Impact of Infrastructure and Agroclimate on the Location of Rural Bank Branches in Pakistan: A Preliminary Assessment

Rural financial institutions play an important role in development and growth of the agricultural sector. In developing economies some rural areas are adequately served by financial institutions, while others have little or no access to these institutions. This uneven pattern of geographic location of rural bank branches has been attributed largely to regional differences in agroclimatic conditions and infrastructural endowments. We have estimated several alternative specifications which can be helpful in understanding the spatial distribution of commercial bank branches across the rural areas. Our results indicate that the location of rural bank branches is significantly influenced by infrastructural endowments and agroclimatic environment.

Domestic Resource Mobilisation for Development in Pakistan

This paper examines the determinants of private, domestic, and household savings in Pakistan. The analysis shows that private savings can be expected to grow gradually as a result of rising per capita income, falling dependency burden, improved financial deepening, and macro stability. Bivariate causality tests between GNP and savings show that GNP causes both domestic and public savings. However, the causality test is inconclusive in the case of causation between GNP and private savings. This finding has important policy implication in the sense that once a virtual cycle succeeds in accelerating growth, saving would catch up with a lag. In this sense, financing of investment is not a major constraint. The paper underlines the following policy options: (i) a strong effort spread over tax policy (tax reforms as well as tax administration), expenditure restraint, effective expenditure management, and public sector corporate reforms should aim at raising public savings to about 6 percent of the GDP; (ii) the incentives for private savings in Pakistan need to be revamped.

Rural Credit and Rural Development: Some Issues

Credit plays an important role in acquiring command over the use of working capital, fixed capital, and consumption goods that leads to growth and development of a country. The paper investigates that the role of non-institutional sources is quite clearly borne out. The price paid for institutional credit in Pakistan Kept low by the government. Institutional credit reforms implemented has not been effective. There is a great need to have the land reforms prior to credit reforms. The importance of social and economic infrastructure needs to be addressed. Appropriate use of new credit should be assured. Proper credit policy be designed and implemented.

Rural Credit and Rural Development: Some Issues

Credit is an important instrument of acquiring command over the use of working capital, fixed capital and consumption goods. In the wake of Green Revolution, land and labour have receded into the background as predominant factors of growth. Use of capital and adoption of modern techniques of production which have become major sources of growth of agricultural output necessitate access to credit markets for financing their use. Institutional sources of credit have become quite significant during the last few years. The rapid expansion of credit from institutional sources can be seen from various indicators. The total disbursement of agricultural loans has gone up from Rs. 306.75 million in 1972-73 to Rs. 5,102.14 million in 1981-82. On a per acre basis, the loans increased from Rs. 7.33 in 1972-73 to Rs. 106.83 in 1981-82. In this perspective, the disparities in income and wealth in rural areas would crucially depend on the distribution of capital among farms of different sizes and occupational groups. Neglecting equitable distribution of credit as a policy instrument for rural income redistribution may be a serious omission by the policy makers interested in an improvement of rural equity

Gorlin Goltz Syndrome: A Case Report and Discussion on Diagnosis and surgical management

Gorlin Goltz syndrome (GGS) is a rare syndrome caused due to inheritance of autosomal dominant gene with the exception of sporadic mutation cases. The tumor suppressor gene known as Patched (PTCH) present in the 9q chromosome have been identified as the cause of GGS. Gorlin Goltz presents with a wide range of developmental anomalies and predisposition to neoplasm. It is of significance to rule out GGS in patients with multiple odontogenic keratocysts (OKT/OKC). To date, very few cases of GGS has been reported in India. We hereby present a case of multiple keratocysts in the mandible and maxilla, which on further evaluation revealed, various skeletal, facial and cutaneous anomalies leading to diagnosis of the Gorlin Goltz syndrome. This case report discusses clinical and radiological presentation of GGS and management of its different clinically presenting manifestations with special emphasis on OKT

Segmentation Method for Pathological Brain Tumor and Accurate Detection using MRI

