Rural Development and Education - A Case Study of Kashmir with Special Reference to Ganderbal Block

Education, one of the thrust areas, is a critical input in development in general and in human resource development in particular and is a catalyst for empowerment, poverty reduction and growth per se. The main objective of rural development had been to bring improvement in the level of living, including employment, education, health, nutrition, housing, and a variety of social services; decrease inequality of rural incomes and rural-urban differences in income; and the capacity of the rural sector to accelerate the pace of improvement in rural areas. Since rural development was a popular program of development in Kashmir, this Study seriously intended to trace the educational transformation and change. In this context, a case study was conducted in block Ganderbal, which covered 250 respondents, 62.80 percent illiterate and 37.20 percent as  literate. The rural development had been lopsided and the social implications had not been deep and radical. Paper Type: Empirical-Cum-Field study. Keywords: Kashmir, Rural Development, Beneficiaries, Educational Implications, Ganderbal block

Impact of Financial Liberalisation and Deregulation on Banking Sector in Pakistan

The study analyses market perception about the performance of Pakistani commercial banks due to financial liberalisation and deregulation measures taken by the central bank over the last two decades. For this purpose, it uses Survey approach. To augment the results of Survey Based Approach, it employs Distribution Free Approach to measure relative cost inefficiencies of commercial banks. Out of 35 commercial banks, 15 banks have been chosen for analysis purpose. Key banking reforms remain helpful in correcting flaws in the banking sector of Pakistan. In particular, privatisation of banks, the deregulation and institutional strengthening measures and switching towards market-based monetary and credit management remain helpful in correcting the prevailing flaws. The cost inefficiency scores of banks also indicate that the efficiency of Pakistani banks have improved during 1990 to 2006. As regards group-wise efficiency estimates, foreign banks are found to be more efficient, followed by private banks, nationalised commercial banks, and privatised banks. The relative high cost inefficiency of privatised banks is most probably due to having remained under state owned structure during most of the period of the study. The financial liberalisation and the resultant competitive environment might be the key factors behind improvements in efficacy of banks.Banking, Efficiency, Regulations, Financial Reforms

Recognition of paramyxovirus antigens by lambs

Immunization of young lambs against parainfluenza virus 3 (PI-3) is a major problem due to the presence of maternal antibodies that interfere with an active immune response. The objective of this experimentation was to develop a heterotypic vaccine that would overcome that blocking effect;Antiserums were produced in lambs against bovine PI-3 (BPI-3), human PI-3 (HPI-3), Sendai virus and simian virus-5 (SV-5). The titer and specificity of the antiserums were determined by hemagglutination inhibition (HI) test, enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), Western immunoblot assay (WIA), and radioimmunoprecipitation assay (RIPA);These sheep antiserums demonstrated a close antigenic relationship between BPI-3 and HPI-3 viruses. Sendai virus was also found to share some epitopes with the PI-3 viruses. Antigenic crossreactivity of SV-5 antiserum was limited to the nucleoprotein of other viruses;Lambs with variant levels of PI-3 virus maternal antibodies were vaccinated with inactivated virus preparations of either bovine PI-3, human PI-3, or Sendai virus. The viruses were inactivated with binary ethylenimine, adjuvanted with aluminum hydroxide and administered in doses of 25 or 50 [mu]g (as protein) subcutaneously to groups of lambs. Primary immunization in the presence of maternal antibodies failed to induce a detectable response to bovine PI-3 virus. A marked antibody response developed to secondary immunization with BPI-3 virus vaccine in lambs with low maternal antibody titers (≤8). However, the secondary response was limited in lambs with high initial maternal antibody titers (≥16);Groups of lambs that had not been vaccinated or administered a single dose of Bovine PI-3 or Human PI-3 or two doses of Bovine PI-3 vaccine were challenged with an ovine strain of PI-3 virus. Clinical signs were most dramatic in the unvaccinated controls. The once-vaccinated Bovine PI-3 group also was markedly affected but the disease was much less severe in the once-vaccinated Human PI-3 and twice-vaccinated Bovine PI-3 groups. Results of this experimentation indicated some potential for the use of HPI-3 virus vaccine for control of PI-3 virus infection in lambs

Impact of Financial Liberalisation and Deregulation on Banking Sector in Pakistan

The study analyses market perception about the performance of Pakistani commercial banks due to financial liberalisation and deregulation measures taken by the central bank over the last two decades. For this purpose, it uses Survey approach. To augment the results of Survey Based Approach, it employs Distribution Free Approach to measure relative cost inefficiencies of commercial banks. Out of 35 commercial banks, 15 banks have been chosen for analysis purpose. Key banking reforms remain helpful in correcting flaws in the banking sector of Pakistan. In particular, privatisation of banks, the deregulation and institutional strengthening measures and switching towards market-based monetary and credit management remain helpful in correcting the prevailing flaws. The cost inefficiency scores of banks also indicate that the efficiency of Pakistani banks have improved during 1990 to 2006. As regards group-wise efficiency estimates, foreign banks are found to be more efficient, followed by private banks, nationalised commercial banks, and privatised banks. The relative high cost inefficiency of privatised banks is most probably due to having remained under state owned structure during most of the period of the study. The financial liberalisation and the resultant competitive environment might be the key factors behind improvements in efficacy of banks.Banking, Efficiency, Regulations, Financial Reforms

