in South Africa. This research is significant in the sense that it bridges the gaps in the literature on youth entrepreneurship interventions and practical interventions in the field. Furthermore, it provides a lens with which to determine whether they are indeed a sustainable way forward for unemployed youth. Therefore this study conducted a process evaluation using qualitative research methods in order to ascertain if the NYDA is efficiently and effectively executing its mandate with respect to the Grant programme. The research objectives of this study were 1) to conduct a process evaluation of the National Youth Development Agency’s Grant programme, 2) to develop a theoretical and legislative framework underpinning youth in South Africa, 3) to describe and analyse the NYDA’s Grant programme, 4) to highlight the opportunities and challenges that affect the current implementation of the Grant programme and 5) to present recommendations. The findings suggest that the Grant programme has been relevant, timely and useful to young aspiring entrepreneurs providing them with the necessary support through the provision of stock, physical capital and other business support services such as mandatory entrepreneurial training. Despite this, young entrepreneurs still face challenges in sustaining their businesses financially and struggle with establishing a physical space in which they can trade. A number of recommendations were made from the perspectives of the beneficiaries and the NYDA Cape Town Branch implementing staff, namely: increasing staff to improve the administration of the Grant Programme, increasing the grant turnaround time, providing recourse to further funding and physical space and uploading the grant application process onto the internet to save time and money for both beneficiaries and implementing staff

AN INVESTIGATION OF ELITE OFFICIALS'S PERCEPTION REGARDING REFEREE AND GENERAL SELF-EFFICACY IN PAKISTAN

Background: The main purpose of this study was an investigation of elite official’s perception regarding referee and general self-Efficacy in Pakistan. Methods: The sample of this study was male referees (n=250) and female referees (n=47) selected from different four sports federations: Athletics male (n=67) and female (n=20), Football male (n=85) and female (n=2), Volleyball male (n=53) and female (n=20) and Hockey male (n=45) and female (n=5) from Pakistan. Referee self-Efficacy (REFS) and General Self-Efficacy (GSE) scale were used to measure the variables. Results: The results of independent sample t-test revealed that there was a significant (p<0.01) difference physical fitness, game knowledge, decision making, pressure and referee self-efficacy accordingly to gender status. The ANOVA results of athletics, football, volleyball and hockey revealed that there was significant (p<0.01) difference physical fitness, pressure, communication, GSE. The results of ANOVA, (least significant difference test LSD) revealed that there was significant difference between athletics and volleyball, football and volleyball accordingly physical fitness variable. Accordingly pressure variable results revealed that there was significant difference between, football and hockey. Communication variable results revealed that there was significant (p<0.05) difference between athletics and hockey, football and volleyball, volleyball and hockey. The total score of (GSE) results revealed that there was significant (p<.05) difference between athletics and football, athletics and hockey and volleyball and hockey. The Correlation coefficients between all variables were positive and significant relationship each other. Conclusion: The results concluded that male referee and technical officials have high (mean score) of all variables than female, results also indicated that athletics technical officials have high level of referee and general self-efficacy than football, volleyball and hockey official’s

EXPLICIT RECOMMENDATIONS FOR HOME-BASED PHYSICAL TRAINING DURING CORONA-VIRUS PANDEMIC (COVID-19) FOR BEGINNER AND PROFESSIONAL PLAYERS

Purpose: The novel Coronavirus disorder 2019 (COVID-19) globally affecting human behavior, especially affecting human bodily culture, forcing many people around the sphere to quarantine themselves for some time. As for the sake of protection after the out-break of Covid-19, many countries and regions take precautionary measures as they close all the schools and universities and banned all the social activities like travelling, cultural and sports events and prohibited all social gatherings. A lot of training sessions were affected due to the coronavirus pandemic (covid-19). Athletes training, cardio workout drill on a treadmill, bodyweight exercises, dance and energetic virtual reality, can resource to prevent the bodily damage and intellectual cataclysmic outcome of the pandemic and are the pragmatic hints for staying energetic while quarantining or self-isolation. This commentary offers beneficial facts on domestic-primarily based totally on bodily exercises for sedentary humans throughout the continuance, along with kids and adolescents, which could be undertaken for the duration of the prevailing pandemic or different outbreaks of infectious disorder. Conclusion: In this study, the researcher recommended a home-based physical activity plan for beginner and professional players

Overall Survival Prediction of Glioma Patients With Multiregional Radiomics

Radiomics-guided prediction of overall survival (OS) in brain gliomas is seen as a significant problem in Neuro-oncology. The ultimate goal is to develop a robust MRI-based approach (i.e., a radiomics model) that can accurately classify a novel subject as a short-term survivor, a medium-term survivor, or a long-term survivor. The BraTS 2020 challenge provides radiological imaging and clinical data (178 subjects) to develop and validate radiomics-based methods for OS classification in brain gliomas. In this study, we empirically evaluated the efficacy of four multiregional radiomic models, for OS classification, and quantified the robustness of predictions to variations in automatic segmentation of brain tumor volume. More specifically, we evaluated four radiomic models, namely, the Whole Tumor (WT) radiomics model, the 3-subregions radiomics model, the 6-subregions radiomics model, and the 21-subregions radiomics model. The 3-subregions radiomics model is based on a physiological segmentation of whole tumor volume (WT) into three non-overlapping subregions. The 6-subregions and 21-subregions radiomic models are based on an anatomical segmentation of the brain tumor into 6 and 21 anatomical regions, respectively. Moreover, we employed six segmentation schemes – five CNNs and one STAPLE-fusion method – to quantify the robustness of radiomic models. Our experiments revealed that the 3-subregions radiomics model had the best predictive performance (mean AUC = 0.73) but poor robustness (RSD = 1.99) and the 6-subregions and 21-subregions radiomics models were more robust (RSD  1.39) with lower predictive performance (mean AUC  0.71). The poor robustness of the 3-subregions radiomics model was associated with highly variable and inferior segmentation of tumor core and active tumor subregions as quantified by the Hausdorff distance metric (4.4−6.5mm) across six segmentation schemes. Failure analysis revealed that the WT radiomics model, the 6-subregions radiomics model, and the 21-subregions radiomics model failed for the same subjects which is attributed to the common requirement of accurate segmentation of the WT volume. Moreover, short-term survivors were largely misclassified by the radiomic models and had large segmentation errors (average Hausdorff distance of 7.09mm). Lastly, we concluded that while STAPLE-fusion can reduce segmentation errors, it is not a solution to learning accurate and robust radiomic models

Small intestinal model for electrically propelled capsule endoscopy

The aim of this research is to propose a small intestine model for electrically propelled capsule endoscopy. The electrical stimulus can cause contraction of the small intestine and propel the capsule along the lumen. The proposed model considered the drag and friction from the small intestine using a thin walled model and Stokes' drag equation. Further, contraction force from the small intestine was modeled by using regression analysis. From the proposed model, the acceleration and velocity of various exterior shapes of capsule were calculated, and two exterior shapes of capsules were proposed based on the internal volume of the capsules. The proposed capsules were fabricated and animal experiments were conducted. One of the proposed capsules showed an average (SD) velocity in forward direction of 2.91 ± 0.99 mm/s and 2.23 ± 0.78 mm/s in the backward direction, which was 5.2 times faster than that obtained in previous research. The proposed model can predict locomotion of the capsule based on various exterior shapes of the capsule