Farmer’s Literacy Rate as Key Driver in Food Production and Food Security: An Empirical Appraisal from Punjab, Pakistan

Farmer’s education in rural areas is an essential element to get better agricultural productivity (Mellor, 1976). The main purpose of the study is to examine that the literacy rate is key determinant in every aspect of agricultural production (food production). Either it is land, irrigation, livestock, agricultural credit or agricultural labor; literacy rate is serving as key driver in agricultural production as well as in food security. For this purpose cross-sectional data of Punjab province of Pakistan is used. Desired data were collected from Food Insecurity Report 2009 (SDPI, SDC and World Food Program 2009), Punjab Development Statistics (Government of Punjab 2009) and Punjab Agricultural Census Report 2010 (Government of Pakistan, 2012). OLS model was used to find out the results and the results show that the farmer’s literacy rate has positive and significance relationship with food security in both separate cases and overall contribution of all possible variables. Government should intervene in enhancing the educational programs for Farmers and play vital role in enhancing the farmer’s literacy rate

Effect of Neodymium: Yttrium-Aluminium-Garnet Laser Posterior capsulotomy on refractive status of the Eye

Objective: To assess the effect of Neodymium: Yttrium-Aluminium (Nd: YAG) laser posterior capsulotomy on the refractive status of the eye.Study Design: Quasi-experimental.Setting: Outpatient department of Benazir Bhutto Hospital, Rawalpindi.Duration: 1st January 2017 to 30th June 2017.Materials and Methods: A total of 95 eyes of 95 patients were included in this study. The patients were selected based on non - randomized convenient sampling. Among these patients 49 were females and 46 were males. The age range was 43 years to 85 years. These patients were those who had undergone uncomplicated cataract surgery with intraocular lens implantation 6 months or more than 6 months before presentation with posterior capsular opacification. Before Nd: YAG laser posterior capsulotomy, complete anterior and posterior segment examinations of these patients was performed and they were found to have no other associated anterior or posterior segment pathologies. Autorefractometre reading and best-corrected visual acuity were recorded and then after dilating the pupils, the procedure was performed. Post YAG capsulotomy, Autorefractometre readings were recorded again on the same day, at 1 week and the end of 4 weeks. Readings at the end of 4 weeks were considered for result purposes. These readings were converted into spherical equivalents for data analysis. Results: Data was analyzed through the SPSS version 18. The mean age was 60.14 years with a standard deviation of 9.241. Spherical equivalents were compared before and after YAG capsulotomy. Wilcoxon signed ranks test was applied. P-value (0.70) was found to be statistically insignificant which supported our hypothesis. Conclusion: Nd: YAG laser capsulotomy does not change the refractive status of the eye

Charmonium spectrum in an unquenched quark model

The effects of virtual light quark pairs on the charmonium spectrum are studied. Pair creation is modelled with a ``$^{3}P_{0}$" vertex and intermediate states are summed up to 2S excitations. Quark model parameters are obtained by fitting to 12 well-known charmonium states, allowing for feedback between the decaying particle and the induced mass shifts. Both of these technical steps are new and improve agreement with the experimental spectrum. In general, the masses receive small shifts once model parameters are refit. This is true in almost cases except the $\chi_{cJ}(2P)$ multiplet, which experiences upwards mass shifts of order 150 MeV, has the ordering of the multiplet rearranged, and pushes the erstwhile $c\bar{c}$ ${2}^3P_1$ state well above $D^*\bar{D}$ threshold--observations that clarify the nature of the enigmatic $X(3872)

Nexus between willingness to pay for renewable energy sources: Evidence from Turkey

The willingness to pay (WTP) plays a central role in directing appropriate policy regarding ambitious renewable energy targets. Based on this discrepancy, this study intends to investigate the willingness to pay (WTP) for Turkish citizens regarding green electricity by using a one-way analysis of variance (one-way ANOVA). The interviews were conducted comprising 2500 households in 12 major metropolitan cities of Turkey, which is based on the contingent valuation method and consists of 26 questions. The results indicate that for a 20% share of renewable energy, middle-income groups are willing to pay higher than lower and upper-income groups. Moreover, highly environmentally conscious people tend to pay more for a 20% share of green energy. On the other hand, high-income groups and old age groups indicated a positive and high willingness to pay for a 30% share of renewable energy (RE) sources. In addition, primary school and undergraduate educational groups recorded highly significant results for willingness to pay. The results also indicate that Turkish citizens are willing to pay 9.25 Turkish liras (TL) per month for a 20% share and 4.77 Turkish liras per month for a 30% share of renewable energy in total energy production.Q1WOS:0005681197000043289747

Impact of Educated Labor Force on Economic Growth of Pakistan: A Human Capital Perspective

