The Impact of Agricultural Credit on Agricultural Productivity in Dera Ismail Khan (District) Khyber Pakhtonkhawa Pakistan

Agriculture is not only the backbone of our food, livelihood and ecological security system, but is also the very soul of our sovereignty. In Pakistan population density is high and has been increasing day by day and agricultural land has been decreasing because of fragmenting or converting it into residential plots. To meet the domestic food requirements use of improved production technologies developed by research is must. In this behalf government of Pakistan has been extending loan to poor farmers for adoption of new farm technology, a capital intensive technology. Therefore objective of the paper was to see impact of credit on agricultural gross domestic product. Data regarding disbursement of credit from different formal sources for different purposes and agricultural gross domestic product of major crops in study area D.I.Khan from 1990 to 2008 was collected from statistical office for crop reporting services DIK. Data was analyzed using linear regression model on The Cobb-Douglass type. Credit disbursed for seed along with fertilizers and pesticides, irrigation and tractors were found strongly correlated to agricultural gross domestic product with values 0.87, 0.58 and 0.42 respectively. Above 80% impact was of credit on agricultural gross domestic product with F = 10.752 significant at 0%.Only credit for seeds, fertilizers etc had greater role in this collective impact. At the end it was concluded that availability of credit increased agricultural production

Seroprevalence of Hepatitis E among Boston Area Travelers, 2009-2010

We determined the prevalence of IgG antibodies to hepatitis E virus (anti-HEV IgG) among travelers attending Boston-area travel health clinics from 2009 to 2010. Pre-travel samples were available for 1,356 travelers, with paired pre- and post-travel samples for 450 (33%). Eighty of 1,356 (6%) pre-travel samples were positive for anti-HEV IgG. Compared with participants who had never lived in nor traveled to a highly endemic country, the pre-travel prevalence odds ratio (POR) of anti-HEV IgG among participants born in or with a history of previous travel to a highly endemic country was increased (POR = 4.8, 95% CI = 2.3–10.3 and POR = 2.6, 95% CI = 1.4–5.0, respectively). Among participants with previous travel to a highly endemic country, anti-HEV IgG was associated with age > 40 years (POR = 3.7, 95% CI = 1.3–10.2) and travel history to ≥ 3 highly endemic countries (POR = 2.7, 95% CI = 1.2–5.9). Two participants may have contracted HEV infection during their 2009–2010 trip

Distilling Inductive Bias: Knowledge Distillation Beyond Model Compression

With the rapid development of computer vision, Vision Transformers (ViTs) offer the tantalizing prospect of unified information processing across visual and textual domains. But due to the lack of inherent inductive biases in ViTs, they require enormous amount of data for training. To make their applications practical, we introduce an innovative ensemble-based distillation approach distilling inductive bias from complementary lightweight teacher models. Prior systems relied solely on convolution-based teaching. However, this method incorporates an ensemble of light teachers with different architectural tendencies, such as convolution and involution, to instruct the student transformer jointly. Because of these unique inductive biases, instructors can accumulate a wide range of knowledge, even from readily identifiable stored datasets, which leads to enhanced student performance. Our proposed framework also involves precomputing and storing logits in advance, essentially the unnormalized predictions of the model. This optimization can accelerate the distillation process by eliminating the need for repeated forward passes during knowledge distillation, significantly reducing the computational burden and enhancing efficiency

Obesity and metabolic evaluation of 24 hour urinary analysis of adult stone formers, a case control study

Background: Urinary tract stone (Urolithiasis) is a common problem nowadays. Frequencies of urolithiasis vary from region to region: 1-5% in Asia, 5-9% in Europe, 13% in North America. Urolithiasis is believed to be due to imbalance & crystallisation of minerals inside urine, which act as the focus for more sedimentation and finally the formation of a stone within the urinary tract. The comorbidities associated with urinary stones includes: renal colic, urinary tract infection, hydronephrosis, obstruction of the collecting system, renal parenchymal damage which ultimately leads to renal failure and even death. The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between obesity and the metabolic evaluation of 24 hour urinary analysis of stone formers.Methods: A case-control study was carried out on 70 patients aged ≥20 years with urolithiasis that were without any comorbidities treated between January 2014 to January 2015. We performed 24 hour urinary analysis on urolithiasis patients and classified them as being of low weight (body mass index; BMI: <18.5, 8 men, 5 women), normal weight (BMI: 18.5-24.9, 19 men, 7 women), overweight (BMI: 25-29.9, 30 men, 12 women) or obese (BMI≥30, 12 men, 7 women).140 healthy normal weight sex and age-matched controls were also included in the study in the ratio of 1:2.Results: There was a statistically significant difference in the prevalence of obesity between the urolithiasis group and the control group (p<0.05).The correlation analysis revealed a significant positive relationship between BMI and the serum calcium, uric acid, urinary calcium, uric acid and citrate, and there was an inverse relationship between BMI and urinary pH (p<0.05). The frequency of urinary stone risk factors was increased with BMI (p<0.05).Conclusions: The positive relationship between Obesity and the risk factors for urolithiasis was evident from this study. To understand the mechanism of urolithiasis in obese patient’s further research is required

Role of serum procalcitonin level in early diagnosis of bacterial pneumonia in children, a hospital based study

