• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제16권15호
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• pp.6347-6352
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• 2015

Background: Breast malignancies are one of the leading causes of deaths in females worldwide. There are a number of risk factors associated with breast cancer but in Karachi Pakistan there are insufficient data available. Materials and Methods: A case control study was conducted on females in age group between 30-80 years. This study was accomplished by retrospective data collection in Aga Khan University Hospital Karachi, Pakistan. A total of 108 females with primary malignancy of breast were included along with 108 matched controls. Relationship of various factors with disease was studied using logistic regression to calculate odds ratios with 95 % confidence intervals. Results: A total of 14 variables were analyzed and based on and 7 were found to be risk factors: old age, family history of breast cancer, family history of other carcinomas, personal history of breast carcinoma, early age of menarche, older age of mother at first delivery and lower number of children. Five factors, parity, breast feeding, history of oral contraceptive pills intake, past history of oophorectomy and hysterectomy showed protective associations. One variable, use of hormonal replacement therapy, showed a controversial link and one other, marital status, was not significant in this study. Conclusions: It is concluded that most of the well-known risk factors for breast cancer are also associated with the disease in the female population of Karachi, Pakistan. High risk patients should be the focus with the help of this study so that screening can be more effective for early diagnosis before clinically evident breast malignancy.

• Advances in Energy Research
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• 제8권2호
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• pp.95-110
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• 2022

Wind energy can be utilized for the generation of electricity, due to significant wind potential at different parts of the world, some countries have already been generating of electricity through wind. Pakistan is still well behind and has not yet made any appreciable effort for the same. The objective of this work was to add some new strategies to calculate Weibull parameters and assess wind energy potential. A new approach calculates Weibull parameters; we also developed an alternate formula to calculate shape parameters instead of the gamma function. We obtained k (shape parameter) and c (scale parameter) for two-parameter Weibull distribution using five statistical methods for five different cities in Pakistan. Maximum likelihood method, Modified Maximum likelihood Method, Method of Moment, Energy Pattern Method, Empirical Method, and have been to calculate and differentiate the values of (shape parameter) k and (scale parameter) c. The performance of these five methods is estimated using the Goodness-of-Fit Test, including root mean square error, mean absolute bias error, mean absolute percentage error, and chi-square error. The daily 10-minute average values of wind speed data (obtained from energydata.info) of different cities of Pakistan for the year 2016 are used to estimate the Weibull parameters. The study finds that Hyderabad city has the largest wind potential than Karachi, Quetta, Lahore, and Peshawar. Hyderabad and Karachi are two possible sites where wind turbines can produce reasonable electricity.

• International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
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• 제24권2호
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• pp.189-195
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• 2024

The issue "Exploring Social Media and Other Crucial Success Elements of Attitude towards Politics and Intention for Voting in Pakistan" is a huge study embracing more issues. The politics of Pakistan is basically the politics of semantic groups. Pakistan is a multilingual state more than six languages. There are 245 religious parties in Pakistan, as elaborated by the Daily Times research. The use of social media sites in Pakistan peaked to its maximum after announcement of election schedule by the Election Commission of Pakistan in March 22, 2013. Most of the political parties used it for the recent elections in Pakistan to promote their agenda and attract country's 80 million registered electors. This study was aiming to investigate the role of social media and other critical variables in the attitude towards politics and intention for voting.

• ALGAE
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• 제26권4호
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• pp.317-325
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• 2011

Five benthic species of the genus Gambierdiscus (Dinophyceae) were observed for the first time in the coastal waters of Pakistan, Northern Indian Ocean. The morphology of the epiphytic, ciguatera-related toxic species G. toxicus, G. belizeanus, G. polynesiensis, G. australes and G. cf. yasumotoi are presented here, described by the Kofoid system of thecal plates Po, 3', 7", 6c, 8s, 5"', 1p, 2"" with differences in cell shape, cell size, plates, pores around the apical pore plate by using light and scanning electron microscopy. The occurrence of these potentially toxic dinoflagellate species in Pakistani coastal areas of Manora Channel and Balochistan during high temperatures of 28-$32^{\circ}C$ is cause of concern for human health impacts from ciguatera fish poisoning.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제17권7호
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• pp.3117-3122
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• 2016

