On Charles Vernay and his ‘DIVAN’

Starting with the nineteenth century, European interest in the literature of the Middle East began to increase. Ottoman Turkish poetry, from territories that expanded into Europe, was an object of special study – as evidenced from the works of Sir William Jones, James Clarence Mangan and Elias John Wilkinson Gibb, on the one hand, and poets like Lord Byron and Thomas Moore, on the other hand. A young Frenchman, Charles Vernay, who had a gift for languages, taught himself Persian and Turkish and published a Divan – a collection of classical Oriental poetry – in Paris while still in his teens. The article traces the life and analyzes the Turkish poetry of Charles Vernay.     

Halil Kut – ‘the last Ottoman Pasha’

The siege of British Indian forces by the Ottoman Army at Kut-al-Amara ?n Iraq during the First World War, which ended on 29 April 1916 with the surrender of the garrison under the command of Major General Sir Charles Townshend, was an important m?l?tary defeat for Great Britain. The article provides supplementary information on aspects of the 147 day long siege and surrender, based mainly on the memoirs of the Turkish General H. K. Pasha, whose forces took well over 10,000 British Indian officers and men into custody at Kut-al-Amara.     

Entrepreneurial orientation and generic competitive strategies for emerging SMEs: Financial and nonfinancial performance perspective

In the competitive markets, business ventures have not only emphasized financial performance but nonfinancial performance has also become the need of the day due to its significant role in increasing customers. However, minor attention is given to the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation, business strategy and nonfinancial performance of emerging small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This study scrutinizes the effect of each dimension of entrepreneurial orientation (i.e., innovativeness, risk‐taking, and proactiveness) and each of generic competitive strategies (i.e., differentiation and cost leadership) on the performance (financial and nonfinancial) of emerging SMEs. We surveyed 373 SMEs operating in Pakistan through a structured questionnaire. For the data analysis and hypotheses testing, we used AMOS.21. The findings display that innovativeness, proactiveness, and risk‐taking significantly improve financial performance while insignificantly impact nonfinancial performance. Differentiation and cost leadership strategies significantly spur financial as well as nonfinancial performance of SMEs. This study advises that top managers of SMEs in the emerging economies need to maintain a focus on entrepreneurial activities and formulate unique competitive strategies to attain higher performance. This research further recommends policymakers to initiate entrepreneurship programs for SMEs to configure entrepreneurial posture of the businessmen. Further recommendations have stated.     

Citizenship as Targeted Behavior: Responses to Organizational Justice and the Role of Culture

The study aimed at reviewing citizenship as targeted behavior in response to justice perceptions and investigating the role of within-culture differences on citizenship responses to organizational fairness perceptions. Data were solicited from 150 employees and their supervisors representing various public sector entities of Pakistan. Results showed that distributive and interactional fairness predict interpersonal organizational citizenship behavior. Organizational fairness did not predict citizenship behavior targeted at organizations. Organizational justice had negative values of citizenship behavior for higher values of collectivism. Findings and implications for human resource management practitioners and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

The Heritability of Palatal Rugae Morphology Among Siblings*†

Although there is clinical applicability of the palatal rugae as an identification tool in forensic odontology, controversy exists whether the palatal rugae patterns are stable or variable. The greater the genetic component, the higher the probability that palatal rugae patterns are stable. The aim of this study was to compare the palatal rugae morphology between full siblings and the proportion of variability due to genetic component. This cross-sectional study was conducted on digital models of 162 siblings aged 15–30 years old. The palatal rugae patterns were assessed with Thomas and Kotze (1983) classification using Geomagic Studio software (3D Systems, Rock Hill, SC). The palatal rugae morphology between siblings showed significantly similar characteristics for total number of left rugae (p = 0.001), left primary rugae (p = 0.017), secondary rugae for right (p = 0.024) and left sides (p = 0.001), right straight rugae (p = 0.010), and right convergent rugae (p = 0.005) accounting for at least 6.25%-12.8% of the variability due to heredity. Despite the similarities found, the palatal rugae patterns showed significant differences between siblings of at least 46.9% (p = 0.001). Zero heritability was found in 9 of the 14 rugae patterns. Meanwhile, total number of rugae, primary, backward, and convergent rugae showed moderate heritability (h² > 0.3) and total number of secondary rugae showed high heritability (h² > 0.6). In conclusion, despite the individuality characteristics, an appreciable hereditary component is observed with significant similarities found between sibling pairs and the palatal rugae patterns were both environmentally and genetically influenced.     

Insights into Selected Features of Pakistan’s Most Wanted Terrorists

This article attempts to provide insights into selected features of Pakistan’s most wanted terrorists using a dataset of 895 high-profile terrorists provided by the Counter Terrorism Wings of the Criminal Investigation Departments of regional police offices of Pakistan. It identifies spatial patterns of terrorist supply at subnational levels. The educational background of terrorists has also been analyzed. Noteworthy variations are observed in the supply of different types of terrorists across the geographical landscape of Pakistan. Findings also reveal that though terrorists are relatively more educated than the population group they emerge from, there is a higher probability of them emerging in districts with lower socio-economic performance.