Framing the Border: Liminality in the Network Narratives of Alejandro González Iñárritu

This thesis explores liminality conveyed as displacement before death in the network narrative films of Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu. Due to their depiction of existential crises and possibly fatal scenarios of several characters in different countries and regions, these network narrative films are colloquially referred to as the “Death Trilogy.” Therefore, rearranging the many strands of death-related abstractions and notions in these films around liminality becomes a jumping-off point to explore deeper layers of these works. Through interdisciplinary yet markedly film studies excavations, this thesis projects the liminal spaces of Iñárritu’s films onto border spaces. With borders considered as sites of collision, entanglement, connection, and displacement and the varied scholarship on Iñárritu as a filmmaker of borders, this thesis will interchangeably use “liminal spaces” with “border spaces.” Borrowing from a range of sources and disciplines such as film studies, physics, mathematics, media studies, anthropology and Latin American studies, the project will seek to link the liminal border spaces in the films to those of the films’ non-filmic elements, such as production process and sociopolitical address. Different diagrams representing the filmic and non-filmic border spaces of each film will be used to help map and make clear the many constellations and linkages that will be revealed in this project. In carrying out the project with this methodology, the diagrams are meant to be a means, like Iñárritu’s films, of visually mediating the liminal border spaces associated with death that are felt most readily in a contemporary, globalized world

IMPACT OF AGGRESSIVENESS OF WORKING CAPITAL MANAGEMENT ON FIRM'S PROFIT

Purpose of Study: The study intends to analyze the fact that whether it is better to be aggressive or conservative in formulating strategies for working capital management. The main objective of any firm is to earn the maximum profit but caring for the liquidity is also an important element. Profit of the firm can be increased, the problem comes when profit increases at the cost of liquidity. Methodology: The data we have collected is from Karachi stock exchange (61 companies) in Pakistan for the time tenure of 6 years (2013-2018). Results: This study explores the impact of aggressiveness of working capital management on the firm's profit. Implications/Applications: According to our analysis while considering the Current ratio and Cash conversion cycle as independent variables, there is a significant impact of Current ratio on the firm's profit

Sensibilidade do fluxo de caixa de investimento em empresas paquistanesas familiares

Different governance structure of family owned firms may impact their investment decisions and hence performance in the long run. This study investigates the impact of family ownership and control on investment-cash flow sensitivity of family owned firms listed in Pakistan Stock Exchange. Using the ownership threshold of >50% share holdings, panel data of 135 firms is analyzed from 2004-2017. Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) was used to estimate the coefficients of model. Results reveal the financing decisions are significantly sensitive to the cash flows generated by the firms in a credit constraint environment. The study recommends policy makers to facilitate capital funding to family owned firms and encourage the placement of professional CEOs instead of family members.La mayoría de la estructura de gobierno de la familia de propiedad propia puede afectar sus inversiones tomadas y rendimiento en el largo plazo. Este estudio investiga el impacto de la propiedad de la propiedad y el control en la inversión de flujo de flujo de la población de la sociedad de propiedad de la sociedad en cuestión. El uso de la propiedad de propiedad del 50% de los contenedores, se establece el certificado de seguridad de 135 de 135 a partir de 2004-2017. Se utilizó el método utilizado para medir los coeficientes del modelo (GMM). Los resultados que muestran las medidas de aprobación son sensibles a los flujos de flujo generados por la entidad en un entorno de restricción de contenido. El estudio considera que los responsables de la política de toma de posesión de capital para una sociedad de propiedad privada y la colocación de profesionales profesionales en lugar de miembros de familia.Diferentes estruturas de governança de empresas familiares podem afetar suas decisões de investimento e, portanto, o desempenho a longo prazo. Este estudo investiga o impacto da propriedade familiar e controle sobre a sensibilidade do fluxo de caixa de investimento das empresas familiares listadas na Bolsa de Valores do Paquistão. Utilizando o limite de propriedade de mais de 50% das participações acionárias, os dados de painel de 135 empresas são analisados de 2004 a 2017. O Método Generalizado de Momentos (GMM) foi utilizado para estimar os coeficientes do modelo. Os resultados revelam que as decisões de financiamento são significativamente sensíveis aos fluxos de caixa gerados pelas empresas em um ambiente de restrição de crédito. O estudo recomenda formuladores de políticas para facilitar o financiamento de capital para empresas familiares e incentiva a colocação de CEOs profissionais em vez de membros da família

