Impact of Health on Labour Productivity: Empirical Evidence from Pakistan

Health status has been given wide spread weight age across many Sustainable Development Goals. This study would reinforce its significance by quantifying the impact of health status on workers’ productivity in Pakistan. The current study attempts to examine the role of health status on workers’ productivity by employing Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach by Pesaran and Shin (1999) and Pesaran et al. (2001) using data from 1980 to 2010 for Pakistan. It has been found that 1% improvement in health status would result in around 13.39% rise in worker productivity. The coefficient of education is positively related to worker productivity at 1% level of significance and indicates that worker productivity will increase by 0.18% due 1% increase in education. Inflation has negative relationship with worker productivity whereas the association between worker productivity and Foreign Direct Investment, being proxy of technology transfer, is positive but statistically insignificant which shows that technology transfer has no effect on productivity in case of Pakistan. Education and experience have often been observed as determinants of worker productivity in empirical analysis of Pakistan. However, this study is a first endeavor to quantify the impact of health status upon worker’s productivity for Pakistan

Deformable Object Tracking Using Clustering and Particle Filter

Visual tracking of a deformable object is a challenging problem, as the target object frequently changes its attributes like shape, posture, color and so on. In this work, we propose a model-free tracker using clustering to track a target object which poses deformations and rotations. Clustering is applied to segment the tracked object into several independent components and the discriminative parts are tracked to locate the object. The proposed technique segments the target object into independent components using data clustering techniques and then tracks by finding corresponding clusters. Particle filters method is incorporated to improve the accuracy of the proposed technique. Experiments are carried out with several standard data sets, and results demonstrate comparable performance to the state-of-the-art visual tracking methods

Ruptured pseudoaneurysm as a cause of spontaneous intracerebral bleed in a 3-month old infant

Ruptured intracranial aneurysms in infants are very rare but if missed can lead to poor outcomes. Spontaneously dissecting false aneurysms have been described only in a handful of cases. We report a case of a three-month old girl with deteriorating neurological function due to a ruptured distal middle cerebral artery pseudoaneurysm

A matrix-free quasi-Newton method for solving large-scale nonlinear systems.

One of the widely used methods for solving a nonlinear system of equations is the quasi-Newton method. The basic idea underlining this type of method is to approximate the solution of Newton’s equation by means of approximating the Jacobian matrix via quasi-Newton update. Application of quasi-Newton methods for large scale problems requires, in principle, vast computational resource to form and store an approximation to the Jacobian matrix of the underlying problem. Hence, this paper proposes an approximation for Newton-step based on the update of approximation requiring a computational effort similar to that of matrix-free settings. It is made possible by approximating the Jacobian into a diagonal matrix using the least-change secant updating strategy, commonly employed in the development of quasi-Newton methods. Under suitable assumptions, local convergence of the proposed method is proved for nonsingular systems. Numerical experiments on popular test problems confirm the effectiveness of the approach in comparison with Newton’s, Chord Newton’s and Broyden’s methods

Mechanical and comfort properties of Hydroentangled nonwovens from comber noil

Cotton fibre is one of the most important commodity fibre and is widely employed in apparels. At present, the share of natural fibres in production of nonwoven fabrics is low and employed in opt applications. The cotton fibre is conventionally converted into woven and knitted fabrics by short staple spinning methods. The comber noil is short fibre waste during production of combed cotton yarns. The aims of the current study were to employ comber noil for preparation of Hydroentangled cotton nonwovens at varying water jet pressures and conveyor speeds. The effect of these parameters is studied with respect to mechanical and comfort properties of prepared fabrics. The results showed that these variables can help to manufacture fibrous assemblies with engineered properties according to required application area

Determination of the anti-diabetic effect of methanolic extract of Sphaeranthus indicus L. on alloxan induced diabetic rabbits

The aim of present study was to determine the anti-diabetic effect of methanolic extract of Sphaeranthus indicus L. (SMe) in alloxan induced diabetic rabbits. It was further aimed to determine the effect of SMe on various biochemical parameters, namely blood glucose levels, total cholesterol, lipoproteins (HDL and LDL), liver functions (SGOT and SGPT), serum creatinine and urea level in alloxan induced diabetic rabbits. Rabbits were divided into five groups: one non-diabetic control, treated with vehicle and four experimental (diabetic) groups. The experimental groups can be described as diabetic negative control, treated with vehicle, diabetic positive control, treated with 80 mg/kg of diamicron, a reference drug; and diabetic treated with 150 or 300 mg/kg of SMe. Pre- and post-experimental lipid profile, liver function and kidney function of rabbits was determined. The SMe at the dose of 300 mg/Kg body weight significantly (p 0.05).Colegio de Farmacéuticos de la Provincia de Buenos Aire

Determination of the anti-diabetic effect of methanolic extract of Sphaeranthus indicus L. on alloxan induced diabetic rabbits

