Ambivalence of power relations and resulting alienation and identity crisis in Kiran Desai’s the inheritance of loss

This research paper focuses on the ambivalence of power relations and ensuing alienation and identity crisis in Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss. The intricate and inevitable nexus of power relations, which are guiding and molding most of the human considerations on their terms, ask for the demystification of the inherent ambivalence of the power relations and their psychological impacts. Drawing on the theoretical standpoints of Homi K. Bhabha and Jacques Lacan, the prime concern of this research concentrates on the idea of ambivalence of the colonial discourse in order to reveal the intrinsic complexity of the power relations and the way they determine the human psyche with its aim to unravel the human susceptibility towards them. This paper asks about the implicit nature of the correlation between both of the stakeholders of the colonial discourse and how this ambivalent and manifold relation is significant in Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss by using Bhabha’s concept of ambivalence and mimicry along with Lacan’s model of identity. This work also avows how the imbalanced power relations can guide towards alienation and identity crisis. To interpret the ambivalence of the power relations and the way they affect the ‘self’ in Desai’s text the methodology adopted for this study is hermeneutics for the dialogical interpretation and deeper understanding of ambivalence with the help of the conceptual framework offered by postcolonial theory with its shared roads with postmodernism. Key Words: Post colonialism; Ambivalence; Alienation; Identity Crisis; Self; Discourse; Globalizatio

Control of Type II Diabetes, Its Relationship with Obesity and Basal Metabolic Rate

Background: The prevalence of T2DM is around 7-10%. Control of diabetes and factors influencing it in third world countries need to be clearly defined as most of the people have poor glycemic control. Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted and purposive sampling was done to collect data for 5 months. A total of 766 type 2 diabetic patients were enrolled who visited SiDER (Sakina Institute of Diabetes and Endocrine Research Center) at Shalamar Hospital, Lahore, Pakistan. Only pre-diagnosed diabetic subjects with a random blood glucose of more than 200mg/dl at two occasions and fasting blood glucose levels more than 126mg/dl were included in the study. Variables like Body Mass Index (BMI), Glycated Hemoglobin (HbA1c) and Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) were recorded. The data was analyzed by SPSS 22 version. Results: A total of 766 diabetics were recruited in the study out of which 40.3% were male and 59.7% were females. The mean age was 48.72±10.43 years. Out of these 53.39% were obese, 32.64% were overweight and only 13.97% had a normal body mass index BMI). HbA1c levels in the sample population showed that only 13.05% had very healthy control i.e. 7% or less. There was a positive co-relation between Body Mass Indexand glycemic control. However there was no statistically significant relation between Basal Metabolic Rateand glycemic control. Conclusion: People with high Body Mass Index were found to have suboptimal glycemic control. It was also observed that higher percentage of diabetic patients fall in age group of 41-55 years. More powerful studies are needed to establish a relation between glycated hemoglobin and Basal Metabolic Rate

IMPACT OF FORCED MARRIAGES IN TV DRAMAS: A CASE STUDY OF FEMALE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

This study investigates the role of TV dramas in highlighting the problems of forced marriages and impact of these dramas on females. Pakistani TV dramas are produced on various social issues and taboos exist in our society with a view to create awareness among the viewers, the young generation in particular. Islam strictly prohibits forced marriages. This awareness helps them understand and resolve their issues. The research was conducted with the help of survey method while using questionnaire as a tool of data collection of 200 females through random sampling. The theoretical framework of the study was based on Cultivation Theory. The findings showed that TV dramas with forced marriage content are creating awareness and leaving impact on female viewers

Multi-Modality and Feature Fusion-Based COVID-19 Detection Through Long Short-Term Memory

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic poses the worldwide challenges surpassing the boundaries of country, religion, race, and economy. The current benchmark method for the detection of COVID-19 is the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing. Nevertheless, this testing method is accurate enough for the diagnosis of COVID19. However, it is time-consuming, expensive, expert-dependent, and violates social distancing. In this paper, this research proposed an effective multimodality-based and feature fusion-based (MMFF) COVID-19 detection technique through deep neural networks. In multi-modality, we have utilized the cough samples, breathe samples and sound samples of healthy as well as COVID-19 patients from publicly available COSWARA dataset. Extensive set of experimental analyses were performed to evaluate the performance of our proposed approach. Several useful features were extracted from the aforementioned modalities that were then fed as an input to long short-term memory recurrent neural network algorithms for the classification purpose. Extensive set of experimental analyses were performed to evaluate the performance of our proposed approach. The experimental results showed that our proposed approach outperformed compared to four baseline approaches published recently. We believe that our proposed technique will assists potential users to diagnose the COVID-19 without the intervention of any expert in minimum amount of time

