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We conduct lab experiments to investigate demand for consumption agency in married couples from Pakistan. Most subjects are no better at guessing their spouse's preferences than those of a stranger, suggesting that individual executive agency has instrumental value. We find significant evidence of demand for agency in all experiments, varying with the cost and anticipated instrumental benefit of agency. But subjects often make choices incompatible with purely instrumental motives—e.g., paying for agency when knowing their partner assigned them their preferred choice. Female subjects are willing to exert agency even when they have little executive agency within their household. (JEL D13, D61, D91, J12, J16, O12)

Feature modeling is a common approach for configuring and capturing commonalities and variations among different Software Product Lines (SPL) products. This process is carried out by a set of SPL design teams, each working on a different configuration of the desired product. The integration of these configurations leads to inconsistencies in the final product design. The typical solution involves extensive deliberation and unnecessary resource usage, which makes SPL inconsistency resolution an expensive and unoptimized process. We present the first comprehensive evaluation of swarm intelligence (using Particle Swarm Optimization) to the problem of resolving inconsistencies in a configured integrated SPL product. We call it ${o}$ -SPLIT ( ${o}$ ptimization-based Software Product LIne Tool) and validate ${o}$ -SPLIT with standard ERP, SPLOT (Software Product Lines Online Tools), and BeTTy (BEnchmarking and TesTing on the analYsis) product configurations along with diverse feature set sizes. The results show that Particle Swarm Optimization can successfully optimize SPL product configurations. Finally, we implement ${o}$ -SPLIT as a decision-support tool in a real, local SPL setting and acquire subjective feedback from SPL designers which shows that the teams are convinced of the usability and high-level decision support provided by ${o}$ -SPLIT.

Gender based discrimination is still common and one of the biggest issues in Pakistan. Transgender are ignored in almost every lifestyle. They face biasedness while finding for a job and are forced to earn money using unrespectable ways such as begging and dancing. Although, Pakistani law declares them equal citizen and many government as well as private organizations offer them jobs. Most of the transgender people remain unaware of these job offers due to the lack of an existing information propagation channel. This paper has proposed Transparity; which a dedicated online job portal for transgender. Transparity is also equipped with supportive features such as CV creation, online courses and motivational profiles to make it effective and helpful. Our study reveals that no such dedicated portal exists in Pakistan. This study focuses on the improvement of employment issues of transgender through.

A Software Product Line (SPL) is a collection of software for configuring software products in which sets of features are configured by different teams of product developers. This process often leads to inconsistencies (or dissatisfaction of constraints) in the resulting product configurations, whose resolution consumes considerable business resources. In this paper, we aim to solve this problem by learning, or mathematically modeling, all previous patterns of feature selection by SPL developers, and then use these patterns to predict inconsistent configuration patterns at runtime. We propose and implement an informative Predictive Analytics tool called predictive Software Product LIne Tool (p-SPLIT) which provides runtime decision support to SPL developers in three ways: 1) by identifying configurations of feature selections (patterns) that lead to inconsistent product configurations, 2) by identifying feature selection patterns that lead to consistent product configurations, and 3) by predicting feature inconsistencies in the product that is currently being configured (at runtime). p-SPLIT provides the first application of Predictive Analytics for the SPL feature modeling domain at the application engineering level. With different experiments in representative SPL settings, we obtained 85% predictive accuracy for p-SPLIT and a 98% Area Under the Curve (AUC) score. We also obtained subjective feedback from the practitioners who validate the usability of p-SPLIT in providing runtime decision support to SPL developers. Our results prove that p-SPLIT technology is a potential addition for the global SPL product configuration community, and we further validate this by comparing p-SPLIT's characteristics with state-of-the-art SPL development solutions.

Objective: To determine the frequency of various symptoms and categorize breast mass characteristics using high-frequency 12 MHz ultrasound. Study: A descriptive study Place and Duration: The study was conducted at the Department of Radiology, Bahawal Victoria Hospital, Bahawalpur for one-year duration from August 2019 to August 2020. Patients and Methods: All patients with palpable or undetectable breast tumors, referred to the radiology department for breast ultrasound, were included. Other criteria considered were age 15 to 55 years, pain and nipple discharge. Dense breast flesh and asymmetric density in mammography are also taken into account. Breast diseases confirmed by biopsy and treated were excluded. The main measure of outcome was the presence of abnormal clinical and ultrasound outcomes. Findings were categorized in BIRADS terms. Statistical analysis was performed for descriptive statistics. The mean age, frequency and percentage of benign and malignant lesions were analyzed. Results: 265 adult women took part in the study. I80 (67.9%) had a palpable nodule touch, 45 (16.9%) had a non-palpable nodule, but the remaining cases had nipple discharge and mastalgia. The results of ultrasound examinations were classified according to the term BIRADS. Out of 265 cases, 73 (27.5%) showed malignant features on USG and benign lesions in 140 (52.8%) patients. 30 (11.3%) cases were probably mild and 22 (8.30%) cases were suspect. Mild changes observed in young patients 15 to 30 years of age, except 7, showed suspicious malignant features. Dominance of malignant features over 50 years of age. Distribution of 140 benign lesions were cysts in 52 (37.5%) cases, fibroadenoma in 40 (28.5%) and mastalgia in 25 (17.5%) cases and duct ectasia in 23 (16.4%) cases. Malignant features were found in 73 (27.5%) cases. Conclusion: This study shows that 12 MHz high-frequency ultrasound is an ideal imaging method for classified benign and malignant masses, especially in young and dense breasts. It is also useful with mastalgia. There was mild dominance in young patients and malignant dominance in older patients. Ultrasound categorization helps you avoid unnecessary biopsies and provides better options in your management plan. Key words: BIRADS, biopsy, breast pain, lump, mammography, mastalgia, sonomammography, ultrasonography

We conduct a field experiment to test the demand for flexibility and for soft and hard commitment among clients of a microfinance institution. We offer a commitment contract inspired by the rotating structure of a ROSCA. Additional treatments test ex ante demand for soft commitment (in the form of reminders), hard commitment (in the form of a penalty for missing an installment), and flexibility (an option to postpone an installment). Our design is unique in the literature for allowing us to test — using the same respondent population — how demand for explicit commitment features differs between loan and savings contracts. We find substantial demand for both credit and savings contracts but no demand for additional commitment features — either in isolation or in combination — in spite of their effectiveness in improving repayment. In particular, demand for savings is insensitive to explicit commitment features. Individuals offered loans actively dislike commitment and flexibility, unless the latter is combined with reminders. These findings complement a literature showing that commitment devices induce financial discipline. They show that demand for commitment depends on whether commitment features are implicit or explicit.

