Terrorist Discourse in Naqvi’s ‘Home Boy’: A Neo Orientalist Perspective

The purpose of this paper is to study Naqvi’s novel, Home Boy (2010) as a Neo Orientalist discourse of US officials about Pakistani Muslims. This paper will discuss how US officials including that of G. W. Bush perceive the Oriental world _ by using the same strategy _ as one distinguished by strangeness, Creepiness, and unusual practices; a world that is ‘Other’ than that of Anglo-American familiar to the American public. In short what terrorist discourse of Neo Orientalists in the  novel confirmed, was Said’s thesis about the “subtle and persistent Eurocentric prejudice against Arabo-Islamic peoples and their culture” (The Edward Said Reader 2000, 69). The paper argues that the terrorist discourse in the novel is certainly a Neo Orientalist discourse enacted by the Center to demonize marginal Islam and its followers

Pantheism, Status of Religion and the Picture of Nature in Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing

Human beings have a natural instinct to identify themselves with something powerful in order to gain some kind of spiritual relief or peace of mind and soul. Conventionally people turn to God or Christ but history witnesses that the question of existence and quest for a non-conventional religious deity for a complete harmony of heart and soul is an ever acknowledged fact. I find the same phenomena in Margaret Atwood’s second famous novel Surfacing. The research will express my stance that in Surfacing, the search for a non theistic deity, i.e. nature and the process of self-realization (pantheism), go side- by-side and the narrator finally succeeds in identifying herself by having a direct association with the nature which serves as a source of spiritual guide for her

A novel educational tool for teaching ocular ultrasound

Ocular ultrasound is now in increasing demand in routine ophthalmic clinical practice not only because it is noninvasive but also because of ever-advancing technology providing higher resolution imaging. It is however a difficult branch of ophthalmic investigations to grasp, as it requires a high skill level to interface with the technology and provide accurate interpretation of images for ophthalmic diagnosis and management. It is even more labor intensive to teach ocular ultrasound to another fellow clinician. One of the fundamental skills that proved difficult to learn and teach is the need for the examiner to “mentally convert” 2-dimensional B-scan images into 3-dimensional (3D) interpretations. An additional challenge is the requirement to carry out this task in real time. We have developed a novel approach to teach ocular ultrasound by using a novel 3D ocular model. A 3D virtual model is built using widely available, open source, software. The model is then used to generate movie clips simulating different movements and orientations of the scanner head. Using Blender, Quicktime motion clips are choreographed and collated into interactive quizzes and other pertinent pedagogical media. The process involves scripting motion vectors, rotation, and tracking of both the virtual stereo camera and the model. The resulting sequence is then rendered for twinned right- and left-eye views. Finally, the twinned views are synchronized and combined in a format compatible with the stereo projection apparatus. This new model will help the student with spatial awareness and allow for assimilation of this awareness into clinical practice. It will also help with grasping the nomenclature used in ocular ultrasound as well as helping with localization of lesions and obtaining the best possible images for echographic diagnosis, accurate measurements, and reporting

Terrorist Discourse in Naqvi’s ‘Home Boy’: A Neo Orientalist Perspective

The purpose of this paper is to study Naqvi’s novel, Home Boy (2010) as a Neo Orientalist discourse of US officials about Pakistani Muslims. This paper will discuss how US officials including that of G. W. Bush perceive the Oriental world _ by using the same strategy _ as one distinguished by strangeness, Creepiness, and unusual practices; a world that is ‘Other’ than that of Anglo-American familiar to the American public. In short what terrorist discourse of Neo Orientalists in the  novel confirmed, was Said’s thesis about the “subtle and persistent Eurocentric prejudice against Arabo-Islamic peoples and their culture” (The Edward Said Reader 2000, 69). The paper argues that the terrorist discourse in the novel is certainly a Neo Orientalist discourse enacted by the Center to demonize marginal Islam and its followers. Keywords: Discourse, Neo- orientalism, Islamophobia, Demonize, Eurocentric Prejudic

Green economy and its future

Purpose: This paper tries to find out the current progress of subjective developed and developing countries regarding green economy development. Research Methodology: This paper uses a graphical radar approach to show countries' overall performance toward the green economy. Results: This paper concluded that developed countries are ahead of developing in terms of current health expenditure, large forest area and tons of national parks. However, they are on the same page in terms of pollution, whether it is air or solid. Limitations: Several elements restrict this study. The study is carried out in chosen underdeveloped countries and developed ones. The position of the countries is therefore restricted. Consequently, the results and outputs may not apply to geographical sites. Because of unavailability, this study sample may not be sufficient. Contribution: This study will benefit both developed and developing countries by providing a clear understanding and scenario about the green economy, well-being, and green infrastructure. The findings of this study will be beneficial to institutions, researchers, politicians, the government, and others. Governments and government agencies can plan and promote their strategies and policies to understand green infrastructure and its impact on human health clearly. This study further extends the literature on the green economy and provides a new way of measuring it through its different components. Furthermore, this study can help explain where we stand right now and where we should set sail to

Socio-economic Status of Transferred and Non-transferred Urban Slums: A Case Study from Faisalabad

The rapid urbanisation has become a burning challenge across the developing countries of the world for the last four decades. The population pressure on the cities has caused many problems like environmental pollution, sanitation, education, health, traffic level and housing etc. In this context, housing is one of the most important issues related to urbanisation. Slums are reflected as the carbuncle in cities and looked extemporaneously and arbitrarily [Shafqaat, et al. (2013). The share of world urban population was 32 percent in 1950, it rose up to 39 percent in 1980 and 48 percent in 2000, which reflects that 3 out of 10 people were living in cities in 1950. In 2011, about half of the world population was living in the big cities and at the end of the third decade of this century; that make up the formation as 6 out of 10 people [World Bank (1999)]. Pakistan‘s town populace is fixed to become identical to its rural population in the year 2030. This needs for an effective urban planning instrument to confirm universal distribution of simple municipal amenities, regulator of the spread of slums, reducing of effluence and the control of crime and political might [Khan, et al. (2012)

Risk Adjusted Performance Evaluation of Balanced Mutual Fund Schemes in Pakistan

Mutual fund existed since 1964 in Pakistan capital market carrying certain benefits like risk diversification, assured returns and professional management for the retail investors. Growth of this investment mode has not been in the parallel levels in Pakistan as is the case around the world but still mutual funds in Pakistan appeared to be highly competitive financial service industry. This research paper aimed to study the performance of some selected mutual fund schemes in Pakistan based on risk-return relationship and various measures. Five balanced schemes offered by various mutual funds in Pakistan are selected for this study from 2010 to 2013. The analysis has been made on the basis of mean return, beta risk, total risk, Sharpe ratio, Treynor ratio, Jensen Alpha and Fama’s decomposition measure. The empirical results reveal that average returns of selected portfolio are below from market returns, mix trend of risk in selected schemes and overall defensive beta values. In short results indicate underperformance of most of schemes during selected span of study. Keywords: Risk adjusted performance, Balanced mutual fund, Treynor, Sharpe and Jensen’s Alpha measure. KSE 10

Impact of mobility models on clustering based routing protocols in mobile WSNs

This paper presents comparison of different hierarchical (position and non-position based) protocols with respect to different mobility models. Previous work mainly focuses on static networks or at most a single mobility model. Using only one mobility model may not predict the behavior of routing protocol accurately. Simulation results show that mobility has large impact on the behavior of WSN routing protocols. Also, position based routing protocols performs better in terms of packet delivery compared to non position based routing protocols