Productivity Constraints of Cholistani Farmers

This paper examines the factors behind low crop yield in Cholistan. Both the quantitative and qualitative analysis show how the low levels of agricultural productivity in this area may be linked to material and climatic factors. The quantitative analysis is mainly focused on physical factors. The qualitative analysis, however, emphasises that relative inefficiency of agricultural activity in Cholistan reflects the influence of physical, economic, social and, most importantly, climatic factors. The quantitative findings provide valuable insight into various ‘sources of productivity’ in terms of acreage effect, capital input effect and irrigation water availability effect. The size of the positive and significant coefficients on these variables suggest the extent to which one or the other variable effect is prominent in improving the crop yield. The qualitative analysis examines multiple interrelated factors which can be blamed on for relative inefficiency of Cholistani farmers. The hot climate of the area turns out to be the most critical variable in this analysis. Many specific technological drought-mitigating measures are proposed. However, for consistent policy formulation, a thorough study and quantitative evaluation of the potential and practicality of these measures in Cholistan is suggested.

Stochastic MCDM Framework Over Converged Infrastructure

AbstractService unification and application integration have brought about vendors, network operators, service providers, car- riers, businesses and infrastructures over a platform while offering the business plans, presenting solution packages, proposing virtualization strategies and outsourcing the resources whereas promising an all Internet Protocol (IP) setup. Diverse business goals from distinctive providers alongside the technology merger and service unification in addition to dynamic border traffic management issues introduce more complexity over such platforms. A decision-making frame- work for handling the border traffic management issues at private public network with multi homing support is presented. Augmented Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) theory addresses the qualitative entities while constructing the structural hierarchy of goals, criteria, sub criteria and alternatives. Inter/Intra-domain knowledge over different planes (service, control and transport) is modeled by using ontology. Blending ontology with Bayesian captures uncertainty over the planes. A simple use-case is presented over the test-bed to validate the proposed solution. The system offers higher throughput with lower call/session/request drop at the cost of an add-on delay

Transfusion transmitted malaria in three major blood banks of Peshawar, Pakistan

Malaria is one of the most important transfusion associated infections in many parts of the world, particularly the developing countries where it is endemic. This study estimates the risk of acquiring malaria from a single unit of blood in North of Pakistan. A prospective study was conducted to investigate transfusion transmitted malaria in three major blood banks of Peshawar, Pakistan. A total of 1558 (1534 males and 24 females) healthy volunteer blood donors were screened for the presence of malarial parasites in thick and thin smears using microscopy. Nine donors (0.577%) were found positive for malarial parasite, with trophozoites and gametocytic stages of Plasmodium falciparum (1) and Plasmodium vivax (8). Majority of the donors (82.09%) belonged to age group 15 - 30 years. Donors who suffered from malaria in recent years were 28 in number and 3 of them were found positive for malaria in the present study. The results of the present study indicated that transfusion transmitted malaria is a risk in malaria endemic regions like Pakistan. Further research on this aspect using more sophisticated and advanced diagnostic techniques like enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) are required for proper assessment of actual situation and control of transfusion transmitted malaria in Pakistan.Keywords: Transfusion, malaria, blood-borne infections, screening, microscopy, blood banksAfrican Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 9(33), pp. 5445-5449, 16 August, 201

Productivity Constraints of Cholistani Farmers

This paper examines the factors behind low crop yield in Cholistan. Both the quantitative and qualitative analysis show how the low levels of agricultural productivity in this area may be linked to material and climatic factors. The quantitative analysis is mainly focused on physical factors. The qualitative analysis, however, emphasises that relative inefficiency of agricultural activity in Cholistan reflects the influence of physical, economic, social and, most importantly, climatic factors. The quantitative findings provide valuable insight into various ‘sources of productivity’ in terms of acreage effect, capital input effect and irrigation water availability effect. The size of the positive and significant coefficients on these variables suggest the extent to which one or the other variable effect is prominent in improving the crop yield. The qualitative analysis examines multiple interrelated factors which can be blamed on for relative inefficiency of Cholistani farmers. The hot climate of the area turns out to be the most critical variable in this analysis. Many specific technological drought-mitigating measures are proposed. However, for consistent policy formulation, a thorough study and quantitative evaluation of the potential and practicality of these measures in Cholistan is suggested

Outcome of proximally based medial hemisoleus muscle flap for coverage of soft tissue defects in leg

Objective: To review the use of proximally based medial hemisoleus muscle flap for exposed soft tissue defects in middle third leg. Methodology: The descriptive (retrospective) study was conducted in PakItalian Modern Burn Center, Multan from January 2014 to December 2018. Retrospective data was collected among patients where medial hemisoleus muscle flap was done. This series depicts the use of medial hemisoleus muscle flap in Patients having small to medium sized defects (ranged from 4-12 cm length and 2-8 cm width). The flap was done in most of the cases after 3 weeks. Patients having small to medium sized defects in middle third of tibia (Defect size ranged from 4-12 cm length and 2-8 cm width) were included in the study Variables of study were recipient-site issues, donor-site management, complications, and outcomes. Descriptive analysis was done. Results: Among 96 patients, 84 were males and 12 were females and their age ranged between 15-57 years. Out of 96 flaps 90 flaps survived completely, four had major flap loss and two flaps completely lost. Major complication was infections in flap followed by graft loss and haematoma. Conclusion: Proximally based medial hemisoleus muscle flap is a reliable flap easy to do and easy to follow.  &nbsp

