Globalisation and Its Implications for Agriculture, Food Security, and Poverty in Pakistan

The world trade liberalisation has been the major concern to almost all the international communities since very long due to the extensive trade restrictions imposed by the developed and industrial countries. These restrictions caused to create a very tough protectionist economic environment for all the countries [SESRTCIC (1995) and Chaudhary (2001)]. Pakistan is one of the founder members of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) since 1948 and a signatory of Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Agreement (MTA) with Word Trade Organisation (WTO). The Agreement made significant progress in three major areas i.e. market liberalisation which could add approximately one percent of world real GDP (US$212–274 billion) and 10 percent to world trade upon full implementation of the Agreement, strengthening of rule and institutional structure, particularly the creation of WTO, which could decide on dispute and impairment of trade rules and principles, and integration of new areas into the multilateral trading system such as general agreements on trade in services (GATS) and trade-related intellectual property rights (TRIPs), trade-related investment measures (TRIMs) and the traditionally sensitive and contentious sectors (agriculture, and textile and clothing) [Abidin (1994); GATT (1994) and IMF (1994)]. The classical economists explained the welfare benefits of globalisation (by the specialisation and widening of markets through trade). Trade can bring settlement by allowing countries to take benefit of their comparative advantage, harvest the profit of scale economies and ensure competition, greater variety and potentially, more stable markets and prices.

Formalising ambush marketing as a marketing communications activity: a framework for planning, implementation and control

A thesis submitted to the University of Bedfordshire, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.The UK is reporting record numbers of television and digital audiences of international sports broadcasts. Sponsoring these events represents highly lucrative and sought after opportunities for brands to reach these large audience numbers. However the immense costs of organising these events mean that the costs of such sponsorships are also immense. Therefore these sponsorship opportunities are accessible only to large multinational and global brands. Ambush marketing represents an alternative approach whereby brands can participate in marketing communication activities similar to sponsors without becoming official sponsors. Ambushers have to develop creative and imaginative campaigns to emulate sponsors without infringing on their rights. The aim of this study is to conceptualise the operational aspects of ambush marketing from the perspective of ambushers. It explores ambushing as an alternative strategic marketing communications activity to corporate sponsorship of sports. A systematic literature review has been conducted to discover the background and development of ambush marketing and ascertain the gap in research by comparing the extant research on ambush marketing to corporate sponsorship of sports. Where there is saturation in empirical consumer oriented research on brand recognition and recall, there is no research on the planning, development and implementation of ambush marketing or the day to day operations and strategies involved in ambushing sports. Furthermore research has so far not involved actual ambushers. In order to fulfil this gap, an exploratory, qualitative study has been designed. A single case study strategy has been applied with eight embedded units of analysis represented by eight actual ambushers of recent UK sports broadcasts. Participants in this unprecedented study are senior marketing and management officials of these companies. The study is interpretative with an ideographic philosophical stance allowing the exploration of UK ambush marketing within its own ethnographic context. A number of reliability and validity measures have been incorporated in the research design. The analysis of data in the form of interviews, documents and multimedia content found six main themes with a number of subthemes regarding the decision, planning and implementation of ambush marketing campaigns. These six themes are decision making, objective setting, developing ambush strategies, targeting ambush audiences, ambush expenditure and ambush outcomes. They represent sequential individual stages in the organisational process of ambush marketing found to be common in all participating companies. This study contributes to potential UK ambushers by providing a standardised approach to ambushing international sports broadcasts specifically from the industries represented by the participants, namely the betting industry and the food and beverage industry. Research also highlights the changing nature of ambush marketing from the traditional parasitic image to a contemporary image as a parallel, mutually beneficial activity. The benchmarking tool represented by the diagrammatic framework of the ambush marketing process will allow ambushers to chart their progress against a standardised approach while highlighting contemporary and innovative ideas and ways to avoid illegal and unethical practices. Lastly this study contributes to future research in ambush marketing by demonstrating that direct ambush marketer involvement is possible and making specific and valuable recommendations for further study

Globalisation and Its Implications for Agriculture, Food Security, and Poverty in Pakistan

The world trade liberalisation has been the major concern to almost all the international communities since very long due to the extensive trade restrictions imposed by the developed and industrial countries. These restrictions caused to create a very tough protectionist economic environment for all the countries [SESRTCIC (1995) and Chaudhary (2001)]. Pakistan is one of the founder members of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) since 1948 and a signatory of Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Agreement (MTA) with Word Trade Organisation (WTO). The Agreement made significant progress in three major areas i.e. market liberalisation which could add approximately one percent of world real GDP (US$212-274 billion) and 10 percent to world trade upon full implementation of the Agreement, strengthening of rule and institutional structure, particularly the creation of WTO, which could decide on dispute and impairment of trade rules and principles, and integration of new areas into the multilateral trading system such as general agreements on trade in services (GATS) and trade-related intellectual property rights (TRIPs), trade-related investment measures (TRIMs) and the traditionally sensitive and contentious sectors (agriculture, and textile and clothing) [Abidin (1994); GATT (1994) and IMF (1994)]. The classical economists explained the welfare benefits of globalisation (by the specialisation and widening of markets through trade). Trade can bring settlement by allowing countries to take benefit of their comparative advantage, harvest the profit of scale economies and ensure competition, greater variety and potentially, more stable markets and prices. The free movement of capital directs resources towards their more productive use

