Fluctuation patterns of different developmental stages of Helicoverpa armigera (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) on chickpea (Cicer arietinum) and their relationship with the environment

The relative frequency of occurrence of different developmental stages of gram pod borer, Helicoverpa armigera (Hübner) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae), and the dependence of its developmental stages on environmental factors, are crucial in the population management. The densities of eggs and larvae were low from December to mid-February due to prevailing cold. Owing to optimum environmental conditions, increasing densities were observed throughout March and they droppped again during the first week of April. The densities of eggs and different larval instars of H. armigera were significantly positively correlated with temperature, and significantly negatively correlated with the average morning relative humidity (RH;%) but not with the average evening RH (%)

The Impact of Reverse Culture Shock on Gulliver’s Family Life

Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels has been one of the most fascinating works of English literature. It is its suggestive quality due to which it has been read in a variety of different perspectives. Twentieth century critics have read it in the light of different psychoanalytical approaches. This study focuses on an entirely different aspect i.e reverse culture shock. It analyzes the effects of reverse culture shock on Gulliver’s behavior and his interaction with his family through a close reading of the text of Gulliver’s Travels. Gulliver who suffers from an obvious identity crisis fails to cope with the readjustment problems at home after living among different hosts. After every subsequent re-entry, Gulliver’s behavior especially with his family members deteriorates. The imprints of his last hosts remain so deeply engraved on his mind that fails to live peacefully with his family members and has to live in isolation. This is where we can relate Gulliver to people who after living abroad fail to adjust with the people of their native society and family members.  &nbsp

What Drives Foreign Direct Investment to BRICS?

This study explores the factors that drive foreign direct investment (FDI) to Brazil, China, India, Russia and South Africa that are collectively known as “BRICS”. By employing random effect panel estimation technique on the panel data for the years 1990-2011, the study found that market size, trade openness, GDP growth rate, macroeconomic stability and infrastructure availability are the main location factors for FDI in the BRICS countries. While, WTO accession has an insignificant impact on FDI in BRICS

Struggling with long-time low uptake of modern contraceptives in Pakistan

Background: Efforts to expand access to reproductive health care in Pakistan date as far back as the early 1950s. Despite such efforts, the fertility rate has declined at a slower pace compared to that in neighbouring countries.Aims: To explore the underlying reasons and challenges for long-time low contraceptive use among female clients and key service providers of community-based family planning programmes in Pakistan.Methods: A qualitative study was carried out with a total of 10 focus group discussions and 7 in-depth interviews with female clients and key service providers. The data were analysed using qualitative content analysis.Results: The intra-family dynamics, that is, influence of husbands and mothers-in-law, were significant in shaping the decision-making and choice of family planning methods. In addition, inadequate counselling skills, insufficient training for service providers, weak supportive supervision, interrupted supply of contraceptives, and delays in salary disbursement were among the key family planning programme challenges.Conclusion: Despite a well-designed community-based FP programme, providers\u27 counselling skills need to be enhanced. However, this has to be combined with sufficient training, supportive supervision and contraceptive availability

In the name of Riwaj: An ethnographic study to explore the notion of women empowerment among BISP recipients in rural Sakhro-Sindh, Pakistan

Women empowerment is a national agenda for Pakistan and, one of its manifestations is the nationwide cash transfer program namely Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP). With the help of Bourdieu methodological paradigm of “habitus” this paper analyses empowerment among BISP recipients in their social settings where various social actors such as her husband and wadera of the village dominate her agency but, at the same time, women herself submits her agency to these social actors under the veil of riwaj (social customs). This ethnographic study reveals that the performance of submission among women follows an inner drive for conformation to riwaj that becomes a significant part of their habitus. Women’s continuous physical performance of submission inscribes moral ideas onto their body and, fuses both her outer obedience and inner feelings to a point where she herself endorses submission of agency to riwaj

Analyzing Global and Local Media Representations of Malala Yousafzai

During the War on Terror, when high rates of violence were occurring and schools were being forcefully torn down in Swat Valley of Pakistan, Malala Yousafzai fought for girls’ education rights. At just 17 years old, Malala Yousafzai has inspired people around the world with her passion and determination to make sure girls everywhere can get an education. When the Taliban tried to silence her, Malala answered their brutality with strength and resolve. Soon in the international media, she was acclaimed as a brave hero and later honored with a Nobel Prize. She received a mixed response for her efforts in Pakistan. While some praised her, others thought her as an opportunist or believed that there was a Western conspiracy behind her promotion on an international level. This article explores the disparities in media representation of Malala Yousafzai on global and local levels. Employing ethnographic research methods, we bring to light the perceptions of people from her hometown and juxtapose it with those of international media outlets. The article will help understand the complex controversies surrounding Yousafzai’s struggle and legacy

