Towards Divine Economics: Some Testable Propositions

Throughout the human history, the religion has remained a fundamental feature of social construct and human behaviour. Religious orientation plays important role in shaping human perceptions about economic and non-economic activities. With few exceptions, religion has remained an un-explored area in economics. For most economists, narrative and metaphor have no place in a rational choice theory, which is a wrong belief. In fact, any approach that considers behavioural laws satisfying the criteria of objectivity, reproducibility, and refutability is scientific and falls in purview of rational choice framework. A few studies, however, do exist on economics of religion under rational choice concerning to households, groups, and entire “religious markets”. [Becker (1976); Iannaccone (1988, 1990, 1992, 1993); Mack and Leigland (1992)]. Rosenberg (1985) presents discussion of the limitations of neoclassical economic theory due to its reliance on exogenous differences in taste and preference. It is argued that these limitations cannot be circumvented by findings and theories in other disciplines (e.g., psychology), because any measurement of preferences must begin with neoclassical assumptions about rationality. The alternative to tasteendogeniety advanced by [Becker (1976)] is found to only circumvent the usual difficulties if “stable preferences” notion is interpreted as needs. Further advancement is not taking place because of the important heterogeneous variables, which have yet received little attention from economists. Such variables may be found in attitudes and values acquired by consumers in variety of social and religious environments.

Earthquake 2005: Some Implications for Environment and Human Capital

Loss of human capital in the form of skills and experiences is one of the outcomes of any natural hazard such as earthquake, drought, famine, and floods. Generally such losses have many implications for further growth of individuals, communities and nations. Disaster management and risk assessment has established a new need to constitute a paradigm of planning frameworks to develop modules for dealing with interactive rehabilitation and reconstruction activities. However, such management still lacks due attention in perspective of the remedy of human capital loss particularly in environmental management. This paper discusses the post-disaster situations with respect to human capital flow and stock losses and some of their implications and suggests some measures to apply in the earthquake-affected areas of Azad Kashmir and NWFP.

COMPERIOSN OF CARDI-VASCULAR ENDURANCE AND SPEED IN URBAN AND RURAL FEMALE STUDENTS OF BAHAUDDIN ZAKARIYA UNIVERSITY PAKISTAN

The study was under taken with the intension of comparing selected physical fitness component in urban and rural female students of BAHAUDDIN ZAKARIYA UNIVERSITY PAKISTAN prominent university in of south Punjab. The selected variables for this study were cardiovascular `endurance and speed. Total subject of 72 female students among them 36 from the urban area of south Punjab district Multan and 36 from the rural area of same district were selected from random sampling technique from the various department of the university. Descriptive Statistics and Independent ‘t’ test were employed using SPSS-19 software. Harvard Step Test and 60 Meter Sprint test were used to collect the required data. Findings show that the urban girls are good in endurance and speed from the rural students result of this findings are unique and shows that the cultural, social and religious differences have a great impact on the physical fitness of females in Pakistan

Study of Philanthropic Behaviour in Divine Economics Framework

Philanthropic Behaviour

Framework for Assessing Information System Security Posture Risks

In today’s data-driven world, Information Systems, particularly the ones operating in regulated industries, require comprehensive security frameworks to protect against loss of confidentiality, integrity, or availability of data, whether due to malice, accident or otherwise. Once such a security framework is in place, an organization must constantly monitor and assess the overall compliance of its systems to detect and rectify any issues found. This thesis presents a technique and a supporting toolkit to first model dependencies between security policies (referred to as controls) and, second, devise models that associate risk with policy violations. Third, devise algorithms that propagate risk when one or more policies are found to be non-compliant and fourth, propose a technique that evaluates the overall security posture risk of a system as a function of the non-compliant policies, the affected policies, and the time elapsed since these policy violations discovered but not have been mitigated yet. More specifically, the approach is based on modeling the dependencies between the different controls in the NIST 800.53 framework by compiling a dependency multi-graph, devising a fuzzy-reasoning-based risk assessment technique that traverses the dependency multi-graph and assigns an overall security exposure risk score when one or more controls fail, and finally a technique for identifying the strategies an attacker can use, given the failed controls, and for which an organization should defend itself. This approach allows organizations to obtain a bird’s-eye view of their Information Systems’ cyber security posture and help triage the security control checks by focusing on the most vulnerable parts of their Information System ecosystem