Background: Health-care research is a neglected discipline in Pakistan and research related to esophageal cancer (ranks 9th in Pakistani males and 5th in females) is no exception in this regard. Particularly, there are no data available to delineate the overall status of esophageal cancer epidemiological studies in Pakistan. This study describes the first ever effort to make a systematic quantification, in an attempt to provide a road-map to all stakeholders for designing appropriate epidemiological, diagnostic and therapeutic strategies. Materials and Methods: International (PubMed, ISI Web of Knowledge) and local (PakMedinet) scientific databases as well as Google search engine were searched using specified keywords to extract relevant publication. Well-defined inclusion criteria were implemented to select publications for final analyses. All data were recorded by at least 3 authors and consensus data were entered into and analyzed for descriptive statistics (such as frequencies, percentages and annual growth rates) using Microsoft Excel and SPSS software. Results: A total of 79 publications fulfilled the inclusion criteria including 20 publications for which full texts were not available. Of the 79 publications, 59 (74.6%) were original/research publications, 5 (6.3%) were case reports, 4 (5.1%) were research communications, 2 (2.5%) were review articles, 1 was (1.2%) correspondence and 8 (10.1%) were undefined categories. Only 13 (<20%) cities of Pakistan contributed towards the 79 publications. On average, only 1.9 relevant publications/year were published from 1976 (year of first publication) to the present. Alarmingly, a decline in the annual growth at -4.1% was recorded in the last six years. Conclusions: Esophageal cancer research is largely unfathomed in Pakistan. Urgent/dramatic steps are required by all concerned to address this common (and under reported) cancer of Pakistan.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• 제8권6호
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• pp.543-552
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• 2021

The study examines how foreign capital inflows affect stock market development in Pakistan for the period from July 2008 to June 2018. Several components of foreign capital inflows were used for empirical analysis, namely, foreign direct investment, foreign portfolio investment, and remittances. Further, market capitalization was used as a proxy for stock market development. The study uses an ARDL model for examining the long-run and short-run relationships between variables. We also analyze the bi-directional causality between the variables through the Granger causality test. Further, the presence of structural breaks was analyzed through the CUSUM and CUSUM Square test. The results suggest that in the long run, remittances have a positive and significant relationship with stock market development. However, foreign direct investment, foreign portfolio investment, and USD-PKR exchange rate do not have a significant impact on stock market development. The results also suggest that in the short run there is a negative relationship between FDI, USD-PKR exchange rate and market capitalization. Contrarily, we found a positive relationship between FPI and market capitalization. The results of Granger causality test suggest that remittances and USD-PKR exchange rate have a causal relationship with stock market development. Finally, we found no evidence of structural breaks in the dataset.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제16권17호
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• pp.7467-7472
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• 2015

Background: Breast cancer is known to be one of the most prevalent cancers among women in both developing and developed countries. The incidence of breast cancer in Pakistan has increased dramatically within the last few years and is the second country after Israel in Asia to have highest proportional cases of breast cancer. However, there are limited data for breast cancer available in the literature from Pakistan. Objectives: The study was conducted to bring to light the common clinical presentation of breast cancer and to evaluate the frequency of established risk factors in breast carcinoma patients and furthermore to compare the findings between premenopausal and postmenopausal women in Pakistan. Materials and Methods: A 6 months (from July 2012 to Dec 2012) cross sectional survey was conducted in Surgical and Oncology Units of Civil Hospital, Karachi. Data were collected though a well developed questionnaire from 105 female patients diagnosed with carcinoma of breast and analyzed using SPSS version 17. Institutional ethical approval was obtained prior to data collection. Results: Out of 105 patients, 43 were premenopausal and 62 were postmenopausal, 99 being married. Mean age at diagnosis was $47.8{\pm}12.4years$. A painless lump was the most frequent symptom, notived by 77.1%(n=81). Some 55.2% (n=58) patients had a lump in the right breast and 44.8%(n=47) in the left breast. In the majority of cases, the lump was present in upper outer quadrant 41.9% (n=44). Mean period of delay from appearance of symptoms to consulting a doctor was $5.13{\pm}4.8months$, from the shortest 1 month to the longest 36 months. Long delay (> 3 months) was the most frequent figure 41.9%. Considering overall risk factors most frequent were first pregnancy after 20 years of age (41%), physical breast trauma (28.6%), lack of breast feeding(21.9%), and early menarche <11 years (19%), followed by null parity (16.2%), consumption of high fat diet (15.2%), family history of breast cancer or any other cancer in first degree relatives (9.5% and 13.3%, respectively). Some of the less common factors were late menopause >54 years (8.6%), use of oral contraceptive pills (10.5%), use of hormone replacement therapy (4.7%),smoking (4.7%) and radiation (0.96%). Significant differences (p<0.005) were observed between pre and post menopausal women regarding history of physical breast trauma, practice of breast feeding and parity. Conclusions: A painless lump was the most frequent clinical presentation noted. Overall age at first child > 20 years, physical breast trauma, lack of breast feeding, early menarche <11 were the most frequent risk factors. Physical breast trauma, lower parity, a trend for less breast feeding had more significant associations with pre-menopausal than post-menopausal onset. Increase opportunity of disease prevention can be obtained through better understanding of clinical presentation and risk factors important in the etiology of breast cancer.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제17권1호
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• pp.369-372
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• 2016