Image segmentation is challenging task in field of medical image processing. Magnetic resonance imaging is helpful to doctor for detection of human brain tumor within three sources of images (axil, corneal, sagittal). MR images are nosier and detection of brain tumor location as feature is more complicated. Level set methods have been applied but due to human interaction they are affected so appropriate contour has been generated in discontinuous regions and pathological human brain tumor portion highlighted after applying binarization, removing unessential objects; therefore contour has been generated. Then to classify tumor for segmentation hybrid Fuzzy K Mean-Self Organization Mapping (FKM-SOM) for variation of intensities is used. For improved segmented accuracy, classification has been performed, mainly features are extracted using Discrete Wavelet Transformation (DWT) then reduced using Principal Component Analysis (PCA). Thirteen features from every image of dataset have been classified for accuracy using Support Vector Machine (SVM) kernel classification (RBF, linear, polygon) so results have been achieved using evaluation parameters like Fscore, Precision, accuracy, specificity and recall

Forensic investigation of small-scale digital devices: a futuristic view

Small-scale digital devices like smartphones, smart toys, drones, gaming consoles, tablets, and other personal data assistants have now become ingrained constituents in our daily lives. These devices store massive amounts of data related to individual traits of users, their routine operations, medical histories, and financial information. At the same time, with continuously evolving technology, the diversity in operating systems, client storage localities, remote/cloud storages and backups, and encryption practices renders the forensic analysis task multi-faceted. This makes forensic investigators having to deal with an array of novel challenges. This study reviews the forensic frameworks and procedures used in investigating small-scale digital devices. While highlighting the challenges faced by digital forensics, we explore how cutting-edge technologies like Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Data Science may play a role in remedying concerns. The review aims to accumulate state-of-the-art and identify a futuristic approach for investigating SSDDs

Maternal serum melatonin increases during pregnancy and falls immediately after delivery implicating the placenta as a major source of melatonin

FUNDING The work was funded by non-specific institutional sources. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We wish to thank Emil Peshtenski for technical support and all the pregnant ladies who generously participated in this work.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

A study on adverse drug reactions to non-ionic contrast medium in an Indian population: a 1-year experience

Background: To the best of our understanding, very few studies focusing on the adverse drug reaction (ADR) profile of non-ionic contrast medium (NICM) has been carried out until date among the Indian population. Hence, this study was planned. We sincerely believe that the knowledge gathered from this study can improve safer usage of these agents among the patients of Indian origin. The objective was to evaluate the incidence and severity of ADRs of non-ionic radio contrast media (CM) used in tertiary care hospital in Eastern India.Methods: For the duration of 1-year from July 2011 to July 2012, we prospectively recorded all the ADRs associated with the administration of NICM (iohexol and ioversol) in 3708 patients of Indian origin undergoing computed tomography scan at the hospital. The average median age, weight, dose used; types of ADRs, concomitant medication, final diagnosis, reasons for use were recorded and analyzed with appropriate statistical tools. Causality assessment was performed using Naranjo scale.Results: Eleven of 3708 patients who received either ioversol or iohexol developed ADRs (i.e. 0.3% of patients). The most common ADR was rigor. The incidences of mild, moderate and severe reactions were 55%, 36% and 9%, respectively. Average median age, weight, and dose used were 35 years, 66 kg and 70 ml, respectively. All the ADRs were early (occurred within 1 hr of CM administration). Due to logical constraints, the follow-up of these patients was not possible and hence late ADRs were not captured. The common concomitant medication used was pantoprazole (63.63% of patients). The difference in the incidence of ADRs by age distribution (Group 1 - Iohexol, Group 2 - Ioversol) and weight distribution was not statistically significant (p=0.75 and p=0.18, respectively). Causality analysis revealed that all the ADRs were possible (Score of 4). Interestingly, the incidence of reactions was noted to be higher in patients with a history of gastro intestinal disorders (45.45%).Conclusions: This pilot study reveals that adverse reactions to NICM are rare and severe reactions are less common among the patients of Indian origin. However, a larger multicentric study across the country should be carried out to understand the safety profile of these CM better among the Indian population