• Advances in environmental research
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• 제6권3호
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• pp.203-216
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• 2017

For survival of human beings clean water is an essential commodity whereas contamination in drinking water threatens to mankind. The main cause of water contamination is social and development activities of human being along with increasing population. The community in the study area has acute shortage of drinking water along with about 40 to 60% has no access to safe drinking water. This study indicates drinking water quality of two major sources of coastal belt of Karachi one is supplied by Karachi Water & Sewerage Board (KWSB) as tap water and the other through groundwater. The physicochemical analysis was carried out by following the standard methods for checking the quality of drinking water. The analyzed results showed that the quality of groundwater was unfit as potable water. The most critical situation was observed as high level of contamination followed by high turbidity and increased salinity levels. TDS in surface water were found 12% above and TDS in groundwater was 20% below the National Drinking Water Quality Standards (NDWQS) of Pakistan as well as the permissible WHO drinking water quality guidelines.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• 제8권11호
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• pp.1-10
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• 2021

This paper compares the performance of Fama-French three-factor and five-factor models using a dataset of 20 Pakistani commercial banks for the period 2011 to 2020. We focus on an emerging economy as the findings from earlier studies on developed countries cannot be generalized in emerging markets. For empirical analysis, twelve portfolios were developed based on size, market capitalization, investment strategy, and growth. Subsequently, we constructed five Fama-French factors namely, R_M, SMB, HML, RMW, and CMA. The OLS regression technique with robust standard errors was applied to compare the predictive power of both the Fama-French models. Further, we also compared the mean-variance efficiency of the Fama-French models through the GRS test. Our empirical analysis provides three unique and interesting findings. First, both asset pricing models have similar predictive power to explain the expected portfolio returns in most cases. Second, our results from the GRS test suggest that there is no noticeable difference in the mean-variance efficiency of one asset pricing model over the other. Third, we find that all factors of both Fama-French models are statistically significant and are important for explaining the volatility of expected commercial bank returns in the context of Pakistan.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• 제9권3호
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• pp.149-157
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• 2022

The primary goal of this study is to investigate the impact of social capital on consumer attitudinal evaluations. We propose a hypothetical receptacle, thereby applying a mediation framework because of social capital. We expect that increasing social capital would improve brand image and consumer-company (C-C) identification, resulting in positive in-role and extra-role customer behavior toward the brand. Data was collected from 425 respondents primarily from Karachi's five zones (East, West, North, South, and Central) and analyzed using confirmatory component analysis and structural equation design. The findings showed that social capital had a positive and significant relationship with customer extra-role behavior, as well as two mediators, brand image and consumer business identity. Furthermore, both mediators have a significant impact on both in-role and extra-role behavior. However, there is no evidence that social capital has a direct impact on in-role behavior. This study will help businesses in gaining a competitive advantage by concentrating on social capital to improve their brand image and customer relationship.

• International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
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• 제24권7호
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• pp.79-86
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• 2024

This research is conducted in order to analyze the student's academic performance at the secondary school level in Sindh province of Pakistan. The study was focused on the students who have passed the Matriculation level recently. The sample of size equal to 1097 secondary level students was randomly selected in a way that from each college roughly up to 150 students took part in the survey. The sample selection was further divided on gender (Male=448, Female=649) and Locale (Urban=456, Rural=641). A survey questionnaire was circulated for data collection. The statistical analysis based on Pearson's Chi-Square and Correlation models were carried out using the collected data. The conclusion was drawn from results that strongly revealed that the student's academic achievement at high school level was highly associated to their parent's educational level and socio-economic background. Therefore, it is strongly recommended that the financial condition of the population must be enhanced by taking suitable measures. The affected students should be awarded adequate financial assistance or scholarships to face such hardships of their learning career. Free laptops, learning materials, books, and stationery should also be provided.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제15권22호
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• pp.9575-9578
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• 2014

Prostate cancer is more common in men over the age of 65 years. There are 15% cases with positive family history of prostate cancer Worldwide. Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of death among the U.S. men. Prostate cancer incidence is strongly related to age with the highest rates in older man. Globally millions of people are suffering from this disease. This study aims to provide awareness about prostate cancer as well as an updated knowledge about the epidemiology, etiology, diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer.

