Strategies for prevention of road traffic injuries (RTIs) in Pakistan: situational analysis.

Road traffic injuries (RTIs) are one of the leading causes of death among productive age group. Using systems approach framework (SAF), current preventive strategies for RTI control were reviewed in Pakistan. A review of the literature was done using four international search engines. Only ten studies on preventive strategies for RTI stemming from Pakistan were found. The first Road Traffic Injuries Research Network (RTIRN) surveillance system for road traffic injuries was established in urban city (Karachi) in Pakistan has shown promise for injury control and should be scaled up to other cities. Enforcement of traffic laws on seat-belt and helmet wearing is poor. National Highway and Motorway Police Ordinance (2000) was one of the few legislative measure so far taken in Pakistan. Using SAF, efforts are required to implement interventions targeting human, vehicle design and also making environment safer for road users

EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF LEWIS RANIS-FEI MODEL IN PAKISTAN

The study focuses on stage of Lewis Ranis-Fei model, role of capital accumulation in economic growth and impact of labour reallocation in economic development. Using  time series data from 1984 to 2013 the study develops a Cobb Douglas production function of agriculture and non agriculture sector. Sectoral growth decomposition approach was used to reveal the contribution of factors of production in economic growth. Labour reallocation was estimated by labour reallocation equation to investigate its effect on economic growth. Further it also indicates the stage of economic development. The study found that the role of capital accumulation in agriculture and non agriculture sector was highly significant where as the role of labour reallocation was very low in economic development. Further the study reveals that Pakistan stands on the first stage of Lewis Ranis-Fei model where  MPL is lower than APL

Conservation of East Asia\u27s Coastlines : The Role Played by the United Nations University

Abstracts of 3rd UNU-ORI joint international workshop for marine environment海洋環境国際ワークショップ講演要

Synthesis of free-standing graphene in atmospheric pressure microwave plasma for the oil-water separation application

The synthesis of free-standing graphene in a microwave plasma at ambient conditions is currently of great interest. The past works have relied on the usage of higher microwave powers to synthesize free-standing graphene which is not only costly but also an obstacle to the industrialization of the process. The aim of this work was to bring down the cost of the process by synthesizing graphene at a significantly lower microwave power, i.e. 250 W. The formation of graphene was confirmed through Raman spectrum and scanning electron microscopy, where the Raman spectrum showed the signature 2D peak of graphene, and the vertical orientation of the graphene was observed in the microscopic images. The application of graphene in oil-water separation is demonstrated based on its hydrophobic and oleophilic properties. The as-synthesized pristine graphene coated on a melamine sponge showed a mass absorption capacity (57 g/g) comparable to that of functionalized or composite graphene

Extract and Characterize Hairpin Vortices in Turbulent Flows

Hairpin vortices are one of the most important vortical structures in turbulent flows. Extracting and characterizing hairpin vortices provides useful insight into many behaviors in turbulent flows. However, hairpin vortices have complex configurations and might be entangled with other vortices, making their extraction difficult. In this work, we introduce a framework to extract and separate hairpin vortices in shear driven turbulent flows for their study. Our method first extracts general vortical regions with a region-growing strategy based on certain vortex criteria (e.g., $\lambda_2$) and then separates those vortices with the help of progressive extraction of ($\lambda_2$) iso-surfaces in a top-down fashion. This leads to a hierarchical tree representing the spatial proximity and merging relation of vortices. After separating individual vortices, their shape and orientation information is extracted. Candidate hairpin vortices are identified based on their shape and orientation information as well as their physical characteristics. An interactive visualization system is developed to aid the exploration, classification, and analysis of hairpin vortices based on their geometric and physical attributes. We also present additional use cases of the proposed system for the analysis and study of general vortices in other types of flows.Comment: Accepted for presentation at IEEE VIS 2023. The paper will appear in IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphic

Asbestos risk assessment in Pakistan: Current scenario and way forward

[No abstract available

Detect-and-describe: Joint learning framework for detection and description of objects

Traditional object detection answers two questions; “what” (what the object is?) and “where” (where the object is?). “what” part of the object detection can be fine grained further i-e. “what type”, “what shape” and “what material” etc. This results in shifting of object detection task to object description paradigm. Describing object provides additional detail that enables us to understand the characteristics and attributes of the object (“plastic boat” not just boat, “glass bottle” not just bottle). This additional information can implicitly be used to gain insight about unseen objects (e.g. unknown object is “metallic”, “has wheels”), which is not possible in traditional object detection. In this paper, we present a new approach to simultaneously detect objects and infer their attributes, we call it Detectand- Describe (DaD) framework. DaD is a deep learning-based approach that extends object detection to object attribute prediction as well. We train our model on aPascal train set and evaluate our approach on aPascal test set. We achieve 97.0% in Area Under the Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve (AUC) for object attributes prediction on aPascal test set. We also show qualitative results for object attribute prediction on unseen objects, which demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach for describing unknown objects

Engaging general practitioners in public–private mix tuberculosis DOTS program in an urban area in Pakistan need for context-specific approach

A public–private mix tuberculosis (TB) DOTS project was implemented to enhance coverage and collaboration between the public and private sectors, with an objective to increase case detection and to improve TB case management in a large urban area. General practitioners (GPs) were trained to provide DOTS services. Patients were diagnosed and treated as per national guidelines and outcomes were reported to national TB control program. Treatment and sputum microscopy were provided free of cost. A total of 94 GPs were trained. In all, 57.4% of trained GPs remained actively involved in the project. Overall treatment success rate of the patients enrolled with the project was 86.3% with 8.7% default patients. Experience suggests that a more stringent selection criteria need to be followed for inclusion of GPs in the program to improve the success of the program. A multifaceted context specific approach is needed while working with private health care providers

Electrochemical sensing of oxalic acid using silver nanoparticles loaded nitrogen-doped graphene oxide

The adverse effects of oxalic acid (OA) on human health linked with its excessive consumption necessitates an improved sensor. Here, we demonstrate an electrochemical sensor for oxalic acid detection based on silver nanoparticles (Ag-Nps) and nitrogen-doped graphene oxide (N-GO) nanocomposite. N-GO, which was synthesized using atmospheric pressure microwave plasma has been first time employed for electrochemical application. The nanocomposite formation was confirmed through scanning electron microscopy and EDS elemental analysis. The nanocomposite-based sensor showed a higher current response, good selectivity and stability which can be attributed to the synergistic-effect of Ag-Nps and N-GO. Amperometric responses were proportional to the concentration of OA between 10 and 300 μM, and the detection limit was 2 μM