Over the last three decades, accurate modeling and forecasting of electricity prices has become a key issue in competitive electricity markets. As electricity price series usually exhibit several complex features, such as high volatility, seasonality, calendar effect, non-stationarity, non-linearity and mean reversion, price forecasting is not a trivial task. However, participants of electricity market need price forecast to make decisions in their daily activity in the market, such as trading, risk management or future planning. In this study we consider linear and nonlinear models for one-day-ahead forecast of electricity prices using components estimation techniques. This approach requires to filter out the structural, deterministic components from the original time series and to model the residual component by means of some stochastic process. The final forecast is obtained by combining the predictions of both these components. In this work, linear and non-linear models are applied to both, deterministic and stochastic, components. In the case of stochastic component, AutoRegressive, Nonparametric AutoRegressive, Functional AutoRegressive, and Nonparametric Functional AutoRegressive have been considered. Furthermore, two naïve benchmarks are applied directly to the price time series and their results are compared with our proposed models. An application of the proposed methodology is presented for the Italian electricity market (IPEX). Our analysis suggests that, in terms of Mean Absolute Error, Mean Absolute Percentage Error, and Pearson correlation coefficient, best results are obtained when deterministic component is estimated by using parametric approach. Further, Functional AutoRegressive model performs relatively better than the rest while Nonparametric AutoRegressive is highly competitive. INDEX TERMS Electricity prices forecasting, Parametric and nonparametric models, Univariate and multivariate time series, Modeling and forecasting, IPEX

This study was designed to adopt art therapy from an Islamic perspective by adding/including shapes and designs of Islamic origin. This was basically color therapy and was designed to find its effectiveness in reducing depression, anxiety. Stress and enhancing psychological well-being of university students with high and low-religious levels from Islamabad and Rawalpindi. This study was carried out in two phases. The first phase was to develop Islamic adult coloring book with Islamic patterns and calligraphy. The second phase was the main study, and it was an experimental study which included screening out a sample, consisting of mild to moderate levels of depression, anxiety and stress and high and low-religiosity levels. A sample of 60 university students received Islamic patterned art therapy. On the basis of religiosity, two groups were formed as either a high-religious group or a low-religious group with individuals in both groups completing fourteen sessions. Pre- and post-test assessments were undertaken via the psychometric tools DASS-21, psychological well-being scale and religiosity scale. Statistics from the independent sample t-test and paired sample t-test and repeated measures ANOVA for within group and between group comparisons, revealed that there was a significant difference from pre-test to post-test assessments of depression anxiety and stress and psychological well-being, whereas there were nonsignificant gender differences on the bases of high and low-religiosity levels. Therefore, it could be concluded that Islamic patterned art therapy was found effective in reducing depression anxiety stress and increasing psychological well-being of university students.

This article discusses the relationship between implementation of total quality management practices and performance of the public sector universities of the Punjab. Study was quantitative in nature and survey method was used for data collection. Sample included department heads, faculty members and students of faculty of social sciences. Major findings of the study indicated that there is strong positive relation between implementation of TQM practices and performance of public sector universities of Punjab. Further, study explored that many TQM practices are implemented in public sector universities of Punjab, Pakistan except involvement of stakeholders and students in quality improvement process. On the basis of findings it is recommended that public sector universities may adopt TQM practices including involvement of stakeholders and students in quality improvement process. Leadership plays prime role in the successful implementation of TQM practices.

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