Determinants of Neonatal and Post-neonatal Mortality in Pakistan

Ensuring the survival and well being of children is a concern of families, communities and nations throughout the world. Since the turn of the 20th century infant and child mortality in more developed countries has steadily declined and, currently, has been reduced to almost minimal levels. In contrast, although infant and child mortality has declined in the past three decades in most less developed countries, the pace of change and the magnitude of improvement vary considerably from one country to another. The inverse relationship between socio-economic variables of the parents and infant and child mortality is well established by several studies [Muhuri (1995); Forste (1994); Hobcraft, et al. (1984); Caldwell (1979); Sathar (1985, 1987)] and it holds true irrespective of the overall level of mortality in the national populations [Ruzicka (1989)]. The influence of parental education on infant and child health and mortality has proved to be universally significant [Bicego and Boerma (1993); Caldwell, et al. (1990)]. The father’s education, mother’s education and their work status each have independent effects upon child survival in developing countries [Sandiford, et al. (1995); Forste (1994); Caldwell, et al. (1983)]. Economic conditions of the household also help in explaining the variation in infant and child mortality. The nature of housing, diet, access to and availability of water and sanitary conditions as well as medical attention all depend on the economic conditions of the household. For example, poor families may reside in crowded, unhygienic housing and, thus, suffer from infectious disease associated with inadequate and contaminated water supplies and with poor sanitation [Esrey and Habicht (1986)]. Maternal factors, which are biological attributes of birth, such as the age of mother at the time of childbirth, birth order and birth interval [Forste (1994); Rutstein (1984)], have significant effects on child survival.

2-Chloro-4-(2-iodo­benzene­sulfonamido)­benzoic acid

In the title compound, C13H9ClINO4S, the dihedral angle between the aromatic rings is 81.04 (17)°. The disposition of the I and Cl atoms attached to the two rings is anti. In the crystal, mol­ecules are connected via O—H⋯O and N—H⋯O hydrogen bonds

Novel Edge States in Self-Dual Gravity

In contrast to the Einstein-Hilbert action, the action for self-dual gravity contains vierbeins. They are eleminated at the level of observables by an $SL(2,\mathbb{C})$ gauge condition implied by the action. We argue that despite this condition, new "edge" or superselected state vectors corresponding to maps of the spheres $S^2_{\infty}$ at infinity to $SL(2, \mathbb{C})$ arise. They are characterised by new quantum numbers and they lead to mixed states. For black holes, they arise both at the horizon and the spatial infinity and may be relevant for the black hole information paradox. Similar comments can be made about the Einstein-Palatini action which uses vierbeins.Comment: 15 pages, reference added, some minor notational changes - no changes in conclusio

Determinants of Growth Retardation in Pakistani Children under Five Years of Age

Ensuring the survival and well being of children is a concern of families, communities, and nations throughout the world. Since the turn of the 20th century infant and child mortality in more developed countries has steadily declined and, currently, has been reduced to almost minimal levels. In contrast, although infant and child mortality has declined in the past three decades in most less developed countries, the pace of change and the magnitude of improvement vary considerably from one country to another. Children are at risk of both mortality and morbidity. The problem of malnutrition is widespread in developing countries and particularly severe in South Asian countries, where almost fifty percent of the undernourished children of the world live [Carlson and Wardlaw (1990)]. Rural populations are especially prone to malnutrition because they are more likely to be poor [Tinger (1998)]. The analysis of Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) in 19 developing countries shows that children living in rural areas are more likely to be malnourished [Sommerfelt and Stewart (1994)]

Advances in clustering based on inter-cluster mapping

Data mining involves searching for certain patterns and facts about the structure of data within large complex datasets. Data mining can reveal valuable and interesting relationships which can improve the operations of business, health and many other disciplines. Extraction of hidden patterns and strategic knowledge from large datasets which are stored electronically, is therefore a challenge faced by many organizations. One commonly used technique in data mining for producing useful results is cluster analysis. A basic issue in cluster analysis is deciding the optimal number of clusters for a dataset. A solution to this issue is not straightforward as this form of clustering is unsupervised learning and no clear definition of cluster quality exists. In addition, this issue will be more challenging and complicated for multi-dimensional datasets. Finding the estimated number of clusters and their quality is generally based on so-called validation indexes. A limitation with typical existing validation indexes is that they only work well with specific types of datasets compatible with their design assumptions. Also their results may be inconsistent and an algorithm may need to be run multiple times to find a best estimate of the number of clusters. Furthermore, these existing approaches may not be effective for complex problems in large datasets with varied structure. To help overcome these deficiencies, an efficient and effective approach for stable estimation of the number of clusters is essential. Many clustering techniques including partitioning, hierarchal, grid-base and model-based clustering are available. Here we consider only the partitioning method e.g. the k-means clustering algorithm for analysing data. This thesis will describe a new approach for stable estimation of the number of clusters, based on use of the k-means clustering algorithm. First results obtained from the k-means clustering algorithm will be used to gain a forward and backward mapping of common elements for adjacent and non-adjacent clusters. These will be represented in the form of proportion matrices which will be used to compute combined mapped information using a matrix inner product similarity measure. This will provide indicators for the similarity of mapped elements and overlap (dissimilarity), average similarity and average overlap (average dissimilarity) between clusters. Finally, the estimated number of clusters will be decided using the maximum average similarity, minimum average overlap and coefficient of variation measure. The new approach provides more information than an application of typical existing validation indexes. For example, the new approach offers not only the estimated number of clusters but also gives an indication of fully or partially separated clusters and defines a set of stable clusters for the estimated number of clusters. The advantage of the new approach over several existing validation indexes for evaluating clustering results is demonstrated empirically by applying it on a variety of simulated and real datasets

Diagnostic Laparoscopy for Abdominal Tuberculosis: A Promising Tool for Diagnosis

Introduction: Abdominal tuberculosis has plagued the mankind over several decades and is a major reason of morbidity and mortality even today in the developing world. It\u27s a difficult problem to diagnose as most patients present with vague and nonspecific symptomatology. This study was performed with a view to find out an efficient and practical tool for diagnosing this problem