Level of Job Satisfaction among Employees of Banking Industries at Bahawalpur

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to measure the factors affecting the employee satisfaction by discussing variables such as promotion, work environment, leadership and job satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach: Being descriptive study, survey method was adopted for data collection to find out the factors. A sample of 150 private and public banks of Bahawalpur was selected for the survey. Data was analysed by using Cronbach?s Alpha, correlation and regression in SPSS software. Findings: The independent variable promotion and leadership behaviour was largely correlated with dependent variable employee satisfaction. While work environment and job stress have less influence on employees job satisfaction. Originality/value: The paper reveals there exist relationship between the employee job satisfaction and factors affecting in the banks in Bahawalpur. Keywords: Employee satisfaction, promotions, work environment, leadership, job stress, banks Paper type: Research pape

Misconceptional views about epilepsy exist across social class system of society

Epilepsy affects over 1% of population worldwide. Studies have shown that although our understanding about epilepsy has come a long way, misconceptions about its etiology and treatment exist in rural slums. However, no study has been conducted to see whether such misconceptions exist in middle and upper socio-economic class. This study aims to explore the existence of misconceptions and social stigma in the middle and upper socio-economic class. Materials and Methods: We conducted a survey-based study about epilepsy on 227 participants, belonging to middle and upper socio-economic class. Results: The symptoms of generalized tonic-clonic seizures were correctly described by participants. However, magic, superstition and ‘jin’ were considered as the etiology by some. Incorrect treatment options, like shoe sniffing and ‘taweez’ etc., were also mentioned. Social stigmas regarding sharing information about epilepsy and marrying epileptics also existed. Discussion: Our study shows that although the general understanding about epilepsy was correct in majority of participants belonging to the middle upper socio-economic class, it was restricted to generalized tonic clonic seizures. Key misconceptions regarding the etiology and treatment of epilepsy and social stigma associated with it did exist. These findings emphasize the need to educate all segments of the society about epileps

Impact of Credit Risk Management on Bank Performance: An Empirical Study on Commercial Banks Listed at Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX)

Commercial banks are involved in uncontrolled credit risk management that negatively affects their sustainable banking performance. Many guidelines, strategies, and judgments have been made, such as the Basel Accords, to control these issues and adequately manage their lending and borrowing policies. This study aims to analyse the impact of credit risk management on the sustainable performance of commercial banks. For this purpose, secondary panel data was collected from the annual financial reports of 27 commercial banks out of the 31 listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) for the period 2017-2021. E-views 10 software was applied to perform descriptive correlation and multiple regression analyses. In the current study’s model, credit risk management proxies, return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE), and net interest margin (NIM) were employed as dependent variables. At the same time, capital adequacy ratio (CAR), loan and advances (LA), non-performing loans (NPL) ratio, market profit opportunity (MPO), and bank liquidity (BL) were employed as independent variables. The study concludes that bank liquidity has a significant positive relationship with bank performance. Comparably, capital adequacy ratio, non-performing loans, bank liquidity, market profit opportunity, and loan and advances harm the sustainable performance of commercial banks. The research suggests that implementing stricter policies and strategies, such as the regulation of customer loans, is required to control these issues

Demographic Factors Associated with Acceptance of COVID-19 Vaccination: An Online Survey-Based Study from Hyderabad Sindh

Background: COVID19 is a major threat to global health. World health organization has proposed use of vaccines against COVID19 to end the pandemic. Due to low literacy rate in many developing countries and disinformation, the population is reluctant for COVID19 vaccination. To explore the demographic factors associated with acceptance of COVID19 vaccination, we set up an online cross-sectional study. Methods: The online survey-based cross-sectional study was conducted to understand the demographic factors of residents of Hyderabad city associated with vaccine acceptance. The questionnaire was divided into sections to get sociodemographic characters and other information related with willingness of vaccination. This questionnaire was sent to 300 people from which 205 people participated. Results: The result showed that 28.8% of the participants were not sure to get vaccination of COVID-19, while 41.5% participants were willing to get vaccine if available; rest of the people (29.8%) were not willing be vaccinated at all. The main reason behind this denial was due to belief on conspiracies against COVID-19 vaccine. Many participants either denied (42%) for any disinformation or were not sure (12%) on this account. Conclusion: The study was based on demographic factors of residents of Hyderabad associated with acceptance of COVID-19 vaccine. Among the studied population only 41.5% showed willingness to get vaccinated which indicate the necessity to effectively educate the population about COVID-19 vaccines

