Effects of television advertising on children: with special reference to pakistani urban children

The purpose of study is to deliberate upon the impacts of television advertising on children & to identify those critical impacts which lead to behavioral and eating disorder in children. Impacts of TV advertising were identified as unnecessary purchasing, low nutritional food and materialism. A questionnaire using five point likert scale was administered to 425 parents of children aged between 9-14 years, and studying in schools. Samples were drawn through convenience sampling approach from four cities of Pakistan namely Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Bahawalpur & Multan. Data were analyzed by using SPSS software. Pearson correlation was used to measure the relationships of the variables on one-to-one basis indicating the most correlated variable was Unnecessary Purchasing which had Pearson correlation value of 0.312 and significance value of 0.000. It was followed by a Materialism which had Pearson correlation value of 0.260 and significance value of 0.000. Then comes Low Nutritional Food being Pearson correlation value of 0.258 and significance value of 0.000. Testing of hypothesis found that television advertising increases the consumption of food that is unhealthy, having low nutritional values and high in Sugar, Fat and Salt (SFS) in children with F=30.146 & P=0.000. Subsequently, it was found that Television advertising leads to increase in unnecessary purchasing in children with F= 45.747 & P=0.000 and materialism in children with F=30.545 & P=0.000. So, it is summed up that TV advertising is affecting children by increasing their food consumption pattern, preference for low-nutrient, high in sugar, fat & salt (SFS) foods and beverages, change in attitude that is aggressive and violent in nature and inclination towards unnecessary purchasing

Role of Growth and Inequality in Explaining Changes in Poverty in Pakistan

Changes in the extent of poverty are affected not only by growth in the mean income but also by changes in the distribution of income. The effect of these two factors can be separately measured by decomposing the total change in poverty. In this context, this paper uses new tools to quantify relative contribution of growth and inequality using the latest available household survey data. The findings of this paper suggest that the role of inequality remained important in mitigating the adverse effects of growth on poverty during the first period, 1998-99 to 2001-02. Alternatively, the role of growth has been fundamental in reducing absolute poverty in the second period, 2001-02 to 2004-05. Poverty would have been further reduced, had the distribution not worsened during this period. The policy implication is that while pursuit of growth as a strategy is important for poverty reduction in Pakistan, the contribution of redistribution in favour of the poor should not be ignored if the effect of growth on poverty reduction is to be enhanced. Thus, the major challenge is to pursue a poverty reduction strategy that is based on growth with redistribution.Poverty, Inequality, Economic Growth, Pakistan

Effects of television advertising on children: with special reference to pakistani urban children

The purpose of study is to deliberate upon the impacts of television advertising on children & to identify those critical impacts which lead to behavioral and eating disorder in children. Impacts of TV advertising were identified as unnecessary purchasing, low nutritional food and materialism. A questionnaire using five point likert scale was administered to 425 parents of children aged between 9-14 years, and studying in schools. Samples were drawn through convenience sampling approach from four cities of Pakistan namely Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Bahawalpur & Multan. Data were analyzed by using SPSS software. Pearson correlation was used to measure the relationships of the variables on one-to-one basis indicating the most correlated variable was Unnecessary Purchasing which had Pearson correlation value of 0.312 and significance value of 0.000. It was followed by a Materialism which had Pearson correlation value of 0.260 and significance value of 0.000. Then comes Low Nutritional Food being Pearson correlation value of 0.258 and significance value of 0.000. Testing of hypothesis found that television advertising increases the consumption of food that is unhealthy, having low nutritional values and high in Sugar, Fat and Salt (SFS) in children with F=30.146 & P=0.000. Subsequently, it was found that Television advertising leads to increase in unnecessary purchasing in children with F= 45.747 & P=0.000 and materialism in children with F=30.545 & P=0.000. So, it is summed up that TV advertising is affecting children by increasing their food consumption pattern, preference for low-nutrient, high in sugar, fat & salt (SFS) foods and beverages, change in attitude that is aggressive and violent in nature and inclination towards unnecessary purchasing.TV Advertising, Low Nutritional Food, Violence, Unnecessary Purchasing, Materialism