Aim: The aim of the study was to assess whether early cholecystectomy is safe in mild biliary pancreatitis. Study design: A prospective observational study. Place and duration: In the Surgical Unit-II of Bahawal Victoria Hospital, Bahawalpur for one-year duration from July 2019 to July 2020. Methodology: The study included 50 patients with mild biliary pancreatitis over a 1-year period. The study included patients over 18 years of age who had the first episode of acute benign biliary pancreatitis. Patients over 70 years of age, patients with moderate to severe biliary pancreatitis, pancreatic necrosis, pancreatic fluid build-up, chronic pancreatitis, alcohol abuse, and pregnant women were excluded. Early open cholecystectomy was performed within 48-72 hours from the first hospital admission. The endpoint was surgical complications following early cholecystectomy in benign biliary pancreatitis. Results: A group of 50 patients with mild biliary pancreatitis was analyzed for surgical complications. The incidence was 8%, wound infection 4%, subcutaneous abscess 2%, bile leakage 2%. There was no mortality in this study. Further episodes of pancreatitis did not develop after early cholecystectomy due to benign biliary pancreatitis. The hospital stay was short, an average of 13 days. Conclusion: It is concluded that early cholecystectomy can be safely performed after a mild attack of biliary pancreatitis without increasing morbidity. Keywords: biliary pancreatitis, gallstones, cholecystitis, ERCP, cholecystectomy.

OBJECTIVES: Vancomycin is a glycopeptide antibiotic commonly used in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) to treat late onset sepsis. It is recommended that vancomycin trough levels at steady state following intermittent dosing regimen be maintained at 10–20 mg/L, which is largely dependent on the type of infection. Our objective is to assess the ability of initial vancomycin dosing regimens to obtain target trough levels and to assess the percentage and risk factors associated with the development of acute kidney injury (AKI) while on vancomycin. METHODS: This is a retrospective review of all NICU patients admitted between January 2016 and December 2017 who received vancomycin according to the NeoFax at either 10 mg/kg/dose (low-dose group, LDG) or 15 mg/kg/dose (high-dose group, HDG), with a frequency based on the postmenstrual age (PMA) and postnatal age (PNA). Both regimens were compared by their ability to attain target trough levels and the episodes of vancomycin-induced AKI. Other outcomes included identification of risk factors associated with the development of vancomycin-induced nephrotoxicity. RESULTS: Of 182 patients evaluated, 44 (24%) were in the LDG and 138 patients (76%) were in the HDG. Ninety-one patients (50%) attained target trough levels of 10–20 mg/L. Among these and according to patients’ PMA, 48% in the HDG versus 7% in the LDG in PMA ≤29 weeks and 69% in the HDG versus 18% in the LDG in PMA 30–36 weeks attained target trough levels (p=0.006 and p20 mg/L (OR 5.1, 95% CI 1.5 to 17), hypotension (OR 11.02, 95% CI 3.5 to 34) and furosemide (OR 4.4, 95% CI 1.4 to 13.5) were significantly associated with vancomycin-induced AKI in our NICU. CONCLUSION: Vancomycin dosing in neonates according to the NeoFax did not provide sufficient attainment of target trough levels (10–20 mg/L). However, using the higher dosing range at 15 mg/kg/dose was more likely to reach target levels, with no measured increased risk of nephrotoxicity. Extreme premature neonates, supratherapeutic vancomycin trough levels, hypotension and furosemide use are associated with an increased incidence of vancomycin-induced nephrotoxicity.

Pakistan Super League (PSL) is a well-known T20 cricket league with millions of viewers. With this large viewer base, predicting the outcome of PSL matches opens a new research avenue for academic researchers. In this paper, we collect PSL data from relevant sources and generate a validated data set for machine learning experiments. We implement the “PSL Eye” solution which employs Neural Networks (NNs) to predict the match winning team. We preprocess the dataset to eliminate the extra variables then we tune the hyper parameters of NN. After acquiring the optimal values of hyper parameters, we run our NN based PSL Eye to obtain the final results. The overall accuracy of PSL-Eye with testing data set is 82% which is very promising and shows the importance of NN in predicting PSL match outcome.

BACKGROUND: Configuration of complex Laboratory Developed Tests (LDTs) is a time-consuming and complicated task, potentially leading to inconsistent LDTs in which features constraints remain unresolved and important features could remain unselected. OBJECTIVE: Our objective is to address these issues by presenting an automated, health informatics solution which autonomously optimizes feature selection in complex LDTs through Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). The optimization goal is to minimize inconsistencies and configuration time, and maximize the number of selected features. METHODS: We implemented our technology in a local, secondary-care hospital in Pakistan which configures LDT for a local epidemic disease. First, a list of inconsistent LDT configurations is generated. This is used to initially estimate optimal PSO parameters, which are then used for optimization process. RESULTS:Results show that PSO is able to minimize 91% inconsistencies between 9 and 11 seconds. The number of selected critical features also increases by 100% in the optimized LDT configuration. CONCLUSIONS: We present a novel and the first application of computational optimization to solve LDT configuration issues.

A software product line (SPL) is a set of industrial software-intensive systems for configuring similar software products in which personalized feature sets are configured by different business teams. The integration of these feature sets can generate inconsistencies that are typically resolved through manual deliberation. This is a time-consuming process and leads to a potential loss of business resources. Artificial intelligence (AI) techniques can provide the best solution to address this issue autonomously through more efficient configurations, lesser inconsistencies and optimized resources. This paper presents the first literature review of both research and industrial AI applications to SPL configuration issues. Our results reveal only 19 relevant research works which employ traditional AI techniques on small feature sets with no real-life testing or application in industry. We categorize these works in a typology by identifying 8 perspectives of SPL. We also show that only 2 standard industrial SPL tools employ AI in a limited way to resolve inconsistencies. To inject more interest and application in this domain, we motivate and present future research directions. Particularly, using real-world SPL data, we demonstrate how predictive analytics (a state of the art AI technique) can separately model inconsistent and consistent patterns, and then predict inconsistencies in advance to help SPL designers during the configuration of a product. Literature review of AI applications to SPL configuration issuesDevelop a taxonomy based on eight different problem domainsThis review shows use of logic, constraint satisfaction, reasoning, ontology and optimization.Several important future research directions are proposed.We justify advanced analytics and swarm intelligence as better future applications.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are pilotless aircrafts which were originally introduced for military purposes. They play a significant role in US war-on-terrorism. Since 2004, US has attacked many targets in Pakistan using UAVs. Pakistan condemns these attacks and denies the allegation of their hidden approval. In this context, we propose a neural network based model to minimize the adverse effects of these illegal attacks by predicting their frequency along with the number of militant killed, civilian causalities and number of injuries. The predictive model is trained using Pakistan UAV strikes data and results show that the proposed model predicts these variables with good accuracy and small RMSE (Root Mean Square Error).

