54 research outputs found
MicroRNAs in Human Nephrotoxicity
No full textAcute kidney injury (AKI) is common following poisoning and envenoming. A major challenge in the management of AKI is the modest sensitivity of current biomarkers for early diagnosis. Better biomarkers of toxic AKI may help in earlier diagnosis and allow early and appropriate treatment. MicroRNAs are a class of RNAs which have recently come into prominence as promising diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers. They are present in biological fluids and these circulating microRNAs have been attracting considerable attention as novel biomarkers for organ injury.
This thesis will explore the potential of microRNA biomarkers for early diagnosis of nephrotoxicity and determine their ability to predict and quantify organ damage, and provide insights into mechanisms of nephrotoxicity in Russell’s viper envenoming, oxalic acid, glyphosate and paraquat poisonings. This thesis identified a lack of human studies on the most important causes of nephrotoxic injury, such as pesticides, chemicals, snake envenomation, and medicines other than aminoglycosides and cisplatin.
A high sensitivity discovery platform was used to identify signature microRNAs to distinguish patients with AKI and without AKI following individual poisons, i.e. oxalic acid, glyphosate and paraquat and Russell’s viper envenoming. These were validated in a larger cohort. Urinary microRNA signatures provided a stronger signal for AKI in oxalic acid poisoning compared to serum microRNA. Kidney injury had the greatest impact on urinary microRNA while poisoning itself was better reflected in serum microRNA.
This result led to the analysis of urinary microRNAs in four different causes of toxic-AKI. Several microRNAs including miR-30a-5p, miR-30b, miR-191 and miR-204, were promising biomarkers for the early detection of toxic AKI. The target mRNAs of these microRNA are largely involved in renal cell death/necrosis, oxidative stress, apoptosis and mitochondrial dysfunction. These urinary microRNAs are potential alternatives to traditional urinary proteins or serum creatinine markers. This thesis demonstrated microRNA hold great promise as AKI diagnostic markers
Islamic credit cards and its possible application in Sri Lanka: a comparative study with Malaysian & Indonesian models
No full textCredit card is one of the easy facilitation provided by banks and financial institutions. Nowadays the demand for credit cards is increased because of safety and easy access to money. In this manner the model for Islamic credit cards has been introduced by scholars in the field to substitute the conventional credit cards. Islamic credit card has played a vital role in the development and success of Islamic banking all over the world, especially in Malaysia and Indonesia; those are the leading countries in practicing the Islamic credit cards on the basis of Shariah compliance contracts. At the same time, the conventional credit cards have achieved a significant growth among the Sri Lankan customers, where all non-Shariah banks have credit card facility. So there’s a need to examine the possible application of Islamic credit cards by the Islamic banks too. So, this research aims to analyze the possibility to introduce the Islamic credit cards in Sri Lanka in order to facilitate the customers’ financial needs. The researcher has taken Malaysian and Indonesian Islamic credit card models to analyze the permissibility of contracts and to propose a suitable model for Sri Lanka. The data collected for this research are both primary and secondary sources. Primary data is collected by interview and discussion. Library references, books, journals, magazines, websites and any other banks related documents have been used as secondary data. Also this research is analyzed through comparative analyzing system. According to the data analyzed, Islamic credit cards are still not applied by Islamic financial institutions in Sri Lanka because of some internal barriers that involved on it
Intellectual capital disclosure and corporate governance structure in UK firms.
No full textThis paper investigates the relationship between intellectual capital disclosure and corporate governance variables, controlling for other firm-specific characteristics, for a sample of 100 UK listed firms, Intellectual capital disclosure is measured by a disclosure index score, supported by word count and percentage of word count metrics to assess the variety, volume and focus of intellectual capital disclosure respectively. The independent variables comprise various forms of corporate governance structure: board composition, ownership structure, audit committee size and frequency of audit committee meetings, and CEO role duality. Results of the analysis based on the three measures of intellectual capital disclosure indicate significant association with all the governance factors except for role duality. The influence of corporate governance mechanisms on human, structural and relational capital disclosure, based on all three metrics, is also explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR
THE EFFECT OF ROLE DUALITY ON CORPORATE PER FORMANCE IN MALAYSIA.