Study of Philanthropic Behaviour in Divine Economics Framework

Unfortunately, religious behaviour has been viewed by economists in terms of “Islamic economics,” “Christian economics”, etc. [Iannaccone (1986)]. Hence there has been a dichotomy prevailing between religious economic frameworks and the conventional rational choice theory.1 Whereas the conventional economists tried a variety of models to estimate the relationship between wages and time allocated to market labour supply but found that results mostly do not speak of the real world situation [Deaton (1980)]. The underlying reason was supposed to be faith and values which have strong effect on labour supply decisions [Pencavel (1986)]. The philanthropic behaviour relates to labour supply decisions directly through time allocated to voluntary services or indirectly through time allocated for earning and then donations out of these. It is observed that the variables of economic importance especially those relating to household resource allocation or labour supply decisions seem to be present in religious affiliation of individuals, their values and their perceptions about life before and after death as believed by the followers of divine religions which account for about two thirds of the world population

Establishment of health related physical fitness evaluation system for school adolescents aged 12–16 in Pakistan: a cross-sectional study

BackgroundThe decline in adolescent physical fitness is a significant global public health concern, and Pakistan is no exception. The country’s absence of a health-related physical fitness (HRPF) evaluation system has compounded this issue. To bridge this gap, this study aims to develop a scientifically-based HRPF evaluation system for the adolescent population that meets international standards. The evaluation system identifies at-risk children and improves adolescent health outcomes, including obesity, cardiovascular and musculoskeletal disorders, chronic diseases, and psychological illnesses, through crucial physical fitness evaluation. This study specifically aims to establish an HRPF evaluation system for school adolescents aged 12–16 in Pakistan.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted among 2,970 school adolescents aged 12–16 years in the South Punjab, Pakistan. The study used a stratified sampling technique to select participants. The HRPF evaluation system included four components: cardiorespiratory endurance, core muscular endurance, muscular strength, and body composition. Data were collected through standardized tests and anthropometric measurements.ResultsThe study’s results indicated that the HRPF evaluation scoring system was feasible and valid for evaluating the HRPF of school adolescents in the South Punjab region of Pakistan. The results of the evaluation system categorized participants into five groups based on their performance: excellent (6.2%), good (24.9%), medium (50.7%), poor (17%), and very poor (1.2%).ConclusionThe study establishes an HRPF evaluation system for Pakistani school adolescents. This system lays the foundation for implementing effective strategies to improve their physical health. The findings offer valuable insights to policymakers, health professionals, and educators, enabling them to promote fitness and devise impactful interventions for enhancing HRPF in this population

Effect Of Direct Teaching Method On The Academic Achievement Of High And Low Achievers In The Subject Of English At The Secondary Level

The major objective of the study was to determine the role of the direct teaching method in the academic achievement of students in English at the secondary level. To achieve the said objective, the Solomon Four-Design pre-test/post-test equivalent group design was considered to be the most useful design for this study. The pre-test was used to measure the achievement. The pre-test was used only to equate the control and experimental groups. Thus, the Solomon four-group design was applied for treatment of the data. The experimental group was taught by the direct method, while the control group was taught by the traditional method for a period of six weeks. At the end of the treatment, a post-test was administered and scores of pre-test and post-test were served as data for the study. Applying t-test and analysis of variance tested to know the significance of difference between the scores of groups at 0.05 levels. After analyzing the secured data it was concluded that the direct teaching method was more effective as a teaching-learning technique for English compared to the traditional teaching method. Students in the direct teaching method outscored the students working in the traditional learning situation. Low achievers in the direct teaching showed significant superiority over low achievers learning English by the traditional method. Thus, direct teaching was found to be a more effective method for quality teaching of English to the low achievers as compared to the traditional method of teaching. High achievers, whether they were taught English by the direct or traditional method, retained learned material at the same rate. Low achievers who were taught English by the direct method retained more material as compared to low achievers taught by traditional method of teaching

Earthquake 2005: Some Implications for Environment and Human Capital

Loss of human capital in the form of skills and experiences is one of the outcomes of any natural hazard such as earthquake, drought, famine, and floods. Generally such losses have many implications for further growth of individuals, communities and nations. Disaster management and risk assessment has established a new need to constitute a paradigm of planning frameworks to develop modules for dealing with interactive rehabilitation and reconstruction activities. However, such management still lacks due attention in perspective of the remedy of human capital loss particularly in environmental management. This paper discusses the post-disaster situations with respect to human capital flow and stock losses and some of their implications and suggests some measures to apply in the earthquake-affected areas of Azad Kashmir and NWFP