Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to understand the behavior of the automotive industry which is very critical to avoid major economic disruptions in the economy. To understand this industry, one needs to understand its historical performance in relation to many economic factors that may affect the industry. Design/methodology/approach -Data about automobile sales (in dollars and in units) and many economic and demographic variables are collected from a variety of sources. Automobile sales are the dependent variable. However, the variable of automobile sales is divided into foreign and domestic car makers. The data are regressed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) stepwise regression to obtain highly correlated variables. Findings -The results indicate a strong relationship between the economic variables and foreign car sales, but the relationship between the economic variables and domestic car sales is weak. The domestic cars sales relationship to the other economic variables should be explored further to determine possible causes for the weak correlation. One of the possible reasons could be that domestic car makers use many incentives to influence sales, but data on incentives by model by year are not available. The addition of this variable as a factor may improve correlation. Practical implications -The results in this study could help the automobile companies better understand their business, and the auto companies could use the results for possible strategic decisions. In addition, legislatures in the impacted states could use the results to prepare for fluctuations in the industry that would result in profound effects on the states in question. Originality/value -This type of analysis is not standard, and the use of multiple economic variables correlated with domestic and foreign car sales is unique. The study provides a basis for further research.

Alternative strategy of non-surgical closure of patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) is presently the first line of therapy. Several devices are being used for transcatheter closure of PDA. A four-year-old girl underwent a second attempt at PDA closure with an amplatzer device. However, after the deployment of the device it got dislodged into the right pulmonary artery hilum. Several attempts by catheter retrieval failed. The girl underwent surgical removal of the device which was complicated by pulmonary artery injury and subsequent repair was performed on cardiopulmonary bypass.

We compared the performances of the additive and logistic EuroSCORE in predicting mortality in patients undergoing isolated coronary artery bypass grafting at a single institution in Pakistan. Both models were applied to 2004 patients, operated upon at the Aga Khan University Hospital from January 2006 to July 2010. The actual mortality (3.8%) was significantly different from the additive (4.35%) and the logistic (6.41%) estimates. On the basis of degree of risk, actual mortality was 0.6% in the low-risk (additive EuroSCORE 0-4), 4.2% in the medium-risk (EuroSCORE 5-9) and 19.1% in the high-risk (EuroSCORE 10-19) group. With the low risks, both systems slightly overestimated mortality, with the logistic EuroSCORE being more accurate. At a EuroSCORE of between 10 and 19, the additive EuroSCORE underestimated and logistic EuroSCORE overestimated mortality. Both models satisfactorily discriminated outcomes (receiver operating characteristics areas of 0.866 and 0.859 for the additive and the logistic model, respectively). The Hosmer-Lemeshow test showed that calibration was good for the additive model (P=0.424) but turned out to be inadequate for the logistic model (P<0.001). We conclude that the additive EuroSCORE is a more accurate model for risk assessment compared to the logistics model in the Pakistani population.

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