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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]

In this study, mechanical and electrochemical performance of borided additively manufactured (AM) and wrought 8620 low alloy steel were investigated and compared to their bare counterparts. The microstructure of borided 8620 exhibited the presence of FeB and Fe2B phases with a saw tooth morphology. Both AM and wrought samples with boride layers showed a similar performance in hardness, wear, potentiodynamic polarization (PD), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), and linear polarization resistance (LPR) experiments. However, borided steels exhibited about an 8-fold increase in Vickers hardness and about a 6-fold enhancement in wear resistance compared to bare ones. Electrochemical experiments of borided specimens (both AM and wrought) in 0.1 M Na2S2O3 + 1 M NH4Cl solution revealed a 3–6-fold lower corrosion current density, about a 6-fold higher charge transfer resistance, and about a 6-fold lower double-layer capacitance, demonstrating an improved corrosion resistance compared to their bare counterparts. Post-corrosion surface analysis revealed the presence of thick sulfide and oxide layers on the bare steels, whereas dispersed corrosion particles were observed on the borided samples. The enhanced wear and electrochemical performance of the borided steels were attributed to the hard FeB/Fe2B layers and the reduced amount of adsorbed sulfur on their surface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]