The Effect of Foreign Remittances on Schooling: Evidence from Pakistan

The underlying study intends to show the impact of foreign remittances on the educational performance of children in the households receiving these remittances. Much of the literature in this area covers the effects of remittances on poverty, consumption, and investment behaviour of the receiving households. The literature on the impact of remittances on educational performance, however, is rare, especially in Pakistan. To investigate the impact of remittances on educational performance, primary data at the household level is collected from four main cities of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan. The OLS results illustrate that, without considering parental education, remittances have significant adverse effects on educational performance. However, the effect becomes insignificant once parental education is included, as a control variable, in the regression. The results also reveal that the low level of parental education, current income, assets, family type, and family size play an important role in the educational performance of children.Remittances , Education, Parental Absence

Smoking Behaviour Among Resident University Students In North India: Some Issues And Challenges

The use of tobacco as cigarettes has taken a form of epidemic. Unless it is not managed properly and in time it may become an uncontrollable behavior leading to long term health and social problem. This paper is based on a survey that was intended to explore the smoking habits of university students residing in hostels, their perception towards it, factors associated with it and their implications. The study was conducted using a questionnaire based survey among 200 students, who were in the habit of smoking, belonging to different classes and residing in the hostels of a residential central University of North India. It was found that smokers were mainly from urban background. More than a quarter of the smokers spent more than 600 rupees per month on smoking only. The most important reasons given by students for smoking behavior was peer pressure followed by tension. Most of them had started smoking between 14-17 years of age, followed by 17- 21 yrs. age group. The number of cigarettes used increased with seniority. Most of the surveyed students wanted to leave the habit but could not do so because of bad habit followed by tension. 51% faced health problems, the major ones being respiratory problems. The study suggests that most effective control of the habit can be achieved by targeting the students of adolescent age and minimizing the tension among them.   Keywords: Smoking, Adolescents, students’ behavior, central universit

Evaluation of the Suitability of Public-Private Partnership for Kowloon East Smart City Development Project in Hong Kong

Smart City has become increasingly popular around the world; Hong Kong is no exception. However, Hong Kong is currently lagging in smart city development, consequently, the government has launched a pilot project ‘Kowloon East Smart City Development’. However, due to fact that the implementation of smart solutions requires a high level of technical and managerial skills and Hong Kong’s public sector does not possess any experience in the smart city, therefore, this study investigated the suitability of public-private partnership (PPP) for the pilot project. Analytic Hierarchy Process is adopted to quantitatively assess the positive and negative impacts of PPP on the smart city project. The pairwise comparison was conducted by interviewing local experts experienced in both smart cities and PPPs. The local weighting of each positive and negative factor and likelihood measurement of alternatives were carried out. Subsequently, sensitivity analysis is administrated to identify the critical factor that can affect the final decision. The results indicated that the PPP is a suitable approach for the pilot project. ‘Greater benefit to the public’ is found to be the most critical factor

Electrification of Transportation: Policy Framework, Technical Aspects and Challenges in Pakistan - A Case Study

Pakistan faces severe air pollution and high dependency on imported fossil fuels for transportation, urgently needing solutions. Electrification of transportation could address these issues, but Pakistan lacks a clear roadmap for adopting electric vehicles. This paper examines the electrification of transportation in Pakistan, focusing on policies, technical aspects, and standards. It looks at best practices from developed countries and discusses incentives offered by the Pakistani government to boost electric vehicle adoption. The study also explores challenges and opportunities in adopting electric vehicles within existing power systems. A SWOT analysis is included, highlighting strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats related to electric vehicle policies and market integration in Pakistan. By reviewing these factors, the paper provides insights into the obstacles and potential benefits of electric vehicle adoption. It also suggests ways for developing nations like Pakistan to encourage widespread use of electric vehicles, aiming to reduce fossil fuel dependency and meet environmental goals.© 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync/4.0/).fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Outcome in Surgically Treated Patients with Dorsal and Dorsolumbar Spinal Tuberculosis: A Retrospective Study of 40 Cases