COMMUNISM AND ISLAM: AN ANALYSIS OF AMERICAN MEDIA PRACTICES DURING CONFLICTS

The clashed imports of westerners are seemed to be hybrid about Islamic perspective and communists that cause dispute among the clash of emperors, humanity and doctrine. Among these disputes, the fight of kings can be thought as for the sake of powerful regime and its enlargement while others including the clash of people and ideology related to the treasury. The religion of Islam is sighted as inspiring strength in which nothing of human biography is thrown behind the curtain while Communism has an ideological mindset. It can be said that westerners ignore both Communists and Muslims by their media and in the political field. It is considered as a natural mindset of the west. It makes no difference in the Islam & Communism when their parameters of concord, legislation and secular approach, they are known with their ideological and religious values. Both are depicted as Villain, scoundrel, enemy, rival, extremist, anti-American or anti-west and thought as an enemy. By keeping these concepts in mind, Hollywood films petitioned widely "us" & "them" for both targets. On the other hand, Hollywood portrayed Americans as heroic, patriotic and travellers of the right path

Carbon-based sorbets for heavy metal removal from aqueous solution, discrepancies, and future prospects: a state-of-the-art review

Heavy metal contamination is severely affecting human health and environment. These metals are known to exist naturally but the anthropogenic activities have contributed towards increasing their concentrations beyond permissible limits, which in turn have proved to be hazardous for the human health as well as environment. Various industries release the untreated wastewater containing heavy metals into the open streams, thereby creating a contaminated source affecting negatively on consumers. In order to deal with this, several materials have been researched and proposed as adsorbents to remove these contaminants. Amongst them are carbon-based materials, that have shown to be effective, efficient, and environment-friendly option for heavy metal adsorption from aqueous solutions. The present review thoroughly summarizes the recent developments of carbon-based materials, specifically in terms of their application in heavy metal removal from aqueous solutions. Moreover, it elaborates the adsorption mechanism and compares it with other technologies available for metallic removal. Similarly, various parameters affecting the adsorption using carbon-based materials and their recent regenerative strategies are presented. In the end, numerous shortcomings and discrepancies associated with carbon-based materials are given along with their future prospects that need to be addressed in the upcoming research.Fil: Akhter, Faheem. No especifíca;Fil: Miranda Zoppas, Fernanda. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Investigaciones en Catálisis y Petroquímica "Ing. José Miguel Parera". Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Instituto de Investigaciones en Catálisis y Petroquímica "Ing. José Miguel Parera"; ArgentinaFil: Soomro, Mehran. Mehran University Of Engineering & Technology; PakistánFil: Sattar Jatoi, Abdul. Dawood University Of Engineering & Technology; PakistánFil: Noureen, Fozia. No especifíca;Fil: Naeem Akhtar, Muhammad. Beijing Institute Of Technology,; ChinaFil: Mehreen, Faiza. Mehran University Of Engineering & Technology; Pakistá

Whole-Exome Sequencing of Pakistani Consanguineous Families Identified Pathogenic Variants in Genes of Intellectual Disability

Intellectual disability (ID) is a condition of significant limitation of cognitive functioning and adaptive behavior, with 50% of etiology attributed to genetic predisposition. We recruited two consanguineous Pakistani families manifesting severe ID and developmental delay. The probands were subjected to whole exome sequencing (WES) and variants were further prioritized based on population frequency, predicted pathogenicity and functional relevance. The WES data analysis identified homozygous pathogenic variants in genes MBOAT7 and TRAPPC9. The pathogenicity of the variants was supported by co-segregation analysis and in silico tool. The findings of this study expand mutation spectrum and provide additional evidence to the role of MBOAT7 and TRAPPC9 in causation of ID