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Global developmental delay (GDD) is highly prevalent among patients at child psychiatry clinics. However, preschool day treatment centers are currently scarce. As such, this study aimed to evaluate a program that was designed for children with GDD in order to improve their global skills and prepare them to join the school system.

This study utilized an observation retrospective design with a comparative group sample and included all children aged between 3 and 6 years who participated in the program for at least one academic year (experimental group). Their GDD diagnoses were based on the DSM-5 criteria (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). Children with similar diagnoses who were on the waiting list constituted the control group. Pre- and post-scoring of the Children’s Global Assessment Scale (CGAS) were conducted by the children’s teacher and blinded investigator for the experimental group, while the children’s mothers conducted the post-CGAS scoring for the control group.

The pre- and post-CGAS scores for the experimental group were 49.5 ± 12.8 and 58.3 ± 12.7 and 47.3 ± 17.3 and 66.6 ± 17.3 for the control group, respectively (p = 0.001). The children in the experimental group scored significantly better than the control group with respect to securing places in integrated, regular classes in the education system (p = 0.001).

This study had certain limitations. First, the number of children in the control group was relatively small. Second, the baseline skill levels of some of the children in the control group may have been lower than those of the children in the experimental group at the beginning of the evaluation; this may explain why they had been put on the waiting list. Third, the information was gathered retrospectively; this is a method that is known to have its own limitations.

The clinical implications of the study are that the early identification and referral of GDD are key elements in the rehabilitation of these children and that early intervention programs are necessary for cases of moderate and severe GDD. Primary care physicians should follow up with GDD patients to ensure that referrals are being appropriately sought (Choo et al., 2019).

The program was effective in both increasing the general functioning skills of the children in the experimental group and preparing them to attend regular, integrated classes. The program should be expanded and made available to more children with GDD.

The role of financial institutions and financial intermediaries in fostering economic growth (ECO) by improving the efficiency of capital accumulation, encouraging savings, and ultimately improving the productivity of the economy has been well established by the researchers. The reforms in the financial sector worldwide during the 1980s and 1990s were aimed at ushering in greater efficiency and more competitiveness.

The impact of financial market freedom (MF) on the overall development of the financial sector and thereby the growth in an economy is one of the most important considerations for policymakers over the years. This chapter aims to examine the causal relationship between financial MF and ECO in the Indian economy in the post-reform period.

The Abdur Razzaque Ansari Memorial Weavers Hospital (ARAM) came into effect on 7 April 1996, and is dedicated to the people of Jharkhand and weavers. To deal with the issues of inequity in healthcare services, ARAM was founded for the extension of affordable healthcare services to the needy in and around the area of Jharkhand. Visualised by a great social worker and legend Abdur Razzaque Ansari, it has been successfully run by his eldest son Mr Sayeed Ahmad Ansari for 28 years. This research uses mainly a case-study approach through secondary data from the hospital website and other websites citing ARAM and its functions. Consent to use data for the study was obtained from Mr. Sayeed Ahmad Ansari. Primary information was collected through the patients who availed facilities from the hospital. They were interviewed through a semi-structured questionnaire each taking 30-40 minutes. Taken over by Medanta Group on 8 July 2015 (earlier being managed by Apollo Hospitals Group for 20 years), it is the first super speciality community hospital in Eastern India. Treating over 50,000 patients yearly with state-of-the-art medical equipment and providing discounts to lower-income groups, people from the weaver’s community, freedom fighters and members of ICSI have intrigued people from these sections for affordable treatment and facilities in and near Jharkhand. With a 200 bed-capacity, nine different disciplines and 12 departments spread across the city of Ranchi, the hospital caters to a massive population at a much-subsidised rate. Reaching out to rural villages through free medical camps and awareness campaigns, the hospital showcases how a successful model of healthcare cooperative can be replicated accordingly in similar developing and underdeveloped regions.

E-learning has become ingrained in conversations that border around learning, however, how much and how effectively e-learning is practiced and understood is an issue that needs further investigation. This paper will first provide an overview of elearning practices in Malaysia followed by detailed findings of e-learning practices at Open University Malaysia. Findings of a survey done on 26 Malaysian organizations show that only 4% truly practice some form of e-learning. Nevertheless most participants in the survey noted that e-learning will be the preferred choice in time to come. The survey also shows that most organizations are still very comfortable with a blended style of learning or training. Findings of a research conducted at Open University Malaysia (OUM) shows that as a new player in e-learning initiatives, the OUM has achieved much especially in ensuring that its over 30,000 students are practicing some form of e-learning. At OUM, although self-managed and face-to-face learning are the preferred choices, much effort and resources are pumped into elearning in ensuring that OUM has the right mix for its blended mode. The paper will present a report on findings of e-learning and explicate issues within to determine how e-learning efforts can be further refined to support the overall blended pedagogy practiced at OUM.

Understanding the role of financial intermediaries towards financial development and thereby the growth of an economy, this study aims to examine the long-run relationship between the development of banking and insurance sector and economic growth in India by covering different regimes including the regulated and the liberalized period.

