Determinants of Poverty in Mountain Region of Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan

Using data collected from 159 households in a mountainous village of Ghizer District in Gilgit-Baltistan, this paperexamines the prevalence, penetration and severity of poverty in the mountain region of Pakistan. The paper analyses household-specific variables to determine their contribution in increasing (or otherwise) the per – capita income of residents. The results suggest that, although women actively participate in livelihood activities, the high female to male ratio does not contribute to enhancing incomes. The authors argue that investing in productive assets, in addition to the land, will help people to escape from poverty. Keywords: Dependency Ratio, Participation rate, Poverty gap ratio, Severity of poverty

Liquid and spray-dried nanoemulsion designs for pulmonary delivery of rifampicin / Kifayat Ullah Shah

The study investigated the aerosolization and inhalation profiles of rifampicin-oleic acid first generation liquid and solid nanoemulsions and their respective chitosan- and chitosan-folate conjugate-decorated second and third generation nanoemulsions. The liquid nanoemulsions were prepared by spontaneous emulsification method and had their size, zeta potential, polydispersity index, morphology, pH, viscosity, surface tension, density, refractive index, drug content, drug release, aerosolization and inhalation profiles characterized. The first, second and third generation nanoemulsions had average droplet sizes of 43.89 ± 0.36 nm, 52.12 ± 0.36 nm and 59.69 ± 0.26 nm, with narrow polydispersity indices at 0.16 ± 0.03, 0.25 ± 0.03 and 0.23 ± 0.01 respectively. They exhibited desirable pH, surface tension, viscosity, refractive index, density, and viscosity attributes for pulmonary rifampicin administration. The second generation nanoemulsion was characterized by relatively low levels of burst drug release due to intimate chitosan packing at the oil globules’ surfaces and viscosifying effect on continuous phase, which was unattainable by the branched folate conjugate of chitosan. All nanoemulsions demonstrated more than 95 % aerosol output and inhalation efficiency greater than 75 % when delivered by nebulization. The aerosol output, aerosolized and inhaled fine particle fractions were primarily governed by the size and surface tension of nanoemulsions in an inverse relationship. The first, second and third generation nanoemulsions were converted to their corresponding solid counterparts by spray drying method

Service-Oriented Architecture for Providing ITS Services in Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks

Vehicular Ad hoc Network (VANET) is the cutting edge technology for smart transportation. VANET becomes an important aspect of the Intelligent Transport System (ITS). Different safety and non-safety applications have been developed for VANET. The inspiration behind VANET is to provide safe, and pleasant journeys to the drivers and passengers. Although the quality of software depends upon its architecture, most of them do not give proper attention to the consideration of Software-Oriented Architecture (SOA) for providing safety and non-safety ITS services in VANET. To address this issue, we proposed an efficient software architecture by highlighting the important operations and services of the system. The performance of the proposed architecture is evaluated by several design metrics and the results are compared with a state-of-the-art solution. The results showed that our proposed architecture has low coupling and high cohesion factors. Furthermore, the results reveal that our architecture is less complex and more reusable. From the results, we conclude that the proposed architecture is suitable for providing safety and non-safety ITS services and will pave the way for the implementation of the futuristic vision of the ITS

أسس بناء العادات الاجتماعية في المنهج النبوي: The foundations of building social habits in the prophetic approach

The Prophetic approach provided for the teachings, directives and virtues that would ensure the achievement of friendship and familiarity and love among the members of the community, and set each of its members his rights and duties for himself and for others. The Prophetic approach adopted the purification of the social environment as foundations on which to build social relations, including customs, in the light of an Islamic conception based on the teachings of the Holy Quran, the Prophet’s (P.B.U.H) Sunnah, and Islamic morals and values.A social environment should be built by avoiding the wrong relations, escaping from responsibilities, bad manners etc. An important principle of building a social environment is the upbringing of the newborns.These newborns should be taught the islam, the right way to live, right things to do, pillars of islam etc, the parents should bring up thier children by the right and the islamic way. The social control was the basis for building social habits by accepting what was compatible with the teachings of religion and rejecting what was inconsistent with these teachings.The correction of wrong concepts, beliefs and myths in accordance with the islamic concepts and beliefs is one of the principles to build a society i.e lives according to the Prophetic approach. The Prophetic approach had made the etiquette and morals a principle on which a social community can be built on. Faith upbringing is an important principle on which a social community should be built and brought up to become a community which has faith in Allah and have the knowledge of Prophet's (P.B.U.H) sunnah and other islamic sciences. So they can differentiate between the right and wrong, the Halal and Haram etc.A good islamic and mannered social society should be built on a number of priciples. Keywords:  social habits, Prophetic approach, Holy Qur’an, Halal and Hara