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The basic purpose of this study is to investigate the factors affecting non-performing loans of microfinance banks in Pakistan during the COVID-19 Pandemic. The research used secondary data from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics and SBP websites regarding the banking industry in FY 2020–2021, and the data was subjected to a multi-regression analysis. The analysis included a number of variables, including GDP growth rate, management efficiency, bank size and return on assets. According to the study's results, all three variables had a statistically significant affect on the outcome except business size. Non-performing loans have been found to have a important positive association with the country's economy.

The literature has highlighted that international students abroad exhibit a strong preference for products from their country compared with foreign products and services, thus suggesting that the cultural disposition of consumers influences their purchasing decisions. Therefore, this current research aimed to determine how the feeling of groundedness could affect international students’ purchasing behavior in Malaysia through cultural products and services. To this end, quantitative data were collected from international students at the University of Malaya and the University Utara Malaysia and then analyzed using a structural equation model (SEM). The findings of this research highlighted that consumer behavior was influenced by a “feeling of groundedness”. This suggested that cultural services and products are valued by international students in foreign universities because of their ability to evoke a feeling of groundedness. The theoretical contributions of this study, particularly to the consumer behavior literature, are extensive, including how it highlights the influence of the feeling of groundedness on international consumers’ purchasing behavior. The marketing implications of this research are also valuable for businesses targeting international students.

Objective: To evaluate the spectrum of HRCT findings of COVID-19 in RT-PCR positive patients according to duration of infection and severity of disease. Methods: This retrospective study was conducted at Radiology department of Lahore General Hospital, Lahore from May to July 2020. Total 40 COVID-19 patients were reviewed for clinical features, HRCT chest findings based on time from symptom onset and CT conduction. Chi-square and fissure exact test were used for measuring association with severity of COVID-19, p value ≤0.05 was reported significant. Mean CT scores were calculated. ROC curve analysis showed threshold values of CT-SS for severe disease. Results: Of total 40 patients with age ranged from 22-83 years, 22(55%) were males and 18(45%) females. The hallmark of COVID-19 was combined GGO and consolidation, GGO alone and consolidation alone in bilateral, sub pleural and posterior distribution. Early stage had normal CT or GGO alone, intermediate and late stage had both GGO and consolidation. Septal lines/bands and crazy paving pattern were prevalent in late stage. Clinically, 24 (60%) were in severe group and 16(40%) in mild group. Severity of COVID-19 was associated with GGO alone (p=0.05), GGO and consolidation (p=0.01), crazy paving (p=0.01) and lung scores (p≤0.05). The threshold values of CT-SS for identifying severe disease by two radiologists were 18.50 and 20.50. Conclusion: HRCT manifestations along with CT-SS aids in predicting disease severity. Staging according to duration of infection is effective in understanding variation in pattern of chest findings in coronavirus disease. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.38.1.4204 How to cite this:Irshad N, Hanif N. Spectrum of High Resolution Computed tomography chest findings in PCR positive COVID-19 patients according to duration of infection and CT severity score assessment. Pak J Med Sci. 2022;38(1):106-112. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.38.1.4204 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Objective To compare the diagnostic accuracies of HRCT chest and RT-PCR results in diagnosis of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in a tertiary care hospital in Lahore. Study design Descriptive study. Place and duration of study Department of Radiology and Central Research Lab, Lahore General Hospital, Lahore, from April to July, 2020. Methodology Patients aged 18 to 83 years, who had clinically suspected symptoms of COVID-19 (fever, cough/sore throat or shortness of breath) presenting in outpatient or emergency department, were included. These patients had their HRCT chest conducted from Radiology Department and RT-PCR performed at Central Research Lab. These data were retrieved from electronic system of PACS. Results were categorised into positive and negative findings for COVID-19. Diagnostic accuracies of HRCT chest and first RT-PCR along with 95% confidence interval were calculated. Results A total of 94 patients, 55 (58.5%) males and 39 (41.5%) were females. Out of them, 83% patients had positive HRCT chest findings of COVID-19, 17% had negative HRCT chest findings; while 40.4% had positive and 59.6% had negative first PCR. Among the repeat second PCR, 19.6% had negative, 1.8% had positive PCR results; while 78.6% patients didn't undergo repeat PCR. The sensitivity, specificity, NPV, PPV and accuracy of HRCT chest was 92%, 23%, 81%, 45%, and 51%; while of first RT-PCR was 45%, 81%, 23%, 92% and 51%, respectively. Conclusion The sensitivity of HRCT chest is higher (92%) as compared to first RT-PCR (45%). Key Words: COVID-19, RT-PCR, HRCT chest, Sensitivity, Specificity.

This study assesses the simultaneous influence of hard and soft infrastructural indicators on exports in 46 Asian states from 2001 to 2017 with panel data. We constructed two main aggregate indicators such as hard infrastructure and soft infrastructure with fifteen primary or sub-group variables. The infrastructural aggregate indicator contains four groups: transportation, communication, and financial infrastructural and border-transport efficiency. These indicators are taken into account in estimating the influence on export levels and probability between bilateral Asian trading partners by using factor analysis, the augmented gravity model and the two-stage sample selection model. Findings show that simultaneous improvement in hard infrastructure such as transport and telecommunication improved bilateral exports. Similarly, simultaneous improvement in soft infrastructure like financial infrastructure and border-transport efficiency increased bilateral exports in Asian countries. For both export and import, the coefficients of infrastructural indicators have a positive impact and are statistical significant at each econometric scale. Improving financial infrastructure is important in achieving a higher level of trade volume and increasing the probability of exporting between partners. We also examine the evidence on the complementarity or substitutability between hard and soft infrastructure as captured by indicators which shows us that main aggregate indicators have a lower impact on exports.

Revealing accurate and complete information of the business is the prime focus of Islamic finance as it proposes to avoidance any sort of Gharar (uncertainty). Lack of disclosure could lead to exploitation of the information by few members in the market at the expense of others. The difference between Islamic Bank and Conventional Bank is that Islamic bank takes disclosure of governance status as a religious obligation as compared to disclosure of conventional banks based upon legal obligation of the country. Similarly, Islamic banks put efforts in disclosing information of Shari’ah governance and social responsibility as per religious obligation as compared to voluntary disclosure by conventional banks. This study is built on the idea that if Islamic Bank considers Shari’ah disclosure and social responsibility as voluntary disclosure then it is expected that there will be a significant difference between all present Islamic banks. Lastly, this study has generated an overall disclosure index using principal factor analysis and evaluated its impact on the performance of the banks to reveal that disclosure entails positive impact on performance.