Validation of respiratory questionnaire for lung function assessment among an occupational group of textile workers in Pakistan

Objective: To determine the association of spirometric lung pattern with respiratory symptoms and to validate the American Thoracic Society respiratory questionnaire for lung function assessment among textile workers.Methods: This cross-sectional survey was conducted from August to December 2009 among adult textile workers of Karachi. Data was collected through the American Thoracic Society Division of Lung Disease respiratory questionnaire and the lung function was assessed by using a spirometer. Results of three acceptable readings of spirogram were recorded and the best of the three readings was used for analysis. SPSS 19 was used for data analysis.Results: There were 372 participants in the study with an overall mean age of 27±8.5 years. In linear regression analysis, forced expiratory volume in one second for workers who had chronic cough was -829.1 (confidence interval: -1273.1, -385.2), chronic wheeze -168.8 (confidence interval: -319.3, -18.2) and shortness of breath grade 2 -215.6 (confidence interval: -387.8, -43.4). In logistic regression model, after adjusting for covariates, odds of reduced percentage predicted forced expiratory volume in one second for workers who had chronic cough was 3.09 (confidence interval: 1.26, 7.56), chronic wheeze 1.98 (confidence interval: 1.05, 3.71) and shortness of breath grade 2 2.07 (confidence interval: 1.05, 4.07), while odds of reduced percentage predicted forced vital capacity for shortness of breath grade 2 was 2.35 (confidence interval: 1.05, 5.21). In logistic regression model 2, for assessing the effect of different combinations of chronic respiratory symptoms, the odds of reduced percentage predicted forced expiratory volume in one second for the combination of cough and wheeze was 2.08 (confidence interval: 1.05, 4.10), cough and shortness of breath grade 2 2.47 (confidence interval: 1.18, 5.18), phlegm and shortness of breath grade 2 2.59 (confidence interval: 1.23, 5.43), cough, wheeze and shortness of breath grade 2 4.64 (confidence interval: 1.97, 10.93)and cough, phlegm, wheeze and shortness of breath grade 2 4.18 (confidence interval: 1.68, 10.37).Conclusions: A combination of chronic respiratory symptoms was best associated with decrements in lung function

Upcoming Challenges and Opportunities of Retailing in Pakistan (Supermarket)

There is only a handful of large retailers (about 66 mixed retailing businesses in 2003), and even those tend to operate only at a regional level. Unlike in developed countries, kiosks and mobile units are very common in Pakistan. However, supermarkets, a new concept in Pakistan, are gaining popularity in the urban areas, and are the fastest growing type outlet, albeit from a very small base. Retailing employs around 4.43 million people (i.e. on average around two employees per business), and makes up around 11% of total official employment. Most retail businesses are family owned, and these mostly run general stores or small specialist shops. The methodology of this particular research will be based on convenience sampling and structured questionnaire, interviews from the retailer (supermarket) and end users of the retailing products to get an insight into the challenges and opportunities that have taken place in retailing sector in Pakistan. The retailing sector of Pakistan is facing many challenges in this huge sector such as, product awareness, brand loyalty, availability of product, competitive factor, global restrictions, time factor and so forth. And there are many charming retailing opportunities to overcome these challenges such as technological advancement, communication advancement, attracting advertisement, customer satisfaction, availability and some new trends in retailing business. In this research area of focus will be the change in the consumer buying behavior due to changes occurs in retailing sector by the emerging the concept of super markets which is new in Pakistan. New in a sense that this method of retailing is not accepted generally by public as traditional and common way of shopping as it is in west and other parts of world but still people purchase their daily needs items from small shops and other traditional stores .Study also include the positive and negative changes occurred and what are the challenges and opportunities will the supermarket face in future

Application of the GPS technology to assess time-location pattern of undergraduate students at a private medical university in Karachi, Pakistan: A pilot study

To compare time-location pattern of undergraduate university students through GPS and diary method, and with level of physical activity, a cross-sectional survey was conducted from September 2012 - May 2013 involving 50 undergraduate students from Aga Khan University. Data were recorded through GPS, diary method, International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ-L) and accelerometer (ActiGraph). Median self-reported time spent in the indoor-inside the campus, indoor-outside the campus and outdoor environment was 405 (IQR:300-540), 720 (IQR:465-840) and 300 minutes (IQR:180-495) respectively, while 52% of the students were in moderate, 40% vigorous and 8% in mild categories of physical activity. Mean differences in location (GPS versus diary method) were statistically insignificant; indoor residential, -30.2, indoor other, -26.2, outdoor at rest, 45.9 and outdoor travelling, 10.5 minutes. We conclude that students spent most of their time indoors-outside of campus and majority were physically active, while also demonstrating the applicability of GPS and ActiGraph for such studies

Needs assessment regarding occupational health and safety interventions among textile workers: A qualitative case study in Karachi, Pakistan