Background: Acute myeloid leukemia is an acquired clonal heterogeneous stem cell disorder. Hence, various parameters are sought out to categorize this disease into subtypes, so that as a consequence specific treatment modalities can be offered. Conventionally, the practically used method for classification utilizes French American British (FAB) criteria based on morphology and cytochemistry. The aim of present study was to determine the current spectrum of AML sub types in patients in Karachi. Materials and Methods: This single centre cross sectional study was conducted at Liaquat National Hospital, Karachi, extending from January 2010 to December 2014. Data were retrieved from archives were analyzed with SPSS version 22. Results: A total of 125 patients were diagnosed at our institution with de novo AML during five years period, 76 males and 49 females. Median age was 34.5 years. AML-M1 was the predominant FAB subtype (23.2%) followed by M2 (18.4%), M3 and M4 (16% each), M0 (14.4%), M5 (7.2%), M6 (3.2%) and M7 (1.6%). Conclusions: AML in Pakistani patients is seen in a relatively young population. The most common FAB subtype observed in our study was acute myeloblastic leukemia, without maturation (M1).

• Safety and Health at Work
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• 제12권4호
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• pp.452-461
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• 2021

Background: The prevailing global work scenario and deteriorating health facilities in economies indulge the risk perspective in the labor market model. This is the reason that the risk factor is cautiously attributed to wages and labor market efficiencies specifically in developing and emerging economies. In this respect, Occupational Injuries of Workers (OIW) is considered essential to demonstrate the risk and Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) setups given the constraints of the labor. Intuitively, the prime objective of this study is to make an assessment of the labor market considering the OIW through the indicators of industry division, employment status, occupational distribution, adopted treatment, gender and regionality. Methods: The assessment strategy of the study has been categorized into trend analysis and Index Value Calculation (IVC) segments employing the data from 2001 to 2018. Results: The pattern of the selected indicators of the OIW has been observed in the available data while the IVC estimations are considered through time and reference categories. The findings of both exercises revealed absolute and relative heterogeneities at both industry and occupational levels. Conclusion: The consistency for gender and regional distribution of both assessments points out the need for effective policy initiatives. The study suggests separate analyses of industry and occupations for a better understanding of the OHS setups and up-gradation in Pakistan.

• Advances in Energy Research
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• 제8권2호
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• pp.111-123
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• 2022

Solar Energy is the energy of solar radiation carried by them in the form of heat and light. It can be converted into electricity. Solar potential depends on the site's atmosphere; the solar energy distribution depends on many factors, e.g., turbidity, cloud types, pollution levels, solar altitude, etc. We estimated solar radiation with the help of the Ashrae clear-sky model for three locations in Pakistan, namely Pasni, Gwadar, and Jiwani. As these locations are close to each other as compared to the distance between the sun and earth, therefore a slight change of latitude and longitude does not make any difference in the calculation of direct beam solar radiation (BSR), diffuse solar radiation (DSR), and global solar radiation (GSR). A modified formula for declination angle is also developed and presented. We also created two different models for Ashrae constants. The values of these constants are compared with the standard Ashrae Model. A good agreement is observed when we used these constants to calculate BSR, DSR, GSR, the Root mean square error (RMSE), Mean Absolute error (MABE), Mean Absolute percent error (MAPE), and chisquare (χ²) values are in acceptance range, indicating the validity of the models.