Financial Misgivings of Married Working Women in Lahore

In Pakistan, the financial issues of married working women are rarely discussed. There is an absence of literature on the subject. Nevertheless, the social sciences literature has been debating financial aspect of gender, either from the perspective of employer or employee; ignoring the working women’s reservations regarding their financial contribution in their marital life, particularly with reference to spouse and in-laws expectations. This issue becomes more acute when it comes to patriarchal conservative developing societies. This study is a delicate attempt to understand the magnitude of financial support of Pakistani married working women for spouse and in-laws, in the city of Lahore. In routine, the husband as well as the in-laws expect that a working wife should surrender her income, in entirety or partially towards the household budget, thus taking the financial responsibility of her spouse along with his extended family. Such financial misgivings create tensions and pressure for the already burdened woman having a disadvantaged status. In certain cases, the contribution is by free will of the wife, as well. This research will make an attempt through a survey with 50 married working women of different social classes, residing in Lahore. The purpose is to understand the rationale of approval or disapproval of this practice. Refusal for cooperation often create problems for the earning woman, even at the risk of separation or divorce, or at the least, tensions in the married life. At the end, the study will debate over possible adjustments and compromises, which could reduce tense situation for the married working woman, and at the same time maintaining her financial independence.

Mutational Analysis of Complete Coding Sequence of Toll Like Receptor-2 Gene in Dhani and Jersey Cattle Breeds of Pakistan

The current research work focus on disease resistance and susceptibility studies in livestock animals have been on determining patterns of key proteins in the innate immune response, such as toll-like receptor 2 (TLR-2) gene primary role in the recognition of pathogen associated molecular pattern (PAMP) from bacterial ligands. To date, ten members of TLRs family have been identified in cattle. The objective of the present study was to detect polymorphisms in the genomic sequences of TLR-2 gene in two important cattle breeds Bhagnari and locally adapted exotic Freisian. Phylogenetic analysis was carried out based on complete coding sequences of TLR-2 gene to describe the relationship between the breeds. Mutations in coding sequences of TLR2 gene in Dhani and Jersey were studied. The complete coding sequence of TLR2 gene consists of 2355 base pair [bp] was determined. The amino acid [aa] sequence of the coding region corresponds to a protein of 784 amino acids long with predicted molecular weight 104 kDa and 6.97 pI value. The amino acid sequence analysis showed extracellular domain composed of leucine rich repeats (LRR), trans- membrane domain and Toll-IL receptor domain in the protein. Nucleotide sequences of TLR2 gene in Dhani cattle breed revealed a total of 35 polymorphisms. In the analysis 66% polymorphisms were synonymous caused no changes in protein and 34% were non-synonyms. Overall 20 polymorphisms were observed in Extracellular domain, five variants in trans-membrane, three polymorphisms in unknown region and seven mutations in TLR domain were detected. In Jersey cattle breed, a total of 21 polymorphisms were detected, in which 52% were synonymous and 48% were non-synonymous. Protein analysis showed that 15 mutations were observed in region specifying the Extracellular domain, three in Trans-membrane domain and three polymorphisms in TLR domain. The finding of this research revealed that detected polymorphisms may be associated with PAMPs mediated di?erential TLR signaling of bovine immunity and could determine the outcome of infection.