Social media has become ubiquitous and globally used for social networking and content sharing. Twitter is a well-known micro blogging social media site to share and exchange people's opinion and content in different aspects of life. The power of twitter based predictions has its own magnified importance and has been greatly accepted. In this research paper, we investigate a tweet-based application of deep neural network to predict the 2018 electoral results of Pakistan. We collected tweets data using a twitter API. First, we tuned the hyper parameters of neural network then we trained the model with the tweets dataset of 2013 elections. We tested the trained model with tweets data set of 2018 election, model showed PTI as a clear winner. Results are very close to the actual outcome of the 2018 elections which also declared PTI as the biggest political party.

1.IntroductionAccording to the recent trade literature, expanding exports coupled with their structural transformation is conducive to sustained economic growth (see, for example, Hausmann & Klinger, 2007; Herzer & NowakLehmann, 2006; Iwamoto & Nabeshima, 2012). Structural transformation, which includes export diversification and product sophistication, is seen as the new engine of growth. It involves the movement of export products up the sophistication chain from primary to manufactured exports that are labor-intensive and eventually on to more resource-intensive products.The mix of goods exported by a country directly affects economic growth. Improvements in the quality and diversification of these exports reflect structural change (Felipe, 2007). Given a certain level of income, a more 'sophisticated' export basket is indicative of that country's economic growth (Hausmann & Klinger, 2008). This implies that countries usually maintain an export basket that is commensurate with their levels of income. Countries that are able to export products exported by richer countries, i.e., have a more sophisticated export basket, given their level of income, experience accelerated growth. Countries that specialize in unsophisticated export baskets, given their own levels of income, experience sluggish economic performance and find themselves 'stuck' in a low-growth trap.The evidence suggests that Pakistan has long produced less diversified and less sophisticated products, which are also produced by other low-income countries. This posits an important question. Does the lack of diversification explain Pakistan's weak export performance? We try to answer this by examining the links between export diversification, structural transformation and export growth.The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 looks at Pakistan's patterns of export diversification in comparison to India and draws a link with its export performance. Sections 3 and 4 explore alternative and more sophisticated approaches to analyzing the structural transformation of Pakistan's exports. Section 3 looks at its orientation in the 'product space' and identifies several problem areas. Section 4 analyzes the sophistication of Pakistan's export products based on (i) the complexity of exports and (ii) their technological sophistication. Section 5 concludes with some observations, followed by a brief discussion of the prospects for reinvigorating structural transformation for the country.2.Does Export Diversification Lead to Export Growth?This section looks at Pakistan's patterns of export diversification relative to India and links these to its export performance.1.1 Pakistan's Export DiversificationExport diversification pertains to the production and trade of a variety of commodities spread over different sectors of the economy (Ali, Alwang & Siegel, 1991). This implies that having a more diverse export basket fosters export growth and enhances GDP growth rates (Hesse, 2008; Samen, 2010). The channels through which export diversification might positively affect growth include: (i) the Prebisch-Singer hypothesis, which relates to improving the terms of trade by expanding production and diversifying trade commodities (Prebisch, 1962; Singer, 1950); (ii) the 'portfolio effect' by which expansion into varied export sectors can reduce instability in export earnings (Ferreira & Harrison, 2012); and (iii) enhanced aggregate productivity levels due to knowledge spillovers (Herzer & Nowak-Lehmann, 2006). Thus, diversification provides protection against the risks associated with economic instability and volatility in foreign exchange earnings.Most studies look at the structure of exports to analyze the industrial structure of developing countries. Thus, the export structure of a country may be a good proxy for its industrial structure (see, for instance, Hamid & Khan, 2015; Hausmann, Hwang & Rodrik, 2005; Hausmann & Klinger, 2007, 2008; Lall, Weiss & Zhang, 2005). …

The genetic architecture of common traits, including the number, frequency, and effect sizes of inherited variants that contribute to individual risk, has been long debated. Genome-wide association studies have identified scores of common variants associated with type 2 diabetes, but in aggregate, these explain only a fraction of the heritability of this disease. Here, to test the hypothesis that lower-frequency variants explain much of the remainder, the GoT2D and T2D-GENES consortia performed whole-genome sequencing in 2,657 European individuals with and without diabetes, and exome sequencing in 12,940 individuals from five ancestry groups. To increase statistical power, we expanded the sample size via genotyping and imputation in a further 111,548 subjects. Variants associated with type 2 diabetes after sequencing were overwhelmingly common and most fell within regions previously identified by genome-wide association studies. Comprehensive enumeration of sequence variation is necessary to identify functional alleles that provide important clues to disease pathophysiology, but large-scale sequencing does not support the idea that lower-frequency variants have a major role in predisposition to type 2 diabetes.

This paper investigates the impact of rare event experience and observation on risk-taking. Matching detailed individual, household, and community-level surveys with behavioral field experiment data, we are able to further illuminate the mechanisms underlying individual risk taking after natural disasters. In addition to detailed survey data, individual propensity to undertake risk was elicited under a framed experiment setting from 192 respondents in flooded and 192 respondents in non flooded villages matched using propensity data. In the context of rural Punjab, Pakistan, we find that individuals who live in areas affected by the 2010 floods do exhibit higher risk aversion but there is significant individual variation. In addition, individuals who have personal experience of floods in the flooded villages exhibit lower risk aversion pointing toward a mitigating effect of personal experience. In multiple rounds of the experiment, we also find that the change in strategy between rounds depends on the severity of losses experienced and on the number of floods previously experienced in one's lifetime.

