Préférence pour les garçons et intervalles de durée de naissance

Son preference prevails widely in South and East Asia and is demonstrated by sex-selection methods such as differential stopping and sex-selective abortion. Differential birth-spacing is another possible way by which this disproportionate desire for sons could manifest itself. The time span before moving on to the next pregnancy may be short as long as sons have not been born. Shorter birth spacing leads to higher demand on the mother's body, leading to higher health risk to both mother and child. In addition there is greater competition among siblings for parental care and resources. In this study, we examine this phenomenon by using three demographic and health surveys of Pakistani households covering the period from 1990-91 to 2012-13 and carrying out a set of duration model estimations. We investigate if and how preference for sons affects birth-spacing, if this relationship has evolved over time, if it depends on the order, number or overall proportion of sons born,and whether it increases the probability of risky births (those less than 24 or 18 months from the previous birth). We gauge the type of households in which this phenomenon appears to be more prevalent. We find strong evidence for differential behaviour at early parities throughout the period. Women whose first or second children are sons have significantly longer subsequent birth intervals compared with women with no sons. Birth-spacing differs substantially by parity and number of children. Sex of the firstborn is another significant factor. The association seems to have undergone little significant change over the past two decades. Besides, the likelihood of risky births is higher among women without one or more sons. This phenomenon of gender-specific lengthy and risky birth intervals is prevalent more among households that are wealthier or nuclear and among women with greater say in intra-household decisions.L’espacement différencié entre les naissances est un exemple démontrant comment le phénomène de préférence pour les garçons peut se manifester. La période précédant la prochaine grossesse peut être courte tant que le nombre désiré des garçons n’est pas né. Une période limitée entre les naissances entraine plus de pression sur le corps des femmes, plus de risques en matière de santé pour la mère et son enfant. De plus, il existe une plus grande rivalité entre les enfants concernant les soins et les ressources des parents.Nous étudions ce phénomène à partir de trois enquêtes démographiques et de santé réalisées auprès de différents ménages pakistanais de 1990-91 à 2012-2013. Nous voulons savoir si et comment la préférence pour les garçons affecte l’écart entre deux naissances, si cette relation évolue sur la période, si elle dépend de l’ordre de naissance, du nombre ou de la part de garçons nés, et si cela accroit la probabilité de naissances risquées. Nous étudions également le profil de ménage où ce phénomène est plus récurrent.En utilisant des méthodes d’estimation paramétriques semi et non paramétriques, nous trouvons des indices forts en faveure d’espacement différencié pour les premières naissances tout au long de la période. Les femmes qui ont d’abord eu deux garçons attendent entre 13 et 17% plus de temps avant une troisième naissance que celles qui n’ont pas eu de garçons. L’espacement varie de façon significative par ordre des naissances et le nombre d’enfants. Le sexe du premier enfant également joue un rôle important. En outre il existe une probabilité plus forte de naissances risquées.Ce comportement est plus répandu dans les familles plus riches ou nucléaires, avec des femmes plus âgées, plus éduquées ou qui ont un poids plus important dans les prises de décision au sein du ménage. Ces résultats ont des répercussions importantes pour la santé maternelle et infantile au Pakistan

Self-Concept, Self- Affirmation and Psychological Distress in Women with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS)

To study the relationship among self-concept, self- affirmation and psychological distress in females having Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS). In this correlational study one hundred patients with polycystic ovarian syndrome participated with age ranging from 21-40 years. Self-Concept questionnaire, self-Affirmation scale, and Kessler psychological distress scale were used to collect data The results of this study revealed that negative-self-concept has significantly positive relationship with psychological distress. Multiple regression revealed that positive self-concept negatively predicted psychological distress in females having polycystic ovarian disease. Independent sample t=test revealed that psychological distress is more in married women (M= 32.96, SD=8.60) as compared to single women (M=28.12, SD, 8.14). It was concluded that negative self-concept has positive association with psychological distress while self-affirmation is negatively correlated with psychological distress

Study of southern corn leaf blight (SCLB) on maize genotypes and its effect on yield