Effects of bio-inspired surface roughness on a swept back tapered NACA 4412 wing

This paper presents the overall pros and cons of the effect of surface roughness elements over a NACA 4412 tapered, swept back half wing with a sweep angle of 30º and a dihedral angle of 5º. The tests were conducted at a Reynolds number of 4 × 105 in the IIUM Low Speed wind tunnel. Different roughness sizes and roughness locations were tested for a range of angle of attack. Lift, drag and pitching moment coefficients were measured for the smooth wing and with roughness elements. Surface roughness delays the stall angle and decreases the lift. The wing with the roughness elements located at 75% to 95% of mean chord from leading edge shows minimum drag and maximum lift compared to other locations. Significant increase in the pitching moment coefficient was found for flexible roughness elements. In case of rigid surface roughness, the effect on pitching moment is small

A comparative study of two different numerical schemes for the simulation of nonlinear dynamics of heated falling thin films

In this research, an attempt is made to characterise qualitatively the stability and dynamics of an inclined thin liquid film under the influence of instabilities due to thermo-capillarity and evaporative effects as well as van der Waals intermolecular forces, by employing the implicit finite difference method. The results are compared with solutions obtained by the Fourier spectral method. Flow in thin films of a Newtonian liquid on an inclined plane with an adjacent passive gas layer, is well represented by the Navier-Stokes equations, equation of continuity and associated boundary conditions. Long-wave (lubrication) approximation is applied to simplify the governing equations to arrive at a nonlinear partial differential equation, called equation of evolution (EOE). The spatio-temporal evolution of the interfacial instability in the film caused by internal and/or external effects are studied by numerically solving the EOE using the implicit finite difference method. The results of the numerical simulations of our thin film model are compared with those of a similar problem solved using Fourier spectral method from the literature. Simulations show remarkable agreement in the film dynamics predicted by these two methods. The film rupture times obtained using our implicit finite difference scheme closely match with the values obtained from the Fourier spectral method within less than 1% error. This implies that the implicit finite difference method can be satisfactorily employed for the efficient numerical simulation of the thin film flows, and to decipher its nonlinear dynamics reliably

Detection of Grape Clusters in Images using Convolutional Neural Network

Convolutional Neural Networks and Deep Learning have revolutionized every field since their inception. Agriculture has also been reaping the fruits of developments in mentioned fields. Technology is being revolutionized to increase yield, save water wastage, take care of diseased weeds, and also increase the profit of farmers. Grapes are among the highest profit-yielding and important fruit related to the juice industry. Pakistan being an agricultural country, can widely benefit by cultivating and improving grapes per hectare yield. The biggest challenge in harvesting grapes to date is to detect their cluster successfully; many approaches tend to answer this problem by harvest and sort technique where the foreign objects are separated later from grapes after harvesting them using an automatic harvester. Currently available systems are trained on data that is from developed or grape-producing countries, thus showing data biases when used at any new location thus it gives rise to a need of creating a dataset from scratch to verify the results of research. Grape is available in different sizes, colors, seed sizes, and shapes which makes its detection, through simple Computer vision, even more challenging. This research addresses this issue by bringing the solution to this problem by using CNN and Neural Networks using the newly created dataset from local farms as the other research and the methods used don’t address issues faced locally by the farmers. YOLO has been selected to be trained on the locally collected dataset of grapes

Phenotypes of Alpha 1 Antitrypsin in Karachi, Pakistan

Objective: To determine serum level of the protease inhibitor, to identify phenotypes and determine their frequencies. Study Design: A prospective study. Setting: PMRC Research Centre, JPMC and the Aga Khan University Hospital Karachi. Subjects: Healthy aduIts without history ol peptic ulcer disease and a normal endoscopy. Methodology: Quantitive measurement of serum alpha 1 AT was carried out by radial immunodiffusion. phenotyping by iso-electric focusing and confirmation of phenotypes by immunofixation and DNA analysis technique. Results:Serum alpha I AT was low in 13.4% of the subjects. Ni MM phenotype predominated followed by SZ SS, MZ and ZZ. DNA diagnosis accurately resolved the phenotypes as S and Z. Conclusion: Frequency by phenotype associated with total and intermediate deficiency is less in the populatio

Smart monitoring and controlling of frequency deviation by using MATLAB GUI and ARDUINO DAQ card

Electricity transmission and distribution in most of the countries are needed to be improved by the construction of new networks. These improvements are not that much cost effective and if cost is tried to be reduced then the quality and efficiency of the system is compromised which is not suitable at all for the current system. In addition obtaining planning permission and carrying out construction is so much difficult in busy cities. The main objective of this research is to monitor and control frequency deviation. A simple MATLAB controlling and monitoring system is being developed and the ARDUINO DAQ card is used to calculate the frequency deviation. The purpose of respective research is basically based on a dummy load which is used to show the usage of particular equipment’s used in a home such as fridge, freezer, oven, lighting system, and domestic wet appliances such as washer dryer which are attached these to a DAQ and then to a controlling and monitoring GUI MATLAB based. However, this research is focused on the monitoring and controlling of the frequency deviation

Ethyl 3-(3-oxo-3,4-dihydro­quinoxalin-2-yl)propano­ate

In the title compound, C13H14N2O3, the fused ring system is almost planar (r.m.s. deviation = 0.015 Å). The r.m.s. deviation for all the non-H atoms of the mol­ecule is 0.065Å. In the crystal, N—H⋯O and C—H⋯O hydrogen bonds generate polymeric chains along the b axis containing alternating centrsymmetric R 2 2(8) and R 2 2(20) loops