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This paper compares the performance and volatility of the Toronto Stock Exchange in Canada and the Karachi Stock Exchange in Pakistan, as well as the sensitivities of the two stock exchanges to major global events. The purpose of this paper is to assist the Pakistani immigrants in Canada in their investment decisions.

This paper uses the generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity model to estimate volatility of the two stock exchanges. Moreover, the mean adjusted returns approach associated with the event study methodology is used to find out the impact of major global events on these stock exchanges.

The study finds that the Toronto Stock Exchange outperforms the Karachi Stock Exchange in the pre-September 11 attack period, while the latter outperforms the former in the post-September 11 attack period. The study also shows that there has been a significant improvement in the risk-adjusted return of the Karachi Stock Exchange in the post-September 11 attack period. Moreover, this paper finds that the impact of major global events is more significant on the Toronto Stock Exchange relative to the Karachi Stock Exchange on the event date.

This paper is one of the very few to analyze and compare stock performances from the perspective of immigrant communities. The paper is valuable for Pakistani immigrants living in Canada or any investors interested in Karachi Stock Exchange and its comparison with Toronto Stock Exchange. Moreover, the paper can be of value to the Pakistani Government in terms of their promotional activities.

Natural gas makes up about 50 per cent of Pakistan's energy consumption, which is decreasing at an alarming pace, making Karachi – the largest city of Pakistan – one of the major victims of natural gas shortfall. The purpose of this paper is to model natural gas demand and supply using geographic information systems.

Sui Southern Gas Company datasets were used to derive annual per capita gas usages and to analyze the capacity of gas supplies. Union Council is taken as a smallest and basic analytical administrative spatial unit for appraisal of badly affected, with insufficient, low and better gas supply regions.

Results show that the per capita demand for natural gas is higher in high class residential areas while supply is lowest for upper middle and lower middle class residential area populations. Only 19 per cent of the total residential areas are expected to be free from gas shortfalls. About 53 per cent of residential areas are facing the problem of low gas availability; and 3 per cent and 11 per cent areas are under stress of badly affected and insufficient gas supply, respectively.

This research shows an example of constructing a Geographic Information System (GIS)‐based gas demand and supply model that can be used for building strategic guidelines for top‐level planners, engineers and decision makers at the micro‐level. This is not a “deep” paper, but it works in identifying a problem and presenting a quantitative way forward. This paper will have significant impact both on society and academia, as this innovative technology and its implementation on gas utility has happened for the first time in Pakistan. Furthermore, in the international literature this has also been in infancy and will open new avenues of research, especially in developing countries. The work would certainly be applicable for other consumer‐based utilities such as electricity, telecommunication, sewerage and municipal water and they would all benefit from it substantially.

This study aims to review the psychosocial determinants of divorce and their effects on women for a social reform in Pakistan. Enigmatic societal standards vandalize social status of divorced women and stress them to experience psychological trauma that triggers psychosocial disorders.

The study is categorized into three major determinants: the human emotional, the formal legal and societal aspect(s) in association with the deferential social status of divorced women. Rapid evidence assessment methodology was used to search the all-inclusive literature, collate the available descriptive evidences, critically analyze and evaluate it, sieve out studies of penurious quality and provide an aperçu of the evidence.

The research evinces domestic violence and abuse as an endemic cause of divorce in Pakistan; emotional and psychological consequences of domestic abuse damage women’s self-worth and well-being. Literature reported that all these determinants impacted the mental health stability of the divorced women. Divorce rates are climbing at a faster pace in the country and Punjab has been identified as a province of rocketing divorce rate. Lamentably, in various villages of other provinces, women risk face mutilation if they show courage to seek divorce.

More research needs to be carried out on the issue nationwide. Fundamentally, cultural norms around women’s roles in society need to be addressed and challenged where this research may become an impetus for further research.

The paper contributes towards the redressal of the domestic abuse, social exclusion, marginalization and vilification of divorced women in Pakistan. The rising rates indicate an urgent need for social reforms to curtail offending behaviors toward them, to safeguard their mental health and well-being and to empower them with their legal rights to enjoy deferential social status in life.

This study aims to assess the quality of care among adult oncology patients in tertiary care hospitals in Karachi by using an international standard of quality of care and to identify domains where improvement is needed.

This is a cross-sectional study carried out at two tertiary care hospitals of Karachi, Pakistan, belonging to private and public sector, respectively, between February and April 2018. Face-to-face interviews were conducted using a modified questionnaire having five-point Likert scale questions regarding satisfaction of patients with doctors, nursing staff, information provided and the hospital standards. SPSS 20 was used for statistical analysis, and the results were expressed using mean, frequencies, percentages and p-values.