Impediments to Social Development in Pakistan

The development of infrastructure and the provision of basic services in Pakistan lie in the public domain. The quality of the built infrastructure and the service offered reflect successive governments’ capability as a channel for public sector funds, their role in overall financial and macro-economic planning and management, and their administrative efficiency in implementation, operations and management—in essence the extent to which they are able to adhere to the principles of good and humane governance. Good governance is generally conceived of as the judicious exercise of economic, political and administrative authority in the public and private spheres to manage a country’s affairs at all levels to improve the quality of life of the people. It is a continuing process where divergent opinions and desires are satisfied through compromise and tolerance in a spirit of cooperative action for the mutual benefit of the larger whole. It has three dimensions: one, the political regime; two, the systems and procedures for exercising authority; and three, the capacity of governments [World Bank (1994); UNDP (1997); OECD (1995); Commission on Global Governance (1995)]. When Pakistan gained political freedom in August 1947, it inherited an economic and social infrastructure unable to meet the demands of the large influx of refugees from India. Five decades later, policies emphasising public investment, subsidised credit and regulated private sector development have generated strong economic growth, but failed to implement successful social development. Over the last 50 years and more Pakistan’s economy, measured through its GDP, has grown by more than 10 times, an average annual growth rate of 5.1 percent. Rapid population growth, estimated to have averaged just under 3 percent annually, has resulted in real per capita increases of only 2.1 percent per year.

On Amplify-and-Forward Relaying Over Hyper-Rayleigh Fading Channels

Relayed transmission holds promise for the next generation of wireless communication systems due to the performance gains it can provide over non-cooperative systems. Recently hyper-Rayleigh fading, which represents fading conditions more severe than Rayleigh fading, has received attention in the context of many practical communication scenarios. Though power allocation for Amplify-and-Forward (AF) relaying networks has been studied in the literature, a theoretical analysis of the power allocation problem for hyper-Rayleigh fading channels is a novel contribution of this work. We develop an optimal power allocation (OPA) strategy for a dual-hop AF relaying network in which the relay-destination link experiences hyper-Rayleigh fading. A new closed-form expression for the average signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at destination is derived and it is shown to provide a new upper-bound on the average SNR at destination, which outperforms a previously proposed upper-bound based on the well-known harmonic-geometric mean inequality. An OPA across the source and relay nodes, subject to a sum-power constraint, is proposed and it is shown to provide measurable performance gains in average SNR and SNR outage at the destination relative to the case of equal power allocation

A Dynamic Macroeconometric Model of Pakistan’s Economy

In this study, an attempt has been made of develop a dynamic macroeconometric model of Pakistan’s economy to examine the behaviour of major macroeconomic variables such as output, consumption, investment, government expenditure, money, interest rates, prices, exports, and imports. The model consists of 21 equations, of which 13 are behavioural and the rest are identities. The Engle-Granger two-step cointegration procedure is used to derive the long-run and short -run elasticities for the period 1972-2009. The test of significance of each estimated equation seems to validate the model. The estimated long-run parameters are used to perform simulation experiments to determine the model’s ability to track historical data and to assess the behaviour of the key macroeconomic variables in response to the changes in selected exogenous variables. The results indicate that the majority of macroeconomic variables follow an increasing trend over the period of simulation, 2009-2013.Macroeconometric Model; Pakistan Economy, Cointegration, Forecasting

Effects of the Electronic Structure, Phase Transition and Localized Dynamics of Atoms in the Formation of Tiny Particles of Gold

In addition to the self-governing properties, tiny metallic colloids are the building blocks of larger particles. This topic has been a subject of many studies. Tiny particles of different sizes developed under three different experiments are discussed in this work. The development of a tiny-sized particle depends on the attained dynamics of atoms. When atoms of the compact monolayer assembly bind by a nanoenergy packet, the developed tiny-sized particle elongates atoms of arrays into the structures of smooth elements at the solution surface. The impinging electron streams at a fixed angle can elongate the already elongated atoms of arrays. Travelling photons along the interface influence the modified atoms. Gold atoms can also develop different tiny particles inside the solution. In addition to the dynamics of atoms, miscellaneous factors can contribute in the development of such tiny particles. Atoms in the form of tiny clusters can also amalgamate to develop a tiny-sized particle. In the third kind of tiny particle, amalgamated atoms can bind by executing electron dynamics. However, not all of the atoms can bind by the electron dynamics. This study very concisely highlights the fundamental process of developing a variety of tiny particles in which electronic structure, phase transition and localized dynamics of gold atoms influence the structure. The study targets the specific discussion that how atoms of tiny-sized particles bind, and how travelling photons along the air-solution interface influence their structure. Several possibilities may be opened through pulse-based process to develop engineered materials