393 research outputs found
Combating Nutrient Deficiency in Pakistan
To quantify the micronutrient deficiencies and their overtime
trends, food quantities reported to be consumed in HIES surveys data
during 1991-92 and 2011-12 are converted into major and micronutrients
using the FAO Food Composition Table for Pakistan. To see the impact of
different price and income support policies on micronutrient
consumption, nutrient demand elasticities are estimated for 2011-12 for
carbohydrates (energy), protein, calcium, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin
B1, vitamin B2, and Niacin. The Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS) is
applied to estimate the demand elasticities of the eight food groups
which are then converted into nutrient demand elasticities using the
transformation of Hunag (1996). On average, per capita consumptions of
almost all micronutrients are deficient compared to their respective
recommended levels. Our analysis suggest that income support to the poor
in Pakistan through programmes like BISP would have been much more
effective to eradicate nutrient deficiency, if deficient nutrient(s) are
targeted and support is provided to those foods having highest demand
elasticity for that nutrient. For example, the promotion of wheat and
other cereals are important to eradicate energy deficiency, and
promotion of vegetables, fruits, and milk are particularly important in
eradicating vitamin A, C and iron deficiencies. These commodities are
also high value crops for farmers, thus the price support in these crops
will also impact micronutrient consumption through income
effect
IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON ISLAMIC AND CONVENTIONAL STOCKS IN INDONESIA: A WAVELET-BASED STUDY
The recent literature shows that COVID-19 has impacted stock markets around the world in many ways. In this paper, we examine the reaction of the Indonesian stock market to COVID-19. We apply the continuous wavelet coherence methodology to daily COVID-19 related deaths and daily conventional and Islamic stock indices inIndonesia. We find that COVID-19 negatively impacts the returns of both indices and enhances their volatility. We find the Islamic stock index to be more volatile as compared to its conventional counterpart during the COVID-19 outbreak
Improved adaptive semi-unsupervised weighted oversampling (IA-SUWO) using sparsity factor for imbalanced datasets
The imbalanced data problem is common in data mining nowadays due to the skewed nature of data, which impact the classification process negatively in machine learning. For preprocessing, oversampling techniques significantly benefitted the imbalanced domain, in which artificial data is generated in minority class to enhance the number of samples and balance the distribution of samples in both classes. However, existing oversampling techniques encounter through overfitting and over-generalization problems which lessen the classifier performance. Although many clustering based oversampling techniques significantly overcome these problems but most of these techniques are not able to produce the appropriate number of synthetic samples in minority clusters. This study proposed an improved Adaptive Semi-unsupervised Weighted Oversampling (IA-SUWO) technique, using the sparsity factor which determine the sparse minority samples in each minority cluster. This technique consider the sparse minority samples which are far from the decision boundary. These samples also carry the important information for learning of minority class, if these samples are also considered for oversampling, imbalance ratio will be more reduce also it could enhance the learnability of the classifiers. The outcomes of the proposed approach have been compared with existing oversampling techniques such as SMOTE, Borderline-SMOTE, Safe-level SMOTE, and standard A-SUWO technique in terms of accuracy. As aforementioned, the comparative analysis revealed that the proposed oversampling approach performance increased in average by 5% from 85% to 90% than the existing comparative techniques
The Efficacy of Ivabradine Alone, Metoprolol Alone and Combination of Ivabradine and Metoprolol in Reducing Heart Rate Among Patients Undergoing Computed Tomography Coronary Angiography
Objectives: to determine the efficacy of Ivabradine alone, Metoprolol alone and Combination of Ivabradine and Metoprolol in reducing heart rate among patients undergoing Computed Tomography Coronary Angiography (CTCA). Methodology: it was a randomized controlled trial comprised of 200 patients. Patients undergoing CTCA having heart rates greater than 80 bpm were divided into three groups. Group A was given Ivabradine and a placebo, Group B received Metoprolol and placebo while Group C was administered with Ivabradine and Metoprolol an hour prior to the scan. The scan was carried under similar situations. Heart rate and variability was recorded before and during the scan. Results: The mean heart rate variability and mean reduction in heart rate of Group A was 3.13±1.01 and 19.02±2.05 respectively. The mean heart rate variability and mean reduction in heart rate of Group B was 4.27±1.08 and 12.11±2.45 respectively. While, the mean heart rate variability and mean reduction in heart rate of Group C was 1.88±0.42 and 25.03±2.74 respectively. Conclusion: Ivabradine is an effective and safe drug for reducing heart rate in patients having CTCA, especially among patients who are unable to tolerate calcium channel blockers and beta blockers owing to their side effects. Keywords: Ivabradine, Metoprolol, Computed tomography coronary angiography, heart rate reduction, heart rate variability