• Asian Journal of Business Environment
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• 제6권1호
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• pp.5-12
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• 2016

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of corporate governance practices such as (board size, board composition, CEO duality and audit committee) on the performance of selected Pakistani firms. Research design, data, and methodology - This study examines corporate governance structure by using the data of 80 non-financial firms listed on Karachi Stock Exchange Pakistan during 2010-2014. Hypotheses of the study were tested by using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Result - The findings indicate that board size and audit committee is positively related to the firm performance (ROA & ROE). In contrast, board composition and CEO duality are negatively related to the firm performance (ROA & ROE). As far as controlling variables is concerned, leverage is negative, whereas firm size is positively related to all measures of performance. Conclusions - Empirical findings concluded that corporate governance practices affect the firm performance. Therefore, it is suggested that managers should understand the governance mechanisms to work more efficiently in the firm.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• 제7권10호
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• pp.1093-1106
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• 2020

The role of the social environment for any activity is crucial as it prompts new ideas and plays a role of lever for entrepreneurial longevity and creating value through social wellbeing. The lack of entrepreneurship related knowledge in Pakistan has taken the challenge of lesser entrepreneurial activity as compared to other counterpart Asian countries and ranked 138 out of 189 countries on the level of ease of doing business. The study aims to investigate the social environment as a mediator among idea generation, business creation, financing decision and entrepreneurial activity by utilizing quantitative approach. In order to achieve the objective, a total of thirty eight items scale was self-administered for data collection. A non-probability, snowball sampling technique was employed and assembled a total of 300 complete responses through online and paper based surveys as per information provided by the chamber of commerce of three regions namely; Sukkur, Hyderabad and Karachi Sindh, Pakistan. The data analysis result strongly supported the main research question as the entrepreneurial activity increased up to 43.8% after applying social environment as a mediator. This research can help to enhance entrepreneurial activities in Pakistan by creating awareness to support entrepreneurs at social level for entrepreneurship.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제16권2호
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• pp.757-760
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• 2015

Aim: To present the epidemiologic data (age, gender, size etc) and histopathologic and immunohistochemical features of cases of rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) reported in our department. Settings: Section of Histopathology, Department of Pathology and Microbiology, Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, Pakistan. Duration: All cases of RMS diagnosed between January 1, 2003 and December 31, 2012 were included in the study. Results: A total of 277 cases were included. Embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma (ERMS) was by far the dominant histologic type (87.4%) followed by alveolar type (ARMS)(9.4%). ERMS was much more common in males (64.0%)and over 65% of cases occurred in the first decade of life (over 90% in the first two decades). Head and neck region was commonest site for ERMS (46.7%), followed by the genitourinary system (16.1%). Over 65% cases of ARMS occurred in the extremities. Over 80% cases of ARMS occurred in the first 3 decades of life. Immunohistochemical staining for Desmin and MyoD1 was positive in 96.7% and 85.4% respectively. Conclusions: The epidemiologic data and microscopic findings in our patients are similar to international published data on rhabdomyosarcoma.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제14권1호
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• pp.53-56
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• 2013

Background: It is known that blood group antigens are related to the development of peptic ulcer and gastric carcinoma. Infections due to H. pylori are most widespread among the developing regions due to poor standard of public health. This study sought to determine the association of H. pylori with ABO blood groups, age, gender, and smoking status among inpatients at a public sector hospital in Karachi. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted at endoscopy suite at a public sector hospital in Karachi in the year 2011. All the symptomatic patients coming for upper GIT endoscopy were included in this study. Results: Biopsy for histopathology was taken from 93 patients, with an age range from 15-65 years. Age group of 15 to 20 years was found to be associated with H. pylori infection but without significance (p-value 0.83). In all, 36 (38.7%) turned out to be H. pylori positive with a significant male preponderance (p=0.04). Distribution of ABO blood groups in H. pylori positive group were A=31.4%, B=15.4%, AB=25.0% and O=53.7%, with a statistically significant link for blood group O (p=0.05). Rhesus factor was also compared but significant relationship was evident (p-value 0.73). Conclusions: This study demonstrated that H. pylori infection can be related to ABO blood group, middle age persons and male gender. People of blood group O are more prone to develop infection related gastritis, ulcers, and even perforations, so they should be more cautious against transmission of the bacterium.

• International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
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• 제22권11호
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• pp.121-126
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• 2022

The number of vehicles has increased exponentially over the past 20 years due to technological advancements. It is becoming almost impossible to manually control and manage the traffic in a city like Karachi. Without license plate recognition, traffic management is impossible. The Framework for License Plate Detection & Recognition to overcome these issues is proposed. License Plate Detection & Recognition is primarily performed in two steps. The first step is to accurately detect the license plate in the given image, and the second step is to successfully read and recognize each character of that license plate. Some of the most common algorithms used in the past are based on colour, texture, edge-detection and template matching. Nowadays, many researchers are proposing methods based on deep learning. This research proposes a framework for License Plate Detection & Recognition using a custom YOLOv5 Object Detector, image segmentation techniques, and Tesseract's optical character recognition OCR. The accuracy of this framework is 0.89.