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Club convergence research has become a prominent focus in economic growth and development research over the past thirty years. When evaluating the degree of national well-being in studies on the convergence of living standards across various locations, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita is frequently used. Utilizing the convergence and clustering technique put out by Phillips and Sul (2007), the analysis yields a better health index. Five health indicators are included in the index. A final health index is obtained by combining the indicators using principal component analysis (PCA). Overall, the results of the study reject the notion that every district in Pakistan reaches a single state of equilibrium for the health index. Four convergence clubs were discovered after testing club convergence. The results show that health outcomes varied throughout districts, emphasizing the necessity for policies designed to lessen these spatial inequities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pakistan is spatially a diverse state in terms of location of its economic activities and regional disparities in various dimensions of development have been a vital concern in its history. The article aims to analyze the distribution of household welfare index across 97 districts of Pakistan through exploratory spatial data analysis for periods 2004-05 and 2014-15. For this purpose, an augmented Household Welfare index is constructed for measuring Household Welfare across districts. The index consists of consist of five indicators. Final index is obtained by aggregating these indicators through Principal Component Analysis (PCA). Findings of the study indicate positive global autocorrelation and thus indicating that a district with a high (low) is linked spatially with bordering districts which also have high (low) Household Welfare level. The results also display the HH quadrant in scatterplots of Household Welfare Index includes mostly districts of Punjab and KP, while LL illustrates a cluster of most districts from Interior Sindh and Baluchistan for both 2004-05 and 2014-15 periods. Overall, the findings demonstrate the twofold structure of Pakistan’s economic geography, as explained by most of the previous studies. Since geography of Household Welfare matters, it is recommended to reduce across districts inequalities by developing the social and economic institutions and infrastructure in the Baluchistan and interior Sindh. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Child maltreatment is a global issue deeply rooted in cultural, economic, and social practices. The present study investigates the representation of child abuse in the mainstream newspapers of Pakistan (i.e., Dawn and The News) from 2013 to 2020. This specific time frame is that these cases increased during these years. The data regarding the child abuse cases were accessed from the LexisNexis database. A computational technique of topic modeling (Latent Dirichlet Allocations) was applied to discover the hidden topics from the filtered data. The study underpinned Computational Grounded Theory as a theoretical frame for this study. The results reveal topics related to awareness of child abuse, the types of child abuse, and the law and procedural matters specific to child abuse cases in Pakistan. The study brings possible implications that child protection laws are to be improved to overcome the menace of child abuse in Pakistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seasonal and annual water supplies of the rivers originating in the Hindukush-Karakoram-Himalaya (HKH) region of Pakistan are important to manage the Indus basin irrigation system for better agricultural production and its dependent agrarian economy. In this study, we simulated the current and future snowmelt runoff in a poorly gauged river basin of the Hindukush region under Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) climate change scenarios. Snowmelt Runoff Model (SRM) furnished with satellite snow cover maps and hydro-meteorological data were used to simulate the daily river discharge for the period 2000‒2005. The results indicated that SRM has effectually simulated the runoff in Chitral River with Nash-Sutcliffe model efficiency coefficient of 0.85 (0.84) and 0.88 (0.83) in the basin-wide (zone-wise) application during the calibration and validation periods, respectively. The results obtained under future climate change scenario showed ∼14‒19% increase in mean summer discharge under three mid-21st century RCP (2.6, 4.5 and 8.5) scenarios. While an increase of ∼13‒37% is expected under late-21st century RCP scenarios. This study can help water resource managers to plan and manage peak discharges from the Chitral River Basin in the future and can thus prevent major losses due to floods in the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Child marriage is a human rights violation that jeopardizes health and growth, limits opportunities for empowerment, disrupts education and social development, and increases the chances of exposure to abuse and violence. This study was designed to know about the challenges and issues in policy making and the implementation process regarding child marriages in Pakistan. The study was purely qualitative in nature and the data was obtained through in-depth interviews from 