Skill Shortage versus Subject Choice, Case of Pakistan

Higher Education is believed to be a very important determinant of economic growth. The growth can be optimized with a suitable combination of skills in various subjects. A mismatch between required combination of skills and available combination of skills carries heavy costs for developing economies since import of skill from foreign is much more in expensive for such economies. We compare skill shortage in Pakistan with the subjects choice of students recently enrolled in institutes of higher learning. We found that there is a mismatch between skill shortage and the enrollment trend. We propose that the Government should regulate recruitment of students into various subjects in order to create greater harmony between national needs and students enrollment.Subject Choice, Skill Shortage, National Needs

Impact of MD5 Authentication in Secured and Non-Secured Traffic Routing for the Case of EIGRP, RIPv2 and OSPF Routing Protocols

Routing is the process of forwarding data across an inter-network from a designated source to a final destination. Along the way from source to destination, at least one intermediate node is considered. Due to the major role that routing protocols play in computer network infrastructures, special cares have been given to routing protocols with built-in security constraints. In this thesis, we evaluate the impact of MD5 Authentication on routing traffic for the case of EIGRP, RIPv2 and OSPF routing protocols in case of secured and non-secured routing traffic. A network model of four Cisco routers has been employed and a traffic generation and analysis tools have been developed and used to generate traffic data and measure delay time, jitter and overhead. The results show that the average delay time and jitter in the secured MD5 case can become significantly larger when compared to the unsecured case even in steady state conditions. Also, the EIGRP protocol shows the minimum overhead even when the system is extremely overloaded

Frontal Recess Anatomy – Radiological study and its surgical implications.

OBJECTIVES: Utilize 3- Dimensional CT scan : 1. To determine the role of various frontal recess cells in the development of frontal sinusitis. 2. To find the variations in the course of the anterior ethmoidal artery, and 3. Review the endoscopic surgical approaches to the frontal recess. METHODS: It was a retrospective and prospective case control study. Fifty controls and fifty cases were studied. Controls - Patients who had axial CT scan of temporal bone performed for ear diseases with absence of sinonasal symptoms. 3-D reconstructed images of the frontal recess region were created on a workstation and were reviewed. Cases - Patients’ clinically diagnosed with chronic frontal sinusitis with frontal sinus mucosal thickening > 3 mm on CT scan. The frontal sinuses (200) were further divided into diseased and non-diseased based on the radiological findings and compared. The findings were documented and analysed using Stata/IC 10.1 software package. Student ‘T’ test was used to compare the means and Chi-square statistics was used to test the association between the variables. Wilcoxon rank-sum (Mann-Whitney) test was done to see the difference between two groups when the data was not normally distributed. RESULTS: In this study, we could outline the various patterns of pneumatization in the frontal recess in our patients using 3- Dimensional Computerised Tomography. We did not find a significant relation for any particular frontal recess cell or pneumatisation pattern for being the sole cause for chronic frontal sinusitis. Therefore we conclude that the pneumatisation pattern in combination with various other factors, especially mucosal oedema, contributed to the etiopathogenesis of chronic frontal sinusitis. The anterior ethmoidal artery was found to run freely in the ethmoids, away from the skull base in most of the patients

Volatility Modelling and Dynamic Linkages between Pakistani and Leading Foreign Stock Markets: A Multivariate GARCH Analysis

It is essential for financial institutions and academicians to understand volatility spillover and financial market returns. However, previous studies examined the effects of direct spillover only and ignored those of the newly emerging stock markets. Therefore, this study attempts to estimate the time-varying volatility of Pakistani and leading foreign stock markets. It also tries to explore the direct and indirect volatility spillover effect between Pakistani and eight leading foreign stock markets. Daily data were used from nine international equity markets (KSE 100, NIKKEI 225, HIS, S&P 500, NASDAQ 100, DOW JONES, GADXI, FTSE 350 and DFMGI) for the period between 2005 and 2016. The univariate GARCH and GJR models were employed for analysing volatility, and the multivariate GARCH Diagonal BEKK model was used to explore direct and indirect volatility spillover effects. In order to analyse the volatility spillover effect during and after the global financial crisis period, the data were categorised into two periods: between 2005 and 2009 and between 2010 and 2016. The Chow break-point test was also employed to identify structural breaks in return series due to global financial crises. Direct and indirect spillover effects were found between KSE100, S&P 500, NASDAQ 100, DOW JONES and DFMGI. Keywords: Volatility, Spillover, Equity Market, Financial Crisis and GARC

Information Transmission Among Equity Markets: A Comparison Between ARDL and GARCH Model

