Effective estrus detection and artificial insemination (AI) are necessary for profitable management of dairy herd. In current study, 45 crossbred lactating cows have been selected with the complaint of unobserved oestrus for more than sixty days postpartum. All cows had functional corpus luteum as examined by transrectal ultrasonography. Cows were treated with PGF2α analogue and AI was performed with observed oestrus and then single dose of GnRH was administered. Similar synchronization protocol has been repeated after 14 days in cows that did not repose to first treatment. Remaining cows received additional PGF2α after 14 days of second treatment and timed AI was performed following GnRH administration. Among 45 cows, 28.89% showed estrus after first treatment and 78.79% responded to second hormonal intervention. A higher conception rate (88.89% vs 26.66 and 72.72%) was observed in cows after triple administration of PGF2α and timed AI. We noticed a significant differences in body condition score (BCS, 1～5 scale), postpartum period, and daily milk production between cows that either responded of non-responded following first and second hormonal treatment. In addition, there was a significant positive correlation between daily milk production and BCS, age and postpartum days, milk production and estrus/BCS, and milk production/BCS/estrus and conception rate. Depending upon the findings we conclude that hormonal intervention with PGF2α and GnRH enhances postpartum ovarian cyclicity and help decreasing the days open of dairy herd. Therefore, this finding might provide an excellent guideline for target breeding system for profitable dairy herd management.

Copper (Cu) is a necessary microelement for plants. However, high concentrations of Cu are toxic to plants that change the regulation of several stress-induced proteins. In this study, an annealing control primer (ACP) based approach was used to identify differentially expressed Cu-induced genes in alfalfa leaves. Two-week-old alfalfa plants (Medicago sativa L.) were exposed to Cu for 6 h. Total RNAs were isolated from treated and control leaves followed by ACP-based PCR technique. Using GeneFishing ACPs, we obtained several genes those expression levels were induced by Cu. Finally, we identified several genes including UDP-glucuronic acid decarboxylase, transmembrane protein, small heat shock protein, C-type cytochrome biogenesis protein, mitochondrial 2-oxoglutarate, and trans-2,3-enoyl-CoA reductase in alfalfa leaves. These identified genes have putative functions in cellular processes such as cell wall structural rearrangements, transduction, stress tolerance, heme transport, carbon and nitrogen assimilation, and lipid biosynthesis. Response of Cu-induced genes and their identification in alfalfa would be useful for molecular breeding to improve alfalfa with tolerance to heavy metals.

Human error with regards to ship handling is the main cause of maritime accidents. The error happens because of the psychological problem of distraction. Despite the use of modern equipment, standard working procedures and competent crews, still accidents occur because of the physical and psychosocial stresses during the working period on board the ship. This creates undesirable results such as injuries, ill health and even loss of life. The aims of this study are to analyse the possible root causes for distractions and the affected areas for three groups of Malaysian seafarers, 1) Senior Deck Cadets, 2) Senior Deck Officers and 3) Junior Deck Officers. A Technique for Order Performance by Similarity to the Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method has used for ranking the alternatives in the order of how affected they are. A Malaysian seafarers’, Senior Deck Cadets (SDC) has recorded as the most affected by distractions when they are engaged in the ship’s operation. The outcome of this study will help both seafarers and shipping companies to establish some solutions around this matte.

The purpose of this research is to enhance sustainable outcomes as well as to understand the Chinese consumers’ needs by focusing on transformable design. In this study, mass customization and co-design were discussed. One-on-one interviews and online surveys were employed to capture both fashion experts’ and consumers’ opinions toward transformable design through customization.

The purpose of this paper is to understand Taiwanese mature consumers’ attitudes and behaviour toward aging, clothing choice and consumption experience. Eighteen females aged from 47 to 59 years old were recruited, and in-depth interview was used to explore the purchasing motives, the salient impact of product attributes, and fashion information sources. Simple descriptive analysis and content analysis were employed for this study. According to the interview transcripts, Taiwanese mature consumers were generally satisfied with the offers of apparel products in the market. Respondents also expressed that they were concerned about individual interests, self-cultivation and social network when they enter their semi-retirement stage of life. Our results also indicated that clothing selection and consumption were closely associated with individual’s profession, social status and daily activities. In terms of fashion information source, respondents cited window display and store catalogues as the two most important sources, followed by fashion magazines.

