Morphological characterization and selection for high yielding and powdery mildew resistant pea (Pisum sativum) lines

Twenty lines of Pisum sativum particularly developed for high yield and resistant to powdery mildew were evaluated along with two parents (Falloner and 11760-3ER) and two checks (Climex and a local cultivar) with the objectives to determine morphological characterization, yield potential and resistance to powdery mildew. On the basis of one way cluster, the 24 lines were mainly grouped into four clusters, especially on the vegetative and yield contributing traits. It was observed that the tall and high yielding lines were grouped in cluster-III while the dwarf and high yielding lines were grouped in cluster-IV. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed significant difference (p1.0) contributed more than 80% variability among the materials

Long-term war in Afghanistan: Its impacts on the economy, environment, and human resource development

War is a devastating phenomenon that destroys the economic, social, and technological infrastructure of a country, causing civilians to suffer from lost social and economic development opportunities, lost human capital development opportunities, forced migration, hunger, high mortality rates, and massive destruction. Moreover, war causes significant governance vulnerabilities and imposes substantial costs for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of damaged infrastructure. The principal objective of the present thesis is to examine the symmetric and asymmetric effects of long-term war on three key socioeconomic indicators, the economy, environment, and human resource development in the context of Afghanistan. It also aims to produce statistical evidence on the nature, size, and magnitude of the effects of long-term war on the predictors in order to generate specific policy recommendations to national policymakers and the international community who are engaged in the process of nation-building, peace-building, and market-building in Afghanistan. To accomplish the objectives, five research articles focusing on the key themes of the thesis were produced to investigate the effects of war on economic growth, unemployment rate, environmental quality, human resource development, and public healthcare services over the period from 2002 to 2020. This thesis employed time-series datasets collected from reliable sources, such as the WDI (World Development Indicators), ADB (Asian Development Bank), IMF (International Monetary Fund), and the United States Defense Budget. To test the newly developed hypotheses (H1–H15) relevant to the research questions informed by the research objectives, complex econometric methods such as the NARDL (non-linear autoregressive distributed lags), MVAR (modified vector autoregressive), and a series of multivariate regression models that have been augmented with sets of well-known predictors were used. In addition to testing the effects, both symmetric and asymmetric causality techniques were also used to determine the link and the direction of the causality from war to the variables of interest and vice versa. The findings of the thesis are critical and produce important insights into the effects of war on the variables of interest. On the economic front, the results confirm a long-run asymmetric relationship between war and economic growth. It is also indicated that a positive asymmetric shock from war reduces economic growth, while a negative asymmetric shock from war increases growth in the short and long runs. Moreover, the findings highlight the non-monotonic effects of war on economic growth, both in size and magnitude. Statistical evidence concludes that there is a significant bidirectional causality between economic growth and the war. On the unemployment front, the findings reveal that the positive asymmetric shocks from war decrease the unemployment rate, while their negative asymmetric shocks increase it in the short and long runs. It also demonstrates that enhancing the outreach of financial services plays an important intermediating role in reducing the unemployment rate during wartime in Afghanistan. The findings show that an asymmetric causality runs from both the positive and negative components of war to the unemployment rate, confirming a bidirectional nexus among them. On the environment front, the findings support a long-run relationship between war and environmental degradation. It also reveals bidirectional causal links between environmental degradation and war, while confirming multidimensionality and interdependencies among predictors. Moreover, the findings confirm the existence of an inverted U-shaped relationship, supporting the validity of the EKC hypothesis in Afghanistan. On the human resource front, the findings support a long-run asymmetric relationship between war and human resource development, while the magnitude of the relationship has been confirmed to be asymmetrically negative. It further reveals that the school enrolment rate—a proxy for human resource development—is highly sensitive to and swiftly reacts against the intensity of war. Furthermore, the findings show that both the positive and negative aspects of war have a significant impact on the school enrolment rate. Finally, on the public healthcare front, aging results support a significant long-run relationship between war and public health, showing that war positively impacts health expenditures, whereas child mortality rate and crude death rate have negative impacts. The findings also indicate a statistically significant bidirectional causal nexus between health expenditure and war, while supporting the existence of strong and significant interconnectivity and multidimensionality between war and health expenditure, with a significantly strong feedback response from the control variables. Considering the statistical evidence, the results of this thesis conclude that the long-term war in Afghanistan had significantly devastating effects on socioeconomic indicators, most specifically on the economy, environment, and human resource development during the period of the study. It concludes that war significantly suppresses economic growth, imposing serious consequences on the well-being of the nation through increased unemployment rates, diminished human resource development processes, and degraded environmental quality, all of which impact both the nation’s lives and its development. The critical findings of the thesis shed light on important policy implications and offer a set of policy recommendations to policymakers

