Trends and Determinants of Rural Poverty: A Logistic Regression Analysis of Selected Districts of Punjab

Poverty is widespread in the rural areas, where the people are in a state of human deprivation with regard to incomes, clothing, housing, health care, education, sanitary facilities and human rights. Nearly 61 percent of the country’s populations live in rural areas. In Pakistan poverty has been increased in rural areas and is higher than urban areas. Of the total rural population 65 percent are directly or indirectly linked with agriculture sector. In Pakistan more than 44.8 percent people generate their income from agriculture sector, and the higher rate of increase in poverty in the rural areas has provoked debate on growth and productivity trends in the agriculture sector. Therefore, it is the need of the hour to determine such factors which affect the poverty status of a rural household. Utilising unique IFPRI (International Food Policy Research Institute) panel data together with sub-sample of PRHS (Pakistan Rural Household Survey) for two districts of Punjab (Attock and Faisalabad) the present study aim at analysing and estimating the rural poverty trends and determinants of rural poverty from the late 1980s to 2002. The data was analysed by using binary logistic model and head count measure. The results show that the chance of a household tripping to poverty increased due to increase in household size, dependency ratio, while, education, value of livestock, remittances and farming decreased the likelihood of being a poor. Moreover, the socio-economic opportunities as represented by the availability of infrastructure in the residential region also play a significant role in the level of poverty faced by a household. This study makes a modest contribution by attempting to analyse the need for focusing on anti-poverty policies, which can nip the evil in the bud.Rural Poverty, Poverty Trends, Agriculture Growth, Determinants

Trends and Determinants of Rural Poverty: A Logistic Regression Analysis of Selected Districts of Punjab

Poverty has many dimensions, like malnourishment, no shelter, being ill and not having ability to visit a doctor, no facility to go to school, unemployment, uncertainty of tomorrow, surviving only one day at a time. Poverty is losing a kid to illness due to the infected water. Powerlessness, lack of representation and freedom is another name of poverty. Poverty is of many types varying from place to place and time to time, and, has been portrayed in various manners. Poverty is the “incapability to maintain a minimum living standard anticipated with respect to basic consumption needs or some amount of income required for satisfying them [World Bank (2006)]. The bulk of the global poor are rural and will linger on thus for numerous decades. The major portion of their expenditure is generally on staple food. They have little assets such as land and others, lack of schooling and face lots of interconnecting obstacles to develop. Approximately 1.2 billion people globally expend less than a standard; “dollara- day”; and are in “dollar poverty”; 44 percent in South Asia about 24 percent each in Sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia and 32 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean. Almost 75 percent of the dollar poor lived and worked in rural areas in 2001. Projection made in 2001 suggested that 60 percent would continue to be in this state in 2005 [IFAD (2001)]. Pakistan’s population is estimated at around 155 million, and is growing at 1.9 percent per annum. Nearly 61 percent of the country’s populations live in rural areas. While 65 percent of the rural population is directly or indirectly linked with agriculture sector, it constitutes only 45 percent of their income [Pakistan (2006)]. According to the official statistics, poverty in the rural areas has gone down form 39 percent in 2001-02 to 28 percent in 2005-06. [Pakistan (2006)]. However, some studies have contradicted these contentions and argue that in contrast, the rural poverty has remained unchanged or even been trending higher over this period or at least not decreased as much as shown in official statistics. [Kemal (2003); Malik (2005); World Bank (2006); Anwar (2006)]

Molecular switch model for cardiomyocyte proliferation

This review deals with the human adult cardiomyocyte proliferation as a potential source for heart repair after injury. The mechanism to regain the proliferative capacity of adult cardiomyocytes is a challenge. However, recent studies are promising in showing that the \u27locked\u27 cell cycle of adult cardiomyocytes could be released through modulation of cell cycle checkpoints. In support of this are the signaling pathways of Notch, Hippo, Wnt, Akt and Jak/Stat that facilitate or inhibit the transition at cell cycle checkpoints. Cyclins and cyclin dependant kinases (CDKs) facilitate this transition which in turn is regulated by inhibitory action of pocket protein e.g. p21, p27 and p57. Transcription factors e.g. E2F, GATA4, TBx20 up regulate Cyclin A, A2, D, E, and CDK4 as promoters of cell cycle and Meis-1 and HIF-1 alpha down regulate cyclin D and E to inhibit the cell cycle. Paracrine factors like Neuregulin-1, IGF-1 and Oncostatin M and Extracellular Matrix proteins like Agrin have been involved in cardiomyocyte proliferation and dedifferentiation processes. A molecular switch model is proposed that transforms the post mitotic cell into an actively dividing cell. This model shows how the cell cycle is regulated through on- and off switch mechanisms through interaction of transcription factors and signaling pathways with proteins of the cell cycle checkpoints. Signals triggered by injury may activate the right combination of the various pathways that can \u27switch on\u27 the proliferation signals leading to myocardial regeneration

Is biological repair of heart on the horizon?

