Impact of Microfinance on Poverty Reduction: A Case Study of District Faisalabad

The micro - finance program extends small loans to very poor people for self-employment projects that generate income, allowing them to care for themselves and for their families. Micro-finance enables an entrepreneur to build a business or expand the existing business and create a better change in their lives. The micro-financing institutions (MFIs) provide the opportunity for the people who are living under the poverty lines by investing the affordable funds/capital and somehow by providing their management expertise. This study shows the effect of micro-financing of small business and the implications for poverty reduction. The respondents are the clients of Khushhali Bank Ltd, District Faisalabad. The data were collected with the help of well-designed and structured questionnaire, which will be analyzed by applying FGT techniques. The results showed that the poverty has been reduced by financing the peoples. Keywords:Micro finance, poverty, FG

A Novel Image Retrieval Based on a Combination of Local and Global Histograms of Visual Words

Content-based image retrieval (CBIR) provides a sustainable solution to retrieve similar images from an image archive. In the last few years, the Bag-of-Visual-Words (BoVW) model gained attention and significantly improved the performance of image retrieval. In the standard BoVW model, an image is represented as an orderless global histogram of visual words by ignoring the spatial layout. The spatial layout of an image carries significant information that can enhance the performance of CBIR. In this paper, we are presenting a novel image representation that is based on a combination of local and global histograms of visual words. The global histogram of visual words is constructed over the whole image, while the local histogram of visual words is constructed over the local rectangular region of the image. The local histogram contains the spatial information about the salient objects. Extensive experiments and comparisons conducted on Corel-A, Caltech-256, and Ground Truth image datasets demonstrate that the proposed image representation increases the performance of image retrieval

Burden of disease scenarios for 204 countries and territories, 2022–2050: a forecasting analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021

Background: Future trends in disease burden and drivers of health are of great interest to policy makers and the public at large. This information can be used for policy and long-term health investment, planning, and prioritisation. We have expanded and improved upon previous forecasts produced as part of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) and provide a reference forecast (the most likely future), and alternative scenarios assessing disease burden trajectories if selected sets of risk factors were eliminated from current levels by 2050. Methods: Using forecasts of major drivers of health such as the Socio-demographic Index (SDI; a composite measure of lag-distributed income per capita, mean years of education, and total fertility under 25 years of age) and the full set of risk factor exposures captured by GBD, we provide cause-specific forecasts of mortality, years of life lost (YLLs), years lived with disability (YLDs), and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) by age and sex from 2022 to 2050 for 204 countries and territories, 21 GBD regions, seven super-regions, and the world. All analyses were done at the cause-specific level so that only risk factors deemed causal by the GBD comparative risk assessment influenced future trajectories of mortality for each disease. Cause-specific mortality was modelled using mixed-effects models with SDI and time as the main covariates, and the combined impact of causal risk factors as an offset in the model. At the all-cause mortality level, we captured unexplained variation by modelling residuals with an autoregressive integrated moving average model with drift attenuation. These all-cause forecasts constrained the cause-specific forecasts at successively deeper levels of the GBD cause hierarchy using cascading mortality models, thus ensuring a robust estimate of cause-specific mortality. For non-fatal measures (eg, low back pain), incidence and prevalence were forecasted from mixed-effects models with SDI as the main covariate, and YLDs were computed from the resulting prevalence forecasts and average disability weights from GBD. Alternative future scenarios were constructed by replacing appropriate reference trajectories for risk factors with hypothetical trajectories of gradual elimination of risk factor exposure from current levels to 2050. The scenarios were constructed from various sets of risk factors: environmental risks (Safer Environment scenario), risks associated with communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional diseases (CMNNs; Improved Childhood Nutrition and Vaccination scenario), risks associated with major non-communicable diseases (NCDs; Improved Behavioural and Metabolic Risks scenario), and the combined effects of these three scenarios. Using the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways climate scenarios SSP2-4.5 as reference and SSP1-1.9 as an optimistic alternative in the Safer Environment scenario, we accounted for climate change impact on health by using the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change temperature forecasts and published trajectories of ambient air pollution for the same two scenarios. Life expectancy and healthy life expectancy were computed using standard methods. The forecasting framework includes computing the age-sex-specific future population for each location and separately for each scenario. 95% uncertainty intervals (UIs) for each individual future estimate were derived from the 2·5th and 97·5th percentiles of distributions generated from propagating 500 draws through the multistage computational pipeline. Findings: In the reference scenario forecast, global and super-regional life expectancy increased from 2022 to 2050, but improvement was at a slower pace than in the three decades preceding the COVID-19 pandemic (beginning in 2020). Gains in future life expectancy were forecasted to be greatest in super-regions with comparatively low life expectancies (such as sub-Saharan Africa) compared with super-regions with higher life expectancies (such as the high-income super-region), leading to a trend towards convergence in life expectancy across locations between now and 2050. At the super-region level, forecasted healthy life expectancy patterns were similar to those of life expectancies. Forecasts for the reference scenario found that health will improve in the coming decades, with all-cause age-standardised DALY rates decreasing in every GBD super-region. The total DALY burden measured in counts, however, will increase in every super-region, largely a function of population ageing and growth. We also forecasted that both DALY counts and age-standardised DALY rates will continue to shift from CMNNs to NCDs, with the most pronounced shifts occurring in sub-Saharan Africa (60·1% [95% UI 56·8–63·1] of DALYs were from CMNNs in 2022 compared with 35·8% [31·0–45·0] in 2050) and south Asia (31·7% [29·2–34·1] to 15·5% [13·7–17·5]). This shift is reflected in the leading global causes of DALYs, with the top four causes in 2050 being ischaemic heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, compared with 2022, with ischaemic heart disease, neonatal disorders, stroke, and lower respiratory infections at the top. The global proportion of DALYs due to YLDs likewise increased from 33·8% (27·4–40·3) to 41·1% (33·9–48·1) from 2022 to 2050, demonstrating an important shift in overall disease burden towards morbidity and away from premature death. The largest shift of this kind was forecasted for sub-Saharan Africa, from 20·1% (15·6–25·3) of DALYs due to YLDs in 2022 to 35·6% (26·5–43·0) in 2050. In the assessment of alternative future scenarios, the combined effects of the scenarios (Safer Environment, Improved Childhood Nutrition and Vaccination, and Improved Behavioural and Metabolic Risks scenarios) demonstrated an important decrease in the global burden of DALYs in 2050 of 15·4% (13·5–17·5) compared with the reference scenario, with decreases across super-regions ranging from 10·4% (9·7–11·3) in the high-income super-region to 23·9% (20·7–27·3) in north Africa and the Middle East. The Safer Environment scenario had its largest decrease in sub-Saharan Africa (5·2% [3·5–6·8]), the Improved Behavioural and Metabolic Risks scenario in north Africa and the Middle East (23·2% [20·2–26·5]), and the Improved Nutrition and Vaccination scenario in sub-Saharan Africa (2·0% [–0·6 to 3·6]). Interpretation: Globally, life expectancy and age-standardised disease burden were forecasted to improve between 2022 and 2050, with the majority of the burden continuing to shift from CMNNs to NCDs. That said, continued progress on reducing the CMNN disease burden will be dependent on maintaining investment in and policy emphasis on CMNN disease prevention and treatment. Mostly due to growth and ageing of populations, the number of deaths and DALYs due to all causes combined will generally increase. By constructing alternative future scenarios wherein certain risk exposures are eliminated by 2050, we have shown that opportunities exist to substantially improve health outcomes in the future through concerted efforts to prevent exposure to well established risk factors and to expand access to key health interventions