A considerable body of research has concentrated on the role of human capital investment in explaining the level and variation in production and growth and it has been shown that long-term sustainable growth and development across countries is driven to a large extent by productivity growth. Most of the studies in Pakistan measure human capital by using its proxy as enrollment rate of primary, secondary and tertiary level or expenditure on education. This widespread practice has coexisted with longstanding doubts about using school enrollments as a measure of human capital since there exists a gap between school attendance and entrance into the Labor Market. Further, public expenditure on education is not enough proxy in case of Pakistan because of the fact that there is a large private education sector in the country. Taking cognizance of it, instead of using the school enrollments and public expenditure on education as a measure of human capital, this research examines the role of human capital formation described by education levels of labor force in Pakistan which is more direct measure of human capital than school enrollments and public expenditure on education. Data of educated labor force at primary secondary, tertiary and higher level is collected from Pakistan. Time series data is used from the period 1973 to 2013. The data is taken from various issues of Pakistan Economic Survey, Pakistan Labor Force Survey, Federal bureau of statistics, State Bank of Pakistan Annual reports and 50 Years statistics of Pakistan. Johnson’s Cointegration, Error Correction model (ECM) and vector error correction method (VECM) Granger Causality statistical tools are used to measure the impact of human capital on economic growth in the long run and short run. Finding shows that all proxy variables of human capital in this study have significant impact on economic growth in the long run; however, some variables are found insignificant in short run. This study concludes that education is a key determinant of Economic growth

Understanding Public Opinions on Social Media about ChatGPT – A deep Learning Approach for Sentiment Analysis

User-generated multimedia content—photos, text, videos, and audio—is becoming more and more common on social networking sites to allow individuals to express their thoughts. One of the largest and most advanced social media platform discussing ChatGPT is Twitter. This is because Twitter updates are constantly being produced and have a limited duration. The deep learning method for sentiment analysis of Twitter data about ChatGPT evaluation is presented in this research. This study used 4-class labels (sadness, joy, fear, and anger) from public Twitter data stored in the Kaggle database. The proposed deep learning strategy significantly improves the efficiency metrics determined by the use of the attention layer in current LSTM-RNN approaches, increasing accuracy by 20% and precision by 10-12%, but recall only 12-13%. Out of 18000 ChatGPT-related tweets, positive, neutral, and negative sentiments accounted for a respective 45%, 30%, and 35%. It is determined that the suggested deep learning technique for ChatGPT review sentiment categorization is effective, realistic, and fast to deploy

Trade Liberalization and Economic Welfare: A Case of Pakistan

Trade liberalization has now become the main focus of the literature as it is considered as the contributor of economic growth and welfare. The previous literature showed an overall positive impact of trade liberalization on the economy except for few studies; recommend adopting trade liberalizing policies. Whereas in case of developing country like Pakistan, major part of the literature showed positive impact of trade liberalization on the economy. This study examines the impact and relationship of trade liberalization and economic welfare in case of Pakistan. The variables used in the study are; gross domestic product recorded in millions of rupees as a dependent variable, whereas balance of trade is taken as a proxy of trade liberalization as an independent variable along with foreign direct investment, worke

Farmer’s Literacy Rate as Key Driver in Food Production and Food Security: An Empirical Appraisal from Punjab, Pakistan

Farmer’s education in rural areas is an essential element to get better agricultural productivity (Mellor, 1976). The main purpose of the study is to examine that the literacy rate is key determinant in every aspect of agricultural production (food production). Either it is land, irrigation, livestock, agricultural credit or agricultural labor; literacy rate is serving as key driver in agricultural production as well as in food security. For this purpose cross-sectional data of Punjab province of Pakistan is used. Desired data were collected from Food Insecurity Report 2009 (SDPI, SDC and World Food Program 2009), Punjab Development Statistics (Government of Punjab 2009) and Punjab Agricultural Census Report 2010 (Government of Pakistan, 2012). OLS model was used to find out the results and the results show that the farmer’s literacy rate has positive and significance relationship with food security in both separate cases and overall contribution of all possible variables. Government should intervene in enhancing the educational programs for Farmers and play vital role in enhancing the farmer’s literacy rate

Mapping Antecedents and Outcomes of Marginality and Social Exclusion among Small Landholders: A Systematic Review

This study aims to review determinants of the social exclusion (SE) of small farmers in the agriculture sector, which is one of the key approaches to creating sustainable rural development and an integral part of the country’s economic development. The selected group's social and economic underpinnings play a vital role in their productive decision-making regarding rural development. As per the literature review, databases of peer-reviewed scientific publications, and official publications of the relevant fields from 2005 to 2020, it has been deduced that the literature lacks elucidated support on the small landholder (SLH) in defining their marginality and social exclusion. This study particularly attempts to fill this gap by reviewing the comprehensive research of said domains. A precise and effective list of main players in this field to the smallholders throughout the developing and developed countries has been produced. Findings indicate that government interventions in terms of the welfare system, credit facilities, agriculture resources, market access, and farmers’ migration significantly influence decreasing social exclusion, food security, and attainment of the SDGs. Moreover, educational systems through farmer social networks, farmer-based organizations, and farmer field schools help adapt to climate change and the latest agricultural technologies, increase livelihood choices, reduce poverty and inequalities, empower women, and improve the social status of farmers. This is ultimately and positively associated with the social inclusion of small farmers and sustainable economic development