Hyperlipidemia Patterns in Newly Diagnosed Young Diabetic Patients
Objective: To analyze hyperlipidemia patterns among newly diagnosed young diabetic patients. Study Design: A descriptive cross-sectional study Place and Duration: Study was conducted in DHQ Teaching Hospital, DG Khan, Bahawal Victoria hospital, Bahawalpur, and Sheikh Zayd Hospital, Rahim Yar Khan from July 2017 to July 2018.Methodology: All the patients were young and newly diagnosed with Diabetes Mellitus. Data collection was done via non probability consecutive sampling included patients’ demographics, past medical history, co-morbidities, and lab findings were assessed. SPSS version 24 was used to analyze data. P value ≤ 0.05 was taken as significant.Results: Eighty patients were included in this study. Diabetic nephropathy, diabetic retinopathy, macrovascular complications, hyperglycemic hyperosmolar non-ketotic coma history, family history and hypertension were noted in n=12 (15%), n=6 (7.5%), n=9 (11.3%), n=1 (1.3%), n=34 (42.5%) and n=11 (13.8%) respectively. The mean hyperlipidemia, hypertriglyceridemia, of the patients was 4.54±0.52 mmol/L, 2.59±1.13 mmol/L, 1.39±0.80 mmol/L, 1.03±0.59 mmol/L respectively. Conclusion: the study has shown that the prevalence of increased levels of triglycerides is more than increased LDL cholesterol levels among these patients. As it has been established that hypertriglyceridemia is a known risk factor for causing cardiovascular disorders among diabetic patients, it should be addressed and managed accordingly at the onset of diabetes. Keywords: Hyperlipidemia, Diabetes Mellitus, low density lipoproteins, high density lipoproteins, insulin.
Baseline and On-Treatment High-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol and the Risk of Cancer in Randomized Controlled Trials of Lipid-Altering Therapy
ObjectivesWe sought to examine the relationship between high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) levels and the risk of the development of cancer in large randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of lipid-altering interventions.BackgroundEpidemiologic data demonstrate an inverse relationship between serum total cholesterol levels and incident cancer. We recently reported that lower levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol are associated with a significantly higher risk of incident cancer in a meta-analysis of large RCTs of statin therapy. However, little is known about the relationship between HDL-C levels and cancer risk.MethodsA systematic MEDLINE search identified lipid intervention RCTs with ≥1,000 person-years of follow-up, providing baseline HDL-C levels and rates of incident cancer. Using random-effects meta-regressions, we evaluated the relationship between baseline HDL-C and incident cancer in each RCT arm.ResultsA total of 24 eligible RCTs were identified (28 pharmacologic intervention arms and 23 control arms), with 625,477 person-years of follow-up and 8,185 incident cancers. There was a significant inverse association between baseline HDL-C levels and the rate of incident cancer (p = 0.018). The inverse association persisted after adjusting for baseline low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, age, body mass index (BMI), diabetes, sex, and smoking status, such that for every 10-mg/dl increment in HDL-C, there was a 36% (95% confidence interval: 24% to 47%) relatively lower rate of the development of cancer (p < 0.001).ConclusionsThere is a significant inverse association between HDL-C and the risk of incident cancer that is independent of LDL-C, age, BMI, diabetes, sex, and smoking
The Effect of Person-Environment Fit on Turnover Intentions of Employees with the Mediating Role of Job Satisfaction in Banking Sector of Pakistan
The aim of this study is to find the relationship between person-environment fit (person-job fit, person-supervisor fit, and person-organization) on turnover intention while considering job satisfaction as a mediating variable. The questionnaire based survey was conducted to collect the data for the study. The sample size of the study was 161 employees from 10 different banks of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. The results indicate a positive relationship between person-environment fit and job satisfaction while there is negative relationship between person-environment fit and turnover intention. Person-environment fit has a positive relationship with job satisfaction and job satisfaction has a negative relationship with turnover intention. It was also seen that job satisfaction mediates the relationship between person environment fit and turnover intention. Keywords: Job Satisfaction (JS), Person-Environment Fit (PEF), Person-Job Fit (PJF), Person-Organization Fit (POF), Person-Supervisor Fit (PSF), Turnover Intentions (TI
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