No full textThe Malaysian Code on Corporate Governance (MCCG) recommends a separation between the position of CEO and Chairman to ensure a balance of power and authority, such that no individual has unfettered powers of making decision. It was hoped that the code would lead to more independent boards so as to provide the essential checks and balances over management's performance. Thus, the current study seeks to explore the extent CEO duality influence corporate performance in Malaysia. The findings indicate that companies with CEOs role duality seemed not to perform as well as their counterparts with separate board leadership based on accounting performance measurements, ROE and ROA. This implies that the recommendation by the MCCG to have the two roles separated is deemed very important and must be implemented fully. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR
ANALISIS ETHICAL IDENTITY INDEX TERHADAP KINERJA KEUANGAN BANK UMUM SYARIAH DI INDONESIA (STUDI KASUS TAHUN 2010 - 2018)
No full textThe Ethical Identity Index (EII) is a measure of ethical identity expressed by Haniffa and Hudaib in a 2007 study. The research measures the ethical value of Islamic banks in several other countries such as Malaysia, Asia, the Arabian Gulf and Indonesian. Ethical identity is then represented as company business, which is ethical identity as corporate ethics. When a company has good ethics or identity, it will form a good external relationship so that it will produce a positive relationship from external to the company. Then this relationship is tested by measuring the relationship of ethical identity disclosure to financial performance. This study the tries to examine the relationship of the influence of ethical identity as measured by EII on financial performance projected with Return on Equity (ROE). This study takes data from five sharia commercial banks in the period 2010-2018. The data used panel data with the method of analysis in the form of multiple linier regression. In addition to EII, the author appended the variables Intellectual Capital (IC) and Good Corporate Governance (GCG) as independent variables. The addition of the variables is an effort to minimize the appearance of bias in this study. The results showed that EII, IC and GCG simultaneously affected ROE financial performance with a determination coefficient of 0.6506. The partial test results show that EII and GCG have no effect on ROE financial performance, while IC has a significant positive effect on ROE financial performance
The Right to Information Act and Its Implementation in Sri Lanka: An Empirical Analysis
No full textThe Right to Information is the right to access to obtain information from public officials. This right serves several important purposes: Improving the participation of the public in policy-making, Promoting transparency and accountability of the government, minimising corruption, and wastage of state - resources by public officials. The Right to Information Act No. 12 of 2016 (RTI Act) was certified in Sri Lanka by the Parliament on the 4th day of August 2016, and published as a Supplement to Part II of the Gazette of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka dated 5th August 2016 can be considered as one of the more meaningful and positive democratic measure passed during the period concerned. The RTI Act provides an operational administration to enforce the right to information (RTI). Although, it was ensured as a fundamental right in the Constitution of Sri Lanka through the Nineteenth Amendment passed on 28th of April 2015, the RTI Act has been facing challenges on implementing in the societies. Therefore, the main objective of the study is to identify challenges of the practical procedure stipulated in the RTI Act for public authorities who implement the said RTI and to provide recommendations to ensure the people's right to information. The author has used data such as Gazettes of Sri Lanka related to RTI as a primary sources and journals, reports, electronic resources and books as secondary sources. The publications of the Right to Information Commission of Sri Lanka have been used as a model, particularly for the collection of data. Finally, the paper concludes with suggestions towards minimizing Challenges affecting the institutions as well as the general public in complying with the RTIA whilst pursuing the maximum benefits of the Right to information. Keywords:Right to Information Act, Transparency, RTI, Accountability, Sri Lanka, and Freedom of Expression DOI: 10.7176/JLPG/121-04 Publication date:June 30th 202
The right to information act and its implementation in Sri Lanka: An Empirical Analysis
No full textThe Right to Information is the right to access to obtain information from public officials. This right serves several important purposes: Improving the participation of the public in policy-making, Promoting transparency and accountability of the government, minimising corruption, and wastage of state - resources by public officials. The Right to Information Act No. 12 of 2016 (RTI Act) was certified in Sri Lanka by the Parliament on the 4th day of August 2016, and published as a Supplement to Part II of the Gazette of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka dated 5th August 2016 can be considered as one of the more meaningful and positive democratic measure passed during the period concerned. The RTI Act provides an operational administration to enforce the right to information (RTI). Although, it was ensured as a fundamental right in the Constitution of Sri Lanka through the Nineteenth Amendment passed on 28th of April 2015, the RTI Act has been facing challenges on implementing in the societies. Therefore, the main objective of the study is to identify challenges of the practical procedure stipulated in the RTI Act for public authorities who implement the said RTI and to provide recommendations to ensure the people's right to information. The author has used data such as Gazettes of Sri Lanka related to RTI as a primary sources and journals, reports, electronic resources and books as secondary sources. The publications of the Right to Information Commission of Sri Lanka have been used as a model, particularly for the collection of data. Finally, the paper concludes with suggestions towards minimizing Challenges affecting the institutions as well as the general public in complying with the RTIA whilst pursuing the maximum benefits of the Right to information
Corporate Boards and Ownership Structure as Antecedents of Corporate Governance Disclosure in Saudi Arabian Publicly Listed Corporations
No full textWe investigate whether and to what extent publicly listed corporations voluntarily comply with and disclose recommended good corporate governance (CG) practices, and distinctively examine whether the observed cross-sectional differences in such CG disclosures can be explained by ownership and board mechanisms with specific focus on Saudi Arabia. Our results suggest that corporations with larger boards, a big-four auditor, higher government ownership, a CG committee and higher institutional ownership disclose considerably more than those that are not. By contrast, we find that an increase in block ownership significantly reduces CG disclosure. Our results are generally robust to a number of econometric models that control for different types of disclosure indices, firm-specific characteristics and firm-level fixed-effects. Our results have important implications for policy-makers, practitioners and regulatory authorities, especially those in developing countries across the globe
Voluntary corporate governance disclosure by post-apartheid South African corporations
No full textPurpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate as to whether post-Apartheid South African (SA) listed corporations voluntarily comply with and disclose recommended good corporate governance (CG) practices and, if so, the major factors that influence such voluntary CG disclosure behaviour. Design/methodology/approach – The paper constructs a broad voluntary CG disclosure index containing 50 CG provisions from the 2002 King Report using a sample of 169 SA listed corporations from 2002 to 2006. The authors also conduct regression analysis to identify the main drivers of voluntary CG disclosure. Findings – The results suggest that while compliance with, and disclosure of, good CG practices varies substantially among the sampled companies, CG standards have generally improved over the five-year period examined. The authors also find that block ownership is negatively associated with voluntary CG disclosure, while board size, audit firm size, cross-listing, the presence of a CG committee, government ownership and institutional ownership are positively related to voluntary CG disclosure. Practical implications – These findings have important implications for policy-makers and regulators. Evidence of improving CG standards implies that efforts by various stakeholders at improving CG standards in SA companies have had some positive impact on CG practices of SA firms. However, the substantial variation in the levels of compliance implies that enforcement may need to be strengthened further. Originality/value – There is a dearth of evidence on the level of compliance with the King Report. This study fills this gap by providing evidence for the first time on the level of compliance achieved, as well as contributing generally to the literature on compliance with codes of good governance and voluntary disclosure.<br/
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