21 research outputs found
What Explains Our Slow Economic Growth? Causality Analysis between Economic Growth and Defense Spending in Pakistan
No full textUnraveling the South Asian enigma: concurrent manifestations of child anthropometric failures and their determinants in selected South Asian countries
No full textAbstract Malnutrition among children is pervasive in South Asia and there are also reports of overnutrition. To better understand this phenomenon, we need a composite measure. However, the existing measures such as CIAF (Composite Index of Anthropometric Failure) and its revised version have ignored the overnutrition aspect of the phenomenon. This study proposes an extended version of CIAF which also considers overnutrition. This new measure was compared with the existing measures by using data from 1990 to 2018 for three selected South Asian countries including Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. We also examined the effects of socioeconomic and environmental variables on the outcome variable. The results reveal that the new measure (ECIAF) is better at measuring the phenomena. The burden of overall malnutrition has been decreased in the region. However, an increase in the concomitant prevalence of wasting and underweight is observed in both Pakistan and India and stunting and overweight is observed only in India. Besides, political stability, prevalence of undernourishment, anemia in children, mother’s education, household size, dependency ratio, air pollution and unimproved sanitation are significantly correlated with childhood malnutrition. The findings also testified to long-run cointegrating relationship among the variables
Exploring Determinants of theory of Planned Behavior in Understanding Green Consumption in Organic Food Industry of Pakistan: Emphasizing Role of Environmental Knowledge and Perceived Price as Key Determinants to Organic Food Consumption
No full textPurpose: This research study presents empirical evidence supporting the practicality of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) when it comes to predicting intentions and behaviors in Pakistan's organic food industry. The study builds upon prior research by conducting a comprehensive examination of the various components of the TPB.
Design/Methodology/Approach: The data collection process involved selecting 350 consumers as the target sample using the purposive sampling technique. The data collection period spanned over a duration of two months. To analyze the data, Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) using Smart PLS 4.0 was employed.
Implications/Originality/Value: The study highlights the importance of attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control in predicting intentions related to organic food consumption. It provides theoretical contributions by extending the research on the TPB model, emphasizing the role of environmental knowledge as a moderator, and revealing insights into the significant relationship between attitude, subjective norms, perceived control behaviour and purchase intention and shows significant and positive impact of environmental knowledge between independent and dependent variables
What Gets Measured Gets Treated? A composite Measure of Child Malnutrition and its Determinants
Get PDFMicronutrient deficiencies in children are a major health problem at a global level. There are various avenues for solving this multidimensional problem, but all require an accurate assessment of the level of the deficiency. In this study, we assessed the prevalence of four essential micronutrients deficiencies using defined cutoff values and determine an aggregate burden of malnutrition named as the Composite Index of Micronutrient Deficiencies (CIMND). We used the National Nutrient Survey 2011 from Pakistan (n = 7,173) to develop this new index. We also built a multinomial logistic regression model to express the probability of an infant falling into a particular category of CIMND as a function of various covariates. Concomitant deficiencies of three micronutrients have the highest percentage (38.6%) among all other levels of malnutrition. Children of rural households are less malnourished.Food security did not prove to be a strong predictor of child malnutrition while demographic and economic dependency showed negative associations with undernourishment.
Keywords: micronutrient deficiency; operationalization; stunting; wasting; underweight
Association of critical illness scores (q-SOFA and APACHE) and multimorbidity in patients admitted to internal medicine step down units
No full textAbstract are not provided by the author/publishe
The Energy-Growth Nexus in Thailand: Does Trade Openness Boost up Energy Consumption?
Get PDFThe nexus between trade openness and energy demand is hot topic of discussion among academicians and researchers, and numerous studies are available in existing literature while investigating the nexus between trade openness and energy demand. This paper explores the relationship between energy consumption, trade openness and economic growth in case of Thailand. In doing so, we have applied Bayer and Hanck cointegration approach to test whether the long run relationship exists between the variables. Our results confirm the presence of cointegration between the variables. Energy consumption stimulates economic growth. Trade openness adds in economic growth. The causality analysis reveals that energy consumption Granger causes economic growth and in resulting, economic growth Granger causes energy consumption. Trade openness and energy consumption are interdependent i.e. trade openness Granger causes energy consumption and in return, energy consumption Granger causes trade openness. This paper openness up new directions for policy making authorities in Thailand to design a comprehensive energy and trade policies to sustain economic growth for long run
Gender differences in self-esteem in young adolescents of Karachi
Get PDFThe purpose of this research was to explore the self-esteem trends in adolescents of Karachi, Pakistan with regard to gender differences. The insights from previous literature helped to form the hypothesis that there will be a significant gender difference on the self-esteem of adolescents variable. There were a total 224 (96 male and 126 female) adolescents chosen for this study and the Multidimensional Self-Esteem Scale: a 36 item and a 3 Likert response scale was adapted for this study with the consent of the author. The data analysis revealed that there is a significant gender difference on the variable of self-esteem of the chosen adolescent
A Two Stage Data Hiding Scheme with High Capacity Based on Interpolation and Difference Expansion
No full textAbstractA data hiding technique embeds secret information into a cover image. Cover image and the stego image look similar due to which the hackers fail to detect the presence of the hidden secret data. In this paper we propose a two stage data hiding technique with high embedding capacity. First stage is the creation of a cover image from the original input image using image interpolation, followed by the calculation of the difference between original and interpolated pixel values which is then utilized for data embedding. In the second stage, a difference expansion technique is used in the stego image to increase the payload capacity. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method gives better results in terms of embedding capacity and comparable results in terms of visual quality