We conduct two lab experiments and one field experiment to investigate demand for consumption agency in married couples. The evidence we uncover is consistent across all three experiments. Subjects are often no better at guessing their spouse's preferences than those of a stranger, and many subjects disregard what they believe or know about others' preferences when assigning them a consumption bundle. This confers instrumental value to individual executive agency within the household. We indeed find significant evidence of demand for agency in all three experiments, and this demand varies with the cost and anticipated instrumental benefit of agency. But subjects often make choices incompatible with pure instrumental motives – e.g., paying for agency even when they know their partner assigned them their preferred choice. We also find female subjects to be quite willing to exert agency even though, based on survey responses, they have little executive agency within their household. We interpret this as suggestive of pent-up demand for agency, and indeed we find that female demand for agency falls as a result of an empowerment intervention.

Standard models often predict that people should either demand to save or demand to borrow, but not both. We hypothesise instead that saving and borrowing among microfinance clients are substitutes, satisfying the same underlying demand: for a regular schedule of deposits and a lump-sum withdrawal. We test this using a framed field experiment among women participating in group lending arrangements in rural Pakistan. The experiment - inspired by the rotating structure of a ROSCA - involves randomly offering credit products and savings products to the same subject pool. We find high demand both for credit products and for savings products, with the same individuals often accepting both a credit product and a savings product over the three experiment waves. This behavior can be rationalised by a model in which individuals prefer lump-sum payments (for example, to finance a lumpy investment), and in which individuals struggle to hold savings over time. We complement our experimental estimates with a structural analysis, in which different 'types' of participants face different kinds of constraints. Our structural framework rationalises the behaviour of 75% of participants; of these 'rationalised' participants, we estimate that two-thirds have high demand for lump-sum payments coupled with savings difficulties. These results imply that the distinction between microlending and microsaving may be largely illusory; participants value a mechanism for regular deposits and lump-sum payments, whether that is structured in the credit or the debt domain.

(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.)1. IntroductionThe World Health Organization (WHO) defines maternal health as the "health of women during pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum period." While motherhood should be a positive and fulfilling experience, for far too many women, giving birth is associated with suffering, ill health, and even death (WHO, 2006).Although women play a principal role in shaping society, they remain at alarmingly high risk of maternal morbidity and mortality. Every life lost in pregnancy and childbirth has multiplicative effects, given that it is women who are responsible for bringing up children and managing household affairs (Tura & Gebremariam, 2008). These spillovers of maternal health begin from the time a woman becomes pregnant. Decisions made during pregnancy, at the time of delivery, and post-delivery have lifelong implications for mother and child alike. Decreasing maternal mortality is, therefore, one of the most important global agendas of health.WHO (2013) reports that the maternal mortality ratio (MMR) in Pakistan was 260 per 100,000 live births in 2010. Estimates show that, although Pakistan's MMR has declined by 47 percent since 1990, the country's performance lags behind others. The Government of Pakistan has made extensive efforts to decrease maternal mortality through a number of vertical and horizontal mother-and-child healthcare programs, such as the Family Planning and Primary Healthcare Program (Lady Health Workers Program) and National Maternal and Child Health Program. Although overall spending on health has increased, the share of health expenditure as a percentage of GDP remains low at 0.42 percent in 2014/15. Pakistan has made moderate progress in achieving some of the Millennium Development Goals, such as universal female health worker coverage by 2015, but the goal to reduce maternal mortality to 140 deaths per 100,000 births and child mortality to 52 deaths per 1,000 births will not be achieved by 2015.There is an extensive body of literature on the socioeconomic determinants of maternal health in Bangladesh, India, and Nepal, but a dearth of such studies on Pakistan. Moreover, the existing studies have limited application for Pakistan at large because they employ data from specific regions or provinces of the country. Most recognize the direct effect of some socioeconomic determinants on maternal health-seeking behavior (age, birth order, or previous fetal loss). However, determinants such as education can affect health-seeking behavior through multiple channels. Other branches of health literature, such as child health, have studied at length the pathway through which education affects the health-seeking behavior of an individual. Nevertheless, few studies underpin this causal mechanism in the literature on maternal health.This paper is an extension of existing studies that identify key socioeconomic determinants of maternal healthcare utilization by women in developing countries such as Pakistan. Its twofold objective is to (i) determine which socioeconomic factors affect women's use of maternal healthcare services in Pakistan, and (ii) identify the pathway through which the effect of women's education is transmitted to their maternal health-seeking behavior.We draw on data from the Pakistan Demographic Health Survey (PDHS) for 2006/07, which covers approximately 92,340 households. Carried out by the National Institute of Population Studies with the explicit goal of providing much-needed reliable information on maternal and neonatal health in Pakistan, the PDHS gives a comprehensive picture of marriage, fertility preferences, use of family planning methods, and maternal healthcare utilization. It is, therefore, well suited to our purposes. We use the instrumental variable (IV) technique to estimate the determinants of maternal health behavior; the choice of instrument for the endogenous variable is based on the literature. …

Background Indian Asians, who make up a quarter of the world's population, are at high risk of developing type 2 diabetes. We investigated whether DNA methylation is associated with future type 2 diabetes incidence in Indian Asians and whether differences in methylation patterns between Indian Asians and Europeans are associated with, and could be used to predict, differences in the magnitude of risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Methods We did a nested case-control study of DNA methylation in Indian Asians and Europeans with incident type 2 diabetes who were identified from the 8-year follow-up of 25 372 participants in the London Life Sciences Prospective Population (LOLIPOP) study. Patients were recruited between May 1, 2002, and Sept 12, 2008. We did epigenome-wide association analysis using samples from Indian Asians with incident type 2 diabetes and age-matched and sex-matched Indian Asian controls, followed by replication testing of top-ranking signals in Europeans. For both discovery and replication, DNA methylation was measured in the baseline blood sample, which was collected before the onset of type 2 diabetes. Epigenome-wide significance was set at p