Energy-Efficient Load Balancing Algorithm for Workflow Scheduling in Cloud Data Centers Using Queuing and Thresholds

Cloud computing is a rapidly growing technology that has been implemented in various fields in recent years, such as business, research, industry, and computing. Cloud computing provides different services over the internet, thus eliminating the need for personalized hardware and other resources. Cloud computing environments face some challenges in terms of resource utilization, energy efficiency, heterogeneous resources, etc. Tasks scheduling and virtual machines (VMs) are used as consolidation techniques in order to tackle these issues. Tasks scheduling has been extensively studied in the literature. The problem has been studied with different parameters and objectives. In this article, we address the problem of energy consumption and efficient resource utilization in virtualized cloud data centers. The proposed algorithm is based on task classification and thresholds for efficient scheduling and better resource utilization. In the first phase, workflow tasks are pre-processed to avoid bottlenecks by placing tasks with more dependencies and long execution times in separate queues. In the next step, tasks are classified based on the intensities of the required resources. Finally, Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is used to select the best schedules. Experiments were performed to validate the proposed technique. Comparative results obtained on benchmark datasets are presented. The results show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm over that of the other algorithms to which it was compared in terms of energy consumption, makespan, and load balancing

Prevalence of Postpartum Depression and its Risk Factors among Pakistani Females:

Background: A severe form of clinical depression is related to pregnancy and childbirth. As a new mom, a lot of challenges are encountered in getting used to life with a newborn including lack of sleep. Hormonal changes and fatigue may lead towards psychological maladjustment towards motherhood. Low socioeconomic status, family system, mode of delivery, ill health of infant may be the reasons behind postpartum depression. Objective: To study the prevalence of postpartum depression among females. Method: This Cross sectional study was conducted after ethical approval on a sample of 200 females of reproductive age (20-45years). Participants were selected through convenient random sampling on the basis of predefined eligibility criteria. Data were collected from primary and secondary healthcare facilities of district Sialkot using Edinburg postnatal depression screening tool. Results: The mean age±Std Dev of the participants was 28.09±5.346 years ranging from 20 to 45. Mean±SD of total score EPDS was found 3.53±5.72 with 87.50% participants with score below 13. Out of 200, 25(12.50%) females were candidates for postpartum depression. Conclusion: Postpartum depression screening helps recognition of the disorder. Postpartum depression among females of the target population is not negligible

Wandering Spleen: A Rare Condition with Splenic Torsion and Infarction in an Elderly Patient

Ectopic spleen or wandering spleen is an uncommon presentation in which the spleen’s anatomical location is different from its fixed position in the left upper quadrant of the abdomen, due to the absence of the typical peritoneal attachments; the spleen is more mobile inside the abdomen. Congenital or acquired conditions are the cause of this anomaly, which could ultimately result in torsion and splenic infarction. Less than 0.2% of wandering spleen cases are reported annually, making it a rare clinical manifestation. Splenic vascular pedicle torsion can result in complications that can cause symptoms of an acute abdomen as a result of ischemic necrosis of the spleen. Computed tomography and ultrasonography with Doppler or CEUS are essential for accurate diagnosis due to the vague clinical signs and potential complications. This case involves a 70-year-old elderly woman who complained of extreme abdominal pain and vomiting for three days. On physical examination, a tense right lower quadrant lump was palpated, when she visited the emergency room. An urgent CT scan was done for the acute abdomen which revealed torsion of the splenic pedicle in a wandering spleen

Comparative ambient and indoor particulate matter analysis of operation theatres of government and private (trust) Hospitals of Lahore, Pakistan