Objective:  To determine the influence of disease severity and surgical treatment in patients with dorsal and dorsolumbar spinal tuberculosis with severe neurological deficit. Methods:  In this retrospective study (2005 – 2009) medical records of all patients with dorsal and dorsolumbar spinal tuberculosis treated surgically by Zafar Iqbal were analyzed. The clinical features, disease severity, operative procedures and outcome and factors affecting outcome were analyzed. Results:  A total of 42 patients with dorsal and dorsolumbar spinal tuberculosis with severe neurological deficit were treated surgically during this period. Two patients had follow-up of less than 3 months and were excluded from this study. Their age ranged from 18 to 65 years, with a mean age of 31 years. Male to female ratio was 3:2. Presenting symptoms were local pain in 34 (85%), radicular pain in 5 (12.5%),  Conclusion:  This study indicates that a significant proportion of patients with spinal tuberculosis and severe motor deficits get remarkable improvement after surgical decompression and hence should undergo surgery even though they may be suffering from paraplegia of considerable duration. We found that age less than 50 years, radical surgery and spasticity are favourable prognostic factors

Residential Demand for Electricity in Pakistan

Undoubtedly, in the new millennium, the importance of energy sector for the development of a country is undeniable. Rapidly increasing knowledge along with speedy technological innovation has resulted in the provision of abundance of facilities. This has made the human beings, consumers or producers, much demanding for energy sources that are used to run mechanical processes. There are various sources of energy which include oil, electricity, gas, coal and nuclear. Countries differ in the usage of alternative energy sources. In Pakistan the major energy source is gas which is 41 percent of the total energy supplied. The other energy supply sources along with their percentage shares are as follow: oil (29 percent), hydro (12.70 percent), coal (12 percent) and nuclear (1 percent).1 Electricity is one of the most important source of energy in Pakistan. It has become a necessity in the present life, having a wide range of uses in residential as well as in commercial sector. Table 1 describes the major domestic users of electricity in Pakistan along with their respective shares of consumption. It is obvious from the table that residential consumption of electricity has the highest share

BIOSORPTION AND RECOVERY OF HEAVY METALS FROM AQUEOUS SOLUTIONS BY EICHHORNIA CRASSIPES (WATER HYACINTH) ASH

Heavy metal’s release without treatment poses a significant threat to the environment. Heavy metals are non-biodegradable and persistent. In the present study the ash of water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes), was used to remove six metals from aqueous solutions through biosorption. Results of batch and column experiments showed excellent adsorption capacity. Removal of lead, chromium, zinc, cadmium, copper, and nickel was 29.83, 1.263, 1.575, 3.323, 2.984 and 1.978 µgg-1, respectively. The biosorptive capacity was maximum with pH >8.00. Desorption in µgg-1 of ash for lead, chromium, zinc, cadmium, copper, and nickel was 18.10, 9.99, 11.99, 27.54, 21.09, and 3.71 respectively. Adsorption/desorption of these metals from ash showed the potential of this technology for recovery of metals for further usages. Hydrogen adsorption was also studied with a Sievert-type apparatus. Hydrogen adsorption experiments showed significant storage capacity of water hyacinth ash

Detection of citrus leaf diseases using a deep learning technique

The food security major threats are the diseases affected in plants such as citrus so that the identification in an earlier time is very important. Convenient malady recognition can assist the client with responding immediately and sketch for some guarded activities. This recognition can be completed without a human by utilizing plant leaf pictures. There are many methods employed for the classification and detection in machine learning (ML) models, but the combination of increasing advances in computer vision appears the deep learning (DL) area research to achieve a great potential in terms of increasing accuracy. In this paper, two ways of conventional neural networks are used named Alex Net and Res Net models with and without data augmentation involves the process of creating new data points by manipulating the original data. This process increases the number of training images in DL without the need to add new photos, it will appropriate in the case of small datasets. A self-dataset of 200 images of diseases and healthy citrus leaves are collected. The trained models with data augmentation give the best results with 95.83% and 97.92% for Res Net and Alex Net respectively