AbstractSouthern corn leaf blight is considered the most devastating disease of maize crop, which causes noticeable reduction in crop yield. Inbred lines are useful because they are genotyped, multiple time phenotyping is possible, and genetic uniformity, genetic stability and its vigor make inbred lines suitable to study in diversified environment. In present investigation, 12 maize genotypes viz: NC-2703 (hybrid), NC-2003 (hybrid), SP-3 (inbred line), NCML-73 (inbred line), NRL-6 (inbred line), NRL-4 (inbred line), Soan-3 (variety), Rakaposhi (variety), Margala (variety), EV-1097 (variety), Local-Y (variety), Local-W (variety) were tested against southern corn leaf blight under laboratory and field conditions. According to disease severity scale (0–5) inbreds SP-3 and NCML-73 were found highly resistant; Local-W moderately resistance and rest of the genotypes were least resistance in in vitro analysis. In field screening, Margala, NRL-4, EV-1097 showed maximum resistance followed by moderately resistant SP-3, NCML-73, NC-2703, NRL-6 and Local-Y maize genotypes. NC-2003, Rakaposhi and Soan-3 showed least resistance during field evaluation. Cochliobolus heterostrophus showed considerable effects on yield of crop. Significant difference was found in grain yield, plant height, ear height and ear weight while ear placement, ear per plant and infected ear data were non-significant. The results clearly showed the effect on maize genotypes and its yield

An Agent Based Security Framework for Emering Networks

Summary Mobile ad-hoc network has gained enormous amount of attention during last few years due to its wider application area from conventional military purposes to emergency response service. MANETs throws up new requirements and problems due to flexibility and dynamic nature of these networks. The challenges faced in the Ad-hoc environment are mostly due to the resource poorness of these networks. These types of networks operate in the absence of any fixed infrastructure; therefore solutions for conventional networks are usually not sufficient to provide efficient operations in ad-hoc environment. The wireless nature of communication and lack of any security infrastructure raise several security problems. In this paper we propose an agent based framework for MANET security. The proposed approach is scalable and has a minor dependence on central node. Mobility feature of software agents address the issues of dynamic topology and unpredictable traffic patterns

Brain Abscesses in Children: A Study of Microbiological Spectrum and Outcome of 80 Cases

Objective:  Brain abscess is a focus of pus in the brain due to infection somewhere else in the body. It is common in males than females and the average age in children ranges from 4 to 7 years. It develops by skull trauma or contiguous or hematogenous spread of infection. The study aimed to identify the pattern of microbiological involvement in the etiology of pediatric brain abscesses and the outcome so as to enable us to ensure definitive treatment with the appropriate and specific antimicrobial regimen. Materials and Methods:  A prospective study was conducted in 80 pediatric patients of brain abscess admitted to the Pediatric Neurosurgery Department, Children Hospital, Lahore, Pakistan. Results:  The median age was 5.2 years with a predominance of males (60%). The most common presentation was fever (72.5%) and then fits (35%). Congenital heart disease was the commonest factor in 32% of cases. Streptococcus was a commonly isolated pathogen in 17% cases out of 70% of culture positive cases. Recovery was seen in 70% of cases and the mortality was 7.5%. Conclusion:  Congenital heart disease is the most common causative factor in pediatric brain abscesses and most of the abscesses were found culture negative. There is a pressing need to carry out multicenter studies over a large sample size over extended study duration in developing countries to help establish guidelines in treating pediatric brain abscesses

Identification of Software Bugs by Analyzing Natural Language-Based Requirements Using Optimized Deep Learning Features

© 2024 Tech Science Press. All rights reserved. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, to view a copy of the license, see: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Software project outcomes heavily depend on natural language requirements, often causing diverse interpretations and issues like ambiguities and incomplete or faulty requirements. Researchers are exploring machine learning to predict software bugs, but a more precise and general approach is needed. Accurate bug prediction is crucial for software evolution and user training, prompting an investigation into deep and ensemble learning methods. However, these studies are not generalized and efficient when extended to other datasets. Therefore, this paper proposed a hybrid approach combining multiple techniques to explore their effectiveness on bug identification problems. The methods involved feature selection, which is used to reduce the dimensionality and redundancy of features and select only the relevant ones; transfer learning is used to train and test the model on different datasets to analyze how much of the learning is passed to other datasets, and ensemble method is utilized to explore the increase in performance upon combining multiple classifiers in a model. Four National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and four Promise datasets are used in the study, showing an increase in the model’s performance by providing better Area Under the Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve (AUC-ROC) values when different classifiers were combined. It reveals that using an amalgam of techniques such as those used in this study, feature selection, transfer learning, and ensemble methods prove helpful in optimizing the software bug prediction models and providing high-performing, useful end mode.Peer reviewe

Molecular and Haematological Analysis of Dengue Virus-3 Among Children in Lahore, Pakistan