This study was aimed to determine the biometry of genital organs, incidence of gynecological disorders and pregnancy loss in Black Bengal goat (Capra hircus). Genitalia of 118 does were collected from local abattoirs. Biometric parameters of genital organs were measured and gross and histopathological examinations were carried out for detection of abnormalities. For gravid uterus, age of the fetus was determined by measuring crown-rump length. There was no significant difference in the length, width and weight of right and left ovaries (P>0.05). However, the number of follicles between left (5.3 ± 2.3) and right ovaries (7.4 ± 2.7) varied significantly (P<0.05). The mean length of right fallopian tube and uterine horn were not varied with those of left fallopian tube and uterine horn. The length of uterine body, cervix and vagina were 1.3 ± 0.1 cm, 3.3 ± 0.5 cm and 6.8 ± 1.3 cm, respectively. Overall, 29 (24.6%) genitalia had abnormalities. Fifteen genitalia (12.7%) had ovarian abnormalities including ovaro-bursal adhesions (6.8%), parovarian cyst (5.1%) and follicular cyst (0.9%). Uterine abnormalities were found in 12 genitalia (10.2%) and predominant uterine lesion was endometritis (6.8%) followed by adenomyosis (1.7%), hemorrhagic lesion on endometrial surface (0.9%) and cyst in broad ligament (0.9%). In addition, cyst in fallopian tube (0.9%) and vagina (0.9%) were recorded. The proportion of slaughtered pregnant goats was 15.3% (18/118). The pregnancy wastage was highest in the first month (50.0%) followed by second (33.3%) and third (16.7%) month. It can be concluded that ovaro-bursal adhesions, parovarian cyst and endometritis are the gynecological disorders of major concern in Black Bengal goat.

Salmonellosis is one of the life-threating diseases of goat in Bangladesh. Therefore, the present study was designed to study the prevalence of Salmonellosis, and isolation and characterizations of the Salmonella spp. from apparently healthy and diarrheic goat. A total of 47 faces samples were collected from selected place and cultured onto different prescribed medium to isolate it. In this study, 12.76% (6/47) samples were found to be positive for Salmonella spp. During culture on SS agar medium, all of the Salmonella isolates produced round, smooth, opaque, translucent and black color colonies on SS agar media. All of the isolated Salmonella spp. fermented dextrose, maltose and mannitol with production of acid and gas but did not ferment sucrose and lactose. However, these isolates had showed Indole and Voges-Proskauer test negative, Methyl-Red test positive. All of these isolates were subjected to rapid plate agglutination test with polyvalent “O” (Poly ‘O’) and polyvalent “H” (poly ‘H’) antisera where positive agglutination were observed. They were highly sensitive to ciprofloxacin, spiramycin and gentamycin; moderately sensitive to oxytetracyline, streptomycin and amoxicillin; less sensitive to sulphamethoxazole and resistant to penicillin-G. Based on the present findings, it may be concluded that the investigated Salmonella spp. from goats might be S. typhimurium, S. enteritidis, S. brandenburg, S. salford, S. newbrunswick, S. newport or S. dublin. Further study will be needed, therefore it requires further characterization using other serological and molecular techniques.

Work motivation is critical for ensuring sustainability of any business firm. Motivated personnel essentially helps an organization achieve its organizational goal and objective. Hence, it has become an essential duty for business managers and management committees to identify the motivating factors that would strongly affect their employees. The purpose of the current research is to identify which are the factors that motivate service employees most at their workplace in Bangladesh. The study has used survey questionnaires to collect data from service employees. Convenience sampling is used for data collection. A total of 240 questionnaires were distributed and 183 completed questionnaires were returned (response rate: 77%). The study used purposeful motivating factors, which are ranked (from 1 to 10) by the service employees according to the significance of the factors. Mean value is applied to determine the most crucial motivating factor, where the factor with lowest mean value is considered as the highest significant motivating factor. Results reveal that job certainty, career growth and advancement opportunity, and quality working environment have been the most crucial and influential motivating factors for the service employees. The study adequately underlines the necessity of motivational factors and provides some guidelines to keep employees motivated.

The aim of this study is to find out the time-series nexus of public debt and economic growth in Malaysia. For an upper-middle income country, Malaysia had experienced over 50% ratio of debt to GDP since 2009 until now. The question arises is whether this trend is healthy to the economy. With a focus into the debt-to-GDP ratio from 1970-2015, this study investigates the short-run and long-run relationship between public debt and economic growth in Malaysia. This study used secondary data by collecting time-series data (1970-2015) from the World Bank Data and Bank Negara Malaysia. Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model is applied in this study to examine the relationship between debt and economic growth. Based on ARDL framework, it shows that there is a long-run effect between the debt and economic growth in Malaysia. While the significance value of Error Correction Term shows that there is a long-run adjustment in the short run. Generally, this study found government expenditures, in the long run, strongly influence the GDP per capita. Through the findings, the government expenditures could increase the GDP per capita. The study also reveals that any increment of the debt ratio will result in reduction of the GDP per capita.