The stem cells keep us young by endogenously repairing us upon need. They do so bysmartly one step forward towards differentiation while another step backward to nurturethe undifferentiated stem cells. They are building blocks for every organ witha differential rate of repair of worn out tissues. Since stem cells can be cultured with a normal karyo type, they could be the ideal source for heart repair after myocardial infarction. As opposed to lower vertebrates and neonatal mice, cardiac regeneration in adult mammalian heart seems to be difficult to assess with a solid evidence of cytokinesis. It becomes more difficult to quantify the level of regeneration after myocardial infarction injury against a background of a large invasion of proliferating inflammatory cells. The question to beraised is how the renewal of a piece of myocardium follows the time line of picking upcell types in series: cardiomyocytes, endothelial cells, smooth muscle cells, fibroblast, pacemaker cells, conducting and Purkinje cells to bring the orchestration of rhythmically contracting and relaxing heart. This review focuses on where we are onthe status of heart repair and cardiac regeneration

Papillary thyroid carcinoma formation in a thyroglossal cyst. A case report

Thyroglossal cyst rarely presents with carcinoma formation in the remnants of the thyroid gland. We report a 40 year old male with papillary thyroid carcinoma formation in a thyroglossal cyst. The patient underwent surgical intervention for the cyst. His pathology was positive for thyroid carcinoma and he underwent complete thyroidectomy with postoperative radioactive iodine treatment. His follow up revealed no evidence of recurrence

Experimental Investigation of the Effects of Hydrogen Addition with Diesel on Performance and Emission of a Single Cylinder Diesel Engine

Need of the hour in present day scenario is to cope with energy crisis and human life in India and around the globe which is associated with depletion in the percentage of petroleum products and increase in the share of pollution caused due to emissions from diesel operated engines. This work tries to address these two major concern with the use of alternative fuel for diesel engine .A lot of research is going on the use of alternative and innovative fuels in the word, among those one of the most promising alternative ought to be hydrogen for being a clean and non carbon in nature. However various ongoing researches shown hydrogen blending to be proved to show positive effect on performance and emission of a diesel engine, which has to be carried forwarded. In this work a flow rate of 4 lpm, 6 lpm and 8 lpm respectively blend of hydrogen proportion where used along which diesel at loading at a constant speed of 1500 rpm to determine various engine performance parameters such as brake thermal efficiency, brake specific fuel consumption ,brake power, indicated thermal efficiency, mechanical efficiency, volumetric efficiency, torque output and power output. along with these various emission parameters such as percentage of CO,HC ,NOx gas temperature with varying blend proportion are also observed and compared

Homogeneous Gold Catalysis through Relativistic Effects: Addition of Water to Propyne

In the catalytic addition of water to propyne the Au(III) catalyst is not stable under non-relativistic conditions and dissociates into a Au(I) compound and Cl2. This implies that one link in the chain of events in the catalytic cycle is broken and relativity may well be seen as the reason why Au(III) compounds are effective catalysts.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

Dimethylaminomethylene-α-D-xylo-hept-5-ulofuranurononitrile as building block in the synthesis of 'reversed' C-nucleoside analogues

3-O-Benzyl-6-deoxy-1,2-O-isopropylidene-6-(dimethylaminomethylene) -α-D-xylo-hept-5-ulofuranurononitrile (1) was reacted with amidinium salts, S-methylisothiouronium sulfate, and guanidinium chloride, respectively, in the presence of bases to furnish the 4-(3-O-benzyl-1,2-O-isopropylidene- α-D-xylo-tetrofuranos-4-yl)pyrimidine-5-carbonitriles 2 and the 4-(1,2-O-isopropylidene-α-D-glycero-tetr-3-enofuranos-4-yl) pyrimidine-5-carbonitriles 3, respectively. Treatment of 1 with ethyl 5-aminopyrazole-4-carboxylates yielded the ethyl 7-(3-O-benzyl-1,2-O- isopropylidene-α-D-xylo-tetrofuranos-4-yl)-6-cyanopyrazolo[1,5-a] pyrimidine-3-carboxylates 4 and the ethyl 7-amino-6-(3-O-benzyl-1,2-O- isopropylidene-α-D-xylo-pentofuranuronoyl)pyrazolo[1,5-a] pyrimidine-3-carboxylates 5, respectively. Reaction of 1 with 2-benzimidazolylacetonitrile in the presence of sodium methanolate afforded 1-amino-2-(3-O-benzyl-1,2-O-isopropylidene-α-D-xylo-pentofuranuronoyl) benzo[4,5]imidazo[1,2-a]pyridine-4-carbonitrile (6) and 1-amino-2-(3-deoxy-1,2- O-isopropylidene-α-D-glycero-pent-S-enofuranuronoyl)benzo[4,5]imidazo[1, 2-a]pyridine-4-carbonitrile (7). © 2006 Verlag der Zeitschrift für Naturforschung