Background: Procalcitonin (PCT) is a precursor of hormone calcitonin. It is composed of 116 amino acids and is produced by para follicular C cells of the thyroid and by neuroendocrine cells of lungs and intestine. The level of Procalcitonin in healthy individuals is below the limit of detection (0.01µg/L).These levels may rise from extra thyroid tissues especially in response to inflammatory stimulus of bacterial origin. PCT has the greatest sensitivity and Specificity for differentiating patients with sepsis from those with systemic inflammatory response syndrome. And the objective of the study is to discuss the method for early diagnosis and use of antibiotic therapy in patients of bacterial pneumonia.Methods: A hospital based study was conducted in our hospital from January 2015 to June 2015. Eighty six children with severe pneumonia were enrolled from Department of Paediatrics and were divided into two groups according to bacteriological detection; bacterial pneumonia group consisting of 44 children patients and non-bacterial pneumonia group of 42 children patients. Meanwhile, 45 healthy children were also enrolled and grouped into normal control group. Chest X-ray and Peripheral venous blood of all children was collected to detect complete blood count, CRP and procalcitonin (PCT).Results: Serum PCT level of patients with bacterial pneumonia was significantly higher than that in the non-bacterial pneumonia patients and normal controls ; serum PCT level of patients with bacterial pneumonia, before and after treatment had statistical significance ; Serum PCT level of patients with non-bacterial pneumonia had no statistical significance before and after treatment .Conclusions: Serum PCT is an important biomarker for prompt diagnosis of bacterial infection and a sensitive indicator to distinguish bacterial from non-bacterial pneumonia. Evaluating serum PCT levels helps in early use of antibiotic therapy and prognosis of underlying disease.

Correlation of humeral length and its segments in a sample of Indian population: an osteological study

Background: Anthropometry measurements are very useful and have definite medico legal significance. In case of missing persons in the absence of pelvis and cranium, the remains of long bones of an individual play an important role in anthropological practice for morphometric analysis. The stature of an individual can be estimated from the humerus alone. Estimating the mean values of different segments of humerus helps in forensic and anthropometric practice. Previous studies have confirmed that humerus is one of the strongest long bones of the human skeleton and its fragments can be recorded in a forensic case. The present study was done to assess the mean values of different segments of humerus and their correlation with its length.Methods: Seventy dry adult humerus bones (32 rights and 38 left) were collected randomly from the anatomy department. Broken bones and the bones in a poor condition were excluded from the study. The segments of the humerus were studied for morphometric analysis.Results: All of the measurements were obtained in millimetres (mm). The measurement of the maximum length of humerus (MHH) was done by using an otseometric board and the different segments of humerus were measured by a vernier calliper (precision=0.cm). Mean and SD were calculated.Conclusions: This study has helped us to observe the maximum length of humerus and the mean values of the different segments of humerus in a sample of Indian population. The study also suggests that there are some differences between various segments of humerus within different populations

Radio Interferometric Calibration Using The SAGE Algorithm

Radio Interferometry is an essential method for astronomical observations. Self-calibration techniques have increased the quality of the radio astronomical observations (and hence the science) by orders of magnitude. Recently, there is a drive towards sensor arrays built using inexpensive hardware and distributed over a wide area acting as radio interferometers. Calibration of such arrays poses new problems in terms of computational cost as well as in performance of existing calibration algorithms. We consider the application of the Space Alternating Generalized Expectation Maximization (SAGE) \cite{Fess94} algorithm for calibration of radio interferometric arrays. Application to real data shows that this is an improvement over existing calibration algorithms that are based on direct, deterministic non linear optimization. As presented in this paper, we can improve the computational cost as well as the quality of the calibration using this algorithm.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, Appearing in 13th IEEE DSP workshop (IEEE Signal Processing Society

Exploring the Nexus; Stock Market, T. Bills, Inflation, Interest Rate and Exchange Rate

The main objective of this study is to examine the relationship between Karachi stock exchange and macroeconomic variables i.e. inflation rate, exchange rate, treasury bills and interest rate. Monthly time series data from January 2005 to December 2010 have been used to investigate the causal association among macroeconomic indicators and Karachi stock market. The co-integration test and Granger Casualty have been applied to drive the short and long-term investigation. The results found bi directional Granger causality among KSE and exchange rate and One way Granger causality exists among KSE and interest rate, no Granger causality found among KSE and inflation rate and KSE and treasury bills. Which means performance of macro-economic variable somehow affects the stock index; moreover, stock prices in Pakistan do not reflect the macro-economic condition of the country. This study emphasizes on the crash of macro-economic indicators on the capital market performance of developing countries. The performance of capital markets of developing countries calculated by these macro-economic indicators

Prevalence of bilateral cataract blindness in persons ≥50 years of age in Pulwama district, Jammu & Kashmir, India

Rapid assessment of cataract blindness has been accepted as a robust tool to help planners in developing countries.Prevalence of cataract blindness can give important information about the impact of a cataract intervention programme. A study in this direction was carried out in Pulwama district of Jammu & Kashmir. Our results clearly showed that with the increase in age, the prevalence of bilateral cataract blindness increases manifold. However, gender did influence the prevalence of cataract in the present survey. The prevalence of bilateral cataract decreases considerably, with the increase in education of both the genders. Among both male and female respondents examined, 89 percent were having both eyes phakia. Similarly 79 percent of study population were not having lenticular opacity either in R/E or L/E in both males and females. Results show that the prevalence of bilateral cataract blindness in district Pulwama is 4.16 percent

Islam, Ethics and Modern Medicine: From Theory to Medical Practice

Islam arose from the same Semitic soil that gave rise to Judaism and Christianity. As stated in the Declaration of Faith, its most fundamental idea is monotheism. For Muslims, holy law is an all-encompassing entity that concerns every aspect of human life. Many Ulema has concluded that the concept of a “consensus decree” is preferable in the circumstances needing specialist understanding. These consensus panels for medical choices often include a broad and diversified representation. The decision-making process is frequently transparent, allowing members of the greater community to scrutinize the arguments presented. Before providing culturally sensitive treatment, a fundamental level of cultural awareness is essential. We simplified and highlighted key themes in Islamic medical ethics in this study. Despite the fact that this is a preliminary study, we believe the findings will assist physicians in better understanding their Muslim patients