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Purpose: This study identifies the determinants of business performance and the challenges faced by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Papua New Guinea (PNG), a Pacific island economy characterised by geographic fragmentation, infrastructure deficits and a large informal sector.

Design/methodology/approach: A cross-sectional survey of 100 SME owners and managers in Lae City, Madang and Goroka commercial centers measured access to finance, government support, entrepreneurial competence, and infrastructure and market environment by five-point Likert statements, against a five-item business performance scale. Frequencies, weighted means and standard deviations described the data. Pearson correlation and ordinary least-squares regression tested the determinants.

Findings: Entrepreneurial competence (WM = 3.85; β = 0.35, p < .001) and access to finance (WM = 2.60; β = 0.26, p = 0.004) were significant positive predictors of performance; government support was also significant (β = 0.24, p = 0.007), while infrastructure and market environment (the lowest-rated construct, WM = 2.25) was not significant in the multivariate model (p = 0.538), reflecting a binding structural constraint common to all firms. The model explained 41% of variance (adj. R² = 0.39, F = 16.78, p < .001).

Key challenges included costly formal finance, inconsistent policy implementation, unreliable power and transport, and law-and-order costs.

Practical and social implications: SME growth requires a dual strategy - building owner-manager financial and planning capabilities while removing external bottlenecks through targeted finance, streamlined regulation and infrastructure investment.

Originality/value: The study offers rare empirical evidence on SME performance determinants in the Pacific Islands, extending resource-based and institutional theory to an under-researched context.

This study models a distressed bank under Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) regulatory pressure where baseline valuation decays exponentially with multiplicative seasonality effect. Three analytical paths and theoretical expected means were simulated showing up and down horizontal trend lines instead of exponential growth. Sensitivity analysis for volatility and drift shows both plots look alike with up and down horizontal movements, unlike growth banks where volatility dominates. Results show distressed pattern trapped sideways oscillation with slow decay, indicating that both growth rate and volatility cannot rescue the bank under regulatory overhang. Implication is range-bound trading rather than buy-and-hold .The results provide insight into how regulatory policy propagates across banks, how diversification benefits change across regimes, and how risk managers can stress-test portfolios under policy uncertainty.

The CNRPH is a reference institution that provides care for people with disabilities in Cameroon. It is located in the sixth district of the city of Yaoundé. We observed that many people with motor and hearing impairments attend this social institution to receive care. Thanks to its long-standing experience and technical facilities, the Center provides holistic care to all its patients. In 2024, we conducted a study on the monitoring and support provided to people with these two types of disabilities. The theory of social assistance was adopted for this research. We therefore used direct observation, semi-structured interviews and life stories as data collection methods. The effectiveness of care for people with disabilities is reflected in their autonomy, which is a major indicator of the effectiveness of the work carried out by the Centre’s specialists. After receiving multidisciplinary care at the CNRPH, people with motor and hearing impairments can manage their own needs more easily and integrate into society. Through snowball sampling, we collected life stories from people with disabilities concerning the effectiveness of care at the CNRPH.

Background: Chronic mechanical neck pain is frequently accompanied by altered cervical sensorimotor control, impaired joint repositioning accuracy, forward-head posture, pain, and activity limitation. Exercise-based rehabilitation may improve symptoms, while specific proprioceptive and sensorimotor training targets impaired cervical afferent processing more directly.

Objective: To determine whether cervical proprioceptive sensorimotor training combined with ergonomic postural correction produces greater improvements in cervical joint position error (JPE), postural alignment, neck pain, and functional performance than conventional cervical exercises in adults with chronic mechanical neck pain.

Methods: In this two-arm, parallel-group randomized controlled trial template, 60 adults with chronic mechanical neck pain are allocated 1:1 to an experimental group receiving cervical proprioceptive sensorimotor training plus ergonomic postural correction or a control group receiving conventional cervical exercises. A 6-week intervention with three supervised sessions per week is proposed. Primary outcome is cervical JPE; secondary outcomes include craniovertebral angle, Numeric Pain Rating Scale (NPRS), Neck Disability Index (NDI), and Patient-Specific Functional Scale (PSFS).

Results: Illustrative results are provided only to demonstrate appropriate within-group and between-group reporting, tables, and graphs. The simulated pattern favors the combined intervention across the prespecified outcomes; no clinical inference should be made from these placeholder values.

Conclusion: The proposed trial directly tests whether combining cervical sensorimotor retraining with ergonomic correction provides additional benefit over conventional cervical exercise. Actual conclusions should be based exclusively on the final analyzed dataset.

Background: Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are a major health problem. Awareness about their transmission, prevention, testing, and treatment is important, especially among young adults. This study aimed to assess STI awareness among adults in selected coastal communities of Kanyakumari district, Tamil Nadu.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 150 adults aged 18–30 years. Data were collected using a printed questionnaire administered in selected coastal communities. The questionnaire included questions about STI transmission, symptoms, prevention, testing, and treatment. The data were analysed using frequencies and percentages.

Results: The study included 62 (41.3%) males and 88 (58.7%) females. Among the participants, 60 (40%) were students, 40 (26.7%) were employed, and 50 (33.3%) belonged to other occupational groups. Of the recorded responses, 90 participants knew that condoms could help prevent STIs, and 75 knew that STI testing was available. However, some questionnaire responses were incomplete, so the overall level of STI awareness could not be clearly determined.

Conclusion: Awareness about STIs is important for preventing infections and encouraging early testing and treatment. Health education programmes may help improve STI awareness among young adults in coastal communities. Complete data are needed to draw clear conclusions.