WTO Regulations and the Audio-visual Sector—An Analytical Framework for Pakistan

Audio-visual services play a crucial and formative role in any society. These services are closely linked to the preservation of cultural identity and social values, and play a major role in shaping public opinion, safeguarding democratic system and developing creative potential. Due to these reasons, governments of both developed and developing countries not only provide direct and indirect incentives to their domestic industries but also strictly regulate the content of audio-visual media. During the Uruguay Round of WTO (World Trade Organisation) negotiations, audio-visual service sector witnessed limited liberalisation. Even major players such as the EU, Australia and Canada did not make any commitments to liberalise trade in these services. This was primarily to protect the domestic industries from foreign competition, promote their growth and to protect the cultural heritage of the nations from foreign influence. Many countries have repeatedly raised concerns about the capability of the GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services) framework to take into account the democratic, cultural and social aspects. Others have explained that audio-visual sector is largely covered by domestic regulations and normal trade rules are not applicable to these services.

WTO Regulations and the Audio-visual Sector— An Analytical Framework for Pakistan

Audio-visual services play a crucial and formative role in any society. These services are closely linked to the preservation of cultural identity and social values, and play a major role in shaping public opinion, safeguarding democratic system and developing creative potential. Due to these reasons, governments of both developed and developing countries not only provide direct and indirect incentives to their domestic industries but also strictly regulate the content of audio-visual media. During the Uruguay Round of WTO (World Trade Organisation) negotiations, audio-visual service sector witnessed limited liberalisation. Even major players such as the EU, Australia and Canada did not make any commitments to liberalise trade in these services. This was primarily to protect the domestic industries from foreign competition, promote their growth and to protect the cultural heritage of the nations from foreign influence. Many countries have repeatedly raised concerns about the capability of the GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services) framework to take into account the democratic, cultural and social aspects. Others have explained that audio-visual sector is largely covered by domestic regulations and normal trade rules are not applicable to these services

Hydrogel Drug Delivery System (HDDS): Contribution by Pakistani Researchers

Hydrogels are hydrophilic polymeric networks that are able to swell and retain large amounts of water or biological fluids. Hydrogels work well in the body because they mimic the natural structure of the body’s cellular makeup. As a result of this, the area of hydrogel research has expanded dramatically in the recent years, primarily because they perform well for biomedical applications (Kunzler et al., 2003). Recent advances in the use of hydrogels have led to the potential to design artificial organs, deliver drugs to specific sites in the body in a controlled fashion and fabricate the extended wear contact lenses (Lin and Metters, 2006); Hoare and Kohane, 2008). Hydrogels can absorb water nearly 10-20 times its molecular weight and hence become swollen. Their affinity to absorb water is attributed to the presence of hydrophilic groups such as –OH, –CONH–, –CONH2–, and –SO3H in polymers forming hydrogel structures (Peppas et al., 2000). Hydrogel technologies may be broadly applied to wound dressings (Azad et al., 2004), superabsorbent, barrier materials to regulate biological adhesions, biosensor devices, tissue engineering and regenerative medicines, diagnostics and separation of biomolecules or cells and pharmaceuticals (Kumar et al., 2008). Hydrogels may be classified as natural or synthetic depending on the nature of their origin

Structural, electronic, optical, and thermoelectric properties of beta phase spinel : prospects for solar cells application

Using all electron based density functional theory calculations, within full potential linearized augmented plane wave plus local orbitals, electronic, structural, optical and thermoelectric properties of the β-phase spinel compound have been investigated. Tetragonal β-phase spinel indium (III) sulfide is the most stable and promising phase for various applications, in particular, photovoltaic devices, and, therefore, it can be use to replace CdS for environmental issues. The unit cell volume and atomic positions are optimized with the PBE energy functional and our calculated optical band gap for the indirect transition is in good agreement with the experimental value. The peaks of the real part of optical conductivity σ(ω) correspond to the peak of the imaginary part of dielectric function εi (ω) for the two polarization axes, which perfectly agree with the Drude theory. Charge carrier concentration are observed to attain the maximum value at about 2.8899 eV at fixed temperature, and drops at high energies, which indicates less photon excitation to the conduction bands at energies greater than 2.8899 eV. The electrical and thermal conductivity that depends on the sulfur concentration show a similar trend for variable and fixed temperature. Large amount of thermopower S occurs at low temperature, which agrees with the requirement to improve performance of photovoltaic materials, that is high voltage output at small amount of hea

