A Study on Industrial Agglomeration in Manufacturing Sector of Pakistan Using Ellison–Glaeser index

This paper explores the geographic concentration in manufacturing sector of Pakistan. Census of manufacturing industries CMI-data set is used for the period of 2000 to 2012. It is found that the extent of industrial agglomeration in Pakistan has diversified magnificently in recent years. Ellison–Glaeser index has been applied in the study and its values have increased steadily throughout the sample time period. Pakistan’s various regions obstructs the process of geographic concentration of manufacturing industries due to some social, political and economic problems, involving improper management of resources and failure in the achievement of policy objectives. The location decisions of two business units in the same industry are very important in their spillover gains through internal and external concentration of economies of scale. Along with some primary and traditional industries, some high technology industries are highly localized, which supports the view that technological spillovers may be important. A time period understanding of industrial transformation is developed along with extent of industrial agglomeration in this study with several implications for policy makers. Keywords: Industrial agglomeration, Manufacturing Industries, Spillovers, Pakistan.

An Estimation of Relationship between Foreign Direct Investment and Industrial Structure Upgrading in Pakistan: Decomposition Analysis

FDI plays an important role in the industrial structure transformation in Pakistan over the years. However, due to the turbulent international financial markets, political instability, frequent strike processions, deteriorating law and order situation, energy crisis and so on, have resulted in FDI fluctuations which seriously impacts the normal operation of the national economy in general and have severe implications for industrial structure improvement in particular. As a result, FDI in Pakistan declined sharply. Many foreign enterprises withdraw their business from Pakistan. There is an urgent need for industrial structure upgrading in Pakistan so as to regain the considerable market potential and attract more FDI in the country. This paper uses co integration analysis and dynamic variance decomposition, to present the relationship between FDI and Pakistan’s industrial structure upgrading. The result shows that there is a stable relationship between FDI and industrial structure upgrading especially in the long-term. Moreover to successfully achieve the task of dual transformation of stabilizing economy for attracting more FDI and upgrading industrial structure government have to follow a viable policy option culminating the hindrances in the process of sustainable development. Keywords: Foreign Direct Investment, Industrial Structure, Political Stability, Decomposition analysi

Evaluation for Granulomatous Inflammation on Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology Using Special Stains

Background. Tuberculosis is the commonest infectious disease in the developing world. Many diagnostic tests are devised for its detection including direct smear examination. This study was designed to determine the frequency of cases positive for AFB and positive for fungus in patients diagnosed to have granulomatous inflammation on Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology using special stains. Materials and Methods. A descriptive cross-sectional survey was done on 100 cases of granulomatous inflammation consistent with tuberculosis diagnosed on fine needle aspiration cytology at the Department of Pathology, King Edward Medical University, Lahore. After reporting granulomatous inflammation on Hematoxylin & Eosin staining of aspirates from FNAC, some unstained slides were subjected to special stains, like ZN, GMS, and PAS. Cases positive for AFB on ZN stain and fungus on GMS/PAS were noted down along with their frequency and percentages. Results. Forty-four cases (44%) of AFB positive smears were reported in granulomatous inflammation while only 5% cases of fungus were reported down. Cervical lymph nodes were the most commonly involved site (87%), and females were affected more (62%) than males. Most cases of AFB-positive smears were associated with caseation necrosis (93%). Conclusion. Special stains should be done on all granulomatous inflammation cases seen on FNAC for confirmation of TB and ruling out other infectious causes

Transmission Dynamics Model of Coronavirus COVID-19 for the Outbreak in Most Affected Countries of the World

The wide spread of coronavirus (COVID-19) has threatened millions of lives and damaged the economy worldwide. Due to the severity and damage caused by the disease, it is very important to fore-tell the epidemic lifetime in order to take timely actions. Unfortunately, the lack of accurate information and unavailability of large amount of data at this stage make the task more difficult. In this paper, we used the available data from the mostly affected countries by COVID-19, (China, Iran, South Korea and Italy) and fit this with the SEIR type model in order to estimate the basic reproduction number R_0. We also discussed the development trend of the disease. Our model is quite accurate in predicting the current pattern of the infected population. We also performed sensitivity analysis on all the parameters used that are affecting the value of R0

Serological and Molecular Investigation of Brucella Species in Dogs in Pakistan

Brucellosis is an important bacterial zoonosis caused by B. abortus and B. melitensis in Pakistan. The status of canine brucellosis caused by B. canis remains obscure. In total, 181 serum samples were collected from stray and working dogs in two different prefectures viz. Faisalabad (n = 87) and Bahawalpur (n = 94). Presence of antibodies against B. canis and B. abortus/B. melitensis was determined using the slow agglutination test (SAT) and ELISA, respectively. Real-time PCR was performed to detect and differentiate Brucella DNA at the species level. In Faisalabad, the serological prevalence was found to be 9.2% (8/87) and 10.3% (9/87) by SAT and ELISA, respectively. Only one of the ELISA positive samples (1.15%) yielded amplification for B. abortus DNA. In Bahawalpur, 63.8% (60/94) samples were found positive by SAT; however, none of the samples was positive by ELISA or by real-time PCR. Location, age (≥1 year) and body condition (weak) were found to be associated with B. canis infection, whereas presence of wounds was found to be associated with B. abortus infection only. These findings point towards a risk of transmission from dog to livestock and humans and vice versa. The study expects to draw the attention of concerned authorities towards infection prevention and animal welfare. This study warrants further epidemiological investigation on brucellosis in pet dogs and their owners. To the best of our knowledge, this is first ever report on B. canis and B. abortus in dogs in Pakistan

Achieving Accuracy in Early Stage Tumor Identification Systems based on Image Segmentation and 3D Structure Analysis

Cancer is a disease which can be removed if early stage tumor identification systems efficiently and accurately work at cancer hospitals. As the accuracy in detection of tumor means to detect exact size of the tumor. Because the best way to beat cancer is early stage tumor diagnosis and quality treatment. In this research article an accuracy module is proposed for computer aided tumor diagnosis system. The ultimate proposed CAD gets image of tumor infected lung and breast images from different state of the art early stage tumor detection methodologies as micrographic and mammographic based imaging systems. For accuracy in detection of early stage tumor, image enhancement and segmentation techniques are applied according to the imaging problems at input image. Also for accurate estimation of tumor the 3D image construction and 3D structure analysis are tried to realized. The realization of the proposed CAD proves that the accuracy module can assist well the computer aided tumor diagnosis systems with almost near to 100% accuracy in early stage tumor detection and size estimation for breast and lung cancer. Keywords: Computer Aided Tumor Detection, Accurate identificatio

Distributed Virtual Disk Storage System

Distributed Virtual Disk Storage System (DVDSS) is a reliable and fully decentralized storage system which is based on the concept of Distributed Storage and Virtual Disk. It is Client / Server architecture and utilizes all free space of desktop machines of a LAN for storage purposes. DVDSS converts all storage of computers on the LAN into a large disk, create a virtual disk and provide this disk to all users of the system. Users can store their data files and folders on this disk and they can retrieve their data whenever they need. DVDSS provides a transparent and reliable access to data. It also provides data consistency and data security. The recovery of data when a node fails is also provided by DVDSS. The objective of system is to combine the all storage space of a LAN and utilize it for storage of user's data in transparent and reliable manner. Keywords: Distributed Storage, Virtual Disk, Space Utilization, data recovery, data consistency

Optimal Control Analysis of Ebola Disease with Control Strategies of Quarantine and Vaccination

The 2014 Ebola epidemic is the largest in history, affecting multiple countries in West Africa. Some isolated cases were also observed in other regions of the world