Review of some Technical issues related to the Quranic Text published in Pakistan

Error-free printing of Qur’ānic Text is a collective duty of all Muslims. The fact remains that Muslims have performed this duty with devotion and rightly. They also arranged sittings to discuss "Rasm" and " Ḍabt"(رسم اور ضبط) to understand the crux of matter and provide an expression to the most authentic text. No Muslim can intentionally commit any kind of mistake in the text of Qur’ān. However, such possibilities of error cannot be denied due to negligence and inadvertency. The Ministry for Religious Affairs has made it obligatory for all the printing institutions of Qur’ānic text to follow the model of the Qur’ānic manuscript, produced by Anjman Ḥimāyat-e-Islām, yet many Qur’ānic manuscripts with errors are present in the market. Such manuscripts are not only present in some mosques, but also recited. It causes problems in recitation of those verses and might changing the meaning of them. This article points out such scriptures and errors, so it can be identified and to take steps for preventive measures for such errors in future. This article also suggests some policies and strategies for publishing of Qur’ān for avoiding misprints errors

Review of some technical issues in the publication of Qur’ān in Pakistan= مطبوعہ پاکستانی مصاحف سے متعلق چند فنّی مسائل کا جائزہ

Error-free printing of Qur’ānic Text is a collective duty of all Muslims. The fact remains that Muslims have performed this duty with devotion and rightly. They also arranged sittings to discuss "Rasm" and " Ḍabt"(رسم اور ضبط) to understand the crux of matter and provide an expression to the most authentic text. No Muslim can intentionally commit any kind of mistake in the text of Qur’ān. However, such possibilities of error cannot be denied due to negligence and inadvertency. There are some technical errors in printed copies of the Qur’ān, published by some Pakistani printing companies. Such manuscripts are not only present in some mosques, but also recited. It causes problems in recitation of those verses and might changing the meaning of them. This article points out such scriptures and errors, so it can be identified and to take steps for preventive measures for such errors in future. This article also suggests some policies and strategies for publishing of Qur’ān for avoiding misprints errors

A Novel Technique Based on Visual Words Fusion Analysis of Sparse Features for Effective Content-Based Image Retrieval

Content-based image retrieval (CBIR) is a mechanism that is used to retrieve similar images from an image collection. In this paper, an effective novel technique is introduced to improve the performance of CBIR on the basis of visual words fusion of scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) and local intensity order pattern (LIOP) descriptors. SIFT performs better on scale changes and on invariant rotations. However, SIFT does not perform better in the case of low contrast and illumination changes within an image, while LIOP performs better in such circumstances. SIFT performs better even at large rotation and scale changes, while LIOP does not perform well in such circumstances. Moreover, SIFT features are invariant to slight distortion as compared to LIOP. The proposed technique is based on the visual words fusion of SIFT and LIOP descriptors which overcomes the aforementioned issues and significantly improves the performance of CBIR. The experimental results of the proposed technique are compared with another proposed novel features fusion technique based on SIFT-LIOP descriptors as well as with the state-of-the-art CBIR techniques. The qualitative and quantitative analysis carried out on three image collections, namely, Corel-A, Corel-B, and Caltech-256, demonstrate the robustness of the proposed technique based on visual words fusion as compared to features fusion and the state-of-the-art CBIR techniques

Dictionary-based fisher algorithm.

<p>Dictionary-based fisher algorithm.</p

Performance comparison of TIMIT and MusicBrainz datasets with respect to STOI and PESQ for noisy signal and proposed algorithm.

<p>Performance comparison of TIMIT and MusicBrainz datasets with respect to STOI and PESQ for noisy signal and proposed algorithm.</p

Layer separation architecture.

<p>Layer separation architecture.</p