Assessing Water Charges under Changing Institutional Irrigation Management in Pakistan: A Methodological Framework

The Government of Pakistan has opted for institutional reforms for canal irrigation system of the country with a view to undertaking efficient operation and maintenance of the system and improving cost recovery. In the new reforms, the Farmers’ Organisations will manage distributaries and minors and pay the cost of upstream water in full. The complex hierarchy of the system poses serious challenges for working out the cost of water delivery for various channels. The paper presents a methodological framework for assessing the recoverable O&M costs from the farmers benefiting from an irrigation network. Hakra 4-R Distributary in the Eastern Sadiqia Canal serves as an illustration. The methodology shows how the beneficiary farmers can share the costs of the system. Simple methods are provided for working out water rates on the basis of volume of water received, commanded area, and duration of the irrigation turn. Out of the three methods, the area-based and time-based water rates have comparative advantage over the volumetric water rates owing to the resource endowments of the farmers.

Drying and Milling Cost Functions of Paddy: Empirical Estimates for Government Processing Complexes in Malaysia

In this paper, the statistical cost function approach was used to model the drying and milling cost for government paddy/rice processing complexes in Malaysia. The quadratic and inverse cost [unctions were estimated. The results suggest that there exists cost economies at relatively high output levels for both the drying and milling operations. Examination of output data indicates that a large number of government paddy mills operate at low outputs, with cost economies unexploited

WOMEN EMPOWERMENT, MICROFINANCE AND POVERTY NEXUS: AN EMPIRICAL ESTIMATION PERSPECTIVE

Deprivation and poverty are worldwide challenges for poorer countries. Poor people especially women were excluded from financial services until microfinance institutions (MFIs) emerged. During the past few decades microcredit has enjoyed tremendous growth and women continue to be the major beneficiaries. The main objective of this study is to check weather microfinance helped women to attain decent work and strengthen their empowerment or not. This study is based on primary data and respondents were taken from First Microfinance Bank. A sample of 125 respondents was taken through simple random sampling. The study area was Faisalabad.SPSS 22 software was used for analysis. Logit model was applied to get and analyze results. Results showed significant positive relationship between women empowerment and different socio-economic independent variables i.e. income, investment, self-confidence, free movement. All the variables are statistically significant other than education. It is cleared that women enjoy more freedom, self-confidence and learn more skills to enhance their income. By investing in people and empowering individual women and men with education and generation of equal opportunities can create the conditions to allow the poor to break out of the poverty

The social mobility challenges faced by young muslims

Young Muslims face the 'broken promise of social mobility': compared to other groups, their improved success in education at all levels does not translate into good labour market outcomes. Despite their educational gains, Muslims experience the greatest economic disadvantages of any group in UK society. They are more likely than non-Muslims to experience neighbourhood deprivation, housing, educational and health disadvantage, and unemployment. This qualitative report explores the attitudes and reasons behind this situation. It offers an account of young Muslims’ perceptions of growing up and seeking work in the UK. The report is designed to contribute to a better understanding of the causes of low social mobility for young Muslims. Drawing on the perceptions of young Muslims (through focus groups and interviews) and of key stakeholders (through a three-stage Delphi survey) the research sought evidence on: • The barriers young Muslims see to social mobility in the UK – in particular, why educational gains are not translating into employment gains for young Muslims. • How these perceptions differ depending on gender, ethnicity, socio-economic background and different forms of educational participation

Assessment of Serum Lipid and Uric Acid Levels in Women with Normal Pregnancy and Pre-Eclampsia

OBJECTIVES: To determine and compare the serum lipid profile and uric acid concentration in pre-eclamptic and normal pregnant women. METHODOLOGY: This cross sectional study was carried out at Biochemistry Department, LUMHS Jamshoro with the collaboration of Gynaecology and Obstetrics Department and Diagnostic & Research Laboratory, Pathology Department, LUMHS Jamshoro from March 2016 to December 2016. Patients were selected via non-probability consecutive sampling. A total of 60 subjects were enrolled and divided into two groups comprising women with normal pregnancy(n=30) as controls and women with pre-eclampsia (n=30) as cases after applying exclusion criteria. RESULTS: Mean age of women with pre-eclampsia and normal pregnancy was found to be 26.77±2.58 and 26.30±2.05 years (p-value=0.44). Significantly higher levels (p-value < 0.05) of triglycerides (TG), total cholesterol (TC), low density lipoproteins (LDL) and serum uric acid were found in the women with pre-eclampsia as compared to controls; whereas, high density lipoproteins (HDL) were significantly lowered (p-value < 0.05) in women with pre-eclampsia. Uni-variate analysis showed that the TG (OR=7.67), TC (OR=3 and 5.55), LDL (OR=3.59) and uric acid (OR=11.23) were significantly increased and HDL (OR= 9.75) were significantly lowered in women with pre-eclampsia than in women with normal pregnancy (p-value < 0.05). In the multi-variate logistic model, TG (OR=4.28) and uric acid (OR=6.62) were significantly increased and HDL (OR= 4.31)were significantly lowered in women with pre-eclampsia than in women with normal pregnancy (p-value<0.05) CONCLUSION: Alteration in the serum uric acid and TG concentration may be helpful in early detection and monitoring of pre-eclampsia cases. This information may be utilized in preventing the adverse outcomes occurring as a result of pre-eclampsia