Cannabis Use and Its Health Consequences in Afghanistan: Implication for Intervention and Prevention

Cannabis is the most widely used illicit drug, worldwide and also in Afghanistan. According to United Nation Office for Drug and crime (UNODC) Afghanistan Cannabis survey (2009), more than half of all drug users interviewed in Afghanistan had used cannabis in their life time. In this survey around 630,000 people, mostly men, were documented as cannabis users. On the other hand, cannabis life time use amongst regular female drug user was 40%. The annual prevalence of cannabis use was 8.1 percent in male and 0.2 percent in female populations (UNODC Afghanistan Cannabis survey 2009). In Afghanistan cannabis is most commonly used amongst various groups of individuals, including public transport and truck drivers, and law enforcement personnel, such as Afghan National Police and Afghan National Army recruits. According to a Government Accountability Report for the United States Congress in March 2010, the percentage of Afghan Police recruits who tested positive for drug use, (i.e., marijuana, hashish and opiates) was 12-40% (Nordland & Wafa, 2010). Cannabis use has been linked to a myriad of adverse health outcome included but not limited to, increased risk of schizophrenia, impairment of cognitive functioning, deterioration of motor skills, weakening of driving skills, adverse pregnancy outcome and increased risk of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases (Kalant, 2004). The aim of this paper is to highlight cannabis production, use and adverse health outcomes in Afghanistan and to propose recommendations for cannabis control and reversal of its negative health outcomes

SMS Security based on 2-way Handshaking Method using Data Hiding Algorithm

Data security is one of the major issues concerning mobile communication especially short messages. In this paper we propose a model system for short message security over mobiles. The proposed system is based on 2-way handshaking model which integrates both cryptography and steganography for message security as well as to provide and automated mechanism for session key sharing. The encryption algorithm is the DES algorithm with 64 bit key length and the steganography algorithm is based on the least Significant Bit data hiding technique. The proposed system can be used effectively with other security standard to provide an additional strength to the current mobile security model for short messages.&nbsp

Asymmetric effects of long‑term war on human resource development in Afghanistan: evidence from NARDL approach

This study explores the effects of war on human resource development in Afghanistan using non-linear autoregressive distributed lags (NARDL) and asymmetric causality analysis. The results of the NARDL bound test support an asymmetric long-run relationship between predictors. It reveals that positive and negative shocks from the per capita cost of war, child mortality rate, and population growth rate asymmetrically affect the school enrollment rate in both the short and long runs. Furthermore, it shows that positive shocks from per capita GDP and per capita government expenditures on education increase the school enrollment rate, while their negative shocks have adverse effects, in both the short and long runs. This implies that school enrollment is highly sensitive to changes in the per capita cost of war and reacts swiftly. Moreover, the results reveal significant causality from both the positive and negative components of the per capita cost of war, per capita GDP, per capita government expenditures on education, and population growth to both the positive and negative components of the school enrollment rate. However, there is only a causal nexus from the negative component of the child mortality rate to the school enrollment rate. Based on these findings, relevant policy implications are discussed

CONTRIBUTION OF ANZAR SHAH KASHMIRI TO HADITH AND ISLAMIC SCIENCES

Penelitian ini, menyoroti kontribusi Anzar Shah Kashmir terhadap hadis dan ilmu-ilmu keislaman. Penelitian ini berkonsentrasi pada salah satu tokoh terkemuka Darul Uloom Deoband yang mengabdikan seluruh hidupnya untuk pelayanan Al-Qur'an dan Hadits, dan merupakan seorang guru Hadits dan Tafsir serta sarjana ilmu-ilmu dari dua subjek paling otentik dalam studi dan penelitian Islam ini. Untuk menulis penelitian ini, saya membaca dan meneliti banyak artikel dalam bahasa Arab dan Inggris dan Urdu, dari berbagai penulis yang berbeda tentang Syekh Anzar Shah Kashmir untuk menyelesaikan makalah ini. Syekh Anzar Shah Kashmir adalah salah satu cendekiawan besar ilmu-ilmu Islam di India, yang melalui pengetahuannya yang luas tentang Hadis dan ilmu-ilmu Al-Quran, mentransmisikan informasi tersebut kepada para murid dan mahasiswanya secara khusus, sementara melalui pidato dan pidato-pidatonya di depan umum, informasi tersebut ditransfer ke masyarakat umum secara luas. This research paper, has tried to highlight the contribution of Anzar Shah Kashmiri to hadith and Islamic sciences. The research concentrates on one of the prominent figures of Darul Uloom Deoband who devoted his entire life to the service of the Qur'an and Hadith, and was a teacher of Hadith and Tafsir as well as a scholar of the sciences of these two most authentic subjects in Islamic studies and research. To write this research, I read and researched many articles in Arabic and English and Urdu, from different authors about Sheikh Anzar Shah Kashmiri to complete this paper. Sheikh Anzar Shah Kashmiri was one of the great scholars of Islamic sciences in India, who through his vast knowledge of Hadith and Quranic sciences, transmitted the information to his disciples and students in particular, while through his public speeches and addresses, the information was transferred to the general public in general.Keyword : Anzar Shah Kashmiri, Hadith, Tafsir, Darul Uloom Deoband, Islamic scholars in Indi

