Husband-wife Roles as a Correlate of Contraceptive and Fertility Behaviour

In this paper, an investigation of reproductive behaviour within the socioeconomic and cultural frameworks is carried out to find the extent to which socioeconomic, cultural, and attitudinal variables (such as husband and wife’s education, family income, husband’s occupation, child mortality, exposure to the mass media, and husbandand- wife relationship in terms of egalitarian roles, role-segregation, husband’s authority, and domination in family and non-family decisions) influence the fertility decision-making process. The quantitative and qualitative techniques are used for exploring the respondents’ views regarding contraceptive and fertility behaviour. Principle Component Analysis (PCA) is applied to identify new meaningful underlying variables and to reduce the multi-dimensionality of variables. The chi-square test is employed to explore the relationships between the predictor variables and the dependent variables. Multiple linear regression is also used to establish the relative importance of each of the predictor variables. Bivariate, multiple linear regression and qualitative analysis demonstrate that preferences for smaller families and contraceptive use were found to be consistently associated with modern attitudes and behaviour towards the husband-and-wife relationship. Family income, husband’s occupation, child mortality, and age at marriage offered no explanation of the reproductive behaviour. It is concluded that cultural setting and tradition exert an important influence on reproductive behaviour independent of development in economic realities. It is suggested that for the attainment of demographicdevelopmental objectives, the issue of women’s status is not incidental; it is essential. The argument is not that improvements in women’s status need to be pursued only for population policy purposes, but rather that they comprise a crucial social developmental goal in their own right.

Impact of Trade Liberalization on External Debt Burden: Econometric Evidence from Pakistan

Pakistan’s leading challenge today is to lessen its debt burden in order to pursue a path that leads towards sustainable and impartial growth for poverty diminution. The consequences of trade liberalization are of growing concern, mainly in the emerging economies with severe brim over effects on their debt situation. The major objective of this paper is to discuss the current external debt problem in Pakistan and analyze how its external debt is interrelated with trade liberalization policies and measures .Using data from the last three decades, this paper investigated whether there exist a momentous relationship between external debt and the trade liberalization variables or not. In this case study ARDL bounds testing approach is employed to investigate the long run relationships and Error Correction Method (ECM) for short run dynamics. After finding the order of integration through implementing the Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) and Phillips-Perron unit root tests, our finding suggested a significant long run positive association between external debt and trade liberalization is existed in case of PakistanExternal Debt, Trade Liberalization, ARDL Bounds Testing, Error Correction Method

On-line Handwritten Character Recognition: An Implementation of Counterpropagation Neural Net

On-line handwritten scripts are usually dealt with pen tip traces from pen-down to pen-up positions. Time evaluation of the pen coordinates is also considered along with trajectory information. However, the data obtained needs a lot of preprocessing including filtering, smoothing, slant removing and size normalization before recognition process. Instead of doing such lengthy preprocessing, this paper presents a simple approach to extract the useful character information. This work evaluates the use of the counter- propagation neural network (CPN) and presents feature extraction mechanism in full detail to work with on-line handwriting recognition. The obtained recognition rates were 60% to 94% using the CPN for different sets of character samples. This paper also describes a performance study in which a recognition mechanism with multiple hresholds is evaluated for counter-propagation architecture. The results indicate that the application of multiple thresholds has significant effect on recognition mechanism. The method is applicable for off-line character recognition as well. The technique is tested for upper-case English alphabets for a number of different styles from different peoples

Pollen Pictorial of Some Medicinal Plants from Pakistan

In present account an effort was made to identify some important medicinal plants with particular emphasis to their pollen pictorial. In total of 7 species including Aerva javanica (Burm.f.) Schult., Calotropis procera (Willd.) R. Br. I. c., Periploca aphylla Dcne., Eremostachys vicaryi Benth. ex Hook. f., In Jacq., Salvia moorcroftiana Wall. ex Bth. Pongamia pinnata (L.) Pierre, and Viola stocksii Boiss. were studied. Macrophotography of plants were done in field by using Sony Digital Camera whereas microphotography of pollen was done in EM laboratory Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. This pictorial is considered to be useful in correct identification of these precious medicinal plant species for future and related research work

Emerging challenges and health system capacity: the case of non- communicable diseases in Pakistan; a review

Background: Pakistan is facing double burden of disease and the contribution of mortality by non-communicable diseases has over numbered the communicable diseases. The focus of health system of Pakistan is inclined more towards communicable disease and maternal & child health. Therefore, there is a need to review health policy, health sector budgeting and health setup in order to meet the needs of healthcare in context of non-communicable disease. Objective: To review the health system capacity to manage the emerging challenge of non-communicable diseases in Pakistan. Methodology: A thorough literature search on PubMed and Google Scholar was done. Reports from W.H.O, other national and international organizations and government & non-government policy papers were also reviewed. We used following search terms; Non Communicable Disease, Health system capacity, Pakistan. Results: Several health system issues emerged through the review of the health system capacity for NCDs. These included lack of political commitment, services more focused on communicable disease and MNCH, inadequate human resources, lack of inter-sectoral approach, insufficient funding opportunities and fragmented health system. These issues can be addressed through government support for combating burden of NCDs, provision of services for NCD at PHC level, human resource training regarding NCDs and integrated care system. Finance should be allocated for NCDs and existing HMIS should also be used for utilizing information regarding NCDs. Conclusion: Health systems framework to NCD means in summary re-examining the planning and organization of the entire health system, from service provision to financing, from information generation to ensuring adequate supply of pharmaceuticals/technologies or human resources, from improving facility management to performance monitoring

Effects of Hypertonic Saline Solution on Clinical Parameters, Serum Electrolytes and Plasma Volume in the Treatment of Haemorrhagic Septicaemia in Buffaloes

