Inequality in the Literacy Levels in Pakistan: Existence and Changes Overtime

This paper attempts to identify the areas that are still lagging behind other parts of the country in terms of literacy levels and are unable to play their role in the velopment of human capital of the country. The analyses indicate that more than 75 per cent of the districts in the country are under-represented in terms of literacy levels. This includes a large portion of Balochistan province. A large proportion of the iterate population is concentrated in the national and provincial capitals. In general, Sindh lags behind in case of rural areas and NWFP in case of females. The analyses also dicate that the areas that are backward in terms of economic development are also those with low levels of literacy. Balochistan is the province that needs the greatest attention. An encouraging sign is the general decline in disparities in literacy levels over time. Moreover, the least literate areas have shown a significant improvement over time. wever, a lot of work needs to be put into these areas for them to come at par with other parts of the country.Pakistan; Literacy Levels; Inequality; Representation; Growth; Ranking; Census

Stereotactic radiosurgery for intracranial metastases from gastrointestinal malignancies: a retrospective analysis

INTRODUCTION: Cancers of the gastrointestinal tract are the second most prevalent malignancy with 289,610 new cases last year and the second most common cause of cancer-related death with 150,000 deaths last year in the United States. Prognosis for patients with these malignancies is poor and worsens significantly once the cancer has metastasized to the brain. We evaluated the outcome of patients following Stereotactic Radiosurgery (SRS) for brain metastases (BM) in individuals with GI cancers to identify safety and effectivity of treatment and we assessed prognostic factors that affect tumor control and survival. OBJECTIVES: By the conclusion of this session, participants should be able to: 1) Identify an effective treatment for brain metastases from GI cancers in terms of increasing survival; 2) Identify which treatment provides the best local and distant control of CNS disease; 3) Discuss the effects of different prognostic factors on local control and survival. METHODS: This is a retrospective analysis of 58 brain metastases from 18 consecutive patients who underwent SRS treatment at BIDMC between 2006 and 2013. 11/18 patients underwent prior microsurgical resection for their metastases and 3/18 patients had undergone Whole Brain Radiation Therapy (WBRT). Overall Survival (OS), Local Control (LC), Distal control (DC), and prognostic factors such as age, number of brain metastases (BM), Karnofsky Performance Status (KPS), Recursive Partition Analysis (RPA) and Disease Specific Graded Prognostic Assessment (Ds-GPA) class were evaluated. RESULTS: The median overall survival (mOS) for the entire cohort was 14 months after the diagnosis of BM. The mOS for patients receiving only SRS, Surgical Resection + SRS, and WBXRT + SRS were 8 months, 18 months, and 13 months respectively. The difference in overall survival between treatment groups was not found to be statistically significant. Increasing number of BM was a factor shown to negatively influence survival. Local control was achieved in 55% of lesions after SRS, and in 75% of lesions that were surgically resected followed by SRS boost to the resection cavity. The difference in local control between SRS alone vs. Surgery + SRS was found to be statistically significant (p = 0.013). CONCLUSION: With a higher overall survival and significantly better local control rates, Surgery followed by SRS boost to the resection cavity should be considered as the treatment of choice in this specific subgroup of cancer patients as this study shows that they benefit from this more aggressive treatment option

An Analysis of Public Expenditure on Education in Pakistan

Achieving economic growth is an important goal of any country. However, in recent years it has increasingly been realised that economic growth is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for human development. Pakistan provides a good example of a country which has historically enjoyed a respectable GDP growth rate and yet failed to translate this positive development into a satisfactory level of human development. Since its independence in 1947, Pakistan’s development policies have focused primarily on realising high economic growth and only incidentally on the task of providing social necessities. Such a process has given rise to a structure of production and distribution which has been only indirectly responsive to social goals. However, there is now a growing realisation that we could have done much better had we stressed human resource investments relatively more.

Analysis of Public Expenditure on Education in Pakistan

This study attempts to analyse the priorities accorded to Education by the federal as well as the provincial governments. Since education is in large part a provincial responsibility, a comparative analysis of the performance of the public sector education in the four provinces of Pakistan would be useful to provide feedbacks to the provincial administrations of relative strengths and weaknesses of their educational system. Also, differences in priorities and performance among provinces provide useful insights, and, more importantly, raise many questions for planners. Such an analysis is also necessary for overall resource allocation. The analysis will be extended to district level but confined to Punjab and Sindh due to data constraints. The study will also examine the disparities in budget allocations to education in the two provinces.Education; Public expenditures; Pakistan

Media Turns Villainous While Performing its Upright Obligations of Educating, Informing and Entertaining: Analysis with Particular Reference to Pakistan

Media has become a powerful actor in the modern world, particularly in Pakistan. Media inclusive of traditional media and social media primarily aims at informing, educating and entertaining the public; but in doing it so; it led its viewers and/or readers in Pakistan to sociopolitical chaos in various ways. That being said, it helped prop up militancy and extremism, presented unethical contents to the viewers, succumbed to ideological division, and became the harbinger for online extremist communication. Said in another way, it has assumed both the face of a guide and a monster in Pakistan. Key Words: Traditional media, social media, culture, sociopolitical chaos, online extremist communicatio

Impact of Globalization on Industrial sector growth In Pakistan

Globalization is a multidimensional concept that affects the economic growth of different countries differently and within economies different sectors of the economy differently. The study examines the long and short effects of globalization on the industrial sector of Pakistan's economy. Globalization index is used for Globalization, time-series data for the years 1980 to 2015 is utilized. To check the stationarity used Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test. Auto-Regressive Distributive Lag (ARDL) has been applied to find the long and short-run association among industrial sector growth, globalization, and explanatory variables. After diagnostics, the error correction model evidenced the existence of long-run Co-integration Exits industrial sector growth and globalization. Globalization boosted the growth of and industrial sector in Pakistan

THE IDENTIFICATION OF FORMULAIC SEQUENCES IN URDU LANGUAGE AND THEIR PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATION FOR SLA (ESL/USL)

In this study, an effort has been made to explore formulaicity in the Urdu language and its pedagogical implication in second language acquisition, both for English as a second language and Urdu as second language learners. It is believed that formulaic sequences or prefabs make more than fifty percent of a language. These formulaic sequences are of various kinds encompassing idioms, proverbs, collocations and sometimes, simple fillers. For the current study, data will be collected from two widely circulated Urdu newspapers. The data will consist of lexical chunks or formulas, which will be identified on the basis of eleven criteria proposed by Wray and Namba (2003). To maintain inter-rater reliability, the data will be shared with an Urdu language expert. After the identification, the formulaic sequences will be classified into six classes. Results of the pilot study show that there is formulaicity in the Urdu language. It was found that Urdu is also replete with almost all kinds of formulaic sequences, like many other languages