This paper examines the capital structure across different countries from 2005 to 2015 in Egypt and other three selected countries namely: Turkey, Brazil and Argentina. The book leverage sensitivity to the explanatory variables (profitability, firm size, tangibility, volatility, GDP growth, inflation and stock market development) was examined. Specifically, this paper documents the determinants of capital structure in Egyptian listed non-financial firms and investigates how capital structure decisions in three other countries who are one-step ahead in terms of economic development entertain any unique features. Profitability was the only variable consistently highly significant with negative coefficient obtained in our regressions for four countries using GMM estimation method. Inconsistency of results for other variables prevailed. Findings reveal that Egyptian firms on average are not highly leveraged due to supply constraints on bank lending and demand constraints on consumer borrowing. The empirical evidence seems reasonably consistent with some versions of capital structure theory and other studies.
Face recognition from a side profile view, has recently received significant attention in the literature. Even though current face recognition systems have reached a certain level of maturity at angles up to 30 degrees, their success is still limited with side profile angles. This paper presents an efficient technique for the fusion of face profile and ear biometrics. We propose to use a Block-based Local Binary Pattern (LBP) to generate the features for recognition from face profile images and ear images. These feature distributions are then fused at the score level using simple mean rule.Experimental results show that the proposed multimodal system can achieve 97.98% recognition performance, compared to unimodal biometrics of face profile 96.76%, and unimodal biometrics of ear 96.95%, details in the Experimental Results Section. Comparisons with other multimodal systems used in the literature, like Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Full-space Linear Discriminant Analysis (FSLDA) and Kernel Fisher discriminant analysis (KFDA), are presented in the Experimental Results Section.
Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine determinants of profitability of non-financial firms listed small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK from 2012 till 2020. It has been argued that profitability plays a key role in economic development and growth. Despite the important role that SMEs play in developed economies like UK, academic research into SMEs profitability determinants in developed countries is not extensive. Design/methodology/approach The methodologies used include dynamic panel data estimation techniques. Relationship of nine independent variables with profitability was examined. Two models are created using return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE) as dependent variables. Size, age, efficiency, working capital, liquidity, leverage and volatility of the firm represent firm-specific independent variables. Two macroeconomic variables, namely, gross domestic product and inflation are also used as independent variables. Data obtained from Thomson Reuters Data Stream for 93 listed SMEs companies in the UK from 2012 to 2020. Fixed effects, random effects and generalized method of moments were used in data analysis. Findings All variables showed significant influence on profitability, except liquidity reflecting insignificant impact on profitability in two regression models conducted for 93 firms under study. Efficiency, liquidity and leverage are the only three independent variables with similar impact on both ROA and ROE. Practical implications Identifying determinants of profitability will help stakeholders and corporate executive make sound decisions to ensure sustainability and stability at the firm level. This is particularly important given the key role played by SMEs in economic development and growth. The findings of this study would help direct financial management practices to ensure a favorable sustainable organizational performance. Originality/value This study differs from previous studies that focused mainly on developing countries; with limited research conducted on profitability of SMEs in developed economies. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study to examine factors influencing profitability of SMEs in UK. Previous studies concentrated on service sector like insurance and hotel firms.
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