14 respondents selected through purposive sampling technique. The findings of the research study demonstrate that regardless of being signatory to the international convention, the rate of child marriages in Pakistan is still high and prevalent factors relate to religion, traditional customs, gender norms, family practices, level of education, poverty, local laws, and patriarchy. Sometimes interfamily and tribe conflicts are resolved on mutual agreement and this agreement involves payment of money, debt settlement or transfer of daughters which might be child at the time of resolution of conflict. The policy makers and implementers face these factors as the main hurdles in implantation of laws regarding child marriage. Besides legislation, this practice can be protected by strong awareness campaign which includes educating the people specially Nikah-khuwan, communicating people about its health hazards, and psychological issues. Further by ensuring that state laws should not be over ruled against local custom or tribal laws. The study also suggests that awareness and monitoring about child marriages is the need of the day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research study on Indian demographic engineering traces specific administrative and legal measures that successive Indian governments initiated for demographic engineering in Jammu and Kashmir while the current BJP government crossed all limits and made unilateral moves to annex Kashmir in complete disregard to United Nations Security Council Resolutions and bilateral agreements between India and Pakistan. As a theoretical framework, the study used the Theory of Political Demography developed by Jack A. Goldstone, Eric P. Kaufmann and Monica D. Toft that explains how international security as well as national politics is being shaped by changes in population. Indian administrative measures for demographic engineering among others include grab of land and setting up of colonies for Sainik and KashmiriPanditswhile on the legal front, India eroded special status of the state by changing Article 370 and carving out two union territories to be governed directly from the centre. The study concludes that Indian unilateral moves in Kashmir not only created serious problems for final settlement of dispute but also spurred tensions between two nuclear states putting at risk the regional peace and security. The study provides pertinent recommendations to deal with the situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After spending trillions of dollars, making Afghan war the U.S longest combat, and jeopardizing the future of Afghan generations; ‘Not War But Peace’ became the reality on February 29, 2020 when Tehreek-e-Taliban Afghanistan (TTA) deputy leader Mullah Abdul-Ghani Bradar and American peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad signed the Peace Agreement in Doha, Qatar. The foundation of peace that Pakistan once wanted to build in Kabul by recognizing the Taliban regime became truth after 18 years of U.S. combat in Afghanistan that witnessed continuous chaos, instability, civil war, and turmoil beyond borders. Presence of Pakistan at the time of Doha ceremony is adamant to 1996 decision of Islamabad when the then Taliban Regime was recognized to avoid instability and install regional peace. This article makes the point that the farsightedness of Pakistan rightly realized the strength and resilience of Taliban and therefore took the right decision to bring them into mainstream diplomatic exposure in 1996. This fact was also recognized by Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and United Arab Emirates (U.A.E) who stood by with the reality of Afghanistan and too accepted Taliban as the legitimate political authority in 1996. A notion which was true in 1996 became reality of the day that “peace in Afghanistan is peace in Pakistan”. By incorporating deductive approach, this paper is descriptive in analysis and uses historical method of inquiry to establish facts and infer conclusions. Regional Complex Security Theory has been contextualized to refer to intelligence havoc that allowed regional states to sustain the chaos, instability, and turmoil in Afghanistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper discusses working-class students' experiences in the elite universities of Pakistan. The main objective of the research was to examine the inclusion and exclusion strategies of elite universities for working-class students. The research was guided by a qualitative research design. The locale of the study consisted of four elite universities (two from Islamabad-the federal capital of Pakistanand two from Lahore-the provincial capital of Punjab province of Pakistan). Sixty-four respondents (working-class students) were included in the study through a consecutive sampling technique. The data for the study come from in-depth qualitative interviews using a semi-structured interview guide. Theoretically, the study is informed by Pierre Bourdieu's, Basil Bernstein's, and Jerome Karabel's work. The results of the study showed that working-class students had relatively diverse kinds of experiences in the elite universities of Pakistan. It was found that working-class students were facing symbolic violence in the universities through various explicit and implicit ways. They were segregated through different structural procedures of