The link between infection and indoor air quality (IAQ) in operating theatres is well established. The level of airborne particulate matter (PM) in operating theatres in Pakistan has not yet been studied comprehensively. Monitoring of both indoor (operating theatre) and outdoor concentrations of PM in both activity and non-activity time periods was done using a DUSTTRAK Aerosol Monitor (TSI Model 8520) and DRX Aerosol Monitor (TSI Model 8533) for 24 hours. Two hospitals in Lahore were selected: Services Hospital (government – site 1) and Shalamar Hospital (private – site 2). The highest concentration of PM was observed in the orthopaedic operating theatre at site 1 during working hours with an average concentration of 757(±540), 809(±58), 824(±585), 875(±586) and 970(±581) μg/m3 of PM1,PM2.5, PM4, PM10 and PMTotal respectively while the average PM2.5 outdoor concentration was 294 μg/m3. The minimum average PM concentration was found in the orthopaedic operating theatre at site 2 during working hours: 18(±8), 19(±8), 20(±9), 26(±9) and 39(±9) μg/m3 for PM1, PM2.5, PM4, PM10 and PMTotal respectively. The use of vertical laminar air flow ventilation strategy was found to be an effective measure in reducing PM levels and it might be possible to predict the air quality of operating theatres by determining PM dust load. Factors such as ventilation system, door opening /closing rates, building age, possible sources of infiltration, number of people present in the operating area all play a role in influencing PM concentrations in operating theatres

Presence and Antibiotic Resistance of MDR Salmonella Isolates Recovered from Zea mays L. Farms Located near the Poultry Farms in Faisalabad-Pakistan

Background: Salmonella is the major food-borne pathogen associated with food products and causative agent of salmonellosis. Discharge of untreated wastes and leakage of poultry drainage in irrigation water might be the significant source of contamination in fields. The aim of this study was to investigate the presence of Salmonella in the rhizosphere and phyllo sphere of Zea mays L farm, following irrigation with ditch water contaminated with poultry drainage.Methods: Total 6 maize farms in and around Faisalabad (Pakistan) were selected nearby the poultry farm area. Irrigated water, rhizosphere and leaves were analyzed for presence of Salmonella. A total of 160 samples were collected from different farms. Samples were cultivated on SS agar media and incubated at 37oC.Results: Out of 160 samples, 39 showed positive growth for bacterial contamination. 18 samples were confirmed as Salmonella by morphological and biochemical characteristics. Our results indicated the presence of Salmonella isolates from irrigated water (n=10), from rhizosphere (n=5), from phyllo sphere (n=1) and from roots (n=2). Antibiotics susceptibility pattern of Salmonella isolates against routinely used antibiotics had indicated that 71% isolates were resistant to Tetracycline and Amikacin, and 65% resistance to Chloramphenicol. All the isolates were sensitive to Levofloxacin, Tobramycin, Cefepime, Gentamycin, Cefoxitin and Sulfamethoxale. All isolates were intermediate resistant to cefuroxime and ampicillin.Conclusion: From obtained result it is confirmed that Salmonella spp. have been found in irrigation water mixed with poultry drainage and could be a source of Salmonella contamination to the crops located near the poultry farms.Keywords: Rhizosphere; Zea mays L., Ditch water; Phyllo-sphere; Irrigation water

What is Emotional Pain? - A Review of Pathophysiology and Treatment Options

Pain is a dynamic process that involves multiple physiological systems for the perception and its outcomes. The basic pain process involves a complex neurological process. and biochemical changes. Emotional pain is an extended form of the already known pain where the stimuli are emotional of nature that involves abstract feelings, for example, losing a loved one. Like the pain, now there is a growing evidence that emotional pain also involves inflammatory process and the behavioral approach is directly linked with them. This association can help us modify the emotional pain by modulating the inflammatory processes that already known to us.   Other than therapeutic and known interventions, mindfulness, writing therapy, exposure based intervention and other actions can help us in just not treating the condition but can serve as exploration of other avenues of the pain physiology. Emotional Pain has always been the part of human history but one of the least discussed form of pain. Multiple neuropsychiatric studies can help further in evaluation of this process