Helping students to get better grades in mathematics at the elementary level

The current study is conducted to explore the learning potential of students at the elementary level by using the scaffolding technique. The study aimed to measure the efficiency of the scaffolding teaching method provided to the students at the elementary level. As it was an experimental study, so, no population was defined. The sample was selected from Gov. Girls Higher Secondary SchoolModel Town A, Bahawalpur, Punjab, Pakistan. All 6th classes of this school were included to analyze the effect of scaffolding as an intervention. Retention of learning after 3 months, the provision of scaffolding in comparison to the traditional method was assessed. After the posttest, there was a retention test as the final test from all four groups. Solomon's four-group design was used for this experiment in which there were 40 students in each group and 160 total participants. In the current study, Pretest, posttest, and after 3months retention test was conducted as research tools. To analyze the data, SPSS version 20 one-sample t-test were used to analyze the data. The Data revealed that scaffolding was proved to be a better strategy compared to the control group. Even the results of retention of learning skills were higher than the control group. Students showed good understanding, remembering, and better-solving processes in experimental groups. Study recommended that scaffolding teaching needs a highly structured supervised environment and may be conducted in controlled conditions. It is recommended that in teacher education, the prospective teachers may be prepared in the principles, procedures, and rules of scaffolding. A due consideration may be given to teaching strategies in all teacher education programs in the country as it is an innovative and progressive way of teaching

Outcome of proximally based medial hemisoleus muscle flap for coverage of soft tissue defects in leg

Objective: To review the use of proximally based medial hemisoleus muscle flap for exposed soft tissue defects in middle third leg. Methodology: The descriptive (retrospective) study was conducted in PakItalian Modern Burn Center, Multan from January 2014 to December 2018. Retrospective data was collected among patients where medial hemisoleus muscle flap was done. This series depicts the use of medial hemisoleus muscle flap in Patients having small to medium sized defects (ranged from 4-12 cm length and 2-8 cm width). The flap was done in most of the cases after 3 weeks. Patients having small to medium sized defects in middle third of tibia (Defect size ranged from 4-12 cm length and 2-8 cm width) were included in the study Variables of study were recipient-site issues, donor-site management, complications, and outcomes. Descriptive analysis was done. Results: Among 96 patients, 84 were males and 12 were females and their age ranged between 15-57 years. Out of 96 flaps 90 flaps survived completely, four had major flap loss and two flaps completely lost. Major complication was infections in flap followed by graft loss and haematoma. Conclusion: Proximally based medial hemisoleus muscle flap is a reliable flap easy to do and easy to follow.  &nbsp

Application of Bibliometric Laws and Literature Mapping On “Stress”

Today we are living in global ICT market, where technology, user perception, competition, International rivals, culture and social environment are increasingly changing day by day than our expectations. We have to prepare ourselves according to the rapid changes of ICT in fast changing environment. If we fail to face these challenges and demands, we would easily fall into the trap of stress. Stress is a negative consequence of modern living. People are stressed due to overwork, job insecurity, health related issues, multiple responsibilities and increase in pace of life. Pascal (1992) defined stress in terms of perceived environmental situation which threatens the gratification of needs. The present study is an attempt to explore the research productivity on stress during the time period of 2009-2018. The data was collected from Web of Science which is one of the largest citations and abstracting database, owned by Thomson Reuters. The main findings of the study revealed that there is a growing trend of publications during the time period of 2009-2018. Majority of the publication has been produced in the year 2018 (123,822; 13.61%) and the least number of publications recorded in the year 2009 (63,321; 6.95%). The leading document type in which research has been published consists of journal articles (793,868; 87.20%) and USA (248,695; 27.31%) being the most productive nation on stress research output worldwide. In language analysis, English is found to be the dominant language (887,350; 97.40%) in overall publications. The most prolific authors on stress research output are Wang (3,929; 0.43%), Zhang (3,658;0.40%) and Liu (3,276; 0.36%). The most commonly used journal in which maximum research output has been published is PLOS One. At last, the Chinese Academy of Science, Harvard University and the Russian Academy of Science are found to be the most productive institutions contributing to the stress related databas

Efficacy of Phytochemicals of Cassia Angustifolia in Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia – An In-silico Analysis

Objective: To discover the compounds of Cassia having activity against the BCR-ABL fusion protein involved in the pathogenesis of CML and to compare it with previously developed inhibitor, nilotinib using in-silico molecular docking. Methodology: The 3D structure of Human BCR-ABL fusion protein was obtained from PDB (RSCB). The SMILES and Chemical Structures of the ligands were obtained from PubChem. They were prepared in Mol SDF format by the Chem Bio Draw and then converted to PDBQT format using PyRx tool for generating the atomic coordinates for molecular docking.  Molecular docking of Nilotinib, Quercimeritin, and Scutellarein with Human ABL Kinase was performed using Autodock4. The ADMET properties were described using Swiss ADME, a web-based tool. Results: All the three compounds under study bind and make stable complexes with wild-type BCR ABL with the global energies of -12.46, -16.17kCal/mol and -15.41kCal/mol for Nilotinib Scutellarein and Quercimeritin respectively which means that these compounds can act as selective inhibitors of BCR-ABL fusion protein. Quercimeritin, also form Hydrogen bonds with GLU 286 and Asp 381, Conclusion: The binding energies of the phytochemicals of Cassia are higher in comparison with Nilotinib which has a binding energy of -12.46kCal/mol which suggests a better inhibitory potential of these compounds. Quercimeritin also forms Hydrogen bonds with Glutamine 286 and Aspartate 381, hence its potential to be a potent inhibitor of the BCR- ABL fusion protein is more promising Nilotinib. Further in vitro and in vivo studies are suggested to elaborate the anti-neoplastic potential of Quercimeritin in CML