Zero-tillage Technology and Farm Profits: A Case Study of Wheat Growers in the Rice Zone of Punjab

This study presents the results from a field survey of the wheat growers in the rice-wheat zone of Punjab. The late maturing basmati rice varieties and the post paddy-harvest conventional tillage practices to prepare seedbed for wheat sowing often result in delayed planting of the crop. The late sowing is a major factor responsible for low wheat yields obtained by the farmers of the area. Introduction of the new zero-tillage seed drill in the area during early 1980s made it possible to sow wheat in freshly harvested untilled paddy fields utilizing residual moister. Presently, more than eighty thousand hectares of wheat are sown with zero-tillage drill technology. The partial budget analysis showed that zero-tillage is more profitable than conventional wheat sowing methods of ‘wadwatter’ or ‘rauni’. The new technology saves tillage and irrigation costs, results in yield gains through a possible improvement in sowing time and enhanced fertilizer and water use efficiencies. The results showed that the zero-tillage adopters earn an extra income of 253 and 2278 rupees per acre of wheat over that earned from wheat sown with rauni and wadwattar methods respectively. The results of multiple regression analysis confirmed that the zero-tillage technology enhances water and fertilizer use efficiency. However, sufficient evidence was not present to prove any positive or adverse affect of the technology on the incidence of weeds in wheat crop. It is suggested that this aspect of zero-tillage technology be focused more in future research.wheat; Zero-tillage; technology; irrigated Punjab; rice-wheat zone; Pakistan

The Determinants of Services Sector Growth: A Comparative Analysis of Selected Developed and Developing Economies

This study empirically examines the possible factors that determine the services sector growth, both in selected developed and developing economies. For estimation purpose, the study employs the static as well as the dynamic panel data estimation technique with panel data over the period 1990-2014. The results suggest that GDP per capita, FDI net inflow, trade openness and innovations are the common factors that significantly affect the services sector growth both in developed and in developing economies. However, the productivity gap is the only factor that does not have any significant impact on services sector growth, both in developed and developing economies, which indicates that the Baumol's cost disease has been cured. Keywords: Services Sector Growth, Panel Data Analysis, Innovation

KOMPARASI FUNGSI AKTIVASI DALAM PREDIKSI KASUS TERINFEKSI COVID-19 DI DKI JAKARTA MENGGUNAKAN METODE RECURRENT NEURAL NETWORK

Coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) adalah penyakit menular yang disebabkan oleh jenis coronavirus baru yaitu Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-Cov-2). Terhitung tanggal 23 November 2021 jumlah kasus terinfeksi Covid-19 di Indonesia sebanyak 4.254.433 kasus dengan kasus terinfeksi terbanyak terjadi di Provinsi DKI Jakarta sebanyak 863.551 kasus (20,29%). Pada penelitian ini, dilakukan prediksi kasus terinfeksi Covid-19 di DKI Jakarta menggunakan salah satu metode machine learning yaitu Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) dengan melakukan komparasi fungsi aktivasi Sigmoid, Tanh dan ReLU di hidden dan output layer. Model prediksi RNN yang paling optimal diharapkan dapat menjadi salah satu alat dalam mengambil keputusan oleh pemerintah, tenaga kesehatan, dan pihak yang membutuhkan keputusan, serta pihak terkait dapat mengantisipasi dan waspada apabila jumlah kasus Covid-19 diprediksi tinggi. Berdasarkan implementasi, model RNN yang dibangun oleh fungsi aktivasi ReLU di hidden layer dan Tanh di output layer menjadi model terbaik dibandingkan model RNN dengan kombinasi fungsi aktivasi lainnya. Performa model RNN (ReLU-Tanh) berdasarkan mean square error pada testing data adalah 0.000651

2-(tert-Butoxy­carbonyl­amino)-2-(2-fluoro­phen­yl)acetic acid

The title compound, C13H16FNO4, consists of conventional, centrosymmetric carboxyl­ate dimers. These dimers form infinite polymeric chains due to inter­molecular N—H⋯O hydrogen bonding. The 2-fluoro­phenyl unit is disordered over two sets of sites with an ocupancy ratio of 0.915 (3):0.085 (3)