Noise Characterization in Web Cameras using Independent Component Analysis

An image captured by a web camera contains stationary and nonstationary noise patterns. These noise patterns are of three types i.e. Fixed Pattern Noise (FPN), Interactive Nose (IN) and Temporal Noise (TN). TN is an independent noise pattern and needs an algorithm that does exploit its higher-order dependencies. Previously, these noise patterns have been characterized using Principal Component Analysis (PCA). PCA is restricted to second order dependencies. In this paper Independent Component Analysis (ICA) has been investigated for actual TN noise. The experimental results demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed method

COVID-19 Vaccination Efforts: Is Afghanistan Prepared?

A country's preparedness for a prompt and successful implementation of vaccination programs plays a pivotal role in disease control and prevention. As it stands now, Afghanistan seems to be ill-prepared to embrace a successful implementation of the COVID-19 vaccination program because of a spate of challenges. These include, but are not limited to, the insufficient number of vaccinators, a dearth of fully integrated functioning cold chain, challenging geographical barriers, cultural issues, insecurity, and protracted conflict. The COVID-19 infodemic along with vaccine mistrust in the country will lead to a pervasive public vaccine hesitancy in Afghanistan, which will present serious obstacles to the COVID-19 immunization efforts. The politicization of the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) and the complaints of embezzlement and misuse of the pandemic aid have already eroded public trust during the pandemic. To ensure a large-scale and equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, the cold chain infrastructure should be strengthened, and the immunization personnel trained. Antivaccination propaganda and misinformation should be tackled with effective communication approaches and effective community engagement, which consider culturally relevant messages appropriate to the culture and people. The allegations of corruption should be addressed to revive public trust in public health interventions, including COVID-19 vaccination

Efficacy and safety of the second in-hospital dose of tranexamic acid after receiving the prehospital dose: double-blind randomized controlled clinical trial in a level 1 trauma center

Background: Prehospital administration of tranexamic acid (TXA) to injured patients is increasing worldwide. However, optimal TXA dose and need of a second infusion on hospital arrival remain undetermined. We investigated the efficacy and safety of the second in-hospital dose of TXA in injured patients receiving 1 g of TXA in the prehospital setting. We hypothesized that a second in-hospital dose of TXA improves survival of trauma patients. Methods: A prospective, double-blind, placebo-controlled randomized, clinical trial included adult trauma patients receiving 1 g of TXA in the prehospital settings. Patients were then blindly randomized to Group I (second 1-g TXA) and Group II (placebo) on hospital arrival. The primary outcome was 24-h (early) and 28-day (late) mortality. Secondary outcomes were thromboembolic events, blood transfusions, hospital length of stay (HLOS) and organs failure (MOF). Results: A total of 220 patients were enrolled, 110 in each group. The TXA and placebo groups had a similar early [OR 1.000 (0.062–16.192); p = 0.47] and late mortality [OR 0.476 (95% CI 0.157–1.442), p = 0.18].The cause of death (n = 15) was traumatic brain injury (TBI) in 12 patients and MOF in 3 patients. The need for blood transfusions in the first 24 h, number of transfused blood units, HLOS, thromboembolic events and multiorgan failure were comparable in the TXA and placebo groups. In seriously injured patients (injury severity score > 24), the MTP activation was higher in the placebo group (31.3% vs 11.10%, p = 0.13), whereas pulmonary embolism (6.9% vs 2.9%, p = 0.44) and late mortality (27.6% vs 14.3%, p = 0.17) were higher in the TXA group but did not reach statistical significance. Conclusion: The second TXA dose did not change the mortality rate, need for blood transfusion, thromboembolic complications, organ failure and HLOS compared to a single prehospital dose and thus its routine administration should be revisited in larger and multicenter studies. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03846973

