72 research outputs found
Poverty Dynamics of Female-headed Households in Pakistan: Evidence from PIHS 2000-01 and PSLM 2004-05
No full textThe paper attempts to empirically test a naïve version of what is rather stylistically termed as “feminisation of poverty”, using the sub-sample of female -headed households (FHHs) from two household surveys in Pakistan. Although, the database is constrained by quality factors and small sample size, the following findings add to the richness of current research in this area: (a) The numerical incidence of poverty among households headed by females is less than that for all households in the country, at the national, urban and rural level for both the years. This can be traced to the finding that more than 70 percent of households headed by females receive remittances, (b) The incidence of poverty among FHHs during the period 2000-01 to 2004-05 did not decline as fast as it did for mixed households, nationwide. In urban areas, it did not decline at all, (c) Among the determinants of poverty of FHHs, illiteracy, dependency and rural residence exacerbate poverty, while remittances domestic and/ or foreign reduce poverty, (d) The dynamics of incidence of poverty among FHHs during the period indicated that Illiteracy as the factor exacerbating poverty became less important in 2004-05. Moreover, residence in rural areas was also a weaker factor in determining the incidence of poverty. By far the most notable contribution in reducing the incidence of poverty was self-employment in agriculture in 2004-05.
Information Technology Usage and Performance of European Enterprises: An Impirical & Policy Analysis
No full textTechnology, Policy and Managemen
Diagnosis of hepatoma using grayscale and Doppler ultrasound in patients with chronic liver disease
No full textWasim A Memon, Zishan Haider, Mirza Amanullah Beg, Muhammad Idris, Tanveer-ul-Haq, Waseem Akhtar, Sidra IdrisRadiology Department, Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, Pakistan Every author contributed equally to the workObjective: To determine the diagnostic accuracy of liver ultrasound for the detection of hepatoma in chronic liver disease (CLD) patients by either taking histopathology or serum α-fetoprotein levels or a biphasic computed tomography (CT) scan (whichever is available) as the gold standard.Study design: Cross-sectional.Place and duration of study: Radiology Department, The Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, Pakistan, from January 2007 to January 2010.Methods: A total of 239 patients (156 males and 83 females) with clinical suspicion or surveillance of hepatoma in CLD referred to the radiology department for ultrasound evaluation followed by either liver biopsy and histopathology or serum α-fetoprotein level or biphasic CT scan.Results: The sensitivity of ultrasound for hepatoma detection in CLD was 65%, specificity was 85%, and accuracy was 70%, and positive predictive value and negative predictive value were 92% and 45%, respectively.Conclusion: Ultrasound is a relatively quick, safe, reasonably accurate, and noninvasive imaging modality for the detection of hepatoma in CLD and can be complemented with clinical assessment of screening high-risk patients.Keywords: hepatoma, ultrasound, radiology, chronic liver diseas
Formulation of Disparity of Punishment in Drug Abuse Cases
No full textPenal disparity is the imposition of unequal sentences for the same crime or for crimes whose dangerous nature can be compared without a clear justification. In practice, judges' decisions in juvenile criminal cases result in disparities in punishment. Therefore, the issue of sentencing is not only important for judges and the judicial process, but also for the legal process as a whole, especially in terms of law enforcement. Where in this case there are different criminal sanctions between the children who commit the crime. Disparity in decisions cannot be separated from the judge's discretion in imposing sentences in a criminal case. In this research the author will examine narcotics cases in decisions Number 101/Pid.Sus/2022PN Smn and Number 68/Pid.Sus/2020/PN Smn. The author will discuss what factors can cause disparities in punishment, then the basis for the judge's considerations and finally the obstacles a judge has in deciding a case. The approach that will be used is a Sociological Juridical approach. The sources and types of data in this research are primary data obtained from field studies with interviews. And secondary data was obtained from literature study. The results of this research show that disparities in punishment occur due to various things that make the decision of the panel of judges different from one decision to another in the same case
sp. TGS1