Few genome-wide association studies (GWAS) account for environmental exposures, like smoking, potentially impacting the overall trait variance when investigating the genetic contribution to obesity-related traits. Here, we use GWAS data from 51,080 current smokers and 190,178 nonsmokers (87% European descent) to identify loci influencing BMI and central adiposity, measured as waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio both adjusted for BMI. We identify 23 novel genetic loci, and 9 loci with convincing evidence of gene-smoking interaction (GxSMK) on obesity-related traits. We show consistent direction of effect for all identified loci and significance for 18 novel and for 5 interaction loci in an independent study sample. These loci highlight novel biological functions, including response to oxidative stress, addictive behaviour, and regulatory functions emphasizing the importance of accounting for environment in genetic analyses. Our results suggest that tobacco smoking may alter the genetic susceptibility to overall adiposity and body fat distribution., A full list of acknowledgments appears in the Supplementary Note 4. Co-author A.J.M.d.C. recently passed away while this work was in process. This work was performed under the auspices of the Genetic Investigation of ANthropometric Traits (GIANT) consortium. We acknowledge the Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology (CHARGE) Consortium for encouraging CHARGE studies to participate in this effort and for the contributions of CHARGE members to the analyses conducted for this research. Funding for this study was provided by the Aase and Ejner Danielsens Foundation; Academy of Finland (41071, 77299, 102318, 110413, 117787, 121584, 123885, 124243, 124282, 126925, 129378, 134309, 286284); Accare Center for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry; Action on Hearing Loss (G51); Agence Nationale de la 359 Recherche; Agency for Health Care Policy Research (HS06516); ALF/LUA research grant in Gothenburg; ALFEDIAM; ALK-Abelló A/S; Althingi; American Heart Association (13POST16500011); Amgen; Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies; Ardix Medical; Arthritis Research UK; Association Diabète Risque Vasculaire; Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (241944, 339462, 389875, 389891, 389892, 389927, 389938, 442915, 442981, 496739, 552485, 552498); Avera Institute; Bayer Diagnostics; Becton Dickinson; BHF (RG/14/5/30893); Boston Obesity Nutrition Research Center (DK46200), Bristol-Myers Squibb; British Heart Foundation (RG/10/12/28456, RG2008/08, RG2008/014, SP/04/002); Medical Research Council of Canada; Canadian Institutes for Health Research (FRCN-CCT-83028); Cancer Research UK; Cardionics; Cavadis B.V., Center for Medical Systems Biology; Center of Excellence in Genomics; CFI; CIHR; City of Kuopio; CNAMTS; Cohortes Santé TGIR; Contrat de Projets État-Région; Croatian Science Foundation (8875); Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation; Danish Council for Independent Research (DFF-1333-00124, DFF-1331-00730B); County Council of Dalarna; Dalarna University; Danish Council for Strategic Research; Danish Diabetes Academy; Danish Medical Research Council; Department of Health, UK; Development Fund from the University of Tartu (SP1GVARENG); Diabetes Hilfs- und Forschungsfonds Deutschland; Diabetes UK; Diabetes Research and Wellness Foundation Fellowship; Donald W. Reynolds Foundation; Dr Robert Pfleger-Stiftung; Dutch Brain Foundation; Dutch Diabetes Research Foundation; Dutch Inter University Cardiology Institute; Dutch Kidney Foundation (E033); Dutch Ministry of Justice; the DynaHEALTH action No. 633595, Economic Structure Enhancing Fund of the Dutch Government; Else Kröner-Fresenius-Stiftung (2012_A147, P48/08//A11/08); Emil Aaltonen Foundation; Erasmus University Medical Center Rotterdam; Erasmus MC and Erasmus University Rotterdam; the Municipality of Rotterdam; Estonian Government (IUT20-60, IUT24-6); Estonian Research Roadmap through the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research (3.2.0304.11-0312); European Research Council (ERC Starting Grant and 323195:SZ-245 50371-GLUCOSEGENES-FP7-IDEAS-ERC); European Regional Development Fund; European Science Foundation (EU/QLRT-2001-01254); European Commission (018947, 018996, 201668, 223004, 230374, 279143, 284167, 305739, BBMRI-LPC-313010, HEALTH-2011.2.4.2-2-EU-MASCARA, HEALTH-2011-278913, HEALTH-2011-294713-EPLORE, HEALTH-F2-2008-201865-GEFOS, HEALTH-F2-2013-601456, HEALTH-F4-2007-201413, HEALTH-F4-2007-201550-HYPERGENES, HEALTH-F7-305507 HOMAGE, IMI/115006, LSHG-CT-2006-018947, LSHG-CT-2006-01947, LSHM-CT-2004-005272, LSHM-CT-2006-037697, LSHM-CT-2007-037273, QLG1-CT-2002-00896, QLG2-CT-2002-01254); Faculty of Biology and Medicine of Lausanne; Federal Ministry of Education and Research (01ZZ0103, 01ZZ0403, 01ZZ9603, 03IS2061A, 03ZIK012); Federal State of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania; Fédération Française de Cardiologie; Finnish Cultural Foundation; Finnish Diabetes Association; Finnish Foundation of Cardiovascular Research; Finnish Heart Association; Fondation Leducq; Food Standards Agency; Foundation for Strategic Research; French Ministry of Research; FRSQ; Genetic Association Information Network (GAIN) of the Foundation for the NIH; German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF, 01ER1206, 01ER1507); GlaxoSmithKline; Greek General Secretary of Research and Technology; Göteborg Medical Society; Health and Safety Executive; Healthcare NHS Trust; Healthway; Western Australia; Heart Foundation of Northern Sweden; Helmholtz Zentrum München—German Research Center for Environmental Health; Hjartavernd; Ingrid Thurings Foundation; INSERM; InterOmics (PB05 MIUR-CNR); INTERREG IV Oberrhein Program (A28); Interuniversity Cardiology Institute of the Netherlands (ICIN, 09.001); Italian Ministry of Health (ICS110.1/RF97.71); Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance (FaReBio di Qualità); Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation; the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports, the Netherlands; J.D.E. and Catherine T, MacArthur Foundation Research Networks on Successful Midlife Development and Socioeconomic Status and Health; Juho Vainio Foundation; Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International; KfH Stiftung Präventivmedizin e.V.; King's College London; Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation; Kuopio University Hospital; Kuopio, Tampere and Turku University Hospital Medical Funds (X51001); La Fondation de France; Leenaards Foundation; Lilly; LMUinnovativ; Lundberg Foundation; Magnus Bergvall Foundation; MDEIE; Medical Research Council UK (G0000934, G0601966, G0700931, MC_U106179471, MC_UU_12019/1); MEKOS Laboratories; Merck Santé; Ministry for Health, Welfare and Sports, The Netherlands; Ministry of Cultural Affairs of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania; Ministry of Economic Affairs, The Netherlands; Ministry of Education and Culture of Finland (627;2004-2011); Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, The Netherlands; Ministry of Science, Education and Sport in the Republic of Croatia (108-1080315-0302); MRC centre for Causal Analyses in Translational Epidemiology; MRC Human Genetics Unit; MRC-GlaxoSmithKline pilot programme (G0701863); MSD Stipend Diabetes; National Institute for Health Research; Netherlands Brain Foundation (F2013(1)-28); Netherlands CardioVascular Research Initiative (CVON2011-19); Netherlands Genomics Initiative (050-060-810); Netherlands Heart Foundation (2001 D 032, NHS2010B280); Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) and Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development (ZonMW) (56-464-14192, 60-60600-97-118, 100-001-004, 261-98-710, 400-05-717, 480-04-004, 480-05-003, 481-08-013, 904-61-090, 904-61-193, 911-11-025, 985-10-002, Addiction-31160008, BBMRI–NL 184.021.007, GB-MaGW 452-04-314, GB-MaGW 452-06-004, GB-MaGW 480-01-006, GB-MaGW 480-07-001, GB-MW 940-38-011, Middelgroot-911-09-032, NBIC/BioAssist/RK 2008.024, Spinozapremie 175.010.2003.005, 175.010.2007.006); Neuroscience Campus Amsterdam; NHS Foundation Trust; National Institutes of Health (1RC2MH089951, 1Z01HG000024, 24152, 263MD9164, 263MD821336, 2R01LM010098, 32100-2, 32122, 32108, 5K99HL130580-02, AA07535, AA10248, AA11998, AA13320, AA13321, AA13326, AA14041, AA17688, AG13196, CA047988, DA12854, DK56350, DK063491, DK078150, DK091718, DK100383, DK078616, ES10126, HG004790, HHSN268200625226C, HHSN268200800007C, HHSN268201200036C, HHSN268201500001I, HHSN268201100046C, HHSN268201100001C, HHSN268201100002C, HHSN268201100003C, HHSN268201100004C, HHSN271201100004C, HL043851, HL45670, HL080467, HL085144, HL087660, HL054457, HL119443, HL118305, HL071981, HL034594, HL126024, HL130114, KL2TR001109, MH66206, MH081802, N01AG12100, N01HC55015, N01HC55016, N01C55018, N01HC55019, N01HC55020, N01HC55021, N01HC55022, N01HC85079, N01HC85080, N01HC85081, N01HC85082, N01HC85083, N01HC85086, N01HC95159, N01HC95160, N01HC95161, N01HC95162, N01HC95163, N01HC95164, N01HC95165, N01HC95166, N01HC95167, N01HC95168, N01HC95169, N01HG65403, N01WH22110, N02HL6‐4278, N01-HC-25195, P01CA33619, R01HD057194, R01HD057194, R01AG023629, R01CA63, R01D004215701A, R01DK075787, R01DK062370, R01DK072193, R01DK075787, R01DK089256, R01HL53353, R01HL59367, R01HL086694, R01HL087641, R01HL087652, R01HL103612, R01HL105756, R01HL117078, R01HL120393, R03 AG046389, R37CA54281, RC2AG036495, RC4AG039029, RPPG040710371, RR20649, TW008288, TW05596, U01AG009740, U01CA98758, U01CA136792, U01DK062418, U01HG004402, U01HG004802, U01HG007376, U01HL080295, UL1RR025005, UL1TR000040, UL1TR000124, UL1TR001079, 2T32HL007055-36, T32GM074905, HG002651, HL084729, N01-HC-25195, UM1CA182913); NIH, National Institute on Aging (Intramural funding, NO1-AG-1-2109); Northern Netherlands Collaboration of Provinces; Novartis Pharma; Novo Nordisk; Novo Nordisk Foundation; Nutricia Research Foundation (2016-T1); ONIVINS; Parnassia Bavo group; Pierre Fabre; Province of Groningen; Päivikki and Sakari Sohlberg Foundation; Påhlssons Foundation; Paavo Nurmi Foundation; Radboud Medical Center Nijmegen; Research Centre for Prevention and Health, the Capital Region of Denmark; the Research Institute for Diseases in the Elderly; Research into Ageing; Robert Dawson Evans Endowment of the Department of Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine and Boston Medical Center; Roche; Royal Society; Russian Foundation for Basic Research (NWO-RFBR 047.017.043); Rutgers University Cell and DNA Repository (NIMH U24 MH068457-06); Sanofi-Aventis; Scottish Government Health Directorates, Chief Scientist Office (CZD/16/6); Siemens Healthcare; Social Insurance Institution of Finland (4/26/2010); Social Ministry of the Federal State of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania; Société Francophone du 358 Diabète; State of Bavaria; Stiftelsen för Gamla Tjänarinnor; Stockholm County Council (560183, 592229); Strategic Cardiovascular and Diabetes Programmes of Karolinska Institutet and Stockholm County Council; Stroke Association; Swedish Diabetes Association; Swedish Diabetes Foundation (2013-024); Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research; Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation (20120197, 20150711); Swedish Research Council (0593, 8691, 2012-1397, 2012-1727, and 2012-2215); Swedish Society for Medical Research; Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics; Swiss National Science Foundation (3100AO-116323/1, 31003A-143914, 33CSCO-122661, 33CS30-139468, 33CS30-148401, 51RTP0_151019); Tampere Tuberculosis Foundation; Technology Foundation STW (11679); The Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Vlaanderen, Ministry of the Flemish Community (G.0880.13, G.0881.13); The Great Wine Estates of the Margaret River Region of Western Australia; Timber Merchant Vilhelm Bangs Foundation; Topcon; Tore Nilsson Foundation; Torsten and Ragnar Söderberg's Foundation; United States – Israel Binational Science Foundation (Grant 2011036), Umeå University; University Hospital of Regensburg; University of Groningen; University Medical Center Groningen; University of Michigan; University of Utrecht; Uppsala Multidisciplinary Center for Advanced Computational Science (UPPMAX) (b2011036); Velux Foundation; VU University’s Institute for Health and Care Research; Västra Götaland Foundation; Wellcome Trust (068545, 076113, 079895, 084723, 088869, WT064890, WT086596, WT098017, WT090532, WT098051, 098381); Wissenschaftsoffensive TMO; Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation; and Åke Wiberg Foundation. The views expressed in this manuscript are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI); the National Institutes of Health (NIH); or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