The authors approached 415 patients, out of which 389 patients agreed to participate in the study. For both hospitals, the lowest mean scores were for sections pertaining to satisfaction with psychosocial support and information provided. The mean satisfaction score of patients from the private hospital were found to be significantly higher as compared to patients from the public hospital for all domains of patient care (p-value < 0.01 using t-test for two independent samples). The data showed an increasing trend of “satisfied” responses as the household income increased.

A comparative study should be conducted with the aim of pinpointing the differences in areas in which there is a significant difference in positive satisfaction levels between private and public sectors. Similar research could also be expanded adding other variables that affect quality of care such as doctor's approach to their patients, time given during each consultation and patient's understanding of doctor's knowledge. Further studies can be done to bridge the gaps between what a doctor views as standard care and what the patient knows will help them receive a more holistic approach to care.

Assessing the quality of care helps determine gaps in care and allocating health resources accordingly. In clinical practice, emphasis needs to be given on increased duration and improved quality of patient counselling to improve the low satisfaction levels of patients regarding the psychosocial support. Addressing patients' concerns should be made part of clinical teaching from an undergraduate level. As far as patient access to doctors of the specific speciality is concerned, hospital managements should adopt systems to ensure continuum of care and come up with mechanisms to bridge the discrepancy between a patient's needs and doctor availability.

After being identified as a major deficiency, training doctors in the sensitivities of the population and demographics, especially with respect to socio-economic statuses, can aid in enhancing patient satisfaction to the treatment. Implementation of patient-centred care leads to greater satisfaction with care, which, in turn, increases a patient's self efficacy in managing important aspects of their care and improves health care-related quality of life.

Cancer patients have long-term exposure to the hospital environment. A patient's satisfaction with the quality of care is an important determinant in patient compliance to the treatment protocol and required hospital visits. There is a dearth of research on the outpatient quality of care in the oncology departments in Karachi. This study provides an overview of the quality of care available to cancer patients in Karachi both in public and private sectors. The results of our study identify the gaps in the quality of care being provided to the patients in a developing country like Pakistan, which can be used to improve the quality of care, leading to better patient outcomes.

The purpose of this research is to introduce an innovative framework called the waqf cooperative housing framework (WCHF), with an objective to create a synergistic equilibrium between waqf and cooperative housing schemes. To tackle problems related to the dearth of financing, this research postulates an innovative waqf-based source of finance that involves generating revenue from common areas (waqf area) within the vicinity of the condominium.

Primary data were collected through interviews and the data were analysed using the NVIVO software. The interviewees comprised managers from property development sectors, public sector officials, university lecturers in Islamic finance, CEOs, top management officials from Islamic financial institutions, community leaders and shariah scholars.

A framework was proposed based on the result of the interviews. It was found that innovative models such as WCHF can resolve the issue of affordable housing in Karachi such as decreasing the financial burden on the public exchequer, bringing positive change to the lives of the poor, fulfilling the property developer’s corporate social responsibility, fulfilling the religious duty of the general public and condominium owners towards their fellow beings as well as creating new employment opportunities for people who are working in the financial sector (waqf management companies/trustees) and the construction sector.

Even though this study has introduced an innovative and practical solution to the financing of affordable housing, it also encountered some limitations. First, it is conducted in Karachi city involving six group of respondents; thus, the findings cannot be generalised with other contexts. Similar research needs to be conducted in different contexts.

To date, this is among the first studies, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to investigate cooperative affordable housing with the help of innovative Islamic finance tools in the context of Pakistan. Furthermore, insufficient attention has been given to the enabling and hindering factors behind the acceptance of a framework that seeks to initiate a cooperative scheme based on an innovative waqf financing tool that generates revenue from common areas around a condominium.

Combining an online and traditional mode of learning is a significant challenge for third world countries. To face this challenge, educational institutions around the world adopted the strategies of blended learning (BL). This research aims to determine the factors affecting readiness to diffuse BL in Pakistani higher education institutions.

“Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM)” was used based on a suitable sample of 228 participants in Karachi, Pakistan.

The results reveal that resource support, management strategies (MSs) and technology infrastructure (TI) are positively and significantly associated with readiness to diffuse BL. However, institutional structure (IS) and ethical consideration (EC) have a positive but insignificant link with readiness to diffuse BL.

The research is reasonably required as research in the Karachi Pakistani context is scarce. Additionally, this study analyses the possibility of modern skills and techniques to diffuse BL in higher education in Pakistan.