The aim of present study was to determine the anti-diabetic effect of methanolic extract of Sphaeranthus indicus L. (SMe) in alloxan induced diabetic rabbits. It was further aimed to determine the effect of SMe on various biochemical parameters, namely blood glucose levels, total cholesterol, lipoproteins (HDL and LDL), liver functions (SGOT and SGPT), serum creatinine and urea level in alloxan induced diabetic rabbits. Rabbits were divided into five groups: one non-diabetic control, treated with vehicle and four experimental (diabetic) groups. The experimental groups can be described as diabetic negative control, treated with vehicle, diabetic positive control, treated with 80 mg/kg of diamicron, a reference drug; and diabetic treated with 150 or 300 mg/kg of SMe. Pre- and post-experimental lipid profile, liver function and kidney function of rabbits was determined. The SMe at the dose of 300 mg/Kg body weight significantly (p 0.05).Colegio de Farmacéuticos de la Provincia de Buenos Aire

Comparative changes in the rheological properties and cell wall metabolism in rind of healthy and creased fruit of Washington navel and navelina sweet orange ('Citrus sinensis' [L.] Osbeck)

Creasing is a physiological disorder in navel oranges and causes serious economic losses. In 2007, the comparative changes in rheological properties of the rind, levels of starch, phenolics, pectins and the activity of pectinesterase (PE) in albedo and flavedo tissues of the healthy and the creased fruit of ‘Washington Navel’ and ‘Navelina’ sweet orange at ripe stage were investigated. During 2009, dynamics of the activities of PE, exo and endo polygalacturonase (exo-PG, endo-PG), and endo-1, 4-ß -D-glucanase (EGase) enzymes in albedo and flavedo tissues of the healthy as well as the creased ‘Washington Navel’ sweet orange fruit at different maturation and ripening stages were researched. The rind hardness, stiffness and tensile force were substantially lower in the creased fruit than the healthy ones in ‘Washington Navel’ and ‘Navelina’. The levels of starch, total phenolics, total pectins and water insoluble pectins decreased in the albedo and flavedo of the creased than the healthy fruit in both the cultivars. The levels of water soluble pectins increased in the albedo and flavedo of the creased fruit when compared to the healthy ones in both the cultivars. The activities of PE in albedo and flavedo tissues were higher in the creased fruit when compared to the healthy fruit of ‘Washington Navel’ and ‘Navelina’ in 2007. The activities of PE, exo and endo PG and Endo-1, 4-ß -D-glucanase were higher in the albedo tissue of creased fruit of ‘Washington Navel’ orange at different fruit maturation and ripening stages.In conclusion, the higher activities of pectinesterase, exo- polygalacturonase, endo- polygalacturonase, and endo-1, 4-ß -D-glucanase in the albedo of creased fruit at commercial harvest seem to be associated with the enhanced loss of pectins and starch in the cell walls of albedo tissue, leading to cell wall loosening and cracks formation consequently reducing hardness, stiffness and tensile force of the rind

Infective agents in diabetic foot ulcers and their sensitivity patterns

Background: Diabetic-foot syndrome is a difficult & debilitating complication of inadequately regulated Diabetes Mellitus. Attributed to neural & vascular pathology, the condition is further potentiated by glycemic healing impairment.  A wide array of microorganisms have been implicated & sensitivity-guided antibiotics are essential to save both limb as well as to minimize rampant microbial resistance. Present study aims to determine the culture & sensitivity pattern of bacteria in stated cohort of patients at a Surgical Unit. Materials & Methods: This prospective cohort study was conducted over a period of 1 year-duration at a tertiary-care-Hospital. All patients presenting with diabetic-foot who had not been subjected to empiric antibiotic-therapy were enrolled. Demographic & lesion-based variables were studied and the Culture & Sensitivity pattern was evaluated and statistically analyzed. Results:100 patients were included in the study,of which 80 were male (mean-age 60.8±12.7 years) & rest female (mean-age 58.4±11.3-years).35% cultures yielded no growth. Remaining cases showed following pathogens in descending order of incidence. Maximal sensitivity was also reported as mentioned. 1) Staphylococcus-aureus & Klebseilla-Pneumoenae– Piperacillin/Tazobactam,2) Pseudomonas-Aerugionas-Cefotaxime,3)E-coli–Amikacin& Sulbactam,4) Proteus -Gentamicin, 5) Streptococci– Amikacin and 6) Bacteroides – Cefoperazone & Aztreonam. Of 71 cases, 70  had aerobic-organisms isolates & only 1 had anaerobic-isolate.   Conclusions: Six pathogens were identified in present study of which Staphylococcus-Aureus was the most prevalent as well as the most resistant. Streptococci & Gram-negative Organisms were observed in remaining cases. While formulation of an adequate antibiotic regime is rendered difficult by resistance & mixed infections, targeted antibiotic administration is decisively crucial to achieve optimal & timely outcome in diabetic foot. &nbsp