This study compares the performance of autoregressive conditional heteroscedastic (ARCH) model and autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model in term of relationship detection. The daily, weekly, and monthly data are used from 2005 to 2019 to explore the dynamic linkages among KSE 100, S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, Dowjones 30, and DFMG indices. The results indicate that the ARDL and ARCH model have same power to detect the relationship among financial series. The results show that due high volatility in daily and weekly data the ARDL model is failed to capture ARCH effect. In case of monthly data, the performance of ARDL model is as good as GARCH model. It concluded that on monthly basis or less frequency data the ARDL model can be used as an alternative method to GARCH model for financial time series modeling

Information Transmission Among Equity Markets: A Comparison Between ARDL and GARCH Model

This study compares the performance of autoregressive conditional heteroscedastic (ARCH) model and autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model in term of relationship detection. The daily, weekly, and monthly data are used from 2005 to 2019 to explore the dynamic linkages among KSE 100, S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, Dowjones 30, and DFMG indices. The results indicate that the ARDL and ARCH model have same power to detect the relationship among financial series. The results show that due high volatility in daily and weekly data the ARDL model is failed to capture ARCH effect. In case of monthly data, the performance of ARDL model is as good as GARCH model. It concluded that on monthly basis or less frequency data the ARDL model can be used as an alternative method to GARCH model for financial time series modeling

Evaluation of RIPASA and ALVARADO Score for Diagnosis of Acute Appendicitis

Background:To evaluate RIPASA andALVARADO scores for the diagnosis of acuteappendicitis.Methods : In this cross sectional study, patientspresenting with features suggestive of acuteappendicitis and who had undergoneappendectomy, were included. All those patientswhose follow up was not possible withhistopathology reports were excluded .Samplingtechnique was non probability random samplingtechnique.Frequencies , percentages were calculatedfor categorical variables i.e. different parameters ofRIPASA and ALVARDO scoring system. Sensitivityand specificity of both scoring system was checkedkeeping histopathology reports as gold standard .Results :Mean age was 20.2 years. MinimumRIPASA score was 5.5 , maximum 14 ,mean 10.64 andrange turned out to be 8.50 with standard deviationof 1.639. P value for RIPASA score was 0.015 . 155cases had RIPASA score of 7.5 and above . MaximumALVARADO score was 9 and minimum 2 , mean of8.13 and standard deviation of 1.48. Majority(92.5%) had ALVARADO score more than 5 . P valuefor ALVARADO score was 0.001 .The gold standardfor diagnosing acute appendicitis washistopathology report which was positive in90.6%.Sensitivity of RIPASA score 95 %ALVARADO 88 % .Specificity of RIPASA was 21 %while of ALARADO 42 %.Conclusion: RIPASA score >7 and ALVARADO >6 are significant for diagnosing appendicitis.RIPASA is more sensitive but less specific thanALVARADO score for diagnosing acuteappendicitis

Current-source single-phase module integrated inverters for PV grid-connected applications

This paper presents a modular grid-connected single-phase system based on series-connected current-source module integrated converters (MICs). The modular configuration improves the reliability, redundancy and scalability of photovoltaic (PV) distributed generators. In this system, each PV panel is connected to a dc/ac inverter to permit individual Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) operation for each panel. Thus, the harvested power from the PV system will increase significantly. There are four different inverter topologies suitable to be used as MICs with different performances in terms of filtering elements size, power losses, efficiency, output voltage range, and high frequency transformers’ size. For the MPPT control, the oscillating even order harmonic components should be eliminated from the inverter’s input side otherwise the maximum power cannot be extracted. The proposed modulation scheme in this paper will ease the control of inverter’s input and output sides. Therefore, the 2nd order harmonic in the input current can be eliminated without adding new active semiconductor switches. A repetitive controller coupled with proportional-resonant controllers are employed to achieve accurate tracking for grid side as well as input side currents. Comparisons and performance evaluations for the proposed MICs are presented and validated with 1 kVA prototype controlled by TMS320F29335 DSP

Spectrophotometric Determination of Paracetamol in bulk and Pharmaceutical Preparations

A simple, and rapid spectrophotometric method for the estimation of paracetamol has been developed. The methods is based on diazotisation of 2,4-dichloroaniline followed by a coupling reaction with paracetamol in sodium hydroxide medium. All variables affecting the reaction conditions were carefully studied. Beer's law is obeyed in the concentration range of 4-350 ?gml?1 at 490 nm .The method is successfully employed for the determination of paracetamol in pharmaceutical preparations. No interferes observed in the proposed method. Analytical parameters such as accuracy and precision have been established for the method and evaluated statistically to assess the application of the method