Beyond corruption: re-conceptualising the political economy of Pakistan

The narrative around corruption at the individual level has been blown out of proportion, to the extent that it is disrupting constructive discussions around the most pressing challenges faced by Pakistani society, writes Danish Khan. While it is undoubtedly and issue, he argues political economic discussions would be much more productive if they incorporated analyses of the post-colonial state, as well as class, gender and environmental contradictions

THREE ESSAYS ON POLITICAL ECONOMY OF UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT: SPACE, CLASS AND STATE IN PAKISTAN

This dissertation delineates the underlying dynamics of the political economy of uneven development by focusing on the dynamic interaction between socially produced space, class and the state in the context of postcolonial capitalism in Pakistan. The first essay (chapter two) focuses on the political economy of urban slums in the context of a postcolonial city of Islamabad, Pakistan. It presents a new conceptual framework of ‘expulsionary development’ to illustrate that the growth of slums and high-end gated housing enclaves are two sides of the same coin at the urban scale. Dispossession and urban sprawl are the underlying factors which mediate the processes of uneven urban development. Moreover, the processes of creation, demolition and persistence of slums, are explained in the context of Marxian notion of the real subsumption of space by capital, i.e. the process of land commodification. The second essay (chapter three) makes an intervention in the ongoing debate on the theories of ‘accumulation by dispossession’ by centralizing the role of socially produced space in mediating the processes of dispossession. Based on the case study of the postcolonial Punjab, Pakistan, it is argued that the selective infrastructural policies at a sub-district level can lead to the changes in relative spatiality of places. Places which get the provision of roads are more likely to experience the change in land-use from farming to commercial real estate activities and this process facilitates the dispossession/eviction of small landholders and sharecroppers from the land. Therefore, it is argued that the processes of ‘accumulation by dispossession’ are mediated by the changes in relative spatiality and land-use. The third essay (chapter four) builds on Resnick and Wolff’s (1987) theory of the state by arguing that the postcolonial state is a ‘site’ of contestation not only from the ‘outside’ but also from the ‘inside’. The internal conflict (i.e. the civil-military contradiction) within the postcolonial state of Pakistan manifests in the form of a Punjab-centric hegemonic order which marginalizes people from the peripheries (e.g. Balochistan). By synthesizing Resnick and Wolff (1987) and Henri Lefebvre (1970), the postcolonial state of Pakistan is characterized by the notion of uneven state-spatiality

Re-Conceptualizing Processes of Post-Colonial Development in Pakistan: The Interplay of Institutions and Class

Contrary to neoclassical political economic assumptions, this paper argues that the processes of post-colonial development are embedded within conflict across class lines, and that the state has a central role in mediating these conflicts. In other terms, post-colonial capitalist development immanently produces winners and losers in a society. The Marxian-institutional framework is employed to capture the interplay of class forces and institutions in mediating development outcomes. In addition to formal institutions, this paper also acknowledges the centrality of informal institutions in mutually determining development outcomes in post-colonial societies. For an empirical case study, this paper looks at the historical evolution of Pakistan’s economy since its inception in 1947. The post-colonial development in Pakistan is divided into five distinct regimes of growth and distribution. This paper delineates the modalities of interplay between social classes and institutions in mediating processes of post-colonial development in Pakistan

Role of Effective Feed Back in Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) Designing for Faculty Development

errors in multiple choice questions (MCQs) designing by the faculty members and to obtain need assessment feedback for faculty development for MCQ designing. Methods: In this study, all MCQs submitted by faculty members of Islamic International Medical College (IIMC) over a period of one year and three months from January 2009 to April 2010 were reviewed from time to time by the assessment committee. A total of 922 MCQs were reviewed. The reviews were compiled and analyzed to find out the frequency and types of errors made inadvertently in the structure and design of MCQs. Results: During the study period, the faculty members submitted a total of 922 MCQs. Spectrum of errors in MCQs ranged from spellings to complex questions to question cues. A total of 40% items qualified for being included in final assessment Conclusion: Review process is very important in improving the quality of items

A STUDY OF LONG-TERM SUNSPOTS AND K-INDEX GEOMETRIC CYCLES USING PROBABILISTIC MODELING

The research work done in this paper comprises the application of different well-known probability distribution models. This includes the understanding of the behavior and dynamics of 24 sunspot cycles with total data. The time-series data sets were selected from 1749 to 2014. To observe the solar activity effects on K-index activity the double cycles from 1932 to 2014 were also incorporated in the study. The comparative study is useful to observe the long-term solar-terrestrial connection. The magnetic field of the sun reverses its polarity after every 11 years of the cycle. So after every 22 years, the north pole becomes again north pole. By using the two well-known tests Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KST) and Anderson-Darling test (ADT) the probability distribution models were obtained for each sunspot cycles and compare. The significant probability models for all the sunspot cycles have been obtained. The fitted probability distribution models on selected data sets may be useful to understand the trend of solar and geomagnetic activity