Learning to Prompt with Text Only Supervision for Vision-Language Models

Foundational vision-language models such as CLIP are becoming a new paradigm in vision, due to their excellent generalization abilities. However, adapting these models for downstream tasks while maintaining their generalization remains a challenge. In literature, one branch of methods adapts CLIP by learning prompts using visual information. While effective, most of these works require labeled data which is not practical, and often struggle to generalize towards new datasets due to over-fitting on the source data. An alternative approach resorts to training-free methods by generating class descriptions from large language models (LLMs) and perform prompt ensembling. However, these methods often generate class specific prompts that cannot be transferred to other classes, which incur higher costs by generating LLM descriptions for each class separately. In this work, we propose to combine the strengths of these both streams of methods by learning prompts using only text data derived from LLMs. As supervised training of prompts is not trivial due to absence of images, we develop a training approach that allows prompts to extract rich contextual knowledge from LLM data. Moreover, with LLM contextual data mapped within the learned prompts, it enables zero-shot transfer of prompts to new classes and datasets potentially cutting the LLM prompt engineering cost. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work that learns generalized prompts using text only data. We perform extensive evaluations on 4 benchmarks where our method improves over prior ensembling works while being competitive to those utilizing labeled images. Our code and pre-trained models are available at https://github.com/muzairkhattak/ProText.Comment: Project Page: https://muzairkhattak.github.io/ProText

Humanism and mental health of married female Patients with systemic lupus erythematosus.

Autoimmune diseases exert adverse impact on the psychological, social and physical well-being of the individuals who suffer from such diseases. Systemic lupus erythematosus is one of chronic illnesses that disturb the all areas of life especially psychosocial perspective of life. In such conditions, belief and view of patients about their own self is necessary to prognosis of their health. Studies suggest that humanism is one of those protective factors that can lead risky health towards better life

SNCA: Semi-Supervised Node Classification for Evolving Large Attributed Graphs

open access articl

CORPORATE FINANCIAL POLICY AND ITS IMPACT ON SUSTAINABLE CAPITAL STRUCTURE: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM TEXTILE FIRMS OF PAKISTAN

Purpose of the study: In this article, the objective is to discover the influence of business financial policy on the firm’s Capital structure of the textile zone of Pakistan. The present outcomes of productivity, total assets, future growth, and asset structure have started a discussion over the total debt ratio. Methodology: The methodology used to conduct this work in order to examine the effect of total assets, future growth, profitability, and asset structure and its impact on total debt ratio, Panel data analysis has been accomplished and together the firm and industry explicit dynamics have been measured, yearly data has been taken off 96 textile firms of Pakistan concluded the period of 2012 - 2017 for OLS, regression model & LSDVM. Main Findings: The results reveal that the OLS regression model is not a good fit and the model shows that there is no significant impact of all the independent variables on the dependent variables. Whereas the results of LSDVM indicated that this model is a good fit, the model revealed that the entire individuals have combined effect on the dependent variable. Similarly, the alternate hypothesis indicates the significant influence of independent variables on the dependent variable whereas the Null hypothesis indicated no or insignificant influence of independent variables on the dependent variable. Application of this study: This study contributes toward the financial sector for policymakers in order to construct the best capital configuration of the firm. This study also suggests that which element is having more importance while making capital configuration of the firm. The originality of this study: Capital structure is a crucial issue for entrepreneurs and CEOs of any firm. The number of studies is available related to other industries but fewer studies are available related to the textile firms of Pakistan so this research work provides the technique while making the best capital configuration for textile firms of Pakistan

Comparison of Features of Corona Virus in Confirmed and Unconfirmed Patients In Lahore

Introduction: Coronavirus has spread rapidly in Pakistan. These patients were kept at quarantine facilities on suspicion, even before RT-PCR was done. We were able to collect clinical, laboratory, and management features from them.  Objective: To assess the features of Corona confirmed and unconfirmed patients, and compare them. It could help in deciding if confirmed and unconfirmed patients were correctly identified and managed appropriately. Material and Methods: Retrospective, Descriptive, Crossectional study between 8th April to 30th April 2020. Patient data was collected from different sites retrospectively, on a Performa. Clinical, Laboratory, and Management data as collected. It was analyzed on SPSS 23. All patients in quarantines and ICU were included, irrespective of their corona PCR status, if the treating physicians had a strong suspicion. Home quarantine and less than 15-year old patients were excluded. Results: Clinical features showed more preponderance for males and smokers. Chronic disease patients were also significantly involved. Fatigue, nasal congestion, runny nose, sickness, and vomiting were more common in confirmed patients. CURB 65 scores 3 and 4 were more in unconfirmed patients. CT involvement was more common in unconfirmed patients as was high white cells and neutrophils. More patients had mechanical ventilation in the unconfirmed group, and they also had more secondary infections and shock. Antibiotic use was more common in the confirmed group. Conclusion: Corona was more common in males and smokers. Though fever and cough were common, the presence of fatigue, runny nose, nasal congestion sickness, and vomiting discriminated confirmed patients. Antibiotics should be used irrespective of RT-PCR results, especially if CT showed an abnormality. &nbsp