Do local and global macroeconomic variables help forecast volatility of Pakistani stock market?

Emerging markets are characterized by higher volatility and higher associated returns as compared to developed markets. The excessive volatility in emerging markets is often considered a result of inherent instability and unpredictability of country’s political, institutional and macroeconomic environment. Increasing globalization and integration of financial markets imply that volatility of emerging markets may also be affected by global macroeconomic and business conditions. We investigate this issue for an emerging market namely Pakistan. An important objective of this research is to provide empirical evidence on whether local and global macroeconomic variables help forecast volatility of this market over and above the GARCH models which predict volatility on the basis of past shocks and past accumulated variance. Using monthly data over the post liberalization period from early 1990 to 2010 we show that global variables have higher explanatory power to affect Pakistani stock market volatility compared to the global information variables

From Stalemate towards Settlement: Afghan Peace Process

United States and Taliban’s complicated relations date back to 9/11, when Taliban had provided refuge to alleged attackers of the terrific attacks. After that, series of atrocities committed by both sides and then finally in 2013, an effort was made to have informal presence of Taliban in Qatar, but the idea rejected by Karzai government. After that, two meetings were held in Urumqi and Murree, these meeting were between the representatives of Afghan government and Taliban, United States attended the meeting as an observer. The peace process halted after the news of death of Mullah Omar just the day before second round of Murree progress, because his death triggered uncertainty in the peace process. The peace process was renewed in 2018 when United States shared table with Taliban, the peace process was moving relatively smooth until the recent meeting which was scheduled in Qatar on 9th and 10th January 2019. It was canceled by Taliban leaders over the disagreement on the agenda of that meeting. Taliban have some demands, including the withdrawal of foreign troops, release of Taliban prisoners, change of constitution, to remove the name of Taliban leaders from UNSC list and the permission to have political presence in Qatar. United States now wants to get rid of Afghanistan and to make the peace process Afghan-led and Afghan-owned, to which Taliban are reluctant. The continued efforts of US and the current uncertain situation are apparently leading to no possible consensus among the adversaries in near future. It seems that this continued uncertainty will ultimately lead to chaos in Afghanistan, because of diversity and war-prone nature of the country

US Foreign Policy towards Iran under Obama and Trump Administration

This article has analyzed the foreign policy of America towards Iran since WWII. It has also described the dramatic shift in American behavior and policies towards Iran after 1979 with great emphasis on Obama and Trump presidency. Obama administration tried to break the ice and somehow successfully accomplished the most difficult task; bringing Iran on the table for nuclear deal P5+1. This paper deals with Obama’s policies during his first and second term and how Trump reviews whatever was done by Obama with special focus on JCPOA. The concerns of the United States’ allies and Trump’s reckless behavior are creating so many problems for Iranian people and the investors. If America will not pay heed on what she is missing, Iran will have to incline towards anti-US stance

The Impact of Trade Liberalisation on Wage Inequality: Case of Pakistan.

This paper examines whether trade liberalisation played a role in shaping the wage structure of Pakistan in the late 1990s and early 2000. It uses manufacturing workers data from LFS supplemented by external information to analyse the impact of trade liberalisation. In general, the results show that trade liberalisation, measured through import penetration ratio, export penetration ratio and relative prices of each industry, not only impacted wages but also increased wage inequality across skill levels from 1996-97 to 2005-06. The econometrics analysis confirms that increase in import penetration raises skilled premium while simultaneously reducing unskilled premium; a result in contention with the findings of the Stolper-Sameulson Theorem

Minimalist Perspective on Legal Communication: A Case Study of English to Urdu Translation of Punjab Laws