In this competitive era, it has become a prerequisite for the financial firms providing banking services to understand and meet the customers’ needs and demands to remain competitive in today’s market environment. Without satisfying the customers, banking business cannot stand alone. To satisfy customers, it is often recommended to provide better quality banking services to the bank customers. Providing quality banking services has become a prime strategic tool for the banking sector nowadays. Therefore, the study investigates the effect of various dimensions of service quality of banking service on customer satisfaction in a developing country, Bangladesh. A total of 212 walking Bangladeshi banking customers participated in this research. A structured questionnaire was developed based on past research. SPSS is utilized for analysis and Likert scale was used in this study. Internal consistency of all items was found correct and a total of seven hypotheses were proposed. For testing, a 5% significance level is considered for acceptance of hypothesis. The findings show that, except employee competency, all other variables such as reliability, assurance, tangibles, responsiveness, empathy, and access to service have positive influence on customer satisfaction. The study provides policy implications for the management boards of the banking sectors.

This study examines the impact of corporate tax, a fiscal measure along with trade liberalization and research and development on total factor productivity for a panel of 153 industrial firms listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange over the period 1997-2017. For empirical analysis, we employ the system generalized method of moment estimator. In the first step, we estimate industrial production function and the results reveal that raw material, industrial labour force and energy play vital role in enhancing industrial production. Whereas, industrial capital exerts negative impact on industrial output. We also measured total factor productivity using the production elasticities. In the second step, we examine the impact of corporate tax, trade liberalization and research and development on total factor productivity. The results indicate that higher level of corporate tax exerts negative impact on total factor productivity. The findings reveal that higher corporate taxation discourages industrial firms to undertake research and development thereby exerting adverse impact on total factor productivity of firms. The impact of trade liberalization proxied by average tariff is positive while customs duty and sales tax negatively impact firm-level total factor productivity. These findings provide useful insights for managers, investors and policy makers in Pakistan.

Entrepreneurial intention is receiving immense recognition in entrepreneurship researches, as it motives an individual to become an entrepreneur. Still, the interplay between gender perspective and contextual factors (i.e., access to capital, business information, social network, educational support, structural support) are not fully investigated in understanding the entrepreneurial intention in developing countries like Bangladesh. Therefore, the paper aims to examine the gender difference and educational discipline difference in the university’s students’ entrepreneurial intention in relation to contextual factors in Bangladesh. In this study, sample has been particularly taken from the different disciplinary students of private universities. Five-point Likert scale-based survey questionnaire was developed based on past researches. 280 online survey forms were distributed among the university students and finally 225 students’ response were found correct as the study sample size (final survey response rate = 80%), after eliminating the incorrect survey responses. For statistical analysis SPSS 23.0 version is used. One-way ANOVA is used to measure the gender and discipline difference on entrepreneurial intention among male and female students. The results show that business information and social network will have more influence on male students’ entrepreneurial intention, and comparatively, business students have more willingness to become entrepreneurs than other departmental students.

This study examines the nonlinear relationship between financial development and economic growth in Pakistan using the threshold regression model for the period 1980-2017. We also employed quantile regression with 0.25, 0.50, and 0.75 quantiles of conditional distribution. The quantile regression is based on minimizing of sum of squared residuals. The result indicates that economic growth responds positively to financial development when the level of financial development surpasses the threshold value of 0.151. However, when financial development lies below the threshold value (that is, 0.151), its impact on economic growth is negative. Thus, when financial development of Pakistan surpasses the threshold level, it contributes more towards economic growth since greater level of financial development contributes more to boosts economic growth. This finding reveals that economic growth reacts differently to financial development, and the relationship between financial development and economic growth is U-shaped in Pakistan. Among the other variables, physical capital, labor force, and government expenditure exert a positive effect on economic growth. Furthermore, inflation rate and trade openness have an insignificant impact on economic growth. The results of quantile regression also confirm the non-linear relationship between financial development and economic growth in Pakistan. The finding of this study suggests revamping of financial sector policies in Pakistan.

