Fasting Gastric Acidity Evidential Effect on Esophageal Mucosal Damage

Gastric substances that potentially increase the esophageal mucosal damage are: gastric acid, pepsin, bile salts, and pancreatic enzymes. From all of these substances, the highest potential for reflux damage is gastric acid. Although the main cause of clinical symptoms of GERD is acid reflux, it has been known that there are subgroups with typical reflux symptoms that do not provide sufficient response or not responsive to PPI treatment. Despite the improvement of esophagitis, there is no clinical improvements in reflux symptoms of 30% respondents. Therefore, this study was designed to determine fasting gastric acidity with endoscopic findings in patients with GERD. A comparative-analysis study, which determine the fasting gastric acidity from endoscopic findings in patients with GERD. Samples recruited using consecutives sampling technique and divided into groups of esophagitis and non-esophagitis reflux. A total of 40 samples involved in this study. The Mann-Whitney test, was used for analyzing the difference between fasting gastric acidity from endoscopic findings of esophagitis lesions in patient with GERD. The median value for fasting gastric acidity in the esophagitis reflux group was 1.88 (0.82-4.84), whereas the median value for fasting gastric acidity in the non-esophagitis reflux group was 2.49 (0.68-5.97). The Mann-Whitney test result was p=0.298 (p>0.05). This study shows that there is no significant difference of fasting gastric acidity from endoscopic findings between esophagitis and non esophagitis reflux groups in patients with gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). This study shows that esophagitis lesions are not affected by gastric acidity.

Determinants of Operational Risk of Microfinance Banks in Pakistan

This study was conducted to analyse the determinants of operational risk because it was almost uncovered area and has a significant impact on sustainability of Microfinance Banks in Pakistan. Operational risk is everywhere whether the organization is big or small, profitable or not. It cannot be eliminated but it can be minimized by the operations to take the optimal level of output. Primary data was used in this research. It was collected through survey from management of Microfinance Banks from different places of Pakistan. Questionnaire with 5-point Likert scale was used as data collection tool. For the processing of data descriptive and inferential statistics was used. From inferential statistics comparison of mean score and ordinal logistic regression was used. Results show that Human Resource, Information Technology, Consumer Financial Literacy and Internal Control System have significant relationship with the Microfinance Banks and odd ratios show that Internal Control System has high positive impact on Microfinance Banks which leads towards decrease in operational risk. Human Resource has lowest impact on Microfinance banks of Pakistan. Microfinance banks are the function of operational risk. It is linked with operational performance of Microfinance Banks. Good Human Resource, Information Technology, Consumer Financial Literacy and Internal Control System may reduce the operational risk and as a result performance of MFB's can be better.