Estimation of willingness to pay for improvement in dirnking water quality: a study of wasa, lahore

This study examines the existing water quality of Lahore and measures domestic household's willingness to pay for improvement in water quality services. To this end, a Tobit model is estimated by conducting a contingent valuation survey about household perceptions in six towns of Lahore. The results show that the factors affecting household's willingness to pay are coping costs that a household pay for ensuring quality of water.The study also finds the education level of head of family is an important factor in determining the willingness to pay for improved water services. It is recommended that by ensuring the supply and quality to the household additional revenue of 4.22 million rupees could be earned by the authority.Willingness to Pay, Tobit, Drinking Water Quality

A Short Comment on the use of R_adj^2 in Social Science

It is a common practice to prefer , over  to assess the explainability power of a statistical regression model among social scientists, especially for one having more than one independent variables. However, this preference is not advantageous at all times because the usage of  may end up in negative coefficients making them non-interpretable. A Monte Carlo simulation experiment is used to appraise the behavior of these adjusted versions of for different numbers of independent variables. It has been found that almost all of the selected adjusted version of  produces negative coefficients

Identifying Some Roots of Frontline Employee Attitude in Market Orientation

Abstract Though, various organisational outcomes are purported to result from market orientation in developed countries, very little or no such research has been focused on understanding the complex relationship between market orientation and frontline employee attitude towards customers in a developing country like India. In order to plug the gap the present study has been conducted in Indian service sector with samples from its two prestigious banks. The study that matches perceptions from both the frontline employees and their customers reveals that the elements of market orientation like market intelligence generation, market intelligence dissemination, and market intelligence responsiveness  exert its impact on frontline employee attitude or what is generally known as functional qualifications in service marketing literature and consequently effects customers’ evaluation. Conclusions and discussion of the study are drawn, and finally the implications of the study for practitioners have also been discussed.&nbsp

SEE YOUR ENDOCRINOLOGIST FOR A PITUITARY TUMOUR; YOU MAY NOT NEED SURGERY

Cushing’s syndrome remains an uncommon diagnosis with majority of non-specific and few specific clinical features suggestive of the condition. Results of biochemical investigations are often affected by confounding factors making diagnosis of Cushing’s syndrome difficult and localisation of the disease even more challenging. Careful assessment of the individual patient and use of the most suitable test in that patient may allow improved outcome in diagnosing and localising the condition to devise an appropriate management plan.Key words: Cushing’s syndrome, hypercortisolism, dexamethasone suppression test, Pseudo-Cushing’

Recumbent syncope mimicking nocturnal seizures

A fifty seven year old man presented to the emergency at the University hospital with a 3 month history of episodes of arousals from sleep with groaning and deviation of head to his right side. These were followed by a period of “confusion” that lasted for a “couple of minutes”. He had a witnessed “convulsion” in the hospital during this last visit and was loaded with one gram of phenytoin. A computed tomography (CT) scan of the head three months ago was reported as normal. Neurology was consulted for further investigations and long-term managemen

Navigating the shift in Bangladeshi host community’s perceptions towards the Rohingya refugees: a declining sympathy

Generosity and selflessness from the host community in Cox’s Bazar were deemed to be instrumental in supporting Rohingyas who sought refuge in Bangladesh in 2017. Thousands of Rohingyas had to flee from their own country to save lives due to state-supported military violence. Initially, Bangladeshi media and civil society were largely supportive of the Rohingyas. However, the initial sympathy later withered away and may have turned into frustration and hostility. Based on 39 in-depth interviews with hot community members and humanitarian professionals, this paper argues that protraction of the crisis, inability to access natural resources due to the refugee camps, some Rohingyas’ involvement in various unlawful activities, a perceived sense of neglect from the international community, and disruption in local labour market/trade affecting cost of living conditions for low-income people seem to have played important roles in creating widespread tensions between the host community and Rohingya refugees. We contend that findings of this study will add to the critical scholarship of humanitarian development in deepening the understanding of host and refugee communities’ relationships. This paper will also have a positive impact on future policies toward harmonious coexistence between host communities and displaced refugees and potential sustainable solutions to the crisis

Principal Component Analysis to Explore Climate variability of Pakistan

Various studies have reported that global warming causes unstableclimate and many serious impact to physical environment and publichealth. The climatic or environmental structure data was processedby coding, editing, tabulating, recoding, restructuring in terms of retabulating was carried out.Applying different statistical methods,techniques and procedures for the evaluation.To study the globalwarming effects on overall environmental conditions of Pakistan.Annual data of maximum and minimum temperature of four provincialcapitals have been taken from 1947 to 2012. The data isconsideredasrepresentative environmental components, use for further analysis.Time series plot shows difference of behaviors in maximum andminimum temperatures of Karachi and Lahore while bend of Quettaindicates increasing trend and Peshawar shows flat and smooth. Thefit of trend line, maximum temperature of Karachi, has significantregression coefficient b = 0.0504 with p-value 0.000 and R2equal to70.2%. The minimum temperature has decreasing trend but it isinsignificant. The data of Lahore shows decreasing and increasingtrends for maximum and minimum temperatures respectively showsthe differences reducing with the passage of time and expected tohave cooler weather than the past. Quetta and Peshawar temperaturesfit of trend lines and graphs, revealed that both cities getting warmerwith the passage of time.Principal component analysis is performedfor the purpose of finding if there is/are any general environmentalfactor/structure which could be considered as Pakistani climateThe PC1 is constructed by six manifest variables and represent theenvironmental factor called as “Index of Pakistan weather”. Explain42.74% of the total variation. The time series plot of this index seemsto have increasing trend. The PC2 represents the temperature ofKarachi, Quetta and Lahore. PC3 is the contrast between of minimumand maximum temperature. PC4 represents complex contrast betweenmaximum and minimum temperature explain 9.0% of total variation oftemperature. PC5 represent contrast between Karachi and Peshawarweather and its contribution to the total or overall variation of Pakistaniweather is only 3.5%

National baseline survey on sanitation in Bangladesh: an exemplary event of collaborative partnership

In response to the MDG and WSSD targets, Government of Bangladesh, having formed an effective partnership with Development partners including UNICEF, NGO’s and other stake holders, have declared Bangladesh’s target of achieving total sanitation, whereby, every household in the nation will have facilities of sanitary latrine by 2010. The target will be fulfilled in three phases by 2005, 2008 and 2010. It is realized that in order to set the sanitation target at the grassroots level, it is very important to know the present status of sanitary latrines. To design the intervention it is also important to know the reasons as to why such a vast number of people do not have latrine at all. It was further felt that the elected leaders of the Local Government institutions (LGI’s) should be involved in all activities towards total sanitation. With this in mind, under the leadership of Local Government Division of the Ministry of LGRD&C, nationwide baseline survey was conducted covering all household under the leadership of LGI’s with the assistance of concerned Government departments with minimum financial involvement and within a few weeks. The successful conduction of the survey induced the confidence of the local government institutions for managing nation wide events. The baseline survey was also instrumental to sensitize the grassroots about the sanitation issues