Wideband mobile propagation channels: Modelling measurements and characterisation for microcellular environments

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Edible Oil Deficit and Its Impact on Food Expenditure in Pakistan

This study is an attempt to analyze the impact of Edible Oil Deficit on Food Expenditure in Pakistan for the period 1971-2008. Edible oil deficit is one of the major concerns for the policy makers in Pakistan. Despite of having agriculture based economy; Pakistan is unable to fulfil her domestic demand of edible oil by local production. This situation forces the government to import edible oil and oil seeds from other countries. This import not only increases our balance of payment deficit but also it negatively affects the ability to finance the external debt repayments. Autoregressive Distributed Lag model has been used to analyse the long run relationship amongst the variables. Other important determinants of food expenditure along with edible oil deficit were also used to check for their collective long run impact. It was found that long run negative relationship exists between edible oil deficit and food expenditure and hence the result derives the policy implication that there is a need to boost up the efforts in the agriculture sector to steadily increase the local production of oil seeds in the country. The relationship between the per capita GDP and food expenditure is found to be positive and significant with elasticity of 0.261 suggesting that 1 percent increase in per capita GDP will cause food expenditure to increase by 0.26 percent. The relationship between food subsidy and food expenditure is found to be insignificant suggesting that due to improper targeting and consumer’s perception about quality and accessibility of subsidized food, Government’s food support programs are not effective.Edible Oil; Production; Imports; Trade Deficit; Balance of Payments; International Trade; Oilseed Crops; Agriculture; Pakistan; Edible oil deficit; demand function; food; inflation; food inflation; household expenditure.

Causal Relationship Between Exports and Agricultural GDP in Pakistan

This paper is an attempt to investigate the causal relationships among agriculture and exports in Pakistan by using time series data for the period between 1971 and 2007. There are several efforts reflecting greater interest in exploring the possible relation between the international trade and economic growth. Increasing of Gross Domestic Product is the main target of almost every economy. Promoting exports of the country is one of the ways of achieving economic growth. Pakistan is among the developing countries, emphasizing to boost its exports since its inception. The major share of Pakistan’s export has strong backward linkages with the agricultural sector both in terms of primary and value added commodities. The findings have significant implications on Pakistan’s economic policy as both the variables have shown strong long-run relationship. There is also a bi-directional Granger-causality between the total exports and agricultural GDP. However, for short-run, both the variable does not cause each other in either direction.Causality, Growth, Gross Domestic Product, Agriculture, Exports, Pakistan

The Estimation ofAggregate Consumption Function for High Income Countries

Aggregate Real Private Consumption (ARPC) is one of the major components of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP)that contributes to specify any economy’s long term living standards. The contribution of ARPC stands on an average around 55%. It is therefore important to understand the components of the consumption which is almost more than half of the aggregate economic expenditure. The study is an attempt to make a case for developing countries to bring policy level changes in order to determine the consumption pattern of developing countries’ GDP. Using appropriate empirical model the study investigates the validity of Permanent Income Hypothesis (PIH) and Absolute Income Hypothesis (AIH)on ARPC for selected developed economies. The results of the study reveals that the important determinants of ARPC in the long-run are real GDP and wealth, while in the short-run they are real interest rate and unemployment rate

Gender Variations in Research Productivity: Insights from Scholarly Research

Abstract The variations in research productivity available in the scholarly world, between men and women, have always attracted the interest of many researchers across the globe. The present study aims to identify the differences in research productivity, patent creation, funding, collaboration, citation and impact between men and women across regions and disciplines over a period of time. After the comprehensive literature survey, results of various studies were correlated in a systematic manner for further analyses to reveal the findings and draw conclusions. The findings clearly depict that comparatively, males have a higher average productivity than females for all the performance indicators especially research productivity, patent creation, funding and collaboration across regions and disciplines; however, the gap is narrowing with the passage of time. The researchers have noted many factors, personal as well as academic, responsible for the limited productivity of women in research. Age, marriage, children and domestic workload are some personal factors badly affecting research productivity of women whereas less representation of women in higher education, low academic ranks, and fewer research funds are some of the academic factors affecting the research productivity negatively. In order to eliminate the gender differences in research productivity, some recommendations have been provided. Keywords Gender Variation; Gender Differences; Research Productivity; Research Performance; Research Output; Research Funding; Gender Bias; Research Impac