POWER ALLOCATION ALGORITHM FOR MIMO BASED MULTI-HOP COOPERATIVE SENSOR NETWORK

Cooperative transmission is a new breed of wireless communication systems that enables the cooperating node in a wireless sensor network to share their radio resources by employing a distributed transmission and processing operation. This new technique offers substantial spatial diversity gains as the cooperating nodes help one another to send data over several independent paths to the destination node. In recent times, an extensive effort has been made to incorporate these systems in the future wireless networks like LTE (Long Term Evolution), IEEE 802.16j (Mobile Multi-hop Relay (MMR) Networks) and IEEE 802.16m (Mobile WiMAX Release 2 or WirelessMAN-Advanced). But, there are few technical issues which need to be addressed before this promising technique is integrated into future wireless networks. Among them, managing transmission power is a critical issue, which needs to be resolved to fully exploit the benefits of cooperative relaying. Optimal Power Allocation, is one such technique that optimally distributes the total transmission power between the source and relaying nodes thus saving a lot of power while maintaining the link quality. In the first part of the thesis, mathematical expressions of the received signals have been derived for different phases of cooperative transmission. Average-Bit-error-rate (ABER), has been taken as a performance metric to show the efficiency of cooperative relaying protocols. In the second part of this Chapter, a multi-hop framework has been presented for the power allocation algorithm with Amplify-and-Forward relaying protocol. The efficiency of the power allocation algorithm has been discussed with different scenarios i.e. First for a three node (2-Hop) wireless network configuration and then for a four node (3-Hop) wireless network configuration. The transmission scenarios (2-Hop and 3-Hop) have been further categorized into multiple cases on the basis of channel quality between source-to-destination, source-to-relay, relay-to-relay and relay-to-destination links.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format

Growing Importance of E-Commerce in Global Market

We can define e-commerce simply as doing business electronically.  In this world of new technology businesses need to accommodate to the new types of consumer needs because it is very important for business success. E-commerce enables organization to improve their competiveness. It crosses geographic boundaries, save time and cost. There are many positive impact of e-commerce on many areas and disciplines of business management studies such as marketing, finance, accounting, production and operation management. In our paper we have explained about e-commerce and its different types. We have also explained the future growth and limitations of e-commerce. Keywords: Transactional Processing System, Management Reporting System, Decision Support System and Executive Support System

PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF IRRADIANCE AND TEMPERATURE ON Z-SOURCE INTEGRATED SOLAR PV SYSTEM CONNECTED TO PUBLIC GRID

Renewable energy sources (RES) such as solar, wind, tidal provide pollution-free and green energy. As per growing the population and dependency on the advance technology the energy consumption is also rapidly increased, conventional sources are depleting very fast and not enough to accomplish all the demands. Due to the high demand of energy power failure issue also increasing, to overcome all these problems researchers move to the Renewable (non-conventional) energy sources, that’s are used to provide the power for constant load and fulfill the demand continuously. PV is the most easiest and efficient source to generate power. In this paper, a study was done on describes the comparison of DC output voltage between boost converters with the Z- source converter.The working of grid-tied solar PV array with the effect of irradiance and temperature change by using Z-source paper components used in the system and analysis of the result of the grid station or load are performed

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF COVID-19 VACCINATIONS: KARACHI AS A CASE STUDY

The entire world has started to vaccinate their respective countries' citizens to get rid of COVID-19 from their country. Likewise other countries, Pakistan has also started the vaccination process for its citizens and unlike the rest of the world, there have been different types of vaccines in Pakistan with different manufacturers and with different immunity booster levels. Through statistical analysis of vaccination in this research paper, we have tried to understand the diverse level of vaccines in Karachi and tried to get an understanding of the vaccination process happening in Karachi. For this kind of research, we have maintained the questionnaire and spread it through emails, WhatsApp, and Facebook.  The questionnaire was sent to about 500 people from July to August 2021. The results obtained depict the satisfaction of the vaccination process with normal side effects. Unlike other countries, Pakistan is among the countries where the mass vaccination process has always been very difficult to conduct. Further using the data of seven stations for prediction purposes Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) models were constructed. A better future trend analysis of COVID-19 can be observed using these constructed models. The data for the time series modeling from, 1st January 2021 to 25 August 2021, was taken from National Command and Control (NCOC) Pakistan