Challenges and requirements of heterogenous research data management in environmental sciences:a qualitative study

Abstract. The research focuses on the challenges and requirements of heterogeneous research data management in environmental sciences. Environmental research involves diverse data types, and effective management and integration of these data sets are crucial in managing heterogeneous environmental research data. The issue at hand is the lack of specific guidance on how to select and plan an appropriate data management practice to address the challenges of handling and integrating diverse data types in environmental research. The objective of the research is to identify the issues associated with the current data storage approach in research data management and determine the requirements for an appropriate system to address these challenges. The research adopts a qualitative approach, utilizing semi-structured interviews to collect data. Content analysis is employed to analyze the gathered data and identify relevant issues and requirements. The study reveals various issues in the current data management process, including inconsistencies in data treatment, the risk of unintentional data deletion, loss of knowledge due to staff turnover, lack of guidelines, and data scattered across multiple locations. The requirements identified through interviews emphasize the need for a data management system that integrates automation, open access, centralized storage, online electronic lab notes, systematic data management, secure repositories, reduced hardware storage, and version control with metadata support. The research identifies the current challenges faced by researchers in heterogeneous data management and compiles a list of requirements for an effective solution. The findings contribute to existing knowledge on research-related problems and provide a foundation for developing tailored solutions to meet the specific needs of researchers in environmental sciences

Impact of Leverage and Risk Exposure on Financial Performance in SMEs of Northern Punjab

Basic objective of this research was to discover the impact of Leverage on Risk and Profitability. For this purpose main focus of research was SMEs and Commercial sector of Pakistan. Leverage has three types DOL, DFL and DTL. And these three types of leverage are independent variables for this research while dependent variables of this research are ROE, ROA, ROS, GM and Risk. Further sales growth is also used as control variable in this research. Time frame for data analysis was 3 years from 2012 to 2014. Sample size for this research is 61 SMEs and Commercial sector organizations. Secondary data was used in this research and data was collected by using different data collection methods. SPSS version 20 was used to analyze data. Linear regression analyses were used to check the significant relationship between independent variables and dependent variables. This research is limited to just SMEs and Commercial sector organization so we cannot use these results for overall industry or sectors. This research is entirely new research for SMEs and Commercial sector organizations

Assessment of awareness of orthodontic emergencies and psychosocial wellbeing of patients during novel coronavirus pandemic through teledentistry

Introduction: At the end of December 2019, the novel coronavirus began to spread in central China and soon became a pandemic. Unfortunately, all elective dental treatments including orthodontic visits were postponed and patients could not be counselled on how to manage orthodontic emergencies that they could encounter at home. Teledentistry can play a major role in providing instructions to patients during quarantine. Objective: : The study aimed to assess the awareness of orthodontic patients regarding the management of orthodontic emergencies and their psychosocial well-being during the novel coronavirus pandemic through Teledentistry. Materials and Methods: A questionnaire-based study was conducted on two groups during the lockdown period in which their anxiety, psychological status, and their ability to manage orthodontic emergencies at home during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown were assessed through teledentistry. Results: A total of 170 patients participated in our study, Independent sample t-test was used to compare the means of the group's control and experimental. Statistically, a significant difference was determined between the two groups regarding their psychosocial well-being (social media embarrassment p=0.049, awareness of how to manage orthodontic emergencies p=0.00). The participants displayed a better understanding of how to deal with orthodontic emergencies at home after having instructions. 48.2% of the patients selected voice call as a preferred mode of instruction for managing orthodontic emergencies at home. Conclusion: Experimental group of patients was more aware of how to manage orthodontic emergencies and they were less anxious. Teledentistry has proven to be an important tool for providing instructions to anxious patients as well as reducing the spread of coronavirus due to lack of contact. Voice call was the preferred mode of instruction. Keywords: Anxiety, COVID-19, Orthodontic emergencies, Tele-dentistry

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF COVID-19 VACCINATIONS: KARACHI AS A CASE STUDY

The entire world has started to vaccinate their respective countries' citizens to get rid of COVID-19 from their country. Likewise other countries, Pakistan has also started the vaccination process for its citizens and unlike the rest of the world, there have been different types of vaccines in Pakistan with different manufacturers and with different immunity booster levels. Through statistical analysis of vaccination in this research paper, we have tried to understand the diverse level of vaccines in Karachi and tried to get an understanding of the vaccination process happening in Karachi. For this kind of research, we have maintained the questionnaire and spread it through emails, WhatsApp, and Facebook.  The questionnaire was sent to about 500 people from July to August 2021. The results obtained depict the satisfaction of the vaccination process with normal side effects. Unlike other countries, Pakistan is among the countries where the mass vaccination process has always been very difficult to conduct. Further using the data of seven stations for prediction purposes Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) models were constructed. A better future trend analysis of COVID-19 can be observed using these constructed models. The data for the time series modeling from, 1st January 2021 to 25 August 2021, was taken from National Command and Control (NCOC) Pakistan

