Growth of Output and Productivity in Pakistan’s Agriculture: Trends, Sources, and Policy Implications

The paper aims to review the growth performance of Pakistan’s agriculture from 1950 to 1995. The long-term growth rate of agriculture, although respectable, has exhibited considerable yearly fluctuations even between decades. The period of the fifties and early seventies lacked any growth. Accelerating and high growth rates marked the decade of the sixties but the performance has not been satisfactory since 1979-80 and average growth rates have barely exceeded the population growth rate, with widespread implications for growth of national economy, food security, and social welfare of the masses. Area, modern inputs, and technology have been the major determinants of growth but prices were equally important because of their incentive and disincentive effects. The agriculture price policies adopted during the 1980s are known to have had a negative effect on the development and use of technology in agriculture. In order to boost agricultural productivity, a change in price policy is needed to ensure incentive prices. This could be done by setting agricultural commodity prices at par with corresponding import and export parity prices. A higher investment in research and development can hardly be overemphasised. There is an urgent need to remove the bottlenecks in agricultural input markets since these markets represent the typical monopoly position. To break up the monopoly of registered dealers and to promote competition, free sales in the open market by interested parties and individuals may be allowed.

Integrating in silico models and read-across methods for predicting toxicity of chemicals: A step-wise strategy

Abstract In silico methods and models are increasingly used for predicting properties of chemicals for hazard identification and hazard characterisation in the absence of experimental toxicity data. Many in silico models are available and can be used individually or in an integrated fashion. Whilst such models offer major benefits to toxicologists, risk assessors and the global scientific community, the lack of a consistent framework for the integration of in silico results can lead to uncertainty and even contradictions across models and users, even for the same chemicals. In this context, a range of methods for integrating in silico results have been proposed on a statistical or case-specific basis. Read-across constitutes another strategy for deriving reference points or points of departure for hazard characterisation of untested chemicals, from the available experimental data for structurally-similar compounds, mostly using expert judgment. Recently a number of software systems have been developed to support experts in this task providing a formalised and structured procedure. Such a procedure could also facilitate further integration of the results generated from in silico models and read-across. This article discusses a framework on weight of evidence published by EFSA to identify the stepwise approach for systematic integration of results or values obtained from these "non-testing methods". Key criteria and best practices for selecting and evaluating individual in silico models are also described, together with the means to combining the results, taking into account any limitations, and identifying strategies that are likely to provide consistent results

Understanding of the molecular genetics of benzimidazole resistance in haemonchus

Parasitic infestations are continuously posing enormous threats to food security and poverty alleviation. While different drugs are proposed to minimize the impact of parasite, these come with established genetic resistance. Understanding markers of genetic resistance will streamline the process of use of alternative medication as well as assessing the affect of currently applied anthelmintic. This review briefly outlines the roles of parasites in diseases and proposes the use of different genetic markers to mitigate the emerging resistance in parasite

An overview of the trichostorngyloidea

Among helminthes, the trichostrongyloidea consists of most significant parasites of ruminants, which are posing significant threats to livestock productivity, health and well-being. This brief commentary provides an overview of this important group of parasite to showcase the crucial roles these play in hosts

INCLUSION OF NUCLEAR ENVELOPE IN NON-SPHERICAL CELLULAR GEOMETRY

ABSTRACT; Mathematical modeling of drug diffusion system is a strenuous task INTRODUCTION It is essential to know the biology of the cell to understand the physical and chemical processes. The cell is a microscopic systemic and functional unit of living organism. The inherent features of cell are cell membrane, cytoplasm and nucleus. The cytoplasm has a very complex structure having many different organelles named as the endoplasmic reticulum, Golgi apparatus, mitochondria and the vacuole. The nucleus having nuclear membrane is encircled by a double layered membrane; named as nuclear envelope having nuclear pores on it that allow protein to pass, and the space between the membranes is known as perinuclear space

