No abstract

Women’s land ownership plays a noteworthy role in improving various development indicators, including her own wellbeing and children’s food and nutrition security. However, the literature linking women’s access to land rights to the nutritional security of children in Pakistan is limited, even though it is a country facing enormous challenges of childhood malnutrition and gender discrimination. This paper contributes to the existing literature on the benefits of empowering women by studying the association and pathways between women’s land rights and child nutrition, using the 2012–2013 Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey. The ordinary least squares (OLS) regression results indicate that women’s individual land ownership and women’s autonomy in large-scale family purchases have a positive impact on children’s food and nutrition security (FNS). The results of quantile regression (QR) show that these effects are more pronounced in cases of children with severe stunted growth. In addition, a structural equation model shows that the positive relationship between women’s land ownership and child nutrition is partially mediated by women’s increased decision-making power in large-scale household purchases. Our research concludes that ensuring women’s land rights can improve women’s autonomy, which can be an effective policy tool that not only improves women’s welfare but also improves their children’s nutritional security.

Early detection of lung cancer is an effective way to improve the survival rate of patients. It is a critical step to have accurate detection of lung nodules in computed tomography (CT) images for the diagnosis of lung cancer. However, due to the heterogeneity of the lung nodules and the complexity of the surrounding environment, it is a challenge to develop a robust nodule detection method. Numerous efforts have been made to develop an efficient Computer-aided detection (CADe) systems, albeit none compliance with the routine workflow of radiologists which limits the adaptability of such CADe system. To overcome this deficiency, in this study we propose a lung nodule detection scheme which fully incorporates the clinic workflow of radiologists. Particularly, we exploit Bi-Directional Maximum intensity projection (MIP) images of various thicknesses (i.e., 3, 5 and 10mm) along with 3D patch of CT scan, consisting of 10 adjacent slices to feed into self distillation based Multi-Encoders Network (MEDS-Net). The propose architecture first condense 3D patch input to three channels by using dense block which consists of dense units which effectively examines the nodule presence from 2D axial slices. This condensed information, along with the forward and backward MIP images is fed to three different encoders to learn the most meaningful representation which is forwarded into decoded block at various levels. At decoder block, we employ self distillation mechanism by connecting the distillation block which contains five lung nodule detectors. It helps to expedite the convergence and improves the learning ability of proposed architecture. Finally, the propose scheme reduces the false positives by complementing the main detector with auxiliary detectors. The proposed scheme has been rigorously evaluated on 888 scans of LUNA16 dataset and obtained a CPM score of 93.6%. The results demonstrate that incorporating of bi-direction MIP images enables MEDS-Net to effectively distinguish nodules from surroundings which helps to achieve the sensitivity of . false positives per scans with the sensitivity of 91.5% and 92.8% with the false positive rate of 0.25 and 0.5 per scan, respectively.

In this study, copper oxide (CuO) specimens were successfully prepared by the hydrothermal process at altered calcination temperatures; 350, 450, and 550°C. The synthesized samples were analyzed through X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), Raman, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and UV-Vis spectroscopy to analyze the impact of calcination temperature on the structural, morphological, vibration spectra, functional group, and optical properties of CuO for optoelectronic device applications. XRD confirms the pure single-phase monoclinic structure of synthesized samples with no impurity phases and has good crystallinity with the development in calcination temperature. The average crystalline size, lattice constant, and porosity were found in the range of 3.98–5.06 nm; a = 3.4357 Å, b = 3.9902 Å, c = 4.8977 Å – a = 3.0573 Å, b = 3.9573 Å, c = 4.6892 Å; and 3.37–1.03%, respectively. SEM exhibited a variation in morphology by increasing calcination temperature. Raman spectra revealed that the CuO sample calcinated at 550°C with a stone-like shape having a large grain size of 3.25 μm exhibited that Raman peak intensity and the multiphonon band became stronger and sharper and exhibited higher intensity compared to the samples calcinated at 350 and 450°C. FTIR spectra confirmed that these synthesized specimens exhibited the peaks associated with the typical stretching vibrations of the Cu–O bond between 400 and 500 cm−1 exhibiting the formation of CuO. The energy bandgap was slightly reduced from 1.61 to 1.43 eV with the increase in the calcination temperature. The optical studies revealed that the calcination temperature of 550°C improves the optical properties of CuO by tuning its optical bandgap. The modified structural, morphological, and optical characteristics of the prepared CuO samples make them an appropriate candidate for optoelectronic device applications.

The global reduction in child undernutrition highlights the international and national commitment to prioritizing future generations’ health. This study aims to find out the previous trends in nutrition and the key drivers of these changes in different regions of Pakistan. For empirical investigation, we employed a regression-based decomposition model by using two distinct rounds of demographic and health surveys: 2012-13 and 2017-18. Results showed children with stunted growth reduced substantially in Balochistan, while Punjab exhibited the highest progress for underweight children. Regression estimates showed that maternal nutritional status and household wealth were more pronounced in reducing all measures of child malnutrition. Some determinants, including mother age at marriage and prenatal visits to the hospital, are significant only for long-term nutritional status—stunting, while mother education contributed to reducing wasted and underweight children. The rest of the factors, like father education and household environment, appear to play a humble role in explaining nutritional improvements. From disaggregated analysis based on different regions, we found that modeled factors used in this study explained changes disproportionately. Thus, it is recommended to use multidimensional nutrition policies incorporating a broader range of sectors, and region-specific programs should be designed for more effective outcomes.