Road traffic crashes (RTCs) result in creating significant social and economic hazard for affectees, their families and society. The purpose of this paper is to present studies which were conducted to study the patterns of RTCs in Karachi which is a metropolitan city of Pakistan. The studies were conducted on one of the busiest roads in the city named as Shara-e-Faisal. The influence and contribution of different factors in RTCs has been studied and hazardous road sections of Shara-e-Faisal have been identified. Based on the data analysis, an evaluation model has been suggested to reduce the hazard of RTCs on Shara-e-Faisal. The objective of the presented studies is to increase the present level of safety of road travel by reducing crashes on Shara-e-Faisal.

Existing data of RTCs in Karachi have been analysed for the presented studies. For this purpose, Shara-e-Faisal was divided in sections of 1 km length to study the vehicle crash pattern. Location surveys were conducted to record physical conditions of this road. A cluster analysis was carried out to identify hazardous sections of the road. An evaluation model has been suggested in the end to reduce the hazard of RTCs by identifying hazardous road sections of Shara-e-Faisal.

The analysis of the data revealed that the crashes were higher over weekend and on Monday. Male population, particularly young people, and motorcycle riders were the largest affectees of RTCs. In general, more daytime crashes were recorded as compared to nighttime crashes. The crashes in the mid block of the road and those involving rear-end collisions were higher. The hazardous road locations were related to poor road conditions. Statistical analysis indicated that alternate routes were required to reduce the RTC hazard on Shara-e-Faisal.

The paper is a small, but an original, contribution to identify a potential hazard which is faced by the community in the city. This is the first attempt (to the best of authors’ knowledge) to address the issue of RTCs in Karachi from an engineering view point.

The suggested model can be employed by the authorities as a guideline to mitigate the hazard of road crashes in the country.

The paper provides valuable information on the road traffic incidents, their pattern and contributing factors in one of the largest metropolis of Pakistan. The suggested model can become helpful in reducing RTCs in Pakistan.

The purpose of the study is to investigate the relationship between international financial integration (IFI) index and democracy (DEM) in Pakistan by using long-time series data from 1975 to 2013.

The IFI index is constructed by principal component analysis. IFI consists of foreign direct investment (FDI), remittances (REM) and external debt (ED), whereas the Polity IV index is used for DEM. Johansen and the autoregressive distributed lag method for cointegration methods are used to find a long run relationship. Dynamic ordinary least square (DOLS), fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS) and canonical regression (CR) have been used to find the nature of the relationship. Rolling window analysis has been done to find the year wise coefficients.

DOLS, FMOLS, canonical regression CR and cointegration results suggest a significant negative long-run relationship between IFI and DEM in Pakistan. Rolling windows analysis highlights that DEM has improved IFI in Pakistan from 2008 to 2013.

This study constructs an index for financial integration using principle component analysis on capital inflows, i.e. FDI, REM, ED, to explore the impact of DEM on IFI in Pakistan from 1975 to 2013. This study investigates for the first time ever the relationship between IFI index and DEM in Pakistan.

Commitment to change (C2C), focal and discretionary behaviors are under-researched areas in the context of developing countries such as Pakistan. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of change readiness on employee’s C2C, focal and discretionary behaviors when controlling for gender, qualification, experience, and marital status. In addition, the goal of this study is to determine whether the three-component model of Herscovitch and Meyer (2002) may also be applied in the private manufacturing companies of Karachi (Pakistan).

A sample of 205 fulltime employees having administrative and managerial responsibilities in the manufacturing operations is drawn from the manufacturing companies of Karachi undergoing major technological change. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses are used to evaluate the reliability and validity of the measurement model. Besides, hypotheses are tested using structural equation modeling in AMOS version 22.

The standardized estimates of SEM revealed a very good model fit between the structural model and the sample drawn using different modification indices. The results show that appropriateness has significant positive impact on affective C2C and negative impact on continuance C2C when controlling for gender, qualification, and experience. Moreover, affective C2C has significant positive impact on compliance behavior. However, the continuance C2C has significant negative impact and normative C2C has significant positive impact on cooperation when controlling for marital status. The findings may be generalized on other private manufacturing organizations of Karachi.

This study is one of the first to empirically establish a relationship among change readiness, C2C and active/passive change-related behaviors in the private manufacturing companies of Pakistan. One of the important theoretical contributions of the study is that the three-component model which has been empirically tested in various socio-economic settings in the Western context and in a Pakistani public sector organization may also be employed in the private manufacturing organizations of Pakistan. In particular, with respect to research instrument of “readiness for change” scale, it is also argued that the scale of the fourth dimension (i.e. personally beneficial) needs major revision by adding five to seven Likert-scale items having good content validity and high internal consistency of the measuring scale in the Pakistani context.