This paper examines the characteristics that determine demand for microinsurance when individuals have personal or observed experience with a rare weather event: the severe 2010 flooding in Pakistan. Using a sample of 384 individuals (192 in flood-affected and 192 non-affected villages matched using pre-flood propensity data), we combine post-flood survey data with behavioural experiments to test the impact of prior loss experience on willingness to purchase insurance. In the framed experiment setting, we allow participants to choose insurance payments through many rounds of random flood losses, testing whether experiment behaviour is significantly related to real-world experience or observation and whether individuals change insurance demand after experiencing losses. We find that 2010 flood-affected individuals demand significantly more insurance than non-affected individuals, and that both personal losses and observations of others’ losses are significant determinants of demand, when controlling for location-specific flood propensity, pre-flood mitigation, information sources, post-flood assistance, exogenous changes in assets, potential migrant attrition and other household characteristics. Having prior experience with less severe floods before the 2010 event also increases insurance demand, although the effect disappears when controlling for 2010 flood. Contrary to expectation, household beliefs that insurance is non-Islamic are not found to be a significant barrier to take-up.

Although the Millennium Development Goals provide countries with well-rounded objectives for achieving human development over a period of 25 years, Pakistan is not on track to achieving the health-related goals. With the eighth highest newborn death rate in the world, in 2001-07 one in every ten children born in Pakistan died before reaching the age of five. Similarly, women have a 1 in 80 chance of dying of maternal health causes during reproductive life. Compared to other South Asian countries, Pakistan currently lags behind in immunization coverage, contraceptive use, and infant and child mortality rates. Expenditure as a percentage of private expenditure on health is about 98 percent, positioning Pakistan among those countries with the highest share of out-of-pocket payments relative to total health expenditure (World Health Organization, 2009). Pakistan is also going through an epidemiological transition where it faces the double burden of communicable diseases combined with maternal and perinatal conditions, as well as chronic, noninfectious diseases. The landscape of public health service delivery presents an uneven distribution of resources between rural and urban areas: The rural poor are at a clear disadvantage in terms of primary and tertiary health services, and also fail to benefit fully from public programs such as the immunization of children. The poor state of public facilities overall has contributed to the diminished role of public health facilities, while the private sector's role in the provision of service delivery has increased enormously. Following the 18^sup th^ Amendment to the Constitution, the health sector has been devolved to the provinces, but the distribution of responsibilities and sources of revenue generation between the tiers remains unclear. A multipronged national health policy is needed that tackles the abysmal child and maternal health indicators, and reduces the burden of disease. Moreover, it is imperative to improve the provision of primary and tertiary healthcare with a strong monitoring system in place.Keywords: Millenium Development Goals, public health, Pakistan.JEL classification: I18.1. IntroductionThe Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) provide time- bounded objectives to overcome extreme poverty and provide the basic human rights to health, education, and security that were pledged in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and United Nations Millennium Declaration (Millennium Project, 2006). Two years short of the deadline in 2015, it is useful to see how Pakistan has performed in the health-related goals that were set in 2000. Health outcomes are useful in gauging a country's health performance over past decades and in conducting cross- country comparisons.Pakistan is not on track to achieving most health-related MDGs. While there has been an improvement in the education sector, health remains on the periphery of the development landscape. With the eighth highest newborn death rate in the world ("Pakistan has the 8th highest," 2010), one in every ten children born in Pakistan during 2001-07 died before reaching the age of five years. Women have a 1 in 80 chance of dying of maternal health causes during their reproductive life (World Bank, 2010). Pakistan thus faces a daunting challenge in improving health outcomes for children and adults alike.In order to achieve substantial improvements in the health sector, it is imperative to formulate a well-rounded health policy that focuses not only on short-term health outcomes but also on improving the long-term health status of the population at large. Given the current level of government expenditure on health, an improvement in this sector seems unlikely. The quality of public health services has seen a downturn over the last few decades, and the rising population is increasing pressure on state institutions. This has allowed the private sector to bridge the gap between rising demand and public provision of healthcare. …

This paper studies factors that affect health and the nutritional status of children under the age of five. It attempts to identify the impact of socioeconomic factors such as household characteristics, parental education, community-level infrastructure and health knowledge on the health (measured by height and weight) of children. The study’s theoretical framework is based on the household production model and the instrumental variable technique has been implemented for estimation. Household income, illness from diarrhea and vitamin A supplements for children are treated as endogenous variables and have been instrumented. The paper uses data from Pakistan—Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) for 2007/08 for Punjab which is a household level dataset gathered by the Punjab Bureau of Statistics. The results suggest that maternal education, health knowledge and household characteristics are important determinants of child health, among other significant indicators. The channel through which maternal education affects child health is considered to be better nurturing and healthcare since the income effect of education is controlled by household income. Household characteristics—income, the number of household members, ownership of durables—prove to significantly affect the health of children in that household. Another important finding of this paper is that female children under five have better height and weight z-scores than their male counterparts. This finding rejects the common presumption of gender bias at the household level in South Asia in early years of life.

We report a case of an eleven year old girl with pyrexia of unknown origin whose illness remained undiagnosed after extensive investigations. We were able to localize the disease to abdomen with a Gallium Whole Body Scan. In the background of a history of tuberculosis in a family member in an endemic area, empirical anti-tuberculosis treatment was given with clinical success that was also demonstrated on a repeat Gallium scan four months later.

DNA methylation plays a fundamental role in the regulation of the genome, but the optimal strategy for analysis of genome-wide DNA methylation data remains to be determined. We developed a comprehensive analysis pipeline for epigenome-wide association studies (EWAS) using the Illumina Infinium HumanMethylation450 BeadChip, based on 2,687 individuals, with 36 samples measured in duplicate. We propose new approaches to quality control, data normalisation and batch correction through control-probe adjustment and establish a null hypothesis for EWAS using permutation testing. Our analysis pipeline outperforms existing approaches, enabling accurate identification of methylation quantitative trait loci for hypothesis driven follow-up experiments.

Introduction: The malignant lymphomas are the fifth most common neoplasm in both men and women. Staging, re-staging and treatment response evaluation pose a difficult task in many patients of lymphomas. Histological variants in both Hodgkin's and Non-Hodgkin's types of lymphoma greatly affect the response to treatment and overall prognosis. Objective: This study was conducted to correlate the degree of abnormal Gallium-67 uptake with the histological variants of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. This project was a part of the study to see the ability of Gallium-67 scintigraphy to predict the response to chemotherapy early in the course of therapy. Material & Methods: 65 patients were included in the study with a mean age of 25 years. All patients had undergone medical imaging, bone marrow biopsy and histopathology. Results: Sixty-five patients were classified according to the REAL classification. 11 patients were of T-cell type, 50 were of B-cell type and 4 were anaplastic. 46 showed gallium-67 uptake in the lesions, whereas 19 (29.2%) had no discernable Gallium-67 uptake.