Background: Dengue virus (DENV) is an RNA virus belonging to the family Flaviviridae of the genus Flavivirus with worldwide distribution. Dengue fever is caused by any of four closely-related serotypes DENV, an emerging pandemic-prone viral disease in many regions of the world. Objectives: The present study aimed to determine the prevalence of dengue virus genotypes and serotypes in children aged below 15 years in Lahore, Pakistan. Methods: In this study, 112 serum samples were collected from clinically suspected dengue fever patients from March 2017 to December 2018 at different tertiary care hospitals in Lahore, Pakistan. Regarding the patients’ age, the samples were divided into four groups from A to D (i.e., 0 - 1, 1 - 5, 5 - 10, and 10 - 15 years of age). Rapid immuno-chromatography (ICT) test was conducted on the collected serum samples, followed by quantitative RT-PCR for serotype of dengue virus. Results: Out of 112 samples, 34 samples were diagnosed as DENV positive by the rapid ICT screening method. No virus was detected in groups A and B, while three samples were positive in group C (1 boy and two girls), and 31 samples (23 boys and 8 girls) were positive in group D. The results of quantitative RT-PCR exclusively showed DEN-3 serotype in all the ICT positive samples. The results indicated that the prevalence of DEN-3 serotype in children was 100%, indicating that DEN-3 serotype might cause severe epidemics in the future in Lahore, Pakistan. Hematological analysis revealed an increase in hematocrits in 41.1% dengue-positive cases. Leucopenia was prominent in 79.4% of the cases, while Thrombocytopenia was reported in 70.5% of the participants. The biochemical analysis also indicated an increase in liver enzymes in patients (ALT 88%, AST 79%), while the lower levels of cholesterol (69 %) and serum albumin (25%) were also observed. Conclusions: Dengue virus spreads and grows quickly worldwide over a highly short time interval. Dengue fever claims for a significant number of lives. This study would help individuals know about the status of laboratory parameters in dengue fever and detect how to overcome the prevalence of Dengue virus

Prevalence of HCV in β-thalassemia major patients visiting tertiary care hospitals in Lahore – Pakistan

Post-transfusion hepatitis (PTH) is majorly caused by hepatitis C virus (HCV). So, recipients of blood/blood products, post-transfusion hepatitis (PTH), renal dialysis patients and intravenous drug users all represent high-risk groups for infection. The aim of the present research was to determine the prevalence of HCV antibody in β-thalassemia major patients visiting different tertiary care hospital in Lahore, Pakistan. HCV seroprevalence and risk factors were studied in 200 β-thalassemia major patients (24 females, 176 males) with different age groups by second generation ELISA during January 2013 to May 2013. Confirmed β-thalassemia major patients from three different tertiary care hospitals were selected with special reference to age, age at the time of diagnosis, frequency of transfusion and present clinical status. Among 200 patients, 82 (41%) were found reactive for HCV antibody with age range of 2 to 18 years with mean age of 8.5 years. This study showed that hemodialysis patients and β-thalassemia sufferers were at higher risk of having HCV infection; the prevalence being 41%

Performance Based Evaluation and Selection of Different Promising Lines of Rapeseed (Brassica Napus L.) for the Shattering Tolerance

To evaluate the ten promising lines of Brassica napus against the shattering tolerance, the experiments were carried out in split plot design in the research area of Barani Agricultural Research Institute; Chakwal, Pakistan during two rabi growing season 2011-12 & 2012-13 under rainfed conditions. The main plot was harvested in five different harvesting dates including: HarD1 = Harvesting at physiological maturity of crop, HarD2= 7 days after the first harvesting of each promising line, HarD3= 15 days after the first harvesting of each promising line, HarD4= 21 days after the first harvesting of each promising line, HarD5= 30 days after the first harvesting of each promising line. The difference of grain yield (kg/ha) of each promising line in different harvesting dates with compare to its grain yield (kg/ha) in first harvesting date (HarD1-HarDi) were measured as indices of shattering. The combine analysis of variance of two year revealed that all the promising lines were significant different for harvesting date, harvesting date x promising lines interaction effect and also year and its interaction effects to each study factors. In the present experiment, the promising line 12CBN008 & 10CBN004 had grain yield 1089 kg/ha & 897 kg/ha respectively. The significant difference of genotypes x harvesting dates confirmed different level of shattering of all promising lines in different harvesting dates. The magnitude of grain yield shattering loss was increased in 4th and 5th harvesting dates. On the basis of shattering tolerance among all the promising lines the 11CBN010 was more tolerant to shattering and 11CBN005 were relatively more susceptible to shattering. Keywords: Rapeseed, Harvesting date, Shattering toleranc