Syntactic choices and complexity reduction make translation communicative for the readers. This paper underscores the syntactic choices as well as complexity reduction in Urdu translation of Punjab laws in English. The study focuses on legal communication in a minimalistic perspective. It draws upon the theory of minimalism proposed by Chomsky (1993), along with the three-stage model by Nida and Taber (1969). Data is analyzed by employing Burton’s (2021) clausal analysis. The legal data used for the research comprises Punjab laws in English and their Urdu translation. The findings reveal minimalism as a useful strategy in the translation process for reducing structure complexity and making the translation understandable to laypeople. The study is beneficial to English-Urdu translators since it instructs them on how to make their translations communicative, especially when dealing with legal texts. It is also useful for academics in the field of Translation Studies who are working on minimalist views.Keywords: minimalism, complexity reduction, legal translation, syntactic choices, communication

A Hybrid Gold’s Returns Prediction Model Based on Empirical Mode Decomposition

Consumers have produced extraordinary levels of demand of Gold since the beginning of the financial crisis in 2008 and investment in small coins and bars striking a record high. Since the previous decade, the prices have reached the sky, but the demand for gold remains firm. With such an enormous need for gold coming from whole over the globe, forecast gold prices are of great interest. The main aim of this study is to forecast the price of gold returns, making use of Autoregressive (AR), Empirical Mode Decomposition Autoregressive (EMDAR) and hybrid Empirical Mode Decomposition Autoregressive Neural Network (EMDARNN). The daily data consists of 4837 observations starting from Jan 1995 to June 2013, has been used in this research. After assessing the accuracy of these models by mean absolute error and mean square error, it turns out that hybrid Empirical Mode Decomposition Autoregressive Neural Network excels all the other methods and produces better forecasting with high precision. Keywords: Gold Price, Autoregressive, Empirical Mode decomposition, Artificial Neural Networ

Association of Interleukin-8 Levels with the Development of Uterine Leiomyomas

AbstractObjective: To find out the relationship between Uterine Leiomyoma and IL-8 levels.Methodology: A cross sectional study was conducted on a sample of 100 females (age ranging from25-50 years) including 50 ultrasound confirmed cases of uterine leiomyomas and 50 healthy controlsfor a duration of 6 months. Levels of plasma IL-8 were measured by ELISA technique.Results: Irregular menstrual cycle was reported in about 44% of cases and 11% of controls. Meannumber of fibroids in females was two. 54% of women were found to have small (<2cm) sized fibroidswhile 46% had large sized fibroids. Out of these 78% were intramural and 22% were sub-serosal typeof fibroids. Plasma levels of IL-8 were positively correlated (p=0.001) with Uterine Leiomyomas.Conclusion: IL-8 levels are significantly higher in patients with uterine leiomyomas depicting apositive correlation between IL-8 and the development of fibroids. However, further studies arerequired to better understand the role of IL-8 in the development of fibroids.Keywords: Uterine Leiomyoma; IL-8, Risk Factor

Hepatocellular carcinoma in Native South Asian Pakistani population; trends, clinico-pathological characteristics & differences in viral marker negative & viral-hepatocellular carcinoma

Background HCC is the fifth most common cancer globally. Our study was conducted to (1)investigate the trends and clinico-pathological characteristics of Hepatocellular carcinoma among native South Asian patients in Pakistan, (2)to estimate the prevalence as well as the trends of viral marker negative HCC and (3) to compare the clinico-pathological, radiological characteristics, applicability of treatment at diagnosis and prognostic factors among patients with both viral marker negative and viral marker positive-HCC being consulted at Aga Khan University Hospital(AKUH), Karachi, Pakistan. Method Patients ≥18 years, already diagnosed to have HCC and visiting AKUH during 1999–2009 were identified using ICD code 1550. The diagnosis of HCC was made in the presence of characteristic features of HCC on triple-phasic CT scan/MRI or with histological findings on biopsy. Results 645 patients were enrolled. Of these 546(84.7%) were viral-HCC and 99(15.3%) were viral marker negative HCC. Among viral-HCC group underlying etiology of cirrhosis was HCV in 67.9%, HBV in 21.8% and concomitant HBV with HCV or HDV in 10.3% cases. Majority (62.8%) patients had advanced HCC. Larger tumor size (p \u3c 0.001), shorter duration between diagnosis of cirrhosis and HCC (p 0.03), concomitant Diabetes Mellitus (p \u3c 0.001) were found significant factors associated with viral marker negative HCC. Conclusion The burden of hepatocellular carcinoma is rising among native South Asian Pakistani population and the viral marker negative HCC are not uncommon in our population. Viral marker negative HCC tend not to be under surveillance as compared to viral-HCC and are diagnosed mostly at advanced stage & when they became symptomatic

