Classification of Arrhythmia by Using Deep Learning with 2-D ECG Spectral Image Representation

The electrocardiogram (ECG) is one of the most extensively employed signals used in the diagnosis and prediction of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). The ECG signals can capture the heart's rhythmic irregularities, commonly known as arrhythmias. A careful study of ECG signals is crucial for precise diagnoses of patients' acute and chronic heart conditions. In this study, we propose a two-dimensional (2-D) convolutional neural network (CNN) model for the classification of ECG signals into eight classes; namely, normal beat, premature ventricular contraction beat, paced beat, right bundle branch block beat, left bundle branch block beat, atrial premature contraction beat, ventricular flutter wave beat, and ventricular escape beat. The one-dimensional ECG time series signals are transformed into 2-D spectrograms through short-time Fourier transform. The 2-D CNN model consisting of four convolutional layers and four pooling layers is designed for extracting robust features from the input spectrograms. Our proposed methodology is evaluated on a publicly available MIT-BIH arrhythmia dataset. We achieved a state-of-the-art average classification accuracy of 99.11\%, which is better than those of recently reported results in classifying similar types of arrhythmias. The performance is significant in other indices as well, including sensitivity and specificity, which indicates the success of the proposed method.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, accepted for future publication in Remote Sensing MDPI Journa

Role of Quality Management in Pharmaceutical Development: Evidence from Islamabad and Lahore

The aim of this paper is to investigate the employee’s perceptions of the impact, of Total Quality Management (TQM), on their roles within the organization and how they perceived the effectiveness of the quality processes in Pakistan Pharmaceutical industry. The universe of this study was the employees of Pharmaceutical industry in Islamabad and Lahore. For this purpose survey method was used by using questionnaire as a tool for data collection. The results have shown that Employee Training and Development, Employee Performance, Quality Process and Team Work are significant factors with the Total Quality Management and correlated with each others. The result shows the application of TQM principles addresses some of the key challenges facing the organization. The study was faced by certain limitations and included time constraints and resources constraints which limited this research to only Islamabad and Lahore offices, of the Pharmaceutical companies. The present study found support that pharmaceutical companies faced the same difficulties with TQM implementations as experienced in other industries. These include achieving a culture of continuous improvement, overcoming a lack of trust and understanding the TQM process itself, and what they were, as a company, trying to achieve. These problems are not new and many companies have difficulties in implementing TQM. Pharmaceutical companies also followed the path of achieving a quality certification; namely, ISO 9000 accreditation, in the pursuit of excellence.Quality Management; pharmaceutical Development; Pakistan; Employee’s Perceptions

Identifying Factors Playing Important Role in the Increasing Employees’ Turnover Rate: A Case of Telecom Industry in Pakistan Patterns in Neighboring Areas

The objective of this study is to know about the practices of Telecom industry, regarding their employees and to know how they keep up with the intense competition in the industry. The study focuses on factors effecting employees’ turnover and those that factors play an important role in retaining the employees of Telecom industry. The universe of this study was all the employees of Telecom industry in Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore. For this purpose survey method was used by using questionnaire as a tool for data collection. The results have shown that Salary, Working environment and Benefits are three significant factors effecting employees’ turnover and correlated with each other. The study was faced by certain limitations, which include time constraints and resources constraints, which limit this research to only Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore offices of the organizations in telecom industry of Pakistan. The present study found support for an independent variable with Employees turnover. Significant negative correlations have been found for the Salary, Work environment and Benefits. Therefore, organizations need to focus on how to develop better Salary plan and reduce strain in the workplace. If staff voluntarily leaves, it is a great loss to the telecom industry. It is expensive to hire, train, and “bring up to speed” new replacements. It is, therefore, important to understand the antecedents of turnover intent of employees before they decide to quit.Employee’s Turnover, Telecom Industry; Pakistan; Factors.

The impact of human capital outsourcing on human capital management practices in Karachi pharmaceutical industry

Purpose: The aim of this research is to examine relationship between Human Capital Management (HRM) and Human Resource (HR) Outsourcing in the Pharmaceutical sector. The specific objective is to find out that how important is HRM for an Organization to perform its operations more efficiently, and at what level Human Resource Outsourcing is affecting it. Literature review: Literature review shows that HR outsourcing has positive impact on HRM for an Organization to perform its operations more efficiently. Methods: In order to conduct this research the methodology that has been used is quantitative in nature and closed ended Questionnaire was used to collect data. The universe of study was the employees of Pharmaceutical industry in Karachi Pakistan. The responses of each respondent were thoroughly analyzed by using SPSS software, and the results show that there is a negative relationship between the Human Capital Management (Gaining Knowledge, Current Trend of Business Environment, Organization Managing Their Human Asset and Practices and Policies Regarding Human Resource) and HR Outsourcing. Conclusions: It is concluded that all Independent Variables have the strongest Positive correlation with each other. There are lots of constraints, which any organization faces in terms of time, finance and, in some cases factors like strategic focus.Human Capital Management, Karachi, Pharmaceutical, Outsourcing

Biliary stones: an atypical cause of abdominal pain in paediatric age group

OBJECTIVE: To identify Paediatric patients with biliary stone disease presenting to a tertiary care hospital in order to determine the etiology, presentation and management. METHODS: Retrospective study of all cases of ultrasonographically proven biliary stones under the age of 15 years from January 1988 to December 2008. Data included their risk factors, complications, management and outcome. RESULTS: Total 32 patients were identified with biliary stones, treated in the hospital. Mean age at presentation was 8.25 +/- 3.33 years. Sixteen patients underwent cholecystectomy. CONCLUSION: Paediatric cholelithiasis is an atypical and under-diagnosed cause of abdominal pain in childhood. True prevalence of the disease may be higher than reported. Appropriate surgical intervention is required in patients with symptomatic and complicated biliary lithiasis

Analytical Investigation of Mobile NFC Adaption with SWOT-AHP Approach: A Case of Italian Telecom

The purpose of this study is to appraise the critical factors in near field communication (NFC) adoption process and to utilize findings in order to support launching NFC implementations in Italy, by means of applying a combination of SWOT and AHP approaches. Hence, a set of twenty SWOT factors is identified qualitatively through extended interviews with telecommunication experts as well as exploratory studies on case which are supported by quantitative investigation through pair-wise comparisons matrices as an application of AHP approach. However, this combined methodology enables us to describe NFC adoption process, providing guidance to clarify the critical factors during adoption process. As the first application of joint SWOT and AHP approaches in telecommunication networks, managerial perceptions are promising either for policy makers concerning NFC or further academic researches on NFC application and full scale deployment in market