4-Iodo-3,3′-dimethoxy­biphen­yl

Mol­ecules of the title compound, C14H13IO2, exhibit no π–π inter­actions. The dihedral angle between the two aromatic rings is 43.72 (9)°. The shortest inter­molecular I⋯O distance is 3.408 (2) Å, which is significantly less than the sum of the van der Waals radii for I and O (3.50 Å)

Community stakeholders\u27 views on reducing violence against women in Pakistan

Background: Nearly half of the women experience violence across their lifespan in all the provinces of Pakistan at an alarming rate. Despite knowing the prevalence, there has been meager progress in developing strategies to combat violence at individual, family, or community level. Many interventions suggested in other countries have been pilot tested but the effects of those interventions had been limited. Therefore, the aim of this study is to understand the voices of stakeholders to reduce Violence Against Women (VAW) and to explore the possible community-based strategies that could be implemented in Pakistan.Methods: A total of 14 Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) and 18 Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) were held across all four provinces of Pakistan. Participants were purposefully recruited and all the interviews were audio-recorded. Transcriptions were open coded and content analysis was done to emerge codes, categories and themes. Ethical approval was obtained from Aga Khan University Ethics Review Committee.Results: Three major themes emerged on community members and stakeholders\u27 views on VAW: a) community\u27s perception of VAW b) the repercussions of VAW, and c) multiple voices regarding strategies to reduce VAW. Participants voiced the need of standing against the status quo, role of awareness and education: regarding capacity building skills, promotion of women rights and women empowerment through Life Skills Based Education (LSBE) through national health works program, has been proposed as an innovative strategy to reduce VAW.Conclusions: The responsibility to bring about a substantial change in behavior and attitudes must begin with engaging men in all the interventions that aim to reduce violence. Since, VAW is very much linked with the cultural norms, so, without community stakeholder\u27s involvement and participation it could never be reduced. Keeping the existing socio-cultural dynamics in mind, the need of time is to design and implement innovative interventions that are culturally and contextually appropriate and can be expanded across the country

Flexible and scalable software defined radio based testbed for large scale body movement

Human activity (HA) sensing is becoming one of the key component in future healthcare system. The prevailing detection techniques for IHA uses ambient sensors, cameras and wearable devices that primarily require strenuous deployment overheads and raise privacy concerns as well. This paper proposes a novel, non-invasive, easily-deployable, flexible and scalable test-bed for identifying large-scale body movements based on Software Defined Radios (SDRs). Two Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) models, working as SDR based transceivers, are used to extract the Channel State Information (CSI) from continuous stream of multiple frequency subcarriers. The variances of amplitude information obtained from CSI data stream are used to infer daily life activities. Different machine learning algorithms namely K-Nearest Neighbour, Decision Tree, Discriminant Analysis and Naïve Bayes are used to evaluate the overall performance of the test-bed. The training, validation and testing processes are performed by considering the time-domain statistical features obtained from CSI data. The K-nearest neighbour outperformed all aforementioned classifiers, providing an accuracy of 89.73%. This preliminary non-invasive work will open a new direction for design of scalable framework for future healthcare systems

An Investigation of the Major Wheat Weeds in Different Zones of Dera Ismail Khan

On account of huge yield losses, weed infestation is a serious threat in wheat crops throughout the country. A comprehensive survey to find out the major weeds in wheat in Dera Ismail Khan was carried out during the crop season of 2012-13. Wheat fields at seed farms of Rakhmanghan, RakhZandani, Rata Kulachi and adjacent farmer’s fields to each seed farm were investigated. Data was collected at the peak growth stage of weeds and the quadratic method was used to record relative density (RD), relative frequency (RF), relative crowding coefficient (RCC) and importance value index (IVI). The results revealed that the major and most problematic weed of wheat at all the locations was Avena fatua (wild oat) on account of having maximum IVI at Rakh Manghan (78.51 & 77.44), Rata Kulachi (77.82 & 77.54) and Rakh Zandani (77.51 & 77.53) seed Farms and Farmer’s fields respectively. Rumex dentatus (dock) and Convolvulus arvensis (Lehli) were the second and third abundantly occurring weeds at almost all the seed farms and farmer fields on account of having the second and third highest IVI values at all the locations. Therefore Avena fatua (wildoat), Rumex dentatus (dock) and Convolvulus arvensis (lehli) seed were collected to find out the yield losses through further experimentation