Performance Analysis of Sensing-based Semi-Persistent Scheduling (SB-SPS) MAC Protocol for C-V2X

Sensing-based Semi-Persistent Scheduling (SB-SPS) MAC protocol is proposed as part of the latest cellular vehicle to everything (C-V2X) standard for medium access between vehicles. As C-V2X uses LTE based frame structure, mode 4 of the C-V2X standard uses SB-SPS to allocate resource blocks effectively. C-V2X shows great potential for the future as it brings many improvements such as enhanced range, reliability, and the ability to support and evolve with emerging technologies such as 5G. In this article, the SB-SPS protocol’s performance was analyzed in different scenarios using OMNET++, SUMO, and Veins simulator. Different vehicle speeds and densities were used to observe the effect on packet loss and throughput. It was found that as packet loss decreased, throughput increased when the mobility of vehicles decreased. The effects of changing some important parameters of SB-SPS were also observed. The results showed that while parameters such as increasing the number of subchannels increased the packet delivery ratio (PDR), the change in the probability of resource reselection parameter did not affect the PDR

Distribution of gastric carcinoma in an area with a high prevalence of Helicobacter pylori.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: South Asia is an enigma for gastric cancer (GC) because it is a low risk region with a high prevalence of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infections. We evaluated the trend of GC clinical presentation and risk factors in patients with dyspeptic symptoms. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The medical records of patients, coded by the international classification of diseases (ICD-10-CM, 2015, Diagnosis Code C16.9) for malignancies of stomach diagnosed by esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) and histopathology, were studied. RESULTS: 394 GC cases with a mean age of 54±15 years, range of 18 to 88, were analyzed. 256 (65%) were male. Distal non-cardiac and cardiac tumors were 302 (77%) and 92 (23%) cases, respectively. The WHO classification of GC defined 222 (56%) cases as intestinal type adenocarcinoma, 68 (17%) cases as signet ring cell carcinoma (SRC), 62 (16%) cases as diffuse type and 42 (11%) cases as B cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The co-morbid conditions associated with GC were H. pylori infection (positive in 246 (62%) cases), diabetes mellitus type 2 (in 90 (23%) cases), and cigarette smoking (in 94 (24%) cases). Of the male patients, 88 (34%) (p\u3c0.001) were smokers. Body mass index was abnormal in all age groups and in both sexes. Cardiac regions for GC were more common in the 46- to 60-year old age range and in males. Diffuse GC was seen in all age groups but there were significantly more common in the 18- to 45-year old age range. Gastric non-Hodgkin\u27s lymphoma was seen at an early age of 18-45 years in 14(12%) and a later of 61-88 years in 20 (15%). CONCLUSION: Intestinal type GC is common at all ages but SRC and diffuse GC are more common in patients less than 50 years old. SRC and diffuse GC were not specific to the elderly in our study population

Assessment of Human Health Risk of Zinc and Lead by Consuming Food Crops Supplied with Excessive Fertilizers

For the study of heavy metals impact on human beings, areas in Sargodha city that were supplied with various types of fertilizers were chosen. The three industrial areas; (Bhalwal, Sillanwali, and Sahiwal) of this city were explored for research reasons. The researchers wanted to know how much heavy metal was in the soil, food crops, and human. Excess fertilizer use contributes to global pollution. Farmyard manure, urea, and potassium chloride were used on Site 1; urea phosphate, manure, and ammonium sulphate were used on Site 2; and super phosphate, ammonium phosphate, and nitrate phosphate were used on Site 3. Samples of commonly used food crops, their respective soils and blood of residents who ingested the food crops of the studied area were collected. The zinc and lead levels in soil (8.30-16.80 and 1.80-12.71 mg/kg) and food crops (0.26-2.02 and 2.26-4.70 mg/kg) were far lower than WHO permitted limits. Blood mean concentration of both Zn (2.30-4.30 mg/L) and Ni (0.24-0.70 mg/L) were found maximum in residents of Site 3. The values of pollution load index, bioconcentration factor, enrichment factor for both zinc and lead were (0.18-0.37 and0.220-0.948), (0.027-0.138 and 0.316-1.705), (0.020-0.144 and 0.515-2.780), respectively. Daily intake of metal (0.004-0.008 and 0.001-0.002 mg/kg/day) and health risk index (0.0001-0.016 and 0.005-0.115) values were observed to be lower in individuals for Zn and Pb, respectively. In present work values of all pollution indices wereSo, there would be no human health hazard