This study was conducted to determine the efficacy of hypertonic saline solution (HSS) along with antibiotic (ceftiofur HCl) and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (ketoprofen) in the treatment of haemorrhagic septicaemia in buffaloes. For this purpose, 50 buffaloes suffering from haemorrhagic septicaemia were randomly divided in two equal groups A and B. Group A served as control and was treated with ceftiofur HCl (IM) and ketoprofen (IV) @ 6 and 2 mg/Kg BW, respectively, for five days. Buffaloes of group B were administered with rapid intravenous infusion of hypertonic saline solution (7.5% NaCl) @ 4 ml/Kg BW once in combination with ceftiofur HCl and ketoprofen. Animals were monitored for 24 hours after initiation of treatment. Clinical parameters, serum electrolytes, plasma volume and survival index were recorded at different intervals after treatment. Survival rate (80%) in group B was significantly higher (P<0.05) than 48% in group A. The heart rate and respiration rate recovered more effectively in the buffaloes administered with treatment protocol B. Plasma volume was 98% which was almost normal within 24 hours after the infusion of hypertonic saline solution to the animals of group B. It was concluded from the study that hypertonic saline solution as an adjunct to antibiotic and a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug more efficiently improved respiration and heart rates and effectively restored plasma volume in resuscitating the buffaloes from haemorrhagic septicaemia than the conventional treatment

Receiver Design for DCT Based Multicarrier Signals

DCT based multicarrier system also known as fast orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (FOFDM) is a promising multicarrier transmission technique that requires half the subcarrier spacing compared to conventional OFDM technique. The signal processing complexity and power consumption of such system is also less due to its real arithmetic operations compared to DFT based system (OFDM) that require complex arithmetic operations. However, unlike OFDM, FOFDM requires a finite impulse response (FIR) front-end pre-filter at the receiver to achieve single-tap equalization for simplifying the receiver design. The receiver design can be further improved using the fact that FOFDM system transmits real valued symbols compared to complex valued symbols in conventional OFDM. This fact enabled us to improve the system performance by exploiting the improperness of such DCT based multicarrier signals using widely linear processing (WLP). In this paper, a novel equalization technique using WLP is proposed to effectively improve the system performance, and it is shown that the proposed FOFDM receiver can provide better estimate of the tra

Effects of co-infection on the clinical outcomes of Clostridium difficile infection

Background: Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) is a spore-forming, Gram-positive rod that is known to be associated with antibiotic use. It is one of the leading causes of nosocomial diarrhea in the industrialized world and therefore warrants further study of its nature. It isn\u27t clear if co-infection by other organisms can affect the outcome of C. difficile infection (CDI). Methods: A single center retrospective study was done and it used inclusion criteria of 18 years of age and being tested positive for CDI on FilmArray® multiplex gastro-intestinal (GI) panel. Exclusion criteria were a GI panel performed on an outpatient basis, recurrent CDI, and the presence of end-stage renal disease, cirrhosis, or a non-GI infection. The stool sample for all patients were collected within 48 h of presentation to the hospital. There were 235 of 2576 GI panels selected for a retrospective chart review based on the above criteria. Among these 235 patients, 38 had a co-infection (CDI+ another GI infection = group A or cases) and the rest had only CDI (group B or controls). Group A was compared with group B for CDI severity, its response to treatment, recurrence, and length of the hospital stay, using 0.05 as the alpha criterion. Results: Most patients with CDI were female and above the age of 60 years. Co infection did not increase the severity of CDI based both on the American College of Gastroenterology criteria (p 0.16) as well as Infectious Disease Society of America criteria (p 0.77). Co infection group also didn\u27t have significantly different CDI related treatment failure rate (p 0.23), or CDI recurrence rate (p 0.49). Co-infection was also not associated with lengthier hospital stay (p 0.41). Conclusion: Our study suggests that co-infection doesn\u27t affect the severity of CDI or can cause treatment failures. Additionally, there was no significant increase in hospital stay, or increase in CDI recurrence associated with co-infection. Therefore, if CDI is the leading clinical diagnosis and a patient is tested positive for co-infection in addition to CDI on FilmArray® multiplex GI panel, this co-infection shouldn\u27t change the management for CDI. Limitations of this study (including retrospective nature of the study, small sample size, single site study, not including all microbiome and non-inclusion of race) should also be taken into account, while considering the applicability of the results of this study

With No Deliberate Speed: The Segregation of Roma Children in Europe

In this study, by taking the advantage of both inorganic ZnO nanoparticles and the organic material chitosan as a composite seed layer, we have fabricated well-aligned ZnO nanorods on a gold-coated glass substrate using the hydrothermal growth method. The ZnO nanoparticles were characterized by the Raman spectroscopic techniques, which showed the nanocrystalline phase of the ZnO nanoparticles. Different composites of ZnO nanoparticles and chitosan were prepared and used as a seed layer for the fabrication of well-aligned ZnO nanorods. Field emission scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and infrared reflection absorption spectroscopic techniques were utilized for the structural characterization of the ZnO nanoparticles/chitosan seed layer-coated ZnO nanorods on a gold-coated glass substrate. This study has shown that the ZnO nanorods are well-aligned, uniform, and dense, exhibit the wurtzite hexagonal structure, and are perpendicularly oriented to the substrate. Moreover, the ZnO nanorods are only composed of Zn and O atoms. An optical study was also carried out for the ZnO nanoparticles/chitosan seed layer-coated ZnO nanorods, and the obtained results have shown that the fabricated ZnO nanorods exhibit good crystal quality. This study has provided a cheap fabrication method for the controlled morphology and good alignment of ZnO nanorods, which is of high demand for enhancing the working performance of optoelectronic devices