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Pakistan has celebrated seven decades of independence but misfortunately the nation is still divided into several ideologies, believes, ethnicities, regionalism, provincialism, political and social classes. Throughout the world, education plays a significant role in nation building but the terrible upshot in Pakistan is the division of nation in the field of education and learning. There are numerous umbrellas under which our educational system is running. Therefore, current study objects to measure educational stratification and its effect on nation building process in Pakistan. In this regard, this research mainly focuses on four major prevailing educational systems such as; privately managed schools, public schools, army public schools and madarsa (religious educational institution). Data were collected through focus group discussions and analyzed by applying grounded approach theory. Four major themes emerged after data examination. These are uniformity of curricular, equal opportunities, political and bureaucratic involvement and lack of moral education. Study finds that education system is badly lacking in uniform ideology and moral learning. Furthermore, the poor system of education is negatively affecting nation building in Pakistan by enhancing public distrust, discrimination and regionalism. The results of the present study may be helpful in finding the way for uniform educational system which provide learning opportunities to every child without thinking of their caste, religion, language, economic class, political affiliation and ethnicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Insurance and Takaful companies, both, are business organizations existing for the motive of profit. Large capital is required by the shareholders to establish a company; therefore, the company is expected to earn sufficient profit to meet the expectations of the shareholders. Moreover, a company also has its responsibilities towards its customers in terms of quality service. Shareholders are more concerned with their profit and customers regarding the services. Companies pay claims when the covered persons suffer a loss which can be the death of the family's only bread earner, factory on fire, theft of business goods etc. Therefore, efficient financial performance of insurance and Takaful companies is important to fulfil the requirements of both: shareholders and clients. This study investigates financial efficiency of insurance and Takaful companies via Data Envelopment Analysis during the period 2011 to 2015. We have taken six general (non - life) insurance & Takaful companies operating in Pakistan with input factors labor cost, assets and output factors premium / contribution received and percentage of claims paid. Results show that insurance and takaful companies are more than 80% efficient in their operations. For further increasing their efficiencies, they need to reduce their input by less than 20% to have same level of output. Comparing efficiencies of insurance and takaful companies, insurance companies are more efficient in terms of pure technical & super efficiency while takaful companies have higher scale efficiency than insurance companies, though the difference in most of the cases is less than 2%. Both types of companies need to improve their efficiencies by decreasing their assets input and labor cost while retaining the same output level of premiums and claims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To identify the imperfections in Pakistani Medical College admission criteria compared to the international standards and their impact on the performance of 1st professional medical students. Study design: Longitudinal partly interventional Qual Quan study. Place and duration of study: This study was carried out in the Department of Medical Education at Sialkot Medical College from 1st November 2016 to 31st October 2017. Methodology: 200 freshmen medical students belonging to a public and a private medical college, were recruited in this study. Their academic progress was followed for one year, using formative and summative assessment tools and the results were analyzed using Microsoft excel. Results: Analysis of year round progress of the students revealed a positive correlation between the internal assessment and students' performance in the 1st professional part I exam. Despite the interventional strategies to improve learning, the students selected on low merit failed to score as good as the ones selected on merit. Conclusion: In Pakistan, the premedical education and Medical College Admission criteria are lacking in some of the basic aspects. The system needs to be restructured according to global standards, so that our students are equipped with the basic knowledge of a good doctor as well as researcher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peste des petits ruminants (PPR) is a highly contagious viral disease of domestic and wild small ruminants and thus has serious socioeconomic implications. In Pakistan, during the year 2012-2013, estimated losses due to PPR were worth Rs. 31.51 billions. Close contact between infected and susceptible animals is an important route of transmission of PPR. Therefore, carrier animals play an important role in unnoticed transmission of PPR. The objective of the study was to investigate the detection of PPR virus in goats recovered from PPR. A suspected PPR outbreak was investigated and confirmed as PPR after analysing appropriate samples collected from infected animals using rRT-PCR. A longitudinal study was conducted over the period of 16 weeks to ascertain the detection of PPR virus (PPRV) in faecal samples of recovered goats. Ninety-six (96) faecal samples from each sampling were collected at 4, 8, 12, and 16 weeks after the outbreak. Faecal samples were analysed using rRT-PCR. Of 96 from each sampling a total of 46, 37, 29, and 25 samples were positive for PPR viral genome at 4, 8, 12, and 16 weeks, respectively, after recovery. Attempts were made for the isolation of PPR virus on Vero cells, but results were negative. These results indicated the detection of PPR viral RNA up to 16 weeks after infection. Therefore, these results may help in the future epidemiology of PPR virus shedding and possible role as source of silent infection for healthy animals especially when there is no history of any outbreak in nearby flock or area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Infection of the bone or bone marrow simply means osteomyelitis. The classification is based on the type of bacteria, route, duration, and anatomical location of the involved area. Commonly it occurs due to exposure of the bone to the local infection. It usually requires prolong treatment lasting from weeks to months and may requires surgical intervention. Severe cases may lead to the loss of a limb. Objective: To determine the most common causative organism of osteoarticular infection in Department of Orthopaedics Surgery and Traumatology, Mayo Hospital, Lahore. Methodology: This longitudinal interventional study was conducted at DOST, Mayo Hospital Lahore for period of two years. Total 200 patients with osteoarticular infections were included. Informed consent and demographic detail was obtained. Patients were followed- up in OPD for 24 weeks post-operatively to assess the outcome of the procedure. Results: There were 180 (90%) males and 20 (10%) females. There were 39 (19.5%) patients who had upper limb infection, 147 (73.5%) patients with lower limb infections and 14 (7%) patients presented with septic arthritis of lower limb. Detailed clinical history of the patients shows that there were 186 (93%) patients who had previous history of trauma while 14 (7%) did not report trauma. Final outcome was assessed through a scoring system by Jaberi FM. After assessment, it was revealed that Culture sensitivity was positive in 188 (61.5%) patients at 1st week, at 6th week 123 (61.5%) patients had positive culture sensitivity and at 16th week, 52 (26%) cases had positive culture sensitivity. Causative organism were also given in the table Staph Aureus was the organism which cause infection in 96% of the patients. Conclusion: Most cases are post-traumatic and Staph Aureus is the most common causative organism found. Chronic Osteomyelitis is prevalent than acute one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the Arab spring, youth have been politically active in Asia through various modes. Regime revolution or failed takeover on 15 July 2016, in Turkey is its vibrant example. However, it's unfortunate that the political perception, intention or attitude of youth towards democracy have not been included in the process of policy making. As a result, youth activism in politics remained unrecognized. Therefore, present work is an effort to explore democratic attitude of youth in Pakistan. The state of Pakistan has been selected because 64% of her population comprises youth. Current study examines democratic attitude through four major independent variables: economic growth, democratic values, public participation and political stability. Data was collected from the respondents who were in between 18-35 years of age by distributing a survey questionnaire which was adopted from the literature. Data was analyzed through SPSS version 24.0. Result of the study suggests that all the developed hypotheses were accepted. Additionally, study finds that despite massive corruption, social injustice, favoritism, nepotism, political instability, economic crisis and many other problems, Pakistani youth overwhelmingly considers democracy, as the potential form of government and dislike any alternative of it. Current study may be the first stone in the stagnant water not only in measuring democratic attitude of young generation but it will also help them to understand what sort of democracy is needed in Pakistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]