Effects of salinity and water quality parameters on the breeding and larva rearing of black molly Poecilia sphenops in laboratory condition

A study was conducted to determine the effects of salinities (0, 3 and 6 PSU) and other water quality parameters on the breeding and larva rearing of black molly Poecilia sphenops (Valenciennes 1846) under laboratory condition. Each treatment was carried out in triplicates. Results showed that water salinity of 6 PSU represented the highest breeding success compared to salinities of 0 and 3 PSU. Nevertheless, no significant differences (p > 0.05) were observed at these three salinities for fry production in captivity. Moreover no significant differences were observed in weight increment when salinity raised from 3 to 6 PSU, however, these two treatments differed significantly when compared with 0 PSU. The survival rate was not significantly varied in comparison with 0 PSU. The highest total length increment was found at water salinity of 6 PSU followed by 0 and 3 PSU. Results on water quality parameters denoted no significant differences (p > 0.05) for all treatments except on ammonia (NH3) rates. The highest ammonia level was found at 0 PSU followed by 3 and 6 PSU. The findings of the present study suggested to culture black molly (P. sphenops) in a slight saline condition from 3 to 6 PSU

Genotypic detection of rifampicin and isoniazid resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains by DNA sequencing: a randomized trial

Correction to Genotypic detection of rifampicin and isoniazid resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains by DNA sequencing: a randomized trial Amina Abdelaal, Hassan Abd El-Ghaffar, Mohammad Hosam Eldeen Zaghloul, Noha El mashad, Ehab Badran, Amal Fathy Annals of Clinical Microbiology and Antimicrobials 2009, 8:4 (30 January 2009

Effects of temperature on food consumption of juveniles dog conch, Laevistrombus canarium (Linnaeus, 1758) in laboratory condition

The dog conch, Laevistrombus canarium (Linnaeus, 1758) is one of the economically important marine molluscs that have high market value, particularly in the Southeast Asian region. This study investigates food consumption and assimilation by the juvenile conch at different temperature regimes (22, 26, 30 and 34°C). Live samples of the juvenile conch were collected on several occasions between December 2013 to May 2105 at Merambong shoal, Johor Straits, Malaysia. They were acclimatized for one week in stocking aquaria with well-aerated seawater at 30 PSU, 26°C and fed with commercial marine sinking pellets. Prior to experimentation, the gastric emptying levels of the samples were standardized by allowing them to feed until satiation, followed by 24 hrs starvation. All treatments were carried out in ten replicates of similar sized aquarium (20 x 15 x 15 cm) containing 4L of aerated seawater. The conch food consumption rate was significantly different (p<0.05) between different temperature regimes. The food absorption efficiency was also affected by different temperature regimes (P<0.05), and ranged between 50.14% to 73.76%. The food energy absorbed were then calculated, which showed significant variations between temperatures (P<0.05). Based on these calculations, higher food consumption and assimilation were recorded at 26°C followed by 30, 34 and 22°C. Results from this study allow us to predict the optimal temperature regimes (26°C) for the culture of these marine sea snail L. canarium. Further studies are indeed, needed to provide a better insight on the effect of climate change parameters on these species

an improved authentication scheme for remote data access and sharing over cloud storage in cyber physical social systems

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Weight Prediction for Fishes in Setiu Wetland, Terengganu, using Machine Learning Regression Model

Predicting fish weight holds several essential implications in ecology, such as population assessment, trophic interactions within ecosystems, biodiversity studies of fish communities, ecosystem modelling, habitat evaluation for different fish species, climate change research, and support fisheries management practices. The objective of the studies is to analyse the prediction performance of machine learning (ML) regression models by applying different statistical analysis techniques. This study collected biometric measurements (total length and body weight) for 19 fish families from three locations in Setiu Wetland, Terengganu, captured between 2011 and 2012. The study adopts two regression types: Linear Regression (i.e., Multiple Linear, Lasso, and Ridge model) and Tree-based Regression (i.e., Decision Tree, Random Forest, and XGBoost model). Mean absolute error (MAE), root-mean-square error (RMSE), and coefficient of determination (R2) were used to evaluate performance. The results showed that the proposed ML regression models successfully predicted fish weight in Setiu Wetlands, and the Tree-based Regression model provides more accurate prediction results than the Linear Regression model. As a result, Random Forest is the best predictive model out of the six suggested ML regressions, with the highest accuracy at 96.1% and the lowest RMSE and MAE scores at 3.352 and 0.880, respectively. In conclusion, the use of machine learning is crucial for rapid, precise, and cost-effective fish weight measurement. By incorporating weight prediction into ecological research and management practices, we may make informed decisions supporting the conservation and sustainable use of fish populations and their habitats