Exploring the Policy Reforms and Productivity Nexus: Evidence from Indian Banking Sector

The study investigates the effect of deregulation of the Indian financial system in 1991 followed by various financial sector reforms on productivity growth of Indian scheduled commercial banks, with exclusion of Regional Rural Banks, over the period of time, from 2002 to 2010.The results of our study show that the performance of the Indian banking industry remained satisfactory for the said period despite of the financial turmoil that literally hampered the financial institutions all over the world. This was because Indian financial system remained sheltered from such external shocks as a result of having flexible exchange rate regime, the foreign reserves were high, the capital account is not yet fully convertible, and banks and their customers have limited foreign exchange exposure. Therefore, we recommend that the policy makers should carry on with their current economic policy as it has been successful in sheltering them from external shocks. Furthermore, the study found that the deposits and credits are negatively related with financial system reforms of deregulation, which is surprising. As increase in deposits results in increase in credits. So, we would recommend the policy makers to emphasize on increasing the deposit base of the banks by increasing the interest rates on deposits. Keywords: Financial Sector Reforms, Indian Banking industry, Productivity, Financial turmoil, Deregulatio

Hamstring Shortness among Undergraduate Students, Using Knee Extension Angle Test

Objective: To examine the causes and incidence of hamstring tightness/shortness among undergraduate physical therapy students. Cross-sectional study. Institute of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, DUHS during the period of Jan 2019 to Jun, 2019. Material and Methods: The subjects sample size (n=248) was estimated by open EPI software. Male and female both are included. Hamstring muscle shortness was assessed by a gold standard assessment tool i.e. passive knee extension angle test. Descriptive statistical analysis was done by using SPSS version 24. Results: The hamstring muscle tightness was measured by using knee extension angle test. It results conclude that among (248) students (62.90%) had hamstring muscle tightness / shortness and (37.10%) did not show any muscle shortness. Out of (216) females participants (136) have hamstring shortness. On the other hand out of (32) male participants (20) had hamstring shortness/tightness out of total (248) students. It was also evident from the study that 27% of physiotherapy students having low back pain was because of clinical exposure and tight hamstrings muscles. Conclusion: Hamstring tightness/shortness is very much prevalent among the undergraduate physiotherapy students. The reason might be the prolong study durations and lack of physical activities. The result showed statistically significant difference between hamstring muscle extensibility in both male and female Key words:   Extension Angle, Flexion, Contracture, Fasciti

A Novel Feature Extraction and Fault Detection Technique for the Intelligent Fault Identification of Water Pump Bearings

The reliable and cost-effective condition monitoring of the bearings installed in water pumps is a real challenge in the industry. This paper presents a novel strong feature selection and extraction algorithm (SFSEA) to extract fault-related features from the instantaneous power spectrum (IPS). The three features extracted from the IPS using the SFSEA are fed to an extreme gradient boosting (XBG) classifier to reliably detect and classify the minor bearing faults. The experiments performed on a lab-scale test setup demonstrated classification accuracy up to 100%, which is better than the previously reported fault classification accuracies and indicates the effectiveness of the proposed method

Evolutionary Integrated Heuristic with Gudermannian Neural Networks for Second Kind of Lane–Emden Nonlinear Singular Models

In this work, a new heuristic computing design is presented with an artificial intelligence approach to exploit the models with feed-forward (FF) Gudermannian neural networks (GNN) accomplished with global search capability of genetic algorithms (GA) combined with local convergence aptitude of active-set method (ASM), i.e., FF-GNN-GAASM to solve the second kind of Lane–Emden nonlinear singular models (LE-NSM). The proposed method based on the computing intelligent Gudermannian kernel is incorporated with the hidden layer configuration of FF-GNN models of differential operatives of the LE-NSM, which are arbitrarily associated with presenting an error-based objective function that is used to optimize by the hybrid heuristics of GAASM. Three LE-NSM-based examples are numerically solved to authenticate the effectiveness, accurateness, and efficiency of the suggested FF-GNN-GAASM. The reliability of the scheme via statistical valuations is verified in order to authenticate the stability, accuracy, and convergence

The Karachi intracranial stenosis study (KISS) Protocol: an urban multicenter case-control investigation reporting the clinical, radiologic and biochemical associations of intracranial stenosis in Pakistan.