Rationale to understand anthelmintic resistance in parasitic nematodes

With extensive use of the anthelmintic in many tropical and parasite-endemic countries, the graveness of parasite resistance is exaggerating. The trend in the use of excessive medication in animal is also posing threats to public health. The governmental bodies are either lacking understanding or underestimating the regime of this emergingissue. This brief overview highlights the need, rationale and urgency of the matter to establish foundations for unifiedaction plans at the national levels as well as international levels in mitigating the development of resistance

Assessment of performance of the profilers provided in the OECD QSAR toolbox for category formation of chemicals

Growing restrictions and bans on animal testing for chemical safety assessment under different regulations have led to an increasing use of alternative methods. Read-across is one of the major approaches used for this purpose, which relies on the identification of toxicological hazards of a data-poor or untested (target) chemical from data on other already-tested (source) similar chemicals. This requires the target substance to be first assigned to a group or category of ‘similar’ chemicals. The ‘similarity’ may be in terms of structural features alone, or in combination with certain rules that are based on mechanistic and/or toxicological aspects. In this regard, the OECD QSAR toolbox—a major free-access in silico platform—is widely used to derive toxicity predictions for a range of (eco) toxicological endpoints. The Toolbox allows the user to identify a set of similar chemicals (analogues) by computational ‘profilers’ that incorporate different structural alerts, or a combination of structural alerts and physicochemical and/or toxicokinetic rules relevant to a specific toxicological endpoint. The overall aim of this study was to assess the performance of the in silico profilers provided in the OECD QSAR Toolbox for reliability for identifying chemical analogues for category formation in a number of high-quality databases on mutagenicity, carcinogenicity, and skin sensitisation. The study also aimed to identify the reasons for any limitations in the performance of the profilers, and propose ways to improve their overall accuracy. The results showed that whilst some structural alerts are fit-for-purpose as such within the acceptable limits, others need refinement or a consideration for their possible exclusion from the profiler. Such refinements are imperative for a reliable use of the profilers in read-across and grouping/categorisation for classification, labelling and risk assessment of chemicals.Unfunde

Compartmental System of Reaction and Diffusion Mechanism of Carcinogenic Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Mammalian Cell

The effect of ubiquitous carcinogen pollutants in mammalian cells is the source of several problems. Carcinogenic compounds present in environment as persistent pollutants become the root of carcinoma, toxicity or cancer when they react with hereditary material. To study the cellular exposure of reaction and diffusion mechanism of these carcinogenic compounds in mammalian V79 cell earlier, mathematical modeling with the set of spatially distributed system (PDEs) was developed. In this paper, compartmental modeling approach have used with the inclusion of perinuclear space. The system reduced the spatially distributed (PDEs) system to the temporal (ODEs) system, thus reducing the complexity and computational cost. The compartmental system has been simulated computationally in Virtual Cell using homogenization technique. The quantitative consideration of the results of spatially distributed system and temporal system shows a nice agreement. We can extend the compartmental system adding more compartments, reaction and diffusion processes

Current methods for the detection of Plasmodium parasite species infecting humans

Malaria is the world’s fatal parasitic disease. The ability to quickly and accurately identify malaria infection in challenging environments is crucial to allow efficient administration of the best treatment regime for human patients. If those techniques are accessible and efficient, global detection of Plasmodium species will become more sensitive, allowing faster and more precise action to be taken for disease control strategies. Recent advances in technology have enhanced our ability to diagnose different species of Plasmodium parasites with greater sensitivity and specificity. This literature review provides a summary and discussion of the current methods for the diagnosis and identification of Plasmodium spp. in human blood samples. So far not a single method is precise, but advanced technologies give consistent identification of a Plasmodium infection in endemic regions. By using the power of the recent methods, we can provide a broader understanding of the multiplicity of infection and or transmission dynamics of Plasmodium spp. This will result in improved disease control strategies, better-informed policy, and effective treatment for malaria-positive patients