Objectives: To assess the effectiveness of systemic methotrexate for treatment of unruptured ectopic pregnancy. Introduction:Ectopic Pregnancy is pregnancy that occurs in any location other than the uterus. 95% to 98% are tubal ectopics, but the number of ovarian,abdominal and cervical implantations is rising as does the number of heterotopic pregnancies. Study Design: Prospective experimental study.Setting: DHQ Hospital affiliated with Punjab Medical College Faisalabad. Period: Jan-2009 to Dec-2009. Patient & Method: A total of 45women were admitted with diagnosis of extrauterine pregnancy. But only 10 women fulfilled the criteria for medical management. Out of these80% patients required no surgical intervention. However 20% needed surgery. 60% patients suffered from lower abdominal or pelvic pain. 20%required 2nd dose of methotrexate. Average ß-hCG resolution time was 35 days. Conclusions: With early diagnosis and proper selectioncriteria adoption, medical treatment of ectopic pregnancy with systemic methotrexate is an effective and safe alternative to surgicalinterventions.

While the literature on economic growth provides mixed evidence on convergence across different countries and regions, a large number of studies point toward the widening income gap between rich and poor. In the development literature, a broader range of national welfare indicators beyond income per capita—health and education in particular—are considered important instruments for measuring progress in human development. This article examines education and other selective welfare indicators to determine if there has been unconditional and conditional convergence across the districts of Pakistani Punjab over the period 1961–2008. The study can be considered part of the growing literature that looks at growth theory in developing countries in the context of human capital. Thus far, few studies have examined human capital in the context of convergence, and Pakistan has not been studied in any depth up to now. The results of our empirical analysis show that over the last five decades, both unconditional and conditional convergence has taken place in literacy rates across Punjab, and that this has been accompanied by increased gender parity in educational enrolment levels and improved housing conditions.

We carried out a trans-ancestry genome-wide association and replication study of blood pressure phenotypes among up to 320,251 individuals of East Asian, European and South Asian ancestry. We find genetic variants at 12 new loci to be associated with blood pressure (P = 3.9 x 10(-11) to 5.0 x 10(-21)). The sentinel blood pressure SNPs are enriched for association with DNA methylation at multiple nearby CpG sites, suggesting that, at some of the loci identified, DNA methylation may lie on the regulatory pathway linking sequence variation to blood pressure. The sentinel SNPs at the 12 new loci point to genes involved in vascular smooth muscle (IGFBP3, KCNK3, PDE3A and PRDM6) and renal (ARHGAP24, OSR1, SLC22A7 and TBX2) function. The new and known genetic variants predict increased left ventricular mass, circulating levels of NT-proBNP, and cardiovascular and all-cause mortality (P = 0.04 to 8.6 x 10(-6)). Our results provide new evidence for the role of DNA methylation in blood pressure regulation.

This paper aims to examine the spatial patterns of development in the Punjab over the past five decades. The importance of initial conditions as the driving forces of development is studied to deduce the contributing factors that provide the necessary push to break away from the low development trap. A longitudinal analysis is conducted to assist in understanding several aspects of development, such as whether the welfare status of a region has improved, worsened, or remained stagnant over time; how the regions within Punjab have performed relative to each other and what the causes for their differential performances are; and also if the urban centres have had any positive spillovers on the peripheral regions. A development index is created from a selection of indicators from three sectors: education, health, and living standards. This index serves as a proxy for the level of development and assists in making comparisons over space and time. The data is taken from the Population Census Reports, the Punjab Development Statistics, and the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2007-08. From the results, a clear north-south divide within Punjab has been observed, such that the northern and north-central districts consistently display higher development levels in comparison with the southern and western districts. The socioeconomic conditions prevailing in 1961 seem to persist even today. There is a need to formulate well-targeted strategic and financial policies at the district level that can thrust the districts forward and accelerate the lagging development process.

To increase our understanding of the genetic basis of adiposity and its links to cardiometabolic disease risk, we conducted a genome-wide association meta-analysis of body fat percentage (BF%) in up to 100,716 individuals. Twelve loci reached genome-wide significance (P, A genome-wide association meta-analysis study here shows novel genetic loci to be associated to body fat percentage, and describes cross-phenotype association that further demonstrate a close relationship between adiposity and cardiovascular disease risk.

Introduction The issue of poverty is both simple and complex: at one level, the implicit or explicit objective of most economic policymakers in developing countries is to reduce the levels of poverty in a country; at another level, the tools that should be used are constantly open to debate. The debate in almost all developing countries concerns the correct policy mix between those that target economic growth, which have the potential to reduce poverty as overall income levels rise, and those policies that target poverty directly, such as social safety nets or income transfers. There is little question that long-term growth reduces poverty, but in a country such as Pakistan, where growth is sporadic at best, the question that arises is what can be done to reduce poverty for those who will not benefit from growth for years or even decades. If we add to this the fact that development has been devolved to the provinces in Pakistan after the 18 th Constitutional Amendment, the future of poverty alleviation initiatives is quite simple: Either we explicitly acknowledge that the state is only concerned with economic growth and wait for growth to reduce poverty—while pursuing intermittent and idiosyncratic poverty interventions that assist the poor but do little to move them out of poverty—or we clearly focus the limited resources of the state on explicitly targeted poverty interventions. The purpose of this chapter is not to evaluate poverty reduction initiatives in Pakistan or to predict what will happen to poverty in the country over the next decade. Rather, we want to see what has been happening to poverty over the last decade by looking at poverty in unique ways: First, we look at what has been happening to poverty if we expand the definition of poverty to include not just income but also other basic necessities such as health and education.

DNA methylation plays a fundamental role in the regulation of the genome, but the optimal strategy for analysis of genome-wide DNA methylation data remains to be determined. We developed a comprehensive analysis pipeline for epigenome-wide association studies (EWAS) using the Illumina Infinium HumanMethylation450 BeadChip, based on 2,687 individuals, with 36 samples measured in duplicate. We propose new approaches to quality control, data normalisation and batch correction through control-probe adjustment and establish a null hypothesis for EWAS using permutation testing. Our analysis pipeline outperforms existing approaches, enabling accurate identification of methylation quantitative trait loci for hypothesis driven follow-up experiments. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13059-015-0600-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.