Mapping 123 million neonatal, infant and child deaths between 2000 and 2017

Since 2000, many countries have achieved considerable success in improving child survival, but localized progress remains unclear. To inform efforts towards United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3.2—to end preventable child deaths by 2030—we need consistently estimated data at the subnational level regarding child mortality rates and trends. Here we quantified, for the period 2000–2017, the subnational variation in mortality rates and number of deaths of neonates, infants and children under 5 years of age within 99 low- and middle-income countries using a geostatistical survival model. We estimated that 32% of children under 5 in these countries lived in districts that had attained rates of 25 or fewer child deaths per 1,000 live births by 2017, and that 58% of child deaths between 2000 and 2017 in these countries could have been averted in the absence of geographical inequality. This study enables the identification of high-mortality clusters, patterns of progress and geographical inequalities to inform appropriate investments and implementations that will help to improve the health of all populations

Global, regional, and national burden of traumatic brain injury and spinal cord injury, 1990-2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) and spinal cord injury (SCI) are increasingly recognised as global health priorities in view of the preventability of most injuries and the complex and expensive medical care they necessitate. We aimed to measure the incidence, prevalence, and years of life lived with disability (YLDs) for TBI and SCI from all causes of injury in every country, to describe how these measures have changed between 1990 and 2016, and to estimate the proportion of TBI and SCI cases caused by different types of injury. METHODS: We used results from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors (GBD) Study 2016 to measure the global, regional, and national burden of TBI and SCI by age and sex. We measured the incidence and prevalence of all causes of injury requiring medical care in inpatient and outpatient records, literature studies, and survey data. By use of clinical record data, we estimated the proportion of each cause of injury that required medical care that would result in TBI or SCI being considered as the nature of injury. We used literature studies to establish standardised mortality ratios and applied differential equations to convert incidence to prevalence of long-term disability. Finally, we applied GBD disability weights to calculate YLDs. We used a Bayesian meta-regression tool for epidemiological modelling, used cause-specific mortality rates for non-fatal estimation, and adjusted our results for disability experienced with comorbid conditions. We also analysed results on the basis of the Socio-demographic Index, a compound measure of income per capita, education, and fertility. FINDINGS: In 2016, there were 27·08 million (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 24·30-30·30 million) new cases of TBI and 0·93 million (0·78-1·16 million) new cases of SCI, with age-standardised incidence rates of 369 (331-412) per 100 000 population for TBI and 13 (11-16) per 100 000 for SCI. In 2016, the number of prevalent cases of TBI was 55·50 million (53·40-57·62 million) and of SCI was 27·04 million (24·98-30·15 million). From 1990 to 2016, the age-standardised prevalence of TBI increased by 8·4% (95% UI 7·7 to 9·2), whereas that of SCI did not change significantly (-0·2% [-2·1 to 2·7]). Age-standardised incidence rates increased by 3·6% (1·8 to 5·5) for TBI, but did not change significantly for SCI (-3·6% [-7·4 to 4·0]). TBI caused 8·1 million (95% UI 6·0-10·4 million) YLDs and SCI caused 9·5 million (6·7-12·4 million) YLDs in 2016, corresponding to age-standardised rates of 111 (82-141) per 100 000 for TBI and 130 (90-170) per 100 000 for SCI. Falls and road injuries were the leading causes of new cases of TBI and SCI in most regions. INTERPRETATION: TBI and SCI constitute a considerable portion of the global injury burden and are caused primarily by falls and road injuries. The increase in incidence of TBI over time might continue in view of increases in population density, population ageing, and increasing use of motor vehicles, motorcycles, and bicycles. The number of individuals living with SCI is expected to increase in view of population growth, which is concerning because of the specialised care that people with SCI can require. Our study was limited by data sparsity in some regions, and it will be important to invest greater resources in collection of data for TBI and SCI to improve the accuracy of future assessments