the elite universities such as fees and other related expenses. The study concludes that working-class students were experiencing inside and outside classroom differential treatment. The social class background was an important factor that was playing a key role for some to be considered as special and others as non-special individuals in educational institutions where the respondents were studying. The study suggests that elitism in the education system of Pakistan must be discouraged to have assimilated kind of environment in the Pakistani education system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Ventricular septal defects (VSDs) are malformations in the septum separating the heart's ventricles. VSDs may present as a single anomaly (isolated/nonsyndromic VSD) or as part of a group of phenotypes (syndromic VSD). The exact location of the defect is crucial in linking the defect to the underlying genetic cause. The number of children visiting cardiac surgery units is constantly increasing. However, there are no representative data available on the genetics of VSDs in Pakistani children. Methods: Two hundred forty-two subjects (121 VSD children and 121 healthy controls) were recruited from pediatric cardiac units of Lahore. The clinical and demographic data of the subjects were collected. A total of four SNPs, one each from MTRR, GATA4, VEGF, and ISL1 genes were genotyped by PCR-RFLP. Results: The results showed that the minor allele (T) frequency (MAFs) for the MTRR gene variant rs1532268 (c.524C > T) was 0.20 and 0.41 in the controls and the cases, respectively, with the genotype frequencies 3, 35, 62% in the controls and 12, 59 and 29% in the cases for TT, CT, CC genotypes, respectively (allelic OR: 5.73, CI: 3.82–8.61, p-value: 5.11 × 10− 7). For the GATA4 variant rs104894073 (c.886G > A), the MAF for the controls and the cases was 0.16 and 0.37, respectively, the frequencies of AA, GA and GG genotypes were 2, 28, and 70% in the controls and 5, 64 and 31% of the cases (allelic OR: 3.08, CI: 2.00–4.74, p-value: 8.36 × 10− 8). The rs699947 (c.-2578C > A) of VEGF gene showed MAF 0.36 and 0.53 for the controls and cases, respectively, with the genotype frequencies 13, 42, and 45% in the controls and 22, 15, and 63% in the cases for the AA, CA, CC (allelic OR: 2.03, CI: 1.41–2.92, p-value: 0.0001). The ISL1 gene variant rs6867206 (g.51356860 T > C), the MAFs were 0.26 and 0.31 in the controls and cases, respectively. The genotype frequencies were 48, 52, 0% in the controls and 39, 61, 0% in the cases for TT, TC, CC genotypes (allelic OR: 0.27, CI: 0.85–1.89, p-value: 0.227). The MTRR, GATA4 and VEGF variants showed association while ISL1 variant did not appear to be associated with the VSD in the recruited cohort. Conclusion: This first report in Pakistani children demonstrates that single nucleotide polymorphisms in genes encoding transcription factors, signaling molecules and structural heart genes involved in fetal heart development are associated with developmental heart defects., however further work is needed to validate the results of the current investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed at estimating and examining technical efficiency of maize farms in Southern areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa-Pakistan. It utilized the primary data collected from 320 maize farms randomly selected through multistage sampling. Parametric technique of stochastic frontier production function was estimated to model output of maize growers. Results of stochastic frontier model revealed that tractor hours, labor and FYM positively and significantly affected yield of maize. Average technical efficiency was predicted to be 0.68 ranging from 0.31 to 0.91; implies that an average maize farm can increase yield by 33 percent with existing technology. Technical inefficiency effect model identified that education and farming experience has negative and significant effect on farmers' inefficiency. It is recommended that maize farmers need to be provided with formal as well as informal education, agricultural trainings and credit on easy terms for purchase of costly inputs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research was premeditated to estimate the impact of climate change on maize productivity in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Chitral, Swat, Mansehra, Peshawar, and D.I. Khan Districts were selected from different agro-ecological zones of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The climatic and non-climatic variables employed for the study were area under maize, maximum temperature, minimum temperature and precipitation, respectively. For statistical analysis, panel data record for twenty years (1996-2015) across five districts of the province were scrape together from Development Statistic of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan Bureau of Statistic and Pakistan Meteorological Department, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Hausman test recommended fixed effect model (as opposed to random effect) as a fit model for given estimation. The major findings proclaim that maximum temperature has negative impact on the yield of maize. Impact of precipitation show a positive and significant contribution to maize yield. High temperature has deleterious impact on maize productivity. Therefore, policy exertions needs to be concentrated toward impact of climate change on maize productivity. Development of temperature resistant maize verities for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is also a good option. Moreover, awareness among farmers on climate change is required regarding plantation of trees and afforestation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was directed in district Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. This study evaluated technical efficiency of tomato farms and to catch factors if any causing technical inefficiency in tomato production. 