Background: Intracranial stenosis is the most common cause of stroke among Asians. It has a poor prognosis with a high rate of recurrence. No effective medical or surgical treatment modality has been developed for the treatment of stroke due to intracranial stenosis. We aim to identify risk factors and biomarkers for intracranial stenosis and to develop techniques such as use of transcranial doppler to help diagnose intracranial stenosis in a cost-effective manner. Methods/Design: The Karachi Intracranial Stenosis Study (KISS) is a prospective, observational, case-control study to describe the clinical features and determine the risk factors of patients with stroke due to intracranial stenosis and compare them to those with stroke due to other etiologies as well as to unaffected individuals. We plan to recruit 200 patients with stroke due to intracranial stenosis and two control groups each of 150 matched individuals. The first set of controls will include patients with ischemic stroke that is due to other atherosclerotic mechanisms specifically lacunar and cardioembolic strokes. The second group will consist of stroke free individuals. Standardized interviews will be conducted to determine demographic, medical, social, and behavioral variables along with baseline medications. Mandatory procedures for inclusion in the study are clinical confirmation of stroke by a healthcare professional within 72 hours of onset, 12 lead electrocardiogram, and neuroimaging. In addition, lipid profile, serum glucose, creatinine and HbA1C will be measured in all participants. Ancillary tests will include carotid ultrasound, transcranial doppler and magnetic resonance or computed tomography angiogram to rule out concurrent carotid disease. Echocardiogram and other additional investigations will be performed at these centers at the discretion of the regional physicians. Discussion: The results of this study will help inform locally relevant clinical guidelines and effective public health and individual interventions

The Pakistan risk of myocardial infarction study: A resource for the study of genetic, lifestyle and other determinants of myocardial infarction in south Asia

The burden of coronary heart disease (CHD) is increasing at a greater rate in South Asia than in any other region globally, but there is little direct evidence about its determinants. The Pakistan Risk of Myocardial Infarction Study (PROMIS) is an epidemiological resource to enable reliable study of genetic, lifestyle and other determinants of CHD in South Asia. By March 2009, PROMIS had recruited over 5,000 cases of first-ever confirmed acute myocardial infarction (MI) and over 5,000 matched controls aged 30-80 years. For each participant, information has been recorded on demographic factors, lifestyle, medical and family history, anthropometry, and a 12-lead electrocardiogram. A range of biological samples has been collected and stored, including DNA, plasma, serum and whole blood. During its next stage, the study aims to expand recruitment to achieve a total of about 20,000 cases and about 20,000 controls, and, in subsets of participants, to enrich the resource by collection of monocytes, establishment of lymphoblastoid cell lines, and by resurveying participants. Measurements in progress include profiling of candidate biochemical factors, assay of 45,000 variants in 2,100 candidate genes, and a genomewide association scan of over 650,000 genetic markers. We have established a large epidemiological resource for CHD in South Asia. In parallel with its further expansion and enrichment, the PROMIS resource will be systematically harvested to help identify and evaluate genetic and other determinants of MI in South Asia. Findings from this study should advance scientific understanding and inform regionally appropriate disease prevention and control strategies

Measuring routine childhood vaccination coverage in 204 countries and territories, 1980-2019 : a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2020, Release 1

Background Measuring routine childhood vaccination is crucial to inform global vaccine policies and programme implementation, and to track progress towards targets set by the Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP) and Immunization Agenda 2030. Robust estimates of routine vaccine coverage are needed to identify past successes and persistent vulnerabilities. Drawing from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2020, Release 1, we did a systematic analysis of global, regional, and national vaccine coverage trends using a statistical framework, by vaccine and over time. Methods For this analysis we collated 55 326 country-specific, cohort-specific, year-specific, vaccine-specific, and dosespecific observations of routine childhood vaccination coverage between 1980 and 2019. Using spatiotemporal Gaussian process regression, we produced location-specific and year-specific estimates of 11 routine childhood vaccine coverage indicators for 204 countries and territories from 1980 to 2019, adjusting for biases in countryreported data and reflecting reported stockouts and supply disruptions. We analysed global and regional trends in coverage and numbers of zero-dose children (defined as those who never received a diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis [DTP] vaccine dose), progress towards GVAP targets, and the relationship between vaccine coverage and sociodemographic development. Findings By 2019, global coverage of third-dose DTP (DTP3; 81.6% [95% uncertainty interval 80.4-82 .7]) more than doubled from levels estimated in 1980 (39.9% [37.5-42.1]), as did global coverage of the first-dose measles-containing vaccine (MCV1; from 38.5% [35.4-41.3] in 1980 to 83.6% [82.3-84.8] in 2019). Third- dose polio vaccine (Pol3) coverage also increased, from 42.6% (41.4-44.1) in 1980 to 79.8% (78.4-81.1) in 2019, and global coverage of newer vaccines increased rapidly between 2000 and 2019. The global number of zero-dose children fell by nearly 75% between 1980 and 2019, from 56.8 million (52.6-60. 9) to 14.5 million (13.4-15.9). However, over the past decade, global vaccine coverage broadly plateaued; 94 countries and territories recorded decreasing DTP3 coverage since 2010. Only 11 countries and territories were estimated to have reached the national GVAP target of at least 90% coverage for all assessed vaccines in 2019. Interpretation After achieving large gains in childhood vaccine coverage worldwide, in much of the world this progress was stalled or reversed from 2010 to 2019. These findings underscore the importance of revisiting routine immunisation strategies and programmatic approaches, recentring service delivery around equity and underserved populations. Strengthening vaccine data and monitoring systems is crucial to these pursuits, now and through to 2030, to ensure that all children have access to, and can benefit from, lifesaving vaccines. Copyright (C) 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.Peer reviewe