China-Pak Economic Corridor (CPEC) and Its Geopolitical Paradigms

The geography of a country determines its role in the world affairs. Pakistan is located at a very significant strategic place on the globe. It is situated at the juncture of energy proficient to the energy deficient countries. The Gawadar Port in Pakistan is positioned at the Arabian Sea which is 72 Kilometers far from Iran, 320 Kilometers from Cape al-Hadd in Oman and about 400 Kilometers away from the Strait of Hormuz and is connected with the Persian Gulf. Gawadar as a key shipping point may be able to play a key role in ensuring China’s energy security as it provides a much shorter route than the current 12,900 km route from the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Malacca to the eastern seaboard of China. China has been building its leading role in Asia and beyond for economic and political cooperation through “One Belt One Road”. OBOR project has two components: first, the land-based ‘New Silk Road’; and second, a 21st Century Maritime Silk Road through a vast network of transport corridors, pipelines, ports and fiber-optic cables spreading across the entire Eurasian landmass connecting East Asia, Central and South Asia, the Middle East and parts of Europe. China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (hereafter CPEC) is very vital and a joint venture of Pakistan and China to connect Kashgar in China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region with the Southwestern Pakistani port of Gawadar. Under CPEC, China will invest $46 billion in Pakistan for the development of infrastructure and energy for the next 15 to 30 years. The four main pillars of CPEC are Gawadar port, communication infrastructure, energy infrastructure and industrial zones. Pakistan will serve as a crucial bridge between China and Central Asia; South Asia and the Middle East. This paper makes an analysis of the strategic parameters of CPEC from both the Chinese and Pakistani perspectives.&nbsp

Evolution and Trends of Progressive Historiography in Pakistan

The paper evolves the thematic assumption that historical consciousness reflected in progressive historiography in last four decades or so is primarily a reaction against the feudal fabric and outlook of the society and tends to understand the historical process and trends which paved way for the emergence of this school of historiography in the country. Progressive School of Historiography links itself with the progressive movement of mid-thirties which inspired a considerable number of scholars i.e. the leftist lot of the country. They adopted a self-motivated rather missionary approach to proliferate a historiographical ideal what is typically termed as the “other side” of History Writing.  In the wake of revolutionary outburst of 1969 in the country- which claimed the first Martial Law regime, public hoped for the end of the country’s oppressive fabric forever. Although the endeavor remained fruitless yet it gave way to the realization of “social democracy” and “populism” in the country with an aim to create dialectic against the feudal as well as industrial classes of the country. The progressive historiographers were viewed as subversive to the indigenous history writing pursuits rather they were termed as hardliners both content and methodology they adopted for the promotion of their ideologies. Another phenomenon which emerges as the by-product of this dialectic was the influence of politics over the history writing which resulted into the leftist-rightist milieu. The progressive movement in spite of failing to produce the desired results yet the influence of the historical school of thought it produced cannot be marginalized or undermined. Hence the Progressive historiography is the logical outcome of the subaltern, alternate, anti-colonial, and post modern concepts of history and historiography destined to reshape the socio-cultural fabric of the society

Non-cascaded short-term pumped-storage hydro-thermal scheduling using accelerated particle swarm optimization

© 2018 IEEE. This paper presents the implementation of a variant of the famous particle swarm optimization, known as Accelerated Particle Swarm Optimization (APSO), on a non-cascaded or a two-unit hydro-thermal system with consideration of hydal pumping in light loading intervals of hydro-thermal scheduling period. APSO is an easy to program and easy to implement variant of Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) that has the ability to converge to a good approximate to global optimum within a few iterations. A standard pumped-storage hydrothermal scheduling problem, discussed in existing literature, is considered for the implementation of APSO. A comparison of this implementation is also given with the previously existing implementations of other algorithms

Automating Test Case Generation for Android Applications using Model-based Testing

Testing of mobile applications (apps) has its quirks as numerous events are required to be tested. Mobile apps testing, being an evolving domain, carries certain challenges that should be accounted for in the overall testing process. Since smartphone apps are moderate in size so we consider that model-based testing (MBT) using state machines and statecharts could be a promising option for ensuring maximum coverage and completeness of test cases. Using model-based testing approach, we can automate the tedious phase of test case generation, which not only saves time of the overall testing process but also minimizes defects and ensures maximum test case coverage and completeness. In this paper, we explore and model the most critical modules of the mobile app for generating test cases to ascertain the efficiency and impact of using model-based testing. Test cases for the targeted model of the application under test were generated on a real device. The experimental results indicate that our framework reduced the time required to execute all the generated test cases by 50%. Experimental setup and results are reported herein