Objective: To determine the perceived health and safety needs identified by textile workers, managers and experts as well as direct observation of the prevailing health and safety practices in the textile industry.Methods: The qualitative study using the needs assessment conceptual framework was conducted in July-August 2015 in Karachi, and comprised focus group discussions with textile workers, in-depth interviews with factory managers and health and safety officers, and key informant interviews with relevant stakeholders and experts. A walk-through survey was also conducted in selected mills for which the Checklist of hazards in textiles was used.Results: A total of 6focus group discussions, 6 in-depth interviews and 5 key informant interviews were conducted. Workers were found to have limited knowledge of occupational hazards, preventions and diseases. They identified lack of awareness and non-existent safety mechanisms as areas for improvement. Managers thought preventive practices and health services were not standardised while influence of buyers in the form of international business regulations and legislations were thought to be the enabling factors for enforcing health and safety standards. Poor governance, lack of knowledge regarding labour rights, low literacy level, poor compliance and low wages were the barriers for health promotion at workplace, as identified by the experts. Walk-through survey found mechanisms in place for fire safety, but the workers and managers were generally not using Personal Protective Equipment despite the presence of several hazards at workplace.Conclusions: There was found a need for context-specific occupational health and safety interventions at individual, organisational and policy levels

BeamSec: A Practical mmWave Physical Layer Security Scheme Against Strong Adversaries

The high directionality of millimeter-wave (mmWave) communication systems has proven effective in reducing the attack surface against eavesdropping, thus improving the physical layer security. However, even with highly directional beams, the system is still exposed to eavesdropping against adversaries located within the main lobe. In this paper, we propose \acrshort{BSec}, a solution to protect the users even from adversaries located in the main lobe. The key feature of BeamSec are: (i) Operating without the knowledge of eavesdropper's location/channel; (ii) Robustness against colluding eavesdropping attack and (iii) Standard compatibility, which we prove using experiments via our IEEE 802.11ad/ay-compatible 60 GHz phased-array testbed. Methodologically, BeamSec first identifies uncorrelated and diverse beam-pairs between the transmitter and receiver by analyzing signal characteristics available through standard-compliant procedures. Next, it encodes the information jointly over all selected beam-pairs to minimize information leakage. We study two methods for allocating transmission time among different beams, namely uniform allocation (no knowledge of the wireless channel) and optimal allocation for maximization of the secrecy rate (with partial knowledge of the wireless channel). Our experiments show that \acrshort{BSec} outperforms the benchmark schemes against single and colluding eavesdroppers and enhances the secrecy rate by 79.8% over a random paths selection benchmark

Determinants of occupational hazards knowledge and safety practices among textile workers in Karachi, Pakistan: A cross sectional study

Objective: To determine the factors associated with good knowledge and safe practices regarding occupational hazards among textile workers.Methods: The cross-sectional study was conducted in Karachi from September 2015 to February 2016, and comprised male workers from seven textile mills. A 45-item structured questionnaire was developed and pretested in Urdu, the local language. One part of the questionnaire comprised 31 items related to good knowledge, and the other part comprised 14 items related to safe practices. Data was analysed using SPSS 19.Results: Of the 300 subjects, 123(41%) were aged 18-27 years, 183(63%) were educated, 184(61.3%) worked more than eight hours daily, 170(57%) were employed in the weaving section and 164(55%) as machine operators. Besides, 231(77%) had good knowledge, and 62(21%) reported safe practices. Educated workers were more likely (p\u3c0.05), and machine operators were less likely (p\u3c0.05) to have good knowledge, while educated workers, those in the spinning section and those working less than 8-hours daily (p\u3c0.05) were more likely to report safe practices.Conclusions: There was a high knowledge level, but a wide gap in adopting safety practices, which indicates need for focused interventions targeting high-risk workers and regulation of working hours

Respiratory symptoms and illnesses among brick kiln workers: A cross sectional study from rural districts of Pakistan

Background: Occupational risk factors are one of the major causes of respiratory illnesses and symptoms, and account for 13% of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and 11% of asthma worldwide. Majority of brick kilns in Pakistan use wood and coal for baking the bricks which makes the brick kiln workers susceptible to high exposure of air pollution. This study was designed to describe frequency of chronic respiratory symptoms and illnesses and study the association between these symptoms and different types of work.Methods: This was a questionnaire based cross sectional survey conducted among the brick kiln workers in Larkana and Dadu districts, Sindh, Pakistan. A total of 340 adult men were assessed using translated version of the American Thoracic Society Division of Lung Disease (ATS-DLD) questionnaire. Logistic regression analysis was done to determine the relationship between various socio-demographic and occupational factors (age, education, type of work, number of years at work, smoking status), and the respiratory symptoms and illnesses (chronic cough, chronic phlegm, wheeze, Chronic Bronchitis and asthma).Results: Results of the study show that 22.4% workers had chronic cough while 21.2% reported chronic phlegm. 13.8% had two or more attacks of shortness of breath with wheezing. 17.1% workers were suffering from Chronic Bronchitis while 8.2% reported physician diagnosed asthma. Amongst the non-smoking workers 8.9% had Chronic Bronchitis. Multivariate analysis found that workers involved in brick baking were more likely to have Chronic Bronchitis (OR= 3.7, 95% CI 1.1-11.6, p=\u3c0.05) and asthma (OR= 3.9, 95% CI 1.01-15.5, p=\u3c0.05) compared to those involved in carriage and placement work.Conclusion: A high frequency of respiratory symptoms and illnesses was observed among brick kiln workers. Age, nature of work and smoking were strong predictors of developing these symptoms and illnesses