PEMBELAJARAN MATEMATIKA DENGAN MENGGUNAKAN PENDEKATAN OPEN-ENDED UNTUK MENINGKATKAN KEMAMPUAN BERFIKIR KREATIF SISWA: PEMBELAJARAN MATEMATIKA DENGAN MENGGUNAKAN PENDEKATAN OPEN-ENDED UNTUK MENINGKATKAN KEMAMPUAN BERFIKIR KREATIF SISWA

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menelaah keefektifan pembelajaran dengan pendekatan open-ended dibandingkan dengan  penerapan pembelajaran konvensional terhadap peningkatan kemampuan berfikir kreatif siswa. Selain itu, dianalisis pula tentang sikap siswa terhadap penerapan pembelajaran matematika dengan menggunakan pendekatan open-ended. Jenis penelitian yang  dilakukan adalah penelitian  kuasi eksperimen dengan sampel penelitian terdiri dari 64 siswa kelas VIII yang berasal dari dua kelas di MTs Negeri I Subang. Kedua kelas diberikan pretes dan postes kemampuan berfikir kreatif, dan diberi angket sikap siswa terhadap penerapan pembelajaran dengan pendekatan open-ended.  Hipotesis penelitian diuji dengan menggunakan uji parametrik (uji t) dan uji non-parametrik (uji Mann Whitney). Hasil penelitian menyatakan bahwa: (1) peningkatan kemampuan berfikir kreatif siswa kelas eksperimen lebih baik daripada siswa kelas kontrol; (2) Sebagian besar siswa memberikan sikap positif terhadap pembelajaran matematika yang menggunakan pendekatan open-ended.This study aims to examine the effectiveness of learning with an open-ended approach compared to the application of conventional learning to improving students' creative thinking abilities. In addition, it also analyzed about students' attitudes towards the application of mathematics learning using the open-ended approach. This type of research is a quasi-experimental study with a sample of 64 class VIII students from two classes in MTs Negeri I Subang. Both classes were given pretest and posttest ability to think creatively, and were given questionnaires for student attitudes towards the application of learning with an open-ended approach. The research hypothesis was tested using parametric tests (t test) and non-parametric tests (Mann Whitney test). The results of the study stated that: (1) the increase in the creative thinking ability of the experimental class students was better than the control class students; (2) Most students give a positive attitude towards learning mathematics using the open-ended approach

PEMBELAJARAN MATEMATIKA DENGAN MENGGUNAKAN PENDEKATAN OPEN-ENDED UNTUK MENINGKATKAN KEMAMPUAN BERFIKIR KREATIF SISWA: PEMBELAJARAN MATEMATIKA DENGAN MENGGUNAKAN PENDEKATAN OPEN-ENDED UNTUK MENINGKATKAN KEMAMPUAN BERFIKIR KREATIF SISWA

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menelaah keefektifan pembelajaran dengan pendekatan open-ended dibandingkan dengan  penerapan pembelajaran konvensional terhadap peningkatan kemampuan berfikir kreatif siswa. Selain itu, dianalisis pula tentang sikap siswa terhadap penerapan pembelajaran matematika dengan menggunakan pendekatan open-ended. Jenis penelitian yang  dilakukan adalah penelitian  kuasi eksperimen dengan sampel penelitian terdiri dari 64 siswa kelas VIII yang berasal dari dua kelas di MTs Negeri I Subang. Kedua kelas diberikan pretes dan postes kemampuan berfikir kreatif, dan diberi angket sikap siswa terhadap penerapan pembelajaran dengan pendekatan open-ended.  Hipotesis penelitian diuji dengan menggunakan uji parametrik (uji t) dan uji non-parametrik (uji Mann Whitney). Hasil penelitian menyatakan bahwa: (1) peningkatan kemampuan berfikir kreatif siswa kelas eksperimen lebih baik daripada siswa kelas kontrol; (2) Sebagian besar siswa memberikan sikap positif terhadap pembelajaran matematika yang menggunakan pendekatan open-ended.This study aims to examine the effectiveness of learning with an open-ended approach compared to the application of conventional learning to improving students' creative thinking abilities. In addition, it also analyzed about students' attitudes towards the application of mathematics learning using the open-ended approach. This type of research is a quasi-experimental study with a sample of 64 class VIII students from two classes in MTs Negeri I Subang. Both classes were given pretest and posttest ability to think creatively, and were given questionnaires for student attitudes towards the application of learning with an open-ended approach. The research hypothesis was tested using parametric tests (t test) and non-parametric tests (Mann Whitney test). The results of the study stated that: (1) the increase in the creative thinking ability of the experimental class students was better than the control class students; (2) Most students give a positive attitude towards learning mathematics using the open-ended approach