Awareness of stroke risk factors, signs and treatment in a Pakistani population

OBJECTIVE: To assess the level of awareness in the general public on risk factors, symptomatology and immediate treatment of stroke.METHOD: A cross sectional study was conducted in a sample of subjects visiting a tertiary care university hospital by means of a self-designed questionnaire. The study period extended between May and June, 2007.RESULTS: A total of 398 individuals were surveyed. Hypertension (69.1%) and stress (55.8%) were identified as two major risk factors for stroke. Among them 50.8% identified Brain as the principal organ involved in stroke out of which 78.2% of the response came from people whose level of education was intermediate-and-above. Around 13% of the study respondents did not know of any risk factor for stroke, while 11.6% of the study respondents didn\u27t know about the alarming signs of stroke. The most frequent response (26.16%) to immediate management of stroke was to take the individual to Emergency Department/hospital. In all 56% reported that basic information about stroke was given to them by friend/relative.CONCLUSIONS: The overall awareness of the study population regarding stroke was shown to be inadequate by this study. Knowledge was significantly greater in participants of younger age and a higher level of education

Antenatal Magnesium Sulfate for Preterm Neuroprotection: A Single-Center Experience from Kuwait Tertiary NICU

Objectives: The study aimed to evaluate the impact of antenatal exposure of magnesium sulfate (MgSO4) on short- and long-term outcomes in preterm neonates born less than 32 weeks gestation. Methods: Single-center retrospective cohort study of 229 neonates born between 24 and 32 weeks gestation was conducted from January 2018 through December 2018 in a level III neonatal care unit in Kuwait. Antenatal MgSO4 exposure was collected from the medical records, and the indication was for neuroprotection effect. Brain MRI was done on 212 neonates (median gestational age 36 weeks), and brain injury was assessed using the Miller’s score. Neurodevelopmental outcome was assessed by Bayley-III scales of infant development at 36 months corrected age (N = 146). The association of exposure to MgSO4 with brain injury and neurodevelopmental outcomes was examined using multivariable regression analysis adjusting for gestational age at MRI and variables with p value <0.05 on univariate analysis. Results: Among the 229 neonates, 47 received antenatal MgSO4. There were no differences between the groups in gestational age and birth weight. MgSO4 exposure was not associated with an increased risk of necrotizing enterocolitis, chronic lung disease, retinopathy of prematurity, and mortality. The incidence of cerebellar hemorrhage was significantly less in the MgSO4 group (0% vs. 16%, p value = 0.002). Neonates who received MgSO4 had lower risks of grade 3–4 intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) adjusted OR 0.248 (95% CI: 0.092, 0.66), p = 0.006; moderate-severe white matter injury (WMI) adjusted odd ratio 0.208 (95% CI: 0.044, 0.96), p = 0.046; and grade 3–4 IVH and/or moderate-severe WMI adjusted OR 0.23 (95% CI: 0.06, 0.84), p = 0.027. Neurodevelopmental assessment at 36 months corrected age showed better motor (adjusted beta coefficient 1.08 [95% CI: 0.099, 2.06]; p = 0.031) and cognitive composite scores (adjusted beta coefficient 1.29 [95% CI: 0.36, 2.22]; p = 0.007) in the MgSO4 group. Conclusion: Antenatal exposure to MgSO4 in preterm neonates less than 32 weeks was independently associated with lower risks of brain injury and better motor and cognitive outcomes