90 farmers were selected through multi-stage proportional allocation sampling techniques. Data was collected by using a well-structured interview schedule. Cobb-Douglas production function was employed to assess technical efficiency. Maximum likelihood estimation techniques were employed for estimation. Results showed that all explanatory variables except pesticides have significant effect on tomato production. The results showed that a 1% increase in seed rate, labor, tractor hours, urea, DAP and irrigation increases output by 0.81, 0.02, 0.28, 0.14, 0.25 and 0.02 percent, respectively. Mean technical efficiency score was found 95% ranges from 86% to 99%. This means an average farmer can increase tomato output by 4% with available resources and technology. Results of inefficiency effect model indicated that farmers' experience has negative and significant relationship with technical inefficiency. Efforts should be made to keep experience farmers in tomato farming. Government also needs to allocate more funds for extension services to provide formal and informal education to tomato growers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the study is to explore the service status of special academic libraries of Southern Punjab, Pakistan. It is imperative that the development of the library and its services must be evaluated from time to time in order to bring continuous improvement and qualitative change in the overall functioning of the libraries. The region of Southern Punjab, Pakistan has always been ignored in terms of education, development and progress. The data we recollected through questionnaire survey from library patrons of special academic libraries, for the purpose 160 questionnaires were distributed in the different institutes of Southern Punjab. The return response rate was 75%. The analysis revealed that library users are not satisfied with library services e.g. reading material, circulation, reference and e-services. The libraries of Southern Punjab arc facing many problems due to remote/less development. The recommendations have been formulated to the conclusions of the study like measures for better library services from the institutes, provision of e-library services, hiring of qualified and trained library staff. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Cardiac morphogenesis is a dynamic and complex process that involves a complex interaction of many genetic and environmental factors. Ventricular septal defects (VSDs) are the commonest congenital heart defects (CHDs), accounting for ~ 40% of all cardiac malformations. In Pakistan, the prevalence of VSD is increasing (4–6 in 1000 live births). In the current study, we aimed to determine the pattern of different hematological parameters and various risk factors in VSDs in local pediatric patients. We recruited the clinically diagnosed VSD children (n = 125) from various hospitals. The diagnosis was made based on echocardiography, size, number, and exact location of the defect. Hematological parameters, chemical pathological assays, and liver function analysis were performed. The blood group distribution and various risk factors were also assessed. The statistical analysis was done using the SPSS (IBM statistics version 22) software. Results: The results showed that for RBCs, 20% of patients in category of 0 to 3 months are above normal range; for WBCs, 33.3% of patients are above normal range in category of 4–5 years and 12–14 years. For hemoglobin, highest percentage of patients was observed below normal range; 30% of patients in category of 0 to 3 months, 40% of patients in category 4–9 months, 35.2% of patients in category of 10 months–3 years, and 33.3% of patients in category of 12–14 years were below normal range. For platelet count, 5.66% patients were below normal range and 16.9% were above normal range. For prothrombin time (PT) and activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT) more than 90% patients were in normal range value. Elevated ALP level and significantly lower albumin levels were observed. In age range of 13–14 years, 50% patients were below range for both calcium and serum creatinine. The prevalence of cousin marriages was 62.3%, about 60% mothers used antibiotics during pregnancy, B + ve and O + ve had the highest frequencies, and most of the patients were seen in age group of 2–35 months. Conclusion: All tested parameters show divergence from normal values their predictive capabilities of VSDs. To the best of our knowledge, the present study is the first to report data on hematological parameters and demographic risk factor associated with VSDs, in the Pakistani children. This data may have implication on the characterization and diagnosis of VSDs as well as on the assessment of related risk factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]