Preferential Treatment Impacts Organizational Commitment: Evidence from Public Universities of Pakistan

Preferential treatment is detrimental. Keeping in view this important perspective, this study intends to capture the impact of preferential treatment via favoritism, nepotism, and cronyism on employee commitment in Public Universities of Pakistan. To seek the objectives of the study 400 questionnaires were distributed to employees of different Public Universities. The findings of the study revealed the negative impact of favoritism, nepotism, and cronyism on employees’ commitment. The results of the study confirmed the moderating role of LMX in the relation between favoritism-organizational commitment as well between nepotism-organizational commitment relation whereas, contrary to expectations LMX did not moderate the relation between cronyism and organizational commitment. Practical implications, limitations as well future directions are discusse

A Hybrid Convolutional Neural Network Model for Automatic Diabetic Retinopathy Classification From Fundus Images

Objective: Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) is a retinal disease that can cause damage to blood vessels in the eye, that is the major cause of impaired vision or blindness, if not treated early. Manual detection of diabetic retinopathy is time-consuming and prone to human error due to the complex structure of the eye. Methods & Results: various automatic techniques have been proposed to detect diabetic retinopathy from fundus images. However, these techniques are limited in their ability to capture the complex features underlying diabetic retinopathy, particularly in the early stages. In this study, we propose a novel approach to detect diabetic retinopathy using a convolutional neural network (CNN) model. The proposed model extracts features using two different deep learning (DL) models, Resnet50 and Inceptionv3, and concatenates them before feeding them into the CNN for classification. The proposed model is evaluated on a publicly available dataset of fundus images. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed CNN model achieves higher accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, precision, and f1 score compared to state-of-the-art methods, with respective scores of 96.85%, 99.28%, 98.92%, 96.46%, and 98.65%.©2023 The Authors. Published by IEEE. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. For more information, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Prevalence of active hepatitis C virus infections among general public of Lahore, Pakistan

BACKGROUND: To find out the prevalence of active hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections among general public in Lahore city, since data concerning the prevalence of active HCV in this city is currently unavailable. METHODS: Blood samples were collected randomly from individuals visiting different clinical laboratories in Lahore. Serum was separated and processed by nested PCR qualitative assay for the detection of HCV RNA. The samples were categorized into different age groups on the basis of pre-test questionnaires in order to record the age-wise differences regarding the prevalence of active HCV. Data were analyzed statistically using Chi-Square test. RESULTS: Out of the 4246 blood samples analyzed in this study, 210 were confirmed to be positive for active HCV infection. Gender-wise active HCV prevalence revealed no significant difference [OR = 1.10 CI = (0.83-1.46), p > 0.05]. However, among the age groups the highest prevalence was observed in the age groups 20–29 (7.7%) and 30–39 years (6.4%) with odds of prevalence of 14.8% (OR = 2.48, CI = (1.40-4.38), p < 0.05) and 10.3% (OR = 2.03, CI = (1.10-3.71), respectively. In age groups above 40 years (40–49, 50–59 and >59 years), a decrease in levels of active HCV prevalence was observed. CONCLUSIONS: Among tested samples, 4.9% of the subjects were confirmed to harbour active HCV infections and the “middle aged” population in Lahore was found to be at a higher risk of the HCV ailments compared to both their younger and older peers