Analyzing the Consequences of Long-Run Civil War on Unemployment Rate: Empirical Evidence from Afghanistan

This article aims to uncover the asymmetric labor-market consequences of the long-run civil war in Afghanistan by employing a non-linear autoregressive distributed lags (NARDL) model and an asymmetric causality technique over the period from 2004Q3 to 2020Q4. The findings from the NARDL model reveal that the positive asymmetric shocks from the cost of war, GDP growth, final government expenditure, foreign direct investment, and the rule of law significantly decrease the unemployment rate, while their negative asymmetric shocks increase the unemployment rate in the short and long runs. Innovatively, the composite financial inclusion index has been incorporated into the model, which provides interesting results. It demonstrates that enhancing the outreach of financial services plays an important role in reducing the unemployment rate during wartime in Afghanistan, while its exclusion is found to increase the unemployment rate both in the short and long runs. Moreover, the results of the asymmetric causality test reveal that an asymmetric causality runs from both the positive and negative components of the cost of war, the composite financial inclusion index, GDP growth, foreign direct investment, inflation rate, population growth, and the rule of law to the unemployment rate, while no evidence is found to support a causality nexus between the unemployment rate, final government expenditure, and the secondary school enrollment rate. The results entail several policy implications that are discussed

Comparison of protective effects of carvedilol and α-tocopherol on doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxocity

Background: Doxorubicin, an effective anticancer drug used to treat multiple solid tumours and childhood malignancies since many decades but its cardiac adverse effects limits its use in full therapeutic dose. The mechanism involved in cardiotoxicity is apoptosis of cardiomyocytes due to reactive oxidative stress. The study was conducted to compare the cardioprotective effects of carvedilol and α-Tocopherol and to detect myocardial injury at early stage.Methods: Cardiotoxicity was produced in a group of rabbits by single intravenous injection of doxorubicin; control group was treated with normal saline only. Third and fourth groups were pretreated with carvedilol 30 mg/kg bodyweight and α-Tocopherol 200 mg/kg bodyweight respectively for ten days before injection of doxorubicin.Results: Doxorubicin produced marked cardiotoxicity represented by raised levels of serum biomarkers (cTnI, LDH and CK-MB) and severe necrosis of cardiomyocytes on microscopic examination. Carvedilol and α-tocopherol pretreatment resulted in decreased serum levels of biomarkers and improved the histological picture of heart tissue.Conclusions: The outcome of doxorubicin chemotherapy can be made successful with the concurrent use of carvedilol or α-tocopherol. Although carvedilol has more pronounced cardioprotective effects perhaps due to its antioxidant activity in addition to antiapoptotic, antiproliferative and anti-inflammatory effects. Furthermore the quantitative cTnI estimation for detection of cardiotoxicity at early stage can lead to significant economic impact in management of cancer

Identification of Dowry (Mahr) in Islam

This research aims to define dowry literally and idiomatically in Islam, the proof of dowry in the light of the Holy Quran and Hadiths of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be upon Him), as well as shed light with proofs on types of dowries, suitable dowry, deferred dowry, and prompt dowry. In the same order, the research discussed the opinions of the Islamic jurists and the reasons for the fall of the dowry, as well as the definition of solitude. This means that solitude is no emotional or physical obstacle for the wife or husband. Also, some of the articles related to dowry mentioned in the civil law of Afghanistan have been cited in this research. Alongside the types of women's periods, such as the period of a pregnant woman, the period of a non-pregnant woman, and a woman who does not have a menstrual illness, other related issues have been mentioned in detail