For examining the long-run relationship between these sectors, the study uses VAR-VECM technique. Further, Granger causality test is used to check if there is the presence of any causal link among these sectors.

The findings clearly indicate long-run relationship between economic growth and the development of banking and insurance sector, while the causality results show demand following relationship in the complete period where there is bi-directional causality in the post-liberalized period from insurance to economic growth.

As banking development is not found to support economic growth, this raises serious concerns towards the complex role of banks as against theory and demands further analysis to understand their role in an economy.

As causality pattern has changed from demand following to bi-directional causality, it is vital to understand the importance of liberalization towards the economic growth of the country as well as the contribution of insurance sector towards economic growth in the liberalized environment.

This is the first effort to empirically explore the relationship between economic growth and the development of banking and insurance sector in India by covering the complete period (regulated and liberalized).

Built heritage is a unique resource, an irreplaceable expression of the richness and diversity of our past and of the generations who have gone before us. Old Dhaka has an outstanding built heritage that is of significance not only in the local, but also in a national and regional context. But senseless urbanization and ignorance of such an important issue in the existing detailed area plan is destroying the built heritages of Dhaka. As a result, many heritage buildings of Dhaka have been destroyed and the destruction is going on unabated. Therefore, there is a need to re-examine how such destruction can be prevented. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This research aims at the identification of heritages, their assessment and classification which is utterly significant for preserving the invaluable heritages. Heritages are classified according to their present condition which will show which type of heritage needs which type of attention.

The research indicates the way how a conservation planning for heritages can be done in a systematic and logical way. It reveals the present condition of the heritage buildings which will point out the way of preservation. There is no such document available which will tell general people about the most important or rare or significant heritages, the location of these heritages, or their background information. This research addresses these all issues.

To date, no conservation plans were implemented for Dhaka and there are no attempts to improve Old Dhaka through an urban design. The methodological approach in this research is new and effective for conserving heritages.

This study aims to explore how the degree of chief executive officer (CEO) overconfidence influences the reporting of risk information. Likewise, it delves into how overconfident CEOs shape the usefulness of such risk disclosures, specifically in terms of their relationship with abnormal corporate stock returns.

It examined FTSE350 shares-firms from 2010 to 2018. The textual analysis using a bag-of-words approach with the Nudist 6 QSR software package codes the quantity and tone of risk reporting in the UK firms. The study used a metric based on the firm's capital expenditure rate relative to its industry median in the same year to assess the degree of firm’s CEO overconfidence. The abnormal return of stock reflects the investors' reaction to the quantity and tone of risk disclosure.

UK firms differ considerably in their willingness to share risk information with investors, with a slight tendency toward pessimism in risk reporting. Likewise, firms with high (low) overconfident CEOs disseminate higher (lower) levels of risk reporting. Also, overconfident CEOs provide more positive than negative risk news. Besides, the quantity risk reporting does not impact the abnormal stock return of the corporation. However, the positive risk news has a higher (lower) impact on enhancing the stock return in firms with low (high) overconfident CEOs. Finally, negative risk news tends to have an inverse consequence on the company's stock returns. However, this effect is more pronounced for companies led by highly overconfident CEOs compared to those with less overconfident CEOs.

Stakeholders should be aware that risk reports of firms with overconfident CEOs may exhibit a potential bias toward positive news. Likewise, boards of directors and governance mechanisms should be mindful of the consequences of CEO overconfidence in risk reporting and ensure that risk disclosures accurately reflect the true risk profile of the company.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to delve into the consequences of CEOs' overconfidence in terms of risk disclosure in the UK. It goes beyond investigating the level or quantity of risk disclosure and also considers the tone of risk reporting, i.e. the messages communicated through the reporting. Likewise, it explores how CEO overconfidence can affect the value-relevance of risk disclosure, shedding light on the role of CEO characteristics in shaping investor perceptions and decision-making.

By using the annual time series data from 1986 to 2008 in South Korea (hereafter Korea) we will examine the possibility that the difference in trade liberalization is causal to the differentials in growth and measure the sensitivity of growth to changes in trade liberalization. For the estimation, we will use both alternative measures of trade liberalization; imports for the total factor cost of national income for trade openness (hereafter openness) and the sum of exports and imports for the total factor cost of national income for trade globalization (hereafter globalization). The regression results suggest that both openness and globalization make a substantial contribution towards Korea’s economic growth. In a comparison between these two indicators of trade liberalization, openness is more sensitive to growth. A negative and statistically significant error correction term implies that the null hypothesis of no co-integration is rejected when one period lag is used. The existence of co-integration means that openness and globalization policies can be targeted in order to bring about a desired long-run effect as well as a short run effect on growth.

Analyses the magnitude and complexity of the challenge of diversity in managing people in the Indian workplace. Considers the challenges for human resource management in the 1990s, and highlights the major issues and opportunities in coping with these challenges. Aims to provide direction for future empirical studies.