Purpose: Islamic banking products and services have always claimed to be unique from its traditional interest-based counterpart. However, in practice, many Islamic banks are alleged to have drifted away from its paradigm version. The purpose of this study is to gauge the perception of university students in Malaysia towards Islamic banking products. Research design, data and methodology: Data were collected from 250 Malaysian university students. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was performed to test proposed hypotheses to identify factors influencing customers‘ perception toward Islamic banking products. Results: The main finding indicates that most of the respondents are familiar with Islamic banking products and consider Islamic banking products as useful as it s conventional counterparts. The regression results show that respondents are less convinced of adherence to Shari‘ah, efficiency and helpfulness of existing Islamic banks. Conclusions: This is a cue to the Islamic banks‘ stakeholders that they need to realign their practices in an ethically responsible way in accordance with Shari‘ah if they wish to secure existing customers and attract potential ones. In a competitive banking environment, most banks provide efficient and readily available service; thus, focusing on this as a strategy hardly distinguishes an Islamic bank from an interest-based bank

The study aims to provide some evidence of the effects of CSR practices on financial-based brand equity in Malaysia. Nowadays, many companies have embraced corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices because CSR is a vital component of the current competitive and complex business arena. It contributes greatly to social, environmental, and economic condition. With CSR practices, companies are able to achieve many benefits and there is evidence that CSR practices predict higher brand equity. However, little evidence has been produced concerning the effects of CSR practices on financial aspects of brand equity in developing countries such as Malaysia. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate the effects of CSR practices on financial based brand equity among Malaysia Top 100 brand. A CSR checklist instrument was used in the current study to examine the extent of CSR practiced. The results indicated that PLCs that were actively involved in CSR practices such as environmental, community, workplace and marketplace, found that this involvement enhanced their brand equity. The findings provide useful support and evidence for the management of PLCs in Malaysia, as well as companies in other developing countries, to engage more in CSR practices as a core element of their strategic and brand management.

The relationship between corporate board attributes and dividend payout is already established yet mediating role of leverage in not been examined in Malaysian market. Therefore, this study aims to examine the mediating effect of financial leverage on the relationship between corporate board attributes and the dividend pay-out policy. A sample of 203 non-financial firms listed on the BURSA Malaysia between 2005 and 2018 were analysed using SmartPLS 3.0. The findings show that there is a partial mediating effect of financial leverage on the relationship between board members age, board diversity and dividend pay-out policy. Financial leverage also mediates the relationship between number of women on board, CEO-duality and dividend pay-out policy. However, financial leverage doesn’t mediate the relationship between board size and dividend pay-out policy. This study offers insights to policy-makers to develop a better corporate governance as well as a guidance to firms in the construction and implementation of their corporate governance policies in relation to financial leverage. This study also shed light on the influence of efficient corporate board attributes on dividend pay-out policy and financial leverage for firm growth. This study concludes that corporate board attributes impact capital structure and thus, firms may change its payout policy.

Purpose - The aim of this study is to investigate the problems, challenges, opportunities and future prospects of Islamic banking and finance in the UK. However, this study brings forward into 3 main purposes. Firstly, to explore the development of financial institutions, products and regulatory reforms. Secondly, to find out the performance of Islamic banking institutions. Lastly, to identify the problems, challenges and Islamic banking future prospects. Research design, data, and methodology - An in-depth literature review was carried out to fulfil the research objectives. Results - The findings point out the basic problems of Islamic banking industry in UK such as unfavorable regulatory environment, unfamiliarity with the Islamic Banking System, lack of portfolio management, absence of liquidity instruments, in need of professional bankers, and blending of approach of Islamic scholars with the approach of the conventional bankers. The findings also indicate that there are greater opportunities in the UK for development and growth of Islamic financial system because Muslim community is eager to take financial products. Conclusions - It is hoped that issues pertaining to Islamic banking products can be resolved through consensus of Shariah scholars. There is need to educate the Muslim community about Islamic financial products and service.

In 21 st Century business world, services are carried out in multifaceted, competitive and rationality manner that are characterized by evolving many factors, which are often unpredictable. On-the-go banking is a product in financial sector. However, it faces serious pitfalls being it riskiness. Bank customers compete for time-saving options. On contrary, PCBs compete for marginalizing its operating costs for enhancing its revenues. On strategic tactics, PCBs targets city customers in multi-facets including offering incentives for enhanced usages of on-the-go banking. Influencing customer’s intention, attitude and behavior in banking, PCBs also offers incentive under market system along with often informational asymmetry. However, it causes exploitation. In most cases customers don’t read terms & conditions of services. They don’t save contract-copy. These weaknesses cause abuses. Customer faces hidden charges, extra fees, account hacked. Addressing the issue, Voluntary Insurance Option is proposed where PCBs will introduce it as a product of bank-services. Transferring risk away from customer will benefit both PCBs and bank-customers. This product can attract new customers who were on the brink using digital banking but just felt it was too risky. This model can facilitate the parties involved for increasing usage of on-the-go banking-services while customers can maintain optimal utility of usages.