A comparative study of the in vitro antimicrobial and synergistic effect of essential oils from Laurus nobilis L. and Prunus armeniaca L. from Morocco with antimicrobial drugs: new approach for health promoting products

Laurus nobilis L. (laurel, Lauraceae) and Prunus armeniaca L. (apricot, Rosaceae) are important industrial crops and display significant biological properties, including antimicrobial activity. In this work, essential oils (EOs) prepared from the leaves of both species from Morocco were evaluated for the first time for possible synergistic in vitro antibacterial and antifungal effects with some conventional antimicrobial drugs, namely fluconazole, ciprofloxacin and vancomycin. Samples were further evaluated for chemical composition by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The main volatile compounds detected in L. nobilis were eucalyptol (40.85%), α-terpinyl acetate (12.64%) and methyl eugenol (8.72%), while P. armeniaca was dominated essentially by (Z)-phytol (27.18%), pentacosane (15.11%), nonacosane (8.76%) and benzaldehyde (7.25%). Regarding antimicrobial activity, both EOs inhibited significantly all the microorganisms tested. The EO from L. nobilis had the highest activity, with minimal inhibitory concentrations (MICs) ranging from 1.39 to 22.2 mg/mL for bacteria and between 2.77 and 5.55 mg/mL for yeasts. Conversely, the combination of the studied EOs with ciprofloxacin, vancomycin and fluconazol resulted in a noteworthy decrease in their individual MICs. In fact, of the 32 interactions tested, 23 (71.87%) demonstrated total synergism and 9 (28.12%) a partial synergistic interaction. The EO from L. nobilis exhibited the highest synergistic effect with all the antibiotics used, with fractional inhibitory concentration (FIC) index values in the range of 0.266 to 0.75 for bacteria, and between 0.258 and 0.266 for yeast. The synergistic interaction between the studied EOs and standard antibiotics may constitute promising anti-infective agents useful for treating diseases induced by antibiotic-resistant pathogens.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

INVESTIGATION OF GEOTHERMAL ENERGY POTENTIAL USING ELECTRICAL RESISTIVITY SURVEY AND CHEMICAL GEOTHERMOMETERS: A STUDY OF THE MANGHOPIR HOT SPRING KARACHI, SINDH PAKISTAN

Electrical resistivity survey and chemical geothermometers methods were used to find the geothermal gradient energy potential of the Manghopir hot spring which is located in Karachi, Sindh. Schlumberger electrode configurations were used to demarcate the two shallow potential subsurface aquifers. At various depths, three lithological units were encountered: alluvium, sandstone, and shale. The first thermal water aquifer lies below at the average depth of 10m and average thickness of 9 m lies in sandstone lithology of Nari Formation of Oligocene age. The second thermal water aquifer encountered at the average depth of 68 m and the average thickness of aquifer was 40.5m in sandstone lithology of Nari Formation. The surface water temperature was calculated with digital thermometer which shows the range in between 48 °C to 50 °C and subsurface temperature was calculated with the help of chemical geothermometers. The Na–K geothermometers indicate the subsurface equilibrium reservoir temperature in the range of 135.52 °C,125.54 °C, 172.964 °C and 184.08°C and the Na-K-Ca chemical geothermometers indicate the subsurface reservoir temperature 148.493°C. The Na-K-Ca geothermometers show a high temperature, but the reservoir temperature appears to be lower due to the mixing of sea water with the chemical composition of hot spring water within the subsurface aquifers

Managing acute pain in HIV+/AIDS patients: Knowledge and practice trends among emergency physicians of major tertiary care centers of a developing country

Objective: To assess knowledge and practice trends in managing acute pain in patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV+) or having acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) among emergency physicians of four tertiary care hospitals. Acute pain management in such patients is complex because of multiple concomitant painful conditions related to their disease. After obtaining ethical approval and written informed consent, emergency physicians were requested to fill out a questionnaire.Results: Out of 84 physicians who participated, 49 had managed HIV+/AIDS patients during the preceding year. Out of the 49, 30 (61.2%) physicians stated that they used a combination of analgesics for acute pain in these patients. Forty-two (50%) out of the 84 participants believed that routine doses of opioids were adequate for pain relief, while 42 (50%) agreed that pain management was more complex in these patients mainly due to presence of multiple coexisting problems and psychological issues. Only 26 (31%) respondents considered that pain was under-reported and under-treated in these patients, mainly because physicians were more focused on patients\u27 other disease related complications and issues. Formulation of guidelines are recommended for effective acute pain management in these patients encompassing associated issues, including concomitant painful conditions, opioid dependence, psychiatric problems, etc