No full textPsychrophiles are cold-adapted microorganisms living in cold regions and are known to generate cold-active enzymes such as proteases, lipases, and peptidases. These types of enzymes are a major part of the market of the food and textile sector. This study aimed to isolate and characterize the cold-active and detergent-stable, extracellular protease from psychotrophic bacteria Serratia sp. TGS1 (OQ654005). Protease was purified by gel permeation chromatography using Sephadex G-75. The specific activity of the purified protease was 250 U/mg at 15 & DEG;C, with a purification fold of 5.68 and a percentage yield of 60%. The cold active protease was stable within a temperature range of 5-30 & DEG;C and a pH range of 6-10. Ca+2 and Mg+2 enhanced its activity while chelators like ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid inhibited cold active protease, showing it as metalloprotease in nature. The enzyme was sensitive to Cu+2, Zn+2, and Hg+2, and the proteolytic activity decreased upon treatment with heavy metals. The molecular weight of the protease was estimated to be 47 kDa using sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS)-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Proteins within a specific range of molecular weight possess desirable properties for industrial enzyme use. By working on a specific range, the researchers intended to examine an enzyme to examine its specific characteristics. The purified protease showed high stability to detergents like SDS, Tween 20, Tween 60, and Triton X. The maximum velocity V-max and K-m values were 59.90 mg/min/mL and 1.53 mg/mL, respectively. The obtained protease exhibited an interesting activity at a broad range of pH (6-10) and stability at low temperatures (5-30 & DEG;C) and detergents. Such enzymatic features of versatile and potent cold-active enzymes enhance their industrial applications to meet food, dairy, and laundry requirements
Pseudo Personalised Individual Feedbacks for Large Classes
No full textIndividual feedback is extremely important to improve student learning. However, providing individual feedbacks comes at the cost of huge workload which becomes almost impossible to bear in the context of large classes. While the other extreme of providing generic feedback is less time consuming but at the same time has a very little impact on student learning. Therefore, we should look for compromised feedback solutions which could overcome the impracticalities of individual feedback and less effectiveness of generic feedback. We shall present a pseudo personalised feedback mechanism which works on the basis of feedback clustering. We have implemented this idea in which the student work is clustered in different groups according to their correlations. Thus, we provide clustered feedback instead of individual feedback, however, since the feedback provided to a cluster is very similar to an individual feedback due to the high correlations amongst the feedback belonging to one cluster, we call it pseudo personalised individual feedback. We shall present how clustering the feedback can have a stronger impact as compared to generic feedback and consumes much less time as compared to preparing individual feedback
Comparative performance of semi-absolute <i>k</i> <sub>0</sub>-instrumental neutron activation analysis and Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP-OES) for compositional decoding of aluminum base alloys
No full textAbstract
Samples of certified aluminum base alloys were analyzed by semi-absolute, standardless k
0-instrumental neutron activation analysis (k
0-INAA) for compositional decoding. Irradiations were performed at two research reactors located at Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology having nominal thermal neutron fluxes of 1013 and 1012 cm−2 s−1. The experimentally optimized parameters for NAA suggest a maximum of three sets of irradiations for the quantification of 8 major and minor elements. Moreover, the same conditions provided quantitative results for 10 other elements as impurities, which were not reported by the supplier of the reference material. The same alloys were analyzed by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) where all impurity elements, quantified by k
0-INAA, were below the detection limits. A comparison of % relative deviation of the results obtained by k
0-INAA and ICP-OES revealed that the former has better accuracy than ICP-OES, but k
0-INAA has poor limits of detection for Mg, Si and Ti in aluminum base alloy.</jats:p
Phloroglucinol in Irritable Bowel Syndrome
No full textObjective: To determine the efficacy and tolerability of phloroglucinol, an antispasmodic agent in the treatment of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). Methods: It was an open label (quasi interventional) study. One hundred patients coming to the gastroenterology clinics of Aga Khan University Hospital with IBS as defined by the Rome II criteria were enrolled between February 2004 and September 2004 to participate in the trial and were treated as outpatients. Phloroglucinol (Himont) 50mg orally three times daily was given for two months. Symptoms were assessed before and during treatment using a questionnaire. Results: One hundred patients were enrolled in the study. Of them 61% (61/100) were males and 39% (39/100) were females. Their mean age was 41±14 years. Sixty-eight patients completed the study and 28 dropped out. On Phloroglucinol treatment there was an overall statistically significant improvement in abdominal pain (p\u3c0.001), frequency of stools per day (p\u3c0.001), urgency (p\u3c0.001), passage of mucus per rectum (p\u3c0.001),sense of incomplete defecation (p=0.001) and bloating (p=0.001). However, no response was seen in the feature of straining in both genders (p=0.676). The difference in response to treatment according to gender separately showed statistically significant improvement in the sense of incomplete defecation in females alone(p=0.003). Conclusion: Phloroglucinol in a dose of 50mg three times daily is effective and well tolerated by the IBS patients. It relieves most of the symptoms of IBS (JPMA 56:5;2006
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