Leptospirosis: Rising Nuisance for Cattle and Threat to Public Health

Leptospirosis is a communicable disease at farms that results in abortion and pathological changes in animals and human respectively. Disease is majorly spreading through indirect contact with contaminated urine material. The causative agent belongs to Leptospira genus having 21 species, 25 serogroups, and 250 serovars. The prevalence noted at world level is counted to be 41.39% with 30.11% in Asia, 25.62% in Africa, and 46.42% in South Africa. The virulence is attributed to Loa22 protein which is the first protein identified as essential virulence factor. Pathogenesis involves vasculitis following which are direct cytotoxicity and immunological injury resulting in renal failure. Direct examination, PCR, isothermal methods, microscopic agglutination test (MAT) and IgM enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) are diagnostic approaches for leptospirosis. The MAT is a gold standard test for leptospirosis identification. Doxycycline and azithromycin were used as drugs against leptospirosis in mild and severe cases of leptospirosis. Further studies are needed regarding identification, treatment, and effective vaccination

Inducing salinity tolerance in red pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) through exogenous application of proline and L-tryptophan

Deterioration of agricultural lands due to salinity is one of the serious threats in irrigated areas of the world. Confronting the influence of salinization in agriculture is a key for achieving food security. Red pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) is not only economically but also nutritionally, important for human diet. A study was conducted to ameliorate the effect of salinity on the production and quality of red pepper by exogenous application of osmolytes. Two potential osmolytes i.e. proline and L- tryptophan were exogenously applied solely and in combination (@ 50 mM and 0.12 mM, respectively). There were three salinity levels i.e. ECe; 0.6, 4.04 and 6.11 dS m-1. Results showed that plant height, root length, plant biomass and yield were significantly decreased, while significant increase in Na+ and Na+/K+ ratio was observed with increasing level of salinity. A significant improvement in growth, yield and quality was observed when both osmolytes were exogenously applied under salinity stress. The combined use of proline and L-tryptophan was more effective for reducing the inhibitory effect of salinity as compared to sole application of these osmolytes. It is concluded that the combined application of proline and L-tryptophan (@ 50 mM and 0.12 mM, respectively) was more effective for improving growth of red pepper under normal conditions as well as salinity stressed conditions

Smart classroom monitoring using novel real-time facial expression recognition system

Featured Application: The proposed automatic emotion recognition system has been deployed in the classroom environment (education) but it can be used anywhere to monitor the emotions of humans, i.e., health, banking, industries, social welfare etc. Abstract: Emotions play a vital role in education. Technological advancement in computer vision using deep learning models has improved automatic emotion recognition. In this study, a real-time automatic emotion recognition system is developed incorporating novel salient facial features for classroom assessment using a deep learning model. The proposed novel facial features for each emotion are initially detected using HOG for face recognition, and automatic emotion recognition is then performed by training a convolutional neural network (CNN) that takes real-time input from a camera deployed in the classroom. The proposed emotion recognition system will analyze the facial expressions of each student during learning. The selected emotional states are happiness, sadness, and fear along with the cognitive–emotional states of satisfaction, dissatisfaction, and concentration. The selected emotional states are tested against selected variables gender, department, lecture time, seating positions, and the difficulty of a subject. The proposed system contributes to improve classroom learning.Web of Science1223art. no. 1213

CPEC - A Game of Energy and Economic Stability: Study of Prospects for China through Gawadar Seaport

China does not have any hot waters seaport that could be used round the whole year and the seaport of Shanghai has been 4500 Km away from industrial areas of China, on account of which it has been adopting an approach for interlinking its western and southern regions through admittance to warm waters with the establishment of oil and gas pipelines from the CARs to ancient Silk Route transit trade route (via Pakistan) through Chinese province of Xinjiang. Pakistan has been positioned in close proximity to South & Central Asia as well as West Asian countries, which has been providing the shortest admittance of sea to the landlocked (CARs) Central Asian Republics and West Chinese regions. The emerging economy of China and proximity of Seaport to the Strait of Hormuz is a pivotal feature of Gawadar making it prominent in the world. The development of Gawadar Seaport and Special Economic Zone (SZE) at Kashgar may have potential for revival of ancient Silk Route. The proximity of Xinjiang to Gawadar will make it viable and cost-effective to China for carrying out of trade through the seaport of Gawadar that has been situated at the pivot of the Gulf region, the Central Asia, Africa and Europe. China has strategic interests to reach out blue waters of the Arabian Sea reflecting tactical moves by China in Gawadar which, means potential staging ground for Beijing in order to exercise influence alongside the shipment traffic lane of the Gulf because 60% energy demands of China streams through the Gulf region that China has been using currently for importing oil from the Middle East paying huge transport cost for distance of 16000 Km. This paper makes an analysis of the prospects for China in terms of energy and economic imperatives through Gawadar Seaport under proposed China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)